Public Comments by County Elections Officials

This web page lists public comments by County Elections Officials from the Secretary of State's website, with selective highlights from each.

If you only want to read a few, I recommend the Los Angeles's and San Joaquin County's comments for hostility, Solano County's for insight, and the Yolo County's comments for a breath of fresh air.

General observations on comments from county elections officials and their organizations:

• They want the exact methodology of the testing published in advance.
• They want to know what qualifications are needed for reviewers.
• There are other elections this year, and this process may interfere with preparations for them.
• They mention accuracy, reliability, and security as essentials of an election system (but never mention transparency).
• They talk about previous federal and state testing, but don't realize or acknowledge that that testing does not include security testing.
• Several mentioned they endorsed the CACEO response.
• They seem unaware that even if equipment is decertified by Aug. 3, they will still be able to use it for the rest of the year.
• They often mention compliance with federal law or federal certification, when in fact there is no applicable federal law and is no federal certification (only NASED certification, which is not federal).

Disclaimer: These highlights are by Jerry Berkman, not by the Secretary of State's office.

"All California voting systems already produce paper-based verifiable ballots for every vote cast." [not true - Elections Code section 19251(e) says "A paper record copy [VVPAT] is not a ballot"]

They suggest including as reviewers Dave MacDonald of Alameda County and Ira Rosenthal of Solano County, who serve both as Chief Information Officer (CIO) and as ROVs, plus Los Angeles County's CIO, Jon Fullinwider.

They want the public comment period to be extended to 30 days with public comment also on revised criteria.

They think the review of systems should be postponed due to short time to Feb. primary and possibility of new federal legislation.

They want to add comparison between the relative security risks for paper-based optical scan and DREs.

"We believe a complete taxonomy of systems and blended systems should be prepared and clearly defined test, with precise standards and stated outcomes, should be conducted."

They want a "blue team" to counter the red team?

They think allowing the "red team" access to source code is dangerous, and may jeopardize the integrity of our voting systems.

They object to requiring "sip and puff" rather than alternative.

California State Association of Counties (CSAC) and Regional Council of Rural Counties (RCRC):

They are worried about funding for testing and any necesssary changes.

Two copies - one dated "March 27" and another dated "March 29, REVISED". I can't see the difference between them.

Main point: "The review should set valid standards for improvements to the systems, rather than cause decertification of systems."

Also is strongly supportive of electronic touch screen voting system (TSx).

March 30 letter to Secretary Bowen:

Uses AutoMARK. Talks of "unrealistic expectations through an overly-aggressive or incomplete test protocol".

Attached: Feb. 16, 2006 letter to ES&S CEO:

This describes problems with AutoMARK in June primary in Contra Costa County and then describes problems in volume testing, Sep. 6-7, 2006, and how this went so badly. Consequently, Contra Costa County decided to reduce the number of polling places in November, 2006, so there would be two AutoMARKs per polling site.

Attached: Jan. 19 letter to Secretary Bowen:

Thanking her for meeting with Registrars Jan. 10, 2007, and asking about review process.

"an election can be more easily defrauded with paper than with a DRE". What are the ramification of potential decertification of whole systems?

She is concerned that if DREs are decertified, there is zero possibility of optical scanners in every precinct, so there will be no under/over vote warnings and "Therefore, lost votes will be a reality in 2008 elections. Which has the greater potential to really occur, lost votes or voter fraud with a voting system?"

March 30 letter to Secretary Bowen:

She says she was disappointed that Secretary Bowen did not send senior staff to observe March 6, 2007 Los Angeles City election (2,126 voting precincts and 16 early voting sites), even though they had been invited via letter on Feb. 21. She invites Secretary Bowen to observe the May 15, 2007 runoffs and 39th Assembly District election in Los Angeles.

She says the draft criteria in Section II 2 (a)-(e), "mandate disability access features that are not required by either Federal or State law."

She uses 2 and a half pages to summarize key milestones in voting systems in California to make the point that there has been a lot of "turmoil" for elections officials to contend with. The summary starts with Bill Jones decertifying punch card systems in Sep., 2001. The summary is decidedly anti Kevin Shelley.

On page 6, she notes that up to the early 1980s, decisions on voting systems were made by a Voting Systems Commission composed of the Secretary of State, Governor and Attorney General with involvement of the Chairs of the Legislature's Elections Committees. Secretary of State. She has proposed to the legislature that this be changed back, so the Secretary of State doesn't have this power!

Then she makes a public records request: Please consider this a formal request for all correspondence and other documentation your office has assembled regarding expenses associates with carrying out a top-to-bottom review of voting systems.

Att. 1 - CACEO letter
Att. 2 - Feb. 21 letter inviting Sec. Bowen to observe March 6 L.A. elections
Att. 3 - Oct. 5, 2005 McPherson press release about 10 step certification.
Att. 4 - Mar. 22, 2007 letter from Sec. Bowen to Rep. Zoe Lofgren about testimony to Congress
Att. 5 - Mar 30 letter to Chairs of California Assembly and Senate election committees asking for reinstatement of Voting Systems Commission
Att. 6 - CSAC letter

Madera uses Hart.

"Decertification of our current system would be financially irresponsible ..."

"your proposed action may be a state mandate, requiring the state to reimburse the county for the cost of a new system."

They are worried about money.

They are in the middle of a lot of elections in 2007: March 6, April 3, and August 28.

"A review of all voting systems should be a review of the tests each system was required to perform when certified by the Secretary of State. No new equipment or requirements should be made."

"... appears to be a ramrod effort targeting specific voting systems"

"To implement the original draft of the review would be a disservice to all California voters. I do not agree and, therefore, must reject the draft proposal as written and proposed by the secretary of state."

She is very worried about the short time frame if a system is decertified.

He is much more encouraging than most of the other Registrars.

He stresses that the plan for the review is as important or more important than the review itself.

This is a very long and sceptical argument against the draft criteria.

He says that they have had no problem with "untraceable vote tampering", and requiring the systems to secure themselves against such tampering constitutes a new requirement which can not be imposed after certification.

This also includes a second letter dated Mar. 28, describing how a poll worker copied ballots at Kinko's to alleviate lines on election day, Nov. 2, 2006. Very interesting.

The first letter dated Mar. 29 is repeated again at the end.

She says review should include opscan and blended systems as well as DREs.

She says notification of a change on Aug. 3 provides only 95 days notification for their Nov. 2007 election; apparently does not realize decertification is not effect for 6 months and they could use their current equipment in Nov. 2007, even if decertified.

This is a very interesting letter; I recommend you read it in full.

Solano uses AutoMARK and ES&S's Unity software. Rosenthal mentions they have found Unity "unstable" with mysterious problems. He thinks any problems found by the review be reported to the "independent test authority for resolution".

He mentions that when they did a test of accouracy of their optical scanners, "We found the central scanners interpreted marks differently from the precinct scanners, and learned that the two central scanners we have did not always interpret the marks in the same manner ..."

The he mentions an unacceptable high rate of failures of the AutoMARKs, and recommends a volume test for them (they were certified before volume testing became a requirement).

She thinks the criteria should take into account "blended" voting systems; i.e. a mix of optical scan and electronic.

They use DFM Mark-A-Vote as the primary system, with Hart eSlate for disabled access. They do not use Hart's tally software, but instead duplicate the ballot onto Mark-A-Vote cards and tally with DFM.

Freddie Oakley strongly supports the Draft Criteria. This letter is a breath of fresh air, and has a great quote at the end.

A second letter from Tom Stanionis, Director of Technology, Yolo County, is also supportive and outlines a few additions to make to the criteria.

Yuba County is one of four counties in California subject to federal preclearance for changes of voting methods, and this memo states that.