DREs are Dead - (but, Optical Scanners are Computers)

[Wilms]

Following the Paper Trail: Case study examines five states’ efforts to limit paperless voting

Pew Press Release

Dan Seligson

Washington, DC - 02/21/2008 - A new report by electionline.org details how five states that implemented electronic voting have chosen or are considering statewide paper-based optical scan systems.

“Back to Paper” explores the process by which California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Ohio – having adopted electronic voting systems – subsequently decided to de-certify, re-examine or re-think their use.

Although it focuses on five states, the report describes a growing trend. Six years and millions of dollars into a major overhaul of the U.S. election system, a number of states are contemplating returning to paper-based voting systems after failed or troubled experiments with newer voting technology. Even as bills in Congress have stalled, nearly half of all states have adopted requirements for voter-verified paper with electronic voting and/or the use of paper-based voting systems, including optical-scan machines.

In the five states that are the subject of the electionline.org case study, problems at the polls, pressure from voter integrity groups and rising concern among lawmakers prompted leaders to scrap – or in one case, strongly consider scrapping – recent purchases of direct-recording electronic (DRE) systems in favor of paper-based optical scanners.

“While the national enthusiasm for a return to paper is undoubtedly a reaction to lingering concerns about electronic voting, it also mirrors the same push into electronic voting we saw in the wake of HAVA," said Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, referring to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which mandates that all states and localities upgrade many aspects of their election procedures. "What remains to be seen is whether states come to see paper-based voting as the right decision - or just the best decision right now."

While the five states’ decisions reflected different circumstances and timing, they all shared some common threads:

* Problems at the polls with electronic machines and/or poll workers operating them in one or more elections.
* A bipartisan, usually cooperative effort by each state’s chief election official and lawmakers to enact legislation and/or fund a purchase of replacement voting systems.
* State-funded and/or private studies that questioned the integrity of DRE systems.

The five states could soon be joined by Maryland—which was among the first in the country to purchase a statewide DRE voting system--Virginia and New Jersey. Lawmakers there have announced plans to phase out DREs without voter-verified paper trails, though the timelines for compliance vary.

As the report notes, the future of voting in the United States is moving decisively back to paper. With the phasing out of paperless DRE voting in the five states detailed in the report, only 13 states now allow the use of DREs without voter-verified paper audit trails, and three of those are slated to make the switch before the 2012 presidential election.

snip

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=35630


Full Report

pdf:

http://stage.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/EB21Brief.pdf

[BeFree]

1. Electionline.org...

Doug Chapin....

Where have I heard those names before? Oh yeah. Right here.

Un-indicted co-consprators that stole ourvotes, and now they are crying because their precious DREs are being trashed. Crybabies.

We busted their asses. Two points for us, eh, Wilms?

[stellanoir]

2. But if the margin of victory in states is greater than 3-5% (depending on the state)

the paper generated by the optical scanners is not and cannot be scrutinized. That's how it is in my state. I called the Secretary of State about it.

The vote tabulators for the optical scanners are just as hackable as the touch screens.

[Wilms]

3. And that seems to be unclear to many. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

4. It's not the paper that counts--it's counting the paper!

If we don't count the paper, what good is it?

Many states have ZERO handcounting. Even the best states do only 1%--miserably inadequate in a "TRADE SECRET" code system with the code owned and controlled by RIGHTWING BUSHITE corporations. Touchscreen or optiscan, it doesn't matter if they don't count the optiscan paper. Optiscans are the corporate fallback position. They can still rig them, and get billions and billions more of our tax dollars to manufacture all the new machines that have paper that nobody counts!

In Venezuela, they have electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tallied--and they handcount a whopping FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the votes as a check on machine fraud. That's why they have a president who is an advocate of the poor, and we have the president who slaughters 1.2 MILLION innocent people, and maims, sickens, tortures and displaces millions more to get their oil.

Do the math.

[Melissa G]

5. Do the math, indeed. Not only are 1.2 Million innocent people slaughtered

but billions are looted from OUR treasury and funneled to the corporate masters who count votes and get war contracts.

Millions dead, maimed, uranium poisoned and displaced from their homes. (Not to mention all the orphans that have been created and families torn asunder by this war that should never have been waged.)
Billions and Billions looted From Our treasury and no reliable way to Vote the Slime that has taken over our country out of office. The Oligarchy rules and feudalism has been imposed until we re establish verifiable elections and a viable press that is not just an extension of the Defense Industry.

[kster]

6. "RIGHTWING BUSHITE corporations"? Hillary and Obama Remain silent

to this day about the corporate vote count machines, so it is safe to say it is them (Politicians) against us the voters

"RIGHTWING BUSHITE corporations"? We have to find better wording, as long as our side, still REMAINS SILENT about these secret vote counting machines.



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Please (hand) count your money before you leave the window!
Please (hand) count the ballots before they leave the precinct!


We all know and understand why the banks want us to HAND COUNT the money before we leave the window, but, yet we can't seem to grasp, why,

we must (hand) count the ballots before they leave the precinct.


K&R.....



:)