We were both pleased and mildly surprised to see the invitation arrive from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) a few weeks back, asking us to come to DC, on their dime, to participate this coming Thursday in a one day “Voting Advocate Roundtable Discussion” on the proposed 2007 federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG).
Our invitation, from EAC Chair Rosemary Rodriguez, is posted at the end of this article.
Even while we’ve been nothing short of merciless in our criticism of the EAC, over the years here at The BRAD BLOG, the outreach is both welcome and appreciated, even as we are always very aware of all of the pitfalls associated with participating in such a process. Yet, with our eyes wide open, we see the opportunity to participate in the process, in hopes — futile or otherwise — of attempting to steer it back towards the rails which were jumped at the federal level long ago, as a hopefully positive one. Call us eternal optimists, but, as long time readers here likely recognize, we have never been one to slap down an olive branch offered, for whatever reason it may have been offered in the first place.
As you might suspect, we have some very strong opinions about the VVSG — all 598 dizzying, yet wholly inadequate pages of it [PDF] — and the disastrous course it will continue to enable for our election system, if accepted as currently proposed.
For a number of reasons, not the least of which was today’s important primary in PA, we thought it better to be in or near the BRAD BLOG Anchor Desk this week, rather than in the air all day Wednesday, off the grid all day Thursday for the meeting, and back in the air all day Friday…
So this time around, we’ve called on computer security expert — and transparent election advocate — Dr. Rebecca Mercuri of Notable Software to represent The BRAD BLOG in person at Thursday’s EAC roundtable. If any of you are familiar with Dr. Mercuri (see her guest blog on our pages last year for just a taste, if you’re not: “The Electric Kool-Aid Voting Test”), you know she’s unlikely to disappoint in holding the citizens’ banner high on our behalf. We’re also preparing no-uncertain-terms written testimony for their record, which we will post here later this week.
Also, among the invitees to this session, were Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org (who has declined to attend) and our pal John Gideon of VotersUnite.org who, for similar reasons to ours, is sending software specialist John Washburn to represent VU.
As mentioned, our written testimony will be posted in full here, later this week [Update: Our full statement to the EAC, now posted here], followed perhaps, by details on Thursday’s forum from Dr. Mercuri in the days following. But for now, the two-page invitation sent to us, as signed by EAC Chair Rosemary Rodriguez, can be downloaded here [PDF] and is posted in full below…
Overdue… 😉
I thought if you were going to DC Brad I was going to say Do not go into the light !!! 😛
They probably didn’t invite me because they knew I’d go off calling them names…. I really DON’T like that stuff. Damn close to fascism, not Constitutional…. But, hey, if they will listen to you, I’ll wait a while before I flip on them.
The biggest problem with the VVSG is that it essentially hands vendors a lock on the market.
Xerox is never going to make a kickass reliable printer if they have to build a whole voting system to go around it.
Re “Yet, with our eyes wide open, we see the opportunity to participate in the process, in hopes — futile or otherwise — of attempting to steer it back towards the rails which were jumped at the federal level long ago, as a hopefully positive one.”
Right on! They wouldn’t have invited you if they weren’t interested in hearing what you have to say.
Bev, if you’re listening, why did you decline to attend? Just wondering, because your contribution would have been valuable. You’re very well-informed, with hands-on experience, and you’re very articulate about this issue.
That is Great News!
Please be sure to explain that the Ballot Definition software – use the info from the guest blog I wrote for you…
That blog is still coming, Michael…Promise!
Like 99 said, they knew better than to invite the 6 or 7, because it has been shown time and again that Brad has the ability to “talk their language”. I mean he can be civil with them.
Most or many of the brad bloggers do not have that ability, including myself. I lost it somewhere along the bushie trail a few years back.
So it is good that Brad is going to represent the blog that asks “tough” questions. “Tough” because we have moved so far right from America into Amurka, that the truth is very, very radical. The main take on truth in the MSM imaginary government is to deny it.
The lies and deceptions that have become the main stream of “news industry” ideas, and have morphed American into Amurka, are not going to be tolerated by me and the rest of the citizenry of brad blog type bloggers, and a million other blogs out there.
We want vengence and long prison terms for the criminals in government.
But someone has to be able to tell them civilly to wake up from their midday drunken stupor, and smell the stinch.
Voting has been a joke for some 40 years, and the government has known it all along, and our “health care” system kills more of us each year than the terrorists have in the past 100 years combined.
And as we saw in NH, having paper ballots is as perplexing to election officialdumb as having aberrant evoting junk. Their take on it is “what do we do with these Barney”, and thus the Butch Custody and Hoppy Along circus.
That makes it hard for some of us to get excited about yada, yada, yada, but we are watching, we are aware, and we are suffering as America dies.
At this moment, it seems, they’re doling out the delegates in PA, and Clinton has 64 and Obama has 63… a few more to go, but it’s not looking like her margin is much right now…. I’m still using the NYT page to check on this stuff.
Brad, good luck on this. If you can record your comments, perhaps you can make them available to us.
Brad, I mistyped, If someone can record Dr. Mercuri’s statement, please do, and post them.
Be sure to fly on a public plane…and let me know the flight number so I can not take it. 😉
Rock their world!! Without you and BlackBox we’d be more fukced than we are now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do!
Hmmm… So Brad’s is gonna sit at the the adults table at this time. I’ve been free in the apple orchid again and you know what that means… lata …
P.S. Open sourse software