Question about BBV?

[napi21]

I applaud everyone fighting agains BBV without hard copy validation, but I have a question.

I was an auditor for quite a few years. The way we verified Bank records, on the banking side as well as the customer side, was to send independent requests for verification of specific items. It's the test sampling theory. If all is verified, you accept the records. If you get several.....not very many....disputes, you go much further.

Why do you think a printout, or a piece of paper given to a voter will make this voting any more honest?

You don't have to be a crack programmer to put a line in the code that says "If x=Kerry record Bush print Kerry"

I don't disagree with the paper verification, but you also need to enact an after the fact audit! Would it catch a crime in time to eliminate it? NO. But it just might put enough fear into the "criminals" that they wouldn't do it at all! Too much chance of being caught!!!

[punpirate]

1. The issue is _not_...

... a verification slip for the voter's use. All legislation should be directed toward printing a paper ballot which the voter can inspect before depositing in a ballot box. A ballot has legal standing, is a primary source for auditing the voting process, whereas a "voter verification" is neither.

A ballot is what the BBV folks are insisting upon. Some manufacturers have sought to muddy the legal waters by offering voter verification schemes which have no standing in law.

Cheers.

[napi21]

3. If that's the argument, I agree.

It gives a separate and independent method of auditing the electronic results. That is not what I have heard in many of the articles I've read. I keep hearing about hard copy printouts. That isn't the same as you described.

I hope your information is the factual solution BBV is fighting for, because it's the best I've heard so far.

The only gripe I can forsee is the typical IT response....why generate so much wasted paper. I don't like to hear about so much wasted paper either, but when there is an appearance of impropriety, you must dispell it!

[Andy_Stephenson]

13. It is what we are fighting for...

A voter verified paper ballot. Kept by the county as the permanent record of the election.

[ParanoidPat]

2. That's a very good point that's been brought up many times here.....

.....The figure of about 5% of the results being randomly audited in every precinct should be about right. Would you agree?
If you would like to help out, Bev can always use help with professional auditors. :)

[napi21]

5. I'd be glad to help, but the suggestion made in the above post

is a better answer. It's quicker, and appears to be reasonably secure.

[ParanoidPat]

7. The point being we may NOT get what we're after for this November......

.....without everyone getting involved NOW.

We can as a backup plan audit the results from each precinct and compare results based on voting equipment type to look for wild swings in those reported results.

For instance in the recent California recall election it seems that voters in counties using Diebold equipment went for Arnold or fairly unknown candidates by much wider margins than in counties that used other equipment. We need people to help collect and compare that data in order to quantify the size of those swings and get that information compiled and distributed.

[harmonyguy]

4. Paper and Audits

The piece of paper isn't given to the voter to take away with them, it's retained in a locked ballot box. If given (as opposed to just being made visible) to the voter to verify it still needs to be deposited IN the ballot box before the voter leaves the polling place.

The audit test is the comparison of the machine counted vote totals with the manually counted paper ballots from the ballot box.

The paper-record verified by the voter, is the ballot, which has legal standing, while the machine total is merely for the 'convenience' of high speed counting. Some vendors would like us to believe that they produce an 'electronic ballot', but no-one has ever been able to show me what an electronic ballot looks like. A ballot is a piece of paper! Period. End of story.

Because of the required anonymity of the voting process, the auditors 'request for specific items' cannot be directed at individual voters. Instead the auditor has at their disposal ALL of the original source documents (the ballots - locked in the ballot box) which, when tallied, will provide a check of the machine totals. In the case of a discrepancy, the paper document stands, since it HAS been verified by the voter, while what is in the machine has not been (and cannot readily be) verified by the voter.

Truly random audits of a high enough percentage of the pool of precincts, is what should keep the bad-guys from messing with YOUR vote.

HG

[napi21]

6. Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately the media does not exlpain

this proposal the way you do. I don't know if they are just trying to hide the story, of don't really understand the proposal.

I will send a letter to the editor of my local papers explaining the real story, and I would hope others will do the same.

Maybe I was associated with accounting for too many years, but I have a hard time understanding how anyone from either party could complain about this.

Contrary to what some believe, tampering can occur on ANY side of an election!

[RedEagle]

8. Thanks for your input

napi21

I hope you will visit Bev's site and volunteer. Having honest to goodness auditors saying what we're saying makes it even more urgent to get voter verified paper ballots.

The whole point of voter verified paper ballots is to provide a way to audit the electronic systems. The ballots MUST be verified by the voter. The vendors tell the news guys that they can print out a record of the vote, after the fact- but it's still only a copy of what the computer did- which may not be voter intent.

What we're finding in some cases, even if the state has agreed to some form of voter verified paper ballot, is that Secretaries of States and some county officials fight the random audit idea.

Heaven forbid we should conduct any kind of testing as to the accuracy of the systems.

[harmonyguy]

9. Paper - Audits - Recounts

I don't know that the media are trying to hide anything on this - but I do think that sometimes they need to slow down a bit and think through the details. Unfortunately, they seem to take their cue from some election officials who actually should know better - but instead come from the school of '...look at the great things I'm doing with technology' instead of the school of '...look at what I'm doing to ensure the integrity of your vote'.

The key task for an auditor is to prove or validate the integrity of the data. As I understand it, in the business world the Sarbanes-Oxley Act provides for strict rules around who is allowed to audit what. The term 'auditor independence' comes to mind. Unfortunately the same sort of rules don't seem to apply to the election world. Instead, we get too much of the 'trust us - you must have voted THIS way because the machine said so'.

Without a ballot that has been verified by the voter, there is NO source document. There is ONLY the machine's record of how it interpreted the voters' intent. Interpreted is the key-word here.

There have been many arguments put forth by election officials saying that there is a paper audit trail that can be printed out and used to verify the count - which is utter and complete nonsence. The paper audit trail is simply a reformatted re-print of the machine tally. Oh, it may be dressed up to look a bit different, but it's NOT a reCOUNT - it's a rePRINT.

For the accountants in the audience, it would be like printing a financial statement from your computer and also printing a general ledger from the same data, and when you go to do your audit, you only compare the account totals against each other. Duh, I guess they're the same. But the comparison serves no valid purpose, since it doesn't examine any of the original documents that were the basis for the transactions. Oops, with touch screen voting, there ARE no original documents - only what the system has recorded.

Some systems go so far as to print out what they call ballot images, which once again are computer generated reports with the data formatted to look like a ballot. Some election officials actually go through the pointless exercise of printing and counting these ballot images, thinking that they're serving a useful purpose as a recount. Although I find it hard to believe, I get the impression that some taxpayer paid election officials actually think that these reports have some use.

Without a paper ballot, all you can get is a rePRINT not a reCOUNT.

Optical scan IS preferable, because at least you have something on paper to recount.

With optical-scan ballots, (which aren't as secure as some folks think), the recount or audit can only be valid if the original paper ballots are examined, manually tallied, and the manual tally compared against the machine tally. Some jurisdictions re-scan the ballots which again leave it up to the machine to 'interpret' the marks on the ballot. What they get is a re-SCAN not a re-COUNT.

Hope this helps explain things.

HG
hmmm - I guess I DO jump on a soapbox every once in a while, eh?

[RedEagle]

10. Good Grief, Please Stay ON That Soap Box!

I love it: reSCAN instead of reCOUNT.

You've added more short definitions of the difference.

(We spend a lot of time and words trying to explain this)

Just don't slip on the box while you're there!

[harmonyguy]

11. The Soap Box

Thanks RedEagle. Once again, sage advice! Although this time with neither chickens, ducks or geese in the pot. (Sorry folks - it's kinda an inside story - you'd have to have been there. It's a thread from a couple of days ago.)

Sometimes, when someone asks a good question, as napi21 did (thanks for asking it, btw napi21) I tend to climb on my soap-box and pontificate at length, sometimes getting myself so deep in alligators, that I forget that my objective was to drain the swamp.

I've been told that my missives sometimes don't explain things as clearly as possible, and that not everyone grasps my, shall we say, warped sence of humour and sarcasm.

Thank goodness that our countries are still free enough to allow each of us to babble on for a while, without significant retribution, other than the occasional flame.

Oops - I'm rambling again.......now, where's the soap that came in that box?

HG

[Andy_Stephenson]

14. No chicken Boners in

HG's or RE's pots.

Whew.
:hi:

[GregD]

12. without hard copy validation???

Hi napi21,

I guess I need to take exception with your premise that there is no hard copy validation that a problem exists.

Several recent elections since Nov 2003, along with at least one in Nov 2002 (North Carolina) there is conclusive proof that paperless electronic voting failed to perform correctly, or prevented the intent of the voters to be verified.

An election in Broward County Florida earlier this year resulted in a close race - so close that according to state law the mandatory recount was triggered. But because there is only the ability to reprint the totals, and not actually recount, the county was out of compliance with the law.

In Mississippi, an entire election had to be rerun on a later date because the situation had become so screwed up. Election officials that defend these paperless systems like to avoid these points.

Several failed elections are listed here:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.asp?id=997

Unfortunately, adding a VVPB to the voting machines will not resolve many other issues which were revealed by the recent primary elections. User error, pollworker training, battery problems, and in the case of Diebold and ES&S (in CA and IN) we have conclusive proof that they circumvented or stonewalled the certification process and installed hardware/firmware/software that was not certified. We estimated that a high percentage of problems which were observed on Super Tuesday would not have been overcome by implementing VVPB or any of the currently proposed legislation. This is a complex problem requiring a multi-faceted solution.

Discontinuing the use of paperless voting systems until such time that a complete solution is presented seems desirable, and that may be just what will happen in California this coming Wednesday.

Another way you can help is to connect with http://www.votersunite.org. Ellen has developed a set of materials that can help county elections officials understand some of the issues and make wise choices in purchasing new equipment.

[Eric J in MN]

15. Now that Bob Graham has officially introduced The RECORD Act

Now that Bob Graham has officially introduced The RECORD Act, and it has 7 cosponsors, I think activists should support it with regard to the Senate.

What do you think?

[Andy_Stephenson]

16. Paper Trail

or Paper Ballot?

[ParanoidPat]

17. Paper RECORD

From http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S.1980:

(A) VOTER-VERIFICATION IN GENERAL- The voting system shall produce a voter-verified paper record suitable for a manual audit equivalent or superior to that of a paper ballot box system, as further specified in subparagraph (B).

`(B) MANUAL AUDIT CAPACITY-

`(i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record, each individual paper record of which shall be made available for inspection and verification by the voter at the time the vote is cast, and preserved within the polling place in the manner in which all other paper ballots are preserved within the polling place on Election Day for later use in any manual audit.

`(ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any error made by the system before the permanent record is preserved for use in any manual audit.

`(iii) The voter verified paper record produced under subparagraph (A) and this subparagraph shall be available as an official record and shall be the official record used for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.

On Edit: Good comparison page at Verified Voting.org. :)

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/senate_bill_comparison.asp

[Eric J in MN]

18. The RECORD Act refers to paper ballots

The RECORD Act of 2004, bill number S. 2313.

"`(B) MANUAL AUDIT CAPACITY- The permanent voter verified paper record produced in accordance with subparagraph (A) shall--

`(i) be preserved within the polling place, in the manner, if any, in which all other paper ballots are preserved within that polling place, or, in the manner employed by the jurisdiction for preserving paper ballots in general, for later use in any manual audit;

`(ii) be suitable for a manual audit equivalent or superior to that of a paper ballot voting system; and

`(iii) be available as an official record and shall be the official record used for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.'."

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:1:./temp/~c1085jefRY::

to get the above link to work, you may have to add "::"