Election Reform, Fraud & Related News June 7, 2006-Drizzle Edition

[kpete]

Election Reform, Fraud & Related News June 7, 2006-Drizzle Edition

Feeling a little sad - so I want to get California out of the way...
I live in San Diego - No one votes here, plus it drizzled yesterday...

Still Cool COME BACK!!!

Republicans keep House seat in California
Wed Jun 7, 2006 05:18 AM ET

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Republican Brian Bilbray won a hard-fought battle for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in California that was viewed as a possible early sign of voter sentiment ahead of November's midterm elections, West Coast radio station KCBS said on Wednesday.

Bilbray narrowly defeated Democrat Francine Busby in Tuesday's special election to replace Randy Cunningham, a former Republican congressman who was imprisoned for taking bribes.
http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=12448365&src=rss/topNews

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[kpete]

1. Elections Message -- Voters Want Change

June 7, 2006

Elections Message -- Voters Want Change
We didn't win the big one, CA-50, losing by less than 5,000 votes with 90.2 percent of the vote reported at this posting. But, in a way, we did, according to Chris Bowers' insightful analysis at MyDD:

In 2004, Busby lost the CA-50 by 22.0%. Today, it looks like she will lose by around 4.5%. And that was with the NRCC spending $4.5M on the race. If Republicans want to spin losing 18 points after spending $4.5M of committee money as a good thing, go for it. After all, spin is basically why they spent so much money on this race. By blowing their wad in a solidly Republican district, they wanted to change the media narrative on the election in their favor. It will probably work, given how subservient and generally inaccurate the media tends to be when it comes to Republicans and elections. In reality, for a Republican candidate to pull 49.5% of the vote in a district with 44.5% Republican registration is shocking. Given those numbers, Bilbray probably managed all of 20% of the vote among independents.

No matter what the media says, no Democrat should be mistaken about this result. First, this is a huge, seismic shift in our favor that bodes extremely well for November. If we receive an 18% shift nationwide, we will win the House easily. If Republican candidates are pulling only 20% of the independent vote, the Indycrat realignment is still on.

Was immigration reform a wedge issue that favored Bilbray or Busby in this north San Diego district? The WaPo http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/07/AR2006060700357.html?sub=ARwrap-up says Busby probably would have won, if not for a gaffe encouraging illegal immigrants to vote. If so, the Busby vote was all the more impressive. If there are any exit polls, it will be interesting to see how immigration reform played out. In any event, Busby gets another chance to beat Bilbray in November, and 5,000 more votes seems doable.

more at:
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001461.php

[AX10]

12. If there is a signifigant increase in voter turnout among Democrats...

and IF the independent vote stays solidly on our side (with high turnout too), only then can we win
on a national scale. Many of the districts that we are fighting in are less red than this district.

Remember, the shift experienced in the electorate in San Diego yesterday could spell victory for us come November in true swing districts.

It's going to be a hard fought battle though.

[kpete]

2. California Results: Good But Not Great

California Results: Good But Not Great
Submitted by Bob Fertik on June 7, 2006 - 4:19am.2006 Races
All eyes were on California yesterday. First the good news:

Governor: Phil Angelides won the Democratic primary despite a $35 million onslaught from Steve Westly, but the race was highly negative and drove Democratic turnout down - which probably hurt Francine Busby in CA-50. We need the most popular Democrats in the country - Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Howard Dean - to join California Democrats in a unity dinner with Steve Westly so we can turn out a strong Democratic vote in November to beat Schwarzenegger and win the crucial House races.
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen won the primary 60%-40% by promising verified voting. We must make sure she wins in November so she can play a crucial role both in California and nationwide in fighting corrupt electronic voting machine vendors.
CA-04: Charles Brown won the primary to take on John Doolittle, who had a tough primary.
CA-06: Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey beat her conservative primary opponent by 2:1.
CA-11: Jerry McNerney won the primary to take on anti-environmental leader Richard Pombo, who got only 62% in his primary against a moderate. If McNerney can win those moderate votes, he has a good shot at winning.
CA-26: Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews won the primary to take on closeted gay hypocrite David Dreier.
CA-51: Bob Filner won his primary with 55% and will continue his progressive leadership in Congress.

But otherwise there were no suprises:

CA-36: Progressive activist Marcy Winograd ran a fabulous primary against pro-war and pro-wiretapping Jane Harman, but lost 62%-38%.
CA-50: Francine Busby lost the special election in this solidly Republican district to Brian Bilbray by 49%-45%. Busby will get another chance to beat Bilbray in November.

more at:
http://www.democrats.com/node/9154

[kpete]

3. Machine Malfunctions- broken voting machines prompt voter complaints

June 06, 2006
Machine Malfunctions- broken voting machines prompt voter complaints
Voters throughout the county reported malfunctioning voting machines and technical glitches Tuesday afternoon.

Shirley Filadelfia said none of the voting machines were working at her voting site, the San Juan Capistrano Community Center at noon. She said there were paper ballots available for Democrats, but none for Republicans. She asked the poll workers to call her when the machines were fixed.

“There’s some voting irregularities -- only the Democrats were being allowed to vote,” she said. “My concern is how many people went there today and weren’t allowed to vote because of this.”

Filadelfia returned to the polls two hours later after the machines were fixed.

“It’s the first time I’ve had problems voting and it’s so unusual,” she said. “That’s why I was surprised. I’m not making any complaints against people at the poll, but something’s wrong.”

more at:
http://blogs.ocregister.com/buzz/archives/2006/06/machine_malfunctions_broken_vo.html

[kpete]

4. The Lessons From CA-50

The Lessons From CA-50
Submitted by Bob Fertik on June 7, 2006 - 6:08am.2006 Races

Despite the long odds, Democrats had high hopes for electing Francine Busby over Brian Bilbray in CA-50. But we didn't win, and we need to learn some lessons if we want to take the House and the Senate in November. Here are three lessons we need to learn:

1. We need a winning message about real change on the issues Americans care about most.

Francine Busby's core message was about corruption and ethics reform. With all due respect to ethics reformers, a message of "ethics reform" will never win tough races. Need proof? Try reading Busby's "Ethics Reform Proposal" without falling asleep:

— Ban All Outside Relationships With Government Contractors
— Ban Members Advocating for Specific Businesses
— Eliminate Anonymous Appropriations
— Ban All Privately Funded Junkets

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Now try getting disinterested voters angry enough to vote on that message. I rest my case.

more at:
http://www.democrats.com/node/9155

[kpete]

5. AFTER THAT I NEED A LITTLE CHEERING UP - HOW ABOUT SOME DEAN?

6/5/06, 1:17 pm EST

Ohio 2004: The Howard Dean Interview

Rolling Stone: How confident are you Ohio in 2004 was fairly decided?



Howard Dean: I’m not confident that the election in Ohio was fairly decided. We did our own Democratic party study in Ohio with a panel of experts. We absolutely know that there was a systematic voter suppression. We couldn’t say one way or another if the election was stolen. We couldn’t rule it out, but we couldn’t prove that it was. We know that there was substantial voter suppression, and the machines were not reliable. That’s clear.

RS: Were you caught off guard by the scale of the vote suppression campaign?

HD: We all know about the Republican culture of corruption. It should not be a surprise that the Republicans are willing to do things that are unethical to manipulate elections. That’s what we suspect has happened, and we’d like to safeguard our elections so that democracy can still be counted on to work.

The Republicans, we believe, have a different motive. They believe the less votes the better. Republicans like to suppress votes because they believe they do better in small turnouts. Characteristically, Democrats would rather lose an election with a huge turnout than win one with a small turnout because we think that the values of democracy have to be placed above the interests of the party. The reason that Republicans are such failures at governing is because they place the interests of their party ahead of the interests of the country.

RS: What is the Democratic game plan to avoid these problems in 2006?

HD: What are we going to do about it? It’s frustrating because we don’t control the levers of power. This is going to be a very critical election in 2006. We’re very aware that there’s huge potential for additional mischief in 2006. We have no doubt that some of the folks who were active in vote suppression will be active again. It’s very, very difficult to deal with it. We just have to keep pushing forward doing the best we can. The real question is why the mainstream media won’t write about this.

RS: You’ve been sounding the alarm on touch-screen voting machines, particularly Diebold machines. Why?

HD: Touch-screen voting machines absolutely cannot be relied upon. Our recommendation was optiscan ballots — where you actually have custody of the actual ballots after the ballots have been passed through the computer. That’s the most reliable system to use. And people should not use the electronic voting machines. Even electronic voting machines with paper trails can be manipulated.

I’ve personally made phone calls to some Democrats who seem to think that these machines are not so bad. I’ve made calls to Pennsylvania and New York to Democratic officials who are thinking of using these machines, warning them that they’re not reliable and that they’ll throw the results of an election into doubt. There are some Democrats who’ve OK’d these machines in their state. I’ve told them ahead of time I think that’s a mistake.

Diebold’s are not the only machines that don’t work, but certainly they are associated with the most suspicious — the machines that are the least reliable.

RS: What do you mean ‘’suspicious'’?

HD: We mean that the majority of the reports that we’ve received, where you push the screen for one candidate and the other name comes up repeatedly — most of those reports are on Diebold machines. In the governor’s race last year, we had reports from a southwestern district in Virginia that people were in fact pushing Democrat Tim Kaine’s name and Republican Jerry Kilgore’s came up.

The problem is that the federal government has essentially put huge incentives to states and counties to use the machines. Billions of dollars from the Republican Congress that will pay for these machines but not other machines.

http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=175

[MelissaB]

21. Please start a new thread for this one.

:hi:

[kpete]

27. Hey MelissaB

and Hello to you too!

I posted in in GD

Any more insight, hints, suggestions for me, you know I am a fanatic, but Election Fraud is really not my area of expertise. I am more of a Nancy Drew and The Spy in The Aspen Forest type. I MISS STILL COOL...

[kpete]

6. The Power of One and “Invisible Ballots”

June 6, 2006

The Power of One and "Invisible Ballots"
by Gail Jonas
http://www.opednews.com

The Power of One and “Invisible Ballots”

I had never heard of Joan Brunwasser or “Invisible Ballots: The Temptation for Electronic Vote Fraud” on February 26, 2006.

However, I was a “read-every-page" subscriber of YES! Magazine, and that evening I saw an article in the Spring 2006 issue about “Invisible Ballots.” A blurb at the bottom described Joan’s free lending library of this documentary film. At 5 the next morning I e-mailed Joan to find out more about it. She responded immediately.

The bottom line: Joan’s enthusiasm and wonderful lending library for “Invisible Ballots” inspired me to get the film and spread the word about it.

Using a “highlights only” rather than a “blow by blow” description of what happened since last February, let me report:

Recommending and distributing “Invisible Ballots” here in Northern California has visibly increased the interest of countless people in the problem with electronic vote counting. It’s being shown to the public in small towns, aired on our public access TV stations, and at countless house parties. The result? People are getting in involved!

MORE AT:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_gail_jon_060606_the_power_of_one_and.htm

[kpete]

7. FEELING BETTER ALREADY - HERE'S SOME HARRIS

JAY LENO: "THEY HAD TRUCKS IN FLORIDA BRINGING THE BALLOTS TO TALLAHASSEE...THE SAME TRUCKS THEY USED TO BRING THE MAKEUP TO FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE KATHERINE HARRIS"...


She attributes much of how she is viewed to the "silliness" of the media. This dates from 2000, when Ms. Harris's perceived overapplication of makeup became a recurring punch line.

"They had trucks in Florida bringing the ballots to Tallahassee," Jay Leno said on "The Tonight Show." "In fact, it's the same trucks they used to bring the makeup to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris."

Ms. Harris is adamant in her claim that news organizations have doctored photographs to exaggerate the amount of makeup she wears. "I haven't worn blue makeup since seventh grade," she said, referring to photographs she said she had seen of herself on the Internet.

She is especially animated when the topic turns to animals, including the guide dog she plans to train starting in November. She will care for the dog for 18 months, spending nearly all her waking hours with it. "You can't let them sleep in bed with you," Ms. Harris said. "Which is going to be harder on me than the dog."

When a supporter in a Venice veterans hall said he once witnessed Ms. Harris leave her vehicle to escort a turtle across a highway, she became gravely serious.

"All of my life I have stopped for turtles," she said firmly, even defensively, as if someone had challenged her commitment to turtle safety.

MORE AT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/washington/07harris.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=865957897e1eff56&hp&ex=1149652800&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

[kpete]

8. Voting machine 'hacker' runs for congress

Voting machine 'hacker' runs for congress

Against Congressman who sought to hire him


By Nick Farrell: Wednesday 07 June 2006, 09:43

THE BLOKE who claimed that he was asked by a US elected official to build a program which would hack into electronic voting machines is standing for election.
Clint Curtis is a computer programmer who testified to Congress that he had been requested by Congressman Tom Feeney, to build software that could flip the votes in an electronic voting machine without detection.

The hack would favour the incumbent who had access to the machine.

In a letter to the INQ, Curtis said that there was more than a single Florida House seat at stake.

more at:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32243

[kpete]

9. The voting experience - There has to be a better way.

The voting experience
There has to be a better way.

Try to guess where the following voter experience took place:

When the polling place opened at 7 a.m., three potential voters were in line. Just inside the polling place, a young man who had pulled up to the site with a huge "vote for" poster on his rear window, whips out a ledger with hundreds of names. It takes him a few minutes to find voter No. 1, whom he directs to the "green line." Turns out that three precincts are voting here. There are also an orange line and a red line. Bad news if you're color blind.

At 7:06 the third voter checks in with the Man With the Huge Ledger of Names. He's either hard of hearing or distracted, because it takes him a few minutes to locate the voter's name and assign him to the green line. Once there, another poll worker with a huge ledger hunts for the voter's name. It is now 7:11.

Once the voter's name is located, apparently not a simple task, the voter is asked to sign his name. No one has asked the voter to show any form of identification, not even a sample ballot. He could be Vladimir Putin, for all anyone knows.

Man With Ledger No. 2 confers with Woman With Ledger No. 3 next to him. He repeats the voter's address several times, each time with a louder voice, if anyone in the room has missed it.

Finally Woman With Ledger No. 3 finds the address, and announces to Woman With Ballots that this voter needs a non-partisan ballot. This rattles Woman With Ballots, until Wandering Poll Worker politely points out which ballot is appropriate.

more at:
http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_3906633

[kpete]

10. Glitches plague voting machines, polling stations

Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Glitches plague voting machines, polling stations

Although county election officials said Tuesday's election ran smoothly, some voters around the county reported problems with malfunctioning voting machines and polling stations that opened late.

Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley said Tuesday's problems were not above average for a primary.

The biggest problem was the paper jams in the printers, Kelley said.

"You always have problems," Kelley said. "It's all about how you manage them."

