The Problems With Touch Screen Voting Machines (Direct Record Electronic)   North Carolina's touch screen counties do not have a reliable voter verified paper ballot. They are also succeptible to mis-calibration errors that can cause the machine to change a voter's choices.  At this time, there are no touch screen machines that do provide a reliable paper ballot. In 2004 & 2005 we urged lawmakers to ban this type of voting machine, in favor of optical scan systems, that do have a reliable paper ballot. Without a voter verified paper ballot you can not do honest and accurate audits or recounts. The Guilford County Board of Elections documented a 9% failure rate of the touch screen printers in 2006 http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061215/NEWSREC0101/61215003/-1/NEWSREC0201   Experts and citizens warned the North Carolina State Legislature ahead of time:   May 28, 2004. A bill to study whether all touch screen or direct record voting machines should produce a voter verified paper trail and to place a moratorium on paperless touch screen/DRE machines until July 1, 2005.  This study bill was sent to the "rules" committee and died.  http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2003/Bills/Senate/HTML/S1415v1.html   Jan. 7, 2005.  Dr. Rebecca Mercuri advised NC lawmakers to get rid of touch screens for reasons including flawed paper trails printers: http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Rebecca_Mercuri_Jan_7_2005.pdf   Aug 10. 2005. Computer expert Dr. Justin Moore told the House Election Law Committee: "With regard to the paper roll that Mr. Gilbert brought out, that is one of the available systems that are out there. There are systems out there that create independent ballots, independent pieces of paper like more traditional optical-scan, and those are actually the systems that are supported by the verified voting community. We definitely opposed these ballot-on-a-roll systems." http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/HouseElectLawAug10Gilbert.doc Documentation of Problems With Touch Screen Printers in North Carolina:   ES&S discusses printer jams in it's product slick, it in effect admits to the fact that the printers DO jam. They are proud of how their printers will jam less than other vendors' printers.  (Maybe they do fail less, Ohio is reporting a 20% failure on Diebold touchscreen printers).From page two about it's VVPAT printer (Real Time Audit Log) ES&S advises: "For the election worker, the Real Time Audit Log requires less paper than a printed voter receipt, resulting in fewer paper jams and malfunctions."  That product slick can be linked here. http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ES_SiVotronicSlick.pdf NC had so many paper jams that the SBOE issued a memo on how to deal with it: Nov.  2006 The NC State Board of Elections issues a memo on Procedures for Recounting Damaged VVPAT http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Procedures_for_Damaged_RTAL_Paper_Rolls.pdf NC: Printers Fail on Touch-screens  - 9% Failure Rate in Guilford County in the  Nov 2006 General Election:  "The system meant to produce a paper backup of votes cast on Guilford County's electronic voting machines failed in many cases during the election Nov. 7. ..    http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061215/NEWSREC0101/61215003/-1/NEWSREC0201    Touchscreen printers are not fail safe like optical scan ballots:You get no printout at all if officials put the paper in wrong: May 4, 2006 Few Voting Glitches Pop Up  10 touchcreen machines failed to print voter verified ballots in Mecklenburg County NC. Workers put paper in wrong way.  Charlotte Observer. http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/May_04_06_Few_voting_glitches_pop_up.pdf   Eminent Computer Scientist Criticizes ES&S  Touch-Screen Paper Trail  "The Real time Audit Log places high cognitive burdens on the voter, is extraordinarily error prone for the auditor,and is possibly illegal in states that are strict about voting privacy."  http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1414&Itemid=51 From Mecklenburg County Trouble reports for the May 06 primary and Nov 06 general election:  the types of problems, by category. Open the link to see the quantity of problems, 6 pages for the November election, and 3 for the primary. Paper jams, screen freezes, programming errors etc listed. Panel would not charge. Screen freeze. Out of calibration. Printer folding edge of paper. Flash error/CRC error Power shut down. Printer frozen/power issue Half of screen missing. "Locked up". CJ could not open panel Battery low. Printer door won't lock. Corrupted flashcard - message. Pct wkrs could not change paper roll. RTAL not found - message Panel beeping, screen frozen. Chirping, but dead. 4 panels had printers not working No response on 3 machines Broken leg. Panel fell/release latch won't work. Panel would not accept Master PEB. Ballot will not display. Goes directly to Party Select when Master - ADA programmed wrong. Paper roll on backwards Can't make selections when press screen. ADA problem, audio tried - blank screen. Time setting is off by 1 hour http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Mecklenburg_2006_Trouble_Report.pdf  REMEDY FOR TOUCH SCREEN COUNTIES:   What do we do to protect the vote in North Carolina's touch screen counties at this time?  Our best bet with this short time frame is to mitigate the risks:   Follow the example of Franklin County Ohio.  This county has the same kind of touchscreens as North Carolina, the ES&S iVotronics.  Franklin County officials instructed their poll workers to check the touch screen printers periodically throughout the day. They also had their poll workers educate the voters to notify them if the printers had any problems.  This kept Franklin County from permanently losing any voter verified paper records.     We should require election workers to check touch screen printers periodically throughout the day. Additionally, we should put signs ON the voting machines to instruct the voter to verify their paper printout, and to notify the poll workers if there is a problem.     We requested that the State Board of Elections to have these signs (above and actual size) distributed to the counties for the 2006 election, but it was not implemented.