PROPOSAL NUMBER: 005-05

1. Date proposed 2/22/05. Sponsors: Legislative Committee:
- Art Goodtimes (San Miguel County)
- Kent Holcomb(Jefferson County)
- Tanya Ishikawa (Jefferson County)
- Brad Klafehn (Denver County)
- Hollie Kopp (Poudre Valley)
- Bruce McNaughton (Denver County)

2. TITLE:
Conditional Support of SB-079 requiring Paper Ballots in Colorado Elections

3. FULL PROPOSAL:
Colorado Green Party Proposal on Colorado Senate Bill 05-079 about Requiring Paper Ballots for Colorado Elections

Proposed by CO Green Party Legislative Committee Members Tanya Ishikawa & Brad Klafhen

Based on the Bill as Introduced into the House on 1/17/05;

And as Reviewed by the CO GP LC on 2/15-19/05 and the CO GP Council on 2/22-26/05

Bill 079:

http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS2005A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/51B91106B515902487256F5E0078CF5A?Open&file=079_01.pdf

Fiscal Note: (none as of 2/15/05)

House Sponsor
Alice Madden (D, Boulder County, Dist.10)

Senate Sponsor:
Shawn Mitchell (R, Adams/Broomfield/Weld counties, Dist.23)

BILL TITLE: A BILL FOR AN ACT CONCERNING THE CREATION OF A PERMANENT PAPER RECORD OF EACH VOTE CAST IN AN ELECTION. (5 pages total)

Bill Summary (abbreviated): Requires all elections in Colorado on or after November 1, 2007 to provide a permanent paper record to each voter for their inspection;
Requires the paper record to be preserved as an official election record;
Requires the secretary of state to randomly and publicly select a specific number of precincts where manual recounts of the paper records will be conducted;
Prohibits any voting machine from being remotely accessed after the final inspection of machines before the election begins until voting is completed;
Requires the hardware, software and source codes on each voting machine in an election to be available for inspection by an election official or a representative of each major and minor political party between 45 days and 31 days before the election; and,
Specifies that the results of any recount shall be tallied and recorded using the paper records.

4. BACKGROUND:
There has been a movement in the state to return to paper ballots for elections, with major efforts being led by Coloradoans For Voting Integrity. Members of all major and minor political parties have been involved in the paper voting campaign, but current government officials overseeing election rules are against it. Many voters distrust the results of electronic voting, suspecting corruption, errors and other problems. Election results can not be proved valid and representative of the people's will with the new electronic voting systems. Some people are satisfied with continuing to use electronic voting if a verifiable paper ballot is added, which can inspected by each voter and retained for possible recounts. Other people want to completely return to a paper ballot system where the original count is conducted on the paper ballots, to avoid any possibility of inaccuracies in the less-visible electronic voting system.

This bill does not meet all voting requirements of the Green Party, which supports the basic principals outlined in Lynn Landes' article on Voting Security at http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingSecurity.htm, excerpted below:

Voting is a 3-step process: marking, casting, and counting votes. For this process to be secure, paper ballots must be privately and manually marked and then publicly and manually cast and counted by citizens in a polling precinct on Election Day only. This must be done in the presence of election officials, poll watchers, and the press. And, they must watch the voting process from beginning to end, uninterrupted. This is sometimes called the Australian Ballot Method.


7-STEPS TO SECURE VOTING - An extension of the Australian Paper Ballot Method:

 

