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HartIntercivic sold Boulder County a crummy, unreliable
voting system. I sat on the Boulder County New Voting
Equipment Review Committee (August-December, 2003), never missing a single
meeting (more than 40 hours of meetings), and know that HartIntercivic sales
reps grossly misstated their system's capabilities, and the 2004 election
proved it. The HartIntercivic voting system was largely untested at
the time of purchase, and it performed pathetically during the 2004
election. HartIntercivic had every incentive to devote special attention
to the Boulder County election, because it knew, as we all knew, that the
entire state was watching its performance carefully. Despite that
incentive, HartIntercivic offiicials were unable to facilitate a remotely
competent election. I was one of the many people involved w/ Citizens for
Verifiable Voting who urged the County Commissioners to consider leasing a
sytem to prove itself before committing to a million dollar debacle. That
advice was ignored. Additionally, many CVV supporters urged a closer look at
handcounting, but that too was ignored. I am probably one of the few people in Boulder County who
has actually handcounted an official election -- Nederland in spring 2003,
I believe. There are ways of handcounting large numbers of ballots that
are cumbersome and time consuming (as in Nederland), and there are ways that
are quite efficient, as in the Swiss method outlined by Joe Pezzillo here in
Boulder County. Now the County has the opportunity to pick a system that is
transparent (meaning ordinary people can observe the
tallying process and determine if it is accurate and honest, an utter
impossibility w/ private, proprietary software), verifiable
(meaning it can be cross- and double-checked by ordinary citizens and a second
counting methodology, whether or not there are questions of propriety),
and accurate (meaning a voting system that has a
proven record of sufficient checks and balances insuring impeccable accuracy). Members of the public have been suggesting voting system
components that satisfy those requirements, and handcounting is an
important ingrediant. Turns out that handcounting is cheaper, faster,
transparent, verifiable and accurate, far more so than the shabby
HartIntercivic system. I urge you to renounce unequivocally the intuitively and
rationally assinine idea of having Boulder County's democratic votes
counted by secret, proprietary software. If that is your choice, then the
democratic contract is effectively broken. If the people cannot count
their own votes, then the integrity of elections is by definition
suspect. What is the difference between having votes counted by
secret, proprietary software and having votes counted by a secretive cabal of
unknowns in a back room? The answer is, quite simply: none. No secret, proprietary software, no electronic tabulating
of votes. Handcounting. Thanks. Sincerely, Kellen A. Carey PO Box 1132 Boulder, CO 80306 |
