Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday, May 14, 2006

Happy Mother's Day!

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x427683

Ex-election official’s ties raise questions

Sunday, May 14, 2006
Robert Ruth and Robert Vitale
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Elections board Director Matthew Damschroder was disciplined in 2005 for accepting a $10,000 political donation.


At the same time the deputy director of the Franklin County Board of Elections was winding down his career, he was negotiating to become a partner of businessmen seeking a $785,000 contract from the board.

Conflict-of-interest questions surrounding Michael R. Hackett Jr.’s relationship with owners of SST Systems, a New Albany company that supplies storage carts for voting machines, concerned board members for much of last year.

...snip

The conflict-of-interest issue marks the second time in less than a year that the elections board has been confronted with ethics questions.

In July 2005, Damschroder acknowledged that he accepted a $10,000 donation on behalf of the Franklin County Republican Party from a contractor for Diebold Election Systems, which was competing at the time for a voter-registration software contract.


More: http://www.columbusdispatch.com/?story=dispatch/2006/05/14/20060514-A1-04.html

I've never heard of this source, but found it doing a google news search for "Diebold".

Jeb Bush, Nightmares, and Diebold Chicanery: Jeb Bush As Successor to His Brother

By: Richard Franklin



Six years ago, I told my readers that the American corporatocracy's Shadow Government ("SG") was quietly creating a political war-chest for Jeb Bush. Before George Junior had even entered the White House, the SG was making plans to achieve neofascist control of the White House for the next 16 years.

Moreover, I believe the SG has been stealthily and steadily building Jeb's war-chest since their plan was initiated six years ago.

As soon as Junior was nominated, they figured on owning the presidency for decades to come. Thei cabal's plans to fix the 2000 election were well prepared - even though, in the end, our corrupt Supreme Court had to step in and illegally appoint Bush as president over Gore. As for the second election in 2004, it was a farce. Kerry was robbed.

I'm sure preparations are in full swing for the next presidential election. 2008 will be even more firmly and smoothly controlled. The SG keeps getting better at vote fraud, while the mainstream media, Congress, and the courts steadfastly ignore what has happened, and is still happening, to the U.S. electoral system.

Jeb Bush will be a more dangerous dictator than his brother, Junior. He is smarter than Junior, which is unsurprising - how could he not be? So Jeb will not stub his toes nearly as often as his brother while he further consolidates the neofascist police state that the cabal will be handing to him.


More: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/05/14/jeb_bush_nightmares_and_diebold_chicaner

Ready for touchscreen test
Counties to voters: No need to worry. New devices will work and be easy to use in Tuesday's primary.

Sunday, May 14, 206
By PRECIOUS PETTY
The Express-Times

Hundreds of touchscreen voting machines are ready for Tuesday's primary, but officials worry thousands of Lehigh Valley voters think they aren't ready to use them.

"I'm hearing, as I listen to people, some fear about voting," Northampton County Executive John Stoffa said.


The new machines are "nothing to be afraid of," he promised, urging voters to ask for help if they need it.

Counties across Pennsylvania purchased electronic replacements for pull-lever or punch-card machines to comply with the Help America Vote Act. Tuesday is the debut of the machines.

Northampton County Chief Registrar Deborah DePaul said the county's 360 WINvote machines, produced by Advanced Voting Solutions, are user-friendly.

"This is one of the easiest machines to use" when compared with others manufactured by Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems, she said.


More: http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1147579992275860.xml&coll=2

Avi Rubin's New Book

By: kowalski · Section: Diaries

Avi Rubin, who is a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, has a new book that will hit the shelves in September of this year. I think it's important for people here at RedState to be aware of his work and also to be aware of some very real flaws that he and professor Edward Felten of Princeton have recently found with the Diebold election machines, courtesy of BlackBoxVoting.

Some of these flaws, as they are reported in the PDF at BlackBoxVoting, are extremely serious and if they are not adequately addressed are going to cast an ineradicable pall over the November elections anywhere Diebold voting machines are used. I can tell you right now that if these problems are not adequately and publicly addressed and the elections in 2006 are even close in any districts using Diebold machines there will be enormous problems.

Dr. Rubin and Dr. Felten are to be commended for making this information available now. This isn't about partisanship -- it's about the integrity of the vote, and anyone who says otherwise is simply irresponsible.

My sincere advice for anyone contemplating using Diebold machines to count votes in the upcoming election is to contact Dr. Rubin, Dr. Felten, and Diebold -- immediately if not sooner.


Link to RedState: http://kowalski.redstate.com/story/2006/5/13/231221/950

Diebold's AccuVote-TS Voting Machine Security
Computer scientists who understand the issues are withholding details saying it’

by runner


http://www.opednews.com

I’m a computer scientist and an election clerk who has helped many tens of thousands of citizens cast their vote on Diebold's AccuVote-TS (Touch Screen) voting machines through several election cycles. From an external election management perspective it is a very good and efficient system. Voters too seem to like the Touch Screen system because it is so easy and fast use.

Many people are very concerned over the so-called "Hursti Hack" and increasing numbers of computer scientists are speaking out to express their concern on various Diebold AccuVote-TS security issues. Johns Hopkins University computer science professor Avi Rubin published a very good security analysis of Diebold voting software two years ago and the Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board (VSTAAB) with the assistance of the University of California, Berkeley also issued a good security analysis this year.

The hot topic currently in the news is the “chain-of-custody” issue. Voting machines are moved often just before and after Election Day and then stored for long periods of time between elections, often with little, if any, security oversight. Many worry that election officials wouldn't know if hackers had installed malicious programs on the machines during these unguarded periods. Blackboxvoting.org recently issued a redacted version of its “chain-of-custody report, after first stripping details that could help hackers. That report says someone with significant knowledge of computer code could install malicious programs on voting machines in a matter of minutes during transport and storage.

The proposed fix involves reinstalling the proper software just before each election, preferably in a public setting, and then locking, sealing and guarding the machines to prevent tampering before voting begins. Presumably that would require the reformatting of each voting machine, which is a standard Intel-based PC, hard drive to guarantee each machine is cleaned of any possible malicious code infection. Next, the standard Microsoft Windows operating system must be reinstalled followed by the reinstallation of Diebold's AccuVote-TS voting application on each of Diebold's voting machines. Times dozens of voting machines in every voting jurisdiction in every state, that’s a big job! It would require a small army of competent computer technicians for each election! No wonder most election officials are throwing bucket after bucket of cold water on that proposed fix! Most voting jurisdictions will never have the money or competent manpower for that significant amount of work at every election cycle. That's not to say it shouldn't be done, because it really should!!

More: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_runner_060513_diebold_s_accuvote_t.htm

TALLEY SERGENT: Betty Ireland failed voters on Election Day

Forget the 2000 Florida presidential recount. Forget the disenfranchised Ohioans in 2004.

This year's coup: electronic voting machines in West Virginia.

As you may know, West Virginia, along with every other state, was required to shift all voting techniques to electronic machines under the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA). This federal law reformed voting as we knew it, thanks to the 2000 presidential recount debacle, by providing federal dollars to states to upgrade their systems.

Since Betty Ireland took office in 2005, one of her main duties as the secretary of state -- and the chief election officer -- was to make sure West Virginia was HAVA compliant, which includes at least one handicap-accessible voting booth in each precinct. This required Ireland, her staff and others to research, choose and implement a HAVA-compliant system.

On Sept. 15, 2005, nearly nine months prior to the 2006 primary election, Ireland announced that Electronic Systems & Software (ES&S) won a statewide government contract to make West Virginia HAVA compliant.

What the secretary of state did for the next nine months is a mystery.

Just weeks before the primary, word spread like wildfire throughout West Virginia that the voting machines would not be ready.

Wary of electronic machines, senior citizens en masse clamored nervously and promised not to vote. County clerks, who oversee the voting process in each county, were left scrambling. County commissions had to decide whether or not paper ballots could be ordered in time.

To allay concerns, Ireland did a media blitz and passed the buck to ES&S for the software malfunctions.

On primary day eve, Ireland stated, "ES&S made the process more difficult by its delayed delivery of error-free programmed ballots for the electronic voting machines."

But these software malfunctions were not news to Ireland or her staff. In other states, ES&S was incapable of providing election software in a timely and accurate fashion.


More: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060514/OPINION/605140337/1034

Elections: Counting the ballots

Web Posted: 05/14/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Greg Jefferson
Express-News Staff Writer

Elections across Bexar County came off largely hitch-free Saturday.

"It's been quiet as a church mouse," said Jacque Callanen, the county's elections administrator, just before the polls closed at 7 p.m.

The elections ran smoothly despite uncertainty at the beginning of the week about how voters would cast ballots Saturday — by hand or by touch-screen voting machines.

The county's equipment supplier, Nebraska-based Elections Systems & Software, had failed to deliver the necessary programming in time for early voting. As a result, elections officials had to turn to emergency paper ballots.

ES&S didn't deliver the software until Monday, forcing election officials to scramble to prepare the electronic voting machines for Saturday.

Many of the 149 Texas counties serviced by ES&S were in the same position.


More: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA051406.06B.Election_Problems.87ceb7a.html

Vendor Bender
City Clerk Blames ES&S for Election Day Difficulties

An election that started with problems ended with problems Saturday night.

And according to City Clerk Lydia Ozuna the blame rests firmly on the shoulders of Election Systems and Software, the county's election vendor.

Election results in the joint election were delayed until 11 p.m. Saturday because of problems involved with using two forms of ballot technology, Ozuna said.

When asked about the problems, County Clerk Lori Bohannon replied, "It's not my election" and said she was "leaving (Ozuna) alone."

Early voting began with paper ballots. The backdated form of voting was required because ES&S did not supply the information necessary to program electronic voting machines.

The machines were used in the last two days of early voting and on Election Day.

Problems occurred Saturday, Ozuna said, in combining the paper and electronic ballots.

All problems originated at ES&S, Ozuna said.


More: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/trn/local_news/article/0,1891,TRN_5784_4698130,00.html

ES&S MELTDOWN: Company Secretly Changes Contract with Tennesee Counties, Sends USED Machines for Upcoming Primary Election

From Brad Blog yesterday: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002824.htm

Sancho on quest for election reform
The Leon County official wants more electronic-voting safeguards.

Christopher Sherman | Tallahassee Bureau
Posted May 14, 2006


TALLAHASSEE -- On a sweltering spring day, Ion Sancho stood between the Capitol and the Florida Supreme Court flanked by civil-rights activists holding signs that read, "Don't Gamble with Our Vote."

Amid the colorful characters, including two young women in fishnet stockings and feathers, the balding man in a brown suede jacket did not seem to be a likely candidate for "hero of the moment." But that was how Sancho, Leon County's supervisor of elections, was introduced.

Election supervisors in Florida usually go unnoticed except on the days when something goes wrong at the ballot box. Yet, Sancho's outspoken crusade for openness in elections has earned him praise from voting-rights advocates, and black-sheep status among his colleagues and others.

Depending on whom you ask, Sancho has drawn critical attention to the issue of election reform, or he has needlessly shaken voter confidence.

"I have pretty much been a lone voice," Sancho said. "I'm respected but not understood by my peers."


More: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-sancho1406may14,0,6021427.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

New machines allow disabled to vote

Saturday, May 13, 2006 10:19 PM CDT
Jason Cannon

Physically handicapped voters in Chilton County will be able to cast their votes in private come the June primary thanks to the iVotronic Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines that arrived at the county courthouse earlier this week.

The DRE helps those with physical handicaps to cast their ballots without help from poll workers, ensuring that their votes will be marked in private.

"It lets them be independent in casting their votes," said Probate Judge Bobby Martin. "No matter what your physical handicap may be, this machine can accommodate it."

The DRE, which looks like a giant laptop computer, has a large touch screen for selecting candidates. It is also equipped with Braille keys and headphones that provide voting instructions for the blind.

For those without use of their arms, the DRE has an attachment for a "sip and puff" device that will register a vote by detecting whether the voter was sucking in or breathing out.

"This is about as sophisticated as it gets," Martin said.

The state paid $6300 for each machine - enough to place one in each precinct in Chilton County and to have a spare.



More: http://www.clantonadvertiser.com/articles/2006/05/13/news/a-news.txt

(I learned something new today...)

Payback expected for audio system

By: MARGARET GIBBONS, Times Herald Staff05/14/2006
Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendly


However, this cost will be fully reimbursed by the federal government, which mandated the upgrade, Passarella said.

The county commissioners this week signed off on an agreement with Sequoia Voting Systems to purchase the hardware and software needed to outfit each of the county's 1,050 electronic voting machines with this audio component.

The $1,500-a-machine cost includes the cost of both the hardware and software even though the tabulation software for this additional component has not been certified by the state and, as a result, will not be used in compiling Tuesday's unofficial primary election vote tallies released on Election Night.

County Commissioners Chairman Thomas J. Ellis said that the written agreement with Sequoia, which manufactured the electronic voting machines used by the county since 1996, will give that company a June 30 deadline to secure state certification or monies will be withheld.
The new tabulation software Sequoia designed for the audio component, added to comply with new federal regulations, failed state certification in March.

The state voting systems at that time said that the software, which Sequoia had attempted to correct overnight, could be manipulated by a hacker.

The voting machine, equipped with the audio component, did pass muster in a re-test in April. However, wanting more time to address the software problem, Sequoia did not re-submit the software for re-testing.


More: http://www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16636290&BRD=1672&PAG=461&dept_id=33380&rfi=6

President Gore Addresses Nation

Posted on May 14, 2006

From crooksandliars.com
’President’ Al Gore addresses the nation

Al Gore addresses the nation as if he were president in this “Saturday Night Live” clip. Watch for the parody of Bush’s spying programs.





Crooks and Liars:

“Saturday Night Live,” opened their show tonight with Al Gore addressing the nation as if he was the President of the United States. Gore was focused and quite funny in this entertaining spoof of the current administration and their long range of failures. He also parodied himself and the media (when they falsely claimed he said he created the internets) by saying that he invented an Anti-Hurricane and Tornado Machine.

He touched on immigration, oil, the Middle East, judges and a host of other topics that have divided our country since Bush took office. I did enjoy GWB leading the charge to clean up Baseball’s steroid problem: “But I have faith in baseball commissioner George W. Bush when he says, “We will find the steroid users if we have to tap every phone in America!” Do you have a favorite line?

Here’s a link to their homepage so show them some love.


Link: http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20060514_president_gore/


There are multiple discussions on this topic. Just check the "greatest" page.

Columbus Dispatch

Sunday, May 14, 2006
Robert Ruth and Robert Vitale
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

At the same time the deputy director of the Franklin County Board of Elections was winding down his career, he was negotiating to become a partner of businessmen seeking a $785,000 contract from the board.

Conflict-of-interest questions surrounding Michael R. Hackett Jr.’s relationship with owners of SST Systems, a New Albany company that supplies storage carts for voting machines, concerned board members for much of last year.

Those worries appeared to be resolved on Nov. 23, when elections board Director Matthew Damschroder, a co-worker and close friend of Hackett’s, told the board, "We’ve consulted with the county prosecutor and there are no conflicts of interest." The board then approved the SST contract.

But County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said last week that he never cleared Hackett of conflict questions.

In fact, when an Ohio Ethics Commission lawyer took an initial look at the relationship, she said there were "significant issues" with the arrangement. Hackett did not respond to the lawyer’s questions for almost four months, and then he retired without receiving an opinion from the commission.

Election board Chairman William A. Anthony Jr. said he and three other board members were kept in the dark about the extent of Hackett’s ties to the businessmen.

The board was told in a closed-door meeting on May 24 that Hackett, 52, was considering joining SST Systems after he retired from his county job, Anthony said.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/?story=dispatch/2006/05/14/20060514-A1-04.html

NJ.com


Sunday, May 14, 2006
TRENTON - Tuesday, May 16, is the deadline for eligible New Jersey residents to register to vote in the primary election to be held June 6, Attorney General Zulima V. Farber said.

To register, one must be a U.S. citizen, must be at least 18 years of age, and must have resided in his or her home county in New Jersey for at least 30 days prior to the election. Also, those seeking to register must not be on parole or probation, or serving a sentence for conviction on an indictable offense under any federal or state law.

New voters will be eligible to vote in either party's primary, but must declare their party affiliation at the polls on June 6.

Any registered Democrat or Republican who wanted to change affiliation and vote in the other party's primary had to have filed a change of party affiliation by April 17. In addition, any voters registered with one of the following political groups - Green, Libertarian, Natural Law Party, Reform or U.S. Constitution - cannot vote in the primary unless they changed affiliation by April 17.

more info
http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/local/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1147601831228850.xml&coll=8

The Herald-Dispatch

OPINION | Sunday, May, 14, 2006

Forget the 2000 Florida presidential recount. Forget the disenfranchised Ohioans in 2004.

This year's coup: electronic voting machines in West Virginia.

As you may know, West Virginia, along with every other state, was required to shift all voting techniques to electronic machines under the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA). This federal law reformed voting as we knew it, thanks to the 2000 presidential recount debacle, by providing federal dollars to states to upgrade their systems.

Since Betty Ireland took office in 2005, one of her main duties as the secretary of state -- and the chief election officer -- was to make sure West Virginia was HAVA compliant, which includes at least one handicap-accessible voting booth in each precinct. This required Ireland, her staff and others to research, choose and implement a HAVA-compliant system.

On Sept. 15, 2005, nearly nine months prior to the 2006 primary election, Ireland announced that Electronic Systems & Software (ES&S) won a statewide government contract to make West Virginia HAVA compliant.

What the secretary of state did for the next nine months is a mystery.

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060514/OPINION/605140337/1034

The Times Tribune
BY ROGER DUPUIS II
05/14/2006

Whatever their cost to the country, Florida’s infamous hanging chads have paid dividends for Lackawanna County and many of its neighbors.

That’s because the Sunshine State’s bum ballots inspired the electoral crisis, that inspired the Help America Vote Act of 2002, that inspired new standards for voting systems used by the states.

HAVA also provided $2.2 million in grant money that allowed Lackawanna officials to realize their goal of replacing Prohibition-era voting booths with spiffy new electronic voting terminals — a goal based on local difficulties, and not merely a response to Florida’s debacle in the 2000 presidential election.

“It was long overdue,” Lackawanna County Commissioner Robert C. Cordaro said of the change, adding that HAVA allowed the county to save the cash it would have had to spend making the transition. “It was a godsend.”

That godsend didn’t arrive without some penance, however.

By March, concerns about vendor Advanced Voting Solutions’ ability to deliver full orders of new machines on time caused some counties, including Pike, Tioga, Bradford and Carbon, to switch their orders from AVS to other makers.

Lackawanna stuck with AVS, and the vendor delivered 360 units by May 5 — enough machines for Tuesday’s primary, although not the county’s whole 525-unit order. Wayne County also stayed with AVS, and has received its 80 machines. Pike and Tioga, by comparison, are among those who have received their full machine orders from competitor Diebold in time for the vote.

For Lackawanna County, the new technology arrives not a moment too soon. Its lever voting machines, which were built in the 1920s and ’30s, have been subject to failures of all types in recent years.

“As good of a job as our people did — and do — they are 80-year-old machines,” Mr. Cordaro said.

In June 2000, voting irregularities surfaced following a special election for former state Rep. Frank Serafini’s seat. The 69 machines used in that 114th legislative district race all worked fine during tests the following September, but that still left officials questioning why 1,000 or more votes seemed to be missing from the tally. Some blamed the machines. Others blamed voter error.

In other cases, anecdotal analysis of the old machines often showed “widely disparate vote totals for each office,” Mr. Cordaro said.

In theory, that should change as the new WINVote machines, manufactured by Texas-based Advanced Voting Solutions, offer the ability to create a paper audit trail, said Cathy Ann Hardaway, the county’s director of voter education.

http://thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16636694&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=416046&rfi=6

Published May 13, 2006 (day old)

Duplications, deceased found in purge of database
BY BRAD SHANNON

THE OLYMPIAN

State election officials have stricken the registrations of more than 55,000 voters statewide because the names belong to dead people or were duplicated in more than one county.

The cleanup, which follows the hotly disputed Washington governor’s race in 2004 and the presidential contest of 2000, is the first of several “huge strides” Secretary of State Sam Reed said his office is taking to clean up voter rolls.

“I would say we are probably halfway there. We’ll be spending the better part of the year doing the work” to complete the cleanup, Reed said Friday in a telephone interview. “We’re making great progress and I think the people of the state need to know it.”

Reed, a former longtime Thurston County auditor, said voters should be assured the state voter registration system has integrity.

All told, Reed’s office removed the names of 35,445 voters with duplicate registrations and 19,579 of deceased people.

Thurston County’s share of the total was 1,630 voter registration cancellations since Jan. 1, county assistant elections manager Keith Mullen said; but the county is not yet able to statistically break out what share were duplicates or deaths or other reasons.

“The majority of that 1,630, based on my doing this for years ... is people being canceled because they moved to another county or moved out of state,” county Auditor Kim Wyman said. “Some might be deceased voters.”

http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060513/NEWS/60513002

Contra Costa Times

Posted on Sun, May. 14, 2006

In one case, a man's guide is printed in Spanish, his son's in an Asian language; both know only English
By Kim Vo
KNIGHT RIDDER
Charles Rogers speaks English, but his state voter guide came in Spanish. His son's arrived in an Asian language. And Rogers can't borrow his wife's -- she never got one.

"I like to have a pamphlet and sit and read. I study it for about a month before I make up my mind," the Sunnyvale homeowner said of the booklet that details candidates' statements and proposition arguments. "It's really inconvenient to have something you can't understand."

It wasn't clear Friday how widespread the problem was -- Santa Clara County officials say they've received one complaint, and they're looking into it. The state also says it received one complaint.

The problem might be linked to Santa Clara County's efforts to have voters pick their election materials' language. Since November 2004, the county has sent out cards and printed up absentee ballot envelopes asking voters whether they want their information in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese or Tagalog.

That information is then manually entered into a database, said Elma Rosas, elections coordinator for the Santa Clara County registrar of voters.

While the state mostly prints and mails its own materials, it does rely on counties to provide databases of registered voters -- and voters' language preferences, said Nghia Nguyen, a spokeswoman with the Secretary of State's Office.

County records indicate that one of the two Charles Rogers in Sunnyvale requested materials in Spanish, Rosas said. A county employee updated the database Jan. 20 to indicate the change.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/14577394.htm

Morris Daily Herald (day old)

5/13/2006 9:00:00 AM

Spam alert
No criminal wrongdoing in bizarre letter incident

By Casey Toner
Herald Staff Writer
Grundy County State’s Attorney Sheldon Sobol and Grundy County Sheriff Terry Marketti announced Friday that there was no criminal use of social security numbers by whomever sent anonymous letters to Grundy County residents in early March.

The investigation also showed that social security numbers cannot be obtained from the office of Grundy County Clerk Lana Phillips, as stated in the anonymous letters.

In addition, the office of County Treasurer Marcy Miller does not have a social security database of Grundy County residents, as the letters alleged.

Shortly before the April election, many county residents received anonymous letters that appeared to be politically-motivated. Around 3,000 letters were sent, and they included the receiver’s social security number, along with other personal information.

The author of the anonymous letters indicated that the information was public record, and attacks were lobbed against Phillips and Miller.

Much of the information included in the letters is public, and can be obtained through voting records, personal property taxes and other public documents. But Social Security numbers are not public, and those numbers were printed across the top of each letter.

http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=58&ArticleID=18246&TM=37123.92

This message as of Wednesday May 10, 2006

USCountVotes.net is the site for members of the National Election Data Archive. Register to be a Volunteer here.

We need volunteers to collect data for the National Election Data Archive because every state in America publicly reports its vote count data in a way that hides the evidence of vote miscounts. Election officials, voting machine programmers, and other insiders can pad votes for one candidate in one type of vote (say absentee ballots), and subtract votes for another candidate in another vote type (say Election Day electronic counts); and by adding the totals together before public release, the evidence cancels and is hidden. For example, in the New Mexico 2004 election, there were 10,000 more absentee votes counted than were cast, and a very high rate of no vote cast for president in precincts which used paperless electronic voting machines on Election Day. Yet not one state in America monitors its own election data to detect such problems.

Every state's open records law give the public the legal right to the data that would reveal any suspicious patterns indicating vote miscounts. By submitting public records requests to your county election officials, you can obtain the detailed data that is needed to ensure that the correct candidates are sworn into office following elections; and make it publicly available here.

Many voting systems are innacurate because they lack voter verified hand-countable paper ballots that would enable independent detection and correction of errors in counts. With your help we can create a National Election Data Archive to publicly monitor elections in every state, county, and precinct in America.

Please register here and read this instruction sheet to find out how to begin to obtain the information we need from your state.

http://www.uscountvotes.net/

Please use your email lists to publicize this important event (details below box) to people who may seriously participate in the Boston area:
Why You Should Dialog with Jonathan Simon

At BCA Meeting Next Wednesday, 17 May.

or email Jonathan at VerifiedVote2004@aol.com

We have six months to do the following things:

* Get check mechanisms of some sort set up in as many competitive states and districts as possible. These can be indepedent exit polls (possibly with lots of public volunteer participation), possibly parallel elections, certainly raised levels of pressure on and scrutiny of elections officials (and vendors)

* Advocate on state and local levels adoption of a handcount sampling protocol to serve as an internal (governmental) check mechanism, wherever possible.

* Coordinate such projects where possible to economize on labor and effort.

* Prepare for litigation where results are dubious or anomalous.

* Establish liaisons with campaign staffs and candidates to prepare them to receive analysis of data from check mechanisms and prevent premature concessions.

* Work the media to win over enough of the MSM to prevent a 2004-style lockdown in the MSM (this will take at least a half dozen mainstream journalists with at least the tacit permission of their organizations.

* Do direct public outreach (networking, webwork, movies, songs, books, etc.); be our own media.

* Plan Election Day and Following Day MASS RESPONSE (this was totally absent in 2004 and is critical).

* Raise funds for all these projects.


Preventing Another Stolen Election

WHEN: Wednesday, 17 May, 7pm

WHAT: See box above. The prevalence of electronic voting machines makes election-stealing more likely, with potentially disastrous results for our democracy. This evening's event is partly a how-to workshop, with discussion.

WHO: Jonathan Simon and Sally Castleman are co-founders of the new Election Defense Alliance. Jonathan is an exit-poll expert and leading advocate of election integrity.

WHERE: Cambridge Friends Meeting house, 5 Longfellow Park, a 9-minute walk west of Harvard Square T stop, along Brattle Street. Parking at venue (few spots) or on Brattle or Mt. Auburn Streets.

INFO: Sponsored by Boston-Cambridge Alliance for Democracy. 617-266-8687 or dlewit@igc.org