Nightmare scenario in VT Primary... too close to call and one of the candidates is in charge

[garybeck]

Vermont Governor Democratic Primary
260 of 260 precincts - 100 percent in

Peter Shumlin: 18,183 - 25 percent
Doug Racine: 17,993 - 25 percent
Deb Markowitz: 17,499 - 24 percent


With 100% of the precincts reporting, a nightmare scenario is emerging. With just one percentage point separating the top 3 candidates and some obvious decisions need to be made about recounts, one of those candidates will be making those decisions.

That's because Deb Markowitz is the current Secretary of State.

Now if Deb would have listened to the world's best computer security and voting integrity experts who crafted the Brennan Report (http://brennan.3cdn.net/e66b464b91c7a06398_tam6b8vxc.pdf), there would be protocols in place. There would be an automatic audit of the Diebold optical scan machines that count the vast majority of votes in Vermont. And with such a close result, a larger sample would have been required for the audit. then we would have at least a small reassurance that those votes were counted accurately. Now, with no audit in place we have no idea. There could have been a software bug, or even fraud, and we would not know.

But Ms Markowitz ignored the advice of experts and decided not to institute audits in our state, saying we should trust Diebold to count our votes with their "proprietary" (secret) software counting program.

We asked Ms Markowitz before the election if she planned to do any audits, but she said audits aren't necessary.

For the record, Ms Markowitz was trailing in the polls and her very close near-tie for the lead is a bit of a surprise.

But now she's in charge. As Secretary of State, she can decide to do an audit if she wants. She can hand pick the precincts to audit if she wants. All this, without the need to request a recount as a candidate, because she is the Secretary of State.

Conflict of interest? Hard to get around this one. Hate to say we told you so Deb, but if you would have listened to us, there would be an automatic audit going on right now and you wouldn't have to decide what to do and create an appearance of a conflict of interest. If you would have listened to our letter writing campaign, our online petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/vtaudits/petition.html), and our numerous letters to the editor, you would have instituted the recommendations of the Brennan Report and you wouldn't in the tight spot you seem to be in. Good luck with that, Deb...

I hope the new Secretary of State takes our election process a little more seriously and doesn't wait for a nightmare scenario to realize we need to do something.

Gary Beckwith
Vermonters for Voting Integrity
(http://vtvoters.org)

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Doesn't the Vermont have run-off elections if no one gets 50.1% of the vote?

[garybeck]

2. nope

Shumlin has already said "it looks like we won" and the Free Press has stated:

"If the vote count holds, either Racine or Markowitz could legally ask for a recount, which is allowable if a candidate is within 2 percent of the opponent. "

there might be something about a runoff in a general election. I'm not sure. I've lived here for 11 years and I'm almost certain I've seen several tight races with the winner taking less than 50% of the vote and I don't think there's ever been a runoff like you suggest.

[Winterblues]

3. If they get a recount and the tallies are different, what does that say

about the integrity of the Diebold machine? How can they ask for a recount when there are no paper ballots?

[garybeck]

4. there are paper ballots

our diebold machines are the optical scan type, which have a voter-marked paper ballot.

the quesiton is whether or not human being is ever going to look at any of them.