Sunday 2/6 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 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.


Link to the thread from yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x318570

[MelissaB]

1. Weighing defeat, Kerry sees lessons to guide future

Weighing defeat, Kerry sees lessons to guide future

February 6, 2005

The following interview was conducted by Peter S. Canellos, Nina J. Easton, Michael Kranish, and Susan Milligan of the Globe staff. The article was written by Canellos.

WASHINGTON -- Pained but not bowed, Senator John F. Kerry promised in an interview with the Globe last week to apply the lessons of a presidential campaign that he portrayed as ''so much bigger and more complex than people think" to bolster a Democratic Party that he indicated he might seek to lead again.

''I'm not going to sit around, you know. I'm going to learn a lot of good lessons," he said.

Sitting in a wing chair in his Senate office, opposite a historical print of Nantucket Harbor, Kerry offered a wide-ranging assessment of an election he lost by about 3 million popular votes and 35 electoral votes. He said he was determined to play a leading role in his party's efforts to integrate values and religion into its message, especially as directed at his fellow Catholics.

He also said he'd be eager to work at improving the party's grass-roots organizations alongside his former rival Howard Dean, now in line to head the Democratic National Committee, a man he said won his respect by campaigning tirelessly for the Kerry-Edwards ticket.

More: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2005/02/06/weighing_defeat_kerry_sees_lessons_to_guide_future/

[MelissaB]

2. Plenty of factors in naming Shelley's replacement

Plenty of factors in naming Shelley's replacement

By Tom Chorneau, Associated Press

SACRAMENTO — With Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's resignation, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has the chance to tip the balance of power in Sacramento slightly more to the right when he names a replacement.
But the governor — the only Republican holding statewide office — has a number of political calculations to make as he decides who should fill the position that will be vacated by Shelley, a Democrat, on March 1.

He could nominate a Republican with future political aspirations who could face trouble from the majority Democrats or play it safe and nominate a retired veteran lawmaker who is likely to sail through the Legislature's confirmation process.

About a dozen GOP names were circulating in the capital on Saturday, a day after Shelley announced his resignation.

Several political observers said it may be best for Schwarzenegger to go with a safe choice that is palatable to Democrats. Schwarzenegger's relationship with Democrats has soured in recent months as the two sides have clashed over how to restructure the state's budget, with the governor vowing to bypass the Legislature and take his proposals directly to voters in a special election.

More: http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/ci_2557373

[L. Coyote]

3. Pennsylvania to Conduct Secret 'Re-examination' of Paperless System

You're Not Invited - Pennsylvania to conduct Secret 'Re-examination' of Defective Voting System in Harrisburg

February 05, 2005

On Tuesday February 15th 2005 at 9:00 AM in Room #303 North Office Building. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There will be a 're-examination', by the Commonwealth's Secretary of State's office of the Unilect Patriot paperless voting system.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prweb205277.php

[L. Coyote]

4. Absentee Voting More Prone to Mistakes than Touch-Screen

Election results are in: Absentee ballots lose

By Palm Beach Post Editorial

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Absentee voting is not the panacea the political parties claim it is. In fact, absentee voting is more prone to mistakes than touch-screen voting. But party operatives in Florida don't want voters to know that. Exploiting paranoia over touch-screen voting, they urged voters to cast ballots by mail last year to increase party turnout. When far too many voters take advantage of a system meant for far fewer, it causes more problems, not less.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/02/05/m18a_ballotsedit_0205.html

[berniew1]

8. This editor obviously isn't aware of what went on in his own county

Palm Beach County had the most touchscreen vote switching documented by reports by voters to the EIRS election hotline of any county in the U.S., with touchscreen fraud reported in dozens of precincts in Palm Beach County. Closely followed by Broward County next door and Miam--Dade next door to Broward. All had switching reported in dozens of precincts. But the widespread touchscreen fraud in Florida touchscreen counties has not been reported by the media in Florida, other than radio the day of the election which was warning voters in Palm Beach county that there was widespread switching being reported by voters. But since then total silence. By Media, the Dem party, even non-partisan organizations who have lots of documentation. I don't understand. Is a system where votes are systematically cast for one candidate but compiled for another not a big issue?? And its wasn't just direct switching of Kerry votes to Bush that was a big problem. The vote compilers were also programmed in many states to not count straight Dem ticket votes for kerry, and in some states used Bush as the Presidential vote for straight Dem voters, and in another defaulted to Libertarian(Indiana). There have been large numbers of such compilation routines identified by the vote compilation compilers that did not compile the votes for the proper candidate. WAs it all part of systematic fraud, or 1000 to 1 chance that all vote compilation errors identified switched votes away from Kerry??

Florida TS http://www.flcv.com/fraudpat.html
rest of U.S. http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

But absentee manipultion(and provisisionals) were also big problems in Florida, also documented in the above. And there were very large numbers of votes swung by all 3 of these mechinisms.

[MelissaB]

5. Shelley created 'crisis,' elections official says

Shelley created 'crisis,' elections official says

Counties must get machines certified in time for 2006 voting

By Dan Smith, Sacramento Bee
February 5, 2005

SACRAMENTO --A top county elections official says Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's administration has created a "full-blown crisis" that threatens the state's compliance with federal law and its ability to conduct the 2006 elections.

In testimony prepared for a legislative committee, Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack blasted Shelley's process for approving voting machine systems the counties must purchase and suggested he had manipulated the system "to favor or punish some equipment vendors." She called on the Legislature to step in and take over the process.


"County election officials have concluded that the voting system certification process in California is completely broken," McCormack, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, wrote to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee scrutinizing Shelley's alleged misuse of millions in federal Help America Vote Act funds.

Charges 'absolutely bunk'

Shelley spokeswoman Caren Daniels-Meade defended Shelley's certification process, calling any suggestion of political manipulation "absolutely bunk." McCormack, Daniels-Meade said, simply disagrees with Shelley's support of a requirement that electronic voting machines have a verified paper trail.

More: http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/state/article/0,1375,VCS_122_3526025,00.html

[MelissaB]

6. Also from the article...

>>>snip

McCormack said she is asking lawmakers to pass emergency "narrowly crafted" legislation to override Shelley's office and temporarily certify 2004 systems for use in the 2006 elections. Such legislation also would have to suspend a state law requiring a paper trail.

[L. Coyote]

7. WA: State to check counties' election systems "high-risk vulnerabilities"

By MICHELLE NICOLOSI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The Washington Secretary of State's Office is launching a statewide audit of county election offices to make sure that local election systems are secure and are using only state-approved software and voting machines.

The audit follows similar reviews in Maryland and California, which found that some election offices had used unapproved elections software, lacked basic security training, and had a number of other "high-risk vulnerabilities."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/210734_vote04.html

[texpatriot2004]

9. Thank you very much for these daily threads. I appreciate your

efforts at creating and updating them. They are a great idea and very helpful. Applause. Applause.

[MelissaB]

10. I'm glad they are useful

and so thankful that others help. This really is a group/team project.

[myschkin]

20. kick

[MelissaB]

11. Partial transcript of Election Protection Hearing in Miami on 3 Feb 2005

Transcript by eomer

Election Protection held a hearing last Thursday, 3 Feb 2005, in Miami. I made an audio tape and am working on a transcript. I still have a good bit left to transcribe but want to give you what I have so far:

Moderator Jorge Mursuli (People for the American Way): Good evening. I'd like to thank all of you for being here this evening and just sort of like to start by saying that we may not get the attention… election reform issues may not get the attention that we got before the election but it certainly doesn’t make it any less important… and so we’re very, very grateful for those of you that are here, we’re very eager to listen to your testimony and we should have a very fruitful evening.

We’ve been conducting… the partnership of the NAACP and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under the Law, People for the American Way Foundation has been conducting these hearings throughout the state. The purpose of these hearings is to gather information to help mold our election reform agenda in partnership with all of our partner organizations. And we haven’t started here. This is an additional step in a long line of steps that reflect our commitment to election reform.

Most of you know that the partners around Election Protection this past election were in all of the states all over the country. As a matter of fact, People from the American Way Foundation had over 25,000 volunteers around the country in precincts trying to learn what we could do to ensure that people’s vote was counted and that people actually got an opportunity to vote. We then produced, in collaboration with our partners, a report called “Shattering the Myth” that sort of quantified and qualified all the things that we experienced across the country. And that, of course, is available to anyone who wants it at the front desk. It really sort of gives you an overview of the kind of things we experienced.

Today what we’re doing, like we did in other cities around the state – we’re giving an opportunity to those folks that possibly may not have had an opportunity to present a formal complaint and we wanted to sort of dot our i’s and cross our t’s as we sort of develop a legislative agenda. And as we sort of look for leaders around the state to help us correct the problems that still exist.

Now many of you heard and possibly experienced the fact that things were a lot better this year than they were in 2000. Well, there was certainly nowhere to go but up I suppose. But we’re happy, we’re not looking for the problems, as a matter of fact we’re looking for the solutions. And our hope is that now that the partisan rhetoric is turned off we can really focus on ensuring that legislation in the state of Florida reflects the kinds of solutions that folks like yourself need in order to have your vote count in the future. And the truth of the matter is… it’s... I think I can say it’s People For’s position and I suspect it’s the position of the many organizations that are represented here today… is that, you know, when one person’s vote isn’t counted, to us that’s enough. There isn’t a magic number, one, a thousand, a hundred thousand… I don’t know what that number is. I know that when one person’s vote doesn’t count that’s enough because it’s not about someone else – tomorrow it could be your vote.

So we’re very happy that you’re here. Before we introduce our panelists I just want to recognize a couple of people in the room that we very much appreciate that they’re here…

Moderator recognizes some members of the audience:
Selden Carter, national representative of AFL-CIO
Emilio Vazquez, regional director for Senator Bill Nelson
Ronald A. Brisey (spelling?), representing Representative Philip Brutus (Florida state representative)
Milton Collins, Deputy Supervisor of Elections, Miami-Dade County
Ida Corman (spelling?) Assistant Supervisor of Elections, Miami-Dade County
Arthur Anderson, Supervisor of Elections, Palm Beach County
Edina Sorrell and Jeff Tarter (spelling?) with the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections
Marsha Barnham (spelling?), League of Women Voters of Broward County
Mary Mann (spelling?), United Teachers of Dade (organization hosting the hearing)
Monica Russo, SEIU

Moderator introduces panelists:
Courtnay Strickland, ACLU-Florida
Ana Cela Harris, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under the Law
Andy Rivera, the Advancement Project
Jill Hanson, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Adora Obi Nweze, National Board of Directors, NAACP
Edeline Clermont, SEIU
Reggie Mitchell, Florida Legal Director, Election Protection

<Panelists, in turn, say a few words about themselves and their mission>

Witness Arthur Anderson, Supervisor of Elections, Palm Beach County: Good evening to the panel and to the audience. I’m delighted to have this opportunity to appear before you this evening and have a few remarks.

Let me say that not only is our topic of the evening one that is timely at any point in time in our lives but it’s especially meaningful to me this evening because as you know we are in the midst of the observance of Black History Month. And when I think in terms of the black historical experience in America, which of course is an integral component of the American historical experience, much of that effort was centered toward a focus on acquiring voter rights for all of our citizens – the most fundamental and basic guarantee that we have under the Constitution of these United States.

You know, we should all be very grateful to the fact that much of the impetus toward voter reform in this state and nationwide originated in our outstanding county. For if it were not for the butterfly ballot, to some great degree we might not be here this evening. So, in a less than desirable fashion, we’re now moving in the right direction, which is – ultimately we want to guarantee that every vote counts.

And if we think back to the 2000 elections, of course, which again very much has contributed to us being at this point this evening, we know that there was much concern, much dismay, much disenfranchisement of voters by way of the fact that every vote apparently did not count. Going back to the 2000 election in Palm Beach County, where we utilized that <inaudible> punch card ballot approach to voting we find that some 6.4% of punch card ballots went uncounted in the 2000 presidential race. However, since we have adopted in Palm Beach County the touch screen voting systems, the electronic ballots and equipment, we utilize Sequoia, again, that some .4% (a reduction of 93%) of touch screen voters did not record a vote of the presidential election in 2004. We were concerned as well you would understand that many voters either still casted <sic> a vote for president in 2000 or made some errors in casting their vote. I am reminded that 92,843 Palm Beach County voters who cast a vote by an absentee paper ballot vote or a provisional ballot vote, only .9% went uncounted in the recent presidential election.

Much of the debate since we moved away from the punch card balloting, driven in large measure by <inaudible, Congress?> as well as our own state reform initiatives, the controversy has very much centered over what is best - to go with an optical scan system of voting or to go with electronic balloting equipment. As you know, some 52 counties in the state of Florida have selected the optical scan system; 15 have selected the electronic balloting equipment. There has been much debate and also, of course, legal actions brought against certain parties in this state and others that those residents in the 52 counties that have acquired the optical scan system enjoy an advantage to those in the 15 counties that did not due to the fact that as required by state law if a contested election outcome occurs you should be able to conduct a manual recount. We, of course, are not able to do that with electronic ballot equipment. And so, much debate has then emanated over that seeming disparity and that possibly residents in the 15 counties are being denied their equal rights as regarded by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution.

As I’ve endeavored to address these concerns, of course, it has been <inaudible> suggested that we institute the paper audit trail and add printers to those electronic balloting machines that are currently in place. In Palm Beach County we are apparently moving in that direction. The County Commission has approved the expenditure to purchase the printers for the electronic ballot equipment when they are indeed certified in the State of Florida. Personally I have encouraged my staff, and we will be forming a technology advisory committee in the near future, that we’re welcomely open to any innovations or recent technological developments that might occur in the field. Ultimately what we want to do is ensure that every vote does count for our citizens and, although we are in the mode of moving forward with our electronic balloting equipment, we will consider any developments elsewhere and ultimately provide to our students <sic> the best remedy that is possible for them. Thank you very much.

Moderator Mursuli: Mr. Anderson, if you would just remain there in case there are any questions.

Panelist Nweze: Mr. Anderson, can you tell us something about what you’re doing regarding ex-felons and getting their rights restored as well as how they’re going to vote – those who are really eligible and not <inaudible>?

Witness Anderson: Well as pertains to the ex-felon issue, I’m very much on record as stating that I believe that felons’ rights should be automatically restored once they have served their commitment obligation to society. So as a community I believe that that is the prevailing sentiment. Of course, we do not have the right of determination but we will maintain that posture and we will support any initiatives that are directed to attaining that end.

Panelist Mitchell: Mr. Anderson, during the 2004 election, West Palm Beach was… sort of became famous for the fifty foot rule, which instead of allowing folks to solicit and non-partisan folk to pass out information within fifty feet of the polling place, there were armed sheriffs to push people further back to a hundred or two hundred feet from the polling place and actually kind of roughed up a famous one of Ralph Nader’s original Nader’s Raiders. Now the state supervisor of elections is proposing pushing the fifty feet rule back to a hundred feet and also saying that you can’t solicit within the last person in line, wherever that may be, whether it’s two miles away from the polling place. What’s your position on this cone of influence rule and this fifty foot, two hundred foot rule?

Witness Anderson: Well, let me just say generally speaking, we want to have a user and voter-friendly operation in Palm Beach County and so we will look to be as accommodating as we can but by the same token to protect rights and the interests of every voter. And so what we’ve decided to do is that we are going to have a community focus approach, where we’re going to look to reach out and be inclusive of having the input of our constituent groups in society. And so this is a major issue that we’re going to discuss. We think that we have to proceed in a fashion where we’ve got to preserve the integrity of the process, not intrude upon individual voter rights but we want to accommodate the necessary functions that <inaudible> go along with an election process. So we haven’t made a definitive positional statement on that but we will be moving in that direction.

Panelist Strickland: I understand from your comments that the Commission hasn’t approved the expenditure for a paper audit trail if and when that is certified by the state. My question, however, concerns what to do in the meantime. Because I’m sure you know that the state imposed an emergency rule once the rule banning manual recounts in touch screen counties was thrown out by the courts and that rule is sun setting. So what is the best procedure in your opinion to make sure that the votes are being counted by the machines in the way that they should be until such time as there are other measures available?

Witness Anderson: Well, I think there are a number of things that you can do. One is we have very capable staff at our Supervisor of Elections office. And so they are being most thorough in terms of their pre-tested procedures for the equipment. Also we believe that much of the error that is apparent at the polls is occurring as a result of there not being proper voter education. So we’re looking to step up our voter education efforts and activities as well. Along with that we feel that poll workers sometimes are not adequately trained as well to provide the level of assistance that voters require as they go out to the polls. So we’re stepping up our efforts and intensifying those also. We’ll also be looking to have an aggressive effort to have more language translators available on a more widely dispersed basis around the county and that will help too in terms of those people who are going to the polling booths and have some areas of confusion. So we think… and of course there is <see transcriber’s note 3> an audit function that can be conducted on the machinery of course at this time that’s in terms of the amount of voter utilization cast on the machines rather than being able to see how individual votes are cast. But we plan to maintain the integrity of any audits-related functions as well in our equipment.

Panelist Clermont: Mr. Anderson, did you say that 93% of the voters did not record the touchscreen machine?

Witness Anderson: No, we said a reduction in error of 93%. So that’s <inaudible> a little bit in the right direction. And the… you know you’ve probably seen the report from the division of elections, which points out to us that in terms of the amount of say undervotes… if we look at undervotes and overvotes cast that the optical scan and the electronic balloting equipment - it’s now pretty much functioning at a level of insignificant difference as far as the level of voter error performance that’s been reported.

Panelist Rivera: Mr. Anderson, as a <inaudible> election official for election reform and things for you to do your job better and be more responsive to the community… first two or three things that come up into your head?

Witness Anderson: Well, the first two or three things that come to my head in terms of what we need in that regard is… as I mentioned I do remain an advocate for having the verifiable paper ballot trail. The greatest challenge that I see right now facing my community is that of restoring voter confidence. I think that’s pretty much of a national dilemma if you will at this point in time. So the initiatives that we can take to give them a greater level and sense of confidence that they can be assured that their vote will count and there’s a means of verifying that I think will go a long way in terms of restoring voter confidence.

Secondly as I’ve pointed out previously, we have to do a much better job of voter education. But also in that respect, making a more intensified effort to reach out to those that have been historically disenfranchised from the process… and so we will have extensive outreach initiatives in my administration and we will reach into again those traditionally under-serviced communities and populations in order to accomplish that. And those of you who are familiar with my community know that that is a dire need out in the west area of our county – out in the Belle Glades community. There’s no office out there, there’s never been, but we’re going to have an office out there and we’re going to staff that office and we aren’t going to… thank you… we’re not going to maintain a posture where everyone has to come to the mountain. We’re going to adopt a service delivery model, if you will, but we’re going to go out into those communities. And the more dire the needs are then the more we’re going to focus and emphasize that we have to have the outreach.

And then of course to have the aggressive ongoing voter registration initiatives and then when it comes time to vote to provide the information that people need to make intelligent decisions when they go to the booth to vote, and that will be to a machine in these times… but to make certain that we aggressively reach out and encourage them to participate in the process. So we’re going to do a lot of mission building and we’ll outreach in the way of providing the level and quality of services that will make people feel that they are indeed a part of the American dream.

Moderator Mursuli: Thank you Mr. Anderson. You can count on a lot of folks in this room and in these organizations to help you ensure that all that happens because that’s all really good stuff so… thank you very much. The next three-minute testimony is from Suzanne Goldstein.

Witness Suzanne Goldstein: I’d like to read this affidavit that was prepared on October 27th.

<Reading> I’m a registered voter in the state of Florida, precinct 4176 in the southeast <inaudible> Palm Beach County. On October 27th, 2004, I went to cast my vote early at the Supervisor of Elections office in West Palm Beach, Florida. I stood in line starting at about 2 pm. At around 3:30 pm I was standing in front of a touchscreen voting machine and started to vote. When the screen came up it showed my choices for U.S. President. I touched the circle for John Kerry and I saw the checkmark appear in the circle for John Kerry… and I touched the screen to bring up my next set of choices. I continued in this manner. After placing each vote I looked to see that the checkmark appeared in the correct circle before moving on to the next voting screen. In this manner I voted a straight Democratic ticket. I looked at the last screen – the review screen that is supposed to show all the voting choices I made. I was surprised to see the screen indicated my voting preferences as a straight Republican ticket. George W. Bush for U.S. President, Mel Martinez and on down the line. After a moment of looking at the screen I called my husband and the clerk. A woman came over to me. I showed her the screen and told her that everything that I see is opposite and wrong and that these are not the candidates I checked. She said, “Well let’s just go back and look at your ballot because you could’ve made some mistakes”. I told her I would not touch anything. My thinking was that I wanted others to see this screen. At that point another woman came over and said basically the same thing. After a few minutes, Tony Enos, E N O S, I think is the spelling of the last name, came over. I told him that I would not touch anything and that I wanted an attorney from outside to come in. After a few minutes an attorney did come in. He introduced himself to me as Jeffrey Stein. I asked for and received his card. I explained the problem to him. Tony Enos and the two women confirmed to Mr. Stein that the final review screen showed Republican choices. Mr. Enos said, “Well let’s review your ballot and your choices”. When we did that, we saw my checkmarks in the circles for John Kerry and the Democratic slate. At this point Mr. Enos told me I could go ahead and cast my ballot and not pay any attention to the review screen because my actual choices would override the review screen. I was told, go ahead and vote with confidence. I did not do that. I asked, how could this have happened? Mr. Enos said that the review screen I saw was probably the previous voter’s and somehow it didn’t clear. I told him I didn’t understand that explanation because when you start to vote you put a card into the machine and the machine holds it until you cast your ballot. When that card comes out the machine is supposed to be cleared. I requested that this machine be removed because it was not working properly. One of the clerks left and came back and made preparations to shut down the machine and remove it. They cleared my screen and gave me back the card I was using and showed me the tape that comes out of the ballot machine. At that point I noted the number of the machine – 21660. I was directed to the voting machine on my right where I began the voting process again. I looked at the review screen at the end and this time all the voting preferences were correct. I touched the screen to submit the ballot and left.

Moderator Mursuli: Thank you Ms. Goldstein. Any questions? Well that was pretty clear…

Witness Goldstein: Allright, and I was also able to give two interviews on CNN on election day around 1 pm at the Supervisor of Elections office explaining briefly what had happened.

Panelist Harris: But that was not your testimony, you’re reading somebody else’s testimony?

Witness Goldstein: No, this is me.

Panelist Harris: Oh, okay, when you were reading an affidavit, that’s your affidavit.

Witness Goldstein: Yeah, this is mine. Yeah, I prepared it with an attorney the same day it happened.

Panelist Hanson: Did you ever get any explanation as to how a machine could do that?

Witness Goldstein: Just what I was told that, you know, maybe it was the previous voter’s, you know, ballot, which made no sense. But I was very upset also when I was told, don’t worry about it, you know, now we see that you have, you know, when you go back and you see it’s Kerry, well just vote. Don’t pay attention to the review screen. And I wondered, how many people, you know, went through these steps, you know. How many people, you know, took the time or even knew to stop and ask and how many people were told the same thing I was told and just went ahead and voted.

Panelist Strickland: What time during election day was it again?

Witness Goldstein: It was early voting. On October 27th at 3 pm.

Panelist Strickland: October 27th.

Witness Goldstein: Uh huh.

Moderator Mursuli: Ms. Hanson, were you done, I’m sorry?

Panelist Hanson: No, I just wondered if you knew if other people had had a similar problem.

Witness Goldstein: I’ve heard many people had that experience and what I’ve heard is that… I never heard of anything going the other way. All I ever heard was that people had tried to vote for Kerry and it come up Bush and never the reverse.

Panelist Hanson: I understand that the folks who made the machines were at one point asked, how could this happen, and they said, well it just shows that the review screen process is working and that was their explanation. As far as I know, <inaudible>.

Moderator Mursuli: We won’t answer that tonight. Thank you very much Ms. Goldstein.

< Remainder of hearing not yet transcribed >

Transcriber’s notes:
(1) I made every attempt to be accurate. There may be minor transcription errors but none, I believe, that change the meaning or intent of the dialogue.
(2) I have omitted some of the moderator’s housekeeping comments such as calling the next witness, and so on, in order to make the transcript cleaner and to deliver it more quickly.
(3) While the audio is not clear, it sounds like Anderson says “isn’t” but from the context it appears that his intent was to say “is”.

Thanks to eomer here:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319233#319394

[MelissaB]

15. Installment 2 of Election Protection Hearing in Miami on 3 Feb 2005

Here's the second installment of the Election Protection hearing in Miami on 2 Feb 2005.

Note that the last witness in this installment is Susan Pynchon, who, along with Bev Harris, obtained evidence out of the trash in Volusia County. (I think I'm getting the hang of this "be the media" thing - how's that for a teaser?)

In case you missed the first installment, here's the link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319233

Second installment:

Moderator: Jorge Mursuli, People for the American Way
Panelists:
Courtnay Strickland, ACLU-Florida
Ana Cela Harris, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under the Law
Andy Rivera, the Advancement Project
Jill Hanson, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Adora Obi Nweze, National Board of Directors, NAACP
Edeline Clermont, SEIU
Reggie Mitchell, Florida Legal Director, Election Protection

<Continuing with testimony of witnesses>

Witness Cheryl Grenning: Thank you for inviting me to talk about the absentee ballot on behalf of my son, Hans Grenning, who is a freshman at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

My first part of the voting odyssey began on April 2nd when we had an open house at college and there was a table about voting. When we looked at the options we decided that his best option might be to register in Broward County where we live and request an absentee ballot from Broward County. He went to college on the 18th of August and as soon as he was able to get his cell phone he had the number to call Broward County. In August, September and October he was very frugal with his daytime minutes – it took about 40 minutes to get through to the office and <inaudible> because he never got his ballot.

By mid-October I had received a publication from Broward County. In it was a website address so he tried that, went through the process and registered on the internet around the 15th of October.

About a week later the ballot still had not arrived and it was within three weeks of the election when we begin to panic and I decided if I had to go up and get him and return that’s sixteen hours of drive – four hours each way, two hundred twenty-five miles, it wasn’t going to work. But my second son said, well we can buy him a car, so he drove from Daytona Beach to Tampa, bought him a beater car, brought it back to Daytona, registered it and said, all you have to do, Ma, is the paperwork. So he sent me the paperwork and on the 27th of October I went to get the auto tag and, much to my dismay, the west Broward County Courthouse was also the early voter registration site and there was no place to park in the parking lot, the lines were way out the door and I decided there was no way I could possibly get my auto tag before, you know, I had to go to work that day.

In any case, I called the voter protection after that, Senator Nelson’s office. On Friday the 27th I got a call back from Senator Nelson’s office in Orlando assuring me that it had been Fedexed out that day. He stayed at the community association all afternoon in hopes he could get it so he could send it right back - it never came.

I wrote a letter on the 29th of November to Dr. Brenda Snipes <Broward County Supervisor of Elections>, which she has yet to answer.

One other very quick thing – I worked with the National Opinion Research Center on the Florida Ballot Study after the 2000 election… personally led a team that visited eight counties including Miami-Dade, Broward and Duval, which were some of the largest. Because it’s a research project I can’t really speak in confidentiality about it but Ford Fessenden of the New York Times and Dan Keating of the Washington Post did a wonderful job in consortium with his papers, and if you don’t have access to this wonderful study, which was not so much to determine whether Bush or Gore won the first election but the whole election process and, the chads, what it was out of all these issues were its grounds of research. And I thank you. Well, I guess that one good thing is, my son is still enjoying his beater car I got for him. Thank you.

Panelist Rivera: Did he ever get to vote?

Witness Grenning: No.

Panelist Rivera: And has he been able to determine whether or not he can get an absentee for an upcoming election yet or is that still…

Witness Grenning: I would be happy to leave you with a letter that I wrote to Dr. Snipes to which I have no answer.

Moderator Mursuli: Does someone from… you may not have it, I don’t want to put you on the spot if you don’t have the information… does someone from Senator Nelson’s office… do you have a comment at all about that? Do you have any information, or… no? okay, I just wanted to give you an opportunity in case you did.

Witness Randall Marshall: I am the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Florida.

It’s easy… at first I’d like to thank the Election Protection coalition not only for what you’re doing tonight but for the many, many months of advance preparation, the many, many hours that every organization and thousands of volunteers put in trying to make for a fair and free election.

I’m here to follow up on what Ms. Grenning just talked about because this was not unique. This is one of the things that happens with elections in Florida, is that protecting the right to vote is often a moving target because what happened in 2000 doesn’t mean that it will re-happen in 2004 and yet there is always some kind of new problem that arises.

Absentee ballots was, in our belief, a systemic problem in Miami-Dade County, in Broward County and Palm Beach County. There wasn’t something unique about one or two people – it was thousands of people. In fact, of the voting-related complaints that the ACLU of Florida got, independent of the Election Protection coalition, 40% of our complaints dealt with absentee ballots. For the Election Protection coalition information – about 12% of the complaints in Miami-Dade were absentee ballot problems. 17 ½ % in Broward County were absentee ballot problems and nearly 16% in Palm Beach County.

In fact, I think we’re all aware that in Broward County over 13,000 ballots were sent to voters very late, 9,000 on the Saturday prior to election, and on election day we were getting calls from people who were frantic – they had called their Senator’s office, they had called the Supervisor of Elections, they had called the Governor’s office and no one could do anything to help them because they had either received their ballot too late to get it back by 7 pm election night or hadn’t received it at all.

The ACLU, along with Florida Legal Services, did unsuccessfully file a lawsuit trying to extend the time, received additional help <inaudible> from many of the election coalition partners. This is an area that needs to be taken up and looked at and dealt with for the future.

One last comment I do have to make is, because I think it involves the good work that the Election Protection coalition has done, is there is going to be an attempt to change the fifty foot rule to a one hundred foot rule and that’s going to severely hamper the amount of work that can be done on the ground and I would encourage the Election Protection coalition to do whatever it can to oppose this type of change in the legislation. Thank you.

Panelist Hanson: Randall, with regard to the absentee ballot issue, I know, I worked in a polling place on election day and a lot of people came in said, I did not get my absentee ballot, can I vote? And the person that was running the polling place where I was was, at least for a time, inclined not to let these people vote even by provisional ballot. Is there any suggestion that you would make with regard to that particular issue?

Witness Marshall: Well, number one, and I think this again underscores part of the problem that we have on election day, it is absolutely incorrect as a matter of law that a person who had been sent an absentee ballot cannot vote on election day. It is incumbent upon the Supervisor of Elections office to ascertain whether that ballot has been received or voted and the individual is absolutely entitled to show up at the polls and vote.

Panelist Mitchell: One of the proposals by the state Supervisor of Elections is to require a deadline, a date certain, for requests for absentee ballots. I think it’s the Friday – the cutoff the Friday before election day – and to also track, the Secretary of State’s office is talking about tracking absentee ballots to make sure where they are in the mail process. And the last proposal was to require that all absentee ballots be sent directly to the Supervisor of Elections office and not through any third party. What are your thoughts on those, and I hate to put you on the spot, what are your thoughts on those?

Witness Marshall: Well, I… certainly there needs to be a uniform standard that ensures that applications received are timely responded to. Part of the disappointment in the court testimony was listening to Broward County’s Supervisor of Elections testify that, well, after all there is no requirement in state statute or in regulations that says when we have to send an absentee ballot when it’s requested. It was a cavalier attitude that, well, when and if we get around to it we’ll get it to you. There ought to be a mechanism that ensures there is a methodology to track and keep track of those ballots and so I think that would be a very useful thing to do. Also, in terms of a cutoff date, again, it did no good to send 9,000 ballots on Saturday. It’s been said that they were sent by overnight delivery… this woman’s son didn’t get hers… I don’t know anybody who did get theirs by overnight delivery and I think that is seriously a problem.

Moderator Mursuli: Thank you Mr. Marshall.

Cathy Gilbert: I did not have particular problems personally with casting my vote but I was told that this would be also the place to for sharing my concerns and my <inaudible> support toward reforms. I think that even though I didn’t have problems casting my vote, I did… my right to participate in a fair and democratic election was compromised both because other people did have problems casting their vote and also because I think the infrastructure, the structure of this election itself is not as fair as it should be. What I’d like to do is just kind of give a laundry list, so it will just be pretty quick.

Basically, my concerns <inaudible> accountability, voter access and rights, and systems structure or systems <inaudible>. For accountability, I feel that we need to have a paper trail… actually, I’d rather have paper ballots, and if we had optical scanning or otherwise, but something very tangible, would like to have a paper ballot. If we are going to use the <inaudible> machines, I think that the software itself should be open source, which would be transparent because with transparency would be more trustworthy and more reliable, stable and less expensive, as used elsewhere, such as in Australia. We should not be purchasing proprietary software that cannot even be accredited.
<portion unavailable due to changing tape>
Proportional representation would allow for plurality representation. Fair redistricting by judges rather than by parties… to work on the gerrymandering that we have <inaudible>. And public campaign financing for <inaudible> elections. Thank you.

Panelist Clermont: Ms. Gilbert, you spoke about paper <inaudible>, when in election 2000 we had all those pregnant ballots… you talk about paper ballots again… <inaudible> problems that we had…the use of the pregnant, the chad wasn’t… what do you think - we should come back to that?

Witness Gilbert: Well, if you have… there are various systems that… I wish that I… I think with optical scanning for one that you can have good results. I’m not actually an expert on the paper ballot different systems but at least you have something tangible and I think you can have something with a paper ballot that is both tangible and has a high degree of reliability.

Moderator Mursuli: Thank you Ms. Gilbert. Thank you very much.

Witness Mary Peeler: Good evening. My name is Mary Peeler. I serve as the Voter Empowerment Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP.

With over 17 hundred developing youth groups across the United States, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots civil rights organization. The NAACP has worked to protect the rights of voters since 1909. Throughout our history the association has fought against <inaudible> and was instrumental in the development and enactment of the Voting Rights Act, the Help Americans Vote Act and many other key pieces of legislation and that ensure the rights of all Americans to vote and to have their votes counted.

The association received numerous complaints from voters prior to and on election day including but not limited to complaints involving non-uniform instructions on when to offer provisional ballots, long lines at the polls during early voting, inadequate number of early voting sites, the names of registered voters not on voting rolls, improper requests for identification particularly during early voting, provisional ballots not being counted and voters not receiving their requested absentee ballots on time.

The NAACP and many other organizations registered record numbers of voters in 2004. It appears that while voter registration increased, very few states and local boards of elections increased their staffing or revised their process or procedures to adequately handle the increased volume of voter registration. In addition, many election officers did not increase their capacity to encounter the significant increase in voter turnout during early voting and on Election Day. They also did not adequately increase staffing or revise their procedures to process the large volume of requests for absentee ballots in a timely manner.

The NAACP makes the following recommendations: to ensure that every eligible voter has an opportunity to vote, to have his or her vote counted; develop a uniform and equitable system for counting provisional ballots; revise the process for distribution of absentee ballots to ensure that local boards of elections can distribute absentee quickly, preferably by next-day mail; provide proper training for poll workers on the identification requirements and provisional ballots; recruit additional poll workers to ensure adequate staffing at all precincts; increase the number of early voting sites; and verification of votes.

The NAACP has endorsed the Voting Opportunity and Technology Enhancement Rights of 2005 that was recently introduced in Congress. This bill would mandate provisions to address many of the areas that the <inaudible> bill left to the states. The bill will also mandate that the election system commission develop a formula for the number of voting <inaudible> based on the number of registered voters.

The problems and voting irregularities that occurred in the 2004 election dishonor the legacy of the many men, women and children who shed blood, sweat and tears fighting for the right to vote. Their legacy and the citizens of this country deserve better.

Moderator Mursuli: Thank you Ms. Peeler. Any questions for the speaker? I think you were fairly clear… thank you very much.

Susan Pynchon: My name is Susan Pynchon. I’m here from Volusia County, which is up in the Deland area. Actually I’m vacationing, got off a sailboat to be here tonight, so that’s… dressed the way I am. I requested permission ahead of time to speak for five minutes – if you feel my thoughts aren’t relevant please just stop me after three.

I’m the Executive Director of Florida Fair Elections Coalition located in… we have an office in Deland, Florida. We’re newly organized following the 2004 election. I also personally have a lawsuit against the County of Volusia. My remarks tonight are going to be quite different from most of the other remarks that I think you will hear. I’ve been working with Bev Harris from Black Box Voting. I ended up going through the trash at the elections office in Deland to get much of the information that was the basis for my lawsuit. Along with, I will say, Ellen Brodsky, from Broward County, also went through the trash in Deland.

Moderator Mursuli: There’s a story for you Robert… in the trash… <apparently directing his remark to a reporter in the audience>.

Witness Pynchon: It’s a great… yes, look at blackboxvoting.org website for some amazing election fraud information.

The first comment I’d like is that the law needs to be changed – there’s not enough time to contest an election. You have ten days following the end of an election in order to bring a contest. We still, in Volusia County, have not received the results of the election. You know, on a disk with all the voter names?

