[Fwd: County Commissioners could avoid leasing Hart DRE voting machines]

[Mary Eberle <m.eberle@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Citizens for Verifiable Voting,

I have just sent the following letter to the Daily Camera and the 
Boulder County Commissioners.

Please send your own note to them at commissioners@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx if 
you agree. Their vote may be Thursday morning.

Sincerely,
Mary

Mary Eberle
1520 Cress Court
Boulder, CO 80304
(303) 442-2164

VERIFIABLE VOTING
Paper Ballots Required

     The Colorado Secretary of State (SOS) denied legal information to
the Boulder County Commissioners necessary for them to make an informed
decision on whether to lease Hart direct record electronic (DRE) devices
for the 2006 elections.
     A letter from the SOS office referring to C.R.S. Section 1-5-705
was read into the record of the April 6 Boulder County Commissioners’
hearing. The SOS letter misquoted the law by leaving out the key phrase
“OR OTHER ACCESSIBLE VOTING INTERFACE DEVICE.”
     In addition, according to SOS Rule 45.1.1, “If a voting system
provider has a system that has been evaluated by an ITA [Independent
Testing Authority], … the [clerk] may apply to the SOS for temporary
approval of the system to be used [through a lease] for up to one year.”
This rule is significant because the SOS has certified only DRE voting
devices made by major corporations. Thus Rule 45.1.1 is a way around the
lack of certification for non-DRE devices that could be used by disabled
voters.
     Thus, the Commissioners could refuse to lease the Hart DRE devices
and could direct the clerk to lease a non-DRE, accessible,
paper-ballot–based alternative (for example, AutoMARK or VotePAD) for
the 2006 elections.
     In reality, no device now exists that will allow all disabled
people to cast their votes independently, but most could use either
AutoMARK or VotePAD.
     I urge our Boulder County Commissioners, and in fact all county
commissioners, to revisit election device choices and shun DREs.
(Purchase of state-certified DREs may not even be legal under Colorado
law 1-5-801, because they do not allow blind voters to verify their
paper trail.) Let the disabled community join forces with the voting
activist community to meet everyone’s needs: accessible and verifiable
voting.

Mary C. Eberle
Boulder

[297 words; 1520 Cress Court, Boulder, CO 80304, (303) 442-2164]