[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Fwd: EVOTING: CO Election Law Reform Legislation
FYI and for posterity in the archives...
Begin forwarded message:
From: Joe Pezzillo <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 10, 2003 11:11:10 AM MST
To: alice.madden.house@xxxxxxxxxxx, moe.keller.senate@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx, dana_stefanelli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Bob___PI_Mkt Mcgrath <bob.mcgrath@xxxxxxxxxx>, Michelle Mulder <michelle.mulder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: EVOTING: CO Election Law Reform Legislation
12/10/2003
Greetings:
At their meeting last night, Bob McGrath of Coloradans for Voting Integrity suggested I contact you regarding legislation that you may be working on to address the many citizen concerns about Electronic Voting.
I am the spokesperson for the Boulder County based group "Citizens for Verifiable Voting" which has been extremely active on this issue primarily as it relates to Boulder County's pending purchase of a new voting system.
We are also in contact with Michelle Mulder (cc'd) of Congressman Rush Holt's (NJ) office regarding their legislation HR2239, the Voter Confidence Act, and I have taken the liberty of contacting and including Dana Stefanelli of Senator Bob Graham's office regarding the legislation they have introduced, S1980.
I want to alert you in particular to concerns that our group has regarding the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and Colorado HAVA, and the Colorado Recount Law. These concerns were detailed in our 12/4/2003 presentation to the Boulder County Commissioners, the slides for which (including the relevant legal language) are on our website at http://www.coloradovoter.net, which I encourage you to visit for complete access to and background on our work.
In Federal HAVA (Title III Subtitle A Sec. 301.3(B)), which clearly trumps State HAVA for purposes of federal elections, the language clearly indicates that Counties ARE NOT REQUIRED to purchase Direct Record Electronic voting systems (DREs). In Colorado, our state implementation removes the alternative language, leaving a tremendous ambiguity and misinterpretation by Clerks.
See: <http://www.joepezzillo.org/evoting/cvvbccpre/cvvbcc_06.html>
Under Colorado Recount Law (1-10.5-108), any recount to be performed must be done using the SAME MEDIA as the original vote was cast, unless the Secretary of State or presumably a court of competent jurisdiction were to intervene. THUS, if a vote is cast and recorded electronically, that is the media by which the recount must be performed. This is unacceptable to the citizens of Boulder County.
See: <http://www.joepezzillo.org/evoting/cvvbccpre/cvvbcc_07.html>
Our group believes that we resolve many of the security and verification concerns with a simple solution: PAPER BALLOTS.
The Department of Justice has already ruled (see slide 6 above) that Paper Ballots would be consistent with both HAVA and ADA. A class of devices known as "Vote MARKING" systems (as specifically distinguished from "Vote RECORDING" systems) would provide all of the benefits of Touch-Screen voting (audible ballots for disabled voters, multiple language and ballot style support, prevention of over- and under-voting) yet the output of such a system would be a voter verifiable full-text PAPER BALLOT that the voter places into a ballot box as they have traditionally. These paper ballots are suitable for optical scanning by multiple vendor's systems for verification, as well as easily hand counted to provide spot checking or a manual count.
Our group has more than 50 active members representing the high-tech professional community here in Boulder County (home to among many other entities: NIST, NOAA, NCAR, IBM, CU) as well as "just plain citizens" who are deeply concerned about this issue which is so fundamental to our Democracy. Our group has held public meetings and done extensive outreach to citizens and the media, collected hundreds of physical signatures, drafted a resolution endorsed by all four of Boulder County's active political parties, worked with local election officials to evaluate systems, and presented our concerns to the Boulder County Commissioners.
We ask that you please take our concerns into consideration as you work on legislation to correct the problems that exist with today's laws and systems.
Please do not hesitate to contact me directly if we can be of any assistance to you in your efforts. I will also gladly put you in touch with others in our group who are more knowledgeable than I, or other citizen activists I know of nationally who are working on this issue.
I believe I can safely speak for the diverse voices in our group when I say THANK YOU! We truly appreciate your work on this issue.
Sincerely,
Joe Pezzillo, Spokesperson
Citizens for Verifiable Voting
Boulder County, Colorado USA
http://www.coloradovoter.net