The Future of HAVA

[BeFree]

We need to talk about HAVA. It's funding may be drying up after this election without further appropriations. So, it has to come before the congress soon, and we will be there (unified?) to argue our case, right?

My idea is that it will not be re-funded in the amounts it once was, leaving voting jurisdictions holding expensive machines without the money to pay for them.

Too, amendment HR 550 will be discussed and may be marked up at the same time, so what is the current best HR 550 bill we can get?

Would using the argument that any new voting system should be as accurate as Hand Counted Paper Ballots, or HCPB, help us get the best HAVA ever to come out of congress?

PS.... HAVA - Help America Vote Act, is the Tom Delay 2002 bill that financed, to the tune of $4 billion, the current crop of voting machines that will take 80% our votes this November, and stole them in 2004.

[BeFree]

1. Looks like I a was wrong.

HAVA must not be a problem?

[Kip Humphrey]

2. Voting machines broken down and left by the side of the road ...

That's the future I'd like for HAVA: ZERO funding for HAVA and let the machines die!

I'm encouraged!

[mod mom]

5. I think the manufacturers such as Diebold, ES & S should be forced to

return taxpayer money for delivering a faulty product. If it can be proved that there was purposeful intent to manipulate the outcomes (remember Pap says they have some whistleblowers) then severe criminal punishment must be handed down.

[Bill Bored]

3. Best HR550 we can get would be to rule out privatization of audits somehow

There are a few minor tweaks to the language that could make the audit more of a surprise and that sort of thing. This will probably happen, but the anti-privatization language may not. This is something that should be worked on instead of trashing the whole bill as some have suggested.

Unless you do the math, you don't know what good a 2% audit will or will not do. Fortunately, some people are doing the math. The answer is that sometimes it works and sometimes it won't, but you also have to consider that it's 2% ADDITIONAL for each state. So if you're in CA, for example, you go from a 1% audit to a 3% audit and if you're in a state with NO audit, you go from zero to 2%. I know this sounds petty, but if you have a LOT of precincts, like CA, these are big numbers and they CAN confirm the outcome of many statewide races. The problem is less-than-statewide races, very close races, and the possibility that the audit will be not be conducted independently and fairly.

Also, what will trigger additional audits? HR550 is vague on this point. None of this means the bill should be gutted. It's just up ot US as activists to prevent the media and others from saying everything is fine now that there's a 2% random audit. Some seem to think that this an insurmountable public relations nightmare. I disagree. A few segments about it on Lou Dobbs is all it would take! Perhaps Holt himself can be urged to point out that his bill is only the bare minimum.

Meanwhile, watch this hearing:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x441411

[Bill Bored]

4. Point about HCPB

I hate to burst this bubble, and I'm NOT against HCPB, but the accuracy of HCPB is only about 1 in 10,000 and please correct me if I'm wrong. You also lose all your over- and under- vote protection with HCPB and that affects overall accuracy, due to voter error, even MORE.

HAVA already says machine accuracy has to no worse than 1 in 500,000 for DREs and Scanners.

The problem with accuracy comes in when the machines fail, are programmed incorrectly, are rigged, etc.

A lot of this comes down to the Voting System Standards so watch this hearing:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x441411

On edit, I believe HCPB should be used to check the accuracy of the machines.

[mod mom]

6. HCPB counted at the precinct level with full public witness ( including

videotaping of count procedures) should allow the safest securest and least expensive method of counting with public confidence in the outcome.

[Bill Bored]

7. It should but what if it is 1 in 10,000 votes?

I think it was Ted Selker of MIT who said it, or perhaps Rebecca Mercuri.

Suppose it's right; do you think it's good enough?

What about the over- and under- vote protection? Blackwell lost a case over that by using punch cards in 2004. A residual vote rate of 1% or more could swing a close election. This is something that should not be ignored, although something like vote switching could be a lot worse.

Anyway, I was just trying to answer BeFree's question about whether there should be a law that machines have to at least as accurate as HCPB. The answer seems to be that there already is one -- HAVA -- believe it or not.

The devil is in the details!

[BeFree]

8. Not really

The devil is not in the details, it is in the potential.

Evoting has the greatest potential for mass errors, while HCPB has the least.

Remember Pottawattamie? It had to be fixed by HCPB after the machine errors.

There was a post earlier, by one of our polling 'experts' who listed the error rates for the different systems. HCPB had the least discrepancy in the exit polls.

HCPB is the gold standard, the rest are just shiny pieces of crap.

[Febble]

9. You called.....

There was NO significant difference in exit poll discrepancy between HCPB and other methods in comparable precincts i.e. precincts in serving places with populations <50,000; HCPB were not used in larger places. In other words, comparing apples with apples, precincts with machines had no greater discrepancy than precincts with handcounts.

In urban precincts (>50,000 pop) lever precincts had the greatest discrepancy, followed by punchcards. Taken together, precincts with levers or punchcards had significantly greater discrepancies than precincts with DREs or optical scanners.

I do NOT think this is an argument for DREs, although it might be an argument for scanners. Handcounted paper ballots are not proof against fraud or miscount. Whatever method you use has to be transparent and secure. But FWIW, the exit poll evidence suggests older machines may disenfranchise Democrats (or, alternatively, that the kinds of places with older machines may be disenfranchising Democrats). And we know that punchcards cost Gore the presidency in 2000.

[BeFree]

10. Bullshit

...punchcards cost Gore...
It was stolen.

HCPB are used to correct machine counts.

Machine counts are NOT used to correct hand counts.

HCPB is the best system available.

[Febble]

11. I just don't get this, BeFree!

Where on earth in my post did I say that HCPB is not the best system? I actually think it IS (though not the most accurate necessarily).

And if Florida was stolen from Gore, it was stolen on punchcards, as Walter Mebane emphatically demonstrated.

And where the heck did I say that machine counts were "used to correct handcounts"?

For Chrissake, I AGREE WITH YOU!!!!!!!!

Jeez.

All I was saying is that the EXIT POLLS do not demonstrate that handcounts are better. What they demonstrate, if they demonstrate anything, is that LEVERS and PUNCHCARDS may be worse than DREs and OPTICAL SCANNERS. There was no difference IN THE EXIT POLLS between HCPC and machines, when similar precincts were compared.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT HCPBs ARE NOT BETTER. But the exit polls won't tell you that because there weren't any urban NEP precincts that used HCPBs to compare with the machines. In fact I don't know if any urban precincts DID use HCPBs. Do you?

Could you do me a favour, BeFree, and actually READ my posts, before you say they are bullshit?

[BeFree]

12. Gore

It is the fact that the paper was not allowed to be recounted is the reason Gore had the election stolen. The idea you espoused was that Gore lost due to paper punchcards. That is bullshit. He lost because the SCOTUS stole his and our right's to recount the paper ballots.

When there was, finally, a very conservative recount, Gore was shown to have won.

I called BS on your disinformation.

[Febble]

13. Well, there's nothing I can do if you persist

in misunderstanding me. I did NOT post misinformation.

I agree with you that the paper was not allowed to be recounted, and that is why Gore lost. But the paper that was not properly counted was mostly punchcard paper, and far more Gore votes than Bush votes were not counted properly by the punchcard readers.

Read Walter Mebane's paper The Wrong Man is President, and also his paper The Butterfly Did It.

But let me state yet again: I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU. If the ballots had been counted by human beings capable of discerning the intentions of the voter GORE WOULD BE PRESIDENT.

My point was simply that in Florida, the greatest loss to Gore was on PUNCHCARD machines. Mebane concluded that the most accurate counting in Florida in 2000 was on PRECINCT-TABULATED OPTICAL SCAN BALLOTS, and that if the counting had even been as good as it was in those precincts GORE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELECTED PRESIDENT.

But sure, handcounts would have been better.

Please stop crapping on my posts.

[BeFree]

14. It was disinformation

Disinformation is not a lie, it is posting something as a fact when in fact it is only partially true, as evidenced that you had to go back and fill in the rest of your fact.

Now, to be fair, admit you picked one sentence from my post and went about making it look like it was disinfo - crapping on my post, as you say.

My point is, and was, and you agree, hand counting paper ballots is the best way to count votes. That's all I am saying, and you had to go and mess with it.

Meanwhile you disregarded the rest of my post then, so when I had to repeat it you took umbrage at my doing so.

Who is crapping on who's posts?

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

[Febble]

15. Yes, the one I picked was this:

There was a post earlier, by one of our polling 'experts' who listed the error rates for the different systems. HCPB had the least discrepancy in the exit polls.

I don't know who the "polling 'expert'" was, but the information (not disinformation I posted was that this is not the case. When precincts serving communities of comparable size weree compared, HCBC precincts did not have significantly lower discrepancies than machine counted precincts. Actually some of them had very wide discrepancies - some in one direction and some in another. But they are difficult to assess as a group as there are only 40 of them in the dataset.

And no, I didn't disregard the rest of your post. I simply posted information regarding that particular point.

BECAUSE I AGREE WITH THE REST.



edited to fix formatting

[BeFree]

16. Oh, are you good

The disinfo you posted was that "Gore lost because of paper punchcards".

Yeah, he lost votes from that use, duh, but he lost because the SCOTUS would not let the recount go forth.

The same thing that will happen again and again. That is why we must have HCPB to get it as close to correct as possible, the first time.

[Bill Bored]

20. Gore lost FL because they didn't count the overvotes.

Some of those were scanned; some of them were punched. Some of them could have been used to determine voter intent; some could not. Write-ins where the name written on the ballot matched the scanned or punched choice would have been enough to give Gore the election if they had been counted statewide. These were mostly scanned ballots, AFAIK, but perhaps some were punch cards too.

The undervotes, which result from unpunched or hanging chads alone, were not enough to give it to Gore, were they?

Poor ballot design cost Gore thousands of votes, but then you have to use inferential statistics to show that these overvoted ballots voted heavily democratic, and this isn't proof enough for the courts!

So I think paper ballots that were NOT hand counted, but scanned, cost Gore the election, as well as poor ballot design, which may have been deliberate.

Anyone else want to revisit this?

[BeFree]

22. You too?

On September 11, 2001, a report was released by a news consortium that had recounted all the votes in Fla. They said that if the vote had actually been recounted by the state, Gore wins.

The SCOTUS stopped the recount approved by the Fla. Supremes. It was stolen.

[Bill Bored]

25. Cite it. (I know SCOTUS stopped the count, but cite your "9/11" report) nt

[BeFree]

27. You haven't seen the report?

I don't have the link here, but you can find it on DU... can't believe you never gazed on it. It came out right at 9/11. When you find it, you will see I ain't kidding.

[Bill Bored]

32. Is that your citation?

Next you'll be telling us it was in the Aug 6 PDB!

[BeFree]

36. You don't believe me?

It has been posted on DU. How much you pay me to find it for you?

[BeFree]

39. You owe me...Gore recount

http://www.unknownnews.net/election2000.html

and

http://makethemaccountable.com/coverup/ConsortiumSpins.htm

and

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=249

Enough? You believe me now?

[Bill Bored]

41. EXCUSE ME? From your very first link:

"Addendum, and final comments:
On November 13, 2001, the Washington Post, New York Times, and a bunch of other papers released their final count of the ballots, concluding that Gore won Florida by almost any standard except the wacky one Gore's own lawyers had argued for.

That was 11/13/01 -- NOT 9/11/01!

And in fact it was 11/12/01. Here's the WaPo story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12623-2001Nov11.html

All the earlier reports did NOT include counting of overvotes and the overvotes were needed to give Gore the victory in all counting scenarios.

All this 9/11 stuff is BS when it comes to THIS particular issue of announcing who won FL. The U. Chi Florida Ballot Project did not even release their report until November, 11 or 12, 2001. Previous reports did NOT count overvotes. Here's their website:
http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/fl/
Here's a paper on their study:
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf

[BeFree]

42. It was 9/11

The FINAL report came out two months later because the WTC buried it. Keep searching, bill, you will see I am correct, not that it matters, the real thing is that they showed Gore would have won if the SCOTUS hadn't stopped the recount.

Say, you didn't already know that did you, and you were just leading me on? Nah, say it ain't so.

[Bill Bored]

44. I agree on "the real thing" part but I think the 9/11 part is a myth. nt

[FogerRox]

47. Bill -Randi Rhodes has been all over that report,, on the radio

When you count all the votes,. gore won, easily.

[Febble]

23. Well, as Mebane points out

any one of a number of factors could have reversed the result, including the butterfly ballot. But he did conclude that overvotes alone would have put Gore in the White House, that:

If the best type of vote tabulation system used in Florida in 2000—precinct-tabulated optical scan ballots—had been used everywhere in the state,Gore would have won by more than 30,000 votes.

Which is not to say that hand-counts wouldn't have delivered him more votes still.

And not even to start to mention that if everyone who ought to have been allowed to vote had been allowed to vote he'd probably be in the White House now.

sigh.

[autorank]

31. ...at that moment, they cost the electing but the precursors and "spoiled"

tricks were even more devastating. If we believe Choicepoint (is that like saying bev now) there were only 3000 of 94,000 "non felons" or if we believe Palast's sources and crunchers, there were 54,000 truly disenfranchised. Just take the lower figure, largely minority, and apply turn out and and reasonable voting percentages and Gore kicks some real ass.

It's not mentioned, but the "felon purge" software in FL 2000 did have a field for race, yep, true it is:

http://tinyurl.com/quwjq

Then, I obtained a letter dated June 9, 2000, signed by Choice-Point DBT's Vice President Bruder written to all county elections supervisors explaining their method: "The information used for the matching process included first, middle, and last name; date of birth; race; and gender; but not Social Security Number."

They had not lied to me. Read closely. They used race as a match criterion, not a search criterion. The company used this confusion between "match" and "search" criteria to try to pull the BBC off the track. They tried to slide the race question by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. However, on the morning of February 16, the day after our broadcast, I faxed to the commission the June 9 letter. Later that day, the commission questioned Bruder.

COMMISSION: Was race or party affiliation matching criterion in compiling that list?
BRUDER: No. . . .
COMMISSION: Did you write this letter? It has your signature on it.
BRUDER: Can I see it, please?
COMMISSION: So, you misinformed the Florida supervisors of elections that race would be used as a matching criterion?
BRUDER: Yes.

And here's a beauty, one of my favorite Florida 2000 factoids by an independent academic who just followed the evidence. Klinckner of Hamilton College did a comprehensive study on Florida 2000. The magic bullet turned out to be a much higher "spoilage" rate in Republican Counties with large black populations. Real fine work, truth seeking. http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/ Tens of thousands of ballots lost through "spoilage."

Ultimately, the theft of Florida 2000 was a race crime committed in different ways at different points. It's shameful and everything that can be done should be to make sure this type of trash behavior by the government stops.

So,

[Bill Bored]

17. Of course. See post #4.

"The problem with accuracy comes in when the machines fail, are programmed incorrectly, are rigged, etc."

"I believe HCPB should be used to check the accuracy of the machines."

[BeFree]

21. From post #4

"HAVA already says machine accuracy has to no worse than 1 in 500,000 for DREs and Scanners".

Are you sure you read the same copy of HAVA that I did? IIRC, HAVA says they can fail something like one time out of a hundred. I don't have a copy handy....

Anyway, what has HAVA done with all the failures?

Name one thing HAVA has done, except file lawsuits against folks who didn't want to use the damn machines. Like NY, and Ian Sancho.

[Bill Bored]

26. HAVA is not that bad. It's just being misread. Ain't no e-voting in NY!

NY is hand counting its paper ballots filled out by HAVA-compliant accessible ballot markers this year. The only e-voting is one county who bought DREs years ago which will have to get VVPATs now, and the absentee ballots which are optically scanned.

I'm not a lawyer but I know there is a suit against NY and the Court and the DoJ both said NY can just keep doing what they've been doing to comply with HAVA, which is not a hell of a lot.

The problem with HAVA is that it's been turned on its head by vendors, elections officials and certain activists for disabled voters.

The statute as written is not really that bad. It's just the interpretation that's corrupt. About the worst thing in HAVA is it's lack of a VVPAT or VVPB requirement, but nothing forces anyone to give up HCPBs.

And it does require a 1 in 500,000 error rate for DREs and optical scanners. Again, I'm not saying this is being realized, but is is a HAVA requirement.

http://www.eac.gov/law_ext.asp

The law itself is very poorly written though. It's very confusing and that's bad.

[BeFree]

28. Glad to see you know...

...HAVA is poorly written. While 550 may be better written all it will do is further support for the machines.

I'd like better for HAVA to just disappear, and if we fight it hard, the flaws in it will become evident and maybe they will fix it up even better than 550 as written.

Someone needs to pay for the past rip-offs.... or are we just going to settle for the bone of 550 and get over what has been done? I say no. Somehow, we need to make the bastards pay. Teach them a lesson. This is some serious shit we've had to live with.

[BeFree]

29. Here's what your link says

Error rates.--The error rate of the voting system in counting ballots (determined by taking into account only those errors which are attributable to the voting system and not attributable to an act of the voter) shall comply with the error rate standards established under section 3.2.1 of the voting systems standards issued by the Federal Election Commission which are in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.

----------------------

So, where can we find section 3.2.1 of the voting system standards to prove your point? Anyone?

[Bill Bored]

34. Here:

http://www.eac.gov/election_resources/vss.html

[BeFree]

37. How much

will you pay me to search that site to prove you right?

[Bill Bored]

40. That won't be necessary. It's the same in the 2005 version

which goes into effect next year.

See this story from the MSM. It seems they are the ones leading the charge for election integrity, along with Brad of course!

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3058

And this one too:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3104

Tell the truth BeFree, did you ever think you'd see ANYTHING about this on the TeeVee?

[BeFree]

43. Of course I did

It was just a matter of time before it came ON TV. It is a big story.

[Bill Bored]

45. Well actually, it would never have been on TV without the dedication

of certain activists. And now they are being trashed by other activists. Does that seem fair to you?

[BeFree]

46. Fair?

no way.... but oppositional politics is rarely fair. It does remind me of the what they called 'swiftboating' of Kerry. Gladly, from our side, it seems we rarely stoop so low.

[FogerRox]

49. error rates

FEC 3.2.1 is 1 in 500,000,

This link has all the cites, Go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=385691

[BeFree]

51. I stand corrected

I in 500,000 error rate?

Gawd, there isn't one machine that can do that. What about all the reports of: press Kerry, up pops bushco?

Foger, have you thought about putting that thread in the DU Research Forum?

[FogerRox]

52. The Liberty, Accupoll & Avante DREs meet FEC3.2.1

That thread and a bunch of others from last year, no I havent thought about it. I'm sooo working on these House races in NJ, I gotta canvass on sat, then another 4 wks later, Fundraiser to be organized, DFA meeting Aug 2nd.

Oh sorry...

[Bill Bored]

53. You go Roger! Any swing districts there?

One of these days I'll post something about Peter-we'll-take-care-of-the-counting-King's opponent to see if anyone wants to help him out.

Do you think the DU ER&D crowd would be interested?

[FogerRox]

55. I think there might be some natural cross over

WE post about elections & Voting equipment so much... how about the campaigns themselves.

AS far as NJ, in a nutshell


In the House:
7 Dem incumbants
5 Repub incumbants

Every "R" has opposition, 2 Dems dont. "D" Linda Stender in NJ7 has a great chance to beat "R"Mike Ferguson. If Menendez wins the senate seat Corzine gave him, he might have enough coat tails to bring some house seats with him. I think NJ will chip in with at least one House "R" getting a pink slip.

Isnt Peter King, Long Island ? I used to live in Oyster Bay, then Stony Brook.

[Bill Bored]

56. Yes, Long Island

"Isnt Peter King, Long Island ? I used to live in Oyster Bay, then Stony Brook."

Well I guess that's when you used to be somebody, huh?


I'd love to see Peter King get the boot. The counting remark alone would be just grounds.

[BeFree]

54. Foger....

Good to see you back here. Good luck getting flamed. I'm staying away from that thread, I got nothing nice to say.

[FogerRox]

48. self delete

[Bill Bored]

18. And another thing:

I said HCPB is accurate to within 1 in 10,000 votes.
That's .01% or one one hundredth of one percent.
If you think an exit poll is anywhere near that level of accuracy, why bother to count the votes at all? Just do in EXIT POLL! :rofl:

[BeFree]

19. Good lord

Am I ever sorry I used one of the 'experts' figures as any kind of proof. Yep, learned me a lesson, I did.

:rofl:

[Cookie wookie]

24. Sometimes I wonder if the issue of residual votes

(over and undervoting) is not just another canard (like accessibility) used to promote electronic voting. The reason I wonder is that in Florida and Georgia, undervotes are being reported by the DREs as "blank voted" and "blank voted" totals were not included in the CalTech MIT report that promoted the idea that undervotes were reduced on DRE systems. Charles Stewart, who wrote the CalTech report told me that votes in the "blank voted" category were not figured into his data for the report.

That leaves us with the big question, do DREs really reduce undervotes?

From our research, we couldn't tell by looking at the Georgia and Florida election data we audited. Of course, there is another problem too, which is that the CalTech report was used to tout a reduction in undervotes, but the report may have only studied residuals in the presidential race. That isn't clear in the way the report is written, it reads as if all overall undervotes were reduced and the media has made it sound that way.

In the Georgia 2004 election, it may be that undervotes WERE actually reduced on the DREs for the presidential race. Then again we don't know that the machines accurately reported those undervotes because we don't know what the DRE code really did with those votes. Obviously it moved undervotes into the category of "blank voted" for the other races for Georgia and Florida. That's the problem with DRE voting and privitized code.

Another important point to consider is that Stewart told me he took the data for the report from the Ballots Cast Summaries, which as the example below shows, don't break down the undervote totals by race and those summaries also don't include "blank voted".

If we use an example from Rehoboth precinct in DeKalb County, GA, General Election 2004, the Ballots Cast Summary reported:

0 Blank Ballots
0 Over-voted
0 Under voted

In the presidential race:
0 Blank Ballots
0 Over-voted
0 Under voted

In the U.S. Senate race:
18 blank voted
0 Under votes
0 Over Voted

But the Senate blank voted totals are obviously not reported in the Ballots Cast Summary above (nor were blank voted totals reported in the Ballots Cast Summary in other tapes we examined).

If the blank voted totals for that Senate race and all the other races down the ticket had been reported for that precinct as undervotes, which obviously they were, the Ballots Cast Summary should have read instead:

Times over voted 0
Times under voted 2913

Using those figures certainly would have given a very different picture of reduction in under votes if those totals had been used in Mr. Stewart's study.

This method of recording votes was the same in the 2002 race as 2004.

In testimony given to the EAC, Kathy Rogers, Director of the Elections Division, SOS Georgia said:

"Six years ago, under Georgia's antiquated voting platform, the top-of-the ballot U.S. Senate undervote was 4.8% of ballots cast. In 2002, after deployment of the new electronic system, the undervote in the top-of-the ballot U. S. Senate race was a mere 0.87 percent. That is more than five-fold reduction in undervoting, a decreasse of 71,000 ballots that showed no choice in the top of the ticket race. "

Did her stats come from using Ballots Cast Summary. Did they include "Blank voted" numbers?

When questioned by Count The Vote in May 2005, Ms Rogers said that a Blank Voted is when a voter chooses not to vote for ANY race on the ticket; leaving the entire ballot blank. An undervote differs in that a voter may choose to leave a single race unvoted. Actually she was describing Blank Ballot not Blank voted. Did she not know the difference?

If anyone would like to see the Rehoboth tape I've just used as an example, please pm me. I have it and a poll tape from Volusia County, Florida from 2004 scanned and can send it to you.

[Bill Bored]

35. I believe these are Diebold-specific

According to their own documentation, an undervoted race is called blank voted unless it's a Vote For >1. If the Cal Tech people are not counting the Diebold "# of times blank voted" for the race at the top of the ticket, then they are using the wrong data.

In the example you gave:

0 Blank Ballots
0 Over-voted (I don't think this means anything)
0 Under voted (I don't think this does either. There is NO definition for an "undervoted ballot" in any of the Diebold documentation I've seen. Only undervoted race, which is a vote for >1 race in which the voter voted for fewer than the maximum candidates allowed for the office.)

In the presidential race:
0 Blank Ballots (Do you mean # of Times Blank Voted here? If not, this means nothing. A blank BALLOT is not race-specific, is it? It's the whole ballot.)
0 Over-voted (Should not happen on a DRE)
0 Under voted (Can't happen on Diebold unless it's a Vote For >1. But I've heard that it DID happen in your 2004 Primary, which is still an unresolved issue!)

In the U.S. Senate race:
18 blank voted (this makes sense in Dieboldese, but it's quite high)
0 Under votes
0 Over Voted

What do you think?

I do think that Diebold uses "blank voted races" instead of "undervoted races" or "undervotes" to deceive people who don't bother to read GEMS and TSX manuals and the like. (Well-intentioned election lawyers and Poli-Sci types mostly.)

[Cookie wookie]

38. Yikes, I didn't think anyone would respond. Thanks.

According to their own documentation, an undervoted race is called blank voted unless it's a Vote For >1.

1) This is something I didn't know, because I haven't had access to a GEMS manual, but would explain why Charles Stewart would use the Ballots Cast Summary figures, because the #1 race would show the tally of undervotes for the presidential race there (but none of the other because Blank Voted is not listed there). I don't understand why he didn't just say that. It would have been helpful if the report had more of this information in it rather than having to contact Steward to ask!

2) It isn't apparent from poll tapes (accumulated total reports), that only the presidential race will report undervotes in the undervotes category in the Ballots Cast Summary, as the presidential race also has the category "blank voted" listed. That would always be "0" obviously, since undervotes are being recorded as undervotes.

If the Cal Tech people are not counting the Diebold "# of times blank voted" for the race at the top of the ticket, then they are using the wrong data."

Did you mean to say, "If the Cal TechCal Tech people are not counting the Diebold "# of times undervoted"? This would mean the CalTech report used the correct totals -- unless I'm not understanding what you're saying here.

I do think that Diebold uses "blank voted races" instead of "undervoted races" or "undervotes" to deceive people who don't bother to read GEMS and TSX manuals and the like. (Well-intentioned election lawyers and Poli-Sci types mostly.)

Yes, it does appear that the process of dumping undervotes into the blank voted "bucket" is deceptive. Just the fact that on the poll tapes both undervotes and blank votes are listed for all the races is misleading.

In the presidential race:
0 Blank Ballots (Do you mean # of Times Blank Voted here? If not, this means nothing. A blank BALLOT is not race-specific, is it? It's the whole ballot.)

Doesn't make sense, does it, but that's a category listed for each race. Guess the numbers must appear all the way down the ticket on a blank ballot. I haven't seen one so am just guessing why it's there. As an aside, having a blank ballot category came in handy when in the 2004 primary, 106,000 Democratic voters cast blank ballots.
http://www.gaforverifiedvoting.org/docs/106,000_dems_passed.htm

0 Over-voted (Should not happen on a DRE)

It would shorten the length of the tape considerably if it didn't have useless categories. But that might make it easier to print (length of the tape from vvpb has always been a big talking point to oppose vvpb)

0 Under voted (Can't happen on Diebold unless it's a Vote For >1. But I've heard that it DID happen in your 2004 Primary, which is still an unresolved issue!)

Hmmmm. Don't think I understand what you're saying or maybe I just don't know what the reference is. If we're talking about the Ballots Cast Summary, that would be where undervotes are reported since they are for only the top of the ticket race (from what you explained). Otherwise they are blank voted.


THANKS!

Edited because I'm trying to add formatting

[autorank]

30. My thoughts on this matter...HAVA, the law that ate America!

HAVA promotes the use of DRE’s. It’s all right here, in easy to digest snippets. Section 301 (a) (3) makes it clear that DRE’s purchased with HAVA dollars provide legal indemnity from law suits for noncompliance with the needs of the requirements for “disability access.”

If you’re buying a DRE for every precinct, then why not DRE’s for voting in general. It’s all part of the new electronic voting thingy…and that’s just how it’s turned out. A responsible county attorney would look at this language and recommend DRE’s over any other voting technology, including paper, because it limits, eliminates it would seem, liability. Pretty slick – HAVA = DRE’s.

Given that, amending HAVA is sort of like putting lipstick on a pig isn’t it?

What’s the point? First of all, the damn things don’t work. Second, you could never get enough computer security experts to look at each machine to make sure it was ready, or had already worked properly (a neglected poit). How many Haari Hursti’s are there out there? Not enough for a small state. Third, what is the “ballot of record?” Can that be enforced and made to mean paper receipts. Probably not. See Stewart v. Blackwell, a recent Federal Court decision that cited Bush v. Gore (oops, was to never be used). It enshrines DRE’s as the most accurate voting method, as Paul Lehto correctly points out. That argues for the machines as “ballot of record.”

How about an amendment to HAVA that says, all paper, all the time with appropriate accommodations for handicapped voters including easier absentee voting which according to a NY survey is preferred now, as in the past, by the vast majority of those voters. Now I could really get behind that and have many lobby days in support.

A. Key Help America Vote Act 2002 language.
Sectin Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00233.htm#6
Article link: Cramdown, Stripdown, Lockdown Democracy in the USA

(3) Accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The voting system shall—
(A) be accessible for individuals with disabilities, including nonvisual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters;
(B) satisfy the requirement of subparagraph (A) through the use of at least one direct recording electronic voting system or other voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities at each polling place; and
(C) if purchased with funds made available under title II <42 USCS 15321 et seq.> on or after January 1, 2007, meet the voting system standards for disability access (as outlined in this paragraph).

SEC. 301. VOTING SYSTEMS STANDARDS. (a)(3)

Here's how HAVA works, the master plan, hidden deep in the bill, but carefull written and crafted to achieve the goal of total election control through DRE's.

CRAMDOWN, STRIPDOWN, LOCKDOWN

Section Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00233.htm#6
Article link: Cramdown, Stripdown, Lockdown Democracy in the USA

The HAVA cramdown is delivered in the form of twin inducements to counties and states that are nearly irresistible: We will buy you your voting machines and we’ve got language in HAVA that says these types of machines, DREs, will make you largely immune from litigation by those pesky citizens who might object. When those inducements fail to gain the necessary compliance, the next step in the cramdown of electronic voting is threats of litigation and actual lawsuits by DOJ in behalf of EAC.

Once the machines are purchased and contracted for, the stripdown of our rights takes place. We are no longer able to know where our votes go once they leave the screen, nor can we have someone examine the process for us. We are no longer to challenge the vote because DREs are the final word now. Even if so-called voter-verified paper ballots become part of HAVA, currently HAVA makes the DRE-generated invisible ballots the ballots of record only if state law so requires, thus rendering the DREs as the headline-makers, even with full paper trails.

The HAVA lockdown will be discussed in depth in the next article in this series of affronts to freedom. Once we have HAVA crammed down our throats and we have been stripped of our most fundamental rights to free, fair, and transparent elections, we will find ourselves in a HAVA lockdown, an iron cage composed of bureaucratic, regulatory, and politically predetermined results in which government and its friendly vendor corporations certify each others qualifications, all strictly enforced by a judicial system that may not be able to offer relief if we fail to take up the challenge to defend democracy soon.

[BeFree]

33. People gotta read autorank's post above this.

The DREs were crammed down on us. HAVA is just an extension of the fascist seeking utter control over the whole of mankind, starting with the US.

And what are we doing? Fighting over how Gore lost 2000, etc. etc.

BeFree

[FogerRox]

50. Auto? hes always ranting about sum shit... LOL

HAVA is dead, its over, fugettaboutit. Take the damn country back, and then we can get to fixing that HAVA mess.