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Greetings, I
sent the press release about the ES&S AutoMARK under a separate email. I
wanted you all to read it without any commentary. Now here’s the commentary: In
the summer of 03 the HAVA advisory committee was meeting and deliberating on
what elections system the county should purchase. During at least two of our
meetings Al Kolwicz showed some information about a ballot marking device for
paper ballots. This was the AutoMark. At
the time, the AutoMark was owned by a small and rather unknown company: Vogue
Election Products & Services. While Vogue made claims of HAVA compliance,
it had yet to be federally certified. Since
then, ES&S purchased the AutoMark from Vogue and worked to get it
certified. And now it has been. This
is the perfect device for HAVA compliancy with paper ballots. Nationwide paper
ballots are receiving high marks as the best method for elections. As usual,
Boulder leads the pack in innovation and responding to the desires of its
citizens. We
have suspicions that the Clerk will ask the BoCC for funding to purchase DRE
(computerized voting systems) for precinct or vote center locations. Linda
believes that it is required for disabled voters. Other readers of HR3295
believe otherwise. DRE are not required by law, but they will make things more
convenient for voters. But they also have the potential to make life very
difficult and expensive, and it has been proven elsewhere that DRE are highly
suspect for failure, loss of votes, and fraudulent tampering. We
need DRE like we need a third armpit. Use of a ballot-marking
device allows our clerk and her staff, and the voters of our county to continue
to use paper ballots without intermingling systems that may be difficult to integrate. We
respectfully request that the clerk’s elections division and the BoCC consider
purchasing the ES&S AutoMARK for Boulder’s voting population. Please
do not overlook this excellent option now that it has been certified. Paul Tiger, Outreach
Director of the Libertarian Party of Boulder County "The
government that governs best, governs least." |