If they did, of course, we might be able to find out why any such Congress member would be opposed to banning such dangerous devices almost universally agreed to be "inimical to democracy," as Stewart testified to before Congress, along with Rubin. Especially since perfectly acceptable, wholly verifiable and far less dangerous, alternatives exists, as needed, for use by blind or disabled voters. Such voters may require such assistive devices to help them cast their vote "in a private and independent manner" as required by HAVA, and the good news is that they do not need a dangerous DRE system to do it!
"No exception needed or wanted for voters with disabilities," said Paul Edwards, former President of the American Council of the Blind, on behalf of the Florida Council of the Blind, in a recent statement headlined "All Voters Deserve Paper Ballots - Voters With Disabilities Must Not Be Left Behind," used to announce the strategic partnership between FCB and the Florida Voting Coalition.
"The very purpose of HAVA Section 301 was to provide an equal opportunity to voters with disabilities. 'Equal' doesn't only apply to the ability to cast a private and independent ballot...it also applies to the ability to cast a secure ballot," Edwards said.
"Our message today is, NO THANK YOU," the blind voters advocate added in the announcement, "We don't want [DREs] and should not be forced to use them. Paperless electronic DRE voting systems are fit for no one."
Dan McCrea, co-founder of the Florida Voting Coalition explains in the same statement that, "For years proponents of paperless electronic DRE voting systems have claimed that their systems are the only solution for voters with disabilities."
"That's just not true," he says. "Non-tabulating ballot marking devices provide superior...facilities to allow voters with disabilities to cast a private and independent vote, and they are HAVA compliant. But unlike failed DRE systems, they allow all voters to vote on one uniform, paper-ballot-based, secure voting system."
Their announcement, ironically enough, is posted on the site run by Warren Stewart's VoteTrustUSA, the number #1 Holt Bill supporting group in the Election Integrity community.
* * *The bulk of Congressional offices I have discussed the matter with, were under the presumption that blind and disabled voters needed DREs to cast a vote in compliance with HAVA. Indeed both Holt's office and PFAW have been propagating that idea, despite both of them knowing better, that there are acceptable alternatives --- even touch-screen alternatives --- which do not endanger democracy by making it impossible for the voters vote to be verified before it is cast and counted.
One such particularly pernicious example is found in the deceptive and misleading "Frequently Asked Questions" page as posted at Holt's congressional web page, and as authored by his lead HR811 legislative aide, Michelle Mulder. Note the deceptive bait-and-switch tactic used in the following, as she conflates non-verifiable DRE systems, with non-tabulating, verifiable electronic ballot marking devices:
Some...are arguing that using the term "paper ballot" should not be applied to DRE print-outs, because it gives "false" gravitas to something made by a machine vs. something marked by hand. Of course, thousands of voters require the assistance of a machine to create a paper ballot, and using different terminology to refer to a "hand marked" ballot than is used to refer to a "machine-marked" or "machine printed" ballot would create two classes of ballots; the "ballots" of the able-bodied and those not seeking language assistance could come to be treated differently than the "records" of the disabled and language minorities under the law.
For now, we'll set aside the above strawman distraction of "two classes of ballots", since they already exist, by definition, in a system which uses DREs at the polling place, along with paper-based optical-scan absentee ballots in the same election. Or even DREs and op-scan systems used side-by-side in many precincts on election day as many jurisdictions already do in a practice perfectly allowable both now and even under Holt. Further, the latest version of Holt's bill, recently reported out of committee to the House floor, further legislates in favor of "two classes of ballots", by allowing citizens to request a paper ballot if they wish, instead of being forced to use a DRE system (unfortunately, the legislation allows those ballots to be ghettoized, as a separate class of ballot, to be counted days after the election when the DREs have already been used to establish a "winner).
What is most notable for purposes of this article, about the above paragraph from Holt's official document, is the sleight-of-hand used to deceptively take the concern about "DRE print-outs" and quickly mutate it into one of "the assistance of a machine to create a paper ballot" for disabled voters.
There are voting machines, such as the AutoMARK, which may be used by those who "require the assistance of a machine to create a paper ballot," but which do not cast and count an unverifiable electronic ballot. Rather, such assistive machines, often referred to as Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs), help provide a true paper ballot to be printed and verified by the voter before they are then cast and counted by another device or by hand.
Of course, the author of the document, Mulder and Holt himself know the difference very well between dangerous DREs systems, and less-dangerous, verifiable, non-tabulating electronic BMD devices for use by the blind and disabled. I've discussed that point personally with both of them on numerous occassions. The conflation quoted above therefore is purposely deceptive, and in my opinion, unforgivable given the ramifications it will have, if successful towards passages of this bill, to both America and the world.
There is more such egregiously misleading disinformation on that same official Holt page, but I'll leave that for another day.
And yet Holt's office is not the only one carrying off such a knowing disinformation campaign on this specific issue.
In precisely the same vein, Holt's most powerful public-advocacy proponent, PFAW --- who actually advocates for the use DRE systems as preferable to paper ballot systems, by the way --- continuously makes the same dishonest conflation in single-minded pursuit of building support for this currently very flawed bill. Their published analysis of the Holt bill [PDF] argues (misleadingly) that "DREs afford voters with disabilities an opportunity to cast an independent secret ballot- something that optical scan paper ballots cannot fully do."
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