It doesn't ban DRE's. It doesn't end the war. It won't stop global warming (not by the 2008 election, anyhow). It won't do any of that.
But, finally, at long last, lo and behold, the bill you were wating for (without even knowing it), one all election reformers (well...there's always a few :eyes: ) can get behind, join hands, and sing camp fire songs to. Without further ado.
H.R. 6414 Vote Tabulation Audit Act of 2006
*Actually, this bill was introduced in the last congress, the 109th, and would need to be re-introduced (with a few improvements).So 2008 is history -- ALREADY? I don't think so, and here's why:
by Howard Stanislevic
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
snip
On Dec. 7, 2006, just before the end of the 109th Congress, H.R.6414, Rush Holt's
Vote Tabulation Audit Act of 2006 was introduced with no cosponsors and little fanfare. But unlike some of the provisions of this year's H.R.811, the "other" Holt bill seemed to make a lot of sense.
It was drafted last year using a much more collaborative process than H.R.811, and as a result, some of the major mistakes in the bill (such as allowing printouts of cast vote records from DRE memory to be used to correct central tabulator totals -- yikes!) were actually corrected before the bill was introduced. And unlike H.R.811, the provisions of the other Holt bill can be implemented in time for the 2008 elections, or even in time for a practice run in 2007!
The bill as written would rule out all errors in the vote count except within-precinct errors, and although these are the most dangerous and difficult to detect, they are also more difficult to generate than just switching vote tallies around in a Microsoft Access or other commercial off the shelf database program on a central tabulator PC. They say even a chimpanzee can hack an election that way, and even Hand Counted Paper Ballot tallies can be altered at the central tabulator, more properly referred to as the Election Management System (EMS).
snip
There might still be a few bugs in this bill, but at least the major ones were fixed last year and it will get elections officials in every precinct in the nation used to the idea of auditing something. In fact, this bill requires a 100% audit of precinct totals.
Also, some of the better parts of H.R.811 could be included in the 2007 version of the other Holt bill. For example, how about disclosure of all ballot definition programming? And how about an audit of all ballot definition programming before and after every election? It would only take two trained auditors per county to do that -- one from each of the major parties, and of course those from other parties on the ballot should be welcome too!
For those who may not be informed, ballot definition programming error is an unequivocally documented source of vote miscount and is almost never examined or audited by anyone other than the few election insiders who are allowed access to it. It's an open invitation to deliberate malfeasance. But unlike e-voting source code, it's not even a "trade secret" because it's the definition and configuration of the election itself -- not the so-called "intellectual property" of the voting machine companies. Besides, a properly written law could force its disclosure anyway. So what are we waiting for?
snip
Call Holt's office! snip
http://e-voter.blogspot.com/2007/03/so-2008-is-history-already-i-dont-think.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
