Election Reform, Fraud, & Updates Thread for Saturday

Election Reform, Fraud, & Updates Thread for Saturday

In order to organize and document MelissaB 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.

If you see something that isn't here post it with a link to the thread and a thanks to the author. MelissaB is busy for a while so I'm taking over and Need Lots of Help posting news items!
Thanks,
Melissa G

Link to previous thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=368630&mesg_id=368630

Egypt PM to meet Bush amid growing demand for reforms
(AFP)

14 May 2005



CAIRO — Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif left Cairo yesterday on his first official trip to Washington where he will meet US President George W. Bush amid international calls for political reform.


It is the first official solo visit to Washington by an Egyptian head of government and comes as the United States was pressing Cairo to ensure a free presidential election in September.

“I will explain to the American officials the political reforms being introduced in Egypt, notably the decision by (President Hosni) Mubarak to amend the constitution,” he told reporters ahead of his departure.

Egypt’s parliament last week approved the constitutional change that allows multiple candidates to stand in presidential polls for the first time, although critics charge that the restrictions are so tight that only members of Mubarak’s ruling party would be able to run.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2005/May/middleeast_May408.xml§ion=middleeast&col=

Egyptian judges threaten to boycott election duties
Last Updated Fri, 13 May 2005 23:57:50 EDT
CBC News
CAIRO, EGYPT - Egyptian judges have refused to supervise September's presidential election unless the government passes laws that give them sole authority to oversee the poll.

The decision was passed almost unanimously by 2,500 of the country's 8,000 judges, who met in Cairo on Friday for the Judges' Club General Assembly.


Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faces increasing pressure to make democratic reforms. (AP file photo)
The judges also demanded a separate law be passed to guarantee the independence of the judiciary, which has long been under the thumb of President Hosni Mubarak's government.

If the judges persist in a boycott, they would strike a real blow to the credibility of an election.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/05/13/egypt-050513.html

A real democracy needs a system of proportional representation
14 May 2005


After just one week of this newspaper's "campaign for democracy", it has become clear that there exists a real desire in this country for substantial electoral reform. Not least because the results of the general election turned out to be a striking exposé of the deficiencies of our electoral system.

Labour won a modest 36 per cent of the popular vote, yet filtered through our first-past-the-post system, this gave Tony Blair a majority of 67 seats in the House of Commons. Although the Conservatives were just behind on 33 per cent of the vote, they ended up with 159 fewer seats than Labour. If the number of ballots cast for the Liberal Democrats had been truly reflected in that party's Commons representation, it would have more than doubled its number of seats. As for the smaller parties such as the Greens, their increased share of the vote counted for nothing and they returned no MPs to Westminster. In almost every way, our system distorted the democratic choice of this country's voters. This is what our campaign is about.

The response has been hugely encouraging. Hundreds of Independent readers have written in expressing support, and we printed a small selection of these letters on our front page on Wednesday. The Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy - prompted by our efforts - has reiterated his party's commitment to electoral reform. We also revealed this week that 100 Labour MPs, including some cabinet ministers, desire change. We have learnt too that a motion calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the voting system is to be tabled in the Commons. The momentum for change is growing. By arguing, as he did on Thursday, that the present system works more or less adequately, Tony Blair has shown himself to be badly out of tune with the times.

And it should be noted that the lamentable failure of Mr Blair to complete his reform of the House of Lords is a bad sign. His appointment yesterday of 16 new loyal peers, an act that makes Labour the largest party in the upper chamber for the first time, suggests that the Prime Minister is more minded to work within the existing framework than to enact a reform of the wholly undemocratic upper chamber.

http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=638185

Grassroots members must not lose their right to choose leader, says Redwood
By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent
(Filed: 14/05/2005)

Tensions over plans to change the Tories' leadership rules surfaced yesterday when one potential contender condemned any idea of stripping grassroots members of their vote. John Redwood, champion of the party's Eurosceptic wing, attacked as "quite wrong" plans to restrict any leadership vote to MPs themselves.



The row erupted despite an appeal by David Maclean, Tory chief whip, to all MPs not to encourage media speculation on how the party would reform its leadership election rules.

snip
The order infuriated some seasoned Tory MPs, including some already unhappy that the leadership contest, under Mr Howard's proposed schedule, would effectively last until the winter.

