Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sat. Jan. 13, 2007

http://www.uclick.com/client/nyt/tt/

and this is supposed to help?


http://www.uclick.com/client/nyt/jd/

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News

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 new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

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.



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



I need someone to do this thread on Saturday, January 27. I will be in Washington with some other friends from DU marching for peace. PM me if you can help out.
Thanks! livvy

January 12, 2007

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

By Charles Corry

Out of the frying pan into the fire
You can have an honest election, or you can have a mail in/absentee
ballot election, but you can't have both at the same time.

By November 2006 the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) (aka Leave No Voting Company Behind)* tidal wave had washed almost completely across America, destroying election integrity and trust in its wake, and brought to us by the same "leaders" who brought us war in Iraq; a war on drugs; the wholesale destruction of children, families, and marriage; torture; gulags; reinstituted indentured servitude and debtors prisons; and
incurred a national debt of nearly $9 trillion dollars that is increasing by $1.7 billion a day.

One need not read far into the tabulation of problems by
VotersUnite, or by the Equal Justice Foundation, to realize electronic voting has been a massive failure. The innumerable problems, in many cases initiated by requirements of HAVA, has led to often extreme
distrust of voting machines in polling places. Nowhere is this more
apparent than in November 2006 election in Riverside County, California, one of the first counties to switch to electronic voting.

In many cases, dysfunctional voting machines and incompetent or
dishonest election officials have led to outrageous waits for voters
at polling places, e.g., in several Colorado counties in November
2006 the last voters were not able to cast a ballot until 1:30 AM the
next morning at voting centers. In some cases, notably Ohio, election officials apparently deliberately put too few electronic voting machines in minority or Democratic neighborhoods, forcing many potential voters to turn away rather than wait in line for many hours to vote. And, if citizens are able to vote at a precinct, the innumerable problems with electronic voting machines (documented here) and on many other web
sites leaves voters justifiably uncertain if their vote was counted
and, if counted, counted correctly?

In order to avoid the lines at polling places, and with
well-founded mistrust in touchscreen (DRE) voting machines, an ever-increasing number of voters have taken to using absentee ballots in the correct belief that a hand-marked paper ballot is more durable and accurate than an ephemeral entry on a computer screen.

>more

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_charles__070112_out_of_the_frying_pa.htm

January 12, 2007

Did DLC- Ford Connection Cause Ford TN Loss?

By Rob Kall

Did you notice that Harold Ford has been picked to replace Tom Vilsack as head of the DLC-- that republican lite organization that sabotages real democrats? Maybe that's why he lost. He was unwilling to act like a real democrat and was probably coached by DLC losers who are Democrat in name only.

One Tennessee media site suggests this could be a way of grooming him for a presidential run but... for which party? The DLC is losing ground and more and more people are discovering what they really are-- faux republican corporatists parading as Democrats.

It is likely that Ford has been tapped because he will be able to evangelize the DLC's right wing drivel to the African American community, particularly the preacher-based part of the community that has resonated with the anti-gay, anti same-sex-marriage right wing wedge issue bangers. Not a bad idea from a DLC point of view-- but bad for African Americans. It will surely be divisive and will weaken and fracture the unity with which the black community has voted and worked together.

I'd say that if Ford takes the job, he is burying any chance for President he ever had-- not that he had muc of one, after his loss-- setting himselfup for a job as a lobbyist, or maybe as a TV pundit for FOX, where they look for weak, barely left of right wing "democrats" to "balance" their extreme right wingnut gasbag pundits-- like Anne Coulter, et. al.

>more

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_070112_did__dlc__ford_conne.htm

January 13, 2007

New York Post Attempts Op-Ed News Bravado

By Dean Powers

Yesterday, the New York Post made an amaturish attempt to do battle in rhetoric on par with Op-Ed News and came up short.

The sixth-grade-level opinion piece was dressed as a frontpage, unbiased news story entitled, "It's War, Dem Childless Condi Slur." Don't be intimidated by the headline...the body of the article rates at a far lower reading level.

In what amounted to a wailing lament with more emotional gut-jerkers than "Old Yeller," the Post sobbed for dozens of paragraphs about the big bad anti-feminist Democrat, Senator Barbara Boxer.

I know, I know. Who could have guessed it? California woman; one of the few women in the Senate; West Coast values...liberal. She had us all fooled, guys. It's okay. Don't take it too hard on yourselves.

>more of this delightfully (IMHO) sarcastic and pointed opinion piece

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dean_pow_070113_new_york_post_attemp.htm

Authors Bio: Dean Powers is a former intern at The Nation, whose views are not reflected in this piece. Click on his name above to view his bio. And please visit his poorly attended blog at thedeansoffice.blogspot.com.

January 4, 2007
CONTACT: Massie Ritsch (202/857-0044 x111 or editor@capitaleye.org)

OpenSecrets.org Monitors

Washington's 'Revolving Door'

____________________

With the capital’s post-election ‘NBA draft’ in full swing, a new online database tracks the public and private employment of 6,400 well-connected individuals

____________________

WASHINGTON – As Congress debates ways to slow the “revolving door” between Capitol Hill and K Street lobbying firms, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has added a new feature to its award-winning Web site, OpenSecrets.org, that profiles more than 6,400 individuals who have worked in both the federal government and the private sector.

Freely available to the public, the Revolving Door Database is the most comprehensive source to date for learning who’s who in the Washington influence industry, and for uncovering how these people’s government connections afford them privileged access to those in power. Users can see, for example, which federal regulators are now working for the industries they once oversaw and which lobbyists might be capitalizing on their past employment with congressional committees that award government contracts, subsidies, earmarked appropriations and tax breaks.

“There’s a backstory to every law, regulation and government contract, and OpenSecrets.org’s Revolving Door Database helps tell those stories,” said the Center’s Executive Director, Sheila Krumholz. “With the shift in power in Congress, Washington’s version of the NBA draft is underway right now. People are trading on their connections to score plum jobs, and sometimes that makes for cozy relationships between government and private interests that affect the rest of us.”

About 70% of the individuals in the Revolving Door Database are registered lobbyists. The remainder currently work at law and public relations firms, industry trade associations or unions, where their jobs may entail lobbying, formally or informally. Although the movement between the public and private sectors is commonly described as a revolving door, the database demonstrates that the phenomenon could be more aptly described as a one-way exit. Nearly all of the individuals in the database currently work in the private sector following jobs in government, which are typically less lucrative.

>more

http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2007/RevolvingDoor.1.4.asp

Link to database
http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/


Take a spin through the Revolving Door database

Although the influence powerhouses that line Washington's K Street are just a few miles from the U.S. Capitol building, the most direct path between the two doesn't necessarily involve public transportation. Instead, it's through a door—a revolving door that shuffles former federal employees into jobs as lobbyists, consultants and strategists just as the door pulls former hired guns into government careers. While members of the executive branch, Congress and senior congressional staffers spin in and out of the private and public sectors, so too does privilege, power, access and, of course, money.

Whether they are a presidential appointee plucked from an elite position in corporate America to run a government commission or an outgoing member of Congress looking for a more lucrative job in the influence industry, OpenSecrets.org's Revolving Door database tracks anyone whose résumé includes positions of influence in both the private and public sectors. Government employees may have had the president’s ear or may have simply been the doorkeeper of the congressional cloakrooms. Influence-peddlers merely have to be in a position to influence government policy on someone else's behalf, commonly as a "hired gun" at a K Street firm, an executive of a professional trade association or as a vice president of government relations for a large company.

Use the search options below to discover which public relations firms have signed up former White House employees, which lobbyists have brought their interests with them to the powerful appropriations committees, which interests are employing former members of Congress to lobby on their behalf...and much more.

>more at the link
on edit: The search engine is fantastic. You can look up a former Congress Critter, or look at a list of former staffers under a specific Administration, and these are just a few of the options.
Here's Lieberman's page:



When you click on one of the names you get a complete profile, employment timeline, and much more. Also available is a database for the lobbying firms the person worked for. Try it, but plan to be there a while. I've bookmarked it since I have work to do. Back to work, livvy! LOL

Florida 13th: Taking Elections Seriously, Part II
By Bob Bauer
January 13, 2007

Including a Response from Matt Weil

This commentary was posted on Bob Bauer's Blog and is reposted here with permission of the author.

Matt Weil replied to this post yesterday, narrowing somewhat the apparent ground of disagreement. On substance, Weil writes that the source code should be available to the parties: “I would like nothing more than to see a completely fair review of the voting machines used in Sarasota....” This is what Christine Jennings has asked, so far without success.

Weil remains convinced, on the basis of one statistical study, that ballot design is the cause. He is entitled to this view, of course, and this is not the place to contest it. Readers who review the filings in the Sarasota case will judge for themselves whether Jennings successfully puts in doubt this theory of ballot design. What they will certainly find is that Jennings did not, as Weil suggests, “ignore” this alternative explanation. Jennings attempts to show, in fact, that ballot design is not at all the “likely” explanation for the Sarasota undervote.

Although it is stated reasonably, Weil’s position, in some particulars, shares in the some common notions about post-election disputes that explain the often limited public patience with them.

First, there is a sense that when elections have failed to produce a clear or uncontested outcome, the public interest lies in the quickest disposition. Often—and this is not specifically Weil’s concern—the expectation is that elections are to be decided promptly, a view not unrelated to the wish to have them “called” speedily on election night. The voters have voted: so what is the result?

>more

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2186&Itemid=113

Counting ballots
Two new developments expose more flaws in electronic touch-screen voting

First published: Saturday, January 13, 2007

The case for optical scan voting machines -- and, by extension, the case against touch-screen electronic voting machines -- grows stronger every day. Two recent cases in point:

First, a New York Times report, reprinted in this newspaper, disclosed that the federal government has temporarily suspended a laboratory entrusted with certifying touch-screen machines after it failed to document that it was conducting all the required procedures. The lab, Ciber Inc., based in Colorado, has also been criticized by consultants hired by New York state. The lapses include such crucial areas as vote-counting software and security. One expert told the Times that the systems Ciber has already certified, and which have been used in elections, are suspect.

By contrast, optical scan machines provide verifiable records because voters mark paper ballots, much as bettors mark a lottery ticket, which are scanned electronically, and kept in storage in case they need to be reviewed under challenge. Yes, but... it's not the cure...sigh...

In a second development, a federal judge in Florida has reinforced the worst nightmare raised by opponents of electronic voting machines by denying petitioners access to a voting machine's source code, which is needed to confirm results in a close election in the 13th Congressional District.

>more

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=553460&category=OPINION&newsdate=1/13/2007

Fixing The E-Voting Mess

Advocacy groups push for electronic voting reform.

By Larry Greenemeier
InformationWeek

Jan 13, 2007 12:00 AM

Where there's controversy, there's opportunity for advocacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center. On that score, the elections of 2000 sprung open a huge new market.

Since then, EPIC and other advocacy groups have done a lot of work related to improving voting machines and computerized alternatives. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 required federal officials to improve elections but didn't say how. "You have vendors telling the Election Assistance Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology what they need to do with the voting solution," says Marc Rotenberg, EPIC's executive director. "That's a problem."

One battleground is Florida's Sarasota County, where watchdog groups allege that voting machines supplied by Election Systems & Software failed to record up to 18,000 votes in last November's U.S. House race between Democrat Christine Jennings and Republican Vern Buchanan, who won by fewer than 400 votes. Jennings sued for a new election, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Buchanan has taken his seat in the 110th Congress, pending the outcome of the case.

The issue's moving into a new phase on the federal level. In December, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee advised the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission to require paper or other software-independent means of auditing election results. But it's a mistake to push for a paper-trail approach rather than issue guidelines to vendors and have them find the best solution, says Steven Hertzberg, project director of the Election Science Institute, a tech advocacy group created around the e-voting issue. "Political momentum takes over any logical scientific engineering discussion," he says.

>more

http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196900623

Election paper trail bill on House agenda

By JEFF HORSEMAN, Staff Writer

With more than a year before voters choose the next president, a state delegate yesterday introduced a bill that would track votes with a paper trail to ensure the accuracy of future elections.

But the paper receipt system could cost $50 million, and the county elections chief said it isn't necessary.

"I don't see a need for it," Barbara Fisher said. "I have confidence in the system we have."

The integrity and accuracy of state elections has been an issue ever since the state switched to touch-screen voting machines several years ago. Critics say the machines are susceptible to fraud and that a paper trail provides an extra layer of protection to the electoral process.

>more

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/01_13-32/GOV

Election officials say they're ready

By Rocky Mountain News
January 12, 2007

The Denver election commission gave an A+ to its preparations for a special Jan. 30 election where voters could sign the commission’s own death warrant.

In a release this afternoon, the commission said it had tested equipment in the presence of representatives of both the Republican and Democratic parties and had a 100 percent success rate.

Following the Election Day meltdown in November’s general election, the Denver city council voted to call a special election for voters to decide if election responsibility should be shifted to an elected clerk and recorder.

The current commission consists of two elected commissioners and the current clerk and recorder, who is currently a mayoral appointment.

>more

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5276442,00.html

Joel McNally: To force recall election would be the real fraud

By Joel McNally
January 13, 2007
Conservative Republicans finally got a real life opportunity to prove they were honest and sincere about wanting to prevent election fraud in Wisconsin.

And they failed that test miserably.

Ever since Republicans began trumpeting the issue of election fraud in recent years, they've been strongly suspected of merely using the issue as subterfuge.

That's because Republicans never presented any actual evidence that election fraud had ever been committed by anyone except Republicans in the state of Florida. And the only solution they offered to prevent imaginary election fraud was to try to make it more difficult for poor people and minorities to vote - citizens who are likely to vote Democratic.

>more

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=114817&ntpid=0

Note for non-Michiganders: DeVos ran against Governor Granholm this year. Although much of the truth about him came out during the campaign, he got off to good start, much to the dismay and concern of many of us in Michigan. This would have been great ammo to use against him during the campaign. Fortunately, we didn't need it, but it would have been nice to have. Believe me, this is not a person Progressives want in a political office.

Posted on DailyKos
DeVos’s All Children Matter resembles Howie Rich’s ALG
by sandlapper
Thu Jan 11, 2007 at 08:47:12 PM PST

Last night, as I reported here http://www.dailykos.com/... the Center for Public Integrity pulled back the curtain on Howie Rich’s Americans for Limited Government to reveal that 99 percent of ALG’s funding in 2005 came from only three major donors. A reporter covering CPI’s announcement noted that this fact refuted the well-documented stream of ALG propaganda claiming that "thousands" of supporters across the nation funded Rich’s committee. Of course, I’ve read and written a good deal about how that (and more) funding was used in 2006, bouncing from ALG in New York to handful of paper organizations in the states, to pay for petition circulators and campaigns for Rich’s ballot initiatives. And it hit me –again – that I’ve read about the exact same thing happening in Wisconsin: money from anonymous donors funneled back and forth between states and paper organizations to be used in politics. Only this time, the organization is called All Children Matter.

* sandlapper's diary :: ::
*

Now, I’m not as familiar with ACM as I’ve become with ALG – I’ve been Googling the latter for a few months now – but I mentioned this Wisconsin business first here http://www.dailykos.com/... and Google has already helped out a good bit since then. Let’s recap the story.

Reporter Paul Sloth told us here http://www.journaltimes.com/... "A group of residents and local unions... filed a complaint with the State Elections Board claiming the Michigan-based school choice group All Children Matter violated Wisconsin state law. The complaint alleges the group broke state elections law by advocating against a candidate in a local state Senate race without properly registering with the State Elections Board. The complaint stems from a direct mail flier sent to residents in the 21st Senate District urging them to ‘vote against’ Rep. John Lehman in his campaign for the Senate seat against Racine County Executive Bill McReynolds."

So All Children Matter – ACM – is based in Michigan but sent mail to voters in Wisconsin hoping to affect the outcome of a legislative race. And apparently, because they clearly advocated for Rep. John Lehman’s defeat, they were acting as a political action committee and therefore were subject to laws governing PACs in Wisconsin. Okay, clear enough to me so far.

>more

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/11/234443/202

I don't know if my searching skills are askew, there's just not much news out there, or if I'm just too distracted. I'll check back later and see if I can drum up some more news.
Until then have a relaxing, most pleasant Saturday either on your own...



or with your family or friends!



livvy

:toast:

Someone will step up. :)

Some are trying to organize a meetup for Friday eve, and maybe Saturday, too. Check in the District of Columbia forum for updates.
We had one last time in DC and it was fun to meet so many DUers. It was a neat little pub, too, complete with Skinner and Earl.

Here we are on Friday, evening:

I think that was Skinner jumping up and down....just kidding, Skinner, really, I think I only saw you jump up and down a couple of times.

A meet up would be great. I'll wear tennis shoes for maximum flexibility and lift. :)

Strickland Places Hope In Average Ohioans
Reported by: A.P.
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
Photographed by: 9News
First posted: 1/13/2007 12:05:34 PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Gov. Ted Strickland's inaugural celebration Saturday was aimed at the needs and sensibilities of average Ohioans -- whether in the open outdoor staging of the event, in the Democrat's call for renewed emphasis on public education, or in the luxury corn dogs and country music on tap for the Governor's Ball.

But, with an estimated price tag of $1.3 million, the festivities were far from humble.

Banks, insurance companies, utilities, retailers, law firms and labor unions chipped in $10,000 to $25,000 to help underwrite the daylong celebration of prayer, tribute and celebration.

Amounts given by each donor will be released next week, inaugural spokeswoman Allison Kolodziej said.
>more

http://wcpo.com/news/2007/local/01/13/strickland.html

AP Interview: Gov. Riley says no to VP talk
1/13/2007, 1:25 p.m. CT
By PHILLIP RAWLS
The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Bob Riley adds the title of "two-term governor" on Monday. But with potential presidential candidate John McCain attending the inauguration, Riley is trying to stymie speculation that he wants to trade his new title for "vice presidential candidate" next year.

Riley says he is not interested in running a national campaign in 2008 or leaving the governor's office before the end of his new four-year term.

"This sounds so hokey I hate to even say it, but Alabama truly is positioned to do something that is incredible, and I can't think of a better way to spend four years than to finally be able to make all the education reforms we can, develop a new ethical standard, and watch this state continue to grow in a way it has never grown before," Riley said in an interview.

David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama, said Riley does not appear to be an "overly ambitious" politician. But he said, "Politicians are like football coaches. They say they don't want the job until they take it."

>more

http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-26/116871684581580.xml&storylist=alabamanews

January 13, 2007

Banned test lab certified electronic voting machines used by 68.5% of nation's registered voters in 2006 elections

By Michael Richardson

Last week Christopher Drew of the New York Times informed a shocked nation that the leading "independent testing authority" of electronic voting machines, Ciber, Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colorado had not been following its own quality-control procedures and could not document that it completed required tests for reliability and security.

The federal Election Assistance Commission, which accredited the Ciber testing lab, secretly pulled its interim accreditation last year, without informing the public or election officials relying on Ciber's results. Independent testing centers, including Ciber, are not really independent at all and are funded by voting machine vendors to whom they issue their testing reports and only recently have come under federal scrutiny.

The EAC has yet to explain why it withheld the accreditation of Ciber from the voting public and the omission has entangled the controversial election oversight panel in the growing national distrust of electronic voting machines and may threaten its continued existence.

How many voting machines might be affected by the lax security inspections of Ciber?

Respected electronic voting machine authority and self-described "politechnologist" Joseph Hall did some digging. "The answer was not something I would have predicted...I knew Ciber did a good deal of software ITA testing, but it looks like, in terms of voting system deployment, that Ciber qualified the voting systems used by 68.5% of the registered voters (67.9% of precincts) in the 2006 election."

>more

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070113_banned__test_lab_cer.htm

WHAT THE HILL? Baron talks about being back in Washington


By DAVID MANN
David.Mann@newsandtribune.com

Two months ago, Southern Indiana was witness to one of the most expensive and down right muddy political campaigns in recent memory between former congressman Mike Sodrel and current congressman Baron Hill.

The race ended with Republican Sodrel publicly refusing to even extend the customary “congratulations” call to Democrat Hill, who took back his U.S. Representative seat from Sodrel.

The dust has since settled on the campaign. And Hill is now settling back into the job of being Indiana’s 9th District representative — a job he held for six years from 1998 to 2004.

The congressman sat down for an interview with The Evening News and The Tribune prior to a swearing in ceremony a week ago in New Albany.

>more

http://www.news-tribune.net/homepage/local_story_012212409.html?keyword=leadpicturestory