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I thought this would be of interest. I texted a friend of mine who works as a pole worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County California. The "OC" uses a paper audit trail system developed by Hart-Intercivic.

Here is what my friend had to say:

The current electronic voting machines consist of a Judge's Booth Controller (JBC) & a daisy chain of (usually) 8 electronic voting screens w/Voted Paper Audit Transaction Systems (VPATS). The JBC governs all of the screens, but is not connected to any VPATS, each of which is independent to its own voting screen. The entire system is completely self-contained -- it does not hook into any other computer system. It only hooks into the wall plug to give it power.

The first voter (a non-volunteering, random citizen who just happens to be first in line) signs the OPEN POLLS paper tape that verifies that no votes have been cast on the JBC for that election. Each voter is given a temporary access code that allows him/her to vote on an assigned electronic screen. The number is randomly assigned by the JBC volunteer & has no connection to the voter's identity. It expires as soon as the voter casts his/her ballot and/or a brief period of time elapses with no voting activity on the electronic screen. The voter enters his/her access code, then chooses his/her vote for each candidate/race on the electronic screen. When he/she is finished choosing, a review screen displays all of the choices & prints the same review on the attached VPAT, which the voter can see, but cannot touch (it is sealed inside the VPAT machine). When the voter verifies that this is his/her correctly voted ballot, the ballot is cast electronically & is reprinted on the VPAT (again, the voter can read it, but cannot access it).

No poll worker can access the VPATS (actually for the duration of the election & counting, neither can a ROV employee), nor can they change the electronic screen. If the voter makes a mistake, the entire ballot must be cancelled & the voter must start again. Once the voting day is finished, & the JBC prints out an additional summary of all the votes cast during the day at that polling place, everything is turned back into the ROV (through a system of manual labor all done by community volunteers, supervised by a ROV employee). The VPATS go to one location. The printed JBC summaries (beginning & ending) go to another location. The JBC goes to a third location. All votes are tallied (by a mixed group of employees & community volunteers) in each of the 3 locations, & compared. If there are discrepancies, the VPAT tally is generally preferred first, then the JBC printed summary, then the JBC electronic count. (There could be legitimate reasons to change the ranking, but I don't know what those are. They are printed out & available to the public.)

About absentee ballots (which I am using this time since we are working a polling place not near our own precinct) -- once they reach the Registrar of Voter's (ROV) office, the unopened envelope is recorded so that you cannot vote again by showing up at the polls, & then it is transferred to a completely different office before it is ever opened. The different office has no access to the list of registered voters. There the envelope is opened & the ballot is taken out & separated from the envelope. All the envelopes are isolated elsewhere, the ballots are bundled together & transferred to a different office, where they are counted by non-employee community citizen volunteers like me.

I am still undecided if the safeguards are sufficient, but this sounds pretty good. The "OC" is a Republican area, but the paper audit trail requirement reforms are due to requirements by the California Secretary of State, a Democrat.

Personally, I have no confidence in any system without the p

1. Handicapped people have mobility problems that might keep them from holding, seeing, or otherwise using any sort of interface. If I am blind, does it yell out my selection to me?

Why yes, yes it does. Moreover, it does so with earphones so your privacy isn't sacrificed. If you can't manipulate the dial, you can use a sip and puff switch. And if you can't walk to the polling place, a precinct worker can bring it to you.

Note: I'm not defending DRE voting machines (I think they're a terrible idea). I'm just pointing out that a machine with your specifications does exist.

Personally, I think the ideal voting system is an optical-scan system with two contractors using separate equipment to count the votes. I haven't figured out how to provide for ADA compliance, though.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/200 4-10-22/pols_feature18.html/
Travis County election officials have responded to complaints that voters casting straight-party Democratic ballots are discovering, when performing a final check of their ballots, that their votes for president have been changed from Kerry/Edwards to Bush/Cheney. The officials say that, after trying and failing to replicate the problem on its eSlate voting machines, they have concluded the vote changes are due to voter error rather than mechanical failure.
I did a search for "eSlate voting machine" and found the website of the company that makes it. Apparently the company name is "Hart InterCivic". They have a demo on their website where you can try out the eSlate, though I don't know how true to life it is. I really don't like the interface at all, and would prefer a system with a keypad, where you punch in a number on the keypad that corresponds to a choice of candidate (e.g. "1. Bush/Cheney 2. Kerry/Edwards), and their system seems needlessly complicated, but maybe that's just me. Well, I tried out the demo voting. Attempting to duplicate the problem, I voted for "George Washington", the second presidential choice, instead of the first choice, "Susan B Anthony". I then proceeded to check the box for the other positions. When you have selected a candidate for each office by hitting 'Enter' for each one, it automatically takes you to the finish screen. If you hit "Cast Ballot" at this point, the process is done, and it's all good. However, if you hit Enter again like you have been for all the previous choices, then you go back to your presidential candidate, which it shows as being selected. Hit Enter again, and it takes you back to the finish screen. However, for President it now says "No Selections", which, as a side note, I find ironically appropriate when applied to this election, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, select 'Cast Ballot' at that point and you didn't vote for anybody for President. So I do see where there could be a problem there, if people weren't paying attention or got confused by the technology. Seeing as how I frequently have to help my coworkers with things like taking screenshots, saving files, finding the files they saved, and so forth, I can definitely see getting confused by the technology as being a problem.
I do have a suggestion, however. Have the voting machine companies prepare a brief, simple, 5-15 minute video tutorial on how to operate the e-voting machine. Set up an area at the polling place to have groups of twenty or so watch it before voting, or having it playing on monitors next to the lines people will be waiting in to vote. This should hopefully minimize or eliminate most of the user error problems with electronic voting, although it doesn't adress issues like corrupt e-voting machine companies (*cough*DIEBOLD*cough*)or electronic manipulation of the vote count or the very real need for a paper trail. When you go to the ATM, you get a receipt. You should DEFINITELY be able to get a receipt for you fricking vote.
eSlate voting machine: http://www.hartintercivic.com/solutions/eslate.htm l/

Anybody know who made the OC [Orange County, CA] systems?

I didn't like the summary of votes which you confirm before submitting your ballot. There was only about 10 characters per entry, so everything was abbreviated, but (this time at least) it was sufficient. Also, everything was in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, which is a pet peeve of mine.

I find it interesting that I only hear about Diebold's problematic voting machines, and not a single mention of Hart InterCivic's eSlate system. That is what is being used in parts of Texas (at least in Harris and Brazos Counties, and I'm sure others). I have been impressed with the simplicity, and apparent security, of this system. I would think the best solution for overseas voting would be a set (or two, or three) of portable 'booths' for each base overseas, with the (encrypted) flashcard transported back to the vote-counters within a few hours or days, instead of having to wait weeks for the final tallies.

I find it interesting that I only hear about Diebold's problematic voting machines, and not a single mention of Hart InterCivic's eSlate system. That is what is being used in parts of Texas (at least in Harris and Brazos Counties, and I'm sure others). I have been impressed with the simplicity, and apparent security, of this system. I would think the best solution for overseas voting would be a set (or two, or three) of portable 'booths' for each base overseas, with the (encrypted) flashcard transported back to the vote-counters within a few hours or days, instead of having to wait weeks for the final tallies.

Though they only spent three-quarters of a page of copy on this, I found it interesting that U.S. News and World Report did a decent job with this week's coverage of this topic.

Typically, I don't have many kind words for USNWR, often questioning my own subscription tendencies, but I am pleased to see they reference the Johns Hopkins and Rice report regarding the insecurity of the Diebold system.

Now, if only folks would see the same potential flaws in the Hart Intercivic system, then perhaps they would not be shipping 9,000 e-Slate voting machines to California.

Personally, I detest that the last four times I've voted here in Texas I've walked away with a laundry ticket. I demand a paper trail! Or at least an online database where I can review all my past votes cast. (Of course, in a perfect world, the database would be open for peer review - r/o - and the source to the programs that access and tally the votes would be available for peer review.)

You might want to look at some of the implementations of electronic voting machines that are being used successfully before you pass judgement on the entire idea.

Harris County (Houston, TX) is now using this system for their elections.

I had the opportunity to provide "tech support" for these systems during the 2002 elections. I had literally no work to do and was paid for training and being on call.

I don't know if you can find detailed technical specs on the website, but the system seems secure enough (fraud prevention wise) to me.

Just as an FIY, Harris county did not use the modem option. All the machines were taken to a central location where the votes were tabulated.

The short story is that they were all very flashy and glitzy, but all had severe problems with security and/or usability. We eventually decided to run a pilot program in last year's off-year election and try out 5 of the most promising machines in a real-world election. The final winner will be used across the state in 2004.

No more hanging chad, but I think we are going to have a whole new set of problems to deal with.