Iowa’s Illegal Voting Machines: Culver’s Challenge
Iowa is using computerized voting machines that do not comply with the Iowa Code, according to one of the few Iowans who actually understands how the machines work. University of Iowa Professor of Computer Science Doug Jones says the voting machines violate code provision 52.7.
That law calls for the machine to “store each ballot cast separate from the ballot tabulation function, which ballot may be reproduced on paper in the case of a recount, manual audit, or machine malfunction.” In remarks prepared for state legislators March 8, Jones said no machine currently in use meets this requirement. Jones warned that Iowa voting machines therefore could be open to a court challenge.
The problem is that the nasty little computers do not store the ballot information in more than one way. They can tally the votes and they can also reproduce on paper the votes as they are recorded by the machine, but these are not separate records. Both originate from the same recording of the vote. Or as my Dad used to say, “It’s the same difference.”
So don’t be reassured when the local advocate of magic voting machines tells you that all is well—that we can print out the votes one by one and thus verify the total. The printout is merely a reincarnation of the total, not evidence for the total’s accuracy. That is what the computer scientist said.
This law could be accommodated by requiring the machine to print out a paper record of the vote at the time the voter is still present and allowing the voter to inspect it. Then the ballot is indeed stored separately from the tabulation function.
This provision may make it possible for the Secretary of State or his board of examiners of voting machines to require paper trails without getting legislative approval for a bill such as SF 351. If the Secretary orders voter verified paper trails, he is merely following existing code. If he doesn’t order them, how is he complying with the code?