On the Conyers/PDA Letter being sent about - posting my reply as thread

[kerrygoddess]

I contacted Kerry's Senate office today. I was told that any inquiries would go through the Kerry PAC (Friends of John Kerry, Inc or Keeping America's Promise).

I have sent all info I have on this to contacts there. There has been no confirmation that this is true. I'm waiting to hear back from my contacts in JK's PAC.

Conyers said as much in his letter that this was rumor. PDA has jumped the gun with their attack!

There is no Kerry/Edwards campaign. Whatever investigation they may be still doing behind the scenes or involvement with fraud caeses would be handled by lawyers on retainer from the Kerry/Edwards GELAC Funds.

Fact is there's no harm in sending letters and emails to remind JK that people still care about this issue. But PDA f'ing blew it in my book. I also contact a good friend who is friends with Tim Carpenter, who signed the PDA letter that Will Pitt is posting about. I gave my friend some choice words to share with Tim Carpenter for PDA's little stretch of Conyers letter.

I felt that Conyers's letter was a follow up to put an end to rumors (that God/dess knows who started) and it was harmless. I posted it on my blog, because I don't want people to forget about this issue in the midst of everything else.

What a mess! Thanks Little Clarkie, MH1, et all for staying on this. When I hear more I will let you all know.

[TayTay]

1. Thank you! I really appreciate your doing this

There was just a lot in this that didn't add up. And like you, I am deeply grateful to everyone who said, 'hey, wait a minute, this is not passing the smell test.'

You guys rock! I know who had Kerry's back and it's the folks in this group. Love ya!

[MH1]

2. My thanks also.

What do you think about calling Conyers' office and asking him if the letter is real, and did he mean for it to be public? If so is it only based on Cobb's statements, or is there other relevant information? If he didn't mean for it to be public, then he may be interested to know that it is.

(I'm lousy at phone calls, or I would do it. I may do it anyway, but I have a really busy day today.)

[TayTay]

3. What IS going on in Ohio, based on facts.

Language approved on issues for ballot Board scrutinizes each line of amendments
Dayton Daily News, Sec. Local, p B6 08-17-2005
By Shaheen Samavati ssamavati

COLUMBUS -- Ohioans expected three constitutional amendments overhauling the state's election system on the Nov. 8 ballot. Make that four.

One of the amendments was split into two at the Ohio Ballot Board meeting Tuesday upon testimony of William Todd.

He represented Ohio First, an organization that opposes the amendments created and backed by a group called Reform Ohio Now.

One of the newly independent amendments, if approved, would establish a nine-member board to replace the secretary of state in administering elections.

The other would allow Ohioans to vote by absentee ballot without a reason.

Language for the other two amendments, which set campaign contribution limits and create a board to set state legislative districts, remained as packaged, but not without some major tweaking.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/search/content/localnews/daily/0817ballot.html (Subscription info required.)


Voting machines too close to call
Akron Beacon Journal, 4X, Sec. B, p 1 08-14-2005
By Beacon Journal staff writer By Lisa A. Abraham

The Summit County Board of Elections is about to make a multimillion-dollar decision, but some board members don't think they have much to choose from.

"This whole thing is ridiculous," said board member Joseph Hutchinson. "I don't feel comfortable on any of this."

The Summit County Board of Elections is about to make a multimillion-dollar decision, but some board members don't think they have much to choose from.

The county has a month to decide which type of electronic voting machine it will purchase to comply with the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which calls for the elimination of punch-card voting by the first federal election of 2006.

Summit County became part of a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, which was initiated by voting machine maker Election Systems & Software Inc. The suit brought the board more time to make its decision, but it has yet to result in any additional choices for the board.

ES&S of Nebraska sued when Blackwell tried to impose a May deadline for companies to have their machines state-certified and for counties to select new voting systems. The company was successful in obtaining a delay until Nov. 1 for it to attempt to have its touch-screen system certified.

The elections board has two options: touch-screen voting systems, or DRE (for direct-recording electronic systems), which come with a voter verifiable paper audit trail, or optical-scan machines, which read a paper ballot that is marked in pencil by the voter.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/12381113.htm

[TayTay]

4. Who is opposing the Ohhio Election REform initiative

Former Senate president sues to stop election changes
AP Alert - Political 08-04-2005
By By CARRIE SPENCER

COLUMBUS, Ohio_A Republican statehouse veteran sued on Thursday to keep the statewide ballot clear of three constitutional amendments to change elections and the drawing of legislative districts.

Richard Finan, a former Senate president and 29-year lawmaker, argued in the lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court that the petitions being circulated to qualify the issue for the November election don't contain the full text of the proposed amendments because they don't show what parts of the current Ohio Constitution would be deleted.

