Letter from Conyers

via the Blue Lemur:

From John Conyers' letter to the Hocking County (includes Xenia) prosecutor and the FBI special agent in charge. He's playing hardball.

On December 13, my staff met with Ms. Eaton who explained to them that last Friday, December 10, Michael Barbian, Jr., a representative of Triad GSI unilaterally sought and obtained access to the voting machinery and records in Hocking County, Ohio, modified the computer tabulator, learned which precinct was planned to be the subject of the initial test recount and made further alterations based on that information, and advised the election officials how to manipulate the machinery so that the preliminary hand recount matched the machine count. Ms. Eaton first relayed this information to Green Party representatives, and then completed, signed and notarized an affidavit describing this course of events, a copy of which is attached.

The reasons the technician gave were kind of vague and well, weak.

The Triad official sought access to the voting machinery based on the apparent pretext that he wanted to review some “legal questions” the officials might receive as part of the recount process.

Conyers spells out what they can use to sweat the details out of the technician.

There are several important considerations you should be aware of with respect to this matter. First, this course of conduct would appear to violate several provisions of federal law, in addition to the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. 42 U.S.C. §1973 provides for criminal penalties against any person who, in any election for federal office, “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by . . . the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.” 42 U.S.C. § 1974 also requires the retention and preservation, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of a federal election, of all voting records and papers and makes it a felony for any person to “willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter” any such record. Further, any tampering with ballots and/or election machinery would violate the constitutional rights of all citizens to vote and have their votes properly counted, as guaranteed by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Again, I don't think it's enough to make the difference, but the recount is certainly making a lot of people very, very nervous. I've seen enough to know that there was substantial voter suppression in this election; people waiting in line for 10 hours is prima facie evidence of that. However, hopefully this will finally cause someone to be prosecuted, and hopefully he'll squeal on someone higher up.