http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4682&print=1#Print
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If Voters Don't Notice Incorrect Votes on The Review Screen
in Front of Their Face, Why Would They Notice it on a So-Called 'Paper Trail'
Printed Afterward? Posted By John Gideon On 13th June 2007 @ 09:35 In Election
Reform, Touch-Screen Vote Hopping, Rush Holt | 16 Comments Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org [1] A new study supports the contentions of Election Integrity advocates who
oppose Rush Holt's
election reform bill [2] on the basis that it allows for the use
of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting systems. Supporters of
the bill claim that the bills mandate to require so-called "Voter-Verified
Paper Audit Trail" (VVPAT) printers on such DRE systems mitigate the
concerns about the machines notorious inaccuracy and proven tamperability. The
new study strongly indicates otherwise. In her recently released doctoral thesis, “The
Usability of Electronic Voting Machines and How Votes Can Be Changed Without
Detection” [PDF] [3], Rice University researcher and Doctoral
candidate Sarah P. Everett reveals that review screens, presented to voters at
the end of the voting process on DRE voting machines, fail to be effective. Of 66 participants from the general Houston population, with a median age of
45 and an even distribution of educational levels only 32% of the
voters noticed that malicious changes had been made to their review screens
during mock election testing. A further test was accomplished with 101 participants, with an even gender
split (51 males, 50 females), a median age of 40, with most having either some
college education or holding a degree. Of those, only 37% of the
participants noticed that vote flipping had occurred on their review
screens during mock election testing. Also shocking is that of those 101 participants 6% walked away from the
voting machine without pushing the button to cast their ballot. Instead, they
just left the voting process at the final review screen. Thus, had this been a
real election, a full 6% of the voters would not have had their ballots
counted at all. So when only about one-third of the voters actually review their ballot on
the ballot review screen and notice problems why would anyone think that adding
a "Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail" printer to a DRE will solve any
problem? Rather than adding useless and expensive printers; why not just get
rid of these machines all together? In fact, Ms. Everett states, when it comes the use of DRE voting systems [emphasis
added]... [A]s the situation currently stands, voters cannot be
depended upon to check the validity of their vote. Many security experts and
election reform groups are calling for VVPATs to be required on all DREs and as
of the 2006 elections, nearly half of the states mandated that their DREs have
paper trails (electionline.org, 2006). However, these studies show that
solutions to DRE security problems that require voter verification of their
ballots may not solve vote-flipping problems. Users are not even
checking their ballots on the review screen that is presented directly in front
of them. === Take action to amend the Holt Election Reform Bill! Article printed from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com URL to article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4682 URLs in this post: Click here
to print.
...
The findings here suggest that it is highly unlikely that voters will
detect changes to their ballots on the VVPAT that prints out on a roll of paper
next to the machine if they are not even noticing them on a screen presented
directly in front of them.
DEMAND A BAN ON DRE/TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING!
- Email Congress! [4]
- Call you members! [5]
See www.BradBlog.com/Holt
[6] for more details, coverage, talking points & information on
all of the above!
[1] VotersUnite.org: http://www.VotersUnite.org
[2] Rush Holt's election reform bill: http://www.BradBlog.com/Holt
[3] “The Usability of Electronic Voting Machines and How Votes Can Be Changed
Without Detection” [PDF]: http://chil.rice.edu/research/pdf/EverettDissertation.pdf
[4] Email Congress!: http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=9406781&type=CO
[5] Call you members!: http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction/ban-e-ballots.asp
[6] www.BradBlog.com/Holt: http://www.BradBlog.com/Holt