If HR811 were passed, there could have been a mandatory audit in NH.

[garybeck]

Note to HR 811 opponents.

If HR811 were passed into law, states like New Hampshire which have no audits on their Diebold scanners would be forced to conduct audits.

It is my understanding that this would apply to primary elections. There is no specific wording in HR811 about primaries, but it says it applies "all federal elections." I believe that primary elections would be considered federal, and thus the mandatory audit would apply. The current version of the legislation would not have kicked in until this November, but would apply to all elections from then on. Some states may have implemented the procedures for the primary elections as well.

In other words, if HR811 were passed, they could be randomly sampling the election results and hand counting some of the ballots right now; in fact it might already be done by now. Dennis Kucinich would not have to ask for a recount, or come up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for a recount. The audit would be automatic on every single federal election that takes place in NH. And the same would apply to every federal election in every state (lilke NH, many other states do not have audits).

Much has been said about the problems and virtues of HR811. One thing we can't deny - without HR811, many of the elections will go on without a single ballot being actually counted and checked against the machine count. If HR811 were passed into law, there would at least be an audit on every federal election. Which is why, even with all the concerns raised about the bill, some of which I agree are valid, I am still in favor of HR811 or any bill that forces every state to conduct mandatory audits.

I believe the election activists who have thwarted and stalled HR811 - most have good intentions. Some, I'm not so sure. But we have shot ourselves in the foot, and by derailing the legislation we're left with nothing once again. We have no audits, unverified election results, and questionable results in almost every state.

-gb