[CAVO] Fwd: Response to David Jefferson / EVN letter

Mon Jul 3 18:08:23 UTC 2017

FYI

To all recipients of the recent Election Verification Network /David
Jefferson letter:

I write this letter of response on the day before Independence Day 2017.

Sources recently relayed an e-mail written about myself and following
events authored by one David Jefferson.  David Jefferson (not the wrestler
found in Wikipedia) is a Silicon Valley businessman (see-Dec Compaq- HP)
Jefferson is on the board at the California Voter Foundation and Verified
Voting Foundation.

For those of you not familiar with EVN (Election Verification Network), it
is a fairly new organization of people associated with voting systems. EVN
has various participants from Microsoft to Verified Voting and others who
have working knowledge of elections. David Dill from Verified Voting has
been active in assembling a network of like minded folks reflected here-
http://cavo-us.org/matrix.pdf   Two notable participants in the EVN group
are Dill's Stanford peer Nate Persily as well as Mitch Kapor (Lotus
Industries/ OSET )

The dire state of U.S. election system security forces my response here.It
is my position that the current national security crisis could have been
avoided by the appropriate implementation of open source / paper ballot
election systems.   In the letter, Jefferson mentions a grant (coined
ACCURATE by Dr, Rebecca Mercuri) that was given by the National Science
Foundation in 2005. Though Jefferson denies the facts of this event, the
truth remains that the Government Accountability Office directed Alan
Dechert/Open Voting Consortium as the technology transfer partner. OVC and
Dechert were pioneering open source software for election systems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/business/technolo
gy-briefing-software-voting-software-to-be-demonstrated.html

Upon reception of the 7.5 million dollar grant, thee ACCURATE group ceased
communication with Dechert thereby omitting open source from the
efforts.  *http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf
<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf>* [1]

Furthermore, though Jefferson's letter purports confusion, Dr.Mercuri was
similarly excluded from the ACCURATE effort though her work was utilized
and the name she created for the group used. http://www.notablesoftwa
re.com/ACCURATE/ACCURATE.html

These events are the road map to the answer to the question " Why do we
have insecure election systems in the United States ? "  The "blocking" of
open source and proper architecture occurred in 2005 within the ACCURATE
event

Also in the letter Jefferson mentions a "conspiracy" to create fear,
uncertainty and doubt regarding open source software. We note Microsoft's
participation in EVN and simply refer interested parties to research this
point. We have reached out to Microsoft directly and spoken with their open
source department regarding the possibility of their lobbyists "standing
down" regarding open source legislation etc to no avail.
http://openvoting.org/ad/242-opposition.pdf

Jefferson seems concerned about my activism on the point of open source
elections. He is certainly correct that I do not have, nor have I professed
to have, a background in technology. I am merely a "do-gooder" who became
interested in the United States election systems around 2000. I am
currently Secretary for California Association of Voting Officials
www.cavo-us.org

I have noted the efforts of the proprietary / intellectual property
community to preserve the status quo of election systems. The vendors are
too close to the government and the administrators. Groups like California
Association of Election Officials (CACEO) host events that supply freebies
to the officials while taking monies from the vendors. CACEO lobbyists also
represent Microsoft. This is not acceptable. We must recognize that in
order to have appropriate election system security we must disallow
Microsoft's governmental lock out of open source

When President Obama requested information for his Presidential Commission
on Election Administration we submitted our open source voting directly to
EVN's Nate Persily. This information was acknowledged as received but
then omitted from the information submitted to President Obama.it is this
sort of circumstance that motivates our attention.

As the pioneers of open source election systems, we approached Los Angeles
County many years ago to educate them and spark an open source voting
project. This eventually happened, but without our directions being
followed. As the PEW institute ( David Becker, Jared Marcotte ) took over
the software development, the project has failed to announce itself as our
prescribed General Public License open source and appears to be off track.
Here L.A.'s Dean Logan speaks regarding his intent to "leverage" public
funds. @7:26 Logan says, "We are looking to leverage that."

https://www.pscp.tv/navo_brent/1BdxYvVmwdyKX

We note that Mitch Kapor's OSET ( formerly OSDV ) company is another EVN
member and that they have confused the open source election software issue
by "open-washing " toward a nuanced "Open Public" license rather than
utilizing our prescribed GPL. This is currently causing confusion on
Capitol Hill as people assume OSET to be OVC / CAVO due to OSET's search
engine optimization strategy and extremely well funded outreach campaign.

There is much more to mention but for the sake of brevity I will capsulize
by stating I appreciate Jefferson's emotional e-mail. It did give me
opportunity and incentive to highlight a few points that have been clouded
by those seeking to revise history.

I am available to anyone wishing further detail. We must move quickly to
overcome corporate interests and secure the election systems with open
source software /paper ballot systems.  Here's a cute video if you need an
easily digestible example for your fellow citizens- https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=au3w1Kyztg8&feature=youtu.be

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Brent Turner

cell 619-990-7625 <(619)%20990-7625>

cc'd:

Alec Bash

Bob Nash

Micheal Chertoff

Jeh Johnson

Mitch Kapor

Tim Sbranti

Ruben Major

Bradley Bottoms

Alex Halderman

Alex Walker

Chis Jerdonek

Christine Pelosi

Brigette Hunley \

Carolyn Fowler

Sean Elsbernd

Kevin Mullin

Peter Nuemann

Laurel Brodzinsky

Timothy B. Mayer

Peter Arzberger

Philip Rucker

Laura Velkei

Kim Alexander

Patrick Masson

Peter Arzberger

Matt Bishop

Nate Persily

Ron Rivest

Philip Stark

Alex Padilla
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