PPC Presentation to the State Elections Committee by Stan Merriman

DO TEXANS WANT `FAITH-BASED' VOTING OR VERIFIABLE VOTING?

My name is Stan Merriman. I am the Chair Emeritus and co-founder of the Progressive Populist Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party. I am here today representing my Caucus, which authored the "Resolution on Protection From Election Fraud" which passed our 2004 State Convention to become the official position of the Texas Democratic Party. This Resolution advocates the incorporation of a voter verifiable paper ballot with all electronic voting machines used in our Texas elections.

Why do we urge the passage of the amended HB 166 authored by Reps. Pena and Hochberg requiring a voter verifiable paper ballot in use of electronic voting machines? When we drafted and democratically approved our resolution through our statewide membership, prior to the 2004 election, it was abundantly clear to us that our political atmosphere is extremely polarized, elections would continue to be very close and hotly contested, voter participation in the U.S. and Texas is among the lowest in the free-world and trust in our elected officials, including election officers, is declining. In brief, our Democracy is in trouble.

• With 30% of votes cast in 2004 being cast with electronic machines, our view is that the trend toward electronic voting equipment is probably irreversible.
• Little did we know when we authored our Resolution that 1,218 voting complaints in Texas would be filed with People For the American Way's Election Protection in the 2004 election.
• Or 40,000 voting complaints filed with EIRS nationally, 2,400 in Texas.
• Or that 16 other States would approve legislation requiring a voter verifiable paper trail.
• Or that the Electronic Frontier Foundation would direct a letter to the County Clerk in Harris County, along with a half dozen other voting jurisdictions nationally offering technical assistance based on the magnitude of complaints received from Harris County.
• And we did not know that testing commissioned by the State of Ohio prior to the 2004 election, by Compuware Corporation, Chicago on all the electronic voting machines would identify dozens of voting security vulnerabilities with those systems, several already in use in Texas.
• Or that significant and worrisome technical problems were experienced with electronic voting systems in use in Collin, Travis, Bexar, Harris and Wichita Counties in the 2004 Texas election. Things like vote transfers to other candidates, lost votes, machine failures and memory card failures to name a few.
• Nor did we know that "hacking" experiments were to be conducted in the State of Maryland, California and on CNBC Television demonstrating the vulnerability of such voting systems to tampering and alteration.

And frankly, when we wrote our Resolution, we hadn't given much thought to the fact that security has burgeoned as a gigantic industry in Corporate America protecting electronic systems, databases, computers, internet usage and email from internal and external abuse and attacks as a matter of common sense and practical necessity for the ethically challenged world we now live in.

But we had thought that none of us would do an ATM, gasoline pump or store cashier transaction without a receipt to verify the activity in conjunction with using electronic equipment, touch screens and computers. And, we were certain That most would agree that similar verification was only common sense when it came to the most private act we exercise, outside of the bedroom, voting.

Very little we do in life, if we are responsible citizens, besides the hour or two a week we might spend in a church, synagogue, temple or mosque is faith based. We are practical people. We just want verification that the message we send to a "black box" in a voting booth is the message intended.

This is not paranoia.

Not "distrust of the system".

It is just practical common sense which will likely increase our comfort that our Democracy is being safeguarded just as the framers of the Bill of Rights and Constitution weren't willing to be faith-based when it came to entrusting their rights and well being to a newly formed government. We urge common sense and support of paper trail/ballot legislation.

Stan Merriman
Chair Emeritus