Beyond this election--For next time we need ATM type voting Machines

ernest2

New member
http://www.vote.com

has a poll asking if voting should be done in
the future by home computer over the internet.This idea has been rejected because the wrong question was asked in the poll.

Few people believe that the internet is free from hacking and many Americans still do not own home computers and have no wish to learn how to opperate them or to own a
home computer.

Rather, http://www.vote.com should have asked about a ATM
type Voting Machine at the polls.

Voting could be made simple and foolproof.
Example below.
------------------------------------------------------------------
PRESIDENTIAL BALLOT


1.Do you wish to vote for Al Gore. No

2. Do You wish to vote for GW. Bush. Yes

-------------------------------------------------------------
You have selected GW Bush for president. Do you want to change this choice. No
-----------------------------------------------------------
OR -
You have not selected any canadates for president.
Do you wish to vote for persident. No
-----------------------------------------------------------

we can all see that a voting machine along these lines would
eliminate not only manual recounts forever , but also the infamous hanging chad, the dangling chat , the pregnant chad , the aborted chad, the mangled chad and all the fu~king chads forever. Period and exclamation point.!!!

If I never hear the word "CHAD" again, it will be too soon!

The hard wired ATM voting machine could have 3 hard drives
in lock boxes requiring physical keys, so we would have 3 copies of each vote and each hard drive would be behind tighter and stronger security so that no acess would be
available to two of the hard drives except with double locks
similar to our IBM missle lock out two key systems.

The first hard drive would be easily accessable ONLY to most election officials for qiuck vote results but the second and third hard drives would be layered in lock out boxes only available to two keyed election officals.

Since there would be not connection of the ATM Voting Machines to any telephone or cable access , we would not have to worry about double voting or hacking.

Only most election officals would have access to the first
hard drive and only selected and certified election officials access to the back up and redundant bach up hard drive.

The voting menu, requiring not only a yes answer for the canidate you wish to vote for but also no answers to all the canadates that you do not want to vote for and then asking you to review your choices before finalizing your vote will end all the sh~t that we have hads to go thru in the past month with the election that would not end.

We are the United States of America and can easily afford to upgrade all voting machines in the same year in all 50 states all at once.

The only valid reason to continue to use 40 year old voting machines is to allow the democrats to continue to cheat after the elections.

Time to stop this crap.
So says, with ample disgust, eernest2@yahoo.com

Edited to fix formatting problem. - TBM

[Edited by TheBluesMan on 11-27-2000 at 10:46 AM]
 

RickD

Moderator
What if we had clever programmers that allowed the vote to be tweaked? Just turn up the fraud meter, as it were.

Paper ballots allows for some kind of back up check.

Rick
 

Ironbarr

New member
We all know that computers are driven by "0"s and "1"s. Can you see a "hanging 1" or a "pregnant 0"?

I have serious reluctance to use a "national electronic system" of any kind to tally voting. You just have to look around to know that someone out there will crack it somehow. It'd be like a mountain - "we climbed it 'cause it was there". While Ernest2's configuration seems tight, I just know someone will diddle with it...like turning off the appropriate power grid at a propitious moment.

BTW: In this world of Politically Correct(ness), why haven't the NOW and other ladies' groups jumped all over this demeaning of motherhood by referring to bloated c**ds as "pregnant??

-Andy
 

ctdonath

New member
Two problems with electronic/Internet voting:

1. Electrons are ethereal, atoms endure. I'd rather see my vote marked in ink (or holes) on paper because a physical ballot is more durable than the transient electrical states of nanometer-scale electronics. As a programmer, I don't trust my ballots to computers. Consider that in the latest election, one district's vote-counting computer automatically ignored any ballot that was filled out along party lines - doesn't inspire much faith in technology. Never mind the ease of faking digital votes.

2. Internet voting does away with an enforced-private booth in a public location, permitting coercion. One person can, in a private setting, hang over someone else and say "let me watch you vote for X or you're fired/blackmailed/somethingbad." Public voting booths by law ensure that people can truly vote without anyone else knowing who the vote was for.

High-tech voting? Give me a paper ballot, a pen and a voting booth any day.
 

gjwandkids

New member
Ironbarr-NOW is made up of hardcore feminists. They believe that pregnancy is bad and abortion is good. That's why they aren't jumping all over the "pregnant" chad issue.
 

HukeOKC

New member
UH OH!! He's talking about "lock boxes". The last person I heard talking about those was practicing "fuzzy math" too. ;)

Sounds like a decent idea but then you'd have people screaming that they lost their voting card and were "raped of their vote" by technology if their candidate doesn't win. Or there would be the ones who thought they were voting but instead withdrew $20 from their savings account.
 

JCH

New member
not a good idea

I agree with RickD, it would just make more room for fraud. The election is based on private vote/ public count. With a computer spitting out "accurate" numbers there would be no chance of a manual recount and who'sto say that the computers would be un-tweekable.
 

JoshM75

New member
IMO Ernest2's "ATM Voter" is the way of the future and could really impact vote fraud.
While paper ballots allow a physical trace, it also allows easy vote fraud by simply loosing or stuffing ballot boxes. If the new vote machine's are on an independent and sealed system, this will seriously impact the possibility of electronic vote fraud. Democratic held inner city electorates are also generally not the home of computer programmers.

Another aspect of vote security is having a national standard of voter identification, by having pre registered voter cards required on election day with some other form of i.d. [e.g. passport, birth certificate] to cross-check on voter rolls.

Also "invisible ink" style UV marker spray should be used on all voters after voting to stop double voting, just like 3rd World countries.

The foreign media are having a field day, as the U.S., the world's lone super power argues over dimpled or non dimpled votes.:(
 

Monkeyleg

New member
The problem is not with the technology, but with those who cannot use it. If someone can't punch a hole in a piece of paper correctly, they likely cannot push the correct button on a screen. They'll sue because they were technologically disenfranchised. Let's face it, there's a sizeable chunk of our population who can't figure out how to operate their microwaves.

I would agree, though, that we need some sort of voter ID. The "motor voter" bill was tailor-made for Democrats to bus in people who either have no idea what or whom they're voting for, or are voting multiple times. The "Reverund" Jackson is making a stink because his minions went to great lengths to snag people off the street who wouldn't know Gore from the Devil himself. These are Jackson's "disenfranchised." Personally, I'd love to see some sort of poll test. Who's the current secretary of state?, for example. I know it's unconstitutional, but the idea of voters who don't know diddley deciding the election nauseates me.

Dick
Want to send a message to Bush? Sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/monk/petition.html and forward the link to every gun owner you know.
 

Bogie

New member
Frankly, if "fill in the little hole" works for grade school achievement tests, it oughta work for voting. It'd be simple enough to machine-read the forms...
 

ctdonath

New member
we need some sort of voter ID

Beware the consequences. Voter IDs would become personal national identification cards.
<in thick German accent> "WHERE ARE YOUR PAPERS?!?"

Where I vote, I have to sign in and someone visually matches my signature to a registered copy. That's enough ID.
 
Voting systems

Alright I am going to admit I live in Florida.Why I don;t know but I am.Where I vote 2 pieces of identification MUST be provided.A voters registration card (signed) and Drivers License or equivelent.One must sign a register then provide the proof of who you are before one votes.I really think this is best as it has a way of checking up on people.After one signs his name in the register he/she can not obviously vote again.No one can vote for you because I D is required.In Fla we have pictured drivers licenses.The workers are very careful to get it right and even ,while they have your license ask your address.It is on the license so you best be right.Works for us and has for some time......Aliens1956
 

ernest2

New member
ATM Closed System Voting Machines

I seems that I need to jump back in this thread to
clarify my idea/views.

The ATM voting machine would be at the polls and
behind a curtain or in a privacy booth.

Id can be accomplished by zipping your drivers lic
or state id card or voter registration card which has
a magnetic tape strip affixed to it and or a bar code.

My drivers lic has a bar core strip and my state pistol
permit has a (video tape type) magnetic zip strip
similar to my credit card.

Your intimidation / voter cohersion concerns would
not be able to happen because id would be in computer
code that couls only be read by canvasing board machines
so that if intimidation occured , we would have
prima facta proof of canvasing board wrongdoing.

Designated canvasing board local officials would be responsible for voter id decoding and security of records.

Other designated local canvising board officials would be
responsible for vote count integrety and security.
Bear in mind that there are three hard drives recording your vote and all three need to agree in order to validate your vote.

This is a CLOSED SYSTEM - not suceptable to internet hacking because no modum or cable connection exists.

The only weak spot that I can forsee in this system
is the intergrity of the computer tech that designs
installs and services the system.

These persons would require background security checks and preformance bonds.

Votes could be back checked with the voter by official
certified and bonded election board officials in the
occasion of a contest or chalange.

Also- the ATM machine can print out each vote with an ink jet printer in bar code or other computer language so
any one picking up your vote print out can not read it
but an election official can scan the paper through a
de coding machine in the event of vote challange and
event phone the voter to confirm.

on the other hand , we can continue with hanging,dimpled
pregnant, aborted taped , mangled CHADS and allow
elections to be stolen and litigated for 3 months
beyond every election.

How much of the taxpayers money are we currently wasting
on this clown show??

I know it is distracting and upseting me from going about
my daily business as usual.

To me , it is glaring apparent and obvious that we can do
much better that where we are now with 40 year old chad systems.

But nothing will change because both political parties
want to retain the privdledge of cheating chads if the
dont like the outcome of the elections.

I also believe that the electorial colledge must be retianed at all costs as a hedge against federal government tynary and cheating.

The electorial colledge is required as a chech and balance on the ever increasing power of the federal government
under living constitutionalists and anti civil rights
advocates such as Al Gore and Joe Lieberman.

No fate but what '"WE"' make or allow to be made for us.

If we keep on same old same old, we end up same old same old.

eernest2@yahoo.com
 

ernest2

New member
statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach, Fl"

statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach, Fl"

http://www.reagan.com/HotTopics.main/document-11.16.2000.0.html


We were talking bout the need to change from the chad
system of voting to something more cheat proof & I
had sugested ATM type CLOSED SYSTEM with lock box
redundant hard drives to stop democrats from cheating
on election returns.

Below I post evidence of democrat cheating to emphasize
the need for action.

We must not allow this type of clown show to continue
on in our next election.

We can and should creat a new "cheat proof" electronic
election system which would pay for itself in the first
election it is used in by saving all the monies spent
in lawyers fees in constesting all the cheating done in
the current election.

Below I present proof of democrat cheating in election
returns.

Let us build an election system that stops the cheating
and VOTE FRAUD.






"Explicit statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach, Fl"
Errors only Occurred in Presidential Races?
Editor's Note: The following statistical analysis was sent to me by Robert Cook, PE, a nuclear engineer, with an MS in statistical quality control, a software testing specialist and QA manager, who has a track record for analyzing and correcting trends, errors, and mistakes in heavy construction projects (ships, power plants, nuclear reactors, military and aerospace vehicles, etc. for more than twenty years.

Robert Cook presents here a remarkable statistical analysis of the Palm Beach presidential ballot controversy that deserves serious investigation. He says that the controversial 19,120 Presidential race ballots at issue there were "destroyed by deliberate double-punching ballots in Palm Beach County FL with a 'second punch' for Al Gore or Pat Buchanan. (In 1996, an additional 15,000 Dole and Perot ballots were destroyed by double-punching presidential ballots in Palm Beach County, FL. *)

"It uses simplified but wide-ranging statistical comparisons to establish beyond doubt that democratic operatives "stole" by double-punching ballots approximately 15,000 Bush votes in Palm Beach County; and approximately 3,400 additional Buchanan votes."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

09 November, 2000

By: Robert A. Cook, PE

Ref: Statistical evidence establishes beyond reasonable doubt that 19,120 Presidential race ballots were destroyed by deliberate double-punching ballots in Palm Beach County FL with a "second punch" for Al Gore or Pat Buchanan. (In 1996, an additional 15,000 Dole and Perot ballots were destroyed by double-punching presidential ballots in Palm Beach County, FL. *)

The national error rate of double-punching ballots is less than 1/2 of one percent, or at most, 1800 ballots in all of Palm Beach County, with the errors between all races and all candidates.

19,120 double punched ballots -all in one race, with "errors" only occurring two Presidential races against Republican opposition - is 33,000 "too many" to be an accident.

References:

(*9 Nov, 2000 CNN; Jim Smith, Former Florida Secretary of State; WSJ, 11-10-2000) (San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov 10, 2000, page A-12, Local Figure on Double Voting Only 0.3%; Haas Sees Red Flag in Florida Totals; by Caitlin Rother) (Los Vegas Sun, Nov 10, 2000. Statistics Point To More Than Random Error in Florida Vote; by Jace Radke)

The news media is utterly focused on the Democratic Party spin that voters were "confused" in Palm Beach, FL. They are ignoring the 15,000 Bush and 3,400 Buchanan votes that statistical evidence can show were stolen by fraud in these 19,120 ballots.

There is explicit statistical evidence of massive ballot tampering in Palm Beach FL. These ballots show Democratic voter fraud....NOT Republican fraud or "voter error" as publicized by the national media. Statistical evidence cannot prove any single ballot was tampered with, nor show which individual tampered with any single ballot. It can show specific places and times and methods where the fraud was done. (For example, if 15,000 dollars are missing from the register the day after your cashier left on a Los Vegas vacation, there is no direct evidence that the cashier stole the money. If, however, 19,120 dollars are missing from the register the next year when the cashier again leaves for vacation in Los Vegas, one has reason to investigate the cashier closely.)

Consider these "unusual" ballot problems in Palm Beach, FL - every one of them adds more Gore votes, and removed Republican and Reform party votes.

ONLY Palm Beach County Florida voters seem incapable of understanding and using this style of ballot.

Palm Beach County has an error rate TEN TIMES larger than reported in ANY other county in the nation using paper punch ballots! No information is available about the number of ballots invalidated for previous primary, state, and the 1998 Congressional votes. Unless an equal number (equal proportion of "invalid ballots" per primary voter) of ballots was double-punched in the 1996 primaries, the 1998 primaries, and the 1998 Congressional races ..... the Palm Beach election officials are specifically guilty of deliberate ballot tampering fraud in the year 2000 Presidential elections.)

ONLY in Palm Beach FL were 15,000 ballots "invalidated" (for double punched ballots) in the 1996 Presidential election. (This is almost unique among the entire nation! (Certain central city Democratic precincts in Chicago reported 120,000 double-punched ballots; and Duval County in Florida reported 22,000 double-punched ballots. Neither used the same arrangement of candidates as at Palm Beach. This shows that "lining up" buttons was NOT actually an issue at Palm Beach, but was created as an excuse to blame the symptoms of fraud at Palm Beach.)

One early excuse given to the national news media by Democratic "spokesmen" to explain the Palm Beach fraud was that people were 'exchanging" their double-punched ballots - and were given new ones...If so, over 26 people per minute "were confused" and voted twice for President! This many errors were supposedly made, detected, and corrected (by handing out new ballots) while no person made any "error" in any other race. This excuse would also mean that more voters were being handed new ballots per minute than new voters were being signed in. (19,120 "double punched" Democratic ballots divided by 12 hours, there are fewer than 100 precincts in Palm Beach County where the precinct level returns are suspect . Significantly, the massive number of errors occurred only in a few of the precincts, and all of those precincts were strongly Democratic. In precinct 144F, for example, there was only one "counted" republican voter for president.)

However, the "double-punched" ballots counted in the election were NOT exchanged, and were actually read by the voting machine. They are the symptom and the method of the fraud. There is no reason for this early Democratic Party statement other than that of beginning a cover-up for the double-punched ballots.

Not surprisingly, this early fable was not maintained, and has not be repeated. It also has not been retracted or contradicted by follow-up stories in the national news media.

ONLY in Palm Beach (and in ONLY the most heavily Democratic precincts) were 19,120 ballots rejected in 2000 for double punching....(This is a 4.4% error rate overall; in the rest of Florida there is less than 1/2 of ONE percent "double punch" error rate! (Unofficially, this error rate was 15% in predominately Afro-American precincts, and 10% in precincts with large numbers of Jewish retirees.) In strongly Republican precincts, the error rate was the "usual" 1/2 of one percent.) San Diego County has 800,000 voters, and (overall) has more senior, retired, minority, and new immigrants than does Palm Beach County. Since all of these were represented the 1992, 1996, and 2000 results in the San Diego double count totals, there can be no excuse for "innocent errors" in Palm Beach.

ONLY in Palm Beach did this "double punch" error happen ONLY in the Gore-Bush-Buchanan selections for President. (In a truly random "error," the mistakes happen in every race, all at about the same rate. In Palm Beach, the massive errors (over 19,000) ONLY happened in the Presidential race.)

ONLY in Palm Beach has the news media complained about "massive" ballot confusion. In the 43 counties in Missouri, also mostly Democratic voters, which use the same kind of ballot, there are NO complaints about "confused voters" at all. (St Louis Post Dispatch, Nov 8, 2000) Therefore, ONLY in Palm Beach FL do the Democrats have to "explain" a massive number of incorrect votes.

ONLY in Palm Beach did Gore GAIN 750 votes in a recount. In 50 out of 67 counties in FL, the actual change in the recount was 5-7 votes, and in 63 out of 67 counties, the total change was less than 30 votes either way. Further, in 63 out of 67 counties the "changes" were somewhat evenly divided between ALL the candidates, in rough proportion to the original number of votes. This is the statistically expected result, and represents a true and legal recount of the ballots without any change in the ballots themselves.

This means that Palm Beach FL had an error rate in favor of Gore more than 120 TIMES greater than any other county, (Two other heavily Democratic "inner city" counties (Flagler and Pinellas) had changes greater than 400 votes. Whether or not fraud existed in those counties is possible, but not analyzed here.) In a statistically valid recount, half of the errors would favor Bush, and half favor Gore. This extreme change from the normal in only three counties shows massive "tampering" towards Gore in those three counties between the original machine count (already tainted by fraud.) and the second machine recount.

In EVERY precinct in Palm Beach where Gore got more votes than there are registered Democrats., Bush received less than 60% of the registered Republican votes. In NO precinct in Palm Beach County did Bush receive more than 80% of the number of registered Republicans. .... (Absentee ballots were equally distributed by percentage between the two parties at 8% each. Thus, there is specific evidence to show that the "level of interest" in the Presidential election was equal between the two parties.) It is ONLY in the "counted" turnout on Nov 7 that the democrats appear to "remove" 15,000 votes in the Presidential race.

Or, it is ONLY in Palm Beach County that more than 20% of the registered Republicans "forgot" to vote for their party's presidential candidate. This 'lack of interest" by the republicans despite equally massive "get-out-the vote" efforts by both parties. As shown by the absentee ballot numbers, there WAS equal interest in the election by both parties; at least until the votes were "totaled".

ONLY in Palm Beach did Bush receive LESS than 65% of the registered Republican voters. (Registered Republicans = 231,626 while Bush voters = 152,954.) On average, in every other county in FL Bush received MORE votes than there were registered Republicans. In the rest of the nation, poll results show more than 90% of registered Republicans actively supported the Republican candidate. (Also, unique in the entire state, the percentage of Republican voters COUNTED as voting in Palm Beach was much less than normal, despite the pre-election attention to Florida as a critical state; and massive Republican get -out-the-vote campaigns.)

This is very significant when the Republican Senate race is examined.

To compare similar counties in Florida, look at the 10 counties in Florida where there are more than 100,000 democratic voters for president. In every one of these counties - EXCEPT Palm Beach County - Gore received FEWER votes than Nelson, the democratic Senate candidate. In Palm Beach county, Gore received slightly more votes than Nelson, which is not by itself statistically significant. However, his "gain" over equally sized counties IS directly proportional to the number of "blank ballets" (or "protest votes") that were cast in Palm Beach County.)

However, in 8 of 10 of these counties, Bush led McCollum (the Republican Senate candidate by a major proportional to the county size, with the margin being between 25,000 votes and 4000 votes.

McCollum ONLY led Bush in Palm Beach County and Lee County (which is also the focus of fraud due to its change in votes during the recount.) The margin of Bush's lead in two counties close to Palm Beach in population was 15,000 votes and 15,000 - equal to the number of Republican presidential voters "missing" when the number of registered Republicans is checked.

The only way this could occur is if 15,000 registered Republican voters went to the polls, and "forgot" to cast their votes for president, or were "confused" and voted twice for President by did NOT replace their ballot at the polling booth; while remembering to correctly and accurately punch 15,000 votes for the Republican Senate candidate.

The same number of "missing" Republican votes is found when the four Congressional races involved in Palm Beach County are checked.

ONLY in Palm Beach County do the smaller (Congressional) races outdraw the Presidential race. Again, the number of total Republican votes "missing" (not counted in the presidential race) is equal to 15,000 Bush votes destroyed by double punching in the Presidential race.

The only way this could occur is if 15,000 registered Republican voters went to the polls, and "forgot" to cast their votes for president, or were "confused" and voted twice for President but did NOT replace their ballot at the polling booth; while remembering to correctly and accurately punch 15,000 votes for the Republican Congressional candidate in their district.

When the two "coincidences" of correct votes in two other races are included, it is impossible to accept "confusion" in the presidential race.

ONLY in Palm Beach did Buchanan get less than HALF the of votes he received before in 1996. Buchanan's "lost" votes in that county in 2000 were much greater than in any other district in Florida. (Buchanan received over 8,000 votes in 1996 Republican PRIMARY (where only registered Republicans can vote; but he received only 3,407 under the Reform Party from ALL voters in the 2000 Presidential election. (Pat Buchanan has relatives who lives in Palm Beach County, and this local support greatly increase the number of local voters who choose Buchanan, compared to every other region of the country. There are over 14,551 members of the Reform party in Palm Beach County - which indicates that less than 1/5 of the Reform voters voted for their own candidate. The Fraud is NOT whether Gore voters were "confused" and voted for Gore, but rather WHY Reform Party and Libertarian voters were prevented from registering THEIR vote!)

Much has been (erroneously) made of the number of apparent Buchanan votes, with some partial observers (paid by the democratic Party officials who started the first lawsuits requesting a recount) claiming that his total vote count "must" be wrong.

It is important to note that Buchanan's running mate is the FIRST Afro-American to run for national office. Further, she is only the SECOND woman to run for national office. Given the demographics of the Palm Beach are, and its high concentration of minorities, it is perhaps surprising that Buchanan-Foster didn't get more votes than they are credited with receiving.

There is a simple, single explanation for ALL of these 19,120 problems in ONE set of ballots in ONE district in ONE state.

15,000 Bush ballots, and 3,400 more Buchanan ballots, were double-punched to imitate a Gore vote, AFTER legitimate voters left their polling booth.

Assume 45,000 ballots were stuck with a stiff wire or pointed tool. It would take somebody a little bit of privacy and about 15 minutes. A ream of paper is 1 inch thick, 45,000 many ballots can be carried by one person in one handcart or box, damaged, and returned to position very quickly. More simply, they could be punched several hundred at a time while the stack is lined before being read at the voting machine - since all the ballots would already be lined up and stacked neatly in order at that time.

Originally,
3,000 = Buchanan
15,000 = Bush
25,000 = Gore (Gore has approximately a 2:1 margin over Bush in Palm Beach Cty.)
1,250 = other parties and random existing errors
750 = "blank" or "protest votes"- No vote for President; other spots may be filled in.

After ....

3,000 Buchanan + Gore = thrown out.
15,000 Bush + Gore = thrown out.
25,000 Gore (+ Gore) = GOOD VOTES for Gore = counted already
1,250 + others + Gore = thrown out.
750 = "blank" + Gore = Gore additional "free" votes

Stamping 45,000 ballots with a tool (or other device) THROUGH the Gore slot gives:

Every Gore vote = still a valid Gore vote. (No change in the total, no change in the recount.)

Every Bush, Buchanan, Workers Party, and Libertarian Party ballot IS IMMEDIATELY INVALID. They will be thrown out because they have two votes. They NEVER were counted in the first place = no change in the recount. The double-punch occurs ONLY in the presidential race, and no position on the ballot is disturbed. All other races are correctly counted.

EVERY ballot that had no vote (a "protest vote" against both major candidates) becomes a Gore vote. All other races on the ballot are not disturbed, and are correctly counted.

Evidence of fraud by selectively punching "empty" or "protest" ballots before the recount.

Statewide, 2% of the voters deliberately chose NOT to select a presidential candidate. 2% of 45,000 ballots is 900, statistically equal to the 950 "votes" changed into 750 Gore votes, and 150 Bush votes during the recount. It is statistically impossible (odds of over 149 million to 1) to have ONE county out of 67 change its recount votes by over 900 votes if it is counting untainted, unaltered ballots, while the other 64 counties (using legal methods) change their recounts by less than 30 votes either way!

Significantly, the recount results DO require that approximately 900 ballots be "blank" or "protest votes (originally) before tampering. From the first set of 45,000 tampered ballots, there would no "blank ballots" for the Presidential election - all would have an original vote, or be blank from a protest vote and be filled in by the original double-punching. Further, no additional double-punching could be done, or an additional 15,000 presidential votes would be canceled during the recount.

However, the recount processed all ballots again, and thus allowed 900 "selected" blank ballots to be "newly counted" - rather than being left blank as in the original.

The key to prosecuting the criminals involved: maintaining the double-punched ballots separate in the order they were originally received, and under evidentiary control for later prosecution.

1. RECOUNTING them by hand, recording the remainder of the

[Edited by ernest2 on 11-28-2000 at 07:50 AM]
 
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