The State of Florida put on what might have looked to untrained eyes to be an audit—but we election integrity activists knew, without doubt, it was nothing more than a charade.
Before I begin to describe the "audit," there is something that needs to be made clear. During the audit, members of Voter Action and lead attorney Lowell Finley, were repeatedly asked by media and others if they were "with the Jennings camp." It became quite obvious that even the media here in our own state isn’t aware that there are two distinctly different legal actions with regard to Sarasota and its botched election.
Although the judge consolidated these two cases as a matter of efficiency -- for the simple reason that much of the evidence will overlap -- the separate nature of the lawsuits shouldn’t be misunderstood. It's useful too, to know just who is doing the heavy lifting. More below...
1. The Jennings lawsuit wherein the Democrats assert that (1) Christine Jennings is the rightful winner of this election but for the failures of the voting system, and (2) Sarasota needs a revote. While the Democrats' lawsuit seeks an examination of the software and machines, the main objective of this litigation is to achieve victory for their candidate.
2. The nonpartisan Voters’ lawsuit is brought by both Republican and Democratic voters seeking (1) a revote; and (2) a court order that would grant plaintiffs (the voters) the right of access to the voting machines and the ES&S source code used in Sarasota County. With that access, an independent team of computer scientists can study what happened here and help us to make sure that this never happens again. It is not just the candidates who suffer when these systems don’t work. It is just as much, and even more, the voters. On behalf of all of us, these voters are seeking, primarily, to ensure the integrity of future elections.
The voters are represented by Voter Action, ACLU Foundation of Florida, People For the American Way Foundation, and Electronic Frontier Foundation. The designated lead attorney, setting the strategy and orchestrating its implementation, is VoterAction's Lowell Finley, the lead counsel on ten similar cases in nine states.
In the end, the nonpartisan effort on behalf of the voters is the one that is solely concerned with getting at the full and unvarnished truth of the matter-- regardless of the outcome of this one election -- and preventing this from ever happening again. That's what motivates these courageous voters and the organizations representing them. BTW: So far as I can tell, each of the nonprofit entities is raising money independently of the others. I worry for Voter Action which is the smallest of the group and, unlike the national orgs, has no well-oiled fundraising machine.
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Friday, December 1, 2006
At the Sarasota Supervisor of Elections warehouse, the State continued its "audit"— this time testing voting machines that were actually used on Election Day in Sarasota County. The particular machines were selected by the various parties to make it fair. What isn’t fair or reasonable is that it was the State—a DEFENDANT in the voters’ lawsuit—who wrote the test scripts for the faux "voters" who, by the way, are also employees of the DEFENDANT, the State Division of Elections. Gee, what a surprise.
Test scripts are like a script for a play. These scripts, in particular, were pure fiction. They listed a sequence of touches, either votes or commands, that a test voter must enter into the machines being tested. The touches should, if done properly, mimic the exact order of the touches (and votes) a real voter would have made when voting. Only problem is, the machines don’t keep a record of the order of the touch strokes. So they made them up.
Not only were they fictional, they were bizarre. Get a load of this: Since the machines only record the time of day that a voter would have pressed the "VOTE" button, they were having the faux "voters" touch the "VOTE" button at a time of day that coincided with a real vote time on Election Day. How peculiar to be casting faux "votes" at times that "some voter" voted on Election Day! Can anyone tell me how this is relevant to anything?
Or this: the State scripted the pseudo-voters to "recreate" the anomaly that voters complained of over and over again on the night of the forum at the Hyatt. The script required a vote to be cast in the CD-13 race, say for Jennings, but then when they got to the summary screen the script instructed them to go back to the CD-13 race and "unvote" for Jennings. Completely NOT what real voters reported they were doing or how the machines responded. There is no record of this ever having occurred. The more we watched, the more our heads hurt.
Besides being flabbergasted at the lack of relevance of these "audits," our observers were struck by the overall sense of flat out fakery as they watched this contorted process. Other strange differences include the fact that the machines were hung up on the wall, vertically. A voter would never see or use them in this position on Election Day and, further, it changes the angle of the screen and the angle of the voters’ approach to the screen. Oh, and they also had faux "vote checkers" that followed the faux "voters." Or maybe they were real. By this point, who knew?
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Sunday, December 3, 2006
Today is the day of the rally. It is early yet, but I can’t sleep. My eyes pop open at 6am on a Sunday morning and, after wrestling with a card table and boxes of tabling materials, I’m off. An hourlong drive south to Sarasota turns into twice that because Florida Highway Patrol has shut down the Skyway Bridge due to a slow-motion caravan of 8,000 motorcycles doing a Toys for Tots parade. I take a long detour, first going north, then east, then finally, south to get to Sarasota. (The parade reminds me it’s nearly Christmas and I haven’t done the first bit of shopping. Lord only knows how all that’s going to happen.)
I arrive at Bayfront Park in Sarasota to find excitement in the air. Tents are up, banners are lashed to tentpoles, literature, bumper stickers, and sign-up sheets are at the ready. Everywhere, people are carrying signs that say in bright, bold, red letters: "REVOTE." The roster of speakers includes Kindra Muntz of Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (S.A.F.E.); Reverend Charles McKenzie, former candidate for the Florida House and Florida Coordinator for the RainbowPUSH coalition; Lowell Finley, Esq., lead counsel in the voters’ lawsuit and Co-Director of Voter Action; Howard Simon, President of ACLU Florida; Reggie Mitchell, Esq., legal counsel, People For the American Way; Chellie Pingree, CEO of Common Cause; and Trevor Harvey, of the NAACP Sarasota Chapter. Others in attendance included Ben Wilcox, Executive Director of Common Cause Florida; and voting integrity activists from all around the state. The crowd, though, is an estimated 750-1,000 people—mostly Sarasota County voters.
DKos’ own JR was there liveblogging as well as media from all over the state. I heard CNN was there though didn’t see them myself. People were fired up and Reverend McKenzie kept the crowd going, chanting "We want hope! Give us the revote!" A local jazz and blues band played some really good jams for the crowd and, but for the somber reason we had gathered, I think it might have turned into a party. Check out this great video montage of the Revote Rallycreated by Jeannie Dean.
It is a glorious thing to see the voters of this state coming alive: ready and willing to fight for verifiable elections. People are realizing that no one is going to do this for us. We have to do it ourselves and it’s worth fighting for. I sense a turning of the tide.
The rally ended far too quickly. We packed up our Voter Action table full of materials and banners and loaded it all in my van. Members of the Voter Action team met up at Lowell Finley’s hotel afterward to chill for a while and then we went on to Carrabba’s for dinner with Reggie Mitchell, Howard Simon and a very special visitor: Congressman Rush Holt. Holt spent most of dinner listening intently to our concerns about the VVPAT language in HR 550 and why we all see the necessity of language mandating an actual voter-verified paper ballot (versus a "paper trail"). We talked about how those add-on printers with their toilet paper roll receipts are rarely, if ever, checked up on, they jam something terrible (as in Ohio recently), and how the receipts’ contents are never a guarantee of what is in the memory register of the machines.
The sangria was perfect and the company and discussion at dinner couldn’t have been more interesting. It was a perfect end to a great day. I nodded off dreaming of successful legislation in Congress that mandates VVPB and random, manual, mandatory audits nationwide.
(I’m such a geek... What has happened to me?)
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Monday, December 4, 2006
Still high from yesterday. Never mind. Too much work to do. Lowell Finley flies back to California for what is only the second short visit home for him in six weeks. Other team members and carpoolers-to-the-rally head home to Miami and Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale to rest up and regroup.
It’s laundry day at my house and it’s really piled up. (Can’t imagine why... can’t get good help around here.) Monday is always a slog for me. Kids out the door by 7:45am. Carpool duty done at 8:30am. Sort the laundry in baskets and shove it out the front door to one of my personal heroes, Dave, the wash-dry-fold guy. I’m back at battle stations (my desk) by 8:50am.
My folks arrived in town late yesterday from Miami, to visit and celebrate my birthday (tomorrow). Needless to say, this work doesn’t stop for birthdays... or company. Though "ordered" by my election integrity colleagues to take the day off, WMNF radio wants to interview Lowell Finley tomorrow and arrangements must be made. I’m on it.
My mom and dad grumble a bit about how busy I am, but forgive me anyway.
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Tuesday, December 5, 2006
After an extremely late night/early morning of all things election integrity, I contact the station, make sure WMNF Radio and Lowell Finley have each other’s numbers and expect to connect via phone. Okay, okay... I listen to every word of Lowell Finley’s interview at 1:15pm. (See, I told you I’m a geek.) Even my mother was quite impressed at how he "actually answered people’s questions without beating around the bush." The day's work done, I celebrate my birthday-- and what I'm sure will be our ultimate success-- with my beautiful family.
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Thursday, December 7, 2006
11:00am: Christine Jennings announces on the steps of the Sarasota County Courthouse that she is not conceding, her legal team wants access to the software, and she does not accept the results of the "audit." This is a patriotic act and we all know it.
8:00pm: Megan Matson of Mainstreet Moms, a dear friend, fellow mom, multi-tasker and coalition partner I met through VoteTrustUSA, suggests getting video of voters telling their own stories. Holly Jacobson, another beautiful mom-friend of mine and Co-Director of Voter Action, and I think it's a great idea, too.
11:00pm: In preparation for my new adventure into the world of videography, I load up my laptop, business cards, video camera, tripod, charge cords and a note pad. I've confirmed three interviews scheduled for the morning.
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Friday, December 8, 2006
Once the kids are safely tucked away at school, I zoom south over the Skyway Bridge, video gear in tow, and head down to what I now think of as "Ground Zero."
In truth, in the world of election integrity, there have been many "Ground Zeroes" that have come before Sarasota, but public awareness wasn’t such that they resonated. Among those of us that pay attention to these things, I think it’s safe to say that there is a real sense of mourning for every "election Ground Zero" that has come and gone without due notice paid. And we have not forgotten.
But, somehow, Sarasota is different. The time is different, and voters seem tuned in. Even the press is paying some attention. This truly is a "perfect storm" and, like those hurricanes spawned off the coast of West Africa, this one is a full Category 5. Disgruntled voters, public and media interest, combined with experienced counsel and many other factors have all amassed and are fueling a swirling vortex of momentum that continues to intensify and will, hopefully, provide a more satisfying and noteworthy conclusion to this chapter of the story.
I arrive this morning at the home of a lovely 84y/o woman who, the night before when I called her, sounded a bit down. Mrs. L told me that while she cares very much about votes being counted properly and wants to tell her story, she is going through radiation therapy for breast cancer and didn't think she could help because her treatment is scheduled for the the next day. We talked for a bit, and by the end of our conversation she decided I could film her in the morning-- which would help her keep her mind off of her treatment in the afternoon. By the end of our chat she is perky and animated. As she opens her front door to me today, I see she’s dressed up for me in a pretty, lime green pantsuit with flowers embroidered on the shoulder to be my first... ahem... guinea pig. Well, I hope not, but we shall see.
We sit on her back patio next to the pool, with nothing but the lush green that is Sarasota swaying in the background, while she tells her story of how after multiple tries she couldn’t make her vote "take." Her cat, Otis (Redding), strolls out to see what we’re up to and decides to chime in. More than once. It’s okay. Nothing in the Constitution says the First Amendment doesn’t apply to cats. At least, not that I know of.
Though Alice and I could talk all day, I go fairly quickly. My next voter is an architect; we meet at his downtown office. He describes for the camera how his vote disappeared from the summary page and he had to repeat the process before it would show up. He is articulate and disillusioned; soft-spoken and outraged. He is paying attention.
I conclude my first two interviews worried that I don’t have the right equipment for this work, that I won’t do these these people justice. Do I have the right lighting? Do I have decent audio? All these little, troubling technical questions.
There is a deeper concern weighing on my heart. I hear in these citizens’ voices real sadness and angst. I hear the seeds of self-doubt planted by officials who would always blame voters over machines. I hear in their voices real yearning for a return to a system that is comprehensible to the average voter-- and something with a backup plan. What these citizens are telling my camera (and the world) is that it is fundamental to our democracy to have their voice be heard and their vote be counted. They will settle for nothing less.
Hear, hear, my friends. Hear, hear.