CA Sec of State Accepting Written Comments on Voting Machine Technology until Friday

Hello,

Most of you are aware that insecure voting machines
endanger democracy. The California Secretary of State, Bruce
McPherson's, website says he's accepting written comments from the
public re California voting machine technology only until this Fri.
June 24.

Request for Public Comment WORD | PDF
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm

Please ask him at least to have paper ballots for the Special
Election and to refuse to certify Diebold machines.

Comments should be addressed to Constitutent Affiars in the SoS's
Executive Division at 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
but time is short so
fax to:

(916) 653-9675

If you don't have a fax machine, email to:

constituentaffairs [at] ss.ca.gov

Here are writing points provided by techie Jody Holder,after a link to
a news article about the thrilling Sacramento hearing last week on
Diebold and ES & S voting technology. Below that is my letter.

For
more writing points, also see my last post re Oakland's Tuesday morning
hearing because much of the objections to Diebold at the county level
also apply to the state level, and see Berkeley's related resolution at
the bottom.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2810029


*******************************************************

background, for use in preparing statements due June 24 re: AVVPAT
(Accessible Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail, aka printer) standards
Jody suggests sending a copy of your comments also to Assemblymember
Tom Umberg (see below).


~~~~~~~~~~~


That invitation for Public Comment is a very recent addition to the
SoS website. Notice it was released on June 16, the day of the hearing.
A copy of the current adopted standards is also available on the SoS
website at: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/touchscreen.htm

In the Staff Review, in their effort to enable the currently deployed
TSx machines in Kern, San Joaquin, and San Diego counties be used in
the Special Election, used the Proposed AVVPAT Standards for their
basis rather than the Adopted Standards. The proposed standards came
out last June, and the current standards were formally adopted in
January, 2005. The current standards apply to any voting systems
certified after January 1, 2005.

That is a very important point and needs to be codified. The paragraph
from the Staff Review of Diebold I discussed in my comments to the VSP
touched upon that very point. Currently the staff is interpreting that
as allowing the deployed TSx machines be used in the November election
WITHOUT A PAPER TRAIL requirement. That is against the specific
Directives of last year. Those Directives are still in play. They are
also the basis for the conditional certification of all the DRE
machines in this state. If McPherson were to rescind those Directives
he would also be de-certifying those DRE machines covered under it.

I would recommend that copies of any comments also be sent to the
Chairpersons of the Election Committees. I do have the address for Tom
Umberg:

Tom Umberg
Chairman
Assembly Elections & Redistricting Committee
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249

An example of important areas to be codified:

Any voting systems approved for use in California after January 1,
2005 shall have a AVVPAT that conforms to the adopted Standards

The AVVPAT shall be printed on single sheet non-thermal paper, one
record of vote per sheet

Every recorded vote, no matter how recorded, shall have a AVVPAT copy

The AVVPAT record of the vote shall be printed in a minimum of 12 font

The AVVPAT shall be printed and organized to be easily read by both
the voter and election officials

The AVVPAT during the 1% manual audit and any recount shall be
physically verified and hand counted only

The recorded vote choices on the AVVPAT shall not be audited or
recounted by automatic or electronic methods

There shall not be a method by which any particular voting record can
be connected to any particular voter

Any AVVPAT spoiled or rejected by a voter because of a voting system
error shall not be counted as a spoiled ballot under the two spoiled
ballots limit

It is also important that the same committee chairpersons also hear
regarding other important aspects of the voting process that needs to
be codified. One of the more important ones is the need for
clarification and specification of how the 1% manual audit should be
conducted. Two important changes that need to take place are:

The percentage of precincts to be audited shall be increased to 5%

The precincts shall be chosen by lot or some other random method by
the Election Observer Panel in public

All votes in a particular precinct chosen shall be included in the
audit, no matter how they are recorded

All votes must be verified by hand counting a paper record of those
votes

The recorded vote on paper shall be the official record if there is a
discrepancy between the electronic totals and the manually determined
totals.

**********************************************************


Dear Mr. McPherson:

Please save democracy by providing Accessible Voter Verified Paper
Ballots that provide an auditable trail by being printed on archivable
paper in easily readable font. The audit trails must be clear enough
that county-trained vote counters may handle and read them quickly, and
they must preserve our confidentiality. Diebold has proposed nothing
of the kind and is a disaster in the making.

Diebold has submitted AVVPAT (supposedly Accessible Voter Verified
Paper Audit Trail) technology for certification. Do NOY certify it
for California! It is INaccessible, NOT voter verified, and not a
reliable trail. Affordable hand counts would not be possible with
Diebold's thermal paper and miniature type. You will end up paying
Diebold fortunes to do such hand counts. Afterall, by law, Diebold
corporation must prioritize profit over the public interest.

Another reason to reject Diebold is that the thermal paper, far from
being of archival quality, disintegrates quickly. Also, Diebold would
abuse voters' privacy by using continuous rolls with the order being
exposed, thus identifying voters.

Diebold's history proves that it is not a trustworthy corporation. Of
the several corporations that manufacture voting machines, Diebold has
especially made a laughing stock of demockracy in the U.S.A. Americans
have lost trust in our elections. We need paper ballots, counted and
re-counted by hand in public. Absentee ballots, counted promptly and
publicly, could serve as an interim measure.

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

Call rises to 'dump Diebold'
State panel declines to give vote machine recommendation after facing angry crowd
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2810029

SACRAMENTO — As California rolls toward a train wreck with federal and state laws, voting activists told state elections officials that Diebold and its voting machines aren't welcome along for the ride.

Witness after witness — Bay Area liberals seasoned with a few Libertarians and Republicans — called on state officials Thursday to block Diebold's voting machines from the nation's largest elections market, casting the firm as synonymous with lost trust and vote "theft" in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

In a packed hearing punctuated by chanting, activists demanded paper ballots be counted by hand, by computers running open-source software if absolutely necessary, but never by secret software closely held by a company known for executives' support of Republican candidates.

"If you value democracy, you will not certify these hackable machines with secret mechanisms that are considered proprietary," said Berkeley's Phoebe Anne Sorgen. "You will dump Diebold Elections Systems and software."

"If you throw them out of this state, they're dead. Their backs are up against the wall," said Jim March, a Sacramento Republican and activist for BlackBoxVoting.org.

Looking over the angry crowd of more than 200, the chairman of California's Voting Systems and Procedures Panel decided against making a recommendation to Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, a break with a tradition of prompt approvals of voting systems.

If McPherson follows the activists' advice, counties will flirt with breaking January deadlines in state and federal law. The federal Help America Vote Act requires handicapped-accessible voting machines in every polling place nationwide. California law requires any county using touch-screen voting machines to offer a paper printout so voters can verify their electronic ballot choices, and so local elections officials have a paper record for recounts.

Those laws are driving counties to shop for new voting equipment that ultimately will be the tools of democracy for much of California in the next congressional and presidential elections, not to mention local races and initiatives. Two proposed voting systems by Diebold and Election Systems & Software are vying to count those votes, and if approved by the state probably would be used by at least half of Bay Area voters.

For now, only one voting machine made by Sequoia Voting Systems


comes close to meeting both laws, though even it hasn't been proved to work in the polyglot languages of California voters nor approved for primary elections.

"Counties have to have certified voting equipment," said Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack, president of a state association of local elections officials. She said they're getting nervous: "The whole environment is uncertain."

Diebold offered its system as capable across the board. Alameda County elections officials are eager to swap out their old Diebold touch screens for the new TSx machines, which print a so-called paper trail for voters to view, at an estimated cost of $5.4 million.

But it was clear Thursday that Diebold and its TSx have their own shortcomings.

The paper-trail printer failed badly and jammed in initial state tests. A new round of tests in early June on a more refined, "pre-production" unit went smoothly, though state testers noted that it still makes ratcheting sounds "like a New Year's noisemaker" and uses temporary, thermal paper.

"It seems obvious that this system is designed not to be used for a recount or a count, and that seems to be the point," said Judy Bertelsen, an East Bay activist with the California Election Protection Coalition.

Despite promises of new, tighter security controls more than a year ago, Diebold still would set important security codes and keys for elections administrators at its factory in McKinney, Texas.

The machine offers no mouth controls for paraplegics, amputees and severe arthritics. And while unimpaired voters get a paper trail, blind voters simply have their electronic ballot read back to them by the touch screen. For those reasons, handicapped advocates joined voting activists in urging rejection of the machine.

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman [at] angnewspapers.com.

Key Documents On Electronic Voting Systems
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/touchscreen.htm


June 16, 2005

Currently, legislation is pending in the California Legislature that will codify Accessible Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail standards. The Secretary of State is seeking input from interested parties regarding this legislation. Therefore, the Secretary of State requests written comments from the public regarding the AVVPAT standards, particularly pertaining to the use of the paper record copy for the 1% manual recount and any full manual recount.

The Legislature’s schedule necessitates that all comments be received by the Secretary of State no later than June 24, 2005, in order for them to be considered prior to the final opportunity to testify on the bills.

Comments should be addressed to Constituent Affairs in the Secretary of State’s Executive Division at 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814. Comments may also be sent via fax to 916-653-9675 or via email to constituentaffairs [at] ss.ca.gov.

Constituent Affairs
Secretary of State
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm