Avoid this vote counting trap: Straight Party Voting

Okidok, I'm spreading the word:

Subject: ELECTION ALERT: Pass it along, Avoid this vote counting trap

ELECTION ALERT: Straight Party Voting Trap. You may have read about this; Here are the details and what to do about it:

THE PROBLEM: "Straight party voting" on voting machines is revealing a bad pattern of miscounting and omitting your vote, especially if you are a Democrat. Most recently (Oct. 2008), a firm called Automated Election Services
was found to have mis-coded the system in heavily Democratic Santa Fe County, New Mexico such that straight party voters would not have the presidential vote
counted.

STRAIGHT PARTY VOTING is allowed in 15 states. Basically, it means that you can take a shortcut to actually looking at who you are voting for and instead just select a party preference. Then the voting machine makes your candidate choices, supposedly for the party you requested.

Additional details follow, but first: PROTECT THE COUNT:

Short video launches Black Box Voting "Protect the Count" project -more to come: Form a Poll Tape Posse - [link to www.youtube.com]

HOW TO PROTECT THE COUNT against Straight Party Trap:
1) NEVER CHOOSE THE STRAIGHT PARTY VOTE OPTION, because it alerts the computer as to your party preference and allows software code to trigger whatever function the programmer has designed.

2) SEND THIS INFORMATION OUT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN, blog it, root n' toot it out there to get the word out.

3) ESPECIALLY GET THE WORD OUT TO PEOPLE IN THE FOLLOWING STATES, which have straight party voting options: Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin

4) DEMAND COMPLETE AND CAREFUL TESTING OF THE STRAIGHT PARTY OPTION IN LOGIC & ACCURACY TESTS.

5) LOOK FOR UNDERVOTES (high profile races with lower-than-average number of votes cast) and flag them, post them, bring them to the attention
of others for additional scrutiny.

Details, links to documents, news stories, more specifics here:
[link to www.bbvforums.org]

Voting machine miscounts of straight party votes were proven by California researcher Judy Alter in the 2004 New Mexico presidential election; in Alabama Democrat straight party votes were caught going to a Republican, and Wisconsin a whole slew of straight party votes disappeared altogether. Both DRE and optical scan machines are vulnerable. Private contractors are involved; private firms
like LHS Associates, Automated Election Services, Harp Enterprises, Casto & Harris and others will program almost all systems in the USA this November.
ES&S scanners were involved in examples cited, but Diebold has also issued a cryptic Product Advisory Notice in 2006 about unexpected results from certain Straight Party option programming practices. (More:
[link to www.bbvforums.org] )

PERSPECTIVE
The big "Oops" needs a new frame of reference. Forexample: You are counting the cash for a fund raiser. Somehow, it's discovered that $500 didn't make it into the count and someone put it in their pocket. They say "Oops" and tell you it was a mistake. Really? Will you let them count
the cash again? Probably not. Consequences! Where are they for Automated Election Services, ES&S, or Diebold?

A LEHTOISM - From voting rights attorney Paul Lehto: "Being at the mercy of whoever's in power is not a definition of freedom, if I may seize on the power of understatement."

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BLACK BOX VOTING DOES NOT ACCEPT SPECIAL INTEREST MONEY. Only grass roots money. Now is a good time to consider keeping us in business: We need your donations. Travel, communications, records...these are expensive, unfortunately.

Donate - [link to www.blackboxvoting.org]
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98058


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