SB63 testimony
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Shazia N. Anwar, Director, TrueVoteMD
Written Testimony before Senate Education, Health and Environmental
Affairs Committee
RE: SB63
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Distinguished Senators,
As the Director of TrueVoteMD, a grassroots, non-partisan organization
with over 3,000 members from across the State, I am here today to
comment only on the provision of SB63 relating to the voter-verified
paper audit trail. We agree with Sen. Lenett that every voter should
have a right to a voting system that can verify, through independent
means, every vote cast. And we agree that this right should be listed
in a Voter’s Bill of Rights that would be distributed to every voter
prior to an election and posted in every precinct and polling place
during an election. While we appreciate the co-sponsors’ desires to
create and include this right in a Voter’s Bill of Rights, the language
itself does not comport to current standards on the issue.
The essence of a paper audit trail system is to have an independently
created record (such as paper) that the voter either creates personally
or through the use of a ballot-marking device for individuals with
disabilities. The paper is then fed into an independent tabulation
device (such as an optical scan machine) that counts the paper record.
The electronic vote tally is the initial result, but its certification
would be contingent on the results of a mandatory audit of the optical
scan machines through the counting of the corresponding paper records
of randomly-selected precincts. If this initial audit exposes a
discrepancy, then the audit would be expanded to either a larger audit
or possibly a full recount of the precinct in order to determine the
nature of the discrepancy. It is only after all discrepancies have been
addressed that the election results would be certified.
Given these aspects of a voter-verified paper audit trail, SB63 poses
several problems that must be addressed.
· The current language in SB63 would allow for
the use of an electronic voting and tabulating machine using a
continuous roll printer, both of which contradict the intent of the
voter-verified paper audit trail.
· The bill also does not mandate that audits
be conducted on the machines prior to the certification of the results.
· It would be practically impossible to
conduct a mandatory audit of our current machines, or of machines that
use a continuous roll printer, because our current machines are
paperless and the continuous roll printers attached to electronic
voting machines have on average a 10% failure rate around the nation.
· Since votes are recorded sequentially on a
voting machine that uses a continuous roll printer, it would be
possible to recreate the order in which persons voted, which would
violate the privacy rights of those voters.
· The audit provisions also do not explain how
discrepancies would be addressed, such as possibly triggering either a
larger audit or a full recount of questionable precinct results.
· Finally, it does not state standards by
which the disabled community can ensure that they too will be able to
vote secretly, independently, and with an ability to verify their vote
before casting.
Given these observations, it is our assessment that the provisions
relating to a paper audit trail either be stricken completely from the
bill, or be amended. If the Committee chooses to strike the language
from the bill, we would like to suggest amending lines 12-14 on page 3
to say:
Should the right to a voter-verified
paper record, with the ability to inspect and verify before casting,
become law prior to the enactment of this Act, this right must be
listed in the Voter’s Bill of Right as a right to a voting system that
produces an accessible voter-verified paper audit trail.
If the Committee chooses to amend the language, we strongly encourage
you to use Sen. Edward Kasemeyer’s bill SB392 as the appropriate
language for making a voter-verified paper audit trail law. SB392
addresses all of the concerns listed above, and at this time, has over
30 co-sponsors. It is our belief that SB392 should be the bill that
creates the right to a voting system that produces an accessible
voter-verified paper audit trail, and that SB63 should incorporate the
right as suggested above.
We once again appreciate the co-sponsors’ commitment to the issue of
verifiability and accuracy. Unfortunately, given that the language
currently in SB63 would create a watered-down version of the important
elements of a voter-verified paper audit trail, this provision should
either be stricken completely, or amended to match the much stronger
and more appropriate language in SB392.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
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