Paper Trails are NOT the Answer - Mark Crispin Miller

[IndyOp]

By Kat - posted at markcrispinmiller's blogspot.com
<http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2005/09/paper-trails-are-not-answer.html>

The left has scored a huge victory! Their demands have been heard! Even James Baker agrees that in order "to instill greater confidence" in public elections a voter-verified paper trail is necessary. Congratulations! No matter that Sen. Ensign required voter-verified paper trails on the machines in Nevada in 2004, and requests for a recount were denied. In the end, have so-called progressives helped to restore greater confidence in electronic voting machines where none should exist?

Where is there victory in compromise, especially given that voter identification has been the primary recommendation of the Carter-Baker Election Coverup Commission? Progressive voters and activists who agree to sheepishly line up at the polls with IDs in hand have done little to ensure the voting rights of America's poor and elderly, nor have they done little to ensure the accurate counting of their own votes. Evidently, as long as they get that paper trail, they can live with nontransparent privatization of public elections and continued disenfranchisement that will lead us further away from a representative government of the people. It's doubtful most states will allow a recount, even with a paper trail. And if they do, the commission has also recommended that states adhere to the "safe harbor" date to certify the elections making meaningful recounts impossible.

<snip>

Those concerned with democracy, free and fair elections, ought to demand the removal of electronic voting machine company CEOs from our elections. The system must not be given a stamp of approval by any governor, or chief elections official.

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[EFerrari]

1. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[IndyOp]

2. You are welcome - do you know who Kat is?

Just Curious...

[EFerrari]

3. Nope. But I'm grateful for her work. n/t

[garybeck]

4. paper trails vs. paper ballots

i agree 100% a paper trail is not the answer. this article elaborates on the issue:

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

[IndyOp]

5. Kickin for the morning crowd --

MCM is always worth the read!

[Einsteinia]

6. He's Absolutely Wrong

He's making a false dichotomy.

Short Term Solution: Many election integrity activists, such as myself, believe that what happens in the "black tunnel" after our paper ballots are dropped into the hole, as long as we do an audit check when the ballots (or audit trails) come out of the tunnel that we'll have a 99%+ chance of showing if there's been any shenanigans in the black tunnel. If so, we can ask for a 100% hand random recount. By analogy, we have infinite ways to contaminate a municipal water system, but as long as we do sample checks of the end product before using it, we're generally pretty safe.

Long Term: That isn't to say, that we need to work on the "black tunnel" with ideas like OVC; however, they are all solutions that are at least two years away.

Conclusion: We're two moves from checkmate, and we REALLY don't have that much time.

I say make an audit protocol in the coming year AND also put some real windows in the black tunnel.

[Land Shark]

7. Einsteinia, have you looked at any recount statutes lately?

*You* or *we* usually don't have *any* rights to recounts in a lot of states.

I hope you're not going around talking like Holt is the answer to our prayers because it simply reinforces and institutionalizes computers in elections.

So, activists and whatever concerned elections officials there are will be in the position of Microsoft: having to defend against endless hacking threats.

Do you think you can sustain Microsoft's level of expertise and then project that across every county voting jurisdiction in the U.S.? Good luck.

That being said, fight for what you can but don't call it "good".

ALl because the voting machine companies had the courage and vision to get the freight train rolling in their direction, some activists want to re-arrange the furniture on the train and get some "disclosure" about how the train engines work.....

Computerization of the vote counting forces counting into both invisibility and trade secrecy. That CAN NOT HAPPEN in a real democracy where the average person if they so choose to pursue it has to be able to understand and verify (without hiring an expensive expert) that their democracy has functioned correctly.

[diva77]

8. I wish someone would start a thread to brainstorm how we can make

hand counted paper ballots a feasible alternative to all of this computer junk!

[Land Shark]

9. We could use a thread sure, but there've been lots already, but

some things bear repeating and more expansion, this being one of them.

I suggest not leading with the conclusion first (paper ballots, hand counted) but instead leading with the VALUES first:

*****elections systems must be observable, verifiable and understandable by the average citizen or citizen group without spending a bunch of $$.******

There's a high level of agreement with this proposition out there. NOte however, that when you think it through, computerized voting just doesn't work: it's not observable, verifiable and you need a corps of computer experts to even start to understand it, if you could even get info on it!

Paper trails on top of this computerized voting as a "solution"?? Lipstick on a pig.

Lotsa goodhearted smart activists out there are offering lipstick on pig "solutions" because they buy into the "Computer inevitability" propaganda that is so endemic in our society and therefore consider paper ballots (now in its second century of relative success) as an "unrealistic" option.

Imagine that, what's worked for over a hundred years simply CAN'T BE ACCOMPLISHED now. It implies a judgement that the public can't be educated by activists or anyone else to re-accept what worked for so long.

Is it really that hard? I don't think so. Not if you start your argument and ground it in VALUES education. Those values dictate an acceptable end result, such as paper ballots hand counted.

[kster]

14. I respectfully disagree

the reason that any thread that starts with "paper ballots hand counted by the people" is viscously attacked, is that them 7 words can put an end to this national vote theft ring (in 06).

The other side wants to talk about exit polls right now,to keep us off the PBHC subject and prevent us from spreading the PBHC word.

Lets start a thread on paper ballots hand counted by the people and take on the naysayers once and for all. Don't let them discourage us. We know what needs to be done by 06 to take back our country, LETS GIVE EM HELL. Encourage pbhc threads to spread the word.

My 2 cents.....

