Baltimore City election results decertified
Official: Measure had nothing to do with votes
UPDATED 7:00 AM EDT May 13, 2016
BALTIMORE --The city's election officials on Monday certified the primary election results in Baltimore, showing in the mayor's race state Sen. Catherine Pugh beat former Mayor Sheila Dixon for the Democratic nomination by just shy of 2,500 votes.
The Maryland State Board of Elections is not accepting city election results until the city gets an audit in order, I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller reported.
Miller reported that the Baltimore City Board of Elections election director Armstead B.C. Jones said it has "nothing to do with votes."
It is not a recount of votes, according to an elections source. Instead, an audit is being done to make sure paperwork backs up the number of people who cast votes.
Jones said the city election will be decertified and then recertified when paperwork is in order.
The trouble started Tuesday evening, the state's election chief says, when the city discovered 80 provisional ballots that hadn't been counted.
Then a bigger problem was discovered. People that should have been given provisional ballots to be vetted later were instead permitted to vote at the polls without the document that verifies they were eligible voters.
Election workers from other jurisdictions are helping the city reconcile its paperwork. Jones said similar problems have happened before.
Maryland Board of Elections state administrator Linda Lamone released the following statement Thursday afternoon:
"Over the last several days, the State Board of Elections has been conducting its normal review and reconciliation of the election data for the recent primary. Because of discrepancies in some of the data for Baltimore City, the state administrator has decided that the election data for all precincts in the city will be reviewed.
"In light of that decision, the Baltimore City Board of Canvassers will be rescinding its certification of the election results pending completion of the state board's review. It is expected that the Baltimore City Board of Canvassers will rescind its certification today at 6 p.m."
This does reopen the window for challenges to the city election at least for a few days. Former Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon said Thursday that she is "pleased there is additional review" of city votes.
Dixon released the following statement Thursday afternoon on the decision to decertify the Baltimore City election results:
"I'm pleased that there will be additional investigation into this election because every Baltimore voter who cast a ballot deserves to have their vote counted which still has not happened. I'm particularly bothered that there are provisional ballots that have not been counted even though the Board of Elections moved to certify the results. I am hopeful that state's review will provide answers to my questions about whether proper procedures were followed during this election."
On Wednesday, Dixon said she would not ask for a recount. Has that now changed? Her spokesperson said their options are open.
Will the audit being done make a difference? No, according to the source.
The number in question is within the margin of Pugh's lead over Dixon and won't change the result for the mayoral race.
The audit to reconcile discrepancies starts Monday. Election officials do not believe it will change the outcome. The results are expected to be recertified next week.
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One of the complaints in this Baltimore election was campaign staff being allowed to work at the polling machines under the guise of not having enough funds to hire election staff------
'After each vote, Collins allegedly said, “one more time” and Thomas reset the machine for him to register new votes, investigators said. The poll watcher told police there were no voters inside the polling place and the doors were locked while votes were cast. Investigators say they verified the poll watcher’s testimony by examining the voting cartridge'.
Philly Election Officials Charged With Voter Fraud
By David Chang
The Philadelphia district attorney announced fraud charges against four election officials Monday. NBC10's George Spencer has the details. (Published Monday, May 18, 2015)On the night before Philly’s primary, four local election officials are accused of casting extra votes in order to balance their numbers.
Sandra Lee, 60, Alexia Harding, 22, James Collins, 69, and Gregory Thomas, 60, are all charged with voter fraud. Warrants for their arrests were issued Monday. All four suspects were election officials from Philly’s 18th Ward, 1st Division.
“There’s no legally justifiable reason to vote multiple times and you cannot falsely certify that you live in a particular ward and division in order to work the polls and collect a check,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “Our democracy rests on free and fair elections, but it also relies on the fact that they are conducted properly, which is why these four individuals deserve to be arrested for what they did.”
On Feb. 16, 2015, a detective from the District Attorney’s Office Special Investigations Division interviewed a poll watcher who saw the division’s election board work to correct a discrepancy between the number of votes cast and the number of voters who signed in to vote, investigators said.
Voter Fraud Charges for Poll Workers
Arrest warrants have been issued for four Philadelphia poll workers just hours before the Mayoral Primary Election. NBC10's Rosemary Connors has the latest. (Published Monday, May 18, 2015)Once the polling place, the Hancock Recreation Center on 1401 N. Hancock Street, closed, the four suspects added six more votes to one of the machines to make the votes cast and sign-in books match, investigators said. Collins held the voting machine curtain open while Thomas was at the back of the machine, according to officials. Collins then allegedly registered several votes on the machine after the polls closed.
After each vote, Collins allegedly said, “one more time” and Thomas reset the machine for him to register new votes, investigators said. The poll watcher told police there were no voters inside the polling place and the doors were locked while votes were cast. Investigators say they verified the poll watcher’s testimony by examining the voting cartridge.
Officials also say a review of Harding’s, Collins’ and Thomas’ home addresses show they did not live nor were registered to vote in the 18th Ward 1st Division, a violation of the Election Code. Despite this, they still collected $125 in compensation, officials said.
Lee, who served as the 1st Division’s Judge of Elections, is charged with conspiracy, tampering with records, unsworn falsification, obstructing justice and other related offenses.
Harding, who served as the 1st Division’s Minority Inspector, is charged with false swearing and unsworn falsifications to authorities and qualifications of election officers.
Both Collins and Thomas, the Division’s Machine Inspectors, are charged with conspiracy, tampering with record, false swearing, unsworn falsification and other related offenses.
A new election board will be in place for Tuesday’s primary election.
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Chaos At Nevada Democratic Convention; DNC Leaders Flee Building As Sanders Supporters Demand Recount
6k Shares
By Tim Hains
Posted on May 15, 2016
(Update/clarification: This situation escalated out of control when Roberta Lange, Chairwoman of the Nevada State Democratic Party & member of the national DNC Executive Committee subjectively called the results of a voice vote, adjourned the meeting using a gavel, and left. According to a Democratic Party spokesman: "The DNC did not have a part in this.")
Adryenn Ashley posted several live videos (below) from inside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, where arcane secondary rounds of the delegate selection process of Nevada's Democratic caucus erupted into chaos Saturday night. Bernie Sanders supporters demanded 64 rejected pro-Sanders delegates listed in a "minority report" prepared by their campaign be allowed to participate in selecting delegates for the national convention.
DNC leaders refused to reconsider their decision not to allow this, adjourned, and fled the building amid a chorus of boos; leaving hotel security and local police officers to handle the angry Sanders supporters.
Earlier in the day, the Sanders camp objected to several of their delegates being disqualified from voting for administrative reasons, and booed Sen. Barbara Boxer when she called for unity. "If you're booing me, you're booing Bernie Sanders," she told them. "Go ahead, boo yourselves out of this election."
A member of the rules committee called the act of disallowing votes for purely administrative reasons a violation of the spirit of the values of our nation.
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Chicago Election Official Admits “Numbers Didn’t Match”: Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders Election Fraud Allegations[VIDEO]
Posted By: Alex May 14, 2016
Jim Allen, Communications Director for the Chicago Board of Elections (BoE), acknowledges that “the numbers didn’t match” initially in the legally mandated 5% audit of voting and tabulating machines after the recent Illinois Democratic primary between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Allen, however, insists that this is simply a “perception issue” and that absolutely no election fraud took place.
Allen was responding by phone to my questions regarding allegations from citizen vote monitoring groups Who’s Counting? – Chicago and the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project (IBIP). Dr. Lora Chamberlain is a leader of Who’s Counting, which works with IBIP to credential election day monitors and joined them this year to audit the audit. IBIP was started in Illinois in the aftermath of the 2000 Al Gore versus George Bush Debacle. A total of six members of the two groups gave affidavit-based testimony at the April 5, 2016 Chicago Board of Elections meeting.
The testimony is, simply put, beyond stunning.
It can be view in its entirety on the official Chicago Elections YouTube channel. Beginning around the 24 minute mark will launch you into a most profoundly bizarre and troubling hour of bureaucratic bore and can-this-be-for-anything-like-real nonsense-mongering.
Chicago BoE Legal Counsel James Scanlon says early on that “[t]he 5% audit or tabulation cannot be used to change the results of the election. It’s only a means of testing the voting equipment.” Multiple times BoE members suggest that citizens testifying aren’t really credible to talk about an audit because they aren’t professional auditors. As Andrew Galipeau notes by way of comment at YouTube, the entirety of the citizen monitoring discussion takes place after the BoE has already pulled a fast one to certify the election results without allowing time for objections from those who showed up to do just that:
0:00 Meeting opens and introductions
0:30 1st item of business (accept the results)
0:45 From the audience “Can we object?” – “No, not yet”
1:01 “Any discussion? Does not let audience know this is the time to object/discuss
1:14 Motion passes and they accept the results.
1:38 Meeting is adjourned.
1:48 You can see her visibly exhale in relief, as they have just certified the results and the public has not realized Special meeting is started (but they have already accepted the results). The entire rest of the video is essentially meaningless and just putting on a show for the public to air grievances with no legal recourse available. Really wish we could fix it, bureaucracy is bullshit. It’s all certified legally official before 2 minutes into the video. Source
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New Yorkers unleash rage over alleged primary voter fraud at Board of Elections hearing
Furious voters who didn’t get to cast ballots in last month’s primary elections erupted in shouts and epithets Tuesday at a Board of Election hearing in Manhattan.
Dozens of New Yorkers waited hours for a chance to get two minutes at the microphone to vent their anger.
“This is fraud! You guys should do something about this,” Nabin Mandam, 41, of Queens lectured.
Shouts of “You need to hear the people!” and “This is not Democracy!” and “Fraud!” filled the room.
Angelika Nyzio, 20, of Brooklyn, told the BOE a glitch deleted her ballot.
Board of Elections Commissioner Bianca Perez and the rest of the panel heard from dozens of angry New Yorkers on Tuesday. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News) “Your mistake. My vote should be counted,” she said.
BOE director Michael Ryan and Commissioner Bianka Perez asked the crowd to leave when the meeting ended.
As many as 126,000 voters may have been purged due to a clerk’s error, the BOE has said.
Yet it is expected to certify the April 19 primary results Thursday.
Before the afternoon meeting began, about 50 protesters rallied outside the BOE’s lower Manhattan office on Broadway.
Activist Yvonne Gougelet leads the rally outside the city Board of Elections office on Broadway. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News)
DIRGE FOR THE PURGE: NYC BOARD OF ELECTIONS FAILS YET AGAIN
Both the state attorney general and the city controller launched investigations into allegations of voter purging from the rolls — especially in Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders’ home borough of Brooklyn.
Investigators said some 126,000 Brooklyn voters were removed from voter lists between November and April, or marked “inactive.”
Yvonne Gougelet, a long time voting rights advocate from Long Island City, said she’s never experienced disenfranchisement of this magnitude.
"I'm not just someone who's like, 'Oh, Bernie didn't win. I'm mad.' This is unconstitutional on a massive, grand scale,” she said.
"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country,” she added.
The Board of Elections initially dismissed the hundreds of complaints that poured in as groundless.
But it has since suspended its chief clerk in Brooklyn without pay.
BOARD OF ELECTIONS BOSS APOLOGIZES FOR PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBACLE IN NYC
The clerk may not have followed proper procedures while updating voter registration lists, the agency said.
This paper-bag-headed protester was among the crowd at the rally. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News) But the BOE has yet to give a full explanation of what went wrong on the April 19 presidential primaries.
Wendy Sacks, 63, of Park Slope, said she was mailed a notice from BOE saying city records indicated she had moved and needed to re-register.
Sacks has lived in the same location for decades, she said.
"I've been living at the same Brooklyn address for 30 years,” she said.
CITY CONTROLLER SAYS BREAK UP BOARD OF ELECTIONS IN WAKE OF VOTER PURGE
“This is unconstitutional on a massive, grand scale,” Gougelet said. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News) But when she got a notice from BOE asking for her new address, she filled out the form — with her old one — and sent it back.
She included a note to BOE that she was re-registering to vote but her address was the same.
A few weeks later, she got a card saying she was approved, she said.
Out of an abundance of caution, Sacks even brought that approval card to her polling site when she went to vote April 19.
"When I came to the polls I showed them my card, they said 'I'm sorry. You're not in the books but you can vote by affidavit ballot or go to a judge,’” she said.
She cast an affidavit ballot but also called BOE to lodge a complaint.
“The woman said, 'I see we sent you a letter. I see you returned it. I see we sent you the approval but then they took you off again.' I said, 'Why?' She said, 'I have no idea,’” Sacks recounted.
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5 Ways The Arizona Primaries Were Stolen! #ArizonaWasStolen
Tim Black
Published on Mar 23, 2016
Do you believe in the right to vote? Arizona doesn't. Multiple Democratic voters showed up to the polls only to find that they were listed as independents, Republicans, or had no party affiliation at all. There were at least 200 polling stations in 2012 and 400 in 2008, but just 60 open Tuesday, in Maricopa County, the most populated county in Arizona. Petition: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/peti...w York Election Fraud: Is Arizona Happening Again?Published 3:29 pm EDT, March 25, 2016 Updated 3:40 pm EDT, April 19, 2016
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Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Rhode Island
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 25, 2016U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI Prepared to Respond to Complaints of Election Fraud & Voting Rights Abuse
PROVIDENCE - United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha announced today that Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Terrence P. Donnelly will lead the efforts of his Office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election Day Program for the upcoming April 26, 2016, Presidential primary elections. AUSA Donnelly has been appointed to serve as the District Election Officer for the District of Rhode Island, and in that capacity is responsible for overseeing the District’s handling of complaints of election fraud and voting rights abuses in consultation with Justice Department Headquarters in Washington.
The Department of Justice has an important role in deterring election fraud and discrimination at the polls, and combating these violations whenever and wherever they occur. The Department’s long-standing Election Day Program furthers these goals, and also seeks to ensure public confidence in the integrity of the election process by providing local points of contact within the Department for the public to report possible election fraud and voting rights violations while the polls are open on Election Day.
Federal law protects against such crimes as intimidating or bribing voters, buying and selling votes, impersonating voters, altering vote tallies, stuffing ballot boxes, and marking ballots for voters against their wishes or without their input. It also contains special protections for the rights of voters and provides that they can vote free from acts that intimidate or harass them.
To report suspected election fraud or voting rights abuses at the polls in Rhode Island, the United States Attorney’s Office can be reached by the public at (401) 709-5068. In addition, the FBI field office in Rhode Island will be prepared to receive allegations of voting fraud and other election abuses at (401) 272-8310.
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I FEEL SO FLIPPED AND STRIPPED!!!!!!
Could the 2016 Election Be Stolen with Help from Electronic Voting Machines?
February 23, 2016
GuestsHarvey Wassermanindependent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist. His upcoming book is The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.
This is viewer supported news
DonateHarvey Wasserman of Columbus, Ohio, has been a vocal critic of electronic voting machines. He co-wrote the book, "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election." His upcoming book is titled "The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft." We talk to him about his concerns for the upcoming presidential race.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re in Westerville, Ohio, just outside Columbus. We’re at Otterbein University, where I’ll be teaching some classes today, or, let’s say, talking with students. We’re at OTV, which is Otterbein Television. And, Harvey Wasserman, I wanted to talk to you now about voting machines--
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: —and your concern over the years that electronic voting could be used to steal elections. Are you still concerned about this?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, electronic voting was used to steal the presidential election right here in Ohio in 2004. John Kerry was the rightful winner in 2004 over George W. Bush. The secretary of state at the time, J. Kenneth Blackwell, and the governor, Robert Taft, used their power of electronic vote count to flip the vote to George W. Bush from John Kerry.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know this?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: We watched it—I grew up here, Amy. We watched it, totally, right up close and personal. We did the accounting. I work with a political scientist named Bob Fitrakis. We’re about to come out with another book, The Strip & Flip of the 2016 Selection. They are stripping the voter rolls—and Greg Palast, the great investigative reporter, is doing great on this—removing African Americans, Hispanics, people who might incline to vote progressive, and they—so that—in 2004, they stripped 300,000 people from the voter rolls here in the urban areas. Bush only won by less than 120 [thousand].
And this year, about 80 percent of the vote nationally will be cast on electronic voting machines. There is no verifiability. In six key swing states—Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona—you have Republican governors and Republican secretaries of state, and no method of verifying the electronic vote count. At midnight or whenever it is on election night, those two guys can go in there with an IT person and flip the outcome of an electronically counted vote within about 60 seconds. So all this millions and millions of dollars, people out campaigning and so on, can be negated by an electronic vote flip late at night on election night, and there is no way to verify what’s happened.
AMY GOODMAN: They didn’t do this with President Obama in 2008.
HARVEY WASSERMAN: They did. He had too many votes; he was too far out. They couldn’t—it would have taken them too many, to flip too many states. [inaudible] believe Obama won by well over 10 million votes. The last—the final vote count was in—official, was in 7 or 8 million.
AMY GOODMAN: But what gives you this idea?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Because we’ve seen it happen. When you compare exit polls, which are generally accurate to within 1 percent, with the electronic outcome, there are huge variations. And we have documented many dozens of different things that they have done over the years to flip electronic votes.
AMY GOODMAN: How does e-voting, electronic voting, work? And who controls the controls on it?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, that’s the key. The electronic voting machines are owned by private corporations, which are Republican in orientation, generally. And the courts have ruled that the source code on these electronic voting machines is proprietary. So, even the governments that buy or lease these machines have no access to a final verification process. Even Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." And we know that the vote count was flipped in 2004. We know it was flipped in Volusia County in 2000.
AMY GOODMAN: Where is Volusia County?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: In Florida, when Al Gore basically was the rightful winner, and George W. Bush won the election. I mean, the only great--
AMY GOODMAN: And they were electronic voting machines?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: In Volusia County, they were, yes. In the southern part of Florida, they used butterfly ballots, as you’ll recall. The only good thing we can say about George W. Bush is the American people never actually elected him president. And we’re looking now at 2016, at an election that will be very easily flipped, in those six key swing states and elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the answer?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: We have to have universal, hand-counted paper ballots. And Bernie Sanders has endorsed that. We have to have automatic voter registration, where people can monitor the registration rolls, because people are being stripped from the registration rolls, mostly, of course, African-American and Hispanic. But this year, we’re not going to get that. And this year, it’s going to be very, very difficult, in a close election, to monitor exactly what happens, because these are black boxes. We have a wonderful actress named Bev Harris, who’s been working with Greg Palast and others, who has shown, in black box voting, that the public has no real access, no verification process for the electronic votes. And so we’re going through this huge charade here of a national campaign, primaries and then a general election, where hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent, and on election night, in 60 seconds, the actual outcome can be flipped electronically in key swing states with no verification whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: If there are electronic voting machines everywhere, which there are now, right?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Pretty much, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you think they can be protected, people can be sure that their vote is counted, that they cast, even using electronic voting machines?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: They can’t be. You cannot verify an electronic voting machine. They are privately owned by private corporations, and the proprietary software prevents the public from getting access to the actual vote count. We’re going into a national election, and not just the presidency, but Senate seats, House seats. We believe three Senate seats in 2014 were stolen—in North Carolina, Colorado and Alaska—that the Republicans do not have a legitimate 54-seat, or whatever it is, majority in the Senate. And this will happen again. It’s not just the presidency. And we’ve been—we have written seven books about this, Bob Fitrakis and I, from our experience here in Ohio in 2004. And again, we have a Republican governor, Republican secretary of state, no verifiability on the electronic vote count. It will be arbitrary, when push comes to shove, on—midnight, 1:00 on election night—what the outcome will be.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think just Republicans would do it?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Oh, no, Democrats definitely do it. I have—we have strong questions about Rahm Emanuel being re-elected in Chicago, for example. We have no doubt that Scott Walker stole his re-election in Wisconsin.
AMY GOODMAN: Based on what?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Based on the miraculous discovery of several thousand votes in a so-called glitched computer voting machine that gave him a victory where it was clearly a defeat. You know, this is stuff that’s been going on a long time. These methods were perfected more or less overseas by the CIA and other covert and overt operations. They came back. It started in 1988 with George H.W. Bush using electronic voting machines in New Hampshire to beat Bob Dole in the 1988 primary. And we have seen since then the use of electronic voting machines all across the country to flip elections after they have stripped the voter rolls. And, you know--
AMY GOODMAN: When you say "stripping the voter rolls," you mean?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Yes, well, Greg Palast has reported on this. In Florida 2000, 90,000 mostly black and Hispanic voters were stripped out of the voter rolls before the election, in a vote count that was won by 600 votes. And in Ohio 2004, 300,000 voters in primarily urban areas were stripped off the voter rolls. People showed up to vote in the same precinct—as did I, by the way—they were—I was denied my absentee ballot, and we had a federal lawsuit on this, which we won and went nowhere after that.
But the reality is that we are voting in black boxes and that the governors and secretaries of state of these key swing states—but wherever you have a governor and secretary of state from the same party, be they Democrat or Republican, they have the power, under the electronic voting system, to flip the outcome of an election, with no verifiability, because the courts have ruled that these privately owned voting machines have proprietary software. It’s a nightmare. And it’s not democracy. I mean, Bernie Sanders has shown that the election—that the campaign finance is rigged, that the economy is rigged. Why wouldn’t they take the very small next step to rig the electronic voting machines?
His upcoming book is called The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.
Official: Measure had nothing to do with votes
UPDATED 7:00 AM EDT May 13, 2016
BALTIMORE --The city's election officials on Monday certified the primary election results in Baltimore, showing in the mayor's race state Sen. Catherine Pugh beat former Mayor Sheila Dixon for the Democratic nomination by just shy of 2,500 votes.
The Maryland State Board of Elections is not accepting city election results until the city gets an audit in order, I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller reported.
Miller reported that the Baltimore City Board of Elections election director Armstead B.C. Jones said it has "nothing to do with votes."
It is not a recount of votes, according to an elections source. Instead, an audit is being done to make sure paperwork backs up the number of people who cast votes.
Jones said the city election will be decertified and then recertified when paperwork is in order.
The trouble started Tuesday evening, the state's election chief says, when the city discovered 80 provisional ballots that hadn't been counted.
Then a bigger problem was discovered. People that should have been given provisional ballots to be vetted later were instead permitted to vote at the polls without the document that verifies they were eligible voters.
Election workers from other jurisdictions are helping the city reconcile its paperwork. Jones said similar problems have happened before.
Maryland Board of Elections state administrator Linda Lamone released the following statement Thursday afternoon:
"Over the last several days, the State Board of Elections has been conducting its normal review and reconciliation of the election data for the recent primary. Because of discrepancies in some of the data for Baltimore City, the state administrator has decided that the election data for all precincts in the city will be reviewed.
"In light of that decision, the Baltimore City Board of Canvassers will be rescinding its certification of the election results pending completion of the state board's review. It is expected that the Baltimore City Board of Canvassers will rescind its certification today at 6 p.m."
This does reopen the window for challenges to the city election at least for a few days. Former Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon said Thursday that she is "pleased there is additional review" of city votes.
Dixon released the following statement Thursday afternoon on the decision to decertify the Baltimore City election results:
"I'm pleased that there will be additional investigation into this election because every Baltimore voter who cast a ballot deserves to have their vote counted which still has not happened. I'm particularly bothered that there are provisional ballots that have not been counted even though the Board of Elections moved to certify the results. I am hopeful that state's review will provide answers to my questions about whether proper procedures were followed during this election."
On Wednesday, Dixon said she would not ask for a recount. Has that now changed? Her spokesperson said their options are open.
Will the audit being done make a difference? No, according to the source.
The number in question is within the margin of Pugh's lead over Dixon and won't change the result for the mayoral race.
The audit to reconcile discrepancies starts Monday. Election officials do not believe it will change the outcome. The results are expected to be recertified next week.
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One of the complaints in this Baltimore election was campaign staff being allowed to work at the polling machines under the guise of not having enough funds to hire election staff------
'After each vote, Collins allegedly said, “one more time” and Thomas reset the machine for him to register new votes, investigators said. The poll watcher told police there were no voters inside the polling place and the doors were locked while votes were cast. Investigators say they verified the poll watcher’s testimony by examining the voting cartridge'.
Philly Election Officials Charged With Voter Fraud
By David Chang
The Philadelphia district attorney announced fraud charges against four election officials Monday. NBC10's George Spencer has the details. (Published Monday, May 18, 2015)On the night before Philly’s primary, four local election officials are accused of casting extra votes in order to balance their numbers.
Sandra Lee, 60, Alexia Harding, 22, James Collins, 69, and Gregory Thomas, 60, are all charged with voter fraud. Warrants for their arrests were issued Monday. All four suspects were election officials from Philly’s 18th Ward, 1st Division.
“There’s no legally justifiable reason to vote multiple times and you cannot falsely certify that you live in a particular ward and division in order to work the polls and collect a check,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “Our democracy rests on free and fair elections, but it also relies on the fact that they are conducted properly, which is why these four individuals deserve to be arrested for what they did.”
On Feb. 16, 2015, a detective from the District Attorney’s Office Special Investigations Division interviewed a poll watcher who saw the division’s election board work to correct a discrepancy between the number of votes cast and the number of voters who signed in to vote, investigators said.
Voter Fraud Charges for Poll Workers
Arrest warrants have been issued for four Philadelphia poll workers just hours before the Mayoral Primary Election. NBC10's Rosemary Connors has the latest. (Published Monday, May 18, 2015)Once the polling place, the Hancock Recreation Center on 1401 N. Hancock Street, closed, the four suspects added six more votes to one of the machines to make the votes cast and sign-in books match, investigators said. Collins held the voting machine curtain open while Thomas was at the back of the machine, according to officials. Collins then allegedly registered several votes on the machine after the polls closed.
After each vote, Collins allegedly said, “one more time” and Thomas reset the machine for him to register new votes, investigators said. The poll watcher told police there were no voters inside the polling place and the doors were locked while votes were cast. Investigators say they verified the poll watcher’s testimony by examining the voting cartridge.
Officials also say a review of Harding’s, Collins’ and Thomas’ home addresses show they did not live nor were registered to vote in the 18th Ward 1st Division, a violation of the Election Code. Despite this, they still collected $125 in compensation, officials said.
Lee, who served as the 1st Division’s Judge of Elections, is charged with conspiracy, tampering with records, unsworn falsification, obstructing justice and other related offenses.
Harding, who served as the 1st Division’s Minority Inspector, is charged with false swearing and unsworn falsifications to authorities and qualifications of election officers.
Both Collins and Thomas, the Division’s Machine Inspectors, are charged with conspiracy, tampering with record, false swearing, unsworn falsification and other related offenses.
A new election board will be in place for Tuesday’s primary election.
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Chaos At Nevada Democratic Convention; DNC Leaders Flee Building As Sanders Supporters Demand Recount
6k Shares
By Tim Hains
Posted on May 15, 2016
(Update/clarification: This situation escalated out of control when Roberta Lange, Chairwoman of the Nevada State Democratic Party & member of the national DNC Executive Committee subjectively called the results of a voice vote, adjourned the meeting using a gavel, and left. According to a Democratic Party spokesman: "The DNC did not have a part in this.")
Adryenn Ashley posted several live videos (below) from inside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, where arcane secondary rounds of the delegate selection process of Nevada's Democratic caucus erupted into chaos Saturday night. Bernie Sanders supporters demanded 64 rejected pro-Sanders delegates listed in a "minority report" prepared by their campaign be allowed to participate in selecting delegates for the national convention.
DNC leaders refused to reconsider their decision not to allow this, adjourned, and fled the building amid a chorus of boos; leaving hotel security and local police officers to handle the angry Sanders supporters.
Earlier in the day, the Sanders camp objected to several of their delegates being disqualified from voting for administrative reasons, and booed Sen. Barbara Boxer when she called for unity. "If you're booing me, you're booing Bernie Sanders," she told them. "Go ahead, boo yourselves out of this election."
A member of the rules committee called the act of disallowing votes for purely administrative reasons a violation of the spirit of the values of our nation.
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Chicago Election Official Admits “Numbers Didn’t Match”: Hillary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders Election Fraud Allegations[VIDEO]
Posted By: Alex May 14, 2016
Jim Allen, Communications Director for the Chicago Board of Elections (BoE), acknowledges that “the numbers didn’t match” initially in the legally mandated 5% audit of voting and tabulating machines after the recent Illinois Democratic primary between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Allen, however, insists that this is simply a “perception issue” and that absolutely no election fraud took place.
Allen was responding by phone to my questions regarding allegations from citizen vote monitoring groups Who’s Counting? – Chicago and the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project (IBIP). Dr. Lora Chamberlain is a leader of Who’s Counting, which works with IBIP to credential election day monitors and joined them this year to audit the audit. IBIP was started in Illinois in the aftermath of the 2000 Al Gore versus George Bush Debacle. A total of six members of the two groups gave affidavit-based testimony at the April 5, 2016 Chicago Board of Elections meeting.
The testimony is, simply put, beyond stunning.
It can be view in its entirety on the official Chicago Elections YouTube channel. Beginning around the 24 minute mark will launch you into a most profoundly bizarre and troubling hour of bureaucratic bore and can-this-be-for-anything-like-real nonsense-mongering.
Chicago BoE Legal Counsel James Scanlon says early on that “[t]he 5% audit or tabulation cannot be used to change the results of the election. It’s only a means of testing the voting equipment.” Multiple times BoE members suggest that citizens testifying aren’t really credible to talk about an audit because they aren’t professional auditors. As Andrew Galipeau notes by way of comment at YouTube, the entirety of the citizen monitoring discussion takes place after the BoE has already pulled a fast one to certify the election results without allowing time for objections from those who showed up to do just that:
0:00 Meeting opens and introductions
0:30 1st item of business (accept the results)
0:45 From the audience “Can we object?” – “No, not yet”
1:01 “Any discussion? Does not let audience know this is the time to object/discuss
1:14 Motion passes and they accept the results.
1:38 Meeting is adjourned.
1:48 You can see her visibly exhale in relief, as they have just certified the results and the public has not realized Special meeting is started (but they have already accepted the results). The entire rest of the video is essentially meaningless and just putting on a show for the public to air grievances with no legal recourse available. Really wish we could fix it, bureaucracy is bullshit. It’s all certified legally official before 2 minutes into the video. Source
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New Yorkers unleash rage over alleged primary voter fraud at Board of Elections hearing
Furious voters who didn’t get to cast ballots in last month’s primary elections erupted in shouts and epithets Tuesday at a Board of Election hearing in Manhattan.
Dozens of New Yorkers waited hours for a chance to get two minutes at the microphone to vent their anger.
“This is fraud! You guys should do something about this,” Nabin Mandam, 41, of Queens lectured.
Shouts of “You need to hear the people!” and “This is not Democracy!” and “Fraud!” filled the room.
Angelika Nyzio, 20, of Brooklyn, told the BOE a glitch deleted her ballot.
Board of Elections Commissioner Bianca Perez and the rest of the panel heard from dozens of angry New Yorkers on Tuesday. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News) “Your mistake. My vote should be counted,” she said.
BOE director Michael Ryan and Commissioner Bianka Perez asked the crowd to leave when the meeting ended.
As many as 126,000 voters may have been purged due to a clerk’s error, the BOE has said.
Yet it is expected to certify the April 19 primary results Thursday.
Before the afternoon meeting began, about 50 protesters rallied outside the BOE’s lower Manhattan office on Broadway.
Activist Yvonne Gougelet leads the rally outside the city Board of Elections office on Broadway. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News)
DIRGE FOR THE PURGE: NYC BOARD OF ELECTIONS FAILS YET AGAIN
Both the state attorney general and the city controller launched investigations into allegations of voter purging from the rolls — especially in Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders’ home borough of Brooklyn.
Investigators said some 126,000 Brooklyn voters were removed from voter lists between November and April, or marked “inactive.”
Yvonne Gougelet, a long time voting rights advocate from Long Island City, said she’s never experienced disenfranchisement of this magnitude.
