Here is how you can testify against re certifying Hart Voting Machines in Texas

[Melissa G]

Hi All,
I just returned from testifying (again) in opposition to the State of Texas re certifying Hart Voting Machines. Most of our testimony came from reading from the lawsuit described in this article...
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/whistleblower-v.html

The lawsuit was fortuitously unsealed last week and we read as much of it into the record as we could with the 5 minutes we each were given. The Hearing began at 9 am and concluded at 10:30. We gave them a copy of the lawsuit and we read from a partial list of reported problems with Hart which I have seen floating around the net but can't lay my fingers on at the moment.

They are still accepting WRITTEN testimony.
The Staff is very civil and courteous, please be courteous to them.
Please send them your Politely Worded Information and Commentary to:

Juanita Woods
HAVA Information Security Manager
Elections Division
Office of the Secretary of State
P.O. Box 12060
Austin Texas 787111-2060

[e-mail]
Thank You!!!
Melissa

[Melissa G]

1. From the article...

Whistleblower: Voting Machine Company Lied to Election Officials About Reliability of Machines
By Kim Zetter March 27, 2008 | 6:20:00 PMCategories: E-Voting, Election '08

A former technician who worked for Hart InterCivic -- a voting machine company based in Texas -- has alleged that his company lied to election officials about the accuracy, testing, reliability and security of its voting machines. The whistleblower says the company did so because it was eager to obtain some of the approximately $4 billion in federal funds that Congress allocated to states in 2002 to purchase new voting equipment under the Help America Vote Act (aka HAVA).

The technician, William Singer, filed a qui tam lawsuit on the federal government's behalf last year but the lawsuit remained sealed until today, according to the Associated Press, when the U.S. Attorney's office decided it would not join Singer in the litigation. Singer maintains that Hart was paid federal money under false pretenses for the eSlate machines it sold to states. He's now pursuing the case without the government and, according to a voicemail message that one of his lawyers left me, he's now doing so in conjunction with Robert Kennedy, Jr. If Singer wins and Hart InterCivic is forced to return funds to the federal government, Singer stands to obtain a percentage of those funds as a party to the suit.

According to the complaint filed in the lawsuit, Singer worked as a computer technician for Hart from 2001 to early 2004 when he says he resigned due to the company's fraudulent acts and misrepresentations.

Among the claims he makes:

Hart didn't completely alpha test its software and didn't beta test its software at all.
Hart created a "dummy" machine to undergo certification testing in Ohio because he says its standard system configuration would not have passed certification. Hart then didn't upgrade its standard system to match the system that passed certification.
The Ohio certification requirements mandated that voting machines be able to produce a certain kind of report that the Hart machine couldn't produce. So Singer says Hart created a dummy report by hand and told certification officials that it came from the voting system.
After Singer discovered that the eSlate's audit logging function, known as BOSS, generated invalid entries -- thus rendering the audit trail ineffective -- the company patched the software in some jurisdictions without telling customers it was changing the software and without submitting the changes for certification.
Special voting units that Hart designed for disabled voters to use "were particularly prone to lose votes due to system design flaws that were well known within Hart," which Hart concealed from customers.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/whistleblower-v.html

[flamin lib]

2. I am no fan of eSlate, but at least one of Singer's claims can't be

an issue. The 'lost' votes would show up at the close of polls because the voter log has to match the number of votes cast. If eSlate lost a vote the total vote count wouldn't match the voter log. The election judge would see the loss immediately.

Now, I'm not saying that it couldn't switch votes without being noticed, but it can't lose a vote.

Flame on . . .

[Melissa G]

4. I think I was there for that part of the testimony...

If you could be specific to what you are referring to in the legal papers I can confirm.
My understanding is that the machine does not read blank votes that are cast and that can upset the total of votes cast. If you are saying it is okay because a judge can go manually check it somewhere else that seems a poor excuse for a broken aspect of programming for which we spent a lot of money.

This is, of course, on the machines that were supposed to be working. There were many more problems with the machines they provided for overload situations. (Overload situations= next Nov election???)
Those extra machines really had problems...

[flamin lib]

7. Again, I'm no fan of eSlate machines.

Every voter who casts a ballot signs a roster. If 100 people sign the roster and the eSlate "loses" a vote there will only be 99 votes registered against the 100 names on the roster. The same is true of paper ballots. They are serial numbered and matched to the number of names on the voter roster.

A vote can't be "lost" without it being immediately noticed at close of polls and I'm not aware of that being an occurrence.

[Kurovski]

3. K&R.

Thank you.

[tbyg52]

5. K,R,Done,&#5 nt

[Melissa G]

6. Thanks so much!

:hi: