VOTE PAD CRISIS: PRESS CONFERENCE AT 9!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let your views be known, please attend the hearing & press conference:
Date: Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Time: 9:00 a.m. sharp
Place: Secretary of State’s Office at 1500 - 11th Street, Sacramento, CA
Subject: This hearing is the public's opportunity to speak about the recommendation against certifying Vote-PAD, the first low-tech, low-cost, transparent voting method that allows people with disabilities to vote on the same paper ballot as others at the voting site. (See,
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70036-0.html )
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Bad News: McPherson’s Testing Team Has Advised Against Certifying Vote Pad.
Good News: YET McPherson has not yet rendered his final verdict, and so we need to let him know at the hearing what was wrong with his Testing Team’s advice.
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MUST VOTE PAD WALK McPHERSON’S PLANK?1)
Higher Standards than Competitors: Is it ok with voters that McPherson’s office is demanding that Vote Pad meet a HIGHER standard than that which is required of its competition--from AutoMARK to Diebold? (See, * at end)
2)
Unqualified Experts: Is it ok that a low-tech, non-computerized, voting device must be examined by COMPUTER experts. And worse, they have to pay to fly them in from out of the state?
The state staff and the consultants had
NO experience in usability testing for people with disabilities. Their report provides sufficient evidence that they had
NOT familiarized themselves with the use and features of the Vote Pad.
But the report DOES provide evidence that the testers had:
a)
No knowledge of how to design/administer a test that involves user-interface testing on real people.
b)
No expertise dealing with the special needs of people with disabilities.
c)
No qualifications to draw conclusions from the data they gathered.
3)
E-voting Shills/Disability Group Advocates: Is it ok that McPherson’s office may be stacking the examination of Vote Pad with disability advocates that have been hostile to non-computerized voting systems? The questions is, who gets to choose who participates in the testing and examination? Are they the same types of absurd disability access advocates that are now suing five California counties, because they DO have paper trails, and if they can’t read them nobody should?
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/PVA-Complaint.pdf and
http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/2006/08/02/catsk4.htm5)
Are the Standards Arbitrary? Were the established benchmarks Vote Pad was to aspire? Because none exist. Vote Pad is the first of its kind, because no other voting-system interface for disabled voters has ever been tested this way. Did they compare the results to the results of voting-system usability testing done on able-bodied voters, such as the reports submitted at the Aug 1, 2006 ACCURATE conference in BC, Canada?
No.6)
What the Competition Has on File on the SoS website:
- The ES&S Inka-Vote provides no features for people with physical impairments.
- The Sequoia Edge provides a sip-puff feature, but the instructions are “inappropriate and unusable" and, since the feature is part of the Audio Box, the screen blanks when the feature is enabled -- a common complaint of people with low vision.
- The Diebold TSx does not provide a sip-puff feature or curb-side voting, and people with limited dexterity will have difficulty inserting the voter access card.
- Finally, while the Hart Intercivic eSlate does provide features for people with physical disabilities, the audio ballot gives incorrect Ballot Summary instructions and an inaccurate description of the "Cast Ballot" button.Consultants said this inaccurate description deserves further study to see if it confusing to voters. Didn't they have any voters with visual impairments test it so they could find out?
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HERE’S VOTE PAD’S rebuttal to the two day
mock election testing
http://www.vote-pad.us/Media/CACertTestResponse.asp-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SO, WHERE’S THE REPORT BY McPHERSON’S TEAM?http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm-----------------------------------------------------------------------
WHAT ARE ACTIVISTS SAYING ABOUT THIS?A.J. Devies, Disabilities Consultant to the Florida Fair Elections Coalition and a person with disabilities, says, “For the first time, California recruited people with a wide range of disabilities to participate in the certification testing. While this may be a logical approach, why just for the Vote-PAD? Why aren’t other systems being tested this way? Is the Secretary of State discriminating against this non-electronic system by holding it to a different standard?”
Sherry Healy of the California Election Protection Network points out, “The recent lawsuit against five California counties <
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/PVA-Complaint.pdf > shows that disability organizations are dismayed that electronic systems only allow sighted voters to verify their paper ballot. The Vote-PAD deserves their support, since it provides a direct method of vote verification to everyone."
Stu Schy of Santa Rosa, a long-time disabilities advocate with over 20 years experience working with the disability community, is outraged. He recently referenced the enormous expense of e-voting machines, saying, "reportedly, Sonoma County paid $4.7 million for the equipment used in the June 6 primary, and only $1.4 million was covered by HAVA. The number of votes cast on the machines was 165. That's over $28,000 per vote! We need and want a low-cost alternative."
Ann West, a longtime California grassroots election activist and educator, says, “Citizens shouldn’t let corporations that sell electronic voting machines monopolize this field. There must be a diversity of choices to provide real competition.”
Casey Hanson of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition sums it up: “The nation looks to California for its leadership role. We’re all watching and we hope that the public will show up to show their support for having Vote-PAD as an alternative to computerized voting systems.”
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*
HERE ARE THE ACTUAL TESTING GUIDELINES OF A TWO-DAY MOCK ELECTION (which sounds like a great idea, but the objection is, Why is this standard not applied to the competition? Proposed Test Plan for Vote-PAD Use In Conjunction with the Diebold AccuVote-OS (Optical Scan) System and the Hart Ballot Now Voting Systems
Goal: To appraise the usability, reliability, privacy and accuracy of the Vote-PAD system when used in accordance with the proposed use procedures for each respective system.
Test Overview: Testing will take place at the Secretary of State’s Office in Sacramento. The accessibility advocacy community will be solicited for voters with disabilities representing a range of disability modalities. Test voters will be scheduled to arrive at varying times throughout the test. Every test voter will be asked to participate in Phase 1 of the test, which will measure the ability of the “voters” to accurately mark their ballots with their vote choices. Voters with visual impairments will also be asked to participate in Phase 2 of the test to gauge the ability to accurately verify a ballot and determine how it was voted.
Test Participants: As mentioned above, local accessibility advocacy organizations, such as Protection and Advocacy, Inc., the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers and The California Council of the Blind, will be contacted and solicited for test participants. A day (or days) will be selected for the testing to take place based on room and staff availability and availability of a sufficient number of participants. Applicant counties are encouraged to contact their local accessibility advocacy community to recruit participants for the test as well.
Test Protocol:
Each of the county applicants will select their longest ballot style from the June 2006 Primary Election. Each will prepare five (5) Vote-PAD, five (5) audio instruction cassettes, five (5) verification wands, two (2) Braille booklets and one (1) large-font instruction book based on that ballot style.
Each county staff will also supply two persons to serve as “poll workers” throughout the test. These “poll workers” will be responsible for setting up the voting experience for each test participant in accordance with the proposed use procedures for that respective system. This ‘set up’ will include preparing the ballot in the Vote-PAD booklet for voting, supplying the voter with appropriate equipment for using the Vote-PAD (e.g., audio cassette & headphones, verification wand, non-slip pads, write-in ballots, etc), and providing basic instruction for the voter to get started.
Each voter will be directly monitored by Secretary of State Staff or Secretary of State consultant. These “monitors” will monitor and evaluate the entire experience for each voter, beginning with check-in and initial instruction, through actual Phase 1 and Phase 2 testing. At the conclusion of each participant’s testing, these monitors will conduct a brief survey of the participating voter, focusing on usability and satisfaction with the system.
All ballots will be sequentially numbered for tracking and comparing accuracy of ballot marking and scanning as compared with voter intent.
Participant test voters will be randomly assigned to either the Diebold blended system or the Hart blended system for testing purposes.
During Phase 1, the voter will be asked to vote a ballot. As the voter records his or her vote choice for each contest, the voter will be asked to state aloud for the monitor the vote choice that voter believes he or she is marking on the ballot. The monitor will record the vote choices as stated by the participant voter. At times, the monitor will randomly direct the voter to:
Skip a contest and then later return to the contest to record the vote; and/or
Vote a specific write-in candidate for a particular contest.
At the conclusion of Phase 1, each test participant with visual impairments will be asked to participate in Phase 2 of the test.
During Phase 2, the participant will be provided a pre-marked ballot and asked to determine (“verify”) the vote choices on that ballot. For each contest, the participant will be asked to state aloud the vote choice(s) he or she believes was voted for that contest. The monitor will record those votes as ‘verified’ by the participant for later comparison against the actual ballot.
Voted ballots in this phase will include contests that are over-voted or under-voted. They will also include contests with write-ins recorded on the write-in sheet.
At the conclusion of each test voting experience, the participant will be briefly surveyed by the monitor. That survey will focus on the participant’s demographics, experience with accessible voting systems and perceptions of the test experience. In addition to the vote choices or “verifications,” the monitor will also record the time involved for voter instruction and training, time taken to vote the ballot, time taken to verify the ballot, and any difficulties observed in the voting process.
At the conclusion of all test voting, all ballots voted in Phase 1 will be tabulated by the respective voting system in accordance with proposed use procedures for that blended system. This tabulation will be done at the direction of the Secretary of State Staff. Totals will be generated and the reports compared to the sum of the vote choices recorded by the monitors.
All testing will be recorded by videotape. All recordings will remain the property of the Secretary of State. All recordings will be made publicly available upon release of the Secretary of State’s Staff Report from system testing.
Evaluation of the Systems: In terms of accuracy for the system to capture and record the voter’s intent, the blended systems will be deemed an automatic pass if the error rate in Phase 1 voting (actual votes read and tabulated compared to stated vote choices) and in Phase 2 verification (stated ‘verifications’ compared to actual ballot) are below the threshold error rates in the 2002 Voting System Standards.
Each blended system will also be subjectively evaluated for usability, reliability and privacy in accordance with the proposed use procedures for that system, based on direct observation by Secretary of State Staff and/or the State’s Consultants and upon survey feedback by test participants.
Additional Conditions
No interference: Once preliminary voter instruction is completed, the applicant staff, including “poll workers”, may not interact with any test participants unless authorized by the Secretary of State monitor.
Observers: The Secretary of State may designate up to three official observers of the test. Each applicant may have up to three designated observers of the test. Additional observers will be allowed upon the mutual agreement of the Secretary of State and all applicants. All observers will be physically restricted to the designated observer area and may not interfere with the test in any manner.
Confidentiality: All test participants and observers will be required to execute a confidentiality agreement, prohibiting discussion of the test in any manner until the Secretary of State has publicly released its report from the test.
Responsibilities:
The Applicants for each system will be jointly responsible for supplying:
400 blank ballots (each applicant) of the single largest ballot style from the June 2006 Primary Election for that county;
Five Vote-PAD booklets prepared for the above ballots with five matching audio instruction sets (cassette tape or CD, depending on the audio device proposed for the system), two Braille ballot instruction booklets and one large-print instruction book based on that ballot style. Each is to be prepared in accordance with the Vote-PAD vendor instructions and the proposed system use procedures;
Five verification wands (each applicant) of the model proposed in the application;
Sufficient accessories and supplies, such as audio playback devices, ballot marking pens, non-skid pads, etc. to outfit five voters voting simultaneously. For all such devices, the equipment supplied must meet the specifications identified in the application. Where specifications are not identified for a device (such as the audio playback device), it will be assumed that the actual product and model supplied for testing will be the actual product that will be used at the polls, and certification will be based on that specific product;
Predefined election databases for each system, configured to read and tally the above ballots for each system;
All necessary hardware and software, including servers, scanners, printers and memory devices to tabulate and report vote results from the test election;
Five camcorders with tripods and sufficient videotape to capture and document all testing activity;
At least two persons from each applicant county who are trained in the proposed use procedures for that blended system to serve as “poll workers” throughout the test; and
Necessary staff to setup and operate all voting system equipment.
Additionally, the applicants will be jointly responsible for all costs directly associated with the test, including:
The cost for services of the technical consultants hired by the Secretary of State to conduct the test and review all application materials, as well as their associated travel expenses;
The cost to provide security for the event; and
The cost to supply all necessary supplies and materials to conduct the test.
The Secretary of State will be responsible for:
Securing the location of the testing;
Arranging security at the event, including identification badges for all participants;
Providing and training all test monitors;
Developing voting ‘scripts’ for Phase 1 of the test and pre-marking ballots for Phase 2 of the test; and
Developing necessary forms and procedures for documenting the testing experience of each voter, and the post-election survey of participants.
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