BLIND AND DISABLED VOTER ADVOCATES, GROUPS CALL FOR 'IMMEDIATE BAN' ON DRE VOTING SYSTEMS!

[BradBlog]

BLIND AND DISABLED VOTER ADVOCATES, GROUPS CALL FOR 'IMMEDIATE BAN' ON DRE VOTING SYSTEMS!
Two Different Statements from Civil Rights Leaders Call for Discontinuation of Insecure, Unverifiable, Disenfranchising DRE/Touch-Screen Voting Technology
Both Destroy Myth of Need to Sacrifice Verifed Ballots for Accessibility...

Supporters of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, often known as touch-screen) voting system, and indeed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, have used the canard that blind and disabled voters must use DREs to vote privately and independently. Today, a number of leaders in the disabilities community are finally speaking out and calling for "an immediate ban" on such dangerous, unverifiable voting systems.

Two landmark statements, one released today to The BRAD BLOG in advance of Congressional hearings tomorrow, are covered in this report. Here snippets from each...

"Electronic ballot systems such as DRE machines, are neither fully accessible nor secure and accurate methods of recording, tallying, and reporting votes ... are inappropriate for use, because these systems make it impossible for voters to verify that their votes will be counted as cast."
-- From a statement released today by more than 20 Disabled Voter Advocates

"We must debunk the myth that we have to choose between accessible voting and verifiable voting. Democracy requires that we have both."
-- Stanley J. Eicher, Exec. Dir. of the Disability Law Center in recent statement commending MA for allowing non-DRE ballot marking devices for use by disabled voters.

FULL STORY, COMPLETE STATEMENT:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4270

[seemslikeadream]

1. I wonder what ever happened to

R Doug Lewis? :shrug:

[Land Shark]

2. Everyone should send People for the American Way a copy of this

They've been making incredible assumptions about what "all" disabled voters want, and pushing for DREs to be further enabled in their name. Probably, the only groups that should be able to make broad sweeping claims like that are groups consisting exclusively of the disabled (in this example). Especially when some disabled groups have received large sums of money from Diebold.

[Morgana LaFey]

12. Common Cause was first -- along with League of Women Voters

AND certain disabled and blind activists and groups (led by a certain blind activist whose name I've since forgotten). Come to find out, Common Cause and LWV had gotten nice, fat donations from the industry, or its lobbying group (ITA). Where are these folks NOW?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

14. PFAW praises touch-screens, bashes optical scan

Common Cause doesn't endorse touch-screens.

They may or may not have played a part in their spread, so does any group
pushing early voting or other election reforms.

But PFAW pushes touch-screens and slams optical scan -

Here is an excerpt from PFAW’s "An Analysis of H.R. 811 The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007: Separating Myth from fact" http://media.pfaw.org/PDF/SarasotaCD13/HoltAnalysis.pdf

From page 2 & 3

"Additionally, many civil rights and disability rights organizations that have been engaged in the protection of voting rights for many years have testified that DRE technology offers better access options to voters with disabilities and voters who have minority language needs.
Indeed, in our own experience through our Election Protection efforts and otherwise,
we have seen for ourselves the opportunities such technology affords to voters with disabilities or minority language needs.

Whereas optical scan technology requires the printing of thousands, if not millions,
of ballots in multiple languages, the distribution of those ballots in adequate numbers for each precinct, and the training of poll workers to distribute those ballots to those voters who seem to need them, DRE technology is much more effective for minority language voters.

In particular, DRE technology allows voters to decide on their own whether they need a minority language ballot, all of which would be preloaded onto all DREs in a jurisdiction (thus reducing printing costs as well).


http://www.ncvoter.net/pfaw.html

[Stevepol]

3. Glad to be Rec #5!

[emlev]

4. ...People with disabilities encouraged to sign on...

[e-mail]

[eridani]

5. One possible legitimate use for DRE's

They might print out a paper ballot just like all the other paper ballots which could be scanned or handcounted. They should just never be used for tabulation.

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. in which case they aren't really "DREs" any more, are they?

(DRE literally means Direct Recording Electronic, and in your scenario, the device shouldn't really be recording the votes, or at any rate the record wouldn't have any legal force.) I think it would 'properly' be called a touchscreen Ballot Marking Device. But I don't know whether everyone uses those terms in the same way.

[eridani]

7. Good point

The terms DRE and touchscreen really shouldn't be conflated.

[emlev]

8. The statement says exactly that. eom

[emlev]

9. kick

[GuvWurld]

10. Coalition building is key - K&R

This is a great example of building bridges. We need to connect up with supporters of as many other causes as possible. No matter what is the primary issue of a group, their work will be enhanced if done amid fair elections. All groups, therefore, should consider making election integrity their secondary mission.

[emlev]

11. kick

[emlev]

13. Here's the current list of signatories

This is posted and will continue to be updated at VoterAction.

Noel Runyan, Voting access technology engineer and author of "Improving Access to Voting"

Roger Petersen, member, Santa Clara County Advisory Commission for Persons with Disabilities and Santa Clara County Voter Access Advisory Committee

Bernice Kandarian, President, Council of Citizens with Low Vision International

Robert Kerr, ACB Maryland

Shawn Casey O'Brien, KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, and California Secretary of State's Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force member

Suzanne Erb, Chairperson of the Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on Disabilities

Mike Keithley

A. J. Devies, Past President, Handicapped Adults of Volusia County (HAVOC); Charter Member, Daytona Beach Mayor's Alliance for Persons with Disabilities; Disability Consultant and Board Member, Florida Fair Elections Coalition

Marta Russell, independent journalist and author

Judith K. Barnes, Life Member, Council of Citizens With Low Vision; Former President, Silicon Valley Council of the Blind

George Moore, Accessibility Advocate, Californians for Disability Rights

Mike May, President, Sendero Group

Margaret Keith, VP, Monterey Co. Chapter, Californians for Disability Rights

Adrienne Lauby, Host/Producer, Pushing Limits, disability program on KPFA fm

David Andrews

Jean Stewart, Writer

Ruthanne Shpiner, Pushing Limits Radio 94.1 FM, Northern California ADAPT

Mike Godino, President, American Council of the Blind of New York, Systems Advocate, Suffolk Independent Living Organization

Louis Herrera

Dawn Wilcox, BSN RN, Past President Silicon Valley Council of the Blind, Board member CCCLV

Barry Scheur, Scheur & Associates

Tom Fowle, Rehabilitation Engineer, The Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center, San Francisco

Robert Lusson

Christopher Voelker

[Contrite]

15. Yes! They must stop using the disabled as an excuse for these machines.

I am so glad to see this.

What was that "fair and equal" part of the Bush v. Gore argument again? The Equal Protection Clause was the ultimate basis for the decision, but the majority essentially admitted (what was obvious in any event) that it was not basing its conclusion on any general view of what equal protection requires.

How can votes be counted fairly and equally if they are not CAST fairly and equally?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

16. now its the "non english" voters being used to prop up DRES

and the Miami Dade Election Reform Coalition (MDERC) is the number
one defender of DRES as necessary for non-English speaking voters.

The PFAW national statement seems to mirror MDERC's views.

[Contrite]

17. So, who is behind MDERC?

And why are they taking this position when, clearly, ballots can be printed in multiple languages? !

[AtLiberty]

18. WOOHOO! Rush Holt's office is receiving MANY phone calls...

...regarding amending HR811 and banning touch screen voting.

When I called his office today, a staff person said they had been receiving many calls to ban touch screen voting.

KEEP THE HEAT ON!!!