"Now, where were we...?" An update on Orange State election reform

[Fly by night]

Good morning from my middle Tennessee farm home. Got up early this morning (around 4:00 am) and drove to get milk for my coffee at a local country store (already open by 4:30 am). On the way home, driving on a farm pasture road back to my house, I saw my first "possum on the half-shell" (armadillo, that is) ever on my farm. Good metaphor for this update -- things do change, even on my farm. More importantly, things are changing here in Tennessee when it comes to a renewed interest in the integrity of our voting systems. I have been proud to be involved in some of that over the past nine months, and I hope to stay involved in the future. But things are changing ....

In the meantime, I wanted to share with my favorite DUers a recent memo that our grassroots group, Gathering To Save Our Democracy, was asked to prepare for members of the House State and Local Government Committee of the Tennessee state legislature to our five-member State Election Commission (which is appointed by our legislature.) In trying to be succinct, we have narrowed our platform to six separate and yet interconnected concerns. Here is that draft memo. Would love your comments on it.

Now it's time to go cut a few pastures that are very overdue for a bush-hogging, and to appreciate what I have, while I still have it. Included in that appreciation is thanks for the growing number of Tennessee legislators and local election officials who are standing with us to protect our votes and save our democracy. Would love to hear from you folks on your reactions to what we are proposing, and/or what we're/you're up to to influence the election reform process in our home states. It's been fun (and damned renewing, in a patriotic sense) working with all of you. Peace out.
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Draft statement to the State Election Commission (9/13/05)

From: State and Local Government Committee of the House of Representatives
To: State Election Commission(ers)

The responsibility of selecting and approving the voting equipment that will be purchased with federal funds from HAVA rests with the State Election Commission. Because the State Election Commission is appointed by the legislature, and our committee is charged with oversight of such issues, we submit the following recommendations for your consideration and action.

Please see attachments for more complete information on the following four issues.

1. The Commission should mandate that all voting equipment purchased after 9/1/05 will use or produce a paper ballot, verified by the voter, and that this paper ballot will be retained as the ballot of record by the county.

2. The Commission should mandate that all existing voting equipment that cannot be made to use or produce a paper ballot be phased out of use in Tennessee by 11/1/06. (Attachment A – List of counties and their voting equipment)

3. Control of the election process must remain in the hands of county election officials. The less complex the voting equipment used, the more control that county election officers and poll workers can retain. In counties where punch card voting machines have long been used, continued use should be supported where desired. This option is allowed in the HAVA regulations. (Attachment B – Punch-card handout)

4. HAVA funds allocated for upgrading voting equipment in Tennessee should be judiciously spent. Optical scan systems are not only a paper ballot-based voting system to begin with, but they are also less costly and more efficient than direct record electronic (DRE) equipment and should be considered for widespread use wherever voting systems are changed. (Attachment C – Cost comparisons) (Attachment D – Cost estimates for making the entire state optical scan/punch card)

5. To meet HAVA requirements for disabled voters (persons visually or physically impaired) to vote privately and independently, counties that will need to purchase new equipment should be directed to choose either Automark ballot marking device or Accupoll e-voting machine, or to consider less-expensive options. At this time, none of the other e-voting equipment offered by major vendors fulfill HAVA standards for disabled-access voting, nor have they been federally qualified. (Attachment E – Votersunite.org letter re: disabled access voting.)

6. There is no place in Tennessee electronic voting equipment for the presence of any wireless access capability or any other means for electronically communicating with the voting equipment before, during or after the election process without detection. The Commission should mandate that all voting equipment sold in Tennessee after 9/1/05 should come without wireless capability installed. In addition, all current voting systems in Tennessee that contain a wireless access capability should have that capability disabled or removed from the voting machine before 5/06.
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O.K., folks, wadda ya' think?

PS to Orange Staters: Let's make this happen!! We've got 30-90 days to make a difference. Who are we waiting for -- we're all still here!

[Amaryllis]

1. Kick for Fly. Great work you are doing!

[Time for change]

2. This looks good to me

Though there are a couple of things I'm not sure about:

I'm not familiar with the DRE machines for handicapped voters that you mention.

And I'm a little weary of punch cards, given the fact that when they wear down they can result in a lot of undervotes. This of course was one major reason why there were so many undervotes in SE FL in 2000 -- and since the old machines were much more numerous in poor areas, this resulted in disproportionate undervotes in poor and minority precincts. It's ok though if there are measures taken to ensure that the machines are in good working order. Having procedures worked out for a hand recount also help, except that we're likely to run into another situation where the Supreme Court might stop the counting. So we need to make sure that these machines are in good working order.

Thanks for all your work on this Fly.

[petgoat]

3. I'm returning to the punch-card solution, myself. Here's why:

1. The shortcomings of the FL punchcard systems are due to the
implementation, not the concept. Their machines were old, worn,
and clogged with old chads. The plastic punch-guides that get worn
could be replaced for $3.00 each, but weren't.

Obvious solutions to the reliability problems are: make the need for
cleaning out old chads obvious by collecting them in an open tray
instead of a closed box, use a big rectangular punch instead of a
little pinprick punch and, if necessary,use a lever to operate the
punch. The voter can then hold up the card against a template to
verify that the correct holes have been punched.

Here's an article about the efforts of the 84-year-old inventor of the
punchcard votermatic system to improve its functioning.

2. The Voter Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB or "Becky-Ballot") system
uses a computer simply to generate a printed paper ballot. As one
analyst pointed out--the voting machine is then simply a $3000 pencil.

3. The $3000 pencils are heavy, unreliable, hard to transport, hard
to store, and must be tested and repaired when they get old. They are
subject to damage during transport, and to flaky behavior during
thunderstorms and under humid and hot conditions.

4. The $3000 pencils are vulnerable to tampering while they are being
warehoused. They must usually be set up in the voting room the day
before the election (at least!) and if a holiday weekend precedes the
election they might sit for three days unattended in a church basement
or school room with lousy locks.

5. The punchcard machines are light, rugged, cheap, easily stored,
and can't be tampered with. The punchcard readers are of course a
complex piece of machinery, and can be subverted. But any count can
easily and quickly be checked simply by bringing in another counting
machine, and the punch card ballots can be hand counted. (I'd like to
see a sorting punch card counter that could be set to sort the cards
under varying criteria. On its simplest level it would spit the Bush
cards in one pile and the Kerry cards in another--these could then be
weighed to verify the count. More complex selects could be done by
repeated passes (at the risk of knocking chads loose).)

[autorank]

4. If we do this in every state, we'll change the world. Thank you FBN

You are the best. I'm still kicking myself for not going to the Nashville conference, which clearly jelled the movement at a critical time.

My VERY best wishes to you in this and all your efforts!!1

[paineinthearse]

5. Let's make this happen!! nt

[Bill Bored]

6. You forgot the Internet.

It's fine not to have wireless capability, but without the proper precautions, the Internet can be just as unsafe. I don't trust e-votin' machine companies to know how to use secure IP tunnels, virtual private networks, etc. and it's something BoEs shouldn't have to be concerned with either. So therefore, dial-up modem via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) should be the only networking permitted. And of course, that may not need to be permitted either! Think about it.

Also, if you don't have laws to test your DREs and Scanners by casting actual votes, instead of automated cartridges or scripts, you should make some. The same should apply to the punch card testing if you keep them.

You also need a law requiring bi-partisan auditing and review of ALL ballot definition programming.

And of course some random audits after the election, using the paper ballots, to be used as the basis to calculate the possibility of an incorrect outcome.

See Kathy Dopp's paper on this:

<http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Paper_Audits.pdf>

[Stevepol]

7. I agree: AUDITING FOR EVERY ELECTION USING DREs.

The problem isn't the paper ballot: the problem is auditing. Every election using electronic voting machines MUST BE AUDITED!!!!!!!

