DoJ Ruling re: Paper

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

I spoke with the citizen activist in Los Alamos, NM this morning 
regarding their group's work.

Among other things, she sent me this link, which is the official 
document covering what Al has told us, that the DoJ has already ruled 
that paper ballots would be consistent with HAVA and ADA.

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/drevotingsystems.htm

Their website is:

http://voter.browndogs.org/touchscreen.html

And in their case, they are both opposing DREs in their County, and 
fighting them at the State level, too, as it appears their SoS is going 
to attempt to force them on the Counties and is involved with their 
County's purchase.

They have convinced their Commissioners to delay and hopefully fully 
reverse their County's purchase of DREs, and worked with them to draft 
the letter below.

Hope you find this as inspirational as I do!

Joe

----------

November 25, 2003

Ms. Rebecca Vigil-Giron
Office of the New Mexico Secretary of State
State Capitol North Annex, Suite 300
Santa Fe, New Mexico  87503



Dear Secretary Vigil-Giron:

On behalf of the Council of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, I am 
writing to respectfully request you not proceed at this time with the 
purchase of 17 Edge Voting Machines as described in County of Los 
Alamos Resolution No. 03-20.  The County Council has placed on its 
December 2 meeting agenda, for reconsideration, its prior authorization 
for the purchase of these voting machines.  According to Nita Taylor, 
Los Alamos County Clerk, these machines were being ordered through your 
office.

At the Work Session of the County Council on November 18, 2003, the 
Council heard concerns from our residents over the purchase of the Edge 
Voting Machines from Sequoia Systems.

Our concern with these systems is that no recount can be accomplished 
that demonstrates that each and every vote was recorded and counted as 
intended by the voter.  Ballot images printed out at the end of the 
voting period do not accomplish that; they merely reproduce what the 
machine recorded.  It is important to this Council that every voter be 
confident that his or her vote has been recorded as well as counted as 
intended.

Given the rapidly developing maturity of these systems, the lagging 
standards for certification and testing, and the gravity and 
potentially expensive consequences inherent to early adoption, the 
County Council is reconsidering the purchase of touch screen voting 
systems.

Should this present an issue for you or if the order has been placed, 
please contact Donna Dreska, County Administrator, at 505-662-8080 so 
that we can be informed.  We appreciate your assistance in this matter 
and hope that you can be of assistance to our County Clerk in answering 
the concerns.

As the County Council, we know this issue is dear to the citizens and 
voters of Los Alamos and believe it would be equally so to every voter 
in New Mexico.  As such you may want to investigate this matter further 
for New Mexico voter security.

Supporting information:
Our residents continue to send us many other reservations; these 
include:

·       The threat to voter confidence created by lack of transparency, 
the likelihood of electronic errors and special difficulties in 
recovering from them, and the opportunities for computer-scale vote 
fraud.

·       Numerous reports of voting system malfunctions that suggest 
certification and testing is not sufficient to eliminate design errors 
in complex systems.

·       Analyses by the Library of Congress, General Accounting Office, 
Maryland's SIAC commission, and qualified technologists have found the 
FEC and NASED certification and testing process outdated, and have 
suggested that touch screens bring unprecedented and not yet addressed 
vulnerabilities into the election process

·       Problems and concerns motivated Secretaries of state in 
California, and Louisiana, as well as the NY state Assembly, to request 
a costly replacement/retrofit of their current Touch Screens to permit 
voter-verifiable balloting or other improved standards.

·       When malfunctions are detected and software "patches" are 
installed in the middle of an election, possibly by non-election 
officials, the resulting system is no longer the system that was 
certified.  Not only does this erode voter confidence but also legal 
challenges have resulted. This has occurred in numerous states as well 
as our own: in the November 2002 election in Bernalillo County, 12,000 
votes cast during early voting were recovered only ten days after the 
election, and only by "patching" of the system by non-election 
officials.

Los Alamos residents suggested safeguards on touch screen systems would 
include voter verifiable hard copies of ballots that could be spot 
checked or recounted, as well the right to inspect proprietary voting 
system software. They noted that half a dozen commercially available 
voting systems that could meet these requirements are likely to be 
certified by independent testing authorities sometime in the next year.


Sincerely,

Geoff Rodgers
Council Chair

Cc:             Bill Richardson, Governor of the State of New Mexico
                (Sandra and Laura, please copy each of our state 
senators and state representatives as well thanks
                Nita K. Taylor, County Clerk
                Donna M. Dreska, County Administrator
                Pam Bacon, County Attorney