Our Keynote Speaker is: JESSE JACKSON, JR.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representative Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. began service in the United States House of Representatives on December 12, 1995, as he was sworn in as a member of the 104th Congress, the 91st African American ever elected to Congress.
Representative Jackson currently sits on the House Appropriations Committee, serving as the 5th ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education as well as the 2nd ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs. Prior to his congressional service, Representative Jackson served as the National Field Director of the National Rainbow Coalition. In this role, he instituted a national non-partisan program that successfully registered millions of new voters. He also created a voter education program to teach citizens the importance of participating in the political process, including how to use technology to win elections and more effectively participate in politics.
Born in the midst of the voting rights struggle on March 11, 1965, Representative Jackson spent his twenty-first birthday in a jail cell in Washington, D.C. for taking part in a protest against apartheid at the South African Embassy. He also demonstrated weekly in front of the South African Consulate in Chicago. Representative Jackson was on stage with Nelson Mandela during his historic speech following a 27-year imprisonment in Cape Town. In 1987, Representative Jackson graduated magna cum laude from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management. Three years later, he earned a Master of Arts Degree in Theology from the Chicago Theological Seminary, and in 1993, received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Illinois College of Law. Representative Jackson has co-authored A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights (2001) with Frank E. Watkins. He has also co-authored Legal Lynching II (2001), It's About the Money (1999) and Legal Lynching (1996). Representative Jackson resides in the Second Congressional District of Illinois with his wife Sandi, daughter Jessica Donatella, and son Jesse L. Jackson, III.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Summit Presenters are:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JUDY ALTER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTIVISM: On-going:Recount California, Recount Washington; SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS 2005, Progressive Democrats of LA, (PDLA); Alliance for Retired Americans; Topanga Democratic Club; Black Box Voting Meetup - Santa Monica; Laguna Beach Democratic Club; Valley Democrats Unite Club; Women's International League of Peace and Freedom; Fair: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, LA Chapter; Sherman Oaks Democratic Club; Temecula Valley DFA.
MEDIA APPEARANCES AND NATIONAL CONFERENCES: Public Access Television- Adelphia, Electricity for Elections² (2 half hours); Air America, Santa Fe, Leland Lehrman, host (full hour), Air America, David Bender Politically Active (10 minutes); Nashville National Conference on Election Reform- ³Saving our Democracy² Bernie Ellis, Chair. Study of Santa Fe. NM Houston: National Election Assessment Hearings, Kip Humphrey, organizer Study of Santa Fe, NM
PROFESSIONAL, EDUCATIONAL, AND RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 1986-Present: Emeritus Assoc. Professor, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures; 1979-1984 University of Wisconsin-Madison 1975-1978 Tufts University, Boston; 1961-M. A. in Teaching, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1970, M.A.; Dance Mills College. 1980-Ed.D. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Research has been published since 1972, taught research methods since 1986; including in Portugal (on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship) and supervised; over 100 Master¹s theses and doctoral dissertations. Author of 4 books, many articles, a few chapters, dictionary entries, and encyclopedia articles on injury prevention, creativity, dance theory, dance education, dance history.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RADY ANANDA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worked as an in-house legal investigator, across the spectrum of Plaintiff-trial law for eight years. Switching plans midlife, she resolved to work professionally for the environment and earned her BS in Natural Resources in 2003. Today she applies her investigative and research skills toward exposing fraud and weaknesses in the US election system. Her great-great grandmother headed the California Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Sophia May Churchill set national precedent by publicly endorsing women’s suffrage in 1883 at the WCTU’s Annual Convention.
“Grandma Churchill didn’t live long enough to realize her dream of ‘Votes for Women’ but she inspires me today as we resist the privatization of our vote. Democracy is something you do; democracy means self-governance. We citizens need to hand-count paper ballots at the precinct, before all who wish to observe. Corporations should be nowhere near the people’s vote. Neither, now, should politicians. Citizens will tell government how we voted and who we voted for. That’s democracy.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVE BERMAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Berman is a speaker, workshop facilitator and the author of the Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR), born on his GuvWurld blog. The VCR says there is no basis for confidence in U.S. federal election results. The VCR also calls into question the legitimacy of the U.S. government's claim to power. On July 20, 2005, the City Council of Arcata, CA became the first to formally adopt this groundbreaking statement. Dave's knack for being the media has landed his opinions in the Eureka Times-Standard, Humboldt Advocate and Arcata Eye, while radio and TV stations in Northern California and Portland, Oregon have also broadcast his message about Voter Confidence. Dave co-founded the Voter Confidence Committee of Humboldt County, CA. Key links: Voter Confidence Resolution; Has the Consent of the Governed Been Withdrawn, Yet? and Voter Confidence Committee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLAIR BOBIER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blair Bobier is one of the pioneers of the Green Party movement in the United States. The Media Director of the party’s 2004 presidential campaign, Bobier is the founder of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon and served as the party’s first gubernatorial candidate in 1998. An expert in election reform, Bobier has successfully lobbied Oregon’s governor and legislature to improve the state’s democratic process. Bobier has worked as a consultant for one of the nation’s leading voting rights organizations, the Center for Voting & Democracy, as well as for the Northwest Democracy Institute, Oregonians for Fair and Equal Elections, and for a number of political campaigns. He is a contributing author of the book Counting Votes: Lessons from the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida. Bobier has lectured extensively on politics and electoral reform at universities, conferences and community forums all across the United States. He has been interviewed on countless radio and television programs, including National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and Living on Earth. Bobier’s writing has appeared in the The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Oregonian, The Eugene Register Guard, The Dallas Morning News and on the Common Dreams website, among other outlets. An award-winning environmental activist, Bobier has testified before the legislatures of Hawaii and Oregon, Charter Review Committees and County Commissions. Blair Bobier is an attorney, a member of the federal and state bars of Oregon and an adjunct professor of political science at Western Oregon University. He is an avid gardener and likes to spend as much time as possible with his two young children enjoying the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOANN BOWMAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former Oregon state legislator and Portland activist Joann Bowman led Oregon Action’s campaign before the 2004 election to register, educate and mobilize low-income and homeless voters, as well as ex-felons, who often don’t know that they are eligible to vote in Oregon. Bowman was also instrumental in promoting the Voter Owned Elections resolution passed by the City of Portland this year.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STEVE CHESSIN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Chessin is President of Californians for Electoral Reform (CfER), an organization that since 1993 has been educating and advocating on behalf of alternative electoral systems, including instant runoff voting (IRV) and various forms of proportional representation. Steve joined CfER when it was founded in 1993. He was elected to the Board in 1995 and has served as President or Co-President since 1999. He is also active with the California Democratic Party, serving on the State Central Committee since 1986, the Santa Clara County Central Committee since 1990, and the State Executive Board since 1993. He was the prime mover behind Santa Clara County's successful 1998 charter amendment that will allow the county to use IRV in county elections, once voting equipment that can handle ranked ballots is available. He is also active with the League of Women Voters, and was partially responsible for the California League's adoption of a position in favor of IRV. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Voting and Democracy. Steve has been interested in election systems ever since he went to college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they use Choice Voting and the billboards read "Vote Jane Smith #1 for City Council". Steve lives in Mountain View with his wife and daughter. In his day job he is a software engineer. His hobby is politics.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVID COBB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Cobb was the Green Party nominee for President of the United States in 2004. Upon learning of the allegqations of massive voter suppression, election fraud, and voting machine failures, David demanded recounts in Ohio and New Mexico.
His entire legal career is dedicated to challenging illegitimate corporate power and to creating democracy. In 2002 he ran for state Attorney General in Texas on a platform to use the office to revoke the charters of corporations that break the law and challenge corporate ability to manipulate the legal system at the expense of the people.
David currently serves on the Steering Committee of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, as a Fellow for Liberty Tree: Foundation for the Democratic Revolution, and on the Sierra Club's National Corporate Accountability Committee. He is also a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors for the Green Institute. He has worked with the Alliance for Democracy, the Program on Corporations, Law and Corporations, the Fairvote: Center for Voting and Democracy and Reclaim Democracy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLINT CURTIS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clint Curtis (born 1958) is a programmer who worked for Yang Enterprises (YEI) in Oviedo, Florida until February 2001. Curtis is a "whistleblower" whose allegations revolve around his employer YEI and a highly connected Republican Congressman, Tom Feeney. After leaving YEI, Curtis worked for the Florida Department of Transportation, but was fired after he reported their illegal activities. At the behest of Rep. Tom Feeney, in September 2000, Clint was asked to write a program for a touchscreen voting machine that would make it possible to change the results of an election undetectably. This technology, explaned Curtis, could also be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner. Curtis (a lifelong Republican) assumed initially that this effort was aimed at detecting Democrat fraud, but later learned that it was intended to benefit the Republican Party. West Palm Beach was named as an intended target, but used punched card ballots in the 2000 elections; Curtis explained that the software could be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner. Curtis gave testimony under oath about this before the Minority House Judiciary Committee on 2004-12-13.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RONNIE DUGGER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born in Chicago of a Texan and a Scotswoman, Ronnie Dugger was writing for newspapers from 13 on. He was raised and educated in Texas except for a time at Oxford University. After a couple of years in Washington he returned to Texas and in 1954 founded, with the support of a group of nationally- oriented liberals in the state, The Texas Observer, "an independent liberal weekly newspaper," which has been published for 44 years and is now a biweekly identified as "A Journal of Free Voices." During Dugger's editorship the Observer broke many scandals and initiated dialogues on neglected issues of social and economic policy, racial justice, and civil liberties. He was its owner and publisher until 1994, when he passed it into the non-profit Texas Democracy Foundation, whose directors include Geoff Rips, Jim Hightower, and Molly Ivins. The Observer is widely recognized for combining high journalistic standards with unflagging commitment to progressive values.
In 1967 the University of Texas Press published a book Dugger edited from special issues of the Observer on three literary elders in the state, Three Men in Texas. For his own first book Dugger wrote Dark Star: Hiroshima Reconsidered (1967), a biography of a Texas pilot who had helped bomb Hiroshima and had been seeking punishment for the mass death he helped cause there. As Lyndon Johnson moved into the White House Dugger undertook a critical book on his life and career, The Politician, which W. W. Norton published in 1982. In Dugger's book Our Invaded Universities, a case study of corporate penetration and domination of the University of Texas published by Norton in 1974, he advanced a general theory for the reformation of American universities. McGraw-Hill published his On Reagan, a densely factual policy biography of Ronald Reagan, in 1983.
Dugger has taught at various universities and has received a variety of fellowships and grants; he was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard in 1996 and will be a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School in 1998-1999. He has written hundreds of articles for various publications, for example, on presidential fundraising and on the nuclear weapons business for The New York Times Magazine and on discrimination against African-Americans on Death Row for Life. His 26,000-word article on the dangers of counting votes in computers appeared in The New Yorker on Nov. 7, 1988; he is completing a book on that subject for Pantheon and working on other books.
An article of Dugger's, a "Call to Citizens" published in the Nation issue of Aug. 14-21, 1995, has launched a nationwide populist movement, the Alliance for Democracy, "to free all people from corporate domination of politics, economics, the environment, culture and information; to establish true democracy; and to create a just society with a sustainable, equitable economy." The Alliance has launched more than 50 chapters across the country in such cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Denver, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Birmingham, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, Manhattan, New Haven, and Boston. The founding national convention of the Alliance was held in 1996 in the Texas hill country, where 19th-Century American Populism first began. The second convention at Atchison, Kansas, recommended a set of twelve national action campaigns to the members, who ratified them by mail ballot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BERNIE ELLIS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bernard H. Ellis, Jr., MA, MPH: Bernie Ellis is the organizer for the Tennessee grassroots organization, Gathering To Save Our Democracy. This ad-hoc, nonpartisan group has worked to educate Tennesseans about the evidence for voter intimidation and disenfranchisement—and other elements of election fraud—that occurred in the 2004 election (and before), and has informed and mobilized Tennesseans to support the reforms necessary to prevent such abuses of our franchise in the future. The Gathering group has held almost 40 public education programs, has communicated regularly and effectively with county and state election officials in Tennessee’s 95 counties, and has become an important resource on verifiable voting systems and election reform for legislators and other decision-makers in that state. In addition, the Gathering group organized and hosted the National Election Reform Conference in Nashville in April, 2005. That conference brought together election fraud researchers and voting rights activists from 30 states for three days to learn and to discuss how to achieve election reform and election justice in our country. Speeches from that conference are now available at www.velvetrevolution.us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRAD FRIEDMAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Friedman is the writer and editor of BradBlog.com. His investigative reporting has been the cause of many headaches for the bad guys, including his series on the White House Website Scrubbing Scandal prior to the election and many of the reports of Election Irregularities discovered since then.
A frequent and much sought-after guest on countless radio programs and now the host of his own nationally syndicated radio program, The BRAD SHOW via RAW RADIO, his work has been picked up and written about in The New York Times and The Washington Post and many other mainstream media organizations. Evidence uncovered via investigative work on his blog has made its way into the United States Congressional Record and has also lead to requests by Congress for criminal investigations and special prosecutors by the Justice Department.
He is also the founder of VelvetRevolution.us, a coalition bringing together more than 100 organizations in the name of democracy, transparency and free and fair elections as well as media reform and the re-taking of our country by honest and non-corrupt citizens and politicians. Brad is perhaps best known, however, for the work that he's done in breaking the news story of the Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney / Yang Enterprises Vote-Rigging Scandal, which continues to rock the vote from Tallahassee to Capitol Hill as this fascinating tale continues to unfold on The BRAD BLOG every day.
His continuing series on the phony "voting rights" group calling themselves "American Center for Voting Rights" has revealed the high-level GOP operatives who run this dangerously partisan "non-partisan" group as the frauds they are. Brad most recently has returned from Crawford, Texas where he turned his weekly BRAD SHOW program into a daily show for nearly two straight weeks broadcasting "Operation Noble Cause" from on the ground at Camp Casey. Brad was on the air for more than 50 hours of LIVE historic broadcasts bringing the sights, sounds, people and events from Cindy Sheehan's stand outside George W. Bush's vacation home, to a world-wide audience via at least 6 different radio networks who simulcast these important broadcasts. Highlights from those programs can be heard online here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN GIDEON
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Gideon is the Information Manager for VotersUnite! He is a disabled Viet Nam Vet (Navy) and a retired federal employee. He has been learning about and working on the issues related to voting reform and voting integrity since early in 2003. He maintains the current news links on the VotersUnite! website and compiles the "Daily Voting News," a clipping service of voting news articles for activists, attorneys, elections officials, elected officials, and others who are interested in voting reform issues. His personal knowledge of current events on these issues has become a trusted resource for voting integrity activists across the country.
John has been effective in lobbying Washington State legislators to introduce and pass legislation requiring a voter-verified paper ballot. He is dedicated to informing election officials and journalists of accurate details, often emailing them facts in response to fallacies he finds in the articles he includes in his clipping service. John provides Vote Trust USA with content management, original content, information management and voting news service.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THOM HARTMANN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thom Hartmann, who started in radio in 1968, is also is an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, an author, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics. The founder of The New England Salem Children’s Village (1978) and The Hunter School (1997), he has led national innovations in the areas of residential treatment for abused children and private/public education for learning-disabled children.
