The message, given below, details a number of problems with the new Holt bill HR 811, which was introduced on Tuesday 2/6/06, by Rush Holt (D-NJ), and is an updated version of his original election reform bill.
Subject: Beware of the Bandwagon: A concise list of problems in HoltBill HR 811
Tips for action: You can find your local congressperson, along with
contact info, by going to http://www.congress.org and entering your zip code. Educate your local news reporter on this. And send to your lists.
Further action suggestions will follow.
There is a reason you are receiving e-mails to urge your congressperson
to"hurry" and pass the Holt Bill. They hope it won't be read.
You should know this -- the following groups have come out against the
new Holt Bill:
- Black Box Voting has publicly come out against the Bill
- Open Voting Consortium has publicly come out against the Bill
- Brad Friedman (BradBlog) has publicly come out against the Bill
- Jon Bonifaz (VoterAction.org / Demos) has publicly come out against
the Bill
- Paul Lehto has publicly come out against the Bill
- Democracy for New Hampshire has publicly come out against the Bill
Decline to support:
- John Gideon (VotersUnite, VoteTrustUSA) has publicly refused tosupport the bill and there will be more.
HERE'S WHY
- DECEPTIVE LANGUAGE. Calls a paper TRAIL a paper BALLOT.
- BILLION DOLLAR UNFUNDED MANDATE: Requires text conversion technology
in every polling place. At $7000 per machine for 185,000 polling places,
you do the math. See this article for documentation on the billion-dollar
boondoggle: http://www.bbvforums.org/...
The bill is not talking about scanner wands, folks. Or if it is, they'd
better specify that, and soon! Except that apparently, it's too late to
make changes.
Note that only two vendors currently manufacture the needed technology,
and one (Populex) has as head of its advisory board Frank Carlucci, the
former chairman of the Carlyle Group, former CIA director, who was Donald
Rumsfeld's roommate in college. Every polling place in America. Is this
really what you want? Isn't it time to read the fine print on this???
- MAKES THE SCANDAL RIDDEN EAC A PERMANENT FIXTURE AND INCREASES ITS
POWER. Alan Dechert, from the Open Voting Consortium says it best: "Holt
contemplates the invasion of these United States by the Federal
government. If passed, it would BREAK the voting system in the states while establishing a dictatorship to handle things: the Election Assistance Commission
("EAC" or just "the Commission") with its four commissioners appointed by the president of the United States." Bradblog on latest EAC scandal:
http://www.bradblog.com/...
- ALLOWS LOSS OF SECRET BALLOTS for the Military
- NO RECOGNITION OF CITIZEN RIGHT TO OVERSIGHT. Audit provisions do not
allow either citizens or candidates access to any records for meaningful
audits.
- CONFLICTING REQUIREMENTS -- ie, must have text converters by 2008 and
must study how to best do the conversions by 2010.
- LANGUAGE ON DISCLOSED SOURCE CODE CONTAINS AN ERROR in that it
doesn't deal with COTS - meaning, any electronics component with a chip on it would be required to disclose source code. There are literally hundreds of commercial off the shelf components in the system -- printers, video drivers, motherboard components -- that contain firmware, and these are manufactured all over the world. The bill would require Hitachi, Seagate, Fuji, Western Digital to open up their code for their commercial products if used in voting machines. Effectively eliminates the use of electronics while at the same time mandating electronics.
- MUSH LANGUAGE. (Example: "The manufacturer shall provide the
appropriate election official with the information necessary for the official to provide the information...")
- UNREADABLE: People complain about their legislators not reading the
bills -- well the way this is written, it guarantees they won't read it. No Appendix, so sections of the bill require the reader to actually go
find a different bill and look up sections in it in order to make sense of the current bill. (example: "Section 301(a)(1) of such Act (42 U.S.C.
15481(a)(1)) is amended (A) in subparagraph (A)(i), by striking
"counted" and inserting "counted, in accordance with paragraphs (2) and (3)");
- AUDIT PROTOCOLS NO ONE AGREES WITH, even fans of audit solutions
- LOOPHOLE ALLOWING INTERNET CONNECTIONS for central tabulators and
ballot definition software
- LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MANUAL AUDITS TO BE BYPASSED (in) states with
computer-only recount protocols
- LOOPHOLE ALLOWING MACHINE COUNT TO SUPERCEDE VOTER VERIFIED PAPER
when fuzzily described circumstances arise. Los Angeles Registrar Conny
McCormack already has tried to co-opt this (Feinstein senate hearing yesterday) into meaning when there is a printer jam damaging the paper, the machine count will trump.
- SUPPORTS DREs (Touch-screens and other on-screen voting techniques
that are NOT recommended by NIST)
This is a devastating development. So many people worked so very hard on
this bill, but in the end it isn't about who worked hard. It's about
getting it right. We can't afford another set of HAVA problems.
And if it's got this many problems now, just wait until the lobbyists
carve it up.
We're going to have to roll up our sleeves to get what CITIZENS want.
More action-oriented, solution-focused information to follow. Black Box
Voting is working right now with many other group leaders to brainstorm the best way to deal with this.
Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting