RE: HB 1227

Correction

The final committee vote was 4/3.

From: alkolwicz [mailto:alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 7:35 AM
To: CAMBER; Citizens for Verifiable Voting; NEWS; Bob Mcgrath; Carol Mehesy; Donna Plutschuck; Monty Lambie; Pete Klammer; Peter Raich; Tracy Abell
Cc: 'Senator Lamborn'; 'Senator May R'; 'Senator Andrews'; 'Senator Cairns'; 'Senator Hanna'; 'Senator Keller'; 'Senator Nichol'; Drew Durham
Subject: HB 1227

Friends:

We all owe a great debt of gratitude to three brave Senators who stood up for the people. Senator Bruce Cairns, Senator Deanna Hanna, and Senator Moe Keller listened and heard our reasons and then voted to defeat HB 1227. Unfortunately, it was not enough. The other four members of the committee voted to pass the bill from committee.

Senator Cairns submitted a motion to require that new voting equipment produce a verifiable paper record for each voter. HAVA director Drew Durham told the Senators that Colorado HAVA funding would be withdrawn if this amendment were to pass. Senators who voted against the amendment said that their vote was influenced by this information. Despite the threat of funding loss, Senators Cairns and Hanna voted FOR the amendment.

I checked the HAVA legislation – non-lawyer that I am – and believe that TITLE III, Section 301 would not be violated by this amendment. I sent a note to Drew Durham asking that he revisit the language. In addition, a message has been sent to Congressman Mark Udall to see if there is a way to confirm our understanding.

Durham also made an appeal to not include voter verifiable in any of 1227 since there is no certified voter verifiable equipment. I checked with the AUTOMARK vendors this morning and find that the AUTOMARK did enter the federal certification program in March and is making very good progress – with no incidents so far. In my opinion, there will be a certified voter verifiable full text paper ballot ADA compliant vote marking machine this year.

Senator Cairns, Senator Hanna, and Senator Keller voted to defeat the bill, but the bill was passed to the floor of the Senate on a 5/3 vote.

I can find no reason for this bill to be passed this year -- other than to permit two vendors of optical scan equipment to gain Colorado certification before Colorado requires that optical scan counting systems must be verifiable.

It is likely that the bill will come before the full Senate today. Please try to persuade all Senators to Postpone Indefinitely HB 1227.

CAMBER

Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results

2867 Tincup Circle

Boulder, CO 80305

303-494-1540

AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx