BBV meeting yesterday, California Secretary of State

[hunter]

I went to the "Voting Systems and Procedures Panel Meeting" yesterday in Sacramento. I can pretty much sum it up with a quote from the panel's chairman, Mark Kyle, who said, "I don't want to hear this right now."

There were three items on the agenda:

• Sequoia Voting Systems - Modifications to WinEds Software and Edge Firmware
  
• Diebod Election Systems - Modifications to the AccuVote-TS
  
• Certification Procedures
  

There were maybe 25 people in attendence, not including the Secretary of State's staff, representatives of the vendors, and the panel.

The first item discussed was upgrades to Sequoia's hardware and software. The staff made a big deal about how the database on the new Sequoia machines recorded a "ballot image" and not just a number.

Big deal, I thought. It's not an actual bit-mapped image of a ballot, which is what "ballot image" implies to me, instead the upgraded machines store voter selections internally as text, not numbers.

A few people, including Jim March, got some questions in regarding the proprietary operating systems Sequoia uses, including Microsoft Windows, but the chairman made it pretty clear he didn't want to hear any kind of technical talk, and mentioned that only one of the people sitting on the panel really understood computers. (I wish I wrote down the exact quote!)

A representitive of Sequoia was there with his young son, and his technical advisor, a tinfoilhatprogrammer type. They answered a few questions, but then the chair cut that off, and told members of the audience to ask the vendors those sorts of questions on their own time. (Like we haven't tried already... heh.)

That's pretty much how the Sequoia section ended, and apparantly the panel thought the Sequoia upgrades were just dandy.

Then Diebold...

Sorry folks, the dog ate Diebold's homework.

The Secretary of State's staff claimed the Federal ITA Report is caught up in a "backlog" and Diebold has nothing much to say to the panel until that is done. This was distressing news to some of the counties who are planning to purchase the new Diebold machines, mostly to San Diego county, which wants the machines to be approved by November 4th.

Then a bigger issue was raised... Is the new AccuVote-TSX a new machine, or an upgrade of the AccuVote-TS machine? Diebold wants to sell it as a simple upgrade, even though the hardware is entirely redesigned so that the new machines weigh half as much as the old machines, and so on, and so on... I for one can't see how this can be classified as a simple upgrade.

The panel decided to roll this part of the meeting over to October 28, by which time the Federal ITA report should be done. But I think the bigger issue will be whether or not the TSX is simply an "upgrade."

Part three, "Certification Procedures...."

The chair decided to bail out of this one, postponing it until the October 28th meeting. He said the recall election has been such a big "gorilla" that his staff wasn't prepared to discuss this subject yet.

And so the meeting was over.

The only fun part of the meeting for me was seeing other Californians who are involved in this issue. Jim March gave me one of his infamous Diebold CD's, and I introduced myself to a few people who I've only known on the internet.

Peace

[hang a left]

1. I would love to go on Oct. 28

[shance]

4. Where and when on October 28th?

Please post the information. Californians need to know about this.

[hunter]

6. I haven't seen the official notice yet...

But it sounded like October 28th, 1:00 pm, first floor auditorium, California Secretary of State building, 1500 11th Street, Sacramento.

[shance]

8. Thanks Hunter.** Time to contact our email lists and get the word out.

If the time changes, would you keep us posted?

[donsu]

2. kick

nt

[Spazito]

3. Kick

Good post!

[hunter]

5. Thanks!

I'm sort of rushing around this morning; that meeting took a big chunk of my time.

I've been to hundreds of public meetings, and this one was unusual. There was a lot of tension in the room, and the chairman was mostly interested in keeping certain specific things "unsaid."

Jim March especially tried to get some words in, and at one point accused one of the panel members of "hiding in his office."

Something was going on with the Diebold representative, she looked quite distressed. And I thought it was odd that the Sequoia rep brought his son. Of course I've brought my sons to public meetings, even when I was on company time, whenever child care arrangements didn't happen to work out. But my wife and I joke sometimes about using our kids as "human shields."

I think most public election officials wish they could wave some magic wand and simply make this mess go away.

Peace

[VeniceBeat]

7. Kevin Shelley

Didn't he push the BBV machines from the moment he won office?

I also know that someone from his office is now working for ESS and that others with the Sec of State office felt betrayed.

Millions at stake here. Don't spend the money until our reservations are addressed.

This has to go to court!

Why the stonewalling? What's going on here?

Thanks for being there, Hunter!

[Andy_Stephenson]

9. I want a Diebold CD!

are they in stores yet? :evilgrin:

[shirlden]

10. Gosh, that was a good one

LOL


:bounce:

[Kelvin Mace]

11. If you can...

please take a tape recorder to the next meeting.

Diebold AccuVote Ingredients

Taxpayer money.................$5000
Security Flaws....................328
Critical Security Flaws.........26
CEO commitments to
deliver election to GOP........1
Tamper-proof Paper ballots...0
Tamper-friendly digital
ballots................................At least 32MB
Your actual vote..................None of your business.

[creativelcro]

12. Did Jim March grill them ?

He said he would..

THANKS FOR POSTING THIS SUMMARY!!!
-C

[GregD]

13. To the extent that they would listen

When Jim first raised his hand for a question, Mark Kyle (chair) seemed to grimmace and roll his eyes. Seems he would like to wave that magic wand and make Jim go away too. heh heh, not likely!

It was tough. They really didn't allow Jim (or a couple other vocal members of the audience) to get a fair hearing on their concerns. They really shut us down firmly.

Here is the summary agenda:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vsp_100903.pdf

The first agenda item was certification of Sequoia software/firmware. There were apparently some bug fixes, and a revision of the printed audit report - replacing the candidates name with (what was previously) a number that identified the candidate. There was also some discussion of how provisional ballots are handled, and that at an early stage the voter's name is associated with the physical ballot (and an ID number.) Once the ballot is accepted, the ID number (at the database level) is removed from the ballot - so that the voter can no longer be associated with their vote. This point actually caught the attention of the VSP and was extensively discussed. Once they passed that issue satisfactorily, the item was passed unanimously.

One point that was made about the Sequoia system is that their touchscreen system runs a proprietary operatiny system, with Windows NT/2000 running the central tabulation system. Just in case someone is keeping notes...




The second agenda item was titled:
Diebold Election Systems – Modifications to the AccuVote-TS

Our interpretation/expectation was that this would be modifications, perhaps consistent with the SAIC report, or other such changes of their TS product. NOT! This was to be certification of the TSX model!

Turns out that the Diebold sales rep is pitching the TSX as a modification of the TS, despite the fact it is HALF the weight of the TS. And she went into a lengthy explanation, trying to justify this as a "modification" rather than a new product. But if it is half teh weight, it sure sounds like a new unit to me (and the others in the room.)

This seems consistent with their notion (according to the emails) that it is OK to slip a major database revision in as a "bug fix", close to the election, just because they know that it could not be re-certified in time. I guess Diebold wants these sales to San Diego, San Joaquin and Kern - so they are trying to slip the TSX through the process quietly.

The other pisser, which some of you already know: The sales rep from Diebold is Deborah Seiler, and was chief of the Election Division at the Secretary of State's Office just prior to this job. We need laws against this crap...

Anyhow, it was explained that Wyle was backlogged and didn't complete their report, nor was there any certainty as to when the report would be done - maybe a couple months. So they tabled this item for 2 weeks, with the possibility it would be tabled yet-again.

It did appear that the nature of the "modification" versus "new product" absolutely caught the attention of Mark Kyle, he informed his staff that this WOULD be discussed after the meeting, and he looked a bit frustrated. So that looked positive.

Jim March pushed on the Windows-CE certification issue, and since the certification of the TS was being tabled, they didn't really want to discuss anything - and told him to visit with them after the meeting. But he did (at least) get to express the concern that it NEEDS to be certified.

Another speaker (Jody) tried to pin the VSP down about the lack of precinct totals being posted publicly at precincts. Mark Kyle waived this question off as (a) not germain to the discussion of the Sequoia certification (which is when it was raised) and (b) a county governance issue and he didn't want to deal with it.

Cheers...

[BevHarris]

15. Just a clarification

There is a big difference between certification of TSx and the software that runs it. What Jim March is talking about is required certification of the customized Windows CE that serves as the operating system for the "Ballot Station" program.

The TSx system is the hardware; the Ballot Station and Win CE is firmware. Two different things.

[creativelcro]

16. Maryland SAIC report:

Any leaks at all about which version was tested in that report ??
There was speculation it was TSX... That is probably why they redacted it... Would have created all sorts of cross-checks and potential problems... -creativelcro

[hunter]

19. In a certain sense they are not two different things.

I'm certain Diebold would like us to believe that the hardware of the TSx is simply a TS in a much smaller package. Until we can actually take one of these machines apart, we don't know that. It is more likely that the hardware is significantly different, to the point where non-trivial changes must have been made in the Windows CE firmware.

Thus the hardware and software certifications are not entirely "two different things."

[hunter]

17. The same sort of thing happened in Alaska...

I may not have the story entirely clear, but apparantly Dana Latour was the Alaskan Division of Elections administrative officer who awarded a $2 million contract to Global Election Systems. Soon after that she left state government to become Global's western regional sales rep.

[GregD]

14. The meeting WAS recorded

by none other than Kim Zetter of Wired News. If you contact me privately, I have her email, and you can ask her about the recording. She will be at the next meeting as well.

[4dog]

18. keep it up CA, the word is spreading (nt)

[DEMActivist]

20. Same thing in Georgia

Evidently, this behavior is the new suggested way to handle questions from the public......

At the monthly "Dog and Pony Shows" in Georgia, they start the meeting with an announcement that they will NOT field questions about what is being reported in the press, because "that's not what this meeting is about."

However, when asked for a private meeting to discuss activists' concerns, Kathy Rogers said we'd have to ask those questions at the monthly "Dog and Pony Show." That's why the meetings were set up, so she says.....

Evidently, that's the "R. Doug Lewis approach" - just keep promising answers and never deliver.