Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News TUESDAY, 12/06/05

A Rorschach for our time

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.

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

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News TUESDAY, 12/06/05

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.

If you want to know how post "News Banners" or other images, go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371233#371391



All previous daily threads are available here:
http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm

Please

"Recommend"

for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

Blackwell would be barred from heading another presidential campaign. But can he be barred from running for Governor? Isn�t that a clever question? He�ll put in place; he has put in place, the election system that he�ll run in for governor of Ohio. That guy is always one step ahead.

http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=4204982&nav=Lrzs

Bill would limit secretary of state's campaign activities

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio's chief elections officer would no longer be able to hold two jobs seemingly at odds with each other _ counting votes and backing candidates _ under changes to an election-reform bill released Monday.

In a jab at GOP Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, criticized for his honorary role in the Bush-Cheney campaign last year, fellow Republicans want to prohibit such dual responsibilities in the future.

"It is reasonable to expect that a person making decisions during and after an election about a campaign should not be an interested party to that campaign," said Sen. Kevin Coughlin, a Republican from Cuyahoga Falls in northeastern Ohio.

He said the proposal came out of the perceived conflict-of-interest last year when Blackwell was an honorary vice chairman in the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Blackwell, running for governor next year, held that campaign post along with other statewide Republican officials.

The proposal also prohibits the secretary of state from taking an active role on a ballot issue, although it would not affect issues already in the pipeline.

That would seem to allow Blackwell to proceed with his own proposal, headed for the ballot next year, to limit the state's ability to increase spending and taxes.

Blackwell was reviewing the changes and had no immediate comment, spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

The bill to be introduced Tuesday in the Senate Rules Committee would also require that all Ohio voters show identification at the polls to curb voter fraud.

You see, LA had $24 million taken out of its budget for levee maintenance and $26 million added for voting machines�all in 2004. Now those machines are not there and there�s no election. That�s like saying you�ll stop eating because you don�t have your new silverware. What a load of you know what. �It�s all whatever� to BushCo.
http://www.theolympian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051203/NEWS/51203027

New Orleans won�t be ready to vote for months, election official says

By DOUG SIMPSON

The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. � New Orleans� mayoral and city council elections should be postponed for up to eight months because of Hurricane Katrina, the state�s top election official recommended Friday.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has the final say on whether the elections will go forward as scheduled Feb. 4. She was not immediately available for comment but has said she will follow Secretary of State Al Ater�s advice.

In his recommendation, Ater said the election should be held by Sept. 30.

The highest profile race set for Feb. 4 is for mayor. Incumbent Ray Nagin, who has gotten both criticism and compliments for his handling of the Katrina disaster, has not formally announced whether he will seek re-election. Races for city council and sheriff also are on the ballot.

Ater said he recommended the delay with regret but noted he could not guarantee that New Orleans would be physically able to set up the infrastructure for an election he called �the most important in that city�s life.�

�The new administration, the new council, the new people that will be elected, will be in charge of making decisions affecting billions and billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives,� Ater said.

Ater laid much of the blame for the delay on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said has not provided �a penny� of the $2 million his office requested to repair voting machines damaged in the storm, which struck Aug. 29,

Michelle Shafer is not head of Sequoia Voting Systems which was acquired by Smartmatic, a Venezuelian company. She�s got quite a record for responsiveness to voters, like blaming them for lousy voting machines. Welcome Michelle!



http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/051205/20051205005911.html?.v=1

Press Release Source: Sequoia Voting Systems

Michelle Shafer Joins Sequoia Voting Systems as Vice President, Communications and External Affairs/h3]
Monday December 5, 2:50 pm ET

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 5, 2005--Michelle Shafer has joined Sequoia Voting Systems as the company's Vice President, Communications and External Affairs where she will be responsible for public relations, government affairs, customer relations and external communications strategies for the company.

Shafer is joining Sequoia after nearly a decade working for election technology provider Hart InterCivic in various marketing and communications positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as Director of Corporate Communications and Special Projects. Shafer is replacing Alfie Charles who recently accepted a position outside the elections industry after several years of important contributions to Sequoia as well as to the industry as a whole.

"We are very excited to have Michelle join the Sequoia team," said Jack A. Blaine, President of Sequoia Voting Systems. "We have both witnessed and admired Michelle's excellent work in the elections industry and her experience and know-how will be a major asset to Sequoia Voting Systems."

Shafer has a B.A. degree from Fordham University in New York City and is currently serving in the elected capacity of Secretary of the Election Technology Council (ETC), an election industry trade association under the umbrella of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA).

About Michelle Shafer

E-Voting Machines and Arrogance
http://mfeldstein.com/index.php/weblog/comments/204/

Wired is running a deeply disturbing story on problems with electronic voting machines. I won�t run through the litany of problems here, but I do want to point out a particularly heinous quote from one of the manufacturers:

Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Hart InterCivic, said the problem that occurred in Texas with her company�s machines were caused by voters rather than by the machines. The Hart machines are not touch-screen machines but instead use a wheel that voters turn to make their selections. Shafer said after choosing the straight-party option, many voters turned the wheel to manually go through the races and click their choices individually to emphasize them, not realizing that in doing so they de-selected their choices. Shafer said they probably then mistakenly moved the wheel to select a candidate from another party.


�It�s not a machine issue,� Shafer said. �It�s voters not properly following the instructions."

Oh sure, and when they give you the assurances, what does that mean. When the problems occur next year, you or your successor can ask for more assurances. Previously we discovered that Michelle Shafer, while at Hart, blamed voters for voting problems with her company machines. Now she�s blaming election officials as the new Sequoia head honcho. Thanks, we knew it was somebody�s fault! It�s never Sequoia�s. I�d like a job like that�no, it�s not the fault of my company, never was, never will be�


http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/gen/ap/CO_Voting_Machines.html

State investigating potential problems with voting machines

DENVER � The secretary of state may order 10 Colorado counties to get new voting machines before next fall after problems cropped up during last month's elections, according to a state official.

Secretary of State Gigi Dennis wants "assurances from the manufacturers that there won't be any problems next year," spokeswoman Dana Williams said.

Dennis ordered a hand recount in the 10 counties that use the Optech III-P Eagle, an optical scanning machines sold by Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems. In at least two counties � Clear Creek and Chaffee � the recount changed the outcome of races.

In Chaffee County, Hugh Young was declared the winner of a Salida City Council seat after the hand count determined he beat incumbent Ron Stowell by three votes. After the machine count, Stowell had been declared the winner by three votes.

Clear Creek County found 97 votes had not been included in the initial machine vote. A ballot question regarding a local school district initially won by six votes but after the hand recount lost by 18 votes.

"I have no confidence in the machines, and we're looking to have them replaced," Clear Creek County Clerk and Recorder Pam Phipps told The Denver Post.

Michelle Shafer, a spokeswoman for Sequoia, said problems occur when mail ballots are fed into the machines. (IT�S THE ELECTION OFFICIAL�S FAULT.

"They are meant to be used in a controlled environment, like in a precinct, where people use the right pencils and pens," she said. Mailed-in ballots often have different ink colors or circled names, leaving the machine unable to read them.

Well, we were there first. This is brand new and they have a good approach to election fraud. Just in time for the scandal to explode.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2648

Banned E-voting Machines Specially OK�d in North Carolina

by Brendan Coyne (bio)

Dec 5 - In what some groups are charging is an illegal move, the North Carolina Board of Elections certified voting machines made by three companies which had previously admitted they could not conform to new state requirements that computer code be accessible to elections officials.

The board's move came just days after a state judge voided a temporary exemption from certain portions of the elections regulations granted to Diebold and told the company that it must comply with all provision of the law.

Friday, the public-interest advocacy organization Electronic Frontier Foundation charged that the elections board "simply flouted the law" in approving applications by Diebold, Sequoia and Election Systems & Software to sell equipment throughout the state, despite admissions by all three that they are unable to place their software codes in escrow as required under the October rules.

"In August, the state passed tough new rules designed to ensure transparency in the election process, and the Board simply decided to take it upon itself to overrule the legislature," EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman said in a press statement. "The Board's job is to protect voters, not corporations who want to obtain multi-million-dollar contracts with the state."

Well, Michelle Shafer was nothing compared to SAIC�s CEO. Years back, when the press occasionally reported the real news, we had this scandal called Watergate. Guess who was at the center of it, Kenneth C. Dahlberg. His deposit of $25,000 case (like $100k back then) in burglar Bernard Barker�s account was discovered by Woodward and it blew the scandal wide open. Dahlberg was never indicted for anything but now runs the company that counts a large percentage of our votes. Priceless.

