Political pundits in the corporate media and citizen journalists in the Blogosphere alike are all asking the same question: What happened in New Hampshire?
It's pretty easy to see what happened in New Hampshire: We had an election for which 81% of our ballots were counted in secret by a private corporation, and this resulted in an outcome that is called into question.
That's what happened.
No recount is going to change this. What will change this is to get rid of corporate controlled secret vote counting in our elections.
New Hampshire holds exemplary elections in 45% of our polling places; elections where our paper ballots are counted by hand by our neighbors in full public view with 100% citizen oversight and checks and balances. These hand count elections, of which New Hampshire is the “hands down” expert, provide the only method known today that can guarantee open and honest elections. These are elections where every ballot, every vote, every mark made by the voter, is observed and tallied in full public view with multiple sets of eyes watching and checking and balancing each count.
New Hampshire already knows how to fix this problem. For the past four years, New Hampshire citizens have been asking the State to fix this problem, but the State has thus far refused. We don't need a recount now. What we need now is for the State to reconsider and implement procedural and legislative solutions to guarantee open and honest elections.
A recount won’t provide any significant benefit to the cause of free and fair and open elections. Bringing back full citizen oversight and checks and balances to all New Hampshire elections is the only way to avoid having any more questionable election outcomes in the Granite State.
Beginning with our state Founders, civil rights activists have been fighting for open elections as the mechanism to protect our freedom and democracy. The New Hampshire Constitution mandates we sort and count our votes in open meeting. The New Hampshire Right to Know law, citing our Constitution, declares that the government derives its power from the people and therefore all government processes and information must be fully accessible to the people.
The United States Bill of Rights similarly asserts that the government derives its power from the people, who have the right to "alter or abolish" said government if it fails to act in our favor. Our right to "alter or abolish" peacefully comes through open and honest elections.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates observable vote counting.
But despite this long history of grassroots activism in support of free and open elections, New Hampshire has turned the majority of our elections into privatized affairs with no citizen oversight whatsoever.
Now activists around the nation are calling for a recount. In New Hampshire the manual recount has always been held as justification for holding elections in which more than 80% of our ballots are counted in secret by private corporations.
Does this logic hold up? Will a recount rectify the problem before us?
I say no. The problem before us is that we have outsourced the most precious thing in our democracy: the counting of our votes. And in New Hampshire, we have outsourced more than 80% of our votes to a private corporation counting those votes in secret, and, as it turns out, that private corporation has a convicted drug trafficker on its executive team to boot. A recount does not solve this problem.
Proponents and apologists of the privatized and computerized corporate elections often justify computerized elections saying how “easy” it is to corrupt a hand count election. They say, “But you can always swap out the ballots to get the count you want!”
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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...)
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we will have to take some risks in this fight
The problem is that we are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. by Bob F (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 11, 2008 at 11:25:10 AM  (0+)
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Reply: I only patially agree
There is no burden of proof required to change election laws as there would be in a trial. The only requirement is that the legislation mandating the change be passed by the appropriate legislative body. If there is a reasonable suspicion of election fraud, that is sufficient cause to change the process to ensure transparency and voter confidence in the system. It was federal legislation that foisted these damned machines on us to begin with, and the congress doesn't even have jurisdiction in these matters. These processes are to be left to the states; and the states are no doubt where efforts regarding positive change should be directed. by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 8:10:06 AM (0+)
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Great Points
the largest issue here is having an electoral process Citizens can have confidence accurately reflects the voter's will. I called for a recount on my diary, mistakenly assuming 100% of the ballots could be hand counted, and that chain of custody for the actual election ballots can be documented. As Nancy Tobi and Bev Harris have pointed out, it can't be, so any recount is meaningless. The People and the Republic don't benefit from having an electoral process that isn't transparent and with the reasonable safeguards against fraud that Ms. Tobi lists above are people. People who want to manipulate elections certainly benefit from secrecy in the vote counting process, hackable machines and lack of accountability. People who want to discourage voter turnout and destroy faith in the democratic process are pleased when we have primaries such as the one that just happened in NH. Every Citizen who wants to vote on a Paper Ballot and observe and record the counting process should have the right to do so. No Citizen should be expected to put up with less than clean elections, when they're not hard to run- they're just hard to set up with corrupt and compromised "representatives" blocking them from happening. by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1110 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 11, 2008 at 1:58:21 PM (0+)
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The Recounts are Happening
Let's help the people doing them and use them as a publicity platform to call for the needed structural changes, whether they show discrepencies or not! by Tyrant (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Friday, Jan 11, 2008 at 4:23:43 PM (0+)
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Reply: doubtful
A recount of possibly, and probably, spoiled Ballots is pointless. Diebold machines were used to start with, LHS controlled the custody and programming, NH officials worked to prevent public oversight and safeguards instead of working to prevent fraud and give the appearance that everything's above-board. The whole process stinks, and an investigation first might uncover solid evidence of wrong-doing, on top of all the circumstantial evidence of possible fraud. A rigged recount will quite probably turn out to match rigged machine counts; that isn't going to do anything other than give an excuse to people who want to ensure the continued widespread use of proven unreliable and easily hackable evoting machines. Nader got played in 04, unless he was playing along. If Kucinich lets the same thing happen to him, he's not fit to be President, no matter how much I like his stands on other issues. Better to do a full investigation first. VelvetRevolution.us is offering $100,000 reward for someone to come forward with evidence of fraud. ElectionDefenseAlliance.org and others are examining what happened. BradBlog.com, OpEdNews.com and other indy media are covering what's happening. by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1110 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 11, 2008 at 10:22:13 PM (0+)
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I am VERY upset
Please note, Ms. Tobi, that this is not as personal attack on you or others of like mind to you. As a New Hampshire citizen (much like yourself), I am greatly disturbed by what has transpired recently here in New Hampshire. And I'm not talking about the alleged election fraud. I'm talking about the ability of a minor yet vocal group of citizens who are pushing their own, personal political agenda upon the majority of the state's citizens with backing from people's and groups outside the state. by Tom Murphy (3 articles, 5 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 2100 comments [55 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Jan 11, 2008 at 11:44:12 PM (0+)
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Reply: this is why we like having Trollm around
Tom, I was hoping you'd be able to offer reasons for having confidence in the NH primary and the evoting machine controlled electoral process, but you haven't yet. Can you give us evidence that the many documented problems with these Diebold machines have been corrected? You haven't here and the larger issue, as Ms. Tobi correctly points out, is the integrity of the electoral process itself, not just this Primary. Can you give us some evidence that there's an uncorruptable chain of custody for the cast ballots? You haven't here, and that's why Ms. Tobi and Ms. Harris say the recount is meaningless. Without a documented chain of custody, the ballots are spoiled; how can you place faith in the recount? Do you support the Right of all Citizens to cast their Ballot on paper if they wish, and for the People to maintain oversight of the electoral process? At a minimum, this means Paper Ballots counted on open source code op scan machines, which none of the private companies want to comply with- or hand counting of Paper Ballots and reporting of results in the local precincts, which takes just several hours. This process is the easiest and cheapest way to ensure clean elections, and clean elections are in the interest of all Citizens. People who want to cheat benefit from having an unaccountable, secret, unreliable and fraud-prone vote counting process, but there's no reason the Citizenry should be expected to put up with it. So what if the Feds already wasted $4 Billion dollars on these garbage machines- they've blown $2 Trillion on the Iraq War, and just before 9/11 the Pentagon admitted they couldn't track $1.2 Trillion. "We the People". Government derives its just authority from the will of the People. The People choose who will represent us in government with elections, which are supposed to be fair and honest, and should have the appearance of being so. This appearance is not possible in any election conducted on unreliable, easily hackable vote casting or counting machines. Paper Ballots and Hand-Counting is the way to go. by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1110 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 1:59:11 AM (0+)
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Reply: Four Points
"Can you give us evidence that the many documented problems with these Diebold machines have been corrected?" by Tom Murphy (3 articles, 5 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 2100 comments [55 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 5:03:05 AM (0+)
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Reply: Thanks, Tom
Tom, that would be very helpful if you posted links detailing the chain of custody procedures, that Ms. Tobi and Harris have questioned. The 2nd comment link is 404, in the first one your case for placing faith in secret software controlled by corporate criminals is really uninspiring- I encourage everyone to take a look. Tom, considering the amount of articles being published at OpEdNews that question the rationale behind supporting widespread use of evoting machines, you would do us all a service to post a diary that sums up the best of the pro-emachines school of thought, and has all the links that convinced you they're the best solution to the problem of having elections that have the appearance of being clean and accurate. And thanks for noting some of the issues with election integrity and paper ballots. As you know, Electoral Fraud has a long history, and people interested in cheating can get very creative. Paper Ballots and hand counting is still a more transparent and secure process- the code has to be open on the op scan machines if they're to be trusted at all, and there has to be chain of custody procedures that can inspire confidence. San Diego sending their machines home with poll workers is a total disgrace, for instance. A "paper trail" is irrelevant due to the secret software, significant percentages of trails get spoiled, and counting them is much more tedious than counting ballots. The burden of proof is not on citizens to show there was fraud, it's on the government controlling the elections to show that all necessary steps are taken to safeguard the election from fraud. Elections CAN be kept reasonably secure, and when things are not done the right way, opening the process to tampering, or where there is the appearance of conflict, people are justified in demanding accountability. PS what's up with "Senator" Kucinich? Did you really not know he's a Congressman? by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1110 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 4:45:50 AM (0+)
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Reply: Tom, save your evidence.
As I pointed out in a reply to an earlier comment in this thread, there is no burden of proof required for election law reform. If a petition to the New Hampshire state legislature were to show a significant minority of citizens lacking confidence in the electoral process, that would be reason enough for change, although I realize there are powerful entrenched interests in the legislature who would resist such an effort. It is in the hands of the good people of New Hampshire to put their ship right. The cesspool of New Hampshire's electoral procedures have, to date, produced plenty of suspicion and more than one conviction. That is where the burden of proof comes in, Tom. by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 8:24:00 AM (0+)
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Reply: And, please note, I'm the one be called a troll
I respectfully disagree with you interpretation of this "case" and assessment of the situation. You are bringing forth the allegations; you must demonstrate that the what you theorize ACTUALLY HAPPENED in Hew Hampshire. Just because I have my friend Vinnie demonstrate to you how easy it is to hot wire a car doesn't mean he actually stole your car. You have to give evidence that reveals it actually was Vinnie who stole your car. If you can't, ithen it's what we call a "baseless accusation". Is this really that difficult for you to understand and accept? And what exactly IS a "significant minority" anyway? Citizen groups have petitioned the New Hampshire legislature several times previously and each one has met with failure. I believe the will of the majority (after all New Hampshire has the largest elected legislature in America) has spoken on this matter. by Tom Murphy (3 articles, 5 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 2100 comments [55 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 11:31:14 AM (0+)
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Reply: Tom,
If you truly believe that the burden of proof should be set high before a prosecution, you should be corresponding with George W. Bush on the subject. He and his self-selected veep have spent the past seven years exempting themselves from constitutional law to the end of not having to prove anything before they throw someone in jail. If suspicion is grounds enough for them, why should my bar be set higher? by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 5:53:52 PM (0+)
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Reply: Oh, yeah...
And the end result of hacking a pencil is a sharper tip. by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1791 comments [148 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 6:01:09 PM (0+)
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Reply: Why do I even bother to argue with a troll?
Let's move on with regard to the Bush presidency. He's not running in this election and to involve him or Vice President Cheney is only an obfuscation of the real issue here. Why you choose to even reference President Bush within the context of this discussion is reflective of your agenda. And with respect to your agenda, I could not possibly write anything or submit any evidence refuting or diminshing your claims to the point where you'd be moved, let alone satisified. And why? You always have your Evil Emperor Bush to invoke. You do realize that the logic you've displayed by going down this tangent with election fraud is silly? As to your child-like statement on hacking a "pencil" (as it relates to the paper ballot) is a sharper tip, "Every form of paper ballot that has ever been devised can and has been manipulated, in general with considerable ease. "The simplest form of paper ballot manipulation is ballot-box stuffing, that is, inserting extra ballots, usually genuine ones that have been pre-marked, into the container meant to hold only those voted by registered voters. In any jurisdiction in which the voter can touch a physical ballot and personally insert it into a ballot box, she can conceal extra ballots on her person and insert them at the same time. "One of the oldest and easiest forms of tampering is to invalidate [a] ballot while touching it. When I was in middle school during the 1950s, our American history teacher explained that poll workers would break off a piece of pencil lead and insert it under their thumbnail. When they found a ballot voted for a candidate they didn’t like, they would make a second mark for some other candidate in the same office, thus creating an overvote that had the effect of erasing the undesirable choice. Once this has been done, there is no effective way to reconstruct the original ballot. "In general, the rampant problems with paper ballots are neither acknowledged nor addressed by opponents of electronic voting, who seem oblivious to the fact that their opposition to new technology, if successful, will compel us to retain something that is much worse," - http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/paper.htm . I like to think, Mr. Sanchez, that you are not as naïve as you appeared in that last comment. Perhaps, you should quit while you're "ahead" in your mind. by Tom Murphy (3 articles, 5 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 2100 comments [55 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Jan 12, 2008 at 9:55:29 PM (0+)
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Oh My!
Emotions can run rather hot when confronted with allegations of vote fraud, can't they? I agree with many of the points made by Nancy Tobi and some of her critics. Paper ballots are not tamper proof. However, computerized systems make potential vote fruad that much more systematic and widespread. Unauditable touch-screen systems that leave no paper trail are the dream of election riggers. Even optical-scan systems can be infected with viruses on memory cards that spread from computer to computer and can affect the results. Clearly there is no perfect system. But I would argue that hand-counted paper ballots provide the least likely avenue for organized vote fraud. Many states do not want the added expense of hand counting all ballots, and that is understandable yet unacceptable since the vote is supposed to be inviolable. So the question is how do we get from point A to point B, automated machines to hand counting. The only way to do that is to invalidate the machine results. The only way to do that is by way of a recount. I'm aware of the arguments of "chain of custody" and all that, but sooner or later you've got to take a chance at nailing the purveyors of vote fraud at their own game. The only way to do that is in a state like N.H. with liberal recount laws and paper ballots. It seems to me N.H. makes a good test case, if albeit an imperfect one. There's little point in fretting about the potential vote riggers having a "Plan B" that would involve paper ballot manipulation. Maybe they do and maybe they don't, but there's only one way to find out. Let the 2008 New Hampshire Primary be a test case. I say let the recount go forward. And if the recount matches the official count, there is no reason to scream "Yeah, but!" since there would be no solid proof of corruption, only loose speculation. And this is coming from a person who believes there was massive vote fraud in swing states in 2004. Proving such beyond a reasonable doubt both then and now is not easy. And if you're waiting for the perfect test case, you'll be waiting forever. by Sam Adams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments) on Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 12:38:14 AM (0+)
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