To Jaffrey Officials: "Latest Reports: Electoral System in Crisis, Democracy Lost and Fraction Magic"
Deborah Sumner
Aug. 16
Dear Jaffrey Officials (included moderator, town clerk, select board and town manager),
I respectfully request that you review the below information ASAP and, if you believe it is warranted, ask your state representatives, senator and executive councilor to ask the NH AG for this investigation. I further request that you share this with other select boards, moderators and town clerks and ask them to also ask for this investigation.
IF, for example, “fraction magic” was used in the larger Hillsborough County precincts using the AccuVote, it could also have been used in Cheshire and other counties. An AG investigation to determine the facts could also result in him taking the lead to protect the September and November elections from similar attacks. I informed AG Foster and members of the media of the Fraction Magic report on May 10 and had really hoped the media would have followed up by now.
This anomaly by precinct size was first noted in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary in a number of states, including NH. I have previously reported that to the NH AG.
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article17139890.html
“Clarkson became more interested in the issue after reading a paper written by statisticians Francois Choquette and James Johnson in 2012 of the Republican primary results showing strong statistical evidence of election manipulation in Iowa, New Hampshire, Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kentucky."
I am not aware of any reporting from the NH media on any of what was included in the communication to AG Foster below. I can give you contact information for AccuVote experts Bev Harris and John Brakey on request so you will be able to ask them questions and give accurate information to the public about this.
Below is a link to an interview with the lead author of the Electoral System in Crisis Report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUv43rUuDjI
In the interview, she cites Louisiana info (that state uses the touchscreen computer with no paper trail) and New York, which uses the optical scan with 3% mandated post-election audit. But notice the graph for Columbia County is flat, as the researchers believe the statistical analysis of all counties should show. Columbia County election officials have decided to hand count ALL ballots to compare with the computer count and report that the public there trusts their elections.
You can link to the full 39 page report from the interview.
The graphs for specific states are linked below. They include Connecticut which uses the AccuVote programmed by the same vendor NH uses, LHS Associaties. I have asked a citizen election monitoring group in CT f they have a reasonable explanation for the anomaly. That state conducts pre and post testing of the memory cards AND a 10% post-election audit of ballots. There has been no posting of audit results and no response yet.
http://www.electoralsystemincrisis.org/2016-democratic-primary-graphs/
Thank you. With your help in getting the help of our elected representatives and the Attorney General, I hope the public will have reason to trust the results of the September and November elections in Jaffrey and NH
Deborah Sumner
Jaffrey, NH
PS Let me know if you’d like me to talk with the full select board or a member before your next meeting.
copy: Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, Keene Sentinel,Jared Bedrick, Esquire, Citizens
Begin forwarded message:
From: Deborah Sumner
Subject: Fwd: Latest Reports: Electoral System in Crisis, Democracy Lost and Fraction Magic
Date: August 2, 2016 at 10:30:41 AM EDT
To: Attorney General Foster, US Attorney Emily Gray Rice
Cc: "Edwards, Anne M., electionlaw
To Attorney General Foster, US Attorney for NH Rice,
I include information recently shared with members of the press and request you to do the following:
1. Investigate the Election Justice report findings of anomalies in Hillsborough County and invite members of the media to participate. (Ballots must be secured immediately to make sure there is no tampering, replacement or premature destruction of ballots to be reviewed).
2) Read Cliff Arnebeck’s letter to the president and vice president linked here and join with your colleagues in other states to call for a full independent investigation of his claims and evidence. You can also access open letters he wrote to Attorney General Lynch on July 7 and 14.
3) Demand that federal government immediately commit to provide funding for his protection and that he choose his own people.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Deborah Sumner
copies: Ann Edwards, Election Law, Gov. Hassan
Begin forwarded message:
From: Deborah Sumner
Subject: Latest Reports: Electoral System in Crisis, Democracy Lost and Fraction Magic
Date: July 28, 2016 at 10:58:34 AM EDT
To members of the media:
As promised on July 26, here are links to the two latest reports from Election Justice USA and an earlier one from Black Box voting. I hope you will follow up on them and report to the NH public.
I have included email addresses on the copy line for Election Justice, and AccuVote experts John Brakey and Bev Harris so you can contact them directly.
Previous suspect NH elections include the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary and the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary. (The reports give details.)
This Presidential primary season, anomalies have been found mostly in the Democratic race. The analysis of NH s show an anomaly in Hillsborough County that I hope the media will follow up on. If that same pattern persisted statewide, it would have resulted in a shift in delegates.
1. Democracy Lost: A Report on the Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries
“…The argument Election Justice USA is advancing suggests that an algorithm may have been applied to electronically counted votes. The proposed algorithm would have increased Clinton’s share of the vote and decreased Sanders’ share of the vote by an increasing percentage as precinct size by total vote increased.”
The report notes a 30.6% improvement from smallest to largest town/city in Hillsborough county for Clinton and a possible shift of 8,000 votes. (p. 64)
p. 75-76 “On February 9th, Sanders won a convincing victory (61.1% - 38.9%) over Clinton in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. When including Martin O'Malley, this win represented a 4.2% improvement for Sanders over the initial full exit poll projection. According to this predictor, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire's largest, ought to show no irregularities in its CVS-CVT or precinct size data. A column chart, however, of Hillsborough shows a smooth and dramatic increase for Clinton, closing the gap between her and Sanders by 29.8% from smallest to largest township/ward.
“Examining the income levels and racial demographics of the townships in Hillsborough gives us no insight that would suggest such an unexpected increase for Clinton.
“Given smaller size of New Hampshire, though, and Sanders already sizable win, and given the way Dem proportional counting works, EJUSA has calculated that Sanders could have won the additional 8,000 or so votes it would take to keep Hillsborough from showing an irregular precinct size vote result without it affecting the overall delegate count.119 If, however, the same irregular results are present statewide and a reasonable explanation could be given for why the exit poll missed by a margin substantially outside the sample-size alone margin of error, Sanders may have picked up as many as three additional national delegates, with Clinton losing the same. Because of the discrepancy between the vote share by precinct size analysis and the exit poll, Election Justice USA has not shifted any national delegates to Sanders in our lower estimate of national delegate count.
“Given Clinton's unexpected big win there in 2008, New Hampshire remains fertile ground for further study of the vote share increase by precinct size increase pattern for particular candidates.”
The media could ask to examine some of those ballots and see if there is a reasonable explanation for that. Since NH does not program the AccuVote to return over voted ballots for possible correction and does not prevent memory cards from being replaced during an election, we have additional known vulnerabilities people can take advantage of.
Also, I wonder WHY there are so many completely blank ballots cast in presidential primaries (as observed in the 2008 recount and as I have noted in my town’s election this year). Makes no sense to me.
In making the request of the ballot custodians, your lawyer can make it clear that hiding evidence of a crime is a crime and also violates NH Professional Conduct standards for their lawyer to help their client do that.
2. An Electoral System in Crisis
Executive Summary, 6 page excerpt and full report available here:
http://www.electoralsystemincrisis.org
3. Follow up and report if and how our NH elections can be affected by “Fraction Magic” capability which has been part of the AccuVote system since 2001.(Six of eight parts published so far.)
http://blackboxvoting.org/fraction-magic-1/
NH law now allows reporting of election results electronically and I don’t know if this fractionalizing capacity is possible with the system the state uses to compile results from cities and towns. I know LHS Associates does use GEMS to program the memory cards.
Media text/phone contact for Bev Harris is 206-335-7747.
The media need to go beyond reporting the secretary of state’s talking points.
For example, Jaffrey officials continue to tell the public that pre-election ballot testing and recounts are all that’s needed to ensure vote counting accuracy on election day even though they know it’s not true.
A long-time member of House Election Law Committee recently told me the same thing. The NH public needs accurate information in order to make informed decisions. (I am a former reporter, can you tell?)
We need the media to dig out “the facts” and give them to us.
If you are willing to ask to look at some ballots in Hillsborough county, I may be able to give you some advice, based on two legal actions requesting to review ballots in my town., including the particular federal statute that requires ballots containing federal contests to be retained for 22 months and the statute’s intent.
As you probably know, ballots were exempted from public records law in 2003. Attempted repeals in 2007, 2012 and 2014 have failed.
Debbie Sumner
Jaffrey, NH
PS You might need to copy and paste the links. Election Justice warns its site has been hacked, making access to the Democracy Lost report challenging. Let me know if you can’t get it.