Texas Safe Voting reviewed the videotapes of the January 2004 closed meetings used to review voting systems for certification (the videos were acquired by open records requests).
What we saw may shock you. Here's a two minute clip, in Windows and Quicktime format. The clips show how the state of Texas examines voting machines for certification.
A group of examiners reviews voting systems, and makes certification recommendations to the Secretary of State. You might think that these examiners would conduct a comprehensive testing process, assessing the voting machines against a set of detailed critieria and discussing the underlying code.
But there was nothing on the videotapes that resembled a testing process. The examiners didn't start with a set of criteria to test against. They didn't even start with a comparison the new machines to the older versions. Instead, the Diebold representatives gave a demo. Reviewers voted on the machines and looked at the final output. A few of the committee members watched closely, while others chatted together.
The examiners found out, apparently by accident, that using Diebold’s provisional voting system, it was possible for two voters to vote using the same ID number -- or for one voter to vote multiple times. In practice, the Diebold representative explained, they give out paper stickers to make sure that each person votes only once.
For provisional voters (those who have recently moved into the precinct or cannot prove their residence) the Diebold system didn't meet the most basic criteria of a voting system -- one person one vote. Diebold didn't disclose this flaw before the examination. And -- this system had already been certified in the state of Texas. This system was used in the last election in El Paso. In its discussion about the legal legitimacy of two votes recorded under the same ID number, examiners realized that there would be no way to tell good votes from fraudulent ones, and only strict adherence to the “sticker” procedure would prevent a problem.
But--at a minimum--an electronic voting machine should be able to issue a unique ID number for each voter. There is something wrong with a certification system that lets this happen. We need to tell the Secretary of State that the process of certifying voting systems should be open to the public.
To download a model letter for the Secretary of State, click here.
A copy of the Texas Safe Voting press release is here.
Wired.com reports on a recent election in Napa County California, where a paper trail enabled a recount of 11,000 votes.
Ed Felten summarizes and comments:
Napa County uses paper ballots that are marked by the voter with a pen or pencil, and counted by an optical scanner machine.ue to a miscalibrated scanner, some valid votes went uncounted, as the scanner failed to detect the markings on some ballots. The problem was discovered during a random recount of one percent of precincts. The ballots are now being recounted with properly calibrated scanners, and the recount might well affect the election's result.
Although a mistake was made in configuring the one scanner, the good news is that the system was robust enough to catch the problem. The main source of this robustness lies in the paper record, which could be manually examined to determine whether there was a problem, and could be recounted later when a problem was found. Another important factor was the random one percent recount, which brought the problem to light.
Our biggest fear in designing election technology should not be that we'll make a mistake, but that we'll make a mistake and fail to notice it. Paper records and random recounts help us notice mistakes and recover from them. Paperless e-voting systems don't.
The Battle for Accountable Voting Systems is a lecture that e-voting activist and Stanford CS prof David Dill gave a couple of weeks ago. His talk strikes a balance between lay accessibility and geek rigor and it's followed by a lively panel discussion (there's some actual interaction among the participants!) that includes Adina Levin of EFF-Austin/ACLU/Austinbloggers fame.
Bottom line: if you don't want the next election to be stolen by forces even more insidious than hanging chads, let your county commissioners and state legislators know that all election systems must include a voter-verifiable audit trail (which in 2004 technology means a paper trail). Listen to the webcast for more info.
via Prentiss Riddle
I've heard election officials protest that it would be risky and unreliable to add a printer to electronic voting systems, for fear of paper jams, running out of supplies, and other reliability problems.
Yet, when I voted today on the Hart Intercivic system used in Travis County, they already depend on a printer. A thermal printer, of the sort used to print labels and bar codes, printed out a small slip with the voter number used to sign into the voting machine.
I was a printer industry analyst at the beginning of my career. There are many such printers designed to be used on factory floors, under much harsher conditions than a temperate voting booth.
The argument that printers can't work in a polling place doesn't hold water, since printers are already in service.
Debbie Russell reported that a voter tried to write in a candidate today at Precinct 464 and couldn't make it work. The workers there told him that they work at SOME polling places, but not others.
Did anyone else see this?
In Precinct 340, Tom Dynia reported that one of the eslate machines was taken out of service after a voter was not able to refrain from casting a vote in one of the races on the ballot.
Any more notes of voting glitches? Report to the Secretary of State Elections division at 1-800-252-VOTE(8683), and let us know in the comments