Fact-esque

Pennywise

Clinton wants to appoint a poverty czar to the Cabinet, is rolling out plans to cure breast cancer and is talking tough on most-favored human rights abuser, China.  I'm liking this primary season.  If we can get her in the lead again, maybe Obama will move left too. 

I like anything to do with raising the profile of poverty and I like the breast cancer plan too but the China talk is just nonsense.  No American president can disrespect China as she is suggesting BushCo should do.  Obama, all front-runnery and ever cautious and vague, hemmed and hawed on the point.  (China is bad and Darfur is sad but the Olympics are about the love so, um ...)   I'm not sure why he didn't call her on the silly talk and lay it out:  China is bad but they own us and so we will dance at their party.  The trick is to get independent of China economically and go about restoring our veneer of moral authority internationally so that we have a leg to stand on when it comes to situations like this.    On the other hand, not answering is a step up from the way he plunged into the "I'll renegotiate NAFTA!" fest and then told Canada that he was just foolin'.   Baby steps.  If only the primary lasted a year or two, I know we'd be getting somewhere.

On the homefront, I wish I could say that this NYT Magazine article didn't paint an accurate picture of the racism and self-destructive political reasoning in Levittown, PA, but I've worked there for two years and have seen a lot and so I can't.   I also wish the story had looked at a few other towns around PA instead of using Levittown to represent all that isn't Philadelphia/Pittsburgh.   The diversity of lifestyles and political thought in this state is fascinating.  It would have been interesting to spend some time in a few rural areas or in Reading, which is largely Latino and is struggling economically and is in the middle of a district that votes for "moderate" Republican Jim Gerlach over and over again.   Or in Erie, which has lost its economic base and is traditionally Republican but is also where four Democrats are fighting for the chance to unseat rubberstamp Republican, Rep. Phil English.   On top of that, when you factor in the strong probability that PA will be this year's Florida/Ohio, thanks to all our unverifable voting machines, the major news outlets should set up election bureaus in Pennsylvania. 

Button Wars: So when I saw Hillary speak last week, I picked up the AFT button endorsing her.  I wore it this weekend to NYC mostly because I forgot to take it off.   Turns out that NYC is starved for the Hillary swag.  I got at least half a dozen favorable comments on the button, which only surprised me because I kept forgetting I was wearing it.  What really surprise me was hearing from a nun, who stopped me to chat about Hillary, that all her sisters were praying hard for Clinton to win.  I asked why and she told me that it's because she's a woman.  Okay, I said, that's fair - but why else?   The sister got sort of cagey and told me that she is a Dominican nun.  That didn't help me.  Was she talking about choice?  That didn't sound right.  How radical could those Dominican nuns be?   She said that with the "equality issues" going on in the church right now, a woman president would be helpful.   She supports women in the priesthood.   I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't think a Hillary presidency would advance her cause but I did give her my button, which made her happy and got me points with God.  Now here comes the war part.

Since I really have no clear preference between Obama and Hillary, but I do want to support the DemCans, or at least the excitement around the election, I figured I'd replace my Hillary button and get an Obama one to wear too.  Twice the opportunity to engage people in the process, right?   So I stopped by the Clinton headquarters tonight and got a button for me and my daughter - no problem.   All I had to do was bite my tongue when the young woman working there told me that Hillary was always against NAFTA.   Please.  Next stop: Obamaland, where I was sure I'd be able to get a button.  Well, I could, but it would cost me $3 for one button, $5 for 2.  Call me stingy but  I had just spent $54 to put gas in my car and over a hundred dollars to buy one night's worth of groceries and some staples for the house; I wasn't about to fork over $3 to a campaign that's pulling in a million dollars a day and got $15 of my money last quarter to boot - all so I could advertise their guy in a tight race.

Obama will be speaking at a town hall in Levittown on Wednesday.  I hear it's free to get in.  Maybe I'll pick up a button there, but in the meantime,

Voice of the Voters is On the Air - and in Your iPod

I just sent this to the Coalition for Voting Integrity's mailing list, so you get to read it too!   

Summer is winding down, which means that the last week of vacations is coming up.   But the Coalition for Voting Integrity has been hard at work all summer long bringing radio and Internet listeners all across the country interviews with the nation's biggest names in voting news.

If you missed any of the shows aired over the summer, you can listen to them via podcast or at the Voice of the Voter archives.

LIST OF SUMMER VOICE OF THE VOTERS SHOWS

Aug. 22:  Tom Courbat, founder of Save R Vote, will provide an analysis of the impact of Secretary of State Bowen's historic decisions following the top-to-bottom review of electronic voting machines used in CA; John Gideon, executive director of Voters Unite, will discuss the situation in PA's Wayne, Lackawanna and Northampton Counties, where Advanced Voting Solutions has been denied certification of their WINvote DRE touchscreen system; Ellen Bukstel & Nancy Wuerzburger wrote the song "They Lost My Vote," often heard on Voice of the Voters! Lori Rosolowsky is this week's guest host.

Aug. 15, repeat of Aug. 8: Matt Blaze, member of team that peformed the recent security review of voting machines used in CA, coauthor of Security Problem Excuse Bingo, and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, an advocate for paper ballots.
Blaze Transcript.
Kucinich Transcript.
Audio
Podcast

Aug. 1: Tom Courbat, founder of Save R Vote, interviewed by guest host Lori Rosolowsky in the wake of CA Secretary of State Bowen's report revealing voting machine vulnerabilities.
Audio
Podcast

July 25: Gregory Luke, election law attorney, discusses S. 1487, the "Ballot Integrity Act."
Audio
Podcast

July 18: John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, re the privatization and outsourcing of U.S. elections, plus the illegality of DRE voting machines.
Audio.
Podcast.

July 11: Bruce O'Dell, information technology consultant and election integrity activist. See his most recent article re HR 811 at OpEdNews.com and report "Landslide Denied: Exit Polls vs. Vote Count 2006." Plus Nancy Tobi, of Democracy for New Hampshire.
Audio.
Podcast.

July 4th Revolutionary Extravaganza!   Strait Talks and Voice of the Voters joined forces, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood, "Words of Freedom" radio host George Flynn, and local singer/songwriter Lori Rosolowsky
Podcast

June 27:  Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), recaps "Citizens 1, Microsoft 0" (see Bo's Blog). 
Audio.
Podcast.

Put Him in the Senate

Hey, according to E.J. Dionne's sources, my congressman fought to do the right thing:

At one point, according to participants in the Pelosi meeting, the passionate discussion veered toward the idea of standing up to the administration -- even at the risk of handing President Bush a chance to bash Democrats on "national security," as is his wont.

Several members from swing districts -- including Reps. Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Patrick J. Murphy of Pennsylvania -- expressed openness to having Congress stay in town to fight if important constitutional issues were at stake.

But the moment passed. Even some very liberal Democrats worried about the political costs of blocking action before the summer recess. That Saturday night, the House sent the president a bill that, as a disgusted Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) put it, with just a touch of exaggeration, "makes Alberto Gonzalez the sheriff, the judge and the jury."

Most Democrats opposed the bill, but 41 (including Shuler) voted yes, allowing it to pass. (Murphy remained passionately opposed.) The one Democratic victory: The legislation expires in six months, meaning the debate will resume this fall. But Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.) warned his colleagues that "when you give up your rights under the Constitution, it is not likely you are going to regain them."

Who knows if it's true, but if it is, it's pretty cool.   

Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Dr. Matt Blaze, Computer Security Expert with the Name of a Superhero! This Week on CVI's Voice of the Voters

The California study was, as far as I know, the most comprehensive independent security evaluation of electronic voting technologies ever conducted, covering products from three major vendors and investigating not only the voting machines themselves, but also the back-end systems that create ballots and tally votes.  I believe our reports now constitute the most detailed published information available about how these systems work and the specific risks entailed by their use in elections.

That's a quote from Dr. Matt Blaze, who for two months led one of the source code analysis teams in California's security review of its electronic voting systems.   Here's more from Dr. Blaze:

We found significant,  deeply-rooted security weaknesses in all three vendors' software. Our newly-released source code analyses address many of the supposed shortcomings of the red team studies, which have been (quite unfairly, I think) criticized as being "unrealistic".  It should now be clear that the red teams were successful not because they somehow "cheated," but rather because the built-in security mechanisms they were up against simply don't work properly. Reliably protecting these systems under operational conditions will likely be very hard.

The problems we found in the code were far more pervasive, and much more easily exploitable, than I had ever imagined they would be.

Tonight on Voice of the Voters, the Coalition for Voting Integrity's Internet radio show, Dr. Blaze will share his knowledge, experience and insights in a discussion of why, exactly, our vote is not safe in the hands of unverifiable and insecure voting machines and the corporations who sell them. 

Bonus:  It turns out that Dr. Blaze isn't only a computer genius, he has a sense of humor.  To be completely prepared for tomorrow's show and for some fun, download a Security Problem Excuse Bingo card, created by Dr. Blaze and  Jutta Degener.     Bucks County voters have heard most of those excuses before. 

Then, Democratic presidential candidate, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, will explain why he thinks DREs are a problem, what he thinks can be done in Congress to protect American voters from systems that are flawed beyond repair and how we can secure American elections systems in time for 2008. He'll also discuss other key issues facing the country in this historic time.

Congress is dropping the ball on this issue, offering us crummy bills that cater to the whims of electronic voting machine vendors.   It will be interesting to hear what Congressman Kucinich thinks his colleagues can do in time for 2008.

How to listen to Voice of the Voters:

Voice of the Voters airs every Wednesday night at 8:00 PM ET on 1360 AM and on the Internet. (http://wnjc.duxpond.com/)

Note: If you use dial up internet, it is best to turn off all other programs in order to receive clearest broadcast.

Voice of the Voters is also available as a podcast at iTunes.com under "Voice of the Voters" in the News & Politics category.

Archived shows are available here.

Full disclosure: I'm a proud member of CVI.

Vote Suppression in Bucks County

Photos from Voting Rights rally in Bensalem, PA last night.

Voter suppression is being alleged in Bensalem, PA because  a polling place that's been existed for eleven years has been moved out of an apartment complex where mostly immigrants, minorities and senior live.  From the Bucks County Courier Times story describing the protest rally that was held last night:

Racism, fixed elections and dirty politics were some of the accusations that flew at a Bensalem protest Monday night.

More than 50 residents and concerned citizens gathered at the Bensalem municipal building to protest the Bucks County Board of Elections' decision to move a polling place from the Creekside Apartments complex to the Polish Army Veterans Hall, one mile away.

The apartment complex houses a large number of minorities and elderly, low-income and disabled people who may have difficulty accessing a different polling place.

Those who criticized the decision believe the motivation was political. In the 2006 general election, 330 people in the Lower Middle 5 District voted Democrat while 98 people voted Republican, according to voter records.

Those supporting the change, including township Solicitor Joseph Pizzo, claim it was an issue of safety because of recent shootings at the complex.

Last night a speaker at the rally wanted to know why the crime rate in Creekside, which is dropping,  suddenly warrants moving an established polling place?   Two people complained to the county that they didn't feel safe voting there.  But it more likely has something to do with Bensalem's revitalized Democratic party and the Democratic win of a city council seat, which broke up the Republican domination of that body.   The tide seems to be turning in Bensalem and it looks like the Republicans don't like it. 

They'll have a lot more not to like soon if the residents of Creekside maintain the energy and determination they displayed last night at the voting rights rally.  The next test of their perseverence will be to organize safe transportation for Creekside voters to the new pollling place, which is across a major thoroughfare and then a mile away.   If they are able to get every registered voter in the complex to the polls on Election Day, the people who made it more difficult for the residents of Creekside to vote may get something they didn't bargain for, as they find out exactly what the vote means to people who, as Al Sharpton said, didn't get it by turning a certain age but buy working for it.

You can read more about Republican Voting Integrity at Digby's place and get an idea why people would suspect that the same sort of thing is happening now in Bensalem.

UPDATE: More coverage.

 

 

Get Up to Speed on Electronic Voting Painlessly

Since October of last year, The Coalition for Voting Integrity has been producing a radio show - available on WNJC1360 AM and the Internet - devoted to the exploration not only of the impact of electronic voting but also the nature of Democracy and our role in it as American citizens.    The list of guests has been nothing short of astounding.  From a Pulizer-Prize winning historian to national experts on the issues and science behind electronic voting, every week has brought a wealth of information to the public.   

Mary Ann Gould has interviewed internationally known computer scientists and electronic voting experts, Dr. Avi Rubin,  Dr. Dan Lopresti and Dr. Rebecca Mercuri.  She's talked to polling expert Dr. Steven Freeman of UPENN.   She got the latest news about pending electronic voting litigation, including some in Pennsylvania, from attorneys and voting experts John Bonifaz, Marian K. Schneider and Lowell Finley.   She's talked to Congressmen Rush Holt (NJ-12) and Ron Paul (TX-14).  If you're an electronic voting expert with something to say, you've said it to Voice of the Voters listeners.   

Rush Holt, you may know, has put forth eVoting leglislation again in the House, H.R. 811.  You may not know that voting rights groups, like CVI, have major concerns about the bill's refusal to ban DRE's (touchscreen/button machines like the ones Bucks County uses) entirely.   In fact, there's a fascinating struggle going on now behind the Congressional scenes around the bill with groups like Common Cause, Move On and People for the American Way all lined up behind the bill's passage (figuring something is better than nothing) and groups that have made voting rights their raison d'etre, like CVI and VotersUnite.org, united in opposition reasoning that we've already got a bad bill (HAVA), why compound the problem with more flawed legislation that will this time legislate explicitly in favor of machines we know cannot be trusted?  You can read about why DRE's need to be banned here and the proposed amendment to the H.R. 811, which will do that, here.  If you feel like it, call your Congressperson and ask them to read what you read and then make sure that the amendment to ban DRE's is attached to H.R. 811.   

Which brings us to tonight's Voice of the Voters.   The guest will be Dr. Harry Hursti, who developed the famous Hursti Hack test and changed the voting landscape forever.   This is from the press advisory for the show, called "Hacking 101":

When Ion Sancho, Leon County, Florida Supervisor of Elections and last week's Voice of the Voters guest, wanted to determine the security of Leon County’s voting machines, he only wanted to deal with the top experts in the field of computer security. One of the two people he called was HarryiHursti.

The security test that Hursti developed for Sancho has since been come to be known as the landmark Hursti Hack Test One, which showed that election results from an electronic voting system could be changed without a trace.

This week on Voice of the Voters, Harri Hursti will explain in clear and understandable detail everything you need to know to understand viruses, hacking and why electronic voting machines are especially vulnerable to attack and simple failure. He will answer the following questions:       

• What is a computer virus? What causes it? What does it do to a computer? Why should we be concerned?       
• What is hacking? How is it done? What vulnerabilities do hackers exploit? What harm can be done?       
• When you look at viruses and hacking, how do they both relate to electronic voting machines presently in use and under consideration in the US? Are we easy targets?
• Does any test currently exist that would tell us if an electronic voting machine has been contaminated with a virus, been the victim of a hack or is simply not working the way it should?       
• In terms of vulnerability to hacking and viruses, do all electronic machines (touchscreen, touchbutton and optical scan) have the same security risks?       
• Given the facts, is there anything that would make one system a better choice?       
• Would adding a printer to a touchscreen/touchbutton machine give us the same accuracy and reliability as the optical scan machines with hand-marked ballots?

The conclusion: There’s no way that any voting machine that exists in the US today or is even under design, can produce a secure election.

The impact: Our 2008 election is already of questionable security. What can be done in time for 2008? Are paper ballots the answer or do they pose security risks as well? You’ll be surprised by what you hear.

If you want to get up to speed on the question of the security of electronic voting machines quickly and painlessly, don't miss tonight's show and take some time to listen through the archives as well.    The show is now even a podcast you can access through iTunes.  Search under for "Voice of the Voters" in the News and Politics category. 

Tell your friends.    There isn't a more important issue facing the country and Bucks County today.   

Shooting Star

Congressman Patrick Murphy getting standing ovations in the US House of Representatives.

eVoting on the Radio!

I'm very proud of my work with the Coalition for Voting Integrity, which is a leading grassoots, all-volunteer activist group headquartered in Bucks County fighting tirelessly to bring voter-verified paper ballots and proper audits to Pennsylvania and the country.  We're a stunningly well-matched group of women and men absolutely dedicated beyond all reason to bringing integrity and accountability to our elections.  Faced with a virtual blackout in the corporate media and in blogtopia, we have, over the last four months, taken our message of electoral justice to the airwaves and the Internets with a show called Voice of the Voters: the Power and Responsibility of Democracy.  The show broadcast live every Wednesday night at 8pm on WNJC 1360AM, but it's also available via netcast here.   Now, thanks to the work of yet another volunteer, you can subscribe to a free podcast of the show at iTunes.  Search for Voice of the Voters in the News and Politics section.

Voice of the Votes is, without doubt, the pre-eminent interview program devoted to the issue of electronic voting and American Democracy.   It's put together every week by CVI co-founders, Mary Ann Gould and Ruth Matheny.  Week in and week out they have been delivering a line-up of guests that will, if you know anything about electronic voting, make your head spin.    Check out the archives:

Week One: Guest, noted election attorney, Lowell Finley.   Archived audio.

Week Two: Dr. Daniel Lopresti, Associate professor of Computer Science.  (audio not yet available)

Week Three: Dr. Avi Rubin, Professor of Computer Science, author and electronic voting expert.  Archived audio.

Week Four: Joan Krawitz, Executive Director of Vote Trust USA.  Archived Audio

Week Five: Exit poll expert, Dr. Steve Freeman; Executive Director of PA Common Cause, Barry Kaufman; Marian K. Schneider, Esq, lead attorney on a landmark Pennsylvania voting case currently pending.  Click here for archived audio.

Week Six: Dr. Chuck Pennacchio, historian and University professor, explores the similarities and differences between American crisis years of 1776 and 2006. (Archived audio.)

Week Seven: BlackBoxVoting.org's Bev Harris.  Audio not yet available.

Week Eight: Representative Rush Holt (NJ-12) sponsor of H.R. 550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.  "Somewhere along the line ... we lost track of the auditability, verfiability of the the voting."   Click here for the archived audio.

Week Nine: Brad Friedman, author of the BradBlog.com.  The BradBlog is one of the foremost sources of e-voting news on the internet.  Click here for archived audio.

Week Ten: Voice of the Voters' Holiday Show with a colonial theme! General George [Bob Gerenser] Washington recounted the events of December 25, 1776. Lori Rosolowsky and Courtney Colletti performed traditional holiday favorites. Click here for archived audio.

Week Eleven:  Ben Franklin (the incomparable Ralph Archibald) offered an insightful view of America's founding principles. Click here for archived audio.

Week Twelve: Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14).   Hear why Rep. Paul sees HR 418, the REAL ID Act, as "a Trojan horse...to stampede Americans into sacrificing what is uniquely American: our constitutionally protected liberty."  Click here (part one) and here (part two) for archived audio.

Week Thirteen: Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood.  Dr. Wood is considered the pre-eminent authority on the American Revolution and the Constitution. His latest book is Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different.  Click here for archived audio.

Week Fourteen:  Bo Lipari, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV).  Watch Bo Lipari in this clip from Bought and Sold-- Electronic Voting in New York.   Click here (part one) and here (part two) for archived audio.

Week Fifteen: Michael Clingman, Secretary of Oklahoma's Election Board and Secretary of the State Senate. Mr. Clingman discussed Oklahoma's decision to take ownership of all voting machine programming and open it up for all to see plus why optical scan works for his state.  Dr. Alan Brau discussed the problems with WinVote machines in Northampton County, PA.  Click here for archived audio.

Week Sixteen: Topic - Rush Holt's evoting bill HR811.   Guests: Bo Lipari and David Allen.   2/21 Podcast available by clicking here.

Week Seventeen: John Bonifaz, Civil Rights attorney and founder of the National Voting Rights Institute.  Mr. Bonifaz discussed H.R. 811 among other topics.   John Gideon reported on the week's top voting news stories.  Lori Rosolowsky sang "If You Want to Be a Voter (The Ballad of Sarasota)."   2/28 Podcast available by clicking here.

It simply does not get any better than that.  Lately we've been talking a lot about the latest electronic voting bill to hit Congress, H.R. 811.   Supported by Common Cause and Move On, it is, on balance, a bad bill because it will not ban DREs, which is the sine qua non of any acceptable electronic voting legislation.  Right now CVI and other voting rights groups are fighting to get H.R. 811 amended to ban DREs but our work is cut out for us.  People are so eager to get any bill passed, they're willing to pass a deeply flawed one that will "get fixed later."  That didn't work with HAVA and it won't work now.   

So if you want to get caught up on what we're fighting for, listen to Voice of the Voters live tonight.  The guest will be Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, another elections security all-star, who is going to explain how and why H.R. 811 needs to be amended.  Subscribe to the podcast.  Tell your friends!

You can take action to get H.R. 811 amended by calling House Representatives to let them know that DREs need to be banned this year.

 

eVoting to be in the News via a Media Advisory I Just Wrote

Doylestown, PA - 

ON Monday  March 5 in the Pearl S. Buck room of the Doylestown Free Library at 1:30PM,  the Coalition of Voting Integrity, along with Dr. Rebecca Mercuri and Dr. Dan Lopresti, will announce the recent purchase of and plans for discarded Danaher/Shouptronic and Sequoia Advance full-face electronic voting machines.

The Danaher/Shouptronic and Sequoia full-face voting machines were purchased for $25 each from counties in Tennessee and North Carolina, which had discarded the machines. The machines were picked up by members of CVI and delivered to leading electronic voting security experts, Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, Dr. Dan Lopresti of Lehigh University and members of the Princeton research laboratory, which recently garnered national attention when it repeatedly demonstrated the vulnerability and hackability of electronic voting machines including  the Diebold AccuVote-TS machine and Sequoia’s AVC .   The Danaher/Shouptonic and Sequoia machines will be examined by all three researchers for various operational issues including why full-face voting machines have consistently demonstrated the highest amout of lost votes (undervotes) in the nation. 

“Electronic voting is still a controversial issue,” said Dr. Dan Lopresti. “Given its fundamental importance to our democracy, there are far too many unanswered questions. That's why we're so excited at Lehigh to now have examples of three such machines used in real elections around the country, including a  Danaher / Shouptronic Model 1242 like the kind used in Bucks County. We plan to take a close look at these machines to try to figure out why certain problems, including reports of chronic undervoting in the Danaher system, continue to persist.”  He continued, “This opportunity to study e-voting hardware and software is extraordinary since local elections officials have generally forbidden independent evaluations of their equipment.”

Legal counsel will also be present to address questions concerning pending legal actions and the significance of the planned research into full-face voting machines.

Excellent photo opportunity: At the press conference, CVI will introduce it’s own Danaher/Shouptronic machine, “Shoupy,” which will be covered in band-aids to send the message that all touchscreen machines are flawed stopgap devices that do nothing to address the country’s voting crisis and indeed make it worse.  Shoupy will also sport a sign reading  “So Easy and So Wrong.”

The Danaher/Shouptronic machines are used in six counties in Pennsylvania, including Bucks, Philadelphia, Delaware and Berks.  The Sequoia Advantage electronic machine is used in Montgomery County among others. The Danaher/Shouptronic machine alone represents the second largest block of Pennsylvania voters.  Together, the Danaher/Shouptronic and Sequoia systems control enough Pennsylvania votes to have a significant impact on the outcome of any state and national election.

The press conference will also feature a live debut of her great new song, "If You Want To Be A Voter (The Ballad of Sarasota) by Buckingham musician Lori Rosolowsky.  The song incorporates historic American battleground references as it chronicles the Sarasota County 13th Congressional District election in November 2006, in which 18,000 (15%) of votes casts were not counted.  The election was decided by 369 votes.   The legal and social implications for that election in Bucks County and nationally will also be discussed.  Free downloads of the song and lyrics are available at www.voiceofthevoters.org

CVI co-founders Mary Ann Gould and Ruth Matheny will

· Announce a major new policy position regarding electronic voting machines and pending legislation. 

· Call for a county, state and nationwide ban of touchscreen voting machines.

· Call on the Commissioners of Bucks and other counties to move away from a defense of the purchase of DRE’s, since data is available every week to prove that they do not work, and to instead work together to replace the DREs for both financial and security reasons.

**********************************

WHAT: Press conference to announce CVI's purchase of Danaher/Shouptronic and Sequoia Advantage full-face voting machines.

WHEN: MONDAY, March 6   1:30PM

WHERE: Pearl S. Buck Room, Doylestown Free Library  150 S. Pine Street  Doylestown, PA 18901-4932

**************************************************

Background: 

Read about the Coalition for Voting Integrity at www.SaveOurVote.com

Listen to CVI's nationally known radio show, Voice of the Voters: the Power and Responsibility of Democracy via our archives.

Listen to leaders from the voting issues community to the halls of Congress, who have been interviewed on Voice of the Voters, the Power and Responsibility of Democracy, including Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Ron Paul (TX-14),  voting rights activist and academic, Dr. Avi Rubin, civil rights attorney Jonn Bonifaz, Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Dr. Gordon Wood and University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Steve Freeman. 

Three relevant reports from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU:

The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World at

Most broadly, the report found:

· All three voting systems have significant security and reliability vulnerabilities, which pose a real danger to the integrity of national, state, and local elections.

· The most troubling vulnerabilities of each system can be substantially remedied if proper countermeasures are implemented at the state and local level.

· Few jurisdictions have implemented any of the key countermeasures that could make the least difficult attacks against voting systems much more difficult to execute successfully.

The Machinery of Democracy: Voting System Usability at

The Brennan Center report concluded that two of the most commonly purchased electronic voting systems today are better at recording voter intentions than older systems like the punchcard system used in Florida in 2000.  At the same time, the report faulted one electronic voting system under consideration in New York and in use in parts of New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. This system, the “full face DRE,” continues to unduly hamper voters’ ability to easily and accurately cast a ballot for their preferred candidate without undue burden, confusion and delay.

Among the report’s key findings:

Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) and Scrolling Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems are more accurate at recording voter intention than older voting systems. In 2004, residual vote rates were less than 1% for both technologies.

Full-face DRE systems continue to be plagued with an unacceptably high residual vote rate. In 2000, 2002 and 2004, it exceeded that of either PCOS or scrolling DRE systems.

Residual vote rates among voters earning less then $25,000 are higher on full faced DRE’s (2.8%), than on either PCOS (1.4%) or Scrolling DRE’s (1.3%).

The Machinery of Democracy: Voting System Security, Accessibility, Usability, and Cost at

The report is the final product of the first comprehensive, empirical analysis of electronic voting systems in the United States. It comes after nearly two years of study with many of the nation’s leading academics, election officials, economists, and security, usability and accessibility experts.

Up until this point, there has been surprisingly little empirical study of voting systems in the areas of security, accessibility, usability, and cost. The result is that jurisdictions make purchasing decisions and adopt laws and procedures that have little to do with their overall goals.

New Mexico also chose to discard their Danaher/Shouptronic machines due to undervotes ranging from 6 to 16 times the national average and in comparison to optical scan machines during the 2004 election.

Why is Getting Voter-Verified Paper Ballot Legislation So Hard to Do?

If you live in Bucks County, get yourself to the Coalition for Voting Integrity's  issues/candidate forum and fundraiser this week on Thursday at 7pm at Esca restaurant in New Hope.    Candidates for County Commissioner have been invited to address the crowd and answer questions.   This is a great way to size up the candidates as well as to let the candidates know what issues are important to you before the campaigning starts to get crazy.

Personally, I'm a single-issue voter this time around.    Probably to nobody's surprise I want to know how to get voter-verified paper ballots in Bucks County in time for 2008.   The candidates with the best plan to undo the damage done by the last bunch will have my vote.    Event details are here.

In national eVoting news, Rep. Rush Holt's (NJ-12) has introduced another election reform bill, H.R.811.   This one has the immediate and rabid support of Move On, People for the American Way and Common Cause.  Great, right?  Not so fast.   The bill is not being supported by quite a few voting rights activists like BlackBoxVoting's Bev Harris, Voters Unite and Voter Action.    Another set of smaller groups are staying quiet on the bill, which appears to have its heart in the right place but refuses to take the necessary steps to fix the problems that HAVA allowed and which plague us today.   Bradblog explains:

As I've said many times, though the Holt legislation contains many good and needed provisions, it has several serious flaws --- including, perhaps most notably, a failure to ban all disenfranchising DRE/touch-screen systems --- which will likely lead to this bill being seen as "HAVA 2" by 2008 if it's passed as is. Unlike the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA 1), the Dems will not have Republicans and the disgraced former Rep. Bob Ney to blame when the shortcomings in the bill are revealed before, during, and after the next Presidential Election.

Getting rid of DREs and all their attendant problems is not a partisan issue; it's a money issue, which makes it even more dangerous.    That's why working on the county level to get rid of these machines is so important.    Even if Holt's bill becomes law, Bucks County can demand a better solution - one that requires voter-verified paper ballots and proper audits.    If  you want to read about the opposition to Holt's bill, Brad's got the links you need.  I'll post them here as well.   Happy reading.

John Bonifaz: Why the Holt Election Reform Bill Must be Amended to Guarantee a Real Paper Ballot

Here’s the bottom line: The DRE technology is fundamentally flawed for recording and counting our votes. The Holt bill, unless amended, will further codify into law the use of this technology, piling onto the disaster of HAVA (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) a new disaster.

Bev Harris: Beware of the Bandwagon -- A concise list of the problems with the Holt Bill H.R. 811

11. Loophole allowing Internet connections for central tabulators and ballot definition software

12. Loophole allowing manual audits to be bypassed by states with computer-only recount protocols

13. Loophole allowing machine count to supercede voter verified paper when fuzzily described circumstances arise. Los Angeles Registrar Conny McCormack already has tried to co-opt this (Feinstein senate hearing yesterday) into meaning when there is a printer jam damaging the paper, the machine count will trump.

Another problem Harris has with Holt's bill is that it will give the Elections Assistance Commission too much power:

3. Makes the scandal-ridden EAC a permanent fixture and increases its power. Alan Dechert, from the Open Voting Consortium says it best: "Holt contemplates the invasion of these United States by the Federal government. If passed, it would BREAK the voting system in the states while establishing a dictatorship to handle things: the Election Assistance Commission ("EAC" or just "the Commission") with its four commissioners appointed by the president of the United States."

Which means that the news of the very recent and unchallenged appointment of "the RNC's former White House liason, Ohio 2004 operative and White House employee, Caroline Hunter," to the EAC takes on even greater importance.  Where were the Dems on this?  Good question.

Also via Bradblog, you can sign the open letter to Congress asking them to ban DRE's once and for all at Velvet Revolution.

We, the undersigned non-partisan election integrity organizations, strongly urge you, as a first order of business in the 110th Congress, to enact new federal legislation to protect the integrity of our elections. While there are many areas of concern for any such legislation, none is more essential to the accuracy of our elections and the confidence among our electorate than for there to be a paper ballot for every vote cast. Not a paper "trail" or a paper "record," but a paper ballot. That paper ballot must then actually be tabulated in order to determine the initial results of the election.

Get busy.  Tell your friends.   Get active in local elections.   Congress, and the Bucks County Commissioners for that matter, aren't going to fix this problem unless we make it clear to them that DRE's are not part of the solution.