Hartmann is the award-winning, best-selling author of fourteen books currently in print in over a dozen languages on four continents. He is the former executive director of a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed and abused children, and has helped set up hospitals, famine relief programs, schools, and communities for orphaned or blind children in India, Uganda, Australia, Colombia, and the United States. Rostered with the State of Vermont as a psychotherapist, founder of The Michigan Healing Arts Center, and licensed as an NLP Trainer by Richard Bandler (who wrote the foreword to one of Thom's books), he was the originator of the revolutionary "Hunter/Farmer Hypothesis" to understand the psychiatric condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). A guest faculty member at Goddard College in Vermont, he also synthesized the “Younger/Older Culture model” for describing the underpinnings - and possible solutions - to the world’s ecological and socio-political crises, suggesting that many of our problems are grounded in cultural “stories” which go back thousands of years. His most recent books are “The Edison Gene,” “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,” “Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights,” "We The People: A Call to Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KIP HUMPHREY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kip Humphrey serves as a consultant to a Fortune 5 company and specializes in Systems Integration, Human-Computer Interfaces, and Information Project Management.
Kip's involvement in Election Reform began in November 2003 when he became involved with a large group of programmers and IT professionals investigating digital voting systems. Working with BlackboxVoting.com, BlackboxVoting.org, and VerifiedVoting.org, Kip researched, defined, tested, and verified the “Vote Democratic Slate” exploit exhibited on Hart Intercivic eSlate digital voting machines during the 2004 election.
After November 2nd 2004, Kip became active in the Election Reform movement by initiating 51CapitalMarch.com resulting in over 3,000 protesters “showing up” in 41 Capitals across the country on December 12th 2004. Kip quickly followed up that action, joining forces with ReDefeatBush.com and the Ohio coalition election activists, and staging the March on Washington on January 6th 2005. Recently, Kip organized and sponsored the Election Assessment Hearing in Houston Texas on June 29th as a counterpoint to the second Carter-Baker Commission Hearing also in Houston on the following day.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WILL ILLINGWORTH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will Illingworth is an experienced programmer and systems administrator who has used open source software personally and Professionally for nearly a decade, and he is passionate about protecting our elections and mending our democracy. As an open source software professional, he helps people understand open source software every day. Will asserts that open source software is the foundation of all modern computing, as well as its future, and that open source software combined with adequate checks and balances can bring transparency and accountability to electronic voting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOB KOEHLER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. Bob has written a number of articles on the problems with the 2004 election, and has spoken at a number of election reform conferences.
See his excellent article, "The Silent Scream of Numbers: The 2004 Election was Stolen—will someone please tell the media?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARYBETH KUZNIK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marybeth Kuznik has served for over fifteen years as a precinct pollworker in her native Pennsylvania, as the elected Majority Inspector of Elections in Westmoreland County’s Penn Township Ward 4, Precinct 2. She was one of the nine Regional Coordinators for the 2004 Green Party Ohio Recount, where she worked with election directors and volunteer observers in counties in the Eastern Ohio / Pennsylvania Border Area. In 2005 Ms. Kuznik served as a Panel member at the Election Assessment Hearing in Houston TX, and was a speaker at the National Conference on Election Reform in Nashville TN. She has twice addressed the PA Governor’s Task Force on Election Reform and has helped to organize VotePA (www.votePA.us), which is working to bring together an alliance committed to fair elections and voting rights in Pennsylvania. Ms. Kuznik holds degrees from Seton Hill College and the University of Pittsburgh, and comes from a prior career background in education and non-profit arts management with nearly two decades of writing and producing educational theatre arts programs for young audiences. Documents by Ms. Kuznik are available at:
http://www.votepa.us/resources.html--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAUL LEHTO
