(National) HERE IT COMES: HAVA'S BABY...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11748 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - 9:14 am:        Paperless touchscreen voting, electronic "direct recording electronic" votes, were pushed in through HAVA, 2002 federal legislation called the "Help America Vote Act" which provided cash incentives and deadlines for states to purchase new voting equipment. HAVA's baby on its way. Tapping into Obama's address on Election Night, when he referenced the long lines and said "we've got to fix that" -- new federal legislation has been hastily proposed and will probably be rammed through with bipartisan success. It's already on the table, HAVA Junior, and it will provide cash incentives to states to steamline their voting operations. Like HAVA, the Son of HAVA bills have some good stuff and some bad stuff in them. Good stuff includes a push for more early voting, which actually does help prevent lines. (Something that also helps is getting rid of DRE voting, but no one is mentioning that.) But expanding absentee voting and loosening its controls is a way to divorce the warm body from the ballot. States that make it easier for NO WARM BODY to accompany the vote will qualify for cash prizes. Voter ID battles? A thing of the past. Why have any actual human accompany the ballot at all? Instead of a real human coming to the polling place, in plain public view, easily authenticatable, we will be left with software-driven after-the-fact reports generated by insiders containing names of alleged voters, if we even get that. We will have no way to know, even if the voters are real, whether the ballots cast in their name were real. The Conduct of Elections bill, S 3635 was read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration this week. "This bill provides incentives for states to invest in practices and technology that are designed to expedite voting at the polls and to simplify voter registration." Conduct of Elections bill HR 6590 was referred to House Judiciary. This bill provides incentives for states to invest in practices and technology that are designed to expedite voting at the polls and to simplify voter registration." The devil in the details here is exactly what is meant by "practices and technology." To qualify for the cash prize, "practices and technology" will involve not expediting, but ELIMINATING voting at the polls. A USA Today reporter named Martha Moore quoted her experts this weekend as lamenting the dispersal of power, indicating that centralized federal control would be better; and suggesting that expanding absentee voting will be a solution. Groups eager to provide solutions to voting problems http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/11/18/voting-problem-answers/1712117/ "The solutions, say voters-rights groups [she cites Common Cause and the ACLU in the article], are for states to expand early voting, especially over the weekend before Election Day, to avoid a crush of people trying to vote in one day. States should streamline voter registration and allow voters to receive absentee ballots without restrictions, called "no excuse" absentee voting. Expanding Early Voting is a real solution. Expanding absentee voting is very different, because it separates the human being from the ballot, breaking chain of custody. "The ACLU wants federal legislation to create uniform standards." [ACLU] ... "The decentralized authority over voting is one of the reasons things get confused at the polling place," says Goodman. [Common Cause] Centralized control is tidy. Despotism is tidy. There are reasons for dispersal of power, which we find built into the fabric of our nation not only through state-based elections, but in the home rule laws that apply to over 80,000 US cities and municipalities. Centralizing control over the election process destabilizes the system, putting far fewer hands at the controls -- controls which can then be adjusted at any time. That's why it wasn't set up this way. And let's take a look, for a moment, at the brilliant solutions which have already taken place using local control and home rule -- Humboldt County Calif., where the public can now examine every ballot cast, Lyndeborough New Hampshire, where using home rule a warrant was passed requiring that the public be able to see and authenticate all essential steps in the election. INTERNET VOTING Do not be surprised to see Internet voting trying to shoehorn its way into the HAVA Junior cash. After all, it expedites polling place voting (by eliminating it). King County, Washington -- the largest county in the state, recently bragged that it is renewing its contract with Spanish-owned Internet voting firm Scytl for an upcoming local election. "King CD has again retained election supervisor Election Trust LLC (Bellevue) and Scytl USA (Baltimore, MD) to manage and conduct the 2012 election process." http://www.maplevalleyreporter.com/community/140739413.html Election Trust LLC is another Internet voting firm. Deployment of Ipad voting in Oregon http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/81859.html "The Secretary of State says the iPad application could eventually extend to all voters, but something like that is still a ways off " When I spoke with the Oregon Secretary of State's office for clarification on this, they told me that the iPad software can be deployed on iPad, laptop PC, touchscreen tablet PC, Android device. Now, if they aren't planning to expand Internet voting, why even bring it up? NEW CODE WORDS: "CONVENIENCE VOTING" It's all about "streamlining the process" and it goes by the catch-phrase "convenience voting" and now it's being incentivized, just like HAVA, with proposed legislation offering cash rewards to states who jump on board. Most people don't realize that absentee votes are still counted by computers -- no human eyes actually count the ballots. Most people don't realize that Internet voting, however popular it is or isn't, is ultimately controlled by whoever controls the Internet server -- just one or two people -- and whoever controls the data lines to the server. Most people don't realize that the first litmus test for whether a system is democratic is not "convenience", but whether it contains the crucial element of self-government. The PUBLIC (not the political parties, not political officials) must be able to see and authenticate each step of its own elections. In place of public controls, we are being diverted to the test of "participation percentage". "Convenience voting", we are told, will bring more people into the system, thus making it more democratic. But if the public can never verify who those people are, or whether the votes being counted on their behalf are all of their votes, extra votes, or real, or counterfeit, it is not a democratic system. If the public can't authenticate the key steps -- who can vote, WHO DID VOTE, the count itself, and chain of custody, all you are watching is theatre. By steering the public eye away from our inalienable right to self-govern, displacing it onto "participation percent" in an unverifiable process, we hand over the ability to grant permission to whatever the government decides to do. Cash prizes for "practices and technology". What practices and which technology? The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.   Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb Post Number: 225 Registered: 6-2011 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - 12:09 pm:        I don't like ANY OF IT - including early voting. Early voting requires one of two things, neither of them good. 1) Massive inventories of many many dozens or hundreds of ballot styles for each possible precinct a diverse pool of early voters may live in. Wrong ballot error rates skyrocket. 2) A technology that can present any ballot style required - aka the newer small format DRE with a software displayed ballot face. I thought we were trying to get away from these. I say preserve singular Election Day in-precinct voting. Over 2500 voters voted at my precinct on November 6, over twice the recommended statutory number, and the longest line all day was about 1/2 hour total. For most of the day, it was less. If you're having lines hours long, you have a) a high maintenance populace, b) election administration malfeasance, c) precinct pollworker incompetence, or d) a precinct where fraud OF ONE OF SEVERAL TYPES is going on.   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11749 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - 12:12 pm:        Good points, kurt. Early voting has some warts, but no fault absentee is downright malignant. The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.   Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb Post Number: 226 Registered: 6-2011 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - 12:15 pm:        No fault absentee has led DIRECTLY to successful election fraud criminal prosecutions in MANY states. It is a yawning chasm of fraud opportunities. PEOPLE, GROW UP! This is no American Idol voting we're talking about here! This is the leader of the free world. Voting should be done in a manner that reflects the seriousness of what we're doing. If going to the polls on a chilly Tuesday is too tough for you - you get the government you deserve. "Convenience voting"?!?!?! Oh joy, that's what we need - voting even more dumbed down for the utterly disconnected from reality! Two years from now, over half those multitudes waiting in line to vote will be nowhere to be found. Hey, here's a radical idea - vote EVERY time, not just once every four years, so your local election jurisdiction can properly allocate resources.   Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb Post Number: 227 Registered: 6-2011 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - 8:18 am:        Why even "excuse required" absentee ballots can be sketchy if hand delivery by third parties is permitted. http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/At-trial-voter-disavows-ballot-4054028.php Absentee voting needs to be COMPLETELY locked down with the most strict limitations imaginable. People give Pennsylvania a "ration of crap" over how hard we make absentee voting. We do it for a reason. It's an invitation to fraud, fully documented and litigated.   Rainbow Sally Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Rainbowsally Post Number: 8 Registered: 6-2012 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - 9:58 am:        Hey. Efficient elections aren't just the bane of democracy, they are even bad for the economy. What ARE they thinking? Also, my favorite excuse for using voting machines is the line about "it saves paper", which can be recycled when it's a ballot. The voter information they send out isn't even recycled. The whole thing, all the "new and improved" ideas and phony vote protection mechanisms, are just an unfunny joke. Gulliver. Alice. Where to next.   Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb Post Number: 228 Registered: 6-2011 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 - 12:16 pm:        Your state sends out voter information? Why? Mine doesn't. That's up to the campaigns and the media to do. Anything an election jurisdiction sends out regarding candidates is inherently biased. And any "process stuff" is provided in-precinct or with the excuse-required absentee ballot.

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.