Last week Orange County officials placed the county's Registrar of Voters, Steve Rodermund, on administrative leave. The Los Angeles Times' story reports that it's a "personnel matter", according to County Executive Officer Thomas G. Mauk. Rodermund has been criticized recently for scheduling a special congressional election to be held on Rosh Hashanah, one of the most important holidays in the Jewish faith. However, according to the article that appeared in the Orange County Register, this was not the reason why Rodermund was placed on leave.
County officials are keeping mum as to why Rodermund has been removed from his office. As registrar, Rodermund has been responsible for steering the county's purchase of an electronic voting system from Hart, a vendor located in Texas that teamed up with the public relations firm Maximus to win the county's $26 million contract in April 2003. In the March 2004 Primary election, Orange was one of three counties in the state that experienced serious, widespread technical problems with their electronic voting systems, which led the State Legislature to hold a hearing to examine what went wrong and ultimately helped win passage of SB 1438 which mandates a voter verified paper trail for electronic ballots. Orange County is currently the only Hart client in California, and the amount of money the county may have to spend to make its Hart eSlate voting machines comply with California's new voter verified paper audit trail law could be as high as $9 million.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Deputy Registrar Neal Kelley will be running the elections department during Rodermund's absence. Rodermund did not return calls from either the LA Times or Orange County Register seeking comment.
Excerpts from the Orange County Register article are below.
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The void comes at a busy time for registrar officials planning the myriad details for two special elections in the next two months.
On Oct. 4, more than 400,000 voters will cast ballots to fill a vacancy in the 48th Congressional District. And on Nov. 8 voters will go to the polls in a special election called by the governor.
Another election could be held in early December if no candidate vying for the 48th Congressional District seat wins a majority. A win by state Sen. John Campbell in that election could trigger as many as four more elections with state assembly members moving up to run for Campbell's Senate seat.
----
With so many issues to deal with, it's uncertain what prompted the action to remove Rodermund, 54, a former budget analyst and military veteran who headed the department as an interim chief for a year before being appointed in December 2003.
"I see it as a CEO tackling some issues head on and providing the adequate time to hear all sides. It doesn't necessarily mean there's any impropriety," said Supervisor Chris Norby.
The only comment made by the county spokeswoman was to a question never asked.
"It has nothing to do with the conflict of the election day with Rosh Hashanah," said Thomas Plunk.
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Excerpts from the LA Times story are below.
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His record has been marked by some controversies, most notably the March 2004 election when poll workers struggling with new voting machines gave thousands of voters incorrect access codes, causing the wrong ballots to appear on voting machines.
And in November 2004, the official results of a dozen Orange County elections were delayed more than a week because of slow counting of absentee ballots.
Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), who was a county supervisor when Rodermund was assigned to the office, was concerned about the timing of Rodermund's leave.
"The registrar's office has obviously been plagued by systemic problems over the years," Spitzer said, "and it seems that in every election, some fundamental issue has arisen."
Spitzer said he worried that the turmoil in the registrar's office might affect the Nov. 8 election. Among the several ballot measures to be decided is one that would allow county firefighters to share in millions of dollars in public safety funds from Proposition 172.
"The special election is very critical," Spitzer said. "If the registrar's office is not completely squared away, it could open up special challenges in the court."
Monday, August 29, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Assembly passes SB 370; Alameda plans to go with "blended" system
This morning the Assembly passed SB 370/Bowen. The initial vote was 46-19 though the final total may change before the day is over, as Assembly Members may add on votes before today's session adjourns. Though the vote was not unanimous, it also was not partisan; insiders in the Capitol inform me that the Assembly Republican Caucus took a "support" position on this bill (caucus analyses are not available to the public).
Meanwhile, Alameda County is making plans to issue a "Request for Information" from voting equipment vendors. Alameda's course of action has changed dramatically since June, when the board had approved a plan to spend $6 million to upgrade their Diebold electronic voting machines and stick with all-electronic balloting. Now the county is planning to go instead with a "blended" system, mixing paper ballots and electronic ballots in their polling places. The county is also allowing other vendors to compete for the new contract. More details about these developments are featured in Ian Hoffman's article in today's Oakland Tribune. Excerpts are below.
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Alameda County — the first large West Coast county to gamble on Diebold Election Systems Inc. and its electronic voting machines — is weighing whether to end that experiment, going with a more paper-based voting system and perhaps another supplier.
County officials are contacting voting-system vendors this week and asking whether they can provide a so-called "blended" voting system, with a winning bidder to be chosen in November.
Alameda is headed the way of many large counties — toward a hybrid of optical scanners for paper ballots and either electronic touchscreens or computerized ballot-marking devices for handicapped voters.
If vendors can supply such a system, this November's special election will be the county's last with Diebold touchscreens as the only voting equipment in the polling place.
Diebold remains the nation's largest voting system supplier and is selling thousands of its touchscreens in Mississippi, Utah and Ohio. And the firm still may try selling Alameda County on a new system.
But the county's move away from touchscreens and toward other vendors is a blow to Diebold after a two-year string of missteps and mistakes by the firm.
County elections officials stoutly defended the company in 2003 when Diebold computers awarded thousands of votes to the wrong candidates, and in 2004 when Diebold exerted last-minute pressure on the state to approve voting equipment only to have it break down in a quarter of Alameda County polling places.
