NY: Be Careful What You Wish For - County Considers Using Untested Scanners

[Wilms]

With the blessings of the Bush Administration Department of Justice, and Judge Gary L. Sharpe, NY's Ulster County Board of Elections wants to try out the new, uncertified and "massively" failing Sequoia ImageCast Optical Scanners during the upcoming primary and general elections.

Bo Lipari looks on with reasoned alarm.

Rest assured, the Ulster County electorate could continue to cast their votes on secure, reliable, time-tested, non-software-dependent lever machines (ok, they ARE kind of heavy).

And, wisely, that is exactly what Bo Lipari, New Yorkers for Verified Voting, and the New York League of Women Voters are now advocating.

County Considers Using Untested Scanners

June 27th, 2008

by bo lipari

snip

1) Ulster County’s machines do not have required software installed, and would require a questionable upgrade. State Board staff has stated several times that they don’t’ know which software would need to be upgraded, and what procedures would have to be followed to perform the upgrades.

2) The scanners have not passed either New York State or Federal certification testing. New York has been rightfully proud that our testing standards are among the highest in the nation. This high bar is important to safeguard the integrity of our vote. No voter should be asked to vote on equipment which has not met these rigorous standards.

3) Initial testing of the machines has shown a exceptionally high number of defects. At the State Board meeting, it was reported that the machines currently have over 1,000 defects logged against the New York State standards. At the State Board meeting Commissioner Douglas Kellner said:

“ES&S and Dominion both have brought us equipment that has not been Quality Control tested before they brought it for certification to New York. That literally thousands of defects and failure to comply with the guidelines have been identified.”

Since these systems are currently massively failing New York’s preliminary testing (and Ulster county would need to use these failed versions) it will undoubtedly contain many known defects and even more unknown ones - using these systems in an actual election is unconscionable.

http://www.nyvv.org/boblog/2008/06/27/county-considers-using-untested-scanners

snip

Now. About those lever machines...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x504855

[CrispyQ]

1. Even if they scan accurately --

once your vote is digitized, it can be manipulated. Scanning paper ballots is not the answer.

Electronic Voting Flowchart




Sadly, I do not recall the DUer who created this. I stuff this in those prepaid credit card offer envelopes.

[Bill Bored]

2. Yeah they are kind of heavy.

Sometimes I think those who want to get rid of lever machines must have had one dropped on their foot or something!

The most annoying thing about the levers is their unfortunate propensity to actually count votes without a highly qualified team of computer scientists, political scientists, statisticians and lawyers watching over them like mission controllers or something!



(Also known as the Election-Industrial Complex.)

[Wilms]

3. Lipari: "...using these systems in an actual election is unconscionable."

:thumbsup: