BBV - What we can do: A simple way to make e-voting safer

[BevHarris]

We are all talking about paper ballots, and that's important. Without them, we can never audit the vote. But here is something that can be implemented immediately, everywhere, which will make it harder to tamper with the central count, and harder to tamper by switching memory cards (the memory card is an electronic ballot box.)

For the first time, a major newspaper has accorded me the honor of writing an article for its editorial page. Hopefully, this will continue. Here are excerpts, and a link:

A simple way to make computer voting safer
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001918663_bevharris04.html

By Bev Harris
Special to The Times

"Paperless touch-screen voting systems have triggered a controversy — invisible ballot systems may represent the biggest bamboozling in the history of voting. But even if we make vapor-ballot systems disappear, problems with computerized vote-counting will remain.

"If we are going to use any form of computerized vote-tallying, we need to implement procedures to mitigate risks. One of the most important procedures, after a voter-verified paper ballot for auditing, is to post polling-place results.

"...Post the polling-place tallies in public, before the electronic votes are sent to central count, and match polling-place reports with the central count...county officials have the authority to do so, and we should demand it.

"We vote at local polling places. Our votes are collected on electronic "ballot boxes," in the form of memory cards and cartridges. The information on these electronic ballot boxes is transferred to the county's central tally program. If someone switches the electronic ballot box (about the size of a credit card), or takes advantage of tamper-friendly features in the central tally programs, your vote can easily be changed.

"Posting the polling-place tapes will be quick, easy and cheap. Diebold machines have an internal printer. Sequoia touch-screen machines have a port to which a printer can be attached. Both systems can print results at the polling place. This takes about 60 seconds and costs almost nothing.

"Elections officials say that polling-place tallies won't match central tallies because they like to mix in other kinds of votes at central count, like absentee, provisional or challenge ballots. But vote-counting is just bookkeeping. If election officials comingle the data, they need to correct their bookkeeping procedures..."

Bev

[dusty64]

1. I'm glad a major paper

has given this issue attention and allowed you to speak. Hopefully many will listen.

[napi21]

2. Is it your opinion that most tampering would take place at

the central tally or consolidation point?

If that was the concern, you're suggestion would be a good one.

I was under the impression that the the biggest concern was manipulation at isolated districts like Palm Beach County etc.

[BevHarris]

9. In both Diebold and Sequoia, worst flaws are in central count software

And think about it: If you had the choice to tamper with 126 polling places vs. one central count machine which counts all 126 polling places at once, which would you choose?

Both are vulnerable, but if I was doing it I'd use the central count program to tamper.

The solution I propose won't solve everything. The central count software program creates the ballots that go on the touch screens, and tampering at the ballot creation stage would need a different set of security measures. But this procedure makes it harder to tamper in the most obvious way: by uploading new vote data into the central count machine, or by switching the ballot box counted by central count.


Bev

[napi21]

13. Thanks Bev. That's true of course.

Can I assume there is a final printout of results at the indivisual polling places? If so, maybe that IS the immediate answer to the recount questions.It wouldn't prevenet all tampering, but it sure would make it much more difficult to hide the dirty work.

What has the response been to this suggestion?

[radwriter0555]

3. ABSOLUTELY! It is the dissolution of the VNS that is responsible for NO

verifiable tally comparison, and the theft of elections.

For DECADES, until the gop got control, the VNS was a critical ally of the honest elections... And until the 2000 election, the VNS tally was dead on the money.

We can demand and enable the re-establishment of the VNS exit poll results.

[Junkdrawer]

4. For THIS election, stopping the commingling of vote counts...

and insuring that precinct counts make it all the way to the official totals may well be more important than stopping the touch screens.

Folks, even if you vote with paper ballots, if the precinct totals are changed at the county level, your vote wasn't counted.

[Trailrider1951]

5. Thank you, Bev

for your hard work on our behalf. I heard you interviewed last week on George Noory's Coast to Coast am show, and I very much appreciated the work you are doing to keep our elections honest. The more people hear about this, the better. Thanks again.

[whistle]

6. Correct, and the same flaws that are in the programs doing...

...the central counting could also be programmed into the polling-place tallies and who would know the difference? The vendor can hide anything, anywhere and no one would be any the wiser. This issue of electronic voting is a major problem and a threat to our freedom of choice.

[RedEagle]

14. True...to a point

Perhaps for the touch screens, because the DRE could be programmed to flip the vote.

But central count also counts the paper ballots. Those tallies may be done at the polls and the "tally card" is what is uploaded into the central count. A progam in central count could "adjust" the card in a way that the card then matches the central count record. So the polling place tally is one safety measure, especially for paper ballots, so we don't place trust in what may-or may now not be, on that card that serves as a ballot box, whether the central count system "rerecorded" the totals, or another card was substituted.

Granted, if the ballots are counted at the polls by computer, that program could be influenced too. But the most likely and influential culprit is the central count. When you start trying to meddle at too many levels of the process, it creates too many chances for getting caught, too many people who have to keep quiet.

One way to mitigate this is to conduct random, manual audits- at the polls, immediately after the close of the election. A certain percentage of precincts in each county should be randomly selected for these audits, and research suggests the minimum is 3%.

Ineffectual as an L&A test is, it's only done on the touch screens, not the central count system that tallys the touch screen totals. IF the only counting system in a county is the central count,(say, for optical scan ballots) then I assume they L&A the central count, but I don't know for sure.

We're talking about mitigating the potential.

If such a procedure had been in place in Florida in 2000, a check of the poll tally with the central count records might have found more aberations like the "16,022 negative votes for Gore" that was caught by a worker noticing the count going 'backwards.' How many times will someone catch something like that?

With strong bookkeeping, we'd have to justify the poll tallies with what the central count says. That is at least a start, not hard to implement, on the way to cleaning up elections.

[BevHarris]

17. From what I've been learning, they never L&A the central count

thus, all the mumbo-jumbo about the Logic and Accuracy tests proving the system is trustworthy are worthless -- if you attack the central tabulator, which never goes through an L&A.

Note to myself: I'll have to remember that for a rebuttal.

Bev

[RedEagle]

18. Note to Bev- I Got it From You

You asked an auditor that question.

I think that is a very good question to keep asking.

[leftchick]

7. Bev, I will send your article to my local Election official.....

Although he certainly seems like a lost cause. Look at this response he sent from our local verified voting action team. This official used to be a member of The Election Center. Now he has teamed up with this 'SAAFE' group who has Votehere's Adler on their team too!


<snip>
The allegations contained in this communication from xxxx xxxxxx of "xxxxxxxxxx" represent a gross mischaracterization of events in xxxx County and, bases on my limited knowledge of things that have taken place in other counties, substantial misrepresentation of events there as well.

As you probably know, xxxxx County elections for the past 16 years have been conducted using direct electrronic voting (DRE) equipment. We have winessed steady impvovement in the quality of our elections during this period and, while errors have occurred and equipment malfunctioned occasionally, we have always been able to document the mishaps and correct errors. This experience is no different, in that regard, than that of any other county using any other voting system.

I have attached for your information, a recent letter and other documents produced by the "Secure, Accurate, Accessible and Fair Electronic Voting Coalition" (SAAFE). I and all three members of the xxxxxx County Board of Elections have cosigned this letter and wholeheartedly endorse its stipulations and recommendations.

I will be happy to answer any questions or concern that may arise regarding this issue and sincerely regret the alarmist misrepresentations of fact that some oponents of DRE voting seem to insist on perpetuating.

I will be finalizing, tomorrow, my own testimony, to be submitted to the Election Assistance Commission in Washington redarding its May 5th hearing on the subject of DRE security. I would welcome the opportunity to share that information with you as well if you are interested.

:( :mad: :grr:

[BevHarris]

8. Leftchick:

There's something important in what you posted. I don't want to go into it here.

Please email [e-mail] -- if you can, provide your location and contact info. I need to talk with you.

Bev

[RedEagle]

10. This Should Appear in Many Newspapers Across the Country

Send it to your local editors. They can contact the Seattle Times for reprint information.

The more papers that request a reprint, the more likely we are to see BEV'S actual work, in whole and IN CONTEXT.

[leftchick]

11. done....

thanks Bev!

[leftchick]

12. get back there....

:kick:

[tom_paine]

15. Hurrah for Bev!

Well done and excellent opinion article! :hi:

:toast: :toast:

Love ya', Bev! :loveya: Keep up the great work!

[RedEagle]

16. Kick!