Voting Integrity

Written by: Kent Wilson on Oct 11, 2006 4:16 PM EDT

Many of us who will be active on election day will be exercising the option of early voting. In suburban Cook County, this means that we will be required to use touch screen voting machines. (I don't know what the situation is in Lake County.) I urge anyone using these machines to pay very close attention to the paper print out of your vote. Before pressing the cast ballot button on the screen, check the paper print out to verify that it has printed your choices correctly. After casting your ballot, try to verify that what is printed again reflects your choices. There should be no changes. A demo of the touch screen voting machine canbe viewed here:Many of us who will be active on election day will be exercising the option of early voting. In suburban Cook County, this means that we will be required to use touch screen voting machines. (I don't know what the situation is in Lake County.) I urge anyone using these machines to pay very close attention to the paper print out of your vote. Before pressing the cast ballot button on the screen, check the paper print out to verify that it has printed your choices correctly. After casting your ballot, try to verify that what is printed again reflects your choices. There should be no changes. A demo of the touch screen voting machine canbe viewed here:
www.sequoiavote.com/democenter.p...

For an excellent discussion of electronic voting integrity, check out Charles Kuffner's interview with Dan Wallach, a computer science professor at Rice university at www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/0... While the discussion focuses mainly on Texas and Diebold, there is much that is relevant to voting in Illinois. When you hear the discussion of modems, realize that what is said applies to Illinois as well; we use modems to transmit election results to the collection stations. The paper tapes used here are the same kind discussed in the interview. There are reasons for concern.

I would welcome comments by better informed people. My information comes from being trained as an election judge.


For an excellent discussion of electronic voting integrity, check out Charles Kuffner's interview with Dan Wallach, a computer science professor at Rice university. While the discussion focuses mainly on Texas and Diebold, there is much that is relevant to voting in Illinois. When you hear the discussion of modems, realize that what is said applies to Illinois as well; we use modems to transmit election results to the collection stations. The paper tapes used here are the same kind discussed in the interview. There are reasons for concern.

I would welcome comments by better informed people. My information comes from being trained as an election judge.

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Location: Evanston, IL 60201