(USA) - 1/12 - WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11445 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 6 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 5:55 pm:        by Bev Harris Despite what you see about who "won" Iowa and who "won" New Hampshire and who "won" South Carolina, that's not the main function of these very early contests. What they are really about is culling down the field, promptly, and this is not really based on who wins. New Hampshire, and to a lesser extent Iowa and South Carolina, play a disproportionate role in removing your choice of candidates in the primary. While you watch the horse race in these three states, understand that if you live in any other state, you are going to have fewer candidate choices, or no chance to vote on the candidate of your choice at all. IT'S ABOUT EXPECTATIONS, NOT WINNING If a candidate "exceeds expectations" built by TV punditry and whichever poll is being quoted at the time, three things happen: 1. TV pundits start the drumbeat, building public expectations about "inevitability" of the candidate who did "better than expected"; 2. Donor money reroutes itself, pouring dollars into the newly inevitable candidate; 3. Media then reports on the candidate's prowess in fund raising, citing this newly found skill as reason to believe the candidate is even more inevitable. The reverse (fewer votes than "expected") creates an even more definitive result: 1. Media speculates repetitively on when the candidate will drop out; 2. Donor funds for the candidate dry up; 3. Media cites weaker donations as evidence that the candidate cannot win; 4. The party begins pushing the candidate to get out of the way; 5. Articles begin focusing on the cost of primaries in states where people have not yet had an opportunity to vote (underlying message: why do these primaries?); 6. Pundits begin the new drumbeat: "The longer it takes for candidates to get out of the way, the more damage to the party's prospects of winning the general election in November." This is why Iowa and New Hampshire are not really about winning. They are about pushing candidates out of the way citing failure to meet expectations, or surprise in exceeding them. South Carolina, usually the third state to hold a primary contest, serves as the clean-up round, so that by Super Tuesday (when lots of big states have primaries) only a few candidate choices remain. Non-frontrunners still in the game get so strapped financially that they can't muster a fight. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH "BLACK BOX VOTING"? The Iowa Republican caucus turned out to be impressively transparent, though of course TV pundits did exploit Iowa to tell people what to think for the next round. NEW HAMPSHIRE IS ANOTHER STORY New Hampshire uses Black Box Voting for over 90% of its votes (Black Box Voting = concealed vote-counting machines. This violates New Hampshire's own constitution which states that the votes must be counted "in public meeting"). I will publish a detailed, point-by-point description of several quite bad choke-points in New Hampshire election integrity tomorrow. Here's the short version, and a preview: - All New Hampshire voting machines are programmed by a Massachusetts-based sole source no-bid contractor with a convicted narcotics trafficker at its helm; - A crafty change in NH law now makes it illegal for the public to examine the real ballots under right to know law; - A change in NH law in 2008 now makes most recounts impossible; - New Hampshire does not follow its own legally required vote-stuffing safeguards. SOUTH CAROLINA New Hampshire will produce an anointed candidate who will "do better than expected" to become "inevitable." Some of the other frontrunners will be hammered down firmly with "worse than expected"; all week long before South Carolina we will get treated to a persuasive TV pundit parade telling us what we should think. It's only gotten worse since 1988, when author Joan Didion wrote: "...those inside the process had congealed into a permanent political class, the defining characteristic of which was its readiness to abandon those not inside the process." (Political Fictions) In South Carolina (where, as you may recall, the paperless ES&S iVotronic touchscreens gave us Alvin Greene in the 2010 Democratic primary), the counting process is not only entirely concealed, but the original record -- the voters own verified ballot -- is unrecoverable, and chain of custody on the count is unascertainable. By the way, it also violate the South Carolina constitution to conceal the vote counting process from the public. WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT I know, I know. People will write me and say "What should we do?" I always hear that just days before the election, when it's too late. What you can do that might make a difference is this: 1) Think for yourself and ignore the pundits. Stop letting yourself get persuaded by a politicized media machine. Give your money to the candidate of your choice and vote for the candidate of your choice, and do not let any wonk who was invited onto a TV show make you feel stupid about taking action based on your own conscience. 2) Examine election processes with at least the same curiosity and skepticism you would when watching a magician perform his tricks. 3) Get off the treadmill. However long it takes, keep demanding what we really want, which is the restoration of the public to see and authenticate each of the four crucial accounting steps: - Who can vote - Who did vote - Chain of custody - The count That level of transparency actually happened in the Iowa Republican caucus. It isn't going to happen in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Not this year. I hate it when the truth isn't fun. PERMISSION TO EXCERPT OR REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org   Chris Backus Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Cbackus Post Number: 3 Registered: 12-2010 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 6:45 pm:        "That level of transparency actually happened in the Iowa Republican caucus." I'm not sure what your basis is for this assessment Bev. Please enlighten. As I see it (IMO), Iowa still allowed voters with lax identification requirements to vote, still collated the results at a secret location, they still are making backroom cash deals to transfer votes from one candidate to another, and the chain of custody from counting hand-marked paper ballots that somehow make their way to a secret, undisclosed GOP operative-infested command control center leave a lot to be desired in way of "level of transparency".   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11447 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, January 5, 2012 - 7:34 pm:        Hi Chris, The evidence that voters show up impersonating other people just doesn't exist. It doesn't matter where you collate results, as long as both sides of the transaction are visible and checkable to all. The two sides are: - results made public at precinct - precinct results made public by the state along with collated results. Both of those things were done, allowing any caucus goer to whip out their cell phone and video or photograph the result at the caucus and compare it to make sure it is same as what the state used to collate. And, if any location were to refuse to publicly disclose result at the precinct, all you have to do is whip out your cell phone, turn on video, and ask publicly, what are the results? Then videotape them saying they will refuse to say. The hand marked hand counted ballots were counted at the precinct, not trucked to some secret location. The results were committed, so I don't see how they are still making back room deals to transfer votes. What you need to be watching is New Hampshire.   Deborah Sumner Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Deborah_sumner Post Number: 11 Registered: 5-2011 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, January 6, 2012 - 7:31 am:        As a NH citizen, I plan to take a copy of the reporting requirements (RSA 659:73 http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/LXIII/659/659-73-1.htm to the election on Jan. 10 and tell my town clerk I'll be checking in a couple of days to see if the law is followed or not. When I asked my town moderator previously if he would be following the reporting requirements for this election (the Secretary of State didn't require them for November 2010), he told me it was up to the town clerk because she knows more about this than he does. This question "Will the reporting requirements of RSA 659:73 and rules outlined in RSA 656:42 be followed and enforced for this coming election?", which I asked the Attorney General in early November has never received a response. I'll let you know soon after the election if reporting requirements were met or not. If they're not followed, I will be curious to see if election officials are still willing to sign the poll tape that says, "We the undersigned, do hereby certify the election was conducted in accordance with the laws of the state." Bev, FYI, LHS has now moved its base of operations to Salem, NH.   Chris Backus Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Cbackus Post Number: 4 Registered: 12-2010 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, January 6, 2012 - 12:37 pm:        I think this report quite nicely underlines the problems in Iowa, and the fact that it was another snowball job of the people's will: http://www.infowars.com/iowa-officials-deny-vote-count-error-reports-as-rumor-in nuendo-allegation/   stephen caruso Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Dael Post Number: 5 Registered: 1-2010 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 5:02 pm:        as in? http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/apparent-google-gli tch-shows-new-hampshire-primary-results-20120110?mrefid=election2012&mid=576937http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/apparent-google-gli tch-shows-new-hampshire-primary-results-20120110?mrefid=election2012&mid=576937   Colin McDermott Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Colmcd Post Number: 6 Registered: 8-2009 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2012 - 2:26 am:        Chris. I think that your article is trying to make a point that the count produced an incorrect result.... I believe that proves Bev's point, that the process is open. If we can see that there was a mistake in the count then we have probably have an ok process. We will see mistakes in a count because it is a human process. But these should be small and explainable (i.e. 1 vote was not counted and stuck to another, etc). If we see nothing and hear of 100% perfect elections, then we should expect fraud.   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11455 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2012 - 3:27 pm:        Thanks Colin. The whole purpose of public right to see and authenticate is to bring errors and potential fraud into the sunlight. A system that permits the public to catch errors is a good one; a system that doesn't provide any way for the public to know whether there were errors or fraud is a bad system, and an undemocratic one.

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.