Its all fixed worse then the Soviet Union!
Peace
"(ME) 2/12 - VIDEOTAPED VOTE ALTERATION SHOWS IMPORTANCE OF CAPTURING THE COUNT ON FILM - An incident in Maine follows the important alert by Iowa
citizen Edward True. In Iowa, Edward True noticed the wrong vote total being reported in his precinct, altering the winner of the presidential race.
He blew the whistle on it.
An investigation in Maine is proceeding after Jeannine Oren, a former news anchor for WMTB-8 in Portland, noticed that her own vote had been changed
in a public meeting on a budget issue. She caught the vote alteration on videotape.
Read this detailed article on videotaped vote alteration in Casco, Maine here in The Independent:
www.independentpub.com...
While reading the Casco article, those who are emotionally invested in the Republican presidential primary might also want to ponder this: Several
Nevada caucus locations prohibited media observation, and in Clark County where it WAS allowed, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times was kicked out.
She was called a "spy" when she attempted to witness the caucus.
READ FULL ARTICLE ON THE "SPY":
www.latimes.com...
While caucus activities are generally more transparent than standard elections -- at least participants can witness the count -- paranoia about
allowing the media (or anyone else) to watch the counting does facilitate results reporting fraud.
Let's go back to that town meeting in Maine, where Oren was surprised to see her own vote altered in results reports:
According to The Independent, when Oren saw incorrect vote tallies in a local newspaper, she called the reporter's attention to the discrepancy. The
Finance Committee had changed vote totals to a false unanimous result on a land deal. Then Oren, and Jennifer Murray, whose vote was also altered,
each wrote to the Finance Committee hoping to see the problem addressed.
Here's why it is so crucial to get video: As is typical in these situations, Dave Morton, the town manager in Casco, dismissed their concerns and
said that the correct vote tally would be presented to the public when the relevant article came up for discussion at the town meeting. As you may
recall, the Appanoose County Republican Chair had a similar reaction when Edward True pointed out an incorrect results report.
Vigilant citizens made enough noise about the incorrect Iowa tally that the Republican chair had to back down, and further investigation into
incorrect results in Iowa revealed many more discrepancies. The winner was reversed, in Iowa, and the Republican state chairman resigned.
The stink in Casco, unfortunately, did not ricochet around the blogosphere and no one seemed to pay attention (except Oren and Murray) when at the
Casco town meeting, the Finance Committee again reported the wrong vote total.
The Independent reports, Oren said, "I knew for a fact I'd voted against it, because I argued for like 20 minutes ... It's unbelievable -- what are
the odds that you would actually capture vote tampering on a videotape? Nobody in here -- no lawyers, not the people accused -- nobody is denying the
facts of what happened."
The "odds of actually capturing vote tampering on a videotape" are vastly improved when people actually take a video, as they did in Casco.
The Independent article reports that the vote tampering evidence was submitted to the Maine Attorney General's investigative division.
There's a tendency to blame transparent procedures for the embarrassment created when someone gets caught altering results, so we should keep in mind
that transparency is the CURE for electoral error and fraud, not its cause. Let's not choose to bury the toxic waste in elections just to make
democracy look prettier.
Hats off to Jeannine Oren in Casco, Maine, for disinfecting one such mess by exposing it to sunlight.
* * * * *
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."
www.blackboxvoting.org...