More Questions Arise About Competence and Impartiality of Sarasota Voting Machine Auditors

[Wilms]

More Questions Arise About Competence and Impartiality of Sarasota Voting Machine Auditors

One member of the auditing team, Bureau of Voting Systems Certification chief David Drury, previously authorized the illegal distribution of uncertified voting machines in Florida

By People for the American Way Foundation

November 22, 2006

Doubts are arising about a second member of the team assembled to audit the voting machines implicated in Sarasota County’s massive 13th Congressional District election undervote.

Audit team member David Drury is in charge of voting machine certification for the state and has a vested interest in finding that the machines he certified functioned properly. Additionally, according to a complaint filed by the Florida Fair Elections Coalition, questions about Drury’s competence have been raised by his decision earlier this year to authorize the illegal distribution of uncertified voting machines.

Drury is the second person whose participation in the audit raises concerns about conflict of interest. Last week, PFAW Foundation criticized the selection of Alec Yasinsac—a political partisan and avowed opponent of voting machine paper trails—to help lead the state’s audit.

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The problems presented by Drury’s appointment to the audit team are twofold. First, Drury, who is the chief of the Florida Bureau of Voting Systems Certification, certified the machines in question. More troubling, according to the Florida Fair Elections Coalition complaint, earlier this year, Drury provided a letter to a voting machine manufacturer giving it permission to ship uncertified voting machines to its Florida customers, but Florida law clearly requires all machines to be certified.

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2069&Itemid=113

Check of touchscreens needs more credibility

Palm Beach Post Editorial

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

snip

To help determine whether there was anything wrong with touch-screen machines that produced an abnormally high number of no-votes in the five-county District 13 race, Gov. Bush tapped Alec Yasinsac, a Florida State University professor. A week before the Supreme Court decided the 2000 race, Mr. Yasinsac proudly proclaimed, "I'll never be a passive political participant again'' while wearing a "Bush Won" button. More recently, he supported Republican Tom Gallagher for governor.

Gov. Bush defended his choice by noting that Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho once hired Mr. Yasinsac to review computer code, The Miami Herald reported. A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Sue Cobb, however, told the Herald that Mr. Yasinsac had been hired because "he was 'based locally,' has strong credentials and approached the office to be a vendor."

Mr. Yasinsac is supposed to assure the accuracy of touch-screen machines that some voters question because no paper records exist to document results. Voters expect impartial work, but an acquaintance of Mr. Yasinsac's who works for the liberal People for the American Way called him "a strong advocate for electronic voting machines and a vociferous opponent of requiring a voter verifiable paper trail."

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Gov. Bush and the Cabinet certified Republican Vern Buchanan the District 13 winner Monday after a recount showed him 369 votes ahead of Democrat Christine Jennings. She promptly sued for a revote - remember that from 2000? She's upset because more than 18,000 ballots in Sarasota County, which she won by 53 percent to 47 percent, showed no vote. Other races did not experience such high undervote counts. Fittingly, her attorney is Kendall Coffey, who represented Al Gore in 2000.

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2006/11/22/a14a_district13_edit_1122.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. This situation is OUTRAGEOUS! We're supposed to believe that 18,000

voters, most of whom voted Democratic, in a Democratic sweep, selected out the Congressional race for not voting, in a hotly contested Congressional race, in hotly contested national midterms??!! And the Republican won by 369 votes??!!

It's nuts! I hope this is the Waterloo for ES&S (brethren to Diebold), for Jeb Bush and for the Bush Junta in Florida!

And I am so heartened by Christine Jennings and her team for fighting this. They are fighting for OUR right to vote!