During my time as a citizen observer at the Board of Elections (December 16-17, 2004) I listened to Director Michael Vu and Deputy Director Gwen Dillingham explain that the sample of 3% of ballots had been arbitrarily determined, rather than randomly as is required in Ohio.

The BOE had delayed the start of this recount an additional day at the last minute, giving them more time to “select more representative” precincts to be recounted. This delay also gave them the opportunity to pre-count to insure a clean recount for show the next day.

Today’s story quotes Mr. Vu as saying it had been done this way for some 23 years. Baloney! The Board of Elections broke the law, plain and simple. The trio indicted has been charged with misdemeanor and felony counts of failing to follow the state elections law.

My experience as a director and manager in several positions of public trust convince me that these three individuals did not act alone without the knowledge, if not the direction, of the two senior officials. This aspect needs to be investigated further to make certain who knew what and when, before condemning just the 3 women mentioned in the story.

More attention should be given by the special prosecutor to the accountability Mr. Vu and Ms. Dillingham.

Question Electionline: With 2+ million of funding, is it a lobby for machines and not a real advocate for voting reform?

Dear Mr. Mitchell,

I am writing to you about ElectionLine.org, an organization sponsored by Pew Cheritable Trusts. Pew gave Electionline $2,260,000.00 on Sept 2004 to fund them for over 30 mos.

Please review and investigate the following:

Electionline seems to be more of an advocate for electronic voting than an impartial and informative reporter of the events occurring across the country.

Ethics are further eroded by ties of at least one advisor to ElectionLine. Electionline lists Doug Lewis (of the Election Center) as an advisor. The Election Center, under the Directorship of Mr. Lewis — receives funding from voting machine companies. Further, Mr. Lewis has no credentials except for selling computers out of his basement and going bankrupt.

Why isn’t Electionline consulting with real computer scientists who have no financial ties to voting machine companies?  Just one of many that come to mind are Dr. David L Dill, of Stanford University and founder of http://www.verifiedvoting.org. Or how about consulting any of the learned experts at the organization called “ACCURATE”, “A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections” at the website http://accurate-voting.org/?

I look forward to hearing the results of your inquiry.

Thank you.

I’m hoping we’ll see indictments of Blackwell and Vu. And hopefully before teh 2006 election, when Blackwell will become untouchable!

Glad they are being exposed now in time to stop another vote theft in 2006 and 2008!