Faculty Dissatisfaction with AppState Chancellor

 

Stella Anderson

At Appalachian State University, the Chair of the Faculty Senate has always gotten time at the first general faculty meeting each fall to address the entire faculty, with the administration present, to report on problems and on-going activities that affect what is actually mandated in the operational Code for the university system, in short, something called "shared governance" (which implies input by the faculty).

The Chair of the Faculty Senate this year, Stella Anderson, had her 10-minute address ready, but she got cut off the program by Chancellor Everts. (Maybe the chancellor had gotten wind of some of the complaints Anderson intended to air.) Not only did Everts unilaterally end last Friday the tradition of the Faculty Senate Chair getting time at the podium, but she also cut out traditional addresses by the chair of the staff council and the president of the Student Government Association. In other words, nobody actually hopeful for and dependent on the promise of "shared governance" was allowed to speak. Only the Chancellor.

So shut out of that general assembly, Stella Anderson recorded her speech on video and published that on YouTube (titling it ominously "Breaking With Traditions"), and in the calmest tones, supported by a slide show, she recited an extensive laundry list of grievances about the chancellor's "lack of adherence to system policy," including the high-handed rewriting of the Faculty Handbook that ignored faculty input and which simply redounded to more power for the bosses and less for the faculty.

Anderson's bottomline: "There is nothing more fundamental to faculty when it comes to shared governance than the policies that affect faculty employment. There is no greater 'test' of shared governance than work done in drafting and revising [university] policies." 

The current reputation of Chancellor Sheri Everts on campus seems to have hit what may be rock-bottom. The consensus holds that she is breaking a trust.

Slicker Than Snot on a Doorknob, Four Eggers Gets Himself Back in the News

 

A famous cartoon by Andrew Cox for
The Appalachian, 2013

On Thursday, and again on Friday (May 11-12), Laura Leslie at WRAL published and then updated a scoop about two prominent Watauga Countians. Leslie found out that Four Eggers ("Stacy Clyde Eggers the Fourth") had secretly gone to the general counsel for the state Board of Elections (SBOE) and first suggested that SBOE member and current secretary Stella Anderson was ineligible for reappointment and then also suggested (possibly threatened, in that mealy Four Eggers way) that the state Republican Party would sue if she were reappointed to the board that Eggers himself also serves on. (It's a whole nother story about how two Watauga Countians ended up on the same important state board at the same time.)

Bottomline: Anderson, who told Laura Leslie that she fully expected to be reappointed and had been told by the governor's office that she would be reappointed, suddenly discovered that she was out in the cold because the governor's people were afraid of a lawsuit. (H1029, passed in 2018, prohibits state employees from serving, but after the enactment of H1029, Anderson was reappointed anyway because she was considered "grandfathered." She had already been serving on the SBOE when H1029 passed. Why, she now wonders, is she no longer grandfathered? Doesn't that question deserve litigating? Rather than instant retreat?

Four also challenged another Democratic SBOE member, Jeff Carmon, on the same grounds. Carmon teaches one class as an "adjunct" (part-timer) at NC Central. Serious question: Legally, can part-timers get around the state employment prohibition? Probably not, so Carmon actually quit his part-time teaching job to get reappointed.

NEW NEWS

Here's the kicker. Four Eggers is himself, according to his lawfirm's own website, "since 2005, a Certified North Carolina Criminal Justice Instructor through the Criminal Justice Standards Division and has taught continuing education classes to both the Appalachian State University Police Department and the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office."

Continuing Education classes at AppState pay their instructors. I feel pretty safe in suggesting that. So how exactly does Four Eggers stand apart from the same eligibility requirement that ensnared Jeff Carmon to stop teaching? How special is Four Eggers? And where does he get off, successfully manipulating the governor to not appoint his one nemesis on the SBOE, Stella Anderson, who likely knows election law a little more thoroughly than Eggers. She's a many-year veteran of both the county BOE and the SBOE, and her name is on the actual lawsuit (Anderson v. State Board of Elections, 2014)  that successfully reopened the ASU polling place that Four Eggers had tried very hard to get rid of.

A Jesse Barber photo

So it's not the first time that Eggers has been outed as a secret manipulator. He was exposed once before in a Winston-Salem Journal investigative article ("One County Attorney, Two Hats: Documents show attorney as 'author' behind key resolutions") on September 15, 2013, just a few months after Republicans (that is, Four Eggers) took control of the local BOE for the first time in a Protestant eternity. With his little brother as chair, and with Bill Aceto as wingman, Eggers immediately began driving Elections Director Jane Anne Hodges (with decades of experience) into early retirement and went to work suppressing the ASU student vote. He got famous on campus, which was not necessarily a good thing, and became a regular passenger on my personal ship of fools (I'm the friggin cap'n and the purser), this blog. I've written about Four Eggers probably more than I ever did about Donald Trump. Don't believe me? Search "Eggers" at the top of the page.

In response to Leslie's questions, Eggers admitted that, yes, he did go pay a visit to the SBOE general counsel's office, and yes he did raise the issue about Anderson and Carmon's eligibilities, but, he claimed, "it was not a challenge to the Democrats’ re-appointments." There's no paper trail proving he's working the angles for the NCGOP -- no official challenge from them. But I think it likely that Eggers was delivering -- in that unctuous, oily way of his -- a nevertheless clear (and obviously effective) threat from the NCGOP that he was recruited to deliver.

Either that, or he went rogue. Out of ambition and self-interest.

WTF Is Going on at the NC Board of Elections?

BACKGROUND
Back on August 23rd, in a controversial 3-2 vote, the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) certified electronic voting equipment made by Elections Systems and Software (ESandS) even though everyone agrees that a voter's ballot choices can't be audited. Not everyone agrees that the inability to audit the votes on those machines is any big deal, like the 3 on the SBOE in favor of certification -- two Republican members and Chair Damon Circosta.

NEW PROBLEMS WITH ESandS Electronic Machinery
A long investigative piece this week by Jordan Wilkie in the Carolina Public Press uncovers this:

Karen Brinson Bell,
Exec. Dir., SBOE

1. ESandS lobbyists -- and please note that word lobbyists -- informed the SBOE legal staff just before Thanksgiving that -- oops! -- the company can't fulfill its obligations to the state in 2020 for the voting machines certified on August 23rd. Only about 1/6th of the machines needed are available to meet the demand.

2. ESandS lobbyists suggest a different machine, an "upgrade," which was not tested and certified by the SBOE.

3. By waiting until last month to inform the SBOE that it can't meet its obligations, ESandS has effectively sandbagged the board. So the lobbyists -- the lobbyists -- suggested that since new testing and certification on the substitute machines couldn't be completed in time for use in 2020, why couldn't the administrative staff just go ahead and approve the new machinery, bypassing the appointed 5-member SBOE? Just "wave the new system through."

4. SBOE Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell recommended that the Board of Elections approve the ES&S request -- inaccurately describing, by the way, the technical changes in the new machines that raise legitimate concerns about ballot security. I mean, Brinson Bell seriously misrepresented the technical changes in the new machines in an apparent attempt to rush the SBOE into approving them, according to Jordan Wilkie's reporting.

Damon Circosta,
Chair, SBOE

5. "No way," said SBOE member Stella Anderson, who's been a consistent whistleblower about the safety of electronic voting machines. "Holding on to the information of an equipment shortage until the last minute, the irregular channel of communicating that information [lobbyists], inaccurately disclosing the location where the machines are manufactured and not notifying the board of problems with the current system until after it was certified are all part of a 'clear pattern of actions on the part of ESandS that represent a fundamental lack of candor in the certification process,' ” Anderson wrote her fellow board members in an email. Anderson's whistleblowing has prompted a special SBOE meeting next week to hash this out.

6. The big question for next week: Will SBOE Chair Damon Circosta continue his unaccountable soft spot for ESandS electronic equipment? Will he vote with the Republicans to certify new equipment that hasn't been adequately tested or hasn't gone through the normal mandated certification process?

NC Still in the Wilderness Over Potentially Unsafe Electronic Voting Equipment

A new letter addressed this week to the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) from electronic voting machine experts and fair voting advocates charges that in its certification of new machinery for NC elections -- the vote on August 23rd when new SBOE Chair Damon Circosta voted with the Republicans -- the SBOE violated North Carolina law. "The law requires a security review of the source code of all voting systems before they are certified for use in the state." According to the experts, no security review of source code was conducted. According to Carolina Public Press,

The experts in question, including Duncan Buell, a professor of computer science at the University of South Carolina, reviewed testing documentation from the state and from the federal government.

“You read all of that, and it’s clear,” Buell said. “There was no source code review conducted. That would certainly seem to suggest that things are not in accordance with North Carolina law.” 

The law details an extensive list of components to be reviewed, including “application vulnerability, application code, wireless security, security policy and processes … security organization and governance, and operational effectiveness.”

Just last week, on September 5, SBOE member Stella Anderson got Circosta to vote with her to demand that SBOE staff produce any documentation of source code review. The SBOE next meets on October 1, and Carolina Public Press reports that SBOE staff is striving to supply the information requested in Anderson's September 5 motion. That's "too long to wait," claimed the computer experts who wrote the most recent letter:

In order for counties to buy the new equipment, each county’s board of elections needs to attend a demonstration of the voting systems, recommend one to their county commissioners for purchase, test that system in the October or November elections, then purchase and deploy them by the March 2020 primaries. 

Counties are moving quickly to enter into multimillion-dollar contracts to purchase this equipment. 

“What the state board is doing is irresponsible in letting these counties proceed as if they are going to go to contract and not letting them know that there is a serious black cloud over the certification,” [Marilyn] Marks [Coalition for Good Government] said.

Stella Anderson's Motion To Enforce Cyber-Security for Voting in North Carolina

Text of the motion made by Stella Anderson at the conclusion of last Thursday's state Board of Elections (SBOE) meeting. The purpose and the effect of her motion were discussed here, also last Thursday, and the particulars of the 3-2 vote that passed it.

It's technical and specific in forcing the state to verify certain safety checks on electronic voting machines:

State Board staff shall provide documentation of the State’s post-EAC testing/examination to meet each of the following requirements of G.S. 163A-1115 (e):The State Board’s (or independent expert’s) review of the vendors’ source code in the following required areas of focus:

• Security

• Application vulnerability

• Application code

• Wireless security

• Security policy and processes

• Security/privacy program management

• Technology infrastructure and security controls

• Security organization and governance

• Operational effectiveness

If documentation is unavailable, please provide the rationale, or waiver granted.

• Provide documentation of source code delivery placed in escrow (when delivered, current custody).

• State Board staff shall also provide a response to the following: NCSBE’s Elections Systems Certification Program – 3.4.1.1 states “The voting system or equipment must meet the requirements contained in the most recent version or versions of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) currently accepted for testing and certification by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).” Why would NCSBE certify equipment EAC-certified under VVSG 1.0 (2005), rather than VVSG 1.1 (2015)?

Today's SBOE Action -- Republican Members Continue To Line Up Against Voting Machine Security

BREAKING NEWS
SBOE Chair Damon Circosta reluctantly agreed to vote for Democrat Stella Anderson's motion -- which passed 3-2 -- for SBOE staff to properly test and subsequently ensure that all NC-approved voting machines meet the security requirements of state and federal law. I say "reluctantly" because Mr. Circosta started the discussion by stating he thought the motion might be better contained in a "directive" to the staff. Anderson wanted a vote of the Board, and she got it.

Her motion was much more technical and involved than the first sentence above reflects, but I think I caught the gist of it.

Lynn Bernstein of Transparent Elections had charged that "NC didn't follow their own requirements for certification of election systems. This cannot be disregarded by the state and will not be ignored by election security advocates & voters." Anderson's motion would appear to be reaction to that charge, and is commendable anyway for trying to ensure that ESandS voting machines, for example, are not merely safe but really most sincerely safe.

The two Republican members of the SBOE -- David Black and Ken Raymond -- voted against Anderson's motion and offered no reasons for their votes.

The meeting was conducted via telephone, and no public comments were taken.

The Postman Turned On His Magic Beam: SBOE Gets a Letter

Damon Circosta

The State Board of Elections (SBOE) will meet this Thursday, September 5th. It's not gonna be a quiet meeting (see below for how to hear it). Turns out, there's gonna be plenty pressure on it from a coalition of election security advocates alleging that North Carolina law was not followed in the August 23rd vote of the board to certify the voting equipment of ESandS and two other vendors. The advocates, including Lynn Bernstein of Cary, have written a strongly worded letter to Chair Damon Circosta and to the other four members urging them to revisit that vote.

They say that certain electronic voting equipment isn't safe from hacking. Damon Circosta claims it is. The letter warns that the rights of the people to fair elections isn't being properly shielded, and those rights should come first, and pronto.

"The certification of the voting systems occurred August 23, only 10 days ago. The State Board should immediately revisit the decision before counties and vendors expend resources and make expensive irreversible decisions based on flawed certifications."

To recap recent history: It was a surprise 3-2 SBOE decision on August 23rd, with newly appointed Democratic Chair Circosta joining the two Republican members in opposing a motion made by Democrat Stella Anderson to demand voter-readable proof of ballot choices from electronic machinery. Anderson and fellow Democrat Jeff Carmon were voted down. Virtually every progressive in the state went "Huh?" Some went stronger. It's written up here. 

Advocates who signed the letter:

Marilyn Marks, Coalition for Good Government, Charlotte
Susan Greenhalgh, National Election Defense Coalition, New York
Lynn Bernstein, Transparent Elections NC, Cary

They ask that the hearing on Thursday not limit public comment and that each speaker -- many of them experts who'll be brought in by the advocate groups listed above -- be given 3 minutes instead of 2.

In its most potentially litigious passage, the letter warns the board that excessive use of closed attorney-client meetings, with the public shut out of the discussion, will be challenged:

"...There is no pending litigation that would justify closed door litigation strategy discussions with the Board’s attorneys. The topics that are so sensitive as to require private sessions are quite limited when it comes to the public’s voting systems. Any attempt to liberally construe the Board’s opportunity to conduct executive sessions without strict compliance with the law will be carefully monitored and subject to legal challenge."

If stuff gets discussed in executive sessions, it'll take a whistle-blower on the inside to demand the sun shine in. No one on the outside of those meetings will know what's being said.

NOTE

The meeting in Raleigh on Thursday is at 1:00 pm in the Dobbs Building. Anyone can listen by phone, and it's free: Dial: (415) 655-0052 and enter on prompt the Code: 212-929-441.

So What's Damon Circosta's Deal?

Foreign intrusions into the 2016 elections have been proven. I'm not just talking Facebook manipulation and Wikileaks. Also proven: Russian hackers attempted penetration into the actual voting machinery of 21 states in 2016 -- no kidding! -- and although we were told that none of those hacks actually gained access to the ability to change vote tallies, those worms burrowed deep into the heart of our cabbage.

For one example, "In 2016, the Illinois Board of Elections acknowledged that voter data had been breached. Hackers were inside the system for several weeks and were downloading data when they were caught, though they did not alter any files."

So relax, the hack wasn't successful. That's what we were told back early in 2018. We're told a lot of things.

In this current national reality of greatest insecurity, there's only one explanation I can think of (but see below) for Republican officials' refusing to take steps to increase the security of our balloting systems: They welcome an intrusion that helps their side win. They must assume that any hack by the current crop of foreign computer malefactors would be in the greater GOP's favor, while not also considering for a moment that there's more than one nation of hacker nerds wanting to play havoc with us. Republicans have something to gain -- they think -- from insecure voting systems. They're playing the odds in a very dangerous game.

Do you have another credible, logical explanation for why two Republican members of the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) -- David Black and Ken Raymond -- would vote yesterday afternoon against requiring vendors to guarantee their systems can be audited -- audited first, and visually, by the voter on a paper ballot and then by the Elections Board counting machinery? Why would two Republicans on that very Elections Board want to allow systems that are 100% unauditable? At a time when computers and bar codes manage our lives and clever black hats know how to penetrate via Internet any computer on the planet and there make mischief -- why wouldn't Republican guardians of the public trust want to increase trust?

I don't want to think of Republicans as stupid -- which, let's face it, is actually another credible explanation for the David and Raymond votes yesterday. I know they're not stupid. Therefore, they must have corrupt intent.

But why did Democrat Damon Circosta lead the "no" vote?

Damon Circosta
WRAL TV

Why would the newly appointed Chair of the SBOE, a kind of folk hero among left-leaning non-profits and do-gooders everywhere, on his very first action after being appointed by Governor Roy Cooper, why would he vote against demanding greater accountability from voting machine vendors?

Carolina Public Press (CPP) reported:

After the meeting, a reporter asked Circosta if he agreed with the security concerns. 

“I disagree,” Circosta said. “I fundamentally disagree.” 

Members of the board were asked to identify the information and experts they used to come to their decisions. CPP asked Circosta for references to the research he used to form his decision. He did not respond, but instead provided, through the board’s press secretary, links to the Davie and Transylvania county statements advocating that system certifications not be changed.

I listened in on that SBOE meeting yesterday. I heard every word that Damon Circosta uttered leading up to the vote when he suddenly went against Stella Anderson's well publicized motion. He said he had been contacted by election board officials in different counties -- well, Transylvania and Davie, to be precise -- and otherwise he offered no rebuttal evidence against the expert testimony presented in Stella Anderson's initiative. Nor did he address the unanimous urging of public speakers -- 20 of them -- some of them also expert in voting machine technology as well as representatives from the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, DemocracyNC, and other public advocacy groups that are already discussing immediate litigation.

(The only person who spoke against Anderson's motion was the rep of the very voting machine vendor that can't certify an audit of their machines -- Election Systems and Software (ESandS). That company stands to make millions selling those machines in North Carolina, because Circosta also voted, a little later in the meeting and along with the two Republicans again, to certify ESandS as a legit vendor. The state's 100 county boards of election can choose to buy those 100% unauditable electronic machines, with absolutely no worries.)

Stupid, in this case, does immediately come to mind. And images of surfer dudes.

I don't think Damon Circosta is stupid. Some on social media are calling him a "sell-out," which implies he has something to gain. I don't believe that either. So I'm flummoxed. Maybe he just wants to be seen as completely independent, which in this case also looks very much like being completely untethered to reality.

Governor Roy Cooper is already getting blamed for this latest malfunction of democracy. Brad Friedman on Pacifica Radio sarcastically thanked North Carolina's governor for appointing such a brilliant new chair to the SBOE. (Here's the audio -- bashing of Roy Cooper for appointing Damon Circosta occurs soon after minute 22.)

Cooper has been singularly unlucky in the chairs he's appointed to the SBOE. His first pick, Andy Penry, had to resign for posting partisan shit on social media. His second, Josh Malcolm, was unjustifiably hounded by Republicans for having private conversations with county elections officials in the notorious Bladen County ballot fraud case -- hounded until the governor lost confidence in him and Malcolm voluntarily withdrew. (Malcolm was the best chair -- maybe ever -- and should have been made chair again instead of Damon Circosta, IMO.) Malcolm was followed by Bob Cordle of Welsh Cow fame.

Now we have an SBOE Chair of mysterious and indecipherable certitude, while North Carolina voters in counties where Election Systems and Software reigns can have no trust in the outcome.

Gov. Cooper Appoints Damon Circosta to the SBOE

Yesterday Governor Roy Cooper appointed Damon Circosta, executive director of the charitable A.J. Fletcher Foundation, to replace Bob Cordle on the North Carolina Board of Elections (SBOE). Circosta was officially an unaffiliated voter when Cooper previously appointed him in March 2018 to the 9-member SBOE, a board that was later dissolved because of legal action. Circosta changed his political affiliation to Democrat to be appointed yesterday.

Cue the Republican outrage. Sen. Ralph Hise, who knows plenty about partisan power grabs, whined that Cooper chose “power politics” over legitimacy and fairness by not appointing someone all parties respect. “Governor Cooper isn’t even pretending that he cares about good government. By appointing Damon Circosta to the Board today as the tie-breaking Democrat, he’s admitting that his previous appointment of Circosta as an ‘unaffiliated’ member was a sham.”

Circosta is a lawyer. Previously, he led the North Carolina Center for Voter Education, an organization dedicated to improving the electoral process. He serves as a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. 

With the SBOE back at full membership, they will have to meet and elect a chair. Then on August 23rd, they will be voting on member Stella Anderson's motion to amend the certification process for electronic voting machines in the state.

Stella Anderson's Plan To Harden NC's Elections Against Cyber Attacks Still Hangs in the Balance

Stella Anderson
Photo Brendan Hoekstra,
The Appalachian

Jordan Wilkie, writing in The Indy, understands the importance of this past week for the future of democracy in North Carolina. The resignation of state Board of Elections (SBOE) Chair Bob Cordle preserved Stella Anderson's initiative to make electronic voting equipment much less susceptible to foreign and domestic mischief. August 23rd will be D-Day for that proposal when the SBOE will vote on final approval.

