Re: NC Election Testimony

[Neal McBurnett <neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 10:11:57AM -0700, Joe Pezzillo wrote:
> 
> Here's a thorough rebuttal to an elections official's testimony  
> regarding DREs, HAVA and paper ballots in North Carolina from January  
> 2005:
> 
> http://thoughtcrimes.org/s9/doc_files/rebut.pdf

Thanks!  I haven't read it yet, but I will, especially given this
conclusion.

Conclusion

 The night of January 27, 1986, engineers from Morton-Thiokol the
 company that designed and produced the solid-booster engines for the
 space shuttle held a teleconference with a team at NASA. After
 suffering several launch delays prior to the proposed flight the next
 day, NASA was incredulous that the Morton-Thiokol engineers were
 suggesting another delay. During a brief recess the Morton-Thiokol
 Senior Vice President, Jerry Mason, turned to Vice President of
 Engineering, Bob Lund, and told him to take off your engineering hat
 and put on your management hat.  [42]

 The NASA managers voted to approve the launch, since they did not
 consider the argu-ments of the engineers to be proof of booster
 failure. At Cape Kennedy the Morton-Thiokol representative, Allan
 McDonald, refused to sign the formal recommendation to launch; the
 vice president for booster rockets, Joe Kilminster, signed in his
 place.

 On March 11, 1986, aerospace engineer Calvin Moeller wrote to the
 L.A. Times, attribut-ing the disaster to arrogance [23].

  "The arrogance that prompts higher-level decision-makers to pretend
  that factors other than engineering judgment should influence flight
  safety decisions, and, more important, the arrogance that
  rationalizes overruling the engineering judg-ment of engineers close
  to the problem by those whose expertise is naive and superficial by
  comparison.

 We will not put on our management hat, and we will not allow other
 factors to overrule the engineering and research judgment telling us
 that paperless DREs are a disaster waiting to happen, if you do not
 consider Carteret County a disaster that has already happened. The
 computer science community is willing to educate and advise the
 election community as to the benefits, costs, and risks of the
 available technology. We hope that this committee accepts this offer
 and strives to seek expertise in each area from those who have
 obtained it professionally, and not merely through use of those
 systems.

---
People's lives are important.  So is our democracy.  Let's keep
on our "engineering hats" and not succomb to the pressures of
budgets and vendor spin.

Neal McBurnett                 http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
Signed and/or sealed mail encouraged.  GPG/PGP Keyid: 2C9EBA60