By 9:30 p.m. the registrar's office had received about 150 calls for service. Kelley said that his staff worked with 1,108 polling stations and more than 5,000 volunteers.

"I was out all day and I saw some issues come up," Kelley said about 6 p.m. "I talked to a lot of voters and poll workers. Things are going great."

He added that six rapid-response teams and 90 field supervisors were deployed to track problems.

Here is a snapshot of problems in the county:

more at:
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_1172495.php

[kpete]

11. Candidate Clint Curtis, Election Fraud Whistleblower Praises RFK Jr

Candidate Clint Curtis, Election Fraud Whistleblower Praises Robert F Kennedy, Jr. Expose on Election 2004; Calls for a Federal Investigation into Electronic Voting

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document: http://pdfserver.prweb.com/pdfdownload/394945/pr.pdf

With the November mid-term elections fast approaching, and electronic voting machines in primary races already melting down in nearly every state around the country, the release of an explosive article exposing the flaws and dirty politics in the 2004 election wins high praise from election fraud whistleblower Clint Curtis, Candidate for U.S. Congress (FL-24th district). “Rolling Stone and author Robert Kennedy, Jr., should be given medals for bringing the ’04 election manipulations to a wider audience. Americans really aren’t yet aware just how vulnerable and insecure our elections are, or how easy it is to flip the results of a national election and change the course of the country. This is a very, very serious situation, with grave consequences for our democratic process,” said Curtis.

Titusville, FL (PRWEB) June 7, 2006 -- With the November midterm elections fast approaching, and primary races already melting down in nearly every state around the country, the release of an explosive article exposing the flaws and dirty politics in the 2004 election wins high praise from election fraud whistleblower Clint Curtis, Candidate for U.S. Congress (FL-24th district).

“Rolling Stone and author Robert Kennedy, Jr., should be given medals for bringing the ’04 election manipulations to a wider audience. Americans really aren’t yet aware just how vulnerable and insecure our elections are, or how easy it is to flip the results of a national election and change the course of the country. This is a very, very serious situation, with grave consequences for our democratic process,” said Curtis.

Published in the June 15th issue of Rolling Stone, the article offers an in-depth and long over-due examination of the persistent questions surrounding the 2004 presidential election. Moreover, Curtis joins Kennedy in his sidebar article calling for a full federal investigation into electronic voting machines, the vendors who produce the hackable machines, and those congress members responsible for enabling the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which is making all of our elections more un-secure than ever.

more at:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb394945.htm

[Algorem]

13. So Dark the Con of Ken:Blackwell Sins In '04 Coming Back To Haunt Him

http://www.freetimes.com/story/285

So Dark the Con of Ken
Blackwell's Sins In '04 Are Coming Back To Haunt Him

Published June 7th, 2006

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell rigged the 2004 election for President Bush, says an article written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. So it's not exactly breaking news. Ohio reporters have exposed the various ways Blackwell intentionally suppressed votes that would have gone to Democratic candidate John Kerry. But Kennedy packages every nefarious tactic into one tight article that leaves any intelligent reader asking, "Duuuuude! What the fuck?"...

Are we really that stupid? The Ohio Republican Party thinks so.

"Oh come on, it's a bunch of garbage," says Ohio GOP spokesman John McClelland, about the Rolling Stone article. "It is a bunch of fiction. We don't spend a lot of time talking about conspiracy theories." McClelland says research by Democrats even shows there was no effort to suppress Ohio votes in 2004.

"That is untrue," says Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera. "What we found is there were significant problems with the vote in 2004. They're trying to manipulate the findings. Republicans believe the fewer people who vote the better it is for their party. Whether it's voter ID laws or Blackwell's tactics, the fact is they work to keep the turnout down. It's not good for democracy and it's not good for the country."...

[stellanoir]

14. 5th rec

thanks kpete

[kpete]

15. Progressive Messaging Wins: Tester, Angelides, Winograd, and Bilbray?

Progressive Messaging Wins: Tester, Angelides, Winograd, and Bilbray?
by Matt Stoller, Wed Jun 07, 2006 at 10:11:38 AM EST

Brian Bilbray ran to the left of Francine Busby. I know it sounds weird, but he did. That he won on a progressive platform is biggest story of the night. Busby's loss was a loss no matter how it's spun, but it's also a clear sign that the Democrats must become a progressive party. Busby ran the ultimate DC campaign, downplaying ideology and party, and making the campaign about competence, corruption, and issues. I don't expect this to wake up DC insiders, but you never know.

The counter to the Busby loss are the twin victories of Jon Tester and and Phil Angelides, as well as the unexpectedly strong showing of Marcy Winograd. Tester and Angelides won through progressive grassroots oriented campaigns. Angelides's campaign was ugly, but he beat Westly's big money and he was clearly the more progressive candidate and ran a more grassroots-oriented campaign. Winograd took an unexpectedly large 37 percent in a primary against Jane Harman. Winograd was not a credible opponent and had no local blog support, so this is the level of support the conservative Democratic leadership is turning off. And Tester CRUSHED his opponent with 60& of the vote, working with the local Montana netroots to push a progressive message that clearly resonated. I'm more optimistic about Lamont now because progressive messaging worked, and insider Democratic messaging surrounding 'issues' did not.

So let's look closer at the loss in CA-50 for Michael Duka, I mean, Francine Busby. What is there to say about Busby? She lost against a corrupt lobbyist running as a progressive in a district whose last Congressman resigned because of bribery and prostitution. If any district was tailor made for competence and corruption messaging, it was this one. That it didn't work should wake some people up. Busby ran explicitly as a 'moderate' to restore ethical government, with a patina of 'issues' (just look at the incomprehensible 'issues' area of her web site). She hid from progressives and liberals explicitly, running on a technocratic vision of minor benefits for the electorate. Busby argued that goverment is a service delivery vehicle, and she can make the trains run on time. The voters rejected that argument because they didn't trust the messenger. You can say she made up 15 points or something and the Republicans had to spend a lot of resources on this race, and I respect that argument. You can say she made a last-minute gaffe on immigration, and I respect that argument. You can argue that the California Governor's race depressed turnout. All those are valid arguments. Unfortunately, reality isn't fair. The map is gerrymandered. The Republicans have more money, a lot more. They have the ability to create last minute gaffes for every Democrat in the country. They have a proven turnout model, and the ability to dominate the agenda with wedge issues and hatred. And Democratic leaders don't have a history of effective messaging, which means that with some exceptions the top of the ticket ain't going to be particularly inspiring.

much more at:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/6/7/101138/8639

[Algorem]

16. Summit County,Ohio to probe complaint,couple say weren't allowed vote

Summit to probe election complaint

Akron husband and wife say they were not allowed to vote at their polling place on May 2

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/14759185.htm

By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer

The Summit County Board of Elections has called for an investigation into claims that two Akron residents were denied the right to vote at their polling location, half an hour before the polls were to close on May 2.

The incident happened at the Spring Hill Apartments on Everton Drive, where residents of Akron's Ward 3, Precinct C, vote.

Akron resident Johnnie Byrd filed complaints with the board and Akron police. In a written statement, Byrd said he and his wife, Marvie, arrived at the apartments at 7:02 p.m. and were given access to the parking lot. Two guards, however, refused to allow them into the building, telling them the polls had closed at 7 p.m., he said.

By law, polling locations in Ohio must be open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m...



Comments

http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=518.1&nav=messages&webtag=kr-ohiotm

Just one way how Republicans try to manipulate the voting results. I'll bet you Arshenkoff had something to d with that one!!!!

Posted by: Frank ...



Hey Frank, dont forget to take your med's this morning.

Posted by:




Plain Dealer's owner loses bid to buy Beacon Journal

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/breaking_news/14761490.htm

By Gloria Irwin
Beacon Journal business writer

The owner of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland has lost its effort to buy the Akron Beacon Journal, according to a person close to the process.

The bidding to buy the newspaper has been completed, the person said, although the final winner has not been announced.

That announcement could come as early as today.

The Plain Dealer is owned by New York-based Advance Publications Inc...

[kpete]

17. Populist Jon Tester Scores Huge Win Against D.C. Dems & For the Rest of Us

Populist Jon Tester Scores Huge Win Against D.C. Dems & For the Rest of Us

The winds of change - they are a-blowin’ hard out here in the heartland, no matter how much Washington, D.C. pretends they aren’t. Tonight, in a major upset, populist Democratic State Senate President Jon Tester crushed his primary opponents, becoming the Democratic nominee against vulnerable incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT). Tester, a farmer from Big Sandy, ran against the Washington Establishment, ignoring those who said he couldn’t beat State Auditor John Morrison (D) - the candidate that Democratic Party powerbrokers in Washington tried to anoint.

In fairness, I think both Tester and Morrison are good Democrats. But, as I saw when I was at Tester’s announcement speech last year, and I learned in talking with Tester during the campaign, this is a guy who clearly and unabashedly represents the populist wing of his party (I tried as best as I could to publicly stay out of the primary out of deference to the state party that didn’t want to further enflame the already divisive primary battle). His victory will likely send yet more shockwaves through the increasingly insulated and isolated Democratic Establishment in Washington.

more at:
http://davidsirota.com/index.php/2006/06/06/populist-john-tester-scores-huge-win-against-dc-dems-for-the-rest-of-us/

[kpete]

18. AZ: County buying disputed voting machines

Published: 06.07.2006
County buying disputed voting machines
BRAD BRANAN
[e-mail]

Pima County will buy voting machines for the disabled despite lingering questions about their reliability.
The county needs the Diebold machines to comply with the federal Help Americans Vote Act. The law requires such a system at each polling place, county officials said Tuesday.

The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to spend $2.1 million for the machines, which are expected to serve disabled voters in the fall elections. The state will reimburse the county for the purchase.

Supervisors Sharon Bronson, Ann Day and Ramón Valadez voted in favor.

Questions about the accuracy and security of the Diebold system made the purchase a tough decision, the three said.

