HB 1740 update and an endorsement of paper ballots: Honolulu Advertiser

[tommcintyre]

<My report on the Hawaii House of Reps Judicial Committee hearing for bill HB 1740 to require VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail - ballots)with all DRE's:>

There were over 30 testimonies given or submitted. Groups like the League of women voters gave strong supporting testimony. The principles of Safevotehawaii gave excellent expert testimony, and were called back as a group to answer questions. (At a meeting later last night, they were very encouraged by what happened at the hearing.)

There were some relatively minor changes to the bill suggested by the lawmakers. The questions were generally positive and supportive. A good proportion of the room was filled with people there for HB1740. The next step in the House will be the Finance committee. A lot of support and preparation will be necessary, but it is very do-able.

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Urgent: Action re: Paper Audit Capability for Electronic Voting Machines

Your ACTIONS made the difference in helping to make yesterday's hearing on HB 1740 a
SUCCESS!
Please continue your support and we will keep updating you. HB 1740 has now been
referred to the House Finance Committee and we REALLY need your support there. You
can still write testimony and submit them
and/or come down to testify. PHONE CALLS will continue to be important too.

Read the Honolulu Advertiser Editorial Endorsement for Paper Audit Trail below.

NOW on to the SENATE hearing scheduled for this FRIDAY, March 11:


Urgent: Action Call to Support Paper Audit Capability for Electronic Voting Machines


Attention: All Kerry, Dean, Kucinich, Clark, Edwards and Gephardt supporters


Congratulations! Yesterday's House hearing was successful.


The Judiciary Committee in the Hawaii Senate will hold a hearing on SB 1325 Relating
to Electronic Voting Requirements. All electronic voting in Hawaii beginning with
the next election (2006) will be require a paper trail which can be verified by a
voter and audited if this bill passes.
Please read the enclosed one-page summary for more information on this issue.

You can help in one or more of the following ways:

1. Telephone the offices of these Senators today or as soon as possible and ask the
staff member to tell the representative that you support SB 1325 (because you
believe every vote should be counted and able to be audited.) Please be courteous.
Most legislators are supportive. If you get an answering machine, leave the
message.
Sen. Colleen Hanabusa 586-7793 - Chair, Judiciary Committee
Sen. Clayton Hee 586-7330 - V. Chair, Judiciary Committee
Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland 586-6130 - Member, Judiciary Committee
Sen. J. Kalani English 587-7225 - Member, Judiciary Committee
Toll free from Maui 984-2400+77225
Toll free from Moloka and Lanai
1-800-468-4644+77225
Sen. Les Ihara, Jr. 586-6250 - Member, Judiciary Committee
Sen. Paul Whalen 586-9385 - Member, Judiciary Committee

and/or

2. You can submit a testimony supporting SB 1325 to the Sergeant-at-Arms
(Oahu Fax [phone]) (Neighbor Islands Fax [phone])

and/or

3. You can attend the hearing: Friday, February 11, 2005 at 9:00 a.m., Conference
room 229, Hawaii State Capitol.


and/or


4. You can submit testimony (see #2 above) and read it at the hearing.

Please do at least one of the above. If you have questions, telephone or e-mail me.
(see above)

--------------------------------------------------------

E-Voting Safety Issues Require Legislation


The recent rush to adopt e-voting machines, prompted by the 2002 Help America Vote
Act (HAVA), has resulted in systems which do not provide the same guarantee of vote
safety as existing systems.

Voting needs to be accurate, anonymous, and transparent. The existing system, called
Ooptical scan¹ or 'mark sense', satisfies these requirements. The process used to
record votes consists of marks on paper. The system that counts the ballots can be
verified by auditing the results presented by the counting machine against a manual
count of paper ballots.

Electronic voting is different. E-voting produces no written record of the vote, so
there is no way to audit the results in a meaningful way. The votes are recorded
only electronically, using software programs that are kept secret from the voting
public. Accuracy must be taken on faith. Failures in the voting machines have
caused lost votes with no paper backup.

This is a real problem, one that affects the outcome of elections. In Carteret
County, North Carolina, over 4400 votes were lost by an electronic voting machine
with no paper backup; some races there have not been decided yet as a result. A bug
in counting software in Illinois initially gave a County Commissioner's race to a
Republican; when the tally was checked by hand, it turned out a Democrat had won.

Even here in Hawai'i, we've had our issues. Votes were recorded for the Green Party
during the primary in places with no Green Party candidates. Without paper backup,
there's no way to be sure how those votes were actually entered.

A voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) is a system where printers attached to
the voting machines print a paper record of the vote at the same time the electronic
vote is recorded. This paper record becomes the official recount ballot, and is a
safeguard in case a machine fails, or is suspected of losing or modifying votes.

Mandatory audits of a random sample of precincts can provide assurances about
accuracy of the e-voting machines and counting software. Comparing the paper audit
trail to the tabulated votes, as we do for the mark sense machines currently in use,
improves public confidence in the voting system and reduces the chances for fraud or
poor design to affect elections.

A voter verified paper audit trail combined with mandatory audits of a random sample
of precincts comprise the minimum requirements for vote safety. A bill to legislate
that minimum would benefit all the people of Hawai'i.

Also of serious concern is the secret nature of the software used to record and
count the ballots. That secrecy is even more dangerous when the people who provide
the software and hardware are contracted to run the systems, as they are here in
Hawai'i.

Safe Vote Hawaii is a grassroots coalition of technology professionals, official
election observers, and community activists working for safe electronic voting.

Safe Vote Hawaii ­ - Visit www.safevotehawaii.com<http://www.safevotehawaii.com/ > ­
[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail] >


*****************************************************************************

EDITORIAL ENDORSEMENT for Paper AUDIT TRAIL from the HONOLULU ADVERTISER:

E-mail<http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Feb/08/op/op01p.html/?email=on>
this story


Posted on: Tuesday, February 8, 2005
EDITORIAL
Paper trail will boost voters' confidence

Hawai'i has a long record of fair, accurate and accountable elections
with a strong level of voter trust.

Hearings set
The House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on electronic
voting at 2 p.m. today in room 325 of the state Capitol. The
Senate Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee will discuss a
similar bill at 9 a.m. Friday in room 229.

That record is now in danger. Flush with federal cash prompted by the
Help America Vote Act of 2002, elections officials across the country
(and in Hawai'i) are modernizing their voting systems, and in many
areas, it was long overdue.

But this stampede toward computer-based systems, or electronic voting,
has not been without its problems.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[tommcintyre]

1. An update on the newspaper endorsement

"But Hawai'i has essentially gone with a limited program of one
electronic voting machine in every precinct for the convenience of the
disabled and others, so the paper audit would be an additional cost only
for a relatively small number of machines."

<There is a good chance that ALL voting machines will be replaced with DREs. So many more printers will be necessary. But, overall, the newspaper endorsement is excellent.>

[GetTheRightVote]

2. I hope they count the vote by the paper receipts not the machines

:kick:

[tommcintyre]

5. Not likely to happen

HAVA does NOT require DRE's at all. So why are so many state election commissions rushing into them?

First, we need to realize that HAVA (feds) are matching the states funds at a 20 to 1 ratio! So, for example, a $350k investment will get $7 mil in funds. WOW! That's hard to resist. But they can only get that money if they upgrade their equipment (spend it).

The election officials want the DRE's because they have the potential of streamlining their work flow (counting process). So asking them to hand count all the paper ballots (produced by the DRE printers) would be counter-productive as they see it.

With the appropriate auditing safeguards in place, a combination of DRE's with VVPAT will result in a reasonably safe (accurate) election. (Assuming other unrelated problems like voter intimidation are dealt with also.)

[Amaryllis]

3. Andy will insist the language should be voter verified paper BALLOT!!!!

[BeFree]

4. Verified paper Ballots

The only way that will happen is to use Optical Scan machines, which means 99% of the DRE's would be trashed. It's the fallback position from all paper, hand counted.

You can bet the makers of the DREs are falling all over themselves either trying to put out the fires raging around them, or they are designing paper reciepts for their machines. Well, if it's paper reciepts, then, they should be receipts just like you get from an ATM, nothing less.

We have the DREs on the ropes. They either do, or die. I say we finish them off by motivating people to ask for the reciepts to be as good or better than they get from an ATM, Afterall, that's what the mass of people understand. Of course, paper reciepts, like those from an ATM will never fly, but it just pushes the DREs over the ropes, once and for all.

[tommcintyre]

6. At the hearing the bill was defined a requiring "paper ballots"

I wish Andy (and other national "professionals" - like claudiajean, etc.) had the time/resources to "introduce" themselves to the local state groups fighting for election reform. I think the more "networked" this all is, the more ideas, etc. can be shared. And, consequently, the more effective we all will be. So far, eight states have DRE/paper trail and/or ballot laws enacted. I have to wonder how much unnecessary "reinventing the wheel", etc. is happening?

[tommcintyre]

7. An updated local newspaper article

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x322308

[Moderator]

8. tommcintyre

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator