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By Cenerentola (about the author)
Become a Fan (7 fans) -- Page 2 of 3 page(s)
Again, what can we do about all this? Write the right, talk the talk and, perhaps, vote on line in two different places to capture an accurate vote? Would that work?
Never underestimate the power of creativity.
++++++++
Three New Jerseyans next took the mike: NJ Senator Nia Gill, Renee Steinhagen, Executive Director of the NJ Appleseed Public Interest Law Center; and Howard Stanislevic, founder of the E-Voter Education Project. The subject was NJ Senate Bill 507, which many consider to be model post-election audit legislation.
Their situation is that they will probably be stuck with their Sequoia DREs in 2008, since nothing so far has been accomplished in linking these machines to printers, New Jersey’s form of HAVA compliance that will go nowhere in terms of transparency and voter verifiability, in that the printers will reproduce the quixotic output of the computers. New Jersey has sought a waiver on the printers until June 2008.
Said Stanislevic, the bill in the New Jersey legislature, S. 507, will require audits of the DRE counts, a segue to the previous bill that requires voter-verifiable paper records,” said Steinhagen. "The audit will count enough ballots in all audited elections to confirm outcomes independently of software with either 99% or 90% statistical power depending on the race. Statewide and federal elections are audited to the higher standard. There is NO maximum audit size and a 2% minimum," according to Stanislevic. The idea is to have enough hand counting to yield real results.
The pressure needs to be maintained. “We need a software-independent voting system,” said Stanislevic, that is, if an undetected error in the software doesn’t guarantee an error in the election results. We must examine paper trails. The voters must be educated.
If optical scanners are used, he continued, audits will still be required; they are used for absentee ballots in New Jersey. The cost of hand-counting the paper is ten to twenty-five cents per vote.
“Auditing is not a significant expense,” added Steinhagen. “You can’t run elections on the cheap. This will reassure voters that their votes do count.”
Said state senator Nia Gill, people died for the right to vote—no higher cost can be paid than that. But Governor Corzine, who campaigned for voting integrity, now opposes this bill and opts for a less secure method, a tiered system like that delineated in HR 811. “Here the rubber meets the road,” she said. Corzine must be inundated with expressions of the popular will, like letters and calls, to be pulled back into his campaign promises.
The second bill being considered on Monday is the waiver on the attached printers until June 2008. In it the attorney general wants the authority to continue with the DREs, printerless.
At this point both Mary Ann and the senator quoted Abraham Lincoln.
Mary Ann: “Elections belong to the people.”
Senator Gill: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
S. 507 should be a model for the nation. Government officials should be made aware of this at all levels—from municipal to federal.
Other legislators don’t realize the importance of this bill,” said Steinhagen.
Become a Fan (7 fans) -- Page 2 of 3 page(s)
Never underestimate the power of creativity.
++++++++
Three New Jerseyans next took the mike: NJ Senator Nia Gill, Renee Steinhagen, Executive Director of the NJ Appleseed Public Interest Law Center; and Howard Stanislevic, founder of the E-Voter Education Project. The subject was NJ Senate Bill 507, which many consider to be model post-election audit legislation.
Their situation is that they will probably be stuck with their Sequoia DREs in 2008, since nothing so far has been accomplished in linking these machines to printers, New Jersey’s form of HAVA compliance that will go nowhere in terms of transparency and voter verifiability, in that the printers will reproduce the quixotic output of the computers. New Jersey has sought a waiver on the printers until June 2008.
Said Stanislevic, the bill in the New Jersey legislature, S. 507, will require audits of the DRE counts, a segue to the previous bill that requires voter-verifiable paper records,” said Steinhagen. "The audit will count enough ballots in all audited elections to confirm outcomes independently of software with either 99% or 90% statistical power depending on the race. Statewide and federal elections are audited to the higher standard. There is NO maximum audit size and a 2% minimum," according to Stanislevic. The idea is to have enough hand counting to yield real results.
The pressure needs to be maintained. “We need a software-independent voting system,” said Stanislevic, that is, if an undetected error in the software doesn’t guarantee an error in the election results. We must examine paper trails. The voters must be educated.
If optical scanners are used, he continued, audits will still be required; they are used for absentee ballots in New Jersey. The cost of hand-counting the paper is ten to twenty-five cents per vote.
“Auditing is not a significant expense,” added Steinhagen. “You can’t run elections on the cheap. This will reassure voters that their votes do count.”
Said state senator Nia Gill, people died for the right to vote—no higher cost can be paid than that. But Governor Corzine, who campaigned for voting integrity, now opposes this bill and opts for a less secure method, a tiered system like that delineated in HR 811. “Here the rubber meets the road,” she said. Corzine must be inundated with expressions of the popular will, like letters and calls, to be pulled back into his campaign promises.
The second bill being considered on Monday is the waiver on the attached printers until June 2008. In it the attorney general wants the authority to continue with the DREs, printerless.
At this point both Mary Ann and the senator quoted Abraham Lincoln.
Mary Ann: “Elections belong to the people.”
Senator Gill: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
S. 507 should be a model for the nation. Government officials should be made aware of this at all levels—from municipal to federal.
Other legislators don’t realize the importance of this bill,” said Steinhagen.
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Support S 507; contact NJ state legislators
Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers
www.wordsunltd.com; www.editingunltd.com
A jack of some trades, writing and editing among them, Marta Steele, an admitted and proud holdover from the late sixties, returned to activism ten years ago after first establishing her skills as a college [mostly adjunct] professor in three (more...)
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