RonPaulVoteCount.com Reports

Following the newly adapted Vote Rescue Approach in Texas for Affidaviting Votes

From: Mitchell Stein, Founder of RonPaulVoteCount.com

Hello All,

Great News. A great moment for affidaviting votes in the Austin, Texas area is occurring, and we need to join in with it, to consolidate efforts, and not cause confusion. The voting integrity organization that many of us know and love, Vote Rescue, is now going to do an affidavit approach, instead of the “Exit Poll” type approach (where their definition of Exit Poll included sampling not every voter, but only every few number of voters) they were doing previously. All RonPaulVoteCount Precinct Coordinators in the Austin, Texas area to attend one of their training sessions, of which there will be 3 or so over the next few weeks before the Texas Primaries. They are also doing this in conjunction with another organization, www.projectvotecount.com. Project Vote Count was started by Mark Adams, in Florida, after he and I spoke in December 2007, and he wanted to set up an approach slightly different, but still similar to RonPaulVoteCount, that would affidavit all voters, and not just Ron Paul supporters. (Mark, incidentally, was involved in proceedings wherein he was part of the team that collected affidavits, by knocking on doors, after an election in 2006 in Florida, and became the attorney that took the results of that effort to various court and legislative hearings, including a hearing before the United States House of Representatives.).

We at RonPaulVoteCount did not follow the “affidavit EVERY candidate” exact approach back then, because, in part, of the belief that the wide web of Ron Paul supporters would pick up on the election fraud issue, and help with the effort, in a manner more so than other candidates’ supporters would, and there was therefore an effort to get a high percentage of those we were targeting to actually participate…because, obviously, it looks better when a high percentage of the target audience participates. More importantly, though, there was an effort to not overburden any one person or entity with too many items to count. There’s a big difference between one person counting and collating, say, 100 sheets of paper, and, say, 5 times that amount (representing all candidates). So RonPaulVoteCount was set up with a structure that would be able to be easily implemented, and would not put too much undue burden on any one person, or entity. Since that time, there has been an evolution of the whole approach for all of our organizations, and a definite confluence of purposes/goals. With the buy-in of Vote Rescue to an “every person who walks out the door” approach, and with the strength and widespread appreciation of their organization, there is a definite opportunity to achieve the overall goals of the affidaviting.

More of the details of the history and lessons of what the developments in these regards over the past few months are now at the Home Page of www.ronpaulvotecount.com, and you can take a look at that page if you want some additional information besides what is presented here. There is also a short list there of some of the related lessons learned from information reported by RonPaulVoteCount State Coordinators in other states that have already conducted their primaries, and conducted affidaviting type efforts.

Incidentally, there are indications of problems having been found in the official #s in other areas. We are pursuing the rounding out of the information, though. But, in this regard, I am strongly REurging you to participate in some type of counting/affidaviting in your areas. HUGELY important is to have a significant enough number of people staffing at the polls on election day. PLEASE do NOT buy in to the statements frequently made by others of “oh, election fraud can only effect a few percentage points”. That’s just not true. The software is PRIVATELY CONTROLLED !!!! And there are NO CHECKS on it.!!! What is wrong with people who are just willing to bend over and take what the system is telling them. It is truly unbelievable, in my opinion. State Coordinators in the other states where the primaries have completed have said they missed significant numbers of people because they did not have enough volunteers soliciting the voters, so I URGE everyone to help out at either their own precincts, or just hook up with a precinct that Vote Rescue and www.projectvotecount.com have set up.

Interestingly, some of the other State Coordinators have said that, on their election days, in the morning, as people were rushing off to get to work, they were less desiring of having to fill out a long form…which still points to the issue of trying to have as many volunteers as possible at a single precinct. More later as I get more info on the results from other states for all these issues.

NOTE I just looked at the Vote Rescue web site, and the details of the upcoming Training Meetings do not look to be up there yet. But I am listening to Vote Rescue Radio right now, and they read off a couple of dates. Central Austin, at Brave New Books (www.bravenewbookstore.com) on Tuesday February 19, 2008…the Brave New Books site currently says 7 pm to 9 pm, but please keep checking back there, and/or at www.voterescue.org, for if there’s any changes. North Austin at a later date, and South Austin at still a later date. I didn’t catch the dates they said for those later dates/locations. Please check their site (www.voterescue.org) over the next few days if you want to attend the South Austin or North Austin location at the later dates.

For those of you in other states, you may want to email Vickie and/or Karen (at www.voterescue.org) and appeal to them to maybe video their training. I may ask them about that, too, but they may have logistic issues that may cause them to need to respond no initially…but, if they hear of interest from other states in significant numbers, then they may be more apt to make efforts in that regard.



Thanks

Mitchell

512-479-8682

512-587-4302

RonPaulVoteCount County Coordinator- Travis County, Texas

RonPaulVoteCount State Coordinator- Texas

RonPaulVoteCount National Coordinator

Member- Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth www.ae911truth.org

mitchell@ronpaulvotecount.com

www.ronpaulvotecount.com

www.myspace.com/ronpaulvotecount

Update From RonPaulVoteCount.com

Mitchel Stein, founder of RonPaulVoteCount.com wrote:

California Gets It; See this Video About the Affidavit our Votes Approach (with www.RonPaulVoteCount.com, or whatever method; just have some verifiable check!!)

Hi All,

Someone in California gets its (the potential HUGE IMPACT of election STEALING), and knows that the a way to CATCH THE ELECTION RIGGERS is with a “spot check” approach, using Notarized Affidavits, such as is available with the www.ronpaulvotecount.com approach. Please view this video.

Ron Paul California Supporters - Vote Fraud

Hat Tip to NSOakland6 for sharing this!

This California lady gets it. She knows we have to watch the vote ourselves. She knows that each precinct is responsible for what comes out of that precinct, and she is taking action to make sure that what comes out in her and her neighbors’ name is actually exactly presenting what the voters chose. She knows that anyone can organize for this in their own precinct. She knows it is NOT responsible to just cross our fingers and hope that “they” will tell us the right answer after they have a chance to have their secret software adjust the answer that comes out of their black boxes. She realizes that her “spreading the Freedom and Constitution word” could end up fizzling out when votes end up getting stolen. Presumably, she is not willing to have the time she is putting into such spreading of the message turn into a poor investment that will, come November, with the expansion of the current regime into the next neocon Republicrat, not be able to forestall the further global expansionism and killing, and the further choking of true freedom in this Country. She is taking action. She is not sitting on the fence. She is not hoping someone else will do it.

Note that the New York State Coordinator is fixing to make a similar youtube in the next couple days to help spread the RonPaulVoteCount Affidavit Approach (or similar affidavit approaches). Any suggestions for such a youtube that you have, please email to him at justin@ronpaulvotecount.com , or to me at mitchell@ronpaulvotecount.com. (actually, if you send such, please cc both of us, because his email was only recently activated, and I am not sure when he will have a chance to get it configured; he’s very busy; he just drove back from helping out in South Carolina). Kristal, the Harrison County, Texas Coordinator for RonPaulVoteCount, also suggested having such a youtube made.

To all of you, thank you for all you are doing; I wish I could do more as well. Please do not take any of what I am saying here as in any way even hinting at anything critical. I am just APPEALING to you to, as you are doing all of the amazing work you are doing, let the people in your precinct decide for themselves, and urging you to act as the “traffic cop” of pointing your precinct members in the directions of actions they can be taking to help the whole cause of Freedom and return to the Constitution. So please, if you are a “Precinct Leader” that has signed up with the Ron Paul Campaign to so lead your precinct, at the very least, notify the people in your precinct that this www.ronpaulvotecount.com effort is going on, and offer to them both the knowledge that they may be able to have a Notarized Affidavit from them counted and compared to what the County Clerk (or Election Administrator, depending on your area) gets (if there ends up being a “Precinct Coordinator” in their area), and the knowledge that they now have a real chance, in their own neighborhood, to implement something very easily, and every opportunity to get off the fence and help where it is really needed . You may even find a number of people who have given up on voting altogether, because they know how easily the system can be rigged. Let’s not wait until after the Primary, when significant allegations of election results tampering/changing/stealing happen, to say “gee, maybe we really should have done at least some checking”. And I do NOT mean “Exit Polling”. While Exit Polling provides valuable information about the process, and indicates trends, and can, in some cases, be used to make projections, it is NOT PROOF. But Notarized Affidavits are much closer to hard and fast proof. While nothing, of course, can repeat exactly what was put into the little black boxes, Notarized Affidavits are every bit as good as the people who signed them being in a Courtroom, and swearing on a stack of Bibles, and asking the judge to believe them, a group of who knows how many (20? , or 100?, or 347?) if she/he believes them, or the one voice of a County Clerk. This will be slam dunk if it is implemented in many precincts. You can help…even if it’s only just spreading the word. And, please, do NOT buy the Republican machine line about not wanting to stir up trouble. We don’t win this election, and there likely will be more trouble in the form of more tyranny here and abroad. And, if we do not win this election, a good question to ask is whether the new Ron-Paul-message Freedom and Constitution Republicans are going to stay with the party that will potentially have forsook (remember the Head of the Republican Party trying to keep Ron Paul out of the early debates?)

(for those still in doubt here in Texas,, you really need to listen to what Debra Stevens uncovered, which is absolutely SHOCKING (listen to the interview she gave to Vote Rescue Radio yesterday 01-20-08, which is archived at http://www.wtprn.com, or on Debra’s own archived “Rule of Law” radio show on http://www.wtprn.com, from last Thu 01-17-08). She reads from a report from a 6-person STATE OF TEXAS -COMMISSIONED type pane, that was to give their report to the Texas Secretary of Statel that reviewed the electronic voting machines and made the most RINGING INDICTMENTS (my words) of how RIPE FOR FRAUD they are, and how easily hacked, and how they should NOT NOT NOT be used (or similar words, or ideas); But, for some reason, the Secretary of State, or maybe one of his predecessors?, has approved them; and now it looks like criminal charges are being brought against him for it, from the sound of it; now, my personal belief is that the courts will delay much of the action until after the primary, but who knows; we need to give Debra support; AND, we need to keep our “Plan B” (the Affidavit Approach of RonPaulVoteCount) in place; Debra may even be able to use the results of the Affidavit as “proof” of why someone was clearly derelict in her/his responsibilities when they approved such a hackable, easily rigged electronic system)


Thanks

Mitchell

NH Ballot Boxes "Sealed"??? With Post-it Paper!!

Bev Harris, founder of BlackBoxVoting.org wrote on 1/20:

Here is an empty ballot box with the top label attached. The ballots are in the process of being counted. As Anthony Stevens, from the sec. state office, watched I checked to see whether the labels on the top of the boxes leave any mark if you remove and reaffix.

They stopped my experiment after I had peeled about two inches.

I now call these labels "Post-Its".

It is important NOT to allow referring to these labels as "seals" because they are not seals, they are removable labels. When writing about the chain of custody in New Hampshire, we should not refer to the boxes as being "sealed" by these labels, which are in many cases the only line of defense when the end of the box top is sliced.

These are labels. Not seals. A "seal" actually "seals" the container. These labels do not seal it.

The person with responsibility for making sure the seals are actually seals is Assistant Secretary of State David Scanlan. He chose labels that are not seals.

Read more.

Shaun At StartTheRevolution.org Comments On The NH Recount Fiasco

I do not know where to begin with all of this so I will just lay out the basic facts as they are being reported to me:

1. The state of New Hampshire ballot appeared to have been tampered with.
2. The people of America (and about half of the world too!) pulled together to sign a petition and have their voice heard, across the aisle, in an effort that has seen both Democrats and Republicans call for a recount of the ballots for the state of New Hampshire.
3. The Secretary of State placed a January 15th @ 15:00 deadline for the $55,600 to be handed over to cover the cost of the recount.
4. The money was raised by, again, people from all walks of life who simply wanted to see that every vote was counted.
5. At the very last moment, PayPal froze the Granny Warriors account and refused to release the funds whilst they “investigated” a “suspicious” $1000 donation.
6. The money could not be handed over and thus, at this point in time, it appears that the recount will NOT take place.

So, the following is what we are meant to believe:

1. PayPal have clearly not been paying ANY attention to what has been happening during this campaign and thus have no idea how quickly and in what amounts the Ron Paul Revolution is able to raise funds.
2. PayPal were clearly unaware that Ron Paul supporters were in the majority of those donating to this effort and would likely break the target REGARDLESS of what last minute donations were required.
3. PayPal were so unlucky during the four days that this appeal ran that they managed to:
1. Crash the original ChipIn at least 3 times making it impossible during this time to donate any money at all.
2. Destroy the original ChipIn altogether after around $40,000 had been donated requiring the Granny Warriors to start a new ChipIn for the remaining monies.
3. Crash the new ChipIn for about 2 hours on and off on the final fundraising date.
4. Stop the recount by denying that all and any funds received are now frozen (note: NOT just the $1000 which, by this point, was no longer needed as we were over the top by then) pending an investigation into where a perfectly decent sized donation came from.
4. The Secretary of State is unable to stretch the deadline or accept that said funds exist regardless of the amount of documented evidence placed on his desk.
5. This entirely calamitous and accidental chain of events was, at no point whatsoever, manipulated by anybody to ensure that this recount never took place.

I am sorry but I do not believe for one second that 1 through 4 could possibly have happened without 5 being false.

I never will either.

This is democracy being stolen, right in front of our eyes and we are watching it, some in disbelief, some in denial, all in bond.

America has been stolen and the vote with it.

I do not know what comes next. What new horrors? What new wars? What new laws?

I fear for the future of America.

Best wishes and good luck,

Shaun
http://www.starttherevolution.org/

Granny Warriors Comment On NH Recount

Frozen out by Paypal

On January 16th, 2008 Granny Warrior says:

We had sent the money to the former attorney General in NH who was standing in the bank waiting for confirmation of the payment being on the way which it was. The money was removed from our account and by our thinking it was a done deal. a hour later we got a call that our chipin was not working. we checked and found the paypal account was locked. We have spent 5 hours providing all manner of verification to them about the account which is over 10 yrs old with never a flag on it. We had to stop at a centura bank in Alabama and get them to fax our statement to the paypal people proving I owned that account.? then they wanted more. then they said the social security number was associated with another account? That being mine, the same account as we had been advised to change my name on the account from my former name to my married name. We did and that sent every thing into a tizzy again. After hours and minutes on the phone all on over time ( cell phone) we managed to get confirmation that once the faxes had been received the account would be opened again.
The faxes were sent and there was something missing? we had to find another bank and get the entire copy of the last statement and send that in with the address etc on it. what a mess and nothing you told those people made a impression. Seems like someone had sent in a donation sortly after we notified everyone that the money had been raised and also tagged the donation with a suspicious transaction tag. below is the donation. I have a strong feeling we have been had.

Inquiry by PayPal - Case ID: PP-403-499-846
Status: Waiting For Seller's Response
Transaction ID: 00S01027UD303372F
Buyer Name & Email: Jerjis Alajaji, jerjisalajaji@yahoo.com
Transaction Amount: $1,000.00 USD
Transaction Date: Jan. 15, 2008

I am hoping that with people calling nicely to the Sec of State he will bend and accept the funding.

What made it worse is Bev Haris and L. Landis and a couple of other women asked to be allowed to attend the first meeting between Albert and the Sec Of State and were allowed. They came in with a chip on their shoulder trying to force more than a vote count which was what we asked for. they totally ticked the Sec. Of State off and pushed him in a corner.

Albert said after the meeting he hugged the man and asked him to please not hold a grudge but evidently it didn't work. He then demanded the funds before 3 PM today. We had them there but they were stopped by the investigation of the donations. Now we are hoping with nice phone calls from people tomorrow he will relent and allow the count to go forward and accept the funds. Keep your fingers crossed.

We thank Bob for offering to pay for the recount and wish he had made that offer sooner. We may have been saved this mess. We will all have to be very careful in the future when meeting with the officials and learn to use some tact with them. Bev and Landis made it very difficult for us to proceed.

Linda
Granny Warrior
www.grannywarriors.com

Commentary About NH Recount vis a vis Ron Paul

Bukojack wrote:
The machines that they do use in New Hampshire are still Diebold even though they took off the Diebold labels on all the machines and replaced them with the Accuvote moniker. Premier Elections Systems is the name the company is using, but the company is still Diebold through and through.

I just returned from New Hampshire where I was campaigning with a great group of people. One of us just so happened to be a young IT guy who was allowed to inspect the machines at a NYC conference in 2005. When we arrived at a polling place in Keane our friend went inside to see if they were using the same machines. Once they realized he was not a voter in that ward they kicked him out rather abruptly, but not before he was able to confirm that indeed yes they were using the identical machines.

There is plenty of information on the net that detail the simplicity of rigging the Diebold machines so I won't go into too much detail. If you want more info I will point you in the right direction. Just drop me an e-mail.

They can easily rig these machines as has been proven with substantial evidence, but this is not the only problem with the entire system put in place. For example, if you wanted to vote for a republican you had to pick the reddish pink paper. If you wanted to vote democrat you had to take the blue paper. The Ron Paul Rider was working at one polling place checking off names when he noticed a confirmed Ron Paul voter taking the blue paper. Because of the rules put in place he could not notify them of their error. If there was a recount there is a very good chance that all of these human error mistakes would be excluded.

Another problem and it is a biggie is that the voters name does not go on the voting sheet. This leaves an opportunity for legitimate votes to be switched with illegitimate votes in any type of recount. All they have to do is take the actual pile and replace them with a predetermined pile thus putting a kabosh on the whole recount. Who is handling our votes? Chain of custody is a huge issue and needs to be examined.

Some interesting tidbits regarding the primary found in an excerpt from an article by Paul Joseph Watson I just finished reading:

Obama had a 13 to 15 point lead over Hillary Clinton heading into the primary. Nothing occurred that boosted Hillary's numbers immediately before the election, in fact immediately after the staged crying incident, many pundits argued it could only have harmed her chances. And yet Hillary somehow managed to instigate a near 20 p oint swing to defeat Obama by three per cent. If not for her 7% swing as a result of Diebold voting machines, Hillary would have lost to Obama. If Obama was struggling he would probably contest this bizarre outcome, but he is likely to accept the results simply to save face.

- The New Hampshire town of Sutton admits that it voided every vote Ron Paul received. The Congressman got 31 votes and yet due to a "human error," Sutton reported zero votes for Ron Paul. How "human error" can explain not counting 31 votes in succession for one single candidate is beyond the pale.

- As soon as people went public with the fact that their votes in Sutton had not been counted, other districts where Paul had supposedly received zero votes, such as Greenville , suddenly changed their final tallies and attributed votes to the Congressman.

- Two days after the primary it was revealed that a high ranking executive at the company that was contracted to program all of New Hampshire's Diebold voting machines has a criminal record, is a narcotics trafficker, and has previously defended the illegal act of "swapping out" memory cards for the machines during live elections.
- Going into New Hampshire Ron Paul was polling in the early teens and was a strong bet to take third place behind McCain and Romney. Four days before the vote, Rasmussen had Paul at 14% - a significant lead over Huckabee on 11% and Giuliani on 8% - and yet Ron Paul finished with just 8%. Proof of clear vote fraud, allied with the fact that Paul's numbers show a 6% swing from normally accurate pre-polling forecasts, clearly indicate chicanery was at hand, especially considering the fact that Paul lost those crucial few percentage points to Giuliani as a result of electronic Diebold voting machines which are known to be wide open to tampering and fraud.

- Going purely on hand-counts , which as we saw in Sutton were by no means angelic but at least harder to cheat on than Diebold voting machines without getting caught, Ron Paul would have won 15% of the vote and finished third. This figure would have more accurately correlated to the pre-primary polls rather than the ridiculous 8% he was eventually given.

- Numerous districts reported totals of anything up to 22% for "other candidates". What on earth does this black hole of "other candidates" mean? How can one vote for a candidate that is not on the ballot without spoiling the ballot paper? The district of Lisbon reported 22.5% votes for this mysterious "other" candidate, while in the large district of Londonderry, the "other" candidate received 1 0%. Many are now alleging that these "other" votes were merely siphoned from Ron Paul to keep his final number low.

www.ronpaulvotecount.com

There are no guarantees of anything when the results of Kucinich's and Howard's recount come through because the people that rig these things have so many ways to manipulate the vote except for one.

