Vote Centers - Spreading to North Dakota - Bad Ideas for Election Reform Keep Spreading

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

The intentions are good, but the results are bad

3/15/07 State elections trending to voting centers

By DALE WETZEL Bismark Tribune
North Dakota's Senate voted 44-0 on Wednesday to give final legislative approval to a bill that allows counties to establish the centers. The measure, which was introduced at the behest of Secretary of State Al Jaeger, now goes to Gov. John Hoeven for his review.

Voting centers could have ballots for some or all of a county's precincts and voters will still get a ballot that is specific to their precinct, Nelson said. The option could help eliminate voters' confusion about where they should go to vote, she said.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/03/15/news/state/130360.txt

Bad ideas like this keep spreading, so I finally wrote up a paper on it.

Excerpt:

"Super Precincts or Vote Centers can become a poll-tax for the elderly, disabled, minority and rural voters – because of the additional travel, time, missed work or physical stress of waiting in long lines to vote. Voters can no longer walk or travel a short distance to vote. For disabled, the voting location is no longer in a familiar neighborhood, and may be in a busy crowded facility. Election officials have to rely more on expensive and error prone technologies such as electronic poll books and touch-screen voting machines. When equipment crashes or fails to work, greater numbers of voters are simultaneously disenfranchised. Denial of service attacks affect larger portions of voters. (More eggs in one basket) "

Read the full paper here -
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Vote_Centers_or_Super_Precincts.pdf
or
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Vote_Centers_or_Super_Precincts.doc

[Einsteinia]

1. Agree completely; here's a draft resolution on this

This rough draft gives quick overview of the reason why I think why Vote by Mail (and other forms of early voting, including satellite voting) must be eliminated (or at least reduced)

The “Vote by Mail” is No Solution Resolution
(a/k/a Resolution to Reduce Second-Class Integrity Voting)

Whereas California election officials are spending tax dollars to actively promote “early voting” at non-precinct satellites, as well spending tax dollars to actively promote the “early voting” method commonly known as the “vote by mail,” which has now resulted in the fact now more than 2 in 5 California voters are using these methods to cast their votes,despite the well documented security vulnerabilities that are inherent in these early voting methods, including:

A. Election Personnel and/or Third-Parties Issues:

1) reliance on the U.S. Post Office and/or third-party security,

2) reliance on third-parties to ensure each ballot sent by a voter the same ballot data that is ultimately recorded,

3) reliance on the accuracy of a website to inform each voter whether their vote has been received and counted,

4) limited opportunity for participation in the tabulation process, which is both physically difficult to view and almost always occurs over a series of days under the election official’s discretion,

5) complete reliance on election insiders to perform their job honestly and competently;

B. Software Issues:

1) reliance on tabulation proprietary secret software,

2) reliance on proprietary secret signature matching software;

C. Exposure to Potential Voter Abuse

1) the opportunity for family members and employers to influence voting,

2) the opportunity to illegally view ballot by hostile government leading to persecution for beliefs;

3) loss of ability to audit votes at each and every precinct, on election night, BEFORE leaving citizen-based control; and

Whereas there is a common belief that early voting methods, including “vote by mail,” may increase voter turnout and that this benefit may outpace the inherent risks that compromise accuracy; yet even if voters accept such an illogical trade off, evidence to prove this belief that there is indeed increased turnout is not borne out by an investigation by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, which reports that "academic studies all show that easy absentee voting decreases or has no effect on turnout," with the 2004 election a slight exception, because "you are diffusing the mobilizing focus away from a single day and having to mobilize voters over a period of time," and thereby it concludes that the people who really are helped by absentee voting are those who cast ballots anyway; and

Whereas a government cannot be considered a democracy if its voting methods cannot be relied on to accurately represent the will of the people, and further there is already a crisis of confidence in our voting systems evidenced by a August 2006 Zogby Poll revealing that 92% of Americans believe that citizens have the right to observe the counting of the votes and to obtain information about their elections; and

Therefore, the California Democratic Party hereby calls for both our national party leaders and the California's Secretary of State to reduce the trend toward early voting, including “vote by mail” methods, as well as to improve the “checks and balances” to adequately secure this inherently insecure method of voting by the following means:

(1) The suspension of tax dollars to promote early voting, including vote by mail, because these inherently insecure voting methods result in second-rate-security when compared to precinct voting; (particularly, now that California has attained the right to a voter verified paper trail);

(2) Limit the use of these second-rate voting methods to only those voters who qualify by verifying under penalty of perjury, under the laws of California, that they are physically unable to vote at their local precinct on election day; and

(3) In exchange for loss of election security that our collective communities must sacrifice to provide early voting, including “vote by mail,” all voters who opt for this extraordinary privilege must include both their signature and fingerprint to ensure that the use of this privilege will not result compromising the outcome of entire election.

[Einsteinia]

2. & here's a summary with a link

Here’s a quick overview of some of the key problems with voting by mail:


1) Early voting, inclusive of absentee voting, is NOT included in the 1% mandatory audit, because the EC 15360 says it shall be inclusive all "precincts" of the official canvass, and Conny McCormack (and now the majority of other election officials) has decided that early voting is precinctless. Debra Bowen has to bill to remedy this loophole has just passed (two days ago), but it won't take effect until next year.

2) Absentee ballots are not only scanned and tabulated by the computers with the same vulnerabilities as all computer voting systems, but also they using scanned and tabulated on computers that are even worse than average. Many of the specialized computers for the processing of absentees once house internal security audit features that have now been dismantled.

3) Much of absentee signatures are read with automated signature-reading machines, such as "Vote Remote." The problem with "Vote Remote" type equipment is that it can be calibrated up or down on how close of a match an election official desires. Also, to date, there is no regulation on this, and so it obviously can be used as a vote spoilage device.

4) The term "vote by mail" or "absentee voting" is used very loosely with no set of standards. Some states, such as Georgia do not protect the privacy of the ballot. And I hear the selling absentee ballots is an issue in Southern Florida. Oregon has the "Gold Standard," but even there is they say it isn't appropriate for areas with corruption or "Jim Crow" issues. Also, it is notable that no one really even knows how well it has been used there, and that is why the election integrity advocates are hurrying to get an audit protocol in place asap.

5) "Achieve accuracy first, before adding features," I believe should be our criteria. This "vote by mail" term is used loosely to mean almost anything and it should be a well conceived plan that is not another hole in the election system plumbing. In other words, we can no longer demand or legislate new voting procedures before FIRST planning on how they will be implemented with transparency and accuracy.

6) Absentee voting is inherently reliant on the U.S. Post Office, which subcontracts out much of its storage and courier servicing of ballots in manner that is NOT secure.

7) A centralized paradigm that can easily shut the purview (and safety) inherent in having precinct level oversight. When there is a corrupt government who does not acknowledge the checks and balances on the books, such as what we've experienced in California with Conny McCormack with sole dominion over LA elections, we have problems with the centralization of power that effectively locks the citizenry out of the vote counting process.

8) There is an open issue in most states as to what happens if a voter fails to add a stamp, or adds a single stamp but the oversized ballot requires extra postage.

9) Many people fail to realize that using an “absentee ballot” at the precinct, is in most states considered voting provisional. In other words, its guilty until proven innocent in status. They need to be certain you haven’t voted twice and that allows a lot of the behind the scenes decision-making without necessarily the proper oversight. To date, most states do not require counting provisional ballots.

10) There is now a survey the refutes that claim that it increases vote turnout, see: http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009167&ojrss=wsj
But even if it did increase turnout, at what price?


11) Here's an updated pro/con chart that I made based on a survey I conducted of about 200 submissions on the "issues" surrounding vote by mail, see: http://www.califelectprotect.net/a_b/4votebymailchart.doc


CALIFORNIA ELECTION PROTECTION NETWORK
http://www.CAprotect.org