Reports: Nat. Assn. of Secretaries of State (NASS) Conference in MN

As many of you DUers in the ERD forum know, I was in St. Paul MN last weekend, attending the NASS (National Association of Secretaries of State) Summer Conference. I was part of a team representing Vote Trust USA; there were four of us including Joan Krawitz (DU’s own hedda_foil) Warren Stewart, Mark Halvorson, and me; and Pam Smith also worked with us representing Verified Voting. (This is my own report; Warren's official report to follow.)

We ran into representatives from other voting rights and election reform groups who also came to the Conference, including Common Cause, Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights, Demos, and of course (as Kathy has already posted) US Count Votes.

The NASS Conference was a fascinating experience. It’s important to remember that NASS is a private organization, and as such, the NASS Conference is a private event and not a public hearing. We were at all times guests, and we were first and foremost there to learn, while making contact with the Secretaries, their staffs, and yes, even the vendors. Our goal at NASS was to be seen as civil, non-confrontational citizens who know and care a lot about voting, and to lay groundwork for being viewed as people and organizations that might become trusted resources for possible future information and guidance, rather than to be adversaries.

The NASS Conference sessions were very educational. I learned more about HAVA, the EAC, and how to conduct elections and recounts than I could ever have imagined! It should be noted that many state and federal officials seem to be just as concerned and confused by HAVA as we are. HAVA is not an easy piece of legislation to comply with because it is so complex and in many areas of the law there is no precedent as to how to interpret it.

We had hoped that the Secretaries might adopt a resolution supporting Voter-Verified Paper Ballots during one of their meetings. That did not come about, but as I already mentioned to Bernie in one of my posts from the Conference, the word I heard was that VVPB is becoming more and more of an expected thing; that is many of the states seem to believe that it will eventually be required and VVPB will be the norm. (We all need to keep working though!)

There was an impressive trade fair at the conference featuring the wares of various vendors such as Diebold, ES&S (and they were actually featuring the AutoMARK!), Sequoia, VoteHere, Hart/Intercivic, and AccuPoll; database management from Accenture, electronic pollbooks, website management solutions, Santa Fe NM (home of the 2006 NASS summer conference), and more. The trade fair was actually a good, “hands-on” opportunity for us to become better educated about voting machines and voting systems. It really does help to see these things first-hand.

During the Conference, we had to be ready to respectfully discuss our point of view regarding transparent, auditable voting systems at any time and with all sorts of knowledgeable people. For example, Sunday evening I found myself seated at a formal dinner with three sitting Secretaries of State and one former one. I was very honored when during the conversation about precinct-count optical scan (yes, that’s what the topic turned to in the course of the meal) I made a comment and one of them said, “wow, this lady really knows HAVA!”

One thing that I came away with is that even though we may not always agree with their methods or with their results, most of the Secretaries of State (of all political parties) seem to genuinely care about voting and about people’s right to vote. I could also see that their job is an incredibly complex one. Something that I personally enjoyed about the NASS Conference was that it was very non-partisan in tone (though some of the more famous “partisan” SOSs, like Blackwell, did not attend.) There are Secretaries of State from both major parties, and the Secretaries are charged with conducting elections for all people of all political leanings.

That said, most partisan event was the Keynote speech by author John Fund. He spared little, even bringing up “wide eyed” conspiracy theorists who claim votes were stolen (and, of course, the usual “voter” fraud!) Grrr!

I was quickly asked by my compatriots at NASS to post to DU for help and research so we could debunk the speech; if you look at my original post on that thread you will get some idea of what we were up against! Thank you again to all you terrific DU ers who helped out so quickly with the fast and fabulous research. We had a little war room going for awhile, with three of us pounding away on our computers collecting all your finds. You folks will never know how much it meant to be able to have so much good material available so quickly; it helped us to be ready and able to counter the Fund speech in any conversation. THANK YOU!

For those of you who didn’t see the thread, it is here (and it’s a fine resource!):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=385387&mesg_id=385387


Marybeth Kuznik

I've been waiting for this. Thanks to all of you for being "on the ground" where the action is.

:yourock:

On that score, did you folks distill on paper anything from the massive amount of links that we sent you last weekend or just use the information in conversations with SOSs? If you produced any handouts, etc., please post those also.

Thanks kindly to all of you. It was good to be able to help in some small way the non-"wild-eyed" voting rights activists at the NASS conference.

...but it was still SO very beneficial to have all that info at our fingertips like that! I was able to stuff laptop into my bag and refer to it from time to time, and even jump on DU and check things (they had pretty good wireless in the meeting rooms.)

We did already have the good written handouts from Vote Trust USA, VotersUnite, Verified Voting, etc. available to give to the SOSs. There were tables where information could be left also. I personally came home with a whole bag full of great reading material!

Now I just have to get time to read it all... ;-)

This one's from Warren Stewart of VoteTrustUSA.

VoteTrustUSA had four representatives at the NASS conference (Joan Krawitz, Mark Halverson, Marybeth Kuznik, and me). Our understanding of the conference was that it was a conference arranged by NASS for the benefit of NASS membership, i.e. the Secretaries of State and their staffs, and as such panels and sessions were prepared to provide NASS membership with information and reports that would be useful for them in doing their jobs as well as social opportunities for members to interact.

This was not a public hearing or a forum. This understanding informed the objectives of VoteTrustUSA's participation. Our goal was first of all to listen and learn - to develop our understanding of the attitudes and points of view of the various decision-makers present and the organization as a whole. Secondarily, we intended to develop ongoing relationships with as many of the attendees as possible and establish VoteTrustUSA as a resource of well-researched information and representative of well-informed constituent concern and interest in the process of election administration. Pam Smith of Verified Voting shared these goals and was invaluable as a colleague in pursuing them.

Several of us noted that it was wonderful and somewhat remarkable that the conference is entirely open to the public - a professional organization like this would be perfectly justified in restricting attendance to members. This was a conference arranged to provide information and an opportunity for dialogue among a very select group of people - those few individuals who find themselves to be Secretaries of State. We are fortunate that they continue to allow open registration for these conferences - anyone can come and participate - and of course anyone can come and try to sell their voting and database equipment. Vendors with displays were ES&S (emphasizing AutoMARK), Diebold, Sequoia, AccuPoll and VoteHere. There were other database management services that had displays, along with the US Census Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce of Santa Fe (where next summer's conference will be held).

The panels were consistently informative, providing an insight into the concerns of state election administrators from a variety of viewpoints. Much of the discussion was very practical - details of HAVA requirements and reporting, how to avoid litigation - essentially how to follow the often confusing and frustrating legislation that is HAVA. There were several meetings that were restricted to Secretaries of state only. The nature of NASS, in which there are always Democrats and Republicans as members, meant that everything was refreshingly non-partisan, although some of the speakers (in particular John Fund) presented points of view that were clearly associated with one ideology or another.

One of the primary reasons for VoteTrustUSA to participate in events like this one is to allow highly informed constituent concern about the accuracy and security of voting systems to be part of the process - so that, in this case, Secretaries of State to some extent had the chance to hear rational, reasonable arguments for VVPB, audits, open source, etc. from people with whom they had a chance to develop some level of trust. The election reform community is easily dismissed (and was on several occasions, particularly by John Fund) as wide-eyed conspiracy theorists that are uninformed about the process of election administration and the details of State and Federal legislation. This characterization is often based on personal experience with passionate and dedicated activists who they feel have attacked their personal and professional integrity and accused them of participating, with election machine vendors, in a vote fraud conspiracy. As a result, even the most honest of officials often automatically become defensive, self-protective, and non-communicative - which is a major obstacle to progress for our cause. While we all know this of course, it became even clearer to all of us over the course of the weekend. We have begun the process of changing that perception, one Secretary of State at a time, but it can't all be done in one pass.

Vendor salesmen and advocates of paperless DREs have been attending such conferences for years, schmoozing, making friends, building relationships, honing their messages and making their arguments. They're pros - they don't interfere with the official proceedings but rather integrate with the process.

Each of us had numerous conversations with not only Secretaries of State and their staff, but with EAC members, many State Election Directors, vendor representatives, and other advocates present. We most certainly didn't radically alter the course of the discussion about electronic voting in the United States, but we did begin to develop a credible presence. I spoke to at least a dozen SoS, some of whom already 'get it' reinforcing their commitment to VVPB. I learned a lot from those who are sympathetic with our concerns about how to approach the others. I learned that drawing attention to states that are doing the right thing from our perspective might be just as valuable as pointing out where things are a mess.

We all agreed that it was exhausting - one had the sense of always being 'on duty' - always ready to discuss our concerns about auditability and transparency even in a social context. It was also fun - the organizers went to a lot of trouble to make sure everyone had a good time and we all had various meals with various elected officials. Developing a non-threatening comfort level with these people is a very important part of getting our message through. Elected officials are very understandably defensive about a movement that seems to be intent on ruining their lives and indiscriminately painting all election administrators as corrupt. Some undoubtedly are - many are not. Accepting each as individuals and engaging them in sympathetic dialogue will make them more likely to offer us the same respect.

All of them. The juries can decide which ones were involved and which ones weren't.