Guilford County Commissioners Vote “Yes” on DREs
By Anthony | January 19th, 2006 | 10:24 pmThe county commissioners have voted 8-2 in favor of the Board of Elections’ recommendation to use computerized DRE voting machines in Guilford County. One strange statement during the discussion was made by Vice-chairman Steve Arnold, who said (paraphrasing), “All the great ballot stuffing throughout history has been done with paper ballots.” Might that have something to do with the fact that computerized voting is a recent development? I suppose mechanical lever machines didn’t use paper – I’m not sure how prevalent they’ve been through history, but maybe they were common enough to give Arnold’s statement some actual meaning.
Update: Roch has more details in the comments.
January 20th, 2006 at 8:01 am
What a sideshow that was last night. Arnold’s uninformed commentary was just one example.
It was downright absurd to hear George Gilbert explain that of three major metropolitan counties in NC, two had chosen to use optical scan ballots and then hear Mike Winstead conclude, “So most of them are using DREs.”
It was also disturbing to see some commissioners rightfully ask about accomodations for the blind yet, when a blind woman spoke from the floor and pointed out that the DREs did not afford her a secret ballot, the commissioners’ concerns were exposed as mere lip service as they ignored her observations and voted in favor of the very machines she had criticized.
Paul Gibson’s cursory inquiry of the matter (which bascially amounted to inviting the board of elections members to confirm that that really do have the opinions they have) was pathetic.
Trudy Wade was the only commissioner to ask any truley probing, on-topic questions. (Billy Yow asked a few, although they weren’t quite as relevant to the decision before the board as were Wade’s).
All in all, the commissioners exhibited what is an all too common theme in their deliberations: a lack of intellectual rigor.
January 20th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Thanks for filling in some more details Roch. I unfortunately missed all but the end of the discussion, but it definitely sounds like they either already had their minds made up, or just didn’t care.
January 20th, 2006 at 8:29 am
A few had their minds made up it seemed, others, it was quite obvious, were willing to trade their approval of DREs in exchange for having Gilbert drop the idea of “voting centers” — that, not the soundness of the voting system, being the determining factor in their votes.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:57 am
I thought Steve Arnold was just trying to say “Cheaters will find a way to cheat,” no matter what voting method is used. So his comment made sense to me in that context. There’s no fraudproof voting system.
Apart from that, I found it ironic that the commissioner who most closely questioned the presenters was the one who is embroiled in a voting scandal of her own, and some would say, shouldn’t have been there to cast a vote anyway. Delicious. (But she made good points!)
January 20th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Gee Whiz, People, you all sound a bit surprised at the performance of our esteemed Guilford County Commissioners last night. I thought it was a typically enlightening performance; they had their lines down pat and came in right on cue. As for choosing the Dre voting machines that should have been a foregone conclusion also since from what I have been reading they are the more EXPENSIVE of the two choices.
January 20th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
No paper trail. Sounds about right for our commishes. You think they really understand the implications of this decision? I never USED to worry about the security of my vote.
January 20th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Actually Sue, that’s one thing the verified voting advocates can count as a success. Although they didn’t get the system they considered the best, their earlier efforts with the state legislature did assure that last night’s decision had to be, one way or antoher, for a system that includes a paper trail. The system chosen does keep a paper record of the ballots.
January 20th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
I was under the impression that the paper trail consisted of more or less a receipt that was taken away by the voter. Did I misunderstand? Is the paper record kept by the BoE, and can it be used by them to verify the vote count later?
January 20th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Nothing is taken away by the voter (such a “receipt” could be a ticket to vote selling). With the machines that were approved, a paper scroll that the voter can view is printed as you cast your ballot. It’s like a cash register roll, but it is under glass and stays in the machine. (Until removed by a poll worker). It can be used to audit the vote (random comparrisons of the paper record with the electronic record as now required by state law) and it can be used for a mannual hand recount if necessary.
January 21st, 2006 at 11:54 am
I have participated in hand counts of contested elections and can tell you that with no reservations the process is difficult at best. Having to deal with a flimsy paper roll such as that in a cash register will be a fiasco. By the time these slips of cheap sawdust and paste are passed thru a few hands as needs to be done for accuracy they will no longer be legible; then watch the law suits over election outcomes begin. You should worry about the security of your vote Sue and so should the rest of us.
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:19 am
[…] As previously noted, computerized DREs are now the voting machines of choice for Guilford County, so keep a close eye on your vote! […]
January 29th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
The Guilford County Board of Elections was lobbied hard by citizens of Guilford, but relegated to status of conspiracy theorists.
The Guilford County Director of Elections, George Nixon Gilbert, is very anti paper. He went to the state legislature to lobby against voter verified paper ballots, and even predicted that the very machine he is buying for Guilford County is a horrible idea.
The touchscreen machines print the “ballot” on a journal tape, or reel.
It uses thermal paper. One reel may hold about 150 ballots before it has to be changed, and testimony to the EAC advises that it takes about 1 hour to hand/eye recount 4 of these ballots.
At 4 ballots in an hour, that amounts to taking about 37.5 hours to recount an entire reel, of 150 votes.
That is why the Green Party abandoned recounting Nevada.
see http://www.ncvoter.net/guilford.html for more on Gilbert’s efforts to prevent S 223 from being passed, and his anti paper background.