Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
The headlines from Florida say it all today. The Miami Herald said, “Lawmakers ditch touch-screen machines†while the Sun-Sentinel said, “Bill to replace touch-screen voting with optical scanner sent to Gov. Crist.†In a press release, the Florida Voters Coalition said in part, “In a historic vote, the Florida House today unanimously passed CS/HB 537, already passed in the Senate that provides almost all voters paper ballots in time for the 2008 Presidential election, and bans paperless DREs outright by 2012. The bill now goes to the Governor where he’s sure to sign it since it’s his initiative.†Also, the EAC gave the state permission to use their HAVA funds to make the switch-over. And still in Florida, a House committee has now asked the GAO to investigate the District 13 debacle and report back to them….
NAtional: “Help America Vote…on Paper – a citizen call for election integrity” LINK
AR: Carroll County – Judge rules against Baker in election challenge LINK
CA: Riverside County – Voting system maker fields Riverside County’s security questions LINK
CA: Riverside County – Voting vendor renews pitch LINK
FL: Millions Of Dollars Found For New Voting Equipment LINK
FL: Florida gets money to for e-voting hardware swap
Feds okay use of money for optical scan e-voting hardware LINK
FL: Fla. lawmakers move up state‘s primary LINK
FL: Bill to replace touch-screen voting with optical scanner sent to Gov. Crist LINK
FL: Lawmakers ditch touch-screen machines LINK
FL: Crist gets voting bill LINK
FL: Florida to abandon paperless touch screen voting LINK
FL: Governor Crist Applauds Legislature for Boldly Reforming Florida’s Elections LINK
FL: ACLU Applauds Florida Legislature for Scrapping Flawed Voting Machines LINK
FL: Florida to dump touch-screen e-voting systems
Legislature passes bill to swap in optical-scan hardware LINK
FL: Florida Moves To Paper Ballots! LINK
FL: FL-13 task force will turn over investigation to GAO LINK
FL: FL-13 – Feds now probing Sarasota County vote LINK
FL: FL-13 – From CQ Today: Task Force to Probe Alleged Voting Machine Glitch in Disputed Florida Race LINK
FL: FL-13 – House panel sets GAO probe of Sarasota vote LINK
FL: FL-13 – Sarasota race to be examined LINK
FL: FL-13 – Election Inquiry Begins
U.S. House panel studies irregularities in District 13 that caused dispute. LINK
FL: FL-13 – House panel starts an election inquiry LINK
FL: Manatee County – Manatee activists divide along party lines in wake of D-13 probe LINK
LA: Lawmaker suggests mail-in voting system for La. elections LINK
NJ: Passaic County – Recount of tied board race begins LINK
NY: Rensselaer County – Voting machine draws scrutiny LINK
OH: Cuyahoga County – Changes at troubled Ohio elections board to get first test LINK
TX: Houston – County Uncovers Voter Fraud Plot LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
Congratulations to the republican governor and legislature of Florida.
It is fitting that it happen at ground zero of this 2000-2007 reign of corruption. Otherwise this would be the banner of the day:
As it stands now, Florida has set a course for better elections. It signals a serious change of course, and offers hope for the future of elections in that state. Now it is up to election officials to continue the progress and insure proper clarity, storage, open counts, and open government during the entire election process.
Hopefully the primaries or the next election will prove the case.
This banner that came up when I logged on to Bradblog:
Stalin, being BC (Before Computers), used paper ballots.
But that is not the end of the matter, as he himself pointed out, because casting a vote is not dispositive of the matter. It is the counting of the votes that is dispositive and the real character of a system.
In the 2000 election Florida had paper ballots. That still led to Bush v Gore, and since then has led to Bush v The 2006 election People’s Congress.
Hence we can say that Stalin with paper ballots and Florida with paper ballots is not the deciding essence, not the end of the matter.
In 2000 Florida also had, in addition to paper ballots, Katherine Harris as Secretary of State, and as republican campaign operative … shades of Ken Blackwell in Ohio.
Don’t get me wrong, this new Florda law is a change of course into a better direction. But election nirvana is still all about the counting not the casting.
Scanning paper ballot data into a system that has black box software we can’t see, remote communication, and a partisan head of elections is still a Stalinist faith based system.
The S 559 bill in the US Senate, which comes from Florida Senator Nelson, outlaws the Ken Blackwell / Katherine Harris syndrome, outlaws communication devices attached to the system, outlaws black box source code, and makes the system lawful only if the souce code is available for public scrutiny.
Public eyes on the source code, no communication devices, and no partisan politics in the election, are the real high ground IMO.
It has been frustrating for me going on two years now. I have a solution to the voting system. I’ve tried to get attention for it. All I hear is ‘go paper’ or ‘love the touch machines’… I have designed a system called Vote and Verify that allows a voter to ‘verify’ his/her vote got into the final data base– where it counts. The method to get the vote there then becomes academic or less important since you can verify the results. After all, you don’t really care what computer systems your bank uses as long as your receipt matches your balance, right?
I’m not a novice with over 20 years in software engineering and internet solutions. Please consider this as a serious attempt to offer a solution that will nail down this problem once and for all.
If you are really concerned about this, I have written the whole approach up on a web page complete with Flash presentation and all. I am not seeking to make money from it, but would like to see our voting system higher integrity than it has ever been using the same high technology to make sure high technology is accurate. Banks do it. See how I propose to do it.
It can be seen at VoteAndVerify.com In a nutshell, it allows voters to Verify online that their votes made it in the final official data base, and, gives them a tiny 3″ receipt with encrypted numbers that will allow them to prove errors/tampering conclusively if it occurs. The receipt cannot be read without encryption software and codes, is small and this system offers 11 advantages over other systems… one I like is that a ‘single voter can prove error or tampering’…. and can trace the problem to the specific machine that created the error, which could lead to catching the person that did the tampering.
This is an important idea whose implementation is obviously overdue (based on what we have seen in recent elections!).
I think that if you read this post and agree with it you should send it to your congress person and ask all your friend sto do the same.
CL