Whatcom County Voting Systems Vote Count Confidence
WHEREAS, our society depends on the integrity of our government and the elections which place people in positions of power; and
WHEREAS, if you cannot trust the way your votes are counted, nothing much else in politics matters; and
WHEREAS, we applaud Whatcom County for selecting the use of paper ballots, verifiable by the voter before being cast, and readable without special equipment; and
WHEREAS, the League of Women Voters of the US, in Convention
in June 2006, passed a Resolution supporting the auditing of voter-verifiable
paper ballot results, stating
"...LWVUS supports only voting systems that are designed so that:
- the paper ballot/record is used for audits and recounts; and
- the vote totals can be verified by an independent hand count of the paper ballot/record; and
- routine audits of the paper ballot/record in randomly selected
precincts can be conducted in every election, and the results published by the jurisdiction...";
and
WHEREAS, the mere existence of such voter-verifiable paper ballots is insufficient to assure the integrity and accuracy of the vote-counting system unless the election results are double-checked by independent counts of a sufficient percentage of ballots cast; and
WHEREAS, the Whatcom County Auditor conducted hand-counts of sample ballot sets of the Primary and General Elections of 2005;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY THE WCDCC, that the Democrats request that independent counts of a sufficient percentage of paper ballots cast, for assurance of system accuracy, be established as standard for every Primary and General election, and be encouraged for every Special election; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED BY THE WCDCC that these double-checks be conducted in the following sequence: first, regular machine counting; second, random selection , after the close of the polls, of ballot sets to be double-checked; and third, double-checking of machine counts by an by hand-count observed by the two major parties or other independent method agreeable to the parties requesting the checking of the machine counts; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED BY THE WCDCC that the Whatcom County Democrats believe that the procedures we recommend have the highest potential for assuring integrity of the vote and that we endorse their adoption; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED BY THE WCDCC that this Resolution be forwarded to the elected officials of and representing Whatcom County and with jurisdiction over elections procedures, including the Legislature and the Secretary of State.
Passed by the Whatcom County Democrats Central Committee on August 9, 2006.
