Mission of Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections, COVE: To restore public
ownership and oversight of elections, as per the Arizona constitution; to
protect the “purity of elections”, “run by the people”. This will ensure the fundamental right
of every American citizen to vote, and to have each vote counted as intended in
a secure, transparent, impartial, and independently verifiable audited election
process.
Chair of
PCBOS Sharon Bronson
130 W.
Congress, 11th Floor, Tucson, AZ 85701
Pima County
Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez
OPEN
LETTER
240 N. Stone
Avenue, Tucson AZ 85701
Brad Nelson,
(CERA) Elections Director
6550 S.
Country Club Road, Tucson, AZ 85756
Monday, October 04, 2015
Dear Honorable Sharon Bronson, Chair PCBOS, County
Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez and Election Director Brad Nelson:
We are pleased to announce that we have formed a coalition called “COVE” which stands for Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections. At this point in time we have three
committees members which are Gini Crawford, Chair of the “Taxpayers Against Pima Bonds, John Kromko Chair of “Tucson Traffic
Justice” and
Ignacio Gomez, Chair of the “No on the Sunnyside Override”. We also expect to have several of the four certified
legit non-partisan candidates from Oro Valley's recall joining COVE and naming our
observers. We expect our observers
to have the same rights and respect that you give the two political party
observers. As you know most of the
candidates and issues on the ballot are non-partisan.
Our members are invoking their rights as “a political committee” and/or “nonpartisan” under ARS 16-621
Proceedings at the counting center, “Excerpt from section A”. …and shall be
conducted in accordance with the approved instructions and procedures manual
provided for in section 16-452 under the observation of representatives of each
political party and the public. The proceedings at the counting center may also
be observed by up to three additional people representing a candidate for
nonpartisan office, or representing a political committee in support of or in
opposition to a ballot measure, proposition or question….”
Here’s
a link to the history of what happened in that case back in the 2006 RTA Bond
Election titled “Elections
remain compromised” which cost taxpayers several million dollars in
litigation and left the voters wondering if their vote “really counts”. The only
solution is to have a verifiable election.
“There is nothing in state law to prelude the County from doing a
voluntary hand count”. Tom Ryan, Chair Pima Co. Election
Integrity Commission.
The big problem we see where the ballots
could be gamed with impunity is in the Vote by Mail (VBM) in the November
General Election which is about 80% of the votes. VBM ballots are not sorted by precinct except inside
the central 'hackable' tabulator that could easily be preprogrammed only hack
ballot batches over a certain size, thus avoiding the random testing done by
audit batches pulled for hand counting. That's why the Volkswagen case is so
meaningful to elections transparency activists, WV rigged the testing. “…the cheating was preprogrammed into
the algorithm that controlled the car’s emissions. Computers allow people to cheat in ways that are new. Because the cheating is encapsulated in
software, the malicious actions can happen, far removed from the testing
itself. Because the software is
"smart" in ways that normal objects are not, the cheating can be
subtler and harder to detect.”
“That's why we must have software verification
with two parts: Transparency and Oversight” which as we know in Arizona, neither exist.
“Transparency means making the source code available for analysis. The need for
this is obvious. It's much easier
to hide cheating software in the manufacturer's code. Cheating on regulatory
testing has a long history in corporate America.” By CNN Bruce Schneier: "VW
scandal could just be the beginning”.
According to AUDIT-AZ longtime attorney and friend Bill Risner: “Every
study of the security of computer voting systems has identified insiders such
as company employees and or vendors and election department employees as the
primary security risks. These same
vendors when having their software certified, instructed the test labs
"NOT" to check the software for security.” Video Bill
Risner in Court:
The solution is simple: Pima County’s new ES&S
central count scanners, the EVS 5200 makes a digital image of both sides of each
ballot. These digital ballots have a bar code and precinct number that can be
sorted by precincts and counted. We know of several companies that have
software that can sort and read the digital images that work in elections. However,
the gold standard is hand marked paper ballots that are hand counted. We recommend printing and counting the
digital VBM ballots and then taking a "statistically assured" random
group verification to the original ballots that are stored in numbered batches.
Here’s a short video depicting digital ballots from Dane County in Wisconsin,
where they used an older version of the EVS 5200 called the DS200 as a way to verify voting machines output with
digitally imaged ballots as shown.
Again by utilizing the existing election
laws: “ARS Title 16 – Elections
and Electors", the Arizona Secretary of State Election Procedures Manual
Revised 2014, to download
the entire manual here, or link it to specific pdf pages below in this
manual. As political party,
candidates, and as electors, we invoke our rights to the following positions,
and request that the named party oversight designates be given prior
significant constructive notice in writing & verbally, to invoke oversight,
before these boards meet.
Each of these boards shall consist of at least two members, and shall be
registered voters of the parties on the ballots cast. Each board’s responsibilities shall be as
provided in SOS manual:
• &
Citizens Observers
*
snag board
• L
& A testing
*
duplication board
• receiving
board
* inspection board
• write-in
board
*
accuracy certification board
• data
processing board
* audit
board
The Persons noted below are designated as Observers for the counting of
the early ballots, the General Elections ballots of November, and until all
votes are counted. Also,
these persons have authority under ARS 16-571 to visit precincts.
Mickey Duniho, John R Brakey, Ally Miller,
Richard Hernandez, Sergio Arellano-Oros, Paul Hilts, Jonathan Salvatierra, and
others, to be trained and named later.
The first Chairman of the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the
Rev. DeForest Soaries, appointed by George W. Bush as the first chair of the
commission created by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA), otherwise known
as the “Hack America Vote Act”, in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election
Debacle, stated in Oct of 2006: "We know more today about how to build
a machine to take pictures of rocks on Mars than we know about how to build a
machine to safeguard the American right to vote.” Read what else Rev. DeForest Soaries has to
say.
Today, thanks to the work of election transparency activists, scientists
& statisticians, Secretary of State Debra Bowen of California, in 2006
called for: Top
to Bottom review on voting system.
From citizens on commissions like PCEIC, universities, and their reports
generated, we now know that these machines must NOT be trusted. This short
video of 8 minutes, gives the best overview, and is right on the money in
every respect, when it comes to electronic voting --- be it via touch-screen
computers, or paper ballot optical-scan systems.
Ronald Reagan said it best; “Trust but Verify!” Conversely, No Verify, means NO TRUST! The Board of Supervisors actions on
this matter will show the citizens of Pima County whose side you’re on?
On a closing note: Please demonstrate by
action that this is not true in Pima County. History teaches us that elections
without public accountability are nothing more than vote-counting in the dark,
controlled by a county government, in the act of choosing itself and its
cronies, while picking our pockets.
Our message is simple: “We the People”, must have elections that are
100% transparent, that are completely verifiable, with a documented ‘chain-of-custody’,
followed by mandatory election verification! Nothing less!
Government
can never be the sole verifier of its own secret elections.
Respectfully yours,
John
R Brakey
John R.
Brakey of Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency, Arizona &
Special task force leader for Citizens Oversight for Verifiable Elections.
