Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Saturday, March 10, 2007

[livvy]

HEROES








ZEROS


I think we can put an X on at least one of those faces. Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald.

Election Reform, Fraud, and Related News


All members welcome and encouraged to participate.



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

If you can:
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:
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 "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[livvy]

1. Clinton proposes new federal boondoggle in the form of "election reform"

March 9, 2007

Clinton proposes new federal boondoggle in the form of "election reform"

By Nancy Tobi

Someone asking for our vote in her run for President ought to know better.

But Senator Clinton hasn't seemed to pay attention to the damage wrought to the nation's election systems by the last federal fiasco of legislation (the Help America Vote Act - HAVA) . Following in the footsteps of now jailbird former Congressman Bob Ney, chief architect of that piece of disastrous legislation, and Congressman Rush Holt - tone deaf to activist outcry about his ill-fated HAVA II legislative proposal, Senator Clinton has now re-introduced her own technoelection boondoggle. Like the Holt Bill, Clinton's Orwellian-named "Count Every Vote" proposal is lauded by People for the American Way, a "liberal" and "progressive" organization that is hanging its hat on high cost and untested electo-technology that is so complex it promises to completely remove the American voter from the scenario.

Because here is the bottom line, my friends: if the American voter can not even understand, nevermind OBSERVE, how our votes are being cast and counted, our participation in the so-called electoral process is irrelevent.

Fool me once, shame on me. HAVA fooled us all. Don't be fooled again. The solution to our national electoral crisis - which imperils the democratic processes that support our American Republic - does NOT lie in the hands or solutions of the Federal government. It lies in the hands of our local and state election officials. It lies in the hands of our state legislatures, which have the responsibility, the duty, and the power to ensure that our community-based and democratic elections have integrity, accuracy, reliability, and are fully transparent so that every aspect of the voting system is fully observable for citizen oversight.

If our legislature fails in its duties, and if our state and local election officials also fail in their duties, then we will replace them.

>more

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_to_070309_clinton_proposes_new.htm

[Peace Patriot]

7. Hear! Hear! --to Nancy Tobi. "HAVA fooled us all. Don't be fooled again." nt

[livvy]

2. CA: Redistricting Dreams Face More Speed Bumps.....

Redistricting dreams face more speed bumps Boundary woes threaten to plague Nunez, but he tries again
By Steven Harmon, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Last Updated: 03/10/2007 02:43:56 AM PST

SACRAMENTO — Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez insists he will produce redistricting reform this year, taking away the authority to draw political boundaries from the Legislature and giving it to an independent commission. But roadblocks put up by his own party may test his optimism just as he begins to put pieces in place.

Nunez, D-Los Angeles, returned from a meeting with members of the Democratic Congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., this week with a singular message in hand: In no uncertain terms, they told him an independent commission drawing congressional boundaries was unacceptable.

And for the obvious reason. Any losses to the Democratic congressional delegation from more competitive seats created by redistricting could threaten the Democrats' tenuous control of Congress.

"Originally, I was going to include congressional districts, but at this point, I'm not," Nunez said this week. "But I'm open to discussions with all groups and members of the Legislature. We're not drawing the line in the sand."

>more

http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_5406685

[livvy]

3. CT: "Scorecard" To Aid Election Reform

03/09/2007
‘Scorecard’ to aid election reform
Mary E. O’Leary , Register Topics Editor

-NEW HAVEN — Thousands of uncounted ballots, a 10-hour wait to vote and voter registrations rejected because the paper was the wrong weight.
Those were some of the more egregious examples of a broken election process in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

But for reformers who study the nuts and bolts of the system, the problems aren’t restricted to a handful of states and the harm of allowing unfair elections to continue goes to the heart of our democracy.

"Our election system is in bad shape," said Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale University and an expert on the issue who runs the Tobin Project, which connects academics with lawmakers looking to address problems.

One solution to tamping down fraud, Gerken said, is to set up a "Democracy Index," a data-driven review that would detail how well each state runs elections.

>more

http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18058528&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7576&rfi=6

[livvy]

4. The Road to Clean Elections- Moyer Video

http://www.caclean.org/materials/watch.php

[livvy]

5. New Hampshire is Ready

New Hampshire is ready
By Bill Steigerwald
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, March 10, 2007

Every four years, when it's time to elect a president, Americans are reminded that there still is a New Hampshire. The Granite State's famed presidential primary, first in the nation since 1952, is a circus of retail politics and national media coverage that often produces surprising results.

To find out how things are shaping up in New Hampshire, we called Joe McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader of Manchester. The conservative newspaper, the state's major media power despite a daily circulation of only about 60,000, long has played an active reportorial and editorial role in the primaries. This election, says McQuaid, will be no different:

Q: Are you getting ready for the invasion or has it already started?

A: It's already started. It really never stops anymore. I wasn't sure that John McCain was running for president until I invited him up here for a speech at a school I'm involved with. This was I think three days after the 2004 general election? As he talked I realized, "My God, he's running for president." I think that's probably the earliest it's started, and now it's just nonstop, and my editor is tearing his remaining hair out trying to figure out how and why we should cover all these people in addition to the regular news.

>more

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_497017.html

[FogerRox]

6. NJ, Princeton, Paper Balloting Systems by AVANTE

Paper Balloting Systems by AVANTE That Mitigate the Historic Vote Tampering Vulnerabilities in Using Paper Ballot

PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AVANTE is proud to introduce a precinct-based optical scanning (PBOS) voting system that is as secure as its VOTE-TRAKKER® line of proven direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems with the voter verified paper ballot (VVPB). It incorporates the advanced imaging, scaling, and quantitative pixel counting to achieve accuracy of less than 1 error in 1,500,000 marked positions as required in the Federal Voting Standards. This AVANTE solution also captures the ballot images when it reads the ballots and stores them on CD-R/DVD. The accompanying central count system has been proven and certified to the EAC-2002-VSS.

In a PBOS, instead of the voter making selections on a screen, the voter marks on the paper ballot. When the voter marked paper ballot (VMPB) is submitted, the PBOS reads and records the votes directly. A more descriptive name may be “precinct-based direct recording optical scanning electronic (DROSE) system”. Unlike the DRE, all existing precinct-based optical voting systems do not afford voters a chance to review how their votes are being read and recorded. The new AVANTE system displays to the voters exactly how the system reads the ballots.

Paper records for DRE and DROSE are archived but not inspected by anyone except when used for a manual audit. VVPB and VMPB have identical vulnerabilities. They can be easily substituted, replaced, smeared and destroyed. The only way to prevent such paper-based tampering is to provide a separate independent audit trail. In the case of DRE, even though the electronic votes are counted for convenience, VVPBs are official ballots and the audit trail. The Federal 2005 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines requires VVPBs be linked one-to-one to the electronic votes. This security measure is critical in ensuring that the remaining VVPBs can be individually authenticated if any paper records are missing or tampered with.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070309005436&newsLang=en

http://www.avantetech.com/

[livvy]

10. I saw this. What's the deal with them?

The name is familiar, but could be because of the car...there is a car by that name, isn't there? Anyway, I don't recall any discussions about them.

[FogerRox]

11. LOL, yes there was a an Avante car, back in the late 60's

Avante sold the )large screen) Vote trakker DRE to Warren cnty NJ. I think thats their only sale. It is maybe the best DRE out there. If ya know what I mean. They looked at HAVA to design the vote Trakker, if you touch a race, the font triples in size, supports 40 languages, hydraulic up & down for wheelchair voters. Avante really tried to meet HAVA requirements with the VOte Trakker.

I think they see that the opscan is the wave of the future and are getting ready.

From a summer 2006 tour of the Avante factory



FUll face screen of the Avante Vote Trakker.





The guts of the Vote Trakker VVPB printer.

IIRC> Avante also makes those card entry systems for Hotel rooms.

[autorank]

12. Roj, remember what Jon Delorian gut busted for in the trunk of an Avante?

:shrug: for $800.000

[FogerRox]

14. No clue.

[autorank]

18. OMf'ingG!!!! Now that's a Jersey Guy...check it out...Bruce ain't the only one!

I'm not worthy:scared:

[livvy]

15. Ooooo....pretty...

the car, not the VT.



I found this interesting....(from Wiki-my bold)

"The Avanti was heavily promoted and many enthusiastic buyers placed advance orders. However, long production delays negatively affected sales. The production delay of the Avanti was due to problems with the alignment of some of the fiberglass body panels and that the rear window opening was too large for the glass. These difficulties were quite surprising to Studebaker executives since body fabrication had been farmed out to the Moulded Fiberglass Products Company of Ashtabula, Ohio, the same firm that had fabricated the Chevrolet Corvette bodies since that car's production began in 1953. In order to solve these problems, Studebaker was eventually forced to assemble the body panels themselves - but it was too late as many sales had already been lost."

Gee...what a koinkodink!

And now that I've hijacked my own thread...confession time...
I was thinking of the Cadillac Allante. Just another duh moment in livvy's world. :silly:

[Peace Patriot]

8. GREAT PHOTOS! But could you ID the Heroes? Just a list of their names, left to right,

would be helpful. I don't recognize several of them--the two guys with beards (is one of them Paul Krugman?), the two guys with cameras, and the orange-tinted guy with the tie.

You don't have to ID the war criminals.

[livvy]

9. Ok, here ya'go...

Mark Crispin Miller, RFK Jr., Brad Friedman

Robert Greenwald("Unprecedented" and many other documentaries), Krugman (one of my favorites)

Molly Ivins (RIP,Amazing Miss Molly), John Bonifaz, Greg Palast

Ian Inaba (American Blackout), Marcy Wheeler (author:Anatomy of Deceit and blogger covering the Libby trial at Firedoglake)

I think I got everybody. There were so many, it was hard to choose. I would have liked to include some of the malcontents around here, but I wasn't so sure those that I could find, would appreciate it, so they remain our favorite names without faces. There are certainly many heroes among us!

[Stevepol]

13. Thanks for the pix Livvy, as well as the thread!

[livvy]

16. Not a lot of news yesterday, or my Googling skills were off...

,but thanks!

[mod mom]

17. OH: Montgomery County BOE Investigating 20 Voter Complaints that Votes didn't Register Correctly

Election officials probe complaints about touch screens
WFMJ Youngstown Fri, 09 Mar 2007 10:04 AM PST
DAYTON, Ohio The Montgomery County Board of Elections is investigating 20 voters' complaints that their votes didn't register correctly in the November elections.



http://www.wfmj.com/Global/story.asp?S=6204042&nav=menu491_2