Weekend of April 15-17 Election Reform, Fraud, & Updates Thread

[MelissaB]

In order to organize and document I thought it would be a good idea to have a daily thread to place items related to reform, fraud, protests, and other items. This also make it easier to "catch up" when we are away from the computer for a while.

Please help us. If you see something that isn't here post it with a link to the thread and a thanks to the author. Thanks to everyone who is helping with this project.
:toast:

Link to the thread from Monday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x355230

(A lot has happened this week. Let's get it all in here.)

[MelissaB]

1. Questions surface regarding legitimacy of Baker-Carter election reform com

PARTISANS DISCUSS 'REFORM'
Questions surface regarding legitimacy of Baker-Carter election reform commission

By Larisa Alexandrovna | RAW STORY Staff

April 14, 2005

Serious questions of conservative partisanship have surfaced surrounding an electoral reform commission co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and erstwhile Secretary of State James Baker, RAW STORY has learned.

The Carter Center denies any involvement with the Baker-Cater Commission on Federal Election Reform even though they are on much of its literature. Carter stepped down from the center in March.

-snip-

After seeing the full map (which will be published this evening), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who held Congressional hearings on Ohio’s election irregularities and fueled the effort for the Ohio electoral challenge, issued the following statement Thursday.

“These connections truly are astounding,” Conyers said. “It apparently wasn't enough that Republican officials helped sway the election in favor of Bush—now they've even created a phony voting rights group to combat the real work that progressives are doing to make sure that every vote is counted.”

More: http://rawstory.com/exclusives/alexandrovna/carter_baker_electoral_reform_controversy_414.htm

Map: http://rawstory.com/exclusives/map_conservative_ties_raw_story_415.htm

Thanks to Wilms here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357014#357299

[MelissaB]

2. Sequoia served with lawsuit, April 13, 2005, 1:41 p.

Jurisdiction both under the state's long-arm jurisdiction statute as well as in "the same manner as Snohomish County" given how they ARE the county when it comes to counting votes. pleadings and exhibits downloadable at www.votersunite.org

Paul Lehto's law offices had a random fire inspection today. Also, a "nice" man was seen leaving the offices just as an early arriving employee came in. Must be that mystery man who is scaring area realtors by hanging around open houses!

Lehto also addressed 32nd District Democrats; no defenders of electronic voting were found.

Did you know that votes can be output in a results slip on a Sequoia machine without even advancing the vote counter that's supposed to show the number of votes in a given election? Neither did I.

Nothing can stop us now, because this is an ARGUMENT consisting of IDEAS based on LAW that all exist in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Anybody can do it. It doesn't need or have secrets, and any claimed secrets are irrelevant to the legal argument about Government secrecy. Be the first on your block to steal these ideas! Launch a land shark of your own. www.votersunite.org (see April 7 lawsuit pleadings)

Another quiet day in Lake Snohomish.

Thanks to Land Shark here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357124

[MelissaB]

3. Velvet Revolution: Plans Presence at April 18TH "Public Hearing"

COALITION OF ELECTORAL REFORM GROUPS CALL FOR JAMES BAKER'S RESIGNATION FROM ELECTORAL REFORM COMMISSION

Scores of voting rights and electoral reform organizations nationwide have united to demand real electoral reform proposals from the private, blue ribbon Baker/Carter Commission on Elections. They are organizing a visible presence at 10:00 a.m. in front of the Kay Center on the American University campus where the Commission is planning what they call "public hearings."

These groups, including Progressive Democrats of America, United Progressives for Democracy, Code Pink and Velvet Revolution, are opposed to the inclusion in any form of James Baker III on the Commission. Baker was the lead attorney in Florida for the 2000 Bush/Cheney campaign who engineered Bush's selection as President by five Supreme Court justices who demanded that America's votes NOT be counted.

More: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357438

Thanks to Wilms here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357438

[MelissaB]

4. The Silent Scream of Numbers -- Robert Koehler's "Nash-ional" column

This syndicated column is available now from the (Chicago) Tribune Media Services syndicate. It will be made available automatically this morning to 200+ newspapers that use this syndicate nationwide. However, any newspaper in the country can obtain this column from the Tribune syndicate and reprint it. Please encourage your hometown paper to do so.

We all owe Bob Koehler a great deal of gratitude for this hard-hitting piece. He doesn't mince words -- the election was stolen and it is up to us as citizens to do something about it. We were honored to have him in Nashville with us.

This column is reprinted here in its entirety with the permission of the author. I will post a web-link as soon as one is available in the morning.
------------------------

THE SILENT SCREAM OF NUMBERS

By Robert C. Koehler

Tribune Media Services

As they slowly hack democracy to death, we're as alone - we citizens - as we've ever been, protected only by the dust-covered cliches of the nation's founding: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

It's time to blow off the dust and start paying the price.

The media are not on our side. The politicians are not on our side. It's just us, connecting the dots, fitting the fragments together, crunching the numbers, wanting to know why there were so many irregularities in the last election and why these glitches and dirty tricks and wacko numbers had not just an anti-Kerry but a racist tinge. This is not about partisan politics. It's more like: "Oh no, this can't be true."

I just got back from what was officially called the National Election Reform Conference, in Nashville, Tenn., an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists - 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue - sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To Save Our Democracy. It had the feel of 1775: citizen patriots taking matters into their own hands to reclaim the republic. This was the level of its urgency.

Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don't want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener's eyeballs roll. So let's not ask that question.

Let's simply ask why the lines were so long and the voting machines so few in Columbus and Cleveland and inner-city and college precincts across the country, especially in the swing states, causing an estimated one-third of the voters in these precincts to drop out of line without casting a ballot; why so many otherwise Democratic ballots, thousands and thousands in Ohio alone, but by no means only in Ohio, recorded no vote for president (as though people with no opinion on the presidential race waited in line for three or six or eight hours out of a fervor to have their say in the race for county commissioner); and why virtually every voter complaint about electronic voting machine malfunction indicated an unauthorized vote switch from Kerry to Bush.

This, mind you, is just for starters. We might also ask why so many Ph.D.-level mathematicians and computer programmers and other numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don't make sense (see, for instance, www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, lead statistician in the Moss vs. Bush lawsuit challenging the Ohio election results). Indeed, the movement to investigate the 2004 election is led by such people, because the numbers are screaming at them that something is wrong.

And we might, no, we must, ask - with more seriousness than the media have asked - about those exit polls, which in years past were extraordinarily accurate but last November went haywire, predicting Kerry by roughly the margin by which he ultimately lost to Bush. This swing is out of the realm of random chance, forcing chagrined pollsters to hypothesize a "shy Republican" factor as the explanation; and the media have bought this evidence-free absurdity because it spares them the need to think about the F-word: fraud.

And the numbers are still haywire. A few days ago, Terry Neal wrote in the Washington Post about Bush's inexplicably low approval rating in the latest Gallup poll, 45 percent, vs. a 49 percent disapproval rating. This is, by a huge margin, the worst rating at this point in a president's second term ever recorded by Gallup, dating back to Truman.

"What's wrong with this picture?" asks exit polling expert Jonathan Simon, who pointed these latest numbers out to me. Bush mustered low approval ratings immediately before the election, surged on Election Day, then saw his ratings plunge immediately afterward. Yet Big Media has no curiosity about this anomaly.

Simon, who spoke at the Nashville conference - one of dozens of speakers to give highly detailed testimony on evidence of fraud and dirty tricks from sea to shining sea - said, "When the autopsy of our democracy is performed, it is my belief that media silence will be given as the primary cause of death."

In contrast to the deathly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder that scream grows. Did the people's choice get thwarted? Were thousands disenfranchised by chaos in the precincts, spurious challenges and uncounted provisional ballots? Were millions disenfranchised by electronic voting fraud on insecure, easily hacked computers? And who is authorized to act if this is so? Who is authorized to care?

No one, apparently, except average Americans, who want to be able to trust the voting process again, and who want their country back.

- - -

Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at [e-mail] or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.

© 2005 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Thanks to Fly by night here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356725

[MelissaB]

5. Washington state suit wants vote machines opened

Washington state suit wants vote machines opened

SEATTLE, April 12 — An electronic voting machine maker is battling a voter rights advocate in Washington state who wants to force the company to reveal the machines' software blueprint.

Paul Lehto, an Everett, Washington, lawyer has filed suit against Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., a privately held company based in Oakland, California, and Snohomish County, where his practice is located, arguing Sequoia's contract should be voided.

The lawsuit, filed last week in King County Superior Court, pits the right of a company to guard proprietary information against the public's need to know how elections are tabulated, Lehto said.

''These are entities that are providing the most central governmental function that we have, the counting of the vote,'' Lehto said Tuesday. ''If they are not only controlling that process but purporting to own it, then that is a serious problem.''

Lehto said he began to question the reliability of Snohomish County's voting system during Washington state's 2004 governor's race, which initially gave Republican Dino Rossi a lead over Democrat Christine Gregoire.

That outcome was reversed after several recounts, putting Gregoire into the governor's seat vacated by Democrat Gary Locke.

More: http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/reuters04-12-165037.asp?t=renew&vts=41220051903

[MelissaB]

6. Miami Herald Discusses Clint Curtis, Calls for a Return to Paper Ballots!

Miami Herald Discusses Clint Curtis, Calls for a Return to Paper Ballots!
Condemns E-Voting, Outlines Litany of What Went Wrong in the 2004 Election Fiasco!

The drumbeat of the pro-democracy movement in America (who could have ever imagined there'd be a need for one in this country?!) seems to be growing louder as more and more Mainstream Media folks get into the game!

And The Miami Herald finally mentions the C word (Clint Curtis)!...

URL: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001318.htm

---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com


Thanks to Brad Blog here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1722074#1722245

[MelissaB]

7. The Silent Scream of Numbers

Summary:
In contrast to the deathly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder that scream grows. Did the people’s choice get thwarted? Were thousands disenfranchised by chaos in the precincts, spurious challenges and uncounted provisional ballots? Were millions disenfranchised by electronic voting fraud on insecure, easily hacked computers? And who is authorized to act if this is so? Who is authorized to care? No one, apparently, except average Americans, who want to be able to trust the voting process again, and who want their country back.

By Robert C. Koehler
Republished from Common Wonders
Was the election of 2004 stolen? Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener's eyeballs roll. So let's not ask that question.
As they slowly hack democracy to death, we’re as alone – we citizens – as we’ve ever been, protected only by the dust-covered cliches of the nation’s founding: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

It’s time to blow off the dust and start paying the price.

The media are not on our side. The politicians are not on our side. It’s just us, connecting the dots, fitting the fragments together, crunching the numbers, wanting to know why there were so many irregularities in the last election and why these glitches and dirty tricks and wacko numbers had not just an anti-Kerry but a racist tinge. This is not about partisan politics. It’s more like: “Oh no, this can’t be true.”

I just got back from what was officially called the National Election Reform Conference, in Nashville, Tenn., an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists – 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue – sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To Save Our Democracy. It had the feel of 1775: citizen patriots taking matters into their own hands to reclaim the republic. This was the level of its urgency.

Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don’t want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener’s eyeballs roll. So let’s not ask that question.

Let’s simply ask why the lines were so long and the voting machines so few in Columbus and Cleveland and inner-city and college precincts across the country, especially in the swing states, causing an estimated one-third of the voters in these precincts to drop out of line without casting a ballot; why so many otherwise Democratic ballots, thousands and thousands in Ohio alone, but by no means only in Ohio, recorded no vote for president (as though people with no opinion on the presidential race waited in line for three or six or eight hours out of a fervor to have their say in the race for county commissioner); and why virtually every voter complaint about electronic voting machine malfunction indicated an unauthorized vote switch from Kerry to Bush.

This, mind you, is just for starters. We might also ask why so many Ph.D.-level mathematicians and computer programmers and other numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don’t make sense (see, for instance, www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, lead statistician in the Moss vs. Bush lawsuit challenging the Ohio election results). Indeed, the movement to investigate the 2004 election is led by such people, because the numbers are screaming at them that something is wrong.

More: http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/2172/The_Silent_Scream_of_Numbers


Thanks to Senator in post #9 in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356725

[MelissaB]

8. VOTING: It Still Doesn't Work the Way It Should

"PROBLEMS ELSEWHERE—A Democratic website has posted disparities between the margin of votes received by Kerry in New Mexico, and by other Democratic candidates, for local positions, including judgeships. Apparently every Democrat running in a surprising number of counties outperformed the top of the ticket, although usually a presidential candidate gets more votes than those in lesser races.

"Ohio presented the appearance of massive voter suppression and vote fraud. Along with widely reported irregularities, including excessively long lines at, and confusion about, the location of voting places, an article by Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, "Stealing Votes in Columbus," documents how voting machines were taken away from high-population precincts, which were likely to go for Kerry, and sent to more affluent suburbs with their smaller populations, instead. Dr. Phillips has tabulated the difference voting machines made in the voting.

"The precincts with the longest lines, of course, turned away more voters. Phillips reports that the voting machines were disbursed by a former executive director of the Franklin County Republican Party, Matt Damschroder, who met with George W. Bush and with Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, on Election Day.

"Phillips concludes that "Damschroder did not act alone" in Ohio. With 74 wards and 472 precincts in Columbus, one person could not have delivered all the voting machines, and probably could not have planned all the deliveries. "Anyone who associated with Mr. Damschroder on or shortly before Election Day should be investigated for possible complicity."

This is a subscription only article.

Thanks to Fly by night here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357446#357464

[MelissaB]

9. McPherson Watch

I am starting this thread here rather than in the California Forum because it is an election protection issue with import for the entire country.

My hope is that this will be a thread where we can keep abreast of what is happening during this transition period.

Here is the first development:




SACRAMENTO
New secretary of state dismisses 6 from staff
Other Shelley hires await McPherson's next round of cuts

Sacramento -- Secretary of State Bruce McPherson wasted no time ridding the office of his predecessor's appointees, firing six employees on Friday, just two days after he was sworn in for the job.

snip--

Cathy Mitchell, who had been acting secretary of state since Shelley resigned March 4, hand-delivered layoff notices to the employees on Friday. Some who were hoping to meet with McPherson to discuss their situations were not given the chance.

snip--

Most of those who received layoff notices worked in public relations and scheduling services for Shelley, though one served as a liaison to the Legislature.

snip--

"I don't understand how he can speak about bipartisanship or nonpartisanship and not even give people an opportunity to meet with him about their work," she said.

Carol Dahmen, who worked as a spokeswoman for the office, said: "Today, in one of his first official actions, (McPherson) terminated the tenure of at least six very well-qualified employees via form letter. One could construe this action as partisan, if not punitive."

More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/02/BAGPRC29AF1.DTL

Thanks to Ojai Person here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x352393

[MelissaB]

10. The Silence of the Scams: Psychological Resistance to Facing Election Frau

The Silence of the Scams: Psychological Resistance to Facing Election Fraud

BY DIANE PERLMAN (Newtopia magazine, 4/11/05)

Invisible History

Few Americans know about the historic event that happened on January 6, 2005, the official date for counting electoral votes. For the first time since 1877, congress members challenged the electoral count. Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio, accompanied by the lone senator, Barbara Boxer of California, led the challenge of the Ohio vote count. Although massive fraud was reported around the country, only Ohio was officially cited.

It is curious that an issue so profound and consequential is barely on the radar screens of most Americans, especially those who voted for Kerry.
...............

The people I have witnessed working intensely to investigate and challenge voter fraud, have a particular psychological profile. They are courageous and willing to face pain and fear. They call up their strength to challenge authority, as our lives, our freedom and democracy depend on it. They are unable to deny what is going on or remain silent. They are the heroes, in our mythical, archetypal Hero’s journey, willing to face the dragons who are guarding our “National Treasure.”

They are acknowledged in a piece by William Rivers Pitt called “Heroes” on Truthout.org. Pitt quotes Bob Dylan: "I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

Only by facing the pain can we transcend it. Consciousness is the first step. Action is an antidote to depression. It would be a sign of health, freedom, and conscious evolution if more people could muster up the courage to face the painful truth of what is happening in our country and support the great work of those courageous souls—who are not nuts or conspiracy theorists, but evolved, conscious, healthy leaders taking personal risks and sacrifices to elevate our democracy, restore our integrity and ultimately to increase our security on the world stage … if we let them.

More: http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=12&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0&POSTNUKESID=76cfc12caded6f65f71dc9909bc277cb

Thanks to Fly by night here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357380

[MelissaB]

11. Michael Moore links to Raw Story on his "Must Read" page

WE, THE PEOPLE
RawStory.com raises serious questions of conservative partisanship have surfaced surrounding an electoral reform commission co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and erstwhile Secretary of State James Baker.

Link: http://michaelmoore.com/mustread/

[Wilms]

12. Miami-Dade County elections officials asked to study scrapping system

Miami Herald

4/12/05

Three years after spending $24.5 million to install a controversial touch-screen voting system, Miami-Dade County elections officials have been asked to study scrapping the system in favor of paper-based balloting.

The request from County Manager George Burgess follows the recent resignation of Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan and the revelation that hundreds of votes in recent elections hadn't been counted.

more

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11370895.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Thanks to FreedomAngel82
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356137

[Wilms]

13. (CA-Alameda's) County's Vote Chief in Line for State Post

County's vote chief in line for state post Alameda Co. chief of voting promoted

Registrar Brad Clark may be California's next overseer of elections

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

April 13, 2005

Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has reassigned California's chief elections overseer and is expected as early as this morning to name Alameda County Registrar of Voters Brad Clark as a replacement.

