Guest Blogged by Bo Lipari of New Yorkers For Verified Voting…
You would have thought that since there have been so many documented problems in other states over the years that voting machine vendors would have gone out of their way to make sure new systems being deployed in the Empire State were thoroughly tested, met all state requirements, and worked flawlessly.
At a minimum, you would expect that any business fulfilling an enormous, multi-million-dollar contract to a new client would make sure the systems were, well, at least operational. But, incredibly, you would be wrong. The machines which ES&S and Sequoia are providing to New York State are failing initial testing at a rate which would astound anyone – unless you’ve been following the voting machine industry for the last 10 years.
I discussed these problems on my July 2, 2008 Voice of the Voters [MP3] radio show with my guest, Bill Biamonte, Election Commissioner of Nassau County, the second largest Board of Elections in the state which serves over 870,000 voters. In a June 26 letter to Judge Gary Sharpe, who ordered New York State to complete its Help America Vote Act implementation by 2009, Nassau County reports the unbelievably high failure rates they’re finding in the systems they’ve received:
On the radio show we broke an important story – on July 1 Nassau County wrote a second letter to the Court explaining that they will refuse to accept any more systems until the vendor resolves the huge number of problems with the systems:
“Nassau believes it has no sound alternative but to postpone delivery of its remaining BMDs until the problem is addressed. We believe this is the only sensible course of action, given the strong likelihood that damaged BMDs will either have to be replaced or shipped elsewhere for repair and then shipped back to Nassau County, wasting precious time immediately before the primary elections.â€
As I said, if you’ve been following the voting system industry over the last few years it won’t surprise you to hear of colossal failure rates, and $12,000 machines that won’t even start up. This is why it’s vitally important we continue our work toward citizen oversight of elections.
As part of this job, New Yorkers for Verified Voting, along with the League of Women Voters and many others worked long and hard in 2006 to get the state to adopt regulations that are among the most rigorous voting system certification requirements in the country. It is due in great part to these regulations that it has been so difficult, and continues to be difficult, for the shoddy merchandise that the voting machine companies are foisting on us to be approved in New York State.
Now let’s hope that Judge Gary Sharpe agrees that it would be a travesty of justice to force New York State voters to vote on broken systems, and that he turns a hard eye on the voting machine vendors who are taking our taxpayer dollars and selling us – let me be blunt – nothing but crap.
Republished from Bo Lipari’s Blog…
Wait…what machines are these? I wasn’t aware of any Sequoia ballot marker. Did they resell Automarks? I’ve heard of horrendous failure rates with those bad boys…
It’s not about right or wrong; It’s about the enigmas.
Brad’s friend Wilms attacks Bo Lipari. He also attacks Bev and many others, while continuing to prop up Lindeman and other astroturfers working the Democratic Underground Electoral Reform Forum.
I will assume Bo is a good guy. I am a bit leery of him, however, if he is associated with the Verified Voting Foundation.
Anyway, it’s not about right or wrong. It’s about Brad.
Ben Burch can slander Bev Harris all he wants, but since he archives Brad’s radio shows, perhaps including the ones he does with far rightwingers, Burch is considered a saint.
Brad is a form of gatekeeper, although I don’t think he does that on purpose. I hope not.
Socrates
New Yorkers For Verified Voting is not part of the Verified Voting Foundation or Verified Voting.
I just wanted to clear that up.
Bo is one of the heroes in the Election Integrity community. He has worked hard and long for his state.
Jim March,
The new Sequoia BMD is not an AutoMark. It is something they developed and it is still in the federal testing and certification process.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/07/0232234
ENJOY!
Be sure to MOD me up
Have I misunderstood something? I thought Bo wanted New York State to replace their more secure mechanical lever voting machines with less secure electronic voting machines.
HAVA Look: A Simple, Verifiable Open Source Voting System
TruthIsAll
Vote counts on touch screens are lost in cyberspace. States using mechanical levers (NY, CT, etc.) had the highest error (WPE)rates: gears can be shaved and the votes cannot be verified. Optical scanners (FL, PA, NH, etc.) have a paper trail, but they are never fully inspected for recounts. The chain of custody is often broken (see the NH primary). And if all else fails, the central tabulators finish the job as necessary.
The WPE breakdown
http://www.organikrecords.com/corporatenewslies/Ed-Mit_Jan192005.pdf
N number of precincts
………………WPE………..
Type………mean median abs N
Paper Ballot -2.2 -0.9 11.2 40
Mechanical -10.6 -10.3 16.3 118
Touch Screen -7.1 -7.0 14.8 360
Punch Cards -6.6 -7.3 14.2 158
Optical Scan -6.1 -5.5 12.6 573
Thanks to HAVA, elections are vulnerable to multiple vote miscounts: at the precinct level with closed-source, diverse, proprietary code-based touch screens (DREs) and Optical scanners and then on closed-source, proprietary Central Tabulators. They have you coming and going.
On the other hand, paper ballots can easily be input to a standard personal computer spreadsheet. Voters can request a copy before leaving the precinct. The precinct (spreadsheet) file is uploaded to the Internet. The voter can quickly and easily verify his vote as the spreadsheet ballot records are sorted by a unique Precinct/Voter ID code. At the same time, he can view and/or download the total precinct ballots to verify the vote counts. Consolidation of district/county/state vote counts is tabulated by Open Source software.
Go here to view a sample 500 voter precinct spreadsheet:
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/HAVAOnePC.htm
Three (3) volunteers input and verify the paper ballots. As Volunteer A reads the ballot, B enters the data and C verifies the result. Data entry would be completed shortly after the polls closed. The voter fills out a ballot marking each selected candidate’s code (i.e. a=Dem, b=Rep, c=Ind). The volunteers use their god-given optical scanners (EYES) to read the ballots and enter the codes in a spreadsheet. As each code is entered, the spreadsheet automatically calculates the total vote and percentage for each candidate.
The following simple steps complete the process: 1) Print the spreadsheet (1 minute). 2) Upload it to the Internet (10 seconds) so anyone can check the precinct results. 3) Upload the sheet to the Central Tabulator (10 seconds). The published totals should match the precinct totals on the Internet and the local PC.
There are approximately 200,000 precincts nationwide, an average of 4,000 per state. How much would it cost and how long would it take to process and count the votes in an average precinct of 600 voters? Just one (1) $400 Personal Computer is used for ballot data entry; $100 Printer; $100 spreadsheet. Assuming that data entry/verification takes 1 minute per voter, total data entry time would be 600 minutes (10 hours), whiich can be spread out over 12 hours on Election Day. Larger precincts could install additional PCs and add volunteers as necessary. The individual PC spreadsheets would be combined into a single file ( sorted by voter ID) for uploading to the Internet.
There are many advantages over the current, vulnerable system. HAVA look:
Data redundancy:
1) Original paper ballots: retained in a secure location
2) Precinct spreadsheet files: ballots sorted by voter ID
3) Internet: copies of uploaded precinct files for online viewing/download
4) Internet: County/state composite files (vote totals sorted by precinct/county) for online viewing
Data / software integrity:
1) Original paper ballots: documented chain of custody
2) Data integrity (100% automatic audit to catch discrepancies between the local precinct spreadsheet and corresponding internet file
3) Open Source code: eliminate proprietary code on DRE/ Optiscan/ central tabulator
Eliminate corrupting influence of vendors and election officials:
1) Hardware: Eliminate bribery of election officials for purchase of DREs and optical scanners
2) Diebold/Premier & ES&S out of the DRE/Opscan voting machine business