The Maryland State Board of Elections RESPONSE to my letter.

[nickshepDEM]

About 3 weeks ago I wrote a letter to all of my local delegates, states senators, and US Senators regarding the electronic voting machines in Maryland and throughout the whole country. One of my local delegates forwared the letter and his response to the Maryland State Board of Elections. In the letter I included my complaints about the inability of the machines to verify my vote, the lack of paper trials, and the political LEANINGS of DIEBOLD's owners.

I dont have a scanner so I am just going to re-type the response they gave me and I want to know what you guys/gals to tell me what you think. I personally think it was faily convincing and gave me a little bit of hope that our elections in this state and country are somewhat fair. Or maybe Im just a fool?



MARYLAND STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS

Dear Mr. Sheppard

Thank you for your inquiry to Delegate Minnick about whether your vote was counted in th recent election. Delegate Minnick forwarded your correspondence to this office for a response.

Maryland has taken numerous steps to verify that the voting system accurately records and tabulates votes. First, the State receives the voting system software directly from a federally appointed independent testing authority, not from the voting system vendor. When installed, an independent validation and verification process is performed to ensure that the correct version of the software has been installed Second, the state and counties perform numerous tests to verify that the system accurately records and tabulates votes. Third, Maryland has implemented recommendations from security experts to reduce the likelihood of unauthorized access to the voting system. All of these actions should assure the public that the voting system is accurate and secure.

In addition to the numerous tests election officials have performed on the voting system, this office conducted “parallel testing” on randomly selected voting units during six counties required public demonstrations and on Election Day. Parallel testing is a method of testing an electronic voting unit by producing an independent set of results that can be compared against the results produced by the voting unit. At the conclusion of each parallel test, the hand-tallied results matched the voting unit results. These results confirm the accuracy of the voting system.

Although the political leanings of the president of Maryland’s voting system vendor are well known, Diebold Election Systems, Inc. Was selected after a competitive procurement process and was approved by the prior administration. The evaluation considered the technical and financial proposals of all of the vendors and selected the best proposal for the State. While it is unfortunate that the political leanings of any voting system vendor are publically known, it does not equate that the vendor’s product does not accurately record and tabulate votes.

Thank you for your interest in Maryland’s voting system. If you have any additional questions, please contact me at 410-269-2843.

Sincerely yours,
Nikki Baines Trella

[idiosyncratic]

1. Yeah, right . . .

While it is unfortunate that the political leanings of any voting system vendor are publically known, it does not equate that the vendor’s product does not accurately record and tabulate votes.

[nickshepDEM]

2. Alot of it sounds like bullshit.

What bothers me is. If they were to send this same letter to my mom, dad, grandmother, or grandfather who are just ordinary voters who dont get on the internet and follow fraud and stuff like that. They would be HIGHLY convinced that everything was FINE in our elections. The BoE talks about their tests and "parallel" test as if it is 100% right every single time. Without a paper trail this shit is never gonna be solved.

I posted this in the 2004 election and they thinkt he letter is total bullshit and doesnt say anything meaningful at all. I agree with them. The voting machines cant be owned by a private company they gotta be Government owned and open source.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=195424&mesg_id=195424

[nickshepDEM]

3. BTW, if you find any typos....

Its not because I altered the letter or that it is a fake. I dont have a scanner so I had to re-type the letter and I may have a couple typo's.