But the county risked violating federal law and losing its reimbursement for the machines.

more at:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/15076.php

[kpete]

19. Forget Flag Burning. Tackle the Real Issues, Like Voting Machines

Forget Flag Burning. Tackle the Real Issues, Like Voting Machines
By Norman J. Ornstein
Posted: Wednesday, June 7, 2006

ARTICLES
Roll Call
Publication Date: June 7, 2006

..................

Here is one issue that is crying out for Congressional focus: election procedure and reform.

Congress responded to the election crisis in 2000, albeit belatedly, with the first major federal intervention in elections: the Help America Vote Act. It was a major accomplishment, but huge problems remain in the election system, and new ones have emerged in the aftermath of HAVA. And none of the people who wrote HAVA have shown the slightest interest in addressing them.

I don’t want to get into the underbrush here. Instead, let me focus on the biggest flashpoint: voting machines. Chances are, anybody reading this column also reads widely about politics and knows about the multiple problems and controversies here. States and localities have moved to fulfill HAVA’s mandate, using federal money, to update their voting machines and make sure there will be no more hanging chads or questions of election outcomes because of faulty, outdated or rigged machines, or monstrosities such as butterfly ballots.

But the process has backfired because of the unintended consequences of the (well-intentioned) move to expensive modern electronic machines, mostly of the touch-screen variety. These are known as direct-recording electronic systems.

As the DREs expanded in use, computer experts began to uncover security vulnerabilities. The more experts have focused on the machines, the more vulnerabilities they have found. The more they have pointed out the problems, the more the companies that make the machines have brushed aside complaints or stonewalled about the problems.

Then, with suspicions raised, another issue arose--the fact that most of the DRE systems purchased by election districts come without a paper trail, making recounts questionable and adding to the distrust many feel about the machines. Many jurisdictions are now moving to equip their DREs with paper trails, but doing so is very expensive, and HAVA has not provided additional money for it.

more at:
http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.24494/pub_detail.asp

[kpete]

20. Voting machines stolen from Mount Andrew

Voting machines stolen from Mount Andrew
06/06/2006

Voting was delayed Tuesday morning at Mount Andrew after two voting machines were reportedly stolen.

Barbour County Sheriff Marshall Williams said the cases for the two machines-including one machine for handicapped voters-were still at the polling location. However, the actual machines were taken.

"That is a federal offense," Williams said Tuesday afternoon. "I've contacted the FBI, and they've contacted the attorney general's office."

Williams said the county had extra machines available, and were able to send those machines to Mount Andrew this morning.

"They're getting to vote and everything is going well," Williams said.

Williams added they have no leads on who might have stolen the machines.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16747054&BRD=2235&PAG=461&dept_id=439676&rfi=6

[Algorem]

22. Official returns differ substantially from media reports in CA-50

From: Zepp <[e-mail]>

Reply-To: [e-mail]

To: ...

Subject: #Official returns differ substantially from media reports in CA-50

Date: Wed 06/07/06 10:55 AM

The official results at McPhersons site (the California Secretary of
State) show with 99.6 of precincts in, that Busby beat Bilbray by 8,999
votes.

CNN and other media outlets are reporting that Bilbray won, by roughly
5,000 votes, with 90% of precincts in..

Something is rotten here.


http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/usrep/5000.htm

--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing
has
changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,
we're
talking about getting a court order before we do so"
-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed, http://yahoogroups/subscribe/zepps_news
For essays (please contribute!) http:yahoogroups/subscribe/zepps_essays

[kpete]

23. Thanks for your interesting input today Algorem

[Algorem]

30. thanks for place to post, but i'm dum i shouldn't have posted that one-

(but i still love that Zeppnews thing)

Explanation of 50th District vote

Date: Wed 06/07/06 02:11 PM

I got this in my mail a few moments ago from the editor of a major state
newspaper:

There were two elections Tuesday in the 50th CD.

The first was the
special election to fill the remainder of Cunningham's term. That is
the election that Bilbray won outright.

The other vote was the
primary election to determine the party choices for the November
contest.

See http://www.sdvote.org/election/congress.xml

[rumpel]

35. CA: Merced Ballot Printing Errors

Modesto Bee

Turnout low, problems plague polls in SJ, Merced counties

By LORENA ANDERSON
BEE STAFF WRITER

Last Updated: June 7, 2006, 07:13:06 AM PDT

Voter turnout was so slow in San Joaquin County, television news crews had to wait 20 minutes in Manteca just to get a shot of one voter casting a ballot.
Compare that with the 68 million people who voted two weeks ago for the latest American Idol.

Midterm election turnout is traditionally between 38 percent and 41 percent in San Joaquin County. Officials estimated no more than a 35 percent turnout as of late Tuesday evening.

A quiet election day was also plagued with problems, some small and some not.

Dozens of poll workers either canceled at the last minute or just didn't show up, said Deborah Hench, San Joaquin registrar of voters.

That meant polls opened late, and many of the people running them were untrained. Hench said that resulted in small but manageable problems, like workers needing help using balloting machines.

Hench wasn't the only one reporting problems.

In Merced County, a printing error forced election officials to recount every ballot cast by voters Tuesday.

That didn't seem to slow down the tabulation by much, and county Auditor Stephen Jones said it doesn't affect the election's validity.

At first, Merced County voters reported the pens they used to mark their ballots bled through to the ballot's opposite side, making it look like they'd voted for two candidates in some cases.

New pens went out by 10 a.m., b

ut that didn't change the printing error that made the ballots lopsided. Democratic ballots were skewed slightly more than Republican ballots, Jones said.

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/12285186p-13021420c.html

[rumpel]

36. CA: Ventura/Simi - Glitches sour some on new voting system

Ventura County Star

By Simona Gallegos and Leland Ornelas,

June 7, 2006

The first voters to use the new ballot system Tuesday at a North Ranch polling precinct in Thousand Oaks watched as the optical machine spit out and rejected their paper ballots.

Similar glitches surfaced at a dozen precincts throughout Ventura County as voters used optic-scanning machines for the first time.

In other precincts where things ran smoothly, some voters despised the new system while others said it was a refreshing change.

The North Ranch machine, at county Fire Station 37 on Upper Ranch Road, continued to reject ballots as the morning went on, but an override button allowed the ballots to be accepted, said Jane Rieder, precinct polling inspector.

She assured voters that their votes would count.

"Look, it's counting the ballot," she told one voter who appeared satisfied with the explanation.

By 4 p.m. Tuesday, problems were reported with 12 to 15 machines in the county, said Eugene Browning, assistant registrar of voters.

Most were experiencing the same type of problem as the North Ranch machine. A scanner was unable to read the ballot, officials said.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_4756527,00.html

[GuvWurld]

24. Eureka Reporter: Watchdog group rejects election results, calls for hand c

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?Artic...

Watchdog group rejects election results, calls for hand count

by Rebecca S. Bender, 6/7/2006

The Voter Confidence Committee didn’t need to wait for reports from the last few precincts to trickle in Tuesday night; it had already deemed the results of the primary election invalid.

“We’re being asked for blind trust,” said VCC founder Dave Berman. “Without verifiable information, election results are all hearsay.”

The watchdog group’s lack of faith in the process stems from the electronic, optical scan machines that tally residents’ votes.

When a voter feeds a ballot into one of the Diebold machines, critics assert, the information on that ballot is translated into programming language — language that the company claims is a trade secret, and therefore not subject to public scrutiny.

The machines have also been criticized for various security flaws, some of which are the subject of current lawsuits.

“How do we know that the results reported reflect the will of the people?” Berman asked.

The VCC believes that only a hand count of paper ballots will guarantee an accurate, trustworthy result, and they’re calling upon Humboldt County elections officials and local media to partner in performing a full hand count of each and every ballot before announcing elections results.

“The media shouldn’t print anything they can’t prove,” Berman said at a VCC protest outside Eureka City Hall Tuesday evening.

“The media shouldn’t publish anything they can’t independently verify.”

He and several committee members later moved inside, where the regular Eureka City Council meeting was taking place, to urge the council members present to support their efforts.

As a case in point, Berman also referred to Council member Jeff Leonard’s recent request for a full, public disclosure of all results in a Balloon Track poll sponsored by the Citizens for Real Economic Growth.

Council member Chris Kerrigan and Mayor Peter LaVallee were both absent from Tuesday night’s council meeting.

The Voter Confidence Committee will hold a demonstration today at 10 am at the Humboldt County Elections Office in the Clark Complex, 3033 H St, in Eureka.

The protest is not based on any of the election returns in particular, Berman emphasized, but rather on the need for transparency of process and certainty of results.

[GuvWurld]

25. Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x432168

[Wilms]

37. KGOE broadcast Part of Dave Berman's Voter Confidence Committee Statement

http://www.guvwurld.org//Election%20Reform/KGOE%20-%20VCC%20Press%20Conference%20Challenges%20Media%20Sourcing%20of%20Election%20Reporting%20-%206-7-06.mp3

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=432162&mesg_id=432263

[kpete]

26. Thom Hartmann: RFK Jr: Taking the Stolen Election Seriously

RFK Jr: Taking the Stolen Election Seriously

By Thom Hartmann, AlterNet. Posted June 7, 2006.

In his Rolling Stone article, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reveals how the Republican Party engaged in a criminal conspiracy to both steal the 2004 election, and to cover up evidence of the theft. Tools

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written a brilliant new article about the biggest political story in the history of the United States: An American politician illegitimately took the office of president by outright theft and fraud. Although such high crimes and misdemeanors have been rumored in previous elections, none in the history of the republic have been so thoroughly documented. George W. Bush is not the legitimate president of the United States.

Schoolchildren read (in the few remaining civics classes in America) about the multiple pollings and tense standoff that led to Thomas Jefferson's election as president in "the Revolution of 1800," because newspapers of the day looked into and reported on such things. But -- unless we speak out -- odds are that few will read about what happened in Ohio in 2004 in future history books, because modern newspaper editors are increasingly corporate appendages, and many of today's "reporters" worry more about currying favor with institutional power than investigating stories that may inconvenience or upset their "sources."

more at:
http://alternet.org/rights/37153/

[kpete]

28. IOWA: Faulty voting machines delay results

ELECTION: Faulty voting machines delay results
TIM ROHWER, Staff Writer
06/07/2006

Staff photo/Ben DeVries - Roger Williams watches the numbers come in as he awaits results in the primary election Tuesday night at the Pottawattamie County Courthouse.

The counting in Tuesday's Pottawattamie County primary election came to a sudden halt shortly after midnight today when Pottawattamie County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake announced to the waiting courthouse crowd that something wasn't right with the new computers purchased to count the ballots.

As a result, all of Tuesday's ballots were in the process of being counted by hand today. Drake said the winners in Tuesday's election might not be known until around midnight this evening.

"We have no clue," she said of the cause of the problem.

But, something wasn't just right from the very beginning, she added.

Things began to look fishy, Drake said, when the county's new computers counted the absentee ballots in the Republican Party's county race between longtime Recorder John Sciortino and newcomer Oscar Duran.

Absentee ballots are the ones counted first.

When all of those were counted, Duran, a University of Nebraska at Omaha student, had 99 votes, while Sciortino, the county recorder since 1983, had just 79.

more at:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16751509&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555106&rfi=6

[rumpel]

34. Voting glitches found in Pottawattamie and Black Hawk counties (modem)

radio iowa

by Matt Kelley/Scott Fenzloff, KCNZ, Cedar Falls

Election officials in southwest Iowa's Pottawattamie County are having to recount some four-thousand ballots from Tuesday's primary election -- by hand. Deputy county auditor Gary Herman says it became apparent early on that something was wrong.

Herman says "We suspected problems last night when we counted the absentee ballots. The totals didn't look like we expected they would turn out because we had offices where there were incumbents running against first-time candidates who were relatively unknown and the unknown person beat the incumbent. That's not a normal thing to have happen."

Herman says vote-tampering is -not- suspected but a mechanical or computer snafu is more likely. He says the exact malfunction is still uncertain but there's no wrongdoing suspected -- "It's just a mistake someplace we think. We just don't know where it is." Herman says the county, where Council Bluffs is located, was breaking new ground in this primary.

snip

A new computer system that was supposed to help speed up election results in Black Hawk County apparently had the opposite impact due to a glitch. Black Hawk County Auditor Grant Veeder says there was a problem with collecting the results. He says they get their results via modem from the precincts directly to the election office, but there was some problem with the modems at the courthouse.


http://www.radioiowa.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=CF0BA2B3-4B82-4804-8EC0CA6A83C346AF&dbtranslator=local.cfm

[kpete]

29. Newsweek: To Regain Control In Washington, Democrats Need To...

Outside the Beltway
To regain control in Washington, Democrats need to look for new ideas and new leaders from across America—and from cyberspace.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek

June 7, 2006 - OK, so the Dems didn’t quite start their revolution in San Diego. Their candidate railed against the corruption of Washington—logically enough, since the race was to replace the disgraced Randy (Duke) Cunningham. The Republicans were forced to pour in $5 million and hundreds of staffers to defend a House seat in a famously conservative district. The Democrats can take heart from the fact that the race was close. But they also should learn a lesson, which is that talking about Washington—even if you’re attacking the immorality of the place—isn’t the only strategy, or even the main one.

For Democrats hoping to claw their way back to national power, this is the strategic paradox: to regain control of the political Establishment, they must forget about it.

Democrats aren’t likely to find leaders and answers here in the capital, and can’t expect the traditional media to light the way. Instead, Democrats need to be a “states' rights” party in a new sense, shunning the sclerotic political machinery of the capital for the new ideas, programs and tactics sprouting in the states—and in the digital netroots of America.

Americans want optimism and ideas, and are tired of hearing about the capital.

If the country needs another new infusion of outside-the-Beltway blood—and it always does—Dems have to figure out a way to supply it.

more at:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13185290/site/newsweek/

[kpete]

31. Mississippi: Rough debut for voting machines

Rough debut for voting machines
By: Susan Montgomery and Tim Kalich, Staff Writers 06/07/2006

Jesse Ross, chairman of the Leflore County Democratic Executive Committee, looks over results Tuesday night at the courthouse.

Problems ranging from improper programming to battery failure plagued the launch of the new touch-screen voting machines in Leflore County during the Democratic primary Tuesday.

At five precincts, pollworkers offered paper ballots to voters because of machine malfunctions.

However, machines were working at these by the middle of the day.

Leflore and Jackson counties were the only two that had widespread problems with the Diebold Election Systems equipment, according to David Blount, communications director for the Secretary of State's Office.

In both counties, the machines were improperly programmed, he said.

more at:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16751410&BRD=1838&PAG=461&dept_id=104621&rfi=6

[autorank]

32. This thread is a killer...Bookmarked!!! Thank you. n/t

[kpete]

33. Thanks

I will hold my head up high (its been a bit droopy today)...