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
...
|
| 4-24-08: Submission to the record for... |
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7969
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 9 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 2:31 pm: | 
|
EAC VOTING ADVOCATES ROUND TABLE: April 24, 2008
I have accepted your invitation to submit the following comments to be entered into the record on behalf of Black Box Voting, by its founder, Bev Harris.
To members of the EAC and participants of the Round Table:
The entire premise of technology-based elections is based on support for the "verifiable voting" concept. But before designing technology for elections, we must first determine how it will empower citizen controls, enabling the counting of votes in public rather than counting them in secret. We do not consent to any form of secret vote counting, administered and controlled by government insiders and their vendors.
Any system that forces the citizenry to trust government insiders to count their votes represents a change in the original design of this nation. The United States of America was designed to uphold the right of citizen sovereignty over the government. In addition to hiding the counting of votes from public view, computer-counted elections hide the chain of custody of the vote data. Citizens are never allowed to view the original input in order to compare it to the output, and are relegated to trusting circumstantial evidence controlled by insiders. Such a system is, in fact, a transfer of power.
The people were never asked to approve such a transfer of power, have never consented to it, and indeed cannot consent, because the right of sovereignty over the instruments of government which we have created is an inalienable right, one which cannot be given away, nor can this right be removed through legislation. It is, admittedly, possible for a government to decline to honor this right, but such an act would justify extreme measures by the people subjected to such abuse of power.
It is the public counting that is key to citizen sovereignty, not computer verification. "Verification" of a computer report is not at all the same as public vote counting.
The core of elections was and again must return to the principle of citizen sovereignty over government. Elections can never be based on a requirement to trust government insiders and their vendors to count our votes, nor can elections be dependent on experts to tell the citizenry that the system is okay, nor should the detailed mechanics of elections be impossible for the average citizen to understand. Models which depend on experts and insiders create centralized control, and remove all control from government's rightful owners – the citizens. This represents a violation of the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
Not only does my organization, Black Box Voting, refuse to participate in the design of such systems, but we will do our utmost to inform the populace that such systems must be revoked, by whatever means necessary.
"We do not consent."
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057 |
Alan Brau
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Alan_brau
Post Number: 190
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 4:57 pm: |
|
Very eloquently stated...
well done, Bev!
The question is: will any federal officials respect those principles you outlined? |
Michael T. Aupperle
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Auplvo11
Post Number: 7
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 5:40 pm: |
|
Thank You very much for speaking for us that can't or won't find our voice! You are certainly a Saint and certainly deserve national recognition for the outstanding work you and the small group you can depend on do.
You have given your life to this project with little assistance from the rest of us. A very few have pitched in to assist you ! Everyday I search for a way locally to wake up people but even the league of women voters defend this system we have here in Nevada. It would appear that the majority just does not care ! It is very frustrating. Please do not stop !
Thank You again !
Mike |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4961
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 5:45 pm: |
|
Hi Mike,
Have a look at the Citizens Tool Kit. It is fully of creative ideas. You might find one that appeals to you.
You can find it here. |
Robert A. Ficalora
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bobfic
Post Number: 15
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 6:01 pm: |
|
To the EAC and the participants at the round table:
The secret ballot can and must be modified.
As a default, all voting in partisan elections should be published in the local newspaper with the option provided for privacy (secrecy).
Further, I propose that all voting be maintained in a secure internet database for voter review.
The above is the easiest and most cost effective method of ensuring election integrity.
Robert A. Ficalora
Founder, The Republican Democracy Party.
www.republicandemocracy.us |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7972
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 7:09 pm: |
|
To Alan Brau,
Thanks. Public officials won't listen until the public understands the issues. The transfer of power was subtle. It is job one to communicate the issues to the public.
To Michael, I haven't had a chance to respond to your excellent posts, but you (and also Patricia Axelrod) are doing amazing research and actions in Nevada.
To Catherine Ansbro: We're right now preparing a stripped down Tool Kit specifically for the 2008 election. Thanks for pointing out the links to the current version, I think you'll like what we end up with and will welcome your input.
To Robert Ficalora, Black Box Voting does not support abolishing or modifying the concept of voter privacy. It isn't the secret ballot that is causing the problems, it is the secret vote counting.
While it might make is easier to secure elections if we do away with political privacy, and you will find some participants at Black Box Voting who agree with you, I have given careful thought to this issue. I can't agree that it's wise, and there are better solutions.
Voter privacy may not be important to you, but it would be very undesirable for everyone who holds a politically sensitive position, or works for an employer that has a vested interest in certain outcomes, to let others know how they voted. Examples: You work for at city hall and you disapprove of the mayor and his staff. Is it right that he should know how you voted in his election? You live in an area dependent on logging for its economy, and you support a ban on cutting old growth forest, but if you vote for the public policy that you want, your husband may be suffer consequences. Here's another: You are in a small town. Almost everyone there is employed by a local factory that has promised to cut employment if an anti-pollution bill (or candidate) wins. Your children's friends play with kids whose parents are employed by the factory. Your husband owns a bar where factory workers hang out after work. Do you think making your vote public will affect how you vote? You betcha.
The reasons for political privacy are:
1. Helps reduce vote selling
2. Protects against coercion and retribution for exercising your political voice.
A simple show of hands in a room full of people will demonstrate how easily people can be influenced by social approval and disapproval.
But if you and others would like to have a more substantial discussion about political privacy issues, you are welcome to do so. Start a thread in the "General Discussion" area and have at it! |
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 222
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 7:12 pm: |
|
(received via e-mail)
well said, Bev
I don't trust the results or have confidence in any election that doesn't have secure and publicly accountable chain of custody, and an
open counting process.
Paper ballots, hand-counted on election night in the local precinct is the way to go.
Thanks much for all the work/videos in NH
E.L. |
Bill Bucolo
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbuc
Post Number: 2
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 7:20 pm: |
|
Well done Bev!
For me it is a question of intention. Have the EAC and machine manufacturers actually intended to give Americans proper voting equipment? It hasn't seemed that way.
Americans are used to showing the world the way to technology excellence. We have given the world the modern computer... we routinely provide computer and auditing technology to simultaneously monitor all the greatest financial institutions in the world... we monitor and communicate with thousands of passenger airplanes aloft at any time 24 hours a day.
All of this dependable, verifiable and largely transparent technology has been with us for a generation... and much more has been in use by American businesses and others around the world for many years, yet the EAC, overseeing the voting machine manufacturers ES&S, Diebold/Premier, Sequoia and Hart InterCivic would have the public believe that these companies' secretive, selectively balky equipment, provided for some $4 billion in federal funds over the last several years, is the best they can make. I find that patently ridiculous and insulting in the extreme.
Thousands of educated computer and politically savvy members of the American public have been paying attention and have carefully documented what has happened to their voting systems and their votes in jurisdictions across the nation over the last several years. From those largely non-partisan and careful observations it is now more than fair to say that if the officers of the manufacturing corporations and the presiding agency officials of the EAC and their testing firms have not been committing fraud against the American people, they have all certainly presided over the most outrageous examples of incompetence in the history of the nation.
And eventually they will all be harshly judged by history if not sooner by their peers. And I believe I will live to see it and so will they.
But should these manufacturers and EAC officials, individually and together, have any intention to do different than what it so far appears they have done, now is certainly the time for them to put up or shut up.
Members of the EAC and corporations producing voting machines paid for with federal and state funds must be challenged to prove their best intentions to provide Americans with transparent, dependable, and verifiable voting technology.
Thus far they most certainly have not and time is running out for them and us. |
Michael T. Aupperle
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Auplvo11
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 7:47 pm: |
|
Robert A. Ficalora ????????? "all voting in partisan elections should be published"
You must be kidding ??? Are you really a active republican ???? Have you ever heard of water boarding?? Torture ??? Are you veteran of the U.S.A. Military ??? Bev ! You are a very patient person with some of these people !!!!!! Robert ! Do you ever read a newspaper or watch TV news ???
Do you understand the fascists are running our country for the corporations and are fixing elections and are killing and torturing people from from all over the world who get in their way ??? Have you heard of gitmo bay and rendition ???? And you want to make the secret ballot public after a war was fought in 1776 for this right ???? As a veteran myself I can only ask you to read the oath of office for a U.S.A. military officer. Subject: Oath of Office
Oath of Office
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God." The oath is to the constitution and not a political party or a president !!! If you don't understand what black box voting is all about after reading this ?? Than I may ask for political asylum in Canada as we have miserably failed in our education system in this country.
May you be spared a all expense paid trip by bushit to gitmo bay.
Go In Peace !
Mike |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2087
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 5:12 am: |
|
Mike, I'm with Robert, too, and I'm about as far from a Republican as you can get and still belong to a major party in the U.S. of A. And the war in 1776 wasn't fought for that right. Secret voting came later.
And secret voting isn't the only way democracies (or democratic republics) vote. Either the Swiss or the Swedes (I don't remember which) vote openly. Robert doesn't post here very often, I suspect because people jump all over him. They jump all over me, too, but I'm used to it. And frankly, "So help me God" doesn't belong in the oath of office.
And I have to tell you, much of what you just posted is at best highly tangential. Much of it is completely irrelevant. If Robert doesn't feel from what you've posted that you're trying to brow-beat him, the reason would certainly escape me. |
PaulMagillSmith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Paulmagillsmith
Post Number: 1
Registered: 4-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:08 am: |
|
Easily End Fraudulent Elections
Hmmmm? How to stop fraud in elections. About two years ago I put some thought to it and came up with this. I welcome any comments pmsinva2@hotmail.com
“A Better Election System” By Paul Magill Smith 3-8-2K6
“To begin with, in the United States there must be a powerful demolition of the old political order: We need elections where all votes are cast and counted. The campaign against voter repression is the essential civil rights struggle of our time, even though most progressives don’t seem to realize it yet. Prevailing will require fundamental reform such as the introduction of nationwide vote-by-mail (the Oregon system). Without that, and also many relentless prosecutions, nothing else will be achieved”.—JAMES K. GALBRAITH March 30, 2006 “Taming Global Capitalism Anew”—(April 17, 2006 issue of The Nation Magazine)
James K. Galbraith, chair of the board of Economists for Peace and Security, teaches at the University of Texas and is senior scholar with the Levy Economics Institute
The latest round of corruption in our government stems from the biggest executive crime of all. In collusion with the Supreme Court our glorious president/dictator/tyrant “stole” the election of 2000, with another criminal (Tom DeLay) “stole” a majority in the house through re-districting, and with corporate henchmen in Diebold & Company “stole” another presidency in 2004. Whether you agree with the presidential election results or not there were statistical anomolies, and thousands of citizen complaints that should have required greater scrutiny & inquiry.
Since the 2000 presidential election our national coffers have been looted to the tune of trillions of dollars, and with almost three more years to go in this theocratic oligarchy there is still much more damage to come. Our financial ruin, through an unsustainable balance of trade deficit, massive fiscal deficits, and a consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals & corporations, bodes ill for generations of Americans to come—IF there are generations to come after the effects of global warming, a state of perpetual global war, and depleted uranium have their way with us.
A bleak picture-yes-but there is cause for hope. Going under the assumption most Americans have a streak of common sense, and an inbred respect for ‘the rule of law’, the first step toward retrieving our now stolen democracy is restoring honesty to our electoral process. Accountability, verifiability, and transparency are not luxuries; they are necessities if democracy in America (the world) is to be viable.
With these considerations in mind I propose an entirely new election system for this country. It uses, for the most part, existing equipment & technology already in place throughout the entire country, and would only require the development of some software. Election expenses would be reduced, election theft would become a thing of the past, and national referendums on key issues would become a possibility. The ‘will of the people’ would become king, instead of the preferences of King George/Dick/Karl/Donald/ etc.
So here is the idea. Currently in the US there are 368,000 ATM machines. They are easy to use (even from a car), provide a paper trail, accessible by use of a card with security features, and very accurately keep track of billions of transactions every month (a 1% accuracy error, which is acceptable for most elections, would land bankers out of their jobs & very likely jailed).
OK, so the first part deals with voting at ATM’s, except when they are being used for elections they would become AVM’s (Automatic Voting Machines).
The issue of verifiability would be very simple also. Since each registered voter would receive their own magnetic credit-card type, individually numbered card (requiring a personalized identification number-PIN-to make it work), each voter would have a specific number, and security that they were the only one who had the secret code to access the AVM.
Following an election their unique number, along with the way their vote was recorded would be published in the local paper & on the internet at a specific site. Since all the voter numbers could be placed in numerical order it would be easy to scan down the list to your number and verify your vote was cast for the person you wanted it to be.
If it was an election with candidates in a number of positions your vote would read as a multi-character number. An example would be 1324113 in which you voted for 7 different people for as many electable posts. The AVM would have given you a hard copy receipt to be used to verify against the posted list.
ATM’s are already linked to central computers, so collection of the total votes from all the machines should present very little problem. Election officials would be necessary at these institutions to verify all the votes were retrieved, but the elimination of officials at each precinct polling place would eliminate much of the costs of holding elections as with our current system.
As a further dis-incentive to election fraud, caused by computer tampering, if a certain percentage or number of voters provide their AVM receipt to election officials, and their vote code doesn’t match that of the central computers, the election results are AUTOMATICALLY declared void, resulting in a new election.
Since I have only begun thinking & writing about this new system I am sure there are many details to be considered and worked out. The bottom line is the current election system is broken, with millions of Americans lacking confidence in the extant election process & results.
As the world’s oldest democracy, holding our ‘system’ up as a model for budding or want-to-be democracies around the globe, it behooves us to make sure our own system is the best we can possibly make it, and the one others will wish to emulate. “Do as I say” is not good enough. If America is to ‘talk the talk’ we must ‘walk the walk’ also.
Paul Magill Smith
Richmond, VA |
Robert A. Ficalora
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bobfic
Post Number: 16
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:08 am: |
|
To cower in fear is to allow the surrender of our liberties.
The secret ballot was initiated on a trial basis in the 1777 constitution of the State of New York to be used only after victory (1781). In 1777 the constitutional and democratic government of New York had existed for almost a century (since 1691). All voting was by voce vita.
There is no integrity in the game we are watching in the political party primaries. It's a fraud. Hillary should have been finished in New Hampshire. There is no relief in the general election either, George W. Bush was never legitimately elected.
Publish the vote locally with an option for secrecy and individual voting being reviewable on a secure website. |
Jenny L. Hurley
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bolivar
Post Number: 67
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:34 am: |
|
This is not on SUBJECT - but it does show Democracy being Shanghaied.
I got it from Ron Paul's people.
http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=s-fARjv3tFk |
Mark A. Adams JD/MBA
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Markadamsjdmba
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:38 am: |
|
We no longer get to elect our leaders or throw bad ones out of office. Our votes are “counted” in secret on computers, and these official secret vote "counts" have been proven wrong repeatedly. Not only is secret vote counting dangerous, it’s unconstitutional, and when it was put in place, it is impossible to imagine that no one bothered to look at the constitutionality of it.
For more information, see Project Vote Count’s Election News at http://www.projectvotecount.com/ElectionNews.aspx
My article, “Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?!” includes a link in my comment to a video of my conversation with election officials in Virginia who pretend not to understand that computers count in secret. They say no one ever even thought of that. Yeah, right!?! It also includes a link to my letters to each candidate asking them to take action to require that our elections be conducted in a constitutional manner. Naturally, not a single one took action.
