A mess of us went to the OVC gathering last night in Santa Cruz. It was a public event and although the attendance wasn't that impressive, the caliber of the speakers certainly was -- JamPacked (so to speak :-) ) with election-rights activists. Although I'd rather not have been I got filmed by Penny Little (producer of "Electile Dysfunction") by virtue of asking questions to the speakers from the audience (not interviewed, though had I wanted to be I probably could have been). I was excited to have gotten to meet Jim March of BBV.org fame! Awesome. The list of luminaries from the election fraud-busters movement (or what I call the
Universal Human Suffrage Movement -- UHS M) follows below. This thing is really taking root. As a movement we're Jammin' now! ;-)
Here's the announcement:
BE COUNTED! The Open Voting Consortium
Date: Friday, February 4th
Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm
Location: Veterans Memorial Building (846 Front Street- next to the Post Office in downtown Santa Cruz).
Hear about the problems with the current election system and discuss solutions for the future. Watch parts of movies "Votergate" and "Electile Dysfunction," hear from activists Emily Levy (about election anomalies in Ohio) and Maureen Smith (about her meetings with the Secretary of State), and meet the creator of the open voting system, Alan Dechert. There will also be live music from the Santa Cruz Jazz Society and a political rock band- Ms. Information, food, and a dance performance about the election process by the Federal Dancing Authority. (PS. Penny Little- the producer/director of "Electile
Dysfunction" might be there- she'll let me know soon.)
Requested donation: $20-30; $10 students/young adults; NO ONE will be turned away due to lack of funds!
Donate what you can. Everyone is welcome!
Contact info: Lara Shaffer, 831-419-0758, lara@openvoting.org, OpenVoting.org
Can't come? Please join our announcement list or become a member:
OpenVoting.org
The Open Voting Consortium (OVC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development, maintenance, and delivery of open voting systems
for use in public elections.
[UPDATE: Well the notes are at least semi-presentable now. Maybe I'll fiddle more later... JamBoi ]
The evening's MC is Lara Shaffer Director of Development of the Open Voting Consortium who sponsored the evening
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Emily Levy
Worked w/ Phillips on analyzing stats for NM. Her web site is juiceforjustice.com
Emily's major points of concern re: Fraud '04
- Machines "malfunctions" default to Bush; Mahoney: "malfunctioned"
- Prepunched Bush ballots!
- Raw Story by Larisa A.
- Warren County lockdown: suprising Bush vote #
- Lucas County: break-in to Dem HQ. computer equip GotV, shedules. no backup so much info lost.
Q&A:
election violence - vs both major parties.
106k uncounted votes in OH
More Emily points on how fraud was accomplished:
- Emily makes the point that it would take only 11 votes/precinct to alter the Ohio election!
-6 for Kerry, +6 for Bush would swing the election. Need to zero machines at beginning
- Let machines fill w/ chads
- send voters to wrong machines-- different candidate order
- programming machines to throw per time -- one/5 minutes
- private co. tallying; triad counted -- BOE got from them
Emily's Remedy:
- new technology appropriate, fair,
- election reform
- investigation
USCountVotes.org's has a new study: Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report
Emily offers handout re: election reform movement
----------------
Lara Shaffer
Lara announced that she's spoken to folks at Santa Cruz theater and they're open to showing some of the new videos coming out vs. election fraud.
Lara shows exerpt from Votergate video
Votergate.tv Produced by Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels
and Robert Carrillo Cohen
Notes from video:
David Dill, Stanford:
paper records precedence
Wexler, FL:
no manual recount possible.
Susan Bernham (sp?)
no tally, votes showing up for opponent. Accepting money for election
Dill
steal election, one programmer fiddling with the software is capable of altering -> 10s of thousands of votes, and hence the election.
Open Voting Consortium speaker and evening's MC: Lara Shaffer
www.openvoting.org
Lara shows TV report from SF Bay Area's Channel 7 ABC; April 1st, 2004 Karina Rusk report
professors vs. BBV fraudsters
Elaine Larson
Jim March
Diebold lawsuit in Alameda Co.
prof.? Karl Auerbach
Open Voting Advantages, SJ Mercury newspaper article Apr. 8 2004 SJ
Openvotingconsoritum.org is another URL for openvoting.org
----------------
Open Q&A:
Can't remember for sure who gave this info, but I think it was
Robert Kibrick
Center for Governmental Studies: New Study available researching voting systems.
Newsweek article. New
Voting Systems Performance Rating Group: IET model. VSPR.
Jim March of BBV.org makes comment from the floor (I didn't record content)
Mainstreet Mom's Oppose Bush guy (didn't catch name) spoke from floor: Bob Fitrakis of FreePress.org and the Ohio Moss vs. Bush case coming to speak. Feb 22 LA, PA and Berkeley. themmob.com.
Someone asked if anyone taped the Conyers Hearing.
Wellstone club rep points out that they are co-sponsors of Berkeley event.
Alan Dechert of OpenVotingConsortium.org mentioned (speaks later).
-----------------
Networking break...
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Maureen Smith long time Peace and Justice Activist(from Santa Cruz) I think she said she was active with VoteAmericaVote.com .
Spoke about Voting Systems Panel meetings with (former) Sec. of State Shelley on election reform issues
Issues Maureen covered:
- HAVA funds not released.
- Paper ballots guaranteed by law, but voters didn't know -- need education. Mentioned this was true even in the posh RoseGarden area of SJ. How much more is it true in poor areas?
- CA: all bill for the year must have been submitted bills by Jan 21st., introduced Feb 18th. meetings in Sac.
- Sequoia happy they have "certified paper trail" eg. Nevada. However its simply paper roll that is not cut in any way. Doesn't qualify as secret ballot since its not cut and not dropped int voting box. Cannot protect secret ballot since it displays the voting sequence and someone could compare the precinct books sign-in and figure out how individuals voted. Not secret vote. In discussion this point by a computer elections expert (didn't mention name) who spoke against it was overridden.
- Shelly came out strongly after hard lobbying.
voting integrity alliance: [JamBoi note: I didn't get notes on this point. Not sure if she was refering to
Voting Systems Panel or something else.]
Maureen recommended going to VoteAmericaVote.com and said there are several articles about bogus electronic voting available from front page.
-------------------
Robert Kibrick,, Legislative Analyst with Verified Voting.org
Legislation being persued on both state and federal level: paper trail, AK, ME, VE and other states.
DRE machines issues also being legislated.
- Sen. Ensin (R, NV?) Voter Integrity ... Act
- Rep. Rush Holt, of NJ. Last year's bill had 152 co-sponsors, but never got out of committee. It was reintroduced Feb. 7th 2005 and already has 59 cosponsors. Designated HR 550.
- Called for volunteers SF area, help with pushing through congress. Also in other parts of the country
- Education campaign for election officials needed. Bring them up to speed on technology, and security issues.
- vulnerability, info packets, alternatives>
- disability access (secret independent ballot), electronically recorded voting not only way to to DAV.
Q&A w/ Bob:
- Q: Does optiscan provide solution?
- A:possible solution. Not perfect however. What about mistakes made when working with ballot? There's no protection provided against mistakes and the spoiled ballots that result.
- Martin Pita(sp???) Santa Cruz vote counter. pointed out that its hard to elim. mistakes. precinct based optical scan is answer
- Q: Central tab. hacking.
- <"achilles heel".
- Holt's bill calls for mandatory audits in 2% of randomly selected precincts.
- Q: What about National standards for elections: (Berkeley person asked question).
- Holt bill: public disclosure.
- Dodd Conn. some good some bad. allocations of machines covered. paper trail provisions don't effect till 2009.
- tresholds on precincts are auto counted and what triggers wider.
[JamBoi note: the brief talks by
Jim March and
Alan Dechert (of OVC) happened at the end, but I ran out of battery power on my lap top, so I stopped taking notes. Also somewhere near the end there was a cool mime perfermance by a group named "F.D.A." (Federal Dancing Authority) vs. election fraud.]
JamBoi
