DRAFT CVV Testimony on CO HB 1296

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Steering Committee has seen this, can I please get feedback from 
the broader group before I depart for Denver? Thanks! -Joe

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DRAFT

Statement of Citizens for Boulder County Citizens for Verifiable Voting

Thank you for the opportunity to present. I'm Joe Pezzillo from 
Boulder, Spokesperson for the unaffiliated group Citizens for 
Verifiable Voting.

The public at large was awakened by the crisis in Florida in 2000 when 
they realized they could not tell from the Election who had won. Now, 
we are already seeing record turnout in both Political Party's caucuses 
and primaries this Presidential Election year from voters expecting a 
Trustworthy Election.

Today, despite the passage of Federal Legislation and millions of 
dollars spent on new voting technology, there is No Confidence from The 
People of the United States in the Electronic Storage of Votes, and 
that lack of confidence is not based on unfounded fears or lack of 
understanding, but on the extensive research and analysis of Computer 
Professionals, Security Researchers, Political Scientists, Academics, 
Citizen Activists and Investigative Journalists.

In Boulder County, we're gifted with many High Tech, Legal and 
Elections experts, who have joined together in an ad hoc citizens' 
group and collaboratively formed the group's core positions. We have 
presented our research and conclusions to the County, in the Media, to 
the four active Political Parties, and to a variety of local groups, 
all of whom have offered some degree of support.

Ultimately, the work of this all volunteer citizens group convinced 
Boulder County, possibly Colorado's most technologically advanced 
region, to reject Computer Voting and adopt a 100% Paper Ballot based 
system for the 2004 election.

This Citizen's group has studied this issue thoroughly and come to the 
consensus position that to achieve Trustworthy Elections that embrace 
Security, Verifiability and Reliability at their core, the central 
component of every Election must be Voter Verified, Full-Text, 
Physically Marked Paper Ballots with Hand-Counting of a statistically 
significant random sample of ballots to verify any machine counts.

We are concerned that the legislation before you as originally drafted 
may not go far enough to protect the sanctity of the vote in Colorado 
and our group would support stronger requirements. We ask that you 
adopt the proposed friendly amendments to secure paper ballots as the 
official record of the voter's intent because the changes will improve 
the law and the elections process.

We know that you will hear vigorous objections to this legislation even 
in its weaker form, and ask you to consider Trustworthiness as the most 
important aspect of any Election and to remember that Trustworthy 
Elections are both the Citizen's Right and Requirement. To those who 
would object to the Citizen's Requirements for Trustworthy Elections on 
any grounds, especially those who cite dollar costs and savings, we can 
answer only that the cost of holding Trustworthy Elections is the price 
of having Democracy and Justice.

Recently, our nation's best and brightest scientists and most rigorous 
and thorough engineering processes backed up by billions of dollars of 
taxpayer money weren't able find a serious computer flaw until it was 
too late. It's one thing to put a machine on Mars that doesn't work and 
can be fixed remotely, it's another to trust any such device to protect 
our Democracy.

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