FINALLY: FL votes to end the use of touchscreens.

[Stevepol]

Of course, the bill which passed the Senate with only 2 votes against it had a lot of extraneous, un-democratic riders attached, but at least now there will be paper. The FL-13 embarrassment of the 18,000 undervotes was probably the push that got them there. But Crist deserves a lot of credit.

Now something needs to be done to eliminate the law that makes it a crime to recount the votes by hand. Isn't that law still on the books?


Senate votes to end touch-screen voting
BY GARY FINEOUT

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida is on the verge of doing away with touch-screen voting in favor of paper ballots, after the state Senate voted overwhelmingly Friday to pay for optical-scan machines and House leaders said they are optimistic they will agree next week.

The change would be in place for the 2008 elections in all 15 counties that use ATM-style machines -- including Miami-Dade and Broward -- for all voters except the disabled, who would still use touch-screen machines until 2012.

The move to voting machines that produce a paper trail is a priority for Gov. Charlie Crist. The House has been reluctant to approve paying the $28 million cost, but is getting some powerful incentive from the Senate: The bill also calls for Florida to make its '08 presidential primary one of the earliest in the nation, on Jan. 29 -- one of the top items on House Speaker Marco Rubio's wish list this year.

The 73-page bill, which passed the Senate by a 37-2 vote, includes several controversial provisions: Election-law violations would be harder to prosecute, third-party groups that register voters would be subject to fines, and groups pushing constitutional amendments would face additional hurdles.

But those backing the bill say moving Florida to a paper-ballot system was more important than anything else in the legislation.

''We have put a lot of things on here that were not necessary,'' said Sen. Nan Rich, a Weston Democrat. ``We had an important thing to do and that was the paper trail. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.''

snip...

Only two senators voted against the bill Friday: J.D. Alexander, a Lake Wales Republican, and Don Gaetz, a Niceville Republican. Gaetz said it was not right for the state to pay for new machines for the entire state after ''three counties'' had problems with them.

One of those counties was Sarasota, where 18,000 ballots has no vote in a 2006 congressional race that Republican Vern Buchanan won by 369 votes. Buchanan's opponent, Christine Jennings, has claimed that the touch-screen machines malfunctioned.

It was that race that prompted Crist to push to scrap touch-screen machines, saying he doesn't want Florida to continue to be ''embarrassed'' nationally by elections foul-ups.


Link: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/89301.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. HOORAH!!! Now to get rid of the "trade secret," proprietary code in the optiscans and

and central tabulators, and institute a 100% audit (automatic recount) until all Bushite criminals, warmongers and corporate fascist shills are removed from power. Let them keep their billion dollar contracts with rightwing Bushite corporations, and lavish lobbying junkets, and future cushy jobs in the election "industry"--just COUNT THE GODDAMNED VOTES. EVERY GODDAMNED ONE OF THEM.

[MH1]

2. "Election-law violations would be harder to prosecute"

Wonderful. Not.

Getting rid of black box voting is important, but it sounds like the bill goes backwards in other areas.

Prosecution of election fraud should be made easier, higher priority, and with stiffer sentences. You can't recount votes that were never cast.

[shenmue]

3. Oh thank goodness!

I live in FL, I've been a Dem. volunteer for a while and I am relieved.

[BeFree]

4. K&R

Ya know, the electronic voting machines now banned if Florida were pretty much the same that gave bushco the election in 2004.

The gig is up. Now at least we have a fighting chance to save our democracy.

[Land Shark]

5. YOUR VOTE is whatever the computer says it is with OPSCANS too!

Oh yeah, with "paper ballot" opscans there is in theory a recount-ability. Well, it's going on a year now and we are still waiting to see our very first paper ballot, much less a recount, in the CA50 litigation, which we just appealed to the California Supreme Court. Placing one's hopes for a verifiable election in post-election remedies like recounts and audits means rollling the dice on whether you get any verifiability at all, and the odds are highly against it working out, and even if it does, it costs you a lot of time and heartache in the process.

So, while I welcome the end of DREs, and I helped eliminate DREs in the form of Sequioa touch screens from my home county of Snohomish County Washington via litigation, I haven't had any kind of formal party for that because we still have optical scans (vote by mail, to be precise). At least with vote by mail some part of the fraud pressure is out in the public/open where at least potentially there is evidence of it...

Opscans are SI (software independent) only if recounts are automatic and 100% and there's perfect chain of custody on all ballots. These conditions are rarely met. Therefore, we rarely have a better system with opscans relative to DREs.

DREs are the wolf. But opscans are the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Now there are very specialized conditions under which opscans might be partially or totally rescued, such as by parallel hand counts in precincts on election night with hand counts prevailing. But those specailized conditions don't presently exist anywhere I know of, so the term "opscan" ought to be understood as something we all oppose on the grounds that the voter's ballot can readily be changed (it is whatever the computer scanner says it is, just as with DREs) and it is expensive, hazardous and rare that the secret electronic count ever overcomes the secret first count, and for reasons of time it is especially unlikely to do so in the presidential election of 2008. That is rock-hard fact, not opinion, unless you've forgotten the Supreme Court-ordered termination of election in the recount phase also known as Bush v. Gore, 531 US 98 (2000).

[BeFree]

6. Of course

The fighting chance we have is rather minimal, all things considered.

Our vote is not yet safe, but we're getting there.

Now we have to get something better than the present 811 passed and that something has to have a robust audit protocol that citizens control. Otherwise we're gonna have to hit the streets come '08.


People, if you haven't yet, get down to your local election office and let the fine people there know that you are aware and not complacent. The vote you save may be your own.

[diva77]

8. Well said, Landshark. Do not trust your optiscans!!

nobody knows for sure how those optiscans are programmed --remember Pottawattamie County, Iowa!! http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2929

also

optiscan machines may contain modems- in every precinct or centrally

there is no way to guarantee that elections results may be audited accurately following an optiscan count- look at The 2004 Recount in Ohio: County Reports -- the audit as "safety net" for getting accurate results has been
corrupted:

http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ohio_reports/


The "Optiscan Solution" is no cure for the wrongs done by DREs!!!!

[Stevepol]

10. In fact I think the optiscans have been more culpable in the past.

I think they stole Mondale's election in MN in 02 and I think they were more responsible for the weird discrepancies in FL in the 04 election.

Problem as is obvious that there's no REQUIREMENT FOR AN AUDIT, and a robust one too, should be a minimum of 10% I think now, maybe 100%. I think in Venezuela they recount about 50% of the vote on the machines or they did in the last Chavez landslide.

But at least now in FL there's something to count, and the next step should be easier.

[diva77]

12. The sort & stack method for hcpb has 100% audit built into the process

the solution is so easy; the political obstacle is the hard part

[Wilms]

7. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Now there'll be one less excuse for passing HR811.

:D

[Patsy Stone]

9. It's a good day!

Not a great day, but definitely a good one. I'll wait until the House passes it to pop a cork. There are more fights to keep fighting; but right now, I have to give it up for my RINO governor. Here's to you, Charlie!

[krkaufman]

11. Butterfly ballots for everybody...!!! n/t