Nancy Tobi on the Election Assistance Commission - 6:40 pm

[Pokey Anderson]

The Monitor
www.TheMonitor.wordpress.com
It's your world. Understand it!
April 15, 2007

www.kpft.com
6 to 7 pm CST

Today's Guests:
-- Independent journalist Wayne Madsen discusses the "loss" of Karl Rove's emails
-- Election activist Nancy Tobi on what the powerful Election Assistance Commission is up to

<> 6:00 pm CDT -- Headlines
<> ~6:20 pm CDT -- Independent journalist Wayne Madsen discusses the "loss" of Karl Rove's emails



Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi's guest today is Wayne Madsen. Topics will be the missing emails of Karl Rove, and also Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank.

Madsen is a Senior Fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a non-partisan privacy public advocacy group in Washington, DC. He is also a freelance investigative journalist, and has written for The Village Voice, The Progressive, CAQ, Counterpunch, and the Intelligence Newsletter. Mr. Madsen is the author of The Handbook of Personal Data Protection (London: Macmillan, 1992), an acclaimed reference book on international data protection law.

Madsen has some twenty years experience in computer security and data privacy. As a U.S. Naval Officer he managed one of the first computer security programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State, RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.


WEBSITE:
www.WayneMadsenReport.com

ADDITIONAL ARTICLE OF INTEREST:
The Bush administration's terrible luck with finding documents
By Glenn Greenwald
April 12, 2007
Salon
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/12/lost_documents/index.html


<> ~6:40 pm CDT -- Election activist Nancy Tobi on what the powerful Election Assistance Commission is up to



Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson's guest today is Nancy Tobi of New Hampshire. She is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The Gifts of HAVA: Time to Ask for a Refund," "What's Wrong with the Holt Bill,"and the newly released "We're Counting the Votes: An Election Preparedness Kit."

She is co-founder of Democracy for New Hampshire, and Chair of the Democracy for New Hampshire Fair Elections Committee. Her writings may be found at www.democracyfornewhampshire.com.

She has recently attended two Election Assistance Commission (EAC) meetings, which are rarely observed by citizens. She reports on her concerns about this powerful board, appointed by the President, that has mostly flown under the radar. She believes that the Holt bill would have the effect of consolidating Executive power, and control over federal elections in the future.

ARTICLE:
"The EAC Gopher Bash"
April 14, 2007
by Nancy Tobi
OpEd News
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_070414_the_eac_gopher_bash.htm

QUOTE by Nancy Tobi:
"Agreed that no system is fraud-proof. Where there are elections there will be fraud. The question is how do you want to approach it, where do you start, what is your starting premise.

"I have come to believe that the starting premise is community. That
elections and voting are a civic function, and that representational
democracy is inherently a community-based system. When you lose that
component you lose the democracy. That's what I've come to believe.
I've also come to believe that community exists everywhere in America in one
form or another, and that it needs to be unlocked if it is gated in some way."


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[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. THE IMPOTENT BOOGIEMAN

THE EAC AS A CONVENIENT BOOGIEMAN - BY SOME WHO OPPOSE ANY FEDERAL LEGISLATION

OMG RUN, ITS THE EAC!!!! YES THE EAC NEEDS OVERSIGHT, NOT MUCH HAS
HAD OVERSIGHT IN THE PAST 6 YEARS. BUT THERE'S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN.

The OP says:

"She believes that the Holt bill would have the effect of consolidating Executive power, and control over federal elections in the future."

FACT: The EAC is not a regulatory agency.

Like Ms. Tobi, The NASED, National Association for Election Directors would like to see the EAC disbanded. The NASED and The Election Center would like to resume their previous position of overseeing voting machines and shut the citizens out of the process again.

The EAC is relatively new, and is experiencing some oversight as we speak:

Hinchey, Serrano Urge Non-Partisanship, Greater Transparency at Election Assistance Commission
By Rep. Jose Serrano and Rep. Maurice Hinchey
April 11, 2007
Today, Congressmen Maurice Hinchey (NY-22) and José E. Serrano (NY-16) urged the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to act with greater transparency and without partisanship. The comments from the congressmen came as the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government released a draft version of an EAC report on voter fraud and intimidation that shows significant changes were made to the findings of outside experts before the final report was released....

The EAC is an independent bipartisan commission created by the 2002 Help America Vote Act in order to disburse funds to the states for the purchase of new voting systems, certify voting technologies, develop guidelines and serve as an information resource for election administration.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2374&Itemid=26

EAC AUTHORITY (OR LACK OF):

HAVA SEC. 209. <<NOTE: 42 USC 15329.>> LIMITATION ON RULEMAKING AUTHORITY.

The Commission shall not have any authority to issue any rule,
promulgate any regulation, or take any other action which imposes any
requirement on any State or unit of local government, except to the
extent permitted under section 9(a) of the National Voter Registration
Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-7(a)).

http://www.eac.gov/law_ext.asp

HR811 does not overturn this, but you can verify that yourself
by reading the bill.

You can start here :
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.00811:

Feinstein sent a letter of inquiry on these matters to EAC:

Friday, April 13, 2007

Senators Feinstein and Durbin Seek Response from EAC Regarding Allegations of Altered or Delayed Studies

- Request for information follows troubling news reports of politically motivated actions by EAC -

Washington, DC – In light of troubling news reports containing allegations that the Election Assistance Commission may have altered or delayed the release of reports for political purposes, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) today requested detailed information from the EAC on two recent studies related to voter fraud and voter identification requirements.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=eca91bbc-022f-ab2a-cc0d-f7cfd0db8501

THE EAC DIDN'T STOP THE 2004 OR 2006 ELECTION DID THEY?

OVERSIGHT OVERSIGHT, THATS PART OF THE EQUATION.

REMEMBER, NANCY MADE IT CLEAR SHE OPPOSES FEDERAL LEGISLATION. PERIOD.

[dfnh]

2. Fact check

It is true that I have been a vocal opponent of federal election reform legislation. That is because all the reforms at the federal level of the past 30+ years have been disastrous. For more information on that see here:<http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_061229_election_reform_3a_gro.htm> Election Reform: Grow it from the grassroots (A history of national election reform legislation shows how easy it is for federal legislation to screw up the nation's election systems.)

Things don't need to be this way. Congress could sit down and write good legislation. They just have not thus far.

But if you mean to discredit my analysis of the Holt Bill by referencing my position on federal legislation in general, allow me to address your points in a more substantive manner than simply resorting to using such silly language as "boogie man" (which, by the way, American folk tale experts believe is a derogatory and racist term from the old days of slavery, and so you may want to expunge it from your vocabulary).

YOU SAY:

FACT: The EAC is not a regulatory agency.

FACT CHECK #1: The EAC is currently regulatory over the NVRA (motor voter act). HAVA made it so. Just as HAVA, a federal act, made the EAC regulatory over the NVRA, so could any line inserted into any congressional act expand the EAC's regulatory powers in any way. This is how the FEC, which began as advisory, became regulatory.

FACT CHECK#2: The EAC also currently de facto regulatory in three ways:

1) They establish the voting system standards that must be used in any state that requires compliance with federal voting system (vs) guidelines. The GAO reports that up to 44 states currently require some form of compliance with federal vs guidelines. Depending on their state laws and regs, this means for up to 44 states the EAC's "voluntary" guidelines are in fact regulatory.

2) They DESIGN next generation voting equipment through their guidelines. These guidelines become the specifications from which the industry will develop next generation products. If the EAC says "make me a talking ballot" the industry will make them a talking ballot. De facto the EAC's crazy ideas become the blueprint for the nation's voting industry product development.

3) The Holt Bill inserted a little technovote mandate called the "ballot text converter". This little device, inserted at the behest of PFAW apparently, is a high tech, high cost, unfunded mandate for every polling jurisdiction in the nation. Experts generally agree it doesn't yet exist in any usable, reliable, secure, tested or certified format. Yet Holt mandates it for the 2008 elections. Holt's rationale for inserting the device, in addition to the request by PFAW, is "it's in the EAC guidelines." VOILA. EAC voluntary guideline is magically transformed into the law of the land THANKS TO THE HOLT-RECOMMENDED FEDERAL LEGISLATION.

YOU SAY: "The NASED and The Election Center would like to resume their previous position of overseeing voting machines and shut the citizens out of the process again."

FACT CHECK: We have proposed an alternative handover from the dissolution of the EAC, so their responsibilities would primarily be handled by the HAVA-created Standards Board - a representational body of state and local election officials, in conjunction with representatives from citizen oversight groups. See and sign our alternate proposal for federal legislation that makes sense.

YOU SAY; "The EAC is relatively new, and is experiencing some oversight as we speak"

FACT CHECK: The only oversight that matters in our elections is citizen oversight. As long as four White House appointees control our voting systems and influence policy through fraudulent reports and practices, oversight is limited to the White House. PERIOD. Congress can investigate to their heart's delight. It does not remove the power of the EAC, which rests primarily in its unitary executive control over what our voting systems will look like, how they will function.

To the degree that we then have the White House determining who these four flunkies will be, and to the extent that Congress chooses to forego oversight on these appointments, as they just did with the last two, and to the extent that Congress decides, as did Holt in his infamous bill HR 811, to take EAC "voluntary" guidelines and make them the law of the land, CITIZEN OVERSIGHT is completely out of the picture.

Now, many Holt proponents say this is a paper trail bill. It has a lot more in it than paper trails. And we have seen the states, one by one, stepping up to their duties and handling the paper trail matter themselves anyway. We don't need federal legislation to take care of this problem, so if that is your sole rationale for supporting the bill, you've just lost every point on that score.

Additionally, Holt makes the EAC permanent. So they could just decide at any time to override the latest decisions on DREs. Do you know what their target is for the next round of "voluntary" guidelines? HAVE YOU DONE YOUR HOMEWORK?

HERE IS WHAT THEY WANT TO DO NEXT: COMPLETELY PAPERLESS VERIFICATION FOR VOTING SYSTEMS.

Do you get it? Can I be any more clear about this? Pass Holt, make the EAC permanent, and we won't be worrying about a stupid text converter. The next piece of federal legislation can take another cue from the EAC's "voluntary" guidelines and, a la Holt strategy, mandate PAPERLESS VERIFICATION VOTING SYSTEMS as the law of the land.

~Nancy Tobi
Read about the EAC Gopher Bash:
<http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_070414_the_eac_gopher_bash.htm>

[OnTheOtherHand]

4. ?

Pass Holt, make the EAC permanent, and we won't be worrying about a stupid text converter. The next piece of federal legislation can take another cue from the EAC's "voluntary" guidelines and, a la Holt strategy, mandate PAPERLESS VERIFICATION VOTING SYSTEMS as the law of the land.

Whereas, if the EAC were annihilated tomorrow, it would no longer be possible for federal legislation to mandate paperless verification?!

(And in what sense would such legislation be "a la Holt strategy"?)

[dfnh]

5. What you are missing

is that the paperless verification scenario is being dreamed up by the EAC. This is their power. A centralized executive commission sitting in DC offices designing voting systems for the nation to use. I know it is hard to wrap your head around this concept, but this is the heart of it. Holt specifically and very intentionally turned to the EAC guideline as rationalization for inserting the text converter device into 811.

"Look! It's EAC recommended and certifiable! It's been approved by NIST!" Gives it that nice benign and comfortable panache of federal certification. Like the FDA-approved food coloring we all feel safe mixing in to our kid's play dough. The FDA wouldn't steer us wrong would it?

No, you are dead wrong about your contention that the EAC is irrelevent in the pasting into federal legislation all kinds of undemocratic technovote mandates. Pre-EAC, they got away with it with HAVA, but times have changed since then. Americans have woken up and are asking about this stuff.

Without the government-certified EAC-NIST stamp of approval, there is no basis for any self respecting Congressional rep to propose out of thin air new voting system designs, like the paperless verification scheme.

Additionally, you are forgetting that it is the EAC that is now designing our voting technology. It is the EAC specifications that the industry is taking back to the drawing board to develop their new technoelection toys. And I think we can all assume that the industry is not going to begin sinking lots of R&D dollars into this type of expensive product without SOME assurance that the products will have a market. How will they make sure the product goes to market? Oh, maybe a little federal legislation mandating it? Or do you doubt any quid pro quo is going on here?

I would ask that you take a little time to listen and consider what I am trying to tell you here.

The simplicity of embedding the power and control over our national elections into the likes of a nice bureaucratic commission doing nothing more than "certifying" our voting systems to ensure our national safety is nothing short of genius.

Only if you understand the source of their power can you do something about it.

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. that makes no sense

We don't need a "centralized executive commission" to dream up voting concepts. Anyone can do that.

Per Lisa Pease's document, Holt (or in that case Mulder) is citing groups like People for the American Way -- not the EAC -- as warrant for the text conversion device. Even if Holt has alluded to or drawn upon the voluntary guidelines, that hardly supports the premise that he or anyone else needs the EAC as cover. As for paperless verification, people who do advocate it have found all sorts of rationales other than an "EAC-NIST stamp of approval."

"No, you are dead wrong about your contention that the EAC is irrelevent (etc.)...."

I contended no such thing, and I am perplexed by such a wild misreading of a short and simple post. You have contended that the EAC threatens democracy. I assume you are capable of seeing some middle ground between those two extremes. No?

"How will they make sure the product goes to market? Oh, maybe a little federal legislation mandating it?"

That would be my point, not yours. If some fix is in, the EAC isn't necessary in order to achieve it. (We can go back to your assertion that any "self respecting Congressional rep" would need EAC-NIST cover, but that makes no sense. Congress mandates all sorts of things, all the time, without EAC or agency cover.)

"I would ask that you take a little time to listen and consider what I am trying to tell you here."

Nancy, as I noted above, you managed to distort my two-sentence post, so I'm not really in a mood to be lectured on taking a little time to listen. If disagreement with these arguments is unfamiliar to you, perhaps you need to spend more time with a wider range of audiences.

The EAC will be subject to close political (and politicized) scrutiny, as it should be.

[dfnh]

7. The EAC is designing the voting systems

This is the point I am trying to make. I was not trying to distort anything you wrote and I apologize if that is the way what I wrote sounded to you. I also am not trying to "lecture" but rather to engage in a dialogue. Communication.

But I think it is unwise to downplay the power of the EAC. Of course ANYONE can dream up technovote fantasies, but only the EAC, with their power and authority as a White House commission, can turn their dreams into our national nightmare.

Here's how it works:
1) The Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) - a group of appointed 14, most of whom know nothing about election administration, get together in a room and dream up crazy, expensive, elaborate, complex, high tech ideas for our voting systems.
2) The TGDC passes these ideas into resolutions.
3) The resolutions become voting system "guidelines"
4) The EAC Standards Board, a representational body of state and local election officials from every state in the nation, reviews the guidelines
5) The Standards Board makes recommendations based on their knowledge and understanding of election administration
6) The TGDC incorporates - or not - their recommendations. (For the most part, historically the Standards Board has gotten about as much respect as we the people in this process. A bit more, because at least they are IN the process. We the people are not. We have no White House access, now, do we?)
7) The EAC has the final say on what is released in the Guidelines. For instance, against the recommendations of the Standards Board, in the final release, the EAC stuck in the text converter to their 2005 guidelines, setting the stage for its national implementation via federal legislation. Both the Holt and Tubbs-Jones (clinton) bills mandate the text converter.
8) The industry takes the guidelines and uses them as their blueprint for product design and development AS LONG AS they have some assurances that their will be a paying market for same.
9) Someone like Holt comes along and incorporates the guidelines into federal law, ensuring the market for the industry.

Holt's office is disingenuous to point their finger ONLY at PFAW for the text converter. If this item was not in the EAC guidelines they would have no support for pushing it into our national voting systems. If you are close to Mulder ask her about it. Ask her if she knows that little item is in the guidelines.

Now this is no small thing, this text converter. It is an expensive device, which adds to an already stifling layer of nontransparency, further removing citizen oversight and ownership of our own elections. And the federal legislation, if passed, mandates it for every voting jurisdiction in the nation. Even Dixville Notch NH, with its 16 or so voters.

This is the death of democracy. Death by bureaucracy.

It is also nothing more than a money laundering scheme, with the EAC being the front man. Without the EAC's authority none of this happens. NONE OF IT.

It's a Ponzi scheme. Just take more and more taxpayer dollars to pour into the electronic voting industry for products that don't work, can't work, and destroy our democracy. All under the guise of a federal certification program.

Only it's not just a certification program, is it? It's actually a product design program.

The technovote tail wagging the election dog.

It's not that complicated once you wrap your mind around what is really going on.

Are you going to let this continue?

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. well, we still disagree

"Holt's office is disingenuous to point their finger ONLY at PFAW for the text converter. If this item was not in the EAC guidelines they would have no support for pushing it into our national voting systems."

Why not? All sorts of groups push for all sorts of things with all sorts of rationales.

You are crediting the EAC with an "authority" that it does not have, in law or in politics.

I understand, roughly, why you don't want to see a federal role in certification. I just don't agree.

[dfnh]

8. One other thing...

I like to know who I am talking to. I can see you feel the same way, since you addressed me by my name. Thank you for that; it is a nice thing to do.

If you don't mind, can you provide the real human being's name behind OnTheOtherHand?

[Melissa G]

10. Nancy, Check your personal email since you cannot

receive messages at DU yet for a message from me about Democratic Underground.

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. sure, I generally don't use it in posts

I'm Mark Lindeman. I've become well-known here as a vociferous critic of bad arguments about exit polls; I've spent a lot of time on audit protocols. You can ask Bruce O'Dell, Dale Tavris, or Judy Alter about me.

[mamab]

17. Do you agree with Bruce O'Dell's critique of HR 811, then? n/t

[OnTheOtherHand]

18. that isn't a binary -- it's an almost-5000-word essay

I agree that the role of computing technology in elections has to be defended and decided, not assumed.

I agree that chain of custody is crucial, and that the audit "trigger" mechanisms should support confidence in the outcome.

I'm not persuaded that we would be better off without certification, but I understand the argument.

There's one frustrating factual error: as far as I know, there actually is no study that demonstrates that "every single technological 'innovation' of the last century -- lever machines, punch cards, optical scan, DRE -- actually measurably decreased the accuracy of the voting process." Certainly the study Bruce cited doesn't do that. If Bruce were right about that, then the case for HCPB would be much stronger than it actually is (not that the article itself is a case for HCPB, as such).

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

14. dried mucus, legendary ghostlike monster, Oogie Boogie

Your folks tales may say:

"But if you mean to discredit my analysis of the Holt Bill by referencing my position on federal legislation in general, allow me to address your points in a more substantive manner than simply resorting to using such silly language as 'boogie man' (which, by the way, American folk tale experts believe is a derogatory and racist term from the old days of slavery, and so you may want to expunge it from your vocabulary)."

BUT THE BOOGIE MAN IS A CREATURE OF DIVERSITY

Bogeyman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Boogeyman (disambiguation).
The bogeyman, boogyman, or bogyman or the boogeyman, is a legendary ghostlike monster often believed in by children. The bogeyman has no specific appearance, and is bogeyman can be used metaphorically to denote a person or thing of which someone has an irrational fear. The bogeyman legend may originate from Scotland, where such creatures are sometimes called bogles, boggarts, or bogies <1>.

The most common childhood conception of the bogeyman is that of someone (usually a monster) lurking in bedrooms (e.g., behind the door, in the closet, or under the bed), where he lies in wait before attacking the sleeper.

