Elections Board Rings In the Old, as Lever Machines Replace Scanners

[deminks]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/nyregion/lever-machines-briefly-replace-paper-ballots-and-optical-scanners.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

Dented, dinged and dated, New York’s battleship-gray lever voting machines have been hauled out of retirement because the city can’t seem to get the hang of electronic voting.

About 5,100 old machines, each weighing more than 800 pounds and made of 20,000 parts, have been lubricated, and the names of candidates from 2009 (Michael R. Bloomberg, anyone?) have been removed and replaced with those of this year’s contenders.

(snip)

The lever machines to be used on Tuesday were acquired in the 1960s. In 2010, they were replaced with a $95 million electronic system that uses optical scanners to read paper ballots.

But after long lines and chaotic polling scenes in 2012, as well as problems producing complete election results, the State Legislature this year authorized the return of the lever machines for the primary and any ensuing runoff, though it insisted that the city make the electronic machines work for the November general election.

(end snip)

Fascinating.

[brooklynite]

1. There are folks here who like the lever machines because they're "safer"...

...in terms of preventing voter fraud. They have apparently never met a Philadelphia Ward Leader (spoken as a former Philadelphia Ward Committeeman). It IS possible to put false votes on them, and once their on, they can't be distinguished from the legitimate votes. The existing system of PAPER ballots and scanners was perfectly safe; the problem was our incompetent if not corrupt Board of Elections is unable to actually count paper ballots if called upon to do so.

[Atman]

4. I don't know how you could put a false vote on one.

I was Assistant Registrar of Voters for my town in CT up until the year the state eliminated the lever machines. I can't imagine how you could put a false vote on one. They have three redundant mechanical counters. The counters are checked and logged every 30 minutes. If any one of the counters doesn't jibe with the others, the machine is immediately shut down, locked up an the election board is notified. Each time the lever is pulled it pokes a hole in a roll of paper, much like a player piano roll. So there are three mechanical counters which can be manually matched up to the holes on the paper roll. They worked so well because there was no way to subvert this system at the machine level. The only way to cast a fraudulent vote was via a fraudulent voter. Today's electronic machines can never be made similarly safe without transparent source code and a way for the citizen elections personnel to verify that the code is functioning properly...and I don't see how that will ever happen.

Computers are great for many things where a specific man's monetary future is not at stake. Like running the fuel injection on your car or flying a spaceship into orbit. But as long as there is no transparency, and high stakes, electronic voting machines and vote counters are highly susceptible to being rigged, and they should be outlawed. Hell, slot machines have more regulations than voting machines. It appears to be gambling either way.

[brooklynite]

5. Easy...

Unlock the voting key on the side and cast a vote. Rinse. Repeat.

Now, do this in an urban area where the Republicans don't fill their Election worker vacancies because there aren't any Republicans, and where all the Democratic workers are hired by the Ward Leader.

[Atman]

6. The counters are attached to the levers.

How do you roll all three counters and poke a hole in the paper roll simply by unlocking the side of the machine and "casting a vote?" I've worked with the machines...it was part of the training to work the elections. I've seen the inside of the machines and how they operate. You can't just use a key, open up the machine and cast a vote. They don't work that way. That was the beauty of them.

And again, if there is a question, the number of holes punched in the paper roll can be verified against the numbers displayed on the three counters.

[brooklynite]

7. No you misunderstand...

...you operate the machine just like a voter was using it...in the middle of the day when no voter is in the room. The public counter won't match the number of registration cards but...too bad.

the only protection is if someone counts the number of signatures in the book to confirm that the vote count is wrong...which is time consuming and you wouldn't do if you weren't expecting a problem.

[Democracyinkind]

2. I don't care how our votes are counted as long as the Bushes keep counting them.

No technology is safe in the hands of scoundrels.

[eridani]

3. The problem with lever machines is that it is impossible to audit them

Never mind what kind of technology you have--if you don't audit the results, the results aren't reliable. Scanned ballots can be audited by hand counting. My major issue with mail-in ballots in WA State is that the auditing is insufficient. Allowing more mail-in voting would speed up the process in NYC.