Can We Work within the system ? (Autorank hits a HOMERUN!)

[kster]

by Michael Collins

Can We Work within the system ? a response to Jonathan Simon and others who think we can

Michael Collins

Is it practical or useful to attempt to work within the current legislative system to change election processes and regulations? This is a critical issue for elections activists. This statement is my firmly held position. I do not intend to offend anyone. Rather, my goal is to focus on the abundantly clear realities we face and the directions we must take based on those realities.

On the issue that interests me the most, election fraud, we clearly need to work within the system to gather that data sufficient to determine if election fraud occurred in a given election. We have no ability to critique and judge the system if we lack access to the available data. This working within approach has been highly effective as evidenced by the work of TruthIsAll, Simon, Freeman, and ElectionArchive.Org/Baiman.

With regard to the other focus of the clean elections interest group, influencing the type of voting and tabulation systems in use, the legislative regulation of those systems, and the quality assurance component, post election audits, the choice is not as straight forward.

The legislation that established our current nightmare, the Help America Vote Act, was a bipartisan effort. It received overwhelming approval in the House and Senate. The record of the final action should have warned us. Convicted felon, Rep. Robert Ney, R, OH is listed as the principal sponsor.



http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070218_can_we_work_within_t.htm

[movonne]

1. k@r

[In Truth We Trust]

2. HAND COUNTED paper ballots YES! Sourcecode anywhere-NO!

[rumpel]

3. Even Britt Williams

former member of the NASED member of Technical Guidance Committe said in Feinstein's hearing
that a secure electronic voting system is probably still 4-5 years down the line.

Q. Should we be using these systems in the meantime?

A.....ideally, no.

[mod mom]

4. Another winner to share. Thank you.

Great work, Auto! Those list servs can get a little heated, remember getting Dems to agree is like herding cats.

[bleever]

5. "The people and a citizen run election process are the only hope

to truly elect a Congress that is both a responsible steward for democratic processes and an accurate reflection of the decency and common sense of the citizens of the United States of America."

Outstanding!

:thumbsup:

[eridani]

8. Why is organizing citizens to run elections somehow less complex--

--than computer programming?

[bleever]

9. Not less complex;

more transparent and verifiable, if done as it is in many countries around the world.

[eridani]

17. With parliamentary systems and only a few items on any ballot

You propose to change this in the US how?

[kster]

18. Hand count the races on the ballot that

all the states combined have an interest in, and all the other races on that ballot, like, whether your state can milk cows after midnight, count that part of the ballot any way you choose.

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. I don't really see the argument

I know some people believe that nothing less than 100% hand counts is any good, but I can't really tell why. I think getting rid of punch cards was a good thing, and getting rid of paperless DREs would also be a good thing.

[Stevepol]

7. Great post. We may not be able to prove fraud in a given case, but

we certainly can point out the general principles and the high likelihood of fraud.

As the post says, "We have no ability to critique and judge the system if we lack access to the available data. This working within approach has been highly effective as evidenced by the work of TruthIsAll, Simon, Freeman, and ElectionArchive.Org/Baiman." Naturally where there is no paper ballot to recount, you can't prove beyond a doubt that the results are fraudulent, but the statistical work based on exit polling is highly meaningful, especially since it's repeated for almost every election now.

By the way, there are many more sources than those listed above. A couple I'm aware of are Kathy Dopp's organization, Election Archive or uscountvotes.org, plus Baiman's www.electiondefensealliance.org.

The general principle is not even debatable it seems to me: whether the vote is fraudulent in a specific election or not, when the vote is counted in total secrecy without verification, you can't even have a democracy.

One of the real problems, I think, is that the elections officials are just not very much aware of what computers can do. The Princeton people, for example, including the student who broke into the Sequoia machine in 7 seconds, were able to program into the working software of the machine lines of programming that had the machine shift votes from one column to another and to do it on a specific day and not on any other day and to have that line or those lines of instruction remain completely undetectable. I suspect that 90% of the folks who work with elections can't even wrap their minds around that fact.

It's going to take a while, but we're getting there.

[truedelphi]

14. Exactly - the people who sit inside the Registrarof VOter

Offices do not want to hear a word of criticism

Considering this quote from your post: The Princeton people, for example, including the student who broke into the Sequoia machine in 7 seconds, were able to program into the working software of the machine lines of programming that had the machine shift votes from one column to another and to do it on a specific day and not on any other day and to have that line or those lines of instruction remain completely undetectable

Were I to mention this to the Registrar of Voters Elayne Grinnell in Marin COunty, she would jsut say, "SO do you really thingk that we would allow such dishonesty here in this county?"

THey all have this mindset that the fraudsters would show up on a day or two before election day wearing face masks with a sign on their backs reading "We are the election bad guys!"

They don't wanna hear that it can be invisible code that was palnted a good while before and comes into play only on the evening of an important election.

[lies and propaganda]

10. Just another DUer to be proud of...

though he happens to be my favorite :blush: :blush: :blush:

[Kurovski]

11. K&R (nt)

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

12. solution is to "vote" in better congress with our paperless machines?

cool, how do you do that?

[kster]

15. I believe the Politicians sense that the vote rigging, gig is up

The people, that know and understand what these machines are doing outnumber the Politicians.

The Politicians want so bad to keep their "Make believe democracy machines" going but, they need to come to terms with the fact THAT IT IS OVER!!

Only a matter of time, my friend, only a matter of time.

[petgoat]

13. Fix for Broken Link

http://www.electionfraudnews.com/Resources/DemWeek/DemocracyWeekEssay11.htm

[petgoat]

16. If we can't work through the system, then what can we do? nt