Iowans for Voting
Integrity is a nonpartisan, grassroots group of citizens
working for voting systems worthy of the public trust.
We support voter-marked paper ballots for all Iowa
voters, ballot-marking devices to serve voters with
disabilities, random hand audits to ensure accurate
computer vote tallies, public disclosure of election
software, the right to full public examination of
election records, and the administration of elections by
public employees.
June 21, 2009 -
The New York Times has published a
powerful editorial urging the House of
Representatives to pass the Voter Confidence and
Increased Accessibility Act of 2009. "Electronic
voting machines that do not produce a paper
record of every vote cast cannot be trusted. In
2008, more than one-third of the states,
including New Jersey and Texas, still did not
require all votes to be recorded on paper.
Representative Rush Holt has introduced a good
bill that would ban paperless
electronic voting in all federal elections.
Congress should pass it while there is still
time to get ready for 2010."
Read the complete editorial (Note:
the editorial states that HR 2894 would require
paper ballots for every vote cast in 2010. In
fact, only some states must convert to paper
ballots by 2010; until 2014, states may continue
to use voting machines that currently produce a
cash-register type of printout for voters to
view . By 2014, all states must convert to paper
ballots.)
Iowa's Residual Votes Offer a Lesson: Choose
Paper for Voting
Iowans for Voting Integrity Press Release
November 6, 2007 -
Voters in today's elections have a good reason
to choose paper ballots over touch screen voting
machines if they have the option.
A review of all statewide races in Iowa's 2006
General Election shows that voter-marked paper
ballots read by optical scanners had the lowest
rate of residual votes, and that use of touch
screen electronic voting machines correlated
with a higher residual vote rate.
California's Voting Machine Review: What It Says
About Iowa's Diebold Systems
August 10, 2007
- "We
are not optimistic that stricter
chain-of-custody controls will prove effective
in addressing the vulnerabilities identified in
this report."1
That is
a quote from a review commissioned by California
Secretary of State Debra Bowen to study the same
Diebold voting systems used in 71 Iowa counties.
The review team, led by David Wagner of the
University of California-Berkeley, also compares
the systems to “an oceanliner built
without watertight doors.”2
Old vulnerabilities, including some that Diebold
claimed to have fixed, were confirmed, and even
worse problems were found. Pre-election ballot
testing would not protect a county against
malicious code in its systems.
California has reviewed, decertified, and
conditionally recertified, the voting systems
from Diebold, Sequioa, and Hart Intercivic.
Iowa uses only two voting system vendors:
Diebold, and Election Systems and Software
(ES&S). Bowen's office did not
get ES&S code or documentation in time for the
review, but will review their systems in the
near future.
Bowen
will soon issue new standards for hand-count
ballot audits, and she is severely restricting
the use of touchscreen direct-electronic voting
machines.
Click here to read Secretary Bowen's
decision on Diebold systems, and
click
here for a summary of vulnerabilities
found in the review
