Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Monday 6/20/05

[Melissa G]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Monday 6/20/05

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.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.



If you want to know how post "News Banners" or other images, go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371233#371391

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=379061&mesg_id=379061

All previous daily threads are available here:
http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm





Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[Melissa G]

1. Voter ID rule could hit blacks, Latinos hardest

Voter ID rule could hit blacks, Latinos hardest
Posted: June 18, 2005


Gregory Stanford



In pushing to make possession of a current driver's license a prerequisite for voting, Republican lawmakers in Madison have inadvertently segued into a pet research project of a local think tank.

The Employment & Training Institute of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has long fretted over high unemployment in the inner city and has done a good deal of research on barriers to jobs. The agency puts at the very top of its list a barrier that gets short shrift elsewhere: lack of a driver's license.

A license best predicts - even better than a high school diploma - whether a Wisconsin Works client will land a job, says John Pawasarat, the institute's director, who has been researching this issue for a decade.

Almost all that while, Pawasarat has been sounding the alarm over the large number of inner city residents who lack valid licenses. Compounding the problem is the state's practice of suspending or revoking licenses of residents who fail to pay court fines - fines for violations not related to driving in most cases, by the way.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/jun05/334568.asp

[Melissa G]

2. Tied up in 200 knots

Tied up in 200 knots
Careful rules, not squabbling, must settle issues of voter ID - and soon

Jun. 19, 2005 12:00 AM

Remember the purple-dyed index fingers? In January, Iraqi voters triumphantly displayed their stained hands, the sign that they took part in a free election.

After defying death threats, many Iraqi voters would undoubtedly scratch their heads over the wrangling in Arizona about Proposition 200's voter-identification requirements.

snip


Secretary of State Jan Brewer, Attorney General Terry Goddard and Gov. Janet Napolitano are at loggerheads over how to carry out Proposition 200.

This isn't just a bitter political spat. A misguided application of Proposition 200 will strip qualified Arizonans of their privilege and responsibility to vote.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0619sun1-19.html

[Melissa G]

3. Cities' voting troubles persist

Cities' voting troubles persist


Como elections bailiff felt absentee votes were suspicious, contacted AG

By Elizabeth Crisp
[e-mail]

A winner has been certified in the Como mayoral race, but allegations of voter fraud linger.

Election issues also are ongoing in Greenwood and Houston, Miss.

In Como, the city's Democratic Executive Committee certified that incumbent Mayor Azria "Bobby" Lewers defeated Judy Sumner by eight votes in the runoff after ballots were examined May 24.
Elections bailiff Dee Ruhl said she was prompted to contact the attorney general's office because it seemed unusual to her that in a town with about 900 registered voters there were more than 100 absentee votes for the May 17 primary runoff.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050618/NEWS0103/506180355/1002/NEWS01

[Melissa G]

4. The Insurgent Word: Impeachment

The Insurgent Word: Impeachment


by Gerard Donnelly Smith

(Swans - June 20, 2005) Wake up Howard Dean! Remember: Regime change begins at home. Millions of Americans proudly displayed that sign during the 2004 election, hoping that they could exercise their right to expel the thieves from the White House. Unfortunately, because of election fraud in Ohio, as in Florida in 2000, the Bush Regime regained the presidency, and continues to consolidate power with threats of breaking the filibuster with a "nuclear option." The Bush Regime continues to wage an illegal occupation in Iraq, continues to manipulate both politics and economics in Afghanistan via the Hamid Karzai oil pipeline, continues to rattle its saber at Iran, North Korea, and any other country it deems "evil."

How does one resist the Bush Regime's blatant disregard for national sovereignty, individual freedoms, and constitutional laws protecting each American's right to a fair election?

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Francis Boyle, Professor of Law, have both drafted an "Impeachment Resolution Against President George W. Bush" while Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese argue in the Boston Globe that "THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse." John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, in "Unmasking a CIA Agent is Bad, Lying to Congress Worse. With Each US Death in Iraq, the Case Against the President Grows Stronger" writes:
snip
Among the list of growing offenses, these are the most prominent: 3) Ohio election fraud, 4) authorizing the torture of prisoners, 5) the Downing Street Memo, 6) illegal wiretaps of UN diplomats, 7) authorizing the kidnapping of "terror" suspects, 8) depriving citizens of First Amendment rights during the 2004 campaign and during his so-called town-hall meetings, 9) using federal tax-dollars to plant stories in the press, and 10) transferring $700 million from the Afghanistan war budget to preparations for the Iraq war.

http://www.swans.com/library/art11/gsmith50.html

[Melissa G]

5. Poll: Most Americans want U.S. to make sure Internet safe

Poll: Most Americans want U.S. to make sure Internet safe

June 19, 2005

BY TED BRIDIS AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON — Most Americans believe the government should do more to make the Internet safe, but they don't trust the federal institutions that are largely responsible for creating and enforcing laws online, according to a new industry survey.

People who were questioned expressed concerns over threats from identity theft, computer viruses and unwanted "spam" e-mails. But they held low opinions of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission, which protects consumers against Internet fraud.

snip
The alliance also has cautioned lawmakers against what it considers unnecessary security laws.

snip
"I don't think the public knows what it wants Congress to do, but it wants Congress to do something," said Dan Burton, the senior lobbyist for Entrust Inc., an online security company and member of the trade group. "They don't have a lot of confidence that Congress will do the right thing."

The survey was conducted May 2-9 by Pineda Consulting, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points. It was limited to people who indicated they were almost certain or probably would vote in the next federal election.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050619/NEWS/506190321/1006/BUSINESS

[Melissa G]

6. Observers say Miami election supervisors’ ouster was a quiet coup

Observers say Miami election supervisors’ ouster was a quiet coup

By Mc Nelly Torres
Miami Bureau
Posted June 20 2005


When Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess appointed Lester Sola as the county's new supervisor of elections, it was with little fanfare.

Unlike the arrival of his predecessor, Constance Kaplan, Sola's March 31 appointment largely went unnoticed. Instead, reporters focused on Kaplan's resignation following a county memo that determined a coding error led to hundreds of lost votes during the March 8 slot machine referendum.

snip
But some county observers have described the move as a bloodless coup cleverly executed by Burgess, who had decided to replace Kaplan with one of his own.

"Although he seems honest and concerned, his knowledge on the issue is not deep enough to run a department," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a longtime critic of the Elections Department, who heads the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. She said the department needs an independent thinker, someone who is not a bureaucrat and is willing to protect voters' rights.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-dsola20jun20,0,6187238.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

[Melissa G]

7. It’s cop power vs muscle power

It’s cop power vs muscle power

Bidyut Roy, Imran Ahmed, Siddiqui & Aninda Sardar

Kolkata, June 19: Parties limit violence to key seats
SPORADIC incidents of violence marred today’s Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections, which went off largely as planned by the two main rival camps — the CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress.

If anyone ruined their parties, it was the police which maintained a strict vigil. In fact, both the police and the State Election Commission claimed the moderate turnout of about 65 per cent was due to greater police presence on the roads.



snip
Still, while the KMC polls were by and large peaceful, there were stray incidents of violence, booth capturing, booth jamming and proxy voting.

Booth jamming
This was the favoured technique, both by CPM and Trinamool cadres. However, proxy voters had to keep an alert eye out for the police. The parties brought in people from Kolkata’s outskirts during the first hour of polling to prevent as much genuine voting as possible.

For example, in Ward 62, a Congress stronghold, when voters reached Booth 1 in Bloomingbirds’ Day School at 7 am, they found it already jammed with crowds. In protest, the CPI(M) candidate, Sadiq Manzar, went inside the booth and broke the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=135382

[Melissa G]

8. Pay up: The state should buy more voting machines

Pay up: The state should buy more voting machines
DEMOCRACY'S COST




Each weekday at 9:30 a.m., The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board meets to decide what issues the newspaper will address in the unsigned editorials that appear each day in this space, and what those editorials will say.
snip
Today we'd like to do something we've never done before: bring you into the discussion we had Thursday about plans by state and county election officials to consolidate neighborhood polling places, replacing many of them with larger "voting centers." The idea is to save the state from having to buy more than the 7,500 touch-screen voting machines it is purchasing to replace Utah's punch-card system.
Members of the board have written brief comments representing some of their views on this proposal. These thoughts, which appear below, combined with the story in Thursday's Tribune ("End of neighborhood vote?") and additional research by the board, were the raw materials we used to reach a consensus:

George Pyle: Saving money is no reason to shortchange democracy. But merging Utah's neighborhood voting precincts into larger voting centers is an idea that could have other benefits. By picking spots with sufficient space and parking - high schools, for example - counties might not only get away with buying fewer voting machines, but also staff each location with more technicians to explain and operate them, resolve questions and even create a festive atmosphere by which elections could not only be pulled off, but celebrated.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2809579

[Melissa G]

9. Louisiana Legislature: the week that was

Louisiana Legislature: the week that was
June 19, 2005

Online
Louisiana Legislature: www.legis.state.la.us. By John Hill

[e-mail]

Following are some highlights of what happened in the Louisiana Legislature last week


Election year switch: The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 2-1 against a proposed constitutional amendment to make



Louisiana's statewide elections coincide with congressional elections just like 44 other states. Like 18 other states, Louisiana's elections would have coincided with presidential elections beginning in 2008.

snip
Early voting: Voters would not have to give a reason to vote in what is called "absentee voting" under a bill given final legislative approval by the Senate.

House Bill 336 would eliminate the requirement that a voter state that he or she expects to be out of town or otherwise unable to vote on election day.

The measure by Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, also would rename absentee voting as early voting as it is known in many other states. Registrars hope it will increase participation.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050619/NEWS01/506190325/1002/NEWS

[Senior citizen]

10. Here's something I posted:

Eletronic voting machine companies and election officials hold election crisis and conflict management training:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1869034&mesg_id=1869034

[Melissa G]

11. Clark: "Clean Voters Rolls a Priority"

Clark: "Clean Voters Rolls a Priority"
Meridian, Miss.
Charles Daniel


One of the many roles of Mississippi's Secretary of State, Eric Clark, is to oversee elections statewide. Since Congress passed the 'Help America Vote Act' in 2002, as a result of voter troubles in Florida, it is his job to oversee improvements in the voting process in Mississippi.

One of the first improvements will be a new computer system that will link his office with all the circuit clerks’ offices statewide.

"Putting a new computer system in that link all our circuit clerks’ offices together across the state with each other and with the Secretary of State's office. This will help us clean up the voter rolls. It will help us identify the people who have died, the people that moved away, and people in jail who should not be on the rolls," Clark said.

Ninety-five percent of the funding for these improvements will be provided by the federal government. The state must pick up the bill for the remaining 5 percent.

http://www.wtok.com/news/headlines/1610077.html