The National Election Data Archive Urges the Senate to Take Steps to Assure the Integrity of the 2008 Election Outcomes

According to The New York Times, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said that she has decided against seeking any major changes in voting equipment before 2010. However, the National Election Data Archive says that there is plenty of time available (16 months) to reform elections prior to November 2008. According to Kathy Dopp, Executive Director of The National Election Data Archive, the most crucial item for 2008 is to require independent audits - manual counts of voter verifiable paper ballot records to check machine counts.

(PRWEB) July 27, 2007 -- According to The New York Times, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, said that she has decided against seeking any major changes in voting equipment before 2010. However, the National Election Data Archive says that there is plenty of time available (16 months) to reform elections prior to November 2008.

According to Kathy Dopp, Executive Director of The National Election Data Archive, the most crucial item for 2008 is to require independent audits - manual counts of voter verifiable paper ballot records to check machine counts. This can only be accomplished nationwide through federal legislation. Delaying implementation would leave a large number of states wide-open to vote fraud, miscounts, and lost votes.

Postponing the replacement of existing paperless digital recording electronic (DRE) touch-screen voting machines would mean that no manual counts could be performed to check the machine counts. Historically, it takes from 6 months to one year for jurisdictions to replace paperless voting systems and the November 2008 election is 16 months away. There are enough ballot marking devices (BMDs) available which handle more types of disabilities than DRE voting machines do to replace paperless electronic-ballot touch-screens.

Kathy Dopp, Executive Director, National Election Data Archive, asserts that "elections must 1. be publicly verifiably accurate, and 2. allow all legally registered voters a convenient opportunity to vote;" and election reform must contain the following elements: "1. Pre-printed paper ballots and paper sign-in systems for all voters at polling locations in case of electronic failures; and 2. Independent public manual counts of voter-verified paper ballots sufficiently to ensure correct machine counts of election outcomes; 3. Public scrutiny of ballot security procedures; and 4. Public access to election records necessary to verify the integrity of independent manual counts."

The testimony of the National Election Data Archive also lists problems with electronic ballot touch-screen voting machines such as uncertified software, higher expensive, longer lines, violating ballot privacy, insufficient features for voters with disabilities, and making elections vulnerable to Denial of Service attacks, hacking, touch-screen calibration and delay problems, high under-vote rates, power outages, printer malfunctions, and other electronic failures.

The National Election Data Archive is recommending amendments to the Senate election reform bill sponsored by Dianne Feinstein, S1487.

The written testimony of the National Election Data Archive is found on its web site http://ElectionArchive.org

Testimony for Submission into the Congressional Record For The S1487 Hearings
http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/NEDA-S1487-Testimony.pdf

Amendment Suggestions for the Ballot Integrity Act of 2007
http://electionmathematics.org/em-legislation/S1487Amendments.pdf

We also analyzed S1487 and found some weaknesses in some of its current provisions:
http://electionmathematics.org/em-legislation/BallotIntegrityActAnalysis.pdf

Election fraud could put the wrong persons in control of Congress and in the President's office in January 2009. Please support 2008 deadlines for replacing all paperless DRE voting machines and conducting independent manual checks of election results.

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