Reply #4: Electronics are not as secure as mechanical; ATMs a different product, still vulnerable.

[MarjorieG]

ATMs have the ability to cross check and are cross-audited; voting is supposed to be an anonymous process. Still, there is money lost. Our gov't computers are hacked 40%, and FBI noted a couple years back that 87% of businesses report hacking, 44% of which insider, if memory correct.

Not all electronics are of equal quality, and functions that decide our Democracy, transfer of power, who spends our resources, need straightforward accuracy.

States all over the country are unable to transition their new equipment due to the budget crisis, and the Boards of Election are already in deficit. Auditing and good procedure take money, and need more people than counties are able and willing and affordably able to hire. Procedures with electronics (in our case eletcronic counting) are expensive and we doubt our counties will perform the checks necessary. Ballot programming and custody of all aspects of hardware and software contain risk.

Where we complained of software independence problems with DREs (direct record touchscreen), with or without a paper trail, law is now valuing/maybe trumping the paper ballot we've sought by the scanned image inside both systems considered by NYS.

Federal law introduced by Holt is another danger. Check with Brad Blog. Just as we push for wording that stipulates the voter marked ballot (and not just a voter record), we're undermined by that scanned image, further federalization and privatization of our elections.

The picture shows the ballot marker on top of the scanner, which is unncessary for the NYC scanner(which bought the automark). That marker does not give the privacy for the disabled, but the boards bought it for the same reason they liked DREs initially-the bells, whistles, glitz and new. Beware of the shiny new beta test.

Our bottom line concern is that the elections have become ways for vendors to sell and ruin what should be a transparent process. The election boards once in favor of DREs now see the folly of that loss of control they wanted with the turn key elections, serviced by the vendors, promising accuracy. Just trust us. May be too late for the commissioners to exercise the judgment they should have shown, instead of listending to vendors who pushed the direct touchscreen voting this last decade and a half.

Now we have to replace levers, even though HAVA does not say we have to do anything, beyond providing disability equipment.