States Pressured to Certify Electronic Voting Machines (HAVA)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/033106L.shtml

States Pressured to Certify Voting Machines
By Sari Gelzer
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 31 March 2006

The 2006 deadline has passed, and pressure is being placed on states to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). HAVA requires states to transition all voting machines to electronic and optical scan technologies in time for primary and mid-term elections of this year.

As states are rushing to spend millions of dollars for this transition, controversy over the accuracy and security of the new machines is creating obstacles to reaching this deadline.

Twenty-six states have already created legislation or regulations that require paper ballots, reported the Verified Voting Foundation. Thirteen more states have proposed voter-verified paper records (VVPR), but have not yet enacted legislation, and 10 states have still not proposed this legislation. "The only feasible solution to the insecurity of electronic voting is a universal requirement for voter-verified paper records (VVPR) of all ballots," says David Dill, a computer scientist at Stanford and founder of the Verified Voting Foundation...

- snip -

Following is a brief account of current key state battles over voting machines, a debate that has resulted in missed HAVA deadlines and continued inquiry into the technology that is shaping America's electoral process.

MORE

[Fitzgibbon]

1. What's the fascination with toys?

As a Canadian posting to this forum, can someone please explain to me the U.S. fascination for electronic voting? Given the lack of a hard copy for scrutineers and the potential for monkeybusiness, I'd have thought that you guys would be tearing down the castle walls to keep it out.

[Zorra]

3. We have a tendency to throw stuff in the ocean when we get pissed

off enough. Some time ago we threw a bunch of tea in Boston Harbor when we felt we were not being democratically represented in government, and we later got our democratic government.

Now, here we are again, trying to regain a representative, democratically elected government - but we are being prevented from doing this by our republican controlled WH, Congress, and Courts. The republicans know that the only way to retain power is to steal elections or by violent repression of the American People. So they are never going to give up their electronic voting machines

So if you see a bunch of black boxes floating off the coast of Newfoundland, don't be too surprised.

Although, I reckon, hammers and axes would be more effective at dealing with the evil electronic voting WMD.

Howdy, neighbor - got lots of friends from Montreal to Vancouver to the NW Territories - great folks.
:hi:

[annabanana]

2. "pressure is being placed on states "

The Justice Department is suing NYS because we won't have machines in time for '06.... because we've insisted on the VVBP, open source software and independent testing...and none of the companies like that...

[WhiteTara]

4. keep up the good fight

we can't cave in on this one at all!