RE: Thank you Marilyn Marks!--and Mary and Bill

[Marilyn Marks <marilyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks all.
It is a fascinating and frustrating process. 
I am writing from the clerk's office where I am waiting for my appointment to scan the ballots.
Will be quite interesting.

We can write a detailed report soon on the events of the week.
But Neal makes good points that have been bothering me all week.
The SOS did not want to count undervotes and overvotes, although I begged them  again and again, as it was obvious that there would be unknown reconciling items if they did not. They preferred this black hole approach which was quite frustrating. If all goes as planned, I'll have that information at the end of the scanning process, although the clerk is attempting to withhold a large number of ballots as "personally identifiable."

The decreases in vote count are really troublesome. The vote count went down by 25 ballots (1%) since the canvass of 11/19.
The SOS was using the recount of 11/29 as the target. There was also an unexplained loss of ballots between 11/19 and 11/29, which is included in my 25 ballot loss. 

More later


-----Original Message-----
From: Neal McBurnett [mailto:neal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 6:57 AM
To: Mary Eberle
Cc: AlKolwicz; Colorado Voter Group; Margit Johansson; Angie Layton; Marilyn Marks; Kathryn Wallace; joseph richey; Harvie Branscomb; Citizens for Verifiable Voting
Subject: Re: Thank you Marilyn Marks!

Thanks to all involved!!  I'm sorry that I didn't get more involved in the hand count this week, though we were delayed at a wedding in NH over the weekend, so I would have missed the critical early stages.

The thing that puzzles me the most based on an incomplete perusal of the news stories is that the tally had fewer votes, nor more, for each candidate.  In my experience hand counts always find more votes to be counted for each candidate, and fewer over- and undervotes.

Were the undervotes and overvotes tallied?  Is there a full result set that includes them?

Did the number of ballots match in each count?

The really good news, from what I've heard, is that the discrepancies were attributed by the SoS office to ballot interpretation differences, not to hand count errors.  That is huge!  And an excellent argument to require hand counts in future recounts, rather than doing machine recounts.

Neal McBurnett                 http://neal.mcburnett.org/

On Thu, Sep 01, 2011 at 10:45:25PM -0600, Mary Eberle wrote:
> Dear Al,
> 
> We arrived back here about two hours ago, and I just opened my email 
> to find your kind note. It is appreciated, but also I have to pass 
> your thank yous and ours on to Marilyn Marks, without whose many 
> efforts the Saguache review would never had happened. Marilyn has been 
> analytical and quick thinking from the beginning of the Saguache 
> debacle, and all who are interested in increasing voting integrity must be grateful to her.
> 
> Everyone should know that Marilyn is responsible for the hours of 
> video, except for that done automatically on four fixed cameras 
> belonging to the secretary of state. She also formulated most of the 
> wording attributed to me by the Pueblo Chieftain writer Matt Hildner. 
> What I did mainly was function as a watcher, checking the callers as 
> much as possible. The SoS did not see fit to revamp his planned 
> three-member counting teams into teams of four members, and that was 
> only the first of the problems encountered. We need to get four-member 
> teams specified in law for hand counting, and we need to get the 
> faster "sort and stack" method blessed for Colorado elections. But I 
> digress. We can all be very proud of Marilyn--she was everywhere: 
> scanning, phoning, being interviewed by the press, talking with the 
> SoS folks and explaining some of the intricacies of this particular 
> situation as we went along, smoothing feathers of Saguache County 
> residents who were understandably dejected because the SoS did not 
> authorize a forensic investigation, and being an articulate spokesperson for election integrity during the various Q & A sessions run by SoS personnel. I'm sure I've missed some important roles she fulfilled, many behind the scenes.
> Thank you, Marilyn, for getting the Saguache County citizens educated 
> and fired up and pursuing the legal remedies that allowed some big 
> steps to take place this week, not the least of which is citizen 
> access to anonymously cast voted ballots.
> 
> There is still work to be done, and she is going to be scanning the 
> ballots Friday and probably Tuesday. She is after other election documents as well.
> Stay tuned.
> 
> I also have to thank the Saguache County citizens who gave their time 
> and knowledge to serve as election judges and in other capacities. 
> Without them, this review and the other steps along the way would never have happened.
> 
> Thank you again, Al. You helped too by communicating with the SoS and 
> being present via electronic link during the crazy wrap-up session. 
> Knowing that you and others in Colorado Voter Group were cheering us on was great moral support.
> 
> Best,
> Mary
> 
> Mary C. Eberle
> 1520 Cress Court
> Boulder, CO 80304
> (303) 442-2164
> 
> On 9/1/2011 9:03 PM, AlKolwicz wrote:
> 
>    
>      
> 
>     Dear Mary and Bill,
> 
>      
> 
> 
> 
>