You can keep arguing the merits of this audit method or that, this paper trail or that, but the Holt Bill has two poison pills in it that can not be argued away: 1) huge unfunded mandate for text-to-audio conversion technology 2) consolidation of Executive power and control over Federal elections.

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New Version of Holt Bill: A Giant Step Backwards.

Article by Nancy Tobi, Chair, Democracy for New Hampshire and co-author of "Request by Voters" letter, a plea to Holt and the co-sponsors of his HR 550 bill to consider democratic modifications and accountability features in the modifications to this bill. "Request by Voters" was signed by 1500 individuals and organizations. Our voices were ignored.

Tobi's analysis of the new version of Holt's bill follows:

You can keep arguing the merits of this audit method or that, this paper trail or that, but the Holt Bill has two poison pills in it that can not be argued away:

1) huge unfunded mandate for text-to-audio conversion technology

2) consolidation of Executive power and control over Federal elections.

We must fight this treasonous bill--and if giving the President control over elections that elect the President is not treasonous to American representational democracy, what is?-- and call it for what it is: ANTI-DEMOCRATIC.

It is bad enough that the authors of this bill, two years following the NASS resolution to sunset the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), and after more than a years' worth of activist pleadings to get rid of this growing little monster, the EAC, cement it as a permanent Executive agency in his new bill.

Bad enough that the authors of this bill are comfortable handing over control of federal elections to the White House. This is treasonous in and of itself.

But on top of this unseemly and anti democratic motion, the new Holt bill insinuates a whole new technoelection industrial toy into every polling place in the nation.

In the language of this bill, the new accessible voting system

"'(I) allows the voter to privately and independently verify the content of the permanent paper ballot through the conversion of the printed content into accessible media"

Do you want to know what this intentionally benign and vague language means, and the events that led to it being inserted into the Holt Bill? If you ask Holt's office why this mysterious new requirement is in their bill, they're liable to say, "why, it's in the EAC 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG)." So let's take a look at what all of this means, and where it comes from.

First, to understand exactly what Holt's vague and, dare I say it, opaque, language is talking about, just look at Tubbs Jones"Count Every Vote" Bill (HR939). This bill was originally endorsed and heavily promoted by PFAW, and had been viewed by Holt's office as competition to their own piece of legislation.

Keep in mind that there is the chance that proponents of this crap, such as Holt, Hoyer, and PFAW, may actually believe that in order to get votes from voters who are illiterate, non-English speaking, or whatnot, they have to create a multimedia voting booth - complete with picture, sound, multiple languages. In other words, at best, this is another road to boondoggle paved with good intentions. At worst it is a cynical ploy to further enrich the evoting industry and destroy our democracy.

Anyway, the Tubbs Jones bill spelled out the meaning of "conversion of printed content into accessible media" very clearly, making it possible for the average citizen to grasp exactly how much of a high tech boondoggle this text-to-audio conversion concept is. HR 939 details the multimedia extravaganza that the 2007 Holt Bill is referring to as "accessible media" is and puts it like this:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-939

'(B) VERIFICATION REQUIREMENTS- Any direct recording electronic voting system or other voting system described in subparagraph (A)(iii) shall use a mechanism that separates the function of vote generation from the function of vote casting and shall produce, in accordance with paragraph (2)(A), an individual paper record which--

'(i) shall be used to meet the requirements of paragraph (2)(B);

'(ii) shall be available for visual, audio, and pictorial inspection and verification by the voter, with language translation available for all forms of inspection and verification in accordance with the requirements of section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965;

'(iii) shall not require the voter to handle the paper; and

'(iv) shall not preclude the use of Braille or tactile ballots for those voters who need them. The requirement of clause (iii) shall not apply to any voting system certified by the Independent Testing Authorities before the date of the enactment of this Act.'(C)

REQUIREMENTS FOR LANGUAGE MINORITIES- Any record produced under subparagraph (B) shall be subject to the requirements of section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the extent such section is applicable to the State or jurisdiction in which such record is produced.'. ---------------------------

That's right folks. A voting booth with audio, visual, pictorial, capabilities. The possibilities are endless. If I am musically inclined perhaps they can convert my ballot to a symphony too. (Lest anyone think I am heartless and insensitive, let me just say that the rights of the disabled, illiterate, etc. are part and parcel of a functioning democracy. We just do not believe those rights need to be protected at the cost of the democracy itself.)

Of course, it is no accident that the conversion language appears in the newly revised Holt Bill. In fact somebody has been planning this for some time now. We can trace its origins back at least a year and a half. We even know many of the players. We know, for instance, that PFAW lobbied hard for inserting the conversion technotoy into the Holt Bill. In fact, a December 2006 draft verions of the bill did not even contain this provision. Many reviewers of the draft legislation didn't even know about it. I, myself, saw a December draft version, and this provision was not included. It only appeared very late in the drafting process, just in time to be released to the public in February and to defuse any competing support for HR 939. Tubbs Jones is now a cosponsor of the Holt Bill.

But lobbyists alone do not legislation make. We can therefore assume that there is some industry maven rubbing his hands with glee at his imminent entrance into a multibillion dollar technoelection industry.

What is clear is this: somebody stands to make a bundle off this thing, and on top of that its implementation will succeed at further obscuring the integrity of the paper ballot and our democratic processes. So let's follow the historical timeline for the new technoelection dream toy.

TEXT-TO-AUDIO TECHNOELECTION TOY TIMELINE:

August 2005

The EAC Standards Board meets to review the recommendations for the 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG), which will become the basis for federal recommendations, testing, and certification of e-voting equipment.

In the link here you will find the resolutions from the EAC Standards Board August 2005 meeting, in which they recommended removing all language referencing text conversion from the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). Remember that the Standards Board, unlike the Commission stacked with partisan hacks, is a 50-state representational body of top state and local election officials.

You know, people who actually UNDERSTAND how elections work.

Well, the Standards Board resolutions came about following the Standards Board review of all references to sections identified with the numbers 2.2.7.xxx in the 2005 Draft VVSG. These sections all referred to the text conversion guideline,which had been inserted into the draft VVSG that the Standards Board had reviewed. As you can see, per the Standards Board recommendation, the text-to-digital data conversion guideline was to be removed from the VVSG.

The Standards Board made this recommendation because they understood the financial cost of this guideline (expecting every polling place in the country to have a device to convert text to digital media), and they also knew that it would compromise the integrity and transparency of PAPER BALLOT-based election systems.

However, in a move oddly reminiscent of its appearance late in the game during the drafting of the 2007 Holt Bill, the text conversion guideline had mysteriously been reinserted into the VVSG that was released and approved by the EAC in December 2005.

We can't say for sure how this happened, but we know that, by the EAC's own rules, Executive Director of the EAC, Tom Wilkey, had the final authority on what would be included in the released version of the VVSG.

So it would appear that 110 Standards Board members decided one thing, and one EAC Executive Director decided another.

And democracy lost.

December 2005

http://www.eac.gov/VVSG%20Volume_II.pdf

So when the VVSG 2005 guidelines were released, here is how the text conversion guideline magically reappeared:

4.7.4 Availability Test The accredited test lab shall assess the adequacy of system availability based on the provisions of Volume I, Section 4.

As described in this section, availability of voting system equipment is determined as a function of reliability, and the mean time to repair the system in the event of failure. Availability cannot be tested directly before the voting system is deployed in jurisdictions, but can be modeled mathematically to predict availability for a defined system configuration. This model shall be prepared by the vendor, and shall be validated by the accredited testing laboratory.

The model shall reflect the equipment used for a typical system configuration to perform the following system functions:

For all paper-based systems: Recording voter selections (such as by ballot marking)

Scanning the marks on paper ballots and converting them into digital data

February 2007

The requirement appears in the new Holt Bill. An unfunded federal mandate that every polling place in the United States purchase and use a new technological device that will convert ballot text into digital data to be converted into "accessible media".

Does such a product exist? We would guess that somebody's been working on it, or the requirement wouldn't have been inserted into the February Holt Bill. Has it been tested?

Is it certifiable? Since the product didn't exist when the EAC's own federal e-voting testing and certification requirements were devised, the answer has to be no.

Bottom line: the Holt Bill is mandating for the 2008 elections that every polling jurisdiction, with already limited funds for healthcare, education, and roads maintenance, invest several thousand dollars into an untested, uncertifiable technological device, that will convert the durable, human readable ballot into digitized data, which will then, if we have faith in the programmer, convert it into all kinds of other media.

Additionally, our election officials, trained and skilled in running elections, will now be converted themselves into Information Technology (IT) project managers, spending the next two years developing specifications and requirements for a whole new technoelection toy to work within the unique and specific ballot design requirements for their jurisdiction.

For our next act, Tom Cruise will play the part of the Presidential candidate in row A, Jennifer Garner will play the part of the Presidential candidate in row B, and Elton John will sing the ballot to the tune of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Is this any way to run a democracy?

That's it. The latest technoelection timeline brought to you by US Congressman Rush Holt, PFAW, and some as yet unknown evoting industry baron.

God bless America. Land that we love. Fight on my fellow Patriots. This can not stand.

-- Nancy Tobi, Chair Democracy for New Hampshire
DFNH Fair Elections Committee
PO Box 717 | Concord, NH 03301
www.DemocracyForNewHampshire.com

Authors Bio:

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