12 July 2007

Bill 811 (Election Bill) needs to be STOPPED!

Summary of HR 811

  • Been bastardized by corporate software monopolies such as Microsoft, Diebold, ES&S and other entities in "the proprietary software industry." Serious $$$ has been spent to lobby this bill to change it.
  • The code is not OPEN. Anyone that is "authorized" to look @ the code has to sign a NDA (non disclosure agreement) not to tell.
  • Blah blah
It is rumored to be voted on or pressured to be voted on by Friday 12th July.

Source: Mark Miller - Hartmann show 07.12.07

Mark Miller "Fooled Again" author site:
http://www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/


http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_mark_cri_070711_expose__3b_rush_holt_2c_.htm

Great summary of Mark's call in to Thom Hartmann's show this morning.

Here is a snippet (lifted from http://gbreez.blogspot.com/2007/07/just-say-no-to-hr-811.html): Danke!

"Unless this point in the legislation has been changed, the bill [as marked up in committee] now stipulates that the e-voting software be available only to 'qualified' individuals, who must sign strict non-disclosure agreements."

(This was an extraordinary change, because the early version of the bill had ordered that such software must be readily available to everyone. See my vlog on this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQiNJRv42w4.)

And here is Mulder's staggering reply:

"That's not what the bill said when introduced. Therefore, you can take up your concerns with Microsoft and others in the proprietary software industry. During Committee proceedings they lobbied very heavily against the language that was in the bill as introduced and none of you lobbied in favor of the language that was in the bill as introduced, and thus, the software industry won. It's very simple, really."

And,...
...it just so happens that a company called Avante International appears to be headquartered in Holt's district, and that Avante is positioned to make money
if Holt's bill should pass and the machines should all be fitted out with "paper trails."


Subcommittee in Congress: Subcommittee on Elections
Information on this committee: http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/cgi-bin/newcommittee.cgi?site=congressmerge〈=&commcode=hhouse_admin_elect


SPONSORS OF THIS BILL:

Go here to find out if your corporate sponsored Congressman has signed on for this bill. There are 216!

There are like 30 Congress people
in CA alone that have co-sponsored this bill!


http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00811:@@@P

Want details on all the revisions to kill the spirit of this bill's original intent when introduced 2002.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/R?cp110:FLD010:@1(hr154)

Great, great blogger (Brad in Hollywood) who has been tracking this issue forever. Go to right side of his blog - there is a summary bar - click on the 811 tab.

http://www.bradblog.com/


1 comment:

Unknown said...

There's one thing I never hear addressed by those who oppose HR-811. That is the riveting, irrefutable evidence HR-811's auditing will produce that these electronic voting machines are deeply flawed.

Open source code is an interesting issue, but if you think HR-811 or any other bill could somehow "make sure" that the voting machine computer source code (minutely detailed computer instructions) that the public might review is actually processed ("compiled") and without a doubt running on your precincts voting machines, you're in a dreamland. There are thousands of ways a voting machine could fake that relationship, not the least of which is the plain-sight need to "install an important patch" some time after the public review code is put in escrow...

Why surrender a voter-verified paper record of every vote in the country, and random auditing that would provide evidence that the machines do not record votes correctly, becuase of lacks in areas of 'ideal oversight and open-ness'. If these machines are as bad as we all think, HR-811 audits will have them out on their ear in no time flat!