it's VVPR, not VVPB !!!

[garybeck]

folks,

if the paper is a backup *record* used in audits and recounts, and not the actual ballot, then it's not a VVPB. It's a VVPR (record).

Any system that proposes a VVPR without any mandatory audits is barely an improvement over what we have now. in fact many states already have this and were suspect in the last election.

do any of the bills actually call for a VVPB? I don't think so.

Ultimetely we should support any bill that improves on the system, even if it's just a baby step. But let's not sugar coat these bills. If all they do is ensure a paper backup that **could** be used in a recount, they are not that great and we will get screwed again, NO DOUBT. They are not VVPB and we should be calling it VVPB. They are VVPR, which is not really a solution to the problem. I fear that if these bills pass the american public will think the system is fixed when it's not.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

1. Faith-based paper "records"?

Isn't it a PURPORTED paper record rather than a piece of paper that accurately and verifiably records my vote? Is there any guarantee that it's an accurate record?

After I vote, can I see on the VVPR/VVPPR for whom I voted? If I receive a receipt from an ATM, it shows me how much I deposited/withdrew. Some proposals for VVPB/VVPR/VVPPR use an algorithm to produce a piece of paper that supposedly says for whom I voted but "protects my privacy" by concealing that information from me.

Does that make it a VVPPR (purported paper record)? Faith-based paper "records"?

And how do we guard against people printing out fake VVPPRs? After the 2006 and 2008 elections are stolen and we all hand in our VVPPRs for the recount, will they tell us they're invalid or will they simply flood the recount with fake Jeb Bush VVPPRs?

[garybeck]

3. my take

is that the word "verified" implies that you can look at your ballot and confirm who you voted for. that's the whole reason the the word verified is in there.

however, in all the scenarios, the paper is a backup, to be used in case there's a recount.

Holt's is the only bill that takes it a small step further by requiring 2% spot checks of the paper ballots against the DRE tallies. Personally I'm still not sure how I feel about the 2%. I certainly doesn't make the paper into ballots, that's for sure. It's just a record until it's actually counted.

[Eric J in MN]

2. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence Act includes audits (nt)

nt

[garybeck]

4. yes, I'm still not sure how I feel about his audit plan

basically we are putting all of our faith in our democracy into this 2% random audit. that scares me. It seems like someone could figure a way to outsmart the system if it were only checking 2%.

[Eric J in MN]

6. I agree. There should be an audit at every polling place,

not a tiny random percentage.

That bill is still the best we have for now.

Please write your Congressperson with the form at:
http://hq.demaction.org/dia/organizations/vevo/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=395

[NationalEnquirer]

5. Thanks for the clarification.

I had been a bit confused and sorta thought they were both the same thing.

[rigel99]

7. 3 Things,.. VVPB, PB as Ballot of Record, PB Counted Election Night

check out....
www.countpaperballots.com for why counting the paper is important...


WHY IS COUNTING THE PAPER BALLOTS ELECTION NIGHT SO IMPORTANT?

Legislation is being introduced in the US House, Senate and several states to reform what is a very troubling and inconsistent election process. While the enthusiasm around the bills is encouraging, there is not a single bill that addresses the key concern of most US citizens. If 95% of the democracies in the world can count paper, then so can the US! And in certain countries, millions of Euros were spent on DRE machines only to rescind their use when it was determined they were ineffective for election counting (Ireland). We should educate election advocacy groups that support bills that do not have these 3 required Provisions to protect our democracy.

1. A Verified Paper Ballot
2. A Printed Paper Ballot that is the Ballot of Record
3. The Paper Ballot is Counted Election night ( in addition to early/absentee/provisional counted election night along with election day paper ballots)

We, the citizens of the Unites States, must be able to in full view of all the precinct/county wide paper ballots, be able to witness a full count of the paper ballots on election night in order to secure honest elections. Nothing short of this will produce honest ‘tamper-free’ elections. DRE machines may speed the candidate choice process, but they must print a paper ballot for our elections to remain fully HONEST and tamper-free.

There can be no electronic substitute for a paper ballot counted election night, this is the only way to eliminate intentional and unintentional fraud that is well documented as a byproduct of any electronic system, no matter how secure or how well designed. While audits are introduced in many of the legislative bills, they have fundamental problems. Asking to audit a DRE machine outputs is like asking your teenage son or daughter to tell you everything they bought in the mall in the last year... it just won't work!


AUDIT PROBLEMS:

Audits, while they may seem an intelligent fix has 4 very big problems as listed below:

1) CRITERIA PRONE: Audits replace counting the votes on election night to counting the votes at some later date after ‘criteria’ is met. This ‘criteria’ may include a candidate has to request the audit, it may include the audit be performed only by the elections officials taking the citizen out of the ‘witnessing of the audit’ it may also involve a 10% of the candidate selected precincts/counties provision. This puts the burden of choosing the ‘fraud prone’ counties on the candidate and while the audit may pass the test, the other 90% of the counties could be full of fraud.

2) AFTER THE FACT COUNTING: It moves the counting of valuable citizen votes to an after the fact, allowing time, human error, cost to citizens for audits in the thousands of dollars and ‘process challenges’ to creep into the counting of our votes.

3) BURDEN OF COST ON CITIZENS: It puts the burden of auditing and the COSTS associated with the audit on the citizens and puts citizens in role of depending on either ‘ill-trained’ elections superintendents to perform the audit or Diebold/Sequoia/Triad technicians who do not have sworn pollworker oaths and therefore have no loyalty and are not bound to the state for honesty in producing the data. In Georgia as recent as December of 2004, we requested data as part of an audit and were told we could not access a Diebold CD which contains the full record of what happened in the machines on election day. Using patriot act sounding Georgia code legality, they denied access to this data, and will continue to use this for all future audits. Finally, the cost so for, for just 10 counties is around $10,600, not to mention the incidental costs of counting the paper and staff/office supplies necessary.

4) TRUSTING 12th GENERATION DATA: The DRE Machine voting process itself has 12 ways the paper summaries do not represent the initial touchscreen choices of the user, so what you are auditing is a 12th REVISION of the data. That means the “CHAIN OF CUSTODY” is broken 12 times. As opposed to the old style paper ballots where there were 0 times the chain of custody was broken. That means there were 12 software programs manipulating the data before it’s final printout and listing on the Secretary of State’s Official website. In fact, there are no longer copies of ‘ballots’, but instead BALLOT IMAGES which approximate what was on the touchscreen at the time the voter made their choices. There is literally no way to get a copy of the BALLOT as the elector voted, because it is in memory and aside from a promise by Diebold to have that memory written to a PCMCIA card, there is no way a citizen can verify or be assured that what the user chose on the screen is indeed what got captured as the voter’s intended candidate choices. This alone is the biggest reason, that audits are MERELY PLACATING the outsourcing of our elections. Audits of a DRE machine system are like asking your children to recount how much they spent at the mall last year…

There is literally no way you can be sure of anything as representing the voter’s TRUE INTENT without a printed out paper ballot that is stuffed in a locked box by the voter and counted on election day. Period. End of story!

The 2004 election highlights the full extent to which electronic voting has neither an auditable trail of the voter’s intent, nor a trustworthy chain of custody that is unbroken. With 75,000 Diebold machines alone, accounting for over 25% of the total votes in the 2004 election, do we really want to give one company so much power to count our votes? Especially when the CEO , Wallie O’Dell is a sworn GOP contributor.

The website www.countpaperballots.com include both receipts of the ‘costs of an audit’ as well as proven letters showing the dangers of outsourced elections. Our fundamental problem is the outsourcing and privatization of our elections, and secondarily the tamper-prone DRE technology these large corporations foist upon our states. Just today, I found out Diebold in 2006 will charge GA $93 per DRE machine as a warranty fee, that is NOT COVERED BY HAVA funds, but charged directly to the county. Douglas county alone will have to pay $23,000 in unfunded fees to keep their machines running. This kind of problem continues as we let the privatization of our elections continue unabated.