Election Team Email 2016-08-07

• read this as a web-page: http://www.copswiki.org/Common/ElectionTeamEmail_2016-08-07
• read the next email: Election Team Email 2016-08-16

[NOTE: Updated with details of this week's conference call]

THANK YOU FOR VOLUNTEERING TO JOIN OUR ELECTION OVERSIGHT TEAM!

This is our first introductory email since our big press conference announcing our big lawsuit win last week! We appreciate all of the comments you sent to us. You are a very impressive group and are grateful for your willingness to help ensure fair elections.

Let's face it -without reliable elections, we may as well not have a democracy.

Clean Audits are our primary focus, i.e. making sure a clean and robust audit is being performed. However, we are also concerned with all other loose ends and election scams that can modify election results even if there is no hacking or malfeasance by elections officials and employees.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR GETTING STARTED

TIMING

Time is short. We have about two months to get teams trained and in place to perform election oversight before the election. EARLY VOTING and Vote-By-Mail can start 30 days before the actual election in many parts of the country. We find these early ballots are around for a long time and may be tampered with by compromised employees, and we want to watch these carefully!

HOW WE’LL ORGANIZE

Local, Semi Autonomous Groups -- We will be asking you to work with other people in your state and election district. When the election is in process, we need boots on the ground at election processing facilities with eyeballs, cameras, video recorders. Processing the vote is VERY SIMILAR in different election districts but there are always issues unique to that district. When we notice something going on in one district, we want to spread the word with other election oversight teams. Those who are rigging and gaming the system develop new strategies each cycle until we catch on and stop it. Some regions already have robust election integrity groups. We want to affiliate with those groups rather than forming new groups.

Semi-autonomous groups are essential because there is so much to cover We estimate we need about 600 groups to properly cover a national election comprising more than 3000 election districts nationally. We MUST focus on those most important areas first but we invite people from any area to perform similar oversight.

Everyone can help! Even if you are not near the election processing facility in your election district, you can help provide oversight in your local area. Being a poll worker is one option AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. But you can also have great impact by visiting a few dozen polling places ON ELECTION DAY to see how they are being run. Attending poll worker training in advance is VERY HELPFUL in understanding what poll workers are being told and how things are SUPPOSED TO BE run. Security of the ballots is very important when using durable paper ballots. We also have a ton of work to do in terms of organizing files and collected data on our collaboration platform, including. collecting and organizing information from this recent, last election.

COMMUNICATIONS

Emails -- We will be using email to send out global announcements and information to all team members. If you want to unsubscribe then let us know but we will not be able to communicate with you otherwise. We will try to invite you to join a group which may be able to work with your needs.Once we’ve parsed the volunteers by geographical area, you will be introduced to others in your area (if there are any).

Weekly Conference Calls. We will be starting weekly conference calls to try to get teams operating and to react to new information.

--> Our first call is scheduled for:

• Wed, Aug 10, 2016 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time (9 PM ET)
• Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/410742821
• You can also dial in using your phone. (408) 650-3123
• Access Code: 410-742-821
• This conference call is already completed. Listen to the archived recording here:
  • (M1672) 2016-08-10 Citizens' Oversight -- Election Team Conference Call 2016-08-10 -- Ray Lutz, Citizens Oversight, (Invite and Agenda: Election Team Email 2016-08-07)

These calls will be recorded so that if you cannot attend, you can listen to the recording.
We will be investigating other collaboration methods to enhance our ability to work as a team.

WATCH OUR VIDEO

The Snapshot Protocol is the tool we’ve used in San Diego County to detect election fraud. If you haven’t already, please watch our video on You Tube that provides an overview and some details of what it entails. While you’re there, please subscribe to our channel to be notified when we publish new videos.

Click Here: 20160721 SnapshotProtocol Tutorial

Here is our project page for this effort: http://copswiki.org/Common/SnapshotProtocol

AUDIT DATABASE

We are building a database of election audits and our related oversight. The CA Secretary of State has simply stopped posting these audit apparently in an effort o let this important aspect of election integrity to die on the vine. They hate audits because they can actually catch malfeasance and election rigging. We will be contacting a few volunteers to see if you can help us process this data and move it to our web platform. More news soon!

AGAIN, Welcome!