In article <bd8oeq$5h1$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, melissa roberts says...
Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent Hi everyone,
This will probably be the single most important weapon Bush and Co.
will have going into the remainder of 2003 and into 2004. A dream
come true for Bush + Co.. Please act now!
Thank you, -melissa
Michael Tivana > > Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:14:02 -0700
As the election season begins to percolate we see that 'voting
counts' but more important is 'who counts the votes'. Voter fraud
is almost everywhere in one shape or another and we must focus on
having fair elections; here lies the hope for democracy. For example,
the people must change the law in the state of Washington (and other
states around the country) that makes it illegal to have a hand
recount of the votes. Only the machines can recount the votes and
with the software being proprietary there is no way to check to see
if the votes are being counted correctly. Computer programming is
the modern way to rig elections, this is a good place to focus our
attention.
Voting in the US is to the point where if a candidate is running
for office, the campaign money is not best spent on advertising,
it is best spent on bribing a software programmer. The cost ranges
>from $10,000 to $2,000,000 depending on the importance of the race.
The penalty for rigging an election is a misdemeanor. The drive to
get our democracy back can start there.
Thank you for your great work for peace and justice, Michael Tivana
From: "Erik Nilsson" To: "melissa roberts" <nowarusa@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:13:29 -0700
This is a very important issue. I think "save election integrity"
accurately describes the situation. There is a real danger that we
will erode our ability to have government of our choice by elections.
Most of what we do as activists relies on citizens' ability to
install and remove our representatives in government. If we lose
that, the work of activists eventually becomes considerably more
difficult and dangerous.
I urge you all to take two actions this month:
1. Comment on the Draft Washington HAVA Plan with specific objections.
2. Contact any members of the Washington HAVA Steering Committee
that you know or can make contact with, urging them to consider and
advocate changes in the HAVA plan before it is submitted.
As it happens, I've been studying election systems for a decade or
so, so I can provide a quick summary:
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gives states money to replace
outmoded voting systems. The objectives are roughly: better integrity
of the voter registration database, elimination of punchcard ballots,
and better access for disabled voters. To get the money, each state
has to prepare a plan for how they will spend the HAVA money to
improve elections systems.
Washington's draft plan is available at
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/HAVAStatePlan.html or
www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/HAVAWashingtonStatePlan.pdf
We are now in a comment period that ends June 30th for the draft
HAVA plan.
The state WILL submit a plan and be awarded HAVA money, so to have
an effect, we need to tell Secretary of States across the country(
Sam Reed here in the state of WA) not just that we are interested
in this issue, but specifically what in the plan we want changed.
So I suggest making specific suggestions. I'll post a more complete
analysis of the draft Washington HAVA plan, probably on Wednesday,
assuming you don't want to read the entire plan yourself.
However, IMHO the most important issues to address in the HAVA plan
are:
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines have known
risks.
Progressive jurisdictions (Santa Clara County in California, for
example), are beginning to require that DREs produce a human-readable
paper ballot, to permit a meaningful recount in the case the DRE
malfunctions, or in case of any other problem. Some DRE manufacturers
have developed paper ballot options for their voting machines.
Elections experts have been calling for paper ballot on DREs for
over ten years. It would be a terrible mistake to waste the HAVA
opportunity on DRE equipment that will soon have to be scrapped or
retrofitted to address what is increasingly recognized as a critical
component of DRE systems.
2. Improved access and ballot secrecy for handicapped voters is a
laudable goal. Washington's HAVA plan should ensure that this goal
is actually met by requiring specific acceptance criteria for DRE
machines. This acceptance criteria should require DRE vendors to
demonstrate that handicapped voters gain superior access and secrecy
under conditions of actual use. This should be measured by a
double-blind test that statistically-significant groups of voters
with various handicaps are able to get the DRE to correctly indicate
their voting choices in reasonable comfort, under realistic conditions.
Furthermore, this improvement should not compromise the accuracy
with which unhandicapped voters are able to get the DRE to correctly
indicate their choices.
Here is a bit of background:
HAVA is a federal act that gives states money to upgrade their
voting systems. The Washington HAVA plan proposes to replace the
punchcard voting systems in Washington with DRE systems. These are
"ATM-like" computer systems that capture voter intent as an electronic
record.
The state will seek a lowest-cost bid for DRE voting machines. A
paper ballot will not be required; an electronic record will be
considered sufficient for a "ballot".
