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San Diego Co. WATCH -updated 10/08!

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PO Box 56 . San Luis Rey . California 92068 . (760) 500-1927 info@secureelections.org

    Who We Are

    Group Mission:

    Elections are the property of the people. Secure Accurate Elections (SAE) of San Diego County is a non-partisan citizen's coalition dedicated to achieving an election system that is secure, accurate and completely open to public oversight.

    Our Goals:
    (Click here for SAE's 2009-2010 specific goals)

    FREEDOM OF PUBLIC INFORMATION

    The public has the right to observe and monitor every aspect of public elections. We are currently being denied this right.

    • Precinct Returns on Election Night: Require County Registrar of Voters to begin reporting ongoing returns on election night by precinct thus making it easier to follow the flow of the votes as they are tabulated.

    • Standardize costs of recounts: Costs of recounts will be affordable to candidates and the public. At this time recount costs can very from 14 cents a vote in Orange County to a dollar a vote in San Diego County. A recount for a close election or an election that is questionable will be at no cost to the candidate.

    • Public has a right to observe election process: Make sure that all Registrars of Voters understand that the election process is open to public observation. This means instructing poll workers that the public has the right to observe the poll closing process, take notes and photograph public documents as long as they do not interfere with the poll closing process.

    VOTING ON MACHINES

    The preference of SAE is that all voting takes place on hand marked paper ballots that are hand counted under public observation at the polling place or that machines are used as printers that print out a paper ballot that the voter verifies and places in a secured box.

    • Paper Ballots: All voting will be done on voter marked paper ballots and the paper ballots take precedence over machine records.

    • Open Source Software: Software that is open to public inspection and not privately owned or proprietary

    • Testing equipment: The public must be able to observe and monitor the testing of voting machines and reports on such testing must be made public.Currently venders pay for testing and reports may not be made public. This must be corrected so that there is no monetary connection between venders and testing facilities. Logic and Accuracy testing done at the local level should be documented to the State.

    • Audit or mandatory hand count: Mandate random statistically significant hand count of paper ballots to ensure reliability of the machine count.This to be done under public observation.

    • Central Tabulator: The Central Tabulator must be publicly owned and operated. Tabulators presently are so complicated that local technicians tend to rely on technicians provided by the vender, thus empowering the vender. Software must be open source.

    We Support:

    • Public observation, monitoring and oversight of elections.

    • Voter marked paper ballots that are hand counted under public observation at the polling place.

    • If voting machines are in use they must have open source software, be publicly tested, and require a randomly selected, publicly observed, hand counted audit at a statistically significant level to determine reliability of the vote.

    • Cost effective voting methods.

    We Oppose:

    • Privatization of our votes by turning the process of vote collecting and counting over to privately owned companies.

    • Secret or proprietary software.

    What We Do:

    Educate:

    Distribute to the public, media and decision makers information on voting security problems and solutions. Sponsor speakers and forums on election integrity issues.

    Lobby:

    Fax, call, email, interview, and petition public officials to make decisions that will promote elections which are more accurate, secure, transparent and open to public oversight.

    Past Accomplishments of Group Members

    1. Organized a poll watching project in both the primary and November 2004 elections.

    2. Wrote a 20 page report on the November 2004 poll watching project.

    3. Lobbied in person in Washington D.C., Sacramento, and locally in San Diego County.

    4. Circulated a petition to get Diebold voting machines out of San Diego County. Gathered over 900 names and presented these petitions in person to the offices of then Secretary of State McPherson, State Senator Debra Bowen and the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

    5. Worked with other groups to organize and arrange for speakers to make presentations in San Diego County on election integrity.

    6. Collected data from posted voting machine tapes in the November 2006 election and compared these numbers with precinct reports from the Central Tabulator. 

Last site update: May 02, 2008