A nonpartisan look at DRE voting machines

From Voting Machines ProCon.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit website that presents facts, studies, and pro and con statements related to direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines. Throughout this website, the term 'electronic voting machines' refers to direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines and not optical-scan machines. Although optical-scan machines use an electronic reader to tabulate the vote totals, voters mark their selections on a paper ballot and are not directly recording their votes into the machine.

"Originally developed in the 1970s, direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines have become increasingly used nationwide. After the 2000 US presidential election's troubles with "pregnant” and "hanging” chads and the subsequent passage of the 2002 Help America Vote Act which swelled use of DREs, electronic voting technology became widely debated.

Proponents argue that electronic voting machines are secure, able to unambiguously capture the intent of a voter, capable of preventing residual votes, reliable, easy to use, calculate and report voting results faster, and are accessible to disabled, illiterate, and non-English speaking voters.

Opponents of electronic voting machines argue that DREs give too much power over public elections to their private manufacturers, are vulnerable to hacking and other forms of tampering, do not allow for meaningful audits and recounts, and do not offer voters a trustworthy way to verify their votes."

Remember, "voting turnout and activism means spreading the word!"

Trust the Vote Project: Voting System (De)certification – Another Example of the Broken Market (1 of 2)

"Some observers have opined that vendors of flawed voting system products should pay: whether damages, or fines, or doing the migration gratis, or something. But consider this deeper question, from UCB and Princeton’s Joe Hall:

'Can this market support a regulatory/business model where vendors can’t charge for upgrades and have to absorb costs due to flaws that testing and certification didn’t find? (And every software product, period, has them).The funding for a high level of quality assurance has to come from somewhere, and that’s not voting system customers right now. Perhaps we’re getting to the point where the amount of effort it takes to produce a robust voting system and get it certified — at the vendor’s expense — creates a cost that customers are not willing or able to pay when the product gets to market.'

PS – Part Two, coming soon: a way out of the spiral."

The entire article, with commenting, is at http://www.trustthevote.org/voting-system-decertification-another-example-of-the-broken-market-1-of-2 

Remember, "voting turnout and activism means spreading the word!"

IthacaJournal.com: New York Governor Cuomo signs bill to let villages continue to use old lever voting machines

"[State of New York] villages that run their own elections can continue to use mechanical-lever voting machines until the end of next year, under legislation signed Monday by [New York] Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Villages asked for more time to switch over to the state's new voting system of paper ballots and optical scanners. The new equipment was in use statewide for the first time last year.
Some villages that run their own elections faced obstacles switching to the new technology."

The entire article, with commenting, is at http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20110228/NEWS01/102280355/1124/BUSINESS02/Cuomo-signs-bill-let-villages-continue-use-old-lever-voting-machines 

Again, thanks to Voting News blog.

http://diigo.com/0czh9
Quotes:

An Important New Proposal for Voting Machines | Verified Voting Blog

• malfunctions – and their consequence, disenfranchisement – could have been avoided had election officials and/or public advocates known about earlier problems and had an opportunity to fix them

ES&S Voting Machines is threatening maintenance contracts with local election officials

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Government reform orgs. deliver news on major events within their areas of expertise.
From: Black Box Voting

Voting vendor: "Use unauthorized system or we punish you on maintenance agreement"

If your state uses ES&S voting machines, this is a public education message to keep you informed about important public policy issues.

Wisconsin citizen John Washburn has obtained public records showing that Election Systems & Software, citing murky needs to alter hardware on all computerized voting systems (M100 scanners, AutoMARK, Unity servers, iVotronics), has failed to gain federal approval and therefore failed to gain state approval, so it is threatening its maintenance contracts with local election officials.

This is equivalent to your car dealer warning you that unless you let them make an adjustment to your car that makes it violate your state's emissions laws, they will punish you by charging you extra on a maintenance agreement you've already paid for, or refuse to service your car.

As Washburn correctly points out, it is difficult to imagine any part common to all these systems. We don't know what ES&S wants to change, but we do know that if election officials allow this, a private company will gain inside access to voting machines to add, delete, or switch something, without really telling us what they are doing. [...]

We cannot have democratic elections when private companies run elections on secret software and information is hidden from the public. The core problem is Freedom of Information and -- once achieved in elections, the core solution must always involve individual citizen vigilance, just as the founders of this nation intended. [...]


>All Things Reform Mobile: allthingsreform.mofuse.mobi >Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 (not toll-free) >US House/Senate Mobile: bit.ly/members >Contact your reps tips: bit.ly/dear >Shortened All Things Reform URL: bit.ly/dw

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• Voters allege e-voting machines switching votes (infoworld.com)

Tell your congress members to return Election Day to voter-verified ballots

Image via WikipediaThis voting season leading up to General Election Day (and beyond in some districts) has been a success. No major breakdowns. That is, you can only assume so, as most of the voting machines used does not produce a voter-verified ballot. So was it a success? We shall never know.

As a result of the ballot-counting problems during the 2000 presidential elections, electronic voting machines replaced the old punch card ballot machines across the US. Now, most voter machines cannot verify whether they calculate correctly the vote totals.

Trust in government relies on the transparency with the voters of ballot counts. Only machines using voter-verified ballots qualifies for this solution. The paper ballot- though not high tech- is nevertheless a hard record of each vote that can be counted before the public.

The federal government in Washington, DC has the power to reform our voting systems across the country. Tell your US Rep. and two US Senators to write and pass a bill mandating the use of voter-verified ballot machines, and renew trust to a greater level between we, the people and our elected representatives. Additional information on this campaign for the 2010 elections can be found at www.PaperBallot.info.


>All Things Reform Mobile: allthingsreform.mofuse.mobi >Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 (not toll-free) >US House/Senate Mobile: bit.ly/members >Contact your reps tips: bit.ly/dear >Shortened All Things Reform URL: bit.ly/dw