EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Ron Crane
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 3.4.3
Page no. : |
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Comment : | 6b. b. Poor reliability gives unscrupulous elections officials a “legal” way to cheat. By permitting very poor reliability, the Guidelines give unscrupulous elections officials a "legal" excuse to skew elections by deploying conforming (but unreliable) machines in precincts that favor candidates they oppose, and deploying better (and also conforming) machines in precincts that favor candidates they favor. There is a substantial reliability difference between machines having the minimum permitted MTBF of 163 hours, and those having an MTBF of even 250 hours.7 At 163 hours, the mean failure rate is 28% (see above); at 250 hours, it is 18%, which is 35% lower. It is incontrovertible that a 35% difference in the mean failure rate between two precincts will significantly affect the number of votes cast in each.8 If the precincts also differ in partisan balance (as is, of course, routine), this difference in failure rate would skew the election’s results substantially. The Guidelines must not enable unscrupulous officials to skew elections in this manner.