Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Thursday, March 8, 2007

[livvy]

A dark underbelly of mass graves and electoral fraud...

There is little to cheer a US president on a visit to Latin America these days. Where it once enforced its will on the region the US now looks increasingly out of touch. The presidents of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile were not elected as friends of the US, and China has quietly filled the economic gap left by seven years of US distraction and neglect.

Bush will be the first US president to visit Bogota since John Kennedy, and only in Colombia will he find an unconditional friend in President Alvaro Uribe, whom he has praised as an ally and granted billions of dollars in military aid.

Uribe didn't invent Colombia's problems - it has endured 40 years of civil war and narcotics flourished long before he became president in 2002. But Uribe, who changed the constitution to permit his own re-election last year, has devised a "peace" plan that has opened the door to a future incorporation of amnestied narco-paramilitary groups into Colombian politics, who have close ties with Uribe's own political machine. As Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern put it: "President Uribe's main step towards 'peace' has been a likely deal with the paramilitaries that will allow them to pay brief sentences in luxurious jails despite having massacred thousands of innocent people, while avoiding extradition despite having sent tons of drugs to my country."

From: Congress is questioning a Latin American policy that has left George Bush with a best friend who is a major embarrassment

Isabel Hilton
Thursday March 8, 2007
The Guardian

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkpg=http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2028781,00.html&linkid=31771

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Please:

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[livvy]

1. So, who is Timothy Griffin?

This is an older article, but gives some background info.


(January 16, 2007 -- 12:21 PM EDT)

Okay, so we already know that the White House has now taken the unprecedented step of firing at least four and likely seven US Attorneys in the middle of their terms of office -- at least some of whom are in the midst of corruption investigations of Bush administration officials and key Republican lawmakers. We also know that they're taking advantage of a handy provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the White House to replace these fired USAs with appointees who don't need to be approved by the senate.

Given that these new USAs are being plopped into offices currently investigating Republicans and other administration officials and others into states with 2008 presidential candidates, there's certainly ample opportunity for mischief.

So we're looking into just who the White House is appointing.

Well, let's start with the estimable J. Timothy Griffin, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since December 20th.

If you hadn't heard about Griffin's appointment, don't feel bad, the guy he replaced hadn't either. Griffin's appointment was annouced on December 15th before the then-US Attorney Bud Cummins had even been given a chance to resign. Cummins got the call on his cell phone the same day while he was out hiking with his son. Cummins, who subsequently said he got forced out for political reasons, resigned on the 20th, the same day Griffin was sworn in.

So who's Griffin and what experience does he bring to the job?

>more

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011958.php

[livvy]

2. 12/28/06 Senators Question US Attorney Appointment

Published 12/28/2006

End around

Senators question U.S. attorney appointment.



J. Timothy Griffin was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Dec. 20, less than a week after his appointment prompted unusual public expressions of outrage from both of the state’s U.S. senators.

The outrage stems from the way Griffin was appointed. Instead of following the normal process, which would involve a presidential nomination and confirmation by the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration utilized a provision in the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint an “interim U.S. attorney” without Senate confirmation. Therefore, Griffin, 38, will serve as interim U.S. attorney until he is formally nominated or replaced by the president.

Interim appointments are usually made to fill vacancies, but Griffin was named to the U.S. attorney post on Dec. 15, while it was still occupied by Bud Cummins.

> big snip

The British Broadcasting Corporation unearthed e-mail messages Griffin sent from the RNC in 2004 containing spreadsheet information on thousands of Florida voters. The spreadsheets were titled “caging,” which, according to the BBC, alludes to a voter suppression tactic.

Teague says that episode, and Griffin’s other political work, explains why Griffin won’t submit to the traditional confirmation process.

“Bud had to go through the process,” Teague said. “What makes this guy so special? What are they trying to hide? Why not go under oath and allow the people of Eastern Arkansas to ask questions about his qualifications for the job? His primary professional occupation has been political research and political campaigns.”

>more



http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/print.aspx?ArticleID=828918ba-6945-4db7-937c-7aaa4efa6a3a

[mod mom]

6. PALAST: Tim Griffin (WH Pick for US Atty) Behind Voting Rights Scheme

Bush's New US Attorney a Criminal?



BBC Television had exposed 2004 voter attack scheme
by appointee Griffin, a Rove aide.
Black soldiers and the homeless targeted.
by Greg Palast

March 7, 2007.

There's only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That's replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal.

There was one big hoohah in Washington yesterday as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers pulled down the pants on George Bush's firing of US Attorneys to expose a scheme to punish prosecutors who wouldn't bend to political pressure.

But the Committee missed a big one: Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove's assistant, the President's pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin's hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

-snip

http://www.gregpalast.com /

Read the full story, "Caging Lists: Great White Republicans Take Voters Captive" in Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse: Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales from a White House Gone Wild. The new edition, with a new chapter on Theft of the Election, will be released April 24th (by Penguin/Plume in paperback).
Hand Counted Paper Ballots, counted at the precinct level w full pub

[autorank]

3. An end to FEAR & LOATHING in the voting booth—this one’s the real deal! “Scoop”/Collins

K&R

More Here

:hi:

An end to FEAR & LOATHING in the voting booth—this one’s the real deal! “Scoop”/Collins

Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00150.htm

Threading the Needle:
Florida Plan Gives Citizens Real Paper Ballots

Bill Faulkner’s Answer To
Fear and Loathing in the Voting Booth

Michael Collins
“Scoop” Independent News
Washington, DC


North Florida. Retired Navy aviator and veteran, Bill Faulkner, MBA, may have done the impossible. He devised a plan to return believable elections to Florida by turning optical scan forms into the ballot of record, to be counted by citizens in public areas where all can view the process taking place. This radical departure from the maze of today’s computerized voting harkens back to over 100 years of U.S elections history. But first, a little background.

We all want to vote and know that our votes are counted properly and that the true winner of any election won fair and square. Since 2000, it’s become virtually impossible to know what happens to our votes if we’re voting on computerized voting machines (touch screens) or on paper ballots totaled by the other computerized voting machine, optical scan readers. Lately we’re hearing terms like paper trails and verified ballots. These are just slightly more sensible than undervotes and overvotes. Casting aside bureaucratic jargon and the explanations of hired gun experts, we know this much.

• When our votes enter a touch screen machine, we have no idea what happens to those votes.


• When we mark a special paper ballot read by a computerized optical scan reader, we have no idea how the readers operate or if they’re operated properly.


• If we ask to watch vote counting, we’ll almost always be told NO or, if allowed, we’re placed in a distant corner like a six year old having a tantrum.


• Finally even if we’re given a pass to watch computerized vote counting, we end up observing a box covering a computer most of us don’t understand, provided by vendors (any of them) that seem to blame any problems with the election process on …. you guessed it … YOU, the citizen, the tax payer.. Comforting, isn’t it?

More Here

[rumpel]

4. "electronic voting is poised to go the way of the dodo"

The Brock Press

I just love that line :)

E-voting stations going the way of Betamax
Phil Price
Issue date: 3/6/07 Section: International

The first major foray into electronic voting appears to be going the way of the dinosaur. This comes following wide-spread problems during the American mid-term elections this past year. Diebold, the manufacturer of the ill-fated voting machines, is expected to terminate it's electronic voting machine division in coming weeks.
This follows hundreds of malfunctioning units, popular resistance to the units and encouragement by political candidates to use paper ballots in lieu of the machines. It remains to be seen if the 150,000 currently deployed units would be scraped, or would continue to serve.
The problems of the electronic voting systems followed the machines throughout the run of the American elections. From Florida to Alaska, wide-spread device failure and faulty vote counting haunted the Diebold machines from the early-voting sessions to the final hours of the election.
In a single day, Indiana had 75 precincts using incorrectly programmed smart-cards and nearly half of Marion County's 914 precincts reported having trouble getting their machines to boot up in the first place. In New Jersey, meanwhile, Republican officials claimed that Democratic Senator Robert Menendez's name was already lit up when some voters entered the booth, causing them to accidentally choose the wrong candidate. Other areas such as Cleveland, Ohio and Hartford, Connecticut were either unable to start their machines or found the touchscreens to be improperly displaying candidates' names, forcing election workers to move back to old-fashioned paper ballots.

http://media.www.brockpress.com/media/storage/paper384/news/2007/03/06/International/EVoting.Stations.Going.The.Way.Of.Betamax-2759703.shtml

[rumpel]

5. IN: Vendor of electronic voting equipment goes out of business

Randolph Co. voting problems continue

BY JOY LEIKER
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

WINCHESTER, Ind. -- After two troublesome elections last year, Randolph County's election problems continue, with the vendor of the county's electronic voting equipment apparently going out of business.

Randolph County Clerk Claudia Thornburg said she doesn't expect the problems with Voting Technologies International to affect this year's city elections.


In Wisconsin, the VTI company telephone number is disconnected, and Bill Benning, a former director of sales, didn't return a message left on his cell phone.

http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070308/NEWS01/703080315/1008