Election Reform, Fraud and Related News. 05/01/08

[EFerrari]

Voting system creator dies in plane crash
Posted on Thu, May. 01, 2008

BY GERARDO REYES AND CASTO OCANDO
El Nuevo Herald

A founding partner of the Smartmatic voting system, headquartered in Boca Raton, was killed this week in Venezuela when a private plane he was traveling in plummeted into a home near the Caracas airport.

Alfredy Jose Anzola Jaumotte, 34, one of the creators of the voting system program, died at an area hospital Tuesday.

Also killed in the accident were the pilot, Mario Jose Donadi, a convicted drug-trafficker in both the United States and Venezuela; Smartmatic employee Eduardo Ramirez and two residents of the home that was struck by the falling aircraft at about 10 a.m. Monday.

Two other residents of the home were also seriously injured.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/516486.html



1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web. Here's the link to the News Directory:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

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

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


Recommendations are much appreciated. :hi:

[EFerrari]

1. The Nation.

[EFerrari]

15. Did the US Supreme Court just elect John McCain?

Did the US Supreme Court just elect John McCain?

By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
Online Journal Guest Writers
May 1, 2008, 00:18


The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters' rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic.

By 6-3 the court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.

The decision turns back two centuries of jurisprudence that has accepted a registered voter's signature as sufficient identification for casting a ballot. By matching that signature against one given at registration, and with harsh penalties for ballot stuffing, the justices confirmed in their lead opinion that there is "no evidence" for the kind of widespread voter fraud Republican partisans have used to justify the demand for photo IDs.

Voting rights activists have long argued that since photo IDs can cost money, or may demand expensive trips to government agencies, the requirement constitutes a "poll tax." Taxes on the right to vote were used for a century to prevent blacks and others from voting in the South and elsewhere. They were specifically banned by the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1964.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3240.shtml

[EFerrari]

16. States urged to set up soldiers’ ballots

States urged to set up soldiers’ ballots
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent

The Pentagon has begun urging US states to organise electronic ballots for more than 250,000 US troops who will be serving abroad when voters go to the polls in November to elect a new president and commander-in-chief of all American forces.

While most servicemen and women can communicate with their families via the internet from some of the remotest outposts of Iraq and Afghanistan or from naval carrier battlegroups in mid-Pacific, most are still confined to registering their political preferences by surface mail.

Thousands complained after the 2000 election that their ballot papers failed to arrive in time to be counted.
advertisement

Of the 50 US states, only seven - Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and South Carolina - allow serving military voters to return their selection online.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/foreign/display.var.2238276.0.States_urged_to_set_up_soldiers_ballots.php

[EFerrari]

18. House Panel Threatens Rove With Subpoena (Go Don!)

House Panel Threatens Rove With Subpoena

Thursday, May 01, 2008

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee has threatened to subpoena former White House adviser Karl Rove if he does not agree by May 12 to testify about former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's corruption case.

In a letter to Rove's attorney Thursday, committee lawmakers called it "completely unacceptable" that the former Republican White House aide has so far declined the committee's request for sworn testimony even as he discusses the matter publicly through the media.

Since last year, Democrats on the committee have been investigating whether Rove and other Republicans influenced Siegelman's prosecution on bribery and other charges. Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to more than seven years in prison last year.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353841,00.html

[EFerrari]

2. States.

[EFerrari]

5. FL: Osceola County's early-voting ballots will be printed on demand

A federal grant will help the county in its bid to reduce waste from printing for too many voters.

Mark Pino | Sentinel Staff Writer
May 1, 2008

A federal grant will help the Osceola County Supervisor of Elections Office print early-voting ballots on demand.

Two vendors are pitching systems that will eliminate the waste of printing too many ballots.

The idea is to take the elections office out of the fortunetelling business because it would no longer have to try to predict how many people from each precinct are going to vote at each early voting site, said Supervisor of Elections Connie Click.

"Anybody from any precinct can show up at any time" at any early-voting location, Click said. That means every site must have copies of every ballot.

Many of the preprinted ballots go unused and eventually must be destroyed.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-ovote0108may01,0,6489156.story

[EFerrari]

6. IN: New voting machines may provide faster results

BY BILL DOLAN
[e-mail]
219.662.5328 | Wednesday, April 30, 2008 | 2 comment(s)

CROWN POINT | Lake County elections officials are hoping for a shorter election night for those counting votes with the addition of new voting machines.

The county recently purchased 525 Infinity electronic voting machines at a cost of $1.4 million. The machines promise to deliver results of Tuesday's election much faster, county officials contend.

