Friday 2/4 Election Fraud, Reform, & 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 reform, fraud, protests, and other items. This also make it easier to "catch up" when we are away from the computer for a while.

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


Link to the thread from yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x315149

http://www.uakron.edu/bliss/research.php

DU thread:

(2004 Election Results and Discussion)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=316699&mesg_id=316699

(news section thread)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1209520&mesg_id=1209520

February 03, 2005

Gregoire receives death threat

By David Ammons
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington State Patrol is keeping close watch over both Gov. Christine Gregoire and her Republican rival, Dino Rossi, after Gregoire received a death threat and emotions over the contested election continue to run high.

Gregoire told reporters today she received a death threat and that she plans to keep a lid on publicizing her movements outside the heavily guarded Capitol and Governor's Mansion.

Rossi has around-the-clock protection.

"I'm going to honor it when the chief of the state patrol says that for my personal security, we need to maintain some procedures," Gregoire said, referring to the blackout on releasing a detailed schedule.

"Give me six months. Allow me these six months."

She said she got a death threat, but added: "I'm not going to be deterred by any of that. I got death threats, frankly, when I was attorney general. I've got a job to do, but I'm also going to be smart (about security considerations). I owe that to the citizens of the state and I will listen to the chief of the state patrol."

She said blamed "the level of discussion on some of these talk radio shows" for whipping up people.

more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002170042_webgregoire03.html

(not really about Elections)
02-03-05

Daily Show on Network Mascots
"NBC has the peacock; Fox has Hitler"

Windows Media (100k stream)
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/daily_show_fox_hitler_050103-01.wmv

Friday, February 4, 2005

Talon News continues to provide headlines for GOPUSA

Feinstein Gathering Co-Sponsors for Bill to Abolish Electoral College by Matthew Cardinale, 2/03/05

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is currently gathering original co-sponsors for her proposed bill to abolish the Electoral College system for the U.S. Presidential Election, and to replace it with a direct vote for the Presidency, according to Feinstein press secretary, Adam Vogt.

The Electoral College has been described by critics as confusing, complicated, alienating, diversionary, unnecessary, undemocratic, and moreover, as hypocritical to the fundamental principles of American governance, which has otherwise been a global leader in democracy.

"A President can be elected without receiving the most popular votes - this is the fundamental flaw of our electoral system," Senator Feinstein said during a press statement on January 6, 2005, the day of the Electoral College certification of George W. Bush.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/020305I.shtml

Election Reform is Urgent, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Op-Ed by Dan Goldstein, 2/03/05

The irregularities, machine failures, paperless ballots, disenfranchisement, lack of transparency and other issues in the 2000 and 2004 elections underscore an electoral crisis that needs to be fixed right away. Americans are losing confidence in the integrity of our electoral system, and with good reason.

The Washington recount taught us some important lessons. First, counties that used black box electronic voting machines had no way to recount or validate their vote totals. We have to take their results on faith. At the very least, machines should produce paper ballots for a manual recount and for routine audits of results.

http://nov2truth.org/article.php?story=20050203214858973

====

One of the hundreds of articles linked from Election Fraud, Irregularity, and Reform Headlines page.

Harmon Claims Criminal Acts in Vote by Melissa Knific And Erik Johns, 2/03/05

NEWARK -- After reviewing more than 700 voting machines, Domestic Relations Court Judge candidate Paul Harmon has requested a criminal investigation of the Licking County Board of Elections.

But the county's top prosecutor says Harmon will have to take that up with the proper authorities.

Harmon, a private-practice lawyer, filed his request in a letter to Licking County Prosecutor Robert Becker.

Harmon alleges voting machines used in the Nov. 2 election have been tampered with and ballot booklets removed from them. Harmon finished second in the election behind Craig Baldwin by 214 votes.

Becker, whose office will represent the Board of Elections in the civil election challenge pursued by Harmon, said no criminal investigation is under way in his office -- and furthermore, the prosecutor's office is not the place to initiate one.

"He ought to know by now you initiate a criminal investigation with the police," Becker said, adding: "As far as I know, the sheriff's office is at 155 East Main and the police department is at 40 West Main."

http://nov2truth.org/article.php?story=20050203105309855

02-03-05

Daily Show - Time Magazine reporter explains new Bush Social Sec. Plan

Time Magazine reporter, Joe Klein, explains new Bush Social Security plan based on White House briefing. This clip isn't really funny at all but it does give a good 30 second overview of the plan.

Please excuse me for posting this as it doesn't directly relate to the 2004 election. The framing of this subject will be critical for the next cycle of National elections.

"It's more complicated that Hillary's health care plan."



Windows Media (100k stream)
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/daily_show_joe_klein_050203-01.wmv

...connection to 2004 election fraud. For instance, he can appoint "torture memo" author Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General--the worst, most disgusting presidential appointment in the history of our nation, because BushCons own the election system. There is no accountability. 63% of Americans oppose torture under any circumstances (recent ABC poll). What does Bush care about majority opinion? He and his minions are immune to majority opinion. Same with Social Security. They can just loot, and torture, and commit mass murder in Iraq, and re-write any laws Bush doesn't agree with--there are no consequences.

You wrote: "Please excuse me for posting this as it doesn't directly relate to the 2004 election."

Don't apologize. These Bush policies vs. American majority opinion is further proof (if we needed any more) that there WAS election fraud!

State elections officials say the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) will cover all costs except storage for precinct-count optical scan voting machines.
The Seneca County Board of Elections director said she heard otherwise at a Columbus conference last week.

James Lee, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, said storage is the only expense counties will have to pick up for the new equipment. He said the Blackwell's office will negotiate contracts with each vendor instead of allowing each elections board to do so.

"By (the state signing) the contract with each vendor, we make better use of the millions of dollars in federal grants," he said. Maintenance will be built into the contracts with the vendors."

Janet Leahy, Seneca County Board of Elections director, said at a Columbus conference last week, state officials were not sure if HAVA grant money would cover all of the hardware for optical scan machines.

http://www.advertiser-tribune.com/news/story/024202005_new02hava0204.asp

(originally posted from Freepress)

Friday, 4 February 2005

Ohio Attorney-General's attack on election protection attorneys draws mountain of documentation on state's stolen election, including new study on exit polls

by Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman

From: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1138


Stiff legal sanctions sought by Ohio's Republican Attorney General James Petro against four attorneys who have questioned the results of the 2004 presidential balloting here has produced an unintended consequence -- a massive counter-filing that has put on the official record a mountain of contentions by those who argue that election was stolen.

In filings that include well over 1,000 pages of critical documentation, attorneys Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Peter Peckarsky and Cliff Arnebeck have counter-attacked. Their defense motions include renewed assertions that widespread irregularities threw the true outcome of the November vote count into serious doubt. That assertion has now been lent important backing by a major academic study on the exit polls that showed John Kerry winning the November vote count.

Petro's suit is widely viewed as an attempt at revenge and intimidation against the grassroots movement that led to the first Congressional challenge to a state's Electoral College delegation since 1876. The attorney general's action was officially requested by Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who administered the Ohio presidential balloting while serving as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign. Petro and Blackwell have labeled as "frivolous" the election challenge filing. Their demand for sanctions will be reviewed by the Republican justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Though Petro's filing was aimed at backing down further challenges to the Ohio vote, it has allowed the election protection attorneys to enter into the official archives critical documentation detailing dozens of problems with Ohio's presidential balloting. Among the documents now made part of Ohio's legal archives is a congressional investigation report from Rep. John Conyers that seriously questions the November 2 outcome.

The two now-infamous lawsuits in question, Moss v. Bush and Moss v. Moyer, argued that irregularities involving enough votes to switch the state's electors from Bush to Kerry, and from Supreme Court justice Tom Moyer to challenger Ellen Connally, gave the public the right to file suit. Underlying much of the challenge have been wide ranging questions about whether Blackwell administered the election in a partisan manner.

Blackwell refused to testify in the case, and he has removed from public access critical documents relating to the vote count.


more
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0502/S00049.htm

Miami Herald Feb. 3, 2005

BY LANCE DEHAVEN-SMITH

Ukraine's 2004 presidential election offers important lessons for American democracy. U.S. election laws and national opinion have yet to catch up with recent developments in election technology and administration. In particular, they are blind to what the Ukraine Supreme Court referred to as ''massive fraud,'' where the integrity of an election is subverted by many small problems that are mutually reinforcing.

When the Ukraine Supreme Court invalidated Ukraine's presidential election, the Court said that a variety of flaws made it impossible for the election 'to determine the voters' will.'' Problems cited by the court included inaccurate voting lists, precinct totals that exceeded the number of registered voters, and a host of bugs in the electronic system for counting votes.
These and similar problems were equally prevalent in the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 and probably altered the election outcome in both cases.

• In Florida and Ohio, not enough voting machines were placed in the inner cities, which resulted in long lines and multi-hour delays that inevitably discouraged Democratic turnout.

• Florida's program for felon disenfranchisement was systematically biased against traditionally Democratic constituencies.

• In 2000, Florida officials dragged their feet in conducting legally mandated recounts, and in 2004 Ohio officials behaved similarly.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/10802297.htm

Thursday, February 3, 2005

Voting reform starts here

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD


While the Legislature is engaged in a partisan dance over broad election reform, it's encouraging to see the bipartisan effort to get busy on reforms at the epicenter of the gubernatorial election controversy: King County.

Democratic Councilwoman Julia Patterson and Republican Councilwoman Kathy Lambert have teamed up to offer a slate of fixes for the county's troubled elections operation.

Of course, as the state's most populous county, it's natural that King County's election results would attract intense scrutiny in such a close election. But that natural scrutiny has exposed unexpected and unacceptable flaws, which demand correction, regardless of their impact on the 2004 election.

Patterson and Lambert suggest sound proposals, including a clearly distinct format difference between regular and provisional ballots and more money to train election workers.

Just as important, they would direct County Executive Ron Sims to centralize election facilities and hold an all-mail election as a step away from essentially running two different elections systems. While there is need for changing county election laws, it shouldn't be overlooked that elections is an executive function and Sims should be accountable if there were elections shortcomings within his purview.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/210460_electioned.html

NY State's high court orders recount of 228 votes in race

MICHAEL GORMLEY

ALBANY -- In a victory for the Democratic challenger, the state's highest court on Wednesday declared that 228 more votes must be counted in the disputed state Senate race in Westchester County that is already the most delayed state legislative election in New York's history.

In a 5-2 decision, the Court of Appeals ordered the standoff to continue between incumbent Republican Nicholas Spano and Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins as the votes are counted. The court overruled the midlevel Appellate Division that said just 45 disputed votes needed to be counted. That would have given Spano the win, because at last count he had a 58-vote lead.

"Now I have a shot," Stewart-Cousins said. "I'm really pleased that the court saw the importance of restoring the right to vote to so many eligible voters. It's an important decision and I'm very happy. The reality is these are eligible voters. I don't know how these people voted, but I know they voted and I want their votes to be counted."

Spano's lawyer, Anthony Mangone, said, "We respectfully disagree with the decision, but this is the highest court in our state and we'll see to it that the ballots are opened as soon as possible."

Lawyers said the ballots that had been sent to Albany for the court's study would have to be returned to White Plains before being counted, but the court did not specify when that should be.


more
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20050203/localnews/1947878.html

(FYI - Greene County, Ohio is the Home of Triad)

Greene county, Ohio elections chief faces 'buzz saw'

By Anthony Gottschlich

XENIA | On the job for less than two weeks, the new director of the Greene County Board of Elections finds himself at the center of a political controversy — one involving the appearance of nepotism, alleged back-room deals and questions about his qualifications, as well as claims about Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's involvement in his appointment.

"He's walking into a buzz saw," said Fred Hall, chairman of the elections board and leader of the Greene County Democratic Party.

Tracy K. Smith, 39, is the son-in-law of Republican board member Grace Ramos, who abstained from voting to hire Smith last month and who plans to resign next week to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

A Beavercreek High School graduate, Smith is a career restaurant manager with no election work experience.

A check on his voting history shows he last voted in the 2000 presidential election, when he lived in Butler County. He moved back to Beavercreek in April last year, but didn't register to vote in Greene County until Jan. 11, when he became a candidate for the director's job.

more
http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0204director.html

by RACHEL KONRAD AP 2/03/05

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Three months after the presidential election, one of the nation's biggest makers of touch-screen voting machines has created a companion printer that spits out paper records.

The prototype that Diebold Inc. is now touting is exactly what some critics of the ATM-like machines have been demanding for several years.

Even so, paper records alone are not enough to satisfy computer scientists who say transparency in the electronic machines' design and software must complement paper backups.

The Diebold prototype seeks to reassure voters by displaying their selections under a piece of glass or plastic alongside the touch-screen machine. If they spot a problem, they can cancel the ballot and start over. And while voters can't touch the paper records, elections officials will be able to use them to verify close elections.

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/politics/10809627.htm

Feb 4, 2005, 04:14 am

Committee reviews four bills on voter identification

By Walter Rubel/Current-Argus Santa Fe Bureau


SANTA FE — Recent problems in the Doña Ana County Clerk’s office were highlighted Thursday in a House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee hearing on voter identification bills.

The committee heard four separate bills, all introduced by Republican legislators. Each bill would require either a government-issued photo identification or some other proof of residence such as a utility bill, bank statement, government check or any other government document. Bills by Minority Whip Rep. Terry Marquardt, R-Alamogordo, and Minority Floor Leader Rep. Ted Hobbs, R-Albuquerque, also allow an identification issued by an American Indian tribe or pueblo.

The committee voted to temporarily table all four bills so that the sponsors can combine them into one bill, which Chairman Gail Beam, D-Albuquerque, said would then be passed along to the Voters and Elections Committee.

Kathryn Cooper, the office manager of the Doña Ana Republican Party, came armed with a lengthy list of irregularities and improprieties that she said have occurred in recent elections, which she said could have been prevented with voter ID.


http://www.currentargus.com/artman/publish/article_11383.shtml

February 4, 2005

City: No repeat of November
Officials not worried about count

By Robert Morgan/Times Record News


County officials hope to bring back two vendors for a side-by-side voting machine demonstration on Feb. 23, County Clerk Lori Bohannon said. The two vendors are Hart Intercivic and Electronic Systems and Software. County Judge Woody Gossom said the comparison would probably be done at the Multi-Purpose Events Center. The county hopes to make a decision by March, he said. For more information on electronic voting or any of the state approved vendors, contact Gossom at 766-8101. Wichita County is required by the Help America Vote Act of 2000 to have electronic voting machines by January 2006.

City and county officials are confident Saturday's election will not be a repeat of November's delayed returns.

Mayor Bill Altman said he was not worried about a possible recurrence of the software error that delayed the 2004 election results by three days. He said the prior problems have probably educated election officials and he thinks the count will be fast and accurate.

To do the elections, the city of Wichita Falls has an agreement with Wichita County, Lori Bohannon, county clerk, said. City residents will use the same voting equipment to cast their ballots that were used during last year's troubled election.

Bohannon said a public voting test conducted Monday went without problems. The test is conducted with dummy ballots that check for any counting irregularities.

She downplayed any likelihood of problems, citing this election's absence of a straight party vote. That's what caused trouble in November.

A coding error by county personnel prevented the counting software from tabulating votes correctly. The result was a high number of undervotes - ballots without votes in some races.

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/trn/local_news/article/0,1891,TRN_5784_3522304,00.html

Friday, February 4, 2005

Key ruling on rerunning race for governor to come today
Chelan County judge could toss case or set ground rules for trial

By LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER


The battle over Washington's gubernatorial election resumes today in Wenatchee, where a Chelan County judge is expected to decide a host of issues that could determine whether a Republican court challenge to Democrat Christine Gregoire's controversial victory has the legal legs to stand trial.

"It's a huge day for this case," state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said. "What the judge decides will lay down the ground rules for everything."

What Superior Court Judge John Bridges decides on a variety of motions brought separately by the state Democratic Party and several Washington counties could range from abruptly dismissing the GOP lawsuit to building a nuanced framework for judging the election's legality, should the case be allowed to move forward in his court.

"His rulings could profoundly affect the ability of this case to survive," said Kevin Hamilton, a Seattle lawyer on the legal team for state Democrats.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/210740_gov04.html

Article published Friday, February 4, 2005

Blackwell finds tax plan 'disturbing'

By JAMES DREW
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU CHIEF


COLUMBUS - In an attack on what may be the centerpiece of Gov. Bob Taft's plan to overhaul Ohio's tax code, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell yesterday said the proposal for a new business tax is "disturbing."
...
Mr. Blackwell, a Republican candidate for governor in 2006, spoke to about 300 people attending the Ohio Asphalt Paving Conference at Ohio State University.

"Revenue-neutral" refers to a series of tax changes that don't create a net increase or decrease in overall tax revenue. Mr. Blackwell said the state must reduce spending, including what Medicaid pays nursing homes, so it can lower taxes.

...
Mr. Blackwell said he hasn't decided what the exemptions should be under a flat tax, but the rate should be between 2.8 and 3.4 percent.

"That will not only simplify our state tax code, It, in fact, would be pro-growth. It would cut by a little more than half our capital gains tax," Mr. Blackwell said.
...
Mr. Blackwell is heading a push for Ohio to amend its constitution to limit government spending and make it tougher to raise taxes. It would require at least a three-fifths majority of the House and Senate and then a majority vote of Ohioans to increase state spending - if the increase is higher than the inflation rate plus the rate of population increase.


http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050204/NEWS24/502040426/-1/NEWS

Published 2:15 am PST Friday, February 4, 2005

Elections official rips into Shelley

By Dan Smith -- Bee Deputy Capitol Bureau Chief


California's chief county elections official says Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's administration has created a "full-blown crisis" that threatens the state's compliance with federal law and its ability to conduct the 2006 elections.

In testimony prepared for a legislative committee, Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack blasted Shelley's process for approving voting machine systems the counties must purchase, and suggested he had manipulated the system "to favor or punish some equipment vendors." She called on the Legislature to step in and take over the process.

"County election officials have concluded that the voting system certification process in California is completely broken," McCormack, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, wrote to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee scrutinizing Shelley's alleged misuse of millions in federal Help America Vote Act funds.

Shelley spokeswoman Caren Daniels-Meade defended Shelley's certification process, calling any suggestion of political manipulation "absolutely bunk." McCormack, Daniels-Meade said, simply disagrees with Shelley's support of a requirement that electronic voting machines have a verified paper trail.

"It's a policy disagreement that she seems to want to put in personal and political terms," Daniels-Meade said.

...
Counties face a 2006 federal deadline to have state-certified voting systems ready for the elections, but Shelley's office has approved just one Sequoia model, and that is not certified for the June 2006 primary. If the counties are unable to use voting systems that comply with federal law, the results could be vulnerable to legal challenge.

McCormack suggested Shelley's office appears to have favored Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems in a series of voting machine certification decisions while a competitor, Ohio-based Diebold Inc., was not treated fairly.

McCormack would not elaborate on what she believed motivated the secretary of state's actions.

While neither company is a big campaign contributor in California, Sequoia did give $100,000 to back the Shelley-sponsored Voting Modernization Bond Act, Proposition 41, in 2002 and $1,000 to Shelley's campaign the same year.

Diebold, meanwhile, has drawn criticism from Shelley's fellow Democrats nationally for the fund raising and partisan comments of its chairman, Walden O'Dell. Company officials have given $46,000 to President Bush and the Republican National Committee since 2003, according to federal campaign records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In a 2003 fund-raising letter to Ohio Republicans, meanwhile, O'Dell wrote that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" at the same time his company was seeking voting systems contracts from Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican.

Diebold representatives could not be reached for comment Thursday.
...
Shelley spokeswoman Daniels-Meade said she expects more voting systems to be certified in time for the June 2006 primary. The Sequoia system given provisional certification on Jan. 21 likely will be cleared for the June primary when software changes are made.

She said the process is designed to be tough enough to meet state and federal standards, including the verified paper trail component.

"The bottom line appears to be that there is resentment among a handful of elections officials because the secretary of state has imposed extremely strict security requirements," Daniels-Meade said.


http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/shelley/story/12235220p-13099223c.html

Friday, February 04, 2005

Officials react negatively to Blackwell's proposed amendment

MOUNT VERNON — Reaction from local government representatives to recently introduced state legislation to establish spending, taxation and other financial limitations on state and local government subdivisions by amending the Ohio Constitution has been generally negative.

Senate Joint Resolution No. 4, introduced in the Ohio Senate on Jan. 27 by Ohio Sen. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, proposes to enact two new sections in Article XII of the Ohio Constitution to accomplish the limitations.
...
It would eliminate the state’s ability to mandate programs to lower government subdivisions without providing the necessary funds to cover the expenses of those programs. Further, it would require local government funds of at least 7.5 percent of the previous fiscal year’s revenues be established at the state level to support the lower government subdivisions.

State Senator and Senate President Bill Harris, 19th District, said while he is a good friend of Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and Jordan, he doesn’t agree with the way the two are going about making their proposed changes by altering the Ohio Constitution. Blackwell has supported a referendum to do the same thing SJR-4 proposes to do.

“There is no question we need to get control of government spending and the tax system,” Harris said Thursday, “and I can tell you we are going to do meaningful tax reform in this legislative session. However, changing the state constitution is not the way to go. Once something gets put in the constitution, it becomes very difficult to get it back out if it turns out it doesn’t work the way you wanted it to. SJR-4 has the potential to stifle the functioning of state and local governments. Colorado found that out this past year.”

90th District Rep. Thom Collier also noted recent reports that the state of Colorado had done something similar a couple of years ago, and then encountered governing problems because of it.

“It’s not that the concept or the principles behind the proposal are bad,” Collier said. “It is just that the procedures and processes involved are too restrictive and don’t allow the flexibility necessary, such as if a need arises to meet unfunded mandates the state receives from the federal government or the court system, for example.”

“It sounds extremely complicated and confusing, and our government was founded on the principle of simplicity of the government process,” Knox County Commissioner Tom McLarnan said. “At our level, centralized control is a good principle. For example, we in the county government know best what the county’s needs are, as opposed to someone at the state or some other government level.”


http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/020405/amendment.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x316897

(linking to http://washblog.typepad.com interview, entitled "Activism At Its Best")

General approach to arguing issues potentially applicable anywhere

(This 7 page document is in PDF so I will copy the first few pages.)

January 19, 2005

VOTING WHILE BLACK (AND BROWN AND RED)

How the color of your skin still determines whether or not your vote countsby Jordan Green

If you are African American, Latino or Native American and voted in the 2004 presidential election that allowed George W. Bush to keep the White House, you did so with a higher likelihood that your vote wouldn’t be counted than if you were white.

That analysis comes from a review of residual voting statistics in heavily minority counties in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico – that is, the number of people who showed up to vote, but didn’t have a preference for president counted.

But before you assume this means there’s a Jim Crow-style system of electoral exclusion designed to systematically suppress the minority vote, stop. Before you assume this means the election was stolen from John Kerry, stop.

Almost any rigorous examination of the methods of counting votes in Election 2004 by race, party clout and political subdivision suggests that Bush legitimately won reelection. But the absurdity of some of the conspiracy theories thriving in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party shouldn’t distract us from the real flaws in an electoral system that tends to dilute the power of the minority vote. We should be clear that while we have made progress towards making sure every vote counts, the United States still has a long way to go to make sure minority votes count as much as white votes.

To varying degrees, minority voters in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico were less likely to have their votes for president count than their white counterparts in Election 2004. The reasons were complex. They probably include technology, as well as unequal funding for poll workers and voting machines. To some extent, as in New Mexico, intentional disregard for the presidential slate of the ballot also plays a role in diluting minority voting strength.

In Ohio, voting technology seems to have been a strong determinant of how well minority votes were counted. Two heavily Democratic counties in northeast Ohio, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County and Akron’s Summit County, had abnormally high residual voting rates: 2.0 ercent and 1.9 percent, respectively. Both used antiquated punch-card voting machines. In two other populous Democratic counties in northern Ohio, Mahoning and Lucas, votes for president were much more likely to count. Mahoning County, home of Youngstown, which uses ES&S’ touch-screenvoting machines, had a residual voting rate of 1.1 percent. Lucas County, which encompasses Toledo and uses mostly optical scan machines, had a residual voting rate of 0.6 percent.

Some of the residual vote can be chalked up to voters intentionally choosing to vote for none of the presidential candidates. About 30 percent of votes not cast for a presidential candidate can be attributed to intentional neglect, according to a 2001 report by the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project report. Their estimate is based on exit polling data from previous elections.

Most of the residual vote, however, results from voters who believe they’ve expressed their democratic choice who accidentally vote for two candidates, or accidentally vote for no candidate because a punch card machine doesn’t fully perforate the card, an optical scan machine doesn’t pick up a mark, or a touch-screen voting machine skips past the presidential slate page before the voter can make a choice. Touch-screen machines at least have the advantage of not allowing voters to choose two candidates, thus eliminating the opportunity for over-voting.

If there is one place in Ohio where the structural racism of spoiled ballots might wrest the presidency from a Democratic candidate, it is Cuyahoga County. Heavily unionized, battered by recent industrial job loss, and 27 percent black, the northeastern county is the largest reserve of Democratic votes in the state. Combining majority black Cleveland with its vanilla suburbs, the county delivered 33,262 votes to Kerry. As the largest county in the state and the 19th largest in the nation, Cuyahoga also produced the most residual votes of any county in Ohio: 12,933. Assuming the Voting Technology Project rule is correct in its estimation that 30 percent of the residual vote can be attributed to intentional neglect of the presidential slate of the ticket, and considering the share of votes that went to each candidate, a conservative estimate would restore 6,337 votes for Kerry in Cuyahoga County. Factor in an estimated 2,640 votes lost by Bush in the undercount, and Kerry might well have lost 3,697 votes.

Notwithstanding the fact that Bush appears to have legitimately won the election, an analysis of the residual vote in Cuyahoga County does indicate that ballot spoilage disproportionately disenfranchised African-American voters. In Cuyahoga County cities, ownships and villages where whites constitute a majority, the average residual voting rate was 1.4 percent. But take majority black Cleveland and a half dozen majority black municipalities like East Cleveland and Warrensville Heights as a whole and the residual voting rate jumps to 2.7 percent. Voters in majority-black Cleveland and other majority-black municipalities in Cuyahoga County were almost twice as likely to lose their vote for president as voters in the county’s predominantly white suburbs.

The voting patterns and ballot spoilage rates in Cuyahoga County’s black communities suggest that in a much closer election, minority vote suppression – especially with the kind of vote challenger campaigns the Ohio GOP threatened as late as the day before the election – could have the effect of fouling the result. Small though it was, the county’s net vote gain for Kerry was concentrated in the predominantly African-American urban core, not in the white suburbs where the vote was more evenly split between Kerry and Bush, and where the residual voting rate was smaller.

