{"id":8458,"date":"2011-04-08T14:49:49","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T21:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?page_id=8458"},"modified":"2011-04-08T14:53:23","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T21:53:23","slug":"transcript-brad-friedman-and-peter-b-collins-interview-with-monterey-county-ca-registrar-of-voters-tony-anchundo-102405","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?page_id=8458","title":{"rendered":"TRANSCRIPT: Brad Friedman and Peter B. Collins Interview with Monterey County, CA Registrar of Voters Tony Anchundo: 10\/24\/05"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>The following is a transcript of the Peter B. Collins Show on <\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/KRXA540.com\"><b>KRXA 540-am<\/b><\/a><b>, Monterey, California on October 24, 2005.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"left\"><b>The in-studio guest was Monterey County Registrar of Voters, Tony Anchundo. He brought with him one of the new Sequoia DRE (touch-screen) voting machines, to be deployed for the first time in Monterey, during the November 8th, 2005 Special Election in California.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" align=\"left\"><b>Brad Friedman, of <\/b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\"><b>The BRAD BLOG<\/b><\/a><b>, joined them by phone for the extraordinary hour. You can listen to the audio version of the hour in MP3 format is <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Audio\/PeterBCollins_BradTonyAnchundo_102405.mp3\"><b>here<\/b><\/a><b>. Brad blogged about it all <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/archives\/00001948.htm\"><b>here<\/b><\/a><b>.<\/b><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><b>PETER B. COLLINS:<\/b> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,<br \/>\n            this is KRXA-540. I&#8217;m Peter B. Collins and we&#8217;ve made some technical<br \/>\n            adjustments in our studio here this afternoon to welcome the<br \/>\n            Registrar of Voters for Monterey County, Tony Anchundo, who joins<br \/>\n            us. Good afternoon, Tony.<\/p>\n<p><b>TONY <b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b><\/b> Good afternoon, Peter B.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> And you brought in a Sequoia electronic voting machine,<br \/>\n            it&#8217;s right here in our studio.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Yes, this is a new era in voting in Monterey County and<br \/>\n            so what we have here in front of us is a DRE voting system, Direct<br \/>\n            Recording Electronics, commonly referred to as touch screen voting.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay and what&#8217;s one of these babies cost?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, the actual device, with the VeriVote Printer,<br \/>\n            estimated about $4,000.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay and the VeriVote Printer is something I think many of<br \/>\n            our listeners are interested in, Tony. We live in a world where many<br \/>\n            people react to the election results of 2000 and 2004 &#8211; and they<br \/>\n            have deep suspicions about the honesty and integrity of our voting<br \/>\n            systems. And in particular, electronic machines, whether it&#8217;s touch<br \/>\n            screen or other types, that do not include some sort of a<br \/>\n            voter-verifiable paper trail, have caused great concern among voters<br \/>\n            and election advocates. Does that printer that you describe, produce<br \/>\n            a receipt that I come away with after I vote?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, first of all, I wanted to just assure all your<br \/>\n            KRXA listeners that this technology has been around for many years,<br \/>\n            but this is the first time that a voter-verifiable paper report will<br \/>\n            appear to voters. They don&#8217;t actually get a receipt, it&#8217;s an<br \/>\n            opportunity for them to verify with the paper report, that the votes<br \/>\n            that they voted were cast properly and they can review it and then<br \/>\n            cast their ballot and you know, leave the polling place knowing that<br \/>\n            there&#8217;s some integrity and honesty to the voting system.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay, now we&#8217;ll come back to that issue for sure and<br \/>\n            shortly we&#8217;ll be joined by Brad Friedman, our friend from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a>.<br \/>\n            But Tony, first, could you walk me through a voter experience on<br \/>\n            this Sequoia machine?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, this is the first time that voters, at the<br \/>\n            precinct level, will have an opportunity to vote the DRE touch<br \/>\n            screen voting. In 1999, voters had the opportunity here in Monterey<br \/>\n            County, to try this technology at our early voting locations. We had<br \/>\n            them in Delmonte, a shopping center in Northridge, South County and<br \/>\n            North County. But this is the first time, again, that they&#8217;ll have<br \/>\n            this opportunity to do it at the polling place. What we have to<br \/>\n            identify is first, once a voter comes into their polling place, they<br \/>\n            have to be a registered voter, so they will sign the roster,<br \/>\n            determine eligibility, and at that point and time, then the poll<br \/>\n            worker will insert a voter card into the activation unit. The<br \/>\n            activation unit just tells that particular card, that this voter is<br \/>\n            eligible to vote. They will punch in a three-numeric code device, at<br \/>\n            that point and time hand it to the voter, the voter then goes ahead<br \/>\n            and inserts it into the <i>[inaudible]<\/i> device.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> I&#8217;ll do that in just a second, I want to describe the<br \/>\n            activator, which is a box about the size of a Playstation, or an<br \/>\n            Xbox, and it features a display screen at the top and there is an<br \/>\n            insert where this card, that is a plastic, digitally encodable card,<br \/>\n            the kind of thing you use at a hotel room. People are very familiar<br \/>\n            with these, these days, credit card size. What you did is inserted<br \/>\n            it and based on the verification of my information, that I&#8217;m a<br \/>\n            registered voter, you then issue me this card, which enables me to<br \/>\n            go to the DRE machine itself, and now if I can bring this microphone<br \/>\n            over a little closer, I&#8217;m going to insert this in the yellow slot<br \/>\n            here, that is very obvious. I would not be confused, there&#8217;s no<br \/>\n            other slot where I could accidentally insert it. So I push it in and<br \/>\n            now it&#8217;s asking me whether I want English, or Espanol, and I&#8217;ll<br \/>\n            choose English. Now it&#8217;s giving me a choice of candidates&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And of course this a demonstration device, so some of<br \/>\n            the choices you have are from some of our elected officials from the<br \/>\n            past. But let me just back up&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> You know, I&#8217;ve always wanted to vote for John F. Kennedy,<br \/>\n            I was too young at the time.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, you know, I&#8217;ve always had a desire to vote for<br \/>\n            good &#8216;ole Abe Lincoln. But let me just step back a little bit,<br \/>\n            Peter. The activation device, only the code that&#8217;s placed inside is<br \/>\n            the precinct code, it does not identify the individual voters. So,<br \/>\n            every voter will have the same activation code. Again, that<br \/>\n            represents the precinct and that tells the voting device itself, the<br \/>\n            touch screen device, what precinct this voter is in.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright. So, I am voting for John F. Kennedy for<br \/>\n            President.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And you can touch any portion of that voting section<br \/>\n            there. Now what has happened is that you, in the President of the<br \/>\n            United States, you are allowed to only vote for one and that&#8217;s one<br \/>\n            of the features of this technology. It will not allow you to<br \/>\n            over-vote. So I noticed you tried voting for&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> For Marshall, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> &#8230;and Thomas Jefferson, but it won&#8217;t allow you. But in<br \/>\n            the event you decide to change your mind, go ahead and press John<br \/>\n            Kennedy again.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay, that unselected that, so I can change to Abraham<br \/>\n            Lincoln.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> But once I select that, my other options are<br \/>\n            inactivated&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> They go away. So again, that&#8217;s one of the unique<br \/>\n            features and because of the Help America Vote Act, of 2002, and the<br \/>\n            problems that occurred in Florida in the 2000 Presidential Election,<br \/>\n            one of the mandates, Federally that Congress passed, is that every<br \/>\n            voter has to be assured, at the precinct level, that they cannot<br \/>\n            over-vote. It&#8217;s called second chance voting. Again, this technology<br \/>\n            affords that.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay. So, I&#8217;m going to skip over these other candidate<br \/>\n            categories and just go to the next screen here and I&#8217;m not going to<br \/>\n            vote for State Senate or County Commissioner and I&#8217;m going to skip<br \/>\n            the ballot measures here and that of course does mirror some voter<br \/>\n            behavior. There are some voters who come out and only vote for<br \/>\n            President and don&#8217;t vote for anything else.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And that&#8217;s one of the beauties. You can under-vote, but<br \/>\n            it will not allow you to over-vote.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, now if you look at the summary, it shows &#8211; the<br \/>\n            red shows that there was no selection made. So in the event you<br \/>\n            decide that, okay, I did want to vote for State Senator, you touch<br \/>\n            that section and it takes you back to that portion of the ballot.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, I selected Ceasar Chavez there&#8230;. and then I go<br \/>\n            through the referenda again and so we now have that vote reflected,<br \/>\n            but none of the other votes that I passed up have been changed&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> So you&#8217;re there now at the point where you&#8217;re satisfied<br \/>\n            with those selections, just follow the instructions.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Next &#8211; okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Now at this point and time, you&#8217;re going to touch where<br \/>\n            it says, &#8220;touch here&#8221; and then it will allow you to<br \/>\n            see&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> It says here, touch here to print and review a paper<br \/>\n            record of your ballot.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And then it asks you again&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> It says do I want to cast my ballot, am I sure? And I&#8217;m<br \/>\n            ready, I say yes, cast ballot.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And viola,<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Now I hear a printer activated.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Now you review your choices on the print report.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Oh, I see, it&#8217;s over here, okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And it is, again, a report. It&#8217;s not a receipt. The<br \/>\n            voter&#8217;s not allowed to take that receipt. It&#8217;s just there for you to<br \/>\n            review.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, so here at the time, at the polling place, and<br \/>\n            you know, it&#8217;s fresh in my mind, I know who I just voted for, and in<br \/>\n            this case, the test, I only voted for President and for State<br \/>\n            Senator, and it has accurately reflected those and so, I do have a<br \/>\n            chance here to make changes, if I wanted to.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Yeah, if you&#8217;re not satisfied with those selections,<br \/>\n            you can go ahead and make the changes.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, at the risk of making this go too long, I&#8217;m going<br \/>\n            to go back and select United States Senator. The printer just put<br \/>\n            the word &#8220;voided&#8221; on the ballot information that had been<br \/>\n            previously gathered, and now I&#8217;m going to vote for Dwight<br \/>\n            Eisenhower, as United States Senator, and go through the rest of the<br \/>\n            screens here. Touch here to print and review. Now, to the left of my<br \/>\n            touch screen, is where the printer is located. I press cast ballot<br \/>\n            and it once again, will generate a paper copy of the votes that I<br \/>\n            just made.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> And if you&#8217;re, at this point, satisfied with your<br \/>\n            choices, then you&#8217;ll go ahead and cast your ballot.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> It just made a little zippy phone noise. Now it says<br \/>\n            recording vote. It says vote recorded and at the bottom of my, it&#8217;s<br \/>\n            not my personal receipt, but of the printout &#8211; it says that the vote<br \/>\n            has been accepted. And now the printer is scrolling forward, to<br \/>\n            remove from view my voter information, so that the next person who<br \/>\n            comes over will not be able to read it.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, Peter, you have actually had an opportunity to do<br \/>\n            this before, because I mean you sound like an expert.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> I use optical scanners.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Very good, very good.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> That&#8217;s the type of voting machine I&#8217;ve used. Alright, does<br \/>\n            that concl&#8230;oh, now we have the card, my voter card, just popped<br \/>\n            out at the conclusion of that cycle, and I give that back to the<br \/>\n            clerk?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> We will have a poll worker who will be responsible for<br \/>\n            recovering those cards. Now let&#8217;s say in the event we have a crowded<br \/>\n            polling place and the poll worker is just for some reason delayed in<br \/>\n            their response, the voter decides &#8211; well, I&#8217;ve got this card&#8230; let<br \/>\n            me see if I can try voting again while someone&#8217;s not paying<br \/>\n            attention.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, I&#8217;ll insert it here just for grins. It said this<br \/>\n            voter card is not valid, please ask for assistance. So if I try it<br \/>\n            again, does somebody come and escort me to jail?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> At that point, the voting police will escort you to my<br \/>\n            office and then I can&#8217;t tell you on the radio what I will do. *Peter<br \/>\n            laughs* So, it clearly shows that the voter cannot vote a second<br \/>\n            card at that point, and then the poll worker will come and assist<br \/>\n            and then have the card removed. So in order to remove the card&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Oh, so right now the card is locked in there, because I<br \/>\n            made an unauthorized attempt.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Exactly. And this device just will not be allowed to be<br \/>\n            used again until we&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> I better get the hell out of here.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> You&#8217;re in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay, now we&#8217;re going to take a break and check traffic<br \/>\n            and we&#8217;ll return with Tony Anchundo. We&#8217;re also going to be joined<br \/>\n            by Brad Friedman, from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a>.<br \/>\n            He knows more about electronic voting than I do. We&#8217;ll get him to<br \/>\n            review the demonstration you just heard and then we&#8217;ll ask some<br \/>\n            questions about how this all works and is it hack-proof? Either at<br \/>\n            this stage, or at the tabulation stage. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;ll talk about<br \/>\n            next and if you have a question or a comment, you can join us right<br \/>\n            now at 899-KRXA. We&#8217;re going to talk about electronic voting this<br \/>\n            hour and if you have questions or comments, this is your perfect<br \/>\n            opportunity to come forward now, 899-KRXA. That&#8217;s (831) 899-5792.<br \/>\n            You&#8217;re listening to KRXA-540.<\/p>\n<p><i>{BREAK}<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> And we&#8217;ll continue in just a moment here, on KRXA, we&#8217;re<br \/>\n            trying to get our computer under control.<\/p>\n<p><i>{BREAK}<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, let&#8217;s check traffic now, it&#8217;s 5:19 and Metro<br \/>\n            Diane is on the case. Go ahead Diane.<\/p>\n<p>*Diane gives traffic report*<\/p>\n<p><i>{BREAK}<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> It&#8217;s 5:20 now, from KRXA 540 and we continue our<br \/>\n            conversation with the Registrar of Voters for Monterey County, Tony<br \/>\n            Anchundo, who&#8217;s in the studio with us, along with his touch screen<br \/>\n            voting machine that he brought in. We just completed a<br \/>\n            demonstration, I hope you had a chance to listen to that and Tony,<br \/>\n            we do have one complication. It appears that your electronic voting<br \/>\n            machine caused our main computer here to crash.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, I can take responsibility for many things, but I<br \/>\n            refuse to take the responsibility for your computer crashing.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> *laughing* Alright, we won&#8217;t press charges.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> And Hal&#8217;s here trying to fix it right now. Hal, let me<br \/>\n            know when you get it back under control. Now, Brad Friedman, is our<br \/>\n            expert on electronic voting and he has looked at these issues in<br \/>\n            some detail and you can read his work at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a>.<br \/>\n            Hello, Brad.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD FRIEDMAN:<\/b> Hey guys, how are you Peter and Tony?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Brad, how&#8217;s it going?<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Very well.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Good.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Now what questions do you have, just resulting from the<br \/>\n            demo, that we just did on the air here.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well, you know, I have a couple of questions from the demo<br \/>\n            and from what you guys have mentioned. First, Mr. Anchundo, I was<br \/>\n            just curious, what type of system were you previously using, prior<br \/>\n            to this?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, we had a <i>[inaudible]<\/i><br \/>\n            punchcard and as you know, the federal and state authorities<br \/>\n            decertified all punchcards throughout the nation. So, we had a<br \/>\n            couple of choices. Last year we began Phase I of the new voting<br \/>\n            system, with an optical paper ballot and then because of the<br \/>\n            necessity to comply with the HAVA Federal Mandate, we needed to get<br \/>\n            into this technology, to assure that we can again, comply with the<br \/>\n            issues and concerns with voting.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> What were the federal mandates that requires you to move<br \/>\n            from the optical scan to the DREs?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, we have a combination. The absentee voter will be<br \/>\n            voting on optical scan and in our county, we have almost half of our<br \/>\n            registered voters, who vote absentee. In order to assure that the<br \/>\n            voters at the precinct level do not over-vote, this is one of the<br \/>\n            beauties of this technology, it won&#8217;t allow them to do that,<br \/>\n            over-vote. In addition, there are certain ADA issues that have to be<br \/>\n            met. A voter has to have the opportunity, by themselves, and to vote a<br \/>\n            secret ballot. So someone who has a sight issue, or is blind, this<br \/>\n            system also has an audio device, that walks them through the voting<br \/>\n            process.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> But, my understanding, maybe you can clarify it, and<br \/>\n            votersunite.org has reported on this, they have a booklet called,<br \/>\n            &#8220;Myth Breakers&#8221; &#8211; are you familiar with that?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> I&#8217;ve heard of many of different publications. That one<br \/>\n            in particular, no, I&#8217;m not aware of.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Yeah, because they said that there really wasn&#8217;t a need for<br \/>\n            a lot of folks who were using the optical scans and so forth, to move<br \/>\n            ahead, that HAVA does not mandate that you do that. So, that&#8217;s<br \/>\n            interesting, but I&#8217;m curious, mostly, as you guys were talking,<br \/>\n            unfortunately it&#8217;s radio, so I couldn&#8217;t see it, but you said there<br \/>\n            was a paper report printed with each vote. Now, is that a paper<br \/>\n            ballot?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> No, that&#8217;s a paper report. It&#8217;s just a verifiable paper<br \/>\n            report that the voter is allowed to review, before they make their<br \/>\n            final decision and cast the ballot. So, it&#8217;s just a &#8211; it replicates<br \/>\n            what they had touched on the voting device.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> And Brad, just to help you visualize it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> As you&#8217;re facing the touch screen, on the right hand side<br \/>\n            is a wing that has instructions on how to use the machine and<br \/>\n            really, the companion to it on the left, is this printer device with<br \/>\n            a window that allows you to see the paper. It&#8217;s like a roll of<br \/>\n            receipts from a gas station, or an ATM, it&#8217;s about three inches wide<br \/>\n            &#8211; maybe two and a half &#8211; and it scrolls upward and as I described,<br \/>\n            it first prints out the information and it was consistent and<br \/>\n            accurately portrayed the votes that I had made&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Right.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> And it allows me to see that and then I have the<br \/>\n            opportunity to recheck that, I can make a change, or I can just<br \/>\n            authorize it, essentially, to go to print.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> And when you, I noticed that you voided one of those<br \/>\n            choices. Was that after you had printed the &#8211; after the ballot had,<br \/>\n            the paper record had originally been printed?<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Correct.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> And what happened to that voided paper?<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> It just rolled over. Where did it go, Tony? It rolled over<br \/>\n            into the back.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> It just scrolled, as you mentioned, and it&#8217;s on a spool<br \/>\n            and it will just stay there attached to it, till the end of the<br \/>\n            evening, or in a case in a major election, if more than 200 votes<br \/>\n            are cast, then that would be time&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Time to change the toilet paper.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> &#8230;to remove and put on a new roll of toilet paper,<br \/>\n            correct.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Yeah, and is that voided one, you said it was marked<br \/>\n            voided, was it marked over the ballot? Clearly voided on the actual<br \/>\n            votes themselves?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, the votes are stored on a cartridge and that&#8217;s<br \/>\n            inevitably will come to us on election night. But one of the things<br \/>\n            that Peter and I were talking about, and some of his staff members,<br \/>\n            that you know, we are going to do an accountability. We are going to<br \/>\n            go through at the end of the evening and to assure that those paper<br \/>\n            reports coincide with the results of that particular precinct. So,<br \/>\n            it&#8217;s voided on the paper, but it&#8217;s also voided on the cartridge.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> But I mean, is the word voided, cause I understand a<br \/>\n            problem with the Sequoia toilet paper rolls, is that when they mark<br \/>\n            voided &#8211; that it&#8217;s very difficult when you then go back to count<br \/>\n            them manually, to determine the voided votes, from the actual votes,<br \/>\n            because it keeps the voided votes right there with the actual votes.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Well, to your point, Brad, as I looked at it, and I&#8217;m not<br \/>\n            an election specialist, but the paper report was specific to my<br \/>\n            voting and at the bottom of it, the word void was in large type,<br \/>\n            larger font than the regular type that reflected the voting report.<br \/>\n            But to be specific, it does not print over the printed results that<br \/>\n            I had previously put in there.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> So if someone was manually counting off of that paper,<br \/>\n            there could be confusion as far as which ones were the voided votes<br \/>\n            and which ones were the legitimate votes?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Oh, absolutely. But one of the necessities of any new<br \/>\n            technology, regardless if it&#8217;s for voting or for any industry, that<br \/>\n            there is a learning curve and we&#8217;re certainly going to have to spend<br \/>\n            some time and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> I would offer, excuse me Tony, that this is far less<br \/>\n            subjective than a hanging chad, or even a dimple chad &#8211; or my<br \/>\n            nephew, Chad.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Sure, right, I guess the question though is, you know, is<br \/>\n            it less subjective than a vote count and it sounds like Mr. Anchundo<br \/>\n            is suggesting that the vote count will actually be taken from the<br \/>\n            cartridge. So in other words, when one votes, and you see that<br \/>\n            result on that piece of paper, how does a voter, or anyone else know<br \/>\n            that what is actually marked on the cartridge, is the same as what&#8217;s<br \/>\n            on paper?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, how will the voter know? They won&#8217;t know,<br \/>\n            obviously, at that time. There is obviously going to have to be some<br \/>\n            trust and faith in the elections official, or in this case, it&#8217;s me.<br \/>\n            You know, I wouldn&#8217;t even think about rolling something of this<br \/>\n            nature out to the electorate, unless I felt convinced. There&#8217;s been<br \/>\n            a tremendous amount of time and energy testing and yes, there&#8217;s<br \/>\n            always going to be issues and concerns. But again, I believe there&#8217;s<br \/>\n            enough checks and balances and in the official canvass, you know,<br \/>\n            after the election &#8211; that will be an opportunity to assure that the<br \/>\n            integrity of the process has been upheld. And, I&#8217;ll tell you right<br \/>\n            now, and I&#8217;m telling all the KRKA listeners&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> KRXA.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Oh, sorry, KRXA listeners, that if there is a problem,<br \/>\n            if there is some concerns and the integrity is not upheld, I&#8217;ll be<br \/>\n            the first to come out and say, we&#8217;re going to do this all over<br \/>\n            again.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> When you say do it all over again, what do you mean?<br \/>\n            Re-vote?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, if we have to, I&#8217;ll go and sue myself and go<br \/>\n            before a superior court judge and ask that we do the election again.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well, let&#8217;s say there is a discrepancy between the<br \/>\n            cartridge votes and what&#8217;s on the paper &#8211; and I&#8217;m not sure how<br \/>\n            you&#8217;re going to audit them, but, let&#8217;s say however the audit is, a<br \/>\n            variegated audit, or you do a complete hand recount and they don&#8217;t<br \/>\n            match up, uh, which is the ballot of record? The paper or what&#8217;s on<br \/>\n            the cartridge?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, again, if they don&#8217;t match up, we obviously have<br \/>\n            an issue. And then at that point I will have to make an<br \/>\n            administrative decision and I have no problem coming forward and<br \/>\n            saying that, you know, I&#8217;m not convinced, I&#8217;m not satisfied with the<br \/>\n            integrity of the ballot count. But again, I would not even go<br \/>\n            forward with this technology unless it had been proven. And there<br \/>\n            have been weeks of logic and accuracy testing, within our office, in<br \/>\n            preparation for November 8th&#8217;s election.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Now Tony, could you just give me a brief demonstration.<br \/>\n            Can you show me where the cartridge is and if it&#8217;s removable, can<br \/>\n            you pull it out?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> The cartridge is behind the screen itself and we have a<br \/>\n            seal on it, so I don&#8217;t want to break the seal at this point and<br \/>\n            time.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay, is it a standard component, like a zip disk, or?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> It&#8217;s similar to a zip disk, correct.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> But is it proprietary, so that I could not substitute a<br \/>\n            zip disk for that?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Absolutely. It is proprietary software and so if you<br \/>\n            attempted to put another type of disk inside it, it obviously<br \/>\n            wouldn&#8217;t read it.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, Brad, hang on, we&#8217;re going to take a break and<br \/>\n            when we come back I think, if we&#8217;re in sink here, I want to move to<br \/>\n            the tabulation phase and talk about how the votes that are collected<br \/>\n            on this cartridge, are then transferred into the computers that make<br \/>\n            the final tally and produce the vote count. Is that cool with you?<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Fine with me, I had some other questions on that other<br \/>\n            stuff, but I&#8217;ll go forward with you.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Well, we&#8217;ll come back and deal with those, before we move<br \/>\n            on to tabulation. Okay?<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Alright.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> That&#8217;s coming up next on KRXA. I&#8217;m Peter B. Collins. In<br \/>\n            the studio with me is the Registrar of Voters for Monterey County,<br \/>\n            Tony Anchundo. On the line is Brad, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>            and you can get on the line too. We&#8217;ll take your calls in the next<br \/>\n            segment.<\/p>\n<p><i>{<i>{BREAK}<\/i>}<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> You&#8217;re listening to KRXA 540. November 8th is the special<br \/>\n            election in California and we&#8217;re talking about the techniques that<br \/>\n            are going to be used here in Monterey County, the new DRE machines.<br \/>\n            These are electronic touch screen voting machines, with a paper<br \/>\n            report that is visible to the voter. The voter does not leave the<br \/>\n            polling place with a printed receipt, but it does provide<br \/>\n            verification on the scene, at the time of voting, for the voter, him<br \/>\n            or herself, to evaluate whether the machine properly captured the<br \/>\n            intended votes. Our guest is Tony Anchundo, he&#8217;s the Monterey County<br \/>\n            Registrar of Voters for the whole county and Brad, Brad Friedman,<br \/>\n            from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a>, is on the<br \/>\n            line with us. Brad, I wanted to let you ask the rest of your<br \/>\n            questions about the voting machine itself, and then we&#8217;ll talk about<br \/>\n            tabulating, and the hackability of that phase of the voting process.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Uh, yeah, and first by the way, I want to thank Mr.<br \/>\n            Anchundo for coming out and being willing to talk about this and<br \/>\n            answer these questions. It&#8217;s obviously very important that the<br \/>\n            voters, you know, have confidence in the vote, it&#8217;s the most<br \/>\n            important part of democracy. And that brings me to a question. You<br \/>\n            suggest that we should trust you, that everything is okay here and<br \/>\n            that you&#8217;ll make a decision &#8211; I guess there&#8217;s nothing in law, about<br \/>\n            whether it&#8217;s the cartridge count, or the paper count, which becomes<br \/>\n            the ballot of record. But, I&#8217;m concerned about faith-based voting.<br \/>\n            *Peter laughs*<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Lemme just jump in, Brad. You basically are implying that<br \/>\n            you prefer the paper record, that that&#8217;s a tangible item that cannot<br \/>\n            be changed through remote access by computer, for example.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well, yeah, and also the paper is what is actually<br \/>\n            validated by the voter and Mr. Anchundo suggests that what&#8217;s written<br \/>\n            to the memory cartridge is the same as what&#8217;s on the paper, but<br \/>\n            admits that there&#8217;s really no way that the voter knows that. So I&#8217;m<br \/>\n            not sure how we will know that our vote is to be counted accurately<br \/>\n            at all.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, again, and believe me, I&#8217;ve heard these questions<br \/>\n            and concerns over the years and when we first rolled this voting<br \/>\n            system out in 1999, we certainly didn&#8217;t have the same number of<br \/>\n            people out there that had similar concerns. But again, I believe &#8211;<br \/>\n            and you know, as I mentioned earlier, that trust and faith in the<br \/>\n            elections official is important. But this technology would not be<br \/>\n            available, at any level, unless both the federal and state<br \/>\n            authorities provided that type of support. So again, it&#8217;s just not<br \/>\n            my trust and faith that you have, that they&#8217;ve gone through<br \/>\n            stringent tests to ensure the integrity. And I would not have even<br \/>\n            come close to using this type of system unless I had used it before.<br \/>\n            But, we do have that voter-verifiable paper receipt and I will have<br \/>\n            an opportunity to go through each and every precinct, to assure that<br \/>\n            what comes out on the tabulation, supports the same record that<br \/>\n            comes out on that report that the voters get to see when they cast<br \/>\n            their ballots.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well, in regard to, uh, you say that federal authorities<br \/>\n            have approved this system, you are familiar with the non-partisan GAO<br \/>\n            report that came out on Friday?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> I&#8217;m familiar with all the reports that pretty much have<br \/>\n            come out, concerning DRE voting.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Right. On Friday, the GAO put out over a hundred and seven<br \/>\n            page report saying that, in fact, confirming to those of us who have<br \/>\n            security concerns about these machines and they confirmed that in<br \/>\n            fact, votes were lost and miscounted in the last election, that<br \/>\n            there was problems with all of these machines, uh, and so, and in<br \/>\n            fact Sequoia, itself, who&#8217;s machine&#8217;s you&#8217;re using, is currently<br \/>\n            facing a lawsuit in Snohomish County, Washington, concerning exactly<br \/>\n            some of the things that we&#8217;re talking about. So, I think you&#8217;re a<br \/>\n            good guy, I have no reason to&#8230; are you guys partisan officials or<br \/>\n            non-partisan officials?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> We&#8217;re non-partisan. I&#8217;m not an elected official like in<br \/>\n            some other counties, I&#8217;m appointed by a County Administrative<br \/>\n            Officer.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Is the County Administrative Officer a&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> It&#8217;s a non-partisan office, also.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Yeah, in California, they&#8217;re non-partisan.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Non-partisan, well that&#8217;s good to know. But you know,<br \/>\n            surely, I&#8217;m sure you could understand that some people &#8211; I don&#8217;t<br \/>\n            have any problems trusting you, but some folks might be concerned<br \/>\n            that a voting system that relies on your good faith here, with<br \/>\n            machines that have been proven to cause problems all over the<br \/>\n            country, is not a great way to run an election and people have a<br \/>\n            good reason to be concerned and even you suggest that the papers,<br \/>\n            the recount, if there is one, you know, there&#8217;s no rules in place<br \/>\n            for whether it&#8217;s the paper or the&#8230; *station jingle for Tom Hartman<br \/>\n            plays*<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Thanks, Tom. Go ahead. Tom just jumped in there, we&#8217;re<br \/>\n            blaming the voting machine.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well, he&#8217;s got some opinions about voting machines too. But<br \/>\n            as I said, you admitted there was no rule, I guess, or law in place<br \/>\n            about who&#8217;s count wins, if there is any discrepancy, and I&#8217;m<br \/>\n            wondering what type of discrepancy would cause a full hand recount<br \/>\n            of those toilet paper rolls&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Yeah, what level would the discrepancies have to rise to<br \/>\n            Tony?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, first of all, the California Election <i>[inaudible]<\/i><br \/>\n            provides if in the event there is any tampering, if there&#8217;s<br \/>\n            misconduct at a polling place, if anyone in the elections department<br \/>\n            has undermined the integrity, then immediately there can be a<br \/>\n            contest, or a recount filed. So it certainly doesn&#8217;t have to come<br \/>\n            from me, if there&#8217;s something that has occurred, in the election&#8217;s<br \/>\n            process, that would certainly generate some opportunity for a<br \/>\n            contest. But again, you know, I&#8217;ve been in elections for thirty-one,<br \/>\n            plus, years and there&#8217;s always the possibility that there could be<br \/>\n            issues. Even with paper. So, you know, paper is not, by far, the<br \/>\n            most error-proof. There is, of course, an audit trail, but I have<br \/>\n            seen many things happen. Again, what happened in Florida in 2000 and<br \/>\n            that happened probably in every state throughout the nation at some<br \/>\n            point and time. So paper is not one-hundred percent either.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well, nothing is one-hundred percent, but you said it&#8217;s not<br \/>\n            the most fail-proof, I&#8217;d be curious what is more fail-proof than<br \/>\n            paper, but..<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, what happens if you lose, if on your way, after<br \/>\n            the poles have closed and you have your poll workers, and this has<br \/>\n            actually happened, where the poll worker sets their paper ballots on<br \/>\n            the roof of their car, as they&#8217;re setting their supplies in, forgets<br \/>\n            that the ballots are on the roof, takes off and has no ballots.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> They were lost?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> They were lost, they were just scattered all over the<br \/>\n            street&#8230; I mean&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> A couple of elections ago, there were boxes of ballots in<br \/>\n            San Franciso, that fell off a pier, into the bay.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Well indeed, the chain of custody is very important. But he<br \/>\n            said that there was something more&#8230;. less foolproof than paper and<br \/>\n            I&#8217;m not sure what it is, but in the event of a recount, whether<br \/>\n            there is, you said if there was <i>[inaudible]<\/i><br \/>\n            that might trigger a recount. But again, in that recount, the<br \/>\n            question becomes &#8211; is it the paper or is it the electronics that are<br \/>\n            going to be used as the final arbiter and it sounds like, Monterey<br \/>\n            County at least, does not have any laws in place to determine that,<br \/>\n            is that correct?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, the law is not Monterey County, it&#8217;s a State Law,<br \/>\n            and at this point and time, it would be the combination of<br \/>\n            recounting the results cartridge and then comparing it to the paper<br \/>\n            report that mirrors the results that&#8217;s stored on the cartridge.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Okay, I understand that, but I&#8217;m just wondering if there&#8217;s<br \/>\n            a discrepancy between those two, as you know, in Ohio, it was really<br \/>\n            only a matter of six votes difference in each precinct in the state<br \/>\n            of Ohio, had gone for Kerry instead of Bush, we would have a<br \/>\n            different President now. So I&#8217;m trying to figure out what will<br \/>\n            trigger a full hand count of the ballots and if there is one and it<br \/>\n            doesn&#8217;t match from the machine count, again, what is the number that<br \/>\n            the voters can trust will be the actual vote that is counted.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, well that&#8217;s a good question, and until it happens<br \/>\n            here in Monterey County, I don&#8217;t have an answer.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> It seems like it&#8217;s something we should know beforehand,<br \/>\n            frankly.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> I already told you what we intend to do, it will be a<br \/>\n            combination of the verification of the results cartridge and the<br \/>\n            paper. And in the event those numbers don&#8217;t mirror one another, and<br \/>\n            I&#8217;m not convinced, I will, you know, take whatever steps necessary<br \/>\n            and I have no problem going to judicial authority at that point and<br \/>\n            time. Again, you know, so many things can happen in elections and<br \/>\n            I&#8217;m not just going to come up with a response that will satisfy<br \/>\n            individuals. There&#8217;s a right way and a wrong way and the right way<br \/>\n            is to do what&#8217;s proper. And if it doesn&#8217;t come out, I&#8217;ll, I&#8217;ll, I&#8217;ll<br \/>\n            make it right.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> I&#8217;m not looking to be satisfied, I&#8217;m really just looking<br \/>\n            for an answer. Would you, do you have more confidence that the paper<br \/>\n            number would be corre&#8230;. let&#8217;s say it was off by six votes in a<br \/>\n            precinct, would you consider that the paper is correct, or would you<br \/>\n            consider that the machine&#8217;s count was correct, since apparently this<br \/>\n            is up to you to decide what is actually going to be the voter&#8217;s<br \/>\n            choice in this matter.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, then we have a third backup. There&#8217;s redundancy,<br \/>\n            you have the results cartridge, it has a built-in CPU &#8211; and then we<br \/>\n            have the paper report. So we&#8217;ll let the CPU give us, that&#8217;ll be the<br \/>\n            third way to verify the results.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> So you would go to the &#8211; what the computer says, not what<br \/>\n            the voter verified, correct?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, again, if we had two different results, then I<br \/>\n            would let the CPU give us the, to see which one it mirrors and<br \/>\n            whatever one it supports, that&#8217;s the one I would go with.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Boy, okay&#8230;.*chuckles*<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright. Brad, stay with us here, we want to take a call<br \/>\n            from Dave, at the Pinnacles. Dave, welcome to KRXA this afternoon<br \/>\n            and thanks for holding on.<\/p>\n<p><b>DAVE:<\/b> Well, hello gentlemen. Hey, I have a question. I&#8217;ve voted<br \/>\n            absentee for probably the last thirty years and I&#8217;m just wondering<br \/>\n            why isn&#8217;t that, what is the percentage of absentee voters in<br \/>\n            Monterey, California, here and why don&#8217;t we just go to an all<br \/>\n            absentee system? And my second question is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Well, hold on, hold on&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><b>DAVE:<\/b> I&#8217;m about to be dropped off the air.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Oh, okay, you&#8217;re gonna do that&#8230;okay, go ahead.<\/p>\n<p><b>DAVE:<\/b> Okay, my second question &#8211; why are we voting on the second<br \/>\n            Tuesday of November?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well let me answer the second question first. Elections<br \/>\n            are always held on the first Tuesday, after the first Monday.<\/p>\n<p><b>DAVE:<\/b> Ohhh&#8230;. okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> So, the first Tuesday is the first day of the month and<br \/>\n            so therefore we have to wait til we have the first Monday. So that&#8217;s<br \/>\n            the easy question. The second one, Monterey County is number two in<br \/>\n            the entire state of California, with the total number of permanent<br \/>\n            absentee voters. As you mentioned, absentee voting has become just<br \/>\n            the way of voting, because of it&#8217;s convenience. Of the hundred and<br \/>\n            sixty-thousand registered voters, more than eighty-thousand are<br \/>\n            absentee voters, so you can see more than fifty percent of the<br \/>\n            electorate chooses to vote absentee. I&#8217;m a big advocate for absentee<br \/>\n            voting. It&#8217;s again, convenient and easy for people and, but, we also<br \/>\n            have traditionalism. People are always going to want to go to a<br \/>\n            polling place. Someday it will be like Oregon, where it&#8217;s all<br \/>\n            elections are done by mail. I don&#8217;t see that happening in my<br \/>\n            lifetime.<\/p>\n<p><b>DAVE:<\/b> Okay, well thanks alot.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay Dave, thank you. Alright, we&#8217;re going to take a quick<br \/>\n            break and check traffic here. Brad, you stay with us, we&#8217;ll be right<br \/>\n            back and then we&#8217;ll talk about any other issues and the tabulation<br \/>\n            phase of electronic voting here in Monterey County. We&#8217;re talking<br \/>\n            with Brad Friedman, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>            and in the studio with me, is Tony Anchundo, who is the Registrar of<br \/>\n            Voters in Monterey County. If you have a question or a comment, you<br \/>\n            can get on the line right now. I&#8217;m trying to make this work and our<br \/>\n            computers have just gone weird today. That was supposed to be our<br \/>\n            traffic theme. Well, I&#8217;ll just hum it for you and we&#8217;re going to<br \/>\n            check in with Diane, at Metro traffic, as I hum the theme. Hey<br \/>\n            Diane.<\/p>\n<p>*Diane gives report*<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Thanks Diane. I&#8217;m Peter B. Collins, it&#8217;s 5:46 now and<br \/>\n            we&#8217;ll take calls, if you&#8217;d like to get a question asked or answered<br \/>\n            about electronic voting, Tony Anchundo in the studio with us and<br \/>\n            Brad, from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">The BRAD BLOG<\/a> is on the line and we&#8217;ve been talking about<br \/>\n            the demonstration I got at the beginning of this hour, of this new<br \/>\n            DRE machine. It&#8217;s manufactured by Sequoia Voting Systems, and Tony,<br \/>\n            did you have a choice of vendors? Because many of us on the outside<br \/>\n            of the election process, have noted that both Sequoia and Diebold,<br \/>\n            have executives who are tight with Republicans. And, so, we have a<br \/>\n            kind of knee-jerk reaction of hmmm, can we trust them?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, there&#8217;s always going to be concerns or doubts<br \/>\n            about the people that support either the Republican party, or<br \/>\n            Democratic party. One of the beauties of our nation, is that we have<br \/>\n            that right to make those type of contributions and there&#8217;s always<br \/>\n            going to be someone out there who questions that. There are three or<br \/>\n            four primary players as far as vendors that are both federally and<br \/>\n            state certified. We chose to go with Sequoia Voting Systems because<br \/>\n            of the relationship we&#8217;ve had with Sequoia for almost thirty years<br \/>\n            here in Monterey County. Again we used, although in limited<br \/>\n            capacity, this equipment back in 1999. We&#8217;re satisfied with the<br \/>\n            support, the technology and again, there are always going to be some<br \/>\n            questions or concerns and you just have to make the best choice you<br \/>\n            think that&#8217;s available and it was certainly my choice, got support<br \/>\n            from our Board of Supervisors and I&#8217;m going to have to go forward<br \/>\n            with it and again, if there&#8217;s a problem down the road, then we&#8217;ll<br \/>\n            have to deal with it as it arises. But I&#8217;m convinced this is the<br \/>\n            technology, this is where we want to go, and if we didn&#8217;t have those<br \/>\n            pre-logic and accuracty testing involved, then I wouldn&#8217;t feel as<br \/>\n            comfortable. I&#8217;m good to go. Two weeks away and I&#8217;m ready to have an<br \/>\n            election.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Mr. Anchundo, did any other companies submit bids for this<br \/>\n            contract, and would you be willing to release those logic and<br \/>\n            accuracy tests that you refer to?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> I would have no problem with that. Another county&#8230;<br \/>\n            excuse me, other vendors had come forward and from the beginning I<br \/>\n            had pretty much decideded to go to sole sourcing, and which is<br \/>\n            perfectly legal for us to do in elections and again, it was the<br \/>\n            satisfaction that this department had had and Sequoia was the only<br \/>\n            vendor at the point and time that had a federally-faith certified<br \/>\n            voter paper report and that was primarily the key for my decision.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> You&#8217;re aware that Sequoia is facing a lawsuit right now up<br \/>\n            in Washington.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Okay, but you&#8217;re not deterred by that at all?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> No, not at all.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, let me take a couple of calls and then Brad,<br \/>\n            we&#8217;ll talk a little bit about the tabulation phase. Uh, Hal&#8217;s on<br \/>\n            line 1, go ahead Hal, you&#8217;re on KRXA.<\/p>\n<p><b>HAL:<\/b> Yeah, thanks Peter. A couple questions, Tony, I spoke to you<br \/>\n            before you went on, I really appreciated that. Who are the absentee<br \/>\n            *break in tape* ballots? When the results are announced, are the<br \/>\n            absentee ballots just folded right into the results of the machine<br \/>\n            count, or are they published separately, and are the absentee<br \/>\n            ballots always tabulated? And I have a follow-up question.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, well first of all the absentee results are the<br \/>\n            first to be released at <i>[inaudible] <\/i>office,<br \/>\n            because we have received thousands prior to the time the polls are<br \/>\n            closed. And of course they are combined with the precinct results as<br \/>\n            the evening goes on. So, and we keep them separate. We have a<br \/>\n            separate report, although you have a cumulative report, we still<br \/>\n            keep them separately. We have absentees and precinct results. And<br \/>\n            then of course, post-election, where you have all the late absentees<br \/>\n            that are turned in at the polls, or are received too late to<br \/>\n            process, then as we do updates a few days after the elections, up<br \/>\n            until certification, then we&#8217;ll continue counting ballots until such<br \/>\n            time the final results are provided.<\/p>\n<p><b>HAL:<\/b> How are the absentee ballots tabulated?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, the absentee ballots are tabulated, via an<br \/>\n            optical scan paper ballot. So, as voters receive their ballots, they<br \/>\n            mark their choices, send them back in. We go through a verification<br \/>\n            process, to verify their signature, against the signature on file on<br \/>\n            their voter registration card, and then they&#8217;re read through an<br \/>\n            optical scan reader.<\/p>\n<p><b>HAL:<\/b> Are they comb&#8230; is there any verification of a comparison<br \/>\n            of the optical scan read, verses the hand count of the ballots?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Absolutely. We do, what&#8217;s required during the canvass,<br \/>\n            a manual tally, a certain percentage to verify those results.<\/p>\n<p><b>HAL:<\/b> And last question, do you, will you publish the comparison<br \/>\n            of the hand count of the machine tabulation and as well as the<br \/>\n            machine count?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><b>HAL:<\/b> Okay, thanks Peter. Thanks Tony.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay, thank you Hal. And Dennis, in Salinas, you&#8217;re next<br \/>\n            on KRXA, thanks for your call.<\/p>\n<p><b>DENNIS:<\/b> I&#8217;m just kind of with Brad. I think his trust is<br \/>\n            misplaced. I don&#8217;t have much confidence in this faith-based voting,<br \/>\n            to tell you the truth and I&#8217;m just registering my complaint already.<br \/>\n            This is the first I&#8217;ve heard it, it&#8217;s a good program. Is there any<br \/>\n            chance that the voting machines could be replaced by something else<br \/>\n            if..?<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Between now and Tuesday, November 8th?<\/p>\n<p><b>DENNIS:<\/b> No, no, no, before the next election.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well again, I think it would be premature of me to just<br \/>\n            go ahead and shelf this voting system until such time it proves me<br \/>\n            wrong. And again, not to undermine the significance of the<br \/>\n            questions, but I would not have gone forward, um, I like my job too<br \/>\n            much. And one of the things I take tremendous pride in, is to<br \/>\n            assuring that we&#8217;re not going to allow voters to vote on a system<br \/>\n            unless there have been certification and there has been testing. And<br \/>\n            regardless of whatever system, and when there&#8217;s a human factor<br \/>\n            involved, there&#8217;s always that risk that something could go wrong.<br \/>\n            But I&#8217;m convinced at this point and time that the selection that has<br \/>\n            been made and the certification, both in the federal and state<br \/>\n            level, is enough for us to go forward.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> The Federal Report from the GAO said that certification was<br \/>\n            not, in fact, adequate. So, that&#8217;s a great concern, but perhaps you<br \/>\n            can let the listeners know &#8211; perhaps you could explain the audit<br \/>\n            process, precisely, that you had referred to, so that we can know<br \/>\n            for a fact that they both match up with the paper, and as well, I&#8217;m<br \/>\n            wondering if you could let us know, do these machines have hardware,<br \/>\n            that would allow them to be networked, either by modem, or Ethernet,<br \/>\n            or wirelessly?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Uh no. Let me answer the final question. They are not,<br \/>\n            uh, uh, allowed to be hooked up to a computer, or some type of<br \/>\n            network. They&#8217;re a stand alone. It&#8217;s a proprietary software, so<br \/>\n            they&#8217;re not networking, no.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> No remote access to them at all?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> No, there&#8217;s no remote access to them at all.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> There&#8217;s no modems in those machines?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Uh, no there isn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Is there modems in the tabulator machine that you use?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Uh, no there isn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> And there&#8217;s no ethernet or wireless networking that&#8217;s<br \/>\n            possible with those machines?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> No, not with all the firewalls that exist. No, this is<br \/>\n            a stand alone network, it&#8217;s not even hooked up to our system. It&#8217;s<br \/>\n            it&#8217;s own system that is unique to this vote tabulation system and<br \/>\n            again, it&#8217;s not networked to any system throughout our office.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> And will the cartridges be removed from the machines to be<br \/>\n            sent to your central office for tabulation, or will the whole<br \/>\n            machine be sent?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> No, it would be a combination of removing the cartridge<br \/>\n            and returning it on election night and the units themselves being<br \/>\n            returned.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Okay, but physically, does the cartridge end up going to<br \/>\n            the central tabulation center, or does it get modemed in?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> No, no, it comes to the central tabulation center in<br \/>\n            Salinas, so every relocation throughout the county, the cartridges<br \/>\n            are removed and returned individually to Salinas, where our central<br \/>\n            county location is.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Now just about three minutes remaining, Brad, let me just<br \/>\n            ask a couple of quick questions here. Talk about the security of<br \/>\n            your tabulation system, Tony.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, first of all, the entire office has a security<br \/>\n            system and then we have monitors, closed-circuit monitors,<br \/>\n            throughout the office. The actual computer room has it&#8217;s own<br \/>\n            separate alarm system. Everything that is prepared is prepared<br \/>\n            within that computer room. All the tabulation, all the results<br \/>\n            cartridges will be brought into that particular location where the<br \/>\n            results will be tabulated and then released to the public.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Is that, that refers to the physical security, but you<br \/>\n            referred to firewalls. Is that to keep people from coming in across<br \/>\n            the network, because you&#8217;ve got the firewalls in place?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, first of all, again, the entire system, the<br \/>\n            computers that generate the tabulation and establish the election<br \/>\n            parameters, is not connected to any system, within the county, or<br \/>\n            even the election&#8217;s management system.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Or the internet?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Or the internet.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> So it doesn&#8217;t even have a wireless networking card in that<br \/>\n            machine?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> That&#8217;s correct.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> That&#8217;s good to know.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Very good.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, anything else on tabulation, Brad?<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Uh, well, yeah, I&#8217;m concerned with that three-digit number<br \/>\n            you said that you put in. Is there anything that would keep a<br \/>\n            precinct worker, for example, from putting in a different number,<br \/>\n            for a different precinct with that card?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, if they attempt to put a different number, then<br \/>\n            it will come up saying that it&#8217;s an incorrect number.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Okay, and you didn&#8217;t get a chance to explain, I don&#8217;t know<br \/>\n            if we have time, but very quickly perhaps, that audit process you<br \/>\n            discussed, that you have in place to assure that the paper is the<br \/>\n            exact same number as the machine count.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Yeah, we&#8217;ve been going through extensive pre-logic and<br \/>\n            accuracy tests, but we made pre-determined choices on the touch<br \/>\n            screen and then review them, with the paper, and then we remove the<br \/>\n            results cartridge, read it, to assure that those pre-determined<br \/>\n            choices that were conducted on every voting device before it goes<br \/>\n            out, matches up.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> No, I meant afterwards, is there any audit of the paper, to<br \/>\n            match it against the machine totals.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, yes, in the post-election, the official canvass,<br \/>\n            as we refer to it, we will pull each and everyone of those reports<br \/>\n            and verify it against the votes cast for that particular unit, in<br \/>\n            that precinct.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> You mean the reports, you mean the actual ballots that were<br \/>\n            printed out, that Peter saw printed out there?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> That&#8217;s correct.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> You&#8217;re going to count all of them?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> You have it.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> You&#8217;re going to count all of them by hand?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> Okay, well I&#8217;m glad to hear that you&#8217;re going to count all<br \/>\n            of the ballots by hand and I only hope that if they don&#8217;t match up,<br \/>\n            that the paper ends up being the ballot of record in this case.<br \/>\n            Okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Okay, well, you know I appreciate everything, and<br \/>\n            again, you know, the questions and the responses may not have been<br \/>\n            to your satisfaction, but I think it&#8217;s important that we do<br \/>\n            everything that we can to assure the integrity in Monterey County<br \/>\n            and we&#8217;re going to do just that.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, Brad, thank you very much. I have one final,<br \/>\n            simple question. Are these machines able to be programmed, for<br \/>\n            instant runoff voting, if that is adopted here?<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Well, it&#8217;s not going to happen in Monterey County,<br \/>\n            you&#8217;re going to have to go to San Francisco for an instant runoff.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Right, but can the machine be modified, if that became the<br \/>\n            case.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> In fact, Sequoia recently was rewarded the contract for<br \/>\n            San Francisco, because of their ability to do the instant runoff.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright. Brad, thank you for joining us today.<\/p>\n<p><b>BRAD:<\/b> My pleasure, thank you Peter, and thank you Mr. Anchundo,<br \/>\n            appreciate it.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> That&#8217;s Brad Friedman, you can read his work at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">BradBlog.com<\/a>.<br \/>\n            And Tony Anchundo, thank you for joining us, a pleasure to meet you<br \/>\n            and have a great night on November the 8th.<\/p>\n<p><b>ANCHUNDO:<\/b> Peter, thank you and thank you at KRXA listeners.<\/p>\n<p><b>PETER:<\/b> Alright, my pleasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following is a transcript of the Peter B. Collins Show on KRXA 540-am, Monterey, California on October 24, 2005. The in-studio guest was Monterey County Registrar of Voters, Tony Anchundo. He brought with him one of the new Sequoia DRE (touch-screen) voting machines, to be deployed for the first time in Monterey, during the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8458","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=8458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}