(NJ) 5/09 - STATE: LWV, ACLU NOW FRAM...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 10538 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 5 (A keeper?) Posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 2:58 pm:        Now here's progress: In New Jersey, we see the League of Women Voters and the ACLU framing objections to paperless touch-screens as VOTING RIGHTS VIOLATIONS. At the end of this article, which details recurring voting rights problems in New Jersey, they contend that the secrecy of the counting mechanism in the paperless DRE machines used in these counties violates the legal requirement for an "open and public examination" of the count. Germany's equivalent of our Supreme Court concluded the same thing, banning e-voting and going back to hand counts after concluding that the secrecy involved in counting votes out of sight on computers violates rights and is unconstitutional. We are beginning to see real, meaningful progress towards solutions as we succeed communicating more accurate frames for voting machine problems. It isn't about "security." It's about our right to self-government and our right to freedom of information. If we can't see how our votes are counted; If our votes are counted in secret on computers that insiders and their vendors control, we have transferred control from The People to government insiders. Public controls can be returned to modern-day elections in many ways, often inexpensively. Among such methods are the Humboldt County (Calif.) method, time slices as done in the Iowa Democratic Caucus, citizen hand counts of absentee ballot blocks like they do in Whatcom County (Wash.), and precinct-based hand counts as they are done in New Hampshire and Maine. And there are other methods, such as allowing precinct-based public comparison of input to output. Brainstorming and pilot-testing the right solutions. starts with accurately identifying the problem with computerized counting, as the League and ACLU do at the end of this article. NewJerseyNewsroom.com - May 12, 2009, by Joe Tyrrell Report: New Jersey election system still has flaws In their latest report on New Jersey election practices, the state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the League of Women Voters found persistent problems with provisional ballots, poll worker training and malfunctioning voting machines. As part of their ongoing voter protection project, the two groups deployed more than 200 observers to polling places, elections offices and courthouses around the state during the 2008 general election. They conclude the state has made some significant improvements in election procedures, such as once again putting the Secretary of State in charge of the division of elections and increasing compliance with the federal Motor Voter Law. But they also documented avoidable problems at many locations, such as poll workers providing erroneous information, judges issuing different ruling on voters in the same situation, and interference by election officials with public observers. "New Jersey still has a long way to go before our elections benefit from the best systems and practices," the report concluded. The groups pointed out that their key recommendations "have not changed significantly since our earlier reports." Despite collaborative work by some officials, "there's much room for improvement," said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ALCU-NJ, who issued the report along with her LWV counterpart Anne Ruach Nicolas. They recommended that New Jersey follow the lead of Ohio, where the secretary of state convened a "summit" among elections officials, researchers and other organizations to improve procedures. North Carolina and Wisconsin have "user friendly" on-line systems allowing voters to check their status, reducing confusion on Election Day. In contrast, New Jersey requires people to obtain a "voter number" from their county elections board before being able to use the on-line system. Confusion continues to be a major element of Election Day, and the two organizations called on the state and counties to do more advance preparation to eliminate it. Although they had only enough volunteers to monitor a smattering of election sites, hundreds of votes turned to them for assistance, the two groups reported. "We received reports of poll workers in Bergen, Middlesex and Union counties repeatedly sending voters to wrong polling places," the report said. While the law only requires first-time voters who mailed in their registrations, or people whose names are flagged in election books, to show identification, in some places poll workers or campaign representatives improperly demanded ID from others. "The problem was exacerbated by aggressive challengers in Jersey City and Flemington who overstepped their authority by demanding ID and harassing voters," the report found. The most common problem involved provisional ballots, which allow voters whose names do not show on rolls at their precinct to cast votes for further review. A surge in registrations in many areas last year, coupled with delays in entering motor voter registrations forwarded from the Motor Vehicle Commission, dramatically increased the need for provisional ballots. The observers more than 300 people who were improperly denied provisional ballots by poll workers, the report said. Students are frequently victimized by elections officials who do not recognize or accept dorm addresses, according to the report. Energetic would-be voters are able to take these issues to court on Election Day, but even then results may vary, according to the report. "In Morris County, a judge in one courtroom denied the vote to a petitioner who had become a citizen after the registration deadline, while next door another judge issued an order allowing a newly naturalized citizen to vote." Under the state constitution, persons awaiting trial, jailed for civil offenses or misdemeanors and those who have completed criminal sentences are allowed to vote. But the report found eight counties - Atlantic, Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset and Union - continued to create administrative roadblocks despite previous corrective memos from the state. The report recommended mandatory training for elections judges in the relevant state and federal laws. But it did praise five counties - Camden, Gloucester, Middlesex, Ocean and Somerset - for establishing video feeds between elections courts and other locations to reduce the need for voters to travel to the county seats to contest cases. The report also praised corrections officials in Essex and Hudson counties for making it easier for incarcerated but eligible voters to cast ballots. The League and the ACLU also singled out the state Department of the Public Advocate for leading the effort to make it easier for New Jerseyans to register through MVC offices. Even as cooperative technology improved life for some voters, the continued use of electronic voting machines continued to raise concerns. Many start-up problems with Sequoia electronic machines were written off to mistakes by poll workers. But voters at the Conklin Hall polling place in Newark "point to frequent machine failures since the introduction of the new machines in 2006," the report found. At some polling places, including Conklin Hall, workers compounded the error by not providing would-be voters with emergency ballots when the machines failed, the report found. Although counts of results from the machines are open to the public, officials in Mercer and Somerset counties improperly tried to block citizens from watching. Observers from the League and ACLU contend the secrecy of the counting mechanism in the paperless machines used in these counties violates the legal requirement for an "open and public examination" of the count. This article is also archived in the New Jersey - State of section of this Web site. http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/report-jersey-election-system-still-has-flaws   Jim Soper Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Jim_soper Post Number: 7 Registered: 5-2008 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 4 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 2:31 pm:        Correction: I have read the entire German Constitional Court opinion from March 3 (http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/cs20090303_2bvc000307.html). Despite what the above posting implies, the German decision does not ban all use of all computers in all elections. It bans the use of *paperless* voting machines. This is all they have available for the moment, so they are going back to voting on paper ballots for the September election. Paragraph 121 of the decision explicitly allows for ballot scanners ("Stimmzettel-Scanner"), and voting systems with VVPATS ("Wähler sichtbares Papierprotokoll"), among others. The point of the decision is that the public must be able to *check* the count without needing specialized computer skills, so a paper trail is required. It does not, however, forbid a computer-count. According to the last paragraph of the article posted above, this is the same position taken by the League and the ACLU. Their main problem is with the *paperless* machines. My own position is that a VVPAT is not good enough. We need actual paper ballots, copies thereof and much other information posted on the Internet ASAP and real, genuine audits. I am not opposed to hand counting, but we need to double-check hand counts too. Jim Soper www.CountedAsCast.com   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 10548 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 3:07 pm:        The decision does not issue an opinion on items not put before it. As used in the USA, both scanners and DREs would be improper since we do not allow the public to examine the ballots or paper trails at all. The public must be able to check the count - that is, we have the RIGHT to check the count -- without specialized computer skills. Part and parcel of this is that we actually have to be able to look at the darn ballots. Having paper does not mean the public can check the count.   gregory gorey Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Gnosticgreg Post Number: 2 Registered: 10-2007 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 5 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 3:59 pm:        DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENT: WTP Federal Lawsuit to Ban All Electronic Voting Heads for Trial Discovery Begins, Jury Will Decide the Law In 2007, WTP instigated a federal lawsuit in New York seeking to hold election officials in all fifty states accountable for their deprivation of the People’s fundamental Right to Vote because of the use of non-verifiable electronic and mechanical machine-based vote counting. The case was dubbed the “National Clean Elections Lawsuit,” or NCEL. Although a 2008 Order from the U.S. District Court in Albany removed all the non-New York defendants, as of last week, the Court ordered the remaining parties to commence preparations for a jury trial. Click here to read the U.S. District Court's Scheduling Order. It must be noted that this is the first federal lawsuit ever to be approved for trial directly challenging the constitutional integrity of a state’s official election procedures which are totally dependent, almost without exception, upon machine-based vote counting. In the complaint, WTP supporters from all fifty states participated as plaintiffs arguing that the People have a fundamental, natural Right to know their votes are being accurately counted, and that it is unconstitutional for the Government to count our votes in secret -- which is precisely what happens when the “hidden” mechanisms of a machine (whether electronic or mechanical) counts the votes and produces a total. The complaint further asserts that machine-based vote counting provides abundant opportunities for criminal sabotage, election fraud and errors of all types to occur at almost every step of the election process, beginning with the manufacture and maintenance of vote counting machines, and extending well into election night when machine-contrived vote totals are allegedly passed to, and broadcast by, a (privately-owned) national corporate media consortium without any official, public certification of local vote totals. The WTP complaint requests the Court impose not only a total ban all vote counting machines (mechanical and electronic) but to impose on state election officials a detailed manual vote counting and certification procedure based solely on the use of plain paper ballots, hand-marked, stored, counted and certified at each precinct level polling location, in full view of the public, at all times. For more information, research and all the legal pleadings, please go to the NCEL Lawsuit Information Center. Elections May Never Be The Same Again The historic NCEL lawsuit, tentatively scheduled for trial next year, now enters what is known as the pre-trial “discovery” phase. Under the federal rules of civil procedure, the WTP plaintiffs are now entitled to issue interrogatories, subpoena witnesses, take sworn depositions, and demand documents, records and data from state officials and other defendants (who are liable in both their personal and official capacities), as well as records from third parties (such as corporations) which may have information pertinent to the controversy before the Court. It is imperative to recognize the historical opportunity before us: * We have had a U.S. District Court deny a request by the state of New York to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction, and * We have secured the Right to have a jury of our fellow citizens essentially decide whether the use of “black box” vote counting machines passes constitutional muster, and * We have an Order from a U.S. District Court stating that all the original Plaintiffs (removed from the New York case) are still entitled to bring similar charges against election officials in their own states, and * We have an opportunity to force the state of New York to produce sworn testimony and official records which may, following trial, result in a federal court order banning, for all time, the use of all electronic voting machines (and other contrivances) as well as patently deficient election procedures, which in the past have enabled massive election fraud to be perpetrated virtually without detection. In short, the People have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity through the NCEL lawsuit, to seize back control of the election machinery that state bureaucrats and the political parties have hijacked and used against the People to systemically deny us not only our Right to vote, but the fundamental Right to a enjoy a government of own creation and representation of our own choice. One must wonder after all, why it seems that those who “win” our elections and “represent” us have - despite our pleas and repeated Petitions, continued to destroy our Constitution and Republic without apparent constraint. Is it possible that flawed and fraudulent elections have denied the People our true political voice? This lawsuit is now our best chance to bring an end to election chicanery and restore integrity to the most fundamental process the People have designed into the Constitution for directly establishing and maintaining their servant government. This is our chance to finally force government officials to publicly explain, under oath, exactly why they need anything more than a stack of paper ballots, a pen and a wooden box to conduct a fair and honest election. Election Activists: We Need Expert Witnesses, Research & Legal Assistance Now the hard part begins. Bob Schulz and John Liggett, are the lone remaining plaintiffs and are both representing themselves in a pro per capacity before the court (i.e., without attorneys). Despite decades of hundreds of complex legal confrontations against experienced professional government attorneys battled in courts across numerous states including New York and the District of Columbia, proceeding all the way up to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, WTP Chairman Bob Schulz readily admits to only limited trial experience and virtually no experience with the particulars of conducting discovery or executing an actual trial, much less one of profound national significance such as the NCEL case. Additionally, Schulz and co-Plaintiff Liggett openly acknowledge their lack of detailed familiarity with the technical issues, facts, personalities and body of knowledge in the fields of vote counting machines, election law and election fraud and in no way does their capacity in these areas approach the subject matter expertise and litigation experience possessed by the many activists who have advanced the election integrity movement for so long – and which will be required to achieve Justice. Bob and John are going to need a lot of help, from a lot of people, if they are to prevail in the NCEL lawsuit. Soon, we will have more to say on this case. In the meantime, we would appreciate receiving the contact information of each and every person who might be willing to assist in the planning and execution of both the discovery and trial phases of the NCEL case. Please send your lawsuit related emails (only) to NCEL [at] GiveMeLiberty.org. Click here to go to the NCEL Lawsuit Information Center. Click here to read the May, 2009 Scheduling Order moving the lawsuit forward for trial. Click here to access WTP’s secure donation system. Please consider making a generous one-time donation or establishing a monthly subscription donation. Thank you for your generous support. Please remember that your tax-deductible donations are the sole source of funding the Foundation's Continental Congress 2009 project work and the NCEL federal lawsuit. Click here to access the CC2009 state-specific donate buttons. WTP CC2009 "Tea Party" Flyer (1-page) RIGHT-Click here to download the CC2009 "tri-fold" brochure. Please remember, the operations of the WTP Foundation are funded entirely by your generous support. Video of December 8th, 2008 WTP Press Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC is now on Google video.   Catherine Ansbro Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Catherine_a Post Number: 5514 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 6:39 pm:        Gregory, Thanks for posting this news. Doesn't discovery offer many opportunities to get information into the public record that would normally be hard to access?   Catherine Ansbro Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Catherine_a Post Number: 5515 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 - 6:41 pm:        Gregory, you may want to repost this in both the NY forum and the citizens frontline forum. It might get overlooked here in the NJ forum.   Roger Wood Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Dicktator Post Number: 5 Registered: 1-2008 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 4 (A keeper?) Posted on Saturday, May 16, 2009 - 7:38 pm:        Hello fellow compatriots, In 2007 I read an article in the paper that Gennessee County N.Y. had decided to purchase the touch screen voting systems. At this point I had done plenty of Research to know about the FRAUD and decided to contact the voting commissioner of Gennessee County to advise him of the SCAM and explained how they even proved in on Main Stream Media with several Universities Studies. Well I decided to call my voting Commissioner in Monroe County N.Y. in which I made him aware that the Voting Machines were a scam and he released to me that he was also being Coherced also into accepting the Machines in this district. My County Commisioner revealed to me that he had no choice in the matter and that it was all being perputrated by people from another Department. I went on to tell the Commissioner that he should Resign and start sharing this info with the community and that if he goes along with Treason, that it makes him a Treasonist. So as it goes, I ended up not voting because of the Integrety of the machines and because out of the three Selected Cadidates, Neither was Electable. Oh yeah and I've also seen those Die Bold critters driving around our highways here in Rochester. Anyway, I stand with you in holding these peoples feet to the fire and calling for resignations. Peace, Roger   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 10552 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 12:30 pm:        Hi Roger, I'm glad you are getting personally involved. It is true that election officials in New York are being coerced into getting systems they do not want. Several New Yorkers are fighting this. This is not a reason not to vote, though. Casting your vote creates evidence, and evidence can be used to create positive change. The Diebold vans you see driving around have to do with their ATM machines, not voting machines. Diebold is not selling any voting machines in New York. We certainly are calling for consequences for failure to honor freedom of information rights and failure to follow election law. Calling for resignations only rarely helps -- as citizens in southern California have learned. As soon as they get rid of one bad apple, another bad apple is installed. Generally it helps to address these issues in terms of rights, policies and procedures.

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