Reference Materials at No Leaky Buckets

Informational Documents to download:

About "Whatcom Fair Voting"

"Whatcom Fair Voting" is a local, non-partisan group of citizens who have worked for four years to promote and achieve integrity in our elections systems.

Here is a revised (Nov 2006) three-page document which we use for integrating newcomers to the group. It has been developed by group consensus. Download the 3 page file: (MS-Word) ; (RTF). Or view it as a webpage: (HTML).

Chart of Ballot Flow

Chart for my own Whatcom County, which now uses all-VBM (Vote-By-Mail) with central-count scanners and counting software.

This is a general illustration of how the ballots flow - from their preparation to mailing, the actual voting, then their return, verification and processing.

We also have done a regular random-sampling and hand-counted verification of a portion of the ballots, as a double-check of the machine counting.

Only when the two counts match is the election certified.

Since there are no PollSites, the County installed a curbside Ballot Drop-Box, for the convenience of voters who were in town with their ballots.

(click on reduced image below,
to see REVISED, vertical full-scale Ballot-Flow chart - JPG: 194KB.)
(Nobody said it was simple)

### Just off the front-page: ####

SAIC FULL REPORT
UNREDACTED Review of the Diebold machines in MD -- on BradBlog!
(click here to go to BradBlog site)

October '06
Ballot-Flow Chart - VBM
How do the ballots get handled?
(click here)

October '06
"How to steal an election by hacking the vote"
By Jon "Hannibal" Stokes
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Authorized Copy of Original Doc:
     "How_to_steal_an_election"
      (PDF: 3,070KB -
      large document ~ 3-min @ 250KBps)
Original Source:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars

Copyright© Notice:

Note by Author: I'm not in any way encouraging anyone to actually go out and steal an election. This article is intended solely as a guide to the kinds of information and techniques that election thieves already have available, and not as an incitement to or an aid for committing crimes

From July '06
=== 4 BIG ITEMS! ===
Princeton -- BBV Toolkit -- RFK,Jr -- BRENNAN

Princeton University Study Shows How to Steal Elections
11 Sept 2006
This study actually inserted fraudulent computer programming into a real Diebold DRE machine, and made it throw the demo-election.
Princeton University Study. There is a ten-minute^(*) video which demonstrates this. It may be downloaded from their website.
(*)Big file= 68MB - It took me 60-minutes on DSL.

BBV Citizen Tool Kit
to Take Back Elections
August 1, 2006
20 modules, -- begin actively managing your government by choosing JUST ONE THING -- and doing it.
ToolKit Copy here at ..Buckets -- Original at BBV

RFK Jr Interview
July 18, 2006
Robert F. Kennedy says he knows that Bob Lay was in on the game to use the disabled community as a pawn to get Diebold machines as the "standard", without paper ballots.
Source: BradBlog Heavy reading.

The Brennan Center Report
August 28, 2006
BrennanCenter.org
My Review of Brennan Report

A serious, evidently very professional study of most US voting systems has been done by the Brennan Center of the NYU School of Law.

They recommend a number of requirements to be met before the results from DRE's could be taken as confident.
Download (there or) here:
Their Executive Summary
Their Full Report

AND MORE!

Diebold TSx Evaluation
SECURITY ALERT: May 11, 2006
Critical Security Issues with Diebold TSx (DRE's)
Download Report in PDF at BBV or HERE

Note: Please refrain from speculation or public discussion containing inappropriate technical details.

A Black Box Voting Project
Prepared by: Harri Hursti
On behalf of Black Box Voting, Inc.
A nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501c(3) consumer protection group for elections

What this report says is no jurisdiction anywhere who wishes to run secure and trustworthy elections should use the Diebold TSx touch-screen voting machine!

The same thing may be going on in Brazil

For Action:
Critique of the Holt Bill - Congressional HR 550
HR 550 has several serious deficiencies, in spite of many good features.

One of them is likely a major reason it has not succeeded, I believe. There is no real need for Open Source programming code - IF the other safeguards are in place. So, strike the requirement for Open Source code.

Do not hand over the audits to the Federal Government, that is a deal-killer for me. I am an unwavering advocate for audits either conducted by multi-partisan citizens' teams - or at a minimum under direct observation, including adequate videotaping, of the conducting of the audits.

The audit "quantity rule" should be changed from a percentage or number of precincts to a percentage of ballots.

Local AUDIT Procedures Recommended.
Specific proposal for Whatcom County, but available to be generalized for other jurisdictions. click for Recommended Procedures

Cost Estimates of Election Systems
How much would these different election systems cost my County?

The NEW page on election system cost-estimating contains a rough method for budget-planning or comparison between alternative systems - commonly DRE's at polling-plaves and VBM (Vote-by-Mail), the system already in use in Oregon and much of Washington States, and under serious consideration by and for King County (Seattle) WA.

Whatcom County RFP for "Vote Tabulation System" in WORD, 17 pages
Two companies bid, and after study and consideration by the staff and the citizens' advisory committee, the County has selected Sequoia. Installation is expected this summer (2005) for the September "Primary".

Whatcom County's
Citizens Elections Advisory Committee (CEAC).
Nine members representing interest groups make up the Committee. Formed in September 2004.

Standing:

My 2005 speech, outlining the NoLeakyBuckets solution(*)

given Jan 20 2005.
(*)(Well, at least for a major part of the solution.)

AUDIT Forum Held.
Forum: "Double-Checking Voting Machines"
August 27th, 2005 at the Bellingham Public Library.
(The Report of this Forum is being prepared. When edited, there will be a link here to the report.)

Issue-Sign

(available as a yardsign and for freeway overpasses and street corners) - click to ask for a few..

In The New York Times

NEW! -- Editorial on citizen actions:
July 23rd -- Their series of Editorials - MakingVotesCount.

MythBreakers - for Election Officials

MythBreakers (the source website)
MythBreakers (copy here)

Generic Vote-Flow graphic

(Ver.4) (JPEG, 270KB). Shows many of the various routes that votes may take from the voter to the tally (counting); possible recounting, and the certification of the election, under different voting systems.

Forum Materials

Computer Equipment Terms
Voting Equipment Systems Outline (.DOC)
Voting Equipment used by each WA County (.DOC)