Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 12
>> number 12, discuss and take appropriate action on r.f.p.
number p 110047-lc, election night reporting software solution.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
>> good morning.
>> let's indicate our intention to call up item 25 next.
>> good morning, cyd grimes, county purchasing agent, along with dana debeauvoir, our county clerk.
we are here to discuss election night reporting software.
we did a request for proposals back in January.
we received three proposals.
and after evaluations and interviews, dana has a new and innovative solution that she would like discussed with the court today.
once she explains that what we would like to ask the court to do that we would actually request is did you ask the clerk and purchasing office to work with osd and continue to finalize a contract and bring that back to you.
I will let dana sort of explain to you the solution of this exciting process that is our opportunity.
>> thank you very: dana debeauvoir, Travis County clerk.
good morning, everybody.
>> morning.
>> what I'm bringing you is a proposal for election night software.
this has been requested for a very long time by our community.
we've never really had a very good reporting system for the election results on election night.
we have a very simple package that comes with the -- with the tabulation system that we do.
by law when we report election night results, they are separate from the act and all of the security that depose into tabulating results.
so let's be clear right up front that we are talking in no way about tallying ballots.
we have left that behind.
it has nothing to do with the conversation today.
today we are only going to talk about releasing unofficial results on election night in a way that is easier to -- for the general public to read and allows us to provide xml and some other formats to people who want data, which we've not been able to provide before, people who want data so that they can crunch their own numbers either by candidate or by geographical district, whatever they like, and provide that as a public service to our community.
that is what we're trying to get to.
lots of other places do this.
dallas is a perfect example if you wanted to look at one.
but we -- excuse me.
>> mr. Reeferseed, would you mind having a seat in the audience?
and after the presentation I will ask if there are other residents here on this item?
you really are distracting me.
I would like to hear a presentation from these two who are presenting the item.
>> that's really for people who are currently testifying.
>> all right.
>> sorry about the interruption.
>> it's quite all right.
just making it clear that by law you have to separate unofficial election results on election night and it has absolutely nothing to do with tabulating ballots for which there's a great deal of security.
so we're very clear.
we're talking about simply providing results for who won and by how much, unofficial results on election night.
the responses to our r.f.p.
gave us an opportunity to look at something really very new, though, and I hope you will give us the opportunity to proceed with this.
we are not asking today for you to purchase anything.
all we want to do today is for you to grant approval for the purchasing agent and I to proceed with conversations talking to a group called the open software digital foundation.
and what this is is this says that we will have our election night reporting software written in an open source code.
open source is about more transparency, it's about a whole vanguard of approach to the election world that says we want more transparency and we want to get rid of the concept of proprietary software in the election vendor world.
so that is the concept.
Travis County -- rather, the county clerk has some money set aside to do -- to purchase a piece of software to do this very small job.
we're not talking about a big project here.
once again, this is not about anything other than simply providing a separate, unofficial result on election night.
what open -- the open source will cost a little bit more to develop because it's the first time it's ever been done.
it will be done especially for Travis County, the open source digital foundation will write this specifically for Travis County.
but Travis County will not spend any additional money for this custom treatment.
and the reason why is because any additional funds that will be spent doing this open source custom module for us will be raised in the private sector, will be raised from other foundations.
and here's an opportunity for us to go into partnership, public and private, to develop an open source module.
so even though we had two people, two companies come to us when you're done.
it not only gives us lots of really cool opportunities for the future to have a more transparent software option and custom designed for us.
it will not cost us one more penny and we get lots of better options.
the open source digital operation or foundation gave us more of what we were asking for in our proposal than any of the other proposals that we've got.
we're not having to spend any extra money and I believe we're looking at something that is much more future -- much more thinking about the future than if we had simply gone off and bought some software that was proprietary.
so we're trying to break that old thinking here.
without going into too much history here, I do want to tell you that there is with the open source digital foundation they have had one experience where it didn't turn out very well.
I think it was one of those situations where they bit off way more than they could chew.
we will not be doing that.
we are taking a very tiny small project.
like I said, it's only the release of unofficial election results on election night.
small risk, small project, big benefit for us locally.
but washington, d.c.
tried to do a huge project for internet voting.
that can tell you right there how big a risk and how big a project that was and it didn't have a very good outcome.
so I want you to know that they have had one attempt and one outcome that was not very good.
we are fully aware of that.
we don't intend to do anything close to that scope.
lessons learned.
we're doing something much smaller.
but I don't want you to think I'm going into that not knowing the full history of what's going o we know what's going on.
nevertheless we believe fantastic with our future and it has great potential to be shared with other counties in the state of Texas that I would want to bring back to you and talk to you about later.
this has potential not only for Travis County, but for the rest of the state of Texas.
I just wanted to talk to you about the benefit not only to Travis County, but to the state.
the main thing for us to talk about right now is that the money that's set aside, $120,000, which would have been spent or doing this way for this small, low risk package, is already set aside in the county clerk's budget.
we are ready to proceed with negotiations with the open source digital foundation.
we have set a deadline for them.
one of the things that we don't want to do is they say that they will go out and raise the extra money that is needed in order to build this project.
what if they don't get the job done.
we need this for our community and I don't want to have to wait around.
they have a deadline.
if they don't meet that deadline, deal's off, we will proceed with a more traditional vendor and our great idea doesn't cause us to suffer any harm if it doesn't come to fruition.
so the idea today is we want to proceed with the foundation up until the deadline that we've established and we will come back to you with the information and hopefully the money that we've raised on the outside and tell you where we are with our next step.
so today is one step forward to go into negotiations.
have I covered everything?
and of course, I'm available for questions?
>> questions or comments?
>> how you doing?
>> I'm doing fine.
I'm doing great.
>> that's the first question.
>> let me clarify or further explain, daniel -- I think it was daniel in the county attorney's office, wrote a letter of intent that we are asking the court to sign today also.
basically laying out our intent to move forward and dana work with the foundation to help try and raise the money that we need.
the deadline that she referred to is November the 1st.
so our goal is to have some sort of answer to whether we have the money or not by November the 1st.
if not we'll come back -- either way come back and tell you where we're at.
so the action days to give us approval to move forward with the project, have the judge on behalf of the court sign the letter of atent and let us move forward and come back to y'all at some time in November.
>> thank you, cid.
>> thank you.
>> my question is -- or questions.
who else in the state is using or have used these folks, this open source data foundation?
anyone else in the state of Texas have used them and categorized the specifics as far as what we're looking for.
we're just looking at the election results.
that's the only -- a whole lot of information on election night, however what we're specifically looking for is the election result, unofficial, of course, but the election result in an earlier time frame.
who else in the state of Texas is using these folks?
>> Commissioner, we're the first.
>> we're the first.
>> the open source digital foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bettering elections, partly through using open source software through non-proprietary software.
so they're not exactly a vendor.
they're a foundation that is going to write this software for us.
so we're first.
>> all right.
too, we mentioned time lines, of course, drop dead date as far as I think you mentioned, cid, 11-5 of this year.
in other words, that's the time they'll have to come up with what we are looking for, otherwise no deal.
but if in the event that they are not timely, who have we looked to to provide us with the same type of information?
will we leave those persons or hold or say, hey, if this one doesn't work we'll come to you because we feel that we have a need for it?
so how do we stand with that?
>> yes, sir.
we have the -- as we said, we had two vendors respond, so we have a second vendor that can provide us with a more standard response, a standard package that is already developed.
and we can return back to that vendor and ask for their product.
I can ask cid for any further comments on that.
>> okay.
cid, I won't interfere with you, but my interest is if this particular effort being looked toward the November election of this year, it won't be utilized for that one.
>> primary.
I'm looking for the primary.
>> okay.
that answers that question because the -- just a few days from then would be -- right.
so I think we need to know what election we're talking about.
we're looking for the primary election in March instead of this November election.
>> absolutely.
>> let's lay that out because I was not clear on that.
so that's -- I wasn't clear on that as far as the election.
>> we'll have our traditional reporting we've always had for November.
>> another question is we have the voter registry people who come down often, and have we just said something to them publicly?
>> yes.
I called Karen yesterday.
I didn't get to talk to her personally, but I left her a message and I see that vicky carp has just arrived, so she may want to say something.
they anyway also not be commenting about this particular issue.
they may be here on a separate item on the agenda.
but yes, I called the rescue and let them know about this.
it's not about tallying ballots, so they may not --
>> I know.
>> we'll leave that to them to comment on.
>> okay.
now, this particular software monies -- and of course, you have the savings and you have it sat there in your particular department, your shop as far as paying for it at this time.
however, the actual cost of such a module is more than this amount.
so in that particular effort we -- how can we -- how can we be so hopefully clear in our mind that the difference of the amount of money that is really needed for this project will be supplied to us prior to the March primary election?
>> well, we all know that our county clerk has been our combined charities chair for years.
she doesn't have a problem asking people for money.
>> [ laughter ]
>> in coordination with the different members of the foundation who have connections with other funding granting agencies, I think they will hopefully be able to come up with the money to do this.
so I think we're just hopeful that we will be able to raise the money.
>> I think there's a lot of incentive to try to make this open source idea work.
>> okay.
and I guess as far as the maintenance and taking care of the software, the source code and a whole bunch of little elements in there will be strictly their responsibility, I'm assuming that?
>> the details of that, Commissioner, would be negotiated.
I'm not sure that we've gotten to the level --
>> to that level of detail.
>> [overlapping speakers]
>> because it would be good to know if we purchase the software and stuff, who will be responsible for source code and maintenance.
that's important to know up front.
>> Commissioner Eckhardt?
>> just a brief question and it's procedurally.
to what extent its is involved because I see great potential for this open source idea to migrate to other areas of county governance for crowd sourcing applications.
so I was just wondering.
