Considering Riverside County, CA, was the first in the nation to purchase Sequoia Voting Systems’ malfunctioning, unsecure touch-screen voting machines for county-wide use in 2000, and that the county’s Board of Supervisors were once the most ardent supporters of the company — one of the Supes even going so far as to foolishly bet “1000 to 1” that the system couldn’t be hacked — the latest news from Riverside, no doubt, comes as a very bitter pill for the failing voting machine company.
And better still, the county now has a golden opportunity to restore its reputation by leading the nation in bringing accountability to the real villains in this regrettable saga.
“Riverside Co. Pulls Plug on Electronic Voting” read the headline of one of the local news reports after Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting where they wisely voted against throwing good money after bad.
The Board refused to authorize $500,000 for uncertified Sequoia optical scan voting machines, as recommended by the county’s Sequoia-lovin’ Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore, in order to replace their recently decertified Sequoia touch-screen systems which had previously been purchased (twice!) for some $27 million.
“I will not vote for another dime to go to Sequoia,” said Supervisor Roy Wilson, finally catching on, according to the report from KESQ….
“We bought two systems from this company and spent millions of dollars, and I’m not going to vote that another dime be spent on this,” Wilson is quoted as saying in the Press-Enterprise coverage.
That the Supes in Riverside — even Jeff “1000 to 1” Stone — seem to finally be wising up to the fact that they’ve been scammed by Sequoia for years is a tribute to the temerity and persistence of Tom Courbat and the other terrific Election Integrity Advocates of SAVE R VOTE in the county. Speaking up at each weekly meeting of the Board, issuing reports after every election, producing press releases and developing relationships with the local and national media, they are role models for EI Advocates and citizen oversight in every county in the nation.
As to the mess Riverside — Sequoia’s largest customer in California — now finds itself in and the quibbling over the half a million dollars needed to replace systems they’d previously spent $27 million on, might we suggest the county attempt to get back at least that much from the folks who ripped ’em off in the first place: Sequoia Voting Systems.
A quick perusal through CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen’s Decertification docs for the Sequoia system [PDF] offers perhaps all of the evidence that any self-respecting judge would need in order to see that the tax-payers of Riverside County had been had. Big time.
No kidding. Go read that document. It speaks to startling security vulnerabilities, and more damningly, bald-faced misrepresentations about the voting systems’ security given by company representatives themselves to the Secretary of State.
Not all the Riverside Supervisors have stopped chugging the Sequoia Kool-Aid however. Supervisor Bob Buster, (who has apparently failed to read the document recommended above) continued his vigorous and embarrassing defense of the company’s failed touch-screen systems at Tuesday morning’s meeting. The North County Times report would indicate that he’s still missing the point completely.
In dead-ender defense of the now decertified touch-screen systems, Buster said, according to the North County Times report, “What we’re talking about is hypothetical risk here, which is … far less than the problems we’ve seen with the absentee system in this county.”
And thus Mr. Buster accidentally hits the nail on the head. At least he’s seen the problems with the absentee system in his county. He’ll never be able to see the problems with the invisible electronic ballots on Sequoia’s touch-screen voting machines.
Fortunately, there now seem to finally be enough non-ostriches on the Board to outvote Buster. At least for the moment. Dunmore, who’s never seen a Sequoia product she didn’t like, saw her proposal to gamble more money on her friends at the company voted down 3 to 2 on Tuesday.
In 1999, Riverside had hoped to be a model for the nation, with its brand, spanking new election technology.
In 2007, the county now has the opportunity to make amends for that ill-conceived vision by becoming a model for the nation again — but this time for real — in holding one of the top perpetrators of the nation’s e-voting scam accountable for their knowing, systematic, and massive defrauding of tax-payer dollars.
Where Riverside’s Board of Supervisors and election system once verged on becoming a national laughingstock, they now have the opportunity to begin bringing accountability for the damage done. It is Sequoia, not the county, that would and should join its birds of a feather at Diebold to become the nation’s laughingstock.
The Riverside County Board of Supes now hold it within their power to set that record straight. If they need any help or advice or encouragement or suggestions for attorneys to help, our lines are always open. We’re sure they know our number by now.
Just guessin ‘ol Roy doesn’t know one damn thing about these hack boxes…but he does know ahem…COST!!!
Hey gang,
You might want to offer your two cents worth on this pro-electronic voting HuffPo blog:
Electronic Voting: If It Is Good Enough For Congress
I believe you can impact public opinion on Huffington Post.
– Tom
Having attended the Board meeting (slight correction – it was Tuesday morning, not Wednesday night) this week, I can tell you we witnessed a “true believers” awakening of four of the five board members regarding the con job Sequoia has done on Riverside County. And statements by the ROV Dunmore were questioned in much more detail than ever done previously. Her statements were not taken as gospel, including her statement that the machines ARE certified. Because while technically they are certified for the balance of 2007, they are not yet (and may not be) certified for the February 2008 primary.
Ms. Dunmore tried to assure the board by saying that Secretary of State Debra Bowen had personally told her that she (Bowen) fully expects that Sequoia is going to meet all conditions necessary to “continue” certification for the February 2008 election, but the Board wasn’t buying it. They demanded that if Dunmore and Sequoia were so sure of themselves, that Sequoia GIVE the 6 proposed machines to the county to use at no charge until they were recertified. And then, if they become certified the county would pay for them, but only under the conditions that if they are again decertified (this process happens a lot in CA), the county would be entitled to a 100% refund, not the depreciation schedule (over 6 years) proposed by Sequoia.
Oh, and the board replaced Dunmore as the chief negotiator with County Counsel Joe Rank, who has less of a love affair with Sequoia than does Dunmore.
Meanwhile, Dunmore is threatening to take all paper ballots from the 600+ precincts and transport them to the central tabulator in Riverside in February, and abandon any posting of precinct results at the precincts, as required by law. SAVE R VOTE members have offered to assist and even take the lead in recruiting and training citizens to hand-count the votes beginning with the February election, but there has been no reciprocating interest shown by either the ROV or the Board. Thus chain of custody of up to 400,000 ballots will be subject to multiple points where the chain may easily be broken. And of course, there will be no accountability for the ballots at each precinct, as they will simply be bundled up and shipped off, without any results count to reconcile back to.
So, while this was an awakening of the sleeping giant, there remains the concern that the giant will now begin to reduce even further the transparency of the process that is so important in ensuring a true and open type of government. And should there be any question of the reduction in transparency, one only has to look at the 80 percent reduction in time allowed for any group to speak on a topic at the open comments part of the board meetings arbitrarily imposed by the current chairman of the board, John Tavaglione. Whereas groups could speak for up to 15 minutes previously, Mr. Tavaglione, in his infinite wisdom, has reduced that to just 3 minutes. For every victory for Election Integrity and Open Government in Riverside County, there are offsetting losses in ability of citizens to be heard. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We have been in this for over 3 years, and it looks like another three would not be out of the question.
LIB says, “Meanwhile, Dunmore is threatening to take all paper ballots from the 600+ precincts and transport them to the central tabulator in Riverside in February”
Check all dumpsters and landfills along the routes to Riverside then if you have to, or at least follow the trucks.
Hey, why doesn’t the county just trade in a bunch of the DRE for the optical scanners? It’s a fair trade of a bundle of smaller decertified voting machines for one bigger decertified voting machine – kind of like when you trade up your houses for hotels in Monopoly. Great article Brad.
High praise and respect to the true American supes of Riverside.
From Moreno Valley, here’s a thank you and proud of you, keep up the good fight.
I would like Mr. Courbat and Save R Vote-Riverside, and other individuals and grass roots groups like them, to know that I think they are the only thing that stands between us and the big black hole that gapes before us, of total fascist (rightwing corporate) rule.
If we don’t win this one–in the only venues still open to us, the local/state elections offices and boards–it is all over. Our democracy will be effectively dead. It will of course live on in the hearts of the American people, and will never die there, and will likely be reborn, but with non-transparent vote counting, run on ‘trade secret,’ proprietary code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls–which is the case now almost everywhere in the country, and which was deliberately fast-tracked by the Anthrax Congress (along with the war on Iraq–in October 2002)–we have no hope of reform on any issue.
The fascists have the power to shape a pro-war Congress (which they clearly did on 11/6/06) and to appoint the next emperor. We can out-fundraise them, out-organize them and outvote them. We, the peace-minded, justice-minded American people are by far the majority. But we cannot achieve peaceful change if the fascists have the capacity to secretly switch and disappear our votes, without detection.
Our democracy is teetering right on the brink. Yesterday the Senate censured a citizen group–MoveOn.org–for criticizing and ridiculing a military general who is shilling for Bush. Since when did the citizens of this country lose the right to criticize the military? Good God! And 25 ‘Democrats’ voted FOR it! That’s how bad things are. You open your yawp and you get censured by the U.S. Senate. The Betrayus Congress keeps topping itself, to outdo the Diebold I Congress for outrages against the Constitution and the American people.
And just how did we end up with pro-war Congress in a country in which SEVENTY PERCENT of the people oppose this current heinous, unjust war, and want it ended? You do the math. There is hardly a one of them who can prove that he or she was actually elected. That’s the situation.
And ONLY strong citizen action, in counties and states around the country–like Save R Vote in Riverside–is going to restore the bottom line of democracy: transparent vote counting. These are the truest patriots of this land. We have never had better, and we never will. Kudos and laurel wreaths to Tom Courbat and group–and to others like them. Future generations will bless your names. And even if we lose this critical fight, they will know that at least some of their forebears tried their damndest to pass democracy along to the future, as it was passed by others to us.