Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News!

[AuntiBush]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News

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 new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

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.


Election Fraud and Reform News Directory - Spring 2006

News Lists

VotersUnite News
http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp

ElectionLine.org
http://electionline.org/ElectionlineToday/tabid/84/Default.aspx

Solar Bus: Real News Network
http://www.solarbus.org/election/realnews.shtml

Velvet Revolution US Election 2004 News Items
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/subsect.php?Main=ELECTION2004&Sub=NEWSITEMS

Velvet Revolution US Election 2004 Opinion-Analysis Items
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/subsect.php?Main=ELECTION2004&Sub=OPINION_ANALYSIS

OnLine Journal - Electronic Voting News
http://onlinejournal.com/evoting


Original Reporting

The Brad Blog
http://www.bradblog.com

VoteTrustUSA
http://www.votetrustusa.org

VoteTrustBlog
http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&ta...

GuvWurld Blog
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com

BlackBoxVoting (David Allen)
http://blackboxvoting.com

Election Law Blog
http://electionlawblog.org

Election Law @ Moritz Equal Vote Blog
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji

California Voter Foundation: Kim Alexander's Weblog
http://calvoter.org/news/blog/index.html

Election Updates
http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/blog.html

Vote Law Blog
http://www.votelaw.com/blog

The Free Press -- Independent News Media
http://www.freepress.org/index2.php

Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org/news

Techdirt
http://techdirt.com

Ohio Election Fraud (Formerly Fairness)
http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com

California Election Law
http://www.calelectionlaw.com/index.php

Nov 2nd Truth
http://www.nov2truth.org

Electronic Voting Machine Project List Archive
http://gnosis.python-hosting.com/voting-project

Ohio Honest Elections
http://ohiohonestelections.org

Ballot Access News
http://www.ballot-access.org

Earlyvoting
http://earlyvote.blogspot.com

Lynn Landes
http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingSecurity.htm

Scoop
http://www.scoop.co.nz

Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org

CannonFire
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com

The Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com

The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Conyers Blog
http://www.conyersblog.us

News Search Engines

Google
http://news.google.com/advanced_news_search?hl=en&ned=us

NewsNow
http://www.newsnow.co.uk


Talk Radio Archives

White Rose Society
http://www.whiterosesociety.org

Please folks, feel free to add you're own. And, PRETTY-PLEASE... GIVE THIS A GOOD DESERVED KICK. This is a VOTING YEAR 2006!

Recommend for the greatest!

:kick:

[Melissa G]

1. 2005 Person of the Year: Congressman John Conyers Jr.

2005 Person of the Year: Congressman John Conyers Jr.

by TvNewsLies.org


Congressman John Conyers Jr.
“We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It’s overrun with sheep and conformists.” – Bill Maher

He is not a boisterous man at all. On the contrary, he’s soft spoken, rather thoughtful, and quietly direct. Chances are, if you didn’t know who he was, you’d never in a million years have him pegged for a politician. Chances are even greater that you’d never guess that John Conyers was as fierce a fighter for his nation as they come.

As a class, members of Congress aren’t doing too well nowadays. As a class, they are not held in very high regard by large numbers of Americans. As a class, they have failed to earn the respect or trust of their constituents. And as a class, the men and women who represent us in Washington, D.C., have done little or nothing to gain our approval.

How fortunate, then, that John Conyers is in a class by himself. And how proud we are to name Rep. John Conyers Jr. our 2005 Person of the Year!
http://www.sfbayview.com/010406/johnconyers010406.shtml

[Melissa G]

2. AZ Sec. of State Calls Transparent Election Advocates 'Anarchists', '

Brad Blog


Blogged by Brad on 1/5/2006 @ 4:38pm PT...

AZ Sec. of State Calls Transparent Election Advocates 'Anarchists', 'Conspiracy Theorists'!
Republican Jan Brewer's Re-Election Announcement Interrupted by Demonstrators
Activists Object to Her Recent Decision to Allow Unsecure, Hackable Diebold Voting Machines for Use in Virtually Every Arizona Precinct!

Perhaps it's a step up from "dissidents" as the AP once called them, but Election Transparency Advocates who turned out today at Arizona's Sec. of State Jan Brewer's speech to announce her re-election bid were labeled "anarchists" and "conspiracy theorists" by the woman who recently approved Diebold's flawed "AccuVote" touch-screen voting machines for use in virtually every precinct in the state.

