Letters
to the Editor - Nov. 19
VOTING
We
need real, verifiable audits
Neal, a
volunteer like all of us, has spent much time down at the Colorado Legislature
doing the grunt work of civics. He actually managed to get good legislation
passed that demanded that voting results be audited.
Alas,
apparently neither the secretary of state nor our county clerk understands what
an audit is, because no real audit was done in 2006.
When a
company is audited, the auditor does three things. First, company's books are
checked to make sure that the subtotals add up to the totals. Second, the
subtotals are randomly checked against primary documents like receipts and
invoices.
Third,
the most important step, the primary documents are checked and the arithmetic
is reconciled against a subtotal on the company's books. If the numbers don't
match, then there is something wrong.
Similarly,
to properly audit the vote count, one needs the right procedure.
What's
utterly amazing and utterly disgusting is that the paper ballots are
hand-counted and then the ballots are run through the same machines, but the
results aren't compared to what happened at the election. Those numbers don't
exist, because detailed vote counts can't or won't be produced by the Hart
voting equipment. It's like the company's books don't have any line items (e.g.
"office supply expense") to compare against. It's voodoo auditing.
In
September, a district judge ruled that the integrity of
More
importantly, let's get the new secretary of state to fix the rules or get the
new Democratic Legislature to define "audit" more rigorously.
Let's
help Neal.
RALPH
SHNELVAR
