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| 1-16-08: How New Hampshire is sizing up |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7496
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 5 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:42 am: | 
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We are finding in New Hampshire: the best of the best in MOST situations, but considerable naivete and in some areas, and an alarming and wilfull negligence.
Among the "best of the best" of New Hampshire situations:
(1) Beautiful, community oriented hand counted paper ballots in more than one hundred jurisdictions.
(2) Very democratic and participatory township structure of government, combined with very high level of representation of local areas in the state legislature
(3) Amazing level of responsiveness of public officials. Secretary of State Bill Gardner, for example, answers questions personally and tirelessly from just about everyone. Many, many high level officials perfectly willing to talk with and answer all questions from the public.
(4) Beautiful, participatory 100% hand counted recounts.
(5) Very good public records laws. If they have it in their possession, they let you see it THAT DAY. Along those lines, Paddy Shaffer did a hand written records request today which elicited some very good information. The dream team here is in the process of editing another request as I write this.
On the almost schizophrenically BAD side:
(1) A reckless reliance on a sole source private contractor. Not particularly bothered that the company has private chain of custody during critical points, no policy or even apparent concern with having convicted felons involved in the voting system.
(2) Use of a system with known defects without even taking any mitigation steps that other states took.
(3) NO REQUIREMENT to even save the memory cards. The explanation is that they get a disk with the "program" on it. VotersUnite attorney Jon Bonifaz questioned the assistant attorney general on this closely today, because federal law requires records retention of 22 months on electronic media.
New Hampshire has a haphazard policy of allowing the memory cards to be kept, or not, with a chain of custody, or not, shipping back to LHS, or not, and it's perfectly okay with New Hampshire if the memory cards are erased altogether the day after the election. They profess to believe that if they just have LHS ship them a disk containing some purported program -- BEFORE the election, when there aren't even any votes registered -- everything is okay. No one could tell us if this is the memory card program, or the GEMS database file, or the optical scan chip. They seem to have no idea what they are doing with this and I would call this wilfull ignorance, not naivete.
(4) Lack of documentation and lack of diligence on keeping documentation or written procedures in key areas
(5) Ballot chain of custody procedures with major holes and a few very creepy areas that will be the subject of a future article.
The upshot will be that New Hampshire could be the role model for the nation, but not until they purge themselves of a limited number of very significant problems.
The problem with chain of custody: You can have a strong, beautiful, stainless steel chain but if one link is broken, the rest doesn't matter. |
Fran Fleming
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Iwontbackdown
Post Number: 27
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 12:24 pm: |
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Bev, great commentary and articulate as always. Would you consider moving the post to the front page? |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 28
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:27 pm: |
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Howard got his money in and it was accepted by the NH SoS. I'm curious to see how the Republican recount plays out given Howard's set of much stricter demands--particularly regarding chain of custody.
Kucinich only seems to be content so long as the recount matches the election night count. I wonder how much more accepting Howard will be given what Bev has already told us about CoC so far? And even then, how much Howard's opinion on the recount will weigh on the public if he says he isn't satisfied? I couldn't be more tuned in... |
Howard Randall Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tidalcreek
Post Number: 54
Registered: 2-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:41 pm: |
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Great work Bev and the Dream Team! Just mind blowing!
Randy
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jane A Doe
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Whistler225
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:54 pm: |
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Police threatened to seize your cameras if you filmed ballots being delivered? Actually, the campus police were called 1/15 when state employees having nothing to do with elections or ballots witnessed two middle aged women in a Saturn with Maryland plates videotaping or photographing their vehicles in the parking lot. The ballots were 24 hours away from being delivered. It seemed to many of us that you were there to try and make something of anything you could construe to be suspect. If there is a real issue I applaud your efforts, but the impression I got was that you are only interested in making a bigger name for yourself by trying to intimidate a bunch of underpaid, overworked state employees. You should also tell your readers that you were allowed to videotape the delivery of the ballots this morning, along with everyone else. This post will probably never make it onto your site, but I was surprised by your description of your experience here. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1847
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:54 pm: |
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Bev,
I believe that MOST, if not all of the country, has decided that menory cards or cartridges do NOT fall under the 22-months retention laws.
Cards and cartridges are ROUNTINELY reused in just about jurisdiction I am aware of. I think this is made possible because the paper report from each machine was legally held to be the "official record", not the card. If you think about it, in a way that makes a lot of sense, since it is a copy of the paper record that is posted at the precinct. Any difference between a card and the printout would be held that the paper printout is the official word. A card is by its very nature changeable after the fact. The printout is static once done. |
matt youmans
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Schoolsout
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 1:56 pm: |
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not sure if this matters, but in the document submitted by Mr. Howard, he requests to see the info by Jan 15, 2007
Anyways, good work and hopefully something useful will come of this. I never knew how hard you guys/gals worked on this, until I stopped by this site a few days ago. Thank you for all you have done and don't mind my rambling if it isn't anything important. |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 9
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 2:04 pm: |
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Anyone else notice the serious typo's in Howard's request?
In #4, he asks for records "including but limited to LHS" when he clearly meant "NOT limited to...".
Much worse, in the paragraph after #7, he asked for all the materials to be provided to him no later than "Jan. 15, 2007." Now that is an unreasonable demand! |
Robert P. Levy
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Levy
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 4:10 pm: |
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If the programs were open source you could also independently check the validity of the programs before using them in the election. If you want to reuse the card that would be fine but you should be able to print out the program, prior to and after the votes are tabulated. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 179
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 4:13 pm: |
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Matt and Randal,
I doubt that Jan 15 is a typo. It probably would have been difficult to meet, but given that the recount was to begin on Jan 16, it was a necessary request (note the word "request" was used, not "demand"). |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4409
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 4:18 pm: |
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Jane A. Doe,
If this is not your real name can you please re-register? Only real names are allowed here. If you're an election official or have some other pressing need for anonymity you can contact Bev directly and ask to use a special name to post here.
Observations from all people/parties are welcomed here, unless they are deliberate falsehoods or are attacking individuals.
You're stating how you felt about what you saw. I welcome hearing reactions from others who were there. Do you know more about who was videotaping? Did you speak to them to ask them why they were doing what they were doing?
Reading between the lines, you believe whoever was videotaping had something to do with BBV. This may or may not be the case, as there are quite a few independent election integrity folks taking an active interest in NH.
The fact of the upcoming recounts makes it an imperative to record the custody chain of the ballot as much as is possible. If the system were set up differently then videotaping might not be necessary. It's a pity the transportation of ballots could not happen in a way that permitted direct citizen observation. The ballots should not be hidden from view. This invites suspicion and justifiably so. |
Mac Hathaway
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mac_hathaway
Post Number: 83
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 5:07 pm: |
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Hello Bev and all,
Bev, are the intermediate results being made available as each precinct is finished? Anything to report in that direction?
Thanks for your efforts.
Mac |
jane A Doe
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Whistler225
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 5:26 pm: |
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The ladies were approached by an employee before the police were notified. They were told that anyone parked in that lot that worked in the building was fair game as the ballots would be inspected there. I am not providing my name as I am a state employee and have a mortgage to pay. I would not have joined this discussion were it not for inflammatory statements in Bev's blog report.
They did come into the building after explaining to police what they were up to and they introduced themselves. She also alludes to a "tip" that the recount would happen in the Archives building. Everyone else received the same tip on the front page of the Manchester Union Leader newspaper. There is a small office in that building that houses HAVA staff. The rest of the building has nothing to do in any way with elections. Firing questions at those staff will not produce a great deal of information. They were portrayed as being evasive when they did not have any details. I do not think the deadline had even passed for the candidates to pay their fees at that point. So, I doubt any concrete plans had been made or at least passed down the chain to the little guys.
My point is that we all work really hard for the citizens of NH and go out of our way to provide the best service we can. Someone comes in and makes a whole lot of assumptions and passes judgement about something we have no control over. This building was used because it had a large room that could be freed up. People in this state take our voting very seriously. We talk to the pollsters, listen to the pitches, shake the hands of the candidates and vote our mind. The entire country then attacks us because we did not automatically crown King Obama. We must be racists! Then these two women come in and basically accuse everyone of being part of a conspiracy to take the election.
Everyone was present for the delivery of the ballots. I believe your reps were there too, camera in hand. I am not an election official, nor do I care to be. If something bad is happening I support prison time for anyone convicted. Unfortunately, New Hampshire was guilty before the recount even began. |
Bill Glenn
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bill_g
Post Number: 33
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 6:38 pm: |
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jane A Doe wrote:
quote:The entire country then attacks us because we did not automatically crown King Obama. We must be racists!
I believe people have STRONG reason to be suspicious of the election results in NH and it has absolutely nothing to do with racism. The significance of this recount extends far beyond the borders of NH.
http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/01/the_diebold_effect_hillar ys_vo.php |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4412
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 6:39 pm: |
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There are plenty of great state employees in NH--that's emphasized in the post above.
If there were contradictory messages coming from different election or security staff you can surely appreciate that this doesn't inspire confidence and can indeed come across as evasive. This is something that other NH staff have no control over, as you mention.
I've heard no one imply that NH state employees as a whole are the problem. To the contrary. It's more about identifying exactly where the problem(s) are, be they individuals, certain departments or locations.
"If something bad is happening", as you put it, the only way to find out is to investigate. Otherwise people throw around ungrounded accusations, which you rightly find objectionable.
A videotape can speak eloquently. It can "help find out who's been naughty or nice". Without documented evidence there's nothing but one person's word against another's. With a videotape there is a tangible record of an event and this is fairer to all concerned than relying on heresay.
You should be aware that BBV doesn't support or oppose any candidate or political party. The BBV organization is about fair, transparent, accurate elections--not about who wins. Other people with concerns about the NH primary undoubtedly have different perspectives but please don't paint BBV with that brush.
And don't blame BBV for any shortcomings in NH chain of custody of the ballots! BBV has no control over what good or bad procedures NH carries out. It simply reports on what is. NH is in some respects among the best--the post above makes that clear--but that doesn't solve the big loopholes that remain. If the loopholes are not addressed we all lose.
FWIW in your situation Bev would surely let you post under an alias, but she would expect you to identify yourself to her if you expect to have this privilege. There are instructions about this on the website. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4413
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 6:42 pm: |
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And I agree with Fran that Bev's post should be a separate main article. |
Bill Glenn
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bill_g
Post Number: 34
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 7:26 pm: |
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Bev..
I think using words like "idiotic" is inappropriate and won't serve you well in the long run...how about "incredibly inadequate" or "grossly insufficient."
Thanks for your updates!
Jane A Doe...
Please don't interpret this whole affair as US vs YOU. I am very supportive of what you are doing there. People's concerns here are more related to Diebold and LHS. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 31
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 9:36 pm: |
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The recount results from Manchester (Hillsborough County) for both the Democratic and Republican primaries are being posted to
http://www.sos.nh.gov/recountresults.htm
I can see a "small" but obvious pattern emerging already. My question though is, can anyone confirm the Manchester official results (pre recount) BY WARD? I think there may be a spreadsheet or link on this site for it but I wasn't sure where or if I saw it.
Bill |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7497
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 9:57 pm: |
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Moving the midday post to lead position and edited usages of "idiotic" to, instead, "reckless" and "haphazard." |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 7498
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:56 pm: |
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To Jane Doe and others,
I have been in the field from early in the morning until after midnight and have not been able to keep up with my email (which is how I do the privacy requests); I could see from Jane Doe's post who she most likely is, and it is fine for her to post under a privacy name. I have no objection at all to it in this circumstance.
Now I will straighten out the record:
quote:Police threatened to seize your cameras if you filmed ballots being delivered?
Correct. Employees of the state archive building were asked by the officer to step away, and did not hear the conversation with the policeman and Black Box Voting, which was nonconfrontational from start to finish. He asked who we were and I provided him with my business card and explained what we were doing, and provided him with all the information he needed. He was courteous and helpful, and provided us with the name and phone number of the chief to help get the photography issue resolved, not only for us but for other citizens.
He told us the building was new and that recounts had until now been held in the state legislature building and this was the first recount held in this building. There was no problem with the encounter; I completely understand why we were questioned, and he made no objection to our activities except to tell us he had been told to tell people they can't videotape.
I say there was no problem with the encounter - I don't blame him for following orders, and we later confirmed with his supervisor that those were the orders. The orders themselves were inappropriate and I would go so far as to say "contrived".
quote:Actually, the campus police were called 1/15 when state employees having nothing to do with elections or ballots witnessed two middle aged women videotaping or photographing their vehicles in the parking lot.
This is correct. We are examining chain of custody of the ballots, and part of this is knowing who has access to the building and which vehicles are normally there.
We don't run the plates, but we do compare them with any plates that show up in the middle of the night or plates of people like LHS and its principals.
quote: The ballots were 24 hours away from being delivered.
The ballots were delivered approximately 18 hours later, at least officially. We are looking into the actual times ballots were delivered. But this is misleading. We knew that members of the secretary of state's office had come over to the archives, and another staff member told us that ballots would be arriving "any time", with yet another telling us things were going to start happening. We knew that Albert Howard had pulled together the full amount for a statewide recount because we had spoken to him that morning, and the secretary of state's office told us that one candidate had brought in a check. We knew that the recount, by law, must begin Wednesday morning following the election. It was by this time early afternoon Tuesday. Seemed like a swell idea to go there, look over the situation, and find out more about scheduling and procedures.
quote:You should also tell your readers that you were allowed to videotape the delivery of the ballots this morning, along with everyone else.
Thanks to the efforts of Paddy Shaffer and myself, that's true. It is also true that this ONLY was allowed after Secretary of State Bill Gardner himself arranged to remove the ban on videotaping, which took place because we found out about it and brought it to his attention.
quote:The ladies were approached by an employee before the police were notified.
Correct. She asked what we were doing, we told her we were researching chain of custody for the ballots, and Paddy asked her if she'd like to help us. It was all very cheerful, and still, I can understand her discomfort.
quote: They were told that anyone parked in that lot that worked in the building was fair game as the ballots would be inspected there.
I'm not sure whether "they" refers to us or the employee. Yes, any person present or with access to the building where the ballots are stored is relevant to the chain of custody, and generally the names of those individuals is considered part of the public record.
quote:She also alludes to a "tip" that the recount would happen in the Archives building. Everyone else received the same tip on the front page of the Manchester Union Leader newspaper.
Our question was chain of custody: After the ballots leave the town clerk, where do they go? No one had been able to tell us whether they would be stored in the same facility they were counted in, or not. And we found it very strange that Frank Mever, Director of the State Archives facility, did not think the location of the ballots should be publicly revealed.
quote: The rest of the building has nothing to do in any way with elections.
Several members of the secretary of state's staff have their offices in the archive building, including Anthony Stevens, who is very involved in the voting machine issues. The ballots are brought there, processed for recount there, stored there and counted there.
quote:Firing questions at those staff will not produce a great deal of information. They were portrayed as being evasive when they did not have any details.
I'll let the videotape speak for itself on that.
quote: I doubt any concrete plans had been made or at least passed down the chain to the little guys.
Except that we were talking to the director and Secretary of State Bill Gardner had just been there and had confirmed that ballots would be arriving shortly.
quote:Then these two women come in and basically accuse everyone of being part of a conspiracy to take the election.
We videotaped the entire exchange, and nowhere did we accuse anyone of anything, much less a conspiracy of any form. We asked questions about chain of custody. We were amazed at some of the answers we received. I believe Frank Mevers told us he has handled chain of custody for the ballot intake process in past recounts, and as he is the director of the facility, he can be expected to answer questions like "where will the observation area be?" and "Do you have written procedures for the ballot intake process?"
"Jane Doe", I do empathize with your feelings, and I appreciate your posting your own perspective here at Black Box Voting. |
Don Deppeller
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dondep
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 11:45 pm: |
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Wow, Bev; excellent gumshoe work and diplomacy! Your synopsis is what I suspected and then some, and Jane I hope your hackles are relaxed. I doubt few here would accuse you or the vast majority of state employees of anything 'nefarious'. And you probably also understand now how some 'naive' public servants' actions (or inaction) could be construed as "willful negligence". If there has been ANY TIME AT ALL that ballots OR memory cards have been OUT of the custody of a state Employee and a reputable witness (not an LHS employee; either a second state employee or representatives of the parties OR the leading candidates if a primary), then the possibility exists for "stuffing" and the results possibly tainted. I have yet to see the recount results for Manchester, but I imagine nothing has changed. I think the last~minute and same~day registrations may uncover newly~minted 'residents' who don't end up moving. I'm willing to do follow~up if I can get the names.
Also; regarding the "exit polling" data from Edison Research: the results are 'weighted' and adjusted with post~election results, which make them mostly useless for the present purpose.
Thanks for being there, Bev, and for all your hard work. |
Bill Lackemacher
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Billl4
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 12:59 am: |
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I just took a look at the SoS Recount page. I see that, as of 11:54 pm PT, Hillsborough County Ward 5 & 7 have not been "recounted" yet. I realize this is a small sample, but here are a few of the totals from the recount so far. Sorry about the formatting, I don't have time to make a pretty spreadsheet.
*********** original ** recount ** difference
DEMS
Clinton ******* 8148 ** 8194 ** +0.56%
Obama ******* 5616 ** 5630 ** +0.25%
Edwards ***** 2801 ** 2812 ** +0.39%
Richardson *** 853 *** 859 ** +0.70%
Kucinich ****** 153 **** 154 ** +0.75%
REPUBS
McCain ******* 106 ** 130 ** +22.64%
Romney ******* 89 ** 100 ** +12.36%
Paul ************ 32 *** 39 ** +21.88%
Huckabee ***** 27 *** 31 ** +14.81%
Giuliani ******** 17 *** 21 ** +23.53%
Scatter ********* 54 *** 23 ** -57.41%
Who the heck is Scatter? He originally had more votes than Paul, Huckabee & Giuliani. I guess he's from Hillsborough Co. The recount is not treating him too well as you can see (down 57%).
I'll try to do some more when they release more totals tomorrow. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1747
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 4:44 am: |
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quote:Bev,
I believe that MOST, if not all of the country, has decided that menory cards or cartridges do NOT fall under the 22-months retention laws.
Cards and cartridges are ROUNTINELY reused in just about jurisdiction I am aware of. I think this is made possible because the paper report from each machine was legally held to be the "official record", not the card. If you think about it, in a way that makes a lot of sense, since it is a copy of the paper record that is posted at the precinct. Any difference between a card and the printout would be held that the paper printout is the official word. A card is by its very nature changeable after the fact. The printout is static once done.
You do know that that blows any verification work that can be done with the information on the card to hell, don't you, Kurt? And you keep bringing up how no ones proved that any election has ever been jiggered using electronic machines. If you get to wipe the electronic records every time you use them within days of the elections, who could get any "evidence"?
And no, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Taking a readers digest of that information is not the same as retaining the entirety of that information. At the very least, that digital information needs to be transferred, in total, to permanent storage media and retained. Not that any of this should be done this way, anyway. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 31
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 4:47 am: |
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That sure needs a whole lot more context to mean anything to anyone???
Generating ?appearances? from scanty partial info isn't typically what goes on here, for the good reason that it is more harmful than helpful to anyone. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 32
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 4:59 am: |
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Pardon the simulpost, my comment above was addressed to Bill.
I'd like to thank Jane Doe for posting, and reiterate that:
noone has as yet accused anyone, certainly not the whole state of New Hampshire, of anything except having built a significant portion of the voting system in a manner that allows several possibilities for untraceable miscounting of votes,
noone thoughtfully engaged with the subject suggests this is the doing of those volunteers or state employees on the ground floor doing the gruntwork,
and it is at the very least puzzling, and cause for scrutiny, that the system was built with several significant potentials for fraud on the part of one private company with suspect tools and questionable past activities. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4415
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:09 am: |
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Joel,
Brant was responding to Kurt's post upthread which was itself a response to Bev's article at the top of the thread. That's the immediate context.
This follows previous discussions on various threads about both policies of how memory cards are handled and retained, and about the nature of the security vulnerabilities presented by the use of memory cards.
E.g., the Hursti Attack in FL showed how a memory card could easily be used to hack the output of an optical scanner. This caused the scanner to present a paper "output" with completely different election results from what was on the ballots fed into it, yet the paper output appeared to be normal in all other respects.
Kurt suggested above that it is sufficient to only keep the paper results output from the scanner, and to program the memory card as it doesn't matter what was on the memory card because he believes it is not considered to be an election record in some states. (In at least some states however it is mandated that memory cards be preserved but Kurt has not supplied any facts on which his belief is based. In at least some jurisdictions this may be something that would be determined by the courts, rather than someone's belief.)
Kurt believes immediate reprogramming of the memory cards is legal in some (or he suggests most) jurisdictions. More significantly, he believes this state of affairs is reasonable--I assume because it would be convenient for election officials (not to mention for any tamperers)--despite the fact that in some cases the memory cards could potentially show that tampering had occurred, depending on how it had been done.
Kurt argues that this policy (of immediately reprogramming memory cards) is reasonable because the memory card is inherently changeable. Isn't that a good reason not to use them at all, ever? Or to have impeccable chain of custody of them when they are used? And to be meticulous about not allowing anyone access to touch them and documenting this meticulously following an election?
Personally I think that convenience of administration is a very significant factor in election system design, but that this should take a second place to security and accuracy. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4416
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:11 am: |
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Joel,
I see that I was answering a question you didn't ask, as you were responding to Jane and not to Kurt. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 147
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:22 am: |
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RE: memory card retention. Friendly legislators filed a bill last session to require holding all memory cards per interpretation of the Voting Rights Act to retain all election "records" for federal elections. At the time, NH Asst. AG Jim Kennedy himself told me that the AG had investigated this and concurred with our conclusion that memory cards fall within this mandate. The NH legislature (Dem majority) killed the bill. The AG did nothing to pursue this. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4418
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:41 am: |
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Did the NH legislature offer any reasons for killing the bill?
It would be interesting to know specific names of those legislators who were particularly active in killing the bill. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 148
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:49 am: |
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Democratic Election Law Chair Jane Clemons offered up a strategy to her committee to kill ALL the bills and then allegedly in subcommittee they would revive "the best" of them all in one omnibus bill. Many freshman legislators bought this bogus strategy and indeed voted to kill the bills. (We had several other good bills - parallel election night hand counting, standards for voting machine approval, full voting machine software disclosure, etc). When the subcommittees met, nothing was revived, of course. They came up with one stupid bill to create a crony-appointed technical committee for looking at voting machines.
In NH, all bills must come before the full house, but once the committee recommended killing the bills it was an easy matter of having them killed in the full house as well.
The process was fully controlled and corrupted by Jane Clemons of Nashua, who is an acknowledged "Party Boss" and whose family is hyperinvolved in NH politics and the NH Dem Party as well.
Additionally, Jane received support in public testimony from Deputy SoS Dave Scanlan, the same man responsible for all ballot printing and distribution in NH as well as being responsible for managing all state recounts.
There are your names. Now made public. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4420
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:54 am: |
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Nancy
Thanks so much for these local specifics. That is really dreadful news about how tightly controlled the NH Dem Party is. Doesn't look good at all, esp. if the Deputy SoS is a crony.
Does Jane Clemons have a horse in the race, so to speak? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4421
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 5:56 am: |
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How do the Freshmen legislators feel about it now? Are they so powerless that they have no influence?
What was GOP sentiment towards the bill in the committee and on the floor? Were they also glad to see the bill(s) killed? |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 37
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 6:03 am: |
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This is the kind of info that makes whether or what specific fraud was or wasn't committed in this specific primary not so much a 'moot' point, but an 'additional' point to the prior issue of:
the consistency of efforts to build it readily falsifiable, and protect efforts to fix that.
As so many have said, it isn't about Dems or Reps, it is: why do both prefer to build multiple fraud potentials into the system? |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 38
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 6:05 am: |
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Whooops,
Need to say whose point I'm addressing, as demonstrated above,
that last was responding to Nancy |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 10
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 6:06 am: |
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Way up-post, Michael Mather asks why two of us were concerned about the "Jan. 15th" response deadline in Mr. Howard's record's request to the state. Answer: we weren't, we were commenting on the YEAR, "2007" [sic] that was in the deadline date (it's 2008, remember?). [P.S. The scan of Mr. Howard's request letter was originally part of this thread, before it was split in two..."]
Regarding Bill Lackemacher's observations on the recount data he posts: [EDIT] The data in the body of his post seems to indicate an undercounting of the vote (over 15% on Republican side), but the numbers currently on the NH SOS website that he used as his source do not currently reflect that. Stay tuned.
P.S. It seems obvious that "Scatter" was not a candidate but a category of ballot that the machines were not able to process (e.g., ballots with TWO candidates selected.)
(Message edited by randydiv on January 17, 2008)
(Message edited by randydiv on January 17, 2008) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4422
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 6:16 am: |
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Randal,
quote:Apparent Lesson One: With machine counting, there are a significant number of votes that are never COUNTED at all -- votes that would be counted if human beings were doing the counting.
This is a particular vulnerability with optical scanners, because many/most can only read ballots that have been marked with the right kind of pen. This is particularly true of scanners that have an Infrared sensor, but all scanners have varying degrees of sensitivity.
There are additionally all kinds of calibration issues. If not properly calibrated, a scanner can incorrectly believe there is an overvote or undervote. Also, certain printing anomalies or folds can be wrongly interpreted by the scanner, causing valid votes to be interpreted as overvotes, for example.
Using the wrong pen is one way to guarantee that ballots won't be read. This can happen accidentally (voter uses their own pen instead of the one supplied) or deliberately. (E.g. by "accidentally" putting the wrong kind of pen in some, but not all, of the voting booths in areas with known political leanings. In the event of a recount it would likely be interpreted as just an accident--which may or may not be the case.) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1856
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:25 am: |
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Catherine,
It all boils down to a legislative choice. One record is the legal official record. Most states have adopted that the official record is the paper, not the card. I know for SURE that Pennsylvania has decided that the paper is the official record. It is THE ONE that is recounted if and when an automatic statewide recount might be triggered by a <1/2% margin. The memory cards will not even be re-read if one occurs. The statute is abundantly clear. Only the paper printout (the copy of which is posted at the precinct on Election Night) has any official weight and is the ONLY thing recounted. Aside from a manual recount of absentee and provisional ballots, of course.
BTW, the cards are NOT erased "within days". They are left embargoed until ALL challenges are litigated. After that, they can be erased. USUALLY, the erasure happens about 4 months after each election and 2 months before the next. The paper records are covered by the 22-month rule, but the cards and cartridges are not.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 17, 2008) |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 11
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:29 am: |
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} |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:37 am: |
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NH Recount figures for Manchester (Wards 1-4, 6, 8-12) attached (if it works this time).
Reported Recount % Vote
Votes Votes Change Change
Biden 51 53 2 3.92%
Clinton 8,148 8,194 46 0.56%
Dodd 31 28 -3 -9.68%
Edwards 2,801 2,812 11 0.39%
Gravel 34 33 -1 -2.94%
Kucinich 153 154 1 0.65%
Obama 5,616 5,630 14 0.25%
Richardson 853 859 6 0.70%
Other** 59 56 -3 -5.08%
====== ====== == ======
17,746 17,819 73 0.41
http://www.sos.nh.gov/recountresults.htm
Thursday, 01/17/08, 11 am EST.
(Message edited by randydiv on January 17, 2008) |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 17
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:40 am: |
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Question: The 31 votes for Paul. When it was discovered that people were looking into irregularities, could that cause (?) to repost all of the correct data? |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 13
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:53 am: |
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Argh, this interface is clunky! Can't get it to specify a font, and when I tried to edit my post the attachment was deleted. Here it is. Sorry for the messiness.
|
Darlene Little
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dare2anchor
Post Number: 4
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 9:54 am: |
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Did a lot of the additional votes seem to come from ballots "rejected" originally by the machines but deceipherable by the human eye? It seems that the vote totals changed. Can these changes be connected to the changes in the individual vote tallies? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1858
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 10:20 am: |
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Darlene,
Everyone who has ever done a manual recount of an opscan election will tell you all vote totals will increase slightly, due to misreads and non-standard ballot markings.
What are far harder to explain are the decreases we are seeing in places. |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 14
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 10:33 am: |
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Darlene, there is no purposeful pattern that I can see in the Manchester tallies. It does look like a machine error rate of roughly .4%, which may not meet minimum Federal standards. But no pattern favoring a single candidate here.
One curiousity is the Ward 9 results with a +3 for Clinton and a -3 for Obama after "re"count, but that is too small to effect the election and in the OPPOSITE direction of what might be expected. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 33
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 11:27 am: |
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The recount seems to be going as expected given Bev's report that LHS retains a private chain of custody. Given that alone, and with the understanding NH has no documentation or laws regarding chain of custody, what appears to be the best that can come from the NH recount? Is it simply the hope for state legislation regarding election process(es)? The possibility of federal legislation?
It seems like some good people in the right places are beginning to understand the breadth of a true election audit. What does it look like NH can do for at least the state of NH's future elections, and maybe the rest of the country's? |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 154
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 11:57 am: |
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I was an observer for part of the recount yesterday. One question I asked, but for which I wasn't sure I understood the answer, is this: at the machine-count polling places in NH, are ballots immediately scanned as the voter checks out, or are they batch-scanned? If the latter, when does this happen?
Another question is at what point are ballots separated by parties -- at scanning, or afterwards.
Another concern, more for the republican seeking a recount than for democrats, is that many (but not all) of the boxes containing republican ballots were opened and re-sealed yesterday, with no official republican observers. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1861
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 12:24 pm: |
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Bob,
Ballots are SUPPOSED to be being scanned as the voter votes them. There is a reason for this. It is ONLY that way that the overvote and undervote detection system can operate. A system with batch scanning loses that opportunity - a key HAVA mandate.
Ballots should not need to be separated by party in a machine scan location - ever.
It is only in preparation for a manual count that such should ever be required. |
Darlene Little
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dare2anchor
Post Number: 5
Registered: 2-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 12:25 pm: |
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Thanks for the answers. AND a BIG THANKS to all of the crew out in the field doing the work they are doing. Our democracy is at stake and I really appreciate your dedication. THANK YOU! |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1753
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 12:59 pm: |
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Kurt, as long as play by play evidence (like the memory cards) can be wiped, every time you bring up the argument that no one has proven that an election was sideswiped by machines, I want you to put a big asterisk next to your argument, because vital evidence, either way is getting wiped before it's examined. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1862
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 1:01 pm: |
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Brant,
Once an election has been certified and no challenges filed, and those that have been have been dealt with, what is the point of retaining anything like a cartridge? It's all academic at that point, and has no purpose.
Besides, when you make a description of a cartridge that uses terms like "play by play" evidence, you are making assumptions about what's in there that may or may not be true, depending on the design. I'm not sure what "play by play" you mean.
In 1991, the 3rd year we used DRE machines, there WAS a contested election in my city that went all the way to the State Supreme Court. It was a "Vote for 5" and 5th and 6th place absolutely TIED. Those cartridges involved were embargoed until the case was COMPLETELY done. So that's what's supposed to happen. (I knew this case well. I was the candidate in 7th place, only a few more votes back.)
)
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 17, 2008) |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1755
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 1:28 pm: |
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quote:Once an election has been certified and no challenges filed, and those that have been have been dealt with, what is the point of retaining anything like a cartridge? It's all academic at that point, and has no purpose.
If you're trying to identify whether a scanner is operating correctly and is reliable, then it has a very good use as a benchmark on the machine it was used in's accuracy! If you're not benchmarking accuracy on a regular basis, I submit that you any recount you have to do, you deserve.
And you're avoiding any direct answer to my point, Kurt. If someone's going to show that an optical scan is either cheating or simply malfunctioning, then they need to have the input and the output of the machine from when the output was originally made. Anybody trying to show incorrect operation of the machine is screwed for evidence with those gone. LHS is walking away with those cartridges immediately, aren't they? If they had to return any, whose to say that they would be the ones actually used, in the same condition as when they were taken? |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1863
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 1:42 pm: |
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Brant,
I thought you were speaking generically. In THIS case, with LHS and THESE machines (especially since these are COMPLETELY "Hursti-attack" susceptible), and while this count is going forward, ABSOLUTELY every card MUST be retained.
That's just fundamental. |
Randal Divinski
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Randydiv
Post Number: 15
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 1:46 pm: |
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I am sure that by "play by play" Brant is refering to any log files that might be stored on the cartridge, that record actions taken as they happen, such as the scanning of a ballot, a reboot, a code patch, a remote access, the machine being shut down, etc.
It doesn't take much imagination to understand how useful such information could be in determining whether there was unauthorized access, a malfunction, a hack, etc.
This issue doesn't seem all that complicated, Kurt. The (paper) poll logs and other documents of the process -- not just the ballots -- are required by Federal law (and usually state law) to be preserved for fair amount of time -- regardless of whether there is an immediate challenge to a particular election. Just about everyone sees this as good practice.
It seems really clear that if the information on these memory cartridges was a paper record, it would fall under these "save it" statutes. Most of us don't see any good reason for it to be treated differently than any of the other records.
What is so special about the electronic storage devices that they should be uniquely exempt from such preservation requirements? Kurt seems to think there is some such quality, but has not explained it. On the other hand, many of us are aware of ways the data on such devices might be important (to establishing breaches of security, malfunctions, manipulations, or to establish the lack of such events).
(Message edited by randydiv on January 17, 2008) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1865
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 2:04 pm: |
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Well then, since the system I used stores no such logs, that's the key then, isn't it?
Not every system uses the same information structure. The Danahers don't even HAVE a system-resident clock, or ANY executable code on the cards. They can't "log" bupkiss. They collect votes, period. Once those results are printed out, there's no point in retaining a cartridge. The only thing ON the damned cartridge is the data to print out another damned report. That's all that's there!
So what needs to be retained depends on the system. I think you'll find I never suggested otherwise. But ultimately it is a STATE LEGISLATIVE decision as to what is official record, and THEREFORE what needs to be retained.
You and I can SUGGEST what should be saved 'til the cows come home. That and 69 cents buys you coffee at McDonald's. It's not our call. |
Howard Randall Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tidalcreek
Post Number: 59
Registered: 2-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 2:32 pm: |
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I'm still reading and learning, but Kurt, isn't it ultimately OUR call (as in "We the People)? All of it, the ballots, the machines, the memory cards, the data... all of it belongs to us if we take responsibility for it (as Bev and the Dream Team are doing at this moment in NH). Isn't that what we're driving at?
Randy
|
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 6
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 3:17 pm: |
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COUNTING METHODOLOGY INFO?
If possible could someone shed light on the specific hand counting methodology/ies being used in NH? Specifically, are they reconciling each stack of ballots to make sure total ballots equals total votes plus spoiled ballots plus ballots with undervotes?
Out of curiosity as well, are the counted stacks then clipped together showing who counted them, the counts, and a signoff on sworn to be accurate? This latter is something that occurs to me makes it possible to not only be clear ballots aren't counted twice, but also to track down any consistent counting errors on a hand recount.
Thanks to all - patience on the response timing - hope I've asked this question in an okay place.
We had some issues in CT on a recount where a solid protocol was not in place, and I read some of NH's suggested hand count methods as a result. Now I am wondering how the recount methods look on the ground in action. |
Don Deppeller
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Dondep
Post Number: 14
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 3:50 pm: |
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It's clear that from what Bev has reported and confirmed elsewhere that the votes in many jurisdictions have been in the custody solely of LHS & Assoc. for extended periods of time, and therefore IMHO unreliable as a result. Kurt, while you may be correct regarding the issue of memory cards in practice, it's also MHO that Randal and Howard ("Randy") are right. 'Electronic media' is also part of a permanent record, and considering the evidence for their misuse, it's another case of "willful negligence" to minimize their potential for 'throwing' an election.
Here's a very relevant article on LHS's "data mining" secondary line of business that explores how the last NH senatorial race may have been thrown:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_cri_080116_what_to_expect_from_.htm
Thanks Nancy for the names and perspective. It's clear we're dealing with machine politics in more ways than one. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4428
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 4:31 pm: |
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Hi Christine,
I don't know the answers to your questions but they are very important.
Perhaps someone from NH will have some information on this. |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 155
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 7:08 pm: |
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Some photos from the first day of counting:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rjf7r/sets/72157603742281975 |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 552
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 7:54 pm: |
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THANK YOU for the photos of counting, Bob. Do you know of any photos of other cities or even other Manchester Wards? I'd sure be VERY interested in seeing them.
HG;) |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 18
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 8:46 pm: |
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What was going on in Manchester Ward 5? Most Democrats lost a lot of votes instead of gaining a couple. Something looks very wrong there.
http://www.sos.nh.gov/recountresults.htm |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 181
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 9:39 pm: |
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Jason,
Maybe it's just that they have a few incomplete or incorrect entries up to now. Look at the Bedford entry for Richardson, for example.
Or it could be one of the problems that Jody speculates about on another thread
But until the final numbers are in, who knows?
Even then, we probably won't really know of course.
.
.
|
Sushil Jones
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Sush
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:01 am: |
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A little research on the legal definition of a Seal, shows that the method used of re-usable "post-it" like stickers is described but far better methods are also described. I am not aware of the design requiements for these boxes does anyone know where this information can be found? Were the contract vendors or buyers of these boxes given a set of requirements that the boxes must satisfy. Do the requirements describe that the intention of the design is to prevent addition or removal of ballots? I could not find any legal description of a ballot box.
From http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/seal
"To close records by any type of fastening that must be broken before access can be obtained. An impression upon wax, wafer, or some other substance capable of being impressed...
Modern judicial decisions minimize or eliminate the distinctions between sealed and unsealed instruments, and most statutes have abolished the use of seals. Other statutes abolishing the use of private seals do not make sealed instruments unlawful, but merely render the seals ineffective. In jurisdictions that still recognize the use of seals, the seal can assume the form of a wax impression, an impression made on paper, or a gummed sticker attached to the document. The letters L.S., an abbreviation for the Latin phrase locus sigilli, meaning "the place of the seal," can also be used in place of a material seal, as can the word seal or a statement to the effect that the document is to take effect as a sealed instrument...."
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved." |
Mike LaBonte
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 97
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 5:54 am: |
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Scatter is the term they use for "other"; write-in candidates who get less than some number of votes. They are lumped together as "scatter". |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 149
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:31 am: |
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A volunteer counter reported that a full box of ballots was not delivered from Manch Ward 5. I don't know what they did to retrieve that and enter into the count in the end. |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 157
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:39 am: |
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Nancy,
How did the counter know that a box was missing?
In my admittedly limited experience as an observer, there seemed to be no certain way of how many boxes we should have gotten, and it was (I assume) SoS officials that opened the ballots and stacked them on the tables for the counters.
(Obviously, if the final count is way too low, one could assume that ballots are missing.) |
Bob Fleischer
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 158
Registered: 9-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:45 am: |
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John Howard,
Those were the only photos I took, since I actually came there to get video (I have about four and a half hours of video, mostly deadly dull stuff of the ballots being stacked and counted).
Since most of that time the camera was on a tripod, I also did some duty as an observer (both of the sorting and counting and of box sealing).
Lots of other folks were taking photos, including I suspect some participants in this forum or their colleagues. Perhaps some of them would be willing to upload theirs as well. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 150
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 6:56 am: |
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Bob - in my experience, counters learn things like "oops we forgot a box back at the town hall" through a series of whispered communications through the counting hall. I was not there this week, as you know, but generally that's how it happens. Somebody ought to be able to answer this question at the recount. If you go again, just ask Karen Ladd from the SoS about it. |
Nancy Tobi
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ntobi
Post Number: 151
Registered: 1-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 7:10 am: |
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Bob:
Ballots are put in the scanner by the voter per NH Law.
Christine: For recounts like this with multiple names on the ballots NH generally uses read and mark method. They generally count the stacks of ballots as well. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 182
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 7:16 am: |
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Well, apparently the explanation given to the Manchester Union was this:
"Vote counters there mistakenly transposed write-in votes for vice president as votes for presidential candidate. As a result, all major candidates lost votes. Kucinich lost three in the ward and has a total of 20 votes there. Hillary Clinton lost 64 with a new total of 619; John Edwards lost 38 and has 217 votes; Barack Obama lost 39 and has 365, and Bill Richardson lost seven, leaving him 39." ( http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5573#comment-286844 )
This explanation is a bit muddy. The "vote counters" there are Diebold machines. So just exactly how did the VP counts get added (not 'transposed') to the Prez counts?
Added on edit:
direct link to paper's article
"A recount of 35,000 Democratic presidential primary ballots has yielded minor changes in totals, Secretary of State William Gardner said late yesterday. ..."
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(Message edited by gypsy on January 18, 2008) |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 7
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 7:36 am: |
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Bob Fleischer's comment #157 on box counts -- is box count before/after shipping part of the protocol/chain of custody? Signing off on boxes sent and swearing it's the total number might encourage a check for completeness. Knowing what you're getting on the receiving end makes a lot of sense.
Another place to do a security check is to identify ballot number ranges that should be in each box and number the boxes, or copy down a set of ballot ID numbers and the order they should appear in the top (or bottom) of randomly selected boxes. IMHO you want the exact number of boxes and the condition of the boxes to match at both ends of transport.
I think you want to know you have all ballots before counting any, rather than counting and announcing totals and subssequently having a new box miraculously appear with perhaps no proper chain of custody, as the "missing votes". |
Mike LaBonte
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 98
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:14 am: |
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Randall, I think to get a true error rate on machine performance you have to measure the quantity of undercounts and overcounts, not their net sum. To do this, sum the absolute value of the errors from each ward. From your Manchester data I get 87 total errors, or 0.49% of the true count (recount count). But this is only Manchester, and some wards are missing. I also have been working on collecting the recount data in a usable format. Of course it must be separated by machine and HCPB towns. We can double-check each other.
(NOTE: My own calculations have been deleted because I just noticed the comments that Manchester Ward 5 results are not yet correct.)
To be clear, the smaller error percentages are how much the ward counts altered the election, which some people would say is all that matters. The larger percentages are simply how many ballots were read wrong the first time. Even if the final result of adding all those positive and negative numbers comes to zero, it still means there is an element of randomness in the election. For all of this I am assuming that the recount is the golden reference. I think statisticians would try to assign some error rate to the recount, and do a much more thorough analysis. I believe the recount is done the very same way the original count was done in HCPB districts. If so, then an error rate can be determined within some confidence level for the method. Factoring the hand count errors out will no doubt result in smaller error percentages for the machines.
(Message edited by Mike_LaBonte on January 18, 2008) |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 183
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:15 am: |
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Christine-
Your points about security and chain of custody during storage and transport are valid. However, the 'official explanation' for the Ward 5 discrepancy does not involve any misplaced boxes.
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Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:30 am: |
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The SOS recount website is updated for Bedford Richardson numbers 183 & 184 recount. This should have been obvious to anyone who just looked back at the previous reported values, but some people on Bradblog were saying that 184 votes were lost.
I agree with the above on the Manchester Ward 5. At some point the clerk or SOS on the reporting form or LHS merged the two results. I do wonder how this happened though. The Dem VP race was this:
Hillsborough County Bryk Stebbins
Manchester Ward 5 172 290
So explain how that end up being:
Ward_5__ AP SOS RECOUNT
Clinton. 615 683 619
Obama... 362 404 365
Edwards. 215 255 217
Kucinich 20 23 20
Richrdsn 38 46 39
Also, the GOP races were all wrong like an extra machine results were added to them. So it's not clear to me how an extra 200 votes are being reported when the VP race is 462 votes. You'll also note that Ward 5 had zero write-in or scatter votes prior to this, so clearly something was wrong. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1870
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:30 am: |
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Michael Mather,
The key word that explains that problem is "write-in". The scanners read that there IS a write-in, IF the bubble has been darkened-in, but they cannot and do not count for whom the write-in is cast. That is done manually. Obviously in the ward 5 of Manchester, those write-ins for Vice-president were added to the Presidential totals for each, manually, by the ward election officials.
That is EXACTLY why people who do elections distrust manual count elections. People at the precinct level do weird things all the time! They literally make up their own rules with ALARMING regularity. I've seen it myself. One completely wrong undividual who has the guts to speak with an air of authority, even though it's complete hogwash, will often talk a whole precinct or ward board into doing something contrary to law. DON'T discount this as a serious problem. It is HUGE!
Randy (HRS),
I quite agree with "isn't it ultimately OUR call (as in "We the People)? All of it, the ballots, the machines, the memory cards, the data... all of it belongs to us if we take responsibility for it" as an abstract concept and speaking metaphorically. However, it is a concept virtually IMPOSSIBLE to practically implement. It is a fine democratic (small d) concept, and especially apt in New England with about as much direct democracy as exists anywhere. In that respect, it is culturally WELL AT HOME in New Hampshire, if anywhere. But there are OTHER places, like just southwest of New England, where there is virtually NO direct democracy at all. EVERYTHING is in the hands of elected government officials. Just as New England may be the heart of "democracy on steroids", places like New York and Pennsylvania are "republicanism (small r) on steroids". "The people" are pretty much politically powerless except for choosing "Gang R" or "Gang D" each election. ALL POWER lives in our legislature, even to the extent of deciding what things local governments can even consider and what they cannot. The political culture difference is AMAZING!
Don Deppeller,
Here is the breakdown: The federal government states that all "official records" of an election must be retained for 22 months, but conveniently left "official records" undefined in some areas. Some examples were given, but it was not exhaustive. The states are left to fill in the definition. In my state and many others, the electronic memory devices were defined "out", meaning they are not official. Only the paper printouts are official, and the official tally is supposed to use those, NOT the memory card, except to reconfirm that they match the paper. Interestingly, the VERY SAME system used in New Hampshire (Diebold OS v1.94w), has been DENIED certification in Pennsylvania PRECISELY BECAUSE it is easy to make the paper printout be "wrong" by doctoring the memory card in advance (the Hursti-I attack). In a state where the "paper printout is king" this makes PERFECT SENSE, don't you think? Any system that has the same fault as the Diebold OS v1.94w will ALSO be illegal to use in Pennsylvania. What each state decides is law will determine what flies where.
On edit, the Diebold OS v1.94w is legal to use in Pennsylvania for central count, as in provisional ballots. It cannot be distributed to precincts. PRESUMABLY this is because if it is used CENTRALLY, the chain-of-custody of memory cards can be more ensured.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 18, 2008) |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 8
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:31 am: |
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Michael,
Just caught up with the official explanation about the VP votes, thanks.
I'm trying not to get caught up in the question "Is it fraud yet?" and instead focus on durable long-term questions of "What are we seeing under the hood?" and what we can learn re: having a very secure chain of custody and protocol.
IMHO each specific incident and experience has take-home messages for voting integrity people and officials in every state, and they may be reading this thread. I'll take all the teachable moments on chain of custody we can get! |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1871
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:40 am: |
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Christine Reid,
You are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! There are literally hundreds of local and state election officials who lurk here. I get "attaboy" emails frequently from them (and no, I WILL NOT "out them" by identifying them - they don't want to get fired). Many of them encourage me to keep on keeping on here. I know them. They are honest people trying to do their best in a bad system they didn't create, don't like, and are under pressure to "shut up and do their jobs".
They know what goes on here. They read this place a lot. |
Mike LaBonte
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 99
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 8:47 am: |
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For anyone who got my post about error rate calculations by email, please note that I have deleted the paragraph with calculations for "all of Hillsborough County". I posted that before I saw the problem in Ward 5, which throws my calculations off quite a bit. |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 184
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 11:15 am: |
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Kurt,
Let me see if I understand this. You postulate that a number of voters wrote in Clinton, Obama, etc. for Vice Prez. Then the Ward 5 workers added these in to the corresponding Prez tally.?
Apparently we can't run the numbers for this possibility, because no write-in votes for V.P. were reported by the SoS. It seems a little implausible to me that voters would cast that many write-in votes for a pretty much meaningless race.
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V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1877
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 11:43 am: |
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Michael,
You have what I am saying EXACTLY correct.
What four years as a county election director has shown me is that there are "categories" of voters. Some people go to vote and vote one office and leave the rest blank. Some OTHER voters just abhor a blank space. There were only completely unknown people on the ballot for Vice-President, AND there was a write-in slot. Some people just aren't comfortable with leaving that sucker blank OR vote for those folks they never heard of - SOOOO they wrote someone in.
If you ask Bev or anyone who is "on site", I'll bet there are SCADS of write-ins for Vice-Pres on those ballots. A majority? No, probably far from it/ But there will be a significant number there. What makes Manchester-5 unique is the decision to add those votes in to te Presidential totals. I've seen this happen in my state. People write in candidates for the WRONG office all the time, and some precinct officials take it upon themselves to "redirect" those votes on their own volition. |
Jason Reed
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jasonr54
Post Number: 19
Registered: 10-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 1:52 pm: |
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"There are literally hundreds of local and state election officials who lurk here. I get "attaboy" emails frequently from them (and no, I WILL NOT "out them" by identifying them - they don't want to get fired). Many of them encourage me to keep on keeping on here. I know them. They are honest people trying to do their best in a bad system they didn't create, don't like, and are under pressure to "shut up and do their jobs".
They know what goes on here. They read this place a lot."
So...This is an internal fight? Can the people inside help in any way to help get this all cleared up? We don't want it to snow ball. We want it to melt. There's new whistle blower legislation.
We need all the help we can get. |
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 37
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 1:54 pm: |
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Isn't the purpose of the state though to determine the voter's intent?
The even more obvious question I'm unclear on though (and this should come before my question above), is why the ballot even had a line for Vice-President when this was a primary and not an election? Forgive my ignorance in that area if there's a good reason for having it. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1881
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 2:02 pm: |
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Jason,
Since ALL election officials are state and local employees, whether or not there is a "whistle blower" protection depends on each state's law.
There is NO SUCH THING as effective whistle-blower protection for most local and state government employees - none WHATSOEVER!
Bill,
Your question is more loaded than you know. I DO BELIEVE that New Hampshire still has "voter intent" in its state laws, HOWEVER, we find ourselves in EXACTLY the Bush v. Gore circumstance. A statewide recount has been ordered. There is an affirmative obligation now to follow all "equal protection" aspects of the Bush v. Gore decision.
One quote from the per curium is this:
"Florida’s basic command for the count of legally cast votes is to consider the “intent of the voter.” Gore v. Harris, (slip op., at 39). This is unobjectionable as an abstract proposition and a starting principle. The problem inheres in the absence of specific standards to ensure its equal application. The formulation of uniform rules to determine intent based on these recurring circumstances is practicable and, we conclude, necessary."
Therefore, Bill, in THIS recount SPECIFICALLY, "voter intent" must be addressed objectively, with strict standards for what counts as a vote and what doesn't. One cannot just "willy-nilly" go looking for intent. Not in this circumstance.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 18, 2008)
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 18, 2008) |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 1027
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 4 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 7:47 pm: |
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Kurt you are mistaken when you state "I believe that MOST, if not all of the country, has decided that menory cards or cartridges do NOT fall under the 22-months retention laws. "
AND,if your statement "Cards and cartridges are ROUNTINELY reused in just about jurisdiction I am aware of." is accurate, then all that shows is that those jurisdictions are not aware of the law or are ignoring it(understandably so since it jumps the costs of the systems significantly).
My PROOF follows:
2005 VVSG Volume 1
------------------------------------
2.1.10 Data Retention
United States Code Title 42, Sections 1974 through 1974e state that election administrators shall preserve for 22 months “ALL records and paper that came into (their) possession relating to an application, registration, payment of poll tax, or OTHER act requisite to voting.†This retention requirement applies to systems that will be used at anytime for voting of candidates
for federal offices (e.g., Member of Congress, United States Senator, and/or Presidential Elector). Therefore, all voting systems shall provide for maintaining the integrity of voting AND audit data during an election and for a period of at least 22 months thereafter.
However,IT IS RECOMMENDED that the state or local jurisdiction also retain
electronic records of the aggregate data for each voting machine so that reconstruction of an election is possible without data re-entry. The same requirement and recommendation applies to vote results generated by each precinct count voting machine.
4.1.3.2 Memory Stability
Memory devices used to retain election management data shall have demonstrated error-free data retention for a period of 22 months.
c. DRE system memory devices used to retain control programs and data shall have demonstrated error-free data retention for a period of 22 months. Error-free retention may be achieved by the use of redundant memory elements, provided that the capability for conflict resolution or correction among elements is included.
5.3 Data and Document Retention
All systems shall:
a. Maintain the integrity of voting AND audit data during an election, and for at least 22 months thereafter, a time sufficient to resolve most contested elections and support other activities related to the reconstruction and investigation of a contested election
b. Protect against the failure of ANY data input or storage device at a location controlled by the jurisdiction or its contractors, and against any attempt at improper data entry or retrieval
=======================================
Additionally, this topic "NASED Memory Card Report 03-22-06" from this link: http://www.nased.org/certification.htm (AND NEVER RESCINDED BY THE EAC) states that all reports are to be printed and I know from personal experience here in California that the audit log IS NOT printed -just the tabulation log- prior to removal of the memory card from the AccuVote-OS precinct machine; it probably wasn't in New Hampshire as well.
And on the AccuVote-OS precinct machine, the audit data is solely stored on the memory card as contrasted to the TSX machine which has the audit data stored in a different location than the tabulation memory card. So if the AccuVote-OS memory card is not stored/saved OR the audit log printed out BEFORE removal of the memory card, such data cannot be retained for the 22 month period.
=====================================
It is also painfully obvious that the SOS of New Hampshire hasn't bothered to read and implement the Voting system Security specified by the EAC:
http://www.eac.gov/election/quick-start-management-guides
===============================================
Additionally from the Election Management Guidelines at the EAC:
http://www.eac.gov/election/quick-start-management-guides
Securing the Voting Devices During Storage and Post-Election
• Local election officials should maintain an inventory of election materials. These materials should be securely stored until the period of election protest and appeals HAS ENDED.(AND Federal law specifies that period to be 22 months!!)
Election materials include the following:
*Voting devices (INCLUDING memory cards where applicable).
* Administrator and ballot activation devices.
* Seal envelopes.
* Voter registration (poll) lists.
* Election result tapes and printouts.
* Field supervisor and rover reports.
* Poll worker daily logs.
* Reconciliation reports.
* Audit data (includes retention of the completed master election audit trail
checklist mentioned on page 16.
* Voting Equipment Delivery Sheets (mentioned on page 29).
========================================== |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4442
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 2:47 am: |
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My guess is that a Primary Election is not an "election for federal offices". It's "only" a selection of candidates--it's not the actual choice of presidential electors.
In many states primary elections are not governed by normal election rules and procedures. Political parties can more or less do what they want with impunity in those states where primaries are not administered by the usual election offices but by the parties holding primaries.
Any thoughts about whether my hunch is correct, or whether this is something that would need to be determined by a court case? |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 11
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 6:51 am: |
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Comments from the sidelines not meant to distract, but fwiw.
Nanci Tobi said that usually NH uses a method of reading off and making hashmarks for races with many candidates. If that's what's being used...
Sorting ballots by candidate and counting stacks, I recently read, is faster and more accurate method of counting than reading off votes and making hash marks. Could candidates get more bang and accuracy for their buck using stack and count? count stack, sort out spoiled ballots and count, then sort by candidate and , count stacks, totals should add to original # of ballots in stack. Recount if off. Turn in reconciled ballots with a vote count sheet signed off on; and get next stack. If errors consistently occur, you know who is making them.
Who is making the choice of counting method? Most people wouldn't know the difference, but because hashmark type counts take longer, they can be a tool in the wrong hands (to buy time/slow count), since less accurate, they can discourage counters and discrediting hand count accuracy in eyes of observers. Maliciously incompetent hand counting can be used to inure inuring the public to slight but constant discrepancies.
A quick point of comparison here from the recently issued report on CT Audits that were carried out in late 2007, now available in the document archives on this site:
"While we agree that hand counting can be difficult and error prone, hand counting can also be highly accurate, as demonstrated by the 55% of candidate counts where machine and hand
counts matched perfectly. Moreover, 86% of all candidate counts showed less than 4 votes of
difference between the machine and hand counts. (See Audit Statistics presented in the Statistics
Report by CTVotersCount)"
To put this in perspective, in CT this year, the hand counting for the first time fell into the auspices of our registrars, not our clerks -- and this is the accuracy level with admitted first-timer problems. I offer as a point of comparison to the type of ward totals we are seeing in NH.
RE: Ward 5 miscount offical attribution to "VP votes" (write ins?), has any observer observed the writing on that ballot set or ink on them or verified this news report? Has anyone talked to the Ward 5 voting official responsible for reporting reesults to verify this happened?
Extra lines for offices with no candidates on a ballot is a source of errors and a possible avenue for mischief. Seems like a good thing to eliminate from future ballots on principle.
Green voting aside, sounds like recycled boxes should be out -- maybe even re-used proper boxes?? -- imho it should not take a CSI to figure out if the many stickers on the box represent broken chain of custody. What will happen with multiple broken stickers is people will stop looking as it's too much of a hassle.
Any word from the town officials sending the boxes with wrinkled and bunched up seals as to whether they went out that way (any video)?
Zero tolerance of wrinkled labels and re-sealing of those boxes at the time of the wrinkling problem (day of election or prior to shipping, whenever sealed) would be good, but they're especially troublesome in NH when the labels apparently are not tamper-evident as required. Is any written/signed off verification of "condition of boxes and seals" typical of chain of custody protocols (either for initial vote storage or for shipping for centralized counting)? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4444
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 7:15 am: |
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Christine,
I agree with your numerous observations and suggestions.
Regarding the counting and sort and stack method, I would add that any counted stack be then given to a different person who doesn't know the first person's result, for an immediate second count. If there is any discrepancy it is immediately resolved by as many recounts as are necessary for everyone to agree about the accuracy of the result.
I assume that problematic ballots (ballots whose legitimacy is questionable for any reason, and/or undervotes or overvotes) are separated out after the initial counting of the number of all ballots, during the first sorting operation. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 13
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 7:28 am: |
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I share your assumption. I have read a protocol where problematic ballots are sorted in first sorting operation and counted before anything else. This way there is not a known result to influence how marks are interpreted. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 32
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 8:11 am: |
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Kurt: What are far harder to explain are the decreases we are seeing in places.
If the hand re-count reveals a potential reason to void a ballot which may not have been previously voided in the original count that might provide an explanation.
There should be a known amount of the originally counted under-voted ballots, however, real numbers, not percentages, as well, whether those were originally hand-counted or opti-scan counted.
The hand re-count for those originally hand-counted districts should match exactly in amount of under-voted paper ballots, shouldn't they?
I'd go further and say that the reported amount of over-voted ballots in the hand-counted districts should match the new recounts of those as well.
Hopefully, the originally hand counted ballots and the originally opti-scan ballots have been kept separate. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 5
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 8:39 am: |
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Bruce,
Ignoring the fact that this is not an election for a federal office (party only selection of delegates).
Unless there are state laws requiring memory cards used in PCOS devices, there is no requirement for retention. DREs yes, PCOS probably not.
NASED does not apply as it was alway voluntary and also no longer applies as has been stated by EAC.
EAC "guidelines" really do not apply as their is no weight of law behind them. Most states have written into law about requiring NASED or EAC federal certification but that only applies to using the hardware.
As far as federal law,
"RECOMMENDED to retain electronic records of the aggregate data for each voting machine"
This is a CDROM of the tabulation data from GEMS. Really, this does contain all the machine level data, and that is all they require.
Because paper ballots are available if needed, this is all that needs to be retained. For DREs, it is recommended to keep the memory cards, but really only required to do so for DREs with no VVPAT. In some states that use the VVPAT as ballot of record, it could be argued that the VVPAT needs to be retained and only a copy of machine level data. |
Del Argenti
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Truthnet
Post Number: 33
Registered: 1-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 9:19 am: |
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It is a federal election governed by both state elections laws and federal Constitution (and federal Acts).
In PA more than the nominee for President are chosen in the Primary process. The Primary voters select from ballot candidates for statewide offices and Congress.
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G08/PA.phtml
Pennsylvania 2008 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions: Democrats, Republicans, Third Parties
http://padems.com/files/Delegate08Final806.pdf
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/PA-R.phtml
There are different state laws and regulations pertaining to ballot access in Primaries.
Michigan ballot access may be helpful
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/Ballot_Pres_20081_208311_7.pdf |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4445
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 9:21 am: |
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quote:This is a CDROM of the tabulation data from GEMS. Really, this does contain all the machine level data
and
quote:and only a copy of machine level data
You may want to check out some of the other threads here. My understanding from reading some of the many comments from technical folks who have posted here is that these logs definitely do not contain all the information about what has happened, or all the "machine level data".
Hursti II (which was carried out on a DRE) showed vulnerabilities in firmware and bootloaders and also that the OS could provide vulnerabilities. As code can be written to self-erase (e.g. after a certain pre-determined time or after certain functions have executed), preserving memory cards, machine hardware etc. may or may not retain evidence of tampering. But in many cases, because the tampering was not done skilfully, had the electronics been retained it might indeed have shown undeniable proof of tampering).
I realize that all hardware, OS, firmware and software combinations have different vulnerabilities to input errors, malfunctions, and tampering. That said, I have seen enough posts to recognize that paper records or CD duplicates do not necessarily contain "all the machine level data".
I'd be grateful if some of the techie folks who are most familiar with these issues can be more specific, particularly as it relates to optical scanners, memory cards, and any relevant tabulation systems.
I think election officials' and voters' belief that having a copy of the machine's logs and results is "sufficient" is sometimes part of the problem in understanding what is needed for secure systems.
(NH doesn't use an automatic tabulation device, if I understand correctly. Precinct results were entered manually onto an Excel-type spreadsheet program.) |
Michael W Mather
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Gypsy
Post Number: 185
Registered: 7-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 10:33 am: |
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Jason, a couple of points to keep in mind.
"Most states have written into law about requiring NASED or EAC federal certification but that only applies to using the hardware."
Actually "Certification" involves testing voting systems, including firmware and software. That's why companies have gotten into trouble for installing uncertified upgrades. The hardware is non-functional without the software.
"This is a CDROM of the tabulation data from GEMS...."
Discussion of GEMS tabulation is apparently irrelevant to NH. It was written that NH doesn't use GEMS to aggregate the votes. Is that right NH'ites?
"Unless there are state laws requiring memory cards..."
Nancy Tobi has pointed out that a bill including such a provision was brought up before the NH legislature, but a certain power Politico made sure it was defeated. Something you NH'ites might want to discuss with your state representatives and senators.
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4448
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 11:11 am: |
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Michael & Jason,
quote:"Most states have written into law about requiring NASED or EAC federal certification but that only applies to using the hardware."
Actually "Certification" involves testing voting systems, including firmware and software. That's why companies have gotten into trouble for installing uncertified upgrades. The hardware is non-functional without the software.
The reality is far worse. Even the things that were supposedly tested were tested inadequately. (E.g., there was no testing done for security, or for reliability.) The vendors "helpfully" guided the process of instructing NASED of exactly which things to check. If it wasn't on that list, it wouldn't be checked.
Even some of the things that were supposed to be checked weren't. (Like the problem of several states upgrading their hardware but not bothering to re-certify. And even when NASED was notified of the non-compliance it did not revoke their certification. Also, lots of previously-existing equipment and software was "grandfathered" in so that it would never be required to be tested at any point in the future. And the vendors had disagreements about what was hardware and what was software, so more things slipped through the cracks that way.)
The whole design of NASED/EAC/FEC smells very, very bad. |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 1032
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 11:11 am: |
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Jason, please do some more reading; HAVA mandates that EAC accredit voting system test laboratories and certify voting equipment. THAT IS FEDERAL law. Please note that 'guidelines' are NOT 'we suggest' type of notation but defacto regulations inherent in the approval of voting systems by the EAC as MANDATED by Federal law(HAVA).
I notice that you have only posted 5 times; while I welcome participation, please cite the authority/experience/law for any assertions you make.
Such as "NASED does not apply as it was alway voluntary"; it wasn't 'voluntary'(unless you are referencing the vendors paying and specifying how to test)as States insisted on such testing certification -though not really done-against the 1990 and 2002 voting system standards developed by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). And the EAC 'grandfathered' ALL such systems and directives on transitioning the NASED process to the EAC.
And the word 'should' is an imperative, not a not a deliberative such as 'may'.
As a quick aside, I have auditted GEMS and can tell you flat out that the audit log was never constructed with the idea that anyone would ever really look at it. |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 555
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 2:56 pm: |
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While it may be true that NH doesn't (didn't) use GEMS to aggregate the vote, unless there has recently been a significant change in the process, it is my undretsanding that GEMS IS used to setup the election specification, the ballot layout, precinct and race numbering, and the encoding of the ballots, prior to the ballots being sent to the print shop for printing, PLUS is also used to export the file that is ultimately downloaded onto the memory cards, so that the optical scanner knows how to interpret the marks on each scanned ballot.
While the actual tabulation data from within GEMS might not be relevant in this particular contest, the GEMS database would certainly be VERY revealing regarding the programming and encoding of the ballots - an area of potential election manipulation that is seldom mentioned.
HG;) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4456
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 3:38 pm: |
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JH - very important points. I could imagine election officials not bothering to consider GEMS software as something to be retained, since it's not directly used in either voting or counting in this case--even though it's critically important, as you point out.
(I wonder if one can require ballot-printing companies to keep a copy of the software used for setting up the election specification, ballot layout, etc. Has this aspect ever been considered to be an election record, or important in any way?) |
John Howard
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Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 556
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 7:38 pm: |
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As I understand it, the ballot-printing companies typically recieve from the election jurisdiction either a PDF file or a Postscript file (either of which is output from GEMS) from which they print the actual ballots. I would hope that a copy of the file along with the communicated instructions (such as the required printing specifications) WOULD be considered an election record and would be preserved, since they certainly ARE an avenue by which the outcome of an election can be affected. At the very least they should be a requestable public record.
Of course, then there are cities like Cambridge Mass, who are still using the GEMS ballot-printing specification issued more than a decade ago.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/71322.html?1200350197
HG;) |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 7
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 7:42 pm: |
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I believe I was responding to the quoted material provided. Of course, NASED/EAC certification is part of HAVA and is written into most State law. I said that. I don't know how Certification is relevant to ballot or memory card retention, which is what was being discussed.
Any EAC guidelines such as quoted above such as, "Local election officials should maintain... Election materials include the following:"
have no bearing on federal retention. Did the EAC change USC regarding memory card retention for optical scan paper ballots?
I know what "should" be retained after elections, I think we all agree on what ideally should be kept. I was addressing what election officials actually do retain. I did not realize that GEMS was not used for tabulation in NH. So, why exactly did LHS collect memory cards? Am I to understand, there was no post-election tabulation performed from memory cards? So the precincts hand recorded the totals from the AccuVotes per machine at the precincts and transmitted that to the SOS? In that case, the election materials to be retained are the paper records of machine level results.
In review, not talking about accreditation or certification (which I thought I made clear), regarding election administration, HAVA is pretty clear about the EAC, The Commission has NO rulemaking authority or the ability to promulgate regulations or take action, which imposes a requirement on any state or local gov- except what is already permitted under NVRA.
I was wrong, however, on primary election not being covered under 42 U.S.C.
quote:42 USC Sec. 1974
Every officer of election shall retain and preserve, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of any general, special, or primary election of which candidates for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, ... all records and papers which come into his possession relating to any application, registration, payment of poll tax, or other act requisite to voting in such election...
I apologize about only having "5 posts". Trust me, I regret it already. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1883
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 8:03 pm: |
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I have tried three times to post a lengthy response to Bruce Sims why he's wrong about this, and Jason's right, and this page keeps resetting and I lose my work. I'll have to write it offline and cut and paste it here. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1884
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 8:49 pm: |
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Bruce,
I am quite sure it is you who are wrong about this subject of retention of memory cards for 22 months. A few points:
The EAC indeed has no rule-making authority, as Jason has pointed out, over any state or local election jurisdiction, much as they would like to.
There is no part of the 2005 VVSG that is mandatory. Only the 2002 standards are. Who says so? For starters, United States District Judge Gary Sharpe, the judge overseeing the USDOJ’s HAVA lawsuit against New York. He said so unambiguously in a transcript posted here by Bev Harris.
Even so, all federal law says is what information needs to be retained. It is silent on what media is to be used to retain it. The exact media depends on what system is in use. There are needs to retain whatever is required to “rebuild” the election.
In Pennsylvania, for the dominant DRE in use, EVEN THOUGH IT IS PAPERLESS (no voter reviewable paper trail at all for non-writein votes), there is NO need to retain the memory cards. Who says so? Every county solicitor that uses the system AND the Department of State say so. They take their advice from those sources, NOT the “election integrity” movement.
Every jurisdiction using that system (Philadelphia, Berks, Bucks, Delaware, Monroe, and Dauphin counties – all big counties) re-use all their memory cartridges EVERY election. None retains them for 22 months. What they DO retain is the EXACT version of the Danaher GEMS software or for older elections, the Shoup EMS software, the entire database for each election on CD or other removable media, AND copies on the GEMS machine’s hard drive. That database contains the exact data drawn from the data cartridges, unedited and unaltered, and which MATCHES the individual paper tapes from each machine (that determination is made during the official tally). The data cartridges contain no executables. Executables exist two places – the GEMS software and the firmware in each voting machine, which never changes. UNLIKE some newer systems, there are NO executable files on any card or cartridge, just data files, and those are retained on CD. The voting machine’s software is not ever changed in normal use, except for the addition of HAVA-mandated updates in 2006.
Every election ever run on those systems can be re-examined any time in the future by just re-opening the database and/or examining the paper tapes. Every machine’s votes are retained separately on the CD. There is no co-mingling of the data, Absentee votes and, since 2004, provisional votes are retained separately as “virtual machines”, not aggregated, but precinct-by-precinct. There are no “machine logs”, all logs are in the GEMS database for each election.
No one, Bruce, not one single person in the business of knowing, has EVER ONCE suggested that this system needs to have its data cartridges retained under the 22 month rule.
Why? Because the system is built in such a way that if anyone wanted to know how many votes Tim Reiver got for Commissioner on machine #007417 in the primary in 2003, there are two places to go for that data, EVEN NOW. The paper tape could be looked at, AND the database still retains that information. None of it is gone, even though the cartridge that was in that machine has been re-used and re-erased at least 9 times now. |
Bruce Sims
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Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 1033
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 5:18 pm: |
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Kurt, you keep bringing up the Danaher or Shoup systems and the system being dicussed is Diebold which DOES have executable code on the memory chips....remember?
Two, when a State passes laws that says that the certification of voting systems must conform to the VVSG standards, that makes those standards a law in that State (I don't know other State laws but California does have such a law).
Three, unless you can qualify who you mean by "not one single person in the business of knowing" I'll disagree given that I DO KNOW people involved -other than election officials who have a vested interest in not keeping the memory cards,e.g.costs- in elections who do think they need to be retained. Your defense of election officials seems to be a bias that disregards what you would call 'bad apples' but which, given all that has become known regarding election integrity, is not an insignificant number of individuals who are election officials.
Fourth, the document 'Election Documentation Retention in an Age of High Technology' issued by the 'National Clearing House on Election Administration' by the Federal Election Commission states that 42 U.S. C Section 1974 (ironic huh Jason?)that "ALL records and papers which come into their possession relating to ANY application, registration, payment of poll tax or OTHER act requisite to voting"; this section is targets election administrators. Federal Courts have recognized that the purpose of this document retention requirement is to protect the right to vote by facilitating the investigation of illegal election practices: Kennedy v. Lind ,306 F.2d 222(5ht Cir 1962), cert. denied ,371 U.S 952(1963).
Additionally, the DOJ criminal division has indicated that the one of the categories of records covered by 42 U.S.C. 1974 is "Records, whether in hard copy or recorded on electronic media" reflecting: election definition,programming or testing of electronic equipment,records pertaining to specialization or particularization of vote counting software,'Proms' or other similar memory storage devices, ALL other computer programs utilized to tabulate votes electronically....which gets us right back to the Diebold memory cards.
Still not convinced? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4470
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 5:44 pm: |
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Bruce, thanks very much for these clarifications and confirmations. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1885
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008 - 9:46 pm: |
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Bruce,
I don't quite know where to start. California has painted itself into a corner with laws like that because there are no 2005 VVSG compliant machines, as the case in New York State is demonstrating right now. New York ALSO passed a law that any machines must be 2005 VVSG compliant, and therefore they couldn't install ANY because none were compliant. The federal judge ruled UNAMBIGUOUSLY that HAVA pre-empts the New York State law even if that law sets a higher standard than HAVA does. New York is being ORDERED to buy and install 2002 standard machines because HAVA demands it and federal pre-emption prevails.
Second, Bruce, the Diebold OS machine being used (v1.94w) in NH is so bad that it isn't even LEGAL TO USE AT ALL for precinct use in my state, so I offer no defense of ANY KIND for it, here or elsewhere, or this issue or any other.
In fact, Bruce, I'll go you one better. In my opinion, and from reading the 2002 standards (note the disclaimer phrase - something frequently lacking from most posters here - here people like to state things as legal fact that are not - and mine here is not), NO SYSTEM that contains executables in its data cartridges should EVER HAVE BEEN approved, unless it is static and unchanged for each election. By the way, I could have sworn it was ES&S that had AccuBasic interpreted code on each card, but it might have been Diebold, so I won't push the point. Any system that uses changeable-for-each-election executables co-mingled with its data cannot EVER be properly tested, can it? As far as I know, we EVEN NOW have systems ON THE MARKET still using interpreted code on the data cards/cartridges. While THAT is going on, it's a little hard to take very much seriously at all when it comes to "standards".
Third, Bruce, I am getting a wee bit tired of being pilloried for refuting blanket statements like "memory cards need to be retained by federal law" which obviously are PLAINLY untrue. Even a college freshman taking a logic course learns that even a SINGLE counter-example disproves a blanket statement. When ANYONE HERE, Bev Harris included, makes blanket statements about what federal law is when the people who administer those laws disagree, and no federal judge has come forth and confirmed the viewpoint stated here, they engage in a cheap trick of "curbside lawyering", nothing more or less. "The people", whoever they are at any given time, don't interpret laws, courts do.
Fourth, Bruce, if you can shoehorn machine memory cards or cartridges within "ALL records and papers which come into their possession relating to ANY application, registration, payment of poll tax or OTHER act requisite to voting", then you are a more gifted "logician" than any I have ever encountered. It clearly targets things UP TO the act of voting. Note the bolded passage above. That passage refers to registration and qualification materials only.
Fifth, Bruce, your argument at "Records, whether in hard copy or recorded on electronic media" reflecting: election definition,programming or testing of electronic equipment,records pertaining to specialization or particularization of vote counting software,'Proms' or other similar memory storage devices, ALL other computer programs utilized to tabulate votes electronically...." is MORE THAN covered by retaining whatever data goes into MAKING the data cards, not the cards themselves. See especially the words, "records pertaining to specialization or particularization of vote counting software". By retaining the database, which performs EXACTLY that function, the requirements are met.
No, Bruce, still not convinced. Until you get a federal court order to back your view, mine is the one actually being practiced for the most part around the country. We haven't YET gotten to the point that Bruce Sims, or Brad Friedman, or the majority of BBV posters get to interpret all law.....yet.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 20, 2008) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4476
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 2:50 am: |
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Kurt,
Just because a certain interpretation is being practiced does not make it legal. Your opinion does not create law, any more than that of any other BBV poster.
Bruce makes a more convincing case on a number of points.
You sidestepped the issue of states that require that the federal voluntary guidelines be followed, by focusing on the limited question of which year's equipment should be used. As you are aware the VVSG cover quite a bit more topics than which year of certification is applied. Even if HAVA forces states to get non-compliant machines (regarding the year of certification) I doubt that courts would disregard all the other requirements imposed by a state adopting the VVSG as mandatory. |
Jason Parry
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Parryj
Post Number: 11
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 6:14 am: |
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Why are we still talking about Certification? Courts can probably ignore any requirements of VVSG seeing how the title includes the words "voluntary" and "guideline". I don't think EAC can make this more clear. The states only require is that voting systems have been issued a federal certification, however they get it.
Again, we can probably all agree on how ALL RECORDS should be interpreted and what is needed, but that is not the reality of what election officials do. No one is defending election officials, just telling you what actually is required. On top of this, guess what happens when you destroy paper ballots or do not retain records as required by 42 USC 1974? The very fact that nothing has happened to anyone in Ohio that shredded punchcards 60 days after the election, and even admitted to this and destroying all their voted ballots prior to 22 months and against a federal court order. Well, guess what? The judge has done nothing, the state has done nothing, the DOJ voting rights has done nothing.
(Message edited by parryj on January 21, 2008) |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1888
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 7:10 am: |
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Catherine,
I'm sorry if you didn't catch what I said (or perhaps implied) about states that ATTEMPT to make the 2005 (or later) VVSG mandatory, so I'll spell it out now.
Yes, you and Bruce are correct. There are at least two states (NY & CA) but probably FAR MORE that have taken such a step. It is meaningless, because the principle of federal pre-emption occurs. When a state and the federal government BOTH legislate on a topic, if it ever becomes impossible to meet both, the state law disappears and the federal prevails. That is EXACTLY what just happened in New York, by federal court action.
Now, if what California wants to enforce does not put California in conflict with federal law, including HAVA, well then, so far, so good.
But please Catherine, if you will allow me to borrow a phrase from Al Gore, there "is no controlling legal authority" ANYWHERE that states that memory cards are covered by the 22-month retention requirement, which is a FEDERAL requirement, and therefore would need to have a FEDERAL controlling legal authority.
I have nowhere stated that it is not possible for a state to decide that memory cards do fall within those requirements. In fact, I have argued quite unambiguously that it IS a state government call. But to state that it is a federal requirement is just simply and utterly incorrect. If it were, it would be being enforced, and IT IS NOT!
TO THE CONTRARY, there HAVE BEEN all KINDS of enforcement regarding record retention in OTHER documents, by the USDOJ. (Just one example: suing Pennsylvania to require 22 month retention (post-death) of voter registration original applications when Pennsylvania decided that the "official" registration record was the electronic one, not the paper record.)
Please keep in mind, Catherine and Bruce, the information that is contained on a data cartridge (ballot definition) is NOT built there. It is BUILT in the EMS software and then COPIED onto the card, so the ORIGINAL IS the one in the EMS database. The memory card is already a BACKUP, for the sake of convenience.
When vote totals are written back to that card, they are ALREADY a backup of the data in the voting machine's RAM, which is then in turn copied back to the EMS database. So in BOTH directions, the memory card is merely a transport device, and the data is memorialized on other media in BOTH directions.
All law requires is that data be retained, and it is, whether the card/cartridge is retained, erased, burnt, or thrown into the Delaware River.
Jason also makes a good point about the lack of sanctions in Ohio, but I don't think the last shoe has dropped there. |
Catherine Ansbro
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Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4478
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 7:38 am: |
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Kurt, I didn't say it was a federal right. I said states can legislate to keep memory cards. You appear to agree that they should do so--or, better still, that memory cards with executables should not be used at all.
Memory cards with an executable program are potentially FAR MORE THAN "merely a transport device". If they are used (despite, or because of, this "feature") states should at least legislate to keep them as in some cases they could provide evidence of tampering. |
Brant Lamb
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Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1759
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 8:19 am: |
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quote:I am sure that by "play by play" Brant is refering to any log files that might be stored on the cartridge, that record actions taken as they happen, such as the scanning of a ballot, a reboot, a code patch, a remote access, the machine being shut down, etc.
It doesn't take much imagination to understand how useful such information could be in determining whether there was unauthorized access, a malfunction, a hack, etc.
That information is useful toward one type of forensic examination, but I was actually taking about being able to match the ballots scanned on the machine to how they were read. Unique voting patterns can eliminate lots of ballots from consideration for ballots that were miscounted. You should be able to mark off many ballot as to how they were counted, and with forensic examination of the aggregate data from the rest, you could at least show which ballots were likely read right/wrong by a scanner. With a forensic exam for the strength of contrast between the marking and the background you could have a very good idea of the accuracy of the scanner and you could take the worst case ballot that matches most of the choice patterns of miscounted ballots and determine whether it had been counted in contravention of the "thresholds" that were accepted on other ballots. This would be a gut level check on the accuracy on these machines.
There are two arguments that have possibilities on these machines, that could use contextual proof. One is that they are insufficiently reliable. (1% innaccurate is actually really crappy for nearly all computer applications and since you (most everywhere) only get an automatic recount at .5%, this is wrong.) The other is that they are either hacked or sufficiently unrealiable under real-world circumstances. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1890
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 8:38 am: |
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NOW we have agreement.
By my reading of the 2002 standards, I don't see how systems with executabes on their cards ever got approved. But my saying "By my reading" is as important as what follows it, because I am not the professional that gets to make that call.
And yes, I also COMPLETELY agree that any state may legislate (or do so by executive administrative rule-making, if that exists in their state) that DRE and OS memory cards are included in their record retention regime. That is their explicit right.
But Catherine, AND THIS IS KEY, these are NOT the points to which I originally objected "upthread". The original dispute arose because of Item 3 of the "On the almost schizophrenically BAD side" section of Bev's initial post on this thread. She heavily implied that there is something amiss about NH not retaining these cards, and described "VotersUnite attorney Jon Bonifaz" as pressing the NH SoS on the card retention point. Far from disagreeing with her or Jon, I go one further. In MY opinion, these machines are so flawed they never should have been used (Diebold OS v1.94w), BUT if they ARE used, it is entirely appropriate for the cards to be retained, BECAUSE of what can be done with them in a Hursti-I attack. My only objection is that we should NOT fall into the trap of finding that because this is true in THIS state with THIS system, that there is ANY reason to believe that memeory cards for ALL systems and ALL states need to be retained. All depends on the exact systekm and the exact state laws.
I replied that it is in no way UNCOMMON for a state to find that the cards themselves need not be retained. Clearly some do and some do not, but it is not itself any flavor of scandal.
But then Brant Lamb (surprise, surprise) appears to throw gasoline on the fire and inflame the debate, and Bruce Sims piles on.
Now Brant and Bruce have EVERY RIGHT to be absolutists on this issue, and any other, but are they adding anything to the discussion with the flame throwing? Let's have more light and less heat.
These are state issues primarily with a few federal laws thrown in. Maybe YOU didn't indicate that the card retention was a federal mandate, but OTHERS sure did.
The plain fact is that while it is an arguable proposition as to whether cards SHOULD BE included in the federal record retention law, the plain and simple legal status quo is that they are presently not.
I STILL cannot wrap my brain around the VERY frequent desire I see here to express matters of law as being factual, when at best they are an advocacy position. Legal facts are evidenced in two ways - actual practice, and court decisions. Anything to the contrary is advocacy, not law. The line blurs so often here, and it is perhaps my biggest peeve.
Angry people spout off all the time about something being "illegal" or "unconstitutional". B. S. !!! It ain't until a court says so.
But one other VERY KEY POINT: this NH election is still in a recount phase. I don't think there is ANY argument that can be made for ANY memory cards in THIS circumstance to already be missing, or erased or ANYTHING other than "available for examination". No state should have laws that allow such items to be unavailable at THIS point. Later, after the smoke has cleared? Another matter entirely.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 21, 2008) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4479
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 9:06 am: |
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quote:Angry people spout off all the time about something being "illegal" or "unconstitutional". B. S. !!! It ain't until a court says so.
There's nothing wrong with saying this if the person believes with some certainty that if a case were taken they would win it. Maybe if they want to be less confrontational they could say they believe something would be found unconstitutional based on precedence.
There are lots of unconstitutional things going on that people cannot personally afford to take to court. The fact that someone can't take a case doesn't mean what's goes on is by default ethical, moral, legal or constitutional.
If someone robs you it's illegal, whether or not you take a case against them. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1893
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 9:31 am: |
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Okay, Catherine, I'll grant you it's a more forgivable expansive use of the language where statutes and precedents are clear and change relatively little. (Like robbery statutes.)
In election law, unfortunately, neither is the case. Statutes change frequently and precedents are notoriously murky.
Here is a key example: the Indiana Voter Photo ID case recently argued before the SCOTUS.
I have read COUNTLESS posts in lots of places over the last few years stating angrily and with all great ceritude that the Indiana law is clearly unconstitutional because of its disparate impact on minority voters, etc.
Before October of 2002, I would have COMPLETELY agreed. Had HAVA not passed, that Indiana law would have gone down in flames long ago. I'd have bet the house on it.
Unfortunately for the people who still state such with the same certainty, the world changed when HAVA passed. For the FIRST TIME IN HISTORY we had a federal law that did two things - 1) by federal law specifically REQUIRED ID for a certain category of voters, and 2) specifically authorized states to go further with ID requiremets as long as they did so "in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner". What, I ask parenthetically, could be more uniform than "Every voter has to bring..."?
Now nearly every expereinced court watcher is predicting that the Indiana law will be upheld by at least 5-4, and probably 6-3 or 7-2.
That's the point. Things change. Laws change. The political makeup of a court changes. One cannot go around spouting that all kinds of things are "unconstitutional" in an environment like this one and not expect to be made a fool of. This isn't the Warren Court any more.
The times, they are a-changin'. |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 11
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 9:32 am: |
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Subtle semantic/pedant distinction - that robbery is infact illegal has been established by the courts already. QED if the courts had previously found that not holding the cards was illegal, to not do so would be... etc
Anyway, what I was actually going to say, was I wonder if there is any profile to the order and/or urgency and/or determination with which the memory cards were retrieved from the polling places. That could tell a story if it aligns with other statistical analysis.
Might be worth including something to that effect in the info/document requests.
--J |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1894
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 9:43 am: |
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Another example.
In 2 or 3 years, we will be dealing with another reapportionment and redistricting (two related but different exercizes).
Some state somewhere will pull a wacky political gerrymander, and some political ideologues will wet themselves yelling "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" at the top of their lungs.
Yah. Sure.
The SCOTUS has gone right up to the precipice (but not quite gone over) of stating that there can BE NO SUCH THING as an unconstitutional politocal gerrymander. There are NOW seen to be 5 likely votes on the SCOTUS for that proposition, and with the likely retirements soon to come more from the remaining minority, it is unlikely that there will be any such thing as unconstiutional political gerrymandering ever again.
(Racial is completely another matter.)
We should be taking with a TRUCKLOAD of salt ANY suggestions from amateurs that anything is unconstitutional, ESPECIALLY in the field of elections. The situation is too fluid to take any of it seriously. |
Justin Maxwell
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Justin_maxwell
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 10:10 am: |
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Although, people are human*, and most are not as pedantic as myself. To some extent, expecting others to be as careful with their semantics as I try to be, especially on a medium like a web forum, is inviting aggravation.
So some people will yell "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" where what they mean, if they actually thought it through, is that if they were the court, based on their present understanding of the law and the constitution, that's what they'd conclude.
Without wanting to step on the shoes of the BBV crew, and as a newcomer here myself, Kurt, you seem a valuable person to have around. To let yourself get wound up by others lack of semantic accuracy - cos there'll be loads of it - means you'll end up leaving out of frustration - and that would be bad...
With things like the difference between saying "It's unconstitutional!" vs "I think that would be unconstitutional!" - because for many people, saying one is exactly the same as saying the other - depending on the medium and the environment, I've found it's better for my own calmness AND the forums I inhabit, to say my piece factually and accurately and then consciously decide to let it go.
Cheers,
--J
* NB No people are reptiles, no matter what anyone tells you  |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1895
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 10:29 am: |
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Justin,
Great points, all.
It's just that having served four years in a strictly "ministerial" government position hypersensitizes one to such distinctions.
Job one is to avoid stepping on two very large and powerful sets of toes - 1) the elected policy makers, and 2) the courts.
You can go to lunch with a judge, and even call him by his first name occasionally in that arena, but once you're back in the courthouse, you completely avoid getting into discussions of what is or is not law on a controversial item until you AT THE MINIMUM have the cover from your own Solicitor's office. Some things are indisputable and settled, and those, AND ONLY THOSE, you may speak with authority on. If it's a currently litigating issue, you never even SPEAK OF it, until it's decided unambiguously. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1760
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 12:51 pm: |
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quote: If it were, it would be being enforced, and IT IS NOT!
This is a failure of logic. The idea that something must not be illegal, because the law is not being enforced has no bearing on whether it is illegal or not. There can be a variety of reasons that something illegal isn't prosecuted, not the least of which can be that the people in charge of the prosecution are accidently unaware of the crime, or keep themselves from being on record as knowing about the crime because they may be in cahoots with the person committing the crime, or would be embarrassed were the person or people responsible to be prosecuted. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4482
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 1:07 pm: |
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Justing,
quote:To some extent, expecting others to be as careful with their semantics as I try to be, especially on a medium like a web forum, is inviting aggravation.
Yes, this is indeed part of the problem.
People say "is unconstitutional" when they should say "I believe would be found unconstitutional if it ever got to the SCOTUS" or "I think would it make sense to consider it unconstitutional based on my personal understanding of the constitution but I am not a lawyer" or "it certainly should be unconstitutional in my opinion".
It is helpful to have feedback on some practical limitations. It is unhelpful when local limitations or experiences are wrongly assumed to be relevant in other jurisdictions. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1901
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 - 1:23 pm: |
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Brant,
When a body tasked with enforcement of federal law regarding elections does NOT act in a particular area, when they have shown absolutely NO reluctance to get involved with enforcement in OTHER related areas, in a blatantly ADVERSARIAL WAY against states and localities, then we MIGHT BE left with two plausible suggestions as to the reason.
You have chosen that it "can be that the people in charge of the prosecution are accidently unaware of the crime, or keep themselves from being on record as knowing about the crime because they may be in cahoots with the person committing the crime, or would be embarrassed were the person or people responsible to be prosecuted."
We're talking about the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. It is their fulltime job to know and enforce federal election laws. It's not a "sideline".
I choose to believe that they MAY JUST disagree with your amateur curbside lawyering opinion.
Call it a bias, if it makes your day. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1764
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 4:39 am: |
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quote:Unfortunately for the people who still state such with the same certainty, the world changed when HAVA passed. For the FIRST TIME IN HISTORY we had a federal law that did two things - 1) by federal law specifically REQUIRED ID for a certain category of voters, and 2) specifically authorized states to go further with ID requiremets as long as they did so "in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner". What, I ask parenthetically, could be more uniform than "Every voter has to bring..."?
If it represents an unfair burden on a racial or economic segement of the population that might well be considered to be discriminatory (the half you didn't emphasize?).
quote:You have chosen that it "can be that the people in charge of the prosecution are accidently unaware of the crime, or keep themselves from being on record as knowing about the crime because they may be in cahoots with the person committing the crime, or would be embarrassed were the person or people responsible to be prosecuted."
We're talking about the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. It is their fulltime job to know and enforce federal election laws. It's not a "sideline".
I choose to believe that they MAY JUST disagree with your amateur curbside lawyering opinion.
Call it a bias, if it makes your day.
No, Kurt, I didn't choose any of them, I offered them as possible alternatives to your sole and exclusive explanation, which lacked depth. And your legal opinion isn't amateur and curbside, as well?
And since Bush got a hold of the DOJ, the voting rights section hasn't seemed to have a very limited agenda, that doesn't match their stated goals? Read any papers, lately, Kurt? The name Von Spakovsky ring a bell? Keep your head in the sand and pretend that I have an agenda to twist points of view, or the facts, but it doesn't wash, Kurt, not by half. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 56
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 8:42 am: |
|
The evolution of this thread exemplifies so many important things about what dialogue in democracy (or families for that matter) should be.
The persistence with which folk pick at each other’s points, regardless the time invested and heat evoked therein, required each point worth making be more clearly revisited and elaborated.
Two places anger comes from are: (1) a serious level of care about the subject, or (2) cutting off dialogue to preclude effective correction. The anger that comes up here is almost always unmistakably the former. The clashes improve everybody’s points. On other sites anger source (2) is a common sight, pointlessly self-feeding egos of folk missing each other's points.
Thank you to all concerned for the education the clashes here provide as they evoke further depth, breadth, clarity, details for those of us learning here.
If you’ll pardon a general remark framed as if to two specific people who best, and most often, exemplify what in my mind is extremely impressive and important about what happens on this site, a most essential element of democracy that is so notably absent from what passes for dialogue in our political arena . . .
While Brant and Kurt have at times a kind of hair-trigger reaction to each other that sometimes vents itself in non-informational non-pertinent digs at each other,
Brant’s criticisms of Kurt’s points almost always prompt further instructive depth and clarity to important aspects of the points being made -- via Kurt’s replies,
while
Kurt’s criticisms of Brant’s points almost always prompt further instructive depth and clarity to important aspects of the points being made -- via Brant‘s replies,
I hope both of you have moments of appreciating what may be more self-evident to the rest of us: (1) the value of that to improving/revising what both of you are saying, and (2) the passion and purposes you both share while disagreeing along the way about specifics.
The passion you both bring to this is as evident in the breadth and depth of info you each deliver and the self-investment evident therein, as it is in:
your mutual hair-triggers that are natural to that passion,
the persistence of your mutual criticisms,
and the length of continuity you've both invested here (posts 1764 and 1901 and still counting) when (and not) locking horns here.
If your dialogues were a process model for campaign debates, media op-eds, congress; then more Americans would be tuned in and invested, instead of ignorant or/and ignore-ant.
It's been my personal view for a long time that:
if you're not engaging both "conservative" and "liberal" values, to whatever degrees those amoebic words mean anything, you'll end up with something that's, functionally, a sham -- however sincerely well-intentioned the purpose. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1905
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 10:55 am: |
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Joel,
Thanks for your kind comments. I think Brant is a fine fellow, but I admit that what is generally and popularly described as "liberal political thought", even though such a term is often misdefined, just viscerally bugs me to no end and very much gets under my skin. It literally makes me feel physically ill. I think it is the path to the complete ruin of this country.
But at least there ARE a lot of honest political thinkers on the liberal side (a lot who aren't, too).
What bugs me to death about MY side is that thinkers might as well be invited not to apply. Between the naked greed of the hyper-capitalists, and the fundamentalist Christians' expectation that we take biblical teaching literally, I'm not sure where to fit in there. I'm neither rich nor a ardent believer. I'm a poor, secular, conservative, with a legalistic predisposition.
That's what causes me to believe that there Is a wide open center to be served, and why I reject the far left and far right view that "the two major parties are too much the same". To me, they're nearly too far different to bear.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 22, 2008) |
Samuel Scharff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Abacus
Post Number: 73
Registered: 8-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 12:22 pm: |
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Joel: January 22, 2008 - 8:42 am:
Yes!
Abacus
|
Bill Bowen
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bbowen8
Post Number: 46
Registered: 11-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 12:26 pm: |
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Kurt,
Just a minor observation from someone who's read dozens and dozens of your posts--finding them all extremely insightful and not in the least bit left or right slanted, but somewhat "angry" some of the time...
Try using formatting more often than capital letters to emphasize words. Capital letters evokes yelling or shouting at someone (in netiquette speak), when I think you just mean to emphasize a word. You occasionally do use formatting, but more often than not, you shout in caps, and I think the tone is interpreted and taken a little more personally by whomever your engaged in discussion because of it.
It's just a fan's observation. Please don't yell at me (ducking for cover...)
Bill |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 4
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 5:44 pm: |
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"So some people will yell "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" where what they mean, if they actually thought it through, is that if they were the court, based on their present understanding of the law and the constitution, that's what they'd conclude. "
Sorry to butt in...but...if it's unconstitutional then it is unconstitutional. The constitutionality of a statute is not determined by the opinion of any person or judge or court, it is determined by the Constitution and logic.
Mostly when I say "it's unconstitutional" I mean exactly that. Much of the time the SCOTUS says "it's constitutional" they are flat out lying and their decision/opinion is invalid as it is overruled by the Constitution.
This is the power of constitutional review, this is the duty of every citizen. SCOTUS usurped this power in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison, however, their opinion that constitutional review is the sole jurisdiction of the courts is unconstitutional. I don't mean it my opinion that their usurpation is unconstitutional, I mean it is unconstitutional. I can prove it - look at the ninth and tenth amendments and that shuts the case right there. They haven't been delegated the exclusive power to judge the constitutionality of a statute, nor have we the people had our right to judge the constitutionality of a statute disabled by law. This is true not because I say it, nor because I believe it, but because that is what the law says and it is what the law means. My saying it is incidental and irrelevant to it's veracity. SCOTUS was never delegated the power to delegate themselves power, so their usurpation again is unconstitutional, by virtue of the actual constitution. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 5
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 5:49 pm: |
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" a most essential element of democracy that is so notably absent from what passes for dialogue in our political arena . . . "
I love/hate to nitpick...America is a republic, not a democracy. Under the broadest most general definition of democracy it is a democracy, by the same definition Saddam's government was a democracy. A democracy is just a government where the people vote for representatives. A republic is a government where citizens vote for representatives who are accountable to them and govern according to law. The key differences between a democracy and a republic are citizenship, accountability, and the rule of law. We have a democracy now, we used to and are legally obligated by the Constitution to have a republic. This is why I am a republican, not a democrat. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 57
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - 11:02 pm: |
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Nitpicking can (often at the same time):
clarify language -- which is almost always, necessarily and unavoidably, inexact when trying to define, replicate, illustrate anything complex;
miss a statement's forest while staring at the trunk to climb one word's tree;
invite reply in kind that leads to a so-frequent phenomena of two folk arguing about how to state a point they both agree on, in a way that makes both lose sight of their agreement;
invite all observers of it to judge which of these it does when.
Often all at the same time.
IMO it is almost always at least potentially interesting and/or instructive, depending upon what the nitpicker, the nitpicked, and I as neutral (or not) observer, do with it.
Having enjoyed yours, though not necessarily convinced of the relevance of either word as descriptor or guide to how our own government is, or has historically operated, I note with interest that you used lower case for "republican" and "democrat", which prompts my sincere curiosity re:
Do you feel the Republican party represents republican values or systems?
Do you feel the Democratic party represents democratic values or systems? |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 59
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 2:49 am: |
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Kurt,
You'll have no difficulty finding my reply, posted on another thread. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1772
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 5:31 am: |
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quote:The constitutionality of a statute is not determined by the opinion of any person or judge or court, it is determined by the Constitution and logic.
Not for any practical purposes it isn't. For any practical purposes it is determined by law enforcement and the last judge(s) that rule on it.
quote:A democracy is just a government where the people vote for representatives. A republic is a government where citizens vote for representatives who are accountable to them and govern according to law. The key differences between a democracy and a republic are citizenship, accountability, and the rule of law.
This is in error. What your calling a democracy is in fact a republic, look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia. In a REPublic you vote for REPresentatives (that's where the 'REP' in both comes in) and in a democracy (by it's strictest definition) you vote directly for the proposals at issue. The rule of law is involved in both. Citizenship is irrelevant, you have to be a citizen in both systems in order to vote. Accountability is also irrelevant, it can be legislated in either system across a wide spectrum of levels.
And no, we still have a republic (on paper), have you started voting directly on issues of national legal or budget bearing? Or is that still your senator or REPresentative? I don't recall voting directly, and I'm sure you don't either.
Are things functioning as they're supposed to in an ideal republic? Not by a hell of a long shot.
As a matter of fact, since our current arrangement has even more indirect representation than even than that we would elect critical people to represent us, (the Attorney General, and others are nominated by the president, with only a choice to ratify/not ratify by our senate, no direct election) it is more accurate to say that we've moved from the direction of a republic, further in the direction that is directly the opposite of strict democracy, not toward it. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1910
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 9:01 am: |
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Paul,
I frankly doubt you've examined this beyond the emotional level. FWIW, at the emotional level, I completely agree with you.
But..... there is also the legal fact level.
And we now have, whether through Marbury v. Madison or not (incidentally, case law is JUST AS MUCH law as written statutes are - that is "Law 101"), a situation where the Constitution says exactly what the SCOTUS says it does - no more and no less.
There is no such thing as an unconstitutional constitutional amendment, and no such thing as an unconstitutional ruling of the United States Supreme Court.
Legally speaking, the United States Supreme Court is infallible.
But Justice Robert Jackson put that status into context: "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final."
Somebody has to be the last word. In our legal system, it is the United States Supreme Court. To suggest that constiutionality is both everyone's and no one's business, by suggesting that it is "determined by the Constitution and logic", is to imply that such things are indisputable.
The mere fact that there are thousands of serious cases denied certorari each year proves that the one thing that indisputably does not exist is indisputability.
(Message edited by Formerelecdir on January 23, 2008) |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 7
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 6:26 pm: |
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Dear Joel, Brant, and Kurt for thoughtful well written responses. I don't know if I've seen an Internet forum with so much intelligent discourse.
RE: Joel's question:
"Do you feel the Republican party represents republican values or systems?
Do you feel the Democratic party represents democratic values or systems?"
No and yes. I believe the Republicans are democrats. Democracy is a broad form of government, I'd say the broadest. We vote for representatives who vote in our place, which is a representative democracy. The details of a democracy are very open to interpretation/redefinition/etc.
As I understand it, all republics are democracies, but not all democracies are republics. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 8
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 6:43 pm: |
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Again, thank you Brant and everyone else on this board.
"Not for any practical purposes it isn't. For any practical purposes it is determined by law enforcement and the last judge(s) that rule on it."
No, that is the rule of force also known as the rule of man. If such a "practical purpose" was to be the determining distinction of what is lawful from what is unlawful, then robbery is lawful and all crime achieved by force or arbitrary decree of man is lawful.
" This is in error. What your calling a democracy is in fact a republic, look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia."
I believe I am correct as I have researched these two words on again off again for several years.
According to Webster's:
Democracy:
1 a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Republic:
1 a (1): a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2): a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1): a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
" In a REPublic you vote for REPresentatives (that's where the 'REP' in both comes in) and in a democracy (by it's strictest definition) you vote directly for the proposals at issue."
There are many forms of democracy that are representative democracies. Pure or direct democracy is a rather uncommon form of government in the modern world.
"The rule of law is involved in both."
According to Webster's and as demonstrated by the many forms of democracy around the world, the rule of law is optional.
"Citizenship is irrelevant, you have to be a citizen in both systems in order to vote. Accountability is also irrelevant, it can be legislated in either system across a wide spectrum of levels."
Again, these appear to be optional and not fundamental to a democracy, at least in the common definition and connotation of the words.
To quote a source that disagrees with my earlier statements:
# A state is a democracy if all persons born to its territory or citizens are citizens, with the full rights and duties thereof, subject to the disabilities of minority, and the agents who are the government are agents of all of them in common through some form of voting in which all of those not minors are qualified to participate.
# A democracy is a republic if the legislative functions of government, other than the ratification of constitutional amendments, is exercised exclusively through representatives elected by its citizens rather than directly.
# A republic is constitutional if power to amend the constitution is not delegated to elected legislators of the highest legislative body to adopt like ordinary legislation, but requires either a supermajority of citizens, or majorities of citizens or their representatives elected to lower-level political units in a supermajority of such political units, to ratify it; and if no such amendment infringes on either the natural rights of persons or the civil right of persons to be equally represented in at least one branch of the highest legislative body, or to have members of government act as other than the agents of the people, exercising only limited and specific delegated powers, and to be fully accountable to them equally.
# A republic or other democracy is nonconstitutional if any legislative act supersedes any conflicting act that precedes it, including any act or unwritten principle which may be called a "constitution".
- Jon Roland, http://www.constitution.org/consprin.htm
Mr. Roland seems to agree with your position. I believe in a historical, scholarly and academic sense you may be more correct, and I may be more correct in terms of modern and general usage of the words. |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 1035
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:22 pm: |
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First, Jason, the Feds do NOT certify voting systems, the only 'qualify' them; it is up to States to 'certify'.
Second,Kurt, yes, Federal law will 'pre-empt' State law where there is conflict or State law has not been written but what was the case you keep refering to re the 'Federal judge'?
Third, here are my responses to Kurt re my earlier post:
"because there are no 2005 VVSG compliant machines, as the case in New York State is demonstrating right now."------- how about that !
"The federal judge ruled UNAMBIGUOUSLY that HAVA pre-empts the New York State law even if that law sets a higher standard than HAVA does"------please cite the case to which you refer and please don't confuse the HAVA access for the disabled requirement with New York's lever machines which are NOT disallowed per HAVA.
"NO SYSTEM that contains executables in its data cartridges should EVER HAVE BEEN approved" ----concur but this gets back to the ITA issues which are now EAC issues, meaning that both orgs are flawed and provide more justification for public funding of all aspects of elections.
"I am getting a wee bit tired of being pilloried for refuting blanket statements like "memory cards need to be retained by federal law"------I cited U.S.Code(law) and DOJ opinions from the Civil Rights division that prosecutes violations of that law; hard for me to consider that 'curbside lawyering'; Kurt, just because officials violate the law doesn't mean violations don't occur or that the law wasn't violated; look no further than the Bush Administration for an example and if no one prosecutes, the the courts can't 'decide'. Another example is Senator Feinstein wanting to put the question of whether the telecom's engaged in illegal wiretapping to the FISA court, a secret court when it is obvious that the law was violated.
"No, Bruce, still not convinced."------ok, I won't try to convince you anymore but would like the case you keep citing about the Federal judge-"The federal judge ruled UNAMBIGUOUSLY"(as though they aren't capable of responding to political pressure); the whole damn system is corrupt Kurt and ANY arguments that seek to support that corrupt system I'm going to take issue with. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 9
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - 10:23 pm: |
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"I frankly doubt you've examined this beyond the emotional level. FWIW, at the emotional level, I completely agree with you."
Actually, I'm now entering my sixth year of trying to study this issue objectively.
"But..... there is also the legal fact level."
And there is the legal fiction level.
"And we now have, whether through Marbury v. Madison or not (incidentally, case law is JUST AS MUCH law as written statutes are - that is "Law 101"), a situation where the Constitution says exactly what the SCOTUS says it does - no more and no less."
Marbury v. Madison contradicts itself. It says that constitutional review is the sole realm of the courts, but it also says that any unconstitutional law isn't a law at all.
"Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument." - Marbury v. Madison
There is no power delegated to the courts to over rule the Constitution, and the very purpose of the constitution is to restrain and constrain the government. This is in complete contradiction with the practice of "stare decisis" in which precedent is given equal (or greater) weight than the statutes or the Constitution. It is not because Marbury v Madison said that a law antithetical to the constitution is null that stare decisis is null, it is because it violates the very purpose of the constitution. Stare decisis is the replacement of the rule of law with the rule of man in which a judge or group of judges may overturn any law, constitution, or statute for any reason at all so long as another man said it first. That makes no sense and is an untenable system.
"There is no such thing as an unconstitutional constitutional amendment, and no such thing as an unconstitutional ruling of the United States Supreme Court."
If a constitutional amendment conflicts with the constitution and does not nullify the part(s) it conflicts with then it is null. If it is passed in an unconstitutional manner then it is unconstitutional. If SCOTUS makes a decision that is in conflict with the Constitution then that decision is null and void. Please read this: http://www.constitution.org/cons/prin_cons.htm
“Legally speaking, the United States Supreme Court is infallible.”
That would make them divine. SCOTUS is not a monarchy. They are not born of gods nor are they gods themselves. They too and their opinions are bound by the same law as every other man.
“But Justice Robert Jackson put that status into context: "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." “
That's the lie they want you to believe. Ultimately the forgotten fourth branch of government, we the people, are the final deciders of what is constitutional, for it is from our consent that the government gains it's just powers and from our inaction that it gains it's unjust powers.
“Somebody has to be the last word. In our legal system, it is the United States Supreme Court. To suggest that constiutionality is both everyone's and no one's business, by suggesting that it is "determined by the Constitution and logic", is to imply that such things are indisputable.”
No, it is everyone's business. Many things are indisputable. A fundamental understanding of constitutional law demonstrates that many SCOTUS decisions are indisputably unconstitutional.
“The mere fact that there are thousands of serious cases denied certorari each year proves that the one thing that indisputably does not exist is indisputability. “
That is further proof of the fallibility of SCOTUS. Some things are indisputable, some things are unquestionable. One is the earth. It absolutely is. Another is the sun. It absolutely is. Those are absolutes, they are absolutely true, they are absolutely real. That does not mean one can not dispute or question that the earth and the sun exist – but that is a statement about the state of mind of the one disputing that the earth or the sun exist.
Genocide for example is always illegal. If SCOTUS was to decide it was legal under the Second Amendment for the federal government to order the genocide of a particular group of people, would that make it legal? According to what you have stated, yes it would be legal. By that basis the Holocaust was mostly legal as a great many “laws” were enacted to authorize it.
The law is instituted to provide a common defense for people's lives, liberty, and property. When a servant of the law, also known as a government official agent or employee, acts outside of the bounds of the law then they are no longer acting as the law but instead as men and thus are subject to the rule of law.
No one is above the law, not even SCOTUS. According to what you have stated, which is representative of the common understanding of the rule of the law of the land, SCOTUS could interpret that the law against treason does not apply to SCOTUS. They could declare themselves to be kings for they are the highest authority of law, and who could overrule them? Only the real final authority – the people. You may dispute it, but from a constitutional and legal point of view there is no way for SCOTUS to exclude themselves from the law against treason. Nor can they make the power to “regulate interstate commerce” mean the power to “prohibit intrastate non-commerce”. They never have been delegated the power to change the meaning of words to their exact opposite in order to pervert the meaning of the law and subvert it's purpose - and it is not possible to pass a statute or even amend the Constitution to give them the power to do that.
I highly recommend reading Fredick Bastiat's classic work “The Law”, cheap used on Amazon or free online at http://www.constitution.org/law/bastiat.htm and other places.
“The law” or “The Law” is a much misunderstood concept. It is not, or at least should not, be the opinion of any man. Instead it should be a science. Science is the study of what is, the pursuit of truth. The opinion of any man or group of men can be anything, including very often fiction. This is how SCOTUS got the power to be the end all be all of what is constitutional, usurping the role of the Constitution itself – it lied. A lie by SCOTUS is just a legal fiction, as clearly stated by the Tenth Amendment. What most call “The Law” is actually “The Lie”. I also often call it “BS”. The field of law is by no means free from corruption, which is common knowledge, yet the vast majority of people rely exclusively upon those in the field of law (i.e. lawyers including and especially SCOTUS) to instruct them as to what the law is. This is part of the long historical trend of specialization that has happened in the industrial and information ages. The law in particular is more corrupt than other fields such as medicine or engineering for example. This is because people believe the law is indisputable, by which they actually mean that the words and actions of men in the highest positions of power are indisputable no matter how wrong or harmful the consequences are. Engineering is not very corrupt because the consequences of being wrong about how to build a car or a skyscraper have consequences, and completely ignoring the laws of nature will have immediate and indisputable consequences. Medicine is more corrupt, for example the common place prescription of high powered stimulants in large daily amounts for years on end to children. I am not a doctor, but it is indisputable that this is a medically wrong policy. The science proves it. Psychology is one of the most corrupt fields, because the science is new and undeveloped and the consequences of being wrong are not immediate or obvious. Again, I am not a psychiatrist, but the science of psychology does not prove that children who can't pay attention in school are in need of drugs bought and sold on the black market by addict. Quite the opposite in fact.
To conclude this much too long post,
Fallacy of Authority
Recognition: Everyone recognizes the person as an authority, therefore what he says must be true.
Production: The person has done a great deal of authoritative work, therefore he must be an authority.
Power: The person is powerful and successful, therefore he speaks with authority, if only by virtue of his position.
Found at http://www.constitution.org/col/logical_fallacies.htm which cites http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1781
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 5:27 am: |
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Unfortunately or fortunately, what the last judge or set of judges to rule on a case decides is legal or the SCOTUS decides is legal, is legal.
You are in error, sir.
quote:Marbury v. Madison contradicts itself. It says that constitutional review is the sole realm of the courts, but it also says that any unconstitutional law isn't a law at all.
As unconstitutionality will be ruled on by a court and constitutional review is the sole realm of the court, then I don't believe that there is any contradiction there. I hope that simplifies the matter for you.
And you're wrong about amending the constitution as well. If the constitution is amended to say that everyone has to take their first step upon getting out of bed in the morning on their left foot, it will be constitutional, whether it violates the spirit of the rest of the document or not. What it says that is in opposition to the other portions of the constitution must be plain, but as a new amendment it will have as much priority as the SCOTUS (or the last federal judge to rule on it) allows, until there is further court challenge. The draft would have been unconstitutional had it not been amended to the constitution, as the lawmakers well knew. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 63
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 6:50 am: |
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Paul,
A very significant aspect missing from your statements is the historically very extensive, and so often more pertinent, degree to which each element of our legal process chooses, when it chooses, to ignore its own lawfully directed processes.
Inferring from your comment re: 'last 6 years studying', I'll also comment that:
I spent two years getting a teaching credential in a program that was in many ways excellent in what it presented us re: relevant issues, laws, guidelines, research, strategies, recommendable practice.
Nowhere in any of those two years of overtime self-investment was a subject, arguably more crucial than any of the above --
though perhaps only so because it wasn't mentioned, and hence left its clients, we the new teachers, thoroughly unprepared for, and therefore potentially/kinetically blind-sided by --
the enormous degree to which
relevant issues, laws, guidelines, research, strategies, recommendable practice
were irrelevant to the actualities of daily survival in the school systems I was in,
not due to any of the factors I see typically touted in newspapers re: difficulties of teaching,
but due to ????s of individuals in district offices and the ????s those generated in principals, and ????s in the confusions of guesstimates as to ?????s ... to a point where WTF? was an extremely common topic among teachers re: all of the above.
I understand this, from first hand accounts of folk I've met over the years, to be often the same for new lawyers and police officers in particular, and increasingly so in large medical institutions, but also true in other professions as well.
I offer this as friendly warning, and wish to emphasize that I intend no implication that the effort to study the de jure version of any profession (to use the term in its most broad and metaphorical sense) isn't an essential and valued self-investment. My compliments to yours. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1920
Registered: 4-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 7:30 am: |
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Raise the flags, set off the fireworks.
Brant Lamb and I agree on this topic.  |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 10
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 10:26 am: |
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"Unfortunately or fortunately, what the last judge or set of judges to rule on a case decides is legal or the SCOTUS decides is legal, is legal."
If that was true then anyone could become king by holding a gun to the heads of SCOTUS and forcing them to declare that person king.
What is the point of having the law if men are beyond and above the law?
" As unconstitutionality will be ruled on by a court and constitutional review is the sole realm of the court, then I don't believe that there is any contradiction there. I hope that simplifies the matter for you."
Please cite the law (Constitution) that delegates that power exclusively to the courts and prohibits anyone else from exercising the power of constitutional review. You say it is the sole realm of the courts, but the only source for that claim is the courts.
You confuse the rule of man with the rule of law. I am king. Is that law? Would it be true if I was a judge, at least until overturned by SCOTUS? Would it be true if SCOTUS agreed with me? According to what you have stated the law only means what the king says, and SCOTUS is king.
We have a constitutional republic that was created to free us from the tyranny of a monarchy. We did not fight a war and establish the Constitution in order to create a new 9-person monarchy.
Contrary to public opinion, the word of man does not equal the law. This is just the fallacy of authority that has no basis in law.
If you can find a basis in law for granting divine powers to SCOTUS, please share your source.
"And you're wrong about amending the constitution as well. If the constitution is amended to say that everyone has to take their first step upon getting out of bed in the morning on their left foot, it will be constitutional, whether it violates the spirit of the rest of the document or not. What it says that is in opposition to the other portions of the constitution must be plain, but as a new amendment it will have as much priority as the SCOTUS (or the last federal judge to rule on it) allows, until there is further court challenge. The draft would have been unconstitutional had it not been amended to the constitution, as the lawmakers well knew."
An arbitrary rule, such as the left foot example, passed by constitutional means, would be constitutional but it would still be illegal under the laws of nature/God that our constitution is based upon.
There is a right of self defense. According to the "SCOTUS as king" concept SCOTUS or the most powerful part of any other government can remove this right, for genocide for example. If such a court or "final" says genocide and murder of a certain group is legal, is it legal and that person or group has no right to self defense? No, it's not legal. No one has the right or power to remove other people's rights without due process of law. The arbitrary rule of force by authority is not the rule of law.
According to what you have stated, we only have what rights the government grants us, and the only limitations upon it's powers are the ones it puts upon itself.
This is in utter and total conflict with the concepts and principles of the rule of law, constitutionalism, republicanism, and the United States of America. We are not a monarchy, and SCOTUS is neither divine nor king.
All men are bound by the law. Many men claim to be except from the law, but the appearance of authority does not make it so. Wearing a black dress does not make one above the law. Getting elected to Congress does not put one above the law, nor does it allow one to pass statutes that are above the law. The same applies to the President and to the janitor and to you and to me.
The law applies to all, or it applies to none as the rule of man shall take it's place. You claim that nine men and women have total and complete control over 300,000,000 million lives and their individual liberty and property. SCOTUS can do anything and by the basis you claim is the law then it is the law. The word "the" in the Constitution actually means that everyone who isn't SCOTUS is personal property of SCOTUS and must surrender all of their property and money to SCOTUS. Not true when I say it, not true if SCOTUS says it.
The whole point of the Constitution and the law is to provide checks and balances on the power of government to provide for the common defense of our inalienable rights so that it's function is not the opposite of it's purpose. If the founding father's had intended for our government to function as you claim then they could have made it much shorter, i.e. "SCOTUS is in charge".
They didn't do that. While the belief SCOTUS is able to make actions legal is very popular, it is not true. While it comes from very influential and high ranking members of the government, it is not true. Again, if you have a basis within the law (not the words of man that conflict with the purpose structure and function of the law) for such a claim please provide it. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 11
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 10:49 am: |
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"A very significant aspect missing from your statements is the historically very extensive, and so often more pertinent, degree to which each element of our legal process chooses, when it chooses, to ignore its own lawfully directed processes. "
I was discussing the nature of the law, not the actions of man. One can and some do ignore the law against murder. Some get away with it. Does that make it legal? Nope. If they are a cop and they murder someone and get away with it, is that legal? Nope. Can SCOTUS murder people and have it be legal? The overwhelming majority of people must say yes if they are to remain consistent with their stated position that SCOTUS can make actions constitutional or unconstitutional based not upon the constitution but instead upon the opinions of SCOTUS.
"
I understand this, from first hand accounts of folk I've met over the years, to be often the same for new lawyers and police officers in particular, and increasingly so in large medical institutions, but also true in other professions as well.
I offer this as friendly warning, and wish to emphasize that I intend no implication that the effort to study the de jure version of any profession (to use the term in its most broad and metaphorical sense) isn't an essential and valued self-investment. My compliments to yours."
Thank you for the feedback.
Consider the income tax. According to SCOTUS and the courts, the Fifth Amendment doesn't apply to the income tax. Nor does the 1st, with regards to either free speech or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Nor does the 9th, nor does the 10th. In fact, if you try to defend yourself from prosecution for an income tax statute violate by citing the constitution you will be fined I believe up to 25,000 dollars for a "frivolous" defense. Most "tax protesters" are not allowed to cite either the Constitution or even the Internal Revenue Code to defend themselves! I got a standard form from the IRS recently that many others get that says the due process for the income tax can not and will not consider any constitutional defense or claims.
According to y'all and almost everyone else including the courts I don't have any rights and the law and the constitution don't matter and they don't apply. The only exceptions are granted as privileges by the government.
Where does the government get the power to be the law?
As Brant said: "For any practical purposes it is determined by law enforcement and the last judge(s) that rule on it. "
Judges don't get their power from being judges. They get their power from "law enforcement", which does not enforce the law, but rather the rule of man.
In other words, as Mao said, power comes from the barrel of a gun. What you both are advocating in favor of is "9mm law", in which the written law matters not at all and whom controls the guns is the law. Does the Constitution apply in income tax cases? No says the people who control the guns that make you pay for daring to suggest such a thing. The Constitution may say I have a right not to be a witness against myself, but since the men with armed troops disagree, then I have no such right?
Do you folks really believe you don't have any inalienable rights and that there are no limits upon government power (other than what the government says)?
Do you really believe that your right to life comes not from nature or God but from the government? Do you really believe that you do not own your own life or property but instead enjoy such at the whim and discretion of the government?
Do you really believe that SCOTUS is divine and it's actions are indisputable and unquestionable and beyond the law? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4503
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 10:51 am: |
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Short form of this discussion:
There's theory and there's reality (what actually happens). They differ. A lot. Often. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 12
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 10:51 am: |
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Please read the following link regarding stare decisis: http://www.constitution.org/col/0610staredrift.htm |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 117
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 3:57 pm: |
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The latest spreadsheet for the Hillsborough County NH Democratic ballots is attached. The results for Weare are in, and they added a column for "Other", previously absent. Miscellaneous other numbers changed by small amounts in the last few days.
The miscounted votes are 0.69% of the number of ballots for hand count wards and 1.09% for OV-OS wards. The biggest miscount numbers are for Manchester Ward 8 (152, 11.6% of ballots) and Nashua Ward 5 (112, 5.25% of ballots). Brookline is still suspicious, and the SoS has not yet replied regarding my theory about test ballots being counted. I will continue to watch the web pages for more changes.
I also have a spreadsheet for Rockingham County, but will not post that until more results are in. So far, recount numbers for only 13 of 41 wards are in.
These spreadsheets I have been posting have 4 sheets:
1 - A summary sheet with overall counts and percentages.
2 - The ward counts by ward and candidate.
3 - The recount counts by ward and candidate.
4 - Various ways of looking at errors: absolute difference by ward/candidate, percentage difference, number of undercounts, overcounts, and total miscounts. These are subtotaled separately for Democrats and Other. The far right of the Error sheet separates miscounts by AV-OS and HCPB.
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Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1786
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 5:10 am: |
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quote:According to what you have stated, we only have what rights the government grants us, and the only limitations upon it's powers are the ones it puts upon itself.
Except that we get to elect the people who decide what the laws are that delineate what those rights are. And according to our declaration of independance, we are entitled to overthrow a government that doesn't serve us benevolently.
Stare decisis means as much or as little as the last set of judges want to say it means. Supposedly, they all seem to believe in it, until they either actually believe that the judge(s) before them mis-ruled, or statute changed, or they say they believe that the law or laws were mis-interpreted previously.
You keep coming up with your own irrelevant naming convention for facets of the legal system and then you ask us to defend them, as though the properties you attribute to them are welded to them. Here's the problem, Paul, you come out with a premise that you're going to predicate your arguments on, and it's unproven and incorrect. Then you use it as the underpinnings to the rest of your argument. It's exceptionally good rhetoric, as rhetoric, but otherwise meaningless, not being logic-, or fact-based. Your contortions are amusing, but essentially meaningless. If this is how you spent your six years, you have wasted them, my friend. Better luck next time. Check your facts first.
And the real baseline on overthrowing a government is this: It will be charged as treason/sedition, unless you win. Always has been, always will be, with every government, everywhere. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 14
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 8:53 am: |
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"Except that we get to elect the people who decide what the laws are that delineate what those rights are. "
That isn't true in this constitutional republic. Rights are recognized by state and federal constitutions. No branch of government not change, add, or subtract from the rights recognized.
"And according to our declaration of independance, we are entitled to overthrow a government that doesn't serve us benevolently.
Stare decisis means as much or as little as the last set of judges want to say it means. Supposedly, they all seem to believe in it, until they either actually believe that the judge(s) before them mis-ruled, or statute changed, or they say they believe that the law or laws were mis-interpreted previously. "
The overwhelming tendency is to put the illogical, impossible, and immoral word of a judge over the logical, possible, and moral word of the Constitution or other law. That does not make it valid.
"You keep coming up with your own irrelevant naming convention for facets of the legal system and then you ask us to defend them, as though the properties you attribute to them are welded to them."
Um, actually, I'm using the actual legal definitions of words to the best of my ability. You are using the common connotation as defined by the courts. I'm arguing law, you are arguing man.
" Here's the problem, Paul, you come out with a premise that you're going to predicate your arguments on, and it's unproven and incorrect. "
It should seem that Jefferson, Madison, and many other founding fathers agree much more with my point of view than yours. Moreover, my argument is possible to prove through logic, yours is impossible to prove as it requires elevating a group of people to godly status. That is impossible and incorrect position that can't be proven to be true.
I have also cited several sources, which you have not acknowledged reviewing. You haven't cited any sources. If you wish I can cite many more sources including many from the founding fathers and other very influential legal philosophers.
"Then you use it as the underpinnings to the rest of your argument. It's exceptionally good rhetoric, as rhetoric, but otherwise meaningless, not being logic-, or fact-based. Your contortions are amusing, but essentially meaningless. If this is how you spent your six years, you have wasted them, my friend. Better luck next time. Check your facts first. "
If you take a few hours to read the sources I linked to and the original documents (Federalist Papers, anti-Federalist papers, the debates and diaries and letters and broadsides from the founding era, the works of Locke and Jefferson and other legal pioneers, etc, etc, etc) then perhaps you would see the facts I am referencing. So far I believe you have cited your own opinion, popular opinion, and the opinion of courts.
"And the real baseline on overthrowing a government is this: It will be charged as treason/sedition, unless you win. Always has been, always will be, with every government, everywhere."
As a subject it is wrong and illegal to contest the will of the monarchy. As a citizen it is your duty and right.
If you are willing to consider that you may not be right and examine the sources I listed and many others I would be more than happy to provide you would see that this is the missing piece of the puzzle of government. What I am saying can work. What can never work is making men into kings or gods. When the word of any one man or group of men is held to be indisputable, unquestionable, then they hold the powers of royalty and divinity.
Again, if you disagree with me, please cite some sources for your belief. The only source for this belief is the courts, and the only evidence that the courts are correct is the courts. To give another example, if SCOTUS says Diebold machines are secure and accurate, are they? Nope. If SCOTUS says they are okay, but not good enough, so all voting machines shall replaced with a psychic who shall read the minds of the voters, is that legal? According to you, yes. According to you some men can kill, rape, rob, do anything and everything without fearing the law. This is a most dangerous precedent, this is the most dangerous "principle" there is.
The real source of the government's power comes not from the guns they possess, for they are outnumbered and outgunned. No, the real source of government power is the control they exercise over our minds. They gain this control through lying. You can take back control at any time you want by doubting their opinion and thinking on your own.
This reminds me very much of arguing whether Diebold machines are secure and accurate. I say they aren't, based upon observation, testing, actual science. Most others disagree. The machines are popular, they are used many places, and the government says that they are secure and accurate. Many claim this is indisputable because of the authority of the source. That source and authority is the same you cite, that of government. The truth is the same - just because someone working for the government says something doesn't make it so - even if they are one of nine people wearing black robes. The 9 Holy High Priests of Anti-Law must be defeated - through logic, facts, laws, Constitution, common law, and natural law. A forceful resistance is not needed or even possible, for if America is not willing to contest their opinions with our minds then America will not be willing to contest those same opinions with our bodies. Why raise a musket when you can't even raise a question?
Many men once said the King's word was indisputable, many men once said the King's word was final. They were wrong, as proven by men with "exceptionally good rhetoric, as rhetoric, but otherwise meaningless, not being logic-, or fact-based." Now here we are again. History is repeating itself. You say my position is not logical. Please explain to me the logic of establishing a system of law to provide for the common defense of individual rights and then putting some individuals beyond that system of law. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 15
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 8:56 am: |
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Dear Brant,
Please read this link as it may provide a better basis for common understanding of the concepts involved. It's not too long and is the best civics class I've ever seen. I happened to have a fantastic public school teacher in 8th grade, we went through every single clause of the Constitution. I really loved that. However, despite the education I got there which is more than many lawyers receive on constitutional law, it didn't touch the deeper or bigger issues or concepts. Jon Roland of the Constitution Society provides a very good basic explanation of our nation's form of government: : http://www.constitution.org/soclcont.htm |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 1038
Registered: 6-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 11:56 am: |
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Paul, the link is interesting but has some fallacious perspectives.
1. Such a form of government is called a republic, as distinct from a democracy, in which all legislation is adopted solely by direct popular vote.------those countries that have a 'parliamentary' form of government do not consider themselves 'republics' and their 'democracy' is not reflective of 'direct popular vote'.
2. Each of us begins life under the terms of a special kind of social contract called a filial contract, between a child and his parents, and by extension to his siblings.-----simply not accurate that 'each of us,etc.' has a 'filial contract'.
3. Around the end of the 19th century, however, it became increasingly apparent that excessive and unbalanced concentrations of power in the private sector could subvert the system of checks and balances in government, and the first anti-trust laws were passed to try to provide a check on those undue influences.----------actually it was apparent in George Washington's day as evidenced by his farewell speech and Jackson's actions against 'corporations'.
4. Much of the abuse that has developed arises from the assumption by the national or central government of powers not delegated to it under the Constitution, and the erosion of the powers of the States with respect to that central government.-----this is actually more attributable to a Supreme Court clerks' note regarding the rights of corporations in the 1860's.
But I do agree with the author's notion that the system has been 'abused'. |
Paul Howland O'Day
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Patriot_henry
Post Number: 16
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, January 25, 2008 - 1:45 pm: |
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Bruce, thank you for the response.
1. Democracy/republic are confused and confusing terms.
2. I agree with Mr. Roland, there is a filial contract between each mother and each child born to that mother. That is the oldest form of contract there is. Any other immediate family members would be part of that contract. That is why mothers can get charged if they abandon their baby in the trash - they are obliged by the filial contract to care and feed and raise and educate their child. By conceiving and bearing a child the parents enter into a contract to be responsible for that childs upbringing, thus we have child support etc.
3. I find it most interesting that the time period in which robber barons were legislated against is the same time period in which robber barons gained control of legislation.
4. I agree completely. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 120
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 7:11 am: |
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My spreadsheet for the Rockingham County NH Democratic primary recount is attached. Only 18 of 41 wards were recounted, but the SoS page says they have stopped. There are 3 worksheets in this one with only the recounted wards, to get more accurate percentages.
The single hand count town, East Kingston, miscounted 6 out of 495 ballots, 1.21%. The AV-OS wards miscounted 140 out of 32856 ballots, 0.43%. Londonderry and Danville had significantly higher miscount rates than the others.
A point I haven't mentioned before is that the trend is to have more miscounts for write-ins. For example, assuming that most Democrats are pre-printed and all others are write-ins, we can estimate the difference by noting that in Rockingham County (partial) the Democrats had 0.30% miscounts and others had 10.48%. It may be that the recount rules for evaluating write-ins were different than those used in some hand count towns.
I looked for a correlation between count method and write-in error rates, and couldn't see one. That said, the only 3 Hillsborough County wards that matched exactly were hand count wards, and the ones that had known problems related to counting write-ins were AV-OS. But this is actually comparing people against people, doing something the machines can't do at all.
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Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 121
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 9:15 am: |
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News stories and blogs about the NH recounts mostly point out that nothing has changed, and the recounts are a waste of time. Some focus only on whether the resulting candidate ranking changes. Others point out that the percentage changes for each major candidate are minuscule, and the higher election margins did not warrant a recount. Few write from the viewpoint that every vote should count and talk about how many votes cast in NH were miscounted.
The miscounts have some of the same behavior as a typical poll. If the miscounting of ballots were random there would ideally be no effect on the outcome. But we can see if it appears to be random based on the sample size. For example, in Hillsborough County Clinton got 42.3% over the 383 overcounts. The 95% confidence margin of error for that result for a sample size of 383 out of a population of 80,969 voters would be 4.9%. Likewise, the 22.1% of the 466 undercounts that Clinton got has a margin of 3.7%. The overcounts look random but the undercounts do not, since Clinton got 41.67 of the vote in the recount.
But the question I really want to answer is, how many ballots have to be miscounted on average, to change the gap between the top 2 candidates by 1 vote? Using Hillsborough County data for the top 2 vote getters, it took 393 miscounts to shift their relative standing by 49, 8 miscounts per vote shift.
Suppose the 8 to 1 ratio was a norm. Would this mean that in a state with a 1% margin threshold for recounts, almost 8% of the ballots could be miscounted without triggering a recount? |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1943
Registered: 4-2006
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Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 10:02 am: |
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Mike,
I'm afraid you might be looking at this backwards from the way legislatures who make these recount threshold decisions.
The initial assumption is that initial counts will be somewhat off. No one seriously believes that any official count is actually a 100% accurate count. If they do, I have a bridge in New York for sale.
I am unaware of any state election law that actually has in it any belief that "every vote should count". This is a relatively recent invention of people outside the elections infrastructure. It's a great bumper sticker, but I don't think it has ever happened in any large-scale election. The only goal of election laws is that the correct winner is seated. A certain error in the vote is tolerable, until and unless it can affect the outcome.
Once you understand that precept, a lot more makes sense.
Now, if we could be assured that all errors were perfectly uniformly distributed, a very high error rate would be tolerable, since it could never affect the outcome. But we know that, at best, errors are randomly distributed, and at worst, they are targeted to one side. If they are random, we can do statistical analysis and start to learn at what point an election is so close that a usual amount of randomly distributed error could likely affect the outcome. Please note, I did not say anything like "if there are more likely errors than the margin of victory, then we need to hold up the election". I've seen a judge specifically reject that notion. (114 missing ballots and an 84 votes margin - yielded NO do-over, because to have affected the outcome, the missing votes would have had to have been more than 99-15 against the person who had otherwise won the election, a situation that had a near-zero likelihood of happening, given that the missing votes were from identical precincts of the non-missing votes.)
You see, the standard is not could an error possibly affect the outcome. The standard is is it reasonably likely to have affected it.
So the decision in my state has been that there is only one case that creates a statewide government-paid recount - a margin less than 1/2%. There is no margin that triggers a government-paid recount at any level below statewide. All lower recounts are court-ordered, and candidate paid.
Errors are assumed to be random and indeed nearly uniform. That is the rebuttable presumptiuon in the election code. It is up to an aggrieved candidate to rebut that presumption. I have literally sat in a courtroom where a judge berated a plaintiff for stating that "every vote must count". He asked, "Where in the hell did you get that from? Show that to me in the law."
Case dismissed. |
Mike LaBonte
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Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 122
Registered: 12-2005
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 1:01 pm: |
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Kurt, good explanation. I was side-stepping all of that, and rambling a bit. Obviously I'm mostly having fun with numbers.
Our election laws don't exactly explain how they were arrived at, and neither do they cover every decision to be made. I think the basis for the automatic recount threshold would have to consider:
1) An error distribution curve for the election process.
2) An agreed confidence level.
#2 isn't hard to come up with, although no legislature is going to advertise it. #1 is something we will have only if we test now and then. Even a recount only helps to some degree, because we still don't know which, if any, count is correct.
Most likely the thresholds chosen by legislators were pulled out of hats, but I would like to be pleasantly surprised. My guess is that thresholds would be revisited only when someone notices that a high percentage of recounts alter elections. I'm not saying that is the case - I don't know. |
V. Kurt Bellman
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Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 1944
Registered: 4-2006
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 - 1:38 pm: |
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Mike,
I think the overwhelming evidence, over decades or centuries, is that recounts very seldom alter elections' outcomes. Perhaps the institutional knowledge of that gives rise to the near universal election professional reaction to recounts, or the request for same - the sigh, the ennui thick enough to cut with a knife, and the statement, "Oh [expletive deleted]! What do these [other expletive deleted]s want now?"
It is only the extraordinarily narrow margin that has a resonable likelihood of being reversed by a recount, unless a significant and concentrated fraud can be reasonably alleged. (Alleged with a credible reason.)
The answer to your question #1 depends entirely on the voting method being used, and depends on what you define as an "error". Is it just supposed overvotes and undervotes? Does it include alleged miscounts? Does it include procedural misunderstandings or blunders, at least two of which seem to have happened in Manchester and Nashua? And what about intentional systemic mischief?
Each voting system has its own positives and negatives. For example, DREs are highly theoretically susceptible to intentional mischief, but are immune to overvotes and "intent-sensitive" misinterpretation. The next statement is a "Duh!" DRE votes are binary, not analog, and that shortens the list of their vulnerabilities while expanding almost to inifinity the potential impact of the few that remain.
But I think we err when we assume to near zero the extravagantly documented history of errors, both inadvertant and intentional, that have accompanied any document-based election system through our history. Any desire to return to document-based elections must come with the simultaneous commitment to fundamentally improve the quality of the oft-amateurish management of it by people in positions of authority, from the precinct to the town/county/whatever that conducts elections to the state level, and beyond, if we ever aspire to the first-ever national election in USA history some day.
No, as Bev has illustrated here in her NH piece, the people who run elections can at times be astonishingly amateurish. An improvement there, and at all election management levels, must precede any attempts to go back to "people and paper" elections. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 66
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 7:02 am: |
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Kurt and Mike,
Those are interesting and important points, and an interesting use of the NH data, Mike.
No particular corrective point intended toward what anyone has said; but
(1) seeking informed correction of the views herein;
(2) wishing to make (what withstands correction in) the following explicit.
and...
Hoping in asking this that I'm not being more cynical than suspicious (my preferred flavor of) historians' ambiguously debatable acounts of events warrant, but it is the sort of question it is hard to find informed serious response to:
Is part of why very few recounts change results:
(1) when elections are rigged, it is done by folk who control the process, and thus control the recount as well, or at very least have executed the fraud in ways that impossiblize effective proofs?
(2) the opposition expects no different result from a recount, regards asking for one as futile -- at best an opportunity for some lesser sub rosa horse trading?
(3) in eras and places where vote frauds have been common and uncoverable, those qualities have applied to fraud efforts by both parties, if not in the same locales then each in their own "territories"?
Are these naive questions (no irony intended -- inviting frank reply from folk who've shown they deliver it) ?
----------
More broadly...
My sense of our history is that citizen complaint about vote fraud methods has gradually...
[ generally at a point in time when political machines have prepared either (1) improved (illegal) methods of fraud, or (2) methods of (legal) control that obviate a need for fraud... ]
led to less visible methods of fraud or control that reconstruct a level of credibility ...
at which point these 'reforms' are celebrated, to feed said credibility, ...
[ and typically used to promote/credibilize new heroic 'reform' leaders (Teddy Roosevelt?, Al Smith?) who are then especially valuable Trojan Horses?]...
At which point the cycle restarts, and however long a period is needed for these new methods of sub rosa fraud/or/control to 'prove' themselves suspect-at-best in subsequent election 'puddings'? ... And new groundswells of objection lead to further reforms?
We are no longer rounding up voters who are hanging out in taverns on election day waiting to see which party is handing out $1bills and which is handing out $2bills for the privilege of herding bought voters to the local polls ...
and via these cycles our election processes are certainly more credible -- whatever their unknowable, but undoubtedly improved, current degree of 'accuracy' and popular participation?
The most anticipatable & useful value of all the various paths of approach (and correction) folk deliver here is substantiating needs and potentials for moving our next cycle of 'reform' a quicker, larger step forward (?rather than backward, as may seem to be a current agenda?) ???
This process, cycles of successive approximation reaching toward -- w/o expecting to get to -- 'every vote counts', has gone on since the beginning, when the framers of the Constitution's letters to each other were focused on avoiding three sorts of tyranny they seem somewhat universally (always exceptions) to have feared:
executive tyranny from above;
'democratic' tyranny of 'the rabble' from 'below';
a combination of the two -- a tyranny of conscienceless demagogic manipulators of 'our ignorant rabble';
fears which led to an effective variety of roadblocks to 'popular control' of govt [many since 'reformed'],
in addition to our more celebrated system of checks/balances to limit potentials for what I've oversimplified in the term 'executive tyranny'. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 67
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 7:18 am: |
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P.S.
In Veeck -- as in Wreck, Bill Veeck's entertaining autobio, he notes that as soon as baseball execs pass a new rule they start looking for ways to break it.
So it is interesting to note that with all the fears re: " a tyranny of conscienceless demagogic manipulators of 'our ignorant rabble' " ...
...the election of 1800
(the 2nd election that deserves the name given Washington's 'automatic' elections)
becomes a standoff between our two earliest masters of organized demagogy, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr ... settled by backroom horse-trading ... with a subsequent disposal of Burr's career achieved by some of the most extravagantly lawless Presidential behavior our govt has offered. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 46
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 7:49 am: |
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Joel,
You said, "We are no longer rounding up voters who are hanging out in taverns on election day waiting to see which party is handing out $1bills and which is handing out $2bills for the privilege of herding bought voters to the local polls ... "
Joel, sounds like you are describing what is referred to as "walking around money." You are correct in stating that $2 probably is insufficient to purchase a vote in these times. |
Mike LaBonte
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 125
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 5:35 pm: |
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A good source of research is the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project. They have a 2004 report USING RECOUNTS TO MEASURE THE ACCURACY OF VOTE TABULATIONS: Evidence from New Hampshire Elections 1946-2002, which studied recounts of 415 district-elections in NH. Unfortunately it does not discuss how often election results are changed. But it does make some conclusions about error levels and when to recount:
quote:Considering these tabulation errors, how con¯dent should we be in vote counts, and
when should we have a recount? The tabulation invalidation rate was low, especially for
optical scanning. However, it was not trivial. In a US House election with 250,000 votes,
the invalidation rate of .005 for scanners amounts to 1250 votes. The tabulation errors
may swing toward any of the contestants in a recount. Assuming a uniform distribution of
tabulation errors, any race decided by less than .5 percent of the vote will have a non-trivial
probability of being reversed in a recount.
Most states have no set standard for an automatic recount; the courts or state election
officer decides whether a recount is appropriate. Some states do have provisions for automatic
recounts - typically, if the election is closer than one-half of one percent of ballots cast
(National Commission on Federal Election Reform, 2002, pages 343-346). This standard is
approximately equal to the average tabulation error rate with optical scanning equipment,
but smaller than the rate for hand counted paper. The average, of course, rejects the typical
case, so, for both optical scanning and hand counted paper, the discrepancy between initial
counts and recounts in many jurisdictions in our data exceeded the .5 percent standard.
State election offcials and courts should treat an automatic recount standard of .5 percent
as a minimum threshold, rather than an absolute standard.
Bold emphasis is mine. I need some help with statistics here. If the count differences are normally distributed, and an election margin is right at the average error percentage of 0.5%, does this mean that 50% of the errors increase the election margin, 25% decrease by less than the election margin, and 25% decrease by more than the election margin (overturn)?
By the way, this study has regression coefficients to predict district error rates considering count method, total vote count, and candidate percent, all based on NH data. |
Catherine Ansbro
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Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4516
Registered: 12-2004
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 6:30 pm: |
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These thresholds might make sense if the only possibility was accidental error. However when one considers the likelihood of fraud it would be child's play to ensure that the election margin would exceed the state's minimum threshold. And there is no reason to believe that anyone tampering with an election would limit themselves to a small margin. There have been a number of elections on voting machines with very "interesting" landslide election results (Nebraska, Georgia), by coincidence occurring just when voting machines were used for the first time (but before anyone knew much about them or how they might be used fraudulently). |
Mike LaBonte
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Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 126
Registered: 12-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, January 27, 2008 - 7:53 pm: |
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I suppose if someone had a way to rig an election the rigged margin of victory would have to be large enough to escape a recount, but not so large as to completely mismatch polls. On the other hand, there seems to be an ongoing effort to cast doubt on polls, so that they might someday be completely disregarded.
A spreadsheet for the Hillsborough County Republican primary recount is attached. Recount numbers for Litchfield and Peterborough are absent, so they are given zero errors. The miscount rate is slightly higher than for the Democrat primary recount, 1.08% vs. 1.05%. The difference may be due to the surprising number of miscounts for Democrat write-ins on the Republican ballots, 277 miscounts out of 1121 write-in votes.
|
Brant Lamb
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Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1791
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 4:50 am: |
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quote:State election offcials and courts should treat an automatic recount standard of .5 percent
as a minimum threshold, rather than an absolute standard.
But Kurt was saying that optic scan machines have a 1% error rate, so I would think for those, at least you should at least have a minimum of 2%, and anything lower. |
Mike LaBonte
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Username: Mike_labonte
Post Number: 128
Registered: 12-2005
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Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 5:04 am: |
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For a single district election, yes, you would want the recount threshold higher than the average error rate.
In a statewide election, where the random errors tend to mostly cancel each other, the case could be made for a lower threshold. My analysis of NH Democratic results found that the winner's margin shifted by 1/8 of the observed total error rate, for example. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 4517
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 7:58 am: |
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quote:I suppose if someone had a way to rig an election the rigged margin of victory would have to be large enough to escape a recount, but not so large as to completely mismatch polls.
This would be nice, but it's not true. Election results that returned a landslide result completely the opposite of landslide polls have been routinely ignored. (E.g., when Chuck Hagel was elected, and when the popular GA governor lost his seat.)
The approved results are virtually impossible to change, people obstruct attempts to get information that could challenge a result.
Polls carry NO weight in these decisions. It's too easy to create reasons why a poll might be wrong, and to create reasons why a certain person might have won/lost, no matter how implausible.
So--it is a BIG mistake in my opinion to think that anyone who'd try to rig an election would limit themselves to winning by a small margin. Going for a huge margin can be every bit as successful--because everyone is willing to believe that it would be "risky" to do so. Risky my ***.
This has big implications for those espousing audits or recounts based on the margin of victory. It will do nothing to prevent or reduce the risk of election fraud. This is a recipe to ensure disaster and/or make it easier. |
Brant Lamb
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Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1799
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 9:10 am: |
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This also happened in some voting reform legislation in Ohio.
(Message edited by brantl on January 28, 2008) |
Joel Morine
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Username: Erased
Post Number: 71
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 11:13 am: |
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Christine,
Is 'walking around money' still used?
It's been a while since I did that reading, so I couldn't recall exact decades that method was in the repertoire of Standing Operating Procedures [1840-1860 or 1850-1870?],
tho' I seem to recall that part-cause of its disappearance was war-inflation and bidding had taken it up to $5/voter -- tho' of course by then a one-party CivilWar (&post-war) govt had manufactured far more wide-open Fed-fund$-flow$ $pigot$.
Some authors use doubling for each decade as a very rough estimate for long-term adjustment$...
$2^16 makes for a fairly hefty sum.
Given how little difference I hear between what Prez candidates say in some elections, I suspect they could buy my vote for $2^16 ...  
Do the buyers or the bought get prosecuted nowadays?
I note when the buyers are successfully prosecuted in extra-large financial frauds, the penalties tend to be a small percentage of the cash siphoned? Does it work that way for the bought?
Is it more cynical to say those things, or not to see them when they happen?
Apologies to all, I should keep my sense of humor under a rock where so much excellent serious work goes on. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 55
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2008 - 12:48 pm: |
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Joel, re: walking around money, I have not seen it with my own eyes, but in CT I have read that people were seen handing out money on election day in a couple of the big cities in 2006. These reports related to a candidate with $387,000 of petty cash expenditures in the campaign FEC reports. Although a large sum, no one has yet succeeded to my knowledge in convincing the FEC to require documentation of how those funds were spent. If the FEC has done so, it has not yet been reported in the media.
So the official answer is, there are anecdotal reports that suggest the practice still exists.
I don't know the answers to your other questions, including the zinger about which is more cynical, but in the area of beliefs, I would say I believe where there is a will, there is a way. Hand wringing ultimately not energy as well spent as running around with a video phone!
You could google the petty cash amount to start to track down more details -- some of them ranting, some few others more substantive. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 76
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 6:54 am: |
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"I have read that people were seen handing out money on election day in a couple of the big cities in 2006. These reports related to a candidate with $387,000 of petty cash expenditures."
"Although a large sum, no one has yet succeeded to my knowledge in convincing the FEC to require documentation."
Recycling?
"Hand wringing ultimately not energy as well spent as running around with a video phone."
Amen.
I'm hoping History has its uses as well;
and very ambivalent re:
how much?,
which?,
+ how to judge inherent trade-offs in those ??s choices,
----------------
in sum: how useful my sense (& deliveries) of some aspects of history --
is or isn't helpful or apt to purposes here. |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 62
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - 1:02 pm: |
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Joel, in case it was not clear, my hand wringing comments were not directed at you, more of a reminder to myself and any of us tempted to worry upon hearing such bad news rather than remember we can help. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 79
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 4:49 am: |
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Appreciate the explicit sayso Christine,
Not taken that way, except in my own inclination to point the query at myself,
at my own commitment to what part of what needs doing to invest myself in,
and to explicitly invite comment re: my history comments' relative potential negative and positive consequences to purposes here.
Yr comment had me:
trying to visualize myself with a video phone
(think my phone does that, haven't wanted to use it),
asking me a traditional question/challenge re: expanding personal comfort zone (-- so often rewarding once done),
& another re: timenergy limits / investments / relative potential value.
Maybe just navel-gazing too aloud? |
christine c reid
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 82
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 6:32 am: |
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Ah, what the heck, maybe we should learn to use our camera/video features on our phones (you and me both). Who knows when it will come in handy? In a fender bender, our insurance companies will appreciate it! |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 80
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 2, 2008 - 7:04 am: |
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Agreeing w/ the principle:
Should have had a tape recorder turned on fulltime at my last school district.
& noting yr tongue in yr cheek during yr last sentence:
is that heard as prudent sycophancy or apt irony in Hartford?
or does that depend on which sense of 'our' yr using there? |
christine c reid
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ctwatcher
Post Number: 115
Registered: 12-2007
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 2, 2008 - 12:42 pm: |
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It depends on what the meaning of ours, is, to misquote a former President. |
Joel Morine
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Erased
Post Number: 83
Registered: 1-2008
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, February 3, 2008 - 5:43 am: |
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Or as my aunt once ended a conversation...
"He may be an ****, but at least he's our *****"
...ambiguously directional possession has twin values to both
the possessed and the possessor?
The twins aren't identical.
"are they fraternal?"
seems a health criteria |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 1848
Registered: 1-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, February 4, 2008 - 4:39 am: |
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quote:For a single district election, yes, you would want the recount threshold higher than the average error rate.
In a statewide election, where the random errors tend to mostly cancel each other, the case could be made for a lower threshold. My analysis of NH Democratic results found that the winner's margin shifted by 1/8 of the observed total error rate, for example.
This would be true as long as the error isn't systemic, say loads of:
badly printed ballots or
a bad lot of pens
or humid ballots that won't take the heat
or cloned poor ballot definition for modular areas of the ballot (state races, etc.). No, you should have a must-recount that is up to more than double the machine failure rate, because of these issues.
And actually, a really huge difference from polling (5% or more%) should trigger it, too. |
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NH Manchester recount stats 1-17 11am EST
NH_Hillsborough_D_recount_200801230837.xls
