(Editor’s note: Steve Heller is the whistleblower who revealed Diebold’s intention to defraud the State of California and its many millions of voters. Bruce Funk is the Republican former county clerk of Emery County, Utah, who investigated the reliability and accuracy of the Diebold machines his constituents voted on, calling down the wrath of Diebold and local officials. Athan Gibbs invented a more trustworthy electronic voting machine which was starting to garner interest when he suddenly died in a car accident, putting on hold his dream of assuring that the public’s votes are accurately counted. And Clint Curtis was the whistleblower who testified under oath before Congress about the scheme fellow Republican Tom Feeney had to subvert the South Florida vote via intentionally corrupted programming code in the voting machine software.)
A. Every single one of them took a major step to try to do something to help improve our elections – to make them more fair and honest. I think all four of them define what real patriotism is. And each one of them has suffered. Steve Heller gets convicted of a felony. Bruce Funk is out of a job. Athan Gibbs never lives to see his machine go to market. And Clint Curtis has to quit his job and really his career is completely derailed.
But each one of these people - the actions they took as a single individual - made a huge difference. And their individual actions have helped clean up our elections. Cumulatively, they have helped bring a bad name to electronic voting.
And these days, electronic voting seems to be on borrowed time. (Editor’s note: Unfortunately, I beg to differ on this point and regret that I didn’t bring it up during the interview*.) And a lot of that is because of the actions of these individuals who have made a big difference. It bothers me most that Athan Gibbs didn’t live to see how the actions he took made a big different. I mean he really was one of the pioneers, and the principles he put to work in his voting system – well, these are now required by law in most states.
So, it proves so much the power of one. And I think that’s, as much as anything, what I hope comes across in our film is that one person is who usually makes a huge difference. It’s not really even small groups or large groups – but one person. There’s a lot of dark information in this film, a lot of difficult information, a lot of information about a real threat to our democracy and that our vote isn’t something we can count on. But within that, what I wanted to make sure came crashing through in the film is that as powerful as the large forces are, individuals still do make a difference in bringing down this big machinery. It’s the great metaphor of the big machine, like in the old Charlie Chaplin movie, the big machine that they used, but then one little bolt can clog up the machine and bring it to a halt. That’s what happens when an individual takes a step and says, “No. You can’t do that. You can’t mess with the vote.”
Q. So how do people react to the film when they see it?
A. First, they get mad. We are a people taught to believe that we’re a freedom-loving country and that the vote is the core to that freedom, that we as individual citizens can hold our leaders accountable. If they’re not doing the job, then we take them out with our vote; that’s what we believe. And that’s very core to not only our identity as a country, but to each one of our own individual identities.
And when viewers see the movie and they see that our vote is being messed with, they get very mad. And when they see what’s going on, the overwhelming sense that people have when they leave the theater is that they want to do something. They want to get involved. They want to work with groups that are fighting.
A lot of people buy our DVD right after they have seen the film, so that they can share it with their family, friends, and others. So the film becomes something that people can share to help people understand how critical this issue is. And that’s what we want people to do with it. We tried to make it simple. We tried to take a very large issue, a complex issue and just boil it down, thread together the evidence and show how huge this problem is and how important it is that we understand it so that we can do something about it.
Q. How have you been getting this film out?
A. We’re taking a very grassroots approach at this point. I’ve been on a national tour for nearly three months now, where we have having theatrical screenings in cities across the country. I travel with the film, introduce it, then, afterwards, discussions where we discuss the issues raised in the film. We’ve been in some beautiful theaters, have had hundreds of people at many of the different screenings, and it’s been a very invigorating experience, seeing how people respond to the film.
At the same time, we also have been having house party screenings across the country. We’ve had well over 300 of these screenings during the past three months, 203 of them coordinated in one night by Democracy For America in 42 different states across the country. I spoke by conference call to all 203 house parties after the film, where we discussed the issues. So that was an incredible night. And then Brave New Theaters has been working with us to coordinate a number of other house party screenings.
And then we’re making our DVD available at these screenings. It’s the kind of thing where we don’t want to wait; we want people to be able to get it right then after they’ve seen it, and people then getting copies of the DVD after they see the screenings, so they can share the film with others. And we’ve made it available on our website , where it has has sold in 47 states and 16 countries in the four months since we made it available.
So it’s a very grassroots screening approach, taking our film directly to people and then people spreading the word about this critical issue.
Q. Do you feel like the film is making a difference?
A. Well, I do. I think this is a very complicated issue, and I think what I tried to do with “Uncounted” is just to try to simplify it, to try to take a very large view of what’s been going on with our elections primarily since 2000. And what I’m seeing as we show this film is that people get activated when they learn about the issue. So, I think we’re providing a service in the sense that we’re providing a tool for people that they can share with others and help people understand this issue.
When people see the film, it’s kind of like staring at the abyss; they see it, they don’t like it, and then they want to do something to make it right. And I’ve learned, while making this film, that one person makes the biggest impact. So, that makes me feel like that it really does matter, that it’s worth the effort. And I’m just going to keep showing this film to as many people as I can, right up until Election Day 2008.
Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.
CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible Ballots: A temptation for electronic vote fraud. Within eighteen months, the project had distributed over 3200 copies across the country and beyond. CER now concentrates on group showings, OpEd pieces, articles, reviews, interviews, discussion sessions, networking, conferences, anything that promotes awareness of this critical problem. Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005.
Sorry to ruin the party, but here's a slight critique of Uncounted, or as I call it- Unmentioned- The Open Source Story-
Though the movie does a good job of pointing out the systems are broken and many are disenfranchised- It poses no solution. My hope is we see some cinematic efforts from Earnhardt and Co on point towards solution-
The real tragedy here is the sin of omission. By not mentioning that the essence of the issue is the source code being secret - it follows that the film did not mention open source code as a solution movement- When it did reference open source systems- It did so with reference to a faux open source Microsoft based company- This film could have been great- but to leave the audience in a state of despair and them directing them to a blog site for donations was not appropriate. Activists like Earnhardt should realize their arena- With a little bit of research- Earnhardt could have been a hero-
This movie appears to have been cast by the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights show biz division- We need to get Microsoft out of the equation in all facets of the movement- From Lobbyists and legislation to software- Microsoft is controlling the conversation- I hope Earnhardt has the courage to tell the real story next film-
Brent Turner
by
Brent Turner (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 94 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 8:09:10 PM
Having the source code open to inspection does not solve the problem with allowing ballots to be counted in secret. Yes, it would be a step in the right direction, but it does not make secret vote counting reliable or constitutional.
That’s right. Not only is secret vote counting dangerous, it’s UNCONSTITUTIONAL! When it was put in place, it is impossible to imagine that no one bothered to look at the constitutionality of it.
We no longer get to elect our leaders or throw bad ones out of office. Our votes are "counted" in secret on computers, and these official secret vote "counts" have been proven wrong repeatedly.
My article, "Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?!" includes a link in my comment to a video of my conversation with election officials in Virginia who pretend not to understand that computers count in secret. They say no one ever even thought of that. Yeah, right!?! It also includes a link to my letters to each candidate asking them to take action to require that our elections be conducted in a constitutional manner. Naturally, not a single one took action.
My discussion with the election official in South Carolina was as laughable, but he did not want to be recorded. Any way, in my articles on Virginia and South Carolina, I point out that not only do the constitutions of both of those states specifically prohibit secret vote counting, but also, so do some U.S. Supreme Court decisions which I quote and cite for your convenient reference.
by
Mark Adams (19 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 256 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 4:43:09 PM
Mr Adams acknowledges open source is a "step in the right direction" but then, as is epidemic, shimmies off the point by stating open source is not a panacea curing constitutuional issues- Mentioning open source does not cure all security or constitutional issues is obvious and counter productive- Yes, Mr. Adams, there are constitutional issues attached to our right to observe the elections- and yes, we must patch the other holes in the ship, but that is not to say we should not tend to the source code issue immediately. Since we use computers, and do not want to be barred from public oversight of the code- opening up the systems to non governmental oversight should be an obvious choice for the thickest of activists. The only opposition to the open source movement has come from Microsoft and the vendors themselves. All election integrity activists should recognize the " no panacea" argument as a page from Microsoft's playbook- Right along with " yeah but you still have to make sure the open source you are talking about is the same as what's in the machines " as if that would be lost on anyone- Again, open source isd merely one security measure, but when utilizing technology, a necessary one. -- Slow down or " foot drag" on the open source issue is unacceptable- We all want hand countable paper ballots, auditable systems, and a dagger to the heart of corruption- the fact we would single mindedly, or ego- centrically, put all our energy towards wishing the technology to " go away" , with no back -up plan towards cleaning out the guts of the systems we actually use, is short sighted at best, and something far worse at worst. Brent Turner
by
Brent Turner (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 94 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 9:09:04 PM
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