EAC VOTING ADVOCATES ROUND TABLE: April 24, 2008

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.

To members of the EAC and participants of the Round Table:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"We do not consent."

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057

* * * * *

And other comments:

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."

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.

"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.

"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.

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."

* * * * *

See also: "The Myth of Verified Voting":

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

* * * * *
SUPPORT BLACK BOX VOTING "DREAM TEAM" SURGICAL STRIKE UNITS FOR 2008:

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.

* * * * *

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved