[Voterescue] [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's emergency bill to assure secure elections is a FRAUD.

Mon Jan 21 18:04:00 CST 2008

Brent,

  I believe you know very well what my position is regarding open source software, diebold software, or any software when it comes to counting votes -- I am for hand counted paper ballots. Period.  I'm certain you recall my explaining in great detail why I have taken this position to you and Alan D., and Brad on PeopleCount a while back.  Surely you recall my telling you that I joined PeopleCount specifically because it was founded for those who choose not to compromise with machines and want to return to hand counts.  That hasn't changed.  I doubt those who visit the OVC website tell you guys to give up on open source!

  And even if Bev and Brad (whom I remember you consider to be the spokespersons for the election reform community) support open source software, I still choose not to based on the evidence that is there for all to see and my considerable personal experience investigating these machines and I think Bev respects my position.  BTW, Bruce O'Dell, a computer security expert for whom I have great respect, has offered his expertise on the subject and has testified before legislators and election officials and citizens, and written numerous articles pointing out the real and significant reasons why hand counts are preferable to machines.  So, my position is also supported by expert knowledge and understanding of how software works and how it excludes the average citizen in the process.

  I appreciate your thinking I have a good heart, even though I continue to disagree with you on this matter.  I think you have a good heart even though you disagree with me!

  Regards,
  Kathleen

Brent Turner <brent at trealestate.net> wrote:
        v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}        st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }                Kathleen-   So that your position is clear-  Regarding elections, would you say you would prefer secret, proprietary, intellectual property source code over open source code ?  Or would you say it doesn’t really matter ? 

  Obviously I have consistently stated I am a staunch advocate of always having paper ballots every step of the way. And for having high percentage audits.  

  I have also stated my support for HCPB over any current system, and for HCPB in general, as I believe it good hearted.  It does not however, deal with the realities of today’s voting envitromentt, as obviously, we use machines. If sometime in the future, the machines go bye bye, great. Until then, please support the open voting movement. See www.openvoting.org 

  Anyone who would be against open source in government and /.or elections is either misinformed or “in on it”. Certainly, Microsoft money has tainted the arena from Capitol Hill to the blogosphere. Even the Academic community has felt the cold chill of dirty money. High level corporate interests have combined with the high level political ops to make a tidy little basket. Some have said the faux activist network was setting up in “ 98 to position for fund-raising off the debacle of 2000. This is part of the atrocity. We must clean our own house. 

  Kathleen, I am sure you have a good heart. But in assisting the argument that we should over focus on paper ballots to the exclusion of open source code, you are, unfortunately, on the wrong side of history. We all are in favor of paper ballots and always have been. But we use computers. That’s where the count comes form. To over focus on the paper ballot to the exclusion of open source is part of an agenda set up by higher ups controlling on-line activism. Their intent is to let the game continue, and to slow down the progressive movement. They are called” foot-draggers” or “ obstructionists”. They get most things right and look like activists- this is called “ blending “.  In crunch time, they “shimmy” off the real activist position.  That’s the game where everywhere you look for relief as a citizen, they are positioned. . That’s why Debra Bowen coined me “ a real activist”. I don’t shimmy. 

  As far as the argument that a level of expertise is required even when using open source-  The whole arena requires expertise. Luckily, there is a world full of geeks that crave accolade and are self policing as their numbers run high. Also, changing  the game on the bad guys by making them attempt criminality in a glass box is a fun exercise. It creates a deterrent that might be the end game in it’s self. However, as you know, open source is not a panacea. Merely one measure of many. 

  So I hope we are now aligned. Brad Friedman was recently quoted as stating he is for open source when using computers. I think Bev Harris feels the same. 

  Best regards, 

  Brent Turner  

---------------------------------

  From: Kathleen Wynne [mailto:wynnekathleen at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 12:30 PM
To: Brent Turner; 'Jerry Lobdill'; 'M. Aram Azadpour'; voterescue at voterescue.org; 'EI Legislation List'; 'Analysis EDA'; peoplecount at lists.riseup.net
Cc: 'Art Brender'
Subject: RE: [Voterescue] [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's emergency bill to assure secure elections is a FRAUD.

    Brent,

    You stated:

    Everyone agrees-  If you are using a computer – It must have open source code. The problem is we keep acting as if we are going to scrap the computers magically. 

    That's not the case at all.  Those of us who support hand counts have no illusions about this ongoing debate and are fully prepared for an uphill battle in our fight for HCPB because, as is the case in politics, as long as money is involved, there will always be great opposition to any solution that does not require large sums of money to solve the problem.  Money always seems to have a way of turning perfectly rational people into irrational advocates for a solution that has a financial reward involved.

    I know you support open source software, but the fact still remains that open source software still secretly counts the votes and requires expert intervention to inform average citizens whether or not their votes are being counted accurately or not.  I don't consider that a "solution" to the election issues we are presently facing, but merely another version of the same problem that continues to undermine the transparency of our elections.  As you must know, the majority of citizens don't have the expertise necessary to know whether open source is accurately counting their votes any more than they would know if Diebold's software is.

    On the other hand, it is my contention that should citizens be presented with the evidence of software counts vs. hand counts and the degree to which they either promote or diminish observable transparency "as the votes are being counted", as well as the degree of citizen participation and understanding of that vote counting process in a "real debate", it is my contention that the majority of citizens will choose hand counts.  The fact that we have yet to be able to convene a public debate with machine count advocates vs. hand count advocates (and based on the evidence -- not opinion or theory) is testament to the fact that those who continue to support software counting our votes as opposed to people, are not quite as certain they will win public support as they would like us to believe they would.

    Of course, I fully expect you to continue to assert that there is no way we can avoid the continued use of machines with open source software, but let me assure you that I am just as convinced that we can and we will.

    Kathleen

    Brent Turner <brent at trealestate.net> wrote:

      Funny –  The question of who prefers HCPB and /or hand countable with redundancy through open source systems is long dead. 

    This red herring dispute was forced on the activist community by fund-raisers looking for an inciting issue as a method to increase their monthly cash flow. 

    Everyone agrees-  If you are using a computer – It must have open source code. The problem is we keep acting as if we are going to scrap the computers magically. 

    The Holt bill is to be scrapped as it leaves the Microsoft secret code intact. Therefore it is worse than no bill at all. 

    But then you knew that, right. ? – I’d say we need to look at who is, and who has been, in with Holt . 

    We need to keep our own house clean.   We may not know our devils from angels. Everyone is a suspect. Bloggers, activists, elected officials included. 

    Brent 

---------------------------------

    From: Kathleen Wynne [mailto:wynnekathleen at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 9:43 AM
To: Jerry Lobdill; M. Aram Azadpour; Brent Turner; voterescue at voterescue.org; 'EI Legislation List'; 'Analysis EDA'; peoplecount at lists.riseup.net
Cc: 'Art Brender'
Subject: Re: [Voterescue] [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's emergency bill to assure secure elections is a FRAUD.

      I know that about you, Jerry.  I was speaking for those who still believe that votes should be counted by software and not people!

      Kathleen

Jerry Lobdill <lobdillj at charter.net> wrote:

      I couldn't agree more, Kathleen! 

I hope no one thinks that because I have designed audit methods for elections, I approve of electronic voting. I DO NOT!

Jerry

At 11:17 AM 1/21/2008, Kathleen Wynne wrote:

    I agree with Einstein:

"Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein

We often confuse easy for simple.  Simple for incomplete.  I believe just the opposite is true.  True sophistication comes when you deilver "all" of the features, all of the meaning, in an easy package.  By simplicity, I mean not making things unnecessarily complicated.

This is never more relevant nor true than how this reality relates to our elections.  Making it easy is hard.  But, It's the only way to ensure that the only experts in our elections will be the citizens themselves.

I have no background in computer expertise, but I do have a considerable amount of expertise as a result of my work with Bev Harris conducting in the field investigations, which proved that these voting systems have no place in counting our votes.  They are an abomination of what elections are meant to represent.  Elections will never belong to the people, as long as we allow machines to count our votes.  

Kathleen Wynne

Jerry Lobdill <lobdillj at charter.net> wrote:

    My guess is that Mr. Azadpour is rather a newcomer to the discussion 

    of problems that the voting machines and electronic vote 

    scanner/counters have brought into our elections. Otherwise, I don't 

    see how he could be asking the questions he does. He certainly does 

    bring up a valid point that every procedure in the process deserves 

    to be reviewed for security problems that may exist. But to suggest 

    that electronic voting/counting does not bring new and more ominous 

    problems than any others that have existed in the past and which may 

    yet exist is very naive.

    Just to qualify myself a little more specifically for those like Mr. 

    Azadpour who are doubting the importance of what has been said in 

    this thread, I am a retired scientist/engineer whose career was spent 

    in research and development of computerized systems and in modeling 

    the performance of systems that extract signals from noise, i.e., 

    modeling of stochastic processes and the systems that attempt to 

    extract meaning from such data. I am 70 years old and have been 

    working in the field of voting system audit design for the last two 

    years. Some of my work is available on the NIST website as mentioned 

    in my initial post on this subject.

    Jerry Lobdill

    **********************************

    At 09:28 PM 1/20/2008, M. Aram Azadpour wrote:

    >Please, let us not go into the deep end here.

    > 

    >How do you know you are reading this Email; or, how do you know that

    >a person (not a program) wrote it; or, how do I know that when I hit the

    >send-button, the text of the Email sent is the same as the one I wrote?

    >Please, let us not go into the deep end here.

    > 

    >There is a difference between making the voting "process" (and it is a

    >process, meaning it is not a one-step thing; which it starts from the time

    >a voter enter his/her vote; until it is counted for a candidate and everything

    >in between; for example, how do you know that the truck carrying paper-ballots

    >would not fall off a bridge and all paper ballots be lost; or, how do we know

    >that the truck carrying paper-ballot is not highjacked and another truck w/

    >forged ballots is not sent in its place; BTW, if you were of the voting age

    >during JFK or LBJ's time (or if your parents were), did you-all (or 

    >your parents)

    >raised the same concerns about voting irregularities of that time 

    >(which happened

    >to work in favor of JFK and LBJ)?)... now, there is a difference 

    >between making

    >the voting "process" more secure and tamper-proofed than being against/for

    >a particular voting-machine. At the end of the day, if "we," the 

    >voting public,

    >are not aware of an irregularity how do we know that voting process was clean?

    >Were the American people as concerned of voting-machines in, say, 1998, 1996,

    >1994, 1992, 1990, etc. as they are today? What happened in 2000 which caused

    >us to become so concerned of voting machines and vote counting-process?

    > 

    >Pls consider making the voting-process (from registering a voter, to polling

    >places which are free of intimidation, to election-judges free of biases,

    >to whatever else) more secured and reliable than just thinking that if voting

    >machines were changed then all is going to be well and good. --Aram 

    >(Grapevine, TX).

    > 

    > 

    >----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Lobdill" 

    >To: "Brent Turner" ; 

    >; "'EI Legislation List'" 

    >; "'Analysis EDA'" 

    > 

    >Cc: "'Art Brender'" 

    >Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:33 PM

    >Subject: Re: [Voterescue] [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's 

    >emergency bill to assure secure elections is a FRAUD.

    > 

    > 

    >>Oh yeah! And how would we know that the compiled code was a faithful

    >>version of the disclosed open source even if there was such?

    >> 

    >>Jerry

    >> 

    >>At 12:33 PM 1/20/2008, Brent Turner wrote:

    >>>Not to mention no open source / disclosure language, as Microsoft made sure-

    >>>BT

    >>> 

    >>>-----Original Message-----

    >>>From: analysis-bounces at electiondefensealliance.org

    >>>[ mailto:analysis-bounces at electiondefensealliance.org] On Behalf Of Jerry

    >>>Lobdill

    >>>Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 6:48 AM

    >>>To: voterescue at voterescue.org; EI Legislation List; 'Analysis EDA'

    >>>Cc: Art Brender

    >>>Subject: [EDA Data Analysis] 1-20-08 Holt's emergency bill to assure secure

    >>>elections is a FRAUD.

    >>> 

    >>>Holt's emergency bill,

    >>> 

    >>>H.R.5036

    >>> 

    >>>Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 (Introduced in House)

    >>>is totally inadequate to assure the integrity of an election. This bill is

    >>>WORTHLESS. Here is the relevant language in the bill:

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:1:./temp/~c1103UiRUC:e2303 

    >>> :

    >>> 

    >>> (c) Number of Ballots Counted Under Audit-

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> (1) IN GENERAL- The hand counts of the 

    >>> paper ballots

    >>>administered by the Election Auditor of a State, county, or equivalent

    >>>location under this section with respect to an election shall occur in at

    >>>least 3 percent of all precincts or equivalent locations (or alternative

    >>>audit units used in accordance with the method provided for under paragraph

    >>>(2)) in which ballots were cast in the election.

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> (2) USE OF ALTERNATIVE SAMPLING MECHANISM-

    >>>Notwithstanding paragraph (1) (and subject to the completeness requirement

    >>>set forth in subsection (b)(2)), a State, county, or equivalent location may

    >>>adopt and apply an alternative sampling mechanism to determine the number of

    >>>paper ballots which will be subject to hand counts in accordance with this

    >>>section with respect to an election, so long as the alternative sampling

    >>>mechanism uses the paper ballots verified by voters or paper ballot

    >>>printouts verifiable by voters at the time the vote is cast to conduct the

    >>>audit and the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology

    >>>or a panel of 3 independent statisticians appointed by the Election Auditor

    >>>of the State, county, or equivalent jurisdiction determines that the

    >>>alternative sampling mechanism will be at least as statistically effective

    >>>in ensuring the accuracy of the election results as the sample size

    >>>specified under paragraph (1).

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>> 

    >>>Dr. Holt, a physicist, knows precisely what the flaw in this language is.

    >>>The question is, Why is he introducing a bill that he knows will not provide

    >>>a definite and controllable probability of detection of vote fraud? The

    >>>following does not even consider the damning facts that Holt's rescue bill

    >>>permits the use of cash register thermal print "paper trail" records that do

    >>>not bear any resemblance to the display screens a voter sees, and electronic

    >>>ballot scanner/counters, which have demonstrated to be as vulnerable to

    >>>fraud as the paperless voting machines.

    >>> 

    >>>Here's an example of what will occur under the provisions of this bill.

    >>> 

    >>>Suppose there are 1000 audit units (precincts, election districts,

    >>>whatever). If you choose 3% of these (30) at random for a full hand recount,

    >>>what does that buy you in terms of probability of choosing at least one

    >>>corrupted audit unit? The answer is, "It depends on the announced winning

    >>>margin of votes, the distribution of audit unit size, how many units were

    >>>actually corrupted in producing a fraudulent win, and the sizes of the units

    >>>selected at random for audit."

    >>> 

    >>>Just for example, suppose the precincts are all the same size, so that

    >>>completely random selection is a proper strategy for audit. Suppose the

    >>>margin of the winner is stated to be 5% and the corruption is evenly spread

    >>>through 15 of the largest audit units (easily done by reference to county

    >>>election records).

    >>> 

    >>>What is the probability that your audit will find one of the corrupted

    >>>precincts? Why, it's about 0.37!

    >>> 

    >>>What if the corruption is spread through 25 of the audit units? Then the

    >>>probability of finding one corrupt unit in the audit is 0.66.

    >>> 

    >>>So you see, the language of Holt's emergency bill is flawed and, considering

    >>>his background and the work that was done on his previous bills before the

    >>>politicos took over and emasculated them, you'd be a fool to think he is

    >>>unaware of this flaw. Therefore, he is a fraudster with very high

    >>>probability.

    >>> 

    >>>You can read more about the details of why this is fraud in the following

    >>>papers (which were available to Dr. Holt in 2006).

    >>> 

    >>>Considering Vote Count Distribution in Designing Election Audits Rev.

    >>>2, 11-26-06 , by Jerry Lobdill:

    >>> 

    >>> http://vote.nist.gov/Considering-Vote-Count-Distribution-in-Designing-Electi 

    >>>on-Audits-Rev-2-11-26-06.pdf

    >>>>ion-Audits-Rev-2-11-26-06.pdf>

    >>> 

    >>>Election Audit Sampling Design It's Not Just About Sampling Without

    >>>Replacement 10-09-06, by Jerry Lobdill`:

    >>> 

    >>> http://vote.nist.gov/Election-Audit-Sampling-Plan-Design-Its-Not-Just-About -

    >>>Sampling-Without-Replacement-10-09-06.pdf

    >>>>-Sampling-Without-Replacement-10-09-06.pdf>

    >>> 

    >>>Jerry Lobdill

    >> 

    >> 

    >> 

    >>_______________________________________________

    >>Voterescue mailing list

    >>Voterescue at voterescue.org

    >> http://voterescue.org/mailman/listinfo/voterescue_voterescue.org

    > 

    >

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