Joe says it ain’t so

Late edit: Since there were some comments questioning my use of my editorial license to summarize Dr. Arminio’s letter, you can read the letter in full as the first comment and judge for yourself whether I maintained the flavor of his remarks in my post. My only edit of his letter reprinted as the first comment was to space out the paragraphs.

I got an e-mail over the weekend from defeated Congressional candidate Joe Arminio, who seems to have joined the crowd piling on Diebold and electronic voting machines in general. It’s a fairly long e-mail, so I’ll summarize a few of his points. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Were There Inaccurate Primary Votes In Congressional District One?
By Dr. Joe Arminio
March 14, 2008

A heavy fog of doubt envelops the so-called official results, released three days ago, of the 2008 Republican Primary in the First Congressional District. Similar fogs envelop vote counts across the country. A major cause of all this doubt is typically the same: electronic voting machines, not paper ballots, were used to record the votes. The First District, like almost all other places, foolishly and irresponsibly relies upon voting machines and does not rely upon paper ballots that are manually and publicly counted. Very significant inaccuracies may have resulted.

The key points he attributes the “heavy fog of doubt” to are many, but mainly relate to the vast disparity in campaign spending between himself and fellow also-ran Robert Joseph Banks as well as the difference between his vote and Ron Paul’s vote in the First District. Arminio also throws into question the results based on the number of straw polls Ron Paul has won vs. the number John McCain won. (For the record, McCain got zero votes in our September Wicomico County Straw Poll while Paul received 4 votes.)

Arminio spent $85,000 on the race, which works out to roughly $66 for each of his 1,277 votes. Most of it went to three editions of his newspaper The American Way and 1,000 small campaign signs, 999 of them I think I saw along Route 50 heading up to Chestertown to cover the Kent/Queen Anne’s campaign forum. Banks spent much less and gathered 1,186 votes. Meanwhile, Ron Paul had 4,695 votes in CD-1, and it’s this large difference that Arminio questions. It is for these reasons Arminio feels we need to go back to paper ballots. I can just see the ACORN types on that one, complaining how it would disenfranchise the poor and illiterate, along with the illegals they’re trying to register.

He also returns to the Ron Paul endorsing Wayne Gilchrest flap:

Someone else shall say that Ron Paul endorsed not me, but Wayne Gilchrest, several days before the primary. True. But news of this endorsement was not surely widely known. What is more, it was evidently greeted in disbelief in many quarters. For the record, Ron Paul sent me a thank you note soon after the primary in which he said he did not know I had been in the race and thanked me for my efforts on behalf of his cause and the Constitution.

Not quite a case of mistaken identity, but a mistake nonetheless by Paul. I chalked the endorsement up as courtesy to a fellow Congressman myself, like Newt Gingrich’s endorsement of Wayne Gilchrest. Regardless, Joe comes to his conclusion:

Are we in the throes of a crushing irony? Are we supposedly waging war in Iraq for the purpose of bringing them free elections but cannot ensure free elections in our own country?

In the First District, Andy Harris is the declared Republican Congressional nominee. I trust that he will press for the restoration of the proper, constitutional procedure–the use of paper ballots and the public counting of these ballots–in the interest of preserving the Republic.

I was just reading the copy of the Constitution I keep on my desk and I saw nothing on the type of ballots to be used. In Article I, Section 4 it only states that each state legislature prescribes the electoral laws – however, Congress can “make or alter such Regulations” by law. Joe is correct in thinking that Congress can make such a law dictating paper ballots and certainly is within his right in calling on Andy Harris to do so, but the Constitution is silent on the actual voting method.

So take it for what it’s worth, I just found it sort of amusing and decided to share this afternoon.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

11 thoughts on “Joe says it ain’t so”

  1. Here is the letter in its entirety that I sent to Michael. …

    Were There Inaccurate Primary Votes In Congressional District One?
    By Dr Joe Arminio
    March 14, 2008

    A heavy fog of doubt envelops the so-called official results, released three days ago, of the 2008 Republican Primary in the First Congressional District. Similar fogs envelop vote counts across the country. A major cause of all this doubt is typically the same: electronic voting machines, not paper ballots, were used to record the votes. The First District, like almost all other places, foolishly and irresponsibly relies upon vote machines and does not rely upon paper ballots that are manually and publicly counted. Very significant inaccuracies may have resulted.

    Observing that I was a Republican Congressional candidate who ran on the Ron Paul Maryland ticket in the First District primary just ended, a number of voters have brought to my attention several peculiar results. One of these results is that I garnered virtually as few votes as last-place finisher Robert Banks. My exertions were very significant, his were negligible. I spent approximately $85,000. The money divided among, most notably, a) 394,000 copies and 3 editions of my campaign newspaper The American Way, which can still be seen at http://www.americanway08.org, and which were circulated twice or in more than half the cases three times among about 150,000 households, b) one thousand 18 x 24 inch campaign signs, which were deployed along major routes such as 1, 50 and 301, c) six very large campaign signs, which were deployed on Kent Island along Route 50, d) a campaign headquarters on each side of the Bay, e) two campaign trucks and f) numerous appearances at campaign stops across the District. Banks, on the other hand, spent virtually nothing and had virtually no presence.

    I shall be told the voters shunned my message. Did they? Ron Paul supposedly won 6% of the vote in the District and I made it quite clear, at every turn and by a variety of means, that I was on his ticket. What did I supposedly win? 1.6%, compared to Banks at 1.5%. There is also the curiosity that candidates for delegate to the Republican national convention who ran on the Ron Paul ticket gained respectively 2.2%, 2% and 2% in the District and candidates for alternate delegate who ran on that ticket gained in their turn 3%, 2.9% and 2.8%. Banks, by the way, apparently did not even live in the District during the primary!

    Someone else shall say that Ron Paul endorsed not me, but Wayne Gilchrest, several days before the primary. True. But news of this endorsement was not surely widely known. What is more, it was evidently greeted in disbelief in many quarters. For the record, Ron Paul sent me a thank you note soon after the primary in which he said he did not know I had been in the race and thanked me for my efforts on behalf of his cause and the Constitution.
    Something more must be said about Ron Paul’s vote. I suspect he garnered more or much more than 6% of the vote in the First District. For one thing, it is very interesting that, as of March 6, 2008, he has beaten John McCain in 60 straw polls–including in Maryland’s–and lost to him in 7! Although straw polls typically involve a slender number of voters, they are always or nearly always cast on paper ballots and publicly counted.

    Is this the first time that a popular grass-roots presidential candidate has officially polled below expectations? Did not Patrick Buchanan suffer a similar fate?

    Are we in the throes of a crushing irony? Are we supposedly waging war in Iraq for the purpose of bringing them free elections but cannot ensure free elections in our own country?

    I trust that Andy Harris, the declared Republican Congressional nominee in the First District, will press for the restoration of the proper, constitutional procedure–the use of paper ballots and the public counting of these ballots–in the interest of preserving the Republic.

  2. So Dr. Joe is claiming foul that he lost the election? Having attended two GOP events where he spoke and left an extremely bad impression with the guests, I am amazed that he got the number of votes he did. One on one, he’s a nice guy. When he speaks to a crowd, though, he comes across as a complete loon. I am sure he can’t see this, but if he thinks that he had some large base of support he’s even more deranged than I thought.

    As far as the Paul vote “discrepancy” goes, as a Paul voter myself (who most certainly did not vote for Arminio), there is no reason to think that Arminio’s desperate tactic of glomming onto Ron Paul should have produced more votes for him. Arminio endorsed Ron Paul; Ron Paul did not endorse Arminio. Paul is, at heart, a libertarian. Arminio certainly is not a libertarian. Paul’s campaign attracted the suppport of libertarians like myself but also of nutjobs who fear the Trilateral Commmission, think the Illuminati run the country, and hold other fringe beliefs. True libertarians who voted for Paul would be unlikely to vote for a candidate like Arminio, given his ridiculous economic beliefs and his support of further government intervention in our lives. Paul’s nutjob supporters in the First District, however, certainly found a candidate they could support in Arminio.

