Election Reform and Related News: Saturday, May 10, 2008

Election Reform and Related News
Saturday, May 10, 2008




Get yer barrels here. Many sizes and designs available! You can use your tax rebate if ya' don't need it for food or gas or shelter, or to pay your water or energy bill. I'm kinda' partial to the cedar. It's a nice neutral color and will match just about any pair of flip flops ya' might have. Good for camouflage, too, just drop and pop your head in. Works jus'about everytime for turtles.
http://www.kentuckybarrels.com/?gclid=COGAlr_rm5MCFQNfFQodDzL03g

Everyone is welcome to participate. Feel free to:

:bluebox: Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

:bluebox: Post stories using the new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

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

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

Recommendations for the Greatest Page are always welcomed. It's the best way to share the news with members who don't frequent this forum. It's the link below.

164 voters moved out of bounds
Friday, May 09, 2008

By ERICA ZARRA
of The Montclair Times

A ward that has had its boundary lines redrawn is garnering political attention from candidates, residents and state officials.

One hundred sixty-four voters who reside on portions of Bloomfield Avenue, Elm Street, Gates Avenue, Hawthorne Avenue and Union Street, in what was presumed to be the 4th Ward, have been reclassified as 3rd Ward residents.

However, this is not a new change. The realignment occurred in 2001, but was never enforced by Essex County officials who, as of yesterday, intended to apply the change in the Township Council election this Tuesday, May 13.

Such a move has infuriated voters and political hopefuls alike.


more...

http://www.montclairtimes.com/page.php?page=17063

This is significant because Diaz is running again. As background, in 2000, he was a target of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Millions were spent in Mississippi to beat him and other candidates. Their efforts were not successful and Diaz won. Then in 2003 he was targeted again, along with attorney Paul Minor,and two other judges, Teel and Whitfield, this time on charges of corruption and tax charges. He was cleared on all counts. It's all tied in with the corrupt justice system in Mississippi and possible ties to Rove and the US Justice Department that has yet to be thoroughly investigated in DC. His case is quite similar to the Siegelman case in Alabama. Different state...but same corrupt GOP targeting. This could be a campaign to watch.

Here are some links for background:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/national/15JUDG.html?ex=1394686800&en=e25c7aee496b84c9&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=all

Scott Horton's piece in Harper's is great:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001232


May 10, 2008


Supreme Court races

10 candidates vying for 3 seats

Jerry Mitchell
jmitchell@clarionledger.com

State Supreme Court Presiding Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. has weathered several storms in recent years - Hurricane Katrina and worse.

But they have not deterred him from taking on another re-election bid for the court, where he has served since 2000.

Diaz is one of nine candidates running for three spots on the high court. In the District 2 race, he faces two challengers: Paul Newton Jr., 53, a Gulfport lawyer and expert in trust and tax law; and Chancery Judge Bubba Pierce of Leakesville, 43, a former state lawmaker.

Justice Chuck Easley, 59, who was elected to the high court in 2000, has the distinction of running as a candidate in two different Supreme Court races in District 3.

more...



http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080510/NEWS/805100345/1001/news

Nine of 18 charged in Daggett Co. voter fraud case plead innocent
By Christopher Smart
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:05/10/2008 12:00:10 AM MDT


MANILA - Nine of the first 18 defendants arraigned in the voter-fraud scandal in northeastern Utah's Daggett County said Friday that as tax-paying property owners, they were advised they could vote in the November 2006 election.

Seven of the nine are members of the Raddon family and own property in Salt Lake County as well as Daggett. They pleaded not guilty, as did two other defendants. Further court hearings have yet to be scheduled for this group.

The case stems from fraudulent voter-registration charges brought In March against 51 people. The charge, a class A misdemeanor, is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Not all defendants were scheduled for arraignment on Friday in Judge John R. Anderson's 8th District Court. Other hearings are expected by late spring or early summer. Fourteen of the 51 had listed as their place of residence the address of the parents of Rick Ellsworth, who unseated Sheriff Alan Campbell in the 2006 election.

