Congress to "Just Say Yes" to Permanent Secret Vote Counting

Congress to "Just Say Yes" to Permanent Secret Vote Counting

EAC Takes Aim at Paper Ballots

May 30, 2007

Paper ballots must now all be technology-enabled. . . 'machine readable.'

Let's think about this for a moment."

By Nancy Tobi

I went to Washington, DC last week. Our nation's capital. I wish I could say that I went solely to enjoy the warm and nourishing hospitality of my food and lodging angel, Arlene. Or that I went to enjoy the May roses not found in New England until much later in the summer. I wish I could say that I went to embrace the massive willow oak in the park outside the congressional office buildings, or that I went just so that I could lie on my back on the grass in the park and feel the rays of the DC sun melt into my face.

But I went to DC for other reasons. I went to attend a meeting of the technological advisory group (TGDC) to the white house agency that oversees the nation’s voting systems, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), also known as the Commissioners of the Count. There, in the building where museum-like displays remind us of the accomplishments of our National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in areas as abstract and all encompassing as measuring time and space, the federal agency controlling how our votes are counted convenes periodically to review and authorize their ongoing plans for transforming the elections of the United States of America.

Last week, the techno-advisory group for the Commissioners of the Count was putting the final touches on a draft of the next version of their “Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.” Once the work of the techno-advisory group is completed, the Commissioners, four white house appointees, have the final say in approving these standards for e-voting equipment to be used in America's elections.

The guidelines are called "voluntary" because the US Constitution empowers the states, and not the federal government, to administer our elections. Theoretically the Commissioners of the Count can only "recommend" voting system standards to the states. But the reality is, their "guidelines" are nothing less than specifications for voting system technology.

The "guidelines" are, in fact, the Commission’s authorized blueprint for our election systems, which the e-voting industry uses to develop their products.

Additionally, there is an uncomfortable confluence between the Commission’s "voluntary" voting system standards and federal law. Congress stands ready to vote on a controversial piece of election reform legislation known as HR 811, aka the Holt Bill. Within its 62 pages of convoluted language, the bill has a little provision for all voting systems in the nation to convert ballot text into what Holt calls "accessible form." This means that voting jurisdictions must have technology that converts written ballot text into other media such as audio, pictures, or multiple languages. This is fairly complex technology. If the Holt bill passes with this provision, our cities, towns, and counties will be forking over substantial sums of cash for the privilege of adding an exceedingly opaque layer of technology to our elections.

This odd provision did not come out of nowhere. It came straight out of the techno-advisory group’s "voluntary" voting system guidelines, where it was inserted in 2005, against the advice of the nation's top state and local election officials. And there it sat, until along came Mr. Holt, who decided this "voluntary" standard would become the law of the land.

Effectively, the "guidelines" are not voluntary at all. They are the industry specifications that become the products sold to jurisdictions using e-voting equipment rather than hand-counting their elections. And they become the law of the land whenever any particular congressional rep decides to toss them into the election reform law du jour.

Which is why I go to these meetings. The techno-advisory group consists of 14 "specialists," appointed by the Commissioners of the Count, and is chaired by the Director of NIST. I go to observe the manner in which they fulfill their charter to "act in the public interest to assist the Executive Director of the Commission in the development of the voluntary voting system guidelines." I could sit home and watch their webcasts, or read their transcripts, but going in person to the meetings allows me to observe how these decision makers interact with each other. Who is friends with who. Who dares express independent thought, who goes along. It allows me to chat with them during breaks, or with others in the audience, such as senior executives from ES&S and Diebold, two of the larger e-voting companies in the nation.

Two months ago, I went to another of their meetings. I was taken aback at the opening remarks of EAC Chair, Donetta Davidson, who stood up, took the mike, and declared her concerns with paper ballots. "We must address the problems associated with counting paper ballots," she said. This surprised me because these guys are mostly interested in technology-related voting, and I couldn't quite figure where the matter of paper ballots fit in to their scheme. It surprised me too, because of all the problems we hear about in our election systems, rarely are they tracked back to paper ballots. More often than not, the problems have to do with electronic vote flipping (voters press the button for Candidate A but see Candidate B get their vote), machine failures, or anomolous but untrackable results lost in the inner ether of e-voting machines.

Coming from a state like New Hampshire, where hand counting of paper ballots is a time honored tradition and practice, I was confused about the intention of Chair Davidson's assertions. We know in New Hampshire that the tried and true methods for counting and handling paper ballots have stood us in good stead for hundreds of years. Contrary to the picture painted by Chair Davidson, the New Hampshire experience has shown that the public counting of paper ballots delivers integrity of election results far removed from the questions of fraud or failure found in many electronic voting systems.

But in March, 2007, EAC Chair Donetta Davidson was concerned about paper ballots, how they get counted, and how the Commissioners of the Count could address what she described as "the problems people have counting them." So concerned was Chair Davidson, in fact, that she rose to address her advisory group on the issue first thing in the morning of that particular meeting, with the directive that they look into the matter.

Chair Davidson's appeal apparently did not fall on deaf ears. In last week's follow-up meeting, the techno-advisory group unveiled a whole new class of standards for their voting system guidelines: the paper ballots class. In conjunction with their declaration that "the entire voting system shall be verifiable," they expanded their purview to the design of paper ballots, which, as one member stated, "can be verified by the voter after he has marked it."

Their resolutions regarding paper ballots were fairly spare, not having, really, too much to say about this relatively simple and straightforward voting mechanism. Paper ballots stand in stark contrast to the high-tech voting systems which the TGDC otherwise engages itself in designing. The 750 pages of high tech software specifications found in the newest version of voting system guidelines is more up their alley.

So what did the techno-advisory group come up with in their recommendations for dealing with the "problem" of handling and counting paper ballots?

Paper ballots must now all be technology-enabled.

That's right. It is not enough that the Commissioners of the Count have busied themselves designing extraordinarily complex high tech voting systems, which will lead to the development of outrageously expensive and opaque voting machines.

Now, even the nation's paper ballots must be "machine readable."

Let's think about this for a moment.

I feel as though the absurdity of the statement stands on its own and I can just end this article right here and now. But I'll spell it out just a tad further, because the implications of four white house appointees assuming control over paper ballots run deeper than absurdity.

The double declaration that every aspect of the voting system must be verifiable and that paper ballots must be machine readable reflects the belief of this body that elections must be technology-based.

Verifiability is not an issue unless technology is involved.

Voters marking their paper ballots by hand have, in fact, no need to "verify" that the mark they just made is the mark they intended to make. The act of hand marking the paper ballot is enough verification of their voter intent. Verification is only required when technology has come between the voter and his vote. In these circumstance, voters indeed must try to verify that the machine is correctly capturing their intent. The inherent flaw in the verified voting paradigm, however, is that it is really quite impossible for voters to verify anything a software-driven process is doing, because they can not peer inside the bits and bytes of an e-voting machine to see what it is doing with their vote.

Verifiable voting is nothing more than a confidence game.

Hence the title of HR 811: "Increased Voter Confidence Act." Voters do not need confidence that their votes are verifiable. They need checks and balances to ensure that their votes are cast and counted as intended.

The nation has historically depended on voter intent as the ultimate arbiter for election integrity.

Voter intent can only be properly discerned on a hand-marked, hand-cast, hand-counted paper ballot. Voter intent is vastly superior to the ambiguous concept of verifiability when it comes to guaranteeing the citizenry free, fair, open and democratic elections.

The EAC, in broadening its purview to paper ballots, is attempting to replace voter intent with verifiability even for paper ballots, which, it says, must conform to a technology-based voting system.

The EAC is proposing that we replace democratic elections with verifiable elections.

This is a profound paradigm shift for the nation, and the decision for such a dramatic change in America's democracy appropriately rests with the citizenry, and not four white house appointees.

I wonder how many American citizens, if asked, would give the consent of the governed to such a change.

Chicken Little's Falling Objects Forecast for New Hampshire

Chicken Little
by Nancy Tobi

I've lately been advised by a friend that I am beginning to sound like Chicken Little, because I've been talking and writing a lot about this piece of federal election reform legislation called the Holt Bill, or HR811.

I've been told to ease up on the doom and gloom scenarios associated with the bill. I admire and respect this person and take his advice to heart.

But I told him that maybe instead of saying, "Oh, that Nancy. What a lunatic. She's on a crusade. She just won't shut up," he might not only take notice of the sky falling, but take some action by calling our NH Congressional delegation and tell them to cease and desist from giving their support to HR811.

Let me spell it out as best I can, in the simplest of terms.

I won't talk about the bill shifting power from the American people to the White House, changing forever the nature of our current constitutional system of representational democracy.

I won't go into its enacting secret vote counting into federal law. Perhaps federalizing secret vote counting in the United States of America does not concern everyone too much.

I won't mention that the bill won't create meaningful change for the nation's 2008 elections, because it's been corrupted into a corporate dream, leaving our 2008 elections even more vulnerable to wholesale fraud and destabilization.

And I will not bore you with the details of our very workable alternate legislation, which, if our NH Congressional reps would sponsor as a substitute or alternate bill, would enact meaningful change to protect the nation's election integrity for 2008 and provide a foundation on which we can build in the future to really clean up our elections.

Let me just tell you the costs of HR811 - the Holt Bill - to New Hampshire. Maybe this will spur you to pick up the phone and call your representative.

Rumor has it that the House is planning to bring this ghastly bill to a vote the week of July 9th.

NH Representative Hodes has disregarded recommendations to oppose the bill from every corner of the Granite State: from NH Secretary Bill Gardner, the Fair Elections Committee, and the NH Association of City and Town Clerks. Hodes continues to be a cosponsor of HR811.

NH Representative Shea Porter, although seriously engaged on a very high level in this debate, has still not taken a position on it.

THE COSTS OF HR811 TO NEW HAMPSHIRE

Conservative estimates for the financial costs of HR811 to NH alone run as high as $3 million each year for the next 20 years. These costs will be borne by the property tax payers of this state because HR811 is vastly under funded.

In fact, nobody in Congress has even attempted to scope out the real financial costs to the states.

And because it is positioned as a civil rights bill, Congress has no accountability under the unfunded mandate law.
Additionally, the complex and broad reaching - limitless, in fact - mandates of the bill will turn our trusted NH election system on its head. Unlike the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which provided a state plan process so states could interpret the law's requirements, and which provided a "safe harbor" mechanism, wherein states could comply and be protected from lawsuits, HR 811 simply lays out broad and deep requirements with no state plan process, no safe harbor, leaving interpretation of the bill's requirements to be thrown to the courts.

If you need to be reminded of how the courts handle interpretation of democratic election processes, just remember Florida 2000.

So unlike HAVA, where we could comply with the law, but not change the way we vote in NH, under HR 811 everything will change.

Forever.

Because the only way for our state to avoid lawsuits and to prove we are in compliance with the bill from date of its passage to forever, will be to follow the federal voting system standards developed by the Election Assistance Commission. This is a White House-appointed federal "advisory" agency charged with regulating high-tech voting systems for the nation. They have now started dabbling in paper ballot system design and control as well.

Voting systems designed by the Commission meet every possible contingency and requirement for disability access and multilingual interpretation. The president's friends, who Holt would have controlling the nation's voting systems, have not yet produced a price tag for their moon shuttle voting system designs, but conservative estimates easily place an EAC-designed voting system at a minimum of $20-30K per machine.

For every polling place, every town and city ward, in New Hampshire.
Even Dixville Notch, with its 19 or so voters.

And that is just phase one of their program. In another 2-3 years phase two kicks in, and we'll have to purchase all new systems to be in compliance.

Is the sky falling? I'll let you decide.

Ready to call your rep?

http://www.nh.gov/government/nhcong.html [19]

HR 811 (The Holt Bill): Time to Put Us Out of its Misery

Originally published at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_070605_hr_811__28the_ho... [20]
June 5, 2007

By Nancy Tobi

HR 811 has a long and controversial history. It is embraced primarily by well-funded lobbyists, while the general citizenry, election officials, and activists oppose the bill. In the ultimate bait and switch, all carrots dangled in front of activists have been eaten up: full software disclosure is now full nondisclosure. Implementation on key aspects is moved from 2008 to 2010, effectively quashing the "Let's get it straight by 2008" bullshit campaign by MoveOn, Common Cause, VoteTrustUSA, PFAW and other large lobbyists pouring money into passage of this bill (and who is funding those guys anyway?).

Let's kill this thing and put us all out of its misery.

Here is the text of the bill as reported out of Committee to the House:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.811: [21]

People continue to ask, what can we do to make HR 811 work? We can continue to request amendment after amendment on the bill, but the reality is that the bill is so fatally flawed and the drafters of the bill are so intractable on critical issues, that it is my belief that the bill can not be salvaged, it must be killed, and a new bill introduced.

We the people have introduced alternate legislative language, which has been vetted by election officials and others, and we believe is workable and can bring necessary changes in time for 2008 without creating a destabilization of the nation’s election systems. This language may be found here (and appended at bottom of this document):

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/five_point_proposal [22]

And if you really want to go simple and to the point: why not just enact legislation that everyone can agree on: federal BUYOUT for all paperless DREs with the funding to go to paper ballot systems (not paper records) using opscams OR hand counts?

I have tirelessly submitted analysis on every iteration of the bill and I am now weary of this process. Congressman Holt’s office and others in Congress have paid no mind to the very real and serious objections we have to this legislation. Congressman Holt’s office has not acted in good faith to engage in any dialog regarding our concerns.

I, personally, have been informed by congressional staffers that the political “reality” on the Hill is such that Congressman Holt is regarded as “the leader in election reform on the Hill” and that nobody will dare sponsor counter legislation to his. I have been informed that his bill is a moving train that will not be stopped.

My response to these remarks made to me by a congressional staffer is that this is not acceptable.

The matter of our democracy is not something to be dropped into the framework of any individual’s reputation, cult of personality, or otherwise. I don't care if Mr. Holt is a nice man, a good Christian, who his wife is, or how many coins he tosses to beggers on the DC sidewalks.

It is unacceptable to consider legislation of this import within the prism of how anyone “feels” about its sponsor. And frankly, I am tired of being told by congressional staffers that “they have heard from Holt’s office that the bill does x,y,z” as though they have not bothered to read the text before their eyes in black and white, just as I, an ordinary citizen, have taken the time to do.

Our democracy deserves better than these kinds of lazy and irrelevant rationalizations for supporting HR 811.

It is the opinion of many reputable citizens and public officials alike that HR 811 is completely unworkable, if enacted will destabilize our state election systems, and contains many elements that are antithetical to the basic foundations of our democracy.

If Congressman Holt is indeed the only leader on the Hill then I respectfully submit his leadership in this area is sorely lacking in the area most important for building good legislation: consensus building.

His office has consistently engaged in the practice of misdirection and disinformation rather than meaningful dialogue, and has intentionally shut out all dissenting voices.

Politicians in Washington may well be used to these kinds of strategies running their political campaigns. But this is not a political campaign, and those of us ordinary citizens engaged in this struggle deserve better thatn the disinformation campaigns and swiftboating of American citizens simply because they hold dissenting opinions about this legislation.

As a result of the stonewalling and closed circuit deliberations, Holt's office has released a bill that is extraordinarily controversial in nature and opposed by a wide swath of the American citizenry, including all major representational organizations of election officials and state legislatures.

At this point in time, I am no longer conducting clause by clause analysis. I will point out the fundamental problems with the bill, which may be used as benchmarks for anyone wishing to continue to attempt to point out the flaws of the bill. I simply do not believe that this bill can be the vehicle for effective and meaningful election reform.

If the bill fails these fundamental benchmarks for democratic elections as defined below, then the bill should not pass. Period.

There is no negotiation and no compromise on defending our democracy.

So here are the most important problems with this bill, which are the benchmarks for improvement and change in order for HR 811 to be considered as a serious contender for our support.

1. It is designed to protect technological e-voting industry interests rather than our democracy.

2. It is overly complex, overly prescriptive
The Holt plan relies on “experts” and “qualified” persons, rather than ordinary citizens. Our elections must be straightforward, able to be run by ordinary citizens, 100% observable, and publicly owned.

3. It replaces the constitutional, historical, and irreplaceable democratic requirement for OBSERVABLE elections with VERIFIABLE elections.
These are not equivalent. Providing voters with opportunities to allegedly “verify” computer vote counting--which is inherently impossible anyway because nobody other than the programmer knows what is going on in the trade-secret software—is not equivalent to protecting our RIGHT to conduct observable elections.

4. It replaces our right to secure, observable FIRST COUNTS of the votes on election night, with the opportunity to conduct post-election AUDITS.
Auditing machine results is not equivalent with our right to hold free, fair, open and democratic elections with observable vote counting of the first count before any winners are announced and peremptorily sworn in (a la Bilbray, San Diego, 2006), or any chain of custody or other issues may arise.

5. It fraudulently represents machine-generated records as “ballots.”
This undermines our time-honored system of elections, based on voter-marked paper ballots as the vote of record. This obfuscation of terminology has both legal and conceptual implications.

6. The Holt bill requires new technology for every polling jurisdiction in the nation: the text converter technology.
Drafters of the bill have progressively been changing the language of this provision and making claims as to how it might be fulfilled in various ways. The fact is the language is obscure and, if passed as is, interpretations will be thrown to the courts as every interested person sues their state for using one solution over another. The current text reads the requirement to “convert ballot selections into accessible form.” What does this mean? It’s anyone’s guess.
Common wisdom in the industry and certainly in the EAC is that voting systems must provide technology conversion of ballot text into multiple forms of “accessible media” such as audio, pictures, and multiple languages.
Given the obvious confluence of EAC standards and Holt Bill text, it is not inconceivable to interpret the provision a la the EAC interpretation. New technologies as defined by the EAC and passed into law by bills like the Holt Bill will cripple local and state economies, place further complex technological walls between the voter and his vote, between citizens and our elections, and the costs will be unacceptably borne by the decline of freedom and democracy and crippling property taxes.

7. The bill is underfunded and rides roughshed over state laws.
Drafters of the bill followed the unacceptable practice of using figures brought them by a lobbyist (VoteTrustUSA), rather than conducting honorable due diligence with an eye to county, town, and state budgets and legal requirements. In stark contrast to the lobbyist budget inserted into the bill, estimates by diligent state officials indicate that the bill is underfunded by a factor of 3-4 times the implementation costs budgeted in the Holt bill.
Additionally, the bill actually articulates its recommendation for states to follow the prescriptive requirements of the bill and only later enact legislation to support these actions, rather than honoring the sovereignty of state legal infrastructures, which should not be peremptorily overrun in order to satisfy federal legislation.

8. The Holt bill has unworkable and conflicting requirements and effective dates.
The combination of incomprehensible requirements, conflicting timelines, no safe harbor language, and limited ability for states to interpret the bill, all add up to a lot of open doors for litigation and election outcome challenges. This is extremely destabilizing and dangerous to the nation, as we learned in 2000 when only ONE state had a legal challenge to the election outcome. More information on this here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_070522_the_real_threat_... [23]

And here: http://www.opednews.com [24]

9. HR 811 makes permanent the Election Assistance Commission (EAC):
The EAC consists of four White House appointees who, through their power to design the software and hardware specifications of voting equipment to be used in America (and they have now expanded their purview even to designing our paper ballots), can effectively control the counting of votes in the United States. This is unacceptable. This Commission MUST BE DISSOLVED. Its very existence threatens our 231 year constitutional republic by shifting the ultimate power – that of counting our votes – to the Executive Branch. This is the destruction of our democracy.

The drafters of HR 811 have disingenuously removed the clear directive to make the EAC permanent (each successive version has obfuscated their intention to do so). Early versions of the bill clearly called for the “Permanent Extension of the EAC." Then they removed the word “Permanent” and now they have removed the actual provision itself. But these are games they are playing. The current version of HR 811 mentions the EAC, giving it authority and responsibility, more than 32 times in the 62-page bill. It also appropriates to the EAC in perpetuity an amount of funding 5 times the current budget. This, my friends, is a duck. It walks and quacks, and it is a duck.
More information on the EAC here:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/eac_takes_aim_at_paper_ballots_NT [25]

And here: http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/eac_gopher_bash [26]

10. Vote counting secrecy:
The most egregious bait and switch for many activists supporting the bill is that the original language calling for full disclosure in the bill has now been replaced with full nondisclosure, as well as adding requirements for public officials to sign nondisclosure agreements with private corporations in order to keep secret from the American people the manner in which our votes are being counted.

11. HR 811 imposes overly burdensome and cumbersome auditing and reporting requirements, many of which will not conform to current state practices and traditions.
This is another area where the bill uses complexity and “experts” rather than simplicity and citizen oversight. It places the EAC between the state and the state’s certification of election results. It is ambiguous as to the reporting requirements and EAC authority in obstructing state certification of election results. It inappropriately involves an executive commission of four white house appointees in the process of certification of state election results.

5-Point Alternative Proposal for Meaningful Election Legislation with Checks and Balances
Plus Incentives for Real Paper Ballots and Hand Counts

1. In support of the principle of checks and balances and citizen oversight:
Require that Paper Ballots be Offered and Provided Voters at the Polls

The appropriate election official at each polling place in an election for Federal office shall offer each individual who is eligible to cast a vote in the election at the polling place the opportunity to cast the vote using a pre-printed paper ballot which the individual may mark by hand and which is not produced by a direct recording electronic voting machine. If the individual accepts the offer to cast the vote using such a ballot, the official shall provide the individual with the ballot and the supplies necessary to mark the ballot, and shall ensure (to the greatest extent practicable) that the waiting period for the individual to cast a vote is not greater than the waiting period for an individual who does not agree to cast the vote using such a paper ballot under this paragraph.

Jurisdictions will ensure that a sufficient supply of paper ballots be available, that notice of the option is provided, that the ballots are treated with equal dignity provided to other ballots, including canvassing/counting those ballots on election day, and that consequences are provided for violations. In the event of violations related to the provision, canvassing, and handling of paper ballots, any citizen eligible to vote in the jurisdiction will have standing to go to court to require compliance and authority for the court to grant immediate relief.

Funding for training and documentation for election officials and election workers in the proper hand counting methods and election administration using paper ballots will be appropriated to support this provision. Prior to election certification, appropriate protocols must be implemented to ensure the integrity of election results as authenticated by transparent vote counting methods.

(Compliance to be determined by each state in a state plan process that supports the standards for democratic elections, those being citizen oversight and security, and which process includes diverse stakeholders group including citizen representation, published plans, and consequences for noncompliance. State Plans will be published in the Federal Register.)

Effective Date State Plan: February, 2008

Effective Date Implementation: General Election November 2008

2. In support of the principle of fiscal responsibility and stabilization of state governmental administration, checks and balances and citizen oversight:

BUYOUT funding for states wishing to replace DRE systems with paper-based voting systems.

(BUYOUT funding can be applied to paper ballot, optical scan voting systems, paper ballot, hand count systems, or a combination thereof. In the case of buyout funding as applied to hand count systems, training costs may be included.)

(Compliance to be determined by each state in a state plan process that supports the standards for democratic elections, those being citizen oversight and security, and which process includes diverse stakeholders group including citizen representation, published plans, and consequences for noncompliance. State Plans will be published in the Federal Register.)

Effective Date: February, 2008

3. In support of the principle of checks and balances:
Dissolution of EAC and reallocation of its functional responsibilities to appropriate representational groups (as described below)

Effective Date: January 2008

4. In support of the principle of fiscal responsibility and stabilization of state governmental administration:
Prohibition on any additional unfunded mandates being added into the bill

Effective Date: Upon passage

5. In support of the Ninth Amendment that no single right can trample or trounce others:

Appropriations for real study of practical, implementable solutions, by a broad range of citizen stakeholders including representation from disability activists and election officials, arriving at consensus solutions that support and resolve conflicts among the voting principles of citizen oversight, security, accuracy, and accessibility.

Effective Date: Upon passage

Reallocation of EAC Responsibilities:

* Generate technical guidance on the administration of federal elections.
– Hand over to NIST and Standards Board with Citizen Representation

* Produce voluntary voting systems guidelines.
– Hand over to NIST and Standards Board with Citizen Representation

* Research and report on matters that affect the administration of federal elections.
– Hand over to Standards Board and Citizens Group

* Otherwise provide information and guidance with respect to laws, procedures, and technologies affecting the administration of Federal elections.
– Hand over to Standards Board and Citizens Group

* Administer payments to States to meet HAVA requirements.
– Hand over to General Services Administration

* Provide grants for election technology development and for pilot programs to test election technology.
– Eliminate this function

* Manage funds targeted to certain programs designed to encourage youth participation in elections.
– Hand over to Department of Education

* Develop a national program for the testing,certification, and decertification of voting systems.
– Hand over to NIST and Standards Board with Citizen Representation

* Maintain the national mail voter registration form that was developed in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), report to Congress every two years on the impact of the NVRA on the administration of federal elections, and provide information to States on their responsibilities under that law.
– Hand back to the FEC (Federal Elections Commission)

* Audit persons who received federal funds authorized by HAVA from the General Services Administration or the Election Assistance Commission.
– Hand over to GSA, using Inspector General

* Submit an annual report to Congress describing EAC activities for the previous fiscal year.
– Hand over as appropriate to entities assuming functions as above

* Certification, recertification and decertification of voting machines
-- Delegate to the States

HR 811 Floor Managers' Special (Bill revision 7.27.07) with Voter Con Analysis

The language of HR 811 has been changed yet again in a "floor managers' revision" issued July 27.

Click here to download the revised bill text. [27]

Click here to read an analysis of the Voter Con Act [28] (that is only partly satirical).

Nancy Tobi Meets with Columbus, OH activists

Nancy Tobi Rocks! Democracy for New Hampshire Comes to Ohio!

About 22 of some of Central Ohio’s best election activists showed up Tuesday night, March 6, at the Free Press offices to hear Nancy Tobi of “Democracy for New Hampshire” speak about how she has managed to develop positive relationships with her election officials and certain legislators to help work together on getting her grassroots organization’s election integrity legislation passed.

For three hours she inspired us, complimented us, cajoled us, and listened to our tales of fighting corruption and incompetence in scandle-riddled Ohio. Here are some of the highpoints of her speech.

She started by speaking of “Difficult Dialogues,” something we all encounter in this movement. She described her own concentric spheres: first herself as a Jewish woman in New Englander country. “Who am I, to presume to take on changing the institution of elections?” “What are my shortcomings and inadequacies?” “Why am I compelled to continue this struggle for democracy?”

Secondly, how do we deal with our families, who want to know, “When is supper?”

Thirdly, we have to deal with our own groups, who may criticize us—her own group who elected her the Chair, criticized her for being too edgy! Other election groups criticized her “Request by Voters,” a response to the Holt bill, because they thought she did not go far enough in calling for hand-counted ballots. She tried to work with Holt’s office, but found that they shut down and refused to dialogue with her. Her own legislators eviscerated legislation she had helped write, making her want to throw up her hands and quit in disgust, but her friend advised her, “You must still look them in the eye, and more importantly, they must look you in the eye.”

Her SOS office recognizes the downside of riling up, with stricter directives, the clerks of the districts (counterpart to our Directors of County Boards of Election). They are instead working to pull together a planning task force that invites to the table the Clerks, activists, legislators, and other stakeholders to discuss the issues and reach consensus. Paddy said that in Ohio, we have 88 “Fiefdoms,” that we walk into at our own peril. Nancy reminded us that the clerks/Directors have legitimate administrative concerns, which we must acknowledge. At this meeting was Grace, an election judge in Licking County, who described the difficulty in running a precinct’s election competently and securely, without adding additional burdens to the overworked staff. We must have all the people affected by election changes represented at the table where decisions are made. They are not our enemies, or should not be.

These are examples of difficult dialogues, which have made her journey in election integrity both transformative and spiritual. During her recent observance of Rosh Hashanah, she was led to study the Hebrew book of Solomon. What King Solomon asked God for is usually translated, “Wisdom,” but the Hebrew is literally translated, “a listening heart.” This revelation gave her great insight into how she is supposed to be having dialogues with all she encounters in this movement. Her dad told her that she must have “magids,” angels of wisdom, who guide her to the correct people and places in her quest for election integrity and democracy. Some of us agreed later that there is unseen guidance that has helped us find things in the oddest places and circumstances!

Her spiritual guidance must be working because she has been able to work effectively with legislators and officials at both the state and national levels. Nancy has an intriguing balance of feistiness and humbleness. She has a way of both complimenting and cutting through to the truth that gets results. She recently attended the meeting of the National Association for Secretaries of State, and also the meeting of the Standards Board for certification of election machinery. She calls the certification system a “Ponzi scheme,” because it keeps taking money from the taxpayers, and can never catch up with certifying increasingly complex software and hardware. US election equipment is heading for illegal elections in 2007, because the certification labs will not be set up in time to accomplish certification.

We asked many questions about how NH does its hand-counting. 29% of all the ballots, which are in 45% of the districts, are hand-counted; the rest are by Diebold Optical Scanners. Every district has a box to accept ballots for hand-counting, because absentee ballots come in on election day to the polling sites and write-ins require hand-counting. Nancy’s group proposed that any citizen should be allowed to request that their ballot be counted by hand, but the clerks are fighting that one. The hand-counting is done the night of the election and any discrepancies are reconciled before the results are transmitted to the state office. Every election, NH turns away people who want to hand-count , because in the community-based elections there are usually more volunteers than are needed. The counters start at 7 or 8 pm on election night, and take seriously their oath to count honestly. As Nancy pointed out, “A machine can’t take an oath.”

It is easy to get a recount in NH and the payment is not required until after the recount and only if there is no change in the outcome. Requested recounts are done on election night, or at least within three days of the election, by NH law.

Nancy’s group is striving for “parallel counts” by hand, even at the polling places that use optical scanners. After all, the NH constitution states that votes must be “sorted and counted in open meeting,” which would preclude secret vote counting by machine, but as in Ohio, the legislators interpret laws in strange ways. This battle is on-going.

One story Nancy told us was of the possible “fraud preventative power” of a 100% audit of one race, which intrigued all of us is this:

“We had announced parallel election night hand counts of ONE race in an undisclosed number of machine count towns. NH went 100% Dem for the first time EVER, with both houses Dem majority the first time in more than 100 years. We know that Diebold had read our announcement of the parallel counts. But, of course, any inference of influence on outcome is purely speculative.” Here is their memo to would be tamperers: http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/3033 [29]

We Ohio activists got into a discussion of hand-counted audits. What should trigger an audit? What should constitute an effective audit? What is the reconciliation procedure if the count differs? While the majority in attendance are hand-count advocates, Leonard proposed that DRE machines could be revamped to print ballots that are then checked by the voters and optically scanned, or hand-counted. The advantage is in having overvotes and undervotes screened out by machine. The disadvantage is that people do not fill out their own ballots, a point most hand-count advocates are not willing to concede. (Perhaps the OS machine could screen for over and undervotes, to check the hand-count.)

Nancy’s critique of the Holt bill is legendary! The main points are that it is an unfunded mandate--states will not be able to afford the equipment, especially the text conversion machine--and that the certification process, obscured by the EAC, which is appointed by the White House, will not be completed on time. People for the American Way got these text conversion machines into the bill. We then discussed accessibility issues. While the goal of having the handicapped be able to vote independently, privately, and verifiably is a good goal, it is extremely difficult to perfect. In NH, an assisted phone system is used.
This is much cheaper that buying DRE machines for each polling site.

I believe that one of the most important aspects of this meeting was that we had in attendance a member of SOS Brunner’s staff, Dave Klein. We invited all of the staff, but Dave in particular was invited by Nancy. What a wonderful example of getting concerned people to the table! Dave stayed the whole time and engaged in conversation with us afterwards about audits and what else can be done for more secure elections. Nancy gave out copies of her booklet, “We’re Counting the Votes,” which can also be downloaded from her website, www.democracyfornewhampshire.com [30]. I am reading it now, and I highly recommend it for clarity in explaining the problems and in its simple solutions. Ohio could easily borrow some of the ideas and directive and legislative language presented here.

May we be able to continue conversations like this, with “listening hearts”! If it takes an outside dynamic leader like Nancy Tobi to get us to the table, then let’s have her back! Much gratitude to Nancy for coming to Ohio and for all those in attendance. A special thanks to those who brought some delicious snacks, and to Bob and Suzanne for making the Free Press offices available.