Comment : | For introductory comment
The Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition (MDERC or The Coalition) observed poll-closing procedures in Miami-Dade County in the November 2004 Presidential election, and reported its findings in GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME; Poll Closing Observation, Ballot Accounting, and Electronic Voting Security http://www.reformcoalition.org/Ressources/GetItRightTheFirstTime.pdf together with its Appendices http://www.reformcoalition.org/Ressources/GetItRightAppendices.pdf Three members of The Coalition, Professor Martha Mahoney, Dan McCrea, and Edmund Campbell gave oral testimony on its findings, in New York, on 30 June 2005, and presented copies of the report to The Commission. These Comments are further to that testimony.
Our comments will address several issues. First we think the VVSG are too narrowly focused and do not take into account critical election administration issues that are vitally important to running a credible and secure election using DRE technology. Second, our comments demonstrate the critical need to incorporate proper ballot accounting procedures into the guidelines, particularly for elections run using DREs. Third, the VVSG entirely ignore the problems of Early Voting. Indeed the issue is never addressed and critical hardware, software and security issues are never addressed. Finally in Section 4 we have additional comments on particular problems with individual sections in the proposed Guidelines that focus on hardware and software issues.
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