>> they typically are involved in only the web application part of our election night.
distribution of information.
they pretty much let us handle elections.
but they're welcome to be a part of anything we do.
usually the way it works is they're overwhelmed with their work and so we do elections and they're there to help us whenever we need it.
but we kind of take care of that.
we are -- we would welcome them and certainly -- I think they want to look at this.
so the door is open.
they don't normally have an assignment with us other than the website part of it.
but we're -- they're welcome and they know that we're doing this and we'll see what they have to say.
>> I would request that they be brought in to the loop because I do see that this kind of application, for instance, could be readily migrated over to, for instance, our budgeting.
so that an individual could take a look at our budget in some sort of open source technology and be able to run numbers themselves.
and I understand that harris county has some version of that kind of open software to run through budgets.
>> very interesting.
>> I'm sure that there are other applications for this kind of numbers crunching based on static data that could really provide a window into what we do as well as provide some expertise that might not be in our employ, but would give us a very good mirror on what we are doing.
>> the its folks are welcome, absolutely.
you could tell them.
>> if you have questions or comments regarding item 12, please come forward.
questions or comments regarding item 12, please come forward at this time.
mr. Reeferseed?
>> yes.
my question right off is who wants this open source to work?
you say everybody wants to open source to work.
in other words -- I'm ronnie reeferseed talking about voting.
and the problem is that the reason -- I'm answering this question for you.
the open source is an attempt to hijack the ancient obvious good way of voting.
it's all about possessing the results of the vote.
when you plug it into a machine, it's gone.
we've lost the one thing that have you to have for balance.
you have to have witnesses who watch the ballots, paper ballots to see that nobody messes with them.
we can't do that with this electronic hog wash.
and the other thing is it costs money.
every little thing, all these fancy due dads cost more.
paper ballots cost nothing!
they've got hundreds of years of documentation and benefits and we know how to do it correctly.
the big benefit, the big benefit for all the hoopla, and your item was very intriguing.
the big benefit was for unofficial early results!
did you hear that?
unofficial early results.
we live in a culture that we've got to have everything instant, but that's not the issue here.
what's more important is we have to have accurate counting of the ballots.
I could testify to everybody here I ran for office, my ballots -- it was total hog wash.
the electronic voting machines, they pretended like I didn't exist and they can do that.
they don't like people like ronnie reeferseed.
that's revolutionary.
so you can bet people like ronnie reeferseed are going to be programmed out of the -- no matter what.
no matter how many votes I got.
no matter how many votes dr. Ron paul.
and I witnessed it in iowa last cycle.
I witnessed hundreds and hundreds of Ron paul enthusiasts everyday all day coming in and out of the office.
by golly when they ran the results he dame in like fourth or something.
we've got to get ahold of this.
and any of these software oriented so-called solutions are nothing but a way to hijack the people.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners] if you continue to push this and paper ballots work.
>> thank you, mr. Reeferseed.
>> no software, no high dollar machines.
>> thank you.
>> good morning, Commissioners.
I want to thank dana for calling Karen who called me from colorado so that I could be here.
I apologize for being late.
I had a work-related delay but somewhat familiar with what the topic is.
just want to say a couple of things and ronnie has made a lot of points for me so I appreciate that.
open source software has a nice friendly ring to it and we understand that it's better than the closed source system in certain aspects, but it still comes back, in the opinion of vote rescue and the people that are familiar with the issues of electronic voting as ronnie is and many people in Austin area nationally are, the reporting of results from an election that's held with a secret software that these machines that we're using actually contain.
we still have the problem that our elections at the fundamental point where people are voting and their votes are being tallied in their machines that there is not a public counting going on.
the counting itself is happening in secret by the secret software that is running these machines.
we still have that problem.
the open source software that may be if this system is adopted will be reporting the results, we still have a problem because it's software.
it's software that some people who understand high tech software of this type would maybe be able to review and assess whether it's doing what it's supposed to be doing or if it's even the certified system that we think it is because that's been an argument I've heard about open source over the years is that you can have a system reviewed that may be approved for use, but then who is it that access to make sure that the open source system that's being used is the same one that was -- that everybody agreed who had a chance to look at it that was supposed to be used.
the main point is really it's still taking the -- in this case the reporting of election results away from the common voter who doesn't understand technology.
the common voter who has the determined decision that came down from their supreme court last year reiterated our position that electronic voting there is now not used because they say the common person, the everyday voter who doesn't understand technology does not understand how their votes are being counted therefore they are not use electronic voting anymore report it's the soul tim or the tall resystem.
we stand firm we would like our elections to be held with hand counted paper ballots.
and if we had the elections held in that manner, probably it wouldn't matter after that point how election results are being recorded because the people would know from each precinct how the totals came out so we could see if they were or were not reported accurately, whether it was open source system or any other system.
we can't validate that no matter what system is used because we can't validate whether our votes are being counted correctly because they are being counted by secret software.
>> anybody else on item 12?
move approval.
move that the -- cyd, do you want to sign this letter or county judge?
>> second.
>> I've signed it, but they put a spot for you to sign, judge.
>> so you and I sign it together?
>> yes, sir.
>> that's the motion.
seconded by Commissioner Gomez.
Davis.
first.
discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
we'll take item 25 next and then item 17.
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