EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Ron Baiman
Organization : | Univ. of Illinois/U.S. Count Votes
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | The notion, proposed in the EAC report that "independent dual verification" (verifying one electronic record with another electronic record) serves as a reliable check on election accuracy to be without merit. There is absolutely no way to ensure that electronic records cannot update each other without constant, real time, monitoring that is impossible given advances in computer technology, and is in any case unrealistic given voting administration resources and capabilities. This proposal simply adds another verification problem rather than serving any real verification function. The best way to increase the credibility and accuracy of our voting systems is through routine random audits of paper ballot (not internal paper tapes) trails, real time collection and pubic release of detailed precinct level election data, and public exit polling. The following is a list of necessary recommendations for election reform: • a thorough non-partisan investigation of the 2004 presidential election • full funding of the National Election Data Archive precinct level database • election equipment that permits access by non-specialist citizen election judges to recount voter verified paper ballots • routine 5%, randomly selected, independent audits of vote counts in all elections • transparent and publicly accessible exit polling • election administration by non-partisan public civil servants • non-proprietary open-source coding for all computerized election equipment • no wired or wireless network connections to any vote casting or counting equipment For more detail see: The 2004 Presidential Election: Exit Poll Error or Vote Miscount , Baiman, Dodge, and Dopp, Sept. 8, 2005 available as a “scientific paper” at: www.uscountvotes.org