Black Box Voting - Citizens Tool Kit Black Box Voting - America's Elections Watchdog Group blackboxvoting.org - Watch election videos: Caught on tape!
Black Box Voting - Citizens Tool Kit BlackBoxVoting.org Your Location
Show support Show support Black Box Voting - Latest News Black Box Voting - Investigations Black Box Voting - Press Kit Black Box Voting - Forums Black Box Voting - Contact us Black Box Voting - Home Page blackboxvoting.org - consult Black Box Voting
NEVADA: Maybe a contest to watch as maybe it will ... More -- Subject: Las Vegas Ward 4 will go to recount

USA: We signed an agreement to purchase and paid a... More -- Subject: Jeffrey Dean at it again

NEVADA: Please everyone comment on this bill.
Tha... More -- Subject: New election reform bill

NEW HAMPSHIRE: This report is part I of an ongoing... More -- Subject: Investigative report into New Hampshire elections

My name is Loretta Romo, and I have filed to run f... More -- Dear Friends,

PUERTO RICO: Hello; I work for the State Electoral... More -- Subject: What is best system to replace hand counted paper ballots?

ARIZONA: I wasn't really sure where to post this t... More -- Subject: Ballots to be thrown out on alleged rigging of RTA election?

Thanks to your help, we moved Transparent Election... More -- Dear friends,

NEW ENGLAND: I stumbled across the website for the... More -- SUBJECT: Town Clerks Association accepting advertising money from LHS Associates

LOUISIANA: A congressional election will be held i... More -- Subject: High risk election, heads up

The towns are Shelton and Stamford.

I have writ... More -- In the Nov 8 2008 election, results reported to SOTS from two towns later were questioned.

NATIONAL: I have been calling all the government a... More -- Subject: Required federal retention period on memory cards?

CALIFORNIA: (Already filed in San Bernardino Co. C... More -- SUBJECT: Anomaly in Victorville City Council Race, 166% turnout figure

NATIONAL: Although there was no big surprise last ... More -- SUBJECT: Scrutinize these races and issue results more closely

WASHINGTON: Throughout Jan & Feb I have been conta... More -- Subject: How do I get them to remove me from political call lists?
Let's put the People back into We the People!
blackboxvoting.org
CONTACT US
Go to YOUR state

blackboxvoting.org
Black Box Voting (.ORG) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501c(3) organization funded by tax deductible citizen donations.

Past 24 hours blackboxvoting.org How to find stuff

(IN) 7/09 - VIGO: ABSENTEE VOTING UP; CLOSING MOST SATELLITE VOTING SITES - Indiana is one of the many states experiencing a push towards mail-in voting. The state loosened controls on voter registration authentications by passing an Internet voter registration law. This centralizes voter registrations into a database that eliminates physical signatures.

Indiana had proposed legislation in 2009 to create "no-excuse absentee voting", but this stalled out. This time. Like the Terminator, it will be back.

Absentee voting is being pushed for the swing states (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, Florida...), and into traditional Democratic strongholds like New Jersey, California, and Washington, and has recently been proposed for study in New York. It provides a way to control incumbency.

Here's the typical progression leading to forced mail-in voting:
(a) Starts with need-only absentee voting
(b) The number of polling locations is often reduced due to budget and administrative concerns.
(c) Laws to permit "no-excuse" absentee voting are proposed.
(d) Then "permanent absentee status" is proposed, urging voters to opt into this on their voter reg form.
(e) Once "permanent absentee" procedures are in place, the increased percentage of people voting absentee is publicized through press releases
(f) Then a shift to forced mail-in voting is proposed.

Some take issue with the term "forced mail-in voting", because te... More
(KY) 6/09 - CRIMINAL DEFENSE FOR ELECTED OFFICIALS COVERED BY PUBLIC FUNDS - Barely known to most taxpayers, state associations like the Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo) and state assocations for county clerks and election officials operate largely outside of public scrutiny, often claiming immunity from right to know laws.

One hundred and twelve of Kentucky's 120 counties cover criminal defense for their elected officials through one of these associations (KACo).

That's right. Defense lawyers for public officials accused of crimes against the public are paid by public funds.

Kentucky is a state with dozens of indictments and convictions of its sheriffs, election officials, judge executives (a position akin to "county executive" or chief "county commissioner"). But not to worry if the feds come knocking at the door with search warrants or indictments. An insurance policy from the Kentucky Association of Counties foots the bill for the defense lawyer.

These quasi-public entities are funded by taxpayer dollars, through fees paid to the associations by public officials. Your tax dollars pay for travel to association meetings and conferences. The associations also typically receive income from suppliers and vendors.

Oddities abound -- or perhaps conflict of interest is not too strong a phrase. The associations often pay lobbyists, and in Ohio, the lobbyist for the election official's state association was also the lobbyist for a voting... More
(USA) 6/09 - VOTING RIGHTS GROUPS OPPOSE NEW HOLT BILL - Below are the editorials from Black Box Voting, Open Voting Consortium, VotersUnite.org, and Nancy Tobi of Election Defense Alliance and Democracy for New Hampshire opposing and rebutting the latest incarnation of Holt's perpetually flawed proposal for election reform, currently known as "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR 2894)"

STATEMENT OF BLACK BOX VOTING AGAINST HOLT BILL

We are in agreement that DRE voting machines need to be eliminated, but not at the expense of human rights. We don't need a "Holt Bill." What we do need:

PROTECT AND DEFEND PUBLIC ELECTION PRINCIPLES

(1) Protect and enforce right to know for every essential component of our public elections -- eliminate practices which allow government insiders to conduct key parts of elections in secret;

(2) Protect and enforce required checks and balances -- strengthen compliance, remedies and enforcement.

(3) Restore necessary mechanics for public elections: Require voter-marked paper ballots unless assistive device is required.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE HOLT BILL

The Holt Bill loses ground, further violates human rights, and actually reduces right to know. What Holt's "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" provides that we do NOT want:

1. Increased (and for the first time, federally legislated) obstruction for public right to know

2. Mislabeled so-cal... More
(TN) 6/09 - SHELBY: ELECTION COMMISSION URGED TO BEGIN CONVERSION TO OPSCANS - Tennesseans have barely, by the hair on their chinny chin chin and the skin of their teeth, defeated an attempt to roll back the requirement to move to paper ballots / optical scan machines by 2010. This is great news, and a testimony to the sheer force of the will of the public.

The article below chronicles the efforts in Shelby County to get paper ballot optical scans phased in, but the premise stated for why optical scans are needed is wrong.

The purpose of paper ballots is NOT to "improve voter confidence". Paper ballots are a mechanism to enable the restoration the right to self-governance, which was eroded with concealed vote-counting systems.

As stated by the German high court, based on constitutional principles from a foundation the United States pushed into place, ALL ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF PUBLIC ELECTIONS must be PUBLICLY OBSERVABLE without specialized knowledge. With e-voting, the public has nothing to examine and can't observe the essential phase of vote-counting.

In e-voting locations like Tennessee, you've got to get the paper ballots back in place before you can restore public controls. But it's just a preliminary step, and doesn't solve the core problem, which is concealed vote counting by insiders.

The article says "Advocates for optical scanner systems say that they're less prone to develop security breaches and errors than electronic machine... More
(NJ) 6/09 - ATLANTIC: DOING THE MATH ON MAYOR'S RACE BALLOT FRAUD - This story is about absentee ballot fraud, exploiting the "messenger ballot" (partisans run around town delivering and picking up ballots). I'm providing some contextual aids to help you evaluate the likelihood of fraud in the Atlantic City mayoral race. Looks a bit stinko to me.

Basically, it's an arithmetic "story problem." We typically see a total of 10 to 12 percent absentee votes in locations that restrict mail-in voting; this further divides into overseas, military, out of town and sick/shut in. In Atlantic City, there are complaints of excessive sick/shut in ballots, requested to be hand delivered (by partisans), in a location with a past history of election fraud involving these hand-delivered ballots.

DOING THE MATH: The figure cited here for Atlantic City is 865 sick and shut-in ballots out of 23,000 total registered voters. This is for a mayoral election; turnout for municipal elections tends to range from 25 to 50 percent. Therefore, out of 23,000 registered voters, we would expect to see perhaps 11,000 of them voting, and of those, including all categories of absentee, in a state that restricts absentee votes like New Jersey does, perhaps 1,200 absentee and messenger-delivered ballots. If 865 ballots have been requested in the sick and shut-in category, yep, that's excessive -- about eight percent of the voters would be "sick and shut-in."

This article sta... More
(IL) 5/09 - DUPAGE: CITIZENS ACHIEVE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW, FINALLY! - Laws which are never enforced will be ignored. When you reward obstructive public officials instead of removing them from power, you get persistent mismanagement of the public trust.

The important article below describes the second election-related public records victory achieved this month. After excruciating toil and trouble by local citizens, right to know laws were belatedly upheld. But in both this case (DuPage County IL) and the case earlier this month (King County WA) the public servants responsible for obstruction were rewarded with career advancement.

The two counties, Republican stronghold DuPage County, Illinois and Democratic powerhouse King County, Washington, each refused to provide critically important records for 2004 elections. Five years later, citizens fighting the records obstruction were vindicated.

In both cases, public officials presiding over the obstruction have received career upgrades. King County election administrator at the time, Dean Logan, has now taken charge of Los Angeles County elections, and King County's top official at the time, Ron Sims, has been elevated to Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. This July, DuPage County elections chief Robert Saar will become president of IACREOT, a powerful national organization for elections officials.

The extraordinary efforts made by citizens re... More
(HI) 5/09 - OVER 86 PERCENT CHOSE NOT TO E-VOTE - Beware of vendors bearing spin. Only 6.3 percent of Hawaii's eligible voters cast votes on the new Internet-or-phone voting system (as compared with 28 percent in a similar election previously). This was a record low turnout. And the vendor says:

"Our systems aren't really about turnout. They're more about accessibility to participation."

Yes, that's right: These new Internet voting systems are about "accessibility to participate", rather than participation.

Beware of public officials and news articles spouting the company line: The election commission leaps off the democracy boat altogether with this statement:

"The technology side, it works."

My self-cleaning oven works too, but it's not a democracy. For democratic elections to work, you need public controls, you can't count votes in secret, and you need participation. And on these three measures, the Internet-or-telephone voting system fails.

The Associated Press - May 27, 2009, by Herbert A. Sample

Low turnout mars Hawaii's digital vote

HONOLULU (AP) — They built a new digital voting system, but the voters didn't come.

There was some disagreement Wednesday over why only 6.3 percent of eligible voters used a new, first-in-the-nation digital voting procedure to cast ballots for Honolulu neighborhood board seats via the Internet or by touch-tone phone.

But officials at both the Neighborhood Commis... More
(US) 5/09 - NATIONAL: FORMER FED BIGSHOT CASHING IN ON INTERNET VOTING - For must-read, original reporting by Brad Friedman, with crucial details omitted by the Hawaiian press, hit the link below. First, some backstory on the Bradstory.

During the 1980s, local mom & pop election vendors, who were selling their local services and goods to local election officials, began to come under centralized control through corporate consolidation under Business Records Corp (BRC), later acquired by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).

In the 1990s, efforts to centralize control over election administration were put under an organization called NASED (National Association of State Election Directors), at one point led by Washington State Secretary of State Ralph Munro.

In 2002, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) shifted NASED's power to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a handful of White House appointees.

Former NASED guy Ralph Munro violated Washington ethics law by taking over one of the first Internet voting vendors, VoteHere, just days after stepping down as secretary of state and in violation of Washington's three-year required quarantine. VoteHere struggled despite Munro's muscle, and after much citizen action, ultimately flopped. Must-watch video showing two construction workers from San Juan Island taking on VoteHere: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/video.html#secretballot (They sued, helped block a huge King County purchase, and pounded a... More
(MO) 5/09 - ST. LOUIS: 50 PEOPLE ALLEGED TO HAVE COMMITTED VOTER FRAUD - Fifty voters were listed as wrongfully casting votes; 32 of these listing vacant lots for home address. If there really are 32 people who deliberately listed bogus addresses, that is not an insignificant number, and justifies a closer look.

Still, it pales in comparison to the number of people disenfranchised. Progressive investigative writer Greg Palast estimates six million rightful voters unable to cast ballots nationwide in 2008, and this figure jives with my informal calculations. If we estimate 50 wrongful voters in every county (and bear in mind that most counties are far smaller than St. Louis city/county), this would compute to about 165,000 wrongful votes. Up against six million blocked voters, the bigger problem would seem to be disenfranchisement.

What's also interesting: The vacant lot problem started out as "hundreds" of people listing vacant lot-addresses, but it turns out that most of these actually had homes on them, often new homes, and the database just hadn't caught up. This reporter did some field work. After visiting addresses, there were indeed people listing vacant lots as addresses.

Before assuming intentional wrongdoing, the real addresses (if any) of these voters needs to be checked, to be sure that a misprint or directional omission isn't the cause. (ie., 220 Willow St instead of 220 N Willow St).

The issue of voteR fraud vs. vote suppres... More
(HI) 5/09 - WILL DEMOCRATS BECOME A PERMANENT MAJORITY WITH INTERNET VOTING? - "For Republicans, a Democrat-dominated e-vote system would be a swift road to political extinction," Fox News' James Pinkerton says. [and in Republican-dominated locales, Democrats can be extinguished through digital control mechanisms.] It's all about incumbency, and these kinds of systems will encroach on the public right to control incumbency in unprecedented ways.

Pinkerton hits nails on the head in the article below, in a way that should pound shut the coffin on Internet voting. But it won't. Hawaii just did an Internet-based election, accompanied by fawning ignoramus endorsements from the press. Watch for digital vote encroachment soon in a theatre near you.

Nailing it: "The big question, of course, is who is at the other end of the machine–be it telephone or computer. Who verifies the voters? So if vote fraud is already a problem, what will happen when the “vote” is simply an electronic pulse, that could have come, potentially, from anywhere in the US–or around the world? Who will oversee the e-voting process? And who will oversee the overseers?

He rushes on to conclude that Internet voting is coming (hey not so fast now...) and that we need to patrol the process with bipartisan watchdogs. But bipartisanship is NOT a solution, because it leaves out truly public controls and it's not all that hard to end-run it. And besides, with digital systems, it's darn near i... More

blackboxvoting.org
blackboxvoting.org
4-22-09: Arizona A.G. releases results ... questions linger
by Jim March, with addendum by Bev Harris

Arizona AG Releases Official RTA Results:
Election A Clean Bill Of Health, Pima County Elections...Not So Much...

THE OFFICIAL BOTTOM LINE

At a press conference today in Tucson, AZ Attorney General Terry Goddard released the results of the 2006 Pima County RTA election handcount. His office says that most ballots are present and accounted for save for less than 100, and the hand count totals match the machine count of 2006 to within .01% - variances of 300 to 500 votes between the two questions, in an election with over 120,000 votes cast.

This seems to be an end to the RTA controversy...but not quite.

WHAT ABOUT THE MISSING BALLOTS?

Former NSA computer guru Mickey Dunahoe went over the high-resolution video of the handcount this week, and managed to do his own accurate-to-the-ballot count of a precinct box. This precinct contained around 1,500 ballots – filling the 12” tall box to the brim without overstuffing. The count we had managed to perform during the election was of a box of mail-in votes, counting about 1,240 or so before box-bulging began.

This would indicate that mail-in votes were literally thicker cardstock than the precinct votes. By basing our count estimates on thicker mail-in votes, our estimates on the precinct vote were off by up to 300 votes a box (with 55 precinct boxes).

When asked about the difference, the AG's office admitted not even noticing a possible difference in paper stock for the ballots.

We'll be getting the full paper trail from this "investigation" soon, and will try to revisit this and other issues.

OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE HAND COUNT

The AG's office made three mistakes with the handcount process.

* They didn't try and do a tally of counted precinct votes against either the original statement of votes cast (SOVC) report or against the polltapes and/or pollworker “end of day report” (also known as “the yellow sheet” in Arizona). IF the paper record was manipulated, it would be easier to fake the numbers for vote totals rather than try and get fake paper ballots lined up in the correct ballot boxes. Auditing to a precinct detail level is a barrier against paper swap or alteration frauds.

* They didn't attempt to confirm paper ballot authenticity with spot-checks under a microscope or ink age analysis, or even an informal look at why the same ballot boxes hold more precinct ballots than absentee ballots.

EASY MICROSCOPE EXAM: The newest “bal... More

blackboxvoting.org



blackboxvoting.org

VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 1)
VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 2)
VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 3)
VIDEO: Protect the Count (Part 4)
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Face to Face with the recount guys
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - 9 Minutes on the Road w. Butch & Hoppy
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - The Jeannie Dean Video
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy II - Pack o' Lies
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy Ia: Chase begins
VIDEO - Election Reality TV - Butch & Hoppy Ib: Chase begins



Click here to read older stories



blackboxvoting.org

artwork contributed by art101.com

blackboxvoting.org

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Protect the Count:
Most of America

View larger video screen

Protect the Count:
Absentee & Central Count

View larger video screen

Protect the Count:
New England / New Hampshire

View larger video screen

Protect the Count:
New York

View larger video screen
blackboxvoting.org - sign up for enews alerts blackboxvoting.org - donate blackboxvoting.org - headlinesblackboxvoting.org


Black Box Voting Book
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
d - Appendix
Footnotes
Index

(US) 'HACKING DEMOCRACY' on DVD
This Emmy-nominated film, produced by Russell Michaels, Simo... More
Prison records - Jeffrey Dean
Elections programmer Jeffrey Dean was convicted on 23 counts... More
dark blue ink causes ballot not to read
This experience in New Bedford, Mass. may help someone somed... More
ES&S M100 ballot rejection issue troubleshooting report
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/show.cgi?tpc=9707&po... More
(MD) 4/08 - Cost Analysis of MD Voting System
Voting machines astonishingly expensive than anyone anticipa... More
Professional IT auditing standards -- food for thought
Some of us are in states where audits have been mandated or ... More
Locating ballot specs and bids
This is a website that appears to permit one week's free usa... More
(NH) Chain of Custody Check: Butch & Hoppy Chase
Green Jeep mystery: If you think you can decipher some of th... More
(CA) Pollworker Training Guidelines document
From CA SOS, this 2006 document may be California focused, b... More
NH: Recount Report from We the People
Extensive document that may provide useful insight into the ... More
CT Absentee Ballot Procedures
ROVAC, the Registrars of Voters' Association of CT, posts ce... More
CT HAVA pollworkers guide
Here is the guide for CT pollworkers related to the voting m... More
E-mails and memos - Jeffrey Dean
Memos, reports and e-mails between Jeffrey Dean and King Cou... More
CT Moderators' Security Procedures
Link from UCONN websiteto this moderators' handbook info on ... More
CT CONTRACT WITH DIEBOLD/LHS ASSOCIATES
If you would like to see what a state contract looks like wi... More
NASS surveys on post election audits, cast ballots as public record
NASS spreadsheets on two topics of interest: which states do... More
RECOUNT PROCEDURE MANUAL - MINNESOTA
While watching the NH recount unfold, I started looking at N... More
CT: UCONN Pre-Election Audit of Memory Cards Report
Dr. Alex Schvartsman's report on Connecticut's pre-election ... More
2007 CTElection Audit Observation Report
http://www.ctelectionaudit.org/

This link should take you... More
CBS Report: 2000 Pres. Election mis-called due to voting machine
This report, quietly released by CBS after an internal inves... More



blackboxvoting.org