Dear Ms. Savana:

If I had read your article before instead of after writing the letter to the editor below, I would have addressed the commissioners' false claim that the Danaher machines are capable of performing recounts. I am beginning to think that they really do not understand that a recount in any legitimate sense of the word is not an option when there is no original voter-verified paper record of each vote—it is a fiction generated by the Danaher marketing department. The disturbing part is that our elected officials did not do their homework well enough to recognize that. Of course any paper "recount" generated by the machine is going to corroborate the tallies the machines reported.

Perhaps the same is true in regard to their assurance of a "paper audit trail that can verify all votes cast on each machine." Maybe they actually want to believe that is true. I don't doubt that the salesman told them so. Never mind that this doesn't correspond to a verifying paper audit trail in the sense that is normally understood, i.e., a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) or voter-verified paper ballot (VVPB), which provides a paper record of each vote when it is cast.

When I googled "inability to recount with paperless electronic voting machines," Rebecca Mercuri was the first result, leading to http://www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html. If only the commissioners had paid more attention when she spoke at the Coalition for Voting Integrity forum last June. Her credentials are listed in the second paragraph at this link: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/committees/jointselectcomm_/january72005mee_/mercurinclegisl/mercurinclegisl.pdf

As you can tell, I am writing this for the commissioners as much as for you. And my tone of exasperation with them will not help our case, but it's too hard to pretend at this point. I only hope it is not too late for them to change their minds about the Danaher machines.

Thanks very much for your attention.

Sincerely,

Barbara Glassman, Webmaster SaveOurVote.com/CoalitionforVotingIntegrity.org