Kim Alexander's Weblog

Youth help bridge the digital divide in a Central Valley town

2009-06-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

The California Report featured this inspiring radio story reported by Sasha Khokha about a group of teenagers in the Tulare County town of Pixley who are getting training that helps them connect their community to the Internet. As a recent released Public Policy Institute of California/California Emerging Technology Fund study found, the "digital divide" in California persists for Latinos and Californians living in the Central Valley. CETF has invested millions of dollars to close California's digital divide, and programs like Pixley's "Digital Connectors", sponsored by the Great Valley Center, are providing crucial training and assistance to provide high-speed access to underserved Californians.

More talk about a possible constitutional convention

2009-06-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

In the weeks following the May 19th special election which saw the Legislature and Governor's attempt to close the budget gap go down in flames, talk about a possible constitutional convention has flared up again. Next Monday in Sacramento, representatives of the Bay Area Council and California Forward will hold a public forum to discuss the pros and cons of this reform approach. In this week's Sacarmento News and Review cover story, "California Renovation", reporter Cosmo Garvin takes a comprehensive look at what a Constitutional Convention might achieve. Excerpts are below.

The California Constitution is no work of art.

It’s more like the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. Lots of little rooms, stairs that lead nowhere, doors that open onto blank walls and windows set into the floorboards. “We keep adding rooms, but the hallways don’t connect together,” says state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, of our state’s constitutional house of mystery. “There’s not a lot of thought given to the overall architecture.”

Since 1879, the state constitution has been amended 512 times. Compare that to the U.S. Constitution, which you just don’t mess with. Its 27 amendments are straightforward principles concerning the essential function of government and the rights of the governed.

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Support is building for a “constitutional convention,” where delegates from all over the political spectrum would hash out a package of fundamental government reforms and then present them to the voters for approval. One group, called Repair California, is hoping to get a measure on the November 2010 ballot that would call a constitutional convention, the first one in California since 1879.

But a constitutional convention is just one way to give state government a makeover. A group called California Forward, led by former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, is hoping to convince the Legislature to put a package of reforms, called a “constitutional revision,” on the ballot in November 2010. “We have a significant challenge here in California, and we need to fix it as quickly as possible,” Hertzberg told SN&R, adding that his group’s approach would be quicker and more predictable than a constitutional convention.

A convention, a revision … or something else entirely. What’s the best blueprint for fixing California’s ramshackle, dysfunctional mystery house of government?

Assembly bill would give overseas and military voters more time to vote

2009-06-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

Should military and overseas voters be given more time to get their ballots delivered? That's what would happen if AB 1340 is enacted. The bill, authored by Assembly Member Bonnie Lowenthal and sponsored by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, would require county election offices to count absentee ballots from overseas and military voters that arrive within ten days of Election Day, as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day. Last Thursday it sailed out of the Assembly on a unanimous vote and is now headed to the Senate.

As the Pew Center on the States highlighted in its landmark study, No Time To Vote, military voters from half of the U.S. states are not provided ample time to successfully request and cast their absentee ballots (California was found to provide ample time, but only if military voters return their ballots back by fax). A recent Congressional Research Service study requested by Senator Chuck Schumer found that among the seven states with the highest numbers of people serving in the military (including California), more than 25 percent of the ballots requested or returned went uncounted in the last Presidential election. California's Secretary of State has also compiled county-by-county statistics showing how many absentee ballots get sent out, returned, and counted.

While Lowenthal's bill is enjoying strong, bipartisan support in the Assembly, its passage would mark a significant departure in California election policy, representing the first time that ballots received after the close of polls would be eligible to be counted. As the Assembly Elections Committee consultant Ethan Jones points out in his bill analysis. The analysis also notes that Lowenthal's is not the only bill to extend the deadline for receiving and counting overseas absentee ballots; two other bills - AB 1367 by Nathan Fletcher and SB 582 by Robert Dutton - were also introduced. Although neither bill has advanced, the fact that they stalled out may have more to do with the fact that they are authored by Republicans operating in a Democratic-controlled Legislature than with the substance of the measures. There are, however, some significant differences between Dutton's bill and Lowenthal's bill; SB 582 would have given both overseas and domestic military voters the ballot deadline extension, but excluded overseas non-military voters ballots from the change. The extension deadline in Dutton's bill was also longer, 21 days compared to 10 in Lowenthal's bill.

If California were to make the process for voting overseas more reliable and successful, it would likely alleviate pressure from some quarters to move toward Internet voting. While some argue that Internet voting is the solution to time delays involved in casting a paper ballot from overseas, the truth is that Internet voting would create a whole new set of problems that would relegate overseas ballots to security risks and second-class status. There are, however, a number of ways the Internet can and should be used to facilitate overseas voting, such as providing an easy way to request an absentee ballot, look up one's registration or absentee ballot status, and access reliable election information. For California's overseas and military voters, their access to such services largely depends on where they are registered and whether that county provides them.

Of course, such services are beneficial for all voters, not just those stationed or living overseas. And inevitably, if AB 1340 or other similar bills are enacted, some may wonder why we don't give all absentee voters the right to have their ballots counted if they are received a few days after the election but postmarked by Election Day? This is, in fact, one of the complaints I hear the most from absentee voters. Many want to hold on to their ballots as long as possible so they can benefit from all of the election discussions and news coverage, but they don't want to wait too long to drop that ballot in the mail and risk the chance that their votes will not be counted.

So what's the downside? Postmarks may be hard to validate, especially if they are from overseas. Postmarks can also be created using in-house postage meters, which opens up the possibility for fraud. In a close contest, ballots received after Election Day may be viewed as suspect and possibly attempts to tilt the outcome.

California already has taken a number of steps to facilitate timely balloting by overseas and military voters. These include giving such voters their ballots sixty days prior to the election (a full month earlier than regular vote-by-mail voters) and also the opportunity to return their ballots by fax. Whether the Legislature will go even further and take the unprecedented step of extending the ballot return deadline for overseas and military voters remains to be seen. The next stop for AB 1340 is a hearing in the Senate Elections Committee on July 7.

The saddest little election ever

2009-05-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Another election day has come and gone, the voters (at least some of them) have spoken, and now the legislature and governor must try again to close the gaping hole in California's budget.

Tuesday was the polar opposite of last November's General Election when there was so much excitement and so many new voters eager to participate. A few million voters participated in the statewide special election, but many more stayed home. The number of voters who cast ballots Tuesday will come out somewhere over 4 million, compared to November 2008, with a turnout of 13.7 million California voters. This week's total turnout numbers may not even exceed those of June 2008 (4.5 million), which also was a pretty sad election.

It's clear voters are eager to participate when there are issues or candidates on the ballot that draw them out and where they feel their vote can make a difference. That was not the case for millions of Californians with this statewide special election. For more thoughts on voter participation trends in California and the election process, take a look at my paper, The California Voters' Experience, published last October.

Election news stories - Capital Public Radio, SF Chronicle

2009-05-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I was a guest on Capital Public Radio's Insight show, talking about the campaign money behind the six propositions on tomorrow's ballot. During the interview a clip from the "Proposition Song 2009" was played - probably the one and only broadcast of the song anywhere! Cap Radio played it as a "fair use" clip - just thirty seconds or so. If you'd like to hear it, an archive of the show is available online.

On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article by John Wildermuth about the likelihood that more vote-by-mail ballots will be cast in tomorrow's election than ballots cast at the polls. Excerpts are below.

"Mail voters might be a majority next Tuesday, but it will be an anomaly," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization promoting the responsible use of technology in voting.

"While the actual number of mail voters doesn't fluctuate that much, the percentage does," she added. "In a high- turnout election like November's presidential, the mail voters are a smaller fraction of the total."

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Schwarzenegger's decision to release the devastating budget details just days before the election points out one of the problems with mail voting.

Up until the day of the election, "news stories are being produced, ads are coming out, more information is becoming available," said Alexander. "Maybe the governor's budget plan changed someone's mind, but if they've already voted by mail, they're out of luck."

While Alexander and other election reformers would like to see the state count every ballot that's postmarked by election day, that's not the way it works in California. Ballots that arrive after the 8 p.m. close of the polls remain unopened and uncounted.

My election Q&A with Channel 10 is available online

2009-05-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

This election, like never before, many friends and family members are scratching their heads, extremely confused by the propositions on the ballot, and why we are having the election at all. Yesterday I was Sharon Ito's guest on the Channel 10 (Sacramento's ABC affiliate) "Live Online" show. For a half hour Sharon and I talked about the election and took questions from online viewers. Channel 10 has archived the entire webcast on its site, and you can find it here. The discussion will hopefully help answer many of the questions voters have during this confusing election season.

Channel 10's "Live Online" program today at 11 a.m. - May 19th Election

2009-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'll be Sharon Ito's guest today on Sacramento Channel 10's"Live Online" program, talking about and and answering questions from viewers about next week's statewide special election. Log in here if you'd like to participate. One thing I'll be talking about is the updated Top Contributor Data in our California Online Voter Guide, now showing the top five donors for and against each of the measures on the ballot as of May 2. I'll also be talking about the Proposition Poem we debuted last week.

A "Proposition Poem" for the May 19th special election

2009-05-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

From time to time my friends and I create a "Proposition Song" to help get voters acquainted with the propositions on the California ballot (see this 2006 video as an example).

For the May 19th election, I wrote new lyrics to an old tune, "San Francisco Bay Blues", composed by Jesse Fuller. Unfortunately the song is still copyrighted and the copyright owners would not give me permission to release the song we recorded, even though it is nonpartisan and noncommercial. Thus, I can only share the sung version on a strictly private basis.

So, I instead present a bit different of an offering this time, a "Proposition Poem". If you are familiar with "San Francisco Bay Blues" you can of course still sing along! (see this Youtube video of Jesse Fuller, a "one-man band" performing it in 1968). The poem is featured in CVF's special election California Online Voter Guide.

Donations pour in for special election measures

2009-05-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

After a rather slow start, it appears the committee supporting Propositions 1A through 1F, "Budget Reform Now" has cranked up the fundraising engine. As can be seen in their late contribution report filings the committee has raised several six-figure donations in recent weeks, including major financial transfusions from Governor Arnold Schwarzegger's "Dream Team" committee.

Some of the big donors giving to support the special election measures include Universal City Studios ($250,000), San Francisco Giants, Golden State Warriors, LA Clippers, and LA Lakers ($25,000 each) Altria ($350,000), Occidental Petroleum ($250,000), and Edison International ($100,000). While there are other committees raising money for an against the ballot measures, none come near to the amount of funds being raised by "Budget Reform Now". Whether all this fundraising and spending will be enough to put the measures over the top remains to be seen. But one thing that is not in doubt: Governor Schwarzenegger is a prolific fundraiser, even in a major economic downtime.

CVF will update its top donor pages of our online voter guide after May 7, when the next periodic committee reports are due.

New California Online Voter Guide for May 19th election

2009-04-29T16:06:00.001-07:00

The California Voter Foundation's new California Online Voter Guide is now available online, providing voters with easy access to reliable, nonpartisan information about the six propositions on the May 19th statewide special election ballot. See CVF's news release for more details about the project.

The passing of an election integrity hero

2009-04-28T08:38:00.001-07:00

This morning I learned that John Gideon passed away last night. The news has saddened many people, including me, who knew John and greatly value his contribution to election reform. He was a tireless champion of truth and relentless in his efforts to hold election officials accountable. Nearly every day for several years he published a free newsletter, "Daily Voting News", which I and hundreds of other folks received, providing a compilation of important stories and developments in voting technology and elections.

He will be missed by many, for his tenacity, his commitment to integrity and his unwavering belief that the American people deserve better voting equipment than we are getting. One person who greatly admired John Gideon was Rush Holt, the congressman from New Jersey who has carried legislation for several years to require more secure and accountable voting equipment nationwide. Congressman Holt had this to say about John Gideon:

“I share the deep sense of sadness of everyone in the voting integrity community at the untimely loss of this giant of a man whom we all relied on for the most up-to-date information on issues related to electronic voting security through his Daily Voting News and the endless research and reports on the VotersUnite.org website. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. He will be missed greatly.”

In addition, Brad Friedman, editor of the Bradblog, has written a wonderful tribute to John on his web site and posted some photos. Here's an excerpt:

"...he connected the seemingly disparate dots of local stories, and apparently anecdotal woes, into a cohesive tale of a nation struggling to regain footing on the pedestal on which it had once, and still hoped to stand."

States turn to Web 2.0 tools for upcoming elections

2009-04-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

Today the Politics Online conference is taking place in Washington, D.C., and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen spoke on a panel there today about how she sees new technologies being implemented to enable the public to better engage in elections. CNET covered the Secretary's panel, and excerpts from the article by Stephanie Condon are featured below.

Excerpt:

State governments are turning to tools like Twitter to manage elections in order to cut costs and keep up with increasingly Net-savvy citizens.

Both California and Ohio are using more Web tools to communicate with citizens and their own staff during elections, the states' respective secretaries of state said Monday.

Through projects such as the Voting Information Project, states have been moving voter information online, such as voter registration instructions, polling locations, and descriptions of issues and candidates on the ballot. Millions of citizens also turn to state-run sites to track election results.

Now, the state of California is planning to utilize cloud computing for its election night services with the aim of saving money by storing data with external hosting providers, said California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Monday discussed the use of Web 2.0 tools to manage elections.

Maintaining reliable servers "to have a giant party two or three times a year that lasts four or five hours," is not the best use of the states' resources, Bowen said at the Politics Online Conference here, hosted by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University and by Campaigns & Elections' Politics Magazine.

That state also intends to use the micro-blogging site Twitter as a means to communicate with its poll workers. Bowen's office currently lacks an effective way to give a quick, direct message to the state's nearly 24,000 precincts, she said.

Such a platform could have been useful during the 2008 presidential primaries, Bowen said, when there was confusion over whether some citizens were eligible to participate in the primaries.

"All it takes is one of our five or six polling workers to have a BlackBerry," she said. "That information (about primary voting eligibility) would have been more than 140 characters, but we could have directed people to a URL with a simple text explanation."

