Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News WEDNESDAY 8/24/05

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Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News WEDNESDAY 8/24/05

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.

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



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). Atlanta Journal Constitution: Tens of Thousands March Supporting Voting Rights Act

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[autorank]

1. WI & DC: Fake Republican Election Fraud Group Screws Up in WI, Bigtime!

Blowback: The GOP fake electoion fraud group (see yesterdays news) called Milwaukee a hotbed of electoin fraud and blamed Democrats. Then the Federal Prosecutor told the fake group that there would be no prosecution. Hmm…Mehlman, you failed! And you accused a Franciscan seminarian of being a perpetrator (a cardinal sin, btw). Read it and weep!!!

Editorial: State GOP should apologize

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/aug05/350401.asp
From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Aug. 23, 2005

As if the gargantuan mess that was last November's election in Milwaukee wasn't bad enough, the Wisconsin Republican Party has been painting it as even more dire than it actually was. This campaign of hype crossed the line of decency two weeks ago, however, when it sullied the reputation of an innocent person, who now deserves an apology.

GOP Chairman Rick Graber and two Republican lawmakers - Rep. Jeff Stone of Greendale and Sen. Joe Leibham of Sheboygan - staged a news conference Aug. 9 outside a home in the 1600 block of N. Astor St. to announce it had sent to authorities evidence that at least nine people who voted in Milwaukee in November also cast ballots in other cities, including Chicago and Minneapolis.

The politicians didn't release names, but their presence implicated the private home that formed the news conference backdrop. A couple, Stuart and Gayle Schenk, live there, and until last August, their son Joseph did, too. He moved to Chicago to study to join the Franciscan order of the Roman Catholic Church.

The GOP trio was essentially implying that this seminarian was a cheat. The other day, however, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic, a Republican appointee, announced that an investigation into the nine cases uncovered zero evidence of fraud. The authorities found only clerical errors and inconsistencies.

The party owes the younger Schenk an apology. It was wrong to have besmirched his name for the sake of political gain: namely, adoption of a measure that would tighten voter ID requirements so much that Wisconsin would boast the most rigid rules in the nation. Tighter rules tend to help the GOP by suppressing Democratic votes.

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The party is letting ambition get the best of it. Bureaucratic meltdown most logically explains the mess here in November. Mayor Tom Barrett believes long lines and other snafus suppressed far more votes than the amount cast illegally. He's likely right.

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The GOP went too far, however, when it besmirched an innocent man for partisan gain.

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[wli]

6. fraud! libel! prosecute! prosecute! prosecute! n/t

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2. USA: The Book that Got Krugman Cooking – “STEAL THIS VOTE”

This is one powerful book. It inspired Paul Krugman to say this: “The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections 2006) by any means necessary. And everything we’ve seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.”

Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America (Paperback) by Andrew Gumbel

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1560256761/002-0458274-1128837?v=glance

“A FEW DAYS before the November 2004 election, Jimmy Carter was asked what would happen if, instead of flying to Zambia or Venezuela or East Timor, his widely respected international election monitoring team was invited to turn it’s attention to the United States. His answer was stunningly blunt. Not only would the voting system be regarded as a failure, he said, but the short comings were so egregious the Carter Center would never agree to monitor an election there in the first place. “We wouldn’t think of it,” the former president told a radio interviewed. “The American system wouldn’t measure up to any sort of international standard for several reasons.” Page 1.



CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

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3. MO: St. Louis County Goes Machine – Opposed by Activist Group

”Paper ballots” are “not practical” according to St.Louis County elections official. Not practical, is that what the elections officials in Toronto say (Canada has all paper ballots)?

St. Louis County gets peek at scan, touch voting systems

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/8ECDB69DA6B218AE862570670010D1FA?OpenDocument

By Jo Mannies
Post-Dispatch Political Correspondent
08/23/2005

The public can get its first look Thursday and Friday at new voting systems that St. Louis County election officials are considering to replace the punch card ballots that have been used since the mid-1970s.

But except for certain focus groups, public observers may have to look and not touch.

County Election Board chairman John Diehl said that selected groups of would-be voters, notably the elderly and handicapped, will first be asked to try out the devices. Election workers from various regional jurisdictions also will be able to test the machines for ease of use.

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"The staff is instructed to allow the public to observe, as long as they're not being disruptive," Diehl said, adding that the selection of a new county system "is going to be open and transparent."

On Tuesday, Diehl and Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan briefed members of the St. Louis County Council on the new federal mandates regarding voting procedures that the county must meet by next year's August election. The county is not required to change voting systems, but some of the new regulations are deemed to be difficult to meet with the existing punch card ballots. A new system must be purchased by Dec. 31 to qualify for federal aid.

Council members appeared to prefer the new optical-scan devices - which involve a special paper ballot - over the touch-screen machines, which operate similar to bank

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Martha Scheer with Missourians for Honest Elections said the group is concerned that the county may adopt a voting system that could be subject to fraud. The group advocates that voters use a paper ballot, with the counting conducted by hand within each precinct.

