ACLU files lawsuit to block voting system switch in Cuyahoga County

[babylonsister]

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=81538

ACLU files lawsuit to block voting system switch in Cuyahoga County



Created: 1/17/2008 1:11:39 PM
Updated:1/17/2008 1:18:01 PM

CLEVELAND -- The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking to block Ohio's largest county from switching to a new voting system.

The federal lawsuit filed in Cleveland hopes to block the state's biggest county from putting a paper voting system in place by the March 4th primary.

In its suit, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the system planned in Cuyahoga County doesn't allow voters to correct ballot errors.

The county that includes Cleveland wants to switch from electronic touch-screen voting machines to technology that scans ballots voters fill out by hand.

[riqster]

1. Oh holy jesus

Cancelling my membership. What a bunch of maroons.

[stillcool]

2. That makes no sense...

Is there something I'm missing?
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/info/EVEREST/00-SecretarysEVERESTExecutiveReport.pdf

[riqster]

4. The ACLU is trying to fix a wart while the patient bleeds to death. nt

[diva77]

14. you can thank Tokaji for paving the way with these calculated lawsuits

(Common Cause vs. Jones) to remove paper and install DREs...he filed lawsuits in states with the largest # of electoral college votes and was part of that shady effort to cause the disabled community to sue against it's own best interests -- this is what lead to the removal of paper ballots and installment of DREs in the largest counties in CA.

The whole strategy of ACLU advocating for paperless DREs makes you wonder about infiltration...

[riqster]

16. The League of Women Voters likewise

Caused HUGE problems until they pulled their heads out of their asses.

[babylonsister]

3. Here's more...

http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0117-08.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 17, 2008
1:17 PM


CONTACT: ACLU
James Freedland, national ACLU, [phone] or 549-2666;
[e-mail]
Carrie Davis, ACLU of Ohio, [phone]

ACLU Challenges Ohio’s Unequal Voting Technology in Federal Court
New Voting System Will Result in More Uncounted Ballots


CLEVELAND - January 17 - The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Ohio filed a lawsuit against state election officials in federal court today challenging the use of unequal, inaccurate and inadequate voting technology in Ohio’s most populous county. Today’s legal action seeks to block Cuyahoga County’s recent shift from using electronic voting machines to a system that lacks the ability to provide voters with notice of balloting errors and an opportunity to correct such mistakes. According to the ACLU, the use of this new system violates the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Voting Rights Act.

“Every voting system – paper ballot or not – must give voters a chance to fix a mistake. Many votes will go uncounted if voters cannot verify that their ballots have been filled out correctly,” said Meredith Bell-Platts, a staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. “Mandating an unequal voting system is intolerable and will inevitably lead to preventable disfranchisement. With Ohio’s presidential primary only weeks away, Cuyahoga County must abandon its deeply flawed and unreliable voting technology in order to protect the rights of every voter.”

Last month, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner cast a tie-breaking vote that forced Cuyahoga County to adopt a central count optical scan system (CCOS), in which paper ballots are immediately shipped to a central location where they are “read” by an optical scan machine. Under this arrangement, voters are given no opportunity to correct a mistake on their ballots. However, optical scan voting systems are available with counting features that provide error notification to voters at polling places. When using these systems – that are already used by several counties statewide – the voter inserts his or her ballot directly into the counting equipment, which can reject any ballot with an overvote or that cannot be read. A voter with a rejected ballot then has an opportunity to correct the vote. This error notification substantially reduces the risk that an individual’s vote will not be counted. Brunner and Cuyahoga County rejected this method.

“A system that protects every vote equally is not a luxury, it is a constitutional right,” said Carrie Davis, staff counsel with the ACLU of Ohio. “It is unacceptable for some Ohio voters to have the opportunity to identify and fix errors on their ballots, while other voters do not. The technology is available to correct this flaw and there is no reason to ignore this problem. In addition to its constitutional violations, the new system presents an untold logistical and financial disaster on the eve of the 2008 elections.”

Ohio adopted voting technology that provided error notices to voters in 2006. In the 2004 case, Stewart v. Blackwell, the ACLU challenged punch card and central count optical scans that did not provide the voters with notification of ballot problems. Research has shown that if the voter is given an opportunity to correct his or her ballot, the number of uncounted votes is greatly reduced.

The case is ACLU v. Brunner and is in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Attorneys in the case are Bell-Platts, Laughlin McDonald and Neil Bradley of the ACLU, Davis of the ACLU of Ohio, and cooperating attorneys Paul Moke and Richard Saphire. The lawsuit was brought against Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners, and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on behalf of the ACLU of Ohio and voters across the county.

Today’s legal complaint is available here

More information on the ACLU Voting Rights Project is available here

###

[Fredda Weinberg]

5. precinct based scanners should be mandatory n/t

[riqster]

6. Quite common, actually. nt

[Fredda Weinberg]

7. Unfortunately, not in Florida, where the statistics were startling

between affluent counties that could afford precinct based scanners and those who tried to save money.

[riqster]

8. True enough-I did not mean to sound so cavalier. nt

[sonias]

11. I agree and that's the intent of the lawsuit

Maybe a compromise can be reached so that the precinct based scanners are in place by November.

I have one foot on either side. I want the paper ballots and op scanners to be in place for the primary in Ohio, but at the same time don't want thousands of votes spoiled without the chance for correction.

Damn these damn DRES!


Sonia

[liam_laddie]

10. ACLU suit has an important goal...IMHO

to allow the voter to re-mark his/her ballot if an overvote is detected at the precinct. If the central count only system is adopted, many voters will be disenfranchised without their knowledge. I was a BOE-appointed worker at a poll with five precincts. Each precinct had an op-scan machine. Each polling place had one DRE provided for disabled, etc. voters. It had very little use, maybe three voters in a poll place with well over 500 voters in Nov. Each opscan (Hart Intercivic eScan) prints out a pre- and post-voting count and seemed to work okay. We audit the count against the log of ballots given out. But when I learn that the memory cards can have executable code installed, alarm bells go off big time. Simply cannot trust the technicians from the vendor to do the honest thing when programming the cards.

Why Brunner chose this procedure is beyond me. Maybe she thinks there's less opportunity for chicanery, but I see the chain-of-custody issue as a worse problem. I'm sure the cost of providing an opscanner at all the thousands of precincts in OH not now using them will be costly.
But what's the cost of a mis-counted election? Just consider the last seven loooong, painful, destructive, national-bankrupting years.

[Wilms]

12. I think the SoS wants to remove scanners from the precinct for security reasons.

The test they did...let alone others...revealed the scanners to be hackable. There's your vote for yanking them from the precinct. Someone may (or may be) suggesting to use scanners in the precinct for checking under/overvotes only...no counting.

But that still leaves us with central counting, which is hackable too.

[riqster]

18. Security is the goal

...by having fewer hackable scanners, and placing them in a secured location, the opportunities for hacking (and errors) drop dramatically.

I understand the concern about catching errors. However, if someone fills in a ballot of any sort, they have to take some reponsibility for being correct. And the BOE should provide assistance to voters who have disabilities in cases where the technology does not provide it. (Remember, until touchscreens, there was no error-catching after the voter marked their ballot.)

The ACLU is putting the onus on the machine, making it the central point of the election process. According to its logic, only touchscreen devices will be acceptable, never mind their myriad other flaws.

It's a blinkered AND short-sighted viewpoint, and will do a lot of harm to Election Integrity overall.

[Wilms]

19. That's fine. I'm not advocating Brunner's position.

It's just that there was no mention of it amidst all the hand wringing.

[riqster]

20. True enough, and thanks. nt

[dragonlady]

9. I thought this sounded strange, but it's about protecting voters who make mistakes

The ACLU's objection is scanning all the ballots at a central location, away from the polling places.

I've spent time around polling places where optical scan is used. A fair number of voters at each election will fill out the ballot wrong, and when they put it into the scanner, it comes back out. Then the voter, who sometimes asks for help from a poll worker, will figure out what was wrong and fill out another ballot. This happens especially with a primary (we get a ballot that lists both parties, but you can vote on only one party). Another big one is incorrectly drawing the line to connect the head and tail of the arrow, or making stray marks somewhere on the ballot--anything that the machine can't interpret correctly.

If all the ballots were shipped to a central location, I guarantee that quite a few would be thrown out. (This problem also applies to absentee voters, who don't get a chance to find out their ballot is incorrectly marked. That's why an early voting at a place with a scanner is better.)

If we believe reports that young people just beginning to vote are going strongly Democratic, we should be wary of the central counting system (and obviously the touch screen machines that can't be recounted).

[Stevepol]

21. I was fooled by this report as well. I think the ACLU after all

is on the right side of this. One of the worst ideas around is to count the votes at a central location instead of at the local precinct sites. If they are collected and counted at a central location, it's much easier to scramble the numbers and lose the precinct figures. These local numbers are vital to do audits and recounts.

I think as some other posts have noted, Brunner is backing away from this very bad idea.

[BillORightsMan]

13. ORC3505.23 Voter gets up to THREE BALLOTS!

Does the ACLU not understand existing law?

In its suit, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the system planned in Cuyahoga County doesn't allow voters to correct ballot errors.

3505.23 Time limit for occupying voting compartment - errors in voting - marking ballot.
http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3505.23
reads in part...

If a voter tears, soils, defaces, or erroneously marks a ballot the voter may return it to the precinct election officials and a second ballot shall be issued to the voter. Before returning a torn, soiled, defaced, or erroneously marked ballot, the voter shall fold it so as to conceal any marks the voter made upon it, but the voter shall not remove Stub A therefrom. If the voter tears, soils, defaces, or erroneously marks such second ballot, the voter may return it to the precinct election officials, and a third ballot shall be issued to the voter. In no case shall more than three ballots be issued to a voter. Upon receiving a returned torn, soiled, defaced, or erroneously marked ballot the precinct election officials shall detach Stub A therefrom, write “Defaced” on the back of such ballot, and place the stub and the ballot in the separate containers provided therefor.

What gives? Perhaps the ACLU should be looking at the CENTRAL TABULATORS to see if they READ and TABULATE ballots correctly. :grr:

What am I missing here?

imbillorightsmanandiapprovethismessage
:patriot:

[riqster]

15. Brunner backs off...a little

[sonias]

17. Bless her indeed

She does have a tough battle and it's hell trying to navigate this nightmare in an election year.

:applause:

Sonia