  3. Michael, As the former Vice President of the League of Republican Women in DC I am asking if you’re jesting about Diebold’s corrupted voting machines? Just be glad your candidate wasn’t running in Ohio. As for your support of Mr. Harris, don’t hold your breath, because I’m sure you’ll find out after the November election why Harris lost his race, and then we’ll see who starts piling on Diebold. Dr. Arminio has excellent points to make, and instead of censoring his E-Mail why don’t you let the voters make up their minds by letting them read it as offered. Your remarks editing his contribution are far longer than his entire blog. I read his remarks and I agree fully with his statements, and so will Mr. Harris after the November election vote count.

    As for Mr. Banks why aren’t you being honest that he didn’t even live in the district!!!

  4. If Andy Harris loses I won’t pile on Diebold. And as an Ohio native who voted there for over 20 years I found that their state Board of Elections was generally on the up and up.

    Regarding the accusation about editing, I decided to summarize Joe’s points rather than make a much longer post after adding my additional thoughts on the matter. His overall letter was 664 words and my original post was 685 words, including the excerpts from the letter.

    Finally, I brought up the point about Banks not living in the district here, a post that includes his response as a comment. The post was from January 17th of this year, almost a month before the election.

  5. Michael, I spent a good amount of time in Columbus Ohio, and twenty years ago the Ohio State Board of Elections had not perfected the Diabolical Diebold machine corruption and tampering evaluation survey. My professor at Ohio State University, Dr Roger Blackwell was head of the OSU Marketing Business School and was busy trading stock on the inside and now he’s serving time in prison for his inability to apply his six magic words, Find A Need And Fill It. Tell me about the up and up when it comes to Ohio, especially when a reknown professor makes millions off of the unwitting voters!!

  6. Mike:
    You are correct is stating that Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution does not stipulate the voting method. Article II, Section 1 does, however, proscribe ballots as the method to be used by the electorial body. That section was later changed by the 12th Amendment and later further modified by the 25th Amendment, both of which, however, mention written methods (“ballot” in the case of the 12th, and “written declaration” in the case of the 25th). Granted, none of these relate specifically to the method employed by each state for purposes of counting the popular vote, however, given the technology of the time, paper was the only method available and remained so until just recently (other than voice which would be impractical for obvious reasons). It is my humble opinion that our Founding Fathers would have found computerized voting methods quite acceptable; that is if they could be found accurate and reliable. There exists a significant body of evidence, however, which indicates that the vast majority of electronic systems currently in use are neither accurate nor reliable. Whether you are a Bev Harris alarmist or an Aviel Rubin,Ph.D. sober pragmatist there is good reason for concern regarding the integrity of our voting systems.
    As you know Maryland has adopted the Diebold system. The software for this system happens to be the same that Dr. Rubin and his Johns Hopkins University team of computer scientists studied and began reporting on in 2003. The book, published in 2006, entitled, “Brave New Ballot – The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting” by Aviel D. Rubin, Ph.D., documents that study and subsequent controversy as well as the major players in the effort to ensure that the integrity of our voting systems and therefore our democracy is maintained. It should be required reading for anyone interested in this issue.

  7. Mike:
    I should most importantly add “secure” to the question of “accurate and reliable” concerning our current electronic voting method.

  8. Michael, I thought it appropriate to inform you that Ohio’s voting machines are now an official crime scene. I suggest that you post this to inform your readers that Dr. Arminio has made an accurate assessment and the writer that identifies himself as “Marc” is determined to discredit Dr. Arminio without cause. Maybe some light needs to be shed on Maryland’s voting machines as well.

    Ohio Voting Machines are Now an official crime scene.
    by
    Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
    March 17, 2008

    At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio’s 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony “Homeland Security Alert” used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush’s 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny.

    The touch-screen machines were locked up after Ohio’s new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, tried to vote last fall. On November 6, she spotted a gray bar with the words “candidate withdrawn” in a slot where the name of Democrat Jay Perez should have appeared. Her husband, voting nearby, told her Perez’s name did appear, as it was supposed to, on his machine.

    Perez had been a candidate in the race for Franklin County Municipal Judge. He withdrew his name after the county had finalized its ballots. But it now appears the ES&S machines left his name on some machines but not on others. Perez, a Democrat, wanted to avoid playing a spoiler in the race. But the appearance of his name on some machines may have helped Republican David Tyack win.

    Brunner now worries that the state will never find out what happened. County election officials ordered the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation to seize the machines. Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann is conducting an investigation that may cost the state $48,000. Brunner recently told WVKO 1580AM radio: “When you’re talking about democracy, it’s priceless.” In another interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Brunner noted “This is a huge problem. There is great concern that not every voter has the same ballot.”

    Ironically, Brunner requested a paper ballot in the March 4, 2008, primary, but a poorly trained poll worker gave her a provisional ballot instead. Two other staffers from her office were also given the wrong ballots. Brunner has since pledged to upgrade the training for Buckeye State poll workers.

    Brunner further announced that she’s banning the practice of so-called “sleepovers” where poll workers take the programmable and easily hackable voting machines home with them overnight prior to an election day.

    Brunner succeeded Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell as Ohio’s Secretary of State. She has vowed to make sure the Buckeye State does not repeat the experience of 2004, when Blackwell choreographed the theft of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for George W. Bush, giving him a second term in the White House. Since taking office Brunner has vowed to shift the entire state to voting on paper ballots, a move being fiercely resisted by numerous Republican-controlled Boards of Elections throughout the state. Thus far Brunner has forced the resignations of BOE chairs in two of Ohio’s most populous cities, Cleveland and Columbus.

    Matt Damschroder was removed as Franklin County Board of Elections Director on the Sunday prior to Ohio’s 2008 primary election. Damschroder was previously suspended for a month without pay for accepting a $10,000 check from a voting machine salesman at the BOE building. The check, made out to the Republican Party, was delivered on the day the state’s contracts for electronic voting machines were open for bidding. Damschroder was former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party and the state’s leading foe of paper ballots. “Damschroder was very opposed to paper ballots and was stoking the fire against them,” Brunner told WVKO.

    Dennis White, the new director of the Franklin County BOE was skeptical of the masking problem, but says if it happened, “it’s huge. We have a federal election coming up this November,” according to the Dispatch. White, who admits to having little knowledge of computers, is the former Ohio Democratic Party Chair.

    That election may once again hinge on Ohio’s vote count. In 2006, Franklin County officials failed to conduct mandated tests on each machine, instead testing only one machine per precinct on a random bases. A report by SysTest Labs, a Colorado consulting firm, confirmed that what Brunner saw on her machine was “exactly what you’d see if someone masked a name,” the Dispatch reported.

    Investigators also found that the “audit logs” on the voting machines were turned off by a board programmer in April, 2007, which has hindered investigators from reconstructing software changes. White says the vendor told a board employee how to disable the auditing system, allegedly to speed programming. Brunner said other vendors told her that “You’re never supposed to tell a (client) how to do that.”

    In the primary this past March, the BOE allegedly did test all Franklin County’s machines. But some counties ran out of Democratic paper ballots as an influx of apparently Republican and Republican-leaning independents flooded the polls, apparently to vote for Hillary Clinton.

    Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Enquirer has reported that a “casual conversation” between a “friendly” FBI agent and the county emergency services director in a parking lot may have contributed to the phony Homeland Security alert that prompted the Warren County BOE to lockdown the vote count in the 2004 election. The BOE declared the emergency and then moved the ballots from the publicly designated vote center to a nearby unauthorized warehouse. They also barred the public and media from witnessing the counting. Warren County, which is outside Cincinnati, then gave Bush 72% of the official vote count, far exceeding expectations. With neighboring Butler and Clermont Counties, Warren gave Bush a margin of 140,000 votes, which exceeded the 119,000 margin by which he allegedly won the election.

    The Enquirer reports that “hundreds” of e-mailed complaints poured into the county BOE after the election, including one from an angry voter in the United Kingdom. “Stop destroying our democracy,” said one voter from South Carolina.

    The Free Press has previously reported that Warren County BOE employees were told on the Thursday prior to the 2004 election day, that there would be a Homeland Security threat on election day. An examination of the ballots by a Free Press investigation team uncovered numerous irregularities in the Warren County vote that helped give Bush the presidency again.


    Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman co-authored HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org) and, with Steve Rosenfeld, WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO from New Press.

  9. Bonnie,

    I don’t need to do anything to discredit Dr. Arminio. His speeches and newspapers do a fine job of doing that without my help. As Joe himself says, “…I garnered virtually as few votes as last-place finisher Robert Banks. My exertions were very significant, his were negligible.” While being a very educated man, Dr. Arminio seems unable to see the connection here. It seems a reasonable conclusion that the more people heard or read about Arminio the less likely they were to vote for him. I’d say it’s pretty certain that if Dr. Arminio hadn’t tried to spread his views through his “significant” exertions he would have garnered far more votes.

  10. In response to Marc’s comments of March 18 regarding Dr. Arminio and his message, I would remind him that the popularity of a man’s message should never be used to assess either the truthfulness of the man or the truth of his message. (Obviously that would apply equally to women).
    You may recall that in the age prior to Louis Pasteur (not 200 years ago) when microorganisms as causative agents in disease were unknown, the standard practice of the day for any medical proceedure from childbirth to surgery involved minimal sanitary practices. Without washing his hands or his equipment a surgeon would move from patient to patient unwittingly spreading disease. As you might guess a variety of reasons were given for the incredibly high mortality rate even for relatively minor proceedures. One such surgeon, evidently concerned with his patients’ welfare, and apparently naively oblivious to the predictable sentiments of his colleagues, had the audacity to suggest that perhaps his fellow surgeons should follow his example and begin washing their hands between patients. This simple request was met with utter contempt on the part of his colleagues. For his trouble the man was driven out of the profession and died broken and discredited.
    That theme has been repeated so often down through history that it has become almost cliche’. You might include Gallileo’s relationship with the church over the Earth-at-the-center-of-the-universe debate, or The-World-is-flat issue, etc. Every advancement of our civilization has involved the willingness of the individual or small group to step forward and challenge the prevailing world view or status quo. Our own American revolution was carried out by a minority of those here at the time. The majority either sat the fence waiting to see who would prevail or were actively opposed to to the break with mother England. More recently, the civil rights movement involved a similar dynamic.
    If you wish to discredit Dr. Arminio or his message I would suggest you do so point by point and give your reasons. To dismiss him or his message solely on the basis of his popularity or lack thereof, is folly. You do remember the wise admonition regarding the dangers of forgetting the lessons of history, do you not?

  11. Greg,

    I’m not dismissing Arminio’s message based on his unpopularity. I’m dismissing his notion that somehow votes for him were not counted. Regardless of the merits of his message, there is virtually no support in the First District for it. My point was that many voters perceived (correcly, in my view) that his message was complete bunk when he spoke that he would have done better, vote-wise, had he refrained from campaigning.

    As far as refuting his message, I have neither the forum nor the inclination to expose the numerous flaws in both Armnio’s logic and assertions. Furthermore, I learned a long time ago not to debate at length with conspiracy theorists. The belief that a committed band of evil men are manipulating us for their gain is something that makes them oblivious to any facts illustrating the folly of thier views.

    Frankly, I don’t really need to spend time debunking Arminio. His views occupy such a marginal place on the political spectrum that they are irrelevant. Furthermore, as was clearly the case when I saw Arminio speak, most people already know that he’s peddling nonsense. Arminio and other conspiracy nuts do a much better job of illustrating the insanity of their views than I could ever do.

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