HR550 Opposed by Bev Harris and Bots

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Bev Harris has found a new way to try to divide the voting integrity movement!

4-8-06: Why the Rush Holt bill (H.B. 550) is dangerous
There is a major push right now to pass H.B. 550, a bill put forth by Rep. Rush Holt to mandate a paper trail (along with a flimsy audit that no accountant would agree is adequate).

Election reform groups are split on whether they support H.B. 550. Black Box Voting normally does not weigh in on legislation, this time we will. Citizens need to be informed of the dangers as well as the benefits when being urged to support legislation.

Like an antibiotic that's too weak, we belive that H.B. 550 will create a more resistant strain of election infection.

Like a placebo, people may think the election system is getting well when in fact, the medicine is only a sugar pill that makes everyone think it's better. For a minute.

Paul Lehto, an attorney who is a leader in the election reform... More

***Do you guys know who landshark is?

[Canuckistanian]

1. Link?

And yes, I know who he is.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. link - I refuse to link to Bev Harris website, let other suckers do it

that is the link.

She has never done a d%$#* thing for my state,
all she has ever done is take credit for someone else's work and
ask for donations.

Maybe she is afraid that passing HR 550 would mean she would be
out of a job of bilking suckers for donations.

[Canuckistanian]

6. OK, OK, I understand

You should have just explained that no link was forthcoming. We "old-timers" will know what you mean.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. sorry, here is why I am mad

Some of our very own Vote Trust people have been working against the other vote trust members while VTUSA had about 200 people in DC lobbying for HR 550.

They did great, got 9 more co sponsors, including 3 republicans.

now it is clear that Bev Harris needs this as a method to divide up the voting
integrity community.

Otherwise, if she wanted to oppose HR 550, why didn't she do it years ago?

And I have no respect for her whatsoever.

She has never done anything in my state except fleece people out of
donations.

[FogerRox]

122. I would respectfully ask you to use the search engine @ DU

This Pros & Cons were discussed here at LEAST a year ago. Many of us @ DU thought the Holt bill leaves much to be desired.

Holt is the one who could have re-written his bill, a long time ago. I Live in NJ and had a talk with his office council, and gave her an ear full, July 2005. At a Voting machine DEMO in Newark NJ.

[saracat]

3. Why do people still post about Bev Harris after all the bad things

she has done? And why would anyone post anything about her on DU after all the trouble she has caused? Are people still being snookered by this phoney?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. Today Bev launched attack on HR 550

That's why.

And there are a bunch of Bev Bots here in DU, especially Land Shark.

[ChiciB1]

9. More Definitive Information Please... Give GOOD Reasons

why we should even "think" Bev Harris AGAIN??

I live in Florida and initially DONATED right after the election, since then for some strange reason I have from time to time received emails from her. Here in Cruella country, we still have seen NOTHING!

What's the "real deal" if anyone knows??
Thanks

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

12. Bev Bots in DU, and folks new to activism

The issue is that Bev Harris has launched an attack against HR 550,
and Land Shark is assisting her.

If you go to her website, you will see that she is referring to him.

So, how do you feel about having a Bev Bot advising folks in DU on
election reform?

Bev lambasts HR 550 as if it were of the same ilk as HAVA.

HAVA was written by and for the voting machine companies and congressmen
receiving donations from them.

HR 550 was written by Congressman Rush Holt, a physicist whose
only interest is in protecting the vote.

Verified Voting endorses it, led by Computer expert David Dill, who has
no financial interest.

So, please DU'ers, be forwarned, Bev Bots abound here in DU.

And the new people who get her newsletter don't know about her background.

[ChiciB1]

16. Well, I Forgoy Her A Long Time Ago.. & Haven't Checked Out

the thread or Landshark. I was just commenting on what I had done in the past, but have not gone back to support her in any way.

As far as I know, or shall I say as far as what I've heard over the years... I remain dubious About Bev!

[Land Shark]

37. Hi ChiciB1

You can check out my journal if you want. I post a bunch on DU.

In January 2005 I co-authored a scientific paper that established substantial evidence of election irregularities. www.votersunite.org/info/lehtolawsuit.asp (see exhibits to complaint at bottom)

I also sued (see the above link) in a suit that some others have learned from.

DREs were eliminated from my county of Snohomish, January 4, 2006

In the suit we are presently headed for the Washington Supreme Court.

I speak and attend election conferences from time to time including one right now in washington dc.

There's an audio CD out now with me and Thom Hartmann speaking in Portland of you prefer to listen rather than read.

If you like to read, my journal has quite a bit. I might suggest the Election Fraud Tip: Doomsday Devices for Democracy, which got 82 recommends a week ago today.

I've worked with votetrustusa (on their listserv, at their conference right now and in an article or two on their website) voteraction litigation where i pitch in if I can, and I've had three public appearances or speaking engagements with Bev harris, but we've not formally worked on any projects together.

I wrote a memorial for Andy Stephenson you can find on washblog.com , i understand there is bad blood with friends there on each side. andy's last job was at my law firm, it only lasted two days and he was too ill to continue. I'm just trying to work with everyone on election stuff.

I did not expressly authorize Bev to use any quotes from me, but under fair use principles she doesn't need any permission to quote me.

It is true that I don't know of any statisticians that think Holt will work in its audit provisions, which will tend to not discover fraud.

Today, Cong Holt apparently posted a response to someone else containing some information, but it does not address the issue of the problems with the audits, but it does advert to the army of well-intentioned people that support it. So, the questions remain unanswered. I"m hopeful that a statistician will come forward to defend Holt, but at this point i've spoken or emailed with 5 and all believe that it is problematic in its audit provisions.

The concern, which I think has as much good faith behind it as any one else, is that the audits will tend to make DREs look like they are working just fine 9(within the margin of error) even if there are problems in the voting. I maintain that false confidence will tend to keep the regime of DREs around forever, which would be bad indeed.

[ChiciB1]

108. Thanks For Your Reply... Sorry I Didn't Get Back Sooner, But

I had unexpected guests come in. They just left!

I'll check out the information and see how I feel. Living down here and believe me this county is pretty RED, I've almost forgotten the words "hope" or "election reform!"

I have seen some shift in attitude around here, but I doubt this county will EVER "turn" having lived here for more years than I like to remember! While I haven't done the research, I don't think I've ever seen the Commissioners in the city of Sarasota be anything but Repukes!

It might have happened, but it's sparse!

Thanks again.

[Votergater]

21. The infamous Harri Hursti Diebold hack occured in Florida

exposing the hitherto unknown fact that Diebold's dangerous memory cards can be used to change America's votes undetectably.

I'm confused - surely Bev Harris's work with Ion Sancho plus Black Box Voting's commissioning of Mr. Hursti's original research has been huge news and had major effects nationally, particularly in MD, PA, CA & FL. How can this be "nothing"?

[BeFree]

23. Good point, Votergater

Bev has had some success, ya can't deny her that. And there are many others who have had success, so lets congratulate ourselves and quit the bickering, eh?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

190. Just ask Stephen Heller how she helped him

Bev helped him. Where is he now, facing 3 felony charges.

Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting, told investigators that Heller met her in a Ventura County park in early 2004 and gave her the documents. She turned them over to the secretary of state and the Oakland Tribune.

Why in God's name did she reveal the source of the documents?

"I await the people who have lectured me about how Bev "has done so much for this movement" to explain to me how allowing a confidential source to be charged with three felonies will encourage other people to trust her or the movement."
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Kelvin%20Mace/1


Voting machine whistle-blower faces theft charges
Contra Costa Times, CA - Mar 22, 2006
LOS ANGELES - A whistle-blower to some people, a thief to others, Stephen Heller says he's a regular guy, not an activist or a member of any political group. ...

Whistle-Blower or Thief in Diebold Case?
Los Angeles Times, CA - Mar 18, 2006
Stephen Heller's alleged theft of papers about the firm's electronic voting machines spurs praise and scorn as he faces felony charges. ...

http://www.hellerlegaldefensefund.com/

[Boredtodeath]

30. So, which "Votergater" are you?

Russell or Simon?

Here to try and sell your movie, I take it?

[Votergater]

31. I haven't sold anything

just put a free film on a free website, and was unpaid. And I just thought this might be an interesting place to discuss this crucial issue with good people. I'm Russ by the way.

[Boredtodeath]

41. That's good.

Seeing as how your star has a serious credibility problem.

[Votergater]

49. Yup, Diebold has a very serious credibility problem.

[Boredtodeath]

65. As does Bev n/t

.

[Kelvin Mace]

115. Huh?

hitherto unknown fact that Diebold's dangerous memory cards can be used to change America's votes undetectably.

Unknown? Hardly. This was known as far back as Spring 2003 and was proven by programmers here at DU. Hursti demostrated it publicly thanks to Ion Sancho.

I keep hearing Bev had something to do with it, but have yet to see definitive proof she did.

[Votergater]

150. Harri's memory card Hack had been a theory

which no one had actually tested in reality on an actual Diebold election system... that is until Harri himself performed the hack.

Even the Berkeley University scientists haven't been allowed to test the actual equipment, they only analysed a few thousand lines of the code.

You are correct that the Hursti Hack was performed thanks to Ion Sancho, who co-organised the test with Bev Harris. This is very easy to check out - just phone Ion himself. I did.

[FogerRox]

124. Ahhm . . . . slight error

Votergater said:

. . . exposing the hitherto unknown fact that Diebold's dangerous memory cards can be used to change America's votes undetectably

Nope, Rebecca Mercuri has been stating this for approaching 5 years. And actually the reason Hursti used the Portable media hack, was that, in certain circles it was assumed to be the surest hack.

[Votergater]

151. How is "stating" a hack the same as proving it on an actual system?

[FogerRox]

157. changing your tune now-- Ok,

Quote #1

exposing the hitherto unknown fact that Diebold's dangerous memory cards can be used to change America's votes undetectably

Quote 2

How is "stating" a hack the same as proving it on an actual system?

OK -- lets see -- these 2 quotes are somewhat different.
#1 says "hitherto unknown fact"

#2 says "proving it on an actual system"

You got called on an error, and you have responded. And you will be judged by that response. It maybe that your response is indicative of your character.

Hey Autorank, the NJ Nets lost to Cleveland, breaking the nets win streak. Did you watch the game?

[Votergater]

169. If Harri Hursti's hack was proven before

then I'll happily stand corrected.

[Steve A Play]

175. Hi Russ, good to see you posting here!

Be careful in how you word your posts here. For example, you posted "If Harri Hursti's hack was proven before, then I'll happily stand corrected." What you need to post here is something more like, "If Harri Hursti's hack was proven before on a real election system under the actual election security conditions, then I'll happily stand corrected." :)

There are some here who like to play semantics. Most of us have been around long enough to understand what you mean but some will twist anything you say any way they can just for the fun of it.

[Votergater]

183. Hi Steve, thanks for the kind advice. . .

Though it seems to me that if anyone has to twist my words to make their point it can't be much of a point anyway.

There's a potentially interesting discussion regarding when a hack such as Hursti's is a concept and when it is proven. When I interviewed one of the authors of the RABA Report he told me that a security problem with Maryland's Diebold Accuvote machines had a theoretical cure in the form of a software patch. But when that patch was actually incorporated into a real machine the patch broke the machine's functions and it didn't work. So perhaps the only real proof of the Hursti Hack could be "on a real election system under actual election security conditions", as you precisely defined it. And that is how Harri proved it.

[Kelvin Mace]

114. I don't believe she is endorsing Bev

just documenting her latest betrayal, like burning Heller to put money in her pocket.

[FogerRox]

123. WillYourVoteBCounted:

SO now you are going after Jeff? Broad Brush you use to do your painting.

[Kelvin Mace]

113. Because she continues to do bad things and people need to be warned

[nofurylike]

4. regardless WHO says it, it IS "a sugar pill that makes everyone think it's

better."

look how everyone - in understandable panic, as i am too! - places hope in the holt bill.

when

NOTHING but PAPER BALLOTS, HAND-COUNTED will matter at all.


no need reply. just posting on the run.


peace and solidarity

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. No what you really mean is

what you really mean is - 23 states with all paperless voting.

I bet you don't have hand counted paper ballots in your own home town,
but you would begrudge 23 states from having any hopes of ever auditing
an election or recounting them.

If you had your way, we would all be paperless, because we
would walk around like robots mumbling
"hand counted paper ballots or nothing"

And these same folks have accomplished nothing whatsoever.

NOTHING.

Just divisive and ineffective.

[nofurylike]

11. wrong. but treated like this, like dirt any time we try.

i worked far longer and far harder than most of you ever will on this. i know my facts and science on this, yet always treated like I AM THE PROBLEM.

oh yes, do go be pacified.


no more reply.
bye.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

13. what have you accomplished?

anything?

[nofurylike]

19. a lot. there are now MANY more who get it, only to be so blithely

dismissed on this forum, anyway. every time we try.

there were almost none who got it, at first.

now enough get it that if some others were not willing to be coopted by holt, we might even have stood a chance of getting it all really fixed.

now, i am going.

wish you and/or others here had asked sincerely, a long time ago. versus just to make points or put down. we were correct. and it's too late now.

bye.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

20. they get it but they don't accomplish anything

That is what "they get".

Just listen to the lawyer, not the computer scientists.

Just listen to the folks who ask for a donation in each newsletter, not
the other folks.

Like I said, what have you accomplished?

But fly away, since you can't refer to any accomplishments.

[Land Shark]

45. We're looking for a statistician to defend the HR 550 audits, not a

computer scientist and not a lawyer either. Do you have one or know of one who can defend the bill?

[Boredtodeath]

46. Define "we," please?

Who's we?

[nofurylike]

66. do self-criticism why you undermine efforts at paper ballots,

counted by hand, as THE ballot of record - versus a small percent as an audit sample.

wonder about why so many here have vehemently - even viciously! - obstructed those vital efforts.

look back at how we have been slammed here, for daring to express what, in fact, needs to happen.

that is why i will not engage again with you. because it is not fair to me to do so. it is self-abuse to try any more here. i will simply continue to repeat the reality on some of these threads, because it ought to be said.

what have we accomplished? nothing, if you can help it. settle for placation, and you succeed.

i have earnestly grieved for those here who do sincerely care, and work so hard, that someday you will realize what you stood against in settling for this - and in your vilifying us who fight on for paper ballots, counted by hand.

you look up thread at your tone. and yours is quite reasonable, compared to so many others'.

your self-criticism is not my responsibility.
i have to do enough of my own, which is some of why i have allowed myself to be reeducated on this issue.


peace

[nofurylike]

69. btw, not to confuse: i do not, in any way, support ms harris. i am more

furious at her than i can express.

just to be clear on that.


peace

[Wilms]

10. Do I have this right?

Land Shark opposes HR 550.

bbv writes an article agreeing with Land Shark's position.

That makes Land Shark a BevBot.

Further, you paste a bbv article.

But you don't provide a link to it.

And doing it that way makes some sort of a statement that...well, I'm a bit lost.


Thanks, though. I now clearly see that college 101 logic was an utter waste of my time.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

17. I apologize, perhaps LandShark is not a Bev Bot

perhaps Bev Harris used his comments without his permission.

[FogerRox]

126. Actually fair use allows for Bev to use what LS wrote.

Any way, LS has always shared.

[Steve A Play]

165. Perhaps Bev Harris is a "SharkBot"!

Perhaps you used her comments without her permission.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I forgot about those pesky Fair Use guidelines!

See, two can play that game! :rofl:

[Steve A Play]

25. Here's the complete article, in it's original context, with a link to it

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/23277.html#POST19592

There is a major push right now to pass H.B. 550, a bill put forth by Rep. Rush Holt to mandate a paper trail (along with a flimsy audit that no accountant would agree is adequate).

Election reform groups are split on whether they support H.B. 550. Black Box Voting normally does not weigh in on legislation, this time we will. Citizens need to be informed of the dangers as well as the benefits when being urged to support legislation.

Like an antibiotic that's too weak, we believe that H.B. 550 will create a more resistant strain of election infection.

Like a placebo, people may think the election system is getting well when in fact, the medicine is only a sugar pill that makes everyone think it's better. For a minute.

Paul Lehto, an attorney who is a leader in the election reform movement and the plaintiff in a groundbreaking lawsuit related to electronic voting, has a unique clarity in public policy issues. Lehto says:

" paper record requirement, combined with a worse than anemic audit feature, is so darn dangerous in terms of its ability to create false confidence...

"Putting into the Holt bill a provision specifying the method of EAC audit (2% or more precinct sampling) simply telegraphs to cheaters how to cheat and not get caught..."

Any major political movement has the inside game and the outside game

The inside game involves writing letters, lobbying, cozying up to legislators, and in the case of a privatization issue like voting machines, meeting with vendors and working with regulatory groups.

The outside game involves investigative work, communications on subjects even when they are considered impolite, exposés, agitation, occasional civil disobedience, and an overwhelming push to give citizens power over those who govern them.

The inside game resists the outside game

Those who play the inside game tend to believe that the outside game is undisciplined, a bunch of mavericks, endangers the goal. The inside game is polite, conciliatory, respects authority and likes to tell others what to do.

"Support H.B. 550 it's good push this button send this email now."

Those who question and probe are painted as irresponsible.

There is no doubt that Black Box Voting usually plays the outside game. We know we'll be attacked from within the movement -- from the establishment-oriented inside game - for taking the position that H.B. 550 is will do more damage than good.

But here it is: Black Box Voting believes that H.B. 550 is unwise. It will not be effective to improve citizen oversight or election integrity. It is dangerous, because the weakness of the antibiotic will create a more resistant strain of election manipulation.

The likelihood is that, if H.B. 550 is passed, it will simply "prove" that electronic voting works "fine."

It was a "fine" election...

As another blogger noted, notice the frequency with which elected officials are now using that word. I suppose it's an improvement over a couple years ago, when they called us "terrorists", but I still scratch my head when I hear the new talking point: "We had a fine election." Not "we had an accurate election." Not "we had a fair election." We had a fine election. What do they mean by that?

Well, rest assured that electronic voting will look just "fine" under the Holt bill because, as Paul Lehto notes, the way the audits are set up they won't catch anything to make the election look "not fine." To solve the inadequate auditing provisions in the Holt bill will require drafting a whole new bill.

So if H.B. 550 is passed, everyone will pat themselves on the back and go home and not a damn thing will actually change, except that more taxpayer money will be expended for retrofitted machines.

The inside game people want the current kinds of technology to work

And -- note the players involved -- many of them will have no role in this if they don't make the current kinds of technology work. Note the recent Wyle Labs transcript, where Systest Labs refers to the meeting in Nov. 2005 -- you know, the one where all the industry perps showed up but the public, and even the chair of the California Senate Elections Committee were excluded. Systest reports that the academics seem to be heading toward creating an IV&V effort, another layer of testing and certifying.

More taxpayer money, more scientists, more paychecks, more layers of complexity, more people to point the finger at when elections turn out to be secret unsubstantiated messes.

The inside game has tolerance for a much longer timeline

You don't need to hurry if you don't think any crimes will be committed.

The inside game is addressing what they perceive to be the problem by adding a "vvpat" and quibbling over just how to do a 2 percent audit, or layering test labs into the process, or ponderously altering standards in response to critical security failures, while grandfathering old systems in for years.

No major reform movement will survive without the outside game

The civil rights movement would not have gotten very far without the outside game. Rosa Parks was outside game. The Selma-to-Montgomery March was outside game. The civil rights workers -- some of whom were killed -- were outside game.

The anti-Viet Nam movement would have failed without the outside game. Viet Nam Vets Against the War were outside game. Burning draft cards was outside game.

The outside game knows it needs the inside game, because when the message is sufficiently focused and the goals are sufficiently clear and the people themselves are beginning to drive the train, it gets pitched to the inside game and changes are made to legislation.

But it isn't just legislation that is pushed down the tracks by the outside game. Media tends to gravitate towards coverage of the outside game. The message of the outside game sticks in the public's consciousness better then legislative bill numbers. After the outside game succeeds in pushing the message into the mainstream, embedding it in the public psyche, change becomes more durable.

The inside game doesn't necessarily think the outside game is necessary. Because the outside game pushes the envelope, opening up new frontiers, it pushes concepts into the mainstream that are -- by definition -- not really accepted yet. When you depend on the establishment to do your bidding, you have to distance yourself from the outside game. The smartest of the inside game folks recognize how the ecosystem works, though, and often provide discreet support and/or intelligence to the outside game.

Less savvy inside gamers allow themselves to be persuaded that the outside game is dangerous, puts the agenda at risk, endangers the country. This is helped along by disruptors (posing as part of the movement) who are actually working for the opposition. In the civil rights movement, and in the anti-Viet Nam War movement, there were paid infiltrators who posed as activists, but those individuals persuaded many real activists over to a more controlled, less "dangerous" point of view. They also helped pit them against the outside game.

It's all part of the play book.

You don't catch criminals by passing a rule against it.

The outside game defines the problem a bit differently. Let me give you an analogy to show just how ridiculous the current inside game is to those of us who start with the premise that there just might -- possibly -- be a criminal enterprise at work in certain election situations.

Let's say it's small, localized, and simply mercenary. For $40,000 a guy with inside access will make sure a developer-friendly commissioner gets in. To get the guy in, he arranges to exploit a known hole in voting machine security.

Now, the Rush Holt bill will have you wait a couple years before it even gets to the rules committee, where the lobbyists step in and gut the bill. So that won't do a thing to protect 2006, because it wont be in effect by then, and it probably won't protect 2008 because even if it makes it to the rules committee, it will be quietly tweaked behind closed doors.

So the guy pockets his $40,000 and the commissioner gets into office. It will almost certainly never be discovered, because there are no audit provisions anywhere for electronic voting machines likely to catch this stuff, but let's say it does get caught.

If you're playing the inside game, you take this example of the $40,000 cheat and spend nine months discussing it into new standards, then a couple years to grandfather the old voting systems, and finally, around 2009, you address what the guy did for $40,000 back in 2006.

By this time, another guy is selling elections using a different back door. He builds a better hack, having learned from the NIST discussion what they ARE looking at. All he has to do is go where they are not looking.

If you're worried about national politics, listen up:

In a time-critical situation, the inside game runs out the clock.

Let's not call this dirty tricks or Rovian spin or pretend it is just the way hardball politics work. If we can't substantiate the data in our elections systems (both voter registration and votes) these weaknesses will attract people who want to manipulate elections. Subverting election-related data is a criminal act. If it involves more than one person, it is a criminal enterprise.

If criminal enterprises want to manipulate a national election by attacking the data, that criminal entity will be thrilled to see activists derailed into sincere actions that actually just run out the clock.

Efforts to steer everyone to the inside game is a bit insidious. Think for yourself.

The idea that you can solve election fraud by making standards, putting machines into testing labs, and doing poorly defined, weak, and statutorily limited audits came about because the inside game thought it was impolite to define the problem accurately.

It's not about a paper trail -- It's about banning SECRECY

If we want a trustworthy system, we need to be unafraid to entertain the idea that if you make any facet of elections secret (other than who a person votes for), it will attract criminals. Such a temptation may take place inside a voter registration database or voting machine vendor's operation. In the case of a rogue programmer, management need not even know (if the programmer is positioned correctly). It may exist inside an elections office, or with a pollworker, or through a political operative.

You won't stop it by passing a rule against it. We need to be lobbying to end secrecy and re-enable citizen oversight. Lobbying for anything else may give us "fine" elections but we'll never really know whether our vote was counted as we cast it.

Save your lobbying for something that eliminates secrecy. And if only a computer scientist can understand it or only an elections official can monitor it, it's still secret. H.B. 550 doesn't do much of anything to get at the core problem, which is secrecy.

PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR EXCERPT GRANTED. MUST LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org.

I happen to fully agree with Paul 'Land Shark' Lehto after having read the full legislation and discussing it at length with several other attorneys and numerous voting rights activists. Looks good on paper but way too weak to be meaningful.

It is said that on the Internet no one knows if you are a man or a dog.

At least I know who Paul Lehto is. :)

[Wilms]

39. I thought this was about HR550.

What's all this inside/outside BS in the bbv article? It seems totally off topic...at best.

But I guess bbv takes issue with VoteTrustUSA and is using this discussion, and Paul's position to make that agenda clear.

I've no respect for that.

Thanks for the link, though, Steve. And other more helpful things you've posted.

[Fredda Weinberg]

14. Here's a source I trust

VerifiedVoting.org strongly endorses:

H.R.550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?list=type&type=13

[Bill Bored]

26. Oh, and will you be telling us next how Diebold plans to comply

with HR 550?

Disclosure of source code? Random hand audits?
The voting system shall not preserve the voter-verifiable paper records in any manner that makes it possible to associate a voter with the record of the voter's vote?

This really puts you between a rock and hard place doesn't it?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

28. Ion Sancho supports HR 550

I am fine with Diebold getting out of the election business.
DESI is in trouble and up for sale anyhow.


Ion Sancho Issues Statement Supporting HR 550

By Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections, Leon County Florida
April 08, 2006

The HR 550 Lobby Days brought to DC not only passionate citizens interested in e-voting reform but also election officials who have been forced into technology battles that they never wanted to fight. Participating in the Lobby Days events today is Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections of Leon County Florida. Sancho, as those who follow e-voting issues may recall, organized a series of tests of Diebold's touchscreen voting technology that (once again) exposed a series of serious vulnerabilities.

Sancho issued the follow statement in conjunction with a press conference that took place this morning:

"The independent authority of election officials to provide honest and impartial elections conducted in a fair and efficient manner is under attack today. Partisan politicians in conjunction with some voting machine vendors are taking away the right of American citizens to cast their votes and have them verified as accurate. Congressman Holt's bill is how we must begin to protect our votes and end the erosion of public trust in our elections."

http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1167&Itemid=26

[Fredda Weinberg]

32. Diebold doesn't just do election systems

I wish I didn't have to deal with 'em anywhere

[Bill Bored]

48. My Diebold remarks were not directed at you.

But those are the sections of the bill that will probably be targeted in committee by their shills, and also probably the prohibition on wireless.

[Fredda Weinberg]

33. Hilarious

But all you've done with the unsubstantiated attacks against one company is made it easier for the rest - admit it, you got snookered.

The real issue is that DREs are a bad idea for election systems - and if we don't support reasonable responses, we deserve to be ignored.

I've come to trust Verified Voting's analysis, but then again, I do my own research and think for myself.

You keep coming up with canned responses - enjoy.

[Land Shark]

34. the very debate is about what is reasonable and what will

constitute progress. We can't assume away the very point being debated.

All statisticians that I know of have problems with the Holt audits. It doesn't appear that the audits should be vetted with "computer scientists". Are there any statisticians that can join the conversation and defend HR 550?

[Fredda Weinberg]

36. Link please?

Or at least, a specific objection?

I studied statistics and see nothing wrong with this

HR550 mandates random audits in at least 2% of the precincts in each State, including at least one per county. The EAC may not pick and choose where it will conduct audits, nor of how great or small a portion of the state. What's more, the States may not select where those audits can be, and will not know where they will take place until after the initial vote tallies are done and reported. The bill insists that all precincts in a State "have an equal chance of being selected."

http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6348

[Land Shark]

42. One of the big problems is the nonrandom nature of the audit.

This is a problem
least 2% of the precincts in each State, including ***at least one per county. ***

Makes it nonrandom sampling. As a person with training in statistics, do you think this is random or nonrandom given that there are some very small counties that would would get randomly selected only once every several years?

[Bill Bored]

53. Suppose if the 2% misses some counties...

...they randomly pick more precincts until at least one in each county has been selected? That way, you have >2%, at least one in each county, and the randomness is preserved. I know this isn't spelled out in the bill this way, but would it solve the non-randomness problem for you?

[Fredda Weinberg]

55. You're confused

As they put it at VerifiedVoting.com

The bill insists that all precincts in a State "have an equal chance of being selected."

That makes the selection as random as it can get, with the additional security of knowing that every county will be examined. Since elections officials are generally county-based, this would be our best protection against official misconduct.

I don't see any reasonable objection to this.

[Bill Bored]

60. Why don't you read the ACTUAL BILL? nt

[OnTheOtherHand]

101. the way I read it, unfortunately, it actually doesn't

The provision of at least one precinct per county appears to trump the requirement that each precinct has an equal probability of selection.

That threatens to make the one-precinct-per-county floor also a ceiling, which distinctly compromises the audit, in my reading.

This isn't an unsolvable problem, but I think the legislative wording ought to be cleaned up. (As to all the other arguments for and agin HR 550, I'm not going there right now.)

[Febble]

103. To clarify what I said downthread:

if every precinct is to have an equal chance of selection AND there is to be at least one precinct from every state, 2% would have to be a minimum percentage only.

You could still insist on the minimum of one per county and it would still be acceptably (IMO) random - it would, in effect, be stratified sampling. What you would have to do is to take the smallest county, determine the percentage of precincts that one precinct would be (i.e 10% if there were ten precincts) then randomly sample 10% from every county.

Your de facto minimum percentage would be determined by the number of precincts in the smallest county.

Alternatively, you could sample 2% from every county with a minimum of 1 precinct. But that way, precincts in smaller counties would have a greater chance of selection.

What would be bad would be for 1 precinct to be randomly selected from every county, and, if that was 2% or more of the total, select no more. Because that would mean that in populous counties, precincts would have way below 2% probability of selection, whereas in small counties it might be quite high. And as you point out, populous counties might be the most likely to be corrupted.

I think the things to focus on are not the absolute randomness but the unpredictability and the equal chance of selection aspects. As long as the choice is unpredictable, and the chances are equal, the fact that it won't be a random sample of a state's precincts won't matter. It will be a stratified sample, weighted to give each precinct an equal probability of selection.

That's probably as clear as mud, but BB has stung me into at least producing a response....

PS: I suppose one way round it would be to group smaller counties with similar voting systems. But that sounds like a legislator's nightmare.

[Land Shark]

136. complicating things significantly to greatly, the groupings will be

set by the contractnig process for the jurisdictions. they may find it more "efficient" to do the whole state at a time, or break it down by machine. I have my doubts they will add the suitable additional rquirements to make it work.

There are also cavets that Febble has issued that go to the voting technology itself, which she freely admits she's not expert on. (but able to help with math, to be sure)

[Bill Bored]

54. This part isn't necessarily true. Read the actual bill!

the States...will not know where they will take place until after the initial vote tallies are done and reported.

[Fredda Weinberg]

56. So?

It seems you're arguing for the bill, not against it. Once the official numbers are posted, the paper trail can be examined. That too, can be matched up against the registration lists to make sure there wasn't physical tampering.

This is a hell of a lot better than what we've got now. I don't see how anyone in good conscience can attack this proposal.

[Bill Bored]

59. I'm not sure if you get my drift or not but...

...I am arguing for the bill, just not as written.

The bill needs work, but hopefully, in some committee, it can be improved.

If it really becomes law as written, there are some problems, but I'd think that nothing is etched in stone at this point. I just hope it doesn't morph into another Feney bill.

[Fredda Weinberg]

71. Let's stay tuned n/t

[Bill Bored]

51. Nah, they're all too busy working on EXIT POLLS to actually

contribute anything constructive! :)

[Febble]

94. Peh!

if you mean me, well, that and other stuff.

I responded to your comment re audits on the other thread.

But in short, I don't think there is a magic number. Here's my take, just on the stats - I am bamboozled by the technology, being a merely Brit:

• It will discourage tampering. Even if there is a 98% chance that any one bit of tampering (depending on your units of analysis) will be undetected, that 2% will tend to discourage widespread corruption.


• It is important to decide what your confidence limits are on the actual audit - what level of inaccuracy will "pass"? If you demand too great an accuracy standard, I fear the requirement to audit will be jiggered with. No counting method is 100% accurate, including hand-counts. However, too low a standard, and the thing is useless anyway.


• It will give you a certain confidence level that a certain level of corruption has not occurred. But this is very weak. You would need a far larger audit to give you any real confidence that anything below an "acceptable" (what's "acceptable"?) level of corruption had occurred.


• It is only as good as the randomness of the selection.


• It is completely useless unless custody of the ballots between voting and count and count and audit is absolutely assured.

But maybe all this is in the bill. As I said, I'm just an archaic Brit with hand-counted paper ballots.

[Land Shark]

95. requirements of the bill: nonrandom, full precinct counts and no more

by requiring one precinct per county at a minimum, this defeats what otherwise would be a random selection. For example, in iowa, there are 2000 precincts, meaning 2% is 40 precincts. But there are 99 counties which if that was the number of precincts would be nearly 5%. In any event, the audit would consist of one precinct per county, about a five percent audit, per the Holt requirement to have one precinct in each county.

In Polk county iowa i'm told there are 267 precincts in this urban county, and we'd sample a single one.

the most likely site for fraud is in the populous counties where the precincts are larger and things can be hidden.

so the chances of finding fraud, in Iowa, depends on the above.

It would be rare to have access to every precinct and distribute fraud widely. Much more likely is concentrated fraud, particularly in urban areas.

the relevant jurisdictions for voting are COUNTIES, not states per se, because each county can have a different technological system. Of course there are statewide races but it seems quite clear that the county level is also an appropriate viewpoint.

[Febble]

96. If the bill demands

that every precinct has an equal chance of selection, AND that at least one precinct per county must be selected, then the minimum percentage of precincts that could satisfy those two criteria would be the 1/precincts in the smallest county. So if your smallest county had 10 precincts, you'd have to sample 10% of all precincts. If your smallest county has 200 precincts, the smallest percentage would be .5%. Otherwise, precincts in smaller counties would have a greater chance of selection.

So what exactly are the requirements, and what trumps what?

Does it have to be at least 2%?
Does every precinct have to have an equal chance of selection??
Does there have to be one precinct from every county?

[OnTheOtherHand]

116. quoting in pertinent part:

SEC. 5. REQUIREMENT FOR MANDATORY MANUAL AUDITS BY HAND COUNT.

(a) Mandatory Audits in Random Precincts-

(1) IN GENERAL- The Election Assistance Commission shall conduct random, unannounced, hand counts of the voter-verified records required to be produced and preserved pursuant to section 301(a)(2) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (as amended by section 2) for each general election for Federal office (and, at the option of the State or jurisdiction involved, of elections for State and local office held at the same time as such an election for Federal office) in at least 2 percent of the precincts (or equivalent locations) in each State....

(b) Selection of Precincts- The selection of the precincts in a State in which the Commission shall conduct hand counts under this section shall be made by the Commission on an entirely random basis using a uniform distribution in which all precincts in a State have an equal chance of being selected, in accordance with such procedures as the Commission determines appropriate, except that--

(1) at least one precinct shall be selected in each county (or equivalent jurisdiction); and

(2) the Commission shall publish the procedures in the Federal Register prior to the selection of the precincts.

I would hope that equal chance of selection was not trumped by the one-precinct-per-county requirement, but the wording seems awfully squishy to me.

[Bill Bored]

135. Squishy, yes, but it can be fixed.

There are 3 conditions which have to be met for the initial
audit:

1. at least 2% of the precincts in each state must be
selected;
2. at least 1 precinct in each county must be selected;
3. all precincts must be selected randomly.

These are not mutually exclusive if you write a procedure such
as:

First, DO NO HARM!...woops, never mind, that would mean
keeping lever machines! But I digress.

Let me try again:

First, randomly select 2% of the precincts in the state.
If there is at least one precinct in each county selected,
proceed with the initial audit.
If there is not at least one precinct in each county selected,
continue to select randomly until this criteria has been met.
(This will result in more than a 2% initial audit, which still
meets criterion #1 above as well as criterion #3.)

In this way, all 3 conditions are satisfied.

The question is, what percentage should the initial audit be,
and what how much auditing should there be in the event of a
close election where 2% is unlikely to find fraud that could
reverse the outcome of the race?

As far as confidence intervals, I'd say we should look for 99%
instead of the usual 95%, because the hypergeometric
thingamujig only finds the FIRST corrupted precinct, not any
additional ones, unless you audit more. I'd hate to miss the
tip of an iceberg by limiting the confidence interval to 95%
instead of 99%. See the hypergeo spreadsheet we've used in the
past below.

My Excel doesn't work with the hypergeometric distribution and
more than ~7000 precincts with a 2% audit. In a state, there
could be 20,000! So how about posting a table of the 2% audit
with 20,000 precincts using this spreadsheet? If you need a
copy, I'll send it to you again. Here it is with 7,000
precincts:

Total   Corrupt    %    Audited Expect. Std.    Odds of
finding
Prects. Prects. Corrupt Prects. Value   Dev.    1st Corrupt
Prect.
7000	3500	50.00%	140	70.00	5.92	100.00%
7000	3150	45.00%	140	63.00	5.89	100.00%
7000	2800	40.00%	140	56.00	5.80	100.00%
7000	2450	35.00%	140	49.00	5.64	100.00%
7000	2100	30.00%	140	42.00	5.42	100.00%
7000	1750	25.00%	140	35.00	5.12	100.00%
7000	1400	20.00%	140	28.00	4.73	100.00%
7000	1050	15.00%	140	21.00	4.22	100.00%
7000	700	10.00%	140	14.00	3.55	100.00%
7000	350	5.00%	140	7.00	2.58	99.93%
7000	280	4.00%	140	5.60	2.32	99.69%
7000	210	3.00%	140	4.20	2.02	98.65%
7000	70	1.00%	140	1.40	1.18	75.86%
7000	35	0.50%	140	0.70	0.83	50.78%
7000	7	0.10%	140	0.14	0.37	13.19%

As you can see, with 7000 precincts, a 2% audit can find the
first corrupted precinct with as little as 4% total corrupted
precincts. If the vote swing (fraud) on the 4% is 25% or less,
a race with a margin as little as 1% can be audited
effectively. So if you have a LOT of precincts, only the
closest elections could evade such an audit. I'd like to see
this with 20,000 precincts if you don't mind. My Excel won't
do it.

Then we have another problem, which is that House races are
not statewide, and would therefore have fewer precincts.

But hey, at least we're talking about it!

Don't forget to check the "Check here if you want to
format your message in plain text. Use for posting code
snippets." box before posting from Excel.

Thanks!

[OnTheOtherHand]

138. ah, heck, I don't need that table gimmick (grin)

Yes, your approach of a 2% random sample plus an additional precinct in any county that was previously missed would work pretty well.

The counterintuitive thing here, I guess, is the same thing that is counterintuitive about polling in general: the effectiveness of the audit depends a lot more on the sample size than on the percentage of the population sampled. So, a 2% audit works better when sampling 400 out of 20,000 precincts than when sampling 140 out of 7000, because 400 is a lot more than 140. (And a 2% audit works a lot worse in smaller jurisdictions.)

You cited, for a 2% audit of 7000 precincts, a 98.65% probability of catching at least one corrupt precinct if 3% are corrupt, 75.86% if 1% are corrupt, 50.78% if 0.5% are corrupt, and 13.19% if 0.1% are corrupt. For 20,000 precincts, the numbers would be 99.99+% at 3% corrupt; 99.97% at 2% corrupt; 98.3% at 1% corrupt; 86.8% at 0.5% corrupt; 33.3% at 0.1% corrupt.

I think all those numbers indicate a very high likelihood of detecting a sneaky theft pattern, which would be something like 10% of votes in maybe 10% of precincts in order to alter the outcome by 1%. At that point, I am more worried about recourse when anomalies are found, and/or recourse for screechingly blatant anomalies that don't happen to turn up in the 2% (or whatever) sample. No way, no how can a sample do all the work. (And of course chain of custody has to be secure, not that it ever is. Heck, I don't see hand-counted paper as a panacea either.)

I haven't tried to figure out precinct counts etc. for House districts, but presumably a higher audit proportion makes sense, depending on the level of confidence one wants.

[Bill Bored]

164. What this boils down to is that 2% isn't bad for starters

if you have a LOT of precincts in a state. Most states do.
(It would be helpful to have a list of them!)

And a higher percentage would be required for races that aren't statewide, because they have fewer precincts. (In Federal Elections, I think once every 10 years, there's no statewide race in each state, BTW.)

And precinct selection must be kept RANDOM, but that's not too hard to do and still maintain the 1 per county minimum as they are not mutually exclusive as long as the bill says at least 2%, which it does, and at least 1 precinct per county, which it also does. So maybe this can be spelled out a bit better but I'd say the intent of the law is pretty clear.

