Optical scanners replace touchscreen voting machines

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Optical scanners replace touchscreen voting machines
Fifteen Florida counties are gearing up to use new voting equipment that has the benefit of a paper trail, but election advocates criticize insufficient audit rules, among other issues.
Posted on Wed, Oct. 10, 2007

By AMY SHERMAN
[e-mail]

Seven years after South Florida became fodder for late-night comics over its ''pregnant chads,'' Broward and Miami-Dade counties are ditching their controversial touchscreen voting systems, opting for an old-fashioned ``fill in the bubble.''

Now, officials have less than a year to get the new optical scanner system up and running in time for an August 2008 election.

''While everyone for the most part felt comfortable using touchscreens, the question was always out there: what proof is there that my ballot was cast?'' said Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Lester Sola. ``The use of the optical scanner and the paper ballot should provide enough confidence in the system.''

The new technology is simple. Voters no longer will punch cards or touch electronic screens. Instead, they will choose a candidate the same way they pick lottery numbers -- by filling in ovals with a pen.



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/266134.html

[bullimiami]

1. the optical systems have been proven just as corruptable.

if you dont audit the results and use the paper ballots as the final say its not much use.

[sandnsea]

5. Get the laws

Oregon has done it. If people would quit wasting their time ranting about hand counts, they could have passed more real reform at the state level by now.

[bullimiami]

10. get the florida law. before jeb absconded they made it illegal to go back to the paper ballots.

so if the machine count says it is so ... it is so.

[sandnsea]

14. So these 15 counties are breaking the law?

by having opti-scan paper ballots???

[bullimiami]

17. nope. but they cant go back and look at the actual ballots if something goes wrong.

what florida did was emasculate the optiscans to rival the dependability level of the touch screens.

[sandnsea]

19. Yes they can

"bubbled-in cards create a clear record of the voters' intentions that can be recounted in a close race."

That's the point of having the paper be the ballot, it's always what is counted in a recount. That's why paper audit isn't satisfactory, the paper needs to be the ballot, no matter what system is used.

[aggiesal]

27. I think what bullimiami is trying to say (correct me if I'm wrong) is that ...

if Bush wins a close election by say 534 votes over Gore, using the opti-scan,
Jeb made it illegal to use the ballots cast in a hand recount.
The votes counted on the Optiscan, is the final word.

It's BS, I know, but that's what I think Jeb passed in Florida before he left town.

[RantinRavin]

2. Lack of pencils to fill in the bubbles

in minority areas will be the new outrage....

[sandnsea]

4. Already is

Wrong color ink so the ballots can't be counted, etc. All of this happens and has to be monitored closely in every precinct. It's not a joke, it's how Democrats lose elections.

[dragonlady]

7. The machine spits the ballot back to the voter if it can't be counted

This can happen when the voter makes the mark too faint, tries to vote for more than one candidate per seat, etc. The voter can then fix the ballot or start over with another one (the first one is destroyed, obviously). The only way this system goes wrong is in the case of an absentee ballot that wasn't marked properly.

[bullimiami]

11. yup. been there. florida had scanners in republican counties to check

and make sure the votes were all good and legal.
but few and far between in democratic minority counties where mysteriously there were piles of undervotes.

[dragonlady]

16. Your system must have been different

Here, every voter goes to one of the little desks to mark the ballot and then walks over and feeds the ballot into the counting machine (one per polling place). The machine starts to suck the ballot in and if it isn't right, it comes out again. You don't leave until your ballot has successfully gone into the machine and gotten counted. It's this way all over the state, minority areas included. What is your procedure like?

For a computer-operated system, ours is better than the touch-screens, although I'm certainly aware that there is the possibility of tampering with the programmed packs in the machines, or the central computer that aggregates the votes of all the jurisdictions in the county, or the modem transfer of the returns on election night. At least there is a paper ballot that could be recounted by hand. The most secure system, though, would be a hand count with observers from all parties.

[bullimiami]

18. ahh here they put scanners in the republican leaning polling places

but didnt in heavily democratic ones.

dirty. eh?

[dragonlady]

23. Sure is

Will your new governor make any difference in this regard?

[sandnsea]

3. Still needs monitoring and education

Different systems require different inks. There needs to be random sampling of ballots in every precinct after every election. Software needs to be deposited in escrow accounts. Programmers need training. It's good that we're getting paper ballots, but there's still a long way to go in securing elections. Then there's securing the registration and voter lists. Long way to go.

[BeFree]

6. So

If the machine needs to be double checked how else can you do so without a hand count? But damn those people ranting about hand counts, eh?

[sandnsea]

13. They have to match

Wouldn't you have to do the same thing with hand counted ballots - do a random sample to make sure someone wasn't lying about the original count? If you have to do that anyway, why not do a machine count with a random audit? If you have all the safe guards in place, it's no more prone to fraud than stuffing ballot boxes.

[BeFree]

26. Good idea

Hand counts are the only way to keep the machines honest. But if you're gonna hand count some, why not hand count all?

[Cleita]

8. We use the scanners in my county but there have been problems.

The right way to do it is to count the paper ballots by hand and veryify the results from the machine print outs. This is how you balance a cash register. No one takes the tape totals as fact until a hand count of money and receipts is balanced against the tape. Votes should be done the same way.

[City Lights]

9. Yup. Optical scanners still use software to total the votes, which means

the totals can be manipulated. I agree that the only way around it is to count all the ballots by hand to ensure they match the computed totals. Just because a machine can read the ballot doesn't mean it will tally it correctly. Many of the optical scanners still use GEMS (Diebold) tabulators to count the ballots.

[sandnsea]

15. You don't count every penny, all day long

You don't count every coin and every single denomination of every single paper bill - that would be the equivalent of hand counting ballots. You audit the money you started with, purchases, cash, and the end of the day count. Just like you audit total ballots, voter signatures, spoiled ballots, and ballots cast. With a random sample audit at every precinct to make sure the machines are counting correctly, you can get a valid vote.

[harpboy_ak]

20. In Alaska, hand counts to check on Accuvote machines are mandatory

Alaska has been using Accuvote scanners since before Diebold bought them (but the Alaska Democratic Party is still in court trying to get the Repukes & Diebold to release the source code for aggregating precinct counts to an independent DP auditor). State law does require auditing of random precincts by hand count before the vote is certified, and requires recounts of the scanned ballots be done by hand IN PUBLIC.

Democrats are still in court trying to get audit trails on the few touch screen machines furnished for the blind, which are rarely used.

[sandnsea]

22. Oregon has mandatory audits too

We passed them last year. There are ways to make elections secure that people will accept.

[bullimiami]

12. Right all. Its not the scanners or tabulators which are corrupt. Its the people running them.

[Trajan]

21. Once again .... wrong headed ......

1) Touchscreens CAN be used: But only as INPUT devices that create a hard copy ballot ..... The ballot is counted ELSEWHERE, and NOT in the touchscreen computer ...

The argument that Touchscreens helped the physically disadvantaged is valid, and the problem doesnt lie in 'touching the screen' .... the problem lies in MIScounting the votes .....

2) Take the aforementioned PRINTED, hard copy ballot .... and place it into a ballot box.

3) HAND COUNT the ballots, even if it takes all damned day ....

Count them AGAIN ... IN the open .... with everyone watching ....

GEEEEEZ ..... WTF is so hard about this ?

[SyntaxError]

24. I want to be able to SMS my vote from my cell phone. :P

[eddiedemocrat]

25. no trust = hand count verify

I will not trust any computer to be the final vote count only hand count with witnesses should be the proper vote total any problems then call the dogs , i mean the lawyers:-))