The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107734 Message #2239777
Posted By: CarolC
18-Jan-08 - 11:07 PM
Thread Name: New Hampshire Redux
Subject: RE: New Hampshire Redux
More cloak and dagger in New Hampshire (from the same link as before)...
From Bev Harris:
"I think it will be helpful to get photographs or video of the ballots WHILE STILL AT TOWN CLERK OFFICES and it will also be very helpful for citizens to follow "Butch and Hoppy".
Yesterday when we did so, they were speeding at one point and we were fairly challenged to keep up with them. We did, thanks to the skillful driving of Susan Pynchon. There was a dark green SUV waiting for them in a rural location. They stopped, one of the transport team jumped out, went to the driver of the green SUV, said something, then the transport team headed one direction and the green SUV the other. Clearly, he had been waiting there to hook up with the transport team. There may be a perfectly logical explanation for this, but I think it is important to witness and/or video where the transport van goes and who they meet up with.
Here on this site, it was posted that the ballots in New Hampshire are transported by the state police. That is incorrect. I asked more questions and they said that a liason from the sec. state office accompanies the state police. That is not true. Here's what is true: "Butch and Hoppy" who are represented as working for the secretary of state or the archives, depending on who you are talking to, pick up ALL the ballots in New Hampshire. They drive a white state van. A single member of the state police drives behind them. He can't see a darn thing about what is going on in that van.
Chain of custody - This isn't "the New Hampshire state police" moving the ballots. In fact, I'm not sure the Butch and Hoppy Show is legal, if the law says the ballots will be moved by the state police.
The chain of custody during transport is two guys named Butch and Hoppy. That's it.
My antennas would be up now for: 1) Ballot chain of custody, rendezvous points, capturing evidence of what goes into the transportation pipeline and what comes out.
2) I expect there will be efforts to persuade candidates to shortcut their recounts.
ALSO:
Note that Republican ballots have been being transported with Democrat ballots, that they are sometimes in the same box, and that as the Democrats do their recount the Republican ballots are being unsealed with no witness from the Republican campaign. They are taped up before going back to the ballot vault, but last night, Republican ballots were stored outside the vault just as Democrat ballots were."