September
7, 2007
Bill calls for verifiable ballots
Mary Vollero
Bellefonte
Have hope. Maybe the federal government will save us from
the faulty,
paperless, touch-screen machines the Centre County Board
of
Commissioners chose.
H.R. 811, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility
Act of
2007, a nonpartisan bill coming up for a vote in the House,
would
provide a voter-verified paper ballot and mandatory audits
for the
entire country.
It also would provide the necessary funds for states and
counties to comply.
H.R. 811 ensures that a voter-verified ballot would be
dropped in a
box anonymously so that it could be used if there are
any problems
with voting machines or if there are questions about election
results.
Problems have been rampant since touch-screens have been
popularized.
Votes have been lost and switched, but the biggest problem
is that
Americans have lost confidence in the election process.
Concerned Voters of Centre County delivered 216 signatures,
collected
in only three days, to the office of Rep. John Peterson,
R-Pleasantville, urging him to vote yes to H.R. 811 and
no to an
unfunded mandate that would delay compliance until after
2008.
Another amendment would restrict the use of direct recording
devices.
This would be ideal.
No matter what kind of voting machine is used, a voter-verified
paper
ballot should be a no-brainer.
Group
takes on voting machines
By Anne Danahy - adanahy@centredaily.com
A group of Pennsylvania voters, including one from Centre
County, can challenge the validity of the state's touch-screen
voting machine, the Commonwealth Court has ruled.
The
decision, issued Thursday, overruled Secretary of the
Commonwealth Pedro Cortés' 16 preliminary objections
to a lawsuit that 25 voters,including Bellefonte resident
Mary Vollero, filed in August 2006.
The suit's goal is to force the state to get rid of
paperless, touch-screen voting machines that the state
approved and 57 counties use.
The state had argued the lawsuit, saying it had no basis
under existing law.
Vollero said Pennsylvania is one of about 12 states
that still allow paperless voting machines and she is
happy the suit can move forward.
"Hopefully this case can put an end to that so
we can have paperless voting systems decertified,"
Vollero said.
Vollero and other opponents of the machines, known as
direct recording electronic systems, say there is no
way to independently verify that the DREs are recording
and tallying votes correctly.
The court, in a 4-3 ruling, agreed. "In our view,
the fact that electors have no way of knowing whether
the votes they cast on a DRE have been recorded and
will be counted gives electors a direct and immediate
interest in the outcome of this litigation," Judge
Rochelle S. Friedman wrote in the majority opinion.
In a statement issued Friday, the Department of State
noted that the ruling does not decide the case but simply
allows it to continue.
"Pennsylvanians should know that testing protocols
and electoral procedures are in place to ensure fair,
accurate and accessible elections," Cortés
said in a statement.
"The systems have worked well in the commonwealth,
and some counties have used direct-recording electronic
machines successfully for 15 to 20 years."
The statement goes on to say that to get state certification,
voting systems have to be approved by both federally-recognized
and state-approved experts. Centre County voters are
slated to use touch-screen voting machines in the May
primary.
The federal Help America Vote Act forced Centre and
other counties that used punch-card ballots to replace
their systems with ones approved by the state under
the new regulations.
The act followed widespread voting problems in Florida
during the 2000 election.
The Centre County Board of Elections voted 2-1 in June
2006 to approve buying iVotronic touch-screen machines.
Chairman Chris Exarchos said at the time that the touch-screens
are easy to use and secure.
He said the state, not the county, prevents the machines
from being able to produce voter-verified paper trails.
The state's position has been that the paper roll that
could be part of iVotronic machines would violate voter
secrecy, because paper print-outs could be matched up
with voter records.
The county decision upset some voters who had urged
that the countyuse an optical-scan system, because that
\ system has a paper trail that can be recounted.
With optical-scans, voters make their choices by using
a pen to fill in ovals next to candidates' names, then
feed their ballots into a counting machine.
"The goal is to have a secure, verifiable and transparent
election," said Marian Schneider, one of the attorneys
to file the suit on behalf of the voters.
Anne
Danahy can be reached at 231-4648
A
shorter version of this editorial appeared in the CDT
in March, 2007
WHO ARE THE EXPERTS ANYWAY?
The integrity of paper-less touch screen computer
voting was challenged in the 2006 general election.
The problems revealed were sufficient to determine that
this junk apparatus should be abandoned with dispatch.
An insidious suspicion lingers like rotten limburger
that the problems may have been far greater but are
now securely hidden, entombed in cyberspace for all
eternity. Lack of paper verification of election results
renders continued use of this machinery abhorrent.
The vast majority of computer scientists agree and non
scientists are now crowding the stage; educated, active
legislators are entering the fray as the sun finally
shines on this tragedy.
A shrinking minority of scientists led by the famed
Carnegie Mellon Professor Michael J Shamos who promote
paperless voting creates suspicion of flawed common
sense if not infection by some other unspeakable ailment.
The costly error made by Pennsylvania’s Secretary
of State Pedro Cortes on advice from Shamos to certify
paper-less voting is a looming scandal. Hundreds of
thousands of woman/man hours have been expended by dedicated,
unpaid, concerned citizens to ’right’ this
mess.
Some people call Shamos a nice person. What’s
nice got to do with it? Interestingly, Shamos was quoted
in the Dec 10 issue of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette following
the 2006 election that touch screen voting performance
is a scandal. WHAT!! Seems he is a ‘too late blooming
expert’. Frankly, I’m not ready to make
nice given this expensive Shamos/Cortes blunder until
this junk machinery is deployed to stabilize landfills.
-Bob Brownlee
A
shorter version of this editorial appeared in the CDT
on Feb 18, 2007
regarding how Commissioners Exarchos and
Dershem voted for the wrong voting machines:
Chris
Exarchos and Steve Dershem have declared their desires
to be elected again as Centre County Commissioners in
2007. If the election were based on name recognition
alone, they would be a shoo-ins. Voters who care about
Centre County would be advised to weigh more than that.
I write particularly about the voting process in Centre
County. The voting process is very important to all
citizens. I do not trust ours.
Mr. Exarchos and Mr. Dershem voted against voting machines
with voter-verified paper trails. Instead, against all
advice and exhortations to the contrary by national
press, computer scientists, and Concerned Voters of
Centre County, they authorized the purchase by the Centre
County government of unreliable and non-auditable electronic
machines. Their two-to-one vote (Democrat Leonard Holliday
dissented) vote resulted in Centre Countians casting
votes in a general election on machines that they could
not trust.
Messrs. Exarchos and Dershem voted for this diabolical,
clearly faulty, very expensive, unmaintable process
even after many citizens, the national press, and members
of Concerned Voters of Centre County informed the Commissioners
of those machines' shortcomings and implored the Commissioners
to choose voter-verified paper trail voting machines.
Was this vote for a faulty, unmaintainable, very expensive
system the result of pressure from government higher-ups
and/or lobbyists?
These gentlemen voted against the clearly expressed
wishes of their constituents and in favor of machines
now being rejected by so many governments across the
United States.
Centre County voters may well decide to vote against
Mr. Exarchos and Mr. Dershem for Centre County Commissioner
in this year’s election.
We need Centre County Commissioners who THINK and CARE
clearly about Centre County's best interests in many
directions. We do NOT want Commissioners who follow
blindly, or with possible desires to curry favor elsewhere.
Nancy Crane
State College
Protect
sanctity of votes (Jan. 10, 2007)
For less than a dollar, security seals for
iVotronic voting machines can be purchased on the ES&S
Web site. These seals protected memory features on the
iVotronic machines used in Centre County during November
elections. As a poll watcher, I observed officials replace
seals on an iVotronic machine repeatedly as they probed
the memory card area of the malfunctioning machine.
I have admiration for those who staffed our voting precincts
but many machines were stored in unsecured locations
the night before the election and easily could have
been tampered with. We keep asking our military to make
ultimate sacrifices for our democracy, and yet we fail
to protect adequately our most precious right of voting
for and electing our governing representatives. We deserve
voting machines that produce a voter-verified paper
ballot and mandatory random recounts and audits. Our
current machine, the iVotronic, does not protect our
vote nor our democracy.
Brenda Black
Halfmoon Township
Helping
America vote (Dec. 9, 2006)
A recent headline proclaimed, "Federal
agency: Voting machines not secure." The draft
report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
one of the government's premier research centers, is
the
most sweeping condemnation of paperless voting systems
by a federal agency. The NIST is an august group of
scientists capable of making correct assessments of
voting machine security. A subsequent headline stated,
"Federal panel refuses to mandate paper records."
The Technical Guidelines Development Committee advising
the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission deadlocked
6-6 on the proposal. Eight votes are needed to pass
the requirement for a paper record. Let us hope the
Elections Assistance Commission ignores this insidious
advice. The Guidelines Development Committee was formed
during the Bush administration. No surprises here. The
naysayers on the Technical Guidelines Development Committee
indicated it would place too great a burden on election
officials and that the process could not be completed
until 2009 or beyond. They had other disingenuous remarks
not worth repeating. We need paper-trail machines well
before 2008. New Help America Vote Act funding should
pay the bill. It may cost another $3 billion or so,
equivalent to the cost of two to three weeks of funding
the continuing Iraq war. Let's spread democracy on the
North American continent, have a national regime change
in 2008 and a Centre County regime change in 2007. It's
not too late or too expensive.
Robert R. Brownlee, Millheim
Voters
need paper trail (Nov. 22, 2006)
I found voting on a touch-screen machine was, indeed,
as easy as ordering deli items at the gas station. However,
the fact that these machines do not generate a paper receipt
-- like at the gas station -- is disturbing.
I want a receipt to check that my vote is correct in the
same manner that I check that my deli order is correct.
After verifying that the machine printed my vote correctly,
I would drop my voting receipt in a ballot box before
I left the polling place. Voter privacy would be
protected.
Using touch-screen machines without such a voter-verified
paper trail means votes can be lost if computers malfunction.
In the case of a contested election requiring a recount,
hard copies (the receipts) would be necessary to ensure
that the system's security had not been
breached.
A voter-verified paper trail does not mean that we have
to return to the days of paper ballots. Optical scanners
are a good compromise.
More information is available on the Web site of the nonpartisan
Concerned Voters of Centre County: http://concernedvoters.org.
If we must keep the touch-screen machines, please give
us our receipts.
Bills introduced in the General Assembly last year that
would have required a voter-verified paper trail apparently
never made it to the floor. Our legislators should support
legislation written for this
purpose.
Caryl Byrne, College Township
Machines
jeopardize vote (Dec. 2, 2006)
Twice last week, the Centre Daily Times highlighted Centre
County Board of Commissioners Chairman Chris Exarchos'
quote: "As long as we have good people running the
elections, we have good outcomes. Anyone thinking there's
a fail-safe system out there, I think is in for a surprise."
People are not the problem, the voting machines are. And
while there is no fail-safe system, there is a better
system.
The optical-scan system provides a paper ballot that can
be used for audits and recounts.
It seems disingenuous to imply that the people running
the elections can ensure a good outcome when people actually
have little to do with counting the votes.
Mother Teresa could run our elections, but without a method
to verify, audit and recount the ballots, we could never
be sure that the electronic machines tabulated the votes
correctly.
Even if elections go well, that does not indicate a "good
result." The biggest problem is that results cannot
be independently verified.
Our election officers did a fine job on Election Day,
but the machines caused problems.
Vote switching was reported in Centre County and across
Pennsylvania by Republicans who wanted the touch-screens
impounded.
Almost 20 percent of our precincts had problems opening
and more than 60 voters left before completing their ballots.
If legislation ultimately requires a paper record, Centre
County will have to purchase expensive, problematic printers.
The board of elections would be wise to trade our current
touch-screen systems for optical-scan voting machines.
Mary Vollero, Bellefonte
A
problem with the system (Dec. 2, 2006)
Centre County Board of Commissioners Chairman Chris Exarchos
said, "As long as we have good people running the
elections, we have good outcomes."
While this sounds reassuring, such broad generalizations
by a member of our elections committee are simply disingenuous.
The problem with our current election setup is not with
the people. The problem is with the system we have implemented.
Simply put, if you put good people in a bad system, the
bad system wins every time. We are already seeing the
beginning of this with our most recent election.
In Centre County, 20 percent of the precincts failed to
comply with election procedures when opening the polls.
Audit logs from the central tabulating system are missing
and are unaccounted for. Many of our voting machines,
which are supposed to be stored under lock and key at
the elections office, were simply left unattended at polling
locations or stored in the garages of election officials
the night before the election.
With the system in place, we have no way of performing
an effective recount. A computer glitch or a programming
error has the potential to throw our entire election results
into doubt.
We need more than good people running our elections. We
deserve a good system as well.
John J. O'Hara, State College
Article
CDT, page 1, Nov 23,
2006
Board hears from unhappy voters
Election certified as some grumble about machines
By Anne Danahy
adanahy@centredaily.com
BELLEFONTE -- The Centre County Board of Elections certified
the recent general election Wednesday but not before hearing
from five people unhappy with the touch-screen voting
machines.
Ron Andrews, of Bellefonte, described himself as "one
of the older voters" who had problems with touch-screens.
He said the man ahead of him had forgotten to hit the
"Vote" button needed to cast a ballot.
Then, when Andrews tried to vote, the wrong candidate
was selected.
"These machines are not set correctly, as far as
I'm concerned," Andrews said.
Centre County had its first general election using touch-screen
voting machines Nov. 7. The county made the change from
the old punch-card ballots to comply with state and federal
regulations.
"We're going to find out exactly what the issue was
and get that resolved," said Commissioner Steve Dershem,
elections board chairman, in response to Andrews' comments.
The touch-screen machines do not produce a voter-verified
paper ballot, upsetting some residents who say that without
that the elections can never be independently confirmed.
Mary Vollero,chairwoman of Concerned Voters of Centre
County, presented the commissioners with a report outlining
problems the group says occurred Nov. 7 and possible solutions.
The group's final recommendation, though, is for the county
to switch from the touch-screens to optical scanners.
With optical scanner systems, voters use pens to fill
in ovals next to candidates' names, then feed the ballots
into an automated counter.
Dershem and commissioners Chairman Chris Exarchos both
said they would favor some type of paper trail with the
new system. But, Exarchos said, alternate voting systems
also had problems.
"As long as we have good people running the elections,
we have good outcomes," Exarchos said. "Anyone
thinking there's a fail-safe system out there, I think
is in for a surprise."
Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648. |
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