Washblog

If you have a poll site's Inspector's List, Poll Books, AVU Encoding Slips, and the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), you can determine how everyone using the touchscreen voted.  ("AVU" stands for accessible voting unit, the pleasant name KCE has given the notorious Diebold AccuVote TSx touchscreen electronic voting machines.)

The Inspector's List tells you who voted in each precinct and in what order they voted.

Each precinct's Poll Book, where each voter signs for their ballot, tells you who voted and what kind of ballot was issued. Any voter using the touchscreen has an "AVU" written in the "ballot stub issued" field next to their name.

The AVU Encoding Slip tells you who voted using the touchscreen electronic voting machine. The slip includes fields for denoting "canceled" and "abandoned" ballots.

The VVPAT shows the precinct code (precinct number plus number given to the split) and all the votes. The VVPAT is simply a roll of thermal paper, just like the cashier's tape at the store. The stated (and unrealized) purpose of the VVPAT is to allow voters to verify their ballots. All of the ballots are recorded in sequential order.

Once you have these four public documents, you start with the VVPAT and work backwards towards the Inspector's List.

#1 - Scan the VVPAT for all ballots from a single precinct (or precinct code where their or splits).

#2 - Use precinct's Poll Book to create list of all the voters who used the touchscreen.

#3 - Remove voters who canceled or abandoned their ballots.

#4 - Determine the order of the voters from the Inspector's List.

Why This Works

King County currently has a single Diebold AccuVote TSx touchscreen per poll site.   When you drop your poll ballot into the ballot box, the order gets shuffled. To shuffle the virtual ballots cast on a touchscreen, the number of touchscreens per poll site would need to be increased.

A further measure would be to increase the number of ballots cast on the touchscreens. This is a precaution advocated by Tim Borders. I doubt very much that will happen. KCE is stampeding everyone towards forced mail voting. Very few disabled voters will continue using mail ballots. (Did anyone tell the disability advocates that their "independence day" came at the expense of everyone's secret ballot?)

Most of the thousands of provisional (paper) ballots are issued to absentee voters who lost their mail ballots. Fortunately, at this time, the touchscreens in King County cannot be used to vote provisionally.

(Thought experiment: How do you remove a disqualified provisional ballot from an electronic voting machine? And yet, we're told forced mail voting is "less complicated" than our "hybrid" voting system.)

Irony

I had intended to request all the public documents needed to show the world how I voted during the primary.

I was reminded that Tim Borders is very concerned above voter privacy and the secret ballot. So I made sure to share my idea with him. He immediately caught on to what I was explaining. Of course, he shares my concerns.

Tim Borders warned me that determining how someone voted is a crime: RCW 29A.84.420 Unauthorized examination of ballots, election materials -- Revealing information. I then asked an elections expert, who believes that revealing my own vote isn't a crime. (But I want a to be certain before I proceed.)

Saturday, Oct 7th, Goldy reveals how (he thinks) Tim Borders voted during our recent primary. Clearly, an antagonistic stunt intended to offend someone who works to defend voter privacy.

Which kind of proves Tim's original point.

Ironic, no?

Summary

Our democracy has worked as well as it has because of private voting and public counting. Anything that undermines either the secret ballot or public vote count also undermines democracy.

It's as simple as that.

These individual arcane and wonkish items that we election integrity activists get worked up about often don't seem to amount to much. But, believe me, it all adds up. Take away a little here, a little there, and pretty soon there's nothing left to call a democracy.

As a screaming liberal, I'd thunk my brethen would understand this point with clarity.