Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News MONDAY 11/28/05

THE WORLD OF ELECTION FRAUD

The articles on election fraud throughout the world are JUST FROM ONE DAY. They’re there every day we search for news items, every day. Amazing.

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.

Only the deluded & complicit accept
election results on blind faith.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News MONDAY 11/28/05

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What, fraud but no revolt! Who do they think they are anyway, us?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1347331&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Despite Fraud, No Revolt in Azerbaijan

By HENRY MEYER Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

BAKU, Azerbaijan Nov 26, 2005 — Azerbaijan has some of the main ingredients of the popular revolts that have swept through other former Soviet states in the last two years an election widely assessed as fraudulent and leaders accused of growing rich through corruption.
But unlike the uprisings that brought opposition leaders to power in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan respectively known as the Rose, Orange and Tulip revolutions Azerbaijan's opposition has been unable to marshal a massive outpouring of discontent more than two weeks after disputed parliamentary elections.

There have been several demonstrations at which people even waved orange flags, borrowing the color of Ukraine's protests. But no more than 20,000 people showed up at any one, with the turnout dropping sharply at the latest rally.

Many in the opposition blame the West for the failure to achieve critical mass. Although European observers sharply criticized the elections, the West has not put enough pressure on President Ilham Aliev's government, opposition leaders say.



Riot police watch, as a small group of demonstrators carrying flags and banners y walk past a billboard with the portrait of former Azerbaijan President Geidar Aliyev, at a protest rally over disputed elections in Baku, Azerbaijan, in this Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005 file photo. Two weeks after disputed parliamentary elections, Azerbaijan's opposition has been unable to marshal a massive outpouring of discontent as happened in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan with the respective Rose, Orange and Tulip revolutions that brought opposition leaders to power. (AP Photo/Saleh Abdullayev)

Another country full of intelligent people who can't hold an honest election.
http://www.rferl.org/default.aspx

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/24d61784-dfb4-4b04-a1b0-644e68723ca7.html

Armenia: Opposition Claims Fraud In Controversial Referendum

By Jean-Christophe Peuch

Prague, 27 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Polling stations in Armenia closed at 8 p.m. local time.

Three hours before the voting process officially ended, the Central Election Commission said more than 43 percent of the country's 2.3 million registered voters had already cast their ballots.

RFE/RL's Armenian Service reported that deserted polling stations in and outside the capital Yerevan seemed to contradict the election commission's claims.

Opposition leaders today openly questioned these turnout figures.

Koryun Arakelian, the deputy chairman of the opposition National Unity (Azgayin Miabanutyn) party, also accused President Robert Kocharian's government of fraud.

"The present referendum overshadows previous votes, during which we had documented many shortcomings. we noticed new forms of vote rigging, new ways of breaking the law that would certainly be useful in some other ," Arakelian said.

To take effect, the proposed constitutional changes must be endorsed by at least one-third of Armenia's eligible voters and 50 percent of those who actually cast their ballot papers.

Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters

President, California Association of Clerks and Election Officials

http://www.lavote.net/connybio.htm


Opposed Kevin Shelly's decertification of Diebold Touch Screens

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_23_26/ai_n6076564


User of uncertified software

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=942&IssueNum=51


And she served as an election consultant to Armenia in 1991.

Wow, and I was really believing that there was fraud. Maybe it was the missling election logs, or the call from Pres. Arroyo to the official election night (recorded) wher Arroyo insists that the vote be changed. Silly me. I’m glad it’s all worked out.


http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=23280

Grillers of Garci impatient

This early, lawmakers are jockeying to be the first to grill the former election official, who has said he is willing to testify to clear his name and that of President Arroyo of allegations of poll fraud.

Senator Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the Senate Committee on National Defense, on Sunday insisted that Virgilio Garcillano speak up at the Senate hearing of the wiretapping scandal, even if he has already been interviewed by ABS-CBN.

Biazon said Garcillano’s revelations to the media do not have any legal value since it did not go through legal proceedings.

"Even if Garcillano had issued a public statement, I still strongly feel and think that he must say these in a congressional inquiry where he is placed under oath and his statements will be given a legal value," Biazon said on a telephone interview.


He said his invitation for Garcillano to appear before his committee on December 8 stands.

Biazon also wants Pastor "Boy" Saycon to disclosed what he knows at the Senate inquiry. Saycon is said to have representations with Garcillano in behalf of former senator and vice presidential candidate Loren Legarda before last year’s election.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said he knew of Garcillano’s plan to grant media interviews and that it was part of the script that Malacañan had prepared.

He said Garcillano is in Bukidnon and accompanied by members of the Intelligence Service, Armed Forces of the Philippines and Gov. Andal Ampatuan’s of Bukidnon men.

All right, so there's no revolt, but they're rioting to show their displeasure with election fraud.


http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2310102005

Scotsman.com

Sun 27 Nov 2005

Dozens hurt as police smash Azerbaijan rally

RUFAT ABBASOV IN BAKU

POLICE in Azerbaijan's capital used truncheons and water cannon yesterday to break up a protest by opposition supporters complaining of fraud in an election earlier this month.

Dozens were injured after riot police moved in to disperse a crowd of about 10,000 people in a square on the outskirts of Baku. Police said the protesters were breaking the law. But the violent scenes may create added discomfort for Ilham Aliyev, the president of the oil-producing state, who is already facing western criticism over the November 6 parliamentary vote.

"A lot of our people have been hurt," Ali Kerimli, one of the leaders of the main Azadlyq opposition bloc, said.

"We did not break the law. We were having a peaceful protest which ended when police started to beat up unarmed people."

In other ex-Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine, street protests over disputed elections have forced out the ruling elites. But analysts say Azerbaijan's opposition does not have the popular support to pull off a similar revolution.

Police intervened after demonstrators, who demand the election results be overturned and a new vote held, refused to leave the square when the time the authorities had allocated for their rally ran out.

Most ran away but sections of the crowd fought back with stones and wooden poles.

"During the rally today I spoke to the opposition leaders warning against any acts of provocation but that was ignored," Baku police chief Yashar Aliyev - no relation to the president - said.

Par for the course in Zimbabwe, sad to say.


http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1133075342201B251

Zimbabwe counts controversial senate votes

Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has won five seats in results so far from this weekend's senate elections while the ruling party has won two, state radio announced Sunday.

"Seven constituency results are out with the MDC winning five and ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front) two senatorial seats," the radio said.

With more than half the senatorial seats assured before the polls opened Saturday, Mugabe's party is certain to win.

It has seats in 19 constituencies where the opposition failed to field candidates. Ten other seats are reserved for chiefs who are usually are loyal to Mugabe, and the president appoints six more.

The vote was marred by low voter turnout countrywide. The independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network said voters had deliberately shunned the polling stations to show their displeasure with conditions in the country.

With inflation over 400 percent, life is getting harder for the majority. The election stirred controversy after MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai called for a boycott, but senior officials in his party defied him and fielded 26 candidates. - Sapa-dpa

The Muslim Brotherhood has a tawdry track record so the motivation here makes some sense. The elections in Egypt and other volatile countries shows the problems with applying “free and fair” elections.


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=20325

More Islamist arrests as doubt cast on vote count in Egypt polls

Compiled by Daily Star staff
Saturday, November 26, 2005

Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif dismissed gains at the polls by Muslim Brotherhood members, as police in Alexandria arrested 16 members of the group, a day before another round of parliamentary election voting.

The arrests coincided with controversy over an investigation conducted by judges supervising the elections, which found that officially announced results in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour differed from their own vote count.

In an interview in Cairo Nazif conceded that "there has been violence" in the month-long polls, but stressed that "police and security forces have been neutral."

"I would say that the elections have clearly shown that there is a vote for the new thinking, which is the new logo of the NDP," or National Democratic Party, he said.

Intellectuals claim Egypt poll fraud

By Amira Howeidy in Cairo, Egypt

Monday 28 November 2005, 3:18 Makka Time, 0:18 GMT

Egyptian intellectuals and public figures from across the political spectrum have warned the government against the repercussions of election fraud and violence on democracy in the country.

They called on President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday to persuade him to fulfil his electoral promise of democratic reform "before it's too late".

A statement signed by 44 prominent Muslim and Christian intellectuals said that "glaring fraud and unprecedented violence" could lead to the "collapse of the regime's and the state's legitimacy".

The first and second rounds of the elections have been marred by dozens of legal complaints and annulled results in several constituencies.

The statement also expressed concern that "the hopes of the Egyptian people in creating a democratic, just and clean system" were collapsing.

snip/more

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A8A39240-04C7-4CE5-8164-7569EB6EA4A8.htm

Thanks to John Q. Citizen

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x402938

Why is she even walking around free? She helped * steal 2000 outright with her felon purge and other crimes against free and fair elections. If you ask me, she was about as “wrong” as you can be for a Secretary of State




Nov 27, 2005

Was Harris Right? Depends Whom You Ask

By WILLIAM MARCH

For Katherine Harris, her opponents and her supporters, the image is indelible: Harris at a podium, surrounded by a crush of reporters from around the world, announcing decisions and results in the 2000 Florida presidential election.

Then, she was secretary of state, Florida's top election official.

Today, running for the U.S. Senate, Harris trails incumbent Bill Nelson, a Democrat, in polls. She and her political strategists say she must shake that 2000 image, which she calls a "caricature" created by the national media and late-night comics.

She wants voters to see her in a different light: as a congresswoman concerned about trade, Social Security and national security, not as the woman accused by some of manipulating the 2000 election for George W. Bush.

But the 2000 recount always comes up and probably will persist as an issue through the November 2006 election.

<snip>

Mitchell Berger, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who worked with the Gore campaign on the recount legal fight, calls Harris' claim of impartiality "the big lie."

"Every one of her actions, at every turn, was to help George Bush," he said.

Berger said Harris' decisions during the recount were aimed at one goal: preventing legally mandated manual recounts, ordered by local canvassing boards, from being included in the results -- in other words, he said, "not counting legal votes."

In decision after decision, he said, Harris had legal discretion to allow the vote-counting and chose not to. He and other Democrats charge that as a result, hundreds or thousands of legal votes never were counted.

On the other side, Michael Carvin, a Washington lawyer who represented the Bush campaign before the Florida Supreme Court, said Harris' decisions "flowed directly from the plain language of the law."

The state court overruled her "based on the justices' own view of what was right" and "their own view that there shouldn't be any rigid rules in this area," ignoring the requirements of the law, Carvin said. "That was one reason the U.S. Supreme Court granted review."

We were all happy to hear that Dover PA elected a school board that tossed out “intelligent design.” Now we have our own thread of the political spectrum emerging. The loser is crying election fraud. Won’t get far but we’re in for years of these sorts of charges etc. because of HAVA and our unwillingness to face facts—machines don’t vote, people do.


http://www.ydr.com/doverbiology/ci_3253345

Article Last Updated: 11/26/2005 02:13 AM

Candidate will push for revote
Dover's James Cashman will ask a judge for a new ballot for all candidates.

By MICHELLE STARR
Daily Record/Sunday News
York Daily Record/Sunday News

Outgoing Dover Area school board member James Cashman and his attorney will ask a York County judge for a new election at one of Dover's precincts for eight school board candidates who ran for four-year seats.

They plan to contest the election results Monday in York County Common Pleas Court. Earlier this month, Cashman lost by 99 votes to challenger Bryan Rehm.

County officials have been investigating a voting machine at Friendship Community Church in Dover Township after it appeared to have malfunctioned. It recorded one vote for Cashman, while other candidates received about 100. Supporters of both sides and county attorney Mike Flannelly acknowledged the machine's tally appeared odd.

Cashman said he believes the machine had reached the end of its life and could have had other problems, which is why he believes another election at that precinct between all candidates is the only fair measure.

Rehm said the request was "a bit excessive." A revote would be expensive for the county, and asking for something that costs a lot contradicts Cashman's platform of fiscal conservatism, Rehm said.

Rehm said he believes it would have been excessive if Cashman was challenging only him because "at this point, I've got 100 votes more than Mr. Cashman."

Nearly three weeks ago, eight challengers from a group called Dover CARES defeated eight incumbents who supported mentioning intelligent design - the idea that life is too complex to have randomly evolved, so it must have had a designer - in science class.

TN: State Buying Machines—“devices raise questions”
You can see Fly by Night’s influence in the Orange state. This is a CM article that covers all the bases as the CM should have been doing all along. “A small ad hoc group, called Gathering to Save Our Democracy…” Thanks for the Gathering.


http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051126/NEWS0201/511260314/1009/NEWS

State buying new voting machines at crucial time
With big election near, devices raise questions

By BRAD SCHRADE
Staff Writer

Tennessee election officials are about to dole out $25 million for a new generation of voting machines, but voter advocates say the state is not doing enough to ensure safeguards on the new technology.

The stakes are high, they say, because the decisions to be made in coming months will lock many counties and their thousands of voters into using these new machines for years to come. The change also comes as Tennessee prepares for major statewide elections next year, including races for governor and U.S. Senate, along with a full slate of local elections across the state.

A small ad hoc group, called Gathering to Save Our Democracy, is speaking out on the issue in Middle Tennessee.

With paper-trail machines, "if the vote is close and a candidate contests the election, there's something to count," said Thelma Kidd of Nashville, who is involved with Gathering. "If you don't have that, you're trusting the machine completely to count. I think that's too much trust to be placed in machines that have been known to fail on this most important thing, our voting rights."

In Tennessee, some critics have accused the state of not taking this issue seriously enough as it prepares to release the millions in federal dollars. About 44 counties with outdated machines, such as those that use punch cards or levers and those that scan ballots at a central location, will be given money to replace their whole systems.

About 46 other counties will be given money to add at least one machine per precinct that can accommodate voters with physical disabilities. Seventeen in that group — including Cheatham, Davidson, Dickson, Robertson, Rutherford and Williamson counties — will be given money to modify their existing electronic machines to allow a rudimentary paper audit trail. Meanwhile, five counties' voting technology is already up to speed.

Confusion, Misreporting Surround Reports on CA Sec. of State Diebold Voting Machine 'Hack' Test!

Mainstream Media Reports Indicating Scheduled Attempt to 'Hack' Voting Machines Appear to Be Incorrect

State, Activists Still Negotiating Paramaters, Scheduling of Test as State and Federal Deadlines Draw Near…

by Brad

11/27/2005

On Friday, November 25, a news story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle by political writer John Wildermuth reporting that the California Secretary of State's office would be allowing Election Reform activists to perform an attempted hack of voting machines on Wednesday, November 30th. That report was soon picked up by the Associated Press and other outlets where it was repeated, in part, in newspapers, radio and television across the nation. Headlines along the line of "Hacker to try to attack state voting machines" were blared across the media throughout the holiday weekend.

While the story seems to be based in some reality, reporting by The BRAD BLOG over the last several days has revealed that the matter seems to be a far cry from the way it has been reported by the Mainstream Media. In fact, while negotiations for such a test are ongoing, the parameters to be used are still being hashed out, no definite schedule has yet to be determined, and Finnish computer scientist Harry Hursti, who created this particular method for hacking into Diebold voting machines has made no plans at this time to travel to the United States to perform the hack attempt.

Such a test, if performed, could be crucial to a decision soon to be made by CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson about whether to allow various Diebold voting systems in the state. That decision, in turn, will likely effect decisions by other states and counties around the U.S., all of whom are facing a January 1, 2006 deadline set by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to be met if jurisdictions are to receive millions of dollars in Federal money to help pay for "upgraded" Electoral Systems.

California's Republican Sec. of State McPherson had famously refused to re-certified Diebold's AccuVote TSx touch-screen voting machines over the summer after a major test in the state had found that some 20% of the machines had failed to perform as promised with printers jamming and screens freezing at an unacceptable rate. Diebold's machines had previously been de-certified by former Democratic Sec. of State Kevin Shelley. McPherson's sudden about-face concerning Diebold has caught many by surprise. The potential change of position towards Diebold was discovered recently and sent a shockwave through the Election Reform activist community who then converged on Sacramento to complain about the apparent flip-flop by the Sec. of State.

snip/more

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002079.htm

Thanks to Amaryllis

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x402946

See this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x402963