BBV: Citizens ask Riverside elections official to recuse herself [View All]

[BevHarris]

This is a follow up to the story we have been breaking at http://www.blackboxvoting.org.

Here is the summary of the original story and the discussion on DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1325187

Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-registrar2apr02,1,1106405.story?coll=la-news-politics-california (you have to sign in, sorry)

Riverside County officials were urged Thursday to place Registrar of Voters Mischelle Townsend on paid administrative leave until conflict-of-interest allegations filed with the state's Fair Political Practices Commission are resolved.

It is now impossible for citizens to discern whether she is speaking on behalf of the county or on behalf of Sequoia in regards to electronic touch screen voting…. The integrity of our voting system requires nothing less than your immediate attention to this vital matter," Lucsko wrote to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.

And from the San Jose Mercury News http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/8337366.htm

Voting activists alleging irregularities in the primary election have asked California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to impound the electronic voting system used in Riverside County.

``The secretary of state definitely needs to come down here and do an investigation,'' said Brian Floyd, campaign manager for Linda Soubirous, a candidate for the county board of supervisors who lost by 49 votes, or one-tenth of a percent. Soubirous is seeking a recount.

And this is from something I started, oopsy:

"A press officer for (California Secretary of State Kevin) Shelley said the office is reviewing complaints about the Riverside election.

After reviewing my notes on the interview, and the law, I started to feel like this was Georgia all over again. What did he put on that machine, when Eddie Campbell of Denver, who doesn't work for the county, put something on the central tabulator while votes were being counted? In Georgia, the evidence has been wiped clean and here we are a year and a half later, still talking about it. I decided to call the California Secretary of State's office to report this, and they then took a complaint from witnesses. I have no idea if they'll impound the machines.

What is clear is this: Putting that card in the machine, then leaving the state with it, is absolutely outrageous and certainly not the bulletproof security procedures that registrars like Townsend have been promising us.

Andy Stephenson (http://www.andystephenson.com) has pried a few answers loose. Apparently Sequoia will be issuing a press release about this whole mess today, and apparently after Stephenson asked a few questions of Riverside County, they decided not to answer anything else unless he submitted it in writing.

Also, Townsends' missing conflict of interest statements seem to have showed up, Stephenson was told, they had been missing because they were misfiled. However, they are date-stamped for Wednesday and Thursday this week, (Wednesday was the day I made seven unsuccessful calls to ask Townsend to answer questions, and the Los Angeles Times asked her where her statements were). The one dated Thursday, April 1 2004, which was for 1998, had a note on it to the effect of:

sorry, didn't know you were missing this, I couldn't find my copy so I made a new copy

Now, as for the allegation that Townsend took illegal travel money from Sequoia (Los Angeles Times, yesterday) -- we revealed a link submitted to us that showed this was not for a news show, as she claimed, but for a paid ad for Sequoia. Here's what Sequoia's Alfie Charles told the Los Angeles Times in today's article:

"the company might have paid to produce the program but said he could not find out Thursday how much."

I'm sad to say that Townsend is not happy with me: She wrote, while not answering any questions, the following:

``I cannot tell you how disappointed I was in reading what was posted on that site. (http://www.blackboxvoting.org) It is so replete with misrepresentations, false statements and misleading information that I am going to have to put out a statement,'' Townsend said Thursday evening.

Alfie Charles, of Sequoia, has these comforting words about the two guys from Denver who were doing something on the central tabulation computer:

"Sequoia employees do not have user IDs or passwords for Riverside County's election system and did not conduct any sort of programming of the central tally system during the recent election. Sequoia staff were available on election night for technical support and to help the county utilize a separate program, which is not part of the central tabulation system, but which is used to generate separate reports of data for transfer to the state website on election night. It appears some observers of the vote-counting in Riverside have confused the program used to generate separate reports with the central tally system."

OK. But guess what? I called Art Cassel, who witnessed this, to ask him if he was certain that the computer they were accessing was the same one that Riverside was uploading ballots into. Absolutely positive, he said, and provided several corroborating details. So, if they were using a different program, that's also against the rules. No extra programs are allowed on the central tabulator computer, and neither are people who aren't certified and qualified elections officials, no matter what they are doing.

As far as Sequoia employees not having user IDs or passwords -- well, that's apparently true. What I reported was that the Sequoia employee accessed the vote-counting computer using someone else's password. Sequoia employee Eddie Campbell signed himself in as Riverside employee Brian Foss.

And as far as Sequoia's PR firm, O'Reilly public relations -- apparently this firm O'Reilly Public Relations, wrote letters on behalf of Townsend that were mailed to political reporters throughout the nation.

It is not considered ethical for a PR firm to represent both sides of the fence. In this case, they'd be representing Sequoia, the vendor, and Townsend (the county, the customer).

======================

My favorite part:

Thursday, state Sens. Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, the chair and vice chair of the Senate Committee on Elections and Reapportionment, introduced urgency legislation that would ban the use of all touch-screen voting machines in California until they can produce backup paper ballots.

They aren't talking about 2006, folks. They are talking about NOW!

Bev Harris