I've Had Enough With Privatization; THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT NEGOTIABLE!!!

The following is based on the Appellant's Brief in Lehto v Sequoia, Washington State Court of Appeals, filed September, 2006. See http://tinyurl.com/ojdta (Opening Brief of Appellants Lehto and Wells)


This brief (which I helped work on the underlying arguments for) led me to a new (as far as I know) and politically powerful argument against all privatization efforts that are based on outsourcing or contracting away governmental functions, particularly "core governmental functions."

At issue here is not the government's ability to contract for copying services, but the ability to contract away fundamental things like elections and voting and prisons and parks and health care, etc. In this particular case, the ultimate delegation of a core governmental function is at issue, the delegation of the right and duty to count the vote.

These privatization contracts of core governmental functions necessarily result in fundamental changes to the structure of government, whether they concern elections or not.

Thus, the arguments made here against privatization are a way to unite all anti-privatization movements around a rallying cry of protecting our constitution!

The bottom line and the basic argument against these types of outsourcing, whether outsourcing democracy or outsourcing police or prisons, and against all forms of privatization of core governmental functions generally, is the following:



OUR CONSTITUTION IS NOT NEGOTIABLE!! (via contract or otherwise)

We can say this, we can demand this, we can INSIST on this, and we can say it quite forcefully: HANDS OFF OUR CONSTITUTION and our republic!

Thus, all of these privatization efforts, whether e-voting or private prisons or private police, are end-arounds of the Constitution, and should be held to violate the constitution for that reason. We should NOT have to litigate (with mixed results) to get our Constitution back!

In that sense, the issue with electronic voting contracts is the same as with other types of privatization that people are fighting. Various anti-privatization efforts should make common cause, and rally around the slogan: OUR CONSTITUTION IS NOT NEGOTIABLE!!

And, not only is the argument powerful, but also I think different political persuasions will also respond to that type of argument.

At least, I think it's powerful since I'm sick of researching the ENTIRE constitution in these kinds of cases just trying to get it back! My level of fatigue finally told me that HAS to be wrong. Then I realized it WAS wrong. Maybe I'm a slow learner in that way. : ) Lawyers can get caught in the minutiae and miss the big picture, which is what this post attempts to show.

----Paul Lehto, Attorney at Law


Below is an excerpt from my own personal lawsuit in Washington state against Sequoia Voting Systems.

The brief is finalized/written by my attorney Randy Gordon based on arguments we worked closely together on. While there are other arguments made, including those related to the standing of voters to sue regarding any election, perhaps the main one attacks the delegation of a core government function (voting) into conditions of secrecy and trade secret vote counting.

The summary of the argument goes like the following:




So, I say, hit 'em with the Constitution, THE WHOLE DAMN THING, so they can't STEAL the Constitution from us!

I'm getting REALLY tired, you know, of guys who "won't negotiate with terrorists" but WILL negotiate with our Constitution!!


A few last little nuggets or rocks, for your throwing pleasure:

1. At the center of democracy or any republic is elections. At the center of elections is the counting of the vote. The counting of the electronic vote in the US is a complete trade secret, that no citizen is allowed to witness or obtain information on. But it is downright chilling that the very core of our democracy is claimed as PRIVATE CORPORATE PROPERTY. (trade secrets are commonly considered intellectual property interests)

2. The above trade secrecy certainly violates the views of 92% of all Americans who when polled by Zogby in August 2006, favored the right of the public to witness vote counting and obtain information about vote counting. <http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00220.htm> <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446684>

3. The picture of tyranny is votes being counted in secret by your political enemy. The picture of corruption is votes being counted in secret by your political friends.

4. NOW LET ME SPELL IT OUT 10000%: Reading the above brief excerpt, it's clear that Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, ES&S, Triad, Hart Intercivic and the general corporate consortium of vote counters ARE, LITERALLY, OUR GOVERNMENT.

5. The electronic voting vendors own the heart of democracy, or purport to, as their private property. If a foreign nation made a modest proposal and forsook all of our forests, mines, cities, and military bases in exchange for the simple right to count our votes in secret, that proposal would be resisted "by all means necessary" including but not limited to the military, don't you think? So, ask the question: Who made these corporations KING?

6. It just keeps getting worse. The Bush administration's HAVA enforcement and local jurisdictions will negotiate away our Constitution, but we're "not going to negotiate with terrorists."

Time to talk to all the men and women who swore oaths to uphold the Constitution, and see where they stand!!

I think all real Americans who believe in the Constitution will stand with us, and those who don't stand with us simply don't believe in the Constitution. At least then, we will know what the issues are!

Terms of Use: this post is freely distributable in fully intact form with attribution to Paul Lehto, Attorney at law, contact is lehtolawyer at the domain name of gmail.com if necessary.

Rock the Nation!

Land Shark:

ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK!!!

I have your back...

I'm getting REALLY tired, you know, of guys who "won't negotiate with terrorists" but WILL negotiate with our Constitution!!

In fact, I think I'll add that little rock to the OP on edit, now. Thanks for the inspiration, kpete.

:applause:

Hit 'em with the Constitution!

Thank-you!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This is something so inherent that has been tugging my insides for ages. Call it what they will, it just never struck me as being legal.

!!!

:yourock:

the gradual destruction of the Constitution.

We have to stop it now. This country is at the crossroads.

Thanks, Paul

:yourock:

FAR AND WIDE!!

amazing work my friend... autorank is going to have to one up you to stay in the game:)

And he's outmanned by a mere shark!

I admire your sense of competition, lala_rawraw! : )

That being said, autorank will probably retaliate with graphics and so forth, so I hope I can still get an invite to the wedding of you and autorank? Now there's a celebrity wedding!

….O brave new world
That has such people in't.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

A tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson



thanks for the invite...kpete

...great pic, wow!

On edit: I'm not sure I know either. Doesn't look like a proposal though. George Sanders wasn't
exactly known for long term commitments;)

It was the face of a man who had seen it all, but was too polite to point it out -- the face of George Sanders, the greatest cad of all time. ...

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
pg 215 The Tempest (V, i)

The speaker of those lines above is Shakespeare’s character Miranda from the Tempest:


Tempest quote referring apparently to lala_rawraw:

Admired Miranda!
Indeed the top of admiration! worth
What's dearest to the world!
Act 3 Scene 1

Tempest quote referring apparently to Autorank:

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
pg 224 The Tempest (III, ii)

In The Tempest, Shakespeare coined the phrase "brave new world" as an expression of delight pulled from Miranda the first time she sees more than two people. {she was deliberately marooned on an island with Prospero, who she falls in love with, by Prospero’s enemies} Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel, Brave New World, used the phrase ironically, implying that the alphas and the epsilons, the freemartins and the controllers of his dystopia are not "goodly creatures."

petition the government for a redress of grievances

You can't do that when the entire government has been privatized and any grievance sends you off on a wild corporate goose chase wth any government agency happily passing the buck to one company after another. The ensuing dysfunction will be dismissed as bureaucracy - but it's not, it's damned intentional in my mind. Break the programs and the people will call for them to be tossed out, just like Katrina and FEMA.

Maybe I can get my 2nd Amendment rights back .

.

Thanks for your vigilance. So fuckin' much to keep up with these gangsters.

K&R

Thanks for posting this. Excellent points.

"Sequoia has, in effect, assumed the obligation of the state by engaging in such a governmental function, yet, by virtue of its insistence on trade secret status and protection has refused to subject itself to the same limitations on its freedom of action as would be imposed upon the state itself and insists, with County support, on counting votes in a secret way."

ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT! :-)

as Sec. of Defense under GHW Bush, creating the plan to outsource Dept. of Defense spending to the private sector. You know, to firms like Kellogg Brown and Root.

Then upon leaving that office, he became the head of KBR parent company Halliburton, and pumped it way, way up to provide such logisitical (and other) services to the Dept. of Defense, in case they ever needed it.

Then he became (vice) president, and engineered a war that required mammoth contracts from private firms like Halliburton (conveniently ready to oblige).


This is not as clear-cut a case as the outsourcing of vote counting, but it did introduce in an incremental way the notion of that functions that historically had been governmental should be handled by the "free" market. No one made a noise about the monumental conflict of interest that was thus institutionalized.


You've started a conversation with vast implications, Paul. You won't have time to give larisa the attention she deserves. :)

your previous work. Wish our friend Understanding Life was here to applaud this one! (Have you heard from him lately?)

Check your pms and let me know :). If yor around I'll try to get Cliff Bob Harvey and the whole gang.

To the top the the greatest for your efforts. Pls bring back habeus corpus! It's freaking me out.

I miss his insight too.

and much of luck to Land Shark on this lawsuit!

:think: :think: :think: :think: :think:

1. This is why they got rid of Kevin Shelley. In his lawsuit against Diebold, he demanded to see their source code. This is the heart of the matter. It's not just that the source code might have been the "smoking gun" (in Schwarz's rigged '03 recall (s)election, and in '04, anticipated by Shelley--he was smelling a rat, and tried to get the code before 11/04), but public access to this code is also the VERY HEART OF THE MATTER. No public access. That CAN'T be legal.

2. It's been nagging at me, too. It's why I've been insisting that we all REFUSE TO VOTE ON THE MACHINES. It's not just that voting by Absentee Ballot, if enough people do it, could bring the rigged system down. It's THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. It's like the segregated buses in Montgomery, ALA. You MUSTN'T COOPERATE with a system that is denying you your BASIC RIGHTS. In this case, the right to SEE THE VOTES COUNTED--the core function and obligation of our government to PROVE THAT THE ELECTION WAS NOT RIGGED. We must not vote on these machines! We must not give up the principle--just because corrupt election officials sold away our right to vote, and spent millions on these machines, etc. I HAVE been wondering how this got into our law--how it could have been approved. (We have Dem legislature and have had for a long time.)

3. I had experience with the same issue on Calif forestry law. The Calif Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates the right of the public to review forestry plans and to participate in decisions about the use of our state's natural resources, even on private lands. We had a situation where Louisiana Pacific, which had raped its redwood forests, finally was required to disclose its long term plan and the potential impacts of more logging. The impacts were so serious already that we would have had a good case against any more LP logging. But THAT plan was withdrawn, and a week later LP sold out to the Fisher family of the Gap clothing store empire, who formed the Mendocino Redwood Co. They said they weren't going to do that plan; they were going to do another plan. But they never would disclose their other plan. When environmental groups objected, and filed suit, they brought in the Forest Stewardship Council (which now acts as just a shill for corporate loggers worldwide--they have deals with the World Bank, etc.--they are supposed be a "green logging" certification group, and once were), and the FSC HELPED THE FISHERS' PRIVATIZE THE REVIEW OF THEIR LONG TERM PLAN. The public could get NO information about it. They had purchased a bunch of LP's already existing individual "timber harvest plans," along with the huge, raked over forest holdings and were logging THOSE plans, and continuing to log just like LP (clearcutting, pesticide use--with whole salmon species and bird species already wiped out). And they're still doing it. The agency in charge--the Calif Dept of Forestry--was only too happy to TRANSFER their job of reviewing these long term plans to a PRIVATE entity (the FSC, which is paid by the logging company!), and to cut the public OUT OF its right of review and participation. And here's the really bad part. With this case--with the corrupt local superior court agreeing to this privatization--the public lost its rights under CEQA, as far as forestry goes. That's one of the reasons we didn't appeal it. We didn't want that confirmed by the Appellate curt. Another was fatigue--a key factor, how corporations wear you out--it was a ten year struggle, and by the end of it, we were just beaten up and chewed up and financially and psychologically drained. This is what corporations DO. I fought that case to the bitter end, and my primary motive was the PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO PARTICPATE in decisions that vitally affected our interests.

The above foresty case does not bode well for how Calif courts might view corporate privatization issues, involving core goverment functions. A whole lot of our judges and justices have been appointed by a whole lot of Republican governors (Reagan, Duekmejian, Wilson--Democrat Davis--and now Schwarz). We are being corporately privatized in every sphere. The CA Supreme Court, though--and some Appellate courts--might view voting as a special category of government responsibility. It seems to me there have been some anti-corporate rulings from the Supreme Count (as I recall on false advertising issues). (And we do have an anti-SLAPP statute in Calif--which favors the public over corporate property rights.) (CEQA still functions in other jurisdictions, and on different issues than forestry.)

What about taking this to federal court? We have a good (constitution-minded) 9th District (which the Bushites have been trying to bust up).

You say, "When you think about it, however, at bottom these lawyers are, in effect, suing to get our constitution back.

For some reason, while reading the above quote, I noticed that there was more than meaning possible, particularly if taken as an isolated sentence.


So, I assume, "suing to get our constitution back" would mean something similar to "they are suing to take back from us (the people) those rights granted to us (the people) by our Constitution?"

An interesting thought, that.

The government exists, in part, to provide for our defense. And, in terms of defense, the Framers of the Constitution thought both of the populace and its own institutions. Simply because that they is what they were familiar with at that time.

A flip side of George W.'s maddening mantra of "this is a new kind of war" (consequently, our governmentally guaranteed "defense" from the Al-Qaidi) might very well be extrapolated from that basic promise to defend. It would concern another unanticipated enemy. And it, too, would mean "this is a new kind of war".

The Constitutionally authorized administration was no more designed to defend the populace from corporations than they were from the Borg.

But when corporations infinge upon, or endanger, the lives and safety of citizens, is not the administration obliged to protect us, the populace (as opposed to "corporate persons")?

Doesn't the government owe us (the beating, human heart citizens) the same obligation to protect us from predatory corporations, as it did when the envisioned enemy was latter day Saracens, invading Norsemen, or Red Coats??

Wonder if that has been brought to their attention yet?

It sure would require an overhaul at the Defense Department.. if that is where the battle must be fought.

Guess the main thing to remember is this. The victims we envision are the living, human citizens of the United States. Ourselves Alone.

of the lawyers working for citizens and activists who are suing to win back constitutional rights that are assumed to have been transferred away by mere signing of a governmental privatization contract, and nothing more than just that...

So you were trying to be matter of fact.And I thought you were being profound (not that you aren't when you choose to be)!

It's still interesting, in your post-Cleveland "Aha!" moment (Then I realized it WAS wrong.), that you came to analyze/frame it differently.

And then you stated and argued it succintly.:thumbsup:


Still, the ultimate truth you distilled stays the same, doesn't it? Causing both interpretations to fit?


When you speak of the corporations which produce "complicated litigation" and in the same paragraph say, "at bottom these lawyers are, in effect, suing to get our constitution back", it leaves open the question of hats (as in westerns, Black Hat or White Hat).

But your view of the field of contest as "ligation", quite accurate though it is, implies two teams of players. Black Hats and White Hats, lawyers all.


I happen to sit on your side of the stadium. T. Boone Pickens, and his kith and kin, sits on the other.


But each side is "suing to get our constitution back". The Black Hats to get it back FROM us and The White Hats to get it back FOR us.

There may be some lesson in there, Mr. White Hat.

But I'll have to sleep on it to figure it what, or if, it is.

between the American Patriots and the DC Stealers!"

"The clock is running, the White Helmeted Patriots huddle up at their own forty yard line. All look in at Captain Lehto, wondering, 'What's in the playbook, Paul?'"

"Lehto begins to bark orders, and......"



Tune in tomorrow, DUers, (and for the rest of your natural lives) for the exciting outcome of This Century's Democracy Bowl! Your lives will never be the same if you don't!"


FEEL THE PRESSURE ?? ®

:kick:

OUR CONSTITUTION IS NOT NEGOTIABLE!! (via contract or otherwise)

We can say this, we can demand this, we can INSIST on this, and we can say it quite forcefully: HANDS OFF OUR CONSTITUTION and our republic!

(And we can also print this -- "OUR CONSTITUTION IS NOT NEGOTIABLE!!" and put it everywhere.
Even on our money. Not that I'm saying to do something like that. No, wouldn't want to give anyone ideas.
I do happen to know that using one's printer makes quick work of something like that.
But I'm not suggesting any such thing.) ;)

This is some of the best instruction for the rest of us on how to talk about election issues.

Seen here are (from left) Alfie Charles, vice president of business development at Sequoia Voting Systems; William F. Welsh, a board member of Election Systems & Software Inc.; Kevin Chung, founder and CEO of Avante International Technology Inc.; Mark Radke, director of marketing at Diebold Election Systems; and Neil McClure, general manager of Hart Intercivic Inc.

source:

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,92973,00.html

I will not go into the legal cost that the erosion of the constitution has cost me personally, but I too am tired of the negotiation with the Constitution. I feel so relieved that you have the legal knowledge to bring this to our attention. You will never know how much your efforts,and posts are appreciated. Bless you. I'm so glad I got to vote on this post.

Thanks for being willing to feel a loss instead of denying a loss in order to be an american "winner" which is now turning into "american sucker" if we don't fight back

"trade secret" code. It may have been written by Alfie Charles (Sequoia) or his boss Bill Jones, when Jones was CA Sec of State. (After doing that to us, both Jones and his aide Charles then went to work for Sequoia!) (There ought to be a law!) (--when Shelley was elected--in '02--he banned "revolving door" employment in his office.)

It must be in the election code. I've never looked it up. Or is it? Maybe it's just an interpretation of some language, that doesn't specifically permit secret code. Before electronic voting, election officials may have outsourced ballot printing, and other election products (voting booths, etc.) It is, of course, a far different matter to outsource the actual counting of votes in a way that removes it from public eyes, and to have the counting code OWNED by a private party, and controlled by them, no one else permitted to see it. Was the outsourcing of ballot printing and poll-booth manufacture simply segued into outsourcing the counting of the votes--in the smeary, fuzzy way that corporations try to blur public/private distinctions ? Or was it made clear, in the election code, that something news was occurring here, with specific legalization of "trade secret" vote counting software?

It would be interesting to know on what grounds Shelley demanded to see Diebold's source code in his lawsuit against them. Unfortunately, his lawsuit disappeared from the Sec of State web site after Shelley was "swiftboated" out of office, before I could grab it. BBV may have it. I mean, other than the fact that Diebold lied to him about the security of their machines and he was trying to get to the bottom of it. Did he cite something--statute, case, principle, state or fed constitution?--in his demand to see their source code? (Someone else who may have it is Debra Bowen, or possibly Kim Alexander (public advocate on e-voting, has a web site, active in Sacto.)) (Or could CA Attorney General's office have a copy?)

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

Someone up-thread said the "defend and protect" part of the Constitution was not designed to defend the populace against corporations. And that is true, except that it WAS on the minds of the Founders. Jefferson was quite concerned about the power of corporations. But, as I understand it, he was argued out of including specific protections AGAINST corporations IN the Constitution, and hoped that the states would act to protect their citizens from private corporate power. (--similar to the way his Virginia brethren argued him out of his anti-slavery provision in the Declaration of Independence--so that it was left for later generations to battle it out; Jefferson felt that state power was so important as a "check and balance" on federal tyranny that he erred in both cases, to our grief; although we might not have a constitution or a union at all, if he had not compromised).

Perhaps we need to look this up--Jefferson's intention that the states protect their citizens against corporate power.

Because clearly the states failed in the case of "trade secret" vote tabulation, owned by private entities that can now live forever and accumulate vast wealth and power, in huge conglomerates. What's to prevent Exxon-Mobile or Time-Warner from raiding Diebold and ES&S or just buying them? Sequoia and Diebold are already global. Not sure about ES&S. Diebold's down in Brazil trying to sell their crapass, hackable machines to the Latin Americans. Sequoia ran Venezuela's elections. However, the Venezuelans are a bit smarter than we are. They insisted on OPEN SOURCE code! (Their elections are also very heavily monitored--by the Carter Center, the OAS and EU groups.)

We could end up with one big Borgian mega-corporation, owning all resources, controlling all news and opinion, sending its private US army and private US nuclear missiles anywhere its collective corporate brain needs to destroy local opposition, AND "counting" all the votes behind a veil of "privacy rights."

We're really not far from that now.

Back in the 70s, I read a 3-part article in the New Yorker about the corporate rulers' plan to assault and destroy the power of national governments, since national governments--especially those run by the people (democracies)--were the biggest threat to their power. The plan was to destroy our very sovereignty, to weaken national gov'ts in every way possible, and eventually to topple them, or simply take them over. That's what Bush's puppetmasters are doing, it seems to me, in every sphere. Discrediting and destroying government itself. Our elections are now disaster areas, rife with insecurity, machine "breakdowns," machine "malfunctions," corruption, incompetence, ignorance and secrecy. What better way to destroy the IDEA of the people's sovereignty than to make elections so uncertain and such a mess that nobody believes in democracy any more? They've sabotaged FEMA this way, and Medicare, and the EPA, and the US military. Not to mention Iraq (Rumsfeld's idea of a democracy--tribal warfare in which the corporations clean up) (freedom = the freedom to loot).

Well, there's four research items you may need:

1. California statute permitting "trade secret" vote counting by private corporations. (--legislative history, and if the statue is not specific, how the interpretation occurred).

2. Shelley's lawsuit against Diebold (--legal basis of demand to see their source code).

3. Three-part New Yorker article, circa 1970s, revealing corporate plan to destroy national government.

4. Jefferson's concerns about the power of corporations, and the arguments about how to curtail them. (How did he frame his expectation that the states would protect the people from corporations?)

Landshark, if you have any of these four already, let me know.

No back-ups: Ninth Circuit's "computer error"
"Clifford Johnson" <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>Sun, 18 Jun 89 11:14:21 PDT

After an oral hearing in the appeal of my old lawsuit (re launch
on warning and the question as to whether that capability
delegates a decision to declare war to the military and its
computers), I asked for a transcript of the hearing. I was told
over the phone that it had been located and would be transcribed,
but then received a form stating, without apology or explanation,
that it was "unavailable." I asked why this was the case, on the
phone to the clerk, and was transferred to someone who told me
that the transcript was not available due to "computer error."

She explained that only in the past few months (*"this year"*)
had the taping of hearings become the procedure, that my tape had
mysteriously disappeared ("probably someone with access didn't
want it published", she supposed), and that this loss had caused
the court (Ninth Circuit court of appeal, San Francisco) to
realise for the first time the need for back-up tapes.
Accordingly, procedures had been changed so that originals would
be kept securely henceforth, she stated, pleading that it was
ignorance of the new computer (tape-recorder = computer in
her books) technology that caused the problem.

However, there was no problem finding the tape of a hearing I had
in the same court some *three years* earlier.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.82.html

_______________________________

Interesting (and possibly relevant) site:

The Risks Digest
Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

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

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!

Here's the entire Risks Digest archives on electronic voting!

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/php/risks/search.php?query=electronic+voting

Looks like a gold mine!

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

I was looking for the 3-part New Yorker series on corporate plan to destroy national governments (didn't find it--I may have to purchase their archive DVD), and found Risks Digest instead (--don't ya love Google!), which covers everything from the risks of computers deciding to launch nukes (the subject of the circa 1989 lawsuit that involved 9th District backing up tapes of hearings), to e-voting and many other "risks." I'll roam through their articles on e-voting and see what's there.

Risks Digest: Volume 2: Issue 13
Thursday, 20 Feb 1986

Computerized voting
Matt Bishop <mab@riacs.ARPA>19 Feb 1986 0804-PST (Wednesday)

Unfortunately, I'm not in Massachusetts, so I won't be going to Ms.
Waskell's lecture on computerized voting. But ever since I heard about
the electronic tally board in some legislative house (I think the U.S.
House of Representatives), I've been interested in the safeguards.
The method used involved the legislators pushing one of two buttons at
their desk (one for "yea", the other for "nay"). Well, it seems that
some legislators pushed buttons for colleagues who were absent and who
did not know how they were "voting"!

Now, this story may be apocryphal (since I don't remember the
source, you might as well take it with a grain of salt) but it does
bring up a point I've not heard addressed. If you use an electronic
"ballot puncher" (as opposed to manually punching the cards then
counting them electronically) how can you ensure the ballot is punched
correctly?

So, my questions to this group: Anybody know if all electronic
voting schemes used at election time require manually punched ballots?
If not, what tests are the electronic "ballot punchers" subjected to
in order to test their reliability? (I gather there can be no precautions
against someone voting for someone else other than careful checks at
the precinct, by the precinct workers. Opposing comments welcome!)

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

Hey, Matt Bishop! You still around?

Some of the discussion in 1986 goes off on the side-bar of having receipts with e-voting (and protecting privacy of the vote), but doesn't recognize the inherent danger of internal, unseeable vote changes and tallies DIFFERING (fraudulently being programmed to differ) from the evidence of the e-voting receipts!

This guy gets it (on instrument flying):

Re: Replacing humans with computers
Alan M. Marcum, Consulting <sun!nescorna!marcum@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>Mon, 3 Mar 86 19:57:58 PST
In Risks-2.17, Nancy Leveson comments that

There are reports that commercial pilots are becoming so
complacent about automatic flight control systems that they are
averse to intervene when failures do occur and are not reacting
fast enough (because of the assumption that the computer must
be right).

While that may be true, one of the things I learned very early during
flight training (I have a private pilot's license with an instrument
rating) is to constantly cross-check indications or directives from an
autopilot, navigation system, or flight control system. If I have any
reason to suspect the autopilot or the navigation instruments (whether
it be a fault, or a low vacuum indication for vacuum-driven flight
instruments), I take corrective action. It's my life up there, and
those of my passengers.

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

So here we are--we, the people--looking at our faulty "instruments" (the e-voting "results) which say that George Bush was elected, and then we look out the window and can plainly see that a commercial airliner is on a collision course with us (George Bush, illegal war, torture, $10 trillion deficit). What do we believe? Our "instruments"? Or our own eyes?

Risks Digest: Volume 2: Issue 23
Thursday, 6 Mar 1986

Computerized voting
Peter G. Neumann <Neumann@SRI-CSL.ARPA>Thu 6 Mar 86 17:33:34-PST

This is not a VOTIVE message; I have broken my vow to remain silent while
watching the schemes for voting integrity get wilder and less controllable.
DEVOTED as I am, I can no longer keep silent. My main point here is that as
more complex mechanisms are added to control or audit the integrity of the
voting process, the more vulnerabilities are likely to be introduced, and
the less controllable the whole process is likely to be. Nancy Leveson
makes a similar point in her survey paper on software safety: as complexity
is added to control safety, the more things get out of hand. I am prompted
to drag out my old Albert Einstein quote -- for our newer readers:

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

There is intrinsic complexity in the voting process. A voting scheme with
no controls is easy to misuse. A voting scheme with many controls can also
be misused, but in different ways -- perhaps requiring greater subtlety.
Furthermore, such a computerized system must be used and administered by
ordinary mortals; however, elaborate procedures tend to break down or be
vulnerable. Furthermore, remember that many of the programs controlling
elections are written by just a few software houses. The potential for
Trojan-horsing around is enormous. A gifted system programmer can pull off
all sorts of things. We have already seen cases of data changed on the fly
in computer-counted ballots, even with consistency checks and audit trails
(which themselves can be fudged). One can dream up all sorts of checks and
balances -- formal verification of the algorithms, crypto seals on the
stored code for integrity, encryption schemes to detect added ballots, and
so on, but there are always points of vulnerability.

So, in the discussions here, please let us try to be realistic!

Peter

-----

Computerized voting
Jeff Mogul <mogul@su-shasta.arpa>5 Mar 1986 2307-PST (Wednesday)
From: <T3B%PSUVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Tom Benson)
Subject: Computerized Voting

After the election, a representative random sample of precinct boxes
would be counted by hand, and matched to the electronic tally, just to
audit accuracy.

I'm afraid of the seeming reasonableness of this "solution". If we are
using the audits to look for fraud in ballot-counting, then "who chooses the
`representative random sample'" becomes the interesting question; votes,
unlike decaying nuclei, are not uniformly distributed. People who tend to
vote for candidate X might live in certain precincts (i.e., black people);
might vote at certain times of day (9-to-5 working people); might vote by
absentee ballot (older people). If I had the ability to "cook" a voting
machine, I might just as easily have the opportunity to cook the "random
audit selector".

If we are using the audits to detect failures, rather than fraud, then we
must still check every machine and for all times of day, for the same
reason: to avoid disenfranchising a segment of the electorate, whether
inadvertently or intentionally. Every vote counts: recall the senatorial
race in NH decided by 1 or 2 votes a few years ago, or (closer to where I
now live) the East Palo Alto incorporation election, decided by 13 votes and
still being challenged in the courts.

Another thing: mikemcl@nrl-csr (Mike McLaughlin) suggests
The "receipt" would contain the date, time, machine number, serial
number of the vote, and name the candidates and issues for or
against whom/which I voted. It would NOT list my name.

No, but the poll watcher who saw you vote and wrote down the machine
number and time of day next to your name wouldn't have much trouble
matching the receipt, if you ever returned it.

I'm not saying that non-computerized systems are immune to error;
but be careful that a technology that appears value-neutral (such
as "representative random sampling") isn't ignoring political reality
or creative dishonesty.

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

Both articles above at: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/2.23.html#subj1.2

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

I realize I'm off on a tangent here--it's not the Constitutional question--but it's fascinating! Scientists back in 1986--20 years ago!--back when the Internet was still the "ARPAnet"!--seeing all the ways that computer voting can become tyranny--including the tyranny of sheer COMPLICATION, and the opportunities that that presents for things to "go wrong."

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

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." --Albert Einstein

"A voting scheme with no controls is easy to misuse. A voting scheme with many controls can also be misused..." --Peter G. Neumann (1986!)

"Remember that many of the programs controlling elections are written by just a few software houses. The potential for Trojan-horsing around is enormous. A gifted system programmer can pull off all sorts of things." --Peter G. Neumann (1986!)

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

Didn't find the New Yorker article on corporations destroying national governments yet, but DID find this:

Risks Digest: Volume 7: Issue 70
Thursday 3 November 1988

Annals of Democracy -- Counting Votes" in the New Yorker
Daniel B Dobkin <DAN%Irving@VX1.GBA.NYU.EDU>Thu 3 Nov 88 11:18:09-EDT

The current (7 November 88) issue of The New Yorker contains an article by
Ronnie Dugger on "Counting Votes" -- the spreading use of computerized vote
tabulation in jurisdictions around the country. It confirms what we all know,
or should know: the unprecedented potential for fraud, let alone the very real
possibilities for "computer error", make this a giant step backwards for
democracy and universal suffrage.

A number of the "experts" interviewed admitted that the potential for fraud --
or outright stealing the election -- exists, but brushed it off with a
perfunctory, "I don't know of any cases yet where that has happened." To my
mind, that is exactly the point: the fact that you don't know about it can just
as easily be cited to indicate that it HAS happened; after all, you aren't
SUPPOSED to know about it.

Other highlights of the article include interviews with Michael Shamos,
formerly of UniLogic (now Scribe Systems); and Peter Neumann, of SRI
International, the moderator of the RISKS digest.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7.70.html#subj6.1

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

Peter G. Neumann replies to the above, and doesn't seem to take such a dim view of e-voting as Ronnie Dugger did, and mentions some recommendations that COULD make e-voting more secure in the FUTURE--"(e.g., complete enchipment, no software , privacy, integrity, separation of duties, extensive redundancy and cross checking, reproducibility of results, physical and electronic isolation, procedural controls, ...)."

I don't know about "complete enchipment," but every one of these others have been violated, or never implemented.

However, Neumann (who runs the Risks Digest site) later wrote the following--in 2002:

With respect to those of you who voted last week using an all-electronic
voting machine, is there any meaningful assurance that the vote you cast
was correctly recorded -- that is, any assurance that there were no
misconfigured systems, accidents, internal fraud, etc.? For almost all of
the existing electronic systems (with the exception of one that actually
incorporates the Mercuri Mechanism -- namely, Avante), the answer is an
UNEQUIVOCAL NO. This is an untenable situation if you believe in election
integrity, IRRESPECTIVE of your party affiliations. PGN

Risks Digest: Volume 22: Issue 38
Weds 13 November 2002Volume 22: Issue 38
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.38.html#subj11.1

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

The Risks Digest archives on electronic voting show increasingly alarm over the years, from 1986 to the present, with the increasing failures of the electronic voting machines and ever more suspicious results. It includes wide-ranging articles, comments and info on this subject, mostly from experts--including items such as Ireland's rejection of electronic voting, and some comments on paper systems such as in Sweden (no glitches, no "breakdowns" of machines, no long lines, no ambiguity in the results, no fuss, no bother, no experts needed, no professionals at all involved, all volunteer citizens, all in total open view of anybody who wants to watch). (Sigh.) This resource is, as I said, a gold mine--for background on the insecurity of electronic voting, for case studies, and even for law citations. I found one for international law, as follows:

E-voting and international law
"Lucas B. Kruijswijk" <L.B.Kruijswijk@inter.NL.net>Mon, 3 Dec 2001 00:18:25 +0100

Risks Digest: Volume 21: Issue 81
Friday 7 December 2001
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.81.html#subj11.1

First of all, there is article 21.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights:

"The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government;
this shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be
by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by
equivalent free voting procedures."

