Position Statement

LGP Amended draft, Nov 19 2003.

Citizens for Verifiable Voting

a Boulder County non-partisan organization concerned with preservation of our representative democracy, insist that Boulder County immediately stop its process of selecting and purchasing new electronic voting machines among those under consideration.

We submit that the county should only use a transparent, honest, verifiable and accurate voting system that protects and ensures the sanctity, privacy and integrity of every person's vote, the most important act of citizenship in a representative democracy.

We find that none of the systems under consideration by Boulder County can meet our concerns, none provide for a secure and verifiable paper trail with meaningful recountability, and therefore none give us confidence in the results.

Furthermore, since technical standards for election systems have not yet been developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as required under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), it is premature, fiscally irresponsible, and replete with unacceptable risk for Boulder County to select any of the proposed voting systems at this time.

We are very concerned with the vulnerability of all electronic systems currently under consideration for fraud, irretrievable data loss, and disenfranchisement in vote recording and counting. We do recognize that some elements of electronic devices may be needed to allow citizens with disabilities to generate verifiable paper ballots, in compliance with HAVA and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Specifically, we call on Boulder County officials, our state and national elected officials, and our fellow citizens to:

• Insist on the interim use of recountable paper ballots as the single, official record of the vote;
• Allow only verifiable, encryption, and open source software in any voting machines or vote counting machines;
• Embrace accuracy as the most important priority in elections, not speed of completing counts or recounts of ballots; and
• Support election reform laws at the local, state, and national level that encompass and resolve all of the above concerns.

Proposed this 19th day of November 2003 by LGP for Citizens for Verifiable Voting, a Boulder County based non-partisan group of citizens dedicated to protecting the principles of our democracy.