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Read below for a good analysis of the HAVA requirment. (Sorry it's not cleaned up yet)
These systems DO NOT produce an AUDIT trail without v-vpb. (Voter-verified ballot)
What they really have is redundant storage, nothing more. Whatever the computer recorded as the vote is all that's there, right or wrong. It cannot serve as an audit trail because it's just a copy of the same information, and IT'S NOT THE ORIGINAL information. The computer transcribed your voting transaction. Without verifying a paper ballot, you cannot verify your vote was cast correctly. You don't even witness your own vote. Without that witness, without an independent source of evidence, there's no way to call what these salespeople promote an audit trail.
By the way, most state officials I have dealt with so far are very careful not so say audit. Just recently had an assistant do that. They can claim backup storage of the vote, but they can't claim auditablility.
THE HAVA REQUIREMENT FOR A VOTER VERIFIED PAPER RECORD
Darryl R. Wold (1)
July 23, 2003
This paper explains that the Help America Vote Act of
2002(2) requires that any voting
system used in an election for Federal office must produce a paper record
of the vote cast by
each voter that has been seen and verified by the voter. HAVA further
requires that this voter
verified paper record be available for a manual audit of the voting system,
and for any recount.
HAVA requires, in section 15481, subdivision (a)(2)(B), that:
“(i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record with a
manual audit
capacity for such system.
“(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity
to change the ballot or
correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced.
“(iii) The paper record . . . shall be available as an official
record for any recount . . ..”
Taken together, these provisions requiring a “paper record” that is
to be used for a
“manual audit” for the “voting system” make it apparent that HAVA requires
a paper record that
is seen, verified, and turned in by the voter.
The suggestion has been made, however, that the requirement of a
paper record to be
used for a manual audit can be satisfied by a paper record of votes that is
produced for the first
time after the polls have closed – that is, a printout of what the computer
has stored, and that has
never been seen by the voter.
This interpretation, however, that a post-closing printout of what
the computer has stored
would satisfy HAVA, would permit an audit or a recount to be conducted on
the content of a
computer and not on a contemporaneous paper record of votes cast, and would
make the
requirement for a “manual audit capacity” virtually meaningless.
_______________
1 Mr. Wold served as chairman of the Federal Election Commission
in Washington, D.C., during
2000, and as a Commissioner from 1998 to 2002. He is currently an attorney
in private practice
in Orange County, California. His practice emphasizes political and
election law, including
campaign finance compliance issues, ballot access, and recounts. His
clients include AccuPoll,
Inc., Irvine, California, a manufacturer of electronic voting systems.
2 Help America Vote Act of 2002 (“HAVA” in this paper),
enacted as Public Law Number 107-
252, October 29, 2002, 116 Statutes 1704, and codified at 42 U.S.C. §15301
et seq.. All
references in this paper are to 42 U.S.C. §15481 unless otherwise noted.
page 1
_______________
A paper record consisting solely of ballots printed by the computer
after the closing of
the polls -- and therefore never seen by the voters -- would mean that a
manual audit or recount
would simply amount to reviewing what was stored in the computer. The audit
or recount could
not manually verify that the computer had accurately recorded the voter’s
intent, or had
accurately stored that information, or had accurately printed out that
information. Both an audit
and a recount, therefore, would miss the key element of the system –
whether the voter’s
intention had been accurately recorded.
At most, even a complete manual count of paper ballots printed by the
computer postclosing
could only verify that the computer had accurately tabulated various totals
– that is, that
the computer had “done the math.”
Such an audit or recount could not manually determine whether the
computer had
accurately made a record of voter intent – that is, that the paper record
printed post-closing
actually represented the votes intended to be cast by the voters.
An audit using a record of votes printed post-closing, of course,
could not be considered a
manual audit of the complete voting system – it would be a partial audit,
at best, limited to the
math performed by the computer. It would not be an audit of whether the
voters’ intent was
accurately recorded by the computer – and that is the critical issue.
HAVA’s requirement of a “manual audit” compels the interpretation of
“paper record” as
meaning a record that has been seen and verified by the voter.
First, it is apparent from the common meaning of the words “manual
audit” that HAVA
requires that this audit be conducted by visual examination and counting by
hand, and not by
machine. A common dictionary definition of “manual” applicable to this
context is “worked or
done by hand and not by machine.” The term “audit” applicable to this
context means “a
methodical examination and review.” (Both definition’s from Webster’s Ninth
New Collegiate
Dictionary.)
So far, therefore, we have a requirement for a methodical review by
hand. The next
question is: What is to be reviewed?
HAVA provides that it is the “voting system” that is to be audited
(§15481(a)(2)(B)), and
defines the voting system as including “the total combination” of equipment
that is used “(A) to
define ballots; (B) to cast and count votes; (C) to report or display
election results; and (D) to
maintain and produce any audit trail information . . .” (§15481(b)(1)). In
other words, the system
to be audited is the complete process of casting and counting votes. There
cannot be a “manual”
audit of the casting of votes, of course, unless there is credible and
contemporaneous evidence of
the votes cast that can be reviewed by hand, as a check on the electronic
portion of the system.
Further, the critical issue in any voting system is whether the
system has accurately
reflected voter intent. The question raised in counting the votes in
Florida in the 2000
Presidential election, for instance, was not whether the machines had
accurately done the math –
it was whether the ballots that were counted actually reflected the voters’
intentions. That issue
page 2
_______________
can be determined in an audit of a voting system only by examining what the
voter has seen and
approved -- a paper record reviewed and verified by the voter.
The importance of a paper record verified by the voter is also
emphasized by HAVA’s
use of the term “audit” rather than some other term that would merely
require some lower level
of examination. Requiring an “audit capacity” for the voting system,
including the accurate
recording of the votes cast, clearly contemplates a paper record as the
source document – as the
original record of the voters’ actions – and not a secondary document
produced after the fact as
evidence only of what is in the computer system at that time.
The distinction between an original paper record of an act and
electronic records as
indirect evidence is an important one in the field of auditing, as
indicated by the standards of
auditing practice promulgated by the American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants in its
Statements on Auditing Standards (AICPA Professional Standards, 1998,
American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants, New York). The AICPA’s “Standards of Field
Work” require that
“Sufficient competent evidential matter is to be obtained through
inspection, observation . . . and
confirmations to afford a reasonable basis for an opinion.” (AU §150.02, ¶
3.) Under “Nature
of Evidential Matter” the standards recognize that “Corroborating
evidential matter includes both
written and electronic information” (AU §326.17), and that “In certain
entities, some of the
accounting data and corroborating evidential matters are available only in
electronic form” (AU
§326.18). Thus, the AICPA standards draw a distinction between a source
document that is an
original written record, on one hand, and an electronic record, on the
other. The standards for
field work do not contemplate that an electronic record printed out after
the fact is the same as an
original written record.
In this light, the significance of the HAVA requirement that the
system produce “a
permanent paper record” for use in a “manual audit” or a recount is again
apparent. HAVA does
not provide for a manual audit of an electronic record of votes cast (or of
a printout of an
electronic record, which is the same thing). HAVA requires a permanent
paper record of votes
cast, and that can only be read as meaning a contemporaneous paper record,
that the voter has
seen and verified.
This distinction between an original paper record of a transaction or
an act and electronic
records as indirect evidence of that matter is also found in standards
promulgated for government
auditing promulgated by the Comptroller General (Government Auditing
Standards, 2003
Revision, General Accounting Office, June 2003), which incorporate the
AICPA standards for
field work for financial audits (§4.01). In addition to financial audits,
government audits also
include performance audits. In that context, the field work standards
require that “Sufficient,
competent, and relevant evidence is to be obtained to provide a reasonable
basis for the auditor’s
findings and conclusions” (§7.48). Guidance provided for concluding what
constitutes
“sufficient, competent, and relevant evidence” provides that “Evidence
obtained through the
auditors’ direct physical examination, observation, computation, and
inspection is more
competent than evidence obtained indirectly” (§7.53, ¶ b) and “Examination
of original
documents provides more competent evidence than do copies” (§7.53, ¶ c).
Thus, these
government auditing standards also contemplate that an original written
record is the better
evidence of a fact than indirect evidence or a copy. Applied to the context
of an audit of a voting
page 3
_______________
system, it is apparent that a paper ballot that the voter has seen and
verified is better evidence
than a printout of an electronic record that the voter who purportedly
created the record hasn’t
seen.
In summary, it is apparent that the requirement of HAVA that a voting
system used in a
Federal election provide a paper record for a manual audit can be satisfied
only by a system that
produces a paper record that the voter sees and verifies, and that is
retained by the election
official as the record of votes cast for purposes of an audit and any recount.
This statutory requirement is not a bare legal requirement without
practical significance.
To the contrary, a paper record that has been reviewed and verified by the
voter is an essential
element of a transparent and open voting system. A voter verified paper
record that will be
available for an audit of the system and for any recount greatly reduces
the possibility of fraud
and provides a means of detecting and correcting unintentional error in the
electronic system.
Equally importantly, it assures each voter that the vote has been
accurately cast, and that there is
a paper record of that vote to serve as a check on the electronic system,
and eliminates the
suspicion of impropriety. An open and transparent voting system increases
the voters’
confidence in the system and the public’s trust in the results. It is an
essential element of the
democratic process by which we elect the government of this great republic.
page 4
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