Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots

[Wilms]

Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots

The Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots is a non-partisan organization, created with the intention of ensuring that each voter knows that her or his vote counts and is counted as intended. For voters to have confidence in our election system, counting of votes must be perceived as being fair and must BE fair.

We are a training and research center that provides on-site instruction and resources to state and local election officials, poll workers and interested voters on how to run secure hand-counted paper ballots elections and recounts. Hand-counted paper ballots elections are a solution to the fraud and error associated with the use of electronic voting machines (both touchscreens / DRE’s and optical scans) and the control of our elections by a privatized electronic voting machine industry.

Hand-counted paper ballots elections require new protocols to be implemented. Therefore, there is a need for information and training for election officials and other poll workers. We can also help you with ballot boxes and recruitment of hand-counters. Hand-counted paper ballots elections are not only much less expensive than buying, upgrading, maintaining and storing electronic voting machines but also keep the money in the community.

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Sheila Parks, Ed.D., the founder and director of the Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots, is a former teacher and professor with a doctorate degree in Education from Boston University. Parks also designed and presented workshops for the Civil Service Commission and was a consultant for the New Hampshire Department of Education. She also created, hosted and produced a live public affairs interview show on Tufts University Radio. For the last six years, she has been working on voting rights. She has studied and observed hand-counted paper ballots elections in real time and has detailed knowledge in the specifics of hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections. Her publications about HCPB are available in the articles section of this site under the title "For Hand-Counting".

http://www.handcountedpaperballots.org/index.html


Articles About Hand-Counted Paper Ballots Elections
http://www.handcountedpaperballots.org/documents/forpaper.html

[msongs]

1. if only.... we dumped e-vote machines for paper counted by machines nt

[Stevepol]

2. Wow! What a great idea, much much needed. This goes on my Favorites list.

[BeFree]

3. Huh?

What's wrong with the machines counting votes?
The machines are faster, they can be hooked to the internet, and they are trusted by many election officials.

What's the problem?

[Stevepol]

5. I agree and there are other advantages besides those you mention.

For one, the source code which determines how the vote counting will be done is safe from tampering. The courts have ruled them off limits even to the election officials.

Also, only a few hands can mess with the machines. The fewer people who handle the machines, the less chance of rigging.

Finally, since it is a well-known fact that government can't be trusted and using the machines will allow the vote counting to be overseen by private companies, the vote will be counted efficiently and profitably and there will be less chance of partisan politics corrupting the process. What's good for private industry is good for the USA.

[BeFree]

7. Yeppers

Y'know the little old ladies that watch over elections? With the machines they don't have to work so hard. It's not like they have a clue how the machines work anyway.

And the poor overworked officials down at the elections office. They used to have to run and count sometimes as many as 3 elections the whole year - one every 120 days on average. Now half their work is done by the vendors!! They are hap, hap, happy with the machines, their workload has decreased greatly while their budgets go up. Hap, hap, happy..!!

[Blue Owl]

4. This is vitally important

Especially when all our D vs. R elections fall within the 40/60-60/40-percent margins, which they almost always do.

Also let's look at who is really pushing for keeping the system computerized (hackable) -- it's the repukes and blue dogs who want it (i.e. "the system").

Someone please remind me -- when was the last time we trusted a repuke or a blue dog again?

K & R

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. actually, not just republicans, please meet THE DIEBOLD DEMS

allow me to introduce you:

Linda Lamone (Director of Maryland Elections)



Cathy Cox (former SOS of Georgia)



and even
Joe Andrew former DNC Chair worked as PR guy for Diebold

Diebold hires top Dem for PR blitz
Former party chairman make the case for voting to California
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

"With a phone call and a retainer, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has launched former Democratic National Committee chairman Joe Andrew on a 50-state ambassadorship for electronic voting."

Here is some propaganda by Andrew in the article:

"Andrew said computer scientists and e-voting activists are standing in the way of a promising technology, an ATM-like voting computer with such a low error rate that more votes count. And that, said Andrew, should work to the benefit of Democrats."
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_2958901

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. Scotland used to have hand counted paper ballots until they adopted STV

for their local elections. The geniuses recommending STV also
recommended computerized vote counting.

Now after the 2007 debacle, the govt says the computers aren't safe
enough for the parliamentary elections, but necessary for STV elections.

And now the same groups pushing STV to Scotland are pushing it for
UK national elections.

Adopt STV, get rid of hand counted paper ballots, have a rigged election.