Election Reform, Fraud, & News Thursday 01/18/07 - Ohio '04 Recount on Trial

[freedomfries]

Election Reform, Fraud, & News Thursday 01/18/07 -
Ohio '04 Recount on Trial
:evilfrown:

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.
:patriot:
Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:
:argh:

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
:patriot:

[freedomfries]

1. OH: Elections workers accused of mishandling ballots go on trial

Elections workers accused of mishandling ballots go on trial
M.R. Kropko, AP
Akron Beacon Journal, OH
January 18, 2007
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16486387.htm

CLEVELAND - Three elections workers in the state's most populous county are set for trial on charges that they mishandled ballots during the 2004 presidential election recount.

Opening statements were scheduled to begin Thursday.

Charged with six counts each of misconduct are Jacqueline Maiden, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections' coordinator, who was the board's third-highest ranking employee when she was indicted last March; Rosie Grier, manager of the board's ballot department; and Kathleen Dreamer, an assistant manager.

The charges allege that Ohio laws were not followed in the selection and review of ballots for the recount. The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason removed himself from the investigation because his office represents the elections board. Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter was appointed special prosecutor.
...
Ohio law states that during a recount each county is supposed to randomly count 3 percent of its ballots by hand and by machine. If those counts match, the rest of the votes can be recounted by machine. If not, the whole process must be repeated and a total hand recount is ordered if there is a second discrepancy.

Baxter alleges that the Cuyahoga board opened ballots days before the Dec. 16, 2004, recount and hand-counted enough to identify precincts where the machine count matched so they could avoid the more lengthy hand count.
...
The workers were indicted on charges of failure to perform duties imposed upon them by law; misconduct of board of election employees; knowingly disobeying elections law; unlawfully obtaining possession of ballots/ballot boxes or pollbooks; and unlawfully opening or permitting the opening of a sealed package containing ballots.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16486387.htm

[philb]

16. There were more serious problems than these in Cuyahoga- see Dr. Phillips web site

and previous thread here.
http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/cleveland.htm

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/cuyahoga.htm

www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

[dlaliberte]

19. Review of "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?"

Relevant to the trial of 2004 election workers in Ohio, the book "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?" by Steve Freeman & Joel Bleifuss, published June 2006, is reviewed and discussed at slashdot, a major source of news for modern technolgists.

http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/17/158227

Stuff we have always known is gaining wider acceptance, especially among those who really should know better. Quoting from the review: "The heart of the book in my opinion, is Chapter 5, "The inauguration eve exit-poll report": The Edison and Mitofsky firms that conducted the NEP exit polls later released a report trying to explain how they could have gotten it so far wrong. Freeman and Bleifuss, of course, take issue with the presumption that the discrepancies must be "errors", and argue in a different direction. This section makes an exciting read (in a nerdy sort of way) it's an impressive piece of statistical judo: Freeman and Bleifuss take on Edison/Mitofsky with their own data, and totally shred their conclusions. The authors show: That the exit-poll discrepancies had a statistically significant correlation with the use of electronic voting machines, with races in battleground states, and in almost all cases favored the Republicans. "

The review quotes from the book itself: "We reiterate that this does not prove the official vote count was fraudulent. What it does say is that the discrepancy between the official count and the exit polls can't be just a statistical fluke, but commands some kind of systematic explanation: Either the exit poll was deeply flawed or else the vote count was corrupted. "

A telling statement that probably reflects the view of many people still: "Personally, I found this book to be something of a revelation: in the confusion immediately after the 2004 election, I had the impression that the people who wanted to believe that it was legitimate at least had some wiggle room. There was some disagreement about the meaning of the exit polls: there was that study at Berkeley that found significant problems, but then the MIT study chimed in saying there wasn't, so who do you believe? The thing is, the MIT guys later admitted that they got it wrong: they used the "corrected" data, not the originally reported exit poll results. The media never covered that development, and I missed it myself... "

And a quote from the book that should be front page news: "We devoted a chapter to the ills of electronic voting, but a critical lesson of the 2004 election is that not only DREs, but all kinds of voting machine systems are suspect. Edison/Mitofsky data showed that while hand counted ballots accurately reflected exit-poll survey results, counts from all the major categories of voting machines did not."

Buy it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Was-2004-Presidential-Election-Stolen/dp/1583226877/sr=1-1/qid=1169177195/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5949464-7288149?ie=UTF8&s=books

[freedomfries]

2. OH: Successor questions Blackwell's bonuses

Successor questions Blackwell's bonuses

John Craig
The Cincinnati Enquirer
January 18, 2006
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070118/NEWS01/701180339/1056/COL02

COLUMBUS - Before he left office this month, Ken Blackwell gave 19 staff members in the Secretary of State's Office bonuses totaling more than $80,185, according to figures released by his successor.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat elected Nov. 7, questioned that and other spending by her Republican predecessor.

The parting payments from Blackwell, who lost the governor's race to Ted Strickland, ranged up to $7,923 for Assistant Secretary of State Monty Lobb of Glendale.

"For a lot of the employees, it was almost like a golden parachute," Brunner told the Columbus Dispatch, which reported the story Wednesday. "I just think that taxpayers' expectation of how the government operates is that bonuses aren't generally considered to be something that government does."

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070118/NEWS01/701180339/1056/COL02

[freedomfries]

3. CT: SoS Bysiewicz Calls For Mandatory 20% Audit

Connecticut: Bysiewicz Calls For Mandatory 20% Audit

By Warren Stewart
VoteTrustUSA
January 16, 2007
Re-Post
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2193&Itemid=113

Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced that she will submit a proposal to the state legislature's Government Administration and Elections Committee that would require audits in at least 20 percent of the state's 769 voting precincts, to be selected randomly.

In a Hartford Journal-Inquirer article, Secretary Bysiewicz stated "We owe it to the voters to allow them to always feel confident that they have an fair and transparent election process.”

"We have the capacity to do it, and I want the taxpayers to know that we've spent money on machines that work," she added.

While at least two states have adopted mandatory audit requirements of 10% of the vote, Bysiewicz’ proposal would set a new standard and would certainly go a long way her stated goal of making Connecticut a “national leader” in election administration.

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2193&Itemid=113

[freedomfries]

4. CA: Ballot should be paper

Ballot should be paper

Opinion
Whittier Daily News, CA
January 18, 2206

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/opinions/ci_5025246

I join the call for a paper ballot for every vote cast in America.
It is time for Congress to finally pass an election reform bill in which the American people can have confidence. Any such legislation must require a paper ballot - not a "paper trail" nor a "paper record" - for every vote cast.

I think this should be a top priority in the upcoming legislative session.

We can no longer afford to have

partisan hacks and anything-for-a-buck corporations playing computer games with our votes!

David Morris
La Habra
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/opinions/ci_5025246

[freedomfries]

5. CA: Electronic voting continues to put our democracy at risk

Electronic voting continues to put our democracy at risk

Bennet Kelley
Sanata Monica Daily Press
January 17, 2008
Re-post
http://www.smdp.com/article/articles/3189/1/SOAP-BOX/Page1.html

“Electronic voting machines are placing our democracy at risk.” This dire warning on the eve of the election came not from MoveOn.org or Air America, but CNN anchor and lifelong Republican Lou Dobbs.

Dobbs was hardly alone in sounding the alarm, as in Maryland both gubernatorial candidates urged voters to use absentee ballots rather than rely on the state’s Diebold voting machines, and nationwide, 66 percent of registered voters believed it to be likely that hackers would tamper with the vote count. While it is encouraging that last week’s election does not appear to have been marred by major allegations of electoral theft, the alarm is still ringing and must be addressed prior to 2008.

In the past six years, the use of electronic voting machines has tripled and is now used by nearly 40 percent of registered voters. Questions about these machines first surfaced after the 2002 Georgia elections in which Sen. Max Cleland and Gov. Roy Barnes were upset by Republican challengers on Election Day, despite leading in the polls, and it was later discovered that Diebold had covertly implemented a program patch entitled “rob-georgia.zip” shortly before the election.

These suspicions grew exponentially after the 2004 election in which exit polls “incorrectly” showed John Kerry winning the national vote and key states such as Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico and Iowa, but otherwise were “correct” in non-swing states and precincts without electronic voting. What was particularly egregious was that Diebold’s CEO promised to deliver Ohio to President Bush and proved to be a man of his word since significant discrepancies between the official tally and exit polls favored Bush 90.9 percent of the time.
http://www.smdp.com/article/articles/3189/1/SOAP-BOX/Page1.html
:patriot:

[freedomfries]

6. GA: This is too secret

This is too secret

Opinion
Rome News-Tribune, GA
January 18, 2007
http://news.mywebpal.com/partners/680/public/news776156.html
:patriot:

EVERYONE KNOWS that they cast a secret ballot. Nobody is supposed to be able to find out how you voted. What nobody appeared to know before a recent court decision is that how the votes are counted is a proprietary secret to be known only by the private sector.

That jaw-dropping concept was pronounced in Florida by Judge William Gary of the Second Judicial Circuit in (yet another) case of possible voting shenanigans in that state.

It involves the Florida 13th Congressional District race, officially won by Republican Vern Buchanan (who has been seated by the House pending outcome of the ongoing challenges) who defeated Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. The problem: In an unbelievable oddity, some 18,000 voters apparently skipped voting in this race while many of those same 18,000 agreed that casting ballots for a position on the Southern District Hospital Board was more important.
...
Judge Gary said no, that the source code is a “trade secret” owned by the company.

At this point, this mess ceases to be a purely Florida problem and becomes every voter’s problem. Georgia uses voting machines, too, as do growing numbers of places. Both federal and state tax money is being used to make this happen, with private providers benefiting therefrom.

Voting is the public-owned heart of our form of government. The public paid for the machines, paid for the workers tending to them and doing the counting, but if something possibly goes wrong it is none of the public’s business and an investigation would infringe on private property rights?

THAT’S A REAL stretch, sort of like saying if the Defense Department buys a new jet fighter it’s none of its business what makes it fly ... or crash.

Given the many areas in which public money is currently being sought to flow into private-sector ventures — school vouchers and faith-based social services, for example — this line of thinking has very serious and broad implications. Why should tax money be given to anything or anybody — including operating elections — if there is going to be no private-sector accountability, or responsibility, for how that money was spent?

It is to be hoped, as this specific issue wends it way through higher courts, that this sort of thinking will be slapped down. If the people bought it, the people own it ... and that sure applies to their government.
http://news.mywebpal.com/partners/680/public/news776156.html
:patriot:

[philb]

18. Elections are controlled by "contractors" in the U.S.- but there is collusion

between some in power who allow the contractors to control the elections
with the contractors who see that those who collude with them stay in power

why does more of the public not realise the obvious problem here?


Neither Georgia nor Florida have had real elections in the last 6 years

www.flcv.com/Georgia6.html
www.flcv.com/Georgia.html

www.flcv.com/Florida6.html
www.flcv.com/fraudpat.html

[freedomfries]

7. VA: Election ‘Paper Trail’ Push Gains Steam in Richmond

Election ‘Paper Trail’ Push Gains Steam in Richmond

Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News Press, VA
18 January 2007
http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=761&Itemid=33

When first elected to the State Legislature in 1991, Falls Church/McLean Delegate Jim Scott won after a recount by a single vote. Since then, he’s always been known as “Landslide Jim.”

Scott reminded the audience gathered at the Falls Church Community Center of this last Saturday when asked to comment about legislation that would require a now-absent “paper trail” on voting machines in Virginia.

Bills introduced in Richmond this month by Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis and Del. Tim Hugo, both Republicans from Northern Virginia, would require the use of “optical scanner” voting machines statewide, and random audits before certification.

They are part of a growing, popular nationwide movement away from balloting using solely computers that many citizens worry are subject to tampering that can’t be caught. The Virginia legislature voted to move to computerized voting earlier this decade.

Ironically, this was done despite the fact that a special commission set up after the election debacle in Florida in 2000 determined that the most accurate voting machines are “optical scanners.” The City of Falls Church was utilizing “optical scanner” machines until the Virginia legislature mandated a move to computer-only models two years ago.
http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=761&Itemid=33

[freedomfries]

8. MT: Bills seek to eliminate election day registration

Bills would get rid of Election Day voter registration

Jennifer McKee
Billings Gazette, MT
January 18, 2006
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/01/18/news/state/20-registration.txt

HELENA - Lawmakers will have their first look today at two bills to do away with Election Day voter registration, in an effort to deal with long lines and confusion at the polls.

Opponents of the bills, including AARP of Montana and Montana Women Vote, argue that long Election Day lines only show that Montanans want to vote. They say problems with same-day registration can be fixed by better training for election workers.

Reps. Tom McGill-vray, R-Billings, and Rick Jore, C-Ronan, have bills to eliminate same-day voter registration, used widely for the first time in Montana in last November's election. Both bills are up for hearings this morning in the House Administration Committee.

Montanans are able to register to vote as late as Election Day and still cast a ballot in that election. In the 2006 election, several counties had waves of voters registering and voting on Election Day, causing some delays. In Gallatin County, people were still lined up to vote as midnight approached. Missoula and Lewis and Clark counties also saw a large number of voters register on Election Day.

The 2005 Legislature passed the law creating Election Day registration.
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/01/18/news/state/20-registration.txt

[freedomfries]

9. VT: Accuracy of election really matters

Letters to the Editor: Accuracy of election really matters

Liz Dolci
Burlington Free Press
January 18, 2007
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070116/OPINION/70116010/1006

Several recent letters to the editor have addressed the outcome of the state auditor race and warrant comment. The auditor is an elected position and not to be decided arbitrarily. The individual who receives the most votes wins. The margin of victory in this race is not considered. What is important is that every vote is counted accurately.

The recount of the auditor's race was totally justified. The results were within the legally accepted margin of error. As someone who spent two and a half days recounting votes in Franklin County, I had the opportunity to share in a process that makes our democracy successful. Each ballot that was handled by those of us who recounted was the voice of a Vermonter fulfilling his/her civic responsibility. Whose voice should not be heard? Should the 36 votes that were credited to Liberty Union candidate Jerry Levy rather than Tom Salmon in Richford be disregarded because of an innocent error late on election night?

The recount of the auditor's race has demonstrated that voting errors can and do occur. It has afforded us an opportunity to improve our voting practices to ensure that the vote of every individual is counted fairly and accurately.

Finally, Tom Salmon worked hard on this campaign. I personally saw him campaigning all over the state. However, the recount is not about him. It is about our democratic process.

All Vermonters should be proud of our democratic system. The recount of the auditor's race clearly illustrates that democracy is alive and well in Vermont.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070116/OPINION/70116010/1006

[freedomfries]

10. OpEdNews: Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine

Wrong Winner Chosen Twice by Same Voting Machine

Michael Collins
OpEdNews.com
January 15, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070115_wrong_winner_chosen_.htm
Re-post
:patriot:

The Election Contest filed by Democrat Christine Jennings and her attorney Kendall Coffey creates complications that could blow the electronic voting world to pieces. In the simplest terms, the Jennings Florida 13th Congressional district case requires a review of the Kissell loss in North Carolina's 8th Congressional district. And that spells disaster for e-voting.

Why? Because both the Florida and North Carolina districts used iVotronics touch screen voting machines. These voting machines produced very similar levels of counting errors. The errors cost both Democrats thousands of votes. Ultimately, both Democratic candidates were denied a victory by less than 400 votes.

While Jennings makes a very strong case for a voided election and new vote in Florida, the case becomes virtually unassailable when reviewing results from North Carolina. At the same time, the North Carolina 8th results, reviewed in the context of the election contest analysis of Florida's 13th, makes it abundantly clear that the loser, Kissell, should have won in almost any scenario other than voting machine malfunction.

In both districts, the iVotronic touch screen voting machines produced undervote rates at or above 15%. What this means is that supposedly one in seven voters cast ballots but left out a choice for the most important election (an unmarked race on an otherwise marked ballot is called an undervote). The only culprit in both the Florida 13th and North Carolina 8th elections is voting machine malfunction. The facts supporting the case for losers winning don't allow for much debate in these Florida and North Carolina races. They're simple and a review leads to conclusions that devastate any trust in electronic voting.

The Florida election contest brief filed in Congress looks at data within the 13th Congressional district and data from other Florida districts. Coffey notes that the undervote rate in Sarasota County is six times the undervote rate in surrounding counties in the same district. How did that happen? These are contiguous counties and part of the same congressional district.

Coffey performs a rhetorical slam dunk by looking at undervotes for the two types of early voting in Sarasota County. Early voting by mail required voters to mark their choices on optical scan paper ballots then mail the ballots to the elections board where they were totaled using optical scan readers. Mail in early voting undervotes were at 2.6%. In person early voters came to central locations and voted on iVotronic touch screens like those used in the general election. Undervotes by that method ran 17.6%. There is no reason for a difference of 15 points other than the one provided by Coffey in the Jennings case: voting machine malfunction by the iVotronics. As a result, 14,000 Sarasota County voters lost their constitutional rights. The election should be voided and a new one held.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__070115_wrong_winner_chosen_.htm

[Kurovski]

11. A kick to the top

and thanks, freedomfries. :-)

[Kurovski]

12. Kick(nt)

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

13. NC 08: Time to Doff the Tin Foil Hats - No Suspicious Undervote in Meck/NC-08

Article about the comparison of the Mecklenburg NC 08 Congressional Race to the
Sarasota FL 13 Congressional Race

Time to Doff the Tin Foil Hats - No Suspicious Undervote in Meck/NC-08

by The Southern Dem
Thu Jan 18, 2007 at 08:14:43 AM PST

Unless you've been in seclusion or you've been living under a rock, you've heard about the alarmingly high undervote rate in Florida's 13th Congressional District race. According to The San Francisco Chronicle piece linked above via CommonDreams, the undervote of somewhere around 15% in Sarasota County means that close to 18,000 people voted for other races, but failed to select a choice for the Jennings/Buchanan race. Unlike North Carolina, Florida does not require a paper trail for its touch screen machines. There are several theories floating around as to what happened to those 18,000 votes, but with no paper trail, it is difficult, if not impossible to verify the count from the machine.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy. This one's looooong....

The Southern Dem's diary :: ::

Now, conspiracy theories are cropping up surrounding the 4.2% Mecklenburg County undervote in the 8th Congressional race between Larry Kissell and Robin Hayes. It started with an email going around with lots of THESE and quite a few of !!!!!!! these. According to the author of the email the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections was negligent in its execution of the 3% eye-hand recount performed on November 29, 2006. The author also claims that there is an unprecedented undervote in Mecklenburg County for the 8th Congressional District race. The undervote rate of 4.2% is unprecedented in this race for Mecklenburg County, however, in light of circumstances surrounding November's elections, it is not surprising, shocking or significant and all the CAPITAL LETTERS and !!!!! exclamation points!!!! in the world will not change that fact.

Why address this publicly? The email has had broad enough distribution that it deserves to be addressed publicly. Not only that, diaries are showing up on Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and now BlueNC. A new web site asserting this claim also exists. It isn't my intention to call out any one person or to try and embarrass someone, therefore I'm not addressing the author of this email or the web site by name....

Another reason to address this publicly is the spread of faulty data that is now getting wider distribution. A couple of days ago, Kirk Ross brought our attention to a writer who is spreading confusion by using a completely inaccurate undervote total for North Carolina's 8th Congressional District. Michael Collins has a post at Scoop Independent News, OpEdNews.com and it was taken to Crooks and Liars by Nicole Belle. In this article Collins claims that the undervote percentage in the 8th Congressional race in Mecklenburg County was over 15%. I'll refute his numbers later in this post.

The most important reason to address this publicly is that there are valid complaints with election procedures and results in some states. Any time a false claim is made or a problem created where none exists, it dilutes the importance of other, more valid claims and takes attention and possibly resources away from where they are most needed.

The rest of the article here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/18/111023/378#c5

[EFerrari]

14. Thank you, freedomfries. Btw, on my morning walk, I nearly got hit

by a french fry that someone tossed out of their van window. I ducked but my first instinct was to catch it and eat it.

lol

[freedomfries]

15. thanks to you sfexpat!

I can assure I wasn't the one you met this morning flying out of a car!

[philb]

17. The Greens/Libertarian recount found a lot of irregularities that were not seriously followed up on

www.flcv.com/greenrc.html

[mod mom]

21. They raised the $ and organized the volunteers for the recount. It was a

breech of contract not to fulfill the recount correctly-one that cost our nation greatly.

[Kurovski]

20. Kick(nt)