Thursday 1/13/05 Daily Updates Thread

In order to organize and document I thought it would be a good idea to have a daily thread to place items related to the recounts/fraud. 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.

Link to the thread from yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=280198

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Meandering money stream feeds ongoing election fight

By LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

They smashed fund-raising records during the campaign. Then, some say, their historic clash for governor even broke an already flawed elections system.

So is it any surprise that Democrat Christine Gregoire and Republican Dino Rossi continue to shatter conventions in raising cash -- even now, more than two months after Election Day?

((snip))

The challenge is in determining whether contributions made in the election's aftermath are subject to disclosure and reporting requirements for 2004 or 2008; whether they constitute donations to individual candidates or political committees; whether they're political advertisements, lobbying efforts or none of the above; or whether they're even subject to the law at all.

((snip))

"It's the never-ending campaign," Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said yesterday. "I spent most of my day today raising money. And I did well -- my biggest donation was $10,000. ... It just keeps going on and on. The fund raising and the passion haven't slowed down a bit."


more
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/207681_finances13.html

January 13, 2005

Blurred messages from Democrats

By Joan Vennochi, Globe Columnist


HERE'S THE new Democratic Party slogan: We stand for nothing but victory.

((snip))

Roemer as head of the DNC sounds like a desperate effort to figure out which way the wind is blowing, long after the 2004 wind blew the Democrats away. Where does it leave Democrats when President Bush and his allies work to secure the appointment of Supreme Court justices who are anxious to repeal Roe v. Wade?

It also sounds like a way to institutionalize John Kerry's losing campaign strategy: When it comes to controversial issues, duck. Stand for everything and nothing. Whenever possible, avoid direct answers on issues like war and abortion.

((snip))

Senator Edward M. Kennedy had it right yesterday. In remarks prepared for delivery to the National Press Club, Kennedy said, "We cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices. We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again and deserve to lose."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/us_house/articles/2005/01/13/blurred_messages_from_democrats/

Issue 13.01 - January 2005

Can Polling Be Fixed?

What it will take: better questions, smarter analysis, and deeper pockets.
By Adam Rogers


John Zogby was on a roll. In 1996, he made his name as a national pollster by precisely predicting Bill Clinton's margin of victory. In the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, he was profiled in The New Yorker. He killed on The Daily Show. Then, on Election Day, at 5 pm on the East Coast, Zogby International released the results of its final poll: John Kerry would win the electoral college vote, 311 to 213, though George W. Bush might eke out a slim popular-vote margin. Oops.

A few days later, Zogby posted this statement on his Web site: "We feel strongly that our pre-election polls were accurate on virtually every state. … I thought we captured a trend, but apparently that result didn't materialize." Guess he had to say something. Throughout the campaign and into Election Day, the press, the candidates, and the public devoured poll numbers, a safe-for-work obsession that culminated in the viral spread of misleading exit-poll data. But the lesson isn't that blogs are evil or polls are bad. We don't need to stop polling; we need to poll better.

Taking the public's pulse is a $6.6 billion industry that combines people skills and a certain artfulness with statistics. Good opinion surveys don't just ask questions - Who are you going to vote for? Have you had more than 20 sexual partners? - and then spit out numbers. Pollsters make adjustments, like giving more weight to answers from particular groups so the sample reflects the overall population they're trying to represent. Mathematicians and survey methodologists devote entire careers to getting more predictive and illuminating results.

For example, a couple of weeks before the election, Science published an article by Drazen Prelec, an MIT psychologist. Prelec describes how to put the statistical thumbscrews on poll respondents - "a Bayesian truth serum," he calls it. (Bayesian math is a branch of statistics and probability theory.) In addition to posing a direct question to the respondent, the pollster also asks for a guess about how other people will answer the same question - "What percentage of people in the population do you think have had more than 20 sexual partners?" People telling the truth tend to overestimate how common their own answer was; the math's complicated, but basically we all think we're typical.

Prelec's article addressed a small but vital problem. Mr. and Ms. America don't tell outrageous lies to pollsters, but they do tend to shade their answers to please interviewers - only a touch, maybe, but enough to change results. People say they plan to vote when they don't, or that they're paying close attention to an issue when they're not. But these little white lies are critical because pollsters use that information to determine if a respondent is a "likely voter," the linchpin question in any political survey. Screw that up, and the poll is worthless. In fact, many experts now suspect that volatility in political polls, especially in close races, is a consequence of flaws in the way pollsters identify likely voters.

Deeper problems threaten to kill off the modern poll altogether. Call-screening and an increase in cell phone-only households are chipping away at the population of respondents. When pollsters do a quickie three-day tracking poll, nobody's picking up - and every automated redial costs money. Samples get smaller; results get skewed.

more
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/start.html?pg=2?tw=wn_tophead_6

Thursday, January 13, 2005

OHIO SUPREME COURT
Anti-Bush lawsuit dismissed by Moyer

BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU


COLUMBUS - The chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit that partisan activists filed to contest the Nov. 2 presidential election results in Ohio.
The move by Thomas Moyer came a day after attorneys - who had accused President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and White House strategist Karl Rove of stealing Ohio's 20 electoral votes from Democrat John Kerry - asked for their lawsuit to be dismissed.

Cliff Arnebeck, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of 37 voters, said the challenge no longer was a "productive effort" because Congress on Jan. 6 certified Mr. Bush's re-election. Mr. Bush carried Ohio over Mr. Kerry by 118,599, according to amended official results.

Mr. Arnebeck said: "If the court looked at this as something that was an important provision of Ohio law and the issues raised were in the public interest, the court would have called the parties together and said to them, 'We have a lot of work to do in a short period of time.' Instead, we have a court saying, 'Here are the problems and they're all moot.'�œ"

Also yesterday, Justice Maureen O'Connor dismissed the lawsuit that Mr. Arnebeck filed contesting Chief Justice Moyer's victory over Democrat C. Ellen Connelly.


http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050113/NEWS02/501130449/-1/NEWS

January 13. 2005 8:00AM

Dean for the DNC

He's a flawed candidate, but he'd be a great party leader.


Howard Dean said Tuesday he wants to be the next national chairman of the Democratic Party. No doubt this possibility brings a hearty laugh to a great many Republicans, whereas a lot of Democrats are ready to . . . scream.

But hold on. This isn't as crazy as it sounds. As a political thinker, organizer and fundraiser, Dean is a visionary. So what if that silly Iowa speech gets replayed a few hundred more times. He'll get over it, and so should the Democrats.

What no one should focus on are the knee-jerk reactions that greeted Dean's announcement. He's too soft on defense, people said. Or he's too liberal. Or he might freak out on television again.

These are good reasons Dean shouldn't run for president again. But they have nothing to do with running the party.


continued
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050113/REPOSITORY/501130349/1017

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Averting fraud benefits all

The challenge by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, of the results of Ohio's presidential vote ("Democratic challenge slows election certification," Jan. 7) was a wake-up call, a message that preventing election fraud serves the interests of any political party that believes in democracy.

Republicans responded by ridiculing these defenders of democracy as "sore losers," an attitude that marks those Republicans clearly as sore winners.

But in the future, unlike today, counting every vote may become more advantageous to Republicans than Democrats. Instead of waiting for that time, Republicans should join Democrats in a bipartisan effort to crack down on fraud as soon as possible.

BENJAMIN SIBELMAN Southwest Portland

---

Assure us that votes count

In my opinion, the voting irregularities in Ohio are a much greater threat to our democracy and freedom than any other single current event. Without a strong belief that our votes will count, we will eventually lose the freedom of choice we now enjoy.

Here are the facts of what happened in Ohio: voter registration lists were improperly purged, more votes were cast than voters registered, exit polls did not match vote tallies, provisional ballots were thrown out because voters were not given a form that also needed to be filled out, there weren't enough voting machines, voting machines could not provide a paper trail and were programmed by private corporations, and there was a lack of inspection for 93,000 ballots where no vote was cast for president.

Subjectively, there were reports of widespread intimidation, misinformation, intentional misconduct and illegal behavior.

While you did report some of these facts on page A5 (Jan. 7), your paper chose to run feature articles on a Hood River farmer and flu shots on the front page. It's tough to take your paper seriously when you are not willing to provide front-page information to readers to help educate them on the major issues of the day.

SCOTT MEYERS Southwest Portland

---

Not about to 'get over it'

Republicans said the formal challenge of Ohio's presidential vote results was fantasy, without merit, yet they never addressed the actual legitimate complaints. "Get over it," they said.

Our basic right as citizens -- the right to vote -- is threatened. A threatened democracy is not a partisan issue. I'm not about to get over that.

MARY PAT BOOTH Tigard


http://www.oregonlive.com/letters/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1105620949102670.xml

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Swampscott High senior gets Inaugural call

"...if I were old enough to vote I would have voted for Kerry"
By Debra Glidden


Swampscott senior Elizabeth
Howard leaves Sunday to attend the
presidential inauguration and
inaugural ball.

SWAMPSCOTT -- A high school senior will have a seat at the presidential inauguration and attend an inaugural ball as part of the Presidential Youth Inaugural Conference.

((snip))

"I helped educate people about the political process and the importance of the election. It was my job to stay impartial because I was educating people, but if I were old enough to vote I would have voted for Kerry," Howard said.

Mike Lasday, executive director of the Congressional Youth Leadership Council, said Howard is one of 600 from around the country who will attend the conference. According to Lasday, Howard was selected based on her academic performance and her interest in leadership.

Originally posted 1/13/2005

Congress et al. shatter Dr. King’s mission

by ALTON H. MADDOX JR.


On January 6, 2005, the political fate of Blacks in the United States was sealed forever. This political doomsday preceded, by two years, the expiration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and came nearly two weeks before King Day. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. must be raining teardrops from heaven.

((snip))

The challenge to the presidential election results in Ohio demonstrates that coalition politics is only a pipe dream. Blacks have no permanent friends. We only have permanent interests. Only one member of the U.S. Senate is opposed to Black disenfranchisement and that person is not Sen. Barack Obama.

To be sure, the procedure to challenge the presidential election results in Ohio was a charade. While members of Congress may disagree on the presidential results, every member of Congress should have been outraged over the lack of due process in the statutorily mandated debate on the most basic issue of citizenship, especially since the Constitution fails to provide a substantive definition of citizenship.

((snip))

When Carter G. Woodson penned “The Miseducation of the Negro” he was aware of his own educational experience. Woodson admitted it took him forty years after Harvard to get his head screwed on correctly. Obama headed the Harvard Law Review. Membership in this law review alone is a career milestone and, as a lifetime benefit, is nearly equivalent to membership in Skull and Bones.

Obama not only refused to sponsor the challenge to the Ohio results but he also refused to sustain Sen. Barbara Boxer’s objection to Ohio’s 20 electoral votes. He not only had an obligation to point out that the legislative process was flawed but he also was required to sustain Boxer’s objection.

((snip))

There is a lesson in this story for Blacks. In this age of materialism, Black leaders are putting their constituents on the auction block. Obama proves my point. As we put more Blacks in public offices, our condition is getting worse. In other words, an unorganized people gets what it pays for.



more
http://www.amsterdamnews.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=52476&sID=34

07:50 AM Jan. 13, 2005 PT

Technology and the Democrats

Love him or hate him, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's upstart presidential campaign left the Democratic Party two important and lasting legacies: the empowerment of younger activists and the pioneering use of the internet for fund-raising. Those new realities now are at play in the battle for Democratic National Committee chairman, which Democrats will vote on in February.

While Dean announced his candidacy on Tuesday, two younger political operatives with strong connections to Silicon Valley also have joined the race: Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network and Donnie Fowler, who recently headed political outreach for the high-tech lobby TechNet.

Others looking to replace outgoing chairman Terry McAuliffe include former Reps. Martin Frost and Tim Roemer, and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. They and Dean may be better known, but Fowler and Rosenberg are campaigning actively and are considered serious candidates.

Despite their similar backgrounds in the high-tech world, Fowler and Rosenberg offer different visions for transforming the beleaguered party. Rosenberg largely focuses on "modernizing" the party through technical improvements, while Fowler is stressing a return to more state control and changes in how the party communicates its message.

continued
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,66264,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6

Originally posted 1/13/2005

Lone U.S. senator comes forward to challenge Ohio presidential vote

by JAMAL E. WATSON
Amsterdam News Staff


In a move that has won her praise from Black leaders, U.S. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) became the lone U.S. senator to challenge the presidential Ohio vote, prompting debates on the matter.

Boxer joined forces with Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a U.S. representative from Ohio who lodged a formal complaint about the counting of Ohio’s electoral ballots. She was joined by members of the Congressional Black Caucus who argued that all of the votes throughout the state were not counted.

“I raised these objections neither to put the nation in the turmoil of a proposed overturned election nor to provide cannon fodder or partisan demagoguery for my fellow Republican members of Congress,” said Tubbs Jones. “I raised the objection to debate the process and protect the integrity of the true will of the people.”

((snip))

Speaking before the U.S. Senate, she added: “Let me simply say to my colleagues: I have great respect for all of you. But I think it is key, whether it is Republicans or Democrats, that we understand that the centerpiece of this country is democracy, and the centerpiece of democracy is ensuring the right to vote,” she said. “I ask you, my friends from both sides of the aisle, when we get busy working within the next few weeks, let us not turn away from the things that happened in Ohio. Our people are dying all over the world. A lot of them are from my state. For what reason? To bring democracy to the far corners of the globe. Let us fix it here, and let us do it the first thing out.”

((snip))

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who lobbied Boxer to raise an objection to the vote, said that he was pleased that she had decided to come forward. Jackson said that Congress should still order an investigation into voting irregularities in the state.
“This is not about John Kerry versus George Bush,'' said Jackson. ''This is about Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer and Viola Liuzzo. About Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner, and twenty-seven years in prison for Nelson Mandela. It's about a will to dignity. It's not too much to ask for our vote to count,'' he added.


http://www.amsterdamnews.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=52485&sID=4

Last Update: 01/13/2005 8:20:24 AM

New Mexico clerks given discretion to clear voting machines

By: Associated Press



SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron says county clerks may clear November election data from their voting machines to free them up for school district elections.

That decision comes despite a pending dispute over the accuracy of results in the presidential race.

Vigil-Giron sent a memo to clerks Wednesday telling them they have three days to notify a district judge and party officials in their respective counties if they plan to clear the machines and reprogram them for the February 1st election.

An attorney for Green and Libertarian presidential candidates, who are seeking a recount of the November ballots, plans to fight the effort.

Attorney Lowell Finley says Vigil-Giron’s action undermines the pending recount lawsuit.



http://www.kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=16296&cat=NMTOPSTORIES

POSTED: 6:04 am PST January 13, 2005

Hearing On Rossi's Election Challenge Postponed

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Hope for a speedy resolution to the uncertainty surrounding the governor's election seems to be fading fast.

On the same day Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire was inaugurated, a new judge was assigned to Republican Dino Rossi's election challenge.

Chelan County Superior Court Judge John E. Bridges on Wednesday granted motions by the Democratic and Libertarian parties to intervene in Rossi's case. A preliminary hearing was rescheduled from Friday to next Thursday, Jan. 20.

((snip))

The Jan. 20 hearing will deal mostly with scheduling, not the underlying issues. Republicans are pressing for a quick discovery process, while Democrats say they believe discovery won't be necessary if the court gets to the underlying constitutional issues first.

((snip))

"Based solely on alleged miscellaneous errors Petitioners (the Republicans) ask this court to simply set aside the most expensive election in Washington state history and order that it be done again," the Democrats' motion to intervene said. "This election contest is unfounded in fact and law."

http://www.kirotv.com/politics/4078368/detail.html

(What is Blackwell up to now?)

Article published Thursday, January 13, 2005

Blackwell orders counties to use optical scanning

Touch-screen voting out in Ohio

By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU


COLUMBUS - Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell took the option of computerized touch-screen voting machines off the table yesterday and ordered all counties to deploy optical-scan devices using paper ballots by the November election.

((snip))

"An auditable machine is absolutely critical," she said. "However, he needs to allow the process to happen so everyone will have a voice, for everyone to make this decision. I feel the process he used to make his decision is flawed."

((snip))

The state already had contracts in place with two vendors to supply optical-scan devices for the few counties that requested them. Diebold Election Systems' offering costs $4,572 per machine.

Election Systems and Software's product costs $5,499. Mr. LoParo said counties will have until Feb. 9 to make their selection.

((snip))

"We're surprised he decided to go down this path by not using the newest technology, especially when you look at how touch-screen machines performed in the field in Georgia for the last election," Mr. Jacobsen said. "It was pretty impressive."


more
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050113/NEWS09/501130455/-1/NEWS

FROM: DAVID COBB, 2004 GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

(Neocons are so happy to see heads roll at CBS yet
no one is ever held accountable for the many blunders
of the Bush Administration. And so it goes.)

CBS FIRINGS / THE REAL STORY ( Palast )

The beheadings were so neat and orderly and yet I could smell something rotten about this ~ it had Karl Rove written all over it .

Of course, it's pay back time for embarrassing King George II .

Another public execution so that our Commander-in chief can stand tall at his inaugural ball with his fake reputation , as a Vietnam era top gun , back in place.

Fortunately, Greg Palast provided the facts to expose this latest exercise in public deception.

Excerpt from Greg Palast:




read more
http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2005/01/12.html#a625

January 12, 2005

More on Mr. Popularity

The latest Gallup poll has Bush's approval rating at 52 percent, slightly above his average 49 percent rating in polls in the last month. That 52 percent rating for a re-elected president on the eve of his inauguration is quite poor by historical standards.

Bush's popularity ratings in specifically areas also indicate Bush is receiving no political boost from his re-election and impending inauguration. His highest rating is in the terrorism area where he receives a 58 percent rating, just a point above his worst rating in this area in this poll.


more
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001018.php

(it sounds like a re-worded version of his email to me)

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

John Kerry on Ohio Electoral Vote Challenge

Statement from John Kerry, entered into the Senate record regarding last week's debate on the Ohio election results:



http://kerryblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/john-kerry-on-ohio-electoral-vote.html

January 13, 2005

Arnebeck Vows to "investigate and litigate county by county, ward by ward, precinct by precinct."

After withdrawing the election contest litigation as moot, Cliff Arnebeck, the lead counsel in that case, stated: "This is not the end, this is merely the end of one state action. More importantly, it signals the emergence of a much broader effort where we plan to investigate and litigate county by county, ward by ward, precinct by precinct."

See: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1085

Source: http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/01/arnebeck-vows-to-investigate-and.html

(Blackwell head-fake...)

Back to the Basics

WTAP News
Jennifer Tomazic

http://media.graytvinc.com/images/election+box.jpg

Voters, sharpen your pencils.

Instead of using electronic touch screen devices to vote, Ohioans will be marking paper ballots that look like standardized tests sheets.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell made the optical scanner the state's primary voting system.

Thirteen of Ohio's 88 counties now use the system.

Protesters have portrayed touch-screen machines as vote eating monsters prone to hacking.

Blackwell also notes that the paper ballot will allow for hand recount if there are any questions about the validity of the votes.


http://www.wtap.com/news/headlines/1346786.html

AndrewClarke (84 posts) Thu Jan-13-05 06:25 PM
Original message

---

It's a little late, but anyway . . .




DU Thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x282242

http://kaldveer.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_kaldveer_archive.html#110556870554898035

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

I'm back from my journey which began in Columbus for a 4 hour rally with Jesse Jackson, leading to a 6 hour bus trip from there to DC (in which I documented the individual experiences of the disenfranchised riders), then went on to lobbying Senators to stand up, then moved on to rallies and protests outside the Senate, then I got tickets to the live debate inside the Senate to watch the whole show, and finally culminated in getting drunk with my favorite journalist in the country, William Rivers Pitt (among others, like lawyer Susan Truitt, one of the key lawyers working on the case against the usurpers).

So, how do we make sense of it all? What does the final tally of 31 house Democrats and 1 courageous Democratic Senator mean?

((snip))

Final Conclusion:

By the very, very least, election reform is going to happen, the Democrats are situated to benefit from and lead that effort (lots of info on that, for another time), and the likelihoods of the Republicans stealing a 3rd election has been reduced (but not eliminated). And, if the Republicans fight reform, they will be hurt and further exposed, and it will only strengthen the case we'll be making against them in 06' and 08'. Further, a burgeoning coalition of progressives, civil rights leaders, labor unions, and more is emerging, and certainly has been heartened by the impact just a small number of us can have. Networks are forming, and people are slowly becoming more aware of what happened on Election Day and who was responsible. If knowledge is power, then by definition, we must be getting more powerful.

Another conclusion, the corporate media is even worse than I expected, and my future work, as I prepare to leave The Next Generation, will likely be on this issue. Without restructuring our Matrix, truth and fact seem to get lost, deleted, manipulated, or forgotten far too easily. Finally, as I’ve gone on enough for now, I feel a progressive movement materializing, and I also feel it has a chance to move the Democratic Party back to its roots, as it is from those roots that the most devastating arguments can be made against those currently ruling.

I want to send a few good summations of this whole post-election struggle, and believe it or not, new information adding to the case, yet again, that a massive fraud was perpetrated on the 2nd, more than just suppression, I'm talking vote manipulation, destruction, addition, etc.




It's a great summary but much too long to post it all:
http://kaldveer.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_kaldveer_archive.html#110556870554898035

January 13, 2005

Conyers to Ohio election chief: Please help Congress reform voting

The following letter went out this afternoon.



http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=548

1/13/05

Sen. Boxer shows courage and gives hope

http://www.eurekareporter.com/Stories/op-01130504.htm

(neocons attack Republicans too!)

Thursday, January 13, 2005 · Last updated 11:00 a.m. PT

Petition filed to recall Reed over governor's election

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A petition to recall Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed has been filed with Reed's office, accusing him of mishandling the recounts in the contested governor's race.

The petition was filed Wednesday by Martin Ringhofer, who said mistakes made by Reed led to Democrat Christine Gregoire ultimately winning the third count and the election by 129 votes.

((snip))

Ringhofer is a Boeing Co. employee who lost a bid for the Seattle School Board in 1999. He said he and others plan a Web-based campaign for the recall.

Reed's office said that in order for the petition to be valid, a recall needs signatures equal to a quarter of the votes in the race in question. In this case, that's about 660,000.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Reed%20Recall

http://www.sfbg.com/39/15/news_boxer.html

How activists and a senator from the Bay Area forced Congress to discuss voting rights
By Rachel Brahinsky

Speaking about his boss's move to force a congressional debate over the November election, David Sandretti wasn't just serving up the usual politico spin. "We made history last week," Sandretti, spokesperson for Sen. Barbara Boxer, told the Bay Guardian. "Voting rights haven't gotten this much attention since the 1960s."

Boxer was savaged by Republicans and some journalists for her Jan. 6 decision to join members of the U.S. House of Representatives in challenging the certification of Ohio's Electoral College vote. They called it pointless and politically divisive. But to her supporters, it seemed to be just a matter of common sense: reporters and congressional investigators had found major problems with the election, and those problems needed to be discussed before it was certified.

Yet Boxer was the only senator willing to step forward and bring about a kind of debate that has occurred only once before in the past century. Four years ago, members of the House tried to mount a similar challenge to the electoral vote count. Their effort was documented in Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 in a chilling scene in which, one by one, black members of Congress walked to the podium and demanded a debate on the legitimacy of Florida's balloting. They needed one senator – just one – to join the protest. But none would join, the debate never happened, and most Americans never knew that anyone even tried to make it happen until the film came out last year.

Since then, as more information emerged about voter disenfranchisement in the Sunshine State in 2000, activists slowly began to wake up. This time they didn't leave it up to chance and generated thousands of phone calls to senators around the country. The intense lobbying effort, which included hundreds of Bay Area activists, must have given Boxer the backing she needed to follow Ohio representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones's lead in calling for the vote challenge, which forced a two-hour debate in both houses on the irregularities in Ohio. (Since the debate, Boxer's office has reported receiving thousands more phone calls thanking her.)

In the days leading up to the challenge, local interest in the effort was high. About 500 people showed up for the Jan. 4 "Rally for the Republic" in San Francisco to raise awareness – and funds – for it. The reports circulating (mainly on the Internet) of voting problems in November seem to have spawned a small but growing movement. The rally attendees ranged from nonpartisan voting wonks interested in reforming election policy to those who truly believe George W. Bush has stolen another election.

Diane Hume, a teacher at Golden Gate University, told us she firmly believes an accurate vote count would have produced a victory for John Kerry. She rattled off a litany of widely told stories of voting problems, including voter suppression and malfunctioning (or, she thought, rigged) voting machines.

Indeed, researchers have turned up dozens of troubling incidences, many of them documented in Rep. John Conyers's Jan. 5 investigation that found "massive and unprecedented" problems in Ohio's balloting. The report accused Ohio secretary of state J. Kenneth Blackwell (who also chaired Bush's campaign effort in that state) of presiding over "intentional misconduct and illegal behavior."

Conyers's report – which lists numerous violations, including a shortage of voting equipment in key districts, Blackwell's limiting of voter registration and provisional ballots, and Republican voter-suppression tactics that targeted minority voters – calls for further hearings and new federal election standards.

Ultimately both houses certified the electoral vote by a large margin. And by most accounts (including the Conyers report) the headline-grabbing story – that Bush stole the election – can't be written, at least not with the evidence we have so far. Instead, Boxer's decision has raised the profile of a movement to reform the nation's voting system.

Just as with the notion that discussing voting problems might be a commonsense idea, most of the reforms seem equally obvious. In the coming months, we'll probably see bills requiring that all voting machines produce a paper trail so votes can be verified, and legislation to bar secretaries of state from working on political campaigns.

E-mail Rachel Brahinsky rachel@sfbg.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2005

Letters to CBS NEWS regarding Senator Boxer and election problems

The Democratic body politic has become so gun-shy through the Republican tactic of shouted condemnation that I fear we will never again exhibit a challenge to anything other than empty rhetoric and flailing “woe-is-me” arm waving. Kudos to Senator Boxer and Representative Rangel for their (at least) symbolic stand on the voting issue.

Do you ever think the democrats will grow a backbone again?

Terry Tanner

---

Well here we go again. I do not know why we bother to have elections in this country.

I am a Democrat and voted for John Kerry. I cannot understand how any Democrat can support Alberto Gonzales.

The person nominated for US Attorney General thinks the Geneva Conventions are "quaint" and has decided they do not apply under certain circumstances.

Any Senator who agrees to this nomination should be ashamed -- Democrats and Republicans. Such hypocrites. They speak of fair elections in Iraq and the Ukraine, but will not stand up for their own in America. Win under any circumstance.

There are confirmation hearings of a man who approved torture but now decided it wasn't such a good idea after all and promises he won't do it again. Is this because he wants to move up on the corporate ladder, that he was caught, wants to please his boss? Just what is it?

It makes me want to vomit. Republicans like to say they won this election on moral values. What is moral knowing people lie and cheat but you stand by and watch it happen and then defend the action

Democrats scratch their heads wondering why they lost the election. When you know people lie and cheat, you know injustice was done but do not protect those hurt, you lose your moral values, dignity and respect.

I am appalled Mr. Gonzales was allowed to skate on this and will probably be confirmed. America has lost its soul.

Lucille Johnson



These are buried deep in the page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/20/opinion/meyer/main584753.shtml

(Hopefully some smart DUer will explain... )
January 13, 2005

Mystery Pollster
More on n-Sizes and National Exit Poll Regions

Tonight I want to take up some additional questions readers have asked about the new exit poll data, specifically those about the regional composition of the national sample. For those who would rather not slog though a long post, I'll cut to the chase: Though there is much confusion about the mechanics of a very complex set of surveys, I see nothing here to substantiate the wilder allegations of hoax and fraud. If you're interested in the details, read on.

A review: Scoop, a New Zealand web site, recently put a set of PDF files online that were apparently created on Election Day by Edison/Mitofsky, the company the conducted the national exit poll, and distributed to their newspaper subscribers. The files are cross-tabular tables ("crosstabs" for short) for two questions (the vote for President and for U.S. House of Representatives), released at three different times (3:59 pm or 7:33 pm on Election Day and 1:35 pm the following day), tabulated separately for the national sample and four regions (East, South, Midwest and West) with each table run in two different formats (one with vertical percentages, one with horizontal percentages).

Most of the questions that have come up concern some odd inconsistencies regarding number of interviews conducted nationally and in the four national regions. The table that follows shows the unweighted sample sizes ("n sizes") for the presidential and Congressional vote crosstabs:



One important note: All references to "unweighted interviews" in this post refer to the n-sizes reported in the PDF files. As we learned Monday, this number is inflated because 500 interivews conducted nationally by telephone among absentee and early voters were replicated four times in the unweighted data. This programming oddity did not affect the tabulated results for the presidential and congressional vote questions, because the telephone interviews were weighted back to their appropriate value (see Monday's post for more explanation).

Here are the issues that puzzled MP's readers:


continued
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/01/more_on_nsizes_.html

Thursday, January 13, 2005

U.S.: Iraq Elections Will be as Credible as Ours

USATODAY.com - U.S.: Elections will be credible

The Bush administration will consider the results of Iraq's elections credible even if most of the country's Sunni Muslim minority don't show up to vote Jan. 30, an administration official said Wednesday.

"If people decide to boycott an election, that's their choice," said Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of State for democracy, human, rights and labor. "You can decide not to go to the polls. But then you have no one to blame but yourself."

Violence and intimidation by insurgents in Sunni Muslim areas of Iraq are likely to repress voting there and boost the electoral chances of a slate of candidates dominated by Iraq's Shiite majority. Many Sunni groups have called for the elections to be delayed until the country is more secure.

Kozak acknowledged that "there are going to be all kinds of problems that pop up" in the elections, the first to permit Iraqis any real political choice. But he said the Bush administration will gauge the voting not by whether there are "isolated technical problems" but by whether "there's some kind of systematic fraud that's designed to bias the result in favor of one group or another. ... If the process is clean, whether people choose to take advantage of it or not doesn't undermine its credibility."


http://dirtytrix.blogspot.com/2005/01/us-iraq-elections-will-be-as-credible.html

11:01AM (CST) on January 13, 2005

Trying to follow up on the Clinton Curtis affidavit

by margieburns

Here is the affidavit written by computer programmer Clinton Curtis:
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/images/CC_Affidavit_120604.pdf.


Posted in the solid “Brad blog,” Curtis’s sworn statement alleges that in 2000 a Florida software company, Yang Enterprises (YEI), developed a prototype for vote fraud. The project was developed, the affidavit states, at the specific request of Rep. Tom Feeney (R- Fla.). Feeney, now beginning his second term in Congress, was lobbyist and counsel for YEI.

Curtis also narrates in his affidavit that after he left YEI and went to the Florida Department of Transportation, he found instances of over-billing by YEI, a Florida state contractor. An IG investigator, Raymond C. Lemme, talked with him several times about YEI, and as the affidavit states, Mr. Lemme was found dead soon afterward in a Valdosta, Georgia, motel room.

To date, there has been little comment for attribution about Mr. Lemme’s death, considered a suicide. The timing and the lack of discussion, along with the affidavit, have given rise to the worst possible suspicions that the death was foul play, and that it was connected to the investigation of YEI. Suspicion is reinforced by the fact that no major media outlet has (apparently) examined a scheme to tamper with the vote in Florida – sworn allegations that one would think would have set off headlines.

The Social Security Death Index gives Mr. Lemme’s date of death as July 1, 2003. The Valdosta, Georgia, police department will not comment on specifics but considers the case closed.

Lemme’s supervisor at the Florida DOT, Robert (Bob) Clift, says unequivocally that he and all the others who worked closely with Lemme support the conclusion of the Valdosta police that Lemme’s death was suicide. Clift declines to speculate on motives, saying that the family has been through enough. He is emphatic in saying, however, that the death was not related to Lemme’s job performance, which he calls “stellar.”

The August 2003 issue of Perspectives on Excellence, a Florida DOT newsletter, features the Inspector General’s Contract Fraud Investigation Team, including Lemme, which won an award on the job:

http://www.dot.state.fl.us/businessmodel/pdf/August%202003.pdf.



A photograph of the team is followed by paragraphs of praise:

“The Inspector General’s office executed Florida government’s most successful attack on vendor contract fraud, producing 15 criminal convictions and recovering $1.5 million. This team is responsible for placing 83% of individual and company names on the Department of Management Services’ list of convicted vendors who are no longer eligible to compete for state business.

Governor Bush’s Inspector General recently presented this accomplishment as a best practice, at a national conference of Inspectors General.”

One of those vendors no longer eligible to compete for state business, of course, is Rep. Feeney’s former client, Yang Enterprises.

Clift, Lemme’s supervisor, confirms that Lemme was part of a team winning one of the awards and reiterates that his work was excellent. “I worked with him probably for about18 months to two years,” Clift says, and Lemme was “an outstanding performer, one of the most thorough investigators that I’ve ever worked with” and reiterates that everyone who worked with him would say the same thing. “Everyone here who worked with him would say the same thing; we would all say that.”

He also reiterates emphatically that “All of us who worked with him support the conclusions of the Valdosta, Georgia, police,” that the death was a suicide. Calling it “unfortunate” that suspicions have been raised about the cause of death, Clift says emphatically that Lemme’s “assignment had absolutely nothing to do with voting machines.” He says, “It was not anything secret.” The IG unit investigates “employee misconduct and contract frauds as they impact DOT,” he explains, giving as examples employees claiming more time than actually put in, or travel claimed that is not supported, etc. “On the contractor perspective, contractors who billed us for work they did not do.”

Clift states emphatically that Lemme’s job was not in jeopardy. In answer to a question regarding whether he was fired or going to be, Clift says emphatically, “Absolutely not. I was his supervisor. His job performance was stellar; other people under him and around him looked up to Ray and modeled their performance on his.” It was Clift who nominated the contract fraud investigation team for a job award. Whatever the cause of death, it was not job performance.

But in Clift’s opinion, “this voting machine stuff doesn’t square with the cause of death either.” He reiterates that it is “unfortunate” that a cloud of suspicion has arisen about the death. In response to questions, Clift states that he has read the Clinton Curtis affidavit. He confirms that Curtis did report YEI’s over-billing to the Florida DOT. Without going into specifics, he also states that Curtis says what he believed. “Every investigation has varying degrees” of accuracy in its leads, he says in general terms, with some facts or details more solid than others. Referring to the public record, he also confirms that Yang Enterprises “doesn’t hold the contract any more.”

Questions to the Valdosta police are referred to their PR officer, who is out on vacation for the week. The police department confirms that the incident report was filed on July 1, 2003, and that the case was inside Valdosta city limits.



link
http://www.margieburns.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/13/241080.html

The following email was sent at Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:07:47 -0500:

Please circulate widely!

Let's Keep the Pressure On!

Welcome Congress Back with a Demand to Protect and Extend Democracy!

In primetime debut as FOX News contributor, Kerry-bashing Zell Miller promoted as a Democrat

In his primetime debut as a FOX News contributor on the January 12 edition of Hannity & Colmes, the network identified former Senator Zell Miller -- who supported President Bush's reelection, spoke at the Republican National Convention, and authored A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat (Stroud & Hall, 2003) -- as a Democrat. Appearing on the January 12 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Miller, identified by on-screen text as "Zell Miller (D)," was asked by co-host Sean Hannity to share "his thoughts on the future of the Democratic Party." During the program, Miller falsely claimed that the "Republicans stayed in power for 34 years" beginning in 1896; repeated Republican talking points on Social Security, tort reform, and tax policy; heaped praise on former House speaker Newt Gingrich and his new book; criticized Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY); and asserted that he agreed with the Republicans over the Democrats on every issue in 2004.

Miller told co-host Alan Colmes: "Keep in mind, when you (Democrats) say that he (President Bush) only got 51 percent (of the vote in the 2004 presidential election), keep in mind that William McKinley only got 51 percent back in 1896, and the Republicans stayed in power for 34 years." Miller's remark resembles comparisons Bush senior political adviser Karl Rove has drawn between the 1896 election and Bush's victories in 2000 and in 2004, but Miller's comparison is factually incorrect: Democrat Woodrow Wilson was president from 1913 to 1921.

Also on Hannity & Colmes, Miller repeated several Republican talking points in support of Bush administration domestic policy initiatives:



Both the Bush administration and its conservative supporters in the media have repeatedly used crisis rhetoric to promote plans to privatize Social Security, as Media Matters for America has extensively documented. Miller's claim that there is a critical need for tort reform also echoes unsubstantiated claims by both the Bush administration and conservative pundits on the extent that medical malpractice lawsuits are adversely affecting health care costs and accessibility. Miller's assertion that the Bush tax cuts "have got to be made permanent" echoed Bush's remarks from his January 10 weekly radio address: "For the sake of our economic expansion, and for the sake of millions of Americans who depend on small businesses for their jobs, we need Congress to act to make tax relief permanent."

Miller further indicated his support for the Republican Party by praising Gingrich, attacking Senator Clinton, and explaining his preference for the Republican stance on all political issues. Of Gingrich, Miller gushed: "He is a very dear friend of mine, and I love his new book (Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America (Regnery, January 2005)). I don't know anyone who understands the issues that face this country and how they have got to be dealt with any better than Newt Gingrich." Miller criticized Clinton by predicting that political calculation and presidential aspirations will dictate her stance on various issues in coming years: "By 2008, she will not be the same Hillary Clinton." When Colmes asked where the Democrats are "more right than the Republicans," Miller replied: "Nowhere in 2004."

Contact:
FOX News Channel
1-888-369-4762
Comments@foxnews.com
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

Contact:
Hannity & Colmes Hannity & Colmes


http://mediamatters.org/items/200501130009

Editorials & Opinion: Thursday, January 13, 2005

On the bright side: election reform

Given the recent turmoil over the Washington governor's race, two election reforms are essential: Move the primary election to June and require ballots be received, not postmarked, by Election Day.

Two Washington secretaries of state have said the tight time between our fall primary and the November general election, and voters' heavy reliance on absentee voting, is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Crash and boom. The governor's race exposed the downside of a mid-September primary. Washington is one of only a few states that allows voters to mail absentees as late as Election Day. That compounds the problem.

((snip))

This is not the first time Washington has embarrassed itself with slow counting of ballots. In 2000, the Senate race between Maria Cantwell and Slade Gorton was so close the Senate had to wait weeks for Washington's tedious ballot counting to figure out which party had a majority.

The secretary of state also wants the Legislature to prohibit party surrogates from collecting or returning absentee and/or provisional ballot signature affidavits. Election workers ought to contact people whose signatures are missing or in question.



http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=reformed13&date=20050113

(thanks to rawstory)

1/13/2005

Conyers to Blackwell: This is your response to first electoral challenge in state’s history?

Conyers, Blackwell duel over voting report

By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor



In response to an attack by Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell on the motivation of Rep. John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) investigation into Ohio voting irregularities, Conyers expressed his frustration in a brief email to RAW STORY Thursday evening.

“I’m amazed that the chief elections official of the state that faced the most irregularities and the first state wide electoral challenge in history wouldn’t even bother to try to set the record straight on a single irregularity,” Conyers wrote.

“There is no more significant issue facing congress than making sure our democracy works,” the congressman added. ” We saw unprecedented irregularities in Ohio last November, and I think while the Secretary of State may not think he owes any one congressperson an answer, he certainly owes the nation and the state of Ohio a response.”

James Lee, a spokesman for Blackwell, responded earlier Thursday afternoon to a question about the merits of Conyers’ investigation, saying, “I think Rep. Conyers’ inquiry and motivation speaks for itself.”


continued
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=550

DU Thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x282720

1/13/2005

Ohio Secretary of State responds to Conyers’ letters on Ohio voting irregularities

Blackwell spokesman quietly blasts Conyers’ investigation

By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor



In a terse, one line statement, the office of Republican Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell responded to a RAW STORY inquiry on the 102-page report on Ohio voting problems prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee.

At first, Blackwell spokesman James Lee declined to comment on Conyers’ letters.

“I don’t really have any response to that at all,” Lee said.

But when asked whether the investigation–which documented myriad problems with Ohio’s voting processes that drew articles from the Washington Post and New York Times–had merit, Blackwell spokesman James Lee responded, “I think Rep. Conyers’ inquiry and motivation speaks for itself.”



continued
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=549

Press Release - Teaching for Change and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Dr. King's Words into Actions

Award-Winning Guide Gives Black History Month a Makeover


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 14, 2005

Deborah Menkart
Tel: (202) 588-7205
Fax: (202) 238-0109



January 14, 2005- Can you name five female civil rights leaders? Did the Civil Rights Movement begin in 1954 and end in 1970? What were the goals of the Black Power Movement? If you can't answer these questions, you may be in need of our mythbusting quiz that challenges conventional wisdom about the Movement.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, even as we recount votes in Ohio and combat widespread civic apathy. Now more than ever, Americans need to connect with our legacy of social activism. To truly honor the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. during Black History Month, we should be talking less about his dream and more about the movement he helped to grow. This short month is often reduced to Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and the summer of 1964, but everyday citizens struggled to make the dream a reality. Where is their chapter in America's history books? And how can we continue their legacy?

Two non-profit organizations working for equity in education have joined forces to create a thought-provoking quiz on the Civil Rights Movement that motivates and inspires students of all ages. Teaching for Change and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) are making this resource available at www.CivilRightsTeaching.org as an extension of their recent award-winning publication, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching: A Resource Guide for Classrooms and Communities. Instead of offering easy answers, the questions are crafted to inspire discussion and further inquiry. Supplemental chapters and lessons are available during the month of February, giving families, schools, and church groups the option to delve deeper into these empowering stories.

The central themes of this publication focus the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on: Citizenship and Self-determination, Education, Economic Justice, and Culture. Each section emphasizes the often-overlooked roles of women, young people, grassroots organizing, and global connections. Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching recently won the Book of the Year Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) and an honorable mention from the prestigious Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards. Wayne State University Dean of Law and distinguished author Frank Wu calls it "as academically rigorous as it is innovative." He adds, "The struggle is depicted here vividly and profoundly by a distinguished roster of authors."

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching has been picked up by school districts all over the country. When Pat Cooper, superintendent of schools in McComb, Mississippi, encountered the book, he "couldn't put it down." The success of this endeavor is credited to a powerful advisory board, who oversaw the production of this truly one-of-a-kind publication. The advisory board for Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching is comprised of Bill Bigelow, Toni Blackman, Elsa Barkely Brown, Elise Bryant, Clayborne Carson, Charles Cobb Jr., Bill Fletcher Jr., James Forman, Danny Glover, Juan Gonzalez, Lawrence Guyot, Suheir Hammad, Sylvia Hill, Elizabeth Martinez, Nancy Murray, Charles Payne, Renee Poussaint, Sonia Sanchez, Lynda Tredway, Stephen Ward, Debbie Wei, Juan Williams, Yohuru Williams, and Howard Zinn.

Teaching For Change provides educational resources and workshops for parents and teachers organizing for social justice through public education. The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) advances research, advocacy, and policy changes that address the intersections of economic injustice and racism. The Black History Month teaching guide can be downloaded for free from www.civilrightsteaching.org. Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching can also be ordered there for $25. Bulk discounts are available.

http://www.civilrights.org/issues/education/details.cfm?id=27419

Thu - January 13, 2005

NGLTF Policy Institute report on the effect of voting pro-gay on 2004 re-election campaigns

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute released a report yesterday on the impact of voting against anti-gay marriage amendments on 2004 re-election campaigns. Matt Foreman, Executive Director of NGLTF, said "Contrary to threats from the extreme right, legislators who take a stand against using state constitutions to enshrine anti-gay discrimination rarely suffer consequences at the polls."


Among the findings:

- 97% of state legislators who voted against anti-gay constitutional amendments and ran for re-election won their races, compared to 91% of state legislators who voted for them.

- In Iowa, all 7 legislators who voted against the anti-gay amendment were re-elected, compared to 71% of those who voted for it. In Minnesota, 98% of House members who voted against the anti-gay amendment were re-elected, compared to 86% of those who voted for it.

- Although all Iowa Democrats voted against the anti-gay constitutional amendment, the Democrats picked up a net four seats.


The full report is available in PDF format here: Impact of voting against anti-gay marriage amendments on 2004 re-election campaigns in five Midwestern States.


link
http://homepage.mac.com/duanewilliams/iblog/C730209590/E1826349838/index.html

(That song is still stuck in my head.)

In The Clearing Stands a Boxer, Score One For Democracy

By Anthony Wade

January 14, 2005

Votergate 2004 has reached the mainstream. In the early afternoon of January 6th, 2005, a Congresswoman from Ohio stood up to protest the seating of the Electors from Ohio, and this time, a Senator stood up with her. This time, democracy actually worked. A politically dangerous move, meant nothing to Barbara Boxer, who stood up and said, “As we are shedding the blood of our military to this end, we must realize that we lose so much credibility when our own electoral system needs so much improvement.” Amen Senator Boxer, God bless America.

Let’s make sure we all understand what has led up to this moment in history. There is no doubt in any objective mind that there were gross “irregularities” in the 2004 vote, not just in Ohio, but around the country. Overwhelmingly, these glitches, computer errors, and irregularities favored George W. Bush. In Ohio specifically, the Secretary of State, who is responsible for ensuring fair elections, was also the State Chair of the Bush reelection campaign, a clear conflict of interest. Ohio has been the site of widespread voter fraud, voter suppression, and voter disenfranchisement. There is no doubt about this. It has been recorded for the past two months and there have been congressional hearings attesting to such facts. Secretary of State Blackwell has thwarted any fair attempt to recount and investigate. He has stalled the certification process, in essence trying to run out the clock. He has illegally stopped the recount at one point. He has sent in Triad employees to utilize cheat sheets to fraudulently fix the recount. He has hidden himself behind other GOP operatives to refuse to answer questions about the election he oversaw. His actions portray a guilty man. Displaying his arrogance however, he recently has sent out a fundraising letter BRAGGING about delivering Ohio to Bush. The fundraising by the way? Blackwell is running for Governor of Ohio. The GOP will be sure to throw their might behind him as payola for his services in ensuring Ohio went Bush. After all, they made sure Katherine Harris won a Congressional seat after she delivered Florida to Bush in 2000.

Despite the Congressional hearings, sworn affidavits, and overwhelming evidence of underhanded practices before, during, and after the election this story has received no coverage from the corporate controlled media, that prefers the deregulation presidency of Bush. For two months the Internet has been abuzz with the story, screaming in the wind apparently, while the country at large was clueless to what really happened in Ohio. January 6th, represented our last chance to have this debate in public, and demand coverage for it. It was never about overturning the election results; it was about tabling the most important subject in our country, in public. Thankfully, Barbara Boxer stood up for all of us and allowed that discussion, for a couple of hours.

Word about Boxer got out the night before and apparently the GOP got together to get their talking points straight. Forever insulting the intelligence of America, the GOP believes that if you simply say something enough, regardless of the truth, people will eventually believe it as being true. You remember that Al Gore invented the Internet, right? On January 6th however, you had two sides presenting their case. The democrats simply wanted everyone to work toward fixing a broken electoral process and the GOP was puffed up with faux indignation at the mere prospect that they had to spend two hours discussing a democracy they thought they had stolen already.


worth the read...
http://www.opednews.com/wade_011405_boxer.htm

January 13, 2005

Turning Up the Heat on Bush

by Robert L. Borosage


For a nanosecond after November's election defeat, the Democratic unity forged by the radical provocations of George W. Bush seemed intact. From the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council to Howard Dean's new Democracy for America, Democrats drew similar conclusions from the election about what needed to be done: Challenge the right in the so-called red states and develop a compelling narrative that speaks to working people--don't simply offer a critique of Bush and a passel of "plans." Champion values, not simply policy proposals. Don't compromise with Bush's reactionary agenda. Expose Republican corruption, while pushing electoral reform. Stand firm on long-held social values, from women's rights to gay rights. Confront Bush's disastrous priorities at home and follies abroad.

((snip))

After a year in which progressives drove the debate, roused and registered the voters, raised the dough and knocked on the doors, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party is trying to reassert control. Its assault on MoveOn.org and the Dean campaign--the center of new energy in the party--is reminiscent of 1973, when corporate lobbyist Bob Strauss became head of the party and tossed out the McGovern mailing list, insuring that the party would remain dependent on big-donor funding.

This time, however, the entrenched interests aren't likely to succeed, no matter who becomes party chair. That's because progressives have begun building an independent infrastructure to generate ideas, drive campaigns, persuade citizens, nurture movement progressives and challenge the right. It includes a range of new groups such as MoveOn.org, Wellstone Action, Progressive Majority, the Center for American Progress, Air America, Working America and America Coming Together, along with established groups that have displayed new reach and sophistication such as ACORN, the NAACP, the Campaign for America's Future (which I help direct) and the League of Conservation Voters. These groups--and their state and local allies--came out of this election emboldened, not discouraged. Just as the infrastructure that the right built drove the Republican resurgence, these groups and their activists--not the party regulars or the corporate retainers--will stir the Democratic drink.

The challenge to the electoral malfeasance in Ohio provided an early example. Inside the Beltway, protesting the President's electors was unimaginable. But progressive organizers, together with third-party activists, liberal lawyers, Internet muckrakers and civil rights groups, kept the heat on. Representative John Conyers responded with a report detailing the outrages in Ohio, where the Secretary of State--shades of Katherine Harris--was co-chair of the Bush campaign. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and others called on senators to support progressive House legislators who were demanding a debate. When Senator Barbara Boxer stood up, the public learned more about the shabby state of our democracy and the need for drastic electoral reform. The lesson is clear: When progressives move, Democrats will follow. "Don't expect this place to lead," says Representative George Miller. "Organize and force us to catch up."

((snip))

So forget about the chattering classes and the corporate wing of the party, now fantasizing about purging the new energies unleashed in the last election. What matters isn't what they say in Washington, but what progressives do on the ground across the country. We have just begun to build. The radical agenda of the Bush Administration--and its abject failure--will continue to set the stage not for a retreat to the center but for a fierce, passionate reform movement.



more
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050131&c=2&s=borosage

Friday, 14 January 2005, 12:31 pm

Election Irregularities In Snohomish County WA

Press Release: www.votersunite.org

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EVIDENCE OF ELECTION IRREGULARITIES
IN SNOHOMISH COUNTY, WASHINGTON, GENERAL ELECTION, 2004

Port Ludlow, WA. Jan. 6, 2005. VotersUnite.Org announces the release of a new report completed by Paul R. Lehto, Attorney at Law, and Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, Ph.D. The report summarizes the results of their detailed study of the general election in Snohomish County, Washington. Based on weeks of work, during which they pored over thousands of documents obtained in open records requests from Snohomish County, the report reveals evidence of irregularities that strongly suggest the possibility of electronic voting machine fraud.

"We began this study because Snohomish County presents an opportunity to compare Sequoia voting machines to optical scanners in a real election where the demographics are the same for all voters using the machines," said Mr. Lehto. "As we examined the election data, memos, voter complaints, machine-repair reports, and other data, the evidence of serious irregularities became too obvious to ignore."

VotersUnite.Org is proud to have assisted with the publication of this document and to have been selected as its repository.

Among the points discussed in this document are:

¨ Absentee ballots composing 2/3 of the total ballots showed a Democratic lead of 97044 to 95228 votes, while the remaining 1/3 of the votes, on touch screens, showed a Republican lead of almost 5% (50,400 Republican to 42,145 Democratic)..

¨ Vote-switching and machines freezing up occurred in 58 polling locations out of approximately 148 total. There is a strong correlation between the machine problems reported by KING5 news and the higher Republican percentages the machines reported.
¨ Statistical analysis of machines that recently had their CPUs repaired shows a propensity for Republican voting that is present but weak on the individual level but strong at the polling location where the machines were placed.

¨ The average of the 58 polling places reporting vote switching, freeze-ups, or repairs within two weeks of the election was 11.58% more favorable to Republican Dino Rossi than absentee voters did, and averaged 10.8% more votes than Gregoire on election day, while Rossi’s overall spread among all electronic voters at all polling locations was under 5%.

The document can be downloaded from h ttp://www.votersunite.org/info/SnohomishElectionFraudInvestigation.pdf

Paul R. Lehto is a business law and consumer fraud attorney practicing in Everett, Washington and a recently retired member of the Board of Governors of the Washington State Bar Association. Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman has a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and is a professor of mechanical engineering technology at Northern Michigan University.

VotersUnite.Org (http://www.votersunite.org) is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to fair and accurate elections.

###

Contacts: Ellen Theisen, VotersUnite.Org ellen@votersunite.org

John Gideon jgideon@votersunite.org

Paul R. Lehto paul@lehtopenfield.com


http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0501/S00135.htm

Conyers Won't Quit!

(Are we sure he's a Democrat?!)
Sends Letter to Blackwell for Reform Help, Asks GAO for Investigation of Long Lines!



BRAD BLOG's 2004 Man of the Year, Rep. John Conyers (Ranking Minority Member of the House Judiciary Committee) is not letting go.

Yesterday he, and Rep. Henry Waxman (Ranking Minority Member of the House Gov. Reform Committee) requested a new GAO Investigation of the long voting lines, and other related issues that kept Americans from voting as should be their right on November 2nd of last year. His letter to the GAO is here (PDF). An AP story on same is here.

And today, Conyers sent a new letter to his best-friend and reported two-time (at least) lawbreaker Ohio Sec. of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell (who also served as Ohio's Bush/Cheney Re-Elect Committee Co-Chairman while studiously assuring a "free, fair and transparent" election in the Buckeye State).


continued at Brad Blog:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001123.htm

Friday, January 14, 2005; Page B01

Inauguration Can't Dampen Activist's Passion

By Donna Britt


Now, as George W. Bush's second inauguration nears, Americans' attention is again riveted: by an incomprehensible natural disaster affecting hundreds of thousands, as well as by sports stars' inappropriate shenanigans and the "desperation" of four well-heeled, Size-2 housewives.

It's easy, even for Democrats, to forget:

The ghastly post-election feeling of "What happens now?" The sickening sense that documented evidence of voter disenfranchisement nationwide might not have been unconnected and meaningless. The unavoidable question: "Was another election compromised?"

But we're moving on -- jobs clamor for attention, bills await payment, kids must be fed.

Maybe that's why Democratic activist David Lytel comes off like a razor blade in a pillow factory -- pointed, impatient, unapologetically sharp-edged in a "chill out, get over it" world. Sitting across from him at lunch, you wonder, "What about him feels . . . different?"

Try passion.



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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7824-2005Jan13.html

from the inaugural05.com website



from U.S. Seal (and dollar)




Executive Committee

Mercer and Gabrielle Reynolds of Ohio, Co-Chairs of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Ambassador Reynolds served as the National Finance Chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004. Ambassador Reynolds served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Switzerland, and as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Principality of Liechtenstein. Ambassador and Mrs. Reynolds served as Co-Chairs for the 2001 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Bill and Kathy DeWitt of Ohio, Co-Chairs of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Mr. DeWitt is the Co-Chairman of Reynolds, DeWitt and Company, a Cincinnati-based investment firm. Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt served as Co-Chairs for the 2001 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Brad Freeman of California, Co-Chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Mr. Freeman is a founding partner of Freeman Spogli & Co., a private investment firm with offices in Los Angeles and New York. Mr. Freeman served as Co-Chair for the 2001 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Jeanne L. Phillips of Texas, Chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Ambassador Phillips served as the Representative of the United States of America to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Ambassador Phillips served as Executive Director of the 2001 Presidential Inaugural Committee. Ambassador Phillips is a Texas businesswoman.

Greg Jenkins of Virginia, Executive Director of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Mr. Jenkins has served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Advance for the past two years.

Finance Committee Members:

Nancy and Rich Kinder of Texas, Finance Chairs Dawn and Al Hoffman of Florida, Honorary Finance Chairs Dawn and Roland Arnall of California, Finance Co-Chairs Marcie and Bruce Benson of Colorado, Finance Co-Chairs Sue Ellen and Joe Canizaro of Louisiana, Finance Co-Chairs Germaine and Jim Culbertson of North Carolina, Finance Co-Chairs Marilyn and Sam Fox of Missouri, Finance Co-Chairs Martha and Dwight Schar of Virginia, Finance Co-Chairs Patty and Roger Williams of Texas, Finance Co-Chairs