Alabama Court Injunction: Preserve ALL Ballots

[laserhaas]

Source: Greg Palast Blog of Alabama Circuit Court

This day, Monday December 11, attorney John Brakey won a court order in Montgomery, Alabama no less requiring every county to keep copies of their ballots after the vote tomorrow.



Photo by Ted Rall



Read more:

Link to tweet

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UPDATE

Link to tweet

[Achilleaze]

1. repubes outraged

[laserhaas]

2. Scrambling - for sure.

This is the best chance, for decades, for a Democrat to bust thru the Republican domination of Alabama

[questionseverything]

51. ty 4 posting

http://bradblog.com/?p=12402

Election Integrity advocates obtained a big win on Monday morning, when receiving an order [PDF] from a state court requiring state election officials retain digital ballot images created by computer scanners tabulating the paper ballots used across much of the state. (My interview last week with John Brakey, the election integrity advocate who organized the court action, explaining why its necessary, is here.)

[brush]

57. Dems have to do this across the country from now on.

[questionseverything]

58. now alabama supremes struck it down

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029966609

[laserhaas]

62. WTF!

[AmericanActivist]

3. Interesting development especially pro-actively nm

[laserhaas]

44. E actly

Pro active

[leftieNanner]

4. Great News!

This issue has been bothering me. I'm glad this was handled BEFORE the election and not after. Remember the debacle in Georgia where they "accidentally" erased all of the servers when the results were challenged??

[laserhaas]

7. There were 2 HBO documentaries about destroyed records

But the bad guys keep on stealing

[LiberalLovinLug]

5. THIS takes a court injuction?

Shouldn't this be automatic?

[laserhaas]

8. One would think

[questionseverything]

54. it is about access

Why not just fight to view the actual paper ballots? Brakey explains: "You cannot get at the original ballots. They will not let you touch them. In order to get to them, you have to prove fraud first. And how are you going to prove fraud if you can't get to the ballots? That's the Catch-22. The ballot images are a tool to get us to the originals.

[Motley13]

6. that will piss Pootie off

[laserhaas]

45. So let it be written...let it get done

Pissed narcissist on the run

[Jopin Klobe]

9. So, of course ...

... they'll be the originals ...

... of course ...

[laserhaas]

11. I know...my thoughts

They point up n down n sideways

We didn't lose them

[yallerdawg]

15. Actually, originals already kept by law.

“Alabama election officials are required to save the ballots and other election materials for six (6) months in the case of state elections and twenty-two (22) months in federal elections,” and federal election law “requires the retention of all records, papers, and materials by officials of elections.”

The dispute is in retaining the digital copies on machines doing the tabulating - as evidence of manipulating the totals or "hacks" of some kind.

The Secretary of State argued the actual ballots were a sufficient record, but this lawsuit was concerned with what was being counted and preserved for the legally prescribed periods on the electronic tabulating machines.

[laserhaas]

23. But they have habits of being lost

This (hopes to) assure

[Wellstone ruled]

26. The last sentence tells the story.

Hat's off to the people seeking this Injunction ,surely pissing off the Rethugs.

[laserhaas]

46. That's a great thingy

In and of - itself

[questionseverything]

52. not exactly

Why not just fight to view the actual paper ballots? Brakey explains: "You cannot get at the original ballots. They will not let you touch them. In order to get to them, you have to prove fraud first. And how are you going to prove fraud if you can't get to the ballots? That's the Catch-22. The ballot images are a tool to get us to the originals."

http://bradblog.com/?p=12395

[red dog 1]

10. K&R...Thanks for posting

I wonder what former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman thinks about this?

[laserhaas]

12. He still has to keep zipped lips

Per probation

[BadgerMom]

13. K and R!!!!!!!

Hero of the resistance!

[laserhaas]

24. Yup

Palast and those in trenches...are real cool

[C Moon]

14. Putin's not going to like this.

[laserhaas]

36. Well...at least he can't throw U S. out a windiw

Though I'm 1st floor

[Farmer-Rick]

16. And with Putin all ready to congratulate Roy Moore

He will break our democracy with the help of the GOP.

[laserhaas]

17. A coo

[bluestarone]

18. surprise i love it

should be that way in ALL states from this day forward

[laserhaas]

37. Should be this way

Long ago

[BigmanPigman]

19. Does it matter whether or not the ballots are paper?

[laserhaas]

21. Think that order covers digital

[Wounded Bear]

22. Not as much as some people think...

Electioneering has been around since...well, since we had elections, probably. Just the existence of paper ballots doesn't negate foul play. It might provide a paper trail to track wrong doing, but we've had plenty of examples of shit happening, even with the presence of paper.

[LiberalArkie]

30. People were swapping out ballots and ballot boxes a long time before there was electricity.

[laserhaas]

47. Yup

Stalin said..you can have the voters

He just wants the counter

[laserhaas]

38. There oughta be unified system..nstionwide

[ffr]

20. In Alabama no less. Huge!!

[laserhaas]

48. Yup

[ancianita]

25. So why is some digital "imaging" any less prone to tampering than actual ballots? Seriously.

Outside of material paper ballots with tear-off copies, each stamped by a fingerprint, I don't see any incorruptible digital system.

[laserhaas]

39. Previously...losing parties did minimum due diligence

Now things & persons...stepping up

[questionseverything]

53. this is why

http://bradblog.com/?p=12395

Why not just fight to view the actual paper ballots? Brakey explains: "You cannot get at the original ballots. They will not let you touch them. In order to get to them, you have to prove fraud first. And how are you going to prove fraud if you can't get to the ballots? That's the Catch-22. The ballot images are a tool to get us to the originals.

[ancianita]

66. Thanks

[red dog 1]

27. "Voter Suppression Will Play a Crucial Role in Alabama Senate Race"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029965382

[laserhaas]

40. And 2018 and 2020

Link to tweet

[Honeycombe8]

28. Will that tell anyone anything?

It's just pics of electronic votes. The votes are counted electronically. I wonder how pics of those images are helpful.

[RandomAccess]

31. No, apparently, it's the ballots themselves

Read Palast's tweet again:

Preliminary injunction ordering all #Alabama counties to save "ALL PROCESSED IMAGES in order to preserve all digital ballot images" scanned by vote counting machines. Full hearing set for Dec 21. #AlabamaSenateRace pic.twitter.com/6PJGsyULMv

[Honeycombe8]

33. That's what I said. IMAGES of the electronic voting.

"Digital ballot images" are, I think, images of the electronic voting.

Ballots themselves are not scanned and put into digital images, as far as I know. That would be a huge job. If a ballot isn't already a digital image, then it's a paper ballot, and that's what they would order preserved. Paper ballots are just pushed through a "counter" to be read and counted.

But I'm not sure.

[questionseverything]

55. brad blog explains

Why not just fight to view the actual paper ballots? Brakey explains: "You cannot get at the original ballots. They will not let you touch them. In order to get to them, you have to prove fraud first. And how are you going to prove fraud if you can't get to the ballots? That's the Catch-22. The ballot images are a tool to get us to the originals.

[Honeycombe8]

65. Actual paper ballots were preserved and recounted in FL in 2000. ???

But that's what I was saying. It doesn't ask for actual ballots, but "images" of ballots. Images are not normally made of ballots. That's extremely expensive (I used to have imaging of documents made in my job...it's very costly. There's a charge for each image, plus handling charges and such. I doubt small districts would have the money for that. I got a quote once for about 50 boxes of documents. The cost to image was going to be about $10,000.)

So I guess the effect is that if a district can't afford to image them, they will preserve the actual ballots, if they didn't have electronic voting.

I haven't used a paper ballot in years. Most seem to have gone to electronic voting. There are no ballots at all, but there may be images of the votes I punched in, associated with my name? Not sure how that works or what it looks like on the electronic counting side I would think that what they would have is a printout of voter name, and who each voted for and the date, in a report format (plus the sign-in sheets).

[ancianita]

68. Images are not expensive. They're digital. Easily storable. My problem is that images can be made up

as easily as ballots. I myself take a photo of my ballot before submitting it, but most voters don't do that.

I really just don't see the value in this so-called backup system.

[questionseverything]

71. it is about transparency and complying with federal law

concerns about the state's paper ballot computer tabulators.

I'm joined today by longtime election integrity champion JOHN BRAKEY of AUDIT-AZ to discuss his lawsuit and other efforts to force Alabama election officials to turn on digital "ballot imaging" functionality for all ballots on the state's computer ballot scanners, most of which offer the feature. Brakey explains how such images, in lieu of actual human examination of hand-marked paper ballots, can be helpful for public attempts at oversight of results following next week's race, particularly given the historic obstacles citizens have been met with in attempting to verify computer tabulated results.

(See, by way of just one example, my recent interview with Wisconsin's Karen McKim, whose public records request finally allowed, just weeks ago, a multi-partisan group of observers to examine paper ballots from the 2016 President election. That audit of several precincts in Racine County, paid for by the residents themselves, revealed up to 6% of perfectly valid Presidential votes went untallied, thanks to flawed optical scan systems used across the state on Election Night and, in much of the state, even during even during Green Party candidate Jill Stein's attempted "recount". Other wards which tallied by hand instead during that "recount" discovered as many as 30% of valid votes went untallied originally!)

Brakey explains that some 80% of Alabama counties now use newer digital scanners which would allow ballot images to be retained and shared with citizens to examine after the election, to help ensure an accurate count. But, he tells me, relaying his recent conversations with the state's Election Director, "the reality is that it doesn't work unless you turn that feature on." Right now, he says, it is only turned on for write-in votes only. Brakey charges, however, that automatically deleting images that are taken of every ballot as they are tallied by the digital systems, is a violation of federal law. "It's a federal election, and under federal law, you must save everything for 22 months," he says. He is heading to Alabama today and says he will file suit to force the state to retain all such images.

Why not just fight to view the actual paper ballots? Brakey explains: "You cannot get at the original ballots. They will not let you touch them. In order to get to them, you have to prove fraud first. And how are you going to prove fraud if you can't get to the ballots? That's the Catch-22. The ballot images are a tool to get us to the originals."

http://bradblog.com/?p=12395

[questionseverything]

70. the macines already have the imaging..it is a matter of preserving them

nothing more costly than storing any pixel on any screen

the ballots are preserved but no humans can actually look at them w/o first proving fraud

the images are not connected to identity in any way

if we the people can not oversee the counting of our own votes we do not have legitimate elections

[laserhaas]

49. Then..by 21st

This will be decided

[laserhaas]

41. Due diligence is helpful

Staying on top of it all

[RandomAccess]

29. Hooray, Hooray, HOORAY

With any luck -- and full compliance -- we MIGHT have a fighting chance in this election.

[laserhaas]

42. Taking Alabama Senate seat

Is Yuuuge

[McCamy Taylor]

32. They have paper ballots in Alabama?

[Honeycombe8]

34. Paper ballots weren't ordered preserved. nt

[laserhaas]

50. Ummm...where did you see that?

😠

[Honeycombe8]

64. Those links in the OP don't point to the actual legislation or request....

But the OP does not mention "paper." It requests "images" be saved.

That, to me, is referring to electronic voting machines, where there are no ballots. You punch in, his "enter," then walk away. Your vote is electronically recorded, but there is no "ballot" as such. However, there COULD be an electronic image of it. However that is recorded, that is what is counted.

If there are actual paper ballots, wouldn't the request ask for paper ballots to be saved? I didn't see the entire request in the OP, so maybe it does. But in what the OP posted, it doesn't.

[questionseverything]

56. ballots are preserved but we cant look at them w/o proving fraud

the ei peops want to use the images to get to the ballots

[Honeycombe8]

63. If that language reported in the post is correct, it doesn't request paper ballots preserved. nt

[laserhaas]

43. Looking into it

[Turbineguy]

35. What kind of dirty trick is that?

If you can't trust a fixed election, what can you trust?

[laserhaas]

61. Ha Ha

Your a riot...

[TheDebbieDee]

59. Per Greg Palast - Alabama Supreme Court over-ruled this...

Link to tweet

[Kablooie]

60. Boy Republicans sure hate fair and honest elections, don't they?

They are just dying to get rid of this Democracy crap and live in Winston Smith's world.

[yurbud]

67. it would just take ONE federal Supreme to stay that stay wouldn't it?

[FakeNoose]

73. There will be 2 sets of ballots

They have to preserve the actual paper ballots for 18 months.
There's also the digital record - when they scan all the paper ballots.

This is what they ruled on - the digital copy doesn't have to be preserved. The reason being that if there ever should be a recount, they'll use the paper ballots for the recount. The scans (digital copy) won't be necessary after today.

[Amaryllis]

69. Does that not include provisional and absentee ballots? THat's where they get them. Those

ballots have a way of disappearing.

[laserhaas]

72. How in the fruk ...does a court go on the record

Stipulating election records are not to be - preserved!?!?!?

[laserhaas]

74. Moore lost

I think