Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Monday, July 24, 2006

[livvy]

Autorank will return next Monday.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News

All members welcomed and encouraged to participate.



Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the new Spring 2006 Edition of "Election Fraud and Reform News Directory" listed here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.



Link to yesterday's excellent ERD. Check it out to see what you missed!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=442625&mesg_id=442625

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

[livvy]

1. Opinion: Can Iowa Help Turn congrss Blue?

Can Iowa Help Turn Congress Blue?
by Howie Klein

Iowa is a pretty purple state-- a Democratic governor (Tom Vilsack), a progressive Democrat (Tom Harkin) and an old-line conservative rubber stamp Republican (Charles Grassley) in the U.S. Senate. There's a pretty even split between Republicans and Democrats in party registration, a 25/25 tie in the State Senate and a 2 vote tilt towards the Republicans in the State House.
Gore beat Bush by 1% in 2000 and Bush beat Kerry by 1% in 2004. Pretty even... except for one thing: 4 of Iowa's 5 congressmen are Republicans (and the Democrat, Leonard Boswell, votes with the Republicans far more frequently than most Democrats).

In November there is a realistic chance to change that in a meaningful way. Although one of the country's most extreme right wing kooks, Steve King, looks pretty safe in Iowa's huge 5th congressional district in the western part of the state, on the other end of the state, a big change is brewing. Another GOP rubber stamp Republican, House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, is giving up his seat to run for governor. Iowa's 1st CD, which encompasses Dubuque, Davenport/Bettendorf and Waterloo is a quintessential moderate district. Nussle's voting record wasn't moderate and the Republican nominee to replace him is a hard right extremist, multimillionaire restaurateur Michael Whalen, an anti-minimum wage/anti-Social Security ideologue.

Yesterday I hosted a q&a session with the Democratic nominee for the seat, Bruce Braley, over at Firedoglake. Braley is a plainspoken, energetic populist, steely-eyed and progressive to the core. He's not one of those just-better-than-the-Republican kind of Democrats. Two weeks ago the distinctly not progressive DCCC tapped him to give the Democratic response to Bush's Saturday national radio address.

>more

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/can-iowa-help-turn-congre_b_25631.html

[livvy]

2. New Yorker: Holy Toledo

This may have been posted before, but I thought it worth revisiting.


HOLY TOLEDO
by FRANCES FITZGERALD
Ohio’s gubernatorial race tests the power of the Christian right.
Issue of 2006-07-31
Posted 2006-07-24


Pastor Rod Parsley stood on a flag-bedecked dais on the steps of Ohio’s Statehouse last October and, amid cheers from the crowd below, proclaimed the launch of “the largest evangelical campaign ever attempted in any state in America.” A nationally known televangelist and the leader of a twelve-thousand-member church on the outskirts of Columbus, Parsley had gathered a thousand people for the event, and attracted bystanders with a multimedia performance involving a video on a Jumbotron and music by Christian singers and rappers broadcast so loud that it reverberated off the tall buildings south of the Statehouse. TV crews from Parsley’s ministry taped the event. “Sound an alarm!” he boomed. “A Holy Ghost invasion is taking place. Man your battle stations, ready your weapons, lock and load!” In the course of the performance, Parsley promised that during the next four years his campaign, Reformation Ohio, would bring a hundred thousand Ohioans to Christ, register four hundred thousand new voters, serve the disadvantaged, and guide the state through “a culture-shaking revolutionary revival.”

Among those who spoke at the rally were Senator Sam Brownback, of Kansas, and Representative Walter B. Jones, of North Carolina, both Christian conservatives, and J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio’s secretary of state, who is now the Republican nominee for governor. All talked about the need to bring God and morality back into government. “We refuse to give up or back up or shut up until we’ve made a better world for all,” Blackwell said.

