Posted on 08/16/2006 5:27:38 AM PDT by xzins
Pa. Sued Over Electronic Voting Machines
Voter advocates filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to stop Pennsylvania counties from using "paperless" electronic voting machines, saying that such systems leave no paper record that could be used in the event of a recount, audit or other problem.
The suit asks the state's Commonwealth Court to decertify machines used in 58 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. The other counties use optical scanning systems, in which voters fill in bubbles on paper forms that are counted in scanning machines; the plaintiffs say such systems should be in use statewide.
"Whatever the initial promise may have been for electronic voting, we now know ... that they are simply not ready for prime time," said Lowell Finley, an attorney with the nonprofit group Voter Action, which has been involved in similar suits nationwide.
The lawsuit alleges that certifying paperless electronic voting machines violates the state's election code and constitution.
A similar lawsuit helped force New Mexico to use optical scan ballots earlier this year, Finley said. Other suits involving paper-based voting systems have been filed in Arizona, Colorado and California.
State officials say the voting machines in use have been carefully scrutinized, and that new electronic voting machines performed well for the most part in the May primary. Residents in all but one county cast ballots using either electronic touch-screens or optical-scan systems for the first time.
The systems have been certified and can reconstruct votes based on computer images, said Leslie Amoros, a spokeswoman for the Department of State.
The plaintiffs, however, claim votes have been lost several times because of computer malfunctions, including in Allegheny and Centre counties during the May primary and in Berks County in May 2005. Other problems could be going undetected, they add.
--
Further, I don't think the machine on which voting is taking place should be part of the counting system. The voting machine should spit out a completed ballot that is taken to a different machine for counting.
A small price for fair elections, imho.
Paper ballots, by themselves, have been demonstrated many times to be easily subverted. For many decades no Democrat would have ever been elected without the use of vote fraud perpetrated against paper ballot systems.
Why don't these dang machines print out two paper "receipts" like any ordinary cash register? One for the re-count, if necessary, and one for the voter to check his/her selections? It's that simple...................
Each machine could print out a "receipt" witha an encoded barcode that is unique to that machine that contains date and time stamp information. Wal-Mart does it billions of times a day.............
Eliminating vote fraud is a problem for Democrats.
Every time we elimnate fraud, they get less votes.
It scares them, and they count on fraud in PA. Especialy in Philadelphia.
Voter Action is a project of The International Humanities Center, a 501c3 organization
As for the electronic voting machines printing out a receipt, a) you still have the question as to what the machine registered versus handed out, b) is a fraud vehicle when people are paid based on what their slip shows or are forced to "prove" their vote to an employer or union boss, c) can create a recount nightmare since there is no chain of custody on the slips and lord knows what would be presented as proof during a recount.
Still, a lawsuit seems to be a bad way to achieve a good end.
First they (Democrats) complained about hanging chads and butterfly ballots so we gave in passed HAVA and got them electronic voting. Now the whine about electronic voting.
One thing is sure about Democrats, they are always whining about something.
The paper ballot is not kept by the voter. The paper ballot is turned in by them to be counted.
That would be a disaster for the reasons I laid out in post 8. The RATs would load up busses with people told to vote straight democRATic, bring your receipt to location x, and you'll get a pack of smokes or a bottle of T-bird. And that is just one way the receipts could be abused.
This is why the voting machine should never be the counting machine. The paper ballot printed out by the voting machine and validated by the voter is then scanned by a separate counting machine. This will give immediate results. There can be a requirement that this initial count be verified by a hand count for every election. With the paper ballots, this can be easily done. It is a small price to pay for fair elections.
I felt comfortable using these machines in the primary.
That scenario, in and of itself is not abuse, nor illegal........
If a machine can be corrupted electronically, why can't the receipts it prints out be corrupted as well?
I guess I'm a cynic, but I think voting methods are only going to be as above board as the people who are in charge of running them.
One BIG item that should be a given is proof of identity before voting. No way people who aren't registered in their voting district or who aren't U.S. citizens should even get close to a voting machine.
Yep. My precinct used electronic voting machines for the first time in the recent primary. I kept thinking the whole time I was voting how easy it would be to alter the results if you have the knowledge and the right access. At the very least the voter should get a receipt showing who they voted for.
I am a district official for the local county board of elections; I've worked the polls for going on twenty years now. We used touch screen electronic machines for the first time this primary cycle.
When the machine is first set up in the morning it automatically prints out a hard copy of what is recorded on it (like reading a cash register before opening for business); the four officials in the district verify that it was all zeros, then sign the copy for the district records.
At the closing of the polls, it again prints out a copy with the vote totals as it locks the machine from further entries. We all sign it to verify that it came from that machine.
Unlike the Florida "vote-a-matic", the RAT operatives can't get one of these into their car trunk!
here's what were talking about.....an example of their legal team:
John Boyd, Esq., Freedman, Boyd, Daniels, Hollander, Goldberg & Cline, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mr. Boyd has been practicing civil rights litigation, first amendment litigation, constitutional law and election law in Albuquerque for over 25 years. Mr. Boyd represented the Democratic Party of New Mexico in the “voter i.d.” litigation that preceded the 2004 election and has participated on behalf of Democrats in redistricting litigation. He has handled a number of cases as a cooperating attorney with the ACLU. He and his partner, Nancy Hollander, are currently representing the Santa Fe-based Uniao Do Vegetal in its free exercise of religion law suit which is now pending before the United States Supreme Court.
Yes, but you then have to buy two systems instead of one. Every school kid in America back to the 1960's (50's?) has experience with a color-in-the-circle test (or close variant thereof). It isn't rocket science; it would work even in Palm Beach County, FL. I question the expense of buying the fancy PC's with all the controls required to be certified simply to print out the exact same thing to then feed into the sensing station. While your way gives those cities that spent the big bucks for touch screen to "salvage" part of their investment, that's throwing good money after bad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.