Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
Last Thursday we had the opportunity to speak briefly with California U.S. House Rep. Brad Sherman about election integrity reform during one of his appearances here. Sherman, who had nothing but praise for the election integrity efforts of CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, is a cosponsor of Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-NJ) controversial “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007,†otherwise infamously known as HR 811.
Sherman stated that he believed that Bowen’s landmark, independent “Top-to-Bottom Review†of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems — which resulted in the near-decertification of all but one California voting system after it was found they were all vulnerable to hackers and manipulation and failed to meet even marginal federal disabled voter accessibility standards — was consistent with the Holt Bill that relies so heavily on the use of the same DRE voting systems.
That Sherman was apparently confused about the difference between what Bowen’s study revealed (DREs are not safe to use in elections) and what Holt’s bill allows (DREs, as long as they have so-called paper trails of the type Bowen’s study found could not guarantee secure, accurate elections), is little surprise. Even in the wake of findings which undermine his own bill, Holt has been using Bowen’s study, disingenuously, to tout his own exceedingly flawed bill as The BRAD BLOG reported some weeks ago.
However, to Sherman’s credit, he agreed to withdraw his co-sponsorship of HR 811 if he learned that Bowen did not support it.
With this in mind, we direct the Congressman to radio talk show host Peter B. Collins’s interview with Bowen on June 27, 2007 (audio below, appx 3 mins). Responding to a direct question from Collins about whether she supports the Holt bill, Bowen responded, “I have not. I have worked with the author to try to strengthen the bill, but have not taken a position of support.”
[audio:http://BradBlog.com/audio/PeterBCollins_DebraBowen_HoltBill_062707.mp3]We have sent on this information to the Congressman’s office, per his instructions, and await his reply.
The BRAD BLOG has previously reported on several other HR 811 co-sponsors, including Reps. Maxine Waters and Dennis Kucinich, who have indicated their intent to withdraw from the bill in the wake of strong opposition to a number of the bill’s provisions by many advocates in the Election Integrity community.
UPDATE: Congressman Sherman responds through staffer Esther Azal:
According to the conversation you had with the Congressman, he stated that he would withdraw his support of the Holt Bill if Debra Bowen were to “oppose” it. I spoke to Debra Bowen’s office and her legislative staff informed me that she has not taken an official position on this piece of legislation.
Thank you for the link.
Esther
DEMAND A BAN ON DRE/TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING!
– Email Congress!
– Call your members!
See www.BradBlog.com/Holt for more details, coverage, talking points & information on all of the above!
Quote:
I spoke to Debra Bowen’s office and her legislative staff informed me that she has not taken an official position on this piece of legislation.
After reading that the first thing that popped in my head was, in all this fight to get our right to vote back, why are not more simple questions like this asked and the answers published, it would clear up quickly any miscommunication, and draw lines on who stands where on what for all to see.
Can someone ask Debra? Soon?
Thus, avoiding the “11th hour, I didn’t read the bill”, type of non-sense.
The republicans have already made it known that they will not support HR 811 or S 559 if they have language in them that exposes the source code to public scrutiny. See the House report on HR 811 when it came out of committee.
And they both have such language. S 559 has much stronger language than HR 811 on open source code.
So the bill is a no show and will not pass. Public scrutiny of source code used in EVM’s is not going to happen because of the republican filibuster.
I don’t even think there will be a floor vote in the Senate, so goodbye to federal election law before the upcoming ’08 election.
So I, like Debra, have never come out for or against the bill. I am for the public scrutiny of the source code as a matter of law, and the outlawing of being a major player in any campaign while an election official. I also favor archival quality paper ballots that must, as a matter of law, last thru as many counts, audits, and recounts as it takes.
Three months ago I said the Holt bill should die today, so that we have enough time to prepare to hand count paper ballots. It is readily apparent that any election in which paper ballots are not used, can not be proven to reflect the public will. There can be no evidence that elections totals are correct, unless there are paper ballots.
We need to start working on paper ballots, hand counted, everywhere. Maybe only the top five races, but we have to start somewhere, or give up.
The “Ins” are stalling for time, because they love the machines.
There are many good people in the election integrity movement who continue to believe that the “paper trail” IS the ballot. It is not. Only the paper BALLOT which has been marked by the voter can properly show the voter’s intentions. The paper trail is only shows what the MACHINE says and that can be gamed in lots of ways.
Stuart #4
One “paper ballot” can meet the definition of one “paper trail” according to the dictionary. However, a paper trail is not always one paper ballot.
The distinction is most readily seen in the plural, not in the singular.
There is a difference between the complete list of all the votes in a precinct being called a paper trail, and one single paper ballot in that precinct being called a paper trail.
Some, not you in this instance, are confusing the two concepts and that is a disservice to clarity.
Check your mailboxes. Moveon.org just sent out emails asking members on whether to support the revised Holt bill or not. I just sent in my no vote.
Calipendence #6
Did they mention S 559? That is the Senate “version” of HR 811? It has the original HR 811 language, plus a national ban of Ken Blackwell and K. Harris situations.