Now, there is not enough time for Michigan, SC and Nevada, but we can put an affidavit system in place to make sure that we have a legal record of all Ron Paul votes for Super Tuesday. Please go to www.ronpaulvotecount.com to read all about the plan. This idea will take a modicum of effort and will protect us from any manipulation. I believe if we get this system in place for Super Tuesday we can take the biggest swing at voter fraud this country has ever seen. I hope you feel the same way.

If they have a total that is different than ours we will catch them red handed. They probably will wiggle out of the chicanery using all the apparatus at their finger tips, but in the process we will wake up so many more to what is really going on behind closed doors. Afterall, this is a revolution of ideas to capture the minds and hearts of our sleeping countrymen.

If Dr. Paul decides to move the revolution's train down the tracks towards a third party run, which he's never unequivocally said no to, we will have many more on board steaming towards constitutional government and true freedom.

Now, I know a lot of you have shed a tear and lost hope in the light of this past week events, but I ask you, " Did Washington and his troops give up after losing so many battles, did Dr. King give up after being tossed in jail, did the Bonus Army not return to D.C. after being ousted by the U.S. Army, did the men, women and children striking for workers rights lay down in the face of their opposition?" No, they did not and they and their supporters had much more awful things done to them.

I finish with another excerpt from the same article by P. J. Watson:

We fully accept the Congress man's position and in hindsight it seems to be the right decision. Ron Paul supporters who view the campaign's decision to move on as a rejection of their wishes and a kick in the teeth should put themselves in Ron Paul's position and look at it from his perspective.

With just two primaries down and dozens to go, the Congressman's schedule is only going to get more grueling. He needs to pour every ounce of his energy into obtaining a very achievable fourth place in Michigan and building the momentum from there. It is up to the rest of us to hold people accountable and watch for vote fraud while supporting other public figures like Kucinich and Howard who are pushing for a recount in New Hampshire.

Now is the time for the Ron Paul Revolution to get past the smear attacks, resolve the disputes and express more maturity in accepting the difficulties the campaign has to overcome amidst the rocky political terrain of fighting this corrupt establishment.

Now is the time to reunite, re-commit, and redouble our efforts to educate America about the only genuine and growing movement for real change, and what could be our last chance to rescue freedom and hope - the Ron Paul Revolution.

Editor's Note: Please support this NH Recount effort which is being organized entirely by The Granny Warriors and We The People among the grassroots. Click here to donate and here for more information or just click the "Chip In" to donate now below!

Open Voting Consortium (OVC) Achieves Major Milestone In CA on 1/12

Dear Friends of Open Voting:

OVC achieved a major milestone yesterday. You may know that we received this request from the San Luis Obispo County on Monday (to provide software to run their JAN 12 straw poll).

http://gnosis.python-hosting.com/voting-project/January.2008/0016.html

By Friday, we had the software prepared and yesterday's event has to go down as a great success for Open Voting Consortium and the cause of transparent election administration (to others, I suppose, it was mainly about success for Obama). The response was overwhelmingly positive. We used the Ubuntu (Linux) operating system, which is also free and open source. As always, our code is publicly available [1].

I want to thank everyone that made this happen. On our side, THE GREAT Jan Karrman of Sweden did the heavy lifting preparing the code. Asheesh Laroia wrote the tabulation program (100 lines of Python code) on Friday afternoon. Brent Turner went with me and video taped everything and conducted a number of interviews along the way. I also want to thank all of those involved in previous OVC demos because the software we used yesterday was based on these efforts -- going back to 2003. So, thanks to Fred McLain, who was the development lead for our APR 2004 demo that got such great reviews. David Mertz, Arthur Keller, Ed Cherlin, and Laird Popkin helped get the demo project going in 2003. Thanks to them. Thanks also to all of the other
developers involved, including Eron Lloyd and John-Paul Gignac. All the past (esp. Doug Jones) and current OVC board members also deserve credit.

And, of course, the OVC project only continues because scores of individuals
continue to provide financial support. Thanks to them. The San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party leaders can take much of the credit, since they are the ones that did all the work other than writing the software. In particular, it was Marty U'Ren's idea to do this. Marty also gathered together all the hardware needed (a bunch of old PCs and printers), set them up and tested them. Thanks Marty!

This is the first time OVC-developed software was used by actual voters (with an intense interest in the outcome, I might add), and the public machine tally was thoroughly successful and enjoyed by everyone there.

204 people signed-in to vote and when the ballot box was opened when the polls closed, there were 204 ballots to be tallied. There was some media there (at least one television station and one newspaper). We were pleasantly surprised to see the County Clerk-Recorder, Julie Rodewald (http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/clerk.htm ) there along with the Assistant County Clerk-Recorder, Tommy Gong. They showed a great deal of interest in our system and asked a lot of great questions.

The local paper today mentioned the "bar-coded ballots."

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/244784.html

On Saturday, a mixture of seniors and college students stood in line to cast their votes on printed, bar-coded ballots that were deposited in a carefully guarded voting box and counted while county Clerk-Recorder Julie Rodewald watched.

Here's how it worked: Three voting stations were set up with old PCs, monitors, and printers. Our voting software was installed on each PC on top of the Ubuntu operating system. Voters lined up at one table to have their registration confirmed, and were then directed to the sign-in table. After signing-in, they were directed to one of the three voting machines. The only interface devices were a mouse and monitor. They would click on their selection then click on the "print ballot" button. Nothing about the voter's selection was stored on the PC -- the vote exists only on paper.

After the ballot came out of the printer, they put it in a privacy folder (file folder cut to 8x12 inches so that barcode on the edge would be exposed) and proceeded to the ballot box. The pollworker at the ballot box would take the folder (faced down) and slide the ballot into the ballot box (ensuring one person one vote).

Voting started at half-past noon and closed at 2:30. Once the polls were closed, the ballot box was opened -- in public, of course. Several people were involved in counting how many ballots were there, putting them into stacks of 25. The counts were double checked. There were 204 ballots just as there was supposed to be since 204 people had signed-in on the roster.

Then, a PC with the tabulation program was hooked up to the projection screen monitor. The screen had the candidate names, all with a zero next to them. The last line showed that ballot count also starting at zero. Marty and a woman (Midori Feldman) that would scan the barcodes sat with their backs to the screen, and they went through the ballots one-by-one. Marty would say the candidate name printed on a ballot then Midori would scan the barcode. The vote would register on the screen and supporters would cheer for their candidate. Everyone got to see each vote increment the count. The fact that the correct candidate selection was encoded in the barcode was proved in this process. Everyone could hear Marty read the name, and everyone could see the vote counted for the candidate. The process left absolutely no doubt about the accuracy of the count. It was fun for everyone, too. Even after the count had progressed to a point where it was clear Obama was going to win, people were still cheering for their candidate every time they got a vote. Edwards, Kucinich, and Clinton all had very vocal supporters.

Originally, we wanted to run everything from a live CD and disconnect or remove the hard drive from the PC. Jan did create the CD but I received it a little too late for testing, so the applications were run from PCs with Ubuntu installed on the hard drive. If we receive another request, it should be easy for us to provide a bootable CD -- no need for anything on the hard drive (can even remove the hard drive).

Quite a few pictures were taken of the event, and a few of them are available online [2]. I also have quite a bit of video tape. It will take me a while to edit it down to something I can put on YouTube -- should have it soon (anyone want to help edit?) We have quite a few great interviews -- testimonials, in effect -- from voters.

Some people questioned how well our process would scale. It was great for one contest, but what about a ballot with dozens of contests? I suggested to Julie Rodewald that in a general election, they probably would not want to read the ballot aloud. A good way to do this would be to put the ballot on an overhead projector so everyone in the room can see what's on it (remember, on our system, we only print the selections so everything should fit on one page). Then the barcode could be scanned and the counts would be incremented on another screen. Every observer would not be able to keep track of all the vote counts, but could keep track of some of them. With
enough observers, all the vote counts could be witnessed.

It may be a little premature to say that voter confidence has been restored, but we took a big step in the right direction yesterday.

Thanks again, and best wishes.

-- Alan Dechert
http://openvoting.org

Editor's Note: Alan Dechert and Brent Tanner broke this story on our "Seize Liberty Show" on The Republic Broadcasting Network - www.republicbroadcasting.org - from 12-2 pm central. You can click "archives" to listen to our 1/12 show.