Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, FRIDAY July 21, 2006

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Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News



Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.
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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
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1. GA: Election counting took all night in Gwinnett

Gwinett Daily Post

07/20/2006

Gwinnett's election glitches didn't end in the morning, when four polls opened late for Tuesday's primary election.
The electronic voting machines caused problems into the night.
Elections Supervisor Lynn Ledford said the problem was with Diebold modems, causing many of the poll managers to have problems with transmitting information from polling locations.
After 10 or 15 precincts reported problems, elections officials told all of them to try transmitting once and then pack the equipment and bring it to the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center.
There, workers had to manually load all of the cards with voting tallies into the system - which took hours.
The final results weren't in until 2 a.m. Wednesday.
After the results are certified Friday night, Ledford said the county's information technology people will meet with the Diebold IT people to get the situation straightened out.
With the Aug. 8 runoff less than three weeks away, Ledford said she isn't sure if all of the problems can be solved.

http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=32&url_article_id=17416&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2

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2. GA: Georgia's computerized voting works well

Baltimore Sun

State uses system nearly identical to Maryland's
By Melissa Harris
sun reporter
Originally published July 20, 2006
Lynn Ledford, the elections supervisor in the northeast Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County, was pleased that only five of her nearly 200 polling stations experienced brief delays during Tuesday's primary voting, blaming the glitches on older volunteers who get skittish when faced with "anything that looks like a computer."

What should make elections supervisors and voters in Maryland breathe easier, however, is that Georgia -- whose computerized system is almost identical to the one to be used in Maryland this year -- ran what appears to be a successful election with only minor delays.

Most of the problems, Georgia officials said, were caused by people not showing up on time to open polling places.

Maryland, like Georgia, re-engineered its election systems after the 2000 Florida recount. Here, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and other critics have raised grave doubts about the security of this year's election, saying the combination of Diebold touch-screen machines and early voting could invite disaster.

That didn't happen in Georgia this year, however.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.georgia20jul20,0,2516870.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

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3. ME: New Equipment To Give Disabled Secret Vote

WMTV Channel 8 (ABC)

POSTED: 5:50 am EDT July 20, 2006
UPDATED: 6:15 am EDT July 20, 2006

AUGUSTA, Maine -- For Maine's disabled people, voting has not always been a private exercise, because they need help when marking their ballots. Those days will soon end.
The state's top election official said special equipment will be purchased later this year that will enable disabled people to vote with privacy and independence for the first time. Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said that will make November's balloting historic.
The Inspire Vote-By-Phone system produced by a Kentucky company has been selected following an extensive review process that included disabled people and local election officials. The system allows voters to cast their ballots using a telephone and fax combination.

http://www.wmtw.com/politics/9546579/detail.html

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4. AR: Arkansas needs to renegotiate with voting machine vendor

By ANDREW DeMILLO


Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK - Arkansas should renegotiate a $15.9 million contract with a Nebraska-based voting-machine vendor after problems in the May 23 primary, an independent report released Tuesday said.

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels on Thursday released a report about the state's contract with Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb. Daniels ordered the review following a problem-plagued primary riddled with delays that stretched out vote-counting for days.

ES&S got the state's contract to provide Arkansas counties with new touch-screen machines and other equipment mandated under the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002. The state ordered more than 4,000 pieces of new equipment to comply with the law.

Under the law, each polling site was supposed to have at least one of the electronic machines to help disabled people. But four of Arkansas' 75 counties - Desha, Jefferson, Stone, and Sebastian _ did not use the electronic machines in the primary. Election officials in some counties said the company didn't provide programming equipment in time to adequately train poll workers.

InfoSENTRY Services, Inc., a Raleigh, N.C.-based information technology services firm that performed the review, said the firm received below-average ratings from county election officials.

"ES&S was too busy running helter-skelter between Little Rock and Omaha," one county official said in a survey. "The result was a woeful lack of communication with the counties."

http://www.helena-arkansas.com/articles/2006/07/20/news/news1.txt

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5. N.C. lawmakers continue to reform campaign advertising

Myrtle Beach Online -The Sun News

Posted on Thu, Jul. 20, 2006

Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. - The General Assembly moved further Thursday to force independent organizations or individuals to reveal more information about their spending in support of political campaigns.

The Senate approved a measure that would require groups that spend more than $10,000 in an election year to report their expenses to the State Board of Elections and identify those who contributed more than $1,000.

"The sole aspect of this is for disclosure," Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, said before the bill passed 38-8.

Lawmakers last week passed a similar measure that lowers the thresholds that require politically active 527s - named after the section of the federal tax code that regulates them - to report contributions and spending. Thursday's bill would apply to expenses more than 30 days before a primary and more than 60 days before a general election.

Donations from corporations, labor unions and professional associations can't be used by 527s within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election.

Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger questioned whether the new bill infringed on rights of campaign supporters.

"The whole idea that mentioning a candidate's name would trigger a reporting requirement is totally alien to what our democracy has stood for," said Berger, R-Rockingham.

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/15085895.htm

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6. CA: Lawmakers try to reform signature gathering

OC Register

Friday, July 21, 2006

Bills would outlaw per-signature bounties, give voters more information about contributors to initiative drives.
By BRIAN JOSEPH
The Orange County Register

SACRAMENTO – Lawmakers are trying to fix problems with signature gathering in California by eliminating bounties that might fuel voter-registration fraud and also ensuring that voters get better information when they're approached by petitioners.

Legislators say recent problems in Orange County have created momentum for changes, although legal experts say change in this area of the law is difficult because it touches on freedom of speech.

Some proposals before the Legislature could have kept scores of Orange County voters registered as Democrats from being switched to the Republican Party.

After dozens of voters complained to election officials about being switched, an Orange County Register investigation in April independently confirmed that more than 100 county residents had been deceived by signature gatherers circulating both petitions and voter-registration cards.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1217855.php

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7. AR: Election problems (Arkansas Times) Arkansas Blog

Secretary of State Charlies Daniels' office reports on a meeting of the bipartisan group reviewing primary election problems. It was the voting machine company's fault, says he. The office release is on the jump.
NEWS RELEASE

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels and the bipartisan Voting System Performance Review Committee today reviewed the completed report analyzing Arkansas's primary election.

The report by InfoSentry Services outlined findings and recommendations on the following topics: Project planning, organization, and management; meetings and meeting management; testing and test management; documentation management; risk management and issue tracking; training and communications; and comments made by the counties.

Discussion focused largely on Finding 5.0 under Project Planning, Organization, and Management. This finding states "ES&S did not commit adequate resources to the Arkansas voting system project until after other states' elections concluded , which was too late to allow sufficient testing, sufficient equipment programming, and ballot printing to meet critical early voting, absentee, and Election Day deadlines." In response to this finding, the report recommends "ES&S...document to the State the names of every person at ES&S working on any component of the Arkansas voting system implementation project."

"This report appears to be very thorough and complete," said Secretary Daniels. "I'm hopeful that we will be able to implement the recommendations in a timely manner and with the full cooperation of ES&S."

http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/2006/07/election_problems_1.aspx

(with subsequent reader comments)

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8. WA: STOLEN VOTER REGISTRATION FORMS FOUND

KXLY.com Staff and Wire Reports
Last updated: Thursday, July 20th, 2006 07:05:17 PM

SPOKANE -- It appears that a car prowler didn’t steal the election after all after a YWCA employee found and returned some voter registration forms that were taken from an SUV parked at NorthTown Mall earlier this month.

The YWCA employee said she found the forms dumped in some bushes near the south side of the YWCA building Sunday night. She didn’t realize the significance of her discovery until she saw news reports about the theft of the forms on Wednesday.

“Thank goodness for that news story,” Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton. said “ It looks like there are about 150 forms returned, so I hope that is all of them.”

Because the forms contained personal data including names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and signatures there was a concern the stolen forms could have been used to commit identity theft.

http://www.kxly.com/news/index.php?sect_rank=2§ion_id=560&story_id=3781

(entire report)

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9. NY Times: DeLay PAC Draws a Fine and Agrees to Shut Down

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: July 21, 2006
WASHINGTON, July 20 — The political action committee used as a vehicle to power in Congress by Representative Tom DeLay has agreed to pay $115,000 in fines for violations of federal campaign rules and will close its doors permanently, the Federal Election Commission said Thursday.

According to an agreement with the commission, Mr. DeLay’s committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, agreed to the fines to settle accusations that it had failed to report more than $322,000 in debts and other obligations to its vendors and had misrepresented more than $240,000 in other financial activity in 2001 and 2002.

The pact did not provide a timetable for the shutdown of the committee, which for years was Mr. DeLay’s chief fund-raising arm, allowing him to make millions of dollars in contributions to political allies who then supported his rise in the Republican leadership in Congress.

The committee’s demise had been widely predicted as a result of Mr. DeLay’s decision to resign from the House. The resignation was linked to his indictment in Texas on charges that he violated state election laws, as well as the guilty plea this year by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close friend who has confessed to conspiring to corrupt members of Congress. Two former aides to Mr. DeLay have pleaded guilty in the investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/washington/21delay.html?

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10. CO: Voting system passes test

Denver Post
Article Launched: 07/21/2006 01:00:00 AM MDT

Mock election on new machines nets accurate results
By George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writer

Denver's voting system passed muster - at least according to public tests done Thursday.

The positive results came as welcome news for the Denver Election Commission. Several city officials have criticized the agency in the past weeks, and the auditor's office openly questioned the commission's ability to conduct an election.

Thursday's test was in preparation for the Aug. 8 primary, when Denver voters will use new machines at larger "vote centers" instead of small polling places.

Four outside officials representing different political parties spent Thursday at the commission running a mock election that tallied the equivalent of 544 voters' choices.

The only discrepancy found proved to be human error.

"I accidentally voted the same ballot twice," said Dan Willis, a Democratic volunteer. "The final tally shows exactly what was voted."

The volunteers selected five machines to test - including four of the newly purchased electronic machines - and voted on each of Denver's 34 different ballot styles on each one.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4076644

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11. FL: Voting Rights Act affects five Florida counties

Tallahassee Democrat

Originally published July 21, 2006

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965, to ensure that blacks had the same opportunity to cast a meaningful ballot as whites.

Later amendments to the act pinpointed voting districts in 16 states - including five counties in Florida - that needed extra monitoring because of past problems with discrimination.

Congress last reauthorized the Voting Rights Act in 1985. The provision naming federal "preclearance" jurisdictions - including Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe counties in Florida - requires those jurisdictions to prove to the Department of Justice that any change to redistricting, annexation, at-large elections, reregistration requirements, polling place changes and new rules for candidate qualifying doesn't have a discriminatory purpose or effect before the change can be implemented.

Statewide changes that would have an effect on a preclearance county also must be approved by the Justice Department.

Another provision requires counties that reach a certain percentage of Hispanic voters to have bilingual ballots and education materials, and a third provision authorizes the Justice Department to send observers to the polls to check for discriminatory activities.

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060721/NEWS01/607210330/1010

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12. Alternet: Ohio's Coming Electoral Meltdown

By Andrew Gumbel, The Nation. Posted July 21, 2006.

Ohio is once again the most likely candidate for another election debacle in the November general elections.

Anyone wondering where America's next electoral meltdown will take place -- and it can only be a matter of time -- might do well to turn back to the scene of the last one. Ohio was, of course, ground zero of the 2004 presidential election, and now it's the battleground of one of the most hotly contested governor's races in the country.

The Republican candidate this November is none other than Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, a man vilified by voting rights activists for a string of baffling and, to all appearances, nakedly partisan rulings in the 2004 presidential race, when he also doubled as co-chair of George Bush's state re-election campaign. Now he's at it again -- issuing draconian guidelines on voter registration that carry the threat of felony prosecutions against grassroots get-out-the-vote groups, especially in Democratic-leaning urban areas, for even the slightest procedural irregularity.

Despite denials from Blackwell's office of any malicious political intent, the guidelines have had an immediate chilling effect on groups like the activist community organization ACORN, which has suspended registration efforts pending urgent consultations with its lawyers. Several leading Democrats have urged Blackwell to step aside from all election-supervising responsibilities, a proposal his staff has greeted with near-derision.

It would be bad enough if Blackwell were acting merely to benefit his party, as he did in 2004. But in this case he's taking advantage of his office to act on behalf of his own ambitions. Unless something changes between now and November, he will remain in charge of counting the votes -- his own and everyone else's. In a pivotal election in a pivotal state, this is far from reassuring. As Peg Rosenfield, an elections specialist with the League of Women Voters of Ohio who spent twelve years working in the secretary of state's office in the pre-Blackwell era, put it, "If you think '04 was a mess, just wait. I anticipate a debacle."

http://www.alternet.org/story/39151/

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13. AK: Voter registration deadline (announcement)

Sunday, July 23 is the last day to register to vote or update voter registration before the August 22 primary election. Election offices in the Anchorage area will be open Saturday, July 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, July 23 from noon to 4 p.m. - in Anchorage at 2525 Gambell Street, Suite 100, 522-8683; in Wasilla, at 1700 East Bogard Road, Building B, Suite 102, 373-8952.

For more info, go to the Division of Elections website, at www.elections.state.ak.us; for a graphic describing the ballot choices, go to www.gov.state.ak.us/ltgov/elections/forms/x01_06.pdf.

http://www.anchoragepress.com/archives-2006/lettersvol15ed29.html

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14. TN: 'None of the Above' term sought on ballot

Friday, July 21, 2006 · Last updated 2:35 a.m. PT



By BETH RUCKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A software developer running for governor and the U.S. Senate felt so strongly that voters should have "None of the Above" as a choice that he made it his middle name.

The State Election Commission voted 5-0 to nix the middle name from the ballot.

Now, David "None of the Above" Gatchell is challenging the commission in court to get the words on the Nov. 7 ballot. "I feel so strongly about this and I knew that it should be my name," he said. "That's who I am."

Gatchell, 58, ran as an independent in the 2002 governor's race on the platform that Tennessee election ballots should include a "None of the Above" choice for voters who don't care for any of the candidates.

Gatchell, who won 6 percent of the gubernatorial vote in 2002, decided in January that he would run for the two seats, and he'll be listed in both races as an independent.

He changed his middle name from Leroy in August.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_None_of_the_Above.html

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15. CA: Don’t rush to fix Legislature

OC Register

Friday, July 21, 2006

Editorial: Legislative leaders may combine both term limits and redistricting refoms on a single ballot measure, a bad idea

The Orange County Register

It might end up being called the Great Swap of 2006. California's Democratic legislators want to reform term limits. Republicans want to reform the current configuration of voting districts throughout the state to make them more competitive. The two sides are working on combining their efforts to put something before voters, possibly as early as the November election.

Leaders of both parties in the Legislature "will have a meeting next week," Republican Senate Leader Dick Ackermen of Irvine told us, while the Legislature is adjourned for its summer recess. "Both ideas need to be addressed. Possibly we could make some headway. We're trying to get some agreement."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has backed the idea of a "swap" on the issue.

A little background. In 1990, voters enacted Proposition 140, which limited terms in the Assembly to six years and in the Senate and statewide offices to eight years. We supported Prop. 140, favoring citizen-legislators over career legislators.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/homepage/article_1217653.php

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16. OH: Vote tied on whether to fire election chief after botched primary

Acron Beacon Journal

Posted on Fri, Jul. 21, 2006

THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press
CLEVELAND - The Cuyahoga County Elections Board voted 2-2 along party lines Friday on whether to fire its embattled chief because of a botched May primary that was plagued by voting machine problems, absent poll workers and other issues.

The two Democrats on the appointed board voted to ax Democrat Michael Vu and the two Republicans supported him after a 395-page report detailing the "nightmare election" in Ohio's largest county was released publicly.

The tie means Vu's fate is in the hands of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor.

"I don't want to leave on a bad note, but those (decisions) are not within my control at this point," Vu said Friday.

The 30-year-old Vu, hired in 2003 to run elections in the county with 1 million registered voters, said he hopes Blackwell makes a decision quickly so preparations for the November election are not affected.

Blackwell spokesman James Lee said the board has 14 days to send their rationale for the decision to the secretary of state.

"We have to see what the arguments are from the opposing sides at the board of elections," Lee said.

There is no deadline for Blackwell to make a decision on Vu's $119,000 a year job.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15090898.htm

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17. GA: Electronic voting is ripe for widespread fraud (Letters)

Tribune & Georgian

Dear Editor, I am writing in response to Reeney Adams' ("Paper trail voting machines are vital to make sure future votes count") and Marion Wall's ("Electronic voting machines are safe and fair") letters to the editor of July 12 and July 14, respectively.

With respect to Wall's assumption that the current electronic voter machines are safe and fair, I have to point out that there have been a large number of incidents around the country that have provided proof that this not the case.

In 2004, machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems disenfranchised a large number of voters in Alameda and San Diego counties in California. It was bad enough that California's secretary of state revoked certification of all touchscreen machines and recommended criminal prosecution of Diebold.

In 2003, machines in Virginia were reported to refuse to register votes for certain candidates and voters had to demand that an alternate method for voting be provided. It was later found out that these paper ballots were then entered into the machine anyway, without the voters' knowledge.

In Napa County, Calif., an improperly calibrated scanner overlooked 6,692 absentee ballots in 2004. Votes that subsequently were never counted.

Georgia is one of 15 states that do not require either a voter Verifiable Paper Record (basically a receipt of your vote) or a requirement to randomly audit electronic voting machine records against verifiable paper records.

http://www.tribune-georgian.com/articles/2006/07/21/news/opinion/letters/3letter7.21.txt

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18. GA: Machine VOTE FLIPPING Claimed in McKinney Primary

American Chronicle

Matthew Cardinale
July 21, 2006
This article courtesy of Atlanta Progressive News.

(APN) ATLANTA –“You’ve got electronic voting machines. Many people called in and shared their concern. They pushed the button for Cynthia McKinney and Hank Johnson came up. It wasn’t one time, it wasn’t two times, it was many, many times,” Karen Fitzpatrick, who has been monitoring elections for US Rep. McKinney’s re-election campaign, told Atlanta Progressive News in an exclusive interview.

Let me repeat: The McKinney Campaign says they have documented complaints of voters here in Georgia whose votes FLIPPED BEFORE THEIR VERY EYES on Diebold machines.

“It started early this morning. There were well over 25 to 30 calls that came in . Many of them went to the poll manager . In some cases, the poll managers said there’s nothing we can do. In some cases the voter left frustrated as if their vote had been compromised, as if it had been stolen,” Fitzpatrick said.

And many voters hadn’t even selected the “cast ballot” button yet, when they were told it was already too late, Fitzpatrick said.

“I believe that was their instructions. There’s no question in my mind they were following instructions,” from the Elections Division under Cathy Cox, she said.

“The zero results report didn’t come up zero on many precincts today. Whenever it doesn’t come out a zero, that means votes didn’t get counted,” Fitzpatrick said.

McKinney’s campaign showed APN a stack of affidavits from who they say are traumatized voters. APN hopes to interview some of these voters very soon and bring you the details.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11705

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19. OH: Recommendations of panel that reviewed Cuyahoga elections

Akron Beacon Journal

Posted on Fri, Jul. 21, 2006

Associated Press
An independent panel reviewing Cuyahoga County's botched May 2 primary made several recommendations for reform. The panel, led by Cleveland Municipal Judge Ronald Adrine, included Thomas Hayes, a former elections board director who is director of the Ohio Lottery Commission, and Candice Hoke, a Cleveland State University law professor who recently stepped down as director of the CSU Center for Election Integrity.

Among other changes, the panel said the county elections board should:

_Improve training of poll workers by having the state's colleges and universities create a poll worker training program with a core curriculum approved by the Secretary of State; until then, the board should improve the quality of its training.

_Evaluate poll workers after training to measure competence.

_Include legal counsel in all of its negotiations with vendors and work better with the county commission. The elections board waited too long to involve commissioners in selecting a voting machine system and then expected the county to pay for whatever system was chosen, the report says.

_Seek more public comment in a timely manner, including having a public hearing so voting machine maker Diebold Inc. can discuss its products.

_Improve planning for possible problems well in advance of election day.

_Clean up voter-registration records which may have 86,000 records duplicated in other Ohio counties. The current staff is insufficient for that, so high-quality, temporary workers should be hired, the report says.

_Investigate what would happen to computer memory cards holding votes if the cards become full. The report suggest the tallies could be overridden.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15090905.htm

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20. OH: Early Warning

Friday, July 21, 2006

Four months before the election collapsed around them, Cuyahoga elections chief Michael Vu and assistant chief Gwen Dillingham received an e-mail warning them of 13 looming pitfalls for Election Day.

The warning was from a project manager provided to the county by Diebold to help prepare for all-electronic voting. As 2006 dawned, Joe Nista took note of potential problems.

Some examples:

Scanning machines might be unable to read thousands of absentee ballots.

Votng machine memory cards might not get to the election headquarters for counting.

Election workers might be unable to operate the machines.

Vu's system for counting votes might break down.

All of that came to pass.

Nisa's list "accurately predicted many of the most troubling aspects of the performance in the May primary election," a panel investigating the election writes in its findings.

The panel said the e-mail was a wake-up call "to become serious and focused on ensuring that the nightmare occurrences he listed would not materialize." But, "Dillingham did not consider these realistic possibilities."

The panel could find no evidence that Vu or Dillingham took the warnings seriously.

"By our count, at least ten of these thirteen worst scenarios occurred," the panel's report says.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1153470658195450.xml&coll=2

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21. OH: ‘What-if scenarios’ are real possibilities on Election Day

CantonRep.com - The Repository

Friday, July 21, 2006

“Activists try to ban electronic voting” (July 13) said: “Lawsuits have been filed in at least nine states, alleging that electronic voting machines are wide open to computer hackers. ...” According to the same article, Diebold is the “biggest” manufacturer of these machines, .

Maybe it would be good to remember that in 2003, the CEO of Diebold, Walden O’Dell, was quoted as saying he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.” Was it a surprise to anyone to find out that our secretary of state, Ken Blackwell, has stock in Diebold? Now he’s running for governor.

The article goes on to say, “New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice released a one-year study last month that determined that the three most popular types of U.S. voting machines ‘pose a real danger’ to election integrity.” Diebold spokesman David Bear said, “Those are what-if scenarios.”

What-if scenarios? What does that mean? OK, what if a few people working in Blackwell’s office lacked a conscience and decided, regardless of the law, that they were personally justified in hacking into these machines? What if twisted and corrupt people working at various Board of Elections offices were all too eager to jump on that bandwagon?

http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=297879&Category=7

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22. WA Times: McKinney shocker

Inside Politics
By Greg Pierce
July 20, 2006

Hank Johnson was one of the few people who thought he could beat six-term Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney, his representative for 12 of the 25 years he has lived and worked in Georgia's 4th Congressional District.
But not long after winning re-election to the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners, Mr. Johnson resigned his post to seek Mrs. McKinney's seat. His gamble paid off Tuesday as he came within a hair of Mrs. McKinney's 47 percent plurality in the Democratic primary, forcing her into an Aug. 8 runoff election.
"We knew going in that this race was winnable," Mr. Johnson told the Associated Press yesterday. "Many political pundits and some members of the press were skeptics because they really didn't know what was going on in the streets, but I think the biggest surprise was to Representative McKinney herself. She took the voters for granted."
Meanwhile, McKinney backers saw a conspiracy in Tuesday's outcome.
"As the votes were being tallied, the McKinney campaign put out a release claiming that the Diebold electronic voting machines were malfunctioning and that 'lawyers for the campaign have been alerted,' " the Hill newspaper reported yesterday.

Reed roundup
The victory of state Sen. Casey Cagle over Ralph Reed in Tuesday's Republican primary for lieutenant governor of Georgia puts Republicans in a good light, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells The Washington Times.
"Republican voters proved once again as they did in the special election in San Diego with that a reform candidate who is vowing to change things will have a lot of appeal," said Mr. Gingrich, who represented Georgia in Congress for 20 years.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060720-121912-2795r.htm

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23. MARK CRISPIN MILLER: Let's Get Off The Paper Trail

The Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but this is not a good idea.
Why is our democracy at risk? Is it just because those DRE machines don't leave a paper trail? Or is it that the Bush Republicans detest democracy, since they cannot wield power without subverting the electoral system?

The fact is that they're pushing an agenda that could never win majority support in the United States--from liberals or conservatives. They've therefore had no choice but to commit election fraud, repeatedly and on a mammoth scale, deploying every trick and tactic in the book, and then some.

As I point out in Fooled Again, the Bush Republicans used paperless machines to cut the Democratic vote, not only in Ohio but from coast to coast--but they also cut the vote in states and counties that did not use paperless machines; and in those places that did use them, the Busheviks also relied on many other means of disenfranchising the majority.

They kept Americans from registering, tossed out or passed over countless ballots (including absentee ballots), wiped the names of (at least) tens of thousands from the voter rolls, carefully dispatched too few machines to Democratic precincts nationwide, used "challengers" to bully countless would-be voters into going home or staying home, mounted vast disinformation drives to mislead countless more, arranged a most fortuitous computer glitch so as to keep some two million expatriates from voting absentee, and otherwise transported this whole nation, white and black alike, back to the catastrophic epoch of Jim Crow.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/072106Miller.shtml

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24. CO: County voting not a hit

Publish Date: 7/21/2006

Judges find new machines daunting

By Brad Turner
The Daily Times-Call

BOULDER — The county’s new electronic voting machines are alienating dozens of election volunteers who find the computer-based terminals confusing and tough to carry, and that may cause a staffing shortage at the polls on Aug. 8.

About 100 of the 789 election volunteers who pledged to work the primary — many of whom are of retirement age and hesitant to operate computers or hoist heavy objects — jumped ship because they dislike the new machines, Boulder County election coordinator Josh Liss said.

The elections department hopes for a roster of 945 volunteer judges, which would place five supervisors at each of 189 polling places during the Aug. 8 primary, he said.

Ann Hasse of Jamestown, an election judge since 1972, said she cancelled plans to deliver a voting machine to her local polling place during this year’s primary because she feared she would hurt her back.

“A lot of us aren’t in any shape to be schlepping 30 pounds in and out of a car,” she said.

Activating and setting up the electronic machines is also a daunting task for poll volunteers, who often have little experience with computers, Hasse said.

“I struggle with an electric can opener,” she cracked.

The election-judge revolt caught voting officials off guard, Liss said.

The new machines, which fold up into oversized, 35-pound briefcases for portability, are no heavier than clunky ballot boxes election judges transported in previous contests, he said.

“We have judges who’ve been carrying ballot boxes for years but don’t want to carry a voting machine now,” he said.

http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=8872

[rumpel]

25. IN: Voting machines need paper backup (letters)

Fort Wayne. com

Posted on Fri, Jul. 21, 2006

We need the protection of voting-machine paper trails. CNN anchor Lou Dobbs devoted 10 nights of coverage during June to the vulnerabilities of paperless voting machines.

Rep. Mark Souder should help sponsor H.R. 550, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act.

Recently, a consultant hacked into the FBI computer systems. Consider what hackers with political motivations could do to our electronic voting machines that have no paper trails? So, protect your vote with good ol’ paper.

JAMES E. STUMP
Fort Wayne


http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/15091298.htm

[rumpel]

26. Salon: Paper trails are not incompatible with the needs of disabled voters

Letters

For Gwool, Michael, and the person who didn't have the guts to sign his/her name but who suggests the needs of the disabled should just be ignored:

Paper trails in general, and optically scanned ballots in particular, are not necessarily incompatible with the needs of blind and disabled voters. There is a machine called the AutoMark which has a touch-screen interface and audio output so that blind voters can use it, but the machine then actually marks a paper ballot for them, which is inserted into the optical scanner tabulation equipment just like any other ballot. (http://www.voiceofthenationsblind.org/transcripts/80/automark-voter-assist-terminal-demonstrationThere are touch-screen machines that the blind can use that also produce paper trails. Jim Dixon's absolute opposition to paper trails is misguided, but so are those who suggest simply that the concerns of the blind be squelched or ignored. Until now, the blind have not been able to vote privately and independently, and we have sometimes had to seek assistance from poll workers, even though we can bring someone we trust to the polling place to help if we desire or have such a person available. In any event, having someone else cast your vote for you is an invitation to fraud, if anything is. Any voting technology used simply needs to be set up so that the paper trail output can be read back to the blind voter, so that he or she can be sure that the paper reflects the vote accurately and will be counted correctly if the actual paper ballot is used in an audit or recount.

http://letters.salon.com/news/feature/2006/07/20/voting/view/

[rumpel]

27. Jessee Jackson: DON’T PULL THE TOOTH

The Sunday Paper
07/23/06 Jesse Jackson

Imagine going to the dentist with an aching tooth, and going through the pain of having it diagnosed and pulled—only to discover the dentist pulled the wrong tooth. Not only have you suffered for nothing, you’ve still got to operate on the real problem.

Democrats seem about to put themselves through this agony. Pundits and politicians tell Democrats that they have a “values” problem—that people of faith vote against them in large numbers because the Democratic party is seen as secular, or as anti-Christian, or as straying from mainstream values.

Poppycock. Democrats didn’t lose Florida in 2000 and the 2000 general election because of the lack of a high faith profile. Al Gore won the popular vote nationally and the popular vote of the majority who cast ballots in Florida on Election Day. He lost Florida because the fix was in, because the Voting Rights Act was not enforced—and because Republicans turned the recount into an alley fight while Gore played by rules.

Republican partisan Katherine Harris, acting as both Secretary of State and the head of the Bush campaign, used a Republican firm to purge the voting rolls, eliminating thousands of eligible African-American voters. Jewish voters, confused by sloppy ballots, ended up casting votes for Pat Buchanan by the thousands.

And then a transparently partisan majority in the Supreme Court violated its own principles and shamed itself by ordering an end to a fair count, worried

http://www.sundaypaper.com/LEFTRIGHT/JesseJackson/JesseJacksonArchives/tabid/211/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1670/072306-Jesse-Jackson.aspx

[rumpel]

28. CO: Paper trail pursued

Publish Date: 7/21/2006

Democratic candidate for secretary of state among petition backers

By John Fryar
The Daily Reporter-Herald

DENVER — Every vote cast must be counted with a system that can be audited and has a verifiable paper trail, according to petitions delivered to the Secretary of State’s Office on Wed-nesday.
Submitting those petitions, reportedly signed by more than 800 Coloradans, was Ken Gordon, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state.

“As the chief election officer, the secretary of state is responsible for making sure that every eligible citizen can vote and have that vote counted accurately,” Gordon said in a written statement.

“Unfortunately, the last two presidential elections show that the accurate counting of votes is not a foregone conclusion,” Gordon said.

Gordon, who was accompanied by about 20 supporters and campaign staffers as he turned in the petitions, acknowledged in an interview that “Colorado has not had the problems we’ve seen in other states” with presidential vote counts.

http://www.lovelandfyi.com/region-story.asp?ID=6106

[rumpel]

29. Democrats pressing Blackwell to quit post

Thanks to Algorem

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2403909

[rumpel]

30. Democrats' Allies Use Undisclosed Dollars to Target Republicans

Thanks to cal04

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2403576

[rumpel]

31. Bush-Blackwell-Brewer Continue African American Suppression: Fitrakis

Thanks to kpete

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x442023

[rumpel]

32. Even Less Than No Basis For Confidence, One Year Later

Thanks to GuvWurld

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x441955

[rumpel]

33. In Mexico, the math does not add up

Thanks to eridani

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x441954

[rumpel]

34. UPDATED: Spreadsheets for Cuyahoga County 2004 Presidential Tally

Thanks to L. Coyote

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x441802

[rumpel]

35. CA: Reminder: Rally at the Registrar's in SD - NOW

A rally is scheduled for 12 noon on Friday at the San Diego County
Registrar of Voters Office at 5201 Ruffin Rd. in San Diego, CA to
protest the electronic voting security issues surrounding the June 6th
Primary Election. All concerned citizens are urged to arrive in the
parking lot at 11:30am. Participants are urged not to block the flow
of traffic and be courteous to people entering and leaving the parking
lot.


The rally is being held to protest the use of insecure voting machines
and to urge the registrar of voters and local officials to further
investigate and consider alternatives.


Voters are concerned because of severe security breaches in the
election due to voting machine "sleepovers" and other
hardware/software problems. The United States election system
continues to be plagued by security issues regarding computer software
and chain of custody breakdowns. Further information on this issue
will be available at the rally. Please make your voice heard, voter
confidence is at stake. Count the votes!

as received from uscountvotes.net

[Algorem]

36. OH-Vote tied on whether to make election chief Vu do fall guy bit

BLACKWELL GETS TO DECIDE!!!


Vote tied on whether to fire election chief after botched primary

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/15090898.htm

THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press

CLEVELAND - The Cuyahoga County Elections Board voted 2-2 along party lines Friday on whether to fire its embattled chief because of a botched May primary that was plagued by voting machine problems, absent poll workers and other issues.

The two Democrats on the appointed board voted to ax Democrat Michael Vu and the two Republicans supported him after a 395-page report detailing the "nightmare election" in Ohio's largest county was released publicly.

The tie means Vu's fate is in the hands of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor.

"I don't want to leave on a bad note, but those (decisions) are not within my control at this point," Vu said Friday...

[rumpel]

37. FL: County seeks poll workers for elections (announcement)

PINELLAS COUNTY – Poll workers for the Sept. 5 Primary and Nov. 7 General Election are needed, according to County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark. A countywide election requires close to 4,000 poll workers.

Poll worker training for the primary election begins on Monday, July 24. Class schedules vary, depending on the duty assigned. For instance, a clerk or machine manager is required to take a four-hour general class, plus a two-hour equipment class with more extensive training about the voting machines. Clerks must also attend a one-hour class the day before elections to pick up their material.

Inspectors, provisional ballot managers and deputies are required to take a three-hour class in order to work on Election Day.

These classes are required before each election by law; however, poll workers are paid $25 for each class attended.

Poll workers also are paid for working on Election Day, ranging from $90 to $120 for the day, based on their positions. Clerks and machine managers are also paid an additional amount to set up the machines the day before elections.

Call 464-6110 or visit www.votepinellas.com and click on Poll Worker Information.

Article published on Thursday, July 20, 2006

http://www.tbnweekly.com/pinellas_county/content_articles/072006_pco-08.txt

[FogerRox]

38. Knr

[Kurovski]

39. kick to the top.

Thank you, rumpel.