The Conservative Party's ruling board meets on May 23 to consider proposed changes to the party's constitution, including the leadership election rules.

snip
The Daily Telegraph understands that a blueprint already drawn up by senior MPs and other party figures would remove any right to a vote from grassroots members whose role would be reduced to consultation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/14/ntory114.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/14/ixhome.html

ETHIOPIA: Carter calls for fair elections
13 May 2005 13:46:22 GMT

Source: IRIN

ADDIS ABABA, 13 May (IRIN) - Former US President Jimmy Carter warned on Friday that he would be ready to declare Ethiopia's elections illegitimate if he had reason to believe that they were marred by widespread irregularities.

Speaking ahead of Ethiopia's polls due on Sunday, Carter told reporters in Addis Ababa that his team of observers would not shy away from challenging the outcome of the country's third ever election if there was evidence of malpractice.

However, he added, his team had so far found no evidence of abuses in the country and that he believed Ethiopia had made "extraordinary progress" in democratisation.

"In a few cases we have declared the elections to be illegitimate and we make this statement to the people in that nation and the international community," he said. "That is a very profound action for us to take but we don't hesitate to do that, if that should occur."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/87670a72e422eddbc34c1e78a83de3d0.htm

Posted on Fri, May. 13, 2005


Hearing on Camden Council election is reset for today


State Superior Court postponed until this morning a hearing on Camden's request to open voting machines in 17 districts to determine quickly whether a City Council runoff is needed.

Election workers in those districts failed to total the ballots cast for three at-large seats in Tuesday's nonpartisan election, according to the City Clerk's Office. Without the totals, the city cannot determine whether at least one candidate received more than half the votes and avert a runoff.

The city has already scheduled a June 14 mayoral runoff between incumbent Gwendolyn Faison and Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez. The other two mayoral candidates, Councilman Ali Sloan El and former city official Keith Walker, say they will ask for all machines to be opened and votes recounted because of balloting irregularities reported to them.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/new_jersey/11635381.htm

City vote fraud inquiry widened
Police in Bradford are now examining 252 cases of alleged electoral fraud, prompting calls for an "urgent review" of the postal voting system.
Two men, aged 38 and 51, have been quizzed by police as part of an inquiry into postal ballot irregularities.

The arrests relate to some of the cases that have now been passed on to West Yorkshire Police, Bradford City Council revealed on Wednesday.

Returning officer Philip Robinson said a review was needed before 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/4536101.stm

Democrats seek Justice Dept. observers for Columbus election

Associated Press


COLUMBUS, Miss. - A Democratic activist is asking the U.S. Justice Department to send observers for the June 7 Columbus general election.

snip
Banana said he contacted Justice because City Chief Operations Officer Gregg Mims was running the election. Banana said according to City Council records, Deana Vernon had been chosen as the registrar.

After officials in the primaries saw a ballot-counting machine was not properly reading the ballots, they decided to re-mark every ballot with a pen - a move allowed under state law.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/11641559.htm

June 14 runoff contest set for Camden Council

By Elisa Ung

Inquirer Staff Writer


Camden will have a runoff June 14 for the three at-large City Council seats.


snip
Because election workers in 13 districts did not have the total number of voters who cast ballots for Council, the City Clerk's Office yesterday morning sought and received a court order to open the voting machines and determine the final count.

snip
Sloan El said yesterday that in response to reports he received of voter irregularities and machines acting improperly, he plans to seek a court order next week asking for a full recount and seeking maintenance reports on the voting machines.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/11645512.htm

