Forum Navigation
Topics
Log In
Log Out
:
Forum Search
New Today
New This Week
Advanced Search
Tree View
Forum Account
Edit Profile
Register
Forgot Password
Forum Tools
Help/Instructions
Policies
CLICK STATE TO SEE:
"WATCH LIST"
Marked with: 
"OPEN & HONEST"
Marked with: 
...
|
| 6-26-06: The ultimate insult: Paper b... |
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5299
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 8:02 am: | 
|
Guest blog by Riverside County (CA) citizen Art Cassel
Riverside County uses Sequoia touch-screens.
There is another alternative for those not trusting the touchscreens. Despite being poorly publicized, in Riverside County paper ballots were available to those visiting their polling place. While most questioning the accuracy and accountability of the electronic voting machines probably chose to vote absentee, over 150 registered voters in Riverside County asked for, and received a paper ballot.
How were their votes counted? In an act of disrespect that defies all logic and reason, Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore decided that she would cast their ballots into the very machines they chose to avoid. As the ultimate insult, instead of tallying the paper ballot votes, she had her employees enter the votes into the Sequoia electronic voting machines.
Photo: Paper ballots being entered into touch-screens in Riverside County
Full article
There is a growing trend in this country towards voting by absentee ballot. Year after year, the percentage of the electorate choosing to vote by this method increases. In the June 6th, 2006 primary election in Riverside County, California, the birthplace of electronic voting, 49% of those voting used an absentee ballot to exercise that right.
There is little question that a large percentage of these voters have selected to do so due to concern about the accuracy of electronic voting. No election passes without the horror stories of machine failures from touchscreen anomalies to machines recording more votes than registered voters using them. Controversy concerning ownership of the companies manufacturing electronic voting machines, as well as persistent reports of unapproved software being used in them adds fuel to the fire.
In addition to an absentee ballot, there is another alternative for those not trusting the touchscreens. Despite being poorly publicized, in Riverside County paper ballots were available to those visiting their polling place. While most questioning the accuracy and accountability of the electronic voting machines probably chose to vote absentee, over 150 registered voters in Riverside County asked for, and received a paper ballot.
The paper ballots are a story in themselves. To receive a paper ballot, a voter had to ask for one and apply his or her signature next to their name in the precinct roster, exactly the same as any other voter at that precinct. From this point forward, things took a bizarre turn. The person requesting a paper ballot was handed one or two sheets of ordinary white 8 ½ X 11 inch paper with ballots Xeroxed on them. The papers were photocopies of what appeared to be the same as the sample ballots sent out to voters in the mail. They contained no receipt, serial number, or authenticity marking indicating they were produced by the Registrar of Voters office.
After filling out their selections on their paper ballot without any provisions for privacy, the voter was handed an envelope in which to insert their ballot. After sealing, submitting the envelope required the voter to print their name, declare that they were 18 years of age, a citizen, lived at their address, and had not previously voted in this election. They then had to declare under penalty of perjury that those statements were true, date, sign, state their birth date, and fill in their address on the envelope. In order to receive that paper ballot, their name had to appear on the precinct roster and they had to sign in. Any person voting on an electronic voting machine was finished with providing their information when they signed the roster. They then received an access card, voted and were on their way. When the paper ballots were opened, those casting them lost all privacy. Their name was on the envelope and their votes in plain sight when removed. So much for anonymity! Yet the best was kept for last, completely out of sight of the concerned voter.
How were their votes counted? In an act of disrespect that defies all logic and reason, Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore decided that she would cast their ballots into the very machines they chose to avoid. As the ultimate insult, instead of tallying the paper ballot votes, she had her employees enter the votes into the Sequoia electronic voting machines. We have certainly lowered our standards of behavior if this is all we can expect of a Registrar of Voters entrusted with our votes, the backbone of democracy.
* * * * *
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH ATTRIBUTION TO ART CASSEL
* * * * *
Editor's note: A similar situation took place in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In the May 2, 2006 election 17,000 paper absentee ballots could not be counted by the new Diebold machines. Instead of counting them by hand, Cuyahoga County elections chief Michael Vu had temporary employees enter each vote by hand into a Diebold TSx touch-screen.
Below is a response from Barbara Dunmore, Riverside County Registrar of Voters, and a copy of the California regulations. (See the section pertaining to "other paper ballots") |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5300
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 8:06 am: |
|
Riverside directive to enter paper ballots into touch-screens:
California regulations: (see section "other paper ballots")
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5301
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 8:25 am: |
|
Riverside response:
quote:Distrust not to blame for rise in absentee votes
Once again, Art Cassel is just plain wrong. ("Distrust spurs absentee voting," June 21). He contends that more people use absentee ballots these days because they mistrust electronic voting. In fact, a Field Poll conducted in November 2005 shows a steady increase in absentee voting in California going back 30 years, long before electronic voting was used.
Absentee voting was opened up to all voters in the late 1970s when the law eliminated requirements for absentee voters to declare a physical handicap or show they would be out of state on Election Day. Many people prefer voting absentee as a way to cope with long, complex ballots. Absentee ballots are a convenient choice, extending the "voting window" from 13 hours on Election Day to three or four weeks. And absentee voters avoid the prospects of bad weather and long lines at the polls.
Mr. Cassel is just as mistaken about absentee voters as he is about voters losing their privacy when they cast paper ballots on Election Day. Paper ballots are accorded the same respect for privacy and confidentiality as absentee ballots. No votes are divulged in public. The registrar of voters office operates with complete integrity and will continue to bar election observers like Mr. Cassel (who routinely show up with video cameras) from videotaping confidential voter information.
Barbara Dunmore
Registrar of Voters
Riverside County
BLACK BOX VOTING RESPONSE TO DUNMORE:
We would tend to agree that voters tend to use absentee voting for convenience, but a quick perusal of comments on many Internet sites also reveals that in areas with touch-screen voting, many citizens opt for absentee voting instead. Black Box Voting does not advocate going to mail-in voting as a solution, however. Instead, we need to fight for better voting systems and retain our right to vote at the polling place.
Where Ms. Dunmore really gets into trouble is with her assumption that it is okay for voters to lose privacy of their vote if only the elections personnel see it. That is an improper way to implement mail-in voting.
Properly implemented mail-in voting retains voter privacy even in the elections office. This is achieved by having two envelopes -- an outer envelope, which contains the information needed to authenticate the voter, and an inner envelope called a privacy envelope.
The inner envelopes should be separated from the outer envelope, and at this point, removed from the outer envelope area entirely. This provides a set of absentee votes that contain no marks that link the vote to the voter. Only after separating the privacy envelopes out away from the authentication envelopes should the ballots be removed from the privacy envelope.
At no point should citizens be prevented from videotaping the absentee process. The process of voter authentication, which should be done from an outer envelope, is entirely viewable in jurisdictions that implement absentee voting properly. The privacy envelopes are removed -- that process should also be public and in most locations, it is, as should the process of removing the ballots from privacy envelopes and counting the ballots.
Ms. Dunmore's assertions that this must be protected from citizen oversight, forcing citizens to trust elections officials, flies in the face of properly implemented absentee voting systems.
It is also notable that Ms. Dunmore chose not to address her bizarre decision to have her staff enter voters' paper ballots into touch-screens, a decision that appears to violate state law.
While in Riverside County, I was told we could not videotape a Logic & Accuracy test because they were opening absentee ballots in the same room.
Riverside County is one of the least transparent elections jurisdictions in the country, and their choice to implement election systems that remove voter privacy (yes, they do -- elections officials should NOT be able to see how citizens vote!), and to obstruct public oversight of their elections are very unfortunate.
Until these issues are resolved, Riverside citizens should not trust their elections. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 493
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 8:40 am: |
|
By implication, the voted paper ballots appear to have been declared to be facsimile ballots by the registrar. This appears to introduce a new concept, in that a facsimile of something is a copy of an original, usually of lower quality or lower status.
Since the paper ballots ARE the original, have they now been reduced to being no longer the ballot of record for these voters?
In addition, if a hand recount of the true paper ballots is ever undertaken, will the paper ballots be invalidated due to their now bearing someone's initials and/or other defacements?
HG;) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5302
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 8:57 am: |
|
Very good points, John.
This is dangerous. In Riverside County, the choices filled out by these voter's own hand are superseded by the choices filled out by employees of the Riverside elections division.
In addition, choices filled out by voter's own hands are opened by employees of the Riverside elections division apparently WITHOUT PRIVACY ENVELOPES and without permitting citizens to videotape or document the process.
Dangerous and unnecessary to do it this way. |
Linda Franz
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Linda_franz
Post Number: 501
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 9:44 am: |
|
There is no reason for an election jurisdiction that accepts absentee voting to not have at least ONE optical scan machine to count those ballots.
Granted, there is still the issue of insuring that even the optical scan has correctly tabulated ballots.
But what law allows another person to essentially, "Revote," for someone else?
There are generally provisions for creating a new optical scan ballot when the ballot cannot be scanned properly, and that process should be witnessed and used only as a last resort.
And if the alleged ballot used in Riverside for absentee voting is as described, is it even legal?
How does Riverside reconcile and insure chain of custody issues, let alone the lack of respect for the dignity of the voting process? |
Bob Fleischer
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 69
Registered: 09-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 11:02 am: |
|
There is also no reason, if a jurisdiction cannot count the ballots by machine, not to simply manually count them. Certainly, copying the votes from a ballot onto a DRE -- something the DRE was never designed to do well -- cannot be any faster or more reliable than simply counting the ballots by hand -- using time-tested methods and safeguards.
Why do they claim they can manually read and enter the votes into a DRE and yet not simply manually count the ballots? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 423
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 12:24 pm: |
|
Bev and Bob,
I know that a tiny state like Delaware doesn't have the "sex appeal" of a major California county, but Delaware has FOR MANY MANY years entered the absentee ballots onto their Danaher 1242 voting machines at each precinct as a standard operating procedure. They even have a unique device for just that purpose.
Might bear looking into. Of course, Delaware does not have "no excuse" absentee balloting, so the numbers are far smaller. |
Robert Sawdey
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rsawdey
Post Number: 151
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 1:10 pm: |
|
I'd say Riverside needs a new ROV. Not enough information to even suggest impropriety, but it just REEKS of naive incompetance! I'd guess ANY of her employees could 'game the system' and she'd never have a clue... |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5304
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 1:16 pm: |
|
Kurt, Robert, Linda, Bob,
Thanks for the input. Kurt, I don't like the information you provided but I sure am glad you are here providing it to us. As Mark Twain says, "Get the facts before you distort 'em."
It stands to reason that it will take longer to manually read the ballot, then punch into a touch-screen, and it also introduces new potential for errors.
Art Cassel and the other citizens in Riverside are doing an excellent job, aren't they? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 426
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 5:06 pm: |
|
Bev,
I attended a conference at U. of Penn., also attended by Delaware's election chief. The process in Delaware has the state's blessing. They acted like, "Well, how else would you handle the absentees other than putting them on the machines?" Apparently, having all votes in one system is very attractive to them. They also counted a smaller percentage of provisional ballots than any other state in 2004. To Delaware, having an election finished and fully certified in three days or less is a cultural expectation and goal, all other considerations be damned.
Different strokes for different folks. |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 2
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 5:24 pm: |
|
Here are a few more "issues" we have had with Ms. Dunmore in the last 60 days or so:
1. Refusal to post precinct results at the precincts, as required by Fed, State and Certification documents. She claimed they might "blow away" and that posting could be a safety hazzard for the students (yeah, all those 9 p.m. students who are hanging around the campus just waiting to see election results!).
2. Claim that she HAD to spend $15 million in February '06 to buy new Sequoia Edge II machines b/c the existing Edge I's could not be retrofitted to accommodate the new VVPAT requirements. Unfortunately for her, three counties in CA were perfectly able to do so with no problems: Shasta (a county I formerly worked in!), Tehama and Napa. And the Sequoia Web site even touts the fact you don't have to upgrade to retrofit.
3. She told the Board of Supervisors that the Edge IIs were the ONLY approved system in CA at that time. DFA-Temecula Valley showed the Board at that same meeting that the Secretary of State's Web site illustrated that, indeed, only ONE system was approved at that time. Again, unfortunately for Ms. Dunmore, it was the ES&S Mark a Vote, NOT the Sequoia Edge II.
4. During the time between the closing of the polls at 8 p.m. and 1:30 the next morning, 17 memory cards went "missing". They were unaccounted for at the time she issued the preliminary tally at 1:30 on June 7th.
5. Last week (week of June 19th), she reported another 20 precincts' information somehow did not get entered into the canvass and had to then be entered.
6. She has prohibited any "meaningful observation" of the process at the central tabulator location, or at the 1% mandatory manual 1% audit (she calls it a "tally"), or at the counting of the absentee ballots. Election Observer Panel (EOP) members, nominated by the political party central committees and by community based organizations (CBO) and appointed by Ms. Dunmore were relegated to areas where we could not see nor hear the tallying and thus not able to verify/validate that the counts were conducted appropriately.
7. From time to time, she has prohibited video taping, claiming it could violate voter privacy (yet see what she did with the paper ballots in Art Cassel's Op Ed piece). In all instances we assured her there would be no taping of voter identifiable information, PARTICULARLY in the case of absentee ballots, when they had already been separated from their envelopes. Still she refused.
8. She has alternately allowed and disallowed the use of tripods! Obviously the tripods allow us to steady the camera and zoom in on something meaningful. Her first excuse was "it makes the workers nervous"; the other day it was "it's a safety hazzard - people could trip on it".
9. She has waited until an hour before an observable event (the 1% tally of the absentee ballots) to notify EOP members of the event, knowing some live an hour or more away. This was after she instructed us to make repeated calls to her office at 8 am, 10 am, 12 noon and 2 pm to finally learn they would start at 3 pm.
10. It would appear from the attached document from the NASED that she violated items #1 and #4 and therefore, the federal qualification of the Riverside County, CA system is effectively revoked.
Is the election therefore null and void, per the NASED directive?
I don't know, it kind of looks that way. Opinions...? |
Art Cassel
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Art
Post Number: 2
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 12:38 pm: |
|
Due to self-imposed word count restrictions to keep the article at a publishable Op Ed length, there are comments that were left out of the report.
Riverside County uses a privacy sheath, or sleeve, for their absentee ballots. When returning their ballot, the absentee voter is instructed to insert the ballot(s) into the sheath. The purpose of the sheath is to protect the anonimity of the voter as the return envelope contains much the same information Ms. Dunmore needlessly required of the of the paper ballot voters, most importantly the voters name. Why wasn't the same respect provided to the paper ballot voter?
Due to the lack of privacy, I did not challange Ms. Dunmores banning of video or still photography of the process, in stark contrast to her implication that she was the one protecting confidentiality from "observers like" me. To take it one step further, I even commented to those present that I felt she had chosen a bad location for the opening of the paper ballots. The "public" room is very large and she had arranged for the ballots to be opened directly adjacent to the public viewing area where one could easily see names and ballots. Properly folded into thirds, only a few of the votes could be seen, but those not folded correctly were opened, hand staightened, and refolded exposing one full side of the ballot.
(Message edited by Art on June 28, 2006) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 5316
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 1:13 pm: |
|
Art,
So, to clarify, the absentee votes are privacy protected but not the paper ballot votes chosen at the precinct. Am I understanding that right?
I was told we couldn't videotape the L&A test in 2004 because they were processing absentee ballots. Have they let citizens videotape the L&A test since?
Thanks for providing the additional information.
* * * * *
"We're counting the votes. Get over it."
Be part of the solution: Please sign up for the NATIONAL HAND COUNT REGISTRY: Go to Home Page - Hand Count Registry is right above lead story
Make November elections the biggest evidence gathering action ever. EVIDENCE = videotape, audiotape and photos. Come prepared. This time, focus on the COUNTING not just the voting.
|
Russell Novkov
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 77
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 1:19 pm: |
|
Paper Ballots should not be entered in touch screen machines, because it is wrong, people should be allowed to vote absentee. |
Tom Courbat
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Leftisbest
Post Number: 4
Registered: 06-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 1:42 pm: |
|
Russell,
You are right. It is TOTALLY wrong. In this case, it was not the absentee ballots that were entered into the touch screens, but rather the PAPER ballots the voters requested AT the precinct, instead of using the machines.
There is frequently confusion by some folks equating paper ballots to absentee ballots. While both are indeed paper, the true PAPER ballots are intended to be used ONLY at the polls on election day, whereas the absentee ballots come in the mail.
I hope that clarifies the difference. And thank you for your support of our cause!! |
|
|
Riverside directive
