Category Archives: Brent Turner

Supervisor Warren Slocum

Brent Turner

I would like to underscore and amplify Mr. Turner’s recent message by urging that all individuals who wish to maintain integrity in elections, who are in positions of leadership or affiliated with Verified Voting, should promptly resign. Before doing so, though, they should immediately move to have the VerifiedVoting.org organization dissolved and the Verified Voting Foundation removed from its 501(c)(3) status.

Everything that Mr. Turner has mentioned about the manner in which I and my company, Notable Software, Inc. were robbed of our share of the NSF ACCURATE grant, including by members of Verified Voting, despite the grantee’s continued and unauthorized use of my intellectual property, both in their funding application and in the naming of the Center, is true and well-documented. 

Please also note certain highlights of the recent Fast Company article, as follows:

Richard DeMillo <https://www.cc.gatech.edu/people/richard-demillo>, a Georgia Tech professor who sat on Verified Voting’s advisory board, and UC Berkeley statistics professor and associate dean Philip Stark <https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/>, a VV board member, have resigned from the advocacy group, stating that they believe that Verified Voting has been giving election officials false confidence in some voting machines and providing cover for the companies that make and sell these machines.

In DeMillo’s December 1 resignation letter to Barbara Simons (chair of VV’s board of directors), he claimed that “Verified Voting’s policy positions were unpredictable, contradictory, and not aligned with the values I once believed we shared. On more than one occasion, Verified Voting has taken contradictory public stances in the span of a few days, undercutting allies and supporters. The pattern of espousing new positions and making public statements that take local VV stakeholders by surprise is nothing new. Rather than seeking out advice, Verified Voting has gone to great lengths to avoid it.”

With respect to VV’s involvement in a Risk Limiting Audit (RLA) pilot in Georgia, DeMillo claimed that “Verified Voting’s seal of approval for the security theatrics in Bartow County undermines efforts to make elections more accountable. … No audit based on an untrustworthy audit trail can confirm the correctness of the outcome. Billing such an exercise as an RLA and touting it as a proof of security plays into the hands of cynics.”

Stark, who resigned on November 21, accused VV of being on the “wrong side” saying: “Our message to jurisdictions that buy poorly designed, insecure, universal-use BMD [ballot marking device systems] should be, ‘We tried to warn you. You need a better voting system’ … Instead, we’re saying, ‘Don’t worry: VV will teach you to sprinkle magic RLA dust and fantasies about parallel testing on your untrustworthy election. All will be fine; you can use our authority and reputation to silence your critics.'”  [End of Article Summary]

I personally worked side-by-side with some of the members of Verified Voting in the early years. It is to our collective credit, in part, that Voter Verified Paper Ballots (a concept that I promoted extensively, years prior to the formation of VV, and even prior to Bush v. Gore) are now considered the Gold Standard for elections.

Those of you who have, since then, endorsed technologies that promise to undercut the authenticity of these ballots, have put an indelible blemish on your formerly fine work. You should be ashamed of yourselves and embarrassed about what you are doing to endanger voting at this critical time in history, when it is likely that the Impeached US President will be running for re-election. Please leave your egos at the door and dissolve Verified Voting, as it is now as untrustworthy as some of the voting machines and methodologies you have encouraged for adoption. The World Is Watching.

With extreme sincerity,

Rebecca Mercuri, Ph.D.