Richard Hayes Phillips: First the Impossible, Now the Improbable, in NY-23

[Wilms]

First the Impossible, Now the Improbable, in NY-23

November 28, 2009

Written by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.

CANTON, NY – As reported earlier this week, the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections has certified impossible numbers in the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District. 93 “phantom votes,” more votes counted than the number of ballots cast, were reported in six election districts, and negative numbers reported for the “blank ballots,” or “undervotes.”

Such numbers are a red flag, indicating that something is terribly wrong with the electronic vote tabulation system countywide. Further scrutiny of the election results reveals numerous precincts where the results, although not always mathematically impossible, are not credible.

snip

As previously reported, voting machine failures at eight polling places in St. Lawrence County caused the Board of Elections to hand count those ballots. Realistically, there was no other choice but to do so. According to the Board, the locked voting machines were transported to a warehouse in Canton where the ballots were counted by hand. The problem with this procedure is that it is illegal under § 9-100 of New York State Election Law, which requires that the votes be counted at the polling place:

snip

One possible reason for the short counts on Election Night is that the Sequoia/Dominion ImageCast machines have two slots and two bins for ballots. There is a slot which sucks a ballot into the optical scanner, much like a dollar bill is sucked into a vending machine, and after the ballot is scanned it drops into a locked box. There is another slot in the front of the machine which can be opened when the scanner breaks down and emergency paper ballots need to be segregated and counted by hand; these ballots drop into a separate locked box. It is possible that the Board of Elections initially counted the ballots from one box but not the other. But this is precisely why § 9-102.3(b) of New York State Election Law requires that the ballots be counted in public at the polling place, and why § 9-108.1 requires that the number of ballots be cross-checked with the poll books to be sure that all the ballots have been counted.

snip

Each of these fourteen corruptions of the vote count can be attributed to false electronic vote tabulation. Together with the breakdown or freezing of the Sequoia/Dominion ImageCast voting machines at eight polling places, there is more than enough evidence in St. Lawrence County alone to show that the court-ordered “pilot” election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District was an utter failure, and that the time-tested lever machines were much more reliable.

http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8461:first-the-impossible-now-the-improbable-in-ny-23&catid=60:st-lawrence-news&Itemid=175

[aquart]

1. If we used those machines as landfill, would they poison the water table?

LOVE MY LEVERS!!!

[Dogmudgeon]

2. "I jes' KNOWED it!!! Them DimmycRATS done up an' STOLED the 'Lection"

Let the Talking Points Begin!

--d!
Just in time for the Sunday after a hard spell of shopping!

[Better Today]

4. And here I was thinking it accounted for the astounding high count for that nutjob conservative.

[Bill Bored]

6. Conservatives don't run elections in NY. D's and R's do.

In this case the 2 major parties had motivation to stop the nut-job. The Repub endorsed the Dem, who eventually won.

But it was close enough to steal and there have been no reports about the results of the audit (which was probably not large enough to detect fraud anyway), or whether the new UNCERTIFIED, BUGGY machines met any accuracy standards, or whether the chain of custody of the paper ballots was shown to be intact, etc.

The optical scanners had to be reprogrammed BY THE VENDOR shortly before election day too, and some of them still crashed during the election despite this.

On Dec. 15th, the State Board of Elections is scheduled to certify these crappy machines. The board consists of D's and R's who don't have the balls to stand up for the best solution -- keeping the lever voting machines.

[Stevepol]

3. Any time the machines are challenged and audited, recounted, it's a great day for democracy.

It doesn't matter who wins in the recount. I wd suspect that if the votes are recounted in NY, Hoffman will still not win, tho it might end up closer, but even if Hoffman wins, it will be far better for NY and the US in the long run.

I say recount the votes, BY HAND IN THE PRESENCE OF WITNESSES.

[glitch]

5. Always. nt

[Wilms]

7. That would have been the thing to do at the poll sites on election night.

NY State law allows it there and then. But, without a court proceeding, it doesn't allow it after the ballots are moved.

[emlev]

8. kick!