Hot off the press, here's Vote-PAD superb response to their kangaroo
court certification hearing. Just a small indictment against
McPherson.(California's Sec of State)
The AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE. ELLEN THIESEN, just gave me permission to
post this here. Sorry for the length - but the links do not work...
"Off with Their Heads!" cried the Queen of Hearts
http://www.vote-pad.us/Media/CertificationDenied.asp"How am I to get in?" asked Alice again, in a louder tone.
"Are you to get in at all?" said the Footman. "That's the first
question, you know."
It was a Queen of Hearts sort of a day in California on August 9, 2006.
The Secretary of State's advisory panel was hearing public comments
regarding the pending certification of the Vote-PAD, a non-electronic
assistive device designed to help voters with disabilities mark and
verify a paper ballot independently.
Voting integrity advocates held signs supporting the certification of
Vote-PAD. They told of countless failures of computerized voting
systems. They spoke about recent discoveries of easily hackable "back
doors" into the vote totals on those systems, which have been
certified. By contrast, "Vote-PAD is no more hackable than a #2
pencil," said one .
Notwithstanding this and the letters praising the Vote-PAD from dozens
of people with visual and motor disabilities, the Secretary of State's
staff was recommending against certifying the Vote-PAD for use in
California.
The Queen started by describing the testing process, "We asked them to
vote independently on the Vote-PAD, and we told them exactly what to do
the entire time."
"Excuse me," said Alice, "but how is that independent?"
"That's not the point," said the Queen. "The point is that they weren't
able to vote independently."
"But you didn't let them," objected Alice.
"Don't be impertinent," said the King.
"Yes!" murmured the jury.
"Let's be clear on one thing," spoke the Queen. "When disabled people
tried to vote on the Vote-PAD, their error rate was unacceptably high
and they took an excessively long time."
"Compared to what?" asked one of the jurors.
"Nothing," said the Queen. "Nothing at all. We have no standards."
"They've begun asking riddles," thought Alice.
"--I believe I can guess that," she added, aloud.
"What was the error rate on the voting systems you've approved, and how
long did people take to vote on them?" asked Alice.
"We haven't used people with disabilities to test the other systems,"
said the Queen. "We know nothing about that."
"Nothing whatever ?" asked a voting integrity advocate.
"Nothing whatever," said the Queen.
"That's very important," the King said, turning to the jury.
"So, how do you know they did worse with the Vote-PAD?"
"Because!" said the Queen.
"Of course!" said the jury. "That makes sense!"
"That's very curious," Alice thought.
The Queen continued, "Everyone had to vote four write-in candidates.
They made over half their mistakes on the write-in votes."
"Wait!" objected a juror, "Write-ins are a universal problem. They're a
problem on every voting system."
A county registrar spoke up, "And why so MANY write-ins? That's such a
small part of a real election, and it was such a big a part of the
testing."
"Who ever saw one that size? Why it fills the whole window."
"And voters wouldn't hop-scotch around the ballot the way you told them
to, said another registrar. "It's unnatural, confusing."
Alice was wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way
again.
"Hush, hush!" ordered the Queen. "We were stress testing the system."
"But," cried Alice, "That wasn't stress testing the system. It was
stress testing the people with disabilities!"
"Regardless," the Queen dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand
and went on, "Blind people can't verify write-in candidate names
reliably on the Vote-PAD."
"They can't verify write-in names at all on the Hart InterCivic eSlate
," Alice objected, "and you certified the eSlate."
"I don't think they play at all fairly," Alice began, ...
"Off with their heads!" cried the Queen.
After a lull, Alice pointed out, "Blind people can verify their ballots
with Vote-PAD."
"But they can't verify other people's ballots," countered the Queen.
"They have to be able to verify other people's ballots."
"That's not a regular rule," said Alice, "you invented it just now."
In response to joint applications submitted by Vote-PAD, Inc. and
California counties, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's voting system
staff set up two days of certification testing of the Vote-PAD in July.
With no training or experience in usability testing, the Secretary's
staff and computer voting system consultants conducted "usability"
testing on the Vote-PAD.
This event marks the first time the Secretary has ever used people with
disabilities to test a voting device intended for use by people with
disabilities, despite the fact that it has certified numerous such
systems.
During the test, participants were not allowed to vote independently on
the Vote-PAD, but were instead subjected to an artificial voting
environment where they were frequently interrupted by staff during the
voting process. From this critically flawed testing, the Secretary
concluded that they would not be able to vote independently.
"We appreciate the participation of the people with disabilities, and
we believe they performed quite successfully, given the unrealistic,
trying conditions to which they were subjected," said Ellen Theisen,
President of Vote-PAD, Inc. "Especially considering that in a recent
Rice University usability test conducted on able-bodied, experienced
voters, 16% of the ballots contained errors," she added.
Two human factors experts, Dr. Valerie Rice and Noel Runyan, submitted
written testimony stating that the testing process put together by
Secretary of State's staff violated basic principles of usability
testing. These experts pointed out that any results would be
unreliable. The Secretary ignored the testimony of these experts and
agreed with his non-expert staff's negative assessment of the results.
Friday, August 25, 2006, Secretary McPherson signed a letter denying
certification to Vote-PAD, thus denying California voters a
paper-based, accessible alternative to computers.
The Registrars in six California counties wanted to provide the
Vote-PAD to assist their voters with disabilities. Instead, they will
be forced to use computerized voting machines, which have never been
tested for accessibility by Secretary McPherson, and which have been
the subject of great concern regarding their security and reliability.
Now, these registrars are at risk of being embroiled in the lawsuits
recently filed in California by disabilities organizations and voting
integrity advocates opposing the use of the computerized voting
machines.
"Off with their heads," boomed the Queen.
"Off with their heads," agreed the jury.
"Off with their heads," echoed the Secretary of State.
Theisen remarked, "Secretary McPherson simply rubberstamped the staff's
contorted testing and evaluation."
"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice.
Contact: Ellen Theisen
President of Vote-PAD, Inc.
360-437-9922
ellen@vote-pad.us
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