Secret Disservice: HR 811

Washington to Citizens: Drop Dead

Citizens of the United States of America still believe that the government is a servant, hence the designation public servants for politicians and government officials. The idea wasn’t for them to serve themselves or private interests, like voting machine vendors. They’re supposed to serve us!

Here’s the new Holt Bill language:

an accredited laboratory that inspects voting machines shall hold the technology in escrow (read hold in secret). The laboratory (a private company, likely) can disclose technology and information to another person, if and only if that person or entity is a government agency responsible for voting, a party to litigation over an election or an academic studying elections. H.R. 811

What happened to disclosure of software and methods upon request of any person?

The Washington Two Step

Here we go again. We elect people to make our laws more open and transparent in order to know what is being done by those whose job it is to serve us. What do they do? They take the most fundamental right that we have, voting – electing our representatives – and they make it secret. Sure, a government agency can look at the software that counts the votes, the agency run by the politicians elected by the machines that need inspection. That will do a lot of good won’t it? Oh, and if you have the six or seven figures required to bring a law suit, you might be able to look at source code. Finally, as if to show that they‘re not as anti-intellectual as they seem, the bill says academics can look at the source code and other software and methods. That will do a lot of good, years from now …. maybe.

Nancy Tobi of Democracy for New Hampshire asked a congressional aid how this all happened. She was told “take up your concerns with Microsoft and others in the proprietary software industry.”

It’s Official – Voting is Now a Rigged Game Run by the Government

Why not just change the name from elections to voting lotto? Except in this lotto game, the contestants are the very same people who make up the rules, pick the winners, and hand out the cash. It’s all so elegant and logical:

Politicians administer elections that determine whether or not they keep their jobs. They expect us to believe that they’ll catch each other when there’s any cheating going on and that they’ll report it to us right away. But we’re not allowed to see how the game works, how the equipment operates, or who does what behind the scenes.

Can any of you imagine how Mr. Trump would respond to any casino machine vendor who said, “Look buddy, it’s our software, our machine, and our game – mind your own business.” The words are (correct me if I’m wrong), “You’re fired!”

Long term researcher and activist Ellen Theisen of Voters Unite has supported the Holt Bill in its various forms since 2003. This is no longer the case. Theisen outlined her objections to the current Holt Bill clearly on June 11, 2007. I recommend a review of this brief but comprehensive editorial. She pulled her support because the current bill leaves some ballots uncounted; endorses secret vote counting and secret voting software; allows some wireless communication to slip through the cracks; and perpetuates the Election Assistance (sic) Commission, appointed solely by the president.

But I’ve saved the most ironic and outrageous aspect of all of this for last. If you’re still reading, check out these articles by voting issues author Michael Richardson. He did a comprehensive series of articles on the laboratories that will have the honor of holding tight the computer software, source code that determines the outcome of our elections.

Banned Lab Certifies Nearly 70% of US voting machine 15 Jan 2007

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