BBV: Six Washington Counties To Use Uncertified E-Votes

[althecat]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0408/S00200.htm
Six Washington Counties To Use Uncertified E-Votes

An urgent election situation now exists in Washington State due to
actions taken by Secretary of State Reed in response to the new
Washington law regarding primary elections. He approved the
installation of new software lacking federal certification to count
votes cast in six counties (King, Pierce, Kitsap, Snohomish,
Klickitat, and Chelan). The population in these six counties
constitutes over half the population of Washington.

Secretary Reed adopted a "Policy on Electronic Voting Systems"
on July 7, 2004. That policy states "All components of an
electronic voting system will have completed review and testing and
be certified through the federal Independent Testing Authority (ITA)"
and that "Federal certification provides an important review and
accountability measure."

MORE:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0408/S00200.htm

****

A Press Release VotersUnite! brought to you by John Gideon via Scoop.co.nz

[JohnGideon]

1. Thank You Al

Just a slight correction. The press release is from VotersUnite! and not from me personally. The information in the press release is the product of investigation by Ellen Theisen and the legal opinions are those of our attorney.

[althecat]

3. Ooops.... corrected that...

The contact details on it refer to yourself.. and the votersunite website... is that ok?

[JohnGideon]

4. Yes, That's Great

Thank you for all you do, Al. It is greatly appreciated.

[Deja Q]

2. Reed needs to be recalled.

His action is unacceptable, deploreable, and anti-American.

[ParanoidPat]

5. Thanks Al and J.G!........

.......The meetings that Bev and the rest of the 'road team' had in Sacramento yesterday were somewhat related to what's happening in Washington inasmuch as we had the former Elections Director for the largest County in the state with us as an 'expert witness' on elections using Diebold equipment. She was fired after trying to warn State officials about the criminal background of Diebold's chief programmer and the possibility of elections being hacked due to security flaws.

Stay tuned, this is going to get good! :evilgrin:

[ParanoidPat]

6. Al, here's another story you might want to add to the "related" column.

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Texas Secretary of State Backs Down, Agrees to Postpone
Closed E-voting Meeting

Austin, TX - The Texas Secretary of State on Friday agreed
to postpone indefinitely a closed meeting of the state's
voting examiners after the ACLU of Texas and a Texas voter
filed a lawsuit challenging the meeting's secrecy. The
lawsuit, in which EFF is serving as co-counsel, charges
that the practice of holding closed voting examiner meetings
violates the state's Open Meetings Act.

"We are pleased that the voting examiners decided not to hold
the closed meeting," said Adina Levin of ACLU-Texas.
"However, we need to ensure that this will become a
permanent solution instead of just a temporary one. We
will proceed with this lawsuit until the public is
guaranteed that the certification process of voting
technology will be an open and transparent one."

For the full press release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_08.php#001823>

Previous release: "Sunshine Sought for Texas Election
Systems Examiners":
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_08.php#001809>

Texas Safe Voting:
<http://safevoting.org/>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : :evilgrin:

[althecat]

7. Thanks for that pat... and anyone else with releases on this..

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0408/S00203.htm

Please PM me or email em to me... PRs is what we really do at Scoop

[althecat]

8. And once we get em up Google news has em up

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=washington+reed

[ParanoidPat]

9. You rock AL!

:toast: :evilgrin:

:kick:

[RedEagle]

10. Kick!

The excuse for the new software in Washington is the change in the primaries. Will they remove the new software and reinstall the old for the November election- No.

In addition, by Washington State law, the programs have to be certified in another state and used in another state's election before they can be certified in Washington.

In last years legislative session, the Secretary of State and the elections office fought against auditing. (The bill died) When they finally gave in, just a little, it was a small percentage of races of touch screen machines ONLY.

Keep in mind that in Washington State, until recently, only one county, Snohomish, had touch screens.

Washington State allows absentee voting and it is very popular. Absentee ballots are either optical scan or punch cards. Reed mandated that punch cards have to go. The majority of machines will end up optical scan, no doubt. Reed does not want any auditing of the optical scan. No way. And he certainly does not want any manual recounts, which will only happen in WA if the difference is .25% or less. A quarter of a percent.

Reed has called for paper ballots in 2006, but what is more likely is that he's putting off paper while waiting for Vote Here's electronic verification. Since Ralph Munro, the WA Secretary of State and elections office have been closely tied to Vote Here.

[RedEagle]

11. Kick!

The excuse for the new software in Washington is the change in the primaries. Will they remove the new software and reinstall the old for the November election- No.

In addition, by Washington State law, the programs have to be certified in another state and used in another state's election before they can be certified in Washington.

In last years legislative session, the Secretary of State and the elections office fought against auditing. (The bill died) When they finally gave in, just a little, it was a small percentage of races of touch screen machines ONLY.

Keep in mind that in Washington State, until recently, only one county, Snohomish, had touch screens.

Washington State allows absentee voting and it is very popular. Absentee ballots are either optical scan or punch cards. Reed mandated that punch cards have to go. The majority of machines will end up optical scan, no doubt. Reed does not want any auditing of the optical scan. No way. And he certainly does not want any manual recounts, which will only happen in WA if the difference is .25% or less. A quarter of a percent.

Reed has called for paper ballots in 2006, but what is more likely is that he's putting off paper while waiting for Vote Here's electronic verification. Since Ralph Munro, the WA Secretary of State and elections office have been closely tied to Vote Here.

[RedEagle]

14. Sorry for the double post.....

....system kicked me completely off the net and I gave up, didn't know if the post went through or not.

But twice? Geesh.....

[DeepModem Mom]

12. kick

[JohnGideon]

13. kick this for the days group n/t

[Andy_Stephenson]

15. I did a public recodrs request to Mr Reed's office....

I have the response in hand here is an excerpt from their reply


"We are informing Diebold of your request so they may have an opportunity to assert their confidentality, based on the potential propreitary nature of the materials"

What BULLSHIT!

That is ok...I have called out my secret weapon and should have a different answer later today. Stay tuned for more news and information as it becomes available.

Andy

[Generic Other]

16. I thought all of Pierce County was using absentee ballots

How can they screw those up?

I'm planning on using absentee.

BTW, does anyone think the new primary ballots will confuse the hell out of vboters?

[JohnGideon]

17. Absentee Ballots ARE What The Problem Is

There is only one way to count ballots in Pierce Co. just like there is only one way in Kitsap County, Chelan, and Klickitat. That's optical scan machines. The ballots come in from absentee, mail-in, and the polls and get run through the same machines. The software on the machines in 6 counties has been changed and replaced with uninspected and NASED uncertified software. That software will read your mail-in ballot just like it will read my ballot cast at the polls.

King Co., has also had their machines upgraded with new software. They have both poll based and central based machines so there is a bit of a difference between them and the other mentioned counties.

Snohomish Co. uses DREs which had one file changed with uninspected software and their optical scan machines had new, uninspected, un-NASED certified software installed.

Yes, I think the new single ballot that is being used in the 6 counties will cause a lot of confusion and disenfranchised voters. It is also the reason for all of these software changes.

[Generic Other]

19. At least an absentee ballot provides a paper trail of some kind!

Why don't they selectively hand-count ballots as an accuracy test on the machines? It would be interesting to find out if there were differences in the tallies.

[Andy_Stephenson]

20. GO...read my sig line and call it a ballot..

:hi:

It is votally important to call it that. Votehere wants you to call it a paaper trail so they can slide in the door.

[Generic Other]

21. It only works with absentee ballots because there is paper

Those counties only using the electronic form are going to get screwed in a re-count.

Given the closeness of the last Senate race in this state, we need an accurate count.

Should people in the effected counties be requesting absentee ballots?

[Andy_Stephenson]

22. Yes!!!

and sign up to be a poll watcher, judge or inspector...We need as many eyes on this election as possible.

[Generic Other]

24. Do we even maintain polling places in Tacoma?

i thought everyone voted absentee.

[cmf]

18. what can I do?

I live in one of those counties - is there anything I can do? I guess I can write a LTE, but is there anything else?

[JohnGideon]

25. YES

Call your legislators and complain to them that Sam Reed has put federally uncertified software on the voting machines. Tell them to complain to Reed about it. Reed must hear from legislators loud and clear. Call your auditor and tell them you are unhappy with what they have allowed Reed to do.

Go to VotersUnite! and let us know who you are and we will have more actions to be taken by next week. We are in the process of putting all of the information on our website that you will need to make yourself smart on this issue.

[harmonyguy]

23. Can anyone point me to ....

... the changes in Washington's primaries that required a change in the software for the scanners?

Thanks
HG

[JohnGideon]

26. HG, It's a Bit Of a Along Story

But Here Goes.

We used what was called the "Blanket Primary" where you went to the polls and could vote for anyone you want, crossing party lines if you wanted. That, after many years, was taken to court and the courts found that our primary was illegal. This year we are using what is called a "modified Montana" primary where the voter must declare party and must vote only for candidates in that party.

So, the plan was that there would be 4 ballots. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, and Non-Partisan Issues and Positions. The Green Party does not qualify in this state. However, 6 counties decided that they didn't like the 4 ballot plan where the voter selected one of the three party ballots and threw the rest of them away. They wanted a single ballot with everything on one ballot.

That, supposedly, necessitated the change in software on all of the optical scan machines in those 6 counties. In order to allow that change the SoS had to change rules (not laws) that govern elections. However, he may have violated a law in allowing uncertified software to be used.

I hope that kinda-sorta answers your question.

[harmonyguy]

27. Hmmmm, I see.

Thanks for the explanation.
Certainly, multiple paper ballots (one per party plus one for questions) would be the way to go. And for the counties that insist on a single ballot, they could easily structure the ballot as a 'pick one' from the long list of candidates from all parties, BUT with a single ballot, there's nothing to stop a voter from voting outside of their party (I understand that you folks call this crossover voting) The only way I could see doing it, is to have the single ballot marked for the party before the voter goes to mark their ballot, and their selection would have to be consistent with the already marked ballot.

When one gets right down to it, I still don't see any reason why a software change would be required. It'll be interesting to see the sample ballots for this one - it might explain a thing or two.

HG

[ParanoidPat]

28. HG, check this page.....

..... http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/primary_ballot_faq.aspx

and here's a sample ballot form.

http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/ballots/SamplePrimaryBallotFormat.pdf

[ParanoidPat]

29. Kick

:kick:

[Zorra]

30. kick

[harmonyguy]

31. Blanket Primary vs Mod Montana w/consol'd ballot - no diff?

Ok, I'm in Canada and don't quite get how some of this stuff works, but in looking at these, I see a big problem.

If a blanket primary lets a voter choose a candidate regardless of the voter's party affiliation (as I understand it declared illegal in WA), and a modified Montana primary has the voter declare their party affiliation and then only be given the opportunity to vote for their own party's candidates, then doesn't modified Montana with a consolidated ballot (MMwC) effectively become a blanket? Wouldn't that make MMwC illegal too?

In looking at the sample ballot (thanks Pat), the voter declares their affilliation only once they are in the polling booth. There really is NOTHING to prevent any form of crossover voting.

Granted, once the voter selects a party, they can only vote for candidates in that party, but doesn't this system still leave the election open to significant manipulation?
It seems to me that a known strong or uncontested primary candidate could effectively select his own general election opponent, by having his supporters vote for the opponent of choice. If they were concerned, they would then have to make sure that they voted for the dog-catcher of the opposing party, but would it really matter? Don't the bottom of the ballot races usually get a low voted-for-count anyway? Am I missing something here?
(I don't mean to offend anyone with the dog-catcher crack- I've never understood why so many positions get elected, but that's for another day)

HG

[JohnGideon]

32. The Thing Is That This Is A Primary....

Primary's are partisan in nature. With the illegal blanket primary, they became non-partisan to some extent because the voter did not have to declare affiliation.

Now, if someone wants all of his/her followers to chose that persons opponent, as you mentioned, the voters would have to vote the whole ticket for the other party. It would be impossible to get voters to agree to do that.

I agree that we have entirely too many candidates running in our elections. We would be better off holding a federal election, a state election and a local election. Have 3 elections through the year and not 1. Then we would not have any excuses for not doing paper and hand-count.

[JohnGideon]

33. kick n/t

[JohnGideon]

34. kick it one more time n/t

[Boredtodeath]

35. kick

.