John, with your group and other election oriented activists against the bills (HR 811 and S. 559), and now the SOS and other election official groups against the bills along with you, we may be stuck with HAVA as is. The bills may not pass with all this opposition.

All these demands for perfection have the potential to lose what is good about the bills by defeating the bills ... like the EVM companies want.

A couple of features in the bills alone would put criminal election programming out of business (the requirement to publish the source code, and not hook up to networks). Plus the Senate version makes the Ken Blackwell syndrome illegal.

I see activists shooting themselves in the foot and doing damage to the movement. It has been that way for decades. "All or nothing" is not strategy, it is folly.

This is a campaign rooted in "poor-mouthing"---i.e., the counties ultimately regard the problem of paying for the changes as the principal one, and everything else is subordinate. The counties depend on local taxes to pay for the white elephants they bought, the service and "training" contracts they are saddled with and the legal expenses of suing the electronic voting equipment vendors. It is no wonder they take the position half-a-loaf is better than none. Those who have decided to fight in court are carrying the battle for the majority who decided they could not afford to fight.

John, I quoted you here at Bradblog on a thread where these issues are being debated. They are being debated on another thread here at Bradblog too.

Hope I quoted you correctly and linked to the proper page on your site.

I just hope that an expectation of perfection (which I consider to be naive) does not destroy these bills.

Hartford Courant Exposes Electronic Election Problems

Yup, while we are worried about trivia of stolen national elections, the nation's oldest continuously downsizing newspaper exposes inadequacies of voting for: American Idol

http://www.courant.com/n...y?coll=hc-headlines-oped

BlastFromGlast #4

I was wondering if you were using that article in an attempt to illustrate the personality cult mentality that sometimes creeps into some sectors of the electronic voting machine movement?

I don't know if the electronic voting machine movement will ever get any firm traction, or ever have more than the one inspector general (Shawn "Sanjaya" Southworth).

Dredd,

I'd like to know anywhere where I say I am against HR-811. As long as HAVA Section 301(a)(1)(A)(i) which requires that all voting systems “permit the voter to verify (in a private and independent manner) the votes selected by the voter on the ballot before the ballot is cast and counted" is met I will be much happier. We would allow the use of DREs but it requires that the voter verified paper ballot be a real ballot and not a "Holt-ballot". In other words that paper ballot must always be the ballot of record for all counts, audits and recounts. Ballots can never be electronic.

Also, the COTS disclosure is as good as gone. Microsoft and the software industry took care of that because HR-811 does not differentiate between vote counting software and driver software that has nothing to do with the vote counting process.

Let's see what the mark-up and amended version of the bill looks like before you decide that you are going to support or not support the bill.

John, with your lead piece, it looks like Holt is in the toilet anyway...unless they provision eliminating electronic ballots with Fed funding to accomplish that IMO

What a catch 22.

Crappy leaders that keep crappy unvalidatable electronic systems to re-elect crappy leaders.
Meanwhile we are losing civil rights on what seems like a daily basis. And all the while these fake ass leaders bitch that they can not print a paper ballot in time for the next election. It's a LIE if you ask me. They're lying about everything else why not lie about that too!?

I would have to agree with John, about seeing what HR-811 looks like AFTER it's amended. And if it ain't amended right, then protest? Oh what's the point anymore? Nobody is listening to us. As long as this crap continues with the same old crap, we will never have the right to vote.

Speaking of votes:

It is official. HR 333, a bill to IMPEACH the vice president, has been sent to the judiciary committee chaired by Rep. Conyers.

Anyone what to guess what the votes in the committee will be? And if it passes the committee, what the floor vote will be?

John,

I am in reference to your statement "... we cannot, with good conscience, give our endorsement to HR 811 in its current form" at this link.

In my quote of you mentioned in post #3 I said you commended certain portions of the bill.

My suggestion has been to focus on the Senate version (S. 559) since the House committee is suffering disruption due to the death of its chairwoman, and no amendments have been offered there.

In the Senate they haven't even conducted hearings yet.

interesting... Florida's Republicant Governor Charlie Crist has come out in favor of paper ballots... sounds like he wants legit elections results...

"I'm Brad Friedman and I approve of this Blog." - BF

"I'm not a blogger, but I play one on the Internet." - PB

There is great danger of the voters rights movement to effectively draw and quarter itself as a function of their being too many Chiefs and not enough braves. The argument is about voting integrity and transparency, yet, HR811 offers a guarantee of neither. Still, the heads of groups from all fifty states continue to bicker about what is best amongst bad choices.

Some argue that to not compromise is childlike. I would counter that had the founding fathers compromised about the content of the Declaration of Independence, that this modern voting predicament would be a moot point.

A guarantee of voting integrity is the only standard of measure that is meaningful when it comes the validity and sanctity of the individual Americans vote. If the voter does not walk out of the polling place with an identical copy of his or her ballot, then the vote is not traceable, verifiable, or secure.

All of this argument about DRE's, and Printers, and Opitical Scan only serves to muddy the waters of an already murky condition. Those companies that make the electronic voting machinery must sit back and enjoy a daily belly laugh as they watch the grassroots opposition do their work for them. We need to Keep It Simple Stupid.

Let's make it clear. Paper Ballots that provide an identical paper ballot receipt, that the voter may take with them upon leaving the polling place is the only valid form of voting that provides for accurate verification and recount. Anyone that can read and write can count and/or recount paper ballots. However, only a very rare handful of computer savvy specialists can tap into the magic of a black box. The implications of America's future left to the magic of microchips and cyber pathways are obvious.

Paper Ballots, with identical copies serving as individual voter receipts are the simplest and surest way to secure the election process. Anything else is an illusion.

So, does the grassroots voters rights movement continue to hold POW WOWs where the "Chiefs" proclaim their own and their organizations magnificence? Or, do we coalesce into a sword point with one mission and one goal. Voting Integrity?

My vote (even here in cyber space) is Paper, and Paper only.

... How could it cause MORE problems. Literally, how many MORE problems can they have? I can't even fathom it. I thought once you hit rock bottom all that was left was improvement. More.... HA! What a joke.

Interesting time for Kucinich to bring the articles of impeachment. He is scheduled to be on Bill Maher's "Real Time" this week.

Since I haven't seen ONE television liberal or conservative not try to make a fool of Dennis, including John Stewart, I'm thinking Maher won't be any different, but I hope I'm wrong.

Kucinich has the kind of guts we need. I hope people wake up.

Let's impeach Cheney, Bush, and the voting machines!

Well, James #12, it would indeed seem that hand-counted paper ballots are the only logical solution, when all is said and done.

However, since not everybody agrees --- specifically, these elections officials mentioned in the article, whose opinion is typically given more weight by legislators because they are the "professionals" --- how do you propose to making it happen?

The way it looks to me is not that the various election integrity groups are preening themselves but that they are working their asses off to educate legislators along with fighting trench warfare against Republican interests every step of the way.

Plus, different election integrity groups have specific goals that are not in perfect alignment with the others.

So... Is NO legislation better than flawed legislation?

If one cannot get the entire kit and kaboodle, is it better to walk away and hope for something better in time for 2008, or to fight for the kit now and the kaboodle next?

Reasonable people can disagree without being evil or stupid or arrogant or self-serving.

Those duking it out in the halls of Congress and state legislatures are in an uphill battle against very powerful interests and entrenched officials. But hey, if you think you can get hand-counted paper ballots, by all means please get your butt to DC and make it happen. They need all the help they can get.

I like Bill Faulkner's "Florida Solution" as reported in opednews. He proposes optical scanners with the paper ballot being hand-counted BY COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS as an audit of the machine count and the hand-counted paper ballots being the ballots of record.

THAT IS THE ANSWER. John--PUSH THIS.

P.S. Holt's bill is a mistake. First of all--voting is a STATE right and should NOT be Federally legislated! Fod God's sake, that's what got us the HAVA nightmare.

Let the STATE LEGISLATURES decide what to do here.

VOTING IS LOCAL. NOT FEDERAL. LOCAL.

DES:

How do you educate the uneducatable, (not a word?)

For how many years did the people of "the greatest country on the face of the bombastic earth" Hand Mark and Hand Count their votes?

Answer:

Many years before the advent of the computer!!

James #8

You say "The argument is about voting integrity and transparency, yet, HR811 offers a guarantee of neither."

That is one way to interpret the text of the bills. On the contrary I think the text of HR 811 and S 559 make it clear than there can be no greater transparency than making the source code public.

There is no greater lie detector test than perusing the source code, and it makes the criminal elements within the EVM companies shake and shudder.

They oppose the bills ... and it is strange when those claiming to be progressives want to thwart some progress while demanding perfect progress.

A progressive flow is better than throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

See links in post #3 ...

Except where the "progressive flow" includes doesn't wash clean things that would be very easy to clean even now and worse... it includes fresh sewage that wasn't there before.