Californians, Protect the Accuracy and Veracity of Your Vote

Californians, Protect the Accuracy and Veracity of Your Vote

Contributed by Working Assets

Touch-screen voting machines that have no paper trails or system for voters to verify that their votes are being recorded correctly endanger the integrity of our elections and the very core of our democracy. The problem with electronic voting machines as they are currently used in the U.S. is that voters have no way of knowing whether the machine actually recorded their ballots as voters intended. In response to concerns about current and pending purchases of touch-screen electronic voting equipment in California, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley created an ad hoc task force and has recently released a report of their recommendations.

The good news is that several members of this task force made a crucial recommendation: that a voter verifiable audit trail be required on all voting equipment. With voter verification, the individual voter checks the accuracy of the ballot, ensuring that ballots are recorded and counted as intended.

However, there is disagreement on when and how voter verification should be achieved. The majority of the committee want the voter verifiable audit trail requirement to be imposed on voting machine vendors beginning in 2007, and equipment purchased before that time would not be required to be modified to include a voter verifiable audit trail (VVAT) until 2010. Other members argued vigorously that a voter verifiable audit trail requirement should be imposed immediately.

The problem with waiting is that thousands of touch-screen machines will be purchased between now and 2007. As many as 50% of all Californians will be using paperless touch-screen computer equipment to cast their votes by that time if currently planned purchases occur. If we wait, hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on equipment that does not meet the proposed requirements, and the State could be faced with a potentially large bill for the upgrades in 2010. This could even further delay the implementation of voter verification.

Since the task force was purely advisory, Secretary Shelley must now decide what to do. He has opened up a 30 day comment period and is encouraging comments on the Task Force's recommendations. This is our chance to speak up and let Mr. Shelley know how the voting public truly feels about this issue. Otherwise, the only people he will hear from are the few strong advocates of electronic voting, including the companies selling the touch-screen machines.

With another presidential election on the horizon in 2004, we cannot take unnecessary risks with our vote. It's crucial that Californians, and all Americans, have full confidence in our election and voting systems, are convinced that our votes still do count and that our system is accurate, tamper-proof and error-proof.

Call to actionUrge Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to protect the integrity of your vote and impose a requirement for a voter verifiable audit trail for all voting equipment immediately rather than waiting until 2007.

Deadline: August 1, 2003



Peter's note: Below is link to a long, but interesting, article on how vote manipulation is/can be accomplished:

http://pushhamburger.com/black.htm