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Paper Tigers to Proposal Evaluation Committee
March 21, 2006
TO: Boulder County RFP Evaluation Team Josh Liss, county elections coordinator [chair] Nancy Jo Wurl, chief deputy clerk for the county Tim Hansford, business analyst for the clerk and recorder’s office Mike Harlan, information technology manager for the county Jana Petersen, clerk to the board of commissioners Marty Neilson, chairwoman of the Boulder County Republicans Deb Gardner, chairwoman of the Boulder County Democrats Bo Shaffer, chairman of the Boulder County Libertarians Barbara Anuta, of the Boulder League of Woman Voters Faith Gross, of the Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People CC: Boulder County Commissioners Members of the press
FROM: Paper Tigers
A group of citizens (listed on the last page) would like to take this opportunity to bring some concerns about the Hart eSlate equipment to your attention. We call ourselves the Paper Tigers because of our strong support for paper ballots.
DECISION
Paper Tigers recommend that the Review Committee reject the Hart proposal. Other systems (for example, AutoMARK—see note on the last page) are on the market, and the committee could ask the county to pursue them vigorously by lobbying the Secretary of State for their certification. Hart equipment has caused problems in Tarrant County, Texas, and Yakima County, Washington, among other places.
ARGUMENTS FOR THE Hart PROPOSAL:
· The Hart eSlate is the only device under consideration.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE Hart PROPOSAL:
· The Hart eSlate is the only device under consideration. · The Hart eSlate software is deficient. · The Hart eSlate overall function is inadequate.
FINDINGS
The Hart eSlate Does Not Create Auditable Vote Counts
During Hart’s Wednesday, March 15, demonstration of its eSlate system for the Boulder RFP Evaluation Team (RFPET), Paper Tiger Neal McBurnett noted that the eSlate device, like Hart’s other products, does not produce a vote report that can be audited. Hart’s position relies solely on a computer recount of the votes cast in the election. But Colorado law specifically requires an election audit. To be a bit more precise, an audit requires something to be audited. The process must work something like this:
1. Use the election system to tally up the votes. 2. Produce an auditable report* in which results for each race are calculated for the votes cast on each individual voting device (for eSlate) and in each batch of ballots (for BallotNow). The totals across all devices and batches must match the totals for the election. 3. In a statistically random manner, select devices and batches and races to be audited, such that each device has an equal probability of being selected. No one should know which devices and batches will be audited until after the auditable report is produced. 4. Hand-count the paper records (ballots and VVPATs—voter-verified paper audit trails) to get results for the selected races on the selected devices and batches. The counters must not know what the results calculated by the system were. 5. Compare the numbers from the hand counts and the system counts for each device and each batch. They should each match exactly. If they do not, any discrepancies must be eliminated or explained and resolved.
*The Hart system could not produce the reports required in step 2.
During the March 15 demonstration Hart’s people merely removed a memory card from the eSlate device and ran it through their Tally computer system a second time to produce a computer-generated recount of the votes as cast and recorded on the memory card.
Such a recount is not an audit.
Colorado state law focuses on audits—not recounts—as a check on computer-counted results of elections. Audits test the proposition that a random sample set counted by the auditors does not significantly differ from the counts made by computer. In that way, audits check the published official election results.
Since recounts of the sort demonstrated by Hart on March 15 simply repeat the initial method of computer counting, recounts do not check the computer count. They do not use an alternative method, but merely repeat the same method the computer used to produce its original count. If the counting method associated with the computers is flawed, possibly because of software bugs, hardware malfunction, or manipulation, repeating that same method will likely not reveal flaws.
On the other hand, an audit provides an alternative method, the results of which may be compared with the computer method, and is designed to allow estimation of the probability of flaws.
We need audits.
The Hart eSlate Does Not Allow Sight-Impaired Voters To Verify Their Vote
According to Colorado’s HAVA, after instruction on operation, all electors must be able to operate the voter interface device independently and cast their ballot without assistance.
Paper Tiger Mary Eberle watched the demonstrations last Wednesday and clearly noted that a person who could not see would need to trust the computer to read back his or her vote choices correctly. Without sight, a person using the eSlate device has no way to verify that his or her vote was accurately inscribed on the paper tape.
The March 15 demonstration showed that the eSlate system does not meet this Colorado HAVA requirement.
The Hart eSlate Is More Easily Kept Out of Boulder County Now Than Removed At Some Later Time
On Thursday, March 16, Richard Valenty reported (in the Colorado Daily), that “Josh Liss, county elections coordinator, has said that able-bodied voters could choose to use the … [eSlate] device in 2006 instead of voting on paper.”
The availability of this “choice” is a “Trojan horse” scenario. It is likely the only reason that Hart is proposing to “rent” the eSlate to Boulder County. The whole process is advertising for Hart’s corporate image and for further sales to Boulder County. So far, even on the system that the county has already purchased, Hart has shown no willingness to provide a method for auditing as state law requires. Yet with residents enamored of the “cute” eSlate device during the rental period, Hart may figure that the voting activist community’s concerns for verifiable, transparent, accurately counted elections can be overcome by the time Boulder County actually purchases equipment. And the 2006 election results could be flawed by the inadequacies of the rental equipment.
Talk To Us
We want to hear what you think. Please contact one of the Paper Tigers (see the next page). The following Web sites can lead you to articles and other information about local voting and vote-counting problems:
Citizens for Verified Voting: http://www.coloradovoter.net/ CAMBER: http://www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz/
The Paper Tigers
P.S. The AutoMARK certification facts: On January 10, 2006, the State of Colorado notified ES&S, makers of AutoMARK, that their request for certification of their device was rejected. However, the Hart eSlate system—though it fails the same Colorado statutory requirement to allow all disabled electors to vote independently—was certified. The background is presented at the following:
http://www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz/automark_01222006.htm
“The innovation for serving the user interface requirements of disabled voters is encouraging. If [companies would] only drop the notion of digital ballots, we could make forward progress. Diebold, Hart, and Sequoia would be reasonable solutions if they eliminated the digital ballots and printed a full text paper ballot with votes that can be counted using the same method used to count absentee ballots.” [Al Kolwicz, 3/20/06] |
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