Saturday, April 10, 2004

Requirements for Trustworthy Elections – 2004 Primary and General

A. REQUIREMENTS for the 2004 Primary and General Elections

1. The accuracy of each process and team and individual must be measured before it is used in production. The accuracy of each must be sampled during and after the election. These measurements must be made public on the Internet within two hours of their determination.

2. Procedures for precinct and central poll watching must be developed to give watchers the ability to actually read the information that is being processed, a procedure for reporting problems, a procedure for resolving problem reports in a timely manner, and no charge and timely access to needed records including computer files.

3. Records such as registration lists and in-person and absentee poll books must be maintained in a form that is open to viewing by poll watchers throughout the election cycle. The official voter registration list must be the one used on Election Day.

4. All votes must be recorded on preprinted paper ballots that contain a removable ballot stub.

5. Every voter must have the opportunity to verify the marks on their ballot and to either obtain a replacement ballot or deposit their anonymous ballot into a secure ballot box.

6. A ballot voted in person must take precedence over an absentee ballot for the same voter. (This requires that absentee ballot return envelopes not be opened before early, precinct and provisional voting has completed.)

7. Rules for absentee ballot qualification must be documented, approved by the political parties, uniformly and strictly interpreted, and the qualification of voters and absentee ballots must done in a transparent fashion and open to oversight. The measurement requirements in #1 above must be met.

8. The ballots to be interpreted and counted are the paper ballots that were verified and cast by the voters. Ballots must not be interpreted or counted before Election Day.

9. Rules for interpretation of a vote must be documented, approved by the political parties, uniformly and strictly interpreted, and the interpretation of votes must be done in a transparent fashion and open to oversight and must be verifiable down to a 50 ballot batch. The measurement requirements in #1 above must be met.

10. Rules for counting the interpreted votes be documented, approved by the political parties, uniformly and strictly interpreted, and the counting of votes must be done in a transparent fashion and open to oversight and must be verifiable down to a 50 ballot batch. The measurement requirements in #1 above must be met.

11. Rules for conducting a recount must be documented, approved by the political parties, uniformly and strictly interpreted, and the recount must be done in a transparent fashion and open to oversight and must be verifiable down to a 50 ballot batch. The recount must begin with the original ballots cast by the voters (this means that the votes must be re-interpreted). The recount personnel and systems must have no detail knowledge from a prior count/recount. The measurement requirements in #1 above must be met.

12. Rules for verifying the accuracy of the election must be documented including formulae for auditing ballots, voters, votes, problem reports, and the precision of the election.

13. Before declaring final election results, measurement statistics must be made public.

B. STATUTES & RULES that prohibit us from achieving the requirements -- Nothing in the current law or rules is known to prohibit this.


C. AUTHORITY that can make the decision to achieve the requirement -- Local Election Officials have this authority.