Madison County - The Opposition's Argument

This week, Wanda Warren Berry, director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, spoke to the Madison County Board of Supervisors warning against our efforts to retain our lever voting system with ballot marking devices to meet the HAVA requirements.

Berry implies that levers offer voters less protection of our constitutional election standards rather than more.

Voting advocate pushes for new system in Madison County - syracuse.com: "'I know how fond many of you were of the lever machines - and how frustrating the long process of getting scanners certified has been,' Berry said Tuesday to legislators in Wampsville. 'But the lever machines do not measure up to the standards for election integrity that most people now hold and that New York's Election Reform and Modernization Act requires.'

This doesn't make sense when you consider that:

• The optical scanners Berry supports have not been certified
• The certification standards that are currently in use do not include security against software changes that can occur, without a trace, after testing in the certification lab
• No software-based voting machines can be secured against hacking, given current computer technology; that's why that protection isn't in the standards
• NY State moved to lever voting because paper ballots were the source of so much election corruption
• Statisticians agree that the audit -- 3% sample of paper ballots -- is poorly conceived, statistically invalid, and offers no reassurance

Optical scanners meet standards for election integrity? These seem like pretty low standards to me.

What do you think? Be sure to tell the Madison County Board of Supervisors.