[Voterescue] Poll Watcher's Response to “Exit Polls Suggest GOP Straw Poll Had Discrepancies; Ron Paul Supporters Turned Away”

[Laura Westcott]

Here is an interesting response from Chris Elam posted in response to
VoteRescue's report at
http://capitolannex.com/2007/09/03/exit-polls-suggust-gop-straw-poll-had-discrepancies-ron-paul-supporters-turned-away.


#1) Yes, Ron Paul supporters were turned away after having pre-registered
online with the Texas GOP. The video is clear about this. I can also attest
that some (I do not know how many) people entered the convention center
after the 10am cutoff. The standard for refusing entry was not uniformly
applied.

#2) I personally served as the Ron Paul campaign's poll watcher during the
entire voting process in the Saturday straw poll. I entered the voting room
15 minutes prior to the beginning of the vote, and did not leave until
immediately after the final numbers were tabulated, confirmed, and given to
the program emcees. And I'd like to comment on the above…

*"Another delegate/voter who came over to talk with us heard the first
gentleman's comment and, with a look of dismay, realized that she, too,had
selected a pencil–and had used it. She said, "I can't believe I was so
stupid!"…In hindsight, it seemed peculiar to us that pencils were provided
to voters at all since the Tarrant Party Republican Party Chair, Stephanie
Klick, had told one of Ron Paul's supporters that permanent ink pens would
be used for marking the ballots"*

None of the voters were forced to use pencils. They were initially provided
along with pens to all delegates, on four rows of tables that were some 30
feet of total length. What was amazing to me, was that no less than half a
dozen delegates sheepishly approached the Texas GOP staff with a ballot in
one hand, admitting that they had marked their ballot for the wrong
candidate and needed a new ballot. There may well have been others who made
such a silly mistake, and were fortunate enough to have used pencils so they
could erase any trace of their error. Having personally watched most of the
voters and seen a number of the ballots - I can attest that the majority of
the votes were cast by pen anyhow. However, once one of the delegates (who
identified himself as a member of VoteRescue) raised the issue, the pencils
were removed from the tables.

*"What we do know is that there were many vulnerabilities in the"chain of
custody" of the official ballots from the point at which the election ended
until votes were being counted; and that neither media, nor any citizen
observors [sic] with videocameras (or otherwise) were allowed in the room
where counting took place. Our videographers Terry Melton, Kathleen Winn,
and Gregory Gory, as well as any other interested parties,had to satisfy
themselves with quick glances through small windows in the doors of the
counting room."*

None of this is true.. The official ballots were placed in double-locked
metal ballot boxes that were under watch and armed guard by Fort Worth
police officers who had been instructed to not leave the ballots.
Townhall.com media representatives were allowed inside during the vote
counting and videotpaed the entire process. Observers from any of the
candidate's campaigns were allowed to come in and watch the vote process,
permitted to stop and ask questions, and also allowed to walk among and
inspect the 10 teams of 3 vote counters (30 total), who were unpaid
volunteers from around the state, and which included at least one staffer
from a GOP State Representative's office. Both the Ron Paul and Duncan
Hunter campaigns had poll watchers in the room during the entire ballot
counting process, and were able to verify all steps of the process, and all
vote totals.

The votes were removed from the locked ballot boxes in front of the police
guards and poll watchers. They were distributed equally to the 10 groups of
volunteer counters. Each group of counters had one person read off the name
marked on the ballot, while the other two people made a tick mark on a sheet
of paper next to that candidate's name. The reader than sorted that ballot
into a stack unique to that own candidate on their table. At the end of this
process, the tallies were compared on the two sheets, and then the stacks
were counted one-by-one to verify accuracy against the two identical
tallies. One tally was then handed to one representative from the Texas GOP,
and the other to Stephanie Glick of Tarrant County. All ballots were then
placed inside a manila envelope, sealed, and a white label signed by each of
the three volunteers was affixed over the envelope flap. The 10 tallies were
confirmed by both campaign observers, members of the Texas GOP, and
Stephanie Glick.

Several of the unpaid volunteers made mention to me personally that they are
also general election poll watchers in their home counties, and are
intimately familiar with the ballot security process. None raised any doubts
or expressed concerns to me.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://voterescue.org/pipermail/voterescue_voterescue.org/attachments/20070904/fce214c2/attachment.html