Washblog

I'm compelled to relate the relevance to King County...

Part of the reckless plan is to eliminate paper poll ballots at the regional voting centers. Including provisional ballots. Which just doesn't make any sense. (Provisional ballots may not count. So how would you remove an electronic provisional ballot's votes from the tally? And if you CAN remove those votes, there's no secret ballot. A classic Catch-22.)

The RVCs will only have Diebold AccuVote TSx touchscreens.

Plus they'll replace the paper pool books with electronic poll books.

The combination of touchscreens and electronic poll books eliminates everyone's secret ballot, as detailed in E-voting predicament: Not-so-secret ballots (on C|Net).

None of the RVCs will have power backups. November is our storm season. What's the likelihood that an RVC will lose power and people can't vote?

King County's REALS projects 42,000 voters will use the RVCs. REALS believes those voters will be spread out over the early voting period. My experience as a poll worker is that most will try to vote on election day.

So how, exactly, are 1,000s of last minute voters going to squeeze through 13 RVCs on election day? As we saw in 2004 and 2006, long lines caused by bad projections and using the computerized voting machines disenfranchises voters.

(I've timed how long it takes to vote both ways; casting a virtual ballot on a touchscreen takes at least as long as a paper ballot. Representatives from REALS dispute this. But, of course, I've timed voters and they haven't.)

by zappini on Mon Nov 12, 2007 at 12:23:35 PM PST

---

We all know the touch screens (and op-scans) can be easily hacked and votes altered.  This has been proven over and over (most recently the California Secretary of State's "top to bottom" review. (1)

King County Elections officials say that the 4% audit on the touch screen machines is adequate and that there have been no problems.  As we all know, just because no problems have been discovered so far, doesn't mean there will be no problems in the future. Furthermore, KCE doesn't  mention the times when the paper trail was missing and they had to use the memory card to conduct the audit (sorry, no citation for this; my information is based on a discussion with a fellow election observer).

KCE also does not talk about a report from the Election Science Institute that shows that many times the data contained on the paper trail differs from that on the memory card and that of the internal memory. (2) & (3) So which numbers are correct?  We don't know.  

The research also shows that voters frequently fail to notice errors on the touch screen, fail to verify the paper trail, or fail to notice errors on the paper trail. Audits of "paper trails" are no protection against errors.

Touch screens should not be used if we are committed to accurate, transparent elections, and democracy in general.

(1)CA Top to Bottom Review.

(2)ESI Report.

(3)Summary of ESI Report.

by raincity calling on Mon Nov 12, 2007 at 01:53:20 PM PST

---

(In response to Ivan's comment No cause and effect relationship.)

Hi Ivan-

Stick to transparency and integrity of vote tabulation, Jason, where at least you are useful. On the issue of all-mail voting, you are indeed an idiot, and entirely lacking in credibility.

I'm curious about something:

Do you support counting ballots before election day?

The "electronic adjudication" of ballots, where the database of votes is modified, not the original ballots? (This is mail balloting's equivalent to the unverifiable, untestable touchscreens.)

Using computers to automatically verify signatures?

Because that's what you're getting with the Executive's reckless plan.

I could grudgingly live with using our existing equipment for forced mail balloting. It's a mistake sure, but not irreversible. And I'm confident the Dems would wise up, eventually.

But I cannot abide by the complete destruction of any remaining shred of election integrity by buying and using all these new systems.

We TRIED to get the executive and the council to use the existing systems for forced mail voting. And most everyone agrees with us, including the experts, other auditors, the CEOC, the Sec of State, council staff, etc.

Alas, that didn't work. Our local elections officials (Logan, Huennekens, Huff, Laird) convinced the executive that they absolutely needed all this new gear for forced mail voting, that nothing else would work.

Our only option left is to invalidate the entire (false) premise for the switch. By design. It was a masterful stroke. I'm still in awe that Huenneken's gambit worked.

You say you support our election integrity efforts. If that's true, then please suggest how to keep the county from screwing this up. Because we're doing the best we can. And we're completely out of ideas.

Or you can keep calling me an idiot. Whatever works, I suppose.

Cheers, Jason

by zappini on Mon Nov 12, 2007 at 06:36:00 PM PST

---