Convention Impressions
By a third convention delegate
As a new member of the LWVMP it was a privilege and an honor to be invited to join the "Government/Election Integrity" committee at the League state convention.
The Election Integrity Committee preparations began in April when our Committee Chair explained the goal of presenting a resolution at the LWVC convention which would add Transparency to the previously defined principles of the 2004 LWVUS SARA (Secure, Accurate, Recountable, and Accessible) Resolution. While there is a recognized need for election transparency and this principle has been championed by the LWV throughout its history, it became clear at the convention that there is a great deal of confusion among League members about the critical importance of this principle. I will address this "confusion" in this report of impressions of the convention.
The California election process is presently complicated by antiquated election code which does not factor in the technical security vulnerability issues. Additionally, the CA election code fails to require comprehensive chain of custody procedures related to processing thousands of Vote by Mail ballots. Also, as Secretary of State Debra Bowen explained during her recent speech to LWVMP members and guests, the state-required one percent audit is inadequate to properly assess the accuracy of vote tallies in small jurisdictions. Our committee is concerned that not all valid ballots are subject to even the one percent random audit selection.
There is also the issue of what appears to be unenforceable regulations mandating required security measures. Sequoia Voting Systems has challenged the Secretary of State's authority to impose mitigating security measures by its refusal to abide by one of the important requirements for certification. Due to a severe shortage of staff in the Secretary of State's Office of Voting Technology, oversight appears to be inadequate to provide appropriate evaluation of county election procedures during the lengthy election time frame.
It is critically important that the public be vigilant, assume the burden for monitoring election procedures, actively engage in review of election procedures, and request electronic records. When one does participate as an election observer, it becomes clear that the level of transparency of the present system is totally inadequate to support election integrity.
Confusion about the critical nature of the security vulnerabilities is understandable. Comprehension of the technical nature of our voting system and the election code requirements demands extensive study of the subject. This problem is complicated by the fact that many League members work in concert with election officials on Election Day. As members of the official election team they have become sensitive to any questions by the public which they perceive as questions of either the personal competency or the integrity of themselves or the election officials.
Debra Bowen stated that it will require a lawsuit to hold Sequoia Voting Systems accountable for willful negligence to meet state requirements to provide specific mitigating security measures required for certification. This obviously endangers the important relationship between the election officials and the vendors upon which they are dependent for their technical support.
Audits cannot fix a broken system. Audits may not be able to discover errors or even identify the cause or result of electronic or human errors. In addition, audits conducted by the same officials who ran the election are not an ideal practice. The possibility of independent audits—as suggested by the LWV audit report—is not likely. While it is laudable that the LWV audit report outlines many of the voting system security vulnerabilities and focuses on the need to improve transparency, we should evaluate how practical the proposed solutions are when all the interested parties must fully cooperate in order to satisfy the public's "need to know."
In closing, I thank the LWVMP for the opportunity to have become an integral part of democracy in action. I especially enjoyed assisting in the creation of an invaluable resource booklet which provides the background and resource materials explaining the need to restore election transparency. I hope that this Transparency Resolution resource book will become a valuable tool in educating those who do not yet fully understand the need to restore full transparency to the election process.
