Require Verifiable Voting..
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WHEREAS, computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering; and
WHEREAS, demonstrations, tests, and investigations have shown numerous cases across the US where electronic voting machines, from all major equipment manufacturers, were tampered with or malfunctioned, causing votes to be lost or counted incorrectly; and
WHEREAS, people of all political parties do not trust electronic voting machines, and polls show that huge majorities favor government rather than private ownership of voting technology; and
WHEREAS, voting experts universally agree that it is essential to have a voter-verifiable paper ballot or audit trail to allow true recounts, to verify vote counting, and to determine when voting machines were tampered with; and
WHEREAS, most of the electronic voting machines being purchased by election authorities in Texas do not satisfy this requirement, even though equipment manufacturers provide paper ballot printing as an option for their machines; be it therefore
RESOLVED, that voting machines should not be purchased nor used unless they provide an individual paper ballot, which is a permanent record of each vote, which can be checked for accuracy by the voter both before and after the vote is cast, which is difficult to alter after it has been checked, and which is readable both by voters and by independent ballot-counting machines; and be it further
RESOLVED, that where non-verifiable voting machines are already in use, they should be replaced or modified to print an individual paper ballot that meets the above requirements; and be it further
RESOLVED, that providing an individual paper voter-verifiable audit trail should be one of the essential requirements for certification of new voting systems, and that election procedures mandate that the individual paper ballots (whether hand marked or machine-generated) shall be the official vote of record, and that electronic counting of votes without the paper ballots shall be considered only an unofficial preliminary count; and be it further
RESOLVED, that any electronic vote counting equipment which operates on preliminary electronic records or official paper ballot records should use only open source, verifiable software, and that proprietary secret software code should be banned for all vote-counting; and be it further
RESOLVED, that until state or US law is changed to require such voter-verifiable ballots, that the Democratic party shall implement these requirements in all future primary elections that it conducts.
Draft by Bill Crosier, rev. by Ron & Kris Graham Mar. 2, 2006
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Require_Verifiable_Voting08.pdf | 44.37 KB |