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All Fifty States May Face Voting Machine Lawsuit
according to an announcement made by activist Bernie Ellis at the premier of David Earnhardt's film "Uncounted [The Movie]" all fifty states could be receiving subpoenas in the National Clean Election lawsuit. The documentary film, like the lawsuit, takes a look at the issue of voting machine failure and the need for a solid paper trail. "The lawsuit is aimed at prohibiting the use of all types of vote counting machines, and requiring hand-counting of all primary and general election ballots in full view of the public. The lawsuit has raised significant constitutional questions challenging the generally accepted practices of state election officials of relying on "black box" voting machines to record and count the votes at each polling station, and allow tallying of votes by election officials outside the view of the general public."
Simply vote, it prints your ballot, and you slip it in a box. You can verify your ballot was printed correctly, and they could have options to let you destroy your ballot if not, and reprint (or fill it out by hand)...
Or would that be too sensible?
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
You can have electronic voting that doesn't suck.
It just has to have a paper trail, not reveal to outsiders who you voted for, and, y'know, not be backed with Microsoft Access.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
That tag would fit very appropriately on this story. It's really hard to see anything other than complete incompetency in anyone who thinks that a black box e-voting machine is a good idea. There was an article related to this topic the other day, and someone posited the question "...what happens to my vote when I press that button?" The short answer is you can't. That's why I hope this lawsuit is successful. I think it has a real shot, as people are upset election practices. With the phone-jammings, hanging chads, etc. that Americans have endured the last two times around, transparency is on everybody's wishlist... at least for those who don't stand to benefit from electioneering and lucrative contracts that is.
I got a catholic block.
I have no problem with the idea of electronic voting machines but they should povide a paper trail and the source code for the machines should be made open for public inspection so that the public can be sure that when they vote for John Q. Public that the vote is recorded correctly.
Let's face it. WHO can verify the voting of open voting machines? We can. We, computers savvy people who understand computers and who can test, probe and verify the mechanisms behind the machines. Joe Average cannot.
Joe Average can look at a vote, see the cross and verify that yes, whoever casted this vote voted for the person or party where the X is. That's the difference.
Yes, of course we trust us. But can we be trusted? Hey, of course we can, I know that, you know that but essentially, it's the same situation we have with closed source voting machines: An outsider does not know whether we, computer people, are to be trusted. Like we, as outsiders, stand in front of the makers of voting machines and question their trustworthyness, so will non-tech people stand in front of us and question ours.
The only way to have elections that cannot be questioned by anyone is to create a system that everyone can verify if they want to. And the only system is simply one that everyone can "read". So it's paper or nothing.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You have handlers doing things like slightly damage ballots, so that they get invalidated... yeah, 1/1000, enough to swing a close election.
Computers count better than people do, otherwise, you would see calls for people to manually tally your bank balance...
This is my sig.
Sorry, I didn't make it clear - that's why it prints out the readable hard copies; those are used for the tally, not some internal copy on the system.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Or the paper and pen method... why introduce unnecessary mechanization? Occam's razor applies very well to voting. Simplicity is best.
I got a catholic block.
Maybe we could call in the UN to monitor the next round of elections?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
The sick fascination with immediate results is what is causing this issue to begin with. Election results do not need to be available immediately. Taking a day or a week for counting is perfectly fine. For some reason though we need to have live coverage as the polls close to find out who wins. It really doesn't matter all that much.
Hey, if we're going to do e-voting, and you can't deny it forever, why not just have everyone vote one a week from their PCs on the actual issues and skip the (politicians) middle man?
In the question and answer period following the screening, an Iraq veteran said he had pledged to protect his country "from all enemies foreign and domestic" and viewed the issues of voting machines as a domestic threat to voters across the country.
It's very nice to hear of a soldier truly understanding the role of patriotism and protection in America these days. Well done, Sir.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
I'm perfectly happy with the way voting works in Oregon.
You get your ballot in the mail, and fill in the little bubbles with a pencil or pen, just like the standardized tests we're all familiar with. You fold it up and seal it in a "secrecy envelope" which does not have any personally identifying marks. Then you seal that in another envelope which has your name, mailing address, and a barcode on it; this envelope must be signed. You can either mail it, or drop it off in a secure ballot box somewhere (such as at a public library). You can do this at your convenience, it doesn't have to be on election day.
As ballots are received, they're scanned, unopened, and the signature is compared to what the state has on file from your voter registration. If the signature doesn't match, they'll contact you. If they receive two ballots from the same person, they'll contact you. If you don't receive your ballot, they'll send you another one with a different color outer envelope, so if they receive two, they know to discard the original one.
Finally, on election night, the outer envelopes are opened and the inner envelopes are mixed together, then the inner envelopes are opened and counted. It's done by machine, but could be done by hand just as well (it'd just take longer). They get the results very quickly.
Everything is done in the presence of observers from different political parties and members of the public (I haven't volunteered for this yet, but I think I'll look into it next year). All the machines involved are tested with a known quantity of sample ballots to make sure they're working properly. If somebody tried to rig the election, people would see it. Recounts are not a problem.
The only problem with our system is that it doesn't prevent vote buying, because someone could watch you fill out your ballot, seal it, sign the envelope, and drop it in the mail, then pay you for voting the way they wanted. But so far this hasn't been an issue, and in general, most Oregonians won't stand for that sort of thing. We'd much rather accept that risk in exchange for the convenience of being able to vote how we want when we want, without trying to get to a polling place on election day.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Two advantages. It scales easily, and it is auditable. Braille ballots for the blind, and help for the handicapped. Everything original paper, with the right to be reviewed and recounted.
This is really sooo simple folks. Everyone, especially the election folks, should be on-board with these types of demands. It's really not that difficult to do what the "Fair Elections" people want, unless you really ARE trying to manipulate the elections.
1) Demand that Diebold and all of the other voting machine folks print a receipt for every voter. This wouldn't be any more difficult than printing a receipt at the supermarket. You get to look at it, you put it into the basket on the way out. The paper becomes the "official" ballot always, the machine is just there to give quick results.
2) All the vote counting is redone at a central location, and EVERYONE can watch on the cable access channel or over streamed video. Want to watch 96 hours of vote counting from front to back? Sure, knock yourself out. The video feeds are provided the the cable franchise holders in every city to present on their networks on the usually blank city council channel. For those without a cable franchise for the city, you can simply lookup the video feeds on the internet.
The foot dragging on this issue is really starting to make me believe that the elections ARE being manipulated. All the horse-pucky form Diebold and the like about "too hard to make a printed tally".... Yeah, sure... And it's also too hard for cash machines and cash registers to print a receipt and verify that I've got funds before you give me cash...
As far as ballot counting, the infrastructure to let everyone watch is already there.
We just need to keep pushing until this gets done. I'm getting really tired of the 50.01% vs. 49.99% vote manipulation that's passing for "legal and fair" elections in this country. Making things look "close" is really the smoothest form of manipulation, I don't think anyone would believe the old Soviet style manipulation where the votes are always 98% for the party, but shaving just enough to make it 51-49 would be almost believable.
This really does need to get done NOW. No more fooling around, OSS voting machine code, printed receipt, video feeds of the counting and no more voter supression!
The machine generated ballots can be used for initial counting estimates counted by machines. That will satisfy Americans' urgent need to instantly know who won after they each cast their vote. Those counts should not be legally binding. The ballots should be counted by hand for the officially binding count. In the event that there's any substantial differences, the state should automatically open a formal investigation into vote rigging. Which would deter that kind of rigging, so it would rarely be tried, and the investigations rarely begun.
There's no reason the official count can't take a few days to complete, even doublechecked by multiple counts. That kind of human responsibility for the counting is entirely consistent with the democracy we're populating with the votes.
--
make install -not war
I don't think candidates should be allowed to concede an election. An election isn't over until all the votes are counted and certified. period. If the candidate concedes before then, that should nullify the election as the voters were not choosing from the actual candidates. They were instead choosing between one person who wanted the job and another person who wanted to distract voters in some fashion.
I don't know...
man, I feel like mold.
Except that this lawsuit is to outlaw ALL counting machines. Hand counting is expensive and less accurate, yet that is what these people insist on, nothing less. States are willing to change their systems if you work with them. Just don't be religiously dogmatic, refusing all compromises. Unwillingness to budge on hand counting only guarantees you a protracted and expensive fight.
I personally see nothing wrong with counting machines. Yet some of you act like Herman Hollerith was the instigator of a massive shadow conspiracy. The requirements for valid voting are few: 1) recountability; 2) certification; and 3) transparency. The off-the-shelf Diebold machines won't pass muster, but most of the tried and true optical and punch systems will.
Oh, and next time don't wait until two months before the primaries start. Sheesh.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
What we need to do is eliminate the electoral college and just go with the popular vote. Imagine a country where the voice of the people actually counted for something.
The electoral college is designed to punish candidates who appeal to a limited geographic region.
The only time the electoral college system makes any real difference is when the popular vote is close - then the number of states you won ends up making a difference.
The 2000 election is a good example. Al Gore won the popular vote by 0.5% - but Bush carried 9 more states, which earned him 5 more EC votes than Gore.
Is this a good system? I think so. It doesn't ignore "the voice of the people" - you elect the electors, and the system forces candidates to represent the entire country instead of just the East.
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