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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.
Read the
complete press release, as well as the
full results of the study and
election data used to compile results.
Undervotes in Iowa's 2006 Governor's Race Show
Paper Ballots the Most Reliable Voting System
Iowans for Voting Integrity Press Release
September 13, 2007 -
In the 2006 Governor's race, Iowa counties that
used precinct-based optical scan as the primary
voting system had a cumulative undervote for
Governor of 0.9%, and counties that used touch
screen electronic voting machines as the primary
voting system had a cumulative undervote of
2.4%.
Read
the full
press release, as well as
background and the
full results of the Iowans for Voting
Integrity's study.
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."
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.”
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
Alert: Pass The Voter Confidence And Increased
Accessibility Act
May 14, 2007 -
National legislation to protect the accuracy of
our elections is a step closer to becoming law.
HR 811, a bill requiring
voter-verified paper records, random
hand count audits to check electronic
tallies, and
independent testing of voting systems
will soon get a vote in the House of
Representatives.
We need your help to keep the momentum going.
Contact your Congressman and call on him to
support HR 811, the
Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility
Act.
Call the House switchboard at 202-224-3121 and
ask to be connected to your Representative.
Congressmen
Bruce Braley,
Leonard Boswell, and
Dave Loebsack
are cosponsors.
Thank them for their support and tell them to
keep the pressure on. If you live in
Tom Latham's
or
Steve King's
districts, tell them to join Republicans Frank
Wolf of Virginia, Darrell Issa of California,
and Greg Walden of Oregon and get on board.
Read more.
House Passes SF 369! Paperless Voting To End By
November 2008 Election
Iowans for Voting
Integrity Press Release
North Liberty, IA, April 28, 2007 - Noting that
more work still needs to be done to secure the
accuracy of Iowa's elections, a citizens'
advocacy group praised legislation passed by the
Iowa House of Representatives today. Senate File
369, which passed the Senate in March, cleared
the House 52-42 Saturday afternoon. SF 369
brings an end to paperless electronic voting in
Iowa, and will eventually make voter-marked
paper ballots the universal standard in Iowa
elections.
Read more.
Alert: Urge Governor Culver To Sign Funding For
Voter-Marked Paper Ballots
Update
April 28, 2007- The Governor has apparently
agreed to sign an appropriation of $2 million
for grants to counties need to purchase new
equipment to meet the requirements of SF 369.
April 27, 2007-
Senate File 369, a bill that requires a
“paper trail” and that will phase out use of
Direct Recording Electronic (or DRE touchscreen)
voting machines, has cleared the Iowa Senate and
is poised for passage in the House as well.
Beginning in November 2008, "paperless" voting
will be a thing of the past in Iowa, as only
paper ballots or DREs with voter-verified paper
records will be allowed. Plus, whenever a county
needs to replace a DRE machine, it will be
required to switch to paper-ballot based,
optical scan voting systems, with ballot-marking
devices to serve voters with disabilities.
Not wanting SF 369
to be an unfunded mandate, the House of
Representatives has allocated $4.5 million in
funds to enable this critical upgrade. The $4.5
million is part of House File 911, which
allocates money from the Rebuild Iowa
Infrastructure Fund. This amount will enable
those counties wishing to switch out their DRE
machines for Optical Scan machines to do so now.
Word has come that
the Governor is not sure whether to approve
the $4.5 million in funds. It is possible he
will line-item veto the appropriation.
Read more and
take action.
Paper Ballots: The Most Reliable Form Of
Voter-Verified Paper Record
March 5, 2007- The
Iowa General Assembly is considering legislation
to require a voter-verified paper record for all
voting machines used in the state. We welcome
this as a significant first step toward verified
elections. However, there is a cumbersome and
problematic way to implement this goal, and a
more practical and reliable way. It is time for
Iowa to make voter-marked paper ballots the
standard for our elections, rather than simply
add unreliable printers to our electronic voting
machines.
Click
here to read more and take action!
Paperless Voting Widespread In Iowa
Numerous independent
reports have warned that today's electronic
voting machines are prone to error and
vulnerable to fraud. Particularly risky
are machines that have no paper ballot or record
for voters to verify.
18 Iowa counties use
paperless touchscreen voting machines as their
only voting system. 60 counties use a blend of
paper ballot scanners with a touchscreen in each
polling place. These
paperless
touchscreen voting machines were widely used in
Iowa's June 2006 primary. The Secretary of
State's office will report data soon on the use
of touchscreens in the November election.
A
survey by IVI revealed that statewide, an
estimated 25 percent of voters used one of these
machines rather than voting on a paper ballot in
the June primary. About
10 percent of Iowa voters are in the 18 counties
that use only touchscreens at the polls.
However, in another 60 counties, voters could
choose to vote either on paper ballots/optical
scan or on a touchscreen. Unfortunately, far
too many voters opted for the touchscreens – up
to 75 percent of voters in some counties!
To
read more about IVI’s survey,
click
here.
RECENT VOTING NEWS
Federal Panel To Recommend Scrapping Paperless
Touchscreens
November 30, 2006-
The National Institute of Standards and
Technology, a federal panel that sets guidelines
Iowa requires its voting systems to follow, may
soon recommend ending the era of touchscreen
machines that lack an independent paper record
of each vote cast, according to an article at
internetnews.com.
Now that the end of
paperless voting appears to be drawing near, the
Iowa General Assembly has more reason than ever
to to take up ballot integrity legislation next
year. IVI is hard at work on a paper describing
measures that should be included in
voting-system legislation. We support converting
to optical-scan paper ballots across the state,
hand audits of precincts, transparently random
selection methods in all auditing procedures,
disclosure of voting software, and state panel
of experts that can do meaningful evaluation of
the inner workings of voting systems.
David Yepsen: Iowa Should Adopt Paper Ballots
Statewide
November 17, 2006-
David Yepsen is the dean of the state's
political writers. In Thursday's
Des Moines Register, he endorsed going to a
statewide system of paper ballots. Yepsen writes
of converting all counties in the state back to
paper ballots, "It would be worth the expense to
restore public confidence in our elections,
especially in a state like Iowa, where so many
important elections are decided by narrow
margins."
Iowans for Voting Integrity strongly supports a
statewide system of optically scanned paper
ballots. In October, IVI co-chair Carole Simmons
made the case for going beyond "the paper trail"
and back to paper ballots at the Iowa League of
Women Voters Legislative Issues Briefing in West
Des Moines.
With ballot marking
devices available for disabled access, there is
no reason to depend on unreliable touchscreens
to count any votes. In the next few days, we
will publish a more detailed set of provisions
that should be included in election integrity
legislation for Iowa.
In the meantime, supporters of paper ballots
should thank David Yepsen for writing on the
subject of voting integrity, and recognizing the
value of voting systems worthy of the public
trust.
Iowa's Doug Jones Speaks Out On Florida
Touchscreen Snafu
"It really does
matter to all of us around the country who use
touch screen machines why such a preposterously
large percentage of the population didn't have
their votes counted." -Doug
Jones, University of Iowa professor and
voting machine expert
November 12, 2006-
In Florida's 13th Congressional District, a type
of touchscreen voting machine used in 7 Iowa
counties registered a disturbing number of
undervotes for the U.S.House race. In early
voting, some voters, including a candidate for
the Florida House of Representatives, stated
that they voted the race correctly but saw
no vote recorded once they reached the final
verification screen.
CBS News has more coverage today, and quotes
Professor Jones on the futility of a recount
with these paperless touchscreens.
77 Iowa counties use paperless machines,
from either Election Systems and Software or
Diebold Election Systems.
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Blended Counties In Iowa Will Recount State Senate
Election
UPDATE:
November 14, 2006- Candidate Jim
Kurtenbach has decided not to seek a recount,
according to the November 14
Ames Tribune (registration required).
With 50 votes separating the two candidates
(11,174 for Democrat Rich Olive, and 11,124 for
Republican Kurtenbach), this election offers yet
another example of the need for verifiable,
recountable elections. Luckily the problem in
this election involved the paper ballots; had it
involved the registering of votes on the
touchscreens, we may never have known the real
winner.
November 8, 2006- District 5 of the
Iowa State Senate
will have a recount,
because some paper ballot scanners did not
register the votes correctly due to the
positioning of the candidates' names on the
ballot. The counties in District
5, Story and Wright, are "blended" counties that
use both paper ballot scanners and touchscreens
(known as direct recording electronic, or DRE,
systems),
both from Diebold Election Systems. See
also an
Ames Tribune article on the recount
(registration required).
With optical
scanning there are paper ballots to check for
problems registering votes. Not so with
paperless DREs.
In Virginia, A Lesson For Iowa
November 8, 2006 -
Elections in
Virginia and Iowa have something in common: in
both states a large percentage of voters cast
their votes on touchscreen machines, and neither
state requires that the machines even offer a
voter-verified paper record.
It appears this
afternoon that Virginia's U.S. Senate election
may be
headed for a recount.
Wish the candidates and the voters luck.
For
the majority of counties in Virginia,
a recount means printing out a digital record of the touchscreen machines' vote results, and
earnest hope that the computer recorded the votes correctly.
Johns Hopkins
University computer expert Avi Rubin said it
best:
a meaningful recount in Virginia is not possible.
Whether or not a
recount occurs, the election was so close that
most citizens can agree that it is reasonable to
consider one. Control of the
United States Senate hinges on the votes
recorded on these machines in Virginia. The
Pottawattamie County election
last June already gave Iowa a powerful reminder of
the need for verifiable elections. Iowa, along
with the entire nation, just got another
reminder from the 2006 Virginia Senate election.
Who wants to see a statewide Iowa election this close
that can't be truly recounted? When the
Iowa General Assembly convenes in January, it
should act immediately to end the era of
paperless voting.
Nationwide: All Four Major E-Voting Machines
Flip Votes In Early Voting
by Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA
November 5, 2006
Early voting in five
states showed that voters' choice are being
flipped to the opposite candidate on all four
major e-voting machines — Diebold TSx, Sequoia
Edge, ES&S iVotronic, and Hart InterCivic eSlate.
Click here
to read more.
Iowans Urged To
Vote On Paper Ballots November 7
Fairfield, Iowa, October 30, 2006 – A citizens’
advocacy group is urging Iowans to vote
only on paper ballots in the November 7
election, and not to use the state’s new
touchscreen machines.
A survey by the group Iowans for Voting
Integrity (IVI) found that one-fourth of Iowa
voters used the touchscreens in the June 2006
primary. They would like to see that percentage
drastically lowered in next week’s election.
Says IVI chair Carole Simmons, “With touchscreen
machines, votes are recorded as a chunk of
computer code that the voter cannot view. This
leaves the door open for error or fraud. And
with no voter-verified paper record, there is no
sure way a recount or audit would be able to
prove that a mistake had occurred.”
Click here
for full text of press release.
Malicious Software On Voting Machines Could Pass
Through Pre-Election Testing
In the November 2
Des Moines Register article on voting
machines, Deputy Secretary of State Charles
Krogmeier stated that pre-election testing of
voting machines should detect malicious
programming.
Krogmeier was quoted as saying, "We try to be
exhaustive in testing the combinations of votes,
and if the machines have been programmed to,
say, shave off every 10th vote, that should pop
up."
Experts have long warned that malicious code
could evade testing. This summer, the Brennan
Center for Justice released a highly respected
report on voting system security, the "The
Machinery of Democracy." The Brennan Center
report states that vote-switching software could
evade testing by running only during certain
days and times or by running only when the
machine has been in operation longer than the
usual length of a test.
Click here
to read more.
Where
They Stand: Candidates for Iowa's Top Election Job
Answer Our Questions Iowans
for Voting Integrity recently sent a questionnaire
to both the Democratic and Republican candidates
for Iowa Secretary of State. We asked the
candidates for their thoughts on seven questions
of importance to the integrity of our voting
systems. Click here
to read the survey.
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