tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-195358772024-02-19T04:28:13.589-05:00blog for changeformerly from bucks county, pennsylvania; now New HampshireBucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comBlogger365125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-6115954772538714422024-01-09T13:35:00.000-05:002024-01-09T13:35:22.772-05:00In favor of hand-counted audits<p>January 8, 2024<br /><br />Honorable members of the [New Hampshire] Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee:<br /><br />I write in opposition to <a href="https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/pdf.aspx?id=22927&q=billVersion">SB 489-FN</a>, An act relative to election audits. [<a href="https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/pdf.aspx?id=22927&q=billVersion">https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/pdf.aspx?id=22927&q=billVersion</a>]<br /></p><p>As I have written to Senator Gray in the past, I am opposed to the lack of transparency and public oversight and increased reliance on hackable, riggable computerized election machinery that using scanners and ballot images for audits embodies.<br /><br />No true election security expert endorses using a scanner to perform an audit, even if it's a new make or model. Manual/hand-counted post-election audits have been recommended since 2009 by both the Secretary of State's own Electronic Ballot Counting Device Advisory Committee [formerly at<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"> </a><a href="http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx">http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx</a>; can supply] and the national League of Women Voters [<a href="https://www.lwv.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/report-electionaudits.pdf">https://www.lwv.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/report-electionaudits.pdf</a>], as well as the experts who testified before the Kobach commission: Andrew Appel, Harri Hursti, and Ron Rivest. [<a href="https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w?si=Lr3F0xQ1Az2gxpi5&t=7391">https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w?si=Lr3F0xQ1Az2gxpi5&t=7391</a>]<br /><br />Verified Voting, the premier body of election experts, is unequivocal: "Audits require human examination of voter-marked paper ballots... Audits cannot rely on scanned images or machine interpretations of the ballots to accurately reflect voter intent" (p. 7, Principles and Best Practices for… Audits). [P. 7,<a href="https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Principles-and-Best-Practices-For-Post-Election-Tabulation-Audits.pdf"> https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Principles-and-Best-Practices-For-Post-Eleciton-Tabulation-Audits.pdf</a>] <br /><br />Let us stop to ask, Why do audits in the first place? It's because election security experts know there are too many undetectable vulnerabilities with computerized voting, and manual audits of hand-marked paper ballots are our best defense. So why are we turning to computerized scanners and digital images when the experts say we should be doing hand-counted audits of the paper ballots?<br /><br />The convenience of letting a machine do the work of auditing with digital images is very seductive. Proponents will even argue that people are more error-prone than machines. The problem is that the public can’t oversee the software in a scanner as it computes votes. <br /><br />New Hampshire has a long, proud tradition of meticulous hand counts and recounts. The safeguards built into those can be utilized in audits and even strengthened to allow for maximum transparency and public oversight.<br /><br />Here are concerns about the bill as written:<br /><br />“I. The secretary of state shall randomly select not less than 8 ballot counting devices used by towns or city wards to be audited…. The selection of towns or city wards to be audited shall be non-public and made after any ballot counting device memory cards have been programmed.<br /><br />“II. The secretary of state shall not announce which devices in the towns or city wards have been selected to be audited until after the polls are open on election day.”<br /></p><p>The whole point of random audits is to make it impossible for *anyone* to know ahead of time which machines will be selected. Allowing the secretary of state to choose the machines in advance negates the protective effect of random selection.<br /><br />“VI.(a) A random sample of the ballots counted and/or scanned by the device being audited, shall be selected and shall be compared with the voters' choices recorded for that ballot.” <br /><br />The previous version of this bill, <a href="https://legiscan.com/NH/text/SB366/2022">SB 366-FN</a> [<a href="https://legiscan.com/NH/text/SB366/2022">https://legiscan.com/NH/text/SB366/2022</a>], was worded slightly differently:<br /><br />"VI. A random sample of not less than 5 percent of the ballots scanned shall be selected and the <b>images of the ballots</b> [emphasis added] selected shall be compared with the voters' choices recorded for the ballot."<br /><br />Given that the audits will be conducted using a scanner, I’m guessing that ballot images will again be used for comparison. I used to think this meant that the ballot images would be compared with the paper ballots to ensure that the images are accurate copies but instead am told that the ballot images will be compared with the cast vote record (CVR), a computer-generated record based on the ballot images. If true, this proposed audit never actually verifies that the ballot images – which the scanner uses to tabulate the votes – are accurate copies of the paper ballots. <br /><br />Here's what Professors Andrew Appel and Philip Stark have to say about this:<br /><br />"Audit the Digital Images?<br /><br />"Some vendors are promoting systems that create digital images of ballots. These vendors claim that the images make RLAs [risk-limiting audits] easier to perform because fewer (or no) paper ballots need to be inspected. That is incorrect: if a risk-limiting audit relies on images of ballots, it must check that the error in making the images from the voter-verified paper ballots plus the error the system made interpreting those images to make cast-vote records is not large enough to cause the electoral outcome to be wrong. It is a mathematical fact that this requires examining at least as many physical ballots as an audit that compares CVRs to a human reading of the paper ballots, without relying on the digital images." [P. 537,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"> </a><a href="https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf">https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf</a>]<br /><br />In other words, as I understand it, an audit that relies on digital images of ballots requires examining at least as many corresponding paper ballots as a hand-counted audit of the paper ballots alone. Which begs the question, wouldn’t it be easier to just audit the paper ballots?<br /><br />Professor J. Alex Halderman's research also demonstrates the risks of auditing digital images rather than paper ballots: <br /><br />"Abstract. As paper ballots and post-election audits gain increased adoption in the United States, election technology vendors are offering products that allow jurisdictions to review ballot images—digital scans produced by optical-scan voting machines—in their post-election audit procedures. Jurisdictions including the state of Maryland rely on such image audits as an alternative to inspecting the physical paper ballots. We show that image audits can be reliably defeated by an attacker who can run malicious code on the voting machines or election management system...." [<a href="https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf">https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf</a>]<br /><br />Please reject this cave-in to convenience and send a message that an audit requires the same high standard of proof that New Hampshire provides for recounts – nothing less. It must be truly random – not pre-selected – and hand-counted, with ample public oversight.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br />Barbara Glassman<br />Nashua, NH</p>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-35798822768945166542023-05-22T19:24:00.002-04:002023-05-23T23:01:05.376-04:00Overselling digital ballot images<p>A response to John Brakey’s “<a href="https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/elections/digital-ballot-images-key-to-trustworthy-elections-bridging-our-great-divide/">Digital Ballot Images: Key to Trustworthy Elections & Bridging Our Great Divide</a>”:<br /><br />The cross-checking that is cited is between the digital image and the cast vote record (CVR). But the cast vote record is based on the digital image, so they may align, but what if the digital image was corrupted prior to the creation of the CVR? See J. Alex Halderman, “Unclear Ballot: Automated Ballot Image Manipulation,” <a href="https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf">https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf</a>.<br /><br />John Brakey holds that “even in the very unlikely event that a hacker managed to break through and alter ballot images — a far more difficult exploit than altering vote totals on a voting machine or central tabulator — this manipulation would be exposed immediately simply by spot-checking the ballot images against the originals.” Immediately? What would a statistics expert like Philip Stark recommend in the way of spot-checking? Is spot-checking mandated in the bill? <br /><br />Voters are again being told to trust technology, that it is “hash-check protected,” which brings to mind Andrew Appel and Susan Greenhalgh’s reporting on “Voting Machine Hashcode Testing: Unsurprisingly insecure, and surprisingly insecure,” <a href="https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2021/03/05/voting-machine-hashcode-testing-unsurprisingly-insecure-and-surprisingly-insecure/">https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2021/03/05/voting-machine-hashcode-testing-unsurprisingly-insecure-and-surprisingly-insecure/</a>.<br /><br />I applaud John Brakey’s fight for transparency. My fear is that overselling what we can learn from ballot images will further diminish the willingness to work for the gold standard of public oversight and verification: hand counting or <a href="http://bucksblogr.blogspot.com/2022/05/testimony-to-nh-special-committee-on.html">hand-counted audits</a> of hand-marked paper ballots. Worst case: A hack or rig could go undetected.</p><p><b>John Brakey</b> replied on Facebook: “This system is about redundancy. It is important that the original ballot is married to the ballot image and some form of a risk-limiting audit is done to verify that the ballot images have not been altered.” <br /></p>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-22103883724958973142023-02-12T17:44:00.004-05:002023-02-12T18:01:13.527-05:00Professor Stark re GA auditsMarilyn Marks posted at <a href="https://post.news/@marilynmarks" target="_blank">Post.News</a>. Professor Stark's testimony has relevance nationwide: <br /><br />"Why GA election outcomes cannot be verified<br /><br />"Now that GA's elections are over and it's pretty quiet, it's time to understand why top experts in the nation agree that GA's voting system must be overhauled to protect the vote for the future. Put aside the rancor and Trump cult disinformation campaigns and focus on the science. It's a little bit complicated, but Dr. Philip Stark lays it out in simple terms.<br /><br />"Start with Dr. Philip Stark's report on Raffensperger's completely flawed audits. No race can be audited to test the outcome. That is not sustainable in turning purple Georgia!"<br /><a href="https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/Preprints/cgg-rept-10.pdf">https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/Preprints/cgg-rept-10.pdf</a>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-6450884743983373622023-01-12T21:49:00.009-05:002023-02-28T19:34:38.823-05:00In opposition to ranked-choice voting<p>In opposition to NH <a href="https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/legislation/billinfo.aspx?id=12&sy=">HB 345</a>, enabling ranked-choice voting (RCV) for state party primary and municipal elections, and <a href="https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/legislation/billinfo.aspx?id=14&sy=">HB 350</a>, establishing procedures for RCV for federal and state offices: <br /><br />What the well-intentioned proponents of ranked-choice voting overlook is that it conflicts with a much more urgent and critical need for manual auditing to counter the threats of hacking and rigging and the lack of confidence in our voting machines. The complexity of ranked-choice voting would only add to the resistance to hand-counted audits. <br /><br />Little-understood downside to ranked-choice voting: The RCV component of state and federal races and state party primaries will always have to be tabulated by the Secretary of State or some other state authority on their RCV-programmed central scanner. In NH, that would hold for RCV municipal elections also until local jurisdictions purchase new, RCV-capable machines. Even then, how would the ranked-choice votes for, say, Nashua Aldermen-at-Large be tabulated? By the SoS? Or maybe the city clerk?<br /><br />How would we audit, let alone recount, the SoS's results? Every legislator who has a vote on RCV should watch at least a portion of the<a href="https://youtu.be/OzF-KEMJsHc"> video on RCV auditing</a> [<a href="https://youtu.be/OzF-KEMJsHc">https://youtu.be/OzF-KEMJsHc</a>] by the RCV Resource Center to see what the challenges are. Daunting, to say the least.<br /><br />RCV advocates contend that it reduces polarization. Traditional runoff elections to reach a majority of votes for the winning candidates are held in a number of states, including Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Does anyone see a reduction in divisiveness in those states?<br /><br />RCV's Achilles’ heel is the requirement for *instant* runoffs, which necessitates central, state-level, computerized tabulation to reallocate losing candidates’ votes. Traditional runoffs, on the other hand, are tabulated just like any other election. Candidates with the lowest vote totals are simply eliminated after a round; their votes are not redirected to surviving candidates. RCV advocates see its strength in exactly this capability to rank candidates. I do understand the appeal, but it comes at the unacceptable cost of local oversight, transparency, auditability, and therefore security.</p>See also Brad Friedman: "Why Ranked Choice Voting Is a Terrible Idea" at<a href="https://bradblog.com/?p=12608"> https://bradblog.com/?p=12608</a>: "it's very difficult to count, virtually impossible for the public to oversee, requires central tabulation and computers to pull off, and candidates and voters in many places where it's been tried in the past have found that it's impossible to understand why some candidates won and others lost." Brad notes that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/&source=gmail&ust=1674419234372000&usg=AOvVaw1jBAuPe4Av5gw2OUFvPzIC" href="https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/" target="_blank">Approval Voting</a> is an audit-friendly alternative to reach winners that can attract a majority of votes. <p>Barbara Glassman<br />Nashua, NH</p><p>PS This article should be required reading: <a href="https://www.ktvu.com/news/election-error-in-alameda-county-names-new-winner-in-district-4-race">https://www.ktvu.com/news/election-error-in-alameda-county-names-new-winner-in-district-4-race</a></p>PPS Brad Friedman wrote of<a href="https://bradblog.com/?p=14568"> his 2/20/23 Bradcast</a>, beginning at 42 minutes:<br /><br />“[W]e close with details on voting system failures in both New Jersey and California in November of 2022. In both cases, the systems ended up naming candidates who actually lost to be the winners and vice versa. In Monmouth County, NJ, the ES&S voting tabulators<a href="https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/monmouth-recount-after-ess-screwup-changes-results-of-2022-election/"> allowed duplicate votes</a> to be uploaded to it twice. It wasn't discovered until<a href="https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/vote-machine-tabulation-error-shifts-one-local-race-in-monmouth-after-irregularities-discovered/"> last month</a>. In Alameda County, CA, the<a href="https://www.ktvu.com/news/election-error-in-alameda-county-names-new-winner-in-district-4-race"> tabulators were programmed incorrectly</a> to do the<a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/12/29/after-election-debacle-in-oakland-whats-next-for-ranked-choice-voting/"> impossible math</a> of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) elections in the Bay area. It was discovered in late December last year by a pro-RCV organization who happened to run the math on their own computers and discovered the error.<br /><br />“In both cases, the errors were discovered after losing candidates were certified as winners. How many places did that happen but wasn't ever discovered, because human beings rarely bother to count ballots to make sure the computers did so accurately. This is what comes of outsourcing public elections to private companies and running elections on computer systems that are virtually impossible to oversee by the American public.”Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-51779182342622058182022-07-18T16:39:00.001-04:002022-07-18T16:59:43.223-04:00Re the selection of new voting machines for NH<p> <span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honorable Members of the Ballot Law Commission and Special Committee on Voter Confidence:</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bc9a6526-7fff-c4c1-1907-c3ab314486ab"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s disappointing that only two voting machines</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [</span><a href="https://www.dominionvoting.com/imagecast-precinct/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dominion’s ImageCast Precinct</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://www.voting.works/voting-system" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">VotingWorks’ VxScan Precinct Scanner</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were exhibited on the 12th. I hope Clear Ballot’s </span><a href="https://www.clearballot.com/clearcast-go?hsLang=en" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ClearCast Go</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is not out of the running. It’s the current version of the one chosen by the Bucks County, PA, commissioners when they replaced their ancient machines in 2019. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I assume you are only considering optical/digital scanners, not universal-use ballot-marking devices (BMDs) for all voters. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bucks County, PA, Commissioners considered both optical scanners and BMDs, even though BMDs would cost roughly twice as much, and there was no reason for non-disabled voters to use machines designed for the handicapped. Such is the power of the voting machine vendor lobby in PA.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple of election integrity advocates I had worked with formed a new group, trying again to influence the selection, and this time succeeding. </span><a href="https://www.savebucksvotes.org/the-solution" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SAVEBucksVotes.org</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> compared Clear Ballot, Dominion, ES&S, Hart Intercivic and Unisyn, concluding in favor of Clear Ballot. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They had so many qualms about ES&S that they devoted a separate page to it: </span><a href="https://www.savebucksvotes.org/expressvote-xl-problems" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.savebucksvotes.org/expressvote-xl-problems</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, mostly addressing the high-priced, problematic universal-use BMD that Philly chose after intense lobbying by ES&S; but the section lower down on that page, "Ethical concerns about ES&S as a company," is well worth a look.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Re Dominion, in Georgia, after an examination for a lawsuit there, "a University of Michigan computer science professor who </span><a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-ahalderman-062117.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has testified</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://appropriations.house.gov/legislation/hearings/election-security-ensuring-the-integrity-of-us-election-systems" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">numerous times</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on Capitol Hill about U.S. election security, J. Alex Halderman—claims that Georgia’s ballot marking devices (BMDs) 'suffer from specific, highly exploitable vulnerabilities that allow attackers to change votes despite the state’s purported defenses.'" </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-georgia-election-2020-a746b253f3404dbf794349df498c9542" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or CISA, agrees; Dominion’s touchscreen BMDs “have </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-science-voting-election-2020-6755cf1c409f4aab613df8891b84272d" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #104ba5; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">software vulnerabilities</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that leave them susceptible to hacking if unaddressed.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Hampshire would be using a different Dominion model, but the fact that the vulnerabilities Halderman discovered are so damaging that </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-seals-report-on-voting-machine-vulnerability" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the judge sealed his report</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> raises questions as to whether their optical scanners may suffer from some of the same weaknesses.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dominion has also been damaged by </span><a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-when-an-election-official-believes-the-big-lie/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colorado clerk Tina Peters</span></a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’ theft of voting machine hard drives and their release at Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I regret being unable to attend the demonstration. Wishing you all well with a difficult decision.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regards,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barbara Glassman</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nashua, NH</span></p><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-34954785505847084422022-05-24T19:39:00.003-04:002022-11-03T10:59:31.368-04:00Testimony to the Special Committee on Voter Confidence, Derry, NH<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honorable Members of the Special Committee on Voter Confidence:</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-fdf675c0-7fff-97ea-c3e9-9294cf5aae28"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My name is Barbara Glassman. I moved to Nashua from Pennsylvania in 2012. In 2005 I became the webmaster for a nonpartisan election integrity group trying to convince county commissioners to purchase optical scanners rather than paperless voting machines. We failed, but I’ve kept posting about election integrity, now on Facebook at Save Our Vote. [</span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurVote" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurVote</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Hampshire was one of the first states to adopt computerized voting with its purchase of the AccuVote in the early 1990s. Election security experts recognized the danger. Vote rigging had become much easier. All it would take is a few lines of code, riding on a memory card.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one wanted to hear it. Neither major political party, nor the media, nor election administrators had any interest in casting doubt on the outcomes of elections. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Security experts understood that the best defense against rigging or hacking is hand-counted audits of hand-marked paper ballots. Verified Voting has been saying that since 2004 [</span><a href="https://verifiedvoting.org/issues/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://verifiedvoting.org/issues/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]. The national League of Women Voters said it in 2009 </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[</span><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/leagueofwomenvoters.org/clearinghouse/rep/election-administration/lwvus-report-on-election-auditing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://sites.google.com/a/leagueofwomenvoters.org/clearinghouse/rep/election-administration/lwvus-report-on-election-auditing</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In New Hampshire in 2009, the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Electronic Ballot Counting Device Advisory Committee called for hand-counted audits, saying, “[T]his deserves the highest priority.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[formerly at</span><a href="http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; can supply]</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Secretary Gardner’s hand-picked experts – </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Andrew Appel, Harri Hursti, and Ron Rivest</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> – testified to the need in 2017 in Manchester [at 2’3” in the afternoon session: </span><a href="https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w?t=7391" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w?t=7391</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">].</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Despite New Hampshire’s long, proud history of meticulous manual recounts, Secretary Gardner resisted hand-counted audits. If he hadn’t, if he followed his own experts’ recommendations, this committee might not have been needed. A publicly observed hand-counted audit would have answered many of New Hampshire voters’ questions about the 2020 election, at least in our state.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, Secretary Gardner turned to a new, high-speed scanner marketed for audits. It will scan the paper ballots and then audit the digital images. How will we even know that the images are accurate copies of the ballots? Only 5 out of every 10,000 ballots will be compared with their images to see if they match. [I'm told that the comparison was between ballot images and the cast vote record (CVR), a computer-generated record based on the ballot images, rather than the paper ballots, degrading confidence even further.]</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's what Professors Andrew Appel and Philip Stark have to say about this: "These vendors claim that the images make RLAs [risk-limiting audits] easier to perform because fewer (or no) paper ballots need to be inspected. That is incorrect…. [T]his requires examining at least as many physical ballots as an audit” of the paper ballots alone. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[P. 537,</span><a href="https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which begs the question as to why it wouldn’t make more sense to just audit the paper ballots.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The convenience of letting a machine do the work of auditing with digital images is very seductive. It allows us to rationalize away the futility of trying to solve an inscrutable software problem by throwing more inscrutable software at it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suppose Secretary Gardner had proposed abandoning New Hampshire’s long tradition of hand recounts in favor of simply running the ballots through a new scanner. Pushback would have been immediate. How would we know which scanner was accurate without a hand recount? We can’t know. Yet that is what is offered in </span><a href="https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/SB366/2022" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Senate Bill 366</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: machine-counted audits with a new scanner and grossly inadequate verification of ballot image accuracy.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BTW, pre- and post-election testing cannot detect every software problem. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Computers know what day and time it is. Scanners can be programmed to perform well when tested and behave differently on election day. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The VW cheating scandal is a perfect illustration. </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">VW's software allowed their cars to pass emissions tests, only to pollute when not in testing mode. [See "What if Volkswagen made Voting Machines?" </span><a href="https://thevotingnews.com/what-if-vw-made-voting-machines/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://thevotingnews.com/what-if-vw-made-voting-machines/</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The GOP is the first major political party to recognize the fallibility of software and the need for audits. Unfortunately, a highly publicized audit in Arizona relied on inexperienced, partisan third parties that didn’t even have the confidence of some fellow Republicans. Sadly, many Democrats now view audits with suspicion and resistance. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So if confidence in New Hampshire elections is to be restored, it will require reversing the trend toward secrecy and instead welcoming public oversight, starting with repeal of the ballot and ballot image exemptions from public records and passage of legislation that would allow moderators to do a verification count at the polls on election night, as in </span><a href="https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/SB79/2021" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Senate Bill 79</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [</span><a href="https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/SB79/2021" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/SB79/2021</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">], a measure that used to go unchallenged. Routine, mandatory audits would need to be hand-counted and publicly observed, delivering the same high standard of proof that New Hampshire recounts provide.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Designing an effective audit is a formidable task. It deserves more time and study than legislators alone can spare. I know a few New Hampshire voters who are interested in drafting a plan. I hope their voices will be heard.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you for the opportunity to offer suggestions. It’s much appreciated.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Respectfully,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barbara Glassman </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nashua, NH </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Addendum</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Verified Voting, the premier body of election experts, is unequivocal: "Audits require human examination of voter-marked paper ballots... Audits cannot rely on scanned images or machine interpretations of the ballots to accurately reflect voter intent.” [P. 7, <a href="https://verifiedvoting.org/publication/principles-and-best-practices-for-post-election-tabulation-audits/">https://verifiedvoting.org/publication/principles-and-best-practices-for-post-election-tabulation-audits/</a>].</span></p></span>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-90541231725020619952022-05-03T18:36:00.002-04:002022-11-03T11:08:16.041-04:00In New Hampshire: A continuing plea for hand-counted audits<p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">May 3, 2022</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bcb4fb3a-7fff-8ec5-88f2-cad71e22b1ef"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.92; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dear Representatives:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write in opposition to</span><a href="http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/lsr_search/billText.aspx?id=2159&type=3" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SB 366-FN</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An act requiring an audit of ballots cast in the 2022 primary and general election.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I have written to Senator Gray in the past, I am opposed to the lack of transparency and public oversight and increased reliance on hackable, riggable computerized election machinery that using scanners and ballot images for audits embodies.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No true election security expert endorses using a scanner to perform an audit, even if it's a new make or model. Manual/hand-counted post-election audits have been recommended since 2009 by both the Secretary of State's own Electronic Ballot Counting Device Advisory Committee [formerly at</span><a href="http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] and the national League of Women Voters [</span><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/leagueofwomenvoters.org/clearinghouse/rep/election-administration/lwvus-report-on-election-auditing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://sites.google.com/a/leagueofwomenvoters.org/clearinghouse/rep/election-administration/lwvus-report-on-election-auditing</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">], as well as the experts who testified before the Kobach commission: Andrew Appel, Harri Hursti, and Ron Rivest. [</span><a href="https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w?t=7391" style="color: #aa55a0; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w?t=7391</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Verified Voting, the premier body of election experts, is unequivocal: "Audits require human examination of voter-marked paper ballots... Audits cannot rely on scanned images or machine interpretations of the ballots to accurately reflect voter intent" (p. 7, Principles and Best Practices for… Audits). [P. 7,</span><a href="https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Principles-and-Best-Practices-For-Post-Eleciton-Tabulation-Audits.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Principles-and-Best-Practices-For-Post-Eleciton-Tabulation-Audits.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let us stop to ask, Why do audits in the first place? It's because election security experts know there are too many undetectable vulnerabilities with computerized voting, and manual audits of hand-marked paper ballots are our best defense. So why are we turning to computerized scanners and digital images when the experts say we should be doing hand-counted audits of the paper ballots?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The convenience of letting a machine do the work of auditing with digital images is very seductive. Proponents will even argue that people are more error-prone than machines. The problem is that the public can’t oversee the software in a scanner as it computes votes. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New Hampshire has a long, proud tradition of meticulous hand counts and recounts. The safeguards built into those can be utilized in audits and even strengthened to allow for maximum transparency and public oversight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are concerns about the bill as written:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. “I. The secretary of state shall randomly select one to 3 percent of AccuVote devices, but not less than 4 such devices, to be used at the 2022 state general election to be audited…. The selection of devices to be audited shall be non-public and made at least 2 weeks prior to the general election, after the AccuVote memory cards have been programed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sic</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]." </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The whole point of random audits is to make it impossible for *anyone* to know ahead of time which machines will be selected. Allowing the secretary of state to choose the machines in advance negates the protective effect of random selection.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. "VI. A random sample of not less than 5 percent of the ballots scanned shall be selected and the images of the ballots selected shall be compared with the voters' choices recorded for the ballot."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So this bill allows as little as 1 percent of the AccuVote machines, but not less than four, to be audited, and then as little as 5 percent of the ballots from those machines to have their images compared with "the voters' choices recorded for the ballot," presumably, the voters’ hand-marked paper ballots. If my husband, an engineer, is not mistaken, that works out to a rate of 0.05 percent of the AccuVote ballots, or 5 in 10,000 paper ballots that will be compared with the corresponding ballot images to try to establish that the digital images are accurate copies of the hand-marked ballots. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Even worse, I'm told that the comparison was between ballot images and the cast vote record (CVR), a computer-generated record based on the ballot images, rather than the paper ballots.] </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does anyone see that as sufficient to inspire confidence? In contrast,</span><a href="https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepostelection/postelectionidx.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Massachusetts</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> conducts hand-counted audits of the paper ballots in 3 percent of all precincts when the president is on the ballot.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's what Professors Andrew Appel and Philip Stark have to say about this:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Audit the Digital Images?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Some vendors are promoting systems that create digital images of ballots. These vendors claim that the images make RLAs easier to perform because fewer (or no) paper ballots need to be inspected. That is incorrect: if a risk-limiting audit relies on images of ballots, it must check that the error in making the images from the voter-verified paper ballots plus the error the system made interpreting those images to make cast-vote records is not large enough to cause the electoral outcome to be wrong. It is a mathematical fact that this requires examining at least as many physical ballots as an audit that compares CVRs to a human reading of the paper ballots, without relying on the digital images." [P. 537,</span><a href="https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In other words, as I understand it, an audit that relies on digital images of ballots requires examining at least as many corresponding paper ballots as a hand-counted audit of the paper ballots alone. Which begs the question, wouldn’t it be easier to just audit the paper ballots?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Professor J. Alex Halderman's research also demonstrates the risks of auditing digital images rather than paper ballots: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Abstract. As paper ballots and post-election audits gain increased adoption in the United States, election technology vendors are offering products that allow jurisdictions to review ballot images—digital scans produced by optical-scan voting machines—in their post-election audit procedures. Jurisdictions including the state of Maryland rely on such image audits as an alternative to inspecting the physical paper ballots. We show that image audits can be reliably defeated by an attacker who can run malicious code on the voting machines or election management system...." [</span><a href="https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please reject this cave-in to convenience and send a message that an audit requires the same high standard of proof that New Hampshire provides for recounts – nothing less. It must be hand-counted with ample public oversight.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 8pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Respectfully,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 2pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barbara Glassman</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 2pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nashua, NH </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 2pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p></span>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-31702245679062220762022-01-25T12:20:00.024-05:002023-01-12T12:42:40.632-05:00Ranked-Choice Voting: A Conflict<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">What the well-intentioned proponents of ranked-choice voting overlook is that it conflicts with a much more urgent and critical need for manual auditing to counter the threats of hacking, rigging, and the perception that the 2020 election was stolen. The complexity of ranked-choice voting would add to the already formidable resistance to hand-counted audits. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-fe8f8983-7fff-24d9-41c5-f2b48bc9c707"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A wealth of resources has been directed at ranked-choice voting. “The head of Voter Choice Massachusetts, Mac D’Alessandro, told The Intercept that his organization is receiving more than $1 million in matching funds from Unite America” in 2019. Unite America is “a once obscure political organization that raised its profile earlier this year [2019] when Kathryn Murdoch became its co-chair and largest donor; she’s a daughter-in-law of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch.” </span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/10/07/murdoch-pennsylvania-gerrymandering-lobbyists/?fbclid=IwAR0qCfiNuMklRlawN5uKBAsEVsQhmZSEVXhiDfoFkG1f-tfGyNCVxJaKjJA" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://theintercept.com/2019/10/07/murdoch-pennsylvania-gerrymandering-lobbyists/?fbclid=IwAR0qCfiNuMklRlawN5uKBAsEVsQhmZSEVXhiDfoFkG1f-tfGyNCVxJaKjJA</span></a></p></span><span><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not suggesting there is anything sinister in the injection of Murdoch money, apart from the fact that megadonors have way too much influence over our elections and everything else. I don't doubt that Kathryn Murdoch genuinely wanted to do good on the election front and wonder whether Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig helped convince her that ranked-choice voting is a top priority. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was a fan of Lessig for years; went to a couple of his New Hampshire rallies for campaign finance reform. He’s a brilliant man with an extraordinary passion for election reform. Not sure why he switched his focus from campaign finance reform to ranked-choice voting. Had he asked leading election integrity advocates, e.g., Verified Voting, for suggestions as to what is needed most, advocacy for mandatory manual audits would have come out ahead of ranked-choice voting. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not questioning anyone’s motives, but voters deserve to know all about the funding of ranked-choice voting campaigns.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I urge the advocates for RCV to read Jonathan Simon’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">recent article, "</span><a href="https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/elections/the-real-steal-electoral-forensics-and-the-2020-election/?fbclid=IwAR3Lm4FxG6MVlpbxWRpjvmuKd5gIS6jANZ13m2ezaueLa0zMRq5PPzsS7zM" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Real Steal: Electoral Forensics and the 2020 Election</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">," as well as his book </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/CODE-RED-Computerized-Elections-Democracy-ebook/dp/B087L8PWZP/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1I85ANAWERL9N&dchild=1&keywords=jonathan+simon&qid=1592592993&s=books&sprefix=jonathan+simon%2Caps%2C143&sr=1-3" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CODE RED: Computerized Elections and the War on American Democracy:</span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Election 2020 Edition</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Everyone should watch </span><a href="https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/kill-chain-the-cyber-war-on-americas-elections" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">KILL CHAIN: The Cyber War on American’s Elections</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, featuring Harri Hursti.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I hope RCV proponents will read my </span><a href="https://bucksblogr.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-new-hampshire-plea-for-hand-counted.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">plea for hand-counted audits</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and consider supporting that cause.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-d5e170d4-7fff-0c08-bd31-7497b429f9f4"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">BTW, there are at least two other alternatives to the current system of plurality voting that are audit-friendly. Subsequent runoff elections to reach a majority of votes for the winning candidates are held in a number of states and European nations, including Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and France.</span> And there’s Approval Voting </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/" target="_blank">https://www.electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/</a></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">. </span></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See also Brad Friedman: "Why Ranked Choice Voting Is a Terrible Idea" at </span><a href="https://bradblog.com/?p=12608" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://bradblog.com/?p=12608</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: "it's very difficult to count, virtually impossible for the public to oversee, requires central tabulation and computers to pull off, and candidates and voters in many places where it's been tried in the past have found that it's impossible to understand why some candidates won and others lost."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Little-known fact about ranked-choice voting: The RCV component of state and federal races and state party primaries will always have to be tabulated by the Secretary of State or some other state authority on their RCV-programmed central scanner. In NH, that would hold for RCV municipal elections also until local jurisdictions purchase new, RCV-capable machines, as I understand it. Even then, how would the votes for, say, Nashua Aldermen-at-Large be tabulated? By the SoS? Or maybe the city clerk?<br /><br />How do we audit the SoS's results? While auditing a sample of local precincts would be necessary, it wouldn’t be sufficient without also auditing the tabulation of the ranked choices by the SoS’s scanner. I’ve started watching the <a href="https://youtu.be/OzF-KEMJsHc" target="_blank">video on RCV auditing</a> by the RCV Resource Center. Every legislator who has a vote on RCV should watch at least a portion of the video to see what the challenges are. They look daunting, to say the least, especially from the perspective of a voter who wants to see hand-counted audits.<br /><br />RCV's Achilles’ heel is the requirement for *instant* runoffs, which necessitates central tabulation and computerization to reallocate losing candidates’ votes. Traditional runoffs, on the other hand, are tabulated just like any other election. Candidates with the lowest vote totals are simply eliminated after a round; their votes are not reallocated to surviving candidates. RCV advocates see its strength in exactly this capability to rank candidates. I do understand the appeal, but it comes at the unacceptable cost of local oversight, transparency, and auditability.</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barbara Glassman</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nashua, NH</span></span></p></span></div>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-25288986807816089292022-01-13T00:13:00.003-05:002022-05-03T16:21:20.306-04:00In New Hampshire: A plea for hand-counted audits<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In opposition to SB 366-FN re audits </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-c4a96c87-7fff-0ba8-e0b1-a40b033ecdc5"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">January 11, 2022</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To the Honorable Members of the Senate Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write in opposition to </span><a href="http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/lsr_search/billText.aspx?id=2159&type=3" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SB 366-FN</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and ask Ms. Melillo to please add this to the legislative record. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I have written to Senator Gray in the past, I am opposed to the lack of transparency and public oversight and increased reliance on hackable, riggable computerized election machinery that using scanners and ballot images for audits embodies.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No true election security expert endorses using a scanner to perform an audit, even if it's a new make or model. Manual/hand-counted post-election audits have been recommended since 2009 by both the Secretary of State's own Electronic Ballot Counting Device Advisory Committee [formerly at</span><a href="http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> http://sos.nh.gov/ballotcountdev.aspx</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] and the national League of Women Voters [</span><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/leagueofwomenvoters.org/clearinghouse/rep/election-administration/lwvus-report-on-election-auditing" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://sites.google.com/a/leagueofwomenvoters.org/clearinghouse/rep/election-administration/lwvus-report-on-election-auditing</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">], as well as the experts who testified before the Kobach commission: Andrew Appel, Harri Hursti, and Ron Rivest. [</span><a href="https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://youtu.be/XkPJbbKPJ_w</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Verified Voting, the premier body of election experts, is unequivocal: "Audits require human examination of voter-marked paper ballots... Audits cannot rely on scanned images or machine interpretations of the ballots to accurately reflect voter intent" (p. 7, Principles and Best Practices for… Audits). [P. 7,</span><a href="https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Principles-and-Best-Practices-For-Post-Eleciton-Tabulation-Audits.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Principles-and-Best-Practices-For-Post-Eleciton-Tabulation-Audits.pdf</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">] </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let us stop to ask, Why do audits in the first place? It's because election security experts know there are too many undetectable vulnerabilities with computerized voting, and manual audits of hand-marked paper ballots are our best defense. So why are we turning to computerized scanners and digital images when the experts say we should be doing hand-counted audits of the paper ballots?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The convenience of letting a machine do the work of auditing with digital images is very seductive. Proponents will even say you can't trust the people doing hand counts. New Hampshire has a long, proud tradition of meticulous manual recounts. The safeguards built into those recounts can be utilized in audits and even strengthened to allow for maximum transparency and public oversight.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Secretary Gardner chose not to follow the advice of his own hand-picked experts. With his departure, we now have the freedom to reassess.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If that does not happen, then here are concerns about the bill as written:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4."I. The secretary of state shall randomly select one to 3 percent of AccuVote devices, but not less than 4 such devices, to be used at the 2022 state general election to be audited. … The selection of devices to be audited shall be non-public and made at least 2 weeks prior to the general election, after the AccuVote memory cards have been programed [</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sic</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]." </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The whole point of random audits is to make it impossible for anyone to know ahead of time which machines will be selected. Allowing the secretary of state to choose the machines in advance negates the protective effect of random selection. It is not random selection.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. "VI. A random sample of not less than 5 percent of the ballots scanned shall be selected and the images of the ballots selected shall be compared with the voters' choices recorded for the ballot."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So this bill allows as little as one percent of the AccuVote machines, but not less than four, to be audited, and then as little as 5 percent of the ballots from those machines to be selected for comparison with "the voters' choices recorded for the ballot." Does this refer to the hand-marked paper ballots? If my husband, an engineer, is not mistaken, that works out to a rate of 0.05 percent of the AccuVote ballots, or 5 in 10,000 paper ballots that will be compared with the corresponding ballot images to try to establish that the ballot images are accurate copies of the hand-marked ballots. Does anyone see that as sufficient to inspire confidence?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In contrast, </span><a href="https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepostelection/postelectionidx.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Massachusetts</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> conducts hand-counted audits of the paper ballots in 3 percent of all precincts when the president is on the ballot.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's what Professors Andrew Appel and Philip Stark have to say about this:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Audit the Digital Images?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Some vendors are promoting systems that create digital images of ballots. These vendors claim that the images make RLAs easier to perform because fewer (or no) paper ballots need to be inspected. That is incorrect: if a risk-limiting audit relies on images of ballots, it must check that the error in making the images from the voter-verified paper ballots plus the error the system made interpreting those images to make cast-vote records is not large enough to cause the electoral outcome to be wrong. It is a mathematical fact that this requires examining at least as many physical ballots as an audit that compares CVRs to a human reading of the paper ballots, without relying on the digital images." [P. 537,</span><a href="https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> https://georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/4.2-p523-541-Appel-Stark.pdf</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In other words, an audit that relies on digital images of ballots requires examining at least as many corresponding paper ballots as a hand-counted audit of the paper ballots alone.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Professor J. Alex Halderman's research demonstrates the vulnerability of auditing digital images: </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Abstract. As paper ballots and post-election audits gain increased adoption in the United States, election technology vendors are offering products that allow jurisdictions to review ballot images—digital scans produced by optical-scan voting machines—in their post-election audit procedures. Jurisdictions including the state of Maryland rely on such image audits as an alternative to inspecting the physical paper ballots. We show that image audits can be reliably defeated by an attacker who can run malicious code on the voting machines or election management system...." [</span><a href="https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/unclear-evoteid19.pdf</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I sincerely hope you will take this opportunity to reenvision the path forward.</span></p><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-b6395f2d-7fff-b82b-5515-1f3020524158"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Respectfully,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Barbara Glassman</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: 60pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nashua, NH </span></p></span></span>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-63804543559218882602015-11-16T12:55:00.022-05:002023-10-26T12:33:56.405-04:00Term Limits: Why?<p><i>“Term limits are always popular until they find out, you know, who’s not term-limited: lobbyists. And guess who's in charge in every state legislature that has term limits in this country--the un-term-limited lobbyists are . . . term limits--I bought into it until I saw that happen.”</i><br />
--<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/how-does-this-end-for-trump-791209539710" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chuck Todd, 10/21/2016</a><br />
<b><br /></b><i><b>"How Term Limits Turn Legislatures Over to Lobbyists</b><br /> "The next time you hear some TV pundit proclaiming the 'solution' to the 'problem' of Mitch McConnell or Dianne Feinstein being in office too long, consider their real agenda..." </i>[<a href="https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-term-limits-turn-legislatures-6b2?r=nu09&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">more</a>]<br /> --<a href="https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/how-term-limits-turn-legislatures-6b2?r=nu09&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Thom Hartmann, 9/1/2023</a> <br /></p><i>“Chris Hayes noted, ‘you can’t do a term limit without a constitutional amendment so it’s a non-starter.’ He is correct that constitutional scholars agree that term limits would require an amendment. <br />“And I’d go further than Chris and say term limits are an actively bad idea. They’re the kind of thing that’s appealing as a last resort to an enormously frustrated electorate, but it’s merely nostalgia for a citizen legislature that never existed, where yeomen farmers would serve their country in Congress and then return to the fields. In reality, in states with term limits, politicians just race up the ladder as fast as possible and then when they’re termed out, they cash in as lobbyists. It makes the swamp swampier rather than draining it.” </i><br /> –Ryan Grim, Intercept newsletter, 10/5/23<p>Term limits are a natural expression of the right's government-bashing ideology. It serves them well to eject elected officials before they are experienced and secure enough to challenge the orthodoxy of entrenched special interests.<br />
<br />
What motivates some of my allies on the left to embrace term limits? Are we willing to sacrifice the likes of Elijah Cummings, John Lewis, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, or <a href="https://youtu.be/cjcXVKg43qY" target="_blank">Sheldon Whitehouse</a>? We revere Elijah Cummings and John Lewis for their service. Term limits would have ended their careers years ago. What better way to discourage ordinary citizens from a career in public service than to preordain their firing?<br />
<br />
Shouldn't we be countering the contempt for "career politicians" by asking how democracy can survive without them? How many working people--perhaps with families to support--can afford to interrupt their nonpolitical careers for only a limited period of public service? This country needs *more* career politicians like Bernie Sanders, Elijah Cummings, and John Lewis.<br />
<br />
Here’s to a more targeted attack (Primary them!) on politicians who don’t serve the people. Those who do deserve our loyalty. And, as a reader noted, we already have term limits; they're called elections.<br />
<br />Try this thought experiment. Imagine saying to your favorite legislators, "Thanks for your service but... you're fired."<br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/BarbaraGlassman" target="_blank">@BarbaraGlassman</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/newhampshire.voter">https://www.facebook.com/newhampshire.voter</a>/</p>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-92024210116706237522014-10-22T19:34:00.001-04:002014-10-22T19:56:47.843-04:00Noam Chomsky at UN, October 14, 2014<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2014/10/22/in_un_speech_noam_chomsky_blasts" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/22/in_un_speech_noam_chomsky_blasts" target="_blank">In U.N. Speech, Noam Chomsky Blasts United States for Supporting Israel, Blocking Palestinian State | Democracy Now!</a><br/>
<br/>
<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2014/10/22/noam_chomsky_at_united_nations_it" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/22/noam_chomsky_at_united_nations_it" target="_blank">Noam Chomsky at United Nations: It Would Be Nice if the United States Lived Up to International Law | Democracy Now!</a>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-89195325017980225402014-08-15T13:38:00.002-04:002014-08-15T13:38:35.723-04:00Noam Chomsky on Gaza<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/7/a_hideous_atrocity_noam_chomsky_on#.U-2qYZDrt18.blogger" target="_blank">'A Hideous Atrocity': Noam Chomsky on Israel’s Assault on Gaza & U.S. Support for the Occupation | Democracy Now!</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/8/8/noam_chomsky_what_israel_is_doing#.U-2qyDfOjWo.blogger" target="_blank">Noam Chomsky: Israel's Actions in Palestine are 'Much Worse Than Apartheid' in South Africa</a>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-52229506448021200812014-07-31T19:38:00.002-04:002014-07-31T19:38:36.300-04:00U.S. Jewish Leader Henry Siegman on Gaza...<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/30/henry_siegman_leading_voice_of_us#.U9rOoSfEQcU.blogger" target="_blank">Henry Siegman, Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry, on Gaza: 'A Slaughter of Innocents' | Democracy Now!</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/31/us_jewish_leader_henry_siegman_to#.U9rRecer1Uo.blogger" target="_blank">U.S. Jewish Leader Henry Siegman to Israel: Stop Killing Palestinians and End the Occupation | Democracy Now!</a>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-17941800454980271232013-04-07T15:57:00.001-04:002014-03-28T19:29:58.884-04:0011th Annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation, Sunday, April 27, 2014<a href="http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/Interfaith_Peace_Walk/Welcome.html" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-N69tKO3E3GNKi8OpSi2SxDG8KZMMUmjqIMQhohj1S_YNubmGg9T-_tefOK_6eiO7UFhGjJCWRVFbaFlEtkNPdmc19vOxVOyGkV1nbr0bmZFldjdHUYbXfX9XVXBfdDrHkhZb/s320/peacewalk.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608132932819869362" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 320px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 297px;" /></a>Details at <a href="http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/" target="_blank"><b>http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/</b></a>.Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-61447797445088408102012-10-23T11:21:00.000-04:002012-11-17T18:37:29.070-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href=" http://www.freepress.org/store.php " target=_blank><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 158px; height: 215px;" src="http://niobia.net/Steele158x215.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438629322331963682" /></a>
From Greg Palast: "While <i>Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols</i> has the heft and footnotes of an academic treatise, it's a fun read. Suggestion: take a double of Felipe II with you into this zoo of miscreants, and savor the dark humor of one method of vote heist after another. Here is the line-up of ballot burglars who think democracy is a safe to be cracked. Bless Marta Steele for setting off the burglar alarm."Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-91426033162200065202012-10-06T18:51:00.002-04:002012-10-07T10:52:59.104-04:00Personal perspective on Israel and Palestine<a href="http://www.nhpeaceaction.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=912&Itemid=44">From
New Hampshire Peace Action:</a> “Local residents to offer a personal
perspective on Israel and Palestine: Carolyn Cicciu and Will Thomas, retired
teachers, will share their personal stories and experiences following their
travels to one of the most conflicted areas in the Middle East—Israel and
Palestine, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Both traveled to the Middle East as members of Interfaith Peace-Builders….” <a href="http://www.nhpeaceaction.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=912&Itemid=44">More
info.</a> October 15, 2012, 6:30 p.m. Manchester City Library auditorium.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-50403317874136378312012-10-06T18:47:00.003-04:002012-10-06T18:49:12.824-04:00Russell Tribunal for Palestine<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/" target="_blank">New York Session</a>, <a href="http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/" target="_blank">October 6-7, 2012</a></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="225" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bCYpFv_FljE" width="400"></iframe><br />Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-84792399755240789352012-06-21T01:31:00.002-04:002012-06-21T01:55:57.667-04:00Elisa Massamino speaks on torture<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUYg21nEB692mf9nBVo3c-5TvYUFyDPc1QozQ-dLkiwA9s-NjyEm16mnfy21bEu13_7PORQed6lmPljonxXKe-WhZbfmVD3GRq_MvXHeZ4sHADm7QPXwKcmRGPnqOPcfSX76oI/s1600/massamino.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUYg21nEB692mf9nBVo3c-5TvYUFyDPc1QozQ-dLkiwA9s-NjyEm16mnfy21bEu13_7PORQed6lmPljonxXKe-WhZbfmVD3GRq_MvXHeZ4sHADm7QPXwKcmRGPnqOPcfSX76oI/s1600/massamino.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.peacecoalition.org/news-and-events/upcoming-events/353-torturelecture.html" target="_blank">Torture, the Constitution and Solitary Confinement: A Preview of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report</a><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Georgia;">Elisa Massamino </span></b></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span class="apple-style-span">President/CEO, Human Rights First</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><span class="apple-style-span">with expert panel that will make short statements on torture</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br /><span class="apple-style-span"><b>Thursday, June 28, 2012, 7:30 p.m.</b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><b><br /><span class="apple-style-span">Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton</span></b><br /><span class="apple-style-span">Sophia Lyon Fahs Auditorium</span><br /><span class="apple-style-span">50 Cherry Hill Road, Princeton, NJ</span><br /><br /><span class="apple-style-span"><b>Sponsored by:</b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><br /><span class="apple-style-span">Princeton Area Interfaith Anti-Torture Group</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><span class="apple-style-span"><b>Co-Sponsored by:</b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span><br /><span class="apple-style-span">Coalition for Peace Action; National Religious Campaign Against Torture; American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey; Rabbis for Human Rights North America; Princeton Friends Monthly Meeting; Trenton Friends Monthly Meeting; </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Georgia;">Nassau Presbyterian Church; </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Georgia;">Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton Social Justice Committee; Princeton University Office of Religious Life; All Saints Church; Hanan M. Isaacs, P.C.; and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Georgia;">Princeton Community TV.</span></div>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-83713436991227446862012-04-16T23:43:00.000-04:002012-04-16T23:44:10.484-04:009th Annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation, Sun., April 29, 2012, 2-6 p.m.<a href="http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/Interfaith_Peace_Walk/Welcome.html" target="_blank" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 297px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-N69tKO3E3GNKi8OpSi2SxDG8KZMMUmjqIMQhohj1S_YNubmGg9T-_tefOK_6eiO7UFhGjJCWRVFbaFlEtkNPdmc19vOxVOyGkV1nbr0bmZFldjdHUYbXfX9XVXBfdDrHkhZb/s320/peacewalk.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608132932819869362" /></a>Details at <a href="http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/" target="_blank"><b>http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org/</b></a>.Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-50705501417707641912012-04-16T23:39:00.000-04:002012-04-16T23:42:21.630-04:00Philadelphia Premiere of Najla Saïd's "Palestine"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGro5YII9RvMMvQv263-4RuXsvA9QUL2Yu0KVDbpx31EQVL_ZYCnm5xjKuFsp-bACh0XVHw0gNImelE3QWLxf0XIW6BkHtNwpeF-awtt7eBPQ18ESBxjHI-xpT_U0kUEJZTkl/s1600/n_said.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 105px; height: 90px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGro5YII9RvMMvQv263-4RuXsvA9QUL2Yu0KVDbpx31EQVL_ZYCnm5xjKuFsp-bACh0XVHw0gNImelE3QWLxf0XIW6BkHtNwpeF-awtt7eBPQ18ESBxjHI-xpT_U0kUEJZTkl/s320/n_said.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732042372640782002" /></a><b><a href="http://interacttheatre.org/2011-2012-feature-3.html#palestine" target="_blank"><i>Palestine</i></a></b><div>Written and performed by Najla Saïd</div><div><blockquote>Rich, honest, and amusingly poignant, <span style="font-style:italic;">Palestine</span> is a compassionate look at the Middle East from the unique perspective of Najla Saïd, a self-described politically agnostic Upper West Side Palestinian American princess (and the daughter of eminent scholar Edward Saïd), who traveled to the occupied territories to discover her deeper identity as an Arab American woman.</blockquote></div><a href="http://interacttheatre.org/2011-2012-feature-3.html#palestine" target="_blank">April 17, 18, and 19, 2012, at the InterAct Theatre, Philadelphia.</a>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-55361520949561813212012-02-10T22:06:00.000-05:002012-02-10T22:07:26.811-05:00Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin<a href="http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2012/02/10/israeli-activist-gershon-baskin-on-the-release-of-gilad-shalit-and-the-prospects-for-peace/">"<b>Israeli activist Gershon Baskin on release of Gilad Shalit, peace prospects</b>," <span style="font-style:italic;">Radio Times</span>, WHYY/NPR, February 10, 2012.</a><br /><blockquote>A few days after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted in 2005, Gershon Baskin got a phone call from a Palestinian professor and colleague asking for his help in negotiating the soldier's release. Gershon was put in touch with a spokesman for the Hamas government and for five years, as an intermediary between senior Hamas and Israeli officials, Baskin worked through back channels to broker a deal for Shalit's freedom in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Baskin is a member of Israeli's Green Movement Party, is the founder of the <a href="http://www.ipcri.org/IPCRI/Home.html" target="_blank">Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information</a> and has been active in increasing understanding and promoting peaceful dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. He has been involved in peace process as an outside advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak and writes a column for the <span style="font-style:italic;">Jerusalem Post</span>.</blockquote>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-19458846291670125902012-01-30T20:35:00.000-05:002012-01-30T20:36:13.989-05:00"Aim to promote human rights of the Palestinians."By Ali Abunimah, <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-01-29/news/30676106_1_palestinian-rights-human-rights-jewish-israelis" target=_blank><span style="font-style:italic;">Philadelphia Inquirer</span>, January 29, 2012.</a><br /><blockquote>I am coming to the University of Pennsylvania this week to incite violence against the State of Israel - pro-Israel groups and commentators have contended - and, along with hundreds of students and other speakers who will attend the 2012 National Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference, to engage in an "act of warfare."<br /><br />Nothing could be further from the truth.<br /><br />In fact, we are coming together to push forward an inclusive movement that supports nonviolent action to promote the human rights of the Palestinian people, because only full respect for these rights can lead to peace. Today, millions of Palestinians live without basic rights under Israeli rule. This intolerable situation is at the root of problems that affect the whole world. . . . [<a href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-01-29/news/30676106_1_palestinian-rights-human-rights-jewish-israelis" target="_blank">continued</a>]</blockquote>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-60549269328348986062011-12-27T21:30:00.006-05:002015-11-16T12:58:40.789-05:00"Muslim author carries a universal message"<a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer_news/opinion/muslim-author-carries-a-universal-message/article_8f3099be-ea4c-5979-b4fa-b079bb495402.html" target=_blank><span style="font-style:italic;">Intelligencer</span> editorial, December 27, 2011</a>:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Muslim author carries a universal message<br /></span><br />Lisa Abdelsalam was born in Lansdale, graduated from North Penn High School and became an author. She was scheduled to talk about her writing and publishing experiences to several classes at A.M. Kulp Elementary School in Hatfield earlier this month. She’s made such visits to other schools in the North Penn School District.<br /><br />Her latest visit was canceled, however, when a few parents objected to her program and threatened to bring in an outside group to protest.<br /><br />The principal at the school, Erik Huebner, told Abdelsalam she was welcome just the same. But in order to spare the young students from what might have been an unpleasant scene, the two of them decided it would be better if she didn’t come.<br /><br />And perhaps prejudice claimed yet another victim.<a name='more'></a><br /><br />Abdelsalam, you see, is a Muslim, having converted to Islam when she married her husband, who is from Egypt. Even though she’s a longtime volunteer at the school, served as president of the Home and School Association and is now a member of the district’s diversity committee — “I was serving pizza with these people last year,” she said — some of those same people “did not want a Muslim or a Muslim book read in their classrooms.” That’s what Abdelsalam said she was told.<br /><br />Christine Liberaski, a spokeswoman for the North Penn School District, hopes the program can be rescheduled in the spring but offered no explanation as to why some parents objected.<br />We have a couple of ideas. Maybe they didn’t want someone talking to their kids whose message might contain “religious” overtones. Separation of church and state, you know.<br /><br />In this case, we’d guess it was something else: not religion per se, but a particular religious belief. Abdelsalam’s talk is based on her son Yoseph’s experiences at York Avenue Elementary School in the 1990s. Her book, “A Song for Me, A Muslim Holiday Story,” tells of a Muslim boy’s efforts to fit into the holiday spirit at Christmastime. The book presentation is extremely timely now, as Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus.<br /><br />We know some people want nothing to do with “Muslim” or anything connected to Islam, and especially don’t want their children hearing about a Muslim boy’s struggles at Christmas. The fact that Abdelsalam’s presentation has drawn praise in the past and isn’t a lecture on religion but about acceptance apparently is lost on those who sought — successfully — to keep this particular author away.<br /><br />Abdelsalam’s book and the story behind the story offer a nonthreatening view of something that too many of us see as only threatening.<br /><br />If all of us understood a little more about the things we fear, maybe we wouldn’t fear them so much.</blockquote>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-42840807377949868772011-10-26T00:54:00.003-04:002011-10-26T01:13:25.831-04:00Glenn Greenwald's new book released<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiplZbVXvVNeuRLndxhVrE_B4Zx_EPms9JtPaZ8mzsww1c7zR4L51NbsTXN_NOCjhP1S288RlWCf8QNh5L4y2l6ey11cogIRSjUV5tNRs_L8Dj3bawwK7JGAjJ51v6eT57Do-P/s1600/greenwald.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiplZbVXvVNeuRLndxhVrE_B4Zx_EPms9JtPaZ8mzsww1c7zR4L51NbsTXN_NOCjhP1S288RlWCf8QNh5L4y2l6ey11cogIRSjUV5tNRs_L8Dj3bawwK7JGAjJ51v6eT57Do-P/s200/greenwald.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5667660188374378306" /></a><blockquote></blockquote>Buy Glenn Greenwald's new book: <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=as_li_qf_sp_sr_tl?ie=UTF8&keywords=0805092056&tag=unclaimedterr-20&index=aps&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target=_blank>With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful</a></span>. Here's what he says about it <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/10/25/book_release_with_liberty_and_justice_for_some/singleton/" target=_blank>in Salon tonight</a>:<br /><blockquote>The book focuses on what I began realizing several years ago is the crucial theme tying together most of the topics I write about: America’s two-tiered justice system – specifically, the way political and financial elites are now vested with virtually absolute immunity from the rule of law even when they are caught committing egregious crimes, while ordinary Americans are subjected to the world’s largest and one of its harshest and most merciless penal states even for trivial offenses. As a result, law has been completely perverted from what it was intended to be – the guarantor of an equal playing field which would legitimize outcome inequalities – into its precise antithesis: a weapon used by the most powerful to protect their ill-gotten gains, strengthen their unearned prerogatives, and ensure ever-expanding opportunity inequality. . . .</blockquote>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19535877.post-32736801369403183402011-10-14T11:58:00.008-04:002011-10-19T16:16:34.091-04:00Mosque invites public"Lower Makefield: Mosque invites public to discussion of Islamic holy days"<br />By Joan Hellyer, <a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/courier_times_news/mosque-invites-public-to-discussion-of-islamic-holy-days/article_30c98f16-8299-5ccb-ac5e-0e3b0b0caaf0.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-style:italic;">Bucks County Courier Times</span>, October 14, 2011</a><br /><blockquote>Members of the Zubaida Foundation are inviting people of all backgrounds to their mosque in Lower Makefield on Sunday afternoon to examine and discuss what is common between religious faiths, an organizer said.<br /><br />Judaism, Christianity and Islam have the same roots in Abraham, said Brother Mohammed Husain, a foundation member and organizer of the free event, which includes a discussion and lunch.<br /><br />The ties to Abraham will serve as a focal point, he said.<br /><br />“If you want people to understand each other, you have to explore what is common between them,” Husain said. “We have to sit down at the same table to get to know each other and then maybe some of the stereotypes will go away. We will be in a little better condition and maybe we will be able to trust each other.”<br /><a name='more'></a><br />To help visitors better understand their faith, mosque speakers will discuss the Hajj, a Pilgrimage in Islam, and Eid Al Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice that marks the end of the pilgrimage.<br /><br />Hajj, the religious high point for a Muslim, means “to set out for a place,” according to Islamicity.com. Millions of Muslims make the pilgrimage each year to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to praise and pray to Allah (God) as the Prophet Muhammad did during his last visit to the city.<br /><br />Muslims who are “physically and financially able” are required to make the pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. The Hajj is one of the five “pillars” of Islam.<br />The pillars, which also include faith or belief in Allah (God), establishment of the five daily prayers, concern for and almsgiving to the needy and self-purification through fasting during Ramadan, are meant to help Muslims form the foundation of their faith.<br /><br />The next Hajj will be in early November. It is based each year on the lunar calendar.<br />Eid al Adha, at the end of Hajj, is called the Festival of Sacrifice and serves as a commemoration of Abraham’s trials.<br /><br />As part of the holiday, Muslims slaughter a sheep, camel or goat. Most of the meat is given away to friends and the poor to symbolize a Muslim’s willingness to give up things of benefit in order to follow Allah, religion experts said.<br /><br />One-fifth of the world’s population practices the Islamic faith, according to religion experts.<br /><br />The Lower Makefield mosque, which has been housed off Big Oak Road since 2006, has between 100 and 120 members, Husain said.<br /><br />Mosque members are looking forward to discussing their faith with those of different backgrounds Sunday, the organizer said.<br /><br />“This is an opportunity to get to know who we are and what we believe in,” Husain said.</blockquote>Bucks Blogrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00655145600491045339noreply@blogger.com