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| 3-19-09: Let's get off the hamster wh... |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10389
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 11:25 am: | 
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Usually fighting for public rights and observable elections is just like running on a hamster wheel -- constant battles about uncertified, defective voting machines, hiding freedom of information documents, and quibble, quibble, quibble about hand counts, spot checks, digital signatures, cryptography, certifications, testing...but Germany just took a big short cut and got off the hamster wheel altogether! We can learn a lot from what Germany just did.
What's important is WHY Germany banned computerized voting. Newspapers gave the impression that Germany banned e-voting due to "security issues" or bugs. NOT SO: The ban was based on HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS. This stopped e-voting dead in Germany. No more hamster wheel.
This decision represents spectacular progress for the US voting rights groups who believe computerized, secret vote counting violates inalienable rights. Germany gave us effective argumentation for this. It starts with reframing the issue of computerized voting into basic human rights.
The details of Germany's knock-out punch arguments are below. If you feel uncomfortable about computerized voting, the controversial Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the new 2009 Holt Bill that expands on HAVA, here's real hope for change.
For years now, leaders like voting rights lawyer Paul Lehto, Nancy Tobi (Democracy for New Hampshire/Election Defense Alliance), New York's Andi Novick, and Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, and have been examining these issues from the standpoint of human rights. We believe that counting votes on computers controlled by insiders violates inalienable rights, specifically the right to public scrutiny of public elections.
Germany agrees.
Last week, Germany's Supreme Court equivalent, its federal constitutional court, issued a decision that computerized vote counting is unconstitutional.
(2)(3)
HEY, AMERICA IS NOT GERMANY
But the principles in the German decision are very much in line with the principles underlying our own democratic structure.
As Paul Lehto explains, "We [the USA] insisted on the human rights provisions as a condition of approval of the post-war German Constitution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights came out in December 1948, and the German Constitution was signed off by Allies and went into effect May 23, 1949. We insisted on human rights, including free, genuine public elections, for post-war Germany. We conditioned our approval specifically on these human rights being 'inviolable and inalienable.' Meaning, they can't be violated and they can't be lost, waived or forfeited."
WHAT WOULD GERMANY DO ABOUT COMPUTERIZED VOTING MACHINES?
Last week's decision by Germany's high court ultimately prohibits voting machines from further use. Reasoning behind the decision is not about "security" or "bugs", but is specifically about human rights violations:
"The use of voting machines which electronically record the voters’ votes and electronically ascertain the election result only meets the constitutional requirements if the essential steps of the voting and of the ascertainment of the result can be examined reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject. "
It goes on to state that such examination must be available to the public; in fact it says "A complementary examination by the voter, by the electoral bodies or the general public";
"The use of electronic voting machines requires that the essential steps of the voting and of the determination of the result [the count] can be examined by the citizen reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject. This requirement results from the principle of the public nature of elections"
WHAT WOULD GERMANY DO ABOUT THE HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT and THE HOLT "VOTER CONFIDENCE" BILL(1) (WHICH EXPANDS ON HAVA)?
Germany had its own version of something similar to HAVA. This court decision declares that legislation to be unconstitutional.
"The Federal Voting Machines Ordinance is unconstitutional because it infringes on the principle of the public nature of elections.
"The Federal Voting Machines Ordinance (Bundeswahlgeräteverordnung) is unconstitutional because it does not ensure that only such voting machines are permitted and used which meet the constitutional requirements of the principle of the public nature of elections. "
In various parts of the decision, it makes it clear that the right to public scrutiny cannot be removed in order to make sure voters don't make a mistake on their ballot, cannot be removed for speedy results, cannot be removed and
replaced with something else that does not involve the citizens themselves.
WHAT WOULD GERMANY SAY ABOUT CERTIFICATION AND TESTING OF VOTING MACHINES?
The USA has a decades-long history of inept and corrupt certification and testing processes. Just last week, the EAC admitted that it doesn't understand its own technical reports (leading us to wonder how "the public" is supposed to make sense of any of this.)
Here's what the German decision says about certification and testing:
"Limitations of the possibility for the citizens to examine the voting cannot be compensated by an official institution testing sample machines in the context of their engineering type licensing procedure, or the very voting machines which will be used in the elections before their being used, for their compliance with specific security requirements and for their technical integrity."
WHAT DOES GERMANY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT TRYING MITIGATING SECRET VOTE-COUNTING WITH AUDITS AND OTHER PROCEDURES?
What Americans have been calling an "audit" is mislabeled, because measures called election audits are actually spot checks, and missing the management report component of real audits; no effort is made to evaluate chain of custody as part of the spot check. But the German court decision correctly pointed out that Government substitution of public scrutiny with its own check is no substitute at all.
"Also an extensive entirety of other technical and organizational security measures alone is not suited to compensate a lack of the possibility of the essential steps of the electoral procedure being examined by the citizens."
The German decision should bring encouragement to Americans who just knew something was wrong. It's not just you. A whole nation agrees! Now, to get our own country to protect and defend our rights. This starts by clearly stating what we really want: public scrutiny of all phases of public elections.
* * *
(1) 2009 version of Holt "Voter Confidence" bill:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/2009holt.pdf
(2) Official English translation of the government statement on the German decision:
http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/press/bvg09-019en.html
(3) German version: http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg09-019.html
Permission to reprint granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10390
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 11:27 am: |
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The official statement [English version]:
Federal Constitutional Court – Press office
Press release no. 19/2009 of 3 March 2009
Judgment of 3 March 2009 – 2 BvC 3/07 and 2 BvC 4/07 –
Use of voting computers
in 2005 Bundestag election unconstitutional
The Federal Constitutional Court rendered judgment on two complaints concerning the scrutiny of an election, which were directed against the use of computer-controlled voting machines (so-called voting computers) in the 2005 Bundestag election of the 16th German Bundestag (see German press release no. 85/2008 of 25 September 2008). The Second Senate decided that the use of electronic voting machines requires that the essential steps of the voting and of the determination of the result can be examined by the citizen reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject. This requirement results from the principle of the public nature of elections (Article 38 in conjunction with Article 20.1 and 20.2 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz – GG)), which prescribes that all essential steps of an election are subject to the possibility of public scrutiny unless other constitutional interests justify an exception.
Accordingly it is, admittedly, constitutionally unobjectionable that §35 of the Federal Electoral Act (Bundeswahlgesetz – BWG) permits the use of voting machines. However, the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance (Bundeswahlgeräteverordnung) is unconstitutional because it does not ensure that only such voting machines are permitted and used which meet the constitutional requirements of the principle of the public nature of elections. According to the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, the computer-controlled voting machines used in the election of the 16th German Bundestag did not meet the requirements which the constitution places on the use of electronic voting machines. This, however, does not result in the dissolution of the Bundestag because for lack of any indications that voting machines malfunctioned or could have been manipulated, the protection of the continued existence of the elected parliament prevails over the electoral errors which have been ascertained. To the extent that the manner in which the German Bundestag’s Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections conducted the proceedings was objected to, the complaint for the scrutiny of an election was unsuccessful.
In essence, the decision is based on the following considerations:
I. The objections to the errors of the proceedings for the scrutiny of elections which had been conducted before the German Bundestag were unsuccessful. Even though the duration of the proceedings between the lodging of the objection to the election and the German Bundestag’s decision was more than a year, this is not yet a serious procedural error. The duration of the proceedings alone does not deprive the German Bundestag’s decision of its foundation.
Nor is the fact that the Committee for the Scrutiny of Elections refrained from conducting an oral hearing of the complainant’s objection to the election, and also apart from this did not deliberate in public, a serious error which deprives the German Bundestag’s decision of its foundation.
II. The principle of the public nature of elections, which results from the fundamental decisions of constitutional law in favour of democracy, the republic and the rule of law prescribes that all essential steps of an election are subject to the possibility of public scrutiny unless other constitutional interests justify an exception. Here, the examination of the voting and of the ascertainment of the election result attains special significance.
The use of voting machines which electronically record the voters’ votes and electronically ascertain the election result only meets the constitutional requirements if the essential steps of the voting and of the ascertainment of the result can be examined reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject. While in a conventional election with ballot papers, manipulations or acts of electoral fraud are, under the framework conditions of the applicable provisions, at any rate only possible with considerable effort and with a very high risk of detection, which has a preventive effect, programming errors in the software or deliberate electoral fraud committed by manipulating the software of electronic voting machines can be recognised only with difficulty.
The very wide-reaching effect of possible errors of the voting machines or of deliberate electoral fraud make special precautions necessary in order to safeguard the principle of the public nature of elections.
The voters themselves must be able to understand without detailed knowledge of computer technology whether their votes cast are recorded in an unadulterated manner as the basis of vote counting, or at any rate as the basis of a later recount. If the election result is determined through computer-controlled processing of the votes stored in an electronic memory, it is not sufficient if merely the result of the calculation process carried out in the voting machine can be taken note of by means of a summarizing printout or an electronic display.
The legislature is not prevented from using electronic voting machines in elections if the possibility of a reliable examination of correctness, which is constitutionally prescribed, is safeguarded. A complementary examination by the voter, by the electoral bodies or the general public is possible for example with electronic voting machines in which the votes are recorded in another way beside electronic storage. In the case at hand, it need not be decided whether there are other technical possibilities which make it possible for the electorate to trust in the correctness of the procedure of the ascertainment of the election result in a way that is based on its retraceability, thus complying with the principle of the public nature of elections.
Limitations of the possibility for the citizens to examine the voting cannot be compensated by an official institution testing sample machines in the context of their engineering type licensing procedure, or the very voting machines which will be used in the elections before their being used, for their compliance with specific security requirements and for their technical integrity.
Also an extensive entirety of other technical and organizational security measures alone is not suited to compensate a lack of the possibility of the essential steps of the electoral procedure being examined by the citizens. For the possibility of examining the essential steps of the election promotes justified trust in the regularity of the election only by the citizens themselves being able to reliably retrace the voting.
If computer-controlled voting machines are used, no contrary constitutional principles can be identified which could justify a far-reaching restriction on the public nature of the election, and thus on the possibility of examining the voting and the ascertainment of the result. The exclusion of ballots unwittingly being marked in an erroneous manner, of inadvertent counting errors and of erroneous interpretations of the voters’ will in vote counting does not as such justify forgoing any kind of retraceability of the voting. The principle of the secrecy of the vote and the interest in a rapid clarification of the composition of the German Bundestag> are also no contrary constitutional interests which could be invoked as the basis of a far-reaching restriction on the possibility of examining the voting and the ascertainment of the result. It is not constitutionally required that the election result be available shortly after the closing of the polls. Apart from this, the past Bundestag elections have shown that also without the use of voting machines, the official provisional result can, as a general rule, be ascertained within a few hours.
III. While the authorisation to issue an ordinance, which is granted by § 35 BWG, does not meet with any overriding constitutional reservations, the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance is unconstitutional because it infringes the principle of the public nature of elections. The Federal Voting Machines Ordinance does not contain any regulations which ensure that only such voting machines are permitted and used which comply with the constitutional requirements placed on an effective examination of the voting and a reliable verifiability of the election result. The Federal Voting Machines Ordinance does not ensure that only such voting machines are used which make it possible to reliably examine, when the vote is cast, whether the vote has been recorded in an unadulterated manner. The ordinance also does not place any concrete requirements as regards its content and procedure on a reliable later examination of the ascertainment of the result. This deficiency cannot be remedied by means of an interpretation in conformity with the constitution.
IV. Also the use of the above-mentioned electronic voting machines in the election to the 16th German Bundestag infringes the public nature of the election. The voting machines did not make an effective examination of the voting possible because due to the fact that the votes were exclusively recorded electronically on a vote recording module, neither voters nor electoral boards nor citizens who were present at the polling station were able to verify the unadulterated recording of the votes cast. Also the essential steps of the ascertainment of the result could not be retraced by the public. It was not sufficient that the result of the calculation process carried out in the voting machine could be taken note of by means of a summarising printout or an electronic display.
V. The electoral errors which have been identified do not lead to a repetition of the election in the constituencies affected.
