Election Fraud and Reform News Wednesday Jan 11, 2006

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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.ph...

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.
Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

[stillcool]

1. North Carolina/Cataret OKs new voting machines

http://www.jdnews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?
Carteret OKs new voting machines
January 10,2006
BY JANNETTE PIPPIN
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Commissioner Lynda Clay made it clear during discussions of the recommended purchase that she wouldn't support it. But her concerns had nothing to do with the county's efforts to comply with new state guidelines.

Clay cast the one no vote to show her opposition to a state Board of Elections process she said has dictated the county's decisions regarding a new voting equipment.

As a matter of principal I'm going to vote against this," she said. "We've been told what to do with no alternatives, and it is wrong."

At the center of her concern is the fact that there is currently only one vendor certified to do business in the state, creating a monopoly.

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3. North Carolina/Warren forced to buy new voting equipment

ttp://www.hendersondispatch.com/articles/2006/01/11/news/news03.txt
North Carolina
Warren forced to buy new voting equipment
By JASON ALSTON, Daily Dispatch Writer

WARRENTON - The Warren County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Monday night to appropriate $64,075 to the Warren Board of Elections to purchase new voting equipment.
They had no other choice.
Warren County, which currently owns and uses MicroVote voting equipment that was purchased only four years ago, is being forced to purchase Elections System & Software voting equipment since ES&S is now the only certified voting equipment vendor in North Carolina. Commissioners Jan Humphries, Luke Lucas and Barry Richardson were furious that Warren could no longer use the MicroVote equipment even though it was only a few years old.
“What happens if we don't vote for it?” Richardson asked Warren elections director Debbie Formyduval during the meeting. Warren Record columnist Howard Smith answered that if the commission board didn't support the county board of elections, the state board of elections would come in and place whatever voting equipment it deemed acceptable in the county at the county's expense.
Humphries said ES&S's status as North Carolina's only certified vendor was a monopoly. Lucas asked what would prevent the state board of elections from telling the county in another four years that the new ES&S equipment was no longer in compliance. No one was able to answer Lucas.

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4. North Carolina/Person County

http://www.roxboro-courier.com/newsnowstories/nn011106.htm


Public can view possible new voting machines Thursday afternoon - 1/11/06

Person County voters will be able to get a look at both optical scan and direct-record voting machines Thursday afternoon when representatives demonstrate the equipment from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the Person County Office Building on South Morgan Street.


Immediately following the demonstrations, the county election board is scheduled to meet at 4:30 p.m. to select the new voting system and present its recommendation to county commissioners during their regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 17.

The election board appears to be leaning toward buying optical scan machines, which are similar to ones currently used in the county. Much of the cost of the machines would apparently be covered by Person County's share of federal funds allocated to help local governments meet new election standards of the federal Help America Vote Act.

The county is being forced to look at buying new voting equipment since the state election board decertified most ballot-counting machines across North Carolina last year and directed counties to acquire from approved vendors new certified machines that comply with the new state requirements, which include providing a paper trail of votes cast, as well as federal rules that, among other things, require provisions to accommodate voters with disabilities.

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2. Connecticut...AG Blumenthal invesigating voting machine co.

Connecticut
http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_3390944
Article created: 01/11/2006 04:35:44 AM

Blumenthal investigating voting machine company
EDWARD J. CROWDER [e-mail]

BRIDGEPORT — State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday that his office is exploring whether a Simsbury company broke the law when it offered a failed bid to provide Connecticut's next-generation voting machines.
Danaher Controls was the state's first choice to upgrade 3,300 aging mechanical voting machines.

But Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz last week announced the state had dropped the company after learning its machines were not certified for use in national elections.

[Botany]

5. Ney = HAVA = White House = Abramoff = Diebold = Vote Fraud

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002261.htm

Great piece!

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6. California/Board Approves Voting Machine Replacements

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/inland/la-me-iebriefs11.4jan11,0,6565280.story?coll=la-editions-inland-news
From Times Staff and Wire Reports

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved replacing the county's 6-year-old touch-screen voting machines with newer models equipped with printers to comply with state law that mandates paper confirmation for all electronic votes cast.

Spending $14.2 million on new machines is necessary because the older devices cannot be retrofitted in time for the June gubernatorial election, according to Barbara Dunmore of the county registrar of voters

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7. Arizona Republic/ Opinion

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0111wedlets114.html
Vote machines don't measure up

Jan. 11, 2006 12:00 AM

Rather than engage in baseless ad hominem attacks and erroneous generalization, and rather than just accept the word of a vendor (Diebold) to "just trust us" that its voting machines are reliable, why doesn't Brewer prove that the machines costing about $11 million can be trusted.

These same Diebold DRE machines have been decertified in California, New Mexico, Connecticut, North Carolina and in Leon and Voluisa counties in Florida, where even Gov. Jeb Bush is calling for a statewide investigation into the machines.

Explain the purchase of machines that have been proved, in public demonstrations, to have security holes large enough to drive an election through.

Prove you are not the conspiracy theorist. - Michael Shelby, Phoenix

[Wilms]

9. Discussions

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408662

and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408697

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8. Sue Diebold/by Rob Kall

January 11, 2006
http://www.opednews.com

No, that's not the name of the female owner of Diebold. It's a suggestion. I believe that Diebold has engaged in practices that have disenfranchised my rights as an American citizen and I may be able to SUE Diebold, to file litigation against the company. If you voted on a Diebold machine that miscounted, or that used an operating system that was unauthorized, then maybe YOU have an actionable cause for litigation. Maybe you have reason to sue Diebold's corporate asses.

The goal is not to get money from them, not to change them, but to win a settlement large enough to OWN them. This is not without precedent. In the past, organizations have lost lawsuits with settlements so large it either put them out of business or the businesses or organizations were taken over by the litigant. This happened in the case of a neo-nazi, aryan nation-type group, where the litigant ended up owning the property-- the land used by the the defendants was given to the victim.

I'd like to see a plethora of class action suits filed against Diebold, suits that will cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to defend, so that Diebold is gasping for air. The suits must include injunctions against Diebold being acquired by another company, like ES&S, another company also worthy of a similar litigative assault.

It would be nice if a coalition of voting integrity groups organized a class action suit, with the proceeds committed to a non-profit entity that would take over the voting machine companies being sued.

[Wilms]

10. MI: Federal court dismisses Nader case

Federal court dismisses Nader case

1/10/2006, 12:18 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by 2004 presidential candidate Ralph Nader claiming the Michigan secretary of state was wrong for refusing to put him on the ballot as the Reform Party candidate.

In a ruling released Tuesday, the Ohio-based 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said that, because Nader got on the Michigan ballot as an independent, he gave up his claim to get on the ballot as a Reform Party candidate.

Nader ended up receiving less than 1 percent of the statewide vote in the November election won by Democrat John Kerry. In 2000, running as the Green Party's presidential candidate, Nader got about 2 percent of the Michigan vote.

The appeals court decision affirmed the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman that Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land could not be expected to decide which of two warring Reform Party factions in Michigan was the right one.

One had nominated Nader for the state ballot, but Land wouldn't recognize the nomination until the two factions decided which one was the legitimate party. That issue was never resolved once the Michigan Republican Party rounded up 43,000 petition signatures — far more than the 30,000 needed — to put Nader on the ballot as an independent.

snip

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1136913856294660.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408673

[Wilms]

11. CT: Doug Jones to testify before the CT Voting Technology Standards Board

Doug Jones to testify before the CT Voting Technology Standards Board

Professor Douglas Jones, a nationally renowned expert in voting technology, will be presenting Expert Testimony to Connecticut's Voting Technology Standards Board

When? Friday January 12, 2006

What Time? Approximately 12 Noon

Where? Legislative Office Building, Hartford, CT

Who is Doug Jones?

snip

Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408678

[Wilms]

12. Georgia’s voter ID bill takes center stage

Georgia’s voter ID bill takes center stage

01/10/06

ATLANTA (AP) — The legislative session opened with a bang Monday as Republican House leaders steered a new proposal to change the state’s voter ID requirements through its first test, catching Democratic opponents off guard. The proposal passed its first test by a 7-4 vote in a fiery committee meeting over the opposition of Democrats and lobbyists who argued they didn’t have enough time to consider the proposal. The bill would arm registrars in each of the state’s 159 counties with the equipment to issue photo IDs, which would-be voters must present to cast their ballots.

snip

Emmet J. Bondurant, one of the attorneys that challenged the bill in court, questioned the bill’s motive. ‘‘There is no evidence the existing voter ID bills aren’t working,’’ he said. ‘‘Leave well enough alone.’’

Joe Beasley, the southern regional director of the Rainbow PUSH/Coalition, denounced it as ‘‘another scheme to suppress voting.’’ ‘‘This is clear and simple voter suppression and the whole world needs to see it for what it is,’’ Beasley said. ‘‘You gang of Republicans come in and you think you know it all.’’

Before the vote, he approached the table where lawmakers sat and glared at Rep. Sue Burmeister, the Augusta Republican who was quoted in a Justice Department memo saying that blacks in her district typically vote only if they’re paid. ‘‘I’m one Negro that votes without being paid,’’ Beasley said.

snip

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?show=localnews&pnpID=909&NewsID=688153&CategoryID=13280&on=0


Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408652