Why the "Greens" Dropped Nevada from Recount Efforts...Just So You Know.

[KoKo]

"The Nevada Secretary of State's office presented us with hefty bill and a ridiculous list of tasks to be completed in an unreasonably short period of time," said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.

"We were asked to pay $349,000 but were not provided a detailed breakdown of the actual costs and we do not have confidence that our money will be spent wisely. Apparently, using privately owned Sequoia voting machines creates a situation where the Secretary of State needs to bring in outside technicians at great expense in order to recount the ballots of Nevada voters. This creates an unacceptable obstacle for ensuring the integrity of Nevada's elections," added Bobier.

"At this point, we would rather focus our efforts on recounts in Ohio and New Mexico," said Cobb campaign manager Lynne Serpe The Ohio recount will be the subject of a hearing on Friday in Federal District Court in Columbus, Ohio. Cobb, Badnarik and their attorneys filed counterclaims against Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, alleging that Blackwell is stalling the recount effort there.

For more information see the campaign website, http://www.votecobb.org. Information about the Green Party can be found at http://www.gp.org.

[DireStrike]

1. Translation:

Apparently, using privately owned Sequoia voting machines creates a situation where the Secretary of State needs to bring in outside technicians at great expense in order to recount the ballots of Nevada voters. This creates an unacceptable obstacle for ensuring the integrity of Nevada's elections," added Bobier.



---> We knew the sequoia techs would simply hack the votes anyway.

[Pirate Smile]

2. The lack of a paper trail (after they said there would be one ) in Vegas

was a big problem I was hoping would get a light shone on during a recount.

Bummer.

[rumpel]

3. Question

Are all Seqouia machines privately owned? Who owns them?

[thecrow]

4. Voting machines should belong to WE THE PEOPLE

not some private company!!!

[BlueCaliDem]

22. Naw. We Only Get to Pay for Them. I'm Really Tired of Corporate Welfare...

...that turns around and bites us in the arsh each, and every time!

[KoKo]

5. Kick again for those who missed this announcement...(n/t)

[NVMojo]

6. the SOS campaigned for Bush, met with Bush and Rove

in Reno just prior to announcing that he was going to get HAVA funds to buy Sequoias for the 2004 elections and the list goes on. The SOS is a hack of Bush/Cheney. So you have Blackwell meeting with Bush on election day and Heller in Nevada stumping for Bush in the weeks leading to the elections and picking him up for a campaign appearance in Vegas just before the election. Have we ever had any such crawling up each others asses like we have in any other Presidential election between the presidential candidates and their Republican SOS's nationwide. Go figure.


And, yes, Heller was pissing his pants that someone actually connected the lying dots to his 2,000 plus paperless voting Sequoia machines in Vegas that are not capable of doing a recount. Why do you think he made it so difficult for Cobb and others? If someone has nothing to hide, why obstruct?

I could go on.

[KoKo]

7. It was probably wise that they dropped out of NV then...Done Deal

would have strapped their resources. :shrug:

[NVMojo]

11. sure, but will we settle for no accountability?

I will never vote in an election in Nevada again. We are totally tied up with HAVA and Sequoia machines. I'm waiting for Heller to be featured on the Sequoia website marketing the bastard machines just like LePore:

aw crap, i should have downloaded the comment by LePore on that website to my hard drive. My fault...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=110802

[KoKo]

12. Whats awful is that I read in article on DU that Nevada was a Model for

"Touch Screens" because they modeled their machines after the Casino's Slot Machines...Ugh....:eyes:

It was posted on DU in an article about the "worst of voting machines" but Nevada was supposed to be the "Crown Jewel" of the best! :shrug:

It leads me to believe that there's more disinformation posted on DU than even I who am a skeptic know about. :-(

[NVMojo]

14. KoKo1, it would not be the DUers fault for posting that ...

Our SOS was totally in bed with the KKKarl Rove marketing machine and was spreading disinformation about having statewide paper printer Sequoias when in reality, he had about 2,000 new sequoias with printers and about 2,000 old sequoias without printers. Yet if you do a web search on this in the news, it came out like we were all covered with paper trails. And in many of those same articles talking about Nevada setting a wonderful example for the paper trail emachines, there would be the remarks about how accurate the slot emachines were. The big difference is in regulations. Nevada has been regulating slot machines for decades and the e-slot machines since they came out, diligently ...but not the e voting machines that have been in Las Vegas for ten years.

[KoKo]

16. Thanks for the clarification...I still wonder why it wasn't debunked on DU

though. We are usually good at ripping apart disinformation. The article did come out sometime around the Election though in a discussion on voting machines...so it probably was slipped through, or someone innocently posted it because they "Googled."

I even read where other states and unfortunately my own (NC) were sending Voter Officials to shmooze with Nevada Elections officials to see how wonderfully their machines performed!

Given what I've read in the last few weeks about our OWN elections Officials here in NC...it makes sense...:-(

Thanks for your points. And, it's good we finally know that Nevada isn't the "Crown Jewel" in US for Electronic Voting... Some of us just met this afternoon in NC to try to make sure we don't buy any more "Touch Screens" here..but we need lots of info to convince those who are being wined and dined by the folks who make these machines...including those who probably got a night at the "casino" to pretend to be Bill Bennet. :-(

[MarkusQ]

18. Blackwell denies meeting with Bush on election day

An eyewitness could probably become an instant celebrity/hero by calling K.O. and saying "I saw them meet and I'd be willing to swear to it on the air".

--MarkusQ

[BlueCaliDem]

23. "I saw them meet, and I'd be willing to swear to it on the air." Then...

...they'd never be able to catch a plane ever again.

[Straight Shooter]

8. They should sue Sproul and his company for recount cost

Gawd only knows how many registration forms for Democrats were trashed by that Republican-operated company.

Is anybody in Nevada on the State level going after Sproul? Anybody at all?? For cryin' out loud, he committed a crime.

Worthless Republican operatives. Lie, cheat and steal.

[NVMojo]

9. I can only tell you that the state party is spending its time

INFIGHTING. Typical.

[JohnGideon]

10. To Clear Up Misinformation....

There was never any intent by the state of Nevada to put printers on the already existing Sequoia machines in Clark County (Las Vegas). Those machines need to be retro-fitted and may be done at a later date. That was the plan, as announced by Heller, from day one.

Now, on the reason for not doing the recount, there is a bit of a problem in the state's reasons for charging so much. The machines in Clark County belong to the state and the state should have no reason to hire Sequoia techs to recount those machines.

The machines in the rest of the state may (we don't know if they are leased or not) be leased from Sequoia, but they printed a voter verified paper ballot. No Sequoia technicians should be needed for that.

So, that leaves two possibilities. First, there is no law in Nevada that allows a recount using the voter verified paper ballots in the count. If that's true then putting the printers on the machines was a worthless expense and proved nothing.

Second, that little printer they did use for the voter verified paper ballot provides a worthless piece of paper that is not hand countable which necessitates the use of ballots taken from the flash memory. In this case those voter verified paper ballots and the printer were a worthless expense and proved nothing.

[KoKo]

13. Can you do a "Citizens Action" recount in one "test county" there? Maybe

you could get contributions? Does your state law allow "citizens complaints" in voting rights? :shrug:

[NVMojo]

17. Koko, I called someone high up and was told we had to be careful

due to Senator Harry Reid's new position in the Senate ....I was told to back off with the questions.

What is really tough is this, we have a governor who was just recognized by Karl Rove at the National Repuke Convention, promoted to the top seat. Kenny Guinn co-chaired the Bush campaign in Nevada with our AG Brian Sandoval who is up for a big nomination by Reid and Senator John Ensign (R) for some federal judgeship appointment. Our SOS is a Repuke, all of them worked on the Bush campaign. Without the State party, controlled by Senator Harry Reid, being focused, there isn't much anyone can do in this state. The stranglehold on Nevada by Repukes is so damn strong and now we are completely emachined statewide by their choice of machines. We are screwed. To think Bush only won by 21,000 votes here is amazing. 2.5%.

[KoKo]

20. From your description...I can see why Cobb didn't bother. It sounds like

a tough place. Very controlled. I still can't believe that Harry Reid replaced Daschle in the Senate...

(I think of the old Godfather movies when I think of Nevada..remember the Senator in Godfather II who was on the take from the Corleone's?) At least you tried.

I can't say it's much better here in NC and we have a Democratic Govenor, but getting folks to check the inside of those machines that vaporized votes in one county here...goes nowhere.

[NVMojo]

24. KoKo, if you are interested in the mob stuff, check this article

out. This guy loves to bust open stuff and this came out two years ago about the older Sequoia machines. He fought them from being purchased ten years ago to no avail.

http://www.americanmafia.com/Inside_Vegas/9-30-02_Inside_Vegas.html

[NVMojo]

15. not quite right. Initially Heller said Sequoia could retrofit the machines

in Vegas and then a few months later, it came out that they could not be retrofit...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=91982

So did Heller and Sequoia mislead the public initially or did they truly screw up and assume they could add printers to those old machines that some protested back in 1994 because they could not print out the votes...????

[sft]

19. one-armed bandits

Personally it sounds like a turn at the slots might be a better gamble than the voting booth in NV -- ceptin it costs a nickel...

[RaulVB]

21. Any way to ask Kerry to wire them some money? (n/t)