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Video surfaces demonstrating how eSlate can print a paper record of your vote

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In an update to a press release on Dr. Laura Pressley’s historic election contest appeal posted here back in March, video has surfaced demonstrating how an eSlate machine can print a paper record of your vote. This damning video lays to waste one of the claims that printing a paper record of your vote takes so long to print.

But first a brief background.

Back in June 2015, Dr. Laura Pressley filed an appeal of a district court decision in her contested District 4 Austin City Council run-off race against Greg Casar in December 2014. Upon noticing numerous election irregularities including more ballots than voter names as reported during early voting, she requested a recount in January 2015.

“The ensuing process led to a disturbing revelation that the Travis County paperless electronic voting system may be operating in violation of Texas election law, and, according to court filed documents, it appeared that Travis County may not have employed some of the administrative safeguards designed by the Secretary of State to protect the integrity of the voting process”        

“What we discovered is that the very pillars of our Constitution – specifically voting rights and our system of checks and balances – were not being followed regarding electronic voting systems. As we attempted to verify the results, some official election records came up missing,” Pressley said. “The Texas Legislature put in place specific laws that were intended to help ensure the integrity of the voting process, and Texans deserve to know that their votes are counted correctly,” said Pressley.

“When Pressley asked Travis County to produce statutorily required “images of ballots cast” from the Hart InterCivic voting machines for the recount, the clerk was unable to produce the ballot images that voters saw in the election booth. Instead, what she received were Cast Vote Records (CVRs), which are computer-generated templates of tabulated votes — not the statutorily required ballot images required for manual recounts of electronic voting machines.”

Her election contest also revealed documents showing the Texas Secretary of State office approving waivers from following sections of the Texas Election Code for counties using Countywide polling places (cough cough—FORT BEND used Countywide polling places), including waiving the printing of a complete results tape (see #6) “which provides information on how many votes have been cast”.

The reason cited in paragraph 2 was printing the tape takes too long.

“Each zero tape and each results tape will consist of all the candidates and measures for each Election Day precinct within the county and each tape can take several hours to print.”

Does any evidence exist that an eSlate voting machine has the ability to print a paper record of your vote that doesn’t take several hours to print? Why yes there is!

Scroll to the 2:15 minute mark of THIS training video from San Mateo County:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ31vpWSWAw

“Pressing CAST BALLOT will prompt the printer to display a record of the actual choices you have voted in each contest. Carefully compare your selections on the Verification Page with the PRINTED record displayed.”

Printing a paper record of your vote would not take too long if this eSlate voting machine was certified for use in the State of Texas.

And it’s not a partisan “liberal agenda” item for Texans to demand confirmation that computers are accurately recording the voter’s intentions.

That’s what Dr. Laura Pressley’s case is all about.

About Yvonne Larsen

Comments

  1. Jeff Larson says

    You’ve got to be kidding me. Hours? Every election judge who’s ever used an e-slate (hundreds of us in Harris county alone) knows that printing a zero tape only takes a couple of minutes.

    Election judges are allowed (encouraged) to print paper tapes for their own use. I have a paper tape at home for every JBC that I’ve used at every election that I’ve judged using an e-slate.

    • Yvonne Larsen says

      ” each tape can take several hours to print”

      Those are the words of the Texas Secretary of State.

      • John Herbster says

        As I recall a zero tape for an election with about 100 races and 200 names (mainly judges) will take less than 10 minutes to print.

  2. Liz Theiss says

    We need every protocol we can get for this upcoming election. With the overturning of voter protections laws against fraudster voters in three states I am getting very nervous. I hope she wins her case.

    • Laura Pressley says

      Lane, actually the thermal tape does last for several years. What is dangerous is that they can be contaminated with all types of liquids that “erase” the printing.

  5. Pam says

    Republicans have been taken to the cleaners by Ms. Pressley. Unfortunately she is painting a picture of half truths. I have heard her presentation. It sounds so reasonable but in fact it very dangerous because she does not really tell you that her solution is PAPER BALLOTS and that she wants the Election workers to open the box of paper ballots and count them before they are dropped off to the county. Is this what we as Republicans??? She also doesn’t tell you Most of her voting history is Democrat. You need to read http://www.texastrashtalk.com. Please get more facts before agreeing with Ms. Pressley’s conclusions. I am on the Ballot Security committee for Harris County and I was also a True The Vote volunteer for several years. Election integrity is my passion.

    • Adrian in The RUD says

      True the Vote is a Joke organization that claims to be non partisan but works overtime to carry water for statist republican causes just like the ex TTV volunteer that wrote the article you linked.

      If he is non partisan why is he so worked up if pressley voted for a few witless democrats.

      The greatest laugh to had on the trashtalk article was his comment stating “she ( pressley ) also does not quote the Texas Secretary of State (SOS), the chief election officer of the State of Texas, who is responsible for legal interpretations of election law.”

      I am about to begin a three year sentence because i did that very thing – i depended on the opinion of the (R) Secretary of State and the (R) AG Abbott worked to get me indicted and convicted for a crime I did not commit. All the way republicans had stood by in silence. So has TTV.

    • Yvonne Larsen says

      Texas SOS employee wrote “each tape can take hours to print”

      Not in THAT video on THAT eSlate it doesnt.

    • Laura Pressley says

      Dear Pam,

      Thanks for your comments and for attending our presentation in Houston.

      Even with their extensive resources, Harris County has some blind spots with regard to computerized election integrity.

      The following concerns have been reported by election officers and judges. What we need the Ballot Board to do is address the following serious concerns in Harris County:

      a) Computer corruption errors have occurred on main computers,
      b) During Early Voting, when the polls close, Results/Tally Tapes are not printed at the polling locations before the equipment leaves the building. Paper back up record printing and authentication procedures are inconsistent between Election Day and Early Voting,
      c) Election results are only publically reported cumulatively. Separate, precinct-by-precinct results by candidate for Absentee, Early Voting and Election Day is needed for all races to enable a statistical analysis for mathematical patterns by precinct,
      d) Security Seals for computer equipment are sometimes not affixed per written procedures,
      e) No legally sufficient ballot images exist for recounts, and
      f) A bureaucrat in the Texas SoS office, has given waivers to all 254 counties in Texas to ignore the audit, partial manual recount–Did Harris County do the mandatory recount and validate the electronic results?

      Each of these issues is an open door for an election hacker to introduce a program that could flip votes by the thousands and tens of thousands in Harris County.

      What we need are our laws to be honored, adhered to, and not waived and not brushed off as inconvenient. Over the last 15 years, what we were promised with secure computerized voting has not come to fruition and the systems have challenged the public’s trust.

      • Erich says

        > Separate, precinct-by-precinct results by candidate for Absentee, Early Voting and Election Day is needed for all races to enable a statistical analysis for mathematical patterns by precinct,

        Hmm, “separate, precinct-by-precinct results by candidate for Absentee, Early Voting and Election Day” are already available to the public via http://harrisvotes.com/ElectionResults.aspx (click on any of the Canvass Report links). What more do you want?

        > No legally sufficient ballot images exist for recounts

        The Texas Secretary of State defines an electronic “ballot image” stored by our electronic voting system as “Electronically produced record of all votes cast by a single voter” (see the glossary at http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/electronic-voting-system-procedures.shtml).

        Are you still trying to argue that a printout of this record is not a legal “ballot image” because basically it doesn’t look the same as a paper ballot?

  6. Adrian in The RUD says

    Ridiculous people. Common voters don’t need copies of the vote they cast for backup and independent verification purposes. Your statist (R) & (D) oligarchy will take care of everything. Remember “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”

  8. Erich says

    > … that doesn’t take several hours to print?

    Yvonne appears to be comparing apples and onions. *Of course* it doesn’t take several hours to print a paper record of a given *individual’s* vote…. but that’s not at all what the SOS waiver is for. The SOS waiver is for not having to print zero tapes and result tapes BY INDIVIDUAL PRECINCT at each countywide polling location for each day of Early Voting.

    To demonstrate just how impractical it would be to print zero tapes and result tapes BY INDIVIDUAL PRECINCT at each countywide polling location, I will use my own precinct’s November 2014 results as an example (since TexasTrashTalk actually underestimates the amount of paper — and time — required). One of my two result tapes is just under 9 feet long; the other result tape (from the second JBC) is of course just as long. So, too, were each of the two zero tapes. That’s a total of almost 36 feet of paper tape JUST FOR ONE PRECINCT. At 200 feet of paper per tape divided by 9 feet per precinct, that works out to only 22 precincts per tape (remember that printouts can’t span multiple tapes) when printing zero tapes and result tapes BY INDIVIDUAL PRECINCT at each countywide polling location for each day of Early Voting. In Harris County in November 2014, that would have been almost 48.6 rolls of tape PER JBC AT EACH POLLING LOCATION, or over 97 rolls total, just to print zero tapes — and of course another 97 rolls just for result tapes. I didn’t time how long it took to print my 9 feet of result tape, but using the same one-second-per-inch estimate as the TexasTrashTalk article, 48.6 rolls * 200 feet per roll * 12 inches per foot * 1 second per inch = 116,640 seconds (or 32.4 hours) PER JBC to print zero tapes, and of course another 32.4 hours PER JBC to print result tapes.

    • Yvonne Larsen says

      Who has a copy of the application sent to the Texas SOS to apply for Countywide polling? Who has a copy of Fort Bend stories application?

  9. Erich says

    As anyone who’s ever had anything to do with Ballot Security knows, paper ballots present an opportunity to vote more than one ballot at a time, there is no way to prevent overvotes, and there is no way to guarantee there are no accidental — or deliberate — changes to ballots as they are being carried around from place to place during the tallying process (“hanging chads” anyone?)

    I question the motives of anyone — Democrat or Republican — who advocates for a return to the days of paper ballots.

      • Erich says

        “Black box code”? Seriously?

        Once a ballot is cast, the votes are stored in three redundant and physically separate areas of the eSlate System: the eSlate’s own internal memory, the JBC’s internal memory, and the JBC’s flash memory (which in turn is covered by a tamper-evident security seal). Unauthorized changes to cast vote records in any one location would of course be detected by the other two.

        Then again, I suppose you also eschew credit cards, smart phones, computers, automobiles, and other similar “black box code” devices.