Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Saturday, Jan. 20, 2007

Planning to be part of the picture this year?



Join us in DC, Saturday, Jan. 27.
We have a meet up planned for Friday evening, and plan to get together before the march. Go to the District of Columbia forum for details and updates. Hope to see you there! livvy

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).

Next week's Saturday ERD is contingent upon someone else taking it on. It's up for grabs. First come, first serve. Don't let this outstanding opportunity for fame and fortune pass you by! This could be you!

Hillary Clinton steps into U.S. presidential race
By Patrick Healy
Saturday, January 20, 2007

Six years after making history by winning a United States Senate seat as first lady, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Saturday that she was taking the first formal step to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, a journey that would break yet more political barriers in her extraordinary and controversial career.

"I'm in," she says in a statement on her new campaign Web site. "And I'm in to win."

Clinton, 59, called for "bold but practical changes" in foreign, domestic, and national security policy and said that she would focus on finding "a right end" to the Iraq war, expanding health insurance, pursuing greater energy independence and strengthening the Social Security and Medicare programs for senior citizens.

In her statement, Clinton also squarely confronted an issue that concerns many Democrats: Whether she can, in fact, win the presidency. Some voters still associate her most with the controversies of the Clinton administration, and Republicans have long attacked and caricatured her, and plan to brand her as indecisive on Iraq.

>more

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/20/america/web.0120clinton.php

Text of Clinton's statement


Original publication: January 20, 2007)

The Associated Press

Statement issued Saturday by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., on her Web site - http://www.hillaryclinton.com - about her candidacy for president in 2008:

I'm in. And I'm in to win.

Today I am announcing that I will form an exploratory committee to run for president.

And I want you to join me not just for the campaign but for a conversation about the future of our country - about the bold but practical changes we need to overcome six years of Bush administration failures.

I am going to take this conversation directly to the people of America, and I'm starting by inviting all of you to join me in a series of Web chats over the next few days.

The stakes will be high when America chooses a new president in 2008.

>more
http://www.nynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070120/UPDATE/701200401

Election Reform Debate Erupts into Brawl


TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - January 19, 2007 - A ruling party lawmaker threw a shoe at the speaker of Taiwan's legislature on Friday and assorted colleagues pushed and shoved each other, throwing the final day of the winter legislative session into chaos.


The scenes were reminiscent of past Taiwanese legislative brawls, and represented another low point in the island's sometimes stormy transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Friday's trouble erupted when dozens of lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party stormed the speaker's dais to prevent voting on a proposal to change the composition of the Central Election Commission.

The commission is responsible for administering elections on the island of 23 million people and is generally considered nonpartisan.

Opposition Nationalists responded to the DPP's move by rushing forward to protect speaker Wang Jin-pyng, one of the Nationalists' senior members.

DPP lawmaker Wang Shu-huei flung a shoe at the speaker, but it struck the face of a lawmaker next to him.

>more

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=nation_world&id=4947556

Ahhh....so this is how to get what you want! I wonder if he got his shoe back???

Liberal group says Ohio Elections Commission needs reform
Saturday, January 20, 2007

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A state panel that oversees elections complaints is slow to investigate candidates accused of making false statements or violating campaign finance laws, a liberal group said Friday.

The Ohio Elections Commissions handles up to 1,000 complaints a year and yet is largely ineffective, said Brian Rothenberg, executive director of ProgressOhio.org.

Rothenberg referred to a report issued last week by Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland's transition team, which analyzed 56 Cabinet departments and other agencies, including the elections commission.

The commission's seven members _ three Republicans, three Democrats and one independent _ are not required to be trained in constitutional law but are asked to determine the legality of constitutionally protected political speech, the transition team report said.

>more

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=331291&Category=13

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Election results

The 96-2 vote by which a remarkably strong ethics and lobbying package passed the Senate late Thursday is a reflection of reform's importance not to Congress, but to the public.

Indeed, the Senate leaders of both parties earlier had seemed as if they would be happy to scuttle or emasculate the bill.

