Guest Blogged by Nancy Tobi of Democracy for New Hampshire
Any citizen in New Hampshire can bring a petition article to his or her Town Warrant by securing the signatures of at least 25 registered voters. The article is then added to the Town Warrant to be voted on in Town meeting.
On Saturday, the citizens of Lyndeborough, NH, resoundingly approved enacting into the town’s laws the following warrant article regarding the counting of votes. I hope that NH citizens all around the state will enact the same law in their towns at next year’s Town Meetings.
Here is the petition citizens signed to add the article below regarding the counting of votes to the Town Warrant…
To see if the Town of Lyndeborough will prohibit vote counting concealed from the human eye by method of computers or otherwise, and require that all methods used for sorting and counting the votes in an election be publicly observable for full citizen oversight of the entire voting system (with the exception of the voter’s casting of the secret ballot).
Whereas the New Hampshire Bill of Rights and our State Constitution have guaranteed the right to vote since 1784, guaranteeing that it may not be administered in a discriminatory fashion:
Whereas the New Hampshire Constitution reinforces the U.S. Constitutional guarantee of a republican form of government, in which citizens are understood to possess inalienable rights and to be the ultimate source of all legitimate power so that citizens are sovereign and not any king, as defined in Article 8 of the New Hampshire Constitution:
Whereas Article 32 of the New Hampshire Constitution mandates observable vote counting in open public meeting as a mechanism for ensuring that our elected public servants receive the consent of the governed via open and honest elections administered under full citizen control and oversight:
Whereas the Voting Rights Act Section 8 stipulates that vote tabulation must be observable:
Whereas each New Hampshire city and town has the individualized legal right to decide which State-approved voting system it will use, and whereas currently, other than the statewide disability solution mandated by the Help America Vote Act, the two State-approved voting systems available to New Hampshire cities and towns are publicly observable, paper ballot hand count systems or paper ballot optical scan systems, which conceal the vote count from the public eye:
Therefore we, the undersigned citizens of the town of Lyndeborough determine to protect our rights to have our votes sorted and counted in open meeting as required by the New Hampshire Constitution by adding the following article to our town warrant:
Shall the Town of Lyndeborough prohibit vote counting concealed from the human eye by method of computers or otherwise, and require that all methods used for sorting and counting the votes in an election be publicly observable for full citizen oversight of the entire voting system (with the exception of the voter’s casting of the secret ballot)?
At the Town Meeting, I presented the following argument in favor of passage…
In Lyndeborough today we count every ballot by hand on election night in full public view. Our counting teams have 2 people doing the count and tally and 1-2 others observing to make sure that the people counting and tallying the ballots don’t make any errors during the count. These are the kinds of public checks and balances envisioned by the Founders to ensure our system of democracy.
Lyndeborough is one of 144 towns in New Hampshire that still conduct hand count elections. The rest of the state uses optical scanning computers to count the ballots. Some of those towns have chosen to use computers because they have too many registered voters in a single polling place, which makes counting by hand impractical. Others are SB2 towns who have given up their town meetings in favor of putting their town warrant on the ballot, which makes complicated ballots and also makes hand counting impractical. Those towns would need to make some changes in order to go back to public hand counts.
But using computers to count ballots is expensive. Each of those voting machines costs around $6000 to buy, then you need to pay to properly store them and also pay for the programming and servicing. Computerized elections can be budget busters. Last time I looked into this, Lyndeborough didn’t even have a line item on our budget for elections. We have community volunteers counting our ballots in full public view and it doesn’t cost the town a dime.
But the most troubling thing about computerized elections is that nobody can see the votes being counted. The electrons doing the count are invisible. Neither the machines nor the people who programmed those electrons are anonymous private employees who have no oath of allegiance to the State of NH.
The NH Constitution says that we shall sort and count our votes in open meeting. In full public view. NH’s hand count elections, like ours here in Lyndeborough, meet the Constitutional mandate. NH’s computerized elections – now counting the votes for 85% of the state’s registered voters – do not.
It is fitting that Lyndeborough should take the lead by becoming the first town in the State of NH to pass a town article ensuring for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, that we will always honor the Constitutional mandate to sort and count our votes in open meeting, and that we will never allow concealed vote counting by computers or by any other method in our town.
Now you may be thinking why should we even have to do this? We will never go to computerized elections. Well that may be so. But there are plenty of other folks in small towns in NH who may have thought things wouldn’t change too. Of the 112 computerized election cities and towns, ten have less than 2000 registered voters, and of those 2 have less than 1500 and another 2 have less than 1000. Another 17 have less than 3000 registered voters. Those towns could easily count their ballots by hand but they chose to buy computers instead.
There may come a time when our town officials also think that is the way to go too. But we can defend our Constitution and our democracy today just as we did when the Lyndeborough Artillery, the longest standing artillery in the nation, sent our cannon down to fight for freedom in the Civil War.
And when we pass this warrant article protecting our public vote counts, we will send a message to the State of NH – and the nation – that in Lyndeborough Democracy Counts. Literally.
Here’s what hand-counting and transparent, citizen-overseeable, participatory democracy looks like in Lyndeborough, NH, and ought to look like in the entire country…
“Mr. Moderator, I have looked up the road and down the road and neither on foot nor horseback, nor one-horse sleigh do I see a registered voter. Therefore I move that the polls be closed…”
Cross-posted at Democracy for New Hampshire…
Nancy Tobi is best known as a national leader in the voting rights movement for her seminal work exposing the dangers and fallacies in various election reform efforts past, present and future. She is co-founder, former Chair, and website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire, founder and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee, Adviser to Election Defense Alliance and the Election Transparency Coalition and the author of “Hands-on Elections: An Information Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People”.
For more on “Democracy’s Gold Standard: Hand-Marked, Hand-Counted Paper Ballots, Publicly Tabulated at Every Polling Place in America” please see Brad Friedman’s op-ed written for the Commonweal Institute here…
The threat of votes being tampered with is high now, because several towns were voting on revisiting the events of 9-11-01, a new investigation. We can be sure all maneuvers to prevent that from happening will be deployed.
This article only brings to mind that the 2004 election was won by fraudulent voting tabulations in Ohio and gave Bush an additional 4 years to totally drive our nation into unbelievable debt.
The Repubs are going to try anything they can think of to win back seats and control Congress in 2010 … safety devices to eliminate this possiblity need to be in place nationally before that date!
This is what I like about NH. “Live free or die!”
One objection to hand-counting that I’ve read has been the prohibitive cost. Glad to hear that one debunked!
Sorry — I don’t remember hitting “bold.” That could come off if you get the chance.
Actual people counting actual ballots in a town named Lyndeborough 🙂
… and the captcha was a numerical palindrome…
Hey ya Kmac #2, I was just thinking to myself the other day, if it wasn’t for scalia interfering in a state’s federal election, we never would of had to suffer the damage or disgrace heaped upon this nation by idiotboy and dickless. I have a dream…scalia’s impeachment. And let’s not forget their latest act of radical judicial activism, corporate funded elections. Don’t ya just love those federalist society folks!
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/c...ralist-society
I swiped the link from a commenter over at Emptywheel.
An oh yeah, Adam Fullford was asking about frey’s boss cooley being diebold’s bitch…well guess what he’s a federalist society member too. Scroll down to The Merits of Continued Drug Prohibition,
http://losangelesfedsoc.org/past_events
Topically related news…
Virginia Thomas the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has launched a Tea Party group…
Any illusions we had of judicial impartiality is now blown to hell.
Story link here
Thank you, Nancy Tobi, for sharing this marvelous glance at what real democracy looks like.
While there appears to be no reason why every precinct in the nation could not emulate the citizens of Lyndeborough and individually count paper ballots, I’m sure that the representatives of the e-voting cartel would raise their usual canard about efficiency.
I’m wondering if you could share with us a couple of details that were left out of the video and piece, to wit: The number of ballots counted in Lyndeborough on Election Night 2004; the time it took to complete the count.
Not to nit-pick, Ancient, but the link you provided reflects that LA DA Steve Cooley was an invited speaker at a Federalist Society function. That does not necessarily mean that he is a “member.”
You’re right Ernest,I guess that’s why your the lawyer and not me, huh? 🙂 I’ve been trying to find actual member list and the half empty web page is all I’ve come up with so far.
This is a huge story, it could be the start of something nationwide. And don’t mess with that guy with the white beard, holy shit!!! Can you interview this dude? I think he’s my hero!!!
And let’s see who comes along and is against this vote transparency to the citizens! They may as well just say: “I AM THE VOTE HACKER”.
O! Lyndeborough, Lyndeborogh! How your civic pride and loyal devotion to the body politic move me.
makes me cry for what the rest of us have lost forever, perhaps deservedly for the ease with which we allowed it to be blunted from us. For most, participatory democracy was overnight fleeced without so much as anyone even noticing – let alone taking proclamatory measures to prevent.
Has me thinking of retiring in reverse, heading up to New Hampshire, renting a room in a hand-counted paper ballot county, cheering for the Pats and talking local talk ’till I dutifully drop.
Great job, Nancy Tobi (as always), you super-sharp-shooter, you.
Ernest, hand counted elections only work if they are properly managed. In NH we recommend teams of 4: one person counting, another watching that person counting, one person tallying, another watching the person tallying. On a typical general election ballot with 12-15 contests, you can typically count 1500 ballots in 3 hours using 5 or so teams of 4. Even paying $8/hr, this system is a heck of a lot cheaper than computerized systems. In many NH towns people simply volunteer, and if the town pays them, they give the money back to the town. Or it becomes some pocket change for folks who need it. It’s recommended to have new teams come in at polls close so you don’t have only the poll workers, who have been there all day and are tired, doing the counting. I’ll be posting the youtube of this Town Meeting vote soon. You can see another hand count town (Wilton) on my youtube channel, which is HandsOnElections. Bottom line: hand count election work when properly managed and when they are a community event where, as the wonderful Walter Holland says, “we handle our neighbor’s votes with care.”
Please find lots more information about laying the legal foundation for hand counting, and methodologies for managing hand counts in the Hands-on Elections Handbook here:
http://www.electiondefenseallia...admin_handbook
“On a typical general election ballot with 12-15 contests, you can typically count 1500 ballots in 3 hours using 5 or so teams of 4.”
Congratulations to Nancy Tobi, Democracy for New Hampshire, and Lyndeborough.
I’d suggest election integrity advocates who believe in hand counting take the sentence I quoted above to heart. For every 1,500 cast ballots in your jurisdiction, get signatures and contact information from twenty voters (thirty if you want a reasonable margin for those who drop out) willing to promise their availability to count for four hours on election night after the polls close.
If you do that, I’m not saying that registrars will let you hand count, but I will say that registrars will be far more inclined to listen to you.
Thanks, Nancy. The information and link you furnished are extraordinarily useful.
Ernest ~
Great video that not only shows the NH Hand Count process from the 2008 Primary Recount – but how diligent the NH teams of are, how seriously they take their duty, and what happens when they encounter a strange anomaly and how quickly they bring it to bear.
In the following video, the counters are stumped because of a ballot sequencing irregularity (this was after a rigorous chain of custody investigation by Blackboxvoting.org that showed some glaring problems):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLFhCq1XnA
MANCHESTER WARD 5: the video below examines the voting machine discrepancies (in this case, Diebold) in BOTH the Dem and Republican races from Manchester Ward 5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYz9O_SvIJI
I was delighted (as an out of state, visiting election geek) to be allowed to sit in with one of the teams to assist. To see 50-70 volunteers hand counting paper ballots was truly a sight for sore hearts. After months of fighting to find out what happened the missing ballots in Sarasota, Florida race that lost 18,412 votes on ES&S’s paperless DRE voting machines – New Hampshire seemed like some kind of snowy Heaven.
In comparing NH’s hand counted wards to the machine counted wards, it was determined that the Diebold OPSCAN machines had a failure rate 163 times greater than allowed by Federal Law (HAVA).
You’ll recall that one of the reasons a recount was called for was that NH’s machine counted wards gave Hillary and unexpected 16 point margin of victory over Obama (because she got a little boo-hooey.) But in the HAND COUNTED wards, Obama won.
(* Thanks to Karen from Illinois for all her dead accurate mathematical help understanding the complex shifting of votes from ward to ward. Impossible numbers – in many cases produced more votes than voters, and more voters than votes.)
Computers cannot be trusted. Why do so many people want to trust technology that only makes it convenient for them rather than keep the human element involved?
Ernest,
How many hours have you volunteered to do counting drudge-work at your jurisdiction?
Jeannie Dean?
SilverFox?
Brad?
Chorus?
Oh, I see.
@Mitch: Counting “drudge work”? Are you kidding? We sometimes turn away volunteers because we have so many. Which is more palatable to you, sir: coming together with your community to count ballots every now and then or sending trillions of your dollars to fund a war that kills your friends, family and neighbors and strangers you don’t know? Because that’s what you get when you lose representational democracy. How much is it worth to you?
And by the way, our community-based elections here in NH usually host community raffles, bake sales, and dinner for the counting teams.
It’s not drudge. It’s fun, it’s important, and it’s our duty.
I completely agree, Nancy. It just saddens me that there seems to be more folks out there willing to complain than willing to solve the problem, as you and your group have done.
In my experience, for every person willing to do the actual volunteer work, there are about ten willing to offer opinions, and hundreds willing to protest.
I think if all the people demanding hand counted paper ballots promised to show up to count, and followed through ONCE, many local registrars would be happy to switch to hand counting. A lot of activists I know are too busy moving on to the next exciting thing to complain about, though, not doing the necessary work to solve the problem.
@ Mitch – I don’t know what crawled up your hole, but I’ve actually spent a TON of man hours at my local elections board. Your comment is especially inappropriate and unappreciated as I posted a goddamned VIDEO above that shows me volunteering to “hand count” in New Hampshire (which I also spent money out of pocket to travel to do.)
How about before you sharpen your knives on us with your passive aggressive bullshit you actually review the info in the thread?
With all due respect – how long are you gonna stay pissed at us all and continue to lash out inappropriately?
I also find it especially telling that you’ve answered your own snarky question in #21 without even waiting for a response. So, I guess I can presume it wasn’t really a question at all, just an accusation.
Shouldn’t have bothered answering you, Farkle-Doo.
Hey Mitch, ever since following this blog I volunteered to be a poll worker and wound up a judge of elections in a small precinct no one would take. Does that qualify? I’ve also helped in setting up local viewings of Uncoumted. I gave testimony in our state’s case for emergency paper ballots last election. An oh yeah, we won!I guess my point is, it was the the incredible job Brad has done inspiring people with the truth about our elections that got me involved.
Mitch, what have you done?
More than Jeannie Dean. It’s not passive aggressive bullshit, Ms. Dean, the bullshit is what I’ve found in very very heaping piles from most members of the activist community.
If you’ve actually gotten off your ass long enough to be part of a solution, rather than a vocal advocate for other people doing the job, well, congratulations.
What I’ve found is a group of people I actually trust LESS than government officials… backstabbers, useless parasites, and people whose main interest is seeing their names in lights.
Well you should know by now Mitch, this is a blog where the evidence matters…so I ask again, what have you done?
Ancient,
You’re completely right. I’ve done nothing at all of any value. Signing off Brad Blog for good this time, in every sense of the word.
Mitch, I don’t know what’s eating you, but don’t put words in my mouth. Being called on snarky comments is not being told you’ve never done anything of value.
Odd question, Mitch @19. You do realize that in most jurisdictions, mine included, the only way you can get a hand-count is for one of the candidates to ask for one.
If you will recall the recent special Senate election in MA. Brad had pleaded with all three candidates in advance that if they were on the losing end to ask for the count. Instead Coakly was congratulated by Kerry for breaking his land speed record in prompt capitulations.
The election for the all important 60th seat was conducted entirely on the same Diebold optical scan system that Harri Hursti hacked back in 2004 through a simple alteration of its memory cards.
The election was called by an easily hacked computer, candidates declared victory or conceded defeat and not a single human being had counted a single ballot in the entire state of MA.
So what is the point of volunteering to count if you don’t have hand counts in which a citizen can participate?
You’re supposed to be one of the good guys on e-voting, Mitch. At least that’s what Brad tells me. So why are you being so antagonistic to those who are working along side you to try to fix our broken system?
I was an unpaid attorney/observer for a local township recount. By my count, Mitch, so far, you’ve struck out with all three people who’ve responded to you. While I’m not sure what other “activist communities” you’re involved with, based on your comments perhaps you should find some new groups.
To somehow how assume, based on your alleged experience, that those who frequent this website are not donating their time and money is a pretty blatant failed attempt at mind-reading. Mitch, you need to examine your assumptions and also ask yourself why you feel so confident making public assertions/assumptions about people you obviously do not know.
Or perhaps you’re just a disinfo artist trying to weaken the voting rights community?
I’m inclined to agree with LMK’s assessment, Mitch, that “you need to examine your assumptions.”
However, I have an even bigger concern with your “willing to offer opinions” remark in comment #21 after you made some remarkable assumptions in comment #19 in which you called out by name, among others, Brad Friedman.
Are you trying to say that the tireless investigative journalism that Brad, Bev Harris and others in the election integrity movement have engaged in over the past six years which has exposed so much about the depth of election fraud has no value — that it amounts to nothing more than cheaply offered “opinion”?
Are you suggesting that there is no role for citizen activists other than taking part in the counting process in those few jurisdictions where the ability to do so is available?
When you denigrate citizens who take part in public protests, you are suggesting that their efforts are of no import.
In my case, I offered only two comments on this post. The first sought information from Nancy Tobi, which information was needed for a major project that Brad and I are working on. The second was a simple thank you when Nancy furnished that information.
For this, I get you trying to smack me down about the number of hours I’ve personally devoted to counting votes in my jurisdiction, when, in truth, no one gets to hand count votes cast on the optical scanners in my jurisdiction absent a candidate request.
Perhaps, Mitch, a bit of self-reflection is in order — and an apology!
a win for one lil town,gj nancy!!
jeanie gets to the heart of things with this statement,
In comparing NH’s hand counted wards to the machine counted wards, it was determined that the Diebold OPSCAN machines had a failure rate 163 times greater than allowed by Federal Law (HAVA).
the machines are illegal because they do not work,if by work we are assuming they are supposed to give an accurate count..over and over in our citizen audits we find more votes than ballots cast…that can not be accurate,it is that simple
when franken got his recount and actually showed the outcome was dif than the machines spit out,i ,perhaps foolishly, thought other pols would notice but,ernest is right the pols race to concede,here in illinois the rep gov nomination was decided by less than 200 votes,2 vote switches per county would of changed the outcome
i dont have the answers but what brad has proven on the acorn story,that the msm doesnt report the truth is the same reason we cant get accurate counts in our elections,the msm pretends everything is fine and most people dont realize what a crock they are being fed
Okay Mitch, one last comment. I screw up, I’m human, we’re ALL human. Just look at the exchange between Ernest and me at #9 and #10. I admit it and come back. Its really not that hard to do, and I’m always the better for it. Were here to help each other, not hurt each other in our common struggle of living… and getting clean elections. 🙂 I hope you feel better tomorrow.
An oh yeah obamma, until bush and cheney can admit they were wrong, the doj should be in full force upholding the laws of this country. But per chance they can see their way back to humanity and admit their mistakes, then, and only then, may the mercy of the court prevail. All the tides that come and go in the world still leave the world we are graced to live on.
http://www.newyorker.com/report...urrentPage=all
Mitch @ 15 wrote:
Y’know, that’s a pretty good idea. It’s forward-looking and forward-acting. Even if you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually hand-counting an election, you would force them to tell you “no” and you can ask why, and maybe get some publicity in the meantime and at least start a conversation about how elections are counted in your district.
Then, Mitch, things went downhill, and I can’t help but wonder if someone or several someones who were not a part of this blog had pissed you off. These are the good guys here, as I’m sure you know.