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Manipulating the facts

The attached “More voters using absentee ballots” and “Cost to vote is increasing” are great illustrations of government propaganda.

 

Boulder County has done everything it can do to get people to vote by absentee ballot.  Why?

 

  1. Staff hopes to reduce the Election Day workload on the poorly designed HART ballot scanning equipment, and
  2. Staff hopes to reduce long lines at Early and Election Day polling places.

 

What harm is done by encouraging people to vote by absentee ballot?  Absentee ballots are not secure and they result in disenfranchised voters

 

  1. Not every absentee ballot gets counted.  
  2. Absentee ballots get lost and stolen and can be switched.
  3. Eligible voter’s ballots get rejected by staff.
  4. Ineligible people get to vote, hence eligible votes get cancelled.

 

On a practical side, absentee ballots cost more and take much longer to process than in-person paper ballots.

 

Staff knows that informed voters study the candidates and issues before they come to the polling place. Most come prepared with a checklist of their votes.  Instead of educating voters to come to the polls prepared, staff promotes the myth of the unprepared voter.  This encourages voters to come to the polls unprepared.

 

And don’t be comforted by staff claims that the Logic and Accuracy Tests and the Post Election Audit will catch any problems.  This is an irresponsible and absolutely untrue claim.

 

Why has Boulder County hired a person to promote the insecure, inaccurate, and expensive absentee ballot?  Because for staff, elections are all about staff convenience and making staff look good. 

 

What is our advice to voters? 

 

(1)     Always use a paper ballot (not a paper receipt).  

(2)     Personally cast your anonymous ballot into the ballot box. 

(3)     Don’t vote absentee or provisional ballots unless there is absolutely no alternative.  (These ballots must be placed into a sealed envelop, and risk being not counted.)

(4)     Never use voting equipment that records your votes electronically, even if the equipment also prints your votes on a paper receipt.  (The votes on the electronic record decide the election, not the ones on the paper receipt.)

 

 

 

Al Kolwicz

CAMBER – Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results

2867 Tincup Circle

Boulder, CO 80305

303-494-1540

AlKolwicz@xxxxxxxxx

www.users.qwest.net/~alkolwicz

www.coloradovoter.blogspot.com

 

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.

 

.

--- Begin Message ---
Title: DailyCamera: Boulder County
 
 
DailyCamera
 
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URL: http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_5036212,00.html
Cost to vote 'is increasing'

Election officials to seek more money for security measures

By John Aguilar, Camera Staff Writer
October 2, 2006

Boulder County election officials will be asking county commissioners for more money as early as this week to cover the expense of election security measures newly mandated by the Colorado secretary of state.

"The good news is most of the security procedures announced by the secretary of state are already covered in our county procedures," said Josh Liss, elections coordinator for Boulder County. "We are in the process of digesting all these rules, trying to put a dollar figure to them, and we'll be asking the commissioners for supplemental funding."

Liss said he doesn't know how much money his department will request, but it will need to be enough to cover the cost of purchasing new video surveillance cameras and additional tamper-evident seals for electronic voting equipment. He said the new regulations also would increase payroll costs in his department as elections employees put in more hours deciphering and implementing the security measures.

"All the while, the cost of elections is increasing and the taxpayers are footing the bill," Liss said.

County Commissioner Tom Mayer said last week that he hadn't yet seen the edict from the secretary of state's office, but he didn't think the board would have much choice about whether to give the Clerk and Recorder's Office additional funds.

"If we have to comply, we have to comply," he said.

The stepped-up security rules were announced by Secretary of State Gigi Dennis on Wednesday in response to a lawsuit over the integrity of the state's electronic voting machines, which plaintiffs alleged could be tampered with to manipulate election results.

On Sept. 22, a Denver district judge ruled in that suit that while Colorado could go ahead with electronic voting, the state and the plaintiffs had to come up with a plan to improve the security standards of voting equipment before the November election.

Those measures call for surveillance video cameras in areas where voting equipment is used and stored, criminal background checks on all county employees who have access to the data-sensitive components of the voting machines and a more-comprehensive series of seals on the equipment to prevent tampering.

Liss said his division will need to install more security cameras at its offices on 33rd Street — to monitor the area where absentee ballots are handled and to record the comings and goings of election staff in the adjoining warehouse, where election supplies are stored.

He said he also will be required to purchase additional tamper-evident seals for the electronic voting equipment.

"None of this is in any way optional," he said. "All of this has to be done by Nov. 7."

He said he is particularly annoyed that county clerks had no input regarding the new measures.

"There was no solicitation of the counties asking, 'Hey, can you physically do this?'" he said.

Liss said the chance that someone could tamper with the county's electronic voting machines as they are configured currently is "far-fetched."

He said he is one of only three election officials who have access to the part of his office's secure storage site for voting machines, optical scanners and tally stations. And he said breaking into voting equipment is virtually impossible, given the fact that it is secured three times over with numbered seals.

He said he planned to continue the policy of allowing supply judges to take election equipment and supplies home with them the Saturday before the election.

Shirley Vancleave, 77, said the new security rules don't intimidate her. The Boulder resident, who has been serving as an election judge off and on for 25 years, said she probably will do it again in November.

"If that's what we gotta do, that's what we gotta do," she said. "Somebody has to do this job; otherwise, we lose our voting process."

Copyright 2006, DailyCamera. All Rights Reserved.


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--- Begin Message ---
Title: DailyCamera: Boulder County
 
 
DailyCamera
 
To print this page, select File then Print from your browser
URL: http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/county_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2423_5036208,00.html
More voters using absentee ballots

By John Aguilar, Camera Staff Writer
October 2, 2006

Boulder County voters have requested nearly twice the number of absentee ballots this year as they did during the last midterm election.

And that margin is certain to increase leading up to the Nov. 7 election, as a full month remains for voters to apply for an absentee ballot from the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office.

"We definitely have an interest in absentees," said Carrie Haverfield, voter education and outreach specialist with the Clerk and Recorder's Office, as she manned a voter registration booth at the Boulder Fall Festival on the Pearl Street Mall on Sunday afternoon.

Haverfield said about two dozen people at the festival filled out forms for an absentee ballot in just an hour Sunday afternoon.

As of late last week, 28,243 voters in the county had requested absentee ballots. That compares to 16,150 absentee ballot requests during the 2002 midterm election, Haverfield said. The increase in absentee ballot requests is due in large part to voters' unease about using electronic voting equipment at the polling places and a record-length ballot that requires extra time and effort to digest.

"I tell them that the state Blue Book is itself 55 pages long, so that should give you an idea of what's coming up," Haverfield said, referring to the ballot information booklet sent to every Colorado voter.

Also on hand at the festival was a Hart Intercivic electronic voting machine for people to try out.

Matt Jacobs, 49, and his 12-year-old son, Zach, managed to spin and press their way through a shortened, mock ballot on the voting machine without much trouble.

"I was nervous about making the wrong selection, but it was pretty intuitive," Matt Jacobs said.

The machine allows voters several opportunities to back up during the process and change a previous choice. It also provides a printout that can be checked before the final ballot is cast.

Electronic voting has been under attack in the state, especially after a suit was filed against the state alleging that voting machines were prone to tampering and could be manipulated by someone with knowledge of its software.

Matt Jacobs said he has confidence in the technology, particularly since it records on paper the choices voters make. He said he had no reason to suspect that election officials in Boulder County would try to manipulate the results recorded in the machines.

"This isn't Ohio, is it?" he said.

Copyright 2006, DailyCamera. All Rights Reserved.

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