Sunday post article RE: Keller resolution against paperless voting systems

["Pete Klammer" <pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Version submitted to Rocky Mountain News (letters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx);
printed in Sunday April 11 issue as a Speakout guest column, bottom of page
7E, under title "Too Much Doubt About E-voting"; incidentally opposite
another article on the similar topic by columnist Fred Brown.

"""

Why Colorado Needs SJR04-010 to Protect Trustworthy Voting NOW!

Paperless e-voting systems -- "Direct Recording Electronic" (DRE) machines
-- have exhibited spectacular failures ever since their introduction and
right up through the most recent elections.  Instead of trustworthy results,
what they produce are turned-away voters, locked-up screens, mysterious
counts (sometimes even negative!), lawsuits, and dissembling election
officials morphing into public apologists on behalf of their supplying
vendors.  It doesn't have to be this way.

Voting equipment rules are in flux right now: the old rules don't apply to
DREs and will eventually be replaced whenever the people responsible for the
federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) get their act together.  But in the
meantime, the rush to use DREs is premature; the public record bears this
out.

So we are distressed that our Secretary of State lobbies against Senator Moe
Keller's Resolution SJR04-010, "Concerning Paperless Voting Systems."  In
doing so, Donetta Davidson is effectively defending an election mechanism
which tempts fraud and invites undetectable rigging and flaws, by banishing
any credible documentary evidence of voter intent.

It is now up to the citizens and their concerned representatives to
counteract this administration's perverse attachment to the risky hazards of
paperless voting.  It is time to pass SJR04-010, to put Colorado on record,
to the State and the Nation, as a defender of trustworthy elections.

What does the resolution do?  The Resolution is an expression of concern,
which takes the position that voter-verified paper ballots are more
trustworthy and hence more preferable than paperless electronic voting
systems.  It does not "require" anything, except possibly some thought.

What are Secretary Davidson's arguments?  She urges legislators "to proceed
with caution" and to allow "the new legislation already enacted time to
work."  But where was that caution when DREs were hastily purchased and
rushed into deployment?

She says HAVA already provides adequate protection, but in fact HAVA allows
a "paper record" to be produced at the end of the election, with no in-booth
voter verification.

She further claims, "To date, there has not been a single voter-verifiable
voting system tested or certified at either a national or state level."  To
the contrary: paper ballot systems are permitted under HAVA, defined under
Colorado law and have been used in Colorado for years.  Voting machines that
create paper ballots or paper audit trails include the recently-announced
AccuPoll.  It is qualified by the National Association of State Election
Directors (NASED) and joins Avante, AutoMark, and Populex in various stages
of certification.

She also perpetuates a confusion between "ballot" and "receipt" and argues
that a supplemental paper receipt does not "make the system secure" since
there's no guarantee "that the actual recording of the electronic vote is
consistent with the printed screen."  What is needed is a paper ballot, not
a supplemental paper receipt.  She is right, the votes printed on a paper
receipt might be different than the votes recorded in computer memory and
might not ever be counted.  The voters can be deceived into thinking that
they are verifying their votes, when they are not.

It is not enough for citizens to rely on the Secretary's assertion that
these systems are "tamper-free and fraud-free," -- they must be also be
obviously, demonstrably, and provably so.  It is not enough to rely on
testers assurances and vendors' good faith.  What is required and expected
is that each individual voter can have confident knowledge that his or her
ballot is accurately recorded and securely cast in the ballot box.  It is
not enough to just count votes correctly, it is also required to dispel all
possible doubt that it is truly so.

She says, "let the system work."  Well, "the system" is obviously already
failing us: otherwise how did we get so many untrustworthy, failing DREs
fielded already?  Let Colorado express an opinion, and stem the direction of
these dangerous trends.
 
The Secretary of State finishes, "Let HAVA work."  We agree: let it work
with Colorado's input.  Let it work through the experiments, testing and
measurement, but let's do that in the development laboratory, not in live
elections.  Let our election directors and all national authorities know
that we are against dangerous paperless voting systems, and in favor of
trustworthy voter-verified paper ballots.

Pete Klammer is an active member of IEEE Workgroup P1583 preparing standards
for voting equipment, and a registered Professional Engineer specializing in
microprocessor firmware.

--
Pete Klammer, P.E. / ACM(1970), IEEE, ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE), NACSE(NSNE)
   3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
 (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
   "Either Be Good, or Else Be Careful, but Do Have Fun! "

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Charles E. Corry [mailto:ccorry@xxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 4:08 PM
To: pklammer@xxxxxxx; Al Kolwicz
Subject: Re: Keller resolution against paperless voting systems

Pete and Al,
      So how about posting a copy of the article so the rest of the 
world can see it?
                 Chuck
-- 
Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.
President, Equal Justice Foundation http://www.ejfi.org/
455 Bear Creek Road
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906-5820
Telephone: (719) 520-1089
Domestic violence against men in Colorado: http://www.dvmen.org
Personal home page: http://corry.ws
Curriculum vitae:
http://www.marquiswhoswho.net/charleselmocorry/Default.aspx

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