Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday, April 9, 2006

[MelissaB]

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421512#421628

All previous daily threads are available here:

http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm

[MelissaB]

1. Imagine your vote actually counted

Imagine your vote actually counted

April 9, 2006
VALLEY VOICES/Chuck Legge

Imagine you've just voted for your preferred presidential candidate. Now, imagine you have used the Diebold touch-screen voting machine.

Let's imagine further that this machine is not hack-proof. For instance, there's a port in the side of the machine that allows a wireless connection to another computer.

It's also possible to switch the voting total so the loser of a particular race becomes the winner. This means poll results could be manipulated by your brighter-than-average high school senior with a laptop. Let's imagine there's a discrepancy of 100,000 votes between the counts done from district to district and the official state count.

Well, the Alaska Democratic Party doesn't need the imagination of Steven Spielberg to imagine what happened in the last presidential election. For the 2004 election, Alaska contracted with Diebold Election Systems to use its Accuvote machines.

When the votes were counted by district, the total for George W. Bush was 292,267. However, the official state count for Bush was 190,889. That's a difference of 101,378 votes.

...snip

A fluctuation of 101,378 votes is more than a slight glitch in the system. Unfortunately, our state Division of Elections is taking the side of a large, powerful corporation from Ohio at the expense of its own Alaska voters.



More: http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2006/04/09/news/opinion/opinion2.txt

[MelissaB]

2. Shocking Diebold Conflict Of Interest Revelations

Shocking Diebold Conflict Of Interest Revelations

Sunday, 9 April 2006, 10:50 pm
Opinion: Bob Fitrakis

Shocking Diebold Conflict Of Interest Revelations From Secretary Of State Further Taint Ohio's Electoral Credibility

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
April 6, 2006
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1909

Ohio is reeling with a mixture of outrage and hilarity as Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has revealed that he has owned stock in the Diebold voting machine company, to which Blackwell tried to award unbid contracts worth millions while allowing its operators to steal Ohio elections. A top Republican election official also says a Diebold operative told him he made a $50,000 donation to Blackwell's "political interests."

A veritable army of attorneys on all sides of Ohio's political spectrum will soon report whether Blackwell has violated the law. But in any event, the revelations could have a huge impact on the state whose dubiously counted electoral votes gave George W. Bush a second term. Diebold's GEMS election software was used in about half of Ohio counties in the 2004 election. Because of Blackwell's effort, 41 counties used Diebold machines in Ohio's highly dubious 2005 election, and now 47 counties will use Diebold touchscreen voting machines in the May 2006 primary, and in the fall election that will decide who will be the state's new governor.

...snip

In recent months, Blackwell has ordered all 88 county boards of elections to send into his office the memory cards that will be used in the primary election, in which Blackwell expects to win the gubernatorial race. There is no effective statewide monitoring system to protect those cards from being rigged.

...snip

An eyewitness ally of Blackwell told a small gathering of Bush supporters, with a Free Press reporter present, that Blackwell was in a frenzy on Election Day, writing percentages and vote totals on maps of rural Republican counties, attempting to figure out how many votes, real or manufactured, Bush would need to overcome the exit poll results in Cleveland and Columbus.


More: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00089.htm

[MelissaB]

3. Officials say vote problems are solved ("Glitches")

Officials say vote problems are solved

By ANNA M. TINSLEY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Tarrant County election officials say they've worked out the kinks in the way they tabulated votes in the March 7 primary and believe that problems such as programming glitches that led to massive overcounts of votes that night will not be repeated in Tuesday's runoff election.

Some internal election procedures have also been changed, software altered and the tabulating of some data simplified. And election workers are more familiar with the new electronic voting equipment that federal rules now require nationwide.

"Anything you do, you want to make sure it works properly," said Gayle Hamilton, interim elections administrator for Tarrant County. "Problems we found in the primary have been checked and won't be repeated."

A computer programming glitch for the primary election counted some votes multiple times and boosted the final tally in the Republican and Democratic primaries by as much as 100,000 votes. Officials with Hart InterCivic, the company that made the equipment and wrote the software, said a procedural error led to inflated counts when totals from early voting, absentee-by-mail voting and election day voting were merged on election night.

But new problems can still emerge, said Dan Wallach, an associate professor at Rice University who specializes in computer security and electronic voting.

"No voting system can ever be foolproof," he said. "I would like to see the state investing more resources into election system certification and testing.


More: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/14302958.htm

[MelissaB]

4. Blackwell watch

[MelissaB]

5. Blackwell defensive about stocks

Blackwell defensive about stocks

Inside Columbus
BY JON CRAIG | ENQUIRER COLUMBUS BUREAU

COLUMBUS - Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's campaign for governor was in defensive mode last week when his annual financial-disclosure statement revealed he owns stock in companies that produce slot machines, voting machines, tobacco and the morning-after pill.

Blackwell's opponents quickly cried foul, since the Cincinnatian is against abortion and gambling.

In addition to Diebold, the election-machine vendor from North Canton, and International Game Technology of Nevada, Blackwell's multi-million-dollar portfolio includes stock in Halliburton; Weatherford International, a Houston-based oilfield company that moved to Bermuda to avoid paying U.S. taxes; Altria, the tobacco-producing company formerly known as Philip Morris; and Barr Pharmaceuticals, maker of Plan B, the morning-after pill.

...snip

In a letter accompanying his financial statement to the Ohio Ethics Commission, Blackwell wrote that he does not approve individual stock selections but instructs his money managers to avoid all conflicts of interest.

"Those instructions were not followed by the new financial manager" that took over the account last year, Blackwell wrote. Dave Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable, a conservative public policy group near Cleveland, said he was stunned by Blackwell's investments.

"Ken can't be blind to this,'' he said. "To have a guy in his position and his stature in the faith communities carrying around stock portfolios in such controversial (companies), I'm shocked.''


More: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060409/NEWS01/604090398/1056

[rumpel]

30. Blackwell’s office spent less tax money but budget soared

Dispatch.com

Sunday, April 09, 2006
Mark Niquette
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

When he lists his accomplishments as secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell proudly says he has improved service while reducing the office’s reliance on tax dollars by 61 percent.

What he doesn’t say is that the office has increased overall spending by 73 percent since he arrived in 1999, by charging higher fees for business services.

The dueling numbers have become a focal point in the debate about Blackwell’s performance in office as he campaigns to become Ohio’s next governor.

Attorney General Jim Petro, Blackwell’s rival for the Republican nomination, notes that Blackwell is championing a state constitutional amendment to limit the growth of state spending — and argues that Blackwell wants to put constraints on state and local government spending that he hasn’t put on his own office.

"Ken Blackwell is either a huge hypocrite or very incompetent," said Bob Paduchik, Petro’s campaign manager.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/?story=dispatch/2006/04/09/20060409-A1-04.html

[MelissaB]

6. KY: Ballot mistakes enrage officials

Ballot mistakes enrage officials
Problems in Marion are said to be fixed

By Jason Thomasand Vic Ryckaert
The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS -- With the primary election less than a month away, Marion and two other nearby counties are blaming a Nebraska-based company for problems with ballots and machines.

So far, government officials have managed to correct the errors, but they are worried that more problems could crop up in the weeks leading up to the May 2 primary. That primary includes federal, state and local races.

In Marion County, officials discovered that absentee ballots did not include instructions for the nonpartisan school board elections in Decatur and Washington townships. Absentee voting started last week, and the error means that two people are going to have to vote again.

"This particular problem seems now to be fixed, and we got away with it only affecting two people," Marion County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler said Friday during an emergency meeting of the county Election Board. "But given the history of the last two weeks, I'm afraid of what will crop up again."

Election Systems & Software, the company that provides election equipment to Marion, Johnson and Hancock counties, is under fire for incorrect ballots, delays in mailing the ballots and for not updating voting-machine technology.

...snip

Election Systems & Software has contracts with 27 Indiana counties. It was not clear Friday how many counties have had problems.

Two weeks ago, the company delivered its first batch of ballots for this election and Sadler said they contained numerous mistakes. County officials found new errors in the replacement ballots and sent those back, too. They received the latest batch two weeks ago, Sadler said.

"They don't proof anything before they send it to us," Sadler said. "I would love to fire them. I've had three years of serious issues with this company."


More: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060409/NEWS02/604090417

[MelissaB]

7. Are mainstream churches finally standing up to the GOP’s hateful “Christia

Are mainstream churches finally standing up to the GOP’s hateful “Christian” blitzkrieg?

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
April 9, 2006

Right-wing church movements have been a staple of American politics since well before the 1692 witch trials at Salem. But only in the past few decades has the extremist church served as the grassroots base for a new breed of corporate totalitarianism. That unholy union has been nowhere more powerful than here in Ohio, and it has finally provoked a response from the state’s mainstream churches.

With huge torrents of cash from Richard Mellon Scaife, the Ahmanson family and other super-rich ultra-rightists, the fundamentalist church has formed the popular network that has spawned the Bush catastrophe. The totalitarian alliance between pulpit, corporation and military is unique in U.S. history.

With contempt for the Constitution, and unholy opposition to separation of church and state, ultra-rich ultra-right preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, self-proclaimed messiahs like Rev. Moon, and sanctimonious errand boys like Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, have turned America into a “Christo-fascist” empire whose twice-unelected executive claims Divine right to rule. When it comes to their views on violence, empire, greed and intolerance, these are the most un-Christian men in America. It’s no accident that George W. Bush’s first words about the war to follow 9/11 had to do with a “Christian Crusade” against Islam. And, instead of consulting his father, a former President, W. chose to consult “a higher father.”

That this evil network of mega- churches, cults and electronic Elmer Gantrys would prove profoundly corrupt should also come as no surprise. These are the moneychangers that Christ kicked out of the temple. The ultra-orthodox cash flow from Jack Abramson to “godly” legislators like Tom DeLay and Ohio’s Bob Ney has suffered not the slightest diversion toward true spirituality. The movement even has its own sex symbol in Ann Coulter, the “Harlot of Hate” who reaps huge sums in places like Ohio’s World Harvest Church for talking nasty while dressed in mini-skirts that would get minors arrested off urban street corners.


More: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1916

Discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421797

[MelissaB]

8. PA: Lease Optical Scan Machines til Voting Technology Improves

Lease Optical Scan Machines til Voting Technology Improves

http://www.opednews.com

Lease optical scan machines till voting technology improves

Allegheny County is considering a third voting machine that is neither recountable nor completely accessible. The League of Women Voters' standard for an acceptable machine to meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act is that the machine be secure, accurate, recountable and accessible. None of the direct recording electronic machines available today meet that standard. The county's choices, the Diebold, Sequoia and now the ES&S machine, produce no visible record that the voter can check before casting a vote and that can be recounted in the case of a contested election.

The state has rejected the paper record formats available today because they either violate voter privacy or are not tamper-proof. According to the Disabilities Law Project, none of these machines are accessible to people with limited mobility. Machines that solve these problems are being developed, but are not available today.

There are machines that meet the standard. They are fill-in-the-bubble optical scan machines that will remind you of taking high-school tests. They have a ballot-marking device that is accessible to the disabled. The marked paper ballot is a recountable paper record. Not the wave of the future perhaps, but serviceable.

The most outrageous aspect of this dilemma is that the federal government is threatening to enforce the machine purchase deadlines for states and counties. The standards to which they are testing today were adopted in early 2002 and do not take account of HAVA, which was passed later that year. The first set of HAVA-compliant standards was adopted in December 2005 to take effect in December 2007. No testing to those standards has been done. Yet the U.S. Department of Justice is insisting that localities hold elections involving candidates for federal office on HAVA-compliant machines to retain federal purchase funds.


More: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nancy_na_060409_lease_optical_scan_m.htm

[MelissaB]

9. The Anti-War Movement? By Cindy Sheehan

The Anti-War Movement?

By Cindy Sheehan

04/07/06 -- Being a so-called anti-war movement leader (at least to the MSM), brings much responsibility and so much love for the people and the groups who are working hard to end this insane occupation, but is this enough?

Recently, a blog written by an aquaintance, Scott Ritter, on AlterNet was called to my attention, where Scott, who is a self-proclaimed Republican, conservative who courageously opposed this war from the beginning, is predicting the eminent demise of the anti-war movement.

At first, I was highly offended and defensive at what I thought was Scott's arrogant attack on the movement that I am so intimately and overwhelmingly involved in. But then after my knee-jerk reaction, I realized that for all of the wrong reasons, Scott was partially correct.

The anti-war movement is not on the "verge of collapse" because we are not organized, or because we don't take a "warriors" view of attacking the neocons and the war machine using the tactics of Napoleon, or Sun Tzu—but because the two-thirds of Americans who philosophically agree that the war is wrong, BushCo lied, and the troops should come home, will not get off of their collective, complacent, and comfortable behinds to demonstrate their dissent with our government. Some, like Casey and almost 2400 other Americans and their families give all, while some, like the people of Iraq, have everything stolen from them by unlawful war; some, like myself, give a lot; some give some, by writing letters, attending an occasional vigil or march; but the majority of Americans give nothing—except an occasional vote, which we all know counts practically for nothing with our electoral process being so corrupted and almost rendered meaningless by paperless voting machine, no instant run-offs, and exploitation of the religious right by such contrived issues as gay marriage and teaching evolution in our public schools.


More: http://peacejournalism.com/ReadArticle.asp?ArticleID=8410

[MelissaB]

10. Discussion

in GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x886845

[MelissaB]

11. Brad Blog: Tom Tomorrow on Diebold...From Halloween 2003...

Tom Tomorrow on Diebold...From Halloween 2003...
'This is a Really SCARY Threat to Democracy'

'This is a Really SCARY Threat to Democracy'
Tom Tomorrow (real name, Dan Perkins, by the way) of This Modern World was a guest of mine on Thursday The Peter B. Collins Show where I was Guest Hosting...

Tom Tomorrow (real name, Dan Perkins, by the way) of This Modern World was a guest of mine on ThursdayThe Peter B. Collins Show where I was Guest Hosting. (Audio archives posted here.).

After complimenting him on his keen ability to reflect the current zeitgeist well ahead of anyone else, I asked him how he chooses his topic. His answer, paraphrased, whatever he happens to find funny. I asked if he found anything funny about Electronic Voting Machines.

Apparently he did. And, as usual, long before most of us understood the true nature of the threat to democracy posed by these god-awful machines. He pointed me to this Halloween strip originally published on 10/23/03 (notice the name on the computer monitor)...






Link: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002669.htm

[MelissaB]

12. Elections division hangs credibility in the balance

Elections division hangs credibility in the balance

Consent of the governed is the foundation of good, healthy democracy. So are accountability and transparency of process. So the ongoing refusal of Lt. Gov. Loren Leman and his Division of Elections to address massive vote-tallying irregularities is more than a little troubling.

In the 2004 election, the state used voting machines developed by Diebold, a firm which gained notoriety and fanned a controversy when its pro-Republican CEO announced prior to the election that he would deliver a Bush victory. It would be easy to pass off the comment as idle bravado except for the ease with which the Diebold machines can be “hacked” and manipulated without so much as a paper trail or any kind of backup system to verify results.

When district-by-district totals came up with some 101,000 votes more than official state totals showed for George W. Bush, eyebrows rightfully were raised. Sadly, the Division of Elections, which could have shut down any speculation about wrongdoing simply by releasing the database and database backup file, has refused to do so.


