Optical scan system safest, but gets unfair rap by wrong information.

[FogerRox]

Future of voting at stake
Optical scan system safest, but gets unfair rap by wrong information.


September 4, 2005
GUESTVIEW

It was heartening to have 35 residents of Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben counties come to Steele Memorial Library in July to hear about the optical scan voting system our counties could choose to replace our lever machines. Sadly, of the 18 public officials who were invited, only one (Schuyler County administrator Tim O'Hearn) attended.

As was reported in this paper, speaker Bo Lipari, a computer programmer and director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, documented benefits of a paper ballot/optical scan system over electronic voting machines. These included voter confidence in the system, ease of training workers, low risk of malfunctioning, ease of transportation and storage, and cost savings because one scanner with a ballot-marking device for the disabled serves many more voters than one electronic machine.

What has not been publicized, however, is that sponsors of the town meeting (the League of Women Voters in Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben counties) met with participants by county afterwards to plan what to do next. In the weeks that followed, when they spoke with county officials, they found much skepticism. The skepticism may be based on misinformation about optical scanning.

Critics of optical scan cite the cost of paper ballots. A representative of Sequoia, which makes electronic voting machines as well as optical scan, said at a demonstration of machines in Bath on Wednesday that the paper ballots his company would produce would cost about 75 cents each.

more-

http://www.stargazettenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050904/OPINION03/509040303

[wakeme2008]

1. IMHO Opt Scanners are the safest if there is a mandatory audit of

say 5% of the votes.

I know in Tampa, the SOE forced touchscreens on the county even tho the cost of the Opt Scanners was like 3 million and the touchscreens 14 million and raising. :grr: Oh, by the way, using the touchscreens by Sequola, she is now mayor of Tampa.

[garybeck]

16. opscan and MMRA

Mandatory
Manual
Random
Audits

+

Voter
Verified
Paper
Ballots

=

democracy

mmra + vvpb = d

[yowzayowzayowza]

17. Agree with a coupla caveats:

1. The audit regimen must insure that EVERY opscan counting device face verification. A simple random selection of precincts would not necessarily verify ALL the devices. For my trust, each device must prove itz validity via audit in each election.

2. Totals generated by counting devices must be publicly posted to enable verification of the tabulation methodology.

[truckin]

2. Excellent Article

Good post Roj. Bo spoke to a group of Voter Registrars in CT Wednesday and he makes a great case for Optical Scan as oppossed to DREs. Stand alone Optical Scan with mandatory sample recounts is the best, realistic voting solution, IMO.

[FogerRox]

3. Truckin--- yes

I didnt see the value of a mandatory Audit in opscan counties-- at first. But yes of course-- its just as important to audit DREs as opscans.

[liam_laddie]

4. opscan audit

Yes, but 5% is probably not enough...depending on the chain-of-custody, there exists the possibility of someone placing
white stickers over the marks for the "wrong" candidate. This
happened in Nov 2004 in Clermont County Ohio, was documented, but the officials did not pursue a remedy nor did
any further investigation, SFAIK.

We are going to pursue anomalies in the Aug 2, 2005 special
election for House seat in OH CD-2, the Hackett-schmidt one. May know something in three weeks or so.

The audit of ballots MUST be random and chosen by citizens, NOT BoE employees. Jaysus, we'll never have honest elections
again unless the citizenry is aware and cares about his/her vote being recorded accurately and tallied honestly and openly.

Since the signal received from the scanner head is the same as
the input from a touch-screen, there exists exactly the same
programming corruption possibility. The ONLY advantage an opscan ballot has is it's an auditable hard-copy record. But it MUST be kept secure and total ballots verified against voter signature logs. With absentee use increasing (about 12-13% IIRC, here in Hamilton County OH) some system must be in place to keep an honest total of ballots cast; i.e., no fakes inserted in the stack.

[autorank]

5. liam_laddie Knows what he's talking about--100% security=paper

Let's remember the optiscan ballots performed well against DRE's in Ohio but not in Florida where serious questions were raised about the disparities in those districts. Let's also remember that in comparisons of paper versus any tope of machine, paper showed a near match to the exit polls while the "all machine" vote tallies were well off.

Optiscans are computers too, they just don't look like it. Looks don't matter in this case.

Let's keep plugging away!

[marions ghost]

8. there were other variables in Florida's misuse of their

brand new optiscan machines. In states where they have been used for 25 years, the track record is much better. And you have a very substantial paper record.

That having been said, the paper ballots used with opti-scans must also be independently audited. I think a certain percentage need to be hand-counted at EACH precinct during the election process.

[Febble]

10. My studies (with Josh Mitteldorf and Kathy Dopp)

suggested DREs did better than Optiscans. Hout et al found the opposite. Actually Hout et al found the same but concluded the opposite. I think the jury is out on machine type in Florida. As someone says, both kinds can be hacked, and the central tabulators won't care what the voting system is anyway. At least optiscans give you a ballot.

It is perfectly possible that DREs were hacked in the big cities in Florida, and Optiscans in the mid-size counties Josh and I looked at. But in that case our statistics are fairly useless. As Mebane et al pointed out.

The real point is that all your systems need to be secure and auditable. And fair.

[Wilms]

6. kick n/t

[riqster]

7. Computers are all hackable

The only way to trust this process is not just by getting paper ballots, but by taking the profit motive out of elections.

IOW, kick the vendors out. Make the elections public again.

[Carolab]

13. Absolutely. The tabulators are made by DIEBOLD.

For crap's sake, people, STOP defending electronic tabulation, OF ANY FORM!

[kster]

14. I luv you...nt

[Carolab]

15. Thanks, I luv you too.

:yourock:

[Febble]

9. One other point

is that ballot papers are less likely to be rationed than DREs. One of the most irrefutable causes of lost votes for Kerry in Ohio, and one of the greatest injustices, was the shortage of touch screen machines in Franklin County. Whatever the rationale for distributing them on the absurd basis of past turnout (deliberate suppression or sheer incompetence), the fact is that expensive resources are more likely to be rationed than cheap ones.

Cost issues are not just cost issues - they also have implications for equality of franchise. Access to the ballot box should be as cheap and as freely available as clean drinking water IMO.

[TheStates]

11. If it has a mandatory audit and is not made by Diebold, I think its safe..

But knowing about the hacks for the memory cards, it must have audits and be monitored by state officials.

[kster]

12. "Are we having fun yet?"

This is the message that appeared in the window of a county optical scan machine, startling Leon County Information Systems Officer Thomas James. Visibly shaken, he immediately turned the machine off.

Diebold's opti-scan (paper ballot) voting system uses a curious memory card design, offering penetration by a lone programmer such that standard canvassing procedures cannot detect election manipulation.

The Diebold optical scan system was used in about 800 jurisdictions in 2004. Among them were several hotbeds of controversy: Volusia County (FL); King County (WA); and the New Hampshire primary election, ((where machine results differed markedly from hand-counted localities))

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/5921.html