Friday 3/4 Election Fraud, Reform, & Updates Thread

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=203x337653

The Federal Election Commission found that Davis, a Boone County Republican elected in November, failed to properly identify contributors who turned out to be the children (ages 4 and 5) of Boone County businessman Bill Shehan, a Davis supporter.

DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x338349

Direct article link.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050304/NEWS0103/503040372/1059/news01

"Augustine admitted to the commission she used state employees and equipment to run her 2002 reelection campaign, which resulted in the largest fine ever levied by the panel."

DU thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x338350

Direct article link

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2005/03/03/93714.php?sps=rgj.com&sch=LocalNews&sp1=rgj&sp2=News&sp3=Local+News&sp5=RGJ.com&sp6=news&sp7=local_news

3/3/2005 9:00 pm

Busy Day -- Gannon Resolution of Inquiry; Election Reform Comes to House Floor; Defending a Woman's Right to Choose

Gannon Resolution

First, I, along with Ranking Members Slaughter (Rules), Waxman (Government Reform), Thompson (Homeland Security), and Rangel (Ways & Means), along with with 22 other Democrats introduced a Resolution of Inquiry for the House to demand that the Department of Justice and Homeland Security Department turn over the documents explaining how and why a fake journalist was able to get unlimited access to the White House press briefings. Raw Story has a good low down on the resolution. The bottom line is for the first time this Congress, we will get an up or down vote on this matter. Even better yet, the entire debate will be simulcast on the Web on the House Judiciary Web Site. I will let you know the time and date of the debate so you can watch it, but under House Rules it must occur within 14 legislative days (we usually have only three legislative days/week).

Election Reform Comes to the House Floor

Second, I, along with Rep. Maxine Waters offered an amendment on the House floor that represented the first time we were able to vote on a post-Ohio election reform issue. I thought Republicans would have seen the logic in assuring that we have a fair allocation of machines between the cities and suburbs, but I was unfortunately wrong. The Stakeholder has a summary describing how the entire debate went down today. But despite the defeat on the floor, I am proud that we finally got a vote on at least one issue, and we can assess some accountability on the issue. However, I assure you, we will not give up with this one vote.

Woman's Right to Choose Under Assault in House Judiciary Committee -- Again

Finally, the House Judiciary Committee today held hearings on the so-called "Child Interstate Abortion Act" (H.R. 748). This is the latest weapon in the anti-choice arsenal. Since 1998, the Republicans have pushed legislation that would criminalize anyone other than a parent - including grandparents and adult siblings -who accompanies a young woman across state lines for an abortion if the home state’s parental consent law has not been met. H.R. 748 includes all of the bad old provisions of the previously named “Child Custody Protection Act”, but also with new vast new infringements on a woman’s right to choose.

The legislation is unconstitutional, dangerous, and impossibly complex. It is unconstitutional because it (i) does not have any exception to protect a woman’s health and contains a dangerously narrow life exception; (ii) does not provide young women with a viable option of a judicial bypass; and (iii) violates women’s right to travel – all in violation of Supreme Court precedent

It is dangerous because it takes away safe alternatives to parental involvement -- such as turning to close relatives, close family friends, and religious counselors -- and replaces them with life-endangering ones, such as hitchhiking, self-induced, or back-alley abortions. It is impossibly complex because no fewer than nine different scenarios of parental notice will be imposed on young women and doctors across the country. Even worse, doctors will need to learn and enforce the laws of 49 other state’s laws , and in some cases the legislation would actually require the doctor to provide in- person notice to a patient’s parent in another state. This is a bad bill that must be stopped, and I will be fighting it every step of the way.

-- J.C.

Link: http://www.johnconyers.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={B166974A-C132-4EC3-9682-FE6E08C1A584}

THE OHIO RECOUNT SAGA CONTINUES: Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell says he needs to be allowed to take depositons of John Kerry and John Edwards in connection with the ongoing presidential-election recount litigation in the Buckeye State.

In a court filing made public this week, Blackwell, a Republican, argued that Kerry and Edwards should be questioned under oath to determine whether the Democratic Party national-ticket members should continue to be allowed to participate in the recount case.

Blackwell served as the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in Ohio in 2004.

"Mr. Blackwell's contention that he needs to depose senators Kerry and Edwards is a laughable and blatantly political move. Mr. Blackwell has refused to be deposed himself about the Ohio election, has refused to appear before Congress and has refused to answer questions from members of the House Judiciary Committee who have been investigating allegations of election fraud," said Blair Bobier, the media director for the David Cobb Green Party presidential campaign, which is one of the two original parties to the suit.

