The Daily Blog Open Mic – Thursday 17th March 2016

1. Glen Grenwald on “objective” journalism and Trump

   “Large corporations hate controversy (it alienates consumers) and really hate offending those who wield political power (bad for business). Imposing objectivity rules on the journalists who work for their media divisions was a means to avoid offending anyone by forcing journalists to conceal their perspectives, assumptions, and viewpoints, and, worse, forcing them to dishonestly pretend that they had none, that they float above all that.”

   https://theintercept.com/2016/03/14/the-rise-of-trump-shows-the-danger-and-sham-of-compelled-journalistic-neutrality/

2. +100 …interesting from a journalist very much to be admired…I still prefer Trump to Clinton however

   https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/335214-trump-us-presidency-candidate/

3. Why isnt Angela Merkel criticising the causes of the Syrian, Libyan , Iraq , Afghanistan (Middle East, North African)…refugee crisis and flooding of refugees into Europe?

   https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/335479-obama-doctrine-uk-destiny/

   “In this edition of the program we discuss whether there is such a thing as the Obama Doctrine – if there is, is this a good thing? And again Syria, the word ‘partition’ won’t go away.

   Also, is Russia REALLY trying to topple Angela Merkel and determine the UK’s destiny?

   And finally, why we are watching the South China Sea.

   CrossTalking with Mark Sleboda, Dmitry Babich, and Rory Suchet.”

4. I asked the Chief returning officer today how they n count the voting papers and the result was deafeningly quiet! no response .

   As the PA said on his behalf “we got your questions and it will take time to answer them all.”

   Then I said “how about you just shorten this and tell me if you manually count them in piles”??

   She said she didn’t know??

   Heaven help us all here as these folks have our democracy all in their hands!!!!!
   Importance: High

   if you could respond please?

   · If your system uses electronic counting machines,

   · What are the model and make of these electronic reading machines please?

   · Are your scanners Kodak scanners, or other machines but they are not electronic reading machines

   · Does your first batch of voting papers (usually 50) just manually checked for accuracy then as part of our reconciliation process do you manually check every informal and blank vote for accuracy, overseen by a JP”

   Can you describe the meaning/intent and process behind the term “reconciliation” please if you use the term can we assume this;
   Does “reconciliation” mean just a quick check (and glace/inspection) of why the “high speed” electronic reader rejected them?

   Do you not have a single pass electronic reader,

   Do you have voting machines as you may know them.

   Or is your system is much simpler than that, such as each voting paper is scanned through essentially a large desktop scanner that scans are a batch of voting papers of 50 at a time (in about 20 seconds). A “photo” of each voting paper is then stored in our voting database, after which we run our proprietary mark sensing vote recognition software which detects a tick inside the tick zone (the circle on the voting paper). The votes are then recorded and stored in our voting database. After the close of voting, we then hit a button that tallies the votes in a separate process and produces the result
   That this “reconciliation process is carried out by a employee and JP both of the soiled or rejected votes by the “high speed electronic reading machine that the electronic process counting is tracking?
   Does reconciliation” refer only to the manual inspection of the (soiled or blank) ballots, & not used in any way along with the following process?

   Most importantly are these 50 first “voting papers” (ballots) used as a (real backup method test) as seen happen in the video as a manual count to check against if they were electronically included in the “high speed” electronic counting process for true accuracy of the electronic tabulation machines and reflected in the FINAL process?

   If the answer is No, are they simply just used as a test check that our scanning and recognition process is setup correctly?

   Are you telling us that we should remember that we process many elections voting papers each day, this is our core business, and we are using our vote processing technology all the time? & that many polls like this one is just one of many elections we have on at the moment, so our systems are used, checked, reconciled, and balanced every day.

   Robert – What we are trying to see is whether there are any internal processes during the single event “high speed” electronic tabulation counting process as it is carried out or at the end of the process?

   If it\s not a single event, are there are lots of business processes around the electronic process to ensure accuracy?

   How does the accuracy remain constantly checked for errors?

   Is this a single event time audited Deloitte audit and certify back against the ISO standard 3402, an internationally recognised fit for purpose certification standard.

   How does your process meet the legislative requirements for vote processing and are audited and certified to ensure they are accurate, under the watch of an independent JP at all times.

   “Accreditation” question surrounding who gives accreditation is it Deloittes as to whether they have any “global” recognised accreditation of certifying the single event process that you will be carrying out next week for true accuracy before release of the final counting process of the Flag referendum process. yes, see above

   Does your contacted counting/tabulation electronic or manually counting Company activities with our activities & laboratory process conform to every full accreditation process, carried out under controls dictated by NZ accredited highly regulated companies during every testing or installation procedure even following recertification of equipment, and if we request documentation of these (under an OIA request we assume) are we able to obtain those documents if this process is even carried out during your final counting process of this often complicated voting process?

   We recommend you watch this video as you may find it very helpful. http://m.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/114412/Hacking_Democracy__Full_Length/ yes but this doesnt apply to our environment, which bares little if no comparison to the US

   Some Companies that provide equipment & services for voting market leaders are;

   http://www.dominionvoting.com/company

   https://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/voting-equipment/premier-diebold/accuvote-os/

   Are you using a consultancy company such as these or another similar, if so who is it please? Thank you for your attention.

   • this deserves to be a Guest Post…questions need to be asked in Parliament

5. YES CHOOKY I AM STILL WATING FOR A RESPONSE, AND CALLED TODAY FOR AN ANSWER TO WHEN WE GET ONE!!!

   THE CHEIF RETURNING OFFICER’S PA CALLED ALICE SAID SHE DIDN’T KNOW????????

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