Re: 4/24 Daily Camera: Voting concerns remain; state dictates recounts

["Joe Pezzillo" <jpezzillo@xxxxxxxxx>]

I particularly like that last quote...do Boulder County's so-called  
"public" servants really care more about private investors than  
election quality?

Joe




On Apr 24, 2004, at 6:46 AM, Doug Grinbergs wrote:

> http://www.bouldernews.com/bdc/county_news/article/ 
> 0,1713,BDC_2423_2834141,00.html
> Voting concerns remain
> Boulder voting officials say state dictates recounts
> By Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer
> April 24, 2004
>
> Two of Boulder County's top election officials told a curious and  
> sometimes hostile crowd Friday afternoon that they're slowly making  
> some of the changes activists want to see in policy on voting machines  
> - but decision-making power resides over their heads.
>
> Linda Salas, the county's clerk and recorder, and Tom Halicki, the  
> county's election manager, told members attending a Plan-Boulder  
> County luncheon at the Boulder Public Library that they've been  
> lobbying Secretary of State Donetta Davidson to approve procedures  
> designed to improve vote-count accuracy.
>
> "Boulder County is usually the one trying to do things differently,"  
> Salas said.
>
> The controversy that has had activists dogging Salas and Halicki  
> started when the county began shopping for new voting machines.
>
> The federal Help America Vote Act requires counties across the country  
> to do away with old punch-card machines. But many voting watchdogs  
> distrust electronic systems proposed to replace the card-punch  
> machines, because many of the newer systems tally votes electronically  
> without producing a paper record.
>
> Watchdogs say that leaves plenty of room for error or tampering, and  
> they insist voting machines should produce a paper record of the votes  
> cast. That way, a suspicious vote tally could always be checked by  
> recounting the ballots by hand.
>
> Their fears were partly eased when the county settled on local vendor  
> Hart-Intercivic to provide machines. The Hart machines use a paper  
> ballot that is counted electronically.
>
> But the state law, as implemented by the Secretary of State's Office,  
> requires that recounts be conducted by the same method as the original  
> count - which makes the paper trail "meaningless," activist Evan  
> Ravitz said.
>
> "It violates a basic principle of accounting, which is that you count  
> things in two ways," he said.
>
> Salas said her office is making headway on that issue. She said  
> Davidson has made a tentative offer to let Boulder County conduct  
> recounts by hand.
>
> But Neal McBurnett, another activist, said the machines still have  
> problems. The computer coding that's used to tally votes, he said, is  
> owned by the company and not accessible to inspection by the public.
>
> Forcing vendors to share their proprietary software could drive  
> companies out of business, Halicki said. "If I was a private investor,  
> and word came out that a company was going to give away their secrets,  
> I would be disinclined to invest in them."
>
> Contact Ryan Morgan at (303) 473-1333 or morganr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx