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The following
was written by Andy April 29, 2005. It is a draft, about which he said,
"Just putting thoughts on paper right now. So in case something happens to
me, god forbid...I have it down for others in the future."
What a ballot is. It is not merely a piece of paper it is me...it is my
voice. Each of us should guard it more than we would our most prized or
precious possession. That ballot protects our other possessions. Without it
you have no say. Over the last couple of years I have been adamant about the
need for a voter verified paper ballot. It has been the driving force behind
what I have done and will continue to do. To me, my ballot is the most
sacred sacrament of the secular religion we call Democracy.
I have traveled around this country meeting with Election Officials such as
Mischelle Townsend. I sent her into a tailspin when I put a camera in her
face. Mischelle Townsend as you remember was the County Registrar in
Riverside CO. Ca. Mischelle is a drippy sweet kind of woman but underneath
beats the heart of a true viper. Mischelle has unwavering faith in Sequoia
Voting Systems. She is a huge proponent of paperless DRE's. Where is
Mischelle now? Well last I heard she was at home tending to her
father-in-law's knee. She spent her last day at work holed up in her office
with the door closed to avoid cameras. David Elliot is another viper. David
was the head honcho over at NASED. He was the one person most responsible
for allowing DRE’s to be approved for use. David was another really bad guy.
He told me that he would have liked to have been able to talk less formally
“without the camera.” I am sure he would have. But hey…I wanted to keep him
honest. David retired from service to the state to attend to a “nervous
condition.” Another piece of work was Scott Konopasek. Scott was the
Registrar in San Bernardino Co Ca. Scott was the man responsible for DRE’s
in two places, Snohomish WA and San Bernardino CA. Scott once remarked that
Bev and I were waging “Jihad”, but not in a “Palestine Israel sense of the
word, but in more of a Northern Ireland sense of the word.” Excuse me but
WTF? Scott is now a “consultant” I worry when former elections officials
become consultants. The one thing all these people have in common is an
undying faith in paperless voting. I would say that they were all crooked
but that would get me sued so I won’t say it. But I had no faith that they
were protecting the ballot.
Now I know that I have gotten off track here and talked about all the bad
guys in elections but there are people protecting your ballot. Some examples
are Freddie Oakley of Yolo County California, Ion Sancho of Leon County
Florida and Kevin Shelly and Julie Anne Kempf formerly of King County
Washington. These people are examples of people working hard to protect our
right to vote and in the case of Julie Anne losing their job in the process.
I have talked here about the people but not ballots up to this point. There
is a reason for that. The first group of people is out to get your ballot
the second wants to preserve your ballot.
There are currently many definitions and thoughts on the subject of ballots.
Some would argue that paper records or paper trails can serve the same
purpose as a paper ballot. All legislation I see coming from Washington
these days talk of Paper records/trails that are kept in a similar manner as
ballots. They are to be the official record of the election and are to be
used in case of manual recounts. As an example of how hard this would be,
let’s look at Diebold’s VVPAT. A long register receipt type “paper trail” is
printed. Granted it is better than what does not come from their DRE’s now
but it would be very difficult to “hand” count. So why spend money on it, if
it does not really do what we want it to do? It is similar but not the same
as a ballot. Imagine a 75 year old trying to read the small type on that
paper trail. Some, such as our first group of people would argue that an
electronic version of the ballot is ok and perfectly acceptable. David Dill
explains that voting on DRE’s is like handing your ballot to a man behind a
curtain, telling him how you want to vote, he fills in your choices and you
never see the ballot again. This is UNACCEPTABLE! Our ballot must be human
readable we must be able to discern our own choices and not leave it to a
machine interface. Now this is not always possible as in the case of the
blind but there are technologies that help the blind to vote in secret that
produce a ballot. Equipment such as Automark produces an optical scan or
human readable ballot. The ballot is printed on a heavy weight 8 1/2 x 11
sheet of paper with standard markings. Any human or optical scan machine can
read these ballots and they are ideal for hand counts should the need arise.
Now there are many people that say we should be all hand counted paper all
the time. In an ideal world we would do that. But realistically that is not
going to happen. Elections offices in most jurisdictions if not all, are
under funded. Elections officials struggle with tight budgets and in most
cases do a damned good job with what they have. Not all elections officials
are bad and many want to run good clean elections. Keeping the system honest
is up to us. With proper auditing and truly random recounts optical scans
are the safest and most accurate way to count an election. The trouble
starts when the votes are sent via electronic means to a central tabulator.
I would also add that the tabulator needs to be as secure as Ft. Knox
because after all our votes are more precious than gold.
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