Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday 9/11/05

[MelissaB]

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x392980

All previous daily threads are available here:

http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm




Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page after several posts have been added.

[MelissaB]

1. National Summit to Save Our Elections: A Call to Rescue Our Democracy

This is the draft agenda. It is still being tweaked as we get speaker feedback and updates, but you can get the idea of how many great presenters and workshops are scheduled!



http://summit.oregonvrc.org/agenda
See http://www.summit.oregonvrc.org / for info on registration, lodging, etc.

Agenda & Speakers
National Summit to Save Our Elections: A Call to Rescue Our Democracy
Portland, Oregon * September 30 � October 2, 2005
DRAFT AGENDA
Friday, September 30, 2005

First Unitarian Church
1011 SW 12th Ave
Portland, OR 97205


Noon � 7:00 PM Registration Opens

Oregon Election System Poster Session: Learn how Oregon�s Vote-by-Mail system works through poster presentations and videos and have your questions answered by Oregon election officials and citizen experts.

1:00 - 5:00 PM Concurrent Workshops and Panel Presentations

1A. Engage, Educate, Elect
Jefferson Smith, Chair of The Bus Project

1B. Making Electronic Elections Transparent and Accurate
Open Voting Consortium, Open Source Software
Oregon Voter Rights Coalition, Election Audits

2A. Working with the Media
Blair Bobier, Media Director, Green Party 2004 Presidential Campaign
Penny Little, People to People TV, Producer of �Electile Dysfunction�
Lara Shaffer, Development Director, Open Voting Consortium

2B. Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport
Rady Ananda, J30 Coalition, �Democracy is Something You Do�
Alliance for Democracy � Portland, �Using Ballot Initiatives to achieve Campaign Finance Reform Initiative�

3A. How Can I Make A Difference?
Kat L�Estrange, We Do Not Concede and Producer of the Brad Show
Warren Linney, Author of �The Patriot Test�

3B. What is IRV, PR and CVRD?
Steve Chessin, President, Californians for Electoral Reform
Matthew Pascarella, investigative researcher for journalist Greg Palast, working on Centralized Voter Registration Database issues, mandated by HAVA for Jan. 2006.

5:00 � 7:00 PM Dinner on your own

7:00 � 9:00 PM Opening Plenary Session * Welcome Remarks
Native American Cultural Performance

Panel Discussion: What�s Wrong with Electronic Elections?
Brad Friedman, moderator * Ellen Thiesen, Voters Unite * Clint Curtis, software programmer and whistleblower * Matthew Pascarella, investigative researcher for journalist Greg Palast, working on Centralized Voter Registration Database issues, mandated by HAVA for Jan. 2006.

Feature Presentation: Brad Friedman, Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Koehler Discuss Election Fraud, Legal Strategies for Election Reform and the Media�s Role

Bob Koehler, nationally syndicated journalist, Tribune Media Services * Cliff Arnebeck, Ohio Honest Election Campaign and National Co-Chair, Alliance for Democracy * Brad Friedman, host of The Brad Show and BradBlog.com

9:00 PM Adjourn
Saturday, October 1, 2005

First Unitarian Church
1011 SW 12th Ave
Portland, OR 97205

7:30 AM � 5:00 PM Registration Open

Oregon Election System Poster Session: Learn how Oregon�s Vote-by-Mail system works through poster presentations and videos and have your questions answered by Oregon election officials and citizen experts.

8:30 AM � 12:15 PM

Corporate Ownership of Our Elections: The Threat to Democracy
Thom Hartmann, radio talk show host and author

Panel Discussion: Corporate Ownership of Our Elections � Current Developments
Thom Hartmann, moderator
John Gideon, Voters Unite
Nancy Price, National Co-Chair, Alliance for Democracy
Paul Lehto, Attorney and Plaintiff in lawsuit against Sequoia Voting Systems

Concurrent Workshops and Presentations:

1A. Digital for Dummies: The Perils of Electronic Elections
Kip Humphrey, Systems Integration Consultant
Clint Curtis, software programmer and whistleblower

1B. From Good Intentions to Powerful Action: How to Make a Difference
Emily Levy, United for Secure Elections, http://www.juiceforjustice.com /

12:15 � 1:30 PM Lunch on your own (box lunch may be ordered at registration)

1:30 � 5:30 PM Plenary Sessions

Keynote Speaker:
The Honorable Jesse Jackson Jr., U.S. Representative, D-IL

Featured Speakers:
Bill Bradbury, Oregon Secretary of State (Invited)

David Cobb, 2004 Green Party Presidential Candidate

Ronnie Dugger, Founder of Alliance for Democracy and
author of �How They Could Steal the Election This Time.�

JoAnne Bowman, Former Oregon House Representative

Panel Discussion: Verifying Election Results
Election Audits, Oregon Voter Rights Coalition
Parallel Elections, Judy Alter, UCLA retired Emeritus professor
Exit Polls, TBD

5:30 � 7:30 PM Dinner on your own

7:30 � 8:30 PM Democracy Revival
Paul Lehto and Thom Hartmann


Portland State University
724 SW Harrison
Portland, OR

7:30 AM Registration Open

Oregon Election System Poster Session: Learn how Oregon�s Vote-by-Mail system works through poster presentations and videos and have your questions answered by Oregon election officials and citizen experts.

8:30 AM � 9:00 AM Dealing with Diebold in Georgia
Brad Friedman interview with Representative Cynthia McKinney (invited)

9:00 AM � 11:00 AM Concurrent Workshops and Presentations

1A. Local Strategies for Election Reform
David Berman, Co-Founder, Voter Confidence Committee of Humboldt County, CA

1B. Citizen Audit Parallel Election Project
Judy Alter, retired Emeritus professor from UCLA

2A. Thinking Patriotically, Acting Locally (and NOW)
Bernie Ellis Jr., MA, MPH, Organizer, Gathering To Save Our Democracy (Tennessee)

2B. Protecting Our Elections
John Washburn, Certified Software Quality Engineer, �How to Test Voting Machinery Software�
Mary Beth Kuznik, VotePA, �THE POLLWORKER � Eyes on the Poll�

11:00 � 12:30 Closing Panel: Where do we go from here?
Paul Lehto, moderator
Rady Ananda
Brad Friedman
Ellen Thiesen

12:30 Adjourn


Thanks to Amaryllis here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x390358


I eyes went out trying to put bold and italics in, so I stopped. Sorry!

If anybody has an updated agenda, please post it in the daily thread.

[MelissaB]

2. George W. Bush’s 9/11 Reichstag fire (Interesting article from Aljazeera)

George W. Bush’s 9/11 Reichstag fire

...snip

But Hitler's followers turned that fire into a horrific wave of “terror”, suspending civil rights and civil liberties. They fattened their war machine and rode the fascist tide into a full-blown dictatorship.

Numerous political analysts drew parallelism between the White House’s repetitive 9/11 rhetoric, recrimination and retaliation and Reichstag fire. Actually, a lot of Americans support the theory that Bush’s admin brought down the World Trade Center itself.

Let’s look at the similarities between the two regimes.

Like Hitler, Bush came to power with a minority of votes. He used the September 11 tragedy in much the way the Nazis jumped on the Reichstag fire, ignoring the damaged caused to his country and nation.

Four years have passed since September 11 attacks but the American President has failed to capture or try the perpetrators, instead, he preferred to use the tragedy to move forward with an extreme rightist agenda, crushing civil liberties, shutting up all opposition, fattening a war machine, and attacking sovereign countries without good reason or evidence of involvement in 9/11 attacks, killing thousands of civilians, and creating a staunch animosity against his nation.

And as the nation was busy mourning those who lost their lives in one of the most twisted acts of “terrorism" imaginable, Bush's brother Jeb made another mockery of the election process. In Florida, where the 2000 election was stolen, voting machines were again placed in districts mostly inhabited by blacks and Jews. Seizing the chance of the nation's eyes directed elsewhere, fatal chaos was injected into the Democratic primary meant to choose Jeb's fall opponent. Dysfunctional voting machines and manipulated poll hours shredded the democratic process.


More: http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=9642

[MelissaB]

3. IL: Fewer voting precincts proposed

Fewer voting precincts proposed
Idea aims to cut costs for new election equipment

By JOHN REYNOLDS
STAFF WRITER
Published Sunday, September 11, 2005


The chairmen of Sangamon County's Republican and Democrat parties have endorsed a proposed cost-cutting move that would eliminate some of the county's smaller election precincts.


Sangamon County Clerk Joe Aiello, a Republican who oversees the county's election office, said details of the plan still were being worked out late last week. An initial proposal would have reduced the 246 precincts in Sangamon County to 208, but the final number probably will be somewhere in between.

Several Democratic and Republican officials have been consulted during formulation of the plan, which should be voted on Tuesday at the Sangamon County Board meeting.

"(The county election office) has been very responsive to all of our feedback," said Sangamon County Democratic Chairman Tim Timoney. "They are not jamming (the proposals) down our throat or anything like that. And any proposal I had a problem with, the election office has been more than accommodating to do away with those proposals."

More: http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/65907.asp

[MelissaB]

4. NJ: County OKs $8M for electronic voting machines

County OKs $8M for electronic voting machines

Published in the Asbury Park Press 09/11/05

FREEHOLD — The Monmouth County Board of Freeholders agreed last week to spend more than $8 million to purchase new touch-screen voting machines in order to comply with a federal law mandating the use of electronic voting machines by 2006.

The county was obligated under the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 to replace its familiar lever machines with modern electronic ones that resemble automated teller machines.

The act was designed to improve the nation's election system after the 2000 presidential stalemate. It also created minimum election administration standards and provided $3.9 billion in funding for the replacement of punch card and lever machines.

"There was absolutely nothing wrong with the lever machines but we have to comply with the (law)," John Bradshaw, the county's superintendent of elections, said Friday.


More: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050911/NEWS01/509110482/1004

[MelissaB]

5. Riding the bench for the team (Rehnquist)

Riding the bench for the team

...snip

Continuing a "Southern strategy" that used the backlash against the civil rights movement to convert Dixie to the GOP in less than a generation, Richard Nixon in 1971 filled a Supreme Court vacancy with an eager young judge who boasted impeccable bona fides.

Rehnquist was a states' rights and law-and-order man, and like Nixon would insist these were constitutional imperatives and not political positions. Those who dared to suggest that "states' rights" and "law-and-order" were codes for putting down emergent, angry black America were themselves pushing an agenda that threatened federalism and public safety.

...snip

While the subsequent testimony of Rehnquist and others conflicts as to how much confrontational contact he had with voters, there is no dispute that he figured prominently in "ballot integrity" patrols in the 1960s, wherein GOP volunteers forayed into black and Hispanic precincts in the name of checking for vote fraud. Literacy tests, not yet declared unconstitutional when Rehnquist was policing in Phoenix, Ariz., were among the purification devices used by those knights of law and order.

Denounced by minorities and Democrats as harassment and intimidation, ballot integrity (which curiously doesn't extend to voting machines) continues to be a cause enlisting the Republican troops. Perish the thought they seek to suppress minority votes; it just works out that way.


More: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050911/COLUMNISTS06/509110307/1002/OPINION

[MelissaB]

6. Ohio: Election changes on ballot

Election changes on ballot

Absentee voting, limit on campaign monies among 4 amendments

By Dennis J. Willard

Beacon Journal Columbus Bureau


COLUMBUS - Call it serendipitous, the planets aligning or just dumb luck, but the coalition that wants permanent change in the way Ohioans vote, run campaigns, and draw legislative and congressional districts believes it could not have picked a more fortuitous time to be on the ballot.

...snip

``In some ways, it is the perfect storm,'' Jerse said of events in recent months. ``People understand the system is broken. It is dysfunctional.''

Rep. Kevin DeWine, R-Fairborn, opposes the four amendments. He is part of a group -- Ohio First -- that plans to raise money to launch a campaign to persuade voters to vote ``no'' on the issues.

DeWine said Reform Ohio's claim that the issues are good government reform are untrue.

``This is not a nonpartisan think tank that has come up with its ideas about how to run state government. This is partisan organizations and individuals supported by liberal, left-wing big money who are trying to put their stamp on our election process,'' he said.


More: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/12616806.htm

[MelissaB]

7. The Conyers file

The Conyers file

September 10, 2005

Name: John Conyers Jr.

Age: 76

Education: JD, Wayne State University Law School; BA, Wayne State University.

Experience: U.S. House of Representatives, 1964-present; legislative aide to U.S. Rep. John Dingell, 1958-61; U.S. Army, 1950-54; ranking Democrat, House Judiciary Committee. Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.


Personal: Married since 1990 to Monica Ann Esters, then 25 and a former intern in his office; sons John III, 14, and Carl Edward, 9.


Lowest political moment: Ran in 1989 against legendary Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and started his campaign with this comment: "Move over, Big Daddy, I'm home." Conyers finished third in the primary. He ran again for mayor (and lost again) in 1993. Inside Michigan Politics newsletter editor Bill Ballenger's analysis: "He apparently thought he just had to show up and people were going to swoon. It was odd."


Political legacy: Has championed many bills to bolster civil rights; was first to propose (four days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968) a national holiday in honor of the slain civil rights leader, which was approved in 1983; in 2001, sponsored legislation to ban racial profiling by law enforcement; since 1989, has introduced a bill to set up a commission to study whether descendants of slaves should be paid reparations by the federal government.


Best (and most impolitic) prediction: In 1979, he called then-President Jimmy Carter "a hopeless, demented, honest, well-intentioned nerd who will never get past his first administration." Carter, a Democrat, lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan.


What others say: "He is a voice for this sort of extreme, left liberal segment of the Democratic Party, and they love him," said Paul Welday, former chief of staff to U.S. Rep Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills, and chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party.


"He's just as good as any of them up there and he's better than some," said Edythe Haskins, 80, of Highland Park. Conyers helped her husband, now deceased, get his retirement pay from the U.S. Postal Service in about 1970.


"Conyers will drive an issue. Sometimes that does not sit well. They'd rather have you nibbling than thrusting. He's a thruster," said David Bonior, a longtime Macomb County congressman who was the House Minority Whip before he left to run for governor in 2002.


What he drives: A Ford Crown Victoria and a Lincoln Navigator.


Link: http://www.freep.com/news/nw/conyers-box110e_20050910.htm

[Algorem]

8. "Scofflaws or Scapegoats? : Grand jury indicts two mid-level elections

board employees, raising more questions about the 2004 recount."

(Cleveland Free Times,9-7-2005)

http://www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Ne...

By Teresa James

LAST SPRING, Republican Kathy Dreamer and Democrat Rosie Grier sat side by side as they showed a local voting reform activist how ballots are set up and formatted for elections. The process is complicated, and the two women grew more animated as they showed Victoria Lovegren, from Ohio Vigilance, each step of the procedure and each successive layer of safeguards against error.

Dreamer, the manager of ballots at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, and Grier, assistant manager, don't share political views. But the pride in their work that shone through when explained the process left no doubt that they took their jobs seriously.

That's why many find it so hard to understand why a grand jury indicted Dreamer and Grier last week for various alleged violations of election law during the county's 2004 recount.

Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter convened the grand jury to investigate charges of recount violations raised by the Libertarian and Green Party presidential candidates. Baxter was appointed by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason to avoid a conflict of interest; Mason's office represents the board...



Robert T. Bennett
Ohio Republican Party chairman will not discuss the recount.



Michael Vu
Ballots were “pre-inspected

[Melissa G]

9. President's Approval Rating Dips Below 40

President's Approval Rating Dips Below 40
By Will Lester
The Associated Press

Saturday 10 September 2005

President Bush's job approval has dipped below 40 percent for the first time in the AP-Ipsos poll, reflecting widespread doubts about his handling of gasoline prices and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Nearly four years after Bush's job approval soared into the 80s after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush was at 39 percent job approval in an AP-Ipsos poll taken this week. That's the lowest since the the poll was started in December 2003.

The public's view of the nation's direction has grown increasingly negative as well, with nearly two-thirds now saying the country is heading down the wrong track.

"As a nation, we are pretty well stretched," said Barry Allen, a political independent from Reed City, Mich. "I approve of some of the things the president has done, and disapprove of others. Overall, I disapprove."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091105F.shtml