First-Hand Voter Fraud = WITNESSED HIS VOTE BEING CHANGED BEFORE THEIR EYES

[L. Coyote]

To: "Coalition For Visible Ballots"
Subject: First-Hand Voter Fraud
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:28:49 -0800

First-Hand Voter Fraud

Subject: YESTERDAY, FIRST HAND INFORMATION ABOUT VOTER FRAUD...
*From:* Jim Welch ......

HE AND THE POLL WORKER WITNESSED HIS VOTE BEING CHANGED BEFORE THEIR EYES. - VIRGINIA BROOKS ....

I ask for your support on an issue that smacked me in the face when I went to vote yesterday. If this is allowed to stand we shall surely hear the sound of the door on the boxcar slamming shut.

I had read many reports about how the electronic voting machines had been compromised and how it had been proven over and over that the results could be manipulated. Frankly, like most people I trusted the "people in charge" would correct and take care of these problems and this could not really ever effect my
vote.

I was wrong.

Yesterday, while I in the process of voting for the first time with an "electronic voting machine" (in Wharton County we had been using paper ballots up till now) I actually saw the machine change my vote!

I was on page 2, item 11 (right hand column) when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the left hand column. In a blink of an eye my vote changed on Item 8 which I had already voted on. Incredulously I called for an election official to come over to my booth. With him looking on I changed my vote back to how I wanted it on Item 8 and then went on to my next item and we both witnessed Item 8 change back again ON ITS OWN!!!! The "machine" overrode my vote!!!

I am not naive enough to think this only happened once to me. How many other votes were changed is an answer I will never know. Even though a voter can review his votes on each issue before he "finalizes" his ballot there is absolutely no guarantee a change did not occur after he left a particular page, or even when he "finalized" his ballot.

The election official called a lady who is charge of Wharton County elections, a Ms. Owens, and informed her what had happened. He came back to me and inquired if I wanted to continue with the ballot, or if I so desired I could have a "new" electronic ballot. I told him, "No." If the electronic voting machine could override and change my vote once it could do it again. What is the value of casting a vote if there is no way the voter can know WITH CERTAINTY THEIR VOTE HAS NOT BEEN ALTERED OR CHANGED??

There is no value.

I called Ms. Owens and she explained that a "paper trail" could be generated by the electronic voting equipment, but not as the voting occurred. In other words, we are asked to accept as factual the results generated at a future time, which is obviously not verifiable, by the same electronic voting system that we question and know as an indisputable fact can be manipulated or "adjusted".

When we go in to vote we are asked to verify who we are and we are required to have proof of our identity. That is good. If history has shown one thing to be true it is that there have been many an election rigged by using nonexistent "voters" and changing election results.

However, we, the voter, are being asked to accept ON BLIND FAITH as total fact that no one will change the vote by rearranging the 1’s and 0’s, that the electronic voting machines will not make arbitrary errors, and that no political agenda will have access to these electronic voting machines. We are being asked to believe that people are not bribeable, that all politicians in power are honest, that special interest groups do not possess the knowledge, nor the money to acquire the knowledge, to hack into these electronic voting machines and change the votes. We are then further asked to believe that the machines themselves will tell us the results and print a report that we can believe!! As Josef Stalin said, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

Without a verifiable paper ballot generated at the time the vote is made there cannot exist, at this time, any way to 100% know the data is accurate and has been preserved and counted accurately.

This "electronic voting" has all the markings of the end of the Liberty of the People and the rise of tyranny in America of unparalleled proportions.

We are being told that we must use electronic voting machines because the Federal Government "requires" it. .... Seeking more information I called the Harris County Republican Party and spoke to Ms. Mandy Day, an Administrative Assistant, who assured me that since the decision to use these electronic machines in Texas was made by a Republican Secretary of State and "he is such a good man", I should not be concerned.

....

You can fool some of the people all the time. You can fool all of people
some of time. But no matter how sharp the Texas politicians think they
are, there will be hell to pay when the Texas voter wakes up and smell
their voting Rights burning.

Jim Welch

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. ...

:applause:

[madeline_con]

2. "he is such a good man",

Aren't you glad she cleared that up?

Call the local news ASAP!

[VP505]

6. Not only call the local

news but also party headquarters to get some watchers over there and DEMAND that the machine be shut down immediately. I would have also told every person coming in to vote what had happened while I waited there for the media and party officials to show up.

[jenmarie]

54. Exactly right, vpilot!

and even the person who wrote this believes in "voter" fraud -- the bit about If history has shown one thing to be true it is that there have been many an election rigged by using nonexistent "voters" and changing election results. The fact that this has been proven false gets about as much play as the fact that there is no "liberal" media. Oh well. One person at a time waking up can only be a good thing.

[lostnotforgotten]

52. 2004 General Election - Early Voting - Dallas County TX - Witnessed The Same Many Times

The machines were ES&S touch screen.

They would flip democrats to republicans.

Told the state democratic party about same.

Party did nothing.

I became an independent voter as a result of party's inaction.

[nikto]

66. If that happens, here's an idea...

Tell the folks in charge that you were trying to vote Repugnikkkan,
but the machine kept changing your vote to Democrat.
Act angry at the evil Dems for rigging the machine against repugs.
Show a little faux-Limbaugh bad-temper.
Go ahead----Make a scene (and remember, IOKIYAR, or at least claim to be).

You may just see the machine closed down and taken out.

At least, it's worth a try.

Think about trying this.

[kitp]

3. not voter fraud

voter fraud is the non-existent issue invented by the fascists to divert attention from what really is taking place, and what took place here.

not voter fraud - election theft

[L. Coyote]

8. Good eye and excellent point! Always bears repeating too.

[The Doctor.]

14. Is this your account, or do you have a link?

People ignore important information if the source has "Democrat" in the web addy... people are basically brainwashed.

[Seabiscuit]

11. My first thought as well. This is NOT "voter fraud". Ann Coulter is guilty of "Voter Fraud". THIS

is ELECTION FRAUD, or as you put it, "election theft".

[New Earth]

32. thank you

:D

[New Earth]

31. thank you

[Gonnuts]

51. Correct ...

read my post further down.

[IDemo]

4. Sounds like an amateurish hack, if such occurred

They should not have displayed the actual switch on the user interface (program which appeared on screen), but merely changed the vote in the actual database. Out of sight, out of mind.

[bluesmail]

5. right before her eyes

and could do nothing about it, crap, I'd be pissed off for ever even if it got corrected. Crap

[Sancho]

7. I saw the exact same thing in Florida!

My wife and I were at adjacent machines when she raised hell because the machine kept changing her vote. She called the election official who gave her a new electronic card and rebooted the machine. This was very early in the morning and a "technician" was present. Neither of us wanted to leave and we insisted on filing a complaint and calling the election supervisor for the county.

I'm convinced our elections here in Florida have been manipulated since at least 2000. There are lots of "clues" such as polls, undervotes, unlikely results, and inconsistent results. No one has investigated or really done much about it as far as I can tell.

[magellan]

9. knr

[Peace Patriot]

10. HAVA does **NOT** require electronic voting--although the Bushites

(with a lot of Democratic Party collusion) try to make it look that way, and have shoved it down peoples' throats, and continue to do this. (They are now trying to do it to New York, which has been a holdout on electronic voting.) Another part of it is corruption--of election officials and state legislators. Billions of dollars at issue. Lavish lobbying.

I just want to make this clear. 100% paper ballots, hand-counted, results posted at the precinct, is still an option. There is a lot of misinformation about this.

SEE: www.votersunite.org (Their "MythBreakers" pamphlet - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)

[balantz]

19. Wow, is that true?

Then the word needs to get out. Is there a nationwide group willing to stand at polling places and tell people this? These stories need to be verified and made available to the public.

[Peace Patriot]

46. Yes, it's true, Balantz! Read "MythBreakers." They cite chapter and verse.

They designed the pamphlet for election officials--to help them understand their choices. So its advice has to be legally sound.

The electronic "trade secret" vote counting coup has been accomplished by means of corruption, bribery, lavish lobbying, the $3.9 electronic voting boondoggle that Tom Delay, Bob Ney and CHRISTOPHER DODD engineered (in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution) and by corporate control of the media, which "black-holed" this story, arguably the most important of all American political events. A very successful, under the radar, fascist coup.

See Dan Rather's "The Trouble with Touchscreens"--www.HD.net--for how it started. The same corporations that were to benefit from these billions of dollars provided the soggy punchcard ballots in Florida 2000 that created the crisis, with electronic voting touted as the solution!

But they DID NOT MANDATE electronic voting. They were very clever about this coup. They would have had a revolt by election officials, early on, if they had mandated it. They furthermore permitted New York--center of the nation's news media--to continue with their old reliable, lever machines, and only later started pressuring New York to go with the Bushite "trade secret" machines (--a big fight now). Thus, they prevented New York voters from becoming alarmed, and pressuring, say, the NYT, to alert the public. I finally figured this out--why Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer--two major pro-corporate, pro-war operatives--were the ONLY TWO U.S. SENATE VOTES against HAVA. The only two! Both from New York. It was to prevent New Yorkers from getting onto this goddamned coup, and raising a stink, back at the beginning--with the threat of arousing torpid journalists, in the heart of corporate news media-land.

Oregon has an all mail-in (paper ballot) system, although I think they scan and tabulate electronically. And there are other exceptions, including many instances of paper ballot options, and the most interesting of all, Absentee Ballot (paper ballot) voting in California, which has dramatically increased--I think it's now 50% of the vote--over the last several elections, as voters desperately try to get around the rigged electronics.

Debra Bowen has re-guaranteed a paper ballot option in California (--long story to that), so that, when you go into the polling place, you can insist on a REAL paper ballot (not "provisional" ballot--which aren't worth shit). She has banned touchscreens, and, while she hasn't directly gone after all "trade secret" machines, she HAS required a top to bottom review of the code, and has found many, many vulnerabilities. She is on the point of banning ES&S (as bad as--and probably much worse than--Diebold, its brethren corporation). She also held hearings on OPEN SOURCE CODE voting technology just before she was elected Sec of State. But my point is that electronic voting and vote tabulation is NOT required--nor is "trade secret" code. The trouble is that the "trade secret" voting corporations got in there first, and monopolized the contracts, with political muscle from the likes of Delay and Dodd. (OPEN SOURCE CODE technology exists. They use it in Venezuela--and they handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud, even so. Puts us to shame. We do 0% to 1% auditing, depending on the state!)

Probably a good strategy is to, a) demand a paper ballot for every vote, electronic or not; b) demand a much bigger audit (automatic handcount) --probably should be 100%, considering that these machines have stolen numerous elections, including the big ones--but at least a generous audit, way over the minimum percentage to detect fraud (which I think is in the 5% to 10% range); and c) PUBLIC POSTING of the handcount audit results at the precinct level, in the selected precincts, before any electronics are used.

Using this strategy, you avoid a headon collision with all the corruption, all away along the line--in Congress, in state legislatures, in local election offices, in the corporate news media, and with these bully corporations themselves--while putting some controls in place, that make electronic theft much harder, and getting our election officials back into the practice of COUNTING our votes. (As to headon collisions, Google "Kevin Shelley," a previous CA Sec of State who tried to do something about this.)

It is really horribly absurd that we have have to beg and compromise for the restoration of transparent vote counting, but that is the reality of our situation. The powers arrayed against it--and the particularly bitter and damaging betrayal of the people by our Democratic leaders--are very difficult to overcome instantly, even with all reason and common sense on our side. Our political system has become very, VERY whacked out with corruption. Crazy. Unreasonable. "Alice in Wonderland." Everything upside down, inside out and backwards. Consider Alice, as she tries to reason with the Red Queen, who is ordering her minions to PAINT the white roses red! Mind-boggling unreasonableness in our election system, and on the part of our very corrupt leaders. Red Queens, many of them.

[Gonnuts]

57. E-voting is only one of the problems ...

to date investigations done in Ohio have catorgized 38 different examples of election fraud and they believe that they'll have well over fifty before they're done.

Add on the AG scandal and we're talking MAJOR sytematic election fraud that goes straight to the White House.

Home of the "free" no more - but it still could be the home of the brave.

Take action!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_071130__22uncounted_3a__the_new.htm

[Gonnuts]

61. They are ...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_071130__22uncounted_3a__the_new.htm

Where have you been? Do you really believe that bush won both elections fair and square? Do you think that the 06' election were fair? If you do I have a Timeshare to sell you in beautiful downtown Baghdad.

[balantz]

64. Hello. I was responding to #10 and exclaiming on the fact

that was unknown to me that these machines are not the "required" method of voting. I am well aware that 2000 and 2004 were stolen. But that's cool, it's easy to skim these posts and misunderstand stuff.

[pnwmom]

37. That's right. In King County, WA I was given a choice of paper or electronic.

I couldn't believe all the people picking electronic.

[Toots]

12. "Only machines can be trusted as they are objective while people are subjective"

GW Bush* after campaigning on the theme of "I trust the people" He said that during the Florida recount debacle..

[L. Coyote]

13. He's right and he's wrong. I awoke this morning to the realization we are all blind

if we just keep up the charade that 2000 was not stolen, that we are not living under a junta of cheats and liars. This one vote symbolizes the 2000 election and the possible fate of 21st century American democracy, blindness to true history.

The USA is like a college classroom, where the student who cheated on the final test got the best grade, and the other students saw what happened, know how it happened, and all remain mute rather than reveal their silent complicity, their inability to upset the bully by screaming, "YOU CHEATED." And in the end they all become blind to who the one called the wisest really was, the cheater!

He is right. People are subjective. They believe the convenient falsehood rather than confront the uncomfortable reality.
He is wrong. Machines are just manifestations of people. They are about as trustworthy as their subjective, blind makers!

[Gonnuts]

58. Well, there you go ...

if g. w. said trust the machines we should know enough to burn everyone of them!

[rockybelt]

15. OK DUers

This MUST be escalated as high as it can go. It MUST go to the Senate. it MUST go to the press. It MUST get to everyone.

We MUST have actual paper ballots, not a "paper trail" as the machine makers call it. After all do you remember who makes most of these machines and their relationship with Bushco? Does iebold ring a bell?

I know that a lot of you DUers have the connections and the ability to further this issue up the line. We all know that Al Gore won the 2000 election and now these fascists are getting bolder and bolder on election fraud. IT MUST BE STOPPED!!!!

[L. Coyote]

18. This is a good site to keep up on news and issues. Link:

http://www.votersunite.org/ is:

"A non-partisan national grassroots resource for fair and accurate elections!
We believe in the power of facts."

I recommend signing up for their alerts.

"Join with VotersUnite! Receive action alerts! Participate in projects!" = http://www.votersunite.org/signup.asp

"Voting news articles are provided here for research and educational purposes..." = http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp

=============
Be wary! There are a lot of election reform activists and groups. Some are personality-based,
some are stealth Republicans pushing the "voter fraud" myth. It's a big zoo.

[L. Coyote]

22. Election Integrity News = A free weekly newsletter with election news = SIGN UP!

Election Integrity News = A free weekly newsletter with election news from around the country

Current Issue is = http://www.votetrustusa.org/newsletters/VTnews110707.htm
Election Integrity News Editor: Warren Stewart was very active on DU, post 2004.
Warren was the first to research and analyze the details of the irregularity of New Mexico's undervoting.

[rockybelt]

28. Thanks for the tip

I always like to have good sites to visit to gain knowledge.

[natrat]

16. please like anyone here is surprised..both these pos parties are corrupt and wont fix anything

[NotGivingUp]

21. you're so right. you gotta ask yourselves why NEITHER party is doing a goddam thing about it.

you start to feel like a real fool when you're waiting in a long line to go cast your vote for one asshole or another AND the goddam machine will just make your vote for you anyway. It gets just a bit ludicrous.

[bbgrunt]

72. just more evidence of the collusion of the two sides of the same coin,

Until all those who hope from deliverance by dems realize that they are also complicit in this grand deceit, the play will go on. All the news about corporate funding going to dems should tell you something.

[AtLiberty]

17. What was the system, L. Coyote?

What company made the machines?

[L. Coyote]

38. Just got the e-mail reply from Mr. Welch. ES&S

From: "Jim Welch" ....
Subject: Re: First-Hand Voter Fraud

The manufacturer is: ES&S - Electronic Systems and Software. I believe the model is the Votetronic or something like that. It has a touchscreen.

.....

Some of the thoughts that went through my mind at the time was:
a) Will any more of my votes change when I finish the ballot?
b) Once completed are there any guarantees my votes won’t change?
c) If my machine did this to one of my votes, how many other voters has this happened to ......

...............

[Joanne98]

20. I wonder what item 8 was about. Maybe we can track the election fraud

criminals by figuring out who had a stake in changing the vote!

[DFW]

23. The Republicans can rejoice--we'll stop calling them Nazis now

It was Soviet dictator Stalin who said that "those who cast the votes decided nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything."

They are Stalinists. Control freaks who, as opposed to the Nazis, make the false
claim to be inclusive, but in reality adhere to Orwell's "some animals are more
equal than others."

[MGKrebs]

24. I think I would call the police at that point.

if that machine is repeatedly and consistently doing that, even if it is just a defective machine, it is doing immediate and irreparable harm to the community. Call the police, impound as evidence, investigate for possible criminal activity.

[L0oniX]

25. V

http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm

[leftist_not_liberal]

26. Just like every other problem, this has to do with profit.

The corporatization of our nation is nearly complete, and in terms of the sham we call democracy, it is very much complete.

Open Source Voting Software would solve the problem as it has done in Australia.

But we can't have that.

[LeftCoast]

27. This sounds much more like physical damage to the touch screen

It would actually be more difficult to hack the vote in such a way as to actually allow the voter to see it on the screen.

[L. Coyote]

29. It is certainly a "black box" dilemna. Something goes in, something comes out,

and what happens between is not seen. That might be the best idea for making sausage, or putting pork first in politics, but it is not how to vote.

The black box has to be removed from democracy everywhere.

[LeftCoast]

30. I agree.

And I don't like who the election official just assumed that there couldn't be a problem. Even in the best of circumstances machines fail.

[progressoid]

47. Paper and pencil. It's so simple.

[MonkeyFunk]

33. exactly

just a miscalibrated or broken digitizer. When he tried to cast a second vote (I'm guessing horizontally across from the first vote, it misregistered.

Only an idiot would hack the thing to SHOW the vote changing.

Also, it seems they're getting rid of the electronic machines - at least the republicans are!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5340810.html

[Gonnuts]

59. And you're assuming ...

these people AREN'T idiots? What on God's Green Earth would make you do that?

[MonkeyFunk]

74. because anybody

with the werewithal to try to steal an election by hacking the machines wouldn't be that dumb.

And this is one isolated report of one machine behaving this way. There's no reason to believe it was a systemic effort to steal the election, when a faulty digitizer on one machine is a much more likely explanation.

[tbyg52]

34. True - a smart hacker would not give him/herself away

BUT the main point of the OP is that we have no reason whatsoever to trust these things. Stories like this provide something people can *see*, and maybe it will get some attention, but the fact is that once we have voted the machine can do ANYTHING with it, undetected!

[MGKrebs]

35. I've always hoped that a benevolent hacker WOULD do it obviously

just to prove the point.

They would need a decent legal defense fund though.

[debbierlus]

36. Two Presidential elections stolen, why the surprise?

The second one, barely anyone raised a voice.

The election system in the US is often fixed. Electronic voting machines should be BANNED, & we should just use pen & paper with an independent observer overseeing the count.

[krobar659]

39. ELECTION FRAUD

After the election was stolen from Gore, I started to do a write-in vote for myself. I would pick, for the sake of discussion, the office of dog catcher and then write in my name on the ballot. Then later, I can go to the election officials and ask how many votes did I get. If I did not get a vote then I know that I have been a victim and that an investigation should be started. A week before the election I write myself a letter and then sign it in front of an Notary, who stamps it. I then mail it to myself via registered mail. This is all done for the sole purpose of having evidence of voter tampering/ voter fraud should it occur. May seem trivial to some but DAMN IT, I WANT MY VOTE TO COUNT AND I WANT IT TO COUNT CORRECTLY!!!!!!!!!!!

[tbyg52]

40. That is a damn fine idea.

I'm considering giving up my primary vote to try it myself. And then publicizing it far and wide if my vote doesn't show up. DAMN! I think I'll do it!

(You know I'm really excited when I cuss - I save it for special occasions.... ;) )

Say, post this as an OP, would you? We might want to get some organization as to who does this - don't want to give up *all* our votes - but wouldn't it be something if lots of people did it and lots of people *proved* their vote wasn't counted?

[wundermaus]

41. I really like your idea.

Please share more details on how your use a notarized letter to verify the process of election fraud. This could be a way of flagging election fraud.

[emlev]

48. What have you found?

In my California community, only registered (or maybe it's called 'declared') write-in candidates have their votes counted separately. Others get lumped together and reported as "write-ins," but not reported with the names of the people who received the votes. This is because there are so many votes for fictional characters, etc.

Now what I don't know is whether you, as the 'candidate' who received the vote, would be told how many votes you received if you went into the elections office. I think you wouldn't, but I'm not certain.

What has happened when you've done this in the past?

[L. Coyote]

56. I write in Douglas Fir somewhere every time I vote.

I recommend everyone do this. But, I've never see if they report it.

Douglas deserves our support for fighting global warming. :rofl:

[Joe Chi Minh]

42. Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking,

honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them. Or says Lily Tomlin.

Unfortunately, it seems that, with the best will in the world, Lily spoke with forked tongue. Your lawless, privatised, Republican (s)elections - with impunity - are a standing disgrace to the modern, democratic Western world, which, however twisted its overall political set-up, allows the votes to be counted, and to count as the decision-makers in the matter of appointments to public office.

[DCKit]

43. The OP sounds like an urban myth.

I don't think the manufacturers of these machines would allow us to watch our votes being changed when they could do it "quietly."

HOWEVER, electronic voting is too easily corrupted to allow it to continue. I don't give a shit how many trees it takes, our vote is the basis of our Democracy and a paper trail is imperative.

[drm604]

44. Either that or a malfunction.

I think we should be using paper ballots rather than these machines. That said, this sounds like a malfunction rather than a theft. Why visibly change the vote on the screen? It makes no sense to do that on purpose.

If you're going to steal votes in this manner you do it silently. You record it differently but you don't change what's on the display. You don't announce to the voters that you're stealing their votes.

Not that this isn't an issue, this kind of malfunction is completely unacceptable and is just one more argument against electronic voting.

[liberal hypnotist]

45. Excellent detailed report.

We had the same problem in Sarasota, FL and the whole thing got lost in court proceedings. Doesn't it seem strange no one in congress is going crazy about the electronic voting?

[Vinca]

49. We are so screwed . nt

[Gonnuts]

50. It's not Voter Fraud - it's ELECTION Fraud

Big difference and it's not semantics. Voter Fraud has to do with the voter doing the fraud - Election Fraud is when your vote is skewed by the system.

This goes to the heart of every problem we currently have. For without fair, honest, uniform and verifiable election system we are done as a free country.

If voting could change things - they'd make it illegal.

The Achilles Heal to the elite one-percent - one man's vote.

There's a reason 50% of eligible voters gave-up on the system a long time ago. If our elections were fair, we would have had peace, health care, jobs, clean energy, real education, affordable housing, freedom, and most of mankind's dreams answered long ago.

There's also a reason we're not hearing this on the M$M either.

It's their Achilles Heal too. They'd have to fess-up as to how do you miss a story like this? And then a whole bunch of embarrassing questions come out.

Believe that this is what this country has been fighting for since the beginning. But NEVER forget this, at the time the writers of the Constitution and Bills of Rights wrote them, only land-owning, men could vote and it wasn't until recently that people of color and women got the vote and all along the way those that think only white, male land-owners should still be the only ones who's vote should count have been in charge of seeing who's vote gets counted, or who's doesn't.

There have been some brief moments where the dream of one-person one-vote poked through and some good things were done. But that has all but been buried by the depth of the corruption. But if anything is going to draw the lines in the sand as fast as anything else - it's this.

Take action!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_071130__22uncounted_3a__the_new.htm

[Gonnuts]

53. When I last voted ...

as I was signing in the Poll-person asked how I was doing and I answered I'd be doing a lot better if when I walked out of the voting booth I'd have something in my hands showing my vote. He answered that I need not worry and took me over to show me a long print-out they took that morning with zero's beside all the candidates. I gave him the best "you must think I'm stupid look" and said what the hell does that prove? At the end of the day when you do your final print-out who's to say the votes weren't changed along the way? And that's YOUR print-out. If you can have yours where's MINE? If something should go wrong, shouldn't I have something to show who I voted for too?

Well, naturally I got a lot of them looking at one another trying to come up with an answer and I could see them start to bristle.

We will not have a free country until we have fair elections - period.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_071130__22uncounted_3a__the_new.htm

[Breeze54]

55. Don't you mean 'Election Fraud'??

Why do people keep saying that?

The Voter didn't do ANYTHING wrong!!

[L. Coyote]

67. People keep saying that because the media uses it. This is a first time encounter

with the issue for this citizen.

Nonetheless, it certainly bears repeating!!

[ChiciB1]

60. Welcome To The Land That Florida Built!!! I Panned Out Last Local

vote because I just don't trust what is going on. My county is the county that lost 18,000 plus in 2006 and the Supervisor of Elections here is still saying we won't have a paper trail. Even though the Legislature says that ALL counties are required to have one. Seems there were STILL machine problems last November and after jumping in with "all fours" in 2006 to help with the missing votes, seems we are still "stuck on stupid!"

I have no answers of what to do either. If those who are much more powerful than I am can't get anything done, I'm sure my "little" voice means NOTHING!

[Gonnuts]

62. Oh well, just give-up then ...

" ... one "little" voice ..." is what this article I'm submitting is all about. But it's your voice, mine and a million others that will be heard.

I can't help but believe that if there is an issue that crosses all partisan lines it's having our election process being totally corrupted. The blood of too many people has been shed in protecting this one thing - our right to have our vote counted.

Election fraud to some extent has always existed but never on the massive scale it is today. If the true extent were known this country would have a revolution of the likes we haven't seen since 1742.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joan_bru_071130__22uncounted_3a__the_new.htm

[FatDave]

63. It's hard not to get a cell phone that shoots video these days

I suggest anyone who has one of them clear up some memory before they go to vote on an electronic machine and record the whole thing.

[FatDave]

65. Are any candidates besides Edwards talking about election reform?

I haven't heard any others say anything about it, but then I haven't heard JE say a lot about it.

http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/11/17/13654/578

[candymarl]

68. Not Surprised

I watched an electronic machine change every one of my votes in 2004. I voted one way. When I went back to check all of my votes had flipped. I had an election worker come change my votes back to the original votes. Those who say 2004 wasn't stolen. I checked. What about those who didn't?

[clarence swinney]

69. Vote fraud

Remember Feeney in Florida.
A programmer was paid to adjust the counter so Feeney would win.

I never doubt the Ohio counters were adjusted for Bush.

It means something when President of Counters tells Bush "I will guarantee you Ohio".

When the Columbus Dispatch exit poll was far off for first time in their history.

[Canuckistanian]

70. I would have stayed there, voting until they removed me

I would have INSISTED that my vote counted the way I intended.

OMG, what a fucked-up system.

[Swagman]

71. take a video camera next time you vote-record everything

we need visual proof that this is happening. If enough people film themselves at the ballot box someone will get this visual evidence as described above.

Some news agencies will run it-it's a scandal waiting to blow sky high.

[Cha]

73. And that was reported

during the 2004 coup, also. Kerry to bushit..funny how it never goes the other way.

[On the Road]

75. What Confuses Me About Accounts Like This

is that the most effective way to program the machines to steal votes would seem to be to change the recorded vote but leave the display as it is.

[L. Coyote]

76. This is not about stealing votes. It is about knowing your vote counts as cast.

Why people go off on e-vote theft right away? It's was distraction from how punch cards were not counted as cast too.

The issue is the black box. Something goes in, something comes out, desirable when making sausage, not a good thing for electing a President!
We have to trust what comes out, and we don't know what goes on in the box. This is a case where the black box dilemna was visible.

[On the Road]

77. I'm Completely on Board with That

I don't believe a machine with proprietary software that is unable to perform a ballot-by-ballot recount should even be considered legal in most states.