From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

On Monday (August 28), the Brennan Center for Justice released their report: The Machinery of Democracy: Usability of Voting Systems.

BRENNAN CENTER REPORT FINDS IMPROVEMENTS IN NEW VOTING TECHNOLOGY BEING IMPLEMENTED IN SEVERAL STATES

Report Finds Precinct Count Optical Scan and Scrolling Touch Screen Systems Have Lower Lost Vote Rates

Report Faults Continued Use of Full-Face Ballot Touch Screen Systems

NEW YORK, NY - The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, today released a report and policy proposals, concluding that two of the most commonly purchased electronic voting systems today are better at recording voter intentions than older systems like the punchcard system used in Florida in 2000. At the same time the report faulted one electronic voting system under consideration in New York and in use in parts of New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee that continues to unduly hamper voters’ ability to easily and accurately cast a ballot for their preferred candidate without undue burden, confusion and delay.

Among the report’s key findings:

Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) and scrolling Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems are more accurate at recording voter intention than older voting systems. In 2004, residual vote rates were less than 1% for both technologies.

Full-face DRE systems continue to be plagued with an unacceptably high residual vote rate. In 2000, 2002 and 2004, it exceeded that of either PCOS or scrolling DRE systems.

Residual vote rates among voters earning less then $25,000 are higher on full-face DREs (2.8%), than on either PCOS (1.4%) or scrolling DREs (1.3%).

“The good news is that most states are selecting machines and designing ballots that will record more voters’ choices accurately. The bad news is that major jurisdictions like Philadelphia, and perhaps New York City, plan to use voting technology that is known to have high error rates,” said Lawrence Norden, Associate Counsel at the Brennan Center and lead author of the report.

“This report makes clear that there is a real difference between so called ‘full-face’ systems and all other voting technology. Put simply, full-face systems make it harder for people to cast their votes. We should be encouraging all election officials to reject full-face ballot requirements and adopt technology that is user friendly for all voters,” stated David Kimball, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and a co-author of the report.

For the most part, the Brennan Center report analyzes voting machine usability but does not address vulnerability to fraud.

The key paragraph in the report can be found on Page 19, Efficiency and Voter Confidence:

The existing research concerning the time each system requires to complete the voting process, …

Voters and election officials already know voting on a machine takes longer than voting on a paper ballot. I voted on a machine this month. It took a long time.

… the burdens imposed on voters, and the confidence each system inspires among voters remains extremely limited.

Burdens of time and expense. HAVA allocated $3.86 billion to states for election reform but most of the funds are going into purchasing voting machines and training workers how to use them – an enormous taxpayer cost for a system we have no confidence in.

After two years of studying election issues, I believe HAVA (2002 Help American Vote Act) stands out as an obstacle to free and fair elections.

* HAVA requires states to purchase voting machines. Studies continue to show that voting machines are unreliable, expensive, difficult to use, and can be pre-programmed or hacked.

* HAVA creates confusion over voter ID requirements by allowing states to make their own rules.

* HAVA requires states to hand out provisional ballots but does not require election officials to count them.

I vote by mail whenever possible. It’s easy and convenient. Is it safe? No way. Optical scan voting machines are used to count mail-in (absentee) ballots. A Black Box Voting investigation uncovered serious vulnerabilities with Diebold optical scan machines in the 2004 election in Florida.

Tallahassee, FL: “Are we having fun yet?”

This is the message that appeared in the window of a county optical scan machine, startling Leon County Information Systems Officer Thomas James. Visibly shaken, he immediately turned the machine off.

Diebold’s opti-scan (paper ballot) voting system uses a curious memory card design, offering penetration by a lone programmer such that standard canvassing procedures cannot detect election manipulation.

The Diebold optical scan system was used in about 800 jurisdictions in 2004. Among them were several hotbeds of controversy: Volusia County (FL); King County (WA); and the New Hampshire primary election, where machine results differed markedly from hand-counted localities.

New regs: Counting paper ballots forbidden

Most states prohibit elections officials from checking on optical scan tallies by examining the paper ballots. In Washington, Secretary of State Sam Reed declared such spontaneous checkups to be “unauthorized recounts” and prohibited them altogether. New Florida regulations will forbid counting paper ballots, even in recounts, except in highly unusual circumstances. Without paper ballot hand-counts, the hacks demonstrated below show that optical-scan elections can be destroyed in seconds.

A little man living in every ballot box

The Diebold optical scan system uses a dangerous programming methodology, with an executable program living inside the electronic ballot box. This method is the equivalent of having a little man living in the ballot box, holding an eraser and a pencil. With an executable program in the memory card, no Diebold opti-scan ballot box can be considered “empty” at the start of the election.

The Black Box Voting team proved that the Diebold optical scan program, housed on a chip inside the voting machine, places a call to a program living in the removable memory card during the election. The demonstration also showed that the executable program on the memory card (ballot box) can easily be changed, and that checks and balances, required by FEC standards to catch unauthorized changes, were not implemented by Diebold — yet the system was certified anyway.

The Diebold system in Leon County, Florida succumbed to multiple attacks.

Based on their investigation, Black Box Voting, Inc. issued a report on July 4, 2005: Critical Security Issues with Diebold Optional Scan Design. This is it in a nutshell from the Executive Summary:

The findings of this study indicate that the architecture of the Diebold Precinct-Based Optical Scan 1.94w voting system inherently supports the alteration of its basic functionality, and thus the alteration of the produced results each time an election is prepared.

So there you go. With our current election system brought to you by HAVA, votes on paper ballots are not even safe from hackers.

Where do we go from here?

From my perspective and experience as an Election Judge, I advocate:

* Scrap or re-write HAVA to be inclusive and Constitutional
* Get rid of ALL voting machines, including optical scan vote counting machines
* To protect voting as a democratic process, people should count votes, not machines
* Bring back to paper ballots
* Train and pay election officials and workers
* Election Day (same day) voter registration
* Early voting
* Mail-in voting
* No ID requirement for registered repeat voters
* Enact IRV – instant runoff voting nationwide

Colorado Common Cause paid for the legal firm that represented the class action lawsuit I participated in 2 years ago. The Common Cause website publishes their own Election Reform Agenda.

Be sure to click through and read their recommendations, which go much further than my own. I agree with everything except the voting machines. Common Cause recommends the voter verified paper audit trail and testing standards for voting machines. Again, my own research tells me voting machines are unreliable, expensive, difficult to use, and can be pre-programmed or hacked.

No matter what, we still have a long, long way to go to achieve meaningful election reform.

For more information on election reform check out these websites:

Common Cause

Vote Trust USA

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One way to we can begin to tackle election reform is by enacting Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). It’s already happening in some regions.

What is IRV? According to the website, Instant Runoff Voting.com:

Instead of just casting one vote for one candidate, voters rank the candidates: 1,2,3, etc. (hence, the motto, “it’s as easy as 1-2-3.”). If no candidate receives a majority of the #1 votes, the candidate with the least total of #1 votes is eliminated. The second choice votes from these ballots are then transferred to the other candidates. The ballots are recounted, and candidates are eliminated in this fashion until 1 winner emerges with a majority of the vote. The animated links to the left can help clarify this simple process, but let’s talk about why it’s a superior voting system, first:

When there are more than 2 candidates, it ensures the winner has a majority. Without IRV, the winner can win with less than 50% of the vote. How do we really know they have a mandate?

It will allow more candidates, including independents and third-parties, to get involved in a race, without being accused of “spoiling” the elections. Even if your favorite candidate comes in last, at least IRV allows your next favorite candidate to be counted. No more wasting your vote, and no more spoilers.

It will decrease negative campaigning. To win, candidates need to get some 2nd and 3rd place votes, as well as 1st place votes. They’ll be less likely to “go negative” if they need their opponent’s voters, too.

IRV saves money.
Some states and local elections hold runoffs weeks later to pick the winner. IRV holds the runoff all in one election – saving money.

Confused?

Take a look at this interactive presentation: How IRV Works.

IRV is will be used statewide in North Carolina in 2007. It has been used in elections in Burlington, VT, and San Francisco, CA. It’s on the November ballot in Minneapolis, MN.

The Center for Voting and Democracy publishes fact sheets brochures and teaching materials that further explain IRV. Click here.

Still have questions? Go to Frequently Asked Questions About IRV.

IRV is used in Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada. Check out “History and use of instant runoff voting” at Wikipedia.

Instant Runoff Voting is fair and democratic – and it works.

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When I served as an Election Judge in Minnesota, our primary responsibility to was make sure everyone who wanted to vote was able to vote. And once the votes were cast, our job was to make sure all votes were counted. Imagine my surprise 2 years ago when I attempted to vote in my polling place in Colorado and was told I could not vote without my driver’s license and that my provisional ballot “probably won’t be counted”. Even though my name was on the register in front of them and I signed the ballot card, the Election Judges turned me away as “not eligible to vote”.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was renewed – barely – by Congress in July, prohibits discrimination of any eligible voter for any reason.

To address concerns about alleged voter fraud – ineligible voters showing up to vote illegally – the 2002 Help America Vote Act included a new mandate: voters who register for the first time in a jurisdiction through the mail and who A) fail to include a copy of their license, copy of a utility bill, bank statement, government check, or other government document that shows a voter’s name and address, or B) to provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, must present identification at a polling place the first time they vote.

I used the term “alleged voter fraud” because there is no evidence that ineligible voters are storming the polls. More on that in a minute.

To make matters worse, HAVA is not specific about what constitutes acceptable photo identification, so states interpret the law in very different ways. For instance, California explicitly lists a wide range of acceptable IDs, including student IDs and IDs issued by homeless shelters, while Ohio simply reprints the language in HAVA. Electionline.org publishes a state-by-state list of Voter ID Laws as of 7/26/06 on their website. The problem is, the list is based on information from Secretaries of State offices. For Colorado it says:

All voters - photo and non-photo ID accepted.
Colorado drivers license, Department of Revenue ID, U.S. Passport, Colorado or U.S. employee ID card, Pilots License, US Military ID, copy of current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the elector, Medicare or Medicaid card, a certified US birth certificate, or certified documentation of naturalization.

But I guarantee if a Colorado voter shows up to vote with anything but a photo ID, he will be turned away. I was specifically told to go home and get my driver’s license in order to vote. Mildred (Garfield Cty Clerk of Court) told me by phone that the Election Judges were simply misinformed and poorly trained, and that any form of ID should be accepted. But she’s the one who trained them.

Many elections experts have recommended that states accept any form of identification – in Minnesota back in 1995, your neighbor could vouch for you – in order to avoid confusion at polling places and registered voters being forced to cast provisional ballots. I say that’s fine for same day voter registration. But for registered voters, simply accept the signature card as long as the voter’s name is printed on the register. The ID requirement is redundant. When I registered to vote I showed my driver’s license. I should not have to prove who I am again to receive a ballot.

As I mentioned, preventing alleged voter fraud was the reason behind the ID requirement, which has degenerated into mass confusion. To top it all off, voter fraud is not the problem with our elections and it never was. The best explanation for this came in a Statement submitted on June 22, 2006, for the Committee on House Administration Hearing on non-citizen voting by US Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ):

“You Don’t Need Papers To Vote?” Non-Citizen Voting and ID Requirements in U.S. Elections       
By U.S. Representative Rush Holt    

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Millender-McDonald and respected Members of the Committee, I wished to speak before you today because, while I am pleased that the Committee is considering the issue of fraud in U.S. elections, I am disappointed that your emphasis today is the possibility that dishonest voters will cheat, rather than the possibility that honest voters will be disenfranchised. I do not say that because I think voters will never cheat; I simply say it because evidence that they are doing so to any significant degree appears to be lacking …

… The unfortunate remark made by Congressional candidate Francine Busby during her race in California’s 50th Congressional District, which is memorialized in the title of this hearing, is precisely the sort of “anecdotal” rhetorical device that Professor Overton, who testified to this Committee, has remarked. Will we make policy in this Congress on the basis of anecdotes and sound bites, or on the basis of hard evidence? Did Ms. Busby’s remark in fact provoke illegal aliens to vote? Did any aliens actually overcome the already-existing barriers to entry at the polls and succeed in casting an illegal vote? I do not believe the witnesses before the Committee today offered compelling evidence that such problems were rampant in that election or others. I will be very interested see evidence that voters are, to any significant degree, showing up at more than one polling place to vote, or successfully voting without being registered, or trying to vote using someone else’s identity. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ), in its “Report to Congress on the Activities and Operations of the Public Integrity for 2004,” reported that “[a]t the end of 2004, the [Public Integrity] Section was supervising and providing advice on approximately 133 election crime matters nationwide.” That is an average of just over 2 cases per State for the entire year – hardly an avalanche. In addition, most of the cases described with specificity in the report concerned campaign finance violations. Only one described a vote-buying scheme, and none referred specifically to non-citizen or double voting. On the other hand, the same Report noted that a total of 1,213 public officials had been federally charged with corruption in 2004, that 1,020 of them had been convicted of corruption, and that 419 cases remained pending.  In other words, according to the DOJ’s own findings, the problem of corruption among public officials is at the very least ten times worse than the problem of citizens cheating in elections.

Holt sums it all up further down in his statement with this:

If photo ID were to be required at the polls, on the other hand, thousands if not millions of voters who cannot afford the time or money to obtain one would be added to the ranks of the disenfranchised, all to solve what appears to be a virtually non-existent problem.

Not to mention that it is a violation of the Voting Rights Act and the US Constitution. Holt goes on to say that voter disenfranchisement is the big problem and there’s plenty of evidence to substantiate it.

The very passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) indicates that voter disenfranchisement, rather than voter cheating, has been the problem that has required remedying – namely, that too many voters who were duly registered and entitled to vote were being wrongfully refused access to the polls. HAVA’s requirement that all such voters be given the right to cast a provisional ballot sought to address this well-documented problem.   

Shortly after the November 2004 elections, I co-moderated a forum on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, The Century Foundation and Common Cause.  Entitled “Voting in 2004: A Report to the Nation on America’s Election Process,” the day-long event included reports from experts on every aspect of our electoral system. Endless accounts of various sorts of disenfranchisement of legitimate voters were presented, but I cannot recall any reports of illegitimate voters cheating the system by voting twice, or voting without being registered, or voting in someone else’s name. The comprehensive report delivered that day is still available on the Common Cause website, and I commend them to the Committee.

Among its conclusions, Common Cause found that “[p]roblems in the voting process were most often the fault of election officials—not voters.  For example, studies show that most of the problems incurred with respect to provisional ballots were caused by errors by election administrators before the election, poorly trained poll workers on Election Day, and a lack of diligence by election officials in verifying the validity of provisional ballots after the election.” Indeed, in its “2004 Election Day Survey Results,” the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) reported that more than 1.9 million provisional ballots were cast, and that 64% of those were counted.  What that means is that 1.2 million voters were told that they were not duly registered, when in fact they were.

Holt has introduced legislation to address voter disenfranchisement and corruption by public officials.

My legislation, the Electoral Fairness Act (H.R. 4989), recognizes that an honest assessment of elections in the United States reveals vastly more evidence of wrongful disenfranchisement of legitimate voters than of intentional and fraudulent voting by dishonest voters. 

My bill would require that all voters, upon being duly registered, be issued a durable voter registration card at no cost to the voter, “which shall serve as proof that the individual is duly registered to vote” at the polling place which services the individual’s address listed on the card. The bill also authorizes to the Election Assistance Commission such sums as may be necessary to defray to the States the cost of issuing these cards. Each card may then be used by a voter to prove to election officials that the voter is, in fact, duly registered in the jurisdiction in which the voter is seeking to vote even if the voter’s name has been omitted erroneously from the voter registration list.

I want to be very clear – the durable voter registration card contemplated by my legislation is not a voter identification requirement. While it may be used to satisfy existing voter identification requirements, it does not add any. Producing it is not a prerequisite to voting.  Failure to produce it results in no penalty or detriment to the voter. 

The purpose of this card is to protect voters who are removed from the voter rolls erroneously. It mandates that voters be provided, for free, durable proof that they are duly registered, and allows them to use this proof to vote via regular ballot if they have been wrongfully or erroneously removed from the voter registration list. The benefit to our democracy and to election officials is that duly registered voters will be able to prove that they are so by producing the card at the polls. These voters will be entitled to cast a regular ballot – as they should be – in instances of wrongful or erroneous removal of their names from the list. As a result, the need for and use of provisional ballots should decrease.

On the surface the durable voter registration card seems like a good idea. It offers the voter proof of registration, and an answer to voter disenfranchisement. Yet I find it astounding in the 21st century we need to enact a law that ASSUMES corruption by local public officials. As a former election official, it makes me ill. It tells me the system is surely broken. When I worked as an election official more than 10 years ago, and well before HAVA, it was pretty damn hard for an election official to cheat, and if he did, he usually got caught. Unfortunately HAVA puts far too much power in the hands of local officials. HAVA should be scrapped entirely.

For whatever reasons – too numerous to go into here – the national media rarely covers stolen elections or election reform. Therefore it’s up to voters to be informed. In fact the judge in our class action lawsuit said it is the responsibility of the voter to know the rules and abide by them no matter how much they change or how close to the election the changes are implemented. While I don’t agree with that, it is the present circumstances we find ourselves in. So it’s up to each of us to understand all the ways our vote can be taken away or stolen.

For everything you wanted to know about voter suppression but were afraid to ask, check out this free 22-page ebook:

The New Face of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in America  

I’m not fond of the title. It implies suppression of black voters. But I’m a white registered voter and I was denied a ballot on Election Day. It can happen to ANYONE, regardless of color. Nonetheless it’s worth reading in order to understand exactly how – beyond black box voting – our elections are stolen.

Here is a list of books on how elections were and are stolen:

Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast

Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) by Mark Crispin Miller

How the Gop Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman 

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count by Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss 

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We interrupt the Voting Rights series for the August Newspeak Award.

In Orwell’s 1984, newspeak was government approved language. Our government likes to inject new words or phrases into the media to catapult their propaganda, like World War 3. While it’s technically propaganda, it still qualifies as newspeak.

This month’s award goes to Michael Chertoff and the Dept of Homeland Security for inventing the term liquid explosives, which has morphed in the media to liquid bombs.

Everybody knows about the August 10 terror alert. Alleged “homegrown” UK terrorists were plotting to smuggle liquid components onto planes, then while on the planes they would combine the liquids and – KABOOM!

In his August 10 press conference Chertoff repeated the term “liquid explosive(s)” at least 5 times.

Thomas Greene, who writes for The Register in the UK asked the question: “Were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?”

Greene says:

We’re told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

So he set out to make enough TATP to take down a commercial airliner. He learned it’s not so easily done as Homeland Security would have us believe. Here’s the article:

Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?
Let’s whip up some TATP and find out
By Thomas C Greene

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air; And a loud voice came forth out of the temple of Heaven, From the throne, saying, “It is done!”
–Revelation 16:17

Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers. It would be tedious to enumerate the movie terrorists who’ve employed relatively harmless liquids that, when mixed, immediately rain destruction upon an innocent populace, like the seven angels of God’s wrath pouring out their bowls full of pestilence and pain.

The funny thing about these movies is, we never learn just which two chemicals can be handled safely when separate, yet instantly blow us all to kingdom come when combined. Nevertheless, we maintain a great eagerness to believe in these substances, chiefly because action movies wouldn’t be as much fun if we didn’t.

Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

Better killing through chemistry

Making a quantity of TATP sufficient to bring down an airplane is not quite as simple as ducking into the toilet and mixing two harmless liquids together.

First, you’ve got to get adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is hard to come by, so a large quantity of the three per cent solution sold in pharmacies might have to be concentrated by boiling off the water. Only this is risky, and can lead to mission failure by means of burning down your makeshift lab before a single infidel has been harmed.

But let’s assume that you can obtain it in the required concentration, or cook it from a dilute solution without ruining your operation. Fine. The remaining ingredients, acetone and sulfuric acid, are far easier to obtain, and we can assume that you’ve got them on hand.

Now for the fun part. Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drinks bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane. It’s all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don’t forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked “perishable foods”), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You’re going to need them.

It’s best to fly first class and order Champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate - especially if you have those cold gel-packs handy to supplement the ice, and the Styrofoam chiller handy for insulation - to get you through the cookery without starting a fire in the lavvie.

Easy does it

Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you’ll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you’ll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven’t overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you’ll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

The genius of this scheme is that TATP is relatively easy to detonate. But you must make enough of it to crash the plane, and you must make it with care to assure potency. One needs quality stuff to commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” as Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson put it. While it’s true that a slapdash concoction will explode, it’s unlikely to do more than blow out a few windows. At best, an infidel or two might be killed by the blast, and one or two others by flying debris as the cabin suddenly depressurizes, but that’s about all you’re likely to manage under the most favorable conditions possible …

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Ever since I was turned away for not presenting my driver’s license in 2004, I’ve been voting by mail. I forgot about the August 8 primary election. The soon-to-be-retired-but-not-soon-enough-for-me County Clerk Mildred Alsdorf didn’t post an election announcement in The Paper until 8 days before the election, which made it too late to apply for a mail-in (or absentee) ballot unless I drove to Glenwood Springs and applied in person. The article mentioned early voting in Rifle. So I chose that option. There was some confusion as the article stated early voting was in the new Human Services Building and the Garfield County website said early voting was in the DMV building about a mile away. Tod called the County Clerk’s office but the woman he spoke to didn’t seemed too concerned about the mix-up.

Early voting was held in the Human Services Building with shiny new Hart InterCivic voting machines. An article in The Paper last spring described how they work.

New electronic voting machines to be in place for next county election
By Donna Gray

It’s official. Garfield County voters will cast their choices on new electronic voting machines this year, possibly as early as August. County Clerk and Recorder Mildred Alsdorf this week signed a contract with Hart Intercivic for 13 touch-screen voting machines and 14 ballot scanners, Alsdorf said …

Last year, the Colorado Secretary of State mandated that electronic voting machines be in place in all counties in time for the 2006 elections. The machines will help the counties meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Hart’s “eSlate,” or direct recording equipment, is designed for disabled voters who use buttons on a computer-like screen built into a portable voting booth. Voters navigate through the ballot with a large wheel inset into a tablet that allows the voter to scroll through the candidates’ names and make a mark by the selected candidate’s name.

Blind voters can listen to a synthetic voice that talks them through the ballot.

Ballot scanners read paper ballots filled in by voters and tabulate the results.

“I want to be sure to have a paper trail,” Alsdorf said …

Prior to August 1, I was a black box voting virgin. I’d never voted on a computer. Ever. I condemned them, signed petitions against them, wrote letters against them. But never voted on one. Now I have. And I still don’t like them.

The problem with voting on a computer is so obvious. It’s a computer! Unless the data is being stored and backed up constantly elsewhere, it can be easily lost, let’s say in a power outage, or hard drive malfunction. Anyone who’s ever owned a computer knows this.

We keep hearing on the news about people’s personal information being stolen off computers, and NSA spying on people’s phone calls and computers. We know hackers and the government can access our telephones and computers. So how hard could it be to hack a voting machine?

Not very. Anyone can do it. Here’s a funny video to show you how:

How to Hack a Diebold Voting Machine by Marty Kaplan

In a current article for Forbes Magazine, Aviel Rubin (Computer Science Professor at Johns Hopkins University) describes how voting machines can be hacked and explains why he thinks the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail – or VVPAT – is the answer.

Pull the Plug
By Aviel Rubin

I am a computer scientist. I own seven Macintosh computers, one Windows machine and a Palm Treo 700p with a GPS unit, and I chose my car (Infiniti M35x) because it had the most gadgets of any vehicle in its class. My 7-year-old daughter uses e-mail. So why am I advocating the use of 17th-century technology for voting in the 21st century-as one of my critics puts it?
   
… Yet while computers are very proficient at counting, displaying choices and producing records, we should not rely on computers alone to count votes in public elections. The people who program them make mistakes, and, safeguards aside, they are more vulnerable to manipulation than most people realize. Even an event as common as a power glitch could cause a hard disk to fail or a magnetic card that holds votes to permanently lose its data. The only remedy then: Ask voters to come back to the polls. In a 2003 election in Boone County, Ind., DREs recorded 144,000 votes in one precinct populated with fewer than 6,000 registered voters. Though election officials caught the error, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where such mistakes would go undetected until after a victor has been declared …

My ideal system isn’t entirely Luddite. It physically separates the candidate selection process from vote casting. Voters make their selections on a touchscreen machine, but the machine does not tabulate votes. It simply prints out paper ballots with the voters’ choices marked. The voters review the paper ballots to make sure the votes have been properly recorded. Then the votes are counted; one way is by running them through an optical scanner. After the polls close, some number of precincts are chosen at random, and the ballots are hand counted and compared with the optical scan totals to make sure they are accurate. The beauty of this system is that it leaves a tangible audit trail. Even the designer of the system cannot cheat if the voters check the printed ballots and if the optical scanners are audited.

Oh wow. I get it. With VVPAT all our black box voting problems will be solved. And it’s all so simple. Hallelujah!

Not so fast.

As Mildred pointed out, the Hart InterCivic VVPAT version I voted on (which looks EXACTLY like the Diebold) has a paper trail. Why, I even walked out of the polling place with a little paper receipt in my hand and an “I Voted” sticker on my shirt. My vote was safe. Right?

According Hart InterCivic’s website:

The VVPAT is integrated into the Hart voting booth for voter security, while minimizing space needs and required set-up time for the poll worker.

Produces the paper equivalent of the voter’s choices so the voter can view it via a method that is completely independent of the voting system.

The VVPAT is sealed for security.

The paper record shall constitute a complete record of the voter’s ballot choice to verify the election results and for full recounts.

All of which means your grubby little fingers never touch your ballot and supposedly nobody else’s grubby little fingers – you get the idea. Whew. I’m glad we solved that problem. You know, the one about people messing with the ballots.

Wait a minute. That’s not the problem with voting machines. Messing with the MACHINES is the problem.

A study released this month by the Election Science Institute uncovered “multiple problems” with VVPAT.

New Report Analyzes Multiple Problems With Diebold Touchscreen Voting Machines       
By Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA    
 
Computer generated election results prove inconsistent with an audit of voter-reviewed paper records - Diebold Does Damage Control

A new study of significant vote counting problems during the May 2006 primary election in Cuyahoga County, Ohio reveals that the Diebold TSx touchscreen voting system causes significant threats to error free tabulation and tabulation transparency. Last spring the Cuyahoga County Election Commissioners engaged Election Science Institute (ESI) to review all aspects of the new voting system and prepare a report on their findings with recommendations.

The report examined vote tallies from 467 voting machines used at 50 polling locations in the county were examined. The report found that every method of verification of the vote failed. None of the vote counts matched on any media in the voting system - every redundancy built in the system failed.

ESI conducted a hand count of the voter-verified paper record (VVPAT), which in Ohio constitutes the official vote of record, and compared the results to the totals generated by each of these sources. Although the discrepancies between the VVPAT and the paper record summaries were relatively small, “discrepancies between the paper record and the electronic record were considerably larger and more pervasive”, according to the report.

“The current election system appears to provide some of its promised benefits at potentially great cost; namely, that the election system, in its entirety, exhibits shortcomings with extremely serious consequences, especially in the event of a close election. These shortcomings merit your urgent attention. Relying on this system in its present state should be viewed as a calculated risk in which the outcome may be an acceptable election, but there is a heightened risk of unacceptable cost.”

The report did not define what constituted “an acceptable election” and what would an “unacceptable cost”.

Interviewed in the Columbus-Dispatch, ESI founder Steven Hertzberg said that researchers can’t yet explain the discrepancies and that more study should be done among researchers, Diebold and election officials. ESI was reportedly paid $341,000 for the study.

Hertzberg was careful not to assign blame, noting “We need to understand much better why this occurred, whether it was human error, machine error or a combination of both,” he said. Not surprisingly, both Diebold and the Ohio Secretary of state were quick to defend the machines.

“The discrepancies they found were not discrepancies,” Diebold spokesman Mark Radke said, arguing “the same system was has been used without problems in other Ohio counties and many other states”. Of course that system has not received this level of scrutiny in other Ohio counties or states and the report did conclude that the problems uncovered in Cuyahoga County are “systemic and therefore faced by other counties nationally and across Ohio.”
 
Secretary of State and former Diebold stockholder Ken Blackwell was quick to blame pollworkers and exonerate the machines. According to the Columbus-Dispatch article, Blackwell spokesman James Lee blamed inadequate poll worker training in Cuyahoga County, noting the machines were exhaustively tested before they were deployed. “No matter what system is used, if there is not proper training and adherence to procedures, there are going to be problems,” he said.

And problems there were. The study included an “exhaustive analysis of regular voted ballots from onboard machine memory compared to manual counts of paper ballots, official results, and other interim and election reports”. The report found a lack of inventory controls and gaps in the chain of custody of mission critical assets, such as DRE memory cards, DRE units, and VVPAT cartridges, resulted in a significant amount of missing data. Because of the missing data, ESI was unable to give a definitive opinion of the accuracy of the Diebold TSX system.

ESI suggested that due to limits in the data, software computational abnormality contributing to the count inaccuracies cannot be ruled out. Computational abnormality could be the result of a failure to adequately test the voting equipment before the election or to manage the various databases appropriately.

And it gets worse, ESI reported that in multi-precinct polling places, voters could vote on machines located in other precincts. Accordingly, ballots from a number of precincts appeared on the same VVPAT tape. It appears that Diebold VVPAT ballots, however, lack a header identifying the precinct and without this information, it is not possible to conduct a precinct-level tally of the VVPAT ballots. Overall, data could not be retrieved for 13 VVPAT summaries, 87 VVPAT cartridges, 53 election archives and 3 DRE memory cards, which were used to tabulate the official vote count.

In the end, the researchers of this report simply couldn’t determine the source of discrepant vote data. This report lends credence to the concerns of voters, candidates, and election officials, expressed since the introduction of electronic voting, that elections using these machines cannot be trusted.

Oops. Guess VVPAT doesn’t solve the voting machine problems after all.

Proponents of voting machines insist they save money. However a study by NC Voter, a North Carolina Coalition for Verified Voting showed that paper ballots are more cost-effective.

Operating Cost Comparison for Different Types of Voting Systems
By Joyce McCloy

Touchscreen Voting Increases Election Costs in North Carolina
A Comparison of Total Annual Expenditures for TouchScreens and Optical Scanners
 
Not only have computer scientists advised the North Carolina Legislature that touch screen voting machines are less reliable and accurate than optical scan equipment, we find that they are more costly to own and operate. Clearly, this is no way to run an election.
 
Opponents to voter verified paper ballots often cited costs of printing paper ballots as an excuse for using paperless all electronic voting machines. They also used the argument that optical scan ballots take up more space, therefore increasing costs. We were intrigued, and set out to seek the truth.
 
The NC Coalition for Verified Voting, in 2005 - completed a study of annual expenditures of the election departments of four North Carolina counties. We found that the cost of using touch screen voting or direct recording machines in Guilford and Mecklenburg county was about 30-40% higher than the cost of using optical scan equipment in Wake and Durham county. This means that not only are touch screens more expensive to acquire, they are also more expensive to operate year after year.

One factor that may explain why having touch screens cost so much more than optical scanners is because the county has to own and maintain so many more machines. We estimate that one optical scanner can count handle six voter?s votes a minute (or 360 per hour) as they are cast but because it takes a voter at least three minutes to vote with touch screens, it would take 20 touch screens to perform per hour as well as optical scanners.  Additionally, touch screen machines use thermal paper ballots - both require special handling and climate controlled storage.  Justin Moore, of Duke University Computer Science Department found that counties using touch screen machines required 20% more poll workers, and about 10% more precincts.

A new Zogby poll released this week reveals that people are finally waking up to the problems with voting machines and how they affect our elections.

Americans Concerned About Election Transparency and Security

New poll shows more than 60% have heard news reports of flaws in new electronic voting equipment

A majority of Americans—61%—are aware of news reports of flaws in electronic voting machines and want members of the general public to be able to watch votes be counted following an election, a new Zogby International poll shows.

The telephone survey of 1,018 likely voters was conducted Aug. 11-15, 2006. It carries a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

Asked whether Americans have the right to view and obtain information about how elections officials count votes, 92% of respondents concurred.

“The 92% support for the public’s right to view vote counting and obtain information about it is a very strong political value of transparency and against secret vote counting outside the observation of the public,” said Paul Lehto, a lawyer and sponsor of the survey. “To put this figure in context, support for election transparency exceeds the support for tax cuts, exceeds the approval of Pres. Bush immediately after 9-11, and virtually all other political values being measured.” Mr. Lehto is counsel in the 50th Congressional District election contest in California.

In the article about Garfield County’s new voting machines (above), Mildred said it takes longer to vote on a voting machine than a paper ballot:

Alsdorf said she’d also like to have people come in and practice on the machines before the elections so they can familiarize themselves with the new voting process.

In March, Alsdorf invited several older people and some who are disabled to try out the Hart “eSlate.” Most took about 10 minutes to cast votes on a dummy ballot.

“It takes a lot longer (than a paper ballot). I’m afraid the November ballot will be a big one,” she said. “There are 12 state issues already, and I’ve heard Re-2 wants a bond issue.”

So, voting machines are not only unreliable, but they cost more and take more time than paper ballots. If VVPAT isn’t the answer, how do we get back our confidence in the voting process?

Go back to paper ballots.

As the old saying goes: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. HAVA was passed in 2002 to address the problems with the 2000 election. Except the actual voting problem was only in Florida and involved poorly designed butterfly ballots. The voting machines were forced on us as a solution to the butterfly ballot. Now the problems created by voting machines dwarf the problems with butterfly ballots. The whole thing is laughable.

The biggest problem with the 2000 election was that ALL the votes were not counted in Florida, and the US Supreme Court stopped the recount.

The same article also said:

The voting machines will electronically tabulate the votes at each polling place, eliminating the time-consuming job of carrying the ballots back to the courthouse for counting.

The solution to this problem is easy. Counties invest in vote tabulation systems where each Precinct Chairperson logs into a vote tabulator on site that is connected to another computer in the courthouse and enters the hand count of paper ballots. Those counts are later verified when the ballots are delivered to the courthouse.

Finally, Maryland voting rights activist Mary Howe Kiraly has a compiled an online review of what has been done to address voters’ concerns about security and voting machines. Hint: nothing

“IT” Happens: HAVA, Exit Polls, Diebold & More By Voting Security: Where We Stand in 2006

Kiraly concludes:

Recent scientific analysis has found that all electronic voting machines are vulnerable to breakdowns, lost votes, ballot formatting errors, and errors in computation. They are also vulnerable to deliberate efforts, by a wide range of potential actors, to hack the system and change the outcome of an election. This vulnerability exists in two stages: (1) at the voting machine where the voter interacts with the machine to mark and/or record a ballot; and (2) at the level of tabulation where the accumulated data from various machines and/or various precincts is accumulated to produce voting totals.

Forget the punch card ballots, butterfly ballots, and voting machines. We should return to paper ballots. And allow mail-in ballots and early voting. Going back to this simple, hands-on, open system is just a start in returning confidence to our election process. In the next installment I’ll cover voter disenfranchisement and how Americans are being prevented from casting their votes.

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In case you’ve been on extended vacation – or living in a cave – this is mid-term election season. For me, the act of voting is a patriotic duty. And believe me, these days for me to even consider using the word “patriotic” as it relates to anything I do is a stretch. I am not a “patriotic” individual. I don’t wrap myself in the flag. I don’t fool myself with blind patriotism. I’m well aware of the atrocities committed by the US Government against its own people and others around the world.

Nonetheless, voting is the purest form of political action. As a child, I was taught that being an American citizen meant exercising the right to vote. And we do that by voting. We were taught how to vote in school. My parents voted. My mom worked as an Election Judge for 25 years. I worked as an Election Judge for 4 years in Lakewood Township in Minnesota. I have repeatedly volunteered to be an Election Judge in Garfield County but I’ve never been called. I’m registered as a Democrat. Garfield County is a Republican stronghold. No one’s going to call.

In 2004, I became a voting rights activist. During the August 10 (2004) Colorado primary, I was denied the right to vote because a did not present a photo ID when I showed up to vote, even though I had been a registered, active voter in the same precinct for 8 years. I was also discouraged from voting a provisional ballot because, the Election Judge said, “It probably won’t be counted.” I filed a complaint with Garfield County Clerk Mildred Alsdorf by phone and in writing, (with a witness). In October, I participated in a Common Cause class action suit against the CO Secretary of State, Donetta Davidson.

This was our complaint:

1. This is an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 and the Colorado Uniform Declaratory Judgments Law, C.R.S. 13-51-101 et seq., seeking injunctive relief and a declaration that C.R.S. §1-7-110 and Colorado Election Rules 26.12(a) and 30.13, deprive plaintiffs of rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution; violate the Colorado Constitution, Article I, § 1; and violate the Help America Vote Act (“HAVA”), 42 U.S.C. §15301 et seq, and as adopted in Colorado pursuant to C.R.S. §1-1.5-101 et seq.

2. By this action, Plaintiffs seek a declaration of unlawfulness and an injunction against:

a. Colorado’s new statutory and regulatory requirement that previously duly registered voters must also present a prescribed form of identification at the polling place as a prerequisite to unfettered voting; and

b. Colorado’s newly instituted limitations on the casting of provisional ballots, and improper restrictions on counting votes cast in provisional ballots.

We lost our case. Included in the decision, Judge Morris Hoffman disputed the “right to vote” stating that it is the responsibility of the voter to know the rules and abide by them no matter how much they change or how close to the election the changes are implemented. His decision did not address many of the core issues of our complaint. He basically said you can be too stupid or incompetent to vote, so sit down and shut up. Oh yeah, he did say if the three of us who felt disenfranchised wanted to, we could sue individually.

We have many, many problems with our election process in the US. One of the big problems is HAVA – Help America Vote Act of 2002. By giving states the right to further restrict voters’ rights, it encourages state legislatures to violate the US Constitution: Bill of Rights, Amendment 14, Section 1: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In short, HAVA is being used to segregate and disenfranchise voters.

Fresh from the jaws of defeat, I was not optimistic the chances for a clean election in November (2004 National Election). I had already known about problems with voting machines and suddenly I had this new information about voter disenfranchisement. Late in the afternoon on November 2, the national media outlets were reporting Kerry with a big lead over Bush according to exit polls. I dared to hope. But by nightfall, the vote flipping had begun.

I believe the 2004 Election was stolen. I’m not alone.

Poll: 2004 Election Was Stolen; according to viewers of all news networks except Fox News

In the first poll of its kind, OpEdNews.com, in the second OpEdNews/Zogby People’s poll has learned that except for viewers of right wing news show, Fox News, poll respondents believe that the 2004 presidential election was stolen.

Overall, the poll found that 39% said that the 2004 election was stolen. 54% said it was legitimate. Shortly after the election, the NY Times suggested that a few fringe extremists and bloggers were concerned about the theft of the election.

But let’s look at the demographics on this question. Of the people who watch Fox news as their primary sourc of TV news, one half of one percent believe it was stolen and 99% believe it was legitimate. Among people who watched ANY other news source but FOX, more felt the election was stolen than legitimate. The numbers varied dramatically:
Here are the stats by network listed as first choice by respondent and whether the respondent thought the election was stolen or legitimate.
              Stolen  Legitimate
ABC          56%     32%
CBS          64%     31%
CNN          70%     24%
FOX           .5%     99%
MSNBC      65%     24%
NBC          49%     43%
Other        56%     28%

Several articles, books, and studies have been written and published since. The latest article/study by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was published in May to mostly silence or criticism from the national media.

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush — and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush’s victory as nut cases in ”tinfoil hats,” while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ”conspiracy theories,”(1) and The New York Times declared that ”there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.”(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots — or received them too late to vote(4) — after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,( malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment — roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush’s victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency …

Even if you believe the 2004 election was probably stolen, read the article anyway. Kennedy describes exactly how it was done. The perfect crime. The only way we can begin to undo the damage to our democracy one day is to understand what is broken – and how it was broken.

In a July interview with Brad Blog, Kennedy outlined three things needed to restore our Democracy.

From Democracy in Crisis – Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr:

Number One: Fix the campaign finance system to get corporate money out of the electoral process. Corporations are a great thing for our country. They drive our economy but they should NOT be running our government because they don’t want the same thing for America that Americans want. Corporations don’t want democracy, they want free markets, they want profits, and oftentimes the easiest path to profits is to use the campaign finance system to get their hooks into a public official and to use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them monopoly control and a competitive edge and to privatize the commons-to steal our air, our water, or our public treasury, and liquidate it for private profits.

Number Two: We have to fix the press: restore journalistic ethics in this country, and that is by bringing back the fairness doctrine and strengthening the FCC. The Fairness Doctrine was abolished by Ronald Reagan in 1988, and it recognized that the airwaves belong to the public; that the broadcasters can be licensed to use them to make a profit, but they use them with the proviso that their primary obligation is to advance democracy and promote the public interest. They have to inform the public because a democracy cannot survive an uninformed public. As Thomas Jefferson said, “An uninformed public will trade a hundred years of hard-fought civil rights for a half an hour of welfare.” And they will follow the first demagogue or religious fanatic that comes along and offers them a $300 tax break.

Number Three: We have to fix our electoral system so that every vote is counted. Those are the first three things that any President should do, Republican or Democrat, to restore American Democracy.

In our current system, every vote is NOT counted. In my next installment, I’ll look at voting machines, and how they affect the count.

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Over the past several years, as surface rights and mineral rights owners have battled the gas companies, local officials and area residents have become more aware and proactive. In May, after Rep. Kathleen Curry withdrew her surface rights bill from the Colorado Senate because gas industry representatives had watered it down to sheer meaninglessness, a petition drive was started up by Colorado Landowners for Fairness to put a surface use initiative on the ballot in November. The gas industry delayed the group’s efforts in court so there wasn’t enough time to gather the nearly 68,000 signatures required by the August 14 deadline.

Petition drive falls short
Surface use initiative will not appear on November ballot
By Dennis Webb

Organizers have come up far short in collecting signatures for a state ballot initiative aimed at providing fair compensation for property owners affected by energy development.

But John Gorman, a Glenwood Springs real estate agent who heads the group Colorado Landowners for Fairness, says he’ll be back for another try. Next time, he says, he’ll start out knowing a lot more about the state citizens initiative process.

“We’re not going away. This issue isn’t going away. Our overwhelming experience has been to find out that this issue has tremendous traction among the citizens of Colorado,” Gorman said.

Gorman did not submit signatures by the state’s deadline of 3 p.m. Monday. The Secretary of State’s Office required 67,829 valid signatures to put the measure on the November ballot. Gorman said he hadn’t tallied up how many signatures had been gathered, but it was probably less than half what was needed.

He said his group didn’t have enough time to circulate petitions.

“It was our naiveté of thinking that the legislature might do something, and then after that it was the very vigorous and effective delaying tactics of industry that delayed us so much that the first day of our signature gathering drive was about five weeks ago,” he said.

Initiative supporters had held off on acting this spring while awaiting the outcome of efforts by state Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison. She sought to pass a bill addressing the rights of surface owners on property where underlying mineral rights are being developed. Curry withdrew the bill while it was in the Senate, after it was weakened by compromise to the point that some of its initial supporters withdrew their backing.

In June, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in the initiative supporters’ favor after the industry had contended the measure was too vague. Only then could signature-gathering begin.

Supporters say the final straw was when the Colorado Association of Home Builders (CAHB) backed out on a promise to provide financial backing to their efforts.

“Unfortunately the homebuilders sold us out. They would not support it,” said Duke Cox, president of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance, a Garfield County-based group that advocates for surface owners’ rights …

The good news is the head of Colorado Landowners for Fairness, John Gorman is running for Garfield County Assessor. At a local mayors’ gathering on August 3, Gorman told the group that Garfield County had commissioned an audit of gas drilling operations in 2004, but the audit still has not been completed. Natural gas produced from wells in the county is considered real property and is taxed as such. The County Assessor has the responsibility and power to expedite a tax audit, and if elected, Gorman intends to follow through with that responsibility. Shannon Hurst is currently the County Assessor.

Is there any reason to believe the gas companies are not paying as much tax as they should be paying?

Uh-huh.

They cheat on royalties to mineral rights holders.

State Supreme Court refuses to hear Williams’ appeal in royalty lawsuit
By Donna Gray

A mineral rights owner won her lawsuit against a natural gas producer this week when the Colorado Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

The court’s decision put an end to a lawsuit filed by Joan Savage of Rifle against Williams, one of Garfield County’s largest gas producers.

Savage first filed the suit against Barrett Resources in 1998. In 2001, Williams bought out Barrett and inherited the suit.

Savage has maintained that the company was not paying her the appropriate amount of royalties on natural gas wells Williams drilled on land where she holds the mineral rights.

Savage has extensive mineral holdings between Rifle and Rulison.

In particular, Savage contended that Williams was deducting from her royalty payments, which amounts to 12.5 percent of profits from the sale of gas from a well, to cover the cost of conditioning and transporting gas to market.

She also asserted that Williams was charging her for the gas fuel it used to power the conditioning plant that removed hydrocarbon compounds and water from the gas before it enters the pipeline.

She said Williams owes her back royalties “in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

In 2004, Ninth Judicial Court Judge Thomas Ossola “ruled in her favor,” said Parachute accountant Mary Ellen Denomy, who also works for Savage …

But I digress. Back to the August 3 mayors’ meeting. The media wasn’t invited. At this stage, local leaders are simply organizing and discussing their concerns. They’re not interested in broadcasting their intentions to the gas industry. Here is a brief report of the meeting from The Paper:

Mayors from Aspen to Grand Junction meet
SILT — Mayors from Aspen to Grand Junction joined together Thursday morning to take a flyby airplane ride of the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys and discuss regional issues.

Representatives from Pitkin, Garfield and Mesa counties met at the Garfield County Airport in the morning to get an aerial view of the valley’s oil and gas wells, oil shale projects, and gravel pits along the Colorado River and the Interstate 70 corridor.
Afterwards, the group met at Silt Town Hall for an informal discussion about various issues. Glenwood Springs Mayor Bruce Christensen, who had a prior obligation, was absent.

A number of issues were discussed at the informal meeting, including oil and gas matters, gravel pit reclamation and the development of roadless areas.

The main purpose of the meeting and the flyovers was to assess the impact of gravel pits along the Colorado River corridor. The group decided that an impact study is needed to ensure the ramifications of rapid gravel extraction are understood and dealt with appropriately. They did not rule out the possibility of a future moratorium on new gravel pit permits.

Tod (Silt Mayor Pro-tem) attended the meeting. He said the flyover was pretty cool. They flew in a tiny little twin engine plane really low over the river and really close to the Roan Cliffs. And he didn’t throw up. Not once. He said Rifle Mayor Keith Lambert offered the most significant newsbyte. Lambert said an official with the federal government told him that our region has been designated “a national sacrifice for natural gas and oil shale development”, which is simply a confirmation of what many residents and community leaders have already suspected.

All of which brings me back to Rep. Kathleen Curry’s surface rights bill – which tanked in the legislature. Everyone appreciated her effort to put something on the table. If nothing else, she has helped focus a lot of media attention on surface rights issues, and the overwhelming power of the gas and oil industry over the Colorado Legislature.

Rep. Curry was newly elected in 2004. She’s a rancher from Gunnison with a Masters Degree in Water Resources Planning and Management. She ran on the slogan: “Putting the West Slope First”. She’s running unopposed in the November election, which gives her more time to devote to real issues, such as taking aim at The Fox.

Curry targets oil, gas group
State rep eyes COGCC makeup and mission
By Dennis Webb

State Rep. Kathleen Curry is ready to take a new approach to tackling the lingering challenge of trying to reform regulation of Colorado’s oil and gas industry.

Speaking to about 15 people at a public meeting at the Glenwood Springs Community Center Monday, Curry, D-Gunnison, said she plans to seek to change the mission and makeup of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates the industry.

Curry wants fewer representatives with industry backgrounds on the commission. She also wants the commission’s mission, which is now defined as maximizing oil and gas production, to be better balanced to consider surface owner rights and the environment.

Her new goals follow two failed attempts to pass legislation seeking to provide more protection to surface owners when the energy industry develops underground resources.

“I’m not going to let them off the hook. Every year that I serve I’m going to keep after this until I get it done,” Curry said. “I don’t much care what the industry thinks. I’m just going to do what I think is best for the district.”

Curry recognizes that she faces an uphill battle changing the commission’s representation. Former state Rep. Russell George, R-Rifle, failed in his effort to do the same thing when he served as speaker of the House of Representatives, its highest leadership position.

“I’m going into it with my eyes wide open,” she said.

Five of the commission’s seven members are required to have industry experience. Curry said she understands the need for technical expertise, but would like to see four members be from outside the industry.

She said the industry also is calling for reform because the commission is backlogged in its work. The industry wants a smaller commission whose members are paid rather than volunteers, following the model of the state Public Utilities Commission, she said.

Missionwise, the commission also is supposed to consider public health, safety and welfare, but Curry said the emphasis still is on production, something she wants changed …

From John Gorman’s leadership with the petition drive and his decision to run for County Assessor; to our local leaders uniting their efforts to find ways to control the impacts of gas well development; to Rep. Curry, undaunted by the industry squashing her bill, taking on the COGCC; we begin to see how solutions can arise from the local level. It’s not going to be easy. It never has been. Nobody said it would be. And nobody is right.

We have a responsibility to the planet. We will not sacrifice Western Colorado to the gods of Big Gas & Oil.

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Until now, I have avoided the topic of Stillwater – as it relates to Silt. Mainly because, as my title suggests, there’s really nothing to write about. Until now.

When I moved here Stillwater Ranch was 1,470 acres, a development plan, and reams of paperwork. Ten years later, little has changed, except for the addition of 2 well pads (one well pad can contain up to 10 gas wells) and plans for 6 more shiny new wells on the property.

According to High Country Engineering’s web site, here is what Stillwater Ranch: Phase 1 is supposed to be:

374 lots, 18-hole golf course, all infrastructures, community center, fire station, nature center, affordable housing, elementary school, and a middle school.
Total Project: 1,194 lots, Two 18 hole golf courses

Last month, the Silt Board of Trustees revoked Stillwater’s PUD (Planned Unit Development), voiding those reams of paperwork, except for annexation. The land still remains in the Town of Silt, but the approval process for the development plan must start over again. By keeping Stillwater Ranch annexed to Silt, the Board maintains control over the gas well approval and permitting processes with Antero.

It was the right decision. The ONLY decision. The plan that was approved can no longer be implemented. And too much has changed in 10 years to amend the original plan. 

For one thing, the plans for a middle school and elementary school are off the table. Last December (2005), the RE-2 School District bought the Kay Larson Ranch to build a middle school and elementary school. Why didn’t they move forward with their plans to build on Stillwater property? Maybe because the land is situated across the Colorado River, 5 miles from downtown Silt, on unimproved land, with 2 gas well rigs. Nobody lives there.

Did I mention 6 more gas wells were approved for drilling at Stillwater Ranch? Well, there’s that.

As expected, the Stillwater Ranch developers – Dennis Carruth and Ed Sutton – did not take kindly to the Board’s decision. Ed Sutton commented that Silt town officials “lacked integrity”.

At Monday night’s (August 14) Board Meeting, Mayor Moore blasted back:

Mayor blasts Stillwater
Development must keep its promises
By Heidi Rice

SILT — Tired of the jokes and jeers about “still waiting” on the Stillwater Ranch subdivision south of Silt, Mayor Dave Moore put the screws to the developers Monday night.

In an emotionally charged and sometimes dramatic speech at the regular town board meeting, Moore began by scolding developers Dennis Carruth and Ed Sutton, principals of SWD LLC for a comment Sutton recently made that the town “lacked integrity,” after the town revoked the subdivision’s PUD in July.

“You have the audacity to make a proclamation of this magnitude with total disregard and disrespect for some of the finest people that I have ever met,” Moore said. “I am not going to take the time to ask for an apology, and neither do we want one. A forced apology is no apology.”

Carruth was in attendance at the meeting — Sutton was not.

Moore also pointed out that it’s more than 10 years the subdivision was approved by voters and annexed into the town. Since then, there have been numerous delays, missed deadlines, changes, amendments, broken promises and agreements, thousands of dollars spent and countless hours of work on the project.

“And what do we have to show for it all?” Moore asked. “Nothing” …

Let me just interject here: BRAVO! Way to go, Mr. Mayor!

I have no stake in Stillwater. I voted against it 10 years ago. I would vote against it tomorrow. My reasons back then were different than my reasons now. Back then I was concerned that the land would be partially developed with a handful of overpriced houses, go bankrupt and leave Silt with huge maintenance costs and issues. Plus I thought the Colorado River land out there was beautiful and it would be a shame to fill it up with houses. And it seemed pretty dumb to build a middle school and an elementary school way the hell out there so we’d have to bus the town kids up the country.

My feelings about the land haven’t changed. But now there are 2 gas well rigs and plans for six more wells. Why would anyone build a half million dollar home next to a gas well rig? I don’t understand what the developers are thinking. Do they really believe anyone would choose to live next to a gas well rig? In order to get people to make that choice, wouldn’t they have to lie?

Do people who currently live next to gas well rigs have a hard time selling their property? Yes.

Oh, I know. One energy company circulates an ad photo of a half dozen elk grazing next to a gas well rig. What they don’t tell you is those 6 are what’s left of a herd of 100 elk. Kerr-McGee’s TV ad shows a gas well rig amid a golf course and subdivision, with shiny happy faces all around. It’s a cartoon – of course.

I don’t live next to a gas well rig. I don’t know first hand what it’s like. But plenty of folks around here do. Some of them are moving out. They’re also speaking out.

How we lost our ranch to gas drilling
by Rosemary Bilchak

Our cattle, our dreams and our ranching lives are now a thing of the past. My husband and I felt obligated to sell everything we had worked for over nine years in Silt, in western Colorado, to escape the impacts of gas drilling.

As one who has lived through the experience, I can say that the drilling that rapidly expanded around our 200-acre ranch took away everything that we came to expect of country living. Traffic increased, and so did the dust; in addition to the well pads we saw everyday, there were pipelines and roads. Irrigation ditches were severed, weeds encroached on the disturbed grounds, fences got cut.

Our land represented our retirement. Before we put our ranch on the market, my husband and I tried to determine how much we could afford to lose on our investment, as studies have shown the obvious: No one wants to live near drilling. We were among the lucky — we owned our mineral rights. The man who bought our ranch wanted those rights; he cared nothing for the land.

It’s good the new owner doesn’t live in the area fulltime, because gas drilling makes a place unlivable. A nearby creek, Divide Creek, was literally bubbling with methane from a leaking casing on a well. Yet a company’s failure to abide by the laws governing drilling rarely brings a significant fine. Fines are levied by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which is dominated by industry representatives.

Until you experience it, you cannot fathom the noise of these operations, the explosions that rattle your home, the humming of the generators and the rumble of increased traffic. Sitting on our porch at night was like watching a scene from hell as the clouds reflected red from flaring gas …

Let me put this is perspective for a potential Stillwater Ranch homebuyer: the gas wells are already on the property. You have no rights. If you have any complaints – oh, let’s say you wake up one morning and the water coming out of your faucet sizzles and stinks, or the ka-chunk-ka-chunk-ka-chunk keeps you awake all night, or the truck traffic on your street makes it dangerous for your kids to play outside, or the fumes are making you sick – they will have to be taken up with the Silt Town Board and town officials will have to negotiate with the gas company just to address them.

Doesn’t that sound like a super way to live?

To be clear, the developers don’t own Stillwater’s mineral rights. The property owner, Valley Farms holds the mineral rights and signed the gas company leases. As the article in The Paper noted, the developers and the property owner have been battling for several years. But that doesn’t alter reality. The leases were signed, the gas wells exist – there’s no turning back. And there’s no way any version of Stillwater Ranch PUD is ever gonna happen.

Stillwater is dead in the water.

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1. BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was
missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps
on everything, and then leaves.

3. ASSMOSIS: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and
advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream
only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM : An office filled with cubicles.

6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube
farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch
potato.

8. SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What Yuppies
get into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay
home with the kids.

9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and
whiny.

10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because
magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping f.ree photocopies from one’s
workplace.

12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are Annoying but
you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an
electronic device to get it to work again.

14. ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above
the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often
profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed
to solve.

15. 404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message
“404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested site could not be located.

16. GENERICA: Features of the American landscape that are exactly the same
no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, and
subdivisions.

17. OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that
you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send on an email by
mistake).

18. WOOFS: Well-Off Older Folks.

19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through a Cube
Farm.

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