Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Wed 9/13/06 Train Wreck In MD Edit

[kpete]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Wed 9/13/06 Train Wreck In MD Edition

It will be a surprise if there are not more than one lawsuits after this debacle is done.

Train Wreck In Maryland Primary
By John Gideon, VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA
September 12, 2006


Polls across the state opened late due to missing equipment or missing poll workers The state hired voting machine technical 'rovers' from Monster.Com ad

This morning voters in much of Maryland awoke with plans to go to the polls early and then head off to a normal day. Unfortunately when they got to their polling places they only found locked doors.

As reported by the Baltimore Sun many poll workers did not show up for work this morning and when they did they many had no idea how to operate new voting technology called "e-poll books" which are a necessary part of the voting process in Maryland and many other Diebold states. The workers were not trained to use that technology because Diebold did not provide the technology to the state until it was too late to properly train the pollworkers.

According to the Sun:

Tardy election judges in Baltimore caused delays at dozens of polling places this morning, prompting some candidates to call for extended hours at affected polls in the city and Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Montgomery counties.

Armstead B.C. Jones Sr., president of the Baltimore Board of Elections, said that in addition to late arrivals, poll workers are unfamiliar with several pieces of new voting equipment debuting today, which is causing additional delays.


"Poll workers go through a class that's three hours long, but some of the technology wasn't available to us in time for everyone to be trained on it," Jones said, referring to the new electronic check-in system, called e-poll books. "This is not unusual for an election morning when you're dealing with brand new equipment."

Not unusual? What an unbelievable statement to make when talking about elections. It's his job as the president of the Board of Elections to ensure that every poll worker is trained and that no equipment is new to them. What should be unusual is that Mr. Jones keep his job.

And this is not the whole story. Added to a lack of trained poll workers to open the polls and operate the equipment we also learn that when the supplies were sent out to the polls in Montgomery County someone forgot to include the smart cards. These are the cards that have the ballot definition and the machines will not work without them.

much more at:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1768&Itemid=113

Also an issue is that when polling places ran out of ballots they made copies of the ballots. However, because the ballot was bigger than a normal sheet of copy paper the printed ballots were pages long. Are these new ballots legal and will they be counted? Only time will tell.

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.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...
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

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[kpete]

1. MD: Voting Delays at D.C.,Maryland Polls

Voting Delays at D.C.,Maryland Polls
By Debbi Wilgoren, Washington Post Staff Writer
September 12, 2006
Undelivered Voter Authorization Cards Left Voting Machines Unavailable

This article appeared in the Washington Post.

Election Day began on a note of frustration in suburban Maryland and the District this morning, as a series of problems and missteps left thousands of citizens unable to vote or rerouted to provisional ballots.

No electronic voting machines were operational when polls opened in Montgomery County, because election officials failed to deliver the required voter authorization cards to the county's 238 precincts. Voters were supposed to be given provisional paper ballots instead. But some precincts did not have enough provisional ballots to accommodate the early morning crowds. A campaign volunteer stationed outside Cannon Road
Elementary School in Silver Spring said poll workers there were turning voters away until the campaign volunteers told them to offer paper ballots instead.

"This is just obscene that we can live in one of the most forward-thinking counties in the country and have so many advantages open to us and for some reason we can't get our polls to work," said Valerie Coll, a public school teacher who was campaigning outside Cannon Road this morning.

At Luxmanor Elementary School in Rockville, Larry Schleifer cast a provisional ballot, but he wondered if it would be counted along with the electronic tallies expected later in the day. He said he was frustrated that no one had crossed his name off the voter registry when he was handed a paper ballot and he was concerned that election workers would not keep track of who had done what.

more at:

[kpete]

2. MD: Glitches Cause Voting Problems in Maryland

Glitches Cause Voting Problems in Maryland
Sep 12th - 3:43pm

By STEPHEN MANNING
Associated Press Writer

CHEVY CHASE, Md. - Voters in Maryland who showed up to vote Tuesday at some polling places in the state's largest county and Baltimore found precincts that weren't ready for them, prompting judges to extend voting hours in both Montgomery County and Baltimore.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eric Johnson granted the county elections board's petition for an order to keep the polls open an extra hour, until 9 p.m., because of the "emergency circumstances."

Baltimore Circuit Judge Marcella Holland also ordered the city elections board to keep its polling places open an extra hour, said city elections board chief Gene Raynor. Her order was the result of a last-minute lawsuit filed by the Maryland Democratic Party.

In Montgomery County, the problems began Tuesday morning when voters arrived at polling places to find the electronic voting machines could not be used because election officials had not delivered the cards voters needed to operate them.

Voters were told to come back later or were given provisional ballots or photocopies of provisional ballots to fill out. At some precincts, the cards arrived quickly and the process was moving normally within an hour of polls opening. At other locations, it took three hours for the cards to arrive. Some voters left without casting ballots.

more at:
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=213&sid=909548

[kpete]

3. MD: Montgomery County Polls Are Plagued With Problems

Voting Hours Extended in Md.
Montgomery County Polls Are Plagued With Problems

By Cameron W. Barr and Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 12, 2006; 11:14 PM

The enforcement of a judge's order to keep polls in Montgomery County open an extra hour this evening was plagued with problems as county officials found themselves unable to communicate last-minute instructions to polling stations and some precincts ran out of paper ballots. A few precinct judges were being asked to wait for the ballots to arrive, even if it meant keeping the polls open beyond the 9 p.m. closing time, an election official said.

Police officers were dispatched to polling stations where election officials hadn't been able to reach precinct judges by telephone in order to instruct them to stay open an extra hour, according to Board of Elections lawyer Kevin Karpinski. He said that, in some cases, precinct judges were being asked to give voters a sample ballot and let them vote by filling out a sheet of paper indicating their choices.

At the county Board of Elections headquarters in Rockville, Alan Banov, a member of the county's Democratic Central Committee, barked orders into his cell phone as he spoke to colleagues in the field. Precinct "1332 is closing!" he yelled shortly after 8 p.m., after getting a report from a candidate who was at a polling place in Silver Spring. "There are people who are going to get disenfranchised -- that's all there is to it."

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091200535.html

[kpete]

6. MD: Baltimore NAACP wins suit to give voters extra hour to vote

Baltimore NAACP wins suit to give voters extra hour to vote

RAW STORY
Published: Tuesday September 12, 2006

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Marcella Holland issued a temporary injunction ordering the Baltimore City Board of Election to operate the polls one hour past the normal closing time of 8 p.m, after the NAACP Baltimore Branch and private plaintiffs this afternoon filed a lawsuit to keep city polling sites open until 9PM, according to a NAACP press release received by RAW STORY.

"According to the lawsuit, in citing one example of problems at the polls, a voter said he was unable to vote at 7:05 a.m. because there was an insufficient number of polling judges on duty," the press release states. "The voter said he was unable to return to vote before the scheduled closing at 8 p.m. because of his job."

"It's incredible that the Board of Election was not better prepared given they knew this election was coming months ago. It's very frustrating that voters' fundamental constitutional rights would be treated so cavalierly," said NAACP Dennis Courtland Hayes in the press release.

Voting was expanded by an hour in Montgomery County, Maryland, as well, after similiar problems were reported.

more at:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Baltimore_NAACP_wins_suit_to_give_0912.html

[kpete]

13. Maryland Election Nightmare Underway

Maryland Election Nightmare Underway

by Mary Howe Kiraly

http://www.opednews.com



Voting integrity activists, after failing to secure a paper ballot in the 2006 Maryland Legislative Session, have been concerned that it might take an election meltdown to focus the Legislature and the State Board of Elections on the vulnerabilities in paperless touchscreen voting. We may have just gotten that "perfect storm."

Voting in the 2006 Maryland Primary is underway. As soon as the polls opened, reports began coming in from angry voters. The first problems arose over a failure to deliver the crucial voter smart cards to the precincts. These cards download the appropriate ballot face from the Diebold e-poll books, being used for the first time for voter check in. In precincts that did receive the smart cards, it was being reported that only a fraction of the cards that were delivered were able to be used. Early in the morning, Baltimore media outlets had already received reports from angry voters in 30-40 precincts. The Washington Post was swamped with calls before the Metro Desk opened at 9:00 a.m.

When the first arrivals were unable to vote on the Diebold AccuVote TS machines, they were given provisional ballots instead. The wait at one Montgomery County precinct, to vote on a provisional ballot, was approximately a half-hour at 8:00 a.m. There were reports of voters leaving in disgust as waiting times increased. One Democratic Area Coordinator, in Montgomery Country, reported that the voted provisional ballots were being stacked on chairs in the voting station. There appeared to be no secured receptacle for depositing these ballots.

In addition to start up problems at many precincts, some voters who were able to vote on the machines, reported problems in registering their selections. These problems included having to register a candidate choice multiple times before the machine appeared to accept that selection. One voter reported having to shake a machine to get it to record his vote.

More to follow as the day progresses...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_mary_how_060912_maryland_election_ni.htm

[kpete]

21. Avi Rubin's day at the polls - Maryland primary '06

Avi Rubin's Blog

My day at the polls - Maryland primary '06
I don't know where to start. This primary today is the third election that I have worked as an election judge. The last two elections were in 2004, and I was in a small precinct in Timonium, MD. This time, I was in my home precinct about 1/2 a mile from my house. We had 12 machines, over 1,000 voters and 16 judges. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and was at the precinct before 6:00. It is now 10:18 pm, and I just got home a few minutes ago. As I have made it my custom, I sat down right away to write about my experience while everything was still fresh. In anticipation of this, I took some careful notes throughout the day.

The biggest change over the 2004 election was the introduction of electronic poll books that we used to check in voters. I was introduced to these in election judge training a few weeks ago. These are basically little touchscreen computers that are connected to an Ethernet hub. They each contain a full database of the registered voters in the county, and information about whether or not each voter has already voted, in addition to all of the voter registration information. The system is designed so that the machines constantly sync with each other so that if a voter signs in on one of them and then goes to another one, that voter will already be flagged as having voted. That was the theory anyway. These poll books turned out to be a disaster, but more on that later.

Around 7:15, when we had been open for business for 15 minutes already, a gentlemen shows up saying that he is a judge from another precinct nearby and that they did not receive any smartcards, so that they could not operate their election. We had 60 smartcards, and the chief judge suggested that we give them 20 so that they could at least get their election started. As she was handing them over, I suggested that we had to somehow verify his claim. After all, anyone could walk in off the street and claim this guy's story, and we would give them 20 access cards. The chief judge agreed with me. The guy pulled out his driver's license to prove who he was, but I told him that we were not doubting who he was, we just wanted to verify that we should give him the cards. He seemed to understand that. After calling the board of elections, we were told to give him the cards and we did. A little later, several voters who came in informed us that news reports were saying that in Montgomery county, there was a widespread problem of missing smatcards. I could only imagine what a nightmare that was for those poll workers because as it was, our precinct did not have this problem, and as you'll see, it was still tough going.

My precinct uses Diebold Accuvote TS, the same one that we analyzed in our study 3 years ago. The first problem we encountered was that two of the voting machine's security tag numbers did not match our records. After a call to the board of elections, we were told to set those aside and not use them. So, we were down to 10. We set up those machines in a daisy chain fashion, as described in the judge manual, and as we learned in our training. We plugged the first one into the wall and taped the wire to the floor with electric tape so nobody would trip over it. About two hours into the voting, I noticed that the little power readout on the machines was red, and I thought that this meant that the machines were on battery power. I pointed this out to one of the chief judges, but she said this was normal. An hour later, I checked again, and this time, the machines were on extremely low power. This time, I took the plug out to of the wall and tried another outlet nearby. The power icon turned green. I showed several of the judges, and we confirmed that the original outlet was indeed dead. Had I not checked this twice, those machines would have died in the middle of the election, most likely in the middle of people voting. I hate to think about how we would have handled that. A couple of hours later, the board of elections informed us that we should use the two voting machines with the mismatched tags, so we added them and used them the rest of the day (!).

even more at:
http://avi-rubin.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-day-at-polls-maryland-primary-06.html

[kpete]

23. Voting Problems Could Spark Legal Challenges to Results

Voting Problems Could Spark Legal Challenges to Results

By Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 13, 2006; Page A26

The irregularities that led Maryland courts to extend voting hours yesterday in Montgomery County and Baltimore under some circumstances could provide a basis for challenging the outcomes of contests decided in part or entirely by voters in those jurisdictions, experts said.

From the top of the ticket to the bottom, campaigns remained focused into the evening on efforts to get voters to the polls. Many declined to say whether they considered legal challenges likely even as the Democratic Party filed court petitions asking judges to keep the polls open in the county and the city.

But election experts said the narrower the margin in any race, the more likely a future challenge. As a general rule, they said, challengers need not prove intentional fraud, only that errors were widespread enough to give a potentially decisive boost to one candidate.

Yesterday's irregularities in Maryland presented "the kind of scenario that could lead to a challenge," said Steven J. Mulroy, a professor at the University of Memphis law school who is an expert on revotes.

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091201717.html

[kpete]

24. The Mess in Maryland

Tuesday, September 12

The Mess in Maryland

The story of the day are the problems in today's primary election in Maryland, where the voting cards needed to operate voting machines weren't provided on time resulting in polling places opening late in Montgomery County. This is such a basic mistake, that it's almost mind boggling that it could happen -- effectively the equivalent of forgetting to provide ballots to polling places on election day. There have also been reports of polls opening late due to election workers not showing up on time in Baltimore County and Prince George's County. The Washington Post has this report and the Baltimore Sun this one.

Some polling places reportedly opened up three hours late, and workers ran out of the back-up paper ballots that are ordinarly used for provisional voting. These problems led to lawsuits being filed and court orders issued, requiring polls to stay open until 9:00 pm in Baltimore County and Montgomery County. As a matter of federal law, those voting during the extended hours are required to cast a provisional ballot. Section 302(c) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 ("HAVA") provides:

Any individual who votes in an election for Federal office as a result of a Federal or State court order or any other order extending the time established for closing the polls by a State law in effect 10 days before the date of that election may only vote in that election by casting a provisional ballot .... Any such ballot cast under the preceding sentence shall be separated and held apart from other provisional ballots cast by those not affected by the order.

Presumably, those ballots will be counted after the election. Unfortunately, it appears that at least some precincts actually ran out of provisional ballots -- not surprising, given that a number of them were probably used by morning voters who weren't able to use the machines.

more at:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2006/09/mess-in-maryland.html

[kpete]

26. Primary results lagging, Voting glitches mar primary

Primary results lagging, Voting glitches mar primary
By Stephen Manning, Associated Press


Citizens throughout Maryland took part in Tuesday’s primary election by going to the polls and showing support for candidates. Supporters of some Dorchester candidates lined up along Maryland Avenue in Cambridge. From left, Dawn Ellis, Kathie Chipouras, Brad Walters, Rosie Travers, incumbent Judge of Orphans’ Court Calvin Travers, and Emily Gogoll.Daily Banner/Pete Macinta
CHEVY CHASE, Md. — Marylanders who showed up to vote Tuesday at some polling places in the state’s largest county and Baltimore found precincts that weren’t ready for them, prompting judges to extend voting hours in both Montgomery County and Baltimore.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eric Johnson granted the county elections board’s petition for an order to keep the polls open an extra hour, until 9 p.m., because of the “emergency circumstances.”

Baltimore Circuit Judge Marcella Holland ordered the city elections board to keep its polling places open an extra hour, said city election director Gene Raynor. Her order was the result of a last-minute lawsuit filed by the Maryland Democratic Party and the Baltimore branch of the NAACP.

Ross Goldstein, deputy administrator of the State Board of Elections, said the board was not aware of any previous occasion when voting hours were extended, but he couldn’t say for sure that it never happened.

more at:
http://www.newszap.com/articles/2006/09/12/dm/eastern_shore_of_maryland/cam02.txt

[Botany]

4. The mother load from Ohio

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x448932

A very long file but a must read ..... too many examples then can be listed here


Example:
Delaware County, Ohio trying to get ballots in 06 from EES to put in so everything looks
"kosher" for an audit of 04?

Plus down thread Mod Mom posted pix from Ohio ballots .... optical scan ballots
w/ stickers over Kerry's punch hole = no vote

[kpete]

5. Right On!!!

Thanks for posting Botany - OHIO made us SMILE today!!!

[kpete]

7. The Latest Numbers

The Latest Numbers
By Greg Sargent | bio
Here are the latest numbers, which will be updated constantly:

RI-SEN: Steve Laffey concedes to Lincoln Chafee, according to the Providence Journal's blog.

MD-SEN: Ben Cardin 46%, Kweisi Mfume 37% with 34% reporting.

MD-04: Al Wynn 54%, Donna Edwards 42% with 43% reporting.

NY-GOV, NY-SEN: Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton won smashing victories in the New York gubernatorial and senatorial primaries.

For Updates:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/sep/12/the_latest_numbers

[kpete]

8. Spitzer and Cuomo Win in N.Y. Primary - Chafee Wins In RI

Spitzer and Cuomo Win in N.Y. Primary
James Estrin/The New York Times

By PATRICK HEALY
Published: September 12, 2006
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer won the Democratic nomination for New York governor tonight, with his party hoping he will lead it to a potentially historic moment this November: a sweep of top statewide offices.

Andrew M. Cuomo won the Democratic nomination for attorney general, and Senator Hillary Clinton won renomination for a second term in the Senate. In the day’s most closely contested major race, Yvette D. Clarke won the primary for a Congressional seat in Brooklyn.

The election in New York was one of nine primaries around the nation. In Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, the Senate’s most famously liberal Republican, held off a conservative challenger, Stephen Laffey, in a nasty contest fueled by huge amounts of money from national Republican groups on both sides. With 83 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, Mr. Chafee had 54.4 percent of the vote to Mr. Laffey’s 45.6 percent, and Mr. Laffey conceded defeat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/nyregion/12cnd-york.html?hp&ex=1158120000&en=7ab2b5fa9cb66246&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[kpete]

9. FL: Diebold “Blended System” Causes Widespread Problems in Florida Primary

Diebold “Blended System” Causes Widespread Problems in Florida Primary
By Susan Pynchon, Florida Fair Elections Coalition
September 11, 2006

“My unsolicited two cents is that this is a crazy way to run an election. Expecting jurisdictions to train for and administer two systems is just nuts. It is the worst of a paper-based election with the worst of an electronic election.” Ken Clark, Diebold Senior Systems Engineer, January 2003

Confusion reigned in many Florida counties at the close of Florida’s Sept. 5 primary election, due to the misreporting, or late reporting, of election results in the 31 Florida counties with Diebold Election Systems voting equipment.

In Volusia County, the elections office issued a report around 11 pm on election night that showed 100% of the precincts in the county had reported. However, an elections official announced to the waiting public and press that, in actuality, not all the results were in.

While disconcerting and confusing for candidates and the public, the problem is far more serious than it might first appear.

The problems experienced around the state with the Diebold “blended system” confirm what Florida Fair Elections Coalition reported in October 2005 (See “A Crazy Way to Run an Election” ) and has been stating for over a year – that the Diebold reporting “glitch” would create a nightmare in a large election.

more at:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1764&Itemid=113

[kpete]

10. Interesting Experience Voting In Arizona

My experience voting today in AZ
by redcardphreek
Tue Sep 12, 2006 at 04:38:54 PM PDT

So I decided to do my civil duty and vote today. I only work a half-day on Tuesdays, so I slept in and got over to my East Phoenix polling place around noon.

While I was walking through the nearly empty parking lot to the school building that is my election site. I ran into a rather harried looking man with ID hanging from a lanyard around his neck. He was doing a rather fast walk so I let him into the building before me. The two poll workers looked rather relieved to see him and one went to greet him and took him immediately to the touch screen voting computer that stood beside the other voting booths. Apparently it had screwed up from the beginning and its printer had spat out at least 15 error messages. I grabbed my ballot (we use optical scan ballots where you connect broken lines next to the name of the person you want to vote for) and went and voted and fed it into the machine that tabulates the votes. Having some time on my hands I asked the repair guy who at this point was inserting and reinserting a card in the front of it if this was one of the Diebold machines I have heard about. He said, "Yeah, I have been running over half the valley trying to put out fires with these POSs". One of the poll workers said they even had problems with the things during training. After watching him screw with it for a minute I went about my business.

In Arizona, at least in Maricopa County, we use optical scan machines that leave a paper trail. But disabled voters have to use the touch screen machines. I have read about the Diebold machines but this was the first one I had seen up close and personal. I was not impressed to say the least. I hope they got it fixed before any disabled voters came in, but having read that Pima County is trying to move to these things makes me wonder if I will not hear about more problems with these things in Arizona. And one last thing, I was the 18th person to vote at my polling spot by noon today. I guess people had better things to do.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/12/193854/419

[kpete]

11. MN: Ellison Takes DFL 5th-1st step to becomming-1st Muslin In Congress

Ellison Takes DFL 5th, Erlandson Concedes
(AP) Minneapolis State lawmaker Keith Ellison took a decisive step toward becoming the first Muslim in Congress Tuesday, winning a hotly contested Democratic primary for a seat long dominated by his party.

Ellison edged three top rivals for the Minneapolis-area seat, including Mike Erlandson, a former chief of staff to retiring U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo.

Ellison, a 43-year-old lawyer, overcame questions about late parking tickets, overdue taxes and his past ties to the Nation of Islam.

Ellison courted the liberal wing of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party by comparing himself to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone -- and many voters responded. Others clearly relished the chance to elect a minority to Congress from Minnesota for the first time; Ellison is black.

more at:
http://wcco.com/homepage/local_story_255160456.html

[kpete]

12. An End to 'Faith-based' Voting

An End to 'Faith-based' Voting: Computer Security and Statistical Analysts Describe a Simple, Powerful Alternative

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.
http://pdfserver.prweb.com/pdfdownload/435167/pr.pdf
Today the Election Defense Alliance released a report describing the practical implementation details of a simple, unimpeachable method for ensuring the accuracy of electronic voting systems by a public handcount of paper ballot records. This "Universal Precinct-Based Handcount Sample" (UPS) is a simple, feasible method of hand-counting a sample of paper ballot records in-precinct, on election night, by citizens themselves. It not only returns oversight of elections to the American people, where it rightfully belongs, the UPS is also far more accurate than alternative election audit proposals: where only a few percent of precincts are hand-counted, often in secret, and always after the fact.

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) September 12, 2006 -- Today the Election Defense Alliance released a report describing the practical implementation details of a simple, unimpeachable method for ensuring the accuracy of electronic voting systems by a public handcount of paper ballot records. This "Universal Precinct-Based Handcount Sample" (UPS) is a simple, feasible method of hand-counting a sample of paper ballot records in-precinct, on election night, by citizens themselves. It not only returns oversight of elections to the American people, where it rightfully belongs, the UPS is also far more accurate than alternative election audit proposals: where only a few percent of precincts are hand-counted, often in secret, and always after the fact. (Download the full report at www.electiondefensealliance.org/UPS.pdf )

The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005
The simple, practical UPS validation approach detects fraud or error from any source affecting as little as one percent (1%) of the electronic tally with a minimum ninety-nine percent (99%) level of confidence. In our current political climate, any challenge to a corrupt election must be timely and have very strong justification, or candidates risk being labeled "sore losers" and loss of standing in their own party. In fact, the universal sampling method is uniquely accurate to such a high degree of confidence to enable any candidate of any party to contest any outcome-altering problems with the electronic tally. And since the UPS hand count is done in-precinct on election night, its indisputably-accurate findings would be available on election night, enabling candidates in federal or state-wide elections to challenge a corrupted tally before the election’s outcome becomes a foregone conclusion in the minds of the public, and before the results are officially certified.

The report describes the specific details to effectively conducting a public hand count of 10% of the paper ballot records in 100% of the precincts in federal and state-wide races. The UPS is to be conducted "in-precinct" on election night, by citizen volunteers representing all concerned political parties, and open to general public observation. Because it is conducted in-precinct, the UPS avoids the difficult task of protecting the chain of custody of paper ballot records in 180,000 U.S. precincts. In fact, all the alternative after-the-fact "spot-audit" schemes, such as HR 550 ("the Holt election audit bill") impose this monumental burden -- since in all those schemes, all precincts must safeguard ballot records until just a few percent are "randomly chosen" some time after the election. Integrity of the chain of custody can always be suspect, especially in a close election. Since a 10% hand-count sample would be drawn in 100% of precincts on election night, the UPS also eases the transition to decentralized, citizen-monitored hand-count verifications of elections, placing responsibility for the integrity of the vote count in the hands of the American people, where it rightfully belongs.


more at:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/9/prweb435167.htm

[Wilms]

14. David Wagner Responds To Question From House Committees

David Wagner Responds To Question From House Committees

By David Wagner, Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley

September 12, 2006

The following responses to were provided to written questions for the record submitted by Chairman Ehlers and Chairman Boehlert to Dr. David Wagner after the joint hearing of the Science and House Administration Committees held on July 19, 2006. Questions from Democratic members of the Science Committee follow.

snip

I recommend sweeping changes to how the 2005 Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines (VVSG) deal with security, to bring them up to date with fundamental changes over the past decade in how voting systems are built. The 2007 VVSG are in the process of being drafted, and I propose several suggestions for consideration.

snip

Make all reports from the testing labs public. Today, the results from the federal testing labs are not made available to the public. The labs consider them proprietary and the property of the vendor. If a system fails to gain the testing lab’s approval, this fact is not disclosed to anyone other than the vendor who paid for the testing.

snip

This situation is truly unfortunate. However, this is the case for all currently available voting technologies, whether they print a paper record or not. If the machine prints nothing, then the blind voter still cannot independently verify that their vote has been recorded correctly on electronic storage. To put it another way, with paperless voting machines, neither sighted voters nor blind voters have any chance to independently verify their vote; with voter-verified paper records, sighted voters can independently verify their vote, but blind voters cannot.

Voter-verified paper records do not make the independent verification problem any worse for blind voters; they just fail to make things better.

The policy question is whether it is valuable to improve security and reliability for most voters, even if there are some voters who are not helped by these measures (but are not harmed by them, either) and remain without any means of independent verification.

snip

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1765&Itemid=26


Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x449013

[autorank]

15. Mexican Officials to Burn Ballots

This is the "smoking gun" that provides the FINAL PROOF THAT OBRADOR WAS ROBBED. And I have a message to those smug European observers who declared this a fair election and to the NYT and the Corporate Media - you are complete fools! This election stunk from the start. The other BIG TELL that it was fixed came when the so called "independent" electoral authority opened an estimated 40% of the sealed ballot boxes. Even if there had been a recount, that act would have invalidated it, beyond any doubt. Now that they got their way, the rulers of Mexico have instructed the corrupt "independent" commission (darling of European and US observers) to BURN THE BALLOTS.

GUILTY AS CHARGED. "THE MEXICAN PEOPLE ARE HEROES OF DEMOCRACY for protesting, fighting peacefully, and walking the walk on the path to democracy. We must support them in any way we can. Spread the word about this filthy corruption.

Mexican Officials to Burn Ballots

Mexican electoral officials say they will destroy
ballots from disputed presidential vote
http://tinyurl.com/g6fw2
MEXICO CITY, Sep. 13, 2006
By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press Writer
(AP)


(AP) Electoral officials said Tuesday that they will burn the ballots from the disputed presidential election despite calls from both candidates to spare them.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, chairman of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, said in a letter to President-elect Felipe Calderon that a 1990 law clearly called for the burning of the ballots from the July 2 election.

"The IFE is obliged to destroy electoral documentation once the electoral process is concluded," Ugalde wrote.

(No date set yet)

Snip

Despite the court's final decision, Gerardo Fernandez, spokesman for Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, said Tuesday that electoral officials should recount the ballots before destroying them to erase doubt about the elections.

==============

The Mexican Movement for Dignity, Social Justice, and Democracy

CROWDS IN MEXICO CITY ARE THE LARGEST
IN ANY PRODEMOCRACY PROTESTS IN HISTORY!!!!!

Rally for Democracy, hundreds of thousands protest again and again...


The people support democracy in unison...

The Mexican People:
Heroes of Democracy

“The only hope of Democracy, that fragile thing never granted but always promised, is gone by virtue of election fraud... and with it the social contract that holds our society together.”
- Anaxarchos


By Michael Collins
“Scoop” Independent Media
Washington, DC

English: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00269.htm
Spanish: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00268.htm

The Mexican peoples’ democracy movement and their leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador are modern heroes of democracy and to all who demand clean elections. They recall the heroics of the Ukrainians with one important difference. There are no “great powers” supporting them. In fact, the American regime is hostile to a victory by Obrador and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). The increasingly unpopular and isolated White House cadre may have done its best to obstruct such an eventuality in ways which by now are predictably familiar. The Mexican people are alone, on the street, fighting the brave fight for people everywhere who believe in the inherently inalienable and natural right of men and women to determine their own destiny through free, fair, and transparent elections.

[Kurovski]

16. Kick to the top!

No week's complete without kpete.

Thanks!

[intheflow]

17. Chaffee wins RI.

Posting DU link here to keep election news tidy and give this thread a kick.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2825506

[Algorem]

18. Ohio-'Republicans for Strickland' speak out

Saxbe of Columbus leads moderate group

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/115813661540920.xml&coll=2

Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Reginald Fields
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus- An influential group of moderate Republicans who fear their gubernatorial candidate's conservative views are too divisive made a statement Tuesday by publicly throwing their support behind Democrat Ted Strickland.

Prominent Columbus attorney Charles "Rocky" Saxbe, whose father's storied political career ranged from Ohio House speaker to U.S. attorney general, led a small group of Republicans at a Statehouse news conference where they shunned their party's pick, Ken Blackwell.

"I don't think that the positions that are advanced by Ken represent the mainstream of the Republican Party," said Saxbe, once a Republican state attorney general candidate. "I don't think any right-thinking Republican believes that people who are supporting choice are murderers or that people who support gay rights or who are gay are somehow ill-equipped to enjoy the privileges of citizenry in this state."

Saxbe was joined by Betty Davis, a former mayor of Mason, Ohio, near Blackwell's Cincinnati home, and Dan Slane, a former chairman of the Ohio State University board of trustees. Also in the room were about two dozen registered Republicans...








Many rural Ohioans find themselves down and out
Families struggle as well-paying jobs vanish

http://www.cleveland.com/poverty/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/115813678140920.xml&coll=2

Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Barb Galbincea
Plain Dealer Reporter

Melissa Barringer loves living amid the ridges and hollows of Appalachian Ohio, where she unwinds in a backyard swing to a chorus of frogs and crickets, and her boys fish the Hocking and Ohio rivers for bluegill and a legendary catfish.

But the living isn't easy.

For the Barringers and others in rural Ohio, making ends meet can be just as trying as it is for families struggling at the other end of the state in Cleveland's central city.

With full-time work hard to come by, Melissa and husband Brian hold five part-time jobs to support themselves and their three sons. She works as an aide at a school for the mentally retarded and at a nursing home; he's a handyman and gas-field laborer and hauls junk...

[Algorem]

19. Ohio-Noe blames pressure from Bush campaign

Noe sentenced to prison, fined for election gifts
He blames pressure from Bush campaign

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/115813684340920.xml&coll=2

Wednesday, September 13, 2006
John Caniglia
Plain Dealer Reporter

Toledo -- Tom Noe's zealous quest to be a Republican kingmaker ended in a cramped courtroom Tuesday, far from the Beltway spotlight he once craved.

A federal judge sentenced an apologetic Noe to 27 months in prison and fined him $136,200 for making $45,400 in illegal campaign contributions to President Bush's re-election campaign. Authorities called the case the country's largest fundraising scandal in recent years.

Noe, however, will not go to prison until after his trial next month in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, on unrelated state charges of racketeering and stealing nearly $2.3 million from a $50 million investment in rare coins that he managed for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.


If convicted in that case, he could receive decades in prison...

[kpete]

20. Block the Vote: The 10 Worst Places to Cast a Ballot

Block the Vote: The 10 Worst Places to Cast a Ballot

By Sasha Abramsky, Mother Jones. Posted September 13, 2006.


American democracy's glaring weak spots include machines that count backward, slice-and-dice districts, felon baiting, phone jamming and plenty of dirty tricks. Tools

We used to think the voting system was something like the traffic laws -- a set of rules clear to everyone, enforced everywhere, with penalties for transgressions; we used to think, in other words, that we had a national election system. How wrong a notion this was has become painfully apparent since 2000: As it turns out, except for a rudimentary federal framework (which determines the voting age, channels money to states and counties, and enforces protections for minorities and the disabled), U.S. elections are shaped by a dizzying mélange of inconsistently enforced laws, conflicting court rulings, local traditions, various technology choices, and partisan trickery.

In some places voters still fill in paper ballots or pull the levers of vintage machines; elsewhere, they touch screens or tap keys, with or without paper trails. Some states encourage voter registration; others go out of their way to limit it. Some allow prisoners to vote; others permanently bar ex-felons, no matter how long they've stayed clean. Who can vote, where people cast ballots, and how and whether their votes are counted all depends, to a large extent, on policies set in place by secretaries of state and county elections supervisors -- officials who can be as partisan, as dubiously qualified, and as nakedly ambitious as people anywhere else in politics. Here is a list -- partial, but emblematic -- of American democracy's more glaring weak spots.

MUCH more at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/41483/

[kpete]

22. GA: Voters Present IDs Under New Election Law

Voters Present IDs Under New Election Law

POSTED: 7:42 am EDT September 13, 2006


JEFFERSONVILLE, Ga. -- Voters in Twiggs County cast ballots for the first time Tuesday under Georgia's new voter identification law, and all but one met the requirements.

The Democratic runoff for a seat on the Twiggs County school board was the first time the law requiring Georgia voters to present a photo I.D. was enforced.

Under the law, displayed on two yellow posters at the precinct entrance, voters must present a driver's license, a government employee I.D. or other identification issued by government agencies, a U.S. passport, military I.D. or a tribal identification card.


Originally, the July 18 primary was to be Georgia's first to require a photo I.D. But a federal judge judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the law after civil rights groups filed a court challenge arguing it discriminated against poor, elderly and rural voters.

The injunction expired before Tuesday's runoff, although whether the state will be allowed to enforce the law for special elections later this month and the November general election is still being litigated.

Yolanda Height beat incumbent Greg Odoms 164-55 in the primary runoff for a seat on the school board.

more at:
http://www.news4jax.com/news4georgia/9837452/detail.html

[intheflow]

25. LAT: Little noticed, nationwide melee breaks out over new voter ID laws

Thanks to DeepModem Mom for this post! :thumbsup:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=448916&mesg_id=448916

[Kurovski]

27. Thanks also to eomer, Botany, Wilms, intheflow, Algorem, and autorank

for bringing info to the ERD. :thumbsup:

[kpete]

28. I double that thanks

I went back to work this morning and was SO happy to see that so many of you added to my thread while I was gone! :grouphug:

[Melissa G]

29. Appeals court to consider reinstating charge against DeLay

DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=449120&mesg_id=449120



Sept. 13, 2006, 1:13PM
Appeals court to consider reinstating charge against DeLay


By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

AUSTIN -- Texas' highest criminal court agreed today to hear prosecutors' request to reinstate charges against former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the allegation that he conspired to violate state law.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to hear oral arguments in the case. Had the high court rejected an appeal from prosecutors, DeLay's criminal case would have returned to state district court for trial.

DeLay was indicted along with two associates last year on charges of conspiring to violate the election law, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering as a result of a campaign finance investigation run by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

State District Judge Pat Priest threw out the election law charge, agreeing with DeLay's lawyers that the statute was passed after DeLay's alleged activities in the 2002 elections.

The Third Court of Appeals upheld Priest's ruling but said Earle made some compelling arguments in favor of reinstating the charges. But the three-judge panel said reinstating the charges would require the Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn some rulings in other cases.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4183633.html

[Kurovski]

30. Get the lousy Constitution-hatin' bastid'!

Thank you Melissa G!

[Kurovski]

31. Kick to the top!

:kick: