Restoring Accountability to Vote Counting

http://blackboxvoting.org/

Live Free or Diebold

I do it every time I vote. It pisses the pollsters off, but I don't care. It's my right. I suggest we all do the same.

These open source, fully transparent voting machines were mentioned an another blog.
www.truvote.com

Sounds like an ideal machine! -- Why will they not use something like this?!

From their site:

"What is a voter verified paper ballot?

The voter uses an electronic voting machine to complete race selections. After the `selections have been completed and reviewed by the voter, a paper ballot is printed. The voter reviews the printed ballot and if they feel it is correct, the ballot header information is then added to the ballot. The ballot is then cut from the printer and the voter deposits the verified paper ballot in a secure ballot box.

Is the TruVote Software available for public review?

Access to the TruVote software source will be freely granted to all qualified reviewers under a disclosure agreement. The software cannot be modified or changed without TruVote’s approval. All data interface formats are public and data can be read using normal interface tools. All data is digitally signed with private and public keys unique to each election. Any changes, additions or deletions of the data are detected using the digital signatures. "

The system makes an image of the ballot printed out, and the ballots have barcodes as well.

SO -- there ARE other options besides Diebold types... but the powers-that-be prefer the insecure, hackable systems!!

Bev Harris was on Alex Jones today. She heads up www.blackboxvoting.org. She was also in the HBO special, "Hacking Democracy" by Russell Michaels. Every American should watch this documentary. Vote fraud has been going in this country for 20 years and 'they' do it in many ways. It is only now that a large numbers of people are finally catching on. Go to www.hackingdemocracy.com/ and see how easy it is to commit vote fraud with these new Diebold machines. You can listen to the Bev Harris - Alex Jones interview stream which is looped over and over again at: http://www.infowars.com/listen.html and be sure to listen to Alex's show on Thursday with the follow up. Bev's organization documents all confirmed cases of vote fraud on her website at www.blackboxvoting.org. Vote fraud was not just against Ron Paul, but also against Barrack Obama to ensure a win for Hillary. The main stream media is giving all kinds of reasons to explain the discrepancies between the polls and actual vote, (Obama was ahead in seven polls) without saying or giving the obvious reason, vote fraud. In other words, all kinds of plausible reasons are given, without saying the real reason, vote fraud. This is a psychop diversion tactic that the media uses often to divert the people. This tactic also dilutes the pool, so that vote fraud can be dismissed if it is ever brought up. This is why it is so important document the fraud. During the interview with Bev Harris, people called in showing they cast their vote for Ron Paul and their township showed zero for Ron Paul. Suttan had 31 confirmed votes for Ron Paul and the township showed zero. New Hampshire uses townships instead of counties for some reason. Bev called the town clerk in Suttan, Jennifer Call. Jennifer said that the hand counted vote gets written down and it is then transferred to another form and sent to the main location that tallies all the townships. When the vote number for Ron Paul was transferred to the other form, instead of 31, 0 was written on the new form. Jennifer said it was human error. Bev said this is unacceptable. Like give me a break. This is not rocket science people and it wasn't human error, because the same thing happened to other townships all over New Hampshire. This was organized! Alex Jones created a web site www.ronpaulwarroom.com for anyone in Iowa and New Hampshire to document all their individual cases. It is growing fast. It is amazing. Please go to this website and register and take a look at all the documented cases of vote fraud in New Hampshire so far. If you are from Iowa or New Hampshire and you experienced vote fraud report it on this website. In New Hampshire, you will see candidates won by the same percentage in all the townships. One comment on the website: ronpaulwarroom.com — you can see clearly by looking at the column in red how much the electronic voting machines gave or took away from a candidate. Ron Paul lost 2%+, whereas Giuliani got a 0.5% boost, stealing 4th from Ron Paul. You can also see that Mitt Romney really didn’t have 31%, but something closer to 25%, a throw of 6% in his favor.

So, vote fraud was not only committed by the hand counts, but also by the Diebold machines. These machines are more prevalent in South Carolina. Therefore, expect to see a lot more vote fraud in this state.

It does no good to donate to the Ron Paul campaign if the election is going to be stolen. From what I have heard so far, it appears that Ron Paul may have taken first place in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Alex Jones has Ron Paul on as a guest often. He is going to try and contact the campaign to get them to do a recount. It will cost the Ron Paul campaign $67,000 per state. Alex said he will try and raise the money himself. If a recount is not done, this vote fraud will continue in all 50 states. It is already been confirmed that it is going on. The vote fraud is being covered up by the main stream media. If the campaign demands a recount, it gets exposure early on so it can be considered when it happens in other states. Our campaign ideas and money donations mean nothing if this election is going to be stolen. If this election is stolen, our freedom is stolen. If we don't stop this now, we all deserve the tyranny that is coming. Let's be true patriots and take a stand now. I encourage everyone to write a letter to the Ron Paul campaign headquarters and demand a recount in New Hampshire and Iowa. We can raise the money. Direct them to www.ronpaulwarroom.com and www.blackboxvoting.org to see the documented cases. The campaign should have expected this and prepared for it. I knew it was going to happen.

Here is a letter I wrote to the main campaign. Please write them your own original letter:

Dr Paul, Kent, Lew, Joe, Debbie and all those on the campaign staff,

We now have massive voter fraud confirmed in New Hampshire and Iowa, both in the hand counts, (townships show 0 for Ron Paul when people in those townships voted for Ron Paul) and also with Diebold voting machines.

See www.ronpaulwarroom.com and www.blackboxvoting.org for the documentation and personal testimonies.

This vote fraud has been going on for several decades.

Pat Buchanan did noting when it was suspected and confirmed by Jim Condit.

Al Gore had the election stolen from him in Florida and did not go any further.

John Kerry did nothing when it was obvious that Ohio and Florida were stolen from him.

As true patriots, we must stand up against this vote fraud and take action now. I hope the campaign is going to demand a recount or file lawsuits immediately. It appears most of Ron Paul’s votes went to war monger John McCain. This is totally unacceptable.

If the Ron Paul campaign really stands for freedom, then we must take action now, or we are no better than a third world banana republic and we deserve the tyranny that is coming. We the people, will rise to the occasion and help raise the money for a recount. Please make a statement as soon as possible.

South Carolina uses more of these corrupt voting machines than New Hampshire. Expect to see vote fraud there. Then there is Florida. Things are only going to get worse very fast. Please demand a recount immediately and let’s put the guilty people in jail, so that we can stop this on going atrocity in our country.

Please forward this email to everyone on your staff.

Sincerely,

===================================================
The Ron Paul revolution is coming through your town. Either jump on board or get the hell out of the way!!!

very efficient mechanisms that can be used in order to produce whatever election results are desired. I have written against them since the late 70s in my home state. I have failed to produce any difference.

The basic concept itself is flawed. It removes objective evidence from the voting equation and substitutes electronic impulses and computer instructions which, any machine-level language programmer can tell you, is very easy to code, in such way, that the computer instructions doing the evil deed can be erased or overwritten in such a way that their original existence becomes undetectable. The Diebold example is a popular one that people like to use to demonstrate how inaccurate the system is, even when there's no attempt at fraud. They are simply inaccurate.

Since I will assume that everyone is old enough to remember the 2000 Florida incident, I will also take for granted that detailing the shortcomings of punch-card voting (a sort of compromise between paper ballots and 100% electronic recording) is not really necessary in this forum.

Paper is slower, but it does provide some important safeguards that are not present in electronic systems. That is not to say that paper ballots are perfect or that they are not immune to fraud. Ask anybody in Texas about Box 13, Landslide Lyndon and the 1948 Senate race. However, even that incident requires the participation of human beings. It requires them to engage in criminal activity; activity which can be retraced and, given the proper investigation resources and techniques, discovered and punished. Landslide Lyndon's "secret" was no secret to anybody. He wound up in a court battle over it but he had good lawyer, named: Abe Fortas, who he later appointed to the Supreme Court. Dollars are not the only medium of exchange in the U.S., eh?

All such optical scan electronic systems should be operated within laws that require them all to be independently hand-counted by representatives of all political parties and the results compared with the electronic results. If you could get one state to impose such a rule, then the inaccuracy of such machines would become painfully evident to all.

Best regards,
Chad (not really.....just being cute)

"So what we came in fourth rather than fifth? That isn't going to make much of a headline and we will look silly asking for a recount."

Any price is worth ensuring that every vote counts.

Difference between hand counted votes and Diebold counted votes...

Hand counted votes have Paul at 15% average...

Not a single hand counted town had less then 10% vote for Paul.

----------------------------------------

Here is a list of the Hand counted vote tallies.

richmond is hand count 34% for Dr. Paul
lyman is hand count 28.7% for Dr. Paul
Orange is hand count 25% for Dr. Paul
Harts location is hand count 25% for Dr. Paul
wentworth is hand count 24% for Dr. Paul
goshen is hand count 17.68% for Dr. Paul
marlow is hand count 16.6% for Dr. Paul
cornish is hand count 14.8% for dr. Paul
Rumney is hand count 14.5% for Dr. Paul
croydon is hand count 14 % for Dr. Paul
dorchester is hand count 13.89% for Dr. Paul
effingham is hand count 13% for Dr. Paul
albany is hand count 12.9% for Dr. Paul
antrim is hand count 12% for Dr. Paul
south hampton is hand count 12% for Dr. Paul
sullivan is hand count 12.61% for Dr. Paul
troy is hand count 12.21% for Dr. Paul
mason is hand count 11.88% for Dr. Paul
newport is hand count 11.45% for Dr. Paul
charlstown is hand count 11.3% for Dr. Paul
Allenstown is hand count 11.16% for Dr. Paul
bristol is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul
warren is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul
Strafford is hand count 11% for Dr. Paul
washington is hand count 11.02% for Dr. Paul
lancaster is hand count 10.9% for Dr. Paul
springfield is hand count 10.6% for Dr.Paul
wilton is hand count 10.37% for Dr. Paul
Northfield is hand count 10.3% for Dr. Paul
mont vernon is hand count 10.25% for Dr. Paul

So why is it that in Diebold counted towns he barely registers?

In some towns he has zero votes.

Why doesn't he have zero votes in any hand counted Towns?

See
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=84314

"
Hajjar doesn't limit his involvement in the voting machine business to sales. According to an interview conducted by Brad Friedman, Hajjar totes memory cards around in the trunk of his car and defends the boggling concept of swapping out memory cards during the middle of elections."

This bears repeating: "Those who cast the votes determine nothing. Those who COUNT the votes determine everything". - Stalin

"Or even better yet, why not bring back paper voting? What is the rush to count the ballots and declare winners? Is speed more important than truth?"
That is my argument as well! What is up with the Media calling 'it' half way through the counting? To cast an "effective" vote is at the very heart of our democracy. TRANSPARENCY and taking the time to make sure EVERY vote is counted before the winner is declared!

I would like to address the persons responsible for running this site (and all their committed supporters). Up here in Canada a large group of my friends and family are watching the birth of this Revolution very closely. We are your northern brothers and sisters who give more than lip service to true freedom and liberty. We fight for our rights and are deeply moved by Dr. Paul's fight for you and your country.
You workers (at this site) are now being bombarded by the naysayers, complainers, and certainly the enemies of your movement. "Where's my money I donated, I don't see commercials", " We need a re-count before we go on", " I blame the persons running the campaign", "Obviously the national campaign staff don't know what they are doing" etc. etc.
You are doing a fantastic job! The campaign results are no less than stunning! The coverage, growth of membership and contributions, the performance of the thousands of volunteers is awesome! I thank You for your strength courage and determination. You are setting a standard that is now admired and (will be) duplicated in the future in other countries around the world.
Ignore the "noise" (it's the small stuff).

maybe the rest of the developed world should scrutinize american elections to ensure they are fair. where are the checks and balances? america the developed nation or a banana republic?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qV6qAGigGYY

So what we came in fourth rather than fifth? That isn't going to make much of a headline and we will look silly asking for a recount. The results were not much different than numerous polls and for the republican side.

The biggest issue is that there is ZERO leadership from the campaign to direct the willing volunteers and spend the record amounts of money for effect. In business if huge amounts of money and effort are given and there is no results (or negative, LESS THAN IOWA!) management is changed and changed quickly. I donated with the expectation that it would be used in the best way possible. As a stakeholder I think we all deserve better.

Any talk of a recount effort takes away from what must be done now. We have to have a respectable showing in Michigan or South Carolina or Don Meredith will be singing, "Turn Out The Lights, the Party is Over..."

I agree that Diebold is bad and vote fraud is possible but that isn't the biggest item we have to overcome, lack of leadership is.

Joe

"Those who cast the votes determine nothing. Those who COUNT the votes determine everything". - Stalin

In less than one minute the election is stolen. Clear and easy to understand. Go to http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ or to U-Tube where they've got their own version.

I was a computer programmer in the Navy (lon-ng-g time ago) but know enough that I became really distressed in seeing the mechanical number increases occurring last night in NH.

With even a few votes not being properly accounted for in a single precinct area, that should signal a halt to the process. With this being an on-going area of concern to Americans, isn't there a way to call a timeout to these elections while this damning evidence is examined before the 2008's are stolen totally from Dr. Paul?

YES!!! You've hit the nail on the head here!
Why can't Diebolds' voting machines give receipts?!
If everyone voting was given a verifible receipt there would be no disputes and we could easily see discrepancies.

We are many. Can't we come up with a plan of action people? Isnt' there anything we do if we work together? There are thousands of us, there has GOT to be something we can do. Isn't there anything we can do?

Let's get an exit poll in all the future states. Write to the Constitution Party and ask them to do it.

www.constitutionparty.com

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/010908_not_...

According to a voter in Sutton, New Hampshire, three of her family members voted for Ron Paul, yet when she checked the voting map on the Politico website, the total votes for Ron Paul were zero.

With 100% of precincts now reporting, the map still says zero votes for Ron Paul as you can see below.

It's not as if Sutton had a handful of voters like some other districts - a total of 386 people voted yet we are led to believe that not one voted for Ron Paul? Judging by the Iowa results, around 10% of residents would be expected to vote for the Congressman, returning a total of around 38 votes in this district. Let's be ultra-conservative and say just 5% support Paul - he'd still get 19 votes - but he got absolutely none whatsoever. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Greenville also tallied 144 votes yet not one for Congressman Paul...

Here is a screen shot of what the results were last night. The first page is after midnight and the second page is when it was changed. If You look at the results it looks like McCain got Ron Pauls votes while Ron Paul was given romney's votes and Romney got tancredo's votes.

http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=results2ut0.png

Count me in for demanding a recount. It's a no-brainer and not only can help this campaign, but will help the country wake up to the reality that election fraud is rampant in America (as well as working toward a remedy). It is not only made possible by the Diebold machines, but by the touch-pad telephone vote compiling system used in Iowa and in the NH precincts where votes were counted manually and reported via this secretive system.

I want to thank the DailyPaul for this post. I have been feeling that the campaign and those closest to the campaign have put the desire to appear mainstream, politically correct and non-combative ahead of the occasional need to step up, make noise and to do what's right. We can make sweet wine with their accusations of "sour grapes"! This goes beyond Ron Paul and right to the heart of what the greater revolution is about.

I would add that at this point I would only donate more money if it went toward financing a recount and investigation. I am turned off (at least today) by the thought of giving money to a campaign that would let solid proof of election fraud pass without confronting it head-on and with force and conviction.

Joe Naab
Brazil

My thought is at the very least we should email the election commissions in our local cities and counties and express our concerns over this mornings news stories and ask if this Diebold company is used to count the votes in our towns. It would help to send them the following links:

http://drunkardslamppost.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/diebold-an...

http://benmoseley.blogspot.com/2008/01/do-nh-primary-statist...

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2008/01/new-hampshires.html

http://presscue.com/node/38034

http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1587

http://presscue.com/node/38170

http://www.latimes.com/la-exitpoll-nh-graphic,0,7161708.html...

Oh , right, they just "accidentally" transposed the 31 votes to 0 votes. And in Greenville Romney just "accidently" lost, and McCain won, even though the Nashua Telegraph reported Greenville went to Romney.

You should be outraged.

The problem is I am a Ron Paul supporter so my conclusion comes in his favor.

If a crime took place (fraud) you need motive. We have that. The "powers" in media and government have already demonstrably proven they want to keep Dr. Paul out of the race. I could go on for a year on this, if you need that forget it.

Now what do the powers that be want in NH?

They don't really like Romney, they do like McCain and Rudy and Huck is a long 3rd choice.

McCain and Rudy are the establishment candidates and Ron Paul must be stopped.

What to do?

Not a whole lot. Make sure McCain gets some of Romney's votes. Make sure Rudy gets a couple because he needs to begin his "rise from the ashes" and just"shave" Ron Paul's totals down to 4th place. Right where he can be left out of the race.

Polls indicated 12% to 14% for the doc and the McCain people were "SHOCKED" at how well they did.

I say they made sure the Doc didn't get third. Third would have been a disaster for them. It would have made him a national candidate and they can't have that.

Whenever a human cheats they always slip up. Sutton, NH is the slip up.
The honest person called in the right number and the cheat adjusted the number.

Making a big deal about this is important as it will frighten the other states to keep it clean.

I think the doc has to throw a fit. Kids were sleeping in basements for a month pounding the streets for him. THEY DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS.

The campaign needs to demand a recount. I think Sutton, NH MIGHT be a miracle. No I didn't day we have #253, but maaaaaaaaaybe.

We must demand a recount if it is only for the people who broke their asses to get the doc votes in NH and got screwed.

Frankly Mitt should get in on this too, he had 34% about 6 weeks ago.

A very simple argument against Electronic Voting Machines is that there exists a very large base of Protein Voting Machines that pay for their own maintenance.

This whole notion that we should replace free willing people with costly machines is ridiculous.

Was there motive for fraud? Yes
Were there means for fraud? Yes
Does the overall outcome look legitimate? No
Is there evidence of inconsistencies yesterday? Yes
Has there been a precedent for this activity? Yes, multiple times

Two women were recently convicted in Ohio for 2004 vote fraud, 2000 Florida was a fraud. Many places around the country are de-certifying these machines.

These should be enough for people to voice doubt, and for a full-blown investigation to proceed.

TOWN OF SUTTON CONFIRMS RON PAUL TOTALS WERE 31, NOT ZERO

Jennifer Call, Town Clerk for Sutton confirmed that the Ron Paul totals in Sutton were actually 31 not zero as was originally reported.

I just combined your list of hand-counted districts with the results at www.boston.com

Paul comes in fourth in hand-counted districts, with 9.2% (see below).
Romney's difference is the most significant, which might be explained by the fact that machines are mainly used in larger districts (where he enjoys stronger support!?).
Due to the number of districts, on the other hand, it is very improbable that the difference is due to statistics alone.

Marc-Felix Otto
Zurich, Switzerland

The results:

Total Hand-counted

McCain 37.0% 39.3%
Romney 31.5% 25.6%
Huckabee 11.2% 13.3%
Giuliani 8.5% 8.1%
Paul 7.6% 9.2%
Write-ins 2.0% 2.0%
Thompson 1.2% 1.3%
Hunter 0.5% 0.6%
Other 0.3% 0.6%
Tancredo 0.0% 0.0%

wouldn't Paul do better in larger towns? I would think the internet crowd would have more impact on larger cities.

So why is that not the case? scroll down abit.

http://ronrox.com/paulstats.php

I believe that it is important for the actual vote-casting mechanism to be secure, honest, and verifiable, but I don't think that is the whole story. Statistical analyses such as the ones at ronrox may be useful, but perhaps also inconsequential.

Of equal, if not greater, concern is the chain of custody of the vote tallies. If a precinct calls in to some central headquarters, reports their vote counts, and then just assumes they're job is done, then we have problems. We need complete verification, transparency, and cross-checking from beginning to end. Regardless of whether it's proprietary electronic, open source electronic, or paper ballots, once a precinct has accurately-counted totals, there are still many potential points of failure. First, the person at the precinct could report the wrong numbers to the central headquarters. The person at the central headquarters could record the wrong numbers. There needs to be an open, transparent system whereby the totals are openly scrutinized and cross-checked publicly the entire time. There should be no time at which any one person or small group has private access to the data at any time along the chain of custody.

What is needed is something of the following nature. The state sets up a secure website. Three or more people in each precinct get a secured username and password. Once their precinct has an accurate tally, they can each log in, verify their identity, and report their results. The results are immediately available online without ever having passed through anyone's hands. The site shows accurate, live data from all precincts to the suspicious, prying eyes of all the concerned public. Everyone can see the individual numbers and verify for themselves that the totals from each precinct are being included in the total. Also, each submission of results is time-stamped and all data submitted is available in XML as a live web service so that the general public can incorporate the live data into their own live statistical analyses.

In this day it is not a shame that we're still counting paper votes by hand. Indeed, all ballots should be paper and should be counted in public multiple times. What is a shame is that then it should be immediately, transparently published to the digital world in the language of the digital world for all to see, verify, utilize, analyze, and scrutinize.

Help me out

http://operationwakethesefuckingidiotsup.blogspot.com/

ron paul is an honorable man. we know this. if we all politely demand a recount, he will be honor bound to spend some of OUR money to do so.

i truly feel that if enough of us write and call, he will do this. i even suggested he team up with the obama campaign if they are open to it. obama has to know the fix is in as well.

peace