Diehl said that's not practical, given the county's voter rolls of roughly 700,000 people. Any new system purchased by the county will involve a paper ballot or a paper audit trail, he added.


CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[wli]

7. Missouri's vote rigged, Stalin-style

"It's not who votes, it's who counts the votes."

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4. TX: Bandera Bulletin LTTE – Sums it All Up Quite Nicely

This is pure and simple eloquence! One of my favorite statements ever on election fraud...from "the Cowboy Capitol of the world"

Printers on electronic voting machines: an option?

http://banderabulletin.com/articles/2005/08/24/news/letters/895.txt

8/24/05
Bandera, Texas LTTE
Not when the Secretary of State is investigating election irregularities.

I'm a computer programmer. I know that any entry-level programmer could rig an election to write software that: accepts votes, stores them in a "safe" place (for review/change), while registering a different vote and making enough back-ups (of the fake) to console unwitting officials.

Hart, manufacturers of the purchased machines, charged $3,000 for $1,000, off-the-shelf computers. Claiming "100 years of printing history," they'll charge $1,200 each for print that fades from sunlight, heat or time (thermal), while others offer integrated, non-fading printers (standard inkjet) at only $100 each. Routinely corrupted files, bad storage media, viruses, credit card fraud and rampages by hackers are enough failures to convince any thinking person that Bandera needs a paper trail.

Unless you live in a cave, you know about the "worm" invading Microsoft's operating systems and that devastated CNN, the Financial Times, the New York Times, ABC and other industry giants; and you realize that even the all-powerful billionaire Bill Gates can't safeguard his software from hackers. So what makes us think Hart can? Printers enable voters to immediately verify their printed vote and deposit them in a box for safe-keeping for a recount. Without printers, there is no "recount." Ohio and Florida proved these machines invite fraud, with lawyers now cashing-in on pricey litigation.

We spoke with Professor Dan Wallach, computer scientist at Rice University, participant in the first study by Johns Hopkins of these machines and provider of the technical information herein. He said Hart refuses to allow review of their machines, that they rely on owners/communities to block unauthorized access, and that it's only a matter of time until someone gains access, "breaks" Hart's security and then posts step-by-step instructions via the Internet. With plans to put one in our Super-S, "safe-guarded" machines? Not here.

Professor Wallach of Rice University regards electronic machines without printed records of individual voter transactions "worthless," stressing that there was "no good reason" not to have printers. There are plenty of bad ones.

In God, we trust.

From all others, we require proof.

Sylvia Colburn
Bandera

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[wli]

8. An option? More like "nowhere near enough."

There is no room for compromise or "tolerance" here.

[Bill Bored]

12. Wallach, Author of Sect. VII of the Donna Brazile report. Please read:

<http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/06/democracy_at_ri.php>

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5. OH: Questions Raised About Hackett Loss in Ohio's 2nd.

OK, so I wrote the article and included it in my Daily News Thread. It's the last one listed...whatever, it’s all good.

The Veteran Of Fallujah Defeated By OH's Humidity

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN?
DEMOCRAT HACKETT LOSES A SQUEAKER IN
OHIO’S 2nd CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT:
THE NEW VOTING RIGHTS STRUGGLE 2004-2005

Full article in “Scoop” http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00186.htm

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DemocraticUnderground.Com

Ohio’s 2004 Presidential election represented the latest phase of the voting rights struggle, combining both racial discrimination and the new voting rights issue, the possibility of election fraud through the manipulation of voting and tabulation machines and software, as well as partisan access to communication systems for reporting tallies to central processors.

An unlikely focus for the new voting rights struggle in a “safe” district.

The 2005 Hackett-Schmidt contest for Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District took place in the midst of ongoing concerns about the 2004 Presidential election. Ohio was ground zero for Election Day irregularities, controversies, and charges of election fraud.

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Southwestern Ohio, home of the 2nd district, is solid Republican territory, with a dream demographic for the party

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This is the district that had elected Republicans to Congress in all of the15 previous elections. Rep. Rob Portman won his most recent election with a 70% popular vote. The Democratic challenger, Charles Sanders, had tried four times to beat Portman and never once came close.

Something changed in the summer of 2004 in the 2nd district.

Hackett emerges as a threat.

The Democratic Party started out with little hope of winning, yet the race became competitive. Charles Sanders had never topped 28% in four tries against Portman. This election was different, with the Republicans absent the benefit of incumbency. As a veteran Cincinnati Enquirer reporter said prophetically on May 26, the Democrats saw “a faint crack of light through a door that may not open again for many years if they do not field the strongest possible candidate.”

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[wli]

9. humidity = fraud, plain and simple

The whole affair was Stalin-style election rigging, period. The entire thing is illegitimate, and Hackett is the legitimate representative.

Schmidt should be in prison for election fraud.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Thanks for the reports! Recommended! n/t

[Helga Scow Stern]

11. Recommended. Thanks, autorank!

You've been busy keeping the fires of truth burning.