SAN FRANCISCO, CA (10/31)- On the eve of an election that many have said, will determine the direction that the city takes for the next two decades, local activists are beginning to question the nature of local elections. Already accusations of voter-tampering and corruption have been leveled against the leading candidates for the mayoral race and the district attorney's race. With this in mind..., we spoke with Brent Turner, a nationally recognized election reform activist for his thoughts on the current election, what reforms need to be taken, and the role that Occupy Wall Street can play in the election. JRB: Currently, in Bay Area local elections, there are accusations of voter tampering and fraud, even before the polls are opened. How important is reform of the current election systems? BT: Immediate reform is crucial.. Currently there is no way to " verify " that the tabulation was conducted properly as the corporate owned software is not subject to subpoena or public inspection. Additionally, the lack of appropriate surrounding security procedures and the lack of a mandatory paper ballot render the current systems insecure .. To secure these systems is paramount to honor the will of the people in selecting their leaders.. JRB: What would you say to people who refuse to vote, reasoning that "the elections are already fixed"? BT: I would understand their pessimism.. but encourage themto vote regardless.. If in fact "black hats " are manipulating counts.. the dirty deed is made more difficult by large margins.. The will of the people can be carried forth via large margins.. Some have guessed the available " swing" in the current systems to be about 5 % JRB: In the 2002, 2006, and 2010, there were rumors of missing ballots, and even ballots ending up in San Francisco Bay. How would the proposed reforms prevent these things from happening? BT: The systems advocated by the better election reformists all but eliminate the " ballot in the bay " issue by securing the ballot via open source software ballot printers that tender a perfectly marked ballot. The ballot is printed in the voting booth- then given directly to the official for publicly viewable insertion into the ballot box. The ballots should be counted in public - at the precinct level..previous to transportation. The idea is to take the confusion out of the process.. and to make cheating high risk and low potential gain. As it stands today, the systems allow manipulation with low risk and high available gain.. Better systems reverse that equation. No system is infallible...but the system demonstrated by Open Voting Consortium at Linuxworld gets 9 on a 1- 10 scale.. the current available systems don't quite make it to a 2 for security.. The current systems are very poorly made.. and quite over-priced.. JRB: There are many people who are worried that the national 2012 election maybe rigged or at the very least can be hacked. What needs to hapen to prevent that from taking place? BT: We certainly will be using the current systems for 2012 .. so we will be conducting the election on insecure systems. I have spoken to members of Congress, as well as the Office of Science and Technology at the White House, in an effort to expedite solution. Unfortunately change has not yet occurred in this arena. We note Microsoft is the major enemy to open source election systems.. they counter our legislative language and force the politicians to carry the flag for intellectual property software.. It is sad and sickening to see their business agenda bleed into our vote counting process.. JRB: There are many who say that ranked-choice voting has made the local elections more democratic, what are your thoughts? BT: FairVote is an interesting player.. we wish they would have picked up our battle for transparency rather than further complicating an already overly complex system.. I think people need to draw their own conclusions.. Personally, I think the voters can figure out who to vote for- who's a spoiler etc.. without the need for the RCV ballot design. Regardless, the better systems I mentioned can handle RCV or anything else.. so it's a non-issue to our work. JRB: What role can members of the Occupy Wall Street movement play, to insure that the elections remain clean and honest? BT: Well, the OWS movement seems to understand the corporate control / lobbyist issue that plagues our society.. I think they should keep doing what they are doing.. and support our efforts to take corporate control out of the vote counting process. Public sentiment can result in political will.. and we have our work cut out for us. We need the politicians to stand up against the Microsoft lobbyists.. and the occupiers understand the corruption aspect... so maybe the politicians will start paying attention if the masses stand strong . JRB: What message would you send to people who are watching this election closely? BT: When the results are tendered.. ask the officials to explain how the votes were counted.. If they tell you they know.. you know they are lying.. There is no way to verify the results with the current systems.. We need to implement publicly owned - open source - mandatory paper ballot systems. San Francisco should work with Los Angeles and other counties toward the better systems. Secretary of State Bowen should opt out of the federal certification process.. and self certify.. This is not rocket science.. we can do this... -Jose Ricardo G. Bondoc ###See More
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