My discussion with the election official in South Carolina was as laughable, but he did not want to be recorded. Any way, in my articles on Virginia and South Carolina, I point out that not only do the constitutions of both of those states specifically prohibit secret vote counting, but also, so do some U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Everyone knows that the people are supposed to be able to peacefully remove bad leaders through elections, but what if those who control the machines, and their secret vote count, want bad leaders in power? Is there another way that citizens can prevent abuse of power without resorting to violence, or did our Founders foolishly rest all of our protection from tyranny on elections?
Yes, there is or was another way to hold our governors accountable without resorting to violence. If you want to find out the other civil check on government abuse of power that our Founders provided for us, then read What Happens When the People Lose the Power to Control Government and What You Can Do to Take the Power Back? http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_ada_080204_what_happens_when_th.htm
Here are a couple of passages from that article which point out the importance of the right to present evidence of criminal conduct to a grand jury.
As United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph P. Bradley said in Blyew v. U.S., 80 U.S. 581, 598 (1871), every citizen has a right to enter a complaint before a magistrate, or the grand jury. Justice Bradley explained, “I say ‘right,’ for it is a right, an inestimable right, that of invoking the penalties of the law upon those who criminally or feloniously attack our persons or our property. Civil society has deprived us of the natural right of avenging ourselves, but it has preserved to us, all the more jealously, the right of bringing the offender to justice.” Id.
Justice Bradley also pointed out that if a person was deprived of the right to bring a criminal complaint to a grand jury that person was reduced from the status of a free citizen to no more than a slave. He stated, “To deprive a whole class of the community of this right, to refuse their evidence and their sworn complaints, is to brand them with a badge of slavery; is to expose them to wanton insults and fiendish assaults; is to leave their lives, their families, and their property unprotected by law. It gives unrestricted license and impunity to vindictive outlaws and felons to rush upon these helpless people and kill and slay them at will, as was done in this case.” Id at 599.
Imagine if a citizen presented evidence to a grand jury showing that the official vote "count" did not match with the testimony of the voters and a grand jury decided to investigate and indict some people. I know that such evidence exists, as do many of you. Imagine what may happen if someone attempts to invoke their right to present it to a grand jury. If enough people knew about it, then it may go well, but if not, then it may be swept under the rug like the 2006 election contests by Clint Curtis, John Russell, and others.
After the 2006 election, we collected affidavits showing that at least 14% of the votes cast for Democratic Congressional candidates in Florida did not show up on the official vote “counts,” and unlike in Sarasota, there was not an enormous under-vote. These votes were stolen from the Democrats and given to the Republicans. For more on that cover-up, see http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_ada_070919_how_to_take_action_o.htm
This year over 200 volunteers working with Project Vote Count collected over 15,000 affidavits from voters at the polls. Like in many other states, we have statistical evidence indicating that the official vote “counts” have probably been manipulated, and like in 2006, we also have more affidavits from voters indicating that they voted for one candidate than the official vote “count” shows.
Does anyone want to stand up and help reassert the rights we once had to control “our” government? If so join the mailing list for Project Vote Count at http://www.projectvotecount.com/account/createaccount.aspx Let me know that you are interested in supporting this effort.
Carpe diem,
Mark A. Adams JD/MBA
P.S. Naturally, please continue to support the great work done by Black Box Voting, the Election Defense Alliance, Vote Rescue, and others who are actually doing something. |
Joseph Hall
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Joehall
Post Number: 131
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:52 am: |
|
Well, I'll just make one comment (the following is a rhetorical quesiton since I don't have the opportunity to actively interact here... I'm just too busy):
How can you say "The entire premise of technology-based elections is based on support for the 'verifiable voting' concept." when technology has been the basis for elections since the 60's without even the option of verification? Of course, the values that got us into the technological mess were decidedly accessibility and efficiency (speed, no paper, ballot style complexity, etc.) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7977
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 7:54 am: |
|
To Robert Ficalora,
First, I'm glad you're toughing it out in the debate. But allow me to point this out:
quote:Publish the vote locally with an option for secrecy and individual voting being reviewable on a secure website.
Unless 100% of the votes are viewable to everyone, the system of publishing people's votes falls apart. It's the same situation as those bogus "check your vote" schemes -- being able to check your own vote, or the votes of MOST voters, never allows elections to be authenticated. You have to be able to check the whole pool or it isn't worth much.
Same problem exists for the "VVPAT" systems that oh, by the way, eat or damage 10% of the paper trails. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7978
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 8:06 am: |
|
Paul Magill Smith,
Welcome to Black Box Voting. You'll find that we engage in pretty vigorous debate here, and that both experienced and new participants engage in dialog.
Here are some of the issues I'd like to raise with your suggestions:
quote:Prevailing will require fundamental reform such as the introduction of nationwide vote-by-mail (the Oregon system).
'
Vote by mail is just polling place voting with more secrecy and a chain of custody that is much more difficult to control. The votes are still counted by machines. Voters who have been purged from the rolls still aren't counted. The signature comparison game is easily compromised. I encourage you to examine some of the research at http://novbm.wordpress.com/
The remaining idea, publishing the vote with a pin number, runs into the same problem I mentioned above. Verifying your own vote, or even getting 90 percent of the population to verify their vote, does nothing to assure that the other 10% aren't fraudulent votes.
There are a number of very cogent and well reasoned discussions of this concept in our "tech central" section. |
Robert A. Ficalora
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bobfic
Post Number: 17
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 8:10 am: |
|
Hi Bev,
I'm not sure that publishing 100% of the vote up front is necessary.
If 50% of the voters want their voting preferences published, the other 50% will still appear in the paper but without who they voted for being shown.
The benefits of 50% transparency should be considered of itself but the narrowing of any audit to the list of private voters should make the job easier and cheaper. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7979
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 8:16 am: |
|
Mark Adams,
I'm so glad you posted that information here! It is a brilliant effort -- one poke with a stick, among many, against a great beast of secrecy.
In fact, I looked into the concept of citizen charges being filed in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, that state seems not to have a citizens grand jury process. It does allow citizens to press charges, but only in situations where the penalty would be equivalent to, as I recall, $40 or a day in the public stockades.
Some lawyers in New Hampshire have apparently been trying to figure out the modern day equivalent to being placed in the stockades...or perhaps we should bring that remedy back?  |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7980
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 8:32 am: |
|
for Joe Hall, who's involved with the heavily funded NSF "ACCURATE" project guys:
Actually, they just use different mechanisms for supposedly verifying the votes. There is a whole rigamarole they go through in New York with their lever machines, after the election, to "verify" the machines.
I know that several computer scientists, who have no expertise in either audits or civil rights, have created their own definition of "verifiable" to suit their own opinions, which really are of no more value than the local butcher, baker or cabinetmaker (a computer professional is not an expert in auditing). Some of these same folks have tried to redefine the word "audit", calling a spot check an "audit" -- ignoring completely that all audits involve an evaluation of chain of custody and procedural checks and balances, disclaiming the results WHETHER OR NOT THEY MATCH if the procedural checks and balances were not in place or, if they were in place, were not followed.
The problem is you can't really verify the vote unless you actually count the physical ballot.
And counting a handful of physical ballots after the fact to see if it matches is of little value if you don't evaluate the chain of custody and find out whether procedural checks and balances were in place and followed.
Heres a thought: Just count the damn ballots. Get it right on Election Night. In public meeting.
I know you guys have staked your careers on this and have gone through -- what, 8 million dollars of National Science Foundation money trying to create talking voting machines with pictures and little hands to actually put the ballot in the box for the voter, and so forth, so I don't expect to see you become enamored of the idea of actually doing something simple like just counting the votes in public. It's so much fun to be a special expert and run around with secret decoder rings.
But that's not what democratic elections are. |
PaulMagillSmith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Paulmagillsmith
Post Number: 2
Registered: 4-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 9:07 am: |
|
Thanks, Bev, for responding so quickly. The quote you mentioned in your reply was not mine, but that of James K. Galbraith.
I believe my system faster, more efficient, and accurate than a vote by mail one, AND has the benefit of automatic re-voting if disparities in the vote tabulation fall outside an acceptable limit.
Tabulation & transparency are no longer issues, since all votes are published on-line & in the press, yet since each vote is published by individual voter numerical code privacy is assured.
One nice feature about my system is the voting machines to be used are already in place, and work with an accuracy exceeding that of the current crop of suspect devices billions have been wasted on. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7982
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 9:15 am: |
|
But your system doesn't actually work, Paul. Please continue the discussion in the Tech Central area, where this approach has been debunked numerous times.
The system you describe is not auditable, because the public is never privy to the entire undecoded set of vote data/voter identity.
I'm glad you're participating here, and your idea is one that is brought up frequently, but unfortunately doesn't actually work. |
George Cohen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gcohen2
Post Number: 1
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 9:20 am: |
|
AS a Quality Engineer and now a CIO, I would like to submit these simple specifications for a secure voting system:
1. Any electronic machine/system must produce a paper replica of the voter’s selections.
2. The paper replica will be verified by the voter.
3. This paper replica must be collected at the polling place and kept secure. It is not taken home by the voter.
4. When the electronic machine vote is questioned, the replicas can be counted to audit the electronic machines.
5. Legal implements must be made to allow for the full auditing of any electronic voting machines, no matter how many votes must be confirmed or how long it may take.
6. Money must be set aside to cover the costs of doing this manual confirmation.
Without number 5 and 6, the first 4 mean nothing. |
Julie Penny
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Julie_ny
Post Number: 4
Registered: 6-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 9:37 am: |
|
Bev,
I agree with you and not with Kurt. It is absolutely crucial to understand why things later deviate from a “snap-shot” in time and to see from which precincts they originate.
I tried to cut and paste the audio of
Sircely's phone conversation with PA's DoS spokesperson Leslie Amorós, but it didn't work. Also the graph with the results and percentages. Too bad.
Here's the text from Brad Blog that accompanied them:
"...Note the three different sets of bars and percentages representing Obama's tally. The problem did not occur for any other candidate, as seen on the full web page, which was noticed early in the evening, and saved locally by the alert reader. Whatever the problem, it was eventually corrected by officials.
Today, Sircely called the PA Dept. of State to try and get an explanation of what caused the problem seen above (audio from call is posted at the end of this article)...
The Dept. of State's Director of the Office of Communications and Press, Leslie Amorós, confirmed the Election Night problem, but was unable to explain why it occurred. She told Sircely, during the short phone call, that she'd be happy to try and get an explanation from their technical staff.
She went on to say, however, that whatever caused the anomaly, it didn't effect the outcome of the reported results.
"I think it was just, when it was uploading...um...it didn't make a difference though," Amorós told Sircely during the call, though it remains unclear as to how she knows whether it actually made "a difference" or not.
When queried as to how data is gathered for use on the DoS' results web page, the Communication Director acknowledged that it "varies" from county to county. "Some results are uploaded from counties, some results are pulled from websites and manually entered, some results are faxed to us and manually entered...some are phone called," she noted, before acknowledging, in reference to the triple Obama listing, "that was the first time that had occurred."
Later in the brief conversation, Amorós noted that --- even with all of the media and public watching results, as they were coming in to the PA DoS website on Tuesday night --- "none at all" had bothered to ask about the problem until Sircely did so today..." |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7983
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 9:46 am: |
|
But George,
Welcome to Black Box Voting. May I suggest that having a "secure" voting system isn't the point.
Having a PUBLIC voting system is the point. |
Mary Lou Diehl
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mary_lou
Post Number: 1
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 10:02 am: |
|
I hope I'm registered! Haven't communicated before, but I am so grateful for what you are doing. Just now sent your email to a local organization, http://fairelectionswi.com (a good website), also to League of Women Voters Wisconsin and League of Women Voters Dane County. (I'm about to contribute again.) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7984
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 10:21 am: |
|
| | |
