PFAW Pushing Touch-Screen Technology

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

PFAW's newly posted "Analysis of HR 811" reads like a sales flyer
for Touch-Screens.

PFAW's analysis of HR 811 contains a negative review of optical scan
technology and paints touch-screen technology as superior.

PFAW claims that touch-screens
-provide better access for disabled voters.
-are better for minorities
-are better for non English speaking voters.

PFAW paints optical scan as using too much paper and being difficult for poll workers to use!

From page 2 & 3 of "An Analysis of H.R. 811 The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007: Separating Myth from Fact"

"Additionally, many civil rights and disability rights organizations that have been engaged
in the protection of voting rights for many years have testified that DRE technology offers
better access options to voters with disabilities and voters who have minority language needs.
Indeed, in our own experience through our Election Protection efforts and otherwise,
we have seen for ourselves the opportunities such technology affords to voters with disabilities or minority language needs.

Whereas optical scan technology requires the printing of thousands, if not millions,
of ballots in multiple languages, the distribution of those ballots in adequate numbers for each precinct, and the training of poll workers to distribute those ballots to those voters who seem to need them, DRE technology is much more effective for minority language voters.

In particular, DRE technology allows voters to decide on their own whether they need a minority language ballot,all of which would be preloaded onto all DREs in a jurisdiction (thus reducing printing costs as well).

Similarly, DREs afford voters with disabilities an opportunity to cast an independent secret ballot—
something that optical scan paper ballots cannot fully do. It is important that jurisdictions with large numbers of minority language voters and voters with disabilities have the flexibility to use DRE equipment, so long as those DREs comply with the VVPAT requirements in this bill.
Of course, as noted above, nothing in this bill precludes jurisdictions from using existing optical scan technology that addresses the accessibility issues for voters that have language minority needs as well as voters with disabilities.

http://media.pfaw.org/PDF/SarasotaCD13/HoltAnalysis.pdf

This analysis is so misleading about optical scan voting that I cannot
trust anything that PFAW says or does from this point on.

Please email PFAW [e-mail]

Subject line: HR 811 analysis WRONG

Dear PFAW - I couldn't be more upset with your organization right now.

In your "analysis of HR 811",
http://media.pfaw.org/PDF/SarasotaCD13/HoltAnalysis.pdf
your information on page 2 & 3 about optical scan voting systems
and touch-screen systems is wildly inaccurate.

Your analysis reads like a sales pitch for touch-screens, and will be used
as a rationalization to saddle our states with more failed technology and
more failed elections for years to come.

Your "analysis" provides no list of credentialed "experts" who might have provided you with
this inaccurate information, and it conflicts what nationally known and respected "experts" are
writing about the subject.

PFAW has erred on all points - touch-screens are NOT better for disabled voters, not better for non-English voters, and not better for minority voters.

Clearly PFAW has NEVER reviewed the DNC Report on Ohio, which advised that
touch-screens tended to disenfranchise minorities but that optical scan did not.
http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/www.democrats.org/pdfs/ohvrireport/section02.pdf

Disabled voters oppose touch-screen machines and have endorsed non DRE technology such as Automark and Vote PAD, for example. The DRES are not friendly to disabled voters:

14 February 2007 Report Finds Voting Systems Fail to Meet ADA and HAVA Requirements for Voters With Disabilities; DRE's Not The Answer
Washington, DC—Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines, once considered essential to ensuring private and independent voting booth access for voters with disabilities, often do not work as promised, according to a new report published today. Authored by access technology expert Noel Runyan and published by election reform groups Demos and Voter Action, “Improving Access to Voting: A Report on the Technology for Accessible Voting Systems” shows that, due to inadequate or malfunctioning voting machines, voters with disabilities are frequently forced to ask for assistance or compromise the privacy of their vote— severe violations of federal disability accommodation requirements... http://www.voteraction.org/News/02-14-07_1.html

Then this November, Dottie Neely went to the polls, and found that the
"disabled accessible" touchscreens were not accessible
http://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1877&TM=49981

Aleda J. Devies, a retired systems engineer and activist for the rights of people with disabilities,
advised that "Touch screen not best choice for disabled voters."
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=5588

Non-English voters are well served by paper ballots in jurisdictions such as San Francisco
(serving Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Russian languages) for years. These jurisdictions take the money saved by using optical scan and provide extensive services to non-English speaking voters, services like multi-lingual voter information lines, multi lingual voter education materials, multi lingual elections websites, and bi-lingual poll workers.
See San Francisco's Election Dept website http://www.sfgov.org/site/election_index.asp

Optical scan technology costs less, but your report infers that it costs more.
Although Optical Scan does require printing alot of paper ballots, studies prove that
it is less expensive than using touch-screen machines.
http://www.ncvoter.net/affordable.html

Your report infers that touch-screen voting systems are easier to use or more accurate, but
a report of election incidents by Voters Unite proves otherwise:

"Notably, while precinct scanners are used in 38 states and central count scanners are used
in all states, DREs are used in only 34 states. Nevertheless, as the following chart shows,
there were over three and a half times as many reports of problems with DREs; nearly nine
times as many usability difficulties with DREs; and over fifteen times as many reports of
long lines and/or voters leaving without voting. In fact, scanner or EBM malfunctions only
resulted in long lines and/or voters leaving without voting when poll workers failed to
allow voters to deposit ballots for later scanning."
http://www.votersunite.org/info/E-VotingIn2006Mid-Term.pdf

I urge PFAW to consult with real experts and correct this analysis,
otherwise I cannot support any further actions by PFAW, and I will tell all
of my friends and email lists the same thing.

I would like to think this is a mistake that PFAW will quickly correct -
please advise immediately as to whether you will issue a correction or not,

Sincerely;

___________

[wakeme2008]

1. Nom and kick :) nt

[troubleinwinter]

2. Got news of this stinker in my email, and YES, I sent a letter!!!!

[In Truth We Trust]

3. They are wrong to do so. I'm very disapointed. HCPB"s, nothing more and nothing less!

[tbyg52]

4. Too late to rec, here's a kick

I am *very* disappointed in PFAW.