Lou Dobbs going after the whole e-voting fraud issue. HELP KEEP HIM ON IT!

Okay, folks, thanks to fantastic ongoing work on the part of VoteTrustUSA's Media Relations Director, Kitty Pilgrim and Dobbs himself are convinced of the enormity of the e-voting problem. Dobbs has stated on air (yesterday) that all these machines are insecure and unverifiable putting Democracy at risk without what he called a verifiable paper "receipt"(and we'll make sure that language is shaped up just as the "voter fraud" mistake wasnt repeated and a graphic saying "election fraud" is being featured)and AUDITS! We need to keep this going and keep them on the trail of ALL the manufacturers, the toothless EAC, the phoney "certification" -- etc, etc, etc. WE CAN DO THIS WITH YOUR HELP!!

They have to know that viewers want more of this story. Please write the Dobbs show here: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9 and tell them how important the issue is and how glad you are they're covering it. Try to give them a quote they'd be likely to use in their email from viewers segment, but approbation, appreciation and encouragement are absolutely necessary. They have to KNOW how important this issue is to a lot of people in order to keep the investigation going and going and going. There's not another anchor in the business with Dobbs' tenacity, so this is a tremendous opportunity that won't come our way again. So write your email and then tell everyone you know about the show and what Dobbs is doing. Get them to tune in for the segment (which may or may not be on tonight given the Zarquawi hoohaw). Send a request to your list to get all of them to write Dobbs too. Here's the link to the show's email form again: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9

Keep it moving!!!

Thanks,
Joan Krawitz (aka hedda)
VoteTrustUSA

In Pottawattamie County - ES&S machines give *radically* different tallies than hand count in at least one race...

ELECTION: Faulty voting machines delay results; counting under way
<http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16751509&BRD=>
TIM ROHWER, Staff Writer
06/07/2006

The counting in Tuesday's Pottawattamie County primary election came to a sudden halt shortly after midnight today when Pottawattamie County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake announced to the waiting courthouse crowd that something wasn't right with the new computers purchased to count the ballots.

As a result, all of Tuesday's ballots were in the process of being counted by hand today. Drake said the winners in Tuesday's election might not be known until around midnight this evening.

"We have no clue," she said of the cause of the problem.

But, something wasn't just right from the very beginning, she added.

Things began to look fishy, Drake said, when the county's new computers counted the absentee ballots in the Republican Party's county race between longtime Recorder John Sciortino and newcomer Oscar Duran.

Absentee ballots are the ones counted first.

When all of those were counted, Duran, a University of Nebraska at Omaha student, had 99 votes, while Sciortino, the county recorder since 1983, had just 79.

"John is such a popular candidate," Drake said.

<snip>

Drake said she decided to count the absentee ballots by hand to determine if the computers were counting correctly.

They weren't - not by a long shot.

The actual absentee ballot count in the recorder's race when done by hand found Sciortino had 153 votes and Duran just 25.

It was then that she decided to stop the computer counting in all the races.

"They could be tainted, we don't know," Drake said.

<snip>

An emergency approval by the county's Board of Supervisors was necessary this morning to authorize a hand count of the entire election.

It may turn out that there is a reasonable explanation, although everyone has to admit that the programming didn't count the votes right.

The thing is: without a paper ballot to look at, even the election officials in that county would have had no way to rectify the machine's mistake.

Then too, is the fact that the official was honest enough to bring the computer count to a halt, and demand a hand count.

Had Ohio officials had a bit more of the honesty the Iowa official had, Kerry would be the president. If only.

Update:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16757670&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555106&rfi=6

"Meanwhile, the cause of Tuesday's computer counting errors has been determined, said county deputy auditor Gary Herman.

According to Herman, the names of those in multiple candidate races are rotated in each precinct, so that one candidate won't be at the top of the list in all precincts. For example, one candidate's name might be at the top of the list in one precinct, but in the middle or at the bottom of the list in another precinct to avoid voter fraud, Herman said. The computers that read the ballots after they were completed were not programmed to recognize the different order for precincts, he said.

"They always alternate the listings to prevent voter fraud, but the computer didn't read it correctly," Knauss said. "I'm assuming it kept everything in alphabetical order."

Because of the programming error, some surprising numbers were tabulated in Tuesday's election before County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake ordered a quick hand recount of absentee ballots that showed big differences. A hand recount of all the ballots was then held Wednesday."

<more at link>

ignorance can no longer even be offered as an excuse.
Not with a straight face anyway.

Please continue with the electronic voting story.

I got involved with this issue when I found out that our votes
were going to be counted on paperless machines with no way to audit or recount.

I worked on this for over a year and tried to warn my state's
Board of Elections, but they scoffed.

Then in 2004 we had a voting machine EAT 4,400 votes that
could not be retrieved or accounted for.

This proved what I said all along - no financial institution
would treat its customers financial records this way,
why are we doing it with our votes!

Isn't our long history of fighting for democracy worth having a
voter verified paper ballot?

Shouldn't we have better accountability in our elections than does Enron?

We finally got a paper ballot law passed in NC in August of 2005,
with tons of grassroot work, all volunteer.

It was like pushing a bolder uphill.

See my website, www.ncvoter.net for more.

:bounce:

I mentioned the Warren County Lockdown in 2004.Has the potential to be huge.

Lou Dobbs has really been pounding out some great shows lately.

This is worthy of DU attention.

I want to thank Lou Dobbs very much for his recent, strong coverage of the dismal state of our elections! There is no other issue that should be of more importance to the Democratic or Republican parties. The electronic voting machines are insecure and unverifiable.

PLEASE check into what is happening *right now* with ES&S machines in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Tim Rohwer, of the Daily Nonpareil Online, reports that Pottawattamie County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake has gotten emergency approval by the county's Board of Supervisors to conduct a hand recount of ALL ballots in their primary after a hand recount revealed a DRAMATIC difference in the machine count of absentee ballots versus a hand count of the same ballots for the recorder. The ES&S machines reported that Duran, a college student, got 99 votes, while the popular, experienced Sciortino had just 79. The actual absentee ballot count in the recorder's race when done by hand found Sciortino had 153 votes and Duran just 25.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16751509&BRD=

Finally - please consider inviting Thom Hartmann - an Air America personality - on your show. Thom is thoughtful, logical, extremely well-informed about the state of our election system and able to converse with ease with people of all points of view.

gets so mad at times you can literally see his face twitching. First it was the Dubai port deal, them immigration, now voting. Hope he keeps on it.

I saw you on his show the other day, and meant to give you a call -- you did GREAT!!!

This is the e-mail I sent him:

THANK YOU for bringing attention to the dangers of election fraud caused by the untrustworthy, unverifiable paperless “voting machines” spreading across our country like poison. As a programmer, I am horrified that people who wouldn’t pay a credit card statement without double-checking its accuracy automatically assume our votes are being counted correctly “because the machine said so!” Committing election fraud isn’t difficult – ask Howard Dean, who was taught how to do it on national television in less than five minutes! Again, thank you for bringing some desperately needed attention to this extremely important issue!

P.S. Here are some excerpts from one of the latest scandals surrounding these machines, along with the “link” to read the rest of the story. It is an absolute disgrace!

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16751509&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555106&rfi=6

ELECTION: Faulty voting machines delay results; counting under way
TIM ROHWER, Staff Writer
06/07/2006

The counting in Tuesday's Pottawattamie County primary election came to a sudden halt shortly after midnight today when Pottawattamie County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake announced to the waiting courthouse crowd that something wasn't right with the new computers purchased to count the ballots.

As a result, all of Tuesday's ballots were in the process of being counted by hand today. Drake said the winners in Tuesday's election might not be known until around midnight this evening.

(snip)

Absentee ballots are the ones counted first.

When all of those were counted, Duran, a University of Nebraska at Omaha student, had 99 votes, while Sciortino, the county recorder since 1983, had just 79.

(snip)

Drake said she decided to count the absentee ballots by hand to determine if the computers were counting correctly.

They weren't - not by a long shot.

The actual absentee ballot count in the recorder's race when done by hand found Sciortino had 153 votes and Duran just 25.

(more at link)

"ITS NOT WHO VOTES THAT COUNTS -- ITS WHO COUNTS THE VOTES!" Joseph Stalin

is now convinced it is the mess and threat that it is.

I think we can count on that.

:applause:

As a computer programmer, I am horrified that we are supposed to "trust" elections without a paper trail. This is the most serious issue facing this country, in my opinion. Without verifiable elections, how can we be sure this is still a democracy?

I saw several teases for that segment, and nobody but Sequoia/Venezuela was mentioned

if that's the case, this Dobbs worship is BS

if he did mention Diebold or ESS, I apologize

:yourock:
hedda

Thanks, Joan!

Dear Lou:

I want to let you know how much I appreciate your attention to the loss of free and open elections due to insecure and hackable electronic voting machines. American men and women are dying overseas — ostensibly to bring democracy to foreign nations — while democracy is threatened at home from within our own government.

The latest instance in California is the race to fill the House seat vacated by Randy "Duke" Cunningham in San Diego’s 50th District. The race was called for Bilbray by the California Secretary of State long before all the votes were counted. Strangely enough the Sec of State is a Republican and a Schwartzenegger appointee and Bilbray is also a Republican. Francine Busby is running as a Democrat.

It gets worse. The voting machines used in District 50 were taken home and stored by poll workers, a serious lack of security which violates chain of custody protections. Under the circumstances, memory cards may have been switched (as has happened before) or other simple tampering — or not, but who knows at this point?!

Recounting is essential. The votes cast on DRE type machines — the electronic ones manufactured by such openly partisan Bush supporters as Diebold — are essentially not retrievable. Absentee ballots, being paper, can be counted (as they were not when the Sec. Of State called the election for Bilbray). Paper ballots also exist for the OpScan machines still in use, and they can be manually recounted as well.

It galls me that President Bush gloated over the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan when we are in danger of losing free elections at home. In both countries people used paper ballots. We were shown photos of Iraqis dipping their fingers in ink to show they’d voted. In Afghanistan, we were told, boxes of paper ballots were delivered to mountainous regions on donkey-back. Their ballots were manually counted. In case of challenge, they could be recounted.

Very touching — But what about my vote? Does my husband’s absentee vote count, if an election is called before anyone even opens up the absentee ballots? Does my vote count if I go to my polling place and am confronted by a Diebold or Sequoia machine?

Electronic voting machines have got to be junked. Their breakdowns are not "glitches" — they are subversions of an essential democratic process.

Again, I want to thank you for paying attention, just as you pay attention to outsourcing our middle class.

XXXXXXXX

There's also underdeployment of machines in Dem districs, voter intimidation, voter indentity mixup. Those are as important as the machines.

Oh, yes. Everyone go read _Armed Madhouse_, starting at page 187.

Just waiting for it to arrive.