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POINTS TO REMEMBER FOR SAFE VOTING:
TOUCHSCREEN DREs
- All voters have a right… to be assured their votes are counted as cast. Touchscreen DRE (Direct Record Electronic) voting machines alone cannot provide that assurance.
- There is no paper ballot with DREs. There is nothing to audit machine count accuracy. Testing the machines before and after does not guarantee accurate results on Election Day.
The electronic machines (DREs), currently in use in Sarasota County:
1. record the votes,
2. count the votes,
3. add the totals, and
4. report the totals, all on proprietary software produced by one manufacturer.
Voters are simply supposed to trust the results.
- When the DREs were purchased in 2002, many people in Sarasota County thought they were the answer to Florida’s punch card voting machine problems. Since then, people have learned that DREs are not only subject to errors and failures; but, worse, provide no means to verify a true count of votes. No one’s at fault for selecting them in 2002 -- they looked pretty good and their vulnerabilities were relatively unknown. But by the following year, Fortune Magazine called touchscreen DRE voting machines “the worst technology of 2003.” Since then, hundreds of problems have been fully documented at both the state and national levels.It is time to replace these machines with verifiable equipment. These machines are vulnerable.
- Fortunately, here in Sarasota County, there have been few reported problems – we’ve been lucky so far. But, when we realize that significant problems have been reported in other counties, common sense dictates that changes be made before Sarasota County has similar problems. Our democracy is at stake!
OPTICAL SCANNERS AND PAPER BALLOTS:
- FACT: Auditing with paper ballots is the only way to verify election results.
- FACT: Optical Scanners read paper ballots rapidly and provide an “electronic” method of counting the votes.
- FACT: When voter verified paper ballots are used for mandatory random independent audits of machine tallies, they ensure voter confidence in election results.
- FACT: Optical Scanners are approximately 29% less expensive to operate than DRE touchscreen machines we use now.
- FACT: The purchase of enough optical scanners to cover the needs of the whole county (approx. $1.25 M) could be paid off from the cost savings in less than two years.
- FACT: Over 75% of all the Florida counties use optical scanners now.
- FACT: Optical scanners are compatible with ballot markers that provide accessibility and privacy for disabled voters. DREs are not required for the needs of disabled voters.
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