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Board Administrator
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Post Number: 268
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 9 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - 6:10 am: | 
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Text of a briefing paper by Jim March, member of the board of directors, and Bev Harris, Executive Director of Black Box Voting Inc., a nonpartisan nonprofit 501c(3) organization 1/3/05
Delivered to members of the U.S. Congress on January 5, 2005.
Executive Briefing
Though they are seldom actively involved in election fraud, county elections officials fear for their jobs if the elections systems they purchased are shown to be flawed, or their elections procedures are proven to be inadequate.
Like football coaches, an unsuccessful season can result in loss of a job – but unlike athletic coaches, election officials can avoid exposure by withholding records from the public, or waiting until recount and contest periods have expired before producing audit documents to substantiate the count.
County elections officials have limited technical competence to run complex computer systems installed by vendors like Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart Intercivic.
Failure to comply with public records laws carries few consequences. However, when public records expose problems with the election, consequences for local elections officials tend to be immediate and drastic. Shortly after the November 2004 general election, for example, “purges” of entire county elections departments took place in Gaston County North Carolina, and Lucas County Ohio.
Even when elections officials are confident in the integrity of their division, they often comply poorly with state public records laws -- “sunshine ordinances” patterned after the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Officials know that they are not likely to be punished for failing to follow public records law, yet are very likely to be punished if they produce documents which reveal problems with voting machines or procedures.
Results of Black Box Voting Nationwide Public Records Request
On Nov. 2, 2004, Black Box Voting submitted a county-by-county nationwide public records request, for documents to substantiate election results.
- Eighty percent of the recipients ignored the request entirely.
- Many county officials were so unfamiliar with how to operate their own voting system that they could not find the menu items to print the audit logs.
- Most of those who did provide documents left key items out, with no explanation, or provided items that were not responsive to the request.
- Some county officials repeatedly “lost” the request. Duval County, Florida, has received the request four times, including hand delivery in person by Bev Harris, yet persists in claiming they never received it.
- Some officials tried to charge exorbitant fees (in Michigan, $125,000 just to look for documents, with no guarantee that they would find any, $62,500 paid up front please)
- Other officials said no documents would be provided until after recount, certification, and contest periods had expired.
- Some county officials said they had to ask private vendors whether they could comply with the request for public records.
- Palm Beach County, Florida, asserted that audit documents did not exist and also that the vendor had asserted proprietary privilege over the (nonexistent) documents.
- Brevard County, Florida insists that their county counsel told them not to comply. When Black Box Voting contacted the county attorney, he said he told them the opposite. To date, they still have provided only two of the eight items. One of the items they refused to provide was the elections results.
- Volusia County, Florida, threw some items requested by Black Box Voting in the trash. Unfortunately, they were caught on videotape. A Volusia employee toted a green garbage bin out the back, returned with it empty; two citizens retrieved what had just been put in the trash, and brought it right back in the front door. The Volusia County trash included poll tapes, for precincts that had been withheld from Black Box Voting.
- King County, Washington, provided Black Box Voting with a records request for its September primary election; It was discovered that three hours had been purged from the audit log from the King County central tabulator. King County did not comply with the Nov. 2 records request.
- A Minnesota township complied too thoroughly, sending Black Box Voting the original copies of its signed poll tapes.
- One Colorado county refused to provide any records, saying that a consumer protection agency that requests audit documents is behaving in a manner that is “vexatious and groundless.”
- New Mexico claimed that it does not have to comply with public records requests because they were sent by e-mail and fax, yet nothing in New Mexico law supports that position.
- Most Ohio counties responded that they were instructed by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell not to comply until after certification, but none could find a written directive.
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The problems with public access to election audit documents should be addressed through legislation, either by mandating a comprehensive set of documents to be made publicly available on the Internet and at the office, or by mandating timely response (i.e. within 48 hours of existence of record) for specific, critically important audit logs and election records. |
