CA SoS Bowen Announces PAPER VOTING == NO MORE DRE's = ONLY One Touch-Screen Per Polling Place

[L. Coyote]

The Black Box Wall of invisible vote counting just came down!

Make your State's SoS follow suit. Contact them now.

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Debra Bowen Announces DRE (Touch-Screen) Machines to be Used Only One Per Polling Place

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 8/4/2007 12:13AM
PAPER BALLOTS FOR CALIFORNIA! - SECRETARY OF STATE ANNOUNCES DE-CERTIFICATION/RE-CERTIFICATION PLANS FOR E-VOTING SYSTEMS
Debra Bowen Announces DRE (Touch-Screen) Machines to be Used Only One Per Polling Place for Disabled Voters with 100% Manual Count of Paper Trails
Dramatic Late Night Press Conference Held at 11:45pm in Sacramento...

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4914

Blogged by Brad Friedman from Plano, TX, with help from Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us and Tom Courbat of SAVE R VOTE...

In a dramatic late-night press conference, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified, and then recertified with conditions, all but one voting system used in the state. Her decisions, following her unprecedented, independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" of all certified electronic voting systems, came just under the wire to meet state requirements for changes in voting system certification.

Bowen announced that she will be disallowing the use of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems made by the Diebold and Sequoia companies on Election Day, but for one DRE machine per polling place which may be used for disabled voters. The paper trails from votes cast on DREs manufactured by those two companies must be 100% manually counted after Election Day. DREs made by Hart-Intercivic are used in only one California county and will be allowed for use pending security upgrades.

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LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2941618

[L. Coyote]

1. Rady Ananda: 2007.08.03 Decertify and Use HCPBs: Open Letter to Debra Bowen

August 3, 2007 at 15:47:01
Decertify and Use HCPBs: Open Letter to Debra Bowen
by Rady Ananda
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_070803_decertify_and_use_hc.htm


California Secretary of State

Dear Ms. Bowen:

It is time to decertify these voting machines and implement hand-counted paper ballots (HCPBs), at the precinct on election night, before all who wish to observe.

With California's Red Team reports and Florida State University's just-released report , voters are left with no basis for confidence in reported results. Elections should not be run on computerized voting systems which numerous studies assert are easily hacked. Neither optical scans nor touchscreen systems are impervious to attack - attacks which no one can prove occurred.

You are in a unique position to lead the nation away from corporate control of our elections, and model the most secure, most accurate and least expensive voting system available to us: HCPBs. Democratic elections require an open vote count, which computers preclude.

I urge you to decertify these machines, in light of ever-increasing number of reports by experts that computers cannot be made secure. Do the right thing for democracy. .....

[L. Coyote]

2. californiaprogressreport: Bowen Decertifies Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems

August 4, 2007. 2 comments. Topic: Elections and Voting
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen Decertifies Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems--Late Submitted ES&S System “InkaVote Plus” Used in Los Angeles to be Reviewed
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/08/california_secr_1.html

142-bowen.gif

After two months of unprecedented analysis of California’s voting systems and related security procedures, Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced some of those systems can continue operating in 2008 in California while others are too flawed to be widely used.

Each of the systems that went through the top-to-bottom review has been legally decertified, and then each of them has been recertified with the addition of a number of conditions. The primary reason for taking this step is for clarity, ensuring that everything associated with a particular system is in one single recertification document that is easy for the public, elections officials, and others to follow and understand.

The Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia direct recording electronic (DRE) systems were all decertified. The Diebold and Sequoia DRE systems were recertified solely for the purposes of conducting early voting and to allow counties to have one DRE machine in each polling place on Election Day for the purpose of complying with disability access requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Furthermore, these DRE systems will be required to comply with increased security and post-election auditing procedures.

........

[fooj]

3. I worked on her campaign...

I'm sooooo proud of her integrity and courage. I'm glad I played a small part in her becoming SOS of CA.!

[L. Coyote]

4. LA TIMES: State decides to secure electronic voting machines

One comment. Bowen may be incorrect about: "When NASA discovers a flow or a potential safety concern in the space shuttle, it doesn't continue launching the missions...," Bowen said. They do if VP Bush is in Honduras handing off $100 million in illegal aid to the Contras! Can't have the press focused in the wrong places! Of course, that decision to launch the Challenger on too cold a morning may have been made higher up the command chain than NASA!

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State decides to secure electronic voting machines
Secretary of State orders more precautions be taken against tampering, and withdraws support of the InkaVote Plus machines used in Southern California.
By Jordan Rau and Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writers
August 4, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-voting4aug04a,0,894515.story?coll=la-home-local


SACRAMENTO -- Expressing concern that several brands of electronic voting machines used in California were vulnerable to tampering, Secretary of State Debra Bowen late Friday ordered new security protections be added and limited the use of two types of machines that were to be used in next year's elections in several Southern California counties.

Bowen also withdrew state approval of the InkaVote Plus machines used in Los Angeles County, saying that the machines' maker, Election Systems and Software, had failed to submit its equipment to her office in time to analyze its vulnerability to hacking.

She said her office would examine the InkaVote machines and expressed optimism that they would win approval in time to be used in next year's elections, but did not say what would happen if the machines failed her tests.

"When NASA discovers a flow or a potential safety concern in the space shuttle, it doesn't continue launching the missions...," Bowen said. "It scrubs the missions until the problem is fixed."

Her announcement, made just nine minutes before a midnight deadline, was condemned by the head of the state's county registrar's association, Contra Costa Registrar Stephen Weir.

[msongs]

5. too many registrars are parasites slopping at the troughs of DRE makers nt

[L. Coyote]

6. kick because we need to see there's good news today too