Re: Discussion of ERC Report FINAL, hopefully not Insults

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2005 at 11:47:31AM -0600, Paul Tiger - LPBC - Outreach wrote:
> Got a few comments - read down ...
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul E Condon [mailto:pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> 
> So what about the Content of the report? It seems to me that
> Hart Intercivic came off rather badly. This is good.
> But there are other issues. The committee likes the idea of
> having ballot scanners in every precinct and/or voting center.
> In principal this is a good idea, but how will the precinct
> judges be trained to keep them working? My experience with
> being trained by County staff is that it is really totally
> crazy training. On the one hand a bunch of senior citizens
> are told 'Don't worry, its easy, just do what the instructions
> say.' and on the other hand they can't answer any questions
> about the exact meaning of the instructions. Where will
> competant instructors come from?
> [|PT>]
> [|PT>] Very good point Paul. I think that training has always been an issue.
> Like many of us, I've been an elections judge for many years. Most who have
> been know that the training is almost pointless. Reading the judges manual
> cover to cover (about 40 mins of reading) would get you to the same place.
> When technical things came up in the past, most polling judges ended up
> winging it on their own because a) they couldn't reach anyone in the clerks
> office; or b) no one in the clerks office knew an answer.
> Prior to 02, I might have spent an hour each election day repairing the
> punch machines with my own tools. I wised up and repaired them before 6am at
> my house. I know of others doing similar things, because the clerk did not
> provide tech support or training to fix these problems. I'd show people in
> the clerks office how I fixed punchers and they were thrilled at how easy it
> was to do, but then did not pass on that info, or fix them before issuing
> them.
> Different clerk; different systems; same issues.
> 
> The best way I think that we can accomplish training is to have the trainers
> play with the systems before training day. All the trainers need to be tech
> savvy. That probably means the CVV/activist community.
> The people that experiment with these new systems should do so in a
> lab/class environment and then they should help the elections manager write
> the judges manual. Josh knows the law, and the trainers will know the
> systems.
> 
> If we went to precinct electronics of some kind (DRE, paper scanners) then
> each precinct would really need a tech savvy person. Boulder has lots of
> those, but we also have 227 precincts and lots of apathy. Personally, I
> think that the labor force for elections is recruited in a very bizarre way,
> which (if it continues) will continue to bring us completely unqualified
> judges and more troubles.
> 
> This is one of the reasons that vote centers are so tasty. Instead of needed
> 227 tech savvy and in-depth trained folks, we need 40 - 50. One tech/judge
> having a problem would be able to reach the other tech/judges more easily
> and resolve their issues more quickly than in the past.
> 

Of course, each vote center would have several ballot scanners in
order to handle the peak load. And it could have a few spares for
quick swap of malfunctioning hardware. But there are a lot of other
issues in setting up vote centers. Does Boulder County Elections
Office have the credability with anybody to be allowed to do this?

> ------------------------------
> Hart has established that they cannot be believed in almost
> anything they say. So how can the County rely on them to
> service the equipment? To make modifications to the software?
> etc.
> [|PT>]
> [|PT>] We cannot rely on them. We paid Hart $78K to provide support in 04.
> Look what we got for that outlay?
> When the county wanted to run a ballot audit report, Hart charged separately
> for that, saying it wasn't covered under the tech support agreement. So we
> paid more. In fact, there were several things that Hart charged extra for,
> that many of us believe should have been already covered.
> Linda pulled $52K from voter outreach and education to use to pay for more
> technical support. In 04 BoCo paid Hart $130K for support, which appears now
> to have been lip service.
> 
> Several memos from county staffers and citizen judges about the software
> issues were given to Hart. Hart now says that these suggestions are
> proprietary and BoCo (or the ERC) could not now review them; or know what
> Hart's response is.

This is absolutely crazy. Voluntary submissions by concerned citizens become
proprietary information of Hart? As I said in my first email. Why should we
believe anything from them?

> I personally have serious doubts that Hart will act on these needed
> modifications. And from our past experiences, I doubt that paying them more
> will have much effect.
> 
> As long as we use Hart's central counting system elections will be slow to
> tally. And we sure as hell don't need to pay Hart anymore money to prove
> that point.
> 
> --------------------------------
> My reading of the thumbnail sketch of scanners in the precinct
> is that they are somehow mechanical joined to a ballot box so
> that when the voter presses an OK-button the voted ballot is
> dropped into the ballot box. This will take some engineering
> development. By Hart? Really, is this a smart idea?
> [|PT>]
> [|PT>] Aha - clarification is needed here.
> Ballot box scanners have been around for almost 20 years. The most well
> known is from Diebold. The Diebold one that I played with in 03 was a
> opto-scanner on top of what looks like a big Rubbermaid garbage can. Several
> other makers have these as well. ES&S; Sequoia; etc. So there's no new
> engineering needed. They've been around a long time; they're certified and
> in current use around this state.

Are these older scanners capable of running Hart image recognition
software? Would it really be trivial to integrate them into Hart 
system? I doubt it. Do they really do a whole page raster scan? 

> If the ballot is over or under voted, the scanner tells the voter and gives
> the voter to opportunity to correct anything. If the voter presses the OK
> button, then instead of the ballot being rejected back to the voter, it goes
> into the ballot box below. The count is in the scanner and the ballot in the
> box.
> 
> Back to Hart. Hart doesn't have one of these -yet. They say they are
> developing one and want to sell it to us. As insane as this might sound, I
> would rather use a Diebold scanner/ballot box than anything from Hart.
> Hart made us a beta test site in 04, but lied about that. Now they are
> saying that we would be a beta test site.
> Linda Salas wants to buy from Hart because she thinks that systems
> integration is only possible if we have all the equipment from the same
> vendor. Hogwash.
> 

I also think this is a serious misunderstanding of technology and people 
by Linda. These people are crooks. If not crooks, at least seriously
honesty challenged. Linda may not be able to find anybody else who is
willing to commit to all that Hart might promise. But Hart won't actually
commit in writing to anything, and others might have a much better
understanding of the real technical issues that Hart salesmen. They
might feel that it is too risky a business to be involved with a bunch
of flakes in Boulder County. We don't have a good reputation.

> ------------------------------
> I wonder about the feasibility of renting equipment for
> the conduct of elections. From whom? What will the person/
> company that offers to rent to the County be doing with
> the equipment before and after the election? This is rather
> specialize equipment, not party tables and chairs, or
> small cement mixers or garden tractors. Are there really
> local firms who rent what is needed?
> [|PT>]
> [|PT>] Yes there really are firms that will rent the equipment, and they are
> the same ones that will sell it or lease it to us. They are the
> manufacturers of the equipment. They actually can't be some third party. The
> certified equipment can only be dealt with by the maker. I'm pretty sure
> that the makers wouldn't want someone else to mess with their stuff anyway.
> Can we say proprietary again?
> BoCo has rented or leased elections equip in the past. It's nothing new. In
> 03 we leased a Diebold scanner for the mail-ballot envelopes. Despite the
> hue and cry at the time, this device was not scanning ballots.

But then, the Diebold equipment probably wasn't required to run
software written by somebody else.

This does give me some hope that the County can rent, but not with
their current relationship of utterly servile dependency on Hart. They
need to develop some in-house understanding of the technology, or
maybe find a technical consultant who can take their side in hassles
with Hart, and maybe even write some code that solves some of the
known problems.

> 
> What the ERC did say was RENT not lease. There is a huge difference, which
> appears to have been lost on the elections division.

Lots of people, myself included, understand very well the distinction
between rent and lease. That is why I specifically directed my
question toward rental. If County Elections Office people don't 
understand, somebody from somewhere else in County gov't should 
assigned to mentoring and monitoring them.

> Buyers who cannot afford to drop a bundle at one time are invited to lease.
> At the end of the lease they can pay off the remainder and own the
> equipment.
> Renters are checking things out. They are not buyers, yet. Or maybe they'll
> never be buyers, just renters.
> Renting is way cheaper than leasing, and rental contracts more flexible than
> leases.

This last statement is a bit of an exaggeration. Renting is way
cheaper IF you know your need is definitely short-term. By short-term,
I mean a short time in compared to the useful economic life of the
equipment. It is very likely that anything in the way of computer
related equipment that one might choose to rent/lease/buy today, will
be obsolete in just a few years.  So, one should really consider
renting first. But, again can one find a rental supplier? You say
yes. I wonder. Whatever Diebold has to offer today will be obsolete
soon, maybe even decertified for new use. Why would they want to keep
in on their books when they know they will have to recognize a loss on
it soon?

So I remain conflicted about near-term precinct level ballot scanning.
I hope it can be made to work, but it doesn't have a chance of working
if it is not a small part of a serious re-org of the elections office.

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx