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: 
...
|
| (National): TOP 10 PROBLEMS WITH EXPA... |
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10802
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, October 10, 2009 - 11:15 am: | 
|
Absentee voting has been expanded in 25 states. This reduces public controls and expands opportunity for election fraud.
Risky electoral conditions are being introduced because someone says "Why don't we just mail ballots?" Election officials are pitching vote by mail as convenient and safe. Journalists don't always obtain an opposing point of view before publishing stories on this risky new trend. Half the USA has now shifted to no-fault absentee voting. Here is an opposing point of view, along with sources and citations for vote-by-mail incidents.
No-fault absentee voting is now enabled in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming; Forced all-vote-by-mail is in place in Washington and Oregon; no-fault vote-by-mail is proposed but not yet passed in Alabama, District of Columbia, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin. A federal bill (Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act: H.R. 1604) proposes to enforce no-fault absentee voting nationwide.
Areas with need-based absentee voting typically average about 12% absentee voting, including overseas, military, sick and shut-in, elderly, and out-of-towners. Areas with "no-fault absentee" gradually increase from about 25% (early stages) to over 50% (after no-fault absentee used for several years), increasing the size of the at-risk vote pool.
TOP TEN PROBLEMS WITH EXPANDING ABSENTEE VOTING:
1. Absentee voting conceals who actually casts the votes. A real person doesn't show up to vote, eliminating a crucial public control for elections.
2. Absentee voting has difficult challenges for ballot chain of custody. Even locations that claim to use video surveillance sometimes turn off cameras, send them out for maintenance, or decide not to use them while elections are in progress.(1)(2)
3. Absentee voting has a history of inside tampering by election officials.(3)
4. Absentee voting uses unregulated and concealed software to authorize votes. The unregulated "VoteRemote" software purchased by Diebold/Premier was designed by convicted embezzler Jeffrey Dean, who spent four years in prison for computer fraud. Court records show that Dean began working on VoteRemote for King County, Washington while still in prison, on a work release program.(4)
5. Absentee voting eliminates ballot privacy when used in combination with ballot tracking or incorrectly designed ballot authentication software. A ballot tracking program used in San Juan County (Wash.) removed voter privacy and altered ballot approvals during the canvassing period and even after the canvassing period had expired, and misreported who had voted and who had not.(5)
6. Absentee voting expansion has a partisan history: Nearly all legislation to expand vote by mail and no-fault absentee is introduced by Democrats, and nearly all sponsors in both state and federal pro-absentee voting legislation are Democrats.
7. Signature comparison isn't what people think: It uses electronic facsimiles, not physical signatures. These can be swapped and altered electronically, and in fact, signatures do not need to match at all! In Lake County Indiana, a set of rejected absentee ballots were simply changed to "accepted" after the matching process.(6) All this requires is replacement of "no" with "yes" in a database, which can be done after signature checks. In Washington State the paw print of a dog named Duncan passed signature checking for two elections in a row.(7)
8. Vote by mail is sold to the public using questionable data. Contrary to what supporters claim, vote by mail does not necessarily increase turnout. According to data from the US Election Assistance Commission, all vote-by-mail Oregon was squarely in the middle of the pack for voter turnout.(8) Also, Oregon reports impossible numbers: Out of 2.5 million ballots mailed in the 2006 general election, Oregon reported zero ballots returned undeliverable, and Oregon says only 54 were received after the deadline.(9)
9. Ballot printers have a history of mailing wrong ballots, omitted ballots, and late ballots. During the crucial 2008 general election, Sequoia Voting Systems reported to Denver County (Colo.) that it had mailed 21,450 ballots, when it actually only mailed 10,364 ballots.(10) Only when voters complained did Sequoia admit that it never sent the ballots. In Sutter County (Calif) Sequoia mailed absentee ballots missing ballot questions, but only for some voters.(11)
10. Absentee voting enables cheat-peeks: Computer logs from Pima County, Arizona show that election workers were printing absentee results before election day; e-mails obtained with public records requests show they were passing early results around like baseball scores, giving unfair advantage to those candidates selected to receive them.
SOURCES:
(1) Scripps Newspaper Group - Aug. 14, 2008, By Elliott Jones: Indian River County elections office security cameras shut down - …The cameras oversee the mail-in ballots, which are kept in a vault. [Public records show that video cameras were out of service for a month.]
(2) Sun Sentinel - Aug. 2008: Elections supervisor installs security cameras - ... The cost for installing the cameras, she said, is estimated at $300,000; [Records requests from Black Box Voting following a ballot snafu in August 2008 elicited the response that they had never installed the system and didn't plan to until after the election.]
(3) North Jersey Conservative Examiner - Aug. 4, 2009, by Mark Impomeni: Campaign workers indicted in election fraud case; " ...At least one of the defendants was in a position to impact elections on a regular basis. Gianine Narvaez worked in the office of the Essex County Superintendent of Elections."
(4) Jeffrey Dean prison papers http://bbvdocs.org/dean.pdf and court transcripts http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/2197/14323.html
(5) Related to this case, a lawsuit was filed by Washington citizens Tim White and Alan Rosato in July 2009 seeking redress on some of these issues. Here is a video as they describe their discovery of theft of voter privacy and alteration of authentications: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=9179686114813589881
(6) WJOB News - May 28, 2007: Lake County Ballots Accidentally Manipulated from Outside System - Lake County election officials say they were disturbed to learn a vendor had altered the status of dozens of absentee ballots after the election. ...The incident occurred May 15th, when an employee of Indianapolis-based Quest Information Systems changed the status of 58 Lake County absentee ballots cast in the May Eighth primary from rejected to accepted.
(7) KING 5 News - June 24, 2007, By Alan Schauffler: Federal Way woman registers dog to vote
(8) Here's the data: www.blackboxvoting.org/EAC2006stats.xls
(9) www.eac.gov/clearinghouse/completed-research-and-eports/electionday-survey-results
(10) Rocky Mountain News - Oct. 24, 2008, by Myung Oak Kim: 'Missing' Denver mail ballots were never sent by vendor - The U.S. Postal Service said Friday afternoon that its Denver mail processing facility received 10,364 ballots on Oct. 16 and delivered them within a couple days. But the California printing company hired by Denver Elections said it delivered 21,450 ballots to the postal facility on that date...Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O'Malley said the ballots in question were never prepared by the vendor.
(11) Sutter County Registrar of Voters - Oct. 16, 2008: Printer’s Error On Vote-By-Mail Ballots In Sutter County - A printer’s error has resulted in the printing and mailing of incomplete vote-by-mail ballots to approximately 14,000 Sutter County voters.
* * * * *
This is available in handout form here:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/top-10-problems-with-expanding-absentee-voting-handout.pdf
(82 KB)
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10805
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, October 10, 2009 - 7:28 pm: |
|
Had a request to compare absentee voting with Early Voting. That's a good idea. Early Voting has three of the 10 risk factors -- on balance, making it a better option.
Here's the comparison:
Early voting is better than absentee voting on item #1, because you can see who voted. As for the others...
2. Absentee voting has difficult challenges for ballot chain of custody.
So does early voting.
3. Absentee voting has a history of inside tampering by election officials.
So does early voting, but not as well documented. Volusia County is rather notorious on this. Susan Pynchon could give you an earful.
4. Absentee voting uses unregulated and concealed software to authorize votes. The unregulated "VoteRemote" software.
The Early Voting software is concealed but regulated. Same issues as voting machines, which conceal the counting of the vote. But absentee voting adds to this with another layer of software, the ballot approval software. That's a whole new unregulated high risk ball of wax.
5. Absentee voting eliminates ballot privacy when used in combination with ballot tracking or incorrectly designed ballot authentication software.
Early voting does not have this problem. Provisional voting on DREs does have this problem, but that's a smaller risk pool. Absentee voting's privacy stealing techniques can download hundreds of thousands of digital data files that can store mass data on how people voted. Very bad, doesn't apply to Early Voting.
6. Absentee voting expansion has a partisan history: Nearly all legislation to expand vote by mail and no-fault absentee is introduced by Democrats, and nearly all sponsors in both state and federal pro-absentee voting legislation are Democrats.
Early Voting is not as partisan. On balance, though I think it's better to take the day off if possible and vote on Election Day at the polling place, I do think Early Voting can help with certain disenfranchisement tactics. It would probably be better to have Election Day as a national holiday and have people vote at the polls on Election Day.
7. Signature comparison isn't what people think: It uses electronic facsimiles, not physical signatures. These can be swapped and altered electronically, and in fact, signatures do not need to match at all!
This does not apply to Early Voting. The risk is only for mail-in and absentee voting.
8. Vote by mail is sold to the public using questionable data.
This does not apply to early voting.
9. Ballot printers have a history of mailing wrong ballots, omitted ballots, and late ballots.
This does not apply to early voting.
10. Absentee voting enables cheat-peeks:
This DOES apply also to early voting, though checks and balances are a hair better with early voting. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 405
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, October 11, 2009 - 4:19 am: |
|
On point #1: In states where the absentee ballots are counted in the precincts, the voters are recorded in the poll books. And even with central count they show up in state voter lists. How is not showing up in person a problem? All I can think of is that poll watchers might miss them. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10807
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, October 11, 2009 - 5:42 am: |
|
Not showing up in person means someone else can vote for you. With or without your knowledge. And a single person (or computer program) can cast votes for thousands of people.
The issues here are not as significant with need-based absentee voting, because there are additional checks and balances with that. Once you let everyone vote absentee, you can start stuffing the voter registration list, then have a computer program or person cast votes for stuffed names and, even more dangerous, for real voters who don't vote regularly. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 5562
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, October 11, 2009 - 9:57 am: |
|
Bev,
This is crucial info. It's important that it communicate quickly and effectively. I'd like to suggest a change in how this material is presented.
The info will communicate more effectively it it's shown as a simple table: 1 column with each of the characteristics, and 2 columns with headers for the 2 systems you're comparing.
In the relevant boxes, put a check (or a plus, minus, double minus, etc.) to show the comparison. Different colors (green pluses, red minuses) will make the differences stand out.
It's easier to do it than to describe how to do it!
In general this would be an excellent way to show the relative advantages & disadvantages of various election systems or system components.
Text explanations (and references that support your point) can be in footnotes.
Either a spreadsheet or word processing program can be used to create the table.
This would be a fabulous handout for media, legislators, general public, etc. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10808
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, October 11, 2009 - 11:17 am: |
|
Well very good suggestions, Catherine, as usual. Things do evolve, don't they? I put out the top 10 points, then people asked how it stacks up to early voting. I hadn't really looked at that. A table is a great idea for a handout. |
Colin McDermott
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Colmcd
Post Number: 4
Registered: 8-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 4:40 am: |
|
My first point, can we promote this article better so that journalists can find an alternative viewpoint if they seek it.
meta name="keywords" content="" We should populate it with search terms for google. |
Colin McDermott
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Colmcd
Post Number: 5
Registered: 8-2009
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 4:49 am: |
|
My second point is this.
2. Absentee voting has difficult challenges for ballot chain of custody.
So does early voting.
At least early voting could be monitored. How will you monitor ballots travelling through the post. Sure you could Fedex your votes.... but you have essentially integrated your mail person into your ballot chain of custody. Overseas that is one of the biggest concern with mail in votes. (as the public officials can be held accountable to the law.) While early voting involves seals, and location checks, those checks can be performed. How can you check that a chain of custody exists through a mail room? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10815
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 5:43 am: |
|
Colin,
You make great points. I've been emailing and faxing this to selected journalists, but so far I've only reached a drop in the bucket.
You make great points about chain of custody. There is a big difference between showing up in person (early voting) and sending something in the mail. Which is why banks don't let you mail in an application to start a new account, you have to show up in person. |
Evelyn Gaspar
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gaspars
Post Number: 1
Registered: 6-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 1:54 pm: |
|
Hello,
Many people have other reasons for voting by mail. We use absentee ballots because our local polling place was changed to a fundamentalist church with a large crucifix overlooking the voting booths. The minister hangs around outside greeting people. This is not just uncomfortable, it is intimidating. We certainly felt that members of this large church were voting in greater numbers than our other neighbors. We raised this issue with Los Angeles County, the LA Times, ACLU and Black Box Voting. The County was kind enough to tell us our alternative was voting by mail. No one else took us seriously. If people are being kept from the polling place for religious reasons, and if voting by mail is not an equitable alternative, what is? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10817
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 2:03 pm: |
|
Vote anyway at the church. It's safer than vote by mail. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3112
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 8:00 am: |
|
I dunno, Evelyn, you are entitled to feel the way you feel, for sure. Everyone's emotions regarding religion are private and valid by definition. But really, if you let what amounts to the "decor" and a man of the cloth's heartfelt greeting and welcome to be "intimidating", I can't really help you much.
When I was a county Election Director, I heard stories like this, and it dismayed me, and left me shaking my head in amazement. I'm not a regular church attender (hardly ever), but the day I let a crucifix, or Star of David, or crescent moon, or pentagraph even, deter me from my civic duty to vote in precinct, is the day I need a psych referral. Speaking for me only here. It's just decor on voting day. It's inert building materials.
Sounds like an issue above MY pay grade, for sure. On Election Day, to me there's only one "religion", the solemn franchise and ability to choose, even if the alternatives are too few and too similar for your or my tastes.
If those religious symbols get to you too much on a Tuesday, perhaps you need to make an appointment to sit down with the pastor and talk.
At any rate, in my state, you would NOT be able to vote by mail in that circumsatnce legally. Go in and vote or don't vote.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 224
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 8:08 am: |
|
I vividly remember during my childhood (as a Catholic -- rather common, that) having a fear of even stepping into a "protestant" church (still Christian, mind you) and worrying about "what if I get invited to a wedding at a non-Catholic church?" -- I believe there even was a catechism question about that. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3114
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 10:11 am: |
|
Bob,
I have heard that from "pre-Vatican II" Catholics, too. I went through an RCIA class (I didn't convert.) just a few years ago. I severely doubt it's an issue now. Catholicism has "evolved" in many ways, especially in the unity of churches sense.
There is no power or heaven or earth that would keep me out of a church, synagogue, mosque, or coven HQ if there were my voting precinct's machines in there. I'd be ready to deal harshly with any demons that may arise to challenge me, external or internal. Kicking tushy and takin' down names.
Voting on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, EVERY November, is, FOR THAT DAY, all the religion or motivation I need. Woe be unto anyone or anything that would get in my way.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Karen Nelson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Kankan
Post Number: 52
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 9:17 pm: |
|
From the Coleman/Franken election challenges, it seems a big big issue with absentee ballots was the lack of voter's opportunity to ensure their vote counts, including a chance to see secure delivery of their ballot, a chance to correct voter registration issues, or correct an over-vote on ballot.
If you just mail in ballot, you typically don't know when and if you are being dis-enfranchised. You don't know if your ballot ever makes it to counting. If you physically show up, you can see your ballot go into machine/secure box. If you are told you're not on registration roll or your signature doesn't match, whatever, you still have a chance to contest.
Also, if you vote in person on a paper ballot that is counted on optical scan machine, you get a chance to re-vote if your ballot is rejected by machine. From what I have seen at my precinct, the over voting rejections with people needing to re-do ballot was happening at least once every 30-40 voters..have no idea if there are stats on this...guess we could look at how many "duplicates" were made in precinct in MN for senate race, as the duplicate ballots were meant to enfranchise absentee ballots that were being rejected by machines, we could see how many duplicates there were per absentee ballots in each precinct...anyway...
Given the need for anonymity in voting, the best way to ensure a vote is not stolen or bought is a form of long-time legal concept of Habeas Corpus: voting should have to show the body. I say what is good for court of law - requiring the "body" of prisoner be seen (even required during the time of very undemocratic kings and dungeons) - is also good policy for voting: "you shall have the body"
To have secure elections we must have physical, live-bodied voter and physical paper ballot, end of story.
Forget that businesses are "corporations", I think the supreme court should rule on the necessity of the "personhood" of the voter and "personhood" of our vote counting.
I say, "Show me the body, show me the ballot." |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 533
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 10:18 pm: |
|
What it says to me if a polling place is in a church, is that we have no separation of church and state.
Both mainstream and fundamentalist religions have been guilty of persecutions, witchhunts, child molestation, the subjugation of females, discrimination, and much more. Some people may find the symbols of such organizations to be intimidating.
I won't enter a place that has a swastika over the doorway, or a person in Ku Klux Klan regalia greeting people outside and it should never be anyone's "civic duty" to enter into a building that is not part of civil society, particularly if that building is the home of an organization that, in many people's minds, represents an undemocratic and repressive hierarchy. Churches pay no taxes because they are, and should be, separate from the state.
First Kurt writes, "Everyone's emotions regarding religion are private and valid by definition."
But then Kurt writes, "...but the day I let a crucifix, or Star of David, or crescent moon, or pentagraph even, deter me from my civic duty to vote in precinct, is the day I need a psych referral."
So people who feel intimidated by what they understand to be symbols of repression, aren't entitled to their private and valid emotions, but need a psych referral?
Nobody should have to enter a church to vote, enter a bank or saloon to attend religious services, or have to wash their dishes in a toilet. Such things might not intimidate or bother some, but others would find them totally inappropriate. We differ as to which group is in need of a psych referral. ;)
-----
On edit after some thought, perhaps churches really are the appropriate place to hold faith-based elections. But gambling that your vote might be counted as cast by black box tabulators can hardly be called anyone's "civic duty." Paying taxes is a civic duty, sending your kids to school or educating them at home is a civic duty, but gambling is a vice.
|
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3123
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 6:32 am: |
|
Okay Mark,
So if churches shoudn't be used because of "intimidation", how about using the private homes and places of business of one party's Committeemen and women as Philadelphia did regularly? Is that better? Or union halls? Or the darned campaign office of an incumbent legislator as a polling place? Philly did all that.
Mark, I don't know any more about San Diego's cityscape than I could learn from watching "Top Gun" (BTW, Kelly McGillis now lives VERY near me - she is soooooo smokin' hot) or "Sideways" (opening and end), but in old hardscrabble northeastern cities, if you don't use churches, you don't have polling places. There are entire neighborhoods made up of totally ADA inaccessible row homes, 12-15 feet wide, and a church. That's why when Wilson Goode bombed the MOVE house, a whole block went up in flames. An entire four-sided city block with no spaces in between the structures.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 228
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 7:33 am: |
|
I have always voted, and as far as I can recall my parents have always voted, in public buildings. Are there really locations that don't have sufficient public buildings adequate to be a polling place? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3125
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 8:02 am: |
|
Bob,
In rural areas, it tends not to be a problem. There are borough halls and township buildings, etc. In urban areas, it is MORE than a problem, it is a STINKIN' NIGHTMARE! You can go MILES, literally, of high density population with NO public buildings AT ALL! Churches are an indispensible part of an ecclectic mix. Recently, Reading, PA has had to close three branch libraries due to fiscal distress. They were ALL polling places. They are GONE as of January 1. New places need to be found, and will almost CERTAINLY be churches.
Libraries, fire halls, and VFW posts are all closing down in astounding numbers. Churches remain open. It's frequently all we have.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 2383
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 9:37 am: |
|
When you have an untraceable ballot of any type (and a truly secret ballot in any format always is untraceable) any assurance that you have that the particular ballot that you cast, was counted as you cast it, is purely inferrential and only a matter of faith. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3132
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 11:29 am: |
|
Inferrential. Well said. I strongly suspect that word has a negative connotation for you. Somehow, I find myself oddly comforted by such things being "inferrential" only.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Evelyn Gaspar
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gaspars
Post Number: 2
Registered: 6-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 11:35 am: |
|
My husband and I find it humorous that we've been chastized here for not wanting to humiliate ourselves by abnegating our personal freedoms in order to exercize our voting rights. Privatizing voting places is as likely to lead to fraud as privatizing the equipments and counting methodologies. All churches have thier own agendas. No one has calculated how much churches have added to the success of the California gay marriage ban. There should be no shortage of public voting spaces. the office of a public official is a public space, as are park buildings, libraries schools, courthouses and book-mobiles.
Studies have shown that people answer polls differently in different environments. If we can't afford to have unbiased elections, then our votes have already been compromised. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3133
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 11:38 am: |
|
Oh by the way, Mark. The most frequent proximate cause of ANY psych referrals are the entirely truly felt, validly expressed (or not), deeply rooted, emotions, that frequently have no basis in the "reality" agreed upon by those in the tall portions of the bellcurve.
In the very real sense philosophical sense, a psych referral merely means you're an "outlier" compared to broadly agreed upon norms.
Makes you wonder.
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10828
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 11:46 am: |
|
Evelyn,
I hope you're not feeling ridiculed. That's not anyone's intent, I'm sure. Well maybe Kurt stepped over the line a tad...
But you still haven't explained, or perhaps I'm not understanding what you've said, why you have to "humiliate yourself by agnegating your personal freedoms" if the voting place is in a church.
I didn't see anything that showed you being blocked from voting, or harassed for showing up, or that others insisted on seeing your vote, or that poll workers were somehow part of the church.
I'm not Jewish. But I know that voting places are sometimes located in synagogues. If I go to a synagogue and the rabbi greets me (or perhaps, that minister was just showing you the right entrance for the voting area, perhaps not wanting everyone traipsing around the sanctuary by accident...) -- well I don't see how that constitutes intimidation or any abrogation of my personal freedoms.
I've seen polling places located in primarily Black elementary schools. If a Black school principle was standing out front greeting (and as likely, making sure people go to the right place), does that make it "intimidation" for someone White?
These situations may not be ideal, but I don't see how they actually take away any rights. Perhaps there's something about the situation that you're not explaining? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 10829
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 11:59 am: |
|
I just posted a new article in the Atlantic County section of our New Jersey forum that illustrates exactly the pieces needed to convert smaller, need-based absentee vote fraud into massive wholesale absentee vote fraud.
The example I cited in the 10 points above is from Essex County, NJ. This is from another location, Atlantic County, and ALSO has an insider at the elections office involved.
My concerns are counterfeit voting by insiders, using the identities of real voters; ballot substitutions; and insider adjustments of the databases. Now check this out:
According to the indictment, the workers obtained messenger ballots from the county clerk's office between March and June of this year, filled them out with voters' names, then submitted them without the voters' knowledge.
...In some cases, they replaced the destroyed ballots with votes for Small, but resealed and delivered the ones for him, the indictment says.
...A data processing technician for the county's superintendent of elections, working on the campaign as well, was also charged with official misconduct and tampering with public records.
Now, in the above case, they had need-based absentee voting. These people were caught due to two checks and balances with that system: (1) applications for absentee ballots and (2) statistics for normal incidence of types of need.
Both these checks and balances are missing with permanent vote by mail and the second one is missing with no-fault vote by mail. New Jersey just implemented both no-fault and opt-in permanent absentee voting.
Once you expand it and implement the new VoteRemote type hardware and software, especially if you add Internet registration into the mix, you change things from small, retail absentee fraud into the ability to do automated, massive, wholesale absentee fraud with counterfeiting, exploiting real voter's identities, and ballot substitution, and database alteration (which can alter just about anything, including replacement of blocs of signature images.) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 3134
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 12:04 pm: |
|
Bev,
Im saying what you're saying with a tad less patience for it. I would never let the location of a polling place EVER deter me, NO MATTER WHAT IT WAS. But that's me. I could walk into ANY "enemy territory" softly but audibly muttering "[expletive deleted] whatevers", with just enough of a chip on my shoulder to just invite the SOB's to challenge me in any way.
It's how I live life. Cripes, I'm a conservative on BBV, ain't I????!!
Add to the NJ story the fact that it is the party that it is, and I suspect the majority of site subscribers here are clammoring for excuses. Not this relatively newly minted Democrat, hon. We lead the league in corruption indictments here in this region of the country, not just in NJ.
So why am I in my new party? 'Cuz I've discovered it's easier on my blood pressure to try to clean up the "Crook Party" than to educate the "Clueless Party".
As for Evelyn personally, I'm sorry but I know a good number of Los Angelinos through my past business connections, and to say we are from different planets, central Pennysylvania and L.A., would be to understate it broadly. We are as culturally different as turnips and Tunisians are in their DNA.
We have almost NOTHING in common, culturally and attitudinally, and I don't know about your area, but we LIKE it that way here. One of the most popular "AM drive" radio bits I get are horror stories about things Southern Californians say, think and do, according to news clips. It's a big hit. Virtually ALL radio personalities here, local AND nationally syndicated, (okay, except NPR, and I tune in NPR exclusively, or the Eagles, Flyers or Phils, if available, when I get home) are unabashedly conservative. Heck, the PM drive local guy brags about carrying a gun 24/7, and does tons of ads for gun dealers.
Diff'rent strokes? You betcha!
==========================================
Sometimes, every once in a while, the real reason "your side" lost an election is because more people really DID vote for the "other guy", hard as that may be to fathom.
|
|
|