The Problems with DRE Voting Machines- from OVC

http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ad/shamos-rebuttal.pdf

A Deeper Look: Rebutting Shamos on e-Voting
Ronald E. Crane, J.D., B.S.C.S.1
Arthur M. Keller, Ph.D.2
Alan Dechert3
Edward Cherlin4
David Mertz, Ph.D.5
May 2005
A Deeper Look: Rebutting Shamos on e-Voting
Abstract
In his article Paper v. Electronic Voting Records – An Assessment,6 Professor Michael I. Shamos7
surveys a variety of objections to Direct Recording Electronic (“DRE”) voting systems. While
acknowledging and validating some of the most pressing, he breezily dismisses many others, often by
packaging them as straw men or by impugning objectors’ maturity, reasoning ability, or thoughtfulness. In
so doing, Prof. Shamos sidesteps not only key technical issues, but also important issues of
transparency, accountability, and the nature of the American democratic republic.8
Our paper identifies Shamos’s most significant errors, and also considers electronically-based voting
systems’9 security more broadly, especially compared to that of other electronic systems, such as
financial systems and gambling devices. We focus mainly on the possibility of vendor-sponsored fraud,
since vendors’ access to and knowledge of their voting systems, and their ability to keep their inner
workings secret by force of law, gives them unique power over how votes are solicited, recorded, and
counted10.
We hope that our paper dispels some of the unjustified trust currently placed in opaque, unverified, and
unverifiable e-voting systems.
1 A Taxonomy of Error
Shamos’s errors are of two main types: philosophical and implementational.

DU Thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x369098

Voters need to take back state

Charles Browning
North lauderdale
Posted May 14 2005

I am 52, white, male, and a Republican with a question: When did Florida become a banana republic?

We have a governor who disregards the will of the people when the public does not vote the way he believes. Classroom size and slot machines were items the voting public decided they wanted. Yet John Ellis Bush believes we all were wrong and denies the will of the voting public by doing everything in his power to "correct" our errors in judgment.

The Florida Legislature is no better. They say we in Broward made a "mistake" in voting for slot machines. That gambling has no place in Florida. Yet they want their cut if we ever do get slot machines in Broward. If gambling is wrong and goes against your beliefs, why will you only approve the least objectionable slot machines if and only if you get a cut of the profits? What hypocrites. No money for the Florida Marlins, plenty of money for the Jacksonville Jaguars. No toll roads north of Ocala. But the toll roads south of Ocala pay for road improvements north of Ocala.

snip
It is time to show that your vote counts for something. It is time to decide. Do you want free elections that matter, government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Or are you willing to allow these little dictators to overrule the will of the people for their own gain and beliefs? Which is it, Florida?

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/sfl-brmail936xmay14,0,6969062.story?coll=sfla-news-letters

Better Interviews Said Key to Exit Polls

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 33 minutes ago


MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Better training of interviewers to get a proper sample of voters after they cast ballots will be key to improving the performance of exit polls, one pollster who handled the 2004 election surveys said Saturday.

Exit polls on Election Day 2004 overstated support for Democrat John Kerry overall and in many key states, which led to widespread confusion that day about the election eventually won by President Bush.

The exit polls contacted more supporters of Kerry than of Bush because of "the failure of interviewers to follow the selection rate," said Warren Mitofsky, who conducted the exit polls along with Joe Lenski of Edison Media Research.

In exit polling, properly trained interviewers are supposed to follow a carefully designed strategy of contacting voters, such as every fourth or fifth voter, to get a random sample.

Mitofsky has said the discrepancy between exit polls and the vote count was caused by several problems with the polls done for the television networks and The Associated Press.

More sh*t here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050514/ap_on_el_pr/exit_polls

Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/11648889.htm

The State, SC
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/11648889.htm

Seattle Post Intelligencer, WA
Tallahassee.com, FL
Charleston Gazette, WV
Bradenton Herald, FL
Charleston Sunday Gazette Mail, WV
philly.com, PA
San Jose Mercury News, CA
Guardian Unlimited, UK
Boston Globe, MA
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL
phillyburbs.com, PA
WJLA, DC
ABC News
The Ledger, FL
San Francisco Chronicle, CA
ABC News
Times Picayune, LA
News & Observer, NC
Dateline Alabama
Gainesville Sun, FL
Newsday, NY
Los Angeles Times, CA
Washington Post, DC


All of these appeared in the last 3 hours.

Election politics
Legislature shortchanges state voters


Last update: May 13, 2005


Florida legislators didn't improve the election process for voters during this year's session. They restricted the hours and places where citizens can vote before Election Day. And they tripled how much money gubernatorial and Cabinet candidates can raise and still receive matching money from the public, a favor to the political party in power.

snip

Lawmakers thankfully resisted Secretary of State Glenda Hood's blatant power grab over locally elected supervisors of elections by denying her exclusive authority to make and enforce election rules. Hood wanted to go so far as to fine individual supervisors $5,000 if they didn't toe her line.

snip

But they ignored supervisors' most critical requests -- more flexibility to serve early voters in light of the 2 million Floridians who voted early in 2004, either at the polls or by absentee ballot. That's 2 1/2 times the number of people who voted early in 2000.