Had Cordle remained chair through Thursday's special called meeting, Republican member David Black would have changed his earlier aye vote, and with the other Republican member, Ken Raymond, the three-man majority would have overruled Anderson and pushed through certification of machinery that produces only barcode paper receipts of how a voter voted.

Anderson saw that as unacceptable, and so do we.

Specifically, a rescind vote would have saved the bacon of one "controversial vendor" of touch-screen technology, Elections Systems and Software, or ESandS, the company that promises that their barcodes are accurate reflections of voter intent.

"Controversial vendor"? Jordan Wilkie is also a reporter for The Guardian, and his reporting on a federal lawsuit in Georgia challenging the constitutionality of that state's election process tracked the role of ESandS, which was supplying voting equipment for the 2018 close and contested election of Republican Brian Kemp in Georgia. Testimony in that case revealed that ESandS staffers built the 2018 Georgia ballot at their homes, without verifiable security. “You’re taking what the state has said is the roadmap to hack an election and they’re just letting it sit on people’s home computers with no evidence of any kind of security,” one of the plaintiffs said. “I mean, it’s truly insane. I cannot overstate how crazy that is.”

(You could spend all day following Google links about ESandS, "the largest voting machine company in the US," headquartered in Omaha.)

Wilkie gives Stella Anderson a laurel wreath for protecting our very democracy: "If Anderson’s motion passes [on August 23], it would be the first of its kind in the nation and would follow best-practice guidelines from election security experts. Not only would ESandS’s voting machines be removed from consideration, but it would make North Carolina an entirely hand-marked paper ballot state...."

Josh Lawson, who was the SBOE’s general counsel until June, has been speaking out on the issue too and totally agrees with Anderson: “My immediate and short-term concern is voter confidence,” Lawson says. “I think that the barcode ballot process does not support or instill voter confidence to the same degree as hand-marked paper ballots...."

Our "democracy watch" on this whole issue now turns to Governor Roy Cooper and his choice to replace Bob Cordle at the SBOE. Will that person be in place by August 23rd? And will that person vote affirmatively for Anderson's proposal to change certification requirements in North Carolina to ensure paper-ballot proof from electronic equipment?

BREAKING NEWS: SBOE Declines To Rescind Stella Anderson's Motion

Just now the remaining four members of the State Board of Elections deadlocked 2-2 on Republican David Black's motion to rescind the vote from Monday evening.

This means that Stella Anderson's original motion to modify the North Carolina certification program for electronic voting machines will go forward through a 15-day comment period, with final implementation of that modification to be voted on at an August 23 meeting.

Once again, the modification as proposed is this requirement:

"An electronically assisted ballot marking device or other ballot marking equipment shall produce human-readable marks on a paper ballot. The voter must be able to verify his or her intent as evidenced by the mark on the ballot. The mark shall be tabulated as the voter's selection."

Cordle Gone ... What's Next?

NC State Board of Elections Chair Bob Cordle resigned about sundown yesterday, a few hours after he had called a special meeting of the board for tomorrow for the purposes of rescinding its 3-2 vote on Monday to require greater accountability and cyber security from voting machine manufacturers. Republican David Black wanted to change his vote from Monday, when he had voted with the two Democrats to delay certification. He's now champing at the bit, evidently, to push through certification of three voting machine vendors, one of whom could not promise to produce a voter-readable paper ballot as proof of how the voter voted.

The meeting on Thursday is apparently going forward even without Cordle, and with a 2-2 stalemate likely between the remaining Democrats and Republicans, the vote on Monday can't be rescinded, and that's a good thing. Stalemate will leave in place a new criteria going forward for all voting machinery, proposed by board member Stella Anderson:

"An electronically assisted ballot marking device or other ballot marking equipment shall produce human-readable marks on a paper ballot. The voter must be able to verify his or her intent as evidenced by the mark on the ballot. The mark shall be tabulated as the voter's selection."

Beyond that, who will Roy Cooper appoint as the new chair of the state Board of Elections?

Watauga's Stella Anderson To the Rescue for Ballot Security

SBOE members Stella Anderson, far left,
and Jeff Carmon listen to presentation
by an officer of Election Systems & Software.
Photo Dan Kane, News and Observer

The State Board of Elections met last night for the purpose of certifying new voting equipment for all North Carolina polling places in 2020 and beyond. Instead, on a motion by Watauga County board member Stella Anderson, the decision was put off another 15 days until the SBOE can change its requirements to insist that vendors will guarantee that any touch-screen type machine also produces a paper ballot that a voter can read. (One of the big dogs in the election machine business, Election Systems and Software, offered a machine that produces a barcode. "I don't read barcode!" said Chris Telesca at a public hearing on Sunday night.)

Anderson's exact language in the motion that passed 3-2 (hattip Travis Fain):

"An electronically assisted ballot marking device or other ballot marking equipment shall produce human-readable marks on a paper ballot. The voter must be able to verify his or her intent as evidenced by the mark on the ballot. The mark shall be tabulated as the voter's selection."

In the speech Anderson made prior to her motion, she said, "I think I speak for all board members in saying voter trust and confidence in the security and integrity of any voting system we put in use in North Carolina is vital. Part of promoting that confidence requires that voters are able to verify their choices and know those choices are what will be tabulated."

Amen, Sister.

But here's where the wicket got sticky last night. Delaying the certification, the board automatically triggers a 15-day public comment period before any final vote can be taken. The board had already been through one delay while foreign ownership of any potentially certifiable voting machine was probed for unwanted influence. The Department of Homeland Security cleared the vendors of any foreign ownership. So Bob Cordle, the Democratic chair of the State Board of Elections, was antsy, and he didn't want to wait any more, cyber-security be damned. Neither did Republican member Ken Raymond of Winston-Salem.

Let's get it done, argued Cordle and Raymond.

Let's get it right, replied Anderson, joined by Jeff Carmon, the other Democrat. “This vote wasn’t taken lightly,” Carmon said. “Our state’s been in the news enough.”

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article233278201.html#storylink=cpy

In the end and coming as a surprise, Republican David Black voted with Anderson and Carmon.

BURNING QUESTION AND A SIDE-NOTE

Why is Bob Cordle so all-fired determined to certify equipment that nobody trusts? Nobody? Well, in truth, Cordle trusts it, and so does Raymond, and the companies wanting to make big bucks on the State Board's certification trust their own product (you bet!), but on what actual grounds (let alone reality) anyone is supposed to trust cyber equipment that can't be verified...  no thanks.

Every reporter is crediting Cary veteran poll worker Lynn Bernstein for arguing persuasively at Sunday's public hearing against machinery that produces barcodes. But the opposition to the barcode equipment on the board was already building before Sunday night. Because the actual final vote was supposed to have happened at the end of that public hearing on Sunday night, not last night. The delay came because on Sunday night, Republican Ken Raymond was missing. Cordle apparently knew that fellow Democrats Anderson and Carmon would vote no on rushing certification, leaving him with a probable tie if Republican David Black voted with him. So he delayed the final vote to last night when Raymond could be there. In the meantime, Republican David Black upended that applecart by voting with Anderson and Carmon. Whaddya know! A Republican that takes cyber threats seriously!

Meanwhile, one Democrat on the SBOE doesn't appear to care so much.

ADDENDUM
Bob Cordle's curious defense of electronic voting machines, particularly those made by Electronic Systems and Software (ESandS), goes back at least to the SBOE meeting on July 11th when Lynn Bernstein first raised issues with those machines. From reporting by Aditi Kharod:

“Remote-access software and modems on election equipment is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner,” said Bernstein, quoting a statement Sen. Wyden made to Motherboard. Bernstein argued that a company that had repeatedly lied about the nature of its machines and had only revealed the truth after being caught in its lies could not be trusted to help keep North Carolina’s elections safe.

“This begs the question: why is this board trusting ES&S’ word that these machines are secure and accurate?” asked Bernstein.

Bob Cordle, the chair of the SBE, pushed back against Bernstein’s arguments.

“In my experience… we had more problems with hand ballots than we did with any other ballots,” said Cordle. “There was more lying, cheating, and stealing going on… and also questions about… there were lots of questions about whether the oval was filled in, whether both ovals were filled in, so there are problems with hand ballots, too.”

“The research showed that 0.007% of ballots have stray marks,” said Bernstein. “That’s very, very few.”

“All I know is we saw a number of them,” said Cordle. “But I don’t wanna’ argue with you."

Stella Anderson Appointed to SBOE, But Not Four Eggers

Just saw news tweeted by Emily Featherstone of WECT:

The following Democrats and Republicans have been appointed to the State BOE by Governor Roy Cooper:

Democrat Stella Anderson of Boone
Republican David C. Black of Concord
Democrat Jeff Carmon III of Durham
Democrat Bob Cordle of Charlotte
Republican Ken Raymond of Winston-Salem

This panel will make news presently.

What's Happening Right Now in Raleigh: "Game of Groans"

You know how many transformations the state Board of Elections (SBOE) has gone through since the Republicans seized power, each change either an attempt to seize more power or an attempt to lessen the sting of a negative court decision. Same for local county boards, currently at an impasse with 2 Dems and 2 Rs.

The most recent new legislation will take all boards of election back to majorities "of the party of the governor," with 5 members on both the SBOE and all county boards (majority of 3 Dems on each).

The problem has been down in the 9th Congressional District, where the putative election of Reverend Mark Harris has not been certified because of an investigation into ballot fraud. In the meantime the previous composition of the SBOE, which is holding Harris's certification, was supposed to expire weeks ago -- the 4 Dems, 4 Rs, 1 Unaffiliated iteration (with both Stella Anderson and Four Eggers of Watauga County representing the major parties). The 3-judge panel which ruled the current iteration unconstitutional had extended the life of the board twice, to give it time to rule in the Harris case.

Apparently, late this week, the 3-judge panel ran out of patience and refused to extend its stay for the dissolution of the 4-4-1 SBOE. The staff at the SBOE yesterday (a little after 3 pm) sent out this announcement:

Today at noon the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement ceased to exist after the three-judge panel in Cooper IV refused to extend the stay. The parties to the lawsuit had unanimously requested that the court extend the stay to allow the Board to conclude its investigation into irregularities affecting the 9th Congressional District.

Effective January 31, Session Law 2018-146 establishes a five-member State Board of Elections and eight-member Ethics Commission. Once appointed, County boards of elections will be made up of five members.

The governor and legislature appear to disagree on what happens to the board in the meantime. It is our view that the agencies go back to the way they were in 2016, prior to the legal changes that were struck down. This means the governor could appoint five board members from lists provided by the parties. These board members would serve until January 31. [emphasis added]

What this means is that for the moment county boards of elections do not have appointed members and therefore may not meet or conduct business.

We understand that Governor Cooper intends to appoint a 5-member SBOE on Monday that will conclude the Reverend Harris circus and that he has invited the two parties to make nominations immediately. We understand that Dallas Woodhouse and his GOP gang are claiming the governor has no such power (didn't Berger/Moore take all his power away, and if they missed this little piece, it was merely an oversight). So the Republicans might sue, and they might lose. We expect they will.

FOOTNOTE: The ballot fraud investigation in the NC-9 has become ever more Byzantine, and I gave up a long time ago summarizing every new piece of news about it. The SBOE hearing on the case is scheduled for January 11th, and I may be there to witness it. I suspect a lot of other people will be there too.

FOOTNOTE: The Rev. Mark Harris campaign yesterday filed in Wake Superior Court an emergency petition to certify his election. That won't work, as the courts can't take that power from the body endowed with it, and the Democrats in the US House have no intention whatsoever to seat Harris until the investigation into fraud is complete.

Is Watauga BOE Member Eric Eller Just Nathan Miller with Hair?

Nathan Miller

Nathan Miller is the attorney currently leading the Watauga GOP from his first vice chair position. He was teamed with the infamous attorney Four Eggers through all the battles (2013-2017) over the voting rights of AppState students. Solo, Miller has successively sued three different Democratic members of the Watauga County Board of Elections. He sued Democrat Kathleen Campbell twice, once for her emails, a fishing expedition that produced nothing, and then he sued Kathleen Campbell to make her pay his lawyer fees for suing her.

He sued BOE member Stella Anderson, or rather he sued AppState University for her emails, another fishing expedition that produced nothing.

Now he's sued the latest Democratic member of the Board of Elections, Jane Anne Hodges, alleging she prejudiciously kept a Republican from working as a precinct judge.

Every Democrat who gets appointed to the Watauga Board of Elections can expect frivolous harassment by Nathan Miller.

That's only part of his war on voting. He sued in October 2017 to override the Wake Superior Court order for an early voting site at ASU, and losing that attempt but managing to delay the public notice period, he then sued to overturn the Boone Town Council elections and hold new elections because advertisement of early voting sites violated the statute. Miller's legal skip-rope did manage to delay the swearing in of new council members, but it also helped cement Miller's reputation as a joke in Raleigh legal circles.


Now ... Eric Eller, another Republican attorney who was appointed to the Watauga board early this year to replace Bill Aceto, wants to prosecute ASU students who voted provisional ballots when in fact they weren't registered to vote. Last Thursday and Friday, at the BOE's official disposition of provisional ballots, Eller complained about the almost 200 students who thought they were registered, who asked for provisional ballots, but whose ballots didn't count. Were they trying to commit election fraud? Eller actually suggested that those students might well be referred to the district attorney for prosecution.

Those students. They thought they were registered because they had filled out registration forms back in August, or September, or prior to the close of registration on October 12, but they had failed to include some required information -- last four digits of their SSN, a street address of residence -- or failed to check a box. Because they didn't include a phone number (which is optional), no one could reach them to get the missing information. So their voter registrations got tossed and their provisional ballots could not count. That's what happened to almost 200 would-be student voters.

We realize the Republicans have no desire to see certain people vote, or certain other people administer election law, but the willingness to use the legal system as a political brick-bat to retaliate against the other side ... is just so ... authoritarian.

Eric Eller, center

Change Gonna Come
On December 4, the present makeup of both the State Board of Elections and every county board of elections becomes legally null and void by order of a three-judge panel -- which had ruled even before the election that the Republican reorganization of all boards of elections was unconstitutional. The court ordered that the State Board must return to a 3-2 Democratic/Republican makeup, and each county board must return to a 2-1 Democratic/Republican makeup.

Naturally, the Berger-Moore forces in the NC General Assembly, in their rump special session which will convene next week, will come up with some new innovation before they lose their veto-proof majority. You can bet on it.

You Can Make Them Stop on November 6

Among other pernicious twists in the new Senate bill 325, which would monkey with early voting in North Carolina, is a provision that mandates all early voting sites would have to have uniform hours — 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. — during weekday early voting.

In Watauga during recent elections, the Watauga Board of Elections opted to open some early voting sites later than others -- like the one in the ASU Student Union -- and open them for reduced hours -- like the one in the ASU Student Union. That would no longer be allowed by the new law.

Seven a.m. to seven p.m. Twelve-hour days, with resulting staffing needs and salaries. The requirement seems designed to discourage multiple early voting sites in counties. And that's pernicious.

Yesterday, in an emergency teleconference meeting of the State Board of Elections, the Board criticized the authors of S325 for never consulting the Board of its staff about the proposed changes. Only two of the four Republicans on the Board actually showed up for the meeting -- Four Eggers and John Lewis -- who screamed that the Board's emergency meeting was purely political.

I'll tell you what's political, answered Board member Stella Anderson: "Lawmakers proposing major changes of this sort without consulting experts and the very people tasked with running elections in the state."

BREAKING NEWS--Two Wataugans Appointed to the SBOE

Intercepted press release:

Stella Anderson Named to New (And Contested) State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement

BOONE March 16, 2018 -- Watauga County Board of Elections member Stella Anderson was named today by Governor Roy Cooper to the reconstituted State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement.

Governor Cooper is suing to have the new board declared an unconstitutional infringement on his authority by the Republican General Assembly, but he decided to make the appointments now because of the upcoming primary elections. "It is important to have a board in place for the time being to administer the upcoming elections,” said the governor's spokesman Ford Porter. Meanwhile, the governor's suit to overturn the law is pending.

Anderson has served a total of ten years on the Watauga County Board of Elections, eight of those as chair before the Republican take-over in 2013. She is a professor of management in the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University and is only one of two newly appointed board member who is not a lawyer.

Anderson is best known throughout the state as a strong and persistent voting rights advocate. She has been the lead plaintiff in a series of lawsuits which established a constitutional right of students at Appalachian State University to ballot access. The first suit in 2014 led to an order by the Wake Superior Court to open an Early Voting site in the ASU Student Union for the 2014 General Elections. That court order is still in effect.

In that Superior Court decision, Judge Donald Stephens ruled that actions by the Republican majority on the Watauga County Board of Elections (Luke Eggers and Bill Aceto) to discourage student voting was an unconstitutional infringement on their rights.

A second lawsuit just last fall reaffirmed Judge Stephens' order for an Early Voting site in the ASU Student Union for the municipal elections.

Anderson was personally targeted by Anne Marie Yates, chair of the Watauga Republican Party, who sued AppState for the production of all of Professor Anderson's emails. "This is pure harassment and a useless fishing expedition," Anderson said at the time. ASU produced her work-related emails, and the issue died.

Anderson and seven other newly appointed board members -- four Democrats total and four Republicans -- will be sworn in immediately and are madated by the contested Republican law to send two nominees to the governor for a 9th member, an unaffiliated voter, within 14 days. The full board will immediately begin appointing members of county elections boards and hearing protests and petitions from the counties.

###

Stacy C. Eggers IV ("Four") was also appointed.

Bill Aceto Is His Name and Voter Suppression Is His Game

Nancy Owen and Bill Aceto

Yesterday the Republicans on the Watauga County Board of Elections, led by Bill Aceto, once again voted against an Early Voting site on the ASU campus for the May 2018 primary. Democrat Stella Anderson was the lone vote in favor.

Bill Aceto was joined by fellow Republican Nancy Owen, who last year for once voted with Democrat Stella Anderson for Early Voting at ASU for the municipal elections. Owen has obviously been disciplined and will not be making a mistake like that again.

So because the vote was split, the final decision will be made -- once again -- in Raleigh, either by a newly constituted State Board of Elections or by the Superior Court of Wake County.

The odd and ironic thing about the Republican Party's hostility to the student vote is that the students fully know it, and the more the Republicans try to shut out the students, the more determined the students are to vote. You'd think those political geniuses would finally get smart and start trying to win votes rather than alienating the voters.

What Are Bill Aceto and Nathan Miller's Chances of Stopping Early Voting in the ASU Student Union?

Stella Anderson with her lawyers,
Wednesday in Raleigh

As you should know, Stella Anderson won her suit in Wake Superior Court on Wednesday: Judge Graham Shirley II ordered an Early Voting polling site on the ASU campus beginning on October 26 and running every weekday through November 3, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., thus overriding the intransigence of Board of Elections Republican Chair Bill Aceto.

Bill Aceto was able to "intervene" in the case on Wednesday via lawyer (and Watauga Republican Party Vice Chair) Nathan Miller, and according to the Watauga Democrat, Nathan Miller has declared that they will be appealing Judge Shirley's order to the NC Court of Appeals

How likely is Nathan Miller to impress the higher court panel of three, considering that Judge Shirley was not at all impressed by the coherence of his argument on Wednesday?

The Odds of Aceto&Miller Prevailing on Appeal

1. Aceto via his attorney Miller was granted "permissive intervention" last Wednesday at the discretion of the judge rather than "intervention as of right," which means that Aceto has no legally protectable interest in the case. (Aceto asked to intervene as an individual and not under color of representing the majority on the Watauga Board of Elections.)

2. On appeal, Aceto can ask the NC Court of Appeals for a stay of Judge Shirley's order.

3. The State of North Carolina, which is actually the defendant in Stella Anderson's case, has opted not to appeal. (Josh Lawson, chief counsel for the State Board of Elections, has said that he's happy with the judge's Order.) Without an appeal from the state, it will be much harder for Aceto to win because, although intervenors have all the rights of the parties, the Court of Appeals will understand that he is a permissive intervenor. Under those circumstances, lawyer Miller's argument to the Court panel will likely be even less coherent than it was last Wednesday before Judge Shirley. Miller will not have the State's argument to piggyback on.

4. The Town of Boone's request and funding responsibility should tip the scale here in favor of Judge Shirley's Order. Plus, a stay would upend the desire of the majority of the Watauga Board, since Republican member Nancy Owen voted with Stella Anderson for her Early Voting plan which included the ASU Student Union.