FL -- Gov. Crist to recommend ditching touch-screen machines

[Bill Bored]

Gov. Crist to recommend ditching touch-screen machines

By Anthony Man
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted January 30 2007, 5:18 PM EST

Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to recommend that the controversial touch-screen voting machines used in Broward, Palm Beach and 13 other Florida counties be scrapped and replaced with optical scanners that would count paper ballots.

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, said the governor would recommend spending at least $20 million on optical scanners for the 15 counties with touch-screen machines when he presents his proposed budget to the state Legislature on Friday.

Wexler credited Crist with proposing a "bold and comprehensive" plan. "We are about to resolve, once and for all, the election integrity problem in Florida, and we are about to realize the dream of creating a paper trail for every voter in the state of Florida."

-snip-

The Republican governor may raise the issue Wednesday in Tallahassee during an appearance before Florida newspaper editors. He's also scheduled to appear Thursday with Wexler, the state's leading critic of touch-screen voting machines, in the heart of Wexler's district west of Delray Beach.


<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0130cristvoting,0,6954161.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines>

[Contrite]

1. Better but not good enough without hand counting.

And public oversight.

[SharonAnn]

3. At least they would have something to hand-count

[kster]

6. We all remember how this turned out, Hands off!

Hands off! The Bush campaign files a motion in federal court to stop the hand counting of Florida ballots.

Nov. 11, 2000 | In a striking, defensive attempt to try to preserve the current presidential vote tally in Florida, the Bush campaign filed a motion in federal court Saturday to stop counties from hand counting their ballots, as requested by the campaign's Democratic opponents.

The motion will be considered by U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks at a 9:30 a.m. hearing on Monday in Miami.


http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/11/baker/?CP=YAH&DN=110

[Contrite]

8. kster, are you now against hand counts?

I thought you were in favor.

[kster]

10. huh? ...nt

[Colobo]

4. Interesting

I will confess that until recently, I was a Republican, for reasons that I will share with you in any given moment, and that might explain why some immigrants who don't know much about the American political process might wind up in the wrong side of the aisle (and history)...

Anyway, I voted against Crist (Davis), because I would like to see a Governor in this state that has the gut to admit that our school system is garbage and needs to be taken care of responsibly, something Jeb did his best to ignore, apart of other reasons (I voted Democrat for the first time in the 06 elections).

Still, from what I have seen, this guy is not as bad as I thought. I feel he is honestly trying to distance himself from his predecessor in all senses, and so far has done a good job. He standing up to the insurance companies is something I appreciate, even if it's more symbolic than anything.

[IndyOp]

2. Excellent! Now all they need are adequate publicly-supervised audits and they are GOOD!

:wow:

[Contrite]

5. Define adequate audits.

That's the first problem.

[IndyOp]

7. Stanislevic's Calculator:

http://mysite.verizon.net/evoter/AuditCalc.htm

There is a link to his paper "Random Auditing of E-Voting Systems: How Much is Enough?" toward the bottom of the page.

:hi:

[Contrite]

9. That's interesting

who is using it? Do any of the SOS or state legislatures know about it?

[IndyOp]

17. People drafting laws in the House and in the states know about

Howard's papers and they have the input of the Brennan Justice Center team. It is likely that the audit requirements that pass at the federal level will *not* be a stringent as we would like because drafting a law that will fit all 50 states is very, very difficult. Instead, the federal law will set minimum standards and states will have to beef them up. My State legislature knows about Howard's general approach -- I think we need to develop tables that will allow County Clerks without any math background to look up the % audit required based on the variables in the calculator.

:hi:

[Land Shark]

13. an "adequate" audit and they are "GOOD"?????

Very very far from it. Though I guess i can understand your enthusiasm. There are MANY holes to plug in elections, plus public supervision has to be restored. Just from today see these two docs on this subject:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x466239

and

many loopholes to plug, see
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x466243

[IndyOp]

16. I said adequate *publicly* *supervised* audits...

And, yes, of course you are right that there are many, many holes in the process and the holes differ from state to state.

When my verified voting group met with our State Rep for the first time I gave him my 6-page single-spaced wish list (and left a lot off to get it down to 6-pages) -- and he suggested that what I wanted would take many years to implement. I was asking for changes in virtually every level of elections - from the SoS office, to purchase of equipment, County Clerk duties, pollworker training, laws to punish cheaters, laws to punish irresponsible vendors...

Many, many holes - fill the big ones first and then keep pushing.

:hi:

[Melissa G]

11. K&R! Now if we can just get folks to post these lovely thread links

on the ERD daily news thread as well! Ah, A woman can dream....

[Patsy Stone]

12. I'm liking him more every day.

This may make it a bit easier to sleep down here in vapor trail land.

[garybeck]

14. Opscans are worthless without mandatory audits.

I know. I live in a state that has all opscans.

[Cocoa]

15. I live in FL

and I think opscans are a major improvement over touchscreens.

[IndyOp]

18. Opscans are a major improvement - but Florida citizens must push for audits, too

If an error or fraud occurs that causes optical scan ballots to be miscounted, and the results appear to obviously favor one candidate -- if there are not mandatory manual audits, then the error/fraud won't be detected. It is just as easy to change a 48%/52% race to a 68%/32% race as it is to change it to a 52%/48% race.

Voter-Verified Paper Ballot + Mandatory Random Audits