Election Commissioners Party With Vendors

More than 18 New York counties have passed resolutions asking to keep their lever voting machines and the governor has issued directives to limit state employee travel expenses; nevertheless 180 county election commissioners and staff spent their evenings partying at events sponsored by voting machine vendors who plied their wares at the four day annual Election Commissioners Association meeting at the Finger Lakes in late June.

Here are some highlights of the Daily News report of the event which is worth reading in full, especially for the photos:

At this conference, vendors seeking business with election boards across the state picked up the tab for food and open bars...

On Wednesday, commissioners and staffers attended work sessions about paper ballets, vendor contracts and other election issues. At one point, Sequoia and ES&S - two companies vying to supply electronic voting machines to election boards across New York - pitched their wares...

As the party ended, some revelers re-created a scene from "Animal House" by jumping up and down, yelling "Shout!" to the Isley Brothers' hit.

[New York Election Commissioners Association president William]Scriber said he didn't know which vendor paid for the private party room and liquor and had "no recollection" of who threw the costume party. A hotel sales rep did not return calls.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/29/2009-06-29_with_albany_in_chaos_board_of_elections_staff_live_it_up_in_finger_lakes.html?page=1#ixzz0KxdfMqNZ&C

Lever Voting Advocates Go Head-To-Head with State Board of Elections Commissioner in Public Forum on Thursday

As State Pushes Ahead with Rollout of Computerized Voting Systems, Election Watchdogs Threaten Legal Action

What: Public Forum: The Threat to Voting in New York and What to Do About It

When: Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Main Sanctuary at St. Marks Church in the Bowery, 10th Street and 2nd Ave in Manhattan

Who: Douglas Kellner, Commissioner of NYS Board of Elections
Mark Crispin Miller, renowned author of "Fooled Again, The Real Case for Electoral Reform"
Andi Novick, attorney and driving force behind efforts to preserve New York's constitutionally-compliant lever voting system, founder of the Election Transparency Coalition

Sponsored by the Village Independent Democrats

Why: New York State is the only state in the U.S. that conducts elections in a transparent and verifiable manner. All other states have moved to electronic vote-counting systems that make it impossible for election officials, official observers, candidates, or the public to determine whether the announced vote totals accurately represent the votes cast. These concealed vote-counting systems violate the principles of a constitutional democracy as represented in two centuries of statutory law and judicial precedence interpreting New York’s Constitution, and as recently held by Germany’s Constitutional Court.

Yet electronic voting systems are slated to be fully operational in New York by 2010. And 1.4 million of New York's registered voters will be forced to vote on them this year, without even the weak assurance of State or Federal "certification" or a 100% election-night hand count to confirm that the systems' count was accurate.

At this free public event, Andi Novick will outline the reasons New York's Election Reform and Modernization Act (ERMA) is unconstitutional, Mark Crispin Miller will discuss the dangers of electronic vote counting systems, and Douglas Kellner will explain the state's insistence on an expensive change in election technology beyond what is required by the federal government.

Links: Andi Novick/Election Transparency Coalition: http://nylevers.wordpress.com/
Mark Crispin Miller: http://markcrispinmiller.com/
Douglas Kellner: http://www.elections.state.ny.us/
Village Independent Democrats: http://villagedemocrats.org/

# # #

Voting Rights Groups Respond to Holt Bill

Reposted from our friend Mark Crispin Miller , the response of some voting rights groups to the recent New York Times endorsement of the Holt Bill.

From Bev Harris:

CHERRY-PICKING ELECTION REFORM ADVOCATES, STACKING THE EXPERTS DECK

(You may discuss this at http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/80460.html)

As far as I can tell, the editorial–which did not even provide the correct name for the bill
–did not contact or seek any input from the many voting rights and election reform groups
that oppose this legislation. Among those omitted were Black Box Voting, VotersUnite.org,
Open Voting Consortium, and Democracy for New Hampshire, whose Nancy Tobi has been examining Holt’s various renditions of his bill for years; nor did the Times note the opposition
of Brad Friedman of Bradblog, interview voting rights scholar and attorney Paul Lehto, or
confer with the Election Defense Alliance.

Read more.

Columbia County Election Commissioner Rejects "Pilot Project."

Columbia County Election Commissioner Virginia Martin writes on why her county will continue to use lever voting machines in the fall elections:

Uncertified Machines Do Not Serve Voters

A sentence in the June 17 editorial, "Iranians' fight for democracy," sent a chill down my spine.

"...Iran's supreme leader ... has called for a limited recount."

Hold that thought. Something else -- that I literally shudder to connect to the above -- has been nagging at me for some weeks. It is this:

How many candidates running for office this fall know that the votes that will decide their fate will be counted by an uncertified computer program?

And how many of those candidates know that only a small fraction of those votes will be hand counted after the fact to see if that uncertified computer program (which also has not yet proved to be accurate, reliable or tamper-proof) worked as it was intended to and was not hacked into?

"A limited recount."

Across New York, 47 counties with 1.4 million registered voters will participate in a "pilot project" in which uncertified optical-scan voting machines, manufactured and programmed by Sequoia Voting Systems or Election Systems & Software, will count the votes. Some of these counties signed on for full participation, so that all the votes in every election district will be cast and counted using uncertified machines. Other counties signed on for participation of a more modest scope, in which just a few districts, perhaps, will be involved.

And the recounts of these votes?

They'll be limited.

Right now, and the regulations are now being considered, it appears that three percent of all machines will be subjected to a hand recount. Additionally recounted, and fortunately at 100 percent, will be any race in which there is a margin of one percent or less between candidates. (Think about that one. If Candidate A receives 51 percent and Candidate B receives 49 percent, there will be no full recount.) Fortunately, it does seem that each race will be subject to at least a partial recount.

It's been suggested that any candidate will have the option of going to court to request a full recount. Yet that unfairly puts the onus on the candidate, who risks charges of sour grapes or of running up expenses to add to the taxpayers' tab. Remember that this year, an "off year," is the election for modest candidacies -- for town board members, tax collectors, highway superintendents. These are not races in which high-powered attorneys backed by deep-pocketed interests stand ready to spring to action, to demand the recounts their clients deserve.

But Columbia County candidates and voters will be far better served. None of our races will require "limited recounts" because none will be counted by an optical scanner. Voters will select candidates using their choice of a lever machine or ballot-marking device.

That's because Commissioner Don Kline and I opted out of the optical-scan pilot project. We, along with the overwhelming majority of our custodians, inspectors, voters and county legislators, hope to continue using this voting system of lever machine with ballot-marking device, which meets all the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act, well into the future.

Virginia Martin is the Democratic commissioner of the Columbia County Board of Elections.

(First published in print in the Albany Times Union June 25th 2009.)
















































"...Iran's supreme leader ... has called for a limited recount."

Hold that thought. Something else -- that I literally shudder to connect to the above -- has been nagging at me for some weeks. It is this:

How many candidates running for office this fall know that the votes that will decide their fate will be counted by an uncertified computer program?

And how many of those candidates know that only a small fraction of those votes will be hand counted after the fact to see if that uncertified computer program (which also has not yet proved to be accurate, reliable or tamper-proof) worked as it was intended to and was not hacked into?

"A limited recount."

Across New York, 47 counties with 1.4 million registered voters will participate in a "pilot project" in which uncertified optical-scan voting machines, manufactured and programmed by Sequoia Voting Systems or Election Systems & Software, will count the votes. Some of these counties signed on for full participation, so that all the votes in every election district will be cast and counted using uncertified machines. Other counties signed on for participation of a more modest scope, in which just a few districts, perhaps, will be involved.

And the recounts of these votes?

They'll be limited.

Right now, and the regulations are now being considered, it appears that three percent of all machines will be subjected to a hand recount. Additionally recounted, and fortunately at 100 percent, will be any race in which there is a margin of one percent or less between candidates. (Think about that one. If Candidate A receives 51 percent and Candidate B receives 49 percent, there will be no full recount.) Fortunately, it does seem that each race will be subject to at least a partial recount.

It's been suggested that any candidate will have the option of going to court to request a full recount. Yet that unfairly puts the onus on the candidate, who risks charges of sour grapes or of running up expenses to add to the taxpayers' tab. Remember that this year, an "off year," is the election for modest candidacies -- for town board members, tax collectors, highway superintendents. These are not races in which high-powered attorneys backed by deep-pocketed interests stand ready to spring to action, to demand the recounts their clients deserve.

But Columbia County candidates and voters will be far better served. None of our races will require "limited recounts" because none will be counted by an optical scanner. Voters will select candidates using their choice of a lever machine or ballot-marking device.

That's because Commissioner Don Kline and I opted out of the optical-scan pilot project. We, along with the overwhelming majority of our custodians, inspectors, voters and county legislators, hope to continue using this voting system of lever machine with ballot-marking device, which meets all the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act, well into the future.

Virginia Martin is the Democratic commissioner of the Columbia County Board of Elections.

Like Filling Out Lottery Tickets: New York State Rolls Out Uncertified Voting Systems for Fall Preview

Despite the steady stream of keep our levers resolutions emanating from county legislatures throughout the state, the State Board of Elections is carrying through with a pilot Op-scan project for the fall 2009 elections. ETC e-voting education consultant Howard Stanislevic sounds the alarm in this post from his blog e-voter.blogspot.com :

ALBANY -- At a May 12th Commissioners' meeting, after collaborating with the US Dept. of Justice, the New York State Board of Elections cavalierly decided to risk the disenfranchisement of nearly a million of the state's voters, by allowing what one commissioner called a "huge pilot" of uncertified software-driven electronic vote-counting systems around the state in 45 of its 62 counties.

Here are the links to the Commissioners' resolution, and other documents containing the details of the plan:

* Authorizing Resolution 05/12/2009 (PDF 50KB)
* Pilot Plan Narrative 05/12/2009 (PDF 65KB)
* Timeline 05/12/2009 (PDF 492KB)
* County Participation Spreadsheet 05/12/2009 (PDF 42KB)

Over 900,000 voters (read: guinea pigs) could be affected by these irresponsible tests, which one county election commissioner, perhaps unwittingly, compared to filling out lottery tickets. Gambling with the votes of a million New Yorkers is hardly a way to instill public confidence.

The plan contains almost no provisions for manual recounts of the paper ballots to check the computer tallies, other than those that might be obtained through the courts. The only exceptions are for contests with a margin of victory of 1% or less. Full recounts of those contests will be conducted, but we bristle at the suggestion that the victory margin reported by the uncertified voting system will be the one used to determine whether or not the hand count to check the system will take place.

Commissioner Douglas Kellner made a motion at the May 12th meeting to allow any candidate to ask for and obtain a full hand recount. His fellow commissioners defeated it by a bipartisan 3 to 1 vote.

Apparently Kellner's colleagues believe that:

* any candidate can convince a judge that a voting machine didn't count her votes -- even without evidence to support such a claim;

* the judge will also believe that the paper ballots have been preserved inviolate and thereby allow them to be hand counted to find out who really won an election (contrary to a number of previous decisions by the highest court in the State -- not to mention the highest court in the land); and

* the court would gladly spend taxpayers' money for such high-minded purposes as convincing losers of elections, and their supporters, that they really lost fair and square -- even given the amount of money already spent on the new voting systems.

But the voters of New York deserve more than just naive speculation about the ease of obtaining hand counts from a potentially partisan and cost-conscious judiciary. They deserve the actual hand counts if and when they are needed.

So what if the margin of victory happens to be slightly more than 1% (say 1% + 1 vote for example), and the courts deny the recount request? In that case the hand count reverts to only a 3% spot check, per Election Law § 9-211 -- part of the Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005 that brought us this mess in the first place. If there are no discrepancies found in the spot check, the election could be certified -- which is more than can be said for the voting systems that actually produced the election results.

Unfortunately, the math is unequivocal: in many elections, a 3% audit can reveal absolutely NO discrepancies, and the outcome of the elections can still be absolutely wrong. If that happens, no one will be the wiser.

One other potential safeguard remains for the million voters who will be subjected to this foolish experiment: the long-awaited and yet to be promulgated State Board of Elections auditing regulations known as Part 6210.18. For well over a year now, we have been involved in the drafting of these regulations. They offer the only hope for anything better than the ill-considered 3% spot checks in the Election Law.

A year ago, many of New York's good government groups wrote to the Board, asking for these regulations to reflect best practices. But so far, progress has been slow to non-existent in this area, even as the mad rush to run real elections using potentially fake voting systems continues.

All that said, while the value of certification has been greatly exaggerated, we think it might be fair to say that if done properly, certification can prove that a voting system can work -- not that it actually will work. This weak assurance is of course not sufficient, but it's better than no assurance at all. The only way to be sure to prevent the disenfranchisement of New York's voters by untrustworthy computers, is to hand count 100%, at least until the systems are certified.

We'll be following this story and reporting on efforts to fix this latest debacle and avoid the Floridization of New York's elections. We don't think this is what New Yorkers signed up for when the State accepted $50-million in federal funds to replace its lever voting machines under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). The State has not been able to certify a voting system to replace the levers since then, and as always, it's important to read the law first.

In New York, the law has been decidedly anti-recount. So paper ballots or no paper ballots, the software counts will rule -- just as they did in Florida's 2000 election which brought us Bush v. Gore and ultimately, HAVA itself. Ironic, huh?

The Board did agree to present the matter to the State's Citizens' Election Modernization Advisory Committee. While their opinions are as yet unknown, and probably not binding, at least one member of the group has gone on record as favoring 100% hand counts of ALL votes counted by ANY uncertified voting system. This is in direct conflict with 3 out of the 4 State Board of Elections Commissioners who represent our two major political parties, but unfortunately may no longer be faithfully representing the voters of New York.

Editor's note: Election Transparency Coalition does not endorse op-scan counting with less than a 100% hand-count verification conducted at the polling place on election night.

Ramifications of E-Voting: Spiralling Needs & Costs

Lest there be any doubt that op-scans will generate ever-increasing obligations, needs and costs for our election boards, check out this advertisement sent to our county election commissioners from NTS Data Services (emphasis supplied):

Subject: Machine Inventory and Management from NTS

Hi Everyone,

Many interesting bits of information came out of the State Conference sessions last month, particularly in the area related to our new voting machines. What has become more and more recognizable throughout this entire process, (and spelled out by the State Board in the Tuesday afternoon session) is the need to accurately and precisely track vital information about each and every component of your voting equipment and related inventory throughout their lifetime.

Understanding this requirement, NTS is developing our asset tracking and machine management system we call "CUSTODIAN". CUSTODIAN will address a number of the requirements you will have to meet in order to be compliant with State regulations including:

· Tracking of Machine Testing Dates
· Maintenance and Error Logs
· Security Seal Numbers
· Chain of Custody Reports

.......and the list goes on

The information CUSTODIAN will provide will be substantial and believe me it's going to have to be. This type of data is not something that can be hand written down on a piece of paper or easily managed via a spreadsheet or simple database. As you heard from the State Board, this is critical information that you are going to have to maintain and should have access to at a moments' notice.

Our current plans call for a release of a simple and straightforward inventory and asset tracking module prior to the September primary - in time for use in the pilot projects this year. The full management version will be released in the first quarter of 2010, allowing you plenty of time to become familiar with it before implementation of the certified machines in the 2010 elections.

CUSTODIAN will be a work in progress, changing and developing to meet the needs of our New York State counties as they will continue evolve. As we go down this new road together, it is obvious there will be many changes and additional requirements driven by your needs and those of the State. We have never let you down before and are not about to this time around.

In the next few days you will receive by mail additional information on CUSTODIAN. This mailing will summarize some of the many features that will be included in the system - take a look at it, I think you will find it interesting and helpful.

We look forward to both your comments and interest.

Take care


Not the kind of growth industry we can look forward to.

Pro-Lever Citizens Testify Before NY Senate Committee

The New York Senate Standing Committee on Elections is holding a series of hearings across the state to receive public comment on proposed election related legislation. Pro-lever activist from New York City, the Hudson Valley and the Capital area took advantage of a meeting on May 11th in Albany to present their views on retaining our lever voting machines before Senators Joseph Addabbo, Jr., committee chair and Senator Joseph Griffo.

Representatives of New York Citizens for Clean Elections , the Kingston Branch of the American Association of University Women, ARISE, and Election Transparency Coalition joined other citizen activists in speaking out against software based voting systems and in favour of levers. Although the meeting was not specifically convened to address voting system legislation, pro-lever speakers made up half of the speakers presenting public testimony, pointing out the constitutional abuses posed by electronic voting, the unsustainable costs, and urging the Senate to consider rescinding or amending the State Election Reform and Modernizations Act (ERMA) to allow for the continued use of lever voting machines.

Here are links for the testimony of Ruth Wahtera of AAUW Kingston who maintains a blog on lever voting machines and Joanne Lukacher of ETC.