County Board Will Vote On The 20th

After a lengthy meeting featuring a Diebold TSX demonstration, citizen statements, an extremely disappointing presentation by State Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy, and supervisor questions, the county board voted to bring the resolution to approve acceptance of a grant to purchase new voting machines up for a vote at the June 20th meeting.

None of the people with disabilities who attended the meeting and tried the Diebold machine appeared to be all that thrilled with it. One man expressed concern about the quality of the audio, another said he had trouble voting straight ticket, another said the quality of the machine was less important than the fact that people with disabilities had not been involved meaningfully in any part of the selection process to this point.

Many citizens spoke, almost all of them in opposition to the Diebold TSX. Kathleen Propp told the board that the League of Women Voters stands in opposition to the Diebold touch screen. John Lemberger said that the board had reached a "fork in the road" with one way leading to what is legally correct, the other leading to what is morally correct. He argued that rejecting an unreliable machine was the morally correct thing to do. Ann Frisch called for a citizens' commission empowered to explore methods of ensuring accessibility and to make recommendations, and she also laid out some of the costs involved with the Diebold TSX. Ron Hardy talked about Diebold and the outsourcing of our elections. Several speakers discussed the lack of trust in the Diebold TSX even if the security of the machine was less of a concern. Others said that the county needed to take time to make the right decision by investigating all the approved machines, and to have a real public hearing at which an independent security expert would be invited to speak. Several city and town clerks spoke, and their interest appeared to be mostly in efficiency and compatibility issues more than anything else. Indeed, citizen Drew Mueske followed the clerks and reminded everyone that the issue is access for people with disabilities, not efficiency and compatibility. UW Oshkosh computer scientist Bruce Hungerford explained some of the technical issues involved with vote hacking. Dianna Smith was there to represent Vote-PAD, but was not allowed to demonstrate the equipment.

By far the most disappointing part of the evening was the presentation by State Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy. Sounding more like a Diebold spokesman than an objective state employee, he shamelessly minimized all the alleged security problems of the TSX as being "academic." He insisted that all the potential problems with the machine can be taken care of by poll workers following the SEB's security recommendations. Most appalling, he accused elections officials around the country who have done their own independent testing of the machines of "breaking the law." He did not mention their names, but he was clearly talking about Bruce Funk of Utah and Ion Sancho of Florida, election officials of the highest integrity who not only did not break the law, but were fired (in the case of Funk) and harassed (in the case of Sancho) merely for trying to uphold the integrity of elections in their counties. These "election whistleblowers" are heroes in the best sense.

It was difficult to tell what impact Mr. Kennedy's dissembling, obfuscation, and smoke and mirrors was having on the board. Some seem to want to "wash their hands" of the situation and simply drop everything on the laps of the clerks. Kennedy's presentation and responses to questions strongly implied that that is what they should do.

The most responsible action for the board to take on Tuesday would be the following: delay the vote again, establish a real public hearing with demonstrations of all SEB approved machines (a computer security expert should be invited to the hearing), and solicit a recommendation from local disability rights activists. Only if it follows this or a similar procedure can the board say that it acted conscientiously on this issue of vital importance to the integrity of our democracy.