California: State Senators aim to bar touch-screen voting

San Jose Mercury News ^ | March 11, 2004 | Elise Ackerman

[John Jorsett]

Warning that the presidential election is at risk, two state lawmakers said Wednesday that they would ask Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to ban the use of touch-screen voting machines in the November ballot.

``There were far too many problems in last week's primary election to continue using the electronic voting machines,'' state Sen. Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, said in a statement. ``I don't want to see California become the Florida of 2004.''

Electronic voting machines are used in 15 California counties, including Santa Clara and Alameda.

Last month, Johnson, who is vice chair of the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee, and Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, the committee chair, introduced a bill that would move up the deadline requiring touch-screen machines to produce a paper record of voters' ballots. Currently, the machines produce only digital ballots. Some computer scientists argue that the machines are susceptible to undetectable error and fraud.

If Shelley does not ban use of electronic machines in the upcoming presidential election, the senators are expected to ask the Legislature to take action.

[John Jorsett]

Where were these bozos when San Diego was spending $31 million buying these stupid machines? There had been warnings for a year before this recent election about the flaws of these devices, and they have to wait for the actual disaster before acting? Every day that passes makes me more disgusted with our 'leadership' in this state. And don't get me started on the morons we have in San Diego County who ignored everything they were told about Diebold and their garbage machines. (Oops, too late).

[Mister Baredog]

They're spending our money, not theirs, so who cares. Soon we'll be back to punch cards, they worked fine.

[ItsMyVoteDammit]

At least California is finally listening and doing something. Florida blocked any attempts by their congressmen to get a paper audit trail. Florida is now being sued.

There is a lot of money in this voting machine game. It is going to be a tough fight to get our votes counted correctly.

[calcowgirl]

San Diego just released a lengthy report published by the SD Union-Tribune.

County releases polling report

Here's another good article by the Tri-Valley Herald on the move to decertify the equipment.

Senators request to suspend e-voting

I'd like to see them scrap the whole e-voting mess. I voted in L.A. with "inka-vote", the traditional punchcard-looking process but it left an inkdot to be read electronically, instead of a punch. No chads, a paper trail, no problems.

[Reeses]

It is going to be a tough fight to get our votes counted correctly.

The absentee ballots are paper without chads, are marked with an ordinary ink pen. They can be recounted and audited, and dropped off on election day into a locked box. I'm a little suspicious though. Prop 55, a large school bond, won by a very narrow margin on election night. They don't include the absentee ballots until several days later because they take more time to count. Absentee ballots tend to be more conservative, so the prop 55 yes vote percentage should have dropped some. It did not.

I don't trust close elections when the Democrats are in charge of the counting.

[Wacka]

What was wrong with the mechanical machines where you pulled the lever?
I never heard of any problems with those.

[John Jorsett]

I voted in L.A. with "inka-vote", the traditional punchcard-looking process but it left an inkdot to be read electronically, instead of a punch. No chads, a paper trail, no problems.

One of the problems they cite with the punch ballots is "voter error," where the voter either doesn't vote in a race (apparently it's still an "error" in people's minds even if the voter did it on purpose) or where the voter voted for more than one candidate. The machines were supposed to fix at least the second type of error, because the software wouldn't permit it. Personally, I think if you're too lamewitted to vote for just one candidate, then it's good if we toss your vote, since you're probably too stupid to pick the right candidate anyway.

[Publius6961]

There had been warnings for a year before this recent election about the flaws of these devices, and they have to wait for the actual disaster before acting?

Of course! It's not their money.

Can you say business as usual?
They can always raise your taxes to fix it!

[Publius6961]

There had been warnings for a year before this recent election about the flaws of these devices, and they have to wait for the actual disaster before acting?

Of course! It's not their money.

Can you say business as usual?
They can always raise your taxes to fix it!

[Publius6961]

There had been warnings for a year before this recent election about the flaws of these devices, and they have to wait for the actual disaster before acting?

Of course! It's not their money.

Can you say business as usual?
They can always raise your taxes to fix it!

[zoyd]

Here in OC, it was good for some laughs, watching AARP members trying to decipher the computerized voting systems. Needless to say, there was a lot of grumbling among those without any technological savvy.

We dropped serious coin in OC for these systems ($3000/ea), and there's no paper trail, just some doofus running the master machine at every polling place. This was such a terrible idea. I'd suspect more voter error this year than in past elections. The old-timers really don't like change, especially when you change an inexpensive, working system for an expensive computerized boondoggle. The only tangible effect is probably a huge increase in absentee voting.

[ServesURight]

Touch-screen and other computerized voting systems actually encourage more vote fraud.

The best method is still the good-old black marker and paper.

[calcowgirl]

One of the problems they cite with the punch ballots is "voter error," where the voter either doesn't vote in a race ...or where the voter voted for more than one candidate. The machines were supposed to fix at least the second type of error, because the software wouldn't permit it.

I'm more concerned about the machines trying to fix the FIRST kind of error! With no paper trail, and the computer code considered proprietary data, who knows how the votes were actually processed.

Personally, I think if you're too lamewitted to vote for just one candidate, then it's good if we toss your vote, since you're probably too stupid to pick the right candidate anyway.

I'm with you. If they can't figure out how to punch a hole, how can they figure out what the impact of an initiative might be. It's not "voter error", it's the "stupidity factor" and should disqualify their vote instantly.

[itsahoot]

The best method is still the good-old black marker and paper.

Amen. Machine counted, but verifiable

[heleny]

$31 million

$31,000,000 / 582,073votes = $53.26/vote

But, if you consider the fact that about 1/4 of CA voting is done by absentee ballot, and some people voted in the Registrar's office in Kearny Mesa, the price comes out to probably $75/vote. Yikes!

[nickcarraway]

Good

[Lancey Howard]

Are the scumbag Democrats afraid that they won't be able to commit vote fraud as easily with touch-screen voting machines? Is that what this is about?

[heleny]

where the voter voted for more than one candidate. The machines were supposed to fix at least the second type of error, because the software wouldn't permit it.

Some people intentionally vote for more than one, since "no" is not an option. For instance, if I really didn't care about an issue, but I wanted to be sure nobody voted the issue for me after I submitted the ballot, I might intentionally cancel my vote on that question.

Or, there's the conspiracy angle, whereby someone takes a stack of voted ballots and hammers a nail through his favorite candidate, canceling the votes of anyone who voted for someone else on that question.

[goldstategop]

There's nothing wrong with digital technology. With the right safeguards, an electronic ballot can be as secure as or even more secure, than an old-fashioned paper ballot.