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Vendor control of elections (fwd)
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Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:11:09 -0700
From: Ann Schafer and Lm Rockwell <fairview41@xxxxxxxxx>
To: ihoffman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, pam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, rodney.brooks@xxxxxxxxx,
bsteinhardt@xxxxxxxx, hannah@xxxxxxxxxxx, evan@xxxxxxxx, wsb70@xxxxxxxxxxx,
rachel.richman@xxxxxxxxxx, phyllis@xxxxxxxxxxx, fairview41@xxxxxxxxx,
Wendy.Irminger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, aok2bme@xxxxxxxxxxxx,
wrollinsjr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, testimony@xxxxxxx, golfbarnes@xxxxxxx
Subject: Reference Material: Vendor control of elections
+ + +
Corporate Control of the Election Process
By By John Gideon
<jgideon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
<http://www.VotersUnite.Org> and <http://www.VoteTrustUSA.Org>
June 15, 2005
Those who hold the sacred trust of overseeing the election
procedures and voting systems in this country are an alphabet-soup of
organizations.
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS);
the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED);
the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the US
Department of Commerce's Technology Adminstration <www.nist.gov>;
the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC), created by the Help America
Vote Act of 2002 <www.eac.gov>;
the Election Center.
<www.electioncenter.org>
What do these groups have in common?
They either receive their funding from the vendors or are greatly
influenced by those who do receive funding from the vendors.
We can only hope that the EAC can resist the influence of
represenytatives of vendors. The others haven't. Because of lack of
funding, EAC has asked NIST to develop voting system standards and make
arrangements for testing and approving voting systems.
Who are these "vendors"?
The vendors are the CORPORATE face on our elections systems ? the
for-profit companies that develop and sell the equipment used to run our
elections. They are those who have the most to gain from the influence
they buy through their donations and dues to the alphabet soup, and that
influence is considerable.
They include names such as Diebold, Elections Systems and Software
(ES&S), Sequoia Voting Systems, Hart InterCivic, Accenture, UniSys,
Accupoll, and more. In fact they are all proudly named on the list of
corporate affiliates of NASS...Natiional Association of Secretaries of
State.
The NASS Corporate Affiliates Program
How does a company become a "corporate affiliate?"
See:
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn1>
[1]
According to a description of the NASS Corporate Affiliate Program,
corporations can donate annual dues in the amount of $20,000, $10,000,
$5,000, or $2,500.
Those funds go directly into the coffers of NASS.
And what do the corporations get for donating to this worthy cause?
"The NASS Corporate Affiliate Program is a savvy way to share ideas and
build relationships with key state decision makers while supporting the
civic mission of the association."
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn2>
[2]
Build relationships with key state decision makers? In other words,
unrestricted access to lobby the people who will be spending the
taxpayers' money to buy new election equipment. The scale of this
unrestricted access is directly, and openly, related to the amount of
"dues" that the corporation pays to the program.
The Influence of NASS over NASED
The National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED) is not
supported by outside dues. It is supported by members' dues and is
loosely under the auspices of the Council of State Governments.
However, NASED is very definitely influenced by the NASS, which openly
invites influence by the vendors.
In nearly every state the Secretary of State has responsibility over the
administration of elections. Almost all the members of NASED work for
their state's Secretary of State and serve at their pleasure. The
members of NASED are also included in three out of four NASS
conferences.
"NASED is proud and fortunate to maintain extremely positive
relationships with both the National Association of Secretaries of State
(NASS) and the Election Center.
"In order to maintain those relationships and to insure the continued
sharing of information among members of each organization, NASED meets
with NASS in the winter and alternates between NASS and The Election
Center for its summer meetings."
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn3>
[3]
And who are the other attendees of these meetings?
Of course the vendors get a place at the table so they can meet, greet,
and treat the people who they hope will be their customers; the members
of NASED.
Those are important relationships because ultimately NASED decides the
fate of the "vendors" product via TESTING guidelines that are written by
the TGDC (Technical Guidelines Development Committee) and approved by
the EAC (Elections Assistance Commission) and implemented (or not) by
NASED.
