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Tag(s): Corporations E-Voting; Corporations Voting Machine; Election-Voting Issues; Election-Voting Issues News; Electronic Voting; Optical Scan Voting Machines; Voting; Voting Integrity; Voting Laws State; Voting Machines; (more...) Voting Technology (less...)
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January 19, 2008 at 19:38:39

Headlined on 1/19/08:
Democracy that Works: Citizen Oversight, Checks and Balances, Hand Counts

by Nancy Tobi Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Originally posted at DemocracyForNewHampshire.com

The New Hampshire recount is revealing many significant flaws in ballot security in the Granite State. We wouldn't even be here if not for the state's shameful disposition of vote counting to a private corporation using secret vote counting software for 81% of New Hampshire votes.

This is a dark and shameful and wholly unnecessary period in New Hampshire history. New Hampshire has a long and proud tradition of grassroots democracy. We have laws supporting grassroots democracy. But our state officials and legislators have forgotten that we need to protect this heritage.

But anyone who says New Hampshire doesn't know how to conduct clean elections ought to watch this video of Wilton, NH conducting their hand count election in November 2004. Using teams of four people, Wilton makes sure that every ballot and every vote counted on the tally sheet is observed by at least two sets of independent eyes.

That's citizen oversight. That's checks and balances. That's democracy that works.

View the video here.

Nancy Tobi is cofounder, former Chair, website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH), and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee. Nancy is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The Gifts of HAVA: Time to Ask for a Refund," "What's Wrong with the Holt Bill," "We're Counting the Votes: An Election Preparedness Kit," and "Hands-on Elections: An Information Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People". Her article about election reform fallacies is included in the April 2008 book "Losers Take All" edited by Mark Crispin Miller.

Nancy believes in the principles embodied in our Constitution, and that groups like Election Defense Alliance and DFNH can play a unique role by empowering ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

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1 comments

I'm an old hippie chick who was part of the Woodstock Generation and the New Left back in the 1960s and '70s. I was enamored with Stephen Gaskin, who led his group to settle on The Farm in Tennessee. For the last few years, though, I've joined a small group of others who are trying to spread the word about the work of the messenger who goes by the pen name of Joseph J. Adamson. I believe that his work, even though it has been rejected by his generation so far, will eventually be spread and help ...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Sarah MorganI'm an old hippie chick who was part of the Woodstock Generation and the New Left back in the 1960s and '70s. I was enamored with Stephen Gaskin, who led his group to settle on The Farm in Tennessee. For the last few years, though, I've joined a small group of others who are trying to spread the word about the work of the messenger who goes by the pen name of Joseph J. Adamson. I believe that his work, even though it has been rejected by his generation so far, will eventually be spread and help ...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Keep up the good work

We definitely need to keep an eye on these sorts of things to reform and improve our elections systems. I'm so glad you posted that article.

Thank you.

By the way, you just may be interested in a revolutionary idea that has been suggested by my favorite author. I'll post the address of the page on his web site which states why we should reform our government, and how, and the next page that more fully explains how.

http://reformationcomingsoon.bravehost.com/newdeclaration.html

http://reformationcomingsoon.bravehost.com/InheritTheEarth.html

by Sarah Morgan (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 176 comments) on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 4:00:07 PM