THE LATEST FROM BEV - Watchdog group focusing on optical scan voting

[sled]

Watchdog group focusing on optical scan voting

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Local/03AreaWEST06EPOL111904.htm

By CINDY F. CRAWFORD
Staff Writer

Last update: November 19, 2004

After finding voting documents from Nov. 2 in trash cans behind two
county buildings, a national watchdog group has named Volusia County
one of its top priorities for investigation in the country.

Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based organization
of elections activists, said Thursday her group is forming a team of
investigators and attorneys to look into possible voting
irregularities in Volusia County.

Their interest was piqued when representatives found polling place
tapes, which show a printed record of ballots fed into optical
scanning machines, in the garbage at the Department of Elections'
warehouse on State Road 44 in DeLand and at the office behind the
county administration building in downtown DeLand.

"Finding the tape in the garbage was beyond comical," Harris said in a
phone interview. "The American people want an answer."

[ngant17]

1. the latest alibi in Daytona

I read in the local Fla. papers that the Volusia county elections officials are downplaying this incident as a non-issue because the records they threw away were copies and not originals. Could be a cover story. I wouldn't trust the official story just yet.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. I think Bev pointed out that they weren't copies.

There was something changed on the originals and the copies.

[leftchick]

6. That is right...

Bev found enough discrepancies between the originals and the copies made on Nov. 15 to use the F word!

Check this out...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htm

Stinkin Evidence!
~snip~

But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the discarded, signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and used to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern emerged.

"The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."

When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct were random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors, she became uncomfortable.

"You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not trying to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any voting fraud."

That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored George W. Bush. Every single time."

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. And now, in Pinellas County, they found that there were ballots

for Kerry and Betty Castor that were set aside. The total there puts a Bush win only by 92 ballots. You could probably erase that by looking for double-voting through Absentee ballots.

[Sparky 1]

28. Do you have a URL for this info please?

[The Backlash Cometh]

33. Here you go.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=62864&mesg_id=62864

[renate]

35. kick

kick kick kick kick kick

[shraby]

15. Copies don't have signatures on them

do they? Bev found some in the trash that had signatures.

[rodeodance]

27. need to write to the arthor of the article and set her staight (address is

at the end of the article)

[pointsoflight]

16. They were signed by election officials. 'Nuf said.

[CantGetFooledAgain]

24. If they were copies then...

They would have exactly matched the orignals. The fact that a non-matching set of tapes even exists is what is so suspicious about all of this!

Here's how I understand this, somebody please correct me if I'm wrong:

- Optiscan machine in the polling place generates tape summarizing scanned ballot data.

- Tapes from polling places are sent to county for tabulation (or the same data is transmitted electronically, tapes are for verification)

- County reports tabulated results into statewide totals

Okay, so where in this process is it possible to have two tapes from the same polling place that do not match exactly?

If there is a mismatch, and the one set of tapes matches tabulated totals and one does not, this is clearly a "smoking gun" indicating a deliberate effort to create a new paper trail to back up falsified results.

[newyawker99]

29. Hi CantGetFooledAgain!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[CantGetFooledAgain]

32. Thanks newyawker99!

I'm a transplanted newyawker myself. Deep Blue in a red, and boy have I been blue lately.

Thanks for the welcome, I'm very glad to be here.

[Junkdrawer]

2. So far, no newspaper has printed the most disturbing part...

There were differences, many times in hundreds of votes/precinct, between what was found in the garbage and what was given to Bev initially - all in favor of Bush.

[keepthemhonest]

4. anybody heard

how the fraud diagnostics are going?

[Junkdrawer]

10. Still waiting for word...

:hi:

[tbuddha]

5. Still doesn't explain why they were tossing them out...

Deanie Lowe says the copies in the trash were just backup copies. So why would you throw out back up copies? And why are the vote totals different than the ones she gave Bev. Sounds like weaseling to me. Bush people are notoriously crappy liars.

[lynx444]

7. yes

well it makes perfect sense to me to throw out backup copies.. i mean what good are backup copies anyways? (this is what you call extreme sarcasm) those damned republicans, always trying to cover up their tracks.

how dumb do they think we are? if by the end of next week i don't die from a brain aneurism i'd be amazed!

[Ducks In A Row]

13. and who signs backup copies? these have, what, 8 signtuare a piece

so they made backup copies and made the poll workers come back and sign them?

the newspaper is being stupid, parroting back coverup lies.

[newyawker99]

30. Hi lynx444!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[lynx444]

34. hello!

thanks! :) i'm just glad to give a helping hand!

[pointsoflight]

17. And coincidentally at exactly the time when Bev was demanding them.

[kitp]

8. questions

I have a couple of questions about this stuff.

Bev said that the numbers on the trashed tapes didn't match the numbers of the tapes she was given. But do the numbers on the trashed tapes match the reported totals? Or do the numbers on the later printouts match the totals? Or neither.

If the printouts given to Bev don't match the reported totals than they are useless (except to show incompetence). The only thing that would matter is if the trashed tapes do not match the reported results. That's fraud.

And, if that is the case, official signed poll tapes in the trash, do not match the reported results, why is she not clearly saying so? This would be compelling evidence that someone somewhere in the food chain was misreporting vote totals in favor of Bush.

That would be a smoking gun. Why don't we know this stuff yet?

[anamandujano]

11. if they gave her the copies to inspect

then most likely the copies match the reported totals, otherwise that's a story. The copies were supposedly the record for the precinct. It seems obvious.

[hbouma]

22. The polling copies

Please re-read what Bev wrote happened that day. The copies she was given had been made the day she asked for them and did not include the polling staff signatures. The ones found in the dumpster and trash were signed by the polling staff. Which set of copies would you believed? Unsigned duplicates or signed originals?

Hal

[anamandujano]

26. I think we are trying to make the same point.

I think the ones in the trash are the truthful original documents, and had no business being in the trash.

The copies given to Bev to inspect (I would guess) matched the numbers reported to certify, and (I would futher guess) were falsified.

Other than that, I'm confused.

[newyawker99]

31. Hi hbouma!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[symbolman]

12. I'm with you

I'm worried that if she doesn't have the "smoking gun" that it will end up making a mockery of all the fine work done already..

Not to mention others being discredited as well.. we have a horse in this race, and we're being very careful to not make claims without absolute veracity and hard numbers from recognized individuals.

Sad to say, just saying it's so doesn't make it so, and no one is going to be more willing to call the WHOLE MOVEMENT "fringe" or "wackos" than the right wing.. don't want to give them a chance..

Where's the hard evidence? Why not share it with the great people working on all this here? I don't want to see Us or Heddafoil or Idabriggs or anyone else to lose credibility, this is just too important to blow, or to put eggs in one basket..

There are many working on this, by the way..

I'm not neccessarily going to ignore what the articles say when I have no proof to the contrary..they actually sound reasonable and I know all about the media, been fighting with it and on it for years now.. so much so that Joe Scarborough threatened to turn off my microphone on MSNBC..

I'm hoping that her hard work pays off, she's been beating on these guys like a drum for a long time now :)

But they could just as likely known she was coming and planted bags for them to find.. remember, Agent Mike cruises this site, and since BBV announced their arrival, and knowing their MO of digging through trash (as seen in their movie) it wouldn't be hard for them to set her up..

in which case she really would have garbage and lose credibility for all the other fine work she's done.. don't want that to happen do we?

wishing her all the best

[Straight Shooter]

14. The poll tapes in the trash were signed

Why would 8 people go to the bother of signing false poll tapes? And if the trashed tapes are counterfeit, isn't that illegal to produce a false document from a government office? Is signing your name to a document you know to be false a misdemeanor? Is it perjury?

They can't have it both ways.

[wlubin]

20. No no no no no. the poll tapes in the trash were the actuall tapes from

11/2. the tapes they gave bev where falsified to match what was reported. So it sounds as if the machines did record accurately, i.e. no evil programming loop in machine to switch kerry votes to shrub, but in fact they just didn't report correctly what the machine actaully recorded. they were prob afraid that someone would be looking at the software.

[corky44]

18. If I remember correctly, Bev did report on Hartman's show that the

numbers on the tapes that were given to her on the 15th were the numbers that were used to certify. So the signed 11/2 tapes in the trash WERE NOT used to certify.

[Lisabtrucking]

19. Dont give up!

I just wanted to say. The fraud of this election is being proved, by a wonderful thoughtful woman (Bev Harris) ‘Blackboxvoting.org”. We all need to thank this woman, for she is protecting our rights for a truthful election. I ask everyone to send her a thank you at her web site.

We need to keep up the fight to have our voices heard, send these media outlets an email demanding they report the news accurately. If we don’t keep up the fight they will have won.

We now see that the republicans in our government are immoral. By allowing an indicted person to keep their job in our government is beyond reasoning.

These people have stolen our election, and they need to be held accountable for the theft.
Send John Kerry a message let him know we have not given up the fight for our right to elect who we want for our president, so don’t give up on us. Send all democrats a message that we expect them to join John Kerry in the fight for our presidency, and we will be there to back them up. Let them know we have their backs, now help protect our backs. This needs to be done now.

[deansyawp]

21. Did she say that?

That's critical if it's the case. Most likely she is just holding back on explaining the discrepancies more until she is surer of her case, which is clearly still in the process of development.

Alas, in the meantime, the window on filing a contest on the Florida results will soon be shut. As I understand it is too late for a recount (in the sense that one was requested by Gore four years ago), but a contest can be filed in federal court up to ten days after the certification, which Glenda "Katherine Harris II" Hood formally announced on Sunday. So that means that any legal action on the Florida results must take place by next Wednesday, November 24th.

Is there any chance whatsoever of this happening?

[njnop]

23. next county

Does Bev have a lawyer with her? Is she vulnerable to arrest? I hope she is safe but I worry about what could happen to her if the repugs get desperate

[bmoney07]

25. she has a whole team of lawyers and volunteers

KEEP DIGGING
KEEP PRAYING
PATIENCE

:D