"To suggest that Kerry and Edwards should be deposed to address a legal technicality while Mr. Blackwell continues to avoid any public scrutiny of his own misconduct in the Ohio election is the height of hypocrisy," Bobier said this week.

Link: http://www.augustafreepress.com/stories/storyReader$32290

40th Anniversary of the historical Selma-to-Montgomery Re-enactment March

The SCLC and others prepare to celebrate the upcoming
40th Anniversary of the historical Selma-to-Montgomery Re-enactment March

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) will once again join the National Voting Rights Museum, and Montgomery Friends of the Historic Trail this year for the commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery Re-enactment March.

Activities will commence in Selma on March 3, 2005 with Jubilee educational festivities to include marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 6, 2005 in commemoration of "Bloody Sunday." SCLC, who has coordinated the reenactment of the march every fifth anniversary since the 20th anniversary, will begin the reenactment of the 54 mile trek from Selma to Montgomery with stop-overs at historical landmarks along the trail. From March 7-11, 2005, people from around the country will reenact the 1965 march with stopovers at campsites in Selma, Lowndes County and Montgomery.

As marchers arrive in Montgomery, they will be welcomed on the grounds of St. Jude as those who marched before them in 1965 and will entertained by the likes of Sandy Patton and the Swiss Jazz Ensemble, George Washington Carver Elementary Choir, Alabama State University Gospel Choir, and Bobby Jackson, amongst others during the "Stars for Freedom Tribute."
All of the original1965 performers have been invited as honored guests, and local artists plan to play a tribute to the original musicians as they replicate the 1965 repertoire.

The First March from Selma - March 7, 1965
When 525 people started a planned march to demand fairness in voter registration from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on Sunday March 7, 1965, it was called a demonstration. When state troopers met the demonstrators at the edge of the city by the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were tear-gassed, clubbed, ridiculed, spat on, whipped, and trampled by horses. Television and newspapers carried pictures of the event that became known as "Bloody Sunday," and these images sickened and outraged people throughout the nation. Within 48 hours, demonstrations in support of the marchers were held in 80 cities, and many of the nation's religious leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., flew to Selma. After one more failed attempt, King led a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery on March 9, 1965 where thousands of people, representing many races and nationalities, moved before the eyes of the world in demonstration to guarantee the right to vote.

Then on Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time the marchers reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000-strong. Less than five months after the last of the three marches, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson responded to these events and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted--the best possible redress for the grievances caused by the horrific events of “Bloody Sunday.”

“We must never forget our past. There is nothing better than putting folks face-to-face with history,” says SCLC President Charles Steele, Jr. “To retrace the steps of Dr. King and other civil rights heroes is an experience that is far better than any lesson found between the pages of a book. Most importantly, this is an experience that is crucial for our youth to participate in for it offers them an opportunity to better understand the inspiring words of Dr. King as well as to get the opportunity to retrace the historical steps across the Edmund Pettus Bridge themselves and walk the very same trail, which ran with blood on that fateful Sunday.”
Today, the March on Selma stands as a testament to the sacrifices made in the triumph to preserve the "right to vote" and a tribute to the thousands of people, from all nationalities and walks of life, who refused to turn back and step away from the opposition, but instead, preserved and brought about one of the most crucial enactments in American history, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Link: http://sclcnational.org/net/content/item.aspx?s=21431.0.12.2607

Area students join Upton in retracing rights march

Congressman among leaders of annual pilgrimage to Alabama

By JEFF ROMIG
Tribune Staff Writer

Give most high school students an opportunity to miss class, and they'll take it.

But give most high school principals the opportunity to excuse a student from class, and it's often a different story.

Today, the latter is happening at both Benton Harbor and St. Joseph high schools as each school's principal has signed off on excused absences for three of their students.

Benton Harbor High School seniors Ardale Clark and Cash McKinney and St. Joseph Senior High School sophomore John Sendor will miss class to travel to Alabama with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, for the seventh annual Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage.

The boys will join a delegation, which Upton is co-chairing, on visits to civil rights landmarks in Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma.

More: http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/03/04/local.20050304-sbt-LOCL-A1-Area_students_join.sto

Impact of voting rights march still felt 40 years later

By Sebastian Kitchen, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser
People from throughout the world will meet in central Alabama this weekend to remember the 40th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" and the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

Alabama state troopers swing nightsticks to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala., in this March 7, 1965 photo.

Historians, civil rights leaders and former presidents believe the march and Bloody Sunday, in which 17 people were hospitalized after they were beaten by state troopers and local law enforcement officers, galvanized national support for voting rights for all Americans.

Activities to mark the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma continue through March 12, when a reenactment of the march will conclude at the steps of the Alabama state Capitol, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed more than 25,000 people in 1965.

"Though we were traumatized by the horror at the hands of the state and its extralegal apparatus, the posses and vigilantes, we never doubted that the right to vote, one person one vote, would become a reality in the state of Alabama," said Gwen Patton, who helped with the 1965 march and is an organizer of anniversary events in Montgomery, Ala. "And when that happened, it was a joyous day."

More: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-03-bloody-sunday_x.htm

Bush to hold town-hall meeting in Montgomery

Tuesday, March 01, 2005
MARY ORNDORFF
News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON -President Bush will host a town-hall style meeting in Montgomery on March 10 to discuss his plan for reforming Social Security, several Republican sources said Monday.

The session is one in a series of events the president is conducting to convince Americans that drastic change is needed to prevent the federal retirement program from going broke.


The White House has not announced the president's travel schedule, but several Republican sources confirmed that the session will be on the campus of Auburn University Montgomery. Details are being worked out, but it is expected to be similar to the other events, in which tickets were arranged in advance.

AUM is in the 3rd Congressional District, home to Rep. Mike Rogers. While Rogers, a Republican, has applauded the president for tackling the issue of making Social Security solvent, he has not endorsed the idea of allowing younger workers to place some of the taxes they now pay into Social Security in personal retirement accounts.


E-mail: morndorff@bhamnews.com

Link: http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1109672310203150.xml


(Wouldn't it be a shame if some of these same marchers showed up to protest W?)

Here's the link:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x337682>

I will be updating this thread with responses I've received from Holt's office. I hope some of you will take the time to write to them but PLEASE be nice! They are on our side and they are very responsive. There is good and bad news which I'll post later today.

This Pat Oliphant cartoon (from yesterday) appeared in today's SF Chronicle: Bush giving a sermon at the "First Church of the Democratically Self-Righteous" and specifically mentions the Florida vote.

<http://www.ucomics.com/patoliphant/2005/03/03/>

Senior Democratic staff on Capitol Hill lash out at mainstream press, question Dems

3/4/2005

Democratic strategist hits Democrats’ “courage” in policing media

By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor

Senior Democrats in Washington are privately expressing stinging rebukes of the mainstream media’s lack of coverage on recent issues concerning what Democrats see as systematic media manipulation and partisanship, RAW STORY has found.

While few were willing to speak by name, aides and strategists alike made harsh attacks on large media organizations.

For the first time, one Democratic strategist even singled out a specific publication, The Boston Globe, for failing to reprimand reporter Hiawatha Bray. Media Matters for America, a watchdog group, revealed that Bray had made online attacks on Sen. John Kerry and praised President George W. Bush during the presidential campaign.

The same strategist, who spoke only on condition that his name not be used, even went so far as question the “courage” of Democrats in Congress for failing to respond to what he described as a myth–that major media outlets are liberal.

“We’re living in the post-Jeff Gannon era where the left can finally show we know how to fight back and hold the media accountable,” the strategist told RAW STORY. “The right wing spent 30 years telling America about the liberal media, it’s time Democrats found the courage to set the record straight.”

“We need to send a message that closeted right wingers like Hiawatha Bray can’t act with impunity,” he added, “and he’s just the first domino to fall at the allegedly liberal Globe.”

More: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=150

DEAN: LABOR AND DEMS 'INTERTWINED'
By Mark Gruenberg, PAI, ILCA Associate Member

LAS VEGAS (PAI)--For Howard Dean, labor and the Democrats are inseparable.

The new Democratic National Committee chairman told the AFL-CIO Executive Council in Las Vegas that "the fate of organized labor and the fate of the Democratic Party are intertwined."

"We're in this together and we'll succeed or fail together," the former Vermont governor and presidential hopeful said at a March 1 press conference after his closed-door talk with labor's leaders. "When the labor movement is successful, the middle class is successful," he added.

But both Dean and the labor movement have a tough row to hoe in the wake of Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry's loss of the presidency to GOP White House occupant George W. Bush last fall, along with bigger GOP majorities in Congress.

That loss put Dean on a tour of Bush's "red states" of 2004, where he explains that one big reason was that white working-class male voters favored Bush by 24 percentage points.

Those workers--both organized and unorganized--resisted labor's pro-Kerry message on economic and labor issues.

To reach them, Dean told the AFL-CIO Democrats "need to stop being defensive" and attack Bush and the GOP on fiscal mismanagement, declining wages, and attacks on working people.

But one topic the former anti-war candidate did not mention for an attack was the war in Iraq, other than to say that labor, like the country, "is divided on it."

That left Dean touting domestic issues as a way to bring the workers back to the Democratic fold, including being "the party of reform" on health care and labor law. But, pressed on making labor law reform a top Democratic priority, Dean again backtracked, saying election law reform must come first.

More: http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2020&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

You Have the Power to Create Change in Iraq

The Staff at Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is excited to introduce you to a powerful, free, political advocacy tool kit that we can use together to improve democracy inAmerica. We call the tool kit PDA Action Headquarters, and you can sign up to use it here: http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/mlm/

The PDA Action Headquarters is one part of our national strategy, and is aimed at bringing the voices of the grassroots to the Capitol. Since the November election, PDA has grown exponentially in both membership and effectiveness. Just last week, PDA posted a new organizational field structure online that was crafted based on input from the grassroots. In the first 24 hours, nearly a dozen new chapters joined PDA. In addition, the mainstream media and the alternative press have acknowledged PDA as a leader in the struggle for election reform, an end to the occupation of Iraq, and the movement to transform the Democratic Party.

We are ready to launch our next campaign, but we need your help. During our exponential growth, PDA heard from thousands of progressives, just like you, demanding meaningful change in the U.S. policy toward Iraq. PDA responded by taking your concerns to state capitols, to Washington, D.C., and next week we’ll be taking it to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here's where our advocacy tool comes in. By going to the PDA Action Headquarters, you can easily send an e-mail to your members of Congress, or find your local media information and get them involved in coverage of issues that you find important. In January, PDA members used it to generate over 100,000 emails to Congress on the election fraud issue in Ohio . In January, this email campaign earned a formal challenge to the certification of the Ohio election results.

A similar outpouring of grassroots support could turn the tide on the Iraq issue. But we need you to sign up so you can take part. Just go to http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/mlm/ and fill in the basic information fields. It's easy, free, private, and it works. Once you have updated your information, please click through to take action on several of our urgent actions already online.

We don't need to tell you how critical it is to bring our troops home from Iraq--but we do need your voices with us in Washington. Please join us as we step up our efforts to get the U.S. out of Iraq! You are getting an email today because we have you on our mailing list, but not our advocacy software.

Please sign up at the PDA Action Headquarters today. It really is easy, and will enable you to take action quickly on this issue and others as we work to take our country back.

In unity,


The PDA Team


PDA Action Headquarters: http://capwiz.com/pdamerica/mlm/

PDA's new Field Structure: http://pdamerica.org/orgs/


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

For more information about Progressive Democrats of America and the progressive

movement within the Democratic Party, visit www.pdamerica.org or contact us at

info@pdamerica.org or 877-368-9221.

Congressional legislation focuses on paper trails
Partisan divide dogs other election reform bills

electionline Weekly
March 3, 2005

By Elizabeth Schneider
electionline.org

-snip-

Both parties emphasize that their approach towards election reform is non-partisan. But the tone of some of the bills introduced - and the sponsors themselves - would indicate otherwise. And while many seek the same overall goal of reform, Republicans and Democrats have vastly different methods to achieve that goal.

-snip-

The difference, suggests Stitz, is that the bills introduced by Holt and Conyers call for 2 percent of all votes recoded on paper to be set aside for an automatic recount which would be initiated by the federal government - specifically, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).

-snip-

The Republican-backed bill would not grant as much authority to Washington.

-snip-

“(King) wants the states to decide on what should be recounted,” she said. “It’s not up to the federal government to oversee all elections.”

-snip/more-


http://www.electionline.org/index.jsp?page=Newsletter%20March%203%202005

Team, on LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1285478

DeLand touch-screen is only choice on deadline

Orlando Sentinel

Posted March 4, 2005
It is unlikely that Volusia County will get special ballot-marking devices for disabled people after all.

Instead, Volusia County Election Supervisor Ann McFall said Thursday she wants permission from the County Council next week to purchase or lease 210 touch-screen voting systems the devices currently certified for use in Florida for disabled and nondisabled individuals.

McFall said she would rather get the AutoMARK ballot-marking devices to use with Volusia's existing optical-scan system because touch-screens won't create or mark a paper ballot, and she realizes some people might have concerns about the lack of paper ballots.

-snip-

Last year, County Council members authorized spending nearly $1 million to purchase nearly 200 AutoMARK machines pending state certification.

On Thursday, McFall will ask council members to rescind that vote and instead authorize negotiations to purchase or lease 210 touch-screen machines from Diebold Election Systems, which is the company that services Volusia's voting system.

-snip/more-

http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=4927