Guest Blogged by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org
The California “Top-To-Bottom Review” of state certified voting systems was to include four investigations; Security (Red Team), Accessibility, Code Review, and Document Review. All of the reports were released soon after they were presented to the Secretary of State, Debra Bowen; all but the Document Review.
Why has the Document Review been kept from the public? What is contained in those reports that we should not know? The Secretary of State’s Press Office will only say, “We don’t know when they will be released.”
In his “Not Quite a Blog 2.0” Joseph Lorenzo Hall, one of the members of the document review team, reveals that each team member had to agree to the following secrecy:
On Sept. 6 those 45 days of confidentiality had passed and Joe spoke about some of the basics with regards to the reports. He did not go into any specifics. In his blog he revealed the following…
//and//
We don’t believe that the documentation with which we were provided would be sufficient for the State-level certification of these systems. The inadequacy of the ITA reports and the documents that would be needed by reviewers beyond the voluminous technical data packages provided to the ITAs put state-level certifiers at an information disadvantage.
In his summary Joe points to the following “Implications” of the report:
That’s all pretty powerful stuff. So, Debra Bowen, where are those reports? Why are they being hidden from the public? It’s been over 6 weeks now. What are you waiting for?
VOTELELECTONHACKRIGGEDVOTEELECTIONHACKEDVOTEREMOTESTOLENELECTION.
TRANSPARENCY
RECOUNTABLE PAPER BALLOT EVIDENCE TO VERIFY THE ACTUAL WINNER.
IS THAT TO MUCH TO ASK FOR? IS IT A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE OR DECIDER? LOOK WHO’S WINNING.
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” – Bono
–Jospeph Heller
I would expect some other states who emulate the CA effort will be interested in completeness, as well. This reminds me of ISO certification processes. In addition to the documentation issue, there is the current jostling about the future of EAC, and that is part of presidential primary campaigning, as well. I also have questions about what happened in the court jousting over escrowed code and what the CA Secretary of State finally gleaned, if there was a final side by side comparison for version authenticity. Also I would tend to think DebraBowen may continue in processes of negotiating with some vendors concerning documents. I think of what ATM Forum, Frame Relay Forum, and many other tech standards committees worked on somewhat collegially, as a comparison. The admix of politics with elections officials is a delight, and certainly comparable to the trade secrets constraints on other standards bodies like the ATMF and FRF genre. All of this is superimposed on a very opaque information policy in the current administration in the White House. It would be useful if congress could expedite some of the recordkeeping and standards development by adding its own subpoena power and hearings fora; yet, there are FEC, which currently is disabled itself, given the tenure issues and appointments expirations; then there is congress’ own HAVA created entity EAC; so, in a way some congresspersons are going to perceive a vested interest in outcomes and exhibit a proclivity for ‘letting the process work’. States, after all, treasure their individuality in voting matters. But I need to review the document set already published, as well, once again; likely there are a few vectors in there pointing the best things SecyBowen might release soon. Bowen has a sense of loyalty both to constituency and to processes in the CA state capitol, having served in the state senate there in a position of responsibility until her election in 2006 as SecyOfState of CA, a combination in favor of a SoS decision to complete the documentation publication phase.
I ain’t ready to chew on SOS Bowen’s ass.
A fucking milestone has been reached.
Question is, now what. Are we prepared to deal with ink and paper? Now that we know electronics should not be counting the vote.
If we are not prepared to deal with ink and paper, then I guess we are no prepared to vote.