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| (USA) 2/12 - CITIZENS SUE TO FORCE GO... |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11548
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 9 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 13, 2012 - 12:28 pm: | 
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Public officials now admit they can see how you voted and link it to your name. This issue affects Colorado, almost all of Washington State, as well as some locations in California, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia and likely other states as well.
If you vote by mail or at combined-precinct "vote centers" your vote may be viewable by public officials and/or vendors.
In Colorado, election officials have been trying to cover up this inconvenient (and unconstitutional) issue, by preventing the public or the media from being able to examine ballots -- ever, even after elections are over. The Hart brand ballot scanner, widely used in CO, WA, and TX, affixes a unique identifier bar code to each ballot. With absentee or mail-in ballots, this produces a mechanism for the government or its vendors to download how you voted into a database.
The Citizen Center lawsuit in Colorado seeks a federal court ruling prohibiting the government from placing marks on the ballots, or otherwise using mechanisms to identify your vote choices. This requires no new law; these practices were put into place in violation of the Colorado Constitution, which already bans such tactics.
Note that there are two ways to remove ballot privacy:
1) By implanting a unique number or bar code on each ballot, creating a mechanism through which the government and vendors can decode 100% of the votes for mail-in voters, potentially compromising ballot privacy for millions of voters at a time;
2) By creating a large number of small voter subsets; then, simply comparing results for each subset to identify all small sets with homogenous votes. Many small subsets are created with certain mail-in voting and vote-center practices.
Please also see the article about Indiana voter privacy theft, at the end of this article. This uses a third mechanism, implanted by the vendors into voting machines at the behest of the state.
Black Box Voting first reported on this problem in 2007: "Two voting products combine to steal your political privacy " http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/47220.html
Also see the important video here:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/video.html - scroll down to "CONSTRUCTION WORKERS DISCOVER THEIR SECRET BALLOT INVADED" (keep watching, the first few seconds is blank); This video shows two Washington state citizens who found identifiers on their ballots.
If officials admit this now in Colorado and Indiana, and citizens found this in Washington state, one wonders how pervasive this is and why this functionality has been kept secret from the public.
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN COLORADO HAVE NOW ADMITTED THEY CAN SEE HOW YOU VOTED
During the course of important litigation to examine ballots after the election was over, several Colorado public officials admitted that they can see how people voted.
A new nonprofit organization, called the Citizen Center, is now litigating to stop the government and its vendors from collecting data on how citizens are voting.
Portions of the Citizen Center press release are reprinted below.
But first, be aware that this issue is going to grow much bigger than Colorado. The core of the Colorado Clerk's arguments revolves around an abhorrent belief that the government has the right to see how you voted. The Citizen Center lawsuit correctly argues that under the Colorado Constitution NO ONE has that right.
PRESS RELEASE
Citizen Center
http://www.thecitizencenter.org/blog/2012/2/12/supplemental-press-materials-21312-press-conference.html
Citizen Center Sues Secretary of State to Stop Unconstitutional Elections
Citizen Center Founded For the People's Right to Know
Posted on Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 11:00PM
Fundamental Civil Rights, the Basis of This Litigation
quote:Our democracy depends on the freedom of expression, the freedom of association, the right to due process, and the right of voter privacy. These rights cannot be freely exercised without our absolute right to vote by secret ballot. A secret (anonymous) ballot means that nobody can learn a voter’s votes. Yet many Colorado election officials have unilaterally adopted unconstitutional election practices that violate this fundamental right.
These practices can permit election workers and party bosses to collect and maintain information on how we vote, on the reckless assurance that such information could never be abused or shared. Officials then use the existence of this private data to block authorized watchers and the public from verifying election procedures and results. The lawsuit brought in federal court today seeks immediate corrective action to protect the 2012 elections and the voters’ secret ballots.
— Marilyn Marks, Citizen Center
quote:In November, Colorado's election will be in the national spotlight. Recently exposed violations of both the Colorado Constitution and the U.S. Constitution suggest that partisan legal actions on and after election day could void Colorado's results in key races and potentially disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Colorado voters. Voters must obtain judicial relief to safeguard the 2012 election. Trampling on the right of voters to cast a secret ballot cannot be tolerated, since the right to vote is the fundamental right from which so many of our other rights ultimately flow.
— Robert A. McGuire, legal counsel for Citizen Center
Ballots That Are Not Secret Can Be Connected to the Voter
The majority (but not all) of Colorado counties violate the state constitution by engaging in various improper practices that deprive voters of their right to secrecy in voting. These practices include the printing of permanent unique identifying numbers and barcodes on ballots (View unique ballot ID codes: http://www.thecitizencenter.org/storage/HartBallot.pdf ) in Boulder, Eagle, and Chaffee counties. Other counties, including Larimer and Mesa, batch voted ballots together with their mail-in envelopes in small groups that permit officials to maintain the connection between ballots and voters. Several county elected officials have adamantly stated that voted ballots cannot be reviewed by the press or public because they are traceable to the voter.
This begs the question: Why should anyone, including government officials, be in a position to keep records that allow them to know how their fellow citizens vote?
"...Citizen Center seeks the elimination of an unnecessary risk that can never be fully mitigated with 100% certainty."
...
Rather than working to bring election practices into constitutional compliance, Gessler proposes to cover up the traceability problem by withholding the county clerks'
"tracking reports" and other election records from public inspection.
...
Ready Remedies
The remedies sought by Citizen Center are simple. New legislation is not necessary to rectify the problems. Rather, some immediate remedies include ceasing to print unique numbers and barcodes on ballots and halting the small-group batching of mail-in ballots with their related signed, ballot-return envelopes. According to McGuire, compliance with and enforcement of existing law are all that is required.
Regarding the Indiana situation, Brad Friedman, of http://www.bradblog.com, pointed out to me recently that a public official in Fayette County, Indiana also admitted that secret codes exist to extract the ballot choices, linked to voter name. A careful reading reveals that not just three, but ALL ballots cast in this system can be reconstructed to show how you voted. After all, if the system is designed to remove the specific vote choices of a person who died after early voting, they cannot know which voters that will be. Anyone could die, and therefore, everyone's ballot must be findable and affixable to them:
http://www.pal-item.com/article/20120130/NEWS01/201300304/Recount-prompts-vote-center-questions?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE
quote:Pal-Item (Gannett) - Jan. 29, 2012
Recount prompts vote center questions
Fayette County won't use vote centers in this year because of privacy concerns
Fayette election officials are concerned many voters won't use the centers again because of privacy issues, Sudhoff said. During the recount of the mayoral race, the ballots of three early voters were retrieved from electronic voting machines and canceled because they'd failed to sign required paperwork.
...Those voters' names were revealed during the recount commission's public meeting. One voter didn't vote in the mayor's race and the other two were split between the two candidates.
...The retrieval feature for electronic voting machines is required by state law in case an early voter dies before Election Day.
..."I've heard people say they won't vote early again because they know we can know how they voted," Sudhoff said. "The state needs to look at that.
...Connersville Mayor Leonard Urban said he didn't understand early voting was absentee voting and he wouldn't have voted early had he known his vote would place him in a position where someone could see his vote and possibly disqualify it.
...
The bipartisan board would tell the vendor to cancel a number," [Wayne County Clerk Jo Ann] Stewart said. "The clerk can't individually go in and cancel a vote. I don't have the password. Only the vendor has it to protect the integrity of the election."
* * * * *
GOVERNMENT IS THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT THE MASTER OF THEM. THE PEOPLE, IN DELEGATING AUTHORITY, DO NOT GIVE THEIR PUBLIC SERVANTS THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE PEOPLE TO KNOW AND WHAT IS NOT GOOD FOR THEM TO KNOW. WE INSIST ON REMAINING INFORMED SO THAT WE MAY RETAIN CONTROL OVER THE INSTRUMENTS OF GOVERNMENT THAT WE HAVE CREATED. |
Stephen Marsh
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Stephenmarsh
Post Number: 1
Registered: 9-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 13, 2012 - 2:52 pm: |
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I'm a big fan of End-to-End voter verifiability. Does anyone know how that might impact this lawsuit? That is, would a system such as Scantegrity II, as used in Takoma Park, MD, be affected by the suit?
Takoma Park Elections |
Charles Christopher
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ilikeinfo
Post Number: 326
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 13, 2012 - 3:05 pm: |
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Hi Bev,
Given how people have been "trained" to give up their personal info online these days, I'm betting the average sheeple are not going to flinch over this.
Until folks actually have proof it's being used against them personally, I think they will rationalize why this is not a problem ... Espically what I've been seeing, and have posting about on BBV, regarding how few vote in person where I live and most all are voting by mail now.
I'd not be surprised to hear my city very soon say the cost of the pools is too expensive for how few still use them, please vote by mail from now on please .... It's the "sustainable" thing to do .... Grrrrr
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this research QUICKLY crosses the line, that the greed has no covered it's tracks, and you all find this info having been clearly (to the average sheeple) used against people.
I think to a large extend the very idea of the value of privacy has been lost.
Thank you for all your work!
Charles
Problem definition *FIRST*, solution formulation *SECOND*.
The frog just needs to *SEE* the thermometer
Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11549
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 13, 2012 - 4:07 pm: |
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Hi Stephen,
There is really no such thing as "end to end verifiability" that allows public verification of the necessary elements without removing voter privacy. I'll look at the Takoma Park Elections link and post more, but usually the "end to end verifiability" folks are actually saying, "WE will verify FOR the public."
All that does is transfer trust to a different entity.
Charles, fortunately this is a federal lawsuit and naivete on the part of the public is not necessarily relevant. The attorney in this case is excellent and has an outstanding track record in winning voting rights cases. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 11550
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 13, 2012 - 4:51 pm: |
|
Okay. Scantegrity has the same failing that most of these systems do. It assumes that checking a single vote is a confirmation of the election. You have to be able to authenticate the whole pool at once, not one vote at a time.
It doesn't appear to violate voter privacy -- though more technically sophisticated people may disagree -- because it is done at the polling place which randomizes who gets what. Applied to absentee voting, it probably does not protect voter privacy.
But I don't want this thread to devolve into discussion of an entirely different issue. This thread is about the bar coded ballots used in Colorado. I notice that Neil McBurnett, of Boulder, is on the Scantegrity team. He will be well aware that Boulder is one of the counties that makes heavy use of absentee voting with unique bar codes on the ballot, and that the Hart system captures an image of each of these ballots as it counts them. |
Stephen Marsh
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Stephenmarsh
Post Number: 2
Registered: 9-2011
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 11:21 am: |
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Thanks Bev, for your response. I agree, Scantegrity is a different issue altogether from unique identifying marks on absentee ballots. I also think that Charles is right in stating that people won't care until it's their vote being publicized. |
Charles Christopher
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ilikeinfo
Post Number: 327
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - 8:34 pm: |
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>I also think that Charles is right in stating
>that people won't care until it's their vote
>being publicized.
I was actually saying something much worse. 
My day job involves the internet. I see people giving up their privacy is very shocking ways.
To me the totalitarian tiptoe is two steps. The first step is to use people loss of the value of privacy to get them to agree that exposing their vote is not a problem. So long as the data is NOT used against them at this point you can get them to agree.
Once they agree to give up such privacy THEN you use it against them. It's too late at that point.
That is my concern. That with everything being done to preserve rights the social component of such things as the internet, giving my life history each time a bank challenges me, having to give a credit score for a job app, having TSA porno scan and then rape you, DEVALUES privacy. It makes it easy to say we are all nuts for being concerned about letting others know you vote.
See what I'm getting after here?
People need to rediscover the value of privacy itself, when the gov it doing all it can to devalue privacy.
Problem definition *FIRST*, solution formulation *SECOND*.
The frog just needs to *SEE* the thermometer
Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth
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