Hommel’s Argument to LWV
Terersa Hommel says her remarks to the League were elemetary, but I say they are worth noting:
Our SARA resolution, which passed in our last national convention, was an important step at the time. My experience of the last two years, however, has driven home to me that “secure and accurate” cannot be determined without audits, but no Board of Elections is intending to audit. “Recountable” is inadequate because it only means we can recount, it doesn’t mean we will, and it doesn’t say that the recount has to constitute a meaningful, independent audit. You must know as well as I do that some vendors and jurisdictions have said that if they can reprint their tally sheets, this is a recount. I have no problem with accessible, other than that the whole concept appears to be used as much for political purposes as for assisting voters with disabilities.
Here is what SARA needs now:
Observable
If citizens are forced to “trust” anything other than observation, then an election lacks legitimacy and so does the government, whether or not irregularities occurred.
Voter-verified paper audit trails (”VVPAT”) were supposed to restore observableness to electronic elections by enabling voters to see their computer-printed paper ballot, and enabling Boards of Elections to do observable audits.
BUT, no Board of Elections in this country is intending to perform audits, whether or not they have VVPAT. I believe that one of the big reasons vendors and election people oppose VVPAT is because they don’t want to audit. Does this mean that they want to commit fraud without being detected? Or that vendors don’t want people to discover that their equipment doesn’t actually work? Or are they just thinking about convenience and forgetting what elections are for?
I believe that computers used in elections should be held to the same standards as computers used in the financial industry — voters must be encouraged to verify the voter-verified paper audit trail, and this paper record must be 100% counted, and all discrepancies between computer tallies and paper tallies must be investigated and reconciled, or else the election should not be certified.
Understandable
In three years of full-time activism I have met only a handful of election people who are savvy about computers. Even if most election people are honest, they are easily taken advantage of by vendors, lobbyists, and other interested parties including their own former colleagues who now work for vendors and lobbyists.
Manageable
Computer security is impossible to control. The FBI computer crime survey of 2005 said that 87% of companies were broken into, and 44% had intrusions from within their own organization. How do you think your local Board of Elections will stand up to these statistics?
If you want to rob a bank, where do you get a job? At the bank. If you want to steal elections, where do you get a job? At the Board of Elections. Or maybe you get your relative a job there. Few Boards of Elections in this country are dealing in a professional manner with the security problems of computers, because they lack the know-how, money, and political backing to do so.