Update on Maine counts

[Bev Harris]

[The office of the secretary of state sent me their total numbers, not a single
one matched the newspaper's numbers.]

My response:

For Augusta, the Bangor Daily News had these totals
Q1 7079
Q2 7000
Q3 6864
Q4 6996
Q5 9020
Q6 6952
Q7 6870

As you can see, there is a large discrepancy in Q5. Your numbers are:

Q1 - 7,164
Q2 - 7,081
Q3 - 6,944
Q4 - 7,080
Q5 - 7,102
Q6 - 7,031
Q7 - 6,949

As you can see, the Bangor Daily News is off by nearly 2,000 votes for Q5.

In Lewiston, the Bangor Daily News has:

Q1 12421
Q2 12144
Q3 11694
Q4 12058
Q5 11366
Q6 11047
Q7 10876

This compares with your numbers of:
Q1 - 12,613
Q2 - 12,325
Q3 - 11,868
Q4 - 12,243
Q5 - 12,384
Q6 - 12,097
Q7 - 11,906

As you can see, the Bangor Daily News's numbers for Q5 are off by over 1,000
votes.

This emphasizes the need for the Secretary of State's office to release its
preliminary numbers. It is not at all unusual for newspapers to make
significant errors. In one recent election, a Boston paper had candidate totals
columns reversed.

It is particularly unconscionable that the office of the Secretary of State
would expect the citizenry of the state of Maine to depend on unofficial
numbers from some other entity [for a recount]; in view of the evidence of
significant errors in the reporting from the Bangor Daily News, I expect to see
the state of Maine step up to the plate to continue its tradition of good open
government to publish publicly and promptly the preliminary results received by
the Secretary of State, instead of expecting the public to learn results from a
privately held non-governmental source.

Thank you,

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * *

Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right
to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the
instruments of government we have created.

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[Joyce McCloy]

Question: are those vote totals or turnout totals?
Do they include provisional ballots cast and absentee?

What does the Bangor Daily News say about the discrepancy?
That would be interesting. How does the newspaper get the numbers?

Sheesh.
So paper's numbers are HIGHER than the SOS.

Why the difference? Provisional ballots? Or are apples and oranges
being compared?

Perhaps the Bangor Daily News would be more help.

> Founder - Black Box Votinghttp://www.blackboxvoting.org

[Bev Harris]

> Question: are those vote totals or turnout totals?

They are vote totals.

> Do they include provisional ballots cast and absentee?

Maine's absentee votes are counted at the polling place on Election Day, and
Maine has same-day registration which should eliminate the need for provisional
ballots. There may be a tiny number of overseas absentee ballots that come in
later, depending on Maine's law, and one Maine citizen told me that for
same-day registration they allowed the people who didn't have ID when same-day
registering to vote provisionally. The extra numbers seem to average about 200,
which seems high for that, would need a closer evaluation.

> What does the Bangor Daily News say about the discrepancy?> That would be
interesting. How does the newspaper get the numbers?

I don't particularly care. They don't get their numbers from the Sec. State,
they get them from a volunteer network who calls them in.

> So paper's numbers are HIGHER than the SOS.

No, the Sec. State numbers are the higher set.

By the way, I requested the results sheet submitted by the municipalities of
Augusta and Lewiston. Each of these two locations had seven ballot question, so
that's a total of 14 ballot question results. Each ballot question had two
possible answers, so that's a total of 28 actual results, by municipality, by
ballot question, by ballot choice.

Not one of the 28 ballot questions matched what was in the Bangor Daily News.
This is a powerful argument for citizens to demand that the Secretary of State
publish the preliminary numbers as soon as it has them -- the Maine Secretary
of State gets the numbers, by law, within 3 days of the election.

It is inexcusable for the secretary of state to force candidates and supporters
of referenda to look at the Bangor Daily News to decide whether to recount.

I wrote the following statement down while talking with the Secretary of State's
office:

"WE HAVE NOT AND DO NOT GIVE OUT RESULTS TO ANYONE."

Not for 23 days.

Absurd!

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting

[honest electionscow]

Wow, it takes them 23 days to get the results out. They may as well hand count. Surely that would be faster by 22 days or so...

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[voternm]

From my experience as a Presiding Judge on election days, the poll
workers could easily count the top three races on a second smaller
ballot in the polls on election day before the polls close and we
would have a complete hand count total for those races on election
day. This would serve as a complete audit of those races counted that
could serve to validate the electronic count of the rest of the
ballot.



On Nov 15, 6:21 pm, honest electionscow <honestelections...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> >http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrityand click on the "join"

[honest electionscow]

you know , it is all so simple. I wish the people would just DO this. Rise up and DO this. I wonder if we all got jobs in the BOE's or on the party boards or as poll workers (though these folks pretty much have to do as they are told) or as the county agents who decide what equipment to buy, or not...oh there I go dreaming again. I have been hoping that the economic crisis would force county boards to look at hand counting as an option...or as a 100% audit as voternm suggests below.  at the precinct level...oh my sweet baby tabulator.

There is a movement underway for people who believe in HCPB to become--I forget the proper term--but the ward party people who elect the county party CHAIRS (just the big two, unfortunately). many of these positions are without candidates or people filling them. They also are the people who are supposed to get out the vote at the most local level. (gee how about some education on voting machines as we are getting out the vote?) The movement was suggested to me by a leader in the Constitution Party here in Ohio. SO these particular R's are already on board. They were looking for liason with the D's. hmmmmmm....

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