Blogged by Brad from the road…
Congressman Rush Holt’s (D-NJ) new, re-written Election Reform legislation — now known as HR811, previously known as HR550 in the last Congress — has been introduced today. It’s now available here [PDF].
Holt’s bill is the first of several competing Election Reform bills which will be introduced in the House and Senate by various members. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is to hold hearings tomorrow (Wednesday) on “The Hazards of Electronic Voting: Focus on the Machinery of Democracy” in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which she now chairs.
We continue to be on the road, and are thus not able to sit and focus as long as we’d usually like on any one thing. But we will have much to say on Holt’s legislation and other bills in the coming days and weeks.
While groups such as VoteTrustUSA, People for the American Way (PFAW) and CommonCause are urging their members to endorse this legislation, for now we’d encourage you to actually read it before making any such decisions.
CommonCause, for example, urged members to endorse this legislation with a campaign begun weeks ago, before the final version was even introduced (the bill has been changed substantially in the ensuing weeks and recent drafts). As of this morning, PFAW had offered several misleading and down-right incorrect bullet points in support of the legislation on their petition page, calling on members to support the bill. We contacted them about that, and at least they’ve now removed the misleading bullet points, even if they still urge members to support the legislation. More on all of that in the near future as well.
Holt’s bill, as proposed, does indeed offer many good and much-needed provisions. However, it also includes several troubling and dangerous loopholes, in our opinion.
By way of full disclosure, we consulted with Holt’s office on this bill, having been allowed access to several drafts over the last month or two, about which we were able to offer input. Much of that input was included in subsequent drafts and remains now in the far-better final version. However, other input was not included, and thus we still have concerns about some of the existing loopholes in the bill.
For the moment though, we’d ask you to simply read it and share your thoughts. More on all of this soon…
(We would also ask you again to sign the Open Letter to Congress from more than 40 non-partisan Election Integrity organizations demanding a paper BALLOT — one that must actually be counted — for every vote cast, along with a complete ban on disenfranchising DRE/Touch-screen voting machines, which must never again be used in an American election!)
In keeping with my accessibilty issues…check out pages 8 and 9 of HR811. Sounds like it adds a computer to read the ballot. Independent voting AND verification. That means no pollworker help to vote or verify if the voter doesn’t want it. It gives the NIST until 2010 to come up with the answer. I do like the manual audit requirements and defines the paper as the ballot. The wording is vague on how states are to actually count the audit so there’s wiggle room for nonsense to sneak in.
The pages you refer to, Howdy, unfortunately would seem to make such accessibility solutions as Vote-PAD and AutoMARK a no go, since they require a voting system that:
…As far as I know, there is no such device at this time. And neither AutoMARK nor Vote-PAD nor IVS, etc. convert printed content into accessible media.
If I’m wrong, I’d love to hear about it.
OH…and I should add, Howdy is a known Election Official troll/shill from Santa Cruz. Just thought I should mention that for folks who haven’t been following along to keep up with “Howdy”.
… Brad said…
“The pages you refer to, Howdy, unfortunately would seem to make such accessibility solutions as Vote-PAD…”
Incorrect. Vote-PAD has built in private verification for the blind.
http://www.vote-pad.us/Vote-PADPollWorkersGuide.pdf
“A light-sensing wand allows voters with visual impairments to review their selections. As they play the second section of the audio tape, or re-read the Braille or large-print instructions, they touch the wand to each marking location and press the button. The wand vibrates and hums when it senses a mark; it is still when there is no mark.”
http://www.vote-pad.us/vote-pad-use.asp
“After marking the choices, the voter plays the second section of the audio or re-reads the Braille or large-print instructions and uses the verification wand to check each location to make sure the desired choices are marked.”
The Verification Wand more than fulfills the requirements of the bill.
… but of course the e-voting company shills can still pull a McPherson and say “It ain’t computerized enough!” if they wanted to… and they’ll want to…
Zap –
Actually, it was the creator of Vote-PAD who alerted me to the concern about that particular passage and concerns that neither Vote-PAD, nor any of the other accessibility solutions like AutoMARK etc. would be able to meet the conditions of the bill under the conditions of that strangely worded graf which made its way into the bill very late in it’s development.
In fact, no voting device on the market today actually “converts the printed content into accessible media”.
In the case of Vote-PAD, the wand will convert the voters mark into a vibration, and an audio recording will read the printed names from the ballot, but those names are pre-recorded. Not actually converted from the printed media.
I agree that no system available right now “fits the bill”. I can’t see how adding more functions to a device (VVPAT) that doesn’t work well now is going to help anyone but device developers. Since I can assume no one read the bill, it will require one device at each polling place which produces a paper ballot that can not be used to identify a voter (so rolled paper is out) and then can be read by a device which doesn’t exist to read the ballot back by voice or other ‘media’ like a braile writer. How’s that going to work for Chinese or Japanese as required by law in some California counties? English only ballots?
Since I have to explain my trollness, I’m an accessibility advocate and a shill for the disabled community. I also observe elections and know that it involves more than counting votes but polling place selection, ballot design, language and registration issues among other nightmares. I don’t kowtow to some views given here because they are sadly lacking in working election knowledge. I didn’t choose my election system in the county I live in and just use that for examples. Take away your hands, eyes and ears and let’s see how happy you are with the state of independent voting. You either have to accept and work with the needs of independent voting or take it out of HR811 by deleting that portion of HAVA. There’s nothing wrong with livin under a bridge as long as they precinct it.
… Brad said…
Actually, it was the creator of Vote-PAD who alerted me to the concern about that particular passage… … In fact, no voting device on the market today actually “converts the printed content into accessible media”.
Hmmm…? Not so.
The requirement for independent verification is met and there is no mention in the bill as to when any particular portion of the printed content must be converted.
In Vote-PAD static information that does not and can not change during balloting, such as which portions of the ballot sleeve are equivalent to which ballot choices, that information is simply converted in advance.
I also understand the concern over the bill’s language since McPherson used just such tactics when he deliberately shafted Vote-PAD in order to hand control of California’s disabled vote over to the EVM corporations. That’s why I said: .. but of course the e-voting company shills can still pull a McPherson and say “It ain’t computerized enough!”
And I meant it. If folks wish to make the minor language changes in the bill required to explicitly allow devices such as Vote-PAD to be used… and if those changes are resisted… then there will be no question as to who is actually behind such obfuscation tactics.
But the bill’s language in that section does not disallow Vote-PAD as it is currently worded.