Honest voting: PLEASE keep Mary, Ralph and my "chain" letter going!!

[Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Lovers of Liberty:

There is a movement afoot to change the awful system used in most of America
to count ballots. 

We here in Boulder have an opportunity to make a big positive change in the
transparency, secrecy (as in secret ballot), efficiency, and cost of the
voting system that we use.

In Louisiana (because of the hurricanes) they can't even hold elections
because they can't get the computers to operate.  The elections have been
postponed by 8 months.  "They", of course, can't even imagine just printing
out ballots and having people come to precincts to vote and then
hand-counting the ballots.

Louisiana is not immune to vote corruption.  Just imagine what Huey Long
could have done with computers.

Yes, all systems are corruptible because, alas, people in power are
corruptible.  The last thing we, as a nation, should be doing is making the
process of corrupting the vote count easier.

Even war heros elected to congress are not above corruption.  Duke
Cunningham, congressman from San Diego, pled guilty on November 28 to
receiving $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.  He faces up to
10 years in jail.  Good.

Thus, it is imperative that the systems we have in place to check on how we
vote (and who we elect!) be as transparent and as secure as possible. Voting
machines hide the voting process.  They are almost impossible to audit
properly.  The machines are easy for unscrupulous people to manipulate.

To repeat: Just imagine what Huey Long could have done with computers.

Please, please, please take a moment to write an eMail to the Boulder County
Commissioners
	commissioners@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
asking for hand-counted paper ballots.

Ralph Shnelvar


	

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 14:07:32 -0700 (MST), Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>
>Folks,
>
>I do believe we've hit on a good way to swamp the County Commissioners 
>with paper until they'll give our proposals serious consideration.
>
>As you can see from previous posts, first Mary, then Ralph, and now I, 
>have sent letters to the County Commissioners, each letter including 
>the previous ones, so they get longer and longer. The nice lady at the 
>Commissioner's office will keep printing them out until it looks like 
>a movement!
>
>So please, if you want the commissioners to do the right thing, keep 
>the chain going and add your appeal!
>
>Evan
>
>---------------------------------------------------------
>Evan Ravitz          303 440 6838           evan@xxxxxxxx
>Vote to Ratify the National Initiative at http://Vote.org
>Photo Adventures:                         http://Vote.org/photos
>Sins of the father Bush                   http://Vote.org/silence
>Horrendous Hurricane Facts                http://Vote.org/wind
>
>          "Crime does not pay...as well as politics."
>               -MAD Magazine's Alfred E Newman



Dear Commissioners,

I agree with Mary Eberle's and Ralph Schnelvar's statements below.

There's good reasons that Canada, Britain, Germany and most other 
countries use hand-counting. If we used open rather than secret 
ballots, it wouldn't matter, as everything would be a matter of 
record, as with most transactions. But secret ballots preclude safe 
use of the secret, proprietary software used in American elections.

Hand-counting would solve your system's problems with checkbox 
registration, paper shrinkage, ballot folds, etc.: Humans innately 
know how to deal with tiny imperfections like these. Your system needs 
expensive fixes for all of them.

I will remind you that in 3 days before the previous Commission went 
with the expensive, secret, insecure solution, that I amassed 132 
people who VOLUNTEERED to count ballots FOR FREE. IF the Commission 
asked the people, via utility bill inserts, etc., it would be easy to 
find the numbers needed to count ballots by hand.

2 other solutions:

Joe Pezzillo has provided extensive evidence that the Swiss Voting 
Method is the fast, cost-effective way to use machines as dumb 
counting machines, without using them in a way that requires trusting 
secret software. Humans divide up the ballots by candidate or yes or 
no on a ballot issue, then the machines count each stack of 
ballots. And their ballots are at least as complicated as ours, as 
there are far more citizen initiatives there, requiring 4-6 elections 
per year.

Australia is using public (open-source) software for elections.

I was a programmer analyst in the '70s, doing the first 
computerization of Xerox's Latin American division, and of UCLA's 
Medical School.

Evan Ravitz
1130 11th St. #3
Boulder CO 80302
(303)440-6838

On Tue, 6 Dec 2005, Ralph Shnelvar wrote:

