Watchdog Group Challenges Election Results (San Diego)

[Liberty Belle]

WATCHDOG GROUP CHALLENGES ELECTION RESULTS:
CITIZENS QUESTION RELIABILITY OF MACHINES

10 News (8/2/05) SAN DIEGO -- An election watchdog group is asking for a recount of last week's mayoral vote, saying there are serious questions about the reliability of the computer system used to count ballots.

Major concerns are coming from Brina-Rae Schuchman and the Citizens Audit Parallel Election project. Last Tuesday, the non-partisan group camped outside polling booths. After voters cast a vote inside, they were asked to vote a second time outside, swearing the votes they cast were the same.

…According to the group's analysis, their count consistently differed from the registrar's tally, between 2 and 4 percent. These are numbers they consider significant.

…The group says it plans on asking and paying for a partial recount.
"If it comes out equal, terrific, but our numbers indicate that's not a high probability," Schuchman said…The group says if the discrepancy is big enough, it may ask to invalidate the election.

http://www.10news.com/politics/4798740/detail.html

[meganmonkey]

1. Nice!

Good for them - I hope all turns out well. Diebold needs to be exposed for their shitty manipulatable machines.

:thumbsup:

[woldnewton]

2. GOOD!!!!!!

FINALLY. We need these kinds of challenges to pave the groundwork for 2006 & 2008, when the re-THUGs WILL rig again, until we no longer let them get away with it.


It's good to test out these challenges in smaller races that won't impact everyone, so that we can work out the kinks and keep gathering better and better evidence and make more and more compelling cases for full investigations by independent, blue ribbon panels every time!!

[Massacure]

3. Didn't a very progressive candidate win that election though?

Or am I thinking of something else?

[woldnewton]

4. No, because there was a run-off

She (Donna Frye) got 43% of the vote, but she needn't 50 to win outright. There were two Re-PUKES in the three way race and if the combined vote between the two goes to her sole opponent in the run-off and her number stays the same, she won't win it.
:(


Thus, we can't afford any fraud in this race. That's why I'm proud of these people staying on top of that possibility as best they can.

[Seabiscuit]

9. The Repubs are divided here in San Diego.

The Republican who will be in the runoff with Donna Frye is San Diego's former police chief, whose positions are virtually identicaly to Donna Frye's. He's a moderate Republican (yes, in San Diego there still are quite a few of them, although they seem to be nonexistent inside the D.C. Beltway).

The number 3 man was a rich right-wing neocon nutcase who attacked the former police chief viciously during the campaign and the police chief taunted him about it during a televised debate before the election. The neocon's supporters are highly unlikely to vote for the police chief, as their positions on the issues couldn't be more different. They'll probably just sit it out.

Frye will win. If she doesn't, the former police chief is a moderate who is basically copying Frye's platform, so he's not likely to do much damage.

[ShockediSay]

5. Diebold again -

wouldn't ya' know it?

[Liberty Belle]

6. & the Diebold central tabulator was hooked to the Internet, illegally.

After being alerted to this by election observers, I asked the Registrar point blank in an interview. He confirmed that the GEMS central tabulator was hooked up to the Internet -- until I pointed out that that would violate CA election law by going against the procedures recommended in Diebold's own manual, therefore effectively decertifying the machines. Then he stammered around and tried to backpedal, saying maybe he was wrong and it wasn't REALLY the Internet that it was hooked up to, but some other intermediary.

Jim March at BBV calls this as illegal as selling crack cocaine at the polls. Several other voting reform activists from other groups have confirmed that if true, an Internet hookup would be illegal here.

Stay tuned...the fun has just begun, folks. We San Diegans don't take our election theft lightly!

[Hekate]

7. Got my fingers crossed for you

Good luck -- and frankly, I think the Surfer should have won the FIRST time on the write-in ballots! How bogus was it that she didn't, on a technicality?

Hekate

[Liberty Belle]

8. Yes, she got over 3,000 more votes than Murphy the first time,

but the Registrar refused to count those write in votes with bubbles not filled in.

I still wish she'd fought on in court instead of dropping the appeal when a new election was announced. But Donna feels strongly about winning with a clear mandate from the people, not being installed by a judge (even though she won).