Vermonters for Voting Integrity Newsletter

[garybeck]

OPTICAL SCANNERS CAUGHT FLIPPING VOTES!
System in Florida similar to Vermont's, awarded victory to wrong candidates twice, and possibly more times. Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos continues to ignore concerns.


Vermonters!

The election is right around the corner and it's time again to update you on our efforts to fix the problems with the Diebold/Premier election system we use in Vermont.

I know everyone is very busy and you're already being pummeled with election-related information. So we'll cut right to the chase and just include these two very important sections in our newsletter. Please read and share this information; our Democracy is at stake!

Why we do this: Optical Scanner system in Florida, similar to ours, flips votes and awards victory to the wrong candidate

A big problem has just been found with the election system in Florida. They use optical scan systems, and they have a tiny audit of 2% of the votes, and only on some of the races. This is very similar to what we do in Vermont.

Recently a concerned election official decided to take matters into her own hands. She found that there was a "glitch" in the vote counting software that was flipping votes, and this had actually awarded the victory to the wrong candidate twice in recent past. Even worse she found that the vendor of the voting machines was aware of this problem and never did anything about it.

The company in question is Dominion Voting Systems, the same company that now owns our election system hardware and software. Is this "glitch" in our system too? Who knows because the software is "proprietary" and no one is allowed to view the code. Furthermore, it's been proven many times that our tiny and inadequate audits would not find these types of problems. Literally, elections could have been counted wrong right under our noses and we still wouldn't know.

The linked article below details what was just discovered in Florida. It should raise big concerns for us here in Vermont, since our system is very similar to theirs, and owned by the same company. This proves what we've been saying all along - our audits are inadequate, we must improve our election audits so we can have confidence in our election results.

Here's the article --
CBS4 Investigates: Palm Beach County’s 2012 Ballot Debacle
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/10/09/cbs4-investigates-palm-beach-countys-2012-ballot-debacle/

What's up with our new Secretary of State Jim Condos? Does he care about election integrity?

Two years ago when Jim Condos was running for Secretary of State, I called him on the phone to ask his position on the voting machines. We spoke for quite a while and he said he would be in favor of improving the audits, because it would increase voter confidence.

Since he was elected, we have made a continuous effort to get him to follow through with this position. I met with him in his office in Montpelier and showed him the document Princicples and Best Practices for Election Audits, written by computer security experts. I pointed out the fact that out of the nine recommendations listed in the document, Vermont is only following three. This leaves our election system wide open to fraud and computer error, either of which could change the results of an election without our knowledge. I also delivered to him our petition, asking him to improve the election audits in Vermont. He promised me, he's on our side and he wants our system to be secure, transparent, and reliable.

Unfortunately Jim's actions have not corresponded with what he told me that day in his office. It has been two years now and he has done nothing to improve the audits. In fact the audits will be virtually identical to the ones in the last few elections, not following six out of the nine expert recommendations.

Since our meeting in his office, Jim has been evasive in his responses to our inquiries. It often takes 3 or more emails to him to receive a response. Several people have told me they've tried to contact him and received no response. From his last few replies, it is clear to us that Jim has still never read the list of recommendations, or any of the material we have sent him. In his last email to us, Jim stated "I’m really not sure what it is you are after – it appears that you would like to see the machines go away." This was a real disappointment and only shows he's not reading anything we give him. We have been clear from the beginning - we want him to improve the audits and we have given him a list of recommendations for doing so, at least three times. We have NEVER stated or inferred that we want the machines to go away. This statement from Jim only indicates that he is completely ignoring everything we've given him in the last two years, and has yet to even take one single look at it.

So it is with dismay that we must express our disappointment with Jim Condos as Secretary of State, and his failure to address serious issues with our election system. While he makes public statements indicating he's a big advocate for open, honest, and accurate elections, in reality his actions indicate he is not willing to make any effort towards these goals.

What can you do? Please contact Jim Condos yourself and let him know you want him to conduct better audits on the elections. It's good to include a reference to the document that outlines the recommendations to accomplish this. Here is Jim's contact information. Feel free to share any response you get with us (at [e-mail]).

Jim Condos, Vermont Secretary of State
[e-mail]
802-828-2148
Secretary's Office
128 State Street
Montpelier, VT 05633-1101

We now have a Facebook Page

Like it or not, Facebook is a great way to communicate. It incourages two-way discussion and it also makes it easy to share information with friends and large groups of people.

So we have created a Facebook page for Vermonters for Voting Integrity. Please visit our Facebook page and "like" it. We'll share information there that is vital to our continuing quest to improve the integrity, security, and transparency of our election system in Vermont.

Here's the link to our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/vtvoters

If you care about the integrity of our election system, please stay informed about this important subject. Please write to Secretary of State Jim Condos and express your concern. Please share this newsletter with your friends. Please visit our website and LIKE our Facebook page.


Lastly I just want to remind you to stay in touch! Vermonters for Voting Integrity is eager to answer your questions and hear your concerns. Just reply to any of our newsletters or contact me, Gary Beckwith, directly at [e-mail].

Regards,
Gary Beckwith

Vermonters for Voting Integrity
http://vtvoters.org

this newsletter can be viewed/shared online here:
http://vtvoters.org/nlarchives/vvi_oct2012html.html

[truckin]

1. Good stuff Gary

I really respect the way you have continued to fight the good fight. Here in Connecticut things aren't perfect but we have fairly good audit laws to check our scanners. The only problem is that whenever there is a difference between the machine and the hand count, it is always blamed on the hand count and no investigation takes place.

[garybeck]

2. I'd like to work with you guys.

i'd like to know more about your audits. what are the parameters?

I've been using this document as a guide for good audits.

http://electionaudits.org/files/best%20practices%20final_0.pdf

In it there are nine principles:

1. TRANSPARENCY: Elections belong to the public. The public must
be allowed to observe, verify, and point out procedural problems in
all phases of the audit without interfering with the process.
2. INDEPENDENCE: The authority and regulation of post-election audits should
be independent of officials who conduct the elections. The actual work of postelection audits may be best performed by the officials who conduct the elections.
3. PAPER RECORDS: Ideally, post-election audits use hand-to-eye counts of
voter-marked, voter-verified paper ballots. Where such paper ballots are not
available, other forms of voter-verifiable paper records should be used.
4. CHAIN OF CUSTODY & BALLOT ACCOUNTING: Robust ballot
accounting and secure chain of custody of election materials and
equipment are prerequisites for effective post-election audits.
5. RISK-LIMITING AUDITS: Post-election audits reduce the risk of confirming
an incorrect outcome. Audits designed explicitly to limit such risk (risklimiting audits) have advantages over fixed-percentage or tiered audits, which
often count fewer or more ballots than necessary to confirm the outcome.
6. ADDRESSING DISCREPANCIES and CONTINUING THE AUDIT: When discrepancies
are found, additional counting and/or other investigation may be necessary to
determine the election outcome or to find the cause of the discrepancies.
7. COMPREHENSIVE: All jurisdictions and all ballot types, including absentee, mailin and accepted provisional ballots, should be subject to the selection process.
8. ADDITIONAL TARGETED SAMPLES: Including a limited number of additional
targeted samples of ballots can increase audit effectiveness and public
confidence. Such samples may be selected by candidates, issue committees,
parties, election administrators, or others as provided by regulation.
9. BINDING ON OFFICIAL RESULTS: Post-election audits must be
completed prior to finalizing official election results and must either
verify the outcome or, through a 100% recount, correct the outcome.

How many of these 9 do would you say CT is complying with?

My goal is to get VT to comply with all 9. Currently we are at 3.

[truckin]

3. I would say we comply with 1 and 3 only.

However, a better person to comment on this is Luther Weeks of CTVotersCount.org. He has been the most active person in the state when it comes to the election issue. here's a link to his website:

http://www.ctvoterscount.org/