Re: CVV January Update

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks again, Joe.

There is another issue that was tops on our original agenda, but has
not even gotten much publicity.  It is still an issue for the 2004
elections here in Boulder County, and in pending federal legislation.

It is embodied in that good old slogan from Stalin distributed on
t-shirts at our first meeting.  I haven't seen a good historical
citation to that wording, so I'll cite the more recent version from
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza

 "You won the election, but I won the count."

Yes, I'm talking about disclosure of voting software, as I argue more
fully at
  http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/elections/disclosure.html

I welcome feedback, discussion, thoughts on how to get some media
coverage, etc.

For Boulder County, I think some more discussion on exactly how to
recommend that they do random hand-counted validation of the machine
tallys.

Cheers,

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60

On Mon, Jan 05, 2004 at 01:12:12PM -0700, Joe Pezzillo wrote:
> 
> Greetings!
> 
> I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday and Happy New Year!
> 
> As a quick recap, when we last left off, the Boulder County Clerk's 
> office announced that they had decided NOT to buy any "DRE" 
> touch-screen units at this time and to use centrally scanned paper 
> ballots for the 2004 election.
> 
> Everyone who has worked with Citizens for Verifiable Voting should be 
> proud of this accomplishment, which is exactly what we set out to do.
> 
> HOWEVER, we're not done yet.
> 
> We have not heard any confirmation of the Public Hearing that the 
> Commissioners announced at our 12/4 presentation, and we do not know if 
> the Commissioners have officially voiced our citizen concerns to the 
> Secretary of State.
> 
> We have asked the County to lease a system instead of buying anything 
> at this time, and we have asked that the Commissioners and Clerk's 
> Office include CVV in their decision making process once they do look 
> at buying an optical scan system.
> 
> ALSO, the "DRE" is just one issue with Electronic Voting, and I know 
> many of CVV's members and participants are concerned about the broader 
> issue and its implications. There are efforts underway to modify 
> Colorado election law to enforce the use of paper ballots, and I hope 
> everyone will stay ready to take action in the near future to support 
> passage of such legislation.
> 
> I encourage you to ALSO join and participate in the Colorado statewide 
> group, Coloradans for Voting Integrity, which in addition to working on 
> legislation related to Paper Ballots and against DREs in our state, 
> will also be dealing with issues such as the "Electronic Pollbook."
> 
> Their website is:
> 
> http://www.countthevotecolorado.org/
> 
> and they operate a mailing list on their site, as well.
> 
> I would also like to personally thank everyone who has been involved 
> for all their hard work and dedication to this issue, and for working 
> to "do the right thing" for our shared community here in Boulder 
> County. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you in the New 
> Year to help make sure that we have a fair and accurate election in 
> November, and active and engaged citizens beyond that.
> 
> 
> Joe