5% is a good number to aim for, not 3%. And the auditing should expect exact, or near exact fit. That is, the machine count should EXACTLY mirror the hand count except where there might be some extraneous factor accounting for the differences. And if there are discrepancies, just because the differences are not large enough to change the election is no reason not to (1) expand the audit to about 25% and/or (2) recount the whole election manually.

If these differences are found thru-out, then sue the companies and try to put the company owners in prison for trying to steal elections. Montgomery County PA successfully sued Micro-Vote for over $1M for breaking down and giving false results.

[TheStates]

10. Anyone try mailing their secretary of state?

I think it would make a big difference to do so...And also produce a much more expensive, better managed exit poll so that more fraud can be caught.

[Fly by night]

8. Take 2: how could I have omitted mandatory random manual recounts? Sorry.

Here's the new one page list of election reform priorities for Tennessee, now amended to include a seventh step (listed as number 3) to study and then implement MRMR with every election. Thanks, guys, for pointing out a grievous (and obvious) error. Other suggestions would be appreciated. Here's the new list (other items tightened a bit also)..
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From: State and Local Government Committee of the House of Representatives
To: State Election Commission(ers)

The responsibility of selecting and approving the voting equipment that will be purchased with federal funds from HAVA rests with the State Election Commission. Because the State Election Commission is appointed by the legislature, and our committee is charged with oversight of such issues, we submit the following recommendations for your consideration and action.

Please see attachments for more complete information on the following seven issues.

1. The Commission should mandate that all voting equipment purchased after 9/1/05 will use or produce a voter-verified paper ballot, and that this paper ballot will be retained as the ballot of record by the county.

2. The Commission should mandate that all existing voting equipment that cannot use or produce a paper ballot be phased out of use in Tennessee by 11/1/06.(Attachment A – List of counties and their voting equipment)

3. Voter-verified paper ballots are important for many reasons to help ensure the integrity of the election process. Most important, they allow for small-scale audits or assessments of the accuracy of electronic vote-counting equipment. The Commission and the Legislature should study, along with county election officials and citizens groups, how to implement small scale (e.g., 5% of votes in each county) mandatory random manual recounts after each election to insure the completeness and accuracy of all voting systems used in Tennessee. A process for implementing mandatory random manual recounts with all elections should be in place by 11/06.

4. Control of the election process must remain in the hands of county election officials. The less complex the voting equipment used, the more control that county election officers and poll workers can retain. In counties where punch card voting machines have long been used, continued use should be supported where desired. This option is allowed in the HAVA regulations. (Attachment B – Punch-card handout)

5. HAVA funds allocated for upgrading voting equipment in Tennessee should be judiciously spent. Optical scan systems are not only a paper ballot-based voting system to begin with, but they are also less costly and more efficient than direct record electronic (DRE) equipment and should be considered for widespread use wherever voting systems are upgraded or changed in Tennessee. (Attachment C – Cost comparisons) (Attachment D – Cost estimates for making the entire state optical scan/punch card)

6. To meet HAVA requirements for disabled voters (persons visually or physically impaired) to vote privately and independently, counties that will need to purchase new equipment should be directed to choose either Automark ballot marking device or Accupoll e-voting machine, or to consider less-expensive options. At this time, no other e-voting equipment offered by major vendors fulfill HAVA standards for disabled-access voting, nor have they been federally qualified. (Attachment E – Votersunite.org letter re: disabled access voting.)

7. There is no place in Tennessee electronic voting equipment for the presence of any wireless access capability or any other means for electronically communicating with the voting equipment before, during or after the election process without detection. The Commission should mandate that all voting equipment sold in Tennessee after 9/1/05 should come without wireless capability installed. In addition, all current voting systems in Tennessee that contain a wireless access capability should have that capability disabled or removed from the voting machine before 5/06.

[demodonkey]

9. Big Kick for my Friend Bernie!

You guys in TN -- :yourock: