Relax … everyone will get to vote. The way I look at is, 40 cents times 560,000 ballots = $224,000 that can’t be spent on something else. That’s several cops, or a lot of asphalt. Statewide, if everyone followed Robin Carnahan’s recommendation, that would be like a million dollars tossed in the trash (or hopefully, the recycling bin) every year. How wasteful.

I’ve voted electronically since they started using them - it was easy, it was fast, and I never had the slightest problem. Seems to me they shouldn’t print paper ballots at all. The only things in the world that still require dead trees are newspapers and voting … get with the 21st century, people!

Nick, you be the king. I can tell you’ve had the perfect life, never a failure, never a mistake, never an unanticipated occurrence. You are probably the guy who invented the automatic answering system that businesses use so often to be “more efficient” (make the customer use his time to wait) and save money for the company (doesn’t cost us anything to make the customer wait).
The problem is that sometimes problems arise, but then you probably think if the system screws up, it will be more to the Democrats disadvantage than Republicans so that will make it ok.
Nick, you are the one that needs to move into century 21. You always have a backup system or at least a plan, particularly in an election. That’s why I am for McCain/Palin big time.
If something adverse were to happen with the rest of the universe, we would at least have John and Sarah, and that’s the way it should be. They should be the last resort, not the first choice.

Almost forgot Nick, since you have figured out what we could do with the money we would save by not using the backup system, just imagine what we could do with the $10,000,000,000 (that’s ten billion Nick) a month we would save by getting out of Iraq.

Will there be a special line for those DEAD people who will be voting? I mean really, they can take up a lot of space in line. OMG, and the smell.

It would be easier to mail the ballot to the local ACORN office and have the dead do their voting there.

Actually, I find great favor in having paper ballots available. Some polling stations lost power two and three times on Super Tuesday, I think it was, and if there was a question about the DRE’s and their stability with the power outages, then even if it required a flashlight and a pen, voters were still able to cast their ballots in a timely manner until a certified technician could ensure the functional capacity of the DRE’s. Even then, there was no question of the information saved on the DREs and the backup systems. But the paper allows the election staff to move people faster. It’s a great idea to have this extra tool, and I agree with the county saving the money by not printing one for every voter, knowing that there is NOT a need for that, if just ONE voter doesn’t use paper. I think the county is VERY capable at running elections, and to answer the question in the article:

As for cost, Mr. Michaels posed this question to me on the phone: “Would the county board be criticized more for printing a thousand ballots that go unused, or for a thousand voters not getting to vote?”

The answer is: BOTH. The county will get criticized for unnecessary waste, and/or they will get criticized for not doing their job. St. Louis County is better at holding their local government accountable than most places I have lived. So since we have empowered them to do this thing, let them, and then criticize them after the fact, where criticism is warranted. We always do. But this time, for once, don’t forget to thank them when they DO the job right.

Nick Kasoff,

Shouldn’t print any paper ballots at all? Spoken like a true computer nerd.

Several of the comments here suggest at least three serious general misconceptions about touch screen voting equipment that were not touched on in the article. There is no question that the screens look high tech and—for the computer literate—they are simple to operate. However, they are not secure, the results from the machines cannot be audited to a software independent record of the voter’s intent, and they cost more to operate than a system based exclusively on paper ballots and optiscan machines.

The Board and its representatives talk a lot about the security they provide for these machines and about how difficult it would be for a hacker to break into them. What they will not talk about is that no public official at any level of government has reviewed the code provided by the manufacturer (updates are provided roughly annually). They will not answer the question does the County’s iVotronics touch screen equipment have the same software backdoor (that permits anyone knowing about it to bypass all local passwords) that existed in the iVotronics equipment used (and ultimately discarded) in the infamous Sarasota County Florida Congressional District 13 race? In that race 18,000 undervotes (undervotes means people—an incredibly high 14% in Sarasota County–came to the polls and didn’t vote in the Congressional District race) were recorded. County election officials actually can’t answer this question because the code is proprietary and state law only allows a review of the code if the manufacturer goes bankrupt. Suspected electronic election rigging is not a sufficient reason in Missouri state law for local officials to look at the manufacturer’s provided operating code.

Voting on the County’s touch screen devices results in a record of the vote being stored in four places on the machine; two memories in the device, a card that is inserted into the machine for the duration of Election Day, and the paper tape. In each case the voter’s intent as determined by which block is pressed on the electronic ballot must be interpreted by the machine’s operating code (the same code that is not reviewed by any public official) to be translated into any of the recording places. Nine people out of ten don’t check the paper tape to verify that it records the voter’s wishes accurately. As a result all of the four records of the voter’s intent are totally dependent on the software (again—software that has never been checked by any public official) working perfectly. Any error in the operating software cannot be caught through audits of the totals back to any of the four records of the voter’s intent recorded by the touch screen device.

Finally, a comparison of the 2004 actual expenditures for the County Board of Elections and the 2008 budget shows an increase of almost 30%. In the interim very little has changed about the way that the Board works except for the introduction of DREs. In fact, the 2008 Board budget estimated that the total number of elections run in 2008 would be fewer than the number run in 2004.

Using this equipment is the equivalent of using an ATM where you leave the machine with no independent proof of the amount of money you took out. In that situation you would just have to trust the manufacturer and the bank to look after your best interest.

Mr. Michaels: Or people can just look at the paper trail on the machine, like it is there for them to use. The paper trail WILL NOT lie. Even if the software were - not that I think that it could be - tampered with, so that the vote recorded in the electronic storage devices was not the selection of the voter AND the printer was told to mark their intent incorrectly, then the electronic and paper tabulations would NOT match. So unless the guys in the black helicopters got into the program code for TWO different types of machines, changed it, stole the paper rolls AFTER the election (and it is likely that they would be noticed missing since they are inventoried, ya?), and then snuck back in and changed the code back that they snuck in to change in the first place to cover their trail - FOR OVER 400 POLLING PLACES AND OVER 1,500 MACHINES, AND FOR THE OPTICAL SCANNERS, WHICH HAVE A WHOLE DIFFERENT SOFTWARE - then the election on the DREs and Optiscans is safe. What it boils down to is that people should review the paper trail, because it is right there for them to do so.

Of course, you may say it is VERY possible that the guy in the black helicopter would tamper with just a couple of polling sites then? Unlikely, because statistically, it would stand out a lot more where three prceincts did not come in as expected, and the parties have every right to request recounts/audits. Again, the fraud would require two different types of software changes, as well as being able to sneak into the security to deliver those changes. I think that the elections are a lot safer electronically, and personally, the main thing that I look out for in the polling place is not someone trying to tamper with the electronics of the machines, or the programming, but someone trying to physically diable one of the machines. There are many simple things that can be done to do that, and those are the things that we should be focussed on.

Mr. Michaels, I look at three things in your comments. 1) The new technology is great for the Democrats, because it encourages younger voters to participate, if nothing else, out of curiousity. I am not a Democrat, personally, but I am a voters’ advocate in ALL cases, and your concerns about the cost of DREs does not take into account the intangibles that are won with the technology. It also does not count the added security based on the additional method of casting a ballot.

2) Your black helicopter theories are theories. I know that there is a lot of paranoia about potential fraud, but the machines should be a lower priority of palces to look, compared to the registration and identification processes. All paper ballot elections, in my opinion, have a greater chance of being tampered with than an electronic/paper mix. A paper/electronic mix allows an additional audit measure that no one talks of.

3) Mathematically, it is unlikely that ANY person or organization could coordinate a cost effective method of fraud (for whichever candidate or organization that would want to perpetrate such a fraud) at the poll that would affect two different types of electronics, and two different types of paper trails, that could not be detected through the statistical results of the fraud itself. The election is not official until it is certified, and anyone may question those results prior to certification. So really, I have no reason whatsoever to believe that the fraud will occur at the machines or at the ballot; I wholeheartedly believe that it DOES occur at the person in front of those voting stations, though.

So finally, I would say that I hope you are not paid to spin these fears. And if you are, you ought to send the money back. You should, however, try to collect a check for selling people on the merits of a free voter ID card, so that at 6:59 pm, while the stragglers are getting in line, there is not a reason for them to be rejected because they could not provide so much as a document with their address on it. Most of the people that I have sent home for appropriate ID are registered Democrats - the same people who say that an ID card would keep them from voting. I think the ID would help MORE people vote. I have not had to refuse anyone’s vote, because they came back with something before the close of the polls, but it is merely a matter of time before that happens. So really, you should be focussing on where the fraud most likely will happen. At the machines, it likely will not. But for each of these organizations that spend $3-$7 per voter registered, there is a VERY cost effective, less detectable method avaialable. I think that your cries are merely drawing focus away from where the real fear should be, and therefore, I question your motives.

“Or people can just look at the paper trail on the machine, like it is there for them to use. The paper trail WILL NOT lie.”
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Only if the machine hasn’t been compromised.
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What we know for 100% sure
o Our paper ballots will not lie and provide the only perfect “paper trail”
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I highly recommend people only use the paper ballot and reject the electronic voting machines.
- It is the only way to guarantee malicious software won’t alter your vote

STL - You are missing the point. If the paper trail says what you vote, if the software is compromised and the paper trail does not reflect your vote, you will know. If the software is compromised in a way that it does not affect what the paper trail says, then the election board will know in the audit. Therefore, the paper trail is safe on the machine, regardless, because it will tell you if the software is changing your vote. Therefore, the machines are safe. A paper ballot can more easily be altered by a mischievious person than the machine. I stand by my statement that it would not be cost effective - or “safe” for someone to alter software. It is, however, VERY cost effective to at least try to egister a dead pet.

http://www.fox11az.com/news/topstories/stories/kmsb20081021jc-dead-goldfish-voter.134dc296c.html

Registration and people are where the fraud will occur. Not in either of the two methods (paper or electronic) that the voters pick from. The electronics are safe and auditable. Ironically enough, it is the voters that are not.