Nicholas Gasparovic, assistant elections board director, said Wednesday the county has had trouble arriving at final vote totals in the past because of compatatbility issues between the county's previous two types of voting machines.

The county's older MicroVote-464 didn't share data with the state-of-the art Infinity machines, requiring election workers to perform additional math steps to get grand totals .

http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2008/04/30/updates/breaking_news/doc4818dcfce56aa265582528.txt

[EFerrari]

7. Rep. pushes for voter ID in Massachusetts

By Lindsey Parietti/Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News
Posted Apr 30, 2008 @ 07:23 PM

State Rep. Karyn Polito, R-Shrewsbury, is hoping a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding photo identification requirements for voters will push Massachusetts to strengthen its own voter laws.

After the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a 2005 Indiana law designed to prevent voter fraud was constitutional, Polito is renewing her call for the state Legislature to reconsider a similar bill she filed this session.

Indiana, Florida and Georgia are the only states that do not allow voters without photo identification to cast a regular ballot, according to the Pew Center on the States, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization.

Instead, voters in those states are offered provisional ballots, which are only counted if election officials can later verify their identity.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x2124114021

[EFerrari]

8. NJ: Phantom Obama Vote Appears on NJ Voting Machine

Phantom Obama Vote Appears on NJ Voting Machine
By Kim Zetter EmailApril 30, 2008 | 8:49:07 PM

The mysteries keep piling up around the Sequoia voting machines used in New Jersey. This time Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten has uncovered a phantom vote for Obama in summary tapes from three voting machines used in the state's February 5th primary in Pennsauken District 6.

The county clerk reports that 279 votes were cast in the Democratic primary in Pennsauken District 6. The figure apparently comes from memory cards taken from the machines. This number coincides with the turnout number that appears on the summary tapes from the three voting machines in District 6, which show turnout on the machines as 133, 126 and 20.

The problem, however, is that the summary tapes show that the total number of votes the candidates received doesn't match this number. The tapes indicate that the candidates together received 280 votes instead of 279. When the individual numbers for the candidates on the tapes are compared with the individual numbers that the county reports, Obama is shown as receiving 95 votes on the machine tapes, whereas the county clerk's numbers (.pdf) show him receiving 94 votes (again, from numbers taken from the memory cards inside the machines). The question is, why doesn't information taken digitally from the memory cards inside the machines match the summary tapes that are printed from the machines? And why doesn't the number on the tapes that indicates the total number of votes cast for candidates match the number on the tapes that indicates the voter turnout?

Felten notes that no problem shows up for the Republican primary numbers. You can view the scans of the machine tapes at Felten's Freedom to Tinker blog.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/phantom-obama-v.html

[EFerrari]

9. NC: NC group sorry for misleading calls on voting in primary

NC group sorry for misleading calls on voting in primary

1 day ago

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A group whose automated phone calls to North Carolina residents provided misleading information about voting in Tuesday's primary election apologized and said it will stop making the calls.

Attorney General Roy Cooper said Wednesday that the group, Women's Voices, Women Vote, broke the state law that governs automated phone calls, or "robocalls." No charges were filed, and Cooper's office was seeking more information from the group.

The automated call did not include information on the group or a way to contact the organization, both are which are required by state law. Violating the law is punishable by civil penalties of up to $5,000, Cooper's office said.

The group's president, Page Gardner, said its members were working to boost voter registration among unmarried women and had sent a voter registration application to more than 275,000 people this week.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gValsOLfqBF2SGS-zHlwij9PEYkgD90CH4980

[EFerrari]

10. OK: Okla. senators divided over proposed voter ID bill

Okla. senators divided over proposed voter ID bill

Posted: April 30, 2008 04:10 PM



Lawton_The Oklahoma legislature is one of several states to consider voter identification laws for polling places. Just this week, the United States Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law which requires voters to present a picture ID in order to cast a ballot. Oklahoma has a similar proposal, but there are exceptions. Most law makers agree it's a good concept, but it's having some trouble passing. It's become a partisan issue with Republicans standing behind the bill, while Democrats are fighting it. The amendments that have been made to the bill are causing some dispute.

For the second straight year, Senator John Ford of Bartlesville says he is trying to eliminate any chance of voter fraud in Oklahoma. "I think it's also very important that everyone who votes knows their vote is legal," he says. "But also every other vote in the state is legal, and they all count the same."

However, some lawmakers say that they think requiring a picture ID is asking too much from voters. So, some alternative forms of identification have been added to the bill, such as a voter ID card, passport, driver's license, utility bill, government check, or bank statement. Lawton Senator Randy Bass fears adding these additional forms of identification could cause more problems than not requiring any ID at all. "It may not be your utility bill," he says. "Maybe somebody else has your utility bill - you really don't have to have your proof of identification, just your utility bill. That's a big question we have."

Potential fraud isn't the only reason Bass and other Democrats say they won't support the bill. Another amendment to allow same day registration to vote was on the bill, but the amendment was removed - causing yet more disapproval. Senator Ford says the State Election Board Secretary opposes the idea of same day registration, and he says it's the reason the amendment was removed.

http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=8252360&nav=menu495_1

[EFerrari]

11. PA: Critics push for paper ballots

Critics push for paper ballots
Many say they lack trust in voting system
By Anne Danahy
[e-mail]

BELLEFONTE — Touch-screen voting machine critics took up most of a two-hour public meeting Wednesday night, urging the Centre County Board of Commissioners to switch to paper ballots.

“Electronic voting machines represent a step backward,” said Anna Sloan, of Bellefonte.

She said there is no way to guarantee votes are recorded correctly when the county’s system doesn’t have paper ballots and relies on the secret codes of a private company.

About 50 people attended the meeting in the county Courthouse Annex, including about 22 who spoke. Of those, about 18 talked, at times passionately, about their lack of trust in the touch-screen machines and why they think paper ballots are needed.

http://www.centredaily.com/116/story/562729.html

[EFerrari]

14. CA: S.C. Declines to Enter Orange County Election Dispute

Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Thursday, May 1, 2008

S.C. Declines to Enter Orange County Election Dispute
By a MetNews Staff Writer


The California Supreme Court yesterday left standing a Fourth District Court of Appeal ruling upholding the result of a recount in last year’s special election for Orange County supervisor.

The justices, at their weekly conference in San Francisco, voted 6-0, with Chief Justice Ronald M. George recused, to deny Trung Nguyen’s petition for review of the Jan. 17 ruling in Nguyen v. Nguyen, 158 Cal.App.4th 1636, which left Janet Nguyen the winner of the election by seven votes.

The Court of Appeal’s Div. Three said Janet Nguyen was within her rights to ask for a manual recount of paper ballots while relying on the electronic records stored by computerized voting machines to tally electronic ballots.

Rejecting an argument by Trung Nguyen that the recount of the disputed Feb. 6, 2007 voting was invalid because electronic votes were not recounted manually, the court affirmed the ruling of Orange Superior Judge H. Michael Brenner that Janet Nguyen won the election.

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2008/pare050108.htm

[EFerrari]

17. KY: Funds available to make switch to paper ballots

Funds available to make switch to paper ballots
Ronica Shannon
Register News Writer

Madison Fiscal Court is eligible for about $256,500 in federal funding to purchase paper ballot scanners for future elections if the court votes in favor of doing so.

Magistrates and Madison Judge-Executive Kent Clark received a presentation at Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting from Joe Harp of the Lexington-based company Harp Enterprises.

The company specializes in a variety of printing areas, including providing printed election materials such as paper voting ballots that are scanned by a machine.

Changing the Madison County election process from an all-electronic system to using paper ballots that are filled out by each voter may seem like the county government is going back in time, but it could make things simpler, said Magistrate Bill Tudor.

http://www.richmondregister.com/localnews/local_story_121074218.html

[EFerrari]

21. TX: Cities work to keep votes straight (Concern Troll Central)

Cities work to keep votes straight

Mary Meaux
The Port Arthur News

Casting a ballot these days is easy as 1, 2, 3.

So don’t discount the poll workers who check identification, log information into a thick voter registration book and precinct book and ask the voter to provide his or her signature.

But can a voter cast more than one ballot in an election and get away with it?

Carolyn Guidry, Jefferson County Clerk, has officiated over numerous elections and has only seen one instance where a person had cast a provisional ballot and also attempted to vote on election day. The person, she said, was elderly and likely forgot they had already voted, she said.

Texas Election Code prohibits voters from casting or attempting to cast more than one ballot under penalty of law.

http://www.panews.com/local/local_story_122212913.html

[EFerrari]

3. International.

[EFerrari]

19. Zimbabwe embarks on vote verification process

Zimbabwe embarks on vote verification process (DW)

Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission has embarked on the verification process of presidential election results more than five weeks after the actual vote took place. A first day of all-party talks kicked off to this effect in Harare on Thursday. The presidential candidates are to be given the opportunity to compare their vote tallies with the official results. This comes a day after electoral commission sources said Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change had taken at least 47 percent of the vote but less than the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off. Meanwhile, human rights groups say President Robert Mugabe's security forces have been attacking opposition supporters to intimidate them ahead of a possible second round of voting.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/function/0,,12215_cid_3306093,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

[EFerrari]

20. UK: Counting begins in local vote for UK's Brown

Counting begins in local vote for UK's Brown
By Katherine Baldwin and Tim Castle

LONDON (Reuters) - Counting began in local elections on Thursday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown facing potentially heavy losses in his first major electoral test since taking over from Tony Blair in June.

There was intense focus on London, where two political mavericks were battling for the job of mayor in the closest election since the office was created eight years ago.

The ruling Labour Party did badly at the last local elections in 2004, when public anger was high over Britain's backing for the United States in the Iraq war.

If Brown loses even more ground this time -- and the capital falls to the opposition Conservative Party -- it would further damage his standing and fan speculation over a possible challenge to his leadership.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0167944520080502?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

[EFerrari]

4. OpEd.

[EFerrari]

13. Movie Reviews: "Uncounted" and "Election Day"

Movie Reviews: "Uncounted" and "Election Day"
by Stan Hall, Special to the Oregonian
Thursday May 01, 2008, 10:21 AM

Watching "Uncounted," David Earnhardt's absorbing albeit depressing documentary about alleged election fraud committed by electronic-voting-machine manufacturers and their elected co-conspirators, an Oregonian can't help but wonder why Americans don't en masse demand comprehensive election reform.

Why, to cite just a couple of examples of the insanity surrounding electronic voting, do so many states not allow paper trails? Why are private corporations, which are under no legal obligation to act in the public interest, so heavily involved in our elections? And why is Oregon's vote-by-mail system not seriously considered as an antidote to voter suppression, fraud and other election ills that threaten our democracy? Even Florida, given enough time, could successfully adopt it. Well, maybe that's asking a bit much.

Just as primary ballots show up in Oregon mailboxes, here are opportunities to view "Uncounted" (with director Earnhardt holding a question-and-answer session) and "Election Day" (watch trailer), Katy Chevigny's film about more than a dozen election workers and overseers nationwide as they attempted to ensure the integrity of the 2004 election. Whether they succeeded depends on where they were and whom one asks.

"Uncounted" screens at 7 p.m. Monday at Cinema 21; "Election Day" screens Saturday-Sunday at Hollywood Theatre

http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2008/05/movie_reviews_uncounted_and_el.html

[EFerrari]

22. Break-ins plague targets of US Attorneys

Break-ins plague targets of US Attorneys
By Larisa Alexandrovna

Break-ins plague targets of US Attorneys
05/01/2008 @ 1:39 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna, Muriel Kane and Lindsay Beyerstein
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Breakins_plague_Justice_Department_whistleblowers_0430.html


The Permanent Republican Majority Part VI
Advertisement
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA - In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.

These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively.

Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.
In Alabama, for instance, the home of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman was burglarized twice during the period of his first indictment. Nothing of value was taken, however, and according to the Siegelman family, the only items of interest to the burglars were the files in Siegelman's home office.
~
Siegelman's attorney experienced the same type of break-in at her office.
In neighboring Mississippi, a case brought against a trial lawyer and three judges raises even more disturbing questions. Of the four individuals in the same case, three of the US Attorney's targets were the victims of crimes during their indictment or trial. This case, like that of Governor Siegelman, has been widely criticized as a politically motivated prosecution by a Bush US Attorney.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_larisa_a_080501_break_ins_plague_tar.htm

[EFerrari]

23. Remote Voting--Who's Counting?

May 1, 2008

Remote Voting--Who's Counting?
By Marta Steele


This evening’s edition of Voice of the Voters, hosted by Mary Ann Gould and Lori Rosolowsky, focused on the pros and cons of remote voting, that is, both vote by mail (vbm) and Internet voting.

The nationally known roster of guests included Barbara Simons, of the National Workshop on Internet Voting; Charles E. Corry, of the Equal Justice Foundation; and Gentry Lange, director of the No Vote By Mail Project.

Dr. Corry, first to be interviewed, pointed out that vbm ballots are counted by computerized machines; citizens can send in as many as they want to , thereby using this modernized system for ballot stuffing. Moreover, the ballots are counted in unsupervised back rooms.

The advantages of this system are that it removes pressure from the voting process—voting can begin as many as ten days prior to election day; there is no need to hire and train election judges; the cost is less; the turnout improves; and this system is more convenient—it is possible to vote at a kitchen table rather than wait in long lines in the rain.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_marta_st_080501_remote_voting__who_s.htm

[kster]

12. K&R.nt

[Melissa G]

24. Off to greatest! Thanks Beth!!!!

:loveya:

[EFerrari]

25. So much my pleasure.

:toast:

[bleever]

26. K&R

for sfexpat2000 and the other incredible ERD people who make sure this happens every damn day.

:loveya: