(CO) 07/2012 - JUDGE THREATENS GAG OR...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11681 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 4 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 10:36 am:        Don't be confused, and don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't talk about this. TO BE CLEAR: THE PUBLIC HAS BOTH THE RIGHT TO INSPECT BALLOTS AND THE RIGHT TO A SECRET BALLOT We have a right to BOTH. Some election officials have been conflating these two issues, claiming that if we examine ballots we can see how people voted. Now, this raises a stunning question: If this is so, that means that election officials and vendors can also figure out how you voted. We all need to grab a cleaver and chop these two rights into the two distinct rights that they are. The right to inspect; the right to privacy. AS FOLLOWS: RIGHT TO INSPECT - The public, in exercising its right to self govern, and under principles of Freedom of Information, has a right to examine the original evidence (the ballots) to authenticate reported results in elections. But Washington State has denied 21 separate requests from citizens to inspect the ballots; the state of New Hampshire secretly excluded ballots from its Right to Know law in 2003; and Colorado election officials fought all the way to the state supreme court trying to hide ballots from the public (they lost; the court affirmed citizen right to inspect ballots). Ballots are anonymous. Or at least, that's the way it's supposed to be. RIGHT TO SECRET BALLOT - The public also has a right to a secret, anonymous ballot. However, now we are learning that election officials and vendors believe they have the right to know how you voted. They have authorized unique marks to be placed on some or all ballots, and they have exploited their own intrusion into your privacy to deny you the right to examine ballots. "IT WOULD VIOLATE THE SECRECY OF THE BALLOT TO ALLOW THE PUBLIC TO EXAMINE BALLOTS" simply means: "WE CAN FIGURE OUT HOW YOU VOTED AND WE DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT" Two lawsuits are taking place right now seeking to remove prying eyes of vendors and election officials from your vote. Litigation led by The Citizen Center and sponsored by Black Box Voting's "Colorado Project" seeks to stop election officials from placing unique bar codes on voter ballots. Of course, the public has been mostly unaware that this is going on, so a threatened gag order from the judge on this case is a little creepy. Public education to let everyone know that political privacy is being compromised is crucial, and a gag order has no place in this fight. In a second case, Tim White, part of a San Juan County, Washington group fighting to restore ballot privacy in White v Reed, is fighting to directly challenge the unique identifiers on ballots. And in a third effort, not yet in court, citizens in New Hampshire have been investigating the secretive, and apparently unconstitutional, 2003 action by the state to exclude ballots from Right to Know. One voting machine vendor, Hart Intercivic, has been especially brazen about printing unique bar codes on each ballot, a dead cinch for stripping out data on how you voted with absentee voting. Hart dominates most Colorado counties (where absentee voting is approaching 50% of all votes), and Washington State, which is now 100% vote by mail. Though vendors and election officials claim they don't look, in the same breath they claim we can't examine ballots because they aren't private. But they can't have it both ways. There is no special class of election elites and vendors possessing the right to see how we voted! TO REITERATE: The public has BOTH the right to examine ballots AND to have privacy of the ballot. Here's a link to the article on the gag order threat: http://www.chieftain.com/news/region/judge-threatens-gag-order/article_201011b0-c592-11e1-8284-001a4bcf887a.html JUDGE THREATENS GAG ORDER Oh, un-gag me. PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR EXCERPT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org   Kurt Bellman Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Realkurtb Post Number: 108 Registered: 6-2011 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 2 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 7:41 pm:        What voters have is the right to have their identity separated from their ballot choices. Voters do not have the right to vote anonymously, or have the fact that they did or didn't vote kept secret from anyone. Once voter identity is separated from ballot choices, EVERYTHING else should be 100% public.   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11682 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 2 (A keeper?) Posted on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 10:01 pm:        Exactly, Kurt, and thank you for clarifying that if I was unclear on that point.   rainbowsally Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Rainbowsally Post Number: 6 Registered: 6-2012 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, July 6, 2012 - 8:31 am:        The Higgs Boson may have been discovered at Cern (Switzerland) but it looks like we have discovered a similar particle: The Higgs BOZO's in the US Court system. When is a law not a law? Simple. In nuclear physics it would be when the victims don't know they are victims. See also Shroedinger's Cat Paradox. This gag order would mean essentially that the victims wouldn't be allowed to know they are being violated?? Thanks to the "crew" for shocking revelation after revelation of where we have gotten to in US history. Go for it, Colorado! Knock another chip out of that brick wall. -from California.   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11684 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Sunday, July 8, 2012 - 8:06 am:        Thanks, Sally. I'm so glad to see you here posting at Black Box Voting. We do have a policy of real first and last name, so please edit your profile (link in left column) before your next post. We set up this policy to reducing trolling, which was once pretty awful here, and it worked. The policy has also helped reduce libel and disinformation, which were also once a problem here. If you need privacy for some particular reason, if you will just email me I'll set up a privcy waiver with you. Thanks!

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.