Message to S.O.S Roger Williams: Preserve the Right to Vote

by: Todd Hill

Wed Feb 28, 2007 at 09:17 AM CST

The organization VoteRescue mirrors the same mission my friend in Fort Worth has.  Considering Secretary of State Roger Williams spent 3.1 million of Texas taxpayer dollars to get his picture plastered and agenda heard all throughout the state last cycle; all under the supposed mission to promote and encourage confidence in the electronic voting process, evidence mounts we have no reason to be confident at all.

I'm personally skeptical as to the real mission behind Williams public relations blitz, as I saw it more as an opportunity to get name identification up in order to run for higher office later at the expense of Joe and Sally taxpayer.  More importantly,  I'm skeptical that our vote is truly preserved when utilizing these cryptic machines and no PR blitz will change that. 

While the Secretary of State is worrying about his political future, and spending taxpayer dollars to accomplish this, VoteRescue has developed a number of questions we must hold Mr. Williams accountable for answering when he appears before the THEC hearing today.  Samples are below the fold:

2.  Has Ciber,Inc. evaluated and certified any of the voting machines used in Texas?

3. If so, which systems and by which vendor?

4. If you are aware of the ban, what has your response to date been?

5.  Similar to New York State, have you demanded the assessment report done by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) that now advises the EAC (Elections Assistance Committee) on such technical matters?

6.  Do you think this improper action, or lack of action, by the EAC requires any legal action taken by the Texas attorney generals office?

7. Are you aware that last minute "patches and fixes" were installed into hundreds of voting systems by ES&S in Williamson County and 33 other counties across Texas the week before the 2006 Special Elections?

8.  Did ES &S present these "patches" to your examiners and get them approved before they were used in the elections?

9.  Or, did you send out your examiners to test these "patches" in every county where they were installed to insure Texans' votes were safe and secure? Either way, where is the paperwork that details this work?

10.  Have you ordered a thorough review of the Special Election results in these counties to compare precinct tapes to the county tabulator results to see if any results look unusual? OR, have you ordered a check of the the audit logs against voter sign-in sheets to be sure there were not more votes cast in a county than there were voters who signed in to vote.

11.  Please explain how an audit or a recount is conducted on voting machines that do not produce any tangible record that the voter has determined is correctly marked and that exist totally separate from the internal electronically-created records?

12.  When audits are performed here in Texas, is the Secretary of State's office, or his Election Division, involved in the selection of the precincts to be recounted?

13.  What changes will you recommend to the Texas legislature in light of the problems with electronic voting you have experienced in the last two elections here in Texas?