Whitley County, Kentucky: Taking a stand for fair elections

July 10, 2006 at 21:41:05

by Kathleen Wynne, Black Box Voting Activist

Seven candidates, from two different political parties, have joined together to fight the Kentucky machine. One ordinary citizen has galvanized this action and stopped this very important case from being dismissed.

When Glenda Young called Black Box Voting she was a woman with a mission. "I need a lawyer," she said. "Can you help?"

Her plain spoken Southern drawl was laced with urgency and determination. "I believe that a great injustice has been done. When seven candidates join together from different parties to contest an election because they believe it was not honest, something's terribly wrong."

After questioning her, Kathleen Wynne of Black Box Voting was sufficiently concerned about procedural violations in the election that she took it upon herself to contact several attorneys on Glenda's behalf. The first attorney to understand the urgency and importance of this case was Paul Lehto, a formidable advocate for clean elections from Everett, Washington.

The candidates had already filed a case with local counsel, and a motion had been filed to dismiss. Lehto wasted no time catching a plane to Kentucky. After meeting with candidates, who provided hair-raising accounts of election irregularities, Lehto stepped in to fight the dismissal with the aid of local attorney Leroy Gilbert.

According to Lehto & Gilbert's legal brief:

quote:

The Court must recall at all times that the voting here in question involves invisible electronic ballots which have not been inspected at any time by any party hereto, even the County Clerk has not counted them. Rather, the electronic ballots have been purported to be counted in secret by trade secret counting software owned by the vendors.

There is no reason at all or basis for confidence in the electronic counting until verified by the plaintiffs not only because the Clerk himself is a defendant-candidate here, but also because it is the nature of the computer to do precisely as it is told without reference to any laws, morals or ethics.


Lehto explains: "Computers do what they're told -- without regard to laws, ethics or morals, and THAT's the problem. They can put computers into elections when they find a computer that fears going to jail."
 

A the plaintiff's supplemental response to the motion to dismiss can be seen here:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/legal/kentucky-dismissal.pdf

Here is a Lehto and Gilbert's offer of proof for the motion to dismiss:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/legal/lehto-dismissal-response.pdf

original petition:
http://www.bbvdocs.org/legal/kentucky-original.pdf

Glenda Young is a prime example of the backbone of America. One person CAN make a difference. When she called Black Box Voting, we realized that she was as serious as a heart attack. It was clear that there was no way she was going to back down, whether we helped her or not. This is the kind of tenacity it's going to take to reclaim our elections.

"I never believed this would happen in my own back yard," Young says. "It is up to us as the people of America to take a stand."

Lehto explains:

"For all the talking points of elections officials about pre-election testing, post-LAT testing, parallel testing, ITA certification, etc., the ONLY relevant question is WHAT WAS THE MACHINE TOLD TO DO ON ELECTION DAY ITSELF?

"We don't doubt that the machines CAN count correctly...We wonder what they were told to do on election day that causes either a malfunction (because computers are so complicated and literal) or causes a fraud (because computers will do ANYTHING)."

The machines in use were Hart Intercivic DREs. The evidentiary phase of this case has not been opened yet, but when candidates from two parties join together to file a joint lawsuit, red flags go up like the Fourth of July.

Seven candidates. Two lawyers. One ordinary citizen with firm resolve.

This is an example of what you can accomplish. Now, to expand on this: We cannot overstate the importance of getting involved and gathering real evidence. Evidence = photographs, audio recordings, video, and public records.

There are no small elections. Every election represents the integrity of the machinery and the procedures for the jurisdiction itself. If there is a problem with a local race, you can't have confidence in any race above it.

# # # # #

PERMISSION TO REPRINT OR EXCERPT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Get the Newsletter - It's FREE