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Eternal Vigilance: the Price of Honest & Accurate Elections
by Roy Rockwell
This month some Utah voters will try, first-hand. electronic Vote-casting machines (sometimes called “DREs” — Direct Recording Electronically) of Diebold and ES&S. What won’t be demonstrated is how vulnerable these machines are to hacking by outsiders and how vulnerable they are to tampering by insiders — the ever-present technicians of the makers of these secret voting devices.
Since the hardware and software of the electronic voting systems carry a copyright, you or computer experts have NO right to examine the workings of the systems — you can’t lift the hood. Would you buy a car that way?
To comply with the terms of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the 29 different counties of UTAH will soon be making purchasing decisions on a voting system for Utah. What does HAVA require for each Polling Place?
- A computer to allow disabled or disadvantaged voters to mark and cast their ballots privately and in secret.
- A device to optically scan each ballot to prevent an “overvote” and to warn the voter of an “undervote”.
Utah Lt. Governor Gary Herbert said recently, “I don’t know how we can comply with the HAVA law if we don’t use these (DRE touchscreen) machines”.
Does HAVA require that DRE, touchscreen, vote-casting machines be used? NO!. (You may read the Law yourself on the Internet.)
To meet the Expectations of Utah voters, the voting System should be Honest and Reliable and it should be possible to check the System by impartial experts inexpensively before, during, and after an election. To meet the Expectations of Utah elected officials and tax-payers, the voting System should be Simple and Economical as well as Honest, Reliable, Accurate, and Auditable…i.e., to have impartial observers and experts — NOT the employees or selected representatives of the maker of the devices — check the accuracy of the machines at any time.
To meet the above Expectations, each Polling Place in Utah should — at the very Minimum — be provided with:
- one Ballot Marking Device (BMD), which will allow the blind and other disadvantaged voters to use the computer to mark each item of the ballot and to hear [read back to them for verification purposes] how the ballot was electronically marked;
- an adequate number of booths for all other voters to mark manually each item on the ballot [You can see how this system SAVES money — instead of putting an expensive DRE, touchscreen, voting machine in each booth, each booth is equipped only with a pen to mark the items of the ballot! If you do the Math, it’s a difference of about $3,300 to one dollar]; and …
- one Ballot Optical-Scanning Device, which will perform these functions: (1) check each ballot for an “overvote” and warn the voter of an “undervote”. If an “overvote” is discovered, the ballot will be rejected. Poll workers will give the voter a new ballot and invalidate the rejected ballot; (2) count the votes marked for all items of the ballot and supply at the end of the voting day a printed tally of the total votes cast item by item. (3) The paper ballots, which have gone through the Optical Scanner, will be kept in a secure box for a count later on by hand to prove the Honesty, Reliability, and Accuracy of the electronic counting and to determine the final election Results.
What is the most reliable and most economical equipment to buy? The New York TIMES (March 9, 2005) recommends Optical Ballot-scanning systems. Why? Here are some quotes from the NY Times:
“… touch-screen, [vote-casting] machines are highly vulnerable to being hacked or maliciously programmed to Change votes.” (As an example, on the evening of October 7, 2003, after the close of the Recall Election, in Alameda County, California, while processing paper absentee ballots, the electronic counting and tallying machine SWITCHED, either intentionally or in error, thousands of votes from one candidate to another. Alert poll workers, not the maker’s technicians, noticed the Diversion of votes and turned off the machine.)
“If touch-screen machines are going to be used … it is vital that they produce voter-verified paper records of every vote cast to ensure that results are accurate.” (It is also vital that the paper records be recounted for accuracy by people other than those employed or selected by the maker of the machines.)
“Because touch-screen machines are so expensive, localities are likely to buy too few, leading to long lines at the polls…[and bringing forth allegations of voter-fraud and/or the intentional Suppression of Votes].”
“The Best voting technology now available (says the NY Times) uses Optical Scanning. These machines work like a standardized test at school. Voters mark their choices on a paper ballot, which is then counted by hand or by an electronic computer.”
“The paper ballots are kept, becoming after an election the official record. They can be recounted, and if there is a discrepancy between them and the machine count, the paper ballots are the final word.”
“Optical-scan machines produce a better paper record than touch-screen machines, because it is one the voter has actually filled out, NOT a [flimsy] receipt [perhaps kept under a glass] that the voter must check for accuracy…[but can’t touch].”
If you wish additional information about ways to guard vigilantly your
Liberty and our Democracy, please call Ms. Kathy Dopp of
Posted by Editor on March 22, 2005 10:13 PM
