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Pirate Smile Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:19 AM
Original message
Lawyered up-Obama campaign put together a huge voter protection operation

Lawyered up


After all the complaints about how Nevada was conducted, some Obama supporters were muttering over the last few days about making sure all their votes in South Carolina were counted. The campaign quietly put together a huge voter protection operation, a general-election style affair that had volunteer lawyers manning polling places across the state.

I ran into some of these last night, and they reported very quiet days.

"It was like being a fireman when there's no fire," said one. "More like a flood," said another.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Lawyered_up.html


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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:21 AM
Response to Original message
1. Another smart move by the Obama camp! nt
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neutron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:24 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Obama is a pitifully sore loser
Edited on Sun Jan-27-08 11:25 AM by neutron
When he loses it's always because somebody cheated.
His supporters forced a NH recount which gave Hillary Clinton even MORE votes.

What is worse is how he goes crackers at the mildest criticism.
HOW is this guy presidential material?
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Adelante Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. Obama's supporters did not force a NH recount
Dennis Kucinich filed for and paid for the recount.
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neutron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:28 AM
Response to Reply #5
9. Dennis Kucinich IS AN OBAMA SUPPORTER
Edited on Sun Jan-27-08 11:29 AM by neutron
And Obama supporters were in the blogs claiming that
Hillary Clinton had RIGGED the election.

doh!
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surfermaw Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:57 AM
Response to Reply #9
18. Face It BILL Clinton pulled enough college voted to make Hillary the winner
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11 Bravo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-28-08 11:31 AM
Response to Reply #18
33. If that was in English, what would it mean?
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Adelante Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:05 PM
Response to Reply #9
19. Kucinich is not an Obama supporter, that is false
Kucinich did not run in Iowa, and threw his support to Obama on the second ballot, not the first. Kucinich has not endorsed Obama or anyone else.

The suit was pushed by election protection activists, often taken for Obama supporters, even when they were not. Some Obama supporters may have done as you say on blogs. On DU I looked very carefully at the threads and the overwhelming majority expressing concern were not Obama supporters.
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stillcool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:20 PM
Response to Reply #9
25. Are you confusing people
Edited on Sun Jan-27-08 12:21 PM by stillcool47

that care about accuracy in vote tabulations with Obama supporters? Just because you don't give a shit about your vote counting, doesn't mean those of us who do, have to shut the fuck up. Can't wait till you get your vote hacked again.
I don't expect you to read any of these studies...but here's more of your "Obama Supporters"

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter
David Wagner David Jefferson Matt Bishop
Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board (VSTAAB)
with the assistance of:
Chris Karlof Naveen Sastry
University of California, Berkeley
February 14, 2006
http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf


Security Assessment of the Diebold Optical Scan Voting Terminal
A. Kiayias L. Michel A. Russell A. A. Shvartsman
UConn VoTeR Center and
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of Connecticut
with the assistance of
M. Korman, A. See, N. Shashidhar, D. Walluck
October 30, 2006
http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Report-OS_files/uconn_report-os.pdf

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
Executive Summary
Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/summary.htm

Security Assessment of the Diebold Optical Scan Voting Terminal
A. Kiayias L. Michel A. Russell A. A. Shvartsman
UConn VoTeR Center and
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of Connecticut

http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/


THE MACHINERY OF DEMOCRACY:
PROTECTING ELECTIONS
IN AN ELECTRONIC WORLD
BRENNAN CENTER
FOR JUSTICE
AT NYU SCHOOL OF LAW
http://brennan.3cdn.net/a56eba8edf74e9e12e_r2m6b86s2.pdf
----------------------------------
Ballot Definition Files
No Review Is Provided
for a Key Component of Voting System Software
http://www.votersunite.org/info/BallotProgramming.pdf

Optical Scan Ballot Design
Douglas W. Jones
Sept 15, 2005
http://vote.nist.gov/threats/papers/optical_scan_ballot_design.pdf







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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 03:13 AM
Response to Reply #9
34. No, he is not. He has endorsed nobody
The Iowa recommendation was for Iowa only, and he pissed off so many of his supporters that he probably won't try it again.
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Thrill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:28 AM
Response to Reply #2
7. You need to check your facts
It was Kuncinch who forced a recount. You're just like Hillary. Distorting the facts
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FARAFIELD Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:28 AM
Response to Reply #2
8. nice
Crakers? sore loser? He gave the best speech Ive seen this campaign when he lost NH. He doesnt even make honorable mention for sore losers if thats a category.
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:31 AM
Response to Reply #2
10. I do believe he won last night, but don't let THAT stop ya! nt
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Skidmore Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-28-08 08:11 AM
Response to Reply #2
31. Were you saying the same thing about Gore and Kerry after the
last two elections? Any candidate who does not work to protect the vote is not deserving of consideration.
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Pirate Smile Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:24 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. I had wondered about this because I remember that the Clinton camp got
Edited on Sun Jan-27-08 11:42 AM by Pirate Smile
some of Obama's poll watchers (for GOTV purposes) thrown out of some polling stations in New Hampshire and that had screwed up their GOTV operation. I figured they were going to be on top of things.

They need to do the same thing in the Super Tuesday states but that is a hell of a lot more polling and caucus locations then just one state.
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neutron Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:28 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. You mean the Union Bosses
who told their people if they were not for Obama, they
had better not show up?

is that what you're talking about?
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Windy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:37 AM
Response to Reply #6
12. If that's true neutron, where's the Clinton legal challenge?
There isn't one.
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Pirate Smile Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:39 AM
Response to Reply #6
14. No, it is not. I'm talking about this:

Gone From the Granite State, But Tactics Not Forgotten
By Alec MacGillis

Lasky was also involved in the attempt by Clinton officials to remove Obama volunteers who had been sent to many polling places on primary day to check off the names of voters as they arrived so that the campaign's get out the vote workers would know which of their supporters had and hadn't voted. Clinton volunteers and local lawyers acting on behalf of the campaign demanded in Nashua, Concord and at least one other town that poll moderators ban the Obama volunteers from the polls, saying that their presence violated a state law stating that only the state party chairmen can delegate people to monitor the polls.

The Obama campaign countered that that law applied only to monitors who are at the polls to challenge potentially invalid voters, a practice that is usually limited to general elections and which their volunteers were not engaged in. The attorney general and Nashua city clerk confirmed this when they were called about the dispute, saying that the Obama volunteers were allowed as members of the public to observe the polls, as long as they didn't get in the way.

But the Clinton intervention at Ward 9 in Nashua nonetheless persuaded the moderator to ban the Obama observers. And the disputes, which dragged on for hours and grew quite heated, generally scrambled the Obama efforts to keep track of who was and wasn't voting, said Obama supporter Andrew Edwards, a rookie state representative assigned to observe the polls in Nashua, where Clinton ran up a big margin in her favor. Edwards was confronted by Lasky and by another veteran Democrat, state representative and Nashua Democratic chairwoman Jane Clemons, who he said issued a veiled threat during the dispute that he would face a stiff primary challenge in Nashua if he ran for reelection.

"The effect of it was that it basically disrupted our get out the vote operation,"
said Edwards. "My effectiveness that day was less than 50 percent as a result of the people who kept coming in" to protest the observers.

Clemons, whose son Nick Clemons managed Clinton's campaign in the state, said she objected to the Obama observers because she said she had been told by the Nashua City Clerk the day before that such observers would not be allowed and that letting the Obama use them conferred an "unfair advantage." In an interview Friday, the city clerk, Paul Bergeron, said this was not the case, that the discussion before the election had regarded volunteers challenging voters, not those checking names off lists.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/12/taken_for_granite.html


Scummy tactics.
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Meldread Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:41 AM
Response to Reply #6
15. That's bullshit and Bill Clinton knows it.
John Stewart debunked him soundly on A Daily Show. It made Bill look like a fool. If Bill actually heard shit like that then he should have filed a complaint and gotten witnesses. Do you honestly think that red-faced, big nosed, race baiter would let THAT pass if he actually saw it? Hell no. Only an idiot would believe he wouldn't have dragged those who were being disenfranchised in front of the nearest camera.

However, if what he says is true - all he has to do is come forward with the names of those involved. He is not an idiot. Obama had witnesses to shit in Nevada, his campaign compiled a list of over 1,000 complaints and filed a formal complaint. It is all in writing. Why can't the Clinton campaign do the same?
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stillcool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:46 PM
Response to Reply #6
26. Why didn't they sue? Again.
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TwilightGardener Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:24 AM
Response to Original message
3. Lawyered up! Ready to Go!
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ayeshahaqqiqa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:31 AM
Response to Original message
11. We need to do this in the GE
in every precinct we can.
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Windy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:39 AM
Response to Reply #11
13. Yes we do. I was a precinct captain in 2004 for Kerry. The repubs intimidate.
they did it in my precinct. They challenged voters credentials, etc. It was awful. We need to ensure that our votes are counted and counted accuately and that all have equal access to the polls!
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alteredstate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:47 AM
Response to Original message
16. I worked as a poll watcher for yesterday's SC primary.
To save money, the South Carolina election Commission combined a number of precincts for yesterday's primary election. The election commission decided it would be too expensive to send notification to those who would not be voting at their normal polling place. This caused quite a bit of confusion, and I'm sure voter turnout was affected.

