'Election Conducted Under Illegal Conditions...No Proof of Legitimacy,' Says Statement
Calls for Manual Hand Count of Ballots Paid for by Registrar Whose 'Bungled Procedures Invalidated Original Machine Count'
By Brad Friedman on 6/19/2006, 12:06pm PT  

The California Election Protection Network (CEPN) has issued a 'No Confidence' Resolution in regard to the Busby/Bilbray Election held on June 6th in San Diego County.

The non-partisan election watchdog network, comprised of more than 25 election integrity groups, has also issued a press release this morning announcing that the elections held in SD County "were conducted under illegal conditions" due to the Registrar having sent voting machines home for overnights with poll workers for days and weeks prior to election day, in direct violation of state and federal rules, laws and provisions.

The statement goes on to call for a manual hand count of the ballots to be paid for by the SD County Registrar, charging that the office has the "obligation to conduct a proper election, not bill the people to pay for his blunder."

A few grafs from that news release today:

"There is no proof of this election’s legitimacy," said CEPN member Jim Soper. "Despite a mountain of proof that these machines are easily hackable, Secretary of State McPherson certified the system claiming a set of handling procedures would keep the machines safe. Now we learn that machines were unsecured in pollworkers’ homes before the election, rendering those procedures useless."

In February, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson released a security report he had commissioned of Diebold touch screen (DRE) and optical scan voting machines. The report authored by University of California computer scientists concluded that the machines should never be left in the presence of fewer than two people, because one person alone could implant malicious code that could alter vote-counting functions without leaving any detectable evidence.

In San Diego County poll workers were allowed to take the machines for "sleepover" storage in their homes for days prior to the election.
...
"These elections were conducted under illegal conditions. The results could very well have been compromised, and we have no basis for confidence in the reported results," said CEPN member, Dan Ashby.
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"The San Diego election department’s violation of legal election procedure invalidated the original machine count," said Ashby. "It is the San Diego registrar’s obligation to conduct a proper election, not bill the people to pay for his blunder."

-- CEPN's complete press release can be read here...
-- CEPN's 'No Confidence Resolution' can be read here...

CEPN is urging citizens and members to sign Velvet Revolution's petition demanding a manual hand count of all ballots in the race.

In their statement and declaration, CEPN has joined several other organizations and individuals who have declared 'No Confidence' in the race who are demanding that the ballots be counted by hand. Included amongst those are Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), VelvetRevolution.us, and Tribune Media columnist Robert Koehler. As well, VoteTrustUSA has condemned the "egregious violations" in the election and U.S. House Nominee (CA-49) Jeeni Criscenzo has come out to discuss the "outrageous breaches in security" during the election, in which she also ran on June 6th (and won!).

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Article Categories: Busby/Bilbray, Diebold/Premier, California