Absolutely zero time at the moment for analysis or commentary. So see these previous stories first if you’re not familiar with things up until now…
…Before reading the following reply from CA50 voter, hand count requester Barbara Gail Jacobson. Her reply submitted this morning follows in full… (If I have a moment to update this item with commentary, analysis, or additional detail, I’ll try to do so later.)
Honorable Mikel Haas
San Diego County Registrar of Voters
5201 Ruffin Road, Suite I
San Diego, CA 92123
Via Facsimile Transmittal
(858) 694-2955
and Hand Delivery
Re: Manual Hand Count Request under the Election Recount Provision,
Run-Off Election for US Representative, 50th District of California
Dear Mr. Haas:
Thank you for your letter dated July 7, 2006, which I received July 8, via Overnight Mail.
First, I acknowledge that you have set a meeting at 8:00 am at your office on Wednesday, July 12 (tomorrow).
I requested the public examination of a number of relevant materials in my original request for the manual hand count, dated July 5, 2006. You state that your staff is “continuing to examine the request to determine which materials are relevant to a recount.” Even cursory review of Secretary of State McPherson’s 2006 directives regarding the use of DRE voting technologies, and the relevant federal regulations, make it clear that all materials requested by me under the authority of Elections Code section 15630 are plainly and obviously relevant to a recount.
Most critically, the relevance of chain-of-custody materials are simply beyond cavil. It is thus essential that I receive, at the outset of the recount and before any recount panels have been empanelled, all chain of custody documentation for all components of the voting systems used in this election, i.e., all optical scanners, all DRE units, all PCMCIA or other data storage cards, and all central tally servers. As you know, this constitutes a subset of the relevant voting materials which I have a right to review.
It is imperative that we examine the chain of custody documentation in order to exercise meaningfully our rights under Election Code section 15622 and 15630. Without review of this information, we cannot analyze which precincts and which type of ballots should be counted first. This essential information is required at the outset of the process.
In addition, the analysis of chain of custody logs will take time. Thus, a reasonable period of time must be allowed for me to make intelligent decisions on the order of the count. Surely the law does not require me to go to the meeting with the information requested in my July 5 letter sight unseen, and wade my way through it, while counting boards sit idle at my expense! Accordingly, I request that you delay the empanelling of recount boards until our examination of chain-of custody records is complete.
Since we are told in your July 7 letter to deliver $6,000.00 to you by 3:00 pm today, we need to know by 2:00 pm today in writing if you will furnish this information in the manner and order I have requested. This written response may be by email or hand delivery, whichever is more convenient to you.
Also, since there will be no need for a counting board until review of the requested documents is complete, we believe your initial check should be for only costs incurred in the preparation of documents produced. Please advise what the corrected amount for our 3:00 pm check should be, and how it was arrived at.
On the subject of expenses, I understand that your office has quoted three different prices to have this hand count. I would like to review this with you shortly.
Thank you again for your initial response, and for your anticipated assistance and cooperation.
Yours truly,
Barbara Gail Jacobson
[address redacted for privacy]
San Diego, CA XXXXX
[email redacted for privacy]
cc Gregory J. Smith, By Hand Delivery
Clerk of San Diego County
For the San Diego County Board of Supervisors
1600 Pacific Highway, Room 260
San Diego CA 92101
What an awesome letter. Pretty damn tight. It should be interesting watching them try and wriggle out from under this. $6000!!!! Yeah right. This is my district, and I am *very* closely watching what happens here. They are not going to like what happens when everyone takes to the streets ala Mexico if they try to f*ck us on this. We are watching.
— Chris Hooten
Hardball. They want hardball. We got hardball! Excellent!
North County Times STILL doesn’t get it when reporting on this.
First of all they try to distort the margin which Bilbray won by of “more than 5 percentage points” which is clearly not the case in an attempt to try to make this recount sound pointless.
Secondly, they just quote Haas and the Secretary of State to make it sound like the lack of chain of custody of machines was nothing unusual and not breaking any laws.
“In an earlier interview, Jacobson said that one of the main reasons she had requested the hand recount was that Haas had allowed precinct workers to take voting machines to their homes in the days leading up to the election. Haas had said that such a practice was not unusual, and that registrars across the state frequently let precinct captains to take the machines home before an election so they will be able to have the machines at polling places early on election day.
Officials with the Secretary of State’s office have said there is no law prohibiting such a practice.”
Haas is still living in the past of the one arm bandit voting machines, and either obviously not understanding the serious problems of violating chain of custody today, or knowing full well its problems and trying to rationalize his way out of it!
Yes!!
Calipendence
Regarding your last paragraph – I go with the second analysis!
Or even trying to cover it up!
I left a comment on that article, let’s see if they post it. There are a suspiciously high number of loud boo-hooers trying to say that the issue was that the losers are whining, and not that the machines are hackable, and went home with poll workers.
— Chris Hooten
Whoops, the article in #3 calipendence for North County Times.
Chris Hooten – whiners is always their excuse!
Chris Hooten
I just left a comment there also. I did not see one from you – at least under the Chris Hooten name.
It says they screen them, so either it’s too soon, or they dumped it. I’ll be checking later.
When you people feel down just imagine how Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers felt when they were coming up with ideas such as a legitimate vote of the people to ELECT good people into office. They tried hard to squash the fraudulent elements from their new DEMOCRATIC form of government, however, none could forsee the strong grip of control by a fascist force like the Bushit administration. These boys put too much faith in WE THE PEOPLE. The system of checks and balances has been corrupted to the point of being ineffective tool in addition to a mass media dedicated (bought and sold)to regurgitating their total Bushit.
Confuse Divide and use of smoke screens to cover their bushshit has been pretty damn effective for these fcks, however more people are waking up to the truth everyday. Thank you BRAD, Barbara Gail Jacobson, and All you real Patriots out there!
I put mine as “RB resident” but as of right now, they haven’t added any new comments since 3:01pm, and none of them represented the true problem.
I am very interested in what Mikel Haas’s response is going to be to the letter. Surely he can’t just demand $6000, and then only let her review the documents in the meeting scheduled for tomorrow. That would be pathetic and unacceptable. Did they get a response? Did they pay something?
— Chris Hooten
I’m still jacked up by that letter. No matter what the response, it means RoV’s in the boiling oil from here on out. A good bureaucrat will see the handwriting on the wall and change horses right in the middle of the Ganges at full flood. Keep fingers crossed. Maybe Brad can report soon.
Ok, they posted my comment at the North County Times website. Good for me!!!
— Chris Hooten
I’m hootin’ and hootin’ for Hooten!
You GO Girl. Rule of Law. PERIOD! Break out and set the precedents!
As we all might well have expected, Bush is even helping to manipulate the election in Mexico. Greg Palast is interviewed by Mike Malloy on Air America Radio. It is a very revealing interview. It is totally disgusting in what it reveals, actually. It begins about a third of the way into the clip, although I personally believe you will benefit from listening to the first third also. Here is the link: Mike Malloy. I apologize if anyone else has already posted this.
Chris Hooten –
I see your post, I posted about the disappearence of the regulations from the SOS office website and linked to black box voting. So far it looks like they didn’t like that! Another post is up that came 45 minutes after mine.
Aarggh
I’m dying to find out what happened today. I hope Mikel Haas did the right thing.
Chris Hooten
Boy, I think if there is a thing out there to get him to do it, that letter would be it. Maybe we’ll have to pile on a little more, but, agh, if they have any lingering civic consciences left, this SHOULD be doable.
The letter makes a mistake in calling it a recount.
There has not been a first legal count yet, and that first legal count is free.
The count by out of chain of custody EVMs is not a legal count.
The hand count will be a first legal count, not a recount.
The difference is going to cost someone a fortune.
It’s official – they censored my comment!
At least Chris Hooten got in the same information about the missing regulations!
It must have freaked them out when they saw that more than one person knew about it! LOL
A little bit on this issue from this morning – no followup yet to her letter.
Link to Raw Story
More articles in the North County Times:
link
Excellent Chris Hooten
This fits right in whith the Georgia lawsuit etc.
People are starting to notice! Lets hope it builds exponentially between now and the end of August when there would still be time to fix this mess.
Ok – who needs their daily purge?
Reihl (Reich) World
“BradBlog and the DU folks are already starting to foam at the mouth. Story below from the North County Times. They won’t stop until they tear democracy completely down.”
Sheesh!
I’m trying to find any info about this morning’s meeting. Whether it happened or any results. Replies to the letter – any thing. So far no results. But:
A little background on The Less Than Honorable Mikel Haas
From the San Diego County Voter Registrar’s Website:
“We Need You!
Would you like to work at a polling place on Election Day? Workers are paid from $75 to $150 depending upon their type of assignment and additional $15 for bilingual speakers in Filipino, Spanish Vietnamese.”
So why the hell will it cost over $1 per vote to count them? What, these people can only count 75-150 votes a day? I could do that in an hour!
I mean WTF!!!!!