MoveOn REALLY blows it, strong Support for HOLT

[Paul Lehto]

 

MoveOn strikes a devastating blow against its own credibility as an activist organization with this strong support for Holt's HR 811 "paper trail and audit" "solution". 

 

They specifically reference the last minute strong opposition which was activists burning up the fax lines of Congress, with a little help from some elected officials opposing unfunded mandates.  Word on the street was that this committee of Congress had never seen such a response to oppose legislation, yet here MoveOn attempts to commit the activists who aren't keeping close tabs on this into fighting with the other activists!   We can have legitimate disagreements and oppose each other, but for MoveOn not to even identify the issues correctly is truly abysmal.  

 

For starters, how does Moveon Justify continued use of touch screen DREs and continued secret vote counting on the first counts with both optical scans and touch screens?   These issues are far more fundamental and important than the band-aid talking points Moveon cites below.   There will likely be a version of this coming out later today that contains links for more balanced information on Holt (in light of that contained below).

 

For me personally, I am finished with MoveOn.  We can differ on any number of political issues, but if they can not find the democratic will to count the vote openly and honestly, together with the intellectual honesty to realize that DREs and secret counting opscans DO NOT MEET even the most minimal standards, they've not done their homework sufficiently to deserve the leadership position that they enjoy.  (they don't even have a rationale for their lack of concern, they just rally "the troops." -- inexcusable for not even engaging the public debate or what Jefferson called "the bar of public reason").
--
Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
lehto...@gmail.com
425-422-1387

 

"Noah T. Winer, MoveOn.org Political Action" <moveo...@list.moveon.org>

to me

show details

9:35 am (47 minutes ago)

We're closer than ever to a ban on paperless voting machines. But lobbyists for election officials are trying to weaken the Holt bill's crucial deadline of paper voting before the 2008 election. Congressman Rick Larsen is a co-sponsor of the Holt paper voting bill (H.R. 811). Can you say thanks and ask him to defend the bill's 2008 deadline? Congressman Rick Larsen District Offices:     Bellingham: 360-733-4500     Everett: 800-562-1385 Report your call Dear MoveOn member, The House will soon vote on Representative Rush Holt's paperless voting machine ban. But last-minute opposition is trying to do away with the crucial deadline of paper voting in time for the 2008 presidential election. Years of grassroots pressure have advanced the fight for secure, verified elections to this point. Now we need to put it over the top. Your representative is home on recess, so it's a perfect time to call his local office. Congressman Rick Larsen is a co-sponsor of the Holt paper voting bill (H.R. 811). Can you say thanks and ask him to defend the bill's 2008 deadline? Congressman Rick Larsen District Offices:     Bellingham: 360-733-4500     Everett: 800-562-1385   Help track our impact by letting us know you called. Click here: http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FHWA_02&cp_id=476&id=10136-7680316-aVyv_f&t=2 The effort to undermine the Holt bill's 2008 deadline is coming from a lobbying group of county election officials. For years, they've refused to replace paperless electronic voting machines. Now they want to loosen the requirement of paper voting in time for the 2008 election. But we can't afford another election without the security and verification guaranteed by paper ballots. The Holt bill requires a voter-verified paper ballot for every vote in the country as well as these key reforms: Make the paper ballot the ballot of record in the event of any recount or audit Guarantee the vote count is accurate by auditing electronic tallies with a hand count of paper ballots in a random sampling of precincts Eliminate flimsy thermal paper tape rolls and replace them with durable paper ballots Require every voting place immediately offer voters emergency paper ballots if voting machines break down Make elections more transparent by requiring public disclosure of voting system software Prohibit wireless communication devices in voting systems Require documentation of a secure chain of custody for voting systems and software Prohibit conflicts of interest involving vendors and testing labs Enhance the accessibility of elections for voters with disabilities1 You can remind Rep. Larsen of the bill's support from the editorial pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Roll Call.2 The bill is co-sponsored by 200 members of Congress—Democrats and Republicans. 3 Congressman Rick Larsen is a co-sponsor of the Holt paper voting bill (H.R. 811). Please thank him and ask him to defend the bill's 2008 deadline. Congressman Rick Larsen District Offices:     Bellingham: 360-733-4500     Everett: 800-562-1385   Then, please report your call by clicking here: http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FHWA_02&cp_id=476&id=10136-7680316-aVyv_f&t=3 Thanks for all you do. –Noah, Marika, Joan, Eli, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team   Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 Sources: 1. "Holt Reintroduces Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act," VoteTrust USA, February 6, 2007 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2370&id=10136-7680316-aVyv_f&t=4 2. "An Important Election Safeguard," New York Times, June 10, 2005 http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=5879 "A Vote We Can Believe In," Washington Post, October 10, 2006 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2371&id=10136-7680316-aVyv_f&t=5 "A Warning in Florida," Roll Call, December 6, 2006 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2368&id=10136-7680316-aVyv_f&t=6 3. "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007," Library of Congress, March 26, 2007 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00811:@@@P Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.2 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at: http://political.moveon.org/donate/email.html?id=10136-7680316-aVyv_f&t=7 PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/ Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Subscription Management: This is a message from MoveOn.org Political Action. To change your email address, update your contact info, or remove yourself (Paul Lehto) from this list, please visit our subscription management page at: http://moveon.org/s?i=10136-7680316-aVyv_f

