Fwd: electionline Weekly - June 16, 2005

[Guest guest]

electionline Weekly – June 16, 2005

electionline.org

 

 

NOTE: electionline.org is undergoing an update of our web design intended to

make the site more useful for visitors seeking news feeds, better searching

capability and general user-friendliness … in the short term, however, users may

experience some difficulties which we are working to eliminate. Consequently,

users who have bookmarked the site may want to update those bookmarks.

Specifically:

 

electionlineToday -

http://www.electionline.org/ElectionlineToday/tabid/84/Default.aspx

publications: http://www.electionline.org/Publications/tabid/86/Default.aspx

 

 

We are hopeful that the changes to the site will improve our product for our

dedicated readers. Your continued interest – and patience – is appreciated.

CLARIFICATION: The litigation summary in last week’s newsletter requires one

small clarification. The Wisconsin court considering the state’s database

contract found that the state elections board had the authority to retroactively

approve that contract. In so doing, the court did not reach the question of

whether executive director Kevin Kennedy had the authority to approve the

contract prior to the board’s action.

 

I. In Focus This Week

 

Senate Set to Hold First Hearing on Voter-Verifiable Audit Trails

 

Paper trail advocates shred ‘one-sided’ witness list

 

By Dan Seligson

 

electionline.org

 

Members of the U.S. Senate will hold the first hearing on the use of

voter-verifiable paper audit trails (VVPATs) with electronic voting machines

next week, simultaneously raising the visibility of the issue to the highest

level in American politics and vexing the supporters of so-called “paper trails”

who decried the session as ‘one-sided.’

 

The choice of witnesses, two noted paper-trail opponents and a computer

scientist who has stated support for means of independent verification for

electronic ballots other than paper, signaled to one expert a biased exercise in

which views of those who support paper verification of votes will not be heard.

 

“When I saw the makeup of the panel, I was stunned,” said Avi Rubin, a computer

science professor and electronic security expert at Johns Hopkins University.

“This is like inviting a bunch of bishops and cardinals as the only members of a

panel on abortion. Either someone doesn’t know anything about who the players

are on this issue or this is an outright attempt to only get one side of this

debate heard – the wrong side, in my opinion.”

 

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, called the

hearing last week. Scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. next Tuesday, the three listed

speakers are Conny McCormack, registrar/recorder for Los Angeles County; Ted

Selker, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab and part

of the MIT/Caltech Voting Technology Project; and Jim Dickson, vice president

for government affairs for the American Association of People with Disabilities.

 

The House Committee on Government Reform held a hearing nearly a year ago on the

broader topic of voting machine “technology, accuracy, reliability and

security.” Rubin offered testimony before the panel.

 

For the latest hearing, a Republican Senate staffer speaking on background said

he expected to get a “variety of opinions” on the issue, while acknowledging

that the three speakers have expressed prior opposition to paper trails.

 

The GOP insider said that per Senate rules, Lott’s office selected two speakers

as the majority party, picking McCormack and Selker. Dickson was the third

choice, selected by the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Christopher Dodd,

D-Conn.

 

Like his selected speaker, Dodd shares a disdain for VVPATs, portrayed most

unambiguously in a March 2004 letter penned by the senator and the other

principal authors of the Help America Vote Act.

 

“The proposals mandating a voter-verified paper record would essentially take

the most advanced generations of election technologies and systems available and

reduce them to little more than ballot printers,” the letter stated. “While such

an approach may be one way to address DRE security issues, it would, if adopted,

likely give rise to numerous adverse unintended consequences.”

 

Opposition is not as common among state lawmakers. According to an

electionline.org examination of state laws and legislation, 19 states now have

laws requiring voter-verifiable paper audit trails or have a similar effect,

with varying deadlines. Of that list, legislatures in nine states – Arkansas,

Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Washington and West

Virginia – enacted laws this year. Eighteen more states have legislation

pending.

 

McCormack, registrar of the most populous county in the United States – and one

which, like everywhere else in California, will have to adopt voter-verifiable

electronic voting machines – said she will repeat her long-held opposition of

paper trails when she testified.

 

“This is a largely untested, untried, experimental technology being mandated all

over the country without much experience or use,” she said.

 

Selker has stated his support for verifiable voting. He has been quoted in

articles last year opposing paper trails, instead supporting electronic audio

verification where a recorded voice would read back a voter’s selections and be

kept as an independent record of the vote.

 

Dickson, who often describes himself as “blind as well as blunt,” has been one

of the most vocal opponents of paper trails nationally as they are not

accessible to people without sight.

 

While most counties in Nevada used electronic machines with attached,

contemporaneous ballot printouts behind plastic in the 2004 election, some

voters in Clark County, home to more than seven out of 10 state residents, used

older machines without VVPATs. When they were used, two-thirds of voters

responded in a survey that they never looked at the paper.

 

David Dill, a Stanford University computer scientist who operates a Web site,

www.verifiedvoting.org, which promotes the use of VVPATs, said he was “glad [the

Senate] was finally holding hearings.” But he had reservations as well.

 

“I think it’s important for people’s opinions to be represented on this issue,”

Dill said. “I’m not enough of a political insider to know what is going on

there, but it doesn’t sound like whoever is responsible for choosing these

witnesses wants to hear the case for voter-verifiable paper audit trails.”

 

While the hearing is not tied to any particular legislation, the Rules Committee

has been referred two voter-verification bills for consideration. Sen. Hillary

Clinton, D-N.Y., introduced the Count Every Vote Act (S. 450) in February of

this year, requiring verifiable paper audit trails for voting systems. That same

month, Dodd introduced S. 17, the “Voting Opportunity and Technology Enhancement

Rights Act of 2005,” that would require an “independent means” for a voter to

verify a ballot but does not provide specifics on the mode of verification.

 

 

II. Election Reform News This Week

 

 

Angry citizen groups have been “storming” Capitol Hill demanding more changes

to the nation’s voting systems more than five years after the November 2000

election that first brought the shortcomings of the American voting system into

the spotlight, stated a story in The Toledo Blade. “Advocates for change argue

that if nothing is done this year, congressional elections could take place in

an atmosphere of suspicion with a lack of voter participation.”

 

The problems in Washington’s 2004 gubernatorial election – including more

than 1,600 voters casting ballots illegally – revealed the need for reforms,

reported The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But whether they happen “depends on the

voters themselves - pushing for new laws, demanding changes from their elected

officials, or simply taking more personal responsibility for voting properly.”

Secretary of State Sam Reed said while the election represented “a low,” the

troubled vote could eventually be “a great civics lesson. [Voters] are going to

see some reform, and hopefully that's going to restore their trust and

confidence. "

 

Ohio’s Senate this week considered a House-approved voter ID bill that some

opponents say will disenfranchise the homeless and the elderly, The Associated

Press reported in a story published in The Beacon Journal. Proponents say

requiring ID at the polls is an essential safeguard against voter fraud.

(Registration required.)

 

Positive feedback from voters and no reported errors resulted in rave reviews

from officials conducting a primary election this week in Chesapeake, Virginia

using a new $1 million paperless, touch-screen voting system, The

Virginian-Pilot reported. Low turnout notwithstanding, officials and voters

alike praised the ease of use of the county’s Diebold AccuVote TSX machines,

purchased for $2,900 each to replace punch cards.

 

Montana will join the small group of six states allowing same-day voter

registration, the Great Falls Tribune reported. The state’s new voter

registration database will allow voters to register and cast ballots on Election

Day, provided they do so at their county courthouse, the article stated. Those

who vote 30 days or more before the election will continue to be permitted to

vote at their local precinct.

 

III. Opinion Summary This Week

 

 

As the Senate Rules Committee prepares to hold its first hearing on

voter-verifiable audit trails for electronic voting systems (see story above),

The New York Times endorsed the use of paper trails as detailed in a bill (H.R.

550) introduced by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. “Polls show that many Americans do not

trust electronic voting in its current form; such doubts are a serious problem

in a democracy. The solution is to require that each machine produce a paper

record that can be inspected and verified by the voter. The paper records are

then stored, and can be counted after the polls close. If the results on the

machine do not match the tally of the paper records, it will be clear that there

is a problem.” (Regi! stration required)

 

Novelist Gore Vidal writes a half-year after the presidential election that

something was “rotten” in Ohio in an opinion piece on AlterNet originally

published in The Nation. “It is well-known in the United States of Amnesia that

not only did Ohio have a considerable number of first-time voters but that

Blackwell and his gang, through ‘the misallocation of voting machines led to

unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of

thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.’”

 

A switch from local polling precincts to voting centers “makes sense,” states

an editorial in The Charlotte Observer. While it will not work in all parts of

North Carolina, the legislature should consider “authorizing universal voting

centers in the next election…Any voting reform that boosts turnout, saves

taxpayer dollars and produces more accurate election tallies is a good deal.”

(Registration required)

 

The Denver Post applauds state lawmakers and Secretary of State Donetta

Davidson for their work in passing Senate bills 198 and 206, two identical

pieces of legislation that require electronic machines to have voter-verifiable

paper audit trails after 2010, adds scrutiny to organizations conducting

registration drives and allows voters to cast provisional ballots for statewide

and federal offices if they aren’t in the correct precinct.

 

While last week’s decision by gubernatorial also-ran Dino Rossi to end his

legal fight should settle the 2004 election in Washington, the impact of the

“high-profile” legal contest will linger, writes law professor Richard L. Hasen

in The Seattle Times. “The temptation to litigate has become nearly impossible

to avoid. The combination of a very close election with a highly polarized

electorate and a far-from-perfect election-administration system creates the

right conditions for litigation. With so much at stake, and so much imperfection

in the system, why would rational candidates now choose not to sue?”

 

 

Other opinion:

 

Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Montana, New York, Washington, II! , III, Wisconsin

 

 

 

 

 

 

electionline Weekly is produced by the staff of electionline.org, a

non-partisan, non-advocacy research effort supported by The Pew Charitable

Trusts and administered by the

 

 

 

University of

 

Richmond . More information about the Project and up-to-the-minute news on

election reform throughout the week can be found at electionline.org.

 

 

http://www.blueaction.org

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it

http://babyseals.care2.com/