Avi Rubin published an essay in FORBES Magazine on September 4 in which he cautioned against the use of touch-screen voting machines...The bottom line? Avi's remedy for unreliable machines is...unreliable machines and unreliable data. Avi pulled the plug, but not hard enough.

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(From Black Box Voting): Kudos to Roy Lipscomb for setting the record straight on
this.

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From Roy Lipscomb:

Avi Rubin published an essay in FORBES Magazine on September 4 in
which he cautioned against the use of touch-screen voting machines.
(His essay, "Pull the Plug," can be purchased online for $2 from
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0904/040.html?partner=alerts&_requestid=2972 )

I felt disquieted by his conclusion, and after a week or so I sent a
letter to the editor. It was published it in the October 2 issue.

Below is the published version, followed by my original version. The
original version includes reference to an additional study, and also
contains citations for all references.

Regards,

Roy

------------------------------------------------

Here's the published version:

MACHINE POLITICS

In "Pull the Plug" (On My Mind, Sept. 4, p. 40), Aviel Rubin does an
excellent job of diagnosing the ills of voting machines. But his
remedy falls short. He proposes that we cast votes on paper ballots
and count the votes by means of optical scanners, concluding, "Even
the designer of the system cannot cheat if voters check the printed
ballots and if the optical scanners are audited."

The two conditions impose no real-world constraints. Paper ballots
printed by voting machines are unreliable. Studies have shown that
many or most voters do not bother to confirm the contents of such
ballots. When participants in one study were asked if their printed

ballots contained errors, 60% admitted that they did not know.

Rubin recommends that we use voting machines to print the ballots, but
not to tabulate them because these machines, even if they are audited,
are too untrustworthy for vote-counting. Instead, he advised we
tabulate results by means of an optical scanner--itself a kind of
voting machine.

The irony of this eludes him.

Roy Lipscomb
Chicago, Ill.

Here's the original version:
Dear Editor,

In "Pull the Plug" (September 4, 2006), Avi Rubin does an excellent
job of diagnosing the ills of voting machines.

But after finishing this expert diagnosis, he proposes a remedy. And
that's where he falls short.

His proposal is that we cast votes on paper ballots, and count the
votes by means of optical scanners. He concludes: "Even the designer
of the system cannot cheat if the voters check the printed ballots and
if the optical scanners are audited."

Unfortunately, these two conditions impose no real-world constraints.

1. Paper ballots printed by voting machines are unreliable.

Studies have shown that many or most voters do not bother to confirm
the contents of such ballots.(Footnote 1)

When participants in one study were asked if their printed paper
ballots contained errors, 60% of the subjects admitted that they did
not know.(Footnote 2)

And a study of Ohio's 2006 primary election discovered that equipment
problems completely ruined about 10% of the paper ballots.(Footnote 3)

2. Optical scanners are themselves a type of voting machine.

Rubin recommends that we use voting machines to print the ballots, but
not for tabulating them. He assures us that voting machines, even if
they are audited, are too untrustworthy for vote counting. So far, so
good.

But then he advises us to tabulate those paper ballots by means of
optical scanners--a type of voting machine. The irony of this eludes
him.

The bottom line?

Avi's remedy for unreliable machines is...unreliable machines and
unreliable data.

Avi pulled the plug, but not hard enough.

Roy Lipscomb
Chicago, IL 60660

Footnotes
1. 37% of voters in one Nevada election did not examine their printed
ballots.
http://www.lombardoconsultinggroup.com/nvvotersurvey.pdf
(File is no longer available at the original site. A copy is posted at
http://e-grapevine.org/nvvotersurvey.pdf )

2. "An Active Approach to Voting Verification." A Caltech/MIT Voting
Technology Project.
http://vote.caltech.edu/media/documents/wps/vtp_wp28.pdf

3. "ESI researchers found that nearly 10 percent of VVPAT ballots
sampled were in some way compromised, damaged or otherwise
uncountable, an alarmingly high proportion for a state that requires
that paper be used as the ballot of record in the event of a recount."

--Excerpt from Dan Seligson's report on ESI study of the Ohio 2006
Primary, http://tinyurl.com/zhlor
(The full URL is
http://www.electionline.org/Newsletters/tabid/87/ctl/Detail/mid/643/xmid/202/xmf id/3/Default.aspx
)

The original ESI study that Seligson is discussing can be found at
http://www.electionscience.org . Click on the link labeled-- "ESI Report for Cuyahoga County
Investigation (PDF)"

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...

Authors Website: http://ballot-integrity.org

Authors Bio:

Roy Lipscomb,
Emeritus Director for Technology,
Illinois Ballot Integrity Project