Broward (FL) voters won't be able to double-check ballot with printout

seafan

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Tue Dec-13-05 04:41 PM
Original message

Broward (FL) voters won't be able to double-check ballot with printout

By Buddy Nevins
Posted December 13 2005

A printer that can be attached to Broward County voting machines and provide a "paper trail" has been invented and built and is ready to be installed, but it will be months, possibly years, before the state allows voters to use it.

Called the Real Time Audit Log, the printers attach to Broward's 6,800 �Votronic touch screen machines and would create a written record of the votes cast on each machine.

Almost from the moment the computerized machines were introduced in Florida in 2002, many voters have been skeptical of their reliability and security. U. S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, has sued in federal court stating that the inability of the touch screen machines in 15 counties to provide a printed record violates the equal protection clause of the U. S. Constitution, because 52 other Florida counties have optical scanners that use paper that can be manually recounted.

...

Corwin (Broward Co. official) said it would take a rewrite of state law for the printer to be allowed in election recounts. Broward and Snipes are requesting that the 2006 Legislature make that change.

...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cvoting13dec13,0,1659412.story?coll=sfla-news-broward

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liberal N proud

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Tue Dec-13-05 04:44 PM
Response to Original message

1. That is the type of voting machines we had in November here

in Lorain County, Ohio.
We were told there would a printed receipt of your votes and you would place it in a ballot box.
Well when I got to the polls, you were asked to print the results of your vote, but there was no receipt.

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DoYouEverWonder

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Tue Dec-13-05 05:04 PM
Response to Original message

2. A printer was invented?

They are so full of shit. Buy a clue, we've been hooking up printers and computers on a regular basis for over 30 years. There is nothing so complicated about voting that you need any special equipment. And if it's that complicated and expensive then give me back a paper ballot and a pen. I could hire 1000's of people to count votes for a lot less money and the hell with the machines.

BTW: I could probably set up a database for an election in a couple of hours.

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iconoclastNYC

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Tue Dec-13-05 05:07 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. Well from what I heard

Diebold went out of thier way to make sure that it'd be very difficult and expensive to upgrade thier equipment to produce paper trails. (Wonder why?)

So it probably did take some ingenuitity to get around Diebold's design limitations.

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DoYouEverWonder

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Tue Dec-13-05 05:13 PM
Response to Reply #3

4. Then let's go down to Cosco

and buy a bunch of cheap shit computers and crappy printers. We could get someone like Elad to work up a vote counting program in a couple of days probably. Use open source software and count the votes at least twice. If that is too expensive, then throw all the machines in your local harbor and go back to paper ballots. Heck most voters get a sample ballot in the mail already. Use that and get poll workers to collect them. You say you want a revolution?

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depakid

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Tue Dec-13-05 06:12 PM
Response to Original message

5. How do you know that what's been printed is what's recorded?

Simple answer- you don't!

An irrelvant issue, at best- and a false sense of security at worst.

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Hard_Work

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Tue Dec-13-05 06:16 PM
Response to Reply #5

6. Yeah, but

with a paper trail, you can verify what has been recorded. In fact, voters can do it before leaving the voter booth. If I punch "W. Clark" and the receipt shows "J. Bush", I or any voter can immediately call it to the attention of election officials.

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Malikshah

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Tue Dec-13-05 06:33 PM
Response to Reply #6

7. Subliminal much?

;)

Cute.

Alas, as a south floridian-- nothing will come of it....Jebbie and company have already put the fix in by appointing yet ANOTHER crony to oversee elections... Katherine Cruella Deville Harris, Glenda "I see nuttthing" Hood and now...it's just too much.

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depakid

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Tue Dec-13-05 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #6

8. You can't verify jack unless there's an audit

or a recount. Those cost money and are rarely attempted.

Even when they are attempted, as often as not- some judge steps in (as in Virginia) and tosses the recount effort out.

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Raster

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Tue Dec-13-05 07:14 PM
Response to Original message

9. if having clean, fair, impartial elections were a priority, all of these

problems would have been fixed YEARS ago. YEARS. Impartial elections have not been a priority for ANY politician, unless, of course, they were on the losing end. The reason: politicians might actually have to listen to and heed the will of the people. We the people, to most politicians, are but a necessary evil. They stopped working for us a long time ago.

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seafan

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Tue Dec-13-05 08:06 PM
Response to Original message

10. This is why we must demand paper and pen voting, hand-counted

at the precinct under direct bipartisan observation, with the results phoned into the Secretary of State's office.

Man, I insist on sounding like a broken record on this. Unless we can ensure an accurate voting process, nothing, absolutely nothing else will matter.

I agree with another poster here that we really *don't know* if the machine records the internal tally the same as what the paper tape under the glass might say. Besides, a recount won't happen unless there is a close vote anyway. And it has already been demonstrated by Diebold, et. al., that they'll *keep the margin just wide enough" not to trigger a recount. Then, what good does a voter-verified paper ballot do us, if we never use them for recount...

The bottom line is this: the ORIGINAL COUNT of the votes should be on paper ballots. This removes ALL the shenanigans at the outset.

This proves the point further, from the original article:

Corwin (Broward Co. official) said it would take a rewrite of state law for the printer to be allowed in election recounts.

We could have all the printer verification we wanted, but here in FL, we wouldn't be able to use them anyway! Not under this Republican legislature, Jeb Bush and his *new* hack Secretary of State!

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Toots

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Tue Dec-13-05 08:15 PM
Response to Original message

11. Well Bush* v Gore was won over that very thing

Even though they said that case could not be used as precedent (the only Supreme court ruling ever to not establish precedent) I think it will be hard to deny their ruling..

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