Election Reform, Fraud & News Wed 3/21/07-Better Late Than Never

[kpete]

Election Reform, Fraud & News Wed 3/21/07-Off To A Late Start

LIFE HAPPENS

If life went exactly as we wished, there would be no need for planning. As we all know, life has its way of diverting us from the direct path to our perfect dreams.

Better late than never I suppose, life got in my way today, sorry for the late post

The "All or Nothing Approach:" Should It Apply To Democracy?

by Paul R Lehto, Attorney at Law

The public is the ONLY party qualified to oversee elections, because the public is the sole source of legitimate power as the "boss" in democracy, the government is the servant, and all the servants have huge conflicts of interest, getting all their money and power from elections themselves, and naturally wanting to defend their first-count reputation, not attack or correct it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=459022&mesg_id=459022

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 "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" 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.

[kpete]

1. Blowback From Ohio’s 2004 Stolen Election

Forced Resignations And Stiff Prison Sentences Intensify The Escalating Blowback From Ohio’s 2004 Stolen Election
Posted by Bob Fitrakis on March 20th, 2007
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
March 20, 2007

In a bold move “to restore trust to elections in Ohio,” Ohio’s newly-elected Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has requested the resignation of all four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The two Democrats and two Republicans were formally asked to resign by the close of business on March 21. Cuyahoga County includes the heavily Democratic city of Cleveland. Brunner is a Democrat who was elected to be Ohio’s Secretary of State in November, 2006.

Felony convictions have also resulted in 18-month prison sentences for two employees of the Cuyahoga BOE as a result of what the county prosecutor in the case calls the “rigging” of the outcome in the recount following the 2004 presidential election. Further problems surfaced in the conduct of Cuyahoga County’s May, 2006 primary, in the wake of which Michel Vu, Executive Director of the county’s Board of Elections recently resigned.

In tandem, the shake-up in Ohio’s biggest county reflects a widening storm surrounding the outcome of the 2004 presidential election and the conduct of elections overall in the nation’s most pivotal state.

more at:

[kpete]

2. Amending the Holt Election Reform Bill to Ban DRE Touch-Screen Voting Systems

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 3/21/2007 1:51AM
Brad Friedman (BRAD BLOG) v. Ralph Neas (PFAW) on Amending the Holt Election Reform Bill to Ban DRE Touch-Screen Voting Systems

As Heard on 'Ring of Fire' with RFK Jr. & Mike Papantonio: I Support Banning DREs, Neas Opposes Such a Ban, and Speaks in Support of DREs
Papantonio: 'Brad, my bet is on you on this one' --- Audio & Transcripts Now Posted
The Saturday before last I was interviewed on Air America's Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio concerning my call for the Election Reform Bill (HR811) by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) to be amended to include a full ban on Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems.

The interview was pre-taped, and an edited-for-time version was aired. The complete, unedited version of that 15 minute interview, along with a text-transcript is now posted here.

This past Saturday, Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way (PFAW), one of the groups supporting the Holt Bill as is, and fighting against a ban on DRE voting systems, was interviewed on Ring of Fire. I had been critical of PFAW's unwaivering support of the bill during my interview the week before (as I have been in many articles here and elsewhere), so Bobby Kennedy asked Neas, a number of times, to answer directly to some of my criticisms.

The audio of that interview as well as a text-transcript, is also now posted here.

Now before I get to a huge number of concerns about the Neas interview and what I see as the dangerous PFAW position, and not to stack the deck (but I will anyway), Papantonio concluded his interview with me as follows, which I then promised to quote on the blog, so here it is:

more at:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4299

[kpete]

3. Problems found in voting machines

Problems found in voting machines

DAYTON (AP) — Montgomery County elections officials who tested 285 touch-screen electronic voting machines in response to voter complaints from the November election encountered calibration problems in 56 of them, the elections chief said Tuesday.

Of those 56 machines, 17 couldn’t be recalibrated and will be returned to maker Diebold Inc. for repair, said Steve Harsman, director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections.



Twenty voters have said their votes did not appear properly on the screen when they were voting in the election.

If a touch-screen machine is not calibrated properly, voters touching the box next to one candidate might have their vote cast for the candidate above or below, Harsman said. However, the voters can review their votes — both on a summary screen and on a printout — to make sure they are correct before submitting a ballot, he said.

more at:

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070321/UPDATES01/70321004/1002/NEWS01

[kpete]

4. CO: New Rules Added To Test Electronic Voting Machines

New Rules Added To Test Electronic Voting Machines
(AP) DENVER Secretary of State Mike Coffman said Tuesday he has adopted new rules for testing electronic voting machines after problems in the November election.

"Coloradans must have confidence in the technology used to conduct elections, and these new testing requirements will provide that confidence," Coffman said in a statement.

The new procedures were adopted under the secretary's rule-making authority. They include detailed security standards for all voting systems that will require 437 tests to be certified for use in Colorado.

Coffman said the four electronic voting systems currently used in Colorado's 64 counties -- Hart Intercivic, Diebold Election Systems, Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software -- will have to apply for recertification, a process that could take up to 90 days.

http://cbs4denver.com/politics/local_story_079193728.html

[kpete]

5. FL: Voting groups ask judge to reconsider election dispute

Voting groups ask judge to reconsider election dispute

SARASOTA (AP) - A coalition of advocacy groups filed a motion Tuesday asking a judge to reconsider an earlier decision regarding a disputed election in the state's 13th Congressional District.

The motion was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Voter Action. It asked the judge to give 11 Sarasota voters access to software and hardware of voting machines.

This comes after the disclosure that touchscreen voting machines used in Sarasota County had an anomaly in the race won by Vern Buchanan, a Longboat Key Republican. Democrat Christine Jennings, who lost the race, has a challenge pending in a Tallahassee court.

The motion was filed after press reports that Elections Systems & Software had informed state and local election officials of the matter nearly three months before the November election, which was decided by just 369 votes.

http://www.sun-herald.com/breakingnews.cfm?id=1491

[kpete]

6. Jennings claims memo a coverup

Jennings claims memo a coverup

Vote display delay didn't cause overvotes, scientist says


A voting machine manufacturer and state and Sarasota County elections officials kept secret an August memo about a problem with the touch screens of some electronic voting machines despite a lawsuit seeking such documents, according to the plaintiff in the suit, congressional candidate Christine Jennings of Sarasota.

That smacks of a "coverup," according to Jennings' campaign spokesman David Kochman.

But state election officials and the company that manufactured the machines, Election Systems & Software, dispute that the memo was intentionally withheld from Jennings' legal team.

They, along with a leading computer scientist at Florida State University who analyzed the machines' operating code, also deny that the problem cited in the memo could have contributed to any problem in tallying votes in Jennings' race.

http://www.sun-herald.com/Newsstory.cfm?pubdate=032107&story=tp3ch8.htm&folder=NewsArchive2

[kpete]

7. How U.S. attorneys were used to spread voter-fraud fears

How U.S. attorneys were used to spread voter-fraud fears
Long before it fired eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons, the Bush administration had politicized their jobs by making them push a favorite GOP talking point.

By Mark Follman, Alex Koppelman and Jonathan Vanian

March 21, 2007 | Under intense criticism for firing eight United States attorneys, the Bush administration has spent the past few weeks casting about for an explanation for the dismissals that involves performance rather than politics. On March 13, White House spokesman Dan Bartlett tried to come up with one. "Over the course of several years, we have received complaints about U.S. attorneys," he insisted, "particularly when it comes to election fraud cases." On Tuesday, President Bush pressed home this claim with a similar statement during his defense of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "We did hear complaints and concerns about U.S. attorneys," said Bush. "Some complained about the lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases."

Bush and Bartlett were arguing that some of the fired attorneys had underperformed by failing to prosecute the raft of offenses that make up voter fraud -- things like vote buying, double voting, and voting by felons, illegal aliens and the deceased. And it is true that at least two of the prosecutors who were let go might not have pursued voter fraud cases to the satisfaction of their bosses at the Department of Justice. But under the Bush administration, pursuing voter fraud is not always about performance. It's often about politics.

more at:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/21/us_attorneys/

[diva77]

17. are the Whitehouse spokespeople trying to obfuscate things by using the

terms "election fraud" and "voter fraud" interchangeably?? Kind of like when Faux news falsely said that Foley was a Democrat :shrug:

[kpete]

8. Democracy Dreaming

March 20, 2007 at 19:08:56

Democracy Dreaming

by Joel S. Hirschhorn

http://www.opednews.com


What is this thing called democracy? So easy to talk about, so difficult to make real. Pure democracy is not what our Founders gave us. Who would want a simple majority to control the minority? Instead, America was given a representative democracy within a constitutional republic where laws that protect all people trump majority rule. Standing between majority-won elections and government power are elected representatives: writing, overseeing and implementing laws. But when you can no longer trust the elected representatives what happens to American democracy? It becomes an oxymoron.

We have arrived at a delusional democracy. Delusional because Americans overwhelmingly cannot admit the painful truth that their limited democracy no longer works for the good of most citizens. Instead, through corruption and dishonesty, our representative democracy has morphed into a plutocracy that serves the wealthy, power elites and corporate masters that control the political system and through that the economic system.

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_joel_s___070320_democracy_dreaming.htm

[kpete]

9. Ohio's Brunner Right to Demand Cleveland Board of Elections Resignation

March 21, 2007 at 15:31:00

Ohio's Brunner Right to Demand Cleveland Board of Elections Resignation

by Project Vote

http://www.opednews.com


Teresa James is Project Vote Counsel

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner was right to call Monday March 19th for the resignations of all four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections this week. The board, consisting of two Republicans and two Democrats by statute, was dominated for too long by the overbearing personality of the Chairman, Bob Bennett, to the detriment of Cuyahoga County voters. As head of the Republican party, Bennett is a powerful political figure in this Republican-dominated state. Other board members—who served at the pleasure of then Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell -- rarely challenged Bennett’s position on any issue at public board meetings. The Secretary’s decision opens the door for a new board with a more even balance of power among the members.


The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has performed poorly, as the recent 2006 primary debacle shows. A panel of election experts appointed by the board to look into the primary election issued the “Cuyahoga Election Review Report,” July 20, 2006, in which it documented serious problems in almost every phase of the election. The unofficial count was delayed by five days because of horribly botched absentee ballot counting. There were problems with poorly trained and under-staffed poll workers, too few operational voting machines at inner city locations, and problems with the Diebold machines that Bennett vigorously championed. The 2006 primary was even more poorly conducted than the 2004 general election, which was marred by many of the same

more at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_project__070321_ohio_s_brunner_right.htm

[kpete]

10. NJ: Judge urges state to raise bar on electronic voting machines

Judge urges state to raise bar on electronic voting machines
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
BY KEVIN COUGHLIN
Star-Ledger Staff

Volunteers who approve electronic voting machines in New Jersey lack technical savvy and rely too much on vendors to explain how the machines work, according to a state judge, who yesterday urged the Attorney General's Office to appoint an advisory panel of computer experts.

"What really concerns me is, at the end of the day, everyone wants a system with integrity. We don't want it to be vendor-driven ... Technology standards today bode in favor of individuals with highly sophisticated computer technology backgrounds," Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg said at a court hearing in Trenton.

Feinberg is monitoring whether the state can meet a January 2008 deadline to retrofit electronic vot ing machines with paper printouts that voters can verify, and which can be recounted if discrepancies arise. Activists claim some 10,000 Sequoia AVC Advantage machines used by 18 counties were never properly inspected, are not secure, and should be replaced by optical scanners that count paper ballots.

Voting machines now are approved by three volunteers who are not required to be computer scientists, and who lack legal authority to compel vendors to divulge their computer code. New Jersey laws governing this process predate electronic voting by decades.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1174369158311520.xml&coll=1

[kpete]

11. US Attorney scandal and NH phone-jamming

US Attorney scandal and NH phone-jamming

Dems: GOP Phone Jamming Case Stalled, Mishandled
By Paul Kiel - March 21, 2007, 4:59 PM

We reported earlier that people were asking questions about the Justice Department's handling of the Jack Abramoff investigation. Now New Hampshire Democrats are raising questions about another DoJ investigation into Republican wrongdoing -- the New Hampshire phone jamming case.

In a detailed, 10-page letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) signed by Kathleen Sullivan, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, and Paul Twomey, a lawyer for the Democrats, they argue that the investigation, which targeted prominent operatives in the Republican Party, was stalled and mishandled.

On Election Day in 2002, Republicans schemed to jam the phone banks for Democratic get out the vote efforts. Two Republicans involved in the plan pled guilty, and James Tobin, formerly the New England Regional Political Director for the Republican National Committee, was convicted for his role. The case took years to play out; the first guilty pleas in the case were not until the summer of 2004, and Tobin was not indicted until after the 2004 election.

One of the reasons the investigation was stalled, Democrats argue, is that "all decisions had to be reviewed by the Attorney General himself" -- first John Ashcroft and then Alberto Gonzales. To back up that claim, the Democrats say that lawyers working on the case were told by prosecutors that delays in the case were due to the extreme difficulty in obtaining authorization from higher levels at DOJ for any and all actions in the case.

more at:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002839.php

[autorank]

12. AP: 2 Key Players in Firings Were Up for US Atty Jobs. K&R - Excellente!

AP: 2 Key Players in Firings Were Up for US Atty Jobs.

http://tinyurl.com/2nznnb

WASHINGTON - Two of the major players in the ouster of federal prosecutors last year were themselves considered for U.S. attorney jobs, according to documents and interviews.

Pat Rogers, an Albuquerque, N.M., attorney who has represented the state Republican Party and party officials for several years, raised his concerns about his state‘s U.S. attorney, David Iglesias, with high-level Justice Department officials, among others.

Iglesias was one of eight prosecutors whose ouster created an uproar on Capitol Hill this month. The information about the role Rogers and Sampson played in the firings — and the interest in them serving as U.S. attorneys themselves — were revealed in internal e-mails released last week.

Rogers had been a vocal critic of Iglesias‘ work on voter fraud. He said in an interview Monday that he raised several valid allegations about fraud during the 2004 election and was dismayed when Iglesias decided to create a task force to investigate, rather than bring charges.

COMMENT: "dismayed...create a task force...rather than bring charges." Lets see, a Federal prosecutor, a Republican, a law & order Republican refuses to bring charges. I'd say that the task force was a political move to get the NM folks like these two off his back and that he had no reason to bring charges, therefore to do so would have been illegal!

[robinlynne]

14. don't you mean Rogers and Griffin? Griffin is the now temp in Arkansas, former

Rove protege. (also the man who created the caging concept for our 2000 election.)

[autorank]

16. I know about Griffin and Arkansas.

I just posted the AP article. Lots of bad behavior to go around...new players, new scandals;)

[L. Coyote]

13. Appeals court reverses conviction in phone-jamming case

MaineDem Wed Mar-21-07 04:43 PM
Appeals court reverses conviction in phone-jamming case
DU Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2775971

Source: Concord Monitor/AP

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed the conviction and sentence of James Tobin, the former regional chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign, who was sentenced to 10 months in prison for his role in an Election Day phone-jamming plot against New Hampshire Democrats.

Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, was convicted in December 2005 on two criminal charges of telephone harassment in the scheme, which tied up phone lines set up by the state Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters' union

========

MaineDem Tue Mar-20-07 05:34 PM
N.H. Dems want fresh look at phone-jamming
DU Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2774300

Source: AP/Boston Globe

CONCORD, N.H. --State Democrats want Congress to investigate whether politics delayed prosecution of a Republican phone-jamming plot in New Hampshire until after the 2004 presidential election.

The national furor over alleged politics in the firings of eight federal prosecutors prompted the move, state party Chairwoman Kathy Sullivan told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The scheme devised by state and national Republicans jammed local Democratic ride-to-the-polls and a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote phone bank for about 90 minutes on Election Day 2002, the year of a hotly contested U.S. Senate race between then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and then-U.S. Rep. John Sununu, a Republican, who won. The case resulted in four criminal convictions,

[MelissaB]

15. Here's a couple of threads of interest:

So SMARTECH, company that hosts gwb43.com (owned by RNC), ALSO hosted the OHIO ELECTION RETURNS??? by jackstraw45

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x467855

Excuse me, but is it normal for servers the WHouse/RNC uses to be registered to homes? by originalpckelly

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x466555