For the past two years, the religious right in Ohio has been on a victory march. In 2004, a coalition of conservative Christian organizations campaigned statewide for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, enlisting hundreds of pastors and collecting half a million signatures. The ballot initiative, known as Issue One, passed with sixty-three per cent of the vote, and many concluded that this effort to bring out “values voters” won the state for President Bush, and returned him to the White House. Parsley and another megachurch pastor, Russell Johnson, of the Fairfield Christian Church, campaigned hard for the initiative, as did Ken Blackwell, whose role in overseeing the election procedures caused a controversy of its own, and who was the only Republican leader in the state to join them. Subsequently, the two pastors formed organizations—Reformation Ohio and Johnson’s Ohio Restoration Project—to get out the vote in 2006 and beyond. This year, there is nothing like Issue One on the ballot, but Blackwell, who carries the standard of the religious right, could become governor of Ohio.

Blackwell, a six-foot-four African-American former college football star, is a thoroughgoing conservative. He’s a supply-sider who for years has advocated a flat tax and a constitutional limit on state spending. His views on abortion, gay marriage, school vouchers, and stem-cell research coincide with those of the religious right, and his position on concealed weapons with that of the N.R.A. He is also a media-savvy politician who has held statewide offices for the past twelve years, and he is well connected in George Bush’s Washington. (His backers include Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Governor Jeb Bush, and Senator John McCain.) With rimless glasses and a small mustache, Blackwell, at the age of fifty-eight, has an air of authority, and he is at ease with all kinds of audiences. At a breakfast for young executives in Columbus, in April, he began, as he often does, with a humorous story about his days as a football player, then told them what he had learned from a peanut seller he had worked for as a kid about the importance of “asset building” as a way out of poverty. (Blackwell is, in fact, a rich man, thanks to an investment he made in a broadcasting company in the nineteen-nineties.) Turning to the economic problems facing the state, he spoke about confiscatory taxes inhibiting capital flows and the need for a new budgeting process. No one challenged him—though some certainly held doubts. In debates, he is aggressive and given to cutting one-liners. He said of one opponent, “He has a difficult time holding a consistent position for six months without fainting from exhaustion.”

> much more

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact1

[livvy]

3. OH: Campaigns Make Image Everything

Campaigns Make Image Everything

POSTED: 6:38 am EDT July 24, 2006
UPDATED: 6:47 am EDT July 24, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio's two gubernatorial campaigns are making image an issue.

Democrat Ted Strickland is calling Republican Ken Blackwell a millionaire in campaign material, while Blackwell is noting Strickland's past work as a prison psychologist.

Strickland's campaign said it's trying to point out that the GOP candidate, who opposes raising the minimum wage and supports tax cuts for the wealthy, is rich himself.

Blackwell's campaign said it's trying to show Strickland isn't ready to be governor by calling attention to his past jobs outside government.

>more

http://www.whiotv.com/politics/9562841/detail.html

[livvy]

4. Good News: Poll Puts Strickland Ahead of Blackwell

Story from the Monday, July 24, 2006 Edition of the Chronicle-Telegram

Poll puts Strickland ahead of Blackwell
But many Ohioans still undecided


The Associated Press

COLUMBUS — Democrat Ted Strickland leads Republican Ken Blackwell by 20 percentage points in the race to be Ohio’s next governor, a new poll released Sunday shows.

Strickland, a congressman from Lisbon in eastern Ohio, received 47 percent of support, compared to Blackwell’s 27 percent, in a mail poll of 1,654 registered voters conducted by The Columbus Dispatch from July 11 through Thursday. About 1 in 4 participants said they were undecided about who they will vote for on Nov. 7.

The margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Strickland had a 3-to-1 advantage among independent voters and more support from his own party than Blackwell, Ohio’s secretary of state. Strickland had the backing of 81 percent of Democrats, while Blackwell was supported by 61 percent of the Republicans polled.

>more

http://www.chroniclet.com/Daily%20Pages/072406head11.html

[livvy]

5. Blackwell's Dual Role Criticized

Monday, July 24, 2006
Blackwell's dual role criticized
As voter ID rule takes effect, candidate is also election chief
BY JON CRAIG AND ALLISON D'AURORA | ENQUIRER COLUMBUS BUREAU

COLUMBUS - Lingering debate over the 2004 presidential election, continues to haunt Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in his campaign to become governor.

Those who blame the Cincinnati Republican for long lines and rulings leading up to the 2004 election predict even more chaos during the upcoming Nov. 7. election.

That's when a new law requiring identification for voters at the polls takes effect statewide for the first time.

Add to that a federal requirement that 68 of Ohio's 88 counties replace punch card ballots with electronic voting machines, and politicians and voting experts worry that the stage is set for another difficult election.

>more

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060724/NEWS01/607240324/1077

[livvy]

6. Oh: Who's Donating, And What Do They Want?

Who's donating, and what do they want?
For donors, any Democrat will do
Monday, July 24, 2006
Chris Seper
Plain Dealer Reporter

Democratic billionaires and labor unions eager to reclaim the White House are pouring money into the Ohio governor's race.

Many of these out-of-state donors aren't familiar with Rep. Ted Strickland's positions on issues, though they consider him a quality candidate for governor. Instead, they are emboldened by the opportunity to elect a Democrat in a state vital for the 2008 presidential election.

"The only issue is I'd like to get a Democrat in there," said Lewis Cullman, a billionaire philanthropist and longtime Democratic donor from New York, who gave $10,000 to Strickland's campaign.

An analysis of donors who gave $10,000 shows the bulk of Strickland's out-of-state givers are Democratic institutions or powerful givers, like Cullman. A smattering more are business interests, ranging from casino developers to investment firms.

>more

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/115372990477640.xml&coll=2

[livvy]

7. Is Governor California’s ''Super Salesman''?

Is Governor California’s ''Super Salesman''?

Trade promotion takes a political turn as election approaches

SAN FRANCISCO - 07/24/06 - Claiming the title role of California's "Super Salesman," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said recently that, in addition to his upcoming trade mission to Mexico, he will travel to India and Europe as part of what he called a "commitment to bring back California's economy.''

"I will go anywhere in the world to sell California products, to offer our high-tech and environmental know-how, to promote tourism, to sell our agricultural products,'' Schwarzenegger said during a speech last week at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

>snip

According to the governor, California has reaped 600,000 new jobs during his tenure, and "we were able to reach out directly and sell products to the people'' in trips abroad to Japan and China, that he said contributed to a Japanese high-end convenience store chain's plans to open 200 stores in the state.

>snip

But the governors' claims were countered by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, California's State Treasurer who will face Schwarzenegger in the upcoming November gubernatorial election.

>more

http://www.caltradereport.com/eWebPages/front-page-1153716071.html

[livvy]

8. Social Conservatives Pose Challenge to GOP Candidates

Social conservatives pose challenge to GOP candidates
By MARGARET TALEV
McClatchy Newspapers



July 23, 2006
Sunday


WASHINGTON -- They promised social conservatives that they'd promote morality and patriotism, and this week Republican leaders in Congress tried to show that they keep their word.

With Republicans looking to conservative voters to fend off a Democratic takeover in this fall's elections, the House of Representatives worked its way through an "American Values Agenda," which included votes to ban gay marriage and take away federal courts' jurisdiction on Pledge of Allegiance lawsuits.

But the strategy doesn't look so smart to many GOP incumbents facing close races.

To be sure, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, conservative activists and many Republican incumbents in safe seats say that voting on these ideological issues is essential to restoring credibility with their party's base. That in turn, they say, should improve turnout at the polls.

>more

http://www.sitnews.us/0706news/072306/072306_shns_conservatives.html

[livvy]

9. DOJ Political Appointees Changing Civil Rights Division Hiring

Sunday, July 23, 2006

DOJ political appointees changing Civil Rights Division hiring, focus
Jeannie Shawl at 10:34 AM ET

Less than half of lawyers hