Rebecca Mercuri PHD, computerized voting.

Testimony by Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.
Presented to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science
Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, & Standards
Tuesday, May 22, 2001, Room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building

http://www.house.gov/science/full/may22/mercuri.htm


Rebeccas company website:

http://www.notablesoftware.com/







http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-75.htm


Rebecca Mercuri
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Rebecca Mercuri is among the foremost experts on electronic voting. She has been interested in electronic voting since 1989. She is presently a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study where her research focuses on transparency and trust issues in computational systems.

She is well known for having popularized the idea of using voter-verified paper ballots (often referred to as the "Mercuri method"), whereby an electronic voting machine prints a paper ballot for the voter to verify and deposit in order to cast their vote.

Mercuri put up a web site when she noticed the 2000 Presidential election falling into confusion, and within 15 minutes had a call from the Associated Press - who had found her materials. She submitted testimony in Bush v. Gore that was subsequently referenced in the briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court, and has since testified before the U.S. House Science Committee, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, the U.K. Cabinet, and numerous other federal and state legislative bodies about voting systems.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Mercuri

at the University of Arizona:

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/colloq/abstracts.04-05/Mercuri.html

Testimony at EAC in 2005:

http://www.wheresthepaper.org/VVSGComment.pdf



http://www.brynmawr.edu/sandt/2001_october/scientists.html

:loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya:

Now enough of this groupie stuff and back to election reform!

Dr. Mercuri summed it up best in her note to Bev:


Your opposition statement to Rush Holt' bill is completely deluded. I'm fairly convinced that you've never read his bill, based on the numerous erroneous remarks that you made. You really need to spend some time with it.

Is that really a note she composed to Harris? What is your proof?

Thank you.

it was on Bev Harris website, and appears that was emailed to Bev, and then
apparently posted in Bev's forum.

So if it is not a legitimate quote, then it would be something done
at Bev Harris organization.

*frankly, it does sound to me like something Dr. Mercuri would say,
and I have spoken with her several times before.

additionally, Dr. Mercuri testified to NC state legislature, and she got
feisty when Doug Chapin of ElectionLine.org tried to palm off some
BS as fact.

So, sometimes Dr. Mercuri will be blunt.

I had vomit in the back of my mouth in having to go to Bev Harris website to
show you where I got this, but maybe if I breath slowly, I can keep from puking.

Go to this link, and scroll down about 3/5 of the way down the page
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/23277.html?1144832267


Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 - 12:32 am:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Rebecca Mercuri:

Bev --

Your opposition statement to Rush Holt' bill is completely deluded. I'm fairly convinced that you've never read his bill, based on the numerous erroneous remarks that you made. You really need to spend some time with it.

Here's a link to Rush's webpage:
http://www.holt.house.gov/display2.cfm?id=1086&type=Legislation
Type in H.R. 550 in the "look up current legislation" box.

By the way, I'm not attacking you "from within the movement" since, as you well know, I never was "in the movement." Nevertheless, you have a serious misunderstanding about what the bill is, what it intends to do, and why it is important. So I hope you'll take the time to entirely read Rush's bill, and also hope you can consider issuing a retraction. If, after reading the bill, you would like to discuss your position on it with me, feel free to give me a call.

In the meanwhile, I would urge the others cc'd on this note to stop circulating Bev's misinformation and also take the time to thoroughly read Rush's bill, so that you too can understand why it is a valuable legislative effort in many respects.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Mercuri

I have spoken to her personally and can tell you she is now friend of Bev's and her deluded ranting. She has been the target of Bev's smears in the past, along with just about every other anti-BBV academic.

In Bev-World, anyone who disagrees with her is working for Diebold.

She should have known better than to assume that we at BBV.org would go on record with our reservations to this bill without reading it. Sleazy move on her part.

I also noticed that Bev didn't resort to calling Congressman Holt "deluded" for his stance on 2% 'audits' even though they're quite inadequate.

but you obviously didn't comprehend it.

:)

a vote on a piece of paper that is then optically scanned. Here in my state we use a machine called a 'pen' to mark a piece of paper. We then visually ascertain that we didn't fuck it up too bad and walk it over to a ballot box, which is also an optical scanner. The only fraud at the precinct level is if they jig the scanner, but that should be easy to verify. Of course this all goes to the central tabulator where who knows what happens, but at least we have the paper ballots to redo the whole thing. The cost of each voting booth is, by my guess, $50 tops. I'm guessing that ridiculous machine shown there is about 5-10,000 per voting booth. It provides no perceived benefit other than the graft that is going to the vendors of these devices.

Your comment was right on the money and is not indicative of stupidity. The entire election in the United Kingdom is done on pen and paper, is completely verifiable and it workes perfectly at a cost per citizen of about maybe $0.21 for the pencils and paper :)

in some major jurisdictions. This is part of a new pilot scheme to test electronic counting methods in the UK. 16 councils are taking part. ES&S has opened an office here and is refusing to answer any questions about how their systems work. :grr:

I know the answer... rhetorical question and all that... :wtf:

elections in the UK. Sequoia's touchscreens were tried out in 2003.

Then and now Diebold has been excluded, largely due to the evidence of their gaping security flaws. (Perhaps my report on Diebold's security for Britain's Channel 4 News may have helped a bit there ;) )

Trouble is most journalists here don't know the right questions to ask the councils or the vendors (supposing ES&S would answer any).

please ask ES&S these questions, and the answer is in their manuals -

(excuse my lack of info on DRE/touchscreens)

regarding the ES&S M100 Precinct Based Optical Scanners -

1. Do they have an optional wireless networking modem for transmitting results?
Answer is yes.
See spec sheet -
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ES_SiVotronicSlick.pdf

Here are some specs on the M100 (like size of processor, memory amount etc)
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ES_SM100_specs.pdf

2. Does the iVotronic have a sensor eye that can be accessed by remote?

3. Do the central tabulator or the Unity Software have an option that allows
the Election Director or other designated person to erase the audit log?

4. Where does ES&S get the memory cards for the optical scan and iVotronic?

5. Have they improved the failure rate, which was 30%, then 10 and other in Ohio?

6. Have they been sued by Indiana, or threatened with lawsuit by Indiana.
Were they forced to post approx $10 Million in bond in order to continue doing
business in Indiana?

7. Was ES&S caught installing uncertified software in Indiana.

(Lots about ES&S and Indiana at www.wishtv.com )


Here is the NC price list for ES&S
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/ess_equipmentpricing.pdf

I'm certainly trying to get some ciivilised communication from ES&S but their policy is clearly to stonewall and juggernaut ahead in spite of the needs of journalists, voters or counties that pay them.

I actually have the broadcast footage of all the Wish TV reports, and I think there's alot more to come from those good reporters in Indiana. Curiously ES&S's CEO Ken Carbullido was being cross examined and called a liar by Indiana's Board Of Elections on exactly the same day (21st April 2004) as the CA Voting Systems Panel was cross examining Bob Urosevich in Sacramento.

but the additional manpower needed to get it to the precinct and the additional storage space needed to keep it when it is not in service.

My problem with the pen and paper method is counting and illegible write-ins. The Optical scanners can be programmed to switch every 10th vote. As we have seen in Ohio, by the time we find out that the vote was not properly counted, the loser has been installed as President and the info is hushed up.

Someone here on DU once suggest that we have a weighted coin to put in the correct box and at the end of the day, we weigh the vote. It is as good a method as any if there is only one contest.

I think we need a dual electronic system with human verification. First, touch screen which prints out the voted ballot, then verify the ballot through an optical scanner. There are multiple touch screens, but only one scanner. At the end of the day, the optical scanner tally must equal the sum of the touch screen talleys both of which must equal the number of people who voted (minus spoiled ballots). The results for each precinct is posted on the doors of that precinct. The same numbers are available on the website of the county electoral board. For ten days after the election, the ballots are counted by human for randomly selected precincts and must match or explain the differences before the results are certified.

I'm saying that those ridiculous electronic systems are not only ripe for fraud, but hugely expensive and provide zero benefit to anyone except the vendors and the politicians cutting the deals.

Her method was in response to the electronic machines with no independent verification at all. And they are more of them out there than ever before now. Bev Harris, and most of the rest of us, are Johnny-come-latlies compared to Rebecca Mercuri. She, Doug Jones and a few others have been working on this since the '90s!

of why we are getting stuck with this crap to begin with. What problem are these machines solving, and if they don't solve it, why are taxpayers being conned into buying them?

Nobody seems to be even asking why we are switching.

Rebecca Mercuri identified electronic voting as a problem pretty much as soon as it started to be discussed, and hasn't let up since . . . she's one of the real experts in the field . . .

I guess one has to specialize, despite being on the wrong side of what's best for society.

That would be the coolest!

Why have I not seen her all over the news explaining this to everyone ?

Oh, I forgot ~ they control the media.

Wow that must have been some search engine registration software she was using. :eyes:

Maybe these days with RSS and digg and such, but... in 2000? I kinda doubt that.

I am just thrilled to hear about ANYBODY that may get us to the promise land of EVERY VOTE COUNTS.

And she is fearless. Or near it.

here at DU and we don't know it.)

And before that, OMG, language!

I wonder what reporters did before there was an internet? Maybe they sat in their cubicles and used.... Telepathy?

"Ommmmmmm......ommmmmmmm......Mercuri has put up a website. Fire up the computer!"

"Yes Sir!"

:eyes: