tom_thinks

Two pieces of note today concerning this topic. The first concerns the League of Women Voters. Apparently this group, with a long history of supporting voting rights, is officially against requiring a paper trail. Fortunately the rank and file members aren't standing for it From the AP:

E-voting Issue Splits League of Women Voters Some local chapters are so angry that they are flouting regulations and planning to speak against the national stance Friday and Saturday at the league's biennial convention in Washington. They're threatening to nominate new board members and a new candidate for president who would rescind the league's support for paperless voting systems.
``We think the league has in some way failed us,'' said Genevieve Katz, 74, a member of the Oakland, Calif., chapter who has collected more than 700 signatures from members upset with the league's national stance on paperless terminals. ``I can't remember an issue that has gotten members so upset.''
The 130,000-member nonpartisan organization, a champion of social reforms and voting rights since 1920, weighed in on the e-voting controversy last year. Leaders said paperless terminals, which about 30 percent of the electorate will use in the November election, were reliable.
They had ``no reason to believe'' computer terminals would ``steal your vote,'' the league said officially.

'No reason to believe' eh? Shouldn't an organization like this try err on the side of vote integrity? Again from the AP:

In a January special election for a Florida state house seat, 134 people using paperless voting terminals in Broward County failed to cast votes for any candidate. The race was decided by a margin of 12 votes. It's unclear why some voters didn't select candidates; a without a paper trail, poll workers couldn't figure out voters' intentions.
In North Carolina's 2002 general election, a software bug deleted 436 electronic ballots from six paperless machines in two counties. Election Systems & Software Inc., which built the terminals, determined that the machines erroneously thought their memories were full and stopped counting votes, even though voters kept casting ballots.
Earlier this year, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned the use of a paperless system made by Diebold Inc. after he found uncertified software and other problems that ``jeopardized'' the outcome of elections in several counties. At least 20 states have introduced legislation requiring a paper record of every vote cast.

These are only a few examples.
The league's endorsement of paper-less voting is a serious obstacle to creating a verifiable paper trail. Their reasons for supporting these computer voting machines are that they are more accessible to the disabled and that adding printers before the November elections would be far too costly. I also came across this editorial in the NY Times today

The National Federation of the Blind, for instance, has been championing controversial voting machines that do not provide a paper trail. It has attested not only to the machines' accessibility, but also to their security and accuracy — neither of which is within the federation's areas of expertise. What's even more troubling is that the group has accepted a $1 million gift for a new training institute from Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, which put the testimonial on its Web site.

This is truly disturbing, Diebold has coopted this group into supporting their non-verifiable machines. Something that has always bothered me about Diebold (besides the open endorsement of George W. Bush by its CEO), is the fact that Diebold doesn't seem to want to SELL the printers to its voting machines. Would they not stand to make quite an additional profit by adding these printers to their machines? Counties that have already bought Diebold touch-screen machines seem pretty likely to go ahead and buy printers from Diebold, especially if they have a limited time to get these printers operational. Something isn't right here.
Having the disability lobby in their corner seems to be working for paperless voting machine manufacturers, but it really shouldn't be. I strongly agree with the Times on this

The real issue, though, is that disability-rights groups have been clouding the voting machine debate by suggesting that the nation must choose between accessible voting and verifiable voting.
It is well within the realm of technology to produce machines that meet both needs. Meanwhile, it would be a grave mistake for election officials to rush to spend millions of dollars on paperless electronic voting machines that may quickly become obsolete.
Disabled people have historically faced great obstacles at the polls, and disability-rights groups are right to work zealously for accessible voting. But they should not overlook the fact that the disabled, like all Americans, also have an interest in ensuring that their elections are not stolen.

There are many ways to make your voice heard on Electronic Voting; and here's one of them, courtesy of Democracy For America (previously posted May 26TH).