(ME) 7/09 - BLACKBOXVOTING NAMES MAIN...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 10686 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 5 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 2:44 pm:        By Bev Harris Black Box Voting has been researching nitty-gritty election issues state by state, community by community. Maine, it turns out, is a standout. Overall, Maine's current processes are better than any other state in America. FRAMING THE ISSUES* * Thanks to Paul Lehto, a voting rights scholar and attorney, for providing expertise on phrasing and framing the issues To understand why Maine's current processes are better than other states, and why certain federal legislative efforts threaten Maine's good processes, let's look at the core issues facing election integrity: Right to self-government ("Right to Know") and compliance with protective laws and procedures. RIGHT TO KNOW: The key question is that of accountability to the people (put positively) or anti-secrecy (put in its negative form). If we allow any key process to be concealed in elections, we transfer power from the public to government insiders. Any voting system based on concealed processes (that is, processes that cannot be examined by the public) fails to recognize that the people are the sole legitimate and ultimate source of power. Concealment of any key election process violates the following: (1) the Constitutional frame ("We the People...do hereby ordain...) (2) the Declaration of Independence (governments are formed to "secure these rights" and "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed") and (3) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (holding the sole source of legitimate political authority is the people of a nation). Argumentation used to establish women's suffrage came from the Declaration of Independence. The argumentation for your right to public vote-counting goes like this: Right to liberty: You can't have liberty without self-government. Right to alter our governance: You can't have self-government if insiders count the votes in secret. Inalienable right: You can't do away with these rights by passing a law. Laws that violate inalienable rights, like slavery, can be passed but constitute invalid law. HOW MAINE PROTECTS RIGHT TO SELF GOVERNMENT / NEW THREATS 1. MAINE HAS EXCELLENT RIGHT TO KNOW LAWS, permitting any person to examine records, including ballots (after the election), plus all election records and election accounting. • The state of New Hampshire forbids anyone — even candidates — from examining the original ballots, even after the election, even after the 22-month retention period expires for federal elections. • The state of Utah places not only ballots, but all accompanying election accounting documents under seal, forbidding the public and even candidates from examining them without court order. • King County, Washington refused to provide certain accounting for absentee votes in the 2004 Rossi/Gregoire gubernatorial race. Five years later, the county was fined $225,000 for noncompliance. • Pima County, Arizona does not permit either the public or party observers to watch vote tallying in the precincts for nonpartisan elections like tax, construction and bond issues. • Maine has very few restrictions on Right to Know, allows the public (not just political parties) to observe polling place tallying, and has consistently responded to Black Box Voting public records requests quickly, fully and courteously. 2. MAINE REQUIRES BALLOTS TO BE COUNTED IN PUBLIC and requires that the public be permitted to observe the proceedings. In contrast, many states have consolidated the counting into large, centralized locations with poor chain of custody during ballot transport, and obstructions to public observation. Several states limit observation to designated observers selected by political parties. (Note that our founding documents refer to "The People," not "The Parties.") • Threats: A proposal for federal legislation, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" (H.R. 2894 -- referred to by many in the election reform movement as "The Holt Bill") contains a shocking contract-steering clause, allocating nearly a billion dollars towards forcing every jurisdiction in America to place a special new high tech voting machine into every polling place. The bill requires the purchase and sets out specifications which only one manufacturer (ES&S) can meet, then effectively precludes any other manufacturer from obtaining certification by setting strict deadlines for purchase dates. This is contract steering, and threatens to interfere with the way Maine runs its elections. It will also produce closure of polling places due to cost increases. Still a problem: Voting machines in Maine's heavily populated metropolitan areas conceal the counting of the ballots, and unless additional procedures are implemented, violate Maine's own requirement to count in public. One no-cost, simple improvement: Add a step: As soon as polls close, deal the ballots out one by one allowing the public to videotape them if desired, so that the public can compare input to optical scan results. Because ballots are anonymous, this does not threaten political privacy, and this procedure would be legal in Maine simply by changing procedures, without new legislation. Even more transparent: Public hand counting of the ballots at the polling place, as is done now in many Maine locations. This year, the nation of Germany removed all voting machines and reverted to nationwide hand counting in order to honor the public right to examine the count. 3. MAINE'S CLEAN ELECTIONS LAW REDUCES CANDIDATE DEPENDENCY on donations by corporations and vested interests. Though not perfect, better than states like California, which had zealots and vested interests pumping millions into ballot issues in 2008, and some states have tainted processes for electing judges, with almost no campaign finance restrictions for those positions. • Threats: Quite a lot of tinkering is being attempted with Maine's Clean Elections laws. Most of it dies, some of it passes. The tinkering consists of multiple proposals to adjust language and procedures; some may strengthen Maine's Clean Elections law, other proposals will weaken it. The sheer number of tweaks being proposed indicates that Maine's Clean Elections law is under attack, and warrants continued vigilance for those who support its purpose. You can view the many attempts to tinker with Clean Elections law here: http://janus.state.me.us/Legis/LawMakerWeb/advancedsearch.asp (enter the word "election" in the title or subject bar). 4. MAINE IS EXPANDING ETHICS LAWS. Newly passed legislation expands ethics actions into the executive branch of Maine's government, a step in the right direction. The bill was amended to stop short of implementation, recommending a study first. At least Maine is working on expansion of public rights to disclosure and ethics, while some other states are trying to roll back public rights and ethics. (Tennessee, working to close an ethics agency and New Hampshire, with a proposal that would exclude the executive branch from right to know laws.) 5. MAINE IS AVOIDING INTERNET AND PERMANENT ABSENTEE VOTING TRAPS. Several states are now trying to install "permanent absentee voting", "forced absentee voting," and Internet voting. Hawaii just had a dismal failure with Internet voting. Maine has so far held the line with "no excuse" absentee voting. As soon as this moves into recommendations for opt-in "permanent absentee" status, the wheels come off the checks and balances. • Threats: Internet, permanent absentee, and forced absentee voting are being rolled out in cookie-cutter proposals in state after state. Black Box Voting has reviewed legislative proposals, and so far these risky procedures have not been proposed in Maine. Expect to see them in the future. Fight such proposals, because they produce elimination of the polling place and maximum concealment of essential election processes. 6. MAINE ALLOWS ACCESSIBLE 100 PERCENT HAND RECOUNTS AT AFFORDABLE PRICING. Even write-in candidates can purchase full hand recounts. A sliding scale, based on the margin of the win, allows very reasonable recounts for close races, and even the largest spread costs no more than $10,000. 7. MAINE HAD THE HIGHEST TURNOUT IN THE NATION IN 2008. Despite claims by states like Oregon and Washington, where forced mail-in voting is justified on the grounds that it is claimed to produce higher turnout, Maine had higher turnout with less absentee voting. 8. MAINE REQUIRES ID TO REGISTER TO VOTE, BUT ALSO ALLOWS SAME-DAY REGISTRATION. This bypasses the voter purge strategy. We have not examined compliance with the checks and balances for Maine's same-day registration, however. We note that in New Hampshire, checks and balances were poorly followed, and in some cases new Election Day registrants were dumped onto the rolls without even listing their addresses. We will be interested in feedback from those with experience in Maine, to learn whether compliance is a problem.   Maria Irrera Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Mirrera Post Number: 1 Registered: 12-2005 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 2 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 4:46 pm:        Maine has recently embraced the scanner instead of hand counts. My town had hand counts up until 2004, and all of a sudden the scanner was voted in as a budget item with very little debate. We have automatic hand re-count if there is a close race within 1%... What is missing is random re-counts. If you were to hack the scanner all you would have to do is make the win be over 1%.   Mark E. Smith Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Mymarkx Post Number: 468 Registered: 7-2005 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 - 7:21 pm:        Precisely right, Maria. So sorry to hear about Maine.   Nancy Tobi Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Ntobi Post Number: 470 Registered: 1-2006 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 4:18 am:        As a New England state, Maine is "serviced" by LHS Associates. Just like NH, the dominos fall quickly under the Diebold machine. When I first started writing about NH some 5 years ago, LHS-Diebold had a lock on less than 75% of NH ballots. They are now approaching 90%. I suspect the state of Maine has the same cosy relationship with LHS-Diebold, and has a similar lousy system that allows approval of concealed vote counting (computerized privatized vote counting) just like NH. NH also "requires ballots to be counted in public." It is in our Constitution and in our election laws. It just doesn't happen because most of our ballots are counted by Diebold optical scanners. How many ballots in Maine are actually counted in public? How many are counted by optical scanners? According to Verified Voting, Maine uses Diebold and ES&S. LHS must not yet have convinced the State to "redesign" their ballots, as they did in NH, so that the ES&S machines can not be used any longer. But I had to search on the internet to learn about the opscans in use, there is no information on the Maine Sec of State site about this. Recounts of any sort don't amount to a hill of beans because the ballots are so easily compromised. NH has for years excused concealed vote counting on election night by extolling their "easy access to recounts". Recounts are a red herring. We are entitled to an open an public vote count, not a post election "recount" of ballots that could have been slapped together by anyone, anywhere, any time. I am not so convinced about Maine because I live in NH and I know how easily things go bad. Much of what Bev writes about Maine is also true of NH. NH's hand count systems, when used, are among the best, most open, most public, most community-based elections you can have. But these account for less than 15% of total ballots cast in the state. How many ballots are actually hand counted in Maine? I suspect we will learn that fewer and fewer are being hand counted in Maine as Diebold makes inroads, just as we see the same trend in NH. Too, Maine's caucus system appears to be as corrupt as any in the nation. From this article, it seems that what we can learn from Maine is 1) public campaign financing 2) ethics laws 3) public records laws. These are all good things, but my experience in NH has taught me that when LHS-Diebold is given a free hand to run the elections, you simply do not have democratic elections any more. How deep is LHS-Diebold control in Maine? How many ballots they control, and what, if any, controls and oversight does the State of Maine exercise over them?   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 10688 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 6:42 am:        Nancy, You are right, of course. Maine is "better than the other states" but no state has democratic elections, and all states are reliant on concealed vote counting. Maine has over 400 small jurisdictions. The Maine secretary of state provided us with a breakdown of which machine is in each, and that is in our Maine forum. The ES&S are the old optech scanners. And I am not clear on whether LHS also services those -- my instincts would be that they do. When doing a review of all proposed legislation in Maine vs. other states, Maine doesn't have the obvious encroachment of the anti-democracy bills that MOST states now have -- rollbacks of public records, increases in mail-in voting, happy-go-lucky voter signature elimination, Internet this and that. But yes, the majority of votes in Maine are subjected to an undemocratic election system. I'm interested in details on the caucus system there. Also, in details anyone might have on noncompliance issues with the existing good law. Maine, of course, had a ballot-rigging episode during a recount in the early 90s. The Maine Speaker of the House at the time was implicated, and his chief of staff convicted. Maine at that time had nearly identical chain of custody procedures (read: inadequate and a joke) that New Hampshire had in the 2008 primary. Unlike New Hampshire, Maine took very aggressive steps to beef up chain of custody. That said, Nancy is right, "recounts" are meaningless. Another law in Maine just passed is that the secretary of state will compare the last 20 recounts and produce a report explaining discrepancies. That should be interesting but I was so unimpressed by this step that I didn't even bother to list it.   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 10690 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 7:25 am:        Sheila Parks e-mailed me an article she wrote after observing an excellent hand count in Maine. The full article can be found here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_sheila_p_070718_on_site_observations.htm She points out that in Acton, Maine, they hand count each batch twice, reconciling any time the two counts produce any discrepancy. ACTON, ME, NOVEMBER 7, 2006, GENERAL ELECTION (by Sheila Parks) I will first describe the HCPB election in Acton, ME on November 7, 2006 because this protocol used a procedure that would produce the most accurate count of the votes - namely, a second hand-count was done immediately after the first hand-count. The ballot box was a plain, wooden box with a slot into which voters put their ballots. There were six teams, of two counters each, doing the hand-counting. The counters came in specifically to count; they had not worked at the polls earlier in the day. Each team consisted of a Republican and a Democrat. The teams first counted the ballots into batches of 50, and then these batches of 50 were counted again. The teams then hand-counted the votes cast in each contest for each batch of 50 ballots in the following manner: One member of the team would read out loud the name marked off for each contest; the other member of the team marked the vote on a tally sheet that corresponded to the ballot. A voter’s entire ballot was tallied for all of the contests before the counters went on to tally the next voter’s ballot. The talliers counted each vote by making a hash mark (small, straight vertical line).[6] After four vertical lines were made, a fifth line was made diagonally through the first four marks. For each person running for office (and for each initiative), the tally sheet was marked off into five columns vertically and two rows horizontally, providing 10 rectangular spaces in each of which five hash marks could be written – a total of 50 hash marks - i.e., votes - per contest or initiative. A dark horizontal line separated the names in each contest. At the end of the counting of all of the races in a batch of 50 ballots, the counters totaled the hash marks for each race on the tally sheet and entered that number on the tally sheet in the “TOTAL VOTE” column. There was a special sheet for write-ins. Immediately after the first hand-count of a batch of 50 ballots, a second hand-count, on a new tally sheet, was done of this same batch of 50 ballots by these same counters. Again, the entire ballot of each voter was tallied before the counters proceeded to the next voter’s ballot. This time, the person who had read the names out loud marked each vote on the tally sheet, and the person who had tallied read out loud the ballot choices. After the votes on all 50 ballots in a batch were marked on the tally sheet, the totals for each contest were obtained and written on the tally sheet. If the totals for the candidates in any contest or for any initiative were not exactly the same on the first and second tally sheets (i.e. on the first and second countings), these contests or initiatives were counted a third time. I observed such a situation two times. The HCPB election in Acton, ME demonstrates that paper ballots can be hand-counted immediately a second time, at the precinct on election night, before the results are posted at the precinct, in order to ensure an honest and transparent count in a timely manner. The election in Acton, ME also indicates that paper ballots can be hand-counted in a very short time. With seven races and two initiatives, the six teams of two people each were able to hand-count twice 944 ballots in four hours.   Nancy Tobi Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Ntobi Post Number: 471 Registered: 1-2006 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 7:36 am:        ES&S is serviced by LHS Associates. They eradicated the last 25 ES&S machines in NH when LHS "consulted" (colluded) with then Chair of NH Legislative Ctte on Election Law, Don Stritch, and the NH Secretary of State, to redesign NH ballots in 2005. This led to LHS informing the state the ES&S machines could no longer read the newly designed ballots, and that the Diebold scanners required a firmware "upgrade" from the older version to the version used to rob Al Gore of Florida's votes (Diebold counted negative votes for Al). This single piece of legislation - ballot redesign - reaped LHS Associates at least $150K (if not more) to replace ES&S machines with Diebold and install new firmware throughout the state. The benefits to controlling NH elections via Diebold's fraud-friendly systems are inestimable. I would expect the same strategy to be imposed at some point in time in Maine. It is ever so much easier to "manage" elections using only Diebold after all. I don't mean to take a wholesale swipe at Maine, per se. They did take the lead in public campaign financing. Good for them! They - in STARK CONTRAST TO NH - took action when their laughable ballot chain of custody was revealed with the discover of their recount rigging scheme. And, as you point out, their public records laws are good. The response from the NH Sec of State to our public records requests was to raise the fee from 15 cents to 1 dollar per page, effectively quashing any more investigation into their office. I also suspect they are behind the ploy to remove agencies from the public records law, a bill that did not pass this time around, but we can just wait on that. My experience in NH has been edifying. It is so easy to fall in love with our wonderful New England community-based hand count elections that one can be easily distracted from the monster hiding in the lagoon. That monster is privatized elections and concealed vote counting for the majority of our voters. I suspect the same holds true for Maine. I think we should target Maine for Protect the Count next time around. We'll see what is what. Any good activists in Maine up to the task??? NH Protect the Count 2008 Election: http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/6273   Mike LaBonte Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Mike_labonte Post Number: 383 Registered: 12-2005 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 2 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 - 12:39 pm:        One other thing I like about Maine election policies is proportional assignment of electors in presidential elections. Without winner-take-all outcomes, Maine is less of a safe state for candidates, and voting strategies are a little more sincere.

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