- Black Box Voting was invited to submit comments into
the record for the United States Election Assistance Commission's Round
Table, which featured and agenda entirely devoted to a what is basically
a celebration of computerized vote-counting. We took this opportunity to
tell it like it is.
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- Discuss this here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/73717.html
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- To our great surprise and joy, so did others, including
Dr. Rebecca Mercuri and Brad Friedman. Portions of some of their testimony
will follow. Here are the formal comments from Black Box Voting:
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- EAC VOTING ADVOCATES ROUND TABLE: April 24, 2008
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- I have accepted your invitation to submit the following
comments to be entered into the record on behalf of Black Box Voting, by
its founder, Bev Harris.
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- To members of the EAC and participants of the Round Table:
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- The entire premise of technology-based elections is based
on support for the "verifiable voting" concept. But before designing
technology for elections, we must first determine how it will empower citizen
controls, enabling the counting of votes in public rather than counting
them in secret. We do not consent to any form of secret vote counting,
administered and controlled by government insiders and their vendors.
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- Any system that forces the citizenry to trust government
insiders to count their votes represents a change in the original design
of this nation. The United States of America was designed to uphold the
right of citizen sovereignty over the government. In addition to hiding
the counting of votes from public view, computer-counted elections hide
the chain of custody of the vote data. Citizens are never allowed to view
the original input in order to compare it to the output, and are relegated
to trusting circumstantial evidence controlled by insiders. Such a system
is, in fact, a transfer of power.
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- The people were never asked to approve such a transfer
of power, have never consented to it, and indeed CANNOT consent, because
the right of sovereignty over the instruments of government which we have
created is an inalienable right, one which CANNOT be given away, nor can
this right be removed through legislation. It is, admittedly, possible
for a government to decline to honor this right, but such an act would
justify extreme measures by the people subjected to such abuse of power.
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- It is the public counting that is key to citizen sovereignty,
not computer verification. "Verification" of a computer report
is not at all the same as public vote counting.
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- The core of elections was and again must return to the
principle of citizen sovereignty over government. Elections can never be
based on a requirement to trust government insiders and their vendors to
count our votes, nor can elections be dependent on experts to tell the
citizenry that the system is okay, nor should the detailed mechanics of
elections be impossible for the average citizen to understand. Models which
depend on experts and insiders create centralized control, and remove all
control from government's rightful owners the citizens. This represents
a violation of the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
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- Not only does my organization, Black Box Voting, refuse
to participate in the design of such systems, but we will do our utmost
to inform the populace that such systems must be revoked, by whatever means
necessary.
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- "We do not consent."
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- Bev Harris
- Black Box Voting
- 330 SW 43rd St Suite K
- PMB 547
- Renton WA 98057
-
- * * * * *
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- And other comments:
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- FROM DR. REBECCA MERCURI TO THE EAC: "Another VVSG
rewrite, novel designs, or more extensive testing cannot begin to solve
these problems until the voters' demands for Transparency, reliability,
security, accuracy and auditability requirements have first been appropriately
defined and addressed. So long as the goal of certification trumps the
need to ensure election integrity, the resulting systems, no matter whose
imprimatur they bear, will be invalid and must be rejected."
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- FROM BRAD FRIEDMAN TO THE EAC, of the BradBlog: "The
blizzard of technical specifications serves only to obscure the fact that,
even if such specifications are followed to the satisfaction of federal
testers, it will likely continue to remain next to impossible for citizen
voters to determine for themselves whether or not reported election results
are truly accurate.
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- "In eight simple words, certainly far fewer than
598 pages, or even the 6 pages of this document, we defined the heart of
the mission I challenge all Americans . whether public servant, advocate,
vendor or elected official to join... is simply: To encourage citizen ownership
of transparent, participatory democracy....That ideal must underscore every
effort we take today, tomorrow, and in the months and years ahead, as we
all work to ensure the continued citizen ownership of a transparent, participatory
democracy.
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- "That must become your mission at the EAC. Meeting
that ideal must underscore your adoption of any new federal voting system
guidelines. If we can't see it, we can't trust it. If it does not aid in
the mission to encourage citizen ownership of transparent, participatory
democracy, it must not be adopted or implemented.
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- FROM JOHN WASHBURN TO THE EAC: " To a large degree
technology is not the solution to the problem. Technology is the problem.
The needs are conflicting to the technology design because there is no
consensus in the larger social, political, and legal worlds as to what
is a successful election. It is not the place of the TDGC to balance these
needs and election virtues. An evaluation of the technical options available
cannot be made until a rough consensus in the political, legal, and social
world has emerged."
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- * * * * *
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- See also: "The Myth of Verified Voting":
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- In a logical inversion that only Alice in Wonderland
could love, that which was sold to the American public as a "solution"
to the Florida voter disenfranchisement actually expanded Florida-style
disenfranchisement to all 50 states....
- http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/73637.html
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- * * * * *
- SUPPORT BLACK BOX VOTING "DREAM TEAM" SURGICAL
STRIKE UNITS FOR 2008:
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- http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html or mail to:
- Black Box Voting
- 330 SW 43rd St Suite K
- PMB 547
- Renton WA 98057
-
- Black Box Voting is supported entirely by individual
citizen donations.
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