Just guessin 'ol Roy doesn't know one damn thing about these hack boxes...but he does know ahem...COST!!!

Hey gang,

You might want to offer your two cents worth on this pro-electronic voting HuffPo blog:

Electronic Voting: If It Is Good Enough For Congress

I believe you can impact public opinion on Huffington Post.

- Tom

Having attended the Board meeting (slight correction - it was Tuesday morning, not Wednesday night) this week, I can tell you we witnessed a "true believers" awakening of four of the five board members regarding the con job Sequoia has done on Riverside County. And statements by the ROV Dunmore were questioned in much more detail than ever done previously. Her statements were not taken as gospel, including her statement that the machines ARE certified. Because while technically they are certified for the balance of 2007, they are not yet (and may not be) certified for the February 2008 primary.

Ms. Dunmore tried to assure the board by saying that Secretary of State Debra Bowen had personally told her that she (Bowen) fully expects that Sequoia is going to meet all conditions necessary to “continue” certification for the February 2008 election, but the Board wasn't buying it. They demanded that if Dunmore and Sequoia were so sure of themselves, that Sequoia GIVE the 6 proposed machines to the county to use at no charge until they were recertified. And then, if they become certified the county would pay for them, but only under the conditions that if they are again decertified (this process happens a lot in CA), the county would be entitled to a 100% refund, not the depreciation schedule (over 6 years) proposed by Sequoia.

Oh, and the board replaced Dunmore as the chief negotiator with County Counsel Joe Rank, who has less of a love affair with Sequoia than does Dunmore.

Meanwhile, Dunmore is threatening to take all paper ballots from the 600+ precincts and transport them to the central tabulator in Riverside in February, and abandon any posting of precinct results at the precincts, as required by law. SAVE R VOTE members have offered to assist and even take the lead in recruiting and training citizens to hand-count the votes beginning with the February election, but there has been no reciprocating interest shown by either the ROV or the Board. Thus chain of custody of up to 400,000 ballots will be subject to multiple points where the chain may easily be broken. And of course, there will be no accountability for the ballots at each precinct, as they will simply be bundled up and shipped off, without any results count to reconcile back to.

So, while this was an awakening of the sleeping giant, there remains the concern that the giant will now begin to reduce even further the transparency of the process that is so important in ensuring a true and open type of government. And should there be any question of the reduction in transparency, one only has to look at the 80 percent reduction in time allowed for any group to speak on a topic at the open comments part of the board meetings arbitrarily imposed by the current chairman of the board, John Tavaglione. Whereas groups could speak for up to 15 minutes previously, Mr. Tavaglione, in his infinite wisdom, has reduced that to just 3 minutes. For every victory for Election Integrity and Open Government in Riverside County, there are offsetting losses in ability of citizens to be heard. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We have been in this for over 3 years, and it looks like another three would not be out of the question.

LIB says, "Meanwhile, Dunmore is threatening to take all paper ballots from the 600+ precincts and transport them to the central tabulator in Riverside in February"

Check all dumpsters and landfills along the routes to Riverside then if you have to, or at least follow the trucks.

Hey, why doesn't the county just trade in a bunch of the DRE for the optical scanners? It's a fair trade of a bundle of smaller decertified voting machines for one bigger decertified voting machine - kind of like when you trade up your houses for hotels in Monopoly. Great article Brad.

High praise and respect to the true American supes of Riverside.
From Moreno Valley, here's a thank you and proud of you, keep up the good fight.

I would like Mr. Courbat and Save R Vote-Riverside, and other individuals and grass roots groups like them, to know that I think they are the only thing that stands between us and the big black hole that gapes before us, of total fascist (rightwing corporate) rule.

If we don't win this one--in the only venues still open to us, the local/state elections offices and boards--it is all over. Our democracy will be effectively dead. It will of course live on in the hearts of the American people, and will never die there, and will likely be reborn, but with non-transparent vote counting, run on 'trade secret,' proprietary code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls--which is the case now almost everywhere in the country, and which was deliberately fast-tracked by the Anthrax Congress (along with the war on Iraq--in October 2002)--we have no hope of reform on any issue.

The fascists have the power to shape a pro-war Congress (which they clearly did on 11/6/06) and to appoint the next emperor. We can out-fundraise them, out-organize them and outvote them. We, the peace-minded, justice-minded American people are by far the majority. But we cannot achieve peaceful change if the fascists have the capacity to secretly switch and disappear our votes, without detection.

Our democracy is teetering right on the brink. Yesterday the Senate censured a citizen group--MoveOn.org--for criticizing and ridiculing a military general who is shilling for Bush. Since when did the citizens of this country lose the right to criticize the military? Good God! And 25 'Democrats' voted FOR it! That's how bad things are. You open your yawp and you get censured by the U.S. Senate. The Betrayus Congress keeps topping itself, to outdo the Diebold I Congress for outrages against the Constitution and the American people.

And just how did we end up with pro-war Congress in a country in which SEVENTY PERCENT of the people oppose this current heinous, unjust war, and want it ended? You do the math. There is hardly a one of them who can prove that he or she was actually elected. That's the situation.

And ONLY strong citizen action, in counties and states around the country--like Save R Vote in Riverside--is going to restore the bottom line of democracy: transparent vote counting. These are the truest patriots of this land. We have never had better, and we never will. Kudos and laurel wreaths to Tom Courbat and group--and to others like them. Future generations will bless your names. And even if we lose this critical fight, they will know that at least some of their forebears tried their damndest to pass democracy along to the future, as it was passed by others to us.