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| 9-6-07: Moonshine Elections - The Hun... |
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| Author |
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 6643
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 9 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 6, 2007 - 2:35 pm: | 
|
An original investigative report by Black Box Voting
MOONSHINE ELECTION SERIES - Part 1
Black Box Voting has found "Moonshine Election patterns" in 16 states, which together carry 210 electoral votes.
America is afflicted with many different, often overlapping election problems. In a series of new original investigative reports, Black Box Voting identifies several problem election syndromes and recommends citizen-initiated actions to take.
In 2006, when Black Box Voting hit Kentucky jurisdictions with 240 public records requests, Kentucky's 57-percent population of registered Democratic voters had just delivered two Democrats and four Republicans to the U.S. congress.(1)
But that's not unusual, for Kentucky, and that's not why we ended up photographing poll tapes and attending county fiscal meetings in the Bluegrass State. It was the plucky resolve of a few extraordinary citizens in places like the coal mining hills of Whitley County and the aptly named Bullitt County that convinced us Kentucky deserved a visit.
What we found affects many states, has affected presidential elections, and certainly has changed many a law-abiding citizen's life.
MOONSHINE ELECTIONS - FOUR OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Rural location
2. Family members hold multiple positions in the local government
3. Problems are noted in financial audits
4. Felony convictions of local officials
5. Questionable election situations
6. Obstructs or ignores Freedom of Information (public records) requests
7. Uses computerized voting systems serviced by small subcontractors
Black Box Voting has identified several of these kinds of election jurisdictions in Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of southern Illinois, Ohio and Indiana, as well as some of western Pennsylvania, eastern Missouri, and scattered locations in Texas.
THE KENTUCKY POLITICAL TERRAIN
A surprisingly large percentage of our national vote comes from rural locations, even in states like New York and California. In Kentucky, 109 out of 120 counties are rural; overall, 60 percent of Kentucky's votes come in from rural election administrations.
In swing states, small rural voting pockets can tip the state's electoral votes. The moonshine elections territories have been known to influence presidential races -- in 1960, the moonshine sections of West Virginia helped deliver John F. Kennedy's nomination.(2) According to witnesses, the total paid to buy the election was over two million dollars.
In close elections, a single rural location can flip control of the U.S. congress.
The public pocketbook and the public safety is at stake -- several of these jurisdictions have an unfortunate history of electing people who dip into the public till, along with law enforcement officers who commit felonies. In Kentucky, one newspaper calls this the "colorful political landscape."
Kentucky is a swing state where 87 out of 120 counties had a majority of Democratic registered voters,(3) yet 106 out of 120 counties voted for Bush in 2000; 108 voted for Bush in 2004. It wasn't low turnout -- in fact, turnout has been going up. It was Kentucky politics: Registered Democrats went into the voting booth, Republican votes came out.
Figure 1: Kentucky voter registration in 2004
Figure 2: Kentucky presidential votes in 2004
Blue = Democrat Red = Republican
The deeper the blue/red, the stronger the party percentage
Figure 3: (2000 and 2004) Registered Republicans went into voting booth, Democratic votes came out
Purple = Votes flipped from Democratic Party voters to Republican presidential candidates. Elliott County had six times as many Republican votes as registered Republicans; Knott and Carlisle County had more than five times as many Republican votes as Republican voters. No counties had corresponding flips from registered Republican voters to Democratic votes.
This is not unprecedented in Kentucky. The Bluegrass State went for Clinton (D) in 92 and 96, Carter (D) in 76, and Johnson (D) in 64, but in 60, 68 and 72 Richard Nixon (R) grabbed the state, and 112 Kentucky counties chose Tricky Dick in 1972.(4)
In Nov. 2007, Kentucky voters will get to choose between two pearls for governor: Steve Beshear (D), who wants to change the state constitution to allow gambling,(5) or Ernie Fletcher (R), who has been embroiled in a criminal controversy involving attempts to build a patronage army.(6)
Fourteen current and former members of Fletcher's administration have been indicted, most on misdemeanor violations of the Merit System law, and Fletcher has pardoned most of them. News media criticism of Fletcher's subpoena-dodging is "a gratuitous and unnecessary slap" according to M. Stephen Pitt,(7) who refers to himself as "one of Gov. Fletcher's personal lawyers."
When we traveled to Kentucky for the May 2007 primary, Fletcher was still embroiled in controversy, but he won his primary. His comfortable electoral margin spread across the state like gravy over biscuits.
Figure 4: 2007 primary results for Gubernatorial candidate Ernie Fletcher (R)
Pro-gambling Democratic primary candidate Steve Beshear had a much closer race. He barely squeaked past a runoff with just 3,500 votes to spare, defeating a team that included Kentucky's most vocal advocate for investigation into voting machines, Attorney General Greg Stumbo.
Most of Beshear's votes came from a small concentration of counties, including a couple of urban counties and several of Kentucky's classic "Moonshine Elections" locations. (8)
Figure 5: 2007 primary results for Gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear (D)
Perhaps the most vulnerable races of all in Kentucky are the gravy train positions: Sheriff, Judge Executive (similar to a super-commissioner or being chief of the county supervisors), and the county clerk position. Even the jailer position has good opportunities for personal remuneration if one is unscrupulous, due to poorly controlled "jail canteen accounts."
Kentucky elections are mostly rural affairs, with the exception of Louisville, Covington, Lexington and Frankfort. Twenty-three counties use ES&S voting machines, 20 of these in combination with old MicroVote DREs, 1 county uses Diebold, and 96 counties use Hart eSlates in combination with old Shoup DREs. (9)
PART III: THE HUNT FOR JOE BOLTON
We sent two different records requests to each Kentucky jurisdiction in 2006: One requested copies of communications with voting system vendors, the other asked for documents pertaining to glitches, problems and anomalies.
We customized the vendor-related requests according to which vendor was supplying the county with voting machines.
We got this:
From: "Jo Ann Curtis" <email>
To: <blackboxvoting.org>
Subject: 06 gen election
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:17:18 -0500
Organization: Menifee County Clerk
My office has not received anything in writing from candidates or anyone else pertaining to the 2006 General Election, no recanvass requests, no recount requests, and as of today, no contest... I use Kentuckiana Election Service, Joe Bolton. I received numerous phone calls, for different problems, but nothing in writing.
Menifee County Clerk
Jo Ann Spencer
We received several more records from various counties showing Joe Bolton having access, Joe Bolton servicing the machines, Joe Bolton as the go-to guy for ES&S.
WHO'S JOE BOLTON?
His territory in Kentucky counted 184,802 voters in the 2004 presidential election.
Figure 6: 2004 voter registration in Bolton counties
Figure 7: 2004 Results in Joe Bolton counties
Blue = Democrat Red = Republican The deeper the blue/red, the stronger the percentage
In case you don't read the whole article, please don't get the wrong idea. We eventually caught up with Joe Bolton, and he seems honest as a preacher, but that doesn't solve the problem with procedures. Joe made some interesting comments, and we'll get to that in a minute but let's start with this: Procedures that give one guy access to voting machines that count nearly 200,000 votes with no oversight whatsoever do not secure and protect voting rights.
Computerized election systems are based on the strange assumption that voters should trust the government and its contractors to count votes in secret. As voting rights attorney Paul Lehto likes to point out, you can no more secure a computer against an insider than you can secure your laptop from yourself.
This "Trust Me" concept is a strange one for a nation whose founders explicitly laid out, in the Declaration of Independence and the constitution, a nation structured around distrust of governmental authority. In fact, these two documents, the Declaration and the Constitution, are bizarre and make no sense, unless you understand them in the context of checks and balances. The Declaration holds citizen sovereignty over the government to be a right we are born with, an inalienable and non-negotiable right, and sets out the most important function of the government as the responsibility to secure our rights.
In 23 Kentucky counties, citizens are required to trust their votes to someone named Joe Bolton, who is not an elected official and who is not even a government employee. They probably don't even know they're trusting Joe with their votes, because newspapers don't mention him and the county clerks have no line item for his checks in their published financial statements.
Black Box Voting set out to find out more about Joe Bolton and the counties that employ him.
WHY PICK ON JOE?
Joe Bolton seems nice enough, and we almost feel guilty hunting up answers about him, but someone needs to ask these questions. Joe, and other people like him, now control an essential part of the public commons. Basically, these people are privatized public servants.
Can citizens exercise their right to oversee their government when critical parts of its operation are transferred into the hands of private contractors? Let's find out.
KENTUCKIANA ELECTION SERVICES
We tried to find an address for the name our public records showed for Joe Bolton's operation. No address turned up in Google. We found a Post Office Box in a small town called Royalton, but a telephone search yielded this:
NO LISTINGS FOUND FOR "KENTUCKIANA ELECTION" WITHIN 50 MILES OF ROYALTON KY
Same for "Kentuckiana Elections" and simply "Kentuckiana." We did a search of the news archives for Kentuckiana Election/elections Service/services and various permutations going back 30 years, but found nothing. Likewise for the name Joe Bolton -- we found several, but none were our Joe Bolton, who works with elections in Kentucky.
A more extensive Internet search turned up a couple of listings, but only with a post office box. Does he service voting machines in his house?
We searched the corporations database and found a certificate showing that in 1990, Kentuckiana's corporate credentials were revoked (and it does not appear that they have ever been reestablished).
We checked USSearch.com and found references to Joe Bolton in Royalton and formerly in a town called Eastern, but not much more.
We ran a quick background check and found that he had been married to a Carla Bolton, and a search on Carla Bolton turned up the information that she was County Clerk -- that is, she ran elections -- for Floyd County, Kentucky.
We headed for Floyd County. As we passed through Salyersville, we saw this:
  
Family-run counties, just like we'd seen in Bullitt County. We were about to find more of those.
Back to the hunt for Joe Bolton. We learned that Carla Bolton is no longer is the county clerk, and the friendly public officials in Floyd County quickly mentioned that she and Joe are no longer married.
We learned that Joe Bolton comes in and picks up the voting computer's memory cards and works on them in his home. If you like to watch short videos, here is a short video you'll enjoy on the search for Joe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpzahSVY_GM
We called the phone number associated with Kentuckiana Election service, but no one answered.
We ran a reverse search on the number we found at the top of a public record, faxed from Kentuckiana Election Services, and found it listed as Joe Bolton's home phone number, with a road but no address.
We located the road Joe Bolton lives on using satellite technology with the Google Earth program, and found that the unmarked road was in a remote location but not far from where we were, so we drove over there.
We looked at every dwelling on the road to see if we might see Joe in there working on voting machines. We wondered if he has insurance, and if he's bonded, and what kind of due diligence the county administrators did when selecting their voting machine technicians, or if they even had any choice in the matter.
We weren't sure which house it was. We had no street number.
Possibilities?
 
 
It was a Sunday afternoon, and several residents got out of their lawn chairs to peer at us.
"They're not from around here," they seemed to be thinking, so we stopped and chatted with a couple of friendly women, who told why they put their trash in cages. "To keep out the dogs and bears," they said. They didn't know Joe or where he lives, but (in answer to our query) yep, they do have Internet access.
We had no luck at all finding Joe Bolton, but later we did reach him later on a cell phone number provided by helpful staff members at the Floyd County Elections office. I've spoken to Joe Bolton three times now and he answered a lot of my questions. I type about as fast as people can talk, and my fingers were flying on the keyboard.
AMONG THE MOST INTERESTING COMMENTS:
BH = Bev Harris
JB = Joe Bolton
BH: Do you ever communicate with candidates when you're programming the election stuff?
JB: No, I don't work with the candidates personally.
BH: Okay. Would you consider it proper or improper to be communicating with candidates for someone who does what you do?
JB: Yeah, 'cause I don't do nothin' like that!
BBV: Okay. Well you've been doing this for 35 years, has anyone ever asked you to do something that made you uncomfortable?
JB: Oh, absolutely, get it all the time, I get that all the time you know.
BH: You're kidding me!
JB: "Could you rig this machine?" And I don't know whether it's a conspiracy or a joke, you know, "Could you rig these machines for me Joe? How much would it cost me?" I've heard that for 35 years.
...
BH: So how did you get involved in this 35 years ago, I didn't think there were voting machines 35 years ago?
JB: Yeah, we had machines.The old mechanical machines.
BH: Oh, lever machines. I have never seen a lever machine and I probably never will see one, either. Darn!
JB: You get to Kentucky, I got a little museum in my garage.
BH: That's great! You may have the last remaining lever machines, before they sell them off for the scrap heaps.
...
BH: Okay, so what do with those MicroVote and ES&S machines, I've never been clear what the subcontractors do.
JB: Well, you know, all I do is I make sure that they're working as the PEBs come in. ES&S, they do the programming and stuff, all I do is I, me and my men go out and check and make sure that the ballot is the proper ballot for that particular precinct and everything is working, set 'em up, wait for Election Day.
BH: So you sort of do -- is that a logic & accuracy test? Is that what that is?
JB: Yes.
BH: Okay, so basically ES&S programs them, they send you the PEB, and then you-
JB: I'll look at the candidates and make sure the PEB is working before I ship it to the clerks.
BH: Is there a central tabulator or is there like a machine like a central election management system with these?
JB: ERM
BH: Yeah, that's what it's called, ERM or Unity or something like that. And so, do you work with that too, or just the PEBs.
JB: I don't work with it personally myself, I have guys, that are trained.