-snip-

Clark chastised Diebold representatives for those failings, and he privately criticized Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell for writing a fund-raising letter to Ohio Republicans that promised to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes" to the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign.

-snip-

Clark often has said new mandates, now written into state law, for e-voting machines to produce a paper record that voters can double-check for accuracy are a bad idea.

McPherson, on the other hand, repeatedly has voiced support for the so-called voter-verified paper trail.

-snip/more-

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_2658265

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356396

[Wilms]

14. (MI) Tentative Deal Set on Voting System (Tabulator Tale)

Tentative deal set on voting system

Agreement would allow Jackson to use 400 Hinds machines

By Jack Mazurak
[e-mail]

April 13, 2005

The County Election Commission will control the mainframe computer, used to calculate the votes from the touch-screen machines. That had been the major sticking point during talks.

-snip-

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, hours before the tentative agreement was reached, council members blasted the County Election Committee.

Bo Brown, Ward 4 councilman, responded to an allegation that someone from the county told the election system software vendor not to sell the city the necessary software to make a mainframe of its own.

"Obviously the county may feel that they have us by the you-know-what," Brown said. "I can't believe the vendor won't sell to us. That's not capitalism."

-snip/more-

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050413/NEWS01/504130346/1002/NEWS01

Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356691

[Wilms]

15. (IL) Suit Filed in Federal Court for Illinois Absentee Ballot

CHICAGO

April 12, 2005

The following statement was issued by Krislov & Associates, Ltd:

Record numbers of voters cast votes in last November's election.

However, absentee voters whose ballots were rejected were not notified until months later, and thus had no way to defend their ballots and their vote. Bruce Zessar voted absentee, or thought he had, so it came as a shock to him when two months later he received a card advising him that his vote had been rejected because his signature differed from that on his registration.

A class action lawsuit, filed by Clint Krislov in federal court in Chicago, challenges a little known procedure for handling absentee ballots which, Krislov asserts, deprives absentee voters their civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, specifically the denial of procedural due process in the disqualification of absentee ballots.

Krislov was quoted: "Absentee voters already provide a telephone number and an email address with their ballot. The least officials could do is call them and give them 24 hours to come down to defend their ballot!" Although the Illinois Election Code requires notice given to those whose ballots are rejected, there is no time requirement, nor any procedure to defend a challenged ballot. As a result, rejected voters receive notice of their rejected ballot months after the election, with no way to have their ballot counted.

As noted in the case, ten ballots were rejected in just one Highland Park precinct last November. Thus the numbers could easily be enough to make a difference in the election result. For example, in last Tuesday's elections, a number of elections were determined by less than a dozen votes.

The case is titled Bruce Zessar v. Willard Helander, et al., United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, No. 05-cv-1917, and is assigned to United States District Judge David H. Coar.

Clinton A. Krislov was quoted: "What's important here is that people have a reasonable opportunity to defend their ballot, and that everyone's vote actually counts!"

Clinton A. Krislov
Krislov & Associates, Ltd.
20 North Wacker Drive, Suite 1350
Chicago, Illinois 60606

Tel. [phone]/ Fax [phone]

SOURCE Krislov & Associates, Ltd.
Web Site: http://www.krislovlaw.com

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-12-2005/0003387139&EDATE=

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356215

[Wilms]

16. DU Front Page: Means, Motive, Opportunity

DU Front Page

Means, Motive, Opportunity

April 12, 2005
By Ernest Partridge, http://www.crisispapers.org

The 2006 mid-term election - a scenario:

By late summer, 2006, the United States is in a desperate condition. Following the collapse of the dollar in international currency markets, there has been a cascade of business failures and mortgage foreclosures, and a precipitous rise in unemployment, as the US economy slides inexorably into a depression. Meanwhile, the June 2005 American attack on Iran and the continuing war in Iraq has made the United States an international pariah state; thus the community of nations shows no inclination whatever to rescue the United States from its economic collapse.

In the run-up to the 2006 election, the mainstream media has once again fallen in line behind the Republicans, blaming the depression on the Clinton Administration, al Qaeda, and/or betrayal by "Old Europe." The crimes and outrages of the Bush/GOP syndicate have been unreported by the media, as Democratic war veterans running for office against GOP draft-dodgers have once again been castigated as "unpatriotic."

For their part, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the religious right have proclaimed that these economic and diplomatic catastrophes manifest God's judgment on the American people for their toleration of gays, abortion, the ACLU, the teaching of evolution, and independent judges.

snip/more

http://www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/05/006_ep.html

[Wilms]

17. Washington state suit wants vote machines opened (LandShark)

MSNBC

Washington state suit wants vote machines opened

By Reed Stevenson

SEATTLE, April 12 — An electronic voting machine maker is battling a voter rights advocate in Washington state who wants to force the company to reveal the machines' software blueprint.

Paul Lehto, an Everett, Washington, lawyer has filed suit against Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., a privately held company based in Oakland, California, and Snohomish County, where his practice is located, arguing Sequoia's contract should be voided.

The lawsuit, filed last week in King County Superior Court, pits the right of a company to guard proprietary information against the public's need to know how elections are tabulated, Lehto said.

snip/more

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/reuters04-12-165037.asp?t=renew&vts=41220051903

Discuss

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356242

[Wilms]

18. From the author of NY's Paper Ballots bill!

From the web page of Assemblywoman Sandy Galef. Check this out!:
http://assembly.state.ny.us/member_files/090/20050318 /

“SCAN AND BE SURE”
A Voting Machine Campaign for New York State

My colleague Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton and I are launching the “SCAN AND BE SURE” campaign that proposes paper ballots and optical scanning machines along with a marking system for the disabled. We want this to be the voting system chosen by New York as we implement the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). We believe that having voters fill out paper ballots and scanning them through an electronic optical system is secure, simple, accessible, transparent, and economical. It does not have the heavy price tag and security problems seen in electronic voting systems.

The concern about New York’s possible adoption of an electronic voting system was brought to me by my constituents who had volunteered in other states during the last presidential election and saw the flaws in electronic voting. While researching new voting procedures, I was very impressed with a model demonstration in Albany that had paper ballots that were optically scanned. I favor this approach as the best one for our state.

<snip>

This bill deserves our support!

-- BB

Dicussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356773

[Melissa G]

19. Jonathan Simon's letter to President Carter

Jonathan Simon's letter to President Carter posted by emlev
DU discussion Thread here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357449


Jonathan Simon welcomes us to write letters to Carter supporting the requests he makes in this great letter.
--

April 12, 2005

President Jimmy Carter
Cochairman, Blue Ribbon Commission on Election Reform
The Carter Center
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30307

Dear President Carter,

I write with great appreciation for your many deeds of service to our American nation and to the nations of the world. I write with hope that the mission upon which you are about to embark will become the signature service of your political career, transcending all that have come before.
The situation is dire and it is this: nothing less than the subversion of the vote counting process, the bedrock protocol of our American democracy. We who perceive that the “it could never happen here” is nonetheless happening, ask for an unblinking examination of the evidence supporting this gravest of charges. We ask you specifically to use your powers and your stature to the utmost to ensure that such an examination indeed takes place.
I suspect that you have been and will continue to be bombarded with analyses, reports, and fragments of evidence that the capacity for large-scale outcome-determinative election rigging exists and was put into practice in our most recent election (at least). As “creator” of at least some of that evidence (I am the fellow who downloaded and analyzed the undistorted exit poll data on election night), I will venture to add the three enclosed documents to the pile. It is not my purpose here though to talk up the evidence, from which I am sure you will draw your own conclusions, but rather to address the more difficult issue of the prevailing sociopolitical reality and to establish a context for what we who seek the restoration of fair and honorable elections are asking of you. For if you are to do justice to the investigation, you must be willing to countenance what America as a whole has so far been unwilling to face: the wholesale corruption of a privatized and partisan-operated computerized vote casting and counting process.
There are, to be sure, numerous reasons not to go there: the dollar is one, and more broadly the short-term impact on the corporate well-being of our “ownership” society, the earthquake that would strike near the heart of the American socioeconomic structure. The American mainstream media, in ignoring or dismissing both charges and evidence, has apparently taken these reasons to heart, as have most in the corridors of power. For many more the “it could never happen here” mindset, so entrenched in our venerable beacon of a democracy, clouds the vision and rules out further inquiry. One can only wonder how far out of step with the prevailing moderate opinions of the American mainstream this ruling regime has to get before it begins to strike observers as odd that every election illogically augments rather than checks their hold on power?
Please understand that all these factors have most certainly been cynically taken into account by those who have sought to bypass the democratic process in order to establish and maintain their rule. Their safety has been guaranteed by congealed assumptions of American democratic infallibility and by the fear of upheaval-and they have taken full advantage. If this galls you half as much as it galls me, perhaps you will indeed be driven to step up and issue the wake-up call.
You co-chair a commission that, to put it bluntly, has been stacked in favor of those whose mission it is to maintain (or worsen) the status quo. Having reviewed the commission membership-beginning of course with your cochairman James Baker, but extending significantly through the ranks-and the list of chosen speakers, it is impossible not to conclude that the charge of the commission will be to provide political cover and still more ineffectual reform, rather than a probing examination of the underlying realities.
Supporters of DREs and toothless verification protocols abound, while proponents of paper ballots and loophole-closing reforms are nowhere to be found. Focus will almost surely be on such “safe” topics as disenfranchisement and machines for the disabled, while the implications of detailed scientific study of the exit polls and the vulnerabilities of DREs and central tabulators to wholesale rigging and hacking will not even be addressed, to say nothing of the extreme right-wing ownership and control of the vast majority of the vote counting equipment.
If you come to share this perception of the commission's purpose and effect, we respectfully request that you disassociate yourself from its work, either a priori through resignation along with a public citation of the commission's structural shortcomings or upon conclusion by the issuing of a strong and uncompromising dissenting report.
Mr. President, the movement to restore American democracy has many heroes, some like Representatives John Conyers and Cynthia McKinney more prominent than others, but none so eminent as yourself. Most of us have been drawn in by our personal commitment to our democracy and by our dreadful conviction that it is on life support. Each document I have attached examines the evidence for what, to most, remains an unimaginable charge of massive outcome-determinative mistabulation of the votes of the American people. The evidence is solid; to paraphrase your colleague Mr. Baker, “it has been vetted, and re-vetted, and re-vetted again.”
The evidence now needs eminence, it needs a hero, it needs an honest and courageous and revered man to carry it before the American public with the credibility it merits. Will you take this task upon yourself? Will you be that hero?
With deepest respect and appreciation.

Yours sincerely,



Jonathan D. Simon, JD
Alliance for Democracy

[Wilms]

20. Pennsylvania Governor's Election Reform Task Force TABLES VVPB

At the last regular meeting of the Pennsylvania Governor's Task Force on Election Reform, a vote was taken today (Thursday April 14) to TABLE two proposals:

1) Voter-Verified Paper Ballots (paper becomes the ballot of record) and
2) Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (ugh) where the paper is verified by the voter but the machine record takes precedence (again, ugh!)

The motion to table included a recommendation that the Pennsylvania Legislature hold full hearing on these matters before passing any legislation.

The vote to Table was a small victory of sorts; it is better that the final Report from the Task Force contain this motion rather than a recommendation AGAINST VVPBs. And we were pretty sure that had it come to a yes or no vote today, we did NOT have a majority in favor, especially in favor of VVPB, or even VVPAT!

Due to diligent efforts by Pennsylvania activists from several organizations, the Task Force was made to realize that this is an important issue with huge implications for security of the vote, voter confidence, and voter participation. However, after much testimony and many support documents submitted to them, many Task Force members were still unsure of the full need for VVPB and why the paper MUST take precedence over the machine.

We have a LOT of educating and legislative work to do, folks. We will have to put up the fight of a lifetime to get a VVPB bill to and through the Pennsylvania Legislature.

Marybeth in PA

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357185

[Wilms]

21. PA decertified DREs, but goes with ES&S scanners instead

WAYNESBURG - After the convenience of a touch-screen computer for the last six years, this election season, Greene County voters will have to once again pencil in the candidate of their choice.

County Elections Director Frances Pratt said Wednesday that the county will use a form of the old paper ballot for the upcoming primary election, but added that results should still be much faster than in the 1990s and 1980s when the ballots were counted by hand.

"We will be using paper ballot, but it won't be the paper ballot as we have known it," Pratt said.

The paper ballots will be used after the state de-certified the counties computer-run voting system last week, causing county officials to quickly prepare for the imminent primary election.

The ballots that will be cast May 17 will require voters to blacken out an oval beside the candidate of their choice and then the ballots will be counted and read by two scanners called Op Scans that quickly tabulate the count.

"This year, the ballots will not be counted at the polls. They will be counted at central, counted with two scanning machines made by Election Systems and Software out of Omaha, Neb.," Pratt said.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14343420&BRD=2280&PAG=461&dept_id=480247&rfi=6

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357312

[Wilms]

49. (PA) Touch-screen voting machines to get retest

Touch-screen voting machines to get retest

By Brandon Keat
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, April 16, 2005

Voters in Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties might be able to use touch-screen machines in next month's primary after all.
Pennsylvania Department of State spokesman Brian McDonald said Friday that the UniLect Patriot voting machines used in the three counties will be retested, likely on Friday. If the machines pass, they could be used in the three counties, which have been scrambling to get alternate systems in place by May 17. The state decertified the machines April 7 after officials said they failed accuracy tests performed Feb. 15.

"UniLect has voiced an opinion that they have utmost confidence that they would be able to address the problems that we found and that they would be able to fix them within a matter of days," McDonald said. "If they can prove that, then the counties are certainly able to use the systems for the May 17 election."

While awaiting results of the next test, the counties have little choice but to proceed with plans to use replacement, optical-scan voting systems, said Greene County Commissioner Pam Snyder and Beaver County Commissioner Joe Spanik. Those systems use paper ballots in which voters fill in ovals next to their choices, much like a school test.

-snip-

Thomas J. Rookey, director of Mercer County's Registration and Election Bureau, said his office plans to use optical scanners and that he was "sort of mystified" that he learned about the latest developments from reporters instead of the State Department.

-snip/more-

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_324795.html

[Wilms]

50. (PA) Voting machines get second look

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Voting machines get second look

By Cara Host, Staff writer

-snip-

Apparently, software upgrades may solve some of those problems.

-snip-

The Department of State probably could have asked UniLect Corp. of Dublin, Calif. to address its concerns before the decertification, but "hindsight is always 20/20," McDonald said.

-snip-

The three counties have started converting to an optical-scan system so that voters can use that method in time for the primary. And, if the state reverses itself and recertifies the UniLect machines, the counties will be able to choose between the two systems.

Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems and Software Inc. already is processing Greene County's election ballots for the optical-scan system. The state will pay for those ballots even if Greene County never actually uses them, McDonald said.

The state promised to pay all costs to implement an alternative system when they decertified the UniLect machines. It will cost at least $29,000 to set up a new voting method in Greene County.

-snip/more-

http://www.observer-reporter.com/304557529858626.bsp

[Wilms]

22. VerifiedVoting.org Newsletter - Legislative and other updates for 4/14/05

VerifiedVoting.org Newsletter - Legislative and other updates for 4/14/05

VERIFIED VOTING VICTORIES

We're pleased to announce that the following states have either recently passed verified voting legislation or are well on their way to doing so:

Arkansas: H.B.360, which requires computerized voting machines to leave a paper record of votes cast, was signed into law by Governor Mike Huckabee on March 9. For more information, see our Arkansas state page at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/stateview.php?area=4

Hawaii: On April 12th, Hawaii's Senate passed HB 1740 with no opposition and it was sent to the House for concurrence. For more information, see our Hawaii state page at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/stateview.php?area=12

Idaho: Voter-Verified Paper Ballot bill, H0283, was signed into law by Governor Kempthorne on Tuesday, April 5th. For more information, see our Idaho state page at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/stateview.php?area=13

Montana: HB 297 requires voter-verified paper ballots. The state legislature has passed the bill which now awaits the governor's signature. For more information, see our Montana state page at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/stateview.php?area=27

New Mexico: On April 6th, Governor Bill Richardson signed a comprehensive election reform package that requires voter- verified paper ballots and audits. For more information, see our media release and our New Mexico state page at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5697
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/stateview.php?area=32

West Virginia: West Virginia's Voter-Verified Paper Ballot bill, HB 2950, has been sent to Governor Manchin for his signature. For more information, see our West Virginia state page at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/stateview.php?area=50

Congratulations to everyone who supported these efforts!


EIRS PROJECT SEEKS VOLUNTEER HELP

In 2004, the Verified Voting Foundation and other members of the 2004 Election Protection Coalition developed and ran the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS). EIRS was used to record information on over 40,000 election incidents and allow voter protection activists to respond to many of them in real time. Since November, members of citizen action groups, lawyers, and academics have been using EIRS to support analysis, litigation, and legislation to ensure that every vote counts.

The EIRS project is currently seeking volunteers with these skills:

- PHP and MySQL programming -- to improve the system;
- Data cleaning and recoding -- make the data more useful;
- Statistical analysis -- summarize information from data;
- Research and publication -- e-voting problems & solutions;
- Data mining -- in-depth analysis of e-voting incidents;
- Linux systems administration -- to support all of EIRS;
- TWiki -- support EIRS project and knowledge management;
- General computer skills -- data entry, list maintenance...

If you can contribute any of these skills in the next few months, please send email with a brief resume of your experience and available time (hours per week over specified period) to [e-mail]

"EIRS can again play an important role in the November 2005 elections," says EIRS Project Manager John McCarthy. "We want to have an improved version of the system ready to help support election protection efforts this fall."

For more information on EIRS, see
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/eirs
To access the database of voting incident reports, see
http://www.voteprotect.org (click on "Research/Maps")


ARIZONA: URGE GOVERNOR TO VETO UNVERIFIABLE VOTING BILL

A voting equipment and procedures bill (S.B.1342) is on its way to the Governor's desk -- but it lacks two essential
amendments: one to require a "voter-verified" paper ballot from electronic voting machines, and another to prevent "emergency certification" to authorize the last-minute use of uncertified voting equipment. This isn't good enough.

Please contact Governor Napolitano's office NOW and urge her in the strongest possible terms to VETO S.B.1342 and send it back to the legislature for reconsideration.

PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS ALERT ONLY IF YOU LIVE IN ARIZONA
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5712


WASHINGTON: VOTER-VERIFIED PAPER RECORD BILL

Washington voters have the opportunity to ensure their votes will be counted as cast -- if E.S.S.B.5395 passes through the legislature.

This bill requires a voter-verified paper record of each vote, makes that paper record the official record for recounts and audits, and requires an audit of the records produced by electronic voting machines. It will go a long way to achieving more transparent and reliable elections in the state.

The bill passed in the Senate and then passed in the House with some positive amendments. Now the bill returns to the Senate for a final vote. VerifiedVoting.org joins Citizens for Voting Integrity-WA, Whatcom Fair Voting, and VotersUnite.org in urging you to take action today.

If you live in the State of Washington, please take immediate action to ensure safe and accurate elections. The Senators must hear from everyone as soon as possible, or we may lose this chance to ensure voter-verified paper ballots in Washington.

PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS ALERT ONLY IF YOU LIVE IN WASHINGTON!
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5700


FLORIDA: TAKE ACTION TO STOP E-VOTING FAILURES

The state of Florida is pressuring the 52 counties that currently enjoy the use of a voter-verified paper ballot to buy paperless e-voting machines by July 2005 -- in spite of report after report of the failures of this inherently flawed election system.

VerifiedVoting.org is working with the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition on this important alert.

Tell your lawmakers that you have the right to vote on a system that is in working condition and that will allow votes to be accurately cast. Insist that the Secretary of State, and all Florida lawmakers push forward a bill that requires voter-verified paper ballots and proper audits of election systems statewide.

PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS ALERT ONLY IF YOU LIVE IN FLORIDA!
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5695


FLORIDA: LOSS IN VOLUSIA COUNTY

On April 7th, the verified voting movement suffered a setback in Volusia County, Florida, when the Volusia County Council decided to buy paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines. These machines don't provide any means of auditing the vote or doing a recount and may lose votes irretrievably as have paperless e-voting machines in North Carolina and elsewhere. Perhaps with sufficient pressure the Council majority will change its decision before completing the paperless e-voting purchase.


OHIO: VOTER-VERIFIED PAPER BALLOTS AT RISK

Last year, thanks in large part to your efforts, Ohio voters won a great victory when the law requiring voter-verified paper ballots (VVPBs) was passed and signed by the Governor.

Now some disgruntled lawmakers are attempting to repeal or undermine Ohio's landmark VVPB law, which passed with a sweeping majority and powerful public support.

Tell your lawmakers today: you won't stand for any repeal of this law. Insist on transparent, reliable, publicly verifiable elections for all Ohio.

PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS ALERT ONLY IF YOU LIVE IN OHIO!
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5685


WISCONSIN: TOWN MEETING WITH CONGRESSMAN RUSH HOLT

On Saturday, April 16th, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) will be the special guest at a town meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, on the topic of election reform. The meeting will be hosted by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).

The meeting will take place on Saturday, April 16th from 10:30a.m.-12:00 noon at the Madison Senior Center, 2nd Floor, 330 West Mifflin Street, Madison.

Congressman Holt is the author of the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550), which would amend
the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to require a voter-verified paper record for all votes cast in federal elections. VerifiedVoting.org has called it the "gold standard" of voting reform bills.

If you have any questions or are interested in attending, please call Samantha Maltzman in Rep. Holt's office at [phone] or via email at [e-mail]


NEW JERSEY EVENT: ACCESSIBLE AND AUDITABLE VOTING SYSTEMS

On Saturday, April 23, 2005, from 9am - 3pm, the New Jersey Library for the Blind and Handicapped will hold a unique event: a panel discussion on how NJ will implement its Help America Vote Act plan and meet accessibility requirements, along with a display of "Accessible and Auditable Voting Systems."

The event, co-sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind of NJ and the NJ Div. of Elections, includes speakers from the sponsor organizations as well as Congressman Rush Holt, who will talk on the "Importance of Voter-Verifiable, Auditable Paper Trails in Accessible Voting Systems." Dr. DeForest Soaries of the US Election Assistance Commission, is also invited as are various technology vendors. For more information or to register (participation is free), contact the Library at [phone] or by email at
[e-mail]


FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

The number of co-sponsors for Congressman Rush Holt's "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005" (H.R.550) has now reached 130, including 10 new co-sponsors!

The Jones Bill, H.R. 939, the companion bill to the Clinton "Count Every Vote Act" Bill, now has a total of 17 co-sponsors in the House. Most are also co-sponsors of the Holt bill.

There are no new co-sponsors for the other verified voting legislation in the House and Senate. The current number of co-sponsors for each bill is as follows:

Holt (H.R. 550) -- 130 co-sponsors
Ensign (S. 330) -- 9 co-sponsors
Gibbons (H.R. 704) -- 1 co-sponsor
Jones (H.R. 939) -- 17 co-sponsors
Clinton (S. 450) -- 6 co-sponsors
Dodd (S. 17) -- 6 co-sponsors
Conyers (H.R. 533) -- 44 co-sponsors
King (H.R. 278) -- 19 co-sponsors

For more information on these bills, please see our legislation page at:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/legis


IMPROVED SITE SECURITY

We're happy to report that we have fixed a problem with the online security of our website so that secure transactions, such as online donations, should go more smoothly. For those of you who understand such things, we have obtained a new SSL certificate from a third-party and configured it properly. A number of potential online donors reported the difficulty and we had to obtain a new certificate to resolve the problem. Thanks for pointing out the problem and feel free to make a secure donation at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/donate


TRY OUR NEW IRS-COMPATIBLE WEBSITES

We've split the Verified Voting Foundation website from the VerifiedVoting.org website to meet IRS requirements for our tax-exemption applications. Since we've divided the sites in record time, we'd really appreciate your help in trying them out this week. Please visit the 501(c)(3) organization's website at
http://verifiedvotingfoundation.org
as well as the 501(c)(4) lobbying organization's website at
http://verifiedvoting.org

If you find any problems, please contact us at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/contact


INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

Are you a student living in or traveling to the San Francisco Bay Area with an interest in helping make democracy work? If so, we'd like to hear from you. VerifiedVoting.org is ramping up an internship program for students with an interest in voting, elections, computer science, policy, or activism, and we have several positions open. Apply your efforts to important election reform projects and gain new skills and experience at the same time. For more information and to apply, see
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/interns


JOIN VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG

Become a supporter or volunteer with VerifiedVoting.org at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/join


OFFICE WISH LIST

We're happy to be in our new offices in San Francisco, and we continue to request any donations of basic office supplies to help us as we grow. We particularly need a good laser printer and photocopier. Show your generosity and put your unused items to good use - check the wish list at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/wishlist


DONATE TO VERIFIEDVOTING.ORG

The upcoming months are a critical time for our efforts to educate the public and take action on critical legislation. Your contributions to our efforts championing secure and reliable voting systems are much needed and much appreciated. Please give generously at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/donate

If you prefer to mail in a check and avoid any merchant fees, send it to our office at:

VerifiedVoting.org
1550 Bryant Street, Suite 855
San Francisco, CA 94103-4832


SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE

To subscribe to the VerifiedVoting.org newsletter, go to
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/join

To unsubscribe from the VerifiedVoting.org newsletter, please contact us with your request to unsubscribe at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/contact


ABOUT US

VerifiedVoting.org is a 501(c)(4), nonpartisan, nonprofit organization championing reliable and publicly verifiable elections. Founded by Stanford University Computer Science Professor David Dill, the organization supports a requirement for voter-verified paper ballots for elections, allowing voters to inspect individual permanent records of their ballots and election officials to conduct meaningful audits and recounts. The organization's website is at
http://verifiedvoting.org

Newsletter Editor: Laura Perkins, [e-mail]

(c) Copyright 2005, VerifiedVoting.org, Inc.

Reproduction for nonprofit purposes permitted with attribution to VerifiedVoting.org at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org

Discuss

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356867

[Wilms]

23. BradBlog: Tribune Syndicate Columnist says Election 2004 'Stolen'!

Democracy in the Balance: The Silent Scream of the Mainstream Media
Tribune Syndicate's Robert Koehler Rips the Corporate Media a New One, Says Election 2004 'Stolen'!
And some personal notes, thoughts, photos (and even some quick video) from Nashville's National Election Reform Conference...

LINK: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001321.htm

---
Brad Friedman
THE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...
http://www.BradBlog.com

The BRAD BLOG - http://www.BradBlog.com <> VELVET REVOLUTION

Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356974

[Wilms]

24. Important great new tool for contacting Election offices - LET'S USE IT!

Hello Friends and Patriots:


Great New Easy Tool developed by a volunteer programmer at US Count Votes. Please use it.

Please forward this link to let everyone know how easily they can write their Election offices in support of Paper Ballots

http://electionarchive.net/public/ucv_select_info.php


It is urgent, especially in states and counties which are in the process of selecting voting equipment -

Quickly generate a pre-addressed one page letter to any state or county election official requesting Paper Ballots (Not DREs). (All but three states' ready now.)

http://uscountvotes.net/public/ucv_select_info.php


Select a State and, if desired, a County, and print a Pre-Addressed Letter. then simply fill in your name and address using a pen, fold, stamp, and mail.

There is also an option to change the addressee and links to US House and Senate contact info.

Please forward this to voters you know in all states.

Let's flood Election Offices with letters requesting Paper Ballots and Not DREs which could easily miscount votes due to errors, electronic failures, and manipulation, with no way to do an independent recount.

Thank you.

Kathy Dopp
http://electionarchive.org

Discuss:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357330

[Wilms]

25. (CA) New appointments in SoS office

Brad Clark of Alameda Co. named as assistant secretary of state for elections, and will be in charge of putting together an elections management team, including hiring a new division chief to replace John Mott-Smith, a valuable, non-partisan servant who has been in place for 21 years.

On Monday, Bill Wood was named undersecretary of state as well as chair of the Voting Systems and Procedures panel, which is in charge of reviewing and certifying California voting equipment. There is also news that John Mott-Smith, longtime head of the Secretary of State's election division, is leaving his position and Brad Clark, registrar of voters for Alameda County will replace him.

check out Kim Alexander's weblog:

http://calvoter.org/news/blog/index.html

Discuss:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=352393&mesg_id=357445

[Wilms]

26. Why did we stop hand-counting paper ballots? - (VIDEO)

In their latest analysis of the exit polls, US Count Votes notes that Edison/Mitofsky's own report shows that all type of voting machines had a far greater within-precinct error (WPE) than precincts that used paper ballots.



Of all voting machines, the mechanical voting machine had the greatest within-precinct error.

So, why did we ever stop using voter verified paper ballots? I don't have the answer but this video might shed some light on the question.

This sophisticated piece of propaganda from 1957 attempts to persuade voters and local officials of the advantages of these expensive lever-operated machines. I found myself a little surprised when I first viewed this film.

Watch the 17 minute video in Windows Media format
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/Automatic_Voting_Machine_Company_1957.wmv

Discuss:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357037#top

[Wilms]

27. VOTING: It Still Doesn't Work the Way It Should

Another dynamite election fraud article: today's Washington Spectator

You won't believe your eyes. I will post representative text later, when I get back inside. But all of you need to know that this comprehensive review of the 2004 election theft has been published today in a Washington newsletter (with reasonably wide coverage).

It is as if the writer had been with us in Nashville. R.H. Phillips, Clint Curtis, exit poll discrepencies, etc, etc, etc. To have this released in the same week as the Robert Koehler column is a double (and truly unexpected) gift. We can now take our tin foil hats off, folks.

Please read and comment, y'all. I know you'll find quotable quotes to share with others here.

The 2004 election theft snowball is picking up speed and moving downhill. Looks like a naked "Um-pu-rur" is in its path, fer sher.

http://www.washingtonspectator.com/articles/20050415voting_1.cfm

Fly by night Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357446

[Wilms]

28. Miami Herald- Better Votes, On Paper, by Robert Steinback

"Nothing is more important, for the world's pre-eminent democracy, than assuring the sanctity of each vote."

ELECTIONS- Better votes, on paper

Robert Steinback, Miami Herald

Sometimes, low-tech is best.

Who wouldn't prefer hand-cranked ice cream to the mass-produced stuff that comes in supermarket cubes?

Every car I've ever owned has had a manual transmission.

As much as I am dismayed by the outsourcing of telephone service jobs, I'd rather talk to a human being in India than a machine programmed to ''understand'' my verbal responses.

Technology is cool, don't get me wrong -- I rarely use my land-line telephone at home, now that my cellular has been permanently sutured to my belt. I can do research that used to require hours in a library with single mouse click.

But applying technology to a process doesn't always mean progress.

snip/more

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/robert_steinback/11377424.htm

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356279

[Wilms]

29. BRADBlog: Clint Curtis Makes Wisconsin's Capitol Times

Clint Curtis Makes Wisconsin's Capital Times!

And More Questions are Raised about Whether Your Vote is Being Counted!

Must be something afoot...First it was Miami Herald earlier today, now it's Madison, Wisconsin's The Capital Times jumping into the Clint Curtis fray as a part of their online Daily Briefing item headlined "Is Your Vote Being Counted... "


LINK: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001320.htm


Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356916

[Wilms]

30. BradBlog: Conyers to Carter: James Baker 'Inappropriate' for...Commision

Conyers to Carter: James Baker 'Inappropriate' for Blue-Ribbon Election Commission!

Ranking Minority House Judiciary Comm. Member Calls for True Voting Rights Advocates to Be Included on Commission

ALSO: American Center for Voting Rights GOP Front Group Confirmed as 'Academic Advisor' to Panel!

Blogged by Brad on 4/12/2005 @ 11:44am PT...

In a letter sent yesterday by Congressman John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, to former-President Jimmy Carter, Conyers has expressed his "strong opposition" to...

In a letter sent yesterday by Congressman John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, to former-President Jimmy Carter, Conyers has expressed his "strong opposition" to the "conflicting interest" of having Bush/Cheney loyalist, James A. Baker, III serve as the Co-Chair of a recently seated blue-ribbon commission set to investigate Election 2004.

-snip-

The BRAD BLOG can also confirm that Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II, the National Attorney for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and leader of the recently invented, phony GOP front group calling themselves the "non-partisan" American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) has been seated on the Academic Advisory board for this commission!

-snip/more-

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001316.htm

[Wilms]

31. PROSECUTOR TO PROBE CUYAHOGA COUNTY RECOUNT

Akron Beacon Journal (OH)

April 9, 2005

PROSECUTOR TO PROBE CUYAHOGA COUNTY RECOUNT

2 WRITTEN COMPLAINTS ALLEGE PROBLEMS IN '04 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Author: Stephen Dyer, Beacon Journal staff writer

ELECTION PROCEDURE PRESIDENT ELECTION 2004 INVESTIGATION

CUYAHOGA COUNTY

Erie County Prosecutor Kevin J. Baxter is investigating whether the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections broke the law in its recount of ballots from the November presidential election.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason appointed Baxter as a special prosecutor in the case because the board of elections is Mason's client, which could pose a conflict of interest, said Mason spokeswoman Jamie Dalton.

Baxter said he didn't know yet whether the allegations have any validity. He said his investigators will begin interviewing people in the next several weeks.

"If it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere," Baxter said. "We'll just start from the beginning . . . This is rather preliminary."

Discuss:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357463

[Wilms]

32. USCountVotes: Evidence of Election Irregularities in Snohomish County, WA

EVIDENCE OF ELECTION IRREGULARITIES IN
SNOHOMISH COUNTY, WASHINGTON
GENERAL ELECTION, 2004

By Paul R. Lehto, J.D., Attorney at Law
[e-mail]
Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, Ph.D.
[e-mail]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
<snip>
• The chances that 2/3 of the vote would show a Democratic lead of 97044 to
95228 votes, while the remaining 1/3 of the vote on touch screens would show a
Republican lead of almost 5% (50,400 Republican to 42,145 Democratic) as a
result of voters randomly choosing whether to vote by paper ballot or by touch
screen is one in 1,000 trillion! A true impossibility.

• Simple mechanisms exist for multiple voting or hacking the Sequoia touch screen
machines by single individuals, and they are further identified in the paper.

• Machines with repair histories within two weeks of the election or exhibiting
problems on election day with observed vote switching, prevoted ballots, or
freezing up performed better than the average Republican gain in the governor’s
race on election day (of just under 5%) in 46 out of 58 polling locations, and did
better than the absentee results for the same precincts in 56 out of 58 polling
locations. In the remaining two instances, electronic results were roughly equal to
absentee results.

<snip>

• Given the coincidence of observed vote switching behavior doing this very thing
with actual precinct results reporting enhanced Republican outcomes relative to
absentee paper ballots, the probability is that Democratic votes and/or undervotes
are being assigned improperly to Republican candidates and contrary to at least
some voters’ intent, and forensic analysis of the machines along with their
impoundment is necessary to rule this out.

<snip/more>

http://www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357488

[Wilms]

33. AP: Blackwell Aide Says Low Figure Was Negotiating Ploy (He's so Wiley)

Blackwell aide says low figure was negotiating ploy

JOHN McCARTHY

Associated Press

15 April 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Turns out the state's plea that it couldn't afford electronic touch-screen voting machines was a negotiating ploy - and one that paid off.

-snip-

Blackwell in January told counties the state couldn't afford the touch-screen systems, so they must choose systems in which voters mark paper ballots that are read by machines at the precinct. The $106 million that Blackwell claimed was available for machines was $9 million short of the total, LoParo said.

"That was for negotiating," LoParo said.

-snip-

The Portage County board also challenged Blackwell's directive, but no decision has been made about ing a vendor or system type, elections director Lois Enlow said. Matt Damschroder, the director in Franklin County, the third to take Blackwell to court over the January directive, said that while he welcomed the new option, it did not really address the issue of Blackwell's authority to dictate what type of voting system counties must use.

-snip/more-

http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=5198

Discuss

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357440

[MelissaB]

34. Democrats' crazy talk music to GOP

(I'm aware of who the author is, but this is about election fraud even though it has a negative spin from a RWer.)



Posted on Fri, Apr. 15, 2005
VOTING

Democrats' crazy talk music to GOP

MICHELLE MALKIN

It looks like Teresa Heinz Kerry is rubbing off on her husband. And on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. For the Republican Party, this is a good thing.

You'll recall that last month, Heinz Kerry put on her shiniest tinfoil hat and blamed the Democrats' loss in November on rigged voting machines. As reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, she openly questioned the election results and fixated on areas of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes. "Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry intoned, and it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

>>>snip

Singing from the same hysteria-promoting hymn book in Minnesota this week, Sen. Clinton further stoked Democratic madness. Sarcastically praising the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, Clinton pounced: "I believe that the right to vote and the obligation to count all the votes should be promoted not just in the Middle East, but in the Middle West! And in the Northeast! And in the Southeast! And in every. Corner. Of. The. United. States. Of. A-MEH-rica!"

The crowd went wild. Clinton continued: Too many minorities and college students have been "denied an equal right" to vote, she exclaimed. (Her "moderate" solution? An election reform bill that allows illegal aliens and felons and people without IDs to vote.)

The Democrats now seem to believe that the road to the White House is paved with paranoia. Well, let them keep babbling. The evil genius Karl Rove himself couldn't have come up with a better plan.

More: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/opinion/11399993.htm

[MelissaB]

35. This article appeared in many papers

in looking through google.

[MelissaB]

36. End Ohio's voting machine debate

Saturday, April 16, 2005

End Ohio's voting machine debate

Editorials


Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's decision Thursday to let counties opt for electronic touch-screen voting machines - along with his negotiation that netted the state a lowest-in-the-nation price for counties to buy the devices - is a welcome move to ease Ohio's continuing controversy over vote technology.

The state's voting reform, which was supposed to have been fixed by the 2004 election, had been delayed by years of political intrigue and infighting that failed to serve the public and unnecessarily eroded voters' confidence in the system's fairness.

It's time for counties to choose their machines, put them in place quickly, and make sure they are ready to help guide voters in using the technology.

Earlier this year, Blackwell ordered all 88 counties to install optical-scan voting machines, after deciding that the controversial touch-screen machines would be too expensive when equipped, as the state legislature had mandated, to provide a "voter-verified paper trail." Machines had to produce a paper printout that each voter could double-check before finalizing his or her vote.

This requirement had become the holy grail of conspiracy theorists who feared votes could be stolen or manipulated with the ATM-like electronic machines, even though state and federal tests had certified such systems as secure - and even though some counties had been using them problem-free for a decade.

>>>snip

Whatever the choice, they should get on with it and leave this fruitless debate in the past.

More: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050416/EDIT01/504160357/1020/EDIT
(GRRR)

[MelissaB]

37. Ohio: Voting machines

Voting machines

Northern Kentuckians may be forgiven for chuckling at the gyrations Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has been going through as he tries to comply with the federal mandate for state-of-the-art voting machines.

Most Ohio counties, including all those in the Cincinnati area, use punch card ballots now. Blackwell was first going to give county election boards a choice of voting machines, including those employing electronic touch screens. But then lawmakers ordered him to include a verifiable paper trail to any new system. Blackwell eventually decided that the lawmakers' directive ruled out the touch screen systems that were on the market, and ordered all the election boards to use optical scan machines that use paper ballots. But that caused an uproar among local election officials.

This week the story changed again. Now, Blackwell says, counties may choose an electronic touch screen machine (though only one vendor has been approved) or the optical scan systems.

Northern Kentucky voters, meanwhile, have been using an early generation touch screen system for years with no significant problems. The upgrade to systems that comply with the federal Help America Vote Act seems to be going much more smoothly in the Commonwealth than it is in Ohio.

Link: http://news.kypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050416/NEWS02/504160344/1014

[MelissaB]

38. Officials to retest banned voting system

Officials to retest banned voting system

The Mercer County elections director learned of the new development from a reporter.

HARRISBURG (AP) — Pennsylvania officials, who banned the UniLect touchscreen voting system last week, said Friday they will give the company another chance to prove the device is reliable.

Mercer County was one of three counties in the state using the UniLect system.

If the second "re-examination" of the system, tentatively slated for Friday in Harrisburg, satisfies the state's consultant, it could be recertified in time to be used in the May 17 primary, said State Department spokeswoman Allison Hrestak.

Unilect Corp. President Jack Gerbel appealed to state officials to reconsider their April 7 decision to decertify the Unilect Patriot system, which was used in Mercer and two other western Pennsylvania counties, Hrestak said.

More: http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/324634232484727.php

[MelissaB]

39. The 2004 election was stolen - will someone please tell the media?

Friday 15th April 2005 (21h08) :

The 2004 election was stolen - will someone please tell the media?

By ROBERT C. KOEHLER
Tribune Media Services

As they slowly hack democracy to death, we’re as alone - we citizens - as we’ve ever been, protected only by the dust-covered clichés of the nation’s founding: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

It’s time to blow off the dust and start paying the price.

The media are not on our side. The politicians are not on our side. It’s just us, connecting the dots, fitting the fragments together, crunching the numbers, wanting to know why there were so many irregularities in the last election and why these glitches and dirty tricks and wacko numbers had not just an anti-Kerry but a racist tinge. This is not about partisan politics. It’s more like: “Oh no, this can’t be true.”

I just got back from what was officially called the National Election Reform Conference, in Nashville, Tenn., an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists - 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue - sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To Save Our Democracy. It had the feel of 1775: citizen patriots taking matters into their own hands to reclaim the republic. This was the level of its urgency.

Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don’t want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener’s eyeballs roll. So let’s not ask that question.

More: http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5789

[MelissaB]

40. John Bolton vs. Democracy

Published on Thursday, April 14, 2005 by The Nation

John Bolton vs. Democracy k

by John Nichols

"Im with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count."
Those were the words John Bolton yelled as he burst into a Tallahassee library on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000, where local election workers were recounting ballots cast in Florida's disputed presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Bolton was one of the pack of lawyers for the Republican presidential ticket who repeatedly sought to shut down recounts of the ballots from Florida counties before those counts revealed that Gore had actually won the state's electoral votes and the presidency.

The December 9 intervention was Bolton's last and most significant blow against the democratic process.

The Florida Supreme Court had ordered a broad recount of ballots in order to finally resolve the question of who won the state. But Bolton and the Bush-Cheney team got their Republican allies on the U.S. Supreme Court to block the review. Fearing that each minute of additional counting would reveal the reality of voter sentiments in Florida, Bolton personally rushed into the library to stop the count.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0414-25.htm

[Wilms]

41. Brad Blog/Brad Radio!

BRAD BLOG On the Air! - Saturday Night 4p - 8p PT (7p - 11p ET)!
(Almost Definitely!)

Tune in via IBCRadio.com! And Help Spread the Word!

If all goes well, The BRAD SHOW on The RAW RADIO Network (of RawStory.com fame!) may will be launching LIVE tomorrow evening (Saturday) from 7p - 11p ET (4p - 8p PT).

-snip-

I've said for a long time "Be the Media". Apparently, I wasn't kidding. With your help, we may very soon have a much louder megaphone!

-snip/more-

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001325.htm

Discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357887


BradRadio Station Guide:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357887#357924

[Wilms]

42. Irish Times breaks silence about Bush fraud 2004

Irish Times breaks silence about Bush fraud 2004

by Coilín ÓhAiseadha - Spider Force

Saturday, Apr 16 2005, 5:21pm
coilin -at- aatchoo.com phone: [phone]

O'Clery column breaks taboo, but persists in hints of excess scepticism

In a column entitled “Senator Frist in a fluster over Democrats filibuster” in The Irish Times (conservative/liberal Irish newspaper of record) today, the paper’s US correspondent Conor O’Clery addresses the renewed fuss brewing in the US about allegations of fraud in the presidential elections of last November.

However, there are signs that O'Clery is still somewhat sceptical.

A list of supplementary articles has now been sent to O’Clery and a long list of other Irish journalists, politicians and campaign organisations. Some of these articles come from traditional mainstream media, including CNN, Reuters, North County Times, The Tennessean and Baltimore Sun.

-snip-/more-

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69427


Thanks to Ojai Person for posting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357944

[Wilms]

43. Wassup? - A Letter from Michael Moore.

Sunday, April 16th, 2005

Wassup?

Friends,

How's it going? Ready for the next step?

Let me know what you've been up to and any ideas you have about what our next move should be (write me at the addresses below).

Meanwhile, I'll be in conclave this week handing out goodie bags and running for pope. Wish me well!

Yours,

Michael Moore
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
www.michaelmoore.com

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=182


Thanks to Amaryllis for posting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357950

[LatePeriduct]

44. Biggest week

kick

[MelissaB]

45. John Conyers blogs about the Baker-Carter Commission today

Saturday, April 16th, 2005

Baker-Carter Commission Cont'd
Conyers Endorses Voting Recommendations of Election Reform Coalition
Led By Progressive Dems of America

I have been closely following the formation of the Baker-Carter election commission, with some concern. As readers of this blog know, I wrote to former President Jimmy Carter, about these concerns. I hope to have a meeting this week with the leadership of the Commission to discuss these concerns in more detail and ascertain whether there is any room to work together on this vital issue.

In the meantime, a group of organizations, many who helped to bring about the Ohio election challenge (and led by the Progressive Democrats of America), have issued their own challenge to the Commission. I wanted my blog readers to know that I issued the following statement today, which I think pretty much speaks for itself:

"I wholeheartedly support and endorse the recommendations of the Progressive Democrats of America election reform coalition, which includes Code PINK, Velvet Revolution, United Progressives for Democracy and Global Exchange. I have heard from thousands of progressive activists, along with traditional civil rights groups, who are very concerned about the direction of the Baker-Carter Commission. I have previously written to President Carter expressing my concerns about his co-chair, James Baker III, who for me -- and many, many other voters will forever be remembered for his role in disenfranchising Florida voters, particularly minority voters and the elderly, by stopping the counting of votes in the 2000 Presidential election. This weekend, additional information has come to light in the alternative media about other advisors to the Commission and the witnesses chosen for its first hearing. To many, the deck seems to be stacked against traditional civil rights concerns and voter verified paper ballots, and in favor of wealthy corporate voting machine companies and Right wing operatives who have advocated Jim Crow-style tactics, such as partisan challengers at the polls and new and needless voter ID requirements. An early signal of that this Commission's policy agenda would go a long way toward allaying the fears of many, fears that I share."

Link: http://www.conyersblog.us/


Edited to add this for Conyers: :loveya:

[Wilms]

46. Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=358006#358082

[MelissaB]

47. Here is a reminder about an article Pres. Jimmy Carter wrote in Sept. 2004

Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote

By Jimmy Carter
Monday, September 27, 2004; Page A19

After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.

The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.


The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: "Why don't you observe the election in Florida?" and "How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"

The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

The most significant of these requirements are:

• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida.

It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

>>>snip


Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.


More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html

[Wilms]

48. Verified Voting: This is important stuff!

Verified Voting: This is important stuff!

by mole333

Sat Apr 16th, 2005 at 14:52:14 PDT

The following is based on what has been going on in New York State, but the basics are applicable throughout the nation. I don't know the status of election "reform" (which usually means a switch to inaccurate, expensive touch-screen machines made by companies that favor the extremist right-wing Republicans) but here in NY State this is up before the State Legislature.

From
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/16/175214/852


Thanks to Eric J in MN for posting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358044

[Wilms]

51. The Brad Show Debut Re-Broadcasts 9AM-1PM, EST - 4/17/05

The Uprising is (re-) Broadcast

The Brad Show Debut Re-Broadcasts 9AM-1PM, EST - 4/17/05


Station Guide

IBC InterNet:
http://www.ibcradio.com/CMN.htm

IBC AM Radio:
http://www.ibcradio.com/radiostations.htm
http://www.ibcradio.com/USA_NODES.htm

IBC Satellite (KU band, Telstar 5, frequency 11836):
http://www.ibcradio.com/satellite.htm

IBC Shortwave Radio (7.300 Mhz):
http://www.ibcradio.com/shortwave-radio.htm

IBC Cell-Phone:
http://www.ibcradio.com/mobile-broadcast.htm


Story:
http://rawstory.com/contact/support_raw_radio_416.php

Schedule from Saturday's Show:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001326.htm

Contribute:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr


Discuss:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358195

[Wilms]

52. C-SPAN to Cover Baker-Hearn Commission Hearing on April 18th

Note: C-SPAN to Cover Baker-Hearn Commission Hearing on April 18th

COMMISSION ON FEDERAL ELECTION REFORM

April 18, 2005

American University
Washington, DC

Hearing Schedule

10:30 - 11:30 a.m. Panel I: Elections and HAVA: Current Status

Hon. Gracia Hillman, Chair, U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Ms. Chellie Pingree, President, Common Cause
Ms. Kay J. Maxwell, President, League of Women Voters
Prof. Henry Brady, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, University of California , Berkeley

11:30 - 11:45 a.m. Break

11:45 a.m. - 12:45 pm Panel II: Access and Integrity

Ms. Barbara Arnwine, Executive Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Mr. John Fund, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Member and Author of Stealing Elections
Ms. Colleen McAndrews, Partner, Bell, McAndrews & Hiltchak
Mr. Arturo Vargas, Executive Director, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials

12:45 - 1:30 p.m. Break

1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Panel III: Voting Technology and Election Administration

Mr. Jim Dickson, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, American Association of People with Disabilities
Prof. David Dill, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, and Founder of VerifiedVoting.org
Hon. Ron Thornburgh, Secretary of State, State of Kansas
Prof. Richard L. Hasen, William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law, Loyola Law School , and Co-Editor of Election Law Journal

2:30 - 4:15 p.m. Break

4:15 - 4:45 p.m. Press Statement and Questions and Answers

Interested members of the public are invited to view this via closed-circuit at Kay Spiritual Center. Seating is first-come, first-served.


more + links to panelists' bio's:

http://www.american.edu/ia/cfer/sched0418.htm


Discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358193

[Wilms]

53. Major Update/Reorganization of Dade, Broward. Palm Beach Documentation

berniew1

Discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358159

[Wilms]

54. (IA) Costs force counties to look at voting precincts

Costs force counties to look at voting precincts

04/17/2005

Opinion

Some counties may reduce the number of voting precincts in response to the federal mandate that will force them to buy new voting equipment.

"At a cost of about $10,000 per precinct it is definitely a money issue," said Shelby County Auditor Marsha Carter. The Shelby County Board of Supervisors will hold its first reading of an ordinance to reduce its precincts on Tuesday.

-snip-

"I think most counties are looking at this issue," he said.

-snip-

HAVA did appropriate some funding to help with the changes, but not enough to cover all of some counties' costs.

-snip-

Carter said voting is the only issue that will be affected by the change.

Under the proposed Shelby County plan the number of precincts would be reduced from 16 to nine. Harlan would retain its four polling places.

-snip/more-

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14362356&BRD=2554&PAG=461&dept_id=551177&rfi=6

[Wilms]

55. There's a word for this kind of shit but it escapes me.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

End Ohio's voting machine debate

Editorials

-snip-

Whatever the choice, they should get on with it and leave this fruitless debate in the past.

-snip/:puke:


http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050416/EDIT01/504160357/1020/EDIT


Althecat's (ScoopNZ) response/Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358204

[LatePeriduct]

56. kick

[MelissaB]

57. Thanks, LatePeriduct!

:hi: