Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News THURSDAY 9/14/06

[New Earth]

perfect story to start out with, thanks kpete :)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=449222&mesg_id=449222

Election glitches ‘could get ugly'
New voting equipment, lack of training feed fears
By Richard Wolf
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Eight weeks before elections that will decide control of Congress, a rush by state and local governments to prepare new voting machines and train poll workers is raising the possibility of trouble reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election standoff.

Problems range from delayed delivery of new equipment to an insufficient supply of trained technicians to fix anticipated problems, voting experts say.

Already this year, glitches have occurred in Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia. Maryland became the latest on Tuesday, when technical problems, human errors and staff shortages led officials to keep some polls open an extra hour.

The fall elections shape up as the most technologically perilous since 2000, election officials say, because 30% of the nation's voting jurisdictions will be using new equipment. They include large parts of Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, scenes of key Senate races. “If you're ever going to have a problem, it's going to be that first election,” says Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services.

more at:http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060914/1a_lede14.art.htm

"could" get ugly? they already are ugly! too little too late to be phrasing it like this! but maybe now people will start listening......or not...
:scared:

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this
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If you can:

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[New Earth]

1. FL: Court rules Amendment Calling for Paper Ballots to go Before Voters

County Charter Amendment Had Been Challenged by County Commissioners in Court

Guest Blogged by John Gideon

Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections (SAFE) has just announced that a Sarasota County Judge has found in their favor and against the county voting officials and the Florida Secretary of State.

SAFE had been proposing a ballot initiative that would require voter verified paper ballots and independent random audits of election results in Sarasota County. The County Commissioner chose to go to court instead of allowing the legal petition to move forward.

The press release from SAFE says:
Judge rules that County commissioners must submit amendment proposed by citizen petition to a vote

Chief Judge Robert B. Bennett, of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, State of Florida issued a final judgment on the petition for writ of mandamus by the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections that "the Board of County Commissioners of Sarasota County shall submit the proposed amendment to the Sarasota County Charter to the Sarasota County electorate in accordance with the requirements on provisions of Article VII of the Sarasota County Charter." The amendment requires voter verified paper ballots and independent random audits of election results in Sarasota County.

This ruling in favor of the Sarasota Alliance for Fair Elections validates the process of proposing amendments to the charter via citizen petition. Over 14,500 voters in Sarasota County from all precincts, all demographic groups, and all political parties signed a petition for paper ballots and mandatory audits as opposed to the paperless touchscreen voting system now used in Sarasota County and 14 of the other most populous counties in Florida. This was well over the 12,030 or 5% of the registered voters needed to put the referendum on the Sarasota County ballot in November.

Rather than voting to authorize the election at their August 22nd meeting, the County Commissioners, on the advice of the County Attorney, filed a lawsuit for a declaratory judgment on the language of the petition, challenging its constitutionality..

more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3466

[New Earth]

2. Brennan Center: Tens Of Thousands May Be Prevented From Voting In November

(thanks again to kpete http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=449213&mesg_id=449213
anyone willing to help today it is greatly appreciated, i have been swamped at work :( )



Posted on Wed, Sep. 13, 2006email thisprint this
Voting rights center says voters may be prevented from casting ballots
By James Rosen
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Leaders of a voting-rights center that successfully sued Florida, Washington, Ohio and other states over their election laws said Wednesday that tens of thousands of eligible voters will be prevented from casting ballots in November.


Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, said federal and state voting changes since the disputed 2000 presidential election have produced new threats to eligible voters.


Several states have overreacted to the 2002 Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress to prevent a repeat of the 2000 stalemate, by passing draconian laws and imposing rigid regulations on voter registration, Waldman said.


"Most of the significant voter suppression in this country happens not on Election Day, but before Election Day," he said.


Waldman cited serious problems in a dozen states:

more at:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15511911.htm

[New Earth]

3. NJ: Prof raises more concerns over Diebold voting machines

CHRIS NEWMARKER
Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. - A Princeton University computer science professor added fuel Wednesday to claims that electronic voting machines used across much of the country are vulnerable to hacking that could alter vote totals or disable machines.

In a paper posted on the university's Web site, Edward Felten and two graduate students described how they had tested a Diebold AccuVote-TS machine, found ways to quickly upload malicious programs and developed a computer virus able to spread such programs between machines.

The marketing director for the machine's maker - Diebold Election Systems of Allen, Texas, a subsidiary of North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold Inc. - blasted the report, saying Felten ignored newer software and security measures that prevent such hacking.

"I'm concerned by the fact we weren't contacted to educate these people on where our current technology stands," Mark Radke said.

Radke also questioned why Felten hadn't submitted his paper for peer review, as is commonly done before publishing scientific research.

Felten said he and his colleagues felt it necessary to publish the paper quickly because of the implications for the November midterm elections.

About 80 percent of American voters are expected to use some form of electronic voting in the upcoming election, in which the makeup of the U.S. House will be decided, as well as 33 Senate seats and 36 governorships.

more: http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/15512043.htm

[New Earth]

4. Colorado: Ballots are thick this year

Donna Gray
Post Independent Staff
September 14, 2006

Comment Comments (0) Print Friendly Print Email Email

Fasten your seat belts, if you intend to vote in this year's general election Nov. 7, you could be spending a goodly chunk of time in the voting booth. Election ballots will have pages and pages of questions and candidates to choose from.

Garfield County Clerk Mildred Alsdorf has two words of advice for voters, "absentee ballots."

"I'm encouraging the use of absentee ballot because there is such a large ballot this year," she said. "(Voters) will want to think about it and it will take a long time to vote."

Absentee ballot application forms are available at the county clerk's offices in Glenwood Springs and Rifle, and on line at www.garfield-county.com (click on "election"). Application forms are also available at the six county libraries.

This year's general election in Garfield County will see some changes for voters. The county will have electronic voting machines in all 10 polling places. Two types of machines will be available, an "E-slate," or touch-screen voting machine and an "E-scan" that records and counts paper ballots.

Beginning on Monday, Oct. 23, voters can go to one of two general polling places, at the county courthouse in Glenwood Springs and at the county human services building, 195 W. 14th St. in Rifle. Both polling places are open to all Garfield County voters no matter where they live.

On Nov. 7, voters will have to cast their votes in one of 10 polling places across the county.

:/

http://www.postindependent.com/article/20060914/VALLEYNEWS/109140019

[New Earth]

5. Minnesota: New method up for vote: IVR

By Charley Bruce

Minneapolis voters will decide Nov. 7 whether to use a new voting method in city elections: ranking candidates first to worst, rather than just their top choice.

The City Council voted 12-1 Aug. 4 to bring the instant runoff voting system to a citywide vote.

If the method passes, voters would rank their candidates in order of preference, said Kelly O'Brien, a member of the Minneapolis Better Ballot Campaign.

For example, with three candidates the voter would rank their favorite as No. 1 and least favorite as No. 3, she said.

"IRV is a method that leads to better democracy," O'Brien said, with a majority of voters electing a candidate.

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty took office with 42 percent of the vote in 2002. To O'Brien, that means 58 percent of votes were against him, she said. The method would not apply to state offices.

She also said the system would eliminate the need for a primary, which traditionally has low voter turnout.



full story: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/09/13/68935

[New Earth]

6. PA: County to urge voters to choose paper record

By Jack Brubaker
Lancaster New Era

Published: Sep 13, 2006 1:39 PM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Following considerable debate, the County Commissioners last week purchased 92 additional eSlate electronic voting machines for the November election.

Now the county’s Board of Elections plans to promote eScans, an alternate voting method.

Don’t worry: This is not a result of miscommunication. Everything was planned this way.

“We want people to use eScan machines in November,’’ said Mary Stehman, chief clerk of the board. “We just bought the eSlates for the handicapped people.’’

Nevertheless, eSlate machines were more popular with a majority of voters in the primary, so the commissioners agreed to purchase 92 used eSlate machines to accommodate a larger turnout on Nov. 7.

Those machines will supplement 275 new eSlate and 275 new eScan machines the commissioners purchased for $3.2 million early this year from Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas.

The used machines — a relative bargain at $113,180 — were purchased from Yakima County, Wash., last Thursday and are being overhauled by Hart. They need Pennsylvania-friendly software and must be certified as reliable.

With eSlate machines, the ballot appears on a series of electronic screens. Users push buttons to register votes. Handicapped accessories are available. There is no paper record.

With eScan machines, voters fill out paper ballots and feed them through an electronic scanner. Votes are recorded electronically. They produce a paper record.

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/25739

[New Earth]

7. Washington: More invalid ballots come in

More invalid ballots come in
In the most recent count, 19 percent of voters failed to mark a party affiliation, which means their partisan votes won't count.

By Jeff Switzer
Herald Writer


Some Snohomish County voters are still failing to pick a party affiliation and face having their votes rejected, according to a new sample of ballots opened Wednesday.

County officials examined an additional 270 ballots on Wednesday. Of those, 51 voters failed to choose a political party even though they voted a straight party line, county elections manager Carolyn Diepenbrock said. Under state law, those votes for Republican or Democratic candidates will be rejected.

The results show a picture that has improved since election officials released a similar sample on Monday, Diepenbrock said.

Based on the sample, the county projects it might reject 18 percent to 19 percent of votes for Republican and Democratic candidates because voters did not designate a party.

That's a slight improvement from the 20 percent of voters failing to pick a party reported Monday.

Still, if trends hold true, that could cost primary election candidates for Congress thousands of votes.

Votes cast for judges and other nonpartisan issues will still be counted.

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/09/14/100loc_b1ballots001.cfm

[New Earth]

8. Wisconsin: Milwaukee ballots don't add up, Turnouts higher than 100%

Totals are much larger than tallies for candidates; state wants explanation

By DAVE UMHOEFER and DERRICK NUNNALLY
[e-mail]
Posted: Sept. 13, 2006

A day after the City of Milwaukee reported a primary election turnout above 80,000 - more than a quarter of the city's registered voters - a Journal Sentinel analysis found that the number might be inflated by tens of thousands.

Voter turnout figures in nearly two-thirds of the city's 314 wards are suspect, and state officials advised the city late Wednesday to recalculate its numbers. The city missed a 4 p.m. deadline to turn in polling lists and voter information to the Milwaukee County Election Commission.

It was unclear whether the suspect figures signal problems with individual candidate totals.

By the city's calculation, only about half the ballots cast in Tuesday's primary actually included votes in the hottest races - those for sheriff and attorney general. For example, the city reported 78,801 ballots cast in the attorney general race in primaries for the two major parties, but vote totals for the Democratic and Republican candidates combined amounted to only 40,971. By that count, 37,830 ballots did not include a vote in the race - a number that political observers regard as obviously flawed....

also:

Turnouts higher than 100%

(sound familiar?)

In every election, some of the total ballots cast don't contain votes for individual races, either, because voters chose not to weigh in on which candidate they liked or because a mistake invalidated that part of an individual's ballot. Other voters may have marked only the party-preference blank before turning in their ballots, mistakenly thinking they had cast votes that counted for all their party's candidates - a practice that works in general elections, but not primaries.

Under any circumstance, the divide between ballots cast and votes that count is typically much smaller than the city's reported totals for Tuesday's primary. For example, in the 2002 Democratic primary for sheriff won by David A. Clarke Jr., 84% of total ballots cast included votes that counted in the sheriff's race.

The problems the newspaper found with the city's canvass Tuesday involved multiple wards at the same polling places. At virtually all those locations, the total number of voters was identical across the board in every ward, according to the city's count - a red flag that the totals were bogus.
:spank:

must read: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=497705

[Kurovski]

9. K&R, back up to the top.

Thanks, Faye! Good to see you back this thursday.:hi:

[Kurovski]

10. Maryland: Election Workers' Error Blocks and Delays Voters

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 13, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091201821.html

<The most basic of human errors threw Maryland's primary election into chaos yesterday: Someone forgot the wallet-sized plastic cards needed to operate the voting machines in Montgomery County, frustrating early morning voters who lined up outside polling places and often were turned away without voting.">

--Someone forgot? :wtf:

<Nancy H. Dacek, who was appointed as president of the county's Board of Elections by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) , apologized for the error.

"We regret what happened this morning. It was just a fluke," Dacek said. "There was a glitch. It's now been taken care of.">

--Ah! A "glitch"! It's interesting how those "glitches" manage to benefit the Republicans.

<Gareth Rosenau, a lawyer with the Federal Railroad Commission, said the voting cards arrived shortly after he did at the polling place in Takoma Park. But when the registered Democrat put his card into the voting machine, a Republican ballot appeared on the screen, he said.

Other voters were having the same problem, he said, and complained to election officials, who didn't know how to fix the machines so they would produce the proper ballots.>

--So then, is "glitch" techno-talk for "everyone will vote Republican?" Could something have "happened" to those cards while they were left behind?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x449172

<"The degree of incompetence is beyond belief," he said. "It's just incredible. It's not like this was a surprise. They knew the election was coming. And whoever is responsible should be fired today.">

--It is indeed incredible, which is also why it seems less like incompetence, and more like
a dress rehearsal for the upcoming election. A dress rehearsal that went off without a hitch for the election fraudsters, right down to the "workers" being blamed for the problems in the WaPo.

[New Earth]

11. sorry all :(

i was so busy at work today. i hope sfexpat is coming back soon :blush:

[Kurovski]

12. Mexico: Obrador to convene Democratic Convention Sat, Sep 16

(From a DU post by Annces)

<Obrador is justifying his call for the National Democratic Convention and its goals with Article 39 of the Mexican Constitution: “The national sovereignty resides essentially and originally in the people. All public power flows from the people and is instituted for their benefit. The people at all times have the inalienable right to alter or modify their form of government.”>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2138399

[Algorem]

13. Ken Blackwell doesn't care about the Constitution

Uncle Tom’s red hands

http://www.clevescene.com/Issues/2006-09-13/news/firstpunch.html

...Of course it violated the Constitution, he admitted. He even agreed that the law should be overturned. Unfortunately, Uncle Tom's about-face was more like a last-second ass-save. Though he knew the law was unconstitutional, his office had already prepared forms for poll workers to challenge voters' citizenship come November.

"If he thought the law was unenforceable from a constitutional standpoint, I don't know why he drafted forms to implement the law," says elections attorney Jennifer Brunner, who's running to replace Blackwell as secretary of state. "It's just plain un-American."

While most would agree that only Americans should vote in American elections, the law would screw mostly older immigrants, who arrived here as children and no longer have their naturalization documents. As it stands, they will have to prove their citizenship within 10 days of an election for their votes to count. And since ethnic people tend to vote Democrat, Republican legislators figured it was a nice way to negate perhaps a few hundred thousand votes...

"In a business that is admittedly filled with people that are duplicitous and known for flip-flopping," he adds, " really sets a new standard."

[kpete]

14. What a week

and thanks Faye

K&R

[rumpel]

15. Yes, Faye - thanks

great job.

:hi:

I have been having computer ....well, "glitches" gave up fixing the main unknown problem- for the time being. -
I hope I will not be double posting again tomorrow...(that is when the computer started acting up)


Now I have to catch up on what is happening. :(

Good thing one can always rely on ERD :)

[livvy]

16. Thanks, Faye! n/t