Schwarzenegger's pen is two strokes away

[Einsteinia]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/23/31318/0111

Schwarzenegger's pen is two strokes away


It's exhilarating to come this far.


And soon--possibly as early as Monday--it'll all be in Schwarzenegger's hands.


Or is it?


Feel powerful?


Sign a petition and impact the Mother of All Issues:


ELECTION INTEGRITY IN CALIFORNIA ,

because democracy still depends on it.

Vote YES on the attached petition that will automatically send your vote to Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislation,

then pass it on to your lists, and feel the euphoria of today's battle won.

Here's the link to the Petition:
 
http://www.usalone.com/sb370.htm




WHAT A "YES" VOTE WOULD DO:

SB 370 :THIS BILL WOULD REQUIRE NO NEW COSTS and
among many important features it mandates that the state look to a paper record of ballots cast for recount purposes. Incredibly, the new Republican secretary of state who opposes this bill argues that the weight of the paper stock and lack of watermark on the paper records render it as insufficient to serve as a paper record to be relied upon in the event of a recount.

Whereas its supporters believe that the paper record law passed last year that mandates as of January 1, 2006, all votes cast in California must have a Verified Voter Paper Audit Trail ("VVPAT") was passed so that this paper record would serve a specific function; specifically, the paper record was created so that it may be relied upon as the ballot of record in the event of a recount or audit. Supporters therefore believe that the passage of SB370 would merely codify the intended function into the California Election Code.

AB 1636 :THIS BILL WOULD REQUIRE NO NEW COSTS and among other important features would ensure that no open "back door"  access vulnerabilities inherent in wireless connectivity features. Opponents of this bill cite the need for the expediency and convenience that remote access to our computers would provide. Supporters of this bill say that any features gained cannot trump the voters' paramount need for security of our voting systems.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. done

[Einsteinia]

2. thanks & I forgot to mention that

the deadline for all this is probably Sunday, because there's a good chance that these bills could be on Schwarzenegger's desk as early as Monday morning,

[nicknameless]

3. Einsteinia, what is a paper record?

Is it a paper ballot or something else?

[Einsteinia]

5. paper record =

the Verified Voter Paper Audit Trail ("AVVPAT") that will become mandatory on all votes in California on January 1, 2006. This bill will make that paper record actually mean something--otherwise it's function will be Toilet Paper ("TP").

[Cocoa]

4. Schwarzenegger's penis is what?

strokes? What?????

[Einsteinia]

7. #: )

n/t

[Bill Bored]

6. OK, I'm just a dumb NYer but

you passed a law for VVPATs that doesn't say you have to use them for recounts or manual audits? What does it say them? Just hang a printer on the DRE and go home?

I would not be quibbling over whether the term ballot, record or trail is used at this point if I were you. This law, as I understand it, makes the VVPAT the ballot of record in recounts, and that's a good step to take. It would be nice to have a voter verified paper ballot though, without the DREs.

But I am interested in the current law out there. Can you explain or cite it please?

Is the robot guy going to sign this? Does he have veto power? Will it become law if he does nothing?

What about random audits, etc? How will you know whether to recount or not?

Good luck!

[Einsteinia]

8. Let me try to respond

Right now we do have 25 directives by the former California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, which does make the "VVPAT" the ballot of record for recounts or audits. The problem is that unless we codify it and put it in the Election Code, it can be overturned by the whim of any Secretary of State; and now Bruce McPherson our new Secretary of State says he doesn't like it on the pretense that the paper quality, etc., is inferior to what we demand of regular paper ballots. In other words, he wants to throw a wrench into the whole VVPAT's purpose. A paper trail that is not relied upon in the event of a recount or audit is nothing but Toilet Paper ("TP"). One then must ask why was the VVPAT law implemented?

Will robot guy sign these election integrity bills? That's the trillion dollar question. I'm told that he's been using the excuse that he wouldn't sign because of the expense and that is why we've prominently stated that these bills would require no new expense.

His popularity is nose-diving, YET none of his Special Election proposals stand much of a chance of winning with equipment that isn't rigged. That's my humble opinion.

[Bill Bored]

9. I think I've got it.

So at this point what is codified in the law? Just VVPATs?

Good luck!

[Bill Bored]

11. HAVA Sect. 301 says the paper must be counted!

As a sidebar, although HAVA does NOT require a VVPAT, it does require the paper that is produced by the system to be "available as an official record for any recount conducted with respect to any election in which the system is used."

I would interpret this to mean that if a system DOES produce a VVPAT, as yours must, the VVPAT is to be recounted as the official record.

If your bill does not become law, try to go with HAVA! It's not all bad.

[Einsteinia]

13. Interesting. . . .

If this measure fails, we're certainly going to have to go over HAVA with a fine tooth comb to see our recourse. This looks promising, but given the current political climate to win at ALL costs, even blatant election code is overlooking. For instance in California we have Election Code 15360 which explicitly calls for a "manual tally" of 1% of all precincts. Beyond the fact that 1% is likely insufficient to detect fraud, some elections officials have gotten away with conducting the "manual tally" with a machine. Yes, it's a machine "manual tally.: Incredible. And corrupt.

[Bill Bored]

14. Got you.

Well, also see this paper about random auditing by Kathy Dopp, which I've had peer reviewed privately:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Paper_Audits.pdf

Unlike the usual exit poll stuff, this one spells out the odds of actual random audits missing corrupted precincts. It's similar to picking winning numbers in a lottery.

Clearly the biggest risk is error or fraud concentrated in a few machines that would elude your 1% (or greater) audits. Fortunately, this could only swing relatively close elections, provided that the audits are done properly, which you've said they may not be.

There are some who would be happy if the machine audit was done with an open source code scanner and so on, but a manual count should be done manually, IMO. Maybe you can take some BoEs to court over that, if the auditing rule is actually a state law. Is it?

You could also contest an election in court, if statistically, it's possible for the audit to have missed an error large enough to reverse the outcome. A judge could then order a hand count. We have a law for this in NY. We have a number of actual laws about this stuff in fact.

Thanks for 'splaining some of this. It's the first time, amid all the activism in your state, that I've seen any actual facts about WTF is going on. (Of course, I could have missed some of that!)

[Einsteinia]

15. Yes, I've read Kathy Dopp's stuff

I'm using it as the basis for a REAL audit protocol in our state, which I'm calling the "Gold Star Audit" in honor of the Gold Star Families for Peace (Cindy Sheehan).

I like the idea of connecting the honorable people who are innocently sacrificing their lives in the name of democracy to at least have a somewhat real (accountable) democracy over here.

When I named it some months ago, I had know idea that the Gold Star phenomenon that we're now seeing would take off the way it had. Maybe some good from all this may happen.

We do need a change of pace from the past 5 years.

[Bill Bored]

18. Maybe those rolling blackouts will help to discredit the robot guy.

The more things change....

BTW, DREs need batteries to work during a blackout and they need to be tested and charged, unless you have a paper backup of course. Another log to throw on the fire!

[Helga Scow Stern]

10. Thank you. It will be interesting to see if anything changes.

"Incredibly, the new Republican secretary of state who opposes this bill argues that the weight of the paper stock and lack of watermark on the paper records render it as insufficient to serve as a paper record to be relied upon in the event of a recount."

This is no surprise whatsoever. Isn't this exactly why Shelley was disposed of?

Why in the world would Schwarzenegger want to sabotage all this, when they are on the verge of stealing the state, especially when his popularity is so low?

It will be an absolute miracle of Schwarzenegger signs this bill into being...that or a trick.

[Bill Bored]

12. Sounds like it could be a call for REAL paper ballots to me.

He's talking Op Scan ballots. Now that would make sense!

[Einsteinia]

17. Real paper ballots first, but as we learned from NV

paper without a REAL audit protocol is meaningless.

[Einsteinia]

16. Shelley was a hero!

I am dumbfounded by fellow democrats who sold this brave man down the river. He may not have been perfect, but he was a maverick fighting the powerful e-vendors and the Help America Vendors Act. Without him, I don't think anyone would have paper trails today. Now, if we can just read them--as is required by this SB 370, we'll all be fine (or at least, finer).

[Bill Bored]

19. In NY his work was cited positively by at least 1 Dem legislator.

Diebold is little more than a bad joke around here to most mainstream politicians. I hope it stays that way, but you never know, and there are other vendors willing to take their place that could be just as bad.

[tommcintyre]

20. CA is key. Thats why Diebold is sending Joe Andrew there nt