Not Quite a Blog

In 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen commissioned a review of California's voting systems by a team of technical experts, of which I was one.

She released many of the technical reports on the night of 27 July 2007 and then spent a week studying the results before issuing her decisions at a late night press conference on Friday 3 August 2007.

I recently had occasion to try and find the record of that statement, but it didn't seem anywhere to be found. Then, I remembered that I had captured the audio of the announcement:

http://josephhall.org/casos/ttbr-announcement/ttbr-announcement.mp3

It's a visceral, thoughtful piece of voting systems history that particularly highlights how careful, conservative and scientific Debra Bowen thinks and adjudicates. Below, I include the full transcript from the event... (I've posted those in HTML and TXT, as transcribed by the wonderful CastingWords.com).

CA SoS Bowen TTBR Decision Announcement

3 August 2007

Debra Bowen: I don't want to wait any longer. It's been a long evening as it is. So, good afternoon or evening or whatever it is. It reminds me a little bit of our old budget negotiation days. Apologies for the delay. Believe me, it was not by design.

Before I announce the actions that I have taken this evening, I want to talk briefly about the decisions and something about the rationale behind them.

The systems that we use to cast and tally votes in this state are the most fundamental tools of our democracy. And if, in this great nation, we do not have confidence, our citizens do not have confidence that elections have been correctly decided because they do not have faith in the integrity of the tools used in the conduct of elections, then elections officials have a duty to investigate the source of citizens concerns and a duty to take remedial action.

A democracy cannot long remain a democracy if a substantial number of its citizens have lost faith in the electoral process itself. I take my responsibilities as this state's chief elections officer very seriously. I am mindful of the impacts that my decisions will have on voters, on county and local elections officials, poll workers, voting system vendors, and on others in California and across the nation.

Every county's election results have consequences for the citizens of every other county. Every state's election results have consequences for the citizens of every other state. And every nation's election results have consequences for all of the people of the world. That's the nature of our independent world in the twenty-first millennium.

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Gruber links to an interesting image of the girl's rifle team at Drexel Institute in 1925.

As a former riflery instructor, this image instantly made my heart skip a beat. Why? Because most of the girls pictured are standing and have their rifles on the ground with the bolts open and barrels pointed upwards. In a few cases, like the far left girl (pictured here), the barrel seems to be pointed very clearly towards her head! Yikes.

I taught rifelry to kids as young as 10 at Jameson Ranch Camp (which is truly heaven on Earth for young kids, if you can afford it). Among many other things, we taught that when not shooting -- e.g., when posing for pictures -- one should remove the bolt from the rifle and point the barrel of the rifle towards the ground or the sky. When pointed upwards, the tip of the barrel should be above your head. Anyone not following these (and many other precautions) would loose their shooting privileges, period.

It's a great picture... but damn if it doesn't give me the heebie-jeebies.