Comments on Boulder RFP for voting system due Wednesday!!

[Evan Daniel Ravitz <evan@xxxxxxxx>]

Folks,

The famous Boulder Elections people are preparing to throw more millions away 
on proprietary systems which almost all citizens have opposed at all County 
hearings.

They've thoughtfully given us until Wednesday Dec. 28 to register our comments 
at:

http://www.co.boulder.co.us/clerk/elections/RFP/471706.htm

You DON'T have to understand or even read their RFP (Request for Proposal) to 
participate. Just understand it's expensive and secret.
And it opens them up to a lawsuit like this:

A front page article in the 12/16 Wall St.Journal quotes the Florida's 5th 
District Court of Appeal, last February:

"It seems to us that one should not have privileges and freedom jeopardized by 
the results of a mystical machine that is immune from discovery."

The article continues: "A court in Seminole County later interpreted the ruling 
to apply to CMI's source code."

The case involves not voting machines but breathalyzers. But, under the legal 
principle of "Stare decisis" ("to stand by that which is decided") what's good 
for breathalyzers is good for voting machines: public disclosure of source 
codes.

We won't (don't?) have meaningful "privileges and freedom" when elections can 
be (have been?) stolen. Without disclosure, nobody can ever know.


Here's what I sent to "our" election folk:

No need to read the RFP. It asks for precisely what almost all citizens at all 
County hearings have said they don't want: an expensive proprietary system.

Government against the People such as this is EXACTLY what we need to provoke 
the still-nascent movement for Government by the People.

Keep it up, and hope your kids don't pay for your robotic lunacy.

Evan Ravitz

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Evan Ravitz          303 440 6838           evan@xxxxxxxx
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