Saturday, February 16, 2008
Political Realism vs Negotiating with Our Hands (Guest Blog By Rady Ananda)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_080212_political_realism_vs.htm February 12, 2008 Political Realism vs Negotiating with Our Hands By Rady Ananda Successful tactics from around the globe inspire adoption into the hand-count elections movement. Rejection of hopeless “realism” – that politicians aren’t considering our demand for hand counts - is but a part of the overall strategy. If citizens expect accurate election results, they must run parallel polls, observe, investigate and video the vote. Power is never given; it must be asserted. “The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected.” So said Tom Paine at the height of the Enlightenment. A century later, New York case law reveals judicial comprehension that: “Statutory regulations are enacted to secure freedom of choice and to prevent fraud, and not by technical obstructions to make the right of voting insecure and difficult.” Former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick explains that: "Democratic elections are not merely symbolic....They are competitive, periodic, inclusive, (and) definitive …” It’s probably safe to say that all election integrity advocates agree with these premises. Where we differ is in how to achieve our mutual goals. Realists Some would have us adopt the “reality” that the machines are here to stay, so let’s work within the system. “Realists” would have us discussing audits, as if that ever overturned election results. We know that courts have election officials’ backs, as numerous recent cases reveal (Florida 13, San Diego 50, and that squirrelly Squire case in Franklin County, Ohio, to name a few). Let’s talk about audits of scientifically-condemned computerized election systems for a moment. My lay-person’s read of the literature evokes this analogy: The security firm, Black Wellwater, advises you to remove the back wall to your house, and replace it with screening. After you return from vacation, the firm advises you can only inventory 10% of your goods to see if anything was stolen. Not only that, but you can’t even choose to inventory those suspect items – things you just know a thief would go for. Yet this is what election officials want us to accept. Even worse, some states only audit 1% of the results. In fact, San Diego County sued its Secretary of State whining that anything more was too cumbersome for her staff. On her staff is disgraced Cuyahoga County election official, Michael Vu, who oversaw the theft or loss of thousands of dollars in memory cards and voting machines in the May 2006 election. Yeah, I bet they don’t want a stringent audit. The beauty of hand-counts is that a self-auditing procedure is built into the count process. Oh sure, anyone is welcome to recount – but any recount worth its effort will use the same self-auditing techniques during the process. We will never have a basis for confidence in reported results when the votes are counted in secret. All machines do this – all machines must go. Distracted Other election integrity activists ignore the entire issue of how our votes are counted, as they work to confront other, less immediately-serious failures in U.S. elections. It’s like fiddling while Rome is burning, because music soothes people. No doubt: Each of these factors alone defeats democracy, and reduces U.S. elections to carnival shows that give politicians the appearance of legitimacy. I have no argument with remaking the entire U.S. election system. But if the vote counts aren’t authentic, no other change will make any meaningful difference. If we can at least get accurate vote counts, as voters intended and as democracy demands, then we have a fair shot of working out these other, more complicated, features that encompass best electoral management practices. Still others (myself included) would demand transparent vote counts, now, as the primary and crucial first step toward integrity. If politicians won’t give us what we demand – transparency – then we create it ourselves. The election integrity movement is not the only social justice movement plagued by “political realists” who would compromise our position into meaningless reform such as low-percentage audits. In Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein contrasts two separate disasters that culminated in very different outcomes based on which reality was accepted, and thus, which strategy was pursued. “Dozens of coastal villages were flattened by the wave, but unlike in Sri Lanka, many Thai settlements were successfully rebuilt within months. The difference did not come from the government. Thailand’s politicians were just as eager as those elsewhere to use the storm as an excuse to evict fishing people and hand over land tenure to large resorts. “So, in one dramatic case, the residents … ‘gathered themselves together and marched right back home, where they encircled their wrecked village with rope, in a symbolic gesture to mark their land ownership,’ explained a report by a Thai NGO… Election activists “negotiate with their hands” by polling voters outside an official polling site. Citizen-run exit polling, or parallel elections, is a concept that proves hand-counts are on the table. Political realists (deliberately?) ignore the potential energy of this grassroots movement. Today, they’re called citizen run exit polls, but the same structure exists: citizens ask voters to complete a parallel ballot (variably called an affidavit, a sworn statement, or a poll sheet) after they have finished voting in the official election. These parallel “ballots” are then transported and counted (presumably) under secure protocols, using nonpartisans or people from varied political parties. Overall, a citizen’s job is to study how elections are run, as if you are the boss, because you are. Civic engagement is democracy in practice. "Bowen's comment about software not being suitable for the way election equipment is certified is right on the mark. Understand that “electronic voting machine” includes optical scan machines as well as touch screen systems. Our Orwellian culture will try to confuse the public into believing that “electronic voting” somehow only applies to touch screens. All software driven devices are inappropriate for use in recording or counting our votes, or in replicating our signatures, or in centralizing registration on a statewide basis. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 has done the opposite. Let’s not forget that everything the Nazis did was legal, by their own laws. What the federal government has done – bureaucratically and legislatively - since the 2000 coup d’état should shock the conscience of every decent American. It does, I know – I see it across the political spectrum. "When I advocate 'democracy' as the basis for an economic development strategy, I mean political democracy as it is usually understood: elections, civil liberties and the right to organize. But beyond these essential forms of democracy, I mean something more substantive. A democratic economic development strategy is one that puts people in a position to participate in decisions about and effectively exercise political power over their economic lives. It puts people in a position where their lives are not dominated by either the market or the state." Or by privatized elections where votes are counted in secret by corporations. With that as the premise (which totally captures my attention and makes my heart flutter with hope), I can apply his thinking to hand-counted elections: "If the goal is to alter the nature of the system and make a real difference in people's lives, then we need to formulate and implement practical programs that both improve economic conditions and challenge the structure of social-political power." Hand-counted elections certainly challenge the current power structure, and being far less expensive than computers also affect local economies with the billions spent on computerized voting systems. Sally Castleman writes: “DREs and Optical Scanner equipment are more costly than any hand count system. Not only is the initial cost substantial, but other costs include ongoing testing and certification, secure storage, temperature controlled environments, maintenance, reprogramming, service, batteries, upgrading to newer models to keep up with specification requirements,” and salaries for specialized technical experts. Back to MacEwan: “Practical programs advance toward a radical transformation of society.” Hand-count fans don’t want to reform a broken system; instead, we assert radical change by demanding election night counts in full public view, with the results posted at the precinct. "A reformist reform is one which subordinates its objective to the criteria of rationality and practicability of a given system and policy." (a.k.a. 'political realism’) “Reformism rejects those objectives and demands - however deep the need for them - which are incompatible with the preservation of the system.” Hand-counts remove corporations and experts-only from counting or verifying vote totals - a government-run expert system with a vested interest in the outcome that may conflict with the public will. Indeed, given the 4/5 disapproval rating, public will directly conflicts with the will of government. Do they deserve to be trusted to count our vote? "(A non-reformist) reform is one which is conceived not in terms of what is possible within the framework of a given system and administration, but in view of what should be made possible in terms of human needs and demands." Hand-counts meet the transparent vote counting criterion of democratic elections, something all advocates of free and fair elections demand. "Democratic initiatives must: 1. Make a positive difference in people's lives. They should not demand that a sacrifice be made in the name of some greater good; they must bring something good in themselves. Their goals are defined by what should be;" Auditing an election system which is vulnerable to undiscoverable tampering is no safeguard. We do not sacrifice election integrity on the grounds that politicians have taken hand-counts off the table. Who really cares what politicians want, anyway? They work for us. "2. Challenge the existing relations of power and authority and in some way move society towards a more democratic structure. They need not overturn or destroy the existing social structures. Yet in some manner they must pose a threat to the existing social and economic structures. The essence of this threat is that these initiatives expand the realm of democracy and enhance democratic authority;" Clearly, citizen-run elections do this; as well as citizen-oversight of the count on election night. "3. Be possible in the sense that their implementation does not require a prior revolutionary, structural reorganization of society. They may set in motion a process of change that pushes society in the direction of dramatic structural reorganization - that is precisely their point. Yet, because they are particular and partial and therefore are not themselves dependent on that reorganization, they are possible." Hand-count initiatives set in motion a process of systemic change that will push “society in the direction of dramatic structural reorganization” allowing for the many other needed changes discussed on page 1: This list truly goes on, the more I read about best practices. "In a situation of manipulation, the Left is almost always tempted by a quick return to power, forgets the necessity of joining with the oppressed to forge an organization, and strays into impossible 'dialogue' with the dominant elites. It ends up being manipulated by these elites, and not infrequently itself falls into an elitist game, which it calls realism’" In Age of Consent, George Monbiot recognizes self-defeating realism: "Had those people who campaigned for national democratization in the 19th century in Europe approached their task with the same hopeless realism as the reformists campaigning for global democratization today, they would have argued that, as the authorities were not ready to consider granting the universal franchise, they should settle for a 'realistic' option instead; and their descendents today might have been left with a situation in which all those earning, say, $50,000 a year or possessing 20 acres of land were permitted to vote, but those with less remained disenfranchised. Age of Consent, pp 65-66 To imagine 10-12 voters per neighborhood counting the ballots on election night is easy. It takes 20 minutes to train people in hand counts... and just think how things might change if reported election results were authentic. I imagine Congress would be freaking out that 4/5 of the nation disapproves of it. They’d worry about their jobs and change their behavior right quick, if elections were honest. We reject the defeatist notion that hand-counted elections are off the table for 2008. The grassroots already have the political will for fundamental change; our self-appointed leaders simply need to articulate nationally what we’ve been doing locally for the past three years. “How do you wanna go out? On your feet or on your knees?” Tracy Campbell, Deliver the Vote: A history of election fraud, an American political tradition – 1742-2004. Carroll & Graf, 2005. Alan Fram, Bush, Congress Hit New Low in AP Poll, February 8, 2008 at Boston Globe. Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Continuum Publishing, 1970. -- Black Box Voting Citizens’ Toolkit David Kidwell and Jason Grotto, Chicago polls go well -- despite punches, broken machines, wrong ballots and 'invisible ink', February 6, 2008 at Chicago Tribune. Julia Rosen, Latest on the Los Angeles Double Bubble Trouble, February 6, 2008 at calitics.com. Also see the CourageCampaign.org website for a picture of poor ballot design leading to the (deliberate?) disenfranchisement of 95,000 voters.
Votes counted in secret are a hallmark of tyranny, if Robert Heinlein is correct that “secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny.” Votes counted on easily hacked software-driven systems do not provide us with “definitive” outcomes, but instead are “technical obstructions to make the right of voting insecure.” They provide us with no basis for confidence in reported results.
Machine fans, or defeated hand-count fans, argue that we must be “politically realistic” in our quest for election integrity. The argument goes that politicians aren’t considering hand-counted paper ballots, so to succeed in our agreed goal of honest elections, we have to accept machines.
What they call political “reality” is merely fatal compromise.
To believe that what politicians want is the only course open to us is to deny the vast power of the will of the people. A 2006 Zogby poll determined that 92% want transparent elections. A February 2008 poll found that 78% disapproves of Congress. Clearly, corporate-sponsored Congress has no intention of doing the bidding of We the People, so whatever options Pols put on the table are necessarily suspect.
“Negotiating with your hands”
In the 2005 Katrina disaster in New Orleans, power holders successfully kept poor residents from returning to their apartments. As recently as two months ago, citizens were tasered and jailed for resisting the destruction of affordable housing. Land developers now stand to make substantial fortunes from the land grab. (Here we see Derrick Jensen’s 2nd, 4th and 5th Premises holding true.)
In the 2004 Asian tsunami, a different scenario played out. Klein writes:
“Yet what set Thailand apart was that villagers approached all government promises with intense skepticism and refused to wait patiently in camps for an official reconstruction plan. Instead, within weeks, hundreds of villagers engaged in what they called land “reinvasions.”
“They marched past the armed guards on the payroll of developers, tools in hand, and began marking off the sites where their old houses had been. In some cases, reconstruction began immediately…
“The most daring reinvasions were performed by Thailand’s indigenous fishing peoples called the Moken… After centuries of disenfranchisement, the Moken had no illusions that a benevolent state would give them a decent piece of land in exchange for the coastal properties that had been seized.
“All along the Thai coast where the tsunami hit, this kind of direct-action reconstruction is the norm. The key to their success is that ‘people negotiate for their land rights from a position of being in occupation;’ some have dubbed the practice ‘negotiating with your hands.’
Shock Doctrine, pp. 463-464.
Also see http://www.achr.net/
Starting in 2005, parallel polling has now been run in the U.S. by the grassroots of both major parties, as well as Greens and Independents. This idea generated from US think tanks, where they were deployed as early as 1986 to check election results in other nations.
Although I’ve been involved in parallel polling since 2005, including Florida’s in 2008, I have yet to see one that achieves ballot security – something we expect of our official electoral management bodies. Surely, we require a basis for confidence in reported results from whomever counts the vote. I expect chain of custody will be preserved with better training, and as more people grasp the significance of parallel polling. Meanwhile, I wholly support the spread of this action, coupled with better training.
My buddy, Troy Seman, calls parallel elections “the antidote to fraudulent elections.” Because we run these parallel polls, we know hand-counted elections are on the table. Politicians, of course, ignore the significance of parallel polling, while corporate media discounts discrepancies between pollsters and election results. This, despite that parallel polling is used to verify elections around the globe.
As this movement grows – and there is no doubt it will, given the unrelenting glitches, double bubbles, invisible ink, and wtfever, reported after every single election - and as more voters experience self-empowerment from citizen-run elections, there will come a point when even politicians will admit that hand-counting is “on the table” simply because we citizens put it there. We’re not waiting for politicians – we’re running free and fair elections ourselves.
Several other methods of “negotiating with our hands” are recommended: Be an official domestic observer, video the vote, count the signatures in polling books and compare them to official results for in-person voters, follow the voting machines on Election Day, and blog, blog, blog about all of it. Much of what you’ll discover is that the records are unauditable and chain of custody is wholly lacking, but even that is important to convey.
Other actions include filing suit, on a variety of different premises. One campaign in the works now demands a voting machine recall. Citizens in LA are demanding that the “double bubble” ballots be counted as the voter intended – despite the overused election official trick of poorly designed ballots, which in this instance, disenfranchised 95,000 voters. Voter intent is what matters – not some arbitrary design or rule or law.
Incrementalism As a Strategy in New York
Refusing to compromise the demand for hand-counted elections does not mean that an incremental approach is off the table. Attorney Andi Novick is leading the hand-count movement in New York (where machine fans far outnumber those who comprehend the utter failure and completely inappropriate use of software-driven systems in democratic elections). Her strategy is to move New Yorkers toward a full hand count of all elections by starting with hand counting just the two federal races this November (thus allowing New York to be HAVA-compliant).
She sent some research provided by a local activist who raised Avi Rubin’s article, Secretary Bowen's Clever Insight, where he said, in part:
“But software is different. The software lifecycle is dynamic… You cannot certify an electronic voting machine the way you certify a lever machine.”
Incrementalism As a Strategy in the Democracy Movement
Several writers address incrementalism as a strategy. This is not to be confused with self-defeating “realism” that Paulo Freire and George Monbiot hold in disdain. Arthur MacEwan's Neoliberalism or Democracy discusses the idea of incrementalism and reform, in slightly different terms, but making the same general point.
MacEwan suggests that this latter reform is possible without the chaos of revolutionary upheaval, given certain criteria are met. It is here where we get to incrementalism. He argues that incrementalism can be used to advance our agenda without compromising our position.
Political Realism - A Policy of Failure
Incrementally implementing hand-counted elections (first the federal races, then the local ones, for example) is wholly different from believing that hand-counts aren’t possible in the U.S. My hope is that election activists move away from this position of defeat, and insist on transparent vote counts, now, as are done the world over in emerging and in stable democracies.
Just because the last two presidential elections were stolen is no reason to accept that 2008 will be stolen. All it takes is motivating the masses into Election Day action. Given that grassroot Republicans are now on board with parallel polling, our movement for transparent elections has a real chance of success. We implement hand-counted elections by doing it ourselves – not by waiting for politicians to do it for us. This bears repeating: civic engagement is democracy in practice, or as Abbey Hoffman put it, “Democracy is something you do.”
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire reveals how political realism defeats democratic reform:
"Every revolution could have been - indeed most certainly was - described as 'unrealistic' just a few years before it happened. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, female enfranchisement, the rise of communism, the fall of communism, the aspirations of decolonization movements all over the world were mocked by those reformists who believed the best we could hope for was to tinker with existing institutions and beg some small remission from dominant
powers.
“Had you announced in 1985 that within five years men and women with sledgehammers would be knocking down the Berlin Wall, the world would have laughed in your face. All of these movements, like our global democratic revolution, depended for their success on mass mobilization and political will. Without these components, they were impossible. With them, they were unstoppable."
There is no honorable justification to continue using these machines. They must go, and they must go now.
No compromise with political realists is necessary; negotiating with our hands – counting, observing, investigating and videoing the vote ourselves – will bring us an accurate vote count. Power is never given; it is asserted. If I can borrow a phrase from the film, The Kingdom:
Much thanks to attorney Andi Novick for the 1895 NY case law quote.
References:
Rady Ananda, Annotated Bibliography of Expert Reports on Voting Systems, Dec. 11, 2007 at GuvWurld.org.
-- Revolution in Florida: Repubs Question Elections, Too, January 30, 2008 at OpEdNews.com.
Asian Coalition for Housing Rights www.achr.net; and see Tom Kerr’s New Orleans Visit Asian Tsunami Areas, September 9-17, 2006, p. 11 for the wonderful “negotiate with their hands” quote.
Dave Berman, Voter Confidence Resolution, 2005 at GuvWurld.org.
Sally Castleman, Summary: Estimating hours and costs for hand counters, New York, December 2007, at GuvWurld.org
Nick Davies, How the Spooks Took over the News, February 11, 2008
Amy Goodman, New Orleans Police Taser, Pepper Spray Residents Seeking to Block Public Housing Demolition, Dec. 21, 2007 at DemocracyNow.org.
Bev Harris, The New Hampshire “Shame of Custody,” January 25, 2008, OpEdNews.com.
Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100. Shasta Publishers, 1953.
Derrick Jensen, Endgame (Volumes I and II). Seven Stories Press, 2006.
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Legitimacy and Force (Vol. I: Political and Moral Dimensions). Transaction Publishers, 1988.
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. Metropolitan Books, 2007.
Arthur MacEwan, Neoliberalism or Democracy? Economic Strategy, Markets and Alternatives for the 21st Century. St. Martin's Press, 1999.
George Monbiot, The Age of Consent: Manifesto for a new world order, new ed. Harper Perennial, 2004.
Andi Novick, Alarms Should Go Off Whenever the Discrepancies between “Official” Results and the Polls Can’t Be Explained, January 10, 2008 at OpEdNews.com.
Sheila Parks, On-Site Observations of the Hand-Counting of Paper Ballots and Recommendations for the General Election of 2008, July 18, 2007 at OpEdNews.com.
Brian Rothenberg, Shadows on High: Election Machine Drama, All Dam-ed Up and Nowhere to Go, February 9, 2008. Regarding “political reality” see the first and second comments posted beneath this article.
Avi Rubin, Secretary Bowen’s Clever Insight, August 7, 2007 at avi-rubin.blogspot.com.
Paddy Shaffer, OEJC Calls for Ohio Voting Systems, Machine Recall, Return and Refund, November, 2007 at electionDefenseAlliance.org
Zogby International, Americans Concerned About Election Transparency and Security, August 23, 2006.
