(PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE) A not-so-touching farewell to some machines

[kster]

By ALISA ULFERTS, Times Staff Writer
Published February 1, 2007

SNIP...Does this mean no more touch screen machines at all?

No. Federal law still requires an electronic voting machine in every polling place to assist visually impaired voters. But under Crist’s proposal, each machine will be retrofitted with a printer, which will feed a paper record of each vote into a locked box in case there’s a manual recount.

Can anyone use the touch screen machines intended for the blind?

Yes. Sighted voters who use the touch screen machine will be able to see the paper record printing —under glass — as they vote. If they change their minds or correct mistakes, that will also be noted on the paper record.
This is known as a voter-verified paper trail. Once the voter is finished, the paper record slides out of view and into a lockbox.

Are there any voter-verified paper trail printers already approved by elections officials for use in Florida?

No. State elections officials will have to certify the printers and lockboxes for the voter-verified paper trail.

How many companies are certified to sell optical scan equipment in Florida?

Two of the three companies certified in Florida, Diebold and ES&S, have approved optical scan systems that they could sell to the 15 counties that use touch screen machines. The third, Sequoia Voting Systems, whose touch screen machines are used in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, does not have an approved optical scan system.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/01/State/A_not_so_touching_far.shtml

[OneBlueSky]

1. "each machine will be retrofitted with a printer, which will . . .

feed a paper record of each vote into a locked box in case there’s a manual recount" . . .

now what the hell good would THAT do??? . . . if the machine feeds the paper directly into a locked box, there's no opportunity for the voter to examine it to see if it's correct . . . the paper ballot could well be the same as the incorrect screen ballot, and no one would know . . .

[RoseMead]

2. Sighted voters who use the touch screen machine will be able to see the paper record printing —under

—under glass — as they vote."


These sound similar to the machines we used here during the past election. There's a window, and each time you cast a vote for a candidate, the vote prints on the slip and you can see it in the window. You don't get to keep the paper, but you do get to see what's being printed as you vote.

[RC]

3. Only paper ballots are good enough!

This so called paper trail does not have the force of law in a recount. There is precedent for that in the last few elections.

If the blind needs help with a electronic touch screen machine, then why the hell can't they get help to mark a paper ballot?

Electronic voting = Fraud.

[Stevepol]

4. Too bad that it will take some time to count the votes now.

At the end of the article:

"Elections officials don’t anticipate any changes to the amount of time it takes to vote or to count votes. However, it would take longer to do a manual recount with the optical scan machines than with the touch screen machines."

Ooooh! I wonder why it will take longer? Could it be that the touchscreens don't have any paper to count so in effect all you can do is run the machine again to see if it counts the votes the second time the way it did the first time?

If an elections official complains about it taking longer to count the votes when it's paper and doesn't want to do it, he or she should be fired and replaced by a junior high student or elementary school kid in the 5th or 6th grade, unless that would break some child labor laws. If you don't want to count votes, bottom line you don't want a democracy.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. and they will have about a 9% failure rate on "paper trails"

what a waste of money.


We didn't want the toilet paper ballot in NC, but we
got it because of the heavy lobbying by
election officials to keep touchscreens.

23 counties have them (of 100).

There isn't a brand of DRE that has a "paper trail"
that works right, is easy to verify and guarantees
a VVPB even most of the time.

If you want to audit or recount an election manually,
it won't happen with VVPAT.

Florida must not let anyone snooker them.

But remember, Maryland almost ditched their touchscreens,
and the Democrats saved them (and Diebold).