Texas Court Orders Voting Examiners' Meetings Opened to Public

EFF rocks! Felt like some here might be interested in this.
I strongly suggest to all DU election reform advocates: join the EFF mail list. I hope I am not repeating something all here know about.

from EFF email:

(snip)

* Texas Court Orders Voting Examiners' Meetings Opened to
Public

Requires "Sunshine" in Process of Choosing E-voting Machines


Texas - A Texas court ruled today that state voting
examiners may no longer bar the public from their meetings.
In the case, ACLU of Texas v. Connor, the plaintiffs argued
that the Texas Open Meetings Act should apply to meetings
of the voting examiners. These meetings are used to decide
what kinds of electronic voting machines will be used in
upcoming elections. EFF was co-counsel in the case.


"The court rightly rejected Texas' policy of shutting the
public out of the processes for selecting voting
technologies. The need for public trust in our election
systems cannot be overstated, and this is a terrific step
forward for the voters of Texas," said EFF Staff Attorney
Matt Zimmerman.


Recently, the Texas Safe Voting Coalition obtained
videotapes of previous meetings, including one involving
Diebold Election Systems, that suggest a lack of rigor and
failure to address proper security and certification
compliance issues.


"This ruling allows specialists in areas including computer
security, accessibility, and minority rights to offer their
own skills to complement the state's official election
examiners," said Dan Wallach, an assistant professor in the
Department of Computer Science at Rice University and
outspoken critic of poorly designed electronic voting
systems.


For the ruling:
<http://eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20050126_letter_ruling_tx.pdf>


For the full release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_01.php#002240>

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Also check this out:

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Op-ed: "Rethinking Recounts"


By Cindy Cohn
EFF Legal Director


When Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) after
the Florida recount debacle, most of us imagined that new
electronic voting machines would make the voting process
easier. What we didn't anticipate was that some voting
machine vendors would make it "easier" by removing the
ability to do an accurate recount - the design equivalent of
a CEO making an audit "easier" by eliminating the
accounting department.

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There is more, for full article go to:

<http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002222.php>

finally!

Awesome news!