The Proposed Voting Reform Bills --- NOT an EZ choice--HELP!

[marions ghost]

RE: ENSIGN, DODD AND CONYERS --Proposed bills:

Eyes bugged out from reading ALL the material here so far on the proposed voting reform bills coming up in congress. Brain strain bad now. There have been pursuasive arguments made in all these threads. But am still stumped. It seems there are two clearly conflicting strategies. INSTEAD of deciding WHICH Bill to support right now, what about sending Conyers, Dodd, and Ensign our opinions as to how to improve all their bills? It seems there is no solid consensus in the group here at present, which indicates to me that we may really need BOTH a short-acting "emergency" bill AND a longer-acting "full service" inclusive bill. Is this unrealistic? Without repeating all the arguments from threads below--is there any kind of effective compromise? Or MUST we choose, as it has been so effectively argued on both sides? Are these bills mutually exclusive? How long do we have to chew on this? Need a rough time frame.
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Recent Discussions:
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Conyers Text of Proposed Voter Act 2005 (Conyers Bill)
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/

Conyers Letter (excellent! letter which supports Dodd Bill)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=312694&mesg_id=312694

Excellent letters in support of VIVA (Ensign) Bill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x313859

Dodd vs Ensign (with strong argument to support VIVA over Dodd):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=310888&mesg_id=310888

[KerryReallyWon]

1. Andy says to follow Ensign because...

his bill has the option for a paper ballot. Dodds bill is written to go into affect after 2008. Now.....why is that? That is why we are supporting the repug bill. And, if is is not only dems saying we need reform, maybe others will start listening.

[Kevin Spidel]

23. Paper Ballots are a step in the right direction, but...

New voter verified paper ballots are great, but are not worth much if the Repubs can still scheme to keep us from getting to the machines, by shorting us out of machines, tricking voters, throwing away registrations....

Ensign bill does nothing about it, Conyers bill does

[BeFree]

2. IMO

Paper Ballots, hand counted, is the only position that we can take. Our goal is to trash the e-counters and paper is the only solution at this point.

Compromise is not an option. We have compromised ourselves out of free and fair elections already, and we must get back to a level playing field. Once level, we can begin to select a machine which gives us openess and full accountability. Until then: Paper Ballots, cast by, and counted by, humans.

[liberalla]

5. I agree!

"Paper Ballots, hand counted, is the only position that we can take. Our goal is to trash the e-counters and paper is the only solution at this point."

I agree. This is the best solution, but I can't see them ever agreeing to it.

[Andy_Stephenson]

9. All hand counted paper is NEVER

going to happen. There is NO support for it. Again...with propper auditing and stringet controls....optical scans are safe and reliable. I would love to see all hand counted ballots...but to do that we would have to uncomplicate elections by a factor of 10. That is not going to happen before the sale of more paperless DRE's. Ensigns bill addresses that problem.

In Georgia there is no provision in the law for paper ballots. They are all DRE. Without something to count (paper ballots) all hand counted is never going to happen. You have to have something to count first.

Andy

[Amaryllis]

18. Andy, what does proper auditing look like? I am working on this in OR with

our SOS. We need to know what to ask for?

[rigel99]

10. COUNT PAPER BALLOTS

period. there can be no compromise in democracy.

COUNT THE PAPER BALLOTS election night, don't expect citizens to pay thousands of dollars to do partial audits.. this is totally and completely unacceptable....

countpaperballots.com
countpaperballots.com
countpaperballots.com

if you want to see how complicated a non paper counted computerized system is, monitor this website for the full disclosure of Georgia's nightmare of 100% Diebold DRE voting. The first problem is you don't get a ballot, but this garbled piece of crap DRE tapes that may or may not represent the voter's intent. We have to trust the Diebold software to report the accumulation of the ballot... wow.. this is very scary stuff folks...