  1. PAPER BALLOTS - Machines may not be used to mark or cast votes.
  2. HAND COUNTS  - Machines may not be used to count ballots
  3. LOCAL CONTROL - Marking, casting, and counting ballots takes place at the local precinct on Election Day.
  4. MEANINGFUL OVERSIGHT -  Poll watchers and the press must be allowed to witness the voting process from beginning to end, uninterrupted.  No early, absentee, or mail-in voting allowed. In order to accommodate more voters, Election Day could be set on a Saturday and declared a national holiday.
  5. QUICK COUNTS - There should be no less than 5 election officials per 500 registered voters.  Either the Board of Elections or a Judge of Elections may draft citizens to be election officials at little or no cost, as per jury duty.  State governments should also take steps to keep ballots brief. 
  6. BALLOTS FOR THE BLIND - Citizens who are sight impaired can order ballots in bigger print or vote privately and independently using a tactile paper ballot template with audio assistance.  Tactile ballots are not in Braille.  They are used in elections all over the world and in states, particularly Rhode Island. The sight disabled could order these ballots from their Board of Election 30 days in advance of an election.  These ballots will then be sent to their local Judge of Elections for use on Election Day.
  7. VOTER INFORMATION - Several weeks before the election, the Board of Election should send every citizen 18 years and older a notice containing the following information: the date and time of the election, the location of their polling precinct, a sample ballot showing the names of the candidates and races, and the status of the citizen's registration. 

Committee PROS:

This Bill supports the following Green Values: Grassroots Democracy, Decentralization, and Personal and Global Responsibility.

It returns the power of the election process back to the people, instilling trust and confidence in the results.

It provides mechanisms for voters to verify their vote as well as for recounts to be made of the verified votes.

It ensures no corporations or private individuals can maintain power over voting results through privatized knowledge of voting systems.

Committee CONS:

The Bill will require spending of a yet unspecified amount on modifying current voting systems to include paper ballots.

It does not return the first official vote counts to paper ballots, but only provides permanent records and possible paper recounts.

It doesn't require the paper ballots to begin until the year 2007.

Some of the language is weak and provides the possibility of future fraud.

Proposed CO Green Party Position: Support Bill with conditions:

Condition 1: In Section 1-7-118 (1), the date should be changed from November 1, 2007 to November 1, 2006 to cover the next congressional election.

Condition 2: In Section 1-7-118 (1), the 'may' in that sentence should be changed to 'shall' to avoid the possibility of no paper ballot being present in which case a voter's electonic vote could get lost and become moot.

Condition 3: In Section 1-7-118 (3), a standard should be added to indicate what percentage of discrepancy between the manual recount and the initial vote count triggers a general recount.

Condition 4: In Section 1-7-118 (4), language should be strengthened and clarified by changing it to the following: "No voting machine shall be remotely accessed or remotely accessible after thirty-one days before the election until such time as the voting tallies from the machine have been recorded by voting judges after voting has been completed, polls have closed, and the first canvas of votes from each vote counting machine has been made." This change ensures the machines can not be remotely accessed and changed after the outside verifiers have inspected the machines and source code but before the first canvass of votes.

Proposed Alert Level: Statement of Green Party Position Only.

Committee Vote Results: (options: agree, disagree, stand aside)
Art Goodtimes: Agree
Kent Holcomb: Agree
Tanya Ishikawa: Agree
Brad Klafhen: Agree
Hollie Kopp: Agree
Bruce McNaughton: Agree

5. JUSTIFICATION/GOALS:
- The Green Party should participate in political decisions being made by government leaders.

- The Green Party's position statements on legislative matters can be used to influence and educate leaders and others.

- See Text of Proposal for specific goals of this bill proposal.

6. PROS AND CONS:
Pro / Con of officially endorsing this initiative
-------------------------------------------------

Pros for this GPCO proposal:

- See Justifications/Goals.

- See Pros section in Text of Proposal.

Cons for this GPCO proposal:

- This proposal responds to a bill that approaches an important topic to Greens but does not fully support our views. We are only giving conditional support, rather than a stronger statement of opposition or full support.

- See Cons section of Text of Proposal.

7. Alternatives to the proposal
- Oppose Senate Bill 079.

- Do not take a position but only monitor Senate Bill 079.

- Give full support to House Bill 1079 by removing the required conditions.

8. REFERENCES AND RESOURCES:

http://www.gp.org/documents/bylaws.html