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Lehto is an Everett, WA business law and consumer fraud attorney. He has served on the Washington State Board of Governors and currently serves by appointment of the WA State Supreme Court as one of 8 lawyers with regulatory authority over what WA lawyers need to know for their continuing legal education. He’s been voted a Rising Star in both 2003 and 2004 and nominated as a Washington SuperLawyer by Washington Law and Politics magazine. Prior to graduating with honors from Seattle University School of Law, Paul worked for a state senator in Michigan and the managed several counties as a field organizer for the senator’s Congressional campaign. Most recently, Paul served as one of the so-called army of 17,000 lawyers on election day, which eventually led to the publication of a well received paper on evidence of election irregularities in Snohomish County Washington. Paul has since spoken on numerous local radio and TV shows, as well as at the teach-in on election rigging in Oakland California. Paul is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Snohomish County and Sequoia to eject electronic voting machines with their secret vote counting from the elections in Snohomish County. Paul will be represented by another member of the Board of governors (one of the top trial lawyers in WA state Randy Gordon) and will help to lead a national wave of lawsuits using legal theories similar to the Snohomish lawsuit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KAT L'ESTRANGE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kat L'Estrange has been a leader involved in the voting rights movement since the 2000 election working with VoterMarch and Citizens For Legitimate Government, two online grassroots activist organizations, who formed after the unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore on 12/12/2000. She helped organize the Voter March rally in San Francisco in May of 2001. She coordinated and released action alerts at CLG from 2001 to 2002 in what was at the time a very rudimentary system of alerting other members of the movement of nearby anti-Bush rallies and events around the country that served to help raise awareness of election fraud. In 2004, she founded the online activist coalition, We Do Not Concede, in response to continued disenfranchisement in Ohio in what had to be one of the most poorly run elections of all time. Along with Sheri Myers, she organized a small, but meaningful rally in Columbus on December 12 to demand a fair vote in Ohio. The event gained national media attention. She was part of the movement that successfully forced a challenge of Ohio's electors in U.S. Congress on January 6, 2005. She organized national and regional book tours for Greg Palast and currently produces The BRAD SHOW with host Brad Friedman via RAW RADIO broadcasting from IBC Radio Network every Saturday evening.
Kat has been dedicated to public service for over three decades and is a veteran of the United States Armed Forces having served in both the United States Air Force and California Air National Guard, 1978-1985. From 2001 to 2003, she served as precinct committee person and precinct leader with the Democratic Party of Lane County, and helped organize a chapter of the Oregon Bus Project in Lane County. Recent writings include "Deja View: Another Stolen Election," (OpEd.com December, 2004) and "Voting Machines Require Scrutiny" (Register Guard, May 23, 2005). She received a B.A. degree in communication studies from California State University, Sacramento. She currently resides in Eugene.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EMILY LEVY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emily is a lifelong activist, having worked on issues from disability rights to stopping nuclear power. Her involvement with election justice issues began when she traveled to Albuquerque, NM for the November 2004 election as a volunteer with the Election Protection Coalition. She coordinated the NM statewide office’s use of the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS), among other projects. After the election she became project coordinator for Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips in his precinct-level analysis of the Ohio presidential vote; she recruited and coordinated the work of the team that helped Dr. Phillips produce the analyses that became the statistical basis for the Moss v. Bush case in the Ohio State Supreme Court. She is an active member of United for Secure Elections, and assisted in organizing the Election Assistance Hearing in Houston in June 2005.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARREN LINNEY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARREN LINNEY is an author of The Patriot Test: Americans Grading George W. Bush and John Kerry. He was interviewed on radio stations across the U.S. prior to the 2004 presidential election. After the election he was part of a delegation to investigate and recount the vote in Ohio. He organized a picket line in front of Secretary of State Blackwell office demanding that the recount begin. He is currently a principal in a redwood patio furniture company that is working to restore a redwood forest. www.oldgrowthagain.org. Mr. Linney is the Chairman of the World Stewardship Institute, a non-profit coaltition of churchs and businesses that are dedicated to preserving the environment. Prior to 2004, he founded and served as CEO of Wireless Plus, Inc. ("WPI"). Mr. Linney helped build WPI into the 15th largest radio dispatch company in the United States. In 1989, Mr. Linney launched Cellular One of Western Illinois ("COWI"). He secured financing to construct and successfully operate COWI's network. In 1993, Mr. Linney negotiated the merger between COWI and Telephone & Data Systems, Inc. (AMEX: TDS). Before working in the telecommunications industry, Mr. Linney worked as a financial analyst for the State of California. He received a Master's degree from Stanford University in Education and Communications and a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of California, Davis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PENNY LITTLE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Penny Little is a documentary filmmaker and Coordinating Director of People to People TV, a grassroots media alliance based in Santa Barbara, California. People to People TV has covered numerous events, regional and national, producing more than 35 half-hour documentary shows, DVDs, commercials, and films. Penny recently completed "Electile Dysfunction", a 55 minute documentary exploring the story of the November 2004 Presidential election, showing a complicated and technical subject in lively montage style, interviews interlaced with dark humor, short animations and musical interludes. A preview cut of her current project on the environmental disaster of 911, "Dust and Deceit at the WTC", toured major cities in Europe this summer. Other film projects include working as a producer/editor for the film "Waging Peace" with Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Trent. As an organizer and activist Penny has co-produced many events including the Boston Media Summit Net 04 which brought together 75 representatives from independent media including Freespeech TV, Democracy Now, Indy Media, independent filmmakers and journalists. Penny has been signed as a singer/songwriter to Warner Brothers UK, teaching numerous workshops, and working with Gang Prevention through the Arts, helping teens to tell their stories.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAN MEEK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Meek is a leading legal advocate for campaign finance reform and utility reform in the state of Oregon. He is currently the author and one of the chief petitioners of the current effort towards campaign finance reform in Oregon by the organization FairVote. Meek has extensive experience in state and federal government serving as Senior Energy Advisor and Legal Counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Interior Affairs, Subcommittee on Mining, Forest Management, and the Bonneville Power Administration and later on for the Subcommittee on General Oversight, Northwest Power, and Forest Management. For much of the past two decades, Meek has represented electricity ratepayers, public interest groups, and others in many proceedings before federal agencies and before northwestern states' utility commissions and in subsequent litigation against the utilities and the regulatory agencies. In 1987, Dan organized and incorporated Oregon Trail Cooperative, Oregon's largest electric cooperative. Meek is a graduate of Stanford Law School.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OREGON VOTER RIGHTS COALITION: Dr. R. Jerry Adams & Nancy Matela
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adams has managed education, health, and mental health-related programs for the past 30 years, specializing in services for minority and under-served populations. He has served on local, state, and national advisory boards in these fields, primarily as a program evaluation and research specialist. Matela has a degree in mathematics and an MBA. She has managed various business and social research projects since 1970. She serves as the chair of the Election Reform Committee for the Alliance for Democracy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATTHEW PASCARELLA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matt Pascarella is a researcher, writer, and producer, for investigative journalist Greg Palast. Matt’s research and production work has appeared in Palast’s award-winning reports seen on BBC Newsnight Television, in Harper’s Magazine, the Guardian (UK) Newspapers, and Palast's international bestselling book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
Aside from working with Greg Palast, he is also the Deputy Director of La Lutta New Media Collective, Inc., a nonprofit organization based in New York City providing production support and technical assistance to groups that promote social justice, public art and community-based media. La Lutta NMC also works with and coordinates an international network of producers, new media consultants, artists, musicians, web designers, and writers. Matt has helped produce numerous events, tours, books, films, and artwork throughout the US and has advised writers, filmmakers, and various artists working to find innovative and long-term promotional solutions.
Matt is also the Editor-In-Chief of Fever Pitch Magazine (Chicago) – a quarterly magazine dedicated to informing, promoting and enriching political pop culture through creative new media. Fever Pitch Media also values and works towards networking like-minded artists, producers, companies, activists, and organizers.
Matt has presented his work at numerous professional and academic conferences. His presentation topics and research have included: political communication, labor in the global economy, political economy, interpersonal & mass communication, media ecology, media literacy, creative resistance, and new media technologies, as well as many other subject areas. In 2004 the USC Annenberg School of Communication in Los Angeles awarded his research on President Bush's use of fear words with distinguished honors. He graduated magna cum laude with decorated honors including the distinguished golden key awards in both of his majors, Communications/Media Studies and Political Science from Marymount Manhattan College. He is currently based in New York City.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NANCY PRICE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since 1973, Nancy Price has lived in Davis, CA where she's has joined with other community activists over the years in efforts, many successful, to save open space and agricultural land, advocate for responsible and sustainable planning, and stop factory dairies. She served on the Davis Planning Commission (1991-1992) and the Energy Task Force (2002-2004) to bring publically-owned, green energy to Davis and Yolo County.
She's been associated with the Alliance for Democracy since the founding convention of 1996, and is currently Western Coordinator of the "Defending Water for LIfe" program of the Corporate Globalization/Possitive Alternatives Campaign and Co-Chair. She is on the Leadership Team of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom's Save the Water Campaign and she helped found the Water Allies Network and coordinates its Clean Water-Healthy Communities Working Group focusing on the Precautionary Principle. She is on the Friends of the River (CA) Board.
Nancy has authored: "Trading Away Democracy" in Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Domination, vol 1, #2 (scroll to back page)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JEFFERSON SMITH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jefferson is a highly inspirationally leader of the progressive movement in Oregon and in the nation. His brilliant experiment in mobilizing and activating young people to become involved in their democracy, The Bus Project is a model for leveraging the power of grassroots resources and connecting urban and rural portions of a state. Jefferson speaks frequently and energizes his audience with his incisive framing and ideas. In three short years, the Bus Project has changed the political landscape of Oregon and has begun a revival to remind us that Oregon is the birthplace of landmark progressive legislation such as the nation's first bottle bill, publicly owned beaches, the minimum wage, labor day, death with dignity, vote by mail, and innovative land use planning laws to prevent urban sprawl. Jefferson is a Harvard educated lawyer who brought his dynamic vision and leadership skills back home and continues to innovate with many projects to engage ordinary citizens in politics.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELLEN THEISEN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ellen Theisen is the founder and Executive Director of VotersUnite! In her 22-year career as a software technical writer and illustrator, she has created hundreds of user manuals, functional and design specifications, online help systems, and programmer guides. Ellen created and maintains the VotersUnite! website and has written most of the informational resources available on the site. She has developed relationships with voting integrity activists across the country and has become a central node for information-sharing in a loose network of largely unconnected citizen groups.
Early in 2004, Ellen wrote "Myth Breakers for Election Officials" to dispel myths about HAVA and inform decision-makers of important, under-publicized facts about electronic voting issues. Volunteers have distributed this document to thousands of state and local election officials as well as state and federal legislators. Now in its second edition, "Myth Breakers" has become a staple of the voting integrity community. In February of 2005, she joined with other voting integrity leaders to found VoteTrustUSA, a resource and online gathering place for voting integrity activists across the nation.
Ellen's work has been used as evidence in Congressional documents and has been submitted with amicus briefs in lawsuits. In support of paper ballots, she is now working with a group that is developing a non-computerized method of providing independent voting to the disabled. The group intends to offer the device as an alternative to both DREs and computerized ballot-marking devices.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN WASHBURN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Washburn's expertise and passion for software testing can provide guidance for election officials whose duties include testing voting machinery software. Often other duties, non-technical backgrounds and elections only occurring 3 to 4 time per year, prevent many officials from devoting the time and expertise to properly test the software of the voting machenery for which they are responsible. Moreover these officials may be legal responsible for the correct performace of the software on these voting machines, but are not given the proper tools or training to fulfill this duty. John Washburn has been a software quality professional since 1994 and has held the certification Certified Software Quality Engineer from the American Society of Quality form 1998 to the present.
» 359 reads Event Location
Portland, Oregon
Event Sponsors
Multnomah County Democrats
Event Hosts
All content on this site © 2005 by each individual author, All Rights Reserved.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
