1. Confirm that machines delivered are the same as those
certified
Ask Kellner: How is the State Board planning to help counties and NYC to confirm that the machines delivered are the same as those certified and ordered? For example, that they do not contain hardware or software or firmware for wireless communication which is banned by NY law.
Ask Norden: What is the Brennan Center doing to make sure that this "buyer beware" issue is resolved publicly and professionally and not swept under the rug?
Facts:
--After computer failures in elections, some jurisdictions have discovered the equipment they used did not have the hardware or software they thought they had purchased.
--Some vendors show souped-up models in demonstrations, but these models differ from those submitted for certification and from those delivered upon purchase.
2. Conduct full Mock Elections before certification
Ask Kellner: Since the equipment submitted to NY for certification has never been used before, will the State Board insist that the vendors submit machines for full mock elections? We understand that this is the only way to show the public that the machines:
--can be set up for elections by county staff and programmed with ballots similar in complexity to those we use here
--managed by our average pollworkers,
--create tallies that can be extracted at the end of the mock election
--create accurate and useful audit logs and tally reports?
These are areas that other jurisdictions have had trouble with. Shouldn't New York protect itself?
Ask Norden: The Brennan Center's report on voting machines released in June recommended mock elections. What is the Brennan Center doing to advocate that this recommendation is followed prior to certification or selection or purchase, to ensure that the equipment as an integrated whole does indeed work?
Facts:
Brennan Center report "The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections In An Electronic World"
Appendix E, under the heading "Tests Conducted During Contract Negotiation"
"It is extremely important at this stage to allow the local staff who will administer the election system to participate in demonstrations of the administrative side of the voting system, configuring machines for mock elections characteristic of the jurisdiction, performing pre-election tests, opening and closing the polls, and can- vassing procedures. Generally, neither the voting system standards, or state qual- ification tests address questions of how easy it is to administer elections on the various competing systems."
The NY City Council passed Resolution 228-A with bipartisan sponsorship and unanimous vote on Aug 16. One of its recommendations was that the city conduct mock elections prior to selection of equipment.
http://webdocs.nyccouncil.info/textfiles/Res%200228-2006.htm?CFID=806833&CFTOKEN=67867032
http://www.wheresthepaper.org/WhatIsAPublicMockElection.htm
3. Use information from other jurisdictions
Ask Kellner: How is the State Board keeping up with the scandals and failures of equipment in other jurisdictions, so that we can check out the equipment submitted to us for certification in intelligent ways -- kick the tires where we know that others have found weaknesses?
For example, the equipment from Liberty Elections System comes from the Dutch company Nedap. Earlier this month, computer professionals in Holland not only broke into the system, they offered to change the software so the machine could play chess. This is the machine the Irish bought a few years ago, and found that they were not secure. How is the state board making use of this information? We know that the certification process is not thorough, because most documented failures in this country have occurred with certified machines. Will you invite those Dutch computer professionals to come here and see if they can hack our Liberty Systems with the same ease, and require Nedap to alter the design to make it secure before certifying it?
Ask Norden: How is the Brennan Center using its enourmous prestige and public voice to work with the voter access community (those who represent disability and language minority voters, for example) to make sure that they don't limit their view of these machines so much that they end up advocating insecure equipment in the name of accessibility?
4. Public Participation in elections
Voters with minority languages or disabilities have always been able to vote with the direct assistance of other persons. Computerization of voting has been presented as having the benefit of giving these voters a "private and independent vote" in which they will be assisted indirectly, by the technologists who created the computers.
How do you see the balance of interests between those who want access to a vote that requires only indirect assistance, versus loss of the ability of all non-technical citizens to witness election procedures? In the Civil Rights era 40 years ago, our country sent election observers to jurisdictions where there were problems. Computers really eliminate the role of citizen observers, and create a class of election technologists whose work cannot be understood by the average citizen, nor most of the staff at our Boards of Elections. Isn't that a bad thing for this country?