Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Saturday 6/18/05

[MelissaB]

Everyone is encouraged to participate.

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233

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

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



Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378576


:hi: All previous daily threads are available here:http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm

[MelissaB]

1. CO: Panel directs ire toward voting system

Panel directs ire toward voting system

By Brad Turner
The Daily Times-Call

BOULDER — The manufacturer of Boulder County’s new $1.4 million voting system made unrealistic claims about the machines’ capabilities both before and after the messy 2004 election, according to an investigative panel and government records.

Neil McClure, vice president of Hart InterCivic, estimated the system could tally the November 2004 election in nine hours when he spoke to county commissioners in January 2004 as they were mulling whether to purchase the equipment.

When election week came, printing problems and improperly trained volunteers contributed to a 68-hour ballot tally, according to the Election Review Committee report released earlier this week. County commissioners appointed the nine-member team in December to investigate the causes of the tumultuous tally.

In testimony before the ERC, McClure said the equipment should have taken 22.4 hours to tally the election — less than a third of the time it actually took.


More: http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=2251

[MelissaB]

2. VerifiedVoting.org to Brief Senators on Verifiable Elections

VerifiedVoting.org to Brief Senators on Verifiable Elections
Stanford University Professor Champions Paper Ballots and Public Audits

Washington, D.C. - infoZine - On Tuesday, June 21, the Senate Rules Committee is scheduled to hear testimony on publicly verifiable elections from VerifiedVoting.org Founder David Dill. Dill is a Stanford University Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and a nationally recognized expert on systems verification. He will recommend passage of federal legislation to require voter-verified paper records and routine mandatory audits of elections so that every vote is counted as cast.

"The debate about electronic voting should not be about election fraud but about performing independent checks on the conduct and results of elections so as to instill public confidence in our democratic system," said Professor Dill. "Voters have no means to confirm that paperless e-voting machines have recorded their votes correctly."

VerifiedVoting.org supports H.R.550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, and S.330, the Voting Integrity and Verification Act, which would require that voting systems used in federal elections produce a voter-verified paper record that voters can inspect before casting their votes.

H.R.550 was introduced by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and S.330 was introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV).

"Voting machines of all makes and models are malfunctioning routinely in nationwide elections," said VerifiedVoting.org Senior Political Advisor Bobbie Brinegar. "Voter-verified paper records provide the most reliable way to count votes accurately and to instill public confidence in election results whether the machines fail or function according to plan."

More: http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/8460/

[MelissaB]

3. Call rises to 'dump Diebold'

Call rises to 'dump Diebold'

State panel declines to give vote machine recommendation after facing angry crowd
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — As California rolls toward a train wreck with federal and state laws, voting activists told state elections officials that Diebold and its voting machines aren't welcome along for the ride.
Witness after witness — Bay Area liberals seasoned with a few Libertarians and Republicans — called on state officials Thursday to block Diebold's voting machines from the nation's largest elections market, casting the firm as synonymous with lost trust and vote "theft" in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

In a packed hearing punctuated by chanting, activists demanded paper ballots be counted by hand, by computers running open-source software if absolutely necessary, but never by secret software closely held by a company known for executives' support of Republican candidates.

"If you value democracy, you will not certify these hackable machines with secret mechanisms that are considered proprietary," said Berkeley's Phoebe Anne Sorgen. "You will dump Diebold Elections Systems and software."


More: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_2810029

[MelissaB]

4. UT: Lieutenant governor plans to combine Elections, Notary divisions

Lieutenant governor plans to combine Elections, Notary divisions

By Rebecca Walsh
The Salt Lake Tribune

Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert is reshuffling the divisions of his office in an effort to "streamline" and make operations more efficient.

An e-mail sent out to state workers last week details a realignment of the Elections Office and State Notary into one office space. The titles of Herbert's advisers and most of the elections office staff would change: Elections Director Michael Cragun would be "Deputy for Operations" and elections workers would be called "office specialists." The "State Elections Office" title would disappear.

The memo set off alarms among elections workers around the state, raising questions about whether the change would jeopardize $26.6 million in federal election reform funds the state will use to buy voting machines for the 2008 election.

Now, Lieutenant Governor's Office Director Joe Demma says the letter was sent out prematurely. Combining the office is really a team-building exercise meant to energize all the workers, he says. The elections workers will still enforce state campaign finance laws and provide information to the public. No jobs will be cut. And the federal funding is not at risk.

More: http://sltrib.com/utah/ci_2809705

[MelissaB]

5. Taft demotes aide over withheld data

OHIO INVESTMENT SCANDAL

Taft demotes aide over withheld data

SIlence about $215M loss a 'critical error'

By JAMES DREW and STEVE EDER
BLADE STAFF WRITERS


...snip


As Mr. Taft demoted Mr. Samuel, bureau officials confirmed that one of its investment analysts served as director of events for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign last year in Ohio.

Jeremy Jackson, the bureau’s press secretary, said he believed that the employee, John Scharer, began working for the bureau early last year, resigned, and then was rehired by the bureau in January.

“It is our understanding that his activity was with the Bush-Cheney campaign when he was not an employee with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation,” Mr. Jackson said.

Mr. Jackson said he did not know if the bureau — which has denied that politics played any role in its decision to invest in Mr. Noe’s Capital Coin funds or in the hiring of other fund managers who have contributed to GOP officeholders, including President Bush — had any rules pertaining to political activity by employees.

Mr. Scharer was listed on the Bush-Cheney Ohio campaign roster as director of events for the campaign and as an assistant legislative liaison for the bureau. Mr. Jackson said he is considered as part of the administrative support staff at the bureau.


More: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050618/NEWS24/50618003/-1/NEWS

[MelissaB]

6. Montgomery orders special audits for coin scandal, investment losses

Montgomery orders special audits for coin scandal, investment losses

By HEATHER RUTZ
419-993-2094
[e-mail]

LIMA — In the middle of a campaign for governor, Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery is fo-cused on audits of a state agency’s rare coin investment and a high-risk fund that lost $215 million.
Two outside firms are conducting separate audits of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensa-tion coin funds and of the bureau’s management and investment procedures, which Montgom-ery expanded to include the $215 million in losses in a hedge fund managed by Pittsburgh-based MDL Capital Management Inc.
Preliminary work of the audits will be completed in the next 10 days, Montgomery said Fri-day, while most of the other audit will take much of the summer to complete.
“We wanted the independent auditors because I, like every other Republican official in this state, know Tom Noe. I did not want anyone to think an audit would be in any way corrupted by any personal relationship,” Montgomery said. “I’ve been a former prosecutor, attorney general and now auditor, and I’ve done business with people I know, and prosecuted people I know, but this is too important. My instructions to the auditors are to get in there fast, do it thoroughly, follow the money wherever it goes, and to whomever it goes.”
Montgomery said she didn’t announce the audits until June 1 because she didn’t want to compromise state and federal criminal investigations. She had been working with investigators since the story broke of $12 million missing in a BWC rare coin investment managed by Noe.
The daily negative news will hurt the Republican Party, her and other GOP governor candi-dates Jim Petro and Ken Blackwell heading into an election next year, Montgomery said. Responding to a question about Democrats trying to snare her, Petro and Blackwell in the scandal, Montgomery said, “They are doing their political duty. The party, and circumstances, have certainly given them a lot to comment on. But I can’t worry about 2006 right now. Get-ting to the bottom of this is my priority now.”

Link: http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=15316

[MelissaB]

7. Fitrakis: Blackwell had direct access to central tabulator!

Bob Fitrakis was on The Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio a few minutes ago...

He stated that he's recently learned from a subcontractor/installer of Diebold that Blackwell had direct access to the central tabulator in Ohio from his office and could alter results...

He told Flanders that this was the first time he was revealing this tidbit, which he learned after his book was published.

Thanks to AtLiberty here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378842

[MelissaB]

8. Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? - By Bob Fitrakis...

Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?

By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
The Free Press

Thursday 16 June 2005

The following text is the Introduction to the 767 page: Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? Essential Documents.

This volume of documents is meant to provide you, the reader, with evidence necessary to make up your own mind.

Few debates have aroused more polarized ire. But too often the argument has proceeded without documentation. This volume of crucial source materials, from Ohio and elsewhere, is meant to correct that problem.

Amidst a bitterly contested vote count that resulted in unprecedented action by the Congress of the United States, here are some news accounts that followed this election, which was among the most bitterly contested in all US history:

* Despite repeated pre-election calls from officials across the nation and the world, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, who also served as Ohio's co-chair for the Bush-Cheney campaign, refused to allow non-partisan international and United Nations observers the access they requested to monitor the Ohio vote. While such access is routinely demanded by the US government in third world nations, it was banned in the American heartland.
* A post-election headline from the Akron Beacon Journal cites a critical report by twelve prominent social scientists and statisticians, reporting: "Analysis Points to Election ‘Corruption': Group Says Chance of Exit Polls Being So Wrong in '04 Vote is One-in-959,000."
* Citing "Ohio's Odd Numbers," investigative reporter Christopher Hitchens, a Bush supporter, says in Vanity Fair: "Given what happened in that key state on Election Day 2004, both democracy and common sense cry out for a court-ordered inspection of its new voting machines."
* Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes: "It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

Full article here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061805Z.shtml


Thanks to helderheid here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3890361

[MelissaB]

9. REVOLT AGAINST DIEBOLD IN CALIF! WOW! ACTION THREAD re: June 30!

Here are all the threads on the current California situation. Two vital points...

1. The New American Revolution is in progress in California! Read GuvWorld's and Byronius' reports (below) on the June 16 hearing in Sacto on Diebold and ES&S--packed house, raucus, brilliant, kickass audience of true patriots!!!!

2. COMMENT STILL POSSIBLE THROUGH JUNE 30! Flood the CA Sec of State with your opinion of Diebold and ES&S, contact CA legislators, blast media, write to your lists, tell your friends! (See contact info threads, below.)

VOTING PANEL STILL TAKING PUBLIC COMMENTS (thru 6/30)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378712

CONTACT INFO FOR CA LEGISLATORS, MEDIA BLASTER and BACKGROUND INFO
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x376696

CONTACT INFO FOR SEC OF STATE & ADVISORY PANEL (VSPP), CONTACT INFO FOR CALIFORNIA ELECTION PROTECTION NETWORK (CEPN), and BACKGROUND INFO
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x375744

BACKGROUND (the original post by Amaryllis)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x374848

"Activists Urge California Not To Use Diebold Machines" (article, The Daily Review, Hayward, CA, 6/17/05)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378605

______________________

WHAT HAPPENED IN SACRAMENTO TODAY?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378552

GuvWurld (314 posts)
Fri Jun-17-05 01:34 AM

2. I just got back

I can't write too much right now but here are highlights:

Packed (SRO) with election reformers

Took no shit from a clearly partisan panel chair who opened by trash talking Shelley - I mean audience members shouted him down

First agenda item was Diebold; one after another fabulous speakers gave great testimony in opposition - no one approved; at 12:30 lunch break was called; one-sided public comment then continued until almost 4pm; they really did give everyone who signed up a chance to speak

After a 4pm break they moved to agenda item #2, ES&S; staff reported and then two out-of-town experts got to testify before the hearing was shut down to be continued tomorrow with public comment

They will also have to get through two other agenda items with public comment: Federal Qualification Process Report and Other Business

In response to specific question, the panel members would not say when exactly they would make their decision; they emphasized that public comment will be open for written submission until 6/30.

-----

byronius (137 posts)
Fri Jun-17-05 01:26 PM

7. Let me briefly sketch my personal highlights.

9AM: I approach a small crowd outside the front of the Secretary of State building. I stand and hold my giant sign, proclaiming 'Massive Voter Fraud', and 'Voter Fraud is Treason', and make eye contact with people passing. Mostly smiles and thumbs-up, some deep grimaces.

10AM: In we go. No signs allowed, except for the cool 'file folder' signs passed out. I sign a speaker card.

The meeting open with Assistant Secretary of State Wood launching a political diatribe (accusing the prior administration of gross mismanagement) that met with outrage from the audience. Shouts of "Don't Even!!" and "Get on with the business!!" erupted. It became apparent to me at that point that the hearing was going to be useless, and that the panel fully intended to certify all machines and ram them down the throats of California. Wood was supercilious, contempuous, and acting like an evil molesting stepfather who relishes the growing complaints of his victim. Sorry, but that's what I saw. Evil.

After the useless beginning stuff came expert testimony. Many obviously well-informed programmers and people with election experience. I thought it was great, informative, and moving -- one in particular: the guy in the flowered shirt proposing that we simply ask the UC Berkley Computer Science department to whip up a little code for the hardware. It was a great idea. Cheap, and using current resources. No wireless parts, no modem transmission. He was so damned right. That guy for Governor.

Public comment after lunch. All of it heartfelt, all of it absolutely the best demonstration of True American Spirit I have seen in a long time. One of my favorites:

--the Really Old Guy: 'I don't trust my government one bit!'

Everyone had something relevant to say. The psychologist who laid it out so clearly: If people can't trust that their vote is counted, then revolution becomes necessary. The guy in the white polo who demanded that Panel member Clark recuse himself because he had personally purchased Diebold machines for Alameda County. He was great; loud, full of truth -- "There is no Free Press in this country!!" The black woman who spoke with a moving voice about how her ancestors had been murdered for trying to vote -- "I will never give up!" I was on my feet, shouting "Never!". The many, many voices of reason -- Registrars, former election organizers, citizens -- it was great.

Bev Harris and her investigator spoke. We were all limited to two minutes, and were prohibited from lending our minutes to others by a last-minute procedural crime, typically Republican behavior. Someone tried -- Wood would have none of it. Weasel in a suit. Damn.

When my turn came, I talked about a sticker I had seen, "Five Million Fake Votes". I tried to speak to their hearts, as a patriotic American -- but they couldn't hear me through the flameproof suits.

Later, another expert witness, who identified herself as such and spoke eloquently about past investigations was interrupted by Wood, who apparently did not like her message and attempted to reclassify her status down to public comment (two minutes) in the middle of her presentation. She bravely refused; Wood tried to talk her down. She again refused, and they called in security. When one security guard walked towards her, the crowd rose as one -- "DON'T YOU DARE!!" and "LET HER SPEAK!!". He backed off, and they allowed her to finish. I believe that if the security guard had touched her, we would have stormed the stage. I've never been part of civil violence in the Cause of American Justice before. I have to admit -- I was ready.

That's about it. Wood had to hold the hearing by law, but I'm certain that not a word was heard by these ur-people. I was looking at the heart of the beast. I'm afraid California may be doomed. We must throw these criminals out of office, and drive them back under the rocks from which they came. I witnessed The Gangster at work. Damn them to hell. May they all experience Instant Karma.

Anyway. I'm glad I was there.

-----

Profound thanks to GuvWorld and Byronius for these reports!



Thanks to Peace Patriot here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378741