More: http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2006/04/09/news/opinion/opinion1.txt

[MelissaB]

13. CA: Democracy forum scheduled for Tuesday

Democracy forum scheduled for Tuesday

The Times-Standard

EUREKA -- Voter Confidence Committee (VCC) of Humboldt County has scheduled a “Demand Your Democracy Forum” to be held Tuesday.

The forum, to be held in Founders Hall Room 118 at Humboldt State University, is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

Speakers will include Nathan Smith, vice president of the Humboldt Chapter of the NAACP; David Cobb, Green Party presidential candidate in 2004 and steering committee member of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County; and Dave Berman, VCC founding member and author of the just-released book, “We Do Not Consent.”

The forum is intended to provide, in the words of sponsors, “an opportunity to review the purpose and importance of the lawsuit filed on March 21 seeking to prevent the use and purchase of Diebold machines in California.


More: http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_3691194

[MelissaB]

14. Discussion

in CA forum here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=141&topic_id=20171&mesg_id=20171

[GuvWurld]

34. More on this event

Read the press release (.pdf)

Demand Your Democracy Forum leaflets (.pdf, 6 to a page)

Demand Your Democracy Forum poster (.pdf, 8.5 x 11, b&w)

Demand Your Democracy Forum poster (.pdf, 8.5 x 11, color)

[MelissaB]

15. CA: Voter Fraud Charges Probed

Voter Fraud Charges Probed

State has launched an inquiry into allegations of improper Republican registrations in Orange and Riverside counties.
By Ashley Powers and Susannah Rosenblatt, Times Staff Writers
April 8, 2006


Investigators for California's attorney general and secretary of state have launched an inquiry into allegations of voter registration fraud in Orange and Riverside counties, state officials said Friday.

The investigation comes a month after the California Republican Party suspended its paid voter registration program, following the discovery by elections officials in Orange and San Bernardino counties of thousands of flawed registration forms submitted by private firms the county parties had hired.

Elections officials turned over those forms to local prosecutors and the secretary of state. The state Democratic Party requested that the attorney general investigate, calling the allegations "even more disturbing than first thought."

A statement released Friday by the California Republican Party said it welcomed the inquiry and that "one instance of voter fraud is one too many and any suggestion of voter fraud must be investigated."

Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties have recently received complaints from residents who said they had been improperly registered as Republicans, elections officials said.


More: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-votefraud8apr08,0,1124569.story?coll=la-home-local

[MelissaB]

16. NH: VOTER FRAUD VIEWS

VOTER FRAUD VIEWS

Don’t expect the drive for changes in election law to stop just because an attorney general’s report found fraud was not a problem in 2004. It doesn’t mention the 2002 GOP phone-jam case.

“There are very few instances of wrongful voting in New Hampshire,” the report by Deputy AG Bud Fitch states. Almost every instance involved people who had a right to vote in the state, but paperwork created technical errors. “New Hampshire’s local election officials are the front line of our defense against voting fraud and our investigation supports the conclusion that most local officials do an excellent job,” it said.

Fitch and his staff found that cases in Dover, Keene, Durham and Rindge most often involved people who had moved, then voted in their new towns while still on checklists in their old towns.

The report finds no instances of college students voting illegally, let alone young people piling out of the anecdotal van to vote Democrat and drive off to another polling place.

More: http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=State+House+Dome%3A+Vote+won%E2%80%99t+kill+smoking+ban+issue&articleId=05fb103b-e7e9-4a5c-bbd8-deea94b4e30d

[rumpel]

17. IN:Counties accuse Nebraska company of problematic ballots, machines

Fort Wayne.com

Posted on Sat, Apr. 08, 2006

Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS - Three central Indiana counties are blaming a Nebraska company that makes ballots and voting machines for errors they fear could disrupt balloting in the May 2 primary.

With the primary election less than a month away, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., is under fire from officials in Marion, Johnson and Hancock counties for incorrect ballots and delays in mailing the ballots and for not updating voting machine technology.

The issues are serious enough that a member of the Indiana Election Commission said Friday the company, which contracts with 27 Indiana counties, could face some sort of action.

"The bottom line in an election, if it impacts one vote, then it's a problem," said Tom John, a Republican on the commission.

So far, government officials have managed to correct the errors, but they are worried more problems could crop up in the weeks leading up to the May 2 primary, which includes federal, state and local races.

In Marion County, officials discovered that absentee ballots did not include instructions for the nonpartisan school board elections in two townships. Absentee voting started this week.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/14297834.htm

[MelissaB]

18. Alderman says voting glitches may have been part of a conspiracy

Alderman says voting glitches may have been part of a conspiracy

CHICAGO Powerful Chicago Alderman Edward Burke has suggested that a Venezuelan-owned company involved in last month's Chicago vote-counting problems may be part of a conspiracy to subvert elections in the United States.

Burke made the allegations yesterday in the City Council while questioning the president of Sequoia Voting Systems, the company which supplied the city with the high-tech voting equipment.

Burke noted that Sequoia's parent company, the Smartmatic International Group, is more than 90 percent owned by a Venezuelan family. He went so far as to say that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is a frequent critic of the U-S, could have an interest in influencing elections here.

After the hearing, Sequoia president Jack Blaine dismissed Burke's speculations as worthless, calling them, quote, "a crackpot theory."


Link: http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=4744553&nav=1sW7

This appears in an IL newspaper.

Discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421815

[rumpel]

19. INDIA: Braille-enabled voting machines for Pondicherry polls

New Kerala.com
Posted on 08 Apr 2006 # IANS

Pondicherry: Visually challenged voters in Pondicherry will for the first time get Braille-enabled electronic voting machines to cast their ballot in the May 8 assembly elections.

Pondicherry Collector and district election officer G. Thevaneethi Dhas told the media here Saturday that "two assembly constituencies, where there are a large number of visually challenged voters will get this facility".

The blind voters would go through a dummy ballot paper in the polling station that would have a number against each candidate's name in Braille. The voter would have to memorise the number allotted to the candidate of his or her choice.

The voter would then punch the chosen number, written in Braille, in the EVM.

The Braille-enabled voting machines will be introduced in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, where assembly elections are also being held.

http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=39362

[rumpel]

20. MS: Ballot Boxes Open For Public View

The Scott County Times

By CHRIS ALLEN BAKER, Times News Editor
Saturday, April 8, 2006 9:35 AM CDT
FOREST--The next time voters go to the polls their ballot will look nothing like it did in the last election when new voting machines will be used for the first time to electronically record votes.

In an effort to help voters familiarize themselves with the new machines, state and county officials will sponsor a public information forum next week to provide guidance on how the machines work.

Representatives from Secretary of State Eric Clark's office will join Circuit Clerk Joe Rigby at the Scott County Courthouse from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday to show Mississippi's new touch-screen voting machines to all interested voters.

"We want everyone in Scott County to have a chance to see and touch the new voting machines before the election," Clark said. "We're traveling to all 77 counties which are receiving the new machines purchased by the state. This is the most thorough and complete voter outreach program ever undertaken in Mississippi. We'll be happy to answers questions, let folks go through the voting process, and get acquainted with these new, more accurate machines."




The touch-screen machines will be used for the first time in the Democratic primary election on June 6. There is no Republican primary election this year. Changing to new more accurate, accessible machines was mandated by the Federal "Help America Vote Act," passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002.

Every touch-screen machine comes with an external printer so that the voter can see a paper ballot of his or her choices before casting a ballot.

http://www.sctonline.net/articles/2006/04/08/news/local/news20.txt

[rumpel]

21. NJ: Voting requirement causes headaches for New Jersey Peruvians

NJ.com
4/8/2006, 2:42 p.m. ET
The Associated Press
HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) — A single high school in Paterson is the sole place in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for Peruvians to vote in their homeland's national elections on Sunday.

And with Peruvian expatriates facing fines from their homeland if they fail to vote, many of the more than 24,000 Peruvians in the two states are grumbling.

"It's abusive," Daniel Jara of Hackensack told The Record of Bergen County for Saturday newspapers. "With all the money we send back to Peru, we are still treated like second-class citizens."

While many countries allow their expatriates to vote, Peruvians don't have the freedom to abstain, said Juan Carlos Siguas of North Bergen.
"That's why many people vote without conviction," said his friend, Fernando Rivas, of Union City. "They go and vote simply to avoid paying a fine."

A 2001 law allows Peruvians to vote by mail, but Jara believes it hasn't been implemented because the government would rather continue to raise income by collecting penalties from those who fail to vote.

"Sometimes I think it's better to just pay the fine than to spend a day driving and standing in line to cast my vote," said Michael Chapilliquen, who will have to travel to Eastside High School from the Pennsylvania Poconos on Sunday.

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/politics/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1144522476160440.xml&storylist=njelection

[rumpel]

22. IN: Public Forum on the Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act

Civilrights.org


Type
Forum
Location
Indiana
Directions
IU South Bend
1700 Mishawaka Avenue
Student Activity Center, Room 225
Description
Learn more about the Voting Rights Act, one of our nation's most important civil rights laws...

...and find out what you can do to ensure that the Voting Rights Act is restored and renewed!

Featured speakers during the program will include Linda Baechle, executive director of the YWCA of St. Joseph County; Dr. Les Lamon, professor of history and director of the Civil Rights Heritage Center, IU South Bend; and Erica Swanson, field manager for Judicial Nominations and Special Projects, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Elizabeth Bennion, professor of political science and campus director of the IU South Bend American Democracy Project will serve as the program moderator.
Start Date/Time
April 13, 2006 6:00 PM
End Date/Time
April 13, 2006 8:00 PM
Open To Press
Yes
Cost
Free
Contact Email
[e-mail]
Website
www.renewthevra.org
Related Issues
Voting Rights

http://www.civilrights.org/civil_rights_calendar/detail.cfm?id=2307&view=2&date=04-09-2006

[rumpel]

23. MS: Jackson County gets new way to vote

Sunday, April 09, 2006
By NATALIE CHAMBERS
The Mississippi Press

PASCAGOULA -- When Jackson County voters go the polls in November to elect a United States senator and representative, they will cast ballots on the county's new Diebold Accuvote TSX Touch Screen voting machines.

With a simple touch of the screen, the county will practically close the door on paper ballot voting of years past.

Jackson County election commission chairman Ben Sanford said TSX machines and a Diebold Optical Scan Machine are replacing more than 200 paper ballot counters lost when Hurricane Katrina barreled through the area Aug. 29.

