How about ignoring Bev for a while and joining in a real fight?

[Kelvin Mace]

I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds, I just have a situation more worthy of attention.

Joyce McCloy is fighting the NC BoE to force them to follow the law and decertify the voting machine vendors the BoE certified on December 1st.

NC State law requires:

Prior to certifying a voting system, the State Board of Elections shall review, or designate an independent expert to review, all source code made available by the vendor pursuant to this section and certify only those voting systems compliant with State and federal law. At a minimum, the State Board's review shall include a review of security, application vulnerability, application code, wireless security, security policy and processes, security/privacy program management, technology infrastructure and security controls, security organization and governance, and operational effectiveness, as applicable to that voting system.

The NC BoE has certified Diebold, Sequoia and ES&S, despite the fact that it did not comply with this provision of the law. In fact, it seems the SBoE deliberately screwed around in an attempt to ram it through at the last minute and claim lack of time.

This law is in place in NC because Joyce McCloy fought hard to get lawmakers to draft one. She fought everyday to see the law through the legislative process and defeat attempts to gut it. Now she is fighting the BoE's attempts to ignore it:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in California, filed a complaint Dec. 8 in Wake Superior Court, on behalf of Joyce McCloy, a voting-reform activist from Winston-Salem. The lawsuit asks the court to intervene and block what it called "unqualified voting systems."

Judge Donald Stephens heard arguments on the complaint yesterday but declined to rule because he is new to the case.

The foundation's lawsuit against two state agencies wants to prevent the companies from selling voting equipment because it contends that officials failed to properly review and assemble software information for their machines.

The suit is the second in recent months involving electronic voting machines in North Carolina.

Diebold argued in court last month that it couldn't meet North Carolina's requirements to provide computer source-code for its equipment for technical review by election experts in case of a mishap. A judge threw out Diebold's request to be shielded from criminal prosecution if it refuses to disclose software that is owned by Microsoft Corp. or other third parties.

The new voting-machine standards were developed under a state law approved this year after errors involving electronic voting machines in Carteret County last year. Those errors led to delays in certifying winners for two statewide offices - the commissioner of agriculture and the superintendent of public instruction.

When Carteret County lost 4,438 votes last year, it prompted the formation of the Joint Select Committee on Electronic Voting, which issued several recommendations for improving North Carolina's voting system.

Carteret County lost the votes after an electronic-voting machine ran out of memory to store them. An engineering flaw allowed voters to continue casting votes, but the votes were irretrievably lost.

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1128768733233&path=!localnews&s=1037645509099
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/11827/

It was Joyce who persuaded me to get involved again after Bev's attacks had driven me to practically give up on political activism entirely. Joyce convinced me to sit on the committee (requiring me to wear a suit and tie even) and fight the Vichy collaborators in our own government and their attempt to thwart our efforts.

If you are looking for a genuine hero in this fight, Joyce is your woman. She doesn't waste time asking people for money for the cause, she just gets up every day and fights. She makes phone calls, writes letters, runs a mail list and web site, and talks to anyone who'll listen about the danger of BBV. She is a major pain in the ass to the BBV industry and their political lackeys in our government. She does her job because she believes it IS her job as a citizen. She shuns the limelight and prefers to put other people on camera to provide the public face of her efforts.

And she doesn't ask for money. Not once in all the time she has been fighting for honest and accurate elections has she asked for a cent. She is beholden to no one except the voters.

Right now, she could use help getting the word out. Even if you don't live in NC, this case is important to YOUR state. If we pull it off, then you can go to your legislators and show them how to do it.

I could use some help covering this issue and other BBV stories on my site. Unlike Bev I don't have dozens of people offering help that she ignores. It's just me.

This is not about stopping BBV in a single county, it is about stopping BBV in an entire state.

If John Aravosis can stop Ford and Microsoft from adopting anti-gay policies, then we should be able to stop our own public officials from climbing into bed with the voting machine industry.

Want to join Joyce's list, go to her site http://www.ncvoter.net/

Want to help bbv.COM (my site) with posting chores? Drop me a line.