11-9-05: Los Angeles County has the d...

Author Message   BBV Admin Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 2658 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 5 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 - 8:24 am:        Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack, the most powerful county elections official in California, has mastered the art of window dressing. You get a nifty tour when you observe elections, and L.A. election events are well orchestrated. What you won't get is the opportunity to watch your votes being counted, because that happens in a private room, a violation of California Elections Code. Los Angeles County Voting System - With nearly four million registered voters and one of the most concentrated minority populations in California, L.A. County has a big impact on state politics. One would think they'd have state of the art voting systems, tested, certified, scrutinized and evaluated. Not so. Los Angeles is the only location in the United States to use a quirky, hybrid, somewhat home-brewed voting machine setup involving obscure "InkaVote" optical scan fill-in-the bubble machines, combined with Diebold touch-screens, an "MTS" (Micro Tally System) central tabulator and a GEMS tabulator, specially tweaked so they can merge the vote data. The Los Angeles County central tabulator The L.A. County central tabulation system -- the "mother ship" that adds up and reports all the votes -- has been the subject of some consternation among California citizens. At the urging of the locals, Black Box Voting paid a surprise visit during the tabulation of the Nov. 8, 2005 election. Dog & Pony part I When you observe elections in L.A., you can opt to take a well organized tour, where you are directed to what the L.A. officials want you to watch. Meanwhile, you are subjected to various misleading statements. In L.A., even defining where the central tabulation area is presents a challenge. You are taken to an area on the third floor, with a wall of windows, where you look in upon a room full of InkaVote optical scan machines, ready and waiting to scan their special ballots. InkaVote ballots look like the old fashioned punch cards, but instead of punching a hole, you fill in the bubble with pen. The machines interpret the marks. Observers are told "this is the tallying area" --while looking at the optical scan machines, not the central tabulators. The real central tabulator area The windowed observation area is a long rectangle, with windows along the broad side. If you look down to the end of this long room, in an area a considerable distance from the windows, you'll see two offices, and the goings-on in neither can be viewed by anyone in the observation area. After persistent questioning, we were told that the non-viewable room at the end, on the left side, contains three MTS computers. Although the term "MTS" stands for Micro Tally System, we were told this is not "tallying" and therefore is not subject to California Election Code 15204. After more questioning, a tallying center employee told us the following: - There are three MTS systems in the room - Each does a different function - They run MTS version 1.3 - One collects the data from the Diebold touch-screens (in L.A. County, called the AV system) - One collects the data from the InkaVote optical scan machines - One is the "communicator" Perplexed about a flustered statement made early on in the questioning process, where another employee said part of the system went to a mainframe in the nearby town of Downey, we asked to know each stop on the L.A. County vote data railroad. - The data from the "communicator" machine reportedly goes to the sixth floor to an HP machine, where it goes out to the Web, in some fashion connects to the mainframe in Downey, and connects to the Secretary of State site. Los Angeles County employees refused to allow viewing of the room said to contain the three MTS machines, nor was anyone taken to the sixth floor, nor to Downey. We visited Conny McCormack to request permission to view -- which unfortunately can only be achieved by (a) putting a window in to view the MTS room or (b) moving the computers out in front of the observation windows or (c) allowing viewers access to the room. Conny told us she had consulted with county counsel, who told her she did not need to allow the public to view the areas where certain key functions were taking place. She then sent five law enforcement types down to guard us. We chatted them up and discussed the ins and outs of suing Los Angeles County on the civil rights violations they had just perpetrated on their citizenry. We'll be adding to this story in the not-too-distant future, and when a more stable Internet connection is available. To the fine citizens of Los Angeles -- Thank you ever so much for calling us, and to the many who showed up to monitor the election, you are doing critically important work. At Black Box Voting, we vividly remember the 2004 election, where after we issued strong recommendations to view the tabulators for nine months straight, 48 hours before the election a few motley souls finally decided it would be a good idea. In the mean time, 40,000 Election Protection volunteers all watched the voting, instead of the counting, thereby missing out on crucial evidence that can now never be recovered. In an off-election year, standing around a central tabulator room until the wee hours of the morning just doesn't have that "sizzle." But it is the citizens of Los Angeles who took this on last night who will enable us to salvage the situation (hopefully) for the critical 2006 elections. Now, you see, we have possible plaintiffs for a civil rights lawsuit to force L.A. County to comply with the law -- something Black Box Voting can spearhead, but for which we can not act as the plaintiff. (Quick note on another matter: On another Web site, it was speculated that the voting machine examiner for the Libertarian Party's requested 15004 examination in L.A. would be Bev Harris. This is not the case, and we do not know who will do such an examination, but it will be a qualified database specialist and not Bev Harris. The right to view all aspects of the tallying under Election Code 15204 is not related to the right of a political party to inspect the machines under E.C. 15004. These are two different proceedings.)   Edward Robles Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Tedeger Post Number: 6 Registered: 11-2005 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Sunday, November 27, 2005 - 9:33 am:        The question is, of course, "Why would a Bureaucrat disobey the law under which she operates? WHAT IS SHE HIDING??? "Open covenants, openly arrived at" is a primary tenet of our (alleged) system. If MacCormack is openly violating the law, she should be prosecuted and treated to whatever condign punishment therein prescribed. NOBODY should be above the law; not even County Registrars, Secretaries of State, or other "Government Functionaries." Quis custodiet ipsos custodies, indeed.

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