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The government vs. the people

The beginning

April 6, 2006, at a public hearing - The Boulder County clerk and her hand-picked disability advisor “bad-mouthed” technical people in general and the ADA compliant and federally certified AutoMark paper ballot system in particular.  The clerk and staff played deceitful games with the truth and displayed their ignorance of the law and the fundamental requirements for trustworthy elections. 

The middle

The public overwhelmingly objected to invisible digital ballots, as they have done for several years.  Despite unreasonable three-minute sound bite restrictions, and without being permitted to read the proposal, members of the public: (1) challenged mistruths, (2) suggested alternatives, and (3) explained why the HART proposal should be rejected.

The End

The clerk followed the lead of the vendor.  The commissioners followed the lead of the clerk. 

The county attorney injected fear, uncertainty and doubt into the proceedings.  The commissioners displayed a lack of innovative skills, lack of leadership, and lack of courage.  Each positioned themselves to avoid future accountability. 

Finally, commissioners voted to sweeten and then accept the outrageous HART proposal to lease about 200 eSlate DRE voting machines for about the same price as a purchase.

Epilog

April 7, 2006 - A HAVA Complaint was filed with the Colorado Secretary of State alleging that the HART eSlate was wrongfully certified for use in Colorado.  It fails to provide anonymous voting and blind voters cannot verify their votes on the printed ballot.

CAMBER continued its plea that commissioners reject the HART proposal and provide disabled voters with special absentee ballot assistance up to the point of providing the ballot to the voter and after the voter has cast their ballot.  Otherwise, proceed prudently: 
 

• Negotiate a “purchase with sellback option”.  Keep control of the transaction.
   

• Limit the purchase to about 6-units for use at early voting locations only.  Argue that to do otherwise would recklessly place the 2006 elections at risk.
   

• Do not base the 2006 election results on the unverified digital ballots produced by the eSlate.  Count the paper votes, only, not the unverified bar codes.

A copy of the video recording of the public hearing has been requested.

CAMBER is a dedicated group of volunteers who are working to ensure that
every voter gets to vote once, every vote is counted once, and that every ballot is secure and anonymous.
Contact Al Kolwicz at 303-494-1540 or AlKolwicz@qwest.net