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A RESOLUTION FOR THE RESPONSIBLE CONVERSION OF THE LANCASTER COUNTY VOTING SYSTEM
Adopted by the LCDC Executive Committee Also see: Ensuring Voting Integrity in Lancaster County Whereas, numerous studies have documented failures and weaknesses of electronic voting systems, including the General Accountability Office report of September, 2005 [GAO-05-956], which cites “significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems” that have resulted in inaccurate election results; and, Whereas, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) mandates states to upgrade their existing punch card and lever machine systems to comply withstated requirements for manual audit capacity, accessibility for the disabled, and voter correction of voting selections before the ballot is cast, and to report by January 1, 2006, their selected voting system to meet the requirements of the Act; and, Whereas, federal standards and procedures for security and reliability have not been fully developed and the certification process for voting systems remains primarily in control of the voting machine vendors; and, Whereas, anticipated costs of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems are considerably higher than alternative compliant systems; Therefore, Be It Resolved:
BACKGROUND Irregularities in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections brought to light weaknesses in our country’s voting systems, both real and perceived. Since 2000, Congressional hearings have been held, several studies have been commissioned by universities and government entities, and many watchdog groups have been formed to investigate and report their findings on voting systems and election integrity. In September 2005, the General Accountability Office (GAO)—a US government, nonpartisan auditing organization—issued a report [GAO-05-956] raising “significant concerns about the security and reliability of electronic voting systems”. The report goes on to say that “some of these concerns have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes”. Congressional reaction to the 2000 presidential election debacle was to focus on the voting machinery, passing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002 to provide funding for states to upgrade their voting machines to comply with generally-stated requirements for manual audit capacity, accessibility for the disabled, and voter confirmation of their ballot choices. With the “help” of voting machine vendors, most states have interpreted compliance with HAVA to mean installation of electronic voting machines, although nowhere in the HAVA legislation is the requirement to replace existing voting systems with electronic equipment. Voting miscounts and equipment breakdowns in the 2004 and 2005 elections have proved the substitution of electronic voting machines in place of punch card and lever machines has not fixed the problem, and has, in the process, cost local governments millions of dollars beyond the HAVA funding allowances. Across the country, paperless DRE systems have resulted in lost ballots, ghost ballots (i.e., more votes than voters), count limits in tabulation software resulting in counting backwards, votes jumping from one candidate on the screen to another, incorrect ballots shown on the screen, voting miscounts, negative vote counts, machine breakdowns, and failed machine startups. In Miami Dade County, Florida, election officials have recommended throwing out their ES&S paperless touch-screen (DRE) voting system after a coding error lost hundreds of votes in 6 elections and Election Day costs had more than tripled. THE PROBLEM The HAVA deadline for states to meet the requirements is January 1, 2006. If Lancaster County opts for DREs or full-face push button (e.g., Danaher) systems, it must choose only among those certified by the Pennsylvania Department of State’s Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation. According to their website, only 3 systems have been certified to date, and one of those is certified subject to restrictions. This certification process is no guarantee of a secure and reliable voting system. Although HAVA established the Election Assistance Commission to set minimum standards for election administration, the GAO report notes that “important changes to the voting standards have not yet been completed, the system certification and laboratory accreditation programs are still in development, and a system software library has not been updated or improved since the 2004 election.” To fill the breach, individual states have passed legislation to set their own standards to assure voters of accurate elections. Electronic system flaws have forced election officials to recognize the urgent need for a voter-verified paper ballot that can provide an independent check on the machine count through random sample hand counts as part of the Election Day procedures. No systems currently require voters to verify their ballots. To remedy this problem, 25 states have passed legislation requiring voter-verified paper ballots “(a) to increase citizens’ confidence that their vote will be counted accurately, (b) to allow for a recount, (c) to provide a backup in cases of loss of votes due to computer malfunction, and (d) to test – through a random selection of machines – whether the paper result is the same as the electronic result”[Quote from the Carter-Baker Commission report on federal election reform.] Pennsylvania’s legislature has two companion bills pending, HB 2000 (House) and SB 977 (Senate), that would require a voter verified paper record of every vote and a routine random manual audit of 5% of the state's precincts.In the US Congress, HR 550, considered the “gold standard” for electronic voting by Verified Voting.org, is waiting to be brought to the House floor. This bill requires voter-verified paper ballots, provisions for mandatory manual audits to confirm that voting machines are working properly, increased security requirements, and prohibits undisclosed software. The “undisclosed software” prohibition in HR 550 is included to shift control of the voting machine functions from the vendors back to the local election officials.The use of open source code reduces the opaqueness of “black box” computer systems, allowing states to directly examine program code for suspicious code or unwanted functions, reducing the possibility of fraud and error. North Carolina has passed and upheld in state courts laws requiring voting machine vendors to open their software code to inspection. Federal courts have previously ruled in favor of the vendors, preferring to “protect trade secrets” to protecting the voters’ right to have their votes recorded, counted, and reported accurately. In the absence of federal regulation, Diebold is considering not selling new equipment in the state rather than comply with North Carolina’s state laws. [UPDATE: As of 12/1/05, North Carolina has certified Diebold’s system despite the company’s noncompliance with its own elections laws.] The passage of HR 550 would support states’ efforts to restore local responsibility for voting system management. A looming compliance deadline, lack of standards for security and reliability, helpful legislation stalled in committee, and the prospect of an explosion in election administration costs face Lancaster County and counties across the country. States are fighting back. Connecticut has formally requested a ruling from the US Department of Justice on the legality of keeping their lever machine system. H.R. 3163 was introduced to the US House of Representatives on June 30, 2005, to postpone the HAVA compliance deadline by 4 years. Local voting reform activists, such as the Coalition for Voting Integrity based in Bucks County, PA, are setting up websites to inform the public and the media of the issues at stake. HOW DID WE GET HERE?..... In a nutshell, we got “here” because our government, with our complicity as voters, has allowed our election systems to be designed, built, and managed by private, profit-driven companies.
Christopher Bollyn, of the American Free Press, summed the situation up in a November 23, 2005, article on vendor ES&S: “What this means on Election Day is that ES&S, a private company, manages everything about the voting, from voter registration, the printing of ballots, the programming of the voting machines, the counting and tabulation of the votes and the final reporting of the results—for 60 million Americans in 47 states.” AND WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
"Let Us Never Forget That Government Is Ourselves And Not An Alien Power Over Us. The Ultimate Rulers Of Our Democracy Are Not A President And Senators And Congressmen And Government Officials, But The Voters Of This Country” . “Democracy Begins With The Integrity Of Our Vote … And Ends Without It!” -- Coalition for Voting Integrity The federal government is missing in action. Our state government has been sold a bill of goods by the voting machine industry, steering the political wind in the direction of paperless Direct Recording Electronic (touch-screen) voting systems in Pennsylvania. The integrity of our county elections is up to us, the voters. The Lancaster County Democratic Committee must persuade our County Commissioners, through a well-publicized resolution, to recognize the weaknesses of the electronic voting systems and to put in place a system of checks and balances that will prevent these weaknesses from corrupting our voting process. In testimony before the Commission on Federal Election Reform (Carter-Baker Commission) earlier this year (2005), David L. Dill, professor of Computer Science at Stanford, explained, “The real job of an election is not to convince the winners that they won, but to convince the losers that they lost. So, it is not sufficient that election results be accurate; the public must know that the results are accurate. That can only be achieved by making election processes as transparent as possible. Unfortunately, paperless e-voting technology is almost totally opaque. Voters have no means to confirm that the machines have recorded their votes correctly, nor will they have any assurance that their votes won’t be changed later.” This end can be achieved, in compliance with HAVA, by several optional systems:
Cost comparison studies have shown that both paper ballot systems and optical scan systems cost less to install and maintain than DRE voting systems. HAVA funds average out to cover only 1/3 of the conversion costs, and none of the ongoing maintenance costs. Anecdotal evidence from the founder of the Coalition for Voting Integrity, Mary Ann Gould, indicates that DRE equipment has a shorter lifespan than optical scanning equipment, which has a track record in elections for reliability of over 20 years. New Yorkers for Verified Voting have, on their website, quoted Mayor Kristin Jacobs in Florida: “I understand that we’ve invested a lot of money in the electronic machines, but I would be more comfortable with optical scan because it gives you’re the ease of computerization and a paper trail….Hindsight is 20-20. In retrospect I probably would have gone with optical scan but we’re beyond that now…” The New York State League of Women Voters has gone on record supporting the optical scan voting system. Some protection from system obsolescence and cost overruns can be obtained by leasing rather than purchasing the equipment.
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