This op-ed appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on January 25th, 2004. (Note that the Camera misprinted the date: the public hearing is on Thursday.)

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/insight/article/0,1713,BDC_2494_2600279,00.html

Don't buy voting system yet

Too many questions have not been adequately addressed

By Joe Pezzillo January 25, 2004

It's unwise to buy voting equipment now.

The Boulder County Commissioners will hold a public hearing this week to hear the county clerk's recommendation to purchase a new vote-counting system. People are asking what Citizens for Verifiable Voting thinks about this recommendation.

We have studied this question and conclude that it would be unwise to purchase any voting system at this time. We should instead arrange short-term use of equipment for the 2004 elections, as we did for the 2001 and 2003 elections.

Tainted election results eat away at people's confidence in public institutions. The public, political campaigns and officials all want and demand trustworthy election results. This requires that the voting system be demonstrably secure, reliable and verifiable.

To earn public trust, we ask the county to act with maximum openness and minimum haste in making a purchase decision that can affect voters for decades. We ask that the selection process be subjected to public scrutiny and that concerns about security, reliability and verifiability be resolved before any system is purchased.

Because the county has wisely decided to conduct the 2004 elections using hand-marked paper ballots, there is no need for new equipment in the precincts. Instead of punching ballots, voters will hand-mark them.

Back-office requirements can be met using stand-alone equipment for 1) vote counting, 2) voter registration and signature lookup and 3) ballot tracking and inventory management. This temporary equipment should not be purchased.

Why is it unwise to purchase a new system now?

• Undefined standards — As mandated by law, federal and Colorado officials are busy developing new voting system standards. These standards don't yet exist but are expected to render obsolete much of today's voting equipment.

• New choices — Vendors are innovating rapidly in response to public concern about secure, reliable and verifiable elections. Many are adopting a standards-based architecture and using commodity-off-the-shelf hardware rather than custom or proprietary technology. Examples are the new vote marking machines and the use of standard office equipment in vote-counting systems.

• Transparency — Current voting systems do not meet the needs of poll watchers who cannot verify or even see what is happening. Pending federal legislation — HB 2239, co-sponsored by Rep. Mark Udall — would require full disclosure of voting software. We should not purchase software that has not been scrutinized by independent security experts.

• Inadequate evaluation — The material published on the clerk's Web site contains much irrelevant material and doesn't address how the proposed system would deliver "trustworthy elections." It does not describe how each element of the system is intended to be secure, reliable and verifiable. It does not even contain a statement of requirements or the election division's comparative analysis of the proposals and the degree to which the recommended proposal meets the fundamental requirements.

• Inadequate public participation — Because of inadequate documentation and a closed process, the public has not been able to review the requirements, analyze the specifics of the proposal, or phrase and have answered questions to gain public confidence in the proposed system.

• Vendor lock-in — The proposal includes unneeded and possibly unwanted items. For example, the proposal includes a "ballot on demand" capability, but does not include a specification for how the ballots would be kept secure and verifiable. The county's current Sequoia voter database will become obsolete in January 2006 when the statewide voter database goes live. Despite this, the proposal asks for funding to integrate with this near-obsolete database.

• Vendor experience — The vendor being recommended by the clerk has installed only one system in Colorado, and it is a computer tablet type system unlike the one that is being proposed for Boulder County. The list of installations on the Web site shows nine sites. None appear to match Boulder County's paper-ballot-only requirement. There is insufficient track record to justify this leap of taxpayer faith at this time.

Last year, when considering DRE systems, the clerk sought and received input from Citizens for Verifiable Voting (dozens of Boulder County citizens) and the chairs of the Democratic, Republican, Green and Libertarian county parties. Happily, the clerk heard the people, and voter-verifiable ballots will be cast by voters in this year's elections.

Unfortunately, despite the requests of citizens, there was no further public involvement in the process of coming to a recommendation.

Trustworthy elections must be secure, reliable and verifiable. We do not see how the system being recommended by the clerk will meet these fundamental needs. Until it is demonstrated that these needs are being met, it is too soon to commit funds for a purchase.

We hope that citizens will join us in letting the county commissioners know that the voters oppose the clerk's recommendation to purchase a new voting system. We want the Elections Division to lease or rent a trustworthy paper-ballot vote-counting system for the 2004 elections. We also want to be involved in the selection of this 2004 system. We want to ensure that it is trustworthy, and we welcome the opportunity to explain our requirements to the Commissioners.

Please let the county commissioners know your opinion before the public hearing at 2 p.m. on Wednesday at the county courthouse. Show that we are concerned about our vote being counted.

A purchase now is unwise and should be deferred.

Joe Pezzillo is the spokesperson for Citizens for Verifiable Voting.