A huge problem IMO which I donąt see below is Sec. 327 which EXEMPTS from
Holt audits those elections in which state law has an automatic recount, for
example, the recent OH-15 election.
Sec. 322 spells out mandatory audit procedures for several vote margin
scenarios, 10% random audit for a margin less than one percent; 5% for
margins greater than 1% and less than 2%; and 3% audit for margins 2% or
greater (pp. 3536). As Bev points out these are łAudit protocols that no
one agrees with, even fans of audit solutions˛ (post below, 2/08/07).
Even worse, Sec. 327 exempts from these requirements those elections subject
to an automatic recount under state law. In Ohio that means federal
elections decided by 0.5% or less will not use the Holt audit method, but
follow state law. Thus, the closest elections, in which we would be most
interested in an audit, will not have one.
--John, CASE
-- John Burik MEd, PCC <jburik@fuse.net> ------ Forwarded Message From: OVC Announce <alan@openvotingconsortium.org> Reply-To: OVC Announce <alan@openvotingconsortium.org> Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:10:09 -0800 To: <john@caseohio.org> Subject: What to do about Holt's HR 811 __ Dear Friends of Open Voting: Many people have written to me wanting more information about my reasoning behind the opposition to the Holt bill. We have been discussing it on the OVC Discussion list and I have been working on a more detailed response. Bev Harris beat me to it. Ordinarily, I don't re-distribute things like this to our OVC announcements list, but in this case, I have little to add at this time to her 14 points. So, I have simply cut and pasted that into this message. I consider this bill, HR 811, to be unworthy of futher action except to kill it. OVC is working on state-level and county-level legislation. We may also have substantial input on a new federal bill. Stay tuned! *** from Bev Harris Tips for action: You can find your local congressperson, along with contact info, by going to http://www.congress.org and entering your zip code. Educate your local news reporter on this. And send to your lists. Further action suggestions will follow. There is a reason you are receiving e-mails to urge your congressperson to "hurry" and pass the Holt Bill. They hope it won't be read. You should know this -- the following groups have come out against the new Holt Bill: - Black Box Voting has publicly come out against the Bill - Open Voting Consortium has publicly come out against the Bill - Brad Friedman (BradBlog) has publicly come out against the Bill - Jon Bonifaz (VoterAction.org / Demos) has publicly come out against the Bill - Paul Lehto has publicly come out against the Bill - Democracy for New Hampshire has publicly come out against the Bill Decline to support: - John Gideon (VotersUnite, VoteTrustUSA) has publicly refused to support the bill and there will be more. HERE'S WHY 1. DECEPTIVE LANGUAGE. Calls a paper TRAIL a paper BALLOT. 2. BILLION DOLLAR UNFUNDED MANDATE: Requires text conversion technology in every polling place. At $7000 per machine for 185,000 polling places, you do the math. See this article for documentation on the billion-dollar boondoggle: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/46649.html The bill is not talking about scanner wands, folks. Or if it is, they'd better specify that, and soon! Except that apparently, it's too late to make changes. Note that only two vendors currently manufacture the needed technology, and one (Populex) has as head of its advisory board Frank Carlucci, the former chairman of the Carlyle Group, former CIA director, who was Donald Rumsfeld's roommate in college. Every polling place in America. Is this really what you want? Isn't it time to read the fine print on this??? 3. MAKES THE SCANDAL RIDDEN EAC A PERMANENT FIXTURE AND INCREASES ITS POWER. Alan Dechert, from the Open Voting Consortium says it best: "Holt contemplates the invasion of these United States by the Federal government. If passed, it would BREAK the voting system in the states while establishing a dictatorship to handle things: the Election Assistance Commission ("EAC" or just "the Commission") with its four commissioners appointed by the president of the United States." Bradblog on latest EAC scandal: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4119 4. ALLOWS LOSS OF SECRET BALLOTS for the Military 5. NO RECOGNITION OF CITIZEN RIGHT TO OVERSIGHT. Audit provisions do not allow either citizens or candidates access to any records for meaningful audits. 6. CONFLICTING REQUIREMENTS -- ie, must have text converters by 2008 and must study how to best do the conversions by 2010. 7. LANGUAGE ON DISCLOSED SOURCE CODE CONTAINS AN ERROR in that it doesn't deal with COTS - meaning, any electronics component with a chip on it would be required to disclose source code. There are literally hundreds of commercial off the shelf components in the system -- printers, video drivers, motherboard components -- that contain firmware, and these are manufactured all over the world. The bill would require Hitachi, Seagate, Fuji, Western Digital to open up their code for their commercial products if used in voting machines. Effectively eliminates the use of electronics while at the same time mandating electronics. 8. MUSH LANGUAGE. (Example: "The manufacturer shall provide the appropriate election official with the information necessary for the official to provide the information...") 9. UNREADABLE: People complain about their legislators not reading the bills -- well the way this is written, it guarantees they won't read it. No Appendix, so sections of the bill require the reader to actually go find a different bill and look up sections in it in order to make sense of the current bill. (example: "Section 301(a)(1) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 15481(a)(1)) is amended (A) in subparagraph (A)(i), by striking "counted" and inserting "counted, in accordance with paragraphs (2) and (3)"); 10. AUDIT PROTOCOLS NO ONE AGREES WITH, even fans of audit solutions 11. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING INTERNET CONNECTIONS for central tabulators and ballot definition software 12. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MANUAL AUDITS TO BE BYPASSED states with computer-only recount protocols 13. LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MACHINE COUNT TO SUPERCEDE VOTER VERIFIED PAPER when fuzzily described circumstances arise. Los Angeles Registrar Conny McCormack already has tried to co-opt this (Feinstein senate hearing yesterday) into meaning when there is a printer jam damaging the paper, the machine count will trump. 14. SUPPORTS DREs (Touch-screens and other on-screen voting techniques that are NOT recommended by NIST) This is a devastating development. So many people worked so very hard on this bill, but in the end it isn't about who worked hard. It's about getting it right. We can't afford another set of HAVA problems. And if it's got this many problems now, just wait until the lobbyists carve it up. We're going to have to roll up our sleeves to get what CITIZENS want. More action-oriented, solution-focused information to follow. Black Box Voting is working right now with many other group leaders to brainstorm the best way to deal with this. Bev Harris Founder - Black Box Voting # # # # # ------ End of Forwarded Message _______________________________________________ OVC-discuss mailing list OVC-discuss@listman.sonic.net http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/ovc-discuss ================================================================== = The content of this message, with the exception of any external = quotations under fair use, are released to the Public Domain ==================================================================Received on Wed Feb 28 23:17:14 2007
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