BBV: Democrats Aim to Prevent 2000 Repeat (FL)

[Bushfire]

"Any way we cut it, these people are going to try to steal this election," said U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar. "The only thing we can overpower them with is accuracy and numbers."

Party officials suggested voting absentee as one way to avoid relying upon touchscreen voting machines in certain counties. The machines have been criticized by some Democrats for failing to have paper printouts of individual votes.

Hastings said local activists should try to find lawyers or law students willing to work on the issue for free and not rely on John Kerry's presidential campaign or the eventual Senate nominee "to do what we can do for ourselves."

But Kerry's campaign said it was actively engaged in voter protection. Steve Zack, Kerry's campaign general counsel in Florida, said the campaign had "the best lawyers in America" working to stop more polling place problems.

more...

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040614/NEWS/406140353/1004

Looks like Hastings and Wexler are the only two Dems to get it regarding the BBV issue down in FL. Someone reassure me the Zack is the person we want in FL for Kerry's team. Does he get it?

[BevHarris]

1. Yes -- look at the terminology used by Kerry's people

they are focusing on stopping "the polling place problems" -- extremely important, and this will be assisted by the monitoring being put in place by People for the American Way's "Election Protection" program.

But lawyers focusing on problems at the polling place is not the same thing as AUDITING to make sure machines are counting votes accurately.

We need both.

So here comes the plug again: You can help. Volunteer (email [e-mail] with "volunteer" in subject) for the Black Box Voting citizen auditing. Starting with August primaries, we'll be doing specific comparisons using key numbers to catch machines in the act of miscounting, then feeding that info to the press and litigators. You don't even need to live in the area you audit (though it helps) -- people outside Florida can help audit Florida.

Bev Harris

[Racenut20]

2. absentee ballots were one of the GOP hits in 2000

One of them said prior to the election when ask about the military overseas vote, "we know how to manage absentee ballots".

The printed ballot had a computer generated number, with spaces where the voter had to fill that number in again. In three counties along the I-4 corridor, cadres of little grey haired ladies processed the ballots. They threw out all the democratic ballots without the number filled in, and in violation of election laws, filled in the number of all the republican ballots that were missing the number.

When the Gore campaign attempted to sue in November, the evidence was already trashed, thus the Courts had to dismiss it. I would bet at least 537 went by the wayside, wouldn't you?

[peacetalksforall]

3. One state did away with a witness requirement for absentee?

What's the story in FL? It the witness requirement solid?

[Racenut20]

4. I believe buried somewhere in our mystical budget

There is a provision to no longer require the witness. Vote early and vote often. Should be a large turnout from the tombstone section.

[BevHarris]

5. The witness requirement was just discarded in Florida

And see my post on absentee ballot tampering --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1786690

my attorney proved that absentee ballots were tampered on March 2 in Napa County California.

Other evidence indicates they were tampered with in the monorail vs light rail vote in King County.

Bev

[PATRICK]

6. On the phone,

when asked about these issues, Kerry and Edwards operatives said they were prepared and watchful. However right after that they got snookered again with some glitchy primary results. The most that came from that seemed to come from investigations by BBV activists and others.

It's nice they are professionals who can say, trust us, we know and are ready. However this seems a black box trust all on its own. We need more leadership and open discussion of this from on top when already a sizable(and discouraged) chunk of the electorate believes the votes will be stolen again. Stolen- not the meek misnomers of "votes not counted" "confusion" etc. which still leads the media forum s bylines.

Sometime soon the various committees and Party people working on vote protection issues have to emerge from this twilight murk and take a vocal stand. No one seems in charge or able to fight this coherently.
Diebold still can stubbornly appear in trade journals as if these were minor PR glitches.

As of now whole states are under the unverifiable cloud of a proven faulty and partisan touchscreen system. Money has been tied up, ruinously emptying the budgets of funds needed for a any substitute. Florida still has several obliquely challenged vote fraud mechanism still in place with a proven shoddy new system. The HAVA and Congressional people, the elections Commission are bobbling the ball.

In New York where incumbent paradise has created a gridlock designed for rich lobbyists, Diebold will descend with little fear that truth will take the shine off their gold.

It looks like a mess with much happening that is aggressive and much that seems unable to pierce the stonewalls and neither approach promising anything but a mess that itself might serve the same purpose of giving cover to vote fraud while discouraging the populace(which also achieves the same end). Choosing paper ballots which are sometimes never counted or looking to exit polls which have been removed or "adjusted" seem at this stage inadequate to a daunting task.

That puts the onus on the Dem campaigns to accomplish an obvious landslide, which in smaller races might not stop some odd "upsets" such as we saw in Georgia against Max Cleland.

On another thread Bev asked about statistical analysis. I saw that done and posted here both for 2000 and 2002, with some very fishy results and patterns suggesting "Florida" style problems(a.k.a. fraud)
occurred in several states, especially where touchscreens were used.
What to do? Nothing happened even in large disparities and with no recount mechanism or in some cases no state law guaranteeing recounts at all, you might as well have been arguing that cigarettes may cause cancer and litigate for twenty years or so. Basically the Dems, the holders of this info and the legislators crafting HAVA were continually being forcibly played like in a con game. Each discovery or objection was brushed off, or redirected toward a non-solution which in fact barely concealed a deeper potential fraud. All the way to INTERNET voting if they can.

I remember when they deserted Alcee and the others over the fraudulent installation of Bush and don't take assurances from the bi-partisan suckers with much confidence. If they plan that Florida style thousand lawyer legion- again- how do they litigate invisible or even totally vanished records? The time is now on the beachhead, not bleeding votes and House seats as we try to regain democracy.