...
BH: I just wanted to clarify, are you paid by the counties or by ES&S?
JB: It's no one's business how I'm paid.
BH: Well, but it's a public record. Because I have a contract with the counties and ES&S for your services I think.
JB: I don't think so. You don't have that, that's for sure.
BH: But, so basically -- well who employs you is all I'm trying to find out.
JB: It's mainly the county clerks employ me.
[About elections problems]:
JB: It's probably not the equipment. You'll find in most cases it's the states that have the problems, it's the laws they write, it's the election officers. Mostly across the United States our election officers the average age is about between 55 and 65, some cases older. And they're dealing with electronic stuff now.
BH: Well you know the iVotronics in Sarasota though lost 18,000 votes. You heard about that I assume.
JB: Oh yeah. That was earlier days.
BH: Well I'm talking about last November.
JB: Last November?
BH: Uh-huh.
JB: In Florida? They lost 18,000 votes?
BH: Yes. In one county. And it was a race that was separated by about 386 votes. I think Dan Rather has a report on TV on that but I don't get the channel that he's on.
JB: What was the cause of it?
BH: Apparently they made their touch-screens in the Philippines and they had some kind of thing called a pillowing effect in the touch-screen and it wasn't recording or something, it had to do with a subcontractor who made some touch-screens. From what I understand-
JB: It was a manufacturing defect.
BH: Probably. Yeah.
JB: Yeah. It can happen in anything.
BH: Well it doesn't happen if you mark a paper ballot with your pencil, you're not going to have 18,000 people break their pencils and not be able to get a new one.
JB: Let me tell you something young lady, I'd love to tell the House and the Senate, on the floor, in the capitol of the United States of America. I can take any paper system you got out there and with one person in one precinct, one crooked election officer, you can control that election all day long. Think about it. You'd say "How?"
BH: Sure, I'll say "How?" Educate me.
JB: Okay. One election officer is all I need, that handles the ballots. He makes a mistake earlier that morning and gives me two instead of one. All right? I go in, and I vote mine, take it over and put it in, and I'll stick one in my shirt. Take it outside. I vote like that all day long, have the people mark their ballots outside, take the ballot in, bring me a blank ballot out. At the end of the day, the last person going through the door, I'm going to make sure it's my buddy, and he's going to have two ballots, the election officer's going to hand him one, and he's going to start towards the machine, and he's going to turn around and go back and say "I'm sorry you gave me two." You ain't gonna be missing no ballots.
BH: Okay, why is there a machine. I missed something.
JB: I just controlled the election all day long by voting paper ballots.
BH: Okay let me understand. The person who's putting it in their shirt is the election official, right?
JB: No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about a voter that has been paid to go in and see this particular election officer. He hands him two ballots that morning. Okay. Accidental. Whatever you want to call it. And he votes the one, then he votes, takes it over to the machine, he puts it in, it counts, he takes the one in his shirt and gives it to the guy outside somewhere, that guy stops the next voter that he's supposed to pay, gives him a ballot already marked, that voter brings out him a blank ballot, he marks it for the next person, that voter brings him out a blank ballot, you do that all day long, and like I said the last person goes in, he's got a blank extra ballot. And he tells the election officer, he says, "I'm sorry, you've made a mistake here, you gave me two, so he hands it back to him. There's no count whatsoever that's off. You've got all the ballots accounted for.
BH: Yeah, you have the blanks, yeah that's right.
JB: You've voted everybody in that precinct how you want to vote that day. That's how simple it is, young lady.
BH: Okay. That's true. But you'd have to get a lot of people involved.
JB: No I just said, one election officer.
BH: But you'd have to get a lot of voters involved. Because every voter there would have to agree to take a payment.
JB: (Chuckles.) Believe me. It's done every day. It's done every day.
BH: Okay, so you're saying that -- I mean, how many -- in order to say, flip the governor's race, remember when they had the primary last May and there was only like a few hundred votes separating the Democrat, Beshear or whoever it was -- well let's say a few thousand. It would be tough to do a few thousand votes that way, wouldn't it? Without a lot of --you'd have to have a person for every vote.
JB: Like I say, you know, it could happen in one precinct, it could happen in 10 precincts in that county, it could happen in 20 precincts in that county. It just depends on how crooked that county happens to be.
BH: I'm really interested in what you're telling me.
JB: That's one way. And I hope you understand, okay, that's one way that you can do it.
BH: How do you recruit people to pay them off?
JB: I'm not doing it.
BH: I mean, not you, but how would they, because it seems like?
JB: I don't use paper ballots.
BH: I know that there's folks that really are concerned about paper ballots.
JB: We are in Kentucky. We really don't want it. We don't want paper ballots.
BH: Uh-huh. How much do you suppose it costs? I'm just trying to figure this out, because you know California, Washington, Oregon, we're like a whole different place, we're the Left Coast, right? So we don't do things that way. But wouldn't it seem like it would cost a lot to pay people?
JB: You might not think they do things that way. You just don't believe the people out there, what they'll do for a dollar.
BH: So it's cheap to do it, you think? I mean I know it's done, because in West Virginia there was an election official that sold their own vote.
JB: I'm not saying it's cheap, you know, or it's cheap or it costs a whole lot. I don't know personally, not personally, but I have heard a lot of rumors, of what people done, okay?
JB: Well you know, it's the way you can do it. Yeah, you know, like I said, I would be more than glad to testify before the House and the Senate, you want to talk about does the voter's vote really county, you know, you start dealing with paper you're dealing with a total mess. We bought the machines, you know that it only accepts you, that vote, to count. That's what a voting machine is designed to do young lady.
BH: Except for, you don't know -- how do you know what in the world they're doing with the PEB cards in Omaha Nebraska?
JB: I could prove to you that I don't care what you do that what goes into that machine ? we have a signature list. If 325 people vote on that machine, that's what it says: 325 people.
BH. Uh-huh.
JB: Now, you're saying that if ES&S or some other voting machine company programs this machine for Jack Smith to win, how do they know how many votes will be cast on that machine?
BH: [Describing hacking test done in film "Hacking Democracy"]: On the memory card, it accepted negative votes, minus votes, so what the guy did was he estimated, oh let's say 'x' number of voters will come in, and he put in some minus votes and plus votes that equaled each other out, so that when the voters were coming in all day, they both end up positive and you have the right number of votes.
JB: That's exactly done on an election? Not just a fling-flang that somebody set up to show it could be cheated?
BH: No, it was actually done on an actual voting machine in an actual county, we randomly chose it off the shelf so there would be no way to do it, and the only thing that the hacker needed was the memory cards, he didn't need to touch the machine at all. And what he did was he exchanged the cards and slipped it in right before the election.
JB: Why would a company like ES&S, Hart, Diebold or anybody else put their reputation and their company up for somebody in a state or a county or federal or anything else?
BH: Well why would they know it though?
Because, you just said a voter will sell their vote for a few bucks, or however much it is, and it's not the head of the company that programs the PEBs, it's just some guy that may have a gambling problem or whatever, so all they need is one guy who's willing to solve his gambling problem.
JB: Yeah.
BH: But it would be tough on you or anyone else wouldn't it?
JB: Yeah. I guess I can't argue with you there.
BH: Okay.
JB: So let me ask you this, since you've done all this, paper, electronic, and all this stuff, what the hell's the solution?
BH: Well the solution has to allow the public being able to see more of what's going on. Because even though you're going to have some messes here and there, you don't want to have a situation where only the government, or only a few programmers in Omaha know what's going on. So that's one kind of safeguard that would help.
JB: You know, I take what I do seriously, believe me. Like I said, if there's a better way, a better solution, I'm all for it. I think, in my years, dealing with the attorney general's office, and the election laws that we've had passed in Kentucky, part of it's been my suggestion, and I'm proud of what I do. And what people talk about cheating, it totally pisses me off.
BH: But in a way you don't have control of it either. You're caught in between one thing and another, trying to do the best job you can.
JB: I'm in the poorest part of Kentucky, you Eastern Kentucky. You know, there's nothing up here for the people. Kids have to leave, one thing and another. They treat folks up here like they're dirt. I'm originally out of Cincinnati, I came here after I came back from Viet Nam, in 1968. And like I said, these folks up here will give you the shirt off their backs. I hear all this stuff from other states, you know, hillbillies, dumb-ass hillbillies, snotty-nosed hillbillies, one thing and another. But they're decent, good people. Now I'm not saying that there aren't people out there that would sell their votes, there probably are. But you know, paper is not no damn solution in this United States of America today, I can tell you that. Talk about fraud, we'd have it runnin' out our asses.
BH: Don't you think one person can affect more votes, with computers, if they're so inclined?
JB: Only if you don't have the checks and balances.
BH: Okay, let me ask a question. Because I'm going to write an article and it's going to have to do with you, and it's going to have to do with Kentucky, I'm going to write about how it's structured there. And I'm going to say some nice things about you. But I'm also going to say ? unless you can answer this ? well here's my real question:
IF A PERSON DID WHAT YOU DO, AND THEY WERE NOT HONEST, HOW WOULD ANYONE KNOW?
JB: (Thoughtful pause). The answer to that question I really, I don't know. Honestly. I really don't, you know. I don't know how to answer that for you. I really don't.
* * * * *
Next article: We will explore the problems with election integrity when you have family-run government, which isn't as uncommon as you might think.
And then we will explode the "Trust Me" model. We'll introduce you to Harp Enterprises, the subcontractor that handles more than 100 counties in three states.
We'll also acquaint you with elections officials who have demonstrated that the "Trust Me" model is inappropriate -- including Joe's ex-wife Carla, who ran elections in Floyd County before she was indicted.
"It was a short marriage," he says. "They run her outta there."
More to come:
- Family-run government
- Theft & drug dealing by public officials
- The Bullitt County experience
- Innovative solutions and what you can do to help
Footnotes:
(1) Source: Kentucky State Board of Elections -- 2006 General Election Results and Voter Registration Statistics ? http://elect.ky.gov/results/
(2) Source: Book Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay For a Landslide: The Sordid and Continuing History of Political Corruption in West Virginia, by Allen H. Houghry II; McClain Printing Company, pp 3-27.
(3) Source: Kentucky State Board of Elections ? 2000 and 2004 General Election Results and Voter Registration Statistics ? http://elect.ky.gov/results/
(4) Source: US Election Atlas ? http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/ ? Election results for Kentucky
(5) Source: The Evansville Courier: "Candidates' views vary on gambling" by Bruce Schreiner, Associated Press writer; April 2, 2007
(6) Source: The Cincinnati Post: "GOP frustrated, uneasy by ongoing Fletcher scandal" by Stephenie Steitzer; November 28, 2005
(7) Source: Letter to the Editor by M. Stephen Pitt, Louisville Courier-Journal; published Dec. 19, 2006
(8) Source: Kentucky State Board of Elections ? 2007 Primary Election Results; Results by Candidate by County ? http://elect.ky.gov/results/
(9) Source: Kentucky State Board of Elections ? Voting Equipment by County ? http://elect.ky.gov/voting_equipment.htm
pdf version of this report:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/moonshine1.pdf (372 KB)
See the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpzahSVY_GM |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4032
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 6, 2007 - 4:02 pm: |
|
This is mighty interesting stuff. To think that honest Joe has no idea what ES&S could be doing with those PEBs. . .
Because of his own honesty it doesn't occur to him that others might not share his integrity. He thinks this way even after spending lots of time talking about how, with paper ballots, there are no end of dishonest election officials who would participate in running crooked elections. . .
Why does Joe think that leopards would suddenly change their spots if there is a voting machine in the middle? I'm sure it's because he believes (wrongly) that voting machines or PEBs cannot be tampered with--just because he personally isn't aware of what could be done.
After reading your interview I'd probably trust Joe Bolton as a person (or at least I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt). But I would NOT trust the accuracy of the election results he supervises for one second. He doesn't realize that anyone at ES&S (or elsewhere) who has access to those PEBs can control all the election results, regardless of Joe's personal integrity. They can cheat all around him, left right and center, and he (and the voters) would have no way of knowing.
He was pretty vague about the people who do the work on the tabulators, too. And he didn't want to say much about who pays him--which makes one wonder. If anyone is paying him other than the county officials there is something not right. This doesn't seem to occur to Joe.
The trust people place in technology--in places that are known to be rife with corruption--is heart-breaking.
Don't the procedures used in NH make the paper-ballot exploit he describes impossible? Or is it still possible, if you were willing to pay off each voter and if the voters were too scared to disagree? (E.g., if the local sheriff let you know you'd better hand over your ballot, or else you might lose your job, or your son might have an accident, etc.)
The video is great, too. Seeing it really brings home the feeling of the place.
About those figures showing the red & blue registrations & votes -- I have a hard time distinguishing the darkest reds from the darkest blues as they all look nearly black on my screen (Fig. 1 & Fig. 6, for example). I wish it were easier to tell the difference, because it's crucial to the story you're telling.
I look forward to hearing more about this, and to hearing from people in paper ballot hand counting areas to see if they share Joe's concerns or not. This is a real education. As you point out, these are the areas where lots of votes are cast and many elections are decided. It's much easier to scrutinize the urban areas, and harder to uncover what is going on in America's rural backwaters.
This is not to discount the horrendous problems in urban areas. It's crucial to also look deeply into the areas that aren't clamoring to be looked at, and where local realities can make it difficult or uncomfortable to look at all.
(Message edited by Catherine_a on September 06, 2007) |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 6644
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 6, 2007 - 6:14 pm: |
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As usual Catherine, your observations are spot on. All of 'em.
I don't think the New Hampshire system would defeat Joe's election rigging scenario. As I have learned more about elections in the moonshine territories, I now understand why there are very good public officials who have said that the New Hampshire system will run into trouble in the most corrupt locations -- but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
On the video, you can see the map of where the heaviest concentration of trouble spots are. This can be misleading -- Kentucky has done some things I'm going to be very excited to tell you about to address their corruption problem -- which is by no means solved, but they are getting traction with some of the strategies they are using. As we have seen with the voting machines, the places that report trouble are sometimes the ones working on cleaning it up -- the first thing that happens in any cleanup program is you find the dirt.
The dark red and dark blue are a problem on the maps, yup, the screen can't handle that method very well. I'll have to devise something better.
And the black-mark maps in the video are VERY incomplete. More counties are getting black marks every day, as I extend and deepen my research. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4034
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 6, 2007 - 6:51 pm: |
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In the most corrupt areas, then, one has to shine a bright light on the corruption and bring it to the surface. Everyone must be able to see it and call it by its name. THEN one might have a chance at reforming the local election system.
Until one mobilizes the local citizenry to root out corruption, NO election system will be trustworthy, whether paper or electronic, whether counted by people, machines, or chimpanzees.
No election system can be used to "solve" corruption problems, because any widespread corruption will get around an election system if the public is asleep. And as long as an election system is expected to do the citizens' job of oversight and participation, there are going to be problems, disappointment, finger-pointing and disagreements about what election systems are better or worse.
As someone I know said recently, the most urgent need is for people to "re-engage"--to wake up, call things by their name, get involved, and refuse to accept ongoing dysfunction, corruption or injustice. There is no substitute for a general public that is awake and aroused. No legislation will do the job, unless it is legislation demanded by an awakened and empowered local citizenry.
On the positive side, there is no stopping the inevitability of change once this awareness and re-engagement occurs. And sometimes it is a big surprise how little effort is needed to generate a tremendous effect. Just one determined person, in some cases. . .
(Message edited by Catherine_a on September 06, 2007) |
Russell Novkov
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Username: Rnovkov
Post Number: 223
Registered: 02-2006
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, September 6, 2007 - 8:07 pm: |
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Something needs to be done about those problems.
Russell J. Novkov
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V. Kurt Bellman
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Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1369
Registered: 04-2006
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:06 am: |
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Bev,
The stuff that JB was telling you are PRECISELY and EXACTLY the kinds of election cheating that happened all over Pennsylvania and led to the abolition of paper-based voting in MUCH of the state a long time ago.
Problem is - opscan voting is JUST AS susceptible to it as HCPB are. What makes it pervasive, especially in "one employer" towns is that anyone who refuses to take part in it is IMMEDIATELY known and personally identified. The final chapter is that those who refuse to participate are retaliated upon.
I don't know it first hand, but I've been told that this scheme was going on in Schuylkill County, PA as recently as the 1990's, with relatively little effort to hide the fact that it was going on. It was pretty brazen. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1370
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:12 am: |
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Bev,
I'd hesitate to read too much into elections where Republican presidential (and Congressional) strength outstrips registration. It is the Dixie-crat phenomenon. Dixiecrats tend to vote Democratic in local elections and Republican at federal levels.
The effect also exists in SOME places outside "Dixie", like in rural middle Atlantic state areas. I personally know quite a few strident self-described Democrats who haven't voted Democratic in a Presidential election since Johnson 1964. |
Mark E. Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Markesmith
Post Number: 3
Registered: 06-2006
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:20 am: |
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It wouldn't be hard for observers to see when voters were being paid off to deposit pre-marked ballots and bring back blank ones. But nobody can see what goes on inside voting machines. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 6645
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:22 am: |
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Kurt,
Thanks for pointing out the fact that the presidential flips are common -- and I noted that in far western Kentucky, which had heavy Democrat-to-Republican voting in the presidential, those were about the same counties where George Wallace won a few decades ago. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 6646
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:30 am: |
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Mark,
There are a number of mechanisms used to keep observers from seeing payoffs, but perhaps more important, there has been a tradition of vote buying in some of these locations. It's not a big secret. And, when the sheriff is a crook, who's going to enforce anything, except -- as Kurt points out -- to retaliate against those who object.
That being said, two points - the voting machines make it harder to catch and more votes can be captured at once, and there are more attack points. And the next point: Some really impressive work is being done and the old-fashioned kinds of fraud ARE being cleaned up. Unfortunately, if an insider -- which could be a some guy in the manufacturing plant, someone with duties like Joe, someone with duties like those who work for Joe, or someone who has access to the county courthouse where they keep the machines, or someone who transports the machine -- if any insider gets at the machines it can be nearly impossible to prove anything.
Which is why we need to be anticipating the next moves and we need to nuke any "Trust Me" elections procedures, replacing them with methods that encourage meaningful public scrutiny. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1371
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:36 am: |
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Mark,
The missing point here is that there ARE no observers to see such things. Up until 2004, in order to observe ANYTHING going on at a polling place, you had to be a resident of THAT PARTICULAR precinct. But even if you were observing outside, in places where this stuff goes on, it is so brazen that any outsiders are "ejected", by threat of violence if necessary. And the local officers of the peace are usually in on it.
These aren't any genteel suburbs with cul de sac McMansions. We're talking clapboard run-down one company mining towns for the most part. They can be VERY intimidating places, AND PEOPLE, to outsiders. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1372
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 7, 2007 - 7:43 am: |
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Bev,
To expand on the registration to voting switch, one of my dearest friends is a former Democratic political consultant in local races. He now works for a state rep. with a committee chairmanship (Dem.). He was a 2000 Gore delegate at the Democratic National Convention.
In 2004, he was my deputy election director in my county. He confided in me that as much as he tried to and wanted to, he simply could not vote for John Kerry. He switched to Bush. Mostly one reason: 2nd Amendment. The guy is an NRA purist, AND a devout Catholic.
Oh, and he's a Navy vet who didn't like Kerry's post-Vietnam activities.
He's far more active in opposing the "Dean-type" so-called "progressive" Democrats intra-party than in opposing the Republicans.
God, guns, gays. It plays here, even among some core Democrats.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on September 07, 2007)
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on September 07, 2007) |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1477
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 4:40 am: |
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So, how do you beat a "cheating machine" like this unless you can bring in either the state or the feds? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 6651
Registered: 12-2004
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 7:33 am: |
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I'll talk about some of the actions that have worked -- and it didn't involve federalizing elections! -- but first I need to provide a more comprehensive picture of the issues.
I still have three articles to go before the remedies section, but take heart, because there are things that work. In fact, this is why it is so important not to fall into the trap of waving a magic federal wand over the country. The tactics used to fight fraud in Kentucky probably would not have evolved in New Hampshire or Washington D.C. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4038
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 9:36 pm: |
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Bev,
Does this mean the remedies will have to be "local" in nature--customized, not "one size fits all"? That would make a lot of sense.
All the posts on this website show how different the local/state laws are from one place to another, and also how different the local election realities are. (Open to observers or not; obstructive or not; corrupt or not; local legislation a help or a hindrance, etc.) |
Carrick Baugh
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Username: Cbaugh
Post Number: 1
Registered: 5-2008
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - 9:06 pm: |
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Joe's PED memory cards could be easily hacked without his knowledge..
One thing that Joe or other subcontractors may not be aware of, if they are at any pointaccessing/programing the PED ballots, is that the computer they are using can probably be remotely hacked (and thus, the PED programmed) without their knowing - as long as they have an Internet connection.
I suspect that most rural people receive their television through DirectTV-style satelite feed, because it is too expensive to wire fiber-optic cable to rural places, and especially b/c ALL stations will STOP broadcasting analog signals in May 2009. For these same reasons, they probably recieve Internet through the same dish service - meaning their connection is likely constant and thus hackable any time the computer is turned on.
I don't know much about IT or hacking at all, but a little knowledge & common sense suggests that ANYONE could connect to Joe's computer one day, and leave behind a program that would become active & manipulate the PED once it is inserted or once its manufacturer's programming software is activated. Full knowledge of the ballot/candidate name wouldn't even be needed - just the party designation "(D)" that follows it.
Theoretically, as honest as Joe is, his elections could be just as manipulated as a one run by an utterly corrupt subcontractor/elections official.
Why spend money buying off a subcontractor & risking exposure, when you can anonymously fix the election for free from afar. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 8105
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - 9:20 pm: |
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Good point, Carrick, and welcome to Black Box Voting.
My impression after talking with Joe was that he was unsophisticated about computer security. But another point here is that it is not good for us to be forced into a position of trust of anyone who can achieve control of up to 200,000 votes, because no one can really tell whether or not another person is honest.
But I will say that I found him to be disarmingly open and friendly. |
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