Olympia Washington January 14, 2004

[Andy_Stephenson]

The Senate held hearings today on proposed amendments and changes to current Revised Codes of Washington (RCWs). According to the RCWs, the Secretary of State’s office is given total control as to what is and what is not certified for use in elections in the State of Washington.

There are no mandatory checks of the certified software to detect fraud. Your Ballot is described by elected officials as alternately either a “receipt” or a “paper trail”. Your vote should not be described with meaningless language, language that has no legal definition. Ballots have that definition; they should be referred to as such. The Bill also allows the ballot recording system to access the internet I am also afraid that if we allow this we are inviting disaster. How many of us have had viruses take down our computers. We shall soon learn this could happen in this grand new plan. But the most egregious part of the bill I find personally offensive is this “each voter using a poll-site based electronic voting system is limited to ten minutes voting time including verification of a paper record produced by the system”. So grandma…if your having trouble using these new fangled machines to vote…too bad. You only have 10 minutes to vote.

My democratic opponent Ms Laura Ruderman has recently sponsored a bill to allow the Department of Defense (DOD) to conduct Internet voting in Washington. VoteHere is the company providing the encryption software that is supposed to be used to protect the sanctity of the vote of the military under this DOD system, but, the company has admitted publicly that their website has been hacked and their software potentially compromised. If VoteHere’s Internet security has already been breached, how much faith can we have in their encryption software? Without audit abilities built in to the system how can we be sure these military votes will be counted correctly?

We have severe and critical problems in Washington State with our voting process. We have a state Elections Director who is not required to disclose his finances. How can the public know if he stands to gain financially if one company wins over another?

We have a former Secretary of State moving from the State House to working for VoteHere. He did so in direct conflict with Washington law, a law that requires a 2 year hiatus before working in industry’s directly related to your political position.

When I asked the Assistant Attorney General, who in Washington State was tasked with looking into these apparent ethics violations he implied that it was not part of his job requirement. Oh really? Who is he working for? You guessed it, the Secretary of State. They are apparently accountable to no one

I have tried for 10 days now to obtain the certification documents on a list of software currently in use in the state of Washington. I have been met with stonewalling by the Secretary of State’s office. Just what is it they are trying to hide?

These people work for us not the other way around. Pam Roach chairwoman of the committee stated we live in a Representative Republic. Well Pam represents the people and We The People demand a Voter Verified Paper Ballot.

I would urge our representatives to implement H3315 it has safeguards built in and provides for:

A voter verified Paper Ballot

Mandatory random manual audits with audits triggered by discrepancies or anomalies.

The manual recount of Voter Verified Paper ballots shall be official tabulation in all cases of discrepancy.

No external network connection is permitted to any element of the voting system

Any modification or change to the voting software must be tested and approved by an independent testing authority.

Any voting system must meet or exceed the 2002 guidelines of the Federal Elections Commission.

Professional Staff of the Elections Division of the Secretary of States office shall be held to public disclosure requirements.

Paper ballots shall not be tabulated at the polling places before the end of polls.

Ballots must be transported by 2 election employees and the names of the employees must be logged.

Washington’s participation in the SERVE program will be terminated immediately.

[0rganism]

1. Other than that, how is your campaign going?

Issue awareness is key to your success; do you think you're conveying the gravity of the situation to voters? Have you received any solid endorsements? I really like the fact that you have a strong specific platform, it's a rarity for SoS races in Oregon.

[Andy_Stephenson]

2. I have one endorsement...The Progressive Party

of Washington. I also found out the greens are not going to run anyone. People get it in regards to their vote...if you know what I mean.

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. You have my endorsement!!!

:hi:

[Andy_Stephenson]

4. hi

:hi:

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. I thought you were headed to points south....

...further south than Olympia, that is.

[Andy_Stephenson]

9. An emergency came up in Olympia

Since I am Working to protect the vote in Washington State...I had to take the challenge on and not let the squirley bastards wriggle out. of it

[BevHarris]

5. Good work, Andy, JohnGideon and RedEagle

You did an outstanding job on our uphill battle here in Washington State.

Now, I can hardly wait to hear how California went.

Bev

[Andy_Stephenson]

6. Thanks Bev...

and how was your visit with the Secret Service...must have gone well since you are here posting.

:)

[Andy_Stephenson]

8. Edit:

Vote here is not involved with the serve project.

[BevHarris]

10. This and the Sacramento meeting going up on BlackBoxVoting.org

front page, with some of my commentary too.

Citizens: Please post your experiences both with citizen audits (got a GREAT one from New Jersey recently, which will go up soon I hope) -- and with public meetings. I will be reporting on these, often on the front page of the web site.

You are the examples that show others how to fight.

Bev Harris