Election Integrity Experts Converge and Join Both Republican and Democratic Candidates in Quest for Transparency New Hampshire Secretary of State Questioned About Documentation, Poll Records and Diebold Memory Cards... Election Integrity experts from around the country have been converging on the Granite State over the last several days, in preparation for "historic" state-wide hand counts of New Hampshire's Primary Election ballots, The BRAD BLOG has learned. Counts of votes in both the Democratic and Republican side will begin in earnest this Wednesday, as long as the two contesting candidates deliver certified checks by 3pm on Tuesday, in an amount determined on Monday by Secretary of State William M. Gardner.
The battle for transparency and accountability on the ground, where some 80% of the state's ballots were tallied only by error-prone, hackable Diebold optical-scan voting machines, without human audit or spot-check of any kind, in last week's first-in-the-nation Primary, is already growing heated on both sides of the aisle, and even inside the statehouse as of Monday.
While representatives from each of the contestants have reportedly been working together on several aspects of the two separate counts --- each claiming to have requested the hand-counts in order to help answer questions about anomalous reported results --- what has become immediately clear, during our interviews with several members involved in the challgenges, as well as Election Integrity advocates now in New Hampshire and elsewhere, is that these election challenges may not likely mirror the partial recount in 2004, held at the request of then-Presidential candidate Ralph Nader.
As a two-page request for a detailed list of ballot and voting machine-related public documents and records, obtained by The BRAD BLOG, as submitted on Monday to Gardner by the previously obscure Republican candidate Albert Howard made clear, the battle for integrity and transparency in post-election challenges, may have finally caught up with the technical sea-changes in voting equipment that have overtaken the American election system over the last several years.
Due to extraordinary complexities in the ever more complicated computer systems, scanners, tabulators, record sets, databases and proprietary programming that have now been employed by election administrators across the country, the once simple task of examining and recounting paper ballots --- where they still exist, as they do in New Hampshire --- has grown exponentially more technical and confusing.
Early word on the ground in New Hampshire's capitol city of Concord, along with concerns from candidates, surrogates and election experts alike, suggests that these "recounts" could be like no other, in the history of the country...
Howard, himself, has apparently been a quick learner, according to a number of Election Integrity experts who we spoke to on Monday. They've been advising him on matters of technical and chain-of-custody concerns, as his requests for transparent documentation have already led to confrontations with the Secretary of State on Monday, as Howard told The BRAD BLOG later in the evening. . "I had the election integrity 'Dream Team' in there with me," he told us, delighted about the progress they had been making on Monday. "We've already been learning some incredible things, today. And we've got it all captured on video tape."
"Wait until you see it," he promised. "I'm telling you, it's better than Hacking Democracy," he said, referring to the 2006 Emmy-nominated HBO documentary film in which the very same Diebold machines used to tally 80% of the ballots in New Hampshire, is seen flipping the results of a mock-election in Leon County, Florida, after its sensitive memory-card had been hacked. (Video of that seminal hack here.)
Two of the citizen election watchdogs present at that Leon County hack, filmed back in late 2005, were also present along with other citizen advocates at the statehouse in Concord on Monday.
On the Democratic side, surrogates for hand-count requester, Congressman Dennis Kucinich were said to be conferring with Election Integrity advocates and computer experts across the country as well, as they prepared to focus on the technological aspect of the recount.
As well, concerns were expressed about the private company, LHS Associates, which oversees programming, sales and service for all the Diebold voting machines used in New Hampshire, as well as most of the other states in New England. Concerns included the recently revealed criminal background of a senior LHS executive, Michael Hajjar, and other less-than-appropriate behavior by fellow officials at the company. The BRAD BLOG has reported on questions about LHS over the past year. We've previously detailed a number of those concerns, along with the criminal record of Hajjar, who pled guilty to narcotics trafficking in 1990. Our most recent reporting on LHS, and what seems to be inappropriate access to voting machines, and confusion concerning protocol for access to voting equipment before, during and after elections, in New Hampshire, can be found here and here.
The costs for the hand counts must be paid, in full, and up front, according to Gardner's interpretation of the state recount statute, according to letters given to the candidates today. (The full letter to Howard is at the end of this article.) Both a Kucinich representative, and Howard himself, questioned the Secretary of State's demand for full payment up front during conversations we had with them Monday evening. Kucinich must deliver a check for $69,600 by Tuesday afternoon. Howard is being charged a total $57,600. Each, at a cost of 24 cents per ballot.
"It's ludicrous," charged senior Kucinich campaign representative, David Bright. "New Hampshire has the privilege of being the first in the nation. This election brings in $3 billion dollars to the economy, so you'd think a measly 70k would be part of the cost of doing business," he told The BRAD BLOG in a phone interview on Monday night.
Both Bright and Kucinich's New Hampshire Attorney Manny Krasner, told us that their candidate would pay the fees up front, as required, though they contested Gardner's reading of the law which, they pointed out, only requires a written guarantee of payment.
"We've already signed documents to agree we're doing this," Bright said. "I think they ought to be doing this themselves anyway, on behalf of the voters and integrity."
"If Obama had done it, it would have been $2,000," Bright explained, referring to the state law which allows a candidate in a close election to pay just $2,000 total for a hand count. "So it's clearly an obstacle they're throwing in our way. I don't think it's good government," he added.
Both camps seem confident they will be able to raise the fee demanded by Gardner, though delivery of funds on time to Howard in New Hampshire, is still a concern. Supporters of Republican candidate Ron Paul have been helping to raise funds, as questions about the Libertarian-leaning Conservative Congressman from Texas' vote totals arose after zero votes were recorded for him in the hand-counted wards of Summit. Paul was later given 31 votes, and the issue was chalked up to an error by a local election official.
Donations to the Howard's count can be made here
grannywarrior.chipin.com/recount.
Donations to Kucinich's count can be made here.
www.usalone.com/kucinich_constitution.php
Click for Full Text!