California Election Reform News, February 11, 2007

California:

- Symposium with Steven Freeman, Paul Lehto & others, Oakland, Feb. 17, 2007
- Debra Bowen sworn in as California Secretary of State
- Lowell Finley appointed Deputy Secretary of State

National:

- Sen. Feinstein holds hearing on Election Integrity
- Rep. Holt's election protection bill, H.R. 811
- Diebold - security key reproduced from photo on website!
- Sequoia - easy to pick the lock.

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

California:

- Symposium with Steven Freeman, Paul Lehto & others, Oakland, Feb. 17, 2007

The Election Defense Alliance is sponsoring a symposium Sat., Feb. 17
at the Rockridge Library, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It is titled:
"Are We a Democracy? Vote Counting in the United States"
Speakers will include Dr. Steven Freeman, author of "Was the 2004
Presidential Election Stolen?", Attorney Paul Lehto, Dr. Joshua
Mitteldorf, and others.

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/Oakland_Symposium

- Debra Bowen sworn in as California Secretary of State

Videos of the ceremony at:
http://www.debrabowen.com/inauguration
Also included in a video, "Inaugurating Change", by Eon Productions (27
min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYUv0-_oxCU

- Lowell Finley appointed Deputy Secretary of State

Debra Bowen has appointed Lowell Finley as Deputy Secretary of State
in charge of voting system certification. He is the cofounder of
Voter Action, which is involved in suits in 10 states, including
the suit in Sarasota, Florida over the 18,000 undervotes in the
Congressional race.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/9/22729/17873
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3999

National:

- Sen. Feinstein holds hearing on Election Integrity

Senator Diane Feinstein is now chair of the U. S. Senate
Committee on Rules and Administration, which has jurisdiction
over elections. The committee had a hearing titled:
"The Hazards of Electronic Voting: Focus on the Machinery of Democracy"
ON fEB. 7. For a list of witnesses and statements, see:

http://rules.senate.gov/hearings/2007/020707hrg.htm

The committee is accepting comments from the public.
To send comments to the committee, send them to:

[email protected]
[email protected]

Send them by Monday, Feb. 12 (sorry for the late notice).

- Rep. Holt's election protection bill, H.R. 811

Rep. Holt's bill is titled the "Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act of 2007". It already has 183 cosponsors. In the
previous Congress, Rep. Holt's H.R. 550 had 222 cosponsors (215
votes needed to pass a bill), but the House leadership would not
let it come to a vote. H.R. 811 is a lot better than H.R. 550 was,
but still has problems. Common Cause, People for the American Way,
and others are promoting it without regard for the problems, or
possibly hoping they will be fixed in committee. The best description
of the problems is at:

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/46667....

Scroll down past the cosponsors, and you will see links to the list
of problems with Rep. Holt's staff answers, plus other people's
comments.

- Diebold - security key reproduced from photo on website!

Diebold electronic voting machines use a memory card to store programs
and vote totals. This card is locked. However, Diebold had a picture
of the key on its web site which a blogger used to create an actual
key, which worked when tested on a real Diebold voting machine!
(Actually, since Diebold uses only one key model, the key would open
any Diebold voting machine anywhere in the country).

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4438

- Sequoia - easy to pick the lock.

A Princeton professor bought five Sequoia voting machines from
a government auction for $82, and a student picked the lock in
7 seconds!

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1171172999136630.x...

--------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, send
mail to [email protected]. This newsletter is issued infrequently,
so it won't fill your mailbox.