A Failure of Democracy?

It’s been all over the news of late, the blatant and massive election fraud during the recent Afghanistan elections. We are allowed to recognize it over there because…..well, it’s over there. So let’s talk about it. We are told that bringing democracy to the people of Afghanistan is one of our goals, priority unknown, of eight years of death and destruction we call Operation Enduring Freedom.

From our vantage point it’s quite easy to assign blame for this “democracy failure.” Some will observe that the Afghan culture is just not ready for democracy, or that three decades of occupations and civil war have caused the populace to become so cynical as to prevent ideals such as democracy from taking root. Poppycock! What we have here is a failure of leadership by American political actors, the ones that were so cynical as to claim to want to bring democracy to the Afghan people, and then enthusiastically used military force to make whatever they wanted to happen, happen.

You might sense that I doubt the U.S. motives in Afghanistan…of course I do. And you might wonder what all this has to do with election integrity here in Schoharie county. I’ll explain.

Several months back the Peacemakers Voting Integrity Project (VIP) sought to introduce the concept of a Citizens’ Advisory Board for Election Administration (Challenge Provincial Power: The Test) to the County Board of Supervisors (BOS). Without going into too much detail I’ll simply report that we were rebuffed by both the Board of Supervisors Rules & Legislation Committee and the Election Commissioners. They simply refused to talk to us. Was it a distaste for the goals of such a board or was it dislike of individuals associated with the effort? We can’t be sure but there are clues we can follow.

One of the proposed activities of the CABEA was fact finding which could assist the Board of Elections (BOE). One specific action we suggested was research and activities to expand the number of registered voters. Lacking the cooperation of the BOS and the BOE we decided to go forward with a simple research effort which compared Schoharie County with five other counties of similar demographics (Analysis of Voter Registration Performance). What we discovered was that Schoharie County had a smaller percentage of eligible citizens registered to vote than the other counties. Approximately one in four voting age Schoharie citizens is not registered.

The VIP report was published, and reported, and delivered to the BOS in June of this year. There has been no reaction from the BOS. There has been no reaction from the BOE. And, other than printing the press release we provided, there has been no attention from the press. Why?

The clues: On the occasion of our meeting with the R&L Committee to introduce the CABEA concept, one Supervisor responded to our proposal to expand the franchise to more Schoharie citizens by saying she thought “… we would be better off if they didn’t vote.” Apparently this legislator believes there is a segment of Schoharie County citizens who shouldn’t be encouraged to register and vote. On another occasion, a Supervisor from one of the largest towns in the county, responded with similar sentiments to a constituent’s query about the report.

The tally: Two County Supervisors who are either entirely clueless as to what democracy is or arrogant enough to dismiss it (and so indiscreet as to express their prejudice). Another handful of Supervisors lacking in courage or conviction to do the right thing. Two Election Commissioners dumb enough and arrogant enough that they believe they don’t need to attend to some of their responsibilities. A pair of Deputy Election Commissioners without sufficient autonomy or initiative to act. The remainder of the Board of Supervisors who lacked the initiative to spur action by a county department which is obviously failing in its mission. And a newspaper editor without the courage or initiative to act on a story with significance to the functioning of our democracy.

What do these actors have in common? They occupy leadership positions. They have responsibilities and they failed to fulfill those responsibilities. Is this a failure of democracy? I don’t think so! Democracy is fading for sure but as a concept, an ideal, it can not fail. It can be intentionally suppressed by those with elitist sentiments or allowed to suffocate through ignorance and inattention, but it can not fail.

The lesson: Democracy requires leadership by the actors previously identified. For democracy to thrive requires leaders who are actually committed to democratic egalitarian ideals. Our job is to train the people we allow in power…...and to demand of them stronger support of these ideals. If we had such leaders we would not be killing Afghans and we would already have universal health care. With such leaders here in Schoharie County we might have even created a Citizen Advisory Board for Election Administration.

Oh yeah, about the Afghanistan elections: Mr. Karzi’s “win” in the past two Afghanistan elections is to Bush’s “win” in 2000 and 2004 here. In both cases local war lords screwed with the electorate, voting machines, polling places, ballots and ballot tallies to shape “democracy” the way they wanted it.


Wayne

Spivack-BOE.7.3.09.Ltr

Sue Spivack Interrogates County BOE


July 3, 2009


Mr. Clifford C. Hay, Commissioner and
Mr. Lewis L. Wilson, Commissioner
Schoharie County Board of Elections
PO Box 99
Schoharie, NY 12157


Dear Mr. Hay and Mr. Wilson:

I was glad to receive your letter of May 21, 2009 a few days before I left Cobleskill for an extended trip. Having arrived home and reviewed my April 21 questions and studied your responses, I’m disappointed to find some of your answers incomplete and in one instance inaccurate and misleading.


Here are my comments:

General Questions about the County Board Administration:
Your statement of the Schoharie County BOE goals is helpful and useful to me as far as it goes. However the NY State BOE Mission Statement (http://www.elections.state.ny.us/AboutSBOE.html) states in part “In addition to the regulatory and enforcement responsibilities the board is charged with the preservation of citizen confidence in the democratic process and enhancement in voter participation in elections (my emphasis).” It seems to me that every NYS County Board of Elections is therefore also charged with this mission—to enhance “voter participation in elections.” Please add this to your statement of goals and act accordingly.

Aside from listing your salaries, your statement that qualifications for Commissioners are set by the NYS Election Law is pretty much a non-answer. You give no real job description which would let me know such things as how many meetings with the NY State Board of Elections you must attend each year, how many education and/or training sessions you participate in as new means of voting and counting votes (voting machines, BMD, paper ballots—hand counting vs optical scan machines, etc, are being considered and purchased), how much time (per week/per month?) you spend in the County Board of Election office taking care of Schoharie County election business, and approximately how many days/hours a week/month you put in actually on the job. Please reanswer this question.


Questions about Election Statistics for 2004, 2006, 2008

You say you do not create statistical analyses of the voters. If you spent any time doing statistical studies of our county’s population and the numbers of voters, and sought to seriously compare our participation with NY State and the Nation, you would soon notice how many eligible voters there are compared to the number of registered voters—and realize these are two very different numbers (see comments below for more on this).

I am glad to learn that you file an Annual Report with the NYS Board of Elections. However in the interests of ease of citizen access, and open government and transparency, I ask that you please post these reports on the Board of Election website. Many people do not have the money to pay for printed copies. Every one has free access to the internet at the public libraries. I understand you possess only printed copies of these reports on hand—however they can be easily scanned into a pdf file and posted.

You state that “All eligible voters are registered voters.” and. “Traditionally, Schoharie County voter participation has been higher than either NYS or the US, as seen in the chart below.” Unfortunately your response in paragraph #3 equating eligible and registered voters is completely untrue, which makes the table in paragraph #4 entirely misleading. Eligible Voters are all US citizens 18 years and older who reside in Schoharie County. Registered Voters are those Eligible Voters who have filled out the voter registration form and been OK’d by the County Board of Elections as a Registered Voter.

In the column under Schoharie County, your table gives the percentage of Registered Voters who actually voted in those elections. In the columns under New York and US you are quoting percentages of Eligible Voters who actually voted. You are comparing apples and oranges. (See attached Sheet A with statistics from the US Census Bureau and other sources for more detailed information).

In 2007 Schoharie County had an estimated eligible voting population of 25,658 of whom 19,583 citizens were registered. We had an actual turnout of 14,558 voters which means while 74.3% of Registered Voters voted, only 56.7% of Eligible Voters actually voted. Note how close this 56.7% statistic is to the 2008 New York and US turnout. (see Sheet B-attached table with data sourced from the State BOE and/or the Census Bureau)

Therefore, if you look at the entire population of eligible voters, it is not true that Schoharie County voter participation is higher than either NYS or the US. This response conceals the need in Schoharie County to do much more voter education and voter registration outreach and to involve more eligible voters in the democratic process, in order to “enhance voter participation in elections.”

Re: your voter registration outreach efforts, I’m glad to know all that you are doing. However, since there is an obvious need to increase voter registration (see previous comments), I suggest that instead of waiting for any school or organization to request a presentation from you, that you energetically OFFER these programs to every high school government class in the County. I suggest that you call for citizen volunteers to help you do this kind of outreach to the following groups as well:

· Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of Schoharie County
· Community organizations such as Eagles, Elks, Rotary
· All Veteran’s groups, Business Groups and Libraries
· Voter Registration Tables outside Wal-Mart and Price Chopper and on the SUNY Cobleskill campus


Questions about the November 2009 Election

Please let me know what districts will participate in the OPSCAN Pilot Program. Will you be doing any public education in these districts to prepare voters to use the optical scan machines for the very first time? I believe you should.

I think a pilot project is usually a good thing. However as you have stated, the Op-Scan devices are not certified, therefore I urge you to make sure in every district where they are used that the paper ballots are hand counted and stand as the vote of record. This will provide an excellent and necessary test of the functioning of the Op-Scan machines. I advocate that this be done in OPSCAN Pilot Program districts state-wide.

Local BOE’s are not required to buy from state contract. Since privacy voting booths are not a tested and certified election device, you will not be told what to buy. By waiting for the State OGS to make a choice, I am concerned that more money than necessary will be spent to purchase privacy booths. Schoharie County is already experiencing financial difficulties. I urge you to research simple and inexpensive ways of assembling privacy booths out of tables which the county already owns and cardboard dividers. When you have decided what privacy booths you will be purchasing/assembling, please inform me of the costs.

I urge you to actively recruit poll workers in the same ways (perhaps at the same places and times) you seek to register new voters—by making presentations to high school government classes, to community organizations, at the County Fair, or other places where many local people congregate. There was/may still be some grant money available from the Federal government for recruitment of college students as inspectors. There has been state legislation to allow high school students over 17 years to participate as well. To involve young people in the election process should be a prime goal if we hope to attract young people to the polls.


Final comments

I am a person who values the right to vote, the need to maintain a vigorous and open electoral system, and a system of voting that is affordable, trustworthy and reliable. These are goals I would like to believe you share.. I am a member of the Voting Integrity Project and hoped that you would be open to discussing the formation of a Citizen’s Advisory Board to help accomplish the goals of increasing voter registration and voter participation in elections and self-governance.

To me our democracy is only as healthy and strong as its roots in local districts. When only a little over half the eligible voters turn out for major elections, and far less than half appear at the polls in off-years, I believe our democracy is in trouble. I am also deeply concerned that we are a County already struggling to make ends meet and facing all kinds of budget cuts. I believe that the costs in future years of maintaining and renewing machines and software, and paying corporate fees for Optical Scanners whose inner workings are proprietary secrets will drain County funds away from other important public needs.

I advocate for hand counting of all paper ballots when the time comes that the lever machines are finally abandoned, and even discarding the optical scan machines if they prove inaccurate and unreliable, and (as they already seem to be), prohibitively expensive.

I will continue to try to open a dialogue with you and the County Supervisors on these issues and topics. I believe that all of you in public service must hold in your hearts some of the same ideals as I do in this land of free speech and free people:

· that the more people who are involved in decision making, the more the will of all the people will be carried out,
· and the way we make sure our vote is fair and accurate in our local districts determines the fate of the whole nation.

There must be a way to create a government of the people, by the people and for the people, right here in Schoharie County. I look forward to your response to this letter.

Respectfully,



Susan Spivack



SHEET A Statistics on Eligible, Registered and actual Voters

2004 STATISTICS
USA
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/voting/cps2004/tab04c.xls
percent of eligible voters (citizen-age18+) registered 72.1%
percent of eligible voters (citizen-18+) voted 63.8%

New York State
percent of eligible voters (citizen-age18+) registered 67.5%
percent of eligible voters (citizen-18+) voted 60.2%


2006 STATISTICS
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/voting/cps2006/tab04a.xls
USA
percent of eligible voters (citizen-age18+) registered 67.6%
percent of eligible voters (citizen-18+) voted 47.8%

New York State
percent of elegible voters (citizen-age18+) registered 56.6%
percent of eligible voters (citizen-18+) voted 37.6%

2008 STATISTICS
USA
percent of eligible voters (age18+) registered 73.5%
satoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-11-02-vote_N.html
percent of eligible voters (citizen-age18+) voted 62.3% http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2008G.html

New York State
percent of eligible voters (18+) registered 91.3% http://elections.gmu.edu/Registration_2008G.html

percent of eligible voters (citizen-age18+) voted 58.6%http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2008G.html

New York Democracy War

A Short History of the New York Democracy Wars

I'm not an investigative journalist or a war correspondent. I'm just an ordinary citizen and voting integrity advocate watching the battle from my vantage point in the hills of Schoharie County.

I am an observer of political currents, political critters and would be captains of commerce. The captains and their lobbyists can be spotted circling the capital buildings when the scent of money is on the air. It is in times like this that politicians can be easily observed engaged in intercourse with said captains and their lobbyists. These exchanges are important to us because the people's treasure is the currency of this drama and our democracy is very much at risk.

The drama of which I speak began earlier but we'll click on the play button at about ten years ago. The militant anti-democracy idealogues had been in exile for several years but they were not still. They had published their plan, an explicit statement of what America's world position should be in the 21st century. It was a blueprint for the America of their dreams and it's execution would depend upon the Republican partisans winning the 2000 election. The Republican party, determined to take the Presidency by any means, and aided by corrupt Florida election functionaries, a seriously unethical and probably criminal voting machine company and a surprising Supreme Court ruling, installed an ignorant puppet as President of the United States in January, 2001.

Spurred into action, ostensibly by the horrors of deformed chads which defied all attempts to discern the will of voters, and recognizing that they needed a more reliable system to control democracy and maintain a permanent Republican government, Congressman Bob Ney, with the guidance of Diebold voting machine company, introduced the Orwellian Help America Vote Act. Ney's no longer a congressman, he's in jail now for unrelated crimes, but the HAVA regulations live on.

Early on in the play a second plot line was introduced, some say with the direct involvement, or at least the passive acquiescence, of the newly installed regime, when angry Arabs from the other side of the world took vengeance on America for it's imperialistic behavior over there. They flew airliners into the capitalists' prayer point knocking down two very tall buildings and killing many, many Americans. This incident instantly endowed the puppet with extraordinary powers he then used to transform our country into a habitat more hospitable for the oligarchs, and repressive of the peons, a habitat more a monarchy or dictatorship than a democracy.

Scoring several wins in the 2002 midterm elections the new authoritarian, monarchical, Commander-in-Chief puppet regime was on a roll. Popular Democratic incumbents were ousted in states where Diebold voting equipment was used but the would be rulers of the world knew they had more work to do to ensure the puppet's second, third and fourth term. A partisan-politicized Justice Dept was put into play aggressively prosecuting trumped up voter fraud cases and threatening to force HAVA compliance in any state which seemed reluctant to deploy electronic voting.

Ohio was the chosen battlefield for 2004. Ohio was home for Ney, the Diebold company (with many election districts served by Diebold machines) and a Secretary of State with a penchant for unethical behavior in the service of the party. The permanent Republican control enterprise had grown in sophistication. There were now talented IT people on board to create a complex "man in the middle" routine for shaping the election results. They pulled it off. The ignorant one was re-installed for a second term.

So it was in 2008 that many of us observers of currents, captains and criminals were at the ready and working hard to prevent New York State from becoming the next battleground lost in electronic service to the permanent power empire builders.

Collectively we had made a hell of a stink in opposition to direct recording electronic voting machines and in favor of a paper ballot system. Then, when a little luck came our way in the form of a state BOE crippled by partisan squabbling and a federal judge short on patience, a paper ballot scanner system was the only system left standing at the very moment of decision. That would be the Sequoia ImageCast combination Ballot Marking Device and ballot scanner. We bought it, and it must be a really good system because we paid way, way too much for it.

An important subplot throughout this drama, little recognized or attended to by politicians, lobbyists or the captains of commerce, was the preservation of democracy. It was a strange battle with politicians, lobbyists, bureaucrats both federal and state, and judges all focused lemming-like on the goal of imposing electronic voting upon the citizens of America. It was as if all the aforementioned rodents had experienced an identical Epiphany: To vote requires a machine, and modernity demands that machine be solid-state electronic, and the huge amounts of federal money appropriated for the transition dictated that these machines were to be expensive. And so it came to pass.

Some will describe it as a compromise. The democracy defenders got their paper ballots. The lemmings got their solid-state electronic and expensive ballot marking device/scanner machines. All the Federal money has been spoken for. Everybody should be happy. What more could they want?

The partisan patronage appointees charged with managing our elections really didn't want to have to deal with paper ballots. They had hoped to avoid any of the extra chores paper ballots might require. Obviously, most of the voting machine manufacturers did not get a contract to supply machines. Only two companies will be supplying all of New York State. Of all the actors the ones most ill at ease are the good government groups, election integrity watchdogs and individual democracy defenders. They remain concerned that, absent adequate audits, transparency and citizen participation, the electronic ballot scanners might be programmed to control election outcomes.

Of these patriots many are dissatisfied with the ballots being counted by an electronic machine and are pressing for more extensive audits than provided for in NY law. Some are in court arguing to retain the lever machines rather than trusting a scanner count of ballots. And there are some who so distrust the electronic machines, the companies that make them, the election management bureaucracy and the various other governmental agencies that might otherwise be expected to stand guard over democracy, that they want every paper ballot counted by hand under the caring eyes of the citizens, with the ballot counting chores being handled by randomly chosen citizen volunteers. And they demand, if there is to be a scanner count, it must be relegated to serving as a confirmation of the hand count.

This last group of pro-democracy patriots claim support for their position in none other than New York's HAVA compliance legislation, The Election Reform and Modernization Act of 2005. They note that the amended Election Law (Sec.9-211, Sub 3,4 & 5) recognizes the primacy of paper ballots as the official record of an election and reason that official records of an election can not be disregarded or subordinated to an electronic count and therefore the paper ballots must be 100% counted by hand.

Late last year certification testing of the Sequoia ballot marking device/ballot scanner machines, most of which have already been delivered to local Boards of Election, was interrupted when the testing contractor itself was de-certified due to poor performance, inadequate record keeping and inappropriate assurances to machine manufacturers. Testing had barely just resumed when the national economy began to crumble threatening state and local governments with huge budget shortfalls. Sequoia, apparently numb to the world around them, decided the time was right to announce price increases, including a demand for outrageously high license fees for software required to run the machines.

So that's where we are. The New York State election administrators will continue to slog through their partisan differences while conducting machine testing, developing an audit regimen and resolving the software licensing fees issue. Our responsibility, every citizens' responsibility, is to continue defending democracy.

We have to continue hacking away at the election administration lemmings, zombie voting machine reps and other corporate shills who would have us lay down and give them control of elections and our democracy. We will continue to confront, write, call and message anyone and everyone who might be instrumental in developing the election administration procedures and practices which will protect the integrity of our elections.

Citizen Advisory Board Proposed for Schoharie County

VIP Letter to Supervisor Brandow, Chairman of Board of Supervisors, Rules & Legislation Committee


The Voting Integrity Project
A public interest initiative of The Peacemakers of Schoharie County, Po Box 214, Cobleskill, NY 12043

13 October 2008

Supervisor Donald Brandow, Chairman
Rules & Legislation Committee

Dear Supervisor Brandow,

We are communicating with you today because of the Rules & Legislation Committee’s responsibility for Board of Elections oversight.

Enclosed you will find a document, “ Democracy in New York State Election Administration,” which outlines what we have observed to be a basic organizational weakness of New York’s election administration system.

You will please note the suggestion that the creation of a Citizen Advisory Board for Election Administration (CABEA) could mitigate some of the problems identified.

The Voting Integrity Project would like the opportunity to discuss this concept with the Rules & Legislation Committee. Ideally, members of your committee would contribute to the development of a proposal for consideration by the entire Board of Supervisors.

If the Rules & Legislative Committee recognizes merit in the concept of a Citizen Advisory Board for Election Administration the next step would be consultation with Board of Elections staff to identify possibilities and parameters for cooperation.

We are looking forward to discussing this proposal with you and your committee in the not too distant future, perhaps in mid-November following Election Day.

For the Voting Integrity Project,





Wayne R. Stinson, Coordinator
I can be reached at airhead@midtel.net or 518-287-1463.


Cc: Rules & Legislation Committee members




The Argument for Citizen Advisory Boards for Election Administration


Democracy in New York State Election Administration?
12 October 2008 Wayne R. Stinson, Coordinator, Voting Integrity Project


In New York State two private restricted membership organizations have been given exclusive responsibility for election administration. Both the state and local Boards of Elections are staffed with representatives of the two major partisan groups, the Republican and Democratic parties. These two organizations often behave quite undemocratically, and their continual combat to control ballot access is responsible for our extremely complex election law.

If the drafters of New York’s Election Law expected the two partisan organizations to represent all New York State citizens, they failed. The Boards of Elections, staffed only by loyal members of these two groups, do not, indeed can not, effectively represent the whole of their constituencies:

More than one quarter of eligible citizens are not registered to vote and therefore have no official partisan affiliation but they do have a stake in the effective administration of elections.

More than one-fifth of registered voters do not specify a party affiliation but they too have a stake in our elections.

A majority of registered voters who report a party affiliation do not strongly identify with that partisan group and are not active in partisan affairs but they do care how our elections are managed.

And, most significantly, voters reporting a minor party affiliation are not represented by the Democratic and Republican staff of the Boards of Elections but you can be sure they are intensely interested in how elections are administered.

Exacerbating this problem is the fact that these two major partisan organizations do not exist to make democracy happen. They are more about power and control than openness or sharing. We have often enough heard of ugly partisanship resulting in disenfranchisement of some voters or litigation to block ballot access. We must acknowledge that our present quasi-governmental election administration system actually delivers control of the election administration chicken coop to the partisan foxes.

New York’s Election Law assigns authority to administer elections to the state and local Boards of Elections. Consequently, the partisan Election Commissioners believe they are autonomous and they generally are not responsive to legislative bodies or the public. Boards of Elections, while theoretically under the fiscal oversight of a legislative body, are actually far beyond effective control because of the lawmakers’ political dependence upon or deference to the partisan leaders. So it seems quite unreasonable to expect lawmakers to provide true oversight or to effectively represent citizens with respect to election administration issues.

I believe we can agree that administration of our elections is properly a function of government, however, the existing Board of Elections system fails to serve government or our democracy. New York must reform its election administration system and that reform would best be accomplished by comprehensive study followed by the legislation necessary to produce truly non-partisan, independent and professional election administration.

For those of us not comfortable waiting for a complete revamp of the Election Law there are democracy enhancing initiatives which could be put in place now. Legislative bodies could choose to exercise control over election administration by asserting their budgetary prerogatives. Lawmakers might even flex their oversight muscles some while attempting to fulfill their fiscal responsibilities.

One initiative which could enhance legislators’ oversight efforts while at the same time helping to fulfill democracy’s need for transparency is the creation of Citizen Advisory Boards for Election Administration. A cursory internet search turns up 28,000 Citizen Advisory Boards. The examples I perused were government agencies or community-government cooperative projects. Obviously, a Citizen Advisory Board is not some wild way-out-there idea, it‘s been done again and again.

Such a board, composed of volunteers, appointed by the local legislative body, could serve the lawmakers by complementing their oversight duties. A Citizen Advisory Board could also somewhat insulate lawmakers from partisan pressure while at the same time assisting the Board of Elections with a variety of outreach services such as recruitment and training of poll workers.

Citizen Advisory Boards could be implemented under New York's existing system without amending election law as long as care is taken to avoid usurping Board of Elections or legislative authority. If such advisory boards are to be effective, however, enabling resolutions must make clear to all affected that the service and findings of the Citizen Advisory Board should be respected and adhered to whenever possible. Ideally, for statewide uniformity and effectiveness, the establishment of such boards, membership composition, responsibilities and authority should be delineated by state law.

Citizen Advisory Boards have the potential to bring elections back under the watchful eye of the citizens who need to understand and trust election outcomes. If care is taken to appoint only individuals who are truly representative of the community, and the board works diligently to maintain communication with the community, a Citizen Advisory Board will enjoy the respect of lawmakers, election officials and citizens alike.

The long term goal needs to be comprehensive reform of election administration but Citizen Advisory Boards can be a good start in our reform efforts. Partisan organizations serve an important organizational purpose for citizens who want to be involved in supporting candidates, however, partisan groups and their operatives should not continue administering our elections. With respect to our elections these groups and their individual operatives need to be restricted to candidate or observer status and nothing more.

Voting Machine Position Statement Clarification & Extension

Clarification and extension of Peacemakers Voting Machine Position Statement
Re: hand counting of ballots and auditing of election results.


From the previously adopted “Concerning Electronic Voting Machines” Position Statement(1):

… a simple, inexpensive, user-friendly, trustworthy and officially recognized voting system already exists. A system which requires no certification testing. A system which all citizens can understand and have confidence in. That is the Paper Ballot voting system(2). A ballot scanner can be trusted to count the ballots quickly, but only if the scanner is programmed and maintained by municipal workers, not by a private corporation, and the hand counted tally of paper ballots remains the official record of the election.


While not explicitly stated in the above excerpt, our expectation is that the hand counting of the paper ballots would take place at the polling place immediately upon closing of the polls. The counting should be performed by the same authorized and trained poll workers who had supervised and secured the polling place during voting. Ballot counting must be observed by representatives of the candidates and other interested citizens as conditions allow.


It is expected that any discrepancy between the hand count tally and a scanner tally will be immediately reconciled (explained and documented) while all interested parties are present. This is necessary due to the difficulty of maintaining acceptable chain of custody security after the polls close and the ballots are forwarded to election HQ. Chain of custody issues also demand that vote tallies be posted in public view at the polling place for the benefit of any interested citizen wishing to compare polling place tallies with those recorded at central tabulation.


Using this protocol the trustworthiness of the tallies is enhanced and the chain of custody risks are mitigated. Since the hand count of the paper ballots is the official record of the election(3), the scanner tallies can then serve as confirmation of the hand counts. Think of it as a redundant counting system which is dramatically more secure and trustworthy than either system standing alone.


Regarding required audits: The hand count might be thought of as a 100% audit of the scanner count or, preferably, the scanner count should be considered an automatic, contemporaneous electronic audit of the hand count.


(1) Referenced Voting Machine Position Statement reproduced on the reverse of this document.
(2) New York State Election Law Sec. 7-106 describes traditional paper ballot system.
(3) Election Reform & Modernization Act of 2005 created a new NYS Election Law Sec. 9-211 which requires audits and specifies that the results of a total manual count will be the record of canvass.


10/1/08 approved by the Peacemakers Action Committee.

Democracy In New York Election Administration

Is Citizen Oversight of Election Administration a Possibility?

In New York State two private, read restricted membership, organizations have been given exclusive responsibility for election administration. Both the state and local Boards of Elections are staffed with representatives of the two major partisan groups, the Republican and Democratic parties. These two organizations sometimes behave quite undemocratically and their continual combat to control ballot access is responsible for our extremely complex election law.

Perhaps the original drafters of New York’s Election Law were expecting the two major partisan organizations to represent all the citizens, however, the Boards of Elections, staffed only by loyal members of these two groups, do not, indeed can not, effectively represent the whole of their constituencies:

• More than one quarter of eligible citizens are not registered to vote and therefore have no official partisan affiliation but they do have a stake in the effective administration of elections.

• More than one-fifth of registered voters do not specify a party affiliation but they too have a stake in our elections.

• A majority of registered voters who report a party affiliation do not strongly identify with that partisan group and are not active in partisan affairs but they do care how our elections are managed.

• And, most significantly, voters reporting a minor party affiliation are not represented by the Democratic and Republican staff of the Boards of Elections but you can be sure they are intensely interested in how elections are administered.

Exacerbating this problem is the fact that these two major partisan organizations do not exist to make democracy happen: they are more about power and control than sharing. We have often enough read or heard of ugly partisanship resulting in disenfranchisement of some voters or litigation to block ballot access. We must acknowledge that our quasi-governmental election administration system actually delivers control of the election administration chicken coop to the partisan foxes.

New York’s Election Law assigns authority to administer elections to the state and local Boards of Elections. Consequently, the partisan Election Commissioners believe they are autonomous and they generally are not responsive to legislative bodies or the public. Boards of Elections, while theoretically under the fiscal oversight of a legislative body, are actually far beyond effective control because of the lawmakers’ political dependence upon or deference to the partisan leaders. So it seems quite unreasonable to expect lawmakers to provide true oversight or to effectively represent citizens with respect to election administration.

I believe we can agree that oversight of our elections is properly a function of government, however, the existing Board of Elections system fails to serve government or our democracy. New York must reform its election administration system and that reform would best be accomplished by comprehensive study followed by the necessary legislation.

For those of us not comfortable waiting for a complete revamp of the Election Law there are democracy enhancing initiatives which could be put in place now. Legislative bodies could choose to exercise control over election administration by asserting their budgetary prerogatives. And, lawmakers might even flex their oversight muscles some while attempting to fulfill their fiscal responsibilities.

One possible initiative which could serve to enhance legislators’ oversight efforts while at the same time helping to fulfill democracy’s need for transparency is the creation of Citizen Advisory Boards for Election Administration. A cursory search (Google) turns up 28,000 Citizen Advisory Boards in .56 seconds. The examples I perused were government agencies or community-government cooperative projects. Obviously, a Citizen Advisory Board is not some wild way-out-there idea, it‘s been done again and again.

Such a board, composed of volunteers appointed by the legislative body, could serve the lawmakers by complementing their oversight duties. A Citizen Advisory Board could also somewhat insulate lawmakers from partisan pressure while at the same time assisting the Board of Elections with a variety of outreach services or training.

Citizen Advisory Boards could probably be implemented under the existing system without amending election law as long as care is taken to avoid usurping Board of Elections or legislative authority. It is important for enabling resolutions to clearly state to all affected that the service and findings of the Citizen Advisory Board should be respected and adhered to whenever possible.

Citizen Advisory Boards have the potential to bring elections back under the control of citizens. If care is taken to appoint only individuals who are truly representative of the community, and the board works diligently to maintain communication with the community, a Citizen Advisory Board will enjoy the respect of lawmakers, election officials and citizens alike.

The long term goal needs to be the complete reform of election administration but Citizen Advisory Boards would be a good start in our reform efforts.

Partisan organizations serve an important organizational purpose for citizens who want to be involved in supporting candidates, however, partisan groups and their operatives should not be administering our elections. With respect to our elections these groups and their individual operatives need to be restricted to candidate or observer status and nothing more.

Voting Equipment Selection

Now is the time for lawmakers to act

On 1/23, the NYS BOE will release a list of authorized but untested and uncertified voting equipment from which the Election Commissioners will select a Ballot Marking Device (BMD) to be deployed in every polling place.

County Election Commissioners are required to make their selection no later than 2/8 according to the timeline set by the state BOE. It is important to understand the selection might be made as early as 1/23.

It is almost certain that the very serviceable and previously certified AutoMark BMD will be on that list. The AutoMark is the BMD which is intended to paired with a paper ballot voting system to provide access for the disabled.

It is also very likely that one or more Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines (DRE) will be on the list as well. In a disturbingly perverse move the state BOE recently agreed to allow the voting machine manufacturers to submit their DREs as BMDs if the vote counting function is disabled and the device prints a full size ballot.

I believe the above perverse ruling was made specifically to help DRE voting machine vendors such as Albany based Liberty Election Systems. We can expect a modified LibertyVote DRE to be on the list of authorized BMDs.

And it is also very likely Schoharie County's Election Commissioners Cliff Hay & Lew Wilson will select the LibertyVote DRE, or any machine other than the AutoMark, in order to avoid committing to a paper ballot voting system. I say “committing” because a major portion of the available HAVA funds will be expended on the BMDs mandated for 2008 deployment.

Re: committing to a system. Because the court ordered HAVA compliance plan requires devices to assist the disabled in every polling place, rural counties, like Schoharie with most polling places with only one voting machine, will effectively be committing to DREs if they choose an experimental BMD created from a DRE.

The Perverse Plan (as formulated by the E.C.s & vendors) goes like this:

A Make Believe BMD (MBBMD) created from a DRE is authorized by the state.

The ECs select the MBBMD and pay some fraction of the usual DRE price and deploys them in 2008.

The state BOE subsequently tests and certifies the DRE on which the MBBMD is based (no one believes the state would not certify machines that the counties have already purchased).

The vendor returns to the county reprograms the MBBMD machine to function as a full functioned DRE and collects the balance due, probably some additional premium fees, and sells the county what ever additional DREs the county E.C.s think they can afford.

The county deploys all the DREs in 2009 and everyone is happy:

Federal District Court Judge Gary L. Sharpe will no longer feel ashamed to be a New Yorker and will sleep well again,

The Justice Dept. lawyers can report to the Bush administration criminal cabal that their mission is accomplished,

The NYS BOE Commissioners can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they weathered this crisis without being thrown under the bus or into jail…..now all they need to remember is to keep their mouths shut and reap the rewards,

Bobby Witko of Liberty Election Services will have made his daddy proud - he was able to peddle a crappy voting machine that has been rejected in Ireland, The Netherlands and Germany… at an incredibly exaggerated price,

Nedap (manufacturer of the LibertyVote) can rejoice at being able to report to their stockholders their voting machine has been introduced into the USA market, and maybe even show some black ink for that division for the first time in five years. That black ink can’t help but be improved with each election cycle in the US….New York State has a bunch of very valuable electoral votes,

Cliff Hay and Lew Wilson will have broken into the big time. Now if anyone wants to buy a particular election outcome in Schoharie County they will have the means to deliver with much greater efficiency then ever before. Also, if someone is working a state or federal scam they will be able to demand their cut. AND hey, there’s no paper ballots - Happy times are here again!

The only people who might not get what they want is the little people who believe their vote counts - but then it’s only some of those little folk that might not get what they want since the bosses need only switch a few percent of the ballots. Those people who’s vote might get switched won’t know - and what they don’t know won’t hurt them - right?

The only recourse for the little people then is Civil Disobedience (CD) - I say the only recourse because I’m not a violent person. I can not speak for the rest of our citizens who might feel they are not represented because their votes are not being counted...we fought a war over this very problem once before didn't we.

What CD? How about something as simple as "Just Say No! These are our elections and it is our vote we're talking about. We should just say no to electronic voting!

Every citizen needs to take ownership of their individual ballot and demand we use the only system which makes it possible for the voter to mark their own ballot and see their ballot being recorded and counted, the paper ballot system.

I've been telling everyone I encounter that I will refuse to vote using an electronic voting machine. It is not hard to imagine that election administrators and poll workers will have little choice but to provide paper ballots if enough of us demand it. I've printed my own calling card with just that message on it - it works, I recommend it.

A Democracy Appeal

The following remarks were originally prepared for the Schoharie County Board of Supervisors with the hope that the lawmakers would rise to the occasion and do the right thing for the electorate and our democracy. Because of pending changes to the Makeup of the board, and the imminent intervemtion of the Federal Court, the remarks have not been directed to the board but are posted here for your consideration.

The greatest threat to peace and security for any person is their own government, not some foreign power or alien national. Government has great power over a citizen’s everyday life, and therefore, the potential to cause great harm. America’s founders understood this and structured the constitution to protect us, today however, some of those constitutional protections are in doubt.

Naomi Wolf, writing in "The End Of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot," informs us that democracy can be lost, and indeed, has been lost to other peoples in the past. We would be wise to learn the lessons of history that are there for us.

It should be obvious to anyone watching national political developments that our democracy is threatened. The important underpinnings of democracy, well articulated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, have been systematically attacked by the Executive, Congress and sometimes even by the courts over the past several years. Recognizing the damage that has been done, let’s agree that we all must assume responsibility for protecting democracy!

Politicians frequently remind us of the many Americans who have fought and died for democracy, and then admonish us to "support the troops." I suggest the same rationale for supporting democracy and the integrity of our elections. The least we can do is not let democracy and election integrity go without a fight.

Where am I going with this? Well, you should expect that I’m going to talk to you about voting machines again. I will not disappoint you, but the main point I want to make is our shared responsibility for preserving democracy by protecting the integrity of our ballot.

The purpose of elections is freely choosing our public servants by majority-rule. The essence of America is self-government, recognizing that all legitimate government power comes only from elections in government "of the people, by the people and for the people." To this end election officials must provide a voting system compatible with democracy, that is a system which is trustworthy, or they're not public servants. Democracy can not long survive in secrecy behind closed doors, or in the secret black box of an electronic voting computer. Democracy requires transparency in elections.

An August 2006 Zogby poll found 92% of Americans preferred observable vote counting over secret proprietary systems. The electorate intuitively knows that they shouldn’t trust something they can’t see. If we were to survey the citizens of Schoharie County about computerized voting machines, something our Election Commissioners should have done years ago, I expect a similar proportion of our citizens would reject the invisible ballots of electronic voting machines.

Is it possible for public servants to pursue policies out of touch with over ninety percent of the electorate? Yes, they can and will if you let them. Remember those 6th grade lessons about checks and balances? It's time for election officials to be checked on the voting machine issue.

Thirty some years ago the New York State Election Law was amended to create the election administration we have today. The legislature, apparently embracing a security philosophy of mutually assured distrust, gave the two major political parties control over the process. This was tantamount to putting two foxes in the henhouse. These two partisan groups are not committed to protecting democracy. Their job is winning elections - not protecting the integrity a citizen’s ballot . This is evinced by a long history of fraud and anti-democratic actions by election officials.

I’m sure that somewhere out there there’s an honest, idealistic election official who might justifiably take offense at this generalization. We can acknowledge that there are exceptions, but this does not alter the facts which must guide public policy. In this debate over voting systems the only party without a conflict of interest is the electorate, the people you represent.

Because national election results since 2000 have been so controversial there have been many election fraud investigations, most conducted by voting integrity advocates rather than government agencies. This fact is itself additional evidence of failed election administration. Such private party investigations are usually reported in documentary films, reports, or books.

One such report is "Was the 20045 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count" by Steven F. Freeman Ph.D. & Joel Bleifuss. Doctor Freeman is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate Program of Organizational Dynamics. Mr. Bleifuss is an investigative reporter and Editor of In These Times.

Historically, election exit polls have been very accurate. Germany uses exit polling to verify the integrity of their elections. Their polls average less than ½ of 1% divergence from official counts. A 2005 initial exit poll in England was right on the mark. And, in 2004, a discrepancy in the exit polls resulted in the presidential election being voided in the Ukraine.

Edison/Mitofsky pollsters have been conducting exit polls for the national elections since 1993. Over the past few years those exit polls have been seriously off the mark, sometimes almost a double digit divergence from the official tallies.

The 2004 presidential race produced some highly improbable exit polls. If the polls were inaccurate due to chance circumstances those discrepancies should have been distributed more or less evenly between Kerry and Bush.

However, in that nationwide survey, the discrepancies between the exit polls and official results favored Bush in 44 states but in only 6 states for Kerry. The odds against this happening by chance are tens-of-millions-to-one according to Freeman & Bleifuss.

The investigators also report that in ten of the eleven so-called battleground states the official count differed from the exit polls. In all ten states the difference favored George Bush, a one-in-a-thousand possibility.

Another "improbable" statistic: In every presidential election between 1988 and 2004 the official count was divergent from the exit polls. In each case it was a Republican candidate that benefited from the discrepancy. In each case that Republican was named George Bush. And, in each case that candidate was running with the benefit of an incumbency except for the 2000 contest.

In that race George W. Bush was not an incumbent, but he did have his brother Jeb the Governor of Florida, Secretary of State Kathleen Harris, and the US Supreme Court pulling for him.

The statisticians found other curious correlations; the racial makeup of the state, Republican control of governorship, whether a swing state, and … where paper ballots were not used, all correlated positively with poll discrepancies.

When they were done analyzing the available election polling data Freeman and Bleifuss had uncovered considerable evidence tending to answer their title question in the affirmative. They confidently reported:

"National exit polls indicate that Bush suffered a defeat in the popular vote by approximately 7 million votes, a margin of about 5 percentage points. On the other hand, the official story of Bush’s 3 million vote victory is simply not substantiated by the data.
The only conclusion consistent with the data is that the 2004 U.S. presidential election was stolen."

And there’s more: Remember the hanging chads? - Just a few weeks ago several former employees of Sequoia Pacific came forward to confirm that the voting machine company had sabotaged the 2000 vote in Florida.

In another investigation, we learned that intentional degradation of quality control standards by another voting machine manufacturer resulted in machine failures that altered the outcome of a 2006 congressional race in Florida.

This past month, We learned that the government of The Netherlands has decided to decertify and withdraw from service the Nedap/Liberty voting machine because of security concerns. Said security concerns are likely due to exposure of the machine‘s security weaknesses by voting integrity advocates, and possibly the unethical behavior of the company’s software executive.

Last year Ireland decided to put their Nedap machines into storage because the responsible authorities were unconvinced as to the machine’s security.

Mounting numbers of election administrators across the country are abandoning the electronic voting machines they purchased with HAVA funds and are now deploying paper ballot systems instead.

So, here we are:

There is no responsible argument supporting the use of electronic voting machines.

Citizen voters know it.

Election integrity activists know it.

Computer Security experts know it.

Newspaper editors know it - 20 NY papers support Paper Ballot Voting

Governors and Secretaries of State of the states which have either switched to paper ballot voting or seriously restricted DRE use know it, among them; California, Connecticut, New Mexico and Florida.

Some NY Election officials have admitted it.

And…..Certainly, by now I believe you know it, and you know what you should do.

The Election Commissioners are the appointed co-department heads of the Elections Department. Oversight of this department and its administrators is the responsibility of the Board of Supervisors.

For the preservation of election integrity, you can not allow the Election Commissioners to impose electronic voting machines on the citizens of Schoharie County.

I repeat: The Election Commissioners must be checked on the voting machine issue. As the body with the power and responsibility to do so the citizens expect you to act.

As I indicated at the beginning of my remarks, this problem is bigger than Schoharie County, however, each of us needs to do our part because democracy starts right here.

For the sake of our nation, and for our children, find your place in the struggle to defend democracy. Democracy is something you do!