Now that we’re finally back at The BRAD BLOG World News Headquarters in Los Angeles (for a few days at least) and have shaken off our road buzz (for now), gotten through the latest Sibel Edmonds blockbusters (until the next shoe drops) and have overcome last Friday’s maddening 24 hour Internet outage, we’ve got some catching up to do on New Hampshire’s continuing mess of a “recount.”
Luckily for us, as we’ve been traveling for the last few days, and pulling off other related miracles, the hand counters in Concord took a break as of last Friday for a long weekend, which includes today’s Martin Luther King Day holiday. As we all know, MLK would have hated the idea of anybody actually counting votes on his holiday, so we’re glad the folks from the NH SoS office decided to let the ballots sit around and cool off in the darkness for three long days in a vault somewhere (maybe). The counting, which has so far covered just a small portion of all of the ballots, will resume on Tuesday.
So…From the latest hand count numbers, to the latest media coverage, to the latest reports from Election Integrity experts on the ground — including one amazing photo essay illustrating New Hampshire’s “chain of custody” protocol for its ballots, 80% of which have never been counted or examined by a single human being (that we know of) — let’s get caught up a bit.
Fasten your seatbelts and make sure your Pinto has a full tank of gas…
The Press Coverage…
We’ve got a continuing mixed bag. The worst of the coverage, ironically enough, is still being irresponsibly hammered home by the supposedly-Progressive blogosphere. We’ve already covered some of the notoriously bad, dangerous, irresponsible, and self-destructive coverage from some of the gate keepers (not crashers) at Daily Kos and elsewhere, but a new contestant in the anonymous irresponsibility sweepstakes, calling him/herself “Elwood P. Dowd” at dKos and elsewhere, has jumped in to the disinfo game. As usual, without any evidence to back up his/her silly claims. We’ve sent dear “Elwood” an email to counter his/her nonsense. To date, he/she has not bothered to post it, though late tonight, we’ve noticed a sad little “clarification.”
(More detiails, and our complete letter to “Elwood”, in response to the item linked above, at the end of this item.)
For those whose information, thus far, on the NH Election Contests consists only of the misinformation being delivered by the crack journalistic skills of “Elwood P. Dowd” and company, a reminder which we ask you to read carefully, before misreporting it elsewhere anyway:
No serious Election Integrity expert, to our knowledge, has charged fraud, or even error by anybody, at this time (other than references to the many tabulation errors already discovered during the the post-election contest hand counts now under way in Concord).
The BRAD BLOG has simply and, we believe, responsibly, called for the ballots of 80% of the voters in New Hampshire to actually be counted, and for that count to be properly reconciled and accounted for.
Okay, then…Beyond the “Progressive” bloggers, we find…
• A decent and responsibly cautious story on the front page of last Friday’s Concord Monitor
After quoting from some of the early contest coverage from your friendly neighborhood BRAD BLOG, in which we quoted the Voting Rights expert/attorney John Bonifaz on his concerns about transparency issues discovered when he visited Concord and spoke to NH SoS Bill Gardner last week, the Monitor quotes the SoS saying in response:
For one, Mr. Gardner, you could allow the Kucinich campaign to count the number of unvoted ballots, as they’ve requested. You could also tell America where the Diebold optical-scan memory cards used in the election are, and allow Kucinich’s team (and everyone else) to inspect them as well. All such materials are required, by federal law, to be retained for 22 months after an election, and both are needed in order to reconcile the hand-count.
It doesn’t do a hell of a lot of good to count ballots if there is no way to know that they are the actual ballots as cast during the election. Given the startling photographs detailing New Hampshire’s “chain of custody” published over the weekend (keep reading), there is certainly reason to be concerned.
We spoke with Manny Krasner, the attorney in New Hampshire overseeing the hand count on behalf of Team Kucinich, and confirmed that he has a number of concerns about the process so far.
That, despite the following section from the Monitor:
Krasner disputes the Monitor’s take on his comments.
“I was talking about what was going on inside of the four square walls of the counting room,” Krasner told us, before detailing Gardner’s refusal to allow the counting of unvoted ballots.
“We requested that unvoted ballots be counted, but they’re not being counted,” he said. He reports that SoS Gardner’s explanation for disallowing the proper reconciliation of ballots during the hand count was “the New Hampshire recount statute, [says] that you count the ballots that were counted in the first place” as opposed to the unvoted ballots.
Krasner tells us that both Asst. SoS Bud Fitch, as well as the Asst. AG agreed with Gardner’s decision.
The statute in question, “CHAPTER 660: POST-ELECTION PROCEDURE – State General Election Recounts” as posted at the NH SoS website offers evidence to support the ruling by Gardner, where it says, in Section 5 discussing “Conduct of Recount,” that “the ballots cast for such office shall be counted.”
Everywhere else in the statute, only “ballots,” without specificity, are discussed, with the following exception. Section 16 details “General Provisions for Recounts” and refers to the “Disposal of Ballots,” offering an exemption from NH’s RSA 91-A, which relates to how other public records shall be disposed of [emphasis added]:
In other words, while most of the rest of the statute governing “State General Election Recounts” refers to ballots in general, without specificity, the provision above refers specifically to the preservation of “cast, cancelled, and uncast ballots.”
What those uncast ballots are ever to be used for, since the SoS won’t allow them to be counted to make sure that they are all there and in good order (as opposed to having being used for some nefarious purpose) is unknown.
As well, David Bright, a senior Kucinich representative who has been in the counting room serving as an observer over several days last week, tells The BRAD BLOG tonight that in addition to the refusal to allow for the counting of uncast/unvoted ballots, they have also not been allowed to review the poll books, so they have no way of knowing how many actually signed in and cast ballots on Election Day.
“We have no indication of how many voters actually voted. No check lists. No list of who signed into the poll books,” says Bright.
These are no small issues, given the troubling state in which ballots are arriving in Concord. For more on that, please keep reading.
“There are a lot of other issues here,” said Krasner, who has worked for Kucinich for years in the Granite State. “I thought we had a pretty air-tight system here in New Hampshire, and now I’m beginning to see a lot things that need to be tightened up, rather significantly.”
What the Kucinich camp intends to do about “tightening” things up during the counting remains unclear at this hour. Though Krasner added, “We’re taking notes, we will have proposals for legislation.”
We’re hopeful that they will do far more than that. Indications are that they might. But we’ll see what they actually do as the count continues to move forward.
• Pollster Mark Blumenthal rings in, and though we’ve had issues with his far-too-conservative, far-too-forgiving coverage in the past on a number of items — including his tendency to believe that sophisticated, transparent, time-tested polling methodology is far more suspect than results gathered by secretly programmed, wholly untested counting devices shown to be frequently inaccurate, prone to out-and-out failure, and exceedingly vulnerable to undetectable tampering — he joins Salon’s Farhad Manjoo (who has a similarly apologistic track record) in agreeing with us that paper ballots in New Hampshire, and elsewhere, where they still exist, need to be counted.
We’ll take it.
Blumenthal quotes from Manjoo’s coverage [emphasis added for “Elwood” and friends]…
He’s right. Why not count the votes?
…
[A]fter every election, officials should randomly count some number of ballots to double-check the machines’ results. It is amazing that this is not a standard procedure across the country; it is a disgrace that election officials aren’t rushing to implement such procedures now.
Blumenthal then adds: “I couldn’t agree more.”
As well, he offers a number of misleading points in other areas, as we see it, but we can save those for another day, as this article will be long enough already, and we’re delighted to see that he’s at least partially beginning to speak out for verified elections.
And while Manjoo was refreshingly correct on a number of points made in his Salon piece, including just how hackable the Diebold machines used in New Hampshire are, and that “Proving that theft didn’t occur should be a routine part of elections — all elections, all the time,” he seems to have been wrong on the data analysis he used to suggest that the various concerns about the NH results, regarded widely as anomalous, and certainly a surprise to just about everybody, “don’t hold water.”
According to analysts at the Election Defense Alliance (EDA), who combed over Manjoo’s analysis, it seems he was working from inaccurate data, as posted early on after the election by a well-meaning Ron Paul supporter.
As compared to the actual results as posted by the NH SoS, it seems that it’s Manjoo’s conclusions that “don’t hold water” instead. At least according to the smarter-than-us folks on the EDA analysis team.
The EDA folks notified Manjoo almost immediately after his article was published a good 10 days ago. No correction or retraction has been posted to date. Though we’ve seen plenty of people point to the article in attempts to quash the notion that there are concerns about NH’s election results.
We hope the editors at Salon will take appropriate action immediately to correct the egregious errors.
• Two editorials from local papers are of note. One because they got at least one point correct. The other, because it’s so demonstrably embarrassing for them.
The Union Leader points out in Monday’s paper that “REP. Dennis Kucinich was right to request — and pay for — a recount of the ballots in the Democratic presidential primary.”
They then go on to blow it, by referring to questions about “voter fraud” (versus election fraud, or even just tabulation error — the voters are still doing fine, so please leave them alone!); “conspiracy theories,” which no serious EI advocate has charged at this time, and; that it’s appropriate for Kucinich, not NH, to have to pay for such a hand count, instead of the state, which has been delinquent in its job and responsibility to, as Manjoo averred, “prove that theft didn’t occur” as a “routine part of elections — all elections, all the time.”
The Union Leader then concludes its brief, unbylined editorial with:
While nobody seems to be questioning “Gardner’s integrity” at this time, it’s foolish to believe “there can be no question about the integrity of the count” given Gardner’s refusal to allow the counting of unvoted ballots, failure to supply poll books for validation of the number of actual voters, and his complete disregard for the whereabouts of important election media, such as the sensitive Diebold voting machine memory cards which are still “missing.”
The Eagle-Tribune, on the other hand, just make complete idiots of themselves with their editorial today — on Martin Luther King Day, of all days — by suggesting that “It doesn’t matter” that “the machines did not count every vote.”
“A few hundred votes either way” is no prob for the E-T; Kucinich is blasted for “the damage he is doing to the country” by asking that ballots actually be counted; “the results will not change an iota” (guess it depends on your definition of “iota”); and that the “whole idea that it will is a fallacy that is destructive to Americans’ confidence in the democratic process.”
Wow…talk about “destructive to Americans’ confidence in the democratic process.” Keep up the horrible work, E-T!
They also blame a “failure of people to make the minimum effort required of citizens of a democracy” for ballots that went uncounted by the Diebold machines. We guess those 550 ballots that couldn’t be counted by the Diebold machines in Stratham, according to public records requests, because they couldn’t read the ink on the ballots, were also the fault of those lazy citizens.
Yes, believe it or not, the Eagle-Tribune is an actual newspaper, as opposed to The Onion.
• In regard to our article last Thursday, just before we were knocked off line for a bit, reporting “huge disparities” in the tallies of Manchester’s Ward 5, where the counts were discovered to be anywhere from 40 to 60 votes off for each of the leading candidates in just that one precinct alone, the Union Leader reported on Friday that:
As we noted in our update to the original item, pointing to the reporting above, we’ve been unable to confirm that as the cause of the disparity one way or another, but we’re happy to see that the problem was discovered, thanks to Kucinich’s hand count. Those errors, and likely many more to come, would have stood in for the official results, because New Hampshire didn’t bother to verify any of them.
The Numbers…
But never mind the disinfo, misinfo, and ridiculous opinion out there. What about “the numbers”? The proof is in the pudding after all.
But proof of what? That the ballots where never counted, as we’ve argued correctly, while being much maligned for such an argument from the beginning? That much is stone cold accurate, despite the yutzes and “Elwood’s” of the world.
So, in any case, what else have we learned since we last we reported on the results slowly dribbling out of the hand count process in Concord?
In addition to the Diebold miscounts discovered across almost all of the Democratic candidates, in almost all of the wards as counting began last week, and the huge mistallies in Manchester’s Ward 5, discovered on Thursday, Friday’s counting revealed still more large mistallies in Nashua ward 5, according to the NH SoS website’s “recount” results page (which is incredibly poorly designed, btw.)
In Nashua 5, there were very notable discrepancies, as follows…
| NASHUA, WARD 5 | ||||
| Diebold Result |
Hand Tally |
Discrepancy | ||
| Total Votes |
% Error |
|||
| CLINTON | 1,030 | 959 | -71 | 7.40 |
| EDWARDS | 405 | 377 | -28 | 7.42 |
| OBAMA | 673 | 678 | +5 | 0.73 |
Beyond the candidates mentioned above, in Nashua, Ward 5, Richardson lost 3 votes (out of 72, as tallied by Diebold originally) and Biden lost 1 (out of 9). Everyone else, including Kucinich, remained exactly the same after the hand count in that one precinct.
Note: The above numbers are from Nashua, Ward 5. As opposed to Manchester, Ward 5, which we reported on last Thursday, with some consternation, after enormous disparities were revealed by the post-election hand count in that precinct as well.
As mentioned previously, other folks, smarter with numbers than we are, and able to study them much more closely, are following the results as they come in. There’s still a long way to go, so we’ll leave it there for now.
But since the NH SoS results page is so impossible to read, we offer you this more illustrative version of SoS’s numbers so far, in aerial overview, for the three leading candidates, as painstakingly compiled by Bill W. of Crooks & Liars. This graphic shows mistallies found for just the three leading candidates, though it doesn’t specify which are hand count and which are Diebold precincts. Still, it offers a good overview of the number of mistallies so far discovered, now that folks are actually bothering to check them by hand in New Hampshire…
(Butch & Hoppy) + Post-It Notes = NH’s Chain of Custody
Lastly (or almost) for now, is this extraordinary photo essay, as posted over the weekend by Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting.org.
We’re running it in full here, with her permission, because we believe it’s so important for you to see for yourself. The photos and comments are all hers, culled from her time on the ground in New Hampshire where she, and a number of other volunteer Election Integrity advocates and experts, are documenting some extraordinary stuff on video. She’s got much more on all of this, and we encourage you to keep a close eye on the work she’s posting at BlackBoxVoting.org as the counting continues.
But for now, meet Butch, Hoppy, and New Hampshire’s “chain of custody”…
“Butch” is on the left, “Hoppy” is on the right.
This is the van that “Butch” and “Hoppy” drive. These two men pick up all the ballots in New Hampshire from more than 230 locations and bring them to one central location for the recount.
———————
They are followed by a single state trooper.
“Butch” has a real name: Armand Dubois. He doesn’t like to be photographed and in video after video, he ducks out of the shots. He wears a baseball cap and dark glasses. At one point he said “you’re taking a picture of me?”
Perhaps he’s shy, but this is an evaluation of chain of custody, which includes knowing the names and background for people who ride around the state inside a van containing the ballots for the presidential primary election.
——————-
According to “Butch”, the real name for “Hoppy” is Peter, but we do not yet know the last name. “Hoppy” is not camera shy, but we would like to know his real name and background. (Do not post personal or speculative information here. It will be removed. E-mail privately to crew@blackboxvoting.org )
“Hoppy”
aka “Peter”
——————
Ballots are contained in a variety of cardboard boxes, with a few metal boxes thrown in from certain parts of Manchester. The New Hampshire secretary of state’s office, which provides the labels for the boxes and provides the ballots for all the towns, claims they leave the decision up to the towns as to how to secure their ballots.
When people ask about the security of using old, used cardboard boxes to transport and store the official ballots for the presidential primary election, New Hampshire state officials quickly frame the issue as one of “frugality” and paint the problem over with rustic charm.
That doesn’t address the problem. The random nature of the boxes enables both accidental and deliberate chain of custody breaches.
If the state of New Hampshire can provide the ballots and tell the towns what labels to use, they can tell them what container to store ballots in, or at the very least, publish guidelines for this.
———————-
Originally, the ballots were to be delivered to the state archive warehouse without notification to the public as to when they would arrive, and without permitting the public to photograph or videotape the ballot intake process.
The team assembled by Black Box Voting objected to this and insisted on public access to view the incoming ballot boxes and the intake process. We prevailed, at least temporarily.
So they have been bringing the ballots in the front door, taking them through the counting room, out the back door, through the electronically key-coded door into the archive warehouse, down the hall inside the key-carded warehouse, placing them in what they call a “vault” which is actually a small room with a lock that can be opened by a single key.
Ballots being transported from “vault” to counting room
Other items besides ballots have been kept in the “vault” as well:
Items left in ballot vault after transporting ballots, held in “vault” overnight, to the counting room.
Two other observations about the state archive warehouse:
They use the same bar code identification system for all items.
There are no windows and no way to observe what is going on in the warehouse. It has two loading bays in addition to the electronically key-carded door, and the counted ballots are NOT stored in the “vault” but rather, on shelves like all the other documents. Here is a photo of the loading bays:
As ballots are being transported back and forth to the warehouse “vault” and being counted in the counting room, boxes are being loaded and unloaded from the loading bay behind the building.
Shelves inside warehouse.
——————-
Ballot boxes photographed while being removed from the “vault”:
———————
Secretary of state Bill Gardner has several assistant and deputy secretaries of state. The assistant secretary of state in charge of ballots and ballot chain of custody is David Scanlan.
Here is David Scanlon (far end) moving a ballot cart with state archive employee Brian Burford.
———————-
Ballot box closeups:
——————-
The box below was shipped from the secretary of state TO the town clerk. The pinkish label is a shipping lable and so is the label next to it saying “deliver to”:
The rebuttal provided by state and archive employees to concerns about the particular slit shown above is that the label on the top is the only thing that counts.
I’ll post a closeup photo of the top label further down. On the top label are the signatures of the selectmen and information about location and information about the ballots inside.
I chose the above photo because it provides a clear image of the SHIP TO labels and also shows the label on the box top that is said to secure the ballot box. I cannot tell from this photo whether the clear tape is on top of that label or underneath it, but let’s give the benefit of the doubt and assume the label on top is further secured with clear plastic tape.
This is not a chain of custody. There is absolutely no way for any observer to tell whether the clear plastic tape (if it’s over the top label) was affixed on the night of the election, by the town clerk after the election, by Butch and Hoppy or a person they met enroute, or in the vault in the middle of the night.
It is easy to get distracted with off-topic questions like “are you accusing Butch and Hoppy?” or to take at face value someone’s statement that the tape was put there on election night.
THAT IS NOT A CHAIN OF CUSTODY.
The only item that even remotely resembles a chain of custody is the signed label on the top of the box. Since we have no idea when the other tape was put on, or who affixed it, that tape cannot be considered part of the chain of custody.
Furthermore, this taping of the label was not a consistent practice from box to box or town to town.
I think we can all understand that the town clerk would slit open the end of the box to retrieve shipped ballots.
That explains the slits that ONLY slit the two original shipping labels.
That doesn’t answer the chain of custody questions revealed by the above slit. The questions raised by the above photo in my mind are:
1) Can someone get their hand into the slit?
2) Was the box slit secured by tape or anything when it came out of the van?
3) Was the box slit secured in any way at the town before pickup?
4) Is there any record of what the box looked like on election night and also, before pickup? In other words, do the signatures even match, is the tape in the same places.
5) If there is no tape securing the label at the top, it would be the ONLY thing securing the box since the sides are slit. If this label is removed, does it leave telltale evidence?
6) Does the slitting of the labels upon receipt of original ballots explain all openings on all ballot boxes?
Let’s look into that a little further.
——————
Here is a ballot box that has been opened for counting.
———————
Here is a ballot box that has been counted. It has both the lable affixed at the town with the selectmen’s signatures on it, and a new label affixed to show it has been counted.
—————
Here is an empty ballot box with the top label attached. The ballots are in the process of being counted. As Anthony Stevens, from the sec. state office, watched I checked to see whether the labels on the top of the boxes leave any mark if you remove and reaffix.
They stopped my experiment after I had peeled about two inches.
I now call these labels “Post-Its”.
It is important NOT to allow referring to these labels as “seals” because they are not seals, they are removable labels. When writing about the chain of custody in New Hampshire, we should not refer to the boxes as being “sealed” by these labels, which are in many cases the only line of defense when the end of the box top is sliced.
These are labels. Not seals. A “seal” actually “seals” the container. These labels do not seal it.
The person with responsibility for making sure the seals are actually seals is Assistant Secretary of State David Scanlan. He chose labels that are not seals.
———————-
I asked Scanlan if he believed the ballot boxes were secure when slit at the end. He said the boxes are secure because of the label on the top. Here’s a hand in the slit. You decide if you are comfortable with this.
He was referring to what I call the “PostIt” note.
—————–
After seeing the condition of the ballot boxes coming out of the vault, I was curious about the condition of the boxes as they were unloaded from the van. The photos below are of ballots unloaded from the van during the early afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 17:
—————–
Let’s have a closer look at that last box coming out of the van:
—————–
Pat and Manny, the representatives for Kucinich, did not go back to the ballot vault with me. To the best of my knowledge, the only people who went back there were the Hillary Clinton observers.
The Kucinich representatives have said they are comfortable with the chain of custody. I did not see them take a single photograph, nor did I see them lodge any protest about this.
Republican ballots were also brought in, to the best of my knowledge, WITHOUT notifying the Republican candidate who has paid for a recount.
The next series of photos will be from the towns we visited to capture photos of the condition of the ballot boxes before they were loaded into the van. I will do that in a separate thread, perhaps later, and open this thread for discussion now.
In New Hampshire, the ballot chain of custody is a bunch of broken cardboard boxes with a post-it on top.
And One for the Irresponsible “Elwood”…
In concluding what is likely our longest post ever (sorry, but we had a bunch of days to catch up from in one swell foop!)…We mentioned the anonymous “Elwood’s” wholly incorrect and irresponsible article earlier in this post. We sent him/her, and his/her editor at Blue Hampshire, a letter requesting correction and/or retraction, along with detailing a number of the egregious errors and outrageous evidence-free attacks he’d made on ourselves and others who believe that elections should be accurate and transparent.
He/she also writes the same sort of inaccurate, evidence-free horseshit over at Daily Kos, of course.
Instead of retracting, he/she posted a squirrelly, unimpressive a second item, as a “clarification,” but didn’t bother to apologize, retract, or even run the letter we’d sent him, as requested.
So since “Elwood” is incapable of doing the right thing, we’ll go ahead and run the letter here ourselves. You’re welcome, Elwood. And we look forward to more of your lectures on “how dishonest, willfully ignorant, and damaging to the cause of election integrity the highest profile self-appointed advocates of election integrity are.” …
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 4:00 PM
To: ‘buttercat@gmail.com’
Cc: ‘dean.bluehampshire@gmail.com’
Subject: You are just wrong. And damagingly so.
“Elwood” –
I am not a registered user at bluehampshire (nor wish to be), so can’t respond to your silly comments directly as posted at: http://www.bluehampshire.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3312
…Please feel free to run this letter in full, if you wish.
(Though do not include my phone number, which I will give you at the bottom, so you can ASK questions and CONFIRM things before “reporting” them completely inaccurately, without a stitch of evidence for your inaccurate claims)
BradBlog and BlackBoxVoting starting talking about evidence of fraud as soon as the results were announced, claiming that the variance between candidate percentages in scanner precincts versus hand-count precincts was very suspicious. It took all of 30 minutes of simple research to show that claim was completely unfounded.
I can’t speak for BlackBoxVoting, but I can speak for BRAD BLOG. We made no such claims. Ever. Period. In fact, what little that we did report on the difference between hand-count and Diebold op-scan towns, was noted along with the caveat that there are perfectly reasonable explanations for such disparities.
Here is the virtual entirety of our reporting on the difference in the officially announced results between hand count and Diebold precincts:
https://bradblog.com/?p=5540
Had you bothered to check first, before “reporting”, you would have performed a service, instead of a disservice to your readers, and to the cause of Election Integrity. Your report to the contrary, is extraordinarily irresponsible, in addition to being plain inaccurate.
More recently BradBlog held up the Manchester Ward 5 recount results, where some 141 votes were stripped from Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, as evidence of problems with the scanners. But he had observers in the recount room – he must have known that the actual cause of the original overcount was: in that ward write-in votes on the Vice President spot got added to the Presidential counts.
As noted in the report you refer to ( https://bradblog.com/?p=5573 ) the article was filed very quickly, just minutes after the new numbers had come out that night, and just before I had to leave the hotel to get to a screening of a documentary film on Election Integrity up in Oakland.
While I have no “observers in the recount room”, as you suggest (again, without evidence), the fact that 141 votes had been mistallied would never have been discovered were it not for the hand count requests by the Kucinich camp. The completely inaccurate numbers were previously part of the “official” results, since NH doesn’t bother to verify a single ballot is counted correctly on the 80% of ballots which are “counted” on error-prone, hackable, Diebold op-scanners.
The item referred to has been updated with the reference to the New Hampshire Union Leaders claim that the error was due to mismarked Veep tallies. I have not confirmed that point either way, at this time. Have you?
Either way, it reveals — yet again — the importance of human verification of automated ballot counts.
[T]he loudest supposed champions of “election integrity” have made it more difficult to build support for that legislation, by making easily disproven allegations over the past two weeks.
Again, I can’t speak for BBV — though I am unaware of any “disproven allegations” they have made — but I can certainly speak for The BRAD BLOG.
I stand by every single word I have written and reported, and ask you for a single piece of evidence to back up your unfounded, inaccurate and incorrect claims.
You’ll note that both myself and Bev Harris report transparently, putting our own names — not pseudonym’s such as “Elwood” and “Elwood P. Dowd” — behind our work. So it’s much more difficult for us to NOT take responsibility for everything that we write.
The only “allegations” so far “easily disproven” here, are the ones you’ve been making such as in articles like the one above. I’ll be happy to do the right thing and retract and/or correct any point made here, if you’re able to prove me wrong. Will you be willing to do the same?
Brad
###-###-####
(please do not post that number, but feel free to call it next time to CONFIRM your “reporting” before posting it, and causing great harm to the cause of Election Integrity and Reform)
—
Brad Friedman
Publisher/Editor, The BRAD BLOG
http://www.BradBlog.com
Respectfully Brad, I take issue with this statement:
I believe I read this:
And this:
There is one EI expert charging huge errors made by someone.
[ED NOTE: Um, perhaps you should have quoted the entire statement you took issue with? Here it is:
As you’ll note, the headline you then go on to quote, by way of challenging the assertion that you didn’t fully quote, is, indeed, a “reference” to one of “the many tabulation errors…discovered during the post-election contest hand counts now under way in Concord.” — BF]
Jimminy, I pack my socks better than that!
Why don’t our SOSs utilize basic banking procedures for christ’s sake??–Oh, never mind…
And since you are claiming this, “was noted along with the caveat that there are perfectly reasonable explanations for such disparities.”
Please point to such caveats in the Nashua 5 and Manchester 5 stories.
[ED NOTE: Seriously, “None”, I’m happy for the questions, concerns and even criticism, but the dishonest, taking things out of context thing, needs to stop. Please see our rules for posting, as you’re walking a fine line on violating at least one of them at this time.
The “caveat” and possible “perfectly reasonable explanation” you quoted me writing, was in reference to the disparities between the original Diebold counts (which showed Hillary winning) and the original hand-counted precincts (which showed Obama winning). There are perfectly reasonable demographic explanations for that, at least in my opinion.
As to Nashua 5 and Manchester 5, I have no idea what would be the “perfectly reasonable explanation” for a 7.5% disparity in the official results, revealed only by the post-election hand count. The original, apparently incorrect numbers, would have stood as the official numbers, had it not been for the hand-count during the Election Contest. Feel free to thank Dennis Kucinich for that, btw. Since he, not the state of NH, is paying to making *their* numbers accurate. — BF]
Made to order (tamper with) boxes.
Anything yet about the green SUV that Butch & Hoppy met with out in the woods?, that one bugs the shit outta me.
No more “Live free or die”, it is now officially the “Learn to Fart” State. (as seen on the Simpsons)
Perhaps the reason they don’t want any one to review the poll books is because of this:
Customs agents probe alleged Nassau, New Hampshire voter fraud
http://newsbuster.com/Pages/Jan08/01_09_08_customs_agents_probe.html
Federal Homeland Security agents have interviewed top Nassau political leaders or their representatives in the past few days about alleged voter registration fraud, party and government sources said yesterday.
Two agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of Homeland Security, visited Nassau Republican headquarters Friday and interviewed the heads of Nassau’s Independence and Conservative parties yesterday, sources say.
The agents also stopped at the Nassau Board of Elections yesterday, asking about registration procedures and people who drop off bundles of new registrations, an elections source said.
John Ryan, attorney for the Nassau Republican party, confirmed yesterday that two ICE agents talked to him Friday. He said they were interviewing people in connection with an investigation by the U.S. attorney from New York’s Eastern District “regarding an allegation or claim of voter registration fraud.”
http://newsbuster.com/Pages/Jan08/01_09_08_customs_agents_probe.html
Perhaps Elwood, (or any of these other people making all these attacks on bradblog) could explain how humans are supposed to have oversight of an invisible electronic signal on devices that tabulate votes?
Perhaps Elwood, (or any of these other people making all these attacks on bradblog) might want to show me how a broken chain of custody of the paper ballots ensures an accurate recount?
No?
Didn’t think so.
An informed public will have zero confidence heading toward the presidential election in 2008.
An amusing ‘toon on today’s “User Friendly”:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080122
None #1,#3
You should read your post, your charge, the facts, and then realize that you projected your own thoughts into the mix and gave birth to the fraud allegation yourself.
You cite as your foundation:
None of which are fraud. Fraud is a deliberate lie with the specific intent to deceive.
I have read every post Brad has made on this, and he has consistently pointed out that computer malfunction, hacking, ballot exchange, and a whole host of possibilities could be to blame.
And he has also said the count could be correct. He said we just do not know until we know. Saying what could be is not the same as saying what is.
The one issue he has pushed, however, is that 80% of the vote was counted on machines that a high school kid can hack at will, and machines that malfunction regularly.
And he has called for a valid hand count of those 80% of the paper ballots.
No more, no less.
Brad,
While you were focusing on Sibel et. al. I did some OT links here to Bev’s ongoing “Butch Custody and the Hoppy Kid” saga … so the 6 or 7 of us could keep it in mind.
The truth of the matter is that we do not know if we have a democracy in New Hampshire or not, because there is no valid evidence because there is no valid chain of custody. There is only shame of custody.
To say we do have a provable democracy in New Hampshire is speculation, and to say that we don’t is also speculation.
My olde addage “your method of grasping at straws is just as good as mine” is the real standard of election “quality” in New Hampshire.
And that is pathetic at best.
New Hampshire’s election machine is a Rube Goldberg joke, and a travesty of election integrity.
It is so bad, so disgusting, and so religious. I mean the “Have Faith in the Election Priests” religion.
Puke!
You heard The True New Hampshire Story here on Bradblog first:
The top deacons of the New Hampshire Election Priesthood. “Keep the faith baby, trust us”, is the NH election mantra now.
Gives new meaning to Padding a Church Pew doesn’t it?
Ok, how far are we going to go with this ? 😉
Bev says that it was a jeep
registered to Carl E Rowell jr
There was a Carl Rowell, either him or senior
that was a Prince of Jerusalem in the Merrimack Valley Masonic lodge (NE Mass) Link
Are they still running the show up there?, WTF Link
Okay, so what happens next?
I’m serious.
(Pardon my pessimistic tone, I’m not giving up the fight, just suffering from a bit of burnout – think I’ve gotten my hopes up just once too often)
KBE #12
What is next is that the Election Priesthood will say that it is divinely economical to keep the junk machines and the cardboard boxes from wallmart to store ballots in. “Everybody’s doing it anyway”, can’t you hear them swear and prey?
And since trillion dollar deficit war spending, oil barons stealing the life of the economy that is left, knee-jerk economic policy, property value plumeting along with state tax revenue, shows that near bankruptcy is a potential if not a reality … thus … THE BOZO FINANCIAL STATUS QUO IN ELECTIONS is the “new” “new”.
The 2008 election … walmart style … wear gloves so chinese lead does not bleed off the paper ballot into your bod.
Amurka, the cardboard box demockrazy.
Not being able to check the poll books is a biggy. Kucinich needs to go to court with this one. There is talk of Mass. licencse plates on vehicles in the parking lots on election day. Mark Crispin Miller says election fraud in so ingrained even the census is skewed.I remember in the 90’s a census that did not take renters…no matter how long they lived in an area. N.H. is a great place to start since there is more chance of locals knowing whether the poll books are cooked.
Shame Ralph Nader doesn’t want to jump in in this one. He wanted an investigation into N.H. in ’04. Phone jamming was proven…maybe there is more?
Yeah, I’ve just made another executive decision.I’m sitting out this election until the election fiasco gets fixed.What’s an Amurkan to do.Gas is over 3 bucks a gallon.Ya drive all the way over town to vote on an electronic voting machine.The machine is going to either flip my vote to the predesignated candidate or not count it.In GA we don’t even have sliced into, beat up Walmart cardboard ballot boxes cuz there is absolutely no paper trail.The corporate media obviously is in on the fix too. Edwards and Bill Clinton campaigned in GA on MLK Day.No mention of Edwards visit at all- like he’s invisible.Why give my vote to a candidate that I don’t want as preznit.I agree with DREDD.Welcome to “Amurka, the cardboard demockrazy.”
If this story is a crack in the dike concerning Sibel Edmonds, could the MSM get this thread’s Butch Custody and the Hoppy Kid story going?
After looking at the Hillsborough County numbers it seems that all three of the media popular Democratic Candidates had more votes on the elctronic tallies than in the recount. The excuse is that the machines miread another vote.
My original thought was that (since the e-voting was under the control of a Republican leaning company) this would be used as verification that Dems were committing voter fraud where they were padding the vote. Michael’s comment (#5) seems to verify my suspicions.
Hey Flo #4, does Bev make any mention if the one state trooper car following Butch and Hoppy was there at the time they stopped to talk to the dark SUV? From her piece I read it didn’t sound like they were, and if that’s the case why weren’t they? Could it be her reporting of this lil rendevous sparked the escort? So were the beginning transports of ballots unescorted? The shape of those boxes is despicable, how the hell did they get sooooo sliced and bent? And who the hell put the post-it “seals” across the boxes width’s instead of longways covering the OPEN ends of the boxes? Chain of custody my ass!
Michael, RE: Comment #5…
Please note that there is no town or county of Nassau in New Hampshire. I believe the link that you posted is referring to New York/Long Island.
Ancient # 19, She posted yes, the patrol car stopped behind the van during the rendezvous
…and they all got out and did their secret Masonic handshakes (just kidding on the second part) 😛
Well, Excellent #16, I must say that I don’t understand how you conclude that you might as well not vote at all because machine counts were (unsurprisingly) mis-tabulated in NH and the boxes storing the ballots wouldn’t pass muster at the Amazon.com shipping dock.
One thing I can say with absolute certainty, however, is this:
If you don’t vote, you are guaranteed your vote won’t count.
http://www.sos.nh.gov/statutes.htm
(Sorry for the length of the post. As I read it, except perhaps in central count locations, there is a checklist and several people look to have a copy- and POSTED?)
658:12 Checklist. Immediately after the establishment of an additional polling place and the creation of the voting district to be served thereby, the supervisors of the checklist shall prepare a separate checklist of the voters entitled to vote at such a polling place. Such separate checklist shall thereafter be POSTED and revised along with the checklist for the central polling place as provided in RSA
654. No later than the Tuesday 2 weeks before any state election, the supervisors shall post at the town or city clerk’s office or at the town hall a true and attested copy of such list and shall, before the election, lodge with the town clerk 2 copies of such list.
(Ummm…looks like they have to seal the ballots with FILAMENT tape or other SIMILAR tape. ((Duct tape comes to mind)) That’s not just a post-it label)
658:30 Delivery of Ballots to Election Officers. The city or town clerk shall deliver to the election officers before the opening of the polls on the day of the election the sealed packages of ballots in their possession together with filament tape or other similar tape with which to seal the ballots. Any city or town clerk who shall fail to deliver such material to the election officers as herein provided shall be guilty of a violation.
(It is supposed to be known and posted how many ballots were available)
658:31 Counting Ballots. At or prior to the opening of the polls in each town or ward, the seal of the packages shall be publicly broken by the town or ward clerk; and the ballots shall be given to the ballot clerks and the ballots shall be examined and counted by the election officers in the presence of the clerk, the moderator, and at least one other legal voter. If the ballots are counted prior to the opening of the polls, the clerk shall post, in an appropriate place and prior to election day, notice of the time and place of the counting.
(It’s not just the SOS that has a copy of the number of ballots received)
658:32 Moderator’s Certificate. The secretary of state shall prepare and distribute to each town or ward clerk 2 copies of the moderator’s certificate. When the ballots are counted, the moderator shall certify thereon the total number of ballots received. One copy shall be retained by the moderator for his records; the other shall be certified by the clerk and forwarded to the secretary of state with the election returns.
(Some help here maybe, if you know the number of voters on the list then there should be 50 additional ballots. Question- was absentee voting allowed for this primary?)
658:33 Delivery of Ballots to Additional Polling Place. Before the polls are opened at the central polling place on the day of an election, the town clerk shall seal up the 2 duplicate copies of the checklist for each additional polling place lodged with him by the supervisors with a number of blank ballots equal to the number of voters on such checklist and 50 additional ballots. If the moderator has authorized the counting of votes and thereby authorized the processing of absentee ballots at the additional polling place, the absentee ballots of those persons qualified to vote in that additional polling place shall be sealed up along with a list of those persons qualified to vote at that additional polling place to whom absentee ballots have been sent. This package shall be prepared and sealed in the presence of the moderator and selectmen and be delivered immediately to the assistant moderator of the additional polling place by 2 election officers designated by the moderator.
(Here’s where the voter registration laws will pertain. As I posted elsewhere, it looks like the registration will be checked up to 90 days later(?), which is well after the election is certified)
659:12 Who Can Vote. All persons whose names are entered upon the corrected checklist brought by the town or ward clerk to the polling place shall be entitled to vote unless successfully challenged. No person whose name is not upon the checklist shall be allowed to vote, unless, in the opinion of the supervisors of the checklist, it clearly appears that the name of a qualified voter has been omitted from the checklist by clerical error or mistake or that the person is a serviceman on leave who is qualified to vote and who by reason of such service was not in the town or city of his legal domicile at the time of the last session of the supervisors of the checklist.
Certification of Checklist
659:56 Certification of Checklist. After the closing of the polls at a state election, the moderator and the town or ward clerk shall certify on the checklist used by them that such checklist is in fact the one used by them at said election and that it contains a correct and complete list of the legal voters in their town or ward.
(I think each town or ward clerk is going to have a copy of that checklist)
659:57 Transfer of Checklist. The certified checklist shall be used to prepare the election return as provided in RSA 659:74 and shall then be delivered to the supervisors by the town or ward clerk.
(Additionally, those unused ballots should be in the ballot boxes that come from Additional Polling Places. I have not yet found the disposition of additional ballots from central count locations, if NH has those, and that bothers me. However, given the number of wards, most would be Additional Polling Places, I assume)
659:62 Return of Materials from Additional Polling Place. Except as provided in RSA 659:59, upon the closing of the polls at each additional polling place, the ballot box at such polling place shall be sealed by the assistant moderator. Such sealing shall be done in the presence of the inspectors of election and shall be certified by the assistant clerk at such polling place. The assistant moderator shall also seal in a package the duplicate checklists used at the additional polling place together with the unused and spoiled ballots. The ballot box and the package shall be delivered to the moderator at the central polling place without unnecessary delay and with the seals unbroken by 2 election officials designated by the assistant moderator. Such 2 election officials shall be of different political parties.
659:59 Optional Counting of Votes at Additional Polling Places. The moderator may order the assistant moderator in writing to process absentee ballots and to count the votes cast at the additional polling place in the presence of and with the assistance of the assistant town clerk and election officials in the manner prescribed by this chapter. After the processing of absentee ballots and the counting are complete, the assistant moderator shall place the counted ballots in the ballot box and shall seal it, and the assistant town clerk shall certify the same. The assistant moderator shall also seal in a package the duplicate checklists used at the additional polling place together with the absentee envelopes and the spoiled and unused ballots; and he, together with the assistant town clerk, shall immediately deliver the ballot box, checklists, absentee envelopes, unused and spoiled ballots, and a written report of his count signed by him and the assistant town clerk to the moderator of the town at the central polling place. If the moderator does not order the counting as provided herein, the assistant moderator shall comply with the provisions of RSA 659:62.
659:74 Preparing Return. The town or ward clerk shall prepare the election return in duplicate on the forms supplied by the secretary of state and shall sign and shall certify such returns.
(Yep, the town or city clerk has a copy and it HAS TO BE OPEN TO PUBLIC INSPECTION)
659:75 Forwarding; Retaining Copies of Return. One copy of the election return shall be forwarded by the town or ward clerk to the secretary of state no later than the Monday following a state election unless the secretary of state orders them sooner. The other shall be kept by the town or city clerk and shall be open to public inspection at reasonable times. If an official state election return is sealed along with the ballots, the clerk having custody of the sealed ballots shall, at the request of the secretary of state, and in the presence of a state election official, unseal the ballots and retrieve the election return. The ballots shall be immediately resealed and the election return shall be delivered to the secretary of state by the election official.
Preservation of Ballots and Other Election Materials
(You would think there would be conformity of sealed containers and what is used to seal them- it is the responsibility of the SOS. The sealer should contain the information about the ballots in the box that any real recount would need. That would need to be cross checked with the certificates- when/if they can be obtained. Is this information put on the so-called seals on the boxes? If so, is anyone tracking what those seals say?)
659:95 Sealing and Certifying Ballots. I. Immediately after the ballots cast at a state election have been tabulated and the result has been announced and the return has been made, the moderator or the moderator’s designee, in the presence of the selectmen or their designee, shall place the cast, cancelled and uncast ballots, including such ballots from any additional polling places, and further including the successfully challenged absentee ballots still contained in their envelopes, in the containers provided by the secretary of state as required by RSA 659:97 and shall seal such container with the sealer provided by the secretary of state as required by RSA 659:97. The moderator or the moderator’s designee SHALL THEN ENTER IN THE APPROPRIATE BLANKS ON SUCH SEALER ON EACH CONTAINER the number of CAST, CANCELLED and UNCAST ballots in such container and shall endorse in the appropriate place on such sealer a certificate in substance as follows: Enclosed are the ballots from the state election in the town of (or in ward____ in the city of ) held on ________,19 required by law to be preserved. The moderator and the selectmen or their designees shall sign their names in the appropriate blanks on the sealer.
II. Ballots, including cast, cancelled, and uncast ballots and successfully challenged absentee ballots still contained in their envelopes, prepared or preserved in accordance with the election laws shall be exempt from the provisions of RSA 91-A. This exemption shall apply to any ballots or absentee voter affidavit envelopes prepared for or used in any election conducted by the state or any political subdivision, including federal elections.
659:97 Secretary of State to Prepare Containers, Sealers. The secretary of state shall, before any state election, prepare and distribute to each town and ward clerk containers to be used for preserving ballots and sealers to seal each such container. He shall prepare special containers and sealers to be used for preserving any special and separate ballots for questions to voters. The secretary of state shall prescribe the size and form of such containers and sealers and shall prescribe the form of any endorsement blank printed upon the sealers provided that the blank is in substance consistent with the provisions of RSA 659:95.
(Might try the federal district court for a copy of the checklist)
659:102 Preservation of Checklists. No later than the second Friday after each regular state general election, and for each presidential primary election, the supervisors of the checklist in the towns, and the corresponding officers in the cities, shall send one of the marked checklists which were used in that election, certified by the officers, to the state archives. In addition, they shall send one of the unmarked checklists which were used in the state general election at which a president was elected to the clerk of the federal district court for the district of New Hampshire. One marked copy of every checklist used in any election shall be turned over to the town or city clerk by the supervisors. The clerk shall preserve such checklists in his custody for a public record for a period of no less than 5 years
(91-A:2 (d) or elected on a partisan basis by a town or city which has adopted a partisan ballot system pursuant to RSA 669:12 or RSA 44:2. – More law expertise needed- I read this that those ballots, which I would take to mean all the ballots, should be open to inspection- but higher authority needed here)
CHAPTER 91-A
ACCESS TO PUBLIC RECORDS AND MEETINGS
Section 91-A:1
91-A:1 Preamble. – Openness in the conduct of public business is essential to a democratic society. The purpose of this chapter is to ensure both the greatest possible public access to the actions, discussions and records of all public bodies, and their accountability to the people.
http://gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/nhtoc/nhtoc-vi-91-a.htm
91-A:2 Meetings Open to Public. –
I. For the purpose of this section, a “”meeting” shall mean the convening of a quorum of the membership of a public body, as provided in RSA 91-A:1-a, to discuss or act upon a matter or matters over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power. “”Meeting” shall not include:
(a) Any chance meeting or a social meeting neither planned nor intended for the purpose of discussing matters relating to official business and at which no decisions are made; however, no such chance or social meeting shall be used to circumvent the spirit of this chapter;
(b) Strategy or negotiations with respect to collective bargaining;
(c) Consultation with legal counsel; or
(d) A caucus consisting of elected members of a public body of the same political party who were elected on a partisan basis at a state general election OR elected on a partisan basis by a town or city which has adopted a partisan ballot system pursuant to RSA 669:12 or RSA 44:2.
Alex –
I have seen no “verification that Dems were committing voter fraud.” The numbers you reference could be either error, or some form of fraud, but there is no evidence that the voters had anything to do with it, much less the Democrats.
If there was election fraud here, it could have as easily been carried out by folks who have nothing whatsoever to do with either Hillary Clinton, *or* the Democratic party.
Please do not make irresponsible conclusions from non-existent evidence.
Unlike some. I am slightly more optimistic.
I ain’t advocating violence. And if this something I need to SAY every time now. I will.
But Since NOBODY SAID ANYTHING IN REPLY TO ME THEN NOBODY WHO POSTED HERE CAN SAY THAT I AM WRONG. THEREFORE, I AM RIGHT! FIGHTING FOR YOUR RIGHTS! AND ALL THE POSTS TO CHANGE THE TOPIC ARE PURE F-ING CRAP.
“Perhaps Elwood, (or any of these other people making all these attacks on bradblog) could explain how humans are supposed to have oversight of an invisible electronic signal on devices that tabulate votes?
Perhaps Elwood, (or any of these other people making all these attacks on bradblog) might want to show me how a broken chain of custody of the paper ballots ensures an accurate recount?
No?
Didn’t think so.”
I only got to say this. You rotten ass people want to take our fucking constitutional rights.
Start with me.
Who the hell you people think you are?
An informed public will have zero confidence heading toward the presidential election in 2008.
side note: I am waiting for Bill Press to redact his misguided love for “internet voting.” (I choked on my fscking coffee at 3am listening to this crap. Ain’t heard it yet. (a redaction a reply or a fucking apology!) I am welcoming his removal from my links and my rubber stamp on his (soon to be defined as crap) show out here in Sacramento. He either get’s on the evtd (electronic vote tabulation device) cluetrain or he can get lost from my promotion. My websites. My affiliation. My love.
Bill Press needs education about electronic vote tabulation devices. Real quick.
I had it with these fsckwads.
And this fucking backwards ass bullshit
You know what. Bill Press has three days.
That’s enough for a hangover.
Till then 3 am BILL PRESS SHOW IN SACRAMENTO.
Listen in 1240 KHz AM.
25 January 2008 any links will be removed.
Brad writes, “Please do not make irresponsible conclusions from non-existent evidence.” LOL!! Stick to that standard and you’re out of business.
[ED NOTE: Your comment is disinformation. Either cite the evidence for your slur, or you’ll not long be posting here, “Confabulator”, as per the clearly posted rules for commenting at BRAD BLOG. — BF]
Hey DES #22, I understand your logic in saying that if I don’t vote,I’m guaranteed my vote won’t count.The way I see it is, since I can’t verify my vote, and the election process seems to be debased, it doesn’t matter if my vote is counted or not.The system seems to make sure the favored candidate “wins”, or depending on the case, does not receive enough votes to remain viable.Your vote might or might not be counted.If there is no certainty that my vote will be counted correctly, I ask myself, why continue to feed the monster?I’ve always voted, so by the time the primary rolls around in my state, maybe something will have changed my mind.I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but I won’t hold my breath!
You can find Dear Elwood on NH’s “progressive Dems” (read: mainstream status quo-er Dems) blog, Bluehampshire.com.
He routinely disinfos every posting I make there about election integrity. Here’s one example, but you can look at any of my diaries and find good old Elwood doing his thing. Other prominent BlueHampshire posters: Kathy Sullivan, former NHDP Chair and Ray Buckley, current NHDP Chair.
http://bluehampshire.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3306
One of their editors has also posted the anti-Bev Harris propaganda of a similar ilk as found on DemocraticUnderground.
Amazing how far and wide these disinfo folks reach.
Thanks Flo#21, I’m just getting back from Bev’s site and although the masonic thing is hillarious (Thanks I needed that) someone over there my spaced the guy and get this…it looks like from the search tree he works at NJ federal gov. Now I’m not sure which looks worse!
My other question is what the hell good is a trooper escort if he lets them make a rendezvous?
Memo to Butch & Hoppy
On January 16th the Connecticut Post reported a story out of Bridgeport. “State election officials on Wednesday initiated a sweeping investigation into the controversial Sept. 11 Democratic primary that led to a state Supreme Court challenge and Mayor Bill Finch’s election in November,” the story began.
Connecticut’s Elections Enforcement Commission had agreed to look into the disputed primary race to discover if allegations of election law occurred.
The story turns on how well election workers were trained but another allegation has to do with the way official ballots were transferred.
http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_7992191
Excellent #30
The problem is: that’s what they want you to do. The more apathy, the more voters too demoralized to vote, the fewer votes they have to steal. It’s all complicated by there not being anyone decent to vote for, but I guess that’s where third parties and write-ins come in. Don’t take it lying down. The bad guys win when you take it lying down.
Are we really sure about this being the BIGGIE:
(Brad quoting Bev above, emphasis added). It is BIGGER than that:
Now tell me wallmart cardboard boxes are all kinds of high class for that scenario … and I will say you need a checkup.
Someone named “Hoppy” couldn’t do anything bad, could he?
RE #17
UPDATE: Huffington Post is carrying the Bradblog Ellsberg story on its Front page now. It does give Brad credit too!
C’mon HuffPo, ya gotta spread the Butch Custody and the Hoppy Kid story too 😉 …
Agent 99 #36
Don’t worry, be Hoppy …
i gotta say this.
how many have a phone that works?
0
Bunch of losers that picked their fate.
thats the way I see it.
Crunchy ass lameness
Phil – Thanks for being a loyal listener, but I think you’re behind the times on this one. Surely, if we can safely and securely conduct so much business on the internet, we can devise a way to safely and securely vote. And anything that makes it easier for people to vote, I’m for. BP
— fsckdsl@gmail.com wrote:
From: Phil
To: bill@billpress.com
Subject: Bill Press Contact Form
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:57:42 -0500
Bill Press Contact Form
———————————————————-
name : Phil
email : fsckdsl@gmail.com
comments : Bill, I can’t believe my ears this morning January 22, 2008.
You actually advocated that people vote across the internet.
(I choked on my coffee!)
Let me be the first one to tell you that you are utterly unqualified to make this kind of a judgment. Now legally you can say anything you want on your radio show (Which I Helped get to come to Sacramento), but from a technical aspect your so far beyond clueless, literally there should be laws to protect you from yourself.
1.) You don’t have a programming (like in writing software code) background.
2.) You don’t have an electronics background (like in Floyd, Malvino, Grobb, doping chips, engineering, testing equipment, logic an analyzers, or electron microscopes)
3.) You don’t have a networking background (like in sysop, system administrator, security, tcpip, ipv4/ipv6, databases, perl php, asp, or java)
You
No with all that said, you would think that I would say something like internet voting is the worst possible idea, yet I will keep it really simple for you to where you can actually understand.
Any electronic device that tabulates votes should be outlawed.
The reason is that once a vote is changed into an electronic signal, it becomes unvalidatable, invisible, vapor.
The argument that is counter to the Election Integrity advocates is prove that it made a mistake.
You haven’t been paying attention to two websites
https://bradblog.com and
http://blackboxvoting.org
(Make sure you spell these correctly there are fake websites out there)
The information presented there is blacklisted from corporate media. Brad Friedman is a journalist and a blogger. Bev Harris is a voting rights advocate that has been working for several years now to end this madness.
You instead are getting your news feed from corporate sources regarding electronic vote tabulation devices. (note that I don’t say “electronic voting”) I specifically say electronic vote tabulation device. That covers all manufactures.
Part of this problem is corporate interests, and part of this problem is political spin. But the worst part of this problem is that your (Yes YOU Bill) constitutional right to vote is gone and you don’t even know it.
I sincerely hope you come to your senses. You probably think or believe all the primaries are going well? Couldn’t be no problems in say New Hampshire
http://www.sos.nh.gov/recountresults.htm
After all the local media in New Hampshire says there’s no problems: http://www.wmur.com/news/15078710/detail.html
There are LOADS of problems if you care to look:
https://bradblog.com/?p=5568
You can say whatever it is you want to say on your radio show. But you are a public figure. To a lesser extent so am I at Sacxtra! TV.. But you know what, I know that your wrong. I know that your a good guy inside. That you know right from wrong inside, I am just like that too man. And I am telling you, this internet voting is dangerous, you don’t know if Al Queda or the Russians or Chinese are voting. You really don’t know. Do you understand how a signal travels across the web, let alone the fact that .. wait for it…
“it’s an invisible signal”
Now let me ask you a question.
Voting is good, we both get that part. But what about counting the vote, should there be public oversight?
I guess if you say no, then were done talking here. But you searched your heart (And the Constitution) you said yes.
Now then explain how you can have public oversight of an invisible electronic signal.
I suggest you have a look at this movie
http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/
I don’t work for them, I don’t sell stuff, I have my own TV show that I produce, and actually COSTS me money. So you know I am not corporate. Go watch UNCOUNTED. Educate yourself. Then redact this internet voting non-sense. It’s okay to change your mind about this stuff, that is exactly how most people start to learn about it. I’ve seen other talk show hosts learn and the switch their opinion.
It will take a while for you to catch up to where I am on this topic. I could actually talk to you and explain anything you ask me personally.
Really there is nothing more important than this. It is a NON PARTISAN issue.
This is very serious. It’s a national security problem. It’s a constitutional problem.
When I hear some blanket statement from somebody who has no evidence of what they speak on this issue it really gets me angry. I didn’t serve in the USAF to watch this country go to hell in two decades because of electronic voting machines.
There is a *good use of electronics* when it comes to voting and elections is is this:
Electronic parts can not be trusted, they burn out, and they can be manipulated in a plethora of ways, so how do we use them to our advantage when this is the case?
Remember HAVA? (Help america vote act) well you probably thought that was going well..It ain’t. We’re still not compliant As of 22, Jan 2008!
Okay, back to my question bla bla how can we use untrusted unvalidatable electronics? The answer is as an interface to the disabled to PRINT a paper ballot to be hand counted with public oversight and an unbroken chain of custody.
I’ve had to add that “Chain of Custody” thing to the end there. Seems there were problems with Chain of Custody of the paper ballots in New Hampshire..
If you care to look?
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/71456.html
Well by the time I get done typing this your shows going to nearly be over. Don’t make me have wasted my time. I know your not like that. I just hope that the corporate fascist media hasn’t gotten to you as well. Cause then I would be forced to start suggesting your show not be on in sacramento.
Submit : Submit
A little sarcasm gets this:” …Your comment is disinformation. Either cite the evidence for your slur, or you’ll not long be posting here,..” You call my comment a “slur” but you say nothing to the person who posted the following:
COMMENT #79 [Permalink]
… Phil said on 1/11/2008 @ 1:31 am PT…
https://bradblog.com/?p=5544#comments
“It’s just like these corrupt oath breakers to go through all this trouble and fuck-up the chain of custody.”
“Here we are bitching about the fucking electronic vote tabulation devices and there they are fucking up the chain of custody of the actual evidence itself. The paper ballots”
And this by the same poster:
“You can say whatever fucking crap you want, you are nullified by “We The People” you and the fake ass people you put in power are the enemy of state. Once folks finally wake up to this fact it is going to be a fucking bloodbath.”
“We now know who the TRUE DOMESTIC TERRORISTS ARE. and it ain’t “We The People.” It’s the officials counting the vote. And if it aint the shitty fucking electronics it’s the shitty leadershits and their crap ass chain of custody. (Didn’t we just get a giant fucking ear full of bullshit from a bunch of ROV’s saying policies and procedures policies and procedures? Oh you fuckers really are too much now. We’ve all just fucking had enough of your crap. What do you want from us? Silence? Violence? Let us all know.)”
“A fucking bloodbath,” is OK with you, Brad? Did you tell that poster, “you’ll not long be posting here”? What are your standards?
Heath Ledger dead Link
Thank god for Brad Friedman. The most sacred right we have as free men is our right to vote for the individual we think is most worthy of the office, which is all but been taken away from us. I had all but given up on the hope of seeing democracy restored.
God Bless you Brad.
pacplyer
“To question those in power, is the highest form of patriotism.” – Thomas Jefferson
Brad: your comment #24, which concerned Alex’s comment #18…
I believe Alex was hypothesizing a Republican dirty tricks scenario where false claims of “voter fraud” would be laid against the Democratic candidates using the hand vs. machine counts as evidence.
As for the scenario itself… it’s a bit of a reach, but it would match documented Republican SOP… at least with regards to their incessant “voter fraud” game… 😉
This long blog radiates a few important points.
The great lengths that real American Patriots Brad and Bev Harris have gone to ensure that this sham New Hampshire system of elections is exposed exactly for what it is. This including proceedures dictating how ballots have been counted, boxed, moved, and stored as well as the security measures taken to ensure that every vote is accurately counted. This includes their evidence that 80% of the vote has remained uncounted by hand in the countrol of diebold.
Exposes newpaper and other election news reports for their merits, as well as their broad inaccuracies, and misleading judgements such as complimenting the NH SOS as a man you can trust, who restores faith to NH voters while he’s holding out on the diebold memory cards and holding out on uncounted votes.
Phil: So ready to storm the Bastille. Have to admit that being a natural born warrior leader that after 7 long years of carless criminal negligence, treason, high crimes and misdemeanors by bush and cheney after stealing the past 2 presidential elecion, i have had my fill of faux people’s elections as they get a free pass to raid and abuse the highest powers afforded US leaders. Their parasitic reign of destruction in the last 7 years and their assalt on the environment in crisis is eclipsed by their involvement in 9/11 and selling nuclear arms secrets to countries they (the bush gov) claim are the enemies of the US. If these lying treasoners do not get removed and prosecuted before the end of the year, there will be revolution. It’s no wonder Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table considering the 2 previous Speakers, Hastert and Livingston were both named as part of the 25 gov officials involved with giving away nuclear weapon secrets by Sibel Edmonds.
Dennis Kusinich has been successfully silenced by corporations who own the TV licensing agreements and cut him from the Democratic debates, but he is by far the best candidate. He want out of Iraq ASAP and this contrasts to the 1%ers making money off the Iraq conflict and the Afganistan conflict who like using our military as as private occupying army. We’ll be breaking the monopoly on the mass media news real soon too.
Yet another irresponsible, democracy-hating, so-called “journalist,” Kim Zetter of Wired.com, has abandoned us, and is producing notoriously bad, dangerous, irresponsible and self-destructive coverage. About the secretly programmed, wholly untested, counting devices shown to be frequently inaccurate, prone to out-and-out failure, and exceedingly vulnerable to undetectable tampering vote machines used in New Hampshire, she writes:
“… a group of academics examined the data in New Hampshire and found no evidence that the choice of voting technology in certain counties played a role in favoring one candidate over another…”
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/nh-recount-unco.html
So sad.
{ED NOTE: Just about your last chance, Confab. You’ve now been warned at least twice. Your consistent strawman arguments are now considered disinformation. The BRAD BLOG has never reported that “choice of voting technology in certain counties played a role in favoring one candidate over another.” So, knock it off, or your gone. That’s two generous strikes for ya. — BF}
Brad (#24), I think you misunderstood what Alex was saying. I think he meant that the extra votes on the Diebold counts could have been planted so that there could be later claims of Democratic voter and/or election fraud by the people (presumably Republicans) who did the planting, not that he believed that the Democrats had committed fraud.
{ED NOTE: I think you’re probably right, CambridgeKnitter, and that I read the comment too quickly. Comes of swatting too many trolls in the same day I guess. With apologies to Alex. — BF}
Confabulator,
You want me to be censored by you?
I’d rather have op’s and rm -rf you.
You had better do a better argument against me when I am upset. Your kind of leadership will lead to the complete destruction of the planet in 0 seconds.
Your haven’t show any leadership to me. Seems like all you care about is my particular removal from Brad Blog. By your specific targeting of me.
A bloodbath could easily be a nuking of the vote.
In context, lets say bloodbath of destruction of the vote.
Actually i’d have to say it is a nuking of the vote. If you want to make something more out of it that’s between you and I. Your more than welcome to hit my flame board if your IP CIDR isn’t already banned for attacking specifically my server. Oh yeah I got a nice ban list now. Maybe I am just a honeypot?
So go ahead take me out of context. Put words in my mouth. Get me banned, Really this stuff is already killing me and I don’t need to deal with it anymore. I stick by my words. Brad who in my opinion has all my trust is more than welcome to rid this thread and all my threads of my crap.
I would never hold nothing against him.
Brad or any of the moderators are more than welcome to remove me if need be.
That takes it OUT of brad’s hands.
I’ll just take my words elsewhere. They’re just words. You can imagine whatever fucking bloodbath you want. I haven’t threatened you. And I specifically from time to time said NO VIOLENCE.
So go ahead and put me on your stupid fucking FBI list too. Your just a concerned citizen. But the problem is your fucking clueless.
I knew eventually someone would finally challenge my fucking ass, welcome to your new identity.
So whatever fucking bullshit you want to make out of all this shit into is actually nothing. Or on you.
Your simply a vaporware specialist. Just like me.
You should have more sex. IMO
I’ll leave.
Go ahead add me to your bullshit FBI list.
I swore a fuckin oath to out this stupid crap.
If the corruption is so thick now that I ain’t allowed, then this is simply a canary in the mine.
Must have talked too close to the truth for the corruption to allow me to speak.
(Everyone should mirror everything I said.)
But I will condense it.
1. Outlaw *ALL* electronic vote tabulation devices.
2. *ALLOW* electronics to PRINT a paper ballot to be hand counted with a CHAIN OF CUSTODY.
3. Corporate Media sux shits. NO information is available about the truth in our elections.
4. There is no true leadership anymore.
I am a veteran and I swore an oath to protect the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and to protect the president.
You won’t shove words in my fucking mouth without me breaking your fucking device.
I will be happy to broadcast your bullshit on my TV show. If your fucking game. If your a chicken shit then who cares about you your nobody.
I never attacked you personally in this thread.
Till then night night. NN
I need a break. Your giving me a fucking headache.
You know wwhat I just noticed something.
I might have attacked someone who is trying to fuck the constitution or the president,.
It’s high time for you to clarify yourself.
I been slightly busy
Enjoy.
Flower Violence – Ann Coulter Needs To Shut The Fuck Up
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=OEPRFYMLUj4
The NH sos site, is saying the recount has been stopped because it ran out of funds.
…couldn’t we organize some grassroots Diebold verifiers, basically buy a bunch of machines, then make certain their count is accurate and their programming is done with integrity, and use them as the second count in any election?
Not to deny the need for a hand count, but just consider the angle I suggest here, that an independent group, armed with “black-boxes” that have been meticulously scrutinized and programmed properly, and put them inline behind the official state machines, and just double-count, using our own reliable machines, as a control for their not-so-reliable programs.
That inline re-scan, added to the exit poll results, would immediately reveal an ongoing deviation. Whatever remedial action might occur on=the-spot is still quite speculative, but it could be the best way to immediately and reliably determine if there’s a problem.
A double scan, with the second scanner under the control of an indepenent group, and add a 10% hand count to see how it matches the other numbers; that sort of triple redundancy and multiple checks would end all this apres-election confusion.
I realize optical scanners represent a problem in their inherent tamper-vulnerability. So why not send the ballots through a second machine that an independent group has certified independently of the official machines.
Also, those “second count” machines would not be bound by “programming” protected from scrutiny, they would all be open for inspection by software experts to certify their accuracy, even if Diebold and New Hampshire (Florida, Ohio, Iowa?) Republicans refuse to let us loose geeks through the guts of their machines, they could always check the accuracy of OUR machines, which would act as a primary control in this noble experiment.
INSTANT RECOUNT! One if by hand, two if by see…
Lets count, recount and handcount all on the same day. This is too important to leave even the most trivial question mark, let alone these profound doubts.
this is just the beginning
I moved furniture for over 10 years and i have seen boxes shipped from other continents in better shape than those boxes.I have also seen used boxes looking like new compared to these beat up boxes.Even an inventory sticker pulls of cardboard when removed(If its out on completely).Maybe they should get the moving industry to help them out with the postit problem.Oh I forget movers aren’t as smart as they are lol.Aloso why cant they afford a new box or two per voting location?Its not like they cant give a percent of a penny back to the tax payers.Think about what a 3.50 book box would cost per person per ballot in the box.3.50 divided by say 500.something like .7 cents apiece.OMG this may bankrupt the whole state.Frugile they say.lol save 3.50 then spend 300 in all to put an ashtray on the governors desk?OMFG this guy think we are all idiots with that lame ass excuse.