I urge all Americans to read that document, as well. The more each of us grasps the inappropriateness of using such technology in public elections, the quicker we will return to a more secure voting and counting system.
While computer experts continue to detail the myriad ways that software-driven systems can be manipulated, as detailed in my annotation, only some of these technical problems can be addressed by implementing best management practices. Particularly, this includes better training and the employment of expensive experts and expensive chain of custody protocols.
But since the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon are unable to keep their systems from being hacked, we can have even less confidence in our electoral management bodies who are paid far less and have a far smaller staff than either federal agency.
Optical Scan Systems Obfuscate the Vote Count
The hackability of software-driven systems is only one reason to reject their use in public elections. More importantly, the use of any machine hides the vote count from the public. Josef Stalin understood this when he said, “It’s not who votes that counts; it’s who counts the vote.”
Free and fair elections, as contemplated by international experts, require a secret vote and a public count. Democratic elections are to be transparent, so that the entire public can have confidence in reported results.
The 2007 Florida study affirmed prior findings that voting on touch screen systems removes voter privacy. With the use of touch screen systems, the vote becomes public and the count becomes secret.
It is somewhat gratifying that the work of thousands of people have finally moved some of our nation’s electoral management bodies to decide that they should reject touch screen voting systems. But this does not go far enough.
When votes are counted on an optical scan system, there is a machine and several experts between the voter and her vote. This expensive overlay obfuscates the vote count and renders its results questionable, at best. Software can be programmed to read the blackened bubbles in a way other than how the voter intended.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Audit
San Diego elections chief has sued the State of California on the grounds that audits are too time-consuming and expensive. This, in a county that sends its voting machines on sleepovers with poll workers weeks in advance of an election. Anyone who has read any of the scientific studies understands that only a minute of unsupervised access is all that is needed to subvert the integrity of that machine.
But, audits provide false confidence, and should not be relied on for accurate results. Get it right on election night, not days later.
Numerous examples exist – in present day elections – showing how audits reveal outlandish results that the courts allowed to stand.
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