Re: Public Hearing - Boulder County Voting System BID AWARD

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

A REMINDER TO THE COUNTY: THE CITIZENS HAVE REPEATEDLY SAID NO TO ANY 
PURCHASE AT THIS TIME.

That said, I agree with Lou's assessment, what's the point of attending 
this so-called "public" meeting when the public has already been 
repeatedly shut out of the process and the clerk's office and the 
vendor are parading around as if the contract has already been awarded.

The Clerk's office has repeatedly refused to provide tangible evidence 
that they have actually done a professional quality evaluation of this 
system or that they have any plan to meet the citizen's requirements 
for Trustworthy Elections. It's all what they've been told by the 
vendor, and, oh yeah, they chose "paper" (as long as you don't try to 
hold them to any legal definition of it) because that was their plan 
all along, not because of any citizen input. In fact, citizen activists 
are not even welcome at the County Clerk's office, because, well, why 
is that? We care about accurate election results and that's too much 
hassle for them?

Sure, we paid to send the clerk's office to Orange County, and look 
what happened there, the local clerk and the vendor blamed the poll 
workers for the thousands of disenfranchised voters apparently caused 
by this system's poorly designed management back-end that we're now 
supposed to purchase. And yes, we've also been paying to have the 
Clerk's office lobby the SoS on behalf of the vendor and against the 
citizens prior to any purchase being made. But what have the citizens 
seen as proof that any of this will produce a verifiable election, that 
any of it is in our best interest, and not all just primarily for the 
expedience and convenience of the clerk's office?

Among many other details, I never heard back to my question to the 
County Attorney about what (if any) ramifications there were or will be 
to the fact that Boulder County used an UNCERTIFIED system in November 
2003. I hope that the County receives more than a verbal assurance that 
the system they are about to purchase -- against the citizen's 
recommendations -- is actually certified this time around.

If we had an elections process that was trustworthy and verifiable 
through and through, we could probably also save money this time around 
by not having to recount the ballots like we did in November to make 
sure it was done right the first time, too.

Will anyone be accountable for anything anymore?

Joe
(on behalf of myself only)




On Apr 21, 2004, at 11:50 PM, Doug Grinbergs wrote:

> At 17:00 -0600 04/16/04, alkolwicz wrote:
> > The public hearing regarding the purchase of a new Boulder County 
> > voting system is scheduled for 9 AM April 22 at the Commissioners 
> > Hearing Room.
>
> Note the venue:
>
> http://www.co.boulder.co.us/bocc/Agenda/latest.htm
>
> THURSDAY, APRIL 22
>
> 9:00 a.m. Clerk & Recorder's Office:  Public Hearing re: Bid award 
> recommendation for the new voting system (AR:  Approval)