BBV: Two recommendations...take them, pass them along

[BevHarris]

Subject: Recommendations

1. Encourage candidates -- all candidates -- NOT TO CONCEDE ON ELECTION NIGHT. There is no good reason to concede, and here are three reasons not to:
- Large amount of provisional ballots. These are NOT used in projecting the winner. They are poorly accounted for (and the auditing procedures for these are especially poor in Colorado).

- At least three documented cases of voting machines flipping the vote completely. Let's say you are Candidate A and you are at 20% of the vote. Candidate B has 80%. Should you concede? Not really. Three documented cases of the votes being exactly reversed -- all yes was no, or all repub was actually dem.

- Al Gore, in 2000, conceded prematurely, privately, to George. W. Bush, based on what turned out to be minus 16,022 votes on a rigged voting machine, specifically, the GEMS central tabulator (this is Diebold). He ws 2 blocks from conceding to the nation when the -16,022 was discovered.

2. Nov. 12 is going to have a whole lot more voting machine problems than Nov. 2:

Get out and watch the COUNTING, not just the VOTING. "Don't look there, look here"...

We've got tens of thousands out in the field watching the voting.
What they aren't watching very much is the counting.

The counting of the vote happens after the polls close. You won't see anything at all until then, and in most cases, voting machine miscounts are not picked up until the canvass -- the audit.

Therefore, expect to see most voting machine problems reported around Nov. 12, not Nov. 2.

More voting machine snafus will be revealed with discovery and public records requests, and will not appear until weeks later.

This time, we can say, "we'd like it speedy" or we can say "we'd like it accurate."

Which would you prefer?

And yes, we need volunteers for the Cleanup Crew.

Specific tasks Tues/Wed involve setting up an infrastructure for citizen auditing of the voting machine counts. This is done by posting to forums, using almost exactly the same posting mechanism as you do here at DU.

To volunteer, sign up at blackboxvoting.org and also, for the immediate task, email me or Andy

[e-mail]
[e-mail]

[althecat]

1. it is probably a good idea to closely watch the vote count websites..

Hi Bev...

Not sure if you will endorse this advice or not but something occurred to me after reading your above excellent advice.

In several recent elections that I have noticed - and including in the Volusia County case (-16022 votes) discrepancies have been picked up by eagle eyed people keeping an eye on the progress tallies on websites and in county and state media centers.

This is something that ordinary folks can do at home on their computers. Watching the TV is probably futile (and in any event is probably bad for your health...)

If you can do so it is probably worth finding out what arrangements are in place for local media on election night. If possible get yourself an invitation to attend and that way you will get the best view possible of vote counting. Unfortunately several attempts to get vote watchers into actual counting rooms with the computers appear to have failed.

If you need some media accreditation in order to get access to a counting room I will be happy to authorise you to observe the election as a reporter for Scoop.co.nz (if you need me to send an email to confirm this to a county supervisor PM me). That said there are probably loads of local independent news media sources which may help you out on that front. Think college newspapers, community board newsletters etc...

And be careful out there!!

al

[althecat]

2. P.S. Some more general ramblings in this ...ere election..

Back when Bev & Co. discovered all this BBV stuff for us all last year I hoped, and I think Bev probably did too, that the revelations about the tamperable voting machines owned by republican connected fraudsters would lead to a general resuscitation in the US democratic process.

At a meme level we hoped (and I prayed) that it would make Americans care about democracy again. That it would lead to groups of Americans standing up and demanding not only that their votes be counted, but also to actually make people want to vote. People are people, and sometimes it takes something being stolen from under your nose to make you want it back, especially something you haven't used for a few years and have grown disinterested in.

With a week to go till the big day, while we are by no means out of the woods, for my part I do not think any more could have been achieved in such a short time as has been.

In 2000 the election was stolen there is absolutely no doubt about that now. Yet for most of 2001, 02 and 03 the republican refrain, echoed by practically everybody was "get over it".

Now going into 2004 everybody with their eyes open - and most importantly the Democratic Party and its candidates - now know and accept that a full scale plot to steal the election is underway.

This plot is not just being talked about in DU now it is being editorialised about in the NYT, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Miami Herald.

This was not part of the * family script people... and DU made this happen.

So

Kia Kaha
(stand tall)

...and take a bow.

And then as Bev says get to work!!!

:)

[The Minus World]

3. *applause*

I've been admiring the efforts of Bev and Andy from afar for quite some time now. They deserve the highest praise for this selfless undertaking.

[althecat]

4. Kick... this ought to be kept live for morning DUers...

[loudsue]

5. Insomniac kicks.....

:kick::kick::kick::kick:

[Dem2theMax]

6. Kicking an all important thread for the morning crew.

:kick:

If you come in and read it, please kick it too! :)

[althecat]

7. another wee kick....

[G_j]

8. kick

thanks again Bev!

[cthrumatrix]

9. kick

[RedEagle]

10. Eyes and ears folks, keep watching

Kick!

[Tsiyu]

11. And you know they can't STAND it

when so many of us are paying attention to their every move.

[RedEagle]

12. Yeah, elections are supposed to be outsourced too.

I guess someone in India is also supposed to vote for us.

Kick!

[althecat]

13. We just had an Aussie commentator on the radio..

.. telling us what a rotten mess the US election apparatus is in. I think that after the horse race the biggest story of this election is the failing election apparatus.

[althecat]

14. Everybody should watch Palast's latest expose

http://www.gregpalast.com/

[RedEagle]

15. Kick! N/M

[RedEagle]

16. Important message

Don't "Go along to get along," and don't accept being told to "Just get over it."

Challange any election that seems fishy.

Better yet, make them post and print the poll results at the polls. That is the first line of defense- and it's the area that is fought against the hardest.

Makes you wonder why, doesn't it?

Those polling place results aquired on the very night of the elections are most important.

Anything else afterwards MUST match those results or they are suspect.

DO NOT let them play with adding absentee, etc. Those are line items that get added together to create the total but have NOTHING to do with the poll results themselves.

Just the poll results from election night- they better not change the next day.

This is critical. Many states require this so election officials cannot bar it from happening, legally.

Getting a recount? Make sure that you have the separate information of what the poll results were.

[Eloriel]

17. Extremely important

Bev -- I'd suggest incorporating your 1st recommendation into the title of a new thread -- just to emphasize it and perhaps get more attention to this critical matter.

[Sara Beverley]

18. People who heavy Dem areas should be ready to appear in person if

vote talleys do not match up with the likely voter's choice. they should be willing to march on the counting places.

[RedEagle]

19. Know your states recount laws

The parties should be ready to pay for them if they don't fall within parameters of law. However, you can generally get an audit if you pay for it.

Always make sure the audit is of the original, voter generated or verified ballot.

Even the optical scans can generate a "report" of the ballot, but it is not a ballot and should never be used in an audit.