Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007

[livvy]

HR 811



or progress?

Read the bill.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas

Join the discussion.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467148

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467290

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=466821&mesg_id=466821

And be sure to check out yesterday's thread for many articles on the subject.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=467304&mesg_id=467304

Finally, get involved. We, the People, can make a difference. We have, and We can, but We have to remember....
NGU!


Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.



Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.



Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[livvy]

1. OpEdNews:The Flaws that Need Fixing in Holt's HR811

February 9, 2007

The Flaws that Need Fixing in Holt's HR811

By Kathy Dopp

Critical changes are needed to Holt HR811
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas

The new election integrity bill by Rush Holt is a big improvement over his prior HR550, but needs to be amended before being passed.

1. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MANUAL AUDITS TO BE BYPASSED. Section 327 in HR811 permits states to avoid any manual audits when conducting state recounts. Many state recounts involve no manual counts of voter-verified paper ballots, or involve fewer manual counts than HR811 requires or, like Utah, involve limited manual counts but never compare the manual counts with the electronic tallies used to count votes on the central tabulator. This exemption permits states to avoid independent audits altogether by redefining when they'll do "recounts". Independent audits should always be required, no matter whether election officials do recounts or not.

2. NO RECOGNITION OF CITIZEN RIGHT TO OVERSIGHT. HR811 provisions do not require timely citizen or candidate access to election records necessary to verify electoral integrity, voter roll accuracy, or manual audits. Some states, like Utah, prohibit access to all election records, even records that the National Voting Rights Act requires to be publicly available; and other states only release election records long after election results are made official. Candidates have nothing to judge the integrity of their election outcomes with, when access to election records is lacking.

3. UNDER-FUNDED: $300 million is not enough to fund the purchase of precinct-based op-scan machines and ballot printers for voters with disabilities and non-English-language voters, for all precincts who currently have voting machines which lack paper ballots. (although the amount may be enough to purchase new machines for jurisdictions with paperless DREs like MD, GA, FL,..) If there are approximately 185,000 U.S. polling places, and even if only approximately one-third of them are defined as remedial and it costs $10,000 per polling location for a ballot printer and op-scan device, then it would cost approximately $650 million to replace all the electronic ballot voting systems which currently do not cast votes on archival quality paper ballots, are not fully auditable, and violate voter anonymity. It also seems to require text conversion technology in every polling place for voters with disabilities to independently verify their ballots. It can cost up to $7000 per machine.

4. INSUFFICIENT AUDIT AMOUNTS: Fans of audit solutions recognize that HR811 audit amounts (10% audits for races with margins under 1%, 5% audits for races with margins between 1% and less than 2%, and 3% audits for races with margins 2% or greater) are inadequate. These numbers were pulled out of thin air, often giving under 50% chance for detecting even one vote corrupt vote count (count with error) in cases where just enough vote counts are corrupt to alter U.S. House outcomes. (I need to know the number of precincts in all US House districts to do a thorough analysis of this.)

>more of opinion

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kathy_do_070209_the_flaws_that_need_.htm

[livvy]

2. Opinion: Voter-Verified paper audit trails won't save us......

Voter-verified paper audit trails won't save us. That was the single clearest bit of news to come out of this week's electronic voting events.

by Wendy M Grossman | posted on 09 February 2007

This is rather depressing, because for the last 15 years it's looked as though VVPAT (as they are euphoniously calling it) might be something everyone could compromise on.: OK, we'll let you have your electronic voting machines as long as we can have a paper backup that can be recounted in case of dispute. But no. According to Rebecca Mercuri in London this week (and others who have been following this stuff on the ground in the US), what we thought a paper trail meant is definitely not what we're getting. This is why several prominent activist organisations have come out against the Holt bill HR811, introduced into Congress this week, despite its apparent endorsement of paper trails.

I don't know about you, but when I imagined a VVPAT, what I saw in my mind's eye was something like an IBM punch card dropping individually into some kind of display where a voter would press a key to accept or reject. Instead, vendors (who hate paper trails) are providing cheap, flimsy, thermal paper in a long roll with no obvious divisions to show where individual ballots are. The paper is easily damaged, it's not clear whether it will survive the 22 months it's supposed to be stored, and the mess is not designed to ease manual recounts. Basically, this is paper that can't quite aspire to the lofty quality of a supermarket receipt.

The upshot is that yesterday you got a programme full of computer scientists saying they want to vote with pencils and paper. Joseoph Kiniry, from University College, Dublin, talked about using formal methods to create a secure system – and says he wants to vote on paper. Anne-Marie Ostveen told the story of the Dutch hacker group who bought up a couple of Nedap machines to experiment on and wound up publicly playing chess on them – and exposing their woeful insecurity – and concluded, "I want my pencil back." And so on.

The story is the same in every country. Electronic voting machines – or, more correctly, electronic ballot boxes – are proposed and brought in without public debate. Vendors promise the machines will be accurate, reliable, secure, and cheaper than existing systems. Why does anyone believe this? How can a voting computer possibly be cheaper than a piece of paper and a pencil? In fact, Jason Kitcat, a longtime activist in this area, noted that according to the Electoral Reform Commission the cost of the 2003 pilots were astounding – in Sheffield £55 per electronic vote, and that's with suppliers waiving some charges they didn't expect either. Bear in mind, also, that the machines have an estimated life of only ten years.

>more

http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/3183

[livvy]

3. BradBlog Links from 2/9/07

BLOGGED BY John Gideon ON 2/9/2007 4:22PM
'Daily Voting News' For February 09, 2007

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

I highly recommend that everyone reading this take the time to read Lowell Finley’s “Testimony to Senate Committee on Rules and Administration”. It is excellent. // The New York Times editorializes, “It is good news that Ms. Feinstein has called for the federal investigations — and that she is pushing a bill to require paper trails nationally. As long as there are no paper records, and voting machine manufacturers continue to insist that the software that runs the machines is a “trade secret,” voters cannot be expected to trust that votes are being counted correctly. The leadership in Congress needs to focus on making sure that Ms. Feinstein’s paper-trail bill becomes law, along with a companion House measure from Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.” We need to add that we hope that Senator Feinstein will fix the varied problems that are in the Holt bill. We don’t expect that she will ban the use of DREs though we encourage her to do that and we cannot support any legislation that does not include that ban. We do hope, however, that she fixes audit language that would allow a county to easily skirt the bills requirements; language that squelches the use of alternate, low-tech voting systems amongst other; and the co-opting of “paper ballot” when the legislation uses that term to describe what is really a voter verified paper audit trail. These are only three of a short list of items that must be addressed. ...

# NAtional: Testimony to Senate Committee on Rules and Administration LINK
# NAtional: Editorial - Making Democracy Credible LINK
# NAtional: Banned Voting Machine Test Lab Given More Time to Fix Problems by Friendly Director of U.S. Election Assistance Commission LINK

>many more links at site.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4137

[livvy]

4. Alaska House Republicans push expensive vote on gays D.P. benefits

Alaska House Republicans push expensive vote on gays D.P. benefits
Voters would be polled on court decision that required state to offer them
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) | Feb 10, 8:57 AM

Some Alaska lawmakers on Wednesday decided to push forward with a $1.2 million election that would simply ask voters if they would support a constitutional amendment next year to overturn court- ordered benefits for the partners of gay public employees.

The decision by House Republicans to back the April advisory vote — bearing a price tag nearly four times the annual cost of benefits for less than a hundred gay couples — came even though chances appear slim that the constitutional amendment will get on the ballot in November 2008.

Majority Republicans had toyed with moving the April 3 vote back six months to separate it from higher profile issues before them, like the natural gas pipeline, but the state Division of Elections has printed 374,500 ballots and, so far, spent $175,000 on this election.

Meanwhile, House Democrats call the April advisory vote a waste of time and money.

"If our purpose is to find out what Alaskans think about same-sex benefits, we should pay 12,000 bucks and get a scientific statewide opinion poll, not pay $1.2 million for an unscientific opinion poll," Rep. Mike Doogan (D-Anchorage) said.

>more

http://www.sovo.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=11316

[livvy]

5. OH: Local Officials Must Lobby Harder For Attention in Columbus

Reps.: Local officials must lobby harder for attention in Columbus

By LOREN GENSON
Gazette Staff Writer

State lawmakers urged the region's county commissioners to lobby more in Columbus for rural county needs.

County commissioners from south central Ohio met with state legislators to discuss legislative priorities for rural Ohio counties Wednesday.

> snip

Of particular interest to many of the counties was the rising cost of elections. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 was created to address voting issues that arose in Florida counties following the 2000 presidential election. Federal law required counties update from paper ballots, but provided no funding for the upgrades.

"We were doing just fine with paper ballots," said Tony Anderson, a Fayette County commissioner. "Why do we have to spend money to fix what's not broken?"

>more

http://www.chillicothegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070210/NEWS01/702100301

[livvy]

6. CA: Contra Costa Official Pushes Mail-Only Voting

Contra Costa official pushes mail- only voting
Association to pursue a pilot project in Marin and Sonoma counties for June'08 election
By Lisa Vorderbrueggen, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Last Updated: 02/10/2007 03:25:28 AM PST

Despite a cold reception from lawmakers Wednesday, Contra Costa County election chief Steve Weir says he will pursue a state law that allows California counties to conduct mail-only elections.

"We're not going to give up, said Weir, also chairman of the California Association of Clerks and Elected Officials. "We have several counties where a majority of the voters already vote by mail and they would like the option if we're going to have four elections in 365 days."

Weir won't seek mail-only for Contra Costa County, where 34 percent of its registered voters consistently cast their ballots by mail.

"I don't think Contra Costa is ready for it," Weir said.

But more than half the voters in Sonoma and Marin counties already vote by mail and in the November election, Weir said, 26 counties saw their vote-by-mail numbers exceed 50 percent of all votes cast. Under the proposal, each county's board of supervisors would make the decision.

>more

http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_5200897

[livvy]

7. Florida's Example: The Gov. Asks the Leg. to Fund Op-Scan Voting Machines

Florida's example
The governor asks the Legislature to fund optical scan voting machines


First published: Saturday, February 10, 2007

Florida's infamous "hanging chads" became a symbol of the controversial 2000 presidential election, and prompted Congress to require better voting systems nationwide. Now, in an ironic twist, Florida just might become a symbol again, this time of how to hold reliable elections in the future.

If that happens, then Florida Gov. Charles Crist will deserve a good share of the credit. He has ordered the state to no longer use electronic touch-screen voting machines that do not produce a paper record of ballots cast. In their place, he wants the Florida Legislature to buy optical scan machines, which are far less expensive than touch-screen devices and which have a paper record of ballots that can be recounted when an election is close or contested.

Gov. Crist's action follows a highly contested, and controversial, congressional race in Sarasota County last November, when 18,000 electronic votes could not be accounted for. They were cast on touch-screen machines that had no paper trail. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., head of the Senate elections committee, has ordered an investigation.

New York, of course, requires that any touch-screen machines have a paper record. But the Legislature stopped short of mandating that optical scan machines be used statewide. Instead, the lawmakers have left it to county boards of election to decide what kind of voting system they want to buy. More and more, though, it appears that the better way to go is to require optical scan machines, period.

>more

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=562091&category=OPINION&newsdate=2/10/2007


It just takes longer for some to get it, I guess. NGU

[livvy]

8. Someone else who just doesn't get it.....

Saturday, February 10, 2007
Outgoing elections director reflects on changes in voting
by Mike Tischio
Published: Friday, February 9, 2007 11:44 PM CST

Staff writer

LEWISBURG — She hadn’t been looking for another job, but the Union County elections director found one nonetheless. As reported earlier this week, Union County’s Pat Nace will be taking the same job with Snyder County.

She has served in the UC department of elections and voter registration since Aug. 15, 2001. That was the year that former UC commissioner Robert Brouse asked her to join the county’s staff.

>snip of the part that explains her qualifications for the job and some other stuff

She went on to say that the current machines in Union County have several ways to assure the voter that their votes are recorded correctly.

“Besides that, we ran a parallel test on election day,” she said. “A video camera recorded one machine, taken at random from a polling site, and several members of our staff voted by script. Then we ran a tape that showed without a doubt that the ballots were counted exactly as they were entered by the voters.”

“I feel that most of the skeptics in Union County have been satisfied that the election process was fair and accurate,” Nace said. “They need to know that since Pennsylvania certifies its voting machines to a higher standard than required by the federal government; our Diebold machines are different than the Diebold machines in Florida or Virginia, where they had problems.”

>a bit more



http://www.standard-journal.com/articles/2007/02/10/news/news03.txt

[livvy]

9. ES&S Unveils Next Generation of Voting Solutions

ES&S Unveils Next Generation of Voting Solutions
intElect brand launched, previews election of the future

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today election officials from across the nation got a glimpse into the election of the future, thanks to Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S). The nation's leading provider of voting solutions unveiled its new intElect(TM) brand of products at the opening of the National Association of Secretaries of State/National Association of State Elections Directors joint winter conference.

"Together, ES&S and election officials have been working to comply with the mandate of the Help America Vote Act," said Aldo Tesi, President and CEO of ES&S. "Now we can turn our focus to fulfilling the true vision of HAVA: more efficient, more accessible, more secure elections. Under the intElect brand of next generation voting solutions, ES&S is proud to present new intelligent and interactive products that will accomplish this goal."

Under the banner of the intElect brand, ES&S is introducing its next- generation suite of voting solutions. Products immediately available include:

-- ES&S' total automated precinct solution, a complete election
automation package that includes the intElect PS100(TM) hardware, the
intElect ElectionWork(TM) integrated software suite, and the intElect
Electronic PollBook(TM).
- intElect ElectionWorks is an integrated software suite from ES&S
that features a number of tools to automate elections. Included in
ElectionWorks is the intElect Electronic PollBook, which replaces
traditional paper-based poll books with the very latest automated
voter check-in application.
- intElect ElectionWorks software solutions can be delivered through
the intElect PS100 -- an automated election powerhouse. The
intElect PS100 is hardware built specifically for enhancing the
security and efficiency of conducting elections, particularly in
the precinct.

>more :puke:

And there is this:
To develop the ES&S computer-based training capability, ES&S partnered with Blackboard Inc., a leading provider of enterprise software technology and related services to the education industry. The combination of ES&S' elections experience and Blackboard's innovative technology creates a distinctive platform that will take the training process to the next level.

"It's very exciting to facilitate new educational opportunities, such as election pollworker training, through the Blackboard e-Learning platform," said Tim Hill, President, Professional Education Solutions at Blackboard. "We applaud ES&S for taking the initiative to provide convenient and easy-to- access educational resources on this very important issue of voting, and empowering citizens with the information they need to participate in the electoral process."

The strategic partnership between ES&S and Blackboard represents the coming together of the industry leader in elections and a leader in online learning solutions. The value of this offering is that Blackboard and ES&S can effectively deliver the solution under the banner of intElect LearningWorks, a total training solution that features a number of tools to create a more complete learning experience. The intElect LearningWorks suite includes online web-based training, computer-based training, in-person training, and custom content delivered to the state, county and local election authorities.

More about intElect Products from ES&S: Integrated and Interactive, by Design...

http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20070209/CGF00209022007-1.html

A group scream has been scheduled for noon EST

[livvy]

10. Testimony to Senate Committee on Rules and Administration By Lowell Finley

Testimony to Senate Committee on Rules and Administration
By Lowell Finley, Deputy Secretary of State of (Claifornia,Voting Systems Technology and Policy
February 09, 2007

In January 2007, I was appointed by newly elected California Secretary of State Debra Bowen to the position of Deputy Secretary of State, Voting Systems Technology and Policy. One of Secretary Bowen’s first orders of business is a top to bottom review of the electronic voting systems currently certified for use in California. Secretary Bowen, like many concerned voters, voting system security experts and a growing number of elections officials nationwide, has serious concerns about the security, accuracy and reliability of our electronic voting systems and the method by which those systems are reviewed, tested and certified at the national and state levels.

Today, I am here to testify primarily about my knowledge of electronic voting problems in the Florida 13th congressional district election on November 7, 2006. Before addressing that issue, it may be useful to review briefly the history of my involvement with electronic voting issues.

Before my appointment, I spent over 21 years in private law practice in California, specializing in election law. In 2003, I represented election integrity advocates in a California False Claims Act lawsuit against Diebold Election Systems, Inc., filed on behalf of the State of California and the County of Alameda, California. The complaint in that case alleged that Diebold made false representations concerning its use of “state of the art” security features in its AccuVote TS touch screen electronic voting system to secure a $12 million contract with Alameda County, paid for primarily with state bond funds. After negotiations with the California Attorney General, Diebold settled the case for $2.6 million in 2004.

In 2005, I became Co-Director of Voter Action, a nonprofit, nonpartisan election integrity organization. I represented New Mexico voters in a state constitutional and statutory challenge to the use of electronic voting machines, based on evidence of lost votes and security vulnerabilities in past elections. Shortly after plaintiffs secured a stipulation from the Secretary of State not to purchase new electronic voting machines, New Mexico’s governor and state legislature banned electronic voting machines and converted the entire state to optically scanned paper ballots, with ballot marking assistive devices for voters with disabilities.

>more

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2252&Itemid=26

[livvy]

11. Have a great weekend, everyone and...

an early Happy Valentine's Day wish!


Here's a little history about the origins of the day:

Hearts and history: Myth, legend and even some truth form origins of Valentine's Day


Jim Gibson, Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, February 10, 2007

Apart from his name, what did a Roman-era Christian martyr have to do with the millions the Hallmark card company, chocolatiers and florists rake in on Feb. 14?

Not much, according to Ingrid Holmberg, past chair of Greek and Roman studies at the University of Victoria.

Several interesting and conflicting details emerge when searching for the origins of today's Valentine's Day. Apparently there were as many as three St. Valentines, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. The one most linked to all the latter-day hearts and flowers is the St. Valentine put to death about 270 AD by Emperor Claudius.

The legend is that this Valentine continued to wed young lovers in defiance of an edict by Claudius the Cruel. The emperor had banned weddings, as lovestruck young men were reluctant to enlist in his army.

For his treasonous championing of true love, Valentine was beaten and beheaded on Feb. 14.

This coincided with the month-long festival of Lupercalia, in which young men drew a girl's name as a partner for the festival.

This could be the primitive origins of today's Valentine's cards. Except Holmberg can find no proof for this Roman-era literary exchange between the sexes.

>more

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/life/story.html?id=aa128e68-c333-49a4-905f-3eb0f24e2334

[Kurovski]

12. Happy Valentine's day to you too, livvy!

And thank you. :loveya: