We are now drafting a voting reform law here in California.......

[msongs]

just a little group of us deaniacs and DFA people.

the initiative will have several components including, but not limited to, the following:

no voting system will be used if made etc by a company that gives campaign money to parties or individuals (this includes owners, boards of directors, corporate parents of said companies etc),

no voting system will be allowed that does not generate a (hard copy receipt) that can be kept and hand counted by the voting authority (the counties, in CA), under supervision of representatives of people whose names are on the ballot,

no voting system will be used that has proprietary code - all such code must be available to the voting authority and representatives of all people whose names are on a ballot,

no voting system will be allowed to call out of the system or receive calls into the system unless routed through the voting agency who will record and document all such calls to representatives of people whose names are on the ballot,

and other related voting system issues as we can come up with.

If the democrats who control the california legislature will not enact such reform, or support such reform, we will attempt to place it on the ballot as an initiative. And we are going to DEMAND that Arnold support us.

DU members are invited to post additional reforms we might put in this reform package.

Marshall Songs
Riverside CA
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[autorank]

1. I'm very proud of my native state to originate this.

:yourock:

[Carolab]

2. Marshall, since you're a Dean person

Did you check out the interview with Dean posted tonight on this forum? He talks about the Oregon system as a model. Have you checked into it?

Link to thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x206278

[msongs]

7. no, but I will now. glad to say I met him 3 times and he has two of

the Dean shirts I made...grrr wish I had a pic made then.

Msongs
www.msongs.com

[Vektor]

3. This is a wonderful idea!

I'm a California resident too. You have my full support!

[Maat]

4. You have my support too.

Ma'at in Murrieta/Temecula, Calif.

[Helga Scow Stern]

10. And mine!

from Ojai. Let us know if/how we can help.

[genius]

5. Include public ownership of the code.

As long as private companies own the code, they will get away with the rigging.

[claudiajean]

6. Please don't call it a paper "receipt" - please use the term...

"Voter Verified Paper Ballot".

A paper trail, journal tape, or receipt has a completely different legal meaning. The existing voting machine companies are anxious to see that voting "reform" legislative packages have "paper trail" or "receipt", as they can thwart the intent when the terminology is not clear nor legally binding in the way that "voter verified paper ballot" is.

A voter verified paper ballot means that the paper record, verified by the voter at the time of voting, becomes the official record of the vote, and is the only vote-bearing document that can be used for a hand recount.

:)

[msongs]

8. Great ideas, keep em coming.... it is just me and a few friends.......

sitting here in my house. local activism rules.

Msongs
Riverside CA
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[msongs]

9. done! at least here in my house, wish I could edit my post as

people make suggestions. but will have to work on it and post it on my website when we are finished...however long this takes.

Msongs
Riverside Ca
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[EFerrari]

12. Good work,Marshall. I'm in SF and will keep working this issue

until hell freezes or we can believe our election returns.

[Higans]

11. Right On! if Arnold knocks this down we will all know who the

Facist are!!!!!!!!! This is great!!! Recomend this to every state!!!

[msongs]

13. thanks to all of you who have messaged me suggestions: send more :-)

to put on our list.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[McCamy Taylor]

14. Once upon a time as California went so went the country, however

i expect Congress to pass an ammendment requiring California to use the same sucky fraudulent voting equipment as the rest of the country on the grounds that it would not be fair if the whole country didnt have uniform standards or some crap like that.

"States' rights? We dont need no stinking states's right?" Neo-cons

"Creak" (Sound of Barry Goldwater rolling over in his grave)


:cry:

[truckin]

15. Good stuff! This should be put into law in all states!!

[Liberty Belle]

30. Lockyer will sue. Our AG already filed 2 dozen or so lawsuits

against the feds for trying to force bad laws on California--from anti-environmental measures to allowing sale of assault weapons. FYI, he's won 90%!

[LiveInHope]

16. Reliable recounts if necessary

Since the Ohio recounts were such a joke we should have some wording to guarantee meaningful recounts. Thank you for working on this!!

[Luminous Animal]

17. More suggestions:

You need to turn your negatives into positives. People are turned off by negatives.
And you need a snazzy title.

For instance:
(I'm having trouble with the first sentence, so I'll skip to the second.)

Every voting system certified by the State must generate a voter verified paper ballot, etc., etc., etc,

The code for every voting system certified by the State must be open source available for inspection by, etc., etc., etc,


Some other points;
1) The law used to be and perhaps still is... the vote must be tabulated at the polling place and results posted outside after the polls close and before the ballots were transferred (by hand or by modem) to the central tabulating center. I think this is still a good idea.

2) At the central tabulating center, a 3% random audit of every precinct matching the voter verified paper ballot with the machine count.

3) I also think you need to cover how the hard copy of the electronic ballot is handled during transfer from the precinct to the central tabulating center.

You really need a lawyer on this, so that your language is not vague or contradicts current voting regulations or, in cases that it does, that the new regulations will over ride any conflicts with the old.

You might want to consider contacting Pete Camejo. He's smart, he's interested in the issue, he's got contacts and he's got an organization.

Good luck! And if you need any help getting this on the ballot, I would be to word on it in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

[Luminous Animal]

18. Regarding recounts...

And my second suggestion re: random audit...

A recount of the precinct should kick in if the machine does not match the paper in a random audit. As for a full recount, you may want to look into current regulations, provisions for recount may vary from county to county.

[Bill Bored]

19. Mandate the use of the Audit Trail

First of all, the hard copy receipt needs to be voter-verified when the actual vote is cast.

Secondly, there needs to be a random audit of every election (race) using the voter-verified paper ballots, which you call receipts. I can't say for sure what the hand-count percentage should be but statisticians should be consulted to make sure it provides reasonable certainty that the machines have counted correctly. Probably at least 3% of the vote of each county, if the precincts are truly selected at random, would be enough to detect fraud/error, and there should be a full hand count of the entire county if the 3% sample deviates from the machine total by as little as one vote.

This is what was supposed to happen in the Ohio recount, but it didn't because the precincts were not randomly selected in most counties, contrary to Ohio law. You might therefore have to define in the law exactly what the word "random" means, in case you end up with another Blackwell someday.

Hope this helps! Tell me what you think.

On edit, I see that I'm not the only one to have thought of this. But I think it should be the law in every state and we should SUE them all if necessary to make it so.

[yurbud]

20. great work

Too bad you can't throw in something about recalls, like just replacing governor with lt. Gov.

[Silverhair]

21. Sounds good. May I suggest some additions?

Adequate voting machines. Standing in line for hours should not happen.

Make voting a two week period. Why just a single day?

We also need some controls to make sure only citizens can vote, every citizen has the chance to vote, but only vote once.

[candice]

22. Great. A few suggestions

from another Californian. Same day registration. Weekend voting. Blackout on media coverage of elections in other states (the exit polls haven't been right for 2000, 2002 (in Georgia after blackbox voting), or 2004, so why bother with them). Why can't we wait until all the absentee ballots and overseas ballots are cast before declaring a winner? Half of all ballots cast in Silicon Valley are absentee. Although I have always liked going to the polls and watching people vote, with blackbox voting, I don't trust that my vote is applied accurately so am going to absentee ballot voting.

I read that the paper trail has to be an exact duplicate of the ballot and that it is dropped into a locked box. The voter should have a copy, too.

Train people who work at the polls.

Voting machines need to be allocated according to projected turnout (and always include the same amount as was needed for the previous election--at a minimum).

[Silverhair]

23. I have a problem with same day registration.

What is to keep some one from running around and voting in several places?

Alternative idea. No "registration" at all. We seem to be moving toward a national ID card anyway, so let that also be your voters registration.

Might run into a freedom of press issue on the blackout.

Waiting two weeks to find out the winner will be a though sell. People will want to know quickly. I have to admit, I have enjoyed every major election night for decades, even when my guy didn't win, and more so when he/she did.

[Eric J in MN]

25. You need proof of where you live when you register to vote,

on Election Day or any other day.

We have Election Day registration in MN. it's great.

[Eric J in MN]

24. The ballots must be human-readable, verified by the voter,

placed into a ballot box by the voter (not behind glass, since most voters don't check it when it's behind glass.)

The machine-count shall be considered preliminary.

There will be a full hand-count of the ballots on Election Night, observed by witnesses from the parties, the media, and the public.

The hand-count shall be the count submitted for certification.

[Bill Bored]

33. You might as well do away with the machines then

Full hand count makes the machines redundant, so why bother with them?
I don't see the point of having machines and a full 100% hand count (not a recount).

[Eric J in MN]

26. Anyone involved in decision-making for buying voting machines is

barred from employment with a voting-machine company for the next 10 years.

[radio4progressives]

27. Good start but has to have more teeth

I'm not a lawyer and so the language i have here isn't right either but essentially, the point has to be made very clear in the draft -

Firstly, that the sole owner of the vote, belongs to the citizen and to no other, no other group of individuals or organization and above all, not any commercial enterprise (company/business). Meaning, that every procedure from ballot casting, to ballot counting, and tallies tabulated - must be done in the open, in full view of the public and the press and conducted by civil servants.

Secondly, all electronic and computer machines, including optical scans must be not be used in any elections - based on the inability to secure the integrity of the vote casting and the vote counting.

This will mean hand counting of paper ballots, which will mean an a sharp increase in number of hired civil servants to the counting, and that the official results will not be known until every vote is counted.

Exit polls may be conducted by citizen groups/organizations and partisan organizations, (including media organizations should they choose, but the media *must* broadcast accurate reporting of results sourced from citizen groups.

I could go on, but i offer some these few items as the minimum of any future reform. By the way, I live in Northern California - so I'm very interested election reform.

It might be news to some, that San Francisco conducts IRV method for Mayoral and Supervisor elections. Let's get to work in getting Los Angeles up to par - (ha ha ha ha ha ... surrrrrre) and the rest of the blue and purple states... like Ohio and Michigan and Florida and New Mexico, and Arizona, Montana, Colorado, North Carolina, West Virginia, Louisiana and yes, even Texas.

[Liberty Belle]

28. I applaud your efforts. Here are more suggestions:

Personally I'd prefer no voting machines at all-only paper ballots, in case there are ways to rig these things that we haven't thought about. Also, paper receipts are useless if we can't do a full hand recount, hence the importance of being sure the FIRST count is accurate. Be especially wary of things like the Populex machines (another GOP-backed company with ties to Carlyle Group) that spit out paper "receipts" with bar codes unreadable by voters. Pure, old fashioned paper ballots where you mark an X by the appropriate name are still the best in my book.

Your initiative should also make it easier to get recounts. Caps on the cost to the candidate, for instance, with a provision that if the outcome changes, the state (or local jurisdiction, in local races) foots the bill, not the candidate. If fraud/vote tampering/widespread voter intimidation is found to have been perpetrated by a party, that party shall be liable for all expenses incurred as a result. Automatic recounts if the margin is close.

Absolutely no handling, transporting, or counting ballots by partisan groups or private companies. All ballots should be counted at the polling place in front of at least one witness from all political parties that choose to participate.

Right to a new election with paper ballots and hand-counting if a sufficient % of irregularities are found, such as pre-punched ballots, voter intimidation, wide discrepancies from exit polls, votes added, erased or changed by machines (another reason to stay away from these things), power outages/machine breakdowns that prevent people from voting, etc.

Mandate an identical percentage of machines to registered voters in every single precinct and polling place--no long lines in Dem districts and short lines in Rep districts allowed.

Require anyone registering voters to list their own name legibly, along with contact info and maybe even a thumbprint on registration forms, so that if someone tosses out Democrat registrations and the forms turn up in the trash, we can track down the crooks who did it. Right now all you have to do is scrawl a signature as the witness.

Force the DMV to speed up the transfer of names to the REgistrar's office of new voters who register at the DMV. It takes many months and a lot of people were disenfranchised here as a result.

[Liberty Belle]

29. Another idea...

Let the voter's receipt include a code# that the voter can look up on the Internet to find out if his vote was actually counted and recorded for the proper candidate or initiative. :kick!:

[Liberty Belle]

31. You might also post this in the California forum here.

[Eric J in MN]

32. If you want to go for the gold, ban electronic-voting altogether.

The biggest problem in 2004 was people touching Kerry on the touchscreena and getting Bush on the review screen.

If even a small percent of people in that situation don't check the review-screen, it's enough to sway an election.

There is no voting reform which can prevent a touchscreen from recording differently than what the person touched, EXCEPT:

ban touchscreen voting machines.

[Luminous Animal]

36. This is my favorite solution....

Canada and, I believe Australia, are all paper ballot. People seem like machines, though. So, if we can't fight the machines, I think optical scans of a manually marked ballot tabulated and posted at the voting place, with a 3% random audit per precinct at the central tabulating center and the least discrepency initiciates a hand recount of the precinct.


_________________________________

Welcome Michael Moore bulletin board refugees! www.upsizethis.org

[truckin]

38. Mandatory recounts are critical

I totally agree that mandatory recounts are essential or having voter verified paper ballots is meaningless. I would suggest a mandatory recount of 5% of the ballots with 3% random and with each major party selecting 1% of the precincts of their choice. If in the future there are other parties with a meaningful % of the votes the 2% selected recounts could be split between the number of parties in the race.

When you have a document that is ready to submit to CA, please share it with everyone on DU. This is a great idea and we should try to implement legislation with recommendations like this in every state. I am in Connecticut and would be willing to coordinate the effort here. Thanks for your effort in this issue.

[Bill Bored]

37. Improve the Old Lever Machines!

The only problem I've heard about with lever machines is that they sometimes get stuck at "999" because the mechanism is hard to turnover.
But there are other mechanisms that wouldn't have this problem.

Consider the old analog electric meters that just go round and round with no digital incrementation. Each increment of 1 vote would require the same amount of mechanical force as any other. They don't turnover at 999; they just keep spinning around like clocks. Just food for thought.

I'm planning on implementing this type of machine for our elections in my new Republic of Boredland. ;)

[Dancing_Dave]

34. Good idea!

:yourock:

[rumpel]

35. This is what Shelly has already done

KS04:056
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Carol Dahmen
Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Lauren Hersh
916-653-6575
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley Announces All Remaining E-voting Counties Have Met Standards for Recertification
SACRAMENTO, CA – Secretary of State Kevin Shelley today announced that all counties that utilize electronic touchscreen voting systems, with the exception of four counties that had purchased the Diebold TSx, are now able to use their electronic voting machines for the November 2, 2004 Presidential Election. The remaining counties and touchscreen vendors agreed to meet the stringent safety and reliability standards that were a pre-condition of recertification.
“I am pleased to announce that all eleven counties using electronic touchscreen voting machines have met the conditions necessary for statewide certification of their voting equipment,” said Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.
On April 30, Secretary Shelley banned the use of the Diebold TSx system in four counties (Kern, San Diego, San Joaquin, and Solano) that used them and decertified touchscreen systems in 11 other counties (San Bernardino, Napa, Santa Clara, Tehama, Riverside, Shasta, Orange, Merced, Plumas, Alameda, and for early voting in Los Angeles) until added security measures could be put in place to safeguard the November vote. The 11 counties needed to either install a voter-verified paper trail or implement the set of added security measures before those systems could be recertified for the November 2004 election.
Among the security measures that the counties and vendors agreed to meet in order for the system to be recertified are:
• Voters must have the option of casting a paper ballot;
• The system’s computer source code must be made available for analysis by independent experts;
• No telephone, wireless or internet connections are permitted on the machines; and
• The county is required to engage in a comprehensive poll worker-training program.
-30-

Personally, I am still concerned about the accuracy of the centralized tabulation systems, which is electronic.