- Georgia, 2002. Paraplegic liberal and popular Democratic Senator Max Cleland loses in an "upset victory" to conservative Republican Saxby Chambliss, as reported by Bev Harris in Black Box Voting, noting that there were six Georgia contests in which Republicans "won upset victories".
- Ohio, 2004. Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State, with strong
ties to the Republican Party, promises to deliver Ohio to Bush. See John
Conyers, What Went Wrong in Ohio. (4) Conyers argues that many of the problems in Ohio involved Blackwell taking a major role in "intentional misconduct and illegal behavior."
- Wisconsin, 2011. The election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was won by Republican incumbent Justice David Prosser by 7,316 votes. The difference is small enough between Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, to allow a recount. On April 19, 2011, the Independent candidate, JoAnne Kloppenburg who lost, asked for a statewide recount. She asked for a hand-count of ballots only in some districts, to be determined by working with the Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.) Brad Blog has noted that recount protocol in Wisconsin allows only for a recount by the same machines that were used in the election, unless there is a court order for a hand-counted recount. Because some of the jurisdictions would have required erasing the memory cards from the election in order to make room for the data from the recount, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess ordered a hand-recount in 31 counties, including another 14 municipalities in Milwaukee County and 34 municipalities in Waukesha County. Both Prosser and Kloppenburg went along with this. Here is an interesting description of what the recount will look like. From Voting News, there is more information about the Wisconsin Recount, here and here. Recount begins 4/27, 9AM.
A huge standing ovation to Kloppenburg for her courage, for standing strong and for her refusal to cede and cave a la Gore, Kerry, and Coakley in Massachusetts. And some possible perils: By now there is no secure chain of custody of the ballots and ballot boxes (if there ever was one) and that will present very serious problems for an honest recount. Not only must she do a statewide recount, but also she must use the same methods for the recount across the whole state (which is not going to happen, alas), or she could perhaps be in the same fix as Al Gore was in Florida, 2000. See Bush, et al. vs. Gore, et al. (5) and Paul Lehto, J.D. on Bush v. Gore . And the entire recount must be done by hand, (which both sides have already agreed not to do, another alas), or else the ballots will be passed through the same op scan machines that were used the first time and could have been rigged then, and could be rigged in the recount. Then there are the DRE's that cannot be recounted, just the same results printed again from the same machines. I hope she will have her team take pictures of each and every ballot, whether recounted by hand or op scans. Of course there are no ballots for the DRE's, so there can be no pictures. You can send an email to the Kloppenburg Campaign: Campaign at Kloppenburg for justice dot com.
Democrats:
- Why did Al Gore not protest the Supreme Court appointment of George W. Bush as the next president? As he rolled over without a fight, he stated, --And tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession".". What unity? What democracy? With an appointment to the presidency in a political vote by the Supreme Court of the United States? See also Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. (6)
- Why did Obama, in his acceptance speech in Chicago, proudly talk about the elder woman, a former slave of African descent, who put her finger out and touched the screen for his name? He knew the dangers thereof; he has been contacted by scores of voting rights activists, as has Clinton, et al. "".And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change"."
- Was Obama'a statement a prelude to Hillary Clinton asking India to help newly born Egypt with its elections? India uses paperless Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the worst possible technology, though an Election Commission is now calling for a "paper trail of votes cast."
THIRD URGENT PLEA: We need secure hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections now.
That each of our votes is counted as cast is the bedrock of democracy. Voting rights are the rights that all our other rights stand on. We need more organizations to take a stand for totally transparent, secure hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections, where we are not asked to "trust" the results.
At The Center For Hand-Counted Paper Ballots, you can learn how several jurisdictions in the United States hand-count their votes. These are observations I made in real time of hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections. Scroll especially down to Acton, Maine. This could be a model for the whole country.
Vote Rescue, in Texas, founded by Vickie Karp and Karen Renick, is the only other organization dedicated solely to hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections, with no fall back position or compromise they are willing to make for political motives.
The following are some necessary elements of secure hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections:
- Hand-counting is done for all races and initiatives, not only federal.
- The hand-counting process will be easily understood by a fifth grade student.
- No precinct is larger than 1000 registered voters.
- Hand-counting is done at each precinct, immediately after the polls close.
- Poll books of voters checking in and poll books of voters checking out must exactly match.
- Get rid of all e-poll books.
- The number of ballots counted must exactly match the number of ballots distributed. .
- The number of ballots printed must match the number of ballots distributed, voted, and not voted
- No absentee ballots will be allowed, except for people in dire need
and these ballots must be accounted for, managed, and counted in a
procedure that is yet to be written.
- Hand-counting is done by teams of opposing parties on the ballot, chosen by
the parties themselves.
- Other smaller parties can also be on hand-counting teams, in addition to those opposing parties on the ballots - e.g. Greens.
- Hand-counting is done by new people coming in to count, not those who have been working at the polls all day.
- Hand-counters are paid a very good hourly rate. This not only pays for
one of the most important jobs in a democracy, but also keeps the money
in the community and is far less expensive than buying, maintaining,
upgrading and storing electronic voting machines.
- Hand-counting is done in full view of the public.
-Hand-counting is done twice and the results must match.
- Hand-counting is videotaped by any member of the public who want to do
so, while it is being done and also by official videographers, one
from each opposing parties on the ballot.
- Hand-counting results are posted at the precinct, in the windows, after the counting
so that all can see easily after polls close.
- No electronic voting machines, computers, or modems of any kind are allowed in any part of the hand-count with one exception.
- The exception is that one electronic voting machine will be allowed in
each precinct, e.g. an Automark, for people with disabilities to use.
Under no circumstances whatsoever will any other voters be allowed to
use this especially designated machine.
- The hand-count, which has been done twice, will be the official count of the election from each precinct.
- This section on chain of custody and security of the ballots and ballot boxes is a work in progress.
- Ballot and Ballot Box Transportation & Ballot Storage (last two sections) by Doug Jones gives many details of how to secure the ballots and their boxes
- See more details of security of ballots and their boxes by Sheila Parks. Scroll down to third paragraph from the end
- Ballot boxes will be of clear plastic with a lock on each of the four
corners. These boxes will be kept in full view of the election officials
and the public at all times, from before the official opening time of
the polls until the official election results are posted in the windows
of each precinct.
- The locks on the ballot boxes will have two keys only, that is, one
key will open two of the locks and another key will open the other two
locks.
- There will be only one key for each of the two keys above. There will be no copies of keys.
- A Republican election official will hold one key and a Democrat election official will hold the other key.
- The ballot boxes will not be opened until all votes have been cast and the polls are
closed.
- The ballot boxes will be opened in full view of the public.
- After the votes are hand-counted, the ballots will be placed in steel containers with seals on them.
- A secure chain of custody for the ballots and ballot boxes must be
written from the precinct level to where they will be stored.
Furthermore, there are several problems with our voting process, not only that our votes are not counted as cast, because of the fraud and error associated with all electronic voting machines, but also, that even if these problems were all fixed, the electronic voting machines would continue to rig our elections. And even if we had secure hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB) elections, the problems listed below would still exist. Our voting system is a hydra-headed weapon of mass destruction:
- Suppression of the votes of students, low income people, African Americans, Latinas, elders.
- A whiteout of the news from any candidates the corporate media does not want to be elected.
- A whiteout of the news from the corporate media of any of the fraud
and rigging that voting rights activists have been pointing out and
writing about at least since Florida 2000 presidential race.
- Corrupt election officials who run our elections and have strong past
and present ties to the right wing of the Republican Party.
- Corrupt and/or incompetent voting election officials from both
Democratic and Republican parties, and most likely all the other parties
too.
- Endless corporate money into coffers of candidates.
- Requiring of voter ID photos, which are issued only by the state, e.g., Department of Motor Vehicles, in order to vote.
- Absentee ballots, with both parties increasingly calling for more.
- Mail-in voting
- The election of two senators from each state means, e.g., that the
voters in North Dakota and Vermont have an influence that is hugely
disproportionate to voters in California.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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