Eureka Reporter: Group Rejects San Diego Results

[GuvWurld]

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=12363

Group rejects San Diego results
6/22/2006

A Voters’ Resolution of No Confidence, drafted by Dave Berman of the Voter Confidence Committee, was recently adopted by the California Election Protection Network, a statewide nonpartisan coalition of groups working for election integrity.

The CEPN is currently focusing its efforts on the June 6 primary election in San Diego, calling for an invalidation of the Congressional runoff election results and a full hand-count of all ballots and paper audit trails.

The problem, the CEPN asserts, is that poll workers were allowed to store the Diebold electronic counting machines in their homes in the days before the election — a violation of election procedure. Further, the machines themselves evince security vulnerabilities that remain unaddressed, elections advocates believe.

Many of those issues apply in Humboldt County as well, Berman emphasized in a news release, and the VCC continues to reject the results of the local election until a complete hand-count is performed for verification.

The Voters’ Resolution of No Confidence adopted by the CEPN lists the qualifications of a legal, legitimate election and enumerates violations of those standards in San Diego. Unless a hand recount of the ballots — a “Free-Count,” as the CEPN has named it — is performed, “We, the People, DO NOT CONSENT to transferring power and authority to candidates claiming victory in this illegitimate election,” the resolution states. More information is available at www.califelectprotect.net or www.voterconfidencecommittee.org .

[GuvWurld]

1. I now have a meeting set with the editor of the Reporter

I'm trying to schedule meetings with the editors of the (several) other newspapers here. I want to hear from each of them how they can justify publishing election results, which they report as fact, when they have not verified such information and cannot verify it without observing and documenting a hand count.

[GuvWurld]

2. I now also have a meeting with the editor of the Times-Standard

Both of Eureka's daily newspapers are giving me a sit down! Who else is serious here? Tell your local paper not to print what they cannot prove. Election results that are unverifiable to you, are also unverifiable to the media.

[EFerrari]

3. Good going, Guv! My paper is hopeless although individuals

there are not.

The SF Bay Guardian is a much better bet in our area -- but they already seem to be careful. Hmm. I'll read their site and see if that's right.

[GuvWurld]

4. This really could be a person to person campaign

What I mean is that each of us need not necessarily target the editor. There will be tremendous value in influencing the thinking of everyday reporters. That almost seems too obvious to have said. It was worth saying because even if it seems like an obvious goal, it isn't always one we pursue with intention. That's what I'm recommending. Intentionally set out to talk to reporters about whether they think it is right to be reporting what they can't prove or independently verify. Prepare for a deer in the headlights.

[EFerrari]

5. It probably needs to be a person to person campaign

in the media as the organizations are more or less captured.

Deer in the headlights is right.

Once it hits that the most vocal group speaking out about electronic voting is also the group that has a high appreciation for technology, what else can a face do? I'm waiting for the day (because it will come) when someone interviews me at home and I have to sweep the puter, the cell, the ipod out of the way and turn off the TIVO so I can hear them.

lol

[GuvWurld]

6. Eureka T-S to watchdogs: Put up or shut up

Well, in advance of my Tuesday meeting with Charles Winkler, editor of the Eureka Times-Standard, the paper has today published this ridiculous editorial that seems to be a pre-emptive strike. I am asking for help generating letters to the editor at: [e-mail] (include real name, address and phone).

http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_3976080

Article Launched: 06/24/2006 04:30:16 AM PDT

Having confidence in our voting system
The Times-Standard

Questions have been raised about the reliability of our elections going back to 2000 nationally and more recently locally. This is not new. We only need to look back at the Nixon-Kennedy election. Our history is rich with stories of ballot stuffing, poll intimidation, dead people voting. As long as there are elections, there will be questions.

Currently, the doubts involve how we vote and the supposed ease at which electronic voting can be hacked or otherwise tampered with.

We appreciate that there are those in this community and elsewhere who are acting as watchdogs, taking the time to examine and test and oversee the equipment, people and system by which we elect our officials. Such oversight is needed.

But there comes a time when talk about tampering must be replaced with evidence. If there is specific evidence of a local problem, let's hear it.

If not, let's certainly continue to monitor, but with due credit to our local elections officials.

[Wilms]

7. .

http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_3976080

Dear Editor,

I appreciate your publishing the doubts expressed about our nation's election management system.

You wrote, "But there comes a time when talk about tampering must be replaced with evidence."

You may have missed the point.

While I'm concerned that the machine can be tampered with, I'm no less concerned with it's accuracy, or the possibility that simple human error when programming the election could cause a problem.

That has occurred numerous times, recently in Iowa. http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1380&Itemid=113

It's important to note this same type of problem might well go undetected, especially if Direct Recording Electronic Touchscreens are used.

So there's some evidence for you, not of tampering, but of error, and "due credit to (a) local elections official".

Our government is based on a system of checks and balances. Our Election Management System should be held to no less a standard.

[GuvWurld]

8. Nice Wilms. Here are more talking points.

I circulated this editorial to the Voter Confidence Committee listserv asking people to write letters in response. I provided the following as potential points to make:

1. Proving an election was fair and accurate is a burden held by the
elections department, not the citizen watchdogs.

2. If election oversight is "needed," as this editorial states, why doesn't
the newspaper perform any? Short of a hand count of all ballots, neither
the elections department nor the media can prove the results are correct.

3. Through VCC press announcements, and quotes attributed to us in news
articles, the newspaper has told the community our election equipment does
not comply with the law. Yet the newspaper itself never reports this as the
conclusion of its own investigation and displays no concern that the illegal
conditions make it impossible to know the true election outcome. Illegal
conditions include machines going home with poll workers, and "interpreter
code" in the scanners (vote counting machines).

4. When Humboldt voters' ballots are put into the Diebold optical scanners,
the vote choices are "interpreted" into Diebold's proprietary and secret
programming language called AccuBasic. To believe the reported results are
accurate is to demonstrate blind trust in Diebold, a corporation facing more
than a half dozen class action fraud lawsuits filed by its own shareholders
(among many other troubling findings by computer security experts). Blind
trust is the opposite of having a basis for confidence and should never be
required in a democracy.

5. Results reported by secret vote counting machines have not been verified,
by the public or the media. The media should not report what it cannot
independently verify or prove. When media unquestioningly report
information provided by government, this is called state run media.

6. "If there is specific evidence"...of a fair election, let us count it.
If not, let's certainly BEGIN to monitor so the credibility of media and
elections can both be warranted. By the way, what more can you tell us
about the failed memory cards from Eureka and Arcata precincts earlier this
month, or the Rio Dell scanners that could not report their results to the
central headquarters? The circumstances of these problems don't have to be
"suspicious" to eliminate a basis for confidence in the reported results.