New Hampshire Secretary of State Contact Info...

[garybeck]

Secretary of State - William M. Gardner
State House, Room 204, Concord, N.H. 03301
Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]



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My email to Mr. Gardner:
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Dear Mr. Gardner,

I am writing to express my concern about the results of the Presidential primary election that took place on 1.8.08, and to urge you to conduct a full hand-counted recount of the state to determine if the optical scanners counted the votes properly.

Every pre-election poll, and exit polls as well, showed different results from what the Diebold scanners counted.

This highly irregular discrepancy can easily be checked by comparing a hand count to the machine count.

Without a hand count, the American people can only wonder if the Diebold scanners counted properly.

Many independent studies such as the Brennan Report (http://brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/download_file_36340.pdf) strongly recommend random audits on the optical scanners. Since New Hampshire has no such random audit, we can only wonder if the votes were counted properly -- UNLESS you conduct a recount. Then and only then can we have confidence that the people of New Hampshire actually voted the way the machines reported.

As New Hampshire plays a pivital role determining the party's candidate, it is imperative that the American people have confidence in the state's election system and the results reported by the Diebold machines.

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has written to you to request a recount. I join him and urge you to assure that the paper ballots are preserved and to conduct a recount at the soonest date possible.

If the recount proves the machines correct, this will erase people's doubts. If it shows otherwise, our very democracy is at stake.

With concern,
Gary Beckwith

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Anyone care to join me in writing to Mr. Gardner?

And if there are any soccer players out there, give this a kick!

[Wilms]

1. A bill that would go a long way in a situation like this is on the Governors desk in NJ.

New Jersey Passes Groundbreaking Election Reform Legislation

January 8, 2008

Bill Combats Fraud by Requiring Random, Mandatory Audits of Election Results

snip

It's the first post-election audit law to require electoral outcomes to be confirmed by a statistical audit, independent of software.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x488880

[Faux pas]

2. Haven't played soccer since 7th grade.....K n R because this needs

serious attention. Thanks! :)

[orleans]

3. another recount thread? perfect. k&r. off to greatest. n/t

[ClayZ]

4. K and R

[Kurovski]

5. K&R. (nt)

[GregD]

6. First SOS to agree with the need for verifiable elections

Back in 2003, Gardner was onboard with VerifiedVoting.org's petition for verifiable elections. At that time he was the first (and only) such SOS to sign the petition. Don't know if that matters, but I thought you would be interested.

[garybeck]

7. then why don't they have audits in NH?

here's the rub--

there's a BIG BIG difference between VERIFIABLE and VERIFIED.

NH has VERIFIABLE, but not VERIFIED elections.

It's like this, let's say you own a store. You put security cameras in the store and record everything. One day you notice some of the items are missing. Maybe they just got misplaced. Maybe they are stolen.

If you just sit there and wonder and never look at the tapes on the video camera, this is VERIFIABLE.

If you get the tapes out and watch what happened, this is VERFIED.

NH has the tapes (ballots) and they could verify what happened. But until then, it's merely verifiable, which is pretty useless.

If Mr. Gardner was a truly an advocate of good elections, he would have VERIFIED elections, meaning random audits on every election. Since there are no audits, the only thing left now to actually find out what happened is to do a recount.

[GregD]

8. dunno

Wish I knew Gary.