etp

Kevin Collins has responded to the Four Ballot Privacy Concerns that I raised previously. Kevin humbly describes himself as "volunteer, humboldt county election transparency project", but I prefer to think of him as the inventor of the idea of the Election Transparency Project. I believe it was Kevin who originally conceived of publishing digital images of every voted ballot. Eventually, other volunteers such as myself (and far more significantly Mitch Trachtenberg) assisted Kevin and Registrar Carolyn Crnich with the technical implementation of the idea.

I apologize to Kevin for taking so long to respond to his comments. On Tuesday, Kevin jokingly said that by delaying in writing a response I was "controlling the flow of information", a charge I have occasionally levelled at Registrar Crnich. However, for me to present Kevin's comments here without my own response might create the impression that I considered Kevin to have successfully laid my concerns to rest.

First, Kevin's comments in exactly the format he provided them.

At the California Secretary of State's public hearing regarding the possible decertification of GEMS 1.18.19 related to the Deck Zero covert deletion of 197 ballots in the November election, the audit log's magical "clear" button, and the GEMS's audit logs failing to show when ballots were manually deleted by the operator, Diebold/Premier representatives tried to shift blame for the 197 deleted ballots onto Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich.

Crnich responded, "If you're saying that your system needs to be checked every damn time we turn it on, I agree with you."

Crnich's use of an expletive seems to have pushed Diebold/Premier's legal counsel over the edge, causing them to reach for and firmly press the "nuke" button.

Early this morning, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisor's approved Registrar Crnich's voting modernization plan, phase II. I had hoped to speak before the board, but the item was moved from dead last on the agenda to dead first. I therefore arrived minutes after the item had been approved. Below are the comments I had prepared.

Four Ballot Privacy Concerns
Related to the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project
by M. Parke Bostrom, 2009.03.22, http://parke.dreamhosters.com/s9y/a/2

Overview

This article introduces and discusses four ballot privacy concerns related to the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project. The article does not attempt to establish the significance of any of these concerns; it merely recognizes their existence.

Dear Editor,

Your January 11th article ( "Elections staff looks to dump equipment") contains misleading quotes by David Cobb.

Quote: "The switch from one system to another is really mandated by the federal government's Help America Vote Act."

Fact: The purchase in 2006 of accessible voting equipment was required. The currently planned purchase of replacement equipment is not required, nor is there a mandated deadline for implementation.

Quote: "A couple of people who were on the committee who basically failed to show up at these meetings are now crying foul two years later when these things are going to be implemented... this doesn't sound like a bad process, it sounds like a couple people who failed to take advantage of their seat at the table are now crying foul."

Fact: The "Humboldt Election Advisory Committee" has no charter, no rules, no by-laws, no fixed membership, reports to no one, does not know what constitutes a quorum, does not publish minutes, and does not keep written records of its proceedings. Crying foul when there are no rules is obviously a logical impossibility.

Fact: A month before implementation of the currently proposed plan, Registrar Carolyn Crnich asked several "committee" members to keep the plan secret, presumably from other "committee" members.

It is clear to me that the "Humboldt Election Advisory Committee" in its current form fails to deliver the transparency and integrity we expect in our elections.

Sincerely,

M. Parke Bostrom