Where we stand with e-voting

[BeFree]

In this thread's OP, I will try to describe the situation as it stands with e-voting. I will miss many details and hope that others here will fill in the holes I am about to leave.

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Presently we can expect 30% of the 2006 election's votes to be recorded on DREs, or Direct Recording Electronic. These DREs take your vote and digitally record it, and no other record is kept.

Another 50% of the vote will be hand marked ballots that will be scanned by Optical Scan machines and those votes will be electronically recorded and tallied.

Both types of election ballot keepers are capable of being hacked, mis-programmed, or otherwise set up to alter the counted tallies of the votes.

Not surprisingly, and due in part to the numbers produced by these machines in the 2004 election, many very knowledgeable computer experts, election watchers, and ordinary citizens have called into question the wisdom of using these machines to capture, record and possibly alter the outcome of elections.

Congress has a before it a bill, named House Revenue 550, that would require a paper trail for the DREs, and make law an auditing procedure that would compare a statistical sample of the paper trails with the output of the machines, so that any funny numbers spit out by the machines can be uncovered.

As you might imagine, there are forces at work trying to keep any paper records from being kept, and failing that, do not want the paper records to be counted even in an audit. That is one main reason the bill has languished in congress for several years now.

There is also a split between the watchers of the vote keepers. Some are in favor of having HR550 pass, and some do not wish to compromise the vote and want a return to all paper ballots with no machines involved in the count.

It appears that HR550 will not pass in this congress. It looks like 80% of the nation's votes in 2006 will be kept by computers with no federal law demanding a double-checking of what the computers spit out on election eve.

In other words, there will be no usable paper record of many votes, except in those few states which did pass laws demanding a paper record be kept to be used merely to audit the machines. Such laws call only for an audit of around 2% of the vote. However, any such audits will be open to manipulation or political underhandedness in the way the audits are conducted, so there is still no ironclad guarantee that the machines will be fairly audited.

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That's it from me, for now. There is more to be said, much more, and here's hoping others will pitch in their two cents.

[Patchuli]

1. I think people concerned about their votes

being counted accurately should loudly petition and protest the use of any voting system that can be "hacked or misprogrammed." How do we do this?

[GuvWurld]

2. The Voter Confidence Resolution

As most people wonder "what can we do about this," I have focused my attention on developing an answer. First, we must recognize that local actions are best. We have far more ability to access and hold accountable those on our city councils and county boards of supervisors. It is at this level that we should be taking a stand, saying that current election conditions ensure inconclusive outcomes that will never result in unanimous agreement and which require blind trust without providing a basis for confidence in the results reported.

Read The Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR) and the companion Guide for more on the strategy and talking points. The main point is that our current government is not legitimate because it has not sought the Consent of the Governed. Our ongoing Consent is assumed. But we must stand up and say We Do Not Consent, over and over, until the assumption is shattered. In making all these points, the VCR also includes a comprehensive election reform platform. The VCR is a template that can be customized by any group or town wishing to adopt it. If changes are limited to the reform platform and the bigger ideas mentioned in this post are left intact, the combined weight, or cumulative impact, of getting many cities on board will lay a path to a tipping point.

[Stevepol]

10. As to what we can do, I'm stumped, just keep on keeping on I think;

writing letters to the editor

Make friends of the ignorant masses and inform them: (1) we don't have a transparent vote counting procedure and because of that, (2) we don't have a democracy anymore. If we want a democracy we have to have (1) hand-counted paper ballots OR (2) paper ballot print-outs AND REQUIRED AUDITS FOR EVERY ELECTION w/ (3) the paper as the legal final authority.

Why don't we have a transparent vote counting procedure? Because the vote is counted on machines usine trade secret, proprietary software without even the possibility of audits in about 40% of the cases (in 06 at the moment) and with only a very small possiblity of audits in the other 60% of the cases. In other wds, we don't have a democracy.

This is a non-partisan issue if there ever was one. We all suffer when we don't have a democracy, ALL OF US, not just Democrats or Independents. Everybody.

Until we want a democracy in large enough numbers, we will continue to have what we have now: unelected, incompetent representatives leading us down the primrose path to destruction.

Figure out what you personally can do and do it. However small, it can make a difference. The times now are worse than in the 60s and the civil rights protests. This is far more serious. Others have to be made aware of that.

[garybeck]

3. what states have audits?

california has a 1% audit. who else?

[mopinko]

9. illinois

5% random required audit. state board will furnish precinct list, or county can choose. the trouble is there is not a requirement to publish the results of that audit and there is no notice of time and place required either, as far as i can tell. there is a paper record required, either a paper ballot, or a machine produced trail. but the vvpt that is on the machines is a joke. it zips by so fast that the verify part is impossible. the printing on that paper is like the stuff they use on the best buy extended warranty receipts. you know, long gone by the time you need it.
all of which is to say, beware of smoke and mirrors.

[Stevepol]

4. There's no question that the vote will be hi-jacked again.

"Both types of election ballot keepers are capable of being hacked, mis-programmed, or otherwise set up to alter the counted tallies of the votes."

For "are capable of being" substitute "will be." There's just no question it will happen, has already happened in a sense. The Far Right would like people to alrady get over it, even tho it hasn't even happened yet.

There are already hordes of fine candidates who won their elections but were defeated by the unholy ghost in the machine: Cleland, Mondale, Kerry, etc.

[Kip Humphrey]

5. Most vote tabulators (88%: ES&S, Diebold) can be accessed remotely

and the vote count manipulated without ANY indication or record.
This is what happened to Max Cleland in the 2002 "beta test" election, and its how Karl Rove flipped at least 6 states to Bush's favor, stealing the 2004 election.

Sure, vote flipping exploits occurred at the voting machine level (hey, I'm in Texas and witnessed the Hart Intercivic exploit myself). However, while vote stealing on the local level occurs, and some would argue has occurred in every election to some degree, it is the wholesale flipping of millions of votes that makes the current state of elections in this country significantly different. It is the ease with which 12 PCs in the Oval Office can change the outcome of ANY election that has changed the character of our government from a democratic republic to a one-party state.

This wholesale control of election outcomes is what happened and is what we must neutralize.

Now, how many of you out there really think that those in power will readily relinquish total control of our elections by passing any bill without the markups and language that will ensure the resulting bill is nothing more than a false panacea designed to convey to voters false confidence in digital voting systems while preserving the capability to flip the vote?

I have no confidence, and I fear false panaceas providing false confidence in corrupt voting systems and effectively neutralizing the election reform movement in the process.

Pursuing centralized, federal solutions to fix the system that made possible and maintains one-party state control of our government is dangerous and potentially deadly to effective election reform. The solution to regaining our democracy and small "d" democratic control of our federal government is more likely found at the state and county level, and almost certainly found in the streets in the form of massive demonstrations and civil disobedience. Do you think it could happen before George Bush drops nuclear bombs all over Iran and the Arab-American war explodes into an irreversible armageddon? Probably not...

[goclark]

6. BeFree, this was/is an excellent post !

DU ~So what does the Average American do TODAY to assure that it won't happen again?

I am still asking the same silly question ~ WHO is IN CHARGE?

What is the PLAN?

You have really put the facts out there for us to read and respond to.

The problem as I see it is that we are the choir and unless we can start an Internet Blitz of massive proportions, we are sunk.


There needs to be a quick and easy, 2nd grade word count message with visuals, that can get everyone in America to see what they can do immediately.


We need the 7/11 variety of something to get the attention of every voter and as far as I can tell, that has not happened yet and the clock is ticking.

Thanks again BeFree!

[Wilms]

7. Can local jurisdictions pass HCPB laws?

Even if the state does not support it, or even prohibits it, and refuses to certify such tallies, could not a local jurisdiction pass law requiring HC their PB's at the precinct level providing a CHECK against whatever goes on at the county and state level?

Could they not conduct such an exercise using multi-partisan counters, and witnesses chanting; "(At least this part of) the whole world is WATCHING"?

[OnTheOtherHand]

8. just two minor fact-checks

I think you have probably understated the percentage of votes to be recorded on DREs. Not that I'm any expert on this, but according to the folks at Election Data Services, right now they are looking at electronic voting in 33-34% of counties with 39% of registered voters. Op-scan a bit more than that, about 41% of registered voters.
http://www.electiondataservices.com/EDSInc_VEStudy2006.pdf
And I guess there is still time for DREs to pull ahead. Sigh.

Also, this may've been a pun, but HR stands for House Resolution, not House Revenue. I don't think anyone is making much money off HR550. (I guess there hasn't been much resolution, either.)

[BeFree]

12. HR

Stands for House Revenue. Any bill containing an expenditure of funds is called a Revenue bill.

[OnTheOtherHand]

13. actually, we're both wrong

A House resolution would be an H.Res., not an H.R. Doh.

"Revenue bill" refers to a bill that raises revenues, not one that spends revenues.

AFAICT, HR stands for "House of Representatives" just as S stands for "Senate": "A bill originating in the House of Representatives is designated by the letters 'H.R.' followed by a number and bills introduced in the Senate as 'S.' followed by a number." (http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/congress/congress-glossary.html) We both felt the need for it to be slightly more interesting than that.

[PeterPan]

11. A few clarifications

More than "a few states" have passed legislation requiring a voter verified paper record of every vote - in fact 27 states currently, whether through legislation or executive mandate, have such a requirement. Seven others, through purchasing decisions, will have statewide paper ballot optical scan voting systems that are inherently voter verified.

Thirteen of those states will also conduct random audits of a percentage (varying from the pathetically low 1% in CA to 10% in Hawaii) manual hand counted audits of those voter verified paper records.

Among the other provisions of HR 550, the bill would also prohibit the use of undisclosed voting system softare and wireless communication devices in voting machines.

The 2% random mandatory manual audit proposed in HR 550 is intended as a minimal, and politically viable, means of verifying the accuracy of the machines. It is intended to identify systemic programming errors and deter fraud to some degree. Given the political, constitutional, legislative forces at play, federal legislation is severely limited, though important, as a vehicle for seeking safeguards on the integrity of the election process.

Given the political realities of the 109th Congress it is remakable indeed that HR 550 has 178 co-sponsors, including 16 Republicans. Should the bill somehow be scheduled for hearings and mark-up, pass out of committee, go to the floor, pass and be sent to the Senate, it would ncounter the fiercest opponent of voter verified paper records - Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), ranking member of Rules Committee, unless of course Minority Leader Reid (an advocate of VVPR) can send the bill straight to the floor and bypass the Rules Committee. Chances are slim but not impossible.

HR 550 is very far from the last word. It would not eliminate the potential of election fraud by any means. It is probably the only way that elections in Maryland, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Texa, etc. will ever be auditable, however. Further efforts are required in state legislatures (where election laws are made) and through election protection initiatives (poll watching, poll working, gathering precinct level results, reount readiness, etc.)

As for the fact that laws can be manipulated, i.e. broken, note that murder is a crime, yet it is still committed. In spite of the potential for violation of the law, I still think its a good idea that there is a law prohibitting murder.

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

[roody]

14. Local action is the key.