Volusia County update

[bailey77]

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/1954.html

MONDAY FEB. 21, 2005: Volusia County elections worker Lana Hires has resigned. She wrote the famous Diebold memo about the minus 16,022 votes for Gore in 2000. Lana Hires was at the warehouse in November 2004 when Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne found elections records, including a signed poll tape and a homemade ballot, in the warehouse trash. A county voter registration record, filled out by a voter, was found in the street outside Hires's house, indicating that she had taken county election records home. Hires had a key to the ballot vault and 24-hour access to the building.

The lawsuit filed by Volusia County citizen Susan Pynchon (to set aside the Volusia County election based on irregularities) has been postponed again, to late March.

It appears that the Volusia certification was improper. The canvassing board certified the wrong numbers, with at least 400 votes not counted at all in precinct 215. On Nov. 15, the board added more than 400 votes to precinct 215, but did not adjust the certification. Also, though the board says it counted military absentee votes on Nov. 12, none of these votes were included in the totals certified by Volusia County. The board claims that it certified the election on Nov. 12 after working hours. If the court finds that the Nov. 12 date holds, it may deem Pynchon's suit to be untimely; if it finds that Nov. 13 holds, or that the election was improperly certified, the suit is likely to go forward.

Black Box Voting provided a satchel of public records to Pynchon, including 10 poll tapes sent to Black Box Voting by Volusia County in December, along with an explanation by former Volusia Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe that she had "forgotten" to provide them despite several public records request follow-ups. Pynchon provided several new auditing tips for Diebold systems, including information on security problems in the Diebold event logs for Volusia County, and improper accounting for Volusia's memory cards (electronic ballot boxes).

[bettyellen]

1. thanks and good luck with this

[Chicago1]

2. Thank you for the update!!!

Thank you for the update. Very informative.

Waiting for the IMPEACHMENT WHILE THE SCANDALS KEEP UNFOLDING
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[BeFree]

3. What a mess

What's wrong with those people in election offices? Don't they give a shit? Their work product is as sloppy as anything I've ever seen!

Geeez, they get ready all year to handle an election, and even after all that prep they come out looking like miserable failures!

What's so damned hard about counting votes? Pay me $20 grand and I'll produce certified and acuurate and timely vote counting every time.

Well, at least one piss-poor worker has finally quit Volusia county, one down, how many more to go?

[skids]

4. Somewhere around here there's a letter from Barney Frank...

...offering up the explanation: election worker jobs are considered patronage positions. For most of them, the only qualifications they have is that they knew someone, or did someone a favor.

[BeFree]

5. That makes sense...

....it's not what you know, it's who you know, and who you blow.

And this is who runs our elections? It's all beginning to make sense....

I've said all along that the local election office was the place to begin election reform. Believe me, I am at work on mine.

[berniew1]

8. Most are partisan and don't want accurate results

[Aussie_expat]

10. I agree Be.......

and this is the tragedy,

"Well, at least one piss-poor worker has finally quit Volusia county, one down, how many more to go?"

I think the whole BOE should be personally fined or jailed. What a debacle.

[berniew1]

6. Election problems in Volusia County documented:

http://www.flcv.com/volusiao.html
http://www.flcv.com/EIRSFla2.html

[marions ghost]

7. yes local officials must be held accountable for Votergate as well as

state and federal officials. Most voters in this country would be horrified to realize how vulnerable the system is to clowns like Hires, who have unlimited access to their registration forms and ballots.

[bailey77]

9. Without the network of local officials doing favors

corruption on a grand scale is impossible.

Citizens, it is relatively easy to displace crappy elections officials. Usually they are replaced with a smoother version of the same, but not always.

Just one citizen, observant and politely assertive and asking the difficult questions, can do much to stop up the holes in local election security. Officials soon learn that if they are too sloppy, people like Pedro, or Leonard, or Echo, or Susan, or Jeremiah, or Doug, or Vicki will ask them difficult and embarrassing questions in public.

All politics boils down to local politics, in the end.

Also, the concept is not to "fix" the system but to put procedures in place to effectively "watchdog" the system. The task will never be over, can not be turned over to political parties or government agents, and will always be the responsibility of ordinary citizens.

That's what has to happen if our democratic republic is to work as intended.

[marions ghost]

11. We need procedures

as you said, "to effectively watchdog" the system.

As much as I think we all should be asking questions of our election officials at this point, I don't think that in future we should have to perform a policing function.

If we had better procedures, we MIGHT be able to trust ourselves and our fellow citizens to do the job without having to ask "difficult and embarrassing" questions. I resent the fact that we have been put in this position. Our laws are too weak and protect the corrupt.