Re: Hand Counting: How Possible Is It for This Year?

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

You miss the forest for the thousands of trees the pros -both the
corporations who make proprietary voting systems and the
bureaucrats who want to pass the buck to them- have thrown up to
occupy you.

If you want to succeed in "politics" you have to ask for what you
want, not for what you think you can get if you say pretty please.

In the words of Congressman Mark Udall, during his campaign against
Bob Greenlee, politics is "war by other means."

That means using as much force as possible. Unless someone on this
list has dozens of thousands to burn, as many people as possible.

If you want all the people, you have to be able to explain what's
wrong and the BEST way to fix it NOW.

That is what I have done, since November with CVV, periodically,
with no serious interest.

I'm not wasting my time reading the fine print in HAVA, 2239 or
anything else. That's THEIR AGENDA.

OUR agenda should NOT depend on what us amateur THINK this flood of
paper means, but on WHAT IS RIGHT AND BEST.

Paul Danish told me there IS NO OPEN SOURCE SOLUTION NOW SO THEY
HAVE TO USE A PROPRIETARY PRODUCT. Given that and Colorado's insane
recount law, that is NOT acceptable. Maybe under the Constitution,
even.

HAND-COUNTING is therefore the BEST thing NOW. And people can
understand it and stand behind it at the caucuses, etc.

I'm afraid the techies who are the only people with enough money to
still be at this for half a year are the problem. They want an
expensive technical computer fix their way. Having lost the rest of
the people who used to come to CVI meetings, they ARE LOSING!

It's a political problem NOT a technical one -and that includes NOT
a legal one. THE MOST POWERFUL ARGUMENTS ARE MORAL: RIGHT AND
WRONG. The tech part is not more complicated than COUNTING -it's
not even adding!

Sorry for all the EMPHASIS but I'm getting tired of saying this
over and over different ways.

Evan



On Wed, 7 Apr 2004, Robert Mcgrath wrote:

> Evan,
>
> I appreciate your commitment to the simplest possible solution, and one that
> is demonstrably considered the most effective by the authors of the Cal
> Tech/MIT study on voting systems.
>
> I think all of us would like to see a paper-based election in this critical
> election year, with use of any voting technology deferred until standards
> are in place that can capture citizen comments and reflect our best attempts
> to ensure open source codes, audits and verifications of vote recognition
> and vote counting, whether it is based on hand counts or scanned counts with
> sampled hand counts to ensure accuracy.
>
> But how possible is hand counting at this late date in this critical year?
>
> I seriously ask your advice on this since I believe you have had success in
> the past as a citizen activist and I don't know the entire realm of
> possibilities.   If you have any ideas on how to transform our movement into
> one that advocates a totally paper-based system, and you believe we have a
> chance of success with such a campaign this year, I'd love to hear your
> ideas.
>
> Here is what I do know:
>
> HR 2239 is the ONLY bill on the table on the Federal level that could still
> impact this year's election.  It is not good enough for CFVI, and we will
> state so in a "provisional" endorsement of it to request an Amendment of it
> to require non-DRE counting of votes, so that counting must either be done
> by optical scanners with statistically significant samples of hand counts to
> verify accuracy, or by total hand counts.  We will also ask that the Voter
> Verified Paper Trail referred to in the bills' original language be amended
> to treat that document as the official BALLOT, therefore transforming that
> document beyond a recount instrument and gaining it the full legal
> protections that ballots already enjoy in all states.  It is my
> understanding that passage of federal legislation would trump our CO law of
> identical counts/recounts methods.
>
> Concurrently with our push to gain an amendment sponsor and campaign for
> such passage, CFVI is preparing to file a legal injunction in Federal
> District Court arguing that all DRE machines should be banned from use in
> this year's election due to their inability to provide consistent vote
> counting and recounting standards, per Bush v. Gore, as well as other
> arguments that we are open to consider.  We need help in mounting this legal
> campaign and welcome all citizen input -- especially by legal experts,
> lawyers, voting law experts, etc.   We are in touch with other lawyers
> across the country to coordinate efforts and compare legal strategies,
> including the legal staff of FL Congressman Wexler and lawyers involved with
> Bev Harris and David Dill.  It is our hope that one of our legal efforts
> will result in a precedent that others can leverage.  We have contacted Lynn
> Landes to also ask for her assistance in this regard.
>
> Your expertise, Evan, in mobilizing citizens to achieve change, is welcome.
> We would like to ask your advice and help in considering mounting an
> citizen's initiative to put verifiable voting on the ballots for future
> elections.  This would not directly impact this year's elections but could
> serve to elevate the issues to statewide public discussion, including media
> attention which has been limited to date in local markets outside of
> Boulder.
>
> I would propose to everyone reading this e-mail: members of CFVI, members of
> CVV, and members of CAMBER, to consider joining forces to truly empower
> statewide coalition building around our desire for trustworthy elections.  I
> would truly invite everyone reading this to consider attending our training
> workshop this Saturday in Arvada, in order to strategize on next steps and
> to regroup after some of these setbacks in Boulder.   We have particularly
> set aside open mic time for such strategy planning in our closing session,
> and this is YOUR opportunity to help shape the future of our statewide
> efforts.  Please go to our website to register or for more info.
>
> Bob McGrath, Director
> Coloradoans for Voting Integrity
> www.cfvi.org
>
> >From: 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
>
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