Lots of problems with mail-in ballots and absentees in 04; take steps in 06 to protect your vote

[philb]

Mail In ballots

*Ballots Disappear / Rejected Across the U.S.*
Florida www.flcv.com.EIRSFla.html
other states www.flcv.com/summary.html
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According to investigative reporter Greg Palast, "those who mail in
ballots are very trusting souls." How do you know if your ballot was
received? Was it tossed behind a file cabinet or tossed out because you
did not include your middle initial? In many counties, you simply won't
know. According to Palast, the number of people voting by absentee
ballots has quintupled in many states. In 2004, over a half a million
(526,420) absentee ballots were rejected nationwide on technical grounds
and, in swing states; the shredding of absentee ballots was pandemic.

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/Additional background is found in these excellent materials:/

Absentee Votes Worry Officials as Nov. 2nd Nears
<http://tinyurl.com/y4y5nu> (New York Times)

An Election Spoiled Rotten
<http://www.tompaine.com/print/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php> (Greg
Palast)


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/Action & Prevention//:/ *Take Steps to Minimize Absentee Ballot Fraud*
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1. Vote by absentee ballot ONLY if there is not a paper ballot option
at the polling place.

2. If the only choice is to vote by touch-screen machines, then
absentee is certainly preferred, but voters should *hand-deliver
their absentee ballot to the polling place or to the Board of
Elections on Election Day* (check local rules).

3. If a voter MUST vote absentee and MUST send it by mail, it is
critical to first photocopy the completed ballot and then send it
via certified mail with a return-receipt requested.

4. Voters should _*NEVER*_ give their absentee ballot application or
ballot to a stranger who comes to their door offering to deliver
their application or ballot to the elections office.

5. Voters should know the specific requirements in THEIR state for
completing and returning an absentee ballot.


*/Nationwide Election Protection Hotline:/*
*1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683) *

*/Voting Rights Institute Hotline:/*
*1-888-DEMVOTE (1-888-336-8683)

*Also, please report your findings and actions to *Network of Citizens*
by sending an email to *info networkofcitizens org* so we can
monitor whether steps are being taken to ensure your community will be
voting on uncompromised election equipment.

[philb]

1. Be very careful with your signature on mail in ballots & absentees

Next problem: WAS YOUR SIGNATURE ACCEPTED?

When voting by mail, the signature on your voter registration card is compared with the signature on your mail-in envelope. This is often done with software like VoteRemote, which pulls the signature from your voter registration up on a computer screen and pulls the signature on your mail-in envelope onto the same screen, showing them side by side.

The jurisdiction has the option of having human eyes compare the signature or having the software do the comparison. If the software compares, it can be set strategically to various tolerances of acceptance. Whether humans or machines compare the signature, how do you know whether YOUR signature was accepted?

This is a question we haven't gotten satisfactory answers to. We've been
told that every rejected signature goes through a panel before ultimately deciding whether it will count or not, and one jurisdiction (Whatcom County Washington) told me they notify the voter if the signature isn't accepted, but I don't believe most jurisdictions ever tell the voter if the signature was rejected.

I think of my mother, who loves to vote absentee. She signed her voter registration card many years ago. Is it possible that every one of her votes in recent years has been discarded? If so, how will she know?

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT: You should contact your local jurisdiction and ask this question.
E-mail the answer to Black Box Voting, and tell us what county or township you are in.

By the way, there is an interesting notation in some of the literature for VoteRemote signature comparison software, and there is also an interesting question arising in state database procedures. VoteRemote advertises that it can write data INTO the voter registration database, but doesn't specify what data is being written in. One notation I have seen indicates that a signature can be "updated" in the voter registration database with software for electronic signature checking, and/or software for electronic pollbooks.

Because the software is secret, written by private companies, we don't know
the answer to this. If your signature can be "updated" or overwritten
by software, that is a security problem. There should never be an instance of "updating" your signature without your express permission.

Next problem: DID YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT ARRIVE AT THE ELECTIONS DIVISION?

Some jurisdictions allow voters to confirm whether or not their ballot arrived (but this doesn't confirm whether their signature was accepted). In other jurisdictions, there is no easy way to find out whether the ballot you mailed in ever got to the elections division.

In Broward County, Florida, an extraordinary citizen named Ellen Brodsky spent months trying to track down over 50,000 missing mail-in ballots. In King County, Washington, bags of ballots were once found years after they were supposed to be delivered.
Also in King County, incoming ballots were being taken from the U.S. Post Office to a private company called PSI Group, without an accounting of how many arrived at the Post Office, how many arrived at PSI Group, vs. how many arrived at the Los Angeles County Elections division.

WHAT TO DO: Call your local jurisdiction to find out the procedures for you to verify that your ballot was received. If your county cannot provide you with this information, contact Black Box Voting and also take action to change this policy (but that won't help you in the Nov. 2006 election).

Next problem: CHAIN OF CUSTODY OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS

Election officials have told us that this is one of their primary concerns. For
example, after the ballots are separated from the envelopes that identify the voter, can new ballots be added or substituted? And what about the storage of absentee ballots as they are coming in, before they are counted? And transportation: In King County, Washington, as many as 60,000 ballots per day are received -- perhaps even more. Who's driving the truck, and what is protecting these ballots enroute?

WHAT TO DO: This is where extraordinary acts of citizenship are in order. We often find that what election officials TELL us is happening to protect the ballots is not the whole truth -- and sometimes it's not the truth at all. One valuable contribution you can make to election integrity in your jurisdiction is to organize a small posse to try and actually observe each step in the chain of custody. Here is a Citizens Tool Kit module with ideas for you:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit-chain-of-custody.pdf

Report back on any problems you identify in the "Reports from the Front Lines"
section of these forums, and/or propagate the information to at least five communications targets: A blog, a listserve, the media, some candidates, your local election reform group, a national elections watchdog group, and one of the incident reporting telephone lines.

[philb]

2. Another Big problem to watch for: BALLOT PRINTER ACCOUNTABILITY

Another Big problem to watch for: BALLOT PRINTER ACCOUNTABILITY

It used to be that all ballots were serial numbered. There was a careful accounting of how many ballots were printed, in serial-numbered order, and what happened to each ballot. The serial number could, of course, be used to tie a voter to a ballot, so it was affixed to the ballot with a perforation. The serial number was accounted for, then removed and saved in a separate secure ballot box. Not so any more!

Records obtained by Black Box Voting indicate that the Diebold ballot printing company located in Everett, Washington was budgeting to overprint by as many as 25 percent of what they delivered to the county. Employees of the ballot printing company asked US -- what happens to these extra ballots that are being printed up?

Well that's a good question. While counties and townships are expected to account for their ballots (though the accounting may or may not match -- that's another issue!) -- the ballot printer is usually under no obligation to account for what they do with extra ballots.

Having extra ballots floating around anywhere significantly jeopardizes the security of the election. It allows for back-room deals with insiders to replace ballots if a recount occurs, to make sure they "match" the results that were given out.

WHAT TO DO: Insist on a return to serial-numbered ballot printing with accurate, careful accounting by all parties.

Next problem: VOTING MACHINE ISSUES

Absentee ballots are usually run through an optical scan voting machine. These machines have, in the past, produced tapes that give the results. These voting machine results tapes can then be compared with the central tabulator.

Diebold, at least, has disabled this results tape in its absentee counting machines, so that the ONLY results are the data held in the GEMS central tabulator machine -- a system so hackable that we once taught a chimpanzee to alter its audit log;
this is the system I taught presidential candidate Howard Dean to manipulate.

The absentee votes are at particular risk in the GEMS central tabulator, for the following reason: Many absentee votes are counted after Election Day. By this time, you know exactly how many votes are needed to win. The simplest way to manipulate the tabulator to tweak absentee votes for a particular candidate is this:

- Each candidate is assigned a number in the GEMS system

- By flipping the number, you effectively flip the vote.

- You can flip votes back and forth as often as needed simply by reversing the candidate numbers in the GEMS database.

Yes, that requires inside access. But we should NOT be required to "trust"
our government. Instead, we need to trust but verify, and the only way we can begin to verify the absentee central tabulator is to get the actual computer data files for each time the results were run.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Request the GEMS computer files for each time a report was run. You can find out when reports were run by getting the reports themselves, and also by looking at the GEMS audit log -- that that can be easily edited. The computer file should be saved as a backup file each time a report is run. You should get a copy of each of these iterations of the backup files. It's circumstantial evidence, it's tamperable, but it's probably the best you're going to get.

And then, isn't it time to vote Diebold off the island?

[philb]

3. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAIL-IN VOTING:

1. If you have any kind of a paper trail available in your location, vote at the polling place.

2. If you're going to do mail-in voting, treat democracy as a contact sport.
Get in there and watch what's going on. Don't take anyone's word for
what they say they are doing -- watch it yourself. Don't cede the right to oversee
over to an assigned monitor or political party observer -- insist on the right to oversee it yourself, as a citizen, as the owner of your government.

VOTE:

If you are disenchanted with the current election system, go on the offense, don't retreat -- and that means, VOTE!

Put your vote into the record and then hunt down evidence that ALL votes were received and counted accurately.

[sam sarrha]

4. your absentee ballot is "entered" into the Dibold machine by a poll worker, is there anybody

required to observe that activity to ensure the vote is entered as voted?

[Peace Patriot]

5. An Absentee Ballot is your ONLY guarantee of voting in this election.

Yes, there are problems with how Absentee Ballots are handled and counted, but machine "breakdowns"--by accident or design--have become a pandemic. And when the machines "break down," your polling place may or may not have ANY paper ballots available, and even if they do have ballots, they may only be "Provisional" ballots--very easily tossable ballots, not the same as real paper ballots.

DO NOT vote on a "Provisional" ballot if you can help it. These were the controversial ballots of which tens of thousands were tossed in Ohio, changing the outcome. They can be tossed far more easily than Absentee or other paper ballots.

Beware! The corporate news monopolies have had several articles warning of chaos on election day caused by "machine breakdown"--long lines, people turned away, and disenfranchised, not enough ballots, panic, etc. This may even be the latest Bushite plan for stealing elections--"machine breakdowns" in Dem strongholds or other strategic locations. And this WON'T AFFECT YOU if you have already voted by Absentee Ballot, or deliver your Absentee Ballot to the polling place on election day. You will have your own ballot in hand!

I completely oppose voting on these extremely insecure and insider hackable voting machines, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations. How stupid can we get? Every time we vote on these machines--whether they have paper trails or not--we giving our consumer endorsement to the killers of our democracy who are; a) major Bush/Cheney donors (Diebold); b) initially funded by a major donor to extremist rightwing' christian' causes (ES&S); and c) employ former Republican CA state election officials to peddle their machines (Sequoia). These corporations are rotten to the core. And they are "counting" all of our votes under a veil of corporate secrecy.

WE. MUST. NOT. ENDORSE. THESE. S.O.B.'S. BY. VOTING. ON. THEIR. GODDAMNED. MACHINES. LIKE. SHEEP. TO. THE. SLAUGHTER!!!!!

BOYCOTT the machines! DON'T VOTE ON them! Think of them as racially segregated buses. DON'T use them! DON'T pay money to them! DON'T endorse BILLIONS of taxpayers' dollars being poured into the pockets of these Bushite corporations. DON'T COOPERATE with your own oppression.

I am very grateful for this thread of warning on Absentee Ballots. We need to know the dangers, and to become INTRUSIVELY VIGILANT about how they're handled by election officials. The voters are REBELLING against the rigged machines, by Absentee Ballot voting. They are REFUSING to vote on these machines. Absent Ballot voting this election is going to be huge--it's up to 50% and 60% in some places. So we MUST act to safeguard these votes NOW. This is the way to handle the situation--not let ourselves be FORCED to vote on their election theft machines because they're not handling AB votes properly.

This should be our demand of election officials: Absentee Ballots should be hand-counted, and the results posted, before any electronics are involved, and before the announcement of any results. Secondly: optiscan votes should be handled the same way--hand-counted, and results posted, BEFORE any totals are "sent" to the central tabulators. If these two things were done, many elections in the country would become instantly VERIFIABLE, and transparent. Canada handcounts their elections in one day. But speed should not even be a consideration--only accuracy and verifiability.

This practice doesn't help with paperless touchscreens--but nothing can. Those votes are are crapshoot.

The alternative to Absentee Ballot voting is to ENDORSE the electronic machines with every vote you place on them--whether touchscreen or optiscan. You endorse Diebold, ES&s and Sequoia. You endorse the corrupt election officials who bought their crapass, insecure, insider hackable machines with YOUR money. With every vote on electronic machines, you are ALSO voting for the system that kept Bush in power, and, in effect, for the end of the democracy: NON-TRANSPARENT, UNVERIFIABLE elections, run on secret code, by private, partisan corporations! You are endorsing their crapass "product" and its crapass result: fascist government.

We MUST get rid of these machines. We MUST--or our democracy is over! And where we need to start--and where ordinary voters have already started; it's an in-progress protest, nationwide--is by NOT VOTING ON THE MACHINES!

We can't currently stop them from using trade secret code for scanning signatures or for scanning Absentee Ballots right into the rigged electronics, in some cases. But we CAN make this protest--this refusal to vote on the machines--so big that it CANNOT be ignored, and thus give election reformers the clout they need to demand transparent vote counting, and the end of these riggable machines.

NO vote is safe in this highly corrupt environment. An Absentee Ballot is the only safeguard against machine failure, and it is furthermore part of a big protest.

The key to how big this protest is--besides the big numbers--is that the corporate news monopolies are ALREADY spinning it as voter choice of "convenience." I've read three corporate news monopoly articles to this effect in the last week, all worded the same (--straight from Corporate Ruler headquarters, I presume). DON'T BELIEVE IT! This is a PROTEST, an UPRISING, a REVOLT of the voters. It means that many, many voters are now onto them. They may not realize that AB votes are not really "safer" than e-votes--but they know what they want--PAPER BALLOTS, HAND-COUNTED, and they know what they DON'T WANT--secret, unseeable, unverifiable vote counting.

The AB voting protest is biggest in California--and, in California, it has ALWAYS been "convenient" with easy rules for AB voting. Why the huge increase NOW? It's very simple: people DON'T TRUST THE MACHINES. And we have special problems here as well--with a Diebold shill as Secretary of State, appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also a Diebold shill as head of elections in Los Angeles. These jerks are determined to turn California into a "red" Bushite state, against the will of the people. They now have a stranglehold on our election system. And word is getting around!

Furthermore, the huge increase in AB voting has closely paralleled the cancerous spread of electronic voting machines all over the country. AB voters are trying to get around this rigged system, and are boycotting it as well as they can, by voting with the best alternative they can think of: An Absentee Ballot.

The NYT, AP and the local Calif corporate rag, the Sacto Bee, are LYING that this huge AB voting increase is voter "convenience." It used to be--before these rigged electronic machines. It ain't any more. It's now Democrats and progressives who are voting AB. And we know why.

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THERE IS STILL TIME TO GET AN ABSENTEE BALLOT IN CALIFORNIA

***The Calif deadline for requesting an Absentee Ballot is this Tuesday, OCTOBER 31. Still plenty of time. (The CA deadline for voter registration is past, but if you're registered, you can still get an Absentee Ballot.) Best to go pick it up at the Registrar's office at this point, for fast turnaround, and vote on the spot. The earlier you turn it in the better, to get it into the early count.***

For other states, check local rules.

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Vote for DEBRA BOWEN for CA Secretary of State! Bruce McDiebold must go! He's bought and paid for. She's a lifelong advocate of open government and transparent elections.

This may be the most important race in the country.

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Boycott the Machines--Vote by Absentee Ballot, if you are still able to! Demand transparent vote counting!