Navigation
Topics
Log In
Log Out
:
Special Search
New Today
New This Week
Advanced Search
Tree View
Your Account
Edit Profile
Register
Forgot Password
Tools
Help/Instructions
Policies
CLICK STATE TO SEE:
"WATCH LIST"
Marked with: 
"OPEN & HONEST"
Marked with: 
...
|
| 1-24-07: Two Ohio election workers fo... |
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Site_admin
Post Number: 486
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 6:29 pm: | 
|
It was the videotaped evidence by Kathleen Wynne that allowed this case to come to trial, and it was the videotape that convicted two Cuyahoga County elections workers.
CONVICTED ELECTION WORKERS CHOSE NOT TO IMPLICATE HIGHER-UPS
According to sources interviewed by Black Box Voting, the women were offered plea bargains but declined, and their supervisors were never publicly required to account for the illegal manipulation of Cuyahoga County ballots during the 2004 recount of the presidential election.
Three Cuyahoga County elections workers were indicted; two (Kathleen Dreamer and Jacqui Maiden) were convicted today. The third, Rosie Grier, was acquitted. Neither Cuyahoga Elections Director Michael Vu nor Cuyahoga County Board of Elections chair Bob Bennett have publicly answered questions on this matter.
WHO WAS SUPERVISING AND WHO TRAINED THEM?
At the very least, questions should be asked about the training and management of the employees who rigged the recount. And more questions need to be answered about who ordered it.
Commentary on some left-leaning Web sites attempts to pin the blame for the loss of the 2004 presidential election on Dreamer and Maiden. In fact, no evidence has been presented alleging that they rigged the election -- what they did was to follow procedures to stack the deck on the recount. They say these recount-selection procedures have been in place for 20 years, and their conviction confirms that this violates the law.
HACK AND STACK
The illegal techniques used in the Cuyahoga County recount do enable jurisdictions to rig elections, through a tactic called "hack and stack." Citizen election watchdogs in Arizona report catching election workers stacking the deck this way.
Hack and stack works like this: Some recounts and audits rely on so-called "random" manual counts of a small percentage of the ballots, which are then compared against the voting computer counts for those precincts. The safeguard can be defeated by manipulating the precinct selection process, or by manipulating the ballots in the selected precincts to make sure they match before counting them. This "stacks" the recount or audit so that only subsets of data that match machine counts are examined.
In Cuyahoga County, citizens noticed that the ballots arrived for the public recount already sorted into sets for Bush and sets for Kerry. Kathleen Wynne videotaped the sorted piles and videotaped as she asked Kathleen Dreamer and Jacqui Maiden to explain the sorting and pre-selected piles. She captured them on videotape admitting that they had not chosen randomly.
Stacking the deck by manipulating the selection of so-called "random" recount or audit precincts will allow hacking the election in the other precincts to succeed.
When alert citizens in Arizona caught election workers in a similar kind of clandestine "stack" activity in a recent election, the prosecutor did not file charges. One possible reason: Without videotape, it's very difficult to make charges stick.
DO THE AUDIT PROTOCOLS IN THE HOLT BILL CATCH HACK & STACK?
Probably not. Legislation soon to be introduced by Rush Holt reportedly will not use tiered audits.
A four-tiered audit method developed by Kathy Dopp, and the tiered audit concepts being discussed by the Brennan Center, may catch Hack & Stack -- but the kind of audit that will reportedly show up in the new Holt Bill will not make sure the right candidate gets into office.
In fact, audits that focus on "instilling confidence" rather than making sure the right candidate is put in office seem to be the preference of most upcoming legislation.
RIG AROUND THE AUDIT
None of the pending legislation -- by Rush Holt, by Juanita Millender-MacDonald, or the Hillary Clinton bill -- appear to be planning to address an even more fundamental issue: The need to commit the data BEFORE doing the audit. Nor do any of them focus the concept of auditing on preventing the wrong candidate from getting into office. They appear to be substituting a marketing concept -- "voter confidence" -- for meaningful election integrity, which means making sure the right candidate is seated. To do that, the audit must be designed to thwart fraud, and must be timed so that it occurs BEFORE candidates are seated but AFTER 100 percent of the data has been committed in public.
There is absolutely no point in doing any kind of "random manual count" before publicly committing to the precinct detail results, including the mail-ins, provisionals, and early votes. The data must be complete and must be publicly committed -- locked down, frozen, if you will -- before selecting any precinct to count. Any audit that takes place before committing the entire detailed results is just theatre. Meaningless, because the uncommitted data provides a "fudge factor" to rig around the audit.
BACK TO CUYAHOGA: A DEFENSE ATTORNEY WAS CHAIRMAN OF THE CUYAHOGA BOARD OF ELECTIONS
In a peculiar twist, defense lawyer Roger Synenberg, who represented convicted elections worker Kathleen Dreamer, was formerly the Chairman of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. If illegal recount procedures have been being used in Cuyahoga County for 20 years, that would make the illegal procedures part of Synenberg's oversight, because he was Chairman of the Board of Elections in 1995. If he had counseled his clients to accept a plea bargain, one wonders what would have come out in the wash as prosecutors delved into what the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections knows about hand-picking the recount precincts.
FILM CAPTURED BY WYNNE FEATURED IN HBO "HACKING DEMOCRACY"
Footage filmed by Kathleen Wynne showing the convicted Cuyahoga elections workers appeared in the HBO documentary film "Hacking Democracy", which will be distributed on DVD by its filmmakers and their distribution company beginning in March.
MORE...
Below you will find links news articles about this, a first-hand account by Kathleen Wynne, and more information on the Arizona findings and the four-tiered audit safeguard.
PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR EXCERPT GRANTED, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org |
Kathleen Wynne
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wynnek
Post Number: 63
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 1:51 pm: |
|
By Kathleen Wynne
A few minutes ago, the jury rendered its verdict of the three election officials charged with potential election fraud in the 2004 Recount in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Jacqui Maiden and Kathleen Dreamer were convicted of one the most serious felony counts of negligent misconduct and one misdemeanor of failing to perform duties.
The professional misconduct charge carries a possible 6 to 18-month prison term and an automatic termination from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
The third defendant, Rosie Grier, was found not guilty of all charges.
Both women were released on bail. Sentencing for Maiden and Dreamer is scheduled for February 26th.
This is a bitter sweet victory for election integrity advocates throughout the country.
Sweet because it proved, without a doubt, that with the proper access, oversight, participation and the right for citizens to videotape every phase of the election process, the integrity of our elections can be protected and maintained, without the need for expert intervention and oversight.
Bitter because the outcome of this case also calls into question whether the training procedures for these election employees were properly carried out by Election Director, Michael Vu. If it is found that Vu failed in his duty as Election Director to properly train Maiden and Dreamer in following these recount procedures in accordance with Ohio election code, this makes him at least partially responsible for these election employees failing to appropriately following the law.
Neither Vu nor Deputy Director, Gwen Dillingham deserve a free pass in this case, because it still remains to be seen whether they were remiss in their respective duties to make certain all election employees under their charge received the proper training necessary in making certain that all election laws would be properly followed by their subordinates. After all, that's their job.
(Message edited by wynnek on January 24, 2007) |
Pat Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 447
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 2:27 pm: |
|
More on this story here,
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16536269.htm
Posted on Wed, Jan. 24, 2007
2 election workers convicted of rigging '04 presidential recount
M.R. KROPKO - Associated Press
CLEVELAND - Two election workers in the state's most populous county were convicted Wednesday of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more thorough review of the votes.
A third employee who had been charged was acquitted on all counts.
Jacqueline Maiden, the elections' coordinator who was the board's third-highest ranking employee when she was indicted last March, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee.
Maiden and Dreamer also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty. Both were acquitted of five other charges.
Rosie Grier, assistant manager of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board's ballot department, was acquitted of all seven counts of various election misconduct or interference charges.
The felony conviction carries a possible sentence of six to 18 months.
There was a gasp in the courtroom gallery, which included some relatives and friends of the defendants, when a "not guilty" verdict was announced on the first charge. The courtroom went silent when a "guilty" verdict was returned.
The defendants sat near each other silently as the 21 verdicts were read.
Ohio gave Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.
Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter, who was brought in from Erie County to handle the case, did not claim the workers' actions affected the outcome of the election - Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county's recount.
But Baxter insisted the employees broke the law when they worked behind closed doors three days before the public Dec. 16, 2004, recount to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand so they could avoid a lengthier, more expensive hand recount of all votes.
Ohio law states that during a recount each county is supposed to randomly count at least 3 percent of its ballots by hand and by machine. If there are not discrepancies in those counts, the rest of the votes can be recounted by machine. A full hand-count is ordered if two random samples result in differences.
Grier, the worker who was acquitted, was the only defendant who commented following the verdicts.
"It has all been very stressful," said Grier, 54. "Yes, I'm very relieved. But, none of us should have been in this courtroom today. These charges should not have been brought against any of us."
Defense lawyer Roger Synenberg said in his closing argument that the 2004 presidential election was the most publicly observed ever in Cuyahoga County and the workers were simply following procedures as they understood them.
Baxter said he intends to speak with Maiden and Streamer before their scheduled sentencing on Feb. 26 to see if they wish to make any statements that might influence the sentence.
"We'd like to listen to them if they had anything to say, if anyone else was involved with this. We still haven't been able to determine that," he said.
Maiden's attorney, Robert Rotatori, said he expects appeals will be filed for his client and Streamer.
The case comes as elections have fallen under greater scrutiny since the 2000 presidential election. That's when recounts of paper ballots in Florida dragged on for weeks and the U.S. Supreme Court became involved. Cuyahoga also has been under the microscope following numerous problems with elections in bellwether Ohio.
Cuyahoga County is a Democratic stronghold where about 600,000 ballots were cast in 2004.
Statewide, Bush won by about 118,000 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik sought the recount and complained about its procedure.
<end>
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16536269.htm
ON THE NET
Cuyahoga County elections board: http://www.boe.cuyahogacounty.us/
Thanks Kathleen!
Pat A. Vesely ;-)
FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Paper ballots are the 'Currency of Democracy'. They've been helping to curb election fraud since 139 BCE!
|
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 147
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 7:49 am: |
|
FROM KATHY DOPP
URGENT NEWS: I heard today from a reliable source that Holt is NOT seriously considering any tiered election audit plan (nor, I presume, is Holt considering any requirement for minimum audit amounts) in his new election integrity legislation.
If we want to ensure the integrity of our great American democracy that so many people have fought and died for, and ensure the future well-being of humanity, then we must all contact US House representatives NOW to demand a tiered election audit and minimum audit amounts for any range of margins between candidates.
four-tiered audit protocol
A requirement for a minimum AMOUNT of vote counts to be manually audited for particular margins between candidates, would result in 100% hand counts of 100% of vote counts whenever that is necessary to ensure election outcome integrity, AND a minimum audit amount would prevent election officials from subverting audits by aggregating ballots into a smaller number of larger-size vote counts which to cause any percentage-based audits to be ineffective; and allow open season for outcome-altering vote fraud to continue.
Please show this newly revised version of "Tiered Election Audit" to our US legislators:
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/FourTierAudit/TieredElect ionAudits.pdf
PLEASE take action and also ask your friends to take action.
Demand NOW (today) that the US House requires tiered election audits and a minimum audit amount for all federal elections, in order to secure the integrity of US elections and ensure the future well-being of all peoples on our planet.
http://www.house.gov/
Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org
National Election Data Archive
Dedicated to Accurately Counting Elections
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816 |
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 149
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 6:44 pm: |
|
Reprint of e-mail from Arizona's David Griscom:
Without audits, hack and stack WILL SUCCEED EVERY TIME, unless one catches the stackers (as John [Brakey] and I did) or indicts the election officials that deliberately pick stacked precincts for "random" auditing (as Kathleen has taken part in).
But catching crooked election officials piecemeal in all 48 states is VERY improbable, particularly given that even when we caught them in Tucson, the Pima County Attorney declined to prosecute them. Not to mention that by the time the miscreants are convicted, the un-elected candidates will already have been seated.
On the other hand, because it is unlikely that the stealers can find enough colluding poll workers to stack more than 2 or 3% of the precincts, partial recounts of the sizes and scopes dictated by Kathy's mathematical analyses will pick up the hacks as much as 99% of the time.
Note that the fixed 2% audit specified in the original Holt bill will fail most of the time.
While I am 100% behind the 100% HCPB [Hand Counted Paper Ballot] movement, I believe that up to 2/3 of the 2008 vote will be counted on optical scanners no matter what we demand. But since it is likely that some form of the Holt bill will be passed before 2008, I am hoping that Kathy's system (or an alternative one devised by Bruce O'Dell and Jonathan Simon) can be incorporated in the version that ultimately passes.
Indeed, passage of a "Holt" bill mandating Kathy’s audit would utterly wipe out the hack and stack.
-- Dave |
Russell Novkov
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 164
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 9:17 pm: |
|
Supervisors should not get off Scott Free, they should be held accountable.
Russell J. Novkov
|
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 139
Registered: 07-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 10:58 pm: |
|
Analysis by election attorney Paul Lehto, with comments by Bob Fitrakis and Ken Simpkins.
quote:"... It's clear that citizen oversight of elections is the one indispensable thing in elections, yet it is virtually extinct in this country. We need to demand that citizen oversight of elections be restored, in full, immediately. Obviously, this must mean ballot counting that citizens can actually see and understand, not secret vote counting on proprietary software on trade secret corporate hard drives. Even if you think Ken Blackwell was a good guy, it's clear that no government officials of any party can be trusted to administer elections without extensive citizen oversight. ..."
Does this point sound familiar?
from BBV admin: Full article below, with permission from Paul Lehto
.
.
.
. |
Kathleen Wynne
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wynnek
Post Number: 64
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 7 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 2:05 am: |
|
If John Brakey found the same problems in Arizona, as I did in Cuyahoga County, and the Arizona prosecutor's office did not indict, this is proof positive that, citizen testimony alone will not prevail, if they don't get it on tape. Lucky thing we had a recount, because it involved ballots being hand counted out in public, which I could videotape. As long as machines count our ballots, this kind of citizen oversight is just not possible. Any other kind of citizen oversight is unacceptable and they will find a way to get around it. We can't afford to settle for less.
It is an outrage that none of the higher ups at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections have publicly answered any questions regarding the events that occurred during the 2004 recount. It is almost impossible to believe that these 3 women were following these procedures without the knowledge and consent of their superiors.
Unfortunately, according to the prosecuting attorney, Kevin Baxter, there was no evidence that could have implicated any of the higher ups. Could it be because none of the procedures were written down, therefore, it gave them plausible deniability, which was the intent all along? Baxter did say though, that there may be more indictments to come. So, there is still hope that someone at the top will be held accountable.
But let's get serious, folks. Election officials who get caught violating the law during the election process are only the symptom that there's something seriously wrong with our electoral process. The cause lies directly with our federal and state governments.
Let's not forget the even bigger fish who haven't been held accountable yet either. Both our federal and state governments also need to be been taken to task for privitizing our elections in the first place. They have used our elections like some kind of political tool as a way to put money into their corporate donor's pockets -- Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, to name a few, and possibly to maintain control over our elections (guaranteeing they stay in power in perpetuity). There's simply no place for people in a privitized election process.
Another thing, where do the Holt people get off taking the position, it's our way or the highway, when it comes to amending that horrible excuse for an election reform bill -- 550? I refuse to beg for the crumbs from the dark sided Holt crowd's table. That's not representative government, it's the advanced stages of tyranny, as far as I'm concerned, and I ain't buyin it just to save face.
Which brings me to the best gift we were given from this trial. LEVERAGE and CREDIBILITY. If we're really serious about taking back our elections, we should start beating the drum for HCPB NOW, NOT LATER! No other methodology invites the kind of citizen oversight, like I had in Cuyahoga County, more conclusively than hand counts at the precinct can. None. This trial not only proved elections official guilty of violating the law, it also proved that it is in the documenting of the evidence throughout the entire election process and/or recount as it's occurs that is the best evidence that will stand up in a court of law. It also is the best way to prevent fraud, because most crooks don't like to be filmed while committing a crime!
I hope we can convince the experts of this, but even if we don't, citizens must take off the gloves and fight for hand counts. Sadly, it seems as true today, as it was decades ago, with the advent of machines into our elections, most experts have continued to overlook one important fact -- elections belong to the average citizens, and not only to a small, elite group of experts, who, for some reason, feel they are the only one's qualified to make important, strategic decisions about our election process.
One of the main concerns I've always had about expert's consistent overriding of citizen input is that, in most cases, they are much too invested in an idea they proposed. This makes them more vulnerable to compromise in order to get that idea implemented. Even if the idea doesn't necessarily make a bill better, they'll still call it progress!
For me, this trial made me proud to be just one of the average citizens, who was able to show the academics, the lawyers and the scientists, when push comes to shove, the most important ingredient in our elections are its citizens.
No more compromising and negotiating with politicians for us to have a portion of our elections. It's time to reclaim the whole enchilada.
(Message edited by wynnek on January 25, 2007) |
From the Mailbag
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 150
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 4:42 am: |
|
Paul Lehto analysis in full:
This article may be freely forwarded, blogged or reproduced with full attribution preserved. The author may be reached at lehtolawyer at gmail dot com.