In communities such as Bedford Heights and Warrensville Heights, both upwards of 90 percent black, voters favored Kerry to Bush, 95-5. Restoring spoiled ballots for those two communities, Cleveland and four other majority-black municipalities would likely give Kerry a net gain of 2,387 votes. In contrast, the county’s majority white communities – ranging from 60 percent white Shaker Heights where the Democratic candidate won 77 percent of the vote, to 99 percent white Hunting Valley which yielded only 27 percent of the vote to the Democrat – would net Kerry would only 769 votes.

Of course, because of the right to a secret ballot, it’s usually impossible to go back and ask particular voters to whom they really intended to give their vote. The one exception is when voters check off the candidate of their choice and also write the candidate’s name on the ballot as a write-in candidate. An optical scanning machine would automatically reject such a vote, but any election worker of reasonable intelligence who examined the ballot would recognize the voter made a clear choice.

At least one other Democratic area of the state also appears to have taken a hit in high residual voting rates, potentially cutting into Kerry’s column. The Dayton Daily News reported in November that the residual voting rate in the 231 precincts that supported Kerry in Dayton’s Montgomery County averaged 2.8 percent, but only 1.6 percent in the 354 precincts where Bush won majorities. Overall, the residual voting rate in Montgomery County, which used punch-card
ballots, stood at 2.0 percent. In two precincts where majorities voted for Bush, 27 percent of ballots cast did not register a vote for president, although undercounts tended to hit Democratic voting areas to a greater extent than Republican strongholds overall.

Comparisons between counties in Ohio suggest the inferior technology of punch-card voting machines disenfranchises voters without regard to race. Overall, rural Appalachian Republican counties appear to have been affected just as badly if not worse than the northeastern Democratic bases where union and African-American support for Kerry was strong. In the 10 counties that Kerry carried by the largest margins, 1.4 percent of all ballots cast did not register a vote for president. In the top 10 Ohio Republican counties, the residual voting rate was even higher, at 1.9 percent.

continued in PDF format here
http://www.southernstudies.org/reports/VotingWhileBlackJan05.pdf

(again, not election related but Coulter is so stupid that I couldn't resist.)

Countdown Oddball - Coulter humiliates self on Canadian TV

Windows Media (100k)
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/olbermann_coulter_050203-01.wmv

Bush/Rove carry election campaign discrimination practices into Social Security propaganda campaign.

Friday, February 4, 2005; Page A08

Some Barred From Bush's North Dakota Speech

Not everyone was welcome, apparently, at President Bush's speech in North Dakota yesterday.

The Fargo Forum reported that a city commissioner, a liberal radio producer, a deputy Democratic campaign manager and a number of university professors were among more than 40 area residents who were barred from attending the Bush event. Their names were on a list supplied to workers at two ticket distribution sites.

The "Bush blacklist" is "frightening," Tom Athans, chief executive of Democracy Radio, said after learning that a producer for the liberal "Ed Schultz Show" was among those barred. "To blacklist a local citizen because he produces a radio program at odds with the political agenda of the White House is dangerous for democracy."

City Commissioner Linda Coates, whose husband was also on the list, told the newspaper that the list "is very revealing as to what this administration is all about."

The White House said the list may have come from volunteers; it did not come from the White House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62221-2005Feb3.html

Friday, February 4, 2005

Printer fails to satisfy e-voting activists

Diebold's e-voting printer spits out
paper ballots for votes cast
on computers.

SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- Three months after the presidential election, one of the nation's biggest makers of touch-screen voting machines has created a companion printer that spits out paper records.

The prototype that Diebold Inc. is now touting is exactly what some critics of the ATM-like machines have been demanding for several years.

Even so, paper records alone are not enough to satisfy computer scientists who say transparency in the electronic machines' design and software must complement paper backups.

The Diebold prototype seeks to reassure voters by displaying their selections under a piece of glass or plastic alongside the touch-screen machine. If they spot a problem, they can cancel the ballot and start over. And while voters can't touch the paper records, elections officials will be able to use them to verify close elections.

"Results in the last election reflected the accuracy and security of the (paperless) system," said Diebold spokesman David Bear. "But the fact of the matter is, there are some states that are demanding printers."

After months of criticism by computer scientists that electronic voting systems are unreliable, California and Illinois recently passed laws requiring a paper trail for electronic ballots, and at least 20 other states have considered similar legislation.

Critics of North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold say the AccuView Printer Module is a step in the right direction but doesn't address the potential for buggy software or malfunctioning hardware that could misrecord votes or expose voting systems to hackers, deletions or other disasters.

The printers are only valuable to the extent that counties use them, and critics worry that county elections officials with tight budgets may not opt for them.

Computer scientists also are concerned that the handful of private laboratories licensed to certify voting equipment, including the printer module, still operate in secret and without any federal guidelines.

"It's a very, very small step forward in terms of security of elections," said Avi Rubin, technical director of the Information Security Institute of Johns Hopkins University and co-author of a scathing report on Diebold machines.

Like many computer scientists, he thinks paperless voting systems should be banned.

"I'd say a Diebold machine with a paper trail is better than a Diebold machine without a paper trail, but that's as positive I can be about it," Rubin said.

Diebold stock price rose sharply in the months after the presidential election, when the machines fared far better than critics had predicted. But executives warned investors last week not to expect more dramatic improvements from its voting equipment division. The company's stock hit a 52-week high of $57.75 in mid-January, and closed at $54.91 on Thursday.

About 40 million Americans cast electronic ballots during the Nov. 2 election, but only 2,600 touch screens in Nevada -- made by Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. -- and a few other prototypes around the country produced paper records.


continued
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/02/04/evoting.printers.ap/index.html

Friday, February 04, 2005

Republican Bush-Appointee Paul DeGregorio of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Slams The Nashua Advocate -- Read Our Response Here

By ADVOCATE STAFF


It wasn't enough for Mr. DeGregorio that we wrote an entire, fully-sourced article about him, in which our readership had every opportunity to compare our analysis of his actions with reporting of same in other news outlets. It wasn't enough that we've meticulously tracked the progress of the election reform movement in the United States over the past sixty days and have found little evidence that the primary body charged with furthering this cause -- the U.S. Election Assistance Commission -- has been of "assistance" to the movement in any manner whatsoever.

It isn't enough for Mr. DeGregorio, apparently, that we have used his own words and the words of the Election Assistance Commission itself to draw our conclusions, nor that we've been tracking the respective contributions of Republicans and Democrats to the election reform movement on a nearly day-to-day basis, and can judge for ourselves -- without any assistance from appointees of the Bush Administration -- which party has shown the most concrete commitment to election reform.

Here, then, we present the "unedited" Mr. DeGregorio -- or someone quite credibly claiming to be Mr. DeGregorio -- as he offers this screed against The Nashua Advocate, which can be found in its original location on our site by clicking here. Our response to Mr. DeGregorio follows his comments.





read The Advocates full response:
http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/2005/02/news-republican-bush-appointee-paul.html

There are many videos here, but I'm still waiting for Faye and Dzika's to be added. :)

Link: http://www.votecobb.org/video/

Feb 04, 2005

Judge allows challenge to Washington state governor's race to go forward

WENATCHEE, Wash. (AP) -- A judge allowed a court challenge to Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire's excruciatingly close election to go forward Friday, rejecting arguments that the dispute can only be resolved by the Legislature.
...
On Friday, the Democrats argued that any challenge to the election belongs in the Legislature. GOP attorney Robert Maguire countered that the state constitution and state law say the courts -- not partisan lawmakers -- should hear the case.
...
The judge rejected the Democrats' argument, along with their claim that the case should go straight to the state Supreme Court.
...
The Democrats are defending the election results, saying that Rossi does not have enough proof to nullify the election and that a revote would be unconstitutional.
...
The state constitution says contested elections for governor "shall be decided by the Legislature in such a manner as shall be determined by law."

"Through this sentence, the constitution imposes a mandatory duty on only one branch of government -- the Legislature," the Democrats said in court papers.

The Republicans countered that the words "as shall be determined by law" clearly delegate the task to the courts.

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2005/02/04/nation_world/news23.txt

Click to take action on these important issues, then kick this thread, please, so everyone can help. Thanks!


Send a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger regarding his budget. Tell the Governor you do not want him piling debt onto our grandchildren just so he can pursue the Bush/Rove/Norquist extremist agenda.Click here to Speak Out! http://ga4.org/campaign/Budget05

Senator Kennedy says “It’s time to take the target off our troops.” Sign the petition calling for American troops to come home by the end of 2006. http://action.democraticmajority.com/petition /

• Email your Members of Congress and ask them to strengthen Social Security, not weaken it with private accounts - go to: http://capwiz.com/aarp/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=5744286

Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to explain why George Bush's plan to cut promised Social Security benefits is wrong. The DNC has made it really easy to do, just go to http://www.democrats.org/action/200501050001.html

• Join AARP's fight to keep Social Security strong at: http://www.aarp.org/tools/partner?url=http://capwiz.com/aarp/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=5744286

Save our National Forests

If influential leaders like California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stand by silently, President Bush will eliminate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects unspoiled national forest lands from coast to coast. Tell Gov. Schwarzenegger to stand up for California's and all of America's national forests. For what you can do go to http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp


IMPEACH BUSH!
Ramsey Clark has almost half a million signatures.
Please sign and forward this link to others:
http://www.votetoimpeach.org /

More on how you can help persuade Congress to impeach Bush:
http://www.impeach-bush-now.org /

SAVE OUR RIGHT TO SUE CORPORATIONS!
Tell Congress: Laws Should Protect People, Not Corporations
Petition: http://www.care2.com/go/z/21141
Congress could act soon on the so-called Class Action
Fairness Act, S. 5. This particular piece of legislative
"reform" would limit the rights of citizens to file class
action lawsuits when they are victimized by corporations
that pollute our communities or hide the truth about the
harm their products cause. (HOT--this may be voted on in Senate any day now)


INVESTIGATE PAYOLA PUNDITS
From FreePress.net
Ask your Senators & Congressional member to investigate "payola pundits" (journalists taking taxpayer money to promote Administration propaganda): http://www.freepress.net/action/

PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY
From Working Families:
Take action to protect Social Security by signing the petition:
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/171nc991rcrI /

SAVE THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE
Several media reform groups are pushing forward with plans to eliminate media.
Please sign and forward!
http://www.fairnessdoctrine.com /


SUPPORT THE VOTING INTEGRITY & VERIFICATION ACT OF 2005
Tell Congress: Support real electoral reform:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b= ...

FUND UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND
Ask President Bush to stop blocking critical funding to the United Nations Population Fund. These funds could prevent 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 induced abortions, and 4,700 maternal deaths each year. Act here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/21143

IMPROVE ACCESS TO MORNING AFTER PILL
Over-the-counter access of the morning-after pill could prevent up to half of all unintended pregnancies, and is critical for victims of sexual assault. Urge the FDA to do the right thing now:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/21145

STRENGTHEN SOCIAL SECURITY
From CARE2: Social Security: Strengthen Protections for Families,
Not Wall Street. Petition: http://www.care2.com/go/z/21147


Thanks to Liberty Belle here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1567444

02/02/05

Republicans Out Themselves Trying To Prove Democratic Vote Fraud

In live internet broadcasts last week, a Master of Discovery appointed by the Texas Legislature to investigate allegations of a stolen election in West Houston indeed found some 'fact patterns' that looked scandalous, but you can't tell it by reading any press reports. The hearing was supposed to look for evidence of voter fraud committed by Democratic voters. Instead, every time one of these curious patterns emerged, it was a hint of possible fraud not by Democratic voters, but against them.

In the end, it appears that the Republican challenge not only failed to prove 'widespread fraud' among Democrat voters of West Houston, but actually served up a fine public record of practices by Republicans and unknown others that would suppress their rights.

But you had to be watching the hearings in their 19-hour entirety to know any of the above, because according to inscrutable laws of Texas journalistic selection, nothing of this sort has yet been counted as news. How could so many eyes of Texas be upon the hearing, and yet so little be seen? If this is the kind of reporting we get about publicly broadcast events, what kind of independent reporting can we expect during this legislative season session about anything happening behind the scenes?


http://sensiblyeclectic.com/b2evolution/blogs/index.php/mainsite/2005/02/02/so_many_watching_so_little_seen

February 03, 2005

NAACP Finds More Votes Than Voters In GOP Suberbs!

Hats off to the local NAACP for digging in the records of largely Republican areas and finding some of the same mistakes that they are belly aching over in Milwaukee. The communities that they found problems in were: Oak Creek, Hartland, Vernon, and Lac La Belle. Where are the investigations into these places? Why are they singling out and disparaging Milwaukee? Could it be P-O-L-I-T-C-S?

State GOP are pretending that there is some massive voting fraud in Milwaukee when it is likely just human error and an overwhelmed system. Now they are using this as a rallying cry to suppress democratic leaning voters....excuse me...they want to require voter ID at the polls.

source: http://coryjay.blogs.com/eye_on_wisconsin/2005/02/naacp_finds_mor.html

February 03, 2005

OK...Why Would the GOP Chief Stick His Nose Into the 35th State Senate Race NOW?

State Senator Joe Bruno and his legal team have stuck their collective noses into preventing a final count in the 35th State Senate District race between Nick and Andrea. As this soap opera continues, take a gander at how the Court of Appeals ruled. Below - the ruling that OK'd the counting of the 228 additional votes. The footnotes are found just below their references:



I say again: will the Governor stick his nose into this race and call for a special election???


source: http://yonkerscitizen.typepad.com/citizen/2005/02/okhow_did_the_c.html

by vince on 02/04/2005

Senator Durbin's Email Response to Nov. 2 Election Problems

I received the following email Senator Durbin this morning.




source: http://blog.democrats.com/node/3136

HERE'S A POLL THAT REALLY HAS SOMETHING TO SAY -- ABOUT US

By David M. Shribman

New polls come out every day. They measure the president's approval ratings, they take the nation's temperature, they measure the effect of the economy on the public psyche. They're interesting in the way a Hershey's Kiss is delicious: The pleasing effect lasts but a moment. They're not fascinating in the way taco chips with cilantro-laced salsa are addictive; the sampling of one does not make a second tasting irresistible. Mostly the findings are meaningless mumbo-jumbo.
...
This Rosetta Stone of statistics was uncovered by the Pew Research Center and is buried on page 14 of a dutiful 23-page report that didn't exactly dominate the American conversation the last few days. No matter. A look at these numbers and the whole world -- well, maybe not the whole world, but surely the political world -- suddenly makes sense.
...
But the new poll, taken last month, shows that those questions, all bunched together as the leading hints to predicting party identification five years ago, no longer are the pass keys to political understanding. It also tells us that partisan gaps about government have actually narrowed, in part because Republicans, who now control the government, are less skeptical about government than they were only five years ago.
...
Right now your response to this assertion is by far the surest predictor of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican: The best way to ensure peace is through military strength. As an indicator of party preference, it is nearly 2 1/2 times more potent than any of the values (government's waste, regulation's importance or homosexuality's acceptability) that held sway only a half-decade ago. The second-leading indicator (itself still more potent in 2004 than any of the other values in 1999) is your response to this notion: We should all be willing to fight for our country, whether it is right or wrong.

The message here is how national security concerns have raced to the top of America's concerns and how these attitudes have been grafted onto the two parties' characters. This reinforces rather than ameliorates the party divide; last November's exit polls showed that 79 percent of those who supported President Bush said they believed the Iraq war had improved American security -- while 88 percent of those who supported Sen. John F. Kerry (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts said they believed the war had not improved national security.

So everything you heard from the punditocracy about the 2004 election being driven by values was right. But, as usual, God is in the details, and in this case God (or, more precisely, people's views about religious and cultural issues) had very little to do with it.
...
Now to the difficult part. A facile reading of this would suggest that if the Democrats want to prevail in next year's midterm congressional elections, they ought to have a midnight conversion to militarism as a guiding philosophy. Not so fast.
...
Remember that the Democrats got a lot of votes in November. So many, in fact, that the following is true: Both the Republicans and Democrats got more of their market share than either Coca-Cola or Pepsi. A small change in the world -- weariness over continuing losses in Iraq, for example, or some startling and unexpected event -- could shift the public's views.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ucds/20050204/cm_ucds/heresapollthatreallyhassomethingtosayaboutus

Friday, February 04, 2005

Allawi faces defeat as Iraqi cleric's team leads the polls

Wait a second here now? Weren't the exit polls in the US showing that Kerry was going to win wrong? So what makes you think that the results are going to be different in a US election in Iraq?

http://thisiswhatiamtalkingabout.blogspot.com/2005/02/allawi-faces-defeat-as-iraqi-clerics.html

---

04 February 2005


The coalition of Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi interim Prime Minister appointed by the Americans, is heading for election defeat at the hands of a list backed by the country's senior Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, partial results released yesterday indicate.

The results from Baghdad - where Mr Allawi was expected to do well - show the one-time CIA protégé with only 140,364 votes compared to 350,069 for the alliance, which is headed by a Shia cleric who lived in Iran for many years.

Among the mostly five Shia provinces tallied so far, the alliance's lead is even wider. It has 1.1 million of the 1.6 million votes counted at 10 per cent of polling centres in the capital and the Shia south. Mr Allawi's list was second with 360,500.

"Large numbers of Shia voted along sectarian lines," said Sharif Ali bin Hussein, head of the Constitutional Monarchy Party. "Americans are in for a shock. A lot of people in the country are going to wake up in shock."

Safwat Rashid, a member of Iraq's Independent Election Commission, and international poll officials warned observers not to read too much into the numbers, which did not include Sunni or Kurdish provinces.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=607555

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Bogus Ballots

Bogus - Counterfeit or fake; not genuine: bogus money; bogus tasks. Yahoo! Dictionary

Beware of folks who call the truth 'sour grapes' when it gets in the way of their agenda. Counterfeit or fake results were used to certify the 2004 election in Bush-Cheney’s favor. The current president of the United States of America is bogus. The State of the Union is bogus because the man elected president based on winning the highest number of qualified electoral votes is not giving the address. The Ohio election was so corrupt it should have been disqualified.

The evidence is powerful enough that if the Black American victims of this vote fraud were White Americans, it would evoke a cry so loud that it would send a shutter down the spine of America.

As you will learn when you read the report, Jim Crow is alive and well. There are pictures of him in Ohio. He’s seen in the average 4-5 hour lines much of the time outdoors in bad weather, to vote in Black Democratic communities while it took 10 minutes to vote in others.

Our shattered democracy is in need of healing.

Please, read the compelling material presented to congress challenging the Ohio electors titled PRESERVING DEMOCRACY: WHAT WENT WRONG IN OHIO, Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff. This 102 page report offers documentation on just how bad the system is broken and who is benefiting, using Ohio as an example. Share what you have learned and demand that your elected and appointed officials know that the people demand truth in the election process.

Preserving Democracy proves that there were so many voting problems in Ohio during the presidential election of 2004, it is impossible to get an accurate count. One person one vote is no longer how the president is chosen. The emperor is naked for all to see who choose to look at the evidence.

Preserving Democracy reveals many areas where the election in Ohio is seriously flawed: Conflicts of Interest; Voting Machine Placement – Pro Bush-Cheney; Spoiled Votes; Faulty Machines and Hanging Chads; Voter Intimidation and Mis-information; Disenfranchised Hundreds of Thousands of Ohio Citizens; Criminal Actions; and Computer Voting companies, Diebold and Triad, with ties to Bush-Cheney, castrating hundreds of thousands of votes.

Are we free or not? Does our vote count or not?

source: http://www.nayer.blogspot.com/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x317796

JIM WASSERMAN, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- Secretary of State Kevin Shelley was to announce his resignation Friday amid investigations into his handling of federal election funds, questionable campaign contributions and bad behavior, a source close to Shelley told The Associated Press.

Shelley, 49, was leaving his $131,250-a-year post before having to testify later this month at a Legislature audit committee hearing about his handling of millions of dollars in federal elections funds.

Shelley, the son of former San Francisco Mayor and U.S. Rep. Jack Shelley, was once one of California's rising political stars. His move paves the way for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, to name a replacement for the Democrat.

The former state Assemblyman is the first statewide elected official to quit since June 2002, when Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, a Republican, resigned after accusations that he tapped millions of dollars in earthquake funds to further his political career.


More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/n/a/2005/02/04/state1854EST0105.DTL


Thanks to merh here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x317441


and Newsjock in LBN here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1213365#1213515

Liberty Belle posted this in the LBN related thread.

It's official CA's Secretary of State, Kevin Shelly, has just resigned.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/05/shelley05.TMP

Take these actions now to protect fair elections in California!

Schwarzenegger will appoint a replacement that must be approved by the CA Legislature. If he appoints a Republican, we could wind up with rigged elections since the Secretary of State can buy voting machines, withhold machines in minority districts, create cumbersome rules designed to purge Democratic voters off the rolls and make it harder for them to register or have votes counted, thwart recount efforts, etc. -- just like in Ohio and Florida.

URGENT!
Please call, write and e-mail Arnold to say that if he appoints a Republican, you will urge that he be recalled for thwarting our democratic process.
See contact info below.

Call, fax and e-mail your State Senator and State Assembly represesntatives. Insist that they vote AGAINST any Republican Arnold may nominate for Secretary of STate. Make clear that this is a line-in-the-sand vote. Say that a vote for ANY Republican means you will do everything possible to defeat this legislator in the next primary election. Vote NO on this GOP attempt at a coup to rig elections!
Link below to find your legislator.

Call the DNC . Tell Terry McAuliff to get the national party to pressure the CA Dems on this one. Also call Howard Dean ask him to get the DFA moving on this. Call Moveon, Progressive Democrats, and other progressive groups, too. Forward this e-mail everywhere!

Contact info:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633

To send an Electronic Mail please visit:
http://www.govmail.ca.gov

Link to find your legislators and state legislative leaders:
http://www.legislature.ca.gov/legislators_and_districts/legislators/your_legislator.html

Mail or Phone the DNC
Mailing Address:

Democratic National Committee
430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003

Main Phone Number:

202-863-8000

Email the DNC www.dnc.org/contact/
If anyone has links for party leaders, other Democratic clubs, DNC members, etc., please post and contact them, too.

LT GOV CRUZ BUSTAMENTE:

Lieutenant Governor Cruz M. Bustamante, please feel free to mail his office at: Capitol Central Valley Los Angeles San Diego
State Capitol,
Room 1114 2550 Mariposa Mall,
Room 5006 300 South Spring Street,
Suite 12702 701 "B" Street,
Suite 376
Sacramento, CA
95814 Fresno, CA
93721 Los Angeles,CA
90013 San Diego, CA
92101
Telephone:
(916) 445-8994 Telephone:
(559) 445-5501 Telephone:
(213) 897-7086 Telephone:
(619) 525-4305
Fax:
(916) 323-4998
Fax:
(559) 445-5415 Fax:
(213) 897-7156 Fax:
(619) 525-4071

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Howard Dean: You can also contact us by phone at 802.651.3200
www.DemocracyforAmerica.com

January/February 2005

The Emperor's New Hump
The New York Times killed a story that could have changed the election—because it could have changed the election

By Dave Lindorff

In the weeks leading up to the November 2 election, the New York Times was abuzz with excitement. Besides the election itself, the paper’s reporters were hard at work on two hot investigative projects, each of which could have a major impact on the outcome of the tight presidential race.

One week before Election Day, the Times (10/25/04) ran a hard-hitting and controversial exposé of the Al-Qaqaa ammunition dump—identified by U.N. inspectors before the war as containing 400 tons of special high-density explosives useful for aircraft bombings and as triggers for nuclear devices, but left unguarded and available to insurgents by U.S. forces after the invasion.

On Thursday, just three days after that first exposé, the paper was set to run a second, perhaps more explosive piece, exposing how George W. Bush had worn an electronic cueing device in his ear and probably cheated during the presidential debates.



It's clear even from unenhanced photos that George W. Bush has been wearing some kind of object under his clothing, both during the debates and at other public appearances. The enhancements done by NASA scientist Robert Nelson show a rectangular object with a long "tail"; in some shots a wire leading over Bush's shoulder is visible. This configuration closely resembles a PTT (Push To Talk) receiver with an induction earpiece, a device used by some actors, newscasters and politicians to allow for inaudible voice communication in a public setting. The particular model pictured here (which does not appear to be the exact type Bush wore) was manufactured by Resistance Technology, Inc. of Arden Hills, Minn.

The so-called Bulgegate story had been getting tremendous attention on the Internet. Stories about it had also run in many mainstream papers, including the New York Times (10/9/04, 10/18/04) and Washington Post (10/9/04), but most of these had been light-hearted. Indeed, the issue had even made it into the comedy circuit, including the monologues of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jon Stewart and a set of strips by cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

That the story hadn’t gotten more serious treatment in the mainstream press was largely thanks to a well-organized media effort by the Bush White House and the Bush/Cheney campaign to label those who attempted to investigate the bulge as "conspiracy buffs" (Washington Post, 10/9/04). In an era of pinched budgets and an equally pinched notion of the role of the Fourth Estate, the fact that the Kerry camp was offering no comment on the matter—perhaps for fear of earning a "conspiracy buff" label for the candidate himself—may also have made reporters skittish. Jeffrey Klein, a founding editor of Mother Jones magazine, told Mother Jones (online edition, 10/30/04) he had called a number of contacts at leading news organizations across the country, and was told that unless the Kerry campaign raised the issue, they couldn’t pursue it.

"Totally off base"

The Times’ effort to get to the bottom of the matter through a serious investigation seemed to be a striking exception. That investigation, however, despite extensive reporting over several weeks by three Times reporters, never ran. Now, like the mythic weapons of mass destruction that were the raison d’etre for the Iraq War, the Times is thus far claiming that the Bush Bulgegate story never existed in the first place.

Referring to a FAIR press release (11/5/04) about the spiked story, Village Voice press critic Jarrett Murphy wrote (11/16/04), "A Times reporter alleged to have worked on such a piece says FAIR was totally off base: The paper never pursued the story."

Murphy told Extra! that his source at the nation’s self-proclaimed paper of record—whom he would not identify—told him the information about the bulge seen under Bush’s jacket during the debates, provided by a senior astronomer and photo imaging specialist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, had been tossed onto the "nutpile," and was never researched further.

In fact, several sources, including a journalist at the Times, have told Extra! that the paper put a good deal of effort into this important story about presidential competence and integrity; they claim that a story was written, edited and scheduled to run on several different days, before senior editors finally axed it at the last minute on Wednesday evening, October 27. A Times journalist, who said that Times staffers were "pretty upset" about the killing of the story, claims the senior editors felt Thursday was "too close" to the election to run such a piece. Emails from the Times to the NASA scientist corroborate these sources’ accounts.


an interesting story but too long to post here.

read the entire story:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2012

I had to re-posted a pile of them on the Reform Thread.

Thanks for finding this stuff.

Oh, and ...Kick (n/t)