Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Friday 10/21/05

[Mnemosyne]

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=view_all&address=203x397680


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).

[Mnemosyne]

1. New Hampshire Ballot Order Lawsuit Loses

October 19th, 2005
On October 18, a lower New Hampshire state court upheld the law that gives the party that polled the most votes the top row (or the left-hand column) on the ballot. Akins v Secretary of State of New Hampshire, Merrimack Co., 04-E-360. The judge acknowledged that having the best spot on the ballot does help the party that enjoys that position, but still declined to require a random procedure to determine which party gets the best position.
The law that gives the best spot on the ballot to the party that polled the most votes, doesn’t specify which office. Therefore, the state adds up the vote for each party, for all the partisan offices on the ballot. The law has existed since 1994 and has always meant that Republicans get the best spot on the ballot.


http://www.ballot-access.org/

[Mnemosyne]

2. Delivery of absentee ballots delayed by printing woes; deadline expected t

SANTA CLARA COUNTY
Printing problems have delayed delivery of absentee ballots by a week in Santa Clara County, but the registrar of voters will be mailing them out over the next few days, well before the Nov. 1 deadline. The election is Nov. 8.
The registrar's office can begin mailing the ballots 29 days before the election, and hoped to have sent them out last week, said Assistant Registrar Elaine Larson. But when the ballots arrived from the printer, there were problems with the bar coding that ensures only one ballot goes into each envelope, and with the scoring that ensures folds don't interfere with votes.
The contracted printer, Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, which also manufactures the touch-screen voting machines used by the county, had to send another batch, Larson said.
More than 200,000 of the nearly 800,000 registered Santa Clara County voters have requested absentee ballots, Larson said. The county requires 18 different versions to accommodate various languages and local elections.


More:
http://www.mercurynews.com/

[Mnemosyne]

3. Onslow tries electronic voting

October 20,2005
BY JOE MILLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF
Onslow County elections officials aren't letting last year's voting glitch in Carteret County deter them from electronic voting.
On Wednesday, the Onslow elections board showed off and tested new equipment the county will use for the Nov. 8 general election. The voting machines, provided by Hart Intercivic of Austin, Texas, are known as eSlate machines.
To use them, voters type in a four digit code by spinning a wheel on the machine. Once the code is entered, voters then can choose various candidates.
"You just turn the little wheel clockwise to go through the ballot," said Rose Whitehurst, director of the Onslow County Board of Elections.
After a voter makes his or her choices, the machine provides a summary page confirming how he or she voted. Votes can be changed before they are finalized.
More:
http://www.jdnews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=35953&Section=News

[Mnemosyne]

4. ACVR's 'Non-Partisan' 'Voting Rights' Spokesman Now Working for Dick Chene

{Blogged by Brad on the road...}
ACVR's 'Non-Partisan' 'Voting Rights' Spokesman Now Working for Dick Cheney!
Tax-Exempt 'American Center for Voting Rights' Continues Their Scam on America!

Last week, The BRAD BLOG reported that one of the co-founders of the self-described "non-partisan" group calling themselves the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), was "boning up on his non-partisan creds" by being employed by the White House to sell George W. Bush's Harriet Miers nomination to the American press and public.

This week, the great "non-partisan" voting rights champion, Jim Dyke, has been promoted according to a report from TIME magazine filed last week. His new job will be to "take up the slack" for Steve Schmidt, "counselor to Vice President Cheney and one of the White House's most aggressive strategists."

Schmidt is suddenly heading to Iraq for the next month, where he will, according to a report today by RAW STORY, be unavailable to take any questions regarding the mounting charges that sources within Cheney's office may have been at the heart of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Dyke will undoubtedly remain as "non-partisan" in his new job with Dick Cheney, as he was in his previous position as press spokesperson for ACVR.

more:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001911.htm

[Mnemosyne]

5. Verified Voting Sweeps the States!

VerifiedVoting.org, our partners, and voters across the country have successfully persuaded state governments to pass or propose legislation / regulations to require voter-verified paper ballots. Help us complete the legislative landslide toward reliable, secure, and transparent elections!
Please visit our action center (click here) to turn the whole country green with voter-verified paper ballots. Click on the map to see our legislation tracking web page.
HAVA COMPLIANCE COUNTDOWN

See link for state by state breakdown.

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

[Mnemosyne]

6. Are instant runoffs the future of elections?

http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1



Are instant runoffs the future of elections?

By Cindy Swirko
Published September 28th 2005 in Gainesville Sun
Gainesville or Alachua County voters could choose their commissioners in a new way if a move toward instant runoff elections takes hold.

The County Commission learned about the issue Tuesday night while Gainesville city commissioners will soon hear a presentation on it.

snip>
Instant runoff voting is essentially a ranking of the candidates when the ballot is cast. The voter marks the ballot next to the candidate of first choice, second choice and on down the list of candidates.

Any candidate who receives a majority of the first-place votes is elected.


If no candidate receives a majority of the first-place votes, the candidate with the least total of first-place votes is eliminated. The second-choice votes from these ballots are then transferred to the other candidates. The ballots are recounted, and candidates are eliminated in this method until one winner has a majority of the vote.

More:
http://www.fairvote.org/?page=200&articlemode=showspecific&showarticle=1046

[Mnemosyne]

7. Save Our Elections

This may be an older film, but still important!

Save Our Elections

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=562403

For the sake of our democracy, we cannot forget what happened on November 2nd, 2004. Please check out a short documentary film, produced by two award-winning documentary filmmakers from Los Angeles, Erin and Conrad Stanley. Erin and Conrad used actual footage from November 2, 2004, to create a two- minute video clip to help us keep the story fresh in our minds. Click on the graphic to your right to view the flash video clip and share it with everyone you know who is concerned about our flawed election systems.

We hope the powerful images depicting the problems with our elections will inspire you to join Erin and Conrad and thousands of other Common Cause members and supporters to work for election reform or renew your commitment to fix the problems with our elections systems today. Join us in letting the Congress know that it's time to fix our broken system:
Take action:
www.commoncause.org/SaveOurElections

[Mnemosyne]

8. Don't extend voting wrongs- (How ignorant!)

Thursday, October 20, 2005
Congress should not let itself be bullied by the popular name of "voting rights" into continuing a policy that is just plain wrong.
Today, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee holds the second of this week's two hearings (with another dozen planned later) to consider extending for 25 more years a couple of high-profile provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
But one of the provisions, known as Section 5, should not be extended. Indeed, it should have been scrapped long ago.
Section 5 requires that most states of the old Confederacy (or small regions within certain other states) must secure "pre-clearance" from the Justice Department for any change in election laws or procedures. In effect, the assumption guiding Section 5 is that the states in question cannot be trusted not to deny the voting rights of black Americans.



http://www.al.com/opinion/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1129800116227650.xml&coll=3

[Mnemosyne]

9. Why Many Eyes Are on the Virginia Race

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, October 21, 2005; Page A23
This year's contest for governor of Virginia is being viewed as almost everything except a contest for governor of Virginia.

It's said to be a test of the political impact of President Bush's growing unpopularity, of the wide popularity of incumbent Democratic Gov. Mark Warner and of the political skills of George Allen, the state's ambitious Republican junior senator.

Well, yes, the Bush factor will be much studied, and it will be worth noticing if Warner helps elect Tim Kaine, the state's Democratic lieutenant governor, or if Allen gets Republican Jerry Kilgore, the former attorney general, across the finish line.

But the election is between Kaine and Kilgore, and the most important national implications of November's voting will grow from issues -- in particular, the death penalty and sprawl -- that the two men are raising themselves.

more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001644.html

[GuvWurld]

10. CA: Voters receive ‘real, live, wrong ballots’

http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3138723

Voters receive ‘real, live, wrong ballots’
Sara Watson Arthurs
Oct. 21, 2005

A Rohnerville voter was surprised to get a chance to vote in the Cuddeback school district.

The names of candidates for the Cuddeback school board, which is located in Carlotta, appeared on absentee ballots sent to Rohnerville voters, Humboldt County Elections Manager Lindsey McWilliams said Thursday.

He said the error was made by Sequoia Voting Systems, the Porterville-based company the county contracted with to print the ballots. McWilliams said a Rohnerville voter called to tell him she’d received the incorrect ballot on Thursday.

”As best we are able to determine, at least 900 voters are affected,” he said.

MORE: http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3138723

[Mnemosyne]

17. Thanks for pitching in Guv! We need all eyes

on deck to tie the pieces together so they can hang themselves.

[Mnemosyne]

11. Young 'not learning how to vote'

Young 'not learning how to vote'

A generation of young adults is not learning the habit of voting, a report from the Electoral Commission says.

The overall turnout in May's general election was 61.4%, up slightly on 2001, but the third lowest since 1847.

But a poll of 10,986 adults for the commission found that for 18 to 24-year-olds the figure had fallen from 39% to 37% during the last four years.

For those over 65 this year it was 75%. A commission spokeswoman said the young were losing a "sense of duty" to vote.

They were "active" and "interested" in issues but "disillusioned" with Westminster politics, she added.

The report - Election 2005: Turnout, How Many, Who and Why? - said there was a "neighbourhood" effect, with turnout lower in urban areas and among socially deprived groups.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4357482.stm

[Mnemosyne]

12. Thanks to Melissa G

Freeman letter to editor re Mullane article on stolen election

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=397901

[Mnemosyne]

13. Moderate Voters Aren't So Moderate

Moderate Voters Aren't So Moderate
(Page 1 of 2)

Oct. 18, 2005
(AP)

Quote

In every presidential election since 1988, the Democratic candidate has won more votes among moderates than the Republican candidate.

(The American Prospect) This column was written by Paul Waldman.The 2006 elections may be a year away, but already Democrats are working hard not to get cocky. With Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the multiple corruption scandals swirling around the Republicans, the ruling party is looking increasingly vulnerable. The president's approval ratings have slipped into the 30-percent neighborhood in some polls, and when people are given the "generic congressional ballot" question — do you think you'll vote for a Democrat or a Republican in next year's election? — Democrats lead by as much as 10 points, a gap that hasn't been seen since before the 1994 election. And we all remember what happened then.

Yet Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) raise a caution. Americans, they argue, are pretty conservative; no matter what is going on this week or this month, conservatives far outnumber liberals, so Democrats always start at a disadvantage. Democrats who want their party to stand up for a strong progressive agenda, they claim, are barking up the wrong tree. Democrats must stick to the center, or lose.

Even those with impeccably liberal pedigrees are making this argument, such as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. "According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate," Dionne wrote. "Those numbers mean that liberal-leaning Democrats are far more dependent than conservatively inclined Republicans on alliances with the political center. Democrats second-guess themselves because they have to." Meanwhile, Michael Barone of the National Journal looked at the same numbers and pronounced us to have "a conservative electorate." Evan Bayh, a probable candidate for president, cited the same figures to argue for a more centrist Democratic Party. "Do the math," he said. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic pronounced the liberal/conservative/moderate split "the most important thing you need to know about contemporary politics."

But all these observers make a mistake common to political elites: assuming that ordinary people look at politics the same way they do.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/18/opinion/main952028.shtml

[Mnemosyne]

14. WATCH RICK DANCE

PA Democratic Party

Just received this email
Sorry, no link included.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
October 21, 2005 Contact: Don Morabito
717-238-9381


Santorum Raising Big Bucks with Cheney, Tries to Distance Himself from Bush

HARRISBURG, PA: As Rick Santorum tries to two-step his way around both Pennsylvania and Washington and distance himself from the unpopular President, Vice President Dick Cheney is in Shavertown today headlining a $1,000 per person fundraiser for the Senator’s ailing campaign.

“Santorum wants to take Bush money while pretending to act as a voice for Presidential accountability,” said Rep. T.J. Rooney, Chair of the PA Democratic Party, today. “The only accounting going on, though, is Santorum counting the money Bush and Cheney are dumping into his campaign.”

Santorum’s recent political behavior has surprisingly transparent. As he and the President both have record low poll numbers, he has stepped away from Bush and Cheney, recently criticizing the administration on the Harriet Miers nomination and Social Security, among other issues.

Santorum is trying desperately to portray himself in a way that in no way reflects his legislative record or agenda. In 2004, Santorum voted with Bush 100% of the time.

“Santorum’s fancy footwork of late is comical, and destined for failure,” Rooney followed. “He needs this fundraiser, though so he can continue trying to buy a complete political self-reinvention.”

###






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[Mnemosyne]

15. Electronic voting systems aren't likely to be sufficiently secure by 2006

Posted by IChing


Electronic voting systems aren't likely to be sufficiently secure even by the 2006 elections, government auditors warned Friday.

Existing systems are rife with problems, the Government Accountability Office said in a 107-page document (click for PDF). The list of vulnerabilities included everything from easily-guessed administrator passwords and voter-verified paper-trail design flaws, to incorrect software installation and system failures on Election Day.

The Election Assistance Commission, created in 2002 to help states and localities implement e-voting systems, has neglected to lay out a clear timeline for addressing those problems, the report said. It also says that it's unrealistic to expect anything to change by next fall.>>>>
snip
The agencies are slated for early 2007 to determine if the laboratories designed to examine voting equipment are fit to do so, but the agencies haven’t started yet. They also haven't set up a proper "clearinghouse" where election officials can share problems they've had with the voting systems.

Electronic voting systems aren't likely to be sufficiently secure even by the 2006 elections, government auditors warned Friday.

Link to OP IChing:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1868593

Link to original source:
http://news.com.com/E-voting+wont+be+verified+until+2006/2100-1028_3-5907036.html?part=rss&tag=5907036&subj=news

[Mnemosyne]

16. Bradblog: Breaking: New GAO report confirms e-voting security concerns

Posted by Amaryllis:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x397936

[Wilms]

18. VT: Auditor: Statewide voter checklist flawed

Burlington Free Press

Auditor: Statewide voter checklist flawed

Published: Friday, October 21, 2005

by Wilson Ring
The Associated Press

MONTPELIER -- Vermont's new statewide voter checklist lacks written plans, system documentation and performance standards, and has other problems, state Auditor Randy Brock said in a report made public Thursday.

The report said the Secretary of State's Office, which is designing the system to comply with federal law, was not using accepted development methods, which could cause the system to fail.

"A system so critical to the functioning of our voter registration process warrants the use of a disciplined and robust systems development process, without which the state runs the risk that the system will not work as intended or in a secure manner," Brock said.

Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said the designers of the system chose not to use some of the methods that Brock thought were required and officials working on the system have more than two months to get the system ready.

snip/more

http://burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051021/NEWS02/510210305/1007

Thanks to garybeck
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x397964