OpEd in local paper denounced ACORN fraud, embraces electronic voting bogeyman

[jinxmchue]

Oy.

Can we count on our voting system?

Mark Halvorson & Sarah Martyn Crowell
Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota

The right to vote and have each vote counted accurately is the foundation of our democracy. Sadly, there are cracks in this foundation that have disenfranchised voters in past elections. Problems with electronic voting machines are a significant factor creating these fissures in our voting process.

Don't be misled by the recent focus on the alleged "voter fraud" by paid workers for ACORN. People will not vote asserting they are "Mickey Mouse" or some other fictionalized name filled out by a former ACORN worker. According to a New York Times op ed on October 16, "there is virtually no evidence - anywhere in the country, going back many elections - of people showing up at the polls and voting when they are not entitled to."

This focus on fictionalized "voter fraud" overshadows the true threat to election integrity - electronic voting systems.

Nationwide, roughly 90 percent of votes this year will be cast on electronic voting machines. Unfortunately, reliability and security flaws of these machines have been well documented by reputable groups and numerous failures with these voting systems have been reported in the media.

Most states are poorly prepared to deal with voting machine meltdowns such as the ones we saw in past federal elections. Several states will be using paperless touch-screen voting machines that don't provide a paper trail to audit the election outcome.

Following passage of a 2006 Minnesota law that requires a post-election audit, we are one of only 17 states that have a way to help verify the accuracy of our voting machines. This audit is possible because all Minnesotans will cast their ballots on paper, which leaves a physical trail that can be recounted and verified. The election contests to be audited this year are president, U.S. senator and the U.S. congressional races. Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota and the League of Women Voters Minnesota are training volunteers for the audit.

Some think we don't need our audit law because our voting machines are accurate. However, no one can definitively say how accurate they are. While Minnesota will not use DRE voting machines, optical scanners are also vulnerable to programming errors. Relying on an optical scanner to electronically count ballots without a meaningful audit is like making bank deposits without receiving monthly statements to verify your balance.

Such programming errors do happen in Minnesota. In the 1998 race for Vadnais Heights City Council, the election results showed the incumbent lost by a margin of less than 1 percent. The results were challenged, and the new results showed that the incumbent actually won by a slim margin. An investigation revealed that the candidates' names were reversed during the preparation of the ballot definition file.

While testing procedures have improved since 1998, there remains room for human error. Because of this risk, safeguards are essential to ensure accuracy.

As a short term solution, many groups are urging election officials to provide emergency paper ballots, but there's been some push back even to this common sense idea. Long-term solutions include mandating paper-based systems with robust audits, secure chain of custody and greater oversight on the voter machine vendors. Until these pieces are securely in place, electronic voting will continue to cause problems.

The bottom line? We can no longer afford to depend solely on voting machine software to deliver accurate election outcomes because no one can guarantee the accuracy of the software.

[franksolich]

And we're going to have problems as long as ward bosses in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, Buffalo, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Denver, Lost Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, &c., &c., &c.--you know, those big-city machines run by Republicans--are the ones who count the votes.

[docstew]

after voting yesterday in NC, i was impressed that while it was an electronic machine, there was a small window to the left of the screen where they had a paper record of every selection made, kinda like the printer in a cash register printing two records, one for the store, one for the customer... would have been nice if it printed one out to turn in so that they could verify vote tallies

[Jim]

Do you actually believe that if there were any actual issues with electronic voting that it would not have been story #1 until all those machines were thrown away ?

Just because Bev Harris claimed it, does not make it so.


Come on, they're still bitching about 2000 for Christ's sake.  They would never rest were there real problems.