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PRO (YES)
Denise Lamb, former Director of Elections for the State of New Mexico, stated in her testimony before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on May 5, 2004:
"Twenty-two of [New Mexico's] thirty-three counties use DREs... New Mexico has used a triple audit of its elections for many years. The returns from each precinct, including audit tapes from every machine in the state, are examined at the state level with a comparison of machine tapes to rosters to the local jurisdiction's canvass. This allows the state to examine the returns for residual voting patterns, programming errors and any other possible malfunctions or polling official errors. Then, after the state completes its review, independent certified public accountants review the materials to discover any exceptions or anomalies. This process takes time - nearly three weeks in our state, however, I believe the confidence it engenders is well worth the effort."
5/5/2004 Denise Lamb 
Kathy Rogers, Director of Election Administration for the State of Georgia, stated in her May 5, 2004 testimony before the U.S. Election Assistance Commission:
"Multiple, overlapping audit trails of the number of voters who have voted and the number of ballots cast as well as votes that were canceled are recorded in each precinct on Election Day, and compiled and retained after the election. After the polls close these numbers are reconciled with the numbers produced by the electronic voting system during the vote tally and any 'extra' votes or cancellations would be immediately identified. These numerous checks and balances that must all be strictly followed ensure that every voter is afforded the opportunity to cast a secret ballot that is the true and accurate intent of the voter."
5/5/2004 Kathy Rogers
Diebold Election Systems website includes a "Frequently Asked Questions" section (accessed 6/2/06), which explains:
"Election results from all sources are audited and verified to ensure tabulation accuracy. All printed election results from each touch screen voting station are tabulated and compared to the electronic vote count to verify accuracy... Once voting concludes at a precinct, a printed election results report is printed as a permanent record of all activity at each voting station. This printed record is used to audit the electronic tabulation of votes conducted during the election canvass process, when final, official results are reported."
6/2/2006 Diebold Election Systems
The Election Technology Council's "Statement of Principles" (July, 2004; available on their website) explains:
"DRE systems provide extensive backup capabilities for auditability. Most systems include multiple redundant storage of vote records as well as audit trails. DRE units generally do not produce paper receipts for voters but can generate tapes and other hard copy representations of votes cast."
July 2004 Election Technology Council
Sequoia Voting Systems' website (accessed 6/2/2006) includes a description of their electronic voting machine AVC Edge, which states:
"To support an audit trail, [AVC Edge] redundantly stores an unalterable and easily printed electronic record of all votes cast, both within the unit and on a removable cartridge for use in the tabulation of results."
6/2/2006 Sequoia Voting Systems
Matthew Damschroder, Director of the
Franklin County Board of Elections in Columbus, Ohio, stated in his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on House Administration's Elections Subcommittee on March 20, 2007:
"Franklin County’s experience in 15th Ohio Congressional District recount, as well as the
three other recounts conducted of the 2006 General Election and the three subsequent
voluntary audits of the paper tapes to the electronic record conducted by the Board and
the local newspaper, demonstrates the accuracy of electronic voting systems and the
benefit of State and local control over election, audit, and recount definitions and
procedures."
03/20/2007 Matthew
Damschroder
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CON (NO)
U.S. Representative Rush Holt's (D-NJ) website includes a "Frequently Asked Questions" section (accessed 6/5/2006) about the issue of voter verified paper audit trails which states:
"Ballot images, data stored on protective counters and other electronic records are all recorded inside the voting machine, beyond the voter's view and through the use of the same software that received and processed the incoming information. Anything that is electronic and internal to the voting system is subject to the same software glitches, bugs, irregularities and other security risks as the voting system itself. If the computer's software processed the incoming data (votes cast) incorrectly in the first instance, the fact that it then stores that incorrect data in more than on place or in more than one format provides no security benefit, and no auditability benefit."
6/5/2006 Rush Holt
Darryl R. Wold, J.D., former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, states in his July 23, 2003 paper "The HAVA Requirement for a Voter Verified Paper Record":
"The suggestion has been made, however, that the requirement of a paper record to be used for a manual audit can be satisfied by a paper record of votes that is produced for the time after the polls have closed - that is, a printout of what the computer has stored, and that has never been seen by the voter. This interpretation... would make the requirement for a 'manual audit capacity' virtually meaningless.
A paper record consisting solely of ballots printed by the computer after the closing of the polls - and therefore never seen by the voters - would mean that a manual audit or recount would simply amount to reviewing what was stored in the computer. The audit or recount could not manually verify that the computer had accurately recorded the voter's intent, or had accurately stored that information, or had accurately printed out that information. Both an audit and a recount, therefore, would miss the key element of the system - whether the voter's intention had been accurately recorded...
An audit using a record of votes printed post-closing, of course, could not be considered a manual audit of the complete voting system - it would be a partial audit, at best, limited to the math performed by the computer. It would not be an audit of whether the voters' intent was accurately recorded by the computer - and that is the critical issue."
7/23/2003 Darryl Wold
AVANTE International Technology, an electronic voting machine manufacturer, released the paper "Why, When and How Should the 'Paper Record' Mandated by the 'Help America Vote Act of 2002' Be Used?" (4/21/2003; available on their website), which states:
"Every voting unit used for an election must now produce a permanent paper record for each vote cast as part of an audit trail... Without voter verification, a manual [audit] of 'post-election' printed paper records is meaningless and will not provide confidence to the electorate...
If there is anything that went wrong during the election, such as touch-screen calibration misalignment or 'lost votes,' as found in many of the systems used in the 2002 elections in Florida and Georgia, there is no way that it can be discovered or recovered."
4/21/2003 AVANTE International Technology
The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project report Voting: What Is and What Could Be (July 2001) states:
"DREs do not provide a separate record of the voter's intent apart from that captured by the machines. Election officials can only recount what the machines record, so it is impossible to conduct a thorough audit of the election."
July 2001 Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
Candice Hoke, Director of the Center for Election Integrity at Cleveland State University, in her March 20, 2007 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on House Administration's Elections Subcommittee, stated:
"Well before Election Day, we identified in writing in clear generic terms exactly what electronic election results data were needed to complete the audit. The Ballot Department staff
assured us that this would be provided to us immediately upon the close of the unofficial
tabulation... Despite these efforts, however, the electronic files proved not to contain the data that we needed
for the audit... Instead, they informed us that a variety of files would be required, and that we
would have to engage in a series of mathematical steps in order to extract the data that would
permit a comparison of the DRE units’ and optically scanned ballots as against the central
tabulation data."
03/20/2007 Candice Hoke
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