I have ONE problem with Rush Holt's Bill to BAN Touchscreen Voting

[Tigress DEM]

HERE IS THE "Petition" I'm being asked to sign and I REALLY WANT to support banning touchscreen voting, but I am not sure THIS is the bill.

I live in Minnesota and believe the automatic recount system that we have here IS fair, but it is for "CLOSE RACES" and "CLOSE" by NO DEFINITION I KNOW would be "LESS THAN 80% OF THE VOTE".

I believe Holt's bill will have nearly EVERY race recounted by hand because it's demanding "election audits" for EVERY federal election where the winning candidate receives less than 80% of the vote.

OBAMA only got 52.9% of the popular vote, so this OBVIOUS WIN would become an automatic hand recount in Rush Holt's bill. EVEN the landslide electoral win of 365 electoral votes to 173 would NOT QUALIFY. 80% of 538 electoral votes is 430.

Popular Vote
OBAMA 69,498,215
McCAIN 59,948,240

Percentage of Popular Vote
OBAMA 52.9%
McCAIN 45.7%

Percentage of Electoral Vote
OBAMA About 68%
McCAIN About 32%




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I urge you to co-sponsor Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act to ban unverifiable touchscreen voting.

This bill requires verifiable and accessible voting systems in federal elections with paper ballots marked by voters by hand or through the use of non-tabulating ballot marking devices.

It will ensure that voters in every precinct across the United States are guaranteed the right in a federal election to cast their votes using paper ballots. It will require election audits for every federal election where the winning candidate receives less than 80 percent of the vote.

The past several election cycles have demonstrated that electronic voting systems present a serious threat to the integrity of our elections. Touchscreen machines (DRE's) have proven to be unreliable and insecure for the counting and recording of votes. Further, touch-screens repeatedly malfunction during elections, causing long lines and disenfranchising thousands of voters. And touch-screens provide no opportunity to conduct a meaningful recount or audit of an election. As a result, voters throughout the country have lost confidence in the accuracy of reported electoral outcomes in jurisdictions using touch-screens.

More than a century ago, the United States Supreme Court stated in the case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886), that the right to vote is "a fundamental political right" which is "preservative of all rights." The Holt Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act is a critical measure for helping to protect this most basic right.
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THOUGHTS?

[Tigress DEM]

1. Franken/Coleman statistics for comparison

Coleman
1,211,642 votes 41.99%

Franken had 1,211,167 votes 41.98%

Dean Barkley of the Independence Party
15.16%

Minnesota State law provides for automatic recounts in races decided by a half-percentage point or less.

I could see MAYBE going up 1-5% but not REQUIRING the winning candidate to achieve 80% Victory to avoid the expense of a hand recount which is the strictist definition of an "election audit" and if it's a "broader definition" say having the election judges sign the paper trail and keep tally so that if percentages JUMP afterwards, THEN THAT is something to have at ANY percentage.


?????????

[snot]

2. For what it's worth, Netherlands Returns to Pencils and Paper Ballots:

http://wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English

[Tigress DEM]

4. Yeah, then all that matters is WHO is COUNTING the VOTES?

Checks and balances, transparency and a paper trail to allow challenges when election fraud is suspected are needed no matter HOW the votes get entered or counted.

Electronic voting or internet voting are just TOO susceptible to massive cheating that can't be caught without a paper trail and a fair process.

BUT hand counting every election whether it seems fair and square or not just because the winner didn't carry 80% of the vote is just a bit bizzare.

[aquart]

5. Vote counting should be a public responsibility like jury duty.

With some local people being counters and the others being witnesses.

[Tigress DEM]

7. I really like that idea -- AND Election Day as a 1/2 day or full Holiday.

AND what IF you HAD to cast a vote FOR / AGAINST or NO OPINION unless you had a medical exclusion?

THAT might be pushing it. :shrug:

[elocs]

8. There are people I would never want to see on a jury

and I certainly wouldn't want them involved in vote counting even if there were witnesses.

[Land Shark]

10. Actually, the more distrust there's in counting, the more people are WATCHED - the better the result

Simple example: Customers watching bank tellers for mistakes. Banks have found no more accurate way to count cash than by hand, especially when their are one or more parties trying to catch the other person in errors. The powerful part of this is that distrust gets translated into a trustable RESULT provided there's good chain of custody and full transparency and high distrust (or caution, in the alternative)

We count our cash coming out of an ATM by hand, even though it's nearly always accurate. Accuracy is a red herring. Seeing is believing.

Our ballots are more precious than cash

[elocs]

11. And who watches the watchers? And on and on and on.

Since it's not going to happen, this is all just speculative discussion.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

14. who watches the anonymous programmers. We the people can observe the counts and DO

we have post election audits in my state, we also have partial recounts and full recounts.
The public is welcome and they do show up.
The media comes too.

[aquart]

15. And yet there are places it does happen.

The vote count is a public process and people sit and count while others watch.

Not to mention we have streaming TV, and telephones that can take an hour of video.

[Chulanowa]

3. My thoughts is thus...

If we're seeing candidates catching 80% of the vote in most elections, something is very wrong anyway. either the opposition is too weak to matter (which is in its way, harmful for democracy) or we're going to start using the term "Dear Leader"

[Tigress DEM]

6. I agree with your train of thought in general.

HOWEVER, let's say that over the next four years the transparency of the current adminstration reveals to the general public what we here at DU have already done our homework and discovered, that the previous administration was corrupt and working AGAINST America's interests in nearly every sense of the words.

AND THEN people are led to vote for candidates with integrity and proven track records of going up against the corrupt administration or the new dog and pony show the retufs try to trot out in such an environment.

YOU COULD GET EXTREME WINS that would be legitimate.

BUT YES, in general candidates will have pluses and minuses and people will agree or disagree with their stands and pick the one they like the most or hate the least.

DEOMOCRACY AT IT'S FINEST. :crazy:

[elocs]

9. Is this the law of unintended consequences at work? n/t

[Wilms]

12. I don't think the bill says that.

I looked for the bill and didn't find it, but Verified Voting's outline says the following:

• Routine random audits must be conducted by hand count in at least 3% of the precincts in all Federal elections, and at least 5% or 10% in very close races, but races need not be audited when the winning candidate received at least 80% of the vote (pages 48-50, proposed Section 322(a); and page 48, proposed Section 321(a)(2)(B)).

http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6691

It seems the petition issuer got it wrong. Welcome to the world of election reform.

[Stevepol]

13. Hand-counts of votes used to audit an election can never be bad IMO.

If the winner receives 80% or some very large majority of the total vote, it seems highly unlikely that any hanky panky took place, but it's certainly possible. Clint Curtis's prototype converted whatever the actual result was into a small % win for the chosen candidate, in this case the Repub running in S. FL (Tim Feeney). There's really no way to know what the real result of the election is when you're using touch screens (optiscans either if they're not audited), so there's no way to know if it's 80% or 55% or maybe actually only 46%. But an audit of a certain percentage of randomly chosen precincts after the election and comparing the hand-counted audit number with the alleged machine count in those precincts would likely catch most attempts to defraud the system and disenfranchise the voter.

When the vote is counted in total secrecy without verification (especially using machines that have been shown in every study to be prone to unintended malfunction as well as highly vulnerable to hacking or patching or fraudulent programming, in particular by insiders), it's impossible to have a democracy, much less a fair election. HCPB is the best way to go by far.

[Bill Bored]

16. Holt's "recounts" could be as little as 3% of the vote!

The max required is only 10%, no matter how close the election is -- even if it's a tie vote -- unless some unnamed discrepancy or "cause for concern" is found. It would not preempt State recount laws for close elections such as MN's though.

If you're concerned about too much auditing of elections under the Holt bill, that's the least of your problems!

It's true that in very large states, 3% hand counts may actually be more than necessary for landslide elections though.

The not-so-clever folks in the Committee on House Administration decided to just FORGET ABOUT auditing any contests in which a candidate gets at least 80% of the vote. That's their way of not wasting time and money on hand counts. I think it's wrong.

The right way would be to use the Alternative Audit provisions in Holt's bill, as opposed to the mandatory ones, which essentially suck.

But in any case, none of these provision are based on the popular vote or the electoral vote. They are based on statewide results for Senate and President and CD-wide results for US House races.

[demodonkey]

17. The audit provisions in the bill are the floor, not the ceiling.

There's nothing in the Holt bill to stop activists in every state to work on their state passing and using something better in terms of election audits, and to use what they pass under the Alternative Audit provision.

In the meantime, it is essential to get something TO audit, and we need to get rid of DREs. Every vote in the nation needs to be protected with some sort of auditable, hand-marked paper. This bill will do that immediately for paperless DRE states, and in the long run when all states will have to switch to voter-marked paper ballots.

Once we get the Holt bill passed we can and should immediately start working through the states to expand and improve what we have. Again, remember, this bill is the floor not a ceiling. In the meantime it will protect votes in recalcitrant states that are still voting now on paperless DREs because their legislatures simply can't or won't pass anything decent.

The new Holt bill is the only thing on the horizon that has a chance of doing anything nationally to protect 2010 and 2012. I SUPPORT IT, and urge everyone else to do so too.

http://tinyurl.com/ActionAlertHoltBill-509

[Bill Bored]

18. No state will count a single vote more than they absolutely have to. You can count on that. nt

[BeFree]

19. I like it too

This is good news!! Now, what happens when the audit shows a problem?

[agentbluescreen]

20. An " election" is a pubic trial of establishment

Libertarian counter-socialism is the only "-ism" that seeks unity and anti-imperialism through disestablishment of special-interest socialists!

In our representative publican system you vote away your vote, giving it to a publican, or you vote to vote away your publican! (politician in modern parlance)

Quotes from: George_Washington

"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn."

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

It is freedom of speech and expression more than any selfish and arrogant "democracy" that guarantees all of our freedoms through Liberty! Freedom to be united despite difference is contagious, you must preserve yours for others who unite with you to have theirs !

Good libertarian counter-established-socialist common sense about the paramount importance of unity should allow you to select the correct publican and/or condemn a biased one. Also the good libertarian counter-socialist common sense of your judicial system should enforce the libertarian freedoms ordered by our supreme constitutional paper-dictator of freedoms against corrupt special-interest socialist establishments.

But when a hideous oppressive theocratic tyranny like Marxist or so-called "Christian" religious socialism, Monetarian-monopolist corporate-socialism or Militarian terror-socialism becomes established it immediately seeks to obliterate liberty and replace it with it's established tyrannies

In our system an election is a pubic trial of the crimes of establishment, where we should acquit the most innocent and/or condemn the guilty! Our sacred polling systems are therefore judicial in nature, and poll workers are to be in all cases impartial jurists, just as elections should be open public trials.


Poll workers should all be chosen and appointed by a Court of local jurisdiction to meet electoral needs just in time for an election by the by Jury selection process and paid as Jurors are. They should never be affiliated with any party nor appointed nor hired by any political appointees.

Special Interest Socialist "parties" could scrutinize such electoral jury selections by challenging the prospective Electoral Polling Jurist in court. they could still have observers in polling places but we must never have party affiliated nor party beholden "poll workers" or much worse corporatist "contractors" participating in electoral jurist conduct nor oversight.

In our version of 'democracy' an election is a trial of the Representative Publicans by the people! We dismiss the guilty and thus agree to forfeit and give our democratic rights to the innocent.

It is ONLY the security and independence of the process itself (blind justice) that can ONLY fairly guarantee the faithful tally! Having people with political agendas or political appointees put in charge of that/those tasks is totally wrong, and the critical flaw in the current system.

While it would be nice to be able to reassure yourself of how your vote was registered (long after the fact) only a paper ballot you put in the secure box can do that. It's the security of those ballots (there is none electronically) and the security of how they are tallied and archived that is the flaw. Politicians and their political appointees, established political party members and corporatists should have no hand in those tasks without independent oversight by honest, responsible, unbiased and randomly chosen Electoral Jurists..

You know at some point in history some idiots in England got together and near-unanimously "elected" a tribal mafia warlord dictator for eternity, just as the people of France and Germany did upon several unfortunate occasions later , that did not make either a 'democracy', even though they occasionally were given things and pre-chosen people to vote for...

Representative Publican-ism is as old as the Roman Senate and no more a 'democracy' than is a House of Lords, or a Council of Nicaea, or Board of Directors or a Union Hall. They just seem to appear to work for the egalitarian good of the public, occasionally.

In any event any 'democracy' even that that is less than 33.3% dissenting, is still tyranny to an individual or minority, and that is what the paper monarchy (constitution) of Supremely Lawful and hard to change Libertarian -'counter-socialism' (Liberty against Establishment) IS ALL ABOUT

Dis- establishment -arianism!

America is a Lawful Constitutional Republic of Liberty - non judicial 'democracy' should have had as little as possible to do with it!