S. 450: Count Every Vote Act of 2005

[garybeck]

FYI, HR550 is not the only bill that institutes random audits....

S450 covers more bases than just electronic voting machines, and many of these issues are also very important. it is sponsored by Kerry, Clinton, Boxer, and others. Why isn't this bill getting more attention?

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-450

A BILL
To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require
a voter-verified paper record, to improve provisional bal-
loting, to impose additional requirements under such Act,
and for other purposes.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

4 (a) SHORT TITLE.--This Act may be cited as the
5 ``Count Every Vote Act of 2005''.
6 (b) TABLE CONTENTS.--The table of contents of
OF

7 this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
2
TITLE I--VOTER VERIFICATION AND AUDITING

Sec. 101. Promoting accuracy, integrity, and security through preservation of
a voter-verified paper record or hard copy.
Sec. 102. Requirement for mandatory recounts.
Sec. 103. Specific, delineated requirement of study, testing, and development of
best practices.
Sec. 104. Voter verification and audit capacity funding.
Sec. 105. Reports and provision of security consultation services.
Sec. 106. Improvements to voting systems.

TITLE II--PROVISIONAL BALLOTS

Sec. 201. Requirements for casting and counting provisional ballots.

TITLE III--ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS UNDER THE HELP
AMERICA VOTE ACT OF 2002

Subtitle A--Shortening Voter Wait Times

Sec. 301. Minimum required voting systems, poll workers, and election re-
sources.
Sec. 302. Requirements for jurisdictions with substantial voter wait times.

Subtitle B--No-Excuse Absentee Voting

Sec. 311. No-excuse absentee voting.

Subtitle C--Collection and Dissemination of Election Data

Sec. 321. Data collection.

Subtitle D--Ensuring Well Run Elections

Sec. 331. Training of election officials.
Sec. 332. Impartial administration of elections.

Subtitle E--Standards for Purging Voters

Sec. 341. Standards for purging voters.

Subtitle F--Election Day Registration and Early Voting

Sec. 351. Election day registration.
Sec. 352. Early voting.

TITLE IV--VOTER REGISTRATION AND IDENTIFICATION

Sec. 401. Voter registration.
Sec. 402. Establishing voter identification.
Sec. 403. Requirement for Federal certification of technological security of voter
registration lists.

TITLE V--PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES

Sec. 501. Prohibition on certain campaign activities.

TITLE VI--ENDING DECEPTIVE PRACTICES

Sec. 601. Ending deceptive practices.

[rumpel]

1. Yes, why. Kick

[GrpCaptMandrake]

2. No. No-no. No-no-no-no-no.

Help America (not) Vote doesn't need fixing. It needs trashing. Period. It needs to be repealed as desperately as does the (Not A) Patriot Act.

Paper Ballots. Period. Not hard to comprehend.

"Paaaaaaper, Hillary! It has a name!"

With apologies to "The Miracle Worker."




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[garybeck]

4. So I guess you also do not support HR550?

[GrpCaptMandrake]

6. Sorry

Is there a reason to support it? Did I miss something? If it becomes law, do Diebold and ES&S and Sequoia somehow leave the mix? I suppose I sound a bit sarcastic, but as long as that crowd is even allowed to remain in the Voter Regulation game, we're done. As long as vote counting is still corporatized, any notions of democracy are dead in the U.S.

We're still talking about proprietary software. As long as that's the case, no amount of voter-verified-paper-ballots are going to matter. Audit till hell freezes over. It doesn't matter.

[garybeck]

7. Neither HR550 or S450 allow proprietary software.

I agree with your concern about proprietary software. but if you read the legislation, both are pretty clear about requiring open software code.

HR550:
No voting system
6 shall at any time contain or use any undisclosed
7 software. Any voting system containing or using
8 software shall disclose the source code, object code,
9 and executable representation of that software to the
10 Commission, and the Commission shall make that
11 source code, object code, and executable representa-
12 tion available for inspection upon request to any per-
13 son.


so, to answer your question, I would say yes, there is reason to support HR550. Even if you don't like audits, it still requires open software code.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

9. My problem is that there aren't many

"any persons" who have the knowledge to peel back computer code.

Please forgive my skepticism, but this still smells like "enabling legistlation" to me.

We don't need computers in the polling stations. No matter how many safeguards you build in, there will be a Repiglican one hack ahead of you.

New locks are great for the burglar business and a fifteen foot wall creates a market for sixteen foot ladders.

Paper ballots. Period. As long as we compromise, we're fighting on their ground. I think Sun Tzu said something about that . . .

[garybeck]

10. that's your choice

I still think that steps in the right direction are betten than standing in quicksand.

both bills to 3 essential things:

1) end proprietary software (and your concern about having enough people to check it out is unfounded. there are people waiting in line right now to do it.)

2) require voter verified paper records for all votes cast

3) mandatory audits.


these are all things we don't have now and we need now. the bill does not have to be the end to our movement if it passes. we need to start somewhere. getting these three things would be better than what we have now.

as far as hand counted paper ballots, there is no legislation for this to support. if there was, i'm sure many of us would support it. we have to support anything that makes things better than they are now.

Personally I will not agree that HR550 is the "Gold Standard" as others have said. In fact I think it is far from it. But it is still worthy of support because we need things to get better, not stay the same.

[benburch]

11. What part about zero machinery involved do you fail to get?

I am a computer expert, with a resume that goes back to 1978.

I believe it is the absolute height of lunacy for there to be ANY machinery involved in voting.

There is ZERO problem with a paper ballot marked in standardized indelible ink.

Canada does this now. It is a nation of 32.6 million people. They certify their election results within 48 hours. Are we stupider or more lazy than they are?

No machinery.

Paper human-readable ballots counted by human beings with tallies certified and signed.

That is the only way we will ever win another election.

[truckin]

14. Gary, I totally agree with your assessment of HR550. If this bill is

passed it will give us more opportunities to find problems with the voting machines and maybe bring us to all paper ballots at some point. Hand counted paper ballots are not going to replace all the machines in the near future and to ignore all other enhancements to the election process because they do not mandate hand counted paper ballots is not a realistic approach and will result in the continued use of paperless electronic voting machines.

I am not familiar with the Senate Bill you referenced but my understanding was that HR550, despite its shortcomings, was the best of all the current bills.

[electropop]

20. Barring surprises, I support both.

If we don't get SOMETHING passed, we'll never win an election and never get ANYTHING passed. Once we have a few more Dems we can fine-tune. For now, we have to apply a tourniquet.

[kster]

3. Ballots can't be used for the official record

:sarcasm:


‘‘(ii) be suitable for a manual audit
equivalent to that of a paper ballot voting 21
system; and 22

‘‘(iii) be available as the official record 23
and shall be the official record used for 24
any recount conducted with respect to any 25
5

Federal election in which the system is 1
used.’’.

[garybeck]

5. paper records ARE the official record.

I like the way this bill covers other issues too. It seems to be similar to HR550 with respect to e-voting machines. And I like how clear it is on proprietary software:

Any voting system containing or using
3 software shall disclose the source code, object code,
4 and executable representation of that software to the
5 Commission, and the Commission shall make that
6 source code, object code, and executable representa-
7 tion available for inspection upon request to any cit-
8 izen.


"any citizen". kinda has a nice ring to it.

[kster]

8. Yep,Run it thru the DU mill,

and see what everyone thinks. But I do think if we keep pushing paper ballots hand counted we will win that battle. To many people catching on to these election theft machines.

There is no reason to put them machines between us and our votes. We need to take their weapons(election theft machines) away from them.

[benburch]

12. Then why have the machine AT ALL?

I dare you to find a good justification for that.

[garybeck]

16. just because you support HR550 doesn't mean you are

in favor of electronic voting machines.

if you are sinking in quicksand, do you reject a rope that is thrown to you because you'd rather have the quicksand removed?

taking the rope doesn't mean you like quicksand.

supporting e-voting legislation doesn't mean you like e-voting machines.

we have to get out of the quicksand. you want a big vacuum cleaner to come and suck up all the quicksand and remove it immediately. we all would love that. but realistically there is no legislation, nothing in place that could make that happen, short of a revolution.

so, I invite you to take another look at that rope that was thrown to you. It's not going to take away the quicksand. But it might help us tread water while we figure out how to get rid of the quicksand completely. The only other option is to drown.

[truckin]

17. Excellent analogy!

[benburch]

19. And if the rope is tied to nothing at the other end?

A false sense of hope is even worse.

[garybeck]

22. answer.

if there is nothing on the other end of the rope, you still are not any worse off than you were. you're still going down. even if HR550 did absolutely nothing, it couldn't make any worse. I don't buy that it creates false security. the MEDIA is responsible for that...

I don't buy that there's nothing on the end of the rope. any audit is better than no audit. and any kind of open source code requirement is better than none.

[benburch]

13. I'm still waiting for some justifcation for using a machine at all? nt

[garybeck]

15. that's not the issue

the issue is that the machines are there now. we can't magically make them disappear. we need to do everything we can to put limits on them. if you have some legislation to throw them in the trash, then let's see it and we'll all sign on. in the meantime we have to take steps in the right direction. otherwise we are standing in quicksand.

[benburch]

18. Sure we can.

We pass legislation and *poof* they are in a surplus electronics sale the next week.

I think you fail to understand the issue.

[garybeck]

21. "We pass legislation and *poof*"

as I have said on many occasions, show me the legislation for hand counted paper ballots, and I WILL SUPPORT IT! but there are no such bills. as long as we have HR550 as an actual bill, it is far better than nothing, and just because we support it doesn't mean we "like" the voting machines. having any kind of audit is better than no audit.

[Amaryllis]

23. we first have to have a bill and then we have to have a congress who

will pass it. No way this congress will pass the bill you are proposing.

[garybeck]

24. exactly my point.

have to take what we can get.

[Amaryllis]

25. If it were this easy

"We pass legislation and *poof* they are in a surplus electronics sale the next week."

We would have done it years ago.