Washblog

This is incredibly frustrating... I don't accept that these meetings are not subject to the council's Open Public Meetings Act, whatever that is.

Can anyone attend any of these CEOC meetings on such short notice?

Things to remember:

 - Mail ballot tracking adds a unique barcode to everyone's ballot which is tied to their voter id. This eliminates the secret ballot and any remaining voter privacy. The Sec of State, county council, and elections department all think this is a great idea.

 - We'll spend millions to be the first customer for Diebold's highspeed scanners. They haven't been certified by the feds yet.

 - The elections dept will be prescanning ballots before election day and running a summary report of elections results every day.

 - The elections dept will be electronically modifying the ballot database to honor "voter intent", replacing our current manual ballot duplication procedures.

 - Florida Gov Crist (R), New Mexico Gov Richardson (D), and others have banned computerized voting machines. Why is King Co still using them?

 - When a council member or elections official says something about "security", that means either a) every independent inspection of our vote counting and tabulation equipment has found fatal, irredeemable flaws or b) the equipment hasn't been tested yet.

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Wagner, Nick" <Nick.Wagner@metrokc.gov>
Date: April 24, 2007 9:42:09 AM PDT
To: "Jason Aaron Osgood" <zappini@gmail.com>
Cc: "Alvine, Michael" <Michael.Alvine@METROKC.GOV>, "Ellen Hansen" <ellenhansen@msn.com>
Subject: RE: Next CEOC Mtg?

Jason,

There is a meeting of the full CEOC today from 1:30 to 2:30 in the Southwest Conference Room on the 12th floor of the King County Courthouse, 516 Third Avenue, in Seattle. It will be preceded by a meeting of the election equipment subcommittee from 12:00 to 1:30 in the same location (this meeting will also be attended by King County Elections staff, who will be available to answer questions) and a meeting of the public meeting subcommittee meeting from 12:30 to 1:30 in the Ginger conference room. You are welcome to attend the meetings even though, according to legal counsel, they are not subject to the Open Public Meetings Act. We are in the process of getting the CEOC website up and running and intend to post meeting notices there; however, we have not yet set up a regular routine for communicating the meeting information to the folks who maintain the website. I will try to make sure that future meetings are posted on the website.

Nick

Nick Wagner
Council Staff
Metropolitan King County Council
King County Courthouse
516 Third Avenue, Room 1200
Seattle, WA 98104-3272
Phone: 206.296.1679
Fax: 206.205.5156
nick.wagner@metrokc.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Aaron Osgood [mailto:zappini@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:13 AM
To: Wagner, Nick; Alvine, Michael; Ellen Hansen; Julie Goldberg; Elizabeth Walter; Fred Morris
Subject: Next CEOC Mtg?

Hi Nick Wagner, Michael Alvine-

When and where is the next CEOC meeting? (Not the public hearing May
14th.) I saw fellow activist Julie Goldberg last weekend. She says
the regular date was changed because of the upcoming hearing. (I had
to duck out early and missed that detail.)

These are public meetings. I'm pretty sure there's rules about
announcements and whatnot. Every meeting I've attended, I've had to
explicitly ask for time, place, and agenda. On just about everything
else, I get announcements. Bobbie Egan and Megan Coppersmith send me
the media advisories. The SOS announces their meetings and proposed
rules changes. The council announces their agendas. Etc.

You two have been very responsive and helpful. I appreciate that. And
I understand that all rocks roll downhill. However, the current
situation isn't working for me. I don't know who to complain to. So
I'm starting with you.

I recall that council communication staff has been asked to maintain
the CEOC's web page. Schedules, agendas, minutes, announcements, etc.
How's that going? The site has been updated to announce the upcoming
hearing. But that's all.

I dream of a day when I don't have to go out of my way to stay in the
loop.

Thank you for your time.

Cheers, Jason Osgood / Seattle WA