General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The reality about "vote flipping" machines in NC and elsewhere [View all]Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)the screens you see at Sheetz are new and more accurate. The TS systems in Guilford county were bought 12 years ago when such things were very new. Also, the voting machines are used once every other year, then kept in storage facility subject to heat and cold, then handled by people who are mostly volunteers, not expert techs.
In NC you DO get to see the ballot on the TS system printed out, since by law (again, I know because I helped write the law) any TS system must have a printer attached that prints our each selection as it is made (and each change as it is made). At the end of the election, precincts are randomly selected and the "Voter Verified Paper Trail" is compared to the digital count. If there is a discrepancy, the tally is checked again. If the digital count is still different, then the paper count is the vote of record, UNLESS, it can be shown that the paper tape was tampered with.
Sheetz can do things like this since they have dedicated staff who do nothing but look after these systems. To use your analogy, imagine that Sheetz only sells hot dogs once every other year on the first Tuesday in November. Now imagine that they have to deploy hundreds of thousands of TS systems all across the country with minimally trained staff (or volunteers) and get it all up and running perfectly Monday evening before Hot Dog Day with the entire country watching them. How many mistakes would be made then?
Also, Sheetz has the advantage of having one way of doing things. Imagine if each Sheetz store had a different menu, a different set of rules about how the menu looks and different prices at every local. Every county in the U.S. (3,000+) has its own LAWS for how elections are conducted. The state of North Carolina has a book of over 1200 pages that covers election law, then each of the 100 counties have their own laws to add to it.
Finally, NO voting system I am aware of allows you to take any kind of receipt away from the polling place.
Here is just part of the law I helped write:
§ 163-165.7. Voting systems: powers and duties of State Board of Elections.
(4) With respect to electronic voting systems, that the voting system generate a paper record of each individual vote cast, which paper record shall be maintained in a secure fashion and shall serve as a backup record for purposes of any hand-to-eye count, hand-to-eye recount, or other audit.
Electronic systems that employ optical scan technology to count paper ballots shall be deemed to satisfy this requirement.
(5) With respect to DRE voting systems, that the paper record generated by the system be viewable by the voter before the vote is cast electronically, and that the system permit the voter to correct any discrepancy between the electronic vote and the paper record before
the vote is cast.
Also,
(c) Prior to certifying a voting system, the State Board of Elections shall review, or designate an independent expert to review, all source code made available by the vendor pursuant to this section and certify only those voting systems compliant with State and federal law. At a minimum, the State Board's review shall include a review of security, application vulnerability, application code, wireless security, security policy and processes, security/privacy program management, technology infrastructure and security controls, security organization and governance , and operational effectiveness, as applicable to that voting system.
And finally:
§ 163-165.9A. Voting systems: requirements for voting systems vendors; penalties.
(a) Duties of Vendor. Every vendor that has a contract to provide a voting system in North Carolina shall do all of the following:
(1) The vendor shall place in escrow with an independent escrow agent approved by the State Board of Elections all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system, including, but not limited to, a complete copy of the source and executable code, build scripts, object libraries, application program interfaces, and complete documentation of all aspects of the system including, but not limited to, compiling instructions, design documentation, technical documentation, user documentation, hardware and software specifications, drawings, records, and data. The State Board of Elections may require in its request for proposal that additional items be escrowed, and if any vendor that agrees in a contract to escrow additional items, those items shall be subject to the provisions of this section. The documentation shall include a list of programmers responsible for creating the software and a sworn
affidavit that the source code includes all relevant program statements in low-level and high-level languages.
(2) The vendor shall notify the State Board of Elections of any change in any item required to be escrowed by subdivision (1) of this subsection.
(3) The chief executive officer of the vendor shall sign a sworn affidavit that the source code and other material in escrow is the same being used in its voting systems in this State. The chief executive officer shall ensure that the statement is true on a continuing basis.
(4) The vendor shall promptly notify the State Board of Elections and the county board of elections of any county using its voting system of any decertification of the same system in any state, of any defect in the same system known to have occurred anywhere, and of any relevant defect known to have occurred in similar systems.
(5) The vendor shall maintain an office in North Carolina with staff to service the contract.
(b) Penalties. Willful violation of any of the duties in subsection (a) of this section is a Class G felony. Substitution of source code into an operating voting system without notification as provided by subdivision (a)(2) of this section is a Class I felony. In addition to any other applicable penalties, violations of this section are subject to a civil penalty to be assessed by the State Board of Elections in its discretion in an amount of up to one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) per violation. A civil penalty assessed under this section shall be subject to the provisions of G.S. 163-278.34(e). (2005-323, s. 2(a).)