Black Box Voting was invited to submit comments into the record for the United States Election Assistance Commission's Round Table, which featured and agenda entirely devoted to a what is basically a celebration of computerized vote-counting. We took this opportunity to tell it like it is.
To our great surprise and joy, so did others, including Dr. Rebecca Mercuri and Brad Friedman. Portions of some of their testimony will follow. Here are the formal comments from Black Box Voting:
EAC VOTING ADVOCATES ROUND TABLE: April 24, 2008
I have accepted your invitation to submit the following comments to be entered into the record on behalf of Black Box Voting, by its founder, Bev Harris.
To members of the EAC and participants of the Round Table:
The entire premise of technology-based elections is based on support for the "verifiable voting" concept. But before designing technology for elections, we must first determine how it will empower citizen controls, enabling the counting of votes in public rather than counting them in secret. We do not consent to any form of secret vote counting, administered and controlled by government insiders and their vendors.
Any system that forces the citizenry to trust government insiders to count their votes represents a change in the original design of this nation. The United States of America was designed to uphold the right of citizen sovereignty over the government. In addition to hiding the counting of votes from public view, computer-counted elections hide the chain of custody of the vote data. Citizens are never allowed to view the original input in order to compare it to the output, and are relegated to trusting circumstantial evidence controlled by insiders. Such a system is, in fact, a transfer of power.
The people were never asked to approve such a transfer of power, have never consented to it, and indeed CANNOT consent, because the right of sovereignty over the instruments of government which we have created is an inalienable right, one which CANNOT be given away, nor can this right be removed through legislation. It is, admittedly, possible for a government to decline to honor this right, but such an act would justify extreme measures by the people subjected to such abuse of power.
It is the public counting that is key to citizen sovereignty, not computer verification. "Verification" of a computer report is not at all the same as public vote counting.
The core of elections was and again must return to the principle of citizen sovereignty over government. Elections can never be based on a requirement to trust government insiders and their vendors to count our votes, nor can elections be dependent on experts to tell the citizenry that the system is okay, nor should the detailed mechanics of elections be impossible for the average citizen to understand. Models which depend on experts and insiders create centralized control, and remove all control from government's rightful owners – the citizens. This represents a violation of the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
Not only does my organization, Black Box Voting, refuse to participate in the design of such systems, but we will do our utmost to inform the populace that such systems must be revoked, by whatever means necessary.
"We do not consent."
Bev Harris Black Box Voting 330 SW 43rd St Suite K PMB 547 Renton WA 98057
So, when has rule of law meant anything to the current occupants of our government, either Republican OR Democrat. Good argument though.... and good luck if SOCTUS ever makes a decision on it. The coup has been executed and succeeded nicely. Is it not said that the perfect crime is one that is not actually taken notice of.
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Roger (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 287 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 1:45:17 PM
The internet is connecting the world and allowing us to communicate and organize in ways that could only have been dreamed about a couple of decades ago.
I think we should allow Internet registration for voting with a posted hard copy confirmation/key that once received, and verified online will allow the voter to complete the registration. Once the registration is complete the voter would receive a random key number that would allow that person to vote online using their browser.
Every vote that is cast is tied to the online key which is tied to the voter name and demographics. The system would be designed transparently to allow any user (with their key) to check the results of their vote to see if it was recorded properly. Also an independent public verification committee would use statistical sampling to pull random voter information and check the results by direct contact with the registered voters.
This will allow anyone to check their vote, allow an independent open public group to verify accuracy and allow everyone to see the exact aggregated data. This system will save time, energy and fuel, reduce polling center congestion and traffic. Additionally if there are internet connection problems they can be verified and voters who were not able to vote would be able to complete the process. In the end this system could provide a hardcopy printout of every vote in every district without violating the privacy or trust of any individual.
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How Kuff (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 11:34:31 AM
Unfortunately, this concept does not address the problem
Your concept has insiders and programmers controlling they system. The citizenry would be forced to trust that the data they have posted is correct. There are two fundamental flaws in the design of such systems (and they are often proposed, and the first one on the market was developed by a company with a former CIA director and a buddy of Dick Cheney on the board of directors -- think about that, now WHY would they recommend such a system...)
Flaw #1 is that the CITIZENS cannot authenticate the sum results if they cannot see ALL the data at once. It's the same flaw that exists in the Republican Iowa Caucus structure.
Flaw #2 is that such a system enables insiders (admins) to penetrate voter privacy.
But the core flaw is that what you proposed is controlled by admins, not citizens. Admin level access can have its way with any computerized system.
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Bev Harris (72 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 20 comments)
on Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 1:21:46 PM
I have read a lot about the dangers of voting by Internet. The real problem appears to be in the security of the system, not just by the admins but also by hackers. Very real concerns.