"I'm not just someone who's like, 'Oh, Bernie didn't win. I'm mad.' This is unconstitutional on a massive, grand scale,” she said.
"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country,” she added.
The Board of Elections initially dismissed the hundreds of complaints that poured in as groundless.
But it has since suspended its chief clerk in Brooklyn without pay.
BOARD OF ELECTIONS BOSS APOLOGIZES FOR PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBACLE IN NYC
The clerk may not have followed proper procedures while updating voter registration lists, the agency said.
This paper-bag-headed protester was among the crowd at the rally. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News) But the BOE has yet to give a full explanation of what went wrong on the April 19 presidential primaries.
Wendy Sacks, 63, of Park Slope, said she was mailed a notice from BOE saying city records indicated she had moved and needed to re-register.
Sacks has lived in the same location for decades, she said.
"I've been living at the same Brooklyn address for 30 years,” she said.
CITY CONTROLLER SAYS BREAK UP BOARD OF ELECTIONS IN WAKE OF VOTER PURGE
“This is unconstitutional on a massive, grand scale,” Gougelet said. (Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News) But when she got a notice from BOE asking for her new address, she filled out the form — with her old one — and sent it back.
She included a note to BOE that she was re-registering to vote but her address was the same.
A few weeks later, she got a card saying she was approved, she said.
Out of an abundance of caution, Sacks even brought that approval card to her polling site when she went to vote April 19.
"When I came to the polls I showed them my card, they said 'I'm sorry. You're not in the books but you can vote by affidavit ballot or go to a judge,’” she said.
She cast an affidavit ballot but also called BOE to lodge a complaint.
“The woman said, 'I see we sent you a letter. I see you returned it. I see we sent you the approval but then they took you off again.' I said, 'Why?' She said, 'I have no idea,’” Sacks recounted.
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5 Ways The Arizona Primaries Were Stolen! #ArizonaWasStolen
Tim Black
Published on Mar 23, 2016
Do you believe in the right to vote? Arizona doesn't. Multiple Democratic voters showed up to the polls only to find that they were listed as independents, Republicans, or had no party affiliation at all. There were at least 200 polling stations in 2012 and 400 in 2008, but just 60 open Tuesday, in Maricopa County, the most populated county in Arizona. Petition: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/peti...w York Election Fraud: Is Arizona Happening Again?Published 3:29 pm EDT, March 25, 2016 Updated 3:40 pm EDT, April 19, 2016
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Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Rhode Island
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 25, 2016U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI Prepared to Respond to Complaints of Election Fraud & Voting Rights Abuse
PROVIDENCE - United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha announced today that Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Terrence P. Donnelly will lead the efforts of his Office in connection with the Justice Department’s nationwide Election Day Program for the upcoming April 26, 2016, Presidential primary elections. AUSA Donnelly has been appointed to serve as the District Election Officer for the District of Rhode Island, and in that capacity is responsible for overseeing the District’s handling of complaints of election fraud and voting rights abuses in consultation with Justice Department Headquarters in Washington.
The Department of Justice has an important role in deterring election fraud and discrimination at the polls, and combating these violations whenever and wherever they occur. The Department’s long-standing Election Day Program furthers these goals, and also seeks to ensure public confidence in the integrity of the election process by providing local points of contact within the Department for the public to report possible election fraud and voting rights violations while the polls are open on Election Day.
Federal law protects against such crimes as intimidating or bribing voters, buying and selling votes, impersonating voters, altering vote tallies, stuffing ballot boxes, and marking ballots for voters against their wishes or without their input. It also contains special protections for the rights of voters and provides that they can vote free from acts that intimidate or harass them.
To report suspected election fraud or voting rights abuses at the polls in Rhode Island, the United States Attorney’s Office can be reached by the public at (401) 709-5068. In addition, the FBI field office in Rhode Island will be prepared to receive allegations of voting fraud and other election abuses at (401) 272-8310.
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I FEEL SO FLIPPED AND STRIPPED!!!!!!
Could the 2016 Election Be Stolen with Help from Electronic Voting Machines?
February 23, 2016
GuestsHarvey Wassermanindependent journalist and longtime anti-nuclear activist. His upcoming book is The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.
This is viewer supported news
DonateHarvey Wasserman of Columbus, Ohio, has been a vocal critic of electronic voting machines. He co-wrote the book, "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election." His upcoming book is titled "The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft." We talk to him about his concerns for the upcoming presidential race.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re in Westerville, Ohio, just outside Columbus. We’re at Otterbein University, where I’ll be teaching some classes today, or, let’s say, talking with students. We’re at OTV, which is Otterbein Television. And, Harvey Wasserman, I wanted to talk to you now about voting machines--
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: —and your concern over the years that electronic voting could be used to steal elections. Are you still concerned about this?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, electronic voting was used to steal the presidential election right here in Ohio in 2004. John Kerry was the rightful winner in 2004 over George W. Bush. The secretary of state at the time, J. Kenneth Blackwell, and the governor, Robert Taft, used their power of electronic vote count to flip the vote to George W. Bush from John Kerry.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know this?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: We watched it—I grew up here, Amy. We watched it, totally, right up close and personal. We did the accounting. I work with a political scientist named Bob Fitrakis. We’re about to come out with another book, The Strip & Flip of the 2016 Selection. They are stripping the voter rolls—and Greg Palast, the great investigative reporter, is doing great on this—removing African Americans, Hispanics, people who might incline to vote progressive, and they—so that—in 2004, they stripped 300,000 people from the voter rolls here in the urban areas. Bush only won by less than 120 [thousand].
And this year, about 80 percent of the vote nationally will be cast on electronic voting machines. There is no verifiability. In six key swing states—Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona—you have Republican governors and Republican secretaries of state, and no method of verifying the electronic vote count. At midnight or whenever it is on election night, those two guys can go in there with an IT person and flip the outcome of an electronically counted vote within about 60 seconds. So all this millions and millions of dollars, people out campaigning and so on, can be negated by an electronic vote flip late at night on election night, and there is no way to verify what’s happened.
AMY GOODMAN: They didn’t do this with President Obama in 2008.
HARVEY WASSERMAN: They did. He had too many votes; he was too far out. They couldn’t—it would have taken them too many, to flip too many states. [inaudible] believe Obama won by well over 10 million votes. The last—the final vote count was in—official, was in 7 or 8 million.
AMY GOODMAN: But what gives you this idea?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Because we’ve seen it happen. When you compare exit polls, which are generally accurate to within 1 percent, with the electronic outcome, there are huge variations. And we have documented many dozens of different things that they have done over the years to flip electronic votes.
AMY GOODMAN: How does e-voting, electronic voting, work? And who controls the controls on it?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, that’s the key. The electronic voting machines are owned by private corporations, which are Republican in orientation, generally. And the courts have ruled that the source code on these electronic voting machines is proprietary. So, even the governments that buy or lease these machines have no access to a final verification process. Even Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." And we know that the vote count was flipped in 2004. We know it was flipped in Volusia County in 2000.
AMY GOODMAN: Where is Volusia County?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: In Florida, when Al Gore basically was the rightful winner, and George W. Bush won the election. I mean, the only great--
AMY GOODMAN: And they were electronic voting machines?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: In Volusia County, they were, yes. In the southern part of Florida, they used butterfly ballots, as you’ll recall. The only good thing we can say about George W. Bush is the American people never actually elected him president. And we’re looking now at 2016, at an election that will be very easily flipped, in those six key swing states and elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the answer?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: We have to have universal, hand-counted paper ballots. And Bernie Sanders has endorsed that. We have to have automatic voter registration, where people can monitor the registration rolls, because people are being stripped from the registration rolls, mostly, of course, African-American and Hispanic. But this year, we’re not going to get that. And this year, it’s going to be very, very difficult, in a close election, to monitor exactly what happens, because these are black boxes. We have a wonderful actress named Bev Harris, who’s been working with Greg Palast and others, who has shown, in black box voting, that the public has no real access, no verification process for the electronic votes. And so we’re going through this huge charade here of a national campaign, primaries and then a general election, where hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent, and on election night, in 60 seconds, the actual outcome can be flipped electronically in key swing states with no verification whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: If there are electronic voting machines everywhere, which there are now, right?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Pretty much, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you think they can be protected, people can be sure that their vote is counted, that they cast, even using electronic voting machines?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: They can’t be. You cannot verify an electronic voting machine. They are privately owned by private corporations, and the proprietary software prevents the public from getting access to the actual vote count. We’re going into a national election, and not just the presidency, but Senate seats, House seats. We believe three Senate seats in 2014 were stolen—in North Carolina, Colorado and Alaska—that the Republicans do not have a legitimate 54-seat, or whatever it is, majority in the Senate. And this will happen again. It’s not just the presidency. And we’ve been—we have written seven books about this, Bob Fitrakis and I, from our experience here in Ohio in 2004. And again, we have a Republican governor, Republican secretary of state, no verifiability on the electronic vote count. It will be arbitrary, when push comes to shove, on—midnight, 1:00 on election night—what the outcome will be.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think just Republicans would do it?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Oh, no, Democrats definitely do it. I have—we have strong questions about Rahm Emanuel being re-elected in Chicago, for example. We have no doubt that Scott Walker stole his re-election in Wisconsin.
AMY GOODMAN: Based on what?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Based on the miraculous discovery of several thousand votes in a so-called glitched computer voting machine that gave him a victory where it was clearly a defeat. You know, this is stuff that’s been going on a long time. These methods were perfected more or less overseas by the CIA and other covert and overt operations. They came back. It started in 1988 with George H.W. Bush using electronic voting machines in New Hampshire to beat Bob Dole in the 1988 primary. And we have seen since then the use of electronic voting machines all across the country to flip elections after they have stripped the voter rolls. And, you know--
AMY GOODMAN: When you say "stripping the voter rolls," you mean?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Yes, well, Greg Palast has reported on this. In Florida 2000, 90,000 mostly black and Hispanic voters were stripped out of the voter rolls before the election, in a vote count that was won by 600 votes. And in Ohio 2004, 300,000 voters in primarily urban areas were stripped off the voter rolls. People showed up to vote in the same precinct—as did I, by the way—they were—I was denied my absentee ballot, and we had a federal lawsuit on this, which we won and went nowhere after that.
But the reality is that we are voting in black boxes and that the governors and secretaries of state of these key swing states—but wherever you have a governor and secretary of state from the same party, be they Democrat or Republican, they have the power, under the electronic voting system, to flip the outcome of an election, with no verifiability, because the courts have ruled that these privately owned voting machines have proprietary software. It’s a nightmare. And it’s not democracy. I mean, Bernie Sanders has shown that the election—that the campaign finance is rigged, that the economy is rigged. Why wouldn’t they take the very small next step to rig the electronic voting machines?
His upcoming book is called The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.
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