HR 550 is good Diebold Repellant

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

HR 550 is good Diebold repellant, it helps chop at the roots
of the problem.

HR 550 is very similar to North Carolina's verified voting law,
except HR 550 is a bit stronger in some parts.

It makes life miserable for voting machine companies,
and makes optical scan much more attractive.

Vendors have to go by the rules, or get out.

NC law passes, after court challenges, Diebold leaves the building.

December 22, 2005. Diebold withdraws as N.C. voting equipment vendor citing that it wasn't able to meet the software code requirements. Diebold Election Systems told the State Board of Elections it would be impossible to meet a Thursday deadline to account for all software used by the company for machines certified to be sold in all 100 counties...A spokeswoman for Election Systems & Software, the lone vendor remaining, said the company will comply with all voting system requirements..."We're just going to go forward," state elections director Gary Bartlett said.
http://www.the-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051222/APN/512221028&cachetime=5

So, Diebold walked away from between $40 - $120 Million in sales,and
Diebold has a touchscreen manufacturing plant in North Carolina:

Diebold Election Systems is the only election system
company that manufactures its products in its own manufacturing facilities
in the United States. In fact, jurisdictions in North Carolina have a
special benefit when working with Diebold Election Systems because
their voting systems are manufactured in their own backyard,
Lexington, North Carolina. http://www.ncvoter.net/diebold.html
and http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=diebold+%2B+lexington&btnG=Google+Search

NC's new law did preserve hand counted paper ballots as a certified voting system, and
one large county used that method for the primary.
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2005/Bills/Senate/HTML/S223v7.html

They did this not in order to delay on buying machines in the hopes that
Diebold or Sequoia might come back.(Some county officials were lobbying to weaken
the law after it had passed).

They had trouble getting people to work the polls in this progressive community:

Paper ballots return
County expects long night of counting
CITIZEN-TIMES.com published April 29, 2006

Voters in both Buncombe and McDowell counties will use paper ballots,
while the rest of North Carolina’s counties have opted for new optical
scan or electronic voting machine systems. The new systems are in
response to a state law that requires a paper trail that voters can review and verify.

Trena Parker, Buncombe County director of elections, said the county
has struggled to recruit an additional 127 people to help count the
ballots election night.

“Some of our regular workers are choosing not to work this time,” she said.

Parker said Friday the county still needs 95 ballot counters.
The counters will be paid $75, and will work in bipartisan teams of four.
Parker said the county is especially in need of Republican ballot counters....

Ramsey (County Commissioner) said paper ballots are not feasible for the
November general election when higher turnout is expected....
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060429/NEWS01/60428067/1010&theme=ELECTION

The county was going to go 100% DRE, but we turned them around.

76 out of 100 North Carolina Counties chose optical scan.
(It had been 48 DRE counties)
We used to have half the state voting on paperless machines.
The remaining 23 counties have DREs with toilet paper.

But our law makes DRES less attractive by far.

Mandatory Post Election Audits;
I participated in the post election hand to eye audit last May.
The folks doing the audit were regular citizen volunteers that
both political parties appointed.
We checked the paper ballots and trails to the machine count

We tried to ban DREs in NC, and after Dr. Rebecca Mercuri testified
( http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Rebecca_Mercuri_Jan_7_2005.pdf )
to our legislature, we had a chance, but
the election directors lobbied against us.

HR 550, like NC's Public Confidence in Elections Law,
strengthen elections and weaken the grasp of voting machine vendors.

[BeFree]

1. Weaken is good

...destroying it altogether is best.

There is this box in which we have been pushed, and 550 is like cutting a peep-hole in that box.

Some of us are thinking outside that box and want to get everyone out of that HAVA box as soon as we can.

We can't make anyone move, because they really have to decide to do so on their own, but we will continue to encourage the movement.

[Kelvin Mace]

6. OK, any one who passed a law like Joyce helped pass

that resulted in Diebold quitting their state, raise yrou hand.

Anyone? Buehler?

HR-550 has many of the same provisions as S.223. It also has a few points that strengthen it.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. New Mexico.N/T

[Kelvin Mace]

12. I was referring to PEOPLE

on the board :)

[katinmn]

2. It's the best out there. But no senator will offer a companion.

I tried to raise money to buy one once (like lobbyists do) but couldn't get more than $500. x(

[garybeck]

13. Actually, the Count Every Vote Act is better.

the Clinton-Kerry bill covers everything that HR550 does and more. HR550 only addresses e-voting, nothing about long lines at the polls, partisan election officials, disenfranchisement. check out the Count Every Vote Act:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-450

only problem is HR550 is getting more attention. both are a waste of time unless the dems take control. so they should call it the Catch-22 bill....

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

14. questions

do you think it helps the bill by combining the other issues,

do you think that having Clinton and Kerry's name on it will
help it in gaining co-sponsors?

do you think it more strategically advantageous to
lobby the senate first, rather than congress?

do you know what efforts Senator Clinton and Kerry are making
to get co-sponsors for the bill?

is it an ongoing process?

?

[diva77]

3. Would you give a risk/benefit analysis of HR550 - not all states are in

same situation as NC. How about CA, FLA, OH ?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Risk Benefit? Maybe a comparison

Risk benefit?
Not sure what you mean - risk if you don't have HR 550, and
half of the country has no protection at all?

"same situation as NC. How about CA, FLA, OH ?"

North Carolina is one of the 12 states who require
voter verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits.

California has a law on the books requiring voter verified paper ballots
and mandatory random audits.

Florida has nothing, and every year that state's govt makes elections
less transparent, making it harder to monitor elections,
eliminating recounts of paper and more.

Georgia has nothing and their Democratic SOS opposed VVPB.
Wonder if Cynthia McKinney would be facing a runnoff now
if the state had voter verified paper ballots and audits?

Ohio has voter verified paper ballots but no mandatory random audits.

Maryland has nothing and the democratic senate blocked legislation
to require VVPB.

Verified voting has the country mapped out, with dark green states
requiring VVPB and mandatory audits of the paper.



While NC is in better shape than most, our state would be better off
than we are now if HR 550 passed, because 550 goes further.
We don't have a ban on wireless capability in voting machines, for example,
and HR 550 would ban wireless.

And most voting machines have wireless capability.

HR 550 solidifies the gains we have made, as well, since our state law has
been threatened by election officials, Diebold, and county commissioners
already.

We would gain, not lose.

Some states are not going to change unless they get our help, and may
get worse - Because they can.

Half of the country has been paperless for decades, so the
resistance to paper is really strong.

HR 550 makes everyone have to use paper, it doesn't preclude hand counted
paper ballots if a state or their counties want to use them, and
it takes the control away from the voting machine vendors.

HR 550 changes makes hand to eye audits a reality, and
recounts of the paper a reality - and gives voters a chance to
see a paper ballot, some for the first time in their lives.

Once we get paper back in voting, citizens will feel entitled to
it.

Then if you try to take that paper away, they aren't going to allow it.

Right now, the majority of the public doesn't even know about this issue.

Like in the cigarette/cancer issue, it didn't happen overnight, and it
wont be changed overnight.

If you want hand counted paper ballots - you have to take back the power from the voting
machine companies, and put the citizens back in the drivers seat.

HR 550 is much like NC's Public Confidence in Elections Law, and we in NC
are far from complacent. Having a federal law to back us up would make
life alot easier.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. repealing HAVA will not get rid of paperless voting

Repealing HAVA will not eliminate paperless voting.

States tried to wait HAVA out back in 2004 by requesting
HAVA extensions.

Also attempting to repeal HAVA will only push the disabled organizations
into lobbying against us.

At this point in time, repealing HAVA would do nothing,
since every state except for New York has already implemented it.

HAVA is basically about having "disabled accessible" equipment
and federal money for new voting systems that reject overvotes,
etc.

It is bad law, but the damage is done now. The paperless machines are in.

Repealing HAVA will not get rid of paperless voting.

Paperless voting should be banned across the board, not just in 27 states.

*Note - North Carolina had paperless electronic voting in half of the state for nearly
20 years, PRE-HAVA.
Paperless Lever machines preceded paperless DREs by about 20 years.

[Kelvin Mace]

7. You get the same benefits from 550 that you get from NC's law

execpt the part that makes the CEO sign a sworn affidavit about the code submitted for review being the code deployed on the machines.

Also, 550 code disclosure langauge is afr tougher than ours, as it allows ANYONE to see the code.

No voting system shall at any time contain or use any undisclosed software. Any voting system containing or using software shall disclose the source code, object code, and executable representation of that software to the Commission, and the Commission shall make that source code, object code, and executable representation available for inspection upon request to any person.

This provision alone should have every person on this forum backing it.

[Wilms]

8. As I just posted on another thread...

An increase of population increases the pool of people to count ballots.

Not to discount the management of such enterprises.

Also, does ES&S operate in your state? If so, why can they operate uncertified software each and every time their equipment is deployed?

ES&S Programming Is Unverifiable
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1475&Itemid=51

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

10. We know that, thats another reason to support HR 550

And the focusing on Diebold is a symptom.

Yes it speaks volumes that Diebold is gone.

But the cause of the problem is still there.

HR 550 would go much farther, and digs alot deeper into the problem.

Considering that half of the United States has voted on paperless
voting systems, i.e lever machines for about 40 + years,
it is going to take major change to even get paper back into the equation.

Yes, we are very aware of Vote Trust's article on that ES&S issue.

The cause of the problem has to be addressed.

"Every voting system (perhaps every system of any kind) is insecure. Making them more secure is a
desirable secondary priority, but unless we focus everyone on ensuring both auditability and effective auditing, we're just going to create an impossible muddle."
~ David Dill ~

[Kelvin Mace]

11. I don't know how many different ways I can explain this

More people = more steps in handling ballots = more chances for the system to fail.

A basic engineering principle since the pyramids were contructed.

200,000 ballots (the average for my county) involving 25 races which are handcounted in 200 precincts will involve each ballot, in each precinct being handlded 102 times (4 counters per precinct counting each of 25 races, and once by the election official giving it to the voter, and once by the voter while voting).

Using OpScan, 98% of the ballots will be handled TWICE, and 2% (4,000) ballots will be handled 102 times in the hand-eye audit.

(I am deliberately ignoring incidental handling invloved with transporting the ballots to the county seat, as this is pretty much the same for both systems).

While the verification issue you bring up is true of the OpScan's themselves, the issue we are concered with is on the tallying software used at the county seat.

Since ballots are different in each county, you can't get around this, which is why we have audits which sample a % for hand-eye counts. This insures the scanners are accurate and honest.

The disclosure provision allows us to examine both the scanner code, and the software that aggregates the precincts totals. While the data collected will be different from from county to county, the core program will not change. We are looking for signs of faulty software or cheating.

I have confidence that the law is providing excellent safeguards for voters in my state, as I believe 550 will from voters nationwide.

If you are waiting on a foolproof system, you will wait until the sun burns out and beyond.