Re: CFVI Supports Trustworthy Elections Resolution

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

While I deeply respect Al Kolwicz, CFVI and CVV and their tireless
unpaid work to insure fair elections, I cannot support the
Resolution because it is 1) vague and 2) makes voters defer to
technical experts who understand electronic voting. This does
little to promote confidence in election procedures, and makes it
impossible for the vast untechnical majority to argue for the
Resolution at caucuses or elsewhere.

Until NIST, IEEE, etc. have established standards for electronic
voting it should NOT be used! NO government should spend a cent on
systems which may not meet the standards when set! Hand-counted
paper ballots are the simplest solution until then. Because
Colorado (and Nebraska, and perhaps soon FLORIDA) are unique in
REQUIRING recounts to be done by the SAME method as the original
counts (see law texts below) this is DOUBLY important here. This
law violates the basic principle of ALL accounting: crosscheck
everything.

Hand-counting will also employ many local people in need of work,
instead of enriching a few.

It's no wonder our election officials don't want to have
hand-counted samples which might not agree with the electronic
counts. Then they'd have to reconcile the two. Since none (in this
county at least) are programmers, they can't possibly find bugs in
the election program which might cause differing results.

It's obvious to me that election officials are eager to pass the
buck to private companies to make their job easier.

It's bad enough that unpaid citizens have to educate paid election
officials on the security of electronic elections, but now we're
expected to teach them how to hand-count paper ballots??? Colorado
law already establishes hand-counting procedure. Details can be
learned from countries that hand-count, such as Canada, Britain and
Germany. It behooves OUR EMPLOYEES to research hand-counting, which
the recent Caltech/MIT study show ranks almost at the top in
accuracy.

AFTER standards for electronic voting are set, THEN a PUBLIC (not
proprietary) software solution can be written, and inspected and
debugged by thousands or programmers, as has already been done in
Australia. See the Wired Magazine story at:

http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1


  RECOUNT LAWS

Most laws in the country can be found at www.findlaw.com

Colorado, then California, then Texas:


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.

http://198.187.128.12/colorado/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=fs-main.htm&2.0


California Elections Code:

15627.  If in the election which is to be recounted the votes
were recorded by means of a punchcard voting system or by
electronic or electromechanical vote tabulating devices, the
voter who files the declaration requesting the recount may
select whether the recount shall be conducted manually or by
means of the voting system used originally, or both.


BILL NUMBER: SB 1547	CHAPTERED  09/28/94

	CHAPTER   920
	FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE   SEPTEMBER 28, 1994

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=76483324700+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve


Texas:

§ 214.042. Counting Method for Recount

(a) A person requesting a recount of electronic voting system ballots has a choice of:
(1) an electronic recount using the same program as the original count;
(2) an electronic recount using a corrected program under Section 214.046(c), if obtainable; or
(3) a manual recount as provided by Subchapter A.

Acts 1985, 69th Leg., ch. 211, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1986.
Amended by Acts 1987, 70th Leg., 2nd C.S., ch. 59, § 18, eff. Oct. 20, 1987.

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/cqcgi?CQ_SESSION_KEY=ZYDMGPQMUSIQ&CQ_QUERY_HANDLE=128157&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=1&CQ_TLO_DOC_TEXT=YES



Evan

Evan Ravitz
1130 11th St. #3
Boulder CO 80302
(303)440-6838