Cleveland Hires Election Science Institute - go to this thread

[autorank]

Check this out:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ohio_voting

"The election system in its entirety exhibits shortcomings with extremely serious consequences, especially in the event of a close election," wrote Steven Hertzberg, director of the study by the San Francisco-based Election Science Institute.

I'd suggest using this thread to explore this issue. It's an outrage. Who in Cleveland hired ESI?
On what basis? Was there a bid?

GD Thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2458955&mesg_id=2458955

Isn't that a little like a drug company hiring a big pharma lobbying firm to tell them about price gouging?

[Kurovski]

1. K&R. It just seems to me that paper ballots, hand counted,

will be cheaper, more reliable and easier in the long run than any machine at this point in time.

With machines, the "problems" and the battles, the studies and the "fixes' will go on and on and on and...

[galloglas]

2. It just seems

like you have hit the nail 100% on the head!

[Kurovski]

74. galloglas, you should hang out here more often!

:-)

[mod mom]

5. Counted at the precinct level with full public witness. (videotaping

Open, transparent and verifiable elections are the way to go, although we know one party will be against them.

[Kurovski]

12. The Greens?

I'm kidding! I'M KIDDING! :-)

[kster]

3. K&R....nt

[OnTheOtherHand]

4. well, no, it isn't

Actually, not every organization that has published a report that autorank disagreed with is corrupt.

Hey, I'm just saying. ESI isn't at all like a "big pharma lobbying firm."

But of course autorank probably thinks I'm paid to say that, so, stalemate. Thanks for the handwaving, guy.

[w4rma]

6. This is extremely important since Cleveland is probably the biggest

Democratic stronghold in Ohio and it's voting integrity needs to be preserved.

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Interesting to note

that Steven Hertzberg si one of Bev's early victims, and has been attacked in this forum by Bev supporters for his failure to embrace various Bev "truths". The usual tactics were used, insinuations that he was secretly in the pay of Diebold, et al.

And now we are seeing aspersions cast again.

Can you tell me when ESI was ever a paid lobbyist of any voting machine vendor?

I take it then that if you disagree with ESI's report, you find the voting machines in Ohio to be completely reliable?

[mod mom]

8. Hertzberg has been criticized by Ohio ER groups NOT because of BBV

but for his failure to respond to inquiries on a report based on precinct level data collected by many within the ER community. He promised a report and after many attempts to contact him regarding this, he never replied. He re-surfaced in the spring of 2005 after it was announced by Matt Damshroeder (R Director of the Franklin Co BOE) that ESI/Votewatch would be working with them. His report for Damshroeder left many to question his intent. He was invited to make his case at the spring 2005 CASE-Ohio ER Teach-In, but declined to participate.

More recently, after the May 2006, while working for Cuyahoga Co his comments on the disastrous election (I will have to search for the link) stated voters were satisfied with the electronic voting machines. (This after the disastrous election which lead one 60+ old man to attact the machines.)

STOP USING FALSE INFORMATION BY RETURNING EVERY DISAGREEMENT BACK TO BBV.

[mod mom]

9. Link to May Cuyahoga Co story:

Voting machines a winner in poll
But problems being probed
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Grant Segall
Plain Dealer Reporter


An exit poll shows this rare bit of good news from Black Tuesday - Cuyahoga County's sputtering May 2 primary.

"The voters were overwhelmingly satisfied with the system," Steven Hertzberg, project director of Election Science Institute, said Friday.



<SNIP>

Under a $275,000 county contract, Election Science will continue to study the May 2 vote, partly by auditing the tallies on three kinds of media: paper, memory cards and the machines' internal records.

County commissioners are expected Thursday to give Election Science $66,000 more to survey poll workers about their struggles with the machines.


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1147509106181800.xml&coll=2&thispage=2

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. and your objection is what, exactly?

Are you saying that ESI should have suppressed that result because it gave aid and comfort to the machine manufacturers?

Why do people act so damn afraid of information that doesn't perfectly fit every single preconception? If most Cuyahoga County voters were happy using DREs, does the world come to an end, or what?

ESI has now come out with this extensive report, and people can judge for themselves whether it makes Diebold look good. Somehow I don't think Diebold is pleased.

I agree that people don't need to be inspired by Bev Harris to carelessly smear other people's reputations. That is pretty common, really. It's fine to have gripes with Steve Hertzberg, but in my view, they should be documented and not blown up into unsubstantiated character attacks.

[Kelvin Mace]

15. This is just like folks on the right

who attempt to suppress climate cahnge data. Absolutely NO difference.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. Again, you are spinning the story because you don't like the facts

Hertzber is stating the facts of a poll, not endorsing the machine. Why do folks always have a problem with understanding this?

Also, the story starts of with a critically important statement:

When the new machines worked, the voters loved them.

I am sorry that the facts don't lend themselves to your pet viewpoints, but facts are like that. The fact that a lot of people like the machines has NO bearing whatsoever on the reliability of the machines. If you can't understand the difference, I don't know what to say.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. Every time I have investigated

claims against the man it boiled down to anger at him because he refused to embrace people's pet theories about stolen elections. He was accused of saying the election was not stolen, when in fact he said no such thing.

Bev is relevant because, by and large, it is her supporters who attack him and other scientists, and it is her supporters who, by and large, oppose HR-550.

[mod mom]

17. Did you read my post? He failed to respond after activists worked on

gathering precinct level data.

Oh by the way Andy Stephenson was one of the activisits who worked with us in Ohio, in fact he stayed at the residence where I first met Hertzberg.

[Kelvin Mace]

18. Yes, I read your post

and will inquire after it with him. I exepct yet another case of anger because he refuses to give scientific sanction to faulty data, but I will ask him.

The OP insinuates that ESI was hired by a voting machine vendor and has worked as a lobbyist for a voting machine vendor. Is this your view as well? If so, do you have any evidence to back up this insinuation? If not, do you condemn the post?

[mod mom]

20. I interpret the OP as asking who hired ESI. It is obvious that the Repub

controlled (2 R and 2 D's with Blackwell (R) as tie breaker) Cuyahoga Co BOE hired ESI in fact I posted a link to the Cleveland Plain Dealer that says as much.

[mod mom]

21. from post # 9:

"Under a $275,000 county contract, Election Science will continue to study the May 2 vote, partly by auditing the tallies on three kinds of media: paper, memory cards and the machines' internal records.

County commissioners are expected Thursday to give Election Science $66,000 more to survey poll workers about their struggles with the machines."

So first ESI was hired(I believe this was w/o pay) by Damschroeder in Franklin then by Cuyahoga Co.

[Kelvin Mace]

26. And because ESI

refuses to state conclusions which are not supported by the facts, they must be crooked.

[mod mom]

30. No because they don't do what they say they will do as in respond

with an outcome after activists spend their time doing precinct level research.

[Kelvin Mace]

32. That is your claim, which I will investigate

If I find that the evidence backs up your claim, I will apologize and adjust my view accordingly.

Some how though, if I discover that this is yet again an instance of mistatement of the facts, I suspect I will wait a long time before anyone admits error.

This is all very similar to another argument I have had about fact and people mistating the evidence )intentionally and unintentionally).

I have been tarred and feathered for defending the parents of JonBenet Ramsey as victims of a witch hunt. I meticulously pointed out that much of the "evidence" against them was wrong, fabricated, or twisted by the media or the police. People were convinced the Ramseys were guilty becuase they had bought into this whole scenario of her parents as loathesome exploiters of their daughter who only stayed out of jail because of their money.

Now the truth is finally coming home to roost, and it would seem that the rational folk were right, and "truthiness" crowd was wrong, as usual.

It ain't what they don't know that gets people in trouble, it is what they DO know, that ain't so.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

72. Would voters love DREs IF they came with a warning label?

Frankly, I would love to have a comprehensive report on
all voting machines similar to this one, yet that was
more objective about other voting machines and vendors.

The report says that votes loved voting on the touchscreens,
but completely misses the point on a key issue:

Would voters still love voting on the touchscreens if they
came with warning labels?????-

*how about if voters saw this notice posted at the polling place:

"Attention voters: your government is not required in any way to
warantee in any way that your vote will be counted as cast.
Election reports show that 10% of votes are lost or miscounted due
to human error."

or

*if the touchscreen machines had a little disclaimer glued beneath the
screen warning that said:

"Federal Guidelines allow a failure rate of 10%
per day for this machine."

Meanwhile, Dann Tokaj and Electionline.org are putting their spin on this report
and slanting it to suggest that its the paper that doesn't work.

But its the shitty design of the Diebold VVPAT is the problem, not
the requirement to print a voter verified paper ballot.

ITs a double edged sword - don't trust ESI, but
much of the report is good.

[autorank]

41. Who else bid on the contract or was it sole source? That would be news

...that's a major contract even for a large city. What a curious affair.

:sarcasm:
I guess they decided to bypass all the local Ohio talent who could tell them chapter and verse
how to fix their system, now! But what the heck, it's just votes. Those can wait. They've waited
all these years, what's a few more.

And this biz about "oh, it will take forever...soooo hard." Give me a break.

Here's how this would go down in the private sector:

ESI: "Hello Mr. Smithfield Ham: Yep, that's right. You paid me all that money and I've got some
news for you. It will take two years to get your order entry and shipment tracking system to work."

Mr. Smithfield: "Really. You're fired!" Click..

UNACCEPTABLE!!!

...and do we have ESI cheer leaders here? Oh, right this is DEMOCRATICUnderground and ESI must be a Democratic organization. Sorry.....

[OnTheOtherHand]

44. actually, that isn't how it goes down in the private sector

nor does it seem to have much to do with ESI. ESI is tasked with auditing the elections, not running them. (Of course, one might fire the outside consultant that brings the bad news -- it does sometimes go down that way.)

Anyway, plenty of companies have invested in "technology solutions" that don't work properly within the initially promised time frame. Some of them never do work. Democrats know that the private sector isn't always more efficient, right?

The OP insinuates that ESI is corrupt and presents no evidence. Some of us don't find that very Democratic.

[Kelvin Mace]

48. The truth trumps partisanship

every time.

Oh, right this is DEMOCRATICUnderground and ESI must be a Democratic organization. Sorry.....

Sorry this upsets you. The job of election reform is to make the system fair and accurate, not insure that my side wins. Your view is that anyone who doesn't mouth your party line (The elections were rigged by evil GOPers who fixed the votings machines) is a traitor working for the side.

Once you adopt the tactics of the enemy, you are no better than them.

[stevenstevensteven]

153. bid process

it was a competitive bid process that ESI had to go thru. We had the best and least expensive proposal.

now autorank, it would have taken a few minutes of research, or a quick email to esi to learn this information. But no, you do neither and then insinuate it was some kind of inside deal, and that ESI is simply a "cheer leader" for the Cuyahoga County BOE. Is this what you call responsible communication of information?

[Kelvin Mace]

25. Oh, I see

so you are claiming that the fix is in at the county level?

*sigh*

So, if the fix is in, why did ESI issue a critical report?

Never mind, no use trying to dissuade folks who refuse to see anything which contradicts their own theories.

[stevenstevensteven]

156. Who hired ESI

The Cuyahoga county commissioners hired ESI. The commission is made-up of 3-Democrats. You can confirm this in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and on the Cuyahoga County web site.

[OnTheOtherHand]

19. Bob Fitrakis

You've probably seen Fitrakis go after Hertzberg, but if not, give 'er a Google (or don't bother, whatever). I won't link to the crap. Fitrakis may be perfectly fine when he isn't trashing people, I don't know.

[Kelvin Mace]

22. Yeah, I've seen some of his crap

A bit of background on Hertzberg. He was another person who had the misfortune to encounter Bev. He hired her to do some PR work and research. It was Hertzberg who originally was looking at problems with voting machines and did a lot of the early work that Bev later took credit for. She even had plans to work with him on a book, but then dumped him when I came on the scene and offered a book contract (I assumed the work on her web site was all her own). I didn't find out about Steve until after I broke with Bev.

I have had no cause to question his intentions and have seen no problems with his work, His view, like mine, is that you must stick STRICTLY to the facts provided by the data and avoid wild conjecture if you expect to be taken seriously. This view makes you a traitor and/or a shill for Diebold in some quarters.

[eomer]

29. He has gone beyond sticking to the facts, if you ask me.

Here is Hertzberg replying to garybeck in April '05 (emphasis mine):

You also say, "we also know the recount was done illegally; the hand counts were not selected randomly." My response: While ESI and the American Statistical Association offered to help every county in Ohio with their precinct selection for the recount on a pro-bono basis, the random selection was not done "illegally", as you state. The law in Ohio does not define the term "random" and thereby gives the election officials a tremendous amount of flexibility here. However, I agree that the recount procedures need to be re-evaluated and improved.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=353045#360660

He ventured into "words have no meaning"-land rather than admit that the Ohio recount did not follow the law. If he wants to be a stickler that is fine but somehow he lost his stickler-iness rather than admit there was something wrong with that election. A person who is careful to not lean toward either party would still have to admit that the recount was not according to law, if that person is honest.

I looked at his recent report and agree that it is critical of flaws in the system -- the same flaws we will be critical of -- and has a lot that is helpful to our cause. It also has a bit too much of stevenstevensteven (his DU name) and of ESIESIESI for my taste (self-promotion, IOW) but we can't make that a disqualifier or else we will lose too many soldiers.

I'm hopeful that Hertzberg may be more on our side than I originally thought and that he will fight for fair and reliable elections. But I'll continue to be wary, maybe even suspicious. That's just the world I live in.

[Kelvin Mace]

31. Once again, I must disagree

His statement is factually correct, and if you have had the misfortune to have to deal with lawyers and law makers on a regular basis you would understand this.

In the absence of a specifically articulated definition of "random" it would be up to a DA/judge/jury to determine whether or not the election officials selected ballots "randomly".

For example, Holy Joe Lieberman's staff called the FBI and said their site was "hacked". Now, it is apparent that their site was NOT hacked, that they mismanaged their own site and then tried to get political mileage out of their incompetence. On its face, this would mean they filed a false report with the FBI, a VERY serious crime.

However, in order to prosecute this crime, the state must prove that they KNOWINGLY did this. Their defense will be, "We were wrong about the hacking, but we REALLY believed we had been haced by the evil Ned Lamont." They will then point to their ISP who claimed the site was having DoS attack as proof they relied on an expert who was wrong.

What you or I may believe and what can be proven in a court of law under the strict rules of evidence are two entirely separate things.

You and I may believe that the ballots were not selected "randomly" but we are not going to be able to prove to a court that this is the case. So, the definition of "random" does come into play. If not spelled out in the statute, then it will be up to a DA/judge/jury to decide.

ESI was faced with how to use its limited-resources. Their decision was that an attempt to contest the election on the basis of the definition of "random" would fail and acted accordingly. The fact that you disagree with this decision does not make that decision right or wrong, nor does it mean that ESI is an evil front group.

[OnTheOtherHand]

33. it's OK, eomer is capable of nuance

It's pretty speculative to parse what Hertzberg most likely meant, but I agree with your reading: the sampling was not 'illegal' in the sense that "illegal recount" was not a winning legal strategy. He might have meant somewhat more than that, but who knows?

eomer may entertain the hypothesis that ESI is an evil front group -- I'm not sure -- but I am sure that he doesn't assume it on the basis of disagreement. He is a class act, in my experience.

[eomer]

36. Thanks for that...

I don't think Hertzberg was using the meaning of the term "illegal" you suggest. He elaborated that he thought the procedures used in the recount were within a reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous rule. His elaboration didn't have anything to do with whether it was prosecutable or would be a good legal strategy. It was clearly about whether the recount followed the rules or not. I find his interpretation of the words in that rule to be impossible to support without a suspension of common sense.

I didn't mean to imply anything about evil front groups but I guess that was the context that I stepped into. So to be clear, I just disagree with them most strenuously on this recount thing. Whether they are an evil front group is a question I'll stay out of. I'll evaluate their arguments on the merits and make my comments accordingly.

[OnTheOtherHand]

43. just FWIW, I think I differ with you on the context of "illegal"

I agree that his statement wasn't couched in terms of 'would it be smart to sue them?', but I don't think it says that the procedures "were within a reasonable interpretation," unless I am missing something you didn't quote. It says that the law gives officials a tremendous amount of flexibility. It seems to me that the natural way to truth-test that sort of statement is to ask, what happens to officials if they do X instead of Y? So the questions of legal intervention arise immediately -- which is not surprising in response to the word "illegal," is it?

I didn't read the statement that the recount wasn't illegal as a statement that the selection methods were "reasonable." But the passage can be read either way.

Of course, even at that, he might want a do-over on whether the recount in Cuyahoga was illegal -- maybe some others too.

[eomer]

62. Legal intervention is no truth test.

There were no "illegal" lynchings in the South in years past, since there was no legal intervention? The lynchings were "legal"? That test won't deliver a reliable result.

Regarding Hertzberg, the report is being discussed around the 'net and in newspapers as evidence of serious election problems that need to be addressed so I think I'll cut him some slack.

[OnTheOtherHand]

65. actually, that is sort of interesting

The test I was proposing wasn't exactly whether there was legal intervention, but how courts were liable to interpret the law in case of intervention. Indeed it doesn't deliver a reliable result. Even if one poses it as a counterfactual about how a reasonable court would interpret the law, it's pretty murky. Probably "truth" was too lofty a word to use in that context.

Oh well. Way too many layers of meta here, because I'm trying to interpret what Hertzberg is likely to have meant by "illegal(ity)" in the context of a particular conversation on DU. Sick fun, but diminishing returns.

[Kelvin Mace]

50. I concur

that the recount was dicey *if* reports of the procedure used are accurate. But, any law which allows officials latitude or discretion, opens a hole you could drive a tank through.

That said, ESI had to decide how to use finite resources which are likely to gain the best results.



Edited to clarify my point.

[eomer]

63. That sounds right to me.

I'm in favor of removing discretion and wish that the recount rule had spelled it out in careful detail; then we wouldn't have to debate it. That's one of the reasons I favor simplicity to the maximum extent that is practicable. Simple and without much reason to make judgment calls. A simpler system is easier for everyone to understand, for election officials to execute and for candidates to accept as conclusive.

Regarding ESI's resources - I think they should allocate their own resources in whatever way they think best (as long as it is generally in support of fair and reliable elections).

[Kelvin Mace]

69. You have to be careful about removing all discretion

because sometimes locking yourself into a number can work against you.

What pissed off certain people around here at ESI was a report the issued that said (paraphrasing) "We find no evidence to support the charge that the election was stolen in Ohio", which was passed around here as "Ohio wasn't stolen". Anyone who works with scientists know that they rarely, if ever, make absolute statements.

There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between the two statements, yet some people, angry that their pet theories were rebuffed, refused to see the difference.

[eomer]

35. In the absence of a specifically articulated definition

then you are left with the meaning of the word.

For more than two decades, one of my primary work functions was interpreting the retirement plan-related parts of the Internal Revenue Code and the corresponding regulations, revenue ruling, and private letter rulings, which, I'm sure you know, are complex. IANAL but the parts of the code that I worked with were the parts that the lawyers didn't understand and therefore left to the actuaries. Not that I go in for this "appeal to authority" kind of approach but since you said I probably didn't understand about interpreting laws I felt compelled.

There are many words in laws and regulations for which definitions are not given and that is not tacit permission for a semantic free-for-all where words mean just anything at all you would like them to mean. Not unless we fall down the rabbit-hole, that is.

For a selection to be random, all the selection candidates (precincts in this case) should have the same probability of being chosen. I can't think of any other definition of the word random that doesn't grossly violate common sense. If you have some definition of the word that would cover all the different ways that precincts were selected in Ohio without resorting to the definition, "any method of selection at all without regard to any concept of randomness whatsoever", then I would like to hear that definition.

Regarding whether it is "a crime" that we could "prosecute", that isn't what was being discussed. It is a somewhat important determination that was being made in Ohio and the question of whether it was determined according to law is fairly significant to me, quite aside from the question of whether there are criminal penalties or whether intent could be proved in court.

After all that, maybe this is just too much parsing of words that were typed quickly in a discussion forum when Hertzberg said he was in a hurry. Or maybe it is too much emphasis on one specific question that we disagree on. I have to say that I just can't understand how anyone can read those recount rules and say with a straight face that the rules were followed but if Hertzberg is on the right side on everything else then I'll just have to be perplexed by it and move on.

Regardless of who is right or wrong on this, I'm going to focus on what Hertzberg/ESI say and do in the future, which I believe is all you are arguing for anyway. After a quick read I don't see anything to not like and I do see plenty that is to like in the report that they just released.

[Kelvin Mace]

47. I agree with you that based on on what I have read

the recount wasn't "random" as I would define the word.

But, he made his decision based upon the facts that he had at the time, the advice given him by the lawyer types, and the consideration of the best use of his resources.

Been there, done that. There were probably a dozen fights we could have gotten into in NC when we were working on our law. We picked the ones we were confident of winning, and passed on the others. Some people accused us of "selling out" as a result, but a year in retrospect, I still think we made the right decisions.

Ask me five years from now. :)

[BeFree]

113. These arguments about the word "random"

Certainly are perplexing. Where is the intellectual integrity to be found when parsing such an easily understood word?

Well, we can only surmise the operative scenario is analgous to trying to cover one's self with a fig leaf after being caught with their pants down.

Geez, if the self styled election 'experts' can't even figure out the common sense meaning of the word random, is it any wonder our elections are so messed up?

[John in Cincy]

158. LINK to ESI report

The final report (pdf) from ESI re the Cuyahoga primary is here. Yes, it notes that exit interviews indicated voters were satisfied with touch-screen machines which says nothing about their accuracy. The report was extremely critical of Diebold.

I did suggest Steve be invited to our (CASE) teach-in. He declined.

My sense is that some in the ER community distrust him because ESI did not immediately scream "Fraud!" after the 2004 election. Some may feel he's set himself up with a nice consultant gig researching elections.

What I can say is that my personal contacts with Steve Hertzberg were fine.

[mod mom]

159. Hi John in Cinci-Welcome to DU!

Check your PMs. Hope to see you soon. :hi:

btw what's up with the ed board endorsement at the Enquirer? Blackwell + Jean Schmidt. Our mutual friend will hear about this.

oops just found out you can't receive PMs here yet so on to email.

[stevenstevensteven]

160. John in Cincy

Thanks, John in Cincy.

I couldn't make the CASE teach-in because I was out of town at that time.

I suggest folks listen to the Diane Rehm show if they want to hear words directly out of my mouth. You can here it at: http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/06/10/30.php#11767

[OnTheOtherHand]

161. zowie!

That may not have been quite the response Mark Radke was hoping for....

[kster]

84. Ya!! What mod mom said !! ........ nt

[meganmonkey]

11. This may be of interest to you all - an old thread about ESI

When we were trying to figure out who they were- Steven Herzberg posted and answered questions here:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=353045#353119

[w4rma]

34. Thanks!!! Sounds like these guys are the good guys. (nt)

[Kelvin Mace]

16. And let me dissect this base smear even more

Isn't that a little like a drug company hiring a big pharma lobbying firm to tell them about price gouging?

What is the implication of this statement?

First, let us translate it as the writer intended it using his analogy:

Isn't that a little like a {voting machine company} hiring a {voting machine}lobbying firm to tell them about {crappy voting machines}?

1) First, no voting machine vendor hired ESI, Cuyahoga county hired them.

2) ESI is not now, nor has it ever been a lobbyist for voting machine vendors.

3) Assuming the first to vile insinuations were true, why would it be a problem for ESI to publish a paper critical of voting machines?

Again, I challenge you to provide evidence supporting your insinuations or to retract this libelous post.

Let me spell out the evidence you must provide:

1) Evidence that ESI was paid by a voting machine vendor.
2) Evidence that ESI is, or was, a lobbyist for a voting machine vendor.

[Bill Bored]

23. See if you can wrap your brain around this Captain!:

Look, you don't have to make love to Hertzberg to read the report and find out that laws were violated by Diebold or the BoE or both:

HAVA SEC. 301. <<NOTE: 42 USC 15481.>> VOTING SYSTEMS STANDARDS.

a. 5. Error rates.--The error rate of the voting system in counting ballots (determined by taking into account only those errors which are attributable to the voting system and not attributable to an act of the voter) shall comply with the error rate standards established under section 3.2.1 of the voting systems standards issued by the Federal Election Commission which are in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.

In case you don't know by now that's 1 in 500,000 votes! Do ya think we might have a violation of federal statutes here? DO YA THINK ? ? ?

Now we can either trash this report because Steve Hertzberg happened to write it, or use it as evidence to prosecute these thugs. Which do you think is preferable? I wouldn't walk into court spouting the "Hertzberg is slimeball!" meme if I were you -- not until after the case has been decided in our favor at least!

[Bill Bored]

24. Oh, and aren't these the SAME MACHINES used in that CA-50 race

you're so pissed off about?

Maybe Counselor Lehto would be interested in the results of Hertzberg's report. But I guess not...you see Hertzberg is a slimeball working for PHARMA so when he says the voting machines don't count the votes, he must have it all wrong.

[Kelvin Mace]

27. Lord, you give them eyes

and they use them for ping pong balls.

They will never admit to anyone who contradicts their dogma as being right, no matter what the evidence.

[Bill Bored]

28. Still, ya gotta love 'em! nt

[autorank]

37. I'm hurt fundamentally. You ignored my request to go to GD...

I didn't mean for this to turn into a real thread. What's wrong with the GD thread?

Here's what I posted there. Feel free to amble into that history but if not, read the following here (I feel like "Meals on Wheels")

====================

Subj: Warning about this study: it's an excuse for the status quo!!! Fix it now

First of all, the problems with Cleveland are abundantly clear. Check this thread of incidents from Ohio 2006 primary, and look for Cleveland/Cuyahoga County - that's where most of incidents occur.

Ohio Problems with Primary 2006

Second, saying that it will take until 2008 is wrong and misleading. You do this...call the pathetic state of affairs an emergency, put the elections group in receivership and bring in several of the many talented registrars from around the country and fix it now! as in the next three weeks.

This report by ESI is effectively "cover" for a crappy election in Cleveland in 2006. It could be changed post haste but it won't. Saying nothing can be done now will allow some real gains for the Republicans statewide and also help Blackwell.

This is, imho, truly Rovian. Admit the problem and then set it up so it cannot be fixed until after you can take advantage of the problem.

Cleveland needs mega help but not this kind and not from this group.

[OnTheOtherHand]

42. the thread you linked to wasn't a GD thread n/t

[stevenstevensteven]

142. empty words....

Autorank says:

"First of all, the problems with Cleveland are abundantly clear."

"This report by ESI is effectively "cover" for a crappy election in Cleveland in 2006. It could be changed post haste but it won't."

"This is, imho, truly Rovian. Admit the problem and then set it up so it cannot be fixed until after you can take advantage of the problem."

"This is, imho, truly Rovian. Admit the problem and then set it up so it cannot be fixed until after you can take advantage of the problem."


If someone thinks they have a better way to fix the problems in Cleveland, then please jump on the next plane to Cleveland and FIX IT! I'll help raise money to support the cause if you can FIX IT better and faster than anyone else can. Stop spending time on DU and start walking the talk. Let me know when you are ready. Until you are ready to make that leap, I would argue that it is in all of our interests that you support those out there walking the talk and fighting the fight.

[Kurovski]

38. Voting on paper ballots would at least end the arguments about machines.

But then again, probably not.

[autorank]

39. You are in grave danger...you are making sense.

Apply flame retardant over your entire body, or at least asbestos armour...

[Kurovski]

40. Everyone makes sense around here.

Some make faster sense than others.

[OnTheOtherHand]

45. yeah, it would certainly end some of them

I honestly do find it spooky how many arguments there have been about the electronic tallies in Mexico. I don't think it discredits paper (although I am not a straight-up hand count man), but it underscores just how large elections are, and how hard it is to know what has happened.

Paper at least gives you a shot at transparency, although it obviously won't work very well if one party can't even field observers at over 10% of the polling stations, which I guess is what happened in Mexico.

[mod mom]

46. Hand Counted at the PRECINCT LEVEL with full public witness!

BTW..I just heard on NPR that Stephanie Tubbs Jones came out in support of using PAPER ballots to solve the issue for November!

[Kelvin Mace]

51. Still waiting on some evidence that this has worked anywhere

Also have you spoken to your local BoE about all paper elections? If so, what was their response.

[Kurovski]

52. I vote by paper ballot by mail.

We have that choice in my state.

Correspondence regarding DRE's have been met with form letters about HAVA compliance. As has been mentioned before, HAVA itself could use some changing.

Perhaps I'll call directly, but I'm an average individual who makes decisions based on reading and weighing of evidence and information as it is revealed, I'm ill-equipped to teach others the fine points.

It is my understanding that elections have gone on around the world for hundreds of years without electronic, computerised voting. Am I to understand that you believe none of those "worked"?

[Kelvin Mace]

54. In many cases, no they didn't

sad to say.

Why folks love to harken back to the past is beyond me.

Automation of voting in the US began in 1892. As the population has grown, and the ballots become more complex, it has become impractical, then virtually impossible to count ballots by hand with any degree of accuracy and security. Today, around 1% of ballots are hand-counted and these are all in small venues with fairly simple ballots.

There are a number of threads in this forum that has explained the problems with HCPB, with pretty extensive rebuttals for the various systems that have been suggested.

[Kurovski]

56. Machine voting in the past was not as complex.

The systems now are too hackable.

I believe the majority of computer experts ultimately agree.

[Kelvin Mace]

58. Uh, I am one of those "computer experts"

And have spent quite a bit of time on this issue. HR-550 is pretty much endorsed by all the folks I have worked with, as is the use of OpScan with the parameters laid out. I am unaware on any computer scientist advocating HCPB.

[Kurovski]

60. Yes, but you are not a "majority"

:-). I don't know where I got such a misperception about the consensus. I'd search for the articles and posts on the matter (which I may have misread in some way?) but I'm in the middle of tearing out my bathroom wall, and I'm posting on breaks.

Can anyone else help us out here? I may have to revamp a belief I've been holding. A belief that may be a misperception.

[OnTheOtherHand]

61. well, I'm about to rip out my hard drive

I am doing a motherboard swap -- but luckily I have a backup computer. And anyway, what could possibly go wrong? ;)

I'd say there is something approaching a consensus -- more specifically, a policy position of the Association for Computing Machinery -- that e-voting of any sort needs to have a voter-verified paper trail, as well as strong safeguards and rigorous testing. That clearly isn't the same as a consensus that optical scan is unacceptable.

http://www.acm.org/usacm/Issues/EVoting.htm

Does that help?

[Kelvin Mace]

68. I believe that the poll the ACM did

of their membership had 96% in favor of REQUIRING a paper ballot be produced by EVMs. Getting 96% of geeks to agree on something (other than users are idiots and so is management) is damn near miraculous.

[Kelvin Mace]

66. Here's where I gave folks an opportunity to express an opinion

Some folks here would like us to believe that the majority oppose HR-550, but when I posted a poll a few weeks back, 550 support was 84% in favor, 16% opposed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=444359&mesg_id=444359

[Kurovski]

70. HR550 is a good idea until we vote with paper ballots, hand counted.

It's not the be-all and end-all.
I saw the poll as being between a rock and a hard place.

If there are machines, HR550 is at least something. I oppose HR550 on the grounds that machine voting is a losy way to go.

It's crazy, but that's me.

[Kelvin Mace]

71. As I have explained to all the other HCPB advocates

I do not see us changing to HCPB unless there is a complete re-working of the American electoral system, which isn't going to happen.

We can't even get the Electoral College abolished, for crying out loud.

[Kurovski]

73. According to Mark Crispin Miller and reports from

precincts around the country, in 2004 machines broke down and had a variety of problems getting online. Some machines were never delivered, and not enough machines were provided in some areas. Computers fail. They have "glitches".

No huge problems like that with paper ballots.

Computerized voting is unacceptable at this point in time, most likely for always.

when a business has their systems go down,they can make up for losses the next day. Voting is a one day deal, when systems are down, you can't make it up the next day.

Computerized voting is unacceptable to me.

[Kelvin Mace]

75. But such is reality

Computerized voting is unacceptable to me

Again, I welcome any example of how 110 million ballots can be counted by hand ACCURATELY and TIMELY.

I have asked for someone to point out a single example of 100,000 ballots being counted by hand in which the ballot has 25+ races, and the results were rendered within 48 hours and cehating did not occur.

So far, no one has given me an example, or explained REALISTICALLY how it can be done.

It is all well and good to claim something is unacceptable, but if you have no better system, you are going to have to live with the existing systemwe have proposed.

In a coversation with MCM this past Spring, when I appeared on a panel with him at UNC, he did not have any objection to NC's solution, and in fact thought we had come up with a good solution to the problem. During the panel, we both made short work of the idiot from the local Dem Party who insisted that paperless voting was perfectly safe.

[OnTheOtherHand]

76. by the way, KM is _advocating_ paper ballots

The dichotomy of "computerized voting" versus "paper ballots" just doesn't cover all the choices. Or, if it does, then both of you are on the paper-ballot side.

Optical scanning with effective audits mitigates the big problems that you mention. If the scanners fail, people can still vote. If the ballots are miscounted for whatever reason, the miscount can readily be detected. If that isn't good enough, then I think people will have to work a lot harder to come up with an alternative.

[Kelvin Mace]

49. Certainly.

It is called optican scan. All the benefits of paper and technology. Coupled with HR-550 it is a formidabale tool.

Sadly, some of the folk here oppose it by a list of strange reasons which have yet to pass logical muster.

Happily, they are a SMALL minority.

[Kurovski]

53. Most average individuals I speak with outside of DU find

That not voting into a programmable, "secret-code" electronic device will always be safer from wide-scale fraud than doing so. (Granted, this is indeed a minuscule sampling.)

Would you agree that, if the US had an efficient hand-counting system in place with hand-marked paper ballots, that fraud would likely be on a less greater scale and easier to detect, precinct by precinct, than by proprietary code machines?

HR550 is fine, it's just that I recall that there will be ways around it, and logic and human nature tells me there will always be individuals hell-bent on fraud. And when you are dealing with programmable systems that are inaccessible due to proprietary ownership, it's going to happen. It puts us on a continual and expensive path of watch-dogging, suing, making laws, etc.

[Kelvin Mace]

55. No.

Would you agree that, if the US had an efficient hand-counting system in place with hand-marked paper ballots, that fraud would likely be on a less greater scale and easier to detect, precinct by precinct, than by proprietary code machines?

Since there is no such animal as "an efficient hand-counting system" the issue is irrelevant.

The safest method for voting we currently have that meets all the challenges of security and accuracy while dealing with the reality of the voting system is in NC, OpScan or TS systems (with VVPB), backed up by a very stiff law that requires random post election audits, code disclosure, and has severe penalties for violations of the law.

HR-550 is an attempt to make an NC-type law national.

No system is tamper-proof or fool proof. No election will be perfect. The best you can do is go for the best system with the best security and accuracy that allows elections to be conducted in a timely manner (results within 48 hours). Anything else if not acceptable.

[Kurovski]

57. I still believe electronic voting, even with HR550 is less safe

due to the scale of fraud that can be achieved, and achieved undetected due to the private, proprietary code. ( much of it owned by Republican partisans as we have seen.)

I may change my mind at some point, I'll keep watching your posts!:-)

(IMO, It's electronic voting is not very cost-effective at this point.)

[Kelvin Mace]

59. TS voting systems

even with VVPB are over-priced and unreliable, but light years better than TS systems WITHOUT paper.

In my state we have managed to get 76% OpScan, 24% TS with paper.

The best hybrid system is OpScan. You get paper and a method to keep the code honest. HR-550 REQUIRES code disclosure. So, if I can examine the code, and I can audit the ballots to insure accuracy, what is the problem?

OpScan is also the most cost-efficient and most reliable. The most recent study on residual votes puts the system at 0.7% residual votes for ballots counted at the precinct by the scanner.

[Bill Bored]

64. Code escrow is not code disclosure.

I don't think the NC law requires disclosure beyond the escrow, does it?

The code could probably be subject to expert review in the event of an election contest or something, but that doesn't mean it's being disclosed outside the court. Please show me where the NC law says the escrowed copy has to be disclosed to anyone. HR 550 actually does say so though by banning undisclosed software.

[Kelvin Mace]

67. The text reads:

(6)With respect to all voting systems using electronic means, that the vendor provide access to all of any information required to be placed in escrow by a vendor pursuant to G.S. 163‑165.9A for review and examination by the State Board of Elections; the Office of Information Technology Services; the State chairs of each political party recognized under G.S. 163‑96; the purchasing county; and designees as provided in subdivision (9) of subsection (d) of this section.

Since there are NO conditions placed on the phrase "for review and examination", it can be reviewed any time by the parties named.

edit to add this section:

The designees are:

...up to three persons as that person's agents to review and examine the information. No person shall designate under this subdivision a business competitor of the vendor whose proprietary information is being reviewed and examined. For purposes of this review and examination, any designees under this subdivision and the State party chairs shall be treated as public officials under G.S. 132‑2.

[Bill Bored]

78. Oh, it's better than I thought! Thanks. nt

[Kurovski]

77. Well, whatever happens, I think I'll dump all my stock in the interim

and invest in a voting company of some sort. ;-) It appears there's much money to be made for some time to come.

Anyone around here have any tips? Anyone?

[Kurovski]

79. No? Well then, how about a nice lobbiest job?

Or maybe working online from home promoting DRE's or something?

Any leads? Anyone? Anyone? :shrug:

Where's a Johnny-on-the-spot when you need one? I want in on the gold rush!;-)

[stevenstevensteven]

80. Wow!

I haven't been to DU in over a year and look what I stumbled on. I've never seen so much discussion about me without me even being involved. Perhaps you folks should simply have someone call me to ask about ESI before you invest so much time in endless speculation about our work.

Who is this "autorank" person who makes so many statements about me and the organization. Do I even know you? Have you ever met or spoken to me? Do you know anything about me, ESI, or the organization's goals and objectives? You're making all kinds of baseless claims that are off the charts. Perhaps you should direct a few questions to me personally before you spout-off like this. Fact find is typically something responsible do BEFORE they open their mouths.


Steven Hertzberg

[Land Shark]

81. What is your position on secret vote counting on e-voting equipment

we can never watch or even obtain information about vote counting on account of trade secrecy claims. Is this OK according to election sciences institute?

PS Please refrain from personal attacks if at all possible. Thanks (I understand that you feel you are responding, but...)

[stevenstevensteven]

82. secret vote counting

Land Shark said: "we can never watch or even obtain information about vote counting on account of trade secrecy claims. Is this OK according to election sciences institute?"

Absolute transparency is an essential part of building the public's confidence in our election system. ESI's work has been dedicated to building responsible and objective transparency mechanisms.

[eomer]

86. What's the solution? Do you agree with David Dill that optical scan

with precinct-based scanning is the solution to the problems you uncovered with the DRE/VVPAT design?

I claimed quite some time ago that retrofitting a paper trail onto DREs was not as simple as some make it sound and that we were going to see lots of problems with it. Your study shows that my prediction was right.

The solution is to totally scrap this bad idea. Throw out the DREs and replace them with a precinct-based optical scan system. At most keep DREs only as an option for those with disabilities who prefer to use them (like Ion Sancho in Leon County, FL had to do).

Counties may think that replacing the DREs with opscan will cost too much but I believe they will recoup the upfront expenditure after only a few years of the lower maintenance and storage costs they will gain from opscan.

Do you agree with these conclusions? I think I heard someone associated with your Cuyahoga study advocate that the solution is to just abandon the paper trail and go with paperless DREs? Is that your position? Do you take a position on what the solution is?

Here is David Dill's reaction to your study:

To critics, the high percentage of damaged or uncountable VVPATs damaged rated as significantly worse than 'imperfect."

"Ten percent is a complete disaster and totally defeats the purpose of a VVPAT," said David Dill, a Stanford University computer science professor and founder of Verified Voting. "You can blame it on poll worker training, but there are ways to design equipment that makes user error less likely. There are indications that Diebold has done a less than adequate job in design. The company has adopted a generally reluctant and unenthusiastic stance to paper trails and it shows in the design."

The answer to VVPAT problems, Dill said, would be precinct-counted optical-scan units.

"There are fewer questions about it," he said. "We know with appropriate care and poll worker training, we can run a good election on optical scan."

http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6383

On Edit: To clarify my statement above that "I think I heard someone associated with your Cuyahoga study advocate that the solution is to just abandon the paper trail and go with paperless DREs", here is where I heard that:

Part of the plan clearly was to use the recent Election Science Institute (ESI) Report on the disastrous primary election in Cuyahoga County, Ohio as evidence that voter verified paper audit trails do not work and never will work. Not one, but two participants in the report were on the panel: Allen County Ohio Election Director Keith Cunningham and Forsyth County, Georgia Registrar Gary Smith. Both wanted to point out how miserably Diebold’s voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) printer had performed in the primary. Neither noted the fact that the ESI also revealed that the electronic memory on the touchscreen machines and the corresponding memory cards did not match calling into question accuracy of any of the election results. Neither of them dismissed these problems as caused by human error or the result of the implementation of new technology. More to the point, why should we be surprised that a company whose touchscreen machines are sloppy and unreliable produce an add-on printer that is sloppy and unreliable?

http://www.oregonvrc.org/2006/09/misinformation_and_missed_opportunities_a_report_on_sept_28_house_admin_committee_hearing

And here is a link to video of that hearing by the House Administration Committee (RealPlayer required):

http://boss.streamos.com/real/houseadmin/09282006-final.smi

[autorank]

89. VVPB does nothing that I can discern.

There are thirteen states listed that have mandatory voter verified paper ballots.

Have you heard anyone say that in those sates, there will be no need for the "emergency paper ballots" we'll never get for 2006? I have not. So that's the end of that concept, its officially DOA.

Since I respect your work and analysis, I have some friendly questions. Why do you think that optical scan can be secure when there are local or private sector people people maintaining them? What about a Georgia 2002 scenario? How about malicious code? Wouldn't it just be easier to go with some of these new user friendly paper ballots?

Nice seeing you.

[eomer]

91. I think that optical scan is the least of the various evils

we have to choose from.

I favor HCPB over opscan when it is practical and when we can get it but I don't believe we will ever get it in more populous areas.

And I would add some caveats. I'm not in favor of just any opscan system -- I am in favor of an opscan system that uses the scanners more as a helpful tool but does not grant them too much reliance.

One approach would be that election officials are allowed to use opscan to speed up their work but citizen counters are allowed to do a parallel count in full public view (and with a video record) of whichever precincts they choose. The citizen count would be contemporaneous with the official count and there would be a requirement that results cannot be certified until the citizen count and any subsequent counts that it triggers are completed.

The system would have a response to discrepancies that would resort to a complete handcount if there is an indication from parallel counts that something is wrong.

Basically, I believe it is possible to design a system based on a combination of opscan and handcounts that would have enough transparency for us to consider it trustworthy. It would be trustworthy not because we trust the scanners but rather because we don't.

The nice thing about opscan is that it decouples the casting of the vote from the counting of it. That way the casting can still be manual even if the counting is provisionally electronic. If any technical problems are found with the electronic counting then you have the possibility of just removing technology altogether from the process and going to a fully manual election. You just take the votes that were cast manually and you put them through a count that is manual and technology is gone.

With DREs with VVPAT you cannot take technology out of the process when you find problems -- technology has been insinuated into the core of the election and cannot be excised after the fact.

I wasn't sure from your post but if I remember your other posts correctly, you're advocating HCPB. Is that right?

Oh, and it's good to talk with you again too.

[garybeck]

90. OPTICAL SCANS ARE NOT SECURE!!!!!!

Folks, it's so simple.

When you vote on a DRE, you touch a screen. The machine secretly counts your vote.

When you vote on a opscan, you shove your ballot into the scanner. The machine secretly counts your vote.

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. It could literally be the exact same software code on both machines.

The only difference is that with the opscan, there's a stack of ballots that COULD be checked against the machine count. Out of the millions of opscan ballots that have been used in the last 8 years, how many have been checked? I'd say the number is close to zero. So unless they start checking the paper ballots against the machine count. there is NO DIFFERENCE between DREs and OPSCAN.

[eomer]

92. Hey Gary. I agree completely. I'm in favor of opscan only if it is part

of a larger design that does not grant any reliance on the scanning part. See my response to autorank upthread for more details.

So I oppose opscan strongly when it is part of a system that has us relying on the scanning results. I only support it when it is part of a system that does not rely on the scanning results.

You're probably good to go with HCPB in Vermont. Here in Miami it will never, ever happen.

[garybeck]

94. HCPB in Vermont? I wish...

reality is we have diebold opscan.

peaceout

[eomer]

95. I meant that It sounded to me like a reasonable goal for Vermont, but

to be honest I don't really have an idea what's possible there.

What I'm trying to say is that there may be places where HCPB is possible both on a practical level and also politically and I'm in favor of it where it can be attained. But I believe there are places where it will never happen. In those places we can still aspire to a transparent system because we can build one based on opscan if we are careful enough.

[Febble]

87. Thanks for an excellent clarification

I absolutely agree.

Elizabeth Liddle

[eomer]

93. Steven,

I just watched again a good part of the House Administration Committee hearing (video) held on Sept 28.

As is customary with Congressional hearings, the deck was stacked in favor of a particular side of the question being aired (the witness deck, that is). In this hearing the question was whether or not we should have a paper trail. The deck was stacked in favor of the answer that we should not have a paper trail -- that purely electronic voting is both safe and fun. Two of the cards that helped stack the deck toward the no-paper side just happened to be two of your ESI Cuyahoga report team members. In fact one of them, Gary Smith, was in charge of your manual recount. The other one, Keith Cunningham, was also on the manual recount team.

Smith echoed a finding in your report when he said that Georgia voters are quite pleased with paperless electronic voting, both in his testimony at the hearing and in his prepared written statement.

Cunningham said in his written remarks that "I have no reason to believe that DRE’s do not record votes accurately other than theories that some sort of manipulation could occur and I have absolutely no knowledge of that actually happening" and in his hearing testimony blamed Conyers and the Conyers Report for making false claims that are unfairly casting doubt on what he feels is a safe and proven fully-electronic system.

There seems to be a recurring theme here.

Would you like to take this opportunity to separate ESI's official position from that being promoted by these two Cuyahoga report team members? Is ESI in favor of a paperless electronic system? Or how about you personally?


Edit to add that in the hearing both Smith and Cunningham emphasized their work on the ESI Cuyahoga study and thus associated themselves strongly with ESI. They came close to creating the impression that they speak for ESI (and they did not disclaim that inference in any way). That is why I feel it is fair to challenge you to clarify that they do or do not speak for ESI and that ESI does or does not share the views that they expressed in the hearing.

[eomer]

97. No response from Steven so let me summarize...

Steven said:

Absolute transparency is an essential part of building the public's confidence in our election system. ESI's work has been dedicated to building responsible and objective transparency mechanisms.

Gary Smith and Keith Cunningham testified before the House Administration Committee on Sept 28 and, while associating themselves with ESI, promoted the idea that paperless electronic voting is safe, that voters like it and that we should back off from telling them how to do their jobs as election directors. Effectively that we should trust them; that they've made paperless electronic voting safe for us to trust by way of incredibly thorough security procedures such as testing and chain of custody.

The position taken by Smith and Cunningham in the hearing is in direct opposition to the idea of transparency just stated by Steven. Steven clearly speaks for ESI (being its founder and director). I have to assume that Smith and Cunningham do not speak for ESI since they are in clear opposition with the person who has the final say about what ESI stands for and what positions it takes.

Smith and Cunningham are not listed on the ESI website on the Votewatch Team page, on the Votewatch Partners page, or on the Votewatch Advisers page so their association with ESI is apparently minimal and temporal -- limited to having participated in the ESI Cuyahoga study.

I'm giving Steven and ESI the benefit of the doubt because Steven's statement is clearly and strongly in support of "absolute transparency". That said, I would hope that ESI will, at the very least, inform Smith and Cunningham that they are not authorized or allowed to use ESI's name in the future while promoting the idea that a total lack of transparency is acceptable. In other words, this time could have been a misunderstanding. If Smith and/or Cunningham continue to promote this idea while stating that they are associated with ESI and ESI does not disavow their position then I will assume that ESI is complicit in their efforts and that Steven's statement about transparency was insincere and just lip service.

I am also going to PM the contents of this post to Steven to make sure he is aware of it and can stop by and clarify if he wishes to do so.

[autorank]

98. That's a good summary. What's todays date 10.20..this OP was 08.16

This is odd. Steve.etc shows up, calls me out for an 8.16 post and then vanishes. It must be my vast and pervasive influence on the body politic which is something akin to Hall of Famer Ray Lewis' control of the Baltimore fans during a game.

Here's something interesting I would not have found had the visit not taken place.

This is just dreadful...would this be the Columbus and Cleveland elections officials? I'm sure its Cleveland since they let the contract. Of course, I have to weigh my first amendment rights with the prospect of upsetting those elections officials. I'm going on a silent retreat this weekend to get the answer.

ESI Memorandum to Ohio Election Officials
http://www.electionscience.org/reports/view_reports

ESI had the privilege of working with several Ohio county election officials on this report. We were impressed by their professionalism and commitment to the integrity of the elections process. For this reason, we are concerned that the findings of this report have been misinterpreted and misreported. First and foremost, the ESI report is not an attack on the Diebold Accuvote TSX system. Indeed, the report findings include very positive reviews of the system from voters and booth workers.

How thoughtful to be so considerate of Diebold and make those officals who ran one of our worst electoins ever feel at east.

I wonder what will happen after 11/07 with those who prop up the ridiculous system that constitutes our elections apparatus? I hope that somehow things come off without a major hitch. That's in everyone's best interest but we'll have to see.

[OnTheOtherHand]

99. oh, jeepers

In the OP, you were provoked to outrage by the revelation that ESI reported that the election system exhibits extremely serious shortcomings. Something to do with big pharma lobbying.

Here's some of the stuff you didn't quote, perhaps because you didn't read it:

"...since reliable systems design means the system is still reliable when used by a wide range of people with varying skills, it begs the question of why the vendor didn't heavily emphasize, when they offered their product for sale, the amount of training that would be required to use the product effectively."

"...we did not know, until reading your statement of August 15, 2006, that it was possible or even permissible to swap memory cards between machines. This new information, while it might explain some things, is extremely problematic. Swapping memory cards may impair an audit, at least, and could facilitate vote manipulation, at worst. Without the appropriate system design measures, memory card swapping could result in a total loss of accountability."

"It appears, although ESI is currently validating this supposition, that the memory card data sent by the BOE, which was aggregated by polling location –- even after seven weeks of repeated requests to eliminate the data from memory cards used for re-casting votes after Election Day –- included votes from 'curbside ballots' and ballots cast by 17-year-old voters.... (T)his explanation raises other questions.
• Why, after seven weeks, was it not possible for the BOE to produce memory card data from the DRE devices used at the samples (sic) polling places?
• Why was the BOE unable to separately account for ballots re-cast on DRE devices at the BOE after Election Day?"

[stevenstevensteven]

104. now now autorank...

What a convenient excerpt to post. Who exactly is the deceptive one?

By the way, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (CCBOE) did not contract ESI. It was the Cuyahoga County Commissioners who solicited and paid for this work. The CCBOE was not necessarily welcoming.

[OnTheOtherHand]

106. in fairness, there's a problem with your site

autorank quoted from the "summary" of your memorandum. In my view, anyone who read only the summary would come away with much the impression that autorank conveyed. (Of course, such a person would also have to ignore a lot of other content on the site.)

[OnTheOtherHand]

100. fair enough

I agree that some of Smith and Cunningham's testimony is pretty awful. I also agree that their association with ESI appears to be limited. But I think that ESI is somewhat stuck between its support of "absolute transparency" and its desire to work with everyone, and as a wonk I find the resulting statements annoying to attempt to parse.

At the same time, I observe again that ESI's Cuyahoga study generated a raft of bad MSM publicity for Diebold, so the premise of this thread (not your post) continues to elude me.

[eomer]

101. I'm having some parsing problems too.

It's been a couple of years that I've been trying to decide which side ESI is on and it hasn't been so easy. If you take a look at David Dill's organization, VerifiedVoting.org, it only takes a minute or two to draw a conclusion. They're with us.

On the other hand, maybe ESI's neutered public stance is necessary in order to get inside (I know, the metaphor needs work: need to be neutered in order to get inside?) an operation like the Cuyahoga County BOE. After all, Ion Sancho had to fight off being fired for allowing Hursti in. BBV's in-your-face approach does not really open a lot of doors for them.

The Cuyahoga report now has me convinced that ESI is on the side of fair elections. I would feel better, however, if they would state sometime, somewhere, that paperless electronic voting is not transparent.

[stevenstevensteven]

103. follow-up to eomer

Eomer,

We're on the side of the solid data and good science..........where ever that leads us, we will follow.

So, we never make statements that we can't back up with scientific findings. Hence, perhaps that's why we appear confusing. We're not advocates for any given position, we are advocates for a process - one that involves good research, good science, and sound engineering. We see no other way to get through this situation then to proceed in this way.

[eomer]

108. I'm also in favor of that kind of an approach.

I believe it is scientific fact that purely electronic paperless voting systems, at least in their current stage of evolution, are not transparent. Don't take this as argument because I interpret your most recent posts as saying the same thing. But just to clarify that I wasn't looking for any kind of a political position but rather a statement of this scientific fact.

[stevenstevensteven]

109. paperless voting systems

From eomer: "I believe it is scientific fact that purely electronic paperless voting systems, at least in their current stage of evolution, are not transparent."

Agreed.

I would also argue that DRE based systems with VVPAT are also not transparent in their current stage of evolution.

[stevenstevensteven]

102. Response to Eomer

Eomer,

Thanks for sending me a PM regarding this post, otherwise I would have not know about it nor had the opportunity to respond. Unfortunately, DU is not a site that I regularly frequent.

In follow-up to your question:

1. ESI engaged a number of election officials in Ohio and else where to conduct the manual count portion of the Cuyahoga project. We wanted to involve election officials and we wanted to see what issues might arise in the manual count process when regular election offcials conducted the process. Gary and Keith were responsible for overseeing and managing the process, so they saw first hand the challenges we faced. Their assignment was temporary.

2. ESI tallied the data from its study, made observations and reported what it found based on these exercises. In this report, we stopped short of making statements about the overall merits of using VVPAT in a DRE system.

3. As a non-profit agency, ESI's work is inherently in the public domain. That means that whatever we found can be used by anyone who wants to use it. Hence, we've seen a number of organizations use our findings to support their points of view. We can't stop that nor do we want to. We encourage a lively and "informed" public debate about the merits of the voting systems utilized in this country, and if our reports helps facilitate this informed discussion, then we've provided a valuable service.

4. So, ESI is not going to condone anyone's particular statements, nor are we going to try to stop someone from referring to our report, assuming that they make references to our report in a factually accurate manner.

In general, it is clear that DRE voting systems require an external verification and audit mechanism. External verification helps mitigate certain kinds of security threats to an electronic system. It is also clear that the current paper based system in use now exhibits a failure rate that is unacceptable.

Hence, we suggest that we move forward in the following ways. First, we need to quickly and dramatically improve the peformance of these paper based systems for the short and medium term. Second, we need to start a research project to begin development of a voter verification system that can be used in the long term.

[eomer]

107. Thanks, Steven, that statement is clear enough for me.

Particularly this part:

In general, it is clear that DRE voting systems require an external verification and audit mechanism. External verification helps mitigate certain kinds of security threats to an electronic system. It is also clear that the current paper based system in use now exhibits a failure rate that is unacceptable.

Hence, we suggest that we move forward in the following ways. First, we need to quickly and dramatically improve the peformance of these paper based systems for the short and medium term. Second, we need to start a research project to begin development of a voter verification system that can be used in the long term.

There are probably some details we could hash out (paper trail vs. paper ballot, etc.) but as a statement of general principle I'd say you've got it right so I'm in favor of leaving it at that.

Thanks for the clarification. Since now we know that a PM is an effective way to alert you to a discussion, I for one will use it in the future.

[autorank]

83. I had two reasons for making the formerly obscure post that you now

call attention too.

Why don't you read the DU Rules: "Do not "stalk" another member from one discussion thread to another. Do not follow someone into another thread to try to continue a disagreement you had elsewhere. Do not talk negatively about an individual in a thread where they are not participating. Do not post messages with the purpose of "calling out" another member or picking a fight with another member. Do not use your signature line to draw negative attention to another member of the board.

I posted the message on 08.16.06 and had reason to question ESI doing this report. See points 1 and 2 below. Points 1 and 2 were sufficient to question this and raise the question.

I was at the "We Count" Conference in Cleveland last month and really didn't hear much about your report. I did hear a lot from Richard Hayes Phillips: Ballot Tampering Charges in Ohio
Declaration or Richard Hayes Phillips What a mess Ohio was in 2004

but...

I just noted that your web page contains a memo to Ohio elections officials seemingly to apologize for anything negative the public might take about their conduct or the equipment used in your Ohio Report

08.22.06:

ESI Memorandum to Ohio Election Officials
http://www.electionscience.org/reports/view_reports

ESI had the privilege of working with several Ohio county election officials on this report. We were impressed by their professionalism and commitment to the integrity of the elections process. For this reason, we are concerned that the findings of this report have been misinterpreted and misreported. First and foremost, the ESI report is not an attack on the Diebold Accuvote TSX system. Indeed, the report findings include very positive reviews of the system from voters and booth workers.

Here is what I knew of ESI prior to the Cuyahoga report.


1) ESI has gone out of its way to support the legitimacy of 2004 by supporting the Edison-Mitofsky explanation of NEP discrepancies and the like. This is from ESI:

"Nearly all respondents said that they were comfortable using the voting equipment (95%) with only 5% saying that they did not feel comfortable using it." page 3 of the report."

ESI Brief - Analysis of the 2004 Ohio Exit Polls and Election Results (ESI Publication)
http://www.electionscience.org/reports/view_reports

"Exit polls conducted for the national media on Election Day 2004 appeared to predict that Senator John Kerry would win Ohio. Had Kerry won Ohio, he would have won the Presidency. To some observers, the discrepancy between the polls and the results suggested that there was a problem at the core of the electoral mechanism: the counting and tabulation of votes after they were cast. The discrepancy gave rise to widespread accusations that votes were shifted from John Kerry to George W. Bush. ESI answers the question: do the exit polls in Ohio support the thesis of systematic error in the election system or election fraud? " What was the answer? http://www.electionscience.org/reports/view_reports

2004 Ohio Exit Polls and Election Results (ESI publication)

The attached presentation was delivered during the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers Plenary session on Saturday May 14, 2005 as part of a larger session on the 2004 exit polls, with Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky Int'l and Kathy Frankovic of CBS News. Dr. Scheuren's analysis confirms pollster Warren Mitofsky’s assertion that the exit polls that put John Kerry ahead of George Bush in Ohio on Election Day 2004 do not necessarily indicate that there was fraud in the Ohio election.

2) ESI was dead wrong on it's assessment of 2004 in New Mexico:

17 Affidavits from Voters on Machine Problems
http://voteraction.org/States/New%20Mexico/NM_legal.html

VoterAction.Org, winner of a series of legal victories in NM outlines the many problems in the state that had a negative impact on many minority voters.
http://voteraction.org/States/New%20Mexico/NM_info.html

The issue was first covered in depth here
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00067.htm


The problems pointed out by Lowell Finley and John Boyd, the VoterAction attorneys, and agreed to by Judge Mathis resulted in Bill Richardson changing his opinion on the case and completely reversing his opposition to the suit:

From BuzzFlash.Com:

http://www.wingsofjustice.com/06/03/woj06010.html

The sleeper issue of continued GOP one-party rule over America has been the issue of privatized voting machines. The issue first came to forefront in the 2000 election, when the Republicans stole the presidency over how the votes were counted.

Since then, things have only gotten more complicated and more ominous. There is a small but vocal movement to insist on ensuring that the counting of our votes is not outsourced, particularly when the counting software is not publicly disclosed and there is no paper trail.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who served in the Clinton administration, gave hope to Americans who believe that every vote count should be publicly accessible. Last week, he signed a bill that will require the restoration of paper ballots in his state.

According to a New Mexico publication, "Richardson has said the new paper ballot system will provide more accountability to the election process and will give voters' confidence that their votes will be correctly recorded."

At a time when many states continue to "do business" with Diebold and other private electronic voting firms, Bill Richardson has provided hope that the will of the voters will be ensured.

For that, he merits this week's BuzzFlash "Wings of Justice Award."
------------------------

That should answer your qeustion.

[kster]

85. Take it to these Lapdogs

AutoRank......... :yourock: ........K and R

[OnTheOtherHand]

88. MSM stories about ESI's Cuyahoga audit: 28+

(That figure comes from Lexis-Nexis, searching "election science institute" and "cuyahoga" for newspapers by region. I haven't tried to examine any other media type.)

MSM stories generated by autorank and kster combined: ???

:eyes:

Yeah, clearly this is an excellent use of time three weeks before the election. Have a blast.

[kster]

96. kick.nt

[Name removed]

105. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BeFree]

110. You question autorank's intentions?

Yet you bristle at questions about ESI? There is a word for that....

From what I saw of the ESI report, it said just enough to make sure it got more work from the Ohio election system setup. Just enough of this and that to show that there were serious problems, but not enough about solutions to fix the problems. And yall got some serious coin for the effort.

Meanwhile, we plain old citizens are taking on the chin, and paying out our butts for the poor performance of the system. We have every right to criticize the system, and, if we believe the audits of the systems are poorly done, to criticize those too.

Tell ya what, while you are hanging around here, why don't you tell us what you think can be done to get our votes back? Enough of trying to protect yourself, that is of no interest here, we only care about how to protect our democracy.

[stevenstevensteven]

111. for Befree

First, I bristle about attacks that are factually inaccurate or purposely skewed. This is what I was referring to in this thread.

Second, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners asked for a review of their election system - that was the scope of the contract. We didn't control that, but we certainly let them know upfront that there would be findings that would require additional work, beyond the contract, to fix the problems uncovered. We offered to stick around to help the board of elections, but our offers were rebuffed.

Third, with respect to taking it on the chin, we spent two years of our own resources travelling to Ohio offering to work with election officials in an effort to fix problems and improve the election system in that state - this was before the implementation of the Diebold system. Why don't you join us on our endless red-eye flights back and forth to Ohio, and on our endless drives around the state, and then tell us about taking it on the chin. After you've done that for several years and personally invested the equivalent of an expensive home into this work, then come talk to us about taking it on the chin. Until then, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Fourth, with respect to the audit that was done in Cuyahoga, do you have a specific complaint regarding ESI's work, or are you simply generalizing? If you are dissatisfied with that work, would you like to suggest what ESI should have done to improve the process, as we're open to all meaningful suggestions. As you may or may not know, this was the first time an audit of this magnitude was ever done on actual election results. The discrepancies found were signficant and remain unexplained. Cuyahoga County is now considering conducting an audit of the November election results, which for us is an extremely positive development.

Lastly, ESI has had a plan for improving the election system since early 2003. We've been implementing the plan as funding and the election community allows.

[BeFree]

112. You questioned him...first

With: "Don't you want transparent elections". He has every right to question ESI et al, in what ever manner, prose or questioning he desires.

Secondly, you proved my point: "...let them know upfront that there would be findings that would require additional work, beyond the contract, to fix the problems uncovered."

Like I said: "From what I saw of the ESI report, it said just enough to make sure it got more work from the Ohio election system setup. Just enough of this and that to show that there were serious problems, but not enough about solutions to fix the problems. And yall got some serious coin for the effort."

You knew if things went right there would be more work. Thankyou. Seems I read the report correctly.

Thirdly, if, indeed, it is as you say, you did pro bono work, that's great. But now I will have to ask you, as others have asked here before of other groups... Just what do your financial records look like? Who are your contributors? Where is a record of your expenses for the last five years to be found? What's fair, is fair, eh?

Fourth: So, your audit found problems? Duh. But the problems have not been fixed? You see why I have a problem with the whole process? A solution: Condemn the electronic voting systems as so many others have done. ESI would not be the first to do so, and ESI sure as hell should not be the last, don't you think?

Lastly, we'd all like to see ESI's plan, and I think that's about what I asked you to produce here, on the ER DU. I'd suggest, in a new thread. Or is that too much to ask?

PM: For all I know you and the ESI are a swell group. But for all I know, I gotta say, you may not be all that swell. I just don't know. If you want to convince us of your swellness, you might want to provide some background, some solutions, some more information. As it is, you are dealing with a rightfully suspicious bunch here, and we are not easily led, but we are easily pissed. Heck, everyone should be pissed. If you ain't pissed, you ain't thinking.

[BeFree]

115. What about this?

Autorank asks in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2458955&mesg_id=2458970

Who is the Election Science Institute:

1) They thought New Mexico 2004 was just fine, nice election. Of course it was so bad that the Governor eventually agreed with VoterAction.Org's law suit which pointed out that the state's election system was a total mess election day. ESI MISSED THAT. Other's didn't'


2) The ESI has spent a lot of time propping up the bogus final National Exit Poll by Warren Mitofsky, the poll that came 13 hours after his election day poll showed Kerry the winner 51%-48%. The final exit poll they defend isn't even a poll, it Incorporated "the election results" to show * won.

The election group that missed New Mexico and apologizes for a bogus National Exit Poll and can't even spot fraud under it's nose in the Southwest is going to fix Cleveland/Cuyahoga elections. Will
wonders never cease.

[stevenstevensteven]

116. for Befree, again

Always happy to engage in constructive honest conversation. When you are ready, just let us know.

[BeFree]

118. Run ya off, eh?

If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen....Pres. Truman said that.

I'll make this real simple: Show us the money.

Money talks and bullshit walks. My dad said that.

[autorank]

119. Back to the Twilight Zone

I had forgotten all about that post to the deadparrot thread. It raises essentially the questions I raised above, without mentioning any names at ESI. Then I get a dead thread necro'ed and challenged. I respond here with essentially the same points raised in the deadparrot thread and get no answer. After all this whatever its been the last couple of days, we come full circle, like "Finnegan's Wake." The two points are presented...and not answered. This was my great crime, me a name on a page at an anonymous forum where facts are presented/debunked, ideas debated...and what happens. They're not answered but you can PM him when you want to be reasonable. This is strange beyond belief.

My points are simple. I strongly believe based on a ton of evidence that 2004 was rigged. I disagree with organizations that go out of their way to prop that election up and I say that they do so and, at the same time, endorse the foul crimes of the Bush administration, whether or not that is their ultimate goal. If you have a investigation of actions that include the biggest crime ever, the theft of the 2004 election, then you don't need the investigators as partisans in the debate on the occurrence of that crime. ESI's position on 2004, I believed, showed bias and therefore made the choice questionable. And I point out a fact, NM stunk and thats a fact. Look at the trial with VoterAction.org and Gov Richardson's remarkable turn around essentially endorsing the objectives of the law suit and converting NM to paper. My point - and I didn't criticize any person - was that the ESI report missed data that was always there. Again, the consequences of missing are the real objective. Kerry would have probably won NM with a clean election, it can be argued, and you really have to wonder if Rep. Heather Wilson, R, NM would have been elected.

My larger complaint about "integrity" groups that turn election fraud into a systems analysis issue is that they ignore the essential facts. To quote myself:

Will My Vote Count?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00067.htm

The problem of vote switching, losing your vote based on the type of machine you use and, perhaps, your ethnic identity and location, is troubling in a nation where universal access to voting was once thought to be the political gold standard. In this case, the more things change, the more they seem to come undone.

The Help America Vote Act was heralded as the solution to the problems that emerged in the Florida 2000 presidential contest. Hanging chads and endless recounts of flawed punch card ballots would never occur again, we were promised. In point of fact, the real scandal of Florida 2000 was not the hanging chads; it was the racially based “felon purge” conducted by Secretary of State Katherine Harris’ office. This resulted in the denial of voting rights to 57,000 black Floridians, Floridians who had committed no crime but were wrongly identified as felons. That “purge” was a race crime, denying one ethnic group its right to vote.

The problems in New Mexico represent the automated version of ethnically based voter disenfranchisement. Now, instead of tens of thousands losing their rights all at once, the votes are being denied to tens of thousands of minority voters’ one precinct at a time.

The voter who took 45 minutes to make sure her vote was cast in the New Mexico 1st Congressional District summed it up nicely:

If I were an elderly person, or a young first time voter, I might not have known what to do, or how to take the actions that I took. I might have simply gone forward with the voting process, and thought to just let that one vote for Heather Wilson go unnoticed as well as the malfunctioning machine.

[OnTheOtherHand]

122. what points weren't answered?

Are you counting the "point" where you likened ESI to a "big pharma lobbying firm"?

You don't like the fact that ESI released its results from New Mexico, and you don't like the fact that ESI released the results of its Ohio 2004 study. You haven't offered any substantive critique of the content of either study. ESI never said that either New Mexico or Ohio was clean; I have no idea what, if anything, actually in those ESI studies you actually disagree with. What else is there to respond to? What telling point is Hertzberg ducking in every response in this thread?

Everyone knows how you feel about 2004. That's not a "point" to which anyone can usefully respond.

[BeFree]

123. The one, main question is:

Where is the intellectual integrity?

Secondly: Show us the money trail.

ESI discovered problems, what are the solutions? What paper exists from ESI that even begins to lay out the elemental steps necessary to end the problems? Intellectual integrity demands nothing less than now listing the solutions, ASAP.

[Febble]

124. Don't be silly

Intellectual integrity does not demand nothing less than listing the solutions ASAP.

Often intellectual integrity demands the reverse, if the data are insufficient or the solutions unclear.

Look, anyone who investigates election integrity issues has to display moral and intellectual integrity themselves, clearly. The problem is that often people do not like the results of the investigation. That might be because they have serious reason to believe the investigation was corrupt or inadequate. In which case they need to make that case.

But what happens far too often around here is that people don't like the results of investigations and then attempt to smear the moral and intellectual integrity of the investigators. If you don't like the results, by all means critique the methods and interpretation of the results. Or, if you think the remit was too narrow, then critique the remit. But some of those of us who have actually bothered to investigate the election integrity issues arising from the 2004 election have come in for some completely unsupported crap from people found our conclusions differed from their own.

Speaking for myself, I am happy to defend, and even re-examine, my findings and interpretationin response to a serious critique. I expect ESI is as well. But this kind of innuendo - that somehow ESI were corrupt, or autorank's implication that those who disagree with him (including those who have examined the data in great detail) disagree with his own conclusion regarding the 2004 election are culpably complicit in propping up an illegal regime, make me angry. Progressives are supposed to be reality-based, right? If you don't like the study, critique the study before you cast aspersions on those who conducted it.

[BeFree]

125. So, no answer, eh?

Just attack the questioners?

The ESI study of Ohio produced results. That is not the argument. The argument is: The problems have been uncovered: Where are the solutions?

What's odd is that ESI is being given a great deal of lattitude here. A lattitude not offered other organizations. In fact, there seems to be a 'circle the wagon' mentality hereabouts. It seems there is no critque allowed of the election "experts" by the election reformers. It seems intellectual integrity is lacking when results are not followed up with pertinent solutions to the problems revealed in the results.

You wrote:"But some of those of us who have actually bothered to investigate the election integrity issues arising from the 2004 election have come in for some completely unsupported crap from people (who) found our conclusions differed from their own."

I will guess here that you are saying no problems were found? Well, that's unsupported. Problems were found, we all agree. Indeed, ESI found many problems in Ohio. Many here have offered solutions to those problems, yet the 'experts' have offered, as far as I can tell, no solutions to those found problems. Maybe you can enlighten us?

On edit: Indeed, as is quoted in the following, problems are clearly described, and agreed upon.

stevenstevensteven (305 posts) Fri Oct-20-06 01:20 PM
Response to Reply #108
109. paperless voting systems

From eomer: "I believe it is scientific fact that purely electronic paperless voting systems, at least in their current stage of evolution, are not transparent."

Agreed.

I would also argue that DRE based systems with VVPAT are also not transparent in their current stage of evolution.

Again: What is the solution to the agreed upon problems?

[Febble]

126. I'm not attacking anyone

It's not me querying the integrity of other posters.

[BeFree]

129. To be precise

It is, this query, a query of intellectual integrity, and not of personal integrity. Lets not be confused.

[eomer]

127. Re: the solution

In post #102 SSS did say what he thinks the solution is:

In general, it is clear that DRE voting systems require an external verification and audit mechanism. External verification helps mitigate certain kinds of security threats to an electronic system. It is also clear that the current paper based system in use now exhibits a failure rate that is unacceptable.

Hence, we suggest that we move forward in the following ways. First, we need to quickly and dramatically improve the peformance of these paper based systems for the short and medium term. Second, we need to start a research project to begin development of a voter verification system that can be used in the long term.

That sounds like the right approach to me. Do you disagree?

[autorank]

128. Eomer come on...

We can go back to paper in the next election. Hopefully we will for president. There's no "short" term, there's just a chaotic election. Can DRE's be verified? Lets check the 13 states with mandatory DRE's and see if they make any difference. They won't.

The DRE horse is dead, the optical scan horse will be lame and out of the race after November.

Time to to stop patching up the sinking ship of computerized voting. It was a bad idea to start, its a bad idea now, and it will be totally unacceptable after this election.


Paper Ballot Act of 2006 (Introduced in House)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.6200:
HR 6200 IH

109th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. R. 6200

To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

September 27, 2006

Mr. KUCINICH (for himself, Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida, Mr. CLAY, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. FILNER, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. JACKSON of Illinois, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Ms. KAPTUR, Ms. LEE, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Ms. MCKINNEY, Mrs. MALONEY, Ms. SOLIS, Ms. WATERS, and Ms. WOOLSEY) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration, and in addition to the Committee on Government Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Paper Ballot Act of 2006'.

SEC. 2. REQUIRING USE OF HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.

Section 301(a) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 15481(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

`(7) SPECIAL RULES FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS- Notwithstanding any other provision of this subsection, in the case of a regularly scheduled general election for the electors of President and Vice President (beginning with the election in November 2008), the following rules shall apply:

`(A) The State shall conduct the election using only paper ballots.

`(B) The State shall ensure that the number of ballots cast at a precinct or equivalent location which are placed inside a single box or similar container does not exceed 500.

`(C) The ballots cast at a precinct or equivalent location shall be counted by hand by election officials at the precinct, and a representative of each political party with a candidate on the ballot, as well as any interested member of the public, may observe the officials as they count the ballots. The previous sentence shall not apply with respect to provisional ballots cast under section 302(a).'.

SEC. 3. MOVING OBSERVATION OF WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY TO ELECTION DAY DURING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEARS.

Section 6103(a) of title 5, United States Code, is amended--

(1) by inserting `the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in 2008 and every fourth year thereafter, and' after `Washington's Birthday,'; and

(2) by inserting `in any other year' after `February'.

[eomer]

131. Sure, that would be great.

What I want is a system where I can observe (meaningfully) the count in my own precinct and then see the total for my precinct added correctly into the total at the state level.

H. R. 6200 would accomplish that, although it may need some details filled in to avoid certain problems. For example, I think it needs to state that early voting is not allowed for a Presidential election because early voting would destroy my ability to observe the whole process and be sure of it. Absentee ballots would remain problematic and of course we can't and don't want to prohibit them. But we are caught between two competing benefits here -- prohibiting absentees except in the case of real need would improve my ability to observe a large enough share of the vote to (usually) be sure of the result but on the other hand allowing "no excuse" absentees would improve turnout.

But even though the HCPB option is my favorite, and I think that H. R. 6200 is a great idea for overcoming the ballot complexity problem with hand counts, I don't go so far as to say that it is the only solution I would find acceptable. If there is some other system that can deliver the transparency that I want then I would be satisfied with it. I respect your position that you will only be satisfied with HCPB, I just don't go that far myself.

I still believe that opscan together with a citizen option to hand count whatever races they want would also work. It would depend on citizens organizing and participating in large enough numbers. Or instead of citizen counts you could have election workers hand count some randomly-selected precincts as in Holt. Or better yet, provide for both types of hand counts.

DREs that produce a VVPB may possibly be a way of gaining transparency but that remains to be seen. I think it will be difficult but I don't rule it out until I see a specific design. Or maybe DREs can be turned into mere ballot marking devices. A voter can use a touchscreen as many times as she wishes and then can review and deposit the resulting printed ballot into a ballot box. The paper ballot produced by the touchscreen would be designed to be read by a person, by a portable scan/audio device for disabled use, and by a scanner for counting purposes. Then you need a hand count component just like I described above for opscan since this is a variation on opscan.

The bottom line of my position, which hasn't changed since I first joined into these discussions here, is that I will not trust any computer. So any system must allow me to take the computer out and see the count directly with my own eyes or else I will not agree that it is transparent.

I don't have a beef with anyone who advocates the use of technology so long as the party doing the proposing will embrace the concept that computers cannot and must not be trusted. At whatever future time that party puts forward a specific system design then I will look at it and will denounce it if it doesn't allow me to observe the entire process of casting and counting votes in a way that is uncorrupted by the use of computers.

[autorank]

135. With all due respect, you are missing the political dimension...

DRE's are manufactured, in two instances, by heavily Republican companies. In the third case, we don't know who really controls Sequoia, which is just as bad.

THUS THE DRE OPTION RELIES ON POLITICIZED MANUFACTURERS AND IS OUT COMPLETELY.

You are applying a systems analysis to this, which does not take into account CONTEXT. And that context is politics and the realities of right now.

Your solution "I still believe that opscan together with a citizen option to hand count whatever races they want would also work. " OK, if you're going to have this a few things need to happen. Each race has to be recounted so that paper tallies and optical scan tallies conform. If you're doing that, you are hand counting paper ballots. If you're not doing that, then the optical scans with all their documented security problems are in use and we have fake elections. You will never have a security expert for each one or cluster of optical scans out there and even if you did, that's a security flaw. Governments do the least they can do. It isn't optical scan plus anything now and it won't be in the future.

With regard to ballot complexity, I've seen some prototypes for paper ballots that are not only simple, they are much easier to count than ever before. Ballot complexity is an issue.

The political reality that emerges will drive the process of vote co untying. If we do indeed have a 'train wreck' then all Hell will break loose and we'll have hand counted paper ballots. If not, then we're still in democratic purgatory with fake elections based on unverified machines.

[eomer]

140. I think I agree with all that. I would just clarify a couple of issues.

I agree that my opscan idea amounts to HCPB as you point out. The difference between the proposals is the percentage of votes that are hand counted. In my opscan proposal some percentage of votes are hand counted. It could be 100% if enough citizens decide to participate but most likely it would be less than 100%. The percentage would need to be fairly significant for me to feel confidence in the result. There would be other details that also need to be in place to generate confidence. You would need to keep the scan counters from knowing whether their precinct is going to be hand counted until after the scan count is done. Otherwise they could have some way to trigger or not trigger fraud in the scanning and only use it when no one is watching.

It would not be easy to create a system based on opscan that would make me happy. But then again it is not a no-brainer to do so with a full HCPB system either. H. R. 6200 leaves too much unsaid so far. In addition to the early voting problem I brought up earlier, another issue is that it should clearly require that the count be at the polling place, immediately following the casting of the last ballot. It should have some simple and clear requirements for a secure ballot box and for the voting process (the voter must deposit the ballot, not a worker; there must be some kind of a privacy mechanism, and so on). If you leave those things unsaid and therefore a local decision then you could have some states or counties decide to transport the ballots to a central counting location with lax security. If that happens then I as an observer have no way of knowing that ballots didn't get stuffed or trashed while the ballot box was out of my sight.

With regard to political reality, I don't claim to know much about how this will play out. I'm sure that there will be a train wreck. Maybe the disaster will be reported in its full dimensions and there will be a groundswell of citizen demand that we can and should ride to accomplish the full monty of election reform. If that can happen then I'm for it. In my posts prior to this one I am talking about compromise solutions that are much better than what we have now and probably good enough, depending on the details. But if we find we don't have to compromise then that is great.

_{Edit: minor wording}

[autorank]

137. Here's why no machine voting is ever acceptable...

http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/WeCount2.pdf">It's worth getting the entire presentation from ElectionArchive.Org

[stevenstevensteven]

144. perhaps you did not know...

....that ESI conducted a source code review of the ES&S iVotronic voting system. As the opportunities arise, we've been using some of the best computer security specialists ("White Hat Hackers") in the business to conduct full source code reviews of systems.

You are correct, reverse engineering (Black Hat Hacking) may not identify all of the threat vectors. One needs access to the documentation and the software engineers that developed the system to conduct a meaningful review. We're getting that access. You also correctly pointed out manual review is a significant challenge. Hence, we've gotten access to the best automated source code analyzer available and we're using it.

There is much you do not know about ESI. Instead of attacking us, perhaps you should just politely ask us what we've done and what we think. You might be surprised by what you learn.

[kster]

138. Two counts, is the ONLY ANSWER!! You said

"I still believe that opscan together with a citizen option to hand count ((whatever races they want))) would also work. It would depend on citizens organizing and participating in large enough numbers".

This is the only way I can see optiscan machines, EVER being trustworthy.

Two counts MANDATORY machine for speed, HCPB for accuracy!

So long as some of us find a need to use these machines! A second, MANDITORY HAND COUNT IS NEEDED in EVERY election, that is the only way to keep everyone honest.

[BeFree]

130. Paper ain't the problem.

Its the memory cards, hard drives, and other media with vulnerable codes and un-auditable systems that are the problem.

It looks to like what is being addressed by SSS is a way to incorporate more machinery into, and remove humanity from, our voting systems.

Ya know, Dems used to get elected (in fact Al Gore clearly won his election) on the time tested paper systems.

What we have now is new-fangled, electronic gobble-dee-gook which leans heavily toward Publican rule. And that's the problem I want addressed.

So, yeah, I disagree.

[eomer]

132. Paper is the solution, not the problem.

We should not accept any system that puts a memory card, a hard drive, or any other electronic medium between the point where I can see the vote cast and the point where I can see the vote counted.

If we get any system that meets that requirement, everywhere in the nation, then I will be happy. (Right now my county has paperless DREs.) I just don't agree that HCPB is the only way possible to meet that requirement. I'm a software architect and, as is usually the case, I allow that there is more than one possible design to meet the requirements for such a system.

If we can get HCPB for the presidential election then that would be great. If we're going to do it for president then I would add in Congress too (reps and Senators).

But if for whatever reason we end up with a new solution that is not HCPB but is still a transparent system then I'm going to be happy about it. I don't see why anyone would not be.

[BeFree]

133. I agree with that

But in the meantime, this dicking around with the machines has to end. I see nothing in SSS's comments about that issue, and think anyone who is for transparency would not wander far from that issue.

But wandering away is what I do see. And in that wandering I see no accomplishment toward a solution for the problem.

HCPB is sticking to the path back to where we need to be. If we don't get all the way there, well, that'll just have to do, but at least we'd be moving in the right direction.

[autorank]

136. A request to OTOH...who is on my "ignore" list"

I logged in without my un/pw and looked at this forum.

You respond to my messages as though I'm actually seeing the responses.
You know that you are on my "ignore" list and you've known that for some
time.

It seems to me that when you respond to my messages, you should note that
I won't be seeing your response since I have you on "ignore." To do other
wise indicates that I'm not responding to your particular point and I think
that is misleading to readers. I'm not responding to any points.

Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated.

[OnTheOtherHand]

139. I can live with that

I think that putting other people creates awkward rhetorical circumstances no matter what the ignored does.

No, you're not responding to any points, and you aren't substantiating your attacks on ESI. And, yes, you have me on ignore. Personally, I don't think those are causally related, but I will let readers score it for themselves.

[Febble]

141. Just in case you log in without your password again....

If you put other posters on ignore, then that is your affair, and will save you the irritation of seeing posts you won't like.

However, this is a public discussion forum, and conversations are open to all viewers who have not chosen to filter out posts from certain posters. And when you, for example, make a comment to which I, or OTOH, or anyone else whom you have chose to put on "ignore" disagrees, it seems to me perfectly legitimate for us to respond to those posts, so that those interested in our responses can read them, even if you choose not to.

And clearly we do not expect you to comment on our comments, as we know you are ignoring us (except when you aren't....)

Bottom line - if you want to ignore us, ignore is. If you don't, don't. But we are not obliged to ignore your comments just because we know you are ignoring ours. I don't happen to share your aversion to reading views with which I fear I may disagree, and it's not an aversion I wish to acquire.

Lizzie

[stevenstevensteven]

148. Hey, Autorank

Isn't this what you were doing to me. You knew, because I stated it in the forum, that I would not see responses unless you PM'd me. What did you do, you accused me of cutting and running and/or passing on "secret" information through PM. You could have just PM'd me, like so many others on DU agreed to do. No big deal, they were just being polite and honoring my simple request. But no, you had to abuse me for it. Then, to add insult to injury, when I PM'd you you refused to respond and told me to stop PM'ing you.

Just whose rules are you operating by, Autorank? Sounds to me like you've been taking lessons in spin from our current administration.

Oh, and for those reading this post please know that since Autorank has put me on ignore he will most likely NOT see this post and therefore may not respond. On the other hand, I just learned that he can still see this message by logging out and viewing the page. So what is it, Autorank, are you reading this stuff and not responding, or are you truely not seeing this stuff. No one will ever know, will they. How's that for transparency?

[Ellipsis]

114. Autoranks okay

...and I can understand you defending your work. I know what it's like to invest a house in a business (not one in SF) but a house none the less. I hear compassion here not deceit.

OTOH's got a point here, We can bicker about this after the election.

Make nice now... Autorank

To borrow a familiar quote and a great one.

Successful people generally have more errors to their credit, and often bigger ones, than unsuccessful people. They view these in the same way that scientists view failed experiments: not as moral setbacks but as the necessary concomitants of discovery. While plodders see failure as a demon, achievers see it more as a void, oppressive perhaps but not intimidating, and capable of redemption by the first success that comes along. They know, however, that success, no matter how much praised or how well rewarded, will open up new challenges, new risks of failure.

- Robert Grudin, Time and the Art of Living


...your name sounded familiar... nothing untoward, different spelling I realize now.



What did you do for Roxio/Adaptec? I worked closely with ATTO "In the day."

[stevenstevensteven]

117. for btmlndfrmr

btmlndfrmr said: "OTOH's got a point here, We can bicker about this after the election."

Good point, btmlndfrmr and OTOH. On that point, I've got to leave for Ohio this weekend to get ready to oversee November's election. We've got our own, very extensive, oversight program in place and I need to be on the ground to oversee operations. The new voter ID requirements in Ohio should create a very interesting situation.....we'll be watching closely. So it will be some time before I can spend time at DU again.

If you want to get my attention, please don't hesititate to PM me and I'll try to respond when time permits.

[autorank]

120. btmlndfrmr, "I'm OK, You're OK"

I've been "otherwise engaged" in a project with an actul deadline so I've not checked in on the great controversy my username has caused (I'll be disciplining him severely;).

:toast:

[Ellipsis]

121. Cool.

:toast:

[autorank]

134. Oh, and be sure to "PM" me for all that "secret" stuff we talk about..

...what a load of shit that line is.

[stevenstevensteven]

143. uh...

We are actually here in Ohio deploying a program to oversee the Ohio election in two-weeks. You have a problem with that, as we are just a little bit busy right now and checking DU regularly is not our top priority.

So sorry to make you go out of your way to PM us so that we may notified of your empty attacks... and perhaps be able to respond to them. Oh, that's right, typically journalists contact the subjects of their stories for comment before printing the story about them. That is called "getting both sides of the story". Too bad you don't subscribe to this kind of reporting/blogging, as then you might actually have to 'adjust' your story to reflect the facts.

By the way, what was the point of your post?

[autorank]

145. ...and now you're on "ignore"

Good bye:hi:

"You have a problem with that, as we are just a little bit busy right now and checking DU regularly is not our top priority. " So are you blaming me for distraction from your work? If the elections go wrong and Blackwell, DeWine and the rest of them win, will that be my fault because your fixated on giving me a hard time.

I didn't write a story and nobody on a forum needs to call up those that they comment upon.k I've never written about you and never will. Somebody might and I can't imagine what you will do if you get some full tile criticism but that's your problem. You won't have me to blame;)

"Ignore" means I can't see your messages and can't respond. If you post to my messages, which is allowed, at least tell people I put you on ignore so when whatever you've said is ignored, they'll know why.

[stevenstevensteven]

147. wow....

Is this how Democracy by Autorank works?..... when someone challenges your domain you shut them off?

Well, in the real world of election reform, one must deal with a myriad of different people with a diverse set of views. One must be able to effectively communicate with all of these different people, and they must do so respectfully and in a convincing manner. If one cannot do this, then their ideas are never listened to and they are never able to enter the table in an effort to improve things.

ESI has been able to enter the election arena time and time again, with people who may have extremely different views. But with time and patience and relentless energy, one is usually able to gain mind share. Only then can one begin to develop the trust necessary to begin to improve things. This sir, is how it works in the real world.

Perhaps you should just stay behind the comfort of your computer screen where you can safely throw darts at anyone you choose. And if those parties decide to defend themselves, you can just put up your shields.

Well, in this country people have made great sacrifices to create this form of government. In our case, the people of ESI have also made enormous sacrifices. They deserve respect and honest critique. You sir, have not given us this respect, and therefore deserve none in return.

Oh, by the way, Autorank has requested that we let you know that Autorank has placed us on ignore, therefore he cannot read our posts and therefore may not respond.

[mod mom]

154. read the rules here and stop calling people out. Auto is a well known +

respected member of this community, you should be so lucky.

[stevenstevensteven]

155. mod mom

what's the Woody Allen line... something like, "I would never want to be a member of a country club that would have me as a member"....

Well, if Autorank is a respected member of the DU community, then I take it as a compliment that I am NOT a respected member... of course, that's assuming that that is what you are insinuating.

With respect to calling him out, I'm addressing the issues that he raises, the facts that he omits from his presentation, and the way he deals with community members. I would expect that he can stand up for himself.

[OnTheOtherHand]

157. ah, respect

People are naturally(?) tribal. autorank has earned a lot of respect for battles he fought back in the day, and I'm sure he still fights good ones. But he also chooses to fight some terrible ones. Whether people see that, and how they respond, depends a lot on their personal histories as well as their core values.

My formative experience of DU was watching a small number of DU members impugn Febble's motives with no warrant whatsoever, and seemingly no one intervening on behalf of what I would regard as simple decency. I understand a bit better, now, why they thought their behavior was reasonable. I can't say that I respect it. I suppose it's human, all too human. Some people on this board are circling the wagons under threat, and they know who their friends are, and they sometimes seem bizarrely confused about who their enemies are. I think it has gotten better, but I wouldn't say it is good.

A lot of what happens on DU isn't actually visible; people react to posts, but one can rarely see them reacting. The people giving you respect mostly are doing it invisibly -- and of course most of them aren't reading the thread. By my observation, autorank was in a small minority when he reacted with "outrage" to the ESI report on Cuyahoga County. autorank is a respected member of the community, and better known than you are, and most people aren't actually going to tell him off when they think he is off the wall or out in the Delta Quadrant. Indeed, many are predisposed to avoid forming that thought; they just find less uncomfortable threads to read.

Election integrity is a majoritarian value. Tribalism just isn't good enough. But sometimes it pulls us, and we all have to try to push back.

[Febble]

149. From autorank's OP:

Check this out:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ohio_voting

"The election system in its entirety exhibits shortcomings with extremely serious consequences, especially in the event of a close election," wrote Steven Hertzberg, director of the study by the San Francisco-based Election Science Institute.

From autorank's comment above:

I've never written about you and never will.

From autorank's OP:

I'd suggest using this thread to explore this issue. It's an outrage. Who in Cleveland hired ESI?
On what basis? Was there a bid?

GD Thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Isn't that a little like a drug company hiring a big pharma lobbying firm to tell them about price gouging?

From autrank's comment above:

I can't imagine what you will do if you get some full tile criticism but that's your problem. You won't have me to blame;)

:shrug:



Note: my bold; autorank cannot read my comments. It would appear he also cannot read his own

[blm]

146. My prediction has been that machines WILL get rigged and TRACED back to a

Democrat. I expect a few races like this - all set up to implicate the Democratic party. All of a sudden, the UNTRACEABLE aspect of the machines will not be a factor in ANY proDem rigged machine.

[autorank]

150. That's what they'd like to do w/out any doubt. Have you seen this?

TEARDOWN

and this which is on top of Greatest



Electronic Voting Machines Could Skew Elections

Jack Tapper

"We're taking the vote-counting process and we're handing it over to these companies — and we don't know what happens inside these machines," said Edward Felten, a professor and a researcher at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, which ran the study.

Remember Jack from Salon when it was hot stuff and he was the multi tasking God of cyberspace.

You can see where the story goes. The machines suck,not secure, can't see anything, and the companies control it all. Who are they? Two of them are Republican and one is well, whatever. Jack Tapper on electing problems is very good news.

So ABC goes form 911, kiss my ass to ex-Foliation in the extreme (with it's best reporter, Ross) and now moves on to election fraud with it's #2 Tapper, who knows the subject. Its going to get interesting.

Be of good cheer...

[blm]

151. I am always cheering for the best and watching eagle-like for the worst.

As many of us are. ;)

[autorank]

152. I know what you mean. I'm surprised I even wrote this.

Easy speculation since they never give away this game plan, you can only infer it...endless debate.

I bet the October Surprise is in our camp. He can't go across the streed let alone to war in this
state. All they have to do is keep the polls coming.

Good to see you.