Re: info from Boulder Couty Clerk's office

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear Mr. Halicki,

Please explain how you can say, as you do below:

>However, the requirement that a verifiable paper trail be a central
>component of whichever system is chosen has been a constant with all
>parties involved.

when, as you also say below, law mandates recounts must be done by the
same manner as original counts? Isn't the "paper trail" simply for
show if nobody can count the paper without using the proprietary
software and hardware?

Commissioner Danish is intimately acquainted with this problem, which
prevented him from doing a real recount by hand when he lost a race
for the State legislature in 1994 by 4 votes. The "paper trail" means
nothing because people cannot touch the paper unless a judge orders,
which to my knowledge has never happened. Can you provide evidence
that it has happened?

Doesn't State and Federal law prevent real verification? Every
principle of accounting requires cross-checking by AT LEAST TWO
methods to see that the same total is arrived at!

The federal law which prevents diabled people from having a paper
ballot even printed is also faulty: The disabled are being used to
prevent election verification! I believe when these folks become aware
their ballots are being counted by secret software they will prefer to
trust their friends or neighbors to "cast" their ballot into a box to
trusting an unknown corporation to unverifiably count it for them.

Finally, doesn't the HAVA money constitute a bribe to accept
unverifiable voting, easily subject to fraud?

Evan Ravitz
1130 11th St. #3
Boulder CO 80302
(303)440-6838

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003, Chris Malley wrote:

> FYI... A friend of mine recently inquired about the DRE issue.
> Here's the reply he received from Boulder County Clerk and Recorder
> Elections Division Manager Tom Halicki.
>
> -Chris
>
>
> --
> Thank you for your recent e-mail expressing your concern on this issue. If
> you require more information, check our website.
>
>
> Dear Boulder County citizen:
>
>
>      There has been great concern voiced recently about the security aspects
> and type of new voting systems being considered for purchase by Boulder County.
> This letter is intended to answer the questions raised and alleviate concerns
> about that process, the choices we face and the attributes being required by
> such a system.
>
>      First some background. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed by
> Congress after the Florida General Election debacle of 2000 was intended to eliminate
> the problems associated with punch card voting systems.
>
> The HAVA mandates that ALL punch card systems be replaced with new systems ?
> no exceptions ? by the 2004 general election. Despite the fact that Boulder
> County's punch card system was not like the ones that created the problems with
> partially punched "chad" in Florida and elsewhere, it was old and had
> different, equally serious, system flaws due to its age.
>
> Namely, the more than 20-year-old card readers were failing, intermittently,
> to read parts of some ballots. This was discovered in the 2002 general
> election where an uncharacteristic number of blank votes were discovered in the
> computer tallies of seven precincts. Those precincts had to be recounted.
>
> And while the recount did not affect the outcome of any of the races
> involved, the mere fact that the machines being used were failing intermittently ? and
> that the company that made them no longer existed and there were no other
> companies repairing them or selling replacement parts ? indicated that with or
> without the mandate of HAVA, Boulder County must replace its voting system this
> year.
>
> So in the spring and early summer of 2003, the newly elected Boulder County
> Clerk and Recorder, Linda Salas, began drawing up specifications for a request
> for proposal (RFP) for soliciting bids from vendors for a new voting system.
>
> Understanding the various needs and requirements by the voting public of
> Boulder County, the system requirements mandated by federal, state and local law,
> as well as the strong feelings of the elected officials (herself included),
> Salas included two system requirements in her RFP for the bidding companies to
> meet.
>
>
> * One was a Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines (touch screen
> machines) component (in order to meet the federal requirement of HAVA and the
> Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that calls for the presence of a system
> that allows unassisted voting by persons with disabilities which is the key
> function of a DRE system).
>
> * The other is an optically scanned ballot system that would accommodate
> the use of absentee/mail/provisional ballots.
>
>
>      There have been people voicing adamant opposition to Boulder County
> choosing a voting system that uses any kind of touch screen system (DRE) because it
> relies on computer software to process the votes and does not provide a
> "paper trail" with an actual ballot marked by the voter.
>
>      The HAVA requires that there be at least one DRE system available at
> every precinct. Therefore, DREs will be part of the voting system chosen by
> Boulder County regardless. At present, the National Institute of Standards and
> Technology has not yet established the federal requirements that such a system must
> meet in order to be considered.
>
>      However, the requirement that a verifiable paper trail be a central
> component of whichever system is chosen has been a constant with all parties
> involved.
>
> When the commissioners met in June and created a committee to study the bids
> for a new voting system, test out the various systems and make a
> recommendation to Clerk and Recorder Salas about which one they felt was best, they made it
> clear that whichever system was chosen, it must have a paper trail, not just
> a computer record.
>
> And the advisory committee studying the new systems has also said that a
> paper trail must be a key element of the new system they recommend.
>
> So this means that the system chosen will be comprised of some sort of
> optically scanned paper ballot that is marked by the voter, scanned and recorded. In
> case of a challenge, the ballots can be re-scanned, just as they were in the
> recent mail ballot election. Ballots cast at a DRE voting machine would not
> have a "paper trail" because the voting systems that are certified for use in
> the State of Colorado currently do not print out a paper ballot that could then
> be recounted.
>
> Federal and state law requires that, in the case of a recount, the ballots
> must be recounted in the same manner that they were counted originally. There
> would be no hand count without a specific judicial ruling calling for such.
>
> It must be noted that the county's old system ? and any new system ? has and
> will rely on computers and software to "read" ballots and tabulate votes. So
> even with a new system that uses paper ballots, a computer and software will be
> an integral part of the process.
>
>
> Where are we now?
>
>
>      When Clerk and Recorder Linda Salas sent out her RFPs, she received
> responses from eight vendors.
>
>      The advisory committee attended a two-hour presentation by each vendor
> demonstrating their voting systems. The committee also reviewed comments by
> members of the public who tried out those systems at a day-long open house.
>
>      The committee then narrowed down the field of applicants to four. They
> are:
>
>      * Diebold Election Systems of Ohio
>
>      * Sequoia Voting Systems of California
>
>      * Avante International Technology, Inc. of New Jersey
>
>      * Hart InterCivic of Texas
>
>
>      These four returned in early October and made longer, more in-depth
> presentations to the advisory committee. A second public open house was held with
> the four semi-finalists in mid-October.
>
>      The committee's work was put on hold while Salas conducted the off-year,
> mail ballot election. The committee is expected to gather for a final meeting
> in December and make its recommendation to Salas about which vendor best meets
> the requirements set forth both by Salas and Boulder County, the State of
> Colorado and Congress.
>
>      Salas will take this recommendation under advisement and make a
> presentation to the Boulder County Commissioners at a public hearing in January where
> she will present her own recommendation. At that time a decision will likely be
> made.
>
> The Boulder County Commissioners have the final say as to which system will
> be chosen. The next opportunity for public input will be at the county
> commissioner's meeting in January.
>
> Given this information, there are several points that must be considered:
>
> * The whole point of having a DRE system that does not produce a paper
> ballot is to ensure that the vote of a disabled person is cast unassisted, just as
> with an able voter. If a DRE printed a paper ballot or receipt, this could
> defeat that purpose;
>
> * Currently, there is no legal requirement that counties in Colorado must
> have a paper ballot system and there is no system certified by the State of
> Colorado that will produce a paper ballot from a DRE system. (Note: whichever
> system is chosen must be certified by the State of Colorado. Boulder County
> cannot select a system that is not certified by the state. The requirements for
> state certification are set by state statute, which is, in turn, a product of the
> state legislature.)
>
> * Boulder County's voting system is not now nor will it be in the future
> connected to the Internet. The results of our vote counts are tabulated by a
> stand-alone computer, copied onto a disk and then downloaded onto the county's
> Web site for public consumption. For this reason, there is no way a member of
> the general public could "hack" into our system and tamper with our election
> system.
>
>
>      This is the way things stand today. If you have any further questions or
> comments about this, contact Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Elections
> Division Manager Tom Halicki at 303-413-7745 or via e-mail:
> thalicki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:thalicki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> --
>