Hand Counting of ballots
Curious about hand counting of ballots? These folks have been using this process forever New Hampshire Hand count process
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23 June 2019
To The Editor
The Times Journal
Over a decade ago
New York State was engaged in contentious debate over what type of
voting machine would replace the old lever actuated devices. The
debate was making news in Schoharie County as well.
Many Schoharie
citizens, myself among them, were advocating for voter marked paper
ballots because they would provide greater resistance to tampering.
We vigorously opposed the electronic machines (computers) being
promoted by machine manufacturers and favored by the election
officials. We argued against such devices because of the potential
for malicious tampering difficult to discover or defend against. When
the dust settled, New York State adopted voter-marked paper ballots
with compromises to allow electronic devices to assist less-able
voters to mark their ballots, and scanners to count the ballots.
Today the devices we
allowed into the polling place back then are approaching the end of
their service life and the voting machine manufacturers are hawking
their latest and greatest stuff again. They refer to these new
machines as “hybrid” because they combine multiple functions in
one device, ballot scanning and ballot marking assistance for voters
needing such help. They are offering a ballot scanner compromised
by the addition of an on board Ballot Marking Device computer. In
other words, the machine will have the capability to create a
ballot which is not hand-marked and which the voter might not
have carefully examined.
Our election
officials are accepting these machines and the Schoharie County Board
of Elections has requested appropriation of $34,000 for the first
year lease of 24 Dominion ImageCast Evolution hybrid voting machines,
a product with security vulnerabilities identified by New York State
Board of Elections testing.
Schoharie citizens
should visit
https://smartelections.us/blog/f/security-report-dominion-ice
to learn more about the Dominion machine. Then they should tell
their Town Supervisor to reject these insecure machines in favor of a
better process.
We do not need these
machines. Other states and many other nations hand count their paper
ballots. There is no reason Schoharie County could not do the same.
The $34,000 could easily provide the training and employment of our
citizens to manage the task of counting ballots. This communal
activity would provide the bonus benefits of increased community
cohesion and appreciation of our democracy.
For more about
voting, voting machines, hand-marked paper ballots and citizen
engagement in the manual counting of ballots visit:
https://scfpg.blogspot.com/p/voting.html
.
Wayne Stinson
Summit, NY
Board of
Elections: P.O. Box 99, Schoharie, NY 12157
Clifford C. Hay,
Commissioner clifford.hay@co.schoharie.ny.us
Kenneth J. Schweigard, Commissioner kenneth.schweigard@co.schoharie.ny.us
Sara Davies-Griffin, Deputy Commissioner sara.davies-griffin@co.schoharie.ny.us
Rich Shultes, Deputy Commissioner rich.shultes@co.schoharie.ny.us
Kenneth J. Schweigard, Commissioner kenneth.schweigard@co.schoharie.ny.us
Sara Davies-Griffin, Deputy Commissioner sara.davies-griffin@co.schoharie.ny.us
Rich Shultes, Deputy Commissioner rich.shultes@co.schoharie.ny.us
Information
Technology Services P.O.
Box 541, Schoharie, NY 12157
Board
of Supervisors:
Conesville Town
Supervisor William A. Federice
federicebill@gmail.com
Blenheim Town
Supervisor Don Airey don.airey@co.schoharie.ny.us
Town Fulton
Supervisor philip.r.skowfoe.jr@co.schoharie.ny.us
Jefferson Town
Supervisor Margaret Hait jeffersontwnsup@gmail.com
Richmondville Town
Supervisor Richard T. Lape
lapelspc@midtel.net
Seward
Town Supervisor John S. Bates, Jr. townofseward@verizon.net
Town
of Summit Supervisor Harold Vroman haroldvroman@aol.com
Broome
Town Supervisor Stephen Weinhofer Broomeclerk@midtel.net
Cobleskill
Town Supervisor Leo T. McAllister townclerk@townofcobleskill.org
Esperance
Town Supervisor Earl VanWormer III ctownofe@biznycap.rr.com
Gilboa Town
Supervisor Anthony T. Van Glad townofgilboa@yahoo.com
Middleburgh Town
Supervisor Gerald (Pete) Coppolo Sr. tnmidd@gmail.com
Schoharie Town
Supervisor Alan Tavenner
alan.tavenner@co.schoharie.ny.us
Sharon
Town Supervisor Sandra L. Manko via Clerk bcousine@nycap.rr.com
Wright
Town Supervisor Alex Luniewski via Clerk wrighttownclerk@yahoo.com
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22 June 2019 (email)
Deputy Commissioner Davies-Griffin,
My comments at the Board of Supervisors meeting seemed to have upset you, that's regrettable because that certainly was not my intent.
I am a long-time critic of our election system and the various machines we have employed for voting. It might be helpful for me to explain further my distrust of voting machines and the companies that manufacture them.
We live in a society where practically anything is or can be commodified. There will always be someone selling something and someone buying the product. The product can be material, services or influence. If a voting system or process has a flaw there will be someone interested in exploiting it.
Mr. Tweed should be understood as an early investor: "I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating" and "As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?" We actually owe Boss Tweed a debt for the present partisan-assured-mutual-distrust system we have in New York today.
Who might want to exploit a voting machine flaw? Machine manufacturers for the dollars, partisans for the obvious reasons, corporations for their favored political candidate and foreign powers for whatever their reasons might be.
My purpose in addressing the BOS Friday was to alert them concerning the flaws which have been identified in the Dominion ICE machine. Flaws which the NY BOE is aware of but apparently decided to certify the machine regardless.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions or additional thoughts concerning this issue,
Wayne Stinson
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