Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Monday 6/27/05

[Melissa G]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Monday 6/27/05

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.



If you want to know how post "News Banners" or other images, go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371233#371391

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380724

All previous daily threads are available here:
http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm





Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[Melissa G]

1. David Cobb on Bradblog

tommcintyre's Post and DU discussion here..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380830

Original message
HEADS UP: David Cobb on Brad Show Now ! C/B Commission/more
http://bradblog.com/BradShow /

2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate
DAVID COBB
on the Green/Libertarian OH Recount
and their continuing Federal Court Challenge,
plus the upcoming Baker/Carter Commission
meeting in Houston.

[Melissa G]

2. Public meeting set on voting machines -PA

Public meeting set on voting machines
By BRIAN CALLAWAY
The Intelligencer


With Bucks' Eisenhower-era voting machines on the way out, a new watchdog group wants to make sure the county ushers in the best possible replacements.

Organizers of the Bucks County Coalition for Voting Integrity are worried new machines may come without features they say are needed for people to trust election tallies.

"Democracy begins with the integrity of the voting process, and ends without it," said Mary Ann Gould, one of the coalition's organizers. "And that's what we're being faced with today."

The group will host a 7 p.m. public forum Monday at the Bucks County Courthouse to discuss new voting technologies and concerns about different kinds of voting machines.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-06262005-507401.html

[Melissa G]

3. Secret ballot compromised in Georgia!

Secret ballot compromised in Georgia!

Still more evidence of monkey business in the 2004 election.

From Roxanne Jekot and Emily Dische-Becker:
DU discussion started by Boredtodeath
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=380457&mesg_id=380457

"The secret ballot guarantees that it is one's private opinion that counts. Open ballots are not truly free for those whose preferences defy the structures of power or friendship." -----Rep. Mark B. Cohen (D-PA)


The 'secret ballot' is the foundation of the modern democratic process. It signifies the difference between a rubberstamp dictatorship where political opponents can be punished for their views and a democratic election where everyone is free to vote for whom they please.

Not so in the state of Georgia. In the 2004 election, 367,777 Georgia voters-more than 10% of the state's electorate-unknowingly gave up the secrecy of their ballot, by taking advantage of the new early-voting process. This new procedure, which uses Direct Record Electronic (DRE) equipment-or, to put in plain English, touch screen machines does not require voters to justify their decision to to vote early. So anyone can cast a ballot in the five days preceding the election, no questions asked. Sounds fair, easy and convenient.

But there's a crucial difference between traditional absentee ballots, i.e., the paper kind, and the electronic absentee votes cast last year in Georgia. The paper ballot comes in an envelope, which is discarded prior to that ballot's getting counted, in order to protect the balloter's identity. With these electronic absentee votes, there is no such protection. In fact, the new ballot is directly traceable to the person who has cast it.

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2005/06/secret-ballot-compromised-in-georgia.html

[Melissa G]

4. Nice try, Herr Rove

June 27, 2005



Nice try, Herr Rove

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Progressive Talk Radio host Doug Basham

On Wednesday evening, at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State, Bush's brain, Karl Rove uttered the following… "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." He went on to say, "Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year? Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al-Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

Quite frankly, I found the Democrats response to this blasphemous utterance, while strong, inadequate. Presented with yet one more golden opportunity to expose George W. Bush's war on an abstract noun for the colossal sham and misguided adventure it is, one Democrat after the other stuck their chests out and proclaimed they were just as "tough on terror" as George W. Bush.

NO! Defend a war on terror if you must, but expose the fallacies of attacking entire nations as the preferred method of engaging in it.

While other writers can count the ways we did come together as a nation after 9-11, and how this is the time we need to "unite" (Hello, don't you get it? These people don't want unity?!), let me offer what would've been my preferred response.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/06/con05215.html

[Melissa G]

5. Rosenfeld & Fitrakis: DNC 2004 Election Report

Rosenfeld & Fitrakis: DNC 2004 Election Report
Monday, 27 June 2005, 10:56 am
Opinion: Bob Fitrakis

The DNC 2004 Election Report: An Indictment of Incompetence

by Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
June 25, 2005
From: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1335The Democratic National Committee’s investigation into Ohio’s 2004 presidential election irregularities is the perfect postscript to the party’s ‘election protection’ efforts last fall: it is a shocking indictment of a party caught completely off-guard in its most heated presidential campaign in years, and a party still doesn’t fully understand what happened and how to avoid a repeat in the future.

The report primarily documents Jim Crow voter suppression tactics targeting Democratic African-Americans voters were rampant in Ohio’s cities during the 2004 presidential election. It cites and spends most of its time analyzing the most visible problems: from shortages of voting machines in minority precincts, to unreasonable obstacles to voter registration, to disproportionate use of provisional ballots on Election Day among new voters and Democratic constituencies, to inadequate poll worker training and election administration, to poor post-Election Day record keeping.

But the DNC reports says those factors do not mean John Kerry won the election, nor does it mean that the new electronic voting machines are unreliable – even though some of the precincts with the highest percentages of reported problems were outfitted with the new electronic voting machines, known as DREs. The DNC asked for access to the new electronic voting machines and their software, but was denied by local election officials and the private manufacturers. The report leaves the matter there.

It is statements like this one, on page 189, and a failure to follow-through that make the report more than a disappointment to election protection workers, voter rights advocates and those grassroots activists who worked for John Kerry’s campaign. Speaking of the new electronic voting machines, the DNC report states, that “many of the county boards (of elections) do not actually control the electronic records created during the tallying process.” When the Fairfield County Board of Elections was asked for election results, they merely forwarded data from a private vendor.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0506/S00360.htm

[Melissa G]

6. Voting machine delays worry officials

Voting machine delays worry officials
By REBECCA BAKER ERWIN
[e-mail]
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June 26, 2005)


Roz Stern wants to walk into a voting booth by herself again.

Since losing her sight 14 years ago, the 82-year-old Spring Valley woman said she has depended on others to help cast her ballot at the polling place.

"I don't know if they're really picking who I want," she said. "I trust them, but you never know."

Stern and other New York voters are supposed to get new voting machines next year that have technology so people with disabilities can vote independently.

But delays by state lawmakers over how to replace the old lever machines, and a recent agreement to let the counties decide what new machines they want, have some local elections officials worried that they won't be ready for the 2006 federal elections.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/NEWS03/506260337/1019/NEWS03

[Melissa G]

7. Coushatta tribe fires judge, lawyers

Coushatta tribe fires judge, lawyers
6/26/2005, 1:05 p.m. CT
The Associated Press

ELTON, La. (AP) — The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana's new council has fired a tribal court judge, several attorneys and taken steps to retake control of the tribe's police force.

In the meantime, an unsuccessful candidate for tribal chairman is seeking to get the results of recent elections thrown out.

snip
Poncho's administration is under scrutiny for paying former Washington, D.C.-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, about $32 million. Abramoff and Scanlon are subjects of federal investigations looking into what they did with the more than $80 million paid to them by several tribes, including the Coushattas.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-17/111980811341120.xml&storylist=louisiana

[Time for change]

8. What the DNC Ohio election report failed to address

This letter that I will soon be sending to Howard Dean includes my attempt to summarize what I consider to be the most important evidence of fraud in the Ohio election:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380878

[PDittie]

9. Election Assessment Hearing in Houston Weds., 6/29

It is shadowing the Baker-Carter Commission hearing at Rice University on Thursday 6/30:

http://www.electionassessment.org/

[MelissaB]

10. Taft faces a widening scandal

Taft faces a widening scandal
Multiple investigations affect more GOP officials

By Jon Craig
Enquirer Columbus Bureau


COLUMBUS - After months in which a growing scandal ensnares more and more state officials - including Gov. Bob Taft - State Sen. Mark Mallory says he wonders what's next.

The answer, according to the chairman of the state Republican Party, is possible indictments.

A handful of people - mostly Democrats and liberal activists - are calling for, or predicting, Taft's resignation.

For now, the scandals involving the Bureau of Workers' Compensation fund, its unusual investments and the cozy relationship between Columbus Republicans and the people who invested money from the fund are just the subjects of investigations.

The rapidly developing case now involves the Public Integrity unit of the U.S. Justice Department, Franklin and Lucas county prosecutors, the Ohio Ethics Commission, the legislative inspector general and the state inspector general.


More: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050627/NEWS01/506270351/1056/rss02&template=printpicart