EAC Submission on behalf of CEPN

[Einsteinia]

The CALIFORNIA ELECTION PROTECTION NETWORK, a non-partisan organization of over 25 groups coming together to achieve their mutual election integrity goals has voted to:

1) Affirm the audit protocol standards set forth in Pennsylvania’s HB 2000.
(See: http://tinyurl.com/8uazc )

2) Further, in honor of all those who have given their lives in the name of democracy, we respectfully request that Section 6.8 be amended to require the following:

Gold Standard Audit Protocol
All state elections shall have (at the State’s expense):

• PAPER BALLOTS: Accessible, voter-verifiable, paper ballots, meeting at least the following minimum specifications: paper ballots printed with 14 pt. type using individual 8.5 x 11 20 lb. archival paper stock (which shall be kept for at least 5 years as proof of the election result).

• HAND COUNTS: A manual audit which relies on human eyes.

• STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT SAMPLING: Select a minimum of 5% of all precincts (and precincts cannot exceed 1000 voters). Within these selected precincts, audit 100% of the paper ballots; or in their absence, the paper trails.

• GENUINELY RANDOM: Genuinely random selected samples (not at the discretion of election officials).

• PUBLIC OVERSIGHT: Each political participating political party may form delegations to witness every step of the election process. Results of each tally posted publicly on a public-accessible posting at the precinct site, as well as on a public-accessible portion of the Secretary of State’s web site in a comma-delimited format (e.g. a format that may easily be extracted into a word processing or spreadsheet software), BEFORE the data is transferred from the precinct (e.g. to the county’s central tabulator).

• RECOURSE: Any discrepancies between the machine tally and the audit Gold Standard audit protocol shall require the State to repeat this Gold Standard Audit protocol; however, each time the sample size shall increase by 10%. The final result of this audit process supersedes the finding of the initial tally and is binding.

• EQUIPMENT: All voting system equipment must be guaranteed by manufacturer for 30 years, and a full disclosure of ALL equipment used in our voting systems must be posted on the Secretary of State’s web site in an easy-to-access publicly announced location, along with the equipment’ true total cost (including maintenance contracts, supplies). In addition this same web site location will disclose the equipment certification(s) of system integrity, person(s) who sign off on the purchase agreement, purchase agreement and cost of the equipment. Failure of election officials to keep this information current shall be grounds for their dismissal.

[Einsteinia]

1. Hey, flames, complaints or brainstorms?

Oh, okay. . . .

[autorank]

2. This is a great idea. In Oregon, voting rights/electing integrity

folks worked out a three tiered audit protocol that can be done quickly and cheaply and provides en ought statistical integrity to satisfy everyone out there. The largest county in the state and the state elections officials are very receptive and collaborated with the group on this. What a concept!

The only people who oppose comprehensive measures like this are motivated by something other than a concern for free and fair elections.