On January 19, 2010, the MA Senate special election, there were some pre-owned, pre-voted ballots.  When some voters were handed their optical scan ballots to vote, the ballots already had the oval filled in for Scott Brown.  Ballots are not cars and they cannot be pre-owned.  Neither are ballots something you can pre-vote. I don't care that it was only a few ballots - that we know of.  This is not a legitimate way to run an election, to put it mildly.

Some questions remain.  Here are some of them:

- Why did Coakley start to make a fuss, rightfully, only to become silent and say and do nothing?

- Who marked Brown on those pre-owned, pre-voted ballots?

- Were there more pre-owned, pre-voted ballots like these, that we don't know of?

- ...
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The election is almost upon us and the electronic voting machines are having troubles all over the place.  How did we ever get to this place, that a privatized electronic voting machine industry controls our votes.  When I think of and remember all the people who have died to get the vote, and now this mockery of the most basic of our rights, I am filled with rage and grief.  And then I ask myself, what is the next right thing that I need to do, the next right step that I need to take.  And I act.  That helps me a lot to keep the despair away and to keep faith that good does win, even though sometimes not in my time frame.  I read somewhere - if anyone has information on this, please contact us -  that the women suffragists took the symbol of the giraffe for their movement, ...
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Welcome to the Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots. I am so glad you are here.  I am intending to write regularly.   SP