Group launches divestment campaign against voting firms over paper trails, ?partisanship?

?Velvet Revolution? launches voting firm divestment campaign

By Jesse Kanson-Benanav | RAW STORY Managing Editor   02 March 2005

The Velvet Revolution has begun!

This time, however, it?s not in Ukraine, but right here in the United States.

Led by Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, the Velvet Revolution (VelvetRevolution.us) is a coalition of 80 progressive groups who say they have united to bring accountability and transparency to American voting procedures. Targeting the nine leading vote machine manufacturers?Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems, Election Systems and Software, HartInterCivic, MicroVote, Danaher-Guardian, TriadGSI, UniLect, and Advanced Voting Solutions?the Velvet Revolution hopes to open vote-counting procedures in America to greater public scrutiny.

?These companies are behaving terribly,? Friedman said. ?They are all Republican companies that insist on keeping their information private.?

Friedman and the Velvet Revolution coalition insist that because such corporations are contracted to serve a public function?to manage vote-counting systems?they should be accountable to the public in the same way government agencies are. The coalition takes issue with the fact that all nine companies refuse to release their software, saying it is proprietary, and will not issue paper ballots or receipts.

The voting machine companies disagree.

?This looks fairly political and not something we?d pay a lot of attention to,? said Alfie Charles, a spokesperson for Sequoia Voting Systems, one of the firms singled out by the campaign.

To coincide with the President?s Day holiday last week, the Revolution sent letters to executives of all nine vote tabulation companies, announcing the launch of their ?Divestiture for Democracy? campaign. The letters ask that the companies ?help make the electoral process fully transparent and trustworthy? by agreeing to nine chief demands.

Among them are that companies make all hardware and software used in their voting machines public; that they create auditable, voter-verified paper ballots for every vote cast; and that the firms enact a zero tolerance policy prohibiting voting company executives from supporting any candidate for public office.

The Revolution will allow the companies 60 days to respond to their inquiries. If the firms don?t accede to their provisions, Friedman says they will face ?a massive and sustained divestiture campaign.?

Drawing upon the large constituency reached by the 80 affiliated organizations, the coalition hopes to wreak economic havoc upon the uncooperative companies by urging anyone with a financial stake to withdraw their support?including stockholders and investment banking companies.

Perhaps more significantly, members will urge all state and local governments against purchasing equipment from these companies. There is an easy rationale for government entities to cooperate, explained Friedman: ?Counties may think twice about investing in operations that have significant financial divestment campaigns against them.?

An effort is also underway to secure legislative support to deny Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding for any of the companies that refuse to participate.

?HAVA has become a major source of revenue for them to develop vote-counting technology,? Friedman declares, ?and if that?s not there, it hurts their bottom line.?

According to a House aide, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) will likely endorse the divestment effort.

At the time of publication, none of the nine companies had yet responded to the Velvet Revolution letter. Friedman remains hopeful, however, that in due time the vote machine companies will respond positively. ?This is about democracy, about America,? said Friedman, ?it?s just good business.?

The vote tabulation companies, however, see it differently. RAW STORY reached five of the firms, all whom said they had received the Velvet Revolution letter.

?This is a political document and not much more,? Sequoia spokesperson Alfie Charles said. ?We believe a paper trail is a valuable component,? but changes ?need to be handled through the deliberative legislative process.?

ES&S spokesperson Meghan McCormick echoed Charles? sentiments.

?We respond to the needs of our customers?[the government entities] that purchase our equipment,? she explained. ?Things like paper trails need to be determined by policymakers at state and federal levels.?

Howard Van Pelt, CEO of Advanced Voting Systems, was more frank about his opposition.

?What in the hell are these people talking about?? Van Pelt asked. ?They think we?re all crooks, and I resent that!?

Van Pelt states that throughout his 35-year career in the voting industry, he and every company he?s worked for has felt very strongly about protecting and maintaining the public trust.

?The reason we got rid of paper ballots was to ensure the accuracy of elections,? he said. ?Now these people are saying [paper ballots are] the only way of having accurate elections.?

According to Van Pelt, who formerly ran Diebold?s Global division, the issue of how to deal with voter verified paper trails is something that ?every vendor is grappling with.? His company will participate in producing paper trails if required by law, but as he sees it, the idea is ?simply not advisable.?

?Attaching a paper printer to the side of voting machines would inevitably lead to problems,? he said.

Van Pelt suggested that advancements in the vote tabulation industry over the years have been targeted at trying to ?unburden the poll worker.? Because printers could break down or have other technical failures, he said adding technology to produce paper trails would be a ?departure from that? progress.

?That damages the process,? he added.

MicroVote spokesman Dennis Brainerd was similarly adamant about his company?s opposition to this campaign.

?We?re in the business of selling voting systems,? Brainerd explained, ?so this doesn?t sit well with us.? He said MicroVote has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to ?handle proprietary codes,? and is therefore not about to make them public.

Brainerd also took issue with the Revolution?s demand that voting company executives be barred from partisan politics.

?That?s obviously aimed at the big guys like Diebold,? he said. ?We?re little people and don?t have lobbyists working for us in Washington.?

This is the first major initiative of the Revolution, a coalition conceived by Friedman after he says he found himself being used as a ?clearing house? for information about voting irregularities after last November?s election. He wanted to set up a central depository of news and information about the last election for those with similar interests?and an umbrella organization for groups concerned with vote inconsistencies.

The coalition runs the full gambit on the left, from Democratic to Green Party organizations,
  

as well as progressive non-partisan groups like the Democracy Now and Code Pink.

RAW STORY is a member of the coalition, which also focuses on media reform. In the interest of disclosure, this site holds no financial stake and did not sign onto the divestment letter.

Friedman contends the Velvet Revolution is ?not left versus right, but right versus wrong.? He hopes to expand the coalition beyond the left and build ties with Libertarians like presidential candidate Michael Badnarik who, along with House Judiciary Democrats and Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb, took the lead in investigating Ohio voting irregularities.