Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News WEDNESDAY, 8/31/05

[autorank]

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.
Only the deluded & complicit accept election results on blind faith.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News WEDNESDAY, 8/31/05

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



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

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"Recommend"

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

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[autorank]

1. Please Wait Until All News Items are Posted. Respond at END of News Items

;)

[autorank]

2. OH: Fitrakis & Wasserman Put it All Together: OH Scandals & 2004 OH Vote

Republican Money is behind the current crisis in Ohio. Governor Bob Taft plead guilty to official corruption recently. “Mr. Republican” for fundraising Tom Noe was also a key figure in disenfranchising voters in Election 2004.
Lets see: Republican fundraisers Elections -- Scandal -- Investigations --Tthe Truth (???) Lets hope this breaks wide open because all roads of corruption in Ohio lead to Election 2004

Ohio governor's ethics violations expose money trail to stolen 2004 election

http://onlinejournal.com/evoting/083105Fitrakis/083105fitrakis.html

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
Online Journal Guest Writers

COLUMBUS, August 31, 2005 (freepress.org)—The shock waves from Ohio Governor Bob Taft's no contest plea to four misdemeanor ethics violations have turned this state's politics upside down. They also have direct roots in the stolen election of 2004.

Ohio's "Mr. Clean" governor has been forced to admit he took gratis golf games and other insider graft and goodies. His tearful no contest plea led to a nominal fine where lesser public figures could have gotten substantial jail time. Taft faced up to two years in jail.

The mainstream media has indeed reported that these gratuities have come from the usual thieves' den of contractors doing business with the state of Ohio. It's also well known that Tom Noe has been prominent among them. In fact, it has now been reported that Noe told Taft about controversial rare coin investments that may have cost the state millions as early as 2001, rather than 2004, as Taft has claimed. Also, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Taft failed to report eight additional gifts valued at more than $75: three between 1999–2005; five between 2002–2004. Columbus City Prosecutor Steve McIntosh told the Dispatch that there wasn't likely to be a "second round of misdemeanors."

But the media has ignored the fact that Noe is also former chair of the Lucas County Board of Elections, a major Bush-Cheney donor, and a key player in the theft of Ohio's 2004 electoral votes. He is reportedly under federal investigation for laundering money into the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. Election Day chaos and confusion in Noe's predominantly Democratic Lucas County helped give Bush a second term in the White House.

Time and again Taft has made public posturings about the need for all state employees to be completely free of even the perception of wrongdoing and corruption.

But the Taft sinkhole goes way beyond a few gubernatorial golf games. Millions of dollars are now missing from the Bureau of Workers' Compensation Fund, thanks to his friend Tom Noe's bizarre investment schemes.

<snip>

But Noe was also at the heart of Ohio's 2004 stolen election. As northwestern Ohio's "Mr. Republican," Noe was the gatekeeper for Toledo-area GOP politics for a dozen years. He chaired not only the Lucas County Republican Party, but also the Lucas County Board of Elections BOE).

As BOE chair, Tom Noe made a high profile acquisition of Sequoia electronic voting machines, crowing about the speed with which they were installed. But by 2004, Lucas County was knee-deep in malfunctions involving the notorious Diebold opti-scan vote counters, which jammed before and during Election Day. In precinct after precinct throughout the heavily Democratic Toledo inner city, African-American voters were disenfranchised en masse. Machines broke down, lines grew to three, four and five hours. Thousands left without voting.

At the Glenwood School, voting machines were locked in the principal's office. When he called in sick on Election Morning, hundreds of African-American citizens were denied the ability to vote. The situation was cemented by an edict from Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell that paper ballots were not to be issued to Ohio precincts to cover when machines broke down.

<snip>

The Toledo Blade reported that in the summer of 2004, 28,000 voters were "erased" from the Lucas County voter registration rolls. The purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years." The Georges had called prior to their elimination from the voting rolls and had been told that they were eligible voters.

The Blade also reported that 40 of the provisional voters in precinct 4N were in the right room, but the wrong line on Election Day. All of their votes were rejected as were 50 of the 67 provisional ballots cast in the precinct. The volume of provisional ballots more than doubled when contrasted to the 2000 presidential election.

<snip>

Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis are co-authors of the upcoming "How the GOP Stole the 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008."


CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election
OH: Fitrakis& Wasserman Put it All Together: Ohio Scandals Election Fraud[br />

[autorank]

3. WI: 12 Illegal Felon Voters versus Hundreds Held Away from Polls? You Pic

Gretchen Schmidt peels the bark off of the bogus republican election fraud group. In Milwaukee, the group found a grand total of 12 felons who voted improperly. Meanwhile, the city jail routinely holds hundreds over the allowed 30 hours. Election day and the day before was a busy one for the Sheriff apparently. Hundreds of non-felons were held on election day, far away from their voting places. Schmidt points out that the media is stupid to cover the 12 illegal felon voters and not cover hundreds of disenfranchised poor people held by “the man.”

http://onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/wispol083005.html?7456

5:06 a.m. August 30, 2005
Opinion: Anti-voter fraud effort missing bigger story
By Gretchen Schuldt
Here's a hint for all those pious-posin', cheatin'-seekin' Republicans who say they want to clean up that smaller-than-a-gnat's-knee voter fraud problem in Milwaukee, but who really want to discourage impoverished Democrats (especially black ones) from voting.
Follow your friend Sheriff David Clarke's lead. Keep 'em locked up on election days. Hold 'em in the hoosegow until the final vote is counted.

Don't worry about the niceties. It doesn't matter if these people did anything wrong. What matters is that jailing folks on Election Day keeps them from voting Democratic once, much less twice.
And it doesn't matter if you have to violate a court order to do it, or even if the inmates are treated decently, because most of them are poor and black and so -- here comes the important part -- nobody cares.

Clarke and his staff, in just two years, managed to hold more than 16,000 inmates more than 30 hours in the jail's booking room in violation of a legally binding consent decree. The practice ended in April 2004, shortly after the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee Inc. and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation Inc. uncovered it.

<snip>

To be fair, the media were busy over covering the voting day problems in Milwaukee. How can we expect the press to cover the maltreatment of thousands and thousands of poor people when there are a dozen illicit voters in the city and (gasp!) sloppy record keeping in the city Election Commission?

Clarke may be on to something. He sure has shown how to separate poor people from their constitutional right to vote without having the media or elected officials raise an issue.

<snip>

A dozen people -- or even one person -- deprived of their right to vote should, however, motivate the government lawyers so zealously tracking down and prosecuting a handful of illegal voters to put the same energy and resources into tracking down and prosecuting the people most responsible for wrongfully disenfranchising potential voters.

Failure by prosecutors to protect the voting rights of the poor while prosecuting poor people for abusing those same rights would only acknowledge the existence of a double standard that no healthy community can afford.
Gretchen Schuldt, a former Milwaukee newspaper reporter, runs the Web site storyhill.net.

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[autorank]

4. WA: Memo to Boards of Electoins – Do Your Jobs. It isn’t that Hard!!!

Have you ever failed to pay a traffic ticket without receiving a notice? How about paying your property tax? Has your county ever fail to notify you? How about renewing your dog license? Counties do a great job of tracking fees, violations, taxes, etc.

SO :wtf: -- WHY CAN’T THEY COUNT THE VOTES. ???
STOP BEING SUCH DRAMA QUEENS AND DO YOUR JOB!

Absentee-ballot manager blamed in report for flawed vote counting

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002456599_absentees30m.html?syndication=rss&source=seattletimes.xml&items=108
By Emily Heffter
Seattle Times staff reporter
King County Elections Director Dean Logan intends to fire the employee who falsified a ballot report after last year's general election.
An independent, investigative report released yesterday placed much of the blame for lost and mishandled ballots in the 2004 election on absentee-ballot supervisor Nicole Way.

The local law firm that did the report said Way ignored her boss's instructions, "constructed" an explanation for not counting more than 100 legitimate votes, and acted nonchalant when ballots were missing.
The $55,800 Williams, Kastner & Gibbs report said Way repeatedly "either failed to appreciate the gravity of the problem, failed to appreciate the implications of her actions or inactions and/or failed to have sufficient foresight to anticipate and avoid problems."
Way did not respond to messages left on her home phone and cellphone yesterday.

King County Elections director Dean Logan told her in a Friday letter that he is "proposing" she be fired. Her employment is still subject to a meeting this week with Logan.
Way, who was a key witness for Republicans in the challenge to the governor's election, has been on paid administrative leave since April.



CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[autorank]

5. MD: The Sun Calls “Jim Crow” on GA Voter ID Law – Racism! Shocking!

The Baltimore Sun says it all: “The supposed purpose of the ID requirement is to prevent fraud at the polling place. But very little voter fraud occurs at the polling place: The vast majority occurs in the registration process - and via mailed-in absentee ballots, which still require no proof of identification.”

Eyes on Snellville's prize

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.voting30aug30,1,7026312.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

opinion
Originally published August 30, 2005
VOTERS IN A TOWN in Gwinnett County today will be the first to face the toughest, least-fair voter identification rules in the nation after the Justice Department cleared Georgia's new elections law Friday. Forty years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Snellville, Ga., has returned to a form of poll tax on its populace.

Only those voters in the special congressional election who can show government-issued photo identification will be allowed to cast ballots. Previously, voters could prove their identities by showing birth certificates, Social Security cards, ID cards with photos from private universities or workplaces, statements from utilities or banks or other such paperwork.

Who doesn't have a state-issued ID these days? Mostly elderly folks, people who don't drive, poor people - and those who can't make it to one of the only 56 places to obtain such IDs in the state (there is no such place in the entire city of Atlanta, though there's one in Snellville). But the now-discredited forms of identification are the very ones that Georgians use to obtain a state ID card in the first place, along with a 10-dollar bill and the cost of a trip to the motor vehicles office. So the real new requirement is proof of payment or mobility.

That's wrong. Voting is a constitutional right, not a privilege of people with the means to pay for it.

The supposed purpose of the ID requirement is to prevent fraud at the polling place. But very little voter fraud occurs at the polling place: The vast majority occurs in the registration process - and via mailed-in absentee ballots, which still require no proof of identification.

Gwinnett County's elections officials are scrambling to conform to the new law. Forgive them for their surprise: The Feds rejected less-restrictive voting identification rules proposed by Louisiana's legislature in 1994 and 1995.

We expect this return to discriminatory politics will be overturned in the courts. Sadly, it can't come soon enough for Snellville



CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[autorank]

6. Philippines: “We’re not going to take it..anymore.” Opposition Walks Out!

Attention: Capitol Hill Democrats (especially memeber of the U.S. Senate who sat out two stolen election challenges). This is what it is supposed to look like. A president is installed after a highly suspicious election. The opposition party in the minority forms a consensus that there needs to be an investigation, a trial, to show if fraud took place. The minority will not give up. Well today, after the majority and illegitimate (perhaps) President Arroyo tried to stop the process, the opposition walked out of the congress en masse, proving that in the Philippine congress, some things are more important than job security.

House opposition walks out

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200508310401.htm


By Jess Diaz
The Philippine Star 08/31/2005

Pandemonium broke loose in the House of Representatives late yesterday afternoon as impeachment petitioners and endorsers walked out on their colleagues in the committee on justice before the panel could take a vote on their amended complaint seeking the removal of President Arroyo.

The walkout was prompted by what opposition congressmen described as a clear attempt on the part of administration allies to kill their charges of "lying, cheating and stealing" against the embattled President.

Pro-impeachment lawmakers filed out of the session hall where the justice committee was holding its hearing seconds after Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong, committee chairman, obstinately ignored their collective calls for the panel to adjourn its session instead of voting on the amended petition today.

<snip>

In a statement, Villar said she decided to sign in favor of impeachment after "deep contemplation and reflection" and in order to give the President "her day in court."

"Furthermore, I have seen in all of the proceedings how committed the young members of the House of Representatives are in trying to ferret out the truth," she said.

<snip>

He and about 20 other members of the minority then rose from their seats and held up copies of what they claimed were fabricated election returns as proof of election fraud, declaring "This is the evidence!"

He said if the House kills the amended complaint and the truth behind the cheating charges are not brought out, young Filipinos might forever ask if Mrs. Arroyo indeed cheated in last year’s election.

"Do we tell them, ‘We don’t know because this committee killed the complaint by a mere technicality?" he asked.

For her part, Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales of the party-list group Akbayan said it was Lozano who, in the latter part of 2000, filed an impeachment complaint against then Vice President Arroyo.

She said the petition was endorsed by Pichay, a staunch Arroyo ally.

"There seems to be a pattern here. The President is mocking the impeachment process," she said. — With Delon Porcalla

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[MadeinOhio]

9. Excellent! Lets envision George Bush to be in the same situation here. n/t

[paineinthearse]

7. .

Now my day is complete and I can go to bed!

[autorank]

8. .

You're a "retiring" kind of guy...Thank you.

[autorank]

10. DU Breaking News: Kerry to Stay in Cobb-Bednarick Suit-(We Hope)

Kerry stays in the Ohio Greens/Libertarians election theft lawsuit

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=392130&mesg_id=392130


Fly by night Donating Member Wed Aug-31-05 06:30 AM
Original message

This morning (at 4:30 am), I received an email that many of us have been hoping for. It was from someone near the Kerry camp, and the email said that John Kerry has decided to stay and fight the Ohio election theft as part of the Greens' and Libertarians' lawsuit.

While I have sent out several emails this morning to people who are at the center of this lawsuit for confirmation, I want to believe that what I have just been told is true. And on that basis, I wanted to share this with all of you.

For weeks, this forum has been occupied with "will he or won't he?" threads, starting with DemoDonkey's thread started at the Atlanta voting rights march. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of us wrote John Kerry (some of us multiple times) to ask him to stay the course in Ohio. Ten days ago, I got a chance to do a little more.

Through a contact made here on DU, I had an hour long conversation early on a Sunday morning with the person who wrote me the email this morning. She said that Kerry's attorneys were still not convinced that fraud had occurred in Ohio. After asking whether they had posed for this month's Harper's magazine cover (the "see no evil, hear no evil" chimps), I reviewed just a smidgeon of the overwhelming evidence that we have marinated in on the 2004 ERD forum for the past ten months. And then I helped organize a flood of audio tapes of Ohio election theft experts to be sent to Kerry's camp from the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville, from the Houston Election Assessment Hearing and from the BradBlog radio archives. Within six hours, we had over a dozen MP3s emailed to Washington with hard evidence of the Ohio election theft for Kerry's attorneys (who should have already known this information) to hear and review. Within a few days, I got word back that our audio tapes were having an effect and that John Kerry was going to meet with John Conyers to discuss what was known about fraud in Ohio.

[autorank]

11. OH: (From Algorem) Cleveland Election Workers Indicted for Fraud!!!

DUer Algorem posted this separately. This is Special Prosecutor Baxter, Eirie Co. OH DA, who was appointed to check on election fraud. He's getting busy. Lets hope these workers "roll over" and cooperate so we get the true story. Thanks Algorem!

Two Cuyahoga County election workers indicted in presidential recount

POSTED: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 4:16:29 PM
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 8:55:54 PM

CLEVELAND -- Two workers at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections have been charged with taking illegal short cuts in our local recount of last year’s presidential election.

A libertarian candidate and one from the Green party made the original accusations, and today a grand jury agreed.

Ballot supervisors Rosey Greer and Kathleen Dreamer each face six felonies.

The shortcuts wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the election, but were not the way the recount should have been handled.

The Board of Elections faxed the following statement Tuesday night:

"The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections issued the following statement today regarding allegations of violating election laws involving two of its employees:

'We have absolute confidence in all of our employees, and we stand unanimously behind the integrity of the election process in Cuyahoga County.

These allegations are based on interpretation of procedures, not on any suggestions of fraud.

The Board operates under the advice and counsel of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. The Prosecutor's Office was specifically asked to review the recount procedures consistently utilized by the Board since 1982. The Board was advised to continue operating under the precedent used for more than two decades. Unfortunately, this same process has now resulted in indictments based on alleged procedural defects.

We are confident that no employee of the Board of Elections would knowingly or negligently engage in any unlawful conduct regarding the 2004 Presidential recount. We, as Board Members, unanimously stand by our employees in the face of these allegations."

[kansasblue]

12. nice work Autorank

[autorank]

13. Gracias Senor! :)

[Wilms]

14. PDA: Update on Ohio Election Recount Cases--trial date August 2006

Thanks to Gloria for the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2048729

[Wilms]

15. Brad Blog: Ohio Election Officials Indicted for 2004 Election Recount...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4530107

[Algorem]

16. Signatures expected to exceed number needed to put reforms on ballot

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1125529441283922.xml&storylist=cleveland

8/31/2005, 6:56 p.m. ET
By JOHN McCARTHY
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Three proposals to change election law have tentatively exceeded the number of signatures needed to be placed on the Nov. 8 ballot, leaving it up to an appeals court to decide whether backers legally collected the signatures...

One of the proposals would replace the Apportionment Board, which draws state legislative districts, with a board headed by a judge. The same board also would also approve congressional district lines, now the job of the Ohio Legislature. Republicans currently dominate the bodies that now draw the lines. Under the plan, anyone could submit a redistricting proposal.

A second amendment would limit individual contributions to state political campaigns, now $10,000, to $2,000 for statewide candidates and $1,000 for legislative candidates. Under the third, a nine-member, bipartisan board would oversee elections in Ohio...

Also on Wednesday, a group supporting Reform Ohio Now, which proposed the amendments, said Petro had awarded millions of dollars in contracts and his campaigns have collected thousands of dollars from law firms whose attorneys represent Ohio First.


Ohio attorney general: http://www.ag.state.oh.us

Ohio secretary of state: http://www.sos.state.oh.us

http://www.reformohionow.com

[MelissaB]

17. Email from PDA about the election recount cases in Ohio

Dear PDA Activists,

Last week PDA wrote you about the election recount cases in Ohio. On Monday, federal Judge Carr in Toledo, Ohio held a hearing in the Ohio 2004 recount case. Judge Carr then set an accelerated schedule for 2004 presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik and for intervener Kerry/Edwards 2004 to file amended papers by September 15, 2005. Kerry/Edwards 2004 counsel appeared as an intervening party at the hearing. The judge set a trial in this matter for August 2006.

Thank you for making your voices heard. PDA will continue to organize to ensure that recounts matter, and that all votes are properly counted.

For more information about these issues, click here.

Again thank you for all of your help.

In struggle,

Tim Carpenter
Director, Progressive Democrats of America
http://www.pdamerica.org


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Please click the link above to go to Conyer's blog to see the letters, or click this one: http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/kerryedwardsohltr81705.pdf

I :loveya: PDA and Mr. Conyers!


Edited to say: Discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x392237