Election Reform, Fraud & Related News 04.04.06: DeLay Fraud Special-Rokken

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”DeLay Goes Down, Delay Goes Down!!!”
Now linked with Ohio’s Ney in Fraud Scandal

This will be a hard spin. But they’ll try.

Where are the “naysayers?”
Denying a stolen election in 2004 at this point is like denying global warming.

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.
Only the deluded & complicit accept election results on blind faith.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News April 3, 2006

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
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.
Please

"Recommend"

for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

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1. TX & Nation: Delay Gone

What TX & Nation: Delay Gonea surprise! He’s actually gone. You might recall that delay committed one of the most outrageous instances of election fraud ever. The Texas redistricting prior to the 2004 election took the steam out of our chances to re-take Congress. It was a back up against “the machines” and voter suppression everywhere. It worked. Well, now “Mr. Election Fraud” is not able to stand for reelection. AMF Tom.


Web Exclusive| Nation

Exclusive: Tom DeLay Says He Will Give up His Seat
The embattled former Republican leader tells TIME that he will leave Congress and not seek reelection

By MIKE ALLEN/SUGAR LAND, TEXAS
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1179853,00.html

Rep. Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not seek reelection and will leave Congress within months. Taking defiant swipes at "the left" and the press, he said he feels "liberated" and vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government.

"I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace with it." He notified President Bush in the afternoon. DeLay and his wife, Christine, said they had been prepared to fight, but that he decided last Wednesday, after months of prayer and contemplation, to spare his suburban Houston district the mudfest to come. "This had become a referendum on me," he said. "So it's better for me to step aside and let it be a referendum on ideas, Republican values and what's important for this district."

DeLay's fall has been stunningly swift, one of the most brutal and decisive in American history. He had to give up his title of Majority Leader, the No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership, in September when a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of trying to evade the state's election law. So he moved out of his palatial suite in the Capitol, where he once brandished a "No Whining" mug during feisty weekly sessions with reporters, and moved across the street to the Cannon House Office Building, home of many freshmen.

The surprise decision was based on the sort of ruthless calculation that had once given him unchallenged dominance of House Republicans and their wealthy friends in Washington's lobbying community: he realized he might lose in this November's election. DeLay got a scare in a Republican primary last month, and a recent poll taken by his campaign gave him a roughly 50-50 shot of winning, in an election season when Republicans need every seat they can hang onto to avoid a Democratic takeover of the House.

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2. TX & Nation: A News History of DeLay’s Big Election Fraud—TX Redistricting

The posts below are a summary of the DeLay election fraud in Texas. He raised money from corporations and used it to fund the redistricting effort to change TX from a Democratic delegation to a Republican House delegation. He succeeded. Now he’s finished and his redistricting plan has lost court cases and stands before the Supreme Court of the United States. Delay is one of the biggest election fraud perpetrators in American history. Of special interest, he is not linked to Rep. Robert Ney, R, OH, who was central to securing that state for * in 2004. It’s all fitting together. Federal investigators refer to Ney as “Representative #1” and DeLay as “Representative #2.” What a distinction.

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3. TX & Nation: Here’s How the Fraud Started-Illegal funds for redistricting

TX & Nation: Here’s How the Fraud Started – Illegal fundraising for redistricting

DeLay's Corporate Fundraising Investigated
Money Was Directed to Texas GOP to Help State Redistricting Effort

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43219-2004Jul11.html
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 12, 2004; Page A01

In May 2001, Enron's top lobbyists in Washington advised the company chairman that then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was pressing for a $100,000 contribution to his political action committee, in addition to the $250,000 the company had already pledged to the Republican Party that year.

DeLay requested that the new donation come from "a combination of corporate and personal money from Enron's executives," with the understanding that it would be partly spent on "the redistricting effort in Texas," said the e-mail to Kenneth L. Lay from lobbyists Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson.

The e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show DeLay and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.

DeLay's fundraising efforts helped produce a stunning political success. Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, Texas congressional districts were redrawn to send more Republican lawmakers to Washington, and DeLay -- now the House majority leader -- is more likely to retain his powerful post after the November election, according to political experts.

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4. TX & Nation: Texas Democrats walked out to stop redistricting

That’s right. They left town and took up quarters in Oklahoma. They were determined not to lose this fight and the showed their courage. It drove DeLay and the WH nuts. They didn’t know what to do. Democrats had actually stood up to them and were getting popular support.

Texas House paralyzed by Democratic walkout
Redistricting at issue

Monday, May 19, 2003 Posted: 12:12 PM EDT (1612 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/13/texas.legislature/

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) --With action in the Texas House brought to a standstill, roughly 50 state Democratic representatives said they would remain in neighboring Oklahoma "as long as it takes" to block a Republican-drawn redistricting plan that could cost them five seats in Congress.

"There's 51 of us here today, and a quorum of the Texas House of Representatives will not meet without us," said state Rep. Jim Dunnam, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He spoke with reporters outside a hotel in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where the Democrats have holed up.

The walkout has paralyzed the state House for two days. In Austin, Republicans exhibited a deck of cards bearing the lawmakers' pictures -- similar to those issued to U.S. troops to help identify fugitive Iraqi leaders -- and milk cartons bearing the images of the missing lawmakers.

The Democrats are trying to thwart a GOP redistricting plan they say is being pushed by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives and a Texan. Democrats call the plan "an outrageous partisan power grab."

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5. TX & Nation: WH & DeLay used Homeland Security to track Democrats.

This was, of course, a gross violation of multiple federal laws. Nothing was done but it was exposed by the Ft. Worth Star Telegram and summarized in a nice op-ed piece in Common Dreams below. Delays’ plan was a work of genius, it had to succeed at all costs. What was with the Homeland Security personnel who cooperated?


http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views03/0514-07.htm
Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Homeland Security Department Used to Track Texas Democrats

By Glenn W. Smith

Republicans in Washington and Austin, Texas apparently used a Homeland Security Department agency to track Texas Democratic legislators who left the state to block passage of a GOP-backed Congressional redistricting bill.

This is the same Homeland Security Department that is supposed to be making America safe from foreign terrorists. It's the agency we were told would never be used for domestic political purposes.

But today's edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center, in Riverside, California, became involved in the Republican search for 51 Democratic state representatives who went to Ardmore, Oklahoma to break a quorum of the House and block action on the redistricting bill.

Here's what the Star-Telegram reported: "The agency received a call to locate a specific Piper turboprop aircraft. It was determined that the plane belonged to former House Speaker Pete Laney." Laney is one of the Democrats who is fighting against the redistricting bill.

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6. TX & Nation: One Democrat finally blinks – Betrays Brothers

Wouldn't you figure that the traitors nickname is "Boogie" based on his partying past in Austin. Can anyone say "somebody has the pictures." Boogie screwed everybody. The Democrats in Texas showed real COURAGE and would have won had "Boogie" not been such a sleazoid. Now its up to the Supreme Court of the US.

In Texas Fight, One Democrat Finally Blinks – John “Boogie” Whitmire

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/national/04TEXA.html?ei=5007&en=2a30a5393b7dc32a&ex=1378008000&adxnnl=1&partner=USERLAND&adxnnlx=1144126822-+CjNj+ZDUIShpci9PfBlFA

HOUSTON, Sept. 3 — And then there were 10.

With the crucial defection of a leading Texas lawmaker, the defiant band of Democratic state senators holed up in New Mexico since July 28 has lost its ability to deny Gov. Rick Perry the quorum he needs to push through a hotly disputed Republican redistricting plan.

The surprising reappearance in Houston Tuesday night of a prize holdout, Senator John Whitmire, who, with 30 years in the State House and Senate is the dean of the Legislature, threw Texas politics into a new tizzy.

If Mr. Perry calls a highly unusual third special legislative session, as is widely expected, Mr. Whitmire, 54, known as Boogie from his avid partying in younger years, could be required to attend or be arrested and dragooned into the chamber.

"I don't perceive what I'm doing as caving," Mr. Whitmire said in an interview in his Houston district office as the phones rang incessantly. "I'm pursuing a different strategy."

(Ed. Note: “Boogies” fellow Democrats were furious. Probably still are.)

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7. Nation: Supreme Court to hear Texas redistricting case.

If they’ve agreed to this you know it’s really bad, I mean bad beyond words.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Court to hear Texas redistricting cases

http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2005/12/court_to_hear_t_1.html
Posted by Lyle Denniston at 10:02 AM

The Supreme Court on Monday -- in a surprise order -- agreed to rule on the validity of Texas' 2003 congressional redistricting plan, a measure that resulted in the ouster of five Democratic incumbents, and helped solidify Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Court allotted two hours for oral argument, probably in April. (UPDATE: Hearing likely on March 1, see post above.)

Of the seven pending cases challenging the plan, the Court agreed to hear four. Those four raise all of the key issues at stake, including whether the Court can fashion a standard for judging when partisan gerrymandering is excessive, and whether it is unconstitutional for a state to undertake a new round of congressional redistricting within the same decade when a valid plan is already in place. In addition, the cases raise issues about race and ethnic bias in some of the new district boundary line-drawing. The three cases the Court did not grant raised overlapping issues.

Basically, the questions posed by the four cases break down broadly into four general areas of inquiry: validity of partisan gerrymanders, treatment of minorities under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, constitutionality of drawing bizarre districts in dealing with minority voters, and number limits on creation of minority-controlled districts. The Court did not rewrite the questions, thus leaving some confusion in defining what it will decide. A decisive negative ruling on any of the four general areas, though, presumably could invalidate the entire 2003 Texas plan, because all of its parts are interacting.

When the new cases are heard, the focus will be on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who provided the decisive fifth vote on April 28, 2004, to keep alive the possibility that a judicial standard could be developed to judge political gerrymanders' constitutionality. He did so in the case of Vieth v. Jubelirer, a Pennsylvania congressional redistricting case. After that, in October 2004, the Court sent the Texas redistricting challenges back to the U.S. District Court that had rejected those claims, with instructions to reconsider the plan in the light of the Vieth decision. The three-judge District Court on June 9 of this year again rejected the challenges, putting new emphasis this time on the claim of a one-person, one-vote violation in the partisan gerrymandering.

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8. Nation: DeLay to Join Ohio Rep. Ney as part of criminal investigation.

Nation: DeLay to Join Ohio Rep. Ney as part of criminal investigation.
For taking “things of value.” Linking Delay, known to Feds as “Representative #2” to Ney, “Representative #1, would just about explode the 2004 election campaign. The Post is not making this connection yet. I’ll send them an email or do it yourself. They’re logically challenged. But this is a great story. DeLay and Ney in a criminal conspiracy involving “ELECTION FRAUD.” We were right, we are right, we’ll continue to be right – it’s a rigged game, fix it or stop calling it democracy.

Federal Probe Has Edged Closer to Texan
Two Ex-Aides Convicted, Another Also Named in Lobbying Investigation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040302145.html?nav=rss_politics
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 4, 2006; Page A07

The pending resignation of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), once one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington, comes amid a federal criminal investigation that already has reached into his inner circle of longtime advisers.

DeLay faces a trial later this year on money-laundering charges in Texas that stems from an October 2005 indictment related to corporate contributions to state elections in 2001 and 2002. Since then, two former aides and one of his most prominent contributors have pleaded guilty in a separate federal probe to crimes including conspiracy; wire, tax and mail fraud; and corruption of public officials.

<snip>

The picture appeared to darken further last week with the guilty plea of Tony C. Rudy, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff. Edwin A. Buckham, the lawmaker's former chief of staff and his closest political and spiritual adviser, was described in court documents filed in the case as someone who collaborated with Rudy, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon. They arranged payments; trips and favors that the department's investigators charged were part of an illegal conspiracy, according to the documents.

DeLay himself was formally designated as "Representative #2" in the documents, a title that cannot be considered a good omen. The lawmaker designated in the same documents as Representative #1 -- Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) -- has been cited by the Justice Department as having received "things of value" for performing official acts.

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9. Nation: Dem Cong Campaign Comm (DCCC) Nails down Ney (OH) DeLay Fraud

Well, well, well, are you surprised yet? No, because you’re informed Americans. This is a nice primer on the connections between two of the biggest perpetrators of election fraud in the history of this nation. Boss Tweed, move over, we’ve got new champions.

Just how tangled up in the
GOP Culture of Corruption is Robert Ney of OHIO?

DCCC
http://www.dccc.org/houseofscandal/members/RobertNeyOH-18.html


Ney (smiling)

"Just met with Ney!!! We're f'ing gold!!!! He's going to do Tigua."
-- Email from Jack Abramoff to Mike Scanlon after Ney agreed to slip in a provision into law for them.

Ney on DeLay: "I'm a good friend of his." In 2001, Ney was reported as being, "an active lieutenant in good standing on the whip team of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay." Ney, one of DeLay's deputy whips, was also quoted saying of DeLay, "I'm a good friend of his."

# Robert Ney has taken $4,750 from disgraced Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pled guilty to fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy charges in connection to a federal bribery investigation.

With Ney spending more time worrying about the testimony of indicted lobbyists than the things that matter most to the people of Ohio, are they getting the kind of representation they deserve?

# Robert Ney has taken $24,492 from Tom DeLay's ARMPAC. No surprise that Ney voted with Tom DeLay 95% of the time between Jan. 1 2004 and March 31 2005.

Is this the kind of government-for-hire that working families deserve?

# Robert Ney voted to weaken the ethics rules in a move that many say served only to protect Tom DeLay.

Does the integrity of the House mean so little that Robert Ney would sacrifice it to defend Tom DeLay?

# When Republicans realized it was "impossible to win the communications battle" over the gutted ethics rules, Ney flip-flopped and voted to put the old rules back into place.

So Robert Ney cares about the integrity of the House after all -- when cable news is covering it.

# When Democrats offered a solution to clean up the House by strengthening ethics rules, Robert Ney voted twice to make sure it never even came to an up or down vote.

So instead of a bipartisan effort to get government working for Americans, Robert Ney stood for cronyism and partisan politics.

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10. OH: Rep. Ney according to Tacitus blog – wow!

What can we say, Tacitus was a real Cassandra;)

Rep. Robert Ney - Traitor, Working for the GOP Coup 2004

http://www.tacitus.org/story/2004/7/18/181548/607

Ney Rebuffs Dean's Push for Paper Trail
By Amy Keller
Roll Call

July 15, 2004

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) on Tuesday rejected a demand by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) for voter-verified paper-trail balloting, telling the former Democratic presidential candidate that "left-wing groups" like America Coming Together and Dean's Democracy for America were exploiting the issue to inflame their supporters and raise money.

In a statement that was among the clearest indications yet of Ney's opposition to a mandated paper trail for ballots, the Ohio Congressman wrote, "You should realize that if your demands to retrofit all electronic voting machines with printers before November, 2004, were met, it would ensure an electoral meltdown that would make our last presidential election look orderly by comparison."

Ney -- who chairs the House Administration Committee, which has oversight of election-related issues -- also told Dean in a letter that the arguments of paper-trail proponents "can be boiled down to one central assertion, i.e., that paper ballots are the only way to ensure an accurate election."

<snip>

"You should recall that the ballots cast in Florida in November 2000 were cast on paper," Ney argued. "Furthermore, every documented episode of election fraud in our nation's history has been perpetrated through the manipulation of paper ballots. That is the appropriate way to handle this issue, not by making uninformed and premature legislative decisions based on misinformation and hysteria," Ney wrote.

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11. Philippines: Election Commission has studies showing “MASSIVE FRAUD

A Commission on Elections member presented two studies and said that there was “massive fraud” in the Philippines election. What’s the news been to date:
--an audio tape indicating fraud exposed
--the “winner,” * favorite Pres. Arroyo, denies she was talking about fraud when she asked the elections head to get her some votes;
--the press lined up on the side of the president;
--news was created that indicated that she was going to beat the charges;
--the legislature failed to act, the Supreme Court failed to act, & Arroyo was winning;
--the opposition never gave up, NOW THIS. It’s all good, heading toward the truth.

Expert witnesses estimate 661K to 1.2 M fake votes for Gloria
Poll exec admits massive fraud in 2004 elections

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20060404hed1.html
By Angie M. Rosales

04/04/2006

Election cheating was massive in the 2004 polls, with the admission this time coming from a Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner, strengthening even more the doubts over the legitimacy of President Arroyo’s claimed victory during the 2004 elections for a fresh six-year mandate, as the Senate revived the “Hello Garci” wiretaping issue yesterday.

Two separate studies conducted by analysts and experts on the election results showed that alleged padding and shaving of votes in the presidential race in favor of the Chief Executive ranged from 661,000 to 1.2 million votes that showed discrepancies and fabrications of votes.

Findings on the tampering of votes corresponded with the recorded “official” one million-vote lead of Mrs. Arroyo over her strongest rival, the late Fernando Poe Jr., as the data gathered in these studies showed.

With the presentation at the Senate, even Comelec Commissioner Resurrection Borra was forced to confirm for the first time that there was massive cheating in the last national polls.

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12. Thailand: Thais Stick Together, Demand New Election

Thais must vote. It’s against the law to not do so. They can simply vote “no” to protest. That’s what they’re doing. The current PM is opposed by urban voters and those in the South. North of Bangkok (guess what they grow there), he’s popular. Right now, it looks like a deadlock. There have been protests and street riots in Thailand. These people take their politics seriously. There are charges of election fraud already and the final outcome is yet to be determined.

Posted Monday, Apr. 03, 2006

Get Ready to Do It Again
Boycotts, disqualifications and constitutional contortions following Sunday’s vote could leave Thailand stuck in electoral gridlock. Welcome to the land of the nonstop election

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/daily/0,9754,1179408,00.html
BY SIMON MONTLAKE | BANGKOK

Some elections throw up surprises. But as vote counting began Sunday afternoon in his constituency on the northern fringe of the Thai capital Bangkok, election officer Somchai Sripetch wasn't expecting any. Not only were no opposition candidates standing in Nonthaburi Constituency 3—a fate shared by two-thirds of Thailand's 400 constituencies, due to a boycott by three main political parties—but the ruling party candidate was a late scratch as well, disqualified Friday because she didn't vote in the last election. Voters were asked to fill out the party-list ballot (Out of Thailand's 500 parliament members, 100 are elected by party while the rest are elected by constituency) and to come back later this month to vote for a local representative. Somchai, 48, sent 200 of his 400 volunteer election workers home early. He's resigned to more sleepless nights of counting ballot slips. "This is the year of elections," he says.

There's more on the way. Thailand woke up Monday to a bumpy political landscape, with gaping holes in the support base of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who hoped the election would give him a boost following months of protests against his rule. He may have won the votes he expected in the countryside, but Bangkok was less forgiving. Unofficial results put his candidates in the capital trailing the "No Vote" box on the ballot—a victory for the boycotters. Southern Thailand, an opposition stronghold, is also set to deliver a resounding "No" that could leave many of its 56 seats unfilled. (Candidates must get at least 20% of eligible votes in uncontested seats to be able to claim victory.) Thailand's Election Commission has 30 days to redo any invalid races, while it also investigates a raft of complaints over electoral fraud, voter intimidation and other inconsistencies. And in between all the by-elections and recalls, Thailand is scheduled to vote in a new Senate on Apr. 19.

Investors, while braced for more political bumps, have been betting on Thaksin riding out the storm. Thailand's stock market rose 5% in the year ending Mar. 31, despite the eruption of street protests in February over the tax-free $1.9 billion sale of Thaksin's family-owned media group Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings. Foreign investors have poured billions of dollars into Thai stocks since last year. But the country's privatization program is in tatters after a court blocked the sale of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) last month, and political stalemate could mean a long wait for several infrastructure projects—trains, ports and water plants—that Thaksin pitched to foreign executives in January. "It's not policy drift, its policy collapse," warns Andrew Stotz, Citigroup head of research in Thailand. So far investors seem to be standing pat; the Thai stock exchange's SET Index was down only slightly early Monday.

In the insurgent-plagued southern province of Narathiwat, three bombs tore through polling stations after the polls closed, injuring four security officers. But elsewhere, Sunday's ballot went smoothly; the biggest fuss was the arrest of an anti-Thaksin academic in Bangkok who ripped up his ballot paper—a crime in Thailand. But that peace may not last: Bangkok is bracing for another round of post election street protests, which could lead to clashes between rabid anti-Thaksin opponents bent on forcing him out and security forces intent on restoring order. "Police have been lenient for a very long time.

[Binka]

13. K & R

Good stuff as usual autorank. You rock. :kick:

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14. Thanks Binka...love that kitty ;) Nite...Namaste...n/t

[Algorem]

15. OH-More voting machine woes in Summit

Company replaces memory cards

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/summit/1144139748213060.xml&coll=2

Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Steve Luttner
Plain Dealer Reporter

Akron- Problems continue with Summit County's new voting machines, which will be used for the first time in the May 2 primary election.

For a fourth time, some of the machines faltered during testing. Summit County Elections Board Director Bryan Williams said 16 memory cards, the battery-powered brains of the machines, had low charges or problems relaying vote totals.

"I'm comfortable and I'm nervous," Williams said when asked if the machines will perform May 2.

Williams said Election Systems and Software (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb., which sold the machines to the Ohio Secretary of State's office, will replace about 350 memory cards manufactured by Vikant Corp. of Long Grove, Ill...

[Algorem]

19. OH-Cuyahoga e. director-poorly trained workers&longer to count May 2nd

http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/openers/

Election Day Doomsday?


While critics of electronic voting have focused largely on the security and accuracy of such new systems, they might want to save some energy for fixing what could become a larger problem May 2 and Nov. 7: poorly trained poll workers.

“Poll workers are the No. 1 issue,” Michael Vu, director of Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said at a news conference Tuesday.

Vu unveiled the board’s plans to try to educate voters on how to use its new touch-screen voting system via a media blitz and hundreds of demonstrations around the county. But poll workers will have the biggest influence on how smoothly election day goes, and that's what worries Vu...

Vu also made another somewhat surprising admission: that the May 2 election results will be delayed compared to past elections, though he didn’t say by how long. Though electronic voting has been hailed as more efficient voting system, Vu said it requires a learning curve that will affect how fast employees can tabulate results.

-- Mark Naymik

[foo_bar]

16. this day in voting rights (Martin L. King Jr. 1/15/1929-4/4/1968)

Let us march on ballot boxes, march on ballot boxes until race baiters disappear from the political arena. Let us march on ballot boxes until the Wallaces of our nation tremble away in silence.

Let us march on ballot boxes until we send to our city councils, state legislatures, and the United States Congress men who will not fear to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. Let us march on ballot boxes until all over Alabama God's children will be able to walk the earth in decency and honor.

For all of us today the battle is in our hands. The road ahead is no<t> altogether a smooth one. There are no broad highways to lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. We must keep going.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/autobiography/chp_26.htm (Montgomery, 3/25/1965)

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17. Harris Meltdown - "real paranoia" Ex Campaign Manager

Questions Dog Harris Behavior
By WILLIAM MARCH and KEITH EPSTEIN The Tampa Tribune
Published: Apr 4, 2006
http://www.tampatrib.com/MGBEOW9PLLE.html

But in the past 10 days, Harris has:

•Had locks changed and posted a security guard at the door of her campaign headquarters in Tampa and had former staff members escorted in to retrieve their belongings.
•Told a gathering of supporters in Cocoa Beach on Saturday that the Republican Party had "infiltrated" her campaign staff to put "knives in my back."
•Told a reporter that a longtime, trusted political adviser had leaked a story about her staff members quitting, then called back to retract the comments.
•Announced hiring her new staff without identifying them.

<snip>

According to Florida Today, she told a gathering of Republicans, "I didn't know I was going to get the knives in my back from my own party, and I'll be honest, it's infiltrated my campaign staff."

She added, "For too long, we have been undermined by people in our own party and staffers in our own campaign."

The newspaper also quoted Harris as saying, "I was told if I didn't get out of the race, I would have an April surprise," meaning a negative event for her campaign.

[Kurovski]

18. K&R

But I have to point out that Tom DeLay is merely doing God's work...I know this because he was nice enough to go on the TEEVEE and tell me so! :crazy:

[FogerRox]

20. K & Friggin R