This is the testimony of a citizen activist before the NY Assembly Committee on Election Law against E-voting systems. She also recommmends alternatives. This is excellent.
www.wheresthepaper.org
Statement Against the Acquisition and Use of
Electronic Voting Systems in New York
Before the Assembly Committee on Election Law
December 20, 2004
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Teresa Hommel. I have been working as a citizen activist on the subject of electronic voting for the last 18 months. My professional credentials are that I have worked with computers since 1967 as a programmer, technical writer, corporate trainer, and consultant.
I will address the selected issue “What lessons should New York take from the experience of the 2004 election to ensure electoral access and participation, particularly with regard to the implementation of HAVA and NVRA?
I caution New York against passing any law that would allow our state to move forward with the purchase and use of electronic voting systems that are either unverifiable, or allowed to be used without verification.
I recommend two alternatives to electronic voting: One is to keep our old lever machines, and add one accessible ballot-marking device per polling place. The other is to switch to paper ballots and precinct-count optical scanners, with one accessible ballot-marking device per polling place. Electronic voting systems already in use should be required to add printers to produce voter-verifiable paper ballots, and Boards of Election must be required to audit each computer’s work by counting the voter-verified paper ballots and reconciling differences between the computer and paper tallies.
My comments are organized as answers to several questions.
A. What are the requirements for legitimate, democratic elections?
B. What happened in New York state on November 2 in regard to computerized elections?
C. Can computers serve the requirements for legitimate, democratic elections? If so, how?
D. What are the problems with surprise random recounts?
E. Can Boards of Elections manage secure computerized voting and vote tabulating systems?
F. Should all voters use the same exact voting technology?
G. What are the alternatives to computerized elections?
Entire testimony:
http://www.wheresthepaper.org/ElectionLawDec20.htm