DRE machines are promoted as being lower-cost, safer, and providing
better access to the disabled. There is no guarantee that they will
be any of these things:
- The DRE machines are expensive. There is almost no way they can
ever represent a cost savings.
- The DRE machines have well-documented problems with malfunctions
that cause votes to be lost or mis-assigned. This isn't safer.
- DREs have features designed to offer superior access to the
disabled.
DREs certainly could offer better disabled access. Current DREs
might be easier for some disabled people to use than punchcard
systems. (Punchcard systems are very hard for people with vision
problems and/or dexterity problems as from arthritis, Parkinson's
etc.) But to my knowledge no statistics have been offered for current
DREs showing better disabled access. And there is good reason to
believe that current DREs may have their own problems for certain
disabilities.
Most of the problems, other than expense, of DREs can be cured by
having the DRE print a human-readable paper ballot. This paper
ballot is then the actual indelible record of voter intent, for
example in a recount. The paper ballot is placed in a ballot box
and transported to a counting center, as is currently done. The
memory of the DRE can be used to quickly produce preliminary election
results, but the paper ballots should be at least subject to a
random recount before final results are certified. For over a decade,
elections experts (Rebecca Mercuri, me, other people) have been
calling for DREs to produce a paper ballot, and detailing ways this
could be done. For more information on DREs and voting technology
see Rebecca Mercuri's web site www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html.
For an analysis of research on the effectiveness of DRE systems,
see my article "Why Has Voting Technology Failed Us?" in
www.cpsr.org/publications/newsletters/issues/2001/Winter/index.html Also
worth checking out is Stanford Professor David Dill's page
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html
The Washington Office of the Secretary of State's release on HAVA
is here:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/office/news.aspx?news_id=201 The release
specifically mentions "touch-screen" voting technology.
In making comments, I think it worth considering that the Steering
Committee has been meeting since February. They think they are
pretty well-educated on this topic, so a well-informed comment will
be more effective.
Please contact members of the Steering Committee if you know them,
share an affiliation (political party, etc.), or can contact them
through friends or other associates:
The members of the Washington HAVA Plan Steering Committee are:
Janet Anderson, League of Women Voters Norma Brummett, Washington
State Association of County Auditors Deborah Cook, Washington
Assistive Technology Alliance David Danner, Office of the Governor
Gayatri Essey, Community Representative Kelly Haughton, Washington
State Libertarian Party Dean Logan, Director of Elections Pat
McCarthy, Pierce County Auditor Sam Reed, Secretary of State Bob
Roegner (Presumably replaced by Jim Buck since Roegner's resignation)
Karla Rutherford, Washington Initiative for Supported Employment
Michael Snyder, Washington State Democratic Party Kristina Swanson,
Washington State Association of County Auditors Michael Young,
Washington State Republican Party Counsel to the Committee, Jeff
Even, Assistant Attorney General Staff to the Committee, John Pearson
& Bill Huennekens, Office of the Secretary of State
Please make the time between now and the end of the month to take
effective action on this critical issue.
- Erik
-----Original Message----- From: owner-local-computer-activists@scn.org
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 3:06 PM To: jtu@seattletimes.com;
Jay.Inslee@mail.house.gov;
jim.compton@ci.seattle.wa.us; mmcomber@seattletimes.com;
Judy.Nicastro@ci.seattle.wa.us; lewiskamb@seattlepi.com;
lmatsukawa@king5.com Subject: 13 days to save election integrity:
flood Reed's phone lines
Thanks to Brent for this fwd. Very important action to take regarding
touch screen voting and the hazards of having no paper trail. If
you want your vote to be accounted for then please act now. And
help spread the word to every voter in the State of WA.
-melissa
From: "Brent White" > >>Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 19:05:08 +0000
Hi everyone,
The messages to the Secretary of State's office regarding the Help
America Vote Act Spending Plan for Washington State are trickling
in (albeit slowly). He is responding by trying to keep the issue
out of the public eye.
Let's have a bunch of messages waiting for the Secretary of State's
office when they get in Monday. > > It can go something like this:
"I'm *** from ***. I'm concerned that there is no public hearing
being held on the HAVA Spending Plan. We need a real opportunity
for public input regarding the DREs that have no voter-verifiable
paper audit trail. Our comments are not being forwarded to the
members of the Steering Committee that will be deciding whether to
approve the HAVA Spending Plan. Please inform the Secretary that
the public needs to be heard on this issue of vital imporance to
the future of democracy."
The phone numbers are:
360-902-0630 800-448-4881 800-422-8683 (TDDY)
Onward, Brent
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