Talk:Help America Vote Act

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Some have questioned its usefulness as it is understood to mandate electronic voting systems

What exactly does it mean? Does it or doesn't it mandate electronic systems? --NeuronExMachina 01:00, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This article is a mess and heavily POV. 70.168.12.53 23:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at http://www.seconnecticut.com/elections.htm and feel free to incorporate any of it.

No. What HAVA does is attempt to phase out the use of antiquated voting systems, such as punch card and lever devices, by providing large block grants to states to purchase newer voting technologies, such as optical scan units or DREs. Nowhere are electronic systems mandated, other than one DRE with speech capacity per polling place for use by people with disabilities. Because of confusion and political concern over voting systems, problems have occurred both in appropriations for the grants, and with individual states not meeting the mandated deadlines for procedural reviews and grant applications. DREs were to have been installed no later than January 1, 2006.

HAVA also created the Federal Elections Commission and several subsidiary boards which have the power to create Federal voting standards, inclucing voting system standards. Because of certain fears voiced during Conference, no Federal standard is mandatory, though several states agreed to use them for their own ease.

One can hypothesize a law suit over HAVA implementation in the leadup to 2008, particularly if states continue to balk. Unfortunately, most of the confusion stems from the legal enforcement mechanisms of the bill, which were largely stripped during Conference.

The article as it stands is a mess: both POV and factually errant. I'll turn my attention to it in a couple weeks time when I am able.--Mrdarcey 05:54, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

In the meantime, I've added a link to the American Association of People with Disabilities (disclosure: I'm a former employee) page on HAVA and voting systems implementation.--Mrdarcey 06:13, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Notes to Accompany Substantial Expansion of the Article

I have expanded this article quite a bit and I think it's much improved in terms of accuracy and thoroughness, but I still think it has a long way to go. I'd like to introduce more of the history and the good intentions behind the bill, then a more balanced record of when and how badly things went wrong. It appears that a lot of HAVA's shortcomings are the result of demanding a lot from the states while providing insufficient guidelines on how to achieve those things. It may be an instance of throwing money at a high-profile problem without doing the work needed to do really solve things. As an example, I've read that the mandate for states to build centralized voter databases was accompanied by very little guidance, which means that there's no guarantee that there will be any uniformity between them. Any information worker can see the lost opportunity there. Anyway, I'd like to capture more of that in the article.

The problems discussed here should also be better quantified in relation to the overall scale of an election. It's challenging to find good data on this, and to sort out well sourced information from partially accurate or partially sourced information. For instance, I saw a reference to more than 100,000 errors reported by voting machines in Florida in 2004, but I wasn't sure it was accurate so didn't include it. I haven't checked all the references that were here before I made my edits, but I believe mine are pretty solid.

Finally, it may be appropriate to move some of the material here into related pages and to scale back the amount of detail in this article.

I hope the changes I made will make this article easier for everyone to work with, and that others will help to fill it out further and capture all sides of HAVA and its effects. Pladuk 03:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Update to Accompany Substantial Expansion of the Article

I tried to make the article overall significantly more accurate. I also tried to make it actually about HAVA and its provisions. A couple of specifics:

• The bit about the Diebold CEO makes me sick, but it's got nothing to do with HAVA
• Independent Testing Authorities: ITAs are not governed by HAVA.
• In general the 2005 VVSG (the only federal standard to date) wasn't a testing standard until December of 2006. Most of the conversation related to that has nothing to do with HAVA and is really criticizing the 2002 FEC standards.
• "Breakdowns due to Human Error" has nothing to do with HAVA. Criticisms of HAVA for encouraging purchase of electronic voting is completely relevant, but what does this have to does this human error have to do with HAVA?
• I moved criticisms after the HAVA description, I think it only makes sense to explain the subject of the article before criticizing it...
  • "Critics of HAVA point out that it imprudently attempts" is pretty POV. I changed it to "Critics of HAVA argue it imprudently attempts"
• External links
  • http://www.truedemocracy.us/ = dead
  • http://www.electionline.org/ ? Great general resource, but not directly related
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Opinion of Electronic Voting - Electronic voting related, not HAVA related though
  • Investigations into some of the companies bidding to do the work not HAVA related

--Electiontechnology 07:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Great work! More big improvements and the article is really starting to feel solid. Thanks for the cleanup too!

There are a couple things I'd like to change, but I want to run them by you first:

• First, I think the provisions should be grouped into a "provisions" section to make it clear that those are all about the actual body of the legislation, and to separate those from other top level sections (currently that's just the last 3 sections, but like other articles on legislation it may evolve to include other sections like background, case law, "see also").
• Additionally, I think the intro section should have a little more about the pre and post conditions. In the same way that it's important to mention the problems of the 2000 election as a bit of context about the problems HAVA was intended to address, I think it's equally important to include mention of how things are turning out in the aftermath of HAVA, whether it has succeeded in fixing some of those problems, whether it's on schedule, whether its schedule was appropriate to the situation, and how the track record reflects back on the authoring parties and their interests and intentions. I think all of those things should be considered in any article about a piece of legislation.
• RE: "Independent Testing Authorities: ITAs are not governed by HAVA."

You're right that the earlier criticism of ITAs was flawed in that it confused these two eras, but HAVA does have an important role here. HAVA created the EAC, and directed them to issue the VVSG, which were then released in 2005. National or federal certification/qualification did not exist before HAVA. Previously ITAs were accredited based on the 2002 VSS standards by NASED, which is a trade association, not a federal agency. HAVA created the EAC and gave it the authority to accredit testing laboratories and federally certify voting systems – the first time both functions will be conducted by a federal entity. I'll see if I can find more current news reflecting the issuance of the VVSG and the aftermath, then rewrite the section on ITAs and certification.

Again, I think it's relevant the discussion of HAVA should include both the problem it was trying to solve, and how it has or hasn't succeeded.

I'll probably have time to take a crack at some of these things in the next couple days, but feel free to dive in if you're inclined.

Pladuk 20:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick response:

• I totally agree but thought that adding another level (currently 4 deep) would be difficult. Maybe we could rework "Implementation of requirements" and bump the content up a level?
• I agree again. Some contextual history would be good. I think a timeline might be really nice as the leg. is full of "deadlines." The motivation is a tough one for me because it's hard to say "why" something happened an still be encyclopedic, but I'm open to suggestions.
• HAVA has a role in that they had the EAC develop guidelines and testing procedures. I'm not sure that the HAVA article is the right place to discuss ITA's, the VSS, the VSSG, and the Voting System Test Lab Program (what the new EAC one is called). There's an existing article that it would fit much better in: "Certification of voting machines" and that article could use the help. There are also articles for the Independent Testing Authority and the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

I'm not sure how to deal with the idea of discussing the "the problem it was trying to solve." How do we judge what that is and still be NPOV? The legislation has stated goals, but it's pretty naive to think that's all there is to it. Again I'm open to suggestions.

This is an article that has been in need of updates for some time. I appreciate your additions (as well as the motivation is gave me). There are a number of related articles that could use some updates to. All in due time I guess.

--Electiontechnology 21:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC) I took out the reference to undervotes, as I couldn't find it in the law (http://www.fec.gov/hava/law_ext.txt) Gerardw 01:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

110727-- NOTE

This text in this section was moved from the article text itself, as the editor placed his commentary in the body of the article instead of the talk page. It is in reference to the Help America Vote Act#Auditing section. —Darkwind (talk) 04:57, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

On this point, I called the Federal Election Assistance Commission in Washington, DC, and was told by staff attorney that HAVA does not mandate paper audit trails for each electronic voting machine. I realize the hyperlinked footnote above refers to USPL|107|252}} SEC.301 a. 2. (42 USC 15481(a)(2)), but I specifically asked about any mandated audit capability, and was told there is none-- the matter is left for states to decide. If the writer behind this commendable Wikipedia entry has an explanation, I would be delighted to hear it. The audit issue is only one of many major vulernabilities introduced by electronic voting machines. At my first opportunity, I'll call FEAC again, to verify what I was told-- hopefully to speak with the same source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alphaa10 (talk • contribs) 06:39, July 27, 2011

RESPONSE TO NOTE: The requirement is a part of the federal statute, although it applies only to federal elections. The text reads:

(a) Requirements. Each voting system used in an election for Federal office shall meet the following requirements:

(2) Audit capacity.

     (A) In general. The voting system shall produce a record with an audit capacity for such system.
     (B) Manual audit capacity.
        (i) The voting system shall produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity for such system.
        (ii) The voting system shall provide the voter with an opportunity to change the ballot or correct any error before the permanent paper record is produced.
        (iii) The paper record produced under subparagraph (A) shall be available as an official record for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.253.125.125 (talk) 05:25, August 14, 2011

Violates NPOV by showing clear bias

1) Article contains talking points like "Note: The act of voter fraud is legally defined as an individual appearing at a polling station, providing identification bearing a false name, and casting a ballot." which are unsourced and deceptive. 2) Article written to blame an entire group of people(Republicans) based on a strawman 3) Very unprofessional. This article reads like an argument between 2 children fighting over who's dad is better.

Here's a way these articles could be fixed: permaban everyone who deny the existence of voter fraud. Sourced and unbiased articles explaining voter fraud are needed. Also, since you can't say "voter ID" on here without everyone yelling talking points at each other, why doesn't someone actually detail what the real issue is? Here, I'll start a fire: the fundamental reason why people push voter ID laws is because large numbers of urban poor people are pressured and manipulated into voting, for candidates they don't support, by trained community organizers/volunteers that use pushy tactics to guilt/shame individuals in much the same way that used car dealers take advantage of nice people. Basically its like they're being annoyed by Jehovah-Witness only far far worse. The ID rule gives the people a way to say NO without feeling bad. Face it: most of the "disenfranchised" individuals probably already have an ID and some of them probably DO vote but when they're not being coerced. Grow up people. The disenfranchising is coming from the other side but at least I'll admit that they're foolish enough to believe their own absurd talking points. 63.152.68.159 (talk) 17:58, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

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