Is there an alternative to DRE's that'll accomodate HAVA?

Votepad seems to be mentioned a lot when addressing this question, but it seems that it is not "HAVA certified." Does anybody know of any possible alternative to DRE's that can accomodate HAVA -not being a DRE, while accomodating all the stuff in HAVA about disabled voters?

requirement through DRE's by 2007, I believe. It's in this article, toward the end.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0606/S00193.htm

The way it looks is, if you have DRE's you've met the handicapped voter requirments. No other technology has that status. Thereofre, it pushes counties in this direction.

Sad but true...and, yes, it lacks any good sense.

A vocal senator or somebody along those lines before 2006?

majorlegislation. The Holt550 bill has been around with lots of co sponsors and hasn't made it yet.

Plus, I think the bill is doing what it was setup to do, cram these DREs down ouiri throats.

What's that supposed to do?

Vote Act to ad "voter verified paper ballots" to voting machines, touch screens (DREs), and provides for audits where certain questions are raised (like 1-2% of the total vote allocated in some fashion).
House Resolution 550 (HR) is sponsored by Cong. Russ Holt, D, NJ.

It's been around for at least two sessions of Congress and has over 150 co-sponsors. It may or may not pass but it's too late for 2006 and it lacks the comprehensvie requirements to really clean up the
voting system. If they wanted to, Congress could do it in about two weeks but even with Holt which is not radical at all, they take their sweet time.

I think its also due to the lack of what the market has been providing....and by that I mean you have 3-4-5? major companies...the three we all know and love, and then a few random stragglers wandering around trying to get certified under these requirements. DRE is not the only solution, but if you only see one option out there to satisfy the requirement of making voting more accessible to all....then you have to get more creative. I only know of a few devices out there at the moment, I think they may be positioned to gain ground vs the DRE's in the next two months or so, but we gotta remember that deadlines are always looming and the overall HAVA funding deadlines are gonna be upon us rather soon....2007 was it? maybe '08, then of course there will be supplemental bills b/c SoS will be committed to maintaining these purchases...but thats' more up in the air and depends on the political winds at that point in time.
my 2 cents
-cc

the throats of the boards of elections.

This is the magic bullet. This says, if you are a board of elections and you want to make sure you have no problems AT ALL with suits etc., you will get DRE's, one for each "polling place." If you have one, why not several for everybody. It's very clever. Any organization is risk averse these days and being able to rule out a law suit is always a plus, particularly when someone else is paying for the equipment.

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APPENDIX
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00233.htm#6

A. Key Help America Vote Act 2002 language.


(3) Accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The voting system shall--
(A) be accessible for individuals with disabilities, including non visual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters;
(B) satisfy the requirement of subparagraph (A) through the use of at least one direct recording electronic voting system or other voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities at each polling place; and
(C) if purchased with funds made available under title II <42 USCS §§ 15321 et seq.> on or after January 1, 2007, meet the voting system standards for disability access (as outlined in this paragraph).

- SEC. 301. VOTING SYSTEMS STANDARDS. (a)(3)


This section of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 illustrates a number of key arguments made in this article. Notice how clause “(C)”is subordinate to the word “shall” in the first line, “(3)”

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This could all be so simple. There are a few paper based systems out there with see through ballot boxes, etc. that look really great. But noooooo.... that would make too much sense.

A survey of voters with handicaps in upstate new your, 200 or so, found that 90% wanted to continue to vote as they had in the past, absentee.

I wonder what "market test" was done by the HAVA folks prior to coming up with this strange approach for a group who may not even want it in the first place.

but my bet would be the answer depends on your further qualifications....could there be any electronics involved, in tabulation etc.? or would you want completely hand counting of paper ballots as seems to be a common rallying cry around here....unfortunate because it is unrealistic given the manpower & money it would require to carry out something like that (especially given the coming financial crises we're probably facing in the next few years). We'll need to make a deal with some sort of devil in the form of a op-scan machine...our best hope is to get one based on an open source tabulation code---outsource it to MIT or Berkeley or have em compete even for building the fastest and most accurate tabulating machines....and even then audit the results with 3-10% and make sure it is truly random...hell enlist statistics classes from different high schools to do it as a project every year.

Democracy in America shouldn't be this hard to carry out legitimately...I don't know how we're gonna fix all the stuff that's been messed up due to this effective coup d'etat, but the Dem leadership is atleast beginning to show the seeds of growing a spine (sure in terms of having a vision we're still blind, but baby steps here people)...whether or not the rest of our political body (beltway consultants) is too ill and will wholly reject that spine is left to be seen, but still I am beginning to have true hope for the future, and although i'm not sure its origins, i'm happy, becuase that hasn't been true for a while.
That doesn't really answer your question...but i'll keep this kicked until someone else does
-CC

Far more than switching to hand counts and putting any of those auditing checks in place(and even far more than turning us into an all mail system like Oregon).

i'm gonna now place my remaining 2 dollars on the bet that the american public/media frenzy would not be content with waiting a week for our votes to be counted and the winner announced....this is the age of instant gratification if there ever has been one. There could be arguments made that since other countries base their results on exit polls and then hand count and confirm it later----that we could mimic such a system....but I don't have much faith in american's giving up something they're so used to...just like their big gulps from 7/11...which unless I missed some shocking piece of news, will be here to stay no matter how obese we get

If it does, I'm misinformed. HAVA does have provisions requiring that handicapped voters by accommodated. But that can be done cheaply it seems to me with Vote-Pad, a method in use in CA at present and there are other methods as well. There's no provision of HAVA that prevents a precinct or county from using paper ballots hand-counted.

If I'm wrong, I'd like to know.

And so far there isn't anything other than DRE's that will accomodate the disability requirements.

That is, the SOS hasn't certified it as "HAVA compliant." I just read a short thing on it though, and it looks like we simply need to push harder for it. It sounds like something that wil really work.

we have NO DREs and I have never heard anyone express concern about compliance with HAVA.

for complying with HAVA by the federal government

Different states have certified different machines. DREs are not required by HAVA in any way, shape or form. The AutoMARK ballot marking device is certified in most states and meets HAVA disabled access requirements. It is federally certified for use with the ES&S opscan machines by NASED. VotePAD is perfectly HAVA compliant. Federal certification is not a HAVA requirement. It's a requirement in many states. VotePAD is being used in Wisconsin and CA.

BTW, HR 550 does not lean toward DREs and in many ways leans against their use. It requires a random hand count of 2% of the machines in each state, with at least 1 precinct selected in every county. The bill is not perfect but the idea that it's intended to cram DREs down our throats is a personal opinion of a few activists.

Joan Krawitz (aka hedda_foil)
Executive Director
VoteTrustUSA
http://www.votetrustusa.org

I've been reading that the Votepad, while HAVA compliant, is not being certified by the California Secretary of State as such. Can you tell me how the secretaries of states have treated votepad in other states? It sounds as if -at least with regard to California, that the Secretary of State should have a lot of pressure to certify Votepad in compliance to HAVA. Is it absolutely not necesary for the Secretary of State to certify Votepad, in order for counties to make use of them?

That means a payment of $10,000 to pay for Paul Craft and Steven Freeman to travel to California to examine a totally non-computerized ballot marking system. The payment was made so one can only hope that certification will be forthcoming. The system is completely HAVA compliant. As to whether it's absolutely necessary for the SoS to certify in order for counties to use them, the answer is that it depends on how nervy the county officials are. It would probably take a lawsuit filed by a county election official or VotePAD to get an authoritative answer, and that's a pretty expensive risk to take.

There is enough at stake in the next election, that only an idiot would think that nobody would take advantage of the state of our voting. Are there links you can give me that can update me on the certification process or what else it would entail?

NASED.org will get you the certs list. Yes certification is a driving force behind having these machines rammed down our throats, as Autorank described. CALI SOS must certify before a county can buy it.

It is to be used by the counties in CA that have decided to go all paper rather than use the Diebold machines.

I don't think HAVA certifies anything does it? Isn't that what the individual states do? HAVA is just a law that requires certain conditions be met in elections. Or maybe HAVA has a list of machines that the states can use as a basis for what they certify. Vote-Pad isn't a machine. It's a cheaper (actually rather expensive tho much less expensive than the DRE's since it uses a laser or taser or some such technology in making the voter aware of what he's voting for) way to accommodate the handicapped voter.

You are 100% correct.

If it were certified, we'd be half way there. We still need to count the ballots. I'm guessing that some would want to take the Votepad ballots and feed them through a Diebold scanner, which doesn't solve much. Or am I missing something?

http://vote-pad.com

I also think that making them entirely hand counted is the way to go for now, even if we were to feed them through a scanner to see what the result will be and hand count them before they are certified.

PEOPLE. we must realize, that optical scanners are not better than DREs. If there is no audit, optical scanners are actually MORE vulnerable than DREs, because the memory cards are actually sent to Diebold before every election. It's been proven and verified that anyone who has access to the memory cards can PRE-PROGRAM the winner before the election even takes place.

Not enough, obviously, but a start.

Nearly every time a county chooses not to use a DRE, they choose to use a scanner.

Electronic Vote Counting (OpScan) is actually a more wide-spread problem than Electronic Voting/Counting (DRE).

It amazes me that election rights advocates still think optical scanners are "safe" or part of the solution.

I guess the truth about the Hursti Hack has not been realized yet.

If you look at the 04 election results, there are HUGE red flags in areas that use optical scanners.

AND, when all the memory cards are sent to Diebold before each election, they have the blatant opportunity to program them to rig the election, going undetected as has been proven by independent testing.

we've got to get our act together folks. optical scanners made by private companies is NOT A SOLUTION. If people are in fact rigging elections, we are falling into their trap by thinking we're accomplishing anything by going to optical scanners.

--it is a mechanical system with no electronics involved at all.