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Riverside County
Registrar of Voters makes false statements
to the California Secretary of State's office
On January 20th, 2004, Riverside County Registrar of Voters made statements that she knew to be false
to a panel of the Secretary of State's office. The use of this false information was a clear attempt to manipulate the
Secretary of State's office into opposing voter verifiable paper trails on touchscreen voting machines.
You can see the video of the Riverside County Registrar of Voters here:
right click on the links and select "save link as"
1.5 Meg Real Player file medium quality
0.5 Meg Real Player file poor quality but fast download
Email me at riverisdevoter@yahoo.com if you would like a copy of the 20 Meg mpeg file.
If you can mirror one of these files let me know at riversidevoter@yahoo.com
You can also download the entire transcript for the meeting here:
False statements made by Barbara Dunmore
1) Cahuilla has no written form.
2) Riverside County has provided Audio Ballots in Cahuilla - (Dunmore knew this statement
was false as she was saying it!)
3) The Cahuilla Audio Ballot has been used by people in Riverside County - (Again, Dunmore knew
that this statement was false as she gave it!)
In addition to these outright false statements Mrs. Dunmore insinuated that Cahuilla speakers are illiterate,
which is not only false, but also insulting.
Mrs. Dunmore also told the Voting Systems Panel that Riverside County is
under a Federal mandate to provide audio ballots in Cahuilla, a statement that appears to be false.
A walk-through of false statements made by Mrs. Dunmore to the Secretary of State's office.
False claim #1 - Cahuilla has no written form.
Mrs. Dunmore stated "We're under a federal mandate to provide our ballots in Cahuilla, which is a form of Native American language that doesn't have a written component to it."
You can buy books written in Cahuilla from the Malki Museum press.
To see a description of one of these books go here:
http://www.malkimuseum.org/A%20DRIED%20COYOTE%20TAIL.htm
Notice that the description says
"A Dried Coyote Tail is written line by line in Katherine's native Cahuilla language and English." [emphasis mine]
The Riverside Press Enterprise wrote a story that talks about the written form of Cahuilla on January 17th, 2005. The story states:
"Sauvel would go on to write a two-volume work of traditional Cahuilla stories, customs and remembrances, "A Dried Coyote's Tail," with co-author Eric Elliott. Each volume is written in Cahuilla with line-by-line English translation. She also co-authored a textbook on learning the Cahuilla language. She has a biographical entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica." [emphasis mine]
You can find the story here:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_Fea_Daily_sauvel17.57910.html
False claim #2 - Riverside County has provided Audio Ballots in Cahuilla
Mrs. Dunmore told the Secretary of State's office "So we have used audio in this case."
This is absolutely false and Mrs. Dunmore knew it.
On September 15th, 2004, Mrs. Dunmore gave a speech to the Riverside Latino Action Network in which she stated that the November
2004 election would be the first election that would provide an Audio Ballot in Cahuilla.
A letter from Mrs. Dunmore reveals that she did not follow through with providing an Audio Ballot in Cahuilla for the November
2004 election, nor did she provide one after that election.
Barbara Dunmore knew that a Cahuilla Audio Ballot had never been provided by Riverside County yet she told the Secretary of State's office that
Cahuilla Audio Ballots had been provided. Barbara Dunmore was attempting to convince the Secretary of State's office that paper trails
should not be used on touchscreen voting machines by presenting this false "problem" that paper trails could not deal with.'
False claim #3 - The Cahuilla Audio Ballot has been used by people in Riverside County
A panel member asked Mrs. Dunmore "They're just listening to the audio and then voting and then hearing the stuff processed
as a blind individual would vote?"
Mrs. Dunmore answered by saying "Yes."
Mrs. Dunmore knew that this statement was false. Since Cahuilla Audio Ballots were never provided in Riverside County they
could not have been used in Riverside County.
Watch the video of Mrs. Dunmore making her speech and see how smoothly she gives an answer
that she knows isn't true. This woman, who knowingly gives false answers
to the Secretary of State's office without blinking an eye,
is in charge of counting votes in Riverside County!
Mrs. Dunmore's reply was incorrect for more than one reason. If Riverside County provided an Audio Ballot in Cahuilla, without providing the written form of Cahuilla, the Cahuilla Audio Ballot
would not be the same as other Audio Ballots. The voting machines used in Riverside County would not be able to handle an write-in vote
if no written form of a language was used. This means that if Riverside County did provide a purely audio ballot in Cahuilla that the ballot would limit who
a Cahuilla speaker could vote for. It would be unacceptable to limit who a person could vote for based on the language
that the voter spoke.
In her January 20th statements, Mrs. Dunmore asserted that there is a federal mandate saying that a Cahuilla Audio
Ballot must be used. When I asked Mrs. Dunmore for evidence of this claim she responded by pointing me to two documents. The
first was a letter from the Department of Justice and the second was a report issued by the California Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force.
According to Mrs. Dunmore the documents show that the Federal mandate exists.
However, a close examination of the documents shows that neither actually supports her claim.
Document 1 - Letter from the Department of Justice
On September 17, 2004, Mrs. Dunmore quoted a letter from the Department of Justice when she
wrote the following statement in an email to me:
"Riverside County must have available election materials in
Cahuilla that "need to be communicated orally."
While Mrs. Dunmore put the word "Cahuilla" into her email,
The letter from the Department of Justice reads differently. Here is the exact sentence
from the Department of Justice:
"Native American Language information will need to be communicated orally."
Nowhere in the letter does it specifically state that Cahuilla is the Native American
Language that Riverside is suppose to be supporting. Mrs. Dunmore only quoted a portion of the
actual letter in her email and she put a specific language in front of the quoted segment. This
textual manipulation makes it seem that the Department of Justice letter specified the Cahuilla
language when it did not.
So what Native American language is suppose to be used? On the Department of Justice's
web site there is a
list
all of the languages that are required in every county. Here is the portion of the
list that mentions Riverside County :
Imperial County...................................... American Indian (Central or South American).
Imperial County...................................... American Indian (Yuman).
Kern County.......................................... Hispanic.
Kings County......................................... Hispanic.
Los Angeles County................................... Hispanic.
Los Angeles County................................... Chinese.
Los Angeles County................................... Filipino.
Los Angeles County................................... Japanese.
Los Angeles County................................... Korean.
Los Angeles County................................... Vietnamese.
Madera County........................................ Hispanic.
Merced County........................................ Hispanic.
Monterey County...................................... Hispanic.
Orange County........................................ Hispanic.
Orange County........................................ Chinese.
Orange County........................................ Korean.
Orange County........................................ Vietnamese.
Riverside County..................................... Hispanic.
Riverside County..................................... American Indian (Central or South American).
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[emphasis mine]
Notice that the Cahuilla Language is not listed. Instead the reference is to Native American languages
from South and Central America. Cahuilla is a North American language and therefore
not included in the languages listed by the Department of Justice. Riverside County
does have speakers of Native American languages from Central America.
Two Native American languages from Central or South America that are spoken in Riverside County are Mayan and
Mixtec. There are actually many more speakers of languages from Central and South America in Riverside County than there are speakers of Cahuilla.
Mrs. Dunmore, and her predecessor Mischelle Townsend, have mentioned the "requirement"
for providing a Cahuilla Audio Ballot as an argument against paper trails. However,
Riverside County has not provided any real evidence of this "requirement".
Document 2 - Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force Report - Section 3
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/taskforce_report_3.htm
In section three of the report it states:
Riverside County has a Cahuilla language requirement that is strictly an oral language and has no written form.
Why does the report say that Cahuilla has no written form when this claim is false?
Mischelle Townsend, Riverside County's previous Registrar of Voters, was on the task force and gave the
task force false information.
One Riverside County Registrar of Voters managed to get false information in a report and
then another Riverside County Registrar of Voters is now using that false information
to support her claims. This is clearly circular and illegitimate.
It should be noted that the Ad Hoc Touchscreen Report only mentions the Cahuilla "requirement" but does not
provide any way to verify if the "requirement" actually exists. The only federal regulation the Registrar of Voters
can produce is completely unrelated to Cahuilla, and appears to refer to certain languages spoken by immigrants from Central America.
Mrs. Dunmore's statements on the 20th of January also show that she claims that Cahuilla speakers can not
read or write in English. This is absolutely false.
When asked how Cahuilla speakers vote on absentee ballots Mrs. Dunmore replied " If they request an absentee ballot, we assume that they are being assisted."
The assumption that Cahuilla speakers can not read or write is not only false but insulting. ALL Cahuilla speakers
are fluent in English,and many speak Spanish as well. Many Cahuilla speakers are better-educated than Mrs. Dunmore.
I support making ballots available in Native American languages. I do not respect
Registrars of Voters who cynically use Native Americans to push voting systems on the public without
providing the services they tell the public are so helpful.
Riverside County has used Audio Ballots in multiple elections yet they never made
Audio Ballots available in Cahuilla. Riverside County may claim to care about
providing Audio Ballots in Cahuilla but the county's lack of action exposes how seriously they
take that claim.
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Please send comments to riversidevoter@yahoo.com
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