NJ Governor endorses voter verified paper backup!!

[SmileMaker]

Acting Governor Endorses Voter Verified Paper Backup!
Dear Coalition for Peace Action Supporter,

I have just learned that Acting Governor and Senate President Richard Codey, in his State of the State address today (Tuesday)
endorsed a Voter Verified Paper Backup to all electronic voting machines! This is a major step forward, and I want to thank
everyone who has been organizing on this issue in any way. I believe our Rally yesterday on the State House steps made a significant
contribution. I just learned that it was covered on CBS Radio, as well as on a number of television stations including NJN and News 12
New Jersey.

I want to offer a special and public word of thanks and congratulations to our Coalition for Peace Action Chairperson, Irene Goldman,
who was in close touch over many weeks with the Governor's office and made impassioned, thoughtful, and repeated pleas for Governor
Codey to take this position.

Now we have an opening, let's move foward! If you're a New Jersey voter, one thing you could help on right away is to contact your
two New Jersey Assemblypersons and ask them to co-sponsor the bill sponsored by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, A2627,
to mandate this legislatively. See link below to find out how to conatct your Assemblypersons. We also have a two sided one page fact
sheet we can send you. Reply to this email if you want one to help educate yourself and others. It is available as a PDF document or
in MS Word format.

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp


Coalition for Peace Action &
Peace Action Education Fund
40 Witherspoon Street
Princeton, NJ 08542
www.peacecoalition.org

[SmileMaker]

1. btw - that was my very first post!!

:toast:

[hangloose]

2. Excellent ,can we petition him to speak on behalf of voters in

other states that currently don't have this requirement?

[stray cat]

3. Great! Let the governors put some pressure on the legislatures

Welcome to DU and good post!

[Sandy_0]

4. It's the tabulators

The electronic voting machines are just one tiny part of the problem. It seems to be so difficult to get people to understand the worst part of the electronic machine problem.

There are a TABULATORS made by a number of different companies. Aside from all of the other problems of disenfranchisement and typical dirty election tricks, the TABULATORS decided the apparant but fraudulant election results. It works this way. The kind of ballot didn't matter. It could have been paperless electronic (which has problems of its own), punch card ballot, optical scan ballot, provisional ballots (many of which were not counted at all), other paper ballots, absentee ballots, military absentee ballots etc. ALL BALLOTS! The ballots were counted locally, in each precinct. Those totals were then sent to the central TABULATOR in each county from all the precincts. The totals were then tallied by the TABULATOR all of which are regular computers with a windows OS and if you have ever worked with a computer, you know how easily the final tabulation would have been manipulated. Some systems were remotely controlled, others had a default set for Bush that would kick in after a predetermined number of Kerry votes. All were connected to modems and could be hacked. No matter what method was used, the totals could be changed, and according to the unaltered exit polls, were changed without leaving a trace to the untrained examiner or election observer. These TABULATORS tallie as many as two million votes at a time. These tallies are what were given as the final number of votes. Basically, as the exit polls were being taken, the local precincts were able to add up the number of votes for each candidate and at that point the exit polls and the results agreed. It wasn't until the individual precincts sent their results to be tallied by the Central TABULATOR that a descrepency occurred between the results and the exit polls.

Now, with all forms of ballots, with the exeption of the paperless touch screen voting machines, there are still ballots that can be recounted by hand. If those raw figures from each precinct are collected without their going through the Central TABULATOR, the true results can be discovered.

Many areas DID NOT use the touch screen paperless machines. There were a number of different types of ballots. There was NOT a clear mandate. TABULATORS didn't just affect the outcome of the presidential race but those the house and senate as well. There was no mandate for any of the candidates. There was only what the TABULATORS in thirty states presented. The TABULATORS decided the election.

[Liberty Belle]

6. :kick: Tabulators must be addressed, everyone!

[Carolab]

8. Yes! Make SURE this is VERY VERY CLEAR.

There can be "monkeying around" on the electronic level and it will still remain undetected without a full paper AUDIT.

There can be extra votes cast illegally, manipulation in the tabulators, etc. There must be safeguards to ensure that the votes cast in the machines match the paper ballots and the pollbooks and registrations.

[SharonRB]

31. I realize that --

I know they can only get a really accurate count if they do a true hand recount and don't go through the tabulators, but at least having voter verified ballots to do these recounts is a start. I agree that the tabulators are the problem. Somehow we have to get rid of them and count by hand and add up the votes.

[SmileMaker]

5. Just keep posting suggestions

I will send the thread to the people in NJ who are working on this when I have some more posts.

Since I went to DC last week, I decided to skip the Trenton protest yesterday because I can't miss too much work. I'm so glad that 48 people showed up and it made a difference!

If you want to connect directly with the people in NJ who are working e-mail: [e-mail] - or call 609-924-5022

[pbartch]

7. Thank God for Acting Governor and Senate President Richard Codey

What a refreshing change - an honest politician!

[OKthatsIT]

9. Not Enough! We need 'blackbox' and 'open source code'

AND paper receipts.

Personally, we could make this really easy and just do paper. Each precinct, with Dem+Rep+3rd would count each ballot. This should be done now, until we can all agree on the anything electronic.

Absolutely no tabulators sending info to laptops using modems. No Network machines. No modems at all.

[harmonyguy]

10. Say No to Paper Backups! Say No to Paper Reciepts! Say YES to...

P-A-P-E-R -- B-A-L-L-O-T-S

I hate to sound like a stuck record, but be careful about what you choose to support.
Paper backups have no legal standing.
Paper reciepts have no legal standing.
Paper audit trails have no legal standing.

Paper ballots HAVE legal standing.

Paper anything short of paper ballots, is just weasle-words that can be used to continue the election scams, long after the people have given-in to paper something else.

It's voter-verified paper BALLOTS folks, preferably hand-counted, and hand re-counted as many times as is necessary.

HG

(Why do people need voting-machines anyway?)

[In Truth We Trust]

12. Paper ballots NOW!!!! Hand counts Now!!!!!

I agree H Guy. We need nothing more anbd nothing less than paper ballots and hand counts.

Please people do not endorse anything other than paper ballots and hand counts, period! It is the MOST effective means to discourage fraWD.

[SharonRB]

32. I absolutely agree with you, harmonyguy!

Let's go back to the good old days -- mark a ballot with a writing instrument, have multiple people count the ballots in each precinct as a check and balance, add the votes in each precinct, add all the precincts in the county, and on and on. It's the only surefire way to get an accurate count with no monkey business (chimp business!).

[SmileMaker]

11. kick for more comments

[RaulVB]

13. What about John Corzine?

He'll be the next New Jersey Governor.

[FogerRox]

14. I'm on it Raul, here in Nj. by the way Irene came to the Election fraud

protest dec 12th Irene is in this pic--someplace

I have a Corzine connection. But I want to put together a single document on Fraud--& BBV---not just for him.

[SmileMaker]

16. Hey there Foger

I'm in that pic! T hird one in from the right - Irene had left by the time it was taken. Are you on the CFPA mailing list? Here is the latest action:

http://www.peacecoalition.org/action/urgent/050113_verified_voting_new_jersey.html

I'm so glad you are keeping on top of this. btw - does anyone know what role Rush Holt played last thursday. I thought I read some comments that disputed accusations that we were conspiracy nuts, but he didn't protest. I do have a lot of respect for him though. There must have been a very logical reason for the action that he took and I suspect it was about having enough irrefutable evidence.

[FogerRox]

18. Ive been trading emails with irene--BBV is my life untill the

congressionals in 2006. And a break for Camp Wellstone in March

[RaulVB]

23. Nice!

Keep it up Foger,

Nice pictures!

[Bill Bored]

15. Suggestion

This is a step in the right direction, but what is needed are mandatory random audits of the paper ballots. We can debate what percentage should be counted by hand, but it has to be random and statistically significant and it has to be automatic in every election, regardless of the margin of victory reported by the machines. Otherwise, the paper ballot is only a placebo! Good luck Joyzy!

[FogerRox]

19. After seeing random precincts recounted in Ohio I would go further

Open source code---I would prefer just straight paper though

[Bill Bored]

25. That's fine but they were not actually counted at radnom in OH. n/t

[FogerRox]

28. Exactly my point--

[SmileMaker]

20. Excellent!!

I went to DC last week with Betsy K and her daughter. (I think she knows you through the 12/12/ protest). I'm so thrilled we went. Irene is a dynamo for many causes.

[Smirking_Chimp]

17. Let's force Repubs to vote on this!!!

Anyone who votes against better have a good reason, or else they are for fraud!!!
Thanks for the post!

[SmileMaker]

21. Verified Voting Action Alert - NJ

http://www.peacecoalition.org/action/urgent/050113_verified_voting_new_jersey.html

[Quakerfriend]

22. Thx Smilemaker, and welcome to DU!!

We need to get the lawmakers to admit that the $$$ spent on these machines was a total waste, and throw them machines out!

In fact, the SOS and others who insisted on these machines, despite documented evidence that they could easily be hacked, should be held accountable!

[Woodstock Liberal]

24. I just sent an email to my assemblywoman

Thanks for the info and link, I've bookmarked it for future reference.

[NationalEnquirer]

26. How could anyone disagree?

Seriously, what politician, Dem or Rep, is going to be against this type of thing?
Folks, I say, we can get a significant amount of Repug support for such measures.

[KerryReallyWon]

27. Paper backups are great, but any "electronic" voting equipment worries me

because with electronic fraud, they fudge the win up over the percent for a recount mandate. So then if you want to count the "paper trail" you are seen as a "sore loser". They say, but he won by a margin that a recount is not required? You are sore loser. I believe the best way is as federal standard, one way across this country to vote, and no electronics. All counting stations have memebers of both candidates. Just like Canada. We always try to get to the hand recount state to see the true winner, why not just start there?

[FogerRox]

29. my fav is paper--period

[SharonRB]

30. One state down, 49 to go.