Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News TUESDAY 10/11/05

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Center of the Universe, CALIFORNIA, adopts
paper ballot requirement for audits; requires
that vendors turn over the code.


Is this the end of little Rico?

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.
Only the deluded & complicit accept election results on blind faith.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News MONDAY 10/10/05

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:

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Please

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1. CA: Leads the Nation – Paper Ballots Mandated for Audits-Recounts

Here we go. The Governor was to veto this, the Secretary of State, Republican, and “Registrars” (what CA calls Boards of Elections) wanted it vetoed. They received so much citizen input, Arnie had to sign. Guess he sealed his own fate. What a wonderful process. CALIFORNIA LEADS THE NATION AGAIN!

Paper becomes the final word on e-voting
Governor signs bill making paper trail a must throughout the state

http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_3101255
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area

Turning aside opposition from state and local elections officials, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger late Friday signed a bill requiring hand counts of paper printouts from electronic voting machines as a check for accuracy.

As the first state to require paper trails for e-voting, California now becomes the largest state in the nation to use paper trails as the ultimate arbiters of political races, a move expected to sway other states.

"I'm very, very happy," said Sen. Debra Bowen, the Redondo Beach Democrat who authored the bill and chairs the Senate Elections and Apportionment Committee.

For 40 years, California law has required hand counts of ballots in 1 percent of precincts for confirmation of computerized vote tallies. But with fully electronic voting on touch screens, elections officials either have ignored the law or simply recounted the digital ballots. Now they must turn to an independent paper record that voters on electronic, touchscreen machines approve when casting their final ballot.

The state's chief elections officer and the California Association of Clerks and Elections Officials, had urged a veto. Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said the paper trails — printed for now on cash register-like paper rolls about the length of a football field — don't look enough like a ballot, nor do they offer verification of electronic ballots for visually handicapped voters.

Local elections officials objected to the measure as "time consuming and onerous" and pointed out that the malevolent programmers could rig the printouts just as they could the electronic vote tally.

For paper-trail advocates, that potential for fraud was more reason to press for the bill's passage.

<snip>

In a report last week, his organization found that 14 states — California makes it 15 — have decided to use paper trails for small-scale audits of voting-machine accuracy, as well as full recounts in challenged elections.

In those states, the final word on an election is contained in a roll of thermal paper, thanks to a controversial design adopted by the largest e-voting manufacturers. Bowen said paper trails don't need to be so ungainly.

"There's nothing that say the paper trail has to be this funky, thermal, toilet-paper thing," she said. ''One of the choices that the vendors have is to make a paper trail that will be easier for the elections officials to use."

Thousands of Californians had phoned and written the governor's office in support of the measure, a movement fueled largely by e-mail networks and weblogs, she said.

"Grassroots had such a big role to play," Bowen said. "I just really love to see that happen. That's how democracy's supposed to work."

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2. CA: Meet Senator Bowen, the Sponsor of the Elections Bill on Paper Ballot

Here is the California State Senator who wrote the legislation requiring that paper ballots be produced by all DRE’s by 1/7/2006. Diebold better hurry.

Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach)Bigraphy

Senator Bowen
A lawmaker for more than a decade, Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) continues to focus her attention on helping Californians improve their quality of life. Giving people tools to protect their privacy and their pocketbook, investing in California's natural resources and its children, and helping people gain access to and make sense of state government are the underlying themes that sum up Senator Bowen’s overall approach to being a state lawmaker.
Born in Rockford, Illinois, Bowen graduated from Michigan State University in 1976 and earned her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1979. In 1984, she started her own California law firm specializing in small business start-ups, tax law, land use, and environmental issues, while her long history of community activism began when she got involved with her local Neighborhood Watch program. Bowen was elected to represent the 53rd Assembly District in 1992 and was re-elected in 1994 and 1996 before being elected to represent the 28th Senate District in 1998. Bowen was re-elected to her second and final four-year Senate term in 2002, representing the reapportioned 28th District which stretches from Venice in the north, down the coast to Redondo Beach, then east to include all or parts of Carson, San Pedro, Long Beach, and Wilmington.

During her time in office, Senator Bowen has focused her attention on:

Opening Government To The People –

Helping Californians Protect Their Privacy Protecting California Consumers –

Protecting California's Environment & Energy Resources –

Protecting California’s Women (Updated 1/15/05)

[Gyre]

9. That's the best news I've heard in eons!!!

:)


Gyre

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3. CA: Legislative Analysis of Senator Bowen’s Bill – Signed by Gov.

