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Philadelphia meet the voting machine the Comms. never showed you until it was too late.
The new system:
✅ uses un-auditable barcodes
✅ is hard for voters to verify
✅ prints a "paper record"
✅ is vulnerable to malfunction
✅ ignores expert recommendations
The new system:
✅ uses un-auditable barcodes
✅ is hard for voters to verify
✅ prints a "paper record"
✅ is vulnerable to malfunction
✅ ignores expert recommendations
It is the largest, most expensive voting machine available. It is 2-3 times the cost of hand-marked paper ballots and has longer lines. It will be interesting to see what $20-30M worth of items in the city budget will get cut to fund this extravagance.
It received terrible reviews for accessibility by voters with disabilities when the PA Dept. of State tested it. "None of the participants were able to verify their paper ballot on the XL." "Every participant had at least one problem..." dos.pa.gov/VotingElection…
"In some cases, this led voters to cast a ballot without knowing all of the candidates that had been selected."
"[Participants] did not know where the ballot was or what to do next."
"impossible to complete tasks based on party, including confirming straight party selections."
"[Participants] did not know where the ballot was or what to do next."
"impossible to complete tasks based on party, including confirming straight party selections."
"Selecting "Large Text" ... does not make the text size very much larger. This forces low vision users who simply need slightly larger text into using the audio ballot."
"One participant with very low vision put his face so close to the screen that he accidentally made selections with his nose."
Voters with screen sensitivities, autism, concussions, mobility challenges, and wheelchairs may find the super-sized touchscreen difficult. You will need to ask for a paper ballot to have an accessible solution.
Unfortunately, this system is unable to scan your paper ballot. It must be treated differently. Maybe hand-count them? Hopefully they still protect the secrecy of your ballot. But your ballot will look different than all the other paper records.
If a bill passes in PA to allow no-excuse absentee ballots passes (as expected), absentee ballots use will skyrocket. This system cannot scan them. Poll workers will have to count them by hand. I hope you don't mind a delay in election night results.
You read barcode fluently, right? Because your vote is a series of barcodes that you have to verify for accuracy. Don't think about bringing along a barcode scanner. The votes decode to numbers like "17526".
If there are malfunctions, hacking, or vote flipping to another candidate, it will be up to you to look at the small text inside a glass case to notice the mistake and fix it. I hope you have time to spare and a good attention to detail.
If the power goes out & back up batteries fail (as in Dauphin in 2018) or if they won't boot up (as in York in 2018), then either 1 million voters will vote by emergency paper ballots (Those will be pre-printed, right?) or they'll go home without voting. Good plan.
If House Bill 1, sponsored by @RepBrendanBoyle, @RepDwightEvans, & @RepMGS, becomes law then any voter who wants a paper ballot must be given one. It is not clear if the city would then spend $10M to buy the 1,692 optical-scanners they should have bought now.
If security is on your mind, it wasn't on theirs. The RFP didn't consider it. Even though the Blue Ribbon Commission on PA Election Security recommended making it a top criteria. cyber.pitt.edu/report
The Blue Ribbon Commission also recommended against using systems with barcodes: "The commission does not recommend systems with bar codes or QR codes, as they are not human readable."
Let's not forget to note how they gave up the opportunity to shorten the lines to vote. (Has that ever been a problem?) With hand-marked paper ballots, many voters fill out ballots at the same time. Instead, voters must wait in line while one voter monopolizes a touchscreen.
Not sure what "security expert recommendations" they mean. They knew about the letter where 24 experts recommended hand-marked paper ballots instead of these touchscreens. scribd.com/document/39704…
They knew that Verified Voting had recommended hand-marked paper ballots instead of these touchscreens. verifiedvoting.org/verified-votin…
They knew that National Election Defense Coalition and FreedomWorks had recommended hand-marked paper ballots instead of these touchscreens. electiondefense.org/lettersafecomm…
They knew that @mattblaze recommends hand-marked paper ballots.
@mattblaze They say there was not time for you to see any systems and give feedback. Other counties held demos last year but they were... busy? Now, they need to decide quick so they can start their re-election campaigns.
"It's frustrating. I think that it goes against the sense of good government and representing the people," said City Controller Rhynhart (@PhilaController). "We deserve better."
"I still have serious concerns about the process that led to today's commission vote and I urge City Council to review it carefully." PA Auditor General DePasquale (@PAAuditorGen)
