FW: A well-timed e-voting demo

["alkolwicz" <alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent J. Lipsio [mailto:Vince@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 4:36 PM
To: Bill Faulkner
Subject: A well-timed e-voting demo

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,64569,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Wrong Time for an E-Vote Glitch 

  By Kim Zetter
10:00 AM Aug. 12, 2004 PT

  It was simultaneously an uh-oh moment and an ah-ha moment.

  When Sequoia Voting Systems demonstrated its new paper-trail 
electronic voting system for state Senate staffers in California last 
week, the company representative got a surprise when the paper trail 
failed to record votes that testers cast on the machine.

  That was bad news for the voting company, whose paper-trail, 
touch-screen machine will be used for the first time next month in 
Nevada's state primary. The company advertises that its touch-screen 
machines provide "nothing less than 100 percent accuracy."

  It was good news, however, for computer scientists and voting 
activists, who have long held that touch-screen machines are 
unreliable and vulnerable to tampering, and therefore must provide a 
physical paper-based audit trail of votes.

  "It goes to our point that a paper trail is very much needed to 
(ensure) that the machine accurately reports what people press," said 
Susie Swatt, chief of staff for state Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), 
who witnessed the glitch in the Sequoia machine.

  With a paper-trail system, the voting machines would print out a 
record when voters cast ballots on a touch-screen machine. Voters 
could examine, but not touch, the record before casting their ballot. 
The paper would then drop into a secure ballot box for use in a 
recount.

  For nearly a year, voting companies and many election officials have 
resisted the call for a paper record. Election officials say that 
putting printers on voting machines would create problems for poll 
workers if the printers break down or run out of paper, and the paper 
records will cause long poll lines with voters taking more time to 
check the record.

  Voting activists maintain, however, that election officials don't 
want the paper trail because it opens the way for recounts and 
lawsuits if paper records don't match digital vote tallies. And they 
say that paper records would provide proof the machines are not as 
accurate as companies claim.

  Acting on public pressure for a paper trail, Sequoia became the 
first of the four largest voting companies to add printers to their 
voting machines earlier this year. Two smaller voting companies have 
had paper-trail machines for longer, but have had trouble selling the 
machines to election officials.

  During the demonstration of the Sequoia machine last week, the 
machine worked fine when the company tested votes using an 
English-language ballot. But when the testers switched to a 
Spanish-language ballot, the paper trail showed no votes cast for two 
propositions.

  "We did it again and the same thing happened," said Darren Chesin, a 
consultant to the state Senate elections and reapportionment 
committee. "The problem was not with the paper trail. The paper trail 
worked flawlessly, but it caught a mistake in the programming of the 
touch-screen machine itself. For some reason it would not record or 
display the votes on the Spanish ballot for these two ballot 
measures. The only reason we even caught it was because we were 
looking at the paper trail to verify it."

  Sequoia spokesman Alfie Charles said the problem was not a 
programming error but a ballot-design error.

  "It was our fault for not proofing the Spanish language ballot 
before demonstrating it," Charles said. "We had a demo ballot that we 
designed in a hurry that didn't include all of the files that we 
needed to have the machine present all of the voter's selections on 
the screen and the printed ballots. That would never happen in an 
election environment because of all the proofing that election 
officials do."

  Charles said the machine did record the votes accurately in its 
memory, but failed to record them on the paper trail and on the 
review screen that voters examine before casting their ballot. Swatt 
and Chesin could not confirm this, however, because the company did 
not show them evidence of the digital votes stored on the machine's 
internal memory.

  "We've been saying all along that these things are subject to 
glitches," Chesin said. "The bottom line is that the paper trail 
caught the mistake. Ergo, paper trails are a good idea."

  Charles agreed the paper trail worked exactly as it was supposed to 
work. "If this happened in an election, the first voter would see it 
and could call a pollworker. They would take the machine out of 
service if they saw a problem," he said.

  Ironically, just one week after the demonstration occurred, 
California took one step back from making sure voters in the state 
will have the reassurance that a paper trail provides.

  On Thursday, a Senate bill that would require a voter-verified paper 
trail on all electronic voting machines in the state by January 2006 
suffered a setback when the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where 
the bill resided, decided not to push the bill forward during this 
legislative session, which ends Aug. 31. This means legislators will 
have to reintroduce a new bill next January when they reconvene.

  The bill (PDF), introduced by Johnson and state Senator Don Perata 
(D-Oakland), had bipartisan support and the backing of Secretary of 
State Kevin Shelley.

  "I'm a little mystified why the committee has stalled the bill," 
Swatt said. "E-voting machines, like them or not, are here to stay in 
California. It is clear that if we are going to be living with 
e-voting machines the only way to protect voters and to ensure that 
their votes are counted accurately is to have a paper trail."

  Swatt said she hoped the public would pressure the legislature to 
push the bill forward before the session ends.