BBV: EAC head does not want election monitoring

[Andy_Stephenson]

Thirteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked the United Nations on Thursday to do something in the United States that the international body usually does only in fledgling or war-ravaged countries: monitor its presidential elections.

The House members, who included Oakland Democrat Barbara Lee, are the latest to jump on an onrushing bandwagon to monitor the Nov. 2 election. Dozens of consumer, voter and human rights organizations, including some in the Bay Area, are drawing up plans to camp out at polling places, bird-dog new voting technology, have lawyers on-call for election day questions and scan registration lists to avoid "another Florida 2000," as their collective mantra goes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/09/BAGBC7I14712.DTL



IMHO Deforest Soaries has to go here is his statement in the article....

"While he supports concerns about how smoothly the voting process will work, Soaries is uneasy about the prospect of a lot of monitors showing up at polls on election day.

"Between the exit pollsters, the advocates and now, the monitors, you could have to wade through 50 people to get to the polls," Soaries said. "I just hope that some people don't find that too intimidating."

DeForest...it is our vote...we will monitor it if we want to!

[BevHarris]

1. I have the following concerns about Soaries:

1) His group, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), set up under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to set guidelines for elections, has brought in the very people who have caused a meltdown in confidence in the system.

We have a small group of officials -- who, Andy and I are finding, as we take the pulse of America -- do NOT represent all election officials. This small group caused the U.S. to make a mad rush towards unrecountable, unauditable touch screen voting. They include a handful of state election directors, vendor-friendly state examiners, and a few secretaries of state. After making a total fiasco of procurement of new voting machines without having either the standards or the checks and balances in place, costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, these same officials have now been placed on the EAC boards.

Ireland had it right. They dumped their touch screens and fired the minister who purchased them, saying they could have spent that 40 million euros on a badly needed social program.

Here in the U.S., we rewarded these officials for their flawed judgement by giving them positions with the newly formed EAC. There are other officials we could have chosen. Responsible ones. We didn't. Where is Soaries' voice on this?

2. Soaries then launched the rather horrifying trial balloon suggesting we get guidelines for postponing or CANCELLING elections due to terrorism, a theme now repeated by Tom Ridge and George W. Bush.

3. Now Soaries is saying he's uncomfortable with having election monitors.

RULE OF THUMB FOR INVESTIGATIVE WORK: When someone doesn't want you to look at something, look at that thing especially carefully.

I think this applies to the whole country this year. I've been called a "terrorist" by San Bernardino County (CA) county registrar Scott Konopasek, for our plans to install election watchers. He said he'd "throw 'em out" if he found them. Now we've got the head of the EAC saying he doesn't like the idea of monitors.

Therefore, we should get even more monitors.

Black Box Voting monitors will be doing a variety of things -- from volunteering as poll workers and election judges to watching the numbers roll in and comparing them with audit data to observing the central count. To volunteer, email [e-mail] -- it may be a couple weeks before you are contacted, as we start kicking this program into high gear late this month.

Bev Harris
Executive Director
Black Box Voting

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. You're hitting it right on the head, Bev. Keep up the good work!

[Hubert Flottz]

2. RE: "I just hope that some people don't find that too intimidating."

I'd think no more intimidating than the police road blocks and police intimidating people at the polling sites in Florida last time!

[Andy_Stephenson]

6. Yes

and we will not be wearing SWAT gear.

[greatauntoftriplets]

4. Figures....

Monitoring the election will make it hard for the regime to steal four more years.

[BevHarris]

5. Soaries is also trying to portray election monitoring as "partisan"

in response to statements from organizations that the election monitoring will be scrupulously nonpartisan, he "disagreed," saying that political reform happens when people want a particular candidate to win.

No way. This is a nonpartisan issue. And this guy is showing his true colors.

Bev

[Andy_Stephenson]

7. Yes...notice the yellow stripe

down his back.