This week the federal Election Assistance Commission released a comprehensive survey on the 2004 election. To conduct the survey, the EAC requested voting and elections information from election officials throughout the country. According to the EAC, the 2004 Election Day Survey is "the largest and most comprehensive survey on election administration ever conducted by a U.S. governmental organization".
There are many interesting findings from the survey, which covers topics ranging from absentee and provisional voting to undervote and overvote rates. One important finding appears in Chapter 3. In this chapter, titled "Ballots Counted", under the header "Types of Voting Equipment", the EAC reports the following:
"Jurisdictions that used hand-counted paper ballots reported the highest turnout rates of any type of voting system for population-based turnout rates. However, when calculating turn-out as a percent of registered voters, those jurisdictions using optical scan voting equipment had the highest turnout rate of all voting systems. Jurisdictions that used lever machines had the lowest turnout rate for registration and voting age population based methods of calculating turnout rates. Surprisingly, jurisdictions that used electronic voting machines reported the lowest turnout rates when measured by citizen voting age population and the second lowest on overall voting age population."
This is an important finding which undercuts the claims made for many years by electronic voting proponents that using touchscreens will increase voter turnout, and will make it more difficult for e-voting proponents and manufacturers to promote their equipment for this purpose. According to the EAC, jurisdictions using hand-counted or optically-scanned paper ballots have higher voter participation rates than those using lever or electronic voting machines.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Andrew Gumbel reports on Georgia's questionable practices with Diebold
Yesterday author and reporter Andrew Gumbel published an extensive piece about Georgia's procurement of Diebold electronic voting machines and questionable activities that occurred throughout the process as well as during the first deployment of the touchscreens. His article features links to documents backing up the allegations, most of which were obtained through public records act requests by voting technology reform activists in Georgia.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Oakland Tribune editorial supports transparency in computerized vote counts
Saturday's Oakland Tribune and other Alameda Newspaper Group papers carried an editorial Saturday urging more, not fewer checks on the accuracy of votes and tabulations. This newspaper group publishes papers throughout Alameda County, where paperless touchscreen machines have been deployed countywide since 2002. This is the fourth major newspaper in a county where significant numbers of e-voting machines have been purchased to editorialize in favor of public verification of software vote counts, which would be required if SB 370/Bowen is signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Other papers in e-voting counties that have weighed in on public verification and have urged the Governor to sign SB 370 include the San Jose Mercury News (Santa Clara county), the Riverside Press Enterprise (Riverside county) and the Bakersfield Californian (Kern county). The Governor has until October 9 to sign or veto SB 370, or to allow it to become law without his signature. See Verified Voting's action alert to find out how you can help. The Alameda Newspaper Group editorial is featured below.
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California must retain election transparency
Our elections are held to transfer political power between the voters and the government, not for the convenience of local election officials.
That's the belief of Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. Her comments came after members of the California Association and Clerks and Elections Officials wrote to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that computerized touch-screen voting has made the state's manual recount law obsolete.
The clerks don't want to resort to recounts, as they have for 40 years, if the accuracy of the vote comes into question.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee, said that doing away with protections and vote recounts that check accuracy is "an enormous mistake."
The clerks and election officials say the paper printouts required by state law in California and 25 other states are jam-prone and create administrative nightmares that would be "onerous and time consuming."
Instead, they propose "parallel monitoring," a system that tests the touch-screens by conducting a scripted mock election on Election Day and then checking to see if the votes were recorded properly. It does not, however, check whether the votes are recorded or tallied properly.
They also admit that computerized voting alone is vulnerable to fraudulent programming.
Alexander said any recounting or check of the vote should not be "sorted out in the back room but publicly, because we want voter confidence."
It's another argument against investing too much in touch-screen voting, which became popular after the 2000 presidential elections and the month-long crisis over the hanging chads in Florida.
Computer scientists voiced concerns as early as 2003 about relying entirely on computers for voting, as it opens the door to new problems with programming error and fraud. Their solution was the voter-verified paper trail.
But the election officials, whose responsibility it is to check and make sure that the votes are recorded and tabulated correctly, say that is what makes their job "onerous." They would prefer to do parallel monitoring.
Instead, we suggest local election officials use their insider's knowledge and insight to recommend how vendors can make such machines more accurate and verifiable. We must find ways of checking the accuracy of individual votes, the results and whether or not the process has been tampered with. If we can't, we need a simpler system of voting that can be checked for accuracy.
We need more - not fewer - checks on the accuracy of votes and tabulations. In this new era, we must preserve California's manual recount law.
----------
California must retain election transparency
Our elections are held to transfer political power between the voters and the government, not for the convenience of local election officials.
That's the belief of Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. Her comments came after members of the California Association and Clerks and Elections Officials wrote to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that computerized touch-screen voting has made the state's manual recount law obsolete.
The clerks don't want to resort to recounts, as they have for 40 years, if the accuracy of the vote comes into question.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee, said that doing away with protections and vote recounts that check accuracy is "an enormous mistake."
The clerks and election officials say the paper printouts required by state law in California and 25 other states are jam-prone and create administrative nightmares that would be "onerous and time consuming."
Instead, they propose "parallel monitoring," a system that tests the touch-screens by conducting a scripted mock election on Election Day and then checking to see if the votes were recorded properly. It does not, however, check whether the votes are recorded or tallied properly.
They also admit that computerized voting alone is vulnerable to fraudulent programming.
Alexander said any recounting or check of the vote should not be "sorted out in the back room but publicly, because we want voter confidence."
It's another argument against investing too much in touch-screen voting, which became popular after the 2000 presidential elections and the month-long crisis over the hanging chads in Florida.
Computer scientists voiced concerns as early as 2003 about relying entirely on computers for voting, as it opens the door to new problems with programming error and fraud. Their solution was the voter-verified paper trail.
But the election officials, whose responsibility it is to check and make sure that the votes are recorded and tabulated correctly, say that is what makes their job "onerous." They would prefer to do parallel monitoring.
Instead, we suggest local election officials use their insider's knowledge and insight to recommend how vendors can make such machines more accurate and verifiable. We must find ways of checking the accuracy of individual votes, the results and whether or not the process has been tampered with. If we can't, we need a simpler system of voting that can be checked for accuracy.
We need more - not fewer - checks on the accuracy of votes and tabulations. In this new era, we must preserve California's manual recount law.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Wired News on the paper trail
Kim Zetter's piece published in Wired News today examines the Carter-Baker commission's recommendation to require a voter verified paper audit trail. I'd excerpt some of it but it's a must-read from start to finish and is easily accessible online.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
CA Secretary of State issues special election directives to counties
Last Friday California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson issued directives to the state's counties establishing conditions on the use of voting equipment in the Nov. 8 statewide special election. These directives reflect a continuation of the security requirements implemented by the previous secretary of state, Kevin Shelley, during the 2004 election. Secretary McPherson is continuing to require California's electronic voting counties to have a supply of paper ballots available in polling places for those voters who prefer not to vote on touchscreens. Unfortunately, these ballots can and most likely will be treated as provisional ballots, which means that voters exercising this right will have to complete a provisional ballot envelope and may worry that their right to cast a secret ballot may be compromised or that their ballot may not get counted at all. CVF is urging California voters who are concerned about using electronic voting machines to request a paper, absentee ballot and vote by mail or drop it off at the polling place on election day. See CVF's voting systems map to find out which California counties will be using electronic voting machines on November 8.