If we don't count, We won't count!

[Amaryllis]

11. Don't you mean the voting machine companies had the AUDACITY ,

not courage?

[Land Shark]

13. Because I want activists to emulate voting companies in this respect

I chose the word "courage" rather than "audacity" to describe the boldness of their vision.

It all starts in high school: Kid asks to use car for ENTIRE weekend trip. Parents say no way, they end up saying he can have the car *and* stay overnite friday night. Much more than the kid would have gotten had he never been so bold.

[marions ghost]

16. So, should we support the Holt Bill or not?????

It does call for mandatory manual recounts. It does call for prohibiting the use of undisclosed software, but also promotes the use of DREs. I agree this isn't the way to go. So should we not support Holt?

http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=VTUSA&hotissue=1

SAMPLE LETTER OF SUPPORT (SUMMARIZES HOLT BILL) from Vote Trust USA
October 1, 2005

The Honorable Firstname Lastname
123 Street Address
CapitolCity, ST 12345

Dear :

On September 19, 2005, the Commission on Federal Election Reform co-chaired by President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker issued its Final Report. The Report, among other things, called on Congress to enact legislation requiring both a voter verified paper ballot of every vote and routine random audits to check the accuracy of electronic voting.

Voting integrity activists who have been championing this cause for several years are pleased that the Commission confirmed the need for this critical security measure. However, the report also recommends that the status of the voter verified paper ballot should be determined by states rather than mandated as the ballot of record nationwide. This means that any individual state can decide to disregard the only record that the voter has confirmed in favor of the record inside the electronic machine and make the voter verified paper ballot a meaningless and expensive placebo. In addition, the report suggests that pre-election machine "audits" may also be acceptable. Such audits would constitute simply another pre-election machine test, and should not be confused with meaningful independent audits of actual election results.

Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) will, however, mandate an effective and meaningful voter-verified paper record and independent audit requirements. It already has the bipartisan support of 1/3 of the House of Representatives, and has been endorsed by VoteTrustUSA and VerifiedVoting.org as the "gold standard" in verifiability legislation. Not only would it mandate a voter verified paper record for every vote cast, it would also:

(1) establish a mandatory uniform national standard that states that the voter verified paper ballot -- the only record verified by the voter rather than the voting machine -- is the vote of record in the case of any inconsistency with electronic records;

(2) provide Federal funding to pay for implementation of voter verified paper balloting;

(3) require a percentage of mandatory manual (by hand count) random audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county, for every Federal election;

(4) prohibit the use at any time of undisclosed software, wireless communication devices, and internet connections in voting machines;

(5) require full implementation by 2006; and

(6) protect the accessibility mandates of the Help America Vote Act.

The language in this bill was carefully written with input from computer scientists, disabilities organizations, and election reform advocates. It should be passed as written and in time to protect the 2006 elections.

There are many politically contentious election reform issues mentioned in the report but making sure that votes are counted accurately is not one of them. Elections are the foundation of a representative democracy, and representative democracy lives or dies based on the integrity of its elections. HR 550 will help restore voters' confidence and ensure the accuracy and integrity of America's elections.

[Bill Bored]

10. I agree with you and with Land Shark

I think the lawsuits should move forward, particularly where there is no paper trail, while the rest of us work on the auditing/recount problem where there is a paper trail -- unless the auditing/recount statutes will weaken the case for the eventual lawsuit??? Then it gets complicated!

But really, what is the BEST argument for paper ballots vs. paper trails or paperless machines? Sure, the voter inherently verifies a VVPB, which is better than having to cross-check a VVPAT against an electronic ballot, but the BEST reason for paper ballots is that they are recountable, by human hands and eyes, without having to depend on a vendor, whenever an election is close enough so that an initial random audit may not uncover an incorrect election result. And this CAN be determined mathematically and I believe it CAN be explained to the average voter.

But at the moment, even many of the activists among us don't get this. They say they are "math-impaired", and so on and leave it at that. But this means they may also not be able to make the argument to their elected officials of why paper ballots are necessary. So they come up with strawmen, such as "computers shouldn't be counting our votes" which totally ignores the computer-based nature of optical scanners and puts them back to square one.

Or they say the voters are too "dumb" to use a "computer" or an "ATM machine" which invites the opposition ot make the false analogy of anonymous voting to non-anonymous financial transactions and of the VVPAT to the "receipt!" Nothing like muddying the waters is there?

"The voters are Luddites" -- great argument for progressives who will put a kinder, gentler face on it, huh?

The answer is clear that we need paper ballots because they can be audited and recounted by any competent poll worker in a bi- or multi-partisan manner. That should be the focus, IMO, along with the necessary auditing/recount laws to use them. The more permissive the recount statutes, the greater the advantage of paper ballots. They go hand in hand.

[Einsteinia]

12. Check out the "Gold Star Audit" protocol

see brochure that explains it at: http://www.califelectprotect.net

and then go to the gold star on on the left-hand side

There IS is solution that can makes audits real and solve 99% of our problems in ONE legislative cycle.

If after that people want to hang on to electronic voting as a second check against the paper in the interest of expediency or disabled access--fine.

[garybeck]

17. he didn't write it. "Kat" did. n/t

[Time for change]

15. Almost all Ohio counties had a paper trail, and where did it get us?

One county underwent a full recount.

Numerous counties had the precincts hand picked by the BOEs, underwent tampering with the machines in order to ensure that the 3% recount matched, or came up with results that failed to match the initial count, but refused to do a recount anyhow.