READER COMMENTS ON

"NY Election Boards Vote YES for Paper Ballots, NO to Touch-Screen Voting!"

(6 Responses so far...)





COMMENT #1 [Permalink]

... Kevin Chung said on 2/19/2008 @ 6:08 am PT...





AVANTE just like to correct some simple mistakes that keep on making by Mr. Bo Lipari.

1. AVANTE submitted to NY State with two patented solutions of “Ballot Marking Device” BMD not DRE as keep repeating by Mr. Lipari.

2. The first system is a 15-inch touch-screen with full accessibility binary switches and/or voice assistance. It prints and marks paper ballots as large as 11”x17” in duplex full-face format as required by New York Election Codes for paper ballots. This predecessor model that print and mark ballots in 8.5”x11” BMD have been used with great success for 31 counties in NY for the HAVA compliance in the last two years. Mr. Lipari is well aware of and have examined both models.

3. The second system is a 42-inch touch-screen with full accessibility binary switches and/or voice assistance. It also prints and marks paper ballots as large as 11”x17” in duplex full-face format as required by New York Election Codes for paper ballots. In addition, it also allows sighted voters with other disability to make selections in full-face presentation as New York Election Codes asked for rather than being treated like a blind voter in using voice-assisted voting or other difficult navigation technique.

4. AVANTE also presented its patented “ballot picture capturing” optical scan system that is based on the first system ever to truly meet the EAC 2002 VVS accuracy standard of less than 1 error in 1,500,000 marks in reading paper ballots.

5. Both BMD systems provide two different means of independent verifications:

a. The first method is to read back to the blind voters immediately as to their selections in each contest upon casting their ballot and while the ballot is marked and printed. This method has been deemed adequate by DOJ for HAVA compliance. HAVA has the same language of independent verification as stated in New York State Election Codes.

b. AVANTE BMD solutions are the only systems providing an option to print a 2-D PDF 417 of all of the voted data on a separate sheet to allow “system” or “software independent” verification in greater privacy (blind voter only need to ask the election official to place the machine-readable only 2-D barcode into scanner system). That is, any third party scanner and software can perform the read back verification to the blind voters including write-ins.

c. Unlike all of the other systems preferred by Mr. Lipari that require the blind voters to ask others to submit their paper ballot (high potential to lose privacy) into the SAME system to read back using the “electronic template” as to where the marks have been made. Besides being not “system” or “software” independent in terms of verifications, they are also unable to read back the “write-in” votes made by the voters.

COMMENT #2 [Permalink]

... Dredd said on 2/19/2008 @ 6:58 am PT...





Perfect time to get off to a wonderful start by doing professional chain of custody with the paper ballots. Not much pain, lots of gain!

COMMENT #3 [Permalink]

... CharlieL said on 2/19/2008 @ 2:24 pm PT...





Dredd, setting up a legitimate chain of custody would make it harder to stuff the unaccounted for extra ballots into the boxes when they are needed. Are you trying to prevent the manipulation of the vote count or something? Besides, chain of custody doesn't mean anything if you've been forced from the polls by a 5-10 hour wait or not allowed to vote on a "real" ballot because you were scrubbed by a Rethuglican Data company.

COMMENT #4 [Permalink]

... Ancient said on 2/19/2008 @ 4:29 pm PT...





Way to go NY, I was born in upstate and me da was from Brooklyn. You made us proud New Yorkers!!!

COMMENT #5 [Permalink]

... don plummer said on 2/20/2008 @ 2:49 pm PT...





new yorkers are the most savvy of all other states we have all the resources to be a government of our own we put into the system more than any other we rule god always bless new yorkers lets pitt the first female against the first black we still wins

COMMENT #6 [Permalink]

... Bob Myer said on 2/20/2008 @ 5:12 pm PT...

