The following article makes one wonder about advocates of New York lever voting machines. Keep in mind that in NY votes are CAST on Lever machines but precinct results are MANUALLY INPUT INTO A CENTRAL COMPUTER SYSTEM WHICH TABULATES THE TOTALS.

Any argument that NY must avoid the use of electronic voting machines to replace the levers fails to address the fact that NY already uses programmable electronic machines to count the votes. It's amazing that no one sees this - even optical scan advocates never use this argument which lever proponents cannot refute.

My comments to the article are in uppercase.

The End of Innocence -- NY State Board of Elections Says Ballot Scanners Switched Votes in 2009 General Election
http://e-voter.blogspot.com/2009/12/end-of-innocence-ny...

by Howard Stanislevic

Monday, December 14, 2009

The Help America Vote Act does not require computerized vote counting. But earlier this year in U. S. District Court, the New York State Board of Elections (SBoE) and the U. S. Department of Justice agreed that the Board would certify a new optical scan computerized voting system by December 15, 2009. As that date approaches, the Board is displaying a dismissive attitude toward the risks and problems encountered with the systems they say they will certify.

At a November 12th State Senate Elections Committee hearing in New York City, SBoE Co-Chair Douglas Kellner testified about what he called "glitches" in the programming in one of the new systems that went undetected by Erie County election officials in the 2009 general election. Only after officials noticed some anomalous election results, did they realize their system's configuration files had been compromised.

THOSE WHO RIGGED OPTICAL SCANNERS TO SWITCH THE VOTES COULD ALSO PROGRAM THE CENTRAL TABULATOR TO SWITCH LEVER PRECINCT TOTALS!

If future election results are not so anomalous, there is a strong chance such errors will not be detected at all.

Testimony

At the hearing, Commissioner Kellner confirmed our worst fears about e-vote counting (see his testimony below). Kellner stated that in Erie County, during the process of entering ballot programming data, vote switching between candidates had been programmed into the computer (Election Management System or EMS) that, in turn, programed the county's optical scanners. The scanners then proceeded to switch the votes at the polls as the ballots were cast on election day. This real-time vote switching was undetectable by voters, poll workers or other election officials.

BUT YOU HAVE NEVER VOICED YOUR FEARS OF CENTRAL E-TABULATORS.

Kellner said in this case the vote switching was detected later because the election results appeared to be implausible. The scanners supposedly failed their pre-election Logic and Accuracy test due to the vote-switching problem. That's good, but county election officials ignored the results of their own tests and held the election using the vote-switching configuration anyway.

YOU MEAN VOTE-SWITCHING ALGORITHMS, DON'T YOU?

Commissioner Kellner also stated that this county, which uses ES&S systems, was among the best in the 2009 "pilot" elections (held with real voters and candidates). We don't doubt his word that the errors were eventually corrected. But if Erie was one of the best counties, we'd hate to see one of the worst counties that participated in this experiment.

Different Vendors, Same Design

Different vendors employ the same architecture of centralized EMS programming and configuration. Both of New York's new voting systems (including accessible ballot marking devices) are programmed this way for each election. There are no "stand-alone" voting devices in New York, except the lever voting machines. It is disingenuous to claim otherwise.

WHAT ABOUT THE STAND-ALONE CENTRAL TABULATORS?

Had the Logic and Accuracy testing been done properly and not ignored, there is no guarantee that the vote switching would have been detected. Computer scientists have proved that such tests can be rigged to perform correctly at any time, while the machines can be rigged to switch votes during the election without detection. Under such conditions, subtle manipulations of vote counts, whether intentional or not, would not be detected.

NOT SO. THREE HUMANS, ONE FROM EACH PARTY, CAN COUNT THE PAPER-BALLOTS.

Computers Are Not Voting Machines

Today's e-voting computers are not voting machines; they are Von Neumann machines (stored-program computers). Such general purpose machines can be programmed to do anything the programmers wish. For example, a computer playing an Internet video mimics some functions of a television set. In New York, such computers are supposed to be programmed to mimic the logical functions of the lever voting machines that have served us well for over 100 years. But there is no way to guarantee that a computer is faithfully emulating a real voting machine, just as there is no way to tell simply by observation that a personal computer is not a TV set.

"Today's e-voting computers are not voting machines; they are Von Neumann machines (stored-program computers)".

WELL, NY CENTRAL TABULATORS ARE NOT LEVER VOTING MACHINES, EITHER.

IT IS MORE ACCURATE TO SAY THAT OPTICAL SCANNERS, LIKE LEVERS, ARE VOTING MACHINES.
BUT IN BOTH CASES THE RESULTS ARE TABULATED ON CENTRAL COMPUTERS.

THERE IS A MAJOR, FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCANNERS AND LEVERS, HOWEVER:

THE OPTICAL SCANNER READS PAPER BALLOTS WHICH CAN BE USED IN AN AUDIT OR RECOUNT. THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE WITH LEVERS. SINCE ONLY FINAL PRECINCT TOTALS ARE INDICATED ON THE LEVERS, THERE IS NO TRANSPARENCY.


"In New York, such computers are supposed to be programmed to mimic the logical functions of the lever voting machines that have served us well for over 100 years".

NY LEVERS DO NOT TABULATE THE TOTALS; THAT IS DONE BY CENTRAL COMPUTERS.

Commissioner Kellner and his colleagues at the SBoE have been quite cavalier about this threat to our democracy, which we find very troubling. For example, in his testimony, Kellner compared the readily observable and limited problem of a lever machine's misaligned ballot face (which the election law requires poll workers to recheck and realign after every voter leaves the booth), to the invisible and unlimited problems of computer programming errors (and possible malfeasance). He implied that these two problems are equivalent when clearly, they are not.

ONCE AGAIN, STANISLEVIC MISSES (AVOIDS?) THE KEY POINT. THE PROBLEM IS NOT JUST RIGGING THE LEVERS; THAT IS A MINOR ISSUE. THE REAL PROBLEM IS THAT PRECINCT TOTALS ARE TABULATED ON "STORED PROGRAM VON-NEUMANN" MACHINES.

Citizens Barred From Citizens' Meetings

Last week, there was a meeting of the Citizens Election Modernization Advisory Committee (CEMAC) that was closed to nearly all the citizens of New York State. To what extent will the potential for undetectable vote switching be used as a criterion for or against certification of the new systems? Since the meeting was closed to the public, we may never know. However, there is nothing in the certification standards that we know of that prohibits (or that can prohibit) such vote-switching capabilities in computers. So in all likelihood, the new vote-switching machines will be certified.

WHAT PROCEDURE IS IN PLACE TO PROHIBIT VOTE-SWITCHING ON NY CENTRAL TABULATORS?

New York State’s Committee on Open Government (COG) provides oversight and advice regarding the state's Open Meetings Law. In the opinion of COG Executive Director Bob Freeman, CEMAC's restricting of public access via a protracted "executive session" was unlawful. As its reason for doing so, CEMAC had cited a discussion of “proprietary software information” rather than any of the eight allowable grounds found in the Open Meetings Law.

NY NEEDS AN OPEN SOURCE SYSTEM. HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS POSTED AT THE PRECINCT ARE AN OPTIMAL CHECK FORO CATCHING ELECTION FRAUD - IF THE OFFICIALS WANT TO.

We have learned that the "citizens" committee, comprised mostly of election officials and other insiders, voted nine to one to advise the SBoE to certify the new machines.

The End of Innocence

New York will soon join the long list of states burdened by electronic vote-counting systems that are so unreliable and untrustworthy that paper ballots must be used as a backup. Every state in the country besides New York uses at least some vote-switching computers to run their elections.

WHAT ABOUT NY "VOTE-SWITCHING ON CENTRAL TABULATORS?
A NUMBER OF STATES (E.G. MINNESOTA) CAN RECOUNT PAPER BALLOTS.
AND OREGON VOTES STRICTLY BY MAIL.

WHERE IS THE PAPER TO VERIFY THE NY COUNT?

These states expect their election officials to do the impossible: to somehow transform a concealed system of voting into a transparent one. It is terribly unfair to ask election officials to do so.

ANOTHER UNBELIEVABLE STATEMENT.
SO IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMPLEMENT A SYSTEM OF HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS?
A STATE CAN HAVE A TRANSPARENT SYSTEM IF IT REALLY WANTS ONE.
NEW YORK DOES NOT WANT ONE.
THAT'S WHY IT IS AGAINST HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS.

The Citizens' Burden

The burden New Yorkers will face as a result of the unnecessary change to our voting system is going to be huge and unending. Eternal vigilance would be easy compared to what will be required of us.

LACK OF VIGILANCE AND MISINFORMATION FED TO THE PUBLIC HAS ENABLED THE NY LEVER VOTING SYSTEM TO BE COMPROMISED BY UNSCRUPULOUS OFFICIALS.

County election officials will have to redirect their modest resources toward an electronic voting process that is exponentially more resource-intensive than the system it replaces.

PERHAPS NY NEEDS MORE INTELLIGENT RESOURCES TO PROPERLY COUNT THE VOTES.
HOW ABOUT THIS.
1) POST THE VERIFIED BALLOT SUMMARIES AT THE PRECINCT BY VOTER ID CODE- NO NAMES.
2) UPLOAD THE RESULTS TO THE INTERNET WHERE EACH VOTER CAN VERIFY HIS/HER VOTE.
3) USE OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE TO TABULATE THE VOTE TOTALS.
4) POST PRECINCT/ DISTRICT/ COUNTY TOTALS ON THE INTERNET.
5) ALLOW VOTERS TO CHECK THE TOTALS BY DOWNLOADING INTO SPREADSHEETS ON THEIR OWN COMPUTERS.

The SBoE seems to believe that counties can and will, at every single election, successfully accomplish every one of the new and myriad processes necessary to ensure safe and accurate elections. Even if they do so, new laws will have to be written to regulate technology that is nearly impossible to regulate. It is doubtful that such laws will be enforced.

IT IS DOUBTFUL THAT CENTRAL TABULATORS WILL NOT BE PROGRAMMED TO SWITCH VOTES.

Most importantly, enough paper ballots will have to be counted by hand to find out who won and who lost each and every election contest -- sometimes a small fraction of such ballots; sometimes more; sometimes all of them. There is no magic number of votes to count by hand, despite the fact that legislators and election lawyers continue to ask for one.

THAT IS PURE MALARKEY. THE "HOW MANY BALLOTS TO AUDIT PROBLEM" HAS BEEN SOLVED.

The cost of making these changes will of course be borne by the taxpayers. Other essential services will have to be cut. The alternative is to give up on free and fair elections and trust the computers to decide the outcomes. That's what 49 other states have done, whether they acknowledge it or not.

ARE YOU SAYING THAT OTHER STATES HAVE NOT ADDRESSED THE ISSUE?
AND THAT NY LEVERS ARE THE LAST REMAINING HOPE FOR DEMOCRACY?
YOU ARE DROWNING IN CONTRADICTION AND MISINFORMATION.

The Path of Least Resistance

One might reasonably ask why the State Board of Elections would even consider certifying a voting system that can so easily be programmed, intentionally or accidentally, to add together votes intended for two different candidates, and then allocate the total of those votes to just one candidate. We can only speculate that the Board is simply taking the path of least resistance in Federal Court, rather than fighting to protect the constitutional rights of New York's voters, candidates and their fellow election officials.

ASK WHY? BECAUSE NY ALREADY USING A COMPUTER SYSTEM TO TABULATE THE VOTES.
ONE CAN ONLY ASSUME THAT YOU ARE AVOIDING THE ISSUE OF EXISTING, FRAUD-PRONE, PROGRAMMABLE NY CENTRAL TABULATORS.

YOU ARE AVOIDING IT BECAUSE
A) YOU ARE UNAWARE THAT NY CENTRAL TABULATORS EXIST
B) YOU ARE AWARE THAT THEY EXIST BUT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THEY CAN BE ELECTRONICALLY PROGRAMMED TO MISCOUNT VOTES.
C) YOU ARE AWARE THAT THE TABULATORS CAN BE PROGRAMMED TO MISCOUNT THE MANUALLY ENTERED LEVER VOTES BUT DARE NOT MENTION IT SINCE THAT WOULD DESTROY TOUR ARGUMENT FOR RETAINING THE LEVERS - THAT THEY CANNOT BE PROGARMMED.

IF IT'S (A) OR (B) CONSIDER THIS POST A LEARNING EXPERIENCE.
IF IT'S (C) WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL AGENDA IN KEEPING THE LEVERS?
INQUIRING MINDS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW.

Those officials are being asked to certify county-level election results without any knowledge of their correctness. This would be a felony under New York's election law if our election officials were made aware of it. As we said, it's terribly unfair.

NO IT'S TERRIBLY UNFAIR TO NY VOTERS THAT YOU FAIL TO CONSIDER THAT ELECTION FRAUD IS ENDEMIC IN NY, NOT BECAUSE OF LEVERS PER SE, BUT BECAUSE LEVER OUTPUT (WHETHER ACCURATE OR NOT) IS MANUALLY INPUT TO PROGRAMMABLE ELECTRONIC CENTRAL TABULATORS THAT CAN BE RIGGED TO MISCOUNT THE VOTES.

NY NEEDS ELECTION ACTIVISTS WHO UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES, NOT THOSE WHO AVOID THEM.