Colorado Voter

Board says "do not certify any voting equipment".

2007-12-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

The voting system certification board report says none of the voting equipment passed the tests. The reports for each vendor can be found at:

Certification Overview - Premier
Certification Overview - ES&S
Certification Overview - HART
Certification Overview - Sequoia

A court ordered re-certification of voting equipment in Colorado has concluded that none of the voting equipment supplied by Premier, Hart, ES&S, and Sequoia should be certified for use in elections.

The reasons for decertification vary, they focus on security and accuracy, and they include some of the problems identified by Ohio and California.

Despite Secretary of State Mike Coffman’s hand-picked certification board’s conclusions and recommendations, Mr. Coffman granted conditional certification to Premier’s voting and counting equipment. He also granted conditional certification to HART DREs and Sequoia optical scanners. His override of the board’s determination is an illustration that the process is not independent. Until the certification process is independent, it should not be trusted.

Colorado voting integrity advocates are very displeased with Mr. Coffman’s decisions, although they are relieved to be proven correct in their years long efforts to discredit the equipment. According to them, the certification process itself is fatally flawed. It is not independent, it is not comprehensive, and its factual determinations can be overridden by political expediency. And there is no test to verify that voting equipment components work when they are combined into a system.

There is a massive flurry of activity in Colorado as county clerks and vendors try to come up with a plan to get around the certification decisions. Mr. Coffman has announced his intent to request legislative changes that would enable him to get around the laws designed to protect the election system. He wants to shop around for a state that has certified this equipment, and use their positive certification results instead of Colorado’s negative results. He also wants legislative permission to bypass required testing of changes to the equipment and software.

Voter integrity groups and local systems experts who advocate for verifiable and transparent elections are fighting to break thru the wall of secrecy thrown up by officials. The public is being excluded from even observing meetings of election officials. This raises the question, are officials overtly violating Colorado’s open government laws?

This is a story that needs to be told. Colorado press on Monday and Tuesday was filled with the story.

Key points are:

• What are the implications for other states that are using this equipment?
• What does this decertification mean for the results of past elections that used this unreliable and insecure equipment?
• Is Colorado violating open government laws?
• What will Colorado do for 2008?

For more information see:

Colorado Voter Group

CAMBER

John Fund on Absentee Voting

2006-10-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

Today's Online Wall Street Journal includes a piece by John Fund entitled, "Absent Without Leave"

It, along with a number of related articles, documents what is happening with absentee voting.

John Fund is the author of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy"

Republicans file complaint against Boulder County Officials

2006-10-28T16:17:00.000-06:00

Violation of election code - interference with Canvass Board

The Boulder County Republican Party has filed a complaint with the Colorado Secretary of State alleging apparent violation of the election code and interference with the legally appointed Canvass Board.

Click to read the complaint which alleges that Boulder County Officials:

1. Did not conduct the required Logic & Accuracy Test.
2. Did not record in the pollbook whether each voter used a paper or electronic ballot.
3. Denied the Canvass Board access to General Eleciton materials.
4. Denied the Canvass Board access to Primary Election materials.
5. Refuse to conduct public business in public.

The Boulder County Board of Canvassers is responsible for verifying the post election audit (random audit) and the election results, and for conducting any recounts.

The board has three members:

Deb Gardner, Democratic Party Representative
Al Kolwicz, Republican Party Representative
Nancy Jo Wurl, Clerk & Recorder Representative

The board must complete its work on the 2006 General Election on November 24th, unless there is a recount in which case the recount must be completed on December 1st.

To facilitate public oversight the board will conduct its business online, where the public, candidates, and the press can watch what is happening.

1. Whenever you like, you can link to the site to see what is happening. Simply go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CanvassBoard/

2. In addition, if you wish, you can choose to have the system automatically send a message to your inbox when the site has new material. You can choose between real time updates or a daily message summary. Simply press the "JOIN" button when you are on the site. (Joining the site does not authorize you to submit unmoderated messages to the group.)

By conducting the 2006 general election canvass in public the Canvass Board hopes to increase public awareness of the process and to increase voter confidence in election results.

Manipulating the facts

2006-10-05T11:18:00.000-06:00

The articles “More voters using absentee ballots” and “Cost to vote is increasing” are great illustrations of government propaganda.

Boulder County has done everything it can do to get people to vote by absentee ballot. Why?

1. Staff hopes to reduce the Election Day workload on the poorly designed HART ballot scanning equipment, and
2. Staff hopes to reduce long lines at Early and Election Day polling places.

What harm is done by encouraging people to vote by absentee ballot? Absentee ballots are not secure and they result in disenfranchised voters

1. Not every absentee ballot gets counted.
2. Absentee ballots get lost and stolen and can be switched.
3. Eligible voter’s ballots get rejected by staff.
4. Ineligible people get to vote, hence eligible votes get cancelled.

On a practical side, absentee ballots cost more and take much longer to process than in-person paper ballots.

Staff knows that informed voters study the candidates and issues before they come to the polling place. Most come prepared with a checklist of their votes. Instead of educating voters to come to the polls prepared, staff promotes the myth of the unprepared voter. This encourages voters to come to the polls unprepared.

And don’t be comforted by staff claims that the Logic and Accuracy Tests and the Post Election Audit will catch any problems. This is an irresponsible and absolutely untrue claim.

Why has Boulder County hired a person to promote the insecure, inaccurate, and expensive absentee ballot? Because for staff, elections are all about staff convenience and making staff look good.

What is our advice to voters?

(1) Always use a paper ballot (not a paper receipt).
(2) Personally cast your anonymous ballot into the ballot box.
(3) Don’t vote absentee or provisional ballots unless there is absolutely no alternative. (These ballots must be placed into a sealed envelop, and risk being not counted.)
(4) Never use voting equipment that records your votes electronically, even if the equipment also prints your votes on a paper receipt. (The votes on the electronic record decide the election, not the ones on the paper receipt.)

Al Kolwicz

CAMBER challenges Colorado SOS candidates to start planning immediately

2006-09-27T08:15:00.000-06:00

Following Friday's judicial order that Colorado clean up voting equipment standards and recertify all voting equipment for the 2008 elections, a challenge was issued to Colorado's Secretary of State candidates Mike Coffman [R] and Ken Gordon [D].

Coffman and Gordon were challenged to cooperatively or individually appoint a person or persons to begin work immediately on a plan to comply with Judge Manzanares' orders. The challenge was issued by Colorado's leading voter-advocate group, Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results, CAMBER.

Either Coffman or Gordon will be Colorado's next Secretary of State. "If they wait until election results are decided and they take office before they begin development of a compliance plan, it is highly unlikely that the 2008 elections will be improved. There just won't be enough time", said Al Kolwicz, Executive Director of CAMBER.

CAMBER warned the Secretary of State, the Legislature, and the Governor of the impeding problem back in 2004, when Colorado adopted HB04-1227. The bill was enacted, and resulted in most of the problems heard by the court in last weeks trial.

To read CAMBER's challenge to the candidates, and a description of their suggested approach, go to http://alkolwicz.com/documents/start%20now.pdf

PRESS RELEASE: Will the Court decertify Colorado's electronic voting equipment?

2006-09-19T16:43:00.000-06:00

PRESS RELEASE
September 19, 2006

Will the Court decertify Colorado's electronic voting equipment? If so, election officials will need to develop an alternative for November’s elections.

It is widely suspected that Colorado’s voting equipment certification process is flawed. Equipment vendors are not being held to the same standard, and none of the electronic voting equipment certified for use in Colorado meets the requirement for anonymous ballots, paper audit trail, and the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements of the Help America Vote Act.

Experience with the equipment during the recent Primary Election seems to support the notion that it is not feasible to verify that votes recorded and counted on this equipment are secure, and accurately interpreted and counted.

Judge Manzanares will preside and rule on the matter. The hearing begins at 8:30 AM on Wednesday, Sept. 20 and continues on Sept. 21 in Courtroom 1 which is on the second floor of the Denver City and County Bldg.

Two of the leading voting machine experts are scheduled to testify on Wednesday – Doug Jones from the University of Iowa and Dan Wallach from Rice. In addition, the person responsible for certifying voting equipment, John Gardner, is to testify.

If the Court decides that the equipment must be decertified, the Secretary of State may have the authority to authorize “temporary use” of the decertified equipment for the November election.

The judge could forbid the Secretary of State from using electronic ballots but authorize her to use the equipment to prepare paper ballots for disabled voters. The votes on these paper ballots would be hand counted.

This case has attracted national attention.

Clarification requested on HART equipment certification

2006-09-18T11:43:00.000-06:00

From: Al Kolwicz
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 11:28 AM
To: Gigi Dennis (gigi.dennis@sos.state.co.us)
Cc: Canvass Board Group (CanvassBoard@yahoogroups.com); Mike Coffman (Mike@MikeCoffman.com); Ken Gordon (ken@kengordon.com); Dean Schooler
Subject: Clarification requested on HART equipment certification

Dear Ms. Dennis.

Your office has certified that the HART InterCivic paper ballot system works with or without ballot stubs, and with or without non-removable unique ballot identifiers (serial numbers in the form of bar codes and/or printed digits).

Boulder County says that they cannot use ballots without permanent unique identifiers because the HART system does not support them, and the Secretary of State does not require them. Boulder County maintains that the HART system does not work without permanent unique identifiers. (1) They say that the HART optical scanning system requires that multi-page paper ballots must be read sequentially (all pages of a single voter’s ballot read before the next voter’s ballot). (2) They say that without a non-removable identifier, it is not possible to arrange each ballot’s ballot pages into sets. Further, Boulder County says that a non-removable identifier is required to locate a ballot in a batch (for duplication purposes, for example).

If what Boulder County says is true, the HART system contains defects that should have been detected by your certification testing. Both of the defects identified by Boulder County (above) should have been repaired before the system was certified. Defect #1 should be repaired by eliminating the requirement that ballot pages be organized into sets. This is an undesirable requirement that serves no valid purpose. Would the HART system VOID an entire multi-page ballot if one of the pages is missing? If so, under what authority? Defect #2 should be eliminated by requiring that every anonymous ballot page be endorsed, after it has been cast by the voter and before the scanned image is recorded, with a unique identifier containing the following: Batch-ID, Item-number within the batch, Date-processed, Time-processed, Machine-ID.

On the other hand, if Boulder County is not true, then you have found a way to use the HART system that does not require non-removable unique ballot identifiers.

We would like you to confirm, did you certify that the HART optical scan system does in fact work when the ballot identifiers are recorded on stubs which are removed before the ballot is cast? If so, will you please explain to Boulder County how this is done? If not, will you please retract your certification of this feature?

Thank you.

FALSE IMPRESSIONS -- Suit: Ban computer voting

2006-09-17T10:10:00.000-06:00

Subject: Re: FALSE IMPRESSIONS -- PRESS 09152006 Suit: Ban computer voting

In addition to what Al Kolwicz says, all of which I agree with, it is doubtful that the DRE machines anywhere have actually been successfully tested in an election scale event. The reason this is basically impossible is that there is no way to accurately test vote tens of thousands of votes into a collection of DREs... short of possibly using a bunch of robots to do it, and even that might have accuracy problems. Any county which has honestly attempted to conduct a LAT on the DREs must be aware of this.

The potential for error in the DRE election tabulations is not a trivial consideration. It is not impossible that there are bugs within the software which compile the votes from the various DREs into larger tabulations (such as the JBC in the case of the Hart system) which could by tabulation register rollover or similar accidental faults modify the results in a particular range of count, for example. Unless the election scale tests are performed, we would not necessarily know about such faults which could be unintended or otherwise.

It would be possible to have an election scale test in which the VVPATs are counted and compared to the election tabulation. This should most certainly be done, and I suspect it has never been done on any realistic scale with any DRE system. To avoid human error in the counting of paper ballots, it is unquestionably an advantage to sort before counting. For this purpose it would be necessary to cut the individual VVPATs from their sequential positions on the paper roll. Of course, we all are depending on the possibility of this full scale hand recount being done for the safety of all our elections, but I doubt if anyone has demonstrated how to do it successfully in an election scale with real VVPATs.

On the other hand with paper ballots it is possible to sort and count and recount test paper ballots until a group of human counters are certain about and agree in spite of partisan differences to the expected result. And this group of test ballots can be entered into the counting machines as many times as necessary to gain confidence that they always produce the same result (or fail to do so). Paper ballots provide an entirely different and more testable situation, although again, it is doubtful that proper testing has been done in the actual ITA or state certification tests, including ballots incorporating questionable voter intent.

Ocasionally there may have been a hand recount of a given race in a real election, but the results of this recount are rarely if ever compared against the machine count with the intention of reconciling the differences to improve the machine accuracy. In almost every case, such a comparison is made with the expectation of improving the human count accuracy. Election failures are not collected into a single repository for the purposes of learning how to improve our voting process or even which devices are more prone to failure. Each county learns these things on their own, or fails to do so.

The effect of whatever causes questionable voter intent on a paper ballot has the very different and troubling result of a false impression of certainty on the DRE. This is not a technical advantage of the DRE, this is an irreparable fault of the DRE. The DRE unavoidably hides the condition that the voter either has difficulty voting, or is uncertain about the choice for some reason perhaps intentional. Apparently we are no longer concerned about the mechanization of society, so there seem to be few people arguing the need for humanistic interfaces nowadays, unfortunately. Many nations still vote entirely on paper and use human counting and still do this without difficulty.

It is time for us to be realistic about the need for and the lack of testing of our voting machines. The salient issue is not only securing our machines against fraud. The additional security may have the unfortunate side effect of a preventing public oversight of our election processes and this could actually lead to additional potential for fraud or accidental error.

Also it is critical that our post election audits actually perform an audit at a sufficient level of accuracy, and that they consist of an actual audit, not a recount retest. This will require some careful planning and may require the hand counting of more than the prescribed number of ballots as it is crucial to count to a number which is a real subtotal in the real election results. The accuracies resulting from the 2005 habit of recounting 100 ballots are embarrassingly low. In 2006 in most counties more than 100 ballots were counted in the audit, but this number should consist of at least several percent of the ballots in the election. Then the county should be prepared to hand count all the VVPAT and paper ballots in case a reported race result comes too close for the accuracy of the statutory tests (LAT or post-election audit). We should always have a paper ballot hand count in each close election.

Following these guidelines, in addition to making sure that all voters are aware of the significance of what is printed on the VVPAT, would give us a reason to trust our voting machines' results. Then there is also the process of determining whom is allowed to cast a vote to consider (elsewhere).

Harvie Branscomb
Chair, Eagle County Democrats
Member, Eagle County Canvass Board

FALSE IMPRESSIONS

2006-09-17T09:05:00.000-06:00

A Rocky Mountain News story, Suit: Ban computer voting, reports that Colorado Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer says that Colorado is protected against tampering because state law now requires a printout of each computer ballot. And that, the printout can be reviewed by the voter and is kept at the machine for post-election audits and recounts.

This is a false assurance.

1. Electronic voting machines were justified and forced upon the public primarily on their supposed ability to offer disabled voters the opportunity to vote in private. The technology chosen by the Secretary of State cannot be used by blind voters to verify that their votes are correctly recorded. Other technology, such as the AutoMark can. The Secretary of State has forbidden use of the AutoMark.

2. The post-election audit procedure defined by the Secretary of State does not work. It is statistically meaningless. It cannot detect inaccurate or fraudulent votes within a predetermined level of accuracy. (It cannot be used to predict, for example, “For the Governor of Colorado Contest, it is 99.95 percent certain that there are less than 2 incorrect votes per 10,000 votes recorded.)

3. The printout created at the time a voter casts their ballot does not protect voters. The printout could potentially be used to conduct a full manual recount to catch inaccurate or fraudulent vote counting, but this will almost never happen. Because the printout is on a continuous roll, like a cash register tape, it is extremely difficult and very expensive to accurately hand count the votes. Consequently, the Secretary of State rarely authorizes a recount, clerks try to block recounts, and candidates almost always find it too expensive to pay for them.

The continued assurance by government officials that the paper printout protects Colorado voters from inaccurate and fraudulent vote counting is nothing more than a reckless attempt to deceive voters into believing that their votes are secure when in fact they are not.

Officials making this statement must be held accountable for their reckless claim.

End of secret ballot?

2006-07-25T08:04:00.000-06:00

As predicted, Colorado's Secretary of State, Gigi Dennis, has used her extraordinary power to silence her critics. Is this the end of the secret ballot?

Voting equipment certified by Colorado does not comply with the law. It does not permit blind voters to verify their votes, and it requires voters to use ballots that are marked in a way that makes them not anonymous.

Dennis refuses to enforce the law and does not want to hear any more about it. In her response to critics, Dennis says that she, and she alone is the final arbiter on this matter and refuses to discuss the matter further.

Click to read:

HAVA Complaint and Public Hearing Notice
HAVA Complaint Determination - Amended 7/24/06
Kolwicz Rejects Complaint Determination
8-point Alternative Plan

For a copy of the Secretary of State's July 24th letter send a message to AlKolwicz@qwest.net with the subject line SILENCE THE PUBLIC.

Key government document altered

2006-07-01T14:53:00.000-06:00

Denver, CO -- Somebody altered an official government document, and the Secretary of State is being very quiet about it.

The altered document is the Certificate of Approval for Voting System Use for the Hart InterCivic voting system. A copy resides on the Secretary of State website, and it authorizes Colorado counties to use the Hart voting system.

The certificate was issued on February 28, 2006 after what the state describes as extensive testing of the Hart voting system.

Because of concerns regarding secret ballots, the certificate was issued with a restriction. The use of serial numbers on paper ballots is forbidden.

“Therefore, the aforementioned components of System 6.0 are hereby certified for use in the State of Colorado, with the condition that the optional feature for putting a readable serial number on the physical paper ballot will not be used by counties in Colorado.”

The alteration deletes the restriction that safeguards secret ballots; it now says,

“Therefore, the aforementioned components of System 6.0 are hereby certified for use in the State of Colorado.”

As soon as the alteration was discovered, CAMBER notified the Secretary of State and asked for an explanation.

“We can find no evidence that the Hart system was re-certified or re-tested,” says Al Kolwicz, Executive Director of CAMBER.

For the Secretary of State to change the system, Hart would have had apply for certification, and the certification tests would have had to be re-run to verify that the revised system meets all functional requirements, including the secret ballot requirement .

“Serial numbered ballots are definitely not anonymous.” says Kolwicz. “A voter can identify their own ballot; an absentee ballot control system can maintain a log of which voter was issued which ballot; a ballot-on-demand system can maintain a log of which voter was issued which ballot; and provisional ballots are easily associated with their voter.”

# # #

Elections coordinator reveals defect in Hart vote counting system.

2006-06-23T10:05:00.000-06:00

Election coordinator, Josh Liss, today revealed that the Hart vote counting equipment does not perform according to its specifications - see Colorado Daily, June 23. This is the reason that the Clerk wants to use non-secret ballots. Liss asked CAMBER to help the county to go forward with non-secret ballots.

CAMBER rejects the county's solution, and offers to help solve Hart's problem in a way that protects the secret ballot.

One must ask, why has this this clerk been working so hard to protect the equipment supplier rather than working to protect the people?

Colorado Daily reports that Salas intends to choose non-secret ballot option.

2006-06-23T08:32:00.000-06:00

Boulder County Clerk, Linda Salas, and Hart InterCivic are working to crush people's right to vote by secret ballot.

The Boulder County Republicans and Dean Schooler are among those leading the fight to protect this basic right.

Boulder County election officials are out of control.

• They are abusing the power of their office to sacrifice basic voter rights.

• They are fixated on doing what is most convenient for themselves rather than what is necessary for a trustworthy election.

• They are working to cover up design and implementation deficiencies with the county's election procedures and the Hart vote counting equipment.

Clerk Salas is a candidate in the upcoming primary election. If ballots include a unique identifier, Salas can see how YOU voted. This potential for intimidation must be stopped.

CAMBER believes that there is still time to act, today. Get the Democratic Party to join the effort, and plead with the Secretary of State to protect secret ballots.

Boulder County clerk is deciding between secret and non-secret voting.

2006-06-20T13:22:00.000-06:00

Hart InterCivic has submitted a proposal to print ballots for the 2006 primary and general elections. Serial numbers and bar codes that uniquely identify the ballot would be printed on a perforated, removable stub, as required by Article 5 of the election code.

To keep votes secret, the stub will be removed just before the voter casts their ballot.

Clerk Linda Salas is thinking about not allowing the perforated ballots. Instead, she prefers the non-anonymous ballots that were dragged into court last year. She says that this would reduce the cost of the ballots by $3,500.00.

We say keep the secret ballot. Why take chances with voter privacy, voter intimidation, and fraud?

Let the clerk and the secretary of state know that people want secret ballots.

Keep secret ballots.

Linda Salas
Boulder County Clerk & Recorder
1750 33rd St.
Boulder, CO 80301
(303) 413-7700
lsalas@co.boulder.co.us

Gigi Dennis
Colorado Secretary of State
1700 Broadway, Suite 250
Denver, Colorado 80290
(303) 860-6900
gigi.dennis@sos.state.co.us

Records refused. Meeting oversight refused. 8-point alternative to eSlate offered.

2006-06-19T10:48:00.000-06:00

The Secretary of State wrote a June 16th denial of our June 13th request for records and has refused to permit us to observe the meetings that will determine the outcome of our HAVA complaint. We believe that these are violations of the Colorado Open Records Act and the Sunshine laws.

To not decertify the eSlate would be a mockery of the law.

Anticipating a whitewash, after observing the foot-dragging in the Secretary of State’s office, this morning we submitted our 8-point alternative to the widespread use of non-compliant DRE voting equipment for the 2006 primary election.

Given the no-win position that government officials have placed us in, we believe that the 8-point alternative best meets the needs of the people and the spirit of federal and state election laws.

Please ask Secretary of State Dennis to adopt our workable 8-point alternative.

Gigi Dennis
E-mail gigi.dennis@sos.state.co.us
Voice (303) 860-6900
Fax (303) 869-4860

CAMBER uses Colorado Open Records Act to pierce secret and unaccountable election practices

2006-06-13T17:29:00.000-06:00

The Colorado Secretary of State and County Clerks appear to be collaborating to block public access to legitimate public information. The information might be embarrassing to election officials. Months of delays appear to be coordinated efforts to block the public from challenging official decisions.

1. CAMBER is trying to find out if Boulder County will use anonymous voting for the 2006 Primary Election. In recent elections, they did not permit anonymous voting. Click to read our Colorao Open Records Act request for ballot plans.

2. CAMBER is trying to preempt the Colorado Secretary of State from making a secret back room decision that could cover up dereliction of election duties at the expense of the public. Click to read our Colorao Open Records Act request for status of the HAVA complaint against HART eSlate voting equipment.

According to Al Kolwicz, CAMBER Executive Director, "It is no longer acceptable for election officials to operate in secret and be unaccountable to the public. We have trusted them in the past and look where it has gotten us. Trusting officials was a serious mistake."

Holly Lowder - new Colorado Elections Director.

2006-06-01T13:56:00.000-06:00

June 1 -- Holly Lowder is Colorado's new Elections Director. She just resigned from her job as Alamosa County Clerk and Recorder where she was appointed in 1981.

Alamosa County has fewer than 7,000 active voters. As of January 13, 2006, Colorado had 2,327,239 active voters.

We are very concerned that Ms Lowder's background does not appear to include technical experience.

Click to read our welcome letter.

UPDATE: Public hearing on HART eSlate decertification

2006-05-25T16:24:00.000-06:00

The May 24th public hearing on the HAVA complaint for wrongful certification of the HART eSlate was well run, well attended (50 citizens), and well worth the effort.

The hearing record will remain open until June 1st. I hope that you will submit letters and materials before then.

A decision will be announced by the Secretary of State on or before July 10th.

Click the CAMBER website to:

1. Read our brief.
2. Hear the audio-recording of the hearing.
3. Read a critique of the hearing and suggestions for future improvement.

Thanks to everyone who is helping to protect anonymous and verifiable voting.

Al

SOS response is deemed insufficient

2006-05-17T18:16:00.000-06:00

A HAVA complaint has been filed against the Colorado Secretary of State which alleges that the Secretary of State wrongfully certified HART InterCivic DRE voting equipment.

A public hearing has been scheduled for May 24th.

The Secretary of State has insufficiently responded to a Colorado Open Records Act request.

Today the Secretary of State was sent an expanded CORA request, and asked to quickly provide the requested data.

“If the SOS stalls long enough, we won’t get the data we need, and we won’t be able to submit complete testimony at the May 24th public hearing,” said Al Kolwicz, Executive Director of CAMBER, a voter rights group.

Click to read May 17 -- Discussion regarding insufficiency of records response

The public hearing on the HAVA complaint is set for 1:30 p.m. May 24th at the Blue Spruce Conference Room of the Secretary of State’s Office, 1700 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Denver, Colorado.

Colorado accepts HAVA complaint against HART eSlate.

2006-05-08T20:05:00.000-06:00

The Colorado Secretary of State has accepted a formal HAVA complaint filed against the certification of the HART eSlate voting equipment.

The complaint charges that the eSlate fails to provide anonymous voting as required by the Colorado Constitution and fails to provide private unassisted voting for blind voters as required by Federal HAVA requirements.

A public hearing has been scheduled for May 24, 2006, at the Colorado Secretary of State's office in Denver.

Today, a request was submitted to the Secretary of State asking for relevant documents including the test cases and results that were used for Federal and State certification.

This is a critical public hearing. It has been reported that 40 Colorado counties plan to use HART equipment. Some are in the midst of contract negotiations.

It appears that the Secretary of State is attempting to get HART contracts signed before the hearing.

If this is true, then this would be a major disservice to the public.

HR 550 - More harm than good.

2006-04-09T12:25:00.000-06:00

HR 550 does not solve the digital ballot problem. It creates the false illusion that it does, and moves us in the wrong direction.

A second and third ballot -- the paper audit trail and bar code -- will result in increased legal disputes, uncertainty, and loss of voter confidence.

Digital ballots must be outlawed -- until it can be proven that they can be made transparent, anonymous, and verifiably secure and accurate. At present they are not.

For an election to be trustworthy, the recording, interpretation, and counting of each eligible elector's intent must be verified and performed in a fully transparent and anonymous manner. The public must believe that results reflect the intent of the voters.

The problem with direct record electronic (DRE) voting equipment is that it records votes electronically. Digital ballots have been permitted to evolve because of two major flaws:

1. Wrong requirements -- Voting equipment vendors and election officials are recklessly attempting to reduce cost and increase convenience. They are ignoring the non-negotiable requirements. Reduce cost and increase convenience only when an election system is: (a) transparent, (b) anonymous, and (c) verifiably secure and accurate. To sacrifice any of these higher requirements will result in an untrustworthy election.

2. Wrong architecture -- Some people incorrectly assume that private voting for disabled voters requires digital ballots. A user interface for disabled-voters does not require that votes be stored on digital ballots. Votes must be stored on a medium that can be (a) transparent, (b) anonymous, and (c) verifiably secure and accurate. Paper meets these requirements.

Elections are intended to be deterministic (you get the same results no matter how many times you re-calculate). Surveys are understood to be stochastic (they are subject to probabilistic behavior). Checking samples of audit trails is not adequate verification.

What do we recommend?

1. Prohibit digital ballots and bar codes.
2. Require that user interfaces support paper ballots.
3. Require the same ballot for absentee, polling place and provisional voting.

