VoteTrustUSA will help Emery County's Bruce Funk

From an e-mail forwarded by Kathy Dopp of UtahCountVotes.org:

Hi, BBVers,

Here's some good news in the fight to help Emery County, Utah elections official Bruce Funk retain his job (and keep on fighting a democracy-draining company known as Diebold). [See this article for background --Carrie]

Joan Krawitz [of VoteTrustUSA] has agreed to send out an action alert to her vast, very impressive list (12,000+) and get as many state organizations involved as possible to give Mr. Funk the same kind of support that has been extended to Leon County, Florida elections supervisor Ion Sancho. I hope there will also be a groundswell of support for Mr. Funk among residents of his county (the same way that Leon County residents rallied around Mr. Sancho).

Look immediately below this message to read my email message to the Emery County Commissioners (which, as Joan already knows, I changed very slightly and also sent to Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr.). The email address for the Commissioners (Ira Hatch, Gary Kofford and Drew Sitterud) is commission@co.emery.ut.us, Emery County, UT, County Courthouse; Castle Dale, UT 84513-0629; Phone: (435) 381-2119, Fax: (435) 381-5183 and the link to contact Gov. Huntsman is http://www.utah.gov/governor/contact.html.

Attached is a wonderful editorial in today's (April 3) Miami Herald [click here for this article] that praises Mr. Sancho and also congratulates the Florida Attorney General for pursuing three voting machine companies on possible collusion charges (for refusing to do business with Emery County unless Mr. Sancho is pushed out of the office to which he was elected by his county's voters).

Again, Joan Krawitz deserves our thanks for helping to spread the word so widely to help voting integrity heroes like Bruce Funk and Ion Sancho. Thank you also, BBVers, for posting the "Bruce Funk situation" on your website and asking your visitors/readers to help him if they can.

Best Regards,

Doreen Lazarus -- and now, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, here's the letter I emailed to various Utah officials...

Attn: EMERY COUNTY COMMISSIONERS IRA HATCH, GARY KOFFORD AND DREW SITTERUD

Emery County Clerk/Auditor Bruce Funk has admirably carried out his duty by investigating whether the Diebold TSx vote-counting machines in your county are reliable as well as secure from internal or external "hacking." For example, he recently hired an internationally respected computer security expert, who proved that voting results could be manipulated without even leaving a trace that the security of the Diebold equipment had been compromised.

Mr. Funk, who has run elections in Emery County for 23 years, became concerned when he noticed a critical shortage in flash memory/storage in some of the new machines that Diebold had delivered to his department. In addition to security issues, he raised the logical question of whether Diebold had sold Emery County used touch screen machines rather than the new ones for which the county had contracted.

HE THEN ARRANGED FOR AN INDEPENDENT EVALUATION, WHICH IS A RIGHT GRANTED TO UTAH COUNTY OFFICIALS IN THE DIEBOLD CONTRACT.

Instead of getting the respect and gratitude that he deserves, Mr. Funk was immediately attacked by Diebold, and the company has even had the gall to claim that inspecting just two machines would cost $40,000. In addition to that amount of money being absurd for inspecting two touch screens, Diebold obviously doesn't want to assume the responsibility of either fixing or replacing deficient equipment that they deliver.

Amazingly, rather than demanding that Diebold clean up its act and deliver new, secure voting machines, the Emery County Board of Commissioners has tried to turn a blind eye to vote-counting problems that could turn Election Day into a nightmare (as it already has in primary elections recently in Illinois, Texas and some other states). In a display of "shoot the messenger" mentality, you are trying to push Mr. Funk out of his office -- to which he was duly elected -- and put someone else in charge of election decisions who would ignore the problems with the Diebold touch screens.

A strikingly similar scenario has been taking place in Leon County, Florida. Ion Sancho, that county's Supervisor of Elections, also had Diebold voting machines tested. When the machines failed the tests, Diebold -- rather than upgrading the security of its equipment -- teamed up with the other two voting machine companies certified to do business in Florida (ES&S and Sequoia), and said they would only do business with Leon County if Mr. Sancho resigned or was removed from office.

So, apparently Diebold and at least two other voting machine companies believe that flaws in the machines aren't such a big deal -- but that it IS bad if someone (like Mr. Funk or Mr. Sanchez) actually has the nerve to do his job and test these machines -- and then demand that any substandard equipment either be upgraded or replaced. (Perhaps you are aware that the State of Florida recently sent out a technical advisory to all its elections boards to upgrade their voting machine security to avoid the types of breaches exposed by Mr. Sancho's "hack test." Instead of trying to squelch Mr. Funk's findings, it would be a good idea to warn Utah's other election boards about the concerns he has brought to your attention.)

As you may know, HAVA does NOT require electronic touch screen or optical scan vote-counting machines. So, if Diebold or other such companies that do business in Utah won't supply voting machines that can be proven to be secure, reliable, etc., there are other alternatives (such as the Vote-Pad "flip book") which make ballot-casting easily accessible for disabled persons, and could also quickly be made available to the rest of a county's voters. (By the way, I do NOT have any financial stake in the Vote-Pad system!)

And now, I -- as a U.S. citizen concerned about the integrity of the voting process throughout this great nation of ours -- request that you keep in mind that the voting machine companies are not your constituents. Your duty as elected officials is to serve the citizens of Emery County, not private vendors.

Please do the right thing and support Bruce Funk rather than try to undermine him in his quest to preserve the integrity of the voting process in Emery County.

Sincerely,

Doreen Lazarus-Harris