SAIC

http://www.saic.com/

Meet KENNETH C. DAHLBERG.
SAIC CEO, President, Chairman of the Board, and Director

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Dahlberg


SAIC bought ES&S voting systems company from the right wing Republicans who founded it. Good news? Not really. Look at the provile of the company and then lets look at who runs it. Ken Dahlberg!!! That Ken Dahlberg, the Watergate Ken�never indicted but central to the discovery of the case.

�During the Watergate investigation by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Bernstein traveled to Miami, Florida to see Martin Dardis, the head investigator for Dade County District Attorney Richard E. Gerstein. Since most of the Watergate burglars were from Miami, the district attorney's office had launched an investigation. Dardis showed Bernstein a photostatic copy of a cashier's check for $25,000 that had been deposited into the bank account of a real estate firm owned by Bernard Barker, one of the Watergate burglars. The check was drawn on a Boca Raton, Florida bank and was made out to Kenneth H. Dahlberg. Bernstein telephoned this information to Woodward who was back at the Post in Washington, D.C.

Woodward had a research librarian at the Post check the newspaper's files for any articles mentioning or pictures of Dahlberg. The librarian found a 1967 photograph of Dahlberg with Vice-President Hubert Humphrey at a Minnesota fundraiser.

The search for Dahlberg was narrowed to Minnesota and Woodward located Dahlberg's telephone number from information and called him at home. At first, Dahlberg did not believe Woodward was actually a reporter. He later called Woodward back and explained that his neighbor, Virginia Piper, had been recently kidnapped and it was an upsetting experience. Dahlberg told Woodward he had the check made out to himself while he was in Florida on business and did not want to carry that much cash around. Dahlberg could not explain how the check got into Barker's bank account but said it was either given to the Committee to Re-elect the President or to Maurice Stans.

Dahlberg was the midwest finance chairman for the Committee to Re-elect the President during President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign. In 1968, Dahlberg was the finance chairman for Clark MacGregor's unsuccessful Senate campaign in Minnesota. MacGregor was later appointed the head of the Committee to Re-elect the President in 1972 after former attorney general John Mitchell had resigned.

It was later learned the $25,000 came from Dwayne Andreas, chief executive officer of Archer Daniels Midland, as an anonymous donation to the Nixon campaign.

Woodward later commented that finding Dahlberg's check was a turning point in their Watergate investigation because it led to the discovery of how the Watergate burglars were financed through a money-laundering scheme.

Dahlberg was neither accused of nor implicated in any wrongdoing as a result of the Watergate scandal.�

Dahlberg notes : 2 Pages
18 June 1972

Woodward's notes from a telephone interview with Nixon's Midwest campaign finance chairman Kenneth Dahlberg discussing why a $25,000 cashier's check from Dahlberg was found in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. The information was used in Bernstein and Woodward's August 1, 1974 Washington Post story about the check.

Assemblywoman Amy Paulin proposes voting reform

December 5, 2005

Assemblywoman Amy Paulin of Westchester County yesterday announced that she is proposing “profound changes” to the New York State Election Laws. Paulin was joined by County Legislator Thomas Abinanti, disenfranchised Irvington voter Susan Brenner Morton and members of the Westchester League of Women Voters at her District Office in Scarsdale to announce two legislative initiatives aimed at reforming the absentee ballot voting process and helping to prevent further voter disenfranchisement.

“Reforming the absentee ballot voting process in New York State is long overdue,” Paulin said. “Since the Help America Vote Act or HAVA requires all states to upgrade their election procedures by January 2006, now is the time to amend these antiquated statutes that disenfranchise New Yorker voters, especially women.”

The recent controversy in the Irvington Mayoral race and other close elections pointed to these deficiencies and prompted Assemblywoman Paulin to take decisive action. In the Irvington matter, Susan Brenner Morton’s absentee ballot was disqualified based a technicality in the Election Law. She signed the outside of the absentee ballot envelope “Susan B. Morton,” though she is registered to vote as “Susan Brenner Morton.” Her vote would have broken the tie between Republican incumbent Dennis Flood and Democratic challenger Erin Malloy. The election was later decided by a coin toss in Flood’s favor.

“An absentee ballot should not be discarded just because a qualified voter signs the ballot with some initials instead of her full name,” said Abinanti who represented Susan Morton in the Irvington case. “And a voter should not have to worry about the rushing to the polls to retrieve her absentee ballot and vote on the machine if she returns to the county a few minutes before the polls close.”

snip

http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/VoteRef-05Dec05.htm

Editorials

N.C. must redouble efforts to iron out problems with electronic voting process

published December 5, 2005

Larry Leake, chairman of the state Board of Elections, said, “Everyone needs to cross their fingers.’’

We sympathize with Leake and the thousands of dedicated citizens who make our polling places run. However, with the current electronic machines, it’s the voters who apparently have to cross their fingers.

Electronic voting systems failures identified by the Government Accountability Office in a report released in October included an incident in California where some races weren’t even listed, undervote percentages of 80 percent in a Pennsylvania race and long delays in activation of electronic machines in Florida. System vulnerabilities detailed in the GAO report include systems with “easily picked locks,’’ and “weak security practices, including the failure to conduct background checks on programmers and system developers, and the failure to establish clear chain of custody procedures for handling software.’’

There’s clearly work to be done. Voting is the most important duty a citizen of a democracy exercises. That vote has to be carried out with the confidence that it will count.

snip

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051205/OPINION01/51202029/1006

RED ALERT:Electronic voting, worse time bomb than third term agenda

By BASHIR UMAR, Abuja

Monday, December 5, 2005



Senator Omar Abubakar Hambagda (Borno South) has asked Nigerians to be wary of the proposed electronic voting system, being introduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which he described as a "worse time bomb than the so-called third term bid."

snip

He said: "The electronic voting system is suggesting that counting will not take place at the point of voting, collection and collation will not be done at the ward level, will not be done at the local government level and that total votes for each unit will automatically appear on the computer centrally located at the INEC office."

In his view, "whoever owns INEC will be the winner, because it is what INEC announces that will be the results, and nobody can protest because in your ward or voting centre, party ‘A’ may be the most popular but party ‘B’ may be given the overall victory, so you will only begin to speculate that, perhaps other wards had voted for party ‘B’, with doubts and confusion taking charge."

The system provides no legal solace "So, whoever INEC announces as the winner, he remains the winner and you don’t have evidence to go and challenge him in court. I believe this is the most dangerous thing to the democracy of Nigeria and Nigerians continue chasing the shadow called third term, while leaving the real monster, thinking that it (electronic voting system) is insignificant.

snip

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/abujareports/2005/dec/05/abujaroport-05-12-2005-003.htm

Posted on Mon, Dec. 05, 2005

Highlights of proposed Senate changes to election bill

Associated Press

Proposed Senate GOP changes to a bill overhauling the way Ohioans cast votes and put issues on the statewide ballot would:

_Prohibit the Ohio secretary of state from serving on a campaign or issue committee, other than the secretary of state's own campaign committee.

_Require that all Ohio voters show identification at the polls to curb voter fraud.

_Eliminate the ability of county election boards to open satellite offices.

_Increase the number of signatures required to launch a statewide ballot issue from 100 to 1,000.

_Prohibit local candidates such as mayors from accepting campaign contributions from their employees.

_Allow the attorney general to pursue criminal charges based on alleged voter fraud.

_Prohibit voting machines from being connected to the Internet to help prevent fraud.

_Require that proposals to change Ohio law or the constitution include the provisions that would be replaced if the issue were successful.

_Require people circulating issue petitions to be Ohio residents and to give a permanent Ohio residence on the petition.

_Prohibit convicted felons from gathering petition signatures or from serving as a witness on voter registrations or petitions.

_Require boards of elections to have at least one electronic voting machine per precinct for every 175 voters, but allows local boards to buy more.

_Require third parties collecting voter registration forms or absentee ballot applications to submit them to election boards within 10 days of completing the forms.

Source: Senate Republican Caucus.

snip/and that's it

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/13335104.htm

EDITORIALS

Vote Shortage Is Suspicious

December 5, 2005

MIDDLETOWN -- Middletown officials will need strong arguments to overcome the case made by Republican council candidate David Bauer for a re-vote in the city's 11th District, where a voting machine appears to have malfunctioned. Mr. Bauer lost a seat on the council to fellow Republican V. James Russo by 102 votes.

Council candidates run at-large in Middletown. After his relatively narrow loss, Mr. Bauer noticed a discrepancy in the votes cast in the 11th District. On three of the district's four machines, Mr. Bauer received 188, 179 and 169 votes. On the fourth machine, he got only 12 votes. He maintains that voters were likely to be dispersed evenly to all machines and that his vote total on the fourth machine should have been similar to the count on the three other machines.

On Thursday, city officials and voting machine mechanics, with Mr. Bauer observing, conducted a test on the fourth machine. In more than 50 tests, they pulled lever 4A, which was Mr. Bauer's line, and the machine failed to record a single vote for him. Despite this seemingly conclusive evidence that the machine is broken, the council - after meeting behind closed doors - voted unanimously to continue defending the election results in court.

Mr. Bauer submitted evidence to the judge that the same machine has a history of producing low vote totals for the candidate on line 4A. In three previous elections, candidates on that line have received 0, 0 and 12 votes.

snip

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-midvote1dec05,0,4592543.story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials

December 05, 2005

New voting to be tested

Bainbridge, Georgia-- Georgia's new electronic voting system was supposed to solve and prevent voting problems, but some state lawmakers don't fully trust it. Senator Bill Stephens has pre-filed legislation to revamp Georgia's touch-screen voting machines so a paper trail goes along with the computer records. One south Georgia county will test that paper system.

Decatur County elections supervisor, Doris White, has a busy July ahead. "It will be the Governor's election. We will have three county commissioner's seats that will be open at that time," says White.

White's also busy working with a new voting system using a paper trail to document every ballot cast. Decatur is one of three counties that will use it in the primaries. "We don't know a whole lot about it yet. We're just waiting to go to school to learn," says White.

That'll happen after the first of the year. Meantime, elections officials are left wondering why a new system of checks and balances is needed, in line for use in the 2008 presidential election. "I don't see where the touch screen machines could go wrong. This is a seal that's placed on a machine once the ballot is loaded. If it's not this seal number with that serial number on the machine, they know there's a problem," says White.

snip

http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4205564&nav=5kZQ

transporting this thread to the Greatest

Tomorrow in Ohio: Litigation and Legislation

by Dan Tokaji

Monday, December 5

Tomorrow morning, the Sixth Circuit will be hearing argument in Stewart v. Blackwell, a case challenging the continuing use of "hanging chad" punch card machines in Ohio -- yup, we've still got 'em, believe it or not. I'll be arguing the case on behalf of plaintiffs-appellants. Information on the case, including court papers may be found here, on the ACLU of Ohio's website.

Also tomorrow, the Ohio Senate Rules Committee will be considering a bill (HB 3) that makes significant changes to the state's election laws. Among the changes is to impose a requirement that voters provide either a photo ID or one of the documents allowed to verify name and address under HAVA, such as a utility bill. As an alternative, the bill allows voters to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or to sign an affidavit verifying their identity, in which case they may cast a provisional ballot. More on the proposed bill can be found in this AP story and a summary of the recent changes is here.

snip/links

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2005/12/tomorrow-in-ohio-litigation-and.html

Reliability of e-voting in doubt

Expert estimates 10 percent of machines could fail

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO —

snip

The era of approving tools of democracy on the cheap is coming to an end, and judging by talk at a national gathering of voting experts here last week, few will be sorry to see it go.

snip

But if voting systems testing is as broken as scientists and voting advocates say, there is wide-ranging debate about what the future should look like. For the next year or two, the way that voting systems reach U.S. counties and voters isn't likely to change.

snip

Given typical delays in approval and purchase of new voting systems, that means the next Congress and president will be chosen in 2006 and 2008 on voting equipment tested and approved under the current national system or something very like it.

snip

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_3279940

NY Civic Groups Outraged at NYS Board of Elections Action

A coalition of civic groups, including New Yorkers for Verified Voting, NYS League of Women Voters, NYPIRG, and Common Cause / NY today condemned the State Board of Election's decision to begin preliminary certification testing of the Liberty DRE computerized voting machine this week, even though the prototype still has no voter verified paper ballot or full accessibility features as required by law. The groups found out about the move through a letter received on Friday by members of the HAVA Citizens Advisory Committee.

-snip-

"Computer engineers know that it is technically na�ve to believe that a partial system can be adequately tested."

-snip-

"In their decision to start the certification process for a voting machine that isn't fully built yet, the Board of Elections is acting like nincompoops."

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=439&Itemid=113

;)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x404093#404095

By Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican
December 6, 2005

Despite an 11th-hour protest from people who question the security and effectiveness of new electronic voting machines, Santa Fe County Clerk Valerie Espinoza has ordered touch-screen voting machines to comply with a federal mandate.

New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron gave the state's 33 county clerks until today to decide which of three state-approved machines they prefer. Espinoza said Monday that she told the secretary's office last week to order touch-screen machines called Sequoia Edge.

Espinoza requested 56 of the machines, one for each county polling place, as required by the federal Help America Vote Act, she said.

The machines -- aimed at creating equal voting rights for disabled voters and those who do not speak English -- are at the center of controversy still swirling from the 2004 general election.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/35951.html

December 05, 2005
Nevada officials work on 'Plan B' for voter registration

By BRENDAN RILEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS


CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - State and local election officials meet Thursday in Las Vegas to work out final details of an alternative to a statewide voter registration system that won't be ready for the start of Nevada's 2006 election cycle.

Representatives of Secretary of State Dean Heller's office and various clerks and registrars from around the state will meet in the office of Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax to finalize their "Plan B" solution to a federal mandate on voter registration.

A system linking the 17 counties and Heller's office is being developed by Covansys, under a $4.6 million contract. But Heller said Monday it won't be ready by a Jan. 1 deadline.

Covansys "just ran out of time" in trying to meet the deadline imposed under the federal Help America Vote Act, Heller said. "So we had to come up with an alternative."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2005/dec/05/120510705.html

December 5, 2005

Contact: Lale Mamaux
Phone: (202)225-3001

Wexler: Paper Trail Fight Continues In Federal Court

Appeals Court to Hear Oral Arguments December 7 on Florida’s Failure to Comply With Equal Protection Clause of U.S. Constitution

**Media Advisory**

**Press Conference Directly Following Hearing**

(Washington, D.C.) – On Wednesday, December 7 at 9:00 a.m., the 11th District Court of Appeals (99 NE 4th Street, 12th Floor) in Miami, FL will hear oral arguments in Congressman Robert Wexler’s (D-FL) federal elections lawsuit calling on the state of Florida to institute a paper trail in the 15 counties that currently use touch-screen voting machines. Wexler filed his initial federal lawsuit on March 8, 2004, under the precedent set by Bush v. Gore in the 2000 presidential election, which requires uniform standards throughout a state when conducting a manual recount. Because the 52 Florida counties with optical scan machines have a means to conduct a manual recount while the other 15 counties with touch-screen machines have a paperless system that cannot, Wexler is arguing that Florida is currently not in compliance with the Bush v. Gore standard and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Over the past two years, Wexler has continued the fight in state and federal courts to ensure that all votes are counted as fairly and accurately as possible on Election Day; however, he has been met with staunch opposition by Governor Bush and the Secretary of State, who firmly believe that Florida’s current voting system does not need to be fixed. Wexler argues that it is not only negligent, but it is irresponsible to take the point of view that something as important as one's vote is not worth protecting. Wexler and his attorney Jeffrey M. Liggio of Liggio, Benrubi & Williams will hold a press conference directly following the hearing. Please find details below:

Wednesday, December 7, 2005
9:00 AM
99 NE 4th Street, 12th Floor
Miami, FL

Congressman Wexler is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and is a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

http://www.wexler.house.gov/news.php?ID=169

Discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x404207

Diebold insider alleges company plagued by technical woes, Diebold defends 'sterling' record

Miriam Raftery

Dec 7, 2005

The insider harbors suspicions that Diebold may be involved in tampering with elections through its army of employees and independent contractors. The 2002 gubernatorial election in Georgia raised serious red flags, the source said.

“Shortly before the election, ten days to two weeks, we were told that the date in the machine was malfunctioning,” the source recalled. “So we were told `Apply this patch in a big rush.’” Later, the Diebold insider learned that the patches were never certified by the state of Georgia, as required by law.

“Also, the clock inside the system was not fixed,” said the Diebold hand, who installed the patches on voting machines in large counties in the Atlanta vicinity. “It’s legendary how strange the outcome was; they ended up having the first Republican governor in who knows when and also strange outcomes in other races. I can say that the counties I worked in were heavily Democratic and elected a Republican.”

In Georgia’s 2002 Senate race, for example, nearly 60 percent of the state’s electorate by county switched party allegiances between the primaries and the general election.

snip

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_insider__alleges_company_plagued_1206.html

Discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x404210

GD Discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5528561#top