Bowen said she manages her own Twitter and Facebook accounts but redirects complicated questions she receives through constituent services to ensure citizens get complete answers.

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It's unlikely, however, that voters will be able to vote online anytime soon, the officials said, given the privacy concerns that would arise. Moreover, creating an online voting system would be "phenomenally expensive," Bowen said, given how complicated it would be.

"We have to know exactly who are you are up to the minute you cast your vote, but we cannot know anything about how you cast your ballot," she said. "We use these voting systems twice every other year, and ... we already have a relatively inexpensive means of voting."

In contrast, there are no privacy concerns associated with using cloud computing to host election night data, Bowen said.
"With election night results, there's nothing that's private," she said. "The question is what is the most efficient, cost-effective way to provide that service."

Secretary of State decertifies Diebold/Premier voting software

2009-04-01T16:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday California Secretary of State Debra Bowen issued this news release announcing she was withdrawing approval of Diebold/Premier voting software version GEMS 1.18.19 after serious security flaws were discovered by Humboldt County. In her release, Secretary of State Bowen said:

“Clearly, a voting system that can delete ballots without warning and doesn’t leave an accurate audit trail should not be used in California or anywhere...I am putting together a comprehensive plan to examine the audit logs of other voting systems to determine if they suffer similar problems. Having a reliable audit log is critical to ensuring that every Californian’s vote is counted as it was cast.”

SoS hearing reveals audit log unreliable in all GEMS versions

2009-03-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended a hearing at the California Secretary of State's office in Sacramento to examine the findings of a recent investigation by the agency's staff into voting software security problems discovered in Premier's (formerly Diebold) voting system.

The first problem discovered was that Premier's vote counting software, called GEMS, had miscounted the total number of ballots cast in Humboldt County last November, omitting 197 ballots that had been previously counted by the system. The county and its election transparency volunteers discovered the problem when they conducted an additional post-election audit of all of the county's ballots.

At the hearing yesterday, Secretary of State staff Lowell Finley reported that this problem, referred to as the "deck zero" problem, was known by Diebold as far back as 2004. Finley stated that Premier had at no point since that time attempted to upgrade its formal documentation of the system. What the company did do was develop a "workaround" so that counties using this particular version of GEMS (1.18.19) could avoid having ballots inadvertantly zeroed out. However, due to personnel changes in Humboldt County and a lack of documentation of the problem by the vendor, the workaround was not known or used in that county in 2008, resulting in the ballot counting error which left out 197 ballots.

But that was really just the start. The Secretary of State's investigation into the "deck zero" problem led to the discovery of another security problem with GEMS 1.18.19: there is a "clear" button feature that allows an election official to clear out the audit logs stored in GEMS. As is noted in Secretary of State Debra Bowen's March 2, 2009 report to the federal Election Assistance Commission:

Excerpt:

"GEMS version 1.18.19 not only includes "Clear" buttons that permit deletion of these records, it provides no warning to the operator that exercising the "Clear" command will result in permanent deletion of the records in the log, nor does it require the operator to confirm the command before GEMS executes it."

Yet another audit log problem was discovered, this time by Kim Zetter at Wired News, who reported on her investigation in a January 13th story. After interviewing the Humboldt county registrar of voters and requesting copies of the county's audit logs, Zetter found that those logs failed to show instances where the registrar had intentionally deleted sets of ballots. Here's an excerpt from that story (which also provides screen shots of the audit logs), including comments from computer scientist Doug Jones at the University of Iowa:

The audit logs appear to record only limited types of events on the system and provide no comprehensive record that tracks every event performed by an election official.

Premier didn't respond to a query from Threat Level about the logs. But Jones said the Premier/Diebold system, as far as he knows, provides no single log file that chronologically lists all events in the life of an election.

Instead, he says, the system keeps "lots and lots of different logs" that appear to have been "independently designed by people who didn't talk to each other" and that are incomprehensible to anyone except the vendor.

The Secretary of State's EAC report highlighted this problem, but did not say whether it was limited to the 1.18.19 version, or if it was a problem throughout all versions of GEMS.

Yesterday's hearing provided an opportunity for the Secretary of State to get some further answers. Speakiing on behalf of Diebold/Premier was Justin Bales, the company's western regional manager. He read a prepared statement, saying the company supported withdrawal of certification for GEMS 1.18.19. He implied that the Secretary of State and the county of Humboldt were to blame for not keeping themselves informed. He stated that his company wanted the three counties using GEMS 1.18.19 to move to 1.18.24 like the sixteen other counties in California using it, and he assured the panel that this version mitigates the problems being discussed. He touted the familiar voting technology industry line (i.e. "elections are a matter of people, process and technology"). He acknowledged that the company could have been more aggressive in getting its customers to upgrade, but he objected to the characterization by the Secretary of State that the deck zero problem had been "hidden" by Diebold/Premier, and stated that his company had discussed the problem with its clients many times.

After the prepared statement was read, the Secretary of State's staff panelists had a chance to ask questions. Only one staffer, a veteran of the Secretary of State's office, Chris Reynolds, had a question. Reynolds noted that Bales hadn't commented on the audit logs raised in the staff report. Bales responded by addressing the "clear" button, which he assured Reynolds had been removed in the next version of GEMS that was released a few weeks later. He explained it was there because some of their client counties wanted to use old election templates to create new ones rather than rebuilding them entirely.

Reynolds then asked about the date and time stamp issue, and Bales assured him again that that problem had been addressed in later versions. Finally, Reynolds asked the question I had been waiting for: what about the failure to log certain system events? Was this problem addressed in subsequent versions? Bales answer was: not yet, they're working on it, and it's "high priority".

The implications of this revelation are enormous - if the audit log in all versions of GEMS in use in the United States is not a reliable record of all program activity, election officials in many states and counties across the country have lost a valuable election verification tool. In my testimony before the panel, I urged the Secretary of State to expand their investigation and highlighted the importance of the one percent manual tally and the new state regulation requiring an expanded, ten percent tally in close contests. Kim Zetter's Wired article provides more coverage of yesterday's events. Excerpts are below.

SACRAMENTO, California — Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) admitted in a state hearing Tuesday that the audit logs produced by its tabulation software miss significant events, including the act of someone deleting votes on election day.

The company acknowledged that the problem exists with every version of its tabulation software.

The revelation confirmed that a problem uncovered by Threat Level in January, and reiterated in a report released two weeks ago by the California secretary of state's office, has widespread implications for election jurisdictions around the country that use any version of the company's Global Election Management System (GEMS) software to tabulate votes. The GEMS software is used to tabulate votes cast on every Premier/Diebold touch-screen or optical-scan machine, and is used in more than 1,400 election districts in 31 states. Maryland and Georgia use Premier/Diebold systems exclusively, therefore the GEMS software counts every vote statewide.

"Today's hearing confirmed one of my worst fears," said Kim Alexander, founder and president of the non-profit California Voter Foundation. "The audit logs have been the top selling point for vendors hawking paperless voting systems. They and the jurisdictions that have used paperless voting machines have repeatedly pointed to the audit logs as the primary security mechanism and 'fail-safe' for any glitch that might occur on machines.

"To discover that the fail-safe itself is unreliable eliminates one of the key selling points for electronic voting security," Alexander said.

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When asked by a member of the California secretary of state's staff if the company had done anything to address the problem, Justin Bales, general service manager for Premier/Diebold's western region said, "No, not yet."

Bales went on to say that the GEMS logs have been the same since the software was first created more than a decade ago.
"We never, again, intended for any malicious intent and not to log certain activities," Bales said. "It was just not in the initial program, but now we're taking a serious look at that."

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen called the audit logs "useless" and vowed to investigate the issue further. She told Threat Level after the hearing that an examination of audit logs in other voting systems was also merited in light of these revelations. "Clearly, we're going to have to look at this," Bowen said. "That's one of the obvious next steps."

Secretary of State Hearing today - media advisory

2009-03-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be at the Secretary of State's today for a hearing to examine problems with Premier/Diebold voting equipment. Here are the contents to today's news advisory issued by the Secretary of State:

Secretary of State’s Office to Hold Hearing to
Examine Ballot-Count Errors Previously Unknown in California

WHAT: The Secretary of State’s Office will conduct a public hearing to receive reports and take testimony on the “Deck Zero” anomaly in Premier Election Solutions’ Global Election Management System (GEMS) version 1.18.19.

The Deck Zero software error, which can delete the first group of optically scanned ballots under certain circumstances, caused 197 ballots to be inadvertently deleted from Humboldt County’s initial results in the November 4, 2008, General Election. Upon discovery of the software error, Humboldt County subsequently corrected its election results. Two other California counties, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, used the same software for the November 4 election but encountered no similar problems in counting ballots.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office conducted an independent investigation into the Premier GEMS 1.18.19 software errors and uncovered even more information that was previously unknown to county and state elections officials. For more about the investigation and the public hearing, go to http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs_premier.htm.

In the days after the hearing, Secretary Bowen will consider what action – including possible withdrawal of state approval – to take on the Premier GEMS voting system.

WHEN: Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 10:00 a.m.
WHERE: Secretary of State’s Building Auditorium, 1500 11th Street, Sacramento

Secretary of State Hearing on March 17 to examine software vote counting flaw

2009-03-06T08:18:00.001-08:00

The Humboldt Transparancy Project uncovered a serious flaw in the vote counting software produced by Premier (formerly Diebold). The group found that the software erased 197 votes. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has sent this report to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission summarizing what happened and providing evidence that the vendor was aware of this flaw for years and did little to inform its customers, the counties of California using it. She is also convening a public hearing, to take place March 17 at the Secretary of State's auditorium in Sacramento.

To me, this all feels a lot like a deja vu. It was just about five years ago that another California Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley, held a series of public hearings to examine the same company's practice of distributing uncertified software to California counties, in violation of California statute. Hundreds of people showed up at the Secretary of State's office. In that case, Diebold was found guilty in court and was fined. Electronic voting machines were decertified.

For more on this episode, see Kim Zetter's Wired article, this synopsis by Mitch Trachtenberg (the Humboldt volunteer who created the software that detected the flaw), and today's Electionline story by Kat Zambon.

Redistricting Reform on Capital Public Radio today

2009-03-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

Today on Capital Public Radio (90.9 FM in Sacramento) the program "Insight", hosted by Jeffrey Callison, will take on the topic of redistricting reform. I'll be appearing as a guest on the show, to talk about what's been happening in Sacramento since voters passed Proposition 11, a redistricting reform initiative that shifts the power to draw political district lines from the legislature to a citizens' redistricting commission. The show is on the radio from 2-3 p.m. today and a live webcast is available from the CapRadio.org web site. Tim Hodson from the Center for California Studies and Kathay Feng with California Common Cause will also appear as guests.

Legislative hearing today on initiative reform

2009-02-25T08:18:00.000-08:00

This morning I'm participating in a joint hearing of the State Senate and Assembly elections committees, which will explore whether California needs initiative reform. The hearing is taking place at the State Capitol, Room 3191, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Other speakers include Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California, and author Peter Schrag. Here is the agenda. A live webcast of the hearing will be available on the California Channel.

CA Constitutional Convention Summit coverage

2009-02-25T08:02:00.001-08:00

I spent most of my day yesterday at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in downtown Sacramento where hundreds of people from all over the state convened to talk about whether California needs a constitutional convention. Though I saw a lot of familiar faces in the crowd, there were many people from out of town, including an array of local elected officials. While there was no consensus on that larger question of whether to call a summit, there was a lot of information provided about how a Constitutional convention could be convened, and debate about what topics would be considered.

Read John Wildermuth's story in today's San Francisco Chronicle or Eric Bailey's story in the Los Angeles Times for more details on yesterday's summit, and see the Bay Area Council's (the convening organization) Q&A document for information about the process.

CVF Redistricting reform letter, upcoming hearings

2009-02-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

Last week I sent this letter on behalf of the California Voter Foundation to the Bureau of State Audits, which is responsible for implementing many provisions of Proposition 11, the redistricting reform initiative passed by voters last November. CVF's letter comments on the Applicant Review Panel, the Commission Application Process, Random Selection, Transparency in and Public Access to the Process, Funding, and Independent Voters. CVF board member Joseph Lorenzo Hall also submitted a letter, commenting on random selection issues.

This CVF-NEWS provides additional information about this process and upcoming public meetings in San Francisco (this Friday, February 27 and Sacramento (next Tuesday, March 3 in the Secretary of State's auditorium).

Bay Area Council & others to host a Constitutional Convention summit

2009-02-19T11:15:00.001-08:00

Next Tuesday, February 24 in Sacramento, an unusual event will be taking place. The Bay Area Council, along with a number of other nonpartisan organizations, is hosting a Constitutional Convention Summit, which will gather the state’s top leaders to review research, discuss the process, begin building a coalition to support a possible convention, and solicit ideas about what should be included in the convention. Visit the Council's web site for more details about the goals of this event. Admission is $89. A draft agenda is also available.

Statewide special election may be called this year

2009-02-19T11:04:00.001-08:00

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle featured this story by John Wildermuth reporting on the coming special election needed to get voter approval on a number of components of the new budget deal passed this morning by the Legislature.

Excerpt:

Regardless of when a new budget deal gets passed, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still is going to need help from California's voters to close the state's $42 billion budget gap, and that help may not be easy to come by.

Although the Legislature spent the weekend in nearly continuous session, trying to find the votes to pass the new fiscal plan, legislators still face the prospect of putting billions of dollars in borrowing, revenue shifts and budget revisions on the ballot in a statewide special election later this year.

"Several key components of the budget agreements need to go back to the voters because they're revisions of ballot measures the voters originally approved," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance.

A special election vote will be anything but a slam dunk.

The biggest item on the ballot will be a plan that allows the state to borrow $5 billion and repay it with future revenues from the state lottery. When California voters authorized the lottery in 1984, its sole purpose was to bring in extra money for state schools.

The new ballot measure would allow the state to use the lottery "to provide funds for other public purposes" and borrow against future revenues.

But 61 percent of likely voters opposed the lottery borrowing in a poll last month by the Public Policy Institute of California, showing how much work the governor has to do to turn those numbers around.

Other measures expected to be on the ballot for the special election, which doesn't yet have a date, include revisions to 1998's Proposition 10, a measure by movie director Rob Reiner that put a 50-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes for new children's programs, and 2004's Proposition 63, which taxed the richest Californians to support new mental health programs.

There's also a future cap on state spending, which would set a limit on budget increases and put any additional money into a rainy-day fund for tough financial times. Another measure would tinker with Proposition 98, which sets a minimum funding level for California schools.

The spending cap, a favorite of Republicans, is an especially important part of the puzzle. Most of the new taxes now are slated to last for four or five years. But if the spending cap doesn't pass, they will disappear after two years.

"There's a real danger that all the people who don't like what was done in the budget will get together and fight the ballot measures," said Tony Quinn, a former GOP consultant who is currently co-editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which follows state political campaigns. "This could be a real hard sell."

Potential opposition is already forming.

NYT analysis on Prop. 8 donor disclosures

2009-02-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sunday's New York Times Business section featured this column, "Prop 8 Donor Web Site Shows Disclosure Law Is 2-Edged Sword", by Brad Stone, discussing how the disclosures of Prop. 8 donors' personal information is challenging long-standing open government ideals. Excerpts are below.

Excerpt:

For the backers of Proposition 8, the state ballot measure to stop single-sex couples from marrying in California, victory has been soured by the ugly specter of intimidation.

Some donors to groups supporting the measure have received death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance, and their businesses have been boycotted.

The targets of this harassment blame a controversial and provocative Web site, eightmaps.com.

The site takes the names and ZIP codes of people who donated to the ballot measure — information that California collects and makes public under state campaign finance disclosure laws — and overlays the data on a Google map.

Visitors can see markers indicating a contributor’s name, approximate location, amount donated and, if the donor listed it, employer. That is often enough information for interested parties to find the rest — like an e-mail or home address. The identity of the site’s creators, meanwhile, is unknown; they have maintained their anonymity.

Eightmaps.com is the latest, most striking example of how information collected through disclosure laws intended to increase the transparency of the political process, magnified by the powerful lens of the Web, may be undermining the same democratic values that the regulations were to promote.

With tools like eightmaps — and there are bound to be more of them — strident political partisans can challenge their opponents directly, one voter at a time. The results, some activists fear, could discourage people from participating in the political process altogether.

That is why the soundtrack to eightmaps.com is a loud gnashing of teeth among civil libertarians, privacy advocates and people supporting open government. The site pits their cherished values against each other: political transparency and untarnished democracy versus privacy and freedom of speech.

“When I see those maps, it does leave me with a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach,” said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, which has advocated for open democracy. “This is not really the intention of voter disclosure laws. But that’s the thing about technology. You don’t really know where it is going to take you.”

Ms. Alexander and many Internet activists have good reason to be queasy. California’s Political Reform Act of 1974, and laws like it across the country, sought to cast disinfecting sunlight on the political process by requiring contributions of more than $100 to be made public.

Eightmaps takes that data, formerly of interest mainly to social scientists, pollsters and journalists, and publishes it in a way not foreseen when the open-government laws were passed. As a result, donors are exposed to a wide audience and, in some cases, to harassment or worse.

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Joseph Clare, a San Francisco accountant who donated $500 to supporters of Proposition 8, said he had received several e-mail messages accusing him of “donating to hate.” Mr. Clare said the site perverts the meaning of disclosure laws that were originally intended to expose large corporate donors who might be seeking to influence big state projects.

“I don’t think the law was designed to identify people for direct feedback to them from others on the other side,” Mr. Clare said. “I think it’s been misused.”

Many civil liberties advocates, including those who disagree with his views on marriage, say he has a point. They wonder if open-government rules intended to protect political influence of the individual voter, combined with the power of the Internet, might be having the opposite effect on citizens.

“These are very small donations given by individuals, and now they are subject to harassment that ultimately makes them less able to engage in democratic decision making,” said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California.

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“The key here is developing a process that balances the sometimes competing goals of transparency and privacy,” said the professor, Ned Moran, whose undergraduate class on information privacy spent a day discussing the eightmaps site last month.

“Both goals are essential for a healthy democracy,” he said, “and I think we are currently witnessing, as demonstrated by eightmaps, how the increased accessibility of personal information is disrupting the delicate balance between them.”

California initiative campaigns cost $227 million

2009-02-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press' Steve Lawrence wrote this recent article about the amount of money spent on California propositions in the last election. Excerpts are below.

The rest of California's economy was slumping, but the state remained a treasure-trove last fall for campaign consultants and others who make money off political races.

That's short of the record but still represents a huge investment in television and radio advertisements and other campaign spending.

"That's a lot of money," said Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a Los Angeles-based think tank that studies campaign finance issues.

The record for spending on ballot measures in one California election was set in 2006, when donors poured $333 million into campaigns for and against 13 propositions on the November ballot.

A 12th proposal on last November's ballot, which authorized the sale of $900 million in bonds to finance veterans' home loans, attracted little or no spending.

It was just the opposite in the campaign over Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban that passed with 52 percent of the vote. Supporters and opponents spent more than $83 million, making it the most expensive ballot measure on a social issue in the nation's history.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, a nonprofit organization, said the fundraising for and against Proposition 8 was unlike anything she has seen in her 15 years tracking campaign spending.

"It was a truly nationwide, grassroots effort on both sides," she said.

The record for spending on a single California proposition also was set in 2006, when $154.3 million was spent in the fight over Proposition 87, which would have imposed a tax on oil production.

California ballot initiatives often generate huge amounts of spending because the effect — win or lose — can ripple across the nation.

"And industry groups that are affected by these measures know that the stakes are high, that if something pops out of the initiative process in California it's something that other states and the federal government will notice," Alexander said.

Industry groups weighed in heavily on two unsuccessful energy-related measures on last November's ballot, propositions 7 and 10.

Three utility companies, Edison International, PG&E Corp. and Sempra Energy, provided almost all of the $29.8 million spent to defeat Proposition 7, which would have required utilities to get at least half their electricity from renewable energy sources such as windmills and solar panels by 2025.

Supporters spent $9.6 million, $9 million of which came from Peter Sperling, senior vice president of the Apollo Group, which operates several private universities, including the University of Phoenix.

National gas companies, including Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' Clean Energy Fuels Corp., contributed 98 percent of the $22.8 million spent to promote Proposition 10. Among other things, it would have authorized the sale of $5 billion in state bonds to provide rebates to buyers of natural gas and other alternative-fuel vehicles.

Opponents said it would have benefited Pickens' fuel company and similar ones. They spent just $173,000 but emerged victorious.

Other high-dollar initiative campaigns included:

_ Proposition 2, which set enclosure standards for farm animals. Supporters spent $10.6 million, opponents $8.9 million.

_ Proposition 4, a third unsuccessful attempt by abortion opponents to require parental notification before a minor could get an abortion. Supporters spent $3.2 million, opponents $9.5 million.

_ Proposition 5, which attempted to expand drug treatment and rehabilitation programs. Supporters spent $7.6 million, opponents $2.8 million.

_ Proposition 11, which created a state commission to redraw legislative districts following each national census. Supporters spent $16.6 million, opponents $1.6 million.

Prop. 8 campaign can't hide donors' names

2009-01-29T17:38:00.001-08:00

Today a federal district court judge ruled against the Proposition 8 campaign's request that it not be compelled by state law to release the names of its campaign donors on February 2, when the next campaign finance disclosure reports are required to be filed. This San Francisco Chronicle article by Bob Egelko covers today's court actions. Excerpts are below.

Excerpt:

Proposition 8 proponents' complaint that a California campaign-finance disclosure law has led to harassment of same-sex marriage opponents failed today to sway a federal judge, who refused to throw out the law or shield donors' names.

Lawyers for Protect Marriage, sponsor of the constitutional amendment that won voter approval Nov. 4, said contributors have already faced consumer boycotts, picketing and even death threats after the state posted their names and other information in mandatory campaign reports.

They argued that the law requiring disclosure of all donors of $100 or more interfered with the campaign's right to participate in the political process and should be struck down, modified to raise the dollar limits, or at least not applied to contributors to the measure outlawing same-sex marriage.

As a first step, the campaign sought an exemption from the state's post-election contribution report, due next week.

But U.S. District Judge Morrison England, after a one-hour hearing in Sacramento, said California's $100 reporting requirement - adopted by the voters in 1974 - is a valid means of informing the public about the financing of ballot measure campaigns.

"If there ever needs to be sunshine on a particular issue, it's a ballot measure," England said, observing that initiatives are often sponsored by committees with misleading names.

Some of the reprisals reported by the Prop. 8 committee involve legal activities such as boycotts and picketing, England said. He said other alleged actions, such as death threats, mailings of white powder and vandalism, may constitute "repugnant and despicable acts" but can be reported to law enforcement.

Even if there have been illegal reprisals, that would be insufficient reason to grant a wholesale exemption for a multimillion-dollar campaign with thousands of donors, the judge said.

Any desire by donors to remain anonymous is outweighed by the state's authority to require "full and fair disclosure of everyone who's involved in these political campaigns," England said.

Lawyers for Protect Marriage said they would not seek to block the next campaign filing, which is due Monday, but would take their case against the disclosure law to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.