Authors Bio: Rady Ananda is a self-employed researcher, and is trained and experienced in legal investigations, holding a BS in Natural Resources. She has been studying election integrity issues and investigating election records since November 2, 2004, contributing research, analysis and public outreach materials to the public domain. She has conducted parallel elections, signature audits and has participated in official recounts.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/02/political-realism-vs-negotiating-with.html
Labels: hand-counting paper ballots, Rady Ananda
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
It's Time We Changed the World
A couple of years ago I had the idea that the 1971 Ten Years After song "I'd Love to Change the World (But I Don't Know What To Do)" could be remade into an anthem "I'd Love to Change the World (And I Know Just What To Do)." The song plays at this link with a powerful video. All this time and I never did flesh out any actual lyrics.
A few weeks ago I mentioned the idea to Brett Kimberlin from Justice Through Music. Check out their remake of Neil Young's "Ohio," now "More Dead Cause of Ohio." Brett said he might work on some words for a remake of "I'd Love..." (no promise to keep the new subtitle) and that his band might try it in the studio in the near future. I have not yet heard the work but I understand there is something forthcoming.
At the same time I passed the idea to Brett, I also put it before Rady Ananda. She too has written new words for old songs, as displayed in this parody collection found in the GuvWurld News Archive. Rady took on the "I'd Love..." challenge and about two weeks ago at OpEdNews.com posted her new version titled "It's Time We Changed The World." It totally captures the spirit of what I had proposed. Her words appear in full at the bottom of this post.
Speaking of the GuvWurld News Archive, there were some intermittent outages on the site and in my e-mail service over the past two months. There was also no new content for several weeks. This was part of an unfortunate ordeal with web host iPowerWeb. Thumbs way down for their customer service. In the end, the site is back to its old self but with more disk space, meaning we can continue to add to the more than 5000 articles archived since April 2003. Thanks to Rady Ananda and Jane Allen for their contributions.
Some of the new additions are worth mentioning. Positive stories such as "Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for 1 Dollar a Gallon, and Without Corn" are unfortunately outnumbered by darker economic news including "January's retail sales weakest in nearly four decades," "Layoffs coming, and in large numbers, survey finds," and "The First Bank Failure of 2008."
The real must-read of the bunch is The Progressive's March cover story, The FBI Deputizes Business, archived at GuvWurld here. AlterNet ran the story with a more shocking headline: "FBI Deputizes Private Contractors With Extraordinary Powers, Including 'Shoot to Kill'" The take-away from this is that the Manchurian Nation is operating more openly, confidently preparing for when, not if martial law is declared.
Last summer, in my Reflections on Independence, Volume 5, I wrote:What is the most insidious ramification of the military being intentionally stretched too thin? The military is unavailable to respond to an emergency at home. That is devastating in the context of a natural disaster. But what about when martial law comes? It won't be our official military that enforces this, it will be mercenaries. Halliburton and Blackwater will be the occupiers of America, overseeing a network of domestic concentration camps already built. Our military, sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, will not be here to do so. The media, of course, will portray a different reality that will instead reinforce the okayness of the concentration camps and validate the authority of the hired guns, all while our military overseas supposedly, paradoxically, fights for our freedom.
As The Progressive reveals, InfraGard is the latest brown-shirt outfit strong-arming America's descent into fascism. It is not as if we haven't been able to see this coming. In fact, in that same Reflections essay I linked to one of the unitary executive directives explaining the administration's plan for remaining in power. As I said at the time, I don't believe they will allow themselves to be held accountable, for the first time ever, should the political will ever materialize for impeachment. And with no basis for confidence in election results, it can be tough to be optimistic about getting rid of war criminals.
Yet community organizing efforts are undeniably showing encouraging signs, and I consider this the most universally basic response needed without regard to issue. Mostly I'm referring to the work with the Voter Confidence Committee on behalf of hand-counting paper ballots. Tomorrow night the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee will be considering a resolution I wrote. It looks like Vets For Peace Chapter 56 will also consider this same resolution on March 6.
Inroads are also expanding with the Humboldt County League of Women Voters. Over the weekend I teased this quote: "I didn't think I'd get so much buy-in from the whole fucking group! I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time."
That was P-A Winter-Sun telling me how well received was a proposal I helped her prepare recommending the League "study the evidence of failures and vulnerabilities in vote counting equipment currently used in Humboldt County so the League can be better informed, better able to educate the community, and better equipped to establish a position on the best method for counting."
Apparently there was consensus around this. The next step was to be a board meeting, which I believe may have already occurred. From there the topic would return to the full group. I don't know the exact disposition of this now, but I am going to follow P-A's advice and join the League. In fact, I left a message yesterday...
As previously hinted, we are also still awaiting an announcement from the Redwood Chapter of the ACLU to formalize the group's very encouraging statement on election conditions.
So to me it seems there is far more community support, or at least interest, than ever before in the VCC efforts for hand-counting paper ballots. Click here for an .mp3 of an interview I did on KMUD on 1/29, only getting to add it to the archive in the past few days. This link (.mp3) is to my interview during hour two of this past Sunday's Vote Rescue Radio. I also spoke on the air with Mike Dronkers of KHUM last Monday, just prior to the Primary, but alas there is no archive for that.
I do still have some important observations to post from the election itself, but that will be another post in the next day or so. Meanwhile, it is indeed time we changed the world...http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5804
Permalink:
It's Time We Changed the World
Parody of "I'd Love To Change the World" by Ten Years After
By Rady Ananda
1/26/08
Everywhere is fake elections
We should boycott, save the nation from tyranny
When Riggal counts the vote for us
Officials call it, oh should we trust their wizardry?
It's time we changed the world
and you know just what to do
Hand counts will tell the truth
Banks are stealing poor folk homes
Making billions while we all groan in misery
Grow your own food in community
with your neighbors so you can eat - on the cheap
It's time to divide the wealth
Spread it out equally
Fair shares for you and me
Y'know they want to microchip you
tag and clip you, like property.
They mean to own us and all the land.
Find the right place and take a stand.
It's time we changed the world
No one owns humanity
Give up their circuitry
Turn off your TV and settle in.
Read Naomi's "Shock Doctrine,"
History by Zinn and Nace's "Gangs"
will fill you in on their evil plan.
Come on, let's change the world
Cuz we know just what to do
Join ranks with all of you.
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-time-we-changed-world.html
Labels: ACLU, Brett Kimberlin, fascism, GuvWurld, hcpb, Humboldt Dems, I'd Love To Change The World, InfraGard, Jane Allen, KMUD, LWV, Rady Ananda, Reflections on Independence, VFP, Vote Rescue Radio
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Humboldt Dems May Consider HCPB Resolution
While everyone is talking about the improbable outcome of yesterday's NH primary, I've barely had a chance to read about it. Voter Confidence Committee work for hand-counting paper ballots has kept me very busy, including making a presentation earlier tonight to the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee. I forgot to bring my voice recorder. But I was brief and it went more or less like this:Thank you for inviting me here tonight. I know I have to be brief so I won't go into detail about things we all know about, like the successful hack tests and the academic reports that conclude no "procedural mitigations," or new security precautions, can completely secure the machines we use here in Humboldt. The VCC spent 8 months studying the local situation and we've put out a 20-page report as well as a flier, a fact sheet, a diagram and more. These things are being passed around the room.
Milt Boyd, the Committee Chair, then told me of their subcommittee structure and I thanked everyone and sat down. I left before the end of the meeting.
Among the many recommendations we make, there is one that is clearly most important. We have to get rid of these secret counting machines and get the community together to count the ballots by hand. The big resistance to this comes from unfounded opinions that usually say it will take too long or require too many people.
Our Feb. 5 primary ballot has 8 contests. In NH, where they have a long history of hand-counting, they say it takes six seconds to count each contest on each ballot. That would mean 48 seconds per ballot for us in Feb. Let's figure as newbies we might be a little slower, say one minute per ballot. Our last federal election was November 2006 when we averaged 266 ballots cast per precinct. If it took one minute to count each of those ballots, it would take just under 4.5 hours to count all the ballots on election night in the precincts using teams of four people.
We had 109 poll sites in Nov. 2006. That means we'd need 436 counters. That is about one-half of one percent (0.5%) of all registered voters in Humboldt. That's not a high bar to reach. We've already collected over 200 names of willing hand-counters. The sign-up sheet is going around the room.
So I'm here to talk to you all as individuals who can choose to support this and of course if the group as a whole wants to get behind this I'll leave it to you all to determine what that would look like.
Around 8:30pm, Larry Hourany, longtime member of both the Dems and the VCC, called to say it went very well. He was very helpful in figuring out the approach for tonight, which I stuck with exactly as planned. Hourany said that near the end of the meeting he attempted to make a motion but the Chair steered it to one of the subcommittees. That means that now we (Larry, me, VCC) are going to get to write a resolution that this subcommittee will consider and potentially send to the full group with a recommendation. I've been listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine lately, so excuse me when I say this is fucking excellent.
Now, to this New Hampshire situation, where it appears Obama beat Clinton in towns with hand-counting but Clinton won the state on the strength of her victories in towns counted by Diebold optical scanners, identical to those used here in Humboldt. Because I haven't been able to fully read up on this yet, I'm going to give you the links of what I'm about to dig into. But first, I have to say one more thing and it really harkens back to the essay I wrote on the GuvWurld blog called Why Old Election Numbers No Longer Matter.
See, we don't really learn anything from holding the so-called election that we didn't know before. The votes will be/were counted in secret. The expected result and the actual result are inherently uncertain. Nobody should be trying to convince anybody that fraud did or did not happen on the basis of data from what passed for an election yesterday. Hand count all the ballots, then we can first have a serious conversation about an election that occurred.
Read Rady Ananda's piece at OpEdNews. She has picked up my inherent uncertainty frame and run with it. She's got good quotes from several people including me.
BradBlog has several stories, of course.
Black Box Voting has a thread I was referred to by Tom Courbat of SAV-R-VOTE in Riverside County. Hi Tom, thanks. This one has charts and graphs.
The great Bob Koehler has a column for Tribune News Services called Primary Concerns.
Feel free to post more links in the comments for this post. And a reminder that Thursday between 6-7pm PT you can tune into KHUM.com and I'll be on the air during the KHUM Review program.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/01/humboldt-dems-may-consider-hcpb.html
Labels: Black Box Voting, Bob Koehler, BradBlog.com, hand-counting paper ballots, Humboldt Dems, inherent uncertainty, Larry Hourany, NH Primary, OpEdNews.com, Rady Ananda, Report on Election Conditions, VCC
Monday, December 17, 2007
PRESS RELEASE: VCC Joins Amicus Brief in Federal Election Lawsuit
PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dave Berman, 707-845-3749 or info@VoterConfidenceCommittee.org
Election Integrity Advocates Urge Court To Order Hand Count In Next Presidential Election
12/17/07 - Humboldt County election watchdog group The Voter Confidence Committee (VCC), together with more than 30 other election integrity groups and advocates from coast to coast, have joined an amicus brief filed just prior to Friday's deadline in the case of US v NY State Board of Elections (Case # 1:06-cv-263). The Department of Justice is suing New York State to compel compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed in 2002.
The amicus cites multiple legal precedents defining the right to vote as not only including the right to cast a ballot, but also to see the ballot fairly received and counted. Submitted with the brief is overwhelming evidence that electronic voting systems are not only error and manipulation-prone, but also unconstitutional in their secrecy of operation. The amicus argues hand-counting paper ballots is HAVA compliant, and urges the court to order the two federal races (President, and US Representative) on New York's ballot next November to be hand-counted.
New York Attorney Andrea Novick of Election Defense Alliance (EDA) filed the brief, tentatively scheduled to be argued in United States Federal Court in Albany, NY on December 20 by EDA Attorney Jonathan Simon. Simon called the brief "an opportunity to offer an alternative solution that moves away from disastrous experiences of other states’ use of secret, computerized electronic vote counting equipment."
The brief offers over 200 pages of supporting documentation -- including evidence and analysis of outcome-determinative electronic vote mistabulation, as well as guides, tools, and detailed instructions for hand counting -- prepared and submitted by election reformists from a broad spectrum of organizations. Novick saluted the "cooperation and enthusiasm displayed by our colleagues across the election integrity spectrum" in preparing these critically important documents for the court.
The VCC has been advocating hand-counting all ballots in Humboldt elections and created a forecast tool to project cost, time and labor needs. The forecast tool has received national attention with applicability for any jurisdiction willing to objectively judge the feasibility of hand-counting.
"Andrea Novick and other nationally known election integrity advocates such as Rady Ananda asked for my help," said VCC co-founder Dave Berman. "We're a world away here in Humboldt but our work is making a difference. The forecast tool shows it is possible for every legally compliant polling place in NY to hand-count two federal races on election night in the poll site with one team of four people in four hours or less."
The VCC is currently collecting names of Humboldt voters willing to hand-count ballots on election night in local precincts. For more information on the VCC's Humboldt hand-count campaign, visit www.VoterConfidenceCommittee.org.
