Saturday 1/29 Election Fraud, Reform, & Updates Thread

[MelissaB]

In order to organize and document I thought it would be a good idea to have a daily thread to place items related to the reform, fraud, protests, and other items. This also make it easier to "catch up" when we are away from the computer for a while.

Please help us. If you see something that isn't here post it with a link to the thread and a thanks to the author. Thanks to everyone who is helping with this project.
:toast:


Link to the thread from yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x308606

[MelissaB]

1. The Protest Kit

The Protest Kit
Friday 28 January 2005 @ 06:02
I was relaxing in DC a week ago Thursday after covering the Inauguration protests in DC at a bar called D.A.'s RFD, down by 7th and H. Good, cavernous place with an excellent beer menu. While there, I struck up a conversation with a protester, who demonstrated to me his fabulous protest kit. I told him he should write the contents of his kit down somewhere, so others could go to school on his brilliance.

Sure enough, he did:

===

So you're going to your first protest march. Good for you! Democracy, like Yahweh, is a verb. Meeting your civic responsibilities head-on by making your voice heard is the sacred duty of all patriotic Americans. Congratulations.

Many folks going to a protest for the first time are unsure as to what to carry with them for the demonstration. It's hard enough to maintain a peaceful state of mind in a large crowd under the watchful gaze of a sniper-rifle, without also kicking yourself mentally because of some forgotten article that would have made the afternoon much easier. This essay will help you decide what to bring, and what to leave at home.

Having participated in many demonstrations myself over the years, I have developed a “protest kit” that I do not leave home without when joining a march. As an avid rock-climber, I'm rather anal about only bringing along what is absolutely necessary. Extra weight is the enemy of a good climb just as much as it is to a good march. Therefore, each item I suggest packing is something I once smacked myself on the forehead and said "Doh! I should have brought one of those!"

So without further ado, I give you: Brainshrub's Protest Kit.

More: http://truthout.org/fyi/


Link to Brainshrub's Protest Kit: http://www.brainshrub.com/essaysfolder/protestkit.htm

[MelissaB]

2. Pentagon has been asked to investigate a website being used by American...

The Pentagon has been asked to investigate a website being used by American soldiers to post grisly pictures of Iraqi war dead



Anger over Iraqi war dead on Internet
By Mark Dunn
January 27, 2005
THE US Defence Department has been asked to investigate a website being used by American soldiers to post grisly pictures of Iraqi war dead.

The site, which has been operating for more than a year, describes itself as "an online archive of soldiers' photos".

Dozens of pictures of decapitated and limbless bodies are featured on the site with tasteless captions, purportedly sent in by soldiers.

Captions include "plastic surgery needed", "road kill" and "I said dead".

More here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12065854%255E401,00.html




Link to pictures here: http://www.undermars.com/index.html

[MelissaB]

3. Letters to the editor: Challenging Ohio vote was patriotic

Letters to the editor: Challenging Ohio vote was patriotic

January 29, 2005

When Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones made history in Congress on Jan. 6, barely a ripple was felt in the mainstream media. By their official objection to the results of the U.S. presidential election in the state of Ohio, both Boxer and Jones, along with supporters in the House and Senate, were engaged in an increasingly rare form of patriotism: political courage.

Their actions were prompted in large part by the findings in a report released the day before by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by John Conyers, D-Mich., titled "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio." I would urge all voters to read Conyers' statement, which alludes to many of the irregularities and eyewitness accounts of voting problems detailed in the report itself. Then decide whether these concerns, which specifically did not seek to overturn the outcome of the election, justify a closer look, or whether they deserve to be thrown on the Great American Conspiracy Theory Trash Heap, where so many challenges to the Bush machine go to die.

It will be a great day for this country when the courage to expose electoral injustice within our borders gets as much respect as fighting it abroad. Thank you to Boxer, Tubbs Jones, Conyers and other patriots who believe that democracy begins at home.

Elizabeth Wilkins
Yorktown

Link: http://www.dailypress.com/news/opinion/dp-54966sy0jan29,0,4426470.story?coll=dp-opinion-editorials

[MelissaB]

4. Time to act, Black Caucus tells Bush

Time to act, Black Caucus tells Bush

Group will back him in bridging race gap
January 27, 2005

BY RUBY L. BAILEY
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF


WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Congressional Black Caucus presented President George W. Bush with its agenda Wednesday and said it would support him on issues that help close the gap between white and black Americans.


In a meeting described as cordial, the members of Congress came away with the promise of more meetings and left behind their six-point agenda.

>>>snip

It was the group's third meeting with Bush since he took office in 2000. A day earlier, Bush met with black community leaders and ministers.


"It remains to be seen whether this was just a public relations meeting with the Black Caucus," said Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat. "I interpret all of these meetings as trying to get ... the African-American vote for the Republican Party."


Link: http://www.freep.com/news/nw/blackcaucus27e_20050127.htm

Discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x309009

[MelissaB]

5. Dodd leads party in setting agenda

Dodd leads party in setting agenda

By JOSEPH STRAW , Journal Register News Service

WASHINGTON -- Senate minority party members including U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., set out top domestic legislative goals for the 109th Congress Wednesday, focused on voting rights, education and economic opportunity.
Dodd has introduced new legislation targeting voter disenfranchisement, mandating that states allow early voting, create standard election day registration procedures, and prevent improper removal of voters of registration lists in federal elections.

Dodd’s bill also calls for a uniform nationwide federal write-in/absentee ballots, and requires that states standardize the distribution of voting machines and poll workers on election days.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

The legislation stems in part from allegations of voter disenfranchisement in last year’s presidential election in Ohio, and addresses shortfalls of the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which the two lawmakers co-authored.

More: http://www.bristolpress.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13833543&BRD=1643&PAG=461&dept_id=10486&rfi=6

[MelissaB]

6. Freedom from Reality: Bush's Speech

Freedom from Reality: Bush's Speech
By Robert Parry, ILCA Associate Member

>>>snip

As in other George Bush campaigns – by both father and son – there was the usual litany of dirty tricks and front-group smear operations, this time, including a well-coordinated assault on John Kerry’s Vietnam War heroism.

Other Bush campaign tactics were designed to suppress the Democratic vote, especially in African-American neighborhoods, by adopting aggressive “ballot security” procedures and through the creation of long voting lines.

So, while many Republican strongholds in the key state of Ohio had lots of voting machines and only brief waits, many Democratic-leaning precincts were shorted on voting machines causing delays that stretched on for hours. Many time-pressed voters had to give up because of child-care demands at home or the need to get to work.

>>>snip

Instead of joining Kerry in expressing concerns about this disenfranchisement of voters, Bush has remained silent while his supporters have denounced challenges to voting irregularities as “conspiracy theories.” In Ohio, Republican Attorney General James Petro has even sought sanctions against four Election Protection attorneys who filed a lawsuit seeking an investigation of the Ohio balloting.

More: http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1602&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[MelissaB]

7. PC Advisor, UK: Diebold to market paper-trail e-voting system

Friday, 28 January 2005

Diebold to market paper-trail e-voting system

by Grant Gross, IDG News Service
US Company designs new machines with printers for voter-verified paper trail

Diebold Election Systems, a target of many electronic-voting critics during the 2004 US election, announced yesterday it has completed the design for a printer that would give its e-voting machines a paper trail.
Diebold's printer, submitted for federal government approval several weeks ago, would create a so-called voter-verified paper trail, a function that many critics have demanded of e-voting machine manufacturers.

A machine with a printer that creates a voter-verified paper trail permits voters to review their selections on a printout after using an electronic ballot. Advocates of such printers say the functionality allows voters to be confident that e-voting machines recorded their votes as intended, and provides paper evidence for a recount.

The company's decision comes in large part because of state requirements for paper-trail ballots, says David Bear, a Diebold spokesperson. Nevada used e-voting machines with paper-trail capabilities in the November US election, and California and Ohio have joined Nevada in requiring e-voting machine printers in future elections.


More here: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=news.view&news=4498


Discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x309033

[MelissaB]

8. In addition...

Information Technology Association of America officials have questioned if voter-verified paper trails will provide a significant benefit while adding costs to e-voting machines. Though the ITAA maintains that widespread attacks on e-voting machines are unlikely, officials there suggest that programmers smart enough to change ballots inside e-voting machines could also manipulate the printouts.

"Our point all along is that paper-based solutions are one alternative," says Bob Cohen, executive vice president of the ITAA. "It gets to be as much an issue of peace of mind for the voters as anything else."

[MelissaB]

9. Diebold Announces Paper Trail for Voters

Diebold Announces Paper Trail for Voters
Diebold Election Systems, a target of many electronic-voting critics during the 2004 US election, announced today that it has completed the design for a printer that would give its e-voting machines a paper trail.

IDG News Service reported Diebold's printer, submitted for federal government approval, would create a so-called voter-verified paper trail, a function that many critics have demanded of e-voting machine manufacturers. A machine with a voter-verified paper-trail printer allows voters to review their votes on a printout after using an electronic ballot, and advocates of such printers say they would allow voters to be confident that e-voting machines recorded their votes correctly. It also provides a paper trail for a recount.

The company's decision comes in large part because of state requirements for paper-trail ballots, said David Bear, a Diebold spokesman. Nevada used e-voting machines with paper-trail capabilities in the November U.S. election, and California and Ohio have joined Nevada in requiring e-voting machine printers in future elections. Voter-verified paper trails would virtually eliminate machine error in which votes aren't counted, said Will Doherty, executive director of Verified Voting Foundation Inc. In the November 2004 election, one county in North Carolina lost more than 4,500 votes when there was a misunderstanding over the capacity of the e-voting machines used there.

Link: http://www.sapinfo.net/index.php4?ACTION=noframe&url=http://www.sapinfo.net/public/en/news.php4/Category-28813c6138d029be8/page/0/article/Article-1174841fa24af7bc11/en/articleStatistic

[MelissaB]

10. Diebold completes e-voting printer prototype

Diebold completes e-voting printer prototype

NORTH CANTON, Ohio - Diebold Inc. said Thursday it has completed a prototype printer designed for use with touch-screen electronic voting machines, allowing voters to print, review and verify ballot selections.

"Voter verified paper receipts are something new," said David Bear, a spokesman for subsidiary Diebold Election Systems in McKinney, Texas.

"No other type of voting provides a receipt for voters. But some states are asking for it, so we needed to develop a product that meets standards for functionality," he said.

Voters can view their selections, but will not be able to remove the printout. The voter's printed selections would be placed into a secure enclosure, stored and numbered with a security tag. The printer weighs less than three pounds.


More here: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/10751766.htm?1c

[MelissaB]

11. Diebold press release

Diebold Election Systems Submits Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail Printer for Federal Qualification

Distribution Source : PRNewswire

Date : Thursday - January 27, 2005



MCKINNEY, Texas, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Diebold Election Systems has completed design of a paper-based, voter-verifiable printer module that has been submitted for federal system qualification. The module enables a voter to print out, review and verify candidate selections made on a Diebold touch screen voting station.

The AccuView Printer(TM) Module can be used as an optional component to any new or existing Diebold AccuVote TSx touch screen voting station and can also be designed for retrofit on existing AccuVote-TS machines. The AccuView displays printed selections under a transparent surface, enabling the voter to privately view and verify selections against those simultaneously displayed on the touch screen system's summary screen. The critical ability to compare the paper-based AccuView printout with the summary screen provides the voter with an easy, thorough method of confirming selections.


Voters have the ability to view each of their selections, but will not be able to remove the audit printout from the unit. The enclosure of the AccuView Printer Module is lockable to provide additional security for cast ballot selections. Once the voter's selections are reviewed and confirmed, the voter can cast their ballot using the touch screen voting station. Upon casting a ballot, the voter's printed selections are drawn into a secure enclosure that is stored and protected with a numbered security tag.


More here: http://press.arrivenet.com/bus/article.php/572113.html


(My philosophy is: Know thy enemy.)

[L. Coyote]

12. Arizona Counties Inconsistent in Provisional-Vote Rules

Arizona Counties Inconsistent in Provisional-Vote Rules: Was Your Vote Counted?

<quote>

About 5 percent of Arizona's voters - 101,536 of them, to be exact - had some trouble voting in the 2004 election, and 27,878 of them had their "provisional" votes thrown out.
The No. 1 reason for ballot rejection is that voters went to the wrong polling place.

If you were, for instance, one of the 1,118 voters who went to the wrong polling place on Election Day in Pima County, your vote didn't count.

But at least two Arizona counties counted those ballots - an action the Secretary of State's Office said would be illegal.

In Gila County, officials counted votes for president and all other issues and candidates who would have been on the ballot at the voter's official polling place.

In Pinal County, they counted everything - including votes in elections for a geographic area in which the voters didn't live.

Deputy Secretary of State Kevin Tyne said he wasn't aware that officials in Gila and Pinal counties had counted those votes, but said his office's procedures manual, which says they should not be counted, "has the force of law, and is pre-cleared by the Justice Department."

Tyne said federal law requires that anyone who shows up to vote must be given a provisional ballot, "but it doesn't say they can vote."

<endquote>

http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=4738

[L. Coyote]

13. New voting machines NY won't get them unless Senate acts

Our state legislators have in their midst a daily reminder that New York's election system is shaky: The 35th Senate District in Westchester remains in court and unrepresented nearly three months after the Nov. 2 election.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vphav284127293jan28,0,893301.story?coll=ny-editorials-headlines

[dzika]

14. Election lawsuit buries counties in paperwork

Saturday, January 29, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

Election lawsuit buries counties in paperwork

By Emily Heffter
Times Snohomish County bureau


Chris Vance, Washington
state GOP chairman

Ferry County Prosecuting Attorney James von Sauer reads into the wee hours to keep up with court filings in the state's challenged gubernatorial election because his county can't afford to pay overtime to the other attorney in his office.

The slew of e-mailed court documents in the case has clogged his tiny Eastern Washington county's computer system on several occasions, he said, at times preventing him from sending or receiving messages. "It's either hire someone else, which is not in the realm of possibility, or work myself silly, which is about the only option available," von Sauer said.

Counties across the state are having trouble keeping up with the massive amount of paperwork and research involved in the Republican Party's lawsuit against the state's 39 counties, their auditors and Secretary of State Sam Reed. The state party and Dino Rossi, who lost the governor's race to Christine Gregoire by 129 votes in a hand recount, argue the election was so flawed that the court should order a revote.

The GOP says many of the ballots cast in the election should not have been counted, including ballots from deceased people and convicted felons who had not had their voting rights restored. The Republicans say the number of ballots in question is larger than the margin of victory in the governor's race.

The lawsuit, filed in Chelan County Superior Court, has produced reams of legal responses from the defendants. In addition, both the Republicans and the Democratic Party have asked county election departments to provide them with data and answer questions about the election.

"You just have no idea of what it entails until you start putting this information together and answering these innuendoes," said Yakima County Auditor Corky Mattingly, who is president of the Washington State Association of County Auditors. "I understand why they're doing it, and I understand we have to provide the information. ... I just don't necessarily find it useful."


more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002164268_counties29m.html

[dzika]

15. Black caucus' relations with Bush cool down

12:11 PM CST on Saturday, January 29, 2005

Black caucus' relations with Bush cool down

By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News



WASHINGTON – This was no "candid" or "frank" discussion. Rather, the euphemisms of choice – from the White House and black Democratic lawmakers who waited four years for a second audience with President Bush – were "cordial" and "constructive."
..
Roughly 11 percent of the black electorate went for Mr. Bush last fall – up from 9 percent in 2000, the lowest GOP share since 1964. Some GOP strategists hope to capitalize on his inroads, however modest, and collect as much as a quarter of black votes in next year's midterm elections – a goal at which many Democrats scoff.
..
Dallas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson chaired the black caucus then. Weeks earlier, she led a walkout to protest the certification of Mr. Bush's electoral votes, citing "overwhelming evidence" that he'd lost Florida and the national popular vote. "We will ensure that there is no peace in the Congress until he truly reaches across party lines," she said at the time.
..
Some analysts say Mr. Bush is wooing caucus members for support of his plan to create private accounts for Social Security. Republican opposition means Mr. Bush will need some Democratic votes, and advocates argue that black men in particular, who have a shorter life expectancy as a group, would benefit more than most groups from the ability to pass retirement savings to heirs.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston said she'll give Mr. Bush the benefit of the doubt for now.

"After four years in the desert," she said, "we were able to come in and have the opportunity to lay out an agenda."


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/columnists/tgillman/stories/013005dnnattexwatch.59e7a.html

[dzika]

16. Election challengers defend selves

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Election challengers defend selves

Four lawyers say there really was fraud, and sanctions would be unfair


Motion against lawyers filed on behalf of Secretary of State Blackwell


COLUMBUS - The lawyers behind an aborted challenge of the presidential election told the Ohio Supreme Court they presented a convincing argument and shouldn't be sanctioned.

The four lawyers said in legal documents filed Friday that the challenge they filed on behalf of 37 voters included enough evidence of voting irregularities to back up their allegations of widespread fraud.

The filing was in response to a request on Jan. 19 by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro to sanction lawyers Cliff Arnebeck, Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt and Peter Peckarsky.

Petro's motion, filed on behalf of Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, said the election challenge was meritless and filed for partisan political purposes. Petro's office argued the challenge presented little evidence and instead relied on theories and conjectures.

In response, the lawyers argued that while they believe enough voters were disenfranchised to offset President Bush's margin of victory in Ohio - about 118,000 votes - it would have been unreasonable to collect depositions from each of them.

Further, Arnebeck wrote, Petro's request for sanctions was frivolous and motivated by partisan politics. Petro and Blackwell are both Republicans.

"The attorney general seeks to engage a Republican justice to carry out a partisan Republican plan to suppress dissent and the right to petition government for redress of grievances through the court system," Arnebeck wrote.



http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050129/NEWS01/501290409/1056/news01

[dzika]

17. Voter ID reform splitting parties

January 28, 2005

New Mexico Voter ID reform splitting parties

By Shea Andersen
Tribune Reporter


SANTA FE - Rep. Danice Picraux doesn't think a voter identification bill will get too far this session.

Why not? Because Picraux, an Albuquerque Democrat and former House majority leader, has tried one herself, once.
..
On Thursday, Picraux voted to table a similar bill sponsored by Rep. Justine Fox-Young, an Albuquerque Republican.

"My bill was a little bit different," Picraux said.

Her bill, she said, gave the benefit of the doubt to a voter whose signature didn't match up on Election Day. They would get to vote, but their record would be checked later.

In Fox-Young's bill, voters whose autograph doesn't match their registration signature has to return on Election Day with some form of identification or their vote doesn't count.

"There's a real difference between innocent until proven guilty and guilty until proven innocent," Picraux said.

But after watching two of her bills get tabled by a Democrat-dominated committee, Fox-Young may have learned the same lesson Picraux learned years ago: Voter identification doesn't get a lot of traction in the Roundhouse.
..
On Thursday, two of 12 bills she prepared on election reform were tabled by the House Voters and Elections Committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Sandoval, an Albuquerque Democrat.


http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local_state_government/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19859_3505363,00.html

[dzika]

18. An Election Reform Movement

01/10/2005 @ 2:18pm

An Election Reform Movement

David Cobb, the Green Party presidential candidate who has devoted the past two months to the arduous task of pressing for a full review of the mess that Ohio officials made of the election in that state, called on Friday afternoon to proclaim a sort of victory. "I think we've finally got a movement going for election reform in this country," Cobb said.

To an extent, he's right.

At the grassroots level, there appears to be growing support for a count-every-vote, eliminate-every-opportunity-for-fraud standard that would radically alter the way in which the United States runs elections.

And, to some small extent, this enthusiasm for election reform has been communicated to those members of Congress who are still interested in what their constituents say -- as was evidenced by Thursday's decision on the part of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, to support the objection by members of the House to the certification of Ohio's electoral votes. The objection, and the Congressional debates that followed, were decried by the usual suspects -- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who has the distinction of having never told the truth in his official capacity, dismissed evidence of disenfranchisement of minority voters as "conspiracy theories" -- but they also drew enough thoughtful coverage and editorial comment from mainstream media to suggest that the fight was worth it.

A lot more Americans know about our flawed voting systems now. And a few more Democrats in Congress seem to have gotten the point that it is not appropriate to casually certify the results of an election that has been tainted by evidence of disenfranchisement, voter suppression and official misdeeds.


more
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2115

[dzika]

19. Texas Panel works into the night on election challenge

Friday, January 28, 2005

Panel works into the night on election challenge
Ballots scrutinized in District 149 race won by 33 votes.

By Michelle M. Martinez
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Proceedings to settle the tug of war between Republican Talmadge Heflin and Democrat Hubert Vo for a state House seat began Thursday morning, when lawyers spent the day debating disputed votes.

By 7:30 p.m., when they adjourned for the day, they had zeroed in on about 30 ballots that could decide whether their client claims the District 149 seat, which includes west Houston, parts of Alief and Katy. They questioned whether certain voters were legally registered to vote and whether others legally resided in Harris County.
..
Under the state constitution, the House is responsible for deciding contested elections.

"This is a legal, not a political, process," said Andy Taylor, Heflin's lawyer. "I know that there's a lot of (Republican and Democrat) overtones in the media. I know there's a lot of power-grabbing thinking going on."

Taylor claims that 268 votes of the 41,357 cast in the race are illegal; most were cast by people who were registered to vote in the district but had moved outside of Harris County. Taylor said he was able to determine which candidate people voted for in 129 of those 268 cases — 43 for Heflin and 86 for Vo.

Using those numbers, Taylor said Heflin won by 10 votes.

Larry Veselka, Vo's lawyer, disagrees. He says Vo won by 37 votes — four more than the 33-vote margin found in a Harris County recount.


more
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/01/28vo.html

[dzika]

20. Blackwell's wife named as interim schools chief

Blackwell's wife named as interim schools chief

Rosa Blackwell will run city district during search
By Jennifer Mrozowski


The Cincinnati school board named a longtime district educator as interim superintendent Friday, until the board determines when and how to conduct a search for a permanent schools chief.

Deputy superintendent Rosa Blackwell, who has worked in the district for more than 30 years as a teacher, principal and central office administrator, will begin her new role Feb. 5. The board approved her appointment 5-0. Two board members were out of town.
..
Blackwell will be paid a prorated annual salary of $180,000, up from $142,051 that she had been paid as deputy. She would not comment on whether she plans to apply for the position permanently when the board begins a search. Frailey made $195,111.
..
Board members say they don't know when the search will begin for a permanent superintendent. They said they would consider Blackwell for the position, but they plan to establish a search process before deciding. Newell said talks could begin in March, and they hope to have someone in place before the next school year starts in August.

Blackwell, who also served as interim schools chief during the district's superintendent search in 2002, is married to Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.


http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050129/NEWS0102/501290373/1058/news01

[dzika]

21. FBI Refuses to Follow Up on Hocking County Triad Incident

January 28, 2005

FBI Refuses to Follow Up on Hocking County Triad Incident

In a January 12th letter attached to Congressman Conyers's January 28th letter, the FBI refused to further investigate or seek prosecution of the Triad vote machine tampering incident in Hocking County.

http://miamedia.com/news/2005-01-28ohelecfbifollowupltr.pdf


Source: http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/01/fbi-refuses-to-follow-up-on-hocking.html

[dzika]

22. Cong. Conyers Asks FBI to Expand Investigation into more Ohio Counties

January 28, 2005

Cong. Conyers Asks FBI to Expand Investigation into Clermont, Union, Fulton, Hocking, Monroe, Henry, and Harrison Counties

Congressman Conyers has written to the FBI asking it to expand its investigation into further incidents in Clermont, Harrison, Union, Fulton, Hocking, Monroe, and Henry Counties.

http://miamedia.com/news/2005-01-28ohelecfbifollowupltr.pdf


source : http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/01/cong-conyers-asks-fbi-to-expand.html

[dzika]

23. ACTION ALERT: NM Voting Integrity

Friday, January 28, 2005

ACTION ALERT: NM Voting Integrity

Email from Holly Jacobson of New Mexico Voting Integrity passed along by Sonja Elison of NM Democratic Friends:

If you are receiving this email it is because you are part of a group of people within, over 1,000 strong, who have expressed interest in the accuracy and legitimacy of our voting system and ensuring that every vote counts as intended.

The purpose of this email is to clarify and update specific actions that are working towards that goal within New Mexico. These separate but related actions include the recount effort, election reform legislation, and a lawsuit recently filed by New Mexico voters.

It is easy for these actions to be confused with each other because there is much overlap in goals and activity surrounding them. In addition to this, inaccurate statements have been made regarding the status of the individual legal actions (recount and voters’ lawsuit). This email intends to spell out where each effort stands and what can be done to help us move towards our unified goal of more transparent, accurate, and fair elections. We will also use this as an opportunity to share a sample of some of the data analysis that has been done regarding the problems with the November 2004 vote count throughout the state.

1. Re: the Voters’ Lawsuit: A lawsuit was filed on behalf of 8 New Mexico voters on January 14, 2005. The focus and primary purpose of this action is to put in place a permanent injunction against use of the voting machines that have been linked to the most alarming problems in the 2004 general election. For specific examples of some of these problems, click here.

Named in the case as defendants are the Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron and a handful of county clerks. The plaintiffs are eight voters representing three political parties – 6 democrats, 1 green, and 1 libertarian - across multiple counties throughout the state. Since the filing many of these counties have cleared their machines while others have come up with alternatives for dealing with the upcoming school board elections such as utilizing paper ballots or reserving the machines from the most problematic precincts. Whether the machines have been cleared or not, the lawsuit has enough evidence to prove that there are major problems tied to machine type vs. voter type as well as other problems with the vote count and procedures that are detrimental to fair and accurate elections in New Mexico.


continued
http://www.democracyfornewmexico.com/democracy_for_new_mexico/2005/01/nm_voting_integ.html#more

[MelissaB]

24. The Non-Election of 2004, by Noam Chomsky

The Non-Election of 2004

The electoral campaigns were run by the PR industry

By Noam Chomsky




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The elections of November 2004 have received a great deal of discussion, with exultation in some quarters, despair in others, and general lamentation about a “divided nation.” They are likely to have policy consequences, particularly harmful to the public in the domestic arena, and to the world with regard to the “transformation of the military,” which has led some prominent strategic analysts to warn of “ultimate doom” and to hope that U.S. militarism and aggressiveness will be countered by a coalition of peace-loving states, led by—China (John Steinbruner and Nancy Gallagher, Daedalus). We have come to a pretty pass when such words are expressed in the most respectable and sober journals. It is also worth noting how deep is the despair of the authors over the state of U.S. democracy. Whether or not the assessment is merited is for activists to determine.

Though significant in their consequences, the elections tell us very little about the state of the country, or the popular mood. There are, however, other sources from which we can learn a great deal that carries important lessons. Public opinion in the U.S. is intensively monitored and, while caution and care in interpretation are always necessary, these studies are valuable resources. We can also see why the results, though public, are kept under wraps by the doctrinal institutions. That is true of major and highly informative studies of public opinion released right before the election, notably by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) and the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland (PIPA), to which I will return.

One conclusion is that the elections conferred no mandate for anything, in fact, barely took place, in any serious sense of the term “election.” That is by no means a novel conclusion. Reagan’s victory in 1980 reflected “the decay of organized party structures, and the vast mobilization of God and cash in the successful candidacy of a figure once marginal to the ‘vital center’ of American political life,” representing “the continued disintegration of those political coalitions and economic structures that have given party politics some stability and definition during the past generation” (Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Hidden Election, 1981). In the same valuable collection of essays, Walter Dean Burnham described the election as further evidence of a “crucial comparative peculiarity of the American political system: the total absence of a socialist or laborite mass party as an organized competitor in the electoral market,” accounting for much of the “class-skewed abstention rates” and the minimal significance of issues. Thus of the 28 percent of the electorate who voted for Reagan, 11 percent gave as their primary reason “he’s a real conservative.” In Reagan’s “landslide victory” of 1984, with just under 30 percent of the electorate, the percentage dropped to 4 percent and a majority of voters hoped that his legislative program would not be enacted.

What these prominent political scientists describe is part of the powerful backlash against the terrifying “crisis of democracy” of the 1960s, which threatened to democratize the society, and, despite enormous efforts to crush this threat to order and discipline, has had far-reaching effects on consciousness and social practices. The post-1960s era has been marked by substantial growth of popular movements dedicated to greater justice and freedom and unwillingness to tolerate the brutal aggression and violence that had previously been granted free rein. The Vietnam War is a dramatic illustration, naturally suppressed because of the lessons it teaches about the civilizing impact of popular mobilization. The war against South Vietnam launched by JFK in 1962, after years of U.S.-backed state terror that had killed tens of thousands of people, was brutal and barbaric from the outset: bombing, chemical warfare to destroy food crops so as to starve out the civilian support for the indigenous resistance, programs to drive millions of people to virtual concentration camps or urban slums to eliminate its popular base. By the time protests reached a substantial scale, the highly respected and quite hawkish Vietnam specialist and military historian Bernard Fall wondered whether “Viet-Nam as a cultural and historic entity” would escape “extinction” as “the countryside literally dies under the blows of the largest military machine ever unleashed on an area of this size”—particularly South Vietnam, always the main target of the U.S. assault. When protest did finally develop, many years too late, it was mostly directed against the peripheral crimes: the extension of the war against the South to the rest of Indochina—terrible crimes, but secondary ones.

More here: http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jan2005/chomsky0105.html

Thanks to paineinthearse here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x309311

[dzika]

25. USCountVotes Responds to Mitofsky Report

(thanks to Goldeneye)

US Count Votes
Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report

Summary

As citizens in a democracy, we have an abiding interest in the integrity of the election process.

The Edison/Mitofsky report confirms there were large differences between their exit polls and the official
results of the 2004 presidential election – much more so than in previous elections. The national exit poll
indicated a 3 point victory for Kerry; whereas the official election results indicated that he lost by 2.5%, a
difference of 5.5%.

The Edison/Mitofsky report fails to substantiate their hypothesis that the difference between their exit polls
and official election results should be explained by problems with the exit polls. They assert without
supporting evidence that (p. 4), “Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush
voters.” In fact, data included within the report suggest that the opposite might be true.

Their analysis of the potential correlation of exit poll errors with voting machine type is incomplete and
inadequate, and their report ignores the alternative hypothesis that the official election results could have
been corrupted.

The Edison/Mitofsky report states (p.12), “We need to do more investigation into the causes of the statistical
skew in the exit poll data for the general election.” USCountVotes agrees, and we suggest that that
investigation extend to the official vote count tallies. In this context, USCountVotes affirms our mission to
create and analyze a database containing precinct-level election results for the entire United States in order
to do a thorough mathematical analysis of the 2004 election results.

We invite all those who care about democratic processes in this country to join us in fully investigating and
explaining what really happened in the 2004 Presidential election.


Full Report in PDF:
http://www.uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

DU Thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x309093

[MelissaB]

26. "Barbara Boxer Steps into Spotlight" --good AP article!

Sen. Barbara Boxer Steps Into Spotlight
January 29, 2005 5:32 PM EST

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barbara Boxer has always spoken up, but the California Democrat seems to have gotten a lot louder lately. Her opposition to Condoleezza Rice's secretary of state nomination was so combative that it was parodied on Saturday Night Live. That came on the heels of her decision to sign onto a House member's complaint about Ohio voting problems, forcing Congress to debate them before certifying President Bush's re-election victory.

She's being touted on liberal blogs as the Democrats' best hope for president in 2008. Conservatives are excoriating her as - in House Minority Leader Tom DeLay's phrase - the leader of the "'X-Files' wing" of the Democratic Party.

But Boxer says she is just standing up for what she believes.

"I've always been this way," she says, "and I'm trying to figure out exactly why people suddenly find this to be interesting, you know. Somehow I have touched something inside people, and I have not ever had this happen before. The only thing I can think, after reading what people said, is a feeling that I'm asking the kind of questions and saying the kind of things that they are feeling."

Maybe she's becoming a spokeswoman, or even a symbol, for voters who oppose the Iraq war or feel shut out by the Bush administration. Maybe, with the Democratic Party at sea after November's election losses, some people sense a leadership void and are looking to her to fill it.

More: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/20050129/ap_on_go_co/barbara_boxer

Thanks to marions ghost here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x309527

[MelissaB]

27. Olberman blog: Delusions of grandeur at "Focus on the Family"

• January 29, 2005 | 5:26 p.m. ET

Delusions of grandeur at "Focus on the Family"

NEW YORK - Mother used to insist that there were two things you should never talk about in public: politics and religion.

Now, of course, that’s all we talk about. But the moral guidance still rings loudly all these years later, and it always makes me a reluctant conversant, even if I apologize to Mom in advance.

However, the Three-Card Monte Players at Dr. James Dobson’s “Focus On The Family” have reopened the can of worms that is SpongeBobGate, and have focused not on the family but on me, and in so doing embarrassed themselves and undermined the validity of their own concerns.

Dobson, you will recall, joined the singularly inoffensive animated character “SpongeBob SquarePants” to his conspiracy theories of a “pro-homosexual” agenda, in order to get headlines. When he got those headlines, he promptly complained about getting them. Dobson, like many other exploiters of Amoral Values, ran immediately to the easiest way out of a stupid fix of his own creation: he blamed the big old ugly media.

>>>snip

Hey, guys, worry about yourselves. You’re spewing hate, while assuming that for some reason, God has chosen you and you alone in all of history to understand the mysteries of existence, when mankind’s existence is filled with ample evidence that nobody yet has been smart enough to discern an answer.


Much more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

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[Wilms]

28. Indiana to apply for $700,000 in grants for election reform

Indiana to apply for $700,000 in grants for election reform

By Chris Foreman
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, January 27, 2005

Indiana County commissioners will pursue almost $700,000 in funding to comply with national election-reform legislation, though they say they aren't sure what type of voting equipment will be required by state and federal governments.

-snip/more-

<http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_297406.html>

[Wilms]

29. kick n/t