We Need to Eliminate Secret Vote Counting, Not a Recount (X)

[kster]

Posted by Stevepol

(X) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x492870



DEMOCRACY FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE (DFNH): A Blog

...

Political pundits in the corporate media and citizen journalists in the Blogosphere alike are all asking the same question: What happened in New Hampshire?

It's pretty easy to see what happened in New Hampshire: We had an election in which 81% of our ballots were counted in secret by a private corporation, and this resulted in an outcome that is called into question.

That's what happened.

No recount is going to change this. What will change this is to get rid of corporate controlled secret vote counting in our elections.

..... snip

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates observable vote counting.

But despite this long history of grassroots activism in support of free and open elections, New Hampshire has turned the majority of our elections into privatized affairs with no citizen oversight whatsoever.

Now activists around the nation are calling for a recount. In New Hampshire the manual recount has always been held as justification for holding elections in which more than 80% of our ballots are counted in secret by private corporations.

Does this logic hold up? Will a recount rectify the problem before us?

I say no. The problem before us is that we have outsourced the most precious thing in our democracy: the counting of our votes. And in New Hampshire, we have outsourced more than 80% of our votes to a private corporation counting those votes in secret, and, as it turns out, that private corporation has a convicted drug trafficker on its executive team to boot. A recount does not solve this problem.

...snip

Open and honest elections require citizen oversight. This is a simple thing to accomplish in a hand count Election Night count. But in a recount it is impossible.

In a recount, citizens have no control over the ballot chain of custody. Unless citizens have stood guard over every ballot box from the moment that it was sealed and signed by our local election officials, the recount provides no more assurance than the machine counts. A recount of a secret computerized vote count is just another weak link in the chain of publicly observable ballot custody required for honest and open elections.

In 2004, on request from citizen activists, candidate Ralph Nader had a New Hampshire recount. Only 11 districts, chosen by a mysterious out of state activist, claiming to be a statistician who had found anomalies in the results, were recounted. New Hampshire officials at the time disagreed with her interpretation but the recount occurred as she directed. To nobody’s surprise, the recounts uncovered no significant discrepancies, and New Hampshire’s system of corporate controlled secret vote counting got a big stamp of approval.

And here we are again. Another corporate controlled New Hampshire election. Another questionable outcome. Did the Nader recount change things for the better? Did it resolve the problem?

....snip

Read more of this powerful essay at the link:

http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/5324

[2rth2pwr]

1. Oh Great, put the counting in the hands of partisans in the State Gov't. nt

[dailykoff]

2. When does a bipartisan commission blame it all on Iran?

This is foolish even by the standards of CIA disinformation.

[creeksneakers2]

3. I don't think the vote counting itself is secret

They don't have a big crowd in there but the votes are counted by the municipalities and I believe each candidate can send a representative.

The software is where the suspicion starts. Also, vote machines can be hacked but I'm not convinced large numbers of machines could be hacked at the same time.

[MonkeyFunk]

5. correct

but you'll never convince some people of that.

[Karenina]

4. Paper ballots. HAND COUNTS IN FULL PUBLIC VIEW.

Secure chain of custody. However long it takes. NO MACHINES.

IN ALL 50 STATES.