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November 11, 2003
Election decision makers defend themselves
The National Association of Secretaries of State http://www.nass.org/ issued, on September 15, 2003, NASS Statement on Security of Voting Systems - http://www.nass.org/electioninfo/votingsecurity_9.15.03.pdf
The statement exposes a high powered organization whose membership and staff have become defensive and are out of touch with reality.
The statement is insulting to researchers – who are dismissed as lacking “collective expertise in election administration, including the laws, processes, and procedures involved.” Knowing how to repeat a gibberish mantra is not a qualification for securing elections.
The statement attempts to make true by declaration what is not true. Election officials do not, as the report states, “assess the potential for election fraud” and “review the security of our systems as a whole.” I was unable to find such a study on the NASS site, and a Google search did not return any scholarly studies authored by these people.
My experience with election officials is that they are adverse to independent oversight and scientific measurement.
Three private works of note are:
July 2001 Report of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project - http://vote.caltech.edu/Reports/index.html
Securing the Vote - An Analysis of Election Fraud - http://www.demos-usa.org/demos/pubs/Securing_The_Vote.pdf
Writings by Rebecca Mercuri - http://www.notablesoftware.com/evote.html#RMPapers
Secure, accurate and reliable elections must be free of fraud, error and incompetence.
Election officials have a vested interest in looking good – they don’t want to find problems, so they don’t look.
Political organizations seek ways to bend the rules – to find an advantage; they don’t advertise the loopholes that they find.
Legislators have full plates, and don’t devote the time needed to understand what is actually happening to our election system.
Sort of fiddling while Rome burns?
Al Kolwicz
PS: Donetta Davidson, Colorado Secretary of Ste, is currently secretary of NASS, and will serve as president beginning 2006.
------------------------ Al Kolwicz CAMBER - Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results 2867 Tincup Circle Boulder, CO 80305 303-494-1540 www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz
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