The Volusia County election was an absolute mess. We have op scan equipment up there – Diebold AccuVote op scan equipment – and that is where you fill in with ink on a ballot your and then put that ballot in a machine. It sounds great. However, we have no faith that those paper ballots themselves have not been tampered with and this leads to the second major point I would like to make that affects your counties as well.

There is no security. The securities for Election Day, as bad as they may be, were not even extended by the legislature to cover early voting. Now you all may be aware of that, but when they passed early voting in June 2004, none of the securities apply to early voting. In Volusia County, almost 20% of our residents voted by early voting. I called the state again today – I wanted to know the percent of people who voted early voting for the whole state of Florida. They told me you have to call the individual county to get those records. They’re not even giving out that information. But let’s just assume if it’s similar to Volusia County that at least 20%, approximately 20%, of Florida’s residents voted by early voting, and that number’s going to increase every year.

And just a quick example, in Volusia County, the ballots… we had four early voting sites. The paper ballots were brought back in manila envelopes to the election office to a place where the safe had access by numerous people, with no log as to who had access to that safe.

The second point I’d like to make is that all of us need to be looking at our election offices and the security procedures that are in place there. In Leon County, up in Tallahassee, there’s an elections official named Ion Sancho <Supervisor of Elections>. If you talk to anyone in his department, they use the words, openness and transparency, security. They have meetings constantly about how can they make things so secure, more secure.

In Volusia County we have memory cards that are like little time bombs. In the trash I found a memo from Diebold stating that Volusia County had more memory card failures than all its other Florida customers combined. We had 57 memory card failures. I only know that because I found a report in the trash. That was not publicized, it was not a part of the official conduct of elections report to the state.

These are things that we all need to be looking at. We have to be looking at the security procedures in place at each of our elections office.

Another point I’d like to make is that Diebold, and I don’t… do you have Diebold here… do you have ES&S for the… ES&S? Allright, so I’m more familiar with Diebold but they have security procedures in place. They disputed that fraud can exist because of ‘X’, you know, ‘A’ reason, ‘B’ reason, ‘C’ reason. The problem is the canvassing board doesn’t know they’re responsible for certifying the election. And they don’t realize that these security procedures are in place.

And I could go on and give you specific examples but… in Volusia County the canvassing board rubber stamps the numbers that are brought by a Supervisor of Elections – they don’t know about poll tapes, they don’t know to check the memory cards, there are not internal inventory numbers assigned to the memory cards to make sure that they can’t be misused. We had nine additional memory cards programmed that were never used that could of… with plenty of opportunity to use those fraudulently.

Allright, the last… I’ll just list, laundry list, the last points I’d like to make. The canvassing boards need to be better trained. There need to be implementation of the manufacturer’s guidelines to prevent fraud. There need to be protections in place for early voting passed by the legislature, the same as election day.

And the last item is the felons list. When Jeb Bush was disallowed his, I believe, 44,000 names this time he told each county that they needed to implement their own list. However, those names were already available in the central voter database. We each need to be checking our counties and the felons list that was actually used for this past election to make sure that those names, and I can’t verify this, but I’m just saying we need to check in our individual counties because I still haven’t been able to receive the felons list yet from Volusia County. So to make sure that that list wasn’t just divided up among the counties and that some of those same names were inaccurately included.

There’s more… but thank you very much.

Panelist Rivera: <barely audible, suggests that remainder of Ms. Pynchon’s material may be submitted in writing>.

Witness Pynchon: Okay, thank you. Thanks very much.

The first and second installments cover 7 out of 19 witnesses. A few of the remaining witnesses spoke in Hatian Creole so I won't provide a transcript of that part unless I find someone to translate. Other than that I'll follow up with the rest of the transcript during the coming week as my schedule permits.

Thanks to eomer here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=319479#319481

[MelissaB]

12. Questions Linger About Whether Shelley Will Testify

Questions Linger About Whether Shelley Will Testify
Shelley Announced Resignation Friday

UPDATED: 12:08 pm PST February 6, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- New support is emerging for embattled California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley just days after he announced his resignation, NBC 11 reported.

Shelley announced that he was stepping down Friday with pressure from both state and federal investigations proving to be too much. He was the subject of investigations into mishandling federal election funds, accepting tainted campaign contributions and sexual harassment allegations.

But not everyone thinks the political career of the once-rising Democratic star is over, nor do they think he'll have to testify later this month before a Joint Legislative Audit Committee that's looking into how he spent millions of dollars in federal elections funds.

Link: http://www.nbc11.com/politics/4169695/detail.html

[MelissaB]

13. Shelley debacle deals a blow to Democrats

Shelley debacle deals a blow to Democrats

By Jim Wasserman, Associated Press

>>>snip

"These guys, both Shelley and Davis, are the standard Shakespearean figures," said Shaun Bowler, political science professor at the University of California, Riverside. "They are victims of their own flaws. Gray Davis had it coming, and Kevin Shelley is corrupt in weird ways.

"And Republicans," he added, recalling their 2002 losses, "are loving this as a chance to pile on."

In full partisan spirit, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield said before Shelley resigned that if he did, it would mark "a second time they lost their office based upon mismanagement and lack of accountability."

Certainly, such harsh perceptions weighed on Shelley as he contemplated his unpleasant options.

Resignation seemed inevitable, even as he repeatedly ruled it out before his scheduled Feb. 22 testimony before a legislative committee investigating his use of federal elections funds.

Veterans of politics and crisis management know the dangers of the type of snowballing charges that surrounded Shelley and how quickly they become insurmountable.

"When charges start flying, the affected party, whether an individual or corporation, tends to hunker down until the incoming stops and then launch a response," said Darry Sragow, a Democratic strategist and consultant.

In Shelley's case, the assault was nonstop.

More: http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~26642~2696055,00.html

[MelissaB]

14. Action Alert New Yorkers: Tell your legislators no touch screens!

JUst got this from a friend who is an Alliance for Democracy member, who got it from another AFD member. Sorry if dupe!
And, sorry for all the carots >>> toward the bottom. I got the email this way, and didn't have time to delete them all, but it seemed important to get this up asap!

Here's what New York is doing:

This week, our state senators must hear that constituents don't want to vote on touch screen voting machines. The state senate will introduce and pass HAVA legislation sometime in the next two weeks.
THIS WEEK, WE NEED YOU TO CALL YOUR SENATOR and tell them you want
paper ballots and optical scanners for NY.
Instructions for finding your state senator are at the end of this
message.

When you call, mention some of the benefits of PB/OS systems for NY:
* PB/OS is RELIABLE, AUDITABLE, ACCESSIBLE, and COST EFFECTIVE.
* Easy and intuitive for voters and poll workers to learn and use.
* Paper ballots are inherently voter verified.
* Paper Ballots are easily recounted by hand.

* PB/OS will cost NYS TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS less in acquisition
and ongoing costs compared to touchscreen systems.
* They are fully accessible to disabled voters using ballot marking
devices.
* PB/OS is fully HAVA compliant. Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Minnesota and other states have adopted PB/OS to meet HAVA requirements.

Please make your call today. Then let us know you called at
[e-mail] .
We have only a few more weeks to go before NY's voting equipment
decision is made. New Yorkers must do everything we can over the next weeks to ensure that New Yorkers won't vote on touch screen machines.

PLEASE ACT TODAY!

Find out more about NYVV's Paper Ballots for NY campaign and what you
can do: www.nyvv.org/paperballotHome.htm

Visit our action page at:
http://www.nyvv.org/currentAction.htm

> > >> CURRENT NY STATUS:
> > >> -----------------------
In January, the NYS Assembly passed HAVA legislation that allows NY to choose paper ballots/optical scan instead of DREs. Many county Board of Election commissioners have begun to see the benefits of optical scan systems, and are starting to ask why we aren't adopting PB/OS. County legislatures have passed resolutions calling for the state to adopt paperballots/optical scan.

