Holy Toledo, and I thought Joseph Goeke, the Republican Board of Elections director in St. Louis County, needed chastising. Unlike his neighbors in the city of St. Louis and St. Charles County, who are printing more paper ballots than they have registered voters (Paper ballots are cheap. Why not be prepared?), Goeke is only printing enough paper ballots for 80 percent of the registered voters. You get a big, wet raspberry, Mr. Goeke.

But more on his tortured logic later. First, let’s make ourselves feel better about being stuck with him. We could live in Philadelphia, where the Democrats running elections don’t think paper ballots are necessary at all. What, just because they speed up long voting lines?

Since she says in the video we should take care to spell her name right, the woman responsible for running elections in Philadelphia is Marge Tartaglione (D) and, as the video suggests, she’s a horror. And not only for her indefensible statements against the distribution of paper ballots to the effect of “long lines are not a problem…Long lines are no justification for any thing but waiting…people wait in long lines overnight for baseball tickets…people wait in line all night for a new Ipod.” Though I’m not aware of any 80 year olds who do either of those things, or anybody who does that in the middle of a work day, and I’m fairly sure anybody who does do that, does so by their own choice, not because they are forced to do so in hopes of exercising their right to cast a vote.

Watch the Gorgon in action. She’ll make you laugh even as she makes your blood boil.

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1417423198

Well, Ms. Tartaglione … and Mr. Goeke:

Paper ballots are these nifty little inventions that allow lots of voters to work on casting their votes simultaneously, thus speeding up the lines. If a precinct has four touchscreens, four people can vote at once. If, on the other hand, a polling place has boxes piled on boxes of paper ballots, voters can vote in the stations provided a-a-nd on any hard surface. So once they’ve signed the precinct register, they can lay their ballot down on any available desk space, on their purses, on the floor, hell, on the palm of their hands.

You know what, we shouldn’t even have our elections on Tuesdays, workdays. We should, like other civilized countries, vote on weekends. The Founding Fathers are still having their little joke on the lower classes with that one. But let’s at least not make casting a vote as challenging to do as getting a new I-Pod.

But Goeke says there will be enough paper ballots, because DREs will take up the slack. He insists that voting on the machines will be quick. Whereas the city of St. Louis estimates voters will need ten minutes on a DRE, Goeke figures six will do it–even though we have no straight party voting option this year and a gazillion ballot proposals. And that’s always assuming the machines don’t break down.

Mm-hmmm. Still, we coulda had Tartaglione.

Anyway, recommmend paper ballots to everyone you know. In addition to speeding up the lines, they have the advantage of allowing for software-independent audits and recounts. The board of elections holds onto those paper ballots for just such contingencies. Yeah, sure, I know the touchscreens have paper trails, too, but who checks them? Voters, if they even notice they’re there, usually neglect to do it. God knows, the poll workers don’t remind them to.

I’m not saying I trust scanners more than DREs not to be hacked. “Proprietary software” and the dangers to democracy that it presents is a whole ‘nother issue. But at least paper is faster and more dependable in recounts.

Heed this message:

AN URGENT MESSAGE FROM MISSOURIANS FOR HONEST ELECTIONS

(www.mohonestelections.org):

Ask for a paper ballot when you vote in the Missouri presidential primary on February 5th! Please relay this message to as many Missouri voters as you can!

The ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machines used in St. Louis County have recently been decertified by the Colorado Secretary of State because of security vulnerabilities.

The Diebold Accuvote touch-screen machines used in the City of St. Louis and in Kansas City have recently been decertified by the California Secretary of State because of security vulnerabilities.

Should we be alarmed? Indeed we should!

A paper ballot will be available for voters to use throughout Missouri in the primary on February 5th. While most–if not all–of these will

be counted by optical scan machines, which also have security problems, the paper ballot they scan is a sturdy piece of paper that the voter has marked by hand. This ballot thus is a durable, accurate record of the voter’s intentions and can easily be counted by hand if needed in case of a recount.

Don’t forget: VOTE ON PAPER! And help us to spread the word!

Hello St. Louis County residents!!

Yes, Missourians for Honest Elections is inviting friends and members to gather at the St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners’ meeting this coming Wed., the 26th, at 2:40 or so if you want to sign up to comment in the public forum. From their website:

Meetings are held at the St. Louis County Board of Elections Office, 12 Sunnen Drive, St. Louis, MO 63143 The next scheduled board meeting date is Wednesday September 26, 2007 at 3:00 p.m.

We will present some hard-hitting questions/comments, and hope we will see a good turnout of the citizenry, letting the Commissioners know we are becoming impatient.  Signs such as “NO DREs!!” or “WE WANT PAPER BALLOTS FOR EVERY ELECTION!!”  might help! (Do keep them polite. ;->)

FYI,  a FAQs page is added to our updated website, on this page.

Can you answer all the questions?  I think the most difficult one is #11, LOL.!!

My next “chore” is to write up the answers, which will be posted on a subpage. It will be a beginner’s crib-sheet for the heart of this issue, hopefully.  Probably it will be posted over the weekend.

BTW, people are still working to block HR 811.
http://coalition4vi sibleballots. homestead. com/MarkAdams01. html

My take on it at this point is to call or send an email to your congressperson and senators just telling them you want your vote counted and this bill does not help that happen.  DREs must be banned.

IN ANY CASE, SHOW UP AT THE COUNTY BEC MEETING ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON TO SUPPORT PAPER BALLOTS!!

Patricia M. Berg

Riverfront Times has an article on Judith Conoyer, co-founder with Phil Lindsey of Show Me the Vote, the petition drive for a constitutional amendment in Missouri requiring hand-counted paper ballots.  The writer lays out the problem with the machines, succinctly and clearly.

Conoyer, a 67-year-old St. Charles resident, co-founded Show Me The Vote in 2005, after becoming suspicious about the reliability of electronic voting machines during the 2004 presidential election. After traveling to Ohio to observe the well-publicized irregularities surrounding the touch-screen machines, Conoyer wondered whether Missouri’s election results were also inaccurate. In St. Charles County, for example, she discovered six precincts reported a voter turnout of more than 100 percent.

You go, Judy!  Phil, too!

….or more.  Any evening this week from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., you could help out in St. Charles, but you’ll be multitasking.

One hand is going to be holding a clipboard for collecting signatures in the petition drive to get an amendment on the ballot mandating hand-counted paper ballots in Missouri instead of computerized voting.

Another hand will be giving folks information about the special election in St. Charles next Tuesday for the state senate.  Republican Chuck Gross resigned from the senate.  Ed Applebaum, the Democrat, is facing a well funded Republican named Tom Dempsey.  Applebaum’s a good man and, by the by, could use your contribution.

The third hand will have voter registration cards.

No partisan rant will be required or even desired.  You’ll just be urging people to vote in an election where single digit turnout is expected, helping them register if need be, and asking for a petition signature.  That request for signatures will prove to be popular.  When several volunteers for Show Me the Vote went signature collecting recently at the St. Charles Festival of Little Hills, they got a seventy percent positive response from people they approached for signatures.  That’s as in 70% of the people were glad to sign.  A lot of Missourians would be happy to see the last of those computers at the voting precinct.

The reason you might need more than three hands, by the way, is that petition signers have to sign on a sheet for the county they reside in.  Just kidding about the hands.  You won’t need extras, of course.  Just put a sheet for each county on your clipboard.

Volunteering in St. Charles will enable you to kill three birds with one stone. 

If you’re interested in helping, call Judith Conoyer (636-946-8425).  And if you need a ride, call Pro-Vote.