Do electronic voting machines have battery back up?

What will happen on election day if the power grids fail? Some of California has electronic voting so we need to count those votes. If the electrical grids fail then the SF Bay Area votes could not be counted.

Tin foil maybe. Remember that we know that companies manipulated the energy markets in California. Little has been done to protect our energy supplies. It would be easy to shut off power to California in some areas.

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...the battery back-ups are only designed to last for about 6 hours in the best of circumstances. Although the batteries are recharged after every election deployment, as the batteries age, their emergency service life decreases.

At least this is the case with the Diebold AccuVote-TS and AccuVote-OS devices, which are the ones I am most familiar with. I expect that the ES&S and the Sequoia machines have similar, industry-standard battery back-ups.

I'm really glad you started this thread, Cally. This is an important point in the electronic voting debate.

The concerns about the lack of audit capacity without a voter verified paper ballot on electronic devices to detect tampering or attempted election theft, is an important dialogue to have. However, as an election administrator for a number of years, I have always feared disruption of an election from a natural disaster even more than from miscreants. Both are serious threats, but at least measures can be taken to guard against tampering. You can't prevent Mother Nature from doing whatever She may do.

Robust auditing procedures, voter verified paper ballots and tight security can do much to prevent active hacking or attempts to steal an election the old fashioned way. There is absolutely nothing an election administrator can do about a windstorm, earthquake, heavy snowfall, or flooding. And the election must go on.

The only way to insure that a polling place can carry on with a full election (on election day, Mr. Ashcroft) if the power goes out due to a weather-related or other natural event, is to ensure that paper ballots are a part of any voting system in use. This is why I favor optical scan devices for large jurisdictions, as the ballots used with the device can easily be used on their own as an old-fashioned, voter-marked and hand-counted paper ballot should the emergency need arise.

Even touchscreens that produce a voter-verified paper ballot as a record of the election cannot work in an extended power outage. This is the reason that I cannot support the use of touchscreens at all.

...a big 'ol kick.

:kick:

Just another example of how the best of planning cannot change Mother Nature. And why we need voting systems that have a paper ballot as an emergency backup.

And, most importantly, the very best of thoughts and hopes for everyone, on all parts of the political spectrum, who are having a very bad evening in Florida tonight.

....and thoughts going Florida's way.