McHenry County Blog

That used to be what Republicans hoped was a joke that Chicago Democrats supposedly said.

Now, a group called Rock the Vote has adopted the slogan.

Hard to believe, but take a look below:

“Vote Early and Often” is the slogan of Rock the Vote.

This photo was found here on Illinois Review, which caters to Illinois conservatives.

Illinois Review has recently been ranked more popular that Capitol Fax Blog, which has a decidedly liberal bent.

More on problems with vote accountability here.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE TO CONDUCT ELECTION DAY MONITORING ELECTION DAY HOTLINE: (312) 469-6157

CHICAGO — The U.S. Attorney’s Office will monitor the general election in Chicago and surrounding suburbs on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced today.

As part of the monitoring effort, the office will operate a hotline for candidates or the public to call to report any complaints relating to voting.

In addition, Assistant U.S. Attorneys and other personnel will be monitoring certain polling places, while other attorneys will be available to respond to complaints as needed.

The hotline number, staffed on Election Day only, is (312) 469-6157.

Gary Shapiro

“This office has a long tradition of monitoring the polls on Election Day to help protect the integrity of the voting process,” Mr. Shapiro said. “No one who is entitled to vote should in any way be inhibited from doing so, and we stand ready to ensure a fair process for all.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heinze coordinates the office’s election monitoring efforts and subsequent investigations, if any, in consultation with the Justice Department. The Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Marshals Service will assist in this effort by following-up, if necessary, on any election fraud and voting rights complaints.

Complaints about ballot access problems or discrimination can also be made directly to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section in Washington at 1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767.

Federal law protects against such crimes as intimidating or bribing voters, buying and selling votes, altering vote tallies, stuffing ballot boxes, and marking ballots for voters against their wishes or without their input. It also contains special protections for the rights of voters and provides that they can vote free from acts that intimidate or harass them. For example, actions of persons designed to interrupt or intimidate voters at polling places by questioning or challenging them, or by photographing or videotaping them, under the pretext that these are actions to uncover illegal voting may violate federal voting rights law. Further, federal law protects the right of voters to mark their own ballot or to be assisted by a person of their choice.

Violations of federal voting rights statutes carry penalties ranging from 1 to 10 years imprisonment and fines up to $250,000.

Defend the Vote doesn’t think Mickey Mouse should be able to vote.

Whenever folks see something on Chicago TV or in the Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times, they place inordinate significance to the subject matter.

If it matters to those news deciders, then it must be important, right?

Monday the woman who called the Special Meeting of the McHenry County Republican Central Committee for the purpose of giving Tonya Franklin a chance to run as a Republican against six-term incumbent Jack Franks, got a full page and a half for her favorite cause–Defend the Vote.

In the collective memory of Illinois citizens is the 1960 Presidential election in which voters in cemeteries cast ballots.

I remember when my father moved to Illinois to take a job with the Barley and Malt Institute in 1958, he lived in a single-room occupancy hotel in Chicago before finding a rental at 100 W. Crystal Lake Avenue in Crystal Lake.

That fall, after the election, my father had forwarded to him a letter from the Democratic Ward Committeeman thanking him for voting.

Guess that means my Dad voted twice, because he certainly voted in McHenry County.

Meroni is on a tear attacking the Chicago and Cook County Democrats for not having a Republican judge present when nursing home residents vote.

Her organization has Argonne National Laboratory security experts looking at ballot security and guess what?

It’s not so secure.

The headline on a Chicago Sun-Times article is

Easy voting machine sabotage?

The headline on the internet is

Researchers break open voting machines in test of security

Democrat David Orr charges that the group “has a partisan agenda.

We don’t need no investigation by no goo-goos, seems to be the attitude of the Chicago Board of Elections and the Cook County Clerk.

No looking behind the curtain, here, folks.

Barrington Hills resident Sharon Meroni has made ballot integrity a major goal in her life.

Colleague Steve Boulton attended her presentation to the Chicago Board of Elections and wrote the following article, reprinted here with permission of the author

Defend The Vote: Great News from the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners on Ballot Security Improvements

Sharon Meroni

Defend The Vote had an excellent day yesterday at a long-awaited session with the full Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Sharon Meroni, Executive Director of Defend The Vote, addressed the Commissioners on behalf of the organization, dong a simply marvelous job.

Sharon is now very knowledgeable about the details, procedures and voting equipment as a result of one and one-half years of nearly full time investigation and analysis.

She is now bringing that hard-won knowledge to bear in seeking key changes to improve ballot security.

She quite obviously has the respect of the Board and its staff, I believe because she has “walked the walk” on ballot integrity and can speak to them at their own sophisticated levels, and now knows the topics in detail.

At the meeting, to the stunned but happy surprise of Sharon, myself (as Chairman of Defend The Vote), and our assembled supporting spectators, we learned that the Commissioners have not only considered the deep concerns raised by Defend the Vote over the past months, they have acted on more than one with important change to improve ballot security in Chicago beginning now in 2012.

Sometimes fighting the good fight gets results!

1. Precinct Polling Place Ballot Security. Over the past two years, Defend The Vote and the Chicago Republican Party conducted a lengthy investigation of ballot security protocols for polling places and the security measures used to secure ballot boxes, finding major avenues for vote fraud.

Sharon’s work was financed by Champion News.

Then, in April 2011, Defend The Vote used this newly gained knowledge to conduct a surprise audit of Chicago polling places in the Chicago Municipal Runoff election.

In assessing well over 200 precincts, the Audit found major lapses in ballot security at 90% of the polling places, and 58% of the polling places had unsealed ballot boxes. The findings were put in a 43 page report by DTV Executive Director Sharon Meroni that was published in the peer review Journal of Physical Security, of the Argonne National Laboratory.

As a direct result of that work and the Audit, the Board has substantially revised and upgraded its polling place security procedures, particularly with regard to the multiple security seals used on ballot box equipment, which was a major area of concern.

The Board is even going so far as to buy new seals which will be more difficult to compromise, and will be recording serial numbers of all seals on all ballot boxes, thereby closing a major security loophole.

From now on, any seals removed and/or replaced for any reason must be kept and tendered back to the Board, along with explanations. It is a major victory for ballot security in Chicago!

2. Early Voting. A huge ruckus erupted at one Early Voting site in Chicago in the 2010 General Election, in the 35th Ward (Logan Square).

It was based on concerns that correct procedures were not being followed by the site supervisor.

Chicago GOP Chairman Eloise Gerson was a near-daily visitor at the the 35th Ward site to inspect the voting, and I myself was forced to spend many hours poll watching there in October 2010 to keep things on the straight and narrow.

As a result of that situation, and a resulting further investigation by Defend the Vote and the Chicago Republican Party, sharp concern was raised over the fact that the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners only used employees to run Early Voting sites, not actual sworn and qualified Election Judges.

The employees are not required to meet the qualifications of Election Judges.

The concern was only heightened when it was discovered in an investigation in late 2010 and early 2011 that foreign national employees of the Board were acting as supervisors and clerks at Early Voting sites, frequently deciding if U.S. citizens could vote or not.

One such employee was the very Supervisor at the 35th Ward Early Voting Site who was the center of the controversy in 2010.

Later in 2011, Chairman Gerson issued a lengthy letter to the Board detailing our findings and demanding that the Board scrap the use of employees (though legally permitted under the Election Code), to use only qualified and sword Election Judges at Early Voting sites.

The Board has agreed to make key changes.

• First, the Board has agreed that no foreign national Board employees will be assigned to work at Early Voting sites.
• Second, one Democratic and one Republican Election Judge will be present at each Early Voting site, with full power to make complaint and demand action by the Board and its field investigators, as a check on abuses at Early Voting sites.

We see this as a major improvement in the integrity of the Early Voting system!

3. Electronic Voting and Electronic Vote Counting. This was a lengthy and open discussion at the Board Meeting.

Sharon expressed the substantial overall concerns of DTV with electronic voting (which is banned in many countries, such as Germany) based on possible ease of tampering, giving specific examples of what we see as flaws in the current system.

The Board would not agree that electronic voting was demonstrably insecure, but agreed to continued discussion with DTV to air and investigate the matters we have raised, which run into key specifics of current machine operation, as well as known examples and testimony regarding the ease of computer tampering with vote counts.

The City and Cook County have invested heavily in new electronic systems, so substantial evidence of flaws will be required.

This must be considered a work in progress.

In all, we believe the Board has made concrete, important and genuine steps to address ballot security concerns.

Just as importantly, the Board welcomed constructive engagement with DTV on the issues we have raised.

As Chairman of Defend The Vote, at the close of the public discussion I rose and thanked the Commissioners not only for the important improvements implemented for 2012, but also for their openness to dialogue and suggestions.

There is far to go, as several important areas of concern and investigation remain to be explored.

But this was a great start and a very good day for Chicago voters!

It would flip the vote 51-49,  says computer programmer with the last name of Curtis.

The YouTube seems to be mislabeled.  It sounds like a legislative committee hearing in Ohio. At least two congressman takes part in the questioning, plus names that seem to be Ohio state senators.

The first two minutes should make any sane person quite nervous about the integrity, that is, the validity of electronic voting.

In times past, I have been told by two witnesses that a vote counting program for McHenry County was designed and used to fix a judicial race.  The guy who passed on the information and who did the programming was complaining because he had not been paid the $1,500 he had been promised.

Subsequently he was paid and has since died.

“All you have to do is set a flag,” the programmer on the video says.

An email arrived about a meeting being held tonight between Crystal Lake and Cary at the Algonquin Township Hall by Defend the Vote, a group headed by Sharon Meroni. Meroni has sunk her teeth into the problem of ballot security, or, rather, the lack of ballot security, which is gaining steam nationally.

Without the confidence that ballots are being counted accurately, citizens can lose confidence in the legitimacy of their system of government.
JOIN US AT THE Algonquin Township Center in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Located at 3702 U.S. Highway 14, Crystal Lake, IL, 60014.

Tuesday November 30th, 2011 from 7:00-8:30pm CST

Registration 6:30 to 7:00 -

We will work from 7:00 until 8:30 and wrap up as needed the last 30 minutes.

Click here for the map to the event

Registration is Not Required, but, if you wish, you can registerhere

Elections in Illinois:
DID YOU KNOW?

Early voting in Illinois has never been audited.

This means no one has ever checked the software recording 18% of the vote in Illinois to verify the official vote count is the same as the votes recorded on the paper ballot!

Not once!

Are elections in Illinois secure?

After a series of investigations, Defend the Vote proves they are not.

Sharon Meroni is the Executive Director of Defend the Vote.

In 2009 she began to investigate elections in Illinois. What she discovered will startle even the seasoned political junky in Illinois.

Defend the Vote’s published report Vulnerability Assessment and Security Audit of Election Day Polling Place Procedures, summering our audit of security processes on Election Day in Chicago during the Municipal Runoff Elections in 2010, concluded that the election security procedures in Chicago are 100% ineffective in securing the vote.

The question becomes what can we do about it?

During Tuesday night’s meeting we will discuss what is wrong with elections in Illinois and we will break into groups to work out solutions.

For the March 2012 elections we are launching the first ever citizen empowered audit of Illinois elections.

The program is called VAP:

Voter Auditor Pollwatching program.

Become a VAPer!

It is simple.

We will train voters and provide you with the credentials to audit your polling place for security protocols after voting.

The result is we will establish a statewide score of how Illinois secures it’s vote.

And we WILL insist on changes before the November 2012 elections!

The event begins Tuesday at 6:30pm (CST) – Join us to register and socialize. We will start the program at 7pm and break up at 8:30. We are expecting this to be a hands-on group. November 29th at Algonquin Township Office: 3702 U.S. Highway 14, Crystal Lake, IL, 60014.

We welcome Christmas cookies and/or treats. Refreshments will be available.

Find out what Illinois citizens can do to protect our vote! We will break into work groups. Every one is welcome to attend and admittance is free.

Become part of the solution to ballot integrity.

Join Defend the Vote, Become a voter auditor.  http://www.DefendTheVote.com

Unavailable on Tuesday?

Defend the Vote will hold 4 meetings in this area during December to develop our teams. Our next next email will provide locations, dates and times.

Argonne's Journal of Physical Security in which Sharon Meroni's most recent article is published.

A press release from Defend the Vote:

AUDIT REPORT PEER REVIEWED AND PUBLISHED BY THE JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL SECURITY

How difficult is it for the dead to vote in Illinois?

Defend the Vote tested this question in an April 5th audit of Chicago elections. Results were complied into a report.  This report, Vulnerability Assessment and Security Audit of Election Day Polling Place Procedures for the April 5, 2011 Municipal Elections in Chicago, Illinois, by Sharon Meroni, was peer-reviewed and published by the prestigious Journal of Physical Security. The Journal of Physical Security is published by Argonne National Laboratory’s Vulnerability Assessment Team.

On April 5, 2011 a group of citizens from various political parties and the tea party, equipped with audit questionnaires based on the Chicago Board of Election’s, Election Judge Training Guide, visited 239 polling places in Chicago to score the CBoE’s compliance with their own security protocols. The objective of the security assessment (the Audit) was to test enforcement of security protocols that are in place to protect our ballot.

The results were stunning: 210 precincts (91%) failed on one or more of the 11 critical security measures that were evaluated, 66% of them failed on more than one measure.  59% of the time, the CBoE failed to secure the ballot box. 

Included in the report is an analysis of the security around the memory devices and the seals that safe guard them. The stack of boxes pictured below next to the open door, contain all of the memory devices used in voting equipment on Election Day in the City of Chicago.  Each box has the memory devices for one Ward.  These boxes were observed in this location during two separate trips to the warehouse.

Roger G. Johnston, Ph.D., CPP, is head of the Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Johnston has an expertise in ballot security. In reviewing our report, he stated,

“The paper by Sharon Meroni discusses an analysis of election security in Illinois. The findings are disturbing and relevant to elections elsewhere in the country. Election integrity is a homeland security issue and we had better start taking it seriously.”

Further, Dr. Johnston found that “Chicago Board of Elections security protocols are wholly inadequate in securing the ballot.”

Defend the Vote’s mission is to empower citizens to protect elections.  Along with our growing team of partners, we believe that elections should be governed by “Best Practices”  that are based on security over the chain of custody of the ballot and all equipment related to running elections.

With the release of this report we are introducing the VAP program (Voter Auditor Pollwatcher) in Illinois.  This is the first-ever citizen run audit of elections in Illinois. Across the entire State of Illinois, voters will be trained on security for their polling place. Once trained, VAPers will be given credentials and a scoring sheet to take a snapshot of security at their poll. The audit will take about 20 minutes and pollwatchers can be credentialed for multiple polling places.  Audit sheets will be returned to Defend the Vote for analysis and further actions.

The VAP program is only one of several programs Defend the Vote is sponsoring. Defend the Vote first discovered and reported that Illinois has never audited Early Voting for accuracy of the vote. Early voting, 18% of Illinois vote, has never had the paper trail and the electronic tally reconciled. Separately, we reported that the Chicago Board of Elections employs non-citizens to run early voting locations, and that the I-9 employment verification forms for these employees are not in compliance with federal law.

The April audit was endorsed by Champion News and Jack Roeser.

For more information, please contact me at info@defendthevote.com 847 -382-1100 (office)

A press release from the Huntley Tea Party:

Public Forum on Fraud in the Election Process

For years now we have heard stories of problems with our Election Process. There was the “hanging chads” in Florida, the Acorn issues when registering voters and recently a problem in Chicago where 59% of the ballot boxes were not secured properly.

With Primaries coming up in March of 2012 and a major election in November, we must ensure that we have a valid Election Process in our local area.

The last Huntley Tea Party meeting I attended was a pre-2010 candidates' night.

On August 22nd, the Huntley Area Tea Party will host Sharon Meroni, Chairman of “Defend the Vote” at a public forum.

This will be held at the Cosman Center in Deicke Park, 12015 Mill Street in Huntley.

Sharon will be speaking on Fraud in the Election Process and what citizens can do about this problem.

For additional information you can visit the HATP web site at www.huntleyteaparty.com

A press release from Defend the Vote:

EXPLOSIVE REPORT – 2011 Chicago Elections – 59% Ballot Boxes Unsealed

Will My Vote Count in 2012? Explosive report on the security of Chicago elections.

Chicago Illinois, July 22, 2011: “Vote early and vote often” is the infamous phrase attributed to Chicago elections going back to the days of William Hale Thompson, mayor of Chicago from 1915 to 1923 and again from 1927 to 1931.

“Will my vote count?”

That is the question teams of pollwatchers set out to answer during the first ever citizen-run security assessment of the Chicago Board of Election’s processes and procedures.

On April 5th, 2011 – Election Day for the municipal runoff elections – 239 precincts were evaluated according to the CBE’s security procedures.

215 of these (90%) failed in at least one of 11 security procedures, and most of them failed in more than one area.

Incredibly, 139 (59%) did not secure the ballot box to the ballot scanning device!

On Thursday, July 28th (5-7pm) at the Chicago Union League Club, we will release this explosive report!

The report outlines severe lapses in security around the seals that protect memory devices on election equipment.

Besides Election Day procedures, we will discuss how the Chicago Board employs non-citizens to run some early voting sites in Chicago.

In addition, the CBE is non-compliant in Federal I-9 regulations for identifying the legal status of workers operating polling places for early voting.

Hundreds of 1-9′s of these employees do not identify their legal right to work.

Why are these forms not filled out correctly? If the CBE cannot get the simple I-9 forms filled out, how effective are they in maintaining secure elections?

A graphic from a March 1980 Illinois Issues story about Operation LEAP. A link to it is included in the story. Copyright Illinois Issues. Reprinted with permission from Illinois Issues. Dennis Fraden's "Election judges LEAP to clean up Chicago vote fraud," photo published by The University of Illinois at Springfield, IL 62794-9243.

The results of this audit of Chicago elections has inspired Defend the Vote, along with various Tea Party groups, to work with voters across Illinois to launch the first citizen-driven security assessment of voting processes across the State’s 110 election districts.

We frequently do not get to ask “if” our vote was tampered with.

How can we assess vulnerabilities when there is no data collected by election officials?

Security procedures for elections remain largely unavailable to the public.

Defend the Vote and the groups joining us aim to change that before the 2012 November election.

On Primary Day in March 2012, thousands of voters across Illinois will conduct a statewide security audit of election processes and procedures at their polling place.

While a portion of the audit will look at Election Day procedures, the entire process of elections in Illinois will be assessed, including

• early voting,
• absentee voting,
• nursing home voting,
• warehouse storage, and
• inventory and shipping procedures.

Security measures around the machines and their memory devices will be reviewed and documented as part of a system-wide vulnerability assessment.

For too long, voters in Illinois have uttered the phrase we are infamous for “vote early and vote often.”

In 2012 voters across the state of Illinois will step up to hold their local election authorities accountable for holding honest and transparent elections.

Join us on July 28th to learn more!

Contact: Defend the Vote – Empowering Citizens to Protect Elections
847-382-1100 Sharon@defendthevote.com

= = = = =
Back in at least the 1970′s and 1980′s there was an organization called Operation LEAP. The “LEAP” stood for “Legal Elections in All Precincts.” The late Tom Roeser was its president in 1980.

I can testify to ballot problems in 1974′s Regional Transportation Authority referendum. Paper ballots were used. The victory margin of its supporters was under 13,000.

State Rep. Don Totten (R-Schaumburg) and his organization color coded the election results of every Chicago precinct. I still remember one that went 100% for the RTA referendum. About 80 “Yes” votes, no “No” votes and about 60 spoiled ballots. The rest of the ward was voting about 60% in favor of RTA.

My guess is that someone put “identifying marks” on the 60 “No” votes and the Democratic Party judges declared them “spoiled ballots.”

Vote fraud is more sophisticated now and oversight is definitely needed.

It was funded by good government business types, who apparently lost interest after Richard Daley was elected Mayor.

Sharon Meroni of Defend the Vote addresses Crystal Lake Tea Party members.

Without ballot integrity, democracy disappears.

If you can’t be sure your vote is being counted correctly and only votes of others voting legally are being counted as well, what trust would you have in the governmental system?

The Crystal Lake Tea Party met last night at the Park District’s Park Place to hear the findings of those who have investigated the situation. Below is Tea Party leader Mary Alger’s report on what happened:

“Citizens gathered at Park Place in Crystal Lake, IL and were completely drawn in by 3 speakers that presented the problems we face in election integrity and were given a solid citizen action and legal plan to fix it.

“Sharon Meroni of www.defendthevote.com tracked election processes & procedures in the City of Chicago which took her on an odyssey of adventures and discovered jaw dropping revelations.

Chicago Republican Election Attorney Steve Bolton speaks about ballot integrity problems of early voting.

“Unsecured ballots, illegal election workers, and problems with the voting machines were but a few of the problems found.

“Potentially the biggest problem is that there is virtually no auditing of early voting although Illinois law says that 5% of all votes must be audited.

“Based on many of these findings, Chicago GOP Election attorney, Steve
Boulton, spoke of his bringing several legal actions to the Chicago Board of
Elections to seek remedy.

“His letter can be found here.

“Evert Evertsen, a naturalized US citizen since 1984, knows how precious the
right to vote in this country is and has been protecting the process for
seven years by being an election judge and training poll watchers.

“These 3 speakers compelled all citizens to get involved in securing the
voting process. Sign up sheets were filled out that will allow citizens to
become highly trained and effective poll watchers, election judges, learn to
use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to seek election information and
to clean up the voter registration rolls.

“These actions will become a new focus of TEA Parties throughout the country and with www.illinoistea.org affiliated TEA Parties in our state.

“Simply put, without the sanctity and assurance of our vote being counted we lose our Republic.

One of the missions of the TEA Party is taking citizen action from the street corner and bringing it to the polling place.

“We will start in Illinois of all places to show the nation that it CAN be done starting HERE, starting NOW.”

Mary Alger
Crystal Lake TEA Party