Voting Machines

Kathy Dopp, a mathematician and computer scientist, has issued a new paper today on Instant Runoff Voting. The bottom line - IRV does not meet its promise and it is damaging to election integrity. Since the main proponent has set up office in North Carolina, it behooves anyone who cares about their vote to read this. North Carolina has trouble counting votes now, we don't need to make it more complicated.

Just today a new report has been released on Instant Runoff Voting, by Mathematician Kathy Dopp, President of The National Election Data Archive. Here is her press release, and the full report is linked if you wish to review it. North Carolina has been targeted by outside groups to be a "beta test" for this election experiment. Many groups are being persuaded to endorse Instant Runoff Voting without hearing these important facts. North Carolina's voting software and machines are not up to mission requirements for this. Senior citizens and less educated voters will be hindered by this system

Monday, June 9. 2008

I saw something about this last night, posted on a few sites.

This is about an Extremely Important Report that will be out tomorrow in the Sunday's issue of the New York Times Magazine.

I just caught it again posted over at After Downing Street where Dave put up the New York Times Magazine link along with posting the article.

I just quickly read through it and am going back for a slower read, but a few pointers, and there are many.

it starts out with this:

NCDP Chair Jerry Meek announced today that state Democrats would participate in an unprecedented 50-state election protection program to prepare for the 2008 election.

North Carolina will participate in an in-depth nationwide survey to collect critical data on the often confusing and complex sets of administrative practices and decisions governing our nation’s elections. We will work with election officials throughout the state to help identify potential issues so they can be resolved well in advance of the 2008 election.

More specifically, we will work with local election officials to answer critical questions about voter registration, centralized voter databases, voting systems and absentee voting, provisional balloting, polling place procedures and Election Day preparation.

Data collected from the survey will be analyzed to determine the needs of each election locality and the next steps for strengthening the election process in that locality.

“North Carolina Democrats will not rest until every single eligible North Carolinian can register to vote, cast their ballot without fear of intimidation or harassment, and have confidence that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately,” said NCDP Chair Jerry Meek.

“Our commitment stands in stark contrast to what we’ve seen from Republicans both here in North Carolina and across the country,” Meek said. “From false reports of voter fraud and restrictive voter ID proposals to voter purging and voter intimidation tactics, Republicans want to place a variety of roadblocks that keep countless Americans from exercising their right to vote."

Mecklenburg County's election department sent me their trouble reports for the May primary and November General Election.

The report lists the many different problems with the touch-screens and their tempermental thermal printers, printers that often jammed or failed.

The NC Coalition for Verified Voting predicted these problems in advance and had urged all NC counties to purchase the tried and true optical scan systems and not the touch-screen machines. (See www.ncvoter.net )

23 of our NC counties use the ES&S iVotronic RTAL touch-screens.
The other 77 use the more mature and lower tech optical scan voting machines.

(Mecklenburg is the county that had 10 touch-screen machines with no voter verified paper printouts in the May, 2006 primary.)

The Kissell/Hayes contest for US Congress may end up in
a recount situation.

The New York Times says that if there is a recount, it would take place
November 20 or 21.

Volunteers to help out - anyone?

Here's the NY Times article:

"November 8, 2006 New York Times. Undecided Houses Races Roundup.

North Carolina’s 8th District: The final count of the extremely
close race in the south-central part of the state will determine
if Democrat Larry Kissell succeeded in his bid to defeat four-term
Republican Rep. Robin Hayes — which would be one of the year’s
biggest upsets — or fell just short. With all precincts reporting
in official returns, Hayes led Kissell by 456 votes out of more
than 120,000 counted, a margin of two-tenths of 1 percent...

Kissell, a social studies teacher, overcame huge disadvantages