Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy and it is imperative that our voting systems be accurate, secure, and auditable. Paperless touch screen voting machines do not meet these requirements because it is impossible to recount or audit an election in any meaningful way. Arizona is fortunate to have optical scan voting systems in all counties. These produce a voter-verified paper ballot that can be used in a recount. However, …

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 imposes the requirement to provide voting machines that are accessible to the disabled. The optical scan system does not comply by itself. HAVA does not require a paperless system for this purpose. There are alternatives (e.g., AutoMark) that allow disabled voters to use a touch screen interface to print a standard ballot that can then be fed into existing optical scan ballot readers. Standard touch screen systems can also be fitted with printers to produce a ballot copy that can be verified by the voter, stored securely, and used in case of recount.

Arizona should institute meaningful routine election validation procedures. This auditing would randomly select several precincts and manually count all the ballots from those precincts including mail-in ballots as a check against the electronic count. Random checking will reveal systematic bugs and blatant tampering. Existing testing procedures are totally inadequate. A recent recount in Maricopa County showed that that the optical scanners missed 489 ballots in a race decided by fewer than 20 votes. Election officials have no
good explanations.

Voting software is currently a trade secret and testing is done by private corporations funded by equipment vendors. Instead, software should be available for inspection by an independent government agency funded
by taxpayers. The state should require software disclosure.

Voting equipment manufacturers should undergo security background checks. Software and firmware should be spot-checked, including the comparison of computer chips against a standard. This is done with gambling machines in Nevada. Voting systems should be at least as secure as gambling systems.

Support HR2239/S1980, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 that would require voter verified paper ballots, full disclosure of software, and random hand counts.

More info at: electionline.org, verifiedvoting.org, blackboxvoting.org
Subscribe to occasional updates at azfairelections.org.

Send letters or call:

Joseph Kanefield
State Election Director
1700 W Washington St, 7th Fl
Phoenix AZ 85007
(602) 542-6167

Jan Brewer
Secretary of State
1700 W Washington St, 7th Fl
Phoenix AZ 85007
(602) 542-4285

Brad Nelson
Pima Co. Election Director
130 W Congress St, 8th Fl
Tucson, AZ 85701
(520) 740-4260

Sen. John McCain
2266 Rayburn House Office Bldg
Washington DC 20515
(202) (202) 225-2542

Rep. Jim Kolbe
241 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-2235

Sen. Jon Kyl
724 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4521

Counting errors caused by inadvertent programming bugs, scanner errors, or malicious tampering would most likely go undetected in Arizona. There are several reasons for this:

1. It is impossible to be certain that the hardware is working correctly,

2. It is impossible to be certain that the software is bug-free,

3. The software is secret, so election officials cannot see it,

4. The software is poorly written and contains known security holes,

5. Formal testing performed by an Independent Testing Authority (ITA) is inadequate, and possibly incompetent, given that known bugs and security holes have been allowed to slip through,

6. The ITA tests are performed by a private corporation paid by the election system vendor, a clear conflict of interest,

7. Election officials cannot be certain that the software running on their computers is the same as the software that has been tested by the ITA,

8. The Logic and Accuracy testing performed by local election officials does not emulate election conditions, and

9. There is no election auditing in Arizona.

Election verification (or validation) consists of random and routine comparisons of electronic vote tallies with tallies obtained in some other independent method, either manual counting or a completely independent electronic counting system. Only a small fraction of votes needs to be tested to be reasonably confident in the e-count results, but the testing must include early ballots,
provisional ballots, and precinct cast ballots.