> Dear Commissioners,
>
> I agree with Mary's statement, below.
>
> A large and loose consortium of citizens have banded together to correct
> problems with voting.  We are all asking you for one thing: hand counted
> paper ballots.
>
> I am a computer programmer by profession.  I've been doing it for more than
> 40 years.  My areas of expertise are disaster recovery, backup software, and
> system security.  For instance, in the early 1980's I was involved with the
> NSA to provide voice encryption using (now primitive) PCs.  In 1994, PC
> Computing magazine named my product, TAPEDISK, as one of the best 115
> products of the year.
>
> My years of expertise tell me (and I am telling you) that no computer or
> computer system can provide the level of transparency and security that hand
> counted paper ballots can provide.  That hand counting is also cheaper
> should make the decision to not fund the clerk's request for new and very
> expensive hardware utterly obvious.
>
> Please, please, please, let us not use these machines in any way other than
> as a tool to do independent audits of the hand count.
>
> I ask you to follow Mary's advice.  I ask you to use Neal McBurnett's
> multiple insights into the audit process to insure that Boulder has fair and
> accurate elections.
>
> Ralph Shnelvar
> Boulder Citizen
>
>
> On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 06:36:21 -0700, you wrote:
>
>> Dear Commissioners,
>>
>> The Denver Post article below may interest you as you contemplate
>> spending millions for scanning devices for voting in Boulder County.
>> We could use the Swiss Ballot System for much less cost but with much
>> higher accuracy.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Mary
>>
>> Mary C. Eberle
>> 1520 Cress Court
>> Boulder, CO 80304, USA
>> (303) 442-2164
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Why we can't trust vote counting computers or mail in balloting
>> Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 21:43:39 -0700 (MST)
>> From: Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>
>> To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 19:58:14 -0700
>> From: Dr. Charles E. Corry 
>> Subject: Why we can't trust vote counting computers or mail in balloting
>>
>> Article Launched: 12/05/2005 01:00:00 AM
>> State's eye on vote scanners
>> Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis might seek new machines in 10
>> counties after hand recounts changed two results last month.
>> By Karen E. Crummy and Michael McCollum
>> Denver Post Staff Writers
>> http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_3279155
>>
>> After a hand recount changed the outcome of two elections last month,
>> the Colorado secretary of state may order 10 counties to get new
>> voting machines before next year's high-stakes gubernatorial
>> election. [EJF note: Why not just do hand counts from the beginning?
>> Cheaper, more accurate and reliable.]
>>
>> Secretary of State Gigi Dennis wants "assurances from the
>> manufacturers that there won't be any problems next year," said Dana
>> Williams, a spokeswoman for Dennis.
>>
>> The state will "then decide if we should continue using the
>> machines," Williams said.
>>
>> At issue are the Optech III-P Eagle machines, sold by Election
>> Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems.
>>
>> A post-election audit in November led Dennis to order a hand recount
>> in the 10 counties that use the machine. In at least two counties -
>> Clear Creek and Chaffee - the recount changed the outcome of races.
>>
>> Election officials around the country have reported problems with the
>> machines.
>>
>> On Friday, Detroit officials ordered a recount of about 230,000
>> ballots cast in the Nov. 8 election. Allegations of voter fraud and
>> procedural mismanagement, including the operation of the Optech
>> machines, have been cited.
>>
>> "The machines have a history of significant problems," said Bev
>> Harris, director of blackboxvoting.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit
>> group dedicated to tracking voter problems.
>>
>> Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Sequoia, said many of the problems
>> occur when mail ballots are fed into the machines.
>>
>> "They are meant to be used in a controlled environment, like in a
>> precinct, where people use the right pencils and pens," she said.
>>
>> When voters mail ballots, they often use a different color of ink or
>> circle names, she said, leaving the machine unable to read them.
>>
>> Megan Tauton, the elections clerk in Elbert County, said that's what
>> happened with the few discrepancies she found between her county's
>> hand count and the automatic tabulations.
>>
>> During the manual count, the county was able to discern voter intent,
>> something the machines can't do.
>>
>> "The computer only reads properly filled out ballots," she said.
>>
>> The majority of the 10 Colorado counties said they had faith in their
>> voting machines and that the difference between the hand count and
>> the scanning was insignificant.
>>
>> "We just had a few differences, mainly with people not following
>> directions," Huerfano County Clerk and Recorder Judy Benine said.
>> "We've used them for seven years, and we haven't ever had a problem
>> with them."
>>
>> But election officials in other counties said they had no confidence
>> in their machines.
>>
>> In Chaffee County, Hugh Young was declared the winner of a Salida
>> City Council seat after the hand recount determined he beat incumbent
>> Ron Stowell by three votes. Stowell had been declared the winner by
>> three votes.
>>
>> Clear Creek County found 97 votes that had not been included in the
>> initial machine vote. A ballot question regarding a local school
>> district initially won by six votes but after the hand recount lost
>> by 18 votes.
>>
>> "I have no confidence in the machines, and we're looking to have them
>> replaced," Clear Creek County Clerk and Recorder Pam Phipps said.
>>
>> In Park County, the outcomes remained the same, but "quite a few"
>> undervotes appeared during the recount, Clerk and Recorder Debra
>> Green said.
>>
>> The 13-year-old machines, she said, are worn out.
>>
>> The secretary of state's office says it understands the concerns,
>> which is why it is looking into the matter.
>>
>> "We would rather be safe than sorry," Williams said.
>>
>> The 10 counties that had hand recounts are Bent, Chaffee, Clear
>> Creek, Custer, Elbert, Fremont, Huerfano, Park, Pueblo and Sedgwick.
>>
>> Staff writer Karen E. Crummy can be reached at 303-820-1594 or
>> kcrummy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> .
>>
>