OT: wanted, election night volunteer observers

[Alan Dayley]

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Mark Phillips
<mark at phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:
>
> First of all, I applaud your efforts and support them. I also agree that
> there is a huge potential for voter fraud in this election.
>
> However, I am curious as to the legality of photographing the people who are
> handling the votes as well as the actual voting "cartridges". Who actually
> owns the cartridges when they leave the machines, and who runs the "central
> receiving" stations? Unless you have a signed release from all the people
> working at these facilities, I don't think you have the legal right to video
> tape them. However, I am not an attorney, so I am really speaking out of
> turn on this issue.
>
> What kind of reception will these volunteers receive when they show up with
> a video camera to record the process? Given the huge voter turnout expected,
> I would assume that there will be a lot of time pressure on the folks who
> are processing the cartridges, and additional bodies standing around taking
> pictures may not be a welcome distraction.
>
> Also, since none of your volunteers may not be familiar with the steps used
> in processing the cartridges, how will they know if something is amiss or
> not?
>
> Thanks again for your efforts. I am not trying to throw cold water on them
> by any means. I agree that we, as voters, have the moral right to
> observe/record the steps used to process our votes. However, I assume there
> are legal issues involved with going to a place of business and
> photographing/observing what goes on there. How will your volunteers get
> around these legal issues?

I am also not a lawyer so I don't really know what I am talking about.
 I'm going to say it anyway.

- If at any point along the vote counting and processing path a
citizen is not allowed to observe and visually record the process, the
entire process is suspect.  Period.

- If any person working during the process does not want to be
recorded, they should not have volunteered or signed up for that job.
It should be a completely open and public record of everything done by
everyone in the entire vote processing chain.

- If a business or church or school or whatever signs up to be a
polling place or vote collection place, for the time of the poll they
are not a "place of business" but are a public place of voting.
Anyone showing up to visually record what happens there during the
polling process should be allowed, as long as they don't disrupt the
process.  If the location owner does not want such scrutiny, they
better not sign up to be part of the process.

If I were to bring a video camera to a location involved in the
process and be rebuffed because someone does not want it recorded, the
rebuff will be recorded and published.  Anyone wanting to close the
process from public view should be questioned!  Always.

Alan