---

Part 2 – Introduction, General Concepts:

Treating Election Day with the Gravity Required and  Demanded

1.  As is well known, the United States is a Republic, and uses a democratic method to elect its leaders from local offices like City Council to the President of the United States. Those leaders then become public office holders and make the policies which so influence the future direction of the nation, including (along with the courts, whose judges are often appointed by those elected) how the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights are applied to various, current concrete realities, such as what the tax rate will be, priorities for government spending, whether or not to send the nation’s young people off to foreign wars, prevailing policy on social issues such as abortion and marriage, etc., etc., etc.

2.  It is absolutely vital that the final, official, published election results reflect the will of the voters, and not the will of a clever minority of criminals and sociopaths who devise ways to manipulate and falsify the election results. President John F. Kennedy once stated something to the effect that no field of human endeavor has more temptations than politics. And in the political arena, no temptation is greater than to fix the elections which determine who will direct the future of the city, the county, the state, the nation, and, in many cases, the world. As computer expert, Harry Hursti, testified at the September 12, 2017 meeting of the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity in New Hampshire, election officials must think like the criminals, and prevent them from manipulating and falsifying USA election results.

3.  We as a nation have got to face the fact that a powerful coalition has dragged the United States of America into the dark ages of elections since computers were introduced into USA elections circa 1973, a process which was basically completed by 1988 when all states, excepting only a minuscule number of counties in New Hampshire, and perhaps a few other small venues in other states, were “counting” the nation’s votes with secret, easily-rigged computerized programs owned by about 4 private mega-corporations (now reduced to 3 such mega-companies), with the disgraceful permission of all 50 Secretaries of State, and enforced by signed contracts by the election officials in 99% of our local counties. (Most of the current election officials have inherited the systems they are using, but must now have the courage to change the voting systems back to transparent, verifiable systems.)

Local election officials in 96%+ of USA counties sign contracts with one of these private Election mega-vendors (ES&S, Hart InterCivic, Dominion are the mega-vendors as of 2016. See VerifiedVoting.org for nationwide county by county breakdown), and those contracts, incredibly, forbid the election officials to look at the source code of the privately owned software programs which tell the computers what to do on election night.

The contracts further forbid the election officials from suing the private election-vendor companies no matter what the results or glitches. If anyone can provide an actual contract signed by county election officials with one of these election-vendor companies allowing the election officials and the public to examine the private election-vendor companies’ source code, then we will gladly stand corrected, and issue a corrected report to the Committee on this point. (In some counties, such as in Siskyou County, California, at least part of the contract with mega-vendor ES&S is as of now “off limits’ to public inspection — !!!)  

Professor Doug Jones of the University of Iowa stated on the Jan Mickelson Show on WHO-AM radio station in Iowa during the week of August 5 of 2007, a few days before the Iowa Republican Straw Poll (held on August 11, 2007) that some vendors were trying to get counties to sign contracts that would be off limits to public inspection. (!!!) As alluded to above, Watch the Vote USA Board Member Kelly Mordecai, author of the Hidden Fourth Branch (about the role of civil grand juries) discovered in late 2016 that the voter registration management contract between Siskyou County, California and Election Systems & Software (ES&S) was off limits to public inspection. How can this be legal in the United States of America?

Also, to emphasize an already stated point from a slightly different angle, to add insult to injury, as of the 2016 Presidential election, ten states in the USA are still using voting systems which are counting votes based solely on bleeps of energy — with no paper ballot in use at all. This type of system gives the hired election VENDOR carte blanche to manipulate the vote on the computer programs WHICH THEY OWN. How is this possible? Are the county election officials and the Secretaries of State in these ten states totally brain dead? Furthermore, the election/voting situation in the USA, even in the 40 states which use paper ballots, could hardly be more “insane”, more sinister, or more in violation of common sense, the US Constitution regarding the “consent of the governed”, and three standing US Supreme Court decisions. Even in these 40 states where paper ballots are in use as of November 2016, with the exception of 5 counties in New Hampshire and perhaps a few other very small venues in a few other states, the paper ballots are whisked away from the public sight before the votes can be counted by neighborhood citizens.

4.  The first step in finally bringing voting into the 21^st century, and again into line with the dignity of a free people, is to finally engage the adult population in the effort and energy surrounding election day, in a way which corresponds to the gravity and seriousness of this most solemn civic responsibility, both with regards to voting, and counting the vote.

5.  Successfully executing an accurate election must be viewed as no less serious and precise than executing a military operation in a theater of war.

Gone must be the days of almost exclusive emphasis on the ease of voting, with almost no emphasis on the accuracy of counting the votes.

Gone must be the days of allowing the ballots to disappear from public sight before the ballots are counted at each neighborhood polling place in full public view, as in days of old, and as is still done in five counties in New Hampshire.

Gone must be the days when voters are tricked into “voting” on touch screen computers with no paper ballots, when voters are induced by their election officials to blindly trust that a bleep of energy will somehow be infallibly counted accurately somewhere in the “ionosphere”. When a vote has been transmuted into an electronic bleep, anything can happen.

Gone must be the days when voters vote hurriedly on the way to or from work and then go home to see what the television announcer tells us that the mysteriously programmed computers say are the results. A national holiday on election day, and perhaps on the day before and after, is in order.

Gone must be the days when election workers during the voting day AND in the ballot counting process are treated like galley slaves and paid very poorly. (Please note: the same public officials who treat election workers shabbily on election day simultaneously send tens of BILLIONS of dollars oversees to fund projects they like; – the situation becomes even more odious when one considers the possibility these priorities are being set by public officials who were perhaps never really elected in the first place, but were rather put in office by sinister computerized vote manipulation and falsification.)

6.  Our estimates are that it would take between $1.2 billion and $2.4 billion dollars per year to cover the proper hand-counting of paper ballots for the primary election and the general election, nationwide, together with the imaging of the original hand-counted paper ballots to enable recounts by anyone anywhere in the world by modern internet technology; please note that we are talking about the recount (by way of image copies) here, NOT the original count, which must be done by hand-counted paper ballots BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight.

(To put this cost factor in perspective, we in the USA spent $4 billion dollars in EACH MONTH of the first 12 months during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) $48 billion would pay for the hand count of paper ballots by real human beings for between 20 and 40 years. This sum is a pittance overall with regards to our local budgets, state budgets, and national budget. And this may be less money than 3000+ of our nation’s counties are now paying the three mega-election vendors which now “count” nearly 99% of our nation’s vote (these mega-vendor corporations, again, are Election Systems & Software or ES&S, Hart InterCivic, and Dominion, which bought the election divisions of Sequoia and Diebold circa 2014).

Since it may appear incredible to those not familiar with this subject that only three Election mega-Vendors processed 99% of the vote in about 96% of the counties in the 2016 Presidential election, please see ‘The Dangers of Computerized Elections’ by Ronnie Dugger in the New Yorker, November 1988, and, especially the first few paragraphs of ‘How They Could Steal the Election This Time’ by Ronnie Dugger in the Nation magazine, July 29, 2004. The website VerifiedVoting.org has a current list of what counties are using which of these three private companies. (See our Resources section on the DVD included with this report the report entitled ‘Election Equipment – 50 States’) For instance, Ohio used ES&S, Hart, or Dominion in 86 of its 88 counties, the other two being counted by a smaller company named Unisyn, which company renowned votefraud investigator Lynn Landes (theLandesReport.com) suggests may be a front company for ES&S. Another example: One of these mega-election-vendors, ES&S, processes / “counts” the votes in ALL 67 counties in Alabama.

(A good question is: who are ES&S, Hart, and Dominion possibly acting as front companies for? That would be the first question on Sherlock Holmes’ mind, or Lt. Columbo’s mind, if a fictionalized movie is made someday about election realities in the USA from 1988 to 2017.)

So even if the cost for honest, transparent, and verifiable elections is not less than we are currently paying this handful of mysterious private election-vendors, NOTHING is more important than to ensure honest, clean, transparent, and verifiable elections. Cost in this transition cannot be a factor, any more than it was a factor in the destructive and deceptively named Help America Vote Act (HAVA) enacted following the 2000 Presidential election.

The Board of Elections are money LOSERS for the taxpayer just as the Police Department, the Fire Department, and the military are money losers for the public. BUT the vote count under the authority of the Board of Elections is equally important to the defense of a free people as are the police departments, the fire departments, and the military.

The published, official election count determines whether or not we end up with the REAL choice of the people as the winners (hand-counted paper ballots BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight), or whether front men for criminal opportunists and/or domestic enemies are installed in place of the real winners (an unacceptable and overwhelming danger in easily-rigged computer counts).

In addition to the people’s right to transparent and honest elections, the cost to bring our election system into the 21^st century – back to honesty, transparency, and verifiability — is peanuts when compared to the amount of foreign aid the USA has given to other countries since World War II. And, the overriding reality is that honest, transparent, verifiable elections will determine not only who appoints the judges, but also who commands the police departments, the fire departments, the military, and everything else to do with government.

Public officials swear to protect our country from enemies, both foreign and domestic. Since the advent of easily-rigged computerized elections circa 1973, some would argue that we increasingly HAVE domestic enemies occupying our public offices and directing our country.

7.  What will seem at first incredible to some in the age of computers, the first step to ensuring transparent, verifiable, accurate, clean and honest elections is to BAN all computers and machines from the official count.

Cameras and computers can be used to make an image of each paper ballot (by the voter himself or herself through a scanner immediately after finishing marking his or her ballot; or the image can be made using a scanner immediately after each ballot is officially hand-counted by the designated scrutineers) in order to make that image available on the internet for anyone in the world to be able to double check the official count at that neighborhood precinct, if he or she wishes to do so. – But the official count must be hand-counted paper ballots (all the ballots) by real human beings in public view BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight.

It goes without saying that any scanner used to make an electronic image of the actual paper ballot must be of such a make that each ballot remains visible to the voter himself, to the official judges, and to the public, even while it is being scanned, with only a very small portion of the ballot disappearing into the scanner as an image is being made of that same ballot through the scanner. Also, the scanner must be of such a make that there are no possible compartments in it, into which the original ballot can disappear and be replaced with another falsified ballot emerging to take its place. Another option to image the ballot, perhaps a better option, is to commission a camera that can be plugged into a laptop computer via a USB port which snaps a picture of the ballot, without any portion of the ballot disappearing as the image is being made.

To emphasize again: The necessary basic elements for honest, transparent, and verifiable elections are: a) Paper Ballots; b) hand-counted by real human beings; c) counted BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight.

The Presidential Commission on Election Integrity and the Congress will have to stand up to the current “powers-that-be” in the computerized-election-syndicate, which includes almost all of the Big Media, electronic and print – for they will howl like rabid wolves against elections so conducted with hand counted paper ballots – because such elections will make it impossible for the powerful coalitions they are part of or protect, or anyone else, to rig elections from a central location.

The Presidential Commission on Election Integrity and Congress will also have to stand up against the well meaning voices and experts in the computer savvy community who will advocate for computers to remain in the original official vote count, with, at best, only a small fraction of the ballots actually hand-counted at some point. This emotional attachment to computers in the official election count must be resisted because, as stated by the panel of experts on cyber safety before the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity on September 12, 2017 in New Hampshire: paraphrase: We can never reach total security in computerized elections, but only the least amount of insecurity.

With a hand count of 100% of the paper ballots BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight, especially if the video and audio of actual count is simultaneously filmed and recorded during the count (this is a different process which would be in addition to imaging the ballot via a scanner or special camera), we can reach total security, not just the least amount of insecurity. (Please see section 3 of this Watch the Vote USA report to the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, entitled, “How Votes Must Be Counted”.)

(Filming and recording the ballots and the voices of the scrutineers as the ballots are being counted in the original count – would thwart even a team of scrutineers (counters) who wanted to collaborate to falsify the vote count in some way at their station in a given neighborhood precinct.)

8.  To re-emphasize again [for the 3rd time]: in the place of where computers are used in elections in 99% of the country since at least as far back as 1988, paper ballots must be hand-counted in the neighborhood polling place by pre-selected neighborhood voters in full public view at each neighborhood polling place BEFORE the ballots leave the sight of the public.

This is the way ballots were originally counted in the United States, and this is the way ballots are still counted in parts of New Hampshire, such as in Richmond, New Hampshire. In Arizona, for instance, there is a mandatory hand count of something like 1% of the ballots; this is a little better than nothing, but definitely not even close to good enough, as explained above.  

Humboldt County in California scans all the ballots on election night, which is an important step in the right direction in light of prevailing conditions in 2016 (but not the comprehensive solution). The Humboldt county advancement still leaves some unacceptable potential problems such as the paper ballots leaving the public sight before they have been counted in public view.

9.  Computerized elections conducted in the USA since 1988 (and before) are illegal elections according to three US Supreme Court Decisions:

— Wesberry v. Sanders, (1964), stated that all other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.

The other two relevant US Supreme Court decisions, namely,

— US v Mosley (1915)

— Reynolds v Sims (1964)

These last two cases say that our right to vote consists of two parts:

a) the right to cast a ballot;

b) the right to KNOW that our vote has been counted accurately.

Without a system where 100% of the paper ballots are counted by real human beings BEFORE the ballots leave the public sight – there is no way for voters to KNOW that their vote was counted accurately, and not diluted in some way, or negated altogether. These important court decisions warn us to guard against any attempt, however sophisticated, to dilute the individual vote.  For more information on these Supreme Court decisions, go to WatchTheVoteUSA.com, and then to the menu tab “Supreme Court Decisions.” The exact web address is: https://www.watchthevoteusa.com/u-s-supreme-court-decisions/

When easily-rigged computerized election systems are used, we are still allowed to cast a ballot, but we HAVE NO IDEA if our ballot is being counted accurately or not. Applying the wise principles of these Supreme Court decisions, secret computer counts are illegal precisely because no one can see what’s happening inside the election computer. When you compound that insult to the voter with the fact that ballots (if any) are removed from the public sight for a few weeks before a recount can take place, the situation is egregious, illegal, and totally unacceptable.

(See the YouTube video, “South Carolina, Super Tuesday, and Ron Paul” for how the state of South Carolina was violating these US Supreme Court decisions in the 2008 Presidential Primary, and beyond.)

In the important HBO documentary, ’Hacking Democracy’, now available at Amazon.com for a very reasonable price, when paper ballots were finally brought out for recount in Cleveland, Ohio shortly (weeks) after the 2004 Presidential Election – the Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) election officials were unable to explain on camera how they selected the few precincts they brought out for the public recount. Under such circumstances the public cannot know for sure whether their ballots were altered, or switched altogether, while they were out of the public sight.

We suspect that the private mega-election vendors are often (or always?) involved in the “preparation of ballots” for recount – but, in any case, it is unacceptable for the ballots to disappear from public sight for any reason before the votes are counted. This most definitely includes early mail-in ballots, a recently introduced practice which must be outlawed and discontinued.

Again, incredibly, in ten states of the fifty states in the USA in the 2016 election, approximately 25% of Americans “vote” on computerized election systems with no paper ballots involved, — just bleeps of energy that are supposedly tabulated inside the computer system. In such cases, no effective recount is even possible. There is every reason to conclude that these systems were devised by crooks, for crooks. See Chapter 2 and Appendix 2 of the book, “Black Box Voting” by Bev Harris, available in hardcopy and free online at BlackBoxVoting.org. Again, how brain-dead do election officials have to be to approve the use of such computerized systems without paper ballots? But, it must be emphasized, we don’t need paper ballots primarily for a backup, IN CASE we need a recount,– but paper ballots are needed PRIMARILY for the original hand count.

10.  Just as the courts and the US Congress established national legislation and mandatory guidelines that local counties and local Boards of Elections must follow to ensure the rights of minorities when voting in elections, the US Congress must now enact mandatory legislation to protect the rights of ALL voters against the owners of computer-peddling election VENDORS, and lone-ranger hackers. But the mega-election vendors are much more potentially dangerous than the lone-ranger hackers. These mega-election vendors OWN the computer programs. They do not need to “hack in” – they OWN the programs and have TOTAL ACCESS at all times, before, during, and after election day. And they are free of any effective oversight because of their bogus claim of “intellectual property” for programs that are just counting “one vote for me, one vote for you”, etc. And these mega-election vendors have the means and opportunity – and very, very often the motive – to warp and rig key elections. AND these mega-elections vendors are free of any effective oversight, or checks and balances, because, as we have noted, the election officials from top to bottom have abdicated their solemn responsibilities by the contracts they sign with these same mega-election vendors NOT to inspect the source code of the software used in the computers on election night, and not to sue the vendors no matter what happens. Furthermore, election officials never know the names of the individuals who are actually writing this software for the mega-election vendors. In other words, election officials from top to bottom sign off on results even though they have no way of knowing whether such results are accurate or not.

With all that is now known with 40+ years of computerized elections behind us, with all the books and articles that have been written, with all the audios and videos and documentaries that have been produced, with all the research that has been done, with all the testimony that has been given (see documentation in the other sections of this report, as well as in the Appendices, including the Resources section,– it is no longer acceptable to argue that the rules which govern the counting of votes must be left exclusively to states and counties (although the execution of the vote count under these rules much be conducted by the states and counties).

The execution of elections must be left to the states and local counties, but HOW they conduct elections must be “bound by the chains” of legislation and guidelines demanded by the US Constitution (consent of the governed) and standing US Supreme Court decisions. (See section 3 of this report for the exact guidelines of how elections in the United States must be run to ensure honesty, transparency, and verifiability.

Everyone would agree that the civil rights legislation passed by the US Congress circa 1964 to safeguard the vote for minorities should not be undone. Now we need legislation from the US Congress to safeguard the vote for EVERY eligible US voter, and such legislation would then bind the practices of the 50 states and the 3141 counties.

11. On the night of the 2016 Presidential Election, most Americans had no idea that twelve mega-entities were cooperating in the role of Election Night Gatekeepers for the Presidential Election, and potentially all other elections with the exception of a few local elections in New Hampshire, and perhaps a few other small areas of the country. (WTV has never been able to verify for certain that anywhere outside of five counties in New Hampshire since 1988 were hand-counting paper ballots properly, meaning hand-counting paper ballots BEFORE the ballots left the public sight.)

* NEWS ALERT 12-09-2017: As we were completing this report, an important news development was reported in Politico.com regarding the recent pull out of Fox and AP from the NEP (described below). Please see the *footnoted paragraphs at the end of Appendix I (that is an ‘i’) of our report for an up to date analysis.

 

More precisely, ten of these twelve mega-entities actually cooperate on election night. These ten mega-entities are: six media giants (1) ABC, (2) CBS, (3) NBC, (4) CNN, (5) *FOX, (6) *AP wire:  (7) NEP (which was formed by four of the just named six media giants, later joined by CNN and FOX); and three mega-election-Vendors: (8) Election Systems & Software (ES&S), (9) Hart InterCivic, and (10) Dominion (which bought Diebold circa 2013). Two of the twelve mega-entities: (11) the RNC (Republican National Committee) and the (12) DNC (Democratic National Committee), have green-lighted the hiring of the three mega-election-vendors by the Secretary of State in all 50 states, and 3000+ of our 3141 counties.

(Note: When we speak of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and *FOX with regard to election night, we are speaking specifically of the NEWS DIVISIONS of the 5 major TV Networks as part of the Election Night Gatekeepers, we are not referring to the on-air opinion commentator personalities such as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Chris Matthews, Megyn Kelly, Don Lemon, etc.)

These 12 Election Night Gatekeepers are:

– 6 major media corporations plus 1 affiliated , namely:

(1) ABC, (2) CBS, (3) NBC, (4) CNN, (5) *FOX, (6) *AP Wire, and (7) NEP (National Election Pool). NEP is a virtually unknown corporation formed by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, *FOX, and *AP Wire. NEP used to carry the name of VNS (Voter News Service) from 1964 until 2004, when apparently the name of VNS got too stinky after its role became increasingly well known the 1996 Iowa Caucus (Google “A House without Doors” by Jim Condit Jr.) and its role in dubious projections during the 2000 campaign, especially projecting Al Gore in Florida at first. FOX’s Bill O’Reilly eventually apologized for reading these projections on air.

On the Friday before the 1998 November Election, Ted Koppel’s Nightline did an entire show trying to explain why the various TV Network projections were arrived at independently, even though the Networks were getting the exact same exit poll information at the exact same time from the exact same corporation (VNS) which they jointly owned. The Nightline show was undoubtedly responding to the book, “Votescam: The Stealing of America” By Ken and Jim Collier, and the 60 radio appearances of Watch the Vote USA’s founder, Jim Condit Jr. (which reached over 700 radio station outlets, including the then 300 stations carrying the Chuck Harder Show, and the 350 stations carrying the Roger Friedenberg show west of the Mississippi) from February to November 1996.

Both the Collier book and the Condit radio talk show appearances tore the mask off of Voter News Service and its role on election night. The Colliers and Jim Condit Jr. had been working together since they first teamed up in 1985, and both the book and the radio appearances charged that the few-and-far-between Voter News Service conducted exit polls could not in any way be scientific, and, in any case, were often deliberately falsified to prepare the public for the computerized “results” to be announced later than night by the TV Networks.

Despite the name change from VNS to NEP (National Election Pool), nothing essentially changed with regard to the operation or its role on election night. The owners of both remained ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, *FOX, and *AP wire.

– 3 mysterious, private, virtually unknown-to-the-public mega-corporation election vendors, which are:

(8) ES&S (Election Systems & Software), (9) Hart InterCivic, and (10) Dominion. These three “count” approximately 99% of the USA vote on election nights on their privately-owned secret, computer programs, with the full permission and protection of all 50 Secretaries of State and all 3000+ county Boards of Election which hire one of these 3 mega-election vendors. (Dominion acquired the election divisions of Diebold and Sequoia circa 2013. Again, the name of Diebold became too stinky as it became increasingly known that one of the Diebold officials bragged something to the effect that they would deliver the 2004 Presidential election to President George W. Bush.) – These same three mega-election vendors process the votes in about 96% of our 3141 counties in the USA. You can find out which counties use which mega-election-vendors at the excellent website, VerifiedVoting.org.

A check shows that as of  November 2017, 86 of the 88 counties in Ohio use either ES&S, Hart InterCivic, or Dominion; the other two counties in Ohio use a small company, Unisyn Voting Solutions, which respected Election Integrity investigator Lyn Landes has stated may be a front for ES&S. VerifiedVoting.org also documents that ES&S process ALL the votes in the state of Alabama. Ronnie Dugger reported in his 2004 article in “The Nation” magazine, entitled “How They Could Steal the Election This Time” that ES&S was “counting” 60% of the votes in the USA. (!!!) And yet, this extraordinary concentration of power seems to be of no concern to any major media “investigator”, nor to any major leader in the Republican or Democratic Party.

 

Since the 1970s, the predecessors of these corporations, such as CES (Computer Election Services), BRC (Business Records Corporation), and on and on – have morphed one into the other periodically, with again, the secretive and defensive mode of operation always being the exact same with all of these 3 companies, their predecessors, and all the smaller election vendors which have conducted computerized elections in lesser numbers of our counties over the decades since circa 1973.

Also, Scytl, a company now based in Spain, is a growing influence with increasing ties to the above three named mega-vendors; Scytl’s specialty is the most vulnerable and insecure method of voting and tabulating there is of all — internet voting!

(These entities change somewhat from year to year due to ownership transfers etc which at least in part are designed to confuse the public.  While the names and owners of these media companies and mega vendor change and have changed regularly since the 1970s,  the policies remain the same)  

 

– The 2 leading committees of the two major political parties, namely the:

(11) RNC (Republican National Committee) and the (12) DNC (Democratic National Committee), which have green-lighted and fully approved their Secretaries of State in all 50 states, and their county Board of Election officials circa 3000 of our 3141 counties, hiring one of these three mega election-vendor companies (ES&S, Hart Intercivic, Dominion). Then, in a complete abdication of their election night responsibilities, the election officials have allowed whichever one of these three mega-election Vendors they have hired, to process our votes on their secret computer programs. Furthermore, the RNC and DNC have green-lighted all these Republican & Democratic election officials to sign contracts with these three election-vendors, and the other minor computer-election vendors, which state that said election officials will not examine the source code of the programs which tell the election computers what to do on election night, and will not sue these election vendors no matter what happens on election night.

 

For more information on the Election Night Gatekeepers and what they do on election night, go to Appendix I (that is ‘i’) of this report, and to ElectionNightGatekeepers.com.

12.  In the real life story which took place in Athens, Tennessee in 1946, memorialized in the fictional movie “An American Story” from Hallmark:

Real life veterans arrived home from World War II only to find out that their town was in less than upstanding hands. One of the Vets ran against the incumbent Mayor. On election night the crooked Mayor tried to take the ballots inside the courthouse, lock the doors, and count the votes out of the public sight. The veterans had not fought overseas for freedom only to come home to such totalitarian tactics. Guns were broken out of the armory. Shots were fired (one bullet mark is still in the courthouse), but no one was hurt. The dishonest Mayor and his accomplices fled, and the townspeople entered the courthouse to count the votes in the open. The Veteran challenging the incumbent mayor won.

Who do you think would have won if the Vets had let the incumbent Mayor and his crew count the votes in secret, and then come out to the townspeople and announce the “results”?

Yet this is what we Americans allow to happen every election day in 99% of our counties and precincts. If it were possible, Patrick Henry, George Washington, and all the Founding Fathers would be spinning in their graves.

Americans would be justified RIGHT NOW in almost every one of our 3141 counties (minus about 5 counties in NH and perhaps a few other very small counties in other States) in breaking out the guns to PREVENT the ballots from being removed from public sight before they are hand-counted by human beings in full public view. 

THIS is why it is so important that the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity act to bring elections in the USA back into line with the transparency demanded by the US Constitution and three standing US Supreme Court decisions. TRANSPARENCY! So that every eligible US citizen can cast a ballot – and BE SURE that his/her ballot, and anyone else’s legal ballot – was counted and reported accurately.

Here is an excellent review of the above movie by a J.S. Bell on Amazon from January 25, 2014:

5.0 out of 5 stars — Great movie, wonderful reminder of what it takes to hang on to a republic

By J. S. Bell on January 25, 2014

Format: DVD|Verified Purchase

“I first saw this as a short clip on YouTube. I was amazed that something like this had ever happened here, inside our own United States. I had no idea. But it clearly demonstrates why the right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by our Second Amendment, cannot be limited to just personal protection. It is also there as a way for us to act against homegrown tyranny.

Others here have no doubt already described the plot in detail, so I’ll just share a brief summary. Although the movie is set in Texas, the actual events occurred in Athens, Tennessee. It seems the mayor and his thug crew had a tight grip on the town, and were routinely extorting money from the citizens. Some WWII vets returning home saw the situation and decided to run their own reform candidate in the next mayoral election. On election day, running true to form, the tyrant mayor literally steals the ballot boxes from the voting site and whisks them off to be stuffed with fake votes to secure his power for yet another term of office.

Well it seems that doing this so brazenly, so brutally, right in broad daylight, was too much to bear. The town got organized, got their guns, and laid siege to the Sheriff’s building where the vote stuffing was going on. Many shots were fired. Amazingly, no one was hurt. Ultimately, the mayor made his way out the back door and skipped town, and the townspeople got back their ballot box, their freedom, and their dignity. It was wonderful.

I highly recommend it.”

 

Millions of Americans have fought and bled and died to ensure our right to determine the future and destiny of the United States of America by an honest, verifiable, and transparent vote. We dare not allow a handful of sociopaths, power hungry cabals, and disgraceful opportunists to continue to spit on their sacrifice.

Jim Condit Jr., Founder of Watch the Vote USA