Everyone that lives in Missouri needs to get off their asses and go vote tomorrow! I’ll be out there at the polls making sure we have good working hardware that was setup properly to assist us in voting. Zippy will be out there at another county. If you are going to vote Tuesday then you might ask to use the new touch screen DRE. The Touch Screen DRE keeps a voter verified paper audit trail so there is no reason to be paranoid about it.

Now it is time for me to go visit a few counties and get them setup for other support teams. w00t.

GO VOTE AUGUST 8TH 2006!

Missouri Primaries. I Voted.

Seeing as new HAVA (Help America Vote Act) compliant equipment being distributed to all the states in the U.S. I have been spending a lot of time training poll workers on the new equipment. I generaly take a few pictures of the group I’m training so here are some from a session this last week. There were around 60 poll workers in this particular training session.

The general age trend for poll workers in the united states seems to be retired senior citizens. There is quite a demand for younger poll workers.

This group is installing the paper audit trail.

Here we have a group starting up their machine & printing the zero report.

This curious group is voting on fun races we have prepared as a demonstration. We call it the Famous Names election. Everyone tends to get excited when they actualy get an oportunity to cast votes on the electronic voting terminals.

This group is preparing to end their election and put the machine away.

I think it’s fun training. We generaly have a pretty good time. Anywho. If any of you have questions about the Diebold voting equipment, I know just about everything there is to know about all the hardware & software so feel free to ask.

Wish me luck. I’m heading off to Iowa today to support the Counties up there using our election hardware in their Primary tommarow. This is going to be the first state-wide election in Iowa utilizing HAVA equipment, in other words touch screens, DRE’s. etc. Let the black box voting conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork. I can only assume there will be atleast one or two problems state wide but overall I’m confident that everything will go smooth. I have personally supported all this new voting equipment in small elections in other Counties but this is going to be my first state wide election using this new equipment.

June 6: Special Election for Clinton School District Tax Levy Increase
If you live in Clinton Missouri I highly suggest you get out and vote tommarow. I’m voting absentee today since I’ll be gone but if you want to have any say in this Tax Levy Increase you need to get out there and vote!

[edit]
So far so good! I’ve had to recharge my cell phone twice today! Darn I spend a lot of time on the phone on election days. It’s interesting being an information hub.

Oh My Gosh! I was chatting w/my Grandpa online when we crossed the topic of technology and what we are doing in our lifes at the moment. I, of course, am working on election equipment so I wanted to take a step and see if I couldn’t provide my Grandpa with some information he can take to the polls. I believe he would make for a great candidate to use our new voting equipment.

With that in mind I called up Crow Wing County Minnesota. I immediately got ahold of the Auditors office (Auditors do the elections in Minnesota).

Deputy: “Hello, auditors office”
ME: “What vendor provides your voting equipment?”.
Deputy: “Umm. I’m not sure. I’d have to have you talk to the Auditor and she’s not in right now, can I transfer you to her voicemail?”
ME: “No, I just want to know what vendor provides your equipment. You know. ES&S, Diebold, there arn’t that many, I figure someone there can tell me. I mean, you guys are the ones who handle our elections right?”
Deputy: “Yes, the Auditors office does handle the elections. but umm. Hold on, let me transfer you to our Auditors assistant”
Assitant: “Hello, this is ##### how can I help you?”.
ME: “I want to know what vendor we go through for our election equipment.”
Assistant: “You would have to talk to the Auditor about that”
ME: “Are you telling me that NOBODY in that office knows what equipment you are using in your next election? NOBODY in that courthouse can tell me what equipment we use? I can’t believe this.”
Assistant: “Sir, you will need to talk to the Auditor”
ME: “I just wanted the election equipment vendors name and you cannot even provide that information to me? This is scary. This is realy scary.”

At that point I hung up. You know. It’s not the equipment you use in an election that makes it open to abuse. It’s being uninformed. It’s not having a security policy. It’s not being solid and transparent about your current election process that will get you in trouble. I feel quite agitated that they played dumb like that. How does anyone with a handicap ever find out about this new equipment if only one lady can tell you about it? How does the public come to know about this information if only the Auditor can speak on the topic?

I encourage everyone. I mean EVERYONE to call their local courthouse and ask what vendor they chose to provide their election equipment. You as the public should know how your votes are being counted. Find out where to vote and when to vote. Find out what you are voting on. This information is publicly available. If you live anywhere in Missouri or Iowa (and some parts of Kansas) and get a response anything close to what I did then please get a hold of me. I can actualy help you if you live in the states I work with.

I’m agitated. I’m going to call up my dads county and see if I get the same response.

10 minutes later…
I got ahold of Sharon, the Auditor of Cass County Minnesota and was absolutely astonished with as much information as she presented to me. Thank you Sharon! I found that most Minnesota Counties utilize equipment by “Election Systems & Software”, otherwise known as ES&S. Sharon could not have been more helpful. She was however the Auditor. I’m not sure if I would have attained as much good information if I hadn’t been able to speak to the Auditor like the situation with Crow Wing County. Thanks again Sharon!

I also found out that ES&S and Diebold are the only two vendors (as of yet) that have certified equipment available for purchase in Minnesota. If you live in rural Minnesota you will most likely be using ES&S where as some metropolis areas are using Diebold equipment. Cheers!

.. Upon further research. I have found that Diebolds handicap accessible voting equipment wasn’t certified quick enough to be on the state purchasing contract so even older Diebold counties will be using the ES&S Automark as their handicap accessible voting equipment unless they get an extension on their time to purchase. .. There is a lot of information at the Courthouse. All you have to do is call and ask.

I just participated in an educational conference in Iowa where the state pulled together most every County reguardless of the hardware they were using to better educate everyone on what all the new laws are as well as help clean up some of the new laws and rules before they go into effect. I definately have to say that Iowa is doing an extremely good job about keeping their ducks in a row. They have very stringent rules and security policies for the use of this new election equipment. They also have very details rules and requirements for all the different election equipment provided by different vendors. They seem to be doing a very good job at organizing the overhwhelming amounts of information revolving around the entire election process.

I was absolutely loving the general attitude of people there. Being one of the only knowledgable technitions on site I was doing a lot of correcting & fact checking on the key notes that were being presented as well as providing a lot of live demonstrations of the voting equipment and technology used in conjunction with the voting equipment. I like nothing more than teaching people about this election stuff. ESPECIALY when they enjoy learning about it! I love it!