Colorado Daily 12/5: Voting activists pack hearing

[Doug Grinbergs <saule@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2003/12/05/news/news04.txt>
Voting activists pack hearing
Richard Valenty
Colorado Daily
12/05/2003

Ordinarily, a business meeting of the Boulder County Board of Commissioners is not the most popular mid-day activity on the Pearl Street Mall. However, on Thursday about 30 members of Citizens for Verifiable Voting (CVV) attended the Commissioners' meeting to voice their opposition to the possible use of Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting systems by Boulder County for the 2004 election.

Boulder County must obtain an election system partially because its 28-year-old punch-card system has mechanical problems, and partially due to requirements of the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

The county has assembled a Voter Equipment Review Committee to examine available systems. Linda Salas, Boulder County clerk, will make a recommendation on a finalist to the Commissioners, who must then vote to approve the system.

Joe Pezzillo, CVV spokesperson, told the Colorado Daily that CVV wanted to bring their concerns about DRE systems to the Commissioners before their final vote. At the meeting, Pezzillo gave a 10-minute presentation that condensed some of the information available on CVV's Web site, http://coloradovoter.net.

Pezzillo indicated that the only type of system that would be acceptable to CVV would be one able to produce a full-text, voter-verifiable paper ballot. Under Colorado law, if a recount is called for, the recount must be performed using the same media that the vote is cast on, unless the Secretary of State intervenes. According to Pezzillo, if a DRE system is flawed, it is likely that a recount would also be in error.

"That's why our group calls for the single official record of voter intent to be a paper ballot, because that's the only thing that's useful in a recount under Colorado law," said Pezzillo.

Pezzillo told the Commissioners that under section 301-3-B of the HAVA, there is no firm requirement that each precinct must provide a DRE for voters with disabilities. That section states that DRE's "or other voting systems equipped for individuals with disabilities at each polling place," must be provided.

According to Pezzillo, Vogue Election Systems sells a "vote-marker system" that could be used by the disabled and produces a paper ballot. Vogue, however, is not one of the four finalist vendors for Boulder County's contract.

Pezzillo concluded by suggesting that Boulder County delay its decision on purchasing a system until National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) finalizes its work on elections standards, which could be done in late 2005. He also suggested that for the 2006 election, the county should use vote-marker systems, and that random samples of the tally should be conducted by hand counting.

Several CVV speakers also addressed the Commissioners, including Neal McBurnett, who worked for Bell Labs for 22 years, most recently with Internet security issues. McBurnett now works as a private consultant.

According to McBurnett, a report on the digital security of a DRE system from Diebold Election Systems, the AccuVote-TS, done by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), was so revealing that half of it could not be released to the public by the state of Maryland.

"There are all kinds of places where the report says 'This part redacted (edited).' I can only speculate on what's in the missing sections," said McBurnett.

Information on the SAIC study can be found on the CVV Web site.

Thursday's CVV presentation was part of a Commissioners' business meeting, so comments were very brief.

"I'm in agreement with most of your points," said Commissioner Paul Danish to Pezzillo.

"Voter confidence will be of utmost concern as we make our decision," said Commissioner Tom Mayer.

According to Pezzillo, the large CVV turnout for a weekday meeting was heartening.

"I know there are a lot of citizen concerns about this issue for a number of reasons," said Pezzillo. "The Commissioners declared publicly that there will be public hearings on the issue, which as far as I know had not previously been scheduled. We actually increased the amount of opportunity for citizen participation, even though we had to do it in 10 minutes."