Bogeyman tales vary by region. In some places the bogeyman is male, in others, female. In some Midwestern states of the USA the bogeyman does not enter bedrooms but instead scratches on the windows. It is said that a wart can be transmitted to someone by the bogeyman.<2> Given the prevalence of bogeyman tales across cultures, it may have an evolutionary origin as a mechanism for protecting young children from becoming vulnerable to predators by wandering away at night. Bogeymen may be said to target a specific mischief — for instance, a bogeyman that persecutes children who suck their thumbs — or just general misbehaviour.

Popular portrayals of bogeymen include Raymond Briggs' Fungus the Bogeyman, as well as Victor Herbert's 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, where they lived (unsurprisingly) in Bogeyland. The former relies on the children's slang word bogey meaning dried nasal mucus, a substance of which these particular bogeymen are particularly fond. "The Bogeyman" was a recurring villain in the successful 1980's children's cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters, whose episodes are regarded as the series' most popular. Pixar's animated film Monsters, Inc., (2001) depicts an entire economy that dictates the operations of the various monsters that scare children at night. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, the bogeyman is called Oogie Boogie, an animated sack of bugs who enjoys gambling. Detroit rap group Insane Clown Posse also released a song about the bogeyman called "Boogie Woogie Wu" on their 1997 album The Great Milenko. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogeyman

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. killing HR 811 encourages a spread of paperless systems

You won't get the changes you seek to HR 811 by sending
out the fax email blast.

All that does is send a negative message to lawmakers
who have to deal with thousands of emails a day.

If you wanted a different type of oversight for elections
you could work with your congressman to introduce a bill to do that.

As far as citizen oversight, no federal or state law will ever
negate the need for citizens to act as watchdogs.

There is nothing to stop the drive for Paperless verification systems
except laws that mandate paper ballots for every vote, and audits of
the paper to the digital count.

Killing HR 811 paves the way to spread paperless verification systems.

[Cookie wookie]

22. This is late to be responding, but didn't have time earlier in the week.

It is true that I have been a vocal opponent of federal election reform legislation. That is because all the reforms at the federal level of the past 30+ years have been disastrous. For more information on that see here:<http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_061229... > Election Reform: Grow it from the grassroots (A history of national election reform legislation shows how easy it is for federal legislation to screw up the nation's election systems.)

Is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 included in this sweeping condemnation of federal regulations on voting? What about the 1993 National Voter Registration Act? Are you proposing that the country and its citizens should have waited until the states decided to give African Americans their voting rights?

FACT CHECK #1: The EAC is currently regulatory over the NVRA (motor voter act). HAVA made it so. Just as HAVA, a federal act, made the EAC regulatory over the NVRA, so could any line inserted into any congressional act expand the EAC's regulatory powers in any way. This is how the FEC, which began as advisory, became regulatory.

The EAC's role per the Help America Vote Act places the responsibility for regulating the national mail registration forms with the EAC, and the states must accept and use this form in elections for federal office. This process was previously completed by the Federal Election Commission prior to the EAC coming into existence. The EAC is responsible for submitting a report to Congress every two years regarding the impact of the NVRA." Paul DeGreggorio, U.S. Election Assistance Commission Public Meeting, March 14, 2006 (http://www.eac.gov/docs/Transcript%20031406.TXT)

Read: their role is for REGULATING THE FORMS and reporting on the impact of the act to Congress every two years. Let's don't conflate the power they are given to create fear where it isn't justified.

HR811 doesn't "insert" any line into it's language that will give or expand the EAC's regulatory powers in any way. If a bill does that in the future, that would be the time to conduct an amend or kill the bill campaign. Fears aren't facts.

FACT CHECK#2: The EAC also currently de facto regulatory in three ways:

1) They establish the voting system standards that must be used in any state that requires compliance with federal voting system (vs) guidelines. The GAO reports that up to 44 states currently require some form of compliance with federal vs guidelines. Depending on their state laws and regs, this means for up to 44 states the EAC's "voluntary" guidelines are in fact regulatory.

2) They DESIGN next generation voting equipment through their guidelines. These guidelines become the specifications from which the industry will develop next generation products. If the EAC says "make me a talking ballot" the industry will make them a talking ballot. De facto the EAC's crazy ideas become the blueprint for the nation's voting industry product development.

This is a generalization that is misleading. This is the process for creating the (Voluntary) Voting System Standards/Guidelines

Section 222(e) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) provides that the 2002 Voting System Standards adopted by the Federal Election Commission are deemed to be adopted by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) as the first set of voluntary voting system guidelines adopted under HAVA.

HAVA establishes a Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), Chaired by the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to assist the EAC in the development of new or updated voluntary voting systems guidelines, and requires the TGDC to provide its first set of recommendations on these guidelines to the Executive Director of the EAC not later than nine months after all of its members have been appointed.

The Executive Director of the EAC is required to submit the guidelines proposed by the TGDC for adoption to:

the EAC Board of Advisors; and
the Executive Board of the EAC Standards Board, which is required to review the guidelines and forward its recommendations to the full Standards Board.
The Board of Advisors and the Standards Board are then required to review these guidelines and to submit comments and recommendations to the EAC.

The EAC is required to carry out the final adoption of the voluntary voting systems guidelines by providing for:

A publication of notice of the proposed guidelines in the Federal Register;
An opportunity for public comment on the proposed guidelines;
An opportunity for a public hearing on the record; and
A publication of the final guidelines in the Federal Register.
The EAC may not vote on the final adoption of a guideline until the expiration of the 90-day period that begins on the date the proposed guidelines are submitted to the Board of Advisors and the Standards Board. A majority vote (3 of the 4 Commissioners) is required to adopt a voluntary voting systems guideline. A voluntary voting systems guideline is not considered to be finally adopted by the EAC unless the EAC votes to approve the final adoption taking into consideration the comments and recommendations submitted by the Board of Advisors and the Standards Board."

http://www.eac.gov/election_resources/vss.html

Since a majority vote is required to adopt the voluntary voting systems guidelines (3 of the 4 commissioners) and 2 are selected by Democrats (Senate & House Leadership) and 2 by Republicans (Senate and House Leadership), their adoption requires a bipartisan decision.

Then again, these standards are voluntary, so states can decide whether to adopt them or not. If citizens of states that have adopted them don't want them, they can work to change those requirements through grassroots political action in those states. But most likely, even with all the difficulty that we've experienced trying to hold the ITAs, NASED, vendors and state election officials responsible for administering or adhering to federal standards where they are state mandated, those standards do provide a national baseline for performance and testing that otherwise would be absent. Without them, voters would have to put their trust in their state's election officials (who may be corrupt) to create technical standards and certify their voting systems to those standards which may or may not be adequate to protect the security and accuracy of elections.

I'm running out of time, so will only address one more item in the thread:

HERE IS WHAT THEY WANT TO DO NEXT: COMPLETELY PAPERLESS VERIFICATION FOR VOTING SYSTEMS.

Do you get it? Can I be any more clear about this? Pass Holt, make the EAC permanent, and we won't be worrying about a stupid text converter. The next piece of federal legislation can take another cue from the EAC's "voluntary" guidelines and, a la Holt strategy, mandate PAPERLESS VERIFICATION VOTING SYSTEMS as the law of the land.

Not sure who "they" is but anything could happen in the future. Some of the scariest scenarios I can imagine have to do with what happens to democracy in the US if the 2008 presidency is stolen because of all the paperless and opaque and unverified voting systems. I don't see, in your opposition to HR811, a way to move the country toward paper ballots and audits, i.e., verified voting nationwide, before that election. In fact, your actions are moving us away from it. If we're going to be scared, I'd say that would be a more scarey and plausible eventuality to imagine, as I don't see any movement in Congress toward "completely paperless verification for voting systems." You do know that HR811 calls for a voter verified paper ballot for all voting systems. Yes it's true that it doesn't tell states they all have to get rid of their already purchased DREs and no it doesn't demand that all states have hand counted audits of the papers if they have law that calls for automatic recounts. It isn't a perfect bill, but it is a step forward, actually a giant step forward in getting verified voting.

But for the sake of argument, let's say that federal legislation is proposed that requires "completely paperless verification for voting systems". Why not marshall the forces to oppose it at that time? I'd be on board, as would every other legitimate election integrity organization in the country, plus all the computer scientists who've signed on the Verified Voting's resolution, etc etc etc.

BTW: Could you post the language in HR811 that makes the EAC permanent? Thanks, because I don't see it.

: - )

[Einsteinia]

3. Aha! Viagra--Bush's is poised to get the Rx

for this "impotent" entity as they easily could become a full blown regulatory agency with the impartiality of FEMA, EPA, FDA. Only we're talking about the oversight over how all our other rights are secured. Which is a fine point Stalin is credited with noticing.

But in the meantime, they're just hack-jobs actively working double-time to destroy our elections, i.e. censoring critical reports on voting equipment, letting viruses spread in ES&S equipment.

You want them overseeing our military overseas internet ballots?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. The EAC isn't going away, HR 811 or not

I am all for jurisdictions using hand counted paper ballots if they want to.
HR 811 doesn't prohibit that either.

Without HR 811, paperless voting is LEGAL, attractive to election officials,& re-surge.

Some describe the EAC commissioners as "White House appointees".
That is misleading.

EAC Commissioners are officially 'appointed' by the White House,
but are chosen by the party leadership in each chamber of Congress -

The Senate Democratic leadership chooses one (originally Martinez, currently Rodriguez),
the Senate Republicanleadership chooses one (originally Soaries, currently Davidson), the House Democratic leadership chooses one (currently Hillman) and the
House Republican leadership chooses one (originally DeGregorio,currently Hunter).
(This is very similar to North Carolina's bi Partisan State Board of Elections
and bi-partisan County Boards of Elections).

BI-PARTISAN BOARD & CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT

EAC actions require a majority in favor, so any action has to
be bi-partisan.

Oversight of the EAC is the responsibility of the Rules Committee
in the Senate and the House Administration Committee in the House.

Other federal agencies have different structure and oversight.

The powers of the EAC are extremely limited - this was the result of
10th Amendment concerns expressed by the Republican majority in
Congress no doubt.

"The Commission shall not have any authority to issue any rule,
promulgate any regulation, or take any other action which imposes any
requirement on any State or unit of local government, except to the
extent permitted under section 9(a) of the National Voter Registration
Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-7(a))."

The NVRA regulatory power was previously given to the FEC.

[Cookie wookie]

13. self delete n/t

[Cookie wookie]

21. Is it better for the Pentagon to oversee them?

[Land Shark]

16. For a half second, i thought the FIRST photo was gonna be nancy tobi : )

[glengarry]

19. Nancy, regarding those "bad arguments about exit polls"...

This analysis is from a very prolific DU poster who was banned two years ago..

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

2004/2006 Election Fraud Analytics: Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ
Last Updated April 18, 2007 by TruthIsAll

Part I is a comprehensive statistical analysis of 2004/2006 pre-election and exit polls (state and national). It contains scores of sensitivity analysis tables which display the effects of various assumptions on the popular and electoral vote, along with the associated win probabilities. Critical input parameters include undecided voter allocation, 2000 voter turnout in 2004, National Exit Poll demographic timelines and vote shares, uncounted and switched vote rates, 1250 precinct and state exit poll response by partisanship, etc. Links to several Excel-based models are included for readers interested in running their own “what-if” scenarios to see why the odds are extremely high that Kerry won. The 2006 election analysis indicates that the Democrats must have won more congressional seats than the official results indicate.

Part II contains the original “Truth Is All FAQ” with my responses included. The author of the FAQ, Mark Lindeman, has tried to debunk the work of a number of independent researchers involved in the analysis of election fraud in 2004 and 2006. Mark has posted on the Democratic Underground as "On the Other Hand", on Daily KOS as “Hudson Valley Mark” and numerous other forums whenever 2004/2006 pre-election and exit polls are discussed.

[OnTheOtherHand]

23. so, are you prepared to discuss this topic?

Even in TIA's response, it's evident that there are some topics he just can't deal with. For instance, he really has no answer to the fact that Bush's final pre-election approval rating tends to predict that Bush would win. That isn't even an exit poll argument, just one of those oddly gaping holes in TIA's presentation. Is TIA unfamiliar with Ordinary Least Squares regression?

Here, again, is a link to a graph where I "connect the dots" between presidential approval and vote share. Note that 2004 lies below both regression lines: that is, based on the historical relationship and Bush's approval rating, he would have been expected to do slightly better than he did.

TIA's response seems to be that there is something devious about using a scatterplot to depict the relationship between two variables.

Considering that TIA's view seems to have less support among social scientists than global warming denial has among climate scientists, I find it discouraging that his arguments periodically pop up here, poorly substantiated, with apparently no one willing to defend them, and yet some people seem to regard them as proven.

(fixed broken link)

[glengarry]

24. The analytics and FAQ response do not have to be defended by me

It speaks for itself. I found it to be compelling evidence and thought that Nancy might be interested in reviewing the debate. I suggest that since the response was written as a rebuttal to your "Truth Is All FAQ", you have the burden of countering the analyses, not I. But I will continue to cite his work as appropriate.

TIA responded to your original FAQ in full. He provided an extremely comprehensive analysis with supporting data, the likes of which I have not seen anywhere else - and that includes the work of Baiman, Freeman, Miller, Conyers, Palast and RFK, Jr. He addressed all the issues you brought up in your FAQ in his response.

I will respond to your request this time only. In the future, I suggest that in the interest of fairness, since TruthIsAll is banned from DU, that you include a full copy or link to his analysis, along with your criticism, should you be so inclined to criticize his work.

Regarding your comment concerning Bush approval ratings, this is from the Introduction:

"They dismissed the significance of the Bush 48.5% approval rating on Election Day. But all presidential incumbents with approval below 50% lost re-election (Ford, Carter, Bush I) while all incumbents over 50% won (Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton). The near-perfect 0.87 correlation between Bush’s monthly approval rating and national poll average share is further evidence. The correlation was confirmed by the 12:22am National Exit Poll which Kerry won by 51-48%."

A few comments here:
1) I believe that the 50% approval threshold is a logical breakpoint. The last time I looked, 50% of the two-party vote was required to win a popular majority. So 50% is not an arbitrary breakpoint.

2) The 50% "rule" has never been broken. By your logic, because Bush had a 48.5% rating, he overcame YOUR arbitrary rule. Suppose the Bush approval was 44%, would you have created your own 43% rule? In any case, your logic is flawed, because you assume that Bush won. And you are partially correct. He did. By winning the RECORDED vote. But was the RECORDED vote the TRUE vote?

3) The 0.87 correlation between the Bush monthly approval ratings and his poll numbers was close to a perfect 1.0. Since Kerry won the National Exit poll by 51-48%, it only confirms the significance of the Bush 48.5% Election Day approval rating.

4)The evidence indicates that the Bush approval rating WAS a strong indicator of the TRUE vote. And the TRUE vote is not the same as the RECORDED vote. Or do you feel otherwise?


National Pre-election Poll Monthly Trend

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#NationalPrePollTrend


The following chart shows the individual polls, the average and projection (based on an assumed 75% of undecided voters breaking for Kerry). Kerry led the 18-pre-election poll average every month except for January and September. The 0.87 statistical correlation between the 11-poll average Bush monthly approval and average poll was close to a perfect 1.0.


Poll Jan Feb Mar April May June July Aug Sept Oct
Mean
Kerry 40.78 47.80 47.58 46.31 46.86 46.64 47.47 47.40 44.33 47.17
Bush 51.56 46.10 44.83 45.62 44.71 45.71 45.20 45.40 48.28 46.89

Approval 54.4 49.5 48.8 48.6 45.2 47.0 47.8 48.0 49.1 48.5
Poll/Appr 0.95 0.93 0.92 0.94 0.99 0.97 0.95 0.95 0.98 0.97

Projection
UVA: 75% to Kerry

Kerry 45.78 51.63 52.52 51.62 52.43 51.63 52.22 52.05 49.13 50.88
Bush 53.22 47.38 46.48 47.38 46.57 47.38 46.78 46.95 49.88 48.13
Other 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

2-party
Kerry 46.53 52.38 53.27 52.37 53.18 52.38 52.97 52.80 49.88 51.63
Bush 53.47 47.63 46.73 47.63 46.82 47.63 47.03 47.20 50.13 48.37

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. well, that's one perspective

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I did counter the analysis. And I continue to counter the analysis. If anyone can offer a reasoned defense of TIA's position, the floor is open. If not, people will have to draw their own conclusions.

Since you have supplied the link, there is no reason for me to do so. TIA was banned for cause; I am not beating up on him. Moreover, if his analysis were actually compelling, at least one other person in the world ought to be able to explain it.

I am happy to address any point in the FAQ. Again, if his rebuttal were compelling, at least one other person in the world ought to be able to explain it.

You quote TIA as writing: "They dismissed the significance of the Bush 48.5% approval rating on Election Day." Well, that is obviously untrue. Rather, I have demonstrated that taking all data into account, that approval rating would tend to predict a Bush win, not a Bush loss.

You write: "I believe that the 50% approval threshold is a logical breakpoint." Actually, given that these data are quasi-continuous, there is no need for a "breakpoint" at all. What TIA needs is a rationale for disregarding the bivariate distribution of the data, and he hasn't provided one. All he can do is urge people not to look at the scatterplot.

You continue by arguing that 50% is not an arbitrary breakpoint for approval, because 50% is a breakpoint for vote share. But approval is not vote share, so equating the two is indeed arbitrary. Whether 50% vote share corresponds with 50% approval is an empirical question, and as the scatterplot demonstrates, the empirical answer is No.

I assume it is true that Bush's approval ratings are highly correlated with his poll standings. You will likewise find that baseball players' batting averages tend to be highly correlated over time (and/or across players) with their on-base percentage. This high correlation in no way implies that batting average equals on-base percentage. Likewise, the correlation between approval ratings and poll standings does not show that approval ratings equal poll standings or vote shares.

Yes, the record indicates that approval rating is a fairly strong predictor of vote share. As the scatterplot shows, Bush's predicted vote share in 2004 would be somewhat above 50% -- in fact, higher than he actually received.

So, again, TIA needs a rationale for disregarding the bivariate distribution, and he hasn't provided one.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

26. welcome to DU Glengarry

:hi:

[Cookie wookie]

20. Although I won't give many of these fears and

misinformation credence, it's certainly legitimate to question federal certification for voting systems or the need for federal voting laws.

Since I'm from a state that would still have "white" and "colored" restrooms, school segregation, and African Americans would have to risk their lives every time they tried to vote, I'm partial to federal voting legislation in cases where Americans would otherwise be denied their Constitutional rights.

Indeed, I feel great concern when I hear the argument that the country doesn't need federal certification of voting systems. Are people who are pushing this from states that aren't corrupt? Without the threat of holding state election officials to abiding by federal certification requirements for our voting systems, what exactly would we do to get any regulations on our systems that we could trust if we're in corrupt states or even if we think we're in law abiding states but instead we have corrupt election officials and don't know it?

It's an important and totally overlooked fact in the certification arguments I've heard lately, that HAVA doesn't make federal certification of voting systems mandatory -- it is elective. States have the freedom to require it or not. HR811 wouldn't change that. Doesn't say anything about that. My state passed law to require federal certification and as difficult as it is to monitor what the ITAs do or don't do or monitor whether or not the Voluntary Voting System Standards (VVSS) are upheld or figure out how to sue or otherwise hold vendors, ITAs, or election officials accountable if they are not, nevertheless, it is better than nothing and can be improved. HR811 would add more accountability and transparency to the process by escrowing payments between ITAs and vendors, requiring vendors to deposit source code with the EAC, who would have to provide it on request to ANY PERSON WHO ASKED FOR IT, and would add other requirements: prohibitions of certain conflicts of interest; compensation regulations for ITAs and manufacturers; make ITA testing results available to the EAC; and institute lab selection requirements.