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April 27, 2007 at 09:23:50

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Rebuttal to Dill's support of the HR 811 Trojan Horse

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By Nancy Tobi (about the author)     Page 2 of 3 page(s)

opednews.com     Permalink

After several years of rigorous debate, dialog, dissent, and discussion, after years of this evolutionary thought by patriotic American citizens, we have arrived at the simple conclusion that democratic elections require citizen oversight of the entire voting process, and that this is impossible when computers – with their processes invisible to the human eye – are involved. In other words, we have come right back to what the founders of our nation and the framers of our early state constitutions understood full well, which is why both the Massachusetts and New Hampshire constitutions state that our votes must be "sorted and counted" in "open meeting".

This raises doubt as well on optical scanners, which, as Dr. Dill full well knows, have been the perpetrators of at least as much electoral crime, fraud, and failure as the touch screens he derides in his piece.

And while it is true that much of the country has forgotten the lost art of hand counting paper ballots, New Hampshire, with its complex ballots and large jurisdictions (still hand counting up to 3-4-5 times the national average of ballots processed in any given polling place) has proven that the transparent and democratic method of administering hand count paper ballot elections is not only do-able, but is recommended for those truly wishing to create and support community-based, representative democracy and democratic elections.

As opposed to the impossibly complex recommendations coming out of Holt’s office and supported by others – with their own private techno-election agendas – who are pushing for more investment into privatized, corporately owned, high tech voting systems, hand count proponents are supporting transparency and public ownership in the entire voting process, which any logical, thinking, patriotic American should agree is a prerequisite for sustaining our democracy.

Be this as it may, had Holt’s office put forward a simple bill to mandate paper trails and audits, and if he had kept the bill's language simple enough to identify these as the criteria but to honor state plan processes in enacting the mandates, this bill would likely have received wide scale support even from hand count proponents.

In fact, I will make a public proclamation right here and now, that should Congress amend the Holt Bill in this specific manner I will muster every resource I have at my personal disposal to ensure passage of the bill.

Instead, Holt’s office put before us a highly complex, 50+ page bill that contains many unacceptable items. I will focus only on two of the unacceptable items in HR 811:

1) huge unfunded mandates, and

2) making permanent the Election Assistance Commission, an executive commission of four White House appointees -- the Commissioners of the Count -- who have absolute power and de facto regulatory control over the entire voting technology industry.

Making permanent the EAC, as Holt proposes in his bill, is not, as Dill states, giving the EAC “minimal responsibilities”.

By making them permanent, HR 811 is cementing a complete restructuring of the balance of power in our system of government, shifting power over our national election systems from the states, and in times of distress, Congress (a representative body) to the Executive Branch.

The cost of these two items alone is too much to bear for the promised Trojan horse of a paper trail.

The cost of shifting vote counting control to the White House is incalculable, but suffice to say that centralized control of the vote is what kept Stalin and Sadaam in power, and certainly was the trigger for our own American Revolution and Declaration of Independence.

Additionally, the fiscal recklessness and irresponsibility of this bill is staggering.

Let’s just look at its mandate for an entirely new text conversion technology for every polling jurisdiction in the nation. This cost could easily arrive at the multibillions.

And this is not even addressing the bill’s requirement for two entirely new state functions, those being state audit and certification offices. For states not currently structured with these functions, this is another continuous multimillion dollar unfunded mandate for staffing and operational costs of two new state functions.

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www.democracyfornewhampshire.com

Nancy Tobi is co-founder, former Chair, and website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH). She is also a founder and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee. Nancy is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The (more...)
 

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
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well said, nancy by Joan Brunwasser on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 11:00:25 AM
whose advice to follow or thinking for yourself by ncvoter on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:48:04 PM
Which expert opinion matters? by Nancy Tobi on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 2:58:21 PM
weighing all factors by ncvoter on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 4:44:03 PM
Hidden Undercurrents of Holt Bill HR 811 by Sharona Merel on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 3:26:33 PM
Well layed-out thoughts, Nancy. Thanks~ by Pamela on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 5:51:43 PM
Propaganda tactics are unhealthy for citizen oversight by Bev Harris on Friday, Apr 27, 2007 at 8:35:38 PM
well said by the someone who knows by ncvoter on Saturday, Apr 28, 2007 at 4:48:41 PM
whats your response to Professor/Atty Lindgren? by ncvoter on Saturday, Apr 28, 2007 at 6:38:23 PM
We have provided multiple iterations of solutions by Nancy Tobi on Saturday, Apr 28, 2007 at 9:21:55 AM
New Hampshire as an example to the rest of the US by ncvoter on Saturday, Apr 28, 2007 at 4:41:38 PM
Joyce, what exactly is your point? by Nancy Tobi on Saturday, Apr 28, 2007 at 8:14:07 PM
Propaganda tactic #2 by Bev Harris on Sunday, Apr 29, 2007 at 1:54:56 PM
More than we bargained for . . . by John Burik on Monday, Apr 30, 2007 at 5:16:23 PM
Here's a new proposal for you by Nancy Tobi on Monday, May 7, 2007 at 10:44:03 PM
Hands and machines both by Clifford Story on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 at 5:50:12 AM
What are you talking about??? by Asdf on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 at 8:30:12 AM
Sorry to confuse you by Nancy Tobi on Monday, May 7, 2007 at 10:54:33 PM
Grrr by Asdf on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 at 11:22:56 AM
aaasssdddfff by John R Moffett on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 12:03:47 PM
What we can do by Nancy Tobi on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 at 7:06:34 AM

 
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