Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Humboldt Hand-Count Campaign Maintains Media Presence
Two Tuesdays ago, on the 21st, the Election Advisory Committee had its monthly meeting. The EAC now meets the third Tuesday of the month at 6:30pm at the Eureka Courthouse. The Eureka Reporter ran an article about the meeting the next day, half of which describes the presentation (.mp3) I gave about the the Voter Confidence Committee report, hand-count campaign, and spreadsheet tool (.xls).
Supervisors John Woolley and Jimmy Smith, as well as Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, all attended the 5.5 minute presentation and participated in the roughly 30 minute discussion that followed. I'm pleased with the way this went. The Registrar stated that she had played with the spreadsheet tool and it is "interesting." Supervisor Woolley said he wouldn't be able to support any kind of change without doing the kind of cost and time analysis that the VCC's spreadsheet tool permits. He said he likes the approach we are taking to developing and presenting this info. We agreed Aryay Kalaki is a fine mentor for community organizing. And I politely emphasized at least three times that we are awaiting the Registrar's best estimates to create the most official labor, cost, and time forecasts.
Last Friday the Eureka Times-Standard (archive) published a column with quotes only from Secretary of State Debra Bowen in response to a study she commissioned on voter confidence. I don't put any stock in these figures showing 44% of respondents have a "great deal of confidence that their votes are being accurately counted." 52% reported "some" or "only a little" confidence. Whatever. Like usual, the un-bylined T-S story strays far and wide from the crux of the matter, which is creating a basis for voter confidence, a reason for people to believe the results.
The Eureka Reporter did not mirror the T-S coverage of Bowen's survey. Last Friday, I did receive a call from Cerena Johnson, the new elections beat writer who had written the EAC article. We spent at least 15 minutes talking about some of the fundamental paradigms of the voter confidence movement. She seemed to understand and I figured there would be an article the next day. Those quotes did not appear until today, in an article that had a gross typo of omission. This is the end of the article:Some say this could create an opportunity to take transparency a step further, with an entirely hand-counted system.
As soon as I saw that on the Reporter website this morning I called Editor Glenn Franco Simmons. I reached his voice mail and left a polite request for a correction to be printed. A little later Ms. Johnson called my cell phone. We spoke for maybe seven minutes or so, continuing to break down and spell out why our current vote counting methods are secretive, how this is the opposite of the basic democratic concept of checks and balances, and that faith and trust are not relevant. She assured me a correction would appear. Also look out for a tight letter to the editor from Ruth Hoke.
Dave Berman, a founding member of the Voter Confidence Committee, said the committee is trying to work with the county by recommending areas for improvement.
Berman said the criteria for a sound voting system should be transparent, secure and verifiably accurate, also distinguishing casting from counting.
"We should be required to have faith in election results," [EMPHASIS ADDED] he said, adding that results should be tangible. "What we have is a secret process."
The committee is in the process of forecasting a workable format by which votes could be hand-counted, factoring in numbers of volunteers, costs and time.
Ultimately, Berman said, the committee would like to be in a position to bring the county information it doesn't have, as well as the support of the community, to advance the idea that there is "not just one way to do elections in Humboldt County."
Humboldt County will hold its next election on Nov. 6.
Now going back to last Friday once again, in the evening I went down to the Ferndale radio studios of KSLG. Plastic Jackson is the evening DJ and he had recently reached out to me wondering how he could plug in to the work of the VCC. First I sent him a public service announcement, which I mentioned last week. He then let me invite myself in for an interview which you can hear in part one and part two (both .mp3 approx. 5.5 min). I hope to return to PJ's "Happy Endings" show, 6pm to midnight, weekdays on KSLG.com.
On Monday I received a phone call from John Matthews, morning host on KSLG, but also producer of the KHUM public affairs show The Humboldt Review, hosted by Arcata Eye editor Kevin Hoover. This week's show (Thursday 6pm PT) will be about election integrity. I will be a guest via phone.
I so prefer to do interviews in the studio, however, I am currently in NY looking forward to my sister's wedding this weekend. More immediately, tomorrow morning at 10:15, my grandfather and I are going to lead a group discussion with his senior's group at the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center in Commack. This is going to be fun.
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For anyone who missed Dan Rather's expose about voting machines, it is a MUST SEE available here through BradBlog.com.
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Labels: Carolyn Crnich, Cerena Johnson, Debra Bowen, Election Advisory Committee, Eureka Reporter, Eureka T-S, Jimmy Smith, John Woolley, Report on Election Conditions, spreadsheet tool, VCC
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