LEGISLATIVE ANALYSIS OF BOWEN’S BILL ON PAPER BALLOTS,

SENATE BILL 370 -- SIGNED BY THE GOVERNOR


------------------------------------------------------------
|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 370|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|1020 N Street, Suite 524 | |
|[phone] Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
------------------------------------------------------------


UNFINISHED BUSINESS


Bill No: SB 370
Author: Bowen (D)
Amended: 6/27/05
Vote: 21


SENATE ELEC., REAP. & CONST. AMDMTS. COMM. : 6-0, 4/6/05
AYES: Bowen, Battin, Dunn, Murray, Poochigian, Romero

SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8

SENATE FLOOR : 35-0, 4/25/05
AYES: Aanestad, Ackerman, Alarcon, Alquist, Ashburn,
Battin, Bowen, Cedillo, Chesbro, Cox, Denham, Ducheny,
Dutton, Escutia, Figueroa, Florez, Hollingsworth, Kehoe,
Kuehl, Lowenthal, Machado, Maldonado, Margett,
McClintock, Migden, Ortiz, Perata, Poochigian, Romero,
Runner, Scott, Simitian, Speier, Torlakson, Vincent
NO VOTE RECORDED: Campbell, Dunn, Morrow, Murray, Soto

ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 57-19, 8/25/05 - See last page for vote


SUBJECT : Elections

SOURCE : Author


DIGEST : This bill provides that on a direct recording
electronic voting system, the electronic record of each
vote shall be considered the official record of the vote,
except that the voter-verified paper audit trail shall be
the official paper audit record and shall be used in the
CONTINUED





SB 370
Page
2

manual tally and any recount, as specified.

Assembly Amendments delete the present size provisions of
the Senate version and make clarifying changes.

ANALYSIS :

Use of Paper Record Copies of Ballots

Existing law requires, as of January 1, 2006, that all
direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems must
include an accessible voter verified paper audit trail
(AVVPAT) that prints a contemporaneous paper record copy of
each electronic ballot and allows each voter to confirm
his/her selections before casting their ballot.

Existing law provides that during the official canvass of
every election, the elections official must conduct a
public manual tally of the ballots cast in one percent or
more of the precincts chosen at random, as specified. This
manual tally is performed to check the accuracy of the
votes tabulated by electronic or mechanical voting systems.

This bill provides that on a DRE voting system, the
electronic record of each vote shall be considered the
official record of the vote, except that the paper record
copy of each electronic ballot shall be used for conducting
the one percent manual tally and any recount.

Existing law provides that a recount of votes cast for any
candidates or ballot measures may be conducted by the
elections official, requested by any voter, or ordered by
any court, as specified. For a recount of an election in
which the votes were recorded by an electronic system, the
voter requesting the recount may select whether the recount
is conducted manually, by means of the voting system used
originally, or both.

This bill provides that for purposes of DRE voting systems,
"conducted manually" means that either the paper record
copies or the voter verified paper audit trail of the
electronically recorded vote are counted manually, as
selected by the voter who requests the recount.








SB 370
Page
3

Over 20 percent of the registered voters statewide have
enrolled as permanent absent voters, and in some counties,
that number exceeds 40 percent. Polling place and poll
worker acquisition is often cited by elections officials as
one of their most difficult and expensive tasks.
Subtracting the permanent absent voters (who will not be
going to the polls anyway) from the number of registered
voters allowed in each precinct will reduce the overall
number of precincts in any given jurisdiction. A smaller
number of precincts will naturally mean fewer polling
places and poll workers will be needed to conduct an
election. The net effect of this bill depends entirely on
the number and geographic distribution of permanent absent
voters within each local jurisdiction.

A common criticism of DRE voting systems is that there is
no way for a voter or an elections official to verify the
device accurately recorded the intent of the voter. Now
that all DRE voting systems in California will be required
to have an AVVPAT, these paper record copies can also be
used to verify the results of machine tabulations and serve
to determine voter intent for manual recounts.

FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes

OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/25/05)

California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
Secretary of State

ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author, "if the
purpose of the 1% manual count is to try to verify the
accuracy of the vote, it just makes sense to use the paper
receipts on the machines to verify the accuracy of
the machines and the votes at the same time. That way,
elections officials will be able to verify whether the DRE
was recording the same information electronically and on
the paper receipt, though there is no way to determine if
it was accurately recording the voter's vote."

On January 21, 2005, then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley
issued final standards for the use of VVPATs in DRE voting
machines. This bill enacts into statute one of the







SB 370
Page
4

standards for the use of VVPATs, that the paper record copy
of the ballots cast on a DRE shall be used to conduct the
1% manual recount of ballots cast and any manual recount
requested by a voter.

ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The California Association of
Clerks and Election Officials oppose the bill as drafted
and invites the Senate to join in working with the
Secretary of State to draft comprehensive procedures for
the one percent manual tally.


ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Arambula, Baca, Bass, Berg, Bermudez, Blakeslee,
Bogh, Calderon, Canciamilla, Chan, Chavez, Chu, Cohn,
Coto, De La Torre, Dymally, Evans, Frommer, Garcia,
Goldberg, Hancock, Jerome Horton, Shirley Horton,
Houston, Jones, Karnette, Keene, Klehs, Koretz, Laird,
Leno, Leslie, Levine, Lieber, Liu, Matthews, Montanez,
Mullin, Nakanishi, Nation, Nava, Oropeza, Parra, Pavley,
Richman, Ridley-Thomas, Ruskin, Saldana, Salinas,
Strickland, Torrico, Umberg, Vargas, Villines, Wolk,
Wyland, Yee
NOES: Aghazarian, Benoit, Cogdill, Daucher, DeVore,
Emmerson, Harman, Haynes, Huff, La Malfa, La Suer, Maze,
McCarthy, Mountjoy, Niello, Plescia, Spitzer, Tran,
Walters
NO VOTE RECORDED: Negrete McLeod, Sharon Runner, Nunez,
Vacancy


DLW:mel 8/26/05 Senate Floor Analyses

SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE

**** END ****

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4. CA: Secretary of State Orders Machine Makers to Hand Over the Code

They’ve opened pandoras box. Watch Diebold stock fall. CA is the site of Verified Voting and other election integrity activists. They’ll get a look and the rest will be history. Wait until Dill gets a look. It's called the truth.

California to put e -voting to the test
Touch-screen firms must turn over software for security review

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3098866

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area

California is putting the tools of democracy to perhaps the most rigorous testing of any state, ordering voting-machine makers to surrender their proprietary software for security reviews and supply dozens of their machines for mass, mock-election tests.

In memos this week to voting-machine makers and local elections officials, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson laid out the new requirements and ordered the creation of a new office, led by a savvy computer technician, devoted to putting voting machines through their paces before California voters use them.

"We can do it, and I think we should do it," McPherson said Friday.

The move comes as huge sums of federal and state money are feeding voting-system purchases nationwide, and manufacturers increasingly are supplying high-tech computers to record and count the vote.

"I think we need to take some fundamental steps to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the voting process,"McPherson said.

As the nation's largest voting market, California has been a proving ground. Voters' experience using ATM-like touch-screen voting machines and digitized ballots has been mixed, with generally reliable results marred by major breakdowns and lesser glitches.

Vendors, voting advocates and other states watched this summer as McPherson ordered Diebold Election Systems to offer its latest touch screen, the AccuVote TSx, up for mass testing in a San Joaquin County warehouse. For nearly a full day, local elections officials and consultants tapped votes into 96 machines. They found numerous instances of paper jams in the touch screens' paper-trail printer and software crashes of the sort reported by voters nationwide in the last presidential election.

Kim Alexander, president of the Davis-based California Voter Foundation, called the episode "an eye-opener for state regulators."

"To see those screen freezes firsthand is important for understanding how vulnerable these systems are to error and fraud," she said.

"It makes perfect sense that the most stringent voting system requirements would be coming out of California because that's been the source of the greatest criticism of electronic voting," said Dan Seligson, editor of Electionline.org, a nonpartisan clearinghouse for election-reform information.

[Kralizec]

10. Can't they just switch the code real quick?

Are the boxes under lock and key now? The code at question could be nothing more than a few lines... nothing that can't be "repaired" in no time, if they haven't been tampered with already. This makes it easy for them to make changes last-minute, close to elections, and leave the boxes clean afterward.

Peace.

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5. Nation & CA: Pelosi Paper Receipts on Machines—Restore Some Confidence

California is forging ahead and Pelosi reflects that progressive outlook. She’s talking about a crisis in confidence regarding the elections. It’s starting.

E-voting: Keep paper records, says commission
'Audit trails only way to keep track of software glitches, viruses and malicious programming... '

http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39153043,00.htm

By Declan McCullagh

Published: Wednesday 05 October 2005

A US election commission headed by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James A Baker III has recommended that electronic voting machines be outfitted with a voter-verifiable paper audit trail to accelerate reform efforts in state legislatures.

This would "increase citizens' confidence that their vote will be counted accurately", permit a recount should one prove necessary, and allow a random selection of electronic voting machines to be tested for accuracy, the commission's final report concludes.

No such uniform requirement currently exists, which gave rise to questions about the security and reliability of electronic voting machines in the 2004 US election. Electronic voting machines, which tallied about one-third of the votes in last year's presidential contest, displayed a smattering of irregularities that Democrats used to cast doubt on the procedures used in Ohio that led to President Bush's re-election.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, warned at the time "malfunctioning electronic machines that may not have paper receipts" can cause an "additional loss of confidence by the public". Electronic voting machines became widespread as a result of the 2000 election debacle, which Congress responded to by spending some $650m to upgrade voting machines - without setting any requirements for a paper trail.

[IndyOp]

6. ASK C-SPAN TO AIR DEBATE - Evidence of 2004 ELECTION FRAUD !!

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5030755>

[DemReadingDU]

7. Great News, paper ballots

But who are the vendors turning the software code over to?

[proud patriot]

8. Cool

:headbang: