Paper trail question

[Orrex]

When I was a kid, my sisters had a toy cash register that printed out paper receipts just like the real thing. But unlike the real thing, the machine didn't keep a running tally of how many pretend cabbages my sisters rang up. All you got for your trouble was a worthless mock-receipt.

In other words, every printed receipt, though real-looking, had no relation to nor bearing upon any sale in the real world.

Why do we suppose that an electronic voting machine with paper-trail would be any different? It seems to me that any idiot who can program a voting machine in the first place can certainly rig the machine to print one thing while recording another.

For that matter, I've never had a printed receipt for any vote I've cast; how the heck can I verify that my vote for Clinton in 92 really went for Clinton?

So, am I missing something obvious? Or are we pursuing a voter-security measure that has, in the end, no more verifiable accuracy than the trail-less system we oppose?

[helderheid]

1. yep

You hit the nail on the head. Utah's new Diebold machine will have a print out. I still won't vote on it. Prove to me my vote actually matches what is printed out.

[Q3JR4]

2. The idea is

that you make it manditory for a certain percentage of the state to have recounts (all randomly chosen).

The user gets his or her reciept, checks it over for errors and then puts it in a box.

A clean record of the vote then exists.

[Orrex]

3. Hey, I like that.

I heard a proposal in the run-up to the election that entailed some kind of secure phone-in system that voters could call to verify the accuracy of their vote record. That method sounds horribly vulnerable to fraud, but the receipt-in-a-box system sounds much better.

Thanks for the info.

[helderheid]

4. any paper trail we will get

will be one under glass.

I'm voting absentee on a paper ballot where the vote on record is one of paper, not paper.

[Wilms]

5. What the law regarding the counting of absentee ballots where you are?

Some states may count them only in a tight race.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Paper receipt vs. Paper BALLOT

A paper receipt can be disregarded in favor of the electronic totals, in a recount.

A paper BALLOT has legal standing AS THE VOTE, and must be presumed to be correct (vs. electronic totals) in any recount.

Big difference.

We must have MORE THAN a "paper trail" or "paper receipt." The paper record of our vote needs to be called a BALLOT.

It is ALSO vital to have mandatory auditing recounts of a minimum of 5% of the vote.

Technical terms (which you will see in legislation) are:

VVPAT = Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail
VVPB = Voter Verified Paper Ballot

VVPB is best!

[riqster]

7. Bears repeating

A paper BALLOT has legal standing AS THE VOTE, and must be presumed to be correct (vs. electronic totals) in any recount.

[FogerRox]

8. Bears repeating yes--big time--

AS to the 1st post--the hardware of most touchscreens is such that they a have a front end and a back end---the Audit results and the Official results.

I f you had an accountant ---and you discovered he had 2 sets of books -- would you be suspicious?

[Bill Bored]

9. Read the laws.

What you say is true but if the law says the VVPAT is the vote of record, it's the vote of record, no matter what it's called.

This whole PB vs. PAT thing is unfortunately, an oversimplification.

The laws are written in HAVA-speak, to fix HAVA. This is why they don't always call it a ballot. Voter verification is the main point and it's missing from HAVA, probably deliberately. Some Dems who voted for HAVA didn't even realize this! HAVA mandates PATs, not VVPATs!

But if a law spells out the conditions under which the VVPAT is counted, this is what you have to go by -- not just labels.

Of course, in the case of Op Scans and hand counted paper, there is a true VVPB. I don't argue that point, and it's a good one.

But a VVPAT can certainly be counted as the vote of record if the law says so.

The other key is whether or not the voter will actually verify her VVPAT. This depends on how easy it is to do so, and whether the voter is informed of the need to do so. Lots of room for screw ups there. VVPBs are inherently voter-verified though; that's better.

I don't think it helps much just to say that we want ballots and not trails. It's nice rhetoric, but it doesn't explain the problem very well, IMHO of course.

The real issue of HAVA was the omission of the phrase "voter-verified." This is what opened the door to paperless e-voting and the Dems fell for it.

[Andy_Stephenson]

12. Read my sig ;ine on how to explain the difference between

trails and ballots

[Bill Bored]

16. I have and that's why I wrote what I wrote.

Andy, I respect you a lot, but there is no bill that even proposes a "voter-verified paper ballot" at the federal level. So do we not support any of them or is a VVPB just an item on our wish list?

If you want to ban DREs, just say so! BAN THE DREs!

Only then will we have VVPBs, or some other device like a mechanical lever machine, or a touch screen that prints paper ballots, or an Automark.

Meanwhile, VVPATs, VVPRs etc. can be counted as the vote of record under various circumstances defined in the law, and you know that as well as I. Your sig line says "when there is no statutory definition", but there ARE such definitions for VVPATs and VVPRs.

We are having a devil of a time in NY trying to ban DREs. No one with the power to do it, including some Democrats, seems very interested. And even if there is unanimity among the Dems, and I'm convinced there isn't, we still have that OTHER party to deal with.

And of course, given the choice of DREs with and without VVPATs, it's better to have them with VVPATs than without them. At that point it's just a matter of counting them and getting the voters to USE them.

I agree it stinks, but no one who can make a difference gives a crap no matter how hard we try to inform them.

I think the notion of privatizing elections and why this is wrong may get more traction. Go Land Shark!

[Andy_Stephenson]

11. You make me proud

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[demodonkey]

15. And the Voter Verified Paper Ballot should be HAND COUNTABLE...

...and readable / handleable by regular election officials.

What about these "toilet paper" roll ballots that have to be rolled out and maybe require paying for the assistance of the famous "Diebold Technicians" to have a recount or an audit?

Not to mention that if you have the order of voters in the poll book and the order of votes on the roll, you can figure out how everybody voted.

Not good, people, not good.

[Land Shark]

10. Don't forget only 8% of VVPAT or VVPB error is caught!

per the MIT study that came out recently. If the machine accidentally or on purpose prints out wrong votes, few people actually catch it!!! Yet the ballot is now considered the Holy Grail of "voter verified"

Which is why I say that voter verified on top of a TOUCHSCREEN simply makes fraud EASIER, more FOOLPROOF, and makes a raving lunatic out of anyone who would stumble upon the truth....

Also, I'm reading rush holt's bill through again, looking for a requirement that the paper trail of any kind MATCH the electronic trail. So far all i see is the procedure if it does not match, but that may only be discovered in a recount, triggered by OTHER reasons because some kind of cause is needed to look at the paper trail to begin with. So, the paper trail is rendered deceptive and largely unavailable.

[garybeck]

13. you got it

this article explains

http://www.solarbus.org/election/articles/0313-ballots.shtml

the only way to "verify" that the electronic vote is correct, is to manually audit the paper records. that means comparing the machine total to a hand count.

therefore, any legislation that requires paper records but does not have any mandatory hand audits is completely worthless

[LightningFlash]

14. Paper trails do not remove error.

To have a paper trail allows you to check numbers like a receipt. To have a voter ballot allows you to actually see the votes and count them.