Vote-PAD: The Simple Voting Device that May Save American Democracy!
Posted in General on February 13th, 2006 
State and County Elections officials from coast to coast to coast are now in a mad, confused, frustrated scramble trying to figure out how the hell to comply with and make sense of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) legislation.
HAVA has proven to be an unmitigated disaster, gamed as it was from the start by Congressmen like Ohio’s Bob Ney working in cahoots with voting machine companies. The effort has shamefully employed disabilities groups like the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) and American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), who received more than a million dollars from companies such as Diebold, Inc., to help trump up the sympathy factor in order to force jurisdictions to purchase unreliable electronic voting machines (read: junk), said to be needed by disabled voters who would be unable to vote in secret without assistance from others.
As of the 1/1/06 HAVA deadline, Boards of Elections are now officially plunged into complete and utter disarray as they attempt to comply with the reckless and cynical legislation’s mandated requirement (dreamt up by the American Voting Machines Vendors who stand to make billions) for at least one disabled-accessible voting device in every precinct around the country — even in small precincts without a single disabled voter!
Touch-screen (DRE) voting machines created by mega-corporations like Diebold, Inc. and ES&S have been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be unsecure, hackable, unreliable and finally, not fully accessible by many segments of the disabled community. Meanwhile, the one electronic-based device in which voters with disabilities have expressed the most interest, the AutoMARK system, has reportedly been kept largely out of the marketplace through a number of means. ES&S, the voting machine company who managed to secure exclusive rights to distribute the AutoMARK system, has reportedly been overpricing it in favor of their own DRE systems. As well, there have been a number of reports of ES&S sales reps being actively dissuaded from properly demonstrating that system in pitches to potential customers around the country.
As well, states such as Florida and many others have been incredibly slow at certifying the system — which prints a readable, verifiable, recountable paper ballot with every vote cast — even while they’ve already giving their blessings to DRE systems made by both Diebold and ES&S, despite the demonstrated inaccuracy, hackability and secret-software that employs "interpreted" source code, explicitly banned by HAVA guidelines.
With the rapid approach of the 2006 primary elections, the question is now: What the hell are these Boards of Election around the country going to do, to both meet HAVA requirements for voters with disabilities and provide all voters with some semblance of an accurate, reliable, recountable, democratic means of casting their vote in secret and with some certainty that it may be counted, and counted correctly?
Comes now, with not a moment to spare, an ingeniously simple, non-electronic device to allow voters with disabilities of all sorts to be able to cast their own vote, in secret, and with the knowledge that their paper ballot will accurately reflect their intent.
Say hello to the Vote-PAD, the little paper and plastic voting assistive device, that just may save American democracy…
At approximately one-tenth of the cost of competing (and crappy) electronic devices, the Vote-PAD (which stands for "Voting-on-Paper Assistive Device") was designed by Ellen Theisen, the former Executive Director of the non-partisan election watchdog group, VotersUnite.org. She created it along with the cooperation of people with dexterity and visual impairments.
It may well be the solution that exasperated Elections officials across the country have been praying for.
Vote-PAD is little more than a plastic sleeve which is fitted to an existing paper ballot, allowing voters with disabilities a number of ways to mark and verify their ballots without additional assistance. It is used along with an audio prompt and an electronic "verification wand" to further assist blind voters.
The paper ballots that the voter marks with the assistance of Vote-PAD can then be either optically-scanned or hand-counted. The device, Theisen says, requires no Federal HAVA certification since it doesn’t contain any software (secret or otherwise) or electronic parts that would require such approval from Federal authorities, according to HAVA guidelines.
And apparently both disabled voters and Election Officials from around the country who have been given demonstrations of the device seem to love it!
Last week it was announced that Yolo County, California has agreed to purchase Vote-PAD to assist persons with disabilities in marking a paper ballot. Yolo is the very first such jurisdication in the country to come aboard, but, in interviews with The BRAD BLOG, Theisen suggests that more counties and even whole states may be on the verge of signing on to Vote-PAD, as well.
Freddie Oakley, the Clerk-Recorder of Yolo County, is quoted in Vote-PAD’s press release about the first contract, as singing the praises of the new system:
While the cost of the system varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction based on a number of elements, Theisen pointed out to us that Oakley had informed her that the cost for their county to use Vote-PAD for five years would roughly be "the same amount of money Yolo County had been planning to allocate for storage of electronic machines alone."
There are "no maintenance fees, no licensing fees," Theisen explained, "All you have to do after you buy the original package is replace the consumables," like the plastic sleeves when they eventually run out.
The Vote-PAD website quotes a number of citizens with disabilities who also sing the praises of the device. "The Vote-PAD keeps my marks inside the circle, and the pages are easier to flip," says one tester with quadriplegia.
"For me, this 2005 election on the difficult-to-use DRE machines was just another real reminder that we definitely need your Vote-PAD," said another voter who is blind.
While evidence continues to mount about the many failures of computerized voting systems, the exhorbitant costs associated with them, and the lack of accessibility that many disabled voters have complained about while using DRE machines, Vote-PAD just may save democracy after all.
Theisen is struggling to arrange for the manufacturing of the device quickly and in large enough numbers to meet the sudden demand for the product. But, as she told us recently, she’s determined to make it all happen since witnessing first hand, in her role with VotersUnite, just how needed and necessary a device such as Vote-PAD now is for this country.
The BRAD BLOG fervently endorses the much-needed device, and recommends strongly that readers who give a damn about democracy make sure their local and state election officials are aware of the Vote-PAD!
The mega-corporations such as ES&S and Diebold are spending millions to promote their flawed devices and to ensure potential customers won’t hear about Vote-PAD. So, once again, it will be a matter of the citizenry making sure that word about Vote-PAD gets to the folks that need to know about it!
The Vote-PAD was recently featured in an article by WIRED NEWS which includes a few instructive graphics showing how the device basically works.
Much more information, explanation, testimonials, graphic explanations and downloadable brochures are available via the Vote-PAD website at www.Vote-PAD.us.
Vote-PAD can be contacted via email by clicking here.
Let’s make some noise about it!
from The Brad Blog
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It was at George Plimpton’s house. He came in. I was introduced to him. I looked up at him, he was very tall. And he looked down at me. I had about 5 minutes to try to convey the seriousness, the complexity of this problem to him, and with a sense of urgency. And so, you know, I think the cards were stacked against me because I’m sure I sounded psychotic, you know. (audience laughter) And as far as he was concerned, I probably looked psychotic,… short but psychotic…(audience chuckle) because he had never given this a thought. I think he didn’t know about it at all, but he did wear a look of grave concern, you know (smoothing his hair back in a John Kerry gesture, audience chuckle). He nodded thoughtfully for a moment. (Like Kerry, Miller crosses his arms and rests his left first finger on his chin with his face looking downward in a thoughtful pose.) 
So instead of saying, "What, is your staff in a coma?" (loud audience laughter and applause)….so because you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar, I didn’t say that. (Audience laughter) I said, "Yeah, the GAO Report, you can just go on-line and get a copy." He was quite pleased. You could see…see that it was obvious that he was going to use this, these arguments. So I said, "Now senator, I believe that, in the spirit of these ground breaking investigations into Iran Contra and the BCCI in the Senate," which I happen to think is his best, his greatest work, "in the spirit of those investigations, you should really look into what happened last year. And you should make a larger inquiry into the state of American electoral apparatus. Because it’s in a shambles." And I cannot remember how I put this, I can only tell you what I was trying to say to him. 
So we’re talking about Warren County [Ohio]. You know how they declared a terrorist alert throughout the press before the vote count. His claim was, “Well I talked to a Democrat who was there, and he said: "Gee, I wish I could tell you that it was suspicious, but, you know, frankly there is nothing to it." It turned out the next day according to the FBI said that there was no terrorist alert, and then the Cincinnati Inquirer reported that this plan had been in the works for nine days. So I don’t care what a Democrat told him. Who is this democrat? Who cares? Why does that trump common sense? (Audience applause). I didn’t say any of this. But I says to myself, I says, ‘Well, if he wants to strut out Democratic authorities, I’ve got a great response.’ So I said, “Well as a matter of fact, Kerry thinks the race was stolen.” And I told the story. And Mark was very impressed. “Wow this is really big news. You really buried the lead. You should call a press conference. This is important.” 
If someone has the evidence, I’ll look at the evidence. But I don’t think that it is necessary for there to be a deal, because this has happened before. When you have a resolved, well organized, highly disciplined fascistic movement of some kind, (audience applause) right. (Audience applause) Let’s hear it for Fascism. (Sarcastically…Loud audience applause.) Calm yourselves. (Laughter) And they have a tremendous amount of social power and media influence, and they manage to get the press on their side for various reasons, those who would resist this, but who aren’t all that zealous about it, are simply going to deny that there’s a problem. Now why do the Democrats refuse to face this issue? Does it make any sense? Their existence as a party is threatened. They will cease to be, if this Republican party, the Bushevic party, (audience laughter) the theocratic Republican party, has it’s way, there will be no more Democrats. Now, one of the reasons that Democrats refuse to look at this, or read the evidence, or listen to it, is just corruption. Because a lot of democrats are in fact republicans. And in places like Ohio, rural Ohio….maybe you’ve had Bob Fitrakis come here and speak? …(audience confirms)…as he explains to me and he says in his writing, the democrats in rural Ohio are just as much a part of the status quo as the republicans. They are very close to the Republicans and they all serve at the pleasure of Ken Blackwell. So they all toe the line. 
This refusal to confront the implications of what is going down has to do with deeply rooted ideological assumptions that we all have. Like "it can’t happen here." That’s the very important one. Like this is "The city on the hill." This nation was claimed by God. And what has happened to other countries can’t happen here, can’t happen here. So however copious and solid the evidence you have that it has happened here, you can’t get anywhere. It’s fascinating. You’ve got a moment in which pretty much everyone now finally agrees that the Bush regime lied, or deluded itself and the rest of us, to get us into a major war that we are losing. That’s really not a good thing. And people will face that. And the press will say yes that seems to be true. You’ve got a moment at which the people will say: yes, they did deliberately conspire to out a CIA agent who was responsible for keeping us safe from weapons of mass destruction, and they did it for petty political reasons. The people struggling to deny this are having an ever harder time. We accept this. We accept that they had to know that the attack was coming on 9/11 and they, at best, did nothing about it. (Audience applause.) We also accept that in the face of one of the worst natural disasters in our modern history, they did nothing and they continue to do nothing. All of this we accept. Right? All of this we accept. All this the press will admit "Yeah that’s true." OK. Progressives, everybody snarling foaming at the mouth…Bush is wicked, terrible. But somehow there is this magic circle drawn around "The Election." "Oh no, they wouldn’t do that! They wouldn’t to that!" Well, that’s what they would do first of all. In fact, that’s what they did do! That’s why they’re there. (Applause)
Understand that this is a theocratic movement. It is not just a bunch of corporations, that know better, slyly manipulating the pieties of the masses. That is a leftist fallacy. Because we are talking about the energetic, political participation of a number of extremely right wing billionaires with enormous clout, people like Richard Mellon Scaif, and Howard Ahmanson. These are people who are extraordinarily active and productive on the political front and they make [George] Soros look like a piper. They spent far more money that he does. They spend it on propaganda; they spend it on political issues. Howard Ahmanson is the motive force behind the schism in the Episcopalian Church. He supports the Discovery Institute which is behind the spread of Intelligent Design. So to say there is religion over here and there are corporations over here is a mistake. It’s not that simple because there are points of convergence. 
The American, you know, people for all their, or all our shortcomings, for all the decadence that has been sponded by a consumer culture, which has had a seriously destructive effect on our ability to function in a democracy, for all that, the American people are not extremists. The American people are not theocrats. The Wall Street Journal just a few days ago ran an piece about the new phenomena of the Evangelical Churches trying to do something about global warming through their churches. So it’s time for us all to join hands with each other, all rational Americans who love our traditions got to join hands and insist on electoral reform which both parties seem not to want. Right? It’s not up to the Democrats. It is certainly not up to the media. It’s up to us. Now this is the kind of thinking we’ve become estranged from, as I say, because we’re mostly parked in front of the set, you know, with a big gulp and a bag of Doritos. And we’re thinking, "Oh gee, am I getting fat," or "Don’t I look great?" "Oh let’s watch reality TV" …getting into so and so’s life for a minute, unreality TV, you know. 
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