For further information on the amicus brief and federal case, including updates on scheduling, please contact Sally Castleman at Sallyc@ElectionDefenseAlliance.org (781-454-8700) or Jonathan Simon at VerifiedVote2004@aol.com (617-538-6012). The amicus and related materials may be found at: http://tinyurl.com/2vjphf.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-vcc-joins-amicus-brief-in.html
Labels: amicus brief, Andi Novick, Election Defense Alliance, hand-counting paper ballots, HAVA, Jonathan Simon, Rady Ananda, Sally Castleman, US v NY Board of Elections, VCC
Saturday, December 15, 2007
I am Voter Hear Me Roar: Meet the New York Amici (Guest blogged by Rady Ananda)
This is a perfect companion piece to the one I published yesterday looking at highlights of the amicus brief. Here Rady show us the thinking of many of the minds behind it all. This piece was originally published at at OpEdNews.com. - DB This … federal takeover of a state election board … is 'bizarre and unworkable.' Secret vote counting is not only unconstitutional, but is un-American. All touch screen and optical scan voting machines … count the votes (in) secret... This is beyond absurd— from the sublime to the ridiculous. "New York's Constitution of 1777 makes the observation that a vote cast on a tangible ballot preserves democracy better than one cast in the air: And whereas an opinion hath long prevailed among divers of the good people of this State that voting at elections by ballot would tend more to preserve the liberty and equal freedom of the people than voting viva voce… Citing NY history (above) to make her point, Nancy Tobi of New Hampshire continues: With theadvent of computerized voting, a new form of voting viva voce has made its way into the nation's elections, with the lion's share of America's total ballots now being counted – and often cast – in the Ethernet. Author and four-time research award winner, Professor Steven Freeman states in his Declaration: There is little question but that elections using newer HAVA-indicated op-scan and Direct Record Electronic machines can be stolen. Indeed, it has been proven time and time again. Ulster County Legislator Gary Bischoff, who chairs the Efficiency, Reform and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, asserts: Our democracy depends on citizens to express their will and choices in a repeatable, fair and reliable election. Pokey Anderson of Houston's radio news show, The Monitor, writes to the Court: While there has always been manipulation in elections, the difference between stealing in a hand-counted paper ballot election and an electronic election is the difference between successfully robbing a convenience store and successfully robbing Fort Knox. She goes on to quote others, starting with former National Security Agency code-breaker, Michael Wertheimer: If you believe, as I do, that voting is one of our critical infrastructures, then you have to defend it like you do your power grid, your water supply. And computer security professional Dr. David Dill: Think about it rationally. What are the assets being protected? If we're talking presidential elections or control of Congress, there aren't a lot of assets in this world in monetary terms that are worth more than that. You're talking about the whole US economy. And another computer security professional, Bruce O'Dell: The technology to invisibly compromise voting systems is mature and the rewards are essentially limitless. It's professionally irresponsible to not presume vulnerable extreme-high-value systems are already actively being exploited. Peacemakers of NY Schoharie County supports the proposition that Federal election ballots could be hand counted in 2008 (and Peacemakers) commits to participating in the hand counting of ballots. Wayne Stinson promises, "We will actively promote other citizens' engagement in the process." Parallel Elections use a hand-counted paper ballot system, and are run outside of an official polling site.PE organizer and national speaker, Judy Alter, then analyzes the difference between official results and voter reports of how they voted. She writes: We will continue to hold parallel elections and train others to do the same so that we can demonstrate the assault (computerized voting has) on our democracy. Karen Charman of the Ulster County Shandaken Democrat Club recognizes the precarious position in which computerized voting systems puts us: If the people lose control over the election process, they lose the right to govern themselves. The inalienable right of self-governance rests squarely on the integrity of our elections. We believe that only an observable Our organization will volunteer to assist our county in finding as many volunteers as we need to help hand count the elections should the Court order same. Susan Zimet writes in her amicus Declaration: As a County Legislator, I will not allow my constituents to be disenfranchised on unreliable and theft enabling machines. I am prepared to take whatever legal action is necessary for the voters of Ulster County to know that their vote was counted accurately. We have been looking for the most secure means to provide our constituents with … a transparent, accountable, fair and reliable electoral system. Hand counting of the Federal Elections is HAVA compliant. I will personally assist in organizing citizens in my county to be trained and available to hand count elections in my county should the Court order same. I know of many Ulster County residents that would gladly make themselves available to assure that we could successfully accomplish this endeavor. ARISE.org spokesperson Dennis Karius declares: Where there's a will there's a way and the people are willing to help our officials effect our will through the most secure, reliable, transparent electoral system that exists: hand-counted elections. ARISE is made up of thousands of active citizens thru congregations and community groups in the tri-county area of Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady in the CapitalDistrict. As part of this amici team, it stands for voters. So did Abraham Lincoln: Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. Abe is quoted by Mary Ann Gould (Voice of the Voters Radio) in her Declaration. Hand Count in 4 Hours Everyone involved in this team of amici assures New York that if the Court rules for hand-counting the two federal elections in NY's November 2008 election, they will bring enough people to get the job done in less than four hours. Dave Berman and I crunched the numbers that allowed us to conclude:
I am Voter Hear Me Roar: Meet the New York Amici
By Rady Ananda
December 15, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rady_ana_071215_i_am_voter_hear_me_r.htm
aka http://tinyurl.com/yrdqqg
Over 200 pages of legal documents from dozens of organizations, activists, election officials, and county legislators, representing tens of thousands of people, spoke on behalf of hand-counted paper ballots yesterday, through an amicus curiae brief (friend of the court), filed in USA vs. NY State Board of Elections.
In this federal case, the Dept. of Justice seeks to force New Yorkers to buy computerized voting systems, which have failed across the nation, election after election, and which the scientific community repeatedly condemns. Attorneys Andi Novick and Jonathan Simon, from Election Defense Alliance, head the cooperative effort. Novick saluted the "cooperation and enthusiasm displayed by our colleagues across the election integrity spectrum," noting that "it means a great deal in court, as well as in the court of public opinion, when so many groups and leaders pull together behind such a proposal."
Dave Berman's HCPB Forecast Tool provides the Court with a simple and effective means of calculating what it would cost New York to hire a 4-person hand-counting team per precinct (Election District) should the court allow it.
Also on December 14th, Ohio released the results of its "Project Everest," but not in time to be included in the annotated bibliography of expert reports submitted in the New York case. Ohio's team looked at Hart InterCivic, ES&S and Premier (fka Diebold), and all systems are still hackable. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner insists Cuyahoga County will switch to a computerized, networked system that uses centralized tabulation, a process wholly condemned in the scientific literature.
But, ignoring that absurdity for now, have a bowl or a glass of wine (or for those who can relax without chemical assistance, sit back) and quietly contemplate these gems of wisdom from people who stand for government by the people:
Friend of the court, Joel Tyner, NY Dutchess County Legislator, continues:
transparent count of the votes can protect our elections and our sovereignty.
In most of the counties studied only one team of four will be needed per (Election District of 1,150 registered voters) to complete hand-counting in four hours or less.
Oral Hearing Next Thursday
Jonathan Simon will appear for oral arguments being heard on Thursday, December 20th at 9 AM, at the US District Court, Albany, NY 12207.
He explains, "It is a lot less likely that I will be called upon to give an oral presentation per se; more likely that, if the court sees merit in or takes an interest in our brief, I may be asked questions about areas we have covered." He's confident in the merits of the HCPB position, "which I hope will prick the interest of the court.
"I think the sheer number of groups and individuals who have signed on will help in that regard… But a lot of it will be determined by the interests of the court and the parties."
The brief (p.14) points out the most important interest - that the public be able to "see" the vote count:
Electronic voting machines have caused citizens to lose their ability to observe and oversee the voting process. For this reason the use of computers destroys the basis for legitimacy of elections and the elected government.
The loss of these integral aspects of the right to vote is in direct violation of the repeated pronouncements of the highest court in New York that the constitutional right to vote includes the right to "see " that one's vote was "given full force and effect." Deister v Wintermute, supra at 108.
Given the millions of voters whose interests are represented by the HCPB amicus team, a democratic election run by the people will again have its day in court.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-am-voter-hear-me-roar-meet-new-york_15.html
Labels: amicus brief, Andi Novick, Election Defense Alliance, Gary Bischoff, Joel Tyner, Jonathan Simon, Judy Alter, Nancy Tobi, Pokey Anderson, Rady Ananda, Steven Freeman, US v NY Board of Elections
Hand-Counting Paper Ballots Proposed In NY District Court
In March 2006, the US Department of Justice began legal proceedings ostensibly aimed at bringing the state of NY into compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). As of today, NY is still the only state that hasn't been bullied into outsourcing its election administration to the secret counting of a private corporation. Arguments will be heard in Case No. 06-CV-0263(GLS), US v NY State Board of Elections, starting next Thursday, December 20.
Yesterday was a big day in the long arc of this story. Attorney Andrea Novick filed a Memorandum of Law of Proposed Amici Curiae, also called an amicus brief or a friend of the court brief, on behalf of 33 election integrity advocates and organizations proposing to hand-count the two federal races on the November 2008 ballot. While it was Novick who filed the brief, it will be Jonathon Simon who will be in the courtroom with the possibility of a rare and extraordinary opportunity to make oral arguments.
There are many documents related to this case and I have started collecting some of them in a new folder in the GuvWurld News Archive. In particular, there are some very impressive declarations filed to provide the credentials of those involved in crafting the brief. You can now also see the projections for 15 NY counties developed using Rady Ananda's voter turnout projections and the hand-count forecast tool I built. Our methods are detailed in our declarations and the brief. It's all in that new folder.
More documents will surely be added in the days and weeks ahead. As of this hour, I am withholding my declaration as corrections are being made. It is uncertain whether an amended declaration can be filed, but when the update is complete you can at least locate it as described above. This is so unfortunate because we all spent ridiculous amounts of time this week, only to get snagged by document version control.
Here are some of the highlights of the brief:p.7 of the brief - crux of our "proposal":
I have immense respect and admiration for all the people working on this project, many of whom I haven't named and some of whom I may not even realize are on the team. I believe that everyone understands what a long shot this is but I have seen nothing but positivity toward the project. We know that regardless of the outcome of the case, in which we are neither plaintiff nor defendant, we have created a new body of work that advances the election integrity movement and will serve as a future reference countless times. In this way, I again cite confluence with the Voter Confidence Committee's Humboldt hand-count campaign. In Thursday's media advisory, we did not just request public information from the Registrar, we made a leap in our framing. Months ago, when our Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County was first released, we postured "Hand-Counting Paper Ballots Is On The Table - Let The Community Dialog Begin!" Like the District Court in NY, with enough information to demonstrate the time, cost, labor and other logistical concerns, the Humboldt community shall now be asked to judge the viability of our proposal.
As the United States' memorandum has made clear, HAVA recognizes the State's right to hand count paper ballots, as long as Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) are provided in every polling place, producing a paper ballot identical to the paper ballots marked by able voters. Thus, were the Court to direct a hand count of the two Federal races, the defendants would not have to choose between purchasing failed computerized systems or remaining in violation of a federal statute, thereby subjecting the State to this Court's directing an outside party to decide how New York's elections will be held in 2008.
p.11 - closing of the summary section; features some points made previously by Paul Lehto and here at WDNC:
Amici Curia respectfully urge the Court to act as the judiciary has and must when government's potential conflict of interest, in having the authority to determine the means by which it may be re-elected, would so regulate the people's elections as to thwart the full exercise of the franchise as secured by the Constitution. The right to choose our representatives means nothing if the people cannot know - not merely trust - that their will has been accurately reflected by the results of our elections. That right was not granted to the people, but rather was deemed "unalienable," by nothing less than our Declaration of Independence. Governments' role is to secure that right. There is nothing secure about voting on computerized systems which have shown themselves time and again to be readily corruptible while defying detection. We implore the Court to protect the citizens' means to observe and secure our elections so that we may see, not trust, that our consent to the outcome was respected.
page 16 - from the core of the argument, a fine distillation of a point this country should have seen about five years ago as "Do not pass go, do not collect $200":
Not only have the essential democratic safeguards been obliterated by oblique computerized processes, but all of the voting systems sold by these voting vendors have been revealed to be seriously vulnerable to attacks that can change the outcome of entire elections. As demonstrated below and in the declarations of Lukacher, Anderson, Simon and Freeman, computerized voting offers by far and away the greatest opportunity for theft this nation has ever seen. After 200 years of successive legislative efforts to protect the integrity of our elections by minimizing the opportunities for tampering, we are witnessing a complete reversal wherein the opportunities for tampering are massively multiplied, enabled solely by the introduction of computers into our electoral process. Such action is in direct conflict with our Constitution.
pages 23-24 - another part of the main argument, and another point we have tried to make here in Humboldt about how unsavory (really how unthinkable) it is now to do business with Diebold/Premier:
New York's Procurement Laws prohibit the State from entering into contracts with "non-responsible" vendors26. The voting vendors who sell America's computerized voting systems share a history of multiple infractions of "non-responsible" conduct as defined in New York's laws -- including, in addition to failed performance and unethical conduct, criminal indictments and convictions, bid rigging, computer-aided embezzlement, money laundering, tax evasion, bribery and kick-back scandals to name a few -- any one of which would render them ineligible to do business in New York.26 http://www.wheresthepaper.org/Memo1NYSvendorsProhibited.pdf, http://www.wheresthepaper.org/UpdatedProcurementVendorIrresponsibility070822.pdf,
Two memorandums (amici's exhibits "B" and "C") containing 80 pages of documented reports of vendors disqualifying "not-responsible" conduct were submitted to the SBOE and various agencies within the Governor's office. The defendants ignored the evidence, avoiding their affirmative obligation to investigate these vendors.
http://www.votersunite.org/info/IrresponsibleVendors.pdf and see Lukacher Declaration.
The evidence of the disaster of computerized voting presented herein is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In urging that New York become HAVA-compliant by purchasing this equipment, the United States' motion fails to mention that none of this equipment can provide a secure, reliable or accurate election result. The United States cannot justifiably compel the purchase of equipment that would disenfranchise millions by virtue of these machines' unacceptably high security vulnerabilities and documented failures.
New York should be free to abide by its rich democratic history in which the rights of citizens to oversee and monitor their elections has historically and progressively been recognized, respected and upheld as constitutionally required. This would be impossible if New York State were forced to purchase these machines, as the United States is urging this Court to direct.
pages 26-27
To satisfy the United States' motion that the State become HAVA-compliant for the federal election (since that is the only election relevant to the federal statute), the State only has to hand count the two Federal races in 2008, providing BMDs in every polling place so that disabled voters could create the same paper ballots as abled voters. Amici have gone to great lengths to assist New York by determining what would be required to hand count these two races, demonstrating as well how simple and feasible it would be for New York to return to a hand count for 2008's Federal election.
Rady Ananda and Dave Berman have analyzed the official data for each New York county and, using a forecast tool designed by Mr. Berman expressly for this purpose, have demonstrated that New [sic] will require only four citizen-counters in each polling place to be able to count the two races in less than four hours.2929The forecast tool is based on the procedures as explained to Mr. Berman by New Hampshire's Assistant Secretary of State, Anthony Stevens. Forty-five percent of New Hampshire's polling places still hand count their ballots and, as explained in greater detail in the Tobi declaration, New Hampshire's ballots are far more complex, and their precincts larger, than New York's. [WDNC: Note that the first part of this footnote is among the points of clarification in my declaration. I did not attend Assistant Secretary Stevens' presentation or ever meet or speak with him. The forecast tool was inspired by a .pdf of Stevens' presentation on the website of Democracy For New Hampshire.]
page 29 - arguing that lever machines are HAVA compliant, and that failing to approve HCPB, all levers would still be preferable to anything electronic:
Lever machines do produce a permanent paper record. Some lever machines imprint the total number of votes cast onto a piece of paper. At the close of the election, poll workers remove the paper from the lever machine and use it to create another paper record of the tallies. Other lever machines don't produce an imprinted piece of paper with the tallies, but the poll workers perform the same function, taking the voting tallies off the lever machines and writing them down on a piece of paper, thus satisfying HAVA's requirement for a permanent paper record.
The United States' argument that the lever machine doesn't produce a permanent paper record with manual audit capacity presumably ignores the human being's role as part of the "voting system". However, just as with a hand count, a human being is very much a part of the voting system, and in the case of lever machines a human being is producing the permanent paper record required by HAVA.2929 It is worth observing that there are voting systems which the United States considers HAVA-compliant that clearly do not "produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity" as required by the statute. Certainly no paperless DRE can be said to produce a permanent record, but the United States is not suing those states with paperless DREs to compel their compliance with HAVA. Moreover the paper produced by DREs with printers attached to them, creating so-called voter verified paper audit trails (VVPATs), have been shown unreliable for auditing purposes in that they have been known to have as high as 20% unreadability, and as corroborated in the recent reports from California, can be rigged to correspond to the electronic tally, neither equating with the machine's official tally.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/12/hand-counting-paper-ballots-proposed-in.html
Labels: amicus brief, Andi Novick, Anthony Stevens, DOJ, GuvWurld News Archive, HAVA, hcpb, Jonathan Simon, Nancy Tobi, Rady Ananda, US v NY Board of Elections, Voter Confidence Committee
Thursday, December 13, 2007
NY Attorney Stands Up For Hand-Counting Paper Ballots
Coming right up on tomorrow's filing deadline, NY attorney Andi Novick will be submitting a brief regarding the state's response to Department of Justice pressure to comply with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). New York is the last state not in compliance and the DOJ appears intent on forcing the state to purchase and implement some ridiculous electronic vote counting system or other in time for the November 2008 presidential election. The state, political parties and watchdog groups are all weighing in. Novick's brief, a proposal really, would keep NY's lever machines in place through next November, and it would allow hand-counting paper ballots for the two federal races on that ballot.
I suppose I have been peripherally aware of this situation, and began to learn a little about it before speaking in Commack, NY at the end of August. Here are several articles about the situation:
As I noted at the end of my "teamwork" post last weekend, I was recruited onto Novick's team to apply the hand-count forecast tool (.xls) I built for the Voter Confidence Committee to forecast cost, time and labor needs for hand-counting in 15 NY Counties. Over the past week the forecast tool has done some more evolving. Once Novick files I will make available the workbook showing the NY forecasts. In the meantime, the version that has been publicly available (.xls) for months has been updated to reflect these innovations:All innovations developed in cooperation with Andy Novick, Rady Ananda, Nancy Tobi, Sally Castleman and Pokey Anderson.
As part of Novick's brief, I had to draft a declaration stating my qualifications and specific contributions. I look forward to sharing that soon too. Papers due tomorrow are for the case scheduled to be heard on December 20.
The biggest fundamental difference in this new version is the distillation to the exact number of hours *required* for a four-person team to be able to hand-count an average poll site in the county. The benefit of this is showing very small numbers, in some cases, and also instances where a second team might be considered.
This still computes the number of people needed countywide, but now makes a more accurate computation of their collective pay. Before it was based on an arbitrary user input suggesting how late counting would be allowed to occur. Now the pay is completely prorated to the actual amount of counting time required.
Two new guide calculations have also been added for the sake of creating checks and balances, really a reality check for other numbers in the equation. The first new one is registered voters per poll site, computed by dividing the total number of registered voters by the number of poll sites. The other new guide is the poll site-level voter turnout, derived by dividing the average number of ballots cast per site by the average number of registered voters per site.
Removed from this version: time *allowed* for counting (both hours and seconds), teams required per poll site, and people required per poll site. Instead of quantifying people on a per poll site basis, it is now framed around the exact amount of time counting will require.
There was a wonderful confluence of events today as the VCC released this media advisory making public a letter we delivered yesterday to Humboldt Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich. We have waited a long time for her to provide her own forecast assumptions to be plugged into the forecast spreadsheet tool. By renewing our request publicly, we are hoping the media will become determined to know these numbers as well. This is how the community will be able to judge the viability of our proposal for hand-counting all ballots in Humboldt elections. The Registrar has already agreed to return to the Peter B. Collins show a week from tomorrow, December 21, presumably between 5-6pm when Brad Friedman is a regular guest.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/12/ny-attorney-stands-up-for-hand-counting.html
Labels: Andi Novick, Brad Friedman, Carolyn Crnich, DOJ, hand-counting paper ballots, HAVA, Nancy Tobi, Peter B. Collins, Pokey Anderson, Rady Ananda, Sally Castleman, spreadsheet tool
