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NH Voting Technology Committee to release report

The NH committee was formed to justify software-based voting systems. Here's my bet on the top 10 items to be found on the committee's final report. I truly hope they prove me wrong.

  • 10) They will recommend moving to an open source code voting system. They will not address the fact that open source code does not meet the NH constitutional mandate for open vote counting because humans can not observe a software-based vote count regardless of whether or not the software is open source, or that open source only opens the voting system to a small circle of computer experts who do not meet the legal definition of "We the People".
  • 9) They will not refer to the NH State Audit on the Office of the Secretary of State, which pointed to horrifying lack of process and gaping security holes in the conduct of all of its business, which includes administering our elections.
  • 8) They *might* announce intention to work with Harri Hursti, who is in fact back in America to launch his own new company developing and selling software-based voting systems.
  • 7) They will not refer to Hursti's 2007 testimony to the NH legislature about the inherent security vulnereabilities of software-based voting.
  • 6) They will not mention the fact that somebody in the NH government at some point decided to remove our ballots from public inspection under the NH Right to Know law, further concealing the election process and investigations from the public eye.
  • 5) They will not refer to NH's frightening lack of ballot chain of custody as documented by voting rights activists in the 2008 primary recount.
  • 4) They *might* try to follow suit of many other states justifying concealed vote counting and recommend post-election audits of paper ballots. If so, they will not acknowledge that post-election audits (aka "recounts" in NH) do not satisfy NH's constitutional mandate for open vote counting on Election Night and that post-election counts involve ballots removed from the public eye and therefore do not and can not substitute for public vote counts on election night.
  • 3) They will not mention NH's constitutional mandate for public vote counting.
  • 2) They will not address the fact that software-based voting systems conceal the vote count from public observation.
And the number one prediction for the Voting Technology committee's final report:
  • 1) They will not provide any analysis whatsoever as to whether or not technology concealing the vote count from the public eye has a rightful place in democratic elections, which by definition require public oversight of every step in the voting system process (with the exception of the voter's casting of a secret ballot). They will not address the fact that software-based voting systems concealing the vote count from the public oversight violates the voting rights of all NH citizens.

SOURCE: Nashua Telegraph

NH’s electronic voting panel issuing report

Eds: APNewsNow.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A special New Hampshire committee studying electronic voting systems is issuing its final report.

Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan (SCAN’-lan) said Harri Hursti (HUR’-stee), one of the world’s leading experts on voting systems, will discuss voting systems in America. Hursti is known for his demonstration of the vulnerability of the systems in an HBO documentary, “Hacking Democracy.”

The Electronic Ballot Counting Device Advisory Committee will hold its final meeting at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in Executive Council chambers in Concord, N.H.

By ntobi at 12/16/2009 - 07:28 | Fair elections | Features | Voting in NH | login or register to post comments

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The Elections Committee We Should Have Had

We didn't need no stinking e-voting committee. We needed a voting rights committee.

Until now, the state has been working steadily towards increased secrecy and insider centralized control over elections. This is the problem facing our state. The question is not "which" software-based technology should be used in our elections, it is WHETHER it should be used at all. The question is not which insiders have more control over our elections, it is how do we return citizen oversight to our elections.

This committee - with the hearty endorsement of the SoS - will no doubt try to promote "open source" software-based voting now. This will only further centralize insider control by handing the code to the state and a relatively small community of computer experts. Average citizens will still be expected to "trust" computers controlled by this small group of insiders to be counting our votes accurately.

Can we trust insiders to run honest elections with no public oversight?

Let's think about this. To this point, here is what NH insiders have done:

1) Enacted laws to remove post-election ballots from the Right to Know law, so the public has no access to conduct post-election forensics and investigations.
2) Enacted laws to create a Diebold monopoly on the voting machines in the state.
3) Denied public access to the SoS centralized vote count - the very tallies generating final election results.
4) Changed election vote totals on the SoS website from one day to another with no accounting for those changes
5) Approved voting technology after the vendor testified publicly that it is defective and vulnerable to error and tampering.
6) Killed legislation proposed to strengthen voting rights.
7) Prevented citizen oversight of ballot chain of custody through all manner of tactics - including bringing in K-9 units and private investigators to threaten and intimidate citizen observers - during the 2008 primary recount.
8) Approved voting technology even when they acknowledged it violates the NH Constitutional mandate for open vote counting.
9) Continued to conduct business with voting technology vendor when they knew the VP of that business was a convicted felon (cocaine trafficker).

This is what happens when insiders have unfettered control over our government. This is exactly why we had the American Revolution.
By ntobi at Thu, 12/17/2009 - 10:16am | login or register to post comments