Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

NH Chaos Represents Opportunity; Nancy Tobi Pleads For No "Recount"

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
This topic is archived.
Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Election Reform Donate to DU
 
GuvWurld Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-12-08 03:32 AM
Original message
NH Chaos Represents Opportunity; Nancy Tobi Pleads For No "Recount"
Originally blogged at We Do Not Consent
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/01/nh-chaos-represents-opportunity-nancy.html

NH Chaos Represents Opportunity; Nancy Tobi Pleads For No "Recount"
By Dave Berman
1/11/08

Speculation represents the preponderance of verbiage about the New Hampshire primary. I can't say for certain what happened on Tuesday, or any other day in New Hampshire for that matter. But given where things stand, I would like to make the case that this chaotic time is an opportunity. Before I get to that, I will again site the BradBlog index of stories and the OpEdNews writer's campaign for detailed reporting. Meanwhile, the controversy has served as the latest shouting point dividing the blogosphere.

There is one voice that I want to offer this space to, and it is not because I necessarily agree with what she is saying. Nancy Tobi of Democracy For New Hampshire is a respected colleague who has been very generous with her time consulting the Voter Confidence Committee about hand-counting paper ballots. Nancy has posted at least two passionate statements urging that a "re-count" not be pursued. Here are excerpts, followed by my suggestions:
From: No Recount Please

"I am telling everyone who asks to beg Paul and others to NOT request a recount. I would beg you to urge everyone to STAND DOWN from this strategy. It is a trap. Use all your influence to inform the Paul and Kucinich campaigns, which are being targeted to carry this out, to please NOT pursue the recount this year. I can not stress enough how important it is they do NOT have a recount.

We have no control over the ballot chain of custody and we have learned the pain from the 2004 Nader recount, in which only 11 districts were counted, chosen by a highly questionable person, and then nothing showed up. Now all we hear is how the Nader recount validated the machines. A candidate asking for a recount may well be a tool used to "prove" everything was okay and then that candidate will be further discredited. This is high stakes, no bullshit."

...

"No. It is time to take control. We want accountability and change. We get this NOT from a recount, but from an investigation. We need questions asked and answered, and changes made so we have a clean election in NH in November."

# # #

From: We need to eliminate secret vote counting, not a recount

"Now activists around the nation are calling for a recount. In New Hampshire the manual recount has always been held as justification for holding elections in which more than 80% of our ballots are counted in secret by private corporations.

Does this logic hold up? Will a recount rectify the problem before us?

I say no. The problem before us is that we have outsourced the most precious thing in our democracy: the counting of our votes. And in New Hampshire, we have outsourced more than 80% of our votes to a private corporation counting those votes in secret, and, as it turns out, that private corporation has a convicted drug trafficker on its executive team to boot. A recount does not solve this problem."

...

"New Hampshire already knows how to fix this problem. For the past four years, New Hampshire citizens have been asking the State to fix this problem, but the State has thus far refused. We don't need a recount now. What we need now is for the State to reconsider and implement procedural and legislative solutions to guarantee open and honest elections.

A recount won't provide any significant benefit to the cause of free and fair and open elections. Bringing back full citizen oversight and checks and balances to all New Hampshire elections is the only way to avoid having any more questionable election outcomes in the Granite State."

...

"It's pretty easy to see what happened in New Hampshire: We had an election in which 81% of our ballots were counted in secret by a private corporation, and this resulted in an outcome that is called into question.

That's what happened.

No recount is going to change this. What will change this is to get rid of corporate controlled secret vote counting in our elections."
I don't mean to contradict Nancy here, but rather to address a matter of framing. I've said many times that we are not having elections but rather events that closely resemble elections. Similarly, this isn't as much about whether or not to have a "re-count" as it is about "counting all the ballots."

I appreciate Nancy's point that a re-count can be self-affirming as a stamp of approval. But the really important thing to realize is that this is the very thing we should seek to take on, and in as many ways as possible. This idea that some modicum of public acceptance will settle in and endure to future elections is the very thing that we are now poised to prevent, the biggest framing opportunity this side of Busby/Bilbray.

The idea is inherent uncertainty. From before the polls even opened, we knew with certainty the outcome would be uncertain, indeterminate, unknowable, necessarily inconclusive. It is time for everyone to see this as an intentional component of the joint government/media effort to keep the public divided. There is no need for any further primary "elections" when we know now in advance of them all that they too will fail to produce unanimous acceptance of the reported results.

As I see it, it doesn't matter whether the "recount" plan goes forward or not. Either way it is just part of the same opportunity for us. Raise your hand if you've been reading Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine." The disorientation occurring right now, this instant, is precisely our window of opportunity to act with the ideas we have lying around. We The People are long overdue to withdraw our consent. Do not accept the results of this election. Take action to prevent local Registrars (or equivalents) from certifying results.

We can seize this moment and define the story being told. We should invoke again, if perhaps with a slight edit, the stance dozens of groups took in response to the CA-50 "election" in June 2006. From the California Election Protection Network's Voter's Resolution of No Confidence, written here at WDNC:
We, The People, DO NOT CONSENT to transferring power and authority to candidates claiming victory in this illegitimate election. We will do everything within our Constitutional and Human Rights to protect and preserve possession of this power that is inalienably Ours to be given but never taken away.
Public officials have been nakedly acting against the interest of the greater good for far too long and they are now cornered. Will we continue to let them take advantage of us, to assume they have our consent?

Ray Raphael is an historian here in Humboldt County and he's written many books. I read his "First American Revolution" and learned that by 1776, much of the Revolution had already taken place. Raphael describes a resistance tactic mirrored throughout the colonies where courts were shut down by citizens who forced judges to rule by locally written charters. The alternative for the judges who wanted to continue under King's Law was often public humiliation such as tar and feathering.

I'm not sure what the modern equivalent would be but it has to involve preventing legitimacy from being conferred upon faith-based results of secretly counted "elections." My advice to Nancy is to think more about now than the future.

"If we don't take action now, we settle for nothing later. We'll settle for nothing now, and we'll settle for nothing later." --Rage Against The Machine

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-12-08 03:51 AM
Response to Original message
1. I'm not the only one who sees it then.
Screaming for a recount when there is a believable reason for the difference means no fraud will be found which will mean the machines will be considered validated.

And noble Kucinich has been duped into it.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
GuvWurld Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-12-08 03:56 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. In the few minutes since posting, I just learned the recount is on
I just saw this press release from NH SoS Gardner saying the "recount" will start on the 16th.

http://tinyurl.com/2hl3vp

Now, just as in the OP, I am neutral on whether that is good or bad because I think it is all going to come down to citizens for once establishing the dominant frame. The conduct and/or outcome of the "recount" is going to be less important than how we convince people to see it. There is nothing that will validate these machines except more phony media rhetoric that we fail to beat.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Bill Bored Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-12-08 05:13 AM
Response to Original message
3. Hmmm. So let's see. According to Tobi,
there is secret vote counting and virtually no chain of custody in NH WITHOUT a recount.

And there will be secret vote counting and no chain of custody in NH WITH a recount.

The recount may show that the count was correct (or that thousands of bogus ballots were substituted for the real ones). Or it may show that the count was off for one or more reasons. According to Tobi, we will never know which, because they have NO chain of custody to speak of in NH! It's a MAD HOUSE!

Without the recount, we won't know if the count was correct, and no one will have to substitute a single bogus ballot for a real one for the results to stand.

With the recount, the only way the count can be incorrect, is if someone substitutes thousands of bogus ballots for the real ones.

Which do you think has a better chance of finding the correct outcome of the election? Recount or no recount?

Which do you think makes it easier to steal the election? Recount or no recount?

Who put Kucinich up to this recount anyway? According to Tobi, that's the one we should be worried about.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-12-08 11:50 AM
Response to Original message
4. Do WE have a primary strategy? Does someone in the ER
community have one?

Because we have 48 more opportunities, don't we? :)

Btw: the Governor of SC will be on CSPAN 1 on Sunday at 10 am Eastern, iirc. It will most likely be a call in show.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
GuvWurld Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-12-08 06:38 PM
Response to Original message
5. Kick (eom)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-13-08 04:12 AM
Response to Original message
6. I posted this to one of Garbecks threads, what do you think?
MSM propaganda "Obama double digit lead" ?

they set us up, Hillary "the come back kid" comes back to win.

Election reform activist go crazy demanding a recount. Why? BECAUSE WE LISTENED TO THE MEDIA (ONCE AGAIN), OBAMA NEVER REALLY HAD A DOUBLE DIGIT LEAD!

My opinion, the recount moves forward, whether it proves that the count was right or wrong has nothing to do with this particular SCAM.

This scam has all to do with convincing the people that HR 811 Paper ballots with audits is the way to go.

HOLT HR 811 IT IS NOT THE WAY TO GO!!!

This is a set up to get Holts HR 811 bill passed, nothing more nothing less.


Propaganda machine:

1)Everything in the recount turns out all right...thank goodness we had paper ballots to audit the machine count.

OR...

2)Obama actually won there was machine error...thank goodness we had paper ballots to audit the machines count

THEN...

3)Holt HR 811 IS GREAT because it gives us a paper ballot to audit.

And then...

4)The activist were right we do need paper ballots so that we can do a double check of the SECRET VOTE COUNT MACHINES.

If that wasn't enough...

5)That great site Moveon made it all possible by gathering 3.5 million signatures to have a paper ballots for all votes cast.

In the end WE LOSE, THE SECRET VOTE COUNTING MACHINES REMAIN IN PLACE.

HAND COUNT THE PAPER BALLOTS IN THE FIRST PLACE

My two cents, and I've been wrong before..........

K&R...

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Thu Oct 31st 2024, 06:57 PM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Election Reform Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC