Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News WEDNESDAY 10/12/05

[autorank]

"Hello Dave, I notice that you’re not registered.”

The Key Player in Centralized Voter Registration Databases:
from the people who brought you the Florida 2004 selective
felon purge, it’s Accenture, an Arthur Anderson spinoff.

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.
Only the deluded & complicit accept election results on blind faith.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News WEDNESDAY 10/12/05

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



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).

[autorank]

1. WI: Centralized Voter Registration Databses – the New Suppression?

There are two articles here. The first describes recent events in Wisconsin rearding delays in the centralized voter registration database. Note how the whole effort is put forward as a means of getting rid of voters and registrations. Accenture, with four other major state contracts, is behind and it will cost Milwaukee money. Not also the citation by this paper of the 200 ‘felons’ who may have voted illegally. This is right from the Republican fake voting rights group. If the reporter had just read election news, he’d know that. Accenture is the company that created the bogus Florida felon purge list for 2004, the one that conveniently omitted anyone with an Hispanic last name. The second article is a part of coverage I did of Matt Pascerella at the Portland Summit to Save our Elections. He’s with GregPallast.Com and hot on this story.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct05/361674.asp

What's the holdup on voter list? Depends whom you ask

By GREG J. BOROWSKI
[e-mail]
Posted: Oct. 7, 2005

Milwaukee election officials said Friday that they are making progress on updating the city's voter list, by removing names of people who have died or where other municipalities have notified them of a voter's move.

Special Section: State Politics

But a complete purge, the sort that would resolve major problems with the list, has been stymied because of delays at the state level in developing the new statewide voter list, said Sue Edman, executive director of the city Election Commission.

In a recent letter to the state Elections Board, she estimated there are up to 30,000 bad addresses among the nearly 400,000 on the city list.

But a state Elections Board official said Friday that the city should start the process, which requires that postcards be sent to those who have not voted in four-plus years. Those not returned after 30 days, or which come back as undeliverable, can later be removed from the list.

Barbara Hansen, project director for the statewide list, said the section of the state list covering the city should be ready to go by the end of the year. That will leave time to eliminate the bad names, so a solid list is available in time for the Feb. 21 primary.

Edman and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett had indicated it was possible the purge, something officials concede is long overdue, would have to wait until after the spring elections.

The two said that is one trickle-down effect of the state's problems. Last month, state officials said they would miss the federally mandated Jan. 1 deadline to have the list in place.

<snip>

The state list, to cost some $27.5 million, is behind schedule. Much of that, $13.9 million, is going to a company called Accenture to develop the database. Last month, the state Elections Board agreed to pay $1.5 million more to Deloitte Consulting to oversee the project.

Much of the cost is to be paid through federal money that was included in the Help America Vote Act.



From Scoop coverage of the National Summit to Save Our Elections

Corporate Control of the Final Vote Count:
Centralized Voter Registration Databases (by autorank)

Matthew Pascarella offered a clear reason for concern about the imminent privatization of state-wide centralized voter registration databases. Section 303 of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA),, requires that states complete this process within the next three months. These databases will be the gateway to voting and the fences that keep people from the polls. Given the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida where (there were 2 lists in FL 2000 purge the first one was of 57,000(TK) and the other, more complete one that came up from the court case had over 90,000 individuals listed) 50,000 voters were disenfranchised due to state computerization activities; there is real cause for concern. Pascarella is a researcher, writer, and producer for Greg Palast. Greg Palast broke the major story on the Florida “felon purge” which removed over 57,000 Floridians from the voting rolls before the 2000 elections.

State governments are seeking private vendors to design, manage, network, and maintain these centralized voter registration databases. Companies including Diebold, Quest, Unisys and Accenture are gaining major contracts and competing for more by promising individual states that their company will bring them into federal compliance. Pascarella’s research has shown states are entering into contracts that shed corporate liability. Often, companies cannot be held responsible for delays, cost overruns, and failing to meet federal requirements.

Accenture currently has four contracts for centralized registration databases. This is of real concern based on their performance for the state of Florida in 2004. Accenture received a $2 million contract to create a state-wide voter registration list that was to serve as the basis for a new purge of felons from Florida’s voting rolls. Pascarella and his team of researchers obtained the Accenture list from a source and began examining it. They quickly noticed that less than ½ of one percent of the names were of Hispanic origin. Given the substantial Hispanic population in Florida, this seemed both odd and perhaps intentional. After all, Hispanics represent about 20% of Florida’s population and they are very active in local, state and national politics. They also vote in large numbers. Despite this huge mistake managing the 2004 purge list in Florida, Accenture continues to consult the state of Florida on the development of its centralized voter registration database.

Of greater concern is the fact that four additional states have contracts with Accenture. These include Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Four of the five (including Florida) Accenture states have Republican governors responsible for the buy decision for centralized voter registration database services. According to Pascarella, there have been “glitches” and other problems every state but Wyoming where Accenture has yet to begin work.

Matthew Pascarella of GregPalast.com and activist
Kat L’Estrange discuss the extended day at the conference.
***********

[autorank]

2. OP ED: Bernard Weiner Honors Election Fraud Journalists

This is a nice role call for those who had the courage to speak the truth, early and often.

Before the Plamegate Deluge: Honoring Our Journalistic Heroes
Tell A Friend

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bernard__051011_before_the_plamegate.htm

by Bernard Weiner

http://www.opednews.com

A political and media onslaught is about to be unleashed with the indictments of a whole host of key White House officials (including you-know-who) caught up in the Plamegate coverup. The unraveling of this potentially treasonous scandal -- which began with the outing, for political reasons, of a covert CIA officer -- could well provide the tipping point that will allow the Democrats to retake the House in the next election, initiate Congressional investigations of Bush Administration crimes, and possibly even pass an impeachment resolution.

So, before all the craziness begins, it might be useful to remind ourselves how far we've come in the battle to remove the extremists who currently rule so recklessly and incompetently in our names. And how the work we've all been doing in the political trenches, unearthing the corruption and incompetence and dangerous initiatives of the Bush Administration, has helped weaken that crowd of crooks and liars to the point where impeachment is a serious possibility. Of course, the Republicans these days -- with their never-ending exploding scandals and bare-knuckles infighting -- are not doing such a bad job destroying themselves without our help.

ELECTORAL FRAUD SPECIALISTS

And then there are the writers who have educated all of us on the all-important topic of electoral integrity and electoral fraud. It doesn't really matter how correct our analyses are, and how much activism we can generate, if the voting tabulations remain easy to manipulate and corrupt, which is the case today and was the case in 2004, 2002 and 2000. American democracy owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the groundbreakers in this field: Bev Harris and the late Andy Stephenson of Black Box Voting, Mark Crispin Miller, Greg Palast, Alastair Thompson at New Zealand's Scoop website, and such researchers and writers as Lynn Landes, Rebecca Mercuri, Bob Fitzrakis, Harvey Wasserman, Steven Rosenfeld, Steven Freeman, Pokey Anderson, Ernest Partridge, Steven Hill, Kim Zetter and others.

One must not neglect the progressive online activist organizations that have used the internet so successfully for organizing and raising funds, such as MoveOn, True Majority, AfterDowningStreet, Codepink, and the like. (For a fuller listing, check out the ##Activists' Page). www.crisispapers.org/features/activist.htm

And, finally, though this article is concentrating mainly on U.S. writers and editors and websites, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the vital online contributions of non-Americans who help to educate us, and often are the first to discuss the dirty little secrets of the Bush Administration. Such as: the Guardian and Independent and Times Online in the U.K., Scoop in New Zealand, Outlook India in India, and such writers as Robert Fisk, John Pilger, George Monbiot, Julian Borger, Andrew Gumbel, in the UK, Arundhati Roy in India, Salam Pax and Riverbend in Iraq, Eric Margolis and Linda McQuaig in Canada, William Pfaff in France, et al.

These lists of names could have gone on much longer, and no doubt I've inadvertently left out many of your favorites -- for which lapses I assume you'll be alerting me, for future updates.

I hope you weren't bored with all those names above, but so often we take for granted the good, solid, provocative work of those struggling daily in the fields of journalism and commentary, especially those who match our values. Their contributions become our daily political wallpaper, so to speak. But it's difficult, dangerous work, I can assure you, and all of those listed here, and many of those omitted, are true patriots and heroes in the struggle we're all in to stop the international imperial slaughter abroad, and the march toward a militarist police-state at home -- and, in so doing, to help rescue the moral soul of America. #

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., was a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for 19 years, an editor of the "alternative-press" Northwest Passage in Washington State in the '60s and early-'70s, and currently is co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). Send comments to >>crisispapers comcast.net <<.

Originally published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 10/11/05.

[autorank]

3. UK: Election Reform to Stop Labour “Vote Rigging Factory”

Don’t act surprised, it's the party of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The article states, “Labour candidates had run" a vote-rigging factory" that would "disgrace a banana republic" They said it. Maybe Tony is without a true mandate? Send in Jeff G.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/apathy/story/0,12822,1590116,00.html

Lord Chancellor announces plans to toughen laws on electoral fraud
• Bill aims to reverse fall in electoral register
• National online register to curb double voting

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Wednesday October 12, 2005
The Guardian

Tougher measures to combat electoral fraud - including a proposal to sign before you can vote in a polling station - were announced in a wide-ranging electoral reform bill yesterday by Lord Falconer, the lord chancellor.

The bill, which also allows teenagers over 18 to stand for parliament, aims to reverse a trend that has seen some 3 million people leave the electoral register in the last parliament - mainly the poor, young and people from ethnic minorities in inner city seats.

The proposals received a critical reception from the Tories and the independent Electoral Commission, who said they did not go far enough to tackle electoral fraud. There are no plans to curb all postal voting and a proposal to replace household registration with individual registration recommended by the Electoral Commission has been rejected.

The bill contains measures to tackle fraudulent registering and voting. People will also face prosecution if they use undue influence to persuade people to vote for a candidate, even if the person is unpersuaded.

New measures will also lead to a marked register for postal votes and each ballot paper will have a security mark instead of an easily forged stamp or barcode.

A national online voting register will be set up with the potential for officials to check whether people have voted twice in a general election from different registered addresses. The government is also to test - probably at a local authority election - a system where electors will be asked to sign for ballot papers so their signature can be compared with the one they registered to vote.

Electoral registration officers will be expected to be much more pro-active in getting people to register - particularly in areas where voter registration has dropped …

<snip>

Backstory

Concern about electoral fraud centres on postal voting. This is because the law has changed, allowing anybody to ask for a postal vote. But it has increased voter turnout. 6 million applied for a postal vote in the last election. In the Birmingham 2004 council elections, postal fraud was widespread. The inquiry judge found some Labour candidates had run" a vote-rigging factory" that would "disgrace a banana republic"

[autorank]

4. NYC: Nick von Hoffman Rocks the House on Jimmy & James

NYC: Nick von Hoffman Rocks the House on Jimmy & James
Well, von Hoffman is alive and well. His column has a different take on election reform stressing lack of participation and poor ballot access for many. His points about C-B are on target.

Blue-ribbon boys make a mess of voting
Jimmy Carter, James A. Baker, what could go wrong?

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8349

by Nicholas von Hoffman
10/12/2005

Carter, who made it to the White House without big money, is backing a system that will make it next to impossible for anyone else to do what he did.

Another one of those limp-dick, hoity-toity, bipartisan blue-ribbon panels has come through with another one of those sets of recommendations. This time it’s on election reform, if one uses the word “reform” very loosely. These kinds of reports serve one purpose, if nothing else: They tell us what the clubbable people — the moneyed, prestige types — have on their minds. They are a means by which the rulers communicate with the ruled.

This panel is co-chaired by a former president, Jimmy Carter, and a former secretary of state, James A. Baker, a guy who has made a career out of gaming the system and making out like a bandit. In short, Jimmy and Jim are hardly a pair of malcontents, so their report is a work of misdirection in which the blue-ribbon boys beg that we, the blue-ribbonless masses, expend energy and enthusiasm arguing about changes in the rules that will not make a crumb’s worth of difference one way or the other.
<snip>

The commission wants electronic voting machines that produce a paper record for recounts in disputed elections. Who can quarrel with that? At the same time, anyone who thinks that having such machines will make a significant difference in the outcome of most of our elections is mistaken. Paper or no paper, there will always be ways of stealing votes, and we have knaves enough who are clever enough to invent them. Nevertheless, it is only very close elections that can be stolen, and for those who lose close elections that way, it is tough — but it does happen from time to time. The knaves can’t steal against a landslide, so the real protection is winning big.

<snip>

Primaries are a big-money game, and super-primaries — that is, regional primaries — will be a super-big-money game. The only people who can compete in elections on that scale are those who enjoy gigantic financial backing (and we know where and how you get that), for they are the only ones who can afford to blitz the public with television commercials. It’s too bad that Jimmy Carter, a man who made it to the White House without big money behind him, would embrace the institution of a system that will make it next to impossible for another Jimmy Carter to do what he did.

<snip>

In sum, Jimmy and Jim and the rest of the blue-ribbon boys, whether it was their intent or not, have tried to apply lipstick to the corpse, but their own palsied hands have slipped and they’ve made a mess of the job.

Nicholas von Hoffman writes a regular column for The New York Observer. His latest book, A Devil’s Dictionary of Business, is published by Nation Books. E-mail [e-mail].

[autorank]

5. AZ: LTTE Says it All—Beautiful

It’s a public franchise, why shouldn’t the most intelligent, concise comments be from the general public. Take a look. It’s not just a letter to the editor, it’s an all-encompasing aphorism.

Electronic voting an invite to fraud

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/1012wedlets123.html

Electronic voting an invite to fraud
Oct. 12, 2005 12:00 AM

Paper-trail receipts from electronic voting machines are still not sufficient to ensure fair elections.

No electronic voting machine is immune to being hacked, manipulated and used to steal the vote. We will have democracy and fairness in voting only by using paper ballots, marked by hand, placed in see-through plastic bins and hand-counted.

It is not necessary that the election be decided 0.7 second after the polls close. Just as is done in the United Kingdom, Canada, Iraq, the Ukraine and much of the Third World, the United States must return to the hand count to restore confidence in the vote. - Michael Shelby, Phoenix

[Wilms]

6. AZ: Secretary of State Jan Brewer ordered to appear in court

10.07.05

Secretary of State Jan Brewer ordered to appear in court for failure to perform duty to adopt voting equipment decertification standards

Secretary of State Jan Brewer has been ordered to appear in Pima County Superior Court on October 18, 2005 at 9:00am to explain why she has not complied with Arizona law that requires adoption of voting system decertification standards. This order is the result of a Complaint for Special Action filed on October 6, 2005 for plaintiff Thomas W. Ryan, head of Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections.

snip/more

http://www.azfairelections.org/statewide%20brewer%20court.htm

Thanks to lady lib:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x396800

[Wilms]

7. California puts voting machines through paces

October 11, 2005

California puts voting machines through paces

By SETH FREEDLAND/The Daily Journal

California will put the tools of democracy to perhaps the most rigorous testing of any state, ordering voting-machine makers to surrender their proprietary software for security reviews and supply dozens of their machines for mass, mock-election tests.

In memos this week to local elections officials, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson laid out plans to create a new technician-led office, devoted to putting voting machines through their paces before California voters use them. Despite the assumed computerized precision, concerns of screen freezes, software crashes and a lack of a traceable paper trail remain top e-voting fears among advocates.

Marsha Wharff, Mendocino County clerk and registrar of voters, applauded McPherson's decision to form the streamlining office.

"I think it's a really good idea," Wharff said. "A team of people has to go through all that testing and it hasn't been formally part of a cohesive office before."

snip/more

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/Stories/0,1413,91~3089~3088691,00.html

[Wilms]

8. Arizonans lacking right ID won't have votes counted

Arizonans lacking right ID won't have votes counted

Feds approve Proposition 200

Chip Scutari and Yvonne Wingett

The Arizona Republic

Oct. 8, 2005 12:00 AM

Election night could turn into election week.

On Friday, federal officials approved a controversial system that will let Arizonans cast a ballot even if they show up at the polls without identification. But their vote will not count unless they later produce identification.

The new rules, OK'd by the U.S. Department of Justice, are designed to comply with the voting provisions of Proposition 200, approved by voters in November 2004.

The provisions could delay the outcome of tight races because election officials may have to verify more provisional ballots than they usually do, critics say.

Critics also argue that voters who forget to bring identification to the polls, especially those in rural Arizona whose nearest election office is hundreds of miles away, might not make the long trip to present identification.

snip/more

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1008voter08.html

[Wilms]

9. VA: Norfolk election officials, voter group clash over registration woes

Norfolk election officials, voter group clash over registration woes

04:03 PM EDT on Sunday, October 9, 2005

Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. — More than half of Norfolk's new voter applications have been incomplete or rejected.

That has prompted the registrar's office and a social action group to call for intervention by the Virginia State Board of Elections.

Lawyers from the Washington-based Advancement Project got involved at the request of Project Vote, which has submitted five-thousand voter applications in Norfolk this year.

snip

Rivera has repeatedly asked to see the voter applications that could not be processed but Long has refused, citing election law and privacy concerns.

snip/more

http://www.wvec.com/news/topstories/stories/100905cckkWVECelection.111a19b66.html

[Wilms]

10. NY: Rally to be held for publicly-run paper ballot elections

Rally to be held for publicly-run paper ballot elections

ALBANY, N.Y. A rally is being held at the state Capital today in support of publicly-run elections in New York state that use paper ballots.
Members of the Public Employee Federation are calling for a resolution that proposes a paper ballot and optical-scan voting system.

The group says the hand-marked paper ballots and optical scanners provide advantages to the electronic "touch-screen" system.

According to the group, training public employees to maintain the paper ballot voting machines would cost less than using private contractors.

snip/no more

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=3962303&nav=4QcS

[Wilms]

11. LA: Elections chief sees $1.8 million cost to replace, repair voting equip

Elections chief sees $1.8 million cost to replace, repair voting machines

10/10/2005, 12:55 p.m. CT

The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — It will cost roughly $1.8 million to replace and repair voting machines damaged and destroyed in three southeastern Louisiana parishes during Hurricane Katrina, the state's top elections official said Monday.

The worst damage was in St. Bernard Parish, where all 128 machines were destroyed and will cost $832,000 to replace, Secretary of State Al Ater said. Repairing and replacing New Orleans' machines will cost $780,000. Machines in Jefferson Parish were also damaged.

The total cost to revive elections for those parishes, including repairs, overtime, travel and vehicle use, could approach $2.5 million, he said.

snip/more

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-20/112896744297551.xml&storylist=louisiana

[Wilms]

12. CT: Blumenthal argues to keep lever voting machines

AP Connecticut

Blumenthal argues to keep lever voting machines

October 7, 2005, 5:18 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is disputing a federal opinion that could force Connecticut to replace its 3,300 lever-style voting machines before the 2006 gubernatorial election.

In an advisory opinion issued in September, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found that the mechanical voting machines don't comply with federal law.

This week, Blumenthal argued in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice that Connecticut's machines do comply and should not be replaced before next year's election. The letter was released Friday.

If local election leaders can't use the old lever machines, they'll be forced _ in a matter of months _ to acquire more modern voting machines such as touch screen or optical devices that scan ballots filled in by hand.

snip/more

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/connecticut/ny-bc-ct--votingmachines1007oct07,0,3150499.story?coll=ny-region-apconnecticut

[Wilms]

13. CA: GOVERNOR SIGNS LANDMARK BILL TO REQUIRE PUBLIC AUDITS OF SOFTWARE VOTE

News Releases

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

GOVERNOR SIGNS LANDMARK BILL TO REQUIRE PUBLIC AUDITS OF SOFTWARE VOTE COUNTS

Seven counties to use touchscreens with paper trails this November

Davis, CA -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed landmark legislation to require public auditing of software votes counts produced from electronic voting machines.

Senate Bill 370, authored by State Senator Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey), requires county election officials to use voter-verified paper audit trails to perform the one percent manual tally, a public procedure used in California since 1965 to give the public confidence in the accuracy of computer-counted election results.

"California is at the forefront of the nationwide election verification movement," said Kim Alexander, president and founder of the California Voter Foundation (CVF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization promoting the responsible use of technology in the democratic process. "We supported SB 370 and urged the Governor to sign this bill because voters need and deserve to have a window into the vote counting process. By signing SB 370, the Governor ensures Californians can have a reasonable degree of confidence in the accuracy and integrity of software vote counts."

The enactment of SB 370 comes one year after California's Legislature passed and Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 1438, which requires electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) beginning in the 2006 statewide primary. In the past two years, 25 states have enacted VVPAT requirements, and nearly half of those have also enacted laws that require using VVPATs to publicly audit software vote counts.

snip/more

http://www.calvoter.org/news/releases/101105release.html

[Wilms]

14. Common Cause:

Common Cause

2005 Southwest Election Reform Conference

When: October 21, 2005
Where: Estes Park Center - YMCA of the Rockies
Time: 9:00am to 4:00pm

About the conference:

Common Cause will host the 2005 Southwest Election Reform Conference which will bring together a small group of elected and government officials, academics, and advocates from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona invited by Common Cause to focus on strategies for effecting election reform at the state level.

The conference will take place over 2 days in Estes Park. You are invited to join us for day two, Friday October 21, 2005. The conference will provide an opportunity for participants to hear from experts in the field and attend workshops filled with discussion and tools for organizing election reform.

The two overarching goals for the conference are to strengthen the skills and knowledge basis of participants, and to foster network building and collaboration among the locally based organizations and elected and government officials working to achieve election reform in the Southwest states.

snip/more

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1053869

[Wilms]

15. Eye On Ohio: The Informed Citizen's Guide to the 2004 Election

Eye On Ohio:

The Informed Citizen's Guide to the 2004 Election

December 2004

Almost two months have passed since the Presidential Election, on November 2, 2004. The day after the election, the mainstream media and most of America let out a collective sigh of relief that President Bush had collected over 270 electoral votes, and that he had a three million vote "mandate". There would not be another Florida; no more hanging or pregnant chads, no more litigation, no more uncertainty. The media was all too happy to accept the election, and after November 2nd, pundits moved on to more important issues, like Scott Peterson or Paris Hilton. Americans, too, were glad to put months of bitter campaigning behind them, and went about their daily lives.

But for a small and vocal minority of Americans, November 2nd changed everything.

For the reasons set forth below, these Americans believe that President Bush did not win Ohio's 20 Electoral Votes, and possibly did not win in other states as well. They believe John Kerry was the legitimate winner of the 2004 Presidential Election.

Labeled conspiracy theorists, sore losers, and "dissidents" by the media, they have spent the last two months gathering data and investigating "irregularities." There are dozens of websites that seek to compile the daily evidence of such irregularities, filled with links upon links to charts or articles. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evidence collected so far Here, in these pages, are the fruits of their labor, as well as other data and information that bring into doubt the claim that the 2004 was a "clean and legitimate" election. The focus is on Ohio primarily because it was the last state called, thus putting President Bush over the 270 votes needed to win. Also, other circumstances surrounding the Secretary of State and highly publicized instances of irregularities make Ohio the ideal candidate for closer examination.

If you are looking for a smoking gun here, you will not find it. Instead, you'll read about a series of complex and seemingly impossible events, from voter suppression, to vote tampering, to possible cover-ups. It is the totality of the circumstances that compel, at the very least, a full-blown Congressional investigation into the matter. Is this enough evidence to cast doubt over the election of George W. Bush? Was Ohio really a "blue state" in this election? As you read, you'll realize that the weight of the evidence strongly suggests such a conclusion.

And so, let's begin

snip/more

http://hamburgsteak.sandwich.net/mirrors/EyeOnOhio

Thanks to Chi for posting:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x396718

[Wilms]

16. ASK C-SPAN TO AIR DEBATE - Evidence of 2004 ELECTION FRAUD !!

Stephen Freeman, PhD, Visiting Scholar at University of Pennsylvania KNOW statistics and he believes that the 2004 Election Polls indicate a very high probability of FRAUD in the Presidential race. U of Penn is a world-class university that would NOT host the debate with Freeman unless they believed that his case had some merit.

Please ASK C-SPAN TO COVER THE EXIT POLL DEBATE between Freeman & Warren Mitofsky THIS FRIDAY, October 14, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

I just called C-SPAN to ask if they would be airing the Freeman/Mitofsky debate and they said that they had not yet decided -- they need more input from US.


Please email or call C-SPAN!

Suggest Events: Submit a public event that you think C-SPAN should cover to [e-mail]

C-SPAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Main Number: [phone]

Much more here thanks to IndyOp:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5030755

[Algorem]

17. reform debated at new Cleveland State U. Center for Elections Integrity

Election-reform measures debated at CSU forum

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1129109978121200.xml&coll=2

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

...Ten activists and officials squared off Tuesday at Cleveland State University over three of RON's four proposals: to expand absentee balloting, curb campaign contributions and form a bipartisan elections commission...

CSU's forums are the closest events so far to public debates over the reforms. Supporters want an official debate, but opponents want them to produce a possible redistricting map first...

Samuel Gresham of Ohio Common Cause called our current system "chaos," "an abomination" and "a laughingstock." His fellow reformers cited several problems in last year's elections, such as hours-long lines, late rule changes and conflicts of interest at the top. Ohio's secretary of state supervises elections, but present and past secretaries have doubled as leading partisan promoters...

Tuesday's forum was sponsored by CSU's new Center for Elections Integrity, which has received federal funds to help develop "transparent, legal, efficient and accurate elections."...

Go to http://urban.csuohio.edu/cei/



Youngstown mayor crosses aisle to oppose election issues

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/12876086.JOHN McCARTHY

Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A Democrat who angered many when he campaigned last year on behalf of President Bush is bucking his party again - this time joining opponents of four ballot issues that would dramatically change Ohio election law.

Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey was introduced Tuesday as the co-chairman of Ohio First, a Republican-backed group opposed to state issues 2-5.

Voters will decide Nov. 8 whether to let legislative and congressional districts be approved by an independent panel instead of a board of statewide elected officials and the Legislature, respectively - both currently controlled by Republicans.

The other issues would open up absentee ballots to all voters, drop the contribution limit from $10,000 to $2,000 for statewide candidates and $1,000 for legislative candidates, and give the election supervision duties of the secretary of state to an appointed board. All four issues would amend the Ohio Constitution...

http://www.reformohionow.org

[Wilms]

18. CO: Boulder discovers possible vote glitch

10/12/2005 01:00:00 AM

2005 election

Boulder discovers possible vote glitch

The county's voting machines see a fold in a ballot as an ink mark. But officials say that won't mean a repeat of last year's election tally delays.

By George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writer

Boulder - Almost a year after vote counting was delayed three days, county election officials have found another snag in the tallying process.

The county's eight voting machines read creases caused by folds in ballots as marks on the page. The problems can cause inaccurate tallies.

Every ballot has to be folded because the county is running a mail ballot election Nov. 1. Ballots already are being mailed out.

snip

Pezzillo wondered if the problem existed in the last election and went unnoticed.

snip/more

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3107665

See JohnGideon's post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x396467