Verified Voting Newsletter Volume 2,- 11, September 28, 2004

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Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:37:57 -0400

Verified Voting Newsletter Volume 2, Number 11, on September

28, 2004

 

Verified Voting Newsletter

Volume 2, Number 11, on September 28, 2004

*** Please forward this newsletter to your friends!

*** Invite them to visit

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

 

 

*** For this and previous newsletters, see Tom Buyea, Miami Fl 33134

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/newsletter/

 

 

CONTENTS

1. Volunteers Needed for the Election Protection Coalition

2. EIRS Debuts Successfully In Florida Primary!

3. Overseas Voter Website Censored by U.S. Government

4. Protect the Privacy of Overseas Voters' Ballots

5. Upcoming Changes to Verified Voting Foundation Website

6. Federal Legislative Update

7. State-By-State Progress on Verified Voting

8. EFF Discussion: " E-Voting and the Upcoming Election "

9. Register to Vote

10. Online Donations to 501©(3) Verified Voting Foundation

11. Subscribe and Un Information

 

1. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR THE ELECTION PROTECTION COALITION

Before, during, and after Election Day on November 2, we need

volunteers to help monitor the election process, either in your local

communities or by traveling to swing states.

Volunteer positions include:

1) Poll watcher or election observer on Election Day

2) Roving troubleshooter to visit problem polling places as needed

on Election Day

3) Poll worker or election judge on Election Day

4) Early voting monitor (some states started September 21)

5) People with legal expertise to respond to incidents before and

during Election Day to make sure voters can vote and that their

votes are counted as intended.

6) Technologists to observe pre-election voting technology testing,

as well as providing voting technology expertise on Election Day

RIGHT NOW, we need volunteers who can help complete the Election

Incident Reporting System (EIRS), the system that will provide the

electronic support for election-day activities.

 

We need significant help with data compilation, programming,

management, training, and other tasks that must be completed well

before Election Day, as described at:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/eirs/teams-jobs.php

 

For these activities, we particularly need people who can make a

substantial time commitment (3-4 hours per day for 5-6 days a week for

potential team leaders, 10 hours per week for smaller individual tasks).

 

To volunteer for these and other election-week jobs, go to

https://www.voteprotect.org/ and click on " Volunteer Now! "

Please do so even if you have signed up elsewhere before, since we

have added new profiling information to EIRS that will help us

coordinate more effectively.

 

If you don't have time to volunteer, but would like to contribute

money to the EIRS Project, please go to

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/donate/

 

If you have friends or family who may be interested, please forward

this email on to them as well.

 

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

Let's make sure that every vote counts, this November 2 and on all

Election Days thereafter!

 

2. EIRS DEBUTS SUCCESSFULLY IN FLORIDA PRIMARY!

The EIRS was given its first major real-world test on August 31, 2004,

during the Florida primary. The system was deployed at call centers in

Florida and Washington, DC, where dozens of hotline operators recorded

about 300 incidents. Incidents are available on-line in the public

portal at https://voteprotect.org/ under the " Research/Maps " link. The

system will be used before, during, and after the nationwide general

election on November 2, 2004. For more information on the Florida

test, please see the following media release:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/media/releases/article.asp?id=2666

 

3. OVERSEAS VOTER WEBSITE CENSORED BY U.S. GOVERNMENT

Verified Voting Foundation Provides Workaround

The International Herald Tribune reported on September 20 that " the

Pentagon has begun restricting international access to the official

Web site intended to help overseas absentee voters cast ballots. "

As a service to overseas U.S. citizens, the Verified Voting Foundation

(VVF) is making the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) website

available through connections in the US at:

http://register.verifiedvoting.org

 

If you have friends or family overseas who are trying to obtain

absentee ballots, please forward this link to them.

The U.S. government blocked its own official FVAP website to some

civilians overseas trying to find out how to obtain absentee ballots

in at least 25 countries, including Japan, France, Great Britain, and

Spain.

 

Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke confirmed that a

number of Internet service providers worldwide had been blacklisted

" to thwart hackers. " Such measures are generally recognized to be

ineffective against hackers while blocking legitimate users.

 

" We at the Verified Voting Foundation are shocked that the Pentagon

has decided to prevent overseas civilians from accessing absentee

ballot information, " said the organization's Executive Director Will

Doherty.

 

" We abhor any policy that prevents or deters eligible voters from

voting and having their votes counted accurately. "

 

To read the full media release, please go to:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.asp?id=2675

 

For the page that permits access to the FVAP site and provides further

information on this topic: http://register.verifiedvoting.org/

To register to vote in the U.S. (use FVAP for overseas):

http://www.yourvotematters.org/VerifiedVoting

 

For media coverage of this story:

http://www.iht.com/articles/539597.html

 

4. PROTECT THE PRIVACY AND INTEGRITY OF SOLDIERS' BALLOTS

In an important follow-on to the story above, please note that three

states have announced that they will allow military voters to EMAIL

their absentee ballots to the Department of Defense, in a move that

alarms computer security experts and voting watchdog groups. Missouri,

North Dakota and Utah now allow ballots from soldiers overseas to be

emailed to a Pentagon contractor, who will then fax them to local

election officials. In addition to problems ensuring a secret and

tamper-proof ballot, this proposal raises concerns about voter

intimidation and soldiers' right to a secret ballot. Urge Secretary

Rumsfeld to protect our soldiers' rights to a secure and secret ballot.

 

If you vote in one of those three states, call your state's chief

election official to ask them to ensure a more secure way for our

armed forces to cast their ballots: MO: 573-751-4936 ND:

800-352-0867 UT: 800-995-VOTE Regardless of where you live, you can

also take action here:

http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=17597

 

5. UPCOMING CHANGES TO VERIFIED VOTING FOUNDATION WEBSITE

You may notice some changes on verifiedvoting.org soon. We are going

to be switching to the open-source AMP content management system on a

Linux server, which will bring about some slight changes in the

look-and-feel and functionality of the site. Once we've made the

migration to the new site, we'd like to hear about any problems or

suggestions you might have. You can let us know by sending an email

to: webmaster

 

6. FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Little time remains for Congress to do the right thing and pass

federal legislation requiring a voter-verified paper ballot for all

the states.

 

But efforts by tireless citizen lobbyists have resulted in 5 new

cosponsors for the Holt Bill, HR 2239. Total cosponsors are now 156.

The most recent are: Rep. Rodriguez [TX-28], Rep. Mollohan [WV-1],

Rep. Berry [AR-1], Rep. McCarthy [MO-5], and Rep. Sanchez [CA-47].

There are also 37 cosponsors for the King bill (HR 4187). Between

these two bills, there are now 193 cosponsors (156+37), but 5 of these

are Representatives who are cosponsors of both bills: Bass [NH], Cole

[OK], Issa [CA], Shays [CT], and Wilson [sC]. Thus, there are now 188

Representatives who are cosponsoring either one or both of these bills.

 

Add the authors of each bill (HR2239: Holt, HR4187: King), and we have

a total of 190 members (or 43.7%) of the House of Representatives who

are now on the record in favor of a legislation to require a

voter-verified paper ballot.

 

New co-sponsors on the Senate bills: Senator Feinstein (CA) signed on

to S2437 and Senators Johnson (SD) and Mikulski (MD) to S2313. Senator

Wyden (OR) also co-sponsored S1980, for a total of 19 Senators calling

for voter-verified paper ballots. May the rest follow close behind!

 

Call your lawmakers today and urge those who have not yet joined one

of these bills to do so IMMEDIATELY. Toll-free Capitol switchboard:

800-839-5246.

 

More info on voter-verified paper ballot legislation:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/legislation/

 

7. STATE-BY-STATE PROGRESS ON VERIFIED VOTING

CALIFORNIA:

 

Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday signed into law SB1438, a bipartisan

bill (Johnson/Perata) to require an accessible voter-verified paper

audit trail for voting systems in California. The bill passed through

the legislature with unanimous votes, thanks to the support of

watchdog groups and many individuals who called and wrote.

 

The bill also prohibits the Secretary of State from certifying

paperless e-voting systems after January 1, 2005, and prohibits

counties from purchasing such voting systems after January 1, 2006.

For background, see our alert at

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.asp?id=2664

 

FLORIDA:

Some of the news from Florida is good this week, in spite of

hurricanes wreaking havoc with the landscape. A Federal appeals court

told a lower court to reopen a case brought by U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler

regarding the need for voter-verified paper ballots in the 15 counties

using paperless touchscreens. (The other counties in Florida all use

optical-scan

systems, as was recommended by the task force convened after 2000 to

review voting systems in the state.) The ACLU and others also

succeeded in an administrative challenge to Secretary of State Glenda

Hood's ruling that touchscreens be exempt from manual recount laws,

leaving 15 counties currently wondering how to do a manual recount in

elections that are decided by 0.25 percent of the votes cast or less,

if they have no paper to recount.

 

GEORGIA:

One of the first states to jump headlong onto the paperless

touchscreen bandwagon was Georgia, but it hasn't been a bed of roses.

This month GA was stung by a scorecard issued by FreeCongress.org

which gave it the lowest grade of the fifty states (an F-). GA group

CountTheVote.org reported that July's primary found some counties with

equipment malfunctions, and voters disenfranchised by delays due to

insufficient emergency paper ballots in the polling places. More

information is available here:

http://www.freecongress.org/media/040903.asp and here:

http://www.countthevote.org/

 

MARYLAND:

Maryland uses Diebold touch screen voting, but uses optical scan

(paper) ballots for absentee and provisional voting. Paper ballots are

therefore available in the polling place. Local voting advocacy group

TrueVoteMD and VerifiedVoting.org agree that if additional paper

ballots were printed, they could be used for a " paper ballot

alternative " as in the CA plan for the touch-screen counties.

TrueVoteMD.org has made extraordinary efforts to compel the state to

provide this option, but the courts recently rejected such an option

buying the state's claim that printing a few more paper ballots and

letting voters use them instead of DREs if they so chose would cause

" chaos " ... Meanwhile, the beleaguered elections chief is under ongoing

investigation to determine whether she will keep her post. More

information available at:

http://www.truevoteMD.org/

 

NEVADA:

On September 7, 2004, Nevada became the first state in the nation to

deploy electronic voting machines with voter-verified paper audit

trail in a real election. As the Christian Science Monitor said in

their editorial about the successful primary election using this newly

deployed technology, " As obvious as it may sound, the ability to

properly record and count all votes must remain a priority for the

states. More should follow Nevada's example. " Couldn't have said it

better ourselves.

 

NEW JERSEY:

VerifiedVoting.org joined activist Beth Feehan, Renee Steinhagen of NJ

Appleseed PILC, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (author of NJ paper trail

legislation), and other concerned organizations and individuals in

signing a letter sent in August 2004 to Governor McGreevey asking that

paper ballots be made available to voters in the polling places in

Mercer County (and other electronic voting machine counties) so that

no voter is disenfranchised by machine malfunctions and so that voters

who prefer to vote on paper rather than on electronic machines may do so.

 

All the electronic voting machine counties already print paper ballots

for provisional voting, so the request means merely asking for

additional ballots to be printed.

 

To date, despite repeated efforts to follow up, Governor McGreevey has

not responded. If you vote in New Jersey, PLEASE CALL the Governor at

(609) 292-6000 and ask him to make NJ's election more secure by

providing paper ballots at all polling places using e-voting machines.

Mention the letter from Ms. Steinhagen and Mr. Gusciora; the

administration will look it up by the signators. If you prefer, you

can write or email, but do it today:

http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html

 

NEW MEXICO:

Activists in New Mexico have been effective in obtaining media

coverage on the issue of verified voting in the state, and in

challenging the Sec. of State and the Director of Elections on various

fronts, including recent revelations that sizeable contributions were

made to the Secretary of State's campaign from voting system vendors.

Activists have made numerous calls to officials in Bernalillo County

(the most populous county in the state, accounting for some 50% of

voters) in an effort to prevent additional purchases of paperless DREs.

 

This week the Albuquerque Journal quoted the State Director of

Elections saying, " Electronic machines with printers were just

certified by the federal government in the last several months -- not

enough time to get them certified in New Mexico. "

 

Yet some were available for at least a year, others early this year.

Some of NM uses the same system as Nevada, where they were able to

implement voter-verified paper ballots for its voters this year (see

NEVADA, above). Finally, a variety of precinct-based optical scan

systems (which DO offer a voter-verified paper ballot and audit trail)

were already available in NM. In other words, if NM's Director of

Elections and/or Secretary of State chose to, they could do what NV

did and protect the integrity of their elections. The will of New

Mexican voters is to have transparent and auditable elections, Ms.

Lamb. And where there's a will, there's a way. More info is available

here: http://www.vvnm.org/

 

UTAH:

Verified Voting joined UtahCountVotes.org and more than a dozen

computer science professors and voting experts, including Phillip

Windley, associate professor of computer science at Brigham Young

University and former CIO of UT, and Verified Voting Advisory Board

member Barbara Simons, former president of Association for Computing

Machinery (ACM), the largest association of computer professionals in

the US, in a joint response to " American Attitudes About Electronic

Voting " (authored by Professors Thad Hall, UT professor of political

science, and Michael Alvarez). The group also offer sound advice to

the UT Election Office regarding its pending selection of voting

equipment.

 

The rebuttal found that the data didn't fully support the claims that

were made about paperless e-voting systems. The state is currently in

the process of purchasing new voting machines. Utah Count Votes and

the authors of the joint response urge the state to write a stronger

request for proposal with more detailed specifics about requirements,

including open source, voter-verified paper ballots, and sufficient

time for thorough review (including by outside experts) to ensure UT's

voting system will be secure and trustworthy. More details, including

press conference photos:

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=36781 and:

http://utahcountvotes.org/

 

WASHINGTON:

Let your guard down for a split-second and your state may be loading

uncertified software in the voting systems. That's what WA voter John

Gideon found out recently. The state has installed software with a

first-time-ever " provisional " certification (after a late rule change

by the Secretary of State mid-July, to allow for such a category), on

ES & S optical scan machines in two counties. The software has not gone

through the federal " independent testing authority " process nor

received any federal qualification. According to officials, the new

software was installed because of a change in ballot styles for the

September 14 primary.

 

But opinions were apparently mixed among the county auditors as to the

need for this late patch, and one (wisely) told the Sec. of State

he would not make any changes this close to an election. Although the

software was expressly required for the primary, officials refused to

remove it for the general election. The software was written after all

major candidates had been named. The modification affects over half

the voters in the state. The six counties are the most populous in

Washington.

 

If you vote in Washington, please call the Secretary of

State to vigorously protest this lapse in election security at

360-902-4151 or email at sreed Remind him that this

practice is the OPPOSITE of what is recommended in the Election

Assistance Commission's best practices report. Many thanks to John

Gideon at http://www.VotersUnite.org/ for the information.

 

8. EFF DISCUSSION: " E-VOTING AND THE UPCOMING ELECTION "

Democracy is government by the people, and the right to vote is

critical to determining what each of us wants of our government. In

this upcoming election, nearly one quarter of American voters will

exercise that right using electronic voting (e-voting) terminals in

this election.

 

Unfortunately, they will be using equipment that has been hastily

developed and poorly tested.

 

Verified Voting Foundation partner organization the Electronic

Frontier Foundation (EFF) is also working to ensure that votes are

verifiable and to train poll workers about what to do when the

machines fail. Come listen to their team leaders talk about the latest

developments, and share your thoughts on how we can make sure that

every vote is counted.

 

This event is free. Food and drink will be served (no host bar).

WHO:

* Cindy Cohn, EFF Legal Director and Verified Voting Foundation

Board Member

* Matt Zimmerman, EFF Staff Attorney

* Ren Bucholz, EFF Activism Coordinator

WHEN: Tuesday, October 12th at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time

WHERE:

111 Minna Gallery

111 Minna Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel: (415) 974-1719 or contact

Katina at EFF (415) 436-9333, ext. 129, katina

 

9. REGISTER TO VOTE

Today, September 28, is National Voter Registration Day, and it may

also be your last chance to make sure you can vote on November 2. If

you are not registered to vote or need to update your voter

registration information, go to

http://www.yourvotematters.org/VerifiedVoting where

you can register to vote or change your registration address.

 

Just fill out the form, print, sign, stamp, and mail!

Worried about your voter registration status or need to find your

polling place location? Do you know your state's last day to register?

The deadlines start next week! Find your state's voter registration

deadline or contact info here:

http://www.YourVoteMatters.org/VoterRegInfo

 

10. DONATE TO VERIFIED VOTING

We accept online credit card donations to the 501©(3) Verified

Voting Foundation, as well as the 501©(4) lobbying organization

called VerifiedVoting.org.

 

Once the IRS approves our tax-exemption application, donations to the

Verified Voting Foundation will be retroactively tax-deductible to the

extent permitted by law. Contributions to VerifiedVoting.org, however,

are not and will never be tax-deductible. Besides the usual credit

cards, you can also donate by mailing a check or using PayPal online.

 

We will gladly accept matching gifts from employers, stock, bonds,

bequests, and in-kind contributions.

With such a wonderful variety of choices, how can anyone resist making

a donation today? For further information, or to donate, see:

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/donate/

 

Or if you just want to write a check, you can make it out to either

" VerifiedVoting.org " or " Verified Voting Foundation " and send it to:

Verified Voting

454 Shotwell Street

San Francisco, CA 94110

 

11. SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE INFORMATION

To to the Verified Voting newsletter, please go to

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/join/

To from the Verified Voting newsletter, go to

https://www.verifiedvoting.org/join/endorserupdate.asp Log in, change

" Email Preference " to None, then click on the Submit button at the

bottom of the web page to complete the unsubscription process.

 

The Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org are sister

nonprofit organizations championing reliable and publicly verifiable

elections. Founded by Stanford University Computer Science Professor

David Dill, the organizations support a requirement for voter-verified

paper trails on electronic voting machines allowing voters to inspect

individual permanent records of their ballots and election officials

to conduct meaningful recounts as needed. For more info, see:

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

 

© Copyright 2004, Verified Voting Foundation, Inc., and

VerifiedVoting.org, Inc.

Reproduction for nonprofit purposes permitted with attribution to the

Verified Voting Foundation at http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

--

This is message #10.

**********

 

This list is hosted by the Verified Voting Foundation and

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reliable and publicly verifiable elections, see

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Donations accepted at <http://www.verifiedvoting.org/Donate/>.