What say you Land Shark?

[OnTheOtherHand]

168. perhaps 2% with a minimum number of precincts

As to the intent, if I were writing the regulation, I would consider the intent clear, but as is, I am worried. We can run it by the election lawyers and see what they think.

[Bill Bored]

180. Election Lawyers? Ha! They don't have a clue!

And once they start talking, you can't shut them up!

I would be interested in Land Shark's take on it though.

What about NY, BTW, where it's 3% in each jurisdiction? I'd think that 3% random in each county would be roughly the same as 3% random statewide, but that's just off the top of my head.

Unfortunately, there are still a LOT of folks who don't get these hypergeometric relationships. It's counter intuitive to think that fraud is actually easier to find when you have more precincts. Kind of a reverse needle in the haystack sort of thing.

[Febble]

181. OK, here's another way of thinking about it:

As OTOH says, the important thing is the sample size, not the
percentage.  This table tells you how many precincts (second
column) you'd need to sample from a large jurisdiction in
order to be able to conclude from a clean audit that no more
than <first columnn> precincts were corrupt. 

%
corrupt	sample size
1%	500
2%	250
3%	150
4%	120
5%	100
10%	50
25%	15
50%	7
90%	2

So to be 99% percent confident that no more than 1% of
precincts were corrupt, you'd need a sample size of 500.  So
for a jurisdiction of 5000, that's 10%, but for a jurisdiction
of 50,000 it's only 1%.  However, it's OTT for a jurisdiction
of 500, which is where the hypergeo comes in.  Clearly, if you
sampled 500 precincts from 500, and they were all clean, you'd
be 100% confident, not just 99%. In other words, you can drop
the [i]sample size[/i] for a smaller jurisdiction, but but the
[i]percentage[/i] for a smaller jurisdiction would still be
higher.

So for 99% confidence that no more than 1% were corrupt:

#               #       sample  %
jurisdiction	corrupt	size	audited
     50 	 1	 49	98%
    100 	 1	 99	99%
    200 	 2	180	90%
    500 	 5	300	60%
  1,000 	10	400	40%
  2,000 	20	500	25%
  5,000 	50	500	10%
 10,000	       100	500	 5%
 20,000	       200	500	 3%
 50,000	       500	500	 1%

And for 99% confidence that no more than 2% were corrupt:

#               #       sample  %
jurisdiction	corrupt	size	audited
     50 	   1	 49	98%
    100 	   2	 90	90%
    200 	   4	120	60%
    500 	  10	180	36%
  1,000 	  20	200	20%
  2,000 	  40	250	13%
  5,000 	 100	250	 5%
 10,000 	 200	250	 3%
 20,000 	 400	250	 1%
 50,000 	1000	250	 1%

So in both instances, the [i]sample size[/i] required is
smaller for smaller jurisdiction, but the [i]percentage[/i]
required is larger for smaller jurisdictions.

So I suppose now what someone needs to do is to translate this
into overall percentages for a typical state.  For states with
large urban counties, a smaller percentage will be required,
but the sample sizes will be audited.  For more rural states,
a larger overall percentage would be required, and the sample
sizes will be smaller.

(This is way more fun than exit polls....)

[Febble]

182. Thinking this through....

I'm not sure that this is so bad. Maybe the state IS the right level of analysis, in which case, 2% works out fairly well, although a sample size might be better, e.g. 500 precincts regardless of state size. That way, a clean audit would enable you to conclude with 99% confidence that not more than 1% of precincts, statewide, were corrupt. Now, it is possible, that in one particular county, all the precincts were corrupt. But in that case, your chances are fairly high that at least one of those precincts will turn up in your sample (depending on the total number of counties). In which case, further investigation is triggered.

So that means there is a definite case for the formula being something like 500 + one from every county not selected by the randomisation procedure. Or even more than one.

hmm....

The other issue is precinct size. You could weight the randomisation by number of voters (by poll book, not by vote, because you want to know how many people tried to vote, not how many votes were counted). That way, every voter in a state would have an equal chance of having their precinct audited. That way, while smaller precincts would have a lower chance of being audited, fraud in smaller precincts would have less impact on the result. But that would be an encouragement to target fraud in smaller precincts....

OK, thinking, thinking. Hope other people are too....

My current thought is a minimum number of precincts per state, e.g. 500, plus one from any county not represented. That way, all county BoEs know that at least one of their precincts will be subject to audit (and they won't know which), and if the total audit is clean, you can conclude there is only a 1 in a 100 chance that more than 1% of the precincts, statewide, were corrupt.

Anyone else?

[Land Shark]

184. questions regarding this analysis

You state things like "a clean audit" and "maybe statewide..." which either presuppose conditions you are not identifying (clean audit) or are too contingent and full of assumptions (statewide).

For example, why would "statewide" be the appropriate level of analysis for a congressional district? State senate? Whatever the MOEs are for a statewide race (only state executive, federal executive and senate races in most states) they will be significantly less able to detect error in a congressional race. (except in those couple states where there's only one congressperson per state and thus congress is a statewide race).

At first glance we tend to think "presidential election", at second glance "federal elections" but at third glance even federal elections are not all statewide (congress). But the audits are suggested to be helpful globally, including as to state races. (the bill says states may request such audits, and proponents assume (whether with good basis or not) that the audits will be done for state races as well, thus providing protection to voters who otherwise would have no confidence their votes were counted in jurisdictions with DREs

[Febble]

188. Statewide

certainly wouldn't be the appropriate unit of analysis for a congressional district. But I am wondering whether, after all, the most appropriate unit of analysis is the unit that determines the outcome of any given election. For local elections it would be local. For a presidential election it would be state.

Of course if you have an a priori reason to suspect a specific jurisdiction, then you would want an audit at that level, with an appropriate sample size.

And I agree, one if the issues that has to be determined is what constitutes a "clean" audit - how much tolerance do you allow?

But statistically, I think it is more useful to ask: what could I conclude from an audit of N precincts that found no anomalies, than to ask what N you need to detect a certain percentage of corrupt precincts. I.e. to decide what is the highest acceptable percentage you are prepared to tolerate, then compute the statistical power (i.e. the sample size) you need to detect anything higher with a given degree of confidence.

But the more I think about it, I think that a percentage is the wrong thing to mandate. I think sample size, or even statistical power is what needs to be specified.

[Bill Bored]

196. Don't forget you need to assume a vote switch percentage or sample size

for each machine. They could be off by 5%, 10%, 20% or more but not 100%.
So 1% of machines corrupted is less than 1% of the vote count if all machines have approximately the same number of votes. There should at least be a max. number of votes per machine, and therefore a max. vote swing per machine can be calculated.

[Febble]

197. Yes. I haven't been forgetting

and mentioned that specifically in a few posts. This is what I mean by getting the units of analysis right.

You need to have a confidence level that not more than a (small) proportion of votes have been miscounted:

• On a machine


• In a precinct


• In a county


• In a state

And the appropriate criteria (and therefore the statistical power required) is not immediately obvious to me.

In particular, at machine level there needs to be a reasonable MoE, because no counting method is perfect, and you don't want people faking it to avoid fuss. But as with the exit polls, the MoE is not everything - all machines could be within their MoE but if more swung the count one way than the other, that might also be statistically unlikely, and suspicious.

Also - I don't yet know how this audit is accomplished - are the votes run through the machines that counted them, as a check on the machine? Or through a different machine as a check on the vote? I hope the latter, though it seems the machines also need to be audited, and an MoE established by finding out the range of values it produces on several runs for a known number of votes.

But then I also have absolutely no idea how you audit a DRE - do you hand-count curly bits of paper? Or are they not going to be curly?

(edited to fix formatting)

[Bill Bored]

198. Machine MoE Should Be Very Small

You hand count the VVPATs either by rolling them on a roll or rolls, or by cutting them and counting the sheets. The "good" DREs do the cut and drop automatically; some others, such as Diebold, do not. This makes them illegal in some states, and also under under HR 550, because the continuous roll does not maintain voter privacy very well. In PA, instead of banning these machines and using the ones with the cut and drop VVPAT, they just said, "No paper trails required!" Clever huh? And that's one reason why we need an HR-550 sort of solution! If you think Ohio was bad, wait til you see what happens in PA this year. :(

BTW, in the Voting Systems Standards we all know and love, the VVPATs are a subset of what is called "Independent Verification" (IV). There IS NO OTHER FORM of IV at the moment, but they're working on it for the 2007 version, which might affect an election by 2010 or so. And all VVPATs are voluntary. So not only do these standards allow 10% of machines to fail on Election Day, but they also say they do NOT have to be capable of being verified i.e., audited independently.

But anyway, the MoE must be tight because, exclusive of software, the error rate of the machines is supposed to be 1 in 500,000 votes, and you are counting every ballot on the machine. In the case of scanners, it's the same, so you have to be very careful how you count ballots that should be rejected, but the voter has the right to cast anyway, e.g., ballots with overvotes. Overvotes are NOT allowed on DREs, but technically, they are allowed on scanners if the voter refuses to correct the ballot.

Both scanners and DREs can have undervotes. Voter intent could be determined on paper ballots if the mark isn't dark enough and registers as an undervote. BoE's can correct this manually, but if they do so, you get people ranting and raving about "stickers" on the ballots and so on, which could be a way to steal votes.

This is one reason why a "good" DRE may not be such a bad thing. If it prints the ballot properly, without changing the voters' intent, it should not be ambiguous. But printers can fail too, run out of ink, etc. and of course DREs have a number of other disadvantages and CAN rewrite the ballot, which the voter may not notice.

Sorry to ramble on about this. Sometimes I wonder if it will do any good, or if any of this will.

I think HR 550 is better than no HR 550 though, and there may still be a chance to improve the bill. Combining it with state laws and regulations will enhance its effectiveness, perhaps synergistically, right?

[Febble]

140. A spreadsheet!

OK, just to illustrate OTOH's point:

Everything depends on your unit of analysis, including sample
size and percentage audited.  The larger your unit of
analysis, the smaller the audit percentage required to give
you a high degree of confidence that fewer than a small
percentage of precincts are corrupt.

The following tells you how many precincts you would have to
sample from a jurisdiction in order to be 99% confident that
not more than 1% of the precincts were corrupt. 

# precincts     #        sample
in jurisdiction	corrupt  size	 % audited
    100     	  1	    99	 99.00%    
    500    	  5	   300	 60.00%
  1,000   	 10	   370	 37.00%
  5,000  	 50	   370	  7.40%
 10,000 	100	   140	  1.40%
 20,000 	200	   120	  0.60%


The point is to look at the sample size as well as the
percentage.  The larger the jurisdiction, the smaller the
percentage you need (and the smaller the sample size once the
number is over 5,000).  

OK, to turn it around, to find out what a clean 2% would give
you 99% confidence of concluding, for a given size of
jurisdiction:

>%	# precincts   #	         sample	%
corrupt	jurisdiction  corrupted	 size	audited
90%	    100 	 90 	   2 	2.00%
40%	    500 	200 	  10 	2.00%
25%	  1,000 	250 	  20 	2.00%
5%	  5,000 	250 	 100 	2.00%
1%	 10,000           1 	 200 	2.00%
1%	 20,000           1 	 400 	2.00%
  


(Someone might like to check my math)

[Febble]

147. I just read the text

http://www.holt.house.gov/pdf/HR%20550%20VCIA.pdf

I agree that 2% looks like a minimum rather than a maximum, and having every county represented by at least one precinct seems to trump equal representation, though not at the expense of the 2%. It would seem better phrased as "2% rounded up to the next whole precinct" - which would round 0 up to 1. I think I'd still rather see county as the unit of analysis though, which would mean higher percentages would be required to give the same degree of confidence in small counties than large. On the other hand, large counties impact more on to the state total, and by the same token may be more readily targetted for fraud, so it's not easy to figure out the optimimum proportion.

But this is the bit that seems squishier to me:

18 (d) ADDITIONAL AUDITS IF CAUSE SHOWN.—If the
19 Commission finds that any of the hand counts conducted
20 under this section show cause for concern about the accu
21 racy of the results of an election in a State or in a jurisdic
22 tion within the State, the Commission may conduct hand
23 counts under this section at such additional precincts (or
24 equivalent locations) within the State or jurisdiction as the

1 Commission considers appropriate to resolve any concerns
2 and ensure the accuracy of the results.

There doesn't seem to be any standard specified as deemed to "cause concern" - a chi square might come in handy.

[Land Shark]

162. Well Febble and OTOH you two should work this out

It's well known or felt that higher percentage audits would be dead on arrival. PRESUMING (and this is a huge assumption) that in the contracting process there is both authority as well as political will to insist on statistically valid audits, is this potentially then in effect a trojan horse of its own where "at least 2%" turns out to be a much higher percentage in smaller and more rural states?

And what is every single additional condition that would need to be in place (beyond the statute) for this to work?

[Febble]

179. I believe that

Bruce O'Dell and Jonathan Simon are working on something along these lines. Bruce should be good on audits, and Jonathan should be good on law, so their white paper should be worth reading.

I'm encouraged that nothing I see in the bill states that 2% is a cap, but clearly it MUST NOT become one. The bill as it stand would make 2% a minimum only achieved if the smallest count had at least 50 precincts. But that's a technicality.

What seems to me to be worth pursuing, and here, for the record, I agree with Kathy Dopp, is that the county should be the unit of analysis, not the state, and that the audit requirement should be for the number of precincts (not the percentage) that gives a given confidence level of concluding that fewer than a given proportion of precincts have been corrupted.

And there also need to be standards by which a precinct count can be deemed uncorrupted. I'll think about that. It's not immediately obvious what units you would use to define an acceptable difference between first and audited count.

Also, how is the audit counted? On a different machine? Apologies if everyone except me knows the answer to this - but these are the kinds of questions I'd be asking.

[Wilms]

35. Hilarious? Hardly.

This is serious stuff.

Do you mean to tell me that Bill Bored has been making "unsubstantiated attacks against one company (Diebold?)?

Links please.

I've never seen such things from Bill. If true, I'm taking him (or her...never can be too sure around here) off my Christmas card list. Further, I'll post a thread that says "Bill Bored is Wrong".

I suspect, however, that once again "Fredda Weinberg is Wrong"...

For What it's Worth.

[Bill Bored]

50. I agree -- DREs ARE a bad idea for election systems.

And I do attack other companies. But they weren't dumb enough to leave their software out on an unsecured website the way Diebold did and, per the Berkeley (VSTAAB) report, not fix the bugs for so long!

[kster]

15. Heres a source I trust

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=421136&mesg_id=421136

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

18. HR 550 so Dangerous

Look at the problem with HR 550:


"The inside game involves writing letters, lobbying, cozying up to legislators, and in the case of a privatization issue like voting machines, meeting with vendors and working with regulatory groups.

The outside game involves investigative work, communications on subjects even when they are considered impolite, exposés, agitation, occasional civil disobedience, and an overwhelming push to give citizens power over those who govern them."


Gee, we should avoid the groups she deems as the "inside game" and trust the groups that she deems to be the "outside game".

Gee, I wonder who we are supposed to think is running the "outside game".

Gee, I didn't think of this as a game at all, but then, I don't get paid to do this work,
even though I have done it full time for 3 years.

Maybe I should start charging like Bev.

[BeFree]

22. Well, hell

Should have guessed this would happen, from day one we've been eating each other.

As an part time outsider/insider, it occurs to me that there are many paths with one goal. Lets stick to the goal, people.

550 is a start, and there are many very smart people who know its just that. But there is nothing else nationally. Nothing except HAVA. So, we go with 550, and in the next elections we use it as a hammer. We use the provisions established therein to gather more evidence. We use that evidence to further tie the hands of the free-wheeling, way ahead of us, machine lovers.

All we are gonna get, this time, is a watery, smelly, half cocked theory that the machines will behave. Oh, there are some states with mo' better, but this 550 is all we can do in congress.

Work to tweak as best you can, but realize it is already far better than what we have today.

[FogerRox]

125. BeFree, good solid points, thank you.

[kster]

27. First things first

our Government hasn't even taken up the proprietary issue when it comes to these election theft machines. We need to start there and then work our way up to the next step.

1) The government needs to tell these voting machine companies open up the machines or we are going to BAN them and go back to paper ballots.

"Effective Immediately"


2) Don't know until we get passed one.


This would be the Common sense thing to do.

[Boredtodeath]

29. If HR550 passes, Bev has no fundraising vehicle

The last thing Bev Harris wants is to solve the electronic voting problem.

She would be out of a "job," if that happened.

Of course she opposes HR550 - you're talking about killing her gravy train.

[Land Shark]

38. I don't think anybody is (any longer) suggesting that HR 550 is the end

of reform efforts. they are saying it is a first step. (backwards or forwards). Drop the audit provision to save the govt money and open it up for any citizen group to request the records and audit and then you'd have a bill that's a step forward!

[Boredtodeath]

40. I don't think anyone EVER thought that

But, then again, that's my opinion and counts for just about as much as yours.

[Land Shark]

43. I'm referring to the days of the bill being called "the Gold Standard"

and other things. Even if that were true, it's not a good name for it, you'll never be welcome back in congress again to ask for more.

[Boredtodeath]

44. Link please?

Quote?

Anything showing that?

I never heard it called any such thing.

[Land Shark]

47. I'll give you a verifiedvoting link or two on this; Gold Std is common

From google: (internal search to verifiedvoting.org)

VerifiedVoting.org : Overview
This bill is the "gold standard" of Verified Voting bills. VerifiedVoting.org supports
HR550 in the strongest possible terms and encourages all members of ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/ article.php?list=type&type=43

VerifiedVoting.org : Alert: Verified Voting.org Declares Rush ...
Alert: Verified Voting.org Declares Rush Holt's HR 550 as "Gold Standard" ...
Holt's gold standard "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" (HR ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5582

Verified Voting Foundation : National: VerifiedVoting.org Urges ...
HR550 remains the "gold standard" of voter-verified paper record (VVPR) legislation,
the only one with bi-partisan support and the only one to require ...
www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/ article.php?id=6348&printsafe=1

VerifiedVoting.org : Alert: Please Co-Sponsor HR550 for Verified ...
This bill is the "gold standard" of voter verifiability legislation, incorporating
not only a requirement for voter-verified paper ballots but also ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5643

VerifiedVoting.org : VerifiedVoting.org Newsletter Volume 4, Number 3
National: VerifiedVoting.org Urges Support HR550 for Voter-Verified Paper Records --
Still The "Gold Standard". March 30, 2006 ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5743

VerifiedVoting.org : Verified Voting Newsletter Volume 3, Number 2
HR 550 is the "gold standard" of verified voting bills. It not only requires
voter-verified paper ballots (VVPB) but also mandatory manual audits, ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5588

VerifiedVoting.org : VerifiedVoting.org Newsletter Volume 4, Number 4
bill that VerifiedVoting.org has called the "gold standard" of verified voting
bills. The event, organized by Common Cause, Rock the Vote, VoteTrustUSA, ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5795

VerifiedVoting.org : Verified Voting Newsletter Volume 3, Number 4
Accessibility Act of 2005" is the "gold standard" for federal verified voting
legislation and now has a total of 120 co-sponsors! ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5679

VerifiedVoting.org : VerifiedVoting.org Newsletter Volume 4, Number 1
VerifiedVoting.org has called it the "gold standard" of voting reform bills.
If you have any questions or are interested in attending, please call Samantha ...
www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5717

[Boredtodeath]

63. I repeat....ONE organization?

And you somehow make that "common knowledge" and "conventional wisdom?"

Come on, Paul......you're an attorney for heaven's sake. One quote, repeated 20 times by the same organization isn't EVIDENCE of anything more than over exhuberance.

But you knew that........

[Bill Bored]

58. Right here:

http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?list=type&type=13

H.R.550, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005" was introduced on February 2, 2005 by Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey. On introduction, there were 50 original cosponsors for this bill. This is an updated and expanded version of a similar bill (H.R.2239) that Rep. Holt introduced in the previous session. This bill is the "gold standard" of Verified Voting bills. VerifiedVoting.org supports H.R.550 in the strongest possible terms and encourages all members of the House to become cosponsors.

[Boredtodeath]

62. ONE organization?

That somehow makes it "common knowledge?"

Come on, guys..........let's get serious, OK?

[Land Shark]

68. C'mon boredtodeath, sounds like you've got time on your hands,

so you can do your own research, but here's four or five more organizations, including Rush Holt himself:

ActForChange : Act Now
... disabilities organizations, and election reform advocates, Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey has introduced a "gold standard" piece of legislation ...
www.workingforchange.com/ activism/action.cfm?itemid=18973

Verified Voting Foundation : National: VerifiedVoting.org Urges ...
Rush Holt of New Jersey -- have been circulated, moments before citizens ... HR550 remains the "gold standard" of voter-verified paper record (VVPR) ...
www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/ article.php?id=6348&printsafe=1

Rush Holt for Congress
Rush Holt holds Press Conference on the Carter-Baker Commission Report ... So I'm pleased to be the author of the gold standard. ...
rushholt.com/archives/2005/09/transcrpit_of_r.html

For All of Us / One America Committee Blog
There's a bill in Congress that would set the "gold standard" for honest elections. ... Holt's bill was stalled in committee for two years by Rep. ...
blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/3/30/153135/555

VELVETREVOLUTION.US : TELL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO SUPPORT ...
Rush Holt (D-NJ), The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR ... and VerifiedVoting.org as the "gold standard" in verifiability legislation. ...
www.velvetrevolution.us/Content/VotingReform/pen3.php

VoteTrustUSA - VerifiedVoting.org Urges Support HR550 for Voter ...
HR550 remains the "gold standard" of voter-verified paper record (VVPR) ... In Holt's HR550, there is a specified percentage for the mandatory manual ...
www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=1161&Itemid=26

[Wilms]

72. Hey, hey. Don't forget the Electronic Frontier Foundation

HR 550: Still the Gold Standard

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004543.php

[Steve A Play]

73. Or any of these groups

ActForChange : Act Now
Safeguard the Integrity of our Federal Elections -- Support HR 550 ... by election reform activists as the "gold standard" in verifiability legislation. ...
www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=18973

CongressWeb - Name and Address Form
Urge Congress to pass HR 550 as written! Please provide the requested ... and VerifiedVoting.org as the "gold standard" in verifiability legislation. ...
www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=VTUSA&hotissue=1

VoteTrustUSA - Home
HR550 remains the "gold standard" of voter-verified paper record (VVPR) ... Most people reading already know that HR 550 would require all voting systems ...
votetrustusa.org/

Support HR 550 As Written
HR 550 would protect the integrity of our elections by requiring a voter ... and VerifiedVoting.org as the "gold standard" in verifiability legislation. ...
www.millionphonemarch.com/hr550.php

Cosponsors Needed for HR 550 (Federal Bill) Calling for Random ...
The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) introduced by Rush Holt (D-NJ) is the “gold standard” of verifiability legislation. This bill ...
www.electionintegritymn.org/holt_bill_action_election_reform

For All of Us / One America Committee Blog
There's a bill in Congress that would set the "gold standard" for honest ... To sign the petition to make sure your representatives support HR 550 and ...
blog.oneamericacommittee.com/story/2006/3/30/153135/555

Many more at this link,

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22HR+550%22%2C+%22Gold+Standard%22

I'm surprised anyone in this forum could have missed the "Gold Standard" meme. It's been all over for a while now.

[Boredtodeath]

86. Wow, so I guess this means........

Bev is going to attack her friend and ally Brad of Bradblog...........he IS Velvet Revolution, ya know.

And, again, quotes from ONE organization calling it the "gold standard" is not EVIDENCE.

But that's OK.....Bev's gonna need an attorney so I'm sure you're prepared to represent her pro bono.

[FogerRox]

127. Boredtodeath: do a DU search, "GOld standard".

never mind, Some times I like beating a daed horse-

Wilms post-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359634

Wilms again

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=402003

Wilms had a few more... we'll skip them.

Bill Boreds post here-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=335159#337140

Gary beck says it here-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=337682#337841

[Wilms]

128. Geez! I forgot about that thread.

And it shows Land Shark stating his concerns about it nearly one year ago.

Let that put to rest the notion that he's some Pauly Come Lately.

[FogerRox]

130. I remember that clearly, and looked for just that thread. it kicked butt

[FogerRox]

161. yeah well it seems the invasion is manned by people... who ...think ...

er ah,, never mind

[Bill Bored]

57. Yes. There is an implicit "public bidding" process that allows us to

bid on auditing contracts. I don't like that because it does not even ensure that the audits will be bi-partisan or that citizens will end up doing them. Diebold could hire illegal immigrants to do the audits, pay them less than minimum wage, underbid everyone else, and coerce the auditors into reporting bogus totals that match the rigged machines by threatening them with deportation, just to be very conspiratorial.

But if there were some provisions that kept the audits from being privatized, paid a standard stipend of some kind, and ensured that the audits would be bi- or multi- partisan and conducted by US Citizens, it could work.

[Fredda Weinberg]

52. Paul R Lehto seems like a decent person

but admits he's not a statistician. The 2% sounds reasonable as an example of Stop or Go Sampling, but heck, what do I know - I'm just a "computer scientist". But I did study statistics. A tiny sample does not give a margin of error nor a confidence level - it just tells you whether further investigation is necessary.

When he mentions "trade secret software", I know I'm dealing with someone who has unrealistic expectations. It feels good to insist that voting systems use open source - but it hasn't happened and there's no reason to believe it will. Like every other public service, voting software is delivered by private companies using proprietary systems.

I'm not interested in rebutting Mr Lehto point by point. Others have tried,

http://www.soundpolitics.com/archives/003654.html

but it doesn't seem to stop him from seeing nefarious activities where none exist

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04490.html

Again, I've placed my confidence in Dr David Dill (darn, another computer scientist) and the analysts at VerifiedVoting.com. From the beginning, they've invested the time and resources needed for this serious issue.

[Land Shark]

61. confidence/faith --- everyone should do their own thinking

sounpolitics.com is a major Republican blog in the Puget Sound area of Washington. you quote their "rebuttal" which was ineffective but they in the end appreciated that I engaged with them, which you can see at the outset of the post. They found it interesting enough to invite me to post my own thread on this Republican blog, but i did not.

Do you really think it's in your interest to "refute" this study, point by point, like these republicans tried to? Hard to see why anybody claiming to support election reform on DU would be motivated to do that.

The buzzflash link merely shows some work i did right after the election regarding that this Nevada county got its DREs for free (it was a swing state), while other jurisdictions did not get them for free.

It's hard to understand why you want Holt so badly but there's nothing at all to think about when a swing state gets free DREs while others pay. It's just one factor, but it is of interest.

[Fredda Weinberg]

64. Ah, McCarthy rises from the dead!

The dialogue begins with objective facts and quickly descends into innuendo and insinuation.

One of is real and has made a difference in election practices - the other uses an alias and is apparently promoting his own work under an assumed name. In whom should DUers place their confidence?

Do a Google on my name and Florida. Look up http://www.unprecedented.org

Look at the research I posted at

http://www.wordsunltd.com/voting_machine_fiasco.htm

With facts, not coincedences.

I'm glad you're interested in the subject - but Dr Dill and his organization have put serious time and resources working on this issue. I'll show more respect than you've allowed me by not speculating on your motives, but your arguments, feeble as they are, are easily rebutted.

[Land Shark]

67. OK, let me know if you have any other advice

[Fredda Weinberg]

70. Why not volunteer your talent to VV?

I did when they first appeared on the web.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

74. How will you audit those 23 states

How do you audit the paperless machines in the states that have them and
will continue to have them if you are successful?

How many of the people in 23 states oppose HR 550?

Can you explain how the 23 states will ever get audits as long
as they have paperless machines?

Can you answer these questions?

I bet you cannot.

[kster]

75. Better question, Why did my Government allow paperless voting

in the first place? A child would know better, And now that they have been caught in this criminal activity, What do they plan to do about it? Holt 550 isn't going to cut it.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

77. and you are unable to answer the question

nor are you able to provide or faciliate a solution.

[kster]

82. Our side vs Your side on National Cable Television

then we could get at them Question and Answers, But to date it seems to be your side that is afraid to go on National TV when it comes to these election theft machines. I wonder why that is?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

104. still cant answer the question of "what have you accomplished"

Gee, you still haven't answered the question of
"What have you accomplished?"


Still no answer, and now some nonsense of saying that I or someone else is
afraid of going on national television.

Where do these weird fantasies come from?

Gee, I didn't know I had been invited on national television.

Crap, sitting by the phone all day, and the one time they call I
must have been outside.

[kster]

112. I wasn't talking about you, Why won't they have Mark C. Miller

on a national TV news channel? Are they afraid that if the truth were told to the masses about these election theft machine, that these machine along with the Holt bill would end up in the Boston Harbor.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

118. MCM was on CSpan today and on again at 11 PM EST

On Sunday, April 9 at 1:00 pm and at 11:00 pm EST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)
Mark Crispin Miller

Description: Mark Crispin Miller argues that the outcome of the 2004 election, in many states including Ohio, was manipulated to favor George Bush and the Republican party. He discusses the evidence he has for this charge and talks about the reaction that Sen. John Kerry had when presented with the evidence. Professor Miller also argues that the Republican party has been taken over by religious fundamentalists who see their opponents as evil and whose ultimate goal is to bring about Armageddon. The talk was hosted by the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

Author Bio: Mark Crispin Miller is a professor in the Culture & Communications department at New York University. He is the author of several books, including "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder" and "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order." For more on Professor Miller and his work, visit his blog at www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com.

Publisher: Basic Books

Buy <http://www.booktv.org/buying.asp?segid=6941> the Book

[kster]

119. I knew that but, Thank you anyway. We need Miller in front of

a bigger audience, So the majority of Americans can hear what Miller and others have to say about these voting machines. All of these voting issues should be put to the American people, not decided in a corner on the INTERNET.

[Land Shark]

88. There's few scientific audits, but I've authored one w/o "paper records"

try reading the paper at www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

It's an audit of DREs with no 'paper trail' and our county got rid of them without a paper trail (a bill came down to require the same and avoiding the cost of paper records was one of various factors in the decision to end the DREs, including but not limited to the gubernatorial recount litigation, efforts of activists, mooting out my lawsuit, and the additional participation in voting allowed by vote by mail.)

[kster]

120. 1) How will you audit those 23 states

They could look at the program used in the machines to try and see what happened. ( My mistake I forgot) Diebold Election Systems won't release those files. The company's lawyers say this is proprietary or(secret from the public) information.

Does the Holt bill cover this little problem?


2)How many of the people in 23 states oppose HR 550?

None because the bill gives the people paper ballots and then magically prevents them from hand counting 98% of them.


Can you explain how the 23 states will ever get audits as long
as they have paperless machines?

They could look at the program used in the machines to try and see of what happened. ( My mistake I forgot) Diebold Election Systems won't release those files. The company's lawyers say this is proprietary or(secret from the public) information.


Come on now we could go back and forth all day long but we both know that these machines need paper ballots, and being as these machines are new and are going to be used throughout the country there needs to be a 100% hand count (not a rescan) but a hand count of them ballots for the next five to ten election cycles. Just to make sure that the machine counts were correct.

This is just common sense. Do you agree?

[Bill Bored]

24. This is great! The bill will pass easily now! nt

[garybeck]

76. it is MISLEADING to suggest that Bev Harris is leading opposition to HR550

the truth is that MANY MANY people in the election reform movement are against HR550. Many of them do not work with Bev Harris in any way. Bev is just one of MANY people who do not like HR550 for many valid reasons.

HR550 has a lot of problems. Bev's opinions about it are not unique.

I see absolutely no reason to discuss her opposition to it as an issue in itself.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

78. No one said that Bev was leading it

You mis read the original post.

But maybe that was a freudian slip on your part.

But by all means defend Bev.

Where are her tax returns, anyway?

Even the Election Center has made theirs available.

[garybeck]

133. "Bev and Bevbots"

could it be any clearer than that?

I suppose anyone that opposes HR550 is a Bevbot now.

[Wilms]

79. I didn't notice the OP suggesting bbv leading.

But the logic of referring to Land Shark as a BevBot did seem specious to me and WYVB apologized for that.

The swipe at VoteTrustUSA in the bbv article strikes me as rather unreasonable, and supports the reasons why I understand there is so much opposition to bbv.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

80. Again trashes anyone but her as part of the "inside game"

Queen of innuendo -


#
She advises that any major political movement has the inside game and the outside game

##And Bev tells you in her message that SHE is the only one you can trust - note that she
says "playing the outside game" is good, and she plays the "outside game" lower down the page.

(you can only trust her, apparently is the meaning, and donate via paypal visa or mastercard)

Here is the rhetoric -

'The inside game involves writing letters, lobbying, cozying up to legislators, and in the case of a privatization issue like voting machines, meeting with vendors and working with regulatory groups.

The outside game involves investigative work, communications on subjects even when they are considered impolite, exposйs, agitation, occasional civil disobedience, and an overwhelming push to give citizens power over those who govern them.

(Notice the trail of misery in her wake - what about that actor guy, too bad he didn't
contact eff.org or lawyer of his own before turning those documents over. He might have found a way
to do it without getting charged with 3 felonies. Do they have the 3 strikes your out in CA?
Will he get raped in prison?
Or Bruce Funk,Election Director in Utah brave guy, but who will save him? Vote Trust sent out an alert.
Ion Sancho has a legal background, so maybe he knew how to cover his butt)

*back to Bev's rhetoric*

'The inside game resists the outside game

Those who play the inside game tend to believe that the outside game is undisciplined, a bunch of mavericks, endangers the goal.
The inside game is polite, conciliatory, respects authority and likes to tell others what to do.

"Support H.B. 550 it's good push this button send this email now."

Those who question and probe are painted as irresponsible.

There is no doubt that Black Box Voting usually plays the outside game.'
#
This is rhetoric meant to incite and inflame and promote BBV.org that "plays the outside game".
Only trust BBV and be sure to donate - we accept visa and mastercard.
We will save your next election.

[Wilms]

81. Spot on.

As if it's always wrong to "play the inside" (as if it's playing at all) to engage in respectful and potentially fruitful dialog.

And as if there's nothing ever wrong "playing (or acting, as the case may be) the outside". As if the only way to get things done is with a torch and a pitch-fork.

Brings to mind provocateurs.

[garybeck]

134. "Bev and Bevbots"

that in itself is misleading. it is not even close to being true. as a matter of fact, I can speak from a point of knowing many people in this movement, and many of the leaders. I can tell you that there is a great division about HR550, and it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with anything that Bev says or doesn't say.

LandShark is BY FAR not the only person besides Bev saying there are significant problems with HR550.

If anyone thinks Landshark is the only one tooting the anti-HR550 horn, you are WAY TOO focused on getting all your information about this issue from DU exclusively. That for several reasons is not advised.

GB

[Steve A Play]

83. It's ironic that Land Shark has been raising legitimate concerns

about this right here on this forum for a while now and it wasn't a big issue. Black Box Voting.org went on record today and all of a sudden it's a MAJOR issue.

If anyone has any questions about what constitutes an "insider" vs. an "outsider" in the election reform movement, they should read this document.

http://accurate-voting.org/accurate/docs/proposal-feb2005.pdf

A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent
Elections (ACCURATE)

A Research Proposal for an NSF CyberTrust Center
Submitted February 2005

Aviel D. Rubin (ACCURATE Director), Johns Hopkins University
Dan S. Wallach (ACCURATE Associate Director), Rice University
Dan Boneh, Stanford University
Michael D. Byrne, Rice University
Drew Dean, SRI International
David L. Dill, Stanford University
Douglas W. Jones, University of Iowa
Peter G. Neumann, SRI International
Deirdre Mulligan, University of California, Berkeley
David A. Wagner, University of California, Berkeley

Keep in mind that this is part of a 7.5 million dollar study paid for by the Bush administration that is being given to a group of 'election reform activists' that have received millions of dollars in other government grants since Bush came into office. Some of these people like Dr. Dill and Doug Jones have been looking at the problems with our elections for many years before most of us ever became involved. Why was it then that Black Box Voting.org had to solicit donations to hire Hugh Thompson and Harri Hursti to finally expose the problems to the public? Why is it a bad thing for BBV.org to collect and spend $100,000 in small donations to make the 'Hursti Hack' happen in Leon County but the ACCURATE program funded by the administration is considered acceptable by people here?

Does anyone here honestly think that this group of people are going to recommend hand counted paper ballots at the end of this study? If you do, I've got a bridge to sell you!

Just remember, while it's true that HR 550 might be amended to make it better in some respects, it's just as likely to be gutted or scrapped altogether in favor of a totally non transparent, cryptographic or technological solution proposed and paid for by the government.

[Wilms]

84. Why do you say it wasn't a big issue before today?

The HOLT BILL, major major problems in Election Reform-Land
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421136

It was a big issue on that thread.

In fact, the real big issue on this thread is about the pedigree of various posters rather than 550.

Personally, I'd rather we think of this as a discussion, than act on it as an argument.


-on edit-

If there are specific things you wish to point out in that ACCURATE document, I'm sure it would qualify for a thread. Here, among issues that were brought up, was the credibility of VoteTrustUSA.

So in questioning VoteTrustUSA's approach, and even their honor, an ACCURATE document is linked?

That just ain't right, Steve.

[Boredtodeath]

85. You know EXACTLY what this is about, Wilms

It's about Bev Harris being "disinvited" to the Lobby Days.

And, OMG!, Ion Sancho WAS invited.

In Bev's world, that's a sin. And she's the self appointed judge and jury sending sinners to hell.

Just ask the DUer from Tennessee who did so last year.

[Land Shark]

89. Thanks for the clarification as to your perception, I probably never

would have heard of BBVs position nor of these allegations but for this thread.

I'll have to think twice before continuing on too much longer on this thread (haven't decided for sure) because it's the only non-respectful discussion I've had in a long time, including with all the VoteTrustUSA people I'm here at the conference with in DC.

[Name removed]

91. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Wilms]

98. I was not aware that this was about a disinvitation.

And until now I was not aware that there was a disinvitation.

But that all seems perfectly plausible.

[Steve A Play]

121. That makes two of us

I wondered what BTD was talking about in post #85. I wasn't even aware that there was such a thing as "Lobby Days"! Now all I don't understand is, what does "disinvited" mean?

Was Bev specifically invited and then the invitation was withdrawn, or was she merely not invited to begin with? I don't recall her ever mentioning "Lobby Days" or VTUSA's involvement, much less her being invited to it or not. I'm confused.

Considering we've been against this legislation from the outset for the reasons stated above, why would anyone invite BBV.org to lobby for something that we're against?

What you perceive as "perfectly plausible" seems to make no sense at all to me. :shrug:

From my POV, it seems "perfectly plausible" that this whole thread was started as nothing more than an attempt at character assassination against BBV.org for going public with our opinion on this legislation because it differs with their opinion on it.

While that scenario is also certainly "plausible", I am not in a position to say that it is the correct interpretation because there are other scenarios that are likely as well, and I have no actual first hand evidence of their motives, save for their posts on this thread.

I'll leave it to each person who views this thread to interpret what it means for themselves. :)

One last note, as far as Ion Sancho and his opinion are concerned, I can see why he would be in favor of this legislation. From his POV, as an honest election official, this law would most certainly help him keep things honest. I'm unaware of any communications between Mr. Sancho and anyone at BBV.org reference this legislation, nor of any attempt on our part to change his mind about it. We respect and admire him for the brave stand he took, bucking the system and allowing 'real world' testing of the equipment that was forced on him and his office. We certainly have NOT 'bad mouthed' or attacked him in any way, and we respect his opinion even though it differs with ours. Why he was dragged into this conversation is beyond me.

[Steve A Play]

87. What "just ain't right" wilms

Is that nowhere in this thread did I or anyone else from BBV.org mention VoteTrustUSA. Where exactly did I give you the impression that I or BBV.org questioned their honor?

Perhaps I linked that document for the reason I stated in my post. "If anyone has any questions about what constitutes an "insider" vs. an "outsider" in the election reform movement, they should read this document." Do you disagree that these people I'm referring to are "insiders" in the sense that they 'play nice' and work within the system?

Another reason I posted this might be to add some pertinent facts about David Dill's lack of financial interest in the outcome of the fight against e-voting and it's inherent lack of security and transparency. I probably wouldn't have mentioned it if not for the bold-ed line in the post below.

Post #12

WillYourVoteBCounted
12. Bev Bots in DU, and folks new to activism

The issue is that Bev Harris has launched an attack against HR 550,
and Land Shark is assisting her.

If you go to her website, you will see that she is referring to him.

So, how do you feel about having a Bev Bot advising folks in DU on
election reform?

Bev lambasts HR 550 as if it were of the same ilk as HAVA.

HAVA was written by and for the voting machine companies and congressmen
receiving donations from them.

HR 550 was written by Congressman Rush Holt, a physicist whose
only interest is in protecting the vote.

Verified Voting endorses it, led by Computer expert David Dill, who has
no financial interest.

So, please DU'ers, be forwarned, Bev Bots abound here in DU.

And the new people who get her newsletter don't know about her background.

Just doing my part to get all the facts out to the reality based community. :)

This is where the first mention of VTUSA was made.

WillYourVoteBCounted
8. sorry, here is why I am mad

Some of our very own Vote Trust people have been working against the other vote trust members while

VTUSA had about 200 people in DC lobbying for HR 550.

They did great, got 9 more co sponsors, including 3 republicans.

now it is clear that Bev Harris needs this as a method to divide up the voting

integrity community.

Otherwise, if she wanted to oppose HR 550, why didn't she do it years ago?

And I have no respect for her whatsoever.

She has never done anything in my state except fleece people out of

donations.

So people in VTUSA disagree among themselves on HR 550 and that somehow is Black Box Voting.org's fault?

You say "Personally, I'd rather we think of this as a discussion, than act on it as an argument", I agree. Facts are facts so I'll stick to facts.

HR 550 is basically table scraps from a meal we paid for off of a table we own. Calling something a "Gold Standard" has a very specific connotation. It means that something is as close to perfect as you can get it. HR 550 has been pushed on Capitol Hill as a "Gold Standard" piece of legislation. That terminology, used in conjunction with a bill this weak, gives a false sense that if passed, things are getting better, when in fact, you've just made things a whole lot worse. It's just a matter of what your ultimate goals are.

If your ultimate goal is to eliminate electronic voting (except for the disabled), and concentrate instead on a paper balloting system that can be easily hand counted, you must first establish your legal right to count all of the ballots. Creating a federal law that places a legal ceiling on what percentage of votes will be hand counted, and under what circumstances, is dangerous at best.

On the one hand, you might argue that it's a step in the right direction and you can always raise the number later on. On the other hand, they might just tell you to go pound salt when you ask because they already gave you everything you've asked for. Remember, we're asking the very people who are in office because of these machines to make these changes to the law. There's nothing stopping them from adding a line to this law in the future stating that this 2% hand count will be the only one allowed under the law. Laws are a double edged sword. You must always be mindful of how your opponent will attempt to use it against you.

I want to hand count 100% of the ballots, and under HR 550 they're offering me 2%. That's not an offer that I'm willing to accept. My only desire is to ensure that I can count all of the votes if I so choose. This law may very well threaten my ability to ever do that. It's all in how it gets tweaked later on and there are no guarantees on how that will happen.

[Wilms]

97. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Steve, the bbv article left me with the impression that VTUSA was being labeled as an "insider", and that insiders were considered, by bbv, to be a compromised lot. I'm not sure how I could interpret it otherwise.

I took issue with WillYourVoteBCounted refering to Land Shark as a BevBot, and he or she replied to apologize for that.

Dill being a member of ACCURATE does not neccessarily give rise, in my mind, to a negative charge, though I'd understand some people questioning it. A number of the ACCURATE members are on the CA VSTAAB group which reviewed Diebolds software for the TSx and OSx and added to Hursti's concern sixteen additional vulnerabilities. That wasn't exactly "playing nice", though one might argue that the recommendations they made for dealing with the problems served to apologize for the vulnerabilities. My own view of what they had done was to answer the specific question the CA SoS asked, namely, if you're stuck with the system how best to put some band-aids on it to limp through the 2006 election. I would have recommended putting a bullet in the head of the patient to put it and the voters out of their misery, but they sort-of gave the issue a good college try.

Of WillYourVoteBCounted post #12 you are saying, "So people in VTUSA disagree among themselves on HR 550 and that somehow is Black Box Voting.org's fault?" It is not clear to me that that is what was implied. What was implied was bbv taking advantage of the disagreement within VTUSA, and I have to concur, though you're open to challenge my assumption on that.

The balance of your post, explaining your concern with the bill is reasonable and shared by me. But, I'm also sympathetic to the argument for forging ahead with hope of improving the audit, or even of trashing the machines as auditing raises public awareness.

But then, you did a great job pointing out "Laws are a double edged sword. You must always be mindful of how your opponent will attempt to use it against you."

[kster]

105. FIVE STAR POST RIGHT HERE

GOOD JOB Steve A Play!!

[Land Shark]

90. it seems to me that Steve A Play means that it was discussed prior

but was not a MAJOR issue (meaning emotionally charged) But that's an interpretation and is probably why reasonable people can come to different conclusions

[Boredtodeath]

93. And the attorney comes to his defense

Your actions here show your true agenda.

Did you accept a retainer from Bev/BBV? Or are you acting pro bono?

I guess there's something in the water in WA state.

[Wilms]

99. BTD, I did not notice an atty coming to my defense.

But then, I was not aware of being on trial. Perhaps a subpoena was delivered while I slept. :D

The debate over the audit component of Holt's bill has brought forth some very good points from people opposing it, and from others supporting it. Given the stakes, and the good points, I don't have to assume anyone is working in underhanded fashion.

In fact, I would have had no problem considering the bbv position if it didn't contain, what I perceived as, an attack on VTUSA and other supporters of the bill, and the usual bbv habit of talking to an audience as though they are juveniles.

But then, Andy (rest his soul) had his own way of holding court and talking as if to juveniles. Perhaps there is something in the WA water.

Land Shark is an intense debater. I'm thankful for that. But I'd probably feel intimidated were he arguing against a position of mine. But that would not necessarily lead me to question his motives.

If bbv had not hitched it's fortune seeking to LS's argument, would you have been as suspicious of his motivation?

[Boredtodeath]

100. uhhh, I was referring to him defending Steve A Play

not you.

And, yes, with or without BBV, his behavior is atrocious.

He is a member of a group formed to lobby for this legislation.

He went to DC as a member of that group.

And, then, went out in a public forum demeaning the legislation and speaking in opposition to it.

He was/is being deceptive.

If he had a problem with HR550, he had 2 years to argue for changes. He did no such thing. Until a very public push to lobby FOR HR550 was underway.

That's deceptive.

If he had a problem with HR550, he could/should have fought for changes to the legislation BEFORE THE PUBLIC PUSH TO PASS IT.

In fact, if he disagrees with HR550, perhaps he would be wise to offer competing legislation.

What he should NOT do, is deceptively become a member of an organization who's purpose is to lobby for PASSAGE OF THE LEGISLATION.

[Wilms]

102. Well that's a relief!

I really can't afford legal counsel right now.

I don't agree with your characterization but I feel I understand it, and might be inclined to see it as you do were I an emphatic supporter of HR 550 as written.

I'm not.

If you are referring to VTUSA as a group FORMED to lobby IN FAVOR of HR 550, that would be news to me. Perhaps you are saying a group of VTUSA'ers went to DC to lobby in favor, which would match my understanding.

I'm giving LS a pass for not having taken issue with 550 until recently as he's been involved with the lawsuit in WA.

Fact is, lots of people have expressed concerns (during the last year, anyhow) over the auditing component, and even some of the security measures in the bill.

I myself wrote Holt a year ago, and while I recall my specific concern being acknowledged, I'm not aware that the bill was modified.

I think LS is not in a good position to offer an alternative bill as he's not a congressperson. And I see he is suggesting improvements to the bill which are changes I (and perhaps even you) may well concur with.

As I understand it, amendments are part of the process, so I would in fact support the debate he's brought. Further, with a whopping three republicans co-sponsoring this bill, I don't really see it going anywhere at this time.

I don't want to take wind from your sail, but if I may recommend a change in tack, consider the specific concerns expressed by LS and others.

He's not arguing against taking a trip. He's merely pointing out that there may not be enough gas in the tank to reach the destination, and that there may not be any filling stations along the way.

Call him a party pooper, if you will. My view of him is that he's acting like a Scout.

[Boredtodeath]

106. Well, I guess it's news then

Cause VTUSA's first action was Lobby Days in June of 2005 to lobby for Rush Holt's legislation.

The group's first meeting was the weekend following those Lobby Days, and their email list was created from the attendees.

[Wilms]

109. Regardless...

I think it's rather clear that the scope of VTUSA's work is fairly wide, and hardly limited to advocacy of HR550.

[Boredtodeath]

110. I never said it was "limited"

I said that was it's INITIAL purpose.

[Wilms]

111. I got that.

And I don't think support of 550 as written is a membership requirement. But then, I'm not a member so I'm unaware of any initiation rituals.

[OnTheOtherHand]

117. what Wilms said

VTUSA's mandate obviously is not, and never has been, limited to lobbying for HR 550. "INITIAL purpose" seems quite wrong to me. I sorta grasp why you think Lehto is guilty of some cosmic betrayal, but I don't see it.

I support VTUSA, and I generally support HR 550: I think the people who think it is worse than useless aren't fairly comparing it with the status quo. I agree with Wilms that Lehto is doing the right thing by airing out the arguments. I'm not much interested in Bev Harris's opinion about anything, one way or the other. I certainly won't grant her the power to trash people's credibility simply by quoting them favorably.

[Steve A Play]

137. Boredtodeath, if I might ask you a question (or two)

are you an official or member of VTUSA, and if so, do you speak for the organization in an official capacity? One more question if I might be so bold, is VTUSA aware of the charges you publicly level against other organizations and individuals, and if so, does VTUSA stand behind your words?

[Boredtodeath]

141. No to all of the above

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of VoteTrustUSA.

[Steve A Play]

149. Thanks

I just wanted you to put that on the public record. :)

[Steve A Play]

132. Thank you Land Shark

That is indeed a correct impression of my use of the word MAJOR. In reading through the threads you started on this topic, I saw none of the hysterics or vitriol aimed at you that I see in this thread. As soon as BBV.org went public expressing an opinion that mirrored your own, suddenly you are the victim of personal attacks and labeled a "BevBot". :crazy:

That suggests to me that there is more at play here than a simple disagreement over this legislation.

[Land Shark]

163. Oh yeah, there's a lot at play besides what is seen

And I only have vague ideas of what it all is beyond the bad blood of the various camps, which may explain all of it.

Free speech is an important value, as well as thinking. Some people may try to use free speech and/or the fact that one may think publicly from time to time against people. Debate is fine, but trashing goes over the line.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

191. its called swift boating

when its your colleagues you are lobbying against.

[FogerRox]

129. Thank you Gary beck

[Land Shark]

92. Question for WillYourVoteBCounted re validity of 2% audits

You have 15 posts in your main thread here, plus three posts in my thread on HR 550's "...major major problems in election reform-land"

At 8:41 EST I checked your number of posts and it is 686.

Two percent of 686 is 13.72, rounded to 14.

So, over two percent of your posts have been in this flaming-thread manner. 2.62%, approximately.

Now, granted, I've selected these posts non-randomly, but Holt's audit provision is also non-random.

I don't believe we can judge your entire DU history based on this sample of "at least 2%"

On the other hand, it seems that I can be judged based on a BBV piece exercising its statutory and constitutional right to fair use quoting of something I wrote, though that is a "sample" that is a tiny fraction of one percent, and also nonrandom.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

107. what question was posed?

Subject starts out with "Question..."

But no where a question.

I will take a blind stab at this -
I will actually ask some questions, and make a comment.

Do you recommend blocking passage of HR 550 because
you do not believe the audits are perfect at this time?

Would you rather block the passage of HR 550 than follow the
advice from Rush Holt's office to mark it up?

Would you rather that Florida, Georgia, Maryland and other states
continue to invest in paperless voting machines and more
worthless technology than pass a law that will stop it?

Are you fine with paperless voting spreading across the country
if the audits don't meet YOUR specifications?

And comment - there is no way to audit a paperless voting machine
without a transparent record of the voter's intent.

[FogerRox]

131. WillYourVoteBCounted

I wasnt aware that so many states had not spent their HAVA money. I really must do a better job of staying on top of stuff.

Would you rather that Florida, Georgia, Maryland and other states
continue to invest in paperless voting machines

The fact of the matter is that ALL 50 states will be scrapping 99% of the HAVA purchased equipment by 2007, and replacing said equipment with new equipment, that meets the 2005 VVSS.



Considering that the supposed 2007 enaction of the 2005 VVSS, will drive a second round of voting equipment purchases. It may be, that is the time to get a national audit bill right. SO that it will be in effect when the next round of purchases occur.

Have you considered how does the 2005 VVSS driven, second round of purchases play out?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

148. please advise specific reference r/e 2005 VVSS

Please help - can you advise where it is stated thus -

"The fact of the matter is that ALL 50 states will be scrapping 99% of the HAVA purchased equipment by 2007, and replacing said equipment with new equipment, that meets the 2005 VVSS."

Note - When the 2002 standards came out, states didn't scrap their 1990
certified machines. Some states had machines that weren't even 1990 cert.

Aren't the 2005 VVSS standards the standards that new equipment will have to meet
effective 2007?

Is there a law that says machines purchased prior to 2007 must meet 2005 VVSS standards?

While I agree that most of the machines deemed "disabled accessible" are not, and are
only accessible to the sight impaired, the federal government allowed these in.
Rightly or wrongly.

In my state, about 57 of 100 counties chose the Automark, so we should be good in those counties.
75 of our counties are mainly optical scan.

(I don't think you are saying that the optical scan equipment is going to be decertified by the
federal government).

I expect more touchscreen counties to convert to OS, or still have to replace their (now new) DRES
in a few years though.

[FogerRox]

153. Ok.........

VVSS stands for VOLUNTEER VOTING SYSTEMS STANDARDS.

SOooo.........

Since NOvoting system is certified to the 2005 VVSS standards, when/if they (the 2005VVSS) become mandatory, 99% of voting equipment will have to be replaced. Do your Automarks have sip & puff? I dont think they do, do they?

I would recommend hanging out here more often.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

154. Automark and two questions

The Automark has a switch on it that the disabled can connect
their sip/puff device or foot pedal to. The sip/puff device is on the person's wheelchair.

Did you say THERE IS A LAW NOW ON THE BOOKS? with a deadline that will make states
replace all voting systems, or the disabled voting systems with machines
that have been certified to 2005 VVS?

Or are you saying that IF THERE WERE A NEW LAW WRITTEN, it might make
states replace their voting systems with new machines that meet 2005 VVS?

Didn't see that in your answer.

I don't think I will hang out here often, too little time, benefits too low.

Often don't get the answers to the questions asked.

[FogerRox]

156. your answer is in my prior post.

Just in case---

If the 2005 VVSS becomes mandatory, all 1990 & 2002 certified equipment will need to be upgraded or replaced to meet the MANDATORY 2005 standards.

I have now explained the process 3 times. You have the information you need. If you dont understand the picture I paint, try BBV forums.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

158. So you original statement "The Fact", was not a "Fact"

So your words here, the "fact" that you refer to was NOT a fact -

"The fact of the matter is that ALL 50 states will be scrapping 99% of the HAVA purchased equipment by 2007, and replacing said equipment with new equipment, that meets the 2005 VVSS."


Should have read -

"IF A LAW WERE PASSED TO REQUIRE ALL VOTING SYSTEMS TO MEET 2005 VVSS, then
SOME OF THE 50 states will be scrapping SOME of the HAVA purchased equipment by 2007, and replacing SOME equipment with new equipment, that meets the 2005 VVSS."

Please be accurate so that the good information you have can be used to
help make things better.

[FogerRox]

159. EAC has stated it plans to make the 2005 VVS mandatory.

SO why would a law need to be passed? LOL.




If you dont think what I posted was accurate, bring it up with the Rutgers University Constitutional Litigation Center, Or the Excutive Director of NJ Applessed, or any one of the 17 or so Appleseed Legal Centers.

Or the SEIU.

Or Holts Lawyer, Michelle Mulder, tell her Roger Fox sent ya.

Or contact a lawyer, OH LAnd Shark................Just Kidding.....




Yawn.

[FogerRox]

166. SO why would a law need to be passed?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

170. please cite reference - mandatory for what

If I read the 2005 standards correctly, the standards only affect NEW voting systems that are submitted for federal qualification.

In 2007, voting systems that are submitted for federal qualification, will be
tested to the 2005 standards, instead of the 2002 ones.

This is not what you seem to be saying.

You seem to be saying that in 2007 the EAC is mandating the replacement of
equipment that is not qualified to the 2005 standards.

Can you show me a specific documented reference that says the EAC mandates that in the year 2007
the replacement of any voting systems that are not 2005 qualified?

[FogerRox]

171. just to damn funny,

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

174. the burden is on you to provide documentation

Provide documentation. It is not my job to look up information to bolster your
theory.

If you can provide documentation where you saw this "fact", then it shouldn't
be hard for you to show it.

[Cocoa]

139. We have always been at war with Bev Harris

[garybeck]

142. Bev is correct on this one

while the bill is better than what we have now, it has many problems. For one, it puts a CAP on conducting audits at 2%. That means if we want to pass a law in our state requiring 5% audits, we can't.

sound like a good idea to you? are you happy with 2% audits? I'm not.

advice - lay off Bev and focus on the issues.

[Wilms]

143. A cap?!?

Citation, please.

[garybeck]

144. good question...

that's an interpretation that has been alleged. I am looking into confirmation of it. Unfortunately it might be one of those things that is interpreted by lawyers later on (when it's too late). I'll see what I can find out and check back in soon.

G

[garybeck]

145. Clarification

HR550 does not explicitly put a cap on 2%.

[Steve A Play]

146. While you are correct

in my opinion that HR 550 does NOT place a "cap" on recounts limiting them to 2%, I'm not the election official whose 'interpretation' of the law your election will be subjected to. Just remember J. Kenneth Blackwell and his 'interpretation' of the rule regarding the weight of the paper that voter registration application forms should be submitted on.

He took what was essentially an internal guideline advising local elections officials to use no less than 80# stock paper when sending 'post card' style voter registration application forms through the mail, and perverted it in an attempt to disenfranchise voters who sent in applications clipped from local newspapers. Although he ultimately failed in the attempt, there is no telling how many people actually had their applications trashed before the courts stepped in and stopped him.

Does anyone honestly think that this law is immune to the same type of 'deliberate misinterpretation'?

I, for one, don't want to find out. :)

[yowzayowzayowza]

152. No law is impervious to ...

...unfaithful execution.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

155. Basing the real world on Ohio and Florida

it isn't realistic to base the real world on Florida or Ohio.
Or maybe Arizona.

Any state that allows their SOS to be in charge of elections and
also to run political campaigns for a presidential candidate are
seriously compromised.

There will be far more mischief and voter supression in those
states.

If they had hand counted paper ballots in Ohio, the votes still wouldn't get
counted, there wouldn't be enough ballots at the polls, and
folks would still be voting at 1 AM on general election night.

Florida - same thing - good folks down there try to fight for verified
elections, and 70K absentee ballots disappear.

[Steve A Play]

167. Oh PLEASE tell me you're kidding!

it isn't realistic to base the real world on Florida or Ohio.
Or maybe Arizona.

I'm not sure exactly how to break this to you but, the states you mention are the PERFECT EXAMPLE of the "real world"! :crazy:

In theory everyone plays by the same rules and obeys the laws. Unfortunately, we live in the United States, (You know, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, and a bunch of other states.) and in the REAL WORLD not everyone plays by the rules.

So in the "real world" Florida, Ohio, and Arizona don't count? :rofl:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

172. HAVA was in response to Florida

HAVA was an inproper reaction to Florida's lack of statutes on
what constitutes a vote on punch cards.

In Florida, it doesn't matter what you do to the elections, as long as
you have a partisan SOS using every method possible to thwart the will
of the people. When a state is that corrupt, ballots won't get counted correctly.
No matter how they are counted.

In Ohio, same thing, partisan SOS who is head of Bush's Ohio Campaign.

All the laws in the world don't work when you have powerful people
in position to manipulate and control every aspect of the election,
from registration to voting equipment or ballots.

What Ohio, Florida and Arizona need are Boards of Elections, with dual party or
more serving.
Persons in charge of Election Administration should not be allowed to
chair political campaigns.

In my state, we have a 5 member State Board of Elections. 3 are of the majority party,
and 2 are of the smaller party. It would be great if a third party were on there to
really keep them on their toes.

We had punch cards, but the undervote on them was lower than on DRES.
We didn't have widespread voter supression, but did see some very small pockets
in a few counties. Nothing at all like what occurred in OH or FL.
We had one county holding back voting machines, but it seems to have been
due to incompetence.

If Ohio and Florida had hand counted paper ballots, the results would still be rigged.
Because their SOS had the power to do it.

So, laugh all you want, but HAVA was a stupid reaction to Florida's issues, and was completely
off base.

[Land Shark]

160. ;yeah there's no "cap" it says "at least 2%"

but the audits are on a "for profit" contracting basis. Although activist groups in theory can bid on them, they will have to meet all govt contracting requirements, which may disqualify them, and the contracts may be offered in pieces (or huge chunks) that are outside the scope of what activists want to do.

Anyway, if you are required to work until 5 p.m. to get your paycheck, but in order to have the work done just right you have to work until 8 p.m., what percentage of "for profit" employees work til 8 p.m.? (no danger of being fired here, because a statute controls and says you work until "at least 5"

This is analogous to the govt contracting process for audits. They require at least 2% but 2 will do the job, though statistically valid audits will require substantially more in many states. (though not all, necessarily) How many for profit auditors will do us the favor of a statistically valid audit?

Will activist groups risk their tax exemption by engaging in for profit audits?

If they do so separately, what arguments will likely be made about the motivations of activist groups, even though false?

[garybeck]

187. what I'd really like to see is

the door clearly left open for citizen funded audits OVER the 2%. If I have the bucks I should be able to pay for a larger audit, as long as it is done according to the standards set up. We shouldn't have to pass laws requiring larger audits in each state, and worry about funding, etc. There should be a standard procedure for funding and organizing larger audits at the will of the people.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

173. Bush ordered her book

You may be very surprised at who's in our corner on this issue. In fact, George Bush ordered my book, had it overnighted.

Thanks.

Bev

http://www.thoughtcrimes.org/bushbought.htm

[Steve A Play]

176. Nice try at posting things out of context ..... again!

Now let's see who Bev was really referring to when she posted that.

8. "Please do not bash 'freepers' -- here's why"
In response to message #7

that is a term that comes from Free Republic, a political forum. Free Republic has had some outstanding discussions on voting machine integrity in the past. I have gotten some good consultation from "freepers."

We are nonpartisan. Everyone who's not a criminal wants clean elections. One of our board members, Jim March, has done some fantastic work on this issue, and I guess you'd describe him as a "freeper" -- he's a gun lobbyist who supports George Bush.

You may be very surprised at who's in our corner on this issue. In fact, George Bush ordered my book, had it overnighted.

Thanks.

Bev

Reading this in it's full original context, it appears to me that she was obviously referring to some people who are conservatives. She even mentioned Jim March who is definitely a conservative and was definitely instrumental in getting the Diebold machines de-certified here in California. I know first hand because I was there in Sacramento with him, Bev, Andy, Dr. Hugh Thompson, and a number of other people from BBV.org in Kevin Shelley's board room demonstrating the "Thompson hack" that led to the decertification. Jim is now a full time paid investigator for BBV.org. He and I may be as ideologically far apart on almost every issue I can think of, but we're both in total agreement on our right to count all the votes. I have no problem working with him on this issue and he has none working with me.

Knowing what we know about the last two Presidential elections, only an idiot would believe that the 'tongue in cheek' remark at the end of that post was meant to be taken seriously. LOL!

Yeah, riiiight! George Bush wants all the votes counted. :rofl:

Just for the record, that remark was made because the Whitehouse librarian did indeed order two copies of the book and had requested 'overnight' shipping. Bev waited two weeks before shipping them. :)

My guess is GWB still hasn't read it!

[Kelvin Mace]

185. You'll have to do better than that

1) If the post was as you claim, why did Bev scrub it from her site? Bev routinely scrubs stupid and incriminating posts from her site after it becomes apparent she's been caught in a fabrication. When she was called on this lie, she didn't offer your explanation, she simply scrubbed the post.

2) When evidence was demanded to substatiate the "White House librarian" bullshit, she never provided it, instead making excuses about not having kept the receipt. This is bogus, since all FedEx shipments can be accessed on-line.

Could you explain how you come by your explanations?

Bev's claim about George Bush has been routinely posted, in full context.

http://www.thoughtcrimes.org/bushbought.htm

[JimDandy]

177. Hijacking your own thread! LOL n/t

[foo_bar]

178. hey, bots are people too

Robophobia is just the whips and shackles of the meatbag patriarchy.

[Land Shark]

186. Interesting perspective, now I see how hybrid machine/humans will occur

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

189. thank you for your efforts to protect paperless voting.

The GOP and Diebold appreciate your support of paperless voting.
Without your help, it would be much harder to maintain their stranglehold
over our elections.

Next time there is election like in 2000, we still won't be able to
tell what happened in Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Virginia.

Thank you for protecting paperless voting and saving these states from
less than perfect audits.

When Floridians go to vote on their paperless machines in 2006 and 2008,
they will thank you. Your name will be hot on all message boards, for your
forsight in warning people to oppose HR 550.

The GOP couldn't do it without you.

You are doing a heck of a job.

[foo_bar]

193. I was hoping for a Wilms picture

About your sig:

So, I favour the view that the quotation is apocryphal - made up by some anonymous wag, maybe in its complete 'two-part' form, maybe not - and subsequently attributed to Franklin just because someone thought it sounded a bit like him.

http://www.ovaloffice2008.com/2005/09/word-about-benjamin-franklin.html

I doubt that you'll find a verifiable source for this old chestnut. It's not likely to be Franklin; the word "lunch" didn't come into the English language until decades after Franklin's death.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=389308

(edited out blogging self-reference)

[Einsteinia]

192. Who is Bots

And I agree with Paul Lehto--NO to HR 550!

We cannot afford privatized audits done by Halliburton, nor can we afford further consolidation of power under the executive branch--the EAC.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

194. President Jeb Bush thanks you

President Jeb Bush, Diebold and the GOP thank you for your efforts to ensure paperless
voting in nearly half the country.

Your loyalty to them is impressive.

Paperless states will thank you for making sure that they will not have to worry
about those bothersome recounts.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

195. Dr Mercuri summed it up best

Dr. Mercuri summed it up best in her note to Bev Harris:


Your opposition statement to Rush Holt' bill is completely deluded. I'm fairly convinced that you've never read his bill, based on the numerous erroneous remarks that you made. You really need to spend some time with it.