Press coverage will make mtg tonight a public meeting

[Mary Eberle <m.eberle@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Ms. Gray and other Boulder City Council Members and other 
officials (with apologies for clogging your e-mail with a second 
message, but this is important),

Peter Richards has informed me that the Tuesday (12/21) meeting is a 
public meeting, with the press. Please see below.

Thank you,
Mary Eberle
Boulder County Election Judge, 2004
1520 Cress Court
Boulder, CO 80304
(303) 442-2164

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Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:02:19 -0700
Subject: Fw: Press Conference, 5:15 pm today, Boulder Municipal Building




Date:  Tuesday, 21 December 2004         09:30 am

PRESS ALERT:             PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

What: SWISS HAND COUNTED PAPER BALLOT METHODS TO BE DEMONSTRATED FOR
CITY OF BOULDER

Who: Joe Pezzillo, Citizen Activist

Where: City of Boulder Municipal Building, Broadway & Canyon, Downstairs

When: Tuesday, December 21, 2004, 5:15PM (prior to the City Council
meeting), (will be repeated during public comments)

Why: To help the City of Boulder restore trustworthiness to the local
elections system

How: Simple: Hand counted paper ballots and associated materials will
be shown and demonstrated.

Background: After the November 2004 Boulder County elections fiasco,
many citizens are concerned about the trustworthiness of our elections
process, and many more feel disenfranchised after Boulder County failed
to report results in a timely manner. To offer an alternative, local
outspoken citizen activist Joe Pezzillo has brought sample ballots and
methodologies from Switzerland -- a nation known for accurate,
precision systems -- that enable the mountainous nation of 7 million
people to hold elections four to six times per year, and complete cross
checked tallies by hand in a matter of hours. Pezzillo was one of
dozens of local citizens who opposed the County's purchase of the
optical scan system last year, and proposed that the county make other
arrangements to conduct the 2004 election.

The materials were provided by the Swiss Voting System company,
http://www.swissvs.org

For further information contact:   Joe Pezzillo   303 938-8850

                                   Peter Richards 303 449-2825

Crystal Gray wrote:

> Council members:  I plan to meet with Joe Pezillo and Myriah Conroy 
> before the Tuesday, Dec. 21 Council meeting at 5:15 pm  in the lobby to 
> learn more about the Swiss voting method and to see the actual ballots.  
> Unfortunately I did not notice this as a public meeting so only one of 
> us can meet with Joe at a time.  If any of you are interested please 
> stop by and I will leave and you can meet with Joe individually.  The 
> public is, of course, welcome  to attend my individual meeting with Joe.
> Crystal
>  >>> "Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx> 12/19/2004 2:37:58 PM >>>
>
> 12/19/2004
>
> Greetings!
>
> Thanks to Ralph Shnelvar's efforts, Boulder City Clerk Alisa Lewis met
> with Neal McBurnett, Ralph and me on Friday afternoon [12/17] at the big table
> downstairs at the City building, along with Linda Salas, Boulder County
> Clerk, and Diane whose last name I didn't get, but who manages
> financial compliance and/or matching funds for city elections, and we
> discussed the upcoming March 2005 City Election plan.
>
> Neal and Ralph may wish to describe the concerns that they voiced
> (and/or heard) separately, such as fundamental concerns about the use
> of mail ballots, but I mostly presented information about the Swiss
> method of voting, including showing the sample ballots that quickly and
> visually explain how hand counting can actually be cheaper and easier
> than what we've got now.
>
> Alisa graciously spent at least half an hour explaining the materials
> she will be presenting Tuesday
> (http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/clerk/agenda/2004/122104/6B.pdf) to
> support her recommendation to do a mail ballot election with the
> County's system in March 2005, including cost considerations behind the
> options she evaluated, and other very interesting details, like the
> fact that David Hart personally came to visit her to express his
> confidence in HartIntercivic's ability to print ballots that will work
> with their own opscan system, since three other printing vendors had
> apparently declined to respond due to compatibility concerns. One very
> interesting thing to me was that the cost of a mail ballot election
> will only be about $5,000 (five thousand dollars) less than doing a 40
> polling-place election (just less than half the 93 precincts in the
> city). I wonder if hand counting would lower the cost even more?!?
>
> In short, she expressed three key concerns that led to her
> recommendation:
>
> 1. A Sense of Disenfranchisement after November and the potential that
> will lower turnout in a precinct election.
>
> 2. Retention of Elections Judges and Polling Locations, after last
> election quite a few may have been lost, don't want to overburden them
>
> 3. Partnership with County Elections Office, need for the system to
> work going forward in the rest of 2005 and beyond.
>
> After reviewing the materials, we talked a little and then I did a
> brief presentation of the Swiss voting information and sample ballots.
> Alisa and Linda both expressed a great deal of interest in the ballots
> and methods used to do the hand counting (I think they were surprised
> at how straightforward, widely used, and quick it turns out to be), and
> also the integrated privacy envelope that saves additional costs. I
> gave Linda one of the sample windowed ballot envelopes that the Swiss
> Voting System company (http://www.swissvs.org) prepared as a mock-up
> for Florida with the perforated slot to remove the voter identification
> card from the ballots and about a dozen of the color coded,
> thumb-notched sample ballot slips.
>
> Both Alisa and Linda expressed that they did not think that it would be
> possible logistically to do this for March, although they would
> consider it, including asking the Secretary of State if it would be
> permissible in Colorado. I expressed a confidence that it must be
> permissible, as paper ballots, hand counting, and both various sizes
> and multiple pages are already legal and in fact quite common. I told
> them that when (not if) Donetta says "No", I want to know exactly why.
>
> Here's hoping we get a chance to reclaim our elections leadership and
> prove that we can restore our democracy starting right here in Boulder!
>
> Joe
>
> Joe Pezzillo, Citizen Activist
> Boulder, Colorado USA
> jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx