Reply #32: i think the big rift in the e-voting movement on this bill is

[Cookie wookie]

just bottom line about banning DREs or all forms of electronic voting including optical scan and thinking the situation can be improved by HR811 or that there can be no improvement but a total ban.

To generalize, I'd say that those who support the bill, especially in states with paperless DREs, want to have paper, any kind of paper rather than no paper and want to have audits, especially since the Holt bill requires manual hand counts for audits and recounts. When they find they have no other options and can't get, say a DRE ban, or perfect audit protocols, or everything that we need to make our voting system secure, transparent, accurate and verifiable, they are willing to grit their teeth and accept incremental improvement legislatively . They don't see incrementalism as a "danger to democracy" or a sell out, they aren't corrupt, but rather they grudgingly accept that this is the way the Democratic process works. All the while fighting to get what we really need. These are people who are able to live with ambiguity and accept progress not perfection. They tend to be more pragmatic than dramatic, more seasoned in the ways of the Democratic process, and generally are better able to work with legislators to get the maximum benefits possible in a system that resists change.

The paperless DRE states, in 2006, included the following:
Entirely paperless DREs for voting on election day - DE, GA, LA, MD, SC, TN
Some paperless DRE jurisdictions: AR (3 counties), CO, DC, FL, IN, IA, KY, KS, MS (2 counties), NJ, PA, TX, WI (1 county),
VA opscan & paperless DREs.

Without HR811, citizens in these states may likely once again end up in the 2008 election voting on paperless DREs again. The supporters of the bill worry that another election will be stolen and believe that not only will the bill discourage the purchase of new DREs and provide funds to buy optical scan systems (like for MD & VA, who have bills but no money), but will give them some evidence even if not enough to move the issue of a DRE ban even further forward. There are other things in the bill that would be good, like paper ballots if machines can't be used, and rules on how ITAs handle business, and bans on internet connections and wireless.

The Holt Bill would give them "some kind of verified voting". Even if the rotten paper trails of the toilet paper roll DREs can barely be audited, it is more than nothing, a way to possibly catch election fraud. For those of us who have tried for years to audit elections on paperless DREs, it really is a case of better than nothing. Kind of like someone who breaks a leg when hiking in the mountains and uses branches and shoe laces to tie on a split for the trip out. They don't sit and wait for god to come down from heaven to take care of the problem. These are people who work within the reality (as they see it) of the system.

Now to generalize about those who oppose the bill. They see getting something that's better than nothing as worse than nothing. They think that the bill will further entrench DREs because it doesn't ban them (nor does it mandate them). They think that only a bill that totally bans DREs is good enough. There are also the hand counted paper ballot people who want nothing else. That there is no support for it in the states by the people who have the power -- election officials & legislators -- doesn't faze them. They are the purists. If you compromise you lose. They would rather have no audits and no paper than the wrong audits and the wrong paper if it's coming from a DRE, or even for some, used in optiscan.

They know the problems with trying to verify paper trails printed by DREs, they know the research that showed that people didn't look at the paper to confirm their votes, they know that trying to count the toilet paper roll ballots is one hellacious job -- intentionally designed it to be a really wrong way to count votes, not really intended to be counted, but to give a false sense of solving the verifiabilty problem . They know if the paper isn't hand counted, and electronic totals are used, then certainly this means that the paper is meaningless. Of course that is correct. They don't want electronic counts to be ballots of record. Those are ballots of record now in I think most DRE states, so killing the bill won't stop that, but as I said, they are the purists.

They may feel desperate or be desperate to get rid of DREs but they so far have been unable to work within the system to get change because for them it's all or nothing, and that isn't the way the system works, at least most of the time.

The reason people are confused is that both sides are right (except, of course when they mislead people either accidentally or intentionally).

I think of the Vietnam antiwar movement. I think everything that was done to stop the war, whether from those who tried to work within the system or from those who worked outside the system, it all eventually cumulatively worked.

Maybe because so many of us are concerned that if we don't get verifiable, transparent, secure elections soon we may not have any elections or democracy, that is what makes everyone so adamant and passionate about their positions.

For what it's worth, my opinion.