Clazy, looks like this election's Florida is Florida!

Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
by Thom Hartmann


There was something odd about the poll tapes.

A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to the county elections office as the official record of how the people in that particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)

Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed her a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.

Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly, they told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet Bev the following morning to show them to her.

Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the door."

In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.

"On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo and behold, there were public record tapes."

Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.

"It was technically stinking, in fact," Bev added, "because what they had done was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official records of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the poll workers. These are something we had done an official public records request for."

When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were going through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge Bev.

Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.

"We caught the whole thing on videotape," she said. "I don't think you'll ever see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election worker over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it split right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it."

As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off the phone, because, "Two police cars just showed up."

She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police arrived, "We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records request."

The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections Warehouse back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2 dated and signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office had submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met them there, as well.

And then things got even odder.

"We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the [later printout] ones that were given us," Bev said, "and finding things missing and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a bin full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes, actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building."

This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the garbage of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll tapes, freshly trashed.

"And I must tell you," Bev said, "that whatever they had taken out [the back door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?'"

A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak on the record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine Girardin, noted, "Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road 44 in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after being given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2 polling place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of voting records."

The Daytona Beach News further noted that, "[Elections Supervisor] Lowe confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election were destined for the shredder," but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that was simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each signed. "One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a memory card," the News reported. "The backup tape is delivered to the elections office in a second car."

Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris didn't want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the garbage. "She's not wanting to listen to an explanation," Lowe told the News of Harris. "She has her own ideas."

But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the discarded, signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and used to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern emerged.

"The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."

When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct were random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors, she became uncomfortable.

"You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not trying to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any voting fraud."

That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored George W. Bush. Every single time."

Of course finding possible voting "anomalies" in one Florida county doesn't mean they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records; this story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further investigation demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward "anomalous" election results in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome of the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).

Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.

As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next destination, "We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they need to continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the memory cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes."

Why?

"Simple," she said. "Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud."

All I can say is that if it were true and they can find almost 400k votes to give Kerry the state then there's a problem. I don't see it happening, and it's just another angry Bush hater in a long line of many that just won't accept reality.

There are many, saw a bit on fark.com where a swank restaurant manager ejected Bush's twin daughters a few days ago. He told them and their SS agents they were banned for the next 4 years and could come back after that. So, basically a po'd dem decided to eject 2 innocent customers because they just happen to have a daddy the fucker at the establishment didn't want to see re-elected.

Mature eh?

> All I can say is that if it were true and they can find almost 400k votes to
> give Kerry the state then there's a problem. I don't see it happening, and it's
> just another angry Bush hater in a long line of many that just won't accept
> reality.

I agree that there are Bush haters out there that are bitter from losing the election, but that doesn't mean they can't raise a point. Bush supporters have tried to raise many that fell on deaf ears as well. Though the election results may not be change through a recount, clearly there is a problem using these flawed e-voting machines in production. They knew flaws existed before the election, but they went ahead anyway. Wtf?

You can't really have a good election if the results are questioned, any uncertainty is not a good thing, everyone has to agree on the winner. Not only that but if there are flaws you happen upon every day, what kind of flaws can you expect that are rarely triggered? It's not very smart at all. Again, and from a developer's point of view, wtf?

And the American people need to be sure about who's in office. How could you let the country disagree over who's president? Being divided and hating each other over a disagreement isn't boosting morale any or bringing people together in any way. Having sore winners and sore losers isn't helping things. People who are blinded by rage don't really do smart things, either. This situation isn't good.

> There are many, saw a bit on fark.com where a swank restaurant manager ejected
> Bush's twin daughters a few days ago. He told them and their SS agents they
> were banned for the next 4 years and could come back after that. So, basically
> a po'd dem decided to eject 2 innocent customers because they just happen to
> have a daddy the fucker at the establishment didn't want to see re-elected.

That's a diversion from the subject. That kind of behaviour is really ignorant, but you can't really use it to demonize a group of voters and discredit a valid concern.

Remember the story about that guy who was kicked out of a mall because he had an anti-war t-shirt on(when the Iraq war started)? I bet you weren't bitching about that.

Am tired to hear that what is you point. mine its very clear sun. shit uuuuuuuuppppppppp - Dany

Far as that shirt guy went. I'm for freedom of speech, but at the same time I typically hate whiney protestors. So nah, I didn't say anything on here.


AND...


To the idea of me adding in the story off the link from fark. I didn't use that as a demonizing tactic or whatever, I just found it amusing in a fucked up way some whiney bastard would do such a childish thing. Brought it up just to highlight that some haters just take shit to really bad degrees which as you said 'things like this don't bring people together in any way.'

> Far as that shirt guy went. I'm for freedom of speech, but at the same time I
> typically hate whiney protestors. So nah, I didn't say anything on here.

It's easy to call them whiney if you don't agree with them, but try to get your point of view across to a bunch of people who vote differently. It's not even like they have opposite opinions, but since they're voting against each other they might as well have killed each others' parents or something. There are stupid people on both sides and everyone wants the other to listen up. The stupidest are the loudest, I guess. The media sure aren't letting many of the smart people on.

> Brought it up just to
> highlight that some haters just take shit to really bad degrees which as you
> said 'things like this don't bring people together in any way.'

Sorry, I just didn't see how the two were related, I didn't know you were talking about protesters in general. I think protesting is necessary though, people aren't exactly open minded about the election, so some people need a crowbar. I agree contesting the count is considered aggravating, but having it doubted or inconclusive is the root of this problem. You're not going to get unquestionable results with the current stuff they're using. It was hard enough to do it with paper, how did they think this buggy software was going to solve anything? It's a joke that this is how seriously the election is being dealt with.

Agreed there.

And agreed that the entire matter is being handled like a bad joke.

> Clazy, looks like this election's Florida is Florida!
>
> Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
> 'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
> by Thom Hartmann
>
>
> There was something odd about the poll tapes.
>
> A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan
> voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all
> the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the
> total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the
> polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to the
> county elections office as the official record of how the people in that
> particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single
> optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)
>
> Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic
> voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at
> Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November
> 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll
> tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The
> elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed her
> a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.
>
> Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes
> and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly, they
> told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections
> Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet
> Bev the following morning to show them to her.
>
> Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before
> the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the
> Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll
> tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview
> less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the door."
>
> In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.
>
> "On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo
> and behold, there were public record tapes."
>
> Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.
>
> "It was technically stinking, in fact," Bev added, "because what they had done
> was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official records
> of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the poll
> workers. These are something we had done an official public records request
> for."
>
> When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were going
> through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge Bev.
>
> Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.
>
> "We caught the whole thing on videotape," she said. "I don't think you'll ever
> see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election worker
> over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it split
> right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our
> democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it."
>
> As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off the
> phone, because, "Two police cars just showed up."
>
> She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police
> arrived, "We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records
> request."
>
> The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections Warehouse
> back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2 dated and
> signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office had
> submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met
> them there, as well.
>
> And then things got even odder.
>
> "We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the
> [later printout] ones that were given us," Bev said, "and finding things missing
> and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a bin
> full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes,
> actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building."
>
> This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the garbage
> of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll tapes,
> freshly trashed.
>
> "And I must tell you," Bev said, "that whatever they had taken out [the back
> door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these
> polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?'"
>
> A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that Elections
> Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak on the
> record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in
> Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine Girardin,
> noted, "Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road 44
> in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after being
> given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2 polling
> place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of
> voting records."
>
> The Daytona Beach News further noted that, "[Elections Supervisor] Lowe
> confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election were
> destined for the shredder," but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that was
> simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each
> signed. "One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a memory
> card," the News reported. "The backup tape is delivered to the elections office
> in a second car."
>
> Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris didn't
> want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the
> garbage. "She's not wanting to listen to an explanation," Lowe told the News of
> Harris. "She has her own ideas."
>
> But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the
> surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the discarded,
> signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and used
> to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern
> emerged.
>
> "The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we
> examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."
>
> When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct were
> random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors, she
> became uncomfortable.
>
> "You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not trying
> to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any voting
> fraud."
>
> That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored George
> W. Bush. Every single time."
>
> Of course finding possible voting "anomalies" in one Florida county doesn't mean
> they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent
> explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records; this
> story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further investigation
> demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward "anomalous" election results
> in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome of
> the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).
>
> Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.
>
> As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next destination,
> "We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they need to
> continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the memory
> cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes."
>
> Why?
>
> "Simple," she said. "Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud."
>

> > Clazy, looks like this election's Florida is Florida!
> >
> > Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
> > 'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
> > by Thom Hartmann
> >
> >
> > There was something odd about the poll tapes.
> >
> > A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan
> > voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all
> > the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the
> > total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the
> > polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to the
> > county elections office as the official record of how the people in that
> > particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single
> > optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)
> >
> > Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic
> > voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at
> > Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday,
> November
> > 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll
> > tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The
> > elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed
> her
> > a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.
> >
> > Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes
> > and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly,
> they
> > told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections
> > Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet
> > Bev the following morning to show them to her.
> >
> > Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before
> > the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the
> > Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll
> > tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview
> > less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the
> door."
> >
> > In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.
> >
> > "On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo
> > and behold, there were public record tapes."
> >
> > Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.
> >
> > "It was technically stinking, in fact," Bev added, "because what they had done
> > was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official records
> > of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the poll
> > workers. These are something we had done an official public records request
> > for."
> >
> > When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were
> going
> > through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge Bev.
> >
> > Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.
> >
> > "We caught the whole thing on videotape," she said. "I don't think you'll ever
> > see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election
> worker
> > over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it split
> > right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our
> > democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it."
> >
> > As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off
> the
> > phone, because, "Two police cars just showed up."
> >
> > She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police
> > arrived, "We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records
> > request."
> >
> > The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections Warehouse
> > back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2 dated and
> > signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office had
> > submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met
> > them there, as well.
> >
> > And then things got even odder.
> >
> > "We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the
> > [later printout] ones that were given us," Bev said, "and finding things
> missing
> > and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a
> bin
> > full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes,
> > actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building."
> >
> > This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the garbage
> > of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll
> tapes,
> > freshly trashed.
> >
> > "And I must tell you," Bev said, "that whatever they had taken out [the back
> > door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these
> > polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?'"
> >
> > A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that Elections
> > Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak on the
> > record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in
> > Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine
> Girardin,
> > noted, "Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road 44
> > in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after
> being
> > given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2 polling
> > place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of
> > voting records."
> >
> > The Daytona Beach News further noted that, "[Elections Supervisor] Lowe
> > confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election were
> > destined for the shredder," but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that was
> > simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each
> > signed. "One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a memory
> > card," the News reported. "The backup tape is delivered to the elections
> office
> > in a second car."
> >
> > Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris
> didn't
> > want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the
> > garbage. "She's not wanting to listen to an explanation," Lowe told the News
> of
> > Harris. "She has her own ideas."
> >
> > But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the
> > surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the
> discarded,
> > signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and
> used
> > to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern
> > emerged.
> >
> > "The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we
> > examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."
> >
> > When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct
> were
> > random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors, she
> > became uncomfortable.
> >
> > "You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not trying
> > to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any voting
> > fraud."
> >
> > That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored
> George
> > W. Bush. Every single time."
> >
> > Of course finding possible voting "anomalies" in one Florida county doesn't
> mean
> > they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent
> > explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records; this
> > story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further investigation
> > demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward "anomalous" election
> results
> > in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome
> of
> > the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).
> >
> > Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.
> >
> > As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next destination,
> > "We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they need to
> > continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the memory
> > cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes."
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > "Simple," she said. "Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud."
> >
>
>
>

That was a badass show.

> > > Clazy, looks like this election's Florida is Florida!
> > >
> > > Published on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
> > > 'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
> > > by Thom Hartmann
> > >
> > >
> > > There was something odd about the poll tapes.
> > >
> > > A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan
> > > voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read
> all
> > > the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the
> > > total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by
> the
> > > polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to
> the
> > > county elections office as the official record of how the people in that
> > > particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single
> > > optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)
> > >
> > > Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of
> electronic
> > > voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at
> > > Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday,
> > November
> > > 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll
> > > tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The
> > > elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed
> > her
> > > a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.
> > >
> > > Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll
> tapes
> > > and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly,
> > they
> > > told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections
> > > Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should
> meet
> > > Bev the following morning to show them to her.
> > >
> > > Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well
> before
> > > the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in
> the
> > > Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll
> > > tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone
> interview
> > > less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the
> > door."
> > >
> > > In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.
> > >
> > > "On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and
> lo
> > > and behold, there were public record tapes."
> > >
> > > Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.
> > >
> > > "It was technically stinking, in fact," Bev added, "because what they had
> done
> > > was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official
> records
> > > of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the poll
> > > workers. These are something we had done an official public records request
> > > for."
> > >
> > > When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were
> > going
> > > through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge Bev.
> > >
> > > Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.
> > >
> > > "We caught the whole thing on videotape," she said. "I don't think you'll
> ever
> > > see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election
> > worker
> > > over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it
> split
> > > right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our
> > > democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it."
> > >
> > > As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off
> > the
> > > phone, because, "Two police cars just showed up."
> > >
> > > She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police
> > > arrived, "We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records
> > > request."
> > >
> > > The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections
> Warehouse
> > > back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2 dated and
> > > signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office had
> > > submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met
> > > them there, as well.
> > >
> > > And then things got even odder.
> > >
> > > "We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the
> > > [later printout] ones that were given us," Bev said, "and finding things
> > missing
> > > and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a
> > bin
> > > full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes,
> > > actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building."
> > >
> > > This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the
> garbage
> > > of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll
> > tapes,
> > > freshly trashed.
> > >
> > > "And I must tell you," Bev said, "that whatever they had taken out [the back
> > > door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these
> > > polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?'"
> > >
> > > A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that
> Elections
> > > Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak on
> the
> > > record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in
> > > Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine
> > Girardin,
> > > noted, "Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road
> 44
> > > in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after
> > being
> > > given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2
> polling
> > > place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of
> > > voting records."
> > >
> > > The Daytona Beach News further noted that, "[Elections Supervisor] Lowe
> > > confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election
> were
> > > destined for the shredder," but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that
> was
> > > simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each
> > > signed. "One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a
> memory
> > > card," the News reported. "The backup tape is delivered to the elections
> > office
> > > in a second car."
> > >
> > > Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris
> > didn't
> > > want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the
> > > garbage. "She's not wanting to listen to an explanation," Lowe told the News
> > of
> > > Harris. "She has her own ideas."
> > >
> > > But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the
> > > surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the
> > discarded,
> > > signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and
> > used
> > > to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern
> > > emerged.
> > >
> > > "The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we
> > > examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."
> > >
> > > When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct
> > were
> > > random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors,
> she
> > > became uncomfortable.
> > >
> > > "You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not
> trying
> > > to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any
> voting
> > > fraud."
> > >
> > > That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored
> > George
> > > W. Bush. Every single time."
> > >
> > > Of course finding possible voting "anomalies" in one Florida county doesn't
> > mean
> > > they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent
> > > explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records;
> this
> > > story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further
> investigation
> > > demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward "anomalous" election
> > results
> > > in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome
> > of
> > > the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).
> > >
> > > Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.
> > >
> > > As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next
> destination,
> > > "We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they need to
> > > continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the
> memory
> > > cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes."
> > >
> > > Why?
> > >
> > > "Simple," she said. "Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud."
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>



Gives us a kiss precious.