Election Attorneys Amplify Importance of Convictions for Recount Rigging in Ohio 2004 Presidential Race
Even in Democratic County, They Rigged To Avoid The Extra Work and Embarrassment that Finding Discrepancies Would Bring
a news analysis
by Paul Lehto, Attorney at Law
THE BASIC NEWS:
The verdict is in on whether the November 2004 presidential election recount in Ohio was "illegally rigged {by election officials} in what was supposed to be a random sample recount in {order} to avoid a time-consuming hand count of all votes." http://wcpo.com/news/2007/local/01/23/oh_elections.html
Verdict: Two officials found Guilty of felony level negligent misconduct in elections. The lowest level manager of the three officials charged was acquitted on all counts.
The two convicted Election officials face terms of 6 to 18 months in prison. A third assistant manager was acquitted on all counts. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/165362...
The recount was originally requested by the Green and Libertarian presidential candidates, David Cobb of the Green Party and Michael Badnarik for the Libertarians as a statewide recount. The felony convictions represented misconduct only in Democratic-vote-rich Cuyahoga County, located in and around Cleveland. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/165362...
===========================================
THE NEWS ANALYSIS
quote:"If any intelligent and loyal company of American citizens were required to catalogue the essential human conditions of national life, I do not doubt that with absolute unanimity they would begin with free and honest elections. "And it is gratifying to know that generally there is a growing and nonpartisan demand for better election laws; but against this sign of hope and progress must be set the depressing and undeniable fact that election laws and methods are sometimes cunningly contrived to secure minority control, while violence completes the shortcomings of fraud."
--Remarks on the Tariff and On Voting Rights, From the Second Annual Message to Congress, by President Benjamin Harrison, on December 1, 1890. (italics added)
As an election attorney, in response to the above news of the convictions of Ohio Elections officials concerning the 2004 presidential recount, I talked briefly with some other election attorneys that could be reached on short notice. Unless otherwise noted or quoted, the following news analysis is mine.
First, the prosecutors in Ohio did not seek to prove that the criminal misconduct affected the election – but this does not mean the presidential election wasn’t affected by the recount shenanigans. As any lawyer knows it would be foolish to set out to prove more than one is required to prove by the elements of the offenses charged. Moreover, charges of partisan intent would likely fall flat with a jury in a Democratic county like Cuyahoga, so the prosecutors played it mostly by the book in alleging only a motive of avoiding work. That motive would apply statewide, but additional partisan motive would be present in other places.
Ohio attorney Bob Fitrakis, an attorney involved with 2004 election-related litigation in Ohio, commented:
"The rigging of the recount was the NORM in Ohio, and the Cleveland convictions are just the tip of the iceberg. The recount rigging came right from the top with Ken Blackwell saying that the definition of "random" recount was whatever the locals decided -- including nonrandom selection of ballots and allowing private vendors to pick the precincts to be recounted. I think Blackwell (who was co-chair of the Bush Cheney campaign) knew that a proper recount would have revealed that John Kerry was elected by Ohioans in 2004, and not the candidate Blackwell represented in Ohio. As attorneys in pending litigation in Ohio, in our case it is our goal is to continue to preserve the ballots in Ohio so that citizens and scholars can determine the true count someday soon. As a matter of fact, limited proper recounts have been performed and wherever we've counted we've found discrepancies in favor of Kerry."
According to the Free Press Defense attorney Roger Synenberg, who represents {election official} Dreamer, told the jury that the recount was an open process, and that his client and the others "were just doing it the way they were always doing it." http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/23... These and other defense excuses were either rejected, or else the jury impliedly also found that Ohio's recounts have always been criminally negligent.
I am involved in congressional election contests in California and state election contests in other states, and it seems to me that it's especially important to note these convictions come in a Democratic County, showing that Democratic officials could not be trusted to recount DEMOCRATIC votes. For these election officials, avoiding the personal embarrassment, avoiding the fishbowl, and avoiding being "another Florida" all combined to inspire criminally negligent misconduct on the part of elections officials, and thus obviously trumped both any desire the election officials may have had to get at the most truthful honest total as well as any desire they may have had to see Democrats prevail, if any.
A recount will not always get us the truth of an election: if you recount a stuffed ballot box ten times, you'll get the same stuffed result ten times, and you'd be a fool to pronounce the election clean. Moreover, if the recount is rigged to match the reported election results, a recount doesn't even prove that the machines counted correctly the FIRST time, which is normally what a recount could prove, because the "adjustments" to the ballots after the first count cover that up. The most important lesson from these Ohio convictions, in my opinion, is that only CITIZEN RECOUNTS can be trusted. Elections officials simply have too many built in unavoidable conflicts of interest. These include not only avoiding work and helping the candidates they voted for (whichever ones they are) but they also include the fact that the government gets all of its power and taxing authority via elections and therefore can not watchdog itself. It's clear that citizen oversight of elections is the one indispensable thing in elections, yet it is virtually extinct in this country. We need to demand that citizen oversight of elections be restored, in full, immediately. Obviously, this must mean ballot counting that citizens can actually see and understand, not secret vote counting on proprietary software on trade secret corporate hard drives. Even if you think Ken Blackwell was a good guy, it's clear that no government officials of any party can be trusted to administer elections without extensive citizen oversight."
Election attorney Ken Simpkins, a veteran of election contest battles in California's 50th congressional District along with me, said "This verdict shows us what is possible when citizens are allowed to seek the truth about the conduct of public officials. Too often, judges are willing to give their fellow public servants a pass when it comes to accountability. Responsible citizens are left wondering what happened to the idea that the government is theirs. I know from first-hand experience in San Diego how hard it is for voters to be heard in the courts on issues relating to how their elections are conducted. Here in San Diego we've got touch screens, paper trails and audits and that system just doesn't work at all, but that message has yet to be heard nationally." The new Holt bill proposes just such a paper/audit "solution" nationally. Simpkins continued: "I am inspired by the group of citizens and lawyers who pursued the truth in this case for two years overcoming, I'm sure, many obstacles to achieve the result reached today."
The lessons of Ohio also point to another important lesson. They support the proposition that any alleged election "safeguard" that is left for a time after the election is over is highly unlikely to be executed properly by elections officials of any party or even nonpartisan officials. This means recounts, "paper trails" "audits" or what have you are often given short shrift.
One partial solution: The press needs to back off its pressure for immediate results on election night and the first count (as well as any subsequent recounts and audits) should be carefully done under citizen oversight
One non-solution: Although it is a good thing for election officials not to be involved with partisan campaigns, it is a formula for false confidence to simply have "nonpartisan" election officials, who will still have the same conflicts of interest the Ohio election officials had, and (if they vote) will simply be "secretly partisan" even if they split their tickets. Even Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris could run and win as "nonpartisan" election officials and so long as they didn't officially and openly serve as campaign managers, they could have the same corrosive effect on our elections.
Again, this dead horse is worth beating: There is no substitute for robust Citizen oversight of all aspects of elections. No federal bill is currently even talking about this, but it is nevertheless the indispensable condition or factor, the sine qua non of real democracy, which recognizes that power comes exclusively from the people alone, and that legitimate government is government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Electronic voting, via the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and its billions in federal funding for computerized elections, eliminated and X’d out the people from a meaningful oversight role in elections because they can no longer see the ballots and/or their counting, and therefore the people can not verify that we indeed still have the democracy Lincoln spoke of at Gettysburg.
The truth is that Congress, when voting on elections systems, is voting on the conditions of its own re-election, and therefore they could not FOR THE RECORD expressly favor unaccountable elections systems for their own elections that eliminate public oversight in favor of secret vote counting in their own future elections. This is the ultimate conflict of interest, and as a result of this conflict, legislators can and should be made aware that they are not really free (as they are in other areas) to vote for whatever election system they wish: in elections they must serve the public with a loyalty and selflessness that is unparalleled. Since the government can not watchdog itself in the elections that give the government its power, it is most certain that citizen oversight must be restored, and fully restored.
Barring the illumination of this conflict of interest by thousands of citizens (which has the capability of freeing the Congressional logjam and its baloney about what's "realistic") the restoration of citizen oversight must in any event be obtained, at least for Lincoln’s sake, and for the sake of democracy, by all necessary means.
-----END--------
For more information on restoring citizen oversight of elections see:
www.wethepatriots.org
www.freepress.org
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/23... Presidential Recount Rigging begins to Unravel, by Fitrakis and Wasserman
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Land%20Shark |
Russell Novkov
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 165
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 6:40 pm: |
|
We need to have non-partisan election officials.
Russell J. Novkov
|
Kathleen Wynne
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wynnek
Post Number: 65
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 26, 2007 - 5:19 am: |
|
Russell,
Since there's really no way to guarantee whether an election official is totally non-partisan or not, once we have real citizen oversight during the elections process, where citizens can keep a close watch on them (with the aid of a video camera), I doubt that will be as big of a concern any longer, as it has been in the past.
I've been meaning to tell you Russell, you always have a way of getting right to the point of any matter to which you have an opinion. I like that.
Kathleen |
Adele Eisner
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Eisnera
Post Number: 76
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 6 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 26, 2007 - 12:01 pm: |
|
Holy Gamoley!
Say it isn't so!
Say this is one from Leno or Letterman
Already known but not yet reported:
On Wednesday, 1/24/07 the day the two Cuyahoga board employees were being convicted of the felonies for which they alone could NOT be responsible;
• the day they and their families died more than just a bit inside - and cried together;
• the day their jobs at the CCBOE were immediately terminated - demanded by law with the felony conviction- Jacqui, the wife of a respected, well-liked minister with a substantial congregation, suddenly cut from her $90K+/yr. job, Kathleen, less - but terminated.
• the day they both listened to a judge telling them the steely facts about their probation hearings, their need to report promptly, now and even after any jail time...
• the day they squarely faced the steely reality of jail, and both possibly facing (massive) legal bills ( an item right now unclear to me about who is actually paying for most - and if things go to appeal, how long could that go on? I guess it depends who they might be protecting....)
Well, the afternoon of the 24th is the very same time...
that those above them Director Michael Vu, and Deputy Director Gwen Dillingham were at the Columbus, OH Hyatt Regency, partying and hobnobbing at the Ohio Association of Election Officials...with drinks and food (and company) amply provided by...ta da! ...Diebold and ES&S.
Just the day before Dillingham and Vu were also at the Justice Center in Cleveland, called as witnesses - for the defense, which was very apparently "first-chaired" by Dreamer's lawyer, the above-mentioned, former BOE chair, and R-darling, (locally almost as darling as current BOE chair Bennett) - Attny. Roger Synenberg (although he did not summon those two, Jacqui's lawyer did.)
Among the many seeming zig-zagging strategic defense manipulations by the individual and group of defense lawyers for the three women, Vu and Dillingham, however, were never asked to testify. (Probably a wise lawyerly move, since with prosecution also cross examining their "taking the 5th", or risking possible additional future charges of perjury would not have been very becoming.) Two Dem Board members had also been subpoenaed but were called to not come before they showed up.
(The defense, in fact had only 2 witnesses, a Blackwell rep, and a former ballot worker at the CCBOE, then a third a purely character witness for little implicated, Rosie who was declared innocent of all.
The prosecution had a solid 14 and when he questioned the above two under cross, they also had to admit that though they thought selecting precincts for "random" sample was just fine/usual for BOE's, when asked if also precounting them and taking out the ones that did not match machine and official counts before the witnesses ever got there was also proper - both had to say NO! The prosecution indicated that he didn't call Vu and Dillingham ...and maybe Bennett - because he only had one chance with them, and he didn't want to blow it.
Many think that maybe now, with these two women facing jail, they might now provide just the rest of the evidence he needs.)
Also at the Columbus fest, I have heard were R Chair, Bob Bennett, and possibly D and R board members Loree Soggs and Sally Florkewicz.
But folks, here is the "kicker" for late night jokes....
Today at the Columbus fest is the election of the new OAEO President.
One of the nominees?
Gwen Dillingham - the one and same - former sister-in-law of now convicted Kathy Dreamer; (former?) very good friend of former board chair, now election defense attny. Roger Synenberg; still R-Deputy Director of the CCBOE whose job it's been rumored since May will very soon be over,
This has Bennett's posturing all over the place. How can we fire and/or convict the .... President of the OAEO?
She's SO esteemed.
I'm mean is this chutzpah, or what?
__________________________
Yep, Paul Lehto was right . We need to demand citizen oversight of our elections. If it were only that easy, and that clean.
We've been demanding. Some of us are sick, exhausted, poor from demanding, and just trying to keep up seeing behind what we're shown when we ask for a peek in.
We have not even begun to see how deep the dealmaking goes to keep us from even "undersighting". That my friends was very apparent throughout this trial that never quite made sense, and for real justice to be done for us all, never should have been about these three women. Dems with firmly R lawyers. Synenberg telling me and the press the trial was all a big Dem plot to get Vu (notice the absence of mention of Dillingham, his "friend.") The women never "talking"....
I will write more at a later time. And stay tuned. Word has it now, especially with Bruner in our statehouse - as SoS able to break ties at the local BOE, Vu and Dillingham will be out within weeks.... |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1158
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 29, 2007 - 1:11 pm: |
|
Kathleen said:
quote:Sweet because it proved, without a doubt, that with the proper access, oversight, participation and the right for citizens to videotape every phase of the election process, the integrity of our elections can be protected and maintained, without the need for expert intervention and oversight.
The only problem with this is that, unless the election is rerun or recounted and the original vote count set aside and the new count installed in its place, and all resultant effects set right to match the count, it hasn't fixed anything. It's a step forward, but it's only a step and no more.
And I really want to see how you're going to videotape ballots in storage (both getting permission and actually doing it in any meaningful way, after balloting is finished and the ballots are stored. |
Kathleen Wynne
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wynnek
Post Number: 69
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 29, 2007 - 3:28 pm: |
|
Brant,
Not true. Don't turn what I said inside out, for the sake of arguments that have continued to complicate and confuse the voting process more than it already has become. Your argument is backwards. The recounts proved that the same kind of oversight citizens were allowed back in 2004 during the recounting of the ballots is exactly the same kind of oversight needed when counting the votes on election night at the precinct NOW.
Recounts, such as this, proved that we could avoid a lot of extra time and money proving that the machines were correct, if we just rid ourselves of the machines and count the votes by hand at the precinct in the first place. As a result, what happened in that 2004 recount should serve as leverage in our argument to return to HCPB at the precinct.
That recount also made it even more apparent that elections are not a busines, were never meant to be, and should no longer be controlled by vendors, protected by trade secret laws. How absurd is that and why is that still being overlooked?
As long as we continue to count our votes by machines, our elections will remain privitized, overeen by experts and vendors, and citizens will never be allowed the kind of access and oversight we had in that recount way back in 2004.
Ain't nothin sweet about that!
Kathleen
(Message edited by wynnek on January 29, 2007) |
Russell Novkov
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 167
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 29, 2007 - 7:00 pm: |
|
I would have reported that violation in a minute.
Russell J. Novkov
|
Kathleen Wynne
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wynnek
Post Number: 70
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 29, 2007 - 8:46 pm: |
|
Russell,
I'm sure you would.
However, we found out that citizen witness accounts don't carry water with the prosecuting attorney. He was only able to take the case to trial because the videotaped evidence showed election officials "lying" which made it impossible for him not to.
We should waste no time capitalizing on this trial and use it to argue for hand counts at the precinct, in order to ensure the same kind of citizen oversight in them, as in the recount.
One thing that will happen for sure as a result of this trial, I doubt very seriously that anyone will be allowed to videotape the counting of a recount ever again.
Kathleen |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1159
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 12:22 pm: |
|
Kathleen, my point of argument is that "Sweet because it proved, without a doubt, that with the proper access, oversight, participation and the right for citizens to videotape every phase of the election process, the integrity of our elections can be protected and maintained", is inaccurate. The integrity of THAT election was not protected or maintained, though some people were punished for not fulfilling their duties in that election. It's fair to say that the integrity of the election would undeniably include accuracy, wouldn't it? What happened was retribution, not correction. It is arguable whether retribution is necessary. I believe that it is inarguable that correction is necessary. |
Kathleen Wynne
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Wynnek
Post Number: 71
Registered: 10-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 2:01 pm: |
|
Brant,
So, what you're saying is, even if citizens could videotape their votes being counted on election night, at the precinct, that wouldn't significantly protect the integrity of the votes?
Don't you think it would be better than continuing to use machines to count our votes and having to depend on their accuracy and accept the restrictions of citizens' ability to oversee them?
Kathleen |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1161
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 7:40 am: |
|
No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that so far the integrity of the vote has not been protected by these measures alone. I believe that we all have to understand that our laws and regulations are part of a legal system, and that the entire legal system has to work (and in the current environment, work quickly) to prevent people being seated in elections that have been corrupted.
I am pointing out that, with all the fraud that has been documented in Ohio in '04, it has done nothing to cause revisiting whether a candidate who was potentially not elected should be removed from office and replaced with the person who actually won. If in the end, all we do is jail the little people who've done the grunt work, I don't think this is sufficient. As I said previously, it's a step, but it isn't the only necessary step. Oversight must be direct and immediate enought that we can't be sidetracked long enough for an unelected person to assume office due to a reasonably suspect election. Doesn't it all boil down to that?
What I'm saying is trickle-down correction is too slow. And I'm also saying that the more your precautions are loaded toward instantaneous verification of the ballot (meaning tenths-of-seconds before or after it leaves the voters' hands) the better. |
|
|
