Dems Pocket $52 Million, CNN Ignores Evidence, and Officials Stonewall...What V]

[Guest guest]

> http://www.BreakForNews.com/articles/WhatVoteFraud.htm

Dems Pocket $52 Million,

> CNN Ignores Evidence,

> and Officials Stonewall...

> What Vote Fraud?

>

> by Bev Harris, BlackBoxVoting.org

> in posts on Democratic Underground

>

> BreakForNews.com , 24th Nov 2004

>

> We saw Ukrainian presidential election coverage on CNN last night.

> It was surreal They were saying that in the Ukraine elections aren't

> transparent. 'Scuse me?

>

> This, after CNN said they weren't interested in filming 59

> orange-tagged records from Volusia, Florida showing that our elections

> have not been at all transparent, and are missing one-third of the key

> documents entirely. Psst. Don't look here. Look there.

>

> The screen shots of the NETWORKED (!) Volusia County GEMS server

> alone, along with the logs showing attempts to access it remotely ,

> should have hit the national press.

>

> According to a statement by the Supervisor of Elections on

> November 17, 2004, the GEMS computer is not networked, and is " stand

> alone. " The furnished computer logs show evidence of at least two

> attempts to remotely access the GEMS central tabulator, which is

> claimed to be secure. A computer screen shot printout on November 17,

> 2004 (found in the trash) shows that the GEMS computer at that time

> had two networked hard drives.

>

> I showed the logs to CNN cameramen yesterday, along with 59

> orange-tagged poll tapes that were missing signatures, zero tapes,

> sometimes missing results altogether! No interest in getting a shot of

> that smoking gun at all.

> We intereviewed poll workers. On camera. Showed them the poll

> tapes we were given by Volusia County. To a person, they said, with

> great concern, " That is NOT what we submitted to the county. "

>

> One remembered the results on his poll tape. What he remembered,

> before ever seeing the results tape or hearing what was on our copy,

> was not the same. His memory for a precinct with a tad over 400 voters

> had 60 more votes for Kerry. Of course, that's not legally binding,

> since he hadn't written it down.

> And don't forget that in Volusia, poll workers were told to bring

> their memory cards and poll tapes off to 'drop offs' or 'depots', and

> it was there that the modem- ing occurred. We have no information

> whatsoever on who was in those depots, or what they were doing, or

> what equipment was there.

>

> Meahwhile a completely irresponsible Kerry Campaign holds on to a

> $52 million litigation war chest accumulated from citizen donations

> for that purpose.

> If they were the slightest bit interested in either voting system

> integrity or actually winning, they would have litigated the Black Box

> Voting records requests to apply some real muscle into prompt

> disclosure of audit materials, at least in Ohio and Florida. Failure

> to comply with sunshine laws is against the law, yet a citizens group

> like Black Box Voting cannot claim legal urgency, forcing immediate

> compliance, in the same way that a campaign can. There is no question

> that if the campaign had enforced the sunshine laws, analyzing the

> audit data, two things would have happened:

> 1) records would have been produced

> 2) auditing would have been enabled, and we all know that would

> have produced hard evidence of irregularities.

> You have to wonder. The purpose of our audits is to get some real

> answers, so we don't have to wonder any more.

>

>

> We are a consumer protection group, not a political schmoozing

> group. We are getting support from many elections officials who are

> just as concerned as we are. Many officials are very accomodating and

> their audit diagnostics check out.

> Election officials only have to survive 10 days, or, in some

> places, 20 days. That's all they have to stall. After that, wrong

> results cannot result in candidates being removed from office unless

> there is evidence that the candidate himself was involved in the

> fraud. Of course, there will be insulation of the candidate, as this

> stuff is performed by operatives, not candidates.

> Public records laws are already sufficient, in most cases, but

> need litigation and injunctions to back them up when public officials

> don't comply. Stay tuned for actions shortly that will help put an end

> to stonewalling.

> Remember, some of the records we requested were already public on

> election night -- such as the interim summary results reports and the

> poll tapes. There is no reason whatsoever to withhold these.

> Proving fraud after it is too late to put the wrongs right is just

> not an option. It is a simple matter to put this right, but it

> involves getting the audit diagnostics in a timely manner (by the way,

> it is not just " Bev, " but a nationally recognized nonprofit 501c(3)

> group).

>

> Now, if the head of the League of Women Voters came in and asked

> for records, are you saying it's just fine not to give them over until

> it's too late?

> Note also, that the lawsuit filed yesterday targets the supervisor

> of elections position. Think carefully about the implications of this.

> Patricia Northey was a candidate who had pledged to clean things up,

> beginning with housecleaning a few employees who have been habitually

> obstructive. She was favored to win. The candidate who in fact became

> the new supervisor of elections was hand-picked by the current regime.

> It isn't okay to wait until it's too late to put the right

> candidates in, the ones people actually voted for. That includes local

> as well as national races. And yes, it is now too late.

>

>

> The Dems did nothing to help themselves, let me clarify. As a

> nonpartisan nonprofit 501c(3), we cannot get involved in campaigns,

> recounts and the like. However, by sending the records request to

> every county in the nation, and publishing the exact documents needed

> on the web site by midnight Nov. 2, this put ALL parties on notice

> what was needed in order to properly audit.

> We made ourselves available for consultation on exactly what

> records to request and how to use them for auditing.

> Other political parties have used information from our public

> records request to set up their own recounts and audits. Citizens

> groups have also done so on a local basis.

> Therefore, the road map for the Kerry campaign was right there.

> Though we could not accept, and they certainly did not offer,

> assistence on securing our own request, they certainly should have

> filed an identical request themselves, litigated and muscled counties

> into compliance in Ohio and Florida, and it would have been easy for

> them to get teams of computer people to examine the logs and teams of

> auditors to match up the records. This all could have been done in a

> matter of three days...at most, 5 days, with the muscle they had.

> Instead, they rebuffed our attempts to provide expertise, advice,

> or evidence, and they made no effort whatsoever to do any auditing at

> all, nor even to obtain the records needed for simple, quick, diagnostics.

> More recently, we have had overtures, but I admit I've been pretty

> rude and completely without patience with them. Too late, and far too

> little emphasis on what really needs to be done.

> The Kerry attorney in Volusia, by the way, came by but asked not a

> single question, never asked to look at any evidence, and told one of

> the producers of Votergate that he thought Black Box Voting was just

> here to " stir up trouble. "

> We were very open about the problems we anticipated with this --

> the Election Protection effort, which was admirable, was focused

> solely on watching the casting of the vote, rather than the counting

> of the vote. When concerned people with access to decisionmakers tried

> to bring this huge ommission to the attention of people who could take

> corrective action, they said they were not interested and, in some

> cases, refused to even take the phone to talk with Black Box Voting.

> After the election, everyone came to us asking what we can do.

> Many people expected Black Box Voting, an organization held together

> only by the grit of volunteers and the efforts of three full time

> investigators and a board of directors, with a shoestring budget, to

> overturn the national election. Not only was this the expectation

> unrealistic (though our nonpartisan charter would prohibit us from

> seeking a recount anyway), but the clock had already been run out.

>

>

>

> There's a loophole that we'll need to get corrected in elections

> law, because it is blocking reasonable efforts to audit, confirm, or

> litigate elections in the U.S. In most states, you can't request a

> recount or contest an election based on statistics. Even in Florida,

> where statistical evidence is permitted, the use of statistics is iffy

> in a court challenge. As soon as one expert sets it up, another can be

> counted upon to knock it down.

> Recently, for example, attorney Lowell Finley came to Florida to

> pursue the option of contesting the Florida election. According to

> Florida law, contesting the Kerry election in Florida would require

> evidence that over 380,000 votes would be in doubt. Statistical

> evidence cited 260,000 votes in question -- but that study, the

> Berkeley study, is now being refuted by the Irvine study, and

> likelihood of prevailing in court on back-and-forth statistics is

> unlikely.

> Even if that statistical information had been sufficient to prove

> 260,000 votes at risk, this would need to be supplemented by another

> 120,000 votes from other counties in the study. This kind of

> information could have been available, had counties complied with the

> Nov. 2 public records request filed by Black Box Voting.

> Unfortunately, most counties did not comply in a timely manner, and

> many refused to provide the information at all.

> The audit data we obtained in Volusia County is another matter.

> Here, we have established plenty of evidence sufficient to take an

> election into contest. Volusia County, by itself, may have put some

> 30,000 presidential votes in question.

> To get evidence comparable to what we have in Volusia County,

> basic audit diagnostics must be provided by the county in a timely

> manner. (To view the audit diagnostics we sent to every county in the

> country on Nov. 2, just after the polls closed, go to

> http://www.blackboxvoting.org and scroll down to an article titled

> " Are we insane? Voting without auditing? " )

> Now, here's the problem: All of the largest Florida counties

> stalled the records request past the filing deadlines. Some did it

> skillfully, by being out of the office, saying they didn't receive it,

> saying people were out of town...some did it clumsily, telling us to

> go jump in the lake.

> The bottom line is: Most votes in Florida, and nearly all votes in

> Ohio, could not be audited because the secretary of state (Ohio) or

> the key county officials (Florida) would not part with the basic

> public information needed to launch a proper audit. While we will get

> the records, we will not get them in a timely manner.

> This needs to be changed. Black Box Voting is in the process of

> setting up voting machine citizen audit protocols, and we plan to

> launch a major national citizen education effort to show people how to

> do both diagnostic audits and fraud audits using the public records

> tools available to all of us.

> National elections cannot be compromised very easily without

> problematic local officials. A true cleanup is going to have to take

> place county by county, and we will need all of you to do it.

> I know we have been slow to put some of our volunteers to work on

> real auditing. That is because, if you don't know exactly what you're

> doing, you'll get your butt kicked.

> A citizen audit group is now working on Holmes County, Florida,

> and of course Volusia is in full swing (I'm about to do another post

> on the lawsuit filed yesterday requesting that the Volusia County

> election be set aside).

> This is a problem that can be solved, but we need more teeth in

> legislation to require counties to produce audit materials immediately

> after elections, so that citizens groups can have at least 7 days to

> analyze the information and follow up on discrepancies and ommissions.

> Right now, elections officials can stonewall and there are no

> consequences, if they do it skillfully.

> (For those who do it unskillfully, stay tuned. We aren't done with

> 'em.)

> For those of you waiting on Ohio, it is certainly frustrating.

> Kenneth Blackwell is certainly the 2004 equivalent of Katherine

> Harris. He has set a state policy of obstructiveness, making it almost

> impossible to get the kind of information needed to prove the counting

> was correct.

> Doing the auditing correctly, especially in coordination with

> local citizens groups, can produce fireworks. Volusia County now has

> its hands full.

>

> We have consistently been ahead of the curve on this. We

> identified the problems with voting machine reliability and

> nontransparency way back in 2002; we have stressed since 2003 that the

> problems are not just touch screens, but with all computerized

> systems, including optical scans and punch cards, and we have focused

> on auditing as the solution since mid-2003.

> While everyone else was focusing on getting a " paper trail "

> (without making any efforts to ensure that something meaningful was

> done to USE the paper to audit), we were focusing on auditing

> ommissions, both with the machines and with election procedures. While

> 40,000 people charged off to watch votes being cast, we published

> guidelines to create human audit logs for the central tabulator, the

> machine that COUNTS the votes.

> In short, the time to set things up to contest this election on a

> national basis was a few weeks BEFORE the election. No one in a

> decisionmaking capacity bothered to do that, though we had been

> publicly calling for this, even going to Washington D.C. in September

> to meet with people and hold a press conference, in September.

> Now, after the fact, people are realizing the mistakes.

> 1. Focusing on touch-screens and computer solutions, instead of

> focusing on basic auditing and bookkeeping

> 2. Focusing on touch screen machines instead of the central

> tabulator and the optical scans and punch card computers as well.

> 3. Failing to put any procedures in place to audit elections

> properly on a county by county basis

> And now, failing to use the legal muscle of the party to enforce

> production of audit documents, and failure to do any auditing at all.

> The result is that the American People are left with uncertainty

> on a nationwide basis.

>

> Stay tuned for an upcoming national conference which will be put

> on by Black Box Voting, called " Help America Audit, " in which we will

> teach citizens groups, political parties, candidates, and private

> citizens how to conduct citizen audits of elections on a county by

> county basis, the only method available to us, really.

>

> Stay tuned, also, for an action we'll be taking soon to beef up

> compliance with the public records requests needed for election auditing.

>

> Bev Harris

> Executive Director

> Black Box Voting

>

>

>

>