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Protesters criticize county elections hirings
By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | ∞
Tom Courbat, a member of the Election Observer Panel from the County of Riverside, speaks during a protest and press conference held by local anti-electronic voting activists in front of the County Administration Center in San Diego Tuesday morning.
ROBERT BENSON For the North County Times
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SAN DIEGO -- Tuesday's county Board of Supervisors meeting drew a restive crowd, with two people ejected, while dozens of other electronic voting opponents protested recent hirings for the county's elections department.
Between 40 and 50 people showed up at the board meeting to protest the county's recent decisions to hire Deborah Seiler and Michael Vu as the county's top two elections officials, registrar and assistant registrar of voters.
The protests also included sharp criticisms of electronic voting in general, and devolved into shouts from audience members, rebukes from supervisors, and a declaration from county Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard that Seiler, Vu and electronic voting were here to stay.
Seiler, who most recently served as the assistant registrar of voters in Solano County, also worked as a sales representative with Ohio-based Diebold Elections Systems, and was directly involved in the company's sale of 10,200 "touch screen" election machines to San Diego County.
Protesters said Seiler had a conflict of interest because as a Diebold employee, she benefited financially from the sale of the machines to the county, and because she, as a former Diebold employee, supported a system that could rig elections.
Vu, meanwhile, resigned in February as executive director of Ohio's Cuyahoga County election board, where two elections workers were convicted of rigging a 2004 presidential election recount.
Protesters said Vu's resignation and the problems in Cuyahoga showed he was incompetent.
Vu could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Seiler, who will take over as county registrar June 4, said in a phone interview after Tuesday's protest that she hoped people would consider her entire elections career when judging her.
The 57-year-old Seiler's elections experience started in the 1970s, and she said it demonstrated a "clear dedication to voters and the process of elections administration."
Among other jobs, she spent seven years with the California secretary of state's office, eventually becoming assistant to the secretary of state for elections and political reform. She also served as a commissioner for California's Fair Political Practices Commission, worked in the private sector with Diebold and a rival, Sequoia Pacific Systems, and as an elections officer in Solano County.
Seiler said she believed that the fact she was familiar with three different types of electronic voting systems added to her elections experience.
"I'm not beholden to any of those companies," Seiler said.
Ken Simpkins, leader of a recently created local elections watchdog group, opened Tuesday's comments, telling supervisors that San Diego County had become the "laughingstock for the country for election integrity" by hiring Seiler and Vu.
Chief Administrative Officer Ekard -- who has publicly defended his hirings of Seiler and Vu, and who previously characterized many anti-electronic voting critics as "conspiracy theorists" intent on undermining public confidence in elections -- immediately responded to the criticisms.
Ekard said election integrity was "paramount" to him, county workers and supervisors, called electronic voting criticism "tired arguments," and defended Seiler and Vu, calling them honorable people with decades of elections experience who would ensure the integrity of the county's elections.
At a break in the meeting, Simpkins said that he and other electronic-voting opponents believe that the machines can be rigged to register "secret votes" -- electronically tabulating a vote for a candidate the voter did not select while printing out the name of the voter's chosen candidate on the printed vote copy that was designed to prevent fraud.
"Mr. Ekard and his board are overseeing the implementation of a system of secret vote counting in San Diego," Simpkins alleged. "It cannot be an accident that the most controversial elections officials in the country... are here in San Diego."
Members of the audience broke into applause at the end of Simpkins' and subsequent protesters' comments, a demonstration that county officials routinely ask audience members not to do. However, board Chairman Ron Roberts chose not to admonish the audience until it was the county's turn to speak in response.
Ekard told the audience he supported the two new election officials.
"I understand that there are those of you who disagree with my hires," Ekard said. "I have heard you. I have listened to you. I disagree with you, and that's it. They will be on staff to ensure ..."
At that moment, a woman in the audience shouted out, challenging Ekard.
Roberts stopped the proceedings, and asked the woman to leave, saying that county officials had politely listened to the protesters.
But then, another woman, Becky Hostetter, angrily shouted back at Roberts that county officials had indeed interrupted the public speakers, a charge that seemed not to be true unless she referred to Roberts' telling speakers when their two-minute time limits were up.
Roberts then told Hostetter to leave, which prompted her to yell even louder as she retreated.
"What you're doing is wrong," Hostetter shouted, her voice increasing in volume as she continued. "You're subverting democracy -- and we won't have it!"
Ekard again tried to finish. Crowd members once again jeered, and Supervisor Pam Slater-Price lashed out.
"Excuse me please," Slater-Price said. "During the time you were speaking, we did not boo, hiss, catcall or laugh. That is very rude and totally unacceptable behavior."
Board members, meanwhile, listened only to five of the public speakers at the beginning of the meeting, choosing to trail the remainder until the end of the meeting, which concluded without incident.
Meanwhile, at the break, the audience members held a planned demonstration outside, holding up placards such as "Stop ignoring the voters of San Diego County," and "Seiler and Vu = sleaze X 2." One woman, wearing a pink "Impeach Bush and Cheney" T-shirt and a wolf mask, carried a poster-sized sign emblazoned with a quote attributed to deceased journalism icon Edward R. Murrow, "A nation of sheep soon begets a government of wolves."
Although the county of San Diego ran a relatively problem-free set of elections in November 2006 with its electronic voting machines, and most voters seemed to like the machines, electronic voting has not outgrown controversy that suggests that they could be rigged to throw elections.
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, herself an electronic voting critic, has ordered a "top to bottom" $1.8 million retesting of all California electronic voting systems.
Bowen said she hoped the review could be finished by August, and that electronic systems could be decertified if they prove vulnerable to tampering.
Meanwhile, Simpkins' watchdog group has filed a complaint with Bowen's office alleging that county officials committed several crimes and wrongdoing during last November's elections.
County officials have responded to queries from Bowen's office, but no determinations have been made.
-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.
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Cal wrote on May 22, 2007 10:56 PM:Is no one in San diego county qualified to fill these positions? We gotta hire flukes from questionable county's and conflicted corporations? Give the citizens some credit!! We run the darned polling places ourselves. I'll bet we could run the registrars office too. This is still a democracy isn't it??
ghost in the machine wrote on May 22, 2007 11:32 PM:Bravo to the protesters! They should have dumped those machines in the harbor. It would have been a more patriotic act than when the tea was dumped in Boston Harbor. At no time in our history has Jeffersons democracy been threatened like it is today. We must elect the Registrar of Voters, and insure that they are entirely free of relationships with vendors. The complete lack of ethics at the Federal level, has seeped down to the local. ... The fact that Ekard, Haas, Seiler and Vu, see nothing wrong in these hirings is a sad sign of the times. But the line is drawn, and it stops when the very heart of democracy is privatized, profitized, outsourced, and hidden away.
Howiek wrote on May 23, 2007 3:01 AM:Electronic voting is here to stay folks – some of you need to get past the conspiracy theories and realize that! Just in case you didn’t know it, even optical scanning machines could be rigged—they run on software too. Maybe San Diego could be like Florida, and could “chad’s” 10 or 15 times to determine a voter’s intent.
Jane wrote on May 23, 2007 8:27 AM:... I am appalled at the manner in which the Board chose to conduct the meeting, berating, scolding and closing down any dialogue with the audience therefore necessitating outbursts from us in order for us to be heard, This Board has a history of running their business quietly, smoothly and their unilatera way.That is not democracy and will soon change.We won't accept that.
Stench wrote on May 23, 2007 8:30 AM:Vu rises to the highest level of objection. If this was done in private industry contracting with the government, Congress would be screaming. These hiring’s don't pass the appearance of impropriety test.
arrgh! wrote on May 23, 2007 10:16 AM:Democracy is messy. Democracy is time-comsuming. If the electorate wants voting by computer, at least lets go with Linux open source code; it shouldn't be proprietary. And lets elect Registrars that have no vendor ties. This isn't a referendum on technology; its about an open, accountable electoral process as opposed to a privatized, outsourced approach to the very foundations of democracy.
To "arrgh!" wrote on May 23, 2007 11:28 AM:More of the blind leading the blind? Linux is an operating system. Computer programs run on top of operating systems. They are not the same thing. By the way, you may want to check you bank statements again... pesky computers.
Say NO! wrote on May 23, 2007 11:44 AM:Our Vote is our Voice. Retaining Democracy depends on it. If voting is corrupted in ANY way,--if our votes are denied, lost or stolen,--our citizenship is denied. That is Intolerable! ANY Subversion of elections is an attack on the Nation. It is Domestic Terrorism. Treasonous, traitorous acts. SDC elections must be made PURE. They can not be run by Ekard, Haas, Seiler, Vu or Townsend or anyone with a hint or history of conflict of interest or scandal.
Bored wrote on May 23, 2007 2:51 PM:Well, I guess say NO is out of the picture then...as well as all of you other loonies. Conspiracies, agendas, corruption, blah blah blah. Get a life. How many of you have actually gone to the Registrar's office on election night like I have, and watched the process until the end at 5:00 the following morning like I have? Probably none. Get over yourselves and stop believing everything you hear.
I was there wrote on May 23, 2007 4:22 PM:No one berated the speakers. There was no dialogue. You can't shout and lecture like most of you did and then cat call and hiss when you are being replied to. As for precious democracy, what I did witness was several of you sitting on you collective ... while the rest of us said the Pledge. Talk about rude, several of us were embarrassed for you.
It Happened To Me wrote on May 23, 2007 5:15 PM:At the last election, my electronic voting machine kept changing my vote for two of the State Propositions. I called this to the attention of the election workers and received absolutely no action. I then sent an e-mail to the Registar of Voters (Haas) with, again, absolutely zero response. Folks, we have lost control of our elections! As someone once said, it's not how the people vote, it's who counts the votes that matters. And I sure as heck don't trust these two new players at the counting desk. We should also question the Supervisor's allowing of Walt Eckard to continue in his position.
Hey bored and howiek wrote on May 23, 2007 6:32 PM:So you're ok voting on machines that run secret software that not even the Registrar can see. Do you think the members of the Boards of Enron or Worldcom felt secure in receiving platitudes from their CEO and CFO and not having any meaningful audit done? Or one audit done by a company just as corruptible as the company they are auditing. And yes, a good number of us HAVE been to the central tabulator on election night - but observers were resrained from seeing anything "meaninful", (one in fact was physicall ejected) just watching machines and not being allowed close enough to read error and processing messages that could give valuable insight to any collusion that might go on in the absence of oversight. So realize, Election Integrity (EI) activists DO have a life - saving your sorry democracy, so you can whine aobut "get a life"! Just be glad there are patriotic citzens willing to question what is going on. You sound like you fall asleep every night watching Faux (oops, Fox) news. You just may wake up to the sound of police boots outside your door. Think that could never happen here, just stay tuned!
A voter wrote on May 24, 2007 9:03 AM:I have known Deborah Seiler for 25 years. She is intelligent, hard-working and honest. She also knows more about administration of elections than most anyone I can think of. Yes, she worked for a vendor, but she was also Assistant to the Secretary of State for Elections, Principal Consultant to the State Assembly Elections Committee, a Commissioner on the Fair Political Practices Commission and County Election Director. She has a resume that most of these protesters could only dream of. Take a deep breath, step back, turn down the rhetoric and let her do her job.
geneve wrote on May 24, 2007 1:36 PM:This is appauling and San Diego does not need to have these corrupt rejects drawing negative publicity to our already bad reputation when it comes to voting. The person these people are replacing, Mikel Hass, was in hot water last year for allowing poll workers to take voting machines home the night prior to the election. How did the county handle that scandal? They PROMOTED Haas. Now they are knowingly bringing in more controversy. Our county government is disgusting, partisan and corrupt and needs a top to bottom audit immediately
It Happened To Me wrote on May 24, 2007 9:39 PM:To A Voter: I really don't care how long you have known Seiler, the mere fact that she has been employed by not one but two voting machine vendors should have automatically disqualified her for this job to avoid even the slightest hint of any impropriaty. As long as Seiler and Vu are in their jobs, the voters will have doubts that their votes have been recorded and counted as they were cast.
San Diego citizen wrote on May 25, 2007 10:12 PM:The incredible ignorance or contempt for the citizens of San Diego County demonstrated by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors should not go unnoticed. Even the Government Accountability Office and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have produced carefully researched reports extremely critical of the trustworthiness and reliability of electronic voting machines. This is no longer a matter of allegations or conjecture. It is a well-documented assessment by federal departments of government. We need a purge of our county board of supervisors. They have become haughty and insensitive to the wants and needs of their constituents. They run our county like their private fiefdoms. They need reminding that they are public SERVANTS. It's high time to find replacements for all of them. I call on all my fellow citizens to begin the task of finding replacements. STAT
haha wrote on May 28, 2007 4:03 AM:The Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell is a Bush Pioneer and wrote in a GOP fundraising letter that he was "committed to delivering electoral votes to the President." http://hubpages.com/hub/Noam_Chomsky_openly_denied_the_role_of_electronic_voting_fraud
Charles wrote on May 31, 2007 12:01 AM:What a farce it is to attend the county public forums on pacific highway.you have ol' ronnie roberts the cheschire cat ansewring his phone during public comments..then shouting of with thier heads" what a joke he is..but sadly he goes on and on and on, if you don't care for him or the others they Re-organize and change districts..ah ol Ronnie couldnt stand the heat in Pt. Loma or Middletown and even little Italy renounced him, not to say Mission hills and the soul of the city, The three time mayoral looser cuts us off when we challenge the farse, keep turning beat red Ronnie in public when you are called on your miss-deeds, your time is at end take the phone book out from under your seat little fella"
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