" Questions concerning the composition and authority of the EAC. The EAC consists of Presidential appointees and is vulnerable to partisan appointments made by the Executive Branch. Legislation authorizing the EAC to delegate core governmental electoral functions to private vendors eliminates the critical decentralized checks and balances necessary for U.S. democracy.
" The failure to address the public's right to know. The current status quo within the e-voting industry, supported by EAC Certification procedures, violates fundamental civil rights as defined in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by allowing industry stances of proprietary solutions and the use of nondisclosure agreements, and fails to recognize the right of the citizenryt o access information to validate their own elections.
" The EAC Certification Program has created a system in which every jurisdiction, beginning in 2007, must replace or use uncertified voting equipment. In 2007 jurisdictions adhering to federal guidelines must comply with the EAC's 2005 Voting System Guidelines, rendering all current and existing voting equipment uncertifiable. The EAC Certification Program has three fundamentally fatal flaws, which expose our elections to unacceptable risk and present two unacceptable choices: 1) replace computer-based election equipment every two years while implementing repeated testing for same at exorbitant financial expense, or 2) use un-certifiable computer-based equipment. The three flaws are as follows:
o The EAC Certification Program creates a situation wherein elections are run using substandard and highly vulnerable equipment. The EAC approves certification guidelines at least two years before products meeting the guidelines are released to market. As a result, election officials end up using sub-standard equipment. As well, the published certification guidelines, detailing all of the existing vulnerabilities to be addressed by future products, provide a virtual blueprint for tampering with election equipment in current use.
o The business model on which the EAC Certification Program is based is unrealistic. Software and hardware development requires significant upfront financial investment. Once the product is delivered to market, preliminary testing on a broad scale is needed to identify and fix bugs. However, the election market environment makes this technological testing impossible. The public market can neither afford to subsidize computer-based product development, nor - because there are fixed timeline requirements for elections - provide the necessary testing. The unacceptable result is that costs continue to rise as our national elections are effectively used to test the product.
o The Certification Program creates a situation wherein it is virtually impossible, without considerable expense, for election officials to use certified equipment. The 2005 EAC Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (2005 VVSG) require election software to be registered in the National Software Reference Library (NSRL) with any ensuing modifications to the registered software to be re-tested and re-certified. The typical scenario for elections more often than not will call for modifications to the certified software because of ballot design requirements and "patches" for fixing bugs in the software. When these inevitable changes occur, states have three choices: 1) run uncertified software that has not undergone the required post-modification testing, or 2) incur unacceptable financial expense for repeated testing, which itself may or may not even be feasible depending on the nature and timing of the modifications, or 3) request a "grandfather" waiver from the EAC Certification Program, which, if granted, renders the entire certification process moot since such a practice leads to the de facto nullification of the NSRL requirement.
Included with our letter to you is a copy of the recently published book Hacked! High Tech Election Theft in America ~ 11 Experts Expose the Truth. Each chapter in this book portrays the raw truth about our dangerously diminished right to vote and have it correctly counted in the age of electronic voting. On pages 189 - 193, you will find our specific concerns regarding the February 2005 version of H.R. 550 presented in detail.
Given the new information we are presenting to you, we ask that you join us in exploring real solutions for restoring integrity to our election process. We have supplied you with evidence indicating that adding a "paper trail", audits and an empowered EAC to an insecure, non-transparent voting system does not offer the necessary meaningful reform necessary to repair our broken election systems. We are hopeful that you will engage in healthy debate and provide the leadership to legislate changes to truly rebuild a democratic election system. We wish to thank you for your help and support with this most serious matter.
Sincerely,
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