Three of those 14 pleaded guilty Friday to a reduced to charge of class B misdemeanor attempt to fraudulently register to vote. Fined $500 each were Zachary B. Millett, Roosevelt, and Wyoming residents Brandon C. Ellsworth and Charles C. Rich.

more...



http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9208173

Abington override recount set for Wednesday
A $650,000 Proposition 21/2 override was approved by a margin of only three votes in the April election.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Allan Stein
ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT
Posted May 09, 2008 @ 11:13 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABINGTON — A recount of the Proposition 21/2 override that was approved by a margin of three votes in the April election is expected to be held Wednesday.

snip

The petition said the recount is required because the results of the optical vote machine that counted the ballots fell “within the margin of error,” Adams said.

snip

Adams said the 1,400 ballots cast in the election will be hand-counted. The process may take as long as five hours to complete, she said.

snip

Warren said the recount will be conducted at the Town Hall in a “transparent” manner in accordance with state law. It will be done in full public view with observers for the petitioners also present to watch the proceeding, he said.


http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/x1192320272/Abington-override-recount-set-for-Wednesday

W.Va. Soldiers Can Vote By Fax; E-Mail May Be Added
By SHELLEY HANSON POSTED: May 9, 2008

WHEELING — While swabbing the deck at sea, returning enemy fire in downtown Baghdad or catching some shut-eye in a rolling Humvee, finding time to also vote may fall off a soldier’s to-do list.

And for others, remembering to mail an absentee voting ballot 6,280 miles from Baghdad to Wheeling on time may seem unreasonable; being a soldier is hard enough.

With this in mind, state and local officials want to make military members’ voting experience a little easier. Thanks to a new state law, participating West Virginia counties can offer voting by fax machine to soldiers overseas or in the U.S.

Ohio County Elections Coordinator Toni Chieffalo said the Department of Defense serves as the go-between for the county elections board and soldier. The county faxes or mails an optical scan ballot to DOD officials, who then pass it on to the soldier to complete.

more...

http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/509272.html?nav=515

Ireland Wants Election Results Early and Without Problems
By JOSELYN KING POSTED: May 10, 2008
Email: "Ireland Wants Election Results Early and Without Problems"
*To: <--TO Email REQUIRED!
*From: <--FROM Email REQUIRED!


WHEELING — The eyes of the political world will be on West Virginia on Tuesday, but Secretary of State Betty Ireland doesn’t want the state’s election process to be the focus on election night.

“It is my main goal is to keep West Virginia’s name out of the news on Election Day,” she said. “West Virginia will run the election with the world watching or not. The last thing we want to do is to be in the national spotlight on election night.”

snip

“We have a brand new election night reporting system,” she said. “It will allow clerks to send the results over secure servers instead of faxing and our employees putting them in by hand. Anytime you take the human element out of the process, you minimize the chance of transposing the numbers.

snip

Ireland said the state has “a stringent testing mechanism that should help to find problems, and that there will be technicians stationed throughout the state to make certain nothing goes wrong.

The technicians are either employees of the Secretary of State’s Office or the Governor’s Office of Technology, according to Ireland.

Some counties also have contracted technicians from the manufacturer of the state’s voting machines, Elections Systems and Software. (Now doesn't that make you feel better?) :banghead:

more...


http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/509303.html?nav=515

Justices hear case on election rules
Advocates say counties can enact own election reforms, but state disagrees
By Carol E. Lee
H-T CAPITAL BUREAU
Published Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Supreme Court justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case that will determine how far local governments can go in setting their own election rules.

At the center of the debate is a charter amendment Sarasota County voters approved 18 months ago to adopt stricter election auditing procedures than the state requires.

The state and Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent say the amendment is unconstitutional because it usurps state election laws and interferes with the counting and certification of votes.

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections, the group that collected signatures to put the amendment on the November 2006 ballot, says local governments have the right to adopt such reforms.

more...

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080508/NEWS/805080578/-1/newssitemap

Voter ID laws go too far in Indiana

By CYNTHIA TUCKER
First published: Saturday, May 10, 2008

Congratulations to the Indiana legislature, whose harsh voter ID law has ferreted out a suspicious bunch who tried to cast ballots without proper identification in the Democratic primary last Tuesday. Who do those old ladies think they are, American citizens?

Actually, that's exactly who they are. Several retired nuns who have been voting all their lives were prohibited from casting ballots in South Bend because they didn't have proper ID. The nuns, who live at a convent, went to their polling place on the ground floor. There was absolutely no doubt about their identity, since the poll workers included other nuns from St. Mary's convent, near the University of Notre Dame.

A couple of sisters showed expired passports, but the law doesn't allow those, either. Indiana's law is so restrictive that even out-of-state driver's licenses are not accepted, a significant problem for college students who register to vote while attending Notre Dame, Indiana University or other colleges.

If the absurdity of punitive voter ID laws -- adopted in several states with GOP-dominated legislatures -- was not apparent before now, this case ought to help all but the most partisan see the fallacy. Two weeks ago, in a ruling that spurns the universal franchise, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's ID requirements. Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that there was no "concrete evidence of the burden imposed on voters who now lack photo identification."


more...

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=687627&category=OPINION&newsdate=5/10/2008

Sun editorial:

Abridging voting rights
‘English-only’ bill introduced by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., is grossly unfair
Fri, May 9, 2008 (2:07 a.m.)

Dean Heller was generally considered to be a fair and competent Nevada secretary of state for the 12 years he held that position before being elected to the House of Representatives in 2006.

His strong advocacy for more disclosure by candidates on their campaign finance forms and his national leadership in bringing about voting machines that produce a paper trail were selling points for him as he successfully campaigned for the House.

But since arriving on Capitol Hill, as a representative of Northern Nevada and a slice of Clark County, Heller has been a big disappointment. For example, he recently voted against a bill that would have rolled back federal tax breaks for oil companies that are taking in record profits.

The money saved by ending the gratuitous tax breaks would have been invested in renewable energy industries that desperately need a favorable tax climate at this early stage of their development. Given Nevada’s vast potential for attracting renewable energy industries, Heller essentially voted against the creation of needed jobs here.

Now Heller is backing a bill that belies his energetic support for fair elections while secretary of state. He introduced legislation this week that would deny help during federal elections to voters still struggling with the English language.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/09/abridging-voting-rights/

Why can't our elected officials run an election?

(http://www.post-trib.com/news/opinion/941752,jackson.article)


May 10, 2008

By Rich Jackson Post-Tribune staff writer

Ouch! That national spotlight burns. Particularly when you have a confluence of events, from the ballot shortage in Porter County to the double-secret probation ballots in the county-that-shall-not-be-named.

National media looked at Northwest Indiana on Tuesday and asked good questions.

"How can this happen?"

"How can you not print enough ballots when you know you're going to have a huge turnout?"

"How can you not count ballots in a timely fashion?"

"How can you assure the validity of the process when ballots must make a convoluted trip through areas with a history of vote fraud?"

"Again, how can this happen?"

It occurs because we voters elect politicians who let it happen. This isn't a local issue, though. Our problems on Tuesday hurt more because it's local and because of the attention paid to us.

more...

http://www.post-trib.com/news/opinion/941752,jackson.article

Acorn's Head Attacks Voter ID Law
May 10, 2008; Page A10

John Fund is at it again, misinforming the public, telling fairy tales about left-wing conspiracies and connecting dots like a blind man, in his op-ed about the Supreme Court upholding Indiana's highly-restrictive voter ID law ("A Victory Against Voter Fraud," op-ed, April 29). Mr. Fund uses it as another chance to attack voter registration drives run by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has helped 1.68 million citizens from low- and moderate-income communities register to vote in past registration drives.

Acorn is a social justice organization that wants every eligible voter to vote and to help real voters in low-income communities to submit accurate registration applications. Acorn does its voter registration work with the handicap of being required by law to submit every application even when our quality control checks catch potential problems.

more...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121038373358182135.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Bill Moyers on the 2008 Elections

Saturday, May 10, 2008 10:15:22 AM

Investigating Reports
By MWC NEWS

Broadcasting Legend Bill Moyers on the 2008 Elections, the Rev. Wright Controversy, the Media, Vietnam and More

Legendary broadcaster Bill Moyers helped organize the Peace Corps and served under President Johnson before going on to a distinguished career in journalism that continues today with the PBS series Bill Moyers Journal. His latest book, just published, is Moyers on Democracy. Moyers joins us to talk about the 2008 elections, the media and war. He addresses the controversy over Barack Obama’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. It was nearly two weeks ago on Bill Moyers Journal where Wright first spoke out since his criticism of US government policies became a major issue in the 2008 Democratic presidential race.

AMY GOODMAN: Legendary journalist Bill Moyers joins us now for the hour in our firehouse studio, the host of the weekly PBS program Bill Moyers Journal. He was one of the founding organizers of the Peace Corps. He was a spokesperson for President Lyndon Johnson, his press secretary, a publisher of Newsday, senior correspondent for CBS News and a producer of many groundbreaking series on public television. He won more than thirty Emmy Awards. He’s the author of four bestselling books. His latest, just published, is called Moyers on Democracy.


We welcome you to Democracy Now!


BILL MOYERS: Thank you very much. I almost called the book “Moyers on Democracy Now.”


AMY GOODMAN: Well, what do you think about what happened last night, this morning, the latest in the contest?


BILL MOYERS: I think that Barack Obama is like the long-distance runner who stumbles in the eighth—seventh and eight laps but regains his stride. That’s what I saw last night. That was a strong and moving speech he made in North Carolina, quite unlike his recent appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows. So I think he has regained the momentum. He showed he has real strength in his core constituency: African Americans, young people and liberals. And it seems impossible now, to me, for Hillary Clinton to even stay in the race without doing such damage to Obama that he’s hurt in the fall and she is hurt in her reputation.


AMY GOODMAN: What about Hillary Clinton now staying in the race?


more of interview

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22308/26/

If you don't think the election reform movement has made any progress, think about the source of this article.



Quick Study: Voting Machines
Do voting machines work as well as they should?
By Lisa Goff From Reader's Digest

Here we are at the dawn of the 21st century, the height of the Information Age, mere months before a major election, and Americans still aren't sure that their votes will be recorded the way they cast them.

Much of the uncertainty involves the rapid conversion in the last decade from paper ballots to computer voting, or "e-voting," which promised to be faster, cheaper, and less subject to human error. But after a flurry of election scandals and machine breakdowns, more than half of the states now require voting systems that leave a paper trail in case a recount is needed. Apoplectic champions of e-voting argue that human error and poll-worker shortages pose bigger threats than technical glitches and crazed hackers. In the end, it all comes down to voter confidence. (According to blackboxvoting.org, an avowed enemy of e-voting, voters in Maine, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin can be most confident. Those in Pennsylvania and Texas, on the other hand, have the most to worry about.)

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) gave $3.9 billion to states in 2002 to help replace punch card and lever systems with optical-scanning or electronic (usually touch screen) systems. Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a flash point in the voting-machine controversy, spent $21 million to switch to touch screens in 2006. This year, it could spend up to $12 million to switch again, this time to optical scanners. Much of the country finds itself in the same predicament:

Do we have the right machines? Can we get the right machines in time for the next election? And do we even know for sure which machines are the most reliable?

When it comes to voting, America is still a nation divided. Thirty-three percent of us will vote on touch screens in November. Sixty percent will use paper ballots tabulated by optical scanners. But since the Holt bill-which would have reimbursed states for switching to paper-ballot voting systems-was recently defeated in Congress, Americans may find themselves doubting the democratic process once again. Protect your vote by confirming your voter registration; many states will be using centralized records for the first time. Better yet, volunteer as a poll worker. One of the few things e-voting fans and opponents agree on is that the best insurance for a fair election is an equal number of Democratic and Republican eyes watching the ballot box.

more...

http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/quick-study-voting-machines/article58348.html

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Happy Mother's Day to all that it applies to as well!