There will be an audit in Vermont this November

By Gary Beckwith
Vermonters for Voting Integrity
http://solarbus.org/vtvoters

I just got off the phone with the Secretary of State's office. They told me that our SoS has decided there will be an audit on our Diebold Opscan system this November! They don't have any details yet on number of precincts, how they will be chosen, etc, but they will release public statement soon and more details as they are decided.

We still have a ways to go but this is a significant step in the right direction. This is not a mandatory audit; it is being conducted at the discretion of the Secretary of State Deb Markowitz. Vermonters for Voting Integrity will watch very closely for the details of the audit and raise alarms if it seems it will not be conducted properly (in public view, chosen randomly, quantity counted...)

And we will continue to push for mandatory audits on all elections, so we don't have to knock down the SoS's office door every year asking for it.

We are still waiting for a response to Deb's statement that we are in compliance with the Brennan recommendations, which is not true. Brennan states there should be automatic mandatory audits on every election, while this is voluntary and there is no assurance that there will be another audit next time. I (we) feel that Deb has misrepresented the facts by stating we are in compliance with Brennan when we are not. My guess is they'll get back to us and say that they made a mistake in claiming we are in compliance.

To everyone --- this goes to show that you can really have an effect at the local level if you get organized. We have a small group here in Vermont and what we've mainly been doing is pestering her with emails asking her to conduct an audit this fall. I can't say we were the only reason this is happening but I'm sure the emails showed her that people are concerned about this and if there are no audits in Vermont we will continue to gain support for the idea and she'll be getting more bad press and more emails until it happens. Sooo.... keep fighting on the local level and you may get results!