R/e the Hand Counting in 2 NC Counties -
It is all about hoping that our new VVPB law will be repealed. This is the Diebold lobbyist stomping grounds. If you have been paying attention, Diebold fled North Carolina:

There is story behind these two counties - The Chairman of the NC State Board of Elections,
Larry Leake - lives in Buncombe County, as does the Diebold Lobbyist, Steve Metcalf.
Steve Metcalf used to be the county manager of Buncombe, and later was a democratic
state senator who resigned under cloud of an investigation.

Our State Board of Elections has always opposed voter verified paper ballots.
They were trying to phase out optical scan.

On January 20, 2006, Buncombe County Commissioner David Young said that,

“by going with paper ballots in May, we can allow the General Assembly time to fix this law and give us more options for November.” - Citizen Times

Another commissioner stated that you can expect a "negative bounce" (following a hand counted election).
(They mean they can scare politicians with the idea of thousands of ballots being hand counted and results being turned in late)

*They believe that

"Wake (County) will go to the General Assembly to get this mess of a law changed."
They are hoping that most folks voting in the Buncombe county will use the DREs so that they have few if any paper ballots to hand count.

They said they wanted to "postpone the decision to see if someone else gets into the game."

At one of Buncombe Co's Commissioners meeting, there was discussion about the $966K in HAVA money. The commissioners wanted to make sure that they wouldn't lose it by postponing their decision. They were told that as long as they had ADA equipment available in the primary, they could use the money later on (to buy voting machines).
They hope to divert as many voters to the ADA touchscreens to reduce the number of regular paper ballots used.

If standards of the NC law were weakened, Diebold would be the vendor with the best chance of getting back in, as they probably could post the bond, they just don't want anyone looking at their source code, nor do they want to be charged with a crime if they put uncertified software on machines as they were caught doing in California. Diebold needs a way to save face, after recent departure of CEO, stockholders lawsuits, and discovery in California of some crazy software issues in California.

Below is the letter that County Commissioners sent to Governor Easley asking for delay in implementing the Public Confidence in Elections Act, and also the response from Buncombe County's Manager to my public records request:

http://triadblogs.com/up...ncombe_FOIA_response.pdf

http://triadblogs.com/up..._Buncombe_Gov_Easley.pdf

Buncombe Co Commiss Jan 19 meeting:
http://www.triadblogs.com/NCVoter/1544/

This is all about trying to use stiff political power to amend or repeal North Carolina's verified voting law.

We spent months fighting the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners' attempt
to get the law repealed. (I blogged about that too)

Now we have a local group of activists fighting in Buncombe to persuade the BOE and County
Commissioners to overturn their resolution to purchase all DRES.

As it stands, after this election, if nothing changes, Buncombe will be an all touchscreen county.

Additionaly, the Buncombe BOE is having trouble getting enough republican poll workers.

Go to my blog for more on Buncombe County
http://www.triadblogs.com/NCVoter/

Here are key excerpts from article about hand counting in 2 North Carolina counties, these phrases are the tipoff.

They still are short 95 poll workers, their regular poll workers are showing the "can't do" method.

Also, they are short on Republican poll workers.
__________________________________

Paper ballots return
County expects long night of counting
by Julie Ball, jball@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
published April 29, 2006 12:15 am

ASHEVILLE — For decades, Buncombe County voters have pulled a lever, punched a card or pushed a button at the polls.
But for Tuesday’s primary, many will use a paper ballot and a pen to vote. For some, it will be their first time using a paper ballot...

Buncombe County leaders, frustrated that the state had approved just one vendor — Election Systems & Software — to provide the equipment decided to use paper ballots for the primary. County officials were also frustrated with the short time frame they had to make the decision....

Trena Parker, Buncombe County director of elections, said the county has struggled to recruit an additional 127 people to help count the ballots election night.
“Some of our regular workers are choosing not to work this time,” she said.
Parker said Friday the county still needs 95 ballot counters....

But Nathan Ramsey, chairman of Buncombe County’s board of commissioners, doesn’t think the machines are as user friendly as its Sequoia Voting Systems machines, which the county had used since the late 1990s. Those machines were decertified after passage of the state law last year and cannot be used.
Ramsey said paper ballots are not feasible for the November general election when higher turnout is expected.

“We’ve got to go ahead and buy the machines — the DREs or the optical scan — for the fall election,” Ramsey said.

http://www.citizen-times.../1010&theme=ELECTION

http://tinyurl.com/mcgww

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