Iowa Voters

Here’s a surprise package I found under my election reform tree on Christmas eve: Approval Voting.

I’ve lately been interested in instant runoff voting as a way of broadening the field of candidates. This idea of approval voting sounds better:

Approval voting allows voters to vote for as many candidates as they find acceptable. For instance, one can approve of a minor-party favorite and at the same time vote for an acceptable major-party candidate. There is no ranking; the candidate with the most approval votes wins, ensuring that the winning candidate is acceptable to the largest fraction of the electorate.

. . . it should induce more citizens to go to the polls, . . . It allows minor-party candidates to receive their proper due, . . .[It] should also reduce negative campaigning, . . .[It] can be implemented on existing voting machines and is relatively easy for voters to understand.

What’s not to like? It’s even used already by some private associations. It’s how we get a new Secretary General at the UN, too.

Put this on your back burner and move to the post below for a front burner item–a petition for you to sign.

Merry Christmas.

by Sean Flaherty, Iowans for Voting Integrity

Twenty-seven states have passed legislation that, at least, requires that voting machines allow the voter to see her choices on paper. Iowa remains among a minority of states that still allows paperless voting. It’s time to change that.

Iowans for Voting Integrity has developed a petition to the 82nd General Assembly calling for verified voting. Our list of essentials includes: going beyond a “paper trail” for voting machines and back to paper ballots, hand audits of ballots in randomly selected precincts, stronger chain of custody procedures for ballots and election records, and disclosure of voting system software.

Click here to read and sign the petition.

Our recommendations draw on the 2006 Brennan Center report. Doug Jones was among the Brennan Center task force members, as were the former chief security officer of Microsoft, Howard Schmidt, and Dr. David Jefferson of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Why go beyond the paper trail? One of the most salient reasons is that hand audits with the current generation of continuous paper rolls are arduous. With paper ballots the process is much easier. And hand audits are an indispensable companion to a paper record. As the Brennan Center report states, a paper record without systematic hand audits is “of questionable security value.” Other reasons for adopting paper ballots over a paper trail are in our position paper on voting system reform.

Adopting paper ballots might seem a tougher sell than adding printers on to the touch-screens, but we’ve already got David Yepsen on our side.

We need reform by the next statewide and federal elections. Sign the petition for verified elections in Iowa.

The voting machines that lost 18,000 votes in Florida last month will be examined by Iowa on Wednesday in Des Moines. Get your tickets here:

*********************************************
Notice of Meeting
State of Iowa
Board of Examiners
for Voting Machines and Electronic Voting Systems

Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Time: 10:00 am
Place: Office of the Secretary of State
First Floor, Lucas State Office Building
321 East Twelfth Street, Des Moines 50319

Agenda: Examination and Testing of Election Systems & Software Voting System Unity 3.0.1.1 & AutoMARK v 1.1, NASED #: N-2-02-22-22-006, consisting of the following components:
1. AutoMARK
2. iVotronic
3. iVotronic RTAL Booth
4. Model 100
5. Model 650

For Additional Information Contact:
Sandy Steinbach, Director of Elections
Office of the Secretary of State
Lucas State Office Building
Des Moines, Iowa 50319 (515) 281-5823
*******************************************

Members of the board include Michael Mauro (unless he has resigned now that he’s SoS-elect) and Pottawattamie’s auditor Marilyn Jo Drake.

The RTAL is the paper trail device for the ESS touchscreens. Johnson county wanted to buy this but it was not certified by Iowa for the recent election. Looks like it will try to become certified now.

Ivotronics are the machines under scrutiny in Florida for losing 18,000 votes and throwing a Congressional race into doubt.

You can go to this meeting, but the room is small, so arrive early.

Today’s New York Times has an article about the inevitability of more changes to voting machines that rely entirely on software to run elections. Of course, the article includes one Texas election official who drags her feet on the paper trail question by saying:

“Every time you introduce something perishable like paper, you inject some uncertainty into the system,” Ms. Kaufman said.

Which is more perishable:

Dead Sea scrolls or Diebold software?

The Technical Guidelines Developement Committee(TGDC), which was created by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to advise the federal Election Assistance Committee(EAC), has proposed an improvement in voting machine design. Yesterday they said–unanimously–that elections must not depend on software.

They propose that any voting equipment that gets certified under the 2008 standards must have a paper trail or some other safety feature that is not based on software. They said you can never be sure about software. They must be terrorists!

The proposed change must go through a public comment period, if the EAC agrees to adopt the TGDC’s advice

An outspoken opponent of paper trails has been appointed to oversee Iowa elections by the newly elected Secretary of State Michael Mauro. Mauro promised to get paper trails during the campaign.

It’s Linn county auditor Linda “You Terrorists!” Langenberg who has been promoted to the role of deputy secretary of state. In October Langenberg said voting machine critics were practicing a “form of terrorism” in their campaign against paperless voting. During the 2005 legislative session, Langenberg was accused by a knowledgeable source of being a principle obstacle preventing progress toward a paper trail.

Her October remarks have just drawn this belated response from Green party’s candidate for Lt Gov, Richard Johnson:

Needless to say, I was rather surprised that you, a county auditor, were so poorly informed regarding the potential hazards of these paperless electronic voting machines you were defending. I responded, along with my running mate Wendy Barth, to your comments by mentioning how easily these small computers can be compromised, or “hacked” to use the vernacular.

The article further states, Ms. Langenberg, that you believe that because these machines are never connected to the Internet they are safe from such problems. Having spent nearly a quarter century working with computers, with the last fourteen as a technology coordinator in a school with some 400 computers connected to our LAN/WAN, I can assure you that lack of Internet exposure is no guarantee against problems. . . .
Ms. Langenberg, by comparing those of us who question the reliability of paperless electronic voting to terrorists, and by accusing us of undermining voter confidence in the system, you have done the citizens of your county, and even the state, a grave disservice. . . .[T]hose of us questioning this “advancement” in voting systems do not wish to undermine voter confidence. We want to build that confidence by insuring that elected officials, such as yourself, both understand the problem and take action to prevent a similar incident[a reference to the current missing votes in Sarasota–ed] from happening in our state or, more specifically, in your county.

Looks like Johnson held his ire too long.

This is no way to improve elections, Mr Mauro. Can you explain this appointment?

Even those who stay home caucus night in January of 2008 may be able to see the results from their own precinct on their home computer. They should get the results the same moment as Tom Vilsack, Evan Bayh, and all the other candidates.

That will happen if the Iowa Democrats practice “transparent aggregation” of the caucus tallies. The topic was discussed at last Saturday’s meeting of the Democrat State Central Committee, according to Tom Harrington, a member from the 4th congressional district. Harrington reports

The IDP staff was very receptive to having automatic
posting of the precinct results from the caucuses. I
am confident they will do it, as they are trying to
make the caucus process seem as transparent and fair
as possible.

There have been disputes in the past about who actually won the caucuses or about how many people turned out. This has led to bad publicity, something Iowa can’t afford as it defends its status as first in the national nominating process. With our own Governor a candidate, we really need to show the country we can hold a fair caucus.

In 2004 the results came in quickly due to an automated phone-in system. But they weren’t transparent. A caucus reported its results on a touchtone phone with no confirmation that the transmission had gone smoothly. The plan under consideration will cure that.

The results will go onto the internet as they come in if the adopted procedure follows this recommendation from the DNC. The whole nation can watch the returns come in.

This is how all election results should be compiled. It will be an improvement over 2004, which was a bit like voting on a paperless touchscreen (the caucus had to hope its vote was tallied correctly).