EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | David Bayer
Organization : | Institute for Clean Elections
Post Date : | 9/29/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Bayer-Part II II-The voting system shall do all of the following: (1) Provide the voter with an opportunity to correct any error made by the system in the voter-verified paper record, before the permanent voter-verified paper record is preserved in a locked box at the precinct. The paper ballots in the locked box will be used as part of the mandatory 5 percent recount and/or full, ballot by ballot, 100 percent recount, if a statistically significant discrepancy exists between the electronic result and the 5 percent recount of the paper ballots at that precinct. The 5 percent mandatory hand recount must be conducted as soon as the polls close at that precinct. A statistically significant difference exists if the difference between the 5 percent hand recount of paper ballots and the electronic count is greater than .3 percent. For example, if the electronic machine produces 1000 votes for Mr. XYZ and the hand recount produces 1003, then the difference is 3/1000 = .3 percent. This will be acceptable. If the hand recount produced 1004 votes for Mr. XYZ, then the difference is UNACCEPTABLE. All the paper ballots would have to be counted and their count would prevail over the electronic count. (2) Not preserve the voter-verifiable paper records in any manner that makes it possible to associate a voter with the record of the voter's vote.