Guest Blogged by Ken Simpkins
ED NOTE: Over the last nine months or so, along with attorney Paul Lehto, Carlsbad, CA attorney Simpkins has filed a number of voter lawsuits in San Diego in his continuing attempt to help bring accountability to the unaccountable San Diego County Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas and his atrocious elections administration. Those suits included complaints and appeals in the now-infamous Busby/Bilbray Special Election as well as voter lawsuits brought both before and after last November’s General Election in San Diego.
After being stonewalled by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office on requests for recounts, information regarding the right to vote on paper ballots, and the results of an audit of the November 2006 election, citizens are taking action. Last Thursday, a complaint [PDF] was submitted to the new California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, addressing voters’ concerns. Secretary Bowen was voted into office on the promise of cleaning up elections.
SD County’s Registrar of Voters, Mikel Haas, has attracted the attention of The BRAD BLOG for many months as “one of the worst elections officials in the country.” His policy of sending pre-programmed, election-ready Diebold voting machines home with poll workers weeks in advance of elections, without any training on security or assurance that the machines would be held in a secure environment, likewise attracted the ire of many San Diego County voters. Those same voters are signing a petition urging the Secretary of State to investigate the allegations in the complaint and report on the findings. I urge you to sign it as well.
The complaint reports on the violations of the certification requirements under state and federal law, the failure to properly test the machines pursuant to official procedures, the policy of undermining the right to vote on paper ballots, and the disregard of basic auditing principles in conducting the required one percent manual tally.
The voting machine “sleepover” policy is one example of the disregard by the Registrar of Voters of the proven vulnerabilities of the Diebold machines, which can be hacked in one minute and made to change the outcome of an election. In defending the sleepover policy, Mr. Haas points to the “tamper-evident” tape used to seal the memory card compartment as sufficient security against fraud. But, when one observer discovered on election day that the tape had been removed from the machines at two precincts, and reported the violation of the certification requirements to Mr. Haas, he refused to take the machines out of service and allowed voters to cast their votes on the then-uncertified machines…
While voters knew that Mr. Haas loved his machines, they did not know how much until the Secretary of State required him to make paper ballots available. Mr. Haas ordered poll workers not to inform voters about their right to vote on paper ballots, and most of them zealously obeyed. Mr. Haas opposed in court a voter’s request to ensure that sufficient quantities of paper ballots be made available and to require that notices be placed at the polls informing voters that they could vote on paper ballots. The court sided with Haas. Voters who asked for paper ballots were chided for not wanting to vote on machines. And, Mr. Haas waited until after the media had called the election before canvassing paper ballots.
Mr. Haas undermined the audit by “randomly” selecting the precincts to be audited before the votes from the precincts had been counted. That allowed the canvass to proceed with the foreknowledge of which precincts would be checked before workers completed the canvass. When the canvass revealed discrepancies, Mr. Haas certified the election without resolving the discrepancies as required by law.
Responding to the complaint will be a test for Secretary Bowen. She will either show voters that she will not tolerate elections officials who violate election laws, or she will show them that she is not up to the task of challenging those who care more about their own convenience than the integrity of elections.
I hope the new SOS investigates. If there are any crimes committed, then its time that Mr. Haas is put on the defense.
This complaint resembles the violations in Riverside County so closely that I believe we will use it as a template to file a similar complaint re Riverside.
Great work, Ken. And Paul and Brad for exposing this with such vigor. You all are doing a great job!
Defrock High Priest Haas and his faith-based saint diego election system.
We want paper ballots and a scientific verifiable count and re-count system. Leave religion out of election machine thinking.
Enough of the “holy water” sprinkled on a weak electronic voting machine system blessed by High Priest Haas.
Faced with obvious problems, his priestly doctrine has always been “trust me“.
Atta boy, Paul. Now we’ll get the answer. Get the State to take some more of the process.
Ken Simpkins has done an excellent job with this complaint, and put countless hours of unpaid effort into gathering the evidence and submitting it to Bowen’s office.
Alas, I’m a cynic. Debra Bowen is a Democrat, and as such, Bowen’s first loyalty must be to the bureaucracy and to the elections industry (machine and software vendors and developers). So I’ve predicted that Bowen will indeed issue stringent guidelines for the conduct of elections, and will decertify the voting machines, but will then turn around and refuse to enforce the guidelines and will issue waivers for use of uncertifiable machines to any elections officials who want them, including Haas.
Off-topic, but on another board a religious fanatic was just explaining to me that God does not want and is not responsible for evil and for bringing about hell on earth, but does not oppose it or try to stop it because it is part of His plan. My response was to thank him for explaining it to me — that it all makes sense now that I know that God is a Democrat. 😉
Can we sign the petition if we don’t live in California?
Have you thanked Brad with a donation this month?
#6
California will help “elect” your next president so you had better well sign that petition! I sure did. This country can only become a democracy if ALL the states decide to COUNT VOTES AS CAST for a change!
Under Haas picture, the caption shoud be, “Trust Me”.
Yeeaaaahh!!!!
Toss Haas on his *ss for not taking this issue seriously.
I love how you guys still seem to beat the same drum”¦lets bring more complaints and lawsuits”¦.
Please report some facts for a change: explain what has happened to all these lawsuits”¦other that the fact that they all lost. The most liberal courts in the land”¦and they all still lose”¦.why is that?
I read here once a month or so”¦because you guys are the only ones that seem to care”¦..but yet”¦no info on the results”¦unless they are in your favor. Simple answer”¦because Mikel hasn’t done anything wrong.
But yet the drum rolls on.
Three was a statewide election meeting this month”¦how did that go?
Not well”¦otherwise you would have reported on it.
How is SoS Bowen doing so far?….not well”¦ otherwise you have reported on it.
The fact is”¦we are not going back to paper unless laws are in place to do it”¦stop suing and start calling you congressmen”¦enough already.
P.S. And now our brilliant legislature is demanding 3 elections in 2008. (and don’t believe the hype…it has nothing to do with deciding the primaries”¦it has to do with term limits)
Sorry meant to say:
I read posts here once a month or so
and
There was a statewide election meeting this month”¦how did that go?
Sorry for the urban speak