An election judge replies to Politech over secure e-voting

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: [Politech] First-hand report of problems with "secure" e-voting
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 11:35:00 -0600
From: César I. BENAVIDES C.
Organization: eden
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Declan:

Please remove my e-mail address if you choose to post this message.

I'm an election judge for this Primary Election for a precinct in central
Texas so I thought I'd pipe in.  Fraud and human error are always threats in
an electoral process, but I believe that we should be looking at these
elections and comparing the respective error rates of electronic and paper
systems before we as an electorate determine which system is safer overall.
This process of comparison will take time.  Personally, I'd prefer to see
more of a paper trail associated with eVoting to make the process more
accountable, but these are not the concerns brought up by your anonymous
reader.  At any rate, my county uses a Hart eSlate system instead of the
Diebold system your reader describes, but the many of the set-up procedures
are similar.

Voting machines are typically dropped off at polling sites a day or two
before an election (Super Tuesday in the case brought up by your reader in
Georgia, I believe).  The machines are inoperative for voting purposes until
they are set-up and connected to a dedicated computer that the election
judge brings with him/her on election day.  In the Diebold system, the
judge's computer loads "ballots" into the machine at setup, then downloads
the results when the polls close.

The "zip tie" tags are seals with unique serial numbers that are checked and
verified during set-up; any sign of tampering and that particular machine
isn't used.  I reckon that repairing a broken plastic seal is beyond the
abilities of most meddlers.

The provisional voting box your reader mentions holds supplies for a
paper-based voting system (electronic in some jurisdictions) meant to allow
people who aren't listed on the voter rolls to vote anyway.  A provisional
ballot is counted later if and only if the voter is found to be eligible
after the appropriate election official researches the matter.  This is a
procedure designed to prevent the problems that came up when voters
complained of being disenfranchised during the last presidential election in
Florida.

The other box your reader mentions likely holds supplies for the election
judges such as tape, pens, and forms needed by the judges to handle
contingencies.

Here is a link to a recent position paper on voting systems in Georgia that
addresses electronic voting security issues in that state in more detail:
http://www.commoncause.org/states/georgia/evs.htm

Here is a link to the text of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) which
addresses some of the issues brought up by your reader:
http://vote.nist.gov/hr3295.pl107252.final.pdf

Here is a link to a site with general eVoting information and related links
to useful position papers:
http://vote.nist.gov/index.html

-c
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