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Name :   Susanna Perkins
Organization :   N/A
Post Date :   9/30/2005

Section Comments
Section :  6.8
Page no. :  
Line no.:  
Comment :  Dear EAC Commissioners:  

As one of the disenfranchised of Florida (disenfranchised because, when  
any citizen is denied the right to vote, or when any ballot is improperly  
counted, we are ALL disenfranchised!), I would like to strongly recomment  
that no electronic voting machines be permitted that do not provide an  
auditable paper trail.  

Having experienced several elections utilizing DRE's in Florida, it is now  
clear that voter confidence in our election systems will not be restored  
until we have fully transparent, fully auditable, and randomly audited  
election systems in every county in our state. It is our intention to push  
for these standards legislatively and/or through constitutional amendment.  
In order to accomplish these goals, it is imperative that the EAC  
establish voting system guidelines which clearly define terms and require  
a voter verified paper record which would be the final determinant of the  
actual vote count.  


I believe it is within your interpretive powers as the EAC to define the document described as the mandatory paper audit trail in Section 301(a)2 of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).  

No legitimate audit can be carried out unless that audit uses a  
contemporaneous independent indelible record of the voter’s intent. No  
electronic record -- unseen by the voter and subject to programming error,  
equipment malfunction or even malicious tampering -- can reasonably meet  
that standard, nor any reprint (unverified by the voter) of that same  
electronic record. Thus it will vastly improve the legitimacy of the  
nation’s elections if the EAC clarifies that the manual paper audit trail  
shall be voter-verified.  

On January 18, 2005 Professor Ron Rivest introduced a resolution (#13-05)  
to require voter-verified paper trails at the TGDC meeting. That  
resolution was voted down, by members of the committee who know less about  
computer security than the person who introduced the measure.  

I urge the EAC to reinstate the recommendation in resolution #13-05 and  
require the essential safeguard of voter-verified paper records.  

I further urge you:  

-to reject wireless capability of any kind in our voting systems;  

-to clarify terms used for VVPAT such that standards for voter-verified  
paper ballots (e.g. optical scan) are not confused with standards for  
voter-verified paper audit trails (e.g. printers on DREs);  

-to adopt Resolution #17-05 for more stringent testing of voting systems  
for security; and  

-to allow interoperability so that voting systems from different vendors  
are able to work together more freely, saving taxpayer resources.  

Thank you for your consideration.