The Charlottesville / Albemarle Democratic Breakfast for Saturday, January 20, 2007 had as its topic, Electronic Voting Machines.. The following are notes by Liz Kutchai. A podcast is available at http://www.cvillepodcast.com/index.php?s=voting+machines

"[These notes are not an official transcript of the panel discussion. I wrote down as much as I could, but I missed some things. Opinions expressed in brackets are entirely my own. Some acronyms I used are: DRE = direct recording electronic; VVPAT = voter-verified paper trail.]

Moderator: Jim Heilman, former Albemarle County Registrar, currently a consultant on voting in other countries. Panelists: Will Harvey, secretary of Albemarle County Election Board; Rick Sincere, secretary of Charlottesville Electoral Board; David Evans, engineering professor, and citizen member of committee to study voting equipment in the General Assembly.

Panelist Presentations
Heilman: There are seven bills in the General Assembly about electronic machines. Other countries mostly don't use electronic machines (exceptions: Holland, India, some South American countries). Brief history of US voting: Lever machines, then punch cards arrived in 1960s, optical-scan machines in 1970s, touch screens in 1990s. Albemarle County bought DRE machines in 1994 (these machines actually have buttons behind the screen). City bought E-Slate machines in 2002. After 2000 election, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed, providing money to localities to buy electronic machines.

Harvey: Albemarle County has 97 AVC machines for 28 precincts plus one precinct for absentees. The county has 11 or 12 ballot faces on their machines; 325-340 people work on election day. Electronic machines are not the biggest problem in US elections. Bigger problems are: voter suppression, low turnout, means by which absentee votes are collected, secretaries of state that also run political campaigns [a reference to Ohio]. Can each voter cast a vote without any glitches? No. Before each election, the machines are checked by voting each possible combination once [this is also done in city]. The vendor is never in the room where the machines are stored without a registrar or electoral board member present. The storeroom is next to the police department. The machines have battery backup; in a power failure, they can run more than a full day on batteries. At beginning of election, machines are checked to make sure they read zero. With the county growing, more machines will be needed. If you really want to know how the system works, volunteer to be an election official.

Sincere: [He gave a history of voting in the US, but neglected to mention that only men were allowed to vote during most of the time period he was covering.] The secret ballot did not come into use until after the Civil War. The first DRE machines were used in 1984; since then there has been not one single verifiable case of tampering [emphasis added]. This is a good record. [He seemed not to realize that the lack of verifiability is what bothers people.] Over time, where election fraud takes place, it is with paper ballots. It is far easier to manipulate paper-ballot results. The problem with the Oregon system where everyone votes by mail is: if a person votes in privacy, his choice can be coerced. When the Electoral Board conducts a canvas, it's a public meeting. Election officials make incident reports throughout the day-for example, if a person leaves the booth without pressing the "Cast Ballot" button, a note is made.

David Evans: It's important to note that questions about electronic voting are not attacks on election officials. [He asked audience, "What is the most important thing elections can do?" Several people offered opinions; I said the perception of fairness was as important as actual fairness.] The most important thing elections do is to convince the losers that they lost. [He's right. It's a better way of saying what I was trying to say. When my candidate wins, I don't question the results.]
People who work on computer software are virtually unanimous in thinking that DREs are a bad way to do voting. For voting we need accountability and privacy. It's difficult to insure both. We can't audit without invading privacy. Transparency vs. privacy is a real issue. You have no way to know for sure what software is running in the machine. When I voted absentee at the DMV in 2006, 1 was alone in a room with two voting machines for more than ten minutes. So I could have tried to tamper with the machines.

What went right about the Florida election in 2000 is that there were paper [punch-card] ballots that you could look at. In Sarasota County [November 2006, where the Democrat running for Congress lost by 325 votes out of 200,000 cast], there is no way to recount because there is no paper. Sarasota County had 13% no-votes for Congress vs. 2% in the other counties in the district. [No-vote means the voter left the Congressional choice blank, while voting for other offices.] There are bills in the General Assembly to mandate optical-scan machines and to ban wireless communication between machines. A problem with DREs is that the election software is running on top of Windows. Unintentional flaws in software can change election results. With a touch screen, a voter can touch one place on a screen and the machine can record another place (different candidate); this is not a problem with the city's E-Slate.

Discussion: [These notes are not an official transcript of the panel discussion. I wrote down as much as I could, but I missed some things.]

Will Harvey: It's highly unlikely David could have tampered with a machine when he was alone at the DMV. The machines have seals on them. If a cartridge is taken out of a machine, the machine sends an error signal: "Machine down. Send technician."
Rick Sincere: The E-Slate is not Windows-based.
David Evans: I'd like to do an experiment. Give me two machines. I'll tamper with one. Then election officials can try to figure out which one I tampered with.

Heilman: How is Virginia doing compared to other states?
Sincere: Better than most ... as good as Florida. [This is supposed to reassure us?] Harvey: Some of the Y2K hysteria has been transferred to electronic voting.

Q (Liz Kutchai): When voter leaves booth without pressing "Cast Ballot" button, do election officials call out, "Hey, buddy, you forgot..."?
A (Sincere): They do if they notice it before the voter leaves. But sometimes the voter is too embarrassed to go back in the booth.
Q (Liz Kutchai): Are the machines ever tested in a realistic mini-election, say, with 5000 votes, instead of just testing by voting each combination once?
A (Sincere): Yes.

Q about Diebold machines...
David Evans: the Diebold code is full of little errors.
Q about whether corrupted software on one machine can get onto other machines... Sincere: No.
Evans: Yes.
Q about wi-fi connections to & between machines... All 3 panelists against wi-fi connectivity.

Sheri Iachetta (city registrar): Senate Bill 840 will require optical-scan machines. To buy these will cost $30M. State will fund only $10 M and will send that money to poorer localities, so city & Albemarle County won't get any.

Heilman: The problem is not necessarily with the machines. In the 2005 recount [VA attorney general race], the judges refused to allow optical-scan ballots to be recounted. In Sarasota County, FL, the judge has refused to allow inspection of the machines."

- Liz Kutchai