Re: Caltech/MIT study shows hand-counting, scanning most accurate

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Evan.  I kept meaning to read this study.  Now I've finally at
least made it thru the brief fact sheet - highly recommended, and
parts of the full report.  And it matches our concerns and
recommendations very closely.  Though it was written in 2001....

They warn against the risks of mail-in ballots.  They call for a

 guarantee that voters can verify their votes and that voters can
 create a copy of their votes that can be used in the event of a
 recount (full auditability)

and for

 modular voting equipment, which allows for the separate development
 of equipment for generating votes and of equipment for casting and
 for counting votes

Excerpts from the fact sheet (and one error noted....):

 RECOMMENDATIONS

 The United States can improve the rate of lost votes immediately.

 Optical scanning has the best track record of all equipment types
 currently in use. We recommend replacing punch cards, lever machines,
 and older electronic machines with optical scanned ballot systems, or
 any electronic voting system proven to perform similarly well in
 extensive field tests. This would cost approximately $2 per voter, or
 $200 million, per year (over a fifteen to twenty year span). (Pages
 17-25)

 ...

 A standard equipment platform must be develop to guarantee that
 voters can verify their votes and that voters can create a copy of
 their votes that can be used in the event of a recount (full
 auditability). We recommend that this platform consist of modular
 voting equipment, which allows for the separate development of
 equipment for generating votes and of equipment for casting and for
 counting votes. This will allow for development of very secure
 equipment for casting and counting votes and for continual
 improvement in the ballot and interface design. (Pages 58-64)

 ...

 The federal government must create and fund a system for evaluating
 equipment, based on lab and field testing of equipment. This will be
 more efficient than the current system, which, at its best, relies on
 demonstration projects run by the firms that develop and sell
 equipment. (Pages 68-70)

 ...

 Integrity of absentee balloting is a real concern. We recommend use
 of early voting instead of absentee voting on demand. (Pages 36-41)

From the full report, p. 39:

 There is no evidence that liberalizing absentee voting laws or
 enacting early or vote-by-mail schemes has increased voter turnout
 dramatically. Oregon is a case in point. Oregon s turnout in 2000 the
 first year of vote-by-mail for the general election measured as a
 percentage of the voting age population, was up 3.5 percent over
 1996, compared to the nationwide increase in turnout, which was 2.1
 percent. However, sixteen states and the District of Columbia had
 turnout increases in 2000 that exceeded Oregon s.
 ...  The one exception may be turnout in local elections.

 Research on the turnout effects of absentee voting are especially
 troubling in light of controversies in three Florida counties in 2000
 over partisan use of ambigu-ous absentee voting laws. There, lawsuits
 were filed in Bay, Martin, and Seminole counties, alleging
 irregular-ities with absentee ballot applications that party
 activists had sent to masses of voters. Leaving legal issues aside,
 the Florida episode reminds us that research has identified one
 condition under which absentee ballot laws increase turnout: when
 they are sufficiently ambiguous or liberal to allow partisan forces
 to use them to boost the turnout of party loyalists.


 ...

 The most important concerns raised by these procedures focus on
 increased opportunities for corruption. Indeed, the most prominent
 recent election fraud court cases involved absentee ballots Dodge
 County, Georgia in 1996 and Miami in 1997. Dodge County involved two
 competing candidates for the Democratic nomination for the county
 commission bidding against each other for absentee ballots inside the
 county courthouse. In Miami, fraud so pervaded the absentee ballots
 that an appellate court eventually threw out all absentee ballots and
 declared a winner based solely on the machine vote.


This statement in the fact sheet is inconsistent with the full study:

 Over a fifteen to twenty year span, the cost of acquiring and
 operating either an optically scanned ballot system or an electronic
 voting system is approximately the same, about $2 per voter per
 year. (Page 53)

vs the data in the full report showing that even in-precinct optical
scanning is perhaps half the cost of "touchscreen systems":

 Acquisition costs for purchasing new voting equip-ment are $18
 $25/voter for touchscreen systems and $8 10 for in-precinct optical
 scanning equipment.

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60

On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 03:34:57PM -0700, Evan Daniel Ravitz wrote:
> note that the Caltech/MIT voting
> study which is at: http://www.vote.caltech.edu/ and listed in our
> site's "Other Resources" under Security Analyses clearly says that
> hand-counting and paper ballot scanning have the
> least problems. The shorter fact sheet at
> 
> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/voting2facts.html
> 
> mentions this under "equipment"