HAVA complaint filed against HART eSlate

2006-04-07T19:11:00.000-06:00

Two stories that you will want to know about have just been posted to the CAMBER website.

A HAVA complaint has been filed with the Colorado Secretary of State against the HART eSlate. HART estimates that more than 40 Colorado counties will be using this equipment for the 2006 elections.

Here’s what happened at Boulder County’s "public hearing" on voting equipment. It’s a case of government vs. the people.

Each is one page and very informative.

CAMBER appalled by Boulder County’s Evaluation

2006-03-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

TO: Boulder County Proposal Evaluation Committee

Dear committee member:

We have reviewed your RFP Evaluation report and we are appalled.

1. The committee has failed in its duty to report these facts about the HART InterCivic proposal:

o It does not comply with the RFP requirements
o It violates Colorado law
2. The committee wrongly recommends changing the RFP terms after the bids have been submitted. This stinks to high heaven. The county will be accused of rigging the bid.

The RFP is for a lease not a sale, and there is no mention that lease costs would be credited against a future purchase.

Disclosure of these two deal sweeteners would likely have attracted additional bid responders and cost the county less. Adopting them would substantially rig any future purchase in HART's favor.

3. Details in the report are wrong (hopefully innocently). It is absolutely not true, for example, that the HART system is “the most universally accessible certified system available at this time”. AutoMark is more accessible, is certified nationally and by most states (not Colorado), and is available at this time.

AutoMark was suspiciously denied Colorado certification. HART’s equipment suffers from the identical problem used by the Secretary of State to deny AutoMark certification.

Something fishy is going on in the Secretary of State's office.

We worked long and hard to share with you the benefit of our work on this decision. We do not find that you have responded to our written concerns. March 13, March 20, and March 22, 2006. These letters are available at CAMBER/lease_RFP

We ask that you revise the conclusions in your report.

1. Expose the difficult and unanswered problems that we have brought to your attention.

2. Keep the terms and conditions of the RFP as it was presented to vendors, or issue a new RFP so that all vendors can compete.

3. Correct erroneous and misleading statements in the report.

4. Ask the Secretary of State to expedite reconsideration of the AutoMark and Vote-PAD.

The people of Boulder County do not want to have their elections contaminated by invisible digital ballots. Each incorrect digital ballot disenfranchises two voters – the voter whose votes are wrongly counted and the voter whose votes are zeroed out by the incorrect digital ballot.

Al Kolwicz
CAMBER – Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results

Don't ignore HART InterCivic problems

2006-03-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Apparently, a RFP evaluation committee member today made a verbal assertion that the recent elections problems in Texas have been found "not" to be the vendor's fault.

I have researched this, and been unable to find any written documentation or news references to support this assertion.

Instead, I have found:

NO statement or news on the Hart Intercivic website "News" section regarding any recent elections in Texas as of today (there is a gap of no news between 2/7/2006 and 3/22/2006) ...

nor on the company homepage, nor on the company press release page, though, interestingly, this statement, referenced in a newspaper article, can be found in the Google cache, but no longer appears on the Hart website:

Has the company retracted this statement (dated 3/14/2006)? Is there a new statement from the company to replace this? According to this Google cache document, Hart president Britt Kauffman said that the problems were "procedural" and not related to "programming, software or computer errors", does the company still stand by this statement, and if so, why does this statement no longer appear on the company's website?

There are seven (7) recent stories on the Dallas Fort Worth Star Telegram newspaper website, NONE of which suggest that the vendor has been absolved of any responsibility.

The most recent story (from today, Wednesday 3/22/2006) in the list indicates that NEW problems may have been found with Hart Intercivic equipment in a different county, from the local newspaper by way of the Dallas For Worth Start Telegram:

"The problem in the recount appears to be with new, federally mandated electronic voting machines, provided by vendor Hart InterCivic. During a hand recount, the machines are designed to print out paper ballots for each voter's choices, but McKerley said the machines that were used to register early votes printed out only 75 percent to 80 percent of the votes believed to have been cast."
(Incidentally, I would very much like to see the "paper ballot" printout capability, I was under the impression that the Hart equipment only printed out an "audit receipt". If the device printed a full paper ballot instead of storing votes in memory, it may be redeemable still).

The original story from yesterday, 3/21/06, is still posted.

There is one story indicating that in Tarrant County, TX, the challengers did not file recount requests, however, that story also says very clearly:

"Hart InterCivic, the company that made the equipment and wrote the software, took responsibility for the error the day after the election, and company officials said they would work with local elections officials to minimize future problems. Company officials have said that a procedural error led to inflated counts when merging totals from early voting, absentee mail voting and election-day voting into one report on election night."

The story also quotes a local candidate who chose not to file a recount as saying she chose not to spend the money in part because:

"we don't have any way of knowing whether the current numbers are accurate."

Given our previous experiences with verbal assertions made by the County Clerk, her supporters, and the vendor that turned out to be incorrect (need I remind anyone of the discrepancy between the "8 hours" we were quoted before the system was purchased, and the "24 hours" we were quoted afterwards?), I urge the committee to only accept those statements that can be documented in writing. Please feel free to include any of the references I have provided in your final report. Although the original confidentiality agreement you were asked to sign did not make it clear, is should be self-evidently obvious that you are free to discuss anything that has been made publicly available in a news report with anyone you choose.

If there is a new statement from the vendor, or other documented (not verbal) information available, I'm sure many of us would like to see it.

Has this committee actually tested this functionality itself or simply relied on assertions by the vendor or other parties?

If the committee is unable to resolve these legitimate questions as to the reliability and accuracy of this equipment, I cannot understand how it could possibly recommend that it be used in elections here. These public reports and our county's first-hand experience do not inspire confidence in voters, regardless of political affiliation.

According to Brad Friedman of the BradBlog website, the Dallas Fort Worth Star Telegram has contacted him to begin investigating the whistleblower's claims.

I hope that this committee will not simply rubber-stamp the County Clerk's continued failure to do thorough due diligence on our elections systems and instead represent the repeatedly stated consensus of Boulder County voters: support trustworthy elections based on paper ballots and reject any proposed use of DRE computer vote-storing equipment here. For a thorough read of Boulder County voter's positions on this issue, ask the Clerk and Commissioners to share with you the 200+ comments she received in response to the DRE Purchase RFP.

Make sure you get it in writing on paper!

Joe Pezzillo
Boulder, Colorado

Additional data for the Proposal Evaluation Committee

2006-03-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

Members of the Proposal Evaluation committee:

We have added some important new content to our site and hope that you will review it before making a decision. This is one of the most important decisions that Boulder County will make this year. We believe that it is worth the effort to get it right.

Some states choose "paper only"

Digital ballot equipment is not working

Boulder County Clerk pushes for unpopular digital ballots

AutoMark Federally certified, preferred by disabled voters.

We know that you are under pressure to select the only proposal offered. We ask you report that the proposal does not meet the requirements, and to recommend that the Clerk not accept the proposal.

As a committee, you have several options.

You can report that the proposal fulfills all of the requirements, which we have shown it does not.

You can report that the proposal does not fulfill all of the requirements.

You can report that you have had inadequate time and expertise to determine with confidence that the proposal does or does not fulfill the requirements.

If you do say that the proposal does fulfill the requirements (1 above), you would telling the citizens that the committee has carefully evaluated all of the systems, functional, legal and other requirements specified in the RFP document. It does not seem that there was time or talent to accomplish this.

If you do not say the proposal fulfills the requirements (2 or 3 above), the Boulder County Clerk can proceed without your endorsement, and might do so. Please do not lend your good names to this risky venture. The public and your friends will hold you personally accountable for what happens. To the extent that you permit the report to infer that you represent an entire organization, you will be risking the good name of your organization.

You have been notified that there are many HART equipment problems underway today. Our website includes several, but not all. If you recall, the HART person who presented the demonstration told you that every HART voting terminal is identical. This means that the problems being experienced throughout the country would be present in any equipment that Boulder County would rent.

We recommend that you do not bend to intimidating pressure from the Secretary of State’s office. The SOS has made grievous certification errors and would like the counties to go along with bad SOS decisions to avoid embarrassment.

Our elections are too important for this. Please reject the pressure.

We have done what we can to warn each committee member of the needless risk they would be taking if they were to assert that they evaluated the proposal against each requirement and found that it fulfills every requirement.

We would hope that you list the few areas where you know that the proposal does not meet the requirements and recommend that the proposal be rejected.

Short of outright rejection, we recommend that you take a “no position” because you have had inadequate time and talent to perform a comprehensive evaluation of the proposal.

We know that this is a difficult situation for you. We hope that you will do the right thing. Please do not deceive voters into believing that the proposal is something it is not.

Thank you for your public service.

CAMBER says, "Reject the HART/InterCivic proposal"

2006-03-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

"Reject the HART/InterCivic proposal," CAMBER today asked Boulder County's Voting Equipment Proposal Evaluation Committee.

For several years, Boulder County voters have spoken out loud and clear. They want one ballot per voter and that ballot must be a full ballot text paper ballot.

The County received only one response to its RFP for Voting Equipment. The response is from HART/InterCivic.

HART proposes digital ballots. The people want paper ballots.

HART's solution does not permit disabled voters to verify the votes printed on the Audit Trail printer. The RFP requires independent verification of the printed ballot -- since they would be used for recounts.

The County refuses to evaluate other solutions, such as the AutoMark and the Vote-PAD. Other states are happily meeting their HAVA deadlines using these full ballot text paper ballot devices.

Check these facts:

New Mexico prudently chooses "paper only"

DRE digital ballot equipment is just not working

Boulder County Clerk pushes for unpopular digital ballots

There is something fishy happening at the Secretary of State's office. The SOS office wants a totally digital state -- e-mail and FAX for absentee voting, and DRE digital ballots in voting centers for in person voting.

They know that this approach closes the door to independent oversight. There would be no way to hold officials accountable for errors and fraud. Nobody will know.

The SOS office has misused their authority and blocked certification of paper ballot solutions.

It's too bad that we don't have an Attorney General that will stop their misuse of power.

Boulder County stalls. Withholds information.

2006-03-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

1. HART DEMO --

The Clerk’s committee is planning to review a demonstration of the HART proposal 9:00 a.m., Wednesday March 15th. It is our understanding that the public will be permitted to observe. See AGENDA

There are BIG questions about whether the demo is going to be a scripted, slick marketing presentation, conducted by HART, or an evaluation, conducted by Boulder County election workers and voters.

Boulder County voters should be informed that they are invited to attend and observe this demonstration.

2. KEY QUESTIONS --

CAMBER submitted a letter to the committee yesterday, and has had no acknowledgement so far.

NOTE: We are asking questions about (a) the beneficiaries of the RFP, (b) the committee members, and (c) the demonstration.

It is possible that the County has no idea of how many people it is trying to serve with the proposed equipment. How otherwise to know how many units would be needed?

It is possible that some committee members may not be eligible Boulder County voters. Since Boulder County’s top talent was excluded from the committee, does it make sense that outsiders would be making this evaluation?

It is possible that the committee will not really evaluate the equipment, instead watching a scripted presentation where nothing can go wrong. Shouldn’t the committee evaluate what the equipment really does, in the environment that it would be used?.

3. OPEN RECORDS --

CAMBER submitted a March 9th Colorado Open Records Request.

We have not yet received a response, and the committee’s time is almost gone. We heard of a March 22 deadline..

Two of the committee meetings have already happened and the demo is set for tomorrow.

Because we don’t have committee member contact information, we must rely on second hand accounts for our data, and we had to send our March 13th letter to the committee via Josh Liss.

CAMBER questions Proposal Evaluation Committee.

2006-03-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Boulder County received only one proposal in response to its Voting Equipment Lease RFP. The county has not released any information about the proposal other than it is from HART/InterCivic.

The clerk has appointed a hand picked Proposal Evaluation Committee. On March 9, CAMBER submitted an Open Records Request to learn about the committee.

March 13, CAMBER submitted a letter to the committee members to learn about the beneficiaries, the committee, and the March 15 demonstration.

Click to read a brief history of the recent effort by the Boulder County Clerk to circumvent public objections to Direct Record Electronic voting equipment.

More than 200 people responded to the clerk's invitation to comment. (This is a large file.) Only one or two of the respondents were supportive of the Salas plan. The remainder object to digital ballots and want paper ballots.

CAMBER recommends that the RFP be replaced by a more prudent proposal -- after it has won the people's endorsement.

Clerk apologizes - meeting was not to have been closed.

2006-03-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

3/9/2006 4:24 PM

Josh Liss, Boulder County Elections Coordinator, called me today to apologize for their mistake in closing the meeting on Monday.

Next meeting is Friday, March 10, in Charlotte Houston Room. Notice is to be posted on County Commissioners website.

The meeting will be open to the public.

Also, Josh asked about the trustworthiness of a situation in which a DRE
machine tally and a printed record tally produce identical results.

Told him we'd be willing to address that and I had my doubts.

Geof Cahoon
Boulder CO 80304

Compton is asked to leave post early

2006-03-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

According to the Denver Post,

DenverPost.com - Article Launched: 3/09/2006 01:00 AM

Partisan farewell

Colorado elections director William "Billy" Compton has been asked to leave his post early after he took a job as political director for the Democratic Party. Compton was scheduled to leave March 17, but left Wednesday instead.

Republican Secretary of State Gigi Dennis said through a spokesman that she wanted to avoid any appearance of a conflict.

"Mr. Compton is on paid administrative leave. His last official day was today," Dennis' spokeswoman Dana Williams said. "The reason for that is because of the nature of his new position with a partisan organization."

Colorado political party hires Colorado's Elections Director

2006-03-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

Colorado’s Director of Elections, Bill Compton is leaving to become Political Director for the Colorado Democratic Party

Is it proper for a high ranking Colorado election official to move to a high ranking position with a Colorado political party? It does not matter which party -- it does raise serious questions.

Can Colorado's 2006 elections be trusted? Compton is not the only employee to leave, and Secretary of State Gigi Dennis is new to the office. Who will be running the 2006 elections, certifying equipment and elections, and resolving election disputes?

Knowledge and contacts learned while serving as top election official could be used to tip election results. The Secretary of State must take specific actions to protect the people of Colorado from this threat.

• Not all election information has been released to the public. For example, detailed databases have not been released to the public, and they can give an edge to a campaign.

• Confidential knowledge of voting equipment is not public and can be used to secretly manipulate elections.

• Weaknesses in Colorado’s election system are known to Compton and can be exploited without much risk of detection.

Compton leaves behind an election system that is not secure, not accurate, not verifiable, not transparent, and not private. The system is open to error, fraud and abuse.

There is no reason to believe that Compton would abuse his knowledge, but the state has an obligation to take steps to protect the people.

The Secretary of State should get a written agreement from Compton attesting that he retains no access to or copies of files/records that are unavailable to the general public. This is typical for private sector key employees. It is vital that Compton be explicitly instructed and bound to protect this valuable information.

• Is Compton prohibited from keeping copies of files/documents for his own use?
• Is Compton prohibited from sharing insider information?
• Is there a clear identification of confidential information?
• Are high level employees bound by non-disclosure agreements?
• Who is responsible for protecting insider information?

All political campaigns (candidate as well as issue) should immediately take steps to protect themselves. Contact the Secretary of State and confirm that Colorado’s valuable election information will be protected from the revolving door of election officials.

David Dill is beginning to "get it".

2006-03-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

David Dill’s March 7th article Making Democracy Transparent shows that Dill is beginning to “get it” but has not yet “got it”.

We have preached long and hard that trustworthy elections are required to be transparent, use anonymous ballots, and be verifiably secure and accurate. Dill appears to be catching on -- albeit slowly.

Dill wants us to believe that elections conducted using digital ballots can comply with these requirements, without offering any proof that they can do so. We have seen no evidence that this is true, and continue to distrust claims that they can.

Stopgap solutions, such as US HR 550, don't meet these requirements. These stopgap measures are harmful; they are used to deflect pressure for addressing the fundamental system problems and enable officials to purchase inadequate electronic voting equipment.

We welcome Dill's work in the field, and hope he will soon join us in our quest for election systems that are transparent, use anonymous ballots, and are verifiably secure and accurate.

Say "no" to email and fax voting

2006-03-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

Colorado legislators act to weaken secure elections. Through Senate Bill SB-062, Colorado legislators and election officials intend to permit voting by email and by fax.

If "limited" email voting were available to anybody, I believe that the “equal protection” clause of the law would permit others to gain access to the voting method. Can anybody guarantee that this would not happen?.

In any event, there are many elected officials who have experienced an election win or loss due to a very small number of votes. The point being -- EVERY SINGLE VOTE IS IMPORTANT, AND WE CANNOT SACRIFICE ANY. These officials should understand this. Elections are getting closer and closer. Every ineligible vote counted is a way to disenfranchise an eligible voter – by cancelling the eligible voter’s choices.

Also, for those who would vote for this bill I ask, “how can it be verified that the person voting by email is the specific person who is authorized to vote the ballot? The bill does not address this major defect. Consequently, email voting credentials will instantly have significant value.

Email voting credentials will be sold by voters who don’t care about the election contests. They will be bought by those who are able to collect these credentials and sell them (in a block) to the highest bidder. It will be like selling your user-ID and password to your internet account. Nobody will know if it is you, or your friend, or some miscreant who is logged into your account. Think of the power an individual will have when he says to a candidate, “I can offer you voting credentials for 15,000 votes if you will give me …”

I can see the buyer’s sales pitches now -- Your voting credentials are your ticket to this gigantic “let’s not vote” party. Come one, come all. Leave your credentials at the door.

Or better yet – donate your voting credentials to “worthy cause”. Worthy cause has a deep pockets donor who will make a $20.00 donation for every set of valid credentials that we give to him.

FAX voting has its own set of concerns. As with absentee voting, voters can be intimidated and there is nobody to see it; return envelopes can be signed by the eligible voter and turned over with the un-voted ballot FOR A PRICE; and signatures can be transferred from other documents or simply forged without concern for detection – since the person forging the document is never seen. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that signature verification accurately authenticates that the person who signed a ballot is the eligible voter.

Does anybody believe that those outside of our country would not take advantage of this gigantic opportunity to influence American elections?

SB062 is a step toward election chaos. Those voting FOR the bill will show their lack of understanding of why verifiable security is mandatory, and should be kept far away from future election system matters.

Voters need to replace Colorado election officials

2006-03-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

Trustworthy elections are an essential component of representative government.

Current election officials are failing to provide trustworthy elections.

Colorado Voter urges voters to elect new election officials who will adopt a balloting system that provides for transparent elections, anonymous ballots and verifiably secure and accurate results.

- Current officials refuse to provide a secret ballot.

- Current officials refuse to permit public oversight of elections.

- Current officials refuse to require verifiable election system systems and procedures.

- Current officials refuse to require secure voter authentication and balloting.

- Current officials refuse to require proof of accuracy for each election process.

Those currently serving as Colorado's election officials must be replaced. We need executives who are committed to providing transparent elections, anonymous ballots and verifiably secure and accurate results.

Email voting is coming to Colorado and state election director who fostered it is quitting

2006-03-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

Just one day after testifying to the Colorado House State, Veterans, and Military Affairs committee about how carefully email voting would be managed under SB06-062, state elections director Billy Compton resigned as noted in today's Denver Post story County voting officials boxed in - Voids in 2 state posts add to anxiety over August primaries. Proponents of voting integrity lost that vote after Billy testified twice, and the committee approved email voting 6-5 along party lines.

Despite acknowledging that there are grave problems with security using email voting, Mr. Compton testified his office would be able to safely use email voting. He also testified how one sailor on one ship had not been able to fax his ballot so he had brought forward the plan for email voting. However, it was clear that Mr. Compton had not sought input from military sources as to the need for or how email voting might be implemented or from technical or security experts. The committee also broadened the bill so that email voting can essentially be used by anyone overseas. Presumably they meant to limit it to citizens but Senator McElhany's bill to require proof of citizenship to register to vote was defeated so China, Mexico, and wherever, feel free, Colorado welcomes your votes.

For six years now, that I'm aware of, every time there has been a bad idea for voting, or the Colorado Sec. of State has been approached for information, or to enforce election law or constitutional protections such as a secret ballot, Billy Compton has been the culprit.

Compton and Drew Durham backed Accenture for the non-existent voter registration database that he couldn't get going after four years and, as the article notes, hasn't even gone out on bid yet for a new contractor.

Boulder County bought the Hart Intercivic voting system that Compton's office has now certified for disabled voters. The Hart system couldn't handle ballots fast enough for a polling place election and eliminated a secret ballot. So now Boulder is looking for a whole new voting system but Compton's office simply turned a blind eye to the problems.

So Billy Compton definitely won't be missed but the disasters of his heritage will live on.

Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.

Voting equipment selection process will be closed to the public

2006-02-08T18:47:00.000-07:00

In December, the Boulder County Clerk solicited public comments on a Draft RFP for voting equipment.

The draft provoked hundreds of citizen comments recommending against the use of electronic voting. Click to read the 5.7 MB (200 page) Draft RFP citizen comments.

Despite the enormous public backlash, the county clerk has decided to proceed with her plan to bring untrustworthy digital ballots to Boulder County. Click to read the Rental RFP.

CAMBER filed an Open Records Request (see February 2 posting). One of the items requested is:

“Planned checkpoints including dates that the public will have an opportunity to participate in the process.”

The County Attorney responded (see February 3 posting) that:

"Generally, the RFP process is closed to the public, for a variety of sound business reasons."

Election officials are telling us that the people have no say in how their elections will be conducted.

What happened? Boulder County once had a tradition of supporting open government.

This is the time for the press and citizens to rally together and work to restore transparent government.

County response to Feb 2nd Open Records Request

2006-02-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

February 3, 2006

Al Kolwicz
CAMBER
2667 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305

RE: Open Records Request Dated February 2, 2006

Dear Mr. Kolwicz:

This letter is a response to your Open Records Request dated February 2, 2006.

1. Equipment requirements are stated in the RFP, which can be accessed at http://www.co.boulder.co.us/clerk/elections/ . A copy of the RFP is also available for inspection in my office. Please call me if you would like to inspect the document.

2. Voting system requirements are stated in the RFP.

3. The County does not have custody of a record containing “rejected requirements submitted by citizens.”

4. As stated above, the requested RFP is available on the web or for inspection at my office. Drafts of the RFP remain work product and as such are not releasable under the Open Records Act. C.R.S. 24-72-202(6)(b).

5. The only identified dates for the RFP process are those set forth in the RFP itself. I also have in my office, for your inspection, a copy of the section of the County's Policy Manual regarding RFP's. Generally, the RFP process is closed to the public, for a variety of sound business reasons. However, the Policy does set forth when the public is given notice of certain information. Additionally, when the Clerk is ready to make a recommendation for award, this will occur at a business meeting. It will be within the discretion of the Board of County Commissioners whether or not to take public testimony at that time.

When reading the RFP Policy, it would be helpful to keep in mind that the requirements and procedures vary for "invitations to bid" (referred to in the policy as 'bids') and Requests for Proposals. The selection of voting equipment for lease will conform to the procedures for RFPs, not bids.

The following information was provided to me by our Purchasing Agent, Jenny Olberding, which might be helpful to you in understanding the difference between a bid and an RFP as set forth in the Policy Manual.

Bids

Competitive sealed bidding requires that bids be evaluated and awarded on information contained in the invitation at the time of the bid opening. No substantive changes would affect determination of an award. Some examples of a Bid would be for the purchase of something that does not include a service component, such as equipment, vehicles or supplies. As per County policy, bids are opened publicly. The name of the company and their offer are read aloud publicly.

RFP’s

RFP’s allow the County to negotiate the services and equipment submitted in a proposal to meet the organizations needs. RFP’s are evaluated not only on price, but can include ability to meet a set of minimum requirements, qualifications and previous experience. Price is not always the determining factor in the evaluation of an RFP. As per County policy, RFP’s can be opened publicly, but only the names of the firms who submitted are shared. This process has been established to maintain the integrity of the RFP process and to provide a fair and competitive negotiation process to the best of our ability.

6. There are no documents containing the “[n]ames of people who contributed to the requirements and RFP.”

7. A list of potential vendors is available for your inspection at my office. This list documents the known vendors that the RFP was sent to directly; however, the RFP is open to any Vendor, and the County will accept any responses that meet the RFP and RFP Policy requirements.

8. There are no written procedures for how the public will participate in the specification of requirements and the RFP. As I stated above, the RFP process and work done by the evaluation committee will be closed to the public, per long-standing County policy. There may be some opportunity for public input during this process, but that will be determined by the evaluation committee. As you know, the RFP was originally released to the public for input prior to its release to vendors. Although the RFP changed during that time from an RFP for Purchase to an RFP for Lease, the substantive equipment requirements remained the same. Therefore, the County was able to use and incorporate many of the public comments in the final version of the RFP for Lease. At this point, the public has had input in the RFP process. Any further input will be at the discretion of the evaluation committee and the Board of County Commissioners.

9. There are no documents that include "[p]rocedures for how the public comments that were collected by the clerk will be evaluated and integrated in the rental RFP." Public comments were received and incorporated as appropriate. Both the comments received by the public and the final RFP are available on the web for public inspection. A review of both will reveal what public comments were incorporated into the final RFP.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at 441-3855.

Sincerely,

Shelley Stratton Bailey
Assistant County Attorney

aj

Available for inspection:
List of Vendors
Boulder County Policy Manual—Section II: Finance/Budget/Purchasing
RFP # 4730-06

Boulder County secretly developed and today released RFP

2006-02-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

Boulder County secretly developed and today released to suppliers a RFP for rental voting equipment.

Many citizens are concerned that the RFP does not explicitly require: (1) a secret ballot, (2) a paper ballot, and (3) voting equipment that is verifiably secure, accurate and transparent. Any RFP that does not specify that these three elements are mandatory is unacceptable to these citizens.

CAMBER has been trying for weeks to gain access to information about the RFP and the process being used to develop it. The county has successfully kept secret the rental RFP and associated data from the public.

CAMBER immediately issued an Open Records Request in order to discover what Boulder County has planned for the 2006 Primary and General elections.

CAMBER hopes that the February 2nd Open Records Request will bring some sunshine to Boulder County.

Spokesman Al Kolwicz said, "We are terribly disappointed that Boulder County has seen fit to conduct the public’s business in secret. It is not the standard that the people expect from public officials."

Open Records Request - February 2, 2006

2006-02-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

Ms. Bailey,

Attached is an Open Records Request form.

We are terribly disappointed that Boulder County has seen fit to conduct the public’s business in secret. See below. It is not the standard that the people expect.

There ought to be a law protecting the public from public officials who abuse their office to silence dissent.

We hope that the county will provide an immediate response to our new request.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Al

=========================

The following request is made under the Colorado Public Records law:

Date: ______________________2/2/2006

Name: Al Kolwicz
Organization represented (if any): CAMBER
Address/Phone No.: 2867 Tincup Circle, Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540

Name of document(s) requested:

February 2, 2006

We have read in today’s PRESS RELEASE that Boulder County has released an RFP for rental voting equipment for the 2006 election. As you know, we are very interested in the purity of the 2006 elections.

We request copies of drafts and final documents related to the solicitation of bids for the rental voting equipment, including but not limited to:

Equipment Requirements
Voting System Requirements
Rejected requirements that were submitted by citizens
Request for Proposals (RFP)
Planned checkpoints including dates that the public will have an opportunity to participate in the process.
Names of people who contributed to the requirements and RFP
Identification of potential vendors
Procedures for how the public will participate in the selection of the vendor proposals
Procedures for how the public comments that were recently collected by the clerk were evaluated and integrated into the rental RFP

Election system manipulated by officials?

2006-01-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

There will be no public input and no public oversight for Colorado elections.

Secretary of State Gigi Dennis(R) and Boulder County Clerk Linda Salas(D) are both expected to be on the ballot during 2006.

As insiders, they should be taking steps to assure the public that there will be no insider manipulation.

Instead, both officials are blocking the public from ensuring that elections will be secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent.

Click to read some disturbing correspondence.

Boulder County - anti open government

2006-01-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

From: Al Kolwicz
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 10:25 AM
To: 'Bailey, Shelley'
Cc: 'Liss, Josh'; 'Salas, Linda'; Boulder County Commissioners
Subject: RE: CORA denial - BC Voting Equipment RFP

Ms. Bailey,

We are in receipt of your January 18th denial of our request for records.

What your client is doing may be legal, but it certainly does not seem ethical, and is definitely not in the best interests of the people of Boulder County. As you know, Boulder County people place a high value on open government.

We are unaware of any law that prevents your client from conducting public business in a transparent fashion. We find no law that prevents your client from including interested members of the public in the election requirements development process. We ask again to review a copy of any of the subject material as soon as it is no longer shielded by the laws that your client is using to prevent public oversight.
Are we to understand that your client does not use responsible management practices? According to your reply there are no plans; no checkpoints; no procedures; no particular individual(s) accountable for the content of the final RFP. This is very disturbing. As soon as your client has a plan, a checkpoint, a procedure, or a person(s) accountable for any of the subject material we ask to be receive a copy of same.

In our January 12th Open Records Request we asked, “Because the requested information will likely be changing daily, we would like to be updated daily as new information becomes available. Or we can work out with you a schedule for regular updates to the material.”

Is it your client’s intention to honor this request?

Is it still the case that there are no plans, schedules, procedures, and that no particular individual(s) accountable for development of the requirements and the RFP?

Sincerely,

Al Kolwicz
CAMBER – Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
http://www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz/
http://www.coloradovoter.blogspot.com/

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.

Would this qualify as a “conspiracy”?

2006-01-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

It is very clear that there is a coordinated effort to disallow paper ballots in Colorado. This might be illegal. At a minimum, it should be reason enough to replace every elected official and candidate who is working to suppress the wishes of the people. Would this qualify as a “conspiracy”?

Click to read the facts.

Colorado plots to block paper ballots

2006-01-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

When vote marking devices record votes on paper rather than digital ballots, elections can be verified. One of these paper ballot vote markers is the AutoMARK.

Colorado's Secretary of State has been working to block adoption of the AutoMARK. Why?

Call for certification

The AutoMARK is already certified by the Federal government and by most of the following 20 states: CA, WA, OR, NM, AZ, MT, WY, ND, SD, KS, NE, TX, MN, IA, MO, AL, IL, OH, FL, WV. More states are pending.

The Secretary of State has refused certification of the AutoMARK claiming that a blind voter might require assistance. This is Colorado's trumped up excuse not a reason for refusing to certify the device.

The federal government and 20 states are satisfied with the AutoMARK. Disabled voters who have used the equipment are satisfied. Every device certified for use by disabled voters will encounter some circumstance where the voter might require assistance.

Colorado should come clean. Certify the AutoMARK if it is secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent.

Call for competition

Colorado has disallowed competition between paper and digital ballots. The Secretary of State excluded paper ballot vote marking equipment from the state's omnibus RFP for voting equipment. The requirements are anti-paper ballot. State has discouraged the vendor, ES&S, from responding to the RFP.

There is no room in Colorado for anti-competition in our choice of voting systems. Voting systems must be judged on whether they are the most secure, accurate, verifiable, and transparent.

No more sunshine in Boulder County

2006-01-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

Using legal loopholes, Boulder County officials have taken new steps to block public oversight of its scheme to control the ballot box. They don't care who votes as long as they get to count the votes?

Boulder County has refused public inspection of its voting equipment draft RFP. In response to CAMBER's Open Records Request the county has slithered behind the law to hide its intentions and block the public from participating in voting equipment decisions.

Colorado law does not require that public officials keep plans secret. Public officials who believe in transparent government engage the public before making decisions.

By blocking public participation the county can manipulate the process and force an untrustworthy voting system on the voters.

In addition, the County is operating with no written records and/or plans. There is no accountability.

The voting equipment "requirements" decision is a multi-million dollar decision. It will affect the voting rights of each and every Boulder County voter.

To make this decision without a written plan is reckless.

Boulder County commissioners should tell the Clerk that they would like to see a plan for including the public in the development of the voting system "requirements".

Clerk's Office RFP On-Hold

2006-01-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

We just received a press release from Boulder County.

The Boulder County Clerk has decided to place her Voting Equipment RFP on hold.

We are delighted to learn that the clerk will not purchase voting equipment without public support.

However, we are very concerned that the announcement does not mention a public process for setting the rental equipment requirements.

If the clerk goes forward with her plan, as disclosed in the draft RFP, the 2006 Primary and General Elections are at risk.

What's needed is a PUBLIC PROCESS to develop requirements for the voting equipment to be rented and a plan for the 2006 elections.

We ask people to do what they can to ensure that the clerk embraces this public process.

Resolve voting system differences, first.

2006-01-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

In response to Boulder County Clerk Linda Salas’s invitation, more than 200 people filed written objections to her plan for a new voting system. Her plan was disclosed in a draft Request for Proposal (RFP). It includes the elimination of traditional precinct voting and introduction of unverifiable digital ballots.

Hopes were dashed that the overwhelming rejection of her plan would cause Salas to meet with the public and work out differences.

On January 10th, a small delegation of people went to the Boulder County Clerk’s office to participate in a 9:00 AM Pre-Proposal Conference. Although the draft RFP specified the time and date of the meeting, there was no such meeting.

It appears that Ms. Salas intends to publish the contentious RFP with no public meeting, and no resolution of the fundamental issues dividing the public and the clerk’s office.

According to Al Kolwicz, executive director of CAMBER, "Ms. Salas may indeed have the authority to do this. However, it would be very unwise to do so.

It would insult those who spent hours responding to the clerk’s invitation to comment.
It would alienate those members of the public who are rightfully concerned about the trustworthiness of the Boulder County election system.
It would provide ammunition to those who believe that the clerk’s office is out of step with the community.
The public’s requirements need to be addressed before an RFP is released. The differences between what the public wants and what the clerk wants cannot be resolved after the equipment is purchased.
This community has already suffered through the problem created when RFP requirements conflict with public requirements. In 2003 Ms. Salas failed to bring the public into the RFP process until after she had developed and released a secret RFP. That RFP was also incomplete and incompatible with what the public wanted.

We encourage Ms. Salas to meet with the public and resolve differences -- before the RFP is released."

Illustrations - why professionals oppose imprecise requirements

2005-12-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

Two articles published in today's Rocky Mountain News deserve special attention:

1. Computer deal gags criticism

2. Refund due on late vote software

In mid-2003, Colorado’s Secretary of State held a hearing to allow people to make a brief statement about the database project.

The Secretary of State did not listen, and the public’s concerns were not addressed. See notes from the meeting at: Requirements for Colorado Statewide Voter Database - June 19, 2003 .

When unqualified citizens pretend to be doctors, they risk arrest and incarceration.

Unqualified government employees are pretending to be systems designers. Who will stop them, before they do great harm?

Colorado’s failed statewide voter database project clearly illustrates why unqualified people should not be designing systems.

County Clerk Linda Salas should immediately withdraw her draft RFP and follow the CAMBER recommendations.

Boulder County officials infuriate the public.

2005-12-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Linda Salas, Boulder County's Clerk and Recorder, published a draft Request for Vendor Proposals for a new vote tabulating system - RFP.

The RFP is massive in scope and conflicts with most of the requirements expressed by citizens over the past couple of years.

Read CAMBER's RFP response, including an alternate plan.

Read CAMBER's Open Records Request intended to reveal information about how the RFP was developed and how public comments will be evaluated and incorporated.

Salas allowed only 2 business days for public comment. Community leaders objected strongly to the Clerk and to the County Commissioners.

In response to the outpouring of public criticism the two day comment period has been extended by an additional 4 business days to January 4th.

CAMBER recommends that the RFP be replaced by a more prudent proposal -- after it has won the people's endorsement.

Choose candidates wisely.

2005-12-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

Our December 5th request, for an audience with Gigi Dennis, Colorado Secretary of State, failed. She did receive the request. She did not reply. Click here to read the request.

Our September 1st request and Black Box Voting’s request for Boulder County public records both failed. We believe that these records can be used to prove whether or not Boulder County’s election system is verifiably secure and accurate and whether any ballots are, “marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.” The State and the County have chosen to protect the vendor, and themselves, rather than the public.

On a much broader scale, the Secretary of State and the Boulder County Clerk continue to refuse to address our long standing concerns about the integrity of the election system.

Skilled professionals have voiced deep concerns that Colorado’s voting system is not transparent, not independently verifiable, not secure, and not accurate.
The national press is filled with reports of inadequate system requirements and of major failures in electronic voting equipment. They are also filled with reports of the incompetent testing procedures used to certify these systems.
Most elected officials and their staffs are not competent to address these issues, and they refuse to accept help from competent professionals. As stated in the December 5th letter,

“The thinking and procedures of the elections staff has been seriously corrupted. They are not accountable to the people. Their work is not technically competent. They are not being measured against standards for secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent elections.”

It is time to call a halt to the amateurish work-products of Colorado’s Secretary of State and County Clerks. It is time to open the election system design and development process to those among the public who understand security and accuracy, how to design systems that allow for independent verification of each election process, and what is required to make the election system fully transparent while preserving voter privacy.

It seems to me that there is no place in our government for elected officials who refuse to address the concerns of the people.

The Secretary of State and County Clerks are coming up for election.

Choose candidates wisely.

Colorado's election system is out of control

2005-12-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

Ginette Dennis December 5, 2005
Colorado Secretary of State
1700 Broadway
Denver, CO 80290

Dear Ms. Dennis:

It is vital that you and I meet privately as soon as possible.

As you might recall, we notified you in our October 9th letter that the voter registration project is untrustworthy and in serious trouble. Your predecessor ignored our many recommendations, beginning June 3, 2003, and our warnings to not enter into the contract (see attached). We offered you our specific suggestions regarding the incompetently conceived system. You should be congratulated for “pulling the plug” on the Accenture contract; knowledgeable people are very upset that it took so long.

Colorado’s entire election system is in urgent need of reform. October 9th we recommended six specific actions for you to take to resurrect Colorado’s failed election system. So far, with the exception of the Accenture contract termination, either nothing or, as with the case of Rule 45, something bad has been permitted to happen. From our perspective:

Non-secret ballots. State has taken no action to protect voters from the use of non-secret ballots.
Non-existent accountability and transparency. State is collaborating with various counties to block independent oversight of the November 2005 election.
Harmful election rules. State, on November 10th, adopted the incompetent and harmful Election Rule 45.
Incoherent election system. State has done nothing to bring competent professional talent and the public into its election system development process.
Inadequate Voting Equipment RFP. State has not recalled the incompetent and harmful RFP for Election Voting Systems - CDOS-RFP-2005-001.
Untrustworthy voter registration system. State has done nothing to bring competent professionals and the public into the registration system development process.

You’re getting your input from the wrong people – elections staff. The thinking and procedures of the elections staff has been seriously corrupted. They are not accountable to the people. Their work is not technically competent. They are not being measured against standards for secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent elections.

Immediate reform is urgently required. When can you and I meet?

Al Kolwicz
CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/

Colorado faces a serious election problem.

2005-12-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Which is the surest way to win an election? (1) Raise money, recruit volunteers, sell your message, and get out your voters? Or, (2) recruit one person employed by the County to hack the vote?

Colorado faces a serious election problem. Leon County, Florida, has dumped its Diebold voting equipment. According to the reports, insiders can manipulate election results when using Diebold voting equipment. They can do this without leaving any trace of the tampering.

Twenty three of Colorado’s 64 counties use Diebold voting equipment. Boulder County’s HART/InterCivic voting equipment uses a “smart card” similar to the card that was manipulated during the Leon County demonstration. Can it too be hacked?

Many computer professionals question the security and accuracy of Colorado’s voting equipment. Colorado’s Secretary of State has steadfastly refused to permit the public to independently verify whether or not Colorado elections are secure and accurate.

Colorado legislators, led by then Secretary of State Donetta Davidson and State Senator Ken Gordon, enacted massive election reform, SB05-198/206. Colorado Voter said at the time, “These bills limit independent election oversight and legalize unsound and deceptive election procedures.” http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/2005_06_05_coloradovoter_archive.html

The problem is actually much more serious than it appears. Newly appointed Secretary of State, Gigi Dennis recently enacted Election Rule 45 which makes it even easier for counties to acquire and use faulty voting equipment. Computer expert, Paul Walmsley, carefully described the problems with the rule. His constructive analysis was ignored, http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/2005/10/paul-walmsleys-comments-on-colorado.html

Also, the Secretary of State is actively seeking proposals for voting equipment. The request for proposal (RFP) has been seriously criticized by computer professionals, including Colorado Voter, http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/2005/10/colorado-releases-secret-rfp-for.html The combination of rule-45 and this RFP will compromise Colorado elections for years to come.

Colorado voters need to speak to their representatives and to the Secretary of State about this mess. The people in charge of elections are way over their heads when they are asked to make decisions involving high tech. When officials bring in outside experts, they select people who are friends rather than the most competent technologists.

Officials may be “good people” but they are doing a great disservice to our community when they refuse to open election systems to the harsh scrutiny of truly independent oversight.

Colorado elections can no longer be trusted until they are truly transparent and it can be independently verified that each election is secure and accurate.

Schneier on Security
Leon County, FL Dumps Diebold Voting Machines http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/leon_county_fl.html

Miami Herald
New tests fuel doubts about vote machines
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13410061.htm

Black Box Voting.ORG
Devastating hack proven - Leon County dumps Diebold
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/15595.html

Leon County, Florida, Elections Supervisor
Special Report: Black Box Voting Attempts to Penetrate The Leon County Florida Optical Scan Voting System.
http://www.leonfl.org/elect/SpecialReport.asp

Colorado Counties that use Diebold Voting Equipment

Adams
Douglas
Mineral
Weld
Alamosa
Eagle
Montezuma
Yuma
Archuleta
El Paso
Ouray
El Paso
Broomfield
Hinsdale
Pitkin
La Plata
Costilla
La Plata
Saguache
Weld
Delta
Larimer
Teller

Colorado Election Rule 45, “Certification of Voting Equipment”, silently adopted

2005-11-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Colorado Election Rule 45, “Certification of Voting Equipment”, was silently adopted on November 10th.

See Rule 45 in Colorado Secretary of State Election Rules.

Our concerns have not been addressed. We anticipate major problems resulting from this adoption.

Paul Walmsley's Comments on Colorado Election Rule 45

2005-10-30T02:15:00.000-07:00

A brief reading of Colorado Secretary of State Election Rule 45 regarding Colorado's Voting System Certification Standards reveals several significant problems that should be resolved. The comments below describe some of these problems and proposes solutions in the form of an improved standards drafting process.

Several different versions of Rule 45 exist on the Secretary of State's web site. The following comments refer to what is apparently the most recent version of Rule 45, labeled "RULE 45 - 10-03-05" [1]. Furthermore, the comments below should not be considered a comprehensive review of Rule 45.

1. The State's voting system certification standards must be precisely written, and many sections of Rule 45 are not. This imprecision make it impossible to convert those into verifiable, testable metrics.

1.1. One example of this imprecision is section 45.5.2.1.1, which states that "the voting system shall exhibit an evolution towards new technologies," an abstract requirement which is never concretely elaborated. Another is section 45.5.2.3.8, which states that "the environment in which all databases in the subsystem are maintained shall include all necessary provisions for security and access control," without describing the actual security and access control provisions required. The practical requirements of these and other sections are unclear to the point of being meaningless. While statements of general guiding principles are important, they must be concretely defined with specific, testable criteria in standards documents.

1.2. Rule 45's performance standards also are very imprecisely defined. They make references to operational terms which have no publicly-accepted meaning, and which are not defined in the Rule's glossary, and extend the meanings of other terms, apparently to include other processes. For example, section 45.5.2.2.1 refers to "counting ballots", but does not define whether this process includes the process of casting ballots, as implied by the inclusion of the DRE requirement in subsection (b), or whether it includes the process of ballot scanning, as implied by the optical scan subsections (a) and (c), or whether it includes the process of vote tabulation, which on many systems is separate from the vote casting and ballot scanning processes. Section 45.5.2.2.2 refers to terms like "election media download" and "ballot style assignment" which are not defined - it's not clear whether these terms refer to pre-election preparations, or to the actual ballot casting process. It is also unclear whether these performance requirements refer to individual DRE or vote scanning machines, as implied by section 45.5.2.2.1; or whether these metrics refer to the voting system as a whole, including all of the DRE or vote scanning machines. Testing conformance to the performance requirements in Rule 45 is practically impossible unless the processes under test are rigorously defined.

1.3. The above examples represent only a portion of unclear requirements in Rule 45. These types of imprecision in a certification standards document is undesirable. It creates loopholes by which vendors may certify equipment to the letter of the Rule that does not meet the intention of the Rule. It also fosters confusion as to the Rule's true requirements.

2. The State's voting system certification standards should define performance requirements that specify the maximum amount of time required to perform real-world tasks required in an election, rather than requiring metrics which are not useful for Colorado elections, as are defined in Rule 45. For example, section 45.5.2.2.1 requires a minimum ballot counting rate requirement of 100 ballots per hour for central count optical scan ballots. Such a minimum requirement may be useful for Hinsdale County, Colorado, with only a few hundred voters; but is not useful for Denver County, Colorado, with hundreds of thousands of potential voters. Vendors should instead be required to demonstrate that their system is capable of completing the specified election action in a reasonable election time frame. For example, a more meaningful version of section 45.5.2.2.1 would require voting systems to complete the vote count in a specified maximum number of hours.

3. The parts of the State's voting system certification standards that pertain to computer security and cryptography should be written and reviewed by experts in those fields. This is not the case for at least the information security sections of Rule 45, which were clearly not written or reviewed by experts in the field. For example, section 45.5.2.7.2 refers to "a minimum encryption requirement of 40-bit encryption." Presumably Rule 45's authors are trying to ensure the privacy and integrity of election records that are transmitted over public networks. But section 45.5.2.7.2 does not do this - in fact, it is technically meaningless. For it to be meaningful, the vendor must provide full cryptographic protocol and implementation details, including details on key generation, entropy collection, message authentication, and sender and recipient authentication. These details must be reviewed by experts in cryptography and information security.

4. The State's voting system certification standards should require mandatory compliance with the EAC's Voluntary Voting System Standards [2] - Rule 45 does not require this. These standards are intended to represent the state of the art in voting system standards, and unlike Rule 45, have received nationwide public review. If Colorado's standards are to live up to the Secretary of State's description of them as "one of the most challenging and thorough programs in the country," they should at least require compliance with the latest standards guidance developed by the Federal Government.

5. The State's voting system certification standards should explicitly forbid vendors from submitting "confidential" or "trade secret" information for certification as documentation or application responses to ensure maximum openness and transparency, and Rule 45 does not do this. A vendor could conceivably claim "trade secret" status for significant portions of the documentation required to comply to the rule. This would prevent the public from engaging in any meaningful review of the voting systems, and would conflict with the Secretary of State's commitment to an "open and transparent" voting system certification process [3]. The Colorado voting system standards should forbid the vendor from claiming "trade secret" status for any documentation provided to the State examiners, given the special public trust requirements for voting systems.

6. The State's voting system certification standards should include a glossary which includes all of the terms in the standards which do not have clear public usages, and should build on glossaries already created in the federal voting system standards. But as noted previously, Rule 45's glossary does not contain entries for terms like "election media download," which do not have commonly-accepted unambiguous meanings in elections. Additionally, terms like "Ballot Image" are ambiguously defined. For example, it is unclear whether a "ballot image" refers to cast vote records, or to graphics files depicting the scanned paper ballots from optical scan systems.

7. The State's standards should require vendor systems to support live auditing procedures [4], which Rule 45 does not require. Live auditing is the process of continuously evaluating the accuracy and functionality of election systems during an election using live ballots. Without mandating vendor support for live audit techniques, the accuracy of the election system can only be tested before or after an election, and such testing is inadequate to assure election accuracy.

Many of the principles that motivate Colorado's voting system standards seem well-intentioned. However, the specific manifestation of these standards in the present Rule 45 does not measure up to these principles. It is my belief from a cursory examination of Rule 45 that the problems cited above are not simply endemic to the sections quoted above, but exist throughout the document. This suggests that the public would best be served by committing to a different standards-making process than was used for the Rule under discussion.

A better standards-making process would include the following principles:

It should be continuously edited by staff experienced with the precise language necessary to define standards.
It should involve independent subject matter experts outside the Secretary of State's area of expertise.
All drafts should be released to the public for ongoing comment throughout the drafting process.
The document should strive to avoid duplicating existing Federal standards, and should draw on existing work, both at the Federal level and standards work by other states. In particular, the State should mandate compliance with the existing EAC Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.
It should first be articulated in a general set of requirements for voting system performance that are then translated into specific, testable, concrete requirements. For example, a general requirement that "election voting system records and data must be secure from tampering and unauthorized interception" can be translated into specific technical requirements that serve that general principle. Similar general principles and concrete requirements should be articulated for accessibility, reliability, live auditability, speed, and other desirable aspects for Colorado's voting systems.

It is also troubling that Rule 45 was adopted in emergency, before any opportunity for comment or review by independent subject matter experts or the public. Rule 45 seems rushed, and it is a matter of some concern that voting systems may be certified under the emergency rule that would not be certifiable under a more deliberate Rule, either revised from the current rule or rewritten. Therefore, I encourage the Colorado Secretary of State to:

Revoke the emergency adoption of Rule 45,
Commit to an open public comment and revision process for a revised voting system standard before it is adopted, and for all future revisions, and
When revised standards are complete, require immediate re-certification of all equipment certified under the emergency adoption of Rule 45.

Sincerely,

Paul Walmsley paul@pwsan.com
Boulder, Colo.

Footnotes

1. http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DesktopModules/Downloads/download.aspx?tid=501&_iid=193

2. http://guidelines.kennesaw.edu/vvsg/guide_toc.asp

3. http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=501

4. http://www.booyaka.com/~paul/ea/eac-20050930/interpretation-live-audit.txt
http://www.booyaka.com/~paul/ea/eac-20050930/tabulation-live-audit.txt
http://www.booyaka.com/~paul/ea/eac-20050930/live-audit-overview.txt

Secretary of State asked to withdraw proposed election rule

2005-10-28T14:27:00.000-06:00

Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis has been asked to withdraw a proposed election rule scheduled for hearing on Monday, October 31st. The proposed rule, Rule 45, would establish standards for the certification of voting equipment.

Security and computer professionals who criticize the rule say they have identified illustrative problems and described specific actions that they would like to see taken.

“Voting systems certified under this rule will disenfranchise voters, prevent transparency, and produce untrustworthy elections,” according to Al Kolwicz, executive director of CAMBER, Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results.

Public comment on the rule is solicited at Monday’s 1:30 p.m. hearing. Hearing materials are published on the Secretary of State’s website.

CAMBER’s comment letter to Secretary of Stae Dennis follows.

=======================

Gigi Dennis
Colorado Secretary of State
1700 Broadway
Denver, CO 80290

October 28, 2005

We have reviewed the revised Rule-45, published on the Internet as of October 28, 2005 11:20 AM, and identified as “8 CCR 1515-1 Proposed Election Rules of the Colorado Secretary of State - Redline - 10/24/05”. We have also reviewed the Regulatory Analysis dated October 13, 2005.

We strongly recommend that the Secretary of State (1) withdraw this Rule-45, (2) cancel the October 31st hearing, and (3) withdraw Emergency Rule-45 which was adopted October 3, 2005. All three of these steps are required to stop the implementation of this inadequate certification procedure and the purchase of untrustworthy equipment.

It is not meaningful for us to submit line-by-line recommendations. The rule is grossly inadequate. Known problems are not addressed. The regulatory analysis is superficial. It is vital, to the voters of Colorado, that the proposed rule be scrapped.

We have identified illustrative problems, and described specific actions that we would like to see taken, in letters to the Colorado Secretary of State, October 8 and 9, 2005, correspondence with the Elections Division, July 25 – October 4, 2005, and with the federal Election Assistance Commission, September 29, 2005. We have attached these communications and include them as a part of our official comment.

Illustrative commentary, addressing only some of the more recent concerns, is published at http://www.coloradovoter.blogspot.com/ see:

Does the Secretary of State Represent the People? - 10/11/2005
Colorado is up to new mischief – 10/9/2005
Colorado releases secret RFP for voting systems – 10/4/2005
CAMBER comments re: Voluntary Voting System Guidelines – 9/30/2005
Colorado Security plan deemed worthless – 9/22/2005
Violation of Colorado Constitution -- voter privacy – 9/20/2005
Colorado proposed rules fail to address known issues – 8/1/2005

Voting systems certified under this rule will disenfranchise voters, prevent transparency, and produce untrustworthy elections. It is vital to the citizens of Colorado that this rule be withdrawn, the hearing cancelled, and Emergency Rule 45 be withdrawn. It is vital that the Secretary of State immediately establish an open and bi-directional process to create a secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent election system to serve the people.

Al Kolwicz

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.

Boulder County officials hiding from sunshine

2005-10-26T10:58:00.000-06:00

TO THE PRESS:

Yesterday we sent you a word document and a note alerting you to the fact that Boulder County is suppressing Sunshine.

Later, we received the following e-mail from the county.

Today, we are informed, in an article published in the Daily Camera that Boulder County voters are being disenfranchised because they are not getting their mail ballots http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_4187316,00.html

There are at least four BIG stories here:

1. CAMBER anticipated the problems with mail ballots. They published an extensive analysis of the 2001 mail ballot election which documented the problems that are inherent to the voting method. The county and the state know about these problems and continue to force this insecure, inaccurate, and unwanted method of voting upon the voters. Officials have refused to address the problems identified in the 2001 report.

2. Since October 2nd this year, CAMBER has attempted to get copies of the records and files that would enable CAMBER to detect problems with the ballots and mailing. The county has erected a series of concentric fences to block and deny CAMBER's legitimate Open Records Request. The most recent illustration of their blocking and stalling is the response from the county pasted below. The letter to which the county is responding is posted at:
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/2005/10/boulder-county-refuses-open-records.html As you can see, the county is saying that they will not provide the data in time to use it for the current election. This stinks.

3. The problem with mail ballots is not unique to Boulder County. Arapahoe County has sent two ballots to each voter in at least four precincts. There is increasing chatter about voters who have not received their ballot, and nobody knows how many voted ballots do not make it to the clerk on time -- if ever. One cannot rely on election results that are so compromised.

4. When offered the opportunity to conduct elections by mandatory mail ballot, 60 percent of Boulder County voters said NO. Amendment 28 was soundly defeated in 2001. Boulder county Commissioners voted to conduct the current election as a mail ballot only election BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED THAT A MAIL BALLOT ELECTION WOULD HELP PASS REF C. It isn't right that officials should use the method of voting as a tactic to raise taxes and eliminate term limits.

Election officials have assumed the role of masters rather than the role of public servants. This must be corrected immediately.

Check this out, and please inform your readers what is going on.

Al

Al Kolwicz
CAMBER - Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://ColoradoVoter.blogspot.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bailey, Shelley [mailto:sbailey@co.boulder.co.us]
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 2:51 PM
To: alkolwicz@gmail.com
Cc: Liss, Josh
Subject:

Mr. Al Kolwicz
CAMBER
Original via e-mail

I am in receipt of your letter dated October 20 in which you made serious accusations regarding the County's intentions with regard to our response to your October 6, 2005 Open Records Request, and allegations that the response was inadequate.

I am now in the process of reviewing your October 20 letter with respect to your reiteration and clarification of your October 6 Open Records Request. After my review of those items, I will respond as follows:

1) To the extent your October 20 letter provides clarification or information that allows me to release additional documents to you, I will inform you of the situation and schedule a time for you to inspect the documentation; and

2) To the extent my answer to any given item remains the same, I will state that fact.

In addition to discussions about your October 6, Open Records request, you also made new Open Records requests in your October 20 letter. Our office will not be able to respond to the new requests until after the election. The Clerk has adopted a rule that allows her office, under certain circumstances to delay responding to Open Records Requests. (Please let me know if you would like me to fax this document to you, in which case I will need a fax number, or if you would like for me to mail it to you.) The authority for adopting this rule is as follows:

1) C.R.S. § 24-72-203(1)(a) states, "All public records shall be open for inspection by any person at reasonable times, ... but the official custodian of any public records may make such rules with reference to the inspection of such records as are reasonably necessary for the protection of such records and the prevention of unnecessary interference with the regular discharge of the duties of the custodian or the custodian's office."

Due to the fast approaching election day and the fact that the Clerk's office is devoting all of its resources to meet this impending deadline, the Clerk has determined that it is reasonably necessary for the prevention of unnecessary interference with the regular discharge of the duties of the Clerk's office to delay responding to any Open Records requests (which meet the defined criteria) from October 17, 2005, until after the election. See also, Citizens Progressive Alliance v. Southwestern Water Conservation Dist., App.2004, 97 P.3d 308. (Colo. App 2004)

2. Pursuant to C.R.S. 24-72-203(3)(b)(III) a custodian may have additional time to respond to an Open Records Request when " [a] request involves such a large volume of records that the custodian cannot reasonably prepare or gather the records within the three day period without substantially interfering with the custodian's obligations to perform his or her other public service responsibilities" or, if, "[a] broadly stated request is made that encompass all or substantially all of a large category of records and the agency is unable to prepare or gather the records . . . because (A) The agency needs to devote all or substantially all of its resources to meeting an impending deadline or period of peak demand that is either unique or not predicted to recur more frequently than once a month." C.R.S. 24-72-203(3)(b)

3. Finally, Citizens Progressive Alliance v. Southwestern Water Conservation Dist., App.2004, 97 P.3d 308 (Colo. App 2004)t, allows for situations under which an agency may not be able to respond within the additional seven day extension provided by statute. "A records custodian cannot be sanctioned for failure to comply with the time limits in 24-72-203(3)(b) in situations where . . . compliance with a request within those time limits is a physical impossibility." In this case, the Clerk's office is devoting its entire staff to fulfilling its statutory obligations to meet the requirements of the upcoming election. Your additional requests involve voluminous documents and it is not possible for the Clerk's office to fulfill your request and continue to perform its statutorily mandated duties for the upcoming election.

Therefore, as stated above, I will respond to your October 20 letter regarding your previous requests as soon as possible. With regard to your additional requests, pursuant to the Clerk's rule, the Clerk's office will respond to your requests within 20 days after the election. However, I will also make every effort to provide a response to you sooner than the above stated deadlines, if at all possible. In order to respond to your additional requests, as set forth herein, I will need your request on the County's official Open Records Request Form. That document has been sent to you previously on several occasions. If you would like another copy sent to you, please let me know by e-mail response.

Sincerely,
Shelley Stratton Bailey
Assistant County Attorney

Please comment on proposed rule

2005-10-24T23:06:00.000-06:00

Friends,

Despite our strong recommendations to do otherwise, the Secretary of State intends to stuff Rule-45 down the throats of the people of Colorado.

Rule-45 will establish an inept certification procedure as the law of the land in Colorado. We have appealed for a procedural change wherein the people would have a voice in this process. To date our appeals have been rejected.

I hope that you will take the time to study the document and submit comments. If this rule is adopted, we are guaranteed poor elections for years to come.

A rulemaking hearing will be held on October 31, 2005 at 1:30 p.m. in the Secretary of State’s conference room, Suite 270, 1700 Broadway, Denver, Colorado 80290.

All interested persons will be afforded an opportunity to be heard on the subject of additions to the “Rules Concerning Certification of Voting Equipment”.

Subject of the Proposed Rulemaking - Rules establishing procedures for implementation of Title 1, Article 5, Section 616 concerning the minimum standards for electronic and electromechanical voting systems.

A copy of the proposed Rule-45 is available at 8 CCR 1515-1 Proposed Election Rules of the Colorado Secretary of State - Redline - 10/24/05

Dangerous and growing disconnect between the people and the government

2005-10-23T20:48:00.000-06:00

An opinion article published in Boulder's Daily Camera today talks about the dangerous and growing disconnect between the people and the government.

It is worth reading, and thinking about.

If we cannot stop this trend we risk losing our way of life.

Dean Schooler is a friend of freedom loving Coloradoans. I hope you will read his opinion at:
Schooler: Standing on principle is not 'mal-intent'

Boulder County refuses open records request

2005-10-20T14:30:00.000-06:00

We strongly object to Boulder County’s October 17th response to our October 2nd Colorado Open Records request.

Boulder County’s delays, objections, refusals, and cost barriers are nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to hide records needed to independently determine whether or not Boulder County has faithfully conducted an election which is secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent.

Boulder County does not have the authority to arbitrarily deny our request and hide from public scrutiny, records that might embarrass the County.

In its October 17th reply, Boulder County asserts that it has exerted essentially no control over the preparation and mailing of ballots. If this is actually true, the public has a right and a need to know.

We provide below a detailed response to your objections. We have temporarily moderated our request so that you can produce detailed descriptions of some files rather than the files themselves. This will give both of us time to work thru the legality of your refusal to produce records.

We are aghast to read in your response that there exist massive voids in the procedures used to monitor and control the security, accuracy, verifiability and transparency of this election. These voids threaten the integrity of this election which includes monumentally important statewide and local contests.

If these voids actually exist, Boulder County is failing in its duty to represent the best interests of the voters by assisting the Colorado Legislature and Secretary of State complete their constitutional duty to “secure the purity of elections, and guard against abuses of the elective franchise” – Colorado Constitution, Article VII, section 11.

If these voids exist, the seeds of distrust are planted, and there is no rational basis for trusting the results of this election as conducted by Boulder County.

We must have access to the records we have requested, or there will be no accountability for this election.

1. We do not understand the security risk to which you refer. The ballot images we wish to analyze have not been voted. Un-voted ballot images are not what the Secretary of State ruled on.
A. Ballot printing specification -- We assume that there was a computer file or files which contain information about voters, precincts, and ballot styles. This data, we assume, was needed to produce the PDF files. It is this file(s) we refer to when we speak of “files that were transmitted by Boulder County to HART”.

These files do not contain ballot images. We ask that the county produce a descriptive list of and copies of these computer files immediately.

B. Un-voted ballots – We do not accept your explanation of why you refuse to fulfill our request to produce the PDF files.Until this dispute is resolved, we ask that you at least provide complete descriptive information about the files. This does not require producing copies of the 353 PDF files.

The identification (name) of each file and its date and time of creation.
The identification of the ballot style of the ballot images on each file.
The identification of the specific computer/software upon which each file was created.
The identification of the person or persons who produced each file.
The number of ballot images on each file.
The serial numbers of the ballots on each file.

Because of delayed compliance, we ask that the county immediately produce complete descriptive information for at least a sample of these files.

C. Official return envelopes -- In addition to un-voted ballots, supporting materials were printed including the official return envelope. We assume that there was a computer file or files produced which contains the data printed on the official return envelopes including: voter name, address, precinct, ballot style, and possibly other information. These files do not contain ballot images. We ask that the county produce a descriptive list of and copies of these computer files immediately.

2. Since ballot packets have already been mailed, we now have access to live ballot packets.

A. Some ballots were delivered unsealed. Were not the ballot-packets to be sealed when they were mailed? Please provide a copy of the procedures used to verify that the envelopes were sealed.
B. The sample ballots you refer to are not exact photocopies of real ballots. For example, they do not include illustrative bar code/serial information. Please provide a descriptive list or matrix of all 353 ballot styles that identifies precinct, style, and number of ballots printed for each style.
C. We requested a copy of the Official Ballot Envelope (to include the voter-specific printing). Since we now have our own ballots to examine, we will no longer require a copy of the Official Ballot Envelope from the county.

3. Your response does not satisfy our request.

A. Version verification – If we correctly understand your reply, the county has no idea of which versions of software are loaded into the machines used to prepare the ballots. Does not the county create and maintain a record of exactly what software and hardware is used to create ballots and other election materials? Is it not required to maintain controls over the hardware and software being used to conduct Boulder County elections? Please expand your response.
B. Certification verification - If we understand your reply, the county has made no attempt to verify that the software used was certified. Hopefully this is an error in our interpretation of your response. Please expand your response, and also:
Are you aware that filed with the Secretary of State on September 13, 2004 is an unresolved, “formal complaint against the HART InterCivic electronic vote-tabulating equipment and the HART InterCivic election administration equipment”?
Are you aware that BOSS 3.4.0 and Ballot Now 2.1.0 are not included in the list of certified versions of HART products listed on the Secretary of State website?
C. Unapproved data transmission – We have been unable to locate in the Boulder County Mail Ballot Plan or its Security Plan any reference to data transmission of election materials including ballots and voter lists. Please provide a copy of the authorization to transmit via data communications the ballots and voter lists performed. Please provide a copy of the procedures used to secure and verify the security of these materials.

D. Verification procedure - We cannot tell from your description exactly how it was “verified that the ballot envelopes were labeled and inserted with the correct ballot style corresponding to the voter listed on the label”. Please provide a copy of the procedure and control sheets that show: Who did what and when on which ballots & envelopes. Records of errors detected and error free pieces. Detailed procedure and supporting data used to ensure that each voter got the correct ballot in their ballot packet.

4. We will need to discuss the ethics of paying money to Boulder County for data needed to exercise our right to verify that only eligible electors were provided ballots, that electors were provided the correct ballots, and that all eligible electors were provided a ballot. How much would you charge us to produce the files you suggest?

Because of delayed compliance, we ask that the county immediately produce a complete descriptive list of these computer files. We intend that you include any USPS Address Verification report files.

In closing, oOur concerns are legitimate and justified, and the county’s reply is not responsive.

As you are no doubt aware, Arapahoe County failed to perform its duty to protect the ballot box. They have mailed duplicate ballots to an undefined number of voters in at least four precincts. See Rocky Mountain News, October 19, 2005, “Some Arapahoe voters receive duplicate ballots”.

We insist that Boulder County immediately produce the files and records we have requested, or at least immediately produce the detailed descriptions of the files and copies of the records we have requested.

If these files and records are not timely produced, we will be denied our right to determine if any elements of the election should be challenged. And to file challenges if appropriate.

Al Kolwicz

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.

Does the Secretary of State represent the people?

2005-10-11T15:55:00.000-06:00

Ginette Dennis
Colorado Secretary of State
1700 Broadway
Denver, CO 80290
BY FAX: (303) 869-4861

October 9, 2005

Dear Ms. Dennis:

Since you are new to the office of Secretary of State, we assume that you are not aware of the history of improper, strained relations between the Elections Division and members of the public.

Colorado’s Elections Division is squandering a tremendous opportunity to earn confidence in our election system. The division has blocked true public participation in the formulation of election policies and procedures and the protection of elections from fraud, error and incompetence. It rejects the assistance offered by competent professionals, and consistently hides from public purview the election system’s deficiencies and problems.

The division is out of control, and it is failing to deliver trustworthy elections. The division operates without the benefit of accountability and transparency. It insulates itself from public and professional oversight and the law. It has been permitted to operate unilaterally, in secret, and to disregard public inquiry and election complaints. As operated, the division exists to serve the interests of election officials and equipment suppliers, rather than the public interest.

Worse, no independent body reviews election division dictates, and there is no way for the public to assert its rights.

We recognize that you aren’t accountable for the things that have happened in the past. However, we call to your attention some things that are happening now, on your watch.

Non-secret ballots. The Elections Division has authorized Boulder County to use non-secret ballots. ACTION: Reinforce anonymous ballot protections in election statutes and rules.
Non-existent accountability and transparency. The elections division is operating without benefit of independent scrutiny. Problems are hidden; formal objections to division dictates are consistently rejected by the division; and there is no accountability. ACTION: Endorse formation of a truly independent Elections Accountability Board to represent the interests of the public rather than the interests of election officials.
Harmful election rules. Election rules are being developed in a non-professional, hodgepodge manner, and are inadequate to serve the need. ACTION: Immediately rescind the October 3, emergency Rule-45, before it is used. Procure an independent and competent technical review of the statutes and rules. Adopt a new rulemaking model based on true public participation (not “public comment”).
Incoherent election system. Colorado does not have a professionally developed, publicly endorsed election system. It has no coherent set of requirements and no architectural framework. Election statutes, rules, and local procedures are incomplete, imprecise, ambiguous, and conflicting, resulting in the unequal treatment of voters under the law. ACTION: Create a plan for the comprehensive professional make-over of the entire election system. Gain endorsement by the legislature and the public.
Inadequate Voting Equipment RFP. The RFP is not precise, not quantified, and does not take reasonable steps to ensure that elections will be secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent. It is not an adequate statement of Colorado’s election system requirements, and does not incorporate the recommendations of experienced, knowledgeable professionals who have offered their expertise. ACTION: Immediately recall the RFP. Re-do the RFP based on the revised requirements and architecture.
Untrustworthy voter registration system. The statewide voter registration system is being developed in the dark. We do not trust that there are adequate provisions for security, accuracy, verifiability and transparency. The vendor is receiving harsh criticism in other states, and reports indicate that Colorado is now finding problems. ACTION: Avoid the “Colorado benefits management system” nightmare; take a time-out. Before the registration system is deployed, conduct an extensive and detailed public discussion. Listen and respond to the concerns of Colorado professionals. Ensure a two-way discussion that affords adequate opportunity for the public to ask questions, resolve differences, and get commitments for solutions.

You have been given the incredible opportunity to reform the elections division, and restore confidence to those Coloradoans who care about trustworthy elections.

Until it is verified that each election is secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent, there should be no public trust of election results.

We appeal to you to intercede in behalf of the people. If you choose to be the people’s representative, we will do all that we can to help you.

Al Kolwicz

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.

Colorado is up to new mischief

2005-10-09T13:20:00.000-06:00

Colorado’s election division is up to new mischief. It has opened the door for election officials to purchase voting equipment that is not secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent. The administrative gimmick being used to authorize this travesty is Emergency Rule 45. ACTION is needed to prevent this travesty.

September 15th, the Secretary of state announced an October 31st rulemaking hearing on the subject of draft Rule 45 -Rules Concerning Voting System Standards for Certification.

October 3rd, the Secretary of State approved and enacted as an Emergency Rule, an identical Rule 45 -Rules Concerning Voting System Standards for Certification. There was no hearing announcement, no draft, and no public hearing on the emergency rule. It was done in the back room.

What does this mean? It means that the Secretary of State may legally use the October 3rd emergency rule to get around public opposition to the September 15th rule. If public opposition were to delay adoption of the September 15th rule, then the identical, October 3rd emergency rule is the law. The public is shut out.

Emergency Rule 45 can be used by election officials to purchase voting equipment that does not meet the standards sought by competent Colorado professionals and does not conform to Federal Guidelines. The emergency rule can be used by the elections division to help equipment vendors sell untrustworthy equipment and lock up the Colorado market for the next decade. Rule 45 is a bad deal for Colorado.

Analogous federal standards are currently under development by the Election Assistance Commission. These standards have been heavily criticized by computer and security professionals for many of the same reasons as is rule 45.

Along with experts in security, privacy, computing, software and quality, CAMBER has recommended a major redirection of the approach being taken by the EAC – see CAMBER recommendations to the EAC.

Interested members of the public should review the draft Rule-45 and make comments to the Secretary of State well before the October 31st hearing. Demand that officials provide complete answers before the hearing is closed.

CAMBER is develping comments for the October 31st hearing. So that we may track what is happening, please send a copy of your comments to AlKolwicz@qwest.net .

Regarding the October 3rd Emergency Rule, CAMBER filed the following objection:

October 8, 2005

Dear Ms. Dennis:

We are in receipt of your October 3, 2005 “Notice of Temporary Adoption” of Emergency Rule-45 – Concerning Voting System Standards for Certification.

We wish to file the strongest possible protest and beg that you withdraw this rule before it adversely affects the people of Colorado.

Aside from the fact that we were not notified of this pending action and aside from the fact that the rule can and surely will be used to disadvantage the people of Colorado, the rule is not competently formed. If implemented, it would deprive the public of equal protection under the law. It would legitimize actions that are not in the best interests of, and would cause irreparable injury to, the public. It would result in excessive cost to the taxpayers.

We ask that you immediately rescind your temporary adoption order until you have had an opportunity to hear and respond to the public’s concerns.

Al Kolwicz, CAMBER

.

Discredited voting system fails again

2005-10-08T11:45:00.000-06:00

Boulder County's discredited HART/Intercivic voting equipment has failed again. It is unable to read votes on ballots that are folded.

Since the ballots were folded by HART, there is nothing that voters can do to protect their vote.

In "County voting faces more woes", the Daily Times-Call reports that seven of 429 ballots were misread during a test run. This is a huge error. It is more than three times the number required for a mandatory recount.

How did this system pass federal and state certification tests? Are the testing procedures real, or are they a hoax intended to give the public false confidence in voting equipment?

Why is this system being used in Boulder County, since it failed during both the 2004 Primary and General elections?

The “ballot fold” problem demonstrates yet again that the HART system is totally unreliable and must be immediately discarded – BEFORE it is used to count votes for the November election.

The county’s planned solution is unacceptable. There is no guarantee that all ballots with creases will somehow be detected by the ineffective and untrustworthy equipment and resolved as intended.

And the county’s solution exposes the voter’s vote to accidental or intentional change by workers. It exposes "good" votes to cancellation by "bad" votes.

On this ballot, county officials are attempting to extend their own terms of office and increase their own budgets. Simple concern for the appearance of impropriety dictates that the untrustworthy Hart/Intercivic system must not be used to decide this election. Surely the results would be challenged in court.

The Boulder County Clerk should file an immediate request with the Colorado Secretary of State to authorize removal of the HART/Intercivic equipment from this election.

Colorado releases secret RFP for voting systems.

2005-10-04T12:56:00.000-06:00

Colorado's Secretary of State has secretly developed and published (October 3, 2005) a massive Request for Proposal -- http://www.elections.colorado.gov/WWW/default/Voting%20Systems/Colorado_Voting_Systems_RFP_2005_10_03.pdf

This is an arrogant display of insensitivity to the public and an arrogant presumption of technical infallibility.

This RFP will influence/control the purchase of all voting equipment in the State of Colorado. The stated goals of this RFP are:

To select a Preferred Vendor for which the CDOS Elections Division will provide election setup and tabulation software support to counties that choose to purchase the Preferred Vendor’s system;
To purchase and maintain training, support, upgrades, hardware and software from the Preferred Vendor for use by he CDOS Elections Division to achieve goal 1.
To establish documented pricing for voting system vendor products and services that may be utilized by Colorado election officials during their voting system procurement efforts from the Preferred Vendor; and
To allow for existing methods of procuring voting systems by County election officials to exist independent of the Preferred Vendor models.

For many months, CAMBER has asked to work with the Secretary of State to ensure that the RFP would represent the needs of the public. State has stalled and stalled. Just today, the Election Division’s website shows that the RFP has been completed and released. Obviously State was stalling us while secretly developing the RFP. See the correspondence below for the background.

A quick reading of the RFP is enough to discover that all we feared has now happened. While voluminous, the work is pitifully incomplete and does not establish a basis for the evolution of a secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent election system in Colorado.

The people in the Secretary of States’ office have, through their actions, announced their total disregard for the public. They have also made the arrogant statement that they are infallible and the only ones who matter.

If I could, I would make the Secretary of State withdraw this RFP and establish the public process that we have requested.

If you can, please do something to make the Secretary of State withdraw this RFP and establish the public process that we have requested.

-------------------

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 8:33 AM
To: Dana Williams (Dana.Williams@SOS.STATE.CO.US)
Subject: FW: Request for Information

Ms. Williams,

It was my understanding that I was to submit SOS correspondence to you. Is this correct?

----------------------

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 2:43 PM
To: Dana Williams (Dana.Williams@SOS.STATE.CO.US)
Subject: FW: Request for Information

Ms. Williams:

Did you receive the following request?

-----------------------

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 2:16 PM
To: 'Dana Williams'
Cc: 'Bill Hobbs'; 'Bill Compton'; 'Patti Fredrick'; 'Len Vest'; 'Wayne Munster'; Dr. Charles Corry; Joe Pezzillo; Pete Klammer; Ralph Shnelvar
Subject: RE: Request for Information

Ms. Williams:

Thank you for the partial response to our queries.

Later today we will be sending you an appeal of the Secretary of State’s decision to authorize Boulder County’s use of illegal non-anonymous ballots. What is the independent forum for public debate and resolution of this appeal?

It appears, from your partial response, that the comments and recommendations raised in the September 21st CAMBER to Liss Analysis and Recommendations of the Boulder County Mail Ballot Election Plan were not considered by the Secretary of State. We have received no response from Boulder County. If it is true that the Secretary of State did not consider our comments and recommendations, we will make an appeal. What is the independent forum for public debate and resolution of this appeal?

We have not received a response to our comments and recommendations regarding the Boulder County Security Plan. We have received no response from Boulder County. Has the Secretary of State approved it? If so, we will make an appeal. What is the independent forum for public debate and resolution of this appeal?

We have not received a response to our request for an extensive public presentation of the SCORE system before it is deployed. Is it the intention of the Secretary of State to grant our request?

Please consider this e-mail a formal request for a comprehensive, and public, regulatory analysis of the October 31st Rules draft. Also, we have not received a response to our request for an independent and competent technical review of the proposed rules – before the draft is circulated. Is it the intention of the Secretary of State to grant our request?

We have not received a response to our request for publicly developed requirements for the voting system. We have not received a response to our request for public participation in the development of the RFP.

We have not received a response to our request to review the State’s plan for the development of a comprehensive election systems, to include functional and performance specifications. What is the plan to develop this?

Please confirm that you have received this e-mail and our request for a regulatory analysis.

-------------------

From: Dana Williams [mailto:Dana.Williams@SOS.STATE.CO.US]
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:54 AM
To: AlKolwicz
Cc: Bill Hobbs; Bill Compton; Patti Fredrick; Len Vest; Wayne Munster
Subject: RE: Request for Information

Mr. Kolwicz:

The Secretary of State's office did receive your fax dated September 21, 2005 concerning Boulder County's mail ballot plan and we responded to you in writing. As you know, we approved Boulder County's mail ballot plan on September 21. As always, we appreciate the issues raised in your letter, but we saw no legal basis for disapproving the plan submitted to this office. We looked carefully at the issues raised in your letter, however, the plan and timetable are in compliance with Title 1, Article 7.5 of the Colorado Revised Statutes and the Colorado Secretary of State Election Rules.

The Secretary of State has announced a rulemaking hearing schedule for October 31, 2005 at 1:30 p.m. to take public testimony for our rules concerning certification of voting equipment. The hearing is located in the Blue Spruce Room at 1700 Broadway, Denver, Colorado 80290. Written and oral data, comments and arguments, will be received form all interested parties. Written submissions must be filed at or before the commencement of the hearing on October 31, 2005 at 1:30 p.m. in order to be considered. The Secretary of State staff is in the process of completing draft rules and will post them on our website shortly. We hope you can submit your comments or attend the hearing to give us your feedback concerning the rules.

I hope this information is helpful.

Thank you,

Dana Jaclyn Williams
Public Information Officer
Secretary of State's Office
1700 Broadway, Suite 250
Denver, CO 80290
(303) 894-2200 ext. 6108
(303) 869-4860 Fax
dana.williams@sos.state.co.us
www.sos.state.co.us

-----Original Message-----

From: AlKolwicz
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2005 11:26 AM
To: Dana Williams
Cc: Bill Hobbs; Bill Compton; Patti Fredrick; Wayne Munster; Dr. Charles Corry; Joe Pezzillo; Sheila Horton; Pete Klammer
Subject: Request for Information

Ms. Williams,

We have been attempting, since July 25th, to gain access to certain information regarding Colorado Elections projects.

Today we learned that we are to direct our queries to you.

Has the Secretary of State responded to our FAX sent September 21?

Has the Secretary of State considered our analysis and recommendations of the Boulder County Mail Ballot Election Plan?

Has the Secretary of State considered our criticism of Boulder County’s Security Plan?

We have requested an extensive public presentation of the SCORE system before it is deployed. A simple demonstration will not suffice. There are several technologists who are concerned that the system will not be secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent. The non-transparent methods used to develop the system have left a lot of bad feelings. It is the last chance to engage the public. After all, the recent failing of the benefits system should alert you to the risks of pushing something out before it has public support.

We have requested procedures for requesting a regulatory analysis. The response was a “catch-22” whereby we would be required to make a request before we can possibly know that a proposed rules change is to be heard. The procedure used for the August 2nd rules hearing was totally unsatisfactory. It is not enough for SOS to “allow” the public to write comments. Written, “I feel your pain”, acknowledgements would not be an adequate response to the public input. The public is the CUSTOMER. Will you commit to an open and timely regulatory analysis including an independent and competent technical review of all future proposed standards and rules? See C.R.S. 24-4-103(4.5).

Regarding the RFP – we are concerned about the lack of agreed to ELECTION SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. We want the public to have a chance to participate in the development of the draft requirements. Currently the SOS plans to perform this work in secret. It is our experience that requirements, once documented, tend to be defended by the staff that develops them, and the public needs are essentially excluded. Will you commit to an open process before it is too late?

Regarding the voting system architecture, performance and functional specifications, etc. – there are a number of books that describe the path to excellence here. Also, we have written some illustrative lists, not intended to be comprehensive, of functions to be included and performance factors to be achieved. We’re happy to discuss them with you. Colorado needs a comprehensive systems plan. What is the plan to develop this?

Election officials and the public appear to be approaching the election system from incompatible directions. We believe that the customer of the election system is the public – which includes the voters, political parties, contestants, etc. Responsiveness to public suggestions and queries suggests that SOS believes that the customer is the election official. It is our experience that the customer decides the requirements, accepts (or rejects) the finished system, evaluates its performance and pays the bills. If we do in fact differ in our understanding of who is the customer, we should resolve this issue first.

Time is a-ticking. I hope that you will use your good office to respond to our requests, and bring the public into the process before battle lines are inadvertently drawn.

-----------------

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 4:38 PM
To: Len Vest (len.vest@sos.state.co.us)
Subject: Follow up and some new data

Hi Len,

We are still waiting for responses to our five requests. Don’t you agree that it has been an excessive wait?

As you consider the RFP, I’ve attached a “testimonial” for AutoMark.

----------------------------------------

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 10:51 AM
To: 'Len Vest'
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Hello Len,

Just in case our outstanding requests have been misplaced, please accept this as a reminder message.

“As you know, our requests include (1) SCORE, (2) voting system standards, rules and regulatory analysis, (3) RFP requirements, (4) voting system architecture, performance and functional specification, and (5) transparency.”

Thanks

---------------------

From: Len Vest [mailto:Len.Vest@SOS.STATE.CO.US]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 3:49 PM
To: AlKolwicz
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Will do. By the way, most of the items in your list don’t impact this November’s election. They will all impact 2006 elections.

Len Vest
Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
Colorado Department of State

-----Original Message-----

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 11:12 AM
To: Len Vest
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Thanks Len,

Please let me know how we can help expedite action.

As you know, our requests include (1) SCORE, (2) voting system standards, rules and regulatory analysis, (3) RFP requirements, (4) voting system architecture, performance and functional specification, and (5) transparency.

We are concerned that time to protect the November election is running out.

--------------------------

From: Len Vest [mailto:Len.Vest@SOS.STATE.CO.US]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 11:01 AM
To: AlKolwicz
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Good Morning Al,

I was out of town last week for clerk training. I did take your request with me in hopes of talking to Bill Compton (Elections Director) and Patti Fredrick (HAVA Director) about it. They are much more familiar with the procedures related to such a request, so I wanted them to give me direction. I will try to speak with them today, so I can give you feedback. I apologize for the delay. We are still working on the drafting of the RFP, so lots of work remaining to get it ready for release.

I’ll get back to you. Thanks, Len

Len Vest
Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
Colorado Department of State

-----Original Message-----

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 10:01 AM
To: Len Vest
Cc: John Gardner; Dr. Charles Corry; Joe Pezzillo; Ralph Shnelvar; Pete Klammer; Ivan C. Meek; Sheila Horton
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Hi Len,

I am sure that you are very busy, but we are very concerned that our requests (below) are not being satisfied in a timely manner.

Are you the correct person to whom these communications should be addressed?

-----------------------------------

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 9:39 AM
To: 'Len Vest'
Cc: 'John Gardner'; Dr. Charles Corry; Joe Pezzillo; Ralph Shnelvar; Pete Klammer; Ivan C. Meek; Sheila Horton
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Hi Len,

I appreciate this opportunity to discuss Colorado’s planned election system. Assuming that you will not object, I am adding some people to this conversation. These are people who are interested in, and could contribute to the success of Colorado’s election system.

1. Regarding SCORE – we hope that you are planning an extensive public presentation of the system before you deploy it. A simple demonstration will not suffice. There are several technologists who are concerned that the system will not be secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent. The non-transparent methods used to develop the system have left a lot of bad feelings. It is the last chance to engage the public. After all, the recent failing of the benefits system should alert you to the risks of pushing something out before it has public support.

2. Regarding new voting system standards and rules change – we have requested procedures for requesting a regulatory analysis. We want to use this mechanism to get answers to our questions. The procedure used for the August 2nd rules hearing was totally unsatisfactory. It is not enough for SOS to “allow” the public to write comments. Written, “I feel your pain”, acknowledgements would not be an adequate response to the public input. The public is the CUSTOMER. We need our concerns addressed, so we hope that the regulatory analysis will initiate an independent and competent technical review of the proposed standards and rules. We are referring to the analysis defined in C.R.S. 24-4-103(4.5);

(4.5) (a) Upon request of any person, at least fifteen days prior to the hearing, the agency shall issue a regulatory analysis of a proposed rule. The regulatory analysis shall contain:

(I) A description of the classes of persons who will be affected by the proposed rule, including classes that will bear the costs of the proposed rule and classes that will benefit from the proposed rule;
(II) To the extent practicable, a description of the probable quantitative and qualitative impact of the proposed rule, economic or otherwise, upon affected classes of persons;
(III) The probable costs to the agency and to any other agency of the implementation and enforcement of the proposed rule and any anticipated effect on state revenues;
(IV) A comparison of the probable costs and benefits of the proposed rule to the probable costs and benefits of inaction;
(V) A determination of whether there are less costly methods or less intrusive methods for achieving the purpose of the proposed rule; and
(VI) A description of any alternative methods for achieving the purpose of the proposed rule that were seriously considered by the agency and the reasons why they were rejected in favor of the proposed rule.
(b) Each regulatory analysis shall include quantification of the data to the extent practicable and shall take account of both short-term and long-term consequences.
(c) The regulatory analysis shall be available to the public at least five days prior to the rule-making hearing.
(d) If the agency has made a good faith effort to comply with the requirements of paragraphs (a) to (c) of this subsection (4.5), the rule shall not be invalidated on the ground that the contents of the regulatory analysis are insufficient or inaccurate.
(e) Nothing in paragraphs (a) to (c) of this subsection (4.5) shall limit an agency's discretionary authority to adopt or amend rules.
(f) The provisions of this subsection (4.5) shall not apply to rules and regulations promulgated by the department of revenue regarding the administration of any tax which is within the authority of said department.

3. Regarding the RFP – it is the “requirements” that you refer to that have us most concerned. It would be an opportunity missed if you were to complete a requirements statement in secret. Once requirements have been documented, staff will have much sweat invested in the document and will naturally tend to defend their own work rather than openly interacting the public. We encourage yo to open the process before it is too late.

4. Regarding the voting system architecture, performance and functional specifications, etc. – there are a number of books that describe the path to excellence here. Also, we have written some illustrative lists, not intended to be comprehensive, of functions to be included and performance factors to be achieved. We’re happy to discuss them with you.

We appear to be approaching the election system from incompatible directions. We believe that the customer of the election system is the public – which includes the voters, political parties, contestants, etc. It appears that SOS believes that the customer is the election official. The customer decides the requirements, accepts (or rejects) the finished system, evaluates its performance and pays the bills. If we do in fact differ in our understanding of who is the customer, we should resolve this issue first.

Time is a-ticking. I hope that you will use this opportunity to reconsider the direction you have chosen and bring the public into the process before you inadvertently draw battle lines.

----------------------------------

From: Len Vest [mailto:Len.Vest@SOS.STATE.CO.US]
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 4:43 PM
To: AlKolwicz
Cc: John Gardner
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Al,

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. We have been busy with SCORE system testing over the past month. I’ll try to catch you up on where we are.

John has been working diligently on constructing new voting system certification standards for Colorado. During the process, it was recently determined that these standards need to be incorporated into the Election Rules. Therefore, within the next few days (I’ll alert you to when) we will be posting the new certification standards on our website for public review and feedback. They will be posted for comments for at least two weeks. These standards will be a key component of the forthcoming Voting System RFP.

You stated in your memo that Section 2 of our RFI indicated a very different set of requirements than what you understood from our last meeting. The purpose of the RFP is to establish pricing and contract terms with vendors who meet the requirements specified in the RFP and to select one vendor to be considered a “Colorado Preferred Vendor”. The SOS will support counties that select the preferred vendor by assisting with election software setup. This allows an option to the small counties that don’t have the expertise or staff to perform the software functions in-house. Counties that do not want or need to use the preferred vendors will have other vendors to work with as a result of the RFP and the Colorado certification process. They will also have agreed upon pricing and contract terms to utilize if they don’t want to negotiate on their own.

Vendors will be required to operate (once SCORE is operational) with a standard election setup import and election tabulation export with SCORE. You mentioned canvass board support and we see that, as it relates to the RFP, as voting system report features that facilitates the canvass board activities.

Our RFP will have diagrams of more than one scenario of how voting systems might function in Colorado counties. Of course, every polling place will need an accessible voting machine (DRE or electronic ballot marker). Some polling places may have precinct scanners and others may not. All counties will need a central scanner for absentee and mail ballot processing.

Regarding performance specifications and functionality specifications, does CAMBER have what they consider best practice examples from other jurisdictions or internally generated by CAMBER? If so, I would be glad to review and consider such input. We do want to serve the best interest of the voter through all phases of the voting process, including backend office transaction processing.

Thanks for your concern.

Len Vest
Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
Colorado Department of State

-----Original Message-----

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 3:46 PM
To: Len Vest
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Len,

It is coming up on a month since we met. Have you had a chance to review our July 25th letter? (attached)

-------------------------------

From: Len Vest [mailto:Len.Vest@SOS.STATE.CO.US]
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 4:06 PM
To: AlKolwicz
Subject: RE: Reaction to potential RFP

Yes, I was able to open the attachment. Will read tonight. We have been working on rules all day to get posted tonight. Tx, Len

Len Vest
Help America Vote Act (HAVA)
Colorado Department of State

-----Original Message-----

From: AlKolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@qwest.net]
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 8:08 AM
To: Len Vest
Subject: Reaction to potential RFP

Len

Attached is a word document. Please let me know that you can open and read it.

Thanks

ATTACHMENT:

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://www.coloradovoter.blogspot.com/

July 25, 2005

Len Vest
HAVA Deputy Director
Department of State
1700 Broadway, Suite 270
Denver, CO 80290

Dear Len:

Following our meeting Friday, I read the RFI. Section 2.0 describes a very different set of requirements than what I understood from our Friday meeting. Consequently, my initial reaction to your RFP is revised.

I see now that the project is not limited to (1) election definition, (2) Internet publication of interim vote totals, and (3) canvass board support. In fact, the RFP envisions a wide set of requirements.

Because of the apparent scope of the project, we are very interested in this RFP. Contrary to my Friday conclusion, my remarks Friday do in fact apply to this RFP.

Based on what we can extrapolate from the attached General and Specific Requirements, we strongly encourage you to suspend issuance of this RFP until you have:

Voting system diagram that includes the entire set of voting functions and how they interact.
Systems functional specifications that specify the required security, accuracy, verifiability and transparency requirements, the method for measuring each, and the acceptable range of performance values for each.
Explicit public endorsement of the systems diagram and functional specifications.

Without this documentation and public support, I believe that the public will fight the RFP. Such a fight is not necessary. I have the impression that you and your team want to serve the best interests of the public. A prolonged fight will subvert voter confidence and extend the distrust of the administration and the election system.

I strongly recommend that you suspend issuance of this RFP until you have proper documentation and public support.

Al Kolwicz

Al Kolwicz
Executive Director

2.0 Project Scope
2.1 General Requirements
The principal scope of the Colorado voting system acquisition project is to deliver, within the optimal project budget and time constraints, a modernized voting system, which equals or exceeds the functionality, reliability, and overall requirements of HAVA and the criteria of the CDOS. For the purpose of this RFI, a voting system will consist of accessible voting units for disabled voters, direct recording electronic (DRE) units, voter-verifiable paper audit trail (V-VPAT), optical scan ballot counters, a software package (including election definition, ballot preparation and tabulation), supplies, system documentation, training, equipment maintenance and support services. Voting systems used in Colorado must be capable of providing accurate and timely election results.

2.2 Specific Requirements
Basic requirements for voting system hardware and software to be acceptable for use in Colorado elections include:
• System Certification under 2002 Federal Voting System standards.
• Colorado Secretary of State Certification.
• Agreement by vendor to abide by Federal statutes, rules and regulations.
• Agreement by vendor to abide by Colorado statutes and Election rules.

CAMBER comments re: Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

2005-09-30T12:09:00.000-06:00

Mr. Eustis:

This is the CAMBER comment on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.

Included in our comment is a copy of our August 24th letter to Ms. Hillman which is included below. Also included in our comment is a sketch of a brochure that outlines the level of documentation that we expect, see below.

The final technical guidelines should fit in a small pamphlet.

Please ensure that our comment is not rejected, is available to reviewers online, and will receive proper consideration and a response. If you wish, follow this instruction: (a) DELETE VOLUME I, (b) DELETE VOLUME II, and INSERT this document including its attachments.

Audience

It is clear to me that the TGDC has not spent enough time considering the audience for the guidelines. We believe that the audience includes: judges, attorneys, district attorneys, attorneys general, secretary of state, county clerks, election officials, legislators, political parties, political campaigns, Election workers, poll watchers, vendors, application developers, application and system testers, independent testing authorities, the public and the press.

A summary of the document is not a solution. For example, the Court, in order to decide a case being litigated before it, must comprehend and make its determination on the official document itself. The current work product does not meet the needs of its audience.

What is needed

A trivial example of what is needed might be helpful. Consider what the individual members of the TGDC would write if they were asked to document their personal requirements for a car. I would anticipate that their individual requirements could be grouped into fairly regular categories such as: comfort, safety, performance, price, operating cost, service, and warrantee. I anticipate that few, if any, members would differentiate between the type of ignition system used to start the engine.

The current guidelines are aimed at the wrong things, because they are not aimed at the right audience.

National expense

The direction that the work is heading would be prohibitively expensive to maintain and impossible to litigate.

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/

----------------------------------------------------------

August 24, 2005

Ms. Hillman,

Again I compliment you for your wonderfully insightful questions of panelists at yesterday’s EAC hearing in Denver. I deduce from your questions that you truly want to represent the interests of the public.

You don’t know me, so you won’t know how much weight to attribute to the following comments. I hope that you will take them seriously.

1. The problem that you and the other commissioners appear to sense with the VVSG is that the VVSG is both voluminous and complex. I concur with this appraisal. In fact, I would go a step further and say that the VVSG is unusable because of its volume and complexity. Writing a superficial overview will not suddenly make the VVSG useable. Editing the VVSG will not make it useable. The problem with the guide is fundamental -- it is aiming at the wrong target, and it is using the wrong ammunition.

a. The guide is incomplete (wrong target). The election system involves many components – the VVSP addresses very few of them. For example, the guide does not address public oversight, yet public oversight is a fundamental component of a trustworthy election process. The guide does not address procedures, such as authentication that a voter is the person who they claim to be. All of the components of the election system must be identified, and must be documented in a high-level systems diagram supplemented with a high level systems description. The diagram and description must be void of specific implementation details, and must not require change for different implementations. The current guide violates these precepts.

b. The guide addresses implementation-level details (wrong ammo). The VVSG should specify only: required results, measurement specifications for each result, acceptable performance for each result, and consequences when the required result is not achieved. HOW the result is achieved must be invisible in the VVSG. Instead, this guide is burdened with detailed descriptions of how things are to be done for specific implementations. For example, there is no general requirement that people and procedures be tested and measured. One of the problems with the approach taken in the VVSG is that it will require revision every time a new technology is introduced. Remember, it will take years before any VVSG change will be reflected in a majority of the nation’s voting systems. Unless changed to reflect principles rather than implementations, the VVSG will fail in its goal of returning public trust to the election system.

2. The proposal for accreditation of Testing Laboratories and the testing process itself is headed in the wrong direction.

a. Missing, for example, is a way to pay for the testing. The vendors should not pay, because that would compromise the integrity of the Testing Labs. The people should not pay for overly expensive or frivolous tests, and should be compensated through penalty fees, for poor vendor performance.

b. There is nothing proposed that will motivate vendors to withhold certification requests until they have a very high degree of confidence that the certification process will not discover a deviation between requirements and the implementation.

c. The role of the public, and in particular the interested professional computer scientists, is missing.

d. There is no penalty when a Testing Lab fails to detect problems that make it into production. How is a lab de-certified?

e. Who is accountable for the quality of the election process?

f. Also, because of the fundamental problems with the VVSG, described above, the Testing Labs are going to be testing the wrong stuff. There is a difference between systems testing that is aimed at requirements and architecture (what), and implementation testing that is aimed at implementation specifications (how).

Few people have the skills needed to draw the elegant line between requirements/architecture and the implementation specifications. The VVSG desperately needs these skills. Unless the VVSG is revamped, I anticipate that it will become a burden on the public. It will generate enormous costs, fail to deliver quality, and be rejected by the public as a solution to their concerns.

Finally, yesterday it was suggested by staff that only public comments that are specific to a page and line number will be considered. In my opinion, the VVSG problems are so severe that it is way premature to inspect spelling errors. Until focused on the correct target, and using the correct ammunition, it is too way early to do any fine tuning.

Is there anything you would like me to do to amplify these points?

Thank you for conducting your hearing in Denver. I look forward to working with you.

Al

Al Kolwicz
CAMBER - Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540

==========================================

Election System
Requirements

===============================

Election Objects

Property
Person
Jurisdiction
Contest
Contestant
Unused Ballot
Cast Ballot
Election Results
Control Data & Audit Report

================================

Election Requirements

Requirement _____ Metric ______ Standard

Security
Accuracy
Verifiability
Transparency
Performance
Ease of use
Price
Cost
Cycle time
Support

======================================

System Standards

=====================================

Election System Design Rules

“Using the computer industry as an example, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark develop a powerful theory of design and industrial evolution. They argue that the industry has experienced previously unimaginable levels of innovation and growth because it embraced the concept of modularity, building complex products from smaller subsystems that can be designed independently yet function together as a whole. Modularity freed designers to experiment with different approaches, as long as they obeyed the established design rules.” from Amazon.com

"Process Synthesis, also known as Structured Conceptual Process Design, is a technique suitable not only for making a step-change in the existing process but also for synthesizing a process flowsheet from scratch.” From Process Design Center, The Netherlands

============================

WARNING

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." - Ayn Rand, The Nature of Government

==========================

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate
Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
Phone: 303-494-1540
E-mail: AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.ColoradoVoter.blogspot.com

============================

Election Assessment Hearing Report

2005-09-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

Thursday, September 22 marks the release of a Preliminary Report of Findings by the Election Assessment project. The 54-page report documents the wide-ranging concerns expressed by voters in testimony and submissions received at the public Election Assessment Hearing convened on June 29, 2005 in Houston, Texas.

Testimony and analysis presented at the Houston hearing represented voters of at least five major and minor political parties, and described numerous problems and irregularities in the conduct of the American electoral processes.

The Election Assessment project seeks to foster the use of established professional methods for the effective improvement of election processes by administrators, policymakers, standards bodies, advisors and other voting stewards and participants. Ongoing goals of the project include capture of the voice of the customers of the electoral process (the voters) and addressing the measurement of the process, the analysis of root causes for defects, and the controlled implementation of improvements.

The Election Assessment Hearing Preliminary Report is available online at
http://www.electionassessment.org/downloads/EAH_Customer_Voice_9-22-05.pdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 22, 2005
Contact: Seth Johnson
Phone: 212-543-4266
E-mail: seth@electionassessment.org
###

Colorado Security plan deemed worthless

2005-09-22T11:00:00.000-06:00

Colorado HAVA director.

We hope that by now you have dismissed Boulder County’s draft security plan as a joke. The four page “plan” with accompanying attachments is worthless. We hope that the Boulder County effort is not representative of the other county plans.

We suggest that you refer Boulder County to professionally developed security standards and papers including:

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TRUSTED COMPUTER SYSTEM EVALUATION CRITERIA - http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/library/rainbow/5200.28-STD.html

CERT Coordination Center – http://www.cert.org/octave/

HIPPA Security Standards - http://www.hipaadvisory.com/regs/finalsecurity/

Texas - http://www.dir.state.tx.us/security/policies/

Security is a professional subject area, like brain surgery, and should not be attempted by amateurs.

Boulder County Election Plan Fundamentally Flawed

2005-09-21T12:50:00.000-06:00

DATE: September 21, 2005

TO: Josh Liss
FROM: Al Kolwicz, CAMBER
CC: Linda Salas, Bill Compton, Hillary Hall, Marty Neilson,
Dean Schooler, Joe Pezzillo
RE: Draft Mail Ballot Election Plan, September 7, 2005

We have reviewed your September 7th draft Mail Ballot Election Plan, and confess to being terribly disappointed. Most if not all of the problems identified during the 2001-2004 elections have not been addressed.

There are fundamental problems with the plan. The plan is so incomplete that it is not meaningful for us to prepare a comprehensive analysis. The results from an election conducted under this plan should not be trusted.

It may seem odd to say this, but county employees have a huge vested interest in the outcome of this election -- future income and term-limits. Voters should not be asked to trust that those with the most to gain will conduct a trustworthy election. To the extent humanly possible, this plan should be sufficiently robust that error, fraud, or incompetence cannot escape detection and public disclosure.

1. The plan discloses that Boulder County intends to violate Article VII, Section 8 of the Colorado Constitution. This is a fundamental defect which will not come as a surprise to you. We have made many requests, beginning at least as early as August 2nd, for disclosure of the county’s plan to provide anonymous voting. You have chosen to hide your plans by not responding to these many requests.As you know, the county has a proven alternative to non-secret ballots – ballots with ballot stubs – that is compatible with the HART/Intercivic vote interpretation and counting system. We have requested that the Secretary of State disapprove your plan unless it is revised to provide anonymous voting. We ask that you do so.

2. Boulder County elections have suffered a pattern of major problems with Logic & Accuracy Testing, Canvass Board membership and operation, watcher’s access to election data contained in computer files, and even the interpretation of the meaning of words such as “cast”. None of these problems have been addressed in the plan.

3. An election conducted under this plan will not be transparent. The county has been presented with many examples whereby watchers have been blocked by election officials from performing watcher duties. Provisions for Boulder County Political Party participation is missing. There is no mechanism for publicly reporting and resolving election issues.

4. An election conducted under this plan will not be verifiable. The county has been presented with many examples whereby watchers have been blocked from verifying processes and records, including computer files, and from verifying the security, eligibility, interpretation and counting of votes.

5. An election conducted under this plan will not be secure. The county has been presented with many examples of security exposures including privacy issues, intimidation and vote selling issues, forgery issues, ballot control issues, and verification of computer systems, files and soft-switches.

6. An election conducted under this plan will not be accurate. The county has been presented with many examples of inaccuracy problems including the counting of ineligible votes, rejection of eligible votes, lack of batch integrity, and HART/Intercivic vote interpretation and vote counting reliability problems.

The county has chosen to conduct its planning in the dark, protected from the sunshine of transparency. It has ignored all offers of help and suggestions for improvement. The county has chosen to behave as “ruling elite” rather than “public servants”.

Despite its vested interest in the outcome, the county is proposing to conduct a non-trustworthy election. This is exceedingly bad public policy.

Delaying this election would provide time to correct the major problems. If you do not delay the election, there is something that can be done to improve the situation -- implement the August 2nd recommendations made to the Boulder County Commissioners:

Citizens ask Boulder County Commissioners to "act to restore public trust" –
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/2005/08/citizens-ask-boulder-county.html

If the problems summarized above are not fixed, or the plan to restore public trust is not implemented, we fear that the results of this election will be contested. This will not improve the public’s confidence in our election system.

Violation of Colorado Constitution -- voter privacy

2005-09-20T15:09:00.000-06:00

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com

September 20, 2005

Gigi Dennis BY FAX 303 869 4860
Colorado Secretary of State
1700 Broadway
Denver, CO 80290

URGENT: Violation of Colorado Constitution – Article VII, Section 8.

Dear Ms. Dennis:

Welcome to your new position as Colorado Secretary of State. We wish you the very best, and we look forward to working with you in behalf of the voters of Colorado. Understanding that you are very busy, we’ll get right to the point.

Boulder County is planning to violate the Colorado Constitution during the November 2005 election. You have the authority and duty to prevent this. We ask you to enforce Article VII, section 8 of the Colorado Constitution.

You have been asked to approve Boulder County’s draft Mail Ballot Election Plan, dated September, 7, 2005, which discloses that paper ballots will be required to be used, and that each ballot is to be permanently marked in a way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it – page 9, paragraph-O.

This is a violation Article VII, section 8 of the Colorado Constitution which says, “All elections by the people shall be by ballot, and in case paper ballots are required to be used, no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.”

We ask that you disapprove Boulder County’s plan to so violate the Colorado Constitution.

We support the use of paper ballots. We object to the use of ballots containing non-removable unique identifiers such as printed serial numbers or identifiers encoded as bar-codes. Non-removable serial numbers/bar-codes are not legal. They can be used to facilitate vote selling, voter intimidation, and privacy invasion. The serial number/bar-code enables the government, an insider, an outsider, or the voter to identify a ballot as the ballot of a particular voter.

Boulder County’s expressed intention is to use the serial number/bar-code for ballot control, and not to associate voters and ballots. They do not express bad intentions. However, once the data exists, others may make the association between ballots and voters.

Boulder County has several options available to it that do not require use of a non-removable serial number/bar-code. One of these options would be to use removable serial numbers/bar-codes. Unique identifiers would be recorded on removable ballot stubs. The stub containing the serial number/bar-code would be removed before the ballot is cast by the voter. The stubs would be retained for use in ballot auditing in conjunction with a poll book that lists which ballot(s) were issued to each voter. This option would comply with the Colorado Constitution and with Colorado’s Election Laws and Rules.

Boulder County is on record as opposing ballot stubs because of the possibility that a procedural error might result in a ballot being cast with the ballot stub still attached – thereby associating the voter and their ballot. This is a fallacious argument for at least two reasons: (1) the November election is a mail ballot election and all stubs would be removed by election workers, and (2) the computer file containing the scanned ballot images would not contain the image of the original serial number/bar-code.

The Colorado Constitution is clear. “… no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.” Once cast, the ballot must be absolutely anonymous and indistinguishable from any other ballot of the same style from the same precinct.

A unique serial number printed or bar-coded on a ballot and not removed before the ballot is cast is a mark that can be used to “identify the ballot as the ballot of a person casting it” and consequently violates Article VII section 8.

We ask that you fulfill your duty and exercise your authority to prevent Boulder County from violating the Colorado Constitution.

Al Kolwicz
Executive Director

cc: John W. Suthers, Colorado Attorney General
Linda Salas, Boulder County Clerk & Recorder
Dean Schooler, Lead Plaintiff, Schooler v. Salas, Case# 2004CV1281
Hillary Hall, Chair, Boulder County Democrats
Marty Neilson, Chair, Boulder County Republicans

REBUTTAL to Paul Tiger's Opinion by Al Kolwicz

2005-08-21T07:31:00.000-06:00

An incredibly poor comprehension of Boulder County’s 2004 election problems is revealed in Paul Tiger’s Opinion, “Less emotion, more science”, Colorado Daily, August 14th. Below, each of Mr. Tiger’s major errors is refuted, paragraph by paragraph.

1. Tiger appears to believe that the public policy issue is focused on “control of the [elections] division.” This is not true. Voter activists are demanding a restoration of public trust in elections -- see August 2nd posting by Joe Pezzillo at http://www.coloradovoter.blogspot.com/ “Citizens ask Boulder County Commissioners to act to restore public trust".

Colorado law defines election administration to be a joint authority. The law defines roles for independent oversight and for political party and contestant involvement. It is not true, as asserted by Tiger, that “only the clerk can and should have oversight and control”.

2. The root cause of the widespread 2004 election failures was the lack of competent planning and execution. This fundamental failure is what caused “the parts of the process that failed”.

Salas fails to acknowledge the problems and consequently fails to address them, preferring instead to cover up the problems by blaming others.

An elected official need not be a subject-matter expert, but does need to set standards of acceptable performance. Salas does not.

3. The statement that "only the clerk and her staff can control the methods" is contrary to the law, the rules, and good sense. The law defines political party and Secretary of State responsibilities.

Salas works hard to prevent independent oversight. Only by maximizing transparency, while protecting security, accuracy and verifiability, can the clerk earn voter confidence.

4. Her continued denial of the facts and refusal to directly engage the public is proof that Salas has failed to learn from her failures. Further, Salas has launched the 2005 election using her same false assumptions.

Salas continues to cling to her dangerously euphoric and erroneous beliefs, despite facts to the contrary. In addition to many other denials of fact, Salas refuses to acknowledge that:

The 2004 election was not accurate – the clerk’s own recount, and the defects discovered during the canvass of results, proved this.
Permanently serialized ballots violate the Colorado Constitution – Article VII section 8 requires secret ballots.
Mail ballot elections do not increase voter turnout – data from past elections prove this.
Mail ballot elections are not secure, accurate, verifiable – published CAMBER studies prove this, see www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz/ .
Control of elections is a shared authority -- Colorado statutes clearly state this.

5. Contrary to Tiger’s assertion, critics who worked on the election did not become supporters of the HART system. As an actively involved election official, I definitely did NOT become a supporter of the failed HART system! I don’t know anybody who analyzed the system that now supports it.

Tiger’s use of the pejorative "doom purveyor" is an attempt to “kill the messenger.” It is an attempt to discredit those who dedicate time and effort to reform the flawed election process. It is a debating trick intended to avoid dealing with the issues.

It is totally untrue that critics spent no time working with the systems. Collectively, hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars were invested by people like Kolwicz, Thigpen, Eckert, McBurnett, Shnelvar, Horton, Schooler, and many others.

Tiger implies that a comprehensive agreed-to set of elections procedures existed. They most definitely did not.

It is absolutely untrue that the critics were “citizens choosing to stand outside”. In fact, Salas and her gang abused their office by using their special positions to steadfastly prevent citizens from getting inside. She directly refused to permit legally prescribed public participation in the election process and threatened and attempted to discredit and silence those who did. She even used sheriff’s deputies to intimidate and prevent at least one legally appointed election official (me) from performing his duty.

6. Salas’ hand-picked Election Review Committee is not independent and made no attempt to perform comprehensive election oversight. The ERC results are tragically incomplete, and grossly inaccurate. Further, the ERC makes numerous statements “of fact” that are totally unsupported and most likely untrue.

The ERC should have addressed quantities – how many, exactly when, how fast, etc. But, such numbers were not published in their report, and apparently not even examined.

Tiger attempts to make it appear OK that the system failed, using as a rationale “the complexity of the issues.” In fact, if the job is too complex for her, Salas should demonstrate good character by stepping aside and letting a more qualified person represent the interests of the people. As long as Salas retains control, the unresolved problems of 2004 will never be resolved.

7. Tiger attacks “uneducated and ill-informed suggestions“ made by people who “refused to be involved in the operations of elections”. This inflammatory attack calls for specific names and specific allegations.

Well in advance of the 2004 elections, Salas was presented numerous written lists of problems and recommended solutions – one of these, “Requirements for Trustworthy Elections – 2004 Primary and General,” was published April 10, 2004 at www.coloradovoter.blogspot.com.

Salas has not dealt with any of the fundamental issues. Instead, the Clerks of Colorado ganged up with the Secretary of State to block future independent oversight. Perhaps their theory is that if nobody can detect and report the problems, then the problems will be gone. In fact, the 2005 elections will be exposed to the same unresolved problems.

8. Despite Tiger’s assertion to the contrary, it was never true that the activists were overjoyed at the purchase of the HART system. In fact, the opposite is true – activists were distraught at the purchase of the HART system. Activists were pleased at the commissioner’s recommendations to use paper ballots and reject DRE voting equipment. Tiger should identify the so-called “activists” who were “overjoyed” by the purchase.

It is not true that activists were quiet from December 11, 2003 to April 27, 2004. Among many others there was the Orange County issue. It involved a clandestine, useless field trip by election officials with no written report, followed by an attempted cover-up of HART system malfunctions that happened during the Orange County election.

Both leasing and hand counting were prophetic recommendations by the activists. If the HART system were to have been leased in 2003, it would likely not have been purchased after the 2004 election problems were discovered. If votes on the paper ballots were hand counted, the 2004 election might have been successful.

9. Hand counted paper ballots are a part of Colorado law and were recommended by some members of the public. See November, 2003, www.coloradovoter.net/DeclarationforQualityElectionsNov212003.pdf . The Swiss Method suggestion was advanced later.

Contrary to Salas' assertions, it was then and is now permissible to verify vote counts. In 2003, for example, Salas conducted a so-called “administrative recount”. This same authority could have been used to attempt to satisfy the public’s demand for verification of vote counts.

The so-called hand audits included in the recently revised statutes are not based on scientific methods, and will likely fail to achieve the hoped for increase in voter confidence.

10. It is our understanding that the HART system cannot be revised and certified in time for the 2005 election; therefore the HART system should not be used for the 2005 election.

To our knowledge, it is not true that comprehensive election procedures exist. Where are these procedures? What public reviews have they sustained? What technical reviews have determined that the procedures are secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent?

Boulder County was wrong to spend more than a million dollars on a dysfunctional, partially complete system that requires R&D funding and excessive operational resources to make it meet minimum requirements.

Boulder County is failing in its obligation to protect the taxpayer’s money. It is wasting this money in order to cover up government’s failings. The County should immediately demand a full refund plus high penalty fees from HART.

Salas and crew have demonstrated that they lack the skills needed to recognize and define the problems. They most certainly lack the skills needed to solve them. In my opinion, they do not even have the skills needed to identify, select and supervise professional help.

11. Before Mr. Tiger again reveals his poor comprehension of events, he should practice his own call for “Less emotion, more science”.

Al Kolwicz

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
http://coloradovoter.blogspot.com/

Citizens ask Boulder County Commissioners to "act to restore public trust"

2005-08-02T08:07:00.000-06:00

August 2, 2005 - Boulder County, CO -- To restore public trust in elections County Commissioners were asked to promptly enact the following measures:

We request that you fund an independent citizens group to provide continuous oversight of Boulder County’s elections procedures. We request an amount no less than that provided to the ERC, five thousand dollars per annum, and insist that this group be completely independent of the County Clerk’s office, something that cannot be said of the ERC.
Second, we reiterate our request that Boulder County provide the citizens an accurate and trustworthy elections system. Only by blatantly ignoring the facts can the Clerk claim that the current system is accurate, and it is clearly not reliable enough to be considered trustworthy.
We ask you to resurrect the secret, anonymous ballot cast in our local neighborhood precincts. The last two elections in Boulder County were in violation of the Colorado State Constitution because the ballots were not secret, and there is no indication that the coming election in November will meet this fundamental requirement. We reject the notion that the method of conducting our elections should have the convenience of the clerk and her staff as the primary goal.
Further, we insist that the County make NO additional purchases of proprietary elections equipment. In particular, we expect that not another penny of Boulder County taxpayer money will be spent on equipment from Hart Intercivic. We remain shocked and appalled that the County has not asked for nor received a complete refund for the money that has been wasted already.
In addition to rejecting proprietary equipment, we also insist that all elections records that can be made public are released as open records in a timely and cost-free manner. It is absolutely unacceptable to be told that our elections records are trade secrets of a private company.
We expect that every election held in Boulder County will be thoroughly manually audited by persons not connected with the Clerk’s office who are given complete access to all records needed to verify the counts.
Finally, we ask you to embody our requests into law by passing language that would guarantee that Boulder County’s citizens are provided this basic level of accountability over our taxpayer-funded elections.

As a first step toward accomplishing these ends, I return to our request that you act today to fund an independent citizens group and to draft such law as you are able that will protect the vote in Boulder County.

Joe Pezzillo
Boulder, Colorado

Colorado proposed rules fail to address known issues

2005-08-01T11:19:00.000-06:00

CAMBER comments - Election Rules 8 CCR 1515-1 – August 1, 2005

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed rules – 8-CCR 1505-1. In our opinion, any election conducted under these rules will not be secure, accurate, verifiable or transparent.

The proposed rules, in conjunction with the revised statutes, fail to address many of the past problems and complaints that have been reported to the Secretary and to individual county clerks including, by way of example:

Watchers have been denied access to records, charged fees for election records, prevented from reading and analyzing non-private records, and excluded from some phases of elections. There is no independent mechanism to resolve differences of opinion between watchers and election officials.
Non-anonymous ballots are permitted under these rules. This is a violation of Article VII, section 8 of the Colorado Constitution.
Voting equipment/software functional specifications, performance, and versions are not public under these rules. Certification-test requirements are not specified. Testing and test materials are not open to the public. There is no remedy prescribed when, during an election, voting equipment is discovered to be incorrectly programmed.
Mail ballot elections have disenfranchised electors by permitting ineligible voters to vote and subjecting ballots to loss and theft. Voters have been denied their right to vote using a secret ballot. Officials have recklessly tempted people to vote ballots that are not their own, to sell their signed ballot for money or favor, or to intimidate eligible voters to vote for or against contestants.
Identification and eligibility rules have not reliably verified that an individual voter is the unique real person they claim to be and have not verified that the individual is eligible to vote in a particular jurisdiction at the time that they vote. Amateur signature verification described by the rules is not a reliable means to verify identity and there is no specification of an acceptable error rate for individual signature verification personnel.
Canvass procedures have not discovered fraud and error in past elections, although fraud and error were present. Election records and computer files needed to conduct a meaningful canvass have been denied to canvass boards. The Secretary of State and the County Clerks have a conflict of interest. They are under great pressure from campaigns and the press to complete an election in a timely manner. This conflicts with the public’s interest for secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent elections. There has been no independent way to resolve disagreements.
Security of ballots and equipment has been lax. Ballots wind up in public trash dumps before the election. Ballot boxes have been “misplaced”. There has been no way to verify that the voter’s votes are actually recorded on a digital ballot, and whether digital ballots are “lost”, “replaced” or “created” between the time that they are presumably created by the voter and the time at which they are counted.
Logic and accuracy test procedures have failed to detect errors in voting equipment and software. Procedures have been highly criticized and resulted in legal action. Computer professionals have no confidence in these tests.

As can be seen from the few illustrations above, the proposed rules must undergo significant additions and revisions before the public can responsibly trust that an election conducted under these rules is secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent.

As per C.R.S. 24-4-103 (4)(c), please forward copies of the scientific or technological rationale justifying those rules which involve scientific or technological issues. We are interested in all studies. We expect to see an analysis of error rates for processes such as signature verification. We expect to see the statistical basis for the audit procedure. We expect to see an analysis of the difference in security, accuracy, verifiability and transparency between the different methods of voting and the different voting equipment.

As per C.R.S. 24-4-103 (8)(b), please forward copies of the Attorney General’s opinion as to the constitutionality of these rules. We expect to see his opinion on whether the rules will protect each eligible elector’s right to vote using an anonymous ballot according to Article VII Section 8 of the Colorado Constitution.

To summarize, in our opinion, any election conducted under these rules will not be secure, accurate, verifiable or transparent.

Computer experts testify 21 June 2005 before the Senate on the perils of paperless voting

2005-07-29T17:50:00.000-06:00

My recent testimony before the Mesa County Commissioners regarding vote centers was in part derived from recognized experts in the field of electronic voting. I’ve read articles, papers and testimony by Professor Ted Selker of the MIT Media Lab’s Caltech/MIT Voter Technology Project. Yes, that’s MIT as in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I’ve read extensively from the works of Professor David L. Dill of Stanford University’s Department of Computer Science.

These men are not ignorant bumpkins with an aversion to technology, and they are not enthused by the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (which after all is a trail, an after-the-fact receipt). A receipt shows what has been done with your vote by the invisible, anonymous scribe in the “black box”—not what is about to be done to your vote.

“The basic problem of e-voting can be understood without an in-depth knowledge of computer technology. Here is a helpful analogy: Suppose voters dictated their votes, privately and anonymously, to human scribes, and that the voters were prevented from inspecting the work of the scribes. Few would accept such a system, on simple common-sense grounds. Obviously, the scribes could accidentally or intentionally mis-record the votes with no consequences. Without accountability, a system is simply not trustworthy, whether or not computers are involved. You don't need a Ph.D. in computer science to understand the basic problem with computerized voting. Computer systems are so complex that no one really knows what goes on inside them. We don't know how to find all the errors in a computer system; we don't know how to make sure that a system is secure or that it hasn't been corrupted (possibly even by its designers); and we don't know how to ensure that the systems in use are running the software they are supposed to be running. Technologists have not been able to solve these problems even with measures that are far more sophisticated (and costly) than those used in the design and certification of voting equipment.

There is strong agreement among computer technologists that what I just said is true. For example, the Association for Computing Machinery, the largest professional organization of computer technologists, adopted a position against paperless electronic voting after an internal poll showed that 95 percent of their membership agreed with the position. What can we do about this problem? Returning to the analogy with the scribe, that system can be made trustworthy by having the voter fill out his own ballot or by allowing each voter to check the ballot filled out by the scribe. We can have a trustworthy voting system if, instead of a futile effort to ensure that the voting equipment is error-free by design, we empower each voter to verify that his vote has been accurately recorded. In other words, we need voter-verified paper ballots. The call for paper ballots is not based on nostalgia. Paper has specific properties, as a technology, that we don’t know how to replicate in electronic media. For example, most voters can verify the contents of a paper ballot without computer mediation; paper can be written indelibly; and the procedures for handling critical paper documents are easily understood by ordinary poll workers and voters. In addition, electronic ballot marking devices now exist to enable voters with disabilities to mark and verify optical scan ballots. Paper is not a magical solution to our election problems, but, at least, understandable procedures exist for ensuring the accuracy of an election conducted with paper ballots. In particular, the ballots must be protected, and the processes for storing, transporting, handling, and counting them must transparent. Ideally, members of the public and non-governmental organizations as well as political party representatives should be able to observe all of the steps of an election, including machine testing, polling place operations, counting of votes, auditing and recounting.”—Professor David Dill’s testimony.

Professor Selker calls electronic voting a danger to democracy. He even conducted a study in which a known set of errors were inserted into a mock election. The results demonstrated that most voters will not even recognize an error on the paper printout. Some test subjects even denied that an error had been printed, even though the error was of course part of the known set of errors used for the study.

One wonders at the objectives, motives and yes competence of elected officials who forge ahead with technology that will destroy the transparency of elections by reducing the right to vote to a process that takes place inside a black box, where it cannot be observed by the citizen casting the ballot.

Cindy L. Espinoza
264 East Lynwood Street
Grand Junction CO 81503
TEL/FAX 970-245-1196 or 866-865-5780
clespinoza@bresnan.net

Thomas Paine in 1777 - The Crisis, no. 4

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

Boulder County Clerk’s office spreads false information about the November 2004 election

2005-07-28T07:37:00.000-06:00

Some really bad stuff is happening in Boulder County elections.

The commissioners, if they intend to represent the people rather than protect the administration, have an opportunity to exercise their authority and protect future elections from fraud, error and incompetence.

Check out the following reports, and try to attend the hearing at 3 p.m., Tuesday, August 2nd , at the Boulder County Courthouse.

Boulder county press release
http://www.co.boulder.co.us/newsroom/templates/?a=164&z=1

Colorado Daily news report
http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2005/07/27/news/news03.txt

Daily Camera news report
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_3959590,00.html

Strike up another one for local politics.

2005-07-26T16:12:00.000-06:00

Strike up another one for local politics. The commission voted 3 yea's to 0 nay's for: "Adopting a Resolution implementing Vote Centers on Election Day in Mesa County, beginning with the August 2006 Primary Election and thereafter."

The discussion ran over 3 hours, with 1 hour for the Clerk and 2 hours against. It was obvious that they had their minds made up before we had even begun. We drove home that the proposed voting centers will cost at least one million dollars more than traditional precinct polling. We drove home that the only safe ballot is a paper ballot. We submitted documentation showing that that this is an unproven technology. We said over and over that citizens were not allowed any input and the "task force" was hand-picked for voting center approval. The fix was in and the Citizens were denied any recourse. I believe this will be a sad day in the history of Mesa County.

In the face of all logic and stewardship they voted to proceed. All three commissioners had the mantra: "Vote centers will eliminate provisional ballots", "Paperless voting is the future and Mesa County needs to be in front", "Vote centers are a part of evolution of a new voting culture." How much rehearsal they must have had!

There was no logic as to their decision. Could the SOS have pushed hard to make this happen and the Mesa Clerk responded? They kept pushing ADA DRE's (electronic ballot w/paper) for every vote except absentee. I think this was mandated higher than Mesa County. There is absolutely no reason to have every machine be the ADA DRE -- Larimer County uses OCR for their Vote Centers, and all of these DRE’s will double the cost.

Short of flooding the hearing with several hundred people, there was no way to change its outcome. I made a conscious effort to not involve The Daily Sentinel before the hearing, hoping that two of the commission would use logic and common sense. Maybe that's where I lost. I know that I would have been crucified, demonized and made to look like an ancient relic wanting the "old fashioned" voting systems. I don't think I could have found one hundred people to show up at the hearing yesterday.

Only time will tell.

Carl Boydstun, Mesa County Taxpayer

The truth about voter turnout

2005-07-03T11:40:00.000-06:00

Saying that “mail ballot elections INCREASE voter turnout” is a marketing statement, not a statement of fact. Like many marketing statements, it is not true.

When voter turnout for a mail ballot election is NOT greater than turnout for a traditional election, election officials just make up excuses and falsely represent them to the public as fact. This deceitful habit should be stopped.

Check out the logic below. Remember, when working with the turnout numbers, it is easier to cast fraudulent ballots by mail than it is to cast fraudulent ballots in a precinct. The number of “votes cast” by mail ballot, therefore, is likely to be overstated.

Example-1.

U. S. Presidential elections typically enjoy the highest turnout. With the exception of Oregon (I think), these elections are never mail ballot elections. Officials explain that the ISSUE drives the high turnout in presidential years.

Look at the U.S. turnout statistics for the 2000 Presidential election - http://www.eac.gov/election_resources/00to.htm -- same election, different states.

Notice that the VAP turnout ranges from 68.8% (Minnesota) to 40.5% (Hawaii). This is a 28.3% difference between the highest and lowest turnout. What explains this difference?

Note that Oregon’s mail ballot turnout was 60.6% which is 8.2% lower than the top, non-mail ballot election. In fact, 8 traditional voting states had turnout which exceeded Oregon’s mail ballot turnout. What explains these differences?

Example-2.

The City of Boulder conducted a mail ballot election in March 2005. Turnout was 23.4%. In the November 2003 Boulder City Council MAIL BALLOT ELECTION, turnout reported was 58.2% -- http://www.co.boulder.co.us/clerk/elect/results-1.htm What explains this difference?

Example-3.

Colorado’s county to county variation in the 2001 election cannot be explained by mail ballot voting. See http://www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz/turnout_november_2001.htm -- same odd year election, different Colorado counties. Also, review attachments to this report, "Press release – Voter Turnout Report" and working document "Voter Turnout Report".

Example-4.

Oregon’s 2004 mail ballot election for President had turnout by county ranging from 80.9% to 91.4% - a difference of 10.5% -- see http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/nov22004/g04stats.pdf Yet Boulder County Colorado’s traditional election for the same Presidential election had a turnout of 90.8% -- see http://www.co.boulder.co.us/clerk/elect/2004%20General/Frame.htm

Boulder County’s 90.8% turnout in its 2004 traditional Presidential election was only 0.6% less than the best county turnout in Oregon’s 2004 mail ballot Presidential election, and was 9.9% better than Oregon’s worst mail ballot voting county.

Summary.

The numbers do not support the thesis that mail ballot elections increase voter turnout. Election officials who say they do are not telling the truth.

Wall Street Journal editorial writer and author of the book Stealing Elections, John Fund says, "It's about time that someone step forward and admit that the root cause of low turnout isn't restrictive voting laws, but voter apathy. People are fed up with mediocre candidates, gerrymandered districts and uncompetitive elections."

El Paso County, Colorado, will continue to vote in precincts

2005-07-02T20:15:00.000-06:00

El Paso County, Colorado, will continue to vote in precincts

As the story from the July 1st edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette below points out, on Thursday, June 30th, the El Paso County Commission (Colorado) rejected a petition by the county clerk to reconsider the commission's ruling on May 9th that the November election be held in traditional polling places. The county clerk claimed hardship and cost savings as justification for requesting a mail in election instead.

Note that Mr. Swanson publishes only the politically correct view and ignores the real story of the struggle for honest elections. As the Gazette has become ever more simply a propaganda arm of government, its credibility and popularity has continued to decline. Coincidentally, after the hearing on Thursday I had to go to Wal-Mart where they were trying to give away copies of the Gazette with no takers that I saw.

The real story lies in what Mr. Swanson omitted:

One of the reasons the El Paso County Clerk is in trouble is that the HAVA-mandated statewide voter registration database, contracted out to Accenture, is severely behind schedule (at least six months although two years to never is probably more accurate). HAVA requires this database to be operational by January 1, 2006. Mr. Balink stated it won't make it. In a state where the $200+ million welfare database went "operational" last September, and still isn't functioning, and the DMV CSTARS program is also off the tracks, we have a general train wreck with regard to databases in this state. The impact on the county clerk is horrendous. But far be it from the press to say anything about incompetence and mismanagement in state government (note that I am not referring to Mr. Balink or his staff here. He is on the wrong end of the state government problems). And of course the voters wouldn't be interested in knowing that our Secretary of State, Donetta Davidson, doesn't have a safe, secure, or accurate voter registration database. I did find out that the HAVA-compliance director, Drew Durham, has left and that the Sec. of State has now contracted ($$$$) with a company to review the problems with Accenture and why the voter registration database isn't getting done. And of course, Donetta Davidson's and Accenture's record on purges from voter registration databases is a dark one, but the public wouldn't be interested in that, now would they Mr. Swanson?

The implementation of legislation pushed by our Sec. of State's Blue Ribbon Commission of the Unqualified, SB05-206, is causing numerous problems for the county clerk's office. Among those are the fact that Rep. Madden's and Sen. Gordon's bill SB05-198 requiring, of all things, a tangible paper record of all votes cast and an audit to ensure election accuracy were rolled into SB05-206. Incidentally, all reports are that what voting machine vendors consider a paper record is a far cry from what you and I might consider a human-readable record of our ballot. Reportedly, the paper roll produced by Sequoia is only readable by Sequoia. And lets not even talk about Diebold's version. The good news is that ES&S AutoMark system for paper ballots has now been federally certified.

What standards there are for voting computers suggest that the machines should last for ten years (how many 10 year old computers have you seen lately?). El Paso County's Diebold servers are now six years old and the deputy county clerk testified that they are incompatible with the new software and hardware (one would never suspect that Diebold might have done that deliberately) and must be replaced for a trivial amount of ~$100,000. My suggestion that before we do any further upgrades, or purchase additional e-vote equipment, we should do a cost/benefit analysis for electronic voting went over like the proverbial lead balloon.

The hearing on these issues began on Monday, June 27th, and after Mr. Balink and his staff finished testifying about the problems they face, and there is no question his problems are real, it was my turn to rise in opposition.

Now I would like to make it clear that I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Balink and his staff. I have stated repeatedly that the El Paso County Clerk's office runs the best and smoothest elections of any county I'm aware of in Colorado. So my comments and concerns are honest differences, and in many cases Mr. Balink and I are in agreement, particularly with regard to the need for honesty and integrity in elections.

I began my testimony by pointing out:

That cost savings, if any, in a mail in election were realized by not mailing ballots to "inactive" voters. Thus, effectively, one third of the registered voters in El Paso County would be disenfranchised if the commission approved a mail in election.

There is no evidence to support the claim that a mail in election increases voter turnout.

That it is well established that a mail in election, combined with mail in voter registration forms, is the method of choice for those wishing to commit election fraud. Why make it easy to commit election fraud by holding a mail in election?

That the integrity and honesty of elections has historically depended on their being run in the main by citizens. Numerous precedents exist as to why government employees and their contractors, e.g., Diebold, should not operate polling places or have primary responsibility for counting ballots, as they would in a mail in election.

At that point the lights went out due to a contractor cutting utilities to the county building (No, it wasn't Diebold that time). Of necessity, the commission went into recess until Thursday morning.

On June 30th, after initial items were taken care of, the county commission resumed its consideration of Mr. Balink's motion for reconsideration and I resumed my testimony.

I brought up the question of whether there are ongoing problems with integrity and honesty of elections in El Paso County. I had previously reminded the commissioners that one of Commissioner Clark's elections was now used as a type example of how to hack the vote on Diebold voting equipment.

If one looks at page 154 of the Statement of Votes Cast (PDF 3 MB) for the November 2004 election it is plain that 324 total votes were counted but only 249 ballots were cast. On page 162 of that same document, 462 votes were counted even though there were only 362 registered voters in the precinct. My question was then: How can this happen and why doesn't the Diebold software flag it? The answer, as Commissioner Williams pointed out, is that, in these director's races, voters were instructed to vote for two candidates in the first instance and for three candidates in the second instance. However, neither in the Election Summary Report or the Statement of Votes Cast was that noted although that should have been done. Without such notation in the record it is virtually impossible to audit an election. I might also note that on page 8 of the Statement of Votes Cast (PDF 3 MB) that for precinct 378 there were 71 registered voters but 175 cards (ballots) cast and the Diebold software faithfully records a turnout of 246.48%. Is there no error checking at all in Diebold software?

During his testimony on Monday, Mr. Balink had presented a map of how Colorado counties were planning to vote this November, e.g. voting centers, mail in elections, with precinct voting being in a distinct minority (~20% if I remember correctly). During the recess the Denver Post had published an article pointing out that Denver County was switching back to precinct voting and had such little faith in their election commission that they are attempting to eliminate it. I also pointed out that a major reason that Boulder County was doing a mail in election was that the Hart Intercivic voting equipment they had purchased was incapable of processing ballots fast enough to handle a precinct election, as had been demonstrated in November 2004.

I also stated that the citizens of El Paso County would be much safer if Mr. Balink would stop experimenting with elections, e.g., voting centers, and purchasing unreliable (the Dieblod Accu-Vote tabulator in my precinct, 306, didn't work in the November 2004 election) and unauditable voting equipment and concentrate instead on such fundamentals as insuring the number of votes counted does not exceed the number of ballots cast.

During the recess Al Kolwicz had forwarded me a letter from Mr. Balink dated March 10, 2003, strongly supporting the abolition of mail in elections and I put that before the commissioners as well. In follow up Mr. Balink stated he still agreed with his statements in that letter.

I also repeated what I've said many times before: You can have an honest election, or you can have a mail in election, but you can't have both at the same time. And with that I asked the commissioners to deny Mr. Balink's request to hold a mail in election this year, or any subsequent year.

On Monday there had been only one other citizen to testify. He testified Thursday after I finished in favor of a mail in election on general principles and based on his experience dealing with his friends and neighbors during many years as an election judge.

However, Mr. Balink and his staff had evidently been busy during the recess and lined up three more witnesses. One was the USPS state director for government mailings from Denver who described security and handling procedures the post office follows when ballots are mailed. Commissioner Bruce had had several problems with the post office handling of election materials, including ballots, so that witness was probably not a plus for the county clerk's side. School district 11 had two witnesses who testified in favor of mail in elections because they felt they got better results at less cost than in precinct elections. My impression is that they didn't help or hurt the county clerk's position.

Then the deputy clerk and the election director stood and attempted to refute my statements. I remember the deputy clerk going on about how reliable Diebold is, and how the equipment is tested by an Independent Testing Authority (the ITA is hired by Diebold and only tests what Diebold asks them to test, which did not include security features, and upgrades and bug fixes are usually not tested by the ITA before being released) and certified by NASED (the last certificate we have for the Diebold voting equipment is from 1996 when it was installed on a UNIX box. It is now on Windows NT.).

Mr. Balink graciously acknowledged my sincere efforts and that, even though we often differed, citizen reviews were essential. I did not attempt any rebuttal as I thought it unnecessary based on the commissioners comments.

And, as Paul Harvey says, that's the rest of the story.

Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.

______________________________________________
Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.President,

Equal Justice Foundation http://www.ejfi.org/
455 Bear Creek Road
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80906-5820
Telephone: (719) 520-1089
Domestic violence against men in Colorado: http://www.dvmen.org
Personal home page: http://corry.ws
Curriculum vitae: http://www.marquiswhoswho.net/charleselmocorry/Default.aspx

The good men may do separately is small compared with what they may do collectively.
Benjamin Franklin

Mesa clerk muzzles free speech

2005-06-16T11:46:00.000-06:00

Mesa County Residents and Media Muzzled at County Clerk's Vote Center Task Force "Public Forum."

Webster's defines "forum" as "any public place or medium for open discussion." However, upon arriving at the hearing room, residents walked through a gauntlet of signs warning against passing out flyers or displaying signs or posters. Only the county clerk's staffers and the Task Force Members were allowed to speak during the meeting. Members of the public were limited to quietly writing questions on index cards--no open discussion was allowed. Nobody was allowed to raise their hand with a question unless to signal an intermediary such as an elections staffer or Janice Ward’s former campaign manager, Linda Bowman, to collect the index card and deliver it to the Task Force.

Unable to speak out, the public’s silence before TV news cameras could easily be misinterpreted as agreement or acceptance of the task force recommendation to refer vote centers to the county commissioners.

One written question that was read during the “forum” summed up the sentiments of the public sitting silently in the room. “Since the Task Force is going to recommend Vote Centers to the county commissioners, why did you invite us to this meeting?” Indeed. What was the point of inviting the public to the meeting when the recommendation evidently would have been made with or without an audience? Perhaps the point was to drive home the nail in the coffin of free speech. In that room, the public and the press were denied a voice; only elected officials and their intermediaries were allowed to express their point of view. Though the press and public were present, they were denied the opportunity to participate.

Even the press got the "keep your distance" message and did not attempt to ask verbal questions. The result was a lecture to the public that ensured the clerk's absolute control over the content of questions aired before the press or news media. Moreover, the "forum" studiously avoided discussion of the reasons the vote center concept was rejected in El Paso County. Oddly, the county clerk herself was out of view behind the podium and was therefore nearly invisible at the proceedings. The result was a dialog limited to the Vote Center Task Force and the elections staff—witnessed by both press and public who were reduced to mere props on a carefully set stage. Presence is not participation. Nor is silence the same as acceptance or agreement.

Still unanswered is the question of whether the meeting was recorded.

Vote Center Task Force or Re-election Campaign?

The El Paso County Clerk & Recorder’s office established a Vote Center Task Force made up of volunteer citizens, representatives of several special districts, two major political parties, neighborhood organizations and El Paso County Election Staff members. ALL of their task force meetings were open to the public, and meeting dates made public.

In contrast, Mesa County citizens can be forgiven for wondering where they were when the call was made for volunteers to serve on the Vote Center Task Force. Mesa County Clerk Janice Ward selected the task force and included at least one of her campaign staffers: Linda Bowman was Ward's campaign manager. Interestingly, Ward’s campaign photo was also used on the county brochure, “Vote Center FAQs,” distributed at the Task Force “forum.” The photo also appears on Ms. Ward’s area of the county website.

Cindy L. Espinoza
264 East Lynwood Street
Grand Junction CO 81503
TEL/FAX 970-245-1196 or 866-865-5780
clespinoza@bresnan.net

Owens kills election oversight

2005-06-08T14:24:00.000-06:00

June 6th was a sad day for Colorado voters. Governor Bill Owens signed into law Senate Bills 198/206.

These bills limit independent election oversight and legalize unsound and deceptive election procedures. Say "goodbye" to free and fair elections and “goodbye” to open government.

The magnitude of the problems created by these bills cannot be overstated. In the May 31st posting to this site (below) is a one page description of two fundamental problems with the bill. A seven page report which identifies seventy-five specific problems is available by sending an e-mail request to AlKolwicz@qwest.net . The bill can be read at http://www.leg.state.co.us/

Those who care about free and fair elections should immediately lobby their Colorado legislative representatives and all candidates for Secretary of State. It is vital that the next session of the legislature repair the damage done by these bills.

Eligible voters should volunteer to serve as election judges, poll watchers, logic and accuracy testers, and canvass board members.

State and County Political Party organizations need to act now to meet their election obligations.

To learn more, contact AlKolwicz@qwest.net.

Election Review Committee might as well shut down

2005-06-08T08:01:00.000-06:00

The Boulder County Clerk's self-appointed "Election Review Committee" might as well shut down. Any report from them will be a waste of time.

No matter what the committee reports, the Secretary of State and the Clerk's office have decided to keep the HART system and to pay the vendor. According to a Boulder Camera report, the state is paying about $850,000 of the $1.4 million that the county agreed to pay for the system.

Apparently, reports of widespread failures in the Boulder County voting system will have no effect on the Clerk's decision to keep the HART system. That the system violates Colorado's constitutional guarantee of a secret ballot does not matter. That the system is not secure, accurate and verifiable does not matter.

Doesn't it just make you scream when government officials use your money to pay for and cover up their mistakes?

Election administrators push failed systems

2005-06-07T09:52:00.000-06:00

Elections administrators responsible for the failed 2000 and 2004 elections have written a report. In it they make some positive recommendations, but they lose credibility when they push systems that are not secure, not accurate, and not verifiable.

Elections insiders seem to be insensitive to the need for transparency. Their introverted view of the election process ignores or prevents effective accountability and independent oversight.

Click to read: ELECTION 2004 - Review and Recommendations by The Nation’s Elections Administrators. http://www.electioncenter.org/frontdocs/Task%20Force%20Report%20Book%202005.pdf

Note the lack of attention to key issues such as:

How do voters verify that their vote is recorded correctly?
How do political parties, contestants, and the public verify that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous?
How do political parties, contestants, and the public independently verify that voting equipment and processes are certified, secure and accurate?
How do political parties, contestants, and the public independently verify that vote counting is secure and accurate?

It is not appropriate for the public to trust election officials. Every element of an election must be verifiable and open to public scrutiny.

Non-transparent elections and un-accountable officials must be stopped.

Election bills eliminate oversight

2005-05-31T16:26:00.000-06:00

Colorado’s already distrusted election system will be made even more untrustworthy if Governor Owens signs SB198/206. The bills are a last minute, backroom deal between the Secretary of State and the bill sponsors.

The bills would limit independent election oversight and legalize unsound and deceptive election procedures. At risk are free and fair elections and open government.

Following is a one page description of two fundamental problems with the bill. A seven page report which identifies seventy-five specific problems is available by sending an e-mail request to AlKolwicz@qwest.net .

----------------

Election bills eliminate oversight

The primary purpose of Senate Bill 198/206 is to eliminate independent election oversight.

In past elections, watchdogs, the press, and political party representatives have uncovered and reported many election flaws. These flaws include illegal voter registration, lost ballots, miscounted votes, and illegal election procedures.

Rather than fixing the cause of the problems, election officials have decided to prevent overseers from detecting and reporting these problems. Traditionally, this is referred to as “kill the messenger”. Less kindly, it is referred to as “cover-up”.

The Colorado legislature, after intense pressure by election officials, has approved and submitted SB-198/206 to Governor Owens for approval. Unless the bill is vetoed, Colorado’s already distrusted election system will be made even more untrustworthy.

According to a detailed report published by the non-partisan election watchdog group CAMBER – Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results:

1. SB-198/206 strips the public and political parties of their right to oversee elections. The bill will:

Exempt critical election records from Colorado open records laws. These records do not contain voter confidential information and can be used to detect fraud and error.

Strip political parties of their current powers to appoint representatives to official election duties. Instead, election officials would decide who gets to participate in these critical oversight roles.

Eliminate current laws that require independent testing of voting equipment by political party representatives. Instead, only election officials create the tests. Officials can create tests that they know will work by testing them in private. They then run the “tests” in front of the public.

This bill exempts election officials from public oversight. It is a step in the wrong direction. There will be no way left to detect fraud, error and incompetence. There will be no way left to hold election officials accountable for the security, accuracy and verifiability of elections.

2. SB-198/206 sets technical requirements that will not work – they ignore basic science.

Voters will be told that they are verifying their votes when they verify a “receipt”, but in fact they are not. Instead, votes recorded on invisible, unverified electronic ballots will be used to decide (almost) every future contest. The votes on receipts will (almost) never be counted.

The public will be told that equipment has been tested and results have been checked or recounted. Instead, the bill legalizes sampling techniques that rely on naive, statistically inadequate confidence levels.

Elementary, widely accepted testing principles are legally forbidden by this bill. The result of implementing this bill will be less voter confidence, more defects, and more undetected fraud.

History has shown that when elections are not open to public scrutiny they are not trusted. SB-198/206 freezes the public out of the election process and opens the doors to election fraud, error and abuse and to widespread citizen distrust of election results.

A copy of the CAMBER report is available. Seventy-five problems with the bill are identified.

It is time to veto SB-198/206 and start over.

* * * END * * *

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous. Contact Al Kolwicz at 303-494-1540 or AlKolwicz@qwest.net

Petition to veto SB05-198 and SB05-206

2005-05-21T08:46:00.000-06:00

TO: Coloradoans for Voting Integrity:

Before celebrating too enthusiastically, I suggest that you carefully read what has been published as the final version of SB05-198 and SB05-206.

To protect CFVI’s reputation, you might consider disassociating CFVI from the egregious power grab by Colorado election officials.

These bills reflect election officials’ repression of the people. They will result in substantial loss of public trust in elections.

Instead of celebrating, I suggest that you use tonight’s event to petition Governor Owens to veto SB05-198 and SB05-206.

Al

cc: Governor Bill Owens

Precinct voting is alive and well in Colorado

2005-05-11T19:16:00.000-06:00

.
El Paso County Clerk, Bob Balink, convened a task force to evaluate “precinct voting vs. vote center voting and draw conclusions based on their findings”.

After reviewing the task force report and the clerk’s recommendations, and after evaluating lengthy public testimony, the five county commissioners unanimously voted to keep traditional precinct voting places and to reject voting centers and mail ballot elections.

Precinct voting better protects voter privacy and offers more secure, accurate, verifiable, and transparent elections.

Election officials have been accused of sacrificing trustworthy elections in order to make their own work easier and less accountable. There is an increasing demand for elections that can be trusted and verified.

To listen to the hearing, click:
http://bcc.elpasoco.com/bocc/agendas/2005AgendaResults/05-05-09.wma
(The item is recorded from time 47.54 until 144.48.)

To see the task force documents, click: http://car.elpasoco.com/vctaskforce.asp

Mesa County has an active task force studying the use of voting centers. See the April 12th and April 20th postings in the Colorado Voter blog: www.ColoradoVoter.blogspot.com
.

Voter verifiable ballot now available

2005-05-10T22:16:00.000-06:00

Independent Testing Authorities (ITAs) have completed testing of the AutoMARK vote marking device.

This new voting technology provides voters with a true voter verifiable paper ballot – even when a voter has special needs. It is certified to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It eliminates the need for the digital ballots used with Digital Recording Equipment (DRE). Digital ballots are not verifiable.

Systest Labs - and Ciber are preparing final test reports and will issue them to the Federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) within the next two to three weeks.

Click below for additional information:

AutoMARK Completes Independent Testing

AutoMARK

ADA Compliance statement

Election integrity threat

2005-05-04T18:05:00.000-06:00

.
The integrity of November's election is being threatened.

Oversight nullified

Some counties are planning to conduct “mail ballot” elections and others are planning “voting center” elections – both nullify independent oversight.

Both of these voting methods make it nearly impossible for election judges, canvass boards, and poll watchers to detect and report election problems. If left unchallenged, officials will strip powers from independent overseers and concentrate dangerous, unilateral powers in the hands of themselves.

Conflict of interest

Counties and the Secretary of State have a huge stake in the outcome of a tax increase question on November's ballot -- they alone will control the election apparatus.

Who gets to vote, whose vote is counted, does a particular vote get counted, how issues will be resolved ... all decided by one side of the contest. If left unchallenged, these decisions will be made in the back room, by the people who have the most to gain from outcome of the tax increase question.

Protect our votes

To protect our votes, these threats must be dealt with promptly.

1. Officials must include their strongest critics in oversight duties for this election.

2. Officials must fully empower citizen and political party overseers to perform their duties.

3. Officials must not use equipment or procedures unless independent overseers agree that they are secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent.

Volunteer to help protect our votes.
.

Potential conflict of interest

2005-05-04T09:11:00.000-06:00

Colorado bureaucrats wish they had an extra 3 billion dollars. Their wish will be decided in a November 2005 election.

Out of millions of voters, one vote can decide whether or not these billions will be taken from the people.

Officials, by neglect, error or intent, can falsify election results.

Colorado elections are not secure, accurate, verifiable, or transparent. They can easily be rigged – especially by insiders.

Officials must never be trusted – especially when there is a potential conflict of interest. Independent overseers must verify each and every step of the election process.

It is vital that officials open the November election to maximum public oversight. Equipment and procedures that are not provably secure, accurate, verifiable, and transparent should not be used.

Unless elections are open, the potential conflict of interest will cause deep voter distrust.

Voting Centers - Preliminary Interpretation of Mesa County Reply

2005-04-20T11:06:00.000-06:00

April 20, 2005

Ms. Janice Ward
Mesa County Clerk and Recorder
P.O. Box 20,000
Grand Junction, CO 81502-5006

Dear Ms. Ward:

We have received your letter dated April 15, 2005, and appreciate your response. To ensure that we understand your replies, we have summarized our understanding below. We would appreciate it if you would confirm that your replies represent the views of the committee, and that we have correctly interpreted your replies.

1. What professional, peer-reviewed studies have been published that prove that regional voting centers are secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent?

REPLY – The Mesa County Voting Center Committee is not using any peer-reviewed studies for its work.

2. Compared to neighborhood voting using hand-counted paper ballots, precisely how are voting centers more secure, accurate, verifiable, and transparent?

REPLY -- The Mesa County Voting Center Committee is not using any comparisons against documented standards for its work.

3. Voting center data are kept in invisible computer files rather than on real-time paper records. How would the computer data be provided to empower poll watchers and contestants to detect and challenge problems in a timely fashion?

REPLY – The Mesa County Voting Center Committee is not aware of any written plan to meet the election data requirements of poll watchers and contestants. The committee has not created a comprehensive list of these requirements.

4. Voting center ballots are issued on-demand - electronically. Traditional paper ballots are pre-printed, contain a serial number which is removed before the ballot is cast, issued to a specific voter, and tracked on paper logs. How are on-demand ballots more secret, secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent?

REPLY – The Mesa County Voting Center Committee is not aware of any reports that analyze the effectiveness of on-demand vs. pre-printed ballots.

5. When voting centers are networked together how is the voting system kept secure? When voting centers are not networked together how are electors prevented from voting more than once?

REPLY – The Mesa County Voting Center Committee is not aware of any reports that analyze the impact of voting centers on voting system security and reliability.

6. In addition the public needs to understand the consequences of eliminating the neighborhood voting place (precinct) as the organizational unit for Colorado’s political parties. What is being proposed to replace the precinct committeeperson? How will political parties be structured?

REPLY -- The Mesa County Voting Center Committee has no plans to address any changes in political party operation which might result from the dissolution of neighborhood polling places.

We hope that we have accurately represented your replies and look forward to your confirmation.

Sincerely,

Al Kolwicz
Executive Director

How do regional voting centers improve elections?

2005-04-12T12:58:00.000-06:00

Colorado election officials are continuing to spend public resources to eliminate traditional neighborhood voting places. When Colorado election officials supported a ballot initiative to require that all voting be done by mail 60 percent of voters soundly defeated the initiative. Officials now want people to vote in regional voting centers. They claim that regional voting centers would reduce the cost of conducting elections and would be easier for officials to manage.

Voters care most about election integrity. Voters expect secure, accurate, verifiable, and transparent elections that they can trust. Cost is not the primary consideration.

Before neighborhood voting places are eliminated the public needs lots of answers. A few of the questions are:

1. What professional, peer-reviewed studies have been published that prove that regional voting centers are secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent?

2. Compared to neighborhood voting using hand-counted paper ballots, precisely how are voting centers more secure, accurate, verifiable, and transparent?

3. Voting center data are kept in invisible computer files rather than on real-time paper records. How would the computer data be provided to empower poll watchers and contestants to detect and challenge problems in a timely fashion?

4. Voting center ballots are issued on-demand - electronically. Traditional paper ballots are pre-printed, contain a serial number which is removed before the ballot is cast, issued to a specific voter, and tracked on paper logs. How are on-demand ballots more secret, secure, accurate, verifiable and transparent?

5. When voting centers are networked together how is the voting system kept secure? When voting centers are not networked together how are electors prevented from voting more than once?

In addition the public needs to understand the consequences of eliminating the neighborhood voting place (precinct) as the organizational unit for Colorado’s political parties. What is being proposed to replace the precinct committeeperson? How will political parties be structured?

Anything that reduces the public’s trust in elections is a threat to representative self-governance. Consequently, before going forward with voting centers the public’s questions must be answered and time given for the public to assimilate the answers.

Elections are for the people, not for election officials. It is not in the public’s interest to replace traditional precinct voting places with centralized voting centers unless it can be proven to critics that voting centers will improve the security, accuracy, verifiability and transparency of elections.

Hand count plan - attempt to decieve voters

2005-03-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

I have just reviewed the City of Boulder hand count plan http://coloradovoter.net/ercdocs/boulder-hand-count-to-sos.pdf .

The plan is a farce, designed to deceive the public into believing that the City is verifying election results.

1. The plan fails to verify (through sampling) that every vote cast by an eligible voter is accurately counted. Entire segments of the voting process are excluded from the hand count plan. Consequently, eligible votes that are not counted will not be detected by the process. Ineligible votes that get counted will not be detected by the process. The ballots sampled should include all ballots received. The plan ignores eligible ballots that are improperly rejected, and ineligible ballots that are improperly counted. It ignores duplicated ballots that are incorrectly duplicated, and potentially misplaced batches of ballots. It ignores eligible votes that are incorrecly interpreted.

2. The sampling procedure described in the plan is inept. Only a portion, less than half, of the vote counting system can be tested by this process. The sample guarantees testing will be limited to a maximum of three vote scanning machines, a maximum of three ballot resolution teams, a maximum of three ballot qualification teams, etc. All of the remaining components of the system are ignored. Individual ballots should be sampled, starting at the point that they are received in the mail (hand delivery collection box). This will distribute the selected ballots over all processes and equipment.

3. The counting method is biased. The law requires the determination of voter intent to interpret the votes on each ballot. The hand count plan, instead, requires that the hand counters must interpret the votes in the same way as the computer interpreted the votes. (If the computer did tit wrong, the hand counter must do it wrong.) This is designed to bias the hand count results so that they match the computer results.

4. The hand count plan does not specify a "blind count". People performing the count can know the prior results -- both the total number of votes and the interpretation of individual votes. The same team should not conduct the original and repeat hand count.

5. The comparison of results is insufficient and inexact. The results of each sampled ballot should be compared to the actual results. In the case of a ballot whose votes were counted, the hand counted results of each vote on that ballot should be compared to the computer generated result for that particular ballot. The hand count plan does not keep track of results by ballot, and does not keep track of over and under votes. Sloppy averaging of votes within batches is not an adequate verification.

6. The hand count plan is not independent; the Clerk selects the people who check the Clerk's work-product. The process must be conducted by people who are not subservient to the Clerk.

7. There needs to be a provision in the hand count plan for disqualifying the original election results. If the hand count proves that the system failed to accurately count every vote cast by an eligible elector, the original counts should be discarded and the entire set of ballots reprocessed -- by hand.

Say "no" to NIST's voter verification deception

2005-03-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) just released a draft of their input on VVPATs and DRE audits as requested by the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the Election Assistance Commission.

Preliminary Report: NIST Approach to VVPAT Requirements for the VSS
2002 Addendum (John Wack)
http://vote.nist.gov/TGDC/VVPAT%20Addendum%20-%20jpw%20-%203-2-051.pdf

The NIST draft is a step backward.

1. It does not require that the votes on the voter verified ballot be the official votes that get counted. Consequently, it is little more than a mechanism to deceive voters into thinking that voters are verifying their votes.

2. It requires that the voter be able to compare the votes on the paper to the votes in the computer -- which as far as I can tell is not possible. "To permit the voter, at the time of voting, to verify that the DRE-VVPAT is recording the electronic ballot choices correctly and to resolve problems should they occur,"

3. Several members of the IEEE committee on Voting Systems objected to this solution and provided many arguments against it.

As far as I can tell, this draft is another attempt to protect DRE vendors and election officials who have purchased DRE equipment, and is not an attempt to achieve the highest level of election security, accuracy and verifiability.

The draft should be rejected.

Colorado considers verifying vote counts.

2005-01-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

January 24, 2005

Representative Alice Madden
Senator Shawn Mitchell

RE: SB05-079_01 http://www.leg.state.co.us/

We are forever grateful to you both for taking the first step to address major flaws in Colorado’s voting system. We hope that you will accept the following recommendations as constructive.

1. Only verified votes count. The draft bill contemplates the possibility of two ballots being cast by each elector -- a “permanent paper record” and an “electronic record of vote”. The notion of two ballots per elector should be eliminated. There should be only one ballot, and it should be the permanent paper record that was verified and cast by the eligible elector. Counting votes on an unverified ballot is not meaningful.

2. Adequate verification of count. The draft bill contemplates a random verification of the vote counting processes. This is highly desirable, but the method proposed in the bill is inadequate.

a. The random sample of twenty precincts is not sufficient. Since each county uses a unique counting process (procedure, personnel and equipment), the sample should include precincts from each county.

b. In the draft bill, it is not clear which ballots in each selected precinct are to be included in the sample. The votes for every contest on all of the ballots cast in a selected precinct should be included in the sample including Election Day ballots cast in the precinct, absentee, mail-ballot, early, provisional, emergency, and any other eligible ballots.

c. The draft bill should require that the number of ballots counted be verified against poll books and batch control sheets for each voting method to ensure that ballots have not been lost or added during the original count.

d. In the draft bill, it is not clear what will be reported following the verification. The original and the verification count for each contest should publicly report: the number of eligible voters, the under votes, over votes, the number of ballots cast for each method of voting, and the votes for each contestant for each method of voting - Election Day ballots cast in the precinct, absentee, mail-ballot, early, provisional, emergency, and any others.

e. To achieve a high quality count, the people counting the votes for the Secretary of State must not know the earlier vote tally results for the precinct(s). They must report their written findings before learning earlier results.

f. Suggestion. Ballots that were rejected during the original process should be subject to reconsideration during the verification count.

3. Transparent verification. In the draft bill, the Secretary of State is not required to conduct the verification in a public and transparent manner. The draft bill should explicitly require that every step in the verification count, including the random selection of precincts, must be open to authorized poll watchers who must be able to actually see, read, and hear everything that is happening as it is happening.

The bill should establish a process for the public to challenge the verification process and results.

Before counting the votes on the sampled paper ballots, the Secretary of State should make available to poll watchers a file for each selected precinct containing a scanned image of each ballot surface. Poll watchers should be permitted to independently count the votes to increase confidence in the process. They should be permitted to load the file into one or more computers. A means should be established to uniquely identify each ballot surface so that people can refer to each specific surface.

4. Defective count consequences. The draft bill should specify what is to occur when any count total differs from the original count.

The bill should state that each difference between the original and verification count is significant, and that differences will not be “averaged out”. For example, a different number of early votes (say +27) and an equally different number of absentee votes (say – 27) for the same candidate must be considered 54 errors, since the number of votes is linked to the poll book for each voting method.

Under what circumstances is the counting system (procedure, personnel and equipment) considered to be unreliable? Under what circumstances will all of the votes in all of the precincts in a county need to be manually recounted? Under what circumstances will all of the votes counted in Colorado using a particular vendor’s vote counting equipment need to be manually recounted?

5. Timing. The draft bill should establish time limits and time relationships for completing the verification of the random sample, resolving public input, completing any candidate requested recount, and declaring official results.

6. When is remote access to machines permitted? We do not understand PG 3, LN 22 – 27. It suggests that a voting machine is permitted to be remotely accessed under some circumstances. The circumstances should be specified.

7. Public access to electronic election data and source codes. PG 4, LN 1 – 11 should provide for public access to the source codes including BIOS. It must also include a requirement that the version and level of all software must be tamper proof and verifiable. Also, the section should provide for public access to copies of any electronic election data created during the course of an election. Sample files should be made available at least three weeks before the election. The production data files should be made available before verification counting begins.

We hope that you will incorporate changes to the draft bill to accommodate these suggested improvements. We are available to assist in any way that we can.

Sincerely,

Al Kolwicz
Executive Director

CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net
www.ColoradoVoter.blogspot.com

Boulder County vote counting system is not reliable

2005-01-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

DATE: January 11, 2005

TO: Boulder City Council

FROM: Bill Eckert, Al Kolwicz

SUBJECT: Analysis of Boulder County Vote Counting System – Revision to January 4th report.

The City of Boulder intends to use Boulder County’s vote counting system for the March 2005 City Election. Because of the problems encountered by the County during the November 2004 election, it is risky to use the system for the City election.

One way to estimate the reliability of a vote counting system is to count the votes twice. If the results are identical, the system is considered to be reliable. (A reliable system is not necessarily accurate since both results could be incorrect.)

Fortunately, a recount was required for the St. Vrain School District contest. The difference between YES and NO in the original four-county election was less than ½ of one percent – 127 votes.

Recount results and the following analysis shows that the Boulder County vote counting system is not reliable.

Only 22.8 percent of the 79 precincts achieved identical results.
There are 759 differences in “ballots counted” section of the reports.
There are 34 differences in the “votes counted” section of the reports.

Clerical error might explain some, but not all of the differences. Counting equipment error might explain some of the differences. Intentional changes could explain some, but not all of the changes. For example, in precinct 4171107003 there are no differences in the number of ballots counted, yet there are 4 more YES and 1 more NO votes counted.

No matter how the differences are explained, it is the case that the results counted by the Boulder County Vote Counting System are not reliable enough to be used by the City of Boulder for its upcoming March 2005 election.

Potential consequences of using this unreliable system for the City’s March election are:

The wrong candidate might get elected.
A recount might be required (possibly counted using the unreliable system).
The election can be challenged and a new election required.

The Boulder County vote counting system should not be used for the March City election.

====================

REPORT SUMMARY
January 5, 2005

January 4th, Boulder County released a copy of the original and recount reports for the St. Vrain School District contest. Each county report shows, for each precinct, the number of ballots cast for each voting method (absentee, early, and Election Day). See attached ORIGINAL and RECOUNT reports.

Also attached is a third report showing: (a) the differences in the number of ballots counted by voting method and precinct between the original count and the recount, (b) the differences in the number of votes counted by precinct in the original count and the recount, and (c) the differences between the individual precinct reports.. Notice the following:

The differences between the ballots counted in the original and recount were:

179 Absentee
207 Early
373 Election Day
759 Total

The differences between the votes counted in the original and recount were:

14 Yes
20 No
34 Total

The differences between precinct reports in the original and recount were:

A. Precincts with the same quantity of votes:

18 Same quantity of ballots and, same voting methods
41 Same quantity of ballots and different voting methods
59 Total

B. Precincts with a different quantity of votes

03 Same quantity of ballots and same voting methods
09 Same quantity of ballots and different voting methods
02 More ballots
06 Fewer ballots
20 Total

Only 18 (22.8 percent) of the precinct reports were identical. The remaining 77.2 percent were different.

No matter how the differences are explained, it is the case that the results counted by the Boulder County Vote Counting System are not reliable enough to be used by the City of Boulder for its upcoming March 2005 election.

Voting Standard should be rejected

2004-12-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

December 26, 2004

Memo To: Election Assistance Commission (EAC),
EAC Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC),
Chairs IEEE SCC 38 and P1583

From: Al Kolwicz, IEEE P1583 committee member, Executive Director CAMBER- Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results.

Re: IEEE standards project P1583 Standards for Voting Equipment

Occasionally committees produce a great work product. More often they do not. The work product of the IEEE P1583 project is not suitable for adoption as a national standard consequently, it should be rejected.

Implementation of this draft standard would not move our nation toward secure, accurate and verifiable elections. In fact it would do the opposite.

Methodology - A voting system consists of numerous components. Each of these components must work correctly in order to achieve a trustworthy election. One way to do this is to perfect individual components and then try to glue them together. A more successful way is to first perfect a framework and then develop components.

Requirements - Before considering the P1583 component a precise and comprehensive statement of requirements for the entire voting system must be developed and adopted by the public – not just some insiders. From the legislative process used to create election laws and rules, to the canvass procedures used to verify results of each election, the system needs wholesale reform.

System Architecture – Given the requirements, the nation should adopt an abstract architecture of a voting system, a tight set of requirements for each element of the system, a specification of the primitive functions, a set of metrics, and a set of acceptable methods to prove compliance. The architecture and primitives should be used to construct two or three reference implementations (at the high level) and include complete tests that verify each implementation.
Resources - This is a task that takes motivation, time, talent and money. It cannot be accomplished by amateurs – no matter how motivated and good intentioned. It cannot be accomplished by lawyers or typical legislators. It cannot be accomplished by the sitting Secretary of State and/or staff. And it cannot be accomplished by the county clerks and their people. It should not be accomplished by voting system vendors.

Recommendation - The P1583 draft should be rejected. A project should be authorized to develop the requirements and architecture of our voting system.

St. Vrain has not yet called for a recount.

2004-11-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

From: Wurl, Nancy Jo [mailto:nwurl@co.boulder.co.us]
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 4:37 PM
To: AlKolwicz@qwest.net
Cc: David Leeds (E-mail); Hillary Hall (E-mail); scott@scottgessler.com
Subject: RE: Will there be a recount? If so, under what rules?

Mr. Kolwicz:

Apparently there is going to be a recount of the St. Vrain Valley School District issue. The combined results from the counties involved fall within the one half of one percent that mandates a recount of St. Vrain Valley School District Ballot Issue 3A.

We have not communicated with you regarding this issue because the School District has not (as yet) called for the recount. The ball is in their capable hands and they will notify the counties (Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer, and Weld) in the required time frame. As noted, St. Vrain Valley extends into four counties so this recount has and will continue to require coordination between the District and the involved County Clerks. The District, not the Secretary of State nor the County Clerks, must call for the recount.

As prescribed in 1-10.5-107 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, when the recount is called by St. Vrain, we will notify the representative Canvass Boarad members and the hands-on workers. Because of Boulder County's paper ballot system, it will be necessary for the participating Canvass members to work full 8-hour shifts to accomplish the recount of the St. Vrain issue. All absentee, early voting, provisional, and duplicated ballots will need to be counted as well as the issue on all precincts containing the District's ballots.

The recount will be conducted per instructions from the Secretary of State, the statutes, and the Rules related to our voting system. The recount shall be completed on or before the December 10th statutory deadline. Only the St. Vrain issue will be counted.

Nancy Wurl

It's not over in Boulder County

2004-11-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

Boulder County’s Canvass Board arrived at a split decision regarding approval of the canvass of election results. The board’s report is attached.

Now, according to the Colorado Daily, Boulder County will conduct a recount in the St. Vrain School District contest.

The official Republican canvass board member submitted a letter to County Clerk Linda Salas asking her to verify that there will be a recount, and under what rules the recount will be conducted.

The news story suggests that the clerk is proceeding with a secret recount conducted by the administration and the vendor. This does not follow Colorado law which says that the recount will be “made by the canvass board who officiated in certifying the official abstract of votes cast.”

Also, specific provisions are written into the election rules for the equipment used by Boulder County. The news story suggests that there will be an attempt to violate these rules. For example, 14.8.3 (b) says, “Scan and resolve all recount ballots following original election procedures, including the examination of ballots (Rule 14.3; C.R.S. 1-10.5-108). Use the Audit Trail Report and original Scan Batch Reports with notes to ensure resolution action follows original resolution.” Whereas the news story quotes Jim Burrus as saying, “People from Hart will be here to set up that process so we can auto-resolve any damaged ballots that slowed us down before." While we disagree with the rule, we disagree even more with a violation of the written rules.

This recount is very important. It opens an opportunity to determine how precisely the ballots are being counted by Boulder County’s vote counting system. About ½ of one percent of all of the ballots voted in precinct were not correctly accounted for. Where did these ballots go, or come from? What happens in a recount when it is discovered that the equipment or the resolution board incorrectly interpreted the voter’s intent?

The rules are contradictory. On the one hand they say, “review the ballots to assure they were counted properly.” On the other they say, “ensure resolution action follows original resolution.” You cannot have it both ways.

We are awaiting a response to the Friday morning inquiry.

Al Kolwicz
Executive Director
CAMBER
Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results

===================

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 11:19 AM
Subject: Will there be a recount? If so, under what rules?

Ms. Salas,

I have read that there may be a required recount of St. Vrain.

Is this true?

If true, will the recount be conducted according to the following statute and rules?

C.R.S. 1-10.5-107. Canvass board to conduct recount.

Election Rules: 14.8 Counting of Ballots using the “Ballot Now” Voting System

Al Kolwicz
Canvass Board Member
Boulder County Republican Party

=====================

Nov 19, 2004

County readies for recount

By RICHARD VALENTY Colorado Daily Staff Writer

The Boulder County elections team completed one long, arduous election process Thursday when they sent certified results from about 160,000 ballots to the Colorado Secretary of State.
But it's back to work again Friday and next week to begin conducting Boulder County's part of a multi-county recount.

As of Wednesday, the St. Vrain School District Ballot Issue 3A tax increase proposal was trailing by 127 votes out of more than 60,000 ballots cast. Recounts can be requested if ballot issue results are closer than a 0.5 percent difference, and St. Vrain has requested a recount.

The St. Vrain district lies within parts of Boulder, Broomfield, Weld and Larimer counties, and Boulder County counted roughly 47,000 ballots with the St. Vrain issue included.

Jim Burrus, county media information officer, said the county will begin the process by locating the boxes containing paper ballots from precincts in the St. Vrain district.

"They haven't gone through and segregated the boxes yet, but they'll probably start on that tomorrow (Friday) or Monday," said Burrus.

The recount must be completed by Dec. 10, and Burrus said representatives from election system vendor Hart InterCivic will work with Boulder County to make sure the recount is done well before deadline.

County officials said the Nov. 2 general election results were released several days later than most other Colorado counties in part because some of the paper ballots were improperly printed. County high-speed scanners could not read the ballots properly, and county officials needed to individually resolve the improper ballots, slowing the process down dramatically.
Burrus said the county will be using the same ballots and the same scanners used for the general election during the recount, but will only be evaluating one question instead of the entire general election list of candidates and referenda.

"People from Hart will be here to set up that process so we can auto-resolve any damaged ballots that slowed us down before," said Burrus. "The only thing we'll need to look at is the St. Vrain question."

Meanwhile, county officials and Hart are working together to complete additional data from the general election. Burrus said Elections Manager Tom Halicki was working Thursday on compiling payroll information for some 150 people who worked on processing election results, not including precinct election judges.

Also, Burrus said Hart employees will be working on a report detailing the status of damaged ballots or ballots containing overvotes and undervotes. He said the report would contain information on how the questionable ballots were resolved, and said results could be available in "a week or two."

=========================

C.R.S. 1-10.5-107. Canvass board to conduct recount.

(1) Any county clerk and recorder or governing body required to conduct a recount shall arrange to have the recount made by the canvass board who officiated in certifying the official abstract of votes cast. If any member of the canvass board cannot participate in the recount, another person shall be appointed in the manner provided by law for appointment of the members of the original board.
(2) Any canvass board making a recount under the provisions of this section may employ assistants and clerks as necessary for the conduct of the recount.
(3) The canvass board may require the production of any documentary evidence regarding any vote cast or counted and may correct the abstract of votes cast in accordance with its findings based on the evidence presented.
(4) At the conclusion of the recount, the canvass board shall make the returns of all partisan, nonpartisan, ballot issue, and ballot question elections to the designated election official and provide a copy to the persons or groups requesting the recount or notified of the recount pursuant to sections 1-10.5-105 and 1-10.5-106. The canvass board shall meet and issue an amended abstract of votes cast for the office, ballot issue, or ballot question that is the subject of the recount and deliver it to the designated election official.
(5) The designated election official shall notify the governing body of the results of the recount.

========================

http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/rule_making/electionrules.pdf PAGE 30

RULE
14.8 Counting of Ballots using the “Ballot Now” Voting System
14.8.1 In the case of a recount, the designated election official shall identify all precincts with the contest(s) designated for a recount using the following procedures:
a. Using the Ballot Now Scanned Ballots by Precinct report from the original election database, locate the batches containing any ballot type (Election, Absentee, and Provisional) for the recount.
b. Remove ballots from each batch and label them as “Recount”.

14.8.2 Required scanner testing shall be performed using a test deck from a randomly chosen precinct with at least 50 ballots as prescribed by statute, following testing procedures outlined in the State of Colorado Procedures for the use of the Ballot Now Voting System. A Recount Test spreadsheet shall be created based on the chosen precinct in the same fashion as the ballot options test spreadsheet.
14.8.3 Ballots for the recount shall be processed following the State of Colorado Procedures for the use of the Ballot Now Voting System in conjunction with the following procedures:
a. Open Ballot Now with an unused MBB (Mobile Ballot Box) from the election and create a Ballot Now recount database;
b. Scan and resolve all recount ballots following original election procedures, including the examination of ballots (Rule 14.3; C.R.S. 1-10.5-108). Use the Audit Trail Report and original Scan Batch Reports with notes to ensure resolution action follows original resolution.
c. Save all recount CVRs (Cast Vote Records) to the MBB (Mobile Ballot Box) after verifying that the number of ballots processed matches the number of ballots cast in the recount contest(s).
d. Open a new recount election in “Tally” and process the recount MBB following the tabulation procedures above.
e. Compare recount results to original results and document any differences.
f. Backup the test database and the official recount database following the “Archive” procedures.
===================

RULE
14.3 The purpose of a recount is to review the ballots to assure they were counted properly. Unless directed otherwise by the Secretary of State, all procedures of election night shall be followed as closely as possible during the recount, including an examination of the ballots.

===================

C.R.S. 1-10.5-108. Method of recount.

(1) The recount shall be of the ballots cast, and the votes shall be recorded on sheets other than those used at the election.

(2) Unless otherwise directed by the secretary of state, the ballots cast shall be recounted utilizing the same procedures, methods, and processes that were utilized for the original count of the ballots cast.

====================

Is Boulder County violating election laws?

2004-10-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

Boulder County’s new vote counting system consists of 8 systems used to scan ballots, interpret the voter’s intent, and export the votes to portable media. One additional system is used to import the votes from the portable media and calculate the election results.

Each of the 9 systems can be easily modified by keyboard input or by loading data into the computer. Data include computer programs, files that define the election to the system, and files for storing scanned images of each ballot and the votes that were interpreted from each ballot. The smallest change in any of these elements can result in undesirable side effects.

By law, before and after a system is used for processing live ballots, the system must be tested. Colorado statute C.R.S. 1-7-506 says, “The designated election official shall have the electronic vote-counting equipment tested at each counting center in the manner prescribed in this section to ascertain that it will accurately count the votes cast for all offices and ballot issues. The electronic equipment shall be tested at least three times, once on the day before the election, again just prior to the start of the count on election day, and finally at the conclusion of the counting.”

Also, whenever maintenance is performed on a system, the system must be tested. Colorado statute C.R.S. 1-7-506.5 says, “The tests shall be sufficient to determine that the system is properly programmed, the election is correctly defined on the system, and all of the input, output, and communication devices are working properly.”

Boulder County is violating both of these laws. They have not performed the tests required by C.R.S. 1-7-506, and they have not performed the tests required by C.R.S. 1-7-506.5.

A set of test ballots was prepared by the political parties. The vote counting system failed to correctly count the test votes.

After days of secret discussions, Boulder County Clerk Linda Salas made an unbelievable decision. She decided to make changes to the systems and, without testing the modified systems, she began processing early and absentee ballots. After processing thousands of ballots, she decided to perform maintenance on the systems and, again without testing, resumed processing the real ballots. Not one of the required tests was performed.

Salas turned down requests by the Republicans to test the systems being used to process the real ballots. Republicans are not satisfied running tests on systems other than the ones actually doing the processing of the real ballots.

Republican Party representative Al Kolwicz is horrified saying, “Ms. Salas is being irresponsibly reckless with our votes. She is breaking the law. Anybody with a tiny bit of common sense would test these systems before using them to process real ballots.”

An election complaint has been filed with the Secretary of State.

Colorado’s voting system has crashed.

2004-10-29T20:01:00.000-06:00

Colorado’s voting system has crashed.

The Secretary of State’s office is operating as a shield that protects election officials and hardware suppliers.
The Legislature is totally ignored – as if it never existed.
The Courts are refusing to find election officials guilty of violations – no matter how flagrant.
The Political Parties have been neutered, and are no longer providing independent oversight of elections.
There is no accountability, no security, no verifiability, and no rule of law.

If you had fleeting hope for a trustworthy election – I suggest that you forget it.

Read the email below if you are can stand it. Basically, Boulder County has started the vote counting process using equipment with many known defects. Officials are abusing their positions to cover up their bad decision to purchase HART InterCivic vote counting equipment – despite intense citizen pressure against doing so.

For refusing to perform their duties to protect our election, shame on Boulder County’s Commissioners, the Boulder County Clerk, and the Secretary of State – shame, shame, shame.

Al Kolwicz

-------------------------

Sent BY FAX: 303-869-4861

Dear Secretary Davidson,

Boulder County is violating C.R.S. 1-7-506. Electronic vote-counting – test, and Colorado Election Rules 11.4.5(b and c), and 27.3.3(b).

After terminating an unsuccessful part 1 of the Logic and Accuracy Test, Boulder County:

has not corrected the cause of discrepancies,
has performed maintenance on the equipment,
has augmented the test deck without political party oversight, and
has violated the county’s own plan for testing the electronic vote counting equipment.

Scanning has commenced before the second part of the LAT has been run.

Problems discovered during part 1 have been documented and filed with the Boulder County Clerk Salas.

When I discussed this with Clerk Linda Salas, this afternoon, she told me that they were going to run the second part of the LAT on Election Day. If in fact the logic and accuracy test is testing the actual vote counting system, and not a fake vote counting system, then it will be impossible to run part 2 of the LAT.

What shall we do to ensure that the vote counting system is correctly counting votes?

Al Kolwicz

Boulder County Republican Party
Election Representative

Suit filed to protect secret ballot

2004-10-22T09:26:00.000-06:00

Voters file suit over privacy
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/election/article/0,1713,BDC_16316_3273101,00.html

A non-partisan group of public-spirited voters has filed suit to protect the secret ballot.

Despite months of objections by voters, Boulder County has refused to comply with the Colorado Constitution. The Constitution strictly provides that “no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.”

Contrary to the law, every Boulder County ballot contains a unique serial number. The number can be recorded by the voter or somebody can compile a list of who voted which ballot.

A scanned image of every ballot is recorded in computer files including offsite backup files. Someone with access to the physical ballots, or the computer files, can see the votes and the serial number.

Valuable computer files have been “stolen” from "almost secure" places like Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Given a list of who voted which ballot and access to a computer file of ballot images, it is an easy task to know how a particular voter voted.

There is a market for this information. Knowledge of how a voter voted can facilitate vote selling and voter intimidation. Knowledge of how lots of voters voted can facilitate highly valuable demographic information linked to voter choices. Additionally, courts might demand access to a voter’s ballot.

The suit asks the court to issue an order requiring Boulder County to comply with the secret ballot provisions of the law. The co-plaintiffs believe that the Colorado Constitution strictly provides that “no ballots shall be marked in any way whereby the ballot can be identified as the ballot of the person casting it.”

A hearing is scheduled in Boulder for Monday, October 25th at 1:30 PM, and will be presided over by Honorable Morris W. Sandstead Jr.

-----------------------------
Students registered without ID will be permitted to vote using honor system
http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2004/10/21/news/news01.txt

-----------------------------

Colo. limits number of poll watchers
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/election/article/0,1713,BDC_16316_3272984,00.html

-----------------------------

County Republicans file complaint with SOS

2004-10-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

Boulder County Republicans filed the following complaint with Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson.

--------------------------------------------------------

Boulder County Republican Party
Designated Election Representative
2867 Tincup Circle
Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@qwest.net

October 20, 2004

Ms. Donetta Davidson BY FAX: 303-869-4861
Secretary of State
1560 Broadway, Suite 200
Denver, CO 80202

REF: Boulder County - Instructions to political parties – October 9, 2004
Boulder County - Logic & Accuracy Test instructions – October 9, 2004
Boulder County - Canvass instructions –October 9, 2004
Boulder County Republicans - Response to Salas – October 10, 2004
Boulder County Republicans - Test objectives – October 20, 2004
Logic & Accuracy Test - part1 – October 20, 2004

Dear Secretary Davidson:

This is a formal complaint regarding the conduct of today’s Logic & Accuracy Test – part1.

Because the next stage of this Logic and Accuracy Test is scheduled for Friday, October 22nd, we request immediate and independent investigation of this complaint. For your information, there were two non-Republican poll watcher witnesses to today’s activities.

The Boulder County Republican Party and the Boulder County Clerk & Recorder fundamentally disagree on the meaning of:

CRS 1-7-506. Electronic vote-counting – test.

(1) (a) The designated election official shall have the electronic vote-counting equipment tested at each counting center in the manner prescribed in this section to ascertain that it will accurately count the votes cast for all offices and ballot issues. (Emphasis added).

This disagreement has made it impossible for the Boulder County Republican Party to comply with its duty under that same section:

(2) The designated election official shall give to the county chairpersons of the major political parties or their official representatives and to the county chairperson or official representative of any minor political party who notifies the designated election official no less than sixty days before the election of the party's desire to participate in the testing, at least twenty-five official ballots that are clearly marked as test ballots. The county chairpersons or their official representatives shall secretly vote the test ballots and retain a record of the test votes. (Emphasis added).

For several months, the Boulder County Republican Party has attempted, in good faith, to engage the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder, Linda Salas, in a meaningful negotiation of Logic & Accuracy testing procedures. The clerk has not responded to our many, many attempts to develop mutually agreeable testing procedures. The Republican’s most recent attempts to communicate with the clerk are summarized in the October 10th and October 20th items referenced above.

Instead of discussing the issues with us, the clerk has unilaterally dictated unreasonable restrictions on the political parties and has turned the Logic & Accuracy Test into a pending hoax. The consequence of this hoax will be total loss of public trust in the general election results. The clerk’s directives are documented in the three October 9th items referenced above.

Proceeding under the clerk’s directive will serve no purpose, other than provide the clerk a document which could be used to communicate the false public assurance that the vote counting system has been verified by the political parties and is trustworthy.

Nothing is further from the truth. Under the procedures mandated by the clerk, this test procedure will not verify the ability of the vote counting system to correctly count votes. Furthermore, the procedure will create documentation which can be used to perpetrate a massive public deception, and humiliate the Boulder County Republican Party.

For example, of 228 precincts, the Republicans were permitted to test only 15. Of 57 ballot styles, Republicans were permitted to test only 15. At least one ballot style includes five ballot-faces, and Republicans were not permitted to test any ballot with five ballot faces. [These facts are relevant because Boulder County printed and distributed sample ballots that contained the wrong candidates for the U. S. 4th Congressional race, demonstrating that errors in fact do happen with this system.]

By working within the clerk’s mandated procedures, instead of our test development tools (which we were prohibited from using), we made several errors in creating our test. We did not document the number of over and under votes by contest by precinct by voting method. We did not distinguish between “voter intent” and “vote counting experiment expected outcome”. We did not summarize votes by contestant by precinct by voting method, as are reflected in the results of the election. While not explicitly required by the law, these data are required to verify the accurate count of votes. The clerk denied our request for photocopies of the voted test ballots.

We have documented evidence that the Boulder County vote counting system tested by the primary election Logic & Accuracy Test was not the same as the vote counting system used to count the live votes. Votes are interpreted differently by the real system and this fact is hidden from test personnel by the clerk’s procedure.

The vote counting system does not comply with Rule 27 - Rules Concerning Uniform Ballot Counting Standards.

We can find no legal basis, and no professional basis, for the procedures dictated by the clerk. In fact, we believe the procedures do not comply with the law and know that the procedures violate professional testing standards. We believe that the procedures will guarantee creation and execution of phony tests that are totally inadequate to ascertain that [the voting system] will accurately count the votes cast for all offices and ballot issues. [CRS 1-7-506]

If the Republican Party does not comply with the clerk’s unilateral dictates, the Republican Party will not be permitted to perform its legally mandated public oversight responsibility. [CRS 1-7-506] Furthermore, the clerk has demonstrated a propensity to demagogue such a refusal by the Party, and to intimidate the Party and their representatives by calling upon the County Sheriff and the District Attorney. The only way for the Republican Party to participate in the test is for the Republican Party to agree to engage in this repugnant public deception.

The clerk is abusing her position of public trust by refusing to permit effective oversight of the vote counting system, and as a consequence the clerk is interfering with the conduct of this election.

The clerk is forcing the Republican Party to choose between (1) aiding the clerk to perpetuate a hoax upon the public, and (2) withdrawing from performing the Party’s legally mandated election oversight responsibility.

In addition to the above, the clerk authorized a Libertarian Party candidate to mark test ballots. Since candidates may not serve as watchers, we question the suitability of a candidate to mark test ballots. Also, Green Party representatives were denied their request to mark test ballots. [The Republican Party permitted the Green Party representatives to suggest a few tests which the Republican Representative marked onto some Republican test ballots.] Test participants were required to choose between (1) refusing to sign, (2) waiting around with nothing to do for an additional two hours, or (3) committing possible perjury by falsely signing a seal log.

Investigators should be advised that this complaint is associated with four unresolved election complaints:

July 28, 2004 – Multiple items including: non-secret ballot, no poll book, negligence in providing timely data, denial of access to independent oversight
August 27, 2004 – Falsification of canvass report.
September 8, 2004 – Colorado Open Records Request
September 13, 2004 – Decertification of HART InterCivic vote counting equipment.

We depend on your urgent attention to this complaint.

Respectfully,

Al Kolwicz
Boulder County Republican Party
Official Election Representative

cc:

Linda Salas, Boulder County Clerk & Recorder
David Leeds, Chair, Boulder County Republican Party
Ted Halaby, Chair, Colorado Republican Party
Scott Russell, Political Director, Colorado Republican Party
Senate President, John Andrews, Colorado Senate
Robert J. Corry, Jr., Esq., Law firm of Corry and Fellows, LLP

Principal functions of an election system

2004-10-20T19:12:00.000-06:00

Principal functions of an election system

VOTER REGISTRATION
ELECTION PREPARATION
LOGIC & ACCURACY TEST
VOTING
VOTE INTERPRETATION
VOTE COUNTING
VOTE RECOUNTING
CANVASS OF RESULTS
ARCHIVE
GLOBAL FUNCTIONS

PRIVACY
SECURITY
VERIFICATION AND AUDIT
DEFECT AND COMPLAINT ADMINISTRATION
POLL WATCHER TRANSPARANCY
RECRUIT AND TRAIN JUDGES
RECRUIT AND TRAIN TEMPORARY WORKERS
POLITICAL PARTY LAISON
QUALITY

THE FUNCTIONS VARY FOR EACH METHOD OF VOTING – EARLY, ABSENTEE, PRECINCT, PROVISIONAL, EMERGENCY, AND MANDATORY MAIL BALLOT.

Refer to October 16, 2004 - Voting System Standard needs work.

Clerk interferes with election

2004-10-19T12:01:00.000-06:00

BOULDER COUNTY REPUBLICANS
PRESS BACKGROUNDER

Release: October 17, 2004
Contact: Al Kolwicz, Election Representative 303-494-1540

Clerk interferes with election

Just before the August primary, Boulder County Republicans (BCR) were prevented from using real-life test ballots to test the county’s new vote counting system. Since then, BCR has tried to work out a plan with Clerk & Recorder, Linda Salas, so that similar problems will not interfere with the November election.

It appears that there will be no such agreement. On October 9th, Salas issued a directive to the political parties which, according to the Republicans, violates and oversteps the law, and prohibits a meaningful test of the counting system. On October 10th, the BCR challenged the directive.

According to Al Kolwicz, the official Republican representative for 2004 elections, “Salas has not provided the data needed to conduct the logic & accuracy test, and has not responded to BCR’s October 10th challenges of her directive.”

Logic & accuracy tests are supposed to prove that votes are counted according to the law. Salas has refused to provide a specification of what constitutes a vote that will be counted. Federal and State laws attempt to make sure that the voter’s intent is honored when votes are interpreted, and that votes are interpreted consistently. Without a written guideline, or specification, a vote might be counted on Monday, but rejected on Tuesday – counted in the original count, but rejected in a recount.

Salas has refused to permit BCR to verify that the votes on a particular ballot are interpreted and counted correctly. “One might call this”, says Kolwicz, “a things will average out philosophy.” This is not what the law requires. Each and every vote must be interpreted and counted correctly.

The clerk has decreed that the political parties must provide two persons to work on the logic and accuracy test. The law does not require this, and the clerk has not answered BCR’s question as to why two persons are required. Could it be that the Salas is trying to neutralize Kolwicz?

Salas has decreed that the ballots must be developed and marked at the clerk’s office, without the use of any computer assistance. BCR testers use computer software to design and check out their test cases.

The clerk has decreed that there will be only 25 test ballots per political party. Considering that there are 228 precincts, ____ ballot styles, and five ways to vote, the 25 ballot limitation makes a hoax out of the logic & accuracy test.

“More to the point,” says Kolwicz, “the clerk’s decrees are not legal. She is interfering with the legal rights of the political parties to verify that the vote counting system correctly interprets and counts every vote.

The two representatives from the parties, and the jurisdiction representatives, will meet in the Election’s office on October 20th at 10:00 a.m. Each party and jurisdiction will be presented with 25 ballots, which they will be required to vote on-site.

Members of the general public will not be allowed into the room where the test decks are being scanned. Only properly designated members of the political parties and the local jurisdictions will be allowed to attend.

Strict reading of the clerk’s directive suggests that poll watchers, the press, and video recorders will be prohibited from observing the test preparation.

* * * END * * *