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The following is a summary of a meeting we participated in yesterday with our TN Secretary of State and three legislators (one blue, two red) to discuss VVPB and MRMR (mandatory random manual recounts). I thought you DUers who are also working on state-level reforms might enjoy hearing about our process and progress. With the good example of so many DUers around the country, we're taking the bull by the horns (or the balls -- whichever works) here in the Orange State. Enjoy.
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To all,
Yesterday at late morning, I received an email from Representative Susan Lynn's office, indicating that she and Rep. Mike Kernell would be meeting with Secretary of State Darnell at 3:00 pm and inviting me to attend. I sent out a quick email before heading to town, and was glad that Thelma Kidd and Barbara Jones were able to make the meeting also. In addition, we were joined by Rep. Delores Gresham -- I had emailed all the Reps. I knew about who had spoken favorably about Lynn's voter-verified paper ballot bill so that they would all know of the meeting.
I will give a brief synopsis to what amounted to almost an hour long meeting. I hope that Thelma and Barbara will also circulate their impressions of the meeting. The meeting began with Rep. Lynn asking SOS Darnell a number of questions about the HAVA process as it is now unfolding. The rest of us just listened to their interchange for a while. As best I remember, SOS Darnell said the following main points:
1) We opened the meeting by Rep. Lynn mentioning her bill and SOS Darnell saying that he had heard a great deal about "voter-verified paper trails". From his expression, he had been hearing a GREAT DEAL about the topic. (Good work, troops.)
2) No decisions have been made now on the equipment for Tennessee. At this point, the SOS is planning to release an RFP to accept bids for both a statewide implementation and on a county-by-county basis. They expect perhaps as many as six vendors to bid. (I gave SOS Darnell the Open Voting Consortium brochure and we discussed TrueVote as another potential bidder.)
3) The RFP has not yet been written and citizen input is certainly still possible on many of the parameters of an acceptable bid, including the need to produce a voter-verified paper ballot (SOS Darnell kept saying "paper trail" and we did not contradict him) and the need to make source code available for inspection. (At the end of the meeting, Reps. Lynn and Gresham said they were going to discuss with other legislators the idea of a citizens advisory panel to the SOS for the development of the RFP. -- Wonderful idea!!)
4) SOS Darnell expected the RFP to be released sometime this summer. I told him we had heard from two separate counties who said that Coordinator of Elections Brook Thompson would be telling them what they could buy at a June 16 meeting in Memphis, but SOS Darnell said that was not correct. He thought that the June meeting was a regular statewide meeting of the county election commissions and that Brook would be updating the counties on the process. But he said that nothing would have been decided about acceptable vendors by then.
5) SOS Darnell was well aware of the optical scan process as one that would address the need for a paper trail. He said that only about three counties use optical scan now (we know Hamilton and Maury do -- and we need to get a clear breakdown of what is now in use in every county soon). Most importantly, SOS Darnell said that he had seen one estimate for implementing the optical scan process statewide at $13 million. (I asked him several times to confirm that number, and he repeated "$13 million.") Folks, we have $56 million in HAVA money on-hand. We could renovate the entire state using optical scan processes and have over $43 million left over to cover our needs for many years. (Heck, we might even be able to pay a few precinct workers the overtime necessary to do the random recounts.) Everyone there really chimed in to support this possibility.
6) SOS Darnell's deadline is August, 2006 to have a functional voting system ready to go (since that would be the next federal primary.) It sounded like much was still flexible in how we get there.
(Again, Thelma and Barbara, add anything else that you remember from the early conversation.)
Once these preliminary facts were on the table, I had the chance to distribute to SOS Darnell and everyone else the list of six states that have just passed VVPB laws, the "Myth Breakers" national map that shows 2004 DRE snafus, copies of the full "Myth Breakers" booklet and a brief synopsis of the legal arguments that have been filed in Washington state (and that are being contemplated for Shelby County) that would challenge the legality of privatizing our voting process.
We had a full and wide-reaching conversation about our concerns, about the vulnerabilities of current electronic voting systems, about the need for mandatory random manual recounts (that Hamilton County already does), and about all of this being a non-partisan concern for the integrity of our elections (we repeated that frame throughout the discussion.) SOS Darnell had the usual concerns about the problems with going back to a completely paper ballot system and we did say that was good enough for 90% of the democracies on the planet. However, we also repeated that we are not opposed to electronic voting technology as long as a VVPB is produced, random manual recounts are conducted of those VVPBs and (ideally) open source code is used when the votes are counted electronically.
SOS Darnell also repeated an argument that I've heard from Brook Thompson (our statewide Coordinator of Elections) that we just can't go backwards now that we are in the electronic voting era. That gave me a chance to use astroturf as a comparative analogy. When astroturf was first invented, every college and pro football team just had to have their football field done that way. And millions of dollars were spent on this new technology with its obvious visual appeal and other advantages, even as evidence was amassing that players were more likely to be injured (seriously) playing on the artificial surface. In essence, astroturf was great for everyone EXCEPT the people who counted the most -- the players.
So after millions were spent in the 1970s and 1980s to install astroturf, millions were spent in the 1990s to remove it and replant natural grass. SOS Darnell and the three state Reps all responded appropriately to that analogy. Sometimes, technology takes us down the wrong path and we need to get turned around once the dangers of that technology are apparent. (There are tons of other analogies -- thalidomide, asbestos, etc.)
Rep. Mike Kernell spoke of his concerns that the electronic voting systems can be easily hacked, even to influence local races and decide judgeships. He also spoke of his own election experience in seeing a very observable process and technology being replaced over time with a completely untransparent system. He was a very strong advocate in the room. But so was Rep. Lynn. Rep. Gresham didn't say a great deal but she took many notes. She did express a concern that we needed to move quickly to address our concerns, given the election next year. But she was also supportive of our principal goals.
In summary, I would like to say that SOS Darnell expressed his agreement with our goals and supported opportunities for further dialogue and input. He wants to do the right thing, and that includes spending the $56 million wisely. So all in all, it was a very supportive meeting. I will get back with Rep. Lynn tomorrow and suggest a follow-up meeting with the SOS before our presentation next Tuesday in front of the House State and Local Government committee. (At a minimum, I will write SOS Darnell a follow-up letter tomorrow confirming our understanding of their process and asking that citizens be included every step of the way from this point forward.) Rep. Lynn said she would also speak with Rep. Beth Haldeman about pushing the citizen advisory panel idea. We also need to discuss other options that can be laid before the House State and Local Government committee next week.
So that's my recollection of the highlights of the meeting. I want all of you to know that we ended with some pretty hard-hitting words about our election reform interests not being casual ones. The latest national survey shows that 35% of Americans now believe that the 2004 election was tampered with (up another 5% since late January). And with half of the voters already opting out of the process, we cannot afford a further erosion of the voter's trust in the process. I really do believe that SOS Darnell will work with us.
I am about to send out another email to begin spreading the word about next Tuesday's meeting. (We have 15-30 minutes before the House State and Local Government committee at 11:30 am on Tuesday, May 17. Y'ALL COME AND BRING 20 MORE LIKE YOU. WE NEED TO PACK THAT ROOM NEXT WEEK.) We really need to get 200 people there at a minimum -- 300 (hell, 1,000) would be even better. How's that for a challenge. See youat the most important Gathering so far -- on the road to saving our democracy.
Bernie
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