NY ACTION ALERT-TODAY Fri Nov 17-Vote Machine certification demo
Fri Nov 17, 2006 at 06:58:50 AM PDT
Please put this in recommended list (I have never asked for this before) so it stays on top during the day as an actual action alert so we can get the wotd out for people to be there today: I just heard this on local NPR and confirmed details in the
Amsterdam News At the request of the BOE, voting system vendors applying for certification in New York State will conduct public demonstrations of proposed technology at Hostos Community College this Friday, November 17, 2006 from 5-10 p.m. The systems include: Avante Vote Trakker EVC308-FF (touch screen); ES&S: Model 100 (optical scan) and ES&S AutoMark (ballot marking device); Diebold's Accu-Vote-OS (optical scan) and AutoMark VAT (ballot marking device); and Sequoia's AVC Advantage Plus (touch screen DRE) and Optech Insight (optical scan).
If we New York activists are serious about this issue, we need to be there. This is for selection of voting machines STATE-wide, not just NYC. The site is in the Bronx, so easy access from Westchester, etc. not just New York City. Hostos Community College, 500 Grand Concourse, Bronx; T: 718-518-4444 (full directions below)
Directions to Hostos:
By subway: take the 2, 4 or 5 IRT trains to 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard) and the Grand Concourse. By bus: take the Bx1 or cross-town Bx19 to 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard) and the Grand Concourse.
By car:
From Manhattan, take the FDR Drive north to the Willis Avenue Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway (87N). Proceed north to Exit 3. Take the right fork in the exit ramp to the Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard).
From Queens, take the Triborough Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway. Continue north to Exit 3. Take the right fork in the exit ramp to the Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard).
From Westchester, take the Major Deegan Expressway south (87S) to Exit 3. Turn left at the light. Turn left again at Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard).
From New Jersey, take the George Washington Bridge to the Major Deegan Expressway south to Exit 3. Turn left at the light. Turn left again at Grand Concourse and proceed north to East 149th Street (Eugenio María de Hostos Boulevard).
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Some of the issues:
What is the best/least bad option at this point?
Some set of machines are going to be picked.
Which ones should be forbidden?
Vote Trust USA says:
As New York decides on new voting systems, one key question is this -- how many voters can be served by each voting machine? This number is critical in order to estimate costs as well as to avoid long lines for voters. The New York City Board of Elections recently released a report saying that New York should replace each lever machine by 1 full-face-ballot computer DRE voting machine with voter verified paper trail.
Assuming that each voter will take 3.25 minutes to vote, they calculate that 277 voters can vote on each DRE in a 15 hour Election Day. However, the report neglects the effect of non-uniform voter arrivals, DRE outages and extra time needed by voters using special accessibility aids on DREs. We have applied queuing theory, the mathematical study of waiting lines, to carry out computer simulations of realistic elections. We use a scenario with more voters arriving at peak times--early morning, lunch and early evening hours--as is typical during elections. According to our calculations, a ratio of 277 voters per DRE would create unacceptable wait times of 1 hour or longer. Recent elections using DREs have produced extremely long lines in many places around the country, causing would-be voters to leave, thereby disenfranchising them.
In order to guarantee reasonably short wait times--even without taking into account DRE outages and the use of DRE special voting aids--our results indicate that each DRE in New York should be allocated to no more than 150 voters, which means replacing each lever machine by 3 DREs. But the acquisition and maintenance cost of this many electronic voting machines would be excessive. In contrast, precinct based, paper ballot optical scan systems use simple, inexpensive marking booths that are the equivalent choke points to DREs. These paper ballot scan systems can be easily and economically configured to eliminate lines.
Voting Machines will cost 40-100 Million
They are much maligned and downright clunky. But like the politician who once said, "You won't have me to kick around anymore," you may have pulled a lever in a metal box for the last time. That is, if you weren't kicking the thing because it jammed when you voted last week.
About 7,000 lever-operated voting machines that have been used and re-used in New York City elections for more than four decades will finally be replaced with new electronic voting systems by September 2007.
Two new voting systems, optical scan machines and direct recording electronic machines (DRE), are under consideration by the Board of Elections. Optical scanners read votes on paper ballots the same way that some standardized tests are automatically scored. Direct recording electronic machines permit voting with push buttons and automated screens like ATMs. Both systems provide voter-verifiable paper if needed for an audit.
The federal Helping America Vote Act (HAVA) that passed in 2002 in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election gave states new voter guidelines and $3.86 billion in funding to upgrade their voting systems.
But the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of New York on March 1, 2006 for noncompliance with the HAVA law when state legislators did not meet the 2006 deadline.
In danger of losing $153 million in federal funding, New York state settled with the Department of Justice in June 2006 and agreed to replace lever voting machines by the September 2007 election (instead of September 2006) and by also placing a small number of accessible ballot marking devices for use by disabled voters in each of the state's 62 counties for the September and November 2006 elections.
Because the New York state legislature was unable to decide on a single voting system for the entire state, counties are responsible for purchasing their new voting systems on an individual basis.
The New York City Board of Elections, encompassing about 4 million voters in five counties, is holding a public meeting this week at LaGuardia Community College, during which four vendors will present their voting systems.
It is estimated that the city will need to purchase between 5,000 and 10,000 new voting machines, costing $6,000 to $11,000 per machine. Optical scanners are less expensive than the DRE machines. The total cost of a contract is estimated between $40 and $100 million.
As of October 2006, five vendors are certified by the New York state Board of Elections to demonstrate their voting systems. They are: Diebold AccuVote OS (optical scan), ES&S M- 100 & Automark (optical scan), Liberty Vote (DRE), Sequoia Optech Insight (optical scan) and Sequoia Advantage L (DRE).
By unanimous vote last August 16, the New York City Council passed a resolution asking the city Board of Elections to perform specific public tests before it selects new voting machines to comply with HAVA, including complete mock elections and hacking tests for security.
The city Board of Elections will warehouse the old lever machines just in case, like the politician, they make a comeback.
As the Amsterdam News Notes:
The people have spoken in the recent election, turning the tide of political power over to the Democrats, and potentially moving New York and the nation in a new direction. But, the preservation of the democratic process, specifically the integrity in how votes are cast and counted, may prove futile if New York State's proposed use of new computerized technology over the traditional paper ballot is put into effect, according to Senator Velmanette Montgomery of Brooklyn's 18th Senatorial District, voting system experts, and other lawmakers.
Montgomery says mechanical lever voting machines will be banned by state law as of next year and New York City must select and begin to implement a new voting system by February 2007. The issue, however, is that of the options: PBOs Paper Ballots (to be marked by hand or ballot-marking devices for the disabled, and optical scanners); and DREs Direct Recording Electronic (computer voting machines with a touch screen or push buttons). The latter is more expensive and less secure.
A key problem with DREs, according to experts, is that no auditing is in place to ensure that the computer is actually recording the vote properly (i.e., internal hardware issues). No one actually knows what is going on inside the computers but the vendors. Communications capability in DREs allows tampering by anyone in the world, and it prevents the people from observing election procedure (undermining democracy, the right to vote).
Earlier this week Montgomery hosted a community briefing to raise awareness to the hot button issue. The issue will be taken up in a public hearing on November 21, 2006 at the Board of Elections offices in New York City.
Our state law requires no audit but makes allowances for a 3 percent spot check, said Montgomery. It is imperative that our election commissioners select new systems that are not only secure, accessible and affordable, but also understandable and manageable by our voters, poll workers and election staff, she added.
Montgomery also noted that the responsibility remains on the candidates to find the money to sue for an accounting of election results.
It is impossible to control actions of computers. You can't see what's happening, and it's extremely costly to be the wrong system that kills voters' confidence, and its life span is about 5 years, said Teresa Hommel, voting system expert and Chair, Task Force on Election Integrity, Community church of New York. Hommel added, Nobody knows the software but the vendors, and you can be sure they are not going to admit any flaws because of the astronomical amount of money they'll make.
As lawmakers and watchdogs thrash about the pros and cons of New York's voting systems, it seems Resolution 228-A, a proposal by Councilman Robert Jackson urging the BOE among other things to ensure public input by conducting a Mock Election Public Test, is gaining momentum. The resolution had bipartisan sponsorship and passed unanimously on August 16, 2006.
Similarly, Councilmember Charles Barron proposed RES. 131, urging the adoption of PBOs and opposing the use of DREs.
In a prepared statement, Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, said, The many failures of electronic touch-screen voting machines on Election Day resulted in long lines and lost votes at poling places around the United States. Lipari continued, But in states that used paper ballots, if problems occurred it was possible to conduct recounts. Paper ballots offer a permanent, auditable record of the vote that cannot disappear into the electronic ether.
If you don't participate in the decision making you cannot complain later.
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