To the Editor:

 

In your editorial commending the choice of the Danaher machine you say that you are "comfortable that the integrity of the vote has been preserved."  However, this Danaher machines loses votes due to a design fault. Voters who push a straight party button and then push the button next to a candidate's name erase their vote for that candidate. Because the voter does not see his votes on paper, he does not know that has occurred and neither do election officials. Post-election analysis in New Mexico in 2004 revealed that one out of 20 voters did not vote for President on the Danaher machine. In contrast, on optical scanners, which read voter-verified paper ballots, only one out of 119 voters did not choose to vote for President. Based on this evidence about Danaher and Sequoia machines, New Mexico decided to choose optical scanners and voter-verified paper ballots as their state-wide voting system. 

 

Months ago, I presented this evidence to the commissioners and repeated it at several meetings, including the last. The response from a commissioner and your editorial writer was that the voter would need to be educated in the proper use of the Danaher. This emphasis on educating the voter to the particular vagaries of a specific machine is totally misplaced. 

 

Why wasn't the method the voter already knows, blackening an oval next to his or her choice on a paper ballot, as he or she has been doing for years on tests and forms, chosen?

 

By choosing a machine that requires education, haven't the commissioners who voted for the Danaher created an invisible means test? Some voters, unable to get to training sessions due to their work and family responsibilities, may lose their vote on the Danaher machine. 

 

At the end of your editorial, you ask the members of the Coalition for Voting Integrity to stop "fighting" and become partners in a public education effort.  We have not been "fighting" but engaged in educating the public and our public officials about the problems of accuracy and security with paperless electronic machines. Twenty-one municipalities listened and passed resolutions supporting voter-verified paper ballots and asking the commissioners to choose a voting system based on a voter-verified paper ballot.  Many, many citizens responded as well. Commissioner Miller listened and heard that the grassroots do not have faith in paperless electronic voting systems. Unfortunately, Commissioners Cawley and Martin didn't and voted for the paperless Danaher.

 

Convinced that paperless electronic machines pose a real danger to our democracy, we are compelled to continue working until more accurate and secure voting systems are in place. This is not a game where you just pick up your ball and go home. As you said in your editorial, this is a "critically important issue."  We need you to study it in depth and then join us in our mission.

 

Madeline Rawley

Doylestown