Sanford said Jackson County received 216 Touch Screen voting machines and an Optical Scanner through the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The scanner will be used for ab-sentee, affidavit and emergency balloting.

"Through state funding, we are going to get 78 more. We are currently planning on increasing the total number of TSX machines to 400 and adding one Optical Scanner for backup," said Sanford.

TSX meets HAVA requirements and is designed to meet the needs of all voters.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=40194

[rumpel]

24. TN: Early voting starts Wednesday

2006-04-09
by Lesli Bales-Sherrod
of The Daily Times Staff
The new machines are here and ready to go.

Early voting for the May 2 county primary starts Wednesday and runs through April 27 at the Blount County Election Commission office, located on the first floor of the Blount County Courthouse.

The office will be open for early voting 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, said Administrator of Elections Becky Harrill. The office will be closed April 14 for Good Friday, but will be open 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 22.

``You need to bring some form of ID with you,'' she said. ``It's good if you have your voter (registration) card.''

Choosing a primary

Because May 2 is a primary, voters must choose whether to vote Democrat or Republican, with the winners from each party facing off in the county general election Aug. 3. Voters in Tennessee do not register by party, Harrill noted, so it does not matter with which party one identifies. Democrats can vote in the Republican primary; Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary.

snip

The Hart InterCivic eSlate System Version 5.0 looks like a flat computer screen. Voters use rotary dial technology -- a wheel labeled ``Select'' -- to navigate through the entire ballot, making selections by hitting an ``Enter'' button at the bottom of the screen.

At the end of the ballot or at anytime the voter hits the red ``Cast Ballot'' button, the machine takes the voter to an on-screen verification that shows the voter who he or she has selected in each race. If no selection was made, that is highlighted in red for the voter.

The verification allows voters the opportunity to change their votes, or to finish voting if they have not already, before the ballot is cast.

There will be three of the new machines set up at the Election Commission office for early voting, Harrill said. There also will be one demonstration unit there so that election workers can show voters how to use the new machine before they go into the booths to cast their ballots, she added.

Paper ballots also are available, Harrill noted.

http://www.thedailytimes.com/sited/story/html/234896

[rumpel]

25. TX: Officials say vote problems are solved

Star-Telegram.com

Posted on Sun, Apr. 09, 2006

STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
Tarrant County election officials say they've worked out the kinks in the way they tabulated votes in the March 7 primary and believe that problems such as programming glitches that led to massive overcounts of votes that night will not be repeated in Tuesday's runoff election.

Some internal election procedures have also been changed, software altered and the tabulating of some data simplified. And election workers are more familiar with the new electronic voting equipment that federal rules now require nationwide.

"Anything you do, you want to make sure it works properly," said Gayle Hamilton, interim elections administrator for Tarrant County. "Problems we found in the primary have been checked and won't be repeated."

A computer programming glitch for the primary election counted some votes multiple times and boosted the final tally in the Republican and Democratic primaries by as much as 100,000 votes. Officials with Hart InterCivic, the company that made the equipment and wrote the software, said a procedural error led to inflated counts when totals from early voting, absentee-by-mail voting and election day voting were merged on election night.

But new problems can still emerge, said Dan Wallach, an associate professor at Rice University who specializes in computer security and electronic voting.

"No voting system can ever be foolproof," he said. "I would like to see the state investing more resources into election system certification and testing.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/14302958.htm

[rumpel]

26. AK: Imagine your vote actually counted

April 9, 2006

VALLEY VOICES/Chuck Legge

Imagine you've just voted for your preferred presidential candidate. Now, imagine you have used the Diebold touch-screen voting machine.

Let's imagine further that this machine is not hack-proof. For instance, there's a port in the side of the machine that allows a wireless connection to another computer.

It's also possible to switch the voting total so the loser of a particular race becomes the winner. This means poll results could be manipulated by your brighter-than-average high school senior with a laptop. Let's imagine there's a discrepancy of 100,000 votes between the counts done from district to district and the official state count.

Well, the Alaska Democratic Party doesn't need the imagination of Steven Spielberg to imagine what happened in the last presidential election. For the 2004 election, Alaska contracted with Diebold Election Systems to use its Accuvote machines.

When the votes were counted by district, the total for George W. Bush was 292,267. However, the official state count for Bush was 190,889. That's a difference of 101,378 votes.

No one with a nodding acquaintance with reality would suggest that Kerry beat Bush in Alaska, but 101,378 is a lot of votes. That's a difference of more than a third to more than half, depending on which total you use.

http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2006/04/09/news/opinion/opinion2.txt

[rumpel]

27. CA: Organizers aim to get marchers onto voter rolls

Union Tribune, San Diego.com
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 9, 2006

People who participate in the march for immigrant rights today will see as many as 100 voter registration volunteers working the crowd downtown, along with voter registration tables at the start and end points.

“What we are saying is 'march today, vote tomorrow,' ” said Jessica Nolan, a spokeswoman for the march's organizers, which include community, labor and religious groups.

After a month of similar marches nationwide that have drawn hundreds of thousands of participants, the organizers of the San Diego march are seeing what some political observers see: the potential to harness the energy present in those protests and convert it into Latino voting power.

“I think it is very clear that it has the potential for mobilizing both nonregistered U.S. citizen Latinos as well as pushing Latinos to naturalize,” said Harry Pachon, director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a nonprofit policy research organization in Los Angeles that focuses on Latino issues.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060409-9999-1n9vote.html

[rumpel]

28. Arizona man proposes lottery to increase voter turnout (comment: Huh?)

Lottery Post ( Huh?)

Cast a vote, win a million.

If an Arizona man has his way, every person who votes in his state will automatically have his or her name entered in a in draw to win $1 million. Mark Osterloh, an Arizona physician and attorney, is proposing a state law that would act as an incentive to increase voter turnout.

The long-time advocate of electoral policy reform says the idea is a variation on a highly successful law in Australia, under which citizens who fail to vote are fined.

Such a penalty would be unconstitutional in the United States, since freedom of speech includes the freedom not to speak. But Osterloh believes his incentive-based system could be just as effective.

Currently, only one in four Arizona residents exercise the right to vote.

"Who do you know that doesn't want to be an millionaire?" asks Osterloh. "People tell me, 'Darn right, I'll start voting for that.'"

Osterloh is in the process of securing the 122,612 signatures he needs to land his proposal on November's election ballot. If voters say yes, his idea will become state law and, every two years, a million greenbacks will be awarded at random to an Arizona voter.

The prize will come from the Arizona Lottery's unclaimed money pool.

Osterloh maintains that the current electoral system is out of whack with the spirit of a capitalist society. As it stands, the rewards associated with voting are too convoluted to garner widespread participation. Voting - like studying for a school exam or working overtime - needs to present a more immediate and obvious benefit, Osterloh says.

"Our whole capitalist economy is based on the idea of incentives. Capitalism won out over communism because we have incentives built into our system."

But isn't this a bastardization of the democratic process? Shouldn't voters go to the polls out of a sense of duty, rather than in hopes of hitting the jackpot?

Osterloh reminds us that incentive-laden systems are consistent with the Christian paradigm.

http://www.lotterypost.com/news-132161.htm

[rumpel]

29. E-training for $2 a day (Diebold call center staff training)

E-training for $2 a day
10 April 2006


An Auckland training consultancy is offering interactive business courses that let companies train their staff on the cheap online.

The courses, made by Rapid Results under the icontact brand, teach employees assertiveness, communications and customer service skills, and time and stress management. They're sold for $2 a person a day, with unlimited, any-time access.

Director Derek Good says the cost is much less than sending staff off for a training day, and the information is better retained. "These are general business and life skills that are going to benefit everyone," he says.

Rapid Results also provides traditional in-house training but Mr Good believes there's better growth to be had online. He expects online revenues this year to match traditional revenues. "It's got the potential to absolutely blast through."

The courses expand on the company's existing online course, a Qualifications Authority-approved course in call centre operations. It has been used by Mercury Energy, Freedom Air and North Shore City Council.

In the United States, where there is no comparable qualification, the American Teleservices Association recently adopted the course as a national standard. Rapid Results expects to earn more than $100,000 from the endorsement this year.

The company signed a $13,000 deal last month to train call centre staff for US electronics firm Diebold.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3632102a28,00.html

[rumpel]

31. TX: Does every vote count? (San Antonio commentary)

Web Posted: 04/09/2006 12:00 AM CDT


Rebeca Chapa
Express-News editorial writer

When Judge Oscar Kazen narrowly lost his re-election bid during last month's Democratic primary, it was no surprise that he called for a recount. The slim 12-vote deficit out of nearly 35,000 cast was tantalizingly close, and a recount easily could have turned his fortunes around.

It didn't, but the process shed light on what some computer and voting technology experts consider a weakness of systems such as the one used in Bexar County: no voter-verifiable paper record of the votes cast in an election.

Kazen's was the second major recount in Bexar County, following the contentious Congressional District 28 race in 2004. In both cases, the recount consisted of re-tabulating only the paper ballots, not the tens of thousands of ballots cast on high-tech electronic touch-screen voting machines.

And in both cases, the losing candidates and local officials were comfortable with the process.

Adding a paper trail

"If staffers follow the procedures we have, I believe the accuracy rate to be 100 percent," said Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA040906.01H.EVote.d73f88f.html

[rumpel]

35. MellisaB, sorry, got several dupes

not a productive day...dang!

:banghead:

[MelissaB]

36. I've done the same thing today

with things that were posted yesterday. :hi:

You're doing a great job! Keep it up! :toast:

[rumpel]

37. must be a planetary thing...

:toast:


:hi:

[rumpel]

32. PA: Pollsters explain wide disparities

The Times Tribune

Sunday, April 09, 2006

BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK STAFF WRITER

In the governor’s race between Democrat Ed Rendell and Republican Lynn Swann, beauty is in the eye of the pollster.

Since early February, three different independent polls of registered voters have shown widely varying results of who voters are thinking of sending to Harrisburg to run the state come January.

¦ A Keystone Poll of 611 voters between Jan. 31 and Feb. 5 had Mr. Rendell with a 3-percentage point edge with 13 percent undecided. The margin of error — how much each number might be off — was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

¦ A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,354 voters, released Wednesday and conducted between March 28 and Monday, had Mr. Rendell up by 10 points, about the same as the same poll reported in February, with 12 percent undecided. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

¦ An Issues PA/Pew Charitable Trusts poll of 1,504 voters between March 14 and 22 had Mr. Swann likely getting 35 percent of the votes, Mr. Rendell with the likely backing of 29 percent and with 34 percent willing to be convinced either way. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Three polls.

Three margins.

Differences of 3, 6 and 10 points. Two for Mr. Rendell, one for Mr. Swann.

Madness, right?

No, pollsters say. It’s a matter of method. And timing.

Many factors could explain the differences, but at least one of the pollsters attributed them to the voters questioned, when they were questioned, the regional breakdown of surveyed voters, the questions’ wording and sample size.

much more:
http://www.scrantontimes.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16453496&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=6

TIA feel better soon

[rumpel]

33. AK: Elections division hangs credibility in the balance

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Consent of the governed is the foundation of good, healthy democracy. So are accountability and transparency of process. So the ongoing refusal of Lt. Gov. Loren Leman and his Division of Elections to address massive vote-tallying irregularities is more than a little troubling.

In the 2004 election, the state used voting machines developed by Diebold, a firm which gained notoriety and fanned a controversy when its pro-Republican CEO announced prior to the election that he would deliver a Bush victory. It would be easy to pass off the comment as idle bravado except for the ease with which the Diebold machines can be “hacked” and manipulated without so much as a paper trail or any kind of backup system to verify results.

When district-by-district totals came up with some 101,000 votes more than official state totals showed for George W. Bush, eyebrows rightfully were raised. Sadly, the Division of Elections, which could have shut down any speculation about wrongdoing simply by releasing the database and database backup file, has refused to do so.

Despite the company's willingness to comply, the Division of Elections says making this information public might compromise the integrity and confidentiality of Diebold's information. So what about the integrity of the electoral process?

What kind of twisted logic is the division applying when it says not releasing the information is simply an extension of its mission to protect the election process? Why should the public's confidence in the system take a back seat to protecting a private company - especially when that protection could be viewed as covering up an irregularity in the system?

http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2006/04/09/news/opinion/opinion1.txt

[Kurovski]

38. K&R

Thank you rumpel & MellisaB! :bounce: :hug:

[rumpel]

39. GUAM drama continues: Sablan: Abramoff not involved

Pacific Daily News

Originally published April 10, 2006

By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News
[e-mail]

Former Republican Party Chairman David J. Sablan stated he was part of a group that asked the White House to nominate Leonardo Rapadas as the U.S. Attorney for Guam and the Northern Marianas, but he said neither disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff nor White House advisor Karl Rove were involved.

"I saw no reason to go to Karl's level with our recommendation," Sablan said to the Pacific Daily News, in response to a story in the April 7 issue of the PDN quoting an anonymous federal source saying Sablan went to Rove.

"We submitted the recommendation to Mr. Clay Johnson, who was then the assistant to the president for presidential personnel, responsible for the office that identifies and recruits several thousand senior officials, middle management personnel and part-time board and commission members," Sablan stated in the e-mail response.

Rapadas' nomination has become a national media issue because of allegations he was nominated to remove Frederick Black, the acting U.S. Attorney on Guam at the time, from an investigation into the Superior Court of Guam's nearly $400,000 in payments to Abramoff. Abramoff is awaiting sentencing in an influence-peddling case in Washington and has been sentenced to more than five years in prison in connection with an unrelated fraud case in Florida.

http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060410/NEWS01/604100302/1002

From the Timeline Box on same page:
1998

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff asks congressional aides to have Rep. Tom DeLay, the House's No. 2 at the time, to call for a federal investigation into Gov. Carl Gutierrez's administration just before voters decide whether to give Gutierrez a second term.
An unnamed Abramoff aide makes an offer to former Gov. Joseph Ada and his lieutenant governor running mate, Felix Camacho: a campaign strategy in the event of an election runoff between the Ada-Camacho camp and Gutierrez, who ran with Madeleine Bordallo.


(FYI Guiterrez=Dem, Bordallo widow of former Gov Bordallo died by suicide, now she is sitting as non-voting Guam delegate in House of Congress)

[Wilms]

40. Lawsuit: Company grading SATs blew it

These tests are scored using OpScan.

Lawsuit: Company grading SATs blew it

Company responds that excess moisture may have caused errors

Saturday, April 8, 2006

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (AP) -- A high school senior whose SAT was incorrectly scored low is suing the board that oversees the exam and the testing company that was hired.

The lawsuit, filed late Friday in Minnesota, is the first since last month's announcement that 4,411 students got incorrectly low scores and that more than 600 had better results than they deserved on the October test.

It names the nonprofit College Board and the for-profit Pearson Educational Measurement, which has offices in Minnesota's Hennepin County.

snip

Snodgrass' firm won a multimillion-dollar settlement from Pearson in 2002 for scoring errors in Minnesota that affected more than 8,000 students, some of whom missed graduation ceremonies after being told they failed a state-required exam.

The lawsuit alludes to the Minnesota mistake and others in alleging that Pearson has taken shortcuts.

"The College Board contracted with Pearson despite the fact that Pearson is no stranger to botching test scores," the lawsuit reads.

snip

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/08/SAT.suit.ap/index.html

[Wilms]

41. Kick