Black Box Voting : Latest Investigations from Black Box Voting: 1-15-08: Can recount chain of custody be rescued? ------------------------------
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Posted by Bev Harris on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:42 am:
We are finding in New Hampshire: the best of the best in MOST situations, but considerable naivete and in some areas, an alarming and wilfull negligence.
Among the "best of the best" of New Hampshire situations:
(1) Beautiful, community oriented hand counted paper ballots in more than one hundred jurisdictions.
(2) Very democratic and participatory township structure of government, combined with very high level of representation of local areas in the state legislature
(3) Amazing level of responsiveness of public officials. Bill Gardner, for example, answers questions personally and tirelessly from just about everyone. Many, many high level officials perfectly willing to talk with and answer all questions from the public.
(4) Beautiful, participatory 100% hand counted recounts.
(5) Very good public records laws. If they have it in their possession, they let you see it THAT DAY. Along those lines, Paddy Shaffer did a hand written records request today which elicited some very good information. The dream team here is in the process of editing another request as I write this.
On the almost schizophrenically BAD side:
(1) A reliance on a sole source private contractor that is fully idiotic in nature. Not particularly bothered that the company has private chain of custody during critical points, no policy or even apparent concern with having convicted felons involved in the voting system.
(2) Use of a system with known defects without even taking any mitigation steps
(3) NO REQUIREMENT to even save the memory cards. The explanation is that they get a disk with the "program" on it. VotersUnite attorney Jon Bonifaz questioned the assistant attorney general on this closely today, because federal law requires records retention of 22 months on electronic media. New Hampshire has a truly idiotic policy of allowing the memory cards to be kept, or not, with a chain of custody, or not, shipping back to LHS, or not, and it's perfectly okay with New Hampshire if the memory cards are erased altogether. They profess to believe that they are okay, because the DoJ allows them to, if they just have LHS ship them a disk containing the purported program -- BEFORE the election, when there aren't even any votes registered on the card. No one could even tell us if this is the memory card program, or the GEMS database file, or the optical scan chip. They seem to have no idea what they are doing with this and I would call this wilfull ignorance, not naivete.
(4) Lack of documentation and lack of diligence on keeping documentation or written procedures in key areas
(5) Ballot chain of custody procedures with major holes and a few very creepy areas that will be the subject of a future article.
The upshot will be that New Hampshire could be the role model for the nation, but not until they purge themselves of a limited number of very significant problems.
I am hungry for just the kind of report you have so generously given. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your tireless efforts to restore electoral integrity. It is bad enough that we have so few real choices in our candidiates----but when we cannot trust the vote counts and with ample good reason, we are no longer even remotely a democratic republic. I am sad and outraged that so few---including the folks in NH do not feel passionately about this issue. You are a gem and I shower you with blessings and my heartfelt gratitude.
by
Char Stellamaris (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 35 comments)
on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 9:21:08 PM
1 comments
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