I would like to thank the voters that got out in the May primary. The following letter has been developing since that election and if you can spare a few minutes I would appreciate everyone that reads it. Thanks On primary election morning 2014 I stopped by the Post Office before going to vote. Someone there told me they had been given a paper ballot at the Vicco precinct. Not really believing the County had gone to paper ballots I went to the Happy precinct to vote. Upon arriving at the Happy precinct I went in and signed the register. One of the precincts workers jokingly asked me if I had come to vote for myself and I told him I hoped so. I was then presented with a paper ballot. I asked what had happened to the electronic machine with the rotary dial (eslate) and was told it hadn’t been used in 2 or 3 years. I was looking at someone voting on it about 10 feet from me. I then asked how long we had been using the paper ballots (escan) and was told about 2 or 3 years also. I then replied that I had voted for over 30 years and had never seen a paper ballot. After being lied to I decided to go ahead and vote on the paper ballot just to see what it was like. The ballot was peeled from a tablet that appeared to have a rubber back like some older notepads. The ballot itself was unremarkable with rectangles in front of each name to be colored in. While filling it out I wondered how you would fill in a write-in candidate. I don’t recall any spaces for such. After filling out the ballot I went to the scanner and inserted it. The machine was a small black scanner that I believe sat on top of something. It had one alphanumeric line that stated “your vote has been recorded”. Later that evening my daughter told me something strange had happened when she voted. I told her I wasn’t surprised but tell me anyway. She said while she was signing the register one of the precinct workers asked her if she was my daughter and she said yes. She then said one of the precinct workers started to ask if she wanted to use the electronic or paper machine. She said before the sentence was completed a paper ballot was presented to her. At this point I became angry because my daughter was pulling out of the parking lot as I was pulling in to vote and they at least started to offer her a choice. Two minutes after she voted there apparently wasn’t an eslate machine at the polls. Ever get the feeling you were being profiled? The next day I started running into people that were mad and complaining about the paper ballots and the way they were treated at the polls. About half the people I talked to said they were given a choice of machines. The other half said they weren’t given a choice and were pushed to the paper ballot. The reasons I heard were the other machine wasn’t working, it would be 40 minute wait for the eslate machine or simply this is what you’ve got. When the eslate machine was introduced several years ago there were full page spreads in the local paper for weeks leading up to the election with instructions on how to use it. I don’t recall any mention of the escan machine before election day. After a few weeks of hearing this I decided to call the Kentucky Election Board with some questions. I was lucky to get to talk to Sandy Milburn who is the Boards Training Officer. I asked her if the paper ballot machines were legal and she said they were and were being used in the majority of the Counties. She then looked up the purchase date and told me they had been purchased in 2011. She asked if they were used in the 2011 or 2012 elections and I told her not to my knowledge. This primary election was the first time I was aware of it being used. I then asked her if the precinct workers had to offer a choice of machines. She said if there were 2 different types of machines they most assuredly did have to offer a choice, they can’t push you toward a particular machine. I then asked her if the Clerk’s Office had to advertise when they used a new machine like they did with the eslate. She said they did not have to advertise but were required to have posters and directions posted in the polls. I have become so accustomed to seeing these in the polls I didn’t pay any attention to whether or not there were any posted. At this point I began to wonder if the paper ballots hadn’t somehow been manipulated. Several of the races in the Primary showed an unusual total to what was generally expected. I decided to look up the specifications of the escan machine to see if they could be manipulated. I visited the HART intercivic website and clicked on the how to use video. I was taken to YouTube where I watched the 3 minute demo on how to use it. It quickly became apparent the ballot I filled out and the machine I voted on wasn’t close to the ballot and escan machine shown in the video. At that point I decided to call the Election Board again to ask a few more questions. My main concerns at this point were about the escan machines, the associated ballots and how to get a copy of the vote breakdown between the escan and eslate. I was told the County Election Board could give me that breakdown and also that Harp Enterprises in Lexington printed all the ballots for the escan machines across the state. I arrived at the County Clerk’s Office a day after the monthly scheduled Board meeting. The following week I decided I couldn’t wait until the next one so I went to ask the County Clerk (Haven King) for the breakdown. Haven eventually gave me a break down of each precinct showing that only the eslate and escan machines had been used in the 26 precincts. The breakdown doesn’t state which machine had been used for the absentee machine. I called Harp Enterprises and talked to the man that actually is in charge of printing the ballots. He said the ballots were 8 1/2” X 17” with a 3” perforated stub so the ballot when ripped off was 8 ½” X 14”. The ballots have 6 sets of barcodes on the sides that make them unique. There are also spaces on them for write in candidates. This in no way resembles the Plain Jane ballot I filled out. After leaving the Courthouse I ran into someone I have known for a long time. I told him I thought there was something funny about the paper ballots and that the same company that made the rotary dial electronic machine (eslate) was also the same company that made the paper ballot machines (escan). He looked at me strangely and asked what the rotary dial machine was. I explained to him it was the one we have used for the last 10 years or more. He looked even more strangely at this point and said he voted on the electronic machine with the push buttons and red lights. I hadn’t voted on one of these in at least 8 years myself and didn’t think the County still had them. He also said this was the machine he had used for the last 2 or 3 elections. A little while later I was talking to a girl I went to High School with that votes in that precinct and she said the same thing. She also said she go mad because every time someone went in to vote they would yell out democrat or republican. These old machines are manual and have to be set according to your registration. I have since talked to a number of people that voted in different precincts. Some said they voted on push button machines, some paper and some eslate. Several stated there were at least 3 machines in their precincts. After calling the State Election Board again the Assistant Director Mike Scott told me to write him a letter listing everything I had told him and he would see it was sent to the Kentucky Attorney General and the US Attorney’s Offices. The next week I called to make sure he got the e-mail and talked to the Executive Director Maryellen Allen since Mike was out. She said she was pretty sure the letter had been forwarded but didn’t sound convincing. The next week I called for Mike a couple times and left voice mails. He next week started the same way with no return calls. I finally asked the secretary to take my name and number and have him call me or I would be at their Office. A few days later I had to make a trip to Frankfort because I never received that return call. After a rather pleasant 45 minute conversation with Maryellen and Mike I discovered my letter hadn’t been forwarded anywhere. Not many things were cleared up but after a month of waiting my letter was forwarded to the Assistant Attorney General Tom Marshal at the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office. I called Tom the next day and he said he would like to help but he couldn’t because every concern I had in my letter were issues the Election Board should have answered and he had put in a call to them to get them. A few days later he called back. He said he had called the County Court Clerk’s Office and was told the escan machines had been used since the fall of 2011. There was a primary and general election in 2012 and with this year’s primary the escan machines should have been in every precinct the last 4 elections. He said that this is now about the same as a vote buying scandal. If people will call him and tell him of improprieties at the polls that break election laws then he will begin an investigation. So to summarize 1) If different types of machines are used at a precinct then the precinct workers must offer you an option of machines. It is wrong to push you toward any one machine in particular. 2) No precinct worker should interfere or offer “assistance” during the voting process unless asked. 3) There were votes cast on both types of machines in every precinct so it you were told there was only one machine you were lied to. It’s possible a machine may be “down” at a particular moment but it is highly unlikely. And who exactly could fix the machine at the polls anyway? 4) If you haven’t had an escan machine in your precinct since the fall of 2011 then someone in the Clerk’s Office has lied to the Attorney General’s Office. 5) If you voted on a machine other than the eslate and escan in your precinct in the May primary then your vote was stolen. There is no way to transfer votes from one machine to another. The above letter is based on my observations, investigations and talking with multiple voters from several precincts. I ran a clean race and to my knowledge my opponents did to. In vote buying cases the County level races are what’s paid for and most of the races below that are simply thrown in as a bonus. If you voted on an illegal machine, had any other issues stated above or ran into something I’ve not listed please call Tom Marshal at the Attorney General’s Office at (502) 696-5337 to voice your opinion. You can call me after work if there is something in this letter I haven’t made clear at (606) 438-5145 or 476-9078. This letter has also been delivered to Amelia Holliday at the Hazard Herald 436-5771 if you would like to call and voice your opinion to her. Thank you for reading.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 02:58:55 +0000
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