VOTEFRAUD

Election Alterations

Election corruption is historic, and rampant, yet little is done to secure this important action in the US and elsewhere. The very meaning of ‘Democracy’ is free, valid elections. So if we have fraudulent elections do we have ‘Democracy’?

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1. ABCNEWS.COM COUNTING VOTES BEFORE THE ELECTION!

2. Electronic voting machines

2a. How Media became the official vote authorities

3. Tacoma, Washington

3A. Punch Card Voteing

4. Vote Fraud Links

5. Michael Moore Machine Antics

6. New Vote Procedure It is time to follow a proven way!

DRUDGE REPORT

TUE NOV 03, 1998 02:05:89 UTC

1. ABCNEWS.COM COUNTING VOTES BEFORE THE ELECTION!

ABC NEWS was hit with the biggest online nightmare of the Internet Era when complete election results were somehow displayed on its World Wide Website hours before the first vote was even taken!

A spokesman for ABC NEWS was still not available for comment late Monday night.

The "results" were pulled off the Internet immediately after the DRUDGE REPORT issued its first Bulletin Monday evening. However, the election returns were available on the ABC NEWS website for hours on Monday and word reached campaign offices throughout the nation.

ABC NEWS had complete results for every governorship, House and Senate race on its website. And results appeared to give most close contests to Democrats.

There were hundreds of race results displayed on the ABCNEWS.COM website.

The numbers are being mirrored at:

http://www.drudgereport.com/abc1.htm

http://www.drudgereport.com/abc2.htm

http://www.drudgereport.com/abc3.htm

EVEN BEFORE THE FIRST VOTE HAS BEEN TAKEN!

In what will clearly go down as the one of the biggest Internet mistakes of all time ABC NEWS has suddenly started to report Election Day results before Election Day.

A spokesman for ABC NEWS was not immediately available for comment....

AND can this, perhaps, be the explanation?

"The following is condensed and extracted from the book "VOTESCAM", by Ken and Jim Collier, just to pique your interest. You may think that there’s a story in here somewhere, given the strange events in the current U.S. electoral campaign, but you probably won't see it discussed on TV or in the media! Buy and read the book itself for more information....

How did media get the authority to count votes?

VoteScam Revisited '96

by James Collier

The seeds for the rigging of 1996 primaries were planted in 1964 when, within months of the JFK assassination, a power frenzy was unleashed in Washington. The CIA, FBI and the nation's most powerful media heads met in secret. The media agreed not to challenge the Warren Commission's preposterous conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. In return, the media gained the right to be the official vote-counting apparatus for presidential elections. This incident was documented in reports from the Air Force Staff College and American University. The deal was struck and News Election Services (NOES) was founded. Today, that network pool of NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, AP, the New York Times, Washington Post and others has a tote-board at 225 W. 34th St. in New York City. When Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and CNN tell the public on election night, at 7:01 PM EST, "We are the first with the most," they all lie. Just like Pravda, they get the same numbers from the NES board.

The networks also own the exit-polling unit, Voter Research and Survey (VRS). That allows them to announce who won the presidency at 7:01 p.m., before a single vote is counted. The numbers do not change, and are always 100 percent correct. NES merged with VRS and is now known as Voter News Service (VNS). The networks want us to believe that people vote in the same percentages in every precinct across the country. Thus, an exit poll in Maine is representative of us all. Once that one magic precinct in Maine votes, the remainder of the country may just as well have stayed home, because the numbers will not change from coast to coast. Against this backdrop, we now examine a few curious events that took place during this primary season.

Iowa -The media told us at 6:55 p.m. on the evening of the Iowa caucuses that it knew the final vote totals based on " entrance polls." Not a single vote had been cast (unlike a regular primary, voting starts not in the morning but at 7 p.m.) People were still parking their cars, and witnesses reported that nobody filled out entrance polls. The paper ballot vote started sometime after 7 p.m. Sen. Bob Dole won. The next day the Iowa papers ran the VNS totals. Observers noticed that Pat Buchanan's vote was shaved by 100 to 150 votes per county from what they knew he received the night before, and they called county election supervisors to ask: "When is the election going to be certified?" The answer: "We don't know, maybe in April... the media hasn't told us yet" Election supervisors had told precinct captains to "throw away your totals, we aren't officially recording them this year... the media will tell us what the totals are." And that's how you rig a paper ballot election.

Arizona - VNS projected Buchanan the winner, but Steve Forbes won. The next day the networks apologized for the first time since the consortium was formed. They said their exit poll must have been wrong. Here's what our investigation has thus far uncovered: Sometime during the afternoon in Maricopa County (Phoenix), ballot boxes were removed by people claiming to be from the Election Supervisor's Office. "We need to get a jump on the vote count," the precinct workers were told. New boxes were already in place. No questions were asked. Also, roughly 219,000 voters (out of 1.2 million registered) were issued plastic laminated vote cards that were punched when they voted, so that nobody could vote twice on the same card. However, it seems that 60,000 additional cards were issued to "special" voters who were heard bragging in vote lines that they could vote twice without being caught. The election supervisor's office in Maricopa County issued a report stating that only two of the 60,000 extra ballots were voted. According to Yvonne Reed, assistant county recorder, 10 people were hired after the election to hand record 219,000 seven digit voter ID numbers into a computer. Reed said the computer showed that only two voters had their numbers entered twice, and those votes were dropped from the total. The 10 employees worked three 12 hour days, with two half-hour breaks, Reed said. Do the math: Roughly 220,000 cards divided by 10 workers equals about 22,000 cards. Multiply 22,000 cards by 7 digits in each card and you get 154,000 digits. That means each worker entered about 50,000 digits a day. There are 60 minutes in an hour. To accomplish the task, one would have to enter more than 4,000 digits an hour nonstop for 12 hours a day, or more than one keyboard strike per second. Unlikely, to say the least. Reed refused to give the name of the 10 people. She said it was not public information. "Yes it is," I said. "They were paid with taxpayers' dollars." A citizen's investigation is pending. Not a word in the local media about all this. At least one lawsuit has been filed in protest. When Karen Johnson, Buchanan Arizona Campaign Chairman, told Pat's sister Angela "Bay" Buchanan about the scam, Bay said: "Don't complain to the media, they'll just call us whiners and they won't like us' "

New Orleans - Local elections are likewise subject to shenanigans. Susan Bernecker, 41, ran for a Jefferson Parish council seat. Polls showed that the "Doris Day" of East Bank politics couldn't lose to the 70-year-old incumbent, Nick Giambelluca. Nick's nephew, Anthony Giambelluca, was the election supervisor. Three weeks before the election Anthony was found behind a dumpster with a bullet in his head. Hardly a word of Anthony's demise was written in the Times Picayune. Bernecker lost. The day after the election, Bernecker took a video camera to the warehouse where Sequoia Pacific voting machines were stored. She videotaped herself voting. When she pushed a button, a liquid crystal display, about thigh-high, flashed her name. Four times the process was repeated. The fifth time the display flashed her opponent's name - also the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, etc. She taped 20 machines. She brought the videotape to the television stations. They ran it once and dropped the story. Again, the Times Picayune ignored the story. She sued. The judge assigned in regular rotation was taken off the case and a "fixing judge" took over. He called a quick hearing, did not allow Bernecker any expert witnesses, and dismissed the case.

Polk County, Florida -- Investigator Russell Hancock and radio talk show host Jerry Hughes have joined forces in crusading against Election Supervisor Helen Gienau. Hancock started investigating what the newspapers in Polk County called "voting irregularities, snafus" and other euphemisms for what Hancock believes is blatant election rigging. After rummaging, through the files in the election office, Hancock found that the elections division was spending more than a million dollars on a private company, American Information Systems (AIS). This carpet-bagging company came in from another town and counted the elections for the election supervisor. This is a common practice where election supervisors do not count the vote themselves, but hire outside firms with their own modems and private "computer language" to program and count elections. The information Hancock dug up on invoices led him to ask the election supervisor tough questions. She refused to answer. Instead, she told Hancock that she would speak to him only through her attorneys - the state's biggest law firm, Holland & Knight. Then, WWAB radio host Jerry Hughes took up the sword, and for the past three months hardly a day has gone by that he hasn't asked Gienau to come on the air and answer the charges. Gienau continues to lay low. Stay tuned.

Missouri - This appears to be the only honest election. It was on paper ballots, counted in the precincts, with the votes recorded downtown. The winner was Pat Buchanan. The media did not cover it. Instead, they are trying, to deny it ever took place, saying Dole won every primary after New Hampshire.

New Hampshire -- In the book "Votescam: The Stealing of America" we assert the 1988 New Hampshire primary was rigged for Bush to beat Dole. So when Buchanan blew into town for the '96 primary, The Citizens for an Honest Vote took out a half-page ad in the Manchester Union Leader. Its thrust was "Do not let anyone steal this election from Pat," and they instructed voters to count how many people entered the polls and to match that with the number of votes the media reported. They referenced "Votescam: The Stealing, of America" and warned the New Hampshire establishment and VNS not to steal the election. Buchanan won.

Super Tuesday -- New Hampshire would be the last time Pat Buchanan would win. that is. win as far as media reporting as concerned. Buchanan forces couldn't be everywhere. and Dole's juggernaut rolled across the South and half way across the Midwest. It is significant to note that the numbers reported by VRS were schematically the same across the country -- Dole either won by 51 percent or 62 percent; Buchanan received his well touted 23 to 27 percent. That makes the Missouri primary an outstanding anomaly in the media game. If Missouri can vote overwhelmingly for Buchanan, one has to ask what does that do to the exit polling consistency? In Missouri, the election was seemingly, honest, the media did not count the vote, and the schematic was broken. Yet, we predict on election day in November the media schematic will be back, and whatever happens at 7:01 p.m. in Maine will happen in every State across the country without a glitch in the vote count. This type of consistency is symptomatic of well thought out national rigging.

Western Primaries -- We have noticed subtle changes in the way VNS has been handling its dissemination of information to the public since we have been doing talk radio shows about vote rigging. Cincinnati investigator Jim Condit has also appeared on scores of radio stations in the last few months, alerting the public to the danger of VNS and local election supervisors. Perhaps our combined efforts are having an effect. We noticed a falling off of reporting on vote totals after each primary. By the time the political Punch & Judy Show moved to Nevada. California and Washington state, the networks merely said "Dole the Winner" and declined to give any projections. Prior to this, the network anchors would make a big deal out of their projections in the West. So many people have faxed. telephoned and written Pat Buchanan demanding that he acknowledge this reality that when he was asked on C-Span, "Have you heard about the vote fraud charges in Iowa and Arizona?" he answered simply, "Yes. I have," without elaborating. We have reason to believe these same forces are telephoning and faxing the networks, angry as hell and "not wanting to take it anymore." We can't let up. The pressure must be maintained until either Buchanan or the mainstream media publicly acknowledges the cancer on our vote. A full investigation of how our vote is counted and by whom it is counted, in every venue in America. is essential before the November elections. We are asking everyone to find out the name of their Election Supervisor. Request to look through the public records in the election department. Find out how many taxpayer dollars are being spent on private firms to run the elections. Election supervisors may tell you that it's none of your business. or that it will cost you big money to copy the information. Both are untrue.

These are the beginning steps you can take to determine whether your elections are rigged:

1) Videotape the elections from the time the polls close until the vote is counted.

2) Check when the computer ballot is issued to precinct captains. You will find it is anywhere from 72 hours to two weeks ahead of the election. These ballots often are stored in their homes.

3) Check who prints the ballots and how many were printed. You will probably find that twice as many ballots were printed than were needed. Thus. a duplicate set of ballots may have been issued to these captains.

4) After the ballots leave the precincts, follow them if you can. Wire seals often are broken when they get to a collection point and duplicate ballots substituted for the originals.

5) Then the ballots go downtown. You will not be allowed to follow them up a back elevator as they purposely disappear from view. Demand to follow them. The next time you will see them will be in a room where the League of Women Voters is being paid to "orient the cards for the card reader." We taped the League punching thousands of holes in the punch-card ballots in both Miami and Cincinnati.

If you get to step 5, send us the tape.

TOP

And even if you don't live in the U.S., but your country uses:

2. Electronic voting machines

[as many now do], read, mark, and inwardly digest. This could be happening to YOUR vote, too!

"The winner of the Presidential election isn't chosen by U.S. voters but by ABC, CBS, NBC, Associated Press and UPI, through a company they jointly own called News Election Service

[212 Cortland Street, NYC; [212] 693 6001].

It provides its five owners with "unofficial” instant tallies in all Presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections; the official results don’t come out until weeks later, and are rarely reported.

The U.S. Government doesn't count a single vote; it has granted a legal monopoly to NES to do so privately.

*All state and national votes are recorded in this single national computer*, and are passed on to the media from this single source.

County clerks would normally take a month plus to verify counts and issue a total tally; NES's goal is to have a total out in less than half-an-hour after the polls close.

In the 1968 election, when Nixon defeated Humphrey by a miniscule number of votes, the NEB computer gave Dick Gregory [who was a candidate] 1 million votes when he'd actually received 18,000, "missed" 53,000 votes for Humphrey cast in Alabama, and put Nixon ahead by 40,000 votes: the "error" was later blamed on defective software, though the program had performed flawlessly in 12 hours of testing the previous day.

Nixon, meanwhile, remained the "winner".

53% of all votes cast in the U.S. are tabulated directly by computer; altering a few votes in a few precincts in a few states would swing a close election; a turnaround of just 535,000 votes distributed correctly in 11 states would have handed Dukakis the 1988 election, defeating George Bush in the electoral college. Bush may already have received an earlier Votescam benefit...courtesy of N.H. Governor John Sununu, who had staked his political future on Bush before the then vice-president was a clear people's choice [if he ever was].

Bush had lost the Iowa Republican Caucus, the first round of the 1988 presidential primaries, to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. As Bush entered the N.H. primary, pollsters placed him behind Dole in that state too. These were "days when things just got darker", Bush said in his acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination six months later. His campaign was fizzling. Despite his apparent deficit in public opinion, Bush won a decisive nine point victory in the N.H. primary, reanimated his campaign, and more or less coasted to the nomination and presidency. The press attributed this remarkable turnaround to the contrary nature of N.H. voters and Dole's allegedly "mean" public image... Sununu was later rewarded with an appointment as Bush's chief of staff, often considered the second most powerful job in the country. He is a *computer engineer*...."All John Sununu had to do...was get access to the on-air script of [the networks'] election unit to script in George Bush as the "projected winner" based on exit polls;

step two, commandeer the mainframe computer [NES]...so that the final official totals in county and state computers can be manipulated over a sixty day period to reflect the early projections of a Bush victory.

*It is the prescription for the covert stealing of America*".

N.H. uses "Shouptronic" voting machines; it’s essentially an automatic teller machine for voters. All votes are recorded by button pressing. The Shouptronic leaves no physical record of votes and its programming is top secret.

Shouptronic is named for its company's owner, Ransom Shoup.

In 1979, Mr. Shoup was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice relating to a Philadelphia election under investigation by the FBI, which employed a similar "no paper trail” election machine. He was sentenced to a $10,000 fine and a suspended

3 year prison sentence.

Another computer voting company, Votomatic, maker of Computer Election Services [now Business Records Corporation Election Services] emerged unscathed from a Justice Dept.antitrust investigation in 1981. The president of the company quipped, "We had to get Reagan elected to kill this thing".

The remark was supposed to be a joke. 40% of Americans vote on CES machines. CES machines have been described as relying on "a heap of spaghetti code that is so messy and so complex that it might easily contain hidden mechanisms for being quietly reprogrammed on "on the fly" ".

A computer consultant...described the way a CES computer runs its programme as "a shell game".

[from "VOTESCAM", by Ken and Jim Collier]"

______________________________________________________________________________

Top

August 23, 2000 08:18 AM

Subject: Onward Tacoma

*****CLEAN Report*****
For immediate release
August 23, 2000

Auditor to take witness stand to testify about secret remarking
operation from 1996 General Election

Olympia, WA - The trial drags on, six days of testimony and still the
trial is scheduled to go on for two more days. The trial is moving at
a snail's pace because there are so many issues to argue outside of
the jury that escorting the jurors in and out is very time consuming.

The prosecution has rested their case with their final witness being
the rent-a-cop James Loeffelholz who was on the witness stand for the
entire day on Monday. He was impeached on the stand as he gave his
testimony about breaking up the assault between Susan Coffey and
Billy Joe Arends. Finally, after carefully examining the photographs
of Coffey being attacked, the officer was asked if he believed that
Coffey was assaulted. He said no. The gasp from the jury gallery was
nearly audible.

At 10:00 AM on Wednesday Cathy Pearsall-Stipek will be taking the
stand to answer questions about the illegal ballot operation she had
going during the 1996 General Election where 28,000 ballots were
remarked. The auditor will finally be held accountable for what went
on that day and she will have to say it under oath - which coming
from the auditor who has lied under oath before, who knows what she
will say.

The trial on defamation is expected to go the the jury today, perhaps
on Thursday. A decision is expected shortly thereafter. The judge is
making the decision on the election law violations and will be making
that ruling shortly after the conclusion of the testimony by
witnesses CLEAN provides.

Brian Sonntag is scheduled to testify for CLEAN before the judge
about the processing of ballots. He should be testifying sometime in
the next day or two.

The issues left for trial at this point:

1) Whether Loeffelholz was defamed when CLEAN published a report in
their newsletter about the assault
2) Whether the defendants defamed Loeffelholz when they made an
alleged internal affairs complaint
3) Whether Pierce County Auditor Cathy Pearsall-Stipek violated the
Open Public Meetings Law while conducting remarking at the secret
warehouse

Brass Check - http://www.brasscheck.com
Top

PUNCHCARD Voting

November 22, 2000

A piece from one of that rarest of species:
an intelligent, honest journalist who
writes about things that matter.

BARBWIRE BY ANDREW BARBANO
EXPANDED FROM THE 11-19-2000 Sparks (Nev.) Tribune

ELECTION THEFT Y2K: 1988 WARNINGS IGNORED

                Swatting gnats and swallowing camels

        "There is probably a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island waiting to
happen in some election, just as a Richter 8 earthquake is waiting to
happen in California." - Willis Ware, Rand Corporation computer expert, The
New Yorker, Nov. 7, 1988 *

                        ---

Longtime subscribers to the Tribune can ask for their money back for this
edition on grounds that this column is a re-run of a recount of a tragedy.

In November and December of 1988, I printed a series called "The Sting." I
have been quoting myself ever since.

The publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal thought enough of the
material that he personally brought it to his editors, who printed part of
it.

Over the years, some credible voices joined my lonely howl. When he chaired
Common Cause Nevada, my late Sparks Tribune colleague in columny, Orland T.
Outland, took the issue to the Nevada Legislature. When he presented his
concerns to one committee, the scope of the hearing was immediately
narrowed. An interim study resulted, but not much changed.

Punchcard voting remains prone to error, manipulation and outright fraud.

My experience with the punchcard system began in a worst case scenario.
More than two decades ago, a couple of candidates and local officials
wanted me to investigate the Washoe County (Reno-Sparks) Nev., computer
count system because a lot of things didn't add up.

One candidate had his election recounted. A few chads fell out, but the
close election stood.

However, the computer consultants I hired sensitized me to everything you
see happening in south Florida right now.

I became so frustrated after that election, I took Dear Abby's advice and
began to put my feelings in writing. More than 500 pages later, I finished
the book and moved on, leaving the second draft for some future time.

For more than two decades, I have collected horror stories and watched
easily avoidable errors repeat themselves.

Fortunately, most counties in Nevada and nationwide have moved away from
punchcards, a technology which has its roots in the earliest days of
computers and actually goes back to cloth-weaving looms!

Joseph P. Harris conceived of punchcard voting back in the 1920s as a cure
for the legendary fixed elections of Chicago and New York City. **

The cure may finally have proven worse than the disease.

Registrars of voters are understandably defensive about the security of
their systems, especially with an inquisitor like me.

During that long-ago punchcard recount, one of my consultants found my
behavior quite amusing.

"You've been swatting at gnats and swallowing camels," he chuckled. Later,
he proceeded to show me many of the system's vulnerabilities to intrusion.

But could a handcount have caught vote-switching done by software intrusion?

Yes. However, in Washoe County's case, the actual election ballots were
stored in a poorly secured area in a room with plenty of blank, leftover
punchcards. Anyone could have entered the storage room by forcing the lock
with a credit card. Two guys with a thermos of coffee and some push pins
could have changed enough ballots over a weekend to conform the cards with
the election night computer count. There would have been plenty of time.
Legally, a recount couldn't take place until several weeks after the
election.

Back then, a lot of wiseguys made big macho bets on elections. One Gomorrah
South character told me that a deal had actually been shopped on the street
in Las Vegas: up to 8,000 votes for just $3,000. Untraceable, changed on
the computer count.

In this column of Nov. 25, 1988, I published a checklist of
computer-counted elections which had gone wrong resulting in huge numbers
of voters becoming "electronically disenfranchised."

For instance, in Orange County, Calif., in 1980, computers moved about
15,000 primary votes intended for either Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter to
Lyndon LaRouche or Jerry Brown.

In Missoula, Mont., in 1968, voters who thought they were voting for Hubert
Humphrey voted for Richard Nixon, and vice-versa. Sound familiar?

How hard is computer count fraud to trace? In 1988, the New Yorker magazine
reported on a study done by experts at Notre Dame University.

They "calculated that the number of possible programming pathways for a
program (to change the count) executed through a standard punchcard ballot
would be two to the nine-hundred-and-sixtieth power - a one followed by 228
zeros."

One Illinois election official estimated that testing all possible ballot
punch configurations would occupy 20 staff members full time for 477 years,
I noted in my 1988 series. ***

I have always believed that a computer punchcard election was stolen right
here in River City more than 20 years ago. Backchannels even identified the
name of the good soul who wrote the program.

He had been asked by his bosses to solve a challenging theoretical problem
and never knew to what nefarious use it would be put.

Because of the lack of security for the physical punchcards, all evidence
could have been destroyed weeks before the recount.

Do I think there's been criminality in Florida?

No.

But there exists such a damning case against punchcard voting that
handcounting original ballots is the only fair thing to do with the
presidency on the line.

"Election officials and lawmakers need to take a long, hard look at
computerized election procedures and the laws governing them," I wrote a
dozen years ago.

The Barbwire Sting Files will never be closed as long as camels can still
get through the eye of this particular needle.

Take it from me, camels leave an awful aftertaste which never really goes away.

Be well. Raise hell.

_________________
* Ronnie Dugger, "Annals of Democracy -- Counting Votes" The New Yorker,
11-7-88, p. 44.
** Ibid. at 45.
*** Ibid. at 100, 102.

__________________
Andrew Barbano is a 31-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com
http://www.nevadalabor.com
where the past five years of columns may be accessed.
Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks (Nev.) Tribune since 1988.

© 1988, 2000 Andrew Barbano

Top

The Machine Raged On Me

December 12, 2000

Dear friends,

I just put a dollar bill in the soda pop machine.

The machine rejected my dollar bill!

Does that mean my dollar bill can no longer be counted as a dollar? After
all, the pop machine refused to accept it as a legal tender. But it IS a
dollar, regardless of what this machine says, right? If I go down to my local
bank, and demand that my dollar be counted as a valid American dollar, will
they say, "Sorry, but this dollar bill was rejected by a soft drink machine
whose patent and machinery has been approved by various state and federal
agencies. It is your fault you did not insert your dollar properly. We cannot
deposit your dollar bill into your account!"

Huh. All because of a wrinkle in my dollar bill. Michael Moore

Top

NEW Vote Procedure

Proposed Model Legislation For Every County In The US
By Jim Condit, Jr. <jconditjr@unidial.com
11-26-00
http://www.votefraud.org/home.html

As the Ruling Elite and their disgusting Big Media is attempting to close the trap door on the American public regarding rigged elections. Here are the elements of Model Legislation for voting procedures in each county and each state. These will be posted in the Action Index on the votefraud.org website.

PLEASE NOTE: If any one can offer another provision to this 'model legislation'...please do so by letter or email.

Here are elements of the model legislation:

1. Paper ballots, printed in English, easily read, to be marked in indelible ink by the voter.

2. Ballots kept in a clear plastic box all day in full public view in a section of the room where only the voter depositing his ballot can go, one time, to deposit his ballot, under the observation at a distance by designated poll watchers, whose job it is in part to observe that each voter deposits only one ballot.

3. Ballot box opened and counted at closing time in the presence of all competing factions who wish to observe, and in the presence of the 8 or so citizens who have been chosen to do the counting.

4. Since there are about 200 to 250 ballots in the average precinct, we would need 8 workers per precinct a team of two designated counters to handle 50 to 65 ballots each. Papers and pencils (as opposed to indelible markers which are not to be allowed in the counting area) for tabulating the votes would be provided by Board of Elections. The tally sheets to be used by the official counters would be printed along with the ballots by the Board of Elections so that the tally sheets match the ballots, as the tally sheets will be the official evidence, and the official paper trail, signed by each of the official counters who use them.

5. Ballot Counters for each precinct would be chosen from eligible voters in the precinct a week in advance. After the Board of Elections had mailed a post card to all eligible voters 30 days before the election date, which would announce the time and place where the official counters for their precinct would be chosen (probably exactly one week before election day at the same place as where the precinct polling place will be on election day) -- all who wanted to be eligible to be an official counter would show up or submit their name in affidavit form at the designated time and place, to be put in a hat or otherwise drawn by lot. Two citizens would be chosen for every 50 or so ballots anticipated at that precinct. One of the eight official counter positions could be reserved for High School Seniors or College students who are registered to vote, and a separate drawing by lot could be conducted for that position. This would be to prepare the next generation for how votes should be counted, so we never get into this mess again.

6. The vote counters should each be paid $50 per hour for their work, so that every regular citizen would want to be chosen; this would insure that normal citizens, not government workers, would be counting the votes on election day as a rule. Alternative counters would also be chosen in case one of more of the counters was sick or unexpectedly detained on election night.

7. At closing time, when the ballots are counted, any citizens would be able to observe with video cameras, but a deputy sheriff or national guardsman would be there for the sole purpose of maintaining order and, in general, quiet during the counting. (To the objection that this is too much like a military state, the sheriff who provided the deputies would be up for election soon, and the national guardsmen are regular citizens, not professional soldiers.

8. The tally sheets would be signed by the two official counters who did the counting with that tally sheet. Then all the tally sheets would be added up a by the precinct leaders designated by the Board of elections AND in the presence of all those who counted the ballots at that precincts. Then the precinct captains AND the 8 or so counters would all sign the master tally sheet, which would have the complete results for the entire precinct Copies of that tally sheet should be given to the two precinct captains AND all eight or so counters.

9. Since all the counters and the election night precinct captains would sign the results as true and valid for their section of the counting process; this would give a legal basis and paper trail upon which the Board of Elections director would sign the election results for that precinct -- as true.

10. All results would be posted at the precinct, before the ballots leave the precinct. There would be a mandate to keep those results posted for 24 hours so that any who wished to send representatives around to check the next day to check all polling places, could do so. (With only 50 to 65 ballots to count per counting team, the counting should be easily done in 2 1/2 hours, meaning the unofficial count could be done by about 10 PM. Each team of election night precinct captains -- one from each party qualified in that state -- would then call its official tally to the county Board of Elections, -- an unofficial count should be generally announced by 11 PM across the USA in each time zone. (that s all we get now anyway.)

11. And then the ballots could be sent down town accompanied by two of the neighborhood people, also chosen at the selection process held a week or so before; those citizens who bring the box downtown, would be paid $50 each for that service.

12. The ballots would be preserved for 1 year after the voting.

13. The postcards that were mailed out to each eligible voter 30 days in advance would also double as the proof that the person WAS a legitimate registered voter who actually lived in the precinct where they intended to vote. If the postcard came back for any individual voter as undeliverable then that person would be removed from the voting rolls. This means every voter would have to be registered at least 30 days in advance, -- just like the old days. This would effectively outlaw non-citizens and provisional ballots or walk up voters who appear out of thin air on election day. If a person doesn t care enough to register to vote 30 days in advance, they don't deserve to vote. If some one is caught in between moves, that should statistically even out with everyone else caught between moves on that election day.

14. All mail in and absentee ballots would be outlawed.

15. All computerized voting machines would be outlawed, and especially computerized machines with modems in them; all mechanical voting machines would be outlawed.

16. Any candidate could have a designated witness at the county board of elections to see the county tabulate all the precincts. (This is very important. With witnesses at many or even all the county precincts, and a witness at county Board of Elections, it will make it impossible for the results to be skewed at the county Board of Elections, in the way Voter News Service skewed the results of Dubuque County during the GOP Iowa Straw poll in 1996.

The following legislative items would need to be implemented above the county level:

17. The military would have its own provisions for the enlisted men and women to vote. Each military unit should constitute its own precinct, and count the votes the same way as a normal precinct would in the neighborhoods.

18. Also, Tuesday, the election day, should be made a national holiday, and maybe the Monday before -- so that everyone would have a little time to get informed and lobby their neighbors.

19. The Secretary of State in each state would be designated to tabulate thevote as called in or faxed in from each county for the state wide races. Any three (or more) candidates in the state can ban together and designate a witness to be at state headquarters to make sure the results aren t skewed at that level. (It s important that any three candidates can ban together to do this, so that these witness positions cannot be controlled by major party designated hacks and yes men.

20. The US Senate would be charged with tabulating all the vote for the US House races, the US Senate races, and the Presidential race, when applicable.
Any federal candidate or candidates could elect to send a designated witness to Washington DC to the election night tabulation room to witness the results as posted there. With representatives at the county level, the state level, and the federal level, it would be impossible for any of those at any of the command central to skew the vote of the people. All of these positions would be paid positions and the state budget would cover travel and lodging expenses for the legally designated witnesses. Remember, honest elections are just as important as national defense. Just as national defense protects us against foreign enemies, honest elections protect us against domestic enemies.

An afterthought: No wonder the Board of Elections cry about not being able to find workers for election day. They workers are paid minimum wage OR WORSE.
This for citizens doing the most important job in the American Republic -- who are being asked to work 12 hours a day -- and more! When thinking of compensating election workers and official counters at each precinct this is no time to be in a penny pinching mood. You may just as well say that we re going to give the Defense Department Civil War era weaponry just to save taxpayers money.

The whole election day system as currently constituted, as I see it, has been set up for no other reason that to make sure that a small clique can have the greatest possible opportunity to steal and fix the elections. The process is set up to keep the everyday citizen OUT of the process and caught up in every day hustle and bustle.

The above prescriptions would change all that and make it very risky and difficult to warp elections at all, and impossible to rig an election form a central location in a county, a state, or in the nation as a whole.

Final note: Anyone convicted of election fraud at any level would suffer loss of citizenship, and 10 years of jail for an offense in a state or county race, and 20 years in jail for an offense in a federal election.

This is how serious a matter it should be to insure that we have honest elections.

Jim Condit Jr., Director, Citizens for a Fair Vote Count