Bob McGrath Director, Coloradoans for Voting Integrity www.cfvi.org 303-460-1825 days
The "audit trail" bills are intended to deceive voters into believing that
they are verifying the votes that will decide an election. This is not what
these bills do.
Instead, voters would be verifying a secondary document that: (1) does not necessarily reflect the voter's choices, (2) is printed in a form that is excessively difficult for voters to verify and costly for officials to use for independent counting and (3) is not the official ballot and will rarely be counted.
The fundamental requirement is this: each voter must be able to verify that their real votes that will be used to determine the election outcome are recorded as the voter intends and must be able to obtain a replacement ballot if they are not. (There are additional requirements such as: recorded votes must be permanent, every ballot must be secure and accounted for, and the interpretation of votes must be unambiguous, but these requirements are not documented here.)
We continue to ask for the following:
Trustworthy Elections Resolution
WHEREAS trustworthy elections are basic to democracy,
WHEREAS trustworthy elections require that each vote is anonymous, secure, verified by the voter and counted as intended by the voter,
WHEREAS paperless voting machines make it impossible for us to verify that our votes are correctly recorded,
WHEREAS paperless voting machines make it impossible to prove that each vote
is correctly counted,
WHEREAS a receipt printer on a paperless voting machine would not solve these problems because the votes printed on the receipt can be different from the votes stored in the machine, and because votes on the receipts would rarely be counted,
WHEREAS accurate re-counting requires that the votes on the original paper ballots be examined and counted, and that the results from a previous count are not known to the people doing the re-counting,
WHEREAS failure to conduct trustworthy elections opens the door to undetectable errors and fraud and destroys voter confidence,
THEREFORE, we voters want to hand mark or machine mark our votes onto full-ballot-text paper ballots, to check our votes before we cast them, to know that the votes on our paper ballot are what get counted, and to have access to proof that every ballot is accounted for and that every vote is correctly understood and counted.
Al Kolwicz
CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com
_____
From: Andrew G. Silver [mailto:andrewgsilver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 8:55 AM To: Pamela Smith Cc: lobbyists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; stopvotefraud@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; ncverifiablevoting@xxxxxxxxx Subject: [stopvotefraud] Re: [VerifiedVoting.org lobbyists] Ensign Bill S2437
Pamela, This is terrific news. Based on 5 minutes' study, I find nothing wrong with the bill, except that it does not include provisions of HR 2239 relating to open source code and mandatory recounts. I think, and hope, at first glance, that you are mistaken about the effective date. the language appears to be equivalent to that of HR 2239 section 8, on effective date. I could be mistaken on any point, and I hope people will soon have reports on the bill based on a closer reading.
Senator Ensign is a Republican. His one co-sponsor so far is Harry Reid, Democrat, from the same state, Nevada. This bodes well for a different spirit of bipartisanship, even partnership.
Furthermore, one can hardly doubt Senator Ensign's sincerity. From his website:
>Ensign cited the 2000 Presidential campaign and the controversy in >Florida , as well as his own experience in 1998, in which his bid >for a U.S. Senate seat was not decided until after a recount in >Nevada , as reasons for proposing the Voting Integrity and >Verification Act.
After the fiasco of the new bill offered by Graham, Boxer, and Clinton, I hope this bill provides an opportunity for new direction and momentum in the Senate - which then could light a fire under Ney's committee for HR 2239. I would like to see what other people think and whether we should make a major effort to get other Senators to sign on to this bill - and, if so, what happens with S 1980? Therefore I copy to the stopvotefraud and ncverifiablevoting lists.
>Hello everyone -
>I'm wondering if you have had a chance to review the newest bill in the
>voter-verified paper ballot race...
>Introduced by John Ensign on May 18, S2437 is called the Voting Integrity
and
>Verification Act of 2004.
>
>Other than the obvious (no 2004 deadline), I wonder what your
>thoughts are upon
>reading the language (I cut and pasted it below in case you hadn't seen
it).
>
>Best,
>Pamela Smith
>Nationwide Coordinator
>VerifiedVoting.org and Verified Voting Foundation
>pam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>------------------------------
>
>Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2004 (Introduced in Senate)
>
>S 2437 IS
>
>
>108th CONGRESS
>
>2d Session
>
>S. 2437
>To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a
>voter-verified permanent
>record or hardcopy under title III of such Act, and for other purposes.
>
>
>IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
>
>May 18, 2004
>Mr. ENSIGN introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred
to
>the Committee on Rules and Administration
>
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
>
>A BILL
>To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a
>voter-verified permanent
>record or hardcopy under title III of such Act, and for other purposes.
>
>
>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
>United States of
>America in Congress assembled,
>
>SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
>
>This Act may be cited as the `Voting Integrity and Verification Act of
2004'.
>
>SEC. 2. PROMOTING ACCURACY, INTEGRITY, AND SECURITY THROUGH PRESERVATION OF
A
>VOTER-VERIFIED PERMANENT PAPER RECORD.
>
>(a) IN GENERAL- Section 301(a) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (42
U.S.C.
>15481(a)) is amended--
>
>(1) in paragraph (1)(A)--
>
>(A) by striking clause (i) and inserting the following new clause:
>
>`(i) permit the voter to verify the accuracy of their ballot (in a private
and
>independent manner), by allowing the voter to review an individual paper
>version of the voter's ballot before the voter's ballot is cast and
counted;';
>
>(B) in clause (ii)--
>
>(i) by inserting `discovered on the individual paper version of the voter's
>ballot' after `to change the ballot or correct any error'; and
>
>(ii) by striking `and' after the semicolon at the end;
>
>(C) by redesignating clause (iii) as clause (iv); and
>
>(D) by inserting after clause (ii) the following new clause:
>
>`(iii)(I) preserve the individual paper version of the voter's
>ballot, after the
>voter has certified that the same accurately reflects the voter's intent,
as
>the individual permanent paper record, and
>
>`(II) preserve such individual permanent paper record at the polling place
in
>accordance with the provisions of paragraph (2)(B)(i); and';
>
>(2) in paragraph (1)(B), by striking `subparagraph (A)(iii)' and inserting
>`subparagraph (A)(iv)'; and
>
>(3) by striking paragraph (2) and inserting the following new paragraph:
>
>`(2) MANUAL AUDIT CAPACITY-
>
>`(A) IN GENERAL- The voting system shall produce an individual permanent
paper
>record for each ballot that is cast which provides for voter verification
of
>such record in accordance with paragraph (1)(A) and which meets the
>requirements of subparagraph (B).
>
>`(B) MANUAL AUDIT CAPACITY-
>
>`(i) The voting system shall produce an individual permanent paper record
for
>each ballot cast that is either--
>
>`(I) preserved within the polling place in the manner in which all other
paper
>ballots are preserved within such polling place; or
>
>`(II) in the absence of such manner or method, which is consistent with the
>manner employed by the jurisdiction for preserving paper ballots in
general.
>
>`(ii) Each paper record produced under clause (i) shall be suitable
>for a manual
>audit equivalent or superior to that of a paper ballot voting system.
>
>`(iii) All electronic records produced by any voting system shall be
>consistent
>with the individual permanent paper records produced by such voting system.
In
>the event of any inconsistencies or irregularities between any electronic
>records and the individual permanent paper records, the individual
permanent
>paper records shall be the true and correct record of the votes cast.
>
>`(iv) The individual permanent paper records produced under clause
>(i) shall be
>used as the official records for purposes of any recount or audit conducted
>with respect to any election for Federal office in which the voting system
is
>used.'.
>
>(b) EFFECTIVE DATE- The amendments made by this section shall take
>effect as if
>included in the enactment of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
>
>
>
>--
>This is message #2.
>**********
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-- Defending Freedom and Democracy, Andy Silver Hillsborough, NC phone/fax: (919) 245-0277 (h) (919) 380-9860, x2405 (o, 9:30 AM - 6:30 PM)
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