Can Open Source Save Democracy? ("No", says I)

[Bev Harris]

You can also discuss this here:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/80688.html

Quite a wave of PR pieces have come out in the past few days about a new open
source voting system -- NOT from Alan Dechert's well known Open Voting
Consortium, but instead from an upstart, loosely connected to the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, and several cronies of the Holt-Bill-pushing verified
voting fans.

So let's talk about this. I'm going to link you to Michael Hickens' piece, one
of the many bloggers who jumped on this bandwagon. His article is headlined
"Can Open Source Software Save Democracy?"

SHORT ANSWER: NO.

Before I get to that, and before outlining my concerns with the new "Open Source
Digital Voting Foundation" concept, I'll point out that:

(1) THIS IS NOT ON THE IMMEDIATE HORIZON. The federal certification process
takes two to three years

(2) Though not covered by U.S. antitrust laws, THIS IS STRUCTURED MUCH LIKE
ANOTHER MONOPOLISTIC GRAB FOR U.S. ELECTION PROCESSES. This new group claims to
have 26 states on board (though I doubt this) -- that would give a horizontal
monopoly of over 50% of the USA; the "top to bottom" design also invokes
vertical monopoly concerns, in that it wants to have the software control voter
registration, ballot design, ballot counting, and even election auditing.

CAN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE SAVE DEMOCRACY?

Counting votes inside computers conceals the counting from the public. If key
processes are concealed from the public, you no longer have public elections.
If you don't have public elections, The People no longer hold sovereignty over
the instruments of government they have created, and it ceases to be a
democratic system.

The core issues are not "security" or "assuring the public" as the author of
this blog assumes. The ultimate issues are public right to know, and public
ability to understand their own election without need for special expertise,
and public controls. You cannot achieve these simply by replacing proprietary
software with open source software.

Open source software DOES achieve two worthwhile things, though it doesn't solve
our current elections problems. It does enhance our ability to get freedom of
information requests filled, by eliminating the proprietary exemption, and it
should significantly reduce cost. But costs are also reduced significantly by
public hand counts, which, when done correctly, actually do restore democracy.

Case in point: Marion County, Indiana is conducting its next election by public
hand count. This is a large jurisdiction (Indianapolis). The ballot is a small
one, just four ballot questions. This will provide an excellent pilot project
example for expansion of hand counts, beginning with elections with only a
modest number of ballot questions. Marion county estimates that all together,
it will save $288,000. In fact, the cost of just delivering the voting machines
(be they open or closed source) was estimated by Marion County to be $22,000!

The German high court recently banned its e-voting system because it conceals
the counting from the public. Open source changes this not a whit. Instead,
Germany is now counting in public, by hand.

TWO MORE HALLMARKS OF PUBLIC ELECTIONS: (1) The less centralized, the better
(the more people, the better, the "many eyes" safeguard); (2) the public needs
to be able to understand how the election works, and be able to authenticate
it, without need for special expertise.

IS THIS WHAT THE SENATE HEARING ON THE ES&S MONOPOLY IS LEADING TO?

You've gotta wonder. The acquisition of Diebold's elections division by Election
Systems & Software, giving it 75% of the horizontal market and a vertical
monopoly as well, is being questioned by a U.S. Senate committee, but the
committee chosen is a bit odd: The Rules Committee. One might expect to see
this investigation taken up by the Judiciary Committee (after all, monopolies
are illegal and are typically investigated by the U.S. Dept. of Justice); or
perhaps the Commerce Committee ... but the Rules Committee?

On this Rules Committee are the two key Senate pushers of forced voting machine
purchase, Help America Vote Act sponsors Chris Dodd and Mitch McConnell. If
only they had Steny Hoyer, they'd have the trifecta. Chairing the committee is
Charles Schumer, who is now pushing an unwise Internet Registration bill (and
Internet registration happens to be one of the areas this nifty new Open Source
Digital Voting Foundation claims to be developing).

At first, after looking at the makeup of the senate committee undertaking the
antitrust examination, I thought maybe they'd be using this as an excuse to
expand the powers of the EAC. Now I expect the real reason these particular
senators grabbed this particular investigation was to push an open source
agenda -- but not just any open source agenda.

One particular open source agenda. The specific well oiled machine produced by a
bunch of the folks who had been associated with the Quixote Group, who also
have been associated with pushing the Holt Bill; those folks chummy with the
multi-million-dollar NSF-funded ACCURATE. Always covered by Kim Zetter at Wired
News. Usually pipelined in to the New York Times Editorial Page.

By the way, not all the "open source" code is being released. And the only
comment I can offer for that is: Strange, but true.

Now, here's one of the blogs on this:

Information Week Government Blogs - Oct. 26, 2009, by Michael Hickens

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/10/can_open_source.html

Can Open Source Software Save Democracy?

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * *

Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right
to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the
instruments of government we have created.

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * *

Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right
to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the
instruments of government we have created.

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[SomeTh...@aol.com]

RE: You've gotta wonder. The acquisition of Diebold's elections division by Election
Systems &Software, giving it 75% of the horizontal market and a vertical

monopoly as well, is being questioned by a U.S. Senate committee, but the
committee chosen is a bit odd: The Rules Committee. One might expect to see
this investigation taken up by the Judiciary Committee (after all, monopolies
are illegal and are typically investigated by the U.S. Dept. of Justice); or
perhaps the Commerce Committee ... but the Rules Committee?

The Senate Commiittee On Rules and Administration
( http://rules.senate.gov/public/ )
has oversight on election issues, including the EAC and FEC.
Since the ES&S/Diebold merger is an election and a monopoly
control issue, I would hope that another committee would
also look at it.

Jim Soper

www.CountedAsCast.com

Jim Soper

www.CountedAsCast.com

[Kathy Dopp]

I have to agree with Bev Harris on this to a large extent. While open
source software is a good improvement because it will increase the
reliability of voting software, decrease the costs of maintaining and
upgrading the systems, and cause improvements and increased security
of the systems, and allow for possible (costly) verification of the
software and better access to the systems for court cases -- Open
source will not solve the problem of verifying the accuracy of the
election results or the election outcomes. Open source software can
be used to miscount votes as easily as any other (well maybe a little
less so but still very possible.)

The *only* way to ensure that the machine counts are correct is to
manually count voter marked ballots after the election in sufficient
numbers (if not 100% then a sufficient number of publicly reported
vote counts must be randomly selected) and with sufficient public
oversight over ballot security procedures to ensure that the voters
did indeed determine who is declared the winner.

As you know I have spent many years now deriving the mathematics that
show what the minimum number of vote counts are that must be manually
counted if one assumes the most minimal level of vote miscount that
could result in an incorrect election outcome (so requires the largest
manual count). It is flatly unreasonable for states to not agree to
post-election manually count at least that number and follow
procedures that allow the public to verify that the counts accurately
represent what all the voters wanted in order to minimize the number
of initially incorrect election outcomes that are certified. For
instance if a risk-limiting audit were designed to detect 99% of all
incorrect initial outcomes and 10% of all initial outcomes were
incorrect, then at most 0.1% or at most 1 in every 1000 election
outcomes could possibly be certified incorrectly, an amount less than
one member of the US Congress.

Cheers,
Kathy

> Date: Mon, Oct 26 2009 4:52 pm
> From: Bev Harris

> You've gotta wonder. The acquisition of Diebold's elections division by Election

> Systems & Software, giving it 75% of the horizontal market and a vertical

> monopoly as well, is being questioned by a U.S. Senate committee, but the
> committee chosen is a bit odd: The Rules Committee. One might expect to see
> this investigation taken up by the Judiciary Committee (after all, monopolies
> are illegal and are typically investigated by the U.S. Dept. of Justice); or
> perhaps the Commerce Committee ... but the Rules Committee?
>

--

Kathy Dopp

Town of Colonie, NY 12304
phone 518-952-4030
cell 518-505-0220

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting - 18 Flaws and 4 Benefits
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling
http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf

[Nancy Tobi]

If we take out the word "machine" from Kathy's statement, then maybe we can see how absurd this discussion has become in America. Instead of talking about ensuring an accurate vote count, we are talking about auditing machines. How on earth did we get here? We've entered the twilight zone and it is time to get out of there.

CONSTITUTIONAL ELECTIONS = OPEN VOTE COUNTING, OPEN VOTING SYSTEMS

"The *only* way to ensure that the machine counts are correct is to
manually count voter marked ballots after the election in sufficient
numbers (if not 100% then a sufficient number of publicly reported
vote counts must be randomly selected) and with sufficient public
oversight over ballot security procedures to ensure that the voters
did indeed determine who is declared the winner."

CHANGE KATHY'S STATEMENT JUST A TAD AND WE GET TO THE REAL ISSUE:

The *only* way to ensure that the counts are correct is to
manually count voter marked ballots ON ELECTION NIGHT with sufficient public

oversight over ballot security procedures to ensure that the voters
did indeed determine who is declared the winner.

[Paul Lehto]

I highly doubt in the very special context of elections that open
source will even so much as increase quality, given that every voter
as well as nonvoter and especially every insider has a significant to
strong incentive for the election NOT to work properly. This is
totally different than regular kinds of software where we all want it
to work well. That's why even a "moonshot" Apollo-style program will
never get us technological voting that is workable -- putting aside
its very invisibility and transparency and lack of the ability to
timely analyze it by the very few able to do so.

--
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box #1
Ishpeming, MI 49849
lehto...@gmail.com
906-204-4026

[Kathy Dopp]

Just a minor correction Nancy: I have for one have *never* talked
about auditing the "machines". My goal has always been to ensure that
voters decide who governs, so I have always spoken about auditing the
accuracy of the publicly reported vote counts.

In fact a major problem with the NY State post-election auditing
language is that they call for auditing the voting machines. You can
audit voting machines until you are blue in the face, and it will not
ensure the accuracy of any election outcomes unless you check the
accuracy of the initial reported vote counts.

Of course I disagree with Nancy and Bev about the wisdom of forcing
everyone to manually count votes in the precincts as soon as polls
close. That would work wonderfully in some states, but in some states
we've seen how poll workers have colluded to manipulate or swap
ballots with their church group. In Utah, for example, it would be a
bad idea IMO to hand over the counting of votes to thousands of poll
workers because there are just not enough people who would be able to
monitor that scenario for fairness and accuracy.

I have no problem with people in NH or WA state doing it that way if
they think they can manage it best that way there, but as for
requiring that every state do it that way, it would leave elections
wide-open to tampering in many of them.

Cheers,

Kathy

[Nancy Tobi]

Now that is a perfect insight Paul. The incentive is for it to NOT work properly. OMG.

[Paul Lehto]

In economics, they call this and related topics the subject of "Moral
Hazard." (i.e. Not everyone wants it to work). For example, it's a
"moral hazard" to allow anyone to take out a fire insurance policy on
any old person's house that they're not connected with via an
"insurable loss" because the only incentive such a person has is to
see the house burn down so they can collect the $$.

Even more interesting, again from economics, is that "markets" with
one party having an "informational deficit" like secrecy being one
example (used car markets feature this, sellers know more than buyers
by far in the usual case) only two eventual outcomes of such markets
exist, barring outside intervention like fair govt regulation. (1) a
permanent lemon market, if people require the product or service,
since buyers play a kind of lotto on the lemons out there they can't
very easily know which are which, OR (2) total market failure, since
everyone learns to distrust and avoids buying altogether.

In voting systems, as long as we're perceived to need machines we'll
have a permanent lemon market, because "buyers" will never match
sellers in sophistication. If we wean ourselves of the idea of tech
being necessary for counts, the we will see market failure of the
voting machines (let's hope!!)

The "credit default swaps" that brought down our economy are another
form of moral hazard. Financial types said they're too complicated for
govt regulators to even understand.... Basically, IT's a market of
side-betting whereby folks unconnected with properties were betting,
quite literally, that the mortgages would foreclose. When individual
ones did, they cashed in for their "foresight" and nothing more.
"Don't sell America short" came about during the Depression and
related to short-selling nor betting against America. It should be
making a comeback, big time, IMHO.


Paul Lehto, Juris Doctor

[voternm]

Moral Hazard is really a conflict of interests. Certainly election
issues dealing with taxing or candidates who advocate taxing corporate
owners or special interests more are at a disadvantage when elections
are not in corporate control.

Used car dealers and ES&S taking over that Diebold used car dealer of
lemons, that keep conservatives and special interests favored, no
matter how people really vote because votes are counted by corporate
equipment.

End the dishonesty and count the ballots by hand in the polls on
election day. Make shorter ballots and have more elections. Smaller
elections are cheaper and easier to run and if more frequent, people
are more involved. Who knows, maybe people may start thinking more
critically and research the issues, instead of listening to misleading
media or false leaders. Sheeple don't make waves and voting is a
ritual. Democracy works best with active educated voters.

No machines, no audits of machine counts, and no more corporations
running the states' canvasses.

Casey Reed

============================

> >> > On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Kathy Dopp <kathy.d...@gmail.com>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Lucius Chiaraviglio]

Oct 28, 2009 07:12:20 PM, kathy...@gmail.com wrote:
> Of course I disagree with Nancy and Bev about the wisdom of forcing
> everyone to manually count votes in the precincts as soon as polls
> close. That would work wonderfully in some states, but in some states
> we've seen how poll workers have colluded to manipulate or swap
> ballots with their church group. In Utah, for example, it would be a
> bad idea IMO to hand over the counting of votes to thousands of poll
> workers because there are just not enough people who would be able to
> monitor that scenario for fairness and accuracy.

If a state is so corrupt that even hand counting cannot work (and this probably
corresponds to a considerable list of states), machine counts are going to be
even worse (since they enable the cheaters to cheat with less labor) and
"random" audits will be even less likely to be random (as we saw in Ohio in
2004). In this case, the only solution is to bring in outside hand counters.

--
Lucius Chiaraviglio | luc...@verizon.net (main)
| lchi...@gmail.com (photos)
| lchi...@yahoo.com (alternative)
| luc...@post.harvard.edu (fwd only)

[Paul Lehto]

Yes, there's of course the question of fraud and the motivation on the
part of all to cheat, whether they act on it, or not. As to moral
hazard, and the permanent lemon market that is voting machines, the
non-transparency or secrecy is a major factor - that which can't be
found except by insiders has no real incentive to get fixed. But the
problem with all "fixers" - both insiders and outsiders -- is that
there's no consistent incentive to get it fixed right and some don't
want it fixed at all if it's favoring their side. Even if clearly
unfair, they rationalize it as "leveling the playing field' for the
other sides' perceived or actual cheating.

[SomeTh...@aol.com]

kathy...@gmail.com writes:

but in some states we've seen how poll workers have colluded to manipulate or swap ballots with their church group. In Utah, for example, it would be a
bad idea IMO to hand over the counting of votes to thousands of poll
workers because there are just not enough people who would be able to
monitor that scenario for fairness and accuracy.

As I said in an earlier posting, places like Chicago, or the deep south,
have a long history of miscounting ballots because one side dominates
and controls the counting. It helps to have a different mechanism to
double check an initial vote count in the precincts. Scanners can provide
such a check on potentially biased or incompentant human count.

Jim Soper

www.CountedAsCast.com

[Nancy Tobi]

Actually - you don't need expensive technology to double check. With hand count teams of four people, you have two sets of eyes on each point in the process: one person counting aloud, the other person checking their count is accurate. One person tallying that count on the tally sheet, another person checking that tally is accurate. Sometimes - in fact usually - the simplest solution is the best.

[Sheila Parks]

I agree with Nancy.

Here is an example of how it actually was done:

In an Acton, Maine HCPB election that I observed, http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/opedne_sheila_p_070718_on_site_observations.htm , "With seven races and two initiatives, the six teams of two people each were able to hand-count twice 944 ballots in four hours."  See full text below about about the election

They used the read and tally HCPB protocol

This could be used in every precinct in the USA - precincts no larger than 1000 registered voters.

Either read & tally or sort & stack is doable.

Sheila


".... ACTON, ME, NOVEMBER 7, 2006, GENERAL ELECTION

I will first describe the HCPB election in Acton, ME on November 7, 2006 because this protocol used a procedure that would produce the most accurate count of the votes - namely, a second hand-count was done immediately after the first hand-count. 

The ballot box was a plain, wooden box with a slot into which voters put their ballots. There were six teams, of two counters each, doing the hand-counting.  The counters came in specifically to count; they had not worked at the polls earlier in the day.  Each team consisted of a Republican and a Democrat.  The teams first counted the ballots into batches of 50, and then these batches of 50 were counted again. 

The teams then hand-counted the votes cast in each contest for each batch of 50 ballots in the following manner:  One member of the team would read out loud the name marked off for each contest; the other member of the team marked the vote on a tally sheet that corresponded to the ballot.  A voter’s entire ballot was tallied for all of the contests before the counters went on to tally the next voter’s ballot.  The talliers counted each vote by making a hash mark (small, straight vertical line).[6]   After four vertical lines were made, a fifth line was made diagonally through the first four marks.  For each person running for office (and for each initiative), the tally sheet was marked off into five columns vertically and two rows horizontally, providing 10 rectangular spaces in each of which five hash marks could be written – a total of 50 hash marks - i.e., votes - per contest or initiative.  A dark horizontal line separated the names in each contest.  At the end of the counting of all of the races in a batch of 50 ballots, the counters totaled the hash marks for each race on the tally sheet and entered that number on the tally sheet in the “TOTAL VOTE” column.  There was a special sheet for write-ins.

Immediately after the first hand-count of a batch of 50 ballots, a second hand-count, on a new tally sheet, was done of this same batch of 50 ballots by these same counters.  Again, the entire ballot of each voter was tallied before the counters proceeded to the next voter’s ballot.  This time, the person who had read the names out loud marked each vote on the tally sheet, and the person who had tallied read out loud the ballot choices.  After the votes on all 50 ballots in a batch were marked on the tally sheet, the totals for each contest were obtained and written on the tally sheet.  If the totals for the candidates in any contest or for any initiative were not exactly the same on the first and second tally sheets (i.e. on the first and second countings), these contests or initiatives were counted a third time.  I observed such a situation two times. 

The HCPB election in Acton, ME demonstrates that paper ballots can be hand-counted immediately a second time, at the precinct on election night, before the results are posted at the precinct, in order to ensure an honest and transparent count in a timely manner.  The election in Acton, ME also indicates that paper ballots can be hand-counted in a very short time.  With seven races and two initiatives, the six teams of two people each were able to hand-count twice 944 ballots in four hours. .""

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Sheila Parks, Ed.D.
Founder and Director
Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots
Belmont, MA 02478
617-932-1424
DEMOCRACY IN OUR HANDS
www.handcountedpaperballots.org

[Nancy Tobi]

NH has proven that hand counting (sort and stack method) can effectively and accurately be used in polling places with up to 4000 ballots for a general election with up to 15 contests on the ballot. With the exception of the polling centers now being created, most, if not all, polling places in the nation handle well under this number of ballots.

There are problems to be overcome in order for us to bring about honest and fair HCPB elections, as opposed to the hostile hand counts that occur under corruptible circumstances.

Here are just a few of those challenges:

1. Legal infrastructure supporting HCPB must be in place. Despite the arguable fact that HCPB right now may be the only constitutionally supported method for counting votes (with the legally arguable exception of NY's lever machines), some states have implemented legislation and policies prohibiting HCPB

2. Knowledge of methodology. Most election officials in the nation, even if they used to conduct HCPB elections, no longer know how to do it. And if they do know how to do it, they don't know how to do it honestly. Training is required.

3. Nonpartisan elections. Unconstitutional as this is, elections are now controlled by the Parties. Many states have laws requiring Party membership for citizens to participate in running elections even as observers or challengers.

4. Ballot complexity. I have been told by a former Californian that when she went to vote she was handed a book instead of a ballot, due to the number of issues on the ballot. We need to simplify our ballots. There are many possible solutions to this problem, but one way or another it must be done.

5. Community-based elections. Polling centers, mail in voting, etc. are eradicating community-based elections. By community-based elections I mean neighborhood polling centers where the elections are run by citizens who live in the community. When we have community-based elections, we have a greater opportunity to, as the election official in my town puts it, "Handle our neighbor's votes with care."

These are just the top 5 challenges that come to mind when we think about implementing honest HCPB elections. There are many more.

We can not enable this change simply by wishing it or demanding it. It takes hard work and commitment and laying the foundation upon which we can build a solid house of democracy.

Best,

Nancy

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Sheila Parks <sheilar...@comcast.net> wrote:

I agree with Nancy.

Here is an example of how it actually was done:

In an Acton, Maine HCPB election that I observed, http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/opedne_sheila_p_070718_on_site_observations.htm , "With seven races and two initiatives, the six teams of two people each were able to hand-count twice 944 ballots in four hours."  See full text below about about the election

They used the read and tally HCPB protocol

This could be used in every precinct in the USA - precincts no larger than 1000 registered voters.

Either read & tally or sort & stack is doable.

Sheila


".... ACTON, ME, NOVEMBER 7, 2006, GENERAL ELECTION

I will first describe the HCPB election in Acton, ME on November 7, 2006 because this protocol used a procedure that would produce the most accurate count of the votes - namely, a second hand-count was done immediately after the first hand-count. 

The ballot box was a plain, wooden box with a slot into which voters put their ballots. There were six teams, of two counters each, doing the hand-counting.  The counters came in specifically to count; they had not worked at the polls earlier in the day.  Each team consisted of a Republican and a Democrat.  The teams first counted the ballots into batches of 50, and then these batches of 50 were counted again. 

The teams then hand-counted the votes cast in each contest for each batch of 50 ballots in the following manner:  One member of the team would read out loud the name marked off for each contest; the other member of the team marked the vote on a tally sheet that corresponded to the ballot.  A voter’s entire ballot was tallied for all of the contests before the counters went on to tally the next voter’s ballot.  The talliers counted each vote by making a hash mark (small, straight vertical line).[6]   After four vertical lines were made, a fifth line was made diagonally through the first four marks.  For each person running for office (and for each initiative), the tally sheet was marked off into five columns vertically and two rows horizontally, providing 10 rectangular spaces in each of which five hash marks could be written – a total of 50 hash marks - i.e., votes - per contest or initiative.  A dark horizontal line separated the names in each contest.  At the end of the counting of all of the races in a batch of 50 ballots, the counters totaled the hash marks for each race on the tally sheet and entered that number on the tally sheet in the “TOTAL VOTE” column.  There was a special sheet for write-ins.

Immediately after the first hand-count of a batch of 50 ballots, a second hand-count, on a new tally sheet, was done of this same batch of 50 ballots by these same counters.  Again, the entire ballot of each voter was tallied before the counters proceeded to the next voter’s ballot.  This time, the person who had read the names out loud marked each vote on the tally sheet, and the person who had tallied read out loud the ballot choices.  After the votes on all 50 ballots in a batch were marked on the tally sheet, the totals for each contest were obtained and written on the tally sheet.  If the totals for the candidates in any contest or for any initiative were not exactly the same on the first and second tally sheets (i.e. on the first and second countings), these contests or initiatives were counted a third time.  I observed such a situation two times. 

The HCPB election in Acton, ME demonstrates that paper ballots can be hand-counted immediately a second time, at the precinct on election night, before the results are posted at the precinct, in order to ensure an honest and transparent count in a timely manner.  The election in Acton, ME also indicates that paper ballots can be hand-counted in a very short time.  With seven races and two initiatives, the six teams of two people each were able to hand-count twice 944 ballots in four hours. .""

 
At 08:07 AM 10/30/2009, Nancy Tobi wrote:

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[Nancy Tobi]

Yes, Ernie in Walpole.

With respect to prohibited paper ballots - let me rephrase that there are states where the paper ballot is not allowed to be considered the vote of record (de facto prohibition on HCPB).

I am sure that if you did a survey of state election laws you would find any number of similar laws that effectively outlaw using paper ballots as the vote of record.

This is how legislation is written to subvert democracy. You need to read between the lines. For instance, the EAC's proclamation that they would now control the design of paper ballots, with the standard being that all paper ballots must be machine-readable. Once they make that the law of the land - through their congressional pals like Holt, who take EAC "voluntary" guidelines and try to turn them into federal law - it is a short jump to electronic tallies being the vote of record across the nation. It is a subversive strategy for a subversive mission: the e-voting coup d'etat in its very legal manifestations.

Here is Florida's law, which I believe was enacted after Bush v. Gore, which states that electronic vote tabulation is the vote of record in a recount.

Florida election law regarding recounts (102.141 County canvassing board; duties)

Each canvassing board responsible for conducting a recount shall put each marksense ballot through automatic tabulating equipment and determine whether the returns correctly reflect the votes cast. If any marksense ballot is physically damaged so that it cannot be properly counted by the automatic tabulating equipment during the recount, a true duplicate shall be made of the damaged ballot pursuant to the procedures in s. 101.5614(5).

Does the law STATE you can not manually count your paper ballot? No. It states you MUST electronically tabulate it. The end result is the same.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Sheila Parks <sheilar...@comcast.net> wrote:

Nancy

Good morning

Good list, here.  When I make some time, I will add to it

Could you please send me the jurisdictions that do your 1) below. It must be Ernie Vose?

And also in your 1) below, could you please also send me where HCPB have been prohibited- with links if possible

Thanks

Sheila

[Kathy Dopp]

> Date: Wed, Oct 28 2009 8:26 pm
> From: Lucius Chiaraviglio

>
>
> Oct 28, 2009 07:12:20 PM, kathy...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Of course I disagree with Nancy and Bev about the wisdom of forcing
>> everyone to manually count votes in the precincts as soon as polls

>> close. That would work wonderfully in some states, but in some states

>> we've seen how poll workers have colluded to manipulate or swap
>> ballots with their church group.  In Utah, for example, it would be a
>> bad idea IMO to hand over the counting of votes to thousands of poll
>> workers because there are just not enough people who would be able to
>> monitor that scenario for fairness and accuracy.
>

> If a state is so corrupt that even hand counting cannot work (and this probably
> corresponds to a considerable list of states), machine counts are going to be
> even worse (since they enable the cheaters to cheat with less labor) and
> "random" audits will be even less likely to be random (as we saw in Ohio in
> 2004).  In this case, the only solution is to bring in outside hand counters.
>
> --

Hi Lucius,

Hand counting would work well in states like Utah if it were done
centrally at one location where just one or two persons could monitor
it for accuracy if the ballot boxes in the polls were kept locked up
and the routes of the one or more ballot pickup vehicles (depending on
the size of the county) were made publicly available and the public
were allowed to inspect the pickup vehicle with clear windows and
follow and observe all the pickups and if the ballots were securely
locked up with a key set that required the simultaneous use of three
keys by at least two political parties and an election official and
had a camera on the door.

I.e. there are methods for securing the ballots after the election
until a central hand count that require only one or a few people per
county who are honest to scrutinize as opposed to hand counting in the
polls on election night that requires many many more honest people to
be trusted to provide oversight simultaneously, and yet still has the
problem of honest ballot transport and all the other security issues
involved in transporting and storing the ballots at the county
headquarters.

[Nancy Tobi]

Kathy - the honesty factor is found in the method, not in the people. We can not count on (pun intended) HONEST people to count our votes, whether hand count or any other method.

This is why the vote counting must be OBSERVABLE to the human eye and why citizens must OBSERVE the vote counts and tallies.

With hand counting teams of four, and with additional public access to observe the count, this is very doable.

I was told by a young lady recently visiting from Austria that their hand counts are televised. Now that's citizen observation.

--

[Kathy Dopp]

Nancy,

To apply your preferred method of hand counting in the polls on
election night, you need at least one honest poll worker who is
willing to speak out and insist on an honest process per polling
place. In Utah where conformity to authority is a paramount value, in
my own county not one poll worker was even willing to publicly speak
out about the fact that the number of voters did not match the number
of votes counted by our Diebold DRE system (there were more votes than
the total number of voters) so that the press never reported it and
the election officials covered it up by refusing to release publicly
*any* polling place records. Again, not *one* poll worker in any of
the 40 precincts in my county were willing to publicly speak out in
spite of some of them telling me of the discrepancy privately on
condition that I not tell anyone.
We've seen polling locations in elections in Arizona and Tennessee
where there was not one honest poll worker in the entire polling
location and where religious groups had obtained all the poll worker
positions in order to rig the votes.

I prefer using a method for hand-counting votes that is more securable
because it requires fewer honest people willing to speak out for
securing all votes in each county. I am not, however, trying to force
everyone to use this more secure method like you are by criticizing
all the work of other election integrity activists whenever they are
not promoting your preferred method. IMO there are always more than
one correct way to solve every problem and the more approaches and the
more heads the better.

Of course the honest person must "OBSERVE" what is transpiring and the
hand-counting teams should have four persons with access to observe,
as I've said numerous times in all my work. We definitely agree
there.

I don't know about the cost and verifiability of video. It can always
be manipulated or made to miss ballot switching, etc. Again if as
security experts often do, security level is defined by the minimum
number of honest players needed to ensure the system's integrity, then
I prefer transporting ballot boxes that remain locked up during and
after the election to one central county seat to be counted as being
much more easily secured, but I am *not* publicly attacking your
approach like you do everyone else's approach who isn't pushing for
hand-counts in the polls on election night because I believe that
we're all working towards the same basic goal which is to ensure that
the election outcomes are determined by the voters and not accident or
fraud. Any progress that any of us can make towards achieving that
goal, including open source software, is IMO to be lauded and efforts
to be appreciated. My guess is that the folks at Princeton who are
suing Sequoia in NJ have something to do with Sequoia's change of
heart and I'm grateful for their efforts, even if I don't think it's
the best solution possible.

Cheers,

Kathy

[Bev Harris]

Kathy, it sounds like your issue with hand counts in Utah is due to a lack of
PUBLIC hand counts, not to the hand count itself. In party-centric states,
where only party representatives are allowed to watch the hand counting, your
concerns are valid. When the PUBLIC is allowed to watch, and videotape, the
problems you cite have a remedy.

Thus, whenever people talk of hand counts, it is essential to call them "PUBLIC"
hand counts and it is also very important to have the process considered a
public meeting, which means recording and videotaping must be permitted.

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * *

Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right
to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to

know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the

[Jason Parry]

The problem I see with Open Source or even Open Hardware is that it
can never address two problems, chain of custody and verification.

Even with the best Open Source solution on the same hardware or OEM
hardware is that somehow the public has to verify that everything is
working and the correct versions.  You can rely on MD5 checksums
and other approaches, but that can always be beaten with a few
$1000 of hardware (replace some chips) or even unknown vulnerabilities
can be found in the software and exploited such as various buffer overflows.

And then with enough money (actually not that much), you could
develop the actual memory cards that look identical to everyone
but could have a hidden FPGA on board to change what is stored
based on a certain active sequence that could be triggered with
something as simple as writing a certain sequence of votes. 
Then you are relying on seals and stickers for security.

Then there is the problem of faulty machines.  Imagine you had
some bad photodiodes for certain machines in certain precincts.
A monopolistic vendor could sway elections through simple
quality control and distribution of machines.

The other problem that software can never solve is counting ballots
on election night where they were cast.  I suppose I could see a
way to transport them with 100% security, but it is almost certainly
going to be a lot more expensive then hiring workers to count
ballots on election night at precincts.

The other thing I always hear being promoted is somehow the voter
can verify their ballot post election.  This is a bizarre concept because
if a voter has some way to prove their ballot was recorded wrong,
through encryption or other extra ballot schemes, that means that
it will always be possible for someone somewhere to know how
you voted (or else you can never challenge a corrupted ballot).

-Jason

[Kathy Dopp]

> Date: Fri, Oct 30 2009 10:26 am
> From: Bev Harris

>
>
> Kathy, it sounds like your issue with hand counts in Utah is due to a lack of
> PUBLIC hand counts, not to the hand count itself. In party-centric states,

Hi Bev,

There are no hand counts of ballots associated with any publicly
reported vote counts in Utah. There have never been any public hand
counts of any publicly reported vote counts in Utah -EVER, even when
ballots were hand counted before being counted electronically.

> where only party representatives are allowed to watch the hand counting, your
> concerns are valid. When the PUBLIC is allowed to watch, and videotape, the
> problems you cite have a remedy.

Not in Utah if the hand counts were done in the more than 2,000
polling locations statewide. There are not enough election integrity
advocates to monitor the integrity of the hand counts and the security
of ballots in over 2,000 polling locations in Utah, and video can be
doctored and cameras neglect to film certain activities.

The only way that the hand counts could be monitored effectively in
Utah by the public is to count the ballots in the 29 county offices
and transport them there in perhaps 60 vehicles that could be followed
and monitored by a much smaller number of EI observers.

I am not criticizing your own efforts to try to effectively monitor
ballot security and counting integrity in thousands of separate
polling locations, even though I think that very few election
officials or the public will agree that your method is a effective way
to monitor election integrity. I welcome any improvements and
implementing your favorite methods would definitely be a big
improvement.

It behooves us all to work together and to applaud whatever
improvements can be made because that gets us all closer to the same
goal that we share. We need to avoid the circular firing squad
mentality that has splintered our ability to achieve the goal we all
share.

>
> Thus, whenever people talk of hand counts, it is essential to call them "PUBLIC"
> hand counts and it is also very important to have the process considered a
> public meeting, which means recording and videotaping must be permitted.

That is an excellent point Bev. I always welcome advice on how better
to rephrase and clarify.

Thank you very much for that advice because it is a very short way to clarify..

Kathy

>
> Bev Harris
> Founder - Black Box Voting
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org
>
>

[Lucius Chiaraviglio]

Oct 30, 2009 07:32:16 AM, SomeTh...@aol.com wrote:
> As I said in an earlier posting, places like Chicago, or the deep south,
> have a long history of miscounting ballots because one side dominates
> and controls the counting. It helps to have a different mechanism to
> double check an initial vote count in the precincts. Scanners can provide
> such a check on potentially biased or incompentant human count.

Not a usable check, because those who are able to perpetrate fraud
by corruption of the people doing a hand count will find it ridiculously
easy to corrupt machines checking the count (once they get over the fairly
brief learning curve for altering the machine programming, if they don't
already have the talent or friends with the talent). Furthermore, they could
also corrupt the machines for the purpose of sowing disinformation about
the hand counts -- this would be especially useful to them if the people
were harder to corrupt than is convenient for them.

[Paul Lehto]

Bev's reminder that the word "public" should always be there to modify
"hand count" is a good one, whether applied to Utah or anywhere else.
It is the single word "public" in "Public elections" that the German
court divines just about all the necesary principles of democratic
elections, as well. In any case, in the worst case scenario, if there
are areas so thoroughly corrupted like Kathy suggests then due to our
federalist system of division of power, public hand counts isolate
their impact to localized areas. A weakness in a coputerized
technology is not so limited at all.

paul

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