Nevada First to Use Electronic Voting with Printers

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nevada on Friday said it would be the first U.S. state to use voting machines that will leave a paper trail, the first large-scale response to concerns that a paperless system could lead to ballot fraud.


Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller said he hoped his state would set an example by using touch-screen voting machines equipped with printers and avoid a repeat of the 2000 presidential election debacle.


The disputed 2000 election led many states to move from punch cards to electronic voting systems. But computer experts have warned that some of the systems are vulnerable to hacking, fraud and malfunctions.


President Bush (news - web sites) won the White House over Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) after weeks of post-election court battles over whether votes were uncounted because of "hanging chads" and holes that were pushed but not punched.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=1&u=/nm/20040716/pl_nm/campaign_voting_dc

[soothsayer]

1. That guy who invented "Tru Vote" was killed in a mysterious car

accident.

Those are the voting machines that print a receipt for the voter.

[Cerridwen]

2. Not sure what to think . . .

There's "E-Vote Software Leaked Online" at Wired

There's "SEQUOIA VOTING SYSTEMS: Voting machines chosen
Clark County already using touch-screens which will have to be upgraded"
at The Las Vegas Review Journal

Anyone more in the know have something for me, please.

[LittleApple81]

3. For those of you that saw the House committee discussing this,

they were showing the paper ballot: It is like a calculator or cash-register roll system. ONE BALLOT is like 4 feet long.. They said that to check it, it took an inordinate amount of time... IT WAS JUST SO RIDICULOUS... I hope these are well designed, but my thoughts watching that presentation was: is this THE BEST WE CAN DO????

[Spangle]

5. Recounting a reciept like that would be

impossible. Which is still the point. Hard to handle, hard to tally. Would have to put in piles or something.

But a recount could be done, IF needed. Better then the other options that are being given.

Are these recipts going to the voter, or is the polling place taking a copy. To me this is an issue. The polling place NEEDS a copy. If the voters just take these home, no way to do a paper reccount. They would just as the MACHINES to spit out data that is all ready screwed...

[LittleApple81]

9. No, they stay in the polling place. But their description of how

the machines they were discussing was hilarious... if it were not so ridiculous.

[aden_nak]

4. As a computer tech, I am simply not impressed.

As a computer technician and a cut-and-dry technophile, I am utterly unimpressed with even "printed out" electronic results. I see no guarantee that what is entered on the screen will be recorded. What good is a printed out record if there is no way to verify what happenes to the data between when the choice is made and when it is recorded?

A first year high school student could be taught to write a piece of code that randomly selects a given percentage of KERRY votes and switched them to BUSH before they are ever recorded. The entire situation is utterly unacceptable, and printed-out results are worthless unless EVERY PART OF THE PROCESS can be documented, reviewed, and tested independently.

[Old and In the Way]

7. At least the printed receipt is there for confirmation.

Asuming your receipt matches your choice, the chances of hi-jacking a vote becomes more problematic for Republicans. The results have to be auditable. If there is a program that siphon's votes from the from the accummulated register, it ought to show up in the recount of paper ballot receipts. The risk of public backlash from "fixed" machines becomes prohibitive to even chance it, I think.

[aden_nak]

8. But it's just an illusion of verifiable data.

The only way this could work is if each person, after they vote, is required to actually LOOK at the printout for their own vote and be sure that it's what they selected. At that point, FUCK IT. Write it down yourself. Data manipulation can be done between when the button is pressed and when the data is saved unless the person casting the vote checks their own printout afterwards. And that's not going to happen.

Electronic Voting is just one of those things that is a really stupid idea, but no one wants to say so because it seems like a natural progression. Everything else is being modernized and computerized, so why not voting? It's a bad analogy and doesn't hold up. If there isn't a physical record, it never happened. And if the individual voter doesn't verify their own physical record, there's no way to know if that record is accurate.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Disagree.

Electronic Voting is not evil in and of itself. Under the current "vision" of EV, there is a great opportunity to game the results. But if properly safeguarded, they can provide a fast and accurate method to capture the voter's intent.

And I assumed that people check to see that the ballot/receipt reflects the choice a person votes for. If they are oblivious to that, all bets are off.

[TahitiNut]

11. An error/fraud cannot be corrected if it's not detected first.

The mere presence of a "paper trail" is insufficient. First and foremost, the paper must be matched (by the voter!) to the electronic ballot and verified. Then, in order to even detect the existence of a error/fraud, "N" paper ballots must be counted and compared to the electronic tally. "N" must be larger for smaller values of "n" where "n" is the size of the discrepancy.

Let me say it another way.

The audit validation of election in which "N" votes are cast requires a larger manually-counted sample size of paper ballots as the size of the error/fraud allowed is reduced. The question becomes one of how much of an error/fraud will be tolerated. Remember, small differences can make huge swings in Presidential elections.

Given how ubiquitous opinion polls have become, especially privately-funded ones, it's not hard to imagine a fraud that carefully selects exactly those precincts in the most critical swing states (with "winner-take-all" electoral voting) where the smallest (percentage) change causes the largest impact.

[Old and In the Way]

14. I agree.......a random sampling plan that accurately reflects the

population size should be part of any quality assurance procedure. A random pulling of say, 100 votes should reflect the aggregate tally, within some MOE. If the results don't correlate, expand the sample population. If this is still statistically "odd", do a full recount. Results have to match aggregate total. One good thing about electronic voting, too. The physical receipts have to match the computer's aggregated number.

Certainly our votes could be considered a product with a defect tolerance of 1 PPM or better. Hell, we do it for toasters, why not our most important Democratic asset?

[Kelvin Mace]

18. If I may clarify

The digital count will be compared to the paper count in random audits or whenever any question is raised about the results. Personally I would like to see mandatory comparison between the two, and will lobby for that after we get rid of paperless voting. One problem at a time. <s>

[MallRat]

6. Are these paper RECEIPTS or paper BALLOTS?

Big difference.

[NewJerseyDem]

10. I think it is just a receipt

It seems like they are still voting with the electronic machine, but the receipts will be there for a recount.

[MallRat]

12. If the machine is actually COUNTING votes, there won't be a recount.

If the system gets hacked and gives Bush a 3% margin of victory, those "receipts" are irrelevant.

Voter-verified paper ballots are the only thing that ensures a fair election. With VVPBs, you only use the touchscreen to select candidates, but when you're done, the system prints out THE ballot, and it's the BALLOT that gets counted.

-MR

[Nevernose]

13. I feel confident in NV's computerized voting methods

While I am in no way an expert on BBV, I have voted in many Nevada elections. There have been no major issues so far, and we've been using computerized voting machines for ten years. It actually came as a shock to me when people got so upset about BBV in the last couple of years; Nevada has had computer voting for a decade. In the '98 recount between Reid and Ensign, a recount was performed, finding a vote discrepancy of only about 200 votes out of a hundred thousand cast.

There is also the issue that in Nevada, the voting machines are supervised, regulated, and checked out by the Nevada Gaming Commission, the same non-partisan group of techies and scientists who oversee all video gambling in the state (and, by default, in all other states and most other countries as well). I have confidence in these people.

[DeepModem Mom]

16. kick

[Sven77]

17. from alex jones infowars, some googling

Former CIA own the 4 major voting machine companies, the fifth owned by former head of NSA. 8th largest Nebraska Chuck Hagel, the tenth largest owned by ClearChannel.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm

Senator Hagel Admits Owning Voting Machine Company

ES&S was the ONLY company whose machines counted Hagel’s votes when he ran for election in 1996 and 2002. He was behind in the polls in Nebraska, but one by a landslide when all the crooked voting machines counted the votes.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00166.htm

[cAMP]

19. I'm not sure what to think of this

The version I saw prints a hardcopy which the voter can observe, and then it "form feeds" and is saved for recount purposes. This hybrid may actually be the best way.

[Nashyra]

20. I believe it is August 11th

not sure on the date but i know for a fact that the county clerk for Douglas county will be holding a panel discussion about the machines, there will one there for anyone to try especially for the cnadidates to try. I am a candidate up for election in Douglas County, I was called by the clerks office to come to a training session on these machines. I will give all a run down when the time comes. I forwarded an e-mail from Bev Harris to the woman putting the panel together so she could get in touch with Bev. I'll keep you posted.