Unitarian Universalists
for Verified Voting
Learn More about Verified Voting --
Q&A
1. What's wrong
with DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting systems?
a. DRE computers conceal the process of
vote recording and vote counting, so that elections become a secret procedure.
Human, public oversight is prevented.
Meaningful independent recounts and
routine audit verification of ballots and tallies are prevented.
All this is contrary to democratic
principles.
DREs are a Danger to Democracy
b. The many failures
of these systems show that they cannot be trusted to work reliably.
Myth Breakers for
Election Officials, pages 3-11
Electronic
Miscounts and Malfunctions in Recent Elections
c. All computer systems in use in
business, industry, and government provide some way to verify their work. These
voting systems are the only exception.
2. Will the use
of DREs simplify elections, and make them more
manageable for Boards of Election that have fewer
resources than they need?
No, proper use of secure computers will
add complexity. Myth
Breakers for Election Officials, pages 12-30
3. These DRE systems are certified, so doesn't that
mean they work?
a. Their many failures show that
certification does NOT mean that they work. See the lists under 1.b above.
b. The interview with MicroVote executives reveals that only about 10% of the
testing that should be done is actually done.
I-Team
8 Interview with MicroVote Executives
c. Newspaper articles reveal other problems
with certification:
The
process is secret and not even Secretaries of State can get answers to
their questions about it.
Vendors pay for their own
certification, creating a conflict
of interest
The law should require certification
reports to be posted on state Board of Election web sites for all to read.
Delays in certification of new products
prevents them from challenging old ones in the marketplace
Vendors have sold one product and
delivered another, or changed the software after delivery, so that elections
have been run with uncertified software.
4. Why do we
want the law to require "Open Source" software? To help with
security!
A Really Open
Election by Clive Thompson, New York Times, May 30, 2004: "... the
counting of votes -- a fundamental of democracy -- ... requires ... ending the secrecy
around the machines. ... the government should ... put
the source code online publicly, where anyone can critique or debug it. This
honors the genius of the open-source movement. If you show
something to a large enough group of critics, they'll notice (and find a way to
remove) almost any possible flaw. If tens of thousands of programmers
are scrutinizing the country's voting software, it's highly unlikely a serious
bug will go uncaught.
Open source software is already in use in Australia.
5. Cost information, showing that the use of
hand-marked paper ballots and optical scanners are less expensive than DREs
Myth Breakers for
Election Officials, pages 37-41 -----
Proposal
for Use of Paper Ballots and Optical Scanners
6. I can't
imagine how people could count the votes paper ballots
by hand.
Report on
hand-counting methods
7. Do we need DREs so that
voters with disabilities can have a private and independent vote?
Tactile ballots
are used in Rhode Island around the world http://www.vogueelection.com/products_automark.html
Computerized ballot-marking devices such as
the Automark enable voters with disabilities to mark the
same paper ballot used by other voters
Electronic
Frontier Foundation white paper on Accessibility and Auditability
8. Why have some advocates for the disabled demanded DREs and opposed voter-verified paper ballots?
Many organizations and individuals who
advocate for the disabled also
advocate for verified voting.
9. Aren't
computers always reliable, honest, and trustworthy?
The Resolution on Electronic
Voting begins:
"Computerized voting equipment is
inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious
tampering."
There are many
problems with all software, not just the software in voting systems.
10. Why should we support Representative Rush Holt's
bill, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, HR2239,
and its companion bill in the US Senate
introduced by Senator Bob Graham, S1980?
11. Summarize and compare the different bills on
verified voting in Congress.
VerifiedVoting.org's
summary and comparison.
12. Is election integrity a partisan issue?
We hope not. Although the majority of
co-sponsors of HR2239 are Democrats, some are Republicans. There are Republican
bills that require a voter-verified paper audit trail in the US House of
Representatives and the US Senate (H.R.4187 from Rep. Steve King of Iowa, and
S.2437 from Sen. John Ensign of Nevada). Regrettably these bills do not require
VVPAT until 2006. We are concerned about
the election in November 2004. H.R.2239/S.1980 are the
only bills that require a verifiable election this year.
Republican support for
voter-verified paper audit trail includes:
The Report of the
Fairfax County Republican Committee, January, 2004, calls on the Virginia
legislature to pass a law requiring disclosed source code, a voter-verifiable
paper trail, and surprise recounts in 0.5% of all precincts. The Washington
Post reported GOP Says
County Was Unprepared, Urges State Control by David Cho,
January 10, 2004.
Congress
Must Act Now to Prevent '04 Election Debacle By Norman Ornstein, Roll Call
Contributing Writer and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Roll Call, March 17, 2004.
The National Federation of Republican
Women (NFRW), one of the largest and most influential women's political
organizations in the United States, announced on Sept 16, 2003, that it would
use AccuPoll's voting technology for the election of
its officers This is the second consecutive election that the NFRW has selected
AccuPoll to conduct its elections.
Dean Heller, Nevada Secretary of
State Blasts Naysayers of Voter Verifiable
Receipts. News Release, March 9, 2004.