May we please have paper ballots?
A few days prior, Democratic House Leader Gary Odom and Senator Roy Herron led a press conference asking for the Mr. Hargett to begin implementing the law.
Leader Odom:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Senator Herron:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
More from Leader Odom:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Nina Cardona of WPLN reported on it:
The law calls for the entire state to switch to a system of paper ballots that are counted by optical scan machines. It specifies that the scanners be certified by the state according to “the applicable…guidelines.”
Both sides agree that no machines on the market meet the most recent set of federal standards, issued in 2005. For that reason, Secretary of State Tre Hargett says the state cannot yet certify any optical scan machines.
But at a press conference today, House Democratic Leader Gary Odom says that’s a waiting game that could be dragged out indefinitely. He contends that by the time machines meet the 2005 standards, another set of guidelines will be in place.
Mr. Hargett came back with a false argument (why settle for “less than the best” equipment out of haste?) and a questionable legal opinion.
There is only one reason why Mr. Hargett will not implement the Voter Confidence Act – he doesn’t want to implement the Voter Confidence Act.
Remember, the 2005 standards in which Mr. Hargett is placing all his opposition eggs are “voluntary” standards. In other words, it’s up to us, the state of Tennessee – in all our states rights glory – to decide whether or not to use the 2005 standards when purchasing equipment.
More simply, the EAC guidelines say that we can use the 2005 standards or not use the 2005 standards so by making the decision ourselves, we are following the EAC guidelines.
[...] And the “bureaucratic quagmire” consists of the Secretary of State and the State Election Coordinator, who refuse to implement the law. [...]
[...] on this post from Jersey Joe of Shelby County offer more evidence why unverifiable electronic voting machines [...]
Thanks for the info as well as all your valid questions, Joe. I am re-posting your comments as a blog post…
The EAC is has been a slow moving behemoth for years and to say their certification process is slow moving is an understatement.
The kind of machines we need to count the paper ballots are being used in about 40 states without incident and without being certified to 2005 standards – which I may have already mentioned are voluntary.
You are correct. The 2005 voluntary standards of the EAC are not established as the gold standard guidelines for anything. In fact, in November of 2008, the EAC published an evaluation of a system and they used the 2002 standards for that evaluation. There is no reason that Tennessee cannot use the 2002 guidelines.
It is also true that there are the next generation set of guuidelines being worked on now. In the comments on the new guidelines, some people question the value of the EAC guidelines, saying the testing does not correlate to real world experience. There is also skepticism expressed by one state implying fraud in the utilization of Diebold machines, the kind we use here in Shelby County. (http://www.eac.gov/program-areas/voting-systems/docs/certification-system-comments-by-section.xls/attachment_download/file)
There is little doubt that Secretary of State Hargett is willfully obstructing the will of the General Assembly. Is there anyone in the Republican majority who cares more for their constitutional oath than their Party and who will demand that Hargett follow the law as passed by the legislature?
The question is why does Hargett want to so brazenly disobey the law? Why has the question of having elections with verifiable ballots that can be recounted become a partisan issue? Accurate recounts should be in everyone’s interest. But not here in Tennessee in 2009. Why? Are the rumors about these systems true? Did the Republicans really win all those surprise House districts last year honestly? All the Voter Confidence Act does in the end is give us the ability to habd count ballots independent of technology. Much of the current technology is totally opaque and so there is no way to determine if the machine accurately captured the voter’s intent. Since all machines have a known error rate, in a very close election, the machine may be incapable of differentiating the true vote counts. This will be a problem with the optical scan machines as well.
When these machines give us a number, they are really giving us a range of numbers based on the known errors of the system. Based on the known error rate, we can construct “confidence intervals” around the result which can be for any degree of precision we choose. In science, the standard is usually 95%. What that means, is if the machine has a CI of plus or minus 5%, then 95% of the time the “real” number will be within that range around the number given in the count. Let’s say 200 balots are counted and the 95% confidence interval is 3. If the machine count comes out 100, then we would add and subtract 3 from 100. We can then say that if we put the ballots through the machine again, we would get an answer between 97 and 103 at least 95% of the time. But lets say that two candidates are running and candidate A gets 99 votes and candidate B gets 101 votes. Candidate B has won—maybe. If we run the count again, candidate A will get a number between 96 and 102; candidate B will get a number between 98 and 104. There is roughly a 43% chance that candidate B will lose or be tied in that second count. Who wins? The machine count, in this case, is not capable of answering that question. It is beyond the physical capability of the equipment.
In that situation, we must have an independent method to ascertain the intent of the voter to do a valid recount. Merely running ballots through the same machine(s) is meaningless. Let us imagine that Congressman Cohen beats Mayor Herenton by 50 votes in next August’s Democratic primary election. Is Secretary of State Hargett eager to stand before this community in the calm, quiet of election night and explain to us all why the Election Commission can’t really recount the votes and therefore, Congressman Cohen has won.
Secrertary Hargett is leading us down just that road. What is the gain that makes it worth taking that kind of risk? That is the question we should be asking of Mr Hargett and Senator Norris and Senator Todd and Senator Stanley and anyone else who advocates no recount voting systems.
Another question: why hasn’t a company created a machine yet that meets 2005 standards?
[...] Liberadio: There is only one reason why Mr. Hargett will not implement the Voter Confidence Act – he doesn’t want to implement the Voter Confidence Act. [...]