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Re: alice madden's bill on evoting




A group of us met with Representative Madden and Common Cause this afternoon and I am very encouraged after our discussion. While I'd say she clearly heard and understood our concerns about the bill as introduced and how we might be able to help with friendly amendments, she has legitimate concerns about how to get the bill passed with bipartisan support in a climate where the SoS and many clerks are apparently opposed to it already.


I hope we can talk about this and other issues tomorrow night at the "Election Reform" Meetup (I'll post a separate note).

Joe


On Feb 9, 2004, at 5:11 PM, Evan Daniel Ravitz wrote:



Folks,


I must amend what I said last week, below. Madden's bill DOES mandate
hand recounts for LOCAL elections, but continues to allow electronic
recounts for congressional, state and district elections, merely
adding another meaningless "test" of the software, as I mentioned
below. Any programmer can make a system pass a test and cheat on the
real deal.

Evan

Here's the text of HB 1296:

http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2004a/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/ 2B1087A3259B4C8287256DF8005CBB75?open&file=1296_01.pdf

It requires that computer recounts be preceeded by testing the program
against hand-counts of 50 ballots from a random precinct.

By the way, here is the Colorado law on recounts:

Colorado Revised Statute

1-10.5-108. Method of recount.
Statute text
(1) The recount shall be of the ballots cast, and the votes shall be
recorded on sheets other than those used at the election.

(2) Unless otherwise directed by the secretary of state, the ballots
cast shall be recounted utilizing the same procedures, methods, and
processes that were utilized for the original count of the ballots
cast.

History
Source: L. 99: Entire article added with relocations, p. 487,  13,
effective July 1. L. 2001: Entire section amended, p. 301,  4,
effective August 8.

Annotations
Editor's note: This section was formerly numbered as 1-10-306.


Evan


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On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Pete Klammer wrote:

I think it should be carrot and stick: here is what needs to be changed for
our support, and here is the opposition we will raise if you don't.


As it is written in first (introduced) draft, the Madden-Hillman bill does
more harm than good, since it wounds the vampire without putting a stake
through its heart.


As long as DRE is in the driver's seat, and "paper records" are kept in the
closet (except in rare recount circumstances), we remain vulnerable to all
kinds of electronic mischief -- accidental or deliberate.


--
Pete Klammer / ACM(1970), IEEE, ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE), NACSE(NSNE)
3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
(303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
Idealism may not win every contest, but that's not what I choose it for!



-----Original Message-----
From: Evan Daniel Ravitz [mailto:evan@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 9:32 PM
To: Al Kolwicz
Cc: Citizens for Verifiable Voting; Pete Klammer
Subject: RE: alice madden's bill on evoting (fwd)



Don't you think we should propose language to Rep. Madden?

If necessary, can we propose and vote on language by email?

Evan

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Al Kolwicz wrote:


Evan,


I'm not speaking for CVV, but I know that both Coloradoans
for Voting
Integrity and CAMBER agree that the topics of the bill are
very important
and must be dealt with this session. However, they both
find that the
solution proposed does not achieve the intended objective.

The bill proposes to provide voters a verifiable ballot by
requiring vendors
of DRE's to print an audit trail, in addition to the
digital ballot recorded
in the DRE memory. An audit trail does not give voters a
verifiable ballot.
In fact, two ballots per voter (one verified but not
counted, and one
unverified and counted) makes things worse than they are now.

What we require is the only ballot must be a full-ballot-text voter
verifiable paper ballot, and (2) only the voter verified
paper ballot may be
counted or recounted.

Al

------------------------
Al Kolwicz
CAMBER - Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results
2867 Tincup Circle    Boulder, CO 80305
303-494-1540
AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx
www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz

-----Original Message-----
From: Evan Daniel Ravitz [mailto:evan@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 6:40 PM
To: bcv@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: alice madden's bill on evoting (fwd)


What is BCV's position on HB 1296? -Evan


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 15:53:10 -0700
From: J.B. Holston <jbh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: evan@xxxxxxxx
Subject: alice madden's bill on evoting

Hi Evan; are you folks supporting her bill (HB 1296) ?  I noted your
comments on the weblog.  Have you given her specific
amendment language that
you'd prefer?

Best,

J.B. Holston

The Rocky Mountain Progressive Network
1226 Bannock Street
Denver, CO  80204
303 991 1900 phone
303 991 1902 fax
www.rmpn.org

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