WI Senate Committee on Ag, ELECTIONS and UW System

[Lefta Dissenter]

Last edited Fri Oct 26, 2012, 02:50 PM - Edit history (1)

(I posted this as a response in a a GD thread, but wanted to let Wisconsin peeps know)

Yesterday some of us testified before the Wisconsin State Senate Committee on Agriculture, Elections and the UW System. Since we re-took the Senate this last summer, this committee is chaired by State Senator Kathleen Vinehout, the Democrat whom I supported in the Walker Recall primary. She called this hearing to take public testimony about the election integrity issues that we have been trying to bring to light for the last two years (at least).

I had not been planning to testify, but after listening to some of the statements, particularly by the WI Government Accountability Board staff, I felt compelled to make a statement. I made reference to the fact that Germany is among the countries that is stopping use of electronic voting machines, and treating hand counting of ballots as a civic duty, much like jury duty.

Present in the audience at the hearing were two International Observers from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. After my testimony, one of the observers came over and introduced himself. He is from Germany, and said that he couldn't make any statements while he was observing, but that he would be happy to talk at another time. I am looking forward to contacting him and learning more about how Germany is making the shift from using electronic voting machines.

By the way, the Republicans have not bothered to appoint anyone to this committee. I'm sure they will before next week's hearings on raw milk, an interest of Glenn Grothman's (boo).

edited to add link to the hearing: http://www.wiseye.org/Programming/VideoArchive/EventDetail.aspx?evhdid=6838

[Scuba]

1. Thank you for stepping up! Again! We are all in your debt...

I'm obviously curious about the demeanor of Kevin Kennedy who advocated for the use of Diebold machines (among other anti-democracy acts). Can you share any insights?


Again, thanks for all you do!!!

[Lefta Dissenter]

2. TOTAL CYA

As they do at the GAB Board meetings, and at ANY of the legislative committees, they cover their asses. Kennedy spoke initially, and had a couple of staffers there. They're condescending and arrogant.

Same old crap.

"We've had many, many elections over the past two years. Elections are hard work! We've also had lots of changes to the legislation affecting elections. (who's fault is THAT???)

We've increased training for election officials and clerks, and we have shiny new brochures available on the website.

We see that there are people waiting to testify who have talked to the GAB before. They're all crazy

Kloppenburg recount confirmed that the machines are working just GREAT (ignore the ripped bags, missing ballots, etc...)

The machine testing PROVES that everything is AOKay. Have you heard we have paper ballots?"

Video available at http://www.wiseye.org/Programming/VideoArchive/EventDetail.aspx?evhdid=6838

[Scuba]

4. Did any GAB staffer even concede that electronic machines are vulnerable?

Or was it a 110% stonewall?

The Prosser/Kloppenburg recount exposed numerous problems. Sounds like a failure to accept any accountability.

[mojowork_n]

6. Well, good news. "The International Monitors are coming, the International Monitors are Coming."

I can see them now:

"em-EHR-jen-zee, em-EHR-jen-zee. Ev-ery wan from street."



http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/10/international-observers-monitor-us-elections-united-nations

On November 6, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a United Nations affiliate, has already deployed a team of 57 observers from 23 countries, including Serbia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, to monitor voter suppression and learn about election administration, campaign finance, new voting technologies, and even our media environment.

International monitors are actually nothing new. ODIHR has kept an eye on US elections since 2002, at the invitation of the State Department, says ODIHR spokesperson Thomas Rymer. But now that the mere act of voting has become Civil-Rights-era politicized, that outside eye matters more.

Even though Democratic groups will have thousands of their own volunteer poll-watchers and lawyers out monitoring the polls, a bunch of civil rights groups like the NAACP and the ACLU have also specifically notified ODIHR of "a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans—particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities," according to The Hill. The international observers will issue a report.....

.....A group in the U.K. came out with a report just yesterday, with mathematical analysis of vote tabulations that shows there may very well be good reason for them to be covering their a$$e$:

http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/breaking-retired-nsa-analyst-proves-gop-is-stealing-elections/article20598.html

[Lefta Dissenter]

3. The committee

consists of Kathleen Vinehout (chair), Jon Erpenbach and Tim Cullen. Kathleen as chair - what a refreshing change from so many of the committees we've watched or testified to over the last two years. She is polite, she is generous with the time, she's a GREAT listener (eye contact, smile, doesn't have a phone plastered to her face or her mouth stuffed with popcorn ), and she makes everyone feel welcomed and comfortable.

The committee members and their staff all beamed while the "Raging Grannies" sang their testimony.

After the hearing, Kathleen stuck around for quite a while, giving us the opportunity to respond to some of what the GAB said in their rebuttal testimony that followed ours.

She also asked how things were going with the Sing Along, and was shocked to hear that we're up to 71 citations since September 1 for holding signs or banners or leading the sing.

[Scuba]

5. Not surprising. I like her a lot. Seventy-one, eh? Tell them all thanks. Love me some Grannies..

Mark of the Raging Grannies ..

<a href="" target="_blank"><img src="" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[midnight]

7. Do you feel like sharing the GAB statements that compelled you to share your thoughts?

[Lefta Dissenter]

8. See response #2 above

For the synopsis of the GAB's statement. I addressed many of their comments, as did several other speakers. I pointed out that we are lulled into a false sense of security because our statutes require a voter verified paper trail. The paper trail is meaningless if nobody can look at the ballots within the period of time in which the results of the election can be challenged.

I went on from there, babbling for a few minutes, trying to hit some of the points that the other speakers had not covered.

[midnight]

9. I have not seen your response #2, but you sure do make it clear in your comments here that the most

significant issue is lack of transparency... Let's look at the ballots within the period of time in which election can be challenged-absolutely...

[Lefta Dissenter]

10. My friend's summary

At the October 25, 2012 informational hearing of the Senate Agriculture, Elections and UW Systems Committee, the Committee members received written and oral testimony that:

-Some people cheat when there are high stakes winner-takes all contests,
-Elections are some of the biggest most important contests,
-There is a long history of cheating nationally and in the State of Wisconsin,
-Cheating and anomalies have occurred in battleground states in past Presidential Elections,
-Wisconsin is a closely divided battle ground state,
-People have devised ways to cheat every system ever devised,
-Cheating is more likely when partisans are involved,
-Wisconsin elections are controlled by partisans,
-The electronic voting machines in use are easy to hack or maliciously program,
-The Wisconsin regulators, the Government Accountability Board has passive Board members,
-The GAB staff believes that no significant problems exist,
-GAB efforts against fraud focus on non-consequential and outdated types of fraud,
-The voting machine companies were created by and have close ties to political partisans
-The programming of the machines is escrowed so the GAB does not have access to it,
-Even if they had access, the GAB does not have any staff capable of reading the programming,
-The agents of private companies have frequent easy access to all of the machines
-Local election officials do not have the expertise to find wireless modems or detect malicious programming and do not receive warnings or guidance about these problems,
-One of the founders of A.L.E.C. was interested in suppressing voting by the left, the poor and minorities,
-Wisconsin legislators have been members of A.L.E.C. for a long time and much of the A.L.E.C. agenda has been enacted into Wisconsin law,
-The GAB is interpreting the law so that local sworn Election Officials may not count votes.

To be continued

And now we find out that the right wing partisans were the ones who created the Election Center, an organization that trains election administrators. Their program puts election officials and voting machine company representatives side by side in the same classrooms and creates opportunities for entertainment, sales and influence pedaling.

[midnight]

11. I was hoping the partisan name in charge of the private source code would of been named....

The voting machine companies were created by and have close ties to political partisans
-The programming of the machines is escrowed so the GAB does not have access to it,
-Even if they had access, the GAB does not have any staff capable of reading the programming,
-The agents of private companies have frequent easy access to all of the machines
-Local election officials do not have the expertise to find wireless modems or detect malicious programming and do not receive warnings or guidance about these problems,

[Lefta Dissenter]

12. Senator Kathleen Vinehout's article on the hearing

http://kathleenvinehout.org/2012/10/report-from-a-public-hearing-on-elections-put-voters-first/

[midnight]

13. I posted this article this morning thinking about you and was wondering what the hearing was like

when Barbara Wirth spoke?

[Lefta Dissenter]

14. She did a good job

and didn't flip anyone off!

[midnight]

15. Must of been a tough thing to do knowing that Mr. Kennedy believes this system is

good to go...