Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT amihost.com>]

Dan:  It's about time you let the "scintilla of evidence" argument go. 
It's not about evidence.  It's about the inability of the voting system
to be subject to public scrutiny.  If the voting system is not subject
to public scrutiny, it's a system that locks out the voter from the
process.  Now, here's your argument of June 24, 2003:
"Certainly, if a rogue programmer could program the DRE Ballot
Tabulation System in such a manner as to indicate on screen the voter's
choices and at the same time to record a different vote to the
tabulation of select races, the same individual could program the unit
to "send" an external printer the same erroneous information.  How then
would the voter even know his or her vote was corrupted or to question
the accuracy of his ballot when what he sees on the screen at review and
on the printed-paper copy of his ballot are identical?"

Read that, then read it again.  Would you use such a system to record
your vote, with the potential of abuse you just described?  Why?  Why
risk your vote to corruption, when you can choose to use a system that
is open to inspection and assures the voter of having cast a ballot that
is counted reliably and without question.

You see, Dan, governments require that contractors provide assurance
that their products work as described.  Otherwise, governments are
spending taxpayer dollars to potentially unscrupulous contractors.  In
your case, you are pushing a system down the throats of Nevada voters
that has the potential, if not the absolute result of removing the
voters' right to vote.  After the printout is finished, the computer
then decides how to count the ballot.  You don't have any way to
determine if the computer did what it was supposed to do.  A printout
does, in fact, enable public scrutiny by permitting, even requiring hand
counts to check and verify.  Of course, the most sensible solution is to
provide the printout, and require that the source code be available for
inspection.  Open Source solutions are abundant, yet you, you and your
commission refuse to address the issue.  Why?  We're left with only one
explanation.  You are unwilling to speak honestly and openly about the
problems with electronic systems that utilize proprietary source code.

You, Dan Burk, are responsible for eliminating the voters' right to
vote.  You, Dan Burk, are more concerned about your "livelihood", than
you are about your country and our Democracy.  You, Dan Burk, are
willing to give away the citizens' right to vote, because you don't want
to speak the truth.
Tom

On Wed, 2003-10-22 at 08:20, Burk, Dan wrote:
> Nonsense.
> My "livelihood" has nothing to do with my support for modernizing the
> elections system.  It has to do with the rate of "anomalous voting" (i.e.
> over-voting, under-voting and errors on ballots that either make the voter
> come back to get a new ballot or are wrongly fed into the tabulation machine
> by the voter, believing they he has correctly filled-out his their ballot
> when, in fact, it has an unnoticed error(s).
> 
> I support DRE technology because after 25 years in the business of
> administering elections and having run elections on punch cards, paper,
> ballot scan central count machines and ballot scan tabulators at the polling
> places and now, using touch screen, I find the error rates for voters is
> least using DRE systems.  Also, that there has yet to be even a scintilla of
> evidence of tampering with such systems anywhere they have been used in the
> U.S. over the last 10 years.
> 
> Even if the irresponsible claims of a handful of scientists manage to scare
> a majority to Americans into thinking their vote is at jeopardy when using
> these machines and the American Congress amends HAVA to no longer allow DRE
> systems for voting (highly unlikely) these have nothing to do with my
> livelihood.
> 
> It's not about ME it's about better serving the American people and, in
> particular, our fellow Americans with disabilities.
> Dan
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tom poe [mailto:tompoe AT amihost.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 8:11 PM
> To: riversidevoter AT yahoo.com
> Cc: Dan Burk; Richard Siegel; Community Studios; Steve Falcone
> Subject: Thank you for your report on e-voting issues
> 
> 
> Hi, Jeremiah:  Your name is interesting in an odd sort of way.  Here's a
> quote from Dan Burk, Registrar for Nevada, in a letter dated June 24,
> 2003, about DRE machines and HAVA issues:
> "I do not agree with those who have become 'Jeremiads' regarding our
> nation's attempt to modernize our systems for ballot tabulation."
> 
> Your report on e-voting issues is most important, and chronicled very
> nicely.
> http://www.exit.com/RiversideVoteTest/
> 
> I also appreciate your link to Martin Luther King's drive to petition
> the Attorney General, John Ashcroft:
>  "We, the undersigned, demand security against the dangerous
> "Florida-tion" of our nation’s voting methods through computerization of
> voter rolls and ballots. Computers were part of the problem in Florida,
> not the cure. We, the undersigned, hereby demand that NO voter be purged
> from centralized voter rolls without proof positive that the voter is
> ineligible. We also demand a halt to further computerization of
> balloting until such methods are made unsusceptible to political
> manipulation, fraud, and racial bias." 
> http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition.cfm?itemid=14993
> 
> I truly hope that Nevada voters do not lose their right to vote, simply
> because those state officials and national organization leaders for our
> state, along with news media editors, decide their livelihoods are more
> important than citizens' freedoms and rights.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tom Poe
> Reno, NV
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>