Was California’s Anti Gay Proposition Fixed by Religious Zealots?

Mark Crispin Miller

Early evening, Nov. 4, exit poll showing Prop 8 going down to defeat.

Later in that evening, after adding 72 respondents the exit poll figures switched to show a preference for “Yes.” (Screen shot)

Well, well, well. First we find out, happily, that We the People may not be so fiercely racist after all, as Election ’08 has debunked the (feeble) theory of “the Bradley effect.”

And now it turns out that Americans–at least those in gay-friendly California — may not really been as hostile to gay marriage as the outcome of that state’s election has apparently suggested.

As we think about the possibility that Prop 8 was not really passed by California’s voters, let’s note something that the press, and others, won’t discuss: i.e., that the entire apparatus of computerized voting in this country–the e-voting machines and op-scans and central tabulators, etc.–is largely owned by members of the Christianist far right.

Diebold and ES&S were both begun by Bob and Todd Urosevich, two ardent Oklahoma theocrats, while Triad, which makes the central vote tabulators used in Ohio in 2004, is owned by the Rapp family. SmartTech, the company that helped Bush/Cheney steal that state, is owned by evangelical Jeff Averbeck; and his associate Mike Connell, owner of GovTech Solutions, which also helped to steal Ohio, among other races, was motivated to such work by his desire “to save the babies,” according to Stephen Spoonamore.

Why are there so many Christianists among the owners of those companies?

Because the rigging of elections is the only way that that fringe movement ever could impose its theocratic program on the rest of us. As Paul Weyrich used to say out loud, the Christianists despise democracy. After all, that system, if allowed to stand, would put the sinful secular majority in charge–and that can’t be allowed.

And so, whether or not it turns out that Prop 8 was rigged to pass, we need to take a good hard look at those machines, and at the companies that own them–and keep them out of our elections.

Meanwhile, let’s all stop assuming that last week’s outcome was legitimate, and look closely at the evidence around Prop 8.

Mark Crispin Miller

Reports of Vote-Flipping Widespread

Despite an Obama victory, there are numerous reports of vote-flipping.

From John Gideon:

Today we have reports that ES&S software actually flipped votes in three races at one polling place in Crawford Co Kansas. We also have reports that ES&S software incorrectly reported results in one race in Polk Co North Carolina.

The long count of votes in Hillsborough Co Florida seems to be over with the blame for problems being put, where else, on “human error”. It seems that Premier/Diebold had warned Florida users of their high-speed OSX voting machines that those machines could not take a high-volume of ballots without bogging down and causing problems. Hillsborough ignored that warning. However, why would a vendor put out a system for use in elections that cannot be used in a high-volume of ballots. King Co. Washington wanted badly to use that system. If they had it would have been a disaster.

National: Push to Expand Voter Rolls and Early Balloting in U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07voting.html?hp

National: Election gives early-balloting initiatives a boost
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-11-06-voting_N.htm

National: Election-Day Problems — Part Deux
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/election-day-pr.html

CA: Election Night traffic slowed Secretary of State’s computers
http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_adctlid=v|jq2q43wvsl855o|xj9ez54zy35esf&issueId=xj4ev62g1hdw61&xid=xj91sfkny7hmq4

FL: Leon County elections officials still counting votes; Boulware needs 158 for House 9 recount
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20081107/CAPITOLNEWS/81107011

FL: Hillsborough County – Two days after polls close, Johnson concedes Hillsborough elections supervisor race to Busansky ‘ [Diebold/Premier OSX optical-scan system]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/article893690.ece

FL: Hillsborough County – Hillsborough election fixes up to Busansky
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/article893707.ece

FL: Hillsborough County – Human Error Suspected In Election Results Delay
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/07/na-human-error-suspected-in-election-results-delay/news-politics/

FL: Hillsborough County – Ousted Johnson Still Blames Voting Machine Firm
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/07/ousted-elections-supervisor-still-blames-voting-ma/news-politics/

FL: Hillsborough County – Editorial – Cleaning up after Johnson’s disaster
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article894912.ece

KS: Crawford County sees voting machine error 

[ES&S ballot programming error that flipped votes in some local races]

http://www.morningsun.net/news/x1772937985/County-sees-voting-machine-error

KS: Machine error could affect Crawford County attorney race
http://www.joplinglobe.com/Campaigns_and_Politics/local_story_311233642.html?keyword=topstory

KS: Crawford County – Error comes from voting machine programming 

Officials to test machines Saturday in Frontenac
http://www.morningsun.net/news/x635432391/Error-comes-from-voting-machine-programming

KS: Crawford County – Error in voting machine could affect four races
Officials to test machines Saturday in Frontenac
http://www.morningsun.net/kansas/x1772939006/Error-in-voting-machine-could-affect-four-races

IA: Plymouth County – Speedy ballot count? Result of paper voting machines
http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1476419.html

IN: Hamilton County – 350 Hamilton Co. ballots tossed after error
http://www.indystar.com/article/20081107/LOCAL0101/811070499

MN: Man will judge machine: scanner accuracy big in Senate race
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081107-man-will-judge-machine-scanner-accuracy-big-in-senate-race.html

MN: Coleman campaign questions big Franken gains
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/07/coleman_franken_recount/

MN: FAQ on the Senate recount
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/06/recount_faq/

NC: Polk County – Revised results give Democrats sweep in county board race
[ES&S incorrectly reported results]
http://tryondailybulletin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1370&Itemid=192

NC: CD-5 – Goode Issues Statement on 5th District Race
http://www.wset.com/news/stories/1108/567963.html

NE: Douglas County – Thousands of early ballots arrive late
http://www.ashland-gazette.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20191610&BRD=2712&PAG=461&dept_id=556239&rfi=6

NY: [Governor] Paterson Seeks Voting Assessment
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2008/11/paterson-seeks-voting-assessme.html

NY: Electronic Voting Machines Still in Limbo
http://www.longislandpress.com/articles/news/541/

SC: Charleston County – Like old times
Voting glitches bring delays of yesteryear to mind
http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/nov/07/like_old_times60766/

TN: Tenn. will pay $25M for voting machines
State spent millions on paperless version less than five years ago
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081107/NEWS0201/811070412/1009/NEWS01

TN: TN to spend $25M grant on voting machines
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/nov/07/tn-spend-25m-grant-voting-machines/

TX: Scanning paper ballots best election choice, study says
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/scanning_paper_ballots_best_election_choice__study_says_11-06-2008.html

VA: North Carolina early voting eliminated hassles
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/11/north-carolina-early-voting-eliminated-hassles

VA: Recount Fictions in Virginia’s Fifth
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/80324

VA: Goode cites ‘irregularities’ in reporting votes
http://www.thefranklinnewspost.com/article.cfm?ID=12261

WV: Release of returns delayed
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x766434407/Release-of-returns-delayed

VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!

This is your eight millionth reminder to go vote today!

Find your polling place over here.

Remind your parents, friends, and coworkers to vote today. If possible, vote on paper ballots, and if you have any problems, call 1 866 OUR VOTE and report it.

If you have a car, offer to drive friends to polling places.

Download the Voter Incident Report

From MCM

Dear Mark,

Please inform your readers around the country:

When you go to the polls, take an incident report with you.  Collecting signed, dated, paper-based evidence of voter fraud, suppression, or inefficiency is the most important action

any concerned citizen can take in this “once-in-a-century election.”

This is the simplest measure any voter can take:  Stand at their own polls, watch what happens,

report evidence on the (downloadable) Incident Report, and then fax it in to the Election Defense Alliance.

The Incident Report comes with the EDA’s fax number, legal help phone numbers and guidelines

for poll monitors.

The Indient Report will be used widely in Los Angeles–the largest voting county in the

nation–by Work the Vote LA org.

One more thing: If election results go bump late in the night, it may be less of a shock if

people are educated in advance.

Votes are being flipped in West VA, Texas and Tennessee.   Here’s a timely video.

Wake Up and Save Your Country has just released Part Two of the “Turdblossom Lecture Series” to explain HOW voting machines can be preprogrammed to crash or change vote totals using proprietary software.  

Please take a look, and share this with your audience.

Thank you for your tremendous leadership during this time.

 

Sheri Leigh Myers

Vern Tuck Taylor

& The Wake Up and Save Your Country Team

http://wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com/

 Here is a cool visual of our Voters Guide.    Here is a visual of the incident report to grab attention

The Wake Up and Save Your Country Team www.wakeupandsaveyourcountry.com

What to Do November 5th

 

MCM:

ALERT 7 – Register your Voter Assemblies now!

This may be the most important message you’ll receive today. Make plans to attend, or if need be, to organize a Voter Assembly in your community on the evening of Wednesday, November 5, the day after the election. Your participation in a Voter Assembly is very important.

A growing database of Voter Assemblies is here:
http://www.nomorestolenelections.org/va

You should register the Voter Assembly you are organizing here:
http://www.nomorestolenelections.org/addva

Here is the plan. Regardless of the declared presidential victor, this Wednesday, we will gather in Voter Assemblies, and we will act:

    A.    If there is reason to believe that the election is likely to be stolen, as was the case in Florida 2000, we will act to prevent this from happening – pressing to prevent the theft and, if that is impossible, demanding a new, honest election.

    B.    If it is unclear whether voting rights violation rise to the level of election theft, as was the case in Ohio 2004, we will mobilize everywhere to demand a full and complete count of the vote.

    C.    If it appears that the election result was defined by the rigging of the process, we will rally nationwide to press for progress in enacting democratic reforms.

By Election Day, millions of people’s right to vote will have been violated. In the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This is especially true with voting: Voting rights violations anywhere threaten voting rights everywhere. So please, don’t wait for a repeat of Florida 2000, or Ohio 2004, or worse, and don’t think that your community is too distant from the problem to be involved. Get organized, and plan to assemble on November 5. Thank you.

New Yorkers, SAVE YOUR LEVERS! (It’s NOT too late!)

From Andi Novick:

Dear friends,

 

Thanks to all of you who have followed thru with letters to the SBoE.  We must be having some success because a pat response was prepared in order to respond to all of you, in which the SBoE erroneously stated that HAVA required we get rid of our levers. That’s not true. It is deeply disturbing that those entrusted with protecting the integrity of our elections and complying with the law don’t know how to read the law.

 

Section 301of HAVA sets forth 5 requirements that each voting system has to meet. NY has met all of them now that we have ballot marking devices (BMDs) in place. Indeed our own SBoE Commissioner Kellner testified in 2004 that: “Our lever machines satisfy all but one of [HAVA’S] standards, that there be at least one machine at each poll site that is ‘accessible for individuals with disabilities.“   http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andi_nov_080315_open_letter_to_ny_ci.htm

The accessibility standard has now been complied with. You will see a ballot marking device in every poll site when you go to the polls next month.

 

Maybe the SBoE needs to hire Pat Lamana of the Dutchess Peace Coalition, who is not an attorney but is able to read and understand English. Here’s what she wrote back to the SBoE:

 

Please allow me to differ.  HAVA does “not” require us to give up our lever machines as long as we make provisions for individuals with disabilities, which we have already done.  We are free to use lever machines, or the good old-fashioned hand-written, hand-counted ballots which are surprisingly efficient and the most reliable form of voting.  And it’s worth using the simplest, cheapest form of technology, if that’s what will preserve our democracy!  

Thank you,
Pat Lamanna

 

 

In a nutshell-  HAVA DOES NOT BAN LEVERS.  NY is hiding behind their unconstitutional legislation.

Let me tell you what’s really going on.  Let’s say your child’s school tells her she needs a calculator.  There is a perfectly good calculator at home, but she goes out and spends $500 on a new one.  You object to your money being wasted. Her defense is, the school said we had to buy this one.  The school didn’t say that and the calculator you have at home works well (although old, its proven highly reliable). What would a responsible parent do? Tell her she can keep the calculator, even though it immediately showed itself to be unreliable (miscalculating arbitrarily) or do you tell her to return it and use the one at home.

 

NYS took about $221 million dollars under HAVA of which roughly $48 million was to replace the levers. The State knows the levers are secure and the computers aren’t, but either doesn’t want to give back the $48 million or can’t read. HAVA says, if you take the money and don’t replace the levers, give back the portion of the money that was to replace the levers.  Now what would a responsible State do? 

 

It’s our money (all taxpayer dollars). Tell the State to give it back before they kill our democracy and cost us far more money -see yesterday’s Times Herald reporting that Ulster residents’ taxes will rise 4-5% just for the 2009 elections- for the privilege of voting on unreliable new voting machines-
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081020/NEWS/810200315/-1/NEWS.
       

Write back to the SBoE now-  info@elections.state.ny.us  — Keep the pressure on.

Let them know you’re paying attention and you know they’re wrong. Tell them to give back the $48 million and keep our levers now while we are still fortunate to have the only secure voting system left in the United States. Don’t permit the forfeiture of your sovereignty because of your government’s incompetent or unconstitutional behavior. Public elections require public observability-essential for our democracy to survive.  How dare they impose secret vote counting on us.  This is the time to be outraged and constructive.  If you remain passive, you’ll be left with your outrage and your servitude.

 

And if our efforts fail to persuade the State- well that’s why we’re bringing the lawsuit to have the court declare NYS’s (not HAVA’s mind you) requirement that we replace the levers, unconstitutional.

 

– SIGN THIS PETITION –http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/save_ny_levers

 

Your name will be listed shortly after you sign, so we know if you didn’t care enough to take a few minutes to prevent your disenfranchisement. Just kidding, but seriously if you don’t care, who will? Pass this on widely.

 

thanks,

 

Re-Media Election Transparency Coalition

http://re-mediaetc.blogspot.com/

 

This is all of our responsibility. Please take the time to send copies of your letters to your:

—  local election commissioners – http://www.elections.state.ny.us/CountyBoards.html ,

 —  state representatives – www.congress.org for email addresses,

—  local media – www.congress.org – for media click on # 8 “media guide.” 

 

Let’s see if we can’t get them to respond to our letters too–Get the word out now while there’s time

CountTheBallots (CTB) Calls for ‘Citizen Audits’ on Election Day, Warns of Widespread Fraud

 

PHILADELPHIA, PA., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ — CountTheBallots (CTB), a Philadelphia-based voting rights group, is calling on voters nationwide to conduct ‘Citizen Audits’ at their polls on Election Day.  The purpose of a ‘citizen audit’ is to verify election results, document complaints, and demonstrate how to run a transparent election. 

The group warns that election results can be easily manipulated nationwide by the handful of corporations who control the software programs that count most votes.  Two companies, ES&S and Diebold, will count 80% of all votes.

Private companies have also been contracted by election officials in several states to maintain voter registration rolls.  The group points to the massive purging of the voters rolls in several states, as another cause for serious concern.

“Elections in America have been computerized, privatized, and outsourced to a handful of private companies,” says Lynn Landes, one of the group’s founders.  “Our voting system is virtually invisible.  It’s a behind-closed-doors affair, a breeding ground for election fraud. A citizen audit is not a substitute for a fair and transparent election.  But, right now, it’s the only game in town.”

Landes adds that the U.S. Justice Department has taken a hands-off approach to computerized election fraud.  Similarly, the news media’s exit poll, The National Election Poll (NEP), is not a reliable check against election fraud, as its management has been accused in the past of manipulating exit poll data to match official election results.

Computer fraud isn’t the group’s only concern.  In addition, 50% of voters will be voting early or by absentee ballot.  The voters in Oregon do not even go to the polls.

“Early and absentee voting gives unscrupulous election officials plenty of time to tamper with the votes, regardless of whether those votes are paper ballots or electronic tallies,” says Landes.  “We need to give poll watchers something to watch on Election Day.  Otherwise, all bets are off as to who gets to vote and whose votes get counted,” says Landes.

CountTheBallots.org supports a return to paper ballots and hand counts at the polls on Election Day.  They are opposed tovoting machines, ballot scanners, central counting facilities, early voting, and unrestricted absentee voting.

In past elections, there have been citizen groups in several states that have conducted similar audits.  CountTheBallots.org is encouraging an expansion of that movement, asking voters across the country and from all political parties to participate.
 

How do voters conduct a Citizen Audit?  It’s simple, says Landes.  All that is needed is a box with a slot on top, some pencils, information sheets, audit forms, and a report form.  A “how to” kit and all the necessary forms can be downloaded from their website. 

http://www.CountTheBallots.org

 

CONTACT: 

Lynn Landes, founder

www.CountTheBallots.org
lynnlandes@earthlink.net
215-629-3553