Numbers like these should have persuaded Republican lawmakers to make it easier for Floridians to go to the polls. (Democrats opposed the restrictions.) The Republican majority callously rejected calls for longer hours at early voting sites to help laborers and office workers make it to the polls. They maintained the limited number of places supervisors can open for early voting. So libraries, city halls and election offices remain the only, and often inconvenient, options. And lawmakers discarded an entire day, the Monday before Election Day (when the largest number of early voters showed up last year) from the schedule.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/03OpOP01051405.htm

Citizens protest precinct decision
TOM MCMAHON, Staff Writer
05/14/2005



ATLANTIC - Two county ordinances to reduce voting precincts to save money are meeting with different fates.

snip
Counties are looking for ways to meet federal requirements for new voting machines, the result of the Help America Vote Act passed by Congress in 2002.

HAVA requires most counties to purchase new voting machines, including ones that can be used by blind people without assistance. Additionally, counties must provide voters the opportunity to look at their ballots and change them if incorrectly marked.

This will necessitate new or additional equipment in most counties. And reducing the number of precincts means fewer new voting machines. And that translates to dollars saved.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14526316&BRD=2554&PAG=461&dept_id=551177&rfi=6

Beaver County delays testing leased ballot counting machines
Saturday, May 14, 2005

By Brian David, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Friday the 13th could hardly come and go without taking a chunk out of beleaguered Beaver County elections officials.

Already in a mad dash to make the switch to paper ballots from their decertified electronic voting system, county officials yesterday had to get court permission to delay testing their leased ballot counting machines because the company providing them did not have the software ready.

State law requires that vote counting systems be tested four days prior to an election. Beaver County had set Friday as the test date for the four optical scanning machines it was leasing from Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb. But early yesterday they heard from the company that the software was not ready.

County Common Pleas Judge John D. McBride signed a court order giving the county permission to test the machines at 11 a.m. Monday instead -- just 20 hours before the polls open for Tuesday's primary election.

snip
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05134/504501.stm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elections chief pares massive budget request
By George Bennett

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, May 14, 2005

New Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson scaled back his request for a massive budget increase Friday, saying he's fighting a "mind-set" that doesn't see the need for a big boost in elections spending.

Anderson, who stunned county commissioners May 2 with a $14.2 million budget request, pared that number to less than $11 million Friday. The current elections budget is $8 million.

snip

With the revisions he made Friday, Anderson would hike elections spending about 38 percent instead of 78 percent for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.

snip
His revised budget still includes a $1.7 million request for 500 new touch-screen voting machines and $200,000 to expand warehouse space to store the new equipment. The elections office, which moved into its headquarters less than four years ago, already faces a space crunch because its warehouse was designed to accommodate punch-card voting devices, not the bulkier touch screens.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2005/05/14/s3c_elections_0514.html

Texas Civil Rights Review
Texas Kills Again: Verified Paper Ballots Suffocated in Calendars Committee
Posted on Friday, May 13 @ 12:24:37 MDT by editor



By Sonia Santana

HB 166 died in the Texas House Legislature on Thursday May 12, 2005. HB 166 was our best attempt at a verified paper ballot trail for Texas this session.

The original bill filed by Rep. Aaron Pena (D-Edinburg) was amended in the Elections Committee by Chairwoman Mary Denny (R-Flower Mound) to the point it was simply a study bill. We can't proceed too slowly on this issue in Texas for Rep. Denny's tastes.

Despite the fact the bill was pretty uncontroversial by the time it reached the Calendars Committee, the powers that be, still could not risk their perceived loss of power. The bill had bi-partisan support with 4 Republicans on board including Mary Denny on the committee substitute version, and still it was quietly killed in Calendars with no vote scheduled on the floor.




Thursday was the last day bills in the House needed to be listed on Calendars for a vote this week. HB 166 never made the cut.

http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=231