Vista Resident wrote on Aug 11, 2007 8:39 PM:Things electronic are not always a sign of progress. In the case of electronic voting, it is a step backwards because electronic voting processes are only known to those who write the programs, make the machines, and count the votes. Electronic counting of the vote requires that voting processes be kept secret from us. That just doesn't fly in a democracy. In order to really defend freedom, we need to cast paper ballots and count them at the local polling booths - with counting monitored by all interested parties. Then, counts from each local polling location should be posted on a central website - so that all citizens may audit the process if they wish to do so. In order to keep elections as honest as possible, we need as much light as possible shed on the entire process of voting. Our democracy depends upon it.

Keep Propagating Propaganda wrote on Aug 11, 2007 9:50 PM:Wow! An attorney eloquently crafting a seemingly plausible scenario of conspiracy, malfeasance, and electronic slight of hand hoping you'll accept it as the truth! Who knew? I don't know about you, but I sure was visualizing ol' twinkling blue eyed Ken with a Bible in one hand and waving the American flag with the other in his tireless crusade to save us from evil doers! Unfortunately, thanks to Bowen, he can rest assured that his meal ticket is good for at least a few more years, and he'll be free to run around quoting the same figures and findings from the same "studies" (just like he has done above), pass them off as if they were credible and indisputable facts, and make a decent living in the process. Oh yeah, a little Founding Father name-dropping works every time to help convince folks it's the American thing to do. Clearly, this is the usual scheme of capitalizing on your fear, uncertainty, and doubt that DRE's can't be trusted because you can't see, feel, taste, touch, or hear an electronic vote like you can with a good old reliable "phesphos", thus computer hackers MUST BE RUNNING RAMPANT! Alas, as soon as the "paper ballot vs. DRE" saga has been settled, Ken will be forced to conceive another idea to elicit fear and get his picture in the paper. I'm sure he'll be busy trying to convince us that Martians are living among us, but you and I just don't know it because of their transparency.

Floyd wrote on Aug 12, 2007 1:59 AM:Why opt for an insecure electronic system when we have a secure proven paper system? The hanging chad controversy of 2000 was an aberration caused by the desperate effort of the Democrats to steal the presidential election and isn't an indictment of paper balloting at all. Dump Diebold and bring back the paper ballots we can trust.

to kpp wrote on Aug 12, 2007 7:32 AM:No citizen is allowed to check that the votes were counted correctly. This is the biggest problem of all under any system. Citizen audits must be allowed, otherwise you don't need a consipracy theory because you have the reality of a system THAT COULD be hijacked and voters would NEVER KNOW it. KPP, you have no idea if votes have been counted correctly you just have to trust that they have. Like Ronald Regan said, "Trust, but verify." Counting by hand is not necessary. Scanned paper ballots followed by copious hand auditing by citizens will do fine.

Howiek wrote on Aug 12, 2007 8:43 AM:KPP, go back and reread the “story”, it isn’t as eloquently written as it sounds but then again he is a lawyer isn’t he? Ah yes! Florida of the West—we’ll be spending days determining voter intent at double marked ballots—remember the Donna Frye fiasco? Let’s go back to waiting weeks and weeks waiting for the results of an election. There has not been any proven tampering with an electronic voting system—yes, Diebold should have started with security as job 1 but they didn’t and now we have all these conspiracy theorists looking under every rock trying to find a reason to again waste taxpayers money. They already have a heck of a time finding volunteers who can man polling places and work in the registrars office, so where are they going to find all these vote counters, St Vincent DePaul? Oh! And for a true “vote” ban all absentee ballots—either you go to the polls and vote or you don’t vote. Let’s see how that goes over with the public, lower voter turnout which of course is exactly what white conservatives want in the first place!

paul wrote on Aug 12, 2007 8:46 AM: Election officials spent millions of taxpayer dollars on computers all the experts (in effect) agree should be re-called. It's perplexing why local election officials would protest a recall designed for everyone's safety, until you realize the conflict of interest they have, based on the fact that they committed our democracy to these defects, and then praised the same defects a thousand times. Eventually the public is going to fully wake up to this, and they are not going to be happy at all. It would be much better if local election officials just went along with the new flow, you know, like public SERVANTS might be expected to??

Funny wrote on Aug 12, 2007 10:31 AM:Funny how this is such a hot topic now that the republicans are worried that the democrats will take over. When they were controlling the votes it was okay for voter fraud, but now it's a different story. So typical republiSCUM.

Alan wrote on Aug 12, 2007 10:57 AM:Humans are not very good at counting. Couple this with the fact that people hand-counting ballots are interested in the outcome. Computers can count fast and accurately. They are also uninterested in the outcome. The problem is not that computers are used in the process: The way they have been deployed is sub-standard as anyone with any knowledge of computer security will attest. Computers are deeply embedded in the system. It will not be so easy nor as desirable to take them out of the process as Mr. Karan imagines. The problem is that we have privatized what should be a public process. Computers can be used effectively in the administration of elections, but the design of such computerized voting systems must be public.

Winter wrote on Aug 12, 2007 11:16 AM:Trust but VERIFY is RIGHT!! well said, kpp.

KPP wrote on Aug 12, 2007 12:52 PM:Regarding "eloquent", hey, I felt like I needed to say SOMETHING nice about the guy for the effort. My only apology to Ken is for the misspelling of the word "psephos". As far as the "Trust but verify", will every voter unanimously trust the verifiers? I think Alan hit the nail on the head on where we should all be headed, unanimously. Maybe even Ken could agree with this.

This has been a hot topic wrote on Aug 12, 2007 12:53 PM:since the 2004 primaries (and those problems) and the 2006 primaries. Who cares what party wins (they are all the same anyway) but local races and state legislative seats were casualties too. Can't we do an audit of the 2006 primary votes? The registrar admitted that the voting machines were distributed to some poll workers garages up to two weeks prior to the election. Doesn't anyone care?

Vote Absentee wrote on Aug 12, 2007 5:31 PM:You will get a paper ballot. It will be counted. You can drop it off on election day if you wish or mail it. Simple and a written record to prove who and what you voted for.

Mike wrote on Aug 12, 2007 6:09 PM:Why all the fuss about electronic vs. paper ballot voting systems? Why not adopt a hybrid method? The voter can utilize the electronic voting machine and print out a computer-readable ballot, which is then manually fed into a vote tabulator and stored in a secure container. Not only do you have the benefit of two computer-tabulated votes (for statistical comparison), but you also have a paper record of the vote itself ... one that can be reexamined and recounted to Al Gore's content.

Ellen wrote on Aug 12, 2007 9:37 PM:Ken, What a great article. Every paragraph a new jewell. Thank you for saying it so well.

Rosalie wrote on Aug 12, 2007 9:42 PM:The more the DRE machine creators protest....the more I am suspect..."me think ye protest to much.." All the independent and University research collaborates that all dre's can easily be tampered with....and the tampering can be arranged to be invisible. Let's do paper. Much of the world does paper. There is no argument. We have plenty of people to count....after all the vote belongs to thepeople. We the people should get to decide...we don't need no stinkin committees, machines and governing authorities.....we can count our own vote.....

Poll Worker to Vote Absentee wrote on Aug 13, 2007 12:50 AM:Many people who request absentee ballots never receive them. That issue needs illumination too. I don't trust any level of the system.

Howiek wrote on Aug 13, 2007 6:41 AM:What we need is an option of "None-of-the-Above" on the typical ballot and I don't care how it's read!

Bryan wrote on Aug 13, 2007 8:33 AM:I'm a new yorker. We have been voting without any sort of voting process problem for over thrity years. How you ask? We use mechnical machines with switches that let us select a canidate as easy as someone turning on a light bulb. No computer interface to confuse some conputer inept moron, no paper ballots that can be misinterpreted or misunderstood. It has worked for decades without a problem. Other states would do well to emulate us.

Sheeesh! wrote on Aug 13, 2007 10:05 AM:A democratic election is an open process. Why is the source code proprietary if all that is involved is counting ballots? The new Registrar of Voters immediately showed where her loyalties were when she ordered five million dollars worth of new Diebolds. She knew full well that they where under review and would not be certified. Throw her out with the damn machines!

Anonymous wrote on Aug 13, 2007 10:48 AM:Electronic voting is a terrible idea *regardless* of the system used.

john wrote on Aug 13, 2007 10:50 AM:This is quite possibly the worst op ed I have read. It is full of half truths and misleading statements. "For sale to the highest bidder and biggest campaign contributor" Ken attempts to tar all election machine manufacturers with the Diebold brush. Actually, governments sell to the lowest bidder. And no one has ever shown that campaign donations have anything to do with these contracts. "hand count ballots.." Ken conveniently ignores that fact that hand counting is far more error prone than any optical scan or electronic machine. Gee, maybe we should just go back to paper ballots like we had a century ago. Do you really think these are more accurate? And how do electronic voting machines abdicate our democratic responsibilities? What a bunch of drivel.

Josh wrote on Aug 13, 2007 12:50 PM:The IRS has been using electronic filing for years, and there aren't people hacking into their systems and tampering with information. These people that fear technology are being overly paranoid. There is no reason that an accurate, safe, easy and universal voting system can not be implemented across our entire nation. With the technology available today, a web-based system could easily be created that would only require internet connected PCs at the polling places.

Its past time for reform wrote on Aug 13, 2007 1:04 PM:There wil always be proprietary software issues and back-door hacker access to any electronic voting method. "Hanging chads" was the death of punch cards but it was a known problem that was hushed up and poo-poo'd as associated with a "statistically insignificant" number of ballots each election. Well ...insignificant to anyone but the person who voted and thosught his vote was counted. already, less than half the people that can vote are actually registered to voted and rarely do 50% of those that are registered actually vote. so we already have the minority deciding what the majority sgould do. Whatever taints the quality of the vote count of that small number needs to be eliminated to the maximum extent possible. And the people deserve to know the quality of the vote counting accuracy. Most people never heard of hanging chads until that infamous election when it became known to the masses. There are many different ways to accomplish this task, all with up-sides and down-sides, but I'd bet few actually tell their people how many ballots are discarded and un-counted. We should stop trying to find the cheapest way to do it and owrry about getting an accurate count. And while we are at it ...lets stop letting junior fill out his alzheimers stricken blind grandfather's ballot and how about we not count the ballots for those people that have been dead for any amount of time. Just a thought.

Kyle wrote on Aug 13, 2007 3:07 PM:The only explanation for the outrage expressed by KPP, John, and other Diebold supporters is that they must be employees of Diebold. If you look at the online site, Blackbox Voting, you will immediately understand all of the research and investigation that has gone into proving that Diebold, Sequoia and ES&S voting machines and rigged to be hackable, and that the tabulation systems are highly suspect. I was taught that free and OPEN elections were a feature of our governmental system -- for as long as the source code is deemed proprietary and corporate interests control our votes, elections are not free and open.

Kevin C. wrote on Aug 13, 2007 8:58 PM:One can use all the esoteric systems speak one wishes, but when systems with proprietary software are use to count votes it all amounts to a private count of the votes. Lovely. Open source computers can easily count a special paper mark-up ballot where the paper can be retained. Why is that not good enough? Can you guess?

Lionel Turing wrote on Aug 13, 2007 9:09 PM:I think people are dazzeled and ever so taken by the prospect of an impartial vote counting machine. But, the machine will only be as impartial as the team the engineered it. If the code is secret, only those in possession of the secret code would have any prospect of knowing whether the machine was honestly engineered or not.

Floyd wrote on Aug 14, 2007 12:09 PM:The mechanical New York voting machines break down and must be serviced during the vote. While the servicer is making the fix, the "count" can also be fixed and nobody would know. It's much better to have the voter punch their own card and submit it for tallying, since the count from the cards can be repeated on different equipment (from different manufacturers) to verify accuracy.

Brett wrote on Aug 16, 2007 12:00 AM:Last night's program "Dan Rather Reports: the Trouble with Touchscreens," reveals the true cause of the hanging chad fiasco in 2000: _defective_ punch cards, knowingly provided by Sequoia Voting Systems. The program is quite shocking and is available on for viewing on Google video.

Barbara wrote on Sep 13, 2007 9:39 PM:The truth is that only when the actual counting process can be physically viewed do we have a 'true' vote and thereby a true republic/democracy. If we can't see the actual count, and therefor don't know for sure, then we have to assume the worst. How the vote is done is not the point.