garybeck: Understanding the difference between paper ballots and paper au.

[Wilms]

Election bills still allow unverified e-voting

Understanding the difference between paper ballots and paper audit trails

March 16, 2005

Gary Beckwith

With all the pending legislation in Congress designed to fix our electoral system, it is important for concerned citizens to learn and understand just what the bills would require and what they wouldn't.

One key issue is how the various bills attempt to prevent fraud by requiring a "paper trail" on computerized voting machines. In order to understand just how the bills accomplish this, and judge whether or not they solve the problem, it is important to recognize the difference between a Voter-Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB) and a Voter-Verifield Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

All the current legislation calls for VVPAT, not VVPB. But does it make a difference?

Here is why the distinction makes a world of difference.

snip

http://www.solarbus.org/election/articles/0313-ballots.shtml

[garybeck]

1. thanks for reposting this, however I must say that I have changed my view

since I wrote this article.

technically it is correct. however, when we look at the difference between opscan and DRE, I am not convinced that opscans help us anymore. they do offer some advantages - there is a paper record for recounts and audits. and they system is less vulnerable to hacking because the public does not have a direct connection to the system.

however, when you get down to the nitty gritty of vote counting, opscans and dre's are essentially the same.

a DRE takes a human vote and converts it into an electronic vote. There is nothing to ensure that it is done correctly. A vote for "A" could be changed to a vote for "B" by design or by error.

by comparison, an opscan takes the vote on the piece of paper and converts it to an electronic vote. Likewise, there is nothing to ensure it is done correctly. Votes could be switched by design or by error. The only difference really is that there is a paper record which could be checked if there was a recount or audit.

the actual moment that the vote is transformed into an electronic vote, in both cases, is virtually identical, technically speaking. both are done without observation and with no checks and balances to ensure it was done correctly. both are done on proprietary computers with proprietary software. in short, both are done in secret, behind closed and locked doors. Our entire democracy is in the hands of a few people who write the software, and no one gets to see it. We just get the results and a "trust us" smile.

So while it is true that opscan and paper ballots offer a slight advantage, all the problems still exist. We have to go for the real problem which is the proprietary software, the secret vote counting, and the auditless systems. this applies to all forms of electronic voting, whether they are DRE or opscan with paper ballots.

we need audits

we need open source code

gb

[kster]

2. Flip Flopper !!

just kidding, I was believing it could be secured also, but as you said, once you get into the nitty gritty of it all, We need a Hand count first and foremost then we can let them scan the ballots till their hands f*cking fall off, for all I care.

[garybeck]

4. well...... (!)

I'd call it "expanding" more than "flip flopping." In the original article, I don't endorse one or the other, I just try to explain the difference, which is still correct. I still believe that optical scan systems can be made safe, if checks and balances are put in place. With proprietary code and secret vote counting, forget it. It sort of bothers me that a lot of the "progress" that has been made is in getting counties to drop Diebold, but then they just go to ESS instead, which is still proprietary. Do we gain anything?

[Wilms]

3. I agree completely.

Afterall, look what happened with OpScan and bad, if not, fraudulent ballot programming.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=407467&mesg_id=407486