The Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots

[kster]

Welcome to the Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots

We are a training and research center that provides on-site instruction and resources to state and local election officials, poll workers and interested voters on how to run secure hand-counted paper ballots elections and recounts. Hand-counted paper ballots elections are a solution to the fraud and error associated with the use of electronic voting machines (both touchscreens / DRE’s and optical scans) and the control of our elections by a privatized electronic voting machine industry.


Hand-counted paper ballots elections require new protocols to be implemented. Therefore, there is a need for information and training for election officials and other poll workers. We can also help you with ballot boxes and recruitment of hand-counters. Hand-counted paper ballots elections are not only much less expensive than buying, upgrading, maintaining and storing electronic voting machines but also keep the money in the community.

The Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots was created to ensure that each one of our votes is counted as cast. For voters to have confidence in our election system, counting of votes must be perceived as being fair and must BE fair.

The right to vote, as well as the principle of "one person, one vote," are cornerstones of our democracy. The anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, and civil rights movements as well as the expansion of voting to young people are all part of the history of electoral reform in this country. Equally fundamental is the assurance that each voter knows that her or his vote counts and is counted as intended. At this time in our history, many have lost confidence in our voting system. Hand-counted paper ballots elections, with a secure chain of custody of the ballots, will restore confidence to voters.


http://www.handcountedpaperballots.org/

[crispini]

1. Dumbest thing ever.

Sorry, in our last election we had 35 races on the ballot. Please explain how that will be hand counted.

[kster]

2. Watch the video... Ballot by Ballot Tally Method

(VIDEO) http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/videos/Wilton_WM9_256Kbps_download_NTSC.html


"We're Counting the Votes" videos

These videos are being made available to promote the use of hand counted paper ballot election systems nationwide. The videos show the easy, transparent, observable, secure, and fair nature of this method of vote counting when done within the community by members of the community and administered by good and honest election officials.

What you see in these videos is the civic and community component that is present in proper election administration, as well as the methodology. Our hope is that people will begin to remember the heart that is the grassroots, community-centered American election.

Watch the videos (requires Windows Media Player)


http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/2648

[crispini]

5. Cut to the chase and tell me how many races were on that ballot?

Please observe the sample ballot from our most recent election. I have more people in my PRECINCT than they do in their town.

http://www.dalcoelections.org/nov42008/Sampleballot.pdf

[TreasonousBastard]

6. None of these people have ever worked a poll, and...

have no idea what it's like to actually hand count. They talk big, but everyone who actually counts the votes hates the thought of hand counts. (Ever wonder why recounts take so long and cost so much?)

They also ignore the little fact that we have machines because hand counting is the most error- and fraud-prone method of counting anything. Kinda like how we have cash registers and computerized accounting now, instead of the old way by hand.

My county usually sends absentee ballots to the individual EDs for hand counting, and 5 or 10 isn't so bad, but this year we had over 40,000 in the county, meaning some districts would have had hundreds. The county didn't send them out this year, knowing it would screw everything up and keep the pollworkers up all night. They hired temps and counted them at the BoE. They may still be counting.

The handjob patrol should just give it up-- it ain't happening.

[crispini]

7. good point. All handcount proponents should go serve as election judges or

on ballot boards. They'd change their ideas right quick!

[Wilms]

9. Kindof harsh, Crispini.

HCPB ain't going to be the choice across the nation. But, as you know, it is still being done in a number of places. And it wouldn't surprise me if many more jurisdictions...likely small ones...could join in.

Even if it didn't save money, it could spend it locally. Not a bad idea.

Please reconsider the blanket rejection in favor of conditional support.

[crispini]

12. If some municipalities want to do this, ok by me.

But I think people who are calling for a nationwide system of hand counts are sadly unrealistic and are losing sight of what could be real solutions. Move to optical scan so there is a paper trail. Mandate a system of audits and checks. Work to get open source, federally audited software in the tabulators. All of these are real solutions that real election administratons could get behind. HCPB is not. I think the focus on HCPB is overly purist and impractical. It causes people to not take election reform seriously. And it ultimately is a distraction from issues that could make a real difference, like some kind of universal voter registration.

[Wilms]

15. Mostly, I agree.

The HCPB or die crowd shoots itself, and the larger ER Movement, in the foot. Then, the larger ER Movement shoots back and makes specious arguments of their own. Vendors salivate.

I think open source is a waste of time, however. You'll never know what is really running on a given system. Better to do a risk-based audit.

[crispini]

18. Ok, fine, I'll buy that. ;)

[kster]

27. Americans are to stupid to Hand Count complicated Paper Ballot?

So we must let electronic ballot smuggling machines do the counting for us, GET REAL!!

[99th_Monkey]

11. They seem to manage hand-counting in Canada just fine, or so sez Mike Moore

"brought in with dog-sleds, mules and canoes" .... (a rough paraphrase of MM)

Hand counting ballots is an idea whose time has come, IMHO
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Return-to-Hand-Counted-Pap-by-Kathryn-Smith-080626-835.html
http://www.wheresthepaper.org/CountPaperBallots.htm

[crispini]

13. again I ask. How many races on those ballots?

[99th_Monkey]

23. That makes little difference really. The more important questions really are ...

1) The ratio between how many ballots need to be handled/counted, and how many poll workers
there are to do the counting. It takes only a fractional amount of additional time per ballot to tally
results of multiple races.
3) If you had bothered to check out the links I provided you may have noticed this:

Example 2, Tally Sheet with Rows of Squares
In this vote counting method, each Scrutineer has a tally sheet with rows of squares to be used for counting the votes for each candidate.

This kind of tally sheet is large--perhaps 17 by 22 inches (the size of four sheets of ordinary typing paper). The tally sheet has the name of each candidate in large print, followed by perhaps 20 rows of squares. If each row has 50 squares and there are 20 rows, there are 1000 squares for each candidate's name. To make counting easier, the vertical line that separates the boxes is wider after every fifth square.

A polling official goes through the ballots one at a time. He or she holds each ballot so everyone can see it, and reads aloud the names of the candidates selected on the ballot. For each vote for a specific candidate, the Scrutineers mark "X" in one box for that candidate.

After all ballots have been processed like this, the number of votes for each candidate is determined by the number of "X" marks for the candidate.

[Stevepol]

19. Not hard to explain:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.

[crispini]

21. How would you handcount this?

http://www.dalcoelections.org/nov42008/Sampleballot.pdf

With the five elections workers I have available to me at my polling place, and 2 hours to close the polls. ;)

[TahitiNut]

24. You might have to remove your shoes.

:eyes:

[althecat]

28. Hasn't this discussion been had before...

Is there some reason why you lurk in this forum and jump on anyone with an alternate viewpoint being rude, patronising and obnoxious. You do not have a monopoly on the truth. Clearly there are people who disagree with you. Calling those people dumb is not constructive.

Hand counted paper ballots are workable. They work everywhere else in the world. Yes they will take longer to count and require much more poll workers... however I expect they will still be cheaper than the unreliable and unverfiable computerised methods which you insist everybody must use.

This forum is the election reform forum not the election status quo forum - sometimes I wonder.

[autorank]

3. This is an ecellent group of people k*r

They've done a number of trials to prove that his can be done and then there's history. No system
is perfect but the Kucinich Bill, H.R. 6200, I believe, of the 109th Congress had the ticket - 500 ballots to a clear box, citizen counts. That made sense, get people involved too.

[crispini]

8. Get people involved? Hahahahaha.

I'm an election judge. I have problems finding 5 people to work my prcinct on election day and we pay them nine dollars an hour. Where are am I going to find the 20 or 30 people that would be required to handcount the 2000 ballots on election day? Multiply by 400 polling places open in our county and it becomes just stupid.

Have you ever worked an election in a big city?

[autorank]

10. Worked as a precinct captain in a precinct. of several thousand.

But size isn't everything. It's heavily populated burbs. I know your quandary and the intensity of
the work. I was there from dawn to dusk and so were they. Did it a couple of times.

Ever gotten a notice for jury duty? I did. I made sure I was presentable and early (it was federal).

I said 'get people involved' not 'get volunteers.' This is every bit as important as jury duty and
people should be honored to serve. There should be a draft commensurate to the needs of the election
and a provision that gets either people a paid day off added to their vacation time/sick days or real
compensation for the self employed, well above $9 an hour. Save the money on a low tech (like India's)
or no tech, like paper ballots.

I respect what you do and the big city voting is both important and challenging. You should have
a crew of motivated draftees for a day to help. It's the most important process in our governance.

[crispini]

14. sure, if we're redesigning our election system from the ground up, that might work.

but all change is incremental. And there are changes that fit within the existing election system which would go a long way to making it better. Evolution, not revolution, which we're not going to get anyway.

[Wilms]

17. Fair enough. And I see you've evolved from the "dumbest thing ever" stance.

That's good!

[crispini]

20. LOL. Well, I was mostly thinking of MY precinct when I posted that.

Holy gods, the thought of handcounting 2000 ballots with something like 50 races on each ballot and the 4 80 year old volunteers I have available to me makes me laugh hysterically.

I agree that election integrity is a big concern, but I wish that everyone involved with this subject would spend some quality time with their local elections office to get some real experience. Many do, but many do not. I myself am quite satisfied with the integrity of our county elections, based on my first-hand experience. Of course, I know that not every county is the same, and I certainly have a long list of improvements I'd like to see implemented (on a national scale, preferably), but after I got involved, my confidence in the system went way, way up.

[Wilms]

22. Hear, hear!

And don't think I don't worry about some precincts in a HCPB election. Good 'ol paper ballot fraud is REAL.

More audits!

[Peace Patriot]

29. "All change is incremental." That is not how 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting got

inflicted on us. The Anthrax Congress created a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle--the so-called "Help America Vote Act" (in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution, Oct 02)--with NO requirements for a paper ballot or an audit, and fast-tracked these diabolical machines all over the country for the 2004 election, with the e-voting corps lavishly lobbying state/county election officials and legislators, corrupting our entire system, pushing citizen volunteers out, and turning voting into a corpo bazaar. By 2004, 80% of the voting systems in the country were electronic, most of them with no verification even possible--no paper trail at all. This was not "incremental." This was a tsunami.

Furthermore, these were not neutral corporations. All three of the major vendors have close ties to the Republican Party, and two of them have hair-raising extremist rightwing financial backing and connections. We turned our voting over to rightwing corps, with no audit capability in many systems, and only a 1% audit even in the best of states, to be run on 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that no even our secretaries of state are permitted to review--on machines that were rife with insecurity, making undetectable vote stealing invisible, unverifiable, undetectable and EASY, and with the speed of these machines, and a few lines of clever code, suddenly massive nationwide fraud was possible.

This should NEVER have been done so fast, without strong verification procedures--a required paper ballot, a 100% audit--for the first few national elections on these machines (and maybe 10% to 50% thereafter). And why it WAS done the fraud-prone way was the rush on to spend this money with our election officials enjoying lots of percs at events like the week of sun, fun and high-end shopping at the Beverly Hilton in Hollywood, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, in August 2005. That was their reward for totally fucking the voters over, and stuffing billions into these election theft corporations' pockets.

Now we have to UNDO the damage. And it doesn't help to have people say that NOW change must be INCREMENTAL. Not so! Because this change was NOT incremental, but was head-spinning fast, huge mistakes were made, and the citizens of this country did not have time to catch them. 'TRADE SECRET' voting counting with a zero audit, or only a 1% audit, is not okay. You make it sound like it's a choice. Because e-voting SEEMS easier, some little towns could got back to hand counting, if they want to be quaint. That is a wrong assessment of our situation. Hand-counted paper ballots (or, if we can't pry these big contract powers from the claws of our election officials, 100% hand-counted verification of optiscans) is a NECESSITY to insure that all votes are being accurately counted, until we can figure out some other way to do this, should we choose to spend billions and billions more of our non-existent tax dollars on more electronics.

Your casual attitude toward 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting amazes me--particularly with the zero or poor verification procedures and considering who owns this SECRET code. Voting is not for the convenience of election officials nor judges. It is our most important, fundamental democratic power. It MUST BE FULLY VERIFIABLE and VISIBLE to the PUBLIC.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. Sponsored by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Reason and Intelligence.

Imagine, counting ballots!

I can't for the day when we can keep the freaks out of America's public schools!

[Stevepol]

16. I like it, I like it!!!! K&R!

[peacenik37]

25. hand count 'em

It's the only way to make sure. Those audits are rigged. Also get rid of the electoral college. That would make it easier to bust the cheaters and prosecute the crooks.

[Wilms]

26. "Audits are rigged"??? But Hand Counts aren't?

Please explain.