OSU Law Professor Begins to "Get" It.

Written by: John Burik on Dec 2, 2006 11:53 PM EST

Only after engaging in a careful process of diagnosis should Congress move to the task of prescribing remedies. This applies not only to voting technology, but also to voter registration, provisional voting, identification requirements, and all the other aspects of election administration that have undergone change in the last six years. It should also look carefully at the various agencies charged with administering elections, including the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), to determine whether there's a need for institutional reform. If Congress rushes to judgment on solutions before properly analyzing the problems, it could end up making things worse instead of better.  -- Dan Tokaji

Source: http://snipurl.com/13xyo

Several years ago OSU law professor and attorney Dan Tokaji filed Stewart v. Blackwell claiming Ohio's voting system violated Due Process and Equal Protection of the U.S. Constitution, as well as sections of the National Voting Rights Act.  Citing Bush v. Gore, the suit asserted plaintiffs' rights had been violated by certain counties' use of particular types of voting machines, specifically, central count optical scan and punch card machines.  Tokaji's solution?  Paperless touch-screen machines. 

A number of us joined with Verified Voting and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and filed a friend of the court brief in opposition to Tokaji's soluton.  We were aware of numerous problems with paperless touch-screen machines, such as vote switching, computer crashes, vulnerability to hacking, and so forth.  Even worse, these machines offered no way for a voter to verify his or her vote.  The judge refused to grant the injunction Tokaji requested and Ohio passed one of the first bills in the country requiring a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT).

Victorious in both the court and the legislature, we thought we could return to civilian life.  We could not have been more wrong.

What we experienced after a Primary and General Election with VVPAT was the machines still perform vote switching, crash, and remain vulnerable to hacks, plus the VVPAT printers don't work, or the paper is smudged, over-printed or torn.  Over ten percent of the VVPAT rolls produced in the Primary Election in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) could not be used.  So while the vote is verifiable, 75% of voters don't verify their vote, and the thermal paper rolls are not usable for an audit or a recount.  What does Rush Holt offer us with HR 550?  The mess I've described above.

We learned. Tokaji learned.  Now let's hope Congress "gets" it.  We need to prohibit all touch screen voting and address registration, provisional ballots, ID and all aspects of election administration.  Don't "Rush" to judgment.

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Location: OH