The process is made 1000% times more complicated in exchange, election officials must rely on Diebold techs for everything (and Diebold counting). The trade off is they get to be lazy and not count the paper... big deal.....The only easy thing is that election officials have outsourced and 'renigged' on their responsibility in administering our elections. Basic questions to these folks in the last 2 weeks have resulted in 'my diebold technician is in training for 2 months, I cannot get the report for you till he returns'. Wow. hello outsourced elections... goodbye democracy.

When we mount a successful legal challenge to DRE voting in Georgia, the legislation will have 'legal precedent' for why electronic voting is both insecure, unreliable and invalid. The legal challenge will influence the legislative efforts.. Georgia activists have written an awesome state bill that allows for DRE machines to stay as printers, but that requires counting of the paper on election night.... and I've asked them to post their hard work on this thread..... we're not taking table crumbs from republicans... we're taking Barber Boxer's strength, vision and challenging everything to the point that it meets our needs.. nothing less will do....

this is about saving our right to vote.... I disagree entirely with anyone that thinks we need to triage what is essentially the wrong bill, the wrong wording, the wrong solution in Ensign's bill. When we get legal challenges, congress will take notice.. we are making legal progress in Georgia...

slowly but surely.....

[keepthemhonest]

26. Hey rigel i think that boxer is in with clinton on this one

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x321859

[Peace Patriot]

3. Well, I pretty much feel Congress is a lost cause. The BushCons took..

...away our right to vote very deliberately and with aforethought. They are not going to give it back. I would mainly look for "poison pills"--ways that they bribe the states to go electronic, or reduce state power over elections in other ways, so that if the people of a state decide to go back to paper ballots and hand counts, or want to have strong oversight or more transparency, they might be prohibited.

The bill might look okay now. Is there anything in it that BushCons could use to make things worse later?

The Ensign Bill sounds fairly benign, but I haven't read every word. Andy's argument that states are right now buying paperless electronic and need a fast mandate put on them for a voter verified paper ballot is pretty compelling. It's only a baby step toward transparency but it's an important one, and it may help in states that are run by BushCons, heavily committed to electronic, and entrenched so that there is not much hope of them going back to paper ballots and hand counts any time soon.

Venezuela voted all electronic (open source code, VVPB, and also fingerprinting). Vetted by 100's of international voting groups. Found to be an honest election--which you could figure anyway, because the poor (the vast majority) kept their president (Chavez). (It was a Recall election by the Oil Elite aided by BushCo.)

The Dodd bill seems like a rotten joke. 2009? Get serious. I don't trust Dodd at all.

The thing is, I don't think BushCons are going to let anything be enacted by Congress that will lessen their current fraudulent advantage. The Dems don't have the votes or the power to overcome them--and don't even seem to have focus on the problem. But even if they did, what can they do? The BushCons can't be shamed, and are immune to public opinion. (All they have to do is kiss the butt of the Bush Oil Cartel and they will be "elected" forever more--it's very evident among them. I've been watching C-Span speeches on Gonzales. The Pugs are Pod People--no independent thinking)

The most critical item on e-voting in my opinion is the secrecy of the source code (and who owns it)--especially in the central vote tabulators. Well, I guess a VVPB is equally important. Both are vital to transparency.

Really, though, I think this is a state by state battle, of necessity. (And I notice that Howard Dean agrees with me. See

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x314419

So that's my view. I support the Ensign bill but I have no illusions that it will be passed--or won't get totally gutted along the way. And the real battle is in the states. (I think it's more doable thing in the states, too--provided we deveop some highly focused grass roots groups to get it done.)

I see little harm in trying to get the best bill possible. Someone mentioned that the Dem leadership (if they can get Ensign passed) will them proclaim victory and go into their malfeasance mode again. But I don't think that's as much of a danger as it was four years ago with HAVA. WE're a lot smarter. And we will likely have Dean as DNC chair. (He seems pretty well informed and very smart).

[marions ghost]

4. Well I agree

that it's a state-by-state battle. But I dont want to give up in Congress without a fight. I think it's very important to continue to support Conyers--and it seems he does want input on his proposals.

I hope you're right that "we're a lot smarter than four years ago with HAVA..." That's certainly where my worry comes from--the way they used HAVA against the Democrats. I'm still so burned that they thwarted bills ensuring OUR basic voting rights to ensure THEIR gains. I'm just trying to simplify and make sense of this information. Before I can advocate locally and lobby nationally it seems we have to dissect this. That way we're in a better position to fight the "poison pills."
Trying to boil it down to a list of problems, for example:

Ensign bill doesnt address the source code.
Dodd bill keeps the touchscreens.
Dodd Bill has too long a timeframe (tho are we sure about that?)
Ensign bill is stopgap and may be thwarted despite R support. Conyers bill --is it a real alternative to Dodd?

etc. etc

My instinct is to send them "corrections" now while we still have time. Any point in that?

[Wilms]

6. Dodd is driving reform...off the road, taking Conyers with him.

I really appreciate Dodd's concern for for the Disabilities Communities. It's too bad he doesn't seek a solution within the framework of secure systems.

They're not mutually exclusive.

TeddyK, saying he was with Conyers office, joined us on the "letters" thread linked in the original posts. The discussion carried over to this thread:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x314989>

We asked if Paper Ballots could always be printed, in addition to the Voter's Choice of Verfication (a holy grail for them), using the Paper then, to audit the machine, if nothing else.

He thought it an "interesting" idea.

But I also realised, he was essentially defending Dodd's bill. It seems Conyer's compliance with Dodd hurts Conyers otherwise good bill in our view.

But you got Diebold, et. al. with their line-up of vote-hacker machines. They fund advocacy groups for the disabled. More suspicious, they complain about the difficulty of providing ballot printers when most companies would say, "Sure. Here's the invoice."

And election officials want it easy. We forget that accesibilities encompasses multi-lingual voting paraphenalia of all sorts, including the actual voting system.

LA does over 30 languages!!!

Plus there is a pile of legislation already entered, or (using a previous version as a basis) bills proposed;

Ensign
King
Conyers
Dodd
Holt

Lautenberg (No Harris/Blackwells)
??? (include DC)
Conyers (Naturalized President allowed)

Fienstein (Abolish Electoral College)
Fienstein/Clinton/Boxer

Let's make it a dozen. What am I missing?


Considering this, would it be an idea to tell them all what we want?

[marions ghost]

7. Action on this --yes

I think it would help if we could get together a definitive statement to put out to the sponsors of those bills.

Especially important in the case of the Conyers bill, which I think we want to support because it addresses all the election issues. But on the other hand the institution of DREs that are disabled-compliant for every voter is a BIG obstacle. Especially if we advocate the far cheaper option of non-DRE voting for most voters, with state-of-the-art machines for the disabled (still must have paper record). HAVA does NOT mandate electronic voting, remember.
There is still room to lobby for what we really want right now.

If we could get something together that would be a definitive statement of our position, and email and fax and phone this to their offices...it might at least make them think twice before going down a very controversial road with their bill.

[Chi]

20. Sorry to reply off topic...

I Just wanted to let you know (since I said I would) that I did get a response to the email I sent to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission
, here it is....
(In case you don't recall it was a request for the transcript, or link, to the 5/5/04 meeting.)

For: **** ******

Dear Mr. ******,

In order to better assist you concerning your request, please contact me at your convenience at 866/747-1471 (toll free) or directly at 202/566-3100.
_______________________________

Bryan Whitener
U.S. Election Assistance Commission

[Bill Bored]

15. Electoral College abolition is a red herring!

This was not the problem. The problem was the courts (esp. SCOTUS), the voter suppression, lack of enforcement of state laws and the un-auditable, unverifiable voting machines. The Electoral College thing is a diversion from the real issues, IMHO.

Now if you want a Constitutional Amendment to give everyone an explicit right to vote for the Electoral College Electors, that's OK. But is there REALLY any state in the union that doesn't already guarantee this right? I say start by ENFORCING CURRENT LAWS!

PS -- the EC gives states without a lot of warm bodies a voice. It's a variation on the idea of the House and Senate idea. No state with a small population will support getting rid of the EC. It's probably a waste of time. And there are plenty of these states. Big Red ones with only a few voters each, but they will be needed to pass any Constitutional amendment.

[garybeck]

8. and that's not all, there are now FIVE election bills

I'm working on a new page at Solar bus to help people get through it all and form opinions on which bill is best etc. It's not easy. So far I have to say from what I've seen, they all have something good to offer but they all fall short of protecting our elections from fraud.

gary

http://election.solarbus.org

[Amaryllis]

13. Gary, see my post # 12 on Holt bill.

[nashuaadvocate]

11. Weird timing...! The Advocate's just run an article on this issue!

You beat us by a few seconds, LOL!

See the thread here.

[marions ghost]

17. OK thanks for posting the other thread, nashuaadvocate

Your statement on the Advocate website is a good summary of the main points of the 2 bills...suggest that everyone read it.

The debate is ongoing around here about what to support. All this is discussion is helpful.

[Amaryllis]

12. Holt bill is by FAR the best. Only one that addresses essential e-voting

issues. This was just released from Verified Voting. This is an updated version of HB 2239, which Delay blocked from ever getting a hearing. I think we still need to back Ensign because it has the greatest chance of passing in time to prevent states from purchasing hundreds of thousands of DREs. THen go for Holt. My senator said IF we can get a MASSIVE grass roots effort, we can get election reform. And as much as I want hand counting, I have concluded that for now, we must support whatever gives us greater security with e-voting because we simply will not get hand counting in time to make any difference in the next election, if we can get it at all.


Regarding Holt bill, note in particular:
"Banning the use of undisclosed software and all wireless and concealed communications devices in voting systems, and prohibiting the connection of any voting machine component to the Internet"

AND:

At the request of voting experts and voting rights advocates, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005 also includes some new protections that:

6) Require manufacturers and election officials to document chain of custody with respect to the handling of software; prohibit the use of software or software modifications that have not been certified or re-certified; and prohibit political and financial conflicts of interest between and among manufactures, test laboratories, and political parties.

7) Establish procedures that must be followed in the event that there is a discrepancy between reported results and audit results, and preserve the rights of individuals and the Attorney General's authority to pursue legal resolution of the discrepancies.

Announcement from Verified Voting --
http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?list=type&type=13

"The "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005" was introduced on February 2, 2005, by Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey. This is an updated and expanded version of a similar bill (H.R. 2239) that Rep. Holt introduced in the previous session. We will post the text and number for this new bill as soon as it appears on the Library of Congress web site. VerifiedVoting.org supports this bill and encourages all members of the House to become cosponsors."


Key provisions of this bill include:

1) Strengthening HAVA's current audit trail requirement - "a permanent paper record" - by requiring that the voters, rather than the voting machines, verify the accuracy of what is printed on it. States are not permitted to pass laws that would render the voter verified paper records irrelevant

2) Requiring that all voting systems produce a voter-verified paper record for use in manual audits, commencing in 2006 in accordance with HAVA's original deadline. (Funding of $150 million is authorized to help states meet the cost of implementing this requirement.)

3) Preserving HAVA's existing access requirements for voters with disabilities; clarifying and enhancing the security requirements demanded of systems to be used by voters with disabilities; and adding the requirement that an accessible voter-verification mechanism be provided. That mechanism may use paper (such as a tactile ballot sleeve or an automark device), but is not required to.

Banning the use of undisclosed software and all wireless and concealed communications devices in voting systems, and prohibiting the connection of any voting machine component to the Internet.


5) Requiring random, unannounced, hand-count audits of the voter-verified paper records (conducted by the EAC) in 2% of all jurisdictions, including at least 1 precinct per county. Such funds as may be necessary are authorized to fund the expense of the audits. (The percentage of jurisdictions to be recounted has been increased from H.R. 2239's 0.5%).


At the request of voting experts and voting rights advocates, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005 also includes some new protections that:

6) Require manufacturers and election officials to document chain of custody with respect to the handling of software; prohibit the use of software or software modifications that have not been certified or re-certified; and prohibit political and financial conflicts of interest between and among manufactures, test laboratories, and political parties.

7) Establish procedures that must be followed in the event that there is a discrepancy between reported results and audit results, and preserve the rights of individuals and the Attorney General's authority to pursue legal resolution of the discrepancies.

From: Mulder, Michelle <mailto:[e-mail]>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 10:14 AM
Subject: Holt paper trail bill number: HR 550


Original cosponsors (there are more) --

Rep Abercrombie, Neil - 2/2/2005 Rep Allen, Thomas H. - 2/2/2005

Rep Baird, Brian - 2/2/2005 Rep Baldwin, Tammy - 2/2/2005
Rep Berman, Howard L. - 2/2/2005 Rep Capps, Lois - 2/2/2005
Rep Case, Ed - 2/2/2005 Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy - 2/2/2005
Rep Cole, Tom - 2/2/2005 Rep Conyers, John, Jr. - 2/2/2005
Rep Cooper, Jim - 2/2/2005 Rep Davis, Tom - 2/2/2005
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. - 2/2/2005 Rep Dicks, Norman D. - 2/2/2005
Rep Eshoo, Anna G. - 2/2/2005 Rep Farr, Sam - 2/2/2005
Rep Filner, Bob - 2/2/2005 Rep Hastings, Alcee L. - 2/2/2005
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. - 2/2/2005 Rep Jones, Stephanie Tubbs - 2/2/2005
Rep Kaptur, Marcy - 2/2/2005 Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. - 2/2/2005
Rep Kind, Ron - 2/2/2005 Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. - 2/2/2005
Rep Lantos, Tom - 2/2/2005 Rep Lee, Barbara - 2/2/2005
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. - 2/2/2005 Rep McDermott, Jim - 2/2/2005
Rep McGovern, James P. - 2/2/2005 Rep McKinney, Cynthia A. - 2/2/2005
Rep Mollohan, Alan B. - 2/2/2005 Rep Moore, Dennis - 2/2/2005
Rep Moran, James P. - 2/2/2005 Rep Nadler, Jerrold - 2/2/2005
Rep Oberstar, James L. - 2/2/2005 Rep Obey, David R. - 2/2/2005
Rep Pascrell, Bill, Jr. - 2/2/2005 Rep Payne, Donald M. - 2/2/2005
Rep Price, David E. - 2/2/2005 Rep Sabo, Martin Olav - 2/2/2005
Rep Sanchez, Loretta - 2/2/2005 Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. - 2/2/2005
Rep Schiff, Adam B. - 2/2/2005 Rep Scott, Robert C. - 2/2/2005
Rep Sherman, Brad - 2/2/2005 Rep Van Hollen, Chris - 2/2/2005
Rep Waxman, Henry A. - 2/2/2005 Rep Wexler, Robert - 2/2/2005
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. - 2/2/2005 Rep Wu, David - 2/2/2005

Michelle Mulder
Counsel
Congressman Rush Holt
50 Washington Road
West Windsor, New Jersey 08550
[phone] (tel.)
[phone] (fax)

[Trish1168]

29. I love that bill! (Holt's)

This is the first one I've seen that brings up the issue of being connected to the internet. I worry that even if you have optical scanned paper ballots, the tallies the machines produce could be changed. And if you suspect fraud, what recourse is there? As we've seen in many states, getting a recount isn't easy (and they'll make it harder). I also worry that the centralized location where the votes are added up could also be tampered with.

Each machine should be independent of all computers and internet links. It should simply spit out the numbers at the end of the night. When the numbers are collected off the machines, representatives from both parties and an independent observer should be present. These people have to be volunteers, and not appointees from the secratary of state.

Another idea for transparency is for every town to post its results, precinct by precint, on the internet. Then the towns should inform the county and/or state that the results are posted, and they can get the numbers off the net to do the final tallies. Then the state could post its results on the net. This is totally transparent. Everyone gets the results at the same time. Its not like what we have now, where the results are added up inside the machine, and then transmitted over wires where they can be easily manipulated at multiple points on the way. If the towns post their results on the net ... anyone who wants to do their homework can go onto the net and indepedently verify the tallies. After the numbers get posted, its hard to change them without getting caught.

Just a thought.

[Bill Bored]

14. Remain Calm

This is why they all go to the SAME committees -- House Admin and Senate Rules.

It would be nice to be able to support ONE bill that has everything we want, but it probably doesn't exist.

And don't forget Holt's new bill HR550!

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x320090>

I think we each need to prioritize our issues, see how the bills stack up, and write to the authors and committee heads to get them to listen to our concerns.

Some folks aren't the least bit concerned about e-voting. To others, it's the most important issue. Others will want easier registration, access for the disabled, etc. Republicans (and Democrats too!) want to reduce voter fraud (voting by the deceased and that sort of thing). But not all these issues carry the same weight with every voter.

The best thing is to tell them how you feel! But no one should tell them that issues other their personal favorites aren't real problems!

[Amaryllis]

16. Bill, did you see my post right above yours with the changes in the

Holt bill (which you didn't know about in your thread to which you linked)-they are great! Deal with the proprietary software issue, financial and political conflicts of interest, and wireless and internet connections of equipment.

And you are right; these bills are not mutually exclusive.

[Bill Bored]

19. Yup. I just haven't read HR550 yet, but it sounds pretty good.

Holt was the firs to propose a fix to this problem. He's had a long time to think about it! If the language is really good, maybe we can simply ask Conyers, Dodd, et al to support or incorporate it. I also noticed the random auditing is in there, increased from .5% to 2% in this version I think.

It's nice that the forum has slowed down a little. It was much harder to keep up with all the threads in Nov/Dec, or to even keep them kicked where anyone could find them.

[Bill Bored]

21. kick nt

[AtLiberty]

22. I think it's okay to confused for a little while...

At the moment, the specifics of the bills are secondary to educating the public on what really happened in the 2004 election and to build outrage and support for meaningful election reform. Change is in the air.

I'm hoping that the best ideas from these bills will merge into one.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed by huge margins. We should apply the same methods here.

[Cocoa]

24. I agree with you

there's really nothing that makes these bills incompatible.

I like the Dodd/Conyers bill much better, it covers more of what I consider to be the serious voting problems, and it has the advantage that is in the current Congress. The Ensign bill has not been reintroduced and I haven't heard that it will be.

[keepthemhonest]

25. I am with you,marion's ghost

I am very confused about which one to go with and not sure if the one I want even exists yet. It is good to see that so many legistature's are working on it and recognise that voting reform is a problem.

[Bill Bored]

27. Conyers has shown a willingness to LISTEN!

This is very important. Also, Conyers has already co-sponsored Holt's latest bill. So we need to look very seriously at both of these!

Text and info for Holt's available here:

<http://www.holt.house.gov/pdf/HR%20550%20VCIA.pdf> -- bill text
<http://www.holt.house.gov/display2.cfm?id=6282&type=Home> -- additional info

Do not dis the Ensign bill. It's fine as far as it goes. Only reason not to support it is the disabled voter issue, which can be resolved by various methods. Paper can be used by the disabled and the Automark, which is just an assist device and can even be Multimedia, as mandated in Conyers/Dodd. The biggest threat to verifying the vote is the DREs (not touch screens per se as used in the Automark) without voter-verified paper. I think we are getting very close to banning them in effect, in almost all of this legislation.

Tabulators and auditing standards still need work though!

Right now, there are a number of DU threads on this. We need to keep them kicked, or merge them somehow and try to avoid making too many new ones, unless they get to long and unwieldy. IMHO, of course!

I think among us, we are starting to agree on a lot of things. Let's try to stay positive and not eat our own!

[garybeck]

28. I'm looking for help in putting together a web page on all the bills

This page will consist of a paragraph or two describing each bill, and quotations and commentary copied/pasted from various experts on each one, and comparisons.

I could use a person or two to help me on this. Any volunteers please email me at gary(at)solarbus.org

thanks

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