Resolution Banning Privatized Voting

I’ve had people ask “what’s Deborah Bowen’s position on this?” She’s taking enough heat right now for decertifying electronic voting machines, I don’t think she CAN take a position on this right now.

I can tell you that Bev Harris (blackboxvoting.org) and Brad Friedman (Brad Blog) have told me this is a good resolution. In fact, Brad made some suggestions that I included.

This is a grassroots resolution that “we the people” need to bring to the attention of our State, County and local Democratic clubs and officials. Indeed, it should be a non-partisan issue for ALL political parties.

Stevan Thomas

2007-11-12 Modified Resolution Banning Privatized Voting

Whereas the integrity of the vote is essential for the continuance of democracy:

Whereas the vote is the cornerstone of the control that “we the people” have over our government and is an essential part of our commons:

Be it resolved that no part of the control of our voting process or systems be privatized to any corporation or other private entity and that all essential systems stay wholly within the control and oversight of the citizens of the State. Any purchase from vendors of equipment and/or open source software shall be allowed only if such technology is transparent and subject to control and oversight by the State, and shall have no proprietary or trade secret technology.

Be it further resolved that a durable paper ballot, constituting a legal document, shall be created by each voter, counted as cast and be securely maintained for recounting or audit for at least two years if requested by any candidate or political party, or until any dispute is legitimately settled.

This resolution has been voted upon and approved by the Shasta County Central Committee approximately August 2007.

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Below is a resolution passed by the Eboard on July 15, 2007 in Sacramento. It only requires open source technology and may allow corporations to still have control of parts of the voting process.

Supporting Open Source Software for Electronic Voting Machines -- Resolution Number SAC07.12

WHEREAS, public confidence in the integrity of the election system in the United States is declining; and voting machines and the computers that add vote totals are being run with computer programs or software that can substantially change vote totals in subtle ways that are difficult to detect; and

WHEREAS, we the people have the right to know exactly how votes are processed, to have transparent elections, and to have computer scientists analyze open source code for malicious code which could be used to manipulate elections; and

WHEREAS, proprietary computer software denies us this right to know, inner workings of the computerized vote counting hardware are secret;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party calls upon the California Secretary of State, and all California state legislators to support, pass, and implement legislation requiring that all technology used in processing our votes shall be publicly disclosed; and that such technology shall end secrecy in vote tabulation, produce a paper ballot as the official record of the vote, be scientifically verifiable, multi-lingual, and handicapped-accessible, and be designed to accommodate non-traditional voting schemata when required by county registrars; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that copies of this resolution should be distributed to the California Democratic State and Federal delegation as well as the State's Democratic State Constitutional Officers.

Drafted by Thomas Gangale

Chair, Issues and Legislation Committee, Sonoma County Democratic Party

Adopted by the Executive Board
Of the California Democratic Party
At Its Executive Board Meeting
Radisson Hotel, Sacramento
July 15, 2007

-- Raymond Lutz - 09 Nov 2007