By Phil Sexton

June 29, 2007 10:58 AM | Link to this

Watermark overwriting the vote is a non-issue. All that is required is to run the blank ballot through a scanner and see if it registers a vote.

By Ellen Brodsky

June 27, 2007 10:59 PM | Link to this

There is no excuse for any under vote to be accepted unless the voter intentionally does not want to vote for that race. All the optical scanners have the option for the supervisor of elections to give feedback to the voter if they under vote any race.

In the FL Voting System Standards Statute it reads:

101.5606 Requirements for approval of systems.—No electronic or electromechanical voting system shall be approved by the Department of State unless it is so constructed that:

(3) It immediately rejects a ballot where the number of votes for an office or measure exceeds the number which the voter is entitled to cast or where the tabulating equipment reads the ballot as a ballot with no votes cast.

(4) For systems using paper ballots, it accepts a rejected ballot pursuant to subsection (3) if a voter chooses to cast the ballot, but records no vote for any office that has been overvoted or undervoted.

In other words, FL law requires the voting system alert the voter to any races where they under voted or over voted and allow the voter to correct their vote or cast it if the voter chooses to.

In a demonstration yesterday by the county they wrongly stated that the machines would not alert the voters to under votes or only if on the entire ballot was under voted.

As you can see under FL law the voter must be able to have the optical scanner alert them should they under vote or over vote on any race before the ballot is cast.

This feature is offered by all vendors to the Supervisor of Elections and they must follow FL election law to protect the voters.

This article illustrates why we must have a statistically significant manual audit of all paper ballots before an election is certified. Not the 1-2% just passed in HB 537 after the election is certified.

Palm Beach County must also reconsider whether to continue using Sequoia because the vendor does not offer a ballot marking device for the disabled relegating them to second class status and opening possible equal protection lawsuits.

By Ellen Brodsky

June 27, 2007 10:58 PM | Link to this

There is no excuse for any under vote to be accepted unless the voter intentionally does not want to vote for that race. All the optical scanners have the option for the supervisor of elections to give feedback to the voter if they under vote any race.

In the FL Voting System Standards Statute it reads:

101.5606 Requirements for approval of systems.—No electronic or electromechanical voting system shall be approved by the Department of State unless it is so constructed that:

(3) It immediately rejects a ballot where the number of votes for an office or measure exceeds the number which the voter is entitled to cast or where the tabulating equipment reads the ballot as a ballot with no votes cast.

(4) For systems using paper ballots, it accepts a rejected ballot pursuant to subsection (3) if a voter chooses to cast the ballot, but records no vote for any office that has been overvoted or undervoted.

In other words, FL law requires the voting system alert the voter to any races where they under voted or over voted and allow the voter to correct their vote or cast it if the voter chooses to.

In a demonstration yesterday by the county they wrongly stated that the machines would not alert the voters to under votes or only if on the entire ballot was under voted.

As you can see under FL law the voter must be able to have the optical scanner alert them should they under vote or over vote on any race before the ballot is cast.

This feature is offered by all vendors to the Supervisor of Elections and they must follow FL election law to protect the voters.

This article illustrates why we must have a statistically significant manual audit of all paper ballots before an election is certified. Not the 1-2% just passed in HB 537 after the election is certified.

Palm Beach County must also reconsider whether to continue using Sequoia because the vendor does not offer a ballot markiing device for the disabled relegating them to second class status and opening possible equal protection lawsuits.

By M

June 26, 2007 11:52 PM | Link to this

State Rep. Susan Bucher for Supervisor of Elections in 2008!!!!!!

By Fred

June 26, 2007 9:13 PM | Link to this

Paul,

You are missing the point. It isn’t about cost.

In a close election, Palm Beach County votes SHOULDN NOT COUNT if they cannot be accurately counted! The voters of PBC should absolutely not have the right to “be cheap” on this issue. In fact, I’d dare say the rest of the country will help with the bill, or even pay the bill entirely, just so we don’t ever have another situation like in 2000. Maybe they ought to send you to Iraq — Al Gore had no beef with Saddam, but GWB had to avenge the “attempt on his daddy’s life”, which has now cost somewhere between half to 1 trillion dollars! I thought you wanted to save money?

By Eric

June 26, 2007 5:32 PM | Link to this

If the Commission really wants the election to run smoothly, they better hire someone who knows what they’re doing to help Mr Andersen.

By Paul

June 26, 2007 5:07 PM | Link to this

State forces us to electronic voting by outlawing our perfectly good ballot punch machines following the 2000 election. We spend tons of money.

Now the state is forcing us to optical ballot voting. The state should pay the full bill. Of course they wont.

We, the people, got screwed. Twice at least.

By Meska

June 26, 2007 3:54 PM | Link to this

If the State is giving 4,8 Mil and Anderson needs 3.9 Mil, Where does the 3.3 Mil. the county is chipping in go?

By enormous

June 26, 2007 3:49 PM | Link to this

What’s too bad and is costing the taxpayers a lot of money, is the ignorance of the voters. They get pushed into going to the polls with no knowledge of how the machines operate. Then they blame it on the machines or the paper chads or something else. Palm Beach County has and will be the butt of a lot of jokes for a long time to come, because of voter’s ignorance. Spend time to go down to the supervisor of Elections to have someone go over the machines with you so you are ready when voting day arrives,

By The Professor

June 26, 2007 2:20 PM | Link to this

Who cares if it is paper or not! I do not believe a relationship exists between the method of voting instrument and the candidate outcome (bad or good elected official). That is because most of them if not all are corrupted officials. And if they are not, they will learn quickly how to manipulate the people who voted them in office.

With all the money that this county has we still have to wait for grant money. This indicates one thing…absolutely terrible management.

It is very sad to see our county this way;

By Terry A

June 26, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

It is really too bad that we had to punish Theresa Lepore by voting her out of office. Wexler and his puppet Anderson are all the proof needed to show that the voting system in Palm Beach County will supply material to comedians for years to come.

By PBC Resident

June 26, 2007 1:47 PM | Link to this

z

We still need some kind of quality control to prevent fraud.

The problem with optical ballots is that the ballots are still tabulated with computers. This can be hacked. Technology used with optical ballots, such as “marksense”, allows a faint pencil mark to be registered as a vote. It’s claimed that this will allow a voters intent to be recorded as a vote. However, empty ballots can be printed with invisible watermarks which marksense technology can be programed to register as a vote. A voters penciled in vote can be overrided by an invisible watermark.

We need some kind of independent and random testing to make sure the ballots are not compromised. Maybe a receipt with a unique code which each voter can later check to make sure their vote was recorded as intended?

Anyways, I voted for Nader in 2000. If Nader wasn’t on the ballot, I still wouldn’t had voted for Gore, as his team suggests. No way would I ever vote for a Bush or Clinton either. To this day I believe BOTH Bush and Gore attempted to steal the election. We need to abolish the electoral college and go to a popular vote…..

z

By johnb

June 26, 2007 12:36 PM | Link to this

Anderson is an idiot who will screw it, also keep that buffoon Wexler away.