The California Election Protection Network today faxed to San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas the following letter, along with their
Voters' Resolution of No Confidence, issued June 15, 2006 and announced by
press release on June 19.
June 28, 2006
Mikel Haas, Registrar of Voters
San Diego County
5201 Ruffin Road, Suite I
San Diego, CA. 92123
Dear Mr. Haas:
The California Election Protection Network, a nonpartisan coalition of more than 25 election integrity organizations throughout California, hereby declares the reported results of the June 6, 2006 primary and runoff elections in San Diego County to be illegitimate. Our reasons are set forth in the accompanying resolution.
As the Registrar of Voters of San Diego County you have been entrusted with one of democracy’s most precious resources: our elections. As an employee of the people of California you are personally responsible to fulfill your duties in a way that preserves and protects the sanctity of our elections. Elections provide the only means by which the “Consent of the Governed” can be determined. As the Declaration of Independence states, it is this consent from which the “just Power” of the government is derived. If the consent of the governed cannot be duly determined, the government’s power is rendered unjust and must be rejected.
We realize that your task has recently been significantly complicated by the new federal mandates of the so-called Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and actions taken by the State of California in response to those mandates. We understand that counties have been put in the untenable position of being required to conduct fair elections through the use of technology that renders fairness unachievable. Yet this conundrum cannot be rightfully resolved by compromising the integrity of the election process.
As outlined in our resolution, the conditions of the primary and runoff elections conducted in San Diego County on June 6, 2006 provide no basis for public confidence in the results and therefore cannot and will not be accepted until and unless all ballots and paper audit trails have been counted by hand in a transparent and verified manner. We, the CEPN, call upon you, the Registrar of Voters of San Diego County, to undertake a full hand count of all paper ballots cast and audit trails produced in the June 6 election. We also insist that you prove that the chain of custody of the voted paper ballots and paper audit trails was and has remained secure at every moment. Furthermore, we call upon you and Secretary of State McPherson to invalidate all reported results of the June 6 election until the outcome of each race can be verified through a hand count of all legally cast votes. This will not be a recount paid for by the voters but the real count our tax dollars have already paid for but that We the People have yet to receive.
We want to clarify that this challenge is made not because of the results of any race on the June 6 ballot but in response to the unacceptable conditions of the election. When the hand count is undertaken we will serve as observers to verify its completeness and accuracy. Please inform us of the time, place and anticipated duration of the hand count so that we may observe. We will gladly assist in recruitment of hand counters as well.
We recognize that our call leads to significant work on the part of your office. We certainly hope that in the future the sanctity of our elections will lead you as well as State and Federal officials to conduct elections in a manner in which accurate, verifiable results are produced by the initial counting of the votes. Such a result cannot be obtained through the use of electronic voting or vote counting machines running secret proprietary software.
In closing, We, The People, DO NOT CONSENT to transferring power and authority to candidates claiming victory in this illegitimate election. We will do everything within our Constitutional and human rights to protect and preserve possession of this power that is inalienably ours to be given but never taken away.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Ted Newman
for the California Election Protection Network
Attachments:
CEPN’s Voters’ Resolution of No Confidence
cc: Bruce McPherson, Secretary of State
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General
San Diego Union-Tribune
---------
The Voters’ Resolution
of No Confidence
The California Election Protection Network hereby declares:
Whereas an election is the legal process by which We The People transfer power to our governmental representatives; and
Whereas the legitimacy of this power, according to the Declaration of Independence, derives entirely from the Consent of the Governed; and
Whereas the legality and legitimacy of any election is determined first by the conditions under which it is conducted, which must, at a minimum:
a. comply with applicable laws;
b. offer We The People sufficient transparency to judge the election's validity and whether to Consent to the power transfer inherent in such an event;
c. produce, preserve and accurately count a paper ballot for every vote cast;
d. provide a means by which voters can openly and easily verify (repeatedly if necessary) the method of counting the votes and the actual results of said count;
e. determine a conclusive outcome resulting from the counting of all legally cast ballots; and
Whereas the June 6, 2006 election in San Diego County, California, was conducted under conditions which:
1. failed to comply with California and federal regulations through the use of interpreted code, and through the security breach of poll workers keeping voting machines at their homes prior to election day;
2. violated chain of custody provisions and mitigation requirements mandated by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson as a condition of Diebold's certification, thus removing even the pretense of the machines' reliability and accuracy;
3. amounted to secret vote counting through the use of Diebold's proprietary programming;
4. lacked sufficient transparency for voters to verify the election's validity, based on the above;
Therefore, be it resolved that the June 6, 2006 election in San Diego County, California, does not meet the standard for a legal election and provides NO BASIS for confidence in the results reported; and
Therefore, be it resolved that the absence of proof of legitimacy is deemed to be proof of the election's illegitimacy; and
Therefore, be it resolved that to warrant the Consent of the Governed, and the authorization of the transfer of power to winning candidates, a full hand count of all legally cast ballots shall first be conducted. This hand count shall reflect the only official result and not be regarded as a recount in any way, including relieving voters of the obligation to pay for said count; and
Therefore, be it resolved that until such a hand count has been verifiably conducted and a conclusive outcome determined, We, The People, DO NOT CONSENT to transferring power and authority to candidates claiming victory in this illegitimate election. We will do everything within our Constitutional and Human Rights to protect and preserve possession of this power that is inalienably Ours to be given but never taken away.
Signed,
The California Election Protection Network, June 15, 2006
Resolution author: Dave Berman,
of CEPN affiliate Voter Confidence Committee, Humboldt County
http://www.voterconfidencecommittee.org/For more about Berman’s actions, see:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/
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