Reply #12: One federal judge [View All]

[Gordon25]

They can get away with keeping everything about their computer code secret because of one federal judge in Florida. After the 2000 election, one election supervisor became suspicious of the results and asked to see the source code being used on the systems (supplied by ES&S). The company refused, and the election official took ES&S to federal court. The judge ruled that the source code was a "Trade Secret", protected under federal law, proprietary and barred the official from access to it. To my knowledge, that decision has never been appealed.

Since that time no citizen anywhere in the US, and no elected or appointed government official, has had the right to inspect the source code containing the instructions given to the computers counting our vote.

Who can you complain to? First, spend an hour or so educating yourself on the issue so you can answer questions when talking with officials. Searching past discussion threads here is a good start. Check out blackboxvoting.org, and whatreallyhappened.com. Do a Google search on the issue. Then, contact your representatives and senators at both the state and federal level.

At the federal level, try to get your reps to sign on to H.R. 2239, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, which would modify the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to require a paper record of votes, ban use of undisclosed software, and calls for mandatory hand counts in a small percentage of precincts as a check on the machine counts.

At the state level, urge your reps and senators to oppose the purchase under HAVA of any system which does not A.) have a voter-verified paper ballot which can be referred back to for hand counts if necessary; B.) which does not meet 2002 Federal Standards; and C.) which will not allow election officials, or experts hired by them, to examine the source code of the system being purchased.

Hope this helps.

Gordon25