(NYT) Miami-Dade recommends getting rid of electronic voting*****

[dalloway]

I just saw this in today's Times:

Miami-Dade County's elections chief has recommended getting rid of its A.T.M.-style voting machines, just three years after buying them for $24.5 million to avoid a repeat of the hanging and dimpled chads from the 2000 election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/29/national/30florida.html

Send this to your local officials if you vote on electronic machines!

[ananda]

1. in favor of what?

So, what kind of ballot would they replace the ATM machines with?

That's the important thing.

Sue

[eomer]

4. Optical scan paper ballots

They would be replaced with optical scan paper ballots. I haven't yet seen anything detailed enough to tell us whether it is polling location scanning or centralized scanning. I assume the former but will try to get the actual document from the SOE to be sure.


Edit: correction that it is the SOE, not the County Manager that made this recommendation.

[mzmolly]

6. We have optiscan where I live and I think they're great. I know there

can be issues, but a recount is always an option should questions arise. They are fast, efficient, user friendly and audit able.

[harmonyguy]

10. Optiscan is good, but only if....

...the recounts are done by hand, from the original paper ballots. None of this "let's run 'em through the machine again and see what the result is" stuff.

Whether intentional or not, each machine will have its own bias. Variables that can affect the result include paper-stock, printing-ink, how the ballot was marked, even the humidity of the room.

The best that a machine recount can possibly do is to reproduce the same errors that the machines made in the first place. A proper multi-party hand-recount of the original paper ballots, is the best way to recount.

Optiscan is better than paperless, because there is something to count, but the benefit is only there if the recount is done by hand, from the original paper ballots.

HG

[mzmolly]

13. Agreed.

:hi:

[Paul Dlugokencky]

2. "Miami-Dade's elections chief urges new system"

See also the thread begun yesterday morning, "Miami-Dade's elections chief urges new system"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x373368

(Greatest > Politics & Issues Forums > 2004 Election Results and Discussion)



http://www.cafepress.com/kickindemocrats

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

3. Why Eliminate What's Working So Well?

If it ain't broke, why fix it? I thought everything worked so fabulously last time. Machines never make mistakes. It's not like the wrong person won the election or anything. It was fair.

Unless.....there were problems. Nah.....not possible. LOL

[Botany]

5. Dade County '04 ..... home of the 3 for 1 vote

1 vote for * = 3 votes for *

When are we going to get republican companies out of the vote
collecting and tabulating business?

[eomer]

7. Here is a Miami Herald article

Voting system change in Dade likely

The Miami-Dade elections supervisor recommended switching from electronic voting machines to optical scanners, citing poor voter confidence and high costs.

BY NOAKI SCHWARTZ AND TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE

[email protected]

Miami-Dade is poised to be the first place in the nation to ditch the iVotronics paperless voting machines for paper-based balloting after the county's top election supervisor on Friday issued a memo ''strongly recommending'' the change.

''I don't know of any other jurisdiction that has been using iVotronics that has moved to a paper-based system,'' said Ken Fields, a spokesman for Election Systems & Software, the company that makes the machines. ``In fact, to the contrary, jurisdictions around the country have increasingly seen the value of the iVotronic technology.''

County Manager George Burgess forwarded election chief Lester Sola's report to county commissioners -- but cautioned that he has to give the question of ditching the iVotronics a complete review. Still, if commissioners vote in favor of the change, it could be a public relations black eye for ES&S, which sold the machines to Miami-Dade in 2002 for $24.5 million.

-snip-

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11759284.htm

[orpupilofnature57]

8. " Lock Box" Let somebody try and make fun of it now!!!

[Fly by night]

9. This story got covered on the Nashville television news last night!!

I hope it is because of our "paper ballots, not vapor ballots" public education efforts here.

Also glad to see at least three threads on this same topic yesterday on DU.

[Coexist]

11. one county down....

many more to go - but a first step is better than no step!

[FogerRox]

12. Maybe the start of a trend---?

[kster]

14. KICK.NT