The Los Angeles Times underscores everything that is wrong with relying on “paper trails” from Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting systems: Nobody ever counts them. Even in incredibly close contested elections as overseen by a court of law…
“All the votes were counted,” said Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner. “There was a full and legal recount.”
…
It was, he said, “perfectly reasonable” for Janet Nguyen to ask for about 35,000 paper absentee ballots to be checked by hand to contest ones that weren’t filled out properly and then ask to have about 10,000 electronic votes recounted the way they were on election night — by machine
…
Trung Nguyen, who is not related to the winner, declined to comment and left the courthouse as his attorney, Michael Schroeder, said an appeal was likely. “Why would you have a paper record if you don’t count it?” Schroeder said.
…
All sides agreed that Brenner’s ruling could set a precedent.
Please note that Rush Holt’s Election Reform bill (HR811), which mandates the hand-count of a very small minority of paper records in most federal races (which this race was not) via an audit after Election Day, allows no audit to happen at all in the case of an automatic state-mandated recount — the type that occurs when an election is incredibly close, and when such an audit, arguably, might be needed the most.
UPDATE 4:58pm PT: Election Integrity advocate Tom Courbatt of Riverside County points us towards an October 31, 2006 statement [PDF] from former CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson, who said: “The mandatory paper audit trail will be used for a full recount if necessary.” That statement is at the bottom of the 5-page press release. Guess he was just kidding. Or the judge in Orange County didn’t care. Or “paper trails” don’t actually matter after all, no matter what any law or elections officials try to tell you…Which is why we need a paper ballot — one that is actually tabulated — for every vote cast in America!
DEMAND A BAN ON DRE/TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING!
– Email Congress!
– Call your members!
See www.BradBlog.com/Holt for more details, coverage, talking points & information on all of the above!
Question: How many morons does it take to fill a courtroom.
Answer: One, if it’s the judge.
Yeeech!
Another reason why, the day it started to come out, I called the Holt II bill a “fraud” was not only for caling paper trails that NEVER are counted on the first counts “BALLOTS”, but also because when it’s really close and an automatic state recount is triggered by the closeness of the race and it happens that the recounts “approved” by the corrupt State Legislature (Like Florida and Ohio had, in fact) are only automatic MACHINE recounts, thus totally defeating any HAND AUDIT promised by Holt II in the classic situation where it is VERY MOST NEEDED.
Talk about NOT saving the day.
But in general (think CA50 and any other corrupt election situation) one ALWAYS has problems and hazards in relying on ANYTHING post-election. After all, you’ve got a “sore loser” the process is all but preparing new drapes for the winner… The media has gone home. The challenger’s campaign staff is on vacation…. It’s a very poor time and very poor mechanism to trust our entire election integrity hopes to. Thus, secret first counts on optical scans are as bad or even worse than touch screens, because worst of all is the false confidence generated by “paper ballots” (even when real) which are rarely effective in saving the day.
So rare, that we tend to know the few times they ever do. Like Washington state 2004 gubernatorial race. I was there, did a study on e-voting in that race. Counting volunteer efforts it took millions in expenses on both sides to pay for and fight out those recounts. Gregoire, an AG prior to running, was able to fundraise nationally, but would a sec of state candidate or judge get a similar level of fundraising and support?
Recounts and audits just bury all of our hopes for paper under a mountain of expenses and illusions, while keeping first counts secret and corporate, but still the news headlines after election day. The FIRST COUNT is where it’s at, but all present congressional election legislation insists on keeping those first counts completely secret and completely corporate.
go to http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2006/06_167.pdf to see former SoS McPherson state: “The mandatory private audit trail will be used for a FULL recount as necessary.” This statement is at the bottom of page five of his press release dated October 31, 2006.
So, is the paper trail the official ballot, or not. What authority does a judge have to overrule the SOS?
oops, “private” should have been “paper. Freudian slip?
Hey Brad, another lie appears to have come and gone down in Sarasota, did we catch it ?
“State election officials initially said Monday that they agreed to abide by the parameters set by the manufacturer, Electronic Systems & Software, but hours later called back to say that was not correct.”
Link to SP Times article
Most folk here probably expect me to cuss about this.
I’ll not do it today, maybe another day though.
I will say that what’s the point of electronic voting machines, if not CORRUPTION, if the votes will never be hand/manually counted vs. these insidious unconstitutional bad machines.
#4 leftisbest 🙂
Actually this title is a little misleading because Orange County is a Hart Intercivic customer, and thus the machines they use are DRE’s but they are NOT touchscreens. While a subtle distinction, it’s important, and hopefully the general public will one day come to understand some of those crucial differences.
Ugh I can’t believe the ignorance. This is why E-voting should be banned.The people in power that have no technical knowledge screw everyone when they make such ignorant decisions.
And can we please make vote tampering a felony already?
Thanks WS. And I knew that. Will update the headline accordingly…
Ok, here’s the law:
15601. The Secretary of State, within the Secretary of State’s
existing budget, shall adopt regulations no later than January 1,
2008, for each voting system approved for use in the state and
specify the procedures for recounting ballots, including absentee and
provisional ballots, using those voting systems.
19253. (a) On a direct recording electronic voting system, the electronic record of each vote shall be considered the official record of the vote, except as provided in subdivision (b).
(b) (1) The voter verified paper audit trail shall be considered the official paper audit record and shall be used for the required 1-percent manual tally described in Section 15360 and any full
recount.
(2) The voter verified paper audit trail shall govern if there is any difference between it and the electronic record during a 1-percent manual tally or full recount.
Quite clear the the voter verfied paper audit trail is the ‘official paper audit record’ and a recount is an audit of a vote so who knows what was in this judges head outside of wanting to kick the ball to a higher court.
MAIL THIS TO HOLT. I believe Holt is ethical and simply doesn’t realize what sort of problems are going on here. If he did, I bet he’d revise his bill himself.