Houston Democrats

Unfortunately, the Pena bill HB 166, coming out of committee is a shadow of its former self. Chair Denny gutted the paper trail section, relegating it to a "study" by the not altogether friendly Secretary of State, while keeping much of the testing procedures added to the most recent version submitted to the Elections Committee she Chairs.
Stan Merriman has only a hard copy of the gutted bill on Wed. a.m............will make it available when Pena's staff has an electronic version. They are moving to work with the Shapleigh Senate bill to repair and get moving in the right direction.
The testing is perhaps not disaster for us as an interim move as this is the trac the HCDP voting technology group has been exploring as an interim step.

Thanks Stan! Please keep us updated on this critical legislation!

ACCORDING TO PENA'S CHIEF OF STAFF, THE "DENNY VERSION" OF HB 166 HAS NOT MADE IT TO THE CALENDARS COMMITTEE YET; NEXT WEEK'S SESSION BILLS ARE ALREADY SET FOR MON. AND TUES. IF CALENDARS DOES NOT GET IT ON NEXT WEEK'S SESSION FOR WED. OR THURS., "IT IS DEAD". PENA'S OFFICE IS PUSHING IT THROUGH SEN. ELLIS ON THE SENATE SIDE AND HE IS MILDLY OPTIMISTIC THERE. KEY DEMS ON THE CALENDARS COMMMITEE; SYLVESTER TURNER, PATRICK ROSE AND VILMA LUNA. A COMPANION BILL IS ON THE SENATE SIDE SB 94 BY SEN. SHAPLEIGH AND PENA'S STAFF IS WORKING THAT OPTION; SEN. RODNEY ELLIS SITS ON THE ADMIN. COMMITTEE THAT MOVES BILLS TO THEIR FLOOR.

Lack of support for the Pena bill is difficult to justify. Any software professional can tell you that it's hard enough for competent professionals to make it work right even when they're giving it an honest effort, which is why critical software designs and code should always be peer reviewed. Even well-designed code typically contains subtle flaws, and they certainly don't have to be put there deliberately. Without visibility into the source code, and without a paper record of what happens in real-time, verification is impossible. There can't be too many reasons to oppose verifiable electronic voting. Ignorance is certainly one reason. An interest in leaving the door open to election fraud might be another. For now, let's give the bill's opponents the benefit of the doubt and assume they're ignorant - In that case, need to be educated.

Looking at my last post, I see some rather funky-looking characters where there should be apostrophes. At first I was upset, but then it occurred to me that this cut-and-paste error inadvertently proves my point about the unreliability of software.

It is clear to me that the only people who are oppositional to having open source code and paper trails are Republicans. After all, why should they support election reform when everything's coming up roses for them at the polls? Gosh, if we had verifiable voting in place they might not ever come to power again! The only way Bush has been able to hijack the White House and the office of the presidency was through cheating and dirty tricks. That monkey never would've set foot in the White House if the Supreme Court hadn't given him the presidency in 2000 and if he hadn't had the voting machines rigged in Florida and Ohio in the 2004 election.

The bottom line is this: there is NO justification for not supporting the Pena bill unless, of course, you're a thug who plans on subverting democracy.