Request to Review Ballots for November 2016 Contests: Select Board Says No

[Deborah Sumner]

On March 13, 2017 Don MacIsaac and Frank Sterling said “no” to this request

Feb. 23, 2017

 

To: Jaffrey Select Board (via email and also sent to Chairman MacIsaac by regular mail)

Re: Request to review ballots for at least two contests in Nov. 2016 election, (if those two are okay, no need probably to see others) 

 

Basis for Request: NH Constitution, including. Part I, Art. 8; Part II, Art. 5, 32, and 90; Chapter LXIII, esp. RSA 659;63 and your oath of office, Part II, art. 84 and RSA 42:1.

Federal law requires preservation of ballots with federal contests for 22 months (52 U.S.C. § 20701) provides penalties for tampering or destruction (52 U.S.C. § 20702) and specifies U.S District Court as appropriate jurisdiction, if needed, to compel ballot custodian to produce those documents (52 U.S.C. § 20705),

Current law, consistent with NH Constitution, requires that moderators oversee a public vote count so that any errors can be caught and corrected on election night. The State of NH and public officials in Jaffrey have made a political decision not to follow or enforce the laws that protect voting rights. IF Jaffrey refuses to grant this request, it is violating both my right and constitutional duty as a citizen to vindicate that Jaffrey votes have been counted and reported as voters intended them.

Our constitution requires the moderator to “sort and count” votes in “open meeting” in the presence of the town clerk, selectmen and “all others who may take an interest in the election, and be able and willing to detect and expose any error, and obtain a correction of it immediately, when it can be most easily corrected.” Opinion of the Justices, 53 N.H. 640, 1873 

 "…we note that New Hampshire law enables public oversight of the vote counting process…For instance, RSA 659:63 requires that vote counting be conducted in public, so that the public may observe the counting process as it occurs.…state law incorporates public oversight into the vote counting process,” Deborah Sumner v. Secretary of State, 2016.

 

Known Vulnerability of Jaffrey’s Election System and Likelihood of Error:

1) Information given you previously (state officials knew this since at least 2006):

“Our demonstration vote-stealing applications can be generalized to steal votes on behalf of a particular party rather than a fixed candidate, to steal votes only in certain elections or only at certain dates or times, to steal votes only or preferentially from certain parties or candidates, to steal a fixed fraction of votes rather than trying to ensure a fixed percentage result, to randomize the percentage of votes stolen, and so on. Even if the attacker knows nothing about the candidates or parties, he may know that he wants to reduce the influence of voters in certain places. He can do this by creating malicious code that randomly switches a percentage of the votes, and installing that code only in those places. Any desired algorithm can be used to determine which votes to steal and to which candidate or candidates to transfer the stolen votes.”

 

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/evt07/tech/full_papers/feldman/feldman_html/index.html

2) Recent testimony of Poorvil Vora arguing  why the [Michigan]  presidential recount requested by Jill Stein should have been hand counted, not merely re-run through a scanner.

http://imaginatron.com/Vora.pdf

“A voter using an optical scanner marks a paper ballot and feeds it into the scanner. She does not know if it has read her votes correctly.

“…Logic and Accuracy testing (L&A testing) is intended to test for some of the above problems before the elections, but human error can result in the tests not being correctly completed and equipment malfunction can result in the equipment behaving differently on Election Day. Further, a competent attacker would have the system behave as expected when tested, and maliciously during the election.” (My emphasis added, information shared with you previously).

3) What PROBABLY occurred in November 2010 election. The ballots (evidence) were reportedly destroyed before the court could decide whether to grant me access. There was NO investigation by either the state or town. (Chronology shared previously)

Follow up from Oct. 10, 2016:
I wrote “Will work with you to follow spirit and intent of ballot exemption from public records law, taking into account legitimate state interests. Preventing public detection of fraud or significant error has never been named, by SoS, AG, court or legislature as a legitimate state interest. Deterring that possibility, and allowing detection if it does occur, is a legitimate town/public interest. “

On request can give you NH House minority/majority committee opinion re: 2014 attempted repeal of ballot exemption from public records law and opinions from Ohio and Michigan Attorneys General verifying that there are no privacy reasons to exempt ballots and they are public records in those states. Also, see this link that shows Wyoming citizens performing this essential check and balance in that state’s election system. 

http://blackboxvoting.org/wyoming-hand-recounts-prohibited/

Conclusion:

The NH Executive Branch has failed to protect voting rights guaranteed in the US and NH constitutions (our “highest” laws), leaving the state open to a federal lawsuit.  That is THEIR choice.

Please choose to honor your oath of office, do what ‘s right for Jaffrey and say yes to this request so we can work out the details.

Saying no means the Select Board chooses to spend Jaffrey taxpayer money to defend this unfunded state mandate and illegitimate “law” in federal court (see “Oct. 10 Jaffrey Select Board Meeting Follow up” email sent Nov. 30, 2016 showing WHY it is illegitimate).

I plan to attend the March 13 Select Board  meeting to answer any questions and receive your answer.

Thank you.

 

Deborah Sumner

474A Great Rd.

Jaffrey, NH 03452