Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Tuesday 7/12/05

[MelissaB]

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.





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=view_all&address=203x383145

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).

[MelissaB]

1. Conyers Turns Up Heat In Ohio Funding Scandal

This article appears in the July 15, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

Conyers Turns Up Heat In Ohio Funding Scandal
by Richard Freeman

In an escalation of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation funding scandal that could land at the doorstep of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) wrote a letter on July 5 to Gregory White, the U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Ohio, asking for information about the timing and progress of the Federal government's handling of its case concerning rare coin dealer and top Republican Party fundraiser, Tom Noe. Noe, who is viewed as Karl man in Ohio, is the subject of multiple Federal-state probes.

In 1998, the Bureau of Workers' Compensation entrusted Noe and his company Vintage Coins and Collectibles with $50 million of its funds to manage. Now, Noe has informed authorities that $10-12 million of these state funds are "unaccounted for." The Lucas and Franklin County Ohio prosecutors' offices are investigating Noe on this matter.

In 2004, Lucas County prosecutor Julia Bates came into possession of information that Noe may have violated Federal campaign finance laws, a criminal offense. This involved Noe's alleged illegal conduiting of funds to individuals in order for them to contribute to the Bush-Cheney campaign, at an October 2003 fundraising dinner in Columbus, Ohio that netted the Bush campaign $1.4 million.

On Oct. 13, 2004, Prosecutor Bates informed U.S. Attorney White of these very serious violations by Noe. White did not open grand jury proceedings until June 1, 2005. Representative Conyers states in his letter to White—who works for the Bush Justice Department—"I am concerned that your office delayed investigating this very serious matter until after the 2004 presidential election, and as a result prejudiced the government's ability to pursue justice in this case." Conyers also pointedly asks: "Did the U.S. Attorney's Office and other officials in the Bush administration ... communicate with each other about this case of Mr. Noe?"

Conyers played a leading role during and after the November 2004 elections in gathering massive evidence of voter suppression directed by the Cheney-Rove forces which stole the election in Ohio—an election which was vital to securing the Bush-Cheney victory in the Electoral College. Key sections of the Conyers letter follow.

More: http://www.larouchepub.com/other/govt_docs/2005/3228conyers_ohio_ltr.html

[MelissaB]

2. Gods and monsters: Prominent Ohio Christian right leader surprisingly open

Gods and monsters: Prominent Ohio Christian right leader surprisingly open about his disdain for Muslims

2005-07-11
By Anastasia Pantsios
Cleveland Free Times


Ohio Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell has made no secret of his ties to Ohio's Christian conservatives.

He seems to be especially tight with the Rev. Rod Parsley, whose World Harvest Ministries in suburban Columbus is headquarters for a growing religious empire. The sprawling campus is home to a congregation of 12,000, a Bible college, kindergarten-through-12th grade school, and an international TV ministry.

Parsley's ties to Blackwell are close and many. The two stumped Ohio together last October in support of the anti-gay-marriage Issue 1. Blackwell spoke at the World Harvest Church during a weekend in April celebrating Parsley's latest book, "Silent No More," whose jacket boasts the following endorsement from Blackwell: "This book should inspire men and women of faith ... and make 'values voters' a force that politicians can no longer ignore." Parsley returns the favor in the acknowledgments: "Ohio's Secretary of State, the Honorable Kenneth Blackwell: thank you for your courageous and outspoken support of moral value... Character like yours is instrumental in restoring honor to public service."

Parsley clearly aspires to greater political influence: his Center for Moral Clarity is part of the Ohio Restoration Project, a thinly veiled "Christians for Blackwell" movement. So their heaping praise on each other is not surprising.


More(of this shit) here: http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=21076

[mom cat]

3. Kick from someone who has been gone too long.

[MelissaB]

5. Thanks, mom cat!

:hi:

[mom cat]

8. Sorry that I have ben away so long....recovering from an injury. It will

take some time, but I will be back. I love everything that has happened to the site! Very impressive..:applause:

[MelissaB]

4. Swinging thru trees with the Rich & Famous: Jane plays Tarzan at the Bohem

Well, I found this doing a search for "voting machines"...

Swinging thru trees with the Rich & Famous: Jane plays Tarzan at the Bohemian Grove
By Jane Stillwater

Al-Jazeerah, July 11, 2005



(Author's note: For those of you who are not familiar with it, the Bohemian Grove, located in northern California, is where fantastically rich men from all over the world gather together each July -- with one apparent goal in mind: To search for newer and better ways to screw those of us who make less than five million dollars a year.

Originally the Bohemian Grove was started in the 19th century by local San Francisco tycoons but, since then, many U.S presidents have attended it including Hoover, Eisenhower and Reagan. Richard M. Nixon described The Grove thusly: "The Bohemian Grove -- which I attend from time to time -- it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco.")

I had so much fun sneaking into the Bohemian Grove last year that this year I think I'm going to try it again. However, because no women are allowed at this stag-party-in-the-woods for rich guys, last year I had to go disguised as a man. Do you know what that means? In order to keep me out this year, they are going to have to strip-search everyone who attends -- and check to see if they have any balls.

I guess that will leave out the Bush Republicans.

...snip

Speaking of elections, the makers of automatic voting machines will be there also. "We are worried because Bev Harris is starting a shoddy-product-recall move against us." Like the old Ford Pinto, Diebold and ES&S voting machines can be hazardous to our health.


More: http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2005%20Opinion%20Editorials/July/11%20o/Swinging%20thru%20trees%20with%20the%20Rich%20%20Famous%20Jane%20plays%20Tarzan%20at%20the%20Bohemian%20Grove%20By%20Jane%20Stillwater.htm

[MelissaB]

6. William Rivers Pitt: The Best Of Us

William Rivers Pitt: The Best Of Us

Tuesday, 12 July 2005, 11:43 am
Opinion: William Rivers Pitt

The Best of Us

By William Rivers Pitt
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071105Y.shtml
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 11 July 2005

Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
-- Words inscribed on the gravestone of Brandon Lee




It was late July 2004, and it was a hot day for Seattle. The park was filled with activists, organizers and regular folks, there to hear a battery of speakers who had come together for this stop on the Rolling Thunder Democracy Tour. I spent a couple of hours that day in a crowded tent with election reform activist Andy Stephenson, running a teach-in on electronic touch-screen voting machines, corporate control of the vote, and what could be done about it.

I threw in my two cents here and there, but this was Andy's show. He had thrown his entire life into the fight for election reform, he had crisscrossed the country a dozen times, he had raided the offices of public officials with camcorder in hand to ask questions and demand answers, he had run for the office of Secretary of State in Washington on a platform of reforming the way we run elections in this country, and on that hot July day in Seattle, he was despondent.

As we sweltered in the tent, Andy ticked off all the problems we were sure to face in the coming November presidential election. There was no independent vetting of these voting machines, he explained, so there was no way to tell if the hardware and software within was counting things properly. There were no paper ballots involved, so recounts were a thing of the past. Votes tallied on these machines would be transferred via unsecured modem to central processing computers - which were basically PCs with Windows software - that had no security and could be easily tampered with. The companies distributing these machines and counting the votes were run by men who gave money to, and in some instances actively worked for, the Bush for President campaign.

More: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0507/S00163.htm

[jarnocan]

14. Quoted /linked you on here

http://vvlobbydays.blogspot.com/

Andy Stephenson's leagacy?
"Please go and read the last 2 entries on this blog.
I had heard some of the Andy Stephenson story prior to his recent death, but much more after.
It is a story of a very concerned and brilliant young man who had been working for Verified Voting for quite a while before the 2004 election.
He knew the vote would be sabotaged by the far right.
He didn't know that his chances for survival would be as well."

and then on OLS (mixed political forum) via above post- spreading the word, and also do you think the link for VOTE Trust donations is good for this?

thanks!

[MelissaB]

7. FITRAKIS: Hocking County Activists Go To Sheriff's Dept!

FITRAKIS: Hocking County Activists Go To Sheriff's Dept!
Plan to File Charges Against Lisa Swartz (BOE-R)!
County Prosecutor Calls BOE Meeting for Monday!

A BRAD BLOG exclusive. Guest blogged by Winter Patriot According to a recent statement from Dr. Robert J. Fitrakis: For those of you following the Sherole Eaton story in Hocking...

A BRAD BLOG exclusive. Guest blogged by Winter Patriot



According to a recent statement from Dr. Robert J. Fitrakis:

For those of you following the Sherole Eaton story in Hocking County, Ohio, I spoke with her last night and found out the Hocking County Prosecutor has called for a meeting of the Board of Elections on Monday (tomorrow, July 11). Voting rights activists have already contaced the Sheriff's dept. regarding Lisa Swartz's conducting of an admitted Republican fundraiser while she worked for the BOE. Activists in Hocking County plan to file theft in office and other related charges against Swartz. As most of you may know, the Hocking County BOE is under a temporary restraining order from replacing Sherole Eaton since last Tuesday thanks to Cliff Arnebeck. Cliff and I are working on a permanent injunction to have Eaton reinstated to her job with BOE since she is a whistleblower.

Link: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001571.htm

[MelissaB]

9. "Andy Stephenson – A Real American Hero" - a LTE we got tonight.

This was a letter to the editor submitted to us tonight at Radio News America. We got this in our email box tonight and I thought I would share it... I wish I could put the whole thing here.. Please follow the link, this was extremely touching.



Andy Stephenson – A Real American Hero
Original commentary by Robbie Michaels
Radio News America - July 11th, 2005

When I heard the news Friday afternoon that Andy Stephenson lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, I cried my eyes out. Although I never met him personally, I lost someone I looked up to as a hero. It was painful for me to read about the circumstances of his death because it made me relive my mother’s battle with pancreatic cancer.

I probably took the news just as hard as his family and friends, because the wounds from this disease cut very deep into your soul. But those wounds are nothing compared to the stories I heard about the circumstances of Andy’s illness, treatment, and resulting death.

At about the same time I got word of his passing Friday afternoon, I heard whispers of sabotage, deceit, and of unadulterated hatred of this wonderful man. I found this very disturbing, and I needed to know everything that happened to him and why.

When I sat down Saturday night to begin writing this commentary, my mind was full of questions. Was the medical treatment Andy received adequate? Who delayed his surgery, and why? Who had the callousness to accuse him of faking a life-threatening illness? I had to search for the truth, regardless how much it would hurt to learn those answers.

much more at link. http://www.radionewsamerica.com/index.php?blog=5&p=5790&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1


Thanks to KyndCulture here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4077731

[MelissaB]

10. Week old under the radar story about GOP rigging election:

Baltimore Chronicle has following story:

RNC VOTE FRAUD?
Team Bush Paid Millions to Nathan Sproul—and Tried to Hide It

In the months before the 2004 presidential election, a firm called Sproul & Associates launched voter registration drives in at least eight states, most of them swing states. The group--run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Christian Coalition and the Arizona Republican Party--had been hired by the Republican National Committee.
Sproul got into a bit of trouble last fall when, in certain states, it came out that the firm was playing dirty tricks in order to suppress the Democratic vote: concealing their partisan agenda, tricking Democrats into registering as Republicans, surreptitiously re-registering Democrats and Independents as Republicans, and shredding Democratic registration forms.

The scandal got a moderate amount of local coverage in some states--and then the election was over. Now anyone who brought up Nathan Sproul, or any of the other massive crimes and improprieties committed on or prior to Election Day, was shrugged off as a dealer in "conspiracy theory."

It seems that Sproul did quite a lot of work for the Republicans. Exactly how much did he do? More specifically, how much did the RNC pay Sproul & Associates?

If you went online last week to look up how much money Sproul received from the Republicans in 2004, you would have found that, according to the party (whose figures had been posted by the Center for Responsive Politics), the firm was paid $488,957.

In fact, the RNC paid Sproul a great deal more than that. From an independent study of the original data filed by the Republicans with the Federal Election Commission, it is clear that Sproul was paid a staggering $8.3 million for its work against the Democrats.


http://baltimorechronicle.com/070505Miller-Irmus.shtml


Thanks to rasputin1952 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x138956#138978

[MelissaB]

11. another snip

On June 17, the RNC submitted a (third) revised report. In it, those three suspicious Sproul expenditures labeled "Voter Registration Costs" had been changed to "Political Consulting." As a "clarification," it was as vague as possible. Although it only raised more questions, there seems to be no letter in the FEC database concerning that unedifying correction.

Moreover, there are some big surprises buried in the paperwork. It turned out that the RNC paid Sproul not only for their pre-election work, but also paid them for work after the election. According to their Year-End Report, filed on Jan. 28, 2005, the RNC paid Sproul for "Political Consulting" in December--long after all the voter registration drives had ended.

And two months later, when the RNC filed their amended Year-End Report on May 3, the dates of those December expenditures mysteriously changed. A payment of $210,176, once made on Dec. 20, was changed to Dec. 22. A payment of $344,214, initially recorded on Dec. 22, was changed to Dec. 9.

As to why Sproul was being paid in December, and why the dates were changed, one can only speculate. But it may be worth noting that the Ohio recount took place from Dec. 13 through Dec. 28.

[MelissaB]

12. and another

In any case, all the payments by the RNC to Sproul add up to a whopping $8,359,161--making it the RNC's eighth biggest expenditure of the 2004 campaign.

Sproul is currently under investigation by the Oregon Attorney General's office, for altering the voter registration forms of several thousand students in that state. Whether the new numbers are in part mistaken, they represent a huge expense for the Republicans. Given Sproul's history of serious electoral mischief, affecting countless Democratic voters in the last election, it is important that we ask some sober questions: Where did all that money come from? Why did the RNC suppress their real expenditures? And what exactly did Sproul do for all that pay? If we're going to get some reasonable answers, the FEC must undertake a very thorough audit of the books.

[MelissaB]

13. Story also here

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2005/06/team-bush-paid-millions-to-nathan.html

Thanks to GuvWurld here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x138956#138978

[Nictuku]

15. Ohio Republican chief justice disqualifies Democrats from hearing corrupti

This really stinks to high heaven:

From RawStory:

Ohio Republican chief justice disqualifies Democrats from hearing corruption case
RAW STORY

All 34 judges on the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court have been disqualified by Ohio's chief justice from hearing a lawsuit alleging corruption by the Republican party, the information-restricted Cleveland Plain Dealer reports Wednesday, via AP. Excerpts follow.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer said on Tuesday the unusual move was necessary to eliminate any perception of bias by the court system that's dominated by Democrats. Moyer is a Republican. Moyer said he will appoint a retired visiting judge from outside Cuyahoga County to the case.

The suit, filed by the 2002 Democratic nominee for governor, accuses Gov. Bob Taft, other elected Republicans and the Ohio GOP of instituting a "pay-to-profit" system in which millions of dollars were raised by trading unbid state contracts for campaign contributions
At the time, Taft spokesman Orest Holubec said the lawsuit was "frivolous, politically motivated and it ought to be dismissed." He said the Taft administration has strictly followed Ohio's competitive-bidding laws.

Taft and the other defendants asked Moyer on May 27 to disqualify the entire Cuyahoga County court because the judges' budgets, in part, are controlled by Hagan and two fellow Democratic commissioners.

Moyer noted in his decision that Hagan "exercises considerable authority over the budget" of the court.

"The public could reasonably question whether any judge now serving on the court of common pleas in Cuyahoga County would be able to render a decision based solely on the relevant facts and the law applicable to those facts," he said.

Kenneth F. Seminatore, Hagan's attorney, called Moyer's ruling "a very broad decision" that fits in with GOP efforts "to deep-six these issues and hope they go away" before the 2006 statewide elections.