Bev Harris, founder of Black Box Voting Inc., (a nonpartisan, nonprofit elections watchdog group) has witnessed the vault where New Hampshire's paper ballots are being stored as being slit, as well as several boxes where the ballots have been stored, as being "slit". In fact, last night the ballots weren't even put into the vault and were left insecure. I'm not sure if New Hampshire has any laws which require the ballots to be secure, but this has to be troubling.
She also states on her website that the seal used on these ballots is inadequate.
But the "seal" can be removed, like a Post-it, and reaffixed. So it's not a seal all!
Bev also notes that:
What they did last night, with the incoming batch that we had photographed in the field, was roll them into the counting room. We waited. The handful of officials waited. These officials included Secretary of State Bill Gardner, Head of the Archive building Frank Mevers, Assistant secretary of state David Scanlan, Ballot transport drivers "Butch and Hoppy" (whose names are really Armand and Peter); Kucinich representatives Manny and Pat, a secretary of state assistant named, I think, Karen Hand.
They waited. We waited. It was very odd, to me at least. The ballots were sitting in the middle of the counting room, all these officials were standing around talking quietly with each other. I assumed they were waiting for something, results sheets perhaps. I decided to stay with video ready until the ballots were wheeled back to the vault.
One of the transport guys, "Hoppy" I think, then said that the ballots would not be taken to the vault that night because it was "closed" -- implying that whoever had the key was no longer there. Frank Mevers had the key. But I saw Frank Mevers. And the ballots had been moved to the vault even later the night before, because counting teams had stayed and counted up until about 7 pm.
Also, recounts that were made in Manchester's fifth ward are totally out of whack:
Diebold Hand
Result Count
Count
CLINTON 683 619
EDWARDS 255 217
OBAMA 404 365
Something needs to be done to make these ballots more secure. If you can help in the recount, I'm told they need people video taping.