Blogged by Brad Friedman from the road…
Republican New Hampshire primary candidate Albert Howard, whose election contest hand count is currently ongoing in Concord, once again demonstrates how to call for a legitimate and reconcilable “recount.”
He has just sent us a copy of the following letter, which was hand delivered to NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner earlier today [emphasis in original]…
HAND DELIVERED
Secretary of State
State of New Hampshire
Dept. of State
107 N. Main St. Rm 204
Concord, NH 03301
Re: COUNTERS’ TALLY SHEETS
Dear Mr. Gardner:
I respectfully request a slight change in the recount procedure.
Current Procedure
The people who are counting the votes are entering the results on individual ward and town tally sheets. They are all using pens with red ink. They then sign and walk the tally sheets to the front of the room where they are handed to a state employee.
The state employee says she checks for discrepancies before manually transposing the figures from the local tally sheets to a County-wide tally sheet, using the same red ink used by the counters. The state employee then enters the figures from her County-wide tally sheet into her computerized master recount file (an excel spreadsheet). Only then does the state employee make and hand me a copy of the counter’s tally sheet.
New Procedure
I wish to receive a copy of the tally sheet for each ward and town, before it is handed to the state employee. It is simply too easy for anyone to alter a figure(s) on a counters’ tally sheet in order to narrow or eliminate a discrepancy. Such evil could never be uncovered short of yet another statewide recount.
Please know that I have no reason to suspect anyone of such mischief. My purpose is merely to tighten up the procedure, in favor of the candidate, and to eliminate any temptation to commit such wrongdoing.
Very truly yours,
Albert B. Howard
Please note: We will be on the road for much of the rest of the day today, as we head from Santa Cruz back down to Los Angeles. We’ll try to get caught up with things by tonight, as the SOTU rolls.
Thus we don’t have time, for the moment, to give full background to the above story in this article. But plenty is already available, particularly in regard to concerns about chain of custody, and other sloppy “recount” procedures, from previous BRAD BLOG coverage.
For previous coverage of Albert Howard and Dennis Kucinich’s Election Contests in New Hampshire, see all stories, newest first, here, and the index of most notable stories here…
I think we all have to pitch in and buy Brad a mobile home!
OT –
Dems held well and filibustered the FISA pardon of the fascist telecoms (AT&T et al) who paid for immunity/amnesty …
Damn Good!!!!
The fascists needed 60 votes but didn’t even get 50 votes … expect preznit blush to piss and moan in his last State of Bullshitistan message.
I can’t believe that Albert B. Howard is a member of the Republican Party. He doesn’t act like the other Rethuglicans out there. He actually seems to GIVE A DAMN. Heck, he’s got more balls than a lot of the Democrats.
… CharlieL gushed…
Don’t grow so attached to his gamete-producing organs… he’s a Republican for sure, but maybe not that variety of Republican 🙂
http://www.vote-smart.org/npat.php?can_id=92723
Actually, Howard’s just a smarter Republican with a spine who agrees with the locals here on election issues… but that alone puts him one up on most of the more-publicized members of his party.
But… balls again? I’ve nothing against them, mind, as I’ve a pair myself… but what about all of the xx-chromosomed politicians who have held the line on the Constitution and our rights… but who don’t care to have their courage measured by their lack of a jock strap?
Embrace the spine metaphor! Not only is it the non-sexist thing to do but the variety of invertebrate species allows for some great snarkiness and riffs on evolution as well 🙂
Yeah, and maybe they ought to tighten up the chain of custody a little too. Have ya all seen the new video out by Black Box Voting?
Oh my …. I saw a hand go into a box, I saw a repeat of the
post it note stickersseals, Butch an Hoppy tumbling a palate of boxes of votes to the ground, most boxes look insecure, some boxes not even sealed. Geeze..Officials not knowing answers, not wanting to answer. There really has got to be a legal cattle-prod to end this madness. Something needs to be done swiftly.