I CAN'T HELP BUT WONDER exactly what we gained after that municipal election we just had. For my part it was just a sore throat from too much time on the phone reminding folks to vote. With county turnout at just 27 percent, I am underwhelmed by the sense of civic responsibility.
Yes, after all that money spent by 15 candidates and three measures and their matching opposition groups, we got squat.
For those calling for change on the City Council, you gained a likable former police chief and lost a business and financial expert. I don't expect the votes while on the Council to be very different between the two men.
For Wright Library supporters, you lost a chance to keep your facility open through the revenue Measure A would've brought. And our city's innovative Medic Engine 10 and Downtown foot patrols could go away as well. But the no voters will get to keep their roughly 18 cents a day.
For Measure B supporters, your activism forced the city's hand to form its own View Protection Task Force, which likely helped kill your measure but saved the city from probable legal action if B had passed.
To our Measure C folks: the city's own General Plan guidelines for that area as implemented through our new Victoria Corridor code will prevent Wal-Mart from super-sizing its planned smaller store in the former K-Mart site. But I still won't shop there.
And to my friends on the school board: you worked hard and deserved to retain your seats.
IT'S BEEN MY OBSERVATION that most citizens aren't too dialed into municipal matters and generally dislike ballot initiatives. This election reflected that. The sheer number of candidates and measures required more study than most folks had patience for. When this happens, newspaper endorsements do matter.
Ventura's campaign finance laws keep special interests from controlling elections, unlike our neighbors to the north in Santa Barbara where one well-heeled Texas millionaire threw more than half a million dollars into the pot.
So in this environment it becomes more about established networks and word-of-mouth rather than glossy mailers. Look for a push to change the city's charter regarding Council elections very soon.
And take down those signs.
Maybe if the city would change their election cycle to match the state/national election cycle more people would vote in local elections.
Maybe if the city council were more responsive to the populace more people would vote. Measure A is a classic example of the elitist attitude of the council. They put together a 'blue ribbon committee' to tell them what they wanted to hear. Nevermind that the people/voters were screaming NO MORE TAXES! Then when the votes are counted, the Mayor comes out and cries "OK, we heard you. Now be prepared for drastic cuts".
It is unfortunate that there was really no change to the makeup of the council. I blame voter apathy and the Star's recommendations.
How much did this election cost the citizens of Ventura? Certainly if the city moved to the state/national cycle there would be cost savings.
This past Tuesday, my experience voting with the AVC EDGE brought serious
problems and questions as to the integrity of Sequoia systems. Your feedback requested:
AVC Edge machine repeatedly jams ballots
and they have to reset it. It beeps after feeding ballot, and I asked if it tabulated votes- no one knew.
Poll workers are woefully undertrained and underpaid. Supervisor had to call VCounty Election Division Office for directions to reset, or ask other novice workers.
I worked elections before and it was nightmarish. Complete disconnect and disregard of office to paid poll workers, who serve out of duty- money is negliable. PL
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On August 3, 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen withdrew approval and granted conditional reapproval to Sequoia Voting Systems optical scan and DRE voting machines after a "review of the voting machines certified for use in California in March 2007" found "significant security weaknesses throughout the Sequoia system" and "pervasive structural weaknesses" which raise "serious questions as to whether the Sequoia software can be relied upon to protect the integrity of elections."
“Hanging chads" controversy
A 2007 investigative report by Dan Rather charged Sequoia with deliberately supplying poor quality punch-card ballots to Palm Beach County, Florida for the 2000 election. According to former Sequoia employees, the ballots for Palm Beach County were produced with paper and manufacturing processes that were outside of normal specifications. This supposedly caused all of the problems with "hanging chads". When quality problems were found, Sequoia management ordered the production workers to ignore them. One worker speculated that the object was to discredit punch-card ballots and thus promote sales of electronic voting machines.
Florida touch-screen replacement
After the 2000 election problems, Florida required its counties to replace punch-card voting systems with touch-screen systems. Some of these were purchased from Sequoia. However, there were some major problems with these systems, and in 2007 Florida ordered the counties to replace the touch-screens with optical-scan systems by 1 July 2008. Sequoia offered to buy back its units for $1 each. This offer was rejected.
Threat of legal action against Professor Edward Felten
In early 2008, New Jersey election officials announced that they planned to send one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines to Professors Edward Felten and Andrew Appel of Princeton University for analysis. Felten and Appel are computer scientists interested in security issues, especially in regard to electronic voting systems. In March 2008, Sequoia sent an e-mail to Professor Felten asserting that allowing him to examine Sequoia voting machines would violate the license agreement between Sequoia and the county which bought them, and also that Sequoia would take legal action "to stop... non-compliant analysis... publication of Sequoia software... or any other infringement of our intellectual property." This action sparked outrage among computer technology activists.Cory Doctorow commented "It's hard to imagine a stupider legal threat."
Shortly after this, Sequoia's corporate Web site was hacked. Ironically, the hack was first discovered by Ed Felten. Sequoia took its Web site down on 20 March and removed the "intrusive content"
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The AVC Advantage contains a computer. If someone installs a different computer program for that computer to run, it can deliberately add up the votes wrong. It's easy to make a computer program that steals votes from one party's candidates, and gives them to another, while taking care to make the total number of votes come out right. It's easy to make this program take care to cheat only on election day when hundreds of ballots are cast, and not cheat when the machine is being tested for accuracy. This kind of fraudulent computer program can modify every electronic "audit trail" in the computer. Without voter-verified paper ballots, it's extremely hard to know whether a voting machine (such as the AVC Advantage) is running the right program.It takes about 7 minutes, using simple tools, to replace the computer program in the AVC Advantage with a fraudulent program that cheats. We demonstrate this on the video.
Even when it's not hacked to deliberately steal votes, the AVC Advantage has a few user-interface flaws. Therefore, sometimes the AVC Advantage does not properly record the intent of the voter. All known voting technologies have imperfect user interfaces, although some are worse than others. The public should beware of the argument that some people make, that "we should not replace the AVC Advantage with voting method X, because X is imperfect." The AVC Advantage's susceptibility to installation of a fraudulent vote-counting program is far more than an imperfection: it is a fatal flaw.
I think they need some sort of civics test to give council candidates before they can run. While we're at it, let's run 'em through a battery of mental tests too. All these people wasting time and votes and ballot space. Go find another hobby.
pete lafollette says:
"The AVC Advantage's susceptibility to installation of a fraudulent vote-counting program is far more than an imperfection: it is a fatal flaw."
As a former Polling place inspector, I can tell you that in order to install a "fraudulent vote-counting program" into the machine at the polling place, you would need to distract all of the polling clerks, and the inspector. The you would need to get the keys to the machine from the inspector. The you would break the seal to the memory cartridge that would be evident at closing.
While I suppose it would be possible to do this at EVERY polling place, it is highly improbable.
Installing a "fraudulent vote-counting program" at the counting site (Government Center) would require the cooperation of many government employees to rig the election. Again, possible, but not probable.
In all of the elections that I have worked (as both a clerk and inspector) with the AVC Edge machine, I've never seen on jam. I've never seen one jam in training either. It is possible that you vote at a precinct that doesn't care.....
Above arguement is patently false. The tabulation would
be in the software, not installation at each voting
precinct. As far as enlisting cooperation, you need to
direct that to the election worker's precinct office
who value keeping their jobs in todays economy. Besides
there's not that many employees, and I know the area
that count's votes allows no outside oversight besides
a small remote window. You need to revist Dade County
Florida history. Corruption at this county is historical.
So Mr. LaFollette, you're saying that you don't trust the County of Ventura's Election office? You think that they are all bribable?
Do you have a better solution than the AVC Edge?
We're all ears.....