Election Integrity News - October 25, 2005 This Week's Quote: "When you have an election settled by 11,000
votes, it doesn't take much fraud or error to change the result."
Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-Michigan) |
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In this issue ...
Commentary National Stories Congress Discusses Extention of The Voting Rights Act News From Around the States Florida: "A Crazy Way to Run An Election": Preliminary Report on the Performance of Diebold's "Blended" or "Dual" System New Mexico: Did You Erase Your Own Vote? New York: Report on LibertyVote DRE North Dakota: State Announces Plans to Use Ballot-Marking Devices in Every Polling Place Pennsylvania: Three Strikes and You’re Out – Well, Maybe: Another Decertification for the Unilect Patriot Tennessee: Choosing Trustworthy and Reliable Voting Systems Upcoming Events Florida Election Reformers Statewide Conference Nov 12-13 Issues Corporate Control of the Election Process
"Eternal Vigilence is the Price of Freedom" |
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Why Elections Are Not About Politics
by Warren Stewart, Editor, Election Integrity News
| It has been suggested that the recent report of the Commission on Federal
Election Reform represented a compromise, or more precisely, a trade-off, between
issues that meant most to the Republicans (voter ID) and those that meant most
to the Democrats (VVPAT). The trade may never have been explicit, but could
have just emerged from the fault lines on the panel as they struggled to reach
a unanimous agreement. Needless to say, I have no way of knowing about the internal
politics of the Commission, but I strongly object to the glib assumption of
a political polarity between Voter ID and VVPAT. In fact, elections are not about politics. I know that sounds absurd but hear me out. Elections are an idea - an old idea by now, but an idea that somehow always seems innovative. Letâs collectively decide what should happen and agree that weâll all have an equal part in making those decisions. Weâll all indicate our opinions - letâs call them votes - and weâll all accept the results. |
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There are three basic principles underlying the notion of elections: every eligible voter should be able to vote, nobody should get more than one vote, and everyoneâs votes should be counted correctly. Sounds simple. It is when those three basic principles are subject to manipulation that politics gets involved.
Every eligible voter should be able to vote. Fundamentally, anyone who believes in representative democracy has to agree with this, though efforts to define eligibility for partisan gain has an ignoble history in this country. The acceptance of the very idea of universal suffrage is considerably younger than the notion of democracy in America. Even after universal suffrage was granted in theory, poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and purging of voter rolls and any number of other techniques have all been used for partisan advantage.
Lately the second of the basic principle ãnobody should get to vote more than onceä has been used as rationale for attacks on the first. Proposals for a National Voter ID will undoubtedly have the effect of disenfranchising millions of voters, primarily elderly, infirm, poor, and disabled voters. Though few would argue with the presumed intent of a National Voter ID, making sure nobody votes twice, the result of such a provision is reprehensible to those who believe in democratic principles.
The last principle, "everyoneâs vote should be counted correctly", presumably has no partisan advantage Ð itâs about fair play and the integrity of the democratic process. Itâs time to stop using election reform as a tool for partisan advantage.
New GAO Report Confirms Serious Security Problems with Electronic Voting Systems
by Joan Krawitz, Executive Director, VoteTrustUSA
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"[C]oncerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes." A newly released report on the security and accuracy of electronic voting systems, issued by the Government Accountability Office, confirms the seriousness of problems reported by members of the Election Integrity Community since 2002. |
Voting System Vulnerabilities Confirmed by the GAO include:
•Cast ballots, ballot definition files, memory cards, and audit logs
could be modified.
•Supervisor functions were protected with weak or easily guessed passwords,
and memory cards that allowed individuals access to voting machines were inadequately
protected.
•Systems had easily picked locks and power switches that were exposed
and unprotected.
•Voting machine vendors had weak security practices, including the failure
to conduct background checks on programmers and system developers, and the failure
to establish clear chain of custody procedures for handling software.
Read
the Entire Article
Congress Discusses Extention of The Voting Rights Act
by Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy, VoteTrustUSA
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As the nation observes the death of Rosa Parks, it is fitting that Congress has begun hearings on the extension of the legislative action that symbolized the spirit of her courageous actions half a century ago. At the same time, with the proposal of onerous Voter ID requirements in many states and in Congress, it is clear that the struggle for full enfranchisement is far from over. Last week The House Judiciary Committee held the first two of what could
be more than a dozen congressional hearings into extending key provisions
of the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. The 15th Amendment guarantees
people of all races the right to vote, and most aspects Most of the provisions
of the landmark 1965 law are permanent, including prohibitions of literacy
tests, poll taxes, and other means of restricting minority access to the
polls.
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California: Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Chooses Promises Over Evidence
by John Gideon, Information Manager, VotersUnite and VoteTrustUSA
| The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to
allow the County Clerk, Gail Pellerin, to enter into contract negotiations
with Sequoia Voting Systems, a recently purchased subsidiary of Smartmatic,
Inc. which is a Florida-registered, Venezuelan-owned, company. Pellerin
recommended a blended system using Sequoia optical scanners and one Sequoia
Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting system with voter-verified paper audit
trail in each polling place.
The 94-page report Pellerin presented to the Board contains 69 pages of
information supplied by citizen opponents of the purchase, including documented
failures of Sequoia DRE systems in past elections, analyses showing the
higher operating cost of DREs, and testimony by disabled individuals explaining
the difficulties they had using Sequoia voting machine.
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Florida: "A Crazy Way to Run An Election": Preliminary Report
on the Performance of Diebold's "Blended" or "Dual" System
by Susan Pynchon, Executive, Florida Fair Elections Coalition
| Two members of Florida Fair Elections Coalition (FFEC), Kitty Garber and I,
traveled to Flagler County in September to support Flagler’s lone voter
activist, Deborah Susswein, in observing the closing of the municipal primary
election held for the city of Palm Coast on September 13, 2005. Deborah and
I stayed at the elections office while Kitty observed the poll closing at one
polling place and then joined us at the elections office. We believe this election was the first time the Diebold “blended” or “dual” voting system was used in an election in Florida. “Blended system” is the term used by Diebold and the state of Florida to refer to a dual voting system that combines optical scanners and Diebold TSX touch-screens in each polling place. One touch-screen is placed with the op-scan(s) in each precinct for the stated purpose of serving disabled voters who cannot mark a paper ballot. Read the Full Report
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New Mexico: Did You Erase Your Own Vote?
by Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy, VoteTrustUSA
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In 2004, New Mexico once again led the nation in Presidential undervote rate. Undervotes are ballots cast without a vote for President, and New Mexico had 21, 084 of them – 2.78% of the total ballots cast last November or one out of every 36 voters. New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron seems surprisingly untroubled by undervotes, commenting after the election that she doesn't "spend a lot of time on undervote issues, I'm just speculating that some voters are just not concerned with the presidential race." I never found this very convincing. However, recent testimony concerning
the straight party voting function of some of the machines used in New
Mexico from the head of Automated Election Services - the company that
sells the machines to most of the counties in New Mexico - may offer a
more persuasive explanation.
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New York: Report on the LibertyVote DRE
from New Yorkers for Verified Voting
| One of the computerized or DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting systems
being considered for New York is the LibertyVote machine sold by Liberty Election
Systems. This system is made by the Netherlands company NEDAP (NV Nederlandische
Apparatenfabriek). Voters indicate their choice by pushing buttons next to candidates’
names printed on a large sheet of paper (the “ballot”) that is laid
over the button array. This ballot stays on the machine for the duration of
the election. A full-face ballot can be accommodated. The LibertyVote machine
appears to be identical to the NEDAP PowerVote machine used in Europe. The NEDAP website says the company “focuses on developing and supplying innovative and sustainable solutions in the fields of security and electronic control units as well as automation, management and information for organizations.” Their product list includes retail security, library management, electronic controls, election systems, and cattle management. Liberty implies that the NEDAP PowerVote has had only smooth sailing
in Europe. This is decidedly not the case in the Republic of Ireland.
The government spent nearly $60 million on PowerVote equipment and it
was intended that they be used for the June, 2004 local and European Parliament
elections. An Independent Commission on Electronic Voting investigated
this system and said it could not recommend its use because of security
and accuracy concerns, whereupon it was not used for that election. |
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North Dakota: State Quietly Announces Plans to Use Ballot-Marking Devices
in Each Polling Place
by Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy, VoteTrustUSA
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On October 13, at a meeting of county auditors and election workers North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger announced that all 53 counties in his state would be complying with The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) through the use of one ballot-marking device in each precinct. Each of the states 575 polling places will be equipped with an ES&S optical scanner and an AutoMark, developed by Vogue Election Systems and marketed by ES&S. North Dakota has no legislated requirement for a paper audit trail,
but the fact that optical scan ballots are inherently voter verified and
provide a paper record for audits and recounts appears to have been an
important factor in the state’s decision. Wyoming, South Dakota,
Oklahoma, and several other states have chosen to meet the HAVA disability
access requirements through the use of ballot marking devices rather than
paperless electronic machines. This calls into questions the claims by
election officials in several states that ballot marking devices are somehow
not HAVA compliant. |
Pennsylvania: Three Strikes and You’re Out – Well, Maybe: Another
Decertification for the Unilect Patriot
by Kathy McPherson, Mercer County Citizens for Better Government
On October 21st, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes submitted his final report on the August 15th examination of the newest version of the UniLect Patriot Direct Record Electronic (DRE) Voting System. Certification was denied to the Patriot DRE in large part due to numerous security concerns. The denial of certification for this newest model of the Patriot DRE and will prevent its sale and use within the state of Pennsylvania until UniLect is able to show that it has corrected all documented problems through a reexamination.
| But the story is far from over. The Pennsylvania Election
Code allows for unlimited re-examinations of both decertified and uncertified
systems, so you can be sure that UniLect CEO Jack Gerbel will be back in
the state again and again until Legislature amends the Election Code to
limit the number of times vendors can reapply for a examination. This process
is encouraged by the fact that although the initial exam fee that vendors
must pay for testing is $3000, subsequent re-exams cost them only $450.
This fee does not cover the costs incurred by the state in examining a machine,
so it is actually the taxpayers that end up footing the bill each time UniLect
comes has back. And they’ve been back 3 times in less than 7 months! Read the Entire Article
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Tennessee: Choosing Trustworthy and Reliable Voting Systems
by Robert Tuke, Chairman, Tennessee Democratic Party
Editor's note - This letter was sent recently to Democratic Representatives on County Election Commissions.
You are in the process of making decisions that are vitally important to the safety, security and trustworthiness of our voting process in Tennessee. I know you want to be sure that our future elections here in Tennessee will remain free from the problems that have occurred too often with non-verifiable, insecure and expensive electronic voting systems in several states.
For the past several years, the problems with direct record electronic (DRE)
voting systems have been well documented. These expensive voting systems have
encountered multiple problems that, through accident or by design, have impacted
the conduct of elections in several states around the country. These voting
machines have been studied by computer scientists at many universities, and
these researchers have recommended against using these machines because they
frequently malfunction and their secret operating software can be easily tampered
with without detection by election officials.
Read
the Entire Letter
New Mexico Election Reform Task Force Final Meetings Nov. 10-11
The New Mexico Election Reform Task Force will hold their fifth and final
set of meetings on November 10 and 11 in Santa Fe. The Election Reform Task
Force was created by the legislative council for the 2005 interim. During the
2005 legislative session, the legislature addressed a number of election issues
and made numerous changes to the Election Code. Due to the complexity and extent
of these changes, the election reform task force was created to review the provisions
and implementation of the new law, review the Election Code to ensure that any
obsolete language that conflicts with federal law was adequately addressed and,
if necessary, recommend legislation for the 2006 legislative session to address
any implementation problems or other unintended consequences of the new law.
For
More Information about the Election Reform Task Force
United Voters of New Mexico
Florida Election Reformers Statewide Conference Nov 12-13
Florida election reformers are invited to attend a statewide election reform conference and workshop hosted by Florida Fair Elections Coalition in Orlando November 12-13. The goals of this event are to create a unified, coordinated, statewide effort to effect reform, to develop strategies for a coordinated legislative agenda, to share information, ideas, and expertise on issues, to build a working relationship among Florida election reform organizations, thereby maximizing our effectiveness
Read More Here
Voting Systems User Warning: Hart InterCivic Ballot Now
by John Gideon, Information Manager, VotersUnite and VoteTrustUSA
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Voting System: Hart InterCivic Ballot Now optical scan system, using Kodak i800 Series Scanner Problems Found by Election Officials: During a hand recount of ballots counted in Yakima County, Washington, it was discovered that 24 properly marked ballots had been counted as undervotes and had not been tallied. An investigation was carried out by Hart InterCivic employees who looked at the ballot images. The examination revealed that 24 ballot images contained a white vertical line spanning the entire length of the ballot. The line ran through the left portion of all option boxes in the 4th column of each ballot. Hart reported that since the white line “whited out” a portion
of each option box, Ballot Now was unable to detect at least 90 percent
of each “target box” and therefore classified each contest
in the 4th column of each ballot as a Damaged Contest. In this case, the
4th column included contests for Congress, Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary
of State, and State Treasurer.
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Corporate Control of the Election Process
(First Published on June 15, 2005)
by John Gideon, Information Manager, VotersUnite and VoteTrustUSA
Those who hold the sacred trust of overseeing the election procedures and voting systems in this country are an alphabet-soup of organizations. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS); the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED), the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC); the Election Center. What do these groups have in common? They either receive their funding from the vendors or are greatly influenced by those who do receive funding from the vendors. We can only hope that the EAC can resist the influence. The others haven't.
Who are these "vendors"? The vendors are the corporate face on our
elections systems — the for-profit companies that develop and sell the
equipment used to run our elections. They are those who have the most to gain
from the influence they buy through their donations and dues to the alphabet
soup, and that influence is considerable. They include names like Diebold, Elections
Systems and Software (ES&S), Sequoia Voting Systems, Hart InterCivic, Accenture,
UniSys, Accupoll, and more. In fact they are all proudly named on the list of
corporate affiliates of NASS.
Read the
Entire Article
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Election Integrity News Editor: Warren
Stewart
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