WHY DO WE NEED a Voter Verified Paper Ballot?

THE FACTS MAKE IT CLEAR - Paperless touchscreen voting machines are not reliable or secure.

According to the 60,000 member Association for Computing Machinery their consensus is essentially that electronic voting is neither reliable or transparent and the software developed by the manufacturers of voting machines is amateurish.

The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law recent reports say that electronic voting systems, "Pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state and local elections." See the August 28, 2006 Usability Report, and the June 28, 2006 Security Report.

According to Princeton University's Information Technology Policy, "Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks."
also see Princeton Professor Hacks Electronic Voting Machine.

 
IN RECENT ELECTIONS ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES HAVE:
• Forced states to hold new elections
• Added votes not cast by voters
• Subtracted votes cast by voters
• Changed voters choices on the screen
• Given voters the wrong ballot
• Passed pre-election testing and failed on election day
• Handed votes to the wrong candidate
• Reversed election outcomes
• Broken down causing long lines during elections
CENTRE COUNTY’S PURCHASE OF TOUCH SCREEN VOTING MACHINES

Centre County's Board of Elections should have studied the available serious published data comparing the attributes of paper-less touch screen voting machines with optical scan paper ballot machines before purchasing the touch screen system. This report was drafted to inform citizens of several concerns about the choice made by the Board and hopefully influence the Board to reverse their decision.

The mass of available voting machine data derived from reported historical experience across the nation and from respected expert computer scientist evaluation and testimony is over whelming and definitely rejects touch screen voting and favors optical scan voting.
1.
A voter self-marked and verifiable, re-countable paper ballot is essential to provide confidence in the integrity of election results.
2.
 Touch screen machine printed paper ballots are proving to be unreliable, cumbersome for the voter to review (and therefore ignored), and subject to hardware and software malfunction or intentional corruption of printer/software interface. (Centre County touch screen machines do not even provide this form of paper backup, i.e. none at all).
3.
 The optical scan system provides for voter generated verifiable re-countable paper ballots that are electronically counted from the scanned voter marked ballot for a final machine count. The voters paper ballots are then deposited physically in a ballot box for auditing and if necessary a 100% paper recount in the event of a contested election.
4.
The comparative cost of touch screen vs optical scan equipment dramatically favors optical scan equipment, all things considered.
5.
Touch screen system longevity is proving to
be less than 5 years.
6.
Optical scan system longevity is proving to be about 20 years. System maintenance costs beyond the ES&S 1 year warranty are 2 to 3 times higher for the touch screen system than the optical scan system.
7.
 The number of touch screen systems required in larger precincts is 3 to 5 times the numberof optical scan machines required. Precincts with less than 1,000 voters can be combined where the ballots are identical using optical scan equipment, Centre County may be able to reduce precinct count from 85 to perhaps less then 70. Study and public response required.
8.
 The average number of poll workers required in Centre County using touch screens would be about 2 times the number needed if the optical scan equipment had been purchased.
9.
 The much larger and 3 times as many touch
Screen systems requires far more secure,
environmentally controlled storage space
than would the optical scan system.
10.
 The combined 10 year estimated cost comparison from even a cursory assessment of the factors listed in 5. through 10. is rather astonishing given that the 10th year would require the third purchase of the more costly unreliable touch screen system. Just one set of optical scan equipment would most likely keep on chugging for an additional 10 years.

Petition the Centre County Board of Elections for a Voter Verified Paper Ballot
Download the Petition that appeared in the Centre Daily Times on Sept 17, 2006