Kathy Dopp Says "Support Clean Elections in 2008"
DOPP DEBUNKS MYTHS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS OF HOLT BILL HR 811 and
CRITIQUES NEW AMENDED VERSION
SAYS: "THE AMENDED HR 811 IS GOOD..."
Dopp further advises that:
"It is very important for all responsible Americans who
love democracy to support HR811 and to call, email, and write your US Senators
and ask them to pass S559 with the same amendments that have been made
to HR811.
Please forward this widely
--------------------------
By Kathy Dopp: "Support Clean Elections in 2008"
I urge you to support the amended U.S. Representative Rush Holt's HR811
"Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" and its Senate companion
bill S559 and contact your Senators to support its passage. (http://senate.gov)
More information (FAQs, a list of changes, and other info) is on the
newly revised HR811 that Representative Holt has provided on his
web site here
and here the amended bill itself is
here.
The amended HR811 is GOOD because it:
1. immediately replaces all paperless digital recording electronic
(DRE) voting systems with optical scan paper ballot systems (there is
insufficient time for any jurisdictions to purchase anything but
opscans by 2008), and
2. immediately requires, for the first time in history, nationwide
independent audits of all federal election outcomes, and
3. more than sufficiently funds the replacement of voting systems and
independent audit requirements, and
4. requires replacing all DRES with flimsy voter verifible paper rolls
which violate voter anonymity, by the 2010 election so that if local
election officials responsibly purchase economical, fully auditable
voting systems, or if vendors do not develop new DRE equipment which
print durable, separate, paper ballots by 2010, then that means ALL
jurisdictions will be using paper ballot optical scan voting systems
by 2010.
At the very worst, HR811 gets us through the 2008 election because
it gives a large chance of ensuring that correctly elected people are sworn into office,
perhaps for the first time in American history.
The House Admin. Committee's amendments to HR811 incorporate many
of the good revisions that election activists suggested including:
1. changes the language for the official ballot of record in case of
disputes so that the electronic counts cannot be automatically used
whenever sufficient paper ballot records are unreadable; and
2. removes the loophole where audits could be avoided by requiring any
state mandated recounts to manually count at least as many ballots as
the audit would; and
3. fixes the timelines to be reasonable for election officials to
replace existing DREs which do not meet the requirements for durable
paper ballots which preserve voter anonymity; and
4. fixes the funding to be more than adequate to replace all DRE
voting machines and conduct audits; and
5. removes any requirement for text conversion technology - it gives
the choice of allowing voters with disabilities to verify their vote
by conversion of either the text or the marked ballot; and
6. fixes the Internet connection clause to prohibit connections to
vote tabulating or ballot programming devices, as well as to vote
casting devices; and
7. changes the make up of the state audit boards to give states more
flexibility for appointing independent auditors as long as they meet
the GAO requirements for independent auditing; and
8. removes the extension of funding authorization for the Election
Assistance Commission; and
9. requires that paper ballots be available at all polling locations
for any voter which requests one and in case of problems with
electronic voting systems, and requires that those paper ballots are
counted with the other ballots cast on Election Day.
I am happy that so many of the amendments election integrity activists
recommended were made to HR811, and that the bill is now reasonable
for election officials (allow sufficient time and funding), and comes close to
accomplishing what we all want - verifiably accurate election outcomes.
Please make up your own mind to support HR811/S559 based on actual facts:
Untrue rumours about the amended HR811 are being spread by a
prominent "election integrity activist", whose final recommendations are
consistently the same as election officials who are against any
mandated independent audits of election results and against any
federal legislation which would force election officials to replace
current voting equipment. Please keep in mind that some "election
integrity activists" may have financial or other incentives to "not"
quickly solve our country's election problems and may be attempting to
kill any and all federal election reform legislation by employing
disingenuous, illogical arguments.
For instance, some of the opponents of HR811 formerly opposed full
software disclosure requirements in the original HR811,
yet now are opposing HR811 because it does not require full software disclosure.
See documentation to illustrate this disturbing claim
here.
In order to replace all digital recording electronic (DRE) voting
machines by 2010, full software disclosure cannot be required because
implementing voing systems which use fully disclosed software would
take at least 4.5 years to develop, test, do federal and state
certifications, purchase, do training, and implement.
In other words, there is a clear choice, either:
1. require full voting system software disclosure and wait 5 years to
replace all existing DRES due to the time it takes for development,
testing, certification, training, and implementation cycles; or
2. leave software disclosure essentially the same as it is today (as
the amended HR811 does), and immediately replace (by 2010) all DREs
with existing optical scan paper ballot systems that are already
federally certified
Some election officials and voting machine vendors are actively
fighting against the revised Holt bill for two reasons:
1. many election officials do not want election results to be
subjected to independent audits (even though election officials
neither have to pay for or conduct the audits - although they must
participate and secure the ballots), and
2. voting machine vendors want to be able to sell DRE
electronic-ballot voting machines which are more profitable for them
than selling paper-ballot optical scan systems.
According to the literature of "The Election Technology Council",
voting machine vendors cannot develop and implement any new voting systems by 2010.
See the
"Election Technology Council Comments on Help America Vote Act Amendments"
(See the color chart)
Voting vendors claim to need 54 mos. (4.5 years until at least 2011) to develop,
certify and implement any new products to meet the new requirements of HR811.
Therefore the requirement to replace all DREs w/ VVPAT rolls by 2010,
according to the vendors' own material, would mean that DREs, including the ones
with paper rolls, would have to be replaced by more economical, more auditable
paper ballot optical scan voting systems.
It is very important for all responsible Americans who love democracy to
support HR811 and to call, email, and write your US Senators and ask
them to pass S559 with the same amendments that have been made to HR811.
Click on
this link to send your congressman an email
Best,
Kathy Dopp
The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author Kathy Dopp's
fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election
audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at
P.O. Box 680192
Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657
http://utahcountvotes.org
http://kathydopp.com
http://electionmathematics.org
http://electionarchive.org
Election Audit Mathematics Bibliography
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/KathyDoppAuditMathBibliography.pdf
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind
will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816
#
Kathy Dopp (President) - is the founder of US Count Votes and
National Election Data Archive. Kathy has an MS in mathematics with emphasis
in Computer Science from the University of Utah. A long-time activist,
during the 1970's she co-authored informational material on the Vietnam war
