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Supes could revisit voting-machine contract
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Mayor Gavin Newsom voted absentee ahead of an election Tuesday that will require hand-counting ballots at City Hall. Supervisors agreed this week to reexamine a contract with a voting-machine manufacturer.
SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - When the Board of Supervisors declined in February to rule on a contract for new electronic voting machines after the company that makes the machines said it wouldn’t disclose the inner workings of its software, it left San Francisco with machines from a different company that the state would only allow The City to use under certain conditions.
As a result of the conditions — including one that requires election workers to visually inspect all ballots cast on Election Day — San Franciscans won’t get computerized results on Tuesday, but will have to wait days, possibly weeks, instead for the final outcome.
On Tuesday, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin requested that the contract with Sequoia Voting Systems be brought back before The City’s legislative body.
San Francisco learned in September that The City’s precinct machines — provided by Election Systems and Software — would only be certified for conditional use because testing by California’s secretary of state revealed that ballots marked with lighter inks were at risk of not being counted.
As a result, the 561 machines used at the polling sites will not be used to tabulate votes — meaning all ballots will need to be transferred to City Hall to be fed through the Election Department’s central voting system. The state is also requiring The City to hand-mark a backup ballot for any ballot that does not fill all three columns available in a ranked-choice race, said San Francisco’s elections chief, John Arntz.
Peskin said the questions brought up earlier this year regarding the transparency of the electronic voting machines justified holding up the $12.6 million, four-year contract with Sequoia. The election next week is “not critical,” he said.
“The fact is we dodged the bullet for this November,” Peskin said. “In February, it would be hard to pull it off, however … and we’ve got to have it for November ’08.”
The presidential election is next November; California’s presidential primary will be held in February.
Mayor Gavin Newsom told The Examiner last week that “ideology” got in the way of making a needed decision on new electronic voting machines.
On Thursday, the mayor said he was glad to see that Peskin was reactivating the contract-approval process, but added that he wished the Board of Supervisors had taken up the matter sooner.
The Board of Supervisors must approve all city contracts for more than $10 million. In February, board members, as well as members of the public, expressed concerns about locking The City into a deal that didn’t provide public access to the “source codes” — the code that tells vote-counting computers how to count the votes.
Advocates of such disclosure say that if the public doesn’t know everything about how the voting system works, the voters can’t trust that the system is not susceptible to large-scale fraud.
Representatives for both Sequoia and ES&S, contacted by The Examiner in May, said they were agreeable to allowing some form of source code disclosure to chosen inspectors, but would not make the information public due to security and intellectual property concerns.
The City should work with Sequoia to have “open-source voting when that technology is certified by the secretary of state,” Peskin said.
Comments from Examiner Readers
12:31 AM MST on Sun., Nov. 11, 2007 re: "Supes could revisit voting-machine contract"
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Examiner Reader said:
Anyone who suggests that the modern world does not rely on electronic counting and audits is foolish and naive. Our whole economic system is based on the accuracy of modern technology. Be it open source or a Microsoft based system, far better then hand counts. Our current system approved by Debra Bowen uses several audits to insure the accuracy of the first count.
195 agree | 194 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Let's recap why San Francisco is having a hand count: Chris Daly at the request of Alan Dechert, Brent Turner and Alec Bash tabled the contract for a new voting system. Their group supports and is financially supported by a for-profit company called Open Voting Solutions: a company that has never performed a single election and can’t get through Federal or State certification. Great work guys! In your attempt to force your garage built system down our throats, you have only shaken our confidence more about how our City counts our votes. So step in line with the likes of James Baker and Kathleen Harris, as just another group that has disenfranchised a bunch of voters and our right to fair and honest elections. Now I know why the Pew Charitable Trust tuned these yahoos and their crack-pot scheme down for support. Once again, great work screwing things up for the rest of us.
187 agree | 203 disagree
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No on H said:
I agree with the point on hand counts. What does happen if Prop H is close and Don Fisher and his attack dog Jim Sutton descends on the Department like James Baker in Florida? Will high-priced election attorneys throw out the intent of the voters? Wasn't that the real problem of 2000, that lawyers and judges decided the election? I have a felling this election is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. So why are we keeping ES&S for another year?
173 agree | 212 disagree
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Jiminy Cricket said:
As a blind voter, I would rather have a night at the Mark Hopkins and a limo ride to the poll rather than use those insecure machines- and that would save money. And i don't like having the lousy machines blamed on the disabled- The groups that represent us are off point on this one- maybe someone will investigate how this happenned.
189 agree | 141 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
San Francisco is a progressive city that values everyone’s right to vote. So I am blown away how certain activist like to gloss over the rights of one group for their own self serving views. Perhaps these election activists need to be reminded that the American with Disabilities Act affirms certain rights to the disabled, one of those rights is the use of electronic voting machines with touch screens. These machines are also essential for people who are not comfortable voting in English. What San Francisco needs is a real voting-system. Despite what some folks think, counting ballots by hand is not a practical solution, especially with rank-choice voting. We also need more that a bunch of old desktop computers as some open-source vendors have suggested. People want the optical scan system which reads whatever people using absentee ballots have lying around. We also don't want drawn-out handcounts, and we want to give the disabled the tools they are promised by the ADA.
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Former S.F. Resident said:
To the writer "Thank you Debra" I agree with your comments regarding the Secretary of State. Clearly, the Board of Supervisors actions in extending the contract with ES&S was premature and ill-advised.
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Examiner Reader said:
I agree with Ned to a point. However, the real crime is being pushed by a guy named Alan Deckurt and his group that is nothing more then a front for a for-profit company called Open Voting Solutions. This company has never as much as ran a junior high-school election. Now this group of con-artist has been lobbying San Francisco for millions of dollars for a computerized system that doesn’t even exist. And further more is not even open source since it relies on Microsoft systems to run. What San Franciscans want is a real solution, not crack-pot schemes. In addition, we can not have hand counts that allow volunteers to remark ballots which are what ES&S has stuck us with. Now that Sequoia is agreeing to both Open Source and code review, I say lets get them in place before San Francisco screws up the presidential elections that are right around the corner.
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Ned in Noe said:
I don't know what all the fuss is about- The top to bottom review said all these systems were deplorable- Why in heaven's name would any county ever buy more of them ? It seems like a non sequitor... SF has been the necessary leader nationally. I hope we continue to be and don't succumb to the hoodlums running these wicked games. All of them should be investigated by the law for the way they have plundered and jeopardized our democracy.- If we can't get a proper vote count that inspires voter confidence, I fear all is lost. Ned in Noe
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Examiner Reader said:
Once again, the Board of Supervisors got it wrong? ES&S should be criminally prosecuted for selling San Francisco voting machines that were not certified. And I hope that everyone will remember it was Chris Daly who gave them a multi-million dollar sole-source contract requiring the City to use the same machines that he knew were not certified. And why do people think that hand counts are the best way to go? Chris Burdy should go live with the Amish and renounce all the technological advancement of the last two centuries. Btw- if Prop H or A are too close to call, is anyone worried that Don Fisher will pay for an army of attorneys to bring Florida style electoral justice to our fair city.
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Knot2brite said:
The three offices in San Francisco for which there is to be an election are for Mayor, District Attorney and Sheriff. The incumbents in those offices are running virtually unopposed, meaning they will all be re-elected. Why would it make sense for any voter to use ranked choice voting in the case of DA when there's only one candidate on the ballot in the first place? There are only two candidates for Sheriff so how could a voter possibly use ranked choice voting? For Sheriff it's either A: The Incumbent or B: The Challenger, just like, uh, A RUNOFF between two Candidates. However in the Mayoral contest the local election law has been interpreted by some morons to mean that if I as a voter choose not to vote for at least three candidates then a government worker will have to either hand-count or re-mark my ballot. I mean is this really what is considered to be a Democratic process? Choice #1:Stupid; Choice #2 Waste of time and money; Choice #3 Stupid Waste of Time and money.
203 agree | 195 disagree
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Chris Brudy said:
Not only can the city hire temps, but volunteers would come out of the woodwork to help count. In NH, counts are done before 12 midnight. See OpEd News, search Nancy Tobi, Handcount Handbook. The argument that hand counts take too long is specious. How did we do it before machines, anyway? Handcounts are self-auditing, 99.99% accurate, and cost less than buying, programming and maintaining scanners. California is saving the nation, and should toss the machines.
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Thank you Debra said:
Your review of our voting systems in California is in the forefront of protecting our democracy. Seems the county officials who are complaining the loudest are most invested in these corrupt machine companies. It can't possibly cost more to count the votes accurately than it costs to buy machines that flip votes.
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Examiner Reader said:
It's about time. What's the rush? I'd rather wait a full month and know the candidate really one than get a rush to judgment the next day that has no paper ballots behind it. Unaudited systems are a disaster in any business. What idiots thought they could get away with that with our vote??
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