Monday, October 18, 2004, 8:36:08 PM, JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote: Jac> Someone explain to me why people in Florida are voting for President today. You may wish you hadn't asked.... BTW the voter verification machines have gone wrong already (Miami Herald) >Welcome to Wired News. >Florida a Big Test of E-Voting >By Jacob Ogles | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1 >02:00 AM Aug. 16, 2004 PT >ORLANDO, Florida -- Florida election officials will be relying on >touch-screen machines to provide the sole storage of early voting >data between now and the state's Aug. 31 primary election day, >raising concerns that votes sitting in storage for two weeks could be >susceptible to tampering. >Florida law allows voters who can't make it to the polls on election >day to cast "convenience votes" up to 15 days before the election. So >beginning Monday, the state will open hundreds of locations where >voters can cast early ballots for the statewide primary. But to >ensure that early voting doesn't sway election outcomes, state law >forbids officials from tabulating any votes until the polls close on >Aug. 31. > Counties using optically scanned paper ballots will store the > ballots in locked iron boxes for two weeks. But 15 counties that use > touch-screen machines for early voting will store the votes on the > machines. >The machines are being relied upon even as criticism mounts about >e-voting nationwide. Discussions of tampering and security have been >the subject of numerous reports by academic institutions such as >Johns Hopkins University and private entities like Raba Technologies. >An Associated Press poll of Florida voters recently showed that less >than half of respondents were "very confident" their vote for >president would be correctly counted, and that only one in five >respondents was "very confident" in the voting machines. >In light of the criticism, voter activists in the state are >disappointed that election officials don't feel a need to back up >votes cast through early voting. "It doesn't sound smart to me," said >Sandy Wayman, legislative chairman for the Miami-Dade Election Reform >Coalition. >But at this point, election officials who have opted to use >touch-screen technology have little choice about backing up data. >State law forbids any examination of ballots until the conclusion of >an election. >"The alternative is the development of software that would allow the >extraction of ballot data without inspection, but electronic voting >is still an eccentric institution," said Douglas Jones, as associate >professor of computer science at the University of Iowa. "It's still >not really on the map as far as writing laws goes." >Generally, election officials print out a zero-report from each >machine at the start of an election day to show that no votes were >cast on a machine before an election. But since voting for the >Florida primary will run essentially for 15 days, officials can do >this only on the first day of voting, since votes from each day will >remain on the machines for two weeks. For every day that follows the >first day, election officials will have to confirm each morning that >the number of votes on machines matches the number of votes that were >on the machines at the end of voting the night before. >In Miami-Dade County, where e-voting recently came under severe >scrutiny when back-up files of the 2002 election went missing, armed >guards will be on round-the-clock duty at each of 14 major voting >locations to prevent anyone from tampering with the primary votes. >"Most of these locations have guards most of the day, but we will >supplement the cost and provide security (where) there are not >normally guards scheduled," said Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the >Miami-Dade County Elections Department. >But in some counties, the votes will simply be kept under lock and >key. Some election supervisors plan to remove electronic ballots that >plug into the machines and store them in a different location than >the touch-screen machines so that no one could add votes to the >machine. Other officials, however, plan to leave the ballots in the >machines. >In Charlotte County, officials will store the machines in vaults at >the county's two voting locations. In Martin County, officials will >put the machines in vaults and the electronic ballots in separate >locked cabinets. >But Lake County plans to store the machines and ballots together >behind locked doors at public libraries. Placing voter convenience >over voting security, officials there plan to rotate the machines >through different polling locations every few days on a pre-announced >itinerary. >Election officials say there is little risk of vote tampering because >each machine records three copies of votes in different places on the >machine for redundancy. Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections >Theresa LePore, who became the butt of national criticism during the >2000 election for the infamous butterfly design, said every election >official in the state will be devoting unprecedented resources toward >ensuring a fair vote. In her county, all functions on the machines >that would delete votes have been physically cut off. >But critics of the technology are uncomfortable with the lack of >physical back-up, much less a digital copy of the votes. >Jones recently inspected the machines in Miami-Dade County to ensure >they were ready for early voting. He said the greatest threats to the >process, such as theft, are just as germane to paper voting as >e-voting, but the new technology does come with its own problems. >While those counties using paper ballots can transport the votes to a >secure location regularly, the only way to do the same with >touch-screen technology would be to have new personal electronic >ballots put in the machines every day. "The economics of that would >be very bad," he said. >Eleven Florida counties are using iVotronic machines, produced by >Election Systems and Software. Four other counties, including >Hillsborough and Palm Beach, use Sequoia Voting Systems. >LePore said the machinery is still better than the troublesome >punchcard ballots used by most counties in 2000. She also defended >the early voting as a way of increasing voter participation. >Anything that is of assistance in letting people vote is good, she >said. "Hopefully things will work well, just like we hope they will >on election day." -- Judy Evans, Cardiff, UK mailto:judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html