Democracy requires that people, not machines, oversee the election process.
No one loves computers more than I do, and I have worked with them since 1967. But computers are not good for everything, they have their limits. Who would know their limits more that the technologists who work with them? If we don't make their limitations clear, who can? Most people have Hollywood ideas about computers and think they are magical robots who never make a mistake. The character Data on StarTrek is a good model--he is a computer with high moral standards, and surely he would count ballots impecably.
People have a disjunction in their thinking--they know their PC crashes and has endless problems, yet they want to believe that these voting computers, worth millions of dollars, are of that other kind, the kind that always work.
Rmember the two engineers who tried to say that the Challenger Space Shuttle O-rings wouldn't work at low temperatures? Not everyone wants to hear about the limitations of technology.
It may be that the only proper use of computers in voting is to be the host for assistive devices that enable disabled voters to mark and verify their ballot in a private and independent way if they prefer machine assistance rather than human assistance.
As for the Luddites, they were economic warriors, and technology was
the battlefield. The notes below on Luddites are adapted from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
The Luddites were a group of English workers in the early 1800s who protested the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs, often by destroying machines.
The original Luddites claimed to be led by Ned Ludd, also known as "King Ludd", who is believed to have destroyed two large stocking-frames that produced inexpensive stockings (which could undercut the price of stockings produced by skilled knitters) and whose signature appears on a "workers manifesto" of the time. Whether or not Ludd actually existed is historically unclear.
The movement spread rapidly throughout England in 1811, with many wool and cotton mills being destroyed, until the British government harshly suppressed them. This included making "machine breaking" (industrial sabotage) a capital crime, and executing 17 men in 1813. At one time, more British troops were fighting the Luddites than were fighting Napoleon Bonaparte.
The term "Luddite" in recent years has become synonymous with anyone who opposes the advance of industrial technology.
E. P. Thompson's view of Luddism in The Making of the English Working Class
In his classic book on English history, The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson presented a view on Luddite history. Thompson's approach might well be taken to illustrate the view that, as often happens in history, it is the victor who writes the lines.
The Luddites are often characterised, and indeed their name has become synonymous with, people opposed to all change--in particular technological change such as that which was sweeping through the weaving shops in the industrial heartland of England. They are often characterised as violent, thuggish, and disorganised.
E. P. Thompson advances many arguments against this view of the Luddites. He aims to show that the Luddites were not, contrary to their usual portrayal, opposed to new technology; rather, they were opposed to the abolition of price defined by custom and practice and therefore also to the introduction of what we would today call the free market.
Thompson argues that the usage of free market rhetoric has become so
pervasive and commonplace nowadays that it is easy to forget that the notions
of the free market were invented relatively recently, in fact at about
the time of Luddites. Before this time an artisan would perform work for
a given price. The notion of working out how much the materials cost them,
how much work they did, and how much profit they made would have been alien
to them, and indeed to most
people of that time, Thompson holds.
Thompson supplies a number of examples that show it was the forcible introduction of a new economic system that was being introduced that the Luddites were protesting against. For example, the Luddite song, "General Ludd's Triumph":
The guilty may fear, but no vengeance he aims
At the honest man's life or Estate
His wrath is entirely confined to wide frames
And to those that old prices abate
"Wide frames" were the weaving frames, and the old prices were those prices agreed by custom and practice. Thompson cites the many historical accounts of Luddite raids on workshops where some frames were smashed whilst others (whose owners were obeying the old economic practice) were left untouched.
Secondly, Thompson counters the view that the Luddites were thuggish. There were remarkably few Luddite arrests and executions, and yet they operated highly effectively against the forces of the state. The best explanation for this is that they were working with the consent of the local communities (or indeed were part of those communities).
Thirdly, Thompson argued that the Luddites were not disorganised. He noted that some of the largest Luddite activities involved a hundred men.
In short, Thompson feels that in caricaturing the Luddites as thugs
who just wanted to smash up new technology we are simply continuing the
propaganda of the time. The reality, on Thompson's view, was that the Luddites
were normal people who were protesting against forced introduction of changes
into their lives which they thought would be highly damaging. Looking 50
years into the Luddites' future, the diseased, poorly fed, and desperate
operators in the weaving factories, and
the swathe of destruction launched upon on the traditional weaving
communities--some with 500 years of history--suggests to Thompson that
they may have been right.
delta@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
All this "hand" counting and "hand" marking.......
Does it strike anyone else as a pretty Luddite type of stance??how about coming up with *constructive* ways to make technology work *for*
us rather than agin' us?
I fail to see where a buncha tired, retired and unemployed people (the
volunteers who would be doing the hand counting after polls close) would be
more accurate than an impartial machine scanner.
*That* should be the focus........moving us into the future with secure,
verifiable and accurate technology.
NOT returning us to technology of 200 years ago.Bo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Mcgrath" <mcgrath_mcnally@xxxxxxx>
To: <evan@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: <AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>; <cmehesy@xxxxxxxxxxx>; <davide475@xxxxxxxx>;
<david.ellington@xxxxxxxxxxx>; <donna@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>;
<mlambie@xxxxxxxxx>; <mlambie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <texico86@xxxxxxx>;
<peter.raich@xxxxxxxx>; <TresCeeA@xxxxxxx>;
<michelle.mulder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <tahommel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
<cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <PKlammer@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 10:18 AM
Subject: Hand Counting: How Possible Is It for This Year?> 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&WAIS
action=""
> >
> >
> >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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