From the New York Times: Virginia: Voting Mess Was Never Supposed to Happen After Bush v. Gore
I don’t know where the impression was left that somehow we would not have close elections after 2000. There are some analogies here but not everything is the same.
Editorial:
Close elections happen. Each voter and each vote is critical to the result. Every error by voters, by officials, by machines, and by fraud can change the result. When it is this close it truly is a crap-shoot, even when one candidate or the other wins by a hand-full of votes. What is needed is a process that is of high-integrity, every step of the way, followed by a fair, per-established adjudication method. In our opinion that is exactly what is happening in Virginia. A far cry from 2000 and Gore v Bush.
From Alternet via TruthOut: Was the Heated 2016 Democratic Primary Rigged for Debbie Wasserman Schultz?
“I see what I would call a high likelihood of massive incompetence. Either that or there is fraud. I don’t think you should see numbers this big in this many precincts.”
“This is really weird.” He continued that they ought to be reconciling the number of voters with ballots and if they’re not doing it, “they’re grossly negligent.” Jones served on the Election Assistance Commission’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee for four years, but said “I’ve never seen a county that looks like this.”
Many respect and trust mainstream sources like the Washington Post and CNN. Yet, every source makes mistakes and has biases. Unfortunately, usually accurate sources make mistakes and worse, do an inadequate job of correcting them. Another reminder from Glen Greenwald at the Intercept: The U.S. Media Suffered Its Most Humiliating Debacle in Ages: Now Refuses All Transparency Over What Happened
Friday was one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time. The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.
The spectacle began on Friday morning at 11 a.m. EST, when the Most Trusted Name in News™ spent 12 straight minutes on air flamboyantly hyping an exclusive bombshell report that seemed to prove that WikiLeaks, last September, had secretly offered the Trump campaign, even Donald Trump himself, special access to the DNC emails before they were published on the internet. As CNN sees the world, this would prove collusion between the Trump family and WikiLeaks and, more importantly, between Trump and Russia, since the U.S. intelligence community regards WikiLeaks as an “arm of Russian intelligence,” and therefore, so does the U.S. media…
It’s impossible to convey with words what a spectacularly devastating scoop CNN believed it had, so it’s necessary to watch it for yourself to see the tone of excitement, breathlessness and gravity the network conveyed as they clearly believed they were delivering a near-fatal blow on the Trump/Russia collusion story..
Incredibly, to this very moment — almost 24 hours after CNN’s story was debunked — Wittes has never noted to his more than 200,000 followers that the story he so excitedly promoted turned out to be utterly false, even though he returned to Twitter long after the story was debunked to tweet about other matters. He just left his false and inflammatory claims uncorrected…
So numerous are the false stories about Russia and Trump over the last year that I literally cannot list them all. Just consider the ones from the last week alone, as enumerated by the New York Times yesterday in its news report on CNN’s embarrassment:
I recommend reading the whole piece, the lists of false stories, and watching the embedded videos.
The Trump Administration is doing all it can to kill the Internet as we appreciate it. It is time to follow John Oliver’s advice;
1. Go to http://GoFCCYourself.com
2. Press “+Express” on the right near the top
3. Fill in the form and comment. e.g. “Keep the Internet free, keep it under Tittle II…”
Now it’s in the history books: Colorado has become the first state to complete a “risk-limiting audit” designed to catch mistakes when ballots are tabulated…
“Colorado is a national leader in exploring innovative solutions for accessible, secure and auditable elections,” [Matt} Masterson [Chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission] said. “Colorado’s risk-limiting audit provided great insights into how to conduct more efficient and effective post-election audits. The EAC is eager to share some of the lessons learned with election officials across America.”
From Buzzfeed’s Cyber Security Correspondent, Kevin Collier: A Year After Trump’s Victory, Our Elections Aren’t Much More Secure
But the focus on how Facebook and Twitter were used to sow division in the US electorate has diverted attention from one of the weakest spots in the system: … a simple cyberattack can be effective against weak infrastructure and unprepared IT workers. Whether that can be fixed by 2018 or even 2020 is an open question…
“We’re not doing very well,” Alex Halderman, a renowned election security expert, told BuzzFeed News. “Most of the problems that existed in 2016 are as bad or worse now, and in fact unless there is some action at a national policy level, I don’t expect things will change very much before the 2018 election.”
The Purpose of the Citizen Audit is to increase integrity and confidence in elections, for the benefit of the voters of Connecticut. We provide independent audits, audit observations, and reports focusing on the integrity of elections and election administration. <More about the Citizen Audit>
Voters
Want
To Know:
You can Help Provide Answers! Volunteer one day as a Post-Election Audit Observer.
The Connecticut Citizen Election Audit coordinates volunteers, like you, to observe the state’s post-election audit of voting machines. Non-partisan volunteers go “behind the scenes” with a checklist of best practices and interview questions. They gather information which is compiled into reports submitted to the public, election officials, and the Legislature.
Who can volunteer?Anyone. You, for example!
Where?Throughout the State of Connecticut.
When?Generally within the 2nd to 3th weeks following an election.