The December 29 issue of the Albany Times-Union has this editorial, condemning New York state’s present law for recounts, which sets out no objective standards on when a recount should be held. The editorial was responding to the decision of the highest state court, ruling that no recount should be held in the race for State Senate, 7th district. The margin was 451 votes out of 85,405 cast. The control of the State Senate rested on that one race.
One of the strongest points in the editorial is that it is absurd that New York switched to a system that has an audit trail, if no one is going to use the audit trail. The old voting system in New York was mechanical voting machines. Recounts are impossible in places that use mechanical voting machines. One can double-check the tallies shown on the back of the machine, but one can’t recount anything because there is nothing to recount. But in 2010 New York switched to paper ballots, which can be recounted.
And we’re still waiting on a decision in the 100th Assembly District, where 69 votes separate the Republican from the Democrat, with a little over 100 paper ballots (mostly absentees, and presumably all votes for the Democrat who is behind) that have not yet been counted. There’s no rush there because control of the Assembly isn’t in question (the Democrats have a large majority there). The judge however heard arguments and told the parties there would be a decision before Christmas. The next time we checked the judge had taken a two-week vacation for the holidays!
— how many state supreme court vacancies are up this cycle in the 3rd JD? SCOTUS is waiting on an answer to that question.
How many of the old mechanical voting machines were rigged in the back ???
— Vote for A in the front, B gets the vote in the back.
See the various New Age E-voting systems — with NO PUBLIC computer codes — one more total outrage in the totally EVIL CORRUPT gerrymander regimes of death and destruction.
Evidence of how nakedly corrupt the Albany gang is: in most years their gerrymandered map is able to give control of the State Senate to the pathetic New York State Republican Party. The NYT is constantly instructing its colleagues who run the American Empire on the details of ruling the entire world-yet a blatantly anti-democratic absurdity like the NY State Senate can keep trucking on for decades right there on the NYT’s home turf.
The incredible history of NY State Senate gerrymandering:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/republicans-take-control-of-new-york-state-senate.php
(…)
The Dems only just won control of the heavily GOP-gerrymandered chamber in 2008, after four decades in the minority. (The gerrymander is noted here only to point out what an accomplishment this was, not to make any moralistic point — it was after all made feasible because of cooperation with the permanent Democratic majority in the state Assembly, which also gerrymandered itself to greater and greater numbers over the years.)
(…)
P.R. and App.V. — even in rotted New York State — and even N.Y. City.
—
New gerrymander districts / political concentration camps — in about a nanosecond after the 2010 Census precinct population data is produced in Feb-Mar 2011 on DVDs, etc. —
i.e. like having Stalin and Hitler make the gerrymander districts in each regime.
i.e. the folks (legislative, executive and judicial) doing the gerrymanders are ANTI-Democracy WAR criminals — waging WAR against REAL Democracy.
Readers will also be interested in this Op Ed from the Jan. 1, 2011 issue of the Times Union:
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Experts-shouldn-t-be-needed-to-call-outcome-of-930928.php
And the answer to Demo Rep’s question:
“How many of the old mechanical voting machines were rigged in the back ???
– Vote for A in the front, B gets the vote in the back.”
I think NONE. First of all, Shoup machines used in half the state have the counters on the front — not the back.
Secondly, if you examine the workings of the lever machines, or just read the patents, you’ll see that vote switching during elections is physically impossible. However, it is very possible with any computerized voting system, including optical scan, and proving it didn’t happen is very, very difficult.
Meanwhile the state’s highest court has ruled that hand counts can’t be used to check computer counts in the SD 7 contest, which is the only way to know who won that one.
So it only took New York a decade to get our very own “Bush v. Gore.”
Did someone say “it couldn’t happen here?”
#8 Where is that PUBLIC computer code stuff for paper E-scanners ??? — now almost totally taking over in elections.
Any hard wired / firmware stuff for scanning the ballots in each precinct (or group of precincts with the same candidates / issues) ???
See New Age printers with downloaded updated firmware and software from the internet.