Author Andrew Gumbel comments on the Carter-Baker report
Andrew Gumbel, correspondent for the UK's Independent newspaper and author of the recently published book, Steal This Vote, is guest-blogging this week and offers some interesting comments on the Carter-Baker report as well as links to comments from other folks who have blogged on the report, such as Rick Hasen, Tova Wang and Dan Tokaji. His most recent entry focuses on how two of the county's leading opponents of the voter-verified paper trail, Cathy Cox of Georgia and Linda Lamone in Maryland, have begun to express support for the paper trail following the release of the report.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Bakersfield Californian endorses SB 370
Over the weekend the Bakersfield Californian published an editorial urging Governor Schwarzenegger to sign SB 370. The Bakersfield Californian's audience is Kern county, where local election officials purchased 1,350 Diebold TSx electronic voting machines at a cost of nearly $5 million prior to state certification. Those machines have sat unused since March 2004 while Diebold attempts to win state certification and will have to be retrofitted with a voter verified paper trail to meet new state voting security laws.
The Bakersfield Californian is the third newspaper in a major e-voting county to endorse SB 370 -- other endorsements have come from the San Jose Mercury News in Santa Clara county and the Riverside Press Enterprise. Both Riverside and Santa Clara counties have made huge electronic voting equipment purchases in recent years. Fortunately the local newspapers in these counties are paying attention to voting security issues and supporting public auditing of their voting systems in order to improve voter confidence.
Excerpts from the Bakersfield Californian editorial are featured below.
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Who counts? Machines? Voters?
If electronic touch-screen voting machines can't do the job, just unplug them. Don't compromise the electoral system to make it easier for bureaucrats to count the votes.
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The 2000 Presidential Election fiasco involving punch-card voting in Florida prompted many states, including California, to move to the use of electronic voting machines. But challenges to the machines' accuracy and the inability to manually recount votes in a disputed election led to requiring electronic machines produce a "paper trail."
County election officials now claim printouts are unnecessary and inconvenient because they are prone to jam and are an administrative nightmare. They also say the accuracy of electronic machines should not have to be checked manually a 40-year-old procedure of hand-counting 1 percent of ballots cast in any election.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, who heads the Senate Elections and Appropriations Committee, and Kim Alexander, who heads the non-profit California Voter Foundation, are outraged.
Elections officials claim verifying computerized voting with paper would be "onerous and time-consuming," Alexander told The Oakland Tribune. "What they fail to realize is that elections are not conducted for their convenience, but for transferring power between the people and government."
The Bakersfield Californian is the third newspaper in a major e-voting county to endorse SB 370 -- other endorsements have come from the San Jose Mercury News in Santa Clara county and the Riverside Press Enterprise. Both Riverside and Santa Clara counties have made huge electronic voting equipment purchases in recent years. Fortunately the local newspapers in these counties are paying attention to voting security issues and supporting public auditing of their voting systems in order to improve voter confidence.
Excerpts from the Bakersfield Californian editorial are featured below.
-----------
Who counts? Machines? Voters?
If electronic touch-screen voting machines can't do the job, just unplug them. Don't compromise the electoral system to make it easier for bureaucrats to count the votes.
---
The 2000 Presidential Election fiasco involving punch-card voting in Florida prompted many states, including California, to move to the use of electronic voting machines. But challenges to the machines' accuracy and the inability to manually recount votes in a disputed election led to requiring electronic machines produce a "paper trail."
County election officials now claim printouts are unnecessary and inconvenient because they are prone to jam and are an administrative nightmare. They also say the accuracy of electronic machines should not have to be checked manually a 40-year-old procedure of hand-counting 1 percent of ballots cast in any election.
State Sen. Debra Bowen, who heads the Senate Elections and Appropriations Committee, and Kim Alexander, who heads the non-profit California Voter Foundation, are outraged.
Elections officials claim verifying computerized voting with paper would be "onerous and time-consuming," Alexander told The Oakland Tribune. "What they fail to realize is that elections are not conducted for their convenience, but for transferring power between the people and government."
Coverage of the Carter-Baker Commission/SB 370
Today's Oakland Tribune features an article by Ian Hoffman about the Carter-Baker commission's election reform recommendations and their potential impact on SB 370, a California bill that, if signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, will require public auditing of electronic vote counts. Excerpts from the story are featured below.
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Federal panel looks to Congress for e-voting paper trail
Schwarzenegger mulls similar bill in California
For American voters to regain faith in their elections, voters should be given a unique identification card, and electronic voting machines need a paper record that voters can check and elections officials can recount, a prestigious federal panel reported Monday.
The Commission on Federal Voting Reform's call for Congress to require a voter-verified paper trail for recounts nationwide comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers signing a similar bill for California.
Election officials from Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to local registrars of voters are opposing the measure because the paper printouts don't fit the state legal definition of a ballot and because recounting them would be "onerous and time consuming."
The federal panel, chaired by former President Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, concluded that e-voting machines need to produce paper trails for recounts "to instill greater confidence" and ensure transparency in U.S. elections.
Paper-trail advocates in Congress and the California Legislature hailed the report and urged passage of a law requiring use of paper trails, including for the state's mandatory recount of 1 percent of all precincts in elections. California has had an automatic recount since the 1960s as a check on the accuracy of computerized vote tallies.
"Relying on the electronic machine's own tally to satisfy the 1 percent manual count law, as California's elections officials are doing now, undermines the 40-year-old law designed to require an independent hand audit of California's election results," said Debra Bowen, the Marina Del Ray Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee and co-authored the bill.
---
The governor's office has declined to discuss his position on the bill. He faces an Oct. 9 deadline to sign or veto it.
Paper trails are now mandatory in 25 states, and legislation is under consideration in an additional 14 states.
"If we fail to require that electronic voting machines be subject to the same audit requirements as other voting machines, then California voters' confidence in our elections is likely to continue to erode," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.
Civil rights advocates were less impressed with the Carter-Baker report, saying the panel didn't go far enough in encouraging voter participation.
The commission shied from recommending voting rights for convicted felons on probation or parole. Nor did the panel recommend same-day registration or a single, national standard on the handling of provisional ballots, a matter of controversy in the 2004 elections. Those ideas are likely to bring more voters to the polls, according to the Chief Justice Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law.
-------------
Federal panel looks to Congress for e-voting paper trail
Schwarzenegger mulls similar bill in California
For American voters to regain faith in their elections, voters should be given a unique identification card, and electronic voting machines need a paper record that voters can check and elections officials can recount, a prestigious federal panel reported Monday.
The Commission on Federal Voting Reform's call for Congress to require a voter-verified paper trail for recounts nationwide comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considers signing a similar bill for California.
Election officials from Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to local registrars of voters are opposing the measure because the paper printouts don't fit the state legal definition of a ballot and because recounting them would be "onerous and time consuming."
The federal panel, chaired by former President Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, concluded that e-voting machines need to produce paper trails for recounts "to instill greater confidence" and ensure transparency in U.S. elections.
Paper-trail advocates in Congress and the California Legislature hailed the report and urged passage of a law requiring use of paper trails, including for the state's mandatory recount of 1 percent of all precincts in elections. California has had an automatic recount since the 1960s as a check on the accuracy of computerized vote tallies.
"Relying on the electronic machine's own tally to satisfy the 1 percent manual count law, as California's elections officials are doing now, undermines the 40-year-old law designed to require an independent hand audit of California's election results," said Debra Bowen, the Marina Del Ray Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee and co-authored the bill.
---
The governor's office has declined to discuss his position on the bill. He faces an Oct. 9 deadline to sign or veto it.
Paper trails are now mandatory in 25 states, and legislation is under consideration in an additional 14 states.
"If we fail to require that electronic voting machines be subject to the same audit requirements as other voting machines, then California voters' confidence in our elections is likely to continue to erode," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.
Civil rights advocates were less impressed with the Carter-Baker report, saying the panel didn't go far enough in encouraging voter participation.
The commission shied from recommending voting rights for convicted felons on probation or parole. Nor did the panel recommend same-day registration or a single, national standard on the handling of provisional ballots, a matter of controversy in the 2004 elections. Those ideas are likely to bring more voters to the polls, according to the Chief Justice Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law.
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