But more precise and more important is article 25.b of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

"To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by
universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot,
guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors."

(snip)

The Human Rights Committee made comments on this article. The Committee is
allowed to make such comments under article 40 of the same Covenant. If a
State did also sign the first optional protocols, then individuals (and they
are admissible in this case) can ask the Committee for a judgment when
domestic remedies are exhausted. So, the Committee is the highest court.

On paragraph 20 of the comments, the Committee says:

"States should take measures to guarantee the requirement of the secrecy
of the vote during elections including absentee voting, where such a
system exists."



----

The writer, Lucas B. Kruijswijk, is writing about a Dutch proposal in '01 for "Voting Pillars" (randomly placed outdoors around cities), so his citations of international law have to do with the secret ballot and how to protect voters from undue influence of others. But these citations may be usable (or may point to other citations) for a tiered legal argument starting with the largest jurisdictions (and highest authority?)--the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Since our government recently exempted itself from the Geneva Conventions (and never joined the World Court), I'm not sure of technical legalities, but as moral authority and accepted principles of democracy, all over the world, these sources might be good ones. And, who knows, maybe this matter will end up before an international body?

all Courts. Disgusting that it was lost, but nevertheless a reasonable excuse. :grr:

conspiracy between them and the rich and powerful corporatocracy of our country to accumulate ever more wealth and power in their hands at the expense of everyone else:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Time%20for%20change/85

It scares me that the vital records function has been farmed out to corporations like
choice point in many states, well, the Republicans are always making the charge that the
dead are voting, well here's their chance. A click of a mouse can change a deceased citizen
into a virtual citizen, who can be registered in your party and vote the party ticket forever. Also the confidentiality area, the amended birth certificates for adoptions, the
cause of death for people with sexually transmitted diseases, suicides, etc. None of this
will be totally confidential once it is in the hands of a private corporation not the government.

repudiation of the very concept of privatised elections, in particular, Paul. Though there is something particularly odious and repugnant about the privatisation of the penal system.

Outsourcing of historically the very core functions of government, of governments in every country, is the road to ever more oppressively feudal corporatist anarchy. The madhouse beckons. The privatisation of elections is nothing less than surreal. Beyond Kafkaesque.

The sovereign need of State-run health care, amounts to a truism. It needs no advocacy, any more than the provision and protection of properly-paid jobs, the proper education of the young, but none so blind as those that will not see. Then again, this is a digression, and after so many years of corporatist grand larceny, it could extend for pages.

However, the bottom line is always that original sin leads to the cycle turning full circle once again, so that the inveterate recidivism of the far right recrudesces, prompting its adherents to plunder the social and physical infrastructure of the country, inevitably demeaning its status in the international community, into the bargain; irrespective of the fantasy world depicted by the corporate media and its sorry "beneficairies".

All politicians, including those on the left, essentially have a worldly intelligence, or they would not have been able to gain any political power. But once the salt has lost its savour, and those on the left begin to compromise, not because of realism but because of cynicism, it's all up with society once again, and they become tools of the straightforward psychos. I believe your country has not needed so badly someone such as John Kerry in a long time.

Sorry, Paul I got some way off your point. Its clarity and simplicity cannot be over-valued.

How do I adore you. . .let me count the ways."

Ooops but I'm as faulty as those damned machines.

Let's see if our combined efforts will make a difference.

I've been sayin' for years that it's all about the constitution and the rule of law, or the odious lack thereof.

It's nuts.

Great work and hope you made it home safe.

best,
stella

:thumbsup:

to be on the side of the good guys and not the darkside! :7

The turds get the public sector to invest billions and cronies of the Bush Crime Family cash in for pennies on the dollar. Brilliant criminal minds, theirs.

They can only be beaten by true genius and truth, like yours Land Shark. Thanks for the heads-up and a great post.

than we realize; for example the internet is largely handled through ICANN a private corporation set up with delegated powers. The government could never regulate content (think net neutrality) but "private" actors seemingly can. But if ICANN acts like the government agency it is, discriminators would have to live in fear.

K AND R.

Great argument.

Joe

is in keeping with their pattern of turning the American People from citizens of their own nation in to customers there by taking their power from them.

Kicked too late to recommend



:kick:

The only way they are in power today is by sucking our ballots.

Constitution? The constitution is their greatest enemy. And the people's greatest friend. I say we cram the paper it is written on down their throats, making them spit out our ballots.

I say give them constitutional cramps. Let the Land Sharks loose!

:kick: