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Board Administrator
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Post Number: 380
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 7:02 am: | 
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Permission to reprint granted
MONDAY FEB. 21, 2005: Volusia County Update
Volusia County elections worker Lana Hires has resigned. She wrote the famous Diebold memo about the minus 16,022 votes for Gore in 2000 - see Chapter 13 of the Black Box Voting book (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-13.pdf. Lana Hires was at the warehouse in November 2004 when Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne found elections records, including a signed poll tape and a homemade ballot, in the warehouse trash. A county voter registration record, filled out by a voter, was found by Black Box Voting and Susan Pynchon in the street outside Hires's house, indicating that she had taken county election records home. Hires had a key to the ballot vault and 24-hour access to the building.
The lawsuit filed by Volusia County citizen Susan Pynchon (to set aside the Volusia County election based on irregularities) has been postponed again, to late March.
It appears that the Volusia certification was improper. The canvassing board certified the wrong numbers, with at least 400 votes not counted at all in precinct 215. On Nov. 15, the board added more than 400 votes to precinct 215, but did not adjust the certification. Also, though the board says it counted military absentee votes on Nov. 12, none of these votes were included in the totals certified by Volusia County. The board claims that it certified the election on Nov. 12 after working hours. If the court finds that the Nov. 12 date holds, it may deem Pynchon's suit to be untimely; if it finds that Nov. 13 holds, or that the election was improperly certified, the suit is likely to go forward.
Pynchon shared important auditing work with Black Box Voting investigators Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne. Black Box Voting provided a satchel of public records to Pynchon, including 10 poll tapes sent to Black Box Voting by Volusia County in December, along with an explanation by former Volusia Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe that she had "forgotten" to provide them despite several public records request follow-ups. Pynchon provided several new auditing tips for Diebold systems, including information on security problems in the Diebold event logs for Volusia County, and improper accounting for Volusia's memory cards (electronic ballot boxes). |