"In no way does this allow the average Ohioan to understand the issue," he said. "Whether there are some reforms needed or not is not the question. This is badly flawed."

The lawsuit demands that Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell not allow the proposals on the ballot. Finan also formed a nonprofit group, Ohio First, that will reorganize as a campaign committee to fight the amendments if the lawsuit fails.

Finan is relying on a 1919 state Supreme Court case that says voters must have all the information, including what would be replaced in the constitution, before deciding to support a ballot initiative.

"I would describe the lawsuit as a shot in the dark," said Columbus attorney Donald McTigue, who prepared the amendment language for the group, called Reform Ohio Now.

The 1919 case has nothing to do with the topic of the lawsuit, McTigue said. Instead, it dealt with how to handle two contradictory amendments that passed in the same election. Finan is trying to expand on one comment made elsewhere in the ruling, he said.

Finan said the petitions should show the deleted language with a line through it, followed by the new language to be inserted _ the same display lawmakers see on bills.

Ohio law doesn't require that format, said Kim Norris, spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, who will represent Blackwell in the suit.

Petro's office approved the summary at the top of the petition and on the ballot as fair and accurate on May 20. The law did not require Petro to certify the rest of the petition.

"They've had two and a half months to review this and they've waited too long," Norris said.

Finan said GOP House and Senate leaders asked him to lead the opposition, but they waited to sue until they were certain amendment supporters would have enough signatures to get it to the ballot.

Supporters plan to deliver about 450,000 signatures early next week to Blackwell, ahead of Wednesday's deadline. They need nearly 323,000 of them accepted.

The three amendments, which would be separate questions on the ballot, would:

_ Reduce Ohio's recently adopted $10,000 limit on individual political contributions to $2,000 for statewide candidates and $1,000 for legislative candidates, ban corporate contributions and require full disclosure.

_ Appoint an independent, five-member board to redraw congressional and legislative lines, which now are drawn by the Republican-dominated Legislature and a board of five elected officials, respectively.

_ Create a four-member board _ two from each party _ to oversee state elections in Ohio, taking over for the secretary of state. Democrats criticized Blackwell, a Republican, for publicly supporting President Bush and an amendment banning civil unions while overseeing the 2004 election.

Scarlett Bouder, spokeswoman for amendment supporters, said Republicans who decide details of the budget and other major legislation in private meetings shouldn't complain that the petitions smack of secrecy without the existing language.

"If we worried about what voters weren't seeing in Columbus, we'd have a laundry list," she said.

Both conservative and liberal groups have used the courts more often in recent years to stop voter-driven initiatives from reaching the ballot.

"We think this is a very realistic approach to the issue and it's a very real problem," Finan said.

___

[TayTay]

5. Last thing I could find on Cobb and Ohio

Prosecutor to probe Cuyahoga County recount
Akron Beacon Journal, 4X, Sec. B, p 4 04-09-2005
By Beacon Journal staff writer By Stephen Dyer

Erie County Prosecutor Kevin J. Baxter is investigating whether the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections broke the law in its recount of ballots from the November presidential election.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor William Mason appointed Baxter as a special prosecutor in the case because the board of elections is Mason's client, which could pose a conflict of interest, said Mason spokeswoman Jamie Dalton.

Erie County Prosecutor Kevin J. Baxter is investigating whether the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections broke the law in its recount of ballots from the November presidential election.

Baxter said he didn't know yet whether the allegations have any validity. He said his investigators will begin interviewing people in the next several weeks.

"If it goes nowhere, it goes nowhere," Baxter said. "We'll just start from the beginning... This is rather preliminary."

The probe stems from two requests written to Mason: one from minor-party presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik, and another from entrepreneurial consultant Edward Michael Caner.

Dalton said Mason turned over the papers March 2.

The complaints allege that the board violated state law because the precincts it recounted were neither randomly selected nor was the opening of ballots properly witnessed.

In addition, Cobb and Badnarik allege that there were problems with the board's ballot-transfer cases, which can reveal whether the precinct used the ballots assigned to it or whether ballots from other precincts were used.

Finally, they contend that the county's vote-tabulation machines were used improperly and that discrepancies exist between the certified recount and the certified original vote.

All this was done to cover up problems in the November vote and ensure that no hand-recount would have to be done around the county, the letter from Cobb and Badnarik alleges.

Board's response

Michael Vu, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, declined to comment on specifics of the case but said "we will cooperate fully with the Erie County prosecutor."

Vu said the elections procedure "needs to be a transparent process."

The board's elections coordinator, Jacqui Maiden, told the board in its Feb. 8 meeting that the recount was handled based on a recount of a Garfield Heights Municipal Court judge election from 1981 and that the procedures used in November "are the same that has been used in the past."

The procedure Maiden cited included picking 3 percent of the precincts for a hand count, but the meeting minutes didn't indicate whether the board picked the 3 percent at random.

According to the complaint filed by both the candidates and their lawyer, Richard Kerger of Toledo, the board did not randomly select 3 percent of the county's precincts to recount, as required by state law. Instead, the county selected recount precincts only from among those with 550 voters or more, which eliminated 90 percent of the county's precincts, according to the letter.

As Caner put it in his shorter e-mail: "This is similar to randomly drawing a card out of a deck, but before doing so, eliminating all suits but hearts."

In addition, the candidates' letter contends that the way the precincts were chosen seems "to be of a special sort: those in which (U.S. Sen. John) Kerry received either his largest or second largest number of votes in the ward. This meant that precincts in which (President) Bush received an unusually high number of votes could not be examined, nor could the precincts in which the third-party candidates received unusually high vote totals."

The letter said there is no way this phenomenon happened at random.

More allegations

The letter alleges that Maiden admitted in a Dec. 22 meeting that "ballots in selected precincts had been opened without the presence of witnesses and had been sorted and hand counted in advance of the original recount" -- setting up a test-run to assure that the recount would comport closely with the original count so that a full hand count wouldn't have to be conducted.

As for the transfer-case problem, the letter alleges that on Dec. 17, a number of precincts were found to have had problems -- namely some ballots assigned to one precinct were used in another, or too many or too few ballots were used.

The letter suggested that "the (election) staff had been assigned to clean-up the tell-tale evidence of election irregularities within the cases."

Kerger said Thursday that Cuyahoga County was the only county to receive a letter like the one he referred to Mason's office. He said generally he understands that county boards of elections, mostly made up of volunteers, aren't going to run perfect elections. "If we hold the Super Bowl every four years, we wouldn't expect the referees to be perfect," he said.

However, what he found in Cuyahoga County was different. There "it seemed to be more than just a mistake," he said.

[fedupinBushcountry]

6. Thank You

Thanks for the info. I had posted that there is no Kerry/Edwards campaign, but to me it would be alright to let our concerns be known to JK and Edwards and to get to the truth and not just go with speculation.

It is a mess, but not the first and probably not the last, for those on the far left love to jump the gun especially if Kerry's name is involved. JMO. But as TayTay said we do have Kerry's back and we know he has ours. :grouphug:

[BlueIris]

7. Yes, thanks, kg.

Grrrrr to bad rumors.

[kerrygoddess]

8. I learned this morning

from my friend connected with PDA that there is a reason behind this... to be revealed... not meant to hurt JK but to help.

Interesting way of helping, sounded like an attack to me. Hopefully we will know more soon. In the meantime... keep JK's back covered.

Krugman had an OP/ED to on Election fraud - Dr Ron posted about it here - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=282

[fedupinBushcountry]

9. Thanks

But now I am racking my brain trying to figure out in what way will this help. Is it pure speculation still? Are they trying to bring this to the front due to Taft in Ohio? :think:

[TayTay]

10. There is a lot going on in Ohio

right now. There is a people's movement to get Ohio into better shape and stop the election shenanigans. I bet it's related to that and to a better overall strategy for getting cleaner elections.

There is indeed more than one way to skin a cat. (Just ask Bill Frist!)

[Noisy Democrat]

12. Someone had a theory

that if we all poured letters in to Kerry asking him not to pull out of the Ohio suit, that would give him political cover if people accused him of "wasting taxpayers' money" just for the sake of his ego. He could say that letters had been pouring in and that clearly the people want this. Nobody knows if that's what's going on, but it was someone's guess -- someone on the outside, like us, not anyone with inside info from Kerry's office --, and it makes sense.

[paineinthearse]

14. political cover????!!!!!!!

The rethugs STOLE THE ELECTION, how much more political coverage is needed?

[TayTay]

15. Do you notice how many here said they were writing in anyway

That most of the folks here said that the fraud in Ohio was an extremely improtant thing to pursue. No one here is punting on this.

The question raised was specifically, why can't we find any backup to this on the web. Some people got letters, but the letters aren't on the major web sites. Why isn't Conyer's letter on Conyer's blog. Why isn't the PDA letter on the PDA website. This is awfully peculiar. There are dozens and dozens of web sites that are tracking election 2004 fraud accusations and charges. Why isn't this a big story on them. Where is the backup. (You know the deal: trust but verify.)

It's not that simple pain. We are writing, but we would also like backup.

[TayTay]

16. That's does actually make sense to me

The political cover is not for the liberals. It's for those who try to discredit an investigation by saying that it is a waste of taxpayers money. (Which was one of the things that Rethugs did say last fall in arguing that the courts should just dismiss these 'nuisance' lawsuits.) We aren't just appealing to the converted. We need to think about broadening this discussion and trying to pick up support among those who haven't read Conyers book and who don't know a lot about the problems in Ohio. That's where the 'political cover' comes in.

It makes for a better political argument. And it might get the lawsuit suport renewed.

[paineinthearse]

18. The cost of an investigation is very small potatos

Compared to the cost of the war on Iraq - $300 billion to date.

edited typo.

[TayTay]

11. Another letter from John Conyers

that seems rational and doesn't ask for anyone to contact KErry. Again. I am confused.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2019693&mesg_id=2019693

[paineinthearse]

19. Actually, this is his commentary on Krugman's NYT op-ed

Must read!

[kerrygoddess]

21. Hat's off to Mr Conyers for being open and honest.

PDA shuold have waited before they jumpred the gun. And yes, they did jump the gun.

[paineinthearse]

13. Received by email from PDA

I'd like to hear from any Kerry insiders/supporters in the John Kerry Forum. What's the buzz, is this under consideration? What's Kerry's plan? About a week ago, I sent a message to my junior Senator, but have yet to receive a reply.

p.s. Before ripping off my head for "coming into our forum" and "not being a supporter", I have voted for Kerry for Senate, worked on the 2004 campaign and remain a luke-warm supporter.

==================================

By email.



Dear Friends,

We have learned that the Kerry/Edwards campaign is preparing to withdraw from the Ohio recount case, which is pending in federal court. This move comes as Federal Judge Carr in Toledo prepares to hold a status conference on August 30 on this case, along with two other pending voting rights cases.

When most others stood aside, PDA stood for voting rights and untainted elections in Ohio and in the halls of Congress. We stood to make sure that every vote counts. We have continued to fight together without slowing down.

Yesterday, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. issued a letter to Senators Kerry and Edwards urging that they not withdraw from this case. Here is a link to the letter:

http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/08/congressman-conyers-urges-kerry-and.html

The National Voting Rights Institute and its general counsel John Bonifaz, a PDA National Advisory Board Member, represent 2004 presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik in their request for a meaningful recount of the 2004 Ohio presidential vote. During the recount last December, NVRI and its clients documented extensive irregularities in the way county boards of election conducted the recount. This included evidence that the Triad corporation had tampered with voting machines prior to the start of the recount, as well as evidence the county election officials had directly violated rules and procedures so as to avoid a full hand count of the ballots.

In late December, Cobb and Badnarik filed amended counterclaims in this case alleging the recount was not conducted in accordance with basic equal protection and due process guarantees under the US Constitution. At stake in this case today is whether the court will grant the plaintiffs declaratory judgment, setting forth the constitutional standard for how recounts should be conducted in future federal elections. This is a critical precedent to set for any future presidential or congressional election.

Please call/write/email Kerry today urging that he not withdraw and that he join Cobb and Badnarik's amended counterclaims on the way the recount was conducted. To contact Kerry/Edwards campaign office, go to:

http://www.johnkerry.com/contact/


In light of the upcoming August 30 hearing before Judge Carr, time is of the essence. If the proper precedent - of creating a constitutional standard as to how recounts should be conducted in regard to due process guarantees - is set in this case, it will help assure that future elections can and will be held without taint or improper interference. Kerry and Edwards must not back away from this all-important struggle. If they do, they will not only be abandoning all those who stood for them in the campaign and all those who fought for a fair counting of the votes, but they will also be abandoning the fight to make sure that elections in this country do not become the murky purview of corporations whose machines and managers cannot be trusted. Please contact them today and tell them to keep standing for the vote.

In peace and solidarity,

Tim Carpenter
http://www.pdamerica.org

P.S. Thank you again for all your work this week with the launch of the People's Petition for an IRAQ PEACE PROCESS. If you have not signed the petition please go to:


http://www.pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-withdraw-petition.php#here

The vigils last night were amazing. Thank you again for all your help and support.

Please continue to support this work by visiting https://www.pdamerica.org/donate.php and making a contribution.

[Mass]

17. Many received that as well

Can M. Carpenter substantiate his accusations?

At this point, it is striking to see that all that seems to evolve from anonymous sources posting on the blogs a couple of weeks ago. Conyers, when he was interviewed, said as clearly as possible he did not know if it was true and his letter to Kerry and Edwards is totally clear of that .

For the rest, can we get a true source for these rumors or is it really another of these rumors?

[kerrygoddess]

20. I was told this morning that PDA will have more info on this next week.

Whatever... it's another attack piece in my book.

In the meantime see Ray of Light's thread - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=38581&mesg_id=38581

The info posted there is info I also received and there have been a couple of people working to get to the bottom of this today.

[kerrygoddess]

22. Conyers put this in plain terms today.

PDA is in the wrong.