Re: Hard technical details/scare stories for Avante, Hart, and Sequoia?

[Scotty Allen <scotty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the delay, work and school caught up with me.

> How about looking for the good and not the bad?

I thought that flaws in these systems was the whole reason everyone's
concerned.  Doesn't the position statement of the group include "We find
that none of the systems under consideration by Boulder County can meet
our requirements, none provide for a secure and verifiable paper trail
with meaningful re-countability, and therefore none give us confidence
in the results." ?

Or is this just about having paper ballots, and you think the Hart,
Avante, and Sequoia systems are well programmed and tested systems,
which are actually counting votes properly?  I certainly don't...

> >I'm looking to try and get more technical people involved, as I think a
> >strong technical voice saying "We think this is a really bad idea", as
> >well as hopefully more technical people involved with CVV.  
> >
> Everyone knows this already. Commissioners, and elections officials.
> Boulder County MUST buy a system because our old system has been made 
> illegal; verboten; we can't use it. End of story.
> It has to be replaced and every precinct polling place MUST have at 
> least one DRE device.
> (if we had a threaded mail archive you would have been able to read the 
> background on this).

I understand Boulder county must replace the punch card system. 
However, you state that each polling place MUST have a DRE.  Does it? I
thought the requirement was just to have at least one handicapped usable
device.  Which, AFAIK, doesn't necessitate DRE.  Or is a computer
terminal which prints ballots also considered a DRE?

> This is not a technical issue, it is a political issue. Being forced to 
> purchase things that will not work and are suspect to fraud is a 
> political issue.
> But that is what is happening. We are being forced.
> Making people understand that it is bad doesn't change it. You need to 
> go and convince the congress, in the next 30 days.

Judging from what someone (I think it was Kell) said at the last
meeting, it sounds to me like it's still a technical issue.  If the
commissioners decided that the systems in question are safe to use, and
buy them, then to me, it's also a technical issue.  It sounds like one
commissioner is aware of the problems and our concerns, but that the
other two still believe DREs are a fine idea.

> That's all fine and good and you can motivate more people to get 
> involved

I thought one of the main focuses was to get more people concerned about
the issue...

> but the issue right now is to find a solution (combination of 
> things) that will work reasonably well until the mess can be fixed.
> We need to think positively and find something workable in the interem.

Which would be a technical issue, no?  What I'm looking for is hard
documentation of problems with the other three vendors under
consideration.  It would be nice to have evidence of screwups beyond
just a lack of printing paper ballot.  It seems to me, the first step in
finding a new solution is knowing that the current (or proposed)
solution is broken.

-Scotty
-- 
Haiku's inventor
must have had seven fingers
on his middle hand