You go, Joan!!!!!!!

by Steven Leser (255 articles, 58 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 2147 comments [63 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 20, 2007 at 9:18:18 PM

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Hi Joan, I think it's great you all are pushing for integrity but I can't sign on. I want nothing less than machine-free hand counted paper ballot elections. Why aren't we supporting Kuchinich's bill? Simple, straight-forward, no need to struggle with certification, disclosure, etc... Best Sam

by abacus (2 articles, 2 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 73 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 20, 2007 at 10:13:36 PM

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Great article, but I am disappointed to see Michael Collins inaccurate article still circulating the internet. Please see click here ...Another reason to address this publicly is the spread of faulty data that is now getting wider distribution. A couple of days ago, Kirk Ross brought our attention to a writer who is spreading confusion by using a completely inaccurate undervote total for North Carolina's 8th Congressional District. Michael Collins has a post at Scoop Independent News, OpEdNews.com and it was taken to Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle. In this article Collins claims that the undervote percentage in the 8th Congressional race in Mecklenburg County was over 15%. I'll refute his numbers later in this post. ... The most important reason to address this publicly is that there are valid complaints with election procedures and results in some states. Any time a false claim is made or a problem created where none exists, it dilutes the importance of other, more valid claims and takes attention and possibly resources away from where they are most needed.... more at the link

by ncvoter (19 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 112 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 20, 2007 at 10:45:23 PM

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Or at least, the statement that it is not correct is in controversy. From what I'm reading, the rebuttals to the article use unofficial data, and the article on Scoop is based on the official data, thus creating (at the very least) confusion as to the validity of the rebuttal. One can (and in my opinion, should) certainly support HR6200. It is in no way incompatible with the Request by Voters. Bev Harris Founder Black Box Voting

by (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 12:23:30 AM

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Bob Ney, the author of HAVA, has just been sentenced to prison. HAVA, like much other legislation pushed through Congress in the past six years, is not a law, it is a crime against law, against the Constitution, and against voters. It must be repealed, not amended. I agree with Sam. HAVA did not help America vote, nor did it help the disabled community vote. What it did was privatize our elections process and put it into the hands of the elections industry rather than in the hands of the voters. In amending the Holt bill, which would amend HAVA, Congress will have to take into account the interests of the multi-billion dollar elections industry, and the results are not likely to favor voters. There is an alternative to Holt, Dennis Kucinich's HR6200. A petition to get ALL machines out of our elections in support of Kucinich, was signed by Nancy Tobi, Paul Lehto, Joan Brunwasser, Michael Richardson, Kathleen Wynne, Sheila Parks, and many other noted election reform activists, all of whom will readily admit that the Request by Voters is not really what they want, but that given the political realities, it may be the best they can hope for. This petition was just sent to Kucinich's office with 527 signatures, all of whom are individuals who read and agreed with the short petition, rather than organizations whose members may not even be aware of what they've endorsed. There is often a limit to what we can get, but as far as I know there is no limit to what we can hope for. Even if fully implemented, the Request by Voters would not assure us of an honest Presidential election in 2008, while the Kucinich bill would. I'm putting links to the full text of both at the bottom of this comment and you can read them and see for yourself. Even if the Request was fully implemented, the studies it calls for could easily take two years. Forming a committee to study a problem is the oldest political trick in the book to avoid actually doing something about a problem. I'll also include a link to the petition to get ALL machines out of our elections, which is still ongoing and, as I've noted above, has the signatures of many of the same people who signed the Request By Voters. Amending HAVA is similar to continuing torture and the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, by "other means," rather than stopping them. Legislation that was written by criminals and was criminal in intent and effect, must be repealed, not amended. Read the links below carefully and decide for yourself which would give us an honest Presidential election in 2008. If you're concerned about avoiding another 4 years of an unelected President, selected by the voting machines and the courts rather than by the people, you are going to have to take a stand and say so. I find it amusing that those supporting the Request by Voters are calling themselves Patriots. That is always the "last refuge of scoundrels." The Holt Bill, at its best, would merely amend rather than repeal HAVA, and it would not guarantee us an honest election in 2008. We have a right to demand better. --Mark Full Text of Request by Voters Full Text of HR6200 Petition to Remove ALL Machines From Our Elections

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 12:59:24 AM

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In fact, they address entirely different issues. What is your realistic plan for abolishing HAVA, and how does HR 6200 abolish HAVA? It doesn't, of course. Just like the Request by Voters doesn't address the mechanics of voting, which HR 6200 does. Mixing up the issues isn't lending any clarity to this discussion. And the name-calling and inflammatory statements (ie. "We the Scoundrels" and innuendos that industry has somehow "gotten to" me) are beneath your normal skillful level of discourse. I like you better when you are making a case for your position in the issue rather than when you are pounding on the table with your shoe. We aren't the enemy. Bev Harris

by (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 9 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 2:10:01 AM

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Bev: "HR 6200 and the Request by Voters are not mutually exclusive." That is true and is why many people support both. Bev: "In fact, they address entirely different issues." Well, not exactly. They both address the issue of honest elections, but go about it differently. Bev: "What is your realistic plan for abolishing HAVA, and how does HR 6200 abolish HAVA? It doesn't, of course." It doesn't formally abolish HAVA. It just makes HAVA impossible and irrelevant. By requiring hand-counted paper ballots at the precincts for Presidential elections, it removes any possibility of election industry machines counting the votes. And unless elections officials want to hold two separate elections, one for the federal candidates, and one for state and local candidates and issues, which would entail extra costs they'd have to justify to the taxpayers footing the bill, it would get rid of HAVA in all elections. Bev: "Just like the Request by Voters doesn't address the mechanics of voting, which HR 6200 does." Correct. The Request by Voters doesn't address the mechanics of voting, and therefore would allow black box voting machines to remain in place for the '08 election. I am opposed to allowing black box voting machines in our elections, and I'm opposed to allowing an "elections industry" to take part in our elections. Elections are a public and Constitutional right of the people, and may not be privatized or given over to an industry the way that health care, energy, and many other public functions have been -- all to benefit of the few and the detriment of the many. Bev: "Mixing up the issues isn't lending any clarity to this discussion. And the name-calling and inflammatory statements (ie. "We the Scoundrels" and innuendos that industry has somehow "gotten to" me) are beneath your normal skillful level of discourse." When a group calls itself "We the Patriots," the clear and unmistakable innuendo is there that anyone who doesn't support their cause is not a patriot. I responded to that innuendo in a classic and time-honored way. Bev: "I like you better when you are making a case for your position in the issue rather than when you are pounding on the table with your shoe." And I like you better when you are fiercely opposing black box voting machines, as you have always done, than when you are supporting something that you yourself admit does not address the issue of black box voting machines. Bev: "We aren't the enemy." Absolutely. I don't just admire and respect you Bev, I love you from the bottom of my heart for what you have done and are continuing to do for our country, and for the democratic way in which you do it. You are the one who singlehandedly taught me that black box voting machines have no place in our elections. You are the one who singlehandedly taught me that we the citizens can and must take back our elections ourselves, because nobody is going to do it for us, and you are the one who singlehandedly taught us how to go about it. You are the one who, through your tireless research and your website, blackboxvoting.org lifted me out of my despair after the 2000 election (which was decided by the Supreme Court rather than by the voters) and made me an elections activist. If you believe that RBV and HR6200 are not mutually exclusive, and you support both, I hope that you will make your support of HR6200 as public as you have made your support of RBV, and that you will convey your support to the sponsor of HR6200, Dennis Kucinich, as I have every reason to believe, from his crafting of HR6200, that he may have as much respect for you as I do. Where else would he have gotten the idea? --Mark

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 5:35:16 AM

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If, as so many intelligent folks surmise, we have seen stolen elections via the use of Diebold machines (and other such vendors), or even if we think there is the slightest possibility of such one pertinent question seems to arise. If an election is stolen then,perforce, there is a thief and a victim. If there exists even the possibility of such theft then there is the potential thief and the possible victim. By any reasonable standard, should one believe even in the remote possibility of dishonest election processes, the Democrats would be the obvious victims of them. With the builders of these machines solidly behind the GOP, and using their checkbooks liberally in this support, no other outcome would seem plausible. So one must wonder why there is not a tide of moral indignation among all seated Democrats who must, after all, stand for re-election sooner rather than later? It seems to me most illogical to continue to trust ones fate to machines built by those who fervently favor Republicans in office and whose products have repeatedly produced results most contradictory with respect to exit polling, which, up to now, has always been pretty darm accurate. If the two party system is really that, and not a duopoly in which power may be shared in turn but the course of the nation remains the same and the same folks are always in charge, then why would Democrats not wholeheartedly support a return to a simple and accurate use of paper ballots? Just asking......

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 8:46:05 AM

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Joan-- This is a superb piece. Although I've been writing papers (Landslide Denied, and one more coming about selective rigging of competitive races--there are fingerprints and footprints all over this election) and lots of quickie cover letters and responses, I just haven't been able to muster up this type of tell-the-story-and-inspire piece that, even though it has its detractors and nitpickers, serves such an important purpose in organizing thought, energy, and strategy within the movement and reaching out to those beyond, bringing them up to speed. Thanks for digging in and taking the time to do it and to do it well. All the best-- Jonathan Simon, co-founder of the Election Defense Alliance

by Joan Brunwasser (206 articles, 3757 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 751 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 11:14:21 AM

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"....the Request by Voters doesn't address the mechanics of voting....." that is not nitpicking. Nor is it nitpicking when I agree with Bev and I then go on to say that in my opinion the RBV is therefore inadequate. Are you attempting to write about the "selective rigging of competitive races" without mentioning the mechanics of voting? If so, I'd be interested in knowing how you would propose to solve the problem without addressing the issue at the heart of the problem. --Mark

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 12:17:24 PM

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I find myself agreeing with one simple premise: Voting must be returned to hand counted paper ballots, period. A tough place to get to for someone in the IT industry to be sure, but that is where we are. I really dont think many people understand all the issues involved or potential for tampering when machines are involved. Joan and Bev, perhaps one of your groups could convince one of the Secretaries of state that you have the best rapport with to contract one of the better IT Security Consulting firms to perform a top to bottom audit of state and local election processes to really understand what & where all the holes are. Having been in IT Security, I can already say that there are scores of possible ways to affect the votes and there is no financially practical way to address them all.

by Steven Leser (255 articles, 58 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 2147 comments [63 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 4:02:12 PM

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It really annoys me when people suggest things like 100% audits by independent experts without a thought to how much such audits would cost and who is going to pay for all those experts. Not to mention that by the time all the independent experts completed their audits, the candidates would have been sworn in and it would be too late for the audits to be of any use. When you eliminate the machines, you eliminate the need for expensive experts to audit them. You are not alone in your assessment, and the word of people in the industry carries a lot of weight with those who prefer to rely on experts. It might be useful whenever a locality proposes machine audits, to get a cost estimate, and then bring a project before the same local officials with approximately the same projected cost, but for something like fixing potholes, building a homeless shelter, or repairing local schools. Then, when they explain why the money is not available, you just give their arguments back to them on the audit issue. :) --Mark

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 at 4:36:34 PM

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