Additional Information:
Lots of people wrote in to say they hate — hate — the idea of electronic, “black-box” voting. There are groups around the country organized and organizing to demand verifyable voting systems — too many to go into here.
One that stands out to me (and apologies to the others, all of which I think are doing a terrific service just getting this issue into the media) comes from Laura G. who writes:
Another Thought:
It strikes me that one good way to protest black-box voting is to use absentee ballots, whether or not you’re in town on November 9. It gives you a verifyable vote, it’s legal (probably), and if enough people did it, they could really have an impact. Most districts only expect a certain percentage of absentee ballots, so an increase would likely get picked up by the media.
How ’bout a campaign: “Protest E-Voting — Vote Absentee!”
Dr Robert J. Boram says:
Interesting absentee thoughts, except it won’t work. I have experience in the voting arena – in 1981 I invented the first DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting system now marketed by Danaher as the ELECTronic 1242. In the process of installing these systems around the US I have gained significant experience in the US process of conducting elections.
In my opinion absentee ballots will give the voter the impression they have a verifyable vote since the paper ballot they submit is their “official ballot” and it can be hand-tallied with other absentee ballots to reach a total vote count (of the absentee ballots.) BUT …. the average US ballot usually has 10-12 offices to vote on and includes 20-30 candidates for all those offices. Hand-counting them is difficult; you need several people to make “hack-marks” as the names of selected candidates are called out, they must constantly pay attention or they will miss a vote (or two), and the capability exists someone could deliberately change a vote to give “their” candidate extra votes.
Even if the absentee ballot can be counted by electronic means, there are problems. Give me over 1,000 absentee ballots to count on paper voting systems (electro-optical or mark-sense). Count the automatically twice or more. You’ll find differences in the total counts. The old punch-card, mark-sense FEC standards permitted a 2-3% margin of error for these type machines while allowing a 0% error for DRE type machines. In a close election a 2% error can be the difference between winning and losing.
So how does using absentee ballots guarantee your vote is counted accurately. In fact, it doesn’t.
So what do we do? Current DRE and “touch-vote” election systems try to attack the problem by printing the voter choices on paper, secure from the voter by placing the printout behind a transparent screen. The voter can “review” the ballot and call the voting machine operator if there are discrepancies. That, to me, compromises secrecy of the ballot since the machine operator must see what is printed when the invalidate the printout. This is the only method the industry has come up with in their attempt to solve the problem.
I’ve got a solution and am currently working on preparing a patent submittal on the solution. In brief, the voter is given the capability to audit his or her own ballot; they can verify the produced printed ballot accurately represents choice they made on the touch-screen, they can verify the scanning process reads the ballot correctly with 100% accuracy, and after the election they can verify their ballot was included in the published election results. Each voter validates his or her own ballot, the official ballot is in viewable, printed paper form and retained by the voting machine, and a recount of all the ballots is possible in minimal time with zero potential for error. The system cannot be “hacked” as it is never connected to external access.
I realize I have provided no details on how to do this …. but will make a complete disclosure as soon as I have filed for the patents on this system. If you wish, I’ll make sure you receive a copy of the system description and methods when it is available.
/s/ Robert J. Boram
e-mail: bob.boram@yahoo.com