The ballots compromised & corrupted
Greetings all, this is my first post - I used to be a lurker, but this recount business has sucked me in here.
Im sure most of you are aware of this, but just in case some has missed it, I want to bring your attention to the outrageous conditions of the vote security. Someone must be very afraid now.
It is obvious that we cannot trust the authorities to maintain integration in this process. The people have to take this into their own hands. So I hope anyone reading this who is within the area can
help out. We need to guard all potential weak spots these TRAITORS exploits in order to carry out their dark mission.
To quote one of the comments:
Perhaps a 24 hour citizen watch needs to be put on the Archives building to see who comes and goes? Can someone get the complete name and address of the drivers so someone on the list can run background checks on them? In addition we need to follow them around when they transport the votes.
Check out this update from the watchdogs blackboxvoting and Bev Harris:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/71404.html
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Transcript:
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No worries, say New Hampshire officials when cuts up to eight inches long are spotted in newly delivered ballot boxes. "The only seal that counts is the one on top."
Except the seal on top can be peeled off without leaving a trace, then reaffixed.
Black Box Voting has been doing a chain of custody exam for the New Hampshire Primary's recount. On Wednesday night, Election Defense Alliance's Sally Castleman mentioned a troubling observation: After following the ballots back to the ballot vault following Wednesday's recount, she had the opportunity to enter the ballot vault, and noticed what looked like cuts, or slits, in the side of many ballot boxes. New Hampshire officials assured us that these cuts, which slice through the tape and seals do not permit access to the uncounted ballots, pointing to a label on the boxtop which they call a seal.
But the "seal" can be removed, like a Post-it, and reaffixed. So it's not a seal all!
We wanted to know if the ballot boxes were slit while in the vault, in the transport van, or came from the towns with slits in them.
I confirmed this morning that many if not most of the boxes scheduled to be counted today had slits in them. I went out when a vanload of ballots arrived, and saw that they were slit at the time they arrived by van. Susan Pynchon and I drove to two nearby towns and watched as they handed over their ballot boxes to "Butch and Hoppy", the two men who drive around in the state in a van picking the ballots up. We observed as they loaded boxes of ballots into the van with no slits at all in them. We videotaped each of these up close. They arrived at the destination without slits. The label on the top was affixed, but in some cases was crumpled, or also damaged.
Of course, the label affixed to the top can be removed and reattached without telltale signs.
No vault tonight
A significant departure from the normal chain of custody path occurred tonight. They decided not to use the vault to store the ballots.
Writing this last night, I was quite tired. I will post photos - the slits are not "through the box" in the sense that they are in the middle of the cardboard. They deliver the ballots in a variety of cardboard boxes. The lid of the cardboard box is taped and has various seals on it, some old, from using the box before, some new. The slits cut through any tape or seals. They don't cut into the cardboard itself, and I'm going to edit the post above to clarify that.
The other thing that isn't clear from the above post is the timing.
The normal procedure has been:
- bring the incoming ballot boxes into the front door of the building
- roll them through the counting room, which is a large room similar to a library reference room
- from there to roll the cart containing the incoming ballot boxes through the back door of the counting room
- insert key card into the warehouse area door
- roll the ballots down the hall in the warehouse
- open the ballot "vault" door with a key (it is a sturdy metal door but opens with a single key)
- put the incoming ballots in the vault
- When they will be counted, take them from the vault back into the counting room.
1. We noticed the slits in the vault and confirmed when they brought the ballots out that the slits were still there.
2. Then we looked at the ballot boxes as they were being delivered. Those, too, had slits.
3. Then we visited towns that had ballots scheduled for pickup. We had time to visit only two towns. Both towns had ballot boxes with no slits.
4. While at these towns, we waited for the pickup van to show up. When it did, we videotaped the ballot boxes already in it.
5. When we got back to the archive building where they were having the recount, we awaited the van with the ballot boxes we just videotaped. We waited quite a while. Almost everyone left, the recount ended for the day, and still no van. The van finally pulled in after all but a couple observers had gone home. We videotaped what came out of the van. It was in the same condition as what we videotaped at the towns. Of course, Butch and Hoppy knew we had been taking videotape because we did it right in front of them.
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.
So Sally and I waited. They affixed one of these post-it peelable labels on each front door and said everyone will leave out the back door and the order was given for all to leave. We filed out the back door. I asked Secretary of State Bill Gardner why there was a change in procedure. He did not answer. I asked him again. After about three tries, he just said "it's secure."
The handful of officials and the two Kucinich people hung around the back door. I asked more questions about why the ballots were being left in a room with no key card. They put one of the label stickers over the door and said "it's secure." I continued to wait with this small group of people. Finally they told us to leave and everyone left the building.
We got in our car and drove a ways away. Most of the people left. Bill Gardner and Anthony Stevens stayed around for a while, standing outside the loading bay talking. Then they left.
The upshot: The ballots we had videotaped in the van being transported, which arrived intact without slits, were not taken to the vault and were not kept in a location requiring keycard access last night (except that entering the building itself requires a keycard)
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To put my concerns about this in context:
Paddy Shaffer and I arrived at the archive building on Tuesday afternoon prepared to videotape incoming ballots as they came in that afternoon and throughout the night. We were told the (in my opinion) contrived story that no videotaping would be permitted because mental patients from a hospital about a block away might wander into the parking lot/loading area. We made a point of pressuring Bill Gardner to have this ban lifted.
They had clearly been planning for ballots to begin arriving Tuesday. I asked Frank Mevers, head of the archive building, if he could walk us through the observation area where the ballot intake process would take place. At that point he went into the back, had a long phone call, and came out saying they wouldn't be delivering the ballots that night.
Ballots will be being delivered for the next several days. They have not said whether the ballots will continue to be delivered over the weekend and Martin Luther King Day (Monday). At this point I don't take anything at all from New Hampshire state officials at face value, but they may NOT be picking up ballots during the long weekend, because no one will be working at the pickup locations.
In New Hampshire, the town clerks often only have office hours a couple days a week anyway. They are wonderful people -- it's the best of America, as I said. I expect they will be unavailable to give ballots to the pickup crew.
I emphasized to both the Kucinich reps and to the Republican candidate that they need to request the ballot pickup schedule. I don't think either one has done so.
I think it will be helpful to get photographs or video of the ballots WHILE STILL AT TOWN CLERK OFFICES and it will also be very helpful for citizens to follow "Butch and Hoppy".
Yesterday when we did so, they were speeding at one point and we were fairly challenged to keep up with them. We did, thanks to the skillful driving of Susan Pynchon. There was a dark green SUV waiting for them in a rural location. They stopped, one of the transport team jumped out, went to the driver of the green SUV, said something, then the transport team headed one direction and the green SUV the other. Clearly, he had been waiting there to hook up with the transport team. There may be a perfectly logical explanation for this, but I think it is important to witness and/or video where the transport van goes and who they meet up with.
Here on this site, it was posted that the ballots in New Hampshire are transported by the state police. That is incorrect. I asked more questions and they said that a liason from the sec. state office accompanies the state police. That is not true. Here's what is true: "Butch and Hoppy" who are represented as working for the secretary of state or the archives, depending on who you are talking to, pick up ALL the ballots in New Hampshire. They drive a white state van. A single member of the state police drives behind them. He can't see a darn thing about what is going on in that van.
Chain of custody - This isn't "the New Hampshire state police" moving the ballots. In fact, I'm not sure the Butch and Hoppy Show is legal, if the law says the ballots will be moved by the state police.
The chain of custody during transport is two guys named Butch and Hoppy. That's it.
My antennas would be up now for:
1) Ballot chain of custody, rendezvous points, capturing evidence of what goes into the transportation pipeline and what comes out.
2) I expect there will be efforts to persuade candidates to shortcut their recounts.
ALSO:
Note that Republican ballots have been being transported with Democrat ballots, that they are sometimes in the same box, and that as the Democrats do their recount the Republican ballots are being unsealed with no witness from the Republican campaign. They are taped up before going back to the ballot vault, but last night, Republican ballots were stored outside the vault just as Democrat ballots were.
When the video goes up you'll see something else. This is really like the ol' magic show. They make a great show of being "frugal" and sending ballots in reused cardboard boxes. One even said "Christmas decorations" on it.
Then, when you point out that the bottom is out of the box or the side is split open or whatever, they say "well we are very thrifty here, we use old boxes."
They can't spend $3 for a new box. That's mighty handy.
