Mark Adams: South Carolina Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!?!

[EFerrari]

January 14, 2008

South Carolina Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!?!

By Mark Adams

South Carolina elections are unconstitutional? How could that be? Surely, no one in our government would conduct any election which violated the Constitution, and if any scheme threatened to undermine the very foundation of our government, our power to elect our leaders, the press would expose it, wouldn’t it?

After all, our government was founded upon the principle that all of its actions must comply with the Constitution. In fact, Article VI of the Constitution of South Carolina requires all of the State’s officers to swear an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of this State and of the United States." So, they would probably at least read it before enacting any new law, right?

Well, you would think so, but as most people now realize, far too many in power in our government believe that they are the law. I’ve had judges tell me that, but I’ll save judicial arrogance and lack of respect for the law and the facts for another day.

big snip

So, I didn’t bother with even looking for any separation of powers provision in South Carolina’s Constitution. While I waited on hold, I went to the Constitution of South Carolina and clicked on Article II about suffrage. Right there in the first sentence of Article II, § 1, it states, "the ballots shall not be counted in secret." Jackpot!!! A Constitutional provision prohibiting counting votes in secret! No more need to refer to case law, evidence, or logic to argue against secret vote counting, at least in South Carolina. (The link follows the article.)

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_mark_a___080114_south_carolina_elect.htm

[KoKo]

1. He urges folks to Contact the Candidates Urging Them to take Action...in SC...Here's link:

He also urges us to contact Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey and Rainbow Push Coalition. Those contacts are on the next page of article after you click this link. He wants a mass campaign to focus anyone with clout to get SC to focus on "ballots counted in secret on DRE machines." How will we know who wins in SC if the vote is secret?

GO HERE...for contact e-mail..


http://www.opednews.com/articles/5/genera_mark_a___080114_south_carolina_elect.htm

[garybeck]

2. Almost every states' elections are unconstitutional

the Voting Rights Act calls for observation of vote counting.

There is no observation of vote counting today because it happens inside a computer on secret software code.

[EFerrari]

3. Adams talked to the same person I spoke to yesterday.

Did you read that his position was the votes were, too, counted in public?

[garybeck]

4. I don't know about the SC constitution

but the US Constitution (through the Voting Rights Act of 1965) calls specifically for observers and observation. there is neither. If anyone says there is observation of vote counting with DREs or Opscans, they're just wrong.

[EFerrari]

5. I wanted to call the communications guy back today and ask him

about chain of custody provisions in the event a recount of SC is needed. Just to hear his answer.

"To the extent that we can agree that votes exist, how does the state secure them in the event a recount is needed?" -- :shrug:

[garybeck]

6. keep in mind

Rigging an election through memory cards can be done by a very small number of people. It is even possible that a single person at Diebold/Premier or the 3rd party vendor could infect all the memory cards for an entire state. This could be done without even a single local voting official being aware. Not a single local official would have to participate.

Messing with the ballots or VVPATs after the election would require local officials to engage in a conspiracy involving many more people, probably at least hundreds. Especially in states that have precinct level vote counting, the conspiracy would have to be on a completely different level.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I we have to remember... one of the main reasons we are so concerned about the electronic voting machines is because it would be relatively easy for an insider to rig an election, without any kind of vast conspiracy, whereas to manipulate or exchange the ballots to affect a recount would be much more complicated.

[EFerrari]

7. Oh, I agree. But, after all the reading I've done in the last few days,

I know that this individual was in this same job when the state was being handed warnings about going to iVotronic by everybody and their extended family. People with very respectable cred.

He's the Communications guy. He knows those machines are cr@p. He's very cordial on the phone, helpful . But, he knows. Disregard, like evil, is also sometimes banal.