NY: "Voter was right to be skeptical"

[Bill Bored]

Voter was right to be skeptical

By Virginia Martin
Democratic Commissioner of Elections
Columbia County
Published:
Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Peter Kane Dufault was underwhelmed with the new voting machines when he voted in this month’s primary election. He wanted to know what there was beyond the superficial level of the machine, and it’s to his credit that he did.

Mr. Dufault sent us at the Board of Elections a copy of his letter pre-publication, and I was on the phone with him in a heartbeat. We talked about what he had expected when he went to vote, and what he found. He felt cheated when he couldn’t view, on the scanner’s small LCD screen, a report (a “review”) showing how his votes were being counted by the optical scanner.

I explained that the Board had made a conscious decision not to promote that “review” feature during our election inspector training. My reasoning was that the way the machine was counting votes, and how it might display a voter’s choices on screen, were not relevant. That’s because both I and my counterpart, (Republican) Commissioner Nastke, believe that the only way we can be confident that we’ll know how the voters voted — which we must know before we can certify the results — is by counting every single vote on every single paper ballot that was scanned. Therefore, while what the scanner might show the voter on its screen might be interesting, no voter should be reassured by what that screen reveals, because it could be wrong. What isn’t wrong is the results of the 100 percent hand count of each paper ballot that Commissioner Nastke and I conducted, beginning the day after the election and ending the next day.

-snip-

If I do say so, he was greatly relieved, if not correspondingly dismayed that our county, with all others in New York State, has been forced to use very costly voting machines that we can’t rely on to count votes.

Read more at:
http://registerstar.com/articles/2010/10/05/opinion/letters/doc4caa73ff66e3e840177490.txt

[MineralMan]

1. So, how did the hand count compare with the machine count?

That's the issue, isn't it? Let's have the info.

[Renew Deal]

2. Why doesn't she give the result of the hand count?

Were the machines accurate? That's important information.

[aquart]

3. Being accurate today is not a guarantee against being hacked tomorrow.

I want those beastly machines in landfill.

[Renew Deal]

4. I understand you're prejudices against the magical counting device

But that doesn't answer the question of accuracy.

[Bill Bored]

5. Aquart is right, but I would say stay tuned. nt

[molly77]

6. In the NH dem. primary Hillary did great in urban areas

on electronic voting machines. Obama did better in rural areas with paper ballots. Should have been the opposite. Read blackboxvoting to see just how screwed NH elections are. They , unfortunately, can make or break a presidential candidate.In '08 , the ballot boxes were unsealed and stored in areas that were not secure. Lots of strange things went on there.