California Voting Systems Panel Meeting Gains Record Attendance

As the "regulars" (such as Kim Alexander, Jody Holder, Jim March) walked into the hearing, preparing for the January 15 California Voting Systems Panel (VSP) Meeting, all were stunned and gratified at the number of well-informed and enthusiastic members of the public that had attended. At the previous meeting, 8-10 of us gathered in the same room, along with 20+ vendor representatives.  Thursday we totaled around 100! 

We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all who traveled from as far as Southern California. Your presence and your public comments made it clear to the VSP as well as to the county elections staff how much passionate interest there is in this subject.

With this impressive public turnout, it is our hope that Secretary of State Shelley and the VSP are becoming aware that the public has a great interest in how our voting systems are being designed and tested and that their actions and decisions are being closely followed.

County elections officials - some with us, some opposed:
We are equally disappointed and disturbed by the opposition we are receiving from election officials. We recognize that they are in a bind, required to upgrade older election equipment, and that the rules are changing mid-stream.  Another factor may be that they are novices when it comes to computer technology.  But they need to decide if they are going to act only on the information they receive from biased vendors, or if they will listen to computer science and security professionals. 

Marsha A. Wharff, the Registrar of Voters from Mendocino was the exception. She thrilled all of us when she declared that no DRE would appear in her county unless it had a VVPB.

Comments like "We have been counting votes with computers since the Seventies" which are expressed by San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Deborah Hench, for example, make it clear that many do not understand the distinction between "using computers to count punch cards or scanned ballots" and "exclusively counting votes with only a digital record." And she seems to take an overtly dramatic position concerning potential costs, making one wonder what value she places upon democracy.

And Conny B. McCormack had the nerve to stand before the audience and wave one of the CA Recall ballots (the one with 130+ candidates and 2 propositions, printed on both sides of a scanner ballot the size of a restaurant placemat). She stood there and informed an astonished crowd that she just could not imagine how any vendor was supposed to print a VVPB which could meet "these" dimensions!  (Although ballot length may be a concern in some elections, it would definitely NOT be a concern for the recall, since a vote verified ballot would only have had to have "yes" or "no" for the recall and propositions and the name of the single candidate selected by the voter.  Clearly, and despite the inordinate number of candidates in that race, the VVPB for the California Recall Election would have been one of the shorter listings one might anticipate handling.)

After the meeting, we visited with John Byrne of Avante.  Their elections systems have been under consideration  for 14 months and was yet again witheld from certification for another month. He showed us the voter verified paper ballot produced by their VOTE-TRAKKER; it is approximately the size of a cash register receipt.  In the face of the absurd statements made by some of these elections officials, it would seem appropriate that members of their constituency schedule meetings with them and try to encourage these bureaucrats to study the issue a bit more carefully.

During public testimony, Mr. Byrne read a letter from the California Council of the Blind endorsing Avante's equipment.  Completing his remarks, the Avante sales representative expressed concern that members of the committee have taken public and outspoken positions opposing a voter-verified paper ballot for electronic voting systems, and therby could be perceived as having a conflict of interest.

Diebold TSx conditional certification not withdrawn:
In November 2003, the Voting Systems Panel conditionally certified the TSx (a 24-pound unit which Diebold chose to describe as a "modification" of the prior 48-pound TS model). This certification was issued pending the Secretary of State's investigation into Diebold's installation of uncertified versions of voting software in all 17 counties using Diebold equipment. 

Among many of the members of the public who addressed the panel concerning the Diebold issue, Kim Alexander of California Voter Foundation urged them to withdraw conditional certification of the TSx on the grounds that the unit was certified under false premises, since it is not federally approved. A copy of the letter Ms. Alexander submitted to the panel is available on CVF's web site.

It seems, therefore, that Diebold's voting equipment (including the TSx) will be used in California for the upcoming March 2, 2004 Primary election. California voters in four counties will be asked to vote on equipment that is currently not federally approved and may not be approved by March.

Adding to this the other 8 California counties that previously installed such systems, a total of 12 counties representing 40 percent of California's electorate will vote on paperless, computerized voting machines this March; four of these counties, comprising 13 percent of the electorate will use machines that are not federally approved and have only conditional state certification.

VerifiedVoting.org feels strongly that, in the absence of the NASED Certification of the TSx, these systems should be decertified as soon as possible, and that their use should be prohibited in the upcoming March Primary Election as well as the November General Election. We similarly believe that counties that have contracted for these systems in advance of their complete certification have made these purchase decisions in the absence of the voter's best interests -- particularly since there are systems available that already support a Voter Verifiable Paper Trail.

In an e-mail to their newsletter subscribers, Kim Alexander provided another wrapup on this meeting, and has included a proposal that "Voters concerned about security issues relating to Diebold, the TSx or any computerized voting machine have the right to request a paper, absentee ballot if they prefer not to vote on such systems. Absentee ballots can be requested February 2-24."

Ethernet card in the TSx?
Prior to the meeting, Bob Kibrick (of VerifiedVoting.org) was provided a copy of Diebold technical documents for the TSx. These documents clearly show that a wireless Ethernet card is installed in PCMCIA slot #1, and they even identify the specific vendor and part number for this card. Bob asked the VSP panel if they could confirm or deny whether the TSx machines delivered to California counties contained such a card. (NOTE: H.R.2239/S.1980 would forbid the inclusion of any wireless communications device in any voting machine.)

They, in turn, asked Mr. Freeman, who did not answer the question, but instead responded (on the record) that the testing he had conducted did not involve that capability. During the break, Bob asked Mr. Freeman directly whether or not the TSx contained a wireless Ethernet card and he responded that he did not know, because neither Diebold nor the ITA had provided that information to him! Mr. Freeman suggested that Bob ask the voting systems staff. He did (informally during the break) and they didn't know the answer either.

During Bob's last public comment of the day, he noted (for the record) that he had been unable to get an answer to this specific question about the wireless Ethernet card, and he questioned how the conditional certification of the TSx was appropriate given that neither the elections staff nor that State's consultant could answer a simple and direct question about the relevant hardware that these voting machines contain. Marc Carrel stated (on the record) that they would get Bob an answer to his question regarding the wireless Ethernet card. It is troubling that neither the elections department nor the State consultant was able to provide a definitive answer to this question.

VSP agrees to make relevant documents available to the public prior to future meetings:
In their comments, both Dennis Paull and Bob Kibrick pointed out that it was meaningless to allow the public to comment on agenda items when the public had been given no opportunity to review any of the relevant documents.

For example, agenda item 3A was adoption of revised certification procedures for the DFM Mark-A-Vote system, but the revised procedures were not made available to the public either prior to the meeting or even at the meeting. And since the details of those revisions were not presented during the brief oral discussion of that agenda item by the staff and panel members, obviously no member of the public could offer any informed comment.

Bob urged the VSP panel to open up the process and to make relevant staff reports and documents available to the public in a timely manner so that they can comment on agenda items in a meaningful way. Panel members Kyle and Carrel agreed that this needed to be done, and they directed staff to make such information available to the public for subsequent meetings.

This is a significant step forward, and it should permit us to make more effective public comment at subsequent meetings. Now that the VSP panel has stated in public (and for the record) that such documentation will be provided, we need to hold their feet to the fire and make sure that the staff releases to the public all of the relevant written materials pertaining to the agenda items for the February VSP meeting. Whenever possible, such material should be posted to the SoS website prior to the meeting, though that might not be possible for reports that arrive at the last minute. At a minimum, sufficient copies of such reports should be on hand for distribution to the public at the meeting at least one hour prior to the start of the meeting.

Statewide audit of elections systems continues:
The statewide audit that the Panel had called for last month was not yet completed and even more documentation was being requested. So as mentioned above, the conditional certification for Diebold's TSx was not changed. The Panel Chair, Mark Kyle, said that they didn't want to act rashly (and be subject to a law suit). He wanted to be sure he was on firm ground.

However, things got a bit tougher for Diebold, as the efforts of voting activists like Bev Harris and Jim March are beginning to have a positive impact.  At the meeting, Asst. SoS Marc Carrel informed the public that he was issuing a demand to Diebold that they respond to 10 new questions, thus expanding the range of the investigation.  That list was further expanded when VSP Chair Mark Kyle added 2 more items concerning the implementation of WindowsCE.  Jim March has been hounding the VSP for months as to why Diebold had not submitted this component of their systems for certification by Wyle Labs, the federal Independent Testing Authority.  Jim became curious about this issue after a message was discovered in the widely-distributed and controversial Diebold e-mails, revealing that internal discussions included comments about witholding "drawing attention" to the CE implementation. This message says it all, when Talbot Iredale asked "can we keep to a minimum the references to the WnCE 3.0 operating system".

Diebold has 30 days to comply with this next phase of the audit, and their continued certification in California is reliant upon their cooperation.  Failure to comply, and the results of the audit in general, will dictate whether they might be decertified for use thoughout California (the penalty many are demanding at this point.)

The problem is that de-certification needs to be announced 6 months prior to an election and that would be in early May. So if the VSP can delay until then, counties will be allowed to use the TSx and other previously installed equipment in the November General Election. We need to bring pressure on them to not delay beyond the February meeting.

Since we have a May 2 deadline for Diebold's decertification, we really need to get as many folks as possible from all around the State to come to the next meeting in four weeks. Please make tentative plans to attend the mid-February meeting.  Furthermore, take the time to write letters.

Regardless of your ability to attend the upcoming meeting, we urge everyone involved in this issue to write letters (not e-mails, physical letters) to the Voting Systems Panel. Secretary of State Shelley "did the right thing" by requiring a paper trail.  Everyone would have been happier if the timelines were shorter, but the biggest risk now is from resistance to any vvpt requirement at all.  We encourage everyone to communicate their support of Shelley's decision, and encourage him not to cave in to the pressure of elections officials whose job is to protect the accuracy of our elections. 

Who is looking out for California's interests?
The consultant that the State has hired to evaluate the voting machines was also present this time. One thing we learned was that, contrary to what was said in December 2003, this person is also involved with the Federal testing agencies. We were told that the State's consultant was a separate voice and that appears not to be the case. It would seem that the State needs an independent testing consultant and that that person or firm needs to double check what the Federal testers do. The fact that the federal testers gave a clean bill of health to the Diebold machines (other than the TSx, which is not have federal certification at all) doesn't give us any warm feelings. Quite the opposite.