However, I believe that it is in our best interests to develop systems that allow people all over the world to vote on agenda items as well as for people who carry out our agendas (politicians). This is necessary in our increasingly globally connected world.
The system that I am advocating is for an open source (very simple code really) application to post results from polling to a publicly accessible online database. The application is the only means of adding records to the database and the database would be open to public query (without showing personal info) as well as a public verification committee that uses statistical methods along with actual real contact verification to determine the accuracy of the results. Anyone at any time could view their particular vote to verify its accuracy. And just like a Google search engine, anyone could query the database and receive aggregated vote demographics.
Using these open and statistical methods, the voting results could be determined suspect and nullified. These would be done in an open and transparent fashion with everyone able to see the results. In addition the voting could capture the IP address and the ISP information for every vote and thus provide even more ability to determine election tampering. Personally I do not see much security in our present system of people carrying votes from polling areas to vote counting centers. We have continually seen these votes disappear or be modified in the handling process.
I know that there is a huge amount of suspicion over voting machines and prototype online voting because of the third party behind the scenes knowledge and control over the system (for very good reasons!). However I think that we can overcome these obstacles with an open voting system, and in the process create a voting process that is more free and fair than the corrupt one that we see failing all over the world. When we finally do achieve this capability (and I firmly believe that we will), we will become a globally connected race able to make open decisions that affect all of us. In this way, secure internet voting will allow us to return to the Greek era open democratic process upon which all modern day democracies are based.
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How Kuff (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 6:52:33 AM
I have spent hundreds of hours with countless real experts in this matter. Internet voting cannot be secured and not a single one of them believes this system will work.
Beyond that, you are not addressing the core issue, which is that citizens must control the election, not insiders and programmers. Propenents of these schemes usually admit that citizens do lose control with these systems, but say it doesn't matter.
Show me not why you think this is the way to go, but how your proposal KEEPS THE CITIZENRY IN CONTROL.
In fact, your proposal centralizes control and puts it into the hands of experts and insiders, and you want us to transfer that control to them because you are enamored with your concept.
I'm interested in not a single argument about why it is "secure" or why it is "important." Show me how citizens can actually any control over your system.
I've been through this argument a million times. When I ask "explain this so my mother can understand it" the answer is always "your mother doesn't need to understand it"
The rebuttal is then that mathematicians and cryptogrphers understand the system and the citizenry is to trust this small subset of people. Problem is, they actually do NOT agree on the merits of such a system, and even if they did, no one has authorized turning over elections to a subset of experts.
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Bev Harris (72 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 20 comments)
on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 12:12:54 PM
Good for you, Bev. In a USA apparently in permanent thrall to the notion of the easy way, the quick fix, it's no real surprise that someone will try to twist an essentially simple process like voting into a way to make money. Your resistance to such laxity is genuinely admirable and I'm sure that there are millions behind you.
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Scott Griffith (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments)
on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 3:36:44 PM
From my vantage point our country and our elections have been stolen. I don't want to push my point any longer. But I do not trust politicians. I do not trust people who make voting machines. I don't trust corporations and corporate boards.
And I definitely do not want any extreme techies to manage our voting systems behind the scenes. I was trying to propose an open system where votes can be verified by each individual and anyone can see the election results. An open committee would be responsible for vote counting and statistical validation. Apparently this is not a popular (and perhaps not viable) idea.
And my credentials are degrees in mathematics and philosophy and a graduate degree in mathematics. Additionally I have worked for 20+ years doing mathematical analyses and software engineering.
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How Kuff (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 7:03:03 PM
1. The contract between citizens and elected officials is the Supreme Law, i.e. our constitution. There is no law higher than the seven articles and twenty-seven amendments which make up the U.S. Constitution.
2. The Constitution provides for three branches of government: the Congress, the Executive, and the Judicial. Of the individuals who people these three branches, some are elected, some are appointed, but all must swear an oath to obey the law before government issues checks for their efforts.
3. You and I are upset with governance. We’re upset with governance because of things like a judicial branch preventing a state from determining who won electoral votes in a hotly contested presidential election, an executive branch holding closed-door meetings with private-sector energy corporations, and a legislative branch failing to standardize the electoral process, securing it once and for all from corporate interests. These key points and many others are why we’re upset with governance.
Possibly the most egregious thing about governance is that it’s failed to secure The Vote from corporate interests. We’re currently burdened with what one blogger has termed Faith-Based Voting. We shouldn’t have faith-based elections. The tallying of votes should be based on more than faith. When you check what voting systems each state currently has, you would be surprised how many are like Pennsylvania. In other words, if you have doubts, too bad. Votes are unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable. Where there are paper trails, there are too many cases where proper procedure is not followed, and chain of custody is ignored. It’s easy to say it’s tin foil hat stuff to claim irregularities, but it’s just as crazy to suggest we’re getting true results. How do we get proof when votes are unrecountable, unverifiable, and unauditable? It’s like one presidential candidate says when they talk about unitary executive powers and warrantless wiretaps: you don't have to prove the power is being abused to object. It doesn't matter if you absolutely trust private corporations to tally votes, we spend more time telling people they sound paranoid than we do objecting to a system that demands scrutiny. Whether or not elections are accurate we cannot know. This has been going on for at least 6 years. Faith-Based Voting should be a thing of the past, instead it is still with us, and the silence surrounding it is deafening to those of us paying attention.
Why hasn’t the Congress drawn up blueprints for an official U.S. Voting Unit and mandated voting machine vendors to build them to spec? This is the obvious, common sense solution which would immediately extinguish many points of failure. So why hasn’t any legislation of the like made its way to the floor of the House or the Senate? It’s because corporate interests have gridlocked the legislative branch, and prevented it from acting in the public interest. Corporate interests, in the form of lobbyists, lawyers, and professional politicians, have become an aristocratic title system which operates at will.The Constitution prohibits the establishment of aristocratic title systems or anti-republican governing bodies, though with corporate laws and charters, both are now the norm. How can anyone believe that individuals, functioning as aristocrats, in the same manner as aristocrats, with a title system and organizational scheme that’s aristocratic, somehow conclude they’re Not aristocrats? Simply because they and their system is dressed in corporate clothing? The corporatists match aristocrats in both function and arrogance, pretending to have powers they do not, and pretending the average citizen is ignorant of the pretense. Through legal hair-splitting and inaction, corporatists have technically overthrown what was once a republican government. This must be addressed with specific prohibitions, and it must be written into the Constitution. For decades we’ve seen how corporatists frustrate efforts to restrain them by statutory, legal and regulatory means. Short of armed revolution, constitutional amendment is the last recourse.
As you may or may not know, the Constitution contains the convention clause. It’s found in Article V and it states that once the requisite applications for a convention hit the doorstep of Congress, that branch “shall call a convention....” The congressional record shows all fifty states have at one time or another applied for such a convention, yet one Congress after another simply ignores this. The legal term is Laches, or ignoring something on purpose. In other words, the individuals who perpetuate our aristocratic title system of corporate governance have prevented and continue to prevent a national convention of state delegates, held on authority of Article V of the U.S. Constitution.
Traditional arguments against convoking such a convention are that it might tamper with the Constitution itself, or that such a convention might be taken over by corporate interests and subverted to such ends. These arguments are bogus, not only irrational but illogical, because a convention is simply the process of opening discussion and building consensus. Nothing discussed at a national convention can somehow accidentally become new law. For an idea to become a law it must of course first be ratified, and to ratify an amendment proposal requires 38 states agree to it. With the country as polarized as it is today, it’s likely the only idea with any chance of being ratified would be one concerned with electoral reform, one that would secure The Vote from private interests once and for all.
Of the Bell Curve of political consciousness, there will always be citizens like you and I who are paying attention, and who can see past the smoke and mirrors of our homemade aristocratic establishment. Perhaps the governing class has served us well enough over the years, but ever since it stopped a state from counting votes in a critical presidential election, and foisted upon the nation an executive administration which has repeatedly disobeyed the Constitution and the rule of law, it’s become clear the time has come to create a 28th Amendment.
Recent legal history, the denial of certiorari by the Supreme Court in October of 2006, has allowed a lower court ruling to stand, and that ruling has deemed the convention call as discretionary, that it’s up to our aristocrats whether the nation will ever convoke an Article V Convention. In terms of political science, this means we no longer need to seek further applications from the state legislatures, we simply need to galvanize a tipping-point majority of Americans around the idea that the time has come to convene. This website, http://www.articlev.org suggests how such an effort might be carried out. This website, http://www.foavc.org has further information about the subject.
Whatever you’re upset about in terms of governance, it’s our position that nothing short of a national convention of state delegates is going to do anything to redirect the ship of state. Not a new executive administration, and certainly not legislation from a branch where corruption has become institutionalized. An Article V Convention is anathema to the corporatists. What corporate power is dead-set against, authentic Americans should be all for.
Perhaps we’ll have to wait for our less astute, fellow citizens to come round to the truth that the next president will not and cannot bring an end to corporate rule. This would likely be ten to twelve months from now. Hopefully everyone concerned will be here, ready to dust off our Constitution and put it to work for us.
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john de herrera (32 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 119 comments)
on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 4:21:12 PM
