Delaware, Kansas, and New Jersey are in the Process of Purchasing Voting Machines with a serious Design Flaw, and they should Reconsider while there is still time!

Over the past 15 years, many States have moved away from Paperless Touchscreen Voting Systems (DRE) to Optical-Scan Paper Ballots. They’ve done so because if a Paperless Touchscreen is Hacked to give Fraudulent Results, there’s no way to know and no way to Correct the problem. There can't be a Recount, and no possibility of Audits. If an Optical Scanner were Hacked to give Fraudulent Results, the Fraud could be Detected by a Random Audit of the Paper Ballots that the Voters actually Marked, and Corrected by a Recount of those Paper Ballots.

Optical-Scan Ballots Marked by the Voters are the most straightforward way to make sure that the Computers are not Manipulating the Vote.

Second-Best is the use of a Ballot-Marking Device (BMD), where the Voter uses a Touchscreen to choose Candidates, then the Touchscreen Prints out an Optical-Scan Ballot that the Voter can Verify then Deposit in a Ballot Box or into an Optical Scanner. To make this work, Voters have to Inspect their Computer-Marked Ballot carefully, so if a Hacked BMDs change some Choices, or the Voter made a mistake, the Voter can get a New Ballot.

Third-Best is “DRE with paper trail”, where the Paper Ballot Prints-Out behind Glass; the Voter can Inspect it, but it can be Difficult and Discouraging to Read a Long Ballot behind Glass, and there’s Pressure just to Press the “Accept” Button and get on with it.

With Hand-Marked Optical-Scan Ballots there’s much less Pressure to Hurry: you’re not Holding up the Line at the voting Machine, you’re behind one of the many Cardboard Privacy Screens, Mark your Ballot, and you don’t approach the Optical Scanner until you’re satisfied with your Ballot selections.

That’s why States, such as North Carolina, that had previously permitted “DRE with paper trail” moved last year to All Optical-Scan.

The Country’s Biggest Vendor of Voting Machines, ES&S, has a line of Voting Machines called ExpressVote. Some of these are Optical Scanners, and others are “combination” machines, basically a ballot-marking device and an optical scanner all rolled into one.

ExpressVote All-in-One Touchscreens was purchased by Johnson County, Kansas. The Voter brings a Blank Ballot to the Machine, Inserts it into a Slot, chooses Candidates. Then the Machine Prints those Choices onto the Blank Ballot and Spits it out for the Voter to Inspect. If the Voter is Satisfied, they Insert it back into the Slot, where it is Counted and dropped into a Sealed Ballot Box for possible Recount or Audit.

So far this seems OK, except that the Process is a bit Cumbersome and not completely Intuitive). It still suffers from the Problems describe Above: Voters may not carefully Review all the Choices, especially in Down-Ballot Races; Counties need to Buy a Lot more Voting Machines, because Voters occupy the Machine for a Long Time.

But here’s the amazingly Bad Feature: “The version that we have has an option for both ways,” Johnson County Election Commissioner, Ronnie Metsker said. “We instruct the voters to print their ballots so that they can review their paper ballots, but they’re not required to do so. If they want to press the button ‘cast ballot,’ it will cast the ballot, but if they do so they are doing so with full knowledge that they will not see their ballot card, it will instead be cast, scanned, tabulated and dropped in the secure ballot container at the backside of the machine.”

Now it’s easy for a Hacked Machine to Cheat Undetectably! All the Fraudulent Vote-Counting Program has to do is wait until the Voter Chooses between “Cast Ballot without Inspecting” and “inspect Ballot before Casting”. If the latter, then don’t Cheat on this Ballot. If the former, then Change Votes how it likes, and Print those Fraudulent Votes on the Paper Ballot, knowing that the Voter has already Given Up the Right to Look at it.

Johnson County should Not have Bought these Machines. But if they’re going to use them, they must Insist that ES&S Disable this “Permission to Cheat” feature.

Union County New Jersey and the entire State of Delaware are in the Process of Purchasing ExpressVote XL Machines, which are like the Touchscreens but with a much Larger Screen that can show the Whole Ballot at once. New Jersey and Delaware should not Buy these Machines unless ES&S Disable the “Permission to Cheat” feature.

Of course, if the “Permission-to-Cheat feature” is Disabled, there still is cumbersome process of Voting:

(1) Receive your Bar-Code Card and Blank Ballot from the Poll Worker.
(2) Insert the Blank Ballot into the Machine.
(3) Insert the Bar-Code Card into the Machine.
(4) Make Choices on the Screen.
(5) Press the “Done” Button.
(6) Wait for the Paper Ballot to Print and be Ejected.
(7) Compare the Choices listed on the Ballot with the ones you made on the Screen.
(8) Put the Ballot Back into the Machine.

Conventional Optical-Scan Balloting:

(1) Receive your Optical-Scan Ballot from the Poll Worker.
(2) Fill in the Ballot with a Pen, behind a Privacy Screen.
(3) Bring your Ballot to the Optical Scanner and Feed it into the Optical Scanner.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker