When we last visited Cuyahoga County, we learned why the economics of voting systems are on the side of scanned paper ballots. During today's visit to Cleveland, we'll see why the paper trail on electronic voting machines is a poor substitute for a ballot.
Part of the the non-profit, non-partisan Election Sciences Institute analysis [pdf] of Cuyahoga's electronic voting machines was a recount of the May, 2006 primary. That recount compared the paper tape generated by the electronic voting machines with the memory cartridges that store vote counts. It found a lot of discrepancies:
A lot of the errors in chain of custody, as well as with the illegible and blank tapes, could be chalked up to poor training of polling place workers. The study recommended substantial changes in the training of those workers. Even so, the study pointed out that the paper tape mechanism is a source of great risk to the validity of the whole voting process. When a tape jams, runs out of ink, or otherwise stops working, the physical record of the vote is lost.
In New York State, lever voting machines sometimes malfunction, and over the years we've accepted the risk of occasional glitch as acceptable given the other benefits of lever machines. But the promise of electronic voting with paper record is the best of both worlds: the convenience of a lever machine with a paper audit trail. The Cuyahoga experience shows that the state-of-the-art audit trail is suspect at best, and requires a level of training and diligence from poll workers well above current expectations.
This last point is critical, because it's easy to mandate more training for poll workers as a cure-all for problems with the voting system. But turning them into election machine repairpeople is just not practical. Poll workers are people with other jobs and interests who work elections a few times per year. They are generally older and less comfortable with technology. Expecting them to set up and verify the function of voting machines, and to repair them when they break, is putting a major new set of tasks on their plate.
In Cuyahoga, the study found that 1/3 of the election workers had trouble setting up the machines, 45% had problems closing out the machines at the end of voting, and 38% had problems repairing the paper tapes. Over half said their training was inadequate, and almost 60% said they needed more hands-on training.
In a scanned ballot system, the role of most poll workers is to make sure that voters get ballots and know how to mark them. The main technology involved is a sharpie. Only a few poll workers per polling place need training in the mechanics of the scanning system, and if the scanner breaks, the integrity of the paper ballots is not compromised. Cuyahoga has shown that electronic voting machines with paper tape are not only inaccurate, they're also a heavy burden for poll workers.
A new citizen-journalist site, The Albany Project, has started to decode the encrypted and obfuscated pork PDFs released by the State Senate. The 2004-2005 list has been posted on their site. 2003-2004, Randy Kuhl's last term in the State Senate, has yet to be decoded.
In Sunday's post on the grudging release of state data, I compared that release to the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), which I thought was about earmarks. A reader wrote to ask for clarification, and it turns out I was wrong: the FFATA is only one part of the earmark puzzle.
The FFATA requires that every recipient of government funding be identified, and the source of funding and location of the recipient be stored in a publicly-accessible database. But the FFATA does not mandate recording whether the funds were the result of an earmark. I confused FFATA with H.R. 1000, a recently-passed earmark reform bill which, like the FFATA, Randy Kuhl cosponsored.
HR 1000 is a significant reform with some loopholes. Though it requires that the names of earmark sponsors be embedded in legislation, it was enacted in September and only required disclosure on a go-forward basis. Since most appropriation bills had passed by then, HR 1000 was a minor reform for the 109th Congress.
There are a few other loopholes in the legislation, as detailed in a summary [pdf] by the excellent OMB Watch website. Here's a big one: the earmark sponsor must only be revealed if the earmark's target is a private entity. If the earmark directs that money be spent by a federal agency, even for a single beneficiary, disclosure isn't required. So, for example, if the earmark directs the forest service to build a bridge to someone's house, it won't be disclosed. If the earmark gives some individual money to build a bridge, then it must be disclosed.
HR 1000 expired at the end of this congressional session, so it is up to the Democratic leadership to resurrect it for the 110th Congress. If it is re-authorized, and if some of the loopholes are closed, then I'll believe that the Democrats are serious about reform. If not, say hello to the new boss, just the same as the old boss.
This is the first in a series of posts on voting technology. Voting technology is important to the 29th for a couple of reasons. First, Eric Massa says he will make supporting a conversion to scanned paper ballots his first post-election priority. It's worth seeing whether that position makes sense. Second, by 2008, New York will have switched from proven and widely-accepted lever voting machines to some new voting technology. This year, at least one Congressional District, FL-13 (Sarasota County), is in turmoil because of a suspected malfunction of electronic machines. New York will probably have a number of close Congressional races in '08, including the 29th, so we need to avoid a situation like the mess in Florida.
New York is in an enviable position when it comes to procuring voting technology. A number of other states have gone first, and we can learn from their mistakes. Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, has been on the bleeding edge, and their experience has made them want to ditch electronic voting machines and turn to scanned ballots. This post will look at one aspect of the Cuyahoga experience: the economics and scalability of machines versus ballots. The next post will take a closer look at other election issues raised by a 234-page study [pdf] of Cuyahoga's 2006 primary. That report, which was issued by an independent, non-partisan testing body, raises serious doubts about electronic voting machines, including those with a paper trail.
The first simple fact about voting machines is that they are expensive. New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), a non-partisan, non-profit organization, has conducted an in-depth, county-by-county comparison [pdf] of the cost of voting machines versus scanned paper ballots. Overall, electronic machines would cost $116 million more than a scan system. In Monroe County alone, the difference is over $6 million.
One might think that voting machine costs are front-loaded, since the scan system requires the printing of paper ballots for every election. The NYVV report shows that this probably isn't the case. Touchscreen voting machines, which take a beating from voters, aren't warranted for more than five years, whereas scanners last much longer (14 years in some cases). This faster replacement cycle might make up for the higher recurring cost of paper ballots. In addition, the NYVV estimates do not include the cost of paper and toner need for the paper trail produced by electronic machines, which adds a significant recurring cost to the electronic option.
Since electronic machines cost $8,000 each, there won't be a lot of extras hanging around. Yet, in the Cuyahoga study, almost 4% of the voting machines suffered a failure and had to be shut down on election day. A failed machine might mean lines in the polling place. The study also found another potential source of lines: ballot length. Because this length varies by jurisdiction, the study recommended that Cuyahoga buy more machines and create a deployment strategy to position machines to better handle voter demand.
In a paper-ballot system, voting booths cost roughly $250. It's much cheaper to have a few extra hanging around to handle higher demand, and voting booths won't have a 4% failure rate. No fancy studies are required to allocate resources when the resource is cheap and reliable.
In the paper system, each polling place will usually have one scanner. If that scanner fails, the polling place can still open (or stay open) because ballots can be voted without being immediately scanned. Unlike electronic voting machines, the easiest-to-break part of the scanned ballot system is not critical to the operation of the polls.
Cuyahoga might still keep their electronic voting system. After all, it's hard to throw away a $17 million system and start over from scratch. New York is lucky that we can learn from their mistake and choose scanned paper ballots.
Randy Kuhl was chair of the Agriculture Committee during his last term as a State Senator. In that powerful position, he was probably able to dispense a number of earmarks, or "member items", as the State Legislature calls pork. Finding out about Kuhl's pork, and the pork sponsored by other members, has become quite an ordeal, thanks to legislative leadership.
The Albany Times-Union has been trying to get a usable list of member items since June. Their first request went to court and the court ordered release of the items. So both houses released a list with the legislator's names blacked out. The Times-Union went back to court, which ordered the release of the items with names included. In response, the Senate released a list of items as images in a "locked" PDF. This meant that it was impossible to search the text in the 3,000 page file, and cutting-and-pasting parts of the file was prohibited.
The Times-Union has already pressured the Assembly to release a text PDF, but the Senate hasn't budged. Common Cause is using scanning and PDF decryption software in an attempt to convert the data into a usable form. Papers in the 29th have started to notice this ridiculous charade, including the Elmira Star-Gazette and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
In the U.S. House, Kuhl's earmarks will be public record starting with the next Congress, thanks to the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which Kuhl co-sponsored. That act, which passed the House by voice vote, mandates a searchable database of earmarks which must be live by January 1, 2008. We'll see if the Times-Union gets a usable file from the State Senate by then.
Nancy Pelosi has put ethics reform -- which at minimum means fewer gifts and junkets -- on her list of "first 100 hours" legislation. Jewish groups, the second-largest sponsors of junkets, are busy trying to craft an exemption for trips they sponsor to Israel. These are "educational trips", not junkets, they argue.
Perhaps, but they're also expensive perks. Randy Kuhl took one sponsored trip in his first term in Congress. It was an educational mission to Israel, he took his son, and it cost $16,758 for an eight-day trip . As I've posted before, Kuhl is squeaky-clean on finance issues, and this trip was above-board and properly reported. But it's still an expensive gift, and if Pelosi is serious, Kuhl will be one of the last beneficiaries of these kind of perks.