FALSE IMPRESSIONS -- Suit: Ban computer voting

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.