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"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." - Thomas Paine

"You are not required to complete the task, yet you are not free to withdraw from it." - Rabbi Tarfon

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By now, we're all familiar with the memoir by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, which apparently roundly condemns White House war policies and actions.

If you haven't yet read about it, here is one article you can explore on NPR.

How many people have been killed, maimed, or damaged since the un-elected, Supreme Court-installed Bush Administration invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq?

Hundreds of thousands of destroyed lives later, Scott McClellan now confesses that he was the willing instrument of propaganda used by the occupiers of the White House to "sell" the war to Congress. Congress, who not only lapped it up with unquestioning stupidity and provided continuous unmitigated war funding, but to this day obstinately refuses to hold itself or the administration accountable for this treasonous crime.

New Hampshire's primary delivered a "surprise" upset victory to Senator Hillary Clinton, contradicting all pre-election poll predictions and even the facts on the ground, which showed Senator Obama with a strong lead and enthusiastic overflow crowds at every New Hampshire appearance.

Political pundits in the corporate media and citizen journalists in the Blogosphere alike are all asking the same question: What happened in New Hampshire?

It's pretty easy to see what happened in New Hampshire: We had an election in which 81% of our ballots were counted in secret by a private corporation, and this resulted in an outcome that is called into question.

That's what happened.

No recount is going to change this. What will change this is to get rid of corporate controlled secret vote counting in our elections.

New Hampshire holds exemplary elections in 45% of our polling places; elections where our paper ballots are counted by hand by our neighbors in full public view with 100% citizen oversight and checks and balances. These hand count elections, of which New Hampshire is the “hands down” expert, provide the only method known today that can guarantee open and honest elections. These are elections where every ballot, every vote, every mark made by the voter, is observed and tallied in full public view with multiple sets of eyes watching and checking and balancing each count.

SOURCE: OpEdNews

December 17, 2007

By Nancy Tobi

Election Defense Alliance has filed an amicus brief in support of the State of New York and against federal takeover of its elections. The Department of Justice would like to force the state to buy computerized voting equipment in order to meet compliance standards for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

But EDA's position is clear: Hand Counting Paper Ballots is HAVA compliant.

Not only that, properly run HCPB meets the standards for democratic elections.

There is no need for New York or any state to sell out our democracy - no, to GIVE IT AWAY - to the corporate e-voting industrialists and their collaborators who are stealing our democratic birthright with their secret vote counting computerized technologies.

The feds may have passed HAVA, but we the people don't have to buy its bill of goods. The safest, most secure and reliable method of HAVA-compliant vote counting is to hand count our paper ballots.

By Nancy Tobi

Many people have emailed me asking what does the NH Fair Elections Committee think of the so-called "compromise" version of the Holt bill being brought to the US House floor this coming Wednesday.

They want to know, how should they vote in MoveOn's latest poll, asking their feelings about the bill. We see this as a good sign, that after months and months of pro-811 propaganda and ignoring the voting integrity movement's concerns, MoveOn seems to be open to a new look at their steadfast and inexplicable support of HR811.

So here's the straight poop. When they say the latest version is a "compromise" bill, what this means is that Congress has compromised the will of the people, the good of the nation, in favor of industry lobbyists. In December 2006 wethepatriots.org submitted to every cosponsor of HR811, including NH Congressman Hodes, a letter in opposition to HR811 with suggested amendments. This letter was signed by 800 American citizens and organizations.

How many industry lobbyists does it take to outweigh 800 ordinary Americans? Apparently as many as can fit into a room with the House Administration Committee.

In September 2006 New Hampshire was brought to shame when all four of our Washington delegates voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act.

Next Tuesday two of these men are asking New Hampshire voters to send them back to Washington. Well, I watched the debates with their challengers. I watched as the newsmen (and I believe they were all men) asked their typical questions: what will you do about taxes, healthcare, the war....

Not one asked about torture. Nobody mentioned the congressional votes that handed the Executive--the occupier of the Oval Office--unilateral power in deciding who among us can be considered an enemy, who among us can be indefinitely detained and tortured, while never having any rights to question that detention or to have legal representation. The Military Commissions Act never came up. The silence deafened me.

Is this the America you believe in?

View this video. Maybe our "representatives" need to hear from you.

I confess to feeling enveloped by a gauzy layer of sadness since last week, when Congress brought a shame upon the land so deep and so wide that even Monday's Day of Atonement could not wash us clean of it.

It was last week that Congress voted to legalize torture--yes, torture!--and detention without due process or legal representation. It was last week that, with their votes, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg and New Hampshire Congressmen Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley officially crossed over to a dark side from which many, many, many days of atonement will not rescue them.

How will America recover from their betrayal? How many will die for their sins?

So the sadness remains. But, you know, in order to go on, sometimes you've just gotta laugh. It feels so good, especially in dark times like these.

So, with thanks to Comedy Central, I bring you Jon Stewart, trying his darndest to lighten our load.

And Colbert takes the presidency to the next level: Lucifer.

I spent the weekend in Cleveland at the We Count Conference, with what used to be known as election integrity activists, but are now solidly redefined as civil and human rights activists. Under the shadow of the recent sharp turn to fascism with the passage of a bill legalizing torture and detention without due process, these election integrity activists took their work seriously.

This unforgivable sin undertaken last week by those in the halls of power, duly or unduly elected as the case may be, overshadowed every speech, every workshop, every conversation, every utterance, every breath, every hope, every wish, and every whisper spoken at the conference.

So I return to the Granite State and post here a compendium of news relating to this devastating blow to the American Republic.

Senator Spector (R-PA) inserted an amendment to "strike the provision regarding habeas review." This amendment would have left intact our civil and human rights under the legal doctrine of habeas corpus. The amendment's defeat means detainees will be completely prohibited from challenging the validity of their detention before any tribunal of any kind.

Senator Judd Gregg, proponent of the Patriot Act, the Real ID, and other fascist tyrannies, once again dipped his hands in blood and voted to kill the amendment. Senator Sununu voted in favor of the amendment and human rights. Thank you, Senator Sununu.

Does anyone know how Bass and Bradley voted? Please post here, if you can find that elusive information.

compendium of news articles on this atrocity below the fold

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I was honored this week to be a counter at the State recounts following our primary. New Hampshire has long had laws requiring real paper ballots (I think NH was the first state to enact such laws), we have long had a tradition of manual recounts, and this tradition was recently enacted into law as well.

Today's recount was for an optical scan district, meaning that we were comparing the machine count results against the hand recount results. Hand counts generally produce different results from machines. That's because when you use machines to count votes, not every vote is counted. Pure and simple.

Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch, who is an expert in the New Hampshire election system, has been known to remark that the Diebold optical scanners used in New Hampshire will count ballots perfectly when the ballots are perfectly marked. Meaning, that the voters need to fill in the little ovals exactly enough to be read by the scanner, or their votes are not counted.

This is where the notion of voter intent comes in. When a citizen comes to the polls to make this personal, political expression called voting, he or she is asked to indicate this expression on a ballot. People, being people, will not always mark their ballots with perfectly filled ovals. Sometimes, they'll circle the name of their candidate. Or they might cross off every other candidate's name to show just how much they really like their candidate. Or, they might simply be sloppy and unintentionally color outside instead of inside the lines.

more below the fold
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Editor's note: In early June 2006 I was asked, together with Jonathan Simon and Sally Castleman of the Election Defense Alliance, to speak before the Cambridge, MA Alliance for Democracy. Below is the transcript from that talk, which addressed election reform locally and on the national level.

Jonathan Simon: Nancy Tobi is vice-chair of Democracy for New Hampshire where they've been doing a great deal of work in many areas--a lot of it on the local and state level and much of it on election integrity issues. She has embraced one particular area with ferocity and detail -- the legislation now pending in Congress, the Holt Bill (HR 550). Nancy has a strong and well-thought-out position on HR 550. In a relatively short time she will explain why the Holt bill is a disaster.

Transcript of Presentations and Q & A:

more below the fold
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Early this week, I was at the Take Back America conference in Washington DC. Conference organizers refused to put election integrity on the agenda, so I was sent to put the issue on the agenda by talking to participants and letting them know about the Election Defense Alliance.

more below the fold

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I am writing to ask your support in urging the Governor to VETO SB403. This bill as amended by a single party Committee of Conference, will, if passed into law require election workers to separate the affidavits of all voters registering on election day who do not have a photo ID. These affidavits will be segregated and the names of the voters will be marked on the voter registration database for follow up and possible investigation.

There are many good reasons for the Governor to veto the bill, not the least of which being that election workers in 2006 will be overwhelmed already with implementing two entirely new voting systems mandated by the federal government: a centralized voter registration database and a voting solution for persons with disabilities. This is not the year to create additional requirements, especially requirements that can have the effect of voter suppression if not properly carried out.

WMUR TV reported last night that Goffstown police have established checkpoints and are forcing residents to leave their own properties by 8 PM.

Claiming safety concerns, Goffstown officials apparently believe that New Hampshire residents can not independently take care of themselves and their families on their own property!

Live free or die?

Sounds like martial law to me.

Following are my remarks from today's conference on Cleaning up our Statehouses:

Democracy for New Hampshire is a true grassroots organization. We are 100% volunteer-powered sustained by small donor funding.

As a people-powered organization, we are intensely and directly connected to community needs and values.

In New Hampshire, we know a lot about the importance of community and community-based political engagement. We have the largest citizen legislature in the nation, our elected representatives are eminently accessible, in many of our towns we debate community and political decisions in open town meetings, and in 45% of our polling places we count our ballots by hand with community members and volunteers pitching in to keep the count honest.

Looking at electoral reform, we face three challenges directly related to this question of community-based politics:

1) How do we prevent a lot of hard work at the state and local levels from being swept away by federal mandates?

In the evening of Patriot’s Day, 2006, we held what may well have been an historic meeting in the New Hampshire Legislative Office Building. Secretary of State William Gardner hosted a meeting for town moderators from 24 towns facing the choice of having the State replace their obsolete voting machines, or taking the money to pay for hand counting instead.

We – ordinary citizens – were invited to speak to the moderators about choosing hand counting instead of taking these new machines.

It might have been historic, but almost none of the invited moderators came. I don’t know why they didn’t come. Maybe because it happened to be a heavenly, balmy, early spring evening. Maybe they thought they had nothing to learn from us. Maybe they didn't receive the notification about the meeting from their town clerks. Or maybe the machine salesman, with much more time and resources to make his sales calls than we will ever have, had already cornered the market.

But you never know, really, why things turn out the way they do.

Question: What will it take before Americans get off their fat a$$es and take to the streets?

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Heading out to some of the Congressional Candidate forums? Going to see White House contenders? Well, let's start asking them about this. On the record.

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Report: Bush Considers Nuclear Strikes on Iran

The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, according to a new report.

Longtime investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who claims to have high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts, said President Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler." Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, makes his new claims in The New Yorker magazine, according to the London Telegraph.

Today many of you have received an action alert from TrueMajority, asking you to sign a petition in support of HR 550, also known as the Holt Bill. I would like to issue a counter alert.

The Holt Bill is well intended, but unfortunately, it is not just about paper ballots; it includes several dangerous provisions that are not good for our democracy at all.

Consequently, there are many election activists, including most of us on the DFNH Fair Elections Committee, who do NOT endorse the Holt bill as written. The movement of informed activists against the Holt bill is growing each day. This bill, like the Help America Vote Act, was borne from the grassroots but now seems to have been hijacked by special interests.

Since GW Bush occupied the White House, and I do mean, occupied, I have felt that he is at war with America. Undermining our democratic ideals by subverting the electoral processes, unabashedly and unashamedly removing civil liberties. Selling us out. The list goes on and on.

But he is not alone, obviously. Those who sit in Congressional seats of power, duly or unduly elected, have not risen to protect the Republic as is their sworn responsibility.

Greg Sagan, whose article we published last week, said it plain and simple: What's this guy gotta do to get impeached?

I'm guessing it's gonna take some real patriots who put the honor of our republic above all else. Above party. Above wealth. Above power.

Those are the people I want to see in Congress. If you are not a patriot, go home.

Bush quote of the day:
"I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company."

Interestingly enough, yesterday the organization VerifiedVotingFoundation.org issued a press release recommending ballot marking solutions to meet the HAVA disability solution federal mandate.

I have blogged before that our state law requires that all electronic voting machines must be able to "read the voter's choice on a paper ballot."

Part and parcel of the integrity of the New Hampshire election system is the hand counted paper ballot recount procedures, implemented by Secretary of State Gardner. As noted by Kevin Zeese:

Bill Gardner, the New Hampshire Secretary of State, unlike many election administrators, has come to learn that recounts are an important part of ensuring credibility of an election outcome. He makes the point that a successful election is when the losing candidate, and his or her supporters, are confident that the result was accurate. The capability of conducting a transparent hand recount of paper ballots in public with the media and all interested parties watching, is critical to achieving that goal.

I encourage interested citizens, and trust me, that means every single NH citizen, to review the RFP for our state HAVA disability solution. Then direct any inquiries regarding specific vendor responses to the office of the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State is currently accepting public comment on the HAVA State Plan. Please take the time to review the plan, and submit your comments. If you have any questions at all about HAVA in NH, please contact the DFNH Fair Elections Committee at fec@democracyfornewhampshire.com.

We have the chance now, and only now, to act to preserve those elements of our voting system that we hold near and dear. Currently, 47% of our precincts have no voting machines in them at all. Do you want that to change?

So first we learn that Bush wants the face of America to be that of the cold, lying, and generally oddball Condoleeza Rice. Who can forget her uncomfortable, shifty performance before the 911 commission? How embarrassing to think that she will be representing us to the world. And now the Republicans have changed their ethics rules to allow Majority leader Tom DeLay to retain his leadership post even if he is indicted by a Texas grand jury on state political corruption charges. OMG. The new national slogan c/o the GOP: Lie, Cheat and Steal. You will be rewarded.