[Tim Carpenter]

 

"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related'...is, in my view, largely artificial."                    -- Kyle Sampson, asst. to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez    Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The above opinion, relating to the Justice Department firings scandal, has corrupted U.S. elections.   “Political” victory and “performance-related” voting machines have become lethally mixed in the Direct Record Electronic voting machine (DRE.)   DRE victories are electronic.  Even with a paper trail, DRE results are impossible to verify for accuracy and transparency.   HR 811, Congressman Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007, must be amended to ban the Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machine.   DRE ballots are electronic, not paper.  Their electronic tally of electronic ballots is official, without check or balance, in 90% of DRE elections – even with a paper trail.  Without amendment, HR 811 perpetuates this situation.   Many well-meaning legislators support HR 811 because they believe its "voter-verified permanent paper ballot" means that from now on, Americans will be voting on paper for security and accuracy.  They are mistaken.   In HR 811, the DRE "voter-verified permanent paper ballot" is a paper audit trail.  It will be used to check less than 10% of the vote.  And studies show that many DRE voters forget or neglect to verify the paper trail.   An election in Orange County, CA was recently overturned in a recount.  Absentee ballots were scrutinized for voter intent.  Marks on those paper ballots convinced the Registrar in ten cases that the votes had been counted wrong, and the outcome flipped.  The DRE paper trail was never used; the DRE votes were recounted electronically. Despite California's paper-trail law for DRE audits, a manual recount of the paper trail was deemed too expensive and difficult, so the judge approved the electronic recount.  Congressman Holt maintains that his bill would not have allowed this, but Californians thought the same thing when we passed our paper-trail law.  Americans must eliminate this situation altogether by banning electric ballots.   DREs can target neighborhoods for electronic disenfranchisement.  Dolores Huerta brought that message recently to Capitol Hill, bearing a study from New Mexico that showed undervote rates soaring when Native Americans and Spanish-language voters used DREs.  Rates were similar to that in Anglo communities when New Mexicans went to all-opti-scanned paper ballots.   DREs, touted as necessary for special-needs voters, are as insecure for those voters' intent as for others.  Touch-screen computers that do not tabulate but assist voters with disabilities and language needs to mark their ballots can restore security to those voters as they improve accessibility.   Please contact your Congress member to urge an amendment of Holt’s HR 811 to ban DREs! Members of Congress are home on recess now; call their district offices so they'll know they can’t leave this problem inside the DC bubble.  As Speaker Pelosi recently said: “Elections have consequences."  Sincerely, Mimi Kennedy PDA Board Chair Progressive Democrats of America is a grassroots PAC that works both inside the Democratic Party and outside in movements for peace and justice. Our goal: Extend the victory of Nov. 2006 into a permanent, progressive majority.  PDA’s advisory board includes six members of Congress and activist leaders such as Tom Hayden, Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin and Rev. Lennox Yearwood. More info: http://pdamerica.org/.           Authorized and Paid for by Progressive Democrats of America. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

 

 

---

[Steve Freeman]

Does anyone in this group have direct contact with any of the MoveOn
leadership? I wonder if they understand the issues or are even aware
of our arguments. Can we get any joint presentations/debates/
discussions with these groups? Some of these groups, including MoveOn,
may be swayable, but we need opportunities for engagement.

[Paul Lehto]

 

MoveOn can not credibly claim to be unaware of at least the (too limited) anti_DRE movement widely publicized on bradblog, with supporters joining like Avi Rubin, Harri Hursti, disability groups (and on and on).   What irks me the most is that even they do not deserve a parenthetical reference or clause like "WHILE Some activists are seeking stronger protections based on important democratic principles, we'd rather notch a victory for fundraising purposes than Holt-out for something more meaningful." (sorry a little sarcasm there).  

 

The issue is whether in Moveon's world they are creating for their mailing list, we have a right to exist at least for a single clause, or whether we are indistinguishable from, say, Diebold itself or Ken Blackwell or other persons presumably uninterested in election integrity and therefore not supporting HR 811.
 

Those who have tried to reach Moveon have been either shut out or unsuccessful, and there have been many an efort. But we should keep trying.
 

lehto...@gmail.com
425-422-1387

[Ken Simpkins]

I was involved with MoveOn and have the phone number and email of a regional organizer in CA. I contacted her when the first round of calls for support of Holt came out. She is not involved in the issue but forwarded my concern to others. I never got a response. Yes, let's try to find a back channel for dialog.

[ca.vote...@sbcglobal.net]

> Does anyone in this group have direct contact with any of the MoveOn
> leadership?

This is a perennial question.

Lord knows, we have tried.

About 10 days ago Sally Castleman met Eli Pariser of MoveOn
face-to-face at a meet-and-greet in Cambridge, described in brief the
concept of hand-counting the federal races on the ballot, and handed
him a number of current E I position papers (Tobi, Harris, O'Dell,
Simon, etc.) -- and requested he call her for further discussion.

Nada.

For everyone's info, the MoveOn mail addressing system works like this:

W...@MoveOn.org
Jo...@MoveOn.org
E...@MoveOn.org

etc.

There are about 20 MoveOn staff, but really the Big 9 who call the
shots.

I don't have all their names in front of me, but if you go to the
website (or peak in your mailbox flowing with their appeals) you will
come up with the rest.

FIRE AWAY.

But don't hold your breath.

--Dan Ashby
EDA

[ca.vote...@sbcglobal.net]

TYPO:

In my previous message, that should have been WES (Boyd) @ MoveOn.org

For everyone's info, the MoveOn mail addressing system works like this:

W...@MoveOn.org>>>> W...@MoveOn.org
Jo...@MoveOn.org
E...@MoveOn.org

--Dan Ashby

[David I. Frenkel]

I just sent a note off to Eli Parisner who runs MoveOn and who has previously answered me so we shall see if we can get his attention on this issue.

I will let you know.

 

David Frenkel

Change Catalyst

 

(617) 780 7177 cell

(781) 721 7799 tel

(781) 721 7877 fax

(928) 437 3068 efax

 

42 Spruce Street

Winchester MA 01890

---

[Nancy Tobi]

Since Dan posted the wonderful resource at EDA - you should point him to that:

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/hr_811_the_holt_ii_bill_to_amend_hava

And here is another message you can pass on from me if you like:

I think it is despicable that MOVEOIN trys to paint County Election officials as bad guys in this. DESPICABLE. There are many good and honest election officials - public servants, I might add - and we the citizens are in alignment with them on this issue.

MOVEON should know that INSIDERS on Capital Hill openly state that it was the actions of Black Box Voting and Democracy for New Hampshire - two citizen groups, that shut down the House Admin Ctte deliberations on the bill last week. This information has been confirmed to me by NUMEROUS sources, and is confirmed by the fact that the House Admin staffer phoned me, Nancy Tobi of DFNH and EDA, late Friday afternoon begging  me to get people to stop emailing her.

It is the DFNH 13 Points against Holt document that is being circulated among election officials now - it is from US THE GRASSROOTS that the election officials are garnering ammo and support in the fight against this election administration demolition derby, multibillion dollar unfunded mandate called the Holt Bill.

MOVEON should know that REAL grassroots action is taking a stand against this bill, not a gang of 9 sitting in front of computers, but REAL citizens who have been out there in the trenches working - often enough - hand in hand with good and honest election officials to understand how to repair the damage done by the last big piece of federal legislation (HAVA) and how to craft legislation that is fiscally responsible, practical, and implementable.

REAL grassroots citizen activists oppose Holt because we know it is fiscally reckless, unimplementable, and if passed will BREAK the nation's election system and cause widescale chaos in the 2008 elections.

This is a bill that is uniformly opposed (for different reasons, albeit) by ALL of the following constituency groups:
Grassroots activists
State and local election officials
National Conference of State Legislators
Disability groups
Voting machine industry


--
Nancy Tobi
Co-Founder, Democracy For New Hampshire
Chair, NH Fair Elections Committee
Legislative Coordinator, Election Defense Alliance
nancy...@gmail.com
www.DemocracyForNewHampshire.com
603.315.4500

[Mark E. Smith]

On 4/5/07, Nancy Tobi <nt...@democracyfornewhampshire.com> wrote:

....the House Admin staffer phoned me, Nancy Tobi of DFNH and EDA, late Friday afternoon begging  me to get people to stop emailing her.

Kudos to you and Bev, Nancy.

It is a common tactic these days for the ruling corporate elite to form pseudo-"citizens' groups" to dominate the media, testify before Congress, and pretend to be "the people" while the people are deliberately shut out of the legislative process.

When a group has a lot of funding and doesn't accept input from the public (except in the form of push-poll surveys), they're likely to be this sort of group. We all know how easy it is to set up a public forum on a website, or have a mailing list that people can post to. So if MoveOn and other groups can't manage something like that, it must be because they don't want to. They certainly have the funding and staff to handle public input. But what we've seen on left gatekeeper sites is that sometimes their users revolt and they have to let something they'd been suppressing be discussed openly. I can understand why pseudo-groups wouldn't want to risk anything like that.

I still think it would be handy to have a few truckloads of Guy Fawkes (V for Vendetta) masks for citizens to hold (not actually wear for fear of arrest) when attending hearings. Or perhaps lapel pins or even stickers. :)

--Mark

 

[Verified...@aol.com]

Just a note that in my conversation with Cong staffers it became apparent that one of the conjobs from the stacked Admin hearings that really sold well was the idea that HCPB are more susceptible to fraud than machine counts. Some even called it "voter fraud," obviously confused, but you can see the picture in their heads). I'm not sure if that was Doug Lewis or some other vendor shill. Nonsense on stilts, we know, but it is imperative that we counter this immediately because it effectively takes HCPB not just off the table but out of the building. Again, calls and faxes and info.
     There may be research studies out there on this but, in arguing to Dem, the point should be very simple: sure there's bound to be HCPB fraud (there isn't perfect observation even with "transparency") but it's a WASH, what we call "RETAIL;" sorry to be partisan here, Dems, but the machines enable WHOLESALE fraud, AND THE REPUBLICANS OWN THE MACHINES. So unless you're planning on buying a couple of vendors out and counter-rigging, you sure as hell don't want to trust your politcal future, let alone the whole damn democracy, to black-box machines with never-to-be-counted paper trails.
     Yada yada--Jonathan


**************************************
See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

[dmo...@netzero.net]

moveo...@list.moveon.org Cc : dmo...@netzero.net Bcc : nt...@democracyfornewhampshire.com Subject : Re: Candidates answer your questions in West Pawlet Date : Thu, Apr 05, 2007 12:21 PM
Move message to...InboxJunk MailTrashscannedinstuff [ Printable Version ]    Click here to display images in this message or edit your settings for all messages. External Images and objects in this message have been blocked. What's this?     You guys are supporting the Holt bill and contributing to all the bread and circuses that surround our deeply corrupt and distracting presidential sweepstakes.....when the power and responsibility for everything we see out of "our" government, or will see, emenates from a totally bought Congress. I think you are the enemy. Will you stand for Congress with us, your fellow citizens, in 2008? We intend to END corrupt corporate and money influence over U.S. politics. We will run against all incumbents for every seat in Congress. Political party labels mean nothing to us. Who wins the Presidency means very little as well. (Congress rules! : Art 1. U.S. Constitution) We will bring the criminals within our government to Justice. Will you help recruit others across the country to join us this week? Will you make a small monetary contribution today? ELECTIONS IN AMERICA HAVE BEEN MONETIZED, PRIVATIZED, SUBVERTED, STOLEN...... The way OUT is to change the way we choose Congress. Choose them the same way we choose JURIES ......by random selection of those who must serve. Eliminating Congressional elections. A Congress as well as juries OF OUR PEERS. We don't elect juries. Thus no one would ever have a POLITICAL CAREER in the Congress. Ordinary citizens would serve two years if their name is drawn, at a very excellent salary and under very strict anti-bribery laws. No need for public funding of "elections" or instant run-offs. To accomplish this, a few hundred of us have to stand for election ONE TIME under the current corrupt rules, as a group outside normal political structures. If we do that, it will stir the whole country.....and we will prevail. Save American Democracy.... Join the Rebellion! Dennis Morrisseau Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion Running AT Congress (across the country) dmo...@netzero.net www.2LTMorrisseau.com P.O. Box 177, W. Pawlet, VT 05775 (802) 645-9727 [Google or wikipedia Dennis Morrisseau]

-- "Mark E. Smith" <mym...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Bev Harris]

No, no, a thousand times NO.

Jonathan, I urge and implore you to take the "Republicans" out of your mix. I
have come to agree that there is an element that is attempting a fascist
takeover, but it includes Democrats, and we have to fight this straight on.

Also, I'm finding more situations of Democrats using the machines to tamper. My
bet is that we'll learn it is a Democrat (and I have someone specific in mind)
that has turned the Holt Bill into the Patriot Act of elections by forcing
people to accept turning elections over to White House appointees in exchange
for a paper trail.

You may believe it's a Republican plot. It is not. It's a greed plot.

It's a business plan. It's relentless. It also involves creating vast databases
that allow tracking of our votes.

There's an intersection of common local crooks, with some crooked vendors, with
a whole lot of honest but gullible public officials, with some "end justifies
the means folks", with some scientists who can't bear the thought of becoming
irrelevant so they must recommend only those systems that make them godlike,
with some shallow activism backers who just want a simple fix, with some
infiltrators, with a relatively small but relentless group that wants
fascist-style global control, albeit a kinder gentler version than we usually
think of, one which lets Jewish stakeholders take part and one which uses
propaganda and technological complexity to let people think they are voting.

Charactizations of Republican vs. Democrats gets it wrong, in my opinion. The
pressing concern that you mentioned in the EDA legislation conference call fits
into the last of the groups that intersect, and I agree with that assessment,
but disagree that it is at all accurate to characterize it along party lines.
In fact, that's dangerous.

Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting

* * * * *

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.

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c(3) elections watchdog group
funded entirely by citizen donations.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98055

----------------------------------------------------------------
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[Mark E. Smith]

Heh heh. Don't tell me, Bev--let me guess. Could this item that Jo Anne just posted to the peoplecount list be a clue?
___________________________________

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's link with war profiteering--
"Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California silently resigned from her post on the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) late last week as her ethical limbo with war contracts began to surface in the media, . . ." See also
http://www.metroactive.com/feinstein/

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, will be in charge of the bill on use of voting machines in elections.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/08/MNGN5O0KMJ1.DTL
_____________________________

Don'tcha just love it when people with ethical conflicts make laws? ANYBODY who is elected has a conflict of interest with election laws and should recuse themselves.  :)

--Mark

[Verified...@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/5/07 3:16:01 PM, b...@blackboxvoting.org writes:

Also, I'm finding more situations of Democrats using the machines to tamper. My
bet is that we'll learn it is a Democrat (and I have someone specific in mind)
that has turned the Holt Bill into the Patriot Act of elections by forcing
people to accept turning elections over to White House appointees in exchange
for a paper trail.

You may believe it's a Republican plot. It is not. It's a greed plot.

     Okay Bev, I accept most of what you wrote and certainly respect the digging you have done to reach those conclusions.
     But I still have a hard time getting around the glaring red shifts we keep seeing no matter how we look at the data. Yes there is evidence that in states like Maryland and Pennsylvania, where Democrats control most of the machinery, they've managed to overcome the red shift in one way or another. And yes, it is fairly obvious that a good part of the muscle--nefarious or misguided--behind Holt and federalization is coming from the Democratic side.
     But we're looking at valid exit polls and pervasive red shifts in three elections straight, not to mention the truly egregious rig job on the props in Ohio in 2005. I'm sorry but to me that still stinks to high hell of Rove and his 40-year Reich plan.
     I understand very well that the pols are playing with us and neither side particularly wants the People to butt in and hold anyone accountable. But I also observe that the Republicans got the drop on the Dems (as Yeats put it: "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of a passionate intensity") in this area, they certainly appear to have the inside track (at least) with the major vendors, and the results keep reflecting that.
     I'm not saying I'd accept a situation where both sides rigged away and the net result was a wash, but it seems to me that the immediate concern for 2008 is the perpetuation (and success) of a very clear partisan trend in the wholesale swiping of votes on behalf of a radical agenda. Unless the protectors of elections have an answer for that, it seems to me it all becomes rather academic in the aftermath.--Jonathan