In the end, however, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had to set aside his own coziness with lobbyists and demand tougher standards.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has rarely seen a contributor bearing money that he didn't welcome, was leading a futile filibuster against the bill as recently as Wednesday night.

But when all was done, Sens. Reid and McConnell were praising the measure as a model of bipartisan cooperation.

>more

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070120/OPINION01/701200354

Article published Jan 20, 2007
Ex-Rep. Ney is given 30 months in bribery
Republican heading to prison in Abramoff case By Susan Schmidt

Washington | Former Ohio Republican Rep. Robert Ney was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison, becoming the first member of Congress headed for jail because of his corrupt dealings with now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle handed down a slightly tougher sentence than the 27 months recommended by prosecutors, telling Ney that "as a member of Congress, you had the responsibility above all else to set an example and to uphold the law."

Ney became a symbol of the corruption that aroused voters and helped sweep into Congress a new Democratic majority promising ethics reform.
The former chairman of the House Administration Committee admitted he performed official acts for Abramoff's lobbying clients between 2001 and 2003, receiving bribes of luxury vacation trips, skybox seats at sporting events, campaign contributions, expensive meals - as well as tens of thousands of dollars in gambling chips from an international businessman who sought his help with the State Department.

He's cooperating
In the continuing probe, Ney and seven others have pleaded guilty or been convicted, and several are cooperating witnesses. In addition to the government's chief witness, Abramoff, they include Ney's former chief of staff, Neil Volz, and two other Capitol Hill staffers who once worked for former Majority Leader Tom DeLay. All three had joined Abramoff's lobbying team at the Greenberg, Traurig law firm.

>more

http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070120/NEWS/701200368/1002/business

High Court To Revisit Campaign Finance Law
New Lineup on Bench Will Consider Ad Limits

By Robert Barnes and Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 20, 2007; Page A01

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to revisit the landmark 2002 legislation overhauling the nation's campaign finance laws, moving to settle the role of campaign spending by corporations, unions and special interest groups in time for the 2008 presidential primaries.

It would be the first time the court has reviewed the McCain-Feingold law of 2002 since justices ruled 5 to 4 three years ago that the act was constitutional. Since then, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was in the majority, has been replaced by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

At issue in the case is the question of whether so-called issue advocacy ads paid for by the general funds of special interest groups and broadcast in the period before a federal election may mention specific candidates. A three-judge panel in Washington last month overturned that prohibition, which is one of the key provisions of the law known formally as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

"The stakes are enormous," said Michael E. Toner, a Federal Election Commission member who served on President Bush's campaign in 2000. "We're watching this case very closely."

>more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011901119.html

This is a long article, a lot to digest, and I've snipped a lot. Worth a read. He makes some valid points, although it is likely you will not agree with all. It is not an uplifting article, if you are prone to fits of depression. He addresses election fraud a little over halfway through the piece.



Democrat Agenda Omissions
by Stephen Lendman; January 20, 2007

With all the customary pomp and pageantry accompanying the occasion, the 110th nominally (first time in 12 years) Democrat-led Congress convened on Capitol Hill on January 4. It was done much the same as in earlier years except for the first time ever a woman took the gavel after being elected Speaker of the House in a final vote known weeks in advance killing any suspense about its outcome.

>big snip

It didn't take long, for those paying attention, to realize how foolish that thinking was as the presumed new Democrat leadership at the time (now confirmed) made it clear in its barely disguised rhetoric it will be business as usual and one more betrayal of the public trust that sent a strong message of disgust in the mid-term elections demanding change it won't get.

>big snip

Expecting change will be even harder in the Senate that's split 51 - 49 with newly elected former Vermont congressman Bernie Sanders an independent socialist aligned with the Democrats but former Democrat and now independent Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman nominally counted as a Democrat (keeping his seniority in the party and in charge of the Homeland Security panel) but one who votes consistently with the hard right wing of the Republican party, especially for our wars of aggression and Israel's. It makes the new Senate effectively 50 - 50 with Dick Cheney as vice-president able to cast the only vote that counts if he gets to use it. In addition, George Bush unfortunately is still president and able to veto any unwanted legislation and prevail as the Congress is far from veto-proof.

>big snip

The Democrat rhetoric says a lot about the 110th Congress speaking like all others before it with forked tongue - pretending in rhetoric to serve the public interest while acting against it. That's the reality the US public must understand, address, and demand this time not to tolerate in mass protest demonstrations across the country, in the nation's capital and in the halls and offices of their representatives in Congress elected to serve us, and it's high time they did or step aside and let others do it for them.

>more

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=11899

:toast:

:hi:

k&r

Internetnews.com

January 19, 2007

By Michael Hickins

The Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which is responsible for certifying labs that test voting machines, said yesterday it has been advised by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to accredit two new independent testing labs.

NIST acts as the technical adviser to the EAC, although the EAC has rejected NIST's advice in the past.

That fact, as well as recent snafus that came to light during and after the November 2006 elections, make it likely that the EAC will come under harsh scrutiny during the current legislative session.

The matter has taken on added urgency in Washington because of a contested Congressional election in Sarasota County, Fla. Eighteen thousand fewer votes were tabulated for that race than other, lesser races held in the same precinct. This raised suspicions that electronic voting machines used in that election are at fault.

The vote count cannot be verified independently because there was no paper record of the votes, and the outcome of that election will likely be decided by Florida courts.

Democratic party leaders in both houses of Congress have said election-system reform is one of the priorities they will address during the first 100 hours of the new session.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said she would hold hearings and introduce legislation on electronic voting machines "as soon as possible."

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3655001

First labs receive initial OK for voting system testing program

By William Jackson, GCN Staff

01/19/07

snip

The labs, iBeta Software Quality Assurance of Aurora and SysTest Labs of Denver, are the first to make it through NIST’s National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program for evaluating voting machines. The Election Assistance Commission will make the final decision.

snip

http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/42949-1.html


For more on this story see also:

U.S. To Certify Labs For Testing E-Voting Machines

http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/07/01/19/1425214.shtml

Endorsement for Voting Machine Labs

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/washington/19brfs-ENDORSEMENTF_BRF.html?pagewanted=print

Congress Lights Fire Under Vote Systems Agency

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3655001

Two e-voting test labs get thumbs up

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/412


Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x465306

Thanks be to Livvy! :thumbsup:

State legislators, election officials tackle voting issues

Paper trails, voter ID, early voting on the agenda

electionline Weekly – January 18, 2007

By Sean Greene
electionline.org

With the beginning of the New Year comes the start of many state legislative sessions, and both lawmakers and election officials are considering a variety of changes to the election process in 2007 – some reacting to problems that arose in the last vote and others the continuation of trends around the country in recent years.

In Colorado, officials have completed reviews to examine what went wrong in several jurisdictions, including Denver, when problems with poll books led to long lines and irate voters.

Other proposals by lawmakers around the country could expand or adjust early voting or no-excuse absentee voting, increase the number of states requiring voter-verified paper audit trails with electronic voting machines and alter voter verification requirements at the polls.

snip

Not surprisingly, legislative efforts to add voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPATs) to direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines are on the agenda in several states. Before the 2006 election cycle, nearly half of states already required DREs to print paper versions of ballots that voters could examine. Last November’s troubled vote in Florida’s 13th Congressional District that included an unusually high number of non-votes in the race for the U.S. House, has added both urgency and timeliness to calls for paper backups of electronic ballots. Similarly, a number of lawmakers could take it a step further, asking their colleagues to approve measures that would outlaw the use of DREs altogether, instead requiring their states to use optical-scan systems or other paper-based balloting.

* Bills requiring VVPATs have been filed in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. (In some of these states multiple bills on the topic have been proposed.)

* Legislation also in Virginia would require jurisdictions to use paper ballots.

* In Kentucky, Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R) has said that a committee will study issues related to implementing VVPATs.

* News reports in Indiana indicate that Rep. Dennis Avery, D-Evansville, is considering proposing VVPAT legislation.

* A voter advocacy group in Iowa is pushing legislators there to return to paper ballots.

snip/links

http://www.electionline.org/Newsletters/tabid/87/ctl/Detail/mid/643/xmid/234/xmfid/3/Default.aspx


Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x465300