Bo Lipari Looks eVoteCounting in the Eye.

[Wilms]

Bo Lipari’s Blog

Commentary on Election Integrity Issues in New York State and the Nation

What’s Next For New York

DREs may be gone, but there’s much to do

by bo lipari

June 16th, 2008

snip

Since we know that electronic voting systems are potentially flawed and vulnerable (NYVV has written about this - see our September 2006 report) we’ve got to have a way to confirm the reported election results. The way we do that is by auditing elections.

In New York State, our election law requires a 3% audit of machines in each county. While this may be sufficient in some cases, current research indicates that this type of fixed-percentage audit is not good enough at detecting problems. Better is an approach called risk-based auditing. This week, NYVV will launch a campaign to make New York State election audits the best they can be and to provide New Yorkers with confidence that their votes have been accurately counted.

snip

It continues to be one of our vital missions to act as watchdogs over every aspect of elections – training, testing, ballot programming, ballot and machine chain of custody, the list goes on. We’ve all got to start thinking of ourselves not just as voters, but as citizen overseers responsible for carefully watching the way our elections are conducted; making sure they are honest, accurate, and serving the interests not of voting machine vendors, not of political parties, but of citizens.

snip

http://www.nyvv.org/boblog/2008/06/16/what%e2%80%99s-next-for-new-york

[kster]

1. Audit is another word for protecting the "secret machine count"

by keeping the machine count totals in the hands of a few, I want "PAPER BALLOTS" so all the people can Watch the counting of the ballots.

K&R

[Yellow Horse]

3. Here We Go again. Paper people bawling. Waahh! Waaah! I want paper ballots! Waaah, Waaah, Waaah!

I want paper ballots! Waaah, Waaah, Waaah! I wanna watch them count! Waaah, Waaah, Waaah! I want it NOW!!! Waaah!!!!! If I don't get what I want, I'm going to spam the forum and trash everyone who doesn't agree with me! Waaah, Waaah, Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Talk about stinking up a room. :puke:

If you can't come up with something that is at least one-fifth as eloquent as what Bo Lipari wrote (and I doubt that you can, as you have never posted any constructive plan as to how to actually get these hand counted paper ballots you want so badly) then please -- shut up.

Just . Shut. Up.

[Bill Bored]

5. Invite him to visit NY...

...and I hope he brings his...:argh:...computer!

[Bill Bored]

6. And kster is another word for...

Dude, Lipari and NYVV are finally getting some hand count religion! So try to grow up, stop whining, and get with the program!

[emlev]

2. "What Constitutes an Election Audit" by Richard Hayes Phillips

Here, at OpEdNews.com:

What Ohio citizens conducted, under my direction, was a genuine audit of the 2004 presidential election. This was no mere “spot check” of randomly selected precincts, and no mere “recount” of the same ballots previously run through the electronic tabulators.

We learned to ask for everything: ballots, poll books, voter signature books, ballot accounting charts, packing slips, and invoices. We asked to see all the ballots, whether voted, spoiled, or unused. And we always asked to photograph the records, so that I could analyze them with painstaking accuracy, and reexamine the same records when necessary.

We lacked the element of surprise, as a list of requested precincts was almost always demanded in writing and well in advance. But I picked the counties, and I picked the precincts, and I rarely said how or why. “What are you looking for?” I was often asked. “I don’t know,” I would reply. “This is an audit.”

When the IRS audits your tax returns, you don’t get to pick the year, or decide which records to show them. They want to see everything. And so did we.

More at link.

And much more in Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips's book, Witness to a Crime: A Citizens' Audit of an American Election.

[Bill Bored]

4. No mere “recount” of the same ballots previously run through the electronic tabulators?

I'm glad that RHP is interested in more than just electronic vote counting. It's very important to look for other sources of error and fraud!

In Ohio, votes were switched in 2004 that would NOT be detectable or recoverable by hand recounts -- not unlike Los Angeles in 2008!

So have we learned nothing since 2004? (If so, maybe it's because we all wasted so much time looking at and screaming about Exit Polls.)

RHP is right that an audit is more than just comparing electronic and manual tallies, but this is still essential and unfortunately, in most states, including California, FL (of course!), Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia, and possibly even New York next year, we aren't even at the point where we can do a "mere recount" or anything more than a spot check of software-defined, optically scanned, electronically counted, paper ballots.

When you consider all the countless hours of hard work and advocacy to get rid of DREs and to require paper ballots, that's a pretty sorry state of affairs. And it's still UNDER-REPORTED!

[Bill Bored]

7. kick for NYVV and RHP! nt