In June, county supervisors signaled a willingness to increase their original $12 million investment in Diebold equipment by approving negotiations for purchase of newer touchscreens for an additional $6 million.
But the last straw came in July, when state tests of 96 of those new touchscreens revealed paper jams, system crashes and screen freezes in 28 percent of the machines. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson rejected the machine for use in California.
Since then, sales reps from other vendors have come knocking at the door of acting county elections chief Elaine Ginnold. She and her staff have test-driven several other voting systems. She will ask county supervisors Tuesday for the go-ahead to solicit bids on the new hybrid system in September.
The move to a paper-based voting system makes sense, Ginnold said.
"One reason is the cost of electronic machines is quite high, and in the light of changing state and federal regulations we don't see the prudence of spending a lot of money on touchscreens at this time," she said.
An equal reason comes from the county's voters. Almost 40 percent are voting on paper absentee ballots, and this proportion of mail-in voting is rising with every general election.
Meanwhile, Alameda County is making plans to issue a "Request for Information" from voting equipment vendors. Alameda's course of action has changed dramatically since June, when the board had approved a plan to spend $6 million to upgrade their Diebold electronic voting machines and stick with all-electronic balloting. Now the county is planning to go instead with a "blended" system, mixing paper ballots and electronic ballots in their polling places. The county is also allowing other vendors to compete for the new contract. More details about these developments are featured in Ian Hoffman's article in today's Oakland Tribune. Excerpts are below.
----------
Alameda County — the first large West Coast county to gamble on Diebold Election Systems Inc. and its electronic voting machines — is weighing whether to end that experiment, going with a more paper-based voting system and perhaps another supplier.
County officials are contacting voting-system vendors this week and asking whether they can provide a so-called "blended" voting system, with a winning bidder to be chosen in November.
Alameda is headed the way of many large counties — toward a hybrid of optical scanners for paper ballots and either electronic touchscreens or computerized ballot-marking devices for handicapped voters.
If vendors can supply such a system, this November's special election will be the county's last with Diebold touchscreens as the only voting equipment in the polling place.
Diebold remains the nation's largest voting system supplier and is selling thousands of its touchscreens in Mississippi, Utah and Ohio. And the firm still may try selling Alameda County on a new system.
But the county's move away from touchscreens and toward other vendors is a blow to Diebold after a two-year string of missteps and mistakes by the firm.
County elections officials stoutly defended the company in 2003 when Diebold computers awarded thousands of votes to the wrong candidates, and in 2004 when Diebold exerted last-minute pressure on the state to approve voting equipment only to have it break down in a quarter of Alameda County polling places.
In June, county supervisors signaled a willingness to increase their original $12 million investment in Diebold equipment by approving negotiations for purchase of newer touchscreens for an additional $6 million.
But the last straw came in July, when state tests of 96 of those new touchscreens revealed paper jams, system crashes and screen freezes in 28 percent of the machines. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson rejected the machine for use in California.
Since then, sales reps from other vendors have come knocking at the door of acting county elections chief Elaine Ginnold. She and her staff have test-driven several other voting systems. She will ask county supervisors Tuesday for the go-ahead to solicit bids on the new hybrid system in September.
The move to a paper-based voting system makes sense, Ginnold said.
"One reason is the cost of electronic machines is quite high, and in the light of changing state and federal regulations we don't see the prudence of spending a lot of money on touchscreens at this time," she said.
An equal reason comes from the county's voters. Almost 40 percent are voting on paper absentee ballots, and this proportion of mail-in voting is rising with every general election.
SB 370/Bowen likely to be taken up on Assembly Floor today
Lots of people are following SB 370, a bill by Senator Debra Bowen to require that voter-verified paper audit trails are used in California to verify the accuracy of software vote counts. The bill is likely to be taken up on the Assembly floor today. Assemblyman Tom Umberg, chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, is the member who will be taking it up. If it passes out of the Assembly, the bill heads back to the Senate for a final floor vote. Once it passes the Senate it goes to the Governor for his signature or veto. You can watch legislative proceedings via the California Channel's webcast online.
There have been no "no" votes cast on SB 370, but Secretary of State Bruce McPherson did recently come out opposing it, which was very disappointing. Hopefully the Governor will sign the bill anyway. There were several reasons the Secretary of State decided to oppose the bill -- one reason was that county election officials said it would take too much time to perform this verification process. But without this step in the election process it is impossible to give the public any reasonable assurance that computerized election results are accurate. This verification process has served California voters well for forty years using paper-voting systems but has been undermined over the past five years with the use of paperless electronic voting machines.
Why are some election officials so opposed to public verification of election results? What are they afraid of? I've thought about this a lot over the years working on these issues, and have concluded that what they are afraid of is this: they know that there are going to be problems with their vote counting software, that there will be glitches and snafus. There have always been problems with vote counting software, just as there have always been problems with any kind of software we use. I think some election officials would prefer to quietly solve these problems in the back room rather than have to account for them in public. But elections aren't for election officials. They are for the public, and the public deserves and demands a reasonable degree of confidence in the accuracy of our election results.
The Legislature responded to this need last year when it unanimously enacted and Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 1438, to require that electronic voting machines produce a voter-verified paper audit trail. Now the Legislature needs to act again to ensure that paper trail is used by county election officials to verify the accuracy of software vote counts. Several other legislatures across the county have already passed laws this year mandating paper trails and their use to routinely verify software vote counts. Check out Verified Voting's new summary for details. Not only have other states passed this law, but the percentage of ballots counted in other states' verification process is higher than California's.
There have been no "no" votes cast on SB 370, but Secretary of State Bruce McPherson did recently come out opposing it, which was very disappointing. Hopefully the Governor will sign the bill anyway. There were several reasons the Secretary of State decided to oppose the bill -- one reason was that county election officials said it would take too much time to perform this verification process. But without this step in the election process it is impossible to give the public any reasonable assurance that computerized election results are accurate. This verification process has served California voters well for forty years using paper-voting systems but has been undermined over the past five years with the use of paperless electronic voting machines.
Why are some election officials so opposed to public verification of election results? What are they afraid of? I've thought about this a lot over the years working on these issues, and have concluded that what they are afraid of is this: they know that there are going to be problems with their vote counting software, that there will be glitches and snafus. There have always been problems with vote counting software, just as there have always been problems with any kind of software we use. I think some election officials would prefer to quietly solve these problems in the back room rather than have to account for them in public. But elections aren't for election officials. They are for the public, and the public deserves and demands a reasonable degree of confidence in the accuracy of our election results.
The Legislature responded to this need last year when it unanimously enacted and Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 1438, to require that electronic voting machines produce a voter-verified paper audit trail. Now the Legislature needs to act again to ensure that paper trail is used by county election officials to verify the accuracy of software vote counts. Several other legislatures across the county have already passed laws this year mandating paper trails and their use to routinely verify software vote counts. Check out Verified Voting's new summary for details. Not only have other states passed this law, but the percentage of ballots counted in other states' verification process is higher than California's.
San Diego recount shows computer-counted results were accurate
A group of voters in San Diego held a "parallel" election during the recent Mayoral election. They asked voters to cast a second ballot that they could count and use to verify the results. About 50 percent of the voters in 11 precincts participated. San Diego County currently uses Diebold's paper-based voting system, using optical scan technology to read the paper ballots, which are then tabulated using Diebold's GEMS software. San Diego is one of three California counties that purchased Diebold's electronic "TSx" machines which are still uncertified by the state and sitting in warehouses. San Diego has been using Diebold's paper voting system in the meantime.
When the parallel election votes were counted, there was a small percentage of difference between those results and the official results. The group requested a recount, and County Registrar Mikel Haas conducted one. The results are out, and show that the hand counted totals were "nearly identical" to the software counted totals, according to this article by Daniel J. Chacon in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
Had the mayoral election been conducted on paperless, electronic voting machines a public recount could not have been conducted and the registrar would have been unable to verify to the public that the software-counted results were accurate. There are some voting rights activists who say we shouldn't use computers in the voting or vote counting process at all. But it is my view, and one that is widely shared among those working for transparancy and accountability in the voting process, that computers and software can be used safely if the voting system utilizes paper ballots, like San Diego's, or includes a voter verified paper trail, and if some percentage of those paper records are randomly selected and routinely used to verify the accuracy of the overall software vote count.
Excerpts from the Union-Tribune article are below.
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A partial recount yesterday to test the accuracy of scanners that read ballots and tallied votes in the San Diego mayor's race July 26 revealed results that were nearly identical to those of the machines.
An election worker logged votes during yesterday's recount of about 30 precincts in the San Diego mayoral race.
For example, a discrepancy of perhaps one vote occurred in a few precincts.
"This is what you would expect in a properly conducted election," San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said. "I think the people of San Diego can take comfort, if they had doubts at all, about the conduct of the election."
Members of the group that asked and paid for the recount of about 30 of the city's 713 precincts said they still had doubts about a voting system that relies on computers.
Jerry Ewig of Democracy for America said the only voting system he deems reliable is one that uses paper ballots counted by hand.
"No machines," he said.
---
The recount was initiated by the group Citizens Audit Parallel Election, which staked out 11 precincts and asked people exiting the polls how they voted. The group said its tally differed from the official count by up to 4 percent.
The group asked for a recount on behalf of Councilwoman Donna Frye, who finished first and agreed to lend her name to the cause, said Hal Simon, her campaign office manager.
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm confident in this election system because it works," said Simon, who has observed two mayoral race recounts since November. "This proves that if they (voters) do make the effort and go out and vote, their vote will count."
When the parallel election votes were counted, there was a small percentage of difference between those results and the official results. The group requested a recount, and County Registrar Mikel Haas conducted one. The results are out, and show that the hand counted totals were "nearly identical" to the software counted totals, according to this article by Daniel J. Chacon in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
Had the mayoral election been conducted on paperless, electronic voting machines a public recount could not have been conducted and the registrar would have been unable to verify to the public that the software-counted results were accurate. There are some voting rights activists who say we shouldn't use computers in the voting or vote counting process at all. But it is my view, and one that is widely shared among those working for transparancy and accountability in the voting process, that computers and software can be used safely if the voting system utilizes paper ballots, like San Diego's, or includes a voter verified paper trail, and if some percentage of those paper records are randomly selected and routinely used to verify the accuracy of the overall software vote count.
Excerpts from the Union-Tribune article are below.
---------
A partial recount yesterday to test the accuracy of scanners that read ballots and tallied votes in the San Diego mayor's race July 26 revealed results that were nearly identical to those of the machines.
An election worker logged votes during yesterday's recount of about 30 precincts in the San Diego mayoral race.
For example, a discrepancy of perhaps one vote occurred in a few precincts.
"This is what you would expect in a properly conducted election," San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said. "I think the people of San Diego can take comfort, if they had doubts at all, about the conduct of the election."
Members of the group that asked and paid for the recount of about 30 of the city's 713 precincts said they still had doubts about a voting system that relies on computers.
Jerry Ewig of Democracy for America said the only voting system he deems reliable is one that uses paper ballots counted by hand.
"No machines," he said.
---
The recount was initiated by the group Citizens Audit Parallel Election, which staked out 11 precincts and asked people exiting the polls how they voted. The group said its tally differed from the official count by up to 4 percent.
The group asked for a recount on behalf of Councilwoman Donna Frye, who finished first and agreed to lend her name to the cause, said Hal Simon, her campaign office manager.
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm confident in this election system because it works," said Simon, who has observed two mayoral race recounts since November. "This proves that if they (voters) do make the effort and go out and vote, their vote will count."
Monday, August 22, 2005
Diebold hires former Democratic Party chairman for PR campaign
Saturday's Oakland Tribune featured an article by Ian Hoffman about Diebold's new public relations effort, being headed up by Joe Andrew, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His article is featured below.
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With a phone call and a retainer, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has launched former Democratic National Committee chairman Joe Andrew on a 50-state ambassadorship for electronic voting.
O'Dell said he ``wanted to reframe some of the issues,'' Andrew said.
His first stop: California, the nation's largest market for voting machines and the place where Diebold's fortunes as the largest supplier of electronic-voting machines in the nation could be made or broken.
``Even if you have tremendous success every place else,'' said Andrew, ``if you can't sell technology in California, you're in trouble.''
The rest of the voting industry is selling technology here. Millions in federal dollars sit ready for counties to put at least one high-tech, handicapped-accessible voting machine in every polling place by January.
But in California, Diebold can't sell its touchscreen voting machine, the AccuVote TSx, nor can counties that bought thousands of the machines in 2003 used them in elections.
More than $30 million worth of TSx machines sit in three counties' warehouses, unapproved for actual voting. More than $15 million worth of earlier-generation Diebold touchscreens in Alameda, Los Angeles and Plumas counties cannot be used after January.
Andrew said computer scientists and e-voting activists are standing in the way of a promising technology, an ATM-like voting computer with such a low error rate that more votes count. And that, said Andrew, should work to the benefit of Democrats.
The tour pairs Andrew with former Republican congressional aide Melissa McKay, now working for the public-relations firm, Ogilvy PR. But California and its Democrats were clearly Andrew's show.
Diebold's new charm offensive for Democrats strikes some as a public-relations gambit, a segue from mishaps and mistakes in its voting business to the uncontroversial notion of making more votes count for the elderly, minorities and disabled voters.
``This is a new tactic, a new solution for a company that, unlike other electronic-voting companies, has a continuing public-relations problem, certainly in California,'' said Dan Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for voting-reform information.
``It's not based on nothing,'' Seligson said. ``It's based on the problems they've had.''
In three years in California, Diebold voting devices have awarded thousands of votes to the wrong candidates and broken down in two large counties during a presidential primary. Two successive state election chiefs, a Democrat and a Republican, both have rejected the TSx.
Former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley suggested criminal prosecution, citing misleading statements by Diebold Election Systems executives and ``reprehensible'' tactics. The state joined a false-claims suit against the company and won a $2.5 million settlement.
Last month, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson cited poor performance in state testing, with paper jams and software crashes in 28 percent of machines used in a mock election.
But Andrew isn't traveling the nation to talk about that or even to talk much about Diebold. So why is a ranking Democratic operative who was convinced Republicans ``stole'' the 2000 election working for Diebold and O'Dell, a battlestate fund-raiser for Bush-Cheney 2004?
It is Andrew's message - that paperless electronic voting is good for Democrats - and his connections in Democratic circles.
``Joseph's a smart guy and has a lot of contacts out there,'' said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Washington-based consultant on elections.
Andrew is tapping reliable Democratic constituents - civil-rights groups, minority groups such as the NAACP and the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and such disability groups as the Council for the Blind.
They rallied in 2001 under the umbrella of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to rid the nation of reviled punchcard voting, and Andrew worked pro-bono as their lawyer. He delivered bipartisan support for the Help America Vote Act. Behind the act was the presumption that electronic voting was salvation from the dimpled and hanging chad and from having to resort to the Supreme Court to decide the presidency.
But Congress delayed 16 crucial months in setting up a new federal agency to oversee and enforce standards for the new voting equipment. By 2003, the debate over voting equipment shifted from civil-rights groups and their lawyers to computer scientists who argued that electronic voting was too vulnerable to breakdowns, errors and fraud, at least without any backup paper record of the vote.
So far, they've been winning. Despite resistance from Diebold and some other e-voting suppliers, lawmakers in 25 states have passed laws requiring a paper backup, for review by voters and in most cases recounts by elections officials. Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are debating such a requirement.
While Ohio, Mississippi and Utah are considering large purchases of touchscreens, sales of paper-based optical scanning machines so far are outpacing sales of electronic-voting machines since the 2004 election.
In California at least, Andrew sees civil-rights leaders abdicating from a worthy cause. ``The great irony is, it's the progressives - my side of the aisle - who are against electronic voting but have the most to benefit from it.''
The odd couple of Diebold and Andrew have ``their work cut out for them,'' said Kim Alexander, president of nonprofit California Voter Foundation.
She acknowledges that electronic voting has plenty going for it, such larger type for elderly voters, ballot displays in multiple languages and an audio ballot for visually impaired voters.
``But the way it's been implemented has been irresponsible and reckless,'' Alexander said. ``What we've seen all across the country are numerous examples of glitches and problems. I wish that Diebold would put it's effort into making better equipment and making its paper trail work, rather than a PR campaign.''
----------
With a phone call and a retainer, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has launched former Democratic National Committee chairman Joe Andrew on a 50-state ambassadorship for electronic voting.
O'Dell said he ``wanted to reframe some of the issues,'' Andrew said.
His first stop: California, the nation's largest market for voting machines and the place where Diebold's fortunes as the largest supplier of electronic-voting machines in the nation could be made or broken.
``Even if you have tremendous success every place else,'' said Andrew, ``if you can't sell technology in California, you're in trouble.''
The rest of the voting industry is selling technology here. Millions in federal dollars sit ready for counties to put at least one high-tech, handicapped-accessible voting machine in every polling place by January.
But in California, Diebold can't sell its touchscreen voting machine, the AccuVote TSx, nor can counties that bought thousands of the machines in 2003 used them in elections.
More than $30 million worth of TSx machines sit in three counties' warehouses, unapproved for actual voting. More than $15 million worth of earlier-generation Diebold touchscreens in Alameda, Los Angeles and Plumas counties cannot be used after January.
Andrew said computer scientists and e-voting activists are standing in the way of a promising technology, an ATM-like voting computer with such a low error rate that more votes count. And that, said Andrew, should work to the benefit of Democrats.
The tour pairs Andrew with former Republican congressional aide Melissa McKay, now working for the public-relations firm, Ogilvy PR. But California and its Democrats were clearly Andrew's show.
Diebold's new charm offensive for Democrats strikes some as a public-relations gambit, a segue from mishaps and mistakes in its voting business to the uncontroversial notion of making more votes count for the elderly, minorities and disabled voters.
``This is a new tactic, a new solution for a company that, unlike other electronic-voting companies, has a continuing public-relations problem, certainly in California,'' said Dan Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for voting-reform information.
``It's not based on nothing,'' Seligson said. ``It's based on the problems they've had.''
In three years in California, Diebold voting devices have awarded thousands of votes to the wrong candidates and broken down in two large counties during a presidential primary. Two successive state election chiefs, a Democrat and a Republican, both have rejected the TSx.
Former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley suggested criminal prosecution, citing misleading statements by Diebold Election Systems executives and ``reprehensible'' tactics. The state joined a false-claims suit against the company and won a $2.5 million settlement.
Last month, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson cited poor performance in state testing, with paper jams and software crashes in 28 percent of machines used in a mock election.
But Andrew isn't traveling the nation to talk about that or even to talk much about Diebold. So why is a ranking Democratic operative who was convinced Republicans ``stole'' the 2000 election working for Diebold and O'Dell, a battlestate fund-raiser for Bush-Cheney 2004?
It is Andrew's message - that paperless electronic voting is good for Democrats - and his connections in Democratic circles.
``Joseph's a smart guy and has a lot of contacts out there,'' said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Washington-based consultant on elections.
Andrew is tapping reliable Democratic constituents - civil-rights groups, minority groups such as the NAACP and the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and such disability groups as the Council for the Blind.
They rallied in 2001 under the umbrella of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to rid the nation of reviled punchcard voting, and Andrew worked pro-bono as their lawyer. He delivered bipartisan support for the Help America Vote Act. Behind the act was the presumption that electronic voting was salvation from the dimpled and hanging chad and from having to resort to the Supreme Court to decide the presidency.
But Congress delayed 16 crucial months in setting up a new federal agency to oversee and enforce standards for the new voting equipment. By 2003, the debate over voting equipment shifted from civil-rights groups and their lawyers to computer scientists who argued that electronic voting was too vulnerable to breakdowns, errors and fraud, at least without any backup paper record of the vote.
So far, they've been winning. Despite resistance from Diebold and some other e-voting suppliers, lawmakers in 25 states have passed laws requiring a paper backup, for review by voters and in most cases recounts by elections officials. Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are debating such a requirement.
While Ohio, Mississippi and Utah are considering large purchases of touchscreens, sales of paper-based optical scanning machines so far are outpacing sales of electronic-voting machines since the 2004 election.
In California at least, Andrew sees civil-rights leaders abdicating from a worthy cause. ``The great irony is, it's the progressives - my side of the aisle - who are against electronic voting but have the most to benefit from it.''
The odd couple of Diebold and Andrew have ``their work cut out for them,'' said Kim Alexander, president of nonprofit California Voter Foundation.
She acknowledges that electronic voting has plenty going for it, such larger type for elderly voters, ballot displays in multiple languages and an audio ballot for visually impaired voters.
``But the way it's been implemented has been irresponsible and reckless,'' Alexander said. ``What we've seen all across the country are numerous examples of glitches and problems. I wish that Diebold would put it's effort into making better equipment and making its paper trail work, rather than a PR campaign.''
Thursday, August 18, 2005
San Diego group conducts parallel election, requests vote recount
Interesting news from San Diego -- a recount in the city's recent election is taking place after a local group conducted a parallel election and found the official results questionable. An article by Evan McLaughlin, staff writer for Voices of San Diego, is featured below.
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A local citizens group claims that the automated voting machines used in San Diego made mistakes that changed the results of the July 26 special election significantly and it is paying the county to do a manual recount of ballots cast in 11 precincts.
"It's about accurately counting the votes," said Brina-Rae Schuchman, one of 23 individuals who want to check the accuracy of the Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scanning machines the county used to tally votes in the citywide special election. "Our jobs as citizens are to get every vote counted in America, and as long as that's not happening, we're losing democracy in America."
The group staged a parallel election at 11 of the city's precincts on Election Day, asking voters to copy their votes onto paper ballots after casting official ballots that were recorded by Diebold scanners.
Organizers took the results to a statistician, who determined that the difference between the tallies by the registrar of voters for the mayoral race and a ballot measure and those recorded in the parallel election were statistically significant, even after accounting for participants who broke a pledge to vote exactly the same on both ballots.
Calls placed to Diebold, Inc.'s headquarters in North Canton, Ohio, were not returned Tuesday.
Initially, the Citizen Audit Parallel Election Project is requesting a manual recount of the 11 precincts, Schuchman said. County officials will begin hand counting the ballots within the next week.
She said they will ask for a hand recount of all precincts if results from the first handful of precincts confirm their suspicions. The citizens group, which has raised money from across the state, will pay for the staff and equipment needed for the recount.
The group was assembled after various media reports nationwide have questioned the integrity of Diebold voting machines.
County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said his office tested the machines before the election and he is confident that the results were accurate.
"They're much more eloquent about their concerns than I am," Haas said. "There are safeguards that we work with before every election. That's part of the procedure."
The 11 candidates that ran for mayor and representatives for both sides of the Proposition A initiative, which proposed that the city of San Diego transfer the Mount Soledad Memorial to the federal government, must be given the chance to attend the recounts, Haas said.
The registrar said that optical scan machines will be used in the Nov. 6 statewide election to record both precinct and absentee ballots.
Touch-screen voting will be re-implemented for precinct ballots after machines are upgraded to include a voter-verified paper audit trail to comply with recent changes to the California election code, he said.
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A local citizens group claims that the automated voting machines used in San Diego made mistakes that changed the results of the July 26 special election significantly and it is paying the county to do a manual recount of ballots cast in 11 precincts.
"It's about accurately counting the votes," said Brina-Rae Schuchman, one of 23 individuals who want to check the accuracy of the Diebold AccuVote-OS optical scanning machines the county used to tally votes in the citywide special election. "Our jobs as citizens are to get every vote counted in America, and as long as that's not happening, we're losing democracy in America."
The group staged a parallel election at 11 of the city's precincts on Election Day, asking voters to copy their votes onto paper ballots after casting official ballots that were recorded by Diebold scanners.
Organizers took the results to a statistician, who determined that the difference between the tallies by the registrar of voters for the mayoral race and a ballot measure and those recorded in the parallel election were statistically significant, even after accounting for participants who broke a pledge to vote exactly the same on both ballots.
Calls placed to Diebold, Inc.'s headquarters in North Canton, Ohio, were not returned Tuesday.
Initially, the Citizen Audit Parallel Election Project is requesting a manual recount of the 11 precincts, Schuchman said. County officials will begin hand counting the ballots within the next week.
She said they will ask for a hand recount of all precincts if results from the first handful of precincts confirm their suspicions. The citizens group, which has raised money from across the state, will pay for the staff and equipment needed for the recount.
The group was assembled after various media reports nationwide have questioned the integrity of Diebold voting machines.
County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas said his office tested the machines before the election and he is confident that the results were accurate.
"They're much more eloquent about their concerns than I am," Haas said. "There are safeguards that we work with before every election. That's part of the procedure."
The 11 candidates that ran for mayor and representatives for both sides of the Proposition A initiative, which proposed that the city of San Diego transfer the Mount Soledad Memorial to the federal government, must be given the chance to attend the recounts, Haas said.
The registrar said that optical scan machines will be used in the Nov. 6 statewide election to record both precinct and absentee ballots.
Touch-screen voting will be re-implemented for precinct ballots after machines are upgraded to include a voter-verified paper audit trail to comply with recent changes to the California election code, he said.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Secretary of State opposes legislation to require use of paper trail for election verification
California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has come out in opposition to Senate Bill 370, which would require county election officials to use the voter verified paper audit trails to audit the accuracy of software vote counts. This is very disappointing news; CVF, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation had sent a letter to Secretary McPherson urging him to support this bill. Today's Oakland Tribune features an article by Ian Hoffman about the Secretary of State's position. It is featured below.
--------------
California's secretary of state, a proponent of backup paper records for electronic-voting machines, is nonetheless opposing their use in vote recounts as legally problematic and impractical, an opinion that could influence national voting reforms.
After months of collecting public opinion, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson recently urged rejection of a new bill that would mandate counting of paper-trail records on e-voting machines.
That, according to voting activists, would render paper trails useless as an independent check on voting computers and software.