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn4>
[4]
The TGDC and Corporate Influence
The Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of NIST. It is a
committee formed jointly by the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC)
and NASED.
The TGDC is in place for only one reason; to formulate new standards
against which ALL voting systems will be TESTED.
The new standards that the TGDC develops will replace the 2002 standards
[formulated by the Federal Elections Commission...in other words, as far
as voting systems standards are concerned, TGDC standards will replace
FEC standards!].
In "Is the NIST Technical Guidelines Development Committee Working For
You, the Voter?"
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn5>
[5]
I describe how these new standards are being written in consultation
with the vendors who have to build products that comply with the
standards. It is highly apparent that the corporations are being given a
heavy hand in the formation of the standards that they will be held to
in the future.
NASS Attacks the EAC
The Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) is a federal agency set-up by
Congress as part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The EAC is
under-funded and under-staffed.
The EAC is also under attack by NASS.
The Associated Press reported in February, 2005 that "the National
Association of Secretaries of State approved a formal resolution that
asks Congress to dissolve its oversight organization, the federal
Election Assistance Commission, after the 2006 elections."
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn6>
[6]
Why would NASS want to see the EAC dissolved?
They say it's because elections are a 'states rights' issue!
They ignore the fact that Florida 2000 and most problems encountered in
the 2004 federal election can be attributed to the poor or non-existent
oversight of the members of NASS.
They ignore the fact that elections are held for federal offices, and
that, if they had been administering elections well, Congress would have
had no reason to establish the EAC.
If the EAC is dissolved, NASS will regain its previous power, and
through NASS the corporations will gain even more say in how our
elections are administered [and how computerized voting machines are
built].
The Elections Center Teaches Ethics but Shows None
Much has already been printed about the Election Center and the
organization's lack of ethics in taking contributions from the voting
equipment vendors while at the same time giving advice and teaching
ethics to county and state elections officials.
"The Election Center, which trains election workers and advises
Congress and government agencies on election process issues, has taken
donations from manufacturers of electronic voting machines even as it
has issued strong statements supporting the security of the machines."
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn7>
[7]
The Election Center also arranges conferences, sponsored by vendors,
where the state and local elections officials who attend are inundated
with propaganda from the vendors.
In August, 2004, elections officials from all over the U.S. met in
Washington DC where they were treated to a dinner cruise on the Potomac
sponsored by Sequoia and a welcoming party underwritten by Diebold. The
graduation and send-off party was sponsored by ES&S.
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn8>
[8]
The Vendors Purchase a Spokesman From the Disabled Community
Even the public face of the American Association of People with
Disabilities (AAPD), Mr. Jim Dickson, has admitted to being in the
pocket of the vendors.
Mr. Dickson has testified in favor of electronic voting machines and
against paper-based voting systems before governmental panels,
committees, and commissions across the country. However, he doesn't
begin his testimony by saying that he receives money from the vendors
for that testimony.
In an article in Wired News on October 12, 2004, journalist Kim Zetter
reported:
"The government lobbyist for the American Association of People with
Disabilities, who has traveled around the country testifying on behalf
of touch-screen voting, acknowledged this year that his organization
received at least $26,000 from voting companies, but only after first
denying it."
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn9>
[9]
The Vendors Lobby Asks That Customers Buy Defective and Not Effective
Very recently another ingredient in the alphabet soup has spoken
out.
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is a coalition
of, and lobbying agent for, voting equipment manufacturers [as well as
other corporations in the Information Technology field].
{A representative of ITAA} testified before the EAC that counties and
states should not wait any longer for new standards, but should purchase
their new election equipment NOW. They testified, "Under a best-case
scenario, it will be difficult for states and counties to meet the HAVA
deadlines for the purchase and implementation of accessible voting
systems."
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn10>
[10]
In other words, "Don't wait until new standards are set and the voting
systems have been brought up to standards that may improve those
systems. It is better to go out and purchase the equipment that is still
being qualified to standards written in 1990! BUY defective and NOT
effective."
What Must be Done to Counter the Vendors' Influence?
The voting machine corporations are spending millions to influence
the decisions that relate to the qualification and sales of voting
systems.
They are influencing the development of new voting system standards,
whether those standards have to be followed, who buys what type of
system, and every step in between. The vendors are in too much control.
We can only wrest that control from the corporate vendors by
methodically putting out the facts to inform the misinformed and by
reducing the vendors' influence on our decision makers.
The news from Miami-Dade County, Florida is a strikingly big step.
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftn11>
[11]
The county supervisor of elections is recommending dumping the flawed
and expensive electronic voting machines and returning to paper ballots
? in order to save the taxpayers' money.
With easy access to the county officials, through NASS, NASED, and the
Election Center, vendor lobbyists managed to sell defective election
equipment to Miami-Dade.
Dedicated voting activists researched the facts and brought them forward
with a determination that could not be ignored. None of the
alphabet-soup organizations could deny that what the activists were
saying was true.
The activists were also aided by the fact that the county has a new
elections director who had no hand in the decision to buy the DRE voting
machines. Stepping into a new position, outside of vendor control and
with no risk to his own credibility, he was able to declare that the
county made a huge mistake and wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer's
money.
If all our election officials were out from under the influence of the
vendors, if they weren't defensive about poorly informed decisions they
had made because of that influence, what would the face on our election
system look like? Certainly it's worth finding out.
[1]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref1>
2005 NASS Corporate Affiliate Roster;
http://www.nass.org/corpaffiliates/roster.html
<http://www.nass.org/corpaffiliates/roster.html>
[2]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref2>
NASS Corporate Affiliate Program; Pg. 4;
http://www.nass.org/corp_brochure.pdf
<http://www.nass.org/corp_brochure.pdf>
[3]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref3>
"Conferences", National Association of State Elections Directors;
http://www.nased.org/conferences.htm
<http://www.nased.org/conferences.htm>
[4]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref4>
"Is HAVA Being Abused?", by John Gideon and Ellen Theisen,
VotersUnite.Org; http://www.votersunite.org/info/hava-abuse1.asp
<http://www.votersunite.org/info/hava-abuse1.asp>
[5]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref5>
Is the NIST Technical Guidelines Development Committee Working For
You, the Voter? By John Gideon,
http://www.votetrustusa.org/blogs/nist&tdgc.htm
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/blogs/nist&tdgc.htm>
[6]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref6>
"Election Officials Work on Making Changes" by Robert Tanner,
Associated Press, February 8, 2005;
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/02/07/national/w121345S54.DTL
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/02/07/national/w121345S54.DTL>
[7]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref7>
"Group that called electronic vote secure got makers' aid", by Linda
K. Harris, Philadelphia Enquirer, March 25, 2004;
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8273865.htm?1c
<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8273865.htm?1c>
[8]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref8>
"Diebold Wines and Dines Officials", by David Corn, blog in The
Nation, August 26, 2004;
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=1708
<http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=1708>
[9]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref9>
"Diebold and the Disabled", by Kim Zetter, Wired News, October 12,
2004; http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65292,00.html
<http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65292,00.html>
[10]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref10>
"ITAA Warns Purchase Delays will Endanger HAVA Compliance", Press
Release, Information Technology Association of America, May 26, 2005;
http://www.itaa.org/eweb/Dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=PRTemplate&wps_key=44e3eb88-23bf-43b1-be43-55b99ccdfcff
<http://www.itaa.org/eweb/Dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=PRTemplate&wps_key=44e3eb88-23bf-43b1-be43-55b99ccdfcff>
[11]
<http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=86&Itemid=30#_ftnref11>
"Voting system change in Dade likely", by Noaki Schwartz And Tere
Figueras Negrete, Miami Herald, May 28, 2005;
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11759284.htm
<http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11759284.htm>
+ + +
lmr
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