A member of
BlackBoxVoting.org took the time to key in an interview with Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, since it is not online.
Among other things, she says that touch-screens aren't computers. And people like these are making decisions for us?
Face to Face: A Conversation with … Glenda HoodSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel, Sunday, April 11, 2004, page 5H
Interviewed by Editorial Writer Douglas C. Lyons’
Q. What fuels the concern over the touch-screen equipment? I’m referring to the (U.S. Rep.) Robert Wexler lawsuit. What is the genesis behind having new technology and wanting a paper trail?
A. I think whenever there is a change, there’s a level of discomfort. With the surveys done after the 2002 election cycle, and there have been hundreds of successful elections with no equipment problems whatsoever, I think there are still some individuals who just don’t feel comfortable with other kinds of electronics; they may not really feel comfortable with the voting machines.Bev's note: OK, among the people who "just don't feel comfortable with electronics" are 1,600 of the nation's top computer scientists from M.I.T., Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett Packard who signed onto Dr. Dills Resolution on Electronic Voting. And as for no problems -- so the recent election that had a 30-vote spread between the candidates where the touch-screens lost 120 votes, but they couldn't do a recount, so they still don't know who won -- that's an example of "no equipment problem whatsoever"? The election in March where, in Bay County, all the votes got recorded for Carol Mosely Braun accidentally, that's another example of "no equipment problem whatsoever?"
Hood:
Hand in hand with that, I think there has been some bad information out there. I often say that we can get a lot of good information on the Internet. Still, it can be a dangerous tool, because it puts a lot of misinformation out there, and people tend to take it at face value. For example, people will refer to the new touch-screen machines as computers. They're not computers. They are not part of a system. They are not connected to anything. They are stand-alone machines that are developed specifically for an individual casting his or her vote.Bev's note:Therefore my son's Dell, which he uses to compose music and it is not connected to the Internet, is not a computer? And apparently she does not consider the end-of-day transfer, via modems and cell phones, of the vote transfer, to be "connected to anything." And one last thing: One of my sources, a computer scientist, was present at the training session for the ES&S touch screens in Miami, where the trainer was showing folks that they are wireless enabled.
But we mustn't worry. "They aren't computers."
Q. So what do you say to those skeptics who say, ‘What’s so difficult about putting on printers?’
A.
Well, everybody needs to understand that it isn't as difficult as that there is a process. First of all, today there are no paper printers that are manufactured and available for purchase by counties. The process that people need to understand is that at the federal level, standards have to be developed. Those standards are designed by an organization called NIST, the National Institute for Standards and Testing. NIST and the newly appointed elections assistance commission, which is responsible for making sure that all the components of the Help America Vote Act are put into place, develop the standards. those standards have not been developed at this point.
A lot of vendors have prototypes of a printer. In fact, we have been in contact with all the vendors, and across the board most of them say haven't submitted anything to the independent testing laboratories at the federal level. That's part of the process too. These vendors have to submit any type of voting equipment to these testing laboratories.Bev's note Now here are some out-and-out lies. "No paper printers available for purchase"? Diebold's machines, both optical scan and touch screen, have printers already inside them. Sequoia machines have a printer port that we saw used during the L&A test in Riverside, with (marvel of marvels) a PRINTER! I guess they do manufacture them.
Avante and AccuPoll have been certified, these are not "prototypes" but rather, machines that are already approved and on the market. And NIST, which is going to be involved in standards and certification, didn't get funded so there is now doubt as to whether NIST will do it after all, or who will, or whether anyone will.
Glenda Hood: She's gotta be replaced.
Bev Harris
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