NY Election Commissioner Wants to Dump E-Vote Counting

[Bill Bored]

Nassau County Suing To Get Old Voting Machines Back
By ROB HOELL wpix.com


MINEOLA, N.Y. (WPIX) —
If you didn't like the new voting machines you're not alone, and if Nassau County gets its way in court the old lever machines will be back.

The county saw its fair share of glitches this Election Day. Officials say the phones lit up at the Board of Elections with complaints ballots weren't scanning and computers were malfunctioning.

Now, Nassau is suing to get the old voting machines back.
"We feel that it's a public policy mistake to switch over from a lever system that people have confidence in and is trustworthy and is reliable to an electronic system that creates its own problems," said Board of Elections Commissioner William Biamonte.

-snip-

http://www.wpix.com/wpix-flawed-machines,0,5132212.story

[SugarShack]

1. We need to bring back HR811 for those states stuck with electronic voting

[Bill Bored]

3. HR 811 would not ban electronic vote counting. It would ban some non-electronic vote counting.

But if you mean it would ban paperless e-vote-counting, that is true. And there's a newer version with a different number that will expire with this session of Congress. And BTW, the Democratic House leadership killed the bill.

[cal04]

2. so many complaints here yesterday

the feeling of going backwards with these machines and the Lack of privacy was a big issue with new voting machines
I had one problem, the writing on the ballots was too small
I read that they were going to put magnifying glasses at the polls, when I got there they said it was too expensive so they had one if anyone needed it.

[Historic NY]

4. Yeah thats fine but the Voting Machine company that made lever ones is out of business.

so the old ones will eventually fail too beyod repair. I've heard that while some places can still use them a lot were sent out as scrap or given to schools.

[Bill Bored]

6. Not a problem. Maintenance and parts readily available for the foreseeable future.

Lever advocates have done their homework on this.

[exboyfil]

5. I just don't understand why places did not stay/go with

optical scan ballots with clear interpretation directions agreed upon in advance. Not having a written record is insane (this applies to the old lever machines as well - I always felt uncomfortable with them). Sealed ballot box in every voting place sealed by both (or more parties). The number of ballots in the box better match the number of registered voters checked in. No rescan crap. It goes through once, and gets hand interpreted by the rules if a recount is called for (mark too light yes, vote for both unless evidence of erasure or mark out no, etc.).

I do prefer lever voting to electronic voting though. It is amazing what skilled engineering went into those devices.

Also we need iron clad identification of voters.

[Bill Bored]

7. Op scan is as hackable as DREs. You have to hand count but nobody wants to.

NY's instructions were a disaster. Incompetence reigned supreme. The election law on paper ballots is very precise, but it was ignored to accommodate scanners.

[exboyfil]

8. Are we the only modern democracy that has this problem?

I have gone for years thinking that optical ballots were the way to go. The only time my radar went up was in Florida when they were remarking ballots and sending them through the machine - that should never have happened.

At least a paper trail still exists. What happens with a lever machine malfunction? Do we drop an entire group of votes?

Any examples of close elections and what happened in countries in Europe or Japan?