Please Reject ERC Recommendations, DUMP ELECTION SYSTEM IMMEDIATELY

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

4/21/2005

Paul Condon Wrote on the CVV Mailing List:

> BoCo owns the equipment, and it seems to me politically unrealistic
> to advocate junking it, at least in the next two or three decades.

But please consider this response to the Commissioners, the County 
Clerk, the ERC the CVV list and our community at large.

Fellow Citizens:

There is no reason for the taxpayers of Boulder County to tolerate this 
fundamentally broken elections system for decades, let alone even one 
more election.

The ERC has failed to prove that the electronic voting system we 
purchased can be repaired, and instead, has revealed and documented 
numerous inherent system design flaws, basic operational oversights, 
and standard business process failures. The ability to rely on every 
one of these, and to provide the maximum amount of transparency to 
assure they are reliable, is critical to the concept of trustworthy 
elections.

Thus, that the ERC by its charter is not allowed to or for political 
reasons will not produce any recommendation but "there must be some way 
to fix this system" is why I can no longer support their efforts, 
despite repeatedly trying to participate. Now TWO different methods 
used reliably for decades by nations with populations much larger than 
our county's showing in detail how to hand count paper ballots have 
been offered and recommended by leading citizen activists, only to be 
told that hand counting is not an option on the table, the only 
solution that is acceptable is one that continues to involve the deeply 
flawed system already purchased. This despite the fact that the 
Commissioners and the County Clerk have been presented with the 
signatures of hundreds of local citizens who would be willing to 
provide volunteer labor to hand count paper ballots at no charge. Note 
that while the Clerk complains of an inability to recruit more election 
judges, it's my understanding that not one of the people on that list 
had been contacted prior to the last election asking for assistance.

We've "only" wasted around $1.5 million at this point as long as you 
don't count the $500K in overtime for the November 04 debacle and 
decades of pending support costs. I'm sure that's not much compared to 
some of the other wasted resources around. Please don't let the County 
throw good money after bad, we've wasted enough of our time and money 
on this vendor already, and they have yet to take a single action that 
proves they are worthy of having us as a customer.

Don't forget, those "fancy" Dell servers are going to look like the 
disposable junk ("planned obsolescence") they are in only a few years, 
and will no doubt need to be replaced to "stay current." Are future 
versions of the vendor's software guaranteed to work on the old 
hardware? Is this system certified, frozen "as is" in perpetuity? Will 
the software or hardware or support the then current operating system 
in 5 years, will the operating system vendor support older versions of 
their operating system?

Who has done one iota of technology lifecycle planning for this or any 
other of these systems? This is basic stuff in the computer industry, 
funny that it's not top of mind for elections officials. These systems 
are intended to run the core of our democracy, and yet they've had 
about as much analysis as a dinner menu, a dinner no doubt paid for by 
an industry vendor, too!

The Elections are not a problem to be solved with technology, that's 
why nobody can figure out how to get the technology correct. I have 
seen so many proposals and e-mails about how to fix this or change that 
and add this or re-engineer that. STOP! We have to stop trying to 
design specifications for technologies where no technology will ever 
suffice! There is simply NO computer system reliable enough for us to 
entrust the most important act of our government.

Here's the Elephant in the Room, folks, submitted so that it is on the 
public record:

AT NO TIME prior to purchase did the County Clerk or the Vendor say, 
"This system is designed for absentee and early voting ONLY, it is NOT 
designed for election day use." Something we now know was the case all 
along, and worse, MANY CITIZENS SAID INSUFFICIENT ANALYSIS HAD BEEN 
DONE PRIOR TO PURCHASE. This information could have been revealed by 
the Orange County elections official who was quoted in the Daily Camera 
after November's debacle saying exactly this. Our County Clerk went to 
Orange County in 2004, prior to purchasing the system, and returned 
with a glowing report about how great the system was.

That is why we are in this mess. We bought the wrong system for 
election day voting. Period. That we might be able to make it work 
sometimes under certain ideal conditions is simply not good enough.

It should not be the business or responsibility of Boulder County 
citizens to write the requirements and specifications for a vendor's 
defective system that we were tricked into purchasing, either by 
commission or omission.

That the ERC has not been paid by the vendor for the work they have 
done is a further theft of our community resources.

Remember, they laughed at us when asked about giving a refund, and that 
appears to be typical of their customer focus. Furthermore, was any 
social screening done on this vendor prior to purchase? Is the fact 
that a major investor in this vendor is also a major investor in the 
current president compatible with our community's goals and values?

I hope you won't consider giving this vendor another dime, let alone 
working with them for 30 years! Instead, I hope that you investigate 
how this waste of our limited resources was allowed to occur, and 
worse, how it can continue to this day, with the potential to damage 
our elections for years to come.

Joe Pezzillo, Citizen Activist
Boulder, Colorado USA
jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx




On Apr 21, 2005, at 3:37 PM, Paul E Condon wrote:

> BoCo owns the equipment, and it seems to me politically unrealistic
> to advocate junking it, at least in the next two or three decades.