RE: [stopvotefraud] Re: [VerifiedVoting.org lobbyists] Ensign Bill S2437

[pam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hello Al - Before I comment on your comments, below, let me
say that I consider voter-verified paper ballots on touch-screens
essential but not sufficient.  If a touch-screen is to be used
at all, it MUST have a voter-verified paper ballot, but there's
more to it than that.

Whether they SHOULD be used at all is a separate question.
But they ARE being used and/or are about to be used in
many places.

If a bill that calls for a VVPB gets passed at this point,
it may mean that if counties DO BUY THEM... then they
would buy them with VVPBs... or WAIT to buy them so as
to avoid an expensive retrofit in the near future.
Counties' having to delay the purchase of paperless
DREs gives us a chance to get them to reconsider a better
alternative, such as optical-scan or other paper
ballots... especially if they have to "deal with paper
anyway."  Case in point:  Ohio, where the legislature
recently agreed that VVPBs would be required in the near
future.  Suddenly LOTS of counties that had been on the
verge of getting new touchscreens have delayed their
decision (at last count, 22 out of 31).

Quoting alkolwicz <alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>:

> 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.

It may be that some bills are introduced with a deceptive intent.
I don't believe that's the case for all such bills.
BUT... that being said, the Colorado perspective
naturally is affected by the CO law that says only
the original counting method can be used.  Thus
VVPBs are insignificant in CO unless they are the first
line of count.

Other states (such as CA, where I live) have quite
different rules about recounts.  Here ANYONE has the right
to ask for a recount, and if the original was done by
electronic means, the recount can be done electronically,
manually, or both.  (That's why here in CA we point out
that DREs that LACK a VVPB don't comply with state law...
because they don't allow for a meaningful MANUAL recount.)

> 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.

Voter-verification of a paper ballot, to me, means that
if the voter's choices are NOT reflected on the paper
they review, that they get to spoil the ballot and
start over.  It's not verification if the choices shown
are not what you intended.  If a bill doesn't allow
the voter to do it over, then it is not a good bill.

The manner of printout for a VVPB from a touchscreen or
DRE would depend on design, which surely varies from
one vendor to another.  Diebold Election Systems, in a bid,
told Santa Clara County in CA that it already had the
capability to print what they refer to as a "voter
receipt."  But they're talking about the on-board
thermal roll used for the zero tapes and the tally
tapes at the end of the day... the sample looked much like
an ATM receipt.  I would agree that both reviewing and
hand-counting of such printouts would be unpleasant
(but I'd take it, over no printout at all, if it means
I can confirm my vote was recorded as intended).

On the other hand, I saw a demonstration of an AccuPoll
printout, which came out on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper.
The print could have been larger, but that's a design
change... it was simple to discern one's choices, though.

We've been told that some DREs are capable of
printing an "image of the ballot cast" which may be
a screen-shot of the summary screen on the DRE.  If that
is the case, it should be pretty easy to read.  Certainly
no harder than the summary screen on the DRE...  But I
haven't seen any of those personally.

Finally, which governs--paper or electronic:  One of
the things I noted about the Ensign bill is
that the specific language about the paper document
spells out that it GOVERNS in the case of any discrepancy.

Procedural rules about whether the paper should be the
ONLY thing counted or the FIRST thing counted or should
ALWAYS be counted are left out... presumably because
states (like CO) won't want to be told how they should count;
in other words, a "states rights thing" as we heard often
in DC recently... and that may end up being a separate
battle, which is why groups like CAMBER and CFVI are so
crucially important.

Having a paper ballot to count so that the voter can
verify that his/her vote was recorded as intended,
whether that comes in the form of a VVPB or an optical
scan ballot or a hand-mark, hand-count paper ballot,
is the FIRST requirement.

By itself, it isn't sufficient.

But it is necessary.


>
> 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