"We're at risk of losing the one form of independent verification that we have when counting electronic votes," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "Unless it's used in a recount, there's no reason for voters to be confident in the accuracy of software vote counts."
Computer scientists latched onto the idea of paper trails after the controversial 2000 elections and a flood of new, computerized touch-screen-voting machines took the place of older punch-card and lever voting.
With a paper trail, the logic went, voters could verify their computerized ballots and elections officials would have a paper record of every vote to count as a check on the computers. More than 20 states now require a paper-trail printer on electronic-voting machines or are debating it.
"It's clear to me that the momentum is behind paper trails," said Dan Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for voting reform information.
At issue is a bill authored by Redondo Beach Democrat Debra Bowen, chair of the Senate Committee on Elections and Reapportionment. No lawmaker has voted against the bill in any committee vote or in a full Senate floor vote. It is headed for a full vote in the Assembly.
"To me, it's so obviously the right thing to do to protect the integrity of the vote that it's hard to imagine the governor vetoing it," Bowen said.
"The idea is astonishing that you would go to all the trouble of a paper trail and then use it for nothing," she said.
The problem, as McPherson sees it, is the paper trail itself does not fit the legal definition of a ballot — no thick paper, no watermarks, no rules on size — but using it for recounts would treat it as if it were a ballot.
Beyond that, visually impaired voters cannot see the paper trail, McPherson said Monday. "The disabled groups really can't determine whether the paper trail accurately records their votes."
The state association of local elections officials also opposes the Bowen bill as burdensome.
For 40 years, elections officials have been required to recount 1 percent of the ballots cast in an election, selected at random. With the emergence of touch-screen machines, officials are having the machines print out images of the electronic ballots, and they are recounting those.
University of California, Berkeley, law professor Deirdre Mulligan said it is hardly surprising that paper trails do not meet the legal definition of a ballot. "It's true," said Mulligan, who teaches law at Boalt Hall and directs the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic. "We have these laws that haven't kept pace with technology."
But if the governor agrees with McPherson's opposition based on a "technicality," she said, "you're kind of left with a poor choice. The electronic ballot images that they're talking about counting are less likely to provide a check on the machine."
McPherson proposes pooling federal voting-reform money for several states and devoting it to research on the best way to verify electronic voting.
The paper trail still would have value, he argued, "just to give any voter who might go into the booth a double-check: 'This is how I voted.' It's just to give voters more assurance."
--------------
California's secretary of state, a proponent of backup paper records for electronic-voting machines, is nonetheless opposing their use in vote recounts as legally problematic and impractical, an opinion that could influence national voting reforms.
After months of collecting public opinion, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson recently urged rejection of a new bill that would mandate counting of paper-trail records on e-voting machines.
That, according to voting activists, would render paper trails useless as an independent check on voting computers and software.
"We're at risk of losing the one form of independent verification that we have when counting electronic votes," said Kim Alexander, president of the nonprofit California Voter Foundation. "Unless it's used in a recount, there's no reason for voters to be confident in the accuracy of software vote counts."
Computer scientists latched onto the idea of paper trails after the controversial 2000 elections and a flood of new, computerized touch-screen-voting machines took the place of older punch-card and lever voting.
With a paper trail, the logic went, voters could verify their computerized ballots and elections officials would have a paper record of every vote to count as a check on the computers. More than 20 states now require a paper-trail printer on electronic-voting machines or are debating it.
"It's clear to me that the momentum is behind paper trails," said Dan Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for voting reform information.
At issue is a bill authored by Redondo Beach Democrat Debra Bowen, chair of the Senate Committee on Elections and Reapportionment. No lawmaker has voted against the bill in any committee vote or in a full Senate floor vote. It is headed for a full vote in the Assembly.
"To me, it's so obviously the right thing to do to protect the integrity of the vote that it's hard to imagine the governor vetoing it," Bowen said.
"The idea is astonishing that you would go to all the trouble of a paper trail and then use it for nothing," she said.
The problem, as McPherson sees it, is the paper trail itself does not fit the legal definition of a ballot — no thick paper, no watermarks, no rules on size — but using it for recounts would treat it as if it were a ballot.
Beyond that, visually impaired voters cannot see the paper trail, McPherson said Monday. "The disabled groups really can't determine whether the paper trail accurately records their votes."
The state association of local elections officials also opposes the Bowen bill as burdensome.
For 40 years, elections officials have been required to recount 1 percent of the ballots cast in an election, selected at random. With the emergence of touch-screen machines, officials are having the machines print out images of the electronic ballots, and they are recounting those.
University of California, Berkeley, law professor Deirdre Mulligan said it is hardly surprising that paper trails do not meet the legal definition of a ballot. "It's true," said Mulligan, who teaches law at Boalt Hall and directs the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic. "We have these laws that haven't kept pace with technology."
But if the governor agrees with McPherson's opposition based on a "technicality," she said, "you're kind of left with a poor choice. The electronic ballot images that they're talking about counting are less likely to provide a check on the machine."
McPherson proposes pooling federal voting-reform money for several states and devoting it to research on the best way to verify electronic voting.
The paper trail still would have value, he argued, "just to give any voter who might go into the booth a double-check: 'This is how I voted.' It's just to give voters more assurance."
Monday, August 15, 2005
USA Today story on paper trails in the states
Last week USA Today featured an article by Jim Drinkard highlighting the growing trend around the nation to implement a voter verified paper audit trail requirement in the states. As the article notes, already 25 states have enacted laws to require a paper trail. Last week North Carolina's legislature passed a paper trail bill, which if signed into law will bring the total number to 26. The USA Today story also features a helpful map showing the status of paper trail laws and legislation in the 50 states.
Excerpts from the USA Today story are below.
----------
Three years into a national debate over the security and reliability of computerized voting machines, the skeptics are winning.
In the past month, legislatures in five states — Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Oregon — have passed laws requiring computer-based voting machines to produce a paper backup that can be verified by the voter, according to Electionline.org, which monitors voting systems. That brings to 25 the number of states that require a paper trail.
Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are considering similar legislation.
Paper printouts could be used to verify the electronic count, or as a fail-safe measure in case a recount is needed.
Advocates of requiring a paper trail say it is a response to voters' concerns about whether their ballots are being accurately tallied. Those concerns, they say, stem from the nation's traumatic experience with the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida and a continuing close split in the nation's politics.
"We're not getting many landslides these days, so it's crucial that the votes be counted accurately," says Will Doherty, director of VerifiedVoting.org, which lobbies for paper trails on voting machines.
Some election experts fear that paper backup records will add a layer of complexity to an already delicate system. That could lead to even worse problems in the 2006 elections, such as jammed printers and long voting lines, they say.
"The unintended consequence of a (paper trail) mandate could diminish, rather than enhance, voter confidence," says Conny McCormack, who runs elections in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, Los Angeles County.
"When we start using paper trails in a live election, all of these problems are going to become apparent," says Linda Lamone, administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections. "Problems with paper ballots are going to cause a whole new cloud over the system."
One example already has cropped up. In a California test July 20 of touch-screen voting machines with add-on printers, nearly 20% of the machines experienced problems, including paper jams and computer crashes. The machines were made by Diebold, a leading manufacturer of touch-screen computer voting equipment.
California has since banned the machines, and the test sent qualms through states such as Mississippi and Utah, which had decided to buy machines like those California rejected.
"That just threw holy hell into everybody's bonnet," says Kimball Brace of Election Data Services, a firm that monitors the kinds of voting systems in use across the nation.
Maryland was among the first states to go to all-electronic voting after the problems of the 2000 election, and its experience has been good, Lamone says. "If the proper security measures and procedures are put into place, it's the best system that there is," she says.
---
If a close election goes to a recount, disputes could arise over whether the electronic vote or the paper version is the official record. Paper could be lost, and recounts could take weeks, Lamone says.
More and more states are making decisions about voting technology to meet a Jan. 1 deadline in the Help America Vote Act, which provides federal money to replace outmoded voting machines.
Brace notes that whenever localities adopt new voting technology, the first year it is used holds the greatest risk of problems.
"There's still the potential for a train wreck coming next year," he says.
Excerpts from the USA Today story are below.
----------
Three years into a national debate over the security and reliability of computerized voting machines, the skeptics are winning.
In the past month, legislatures in five states — Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Oregon — have passed laws requiring computer-based voting machines to produce a paper backup that can be verified by the voter, according to Electionline.org, which monitors voting systems. That brings to 25 the number of states that require a paper trail.
Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia are considering similar legislation.
Paper printouts could be used to verify the electronic count, or as a fail-safe measure in case a recount is needed.
Advocates of requiring a paper trail say it is a response to voters' concerns about whether their ballots are being accurately tallied. Those concerns, they say, stem from the nation's traumatic experience with the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida and a continuing close split in the nation's politics.
"We're not getting many landslides these days, so it's crucial that the votes be counted accurately," says Will Doherty, director of VerifiedVoting.org, which lobbies for paper trails on voting machines.
Some election experts fear that paper backup records will add a layer of complexity to an already delicate system. That could lead to even worse problems in the 2006 elections, such as jammed printers and long voting lines, they say.
"The unintended consequence of a (paper trail) mandate could diminish, rather than enhance, voter confidence," says Conny McCormack, who runs elections in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, Los Angeles County.
"When we start using paper trails in a live election, all of these problems are going to become apparent," says Linda Lamone, administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections. "Problems with paper ballots are going to cause a whole new cloud over the system."
One example already has cropped up. In a California test July 20 of touch-screen voting machines with add-on printers, nearly 20% of the machines experienced problems, including paper jams and computer crashes. The machines were made by Diebold, a leading manufacturer of touch-screen computer voting equipment.
California has since banned the machines, and the test sent qualms through states such as Mississippi and Utah, which had decided to buy machines like those California rejected.
"That just threw holy hell into everybody's bonnet," says Kimball Brace of Election Data Services, a firm that monitors the kinds of voting systems in use across the nation.
Maryland was among the first states to go to all-electronic voting after the problems of the 2000 election, and its experience has been good, Lamone says. "If the proper security measures and procedures are put into place, it's the best system that there is," she says.
---
If a close election goes to a recount, disputes could arise over whether the electronic vote or the paper version is the official record. Paper could be lost, and recounts could take weeks, Lamone says.
More and more states are making decisions about voting technology to meet a Jan. 1 deadline in the Help America Vote Act, which provides federal money to replace outmoded voting machines.
Brace notes that whenever localities adopt new voting technology, the first year it is used holds the greatest risk of problems.
"There's still the potential for a train wreck coming next year," he says.
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