I worked at a polling place where 5 precincts were combined. At one point we had to call a lawyer because the Clinton campaign was handing out brochures ten feet or so from the entrance to the polling place. The Clinton workers said they were paid $85.00 to hand out flyers. None admitted to being a Clinton supporter and one of the Clinton employees said she doesn't even vote.
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Pirate Smile Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 11:55 AM
Response to Original message
17. kick
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RoadRage Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:09 PM
Response to Original message
20. Much easier to rig a caucus (NV) then an election...
I like Obama.. i don't think NH was a win for him. But, I think NV had a lot of scary stories coming out... glad they decided to do something, but in SC the Clintons would have been stupid to try and pull anything - which is why they left.

If they were caught rigging anything, the black back-lash would have been disastorous. Better to just pack up and leave to whiter ground, which is what they did.
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stillcool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 02:17 PM
Response to Reply #20
29. I'm not buying the "easier" bit...

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuBasic Interpreter
David Wagner David Jefferson Matt Bishop
Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board (VSTAAB)
with the assistance of:
Chris Karlof Naveen Sastry
University of California, Berkeley
February 14, 2006
http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf


Security Assessment of the Diebold Optical Scan Voting Terminal
A. Kiayias L. Michel A. Russell A. A. Shvartsman
UConn VoTeR Center and
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of Connecticut
with the assistance of
M. Korman, A. See, N. Shashidhar, D. Walluck
October 30, 2006
http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Report-OS_files/uconn_report-os.pdf

Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
Executive Summary
Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ts-paper.pdf
http://citp.princeton.edu/voting/

Security Assessment of the Diebold Optical Scan Voting Terminal
A. Kiayias L. Michel A. Russell A. A. Shvartsman
UConn VoTeR Center and
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of Connecticut
http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Report-OS_files/uconn_report-os.pdf


THE MACHINERY OF DEMOCRACY:
PROTECTING ELECTIONS
IN AN ELECTRONIC WORLD
BRENNAN CENTER
FOR JUSTICE
AT NYU SCHOOL OF LAW

http://brennan.3cdn.net/a56eba8edf74e9e12e_r2m6b86s2.pdf
----------------------------------
Ballot Definition Files
No Review Is Provided
for a Key Component of Voting System Software
http://www.votersunite.org/info/BallotProgramming.pdf

Optical Scan Ballot Design
Douglas W. Jones
Sept 15, 2005
http://vote.nist.gov/threats/papers/optical_scan_ballot_design.pdf
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indimuse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:13 PM
Response to Original message
21. Rezko. ..Davis.. .Rita...Michelle.. . Indictment...
Trail coming...be prepared! You will need more than lawyers...RW is salivating over this.
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zulchzulu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:14 PM
Response to Original message
22. Protecting the right to vote was the point of Obama's voting protection strategy
I would assume that people who support other candidates would be thankful that the iVotronic machines were running on time properly and that the machines were being monitored so that the voters got a chance to vote.

If Hillaryworld wants to join in helping voters vote rather than obviously trying to obfucsate the democratic process like they did in Iowa and New Hampshire, then it would be a great help. But I don't think playing fair is their strategy.

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alteredstate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-28-08 11:22 AM
Response to Reply #22
32. That's right, zulch.
Hundreds of lawyers came to SC. They were canvassers and phone bankers. And they were ready to help if anyone tried to mess with the poll watchers.
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OzarkDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:17 PM
Response to Original message
23. Sounds like a waste of money
How long before he starts running low on funds?
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alteredstate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 12:20 PM
Response to Reply #23
24. The lawyers are volunteers.
Hundreds of 'em.
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Pirate Smile Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 02:15 PM
Response to Original message
27. Kick - needs two more recommends for greatest page. I think this will
reassure some people concerned about these issues.
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alteredstate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-28-08 08:09 AM
Response to Reply #27
30. Done. n/t
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-27-08 02:16 PM
Response to Original message
28. Obama worked for Project Vote
so he knows a lot about protecting the right to vote and how to combat voter suppression tactics.
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 03:14 AM
Response to Original message
35. This will be absolutely essential in the general election
One of Obama's best initiatives, IMO.
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FrenchieCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 03:20 AM
Response to Original message
36. That's the way to operate! Prepared.
Thank God! :)
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-29-08 03:24 AM
Response to Original message
37. Good! We're going to need it.
Another very smart move.
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