Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday 7/24/05

[MelissaB]

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x385151

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. Michael Keefer: The Strange Death of American Democracy: Endgame in Ohio

Michael Keefer: The Strange Death of American Democracy: Endgame in Ohio

University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) Associate Professor of English Michael Keefer writes: So who ever thought the 2004 US presidential election had the remotest chance of being honest and democratic?

Not, one might guess, the electronic voting security experts like Ken Thompson, Roy Saltman, Rebecca Mercuri, Bruce Schneier, Doug Jones, Victoria Collier, Aviel Rubin, Lynn Landes, and Bev Harris, who have for years been warning that the new voting technology coming into use in the United States offers unprecedented opportunities for electoral fraud.<1>

Probably not Osama bin Laden, who made his much-anticipated Jack-in-the-Box video appearance three days before polling day: wearing a gold-lamé hospital gown in front of a blank shower curtain, and with a nose that looked to have been quite recently punched flat, he landed some anti-Bush shots that Rush Limbaugh and the other ring-tailed roarers of the American right were happy to interpret as a last-minute endorsement of John Kerry.<2>

And certainly not Republican Congressional Representative Peter King, who made an equally notable video statement on the afternoon of November 2nd, long before the polls closed, in the course of a White House function that seemed to have put him into a celebratory mood. "It's already over," he told the interviewer. "The election's over. We won." Asked how he knew at that early hour, King replied: "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."<3>

Much More: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=34681


Thanks to Amaryllis here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x385358

[garthranzz]

6. But how to get others to recognize this?

Even those who voted for Kerry?

:mad: :argh: :argh:

[MelissaB]

2. Bill Bored: I wanted to write something about Andy

Although I've never met him face to face, there are some things that Andy Stephenson and I were involved in on the Net that should make every partisan freeper who hated him think twice about having done so, even though it's too damn late now.

Just before he got sick, Andy was in the nation's capital lobbying the Senate to pass a bill -- a bill written by a Republican.

The bill is called the "Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2005" (VIVA 2005), S330, introduced on February 9, 2005 by Senator John Ensign (R) of Nevada. If you don't believe me, you can look it up: <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.330: >

While Andy was in DC, I and a number of others on this forum and elsewhere helped to organize a letter and phone campaign aimed mostly at Republican Senators, to get them to co-sponsor this bill, which essentially would make unverifiable paperless e-voting a thing of the past for all federal elections.

There were many critics of Andy's work and of the bill itself. Most of them were progressive Democrats who felt this bill didn't go far enough. After all, they thought, it was written by a Republican so how good could it be?

VIVA 2005 did nothing to protect voting rights. It mandated no actual hand counting of the voter-verified paper ballots or records it would have created. It did not attempt to amend the Constitution to explicitly guarantee the right to vote, or make Election Day a national holiday. Nor did it ban the writing of e-voting software by convicted felons who themselves aren't even allowed to vote in many states. It didn't even do anything to help blind or physically disabled voters to vote independently -- none of that bleeding heart stuff. All this bill did was to ensure that there would be no more unverifiable elections in our free republic, by creating "an individual paper version of the voter's ballot before the voter's ballot is cast and counted" -- pure and simple.

Andy and others recognized that this bill with its many deficiencies, was a foundation that if made into law, would remove the scourge, uncertainty and risk of "vapor" ballots from our electoral system forever, or at least until someone else decided to screw things up again with a law to allow some new and improved hackable e-voting technology. Andy also recognized that the bill might actually have a chance of passing in a Republican controlled congress, so he was pragmatic about it. After all, the best piece of legislation is useless if it never becomes law. Andy saw the opportunity to achieve something with this bill that had been blocked in congress since the passage of HAVA -- the so called Help America Vote Act -- in 2002: voter-verified paper ballots. And unlike other pending legislation, Republicans against verifiable elections would have to deny passage of this bill to one of their own -- the Republican Senator from Nevada who had authored it.

As you might expect, Andy took a lot of heat form some Democrats for supporting this legislation, especially here on DU.

There was a conference of the Progressive Democrats of America at around the same time (who did not support this bill), and there were other bills being introduced by such luminaries as Sen. Chris Dodd (D - CT) and Rep. John Conyers (D - MI), and a number of other Democrats after the Jan. 6 congressional challenge to the electoral votes of Ohio. All these bills were laudable in their attempts to make the electoral process fair and accessible to all, but they all had loopholes of various shapes and sizes when it came to their voter-verified paper ballot language. Because of this, Andy could not in good conscience support any of these other bills.

So he went to Washington to lobby the Senate to pass a bill written by a Republican.

Meanwhile, back at the Internet, Andy, myself and some others actually debated with an attorney from John Conyers' office about the merits of the legislation before the House and Senate, and why we felt this Republican bill deserved bi-partisan support. Andy called the lawyer on the phone to continue this discussion in DC while he was there. I'm not sure but they may have even met face to face. I know from the DU postings at the time, that this debate became rather tense. There were no hard feelings in the end (I hope), but the fact is that there were times when we all had to simply agree to disagree.

It was a very worthwhile discussion however and it sent a powerful message to Mr. Conyers that while we supported him wholeheartedly in his efforts to reform our elections, there were a few things that could not be compromised. Conyers did get the message as several days later in an interview, he said that he was aware that there were some who favored voter-verified paper ballots along with ANY other solution to benefit disabled voters. I'm not sure if Senator Dodd has come to this realization yet, but then I'm not aware of any of his staffers ever posting on DU or debating Andy Stephenson either.

It was during this trip to DC that Andy began to experience the first symptoms of the pancreatic cancer that would eventually claim his life. A number of us on the board became amateur physicians trying to suggest treatments and calm him down. We did not yet know how serious this was. And later, as the freepers descended upon him to try and discredit his story and his work, those of us who devote most of our attention to the Election Results and Discussion Forum, myself included, were unaware that events had taken such an ugly turn. You see, this forum was Andy's home and it's home to a number of us who believe in what he was doing. And some of those people may even happen to be Republicans.

Now Andy is gone. But when someone tells you that he was a phony, ask yourself how many of those folks would ever support a bill for the good of the country that happened to have been written by a Democrat, and how many of them would go to Washington to lobby for it, and debate senior members of their own party in support of it, all while experiencing the symptoms of a life threatening disease?

If any of those who still believe Andy was a fraud also happen to believe in free, fair and verifiable elections, you might consider supporting that Republican bill, S330, so even you will someday know that your vote might actually be counted as cast. Andy might just rest a little easier that way.


Thanks to Bill Bored here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x385327

[Mnemosyne]

3. I agree with Andy's thinking on this one.

It would be a good place to start. I will call my Congress critter and urge him to support S330. It's Phil English in Pa 3rd. This may be the only time he would ever support anything I urge him to!!

Thanks again for posting these updates and such. You are much appreciated.:toast:

:kick:

[MelissaB]

4. I'm sorry I didn't have more time to work on this thread today.

:cry:

[Melissa G]

5. Electronic balloting to be in place by November

Electronic balloting to be in place by November

By Cliff Hamilton
Odessa American

When they get to the polls in November, Ector County voters will get their first look at the county’s new electronic voting machines.
The county is negotiating with Austin-based manufacturer Hart InterCivic and expects the company’s eSlate voting system to be set up before the next election, Elections Administrator Sharon Wilson said.
The county chose Hart’s system as the better of the two systems approved for elections in Texas, Wilson said.
The other is a system produced by Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software Inc.
snip

“All that you can verify — after you vote, you can bring that code back to the election judge. It’s not going to verify that yes, you voted for George Bush or anything like that because that’s not a requirement in the state of Texas,” she said.
Shafer said the machines will have a printable log that can be used to tally votes in the event of a recount, but that the logs won’t show whom an individual voted for.


http://www.oaoa.com/news/nw072405e.htm

[Melissa G]

7. Georgia is the hardest place to vote in America

Georgia is the hardest place to vote in America
07/24/2005

By Bill Shipp
The nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on Aug. 6. Georgia officials ought to do something special on that day.
How about unveiling another commemorative bronze plaque on the Capitol lawn? It could be appropriately inscribed:
"Welcome to Georgia, the toughest place in America for eligible, registered voters to cast their ballots. - Georgia League of Women Voters"
Four decades after enactment of the nation's most important guarantee of minority voting rights, Georgia still stands as a national disgrace on ballot-box access. In this important anniversary year, our state government has renewed efforts to make it difficult for poor people and rural blacks to vote.
In recent months, Georgia has become a high-profile national symbol of voting-rights retrogression. We already have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country. The 2005 General Assembly passed a law to make certain that turnout dips even further.
The usually sedate Georgia League of Women Voters is among two dozen groups assailing Georgia government for trying to chill minority voting. They have asked the feds to intervene before it is too late.
And the Justice Department is investigating.
Secretary of State Cathy Cox, the state's chief election officer, is appalled at the state government's drift into a 1950s attitude on suffrage.
The New York Times ridiculed and denounced Georgia last week for "putting up obstacles for black and poor voters." The world is watching and shaking its head.
What's the cause of the uproar?
The Legislature has passed a law prohibiting any person from voting at a polling place who does not have a driver's license, state-issued photo ID, U.S. passport or federal picture ID. Other forms of identification (Social Security card or birth certificate, for instance) will no longer be accepted. If the law stands, an estimated 150,000 Georgians will be disenfranchised. Gov. Sonny Perdue and his cohorts declared the measure was needed to combat "voter fraud" at the polling place.
Voter fraud? What voter fraud? Almost no instances of voter fraud involving IDs have been reported in Georgia.
However, the Secretary of State's Office has received reams of voter fraud complaints regarding the state's absentee ballot procedures that require no IDs - only a signature from a faceless mail-in respondent. Confronted with an abundance of evidence of voter fraud by mail, the Georgia Legislature moved as we have come to expect it to act. The legislators voted to relax and liberalize absentee-ballot regulations and make snail-mail voting easier. By the way, primary election records show that most absentee ballots are cast by white Republicans. The Legislature is controlled by white Republicans.
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=36&url_article_id=4498&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2