3/22/2006
Members of the RFP Evaluation Committee and Members of the Public and
Press:
Apparently, a committee member today made a verbal assertion that the
recent elections problems in Texas have been found "not" to be the vendor's
fault.
I have researched this, and been unable to find any written documentation
or news references to support this assertion.
Instead, I have found:
NO statement or news on the Hart Intercivic website "News" section
regarding any recent elections in Texas as of today (there is a gap of no news
between 2/7/2006 and 3/22/2006):
nor on the company homepage, nor on the company press release page,
though, interestingly, this statement, referenced in a newspaper article, can
be found in the Google cache, but no longer appears on the Hart website:
Has the company retracted this statement (dated 3/14/2006)? Is there a
new statement from the company to replace this? According to this Google cache
document, Hart president Britt Kauffman said that the problems were
"procedural" and not related to "programming, software or computer errors",
does the company still stand by this statement, and if so, why does this
statement no longer appear on the company's website?
There are seven (7) recent stories on the Dallas Fort Worth Star Telegram
newspaper website, NONE of which suggest that the vendor has been absolved of
any responsibility:
The most recent story (from today, Wednesday 3/22/2006) in the list
indicates that NEW problems may have been found with Hart Intercivic equipment
in a different county, from the local newspaper by way of the Dallas For Worth
Start Telegram:
"The problem in the recount
appears to be with new, federally mandated electronic voting machines,
provided by vendor Hart InterCivic. During a hand recount, the machines are
designed to print out paper ballots for each voter's choices, but McKerley
said the machines that were used to register early votes printed out only 75
percent to 80 percent of the votes believed to have been cast."
(incidentally, I would very much like to see the "paper ballot" printout
capability, I was under the impression that the Hart equipment only printed
out an "audit receipt". If the device printed a full paper ballot instead of
storing votes in memory, it may be redeemable still).
The original story from yesterday, 3/21/06, can be found here:
There is one story indicating that in Tarrant County, TX, the challengers
did not file recount requests, however, that story also says very
clearly:
"Hart InterCivic, the company
that made the equipment and wrote the software, took responsibility for the
error the day after the election, and company officials said they would work
with local elections officials to minimize future problems. Company officials
have said that a procedural error led to inflated counts when merging totals
from early voting, absentee mail voting and election-day voting into one
report on election night."
The story also quotes a local
candidate who chose not to file a recount as saying she chose not to spend the
money in part because:
"we don't have any way of knowing
whether the current numbers are accurate."
Given our previous experiences
with verbal assertions made by the County Clerk, her supporters, and the
vendor that turned out to be incorrect (need I remind anyone of the
discrepancy between the "8 hours" we were quoted before the system was
purchased, and the "24 hours" we were quoted afterwards?), I urge the
committee to only accept those statements that can be documented in writing.
Please feel free to include any of the references I have provided in your
final report. Although the original confidentiality agreement you were asked
to sign did not make it clear, is should be self-evidently obvious that you
are free to discuss anything that has been made publicly available in a news
report with anyone you choose.
If there is a new statement from
the vendor, or other documented (not verbal) information available, I'm sure
many of us would like to see it.
Has this committee actually
tested this functionality itself or simply relied on assertions by the vendor
or other parties?
If the committee is unable to
resolve these legitimate questions as to the reliability and accuracy of this
equipment, I cannot understand how it could possibly recommend that it be used
in elections here. These public reports and our county's first-hand experience
do not inspire confidence in voters, regardless of political
affiliation.
According to Brad Friedman of the
BradBlog website, the Dallas Fort Worth Star Telegram has contacted him to
begin investigating the whistleblower's claims.
I hope that this committee will
not simply rubber-stamp the County Clerk's continued failure to do thorough
due diligence on our elections systems and instead represent the repeatedly
stated consensus of Boulder County voters: support trustworthy elections based
on paper ballots and reject any proposed use of DRE computer vote-storing
equipment here. For a thorough read of Boulder County voter's positions on
this issue, ask the Clerk and Commissioners to share with you the 200+
comments she received in response to the DRE Purchase RFP.
Make sure you get it in writing on
paper!
Joe Pezzillo
PO Box J
Boulder, CO 80306 USA
303-938-8850