The electoral error which results from the use of computer-controlled voting machines whose design was incompatible with the requirements placed on an effective possibility of examining the voting does not result in a declaration of partial invalidity of the election to the 16th German Bundestag even if it is assumed to be relevant to the allocation of seats. The interest in the protection of the continued existence of parliament, the composition of which was determined trusting in the constitutionality of the Federal Voting Machines Ordinance, prevails over the electoral error because its possible implications on the composition of the 16th German Bundestag can be rated as marginal at most, for lack of any indications that voting machines malfunctioned or could have been manipulated, and because, also in view of the fact that the established infringement of the constitution took place when the legal situation had not been clarified yet, they do not make the continued existence of the elected parliament appear intolerable.
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Joel Morine
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 276
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 - 9:06 am: |
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Mr Obama has aptly invited those who so actively campaigned for him to keep the pressure on,
that change couldn't come from him alone--
would need a continued dedication to citizen pressure on govt...
it will be interesting to see if ThePrez can use World Opinion and precedents in the same fashion.
Imagine how refreshing that would be to Euro govts whose concerns have been consistently ?ignored? ?stepped on? by a series of USadmins.
What a breath of fresh air to see a govt genuinely ocncerned w/ legit vote-counting, given so many precedents to the contrary. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 448
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 6:11 am: |
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Mr Obama is the beneficiary of our corrupt election system just like everyone else in Washington. I would not expect to see any real change coming from the White House on this issue.
Personally, I find it extremely disturbing that during the first week in office the Obama administration made the strategic power grab of bringing the US Census under White House control.
Ownership of the census enables powerful demographic skullduggery in controlling electoral jurisdictions, as well as pre-programming elections to suit the demographics of any given area.
This move, apparently so critical to their strategy that it was done within their first week in power, does not bode well if you are looking to the new administration to be a voting rights flag bearer. |
Jenny L. Hurley
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bolivar
Post Number: 88
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 6:55 am: |
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Nancy - regarding Obama - don't forget that almost as soon as GWBush took office, he got our government to pay $10 million to make a database of all the people in 4 Southern states. Did you ever know how to get any info from that list? I doubt it. And Bush, in my opinion, was the most dastardly president in our history. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 449
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 8:16 am: |
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Jenny - your opinion is shared by the majority of the American and world opinion, according to pollsters.
Nevertheless, the end of the Bush administration is just that. The end of the Bush administration.
The corrupt "2-party/but in reality 1-party (the money party) system" remains in power, and their fraudulent electoral manipulations and machinations to ensure their hold on power remain as well (witness the Holt bill and the continuation of the EAC/White House national election system plan and design).
Obama is not outside of this system; he is a part of it. Every appointment he has made thus far, and his continuation of policies meant to perpetuate the enrichment of the money party and its backers, reflect this.
It remains to be seen to what degree and to what extent he is willing and able to implement any policies outside of this framework. |
Russell Novkov
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 284
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, March 21, 2009 - 6:46 pm: |
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The public has a right to know.
Russell J. Novkov
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5490
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:45 am: |
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Nancy, I agree with your assessment.
When election reform and campaign funding reform occur something new will be more likely.
Somewhat OT (but not really) is Matt Taibbi's current article The Big Takeover.
The decision-making financial power structure--closed to oversight and transparency, whose evolution is described in this article--seems a perfect analogy to "black box" electronic voting that cannot be observed or audited.
The similarity is striking. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5491
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:47 am: |
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And, as with black box voting, many figures from both major parties have been involved in both the establishment and continuity of these instruments of power (control of voting and control of financial power). |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 62
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 3:15 am: |
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BOTTOM LINE...
All electronic vote tabulation devices are a broken chain of custody.
To even begin to try to audit such devices requires their destruction under an electron microscope.
Therein lay the catch 22.
Officials KNOW this.
Candidates know this. |
Phillip Caine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Phillip_caine
Post Number: 63
Registered: 3-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 3:18 am: |
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Oh by the way, I had also made use of http://change.gov but have NEVER heard a damn thing from any official.
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Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 482
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 4:44 am: |
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Phillip--this is a perfect encapsulation of the issue. You may see me reusing it!!!
All electronic vote tabulation devices are a broken chain of custody.
To even begin to try to audit such devices requires their destruction
under an electron microscope. |
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