For "transparency", at least in Bullitt County, observers wait in a lobby with a small video picture of people sitting in a different room typing "you-can't-see-what" onto "screens-you-can't-see", with people occasionally wandering in and out of the videotaped area into completely unviewable areas, carrying items that look like poll tapes. On at least one occasion when Black Box Voting was there, they turned off the camera for a bit while they did "we-don't-know-what."
ELECTION WRANGLERS
They also had the Wrangler active that night. For those of you newbies to the activity known as "election monitoring" (also accurately termed "smacking into a brick wall") -- well, here's what a "Wrangler" is in Election lingo:
Government insiders, who are in there counting votes in secret on the computers they control, have a designated wrangler, or in trouble spots a couple of them. Their job is to distract observers if something interesting is going on. Blip-lights flicker -- out comes the lady with the candy tray. I once watched the "blue screen of death" appear on a crashing King County, Washington vote tabulator and while trying to write down the time and particulars, was accosted by the Republican Party observer who out of the blue left the computer room to engage me in a stubbornly aggressive conversation about nothing. In Bullitt County, Kentucky it was the candy tray lady, a trick reported by activists in other states as well.
3. And now we get to the best part. Scratch that. The worst part. The machines used in 96 of Kentucky's 120 counties, the Shoup/Danaher 1242s, can be tampered with rather easily by anyone with access during or shortly after the testing phase, but this could be caught -- unless you skip the step of loading in the cartridges to produce the tally report.
And that's just what Kentucky decided to do. In Kentucky, it was decided to stop reading the cartridges and use only the poll tape results. And this is precisely the check and balance cited to show that these old 1242 machines are "safe."
THINGS TO DO TO HELP MONITOR KENTUCKY
1) Wear a helmet. You'll be running into the brick wall.
2) Ask the officials to read the cartridges into the cartridge reader and print out a report to prove to you that the cartridge results match the voting machine results. The cartridges contain what is supposed to be the actual vote data.
3) Ask to inspect or get copies of the "poll tape" results. Ask for copies of the cartridge reader results.
4) Record the order in which Kentucky counties deliver their results tonight. Late results -- especially when accompanied by a trend reversal -- are associated with fraud.
5) Get screen shots of any tallies that go DOWN as results are coming in.
6) Hunt for "impossible numbers." Here are examples of impossible numbers found by Black Box Voting, the media, and citizen observers:
a) Barnstead, New Hampshire, 2008 primary. Fifty percent more votes than voters in the Democratic Party presidential race.
b) Election location in Harlem, New York: Obama got zero votes. Greenville, New Hampshire: Ron Paul got zero votes, and when citizens came forward swearing they'd voted for him, the Town Clerk found the missing votes. Sutton, New Hampshire: Ron Paul got zero votes. When citizens came forward swearing they'd voted for him, the Town Clerk found the missing votes. Note the pattern, hunt out the zeroes, onesies and twosies because they happen in every election.
Oh, come now! I can’t address Kentucky, but as for Oregon, all your deep, dark supposings add up to just one thing: no voting system ever devised has been foolproof. The critical distinction here is between error-proof and corruption-proof. Sure, signatures don’t always match – but how would you forge signatures – by running around stealing uncompleted ballots from mailboxes? Sure, the post office sometimes screws up, but how could it screw up in favor of one candidate or issue – by comparing unmailed ballots with voter party registrations and “losing” the opposition’s?” Sure, any computerized (or old-fashioned electro-mechanical) tallying system can be manipulated, but Oregon ballots are paper and very easy to check visually (unlike even blank cards with holes punched in them). Could they be stolen by evil librarians (who preside over official drop boxes) and government workers? Well, theoretically – but then, whose can’t? The bottom line is that well-managed mail-in voting is no more susceptible to errors than any and it’s less vulnerable to corruption than many alternatives. If you like deep, dark, designs, I'd suggest resuming speculation about Roswell, NM.
by
Jim Stinson (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 59 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 4:10:06 PM
We know -- absolutely, positively KNOW, that you don't mail out 2,500,000 items and have zero return undeliverable. We know -- absolutely, positively KNOW, that if 1,400,000 people mail something in, you are likely to have more than 50 arrive late, if for no other reason than the post office flubbed a few or (gasp!) one or two or a few dozen Oregonians may have mailed their ballot from out of state.
So the bookkeeping is wrong, Jim, and this year, in 2008, WE WILL NOT ACCEPT THE OOPS EXCUSE on election accounting figures. If your bank sends you a bank statement that lists 23 checks on it but you know that you wrote 29 checks, will you shrug and say "no one's perfect!"
No.
As to your contention that there would never be signature fraud, I'm wondering if you've done very much research on absentee ballot fraud. It has quite a history, and one of the places you find it, incidentally, is Kentucky. Now, you may want to contend that all people in Oregon are honest whereas all people in Kentucky are not, but I'm not sure I'd buy that. And gosh, what if someone from Kentucky moved to Oregon?
The protective systems are there for a reason. If they are not followed, elections are not protected.
My job is election protection. Dunno what yours is -- ridiculing election protection efforts? Does it pay well?
by
Bev Harris (73 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 21 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 5:51:29 PM
Okay, but you might put more effort into addressing my actual objections and less to making snide remarks about my motives. I've worked for myself for 30 years; and though that's a poor way to make money, it does leave you beholden to no one.
by
Jim Stinson (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 59 comments)
on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 8:32:32 PM
