[EL] Secret signatures and secret ballots

[Bev Harris]

What James Bopp is saying is that he really doesn't believe that the public has
a right to authenticate the accounting on its own elections.

The concept of Freedom of Information is based on the idea that "any person" can
review the work of their own government, which they pay for with their own tax
money. Nowhere is this right to freedom of information more essential than in
the choosing process itself -- elections. The secretary of state is not "the
public". Party-appointed "watchers" are not the same thing as "the public". It
is not the secretary of state who owns the government, nor the political
parties, but the public.

But even if "any person" from the public were allowed to be a "watcher", for
those of us who have participated in such "watching" activities, we quickly
find that the prescribed and limited "watching" activities are not at all the
same thing as examining a record, and that you cannot authenticate the
accounting for certain elections processes by standing there and watching.

If you "watch" a flurry of petition signatures go by, and they are forged or in
identical handwriting, how likely are you to be able to see that? If you
"watch" a series of signatures go by, how likely is it that you will recall if
you saw the same signature 12,000 signatures ago?

Serious accounting reconciliation is done by document examination, not
"watching" a process you cannot slow down, review again, or examine carefully,
standing behind a yellow tape.

> Actually, in Washington, there are checks and  balances without public
> release of the petition signatures.  When the Sec  of State is reviewing the
> petition signatures, parties get to have watchers to  review the process.


Bev Harris
Founder - Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * *

Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them. The
people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right
to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to
know. We insist on remaining informed so that we may retain control over the
instruments of government we have created.

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c(3) elections watchdog group
funded entirely by citizen donations.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057


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