We have made much progress, but we are not there yet. I'm asking you to
FIND YOUR STATE SENATOR
1) Go to the New York State BOE map:
http://map01.elections.state.ny.us/boe/main.asp
2) On the right half of the screen are boxes where you can specify who you're looking for. Select "State Senate Districts"
3) Enter either your district number or your address in the provided
fields.
4) After filling in your choices click the "Submit Search" button.
5) You can then find their contact information here:
http://senate.state.ny.us/senatehomepage.nsf/senators?OpenForm

Or, download a list of NYS Senator contact information here.
www.nyvv.org/doc/NYSSenateContact.pdf

Contact the following officials who have great influence over
decisions involving elections and New York's HAVA implementation.
> >
> > a.. Governor George E. Pataki
> > b.. State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno
> > c.. Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver
> > d.. Assemblyman Denny Farrel, Chairman of the Assembly Ways
> > and Means Committee
> > e.. New York State Board of Election Commissioners
> > f.. Contact Your State Legislators
> > In addition to those listed below, the HAVA Conference
> > Committee, must hear from you as well
> >
> > Governor George E. Pataki
> > Executive Chambers
> > State Capitol
> > Albany, NY 12224
> > 518-474-8390
> >
> > Email - go to www.state.ny.us/governor/ and use the
> > "Contact The Governor" link on the left.
> >
> >
> > State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno
> > Albany Office
> > Room 909 LOB
> > Albany, NY 12247
> > 518-455-3191 District Office
> > 368 Broadway
> > Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
> > 518-583-1001
> > Email - [e-mail]
> >
> >
> > Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver
> > LOB Room 932
> > Albany, NY 12248
> > 518-455-3791
> > District Office
> > 250 Broadway Suite 2307
> > New York, NY 10007
> > 212-312-1420
> > Email - [e-mail]
> >
> >
> > Assemblyman Denny Farrel, Chairman of the Assembly Ways
> > and Means Committee
> > Albany Office
> > LOB 923
> > Albany, NY 12248
> > 518-455-5491
> > District Office
> > 2541-55 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.
> > New York, NY 10039
> > 212-234-1430
> > Email - [e-mail]
> >
> >
> > New York State Board of Elections
> > These five officials will make the final decisions about
> > certified voting equipment after HAVA legislation is passed. Please send
> > letters to all of them !
> > Carol Berman, Chairperson
> > Neil W. Kelleher, Vice Chairperson
> > Evelyn J. Aquila, Commissioner
> > Helena Moses Donohue, Commissioner
> > Peter S. Kosinski, Deputy Executive Director
> >
> >
> > New York State Board of Elections
> > 40 Steuben Street
> > Albany, NY 12207-2108
> > Phone [phone]
> > Phone - [phone]
> > Fax - [phone]
> >
> >
> >
> > Contact Your State Legislators
> > It is always important to let your own legislators know your
> > views on important issues.
> > Find your local state senator or assembly memeber follow the
> > instruction below.
> >
> > Find Your State Senator
> >
> > 1.. Go tothe New York State BOE map.
> > On the right half of the screen are boxes where you can
> > specify who you're looking for.
> > 2.. Select "State Senate Districts"
> > 3.. Enter either your district number or your address in the
> > provided fields.
> > 4.. After filling in your choices click the "Submit Search"
> > button.
> > 5.. You can then find their contact information here:
> > NYS Senate Directory
> > 6.. Or, download a list of NYS Senator contact information
> > here.
> > Find Your State Assembly representative
> >
> > 1.. Go tothe New York State BOE map.
> > On the right half of the screen are boxes where you can
> > specify who you're looking for.
> > 2.. Select "State Assembly Districts"
> > 3.. Enter either your district number or your address in the
> > provided fields.
> > 4.. After filling in your choices click the "Submit Search"
> > button.
> > 5.. You can then find their contact information here:
NYS Assembly Directory

New Yorkers for Verified Voting 2004.

Thanks to Amaryllis here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319281

[MelissaB]

16. ACTION! Thank Senators who voted against Gonzales--very important!

As the Senate Democrats assess their effort against Bush's pro-torture Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, this weekend, it's VERY IMPORTANT that they hear from us in support of their "NO!" vote and in praise of the many superb speeches given against this horrible nomination.

Here are the Senators who spoke against Gonzales:

Leahy (spoke several times, floor leader)
Feinstein (surprise vote no, good speech)
Schumer (in agony, likes Gonz the man, but strong speech against)
Mikulski (great speech)
Kennedy (magnificent speech! --in fact, two magnificent speeches!)
Dayton (good speech, but not the barn-burner he did on C. Rice)
Durbin
Stabenow
Jack Reed (thorough legal indictment of Gonz)
Byrd (magnificent speech!)
Dodd (great speech-father was lawyer at Nuremberg)
Obama
Cantwell (raised Enron fraud/Gonzales their attorney)
Bingaman (discussed innocence of most in Guantanamo Bay)
Tim Johnson (son in the Armed Forces)
Levin (good speech)
Harry Reid (minority leader)

(Note: This list may not be complete. Biden and Kohl may have spoken, too.)

6 Dems voted YES on Gonzales--Landrieu, Salazar, Pryor, Bill Nelson (Fla.), Joseph Lieberman, and Ben Nelson (NE)--and 3 didn't bother to vote (Baucus, Inouye, Conrad). These Dem Senators prevented the others from doing a filibuster, by denying the good Dems the 40 votes they needed to prevent shutdown of debate. (Vote was 60 to 36.) They should be royally roasted for this terrible act!

All other Dems and Jeffords (Ind.) voted NO. All should be commended for their courageous and righteous vote. Those who spoke take priority for a letter of praise.

GO HERE for a complete list of Senate contact info.: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x302077


The most complete Dem Senate contact info (with state offices) is mid-thread. A list of Repub. contact info in DC can be found toward the bottom of the thread. Orrin Hatch was particularly repulsive on this issue--he accused the DEMOCRATS of being against Gonzales because he is HISPANIC!

-------

GO HERE for detailed reports on the three days of debate Feb. 1, 2 and 3. This is Day #3--it has links to Days #1 and #2:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=315282


-------

In my letters to the Democrats, I am stressing Bush's low approval ratings, and the connection between his extremist appointments and policies, and the fact that he was not elected. I'm encouraging the Democrats to understand that they represent the MAJORITY, and educating them on election fraud. Here's my letter to Senator Kennedy:

February 6, 2005

Senator Ted Kennedy - via fax to: 202-224-2417 (2 pages)

Dear Senator Kennedy:

Thank you for your courageous vote against Alberto Gonzales and for your magnificent speeches in the Senate on this matter. Clearly, you were acting for the majority of Americans, 63% of whom disapprove of torture under any circumstances, 57% of whom disapprove of Bush's war on Iraq, and whose approval rating of Bush has sunk as low as 43% (Rasmussen).

And I urge you to consider the question: How can Bush have been re-elected, when the majority of Americans disagree with his extremist policies?

We at the democraticunderground.com, 2004 Election Results and Discussion Forum, believe that the answer is that George Bush was not elected on November 2, 2004. There is an amazing amount of evidence that supports this view Understanding this information is vital to finding the appropriate remedies, and also vital to Democratic Party behavior in the face of the Bush regime's arrogance. Being a "minority" is one thing, but representing a disenfranchised MAJORITY is quite another.

I urge you to read Dr. Steven Freeman's second report on the 2004 election, which was circulated in draft form on the internet, and is available to legislators upon request at

http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm

Dr. Steven Freeman provides an astute analysis of the predictable vote for John Kerry, using the base vote going in (who voted in 2000), the big switch from Nader to Kerry in 2004, and new voter registration, which favored Democrats by 57% to 41%. Adding these three groups of voters together, Dr. Freeman finds a discrepancy of over 4 million votes (and possibly as high as 8 million) that Kerry should have gotten and didn't, in the official results.

In yet another study, on January 29, 2005, nine Ph.D.'s and other experts from leading universities issued a report that calls the 2004 election result into serious question. They find that Kerry won the exit polls (by a 3% margin). They find the odds against exit poll error--and thus, the odds against the Bush win --to be 1 in 10 million. They find a large, unexplained skew toward Bush at the precinct level in electronic voting vs. paper ballot (a skew that has been confirmed by other reports--see the U.C. Berkeley/Florida, and democraticunderground.com/North Carolina reports, below).

This report also finds the explanation by Edison/Mitofsky (the exit pollsters) for why Kerry won the exit polls--that Republicans were shy of the pollsters--to be without foundation. In fact, the data points to the opposite conclusion--that the exit polls actually favored Bush--which makes the unexplained discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results even larger. The report calls for a full investigation of the 2004 election--the latest in a growing list of expert reports that do so. See:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

These reports come after many other investigations (see below), all of which point to the same thing: Stolen Election II. The "means, motive and opportunity" were there--in secret, proprietary source code running the electronic vote tabulation, controlled by major Bush/Cheney supporters; in the extreme insecurity and hackability of these machines; and in the lack of a paper trail and other transparency measures—all by deliberate design.


And I want to point out something that most people don't know—which I learned from these reports: The Exit Poll data showing a Kerry win on everybody's TV screens on election night was changed, as the night went on—it was "adjusted" to fit the "official results" that were coming in from central electronic vote tabulators. Americans were denied the information that Kerry won the Exit Polls—unlike in the Ukraine, where voters could see the conflicting numbers—the Exit Polls vs. the "official results"—and knew something was wrong. This Exit Poll "adjustment" in our election contributed to the illusion of a Bush win, and prevented an outcry by voters.

But that majority—which voted for Kerry, and voted with particular intent to oust the Bush regime—still exists, and still believes in our progressive country and its founding principles—the rule of laws not men, consent of the governed, a balance of power, and equality and justice.

Thousands of activists around the country observed the debates and votes on Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales, and your heroic stance on those nominations. We stand ready to assist any politician who courageously opposes the Bush regime, and who is willing to investigate the 2004 election and support election reform. We urge you to study these reports on the 2004 election:

Exit poll analysis - astronomical odds against Bush win:
Dr. Steven Freeman: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
Dr. Ron Baiman: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997
Dr. Webb Mealy: http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm
Jonathan Simon: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm
(9 Ph.D's from leading universities call for investigation:)
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

(Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting:)
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley stats team: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu

Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting (general): http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5

Easy demo of the how insecure voting machines are:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info
Widespread machine fraud and dirty tricks in over 20 states: http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

Democratic Underground (ignatzmouse):
(North Carolina: absentee ballot vs. electronic, inexplicable 6% edge to Bush in electronic:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45003

Democratic Underground (TruthIsAll): "To believe Bush won, you have to believe…"
(Parts 1, 2 and 3:) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1316010
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1358806
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x197878

In progress compilations of various articles and materials on 2004 Election Fraud:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x311105
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=304579

Sincerely,

XXXX XXXXXX


Thanks to Peace Patriot here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319464

(Note: You can't just cut and paste these links. The ones that end with "..." must be opened first and then copy the link.)

[GuvWurld]

17. No Confidence Movement Proceeds in Arcata, CA

http://guvwurld.blogspot.com

[MelissaB]

18. Counted votes at the core of democracy

Counted votes at the core of democracy

Sunday, February 06, 2005
ED PACKARD

The story that garnered attention was that Amendment 2 was not only dead, but also buried, having avoided resurrection by a recount. The story that did not garner much attention is what the recount revealed about election administration more generally.

>>>snip

Reports from the counties indicate that, in some cases, ballots just went missing. Whether the ballots were inadvertently destroyed or misplaced by poll workers or county officials is not clear.

In other instances, counties showed a gain in votes due to the way voters cast their ballots on Election Day. On Nov. 2, optical scan ballot tabulators did not pick up some people's votes due to the way the voter marked the ballot (e.g., didn't make a mark large enough to be detected) or due to the marking device used (e.g., used a type of pen with ink that was not as accurately detected by the ballot tabulator). When isolating the Amendment 2 ballot measure, these "undervoted" ballots were read by the tabulators as blank ballots, prompting review by polling officials. This review lead to the discovery of marks unread by the tabulators but which clearly indicated the voters' choices of "yes" or "no."

Due to these findings, this first statewide implementation of the automatic recount law is instructive in several ways.

First, it has shown us that the voting devices in Alabama appear to be accurate when used properly by voters and administered properly by election officials.

>>>snip

Last, the recount has shown that a ballot tabulator is, simply, a device for tabulating ballots. As a computerized mechanism, the vote totals it produces will be only as good as the marks on the ballots, not to mention the condition, or very presence, of the ballots. We should remember that ballot tabulators, in the form of mechanical voting machines, were originally implemented to assist election officials in the counting of votes. As the populations in counties and cities grew larger, hand counting paper ballots grew tedious and time consuming.

We should never confuse the tool with the product itself. Ballot tabulators should not be the final arbiters of an election where reasonable questions have surfaced about the accuracy of the vote-casting or vote-counting processes.


>>>snip


Admittedly, better funding, training and technology, as useful as they are, will not solve all problems. Therefore, our efforts should be focused on the basics. We should keep in mind that the electoral system is, at its simplest, a way to let people register choices and have those choices counted in a reliable way.

The opportunity to express these choices and have them counted is the foundation of legitimate government in a representative democracy. Everything we do in election administration should be geared toward ensuring the strength of that foundation. Ed Packard is an election official with the Alabama secretary of state's office. He is also the chairman of The League of Extraordinary Voters, a political committee working to improve elections in Alabama. The league's Web site is http://www.xvote.us. E-mail Packard at [e-mail].

More: http://www.al.com/opinion/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1107685318148820.xml

[Wilms]

19. (WI) State lawmakers hear both sides of voter ID debate

State lawmakers hear both sides of voter ID debate

Panel listens to concerns of fraud, disenfranchisement

By STACY FORSTER
[e-mail]
Posted: Feb. 3, 2005

Madison - The 2 1/8 -by-3 3/8 -inch card that most Wisconsin residents carry in their wallets is either the key to restoring voters' faith in the electoral system or a method for preventing thousands of people from voting.

-snip-

Earlier this week, leaders in the Republican-controlled Legislature revived a bill similar to one vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in 2003 that would have required voters to show a valid photo ID to register and vote. It would alter Wisconsin's historically open elections process, which allows residents to vote by providing their names and addresses to poll workers, and register on election day by presenting proof of residence.

-snip-

Karla Smith of Madison, who uses a wheelchair, told lawmakers that the measure would disenfranchise disabled people, because they would have trouble lining up transportation to get an ID.

"It sounds like a simple thing, but it's not just a simple thing for people with disabilities and the elderly," she told the committee. "Please don't stop us from voting because we have to have a photo ID."

-snip-

<http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/feb05/298638.asp>

DU Thread:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319168>