http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060106/OPINION02/601060312/1014

theithacajournal.com

 

Jan 6, 2006

 

Voting machine debate needs more facts

 

Michael Lane's guest column on Dec. 21 (“Voters cut out of polling machine choice”) was full of factual errors. I will attempt to correct them.

 

There are three types of voting machines under discussion:

 

# Electronic touch screens with no paper ballot.

 

These are forbidden by New York State Law (thanks to our Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton), and it's a good thing they are. The trouble with these is that almost any fraud, or simple computation error, is undetectable. Most types of fraud and counting error can be detected only with a careful recount. With these machines, recounts are impossible, because there are no actual ballots to recount. The only information available is the output of the machine, and so if the machine is producing incorrect output, there is no way at all to tell what the correct output should have been.

 

Michael Lane wrote “... if anyone criminally tampers with voting machines, we have district attorneys ...”

 

But the district attorney can do absolutely nothing if the election fraud cannot be detected. Statistical analysis by comparison to other polls indicates that the official results of the recent Ohio referendum were incredibly unlikely, indicating a high chance of election fraud. But the election was run on these paperless machines, so there is simply no way to tell.

 

In addition, all the existing systems of this type currently sold in the United States are all quite easy to defraud - undetectably - for anyone with a little computer programming experience and access to the machines. These problems were not present for mechanical lever machines, because it is actually very hard to alter the operation of a mechanical machine, and it is quite easy to tell that it has been altered.

 

Computer experts agree that there are only two current ways to change these machines so their vote counts can be trusted: one involves abandoning the secret ballot, so it's not a good choice; the other is to add a voter-verified paper ballot to the machines. Paper ballots are certainly subject to fraud. But computers make everything faster and allow things to be done in bulk. With a computer, you can steal an entire precinct in the time it would take you to falsify one paper ballot. In fact, the movement for paper ballots is led by computer scientists, who understand this.

 

Contrary to Lane's assertions, paperless touch screen machines have proven themselves unreliable in elections throughout the country, in some cases giving completely absurd results (10 times as many votes as voters, negative vote totals, etc.) Due to the lack of actual ballots, those elections had to be completely rerun from scratch at great expense. Despite the state law prohibiting such machines, the state board of elections is currently “testing” such a system (the vendor has promised to add a paper ballot “later”), which is very unfortunate.

 

# Electronic touch screens with a paper ballot.

 

These produce a paper ballot which the voter can look at and verify, which is then stored securely. For a recount, the paper ballots are used, preserving the secret ballot while making it possible to check whether the machines counted the votes properly. These are legal in New York because they have the paper ballot.

 

These have all the same costs associated with paper ballots as optical-scan systems. “Bulky paper ballots must be printed for each election cycle and stored for extended periods afterwards,” as Lane wrote about optical scan systems. Touch screen systems which are legal in New York do not save any money on paper ballots. Multiple touch screen machines must be purchased for each precinct to avoid long lines, because they have been shown to be relatively slow to use. In addition, they have relatively high yearly maintenance costs due to the complexity of the electronics and the software. These are acceptable systems, provided random hand recounts are conducted to check the machine counts. However, they are unnecessarily expensive and slow.

 

# Paper ballots with optical scanners.

 

One optical scanner, one voter assistance device (“AutoMark,” allowing blind voters to mark the scan cards), and a few privacy booths are necessary for each precinct.

 

The total cost of this entire setup is less than the cost of the multiple touch screen machines needed for one precinct. The maintenance costs are also much smaller because the technology is simpler and hence more reliable. In addition, it appears to take most individuals less time to fill out such a ballot than it does to use a touch screen machine.

 

The rates of voter error are very small, probably because most people are used to filling out SAT-like cards (although these are filled out in pen). Some of the optical scanners can also be altered to miscount the ballots in the same way as the touchscreens can. However, this is very easy to detect by running the same stack of ballots through a different optical scanner; since optical-scan ballots are a fairly standardized technology, this could even be a scanner from a different vendor. In addition, they can be hand counted just like all paper ballots, and random hand recounts should be conducted with any system.

 

More information about election integrity issues, including evidence for my claims, is available at the Web sites for the following non-partisan organizations:

 

New Yorkers for Verified Voting:  http://www.nyvv.org/

 

Vote Trust USA:  http://www.votetrustusa.org/

 

Verified Voting:  http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

 

Voters Unite:  http://www.votersunite.org/

 

Black Box Voting: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

 

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