TN-09 Black Voters History Erased? - up to 40,000 black voters in Shelby County

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Monday May 28, 2012 · 9:19 PM PDT

2012/05/28 · 21:19

From the local Fox channel quoting Bev Harris:

"The ones I found, the 500 voters, are at least still on the list, although their histories have been erased, which can be a preparation for purging. But, there are over 10,000 voters in Cohen's district and they have simply been evaporated from the list all together," added Harris. FOX13 Memphis -40,000 Voter Records Erased?

Local Press Questions: are 40,000 Voter affected?

Memphis, Tn - Norma Lester with the Shelby County Election Commission says the commission chair requested an investigation into recent allegations of thousands of county voter histories being purged, according to a letter FOX 13 obtained.........
"There's 600,000 voters on the Shelby County voter list and for it just to happen to African Americans in one particular district who vote democrat is certainly not just random chance," says Harris...............

Harris says after continuing her research, she found that not just 488 but 13,000 voter histories have been erased from the Shelby County voter registry.

"The ones I found, the 500 voters, are at least still on the list, although their histories have been erased, which can be a preparation for purging. But, there are over 10,000 voters in Cohen's district and they have simply been evaporated from the list all together," added Harris.

Congressman Steve Cohen says the missing records go even deeper. The Congressman announced on Sunday that he's contacted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder about 40,000 missing voter histories, which Cohen says is the precursor to purging. He says he noticed the discrepancy in Dec. 2011 when he pulled records from Aug. 2010 for his election mailings. FOX13 Memphis -40,000 Voter Records Erased?

Congressman Cohen is asking the US Justice Dept to investigate:

Congressman Cohen is asking the state coordinator of elections and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the matter.Channel 5 Memphis - Major inconsistencies found in Shelby County voting rolls Cohen questioning alleged voter roll inconsistencies

State Representative Turner's voting history was removed:

State Representative Johnnie Turner discovered her name was on a list of local leaders whose votes may have been allegedly disenfranchised. She is not sure if it is a mistake or intentional, but she wants answers.
Last month, Director of Black Box Voting Bev Harris, discovered that the voting histories of close to 500 Shelby County residents, many of them lifelong voters, may have been altered to make it appear that they did not vote in recent elections.

"I have never missed a vote. I go into schools and talk to young people about the importance of the vote," said Turner.

Other prominent names on the list include former Memphis Councilman Edmund Ford Sr., and school board commissioner Sara Lewis. Channel 5 Memphis - Major inconsistencies found in Shelby County voting rolls

Here is the link to detailed diary Saturday with the Story of how TN-09 Black Dem Voters in Memphis Illegally Stripped of Voting History

On Sunday this diary added press and party links: TN-09 Black Memphis Voter History Erased, Shelby County uses different system to count votes by race

Requests for State and Federal investigations:

Allegations from Harris last week that hundreds of Shelby County voters — almost all black Democrats — have had their voting history erased have put Election Commission officials on the defensive and prompted a demand from 9th District congressman Steve Cohen Sunday that the U.S. Department of Justice and Tennessee State Election Coordinator Mark Goins look into her charges.Memphis Flyer - "Erased Voters' Gaffe May Force Changes by Election Commission Cohen questioning alleged voter roll inconsistencies

Shelby County is doing other illegal tampering with their voting systems:

reprinted with permission from Bev Harris blackboxvoting.org

(TN-09) 4/12 - SHELBY COUNTY PERFORMED UNAUTHORIZED ALTERATIONS IN ITS (NOW UNCERTIFIED!) VOTING SYSTEM - By Bev Harris

SUMMARY: Details on Shelby County, Tennessee alteration of its Diebold voting system. They inserted a completely different program (not from Diebold at all) which alters the way the system works. Documents show that fully half of White suburbs are now processing information in a different way than the rest of the county, and that this selective and unusual processing has been taking place for at least four years. The alterations made to the system are illegal almost everywhere in the USA and automatically render their $600,000 voting system decertified, although they will claim that they don't need to use a certified system. One man, who does not work for Shelby County, has been given almost unprecedented access to the system. The alterations allow them to customize how party affiliation is coded, creating different party identifiers in White, Black, and mixed counties. I have posted a few documents, like the work order, in the article and will post several more, including a little bit of related source code, this weekend.

SHELBY COUNTY'S VOTING SYSTEM ALTERATIONS MAKE IT UNCERTIFIED AND UNAUTHORIZED UNDER ANY FEDERAL STANDARDS

In May 2007, Shelby County executed a work order to alter the way Shelby County's voting system works.

Computerized voting systems are tested and examined to (supposedly) show that they function to record and count votes correctly. Federal approval for these systems is based on all the working parts. You can't change anything and still call it a certified system. The whole certification thing is pretty bogus to begin with, but at least it means that SOMEONE has, at least theoretically, examined the voting system.

According to systems developer John Washburn, "Both NASED and the EAC consider the voting system to be the specific constellation of software and hardware. There is a system number which is a particular constellation of hardware and software at specific revision levels. If you make a change or take a piece out or put a piece in that system is no longer certified."

This was not a minor modification. Shelby County not only altered its voting system in a major way, but documents I have obtained reveal that it processes information differently in some precincts than others, and this is almost certainly related to the change they made in how their system works.

Fully 50% of White suburban precincts are affected.

WHEN IS THERE EVER AN ELECTION WHERE THE SAME POLITICAL PARTIES WOULD NEED TO HAVE DIFFERENT PARTY IDS IN DIFFERENT PRECINCTS?

The alteration to Shelby County's voting system is especially troubling because it enables precinct-specific political party codes. Let me explain, and I'm sure you will see how inappropriate this is:

The Diebold/ES&S/Dominion "GEMS" system assigns a number to each political party. For example, Democrat = "1", Republican = "2", Nonpartisan = "3". The system then knows that a ballot or candidate tagged "1" will be a Democrat, "2" a Republican, and so forth. Imagine, then, the fun you could have if you could tell the system, "but in THIS precinct, let's switch those numbers so "1" is Republican and "2" is Democrat.

These party ID numbers are never seen by the voter or by any poll worker. They are internal ID numbers which tell the computer how to identify each political party.

In the Diebold GEMS system, the county IT guy sets this ID number just once. It is a global value, and is automatically the same for every precinct in the county. In fact, let me just show you what the party ID table looks like for the whole county:

Democrat - 1
Republican - 2
Nonpartisan - 3

See how simple this is? Imagine now, that you take a completely separate program that didn't even come with the Diebold system, and was written by someone else, and instead had it do this:

Precinct 1 - Democrat = (assign your own number)
Precinct 1 - Republican = (assign your own number)
Precinct 1 - Nonpartisan = (assign your own number)
Precinct 2 - Democrat = (assign your own number)
Precinct 2 - Republican = (assign your own number)
Precinct 2 - Nonpartisan = (assign your own number)

That's what Shelby County has done.

Why would there ever be an election where you use a different identifier for Democrats in one precinct than another within the same county and in the same election? Shelby County has hundreds of precincts, and has altered their system to allow each precinct and sub-precinct (called "splits") to assign party identifiers that can vary by precinct. But more to the point, it doesn't matter why they say they did it.

"All really good pieces of malware do what they claim they're going to do, ... eventually."

FUN WITH PRECINCT DEMOGRAPHICS

Shelby County has especially racially-charged precinct demographics. Many precincts are almost all Black. Some precincts are almost all White. A handful of precincts are racially balanced.

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