During her speech today, according to the Arizona Star, "which boasted of the state getting rid of the last punch card ballots as part of her accomplishments since being elected in 2002 but one that never mentioned the Diebold contract" the Republican official in charge of ensuring free, fair and accurate elections in the state was repeatedly interrupted by advocates for transparent election who objected to the use of Diebold's failed machinery in the state.

Diebold's election equipment was recently shown to be hackable in a mock election test in Leon County, Florida, where the final results were completely flipped by computer security specialists. Over the summer, 20% of the same AccuVote touch-screen systems that Brewer approved on Friday, were found to have failed during a massive mock election test in California.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002240.htm

[Melissa G]

3. Protesters shout during secretary of state's re-election announcement

Protesters shout during secretary of state's re-election announcement


PHOENIX Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer says she will seek re-election later this year, promising as the state's chief elections officer to update voting laws and technology to ensure accurate elections.

Brewer's announcement was briefly delayed when a handful of protesters shouted slogans critical of a company that provides some voting equipment in Arizona.

The event resumed after police officers cordoned off protesters behind police tape.

Still, protesters continued repeating slogans as Brewer spoke to a group of supporters outside the Arizona Capitol.
Protester Fred McChesney, a local host on Air America Radio, a liberal radio network, says Diebold Incorporated voting machines are vulnerable to computer hackers.
http://www.kpho.com/Global/story.asp?S=4324846&nav=23Ku

[Melissa G]

4. State to help buy new voting machines for Chaffee County

State to help buy new voting machines for Chaffee County
New machines will cost $131,000; surrounding counties hope to get group discount from vendor

by Jason Starr
Mail Staff Writer

Chaffee County will receive $131,000 from the office of the Colorado Secretary of State to purchase new voting machines, after mechanical glitches in November led to a manual recount.

Chaffee County officials will work with the surrounding counties that experienced similar problems in the last election to secure a group rate from a voting machine vendor, county clerk and recorder Joyce Reno said Tuesday.

snip
The money comes from $34 million the state received under the Help America Vote Act. About $15 million of that is slated to help counties purchase act-compliant voting equipment.

http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=6974&TM=61673.48

[Melissa G]

5. Lobbyist's Downfall Leads to Charities' Windfall

Lobbyist's Downfall Leads to Charities' Windfall


By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: January 6, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 - The White Buffalo Woman Calf Society, a shelter for battered women in tiny Mission, S.D., is far removed from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal that rocked Washington this week. But the society, along with many other charities large and small, is among the latest beneficiaries of Mr. Abramoff's legendary largess.


Political Contributions Being Returned As panicked lawmakers rush to distance themselves from Mr. Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, after his guilty pleas in federal and Florida state courts, tens of thousands of dollars in political donations from him and his Indian tribe clients are being returned or redirected to charities in a vast Robin Hood-like reordering of campaign funds.

Many of these charitable groups - including the White Buffalo Woman Calf Society, which will receive $2,000 from Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota - have Native American ties, creating a certain symmetry, albeit an imperfect one, given that Mr. Abramoff has pleaded guilty to bilking the tribes of millions.

Some tribes like the Saginaw Chippewa and the Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians are getting campaign contributions back. But the refunds are not entirely welcome; tribal officials complain of being branded as pariahs and worry that their clout in Washington will be diminished if lawmakers refuse to accept their money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/politics/06charities.html?hp&ex=1136523600&en=6f9a6749b27cfc44&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Melissa G]

6. DeLay‘s bid to return to US leadership in jeopardy

DeLay‘s bid to return to US leadership in jeopardy
Staff and agencies
05 January, 2006

By Richard Cowan 37 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom DeLay ‘s bid to return as majority leader of the House of Representatives was in mounting jeopardy on Thursday as fellow Republicans feared his ties with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff have made the Texan too much of an election-year liability.

"I would not support him for m, , ) told Reuters in a telephone interview from his central Illinois district.

LaHood, a conservative Republican with close ties to House Speaker Dennis Hastert , also from Illinois, added that elections for a new majority leader ought to be held when the House reconvenes on January 31.

"We need to clean up our House here very quickly or a year from now we‘ll be the minority party," said LaHood, initially elected to Congress in 1994 when his party won control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

http://www.heraldnewsdaily.com/stories/news-00120856.html

[Melissa G]

7. Schwarzenegger lays out sweeping infrastructure plan

Schwarzenegger lays out sweeping infrastructure plan
BY KATE FOLMAR, EDWIN GARCIA AND AARON C. DAVIS
Knight Ridder Newspapers
SACRAMENTO, Calif.

- Proposing an ambitious plan to build and improve the state's schools, roads and levees, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday night asked Californians to support $25.2 billion in borrowing this year - and almost $70 billion over the next decade - in his third State of the State address.

Delivering a conciliatory, 23-minute address before a joint session of the Assembly and Senate, Schwarzenegger attempted to make amends for the failed 2005 special election - which he kicked off with a confrontational State of the State speech this time last year. And he laid out a sweeping infrastructure plan for this year, when he will seek re-election.

"What a difference a year makes," the state's 38th governor said, speaking from the dais of the standing-room-only Assembly chambers. Schwarzenegger said voters had let him know to "cut the warfare, cool the rhetoric, find common ground and fix the problems together. To my fellow Californians, I say: Message received."

His response is an election-year plan that could have widespread appeal and leave him with a tangible legacy. Namely, the Republican governor pitched a massive, 10-year rebuilding plan that would cost $200 billion, of which the state would contribute about one-third. Schwarzenegger said he could do it all without raising taxes by leveraging state dollars to attract local, federal and private dollars.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/13560118.htm

[Melissa G]

8. E-voting comes to the frozen north

E-voting comes to the frozen north
1/5/2006 3:35:41 PM, by Nate Anderson

The Badger State has a tough new e-voting law on the books. On January 4, 2006, Governor Jim Doyle signed into law a new piece of e-voting legislation that in many respects parallels the North Carolina bill introduced in the middle of last year. Wisconsin, like North Carolina, will require voting machines to produce a paper record suitable for manual recounts and will also require e-voting manufacturers to submit the source code for their machines to the state for inspection. You may remember that it was this very requirement that launched the latest brouhaha between Diebold and the state of North Carolina, as Diebold insisted that it could not legally release all the source code used in its machines due to licensing issues with third-party code.

Wisconsin's law, as originally drafted, would have set an even tougher standard than the one in North Carolina. The first version of AB 627 required all source code to be publicly accessible and made available to anyone in the state for viewing—a requirement that certainly would not go over well with companies like Diebold and Sequoia. From the bill:

"The bill also provides that the coding for the software that is used to operate the system on election day and to tally the votes cast must be publicly accessible and must be able to be used to independently verify the accuracy and reliability of the operating and tallying procedures to be employed at an election."

In the end, though, the bill was reshaped, possibly with North Carolina's problems in mind. In the final text, the source code requirement is changed from "all" to "some." In Wisconsin, the State Board of Elections will make the decision about how much of the code they need to see in order to ensure the security and transparency of elections.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060105-5910.html

[Melissa G]

9. New Wisconsin Election Bill Not as Positive as Originally Reported By

BradBlog
Thanks to Wilms for the link and the DU discussion here!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407937


New Wisconsin Election Bill Not as Positive as Originally Reported By Activists and Others
Contrary to reports, bill does NOT allow for examination of source code!
Original version -- which did -- was changed during amendment process to remove important clause!


Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.Org

Additional Reporting by Brad Friedman

The voting activist and election reform advocacy community was excited yesterday upon release of news about the signing of a new bill in Wisconsin, AB267, that originally included wording that would allow munipalities to "provide to any person, upon request, at the expense of the municipality, the coding for the software that the municipality uses to operate the system and to tally the votes cast". Indeed, The BRAD BLOG received many email reports last night about the "good news" concerning this bill.

The bill, as understood and reported by many, would have been the first time that voting activists would have been afforded the opportunity to actually "look under the hood" of voting machines by examining the source code used in the software in order to see what was really being done on the equipment supplied by Voting Machine Companies. So far, those companies have managed keep such source code secret and proprietary and away from the 'prying eyes' of the pesky public who has been forced -- by the corporate privatization of America's public elections -- to rely on such secret
software to accurately record and count their votes.

The apparent "good news," however, was incorrect, as The BRAD BLOG has learned. The language from the original bill was changed during the amendment process to strip it of the provisions that would have allowed the public inspection of the secret code!

The good news still left to report is that the bill, signed yesterday by WI Gov. Jim Doyle, will at least require a voter verified paper "record" for every vote cast. In theory, the measure would allow for a manual count or recount of votes in cases where the state determines such a count would be necessary.

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002239.htm

[Melissa G]

10. New Voting Machines on Display

New Voting Machines on Display

Thursday, January 5, 4:14 p.m.
By Scott Schaffer

It will be a new day for voters in Schuylkill County when they head to the polls in the spring. The county is bringing in new voting machines but not without some input from the people who will use them.

The busiest place in the Schuylkill Mall Thursday wasn't selling anything. Voters turned out by the dozen to check out some possible new voting machines the county is considering.

"We thought it was very important to our citizens to look at the options that are available, and to seek their input," explained Schuylkill County Commissioner Bob Carl.

Manufacturers brought in their models hoping to sway the Schuylkill County voters toward their machine.

http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=4324648&nav=5ka4

[Melissa G]

11. CA State Sen. Bowen Proposes to END Proprietary Voting Software!!!

Thanks to nicknameless for the post and DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407973

CA State Sen. Bowen Proposes to END Proprietary Voting Software!!!
Just received from CA State Senator Debra Bowen's office


BOWEN ANNOUNCES HEARINGS ON “OPEN SOURCE”

VOTING SOFTWARE ISSUE FOR FEBRUARY OR MARCH

SACRAMENTO –The issue of whether California should be using electronic voting machine systems that rely on “open source software,” instead of the traditional proprietary software being used today, will be addressed in a pair of public hearings by Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), the chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee.

“If we want people to have confidence that their votes are being counted accurately, the systems counties use to tally ballots need to be open, accessible, and completely transparent,” said Bowen, a long-time open government advocate and the author of the 1993 measure that put all of the Legislature’s bills, analyses, and voting records on the Internet. “Nationwide, only 48% of the people are confident their votes are actually being counted correctly or being counted at all and you don’t build confidence in our electoral system by leaving people in the dark. To restore people’s faith in the system and ensure ballots are tallied accurately, we need to turn on the lights and let people see how their votes are being counted and protected.”

The hearings will be held by March of this year, most likely in Sacramento and Silicon Valley. Members of the open source software community, county elections officials, voting machine vendors, and others will be invited to participate. “Open source software” has been around for several decades but it’s become more popular in recent years. Some of the more well-known names in the open source software world are Firefox (an Internet browser), Linux (an operating system), and Red Hat (which sells and supports a version of Linux for businesses).

“We’ve worked hard to make elections more transparent over the years by, for example, making it easier for voters to track campaign contributions, but when it comes to the fundamental issue of how the accuracy of the election results are ensured, voters are left completely in the dark,” continued Bowen. “Open source software has the potential to make a critical – arguably the most critical – part of the electoral process open and transparent. We’re in the middle of an intense discussion over whether Diebold’s voting machines should or shouldn’t be re-certified for use here in California for the 2006 elections. I want to look further ahead and study what alternatives there are to relying on proprietary software that can’t be examined and has turned out to be fatally flawed.”

Under California law, an exact copy of the source code for all ballot tally software must be placed in an escrow facility designated by the Secretary of State before a voting system can be certified for use in California. However, that source code is never revealed to the public. Using open source software will make the process more transparent because open source software, by definition, is open to public examination.

“We need to do away with the secrecy and the ‘Trust us, we know what we’re doing’ approach the voting machine vendors and the Secretary of State are taking with this issue,” continued Bowen. “Nearly two months ago, the Secretary of State discovered a problem with some Election Systems & Software (ES&S) voting machines and threatened to decertify them. Days later he announced the problem was fixed and ES&S was in the clear, but he still hasn’t released any information on what the problems were with the machines, how ES&S proposed to fix those problems, or why voters should have any confidence in their solution. That’s unacceptable and California voters deserve better.”


It's not paper ballots and hand counts, but this is a HUGE step in a good direction.

[Wilms]

12. WV Opinion!: Voting machines, bills will take away our voting rights

Huntington, WV

OPINION | Friday, January, 6, 2006

Robert Fisher: Voting machines, bills will take away our voting rights

Where did our votes go?

Why is President Bush still in office when all the polls showed he was going down to defeat in Ohio and Florida? How did he pull off that miraculous, totally impossible turnaround in the last few hours of the election?

Why did Issues 2 through 5 in the Ohio 2005 election, issues that would have removed control of the election process from the corrupt hands of the Republican hierarchy and given it to the people, go down to defeat when they were running ahead at 64 percent approval all day?

Experts have said that these turnarounds were virtually impossible, yet they happened. Why? The news media, either because of fear or political control, has swept anything concerning election fraud under the table in hopes that it will be forgotten.

The man overseeing the Ohio election, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, was also the campaign chairman of the Bush/Cheney committee (a conflict of interest). He and Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio to Bush in the 2004 election. With the use of Diebold voting machines, systematic voter intimidation, strategic vote machine placement and Blackwell's hand-picked Republican staff to oversee the election, they delivered as they had promised.

snip

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060106/OPINION/601060309/1034

Discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408037

[FogerRox]

13. Essex County NJ taking delivery of new-- er ah old voting machines

Let me set the stage with a little history. Essex County put the money in place for the purchase of new voting machines back in July of 2004. The County waited until 2 days after the NOV 8th election to vote on a contract, which approved the purchase of the Sequoia Advantage DRE.

The Sequoia Advantage DRE uses an interesting blend or technology. Its Central processor is the famed Zilog Z-80 chip, that was introduced around 1975. Originally a 2 mghz 64k processor, later versions were upgraded to -IIRC- 6 or 8 mghz. Remember the Commodore 64k computer? Now Jump 10 years to 1985, when the Advantage was designed based on the Z-80 chip.

It is my understanding the the Z-80 chip cant handle a regular operating system like Windows, Firmware must be installed. This is maybe the one good thing about using the Z-80 chip. Anyway- The Advantage DRE uses a large printed paper ballot face, with a sheet of clear plastic over the paper. Underneath these layers are pushbuttons. SO the Advantage uses an older chip and even older technology-- the pushbutton. Note: my father used pushbutton controls at the radar station on the Aircraft carrier he served on in the BIG ONE, WW2.

Now, more recently Sequoia has added an audio ballot feature, with headphones, for the Sight Impaired. BUT-- this apparently required the addition of a second chip. Now I enter the theater of the macabre, the federal certification of voting machines! I have a letter from Wylie that states the Advantage model D, firmware version 9.0G, meets the FEC 3.2.1 accuracy standards, mandated by HAVA title III, section 301. In Addition, I am in possession of a letter from the NJ Attorney General stating that firmware version 9.0GH is required for the Audio ballot version.

SO County's buying firmware version 9.0GH, to used as a handicapped access DRE are buying a DRE that does not, apparently, meet the FEC 3.2.1 accuracy standards. Which would be a violation of Federal law, and comes under the purview of the DOJ as per HAVA title IIII, section 401.

SO now that the Advantage Dre's are starting to show up at our county SOE warehouse, we'll just have to see which ones were delivered, LOL. !

[Griffy]

14. Is there a voting company we DO support?

I have been designing a voting system and I know it is secure and would pass the tests easily. I just need help getting a company started, unless someone is making a machine we can all get behind, I will continue to try to get this off the ground.

If anyone in the DC area wants to work on this, message me.

Also.. what we know about Open Voting Consortium, and ACCURATE?

[FogerRox]

15. too little too late- most HAVA money has been spent

IMHO the Avante Vote trakker & The Accupol DRE may be the best of the DREs

[FogerRox]

16. Newark, Irvington and Orange say voters not ready for new machines

NJ, Essex cities seek delay on electronic voting
Newark, Irvington and Orange say voters not ready for new machines

Friday, January 06, 2006
BY JEFFERY C. MAYS AND JONATHAN CASIANO
Star-Ledger Staff
Some of Essex County's largest cities want a waiver to continue using mechanical voting machines in two upcoming elections this year because they believe voters have not been properly trained on how to use the new electronic voting machines required by state and federal law.

Newark, Irvington and Orange officials all say they want more time before they are required to use the electronic voting machines. School board elections are held on April 18, and all three towns have municipal elections on May 9.

>snip<
The Essex County freeholders voted in November to buy 700 touch-screen voting machines from Sequoia Voting Systems. The county had a Jan. 1 deadline to buy the machines that would place them in compliance with state law and the federal Help America Vote Act.


>snip<

"I would tend to think this is a legislative issue and would have to be taken up by the Legislature," De La Cruz said.


>snip<

Patricia Kenschaft of Montclair is a member of the Essex County Voting Task Force and is against using electronic voting machines. She said she's concerned about the poll workers who will have to be able to repair and explain the machines.

"I think we are headed for a fiasco," she said.


>snip<



Jeffery C. Mays covers Newark City Hall. He can be reached at [e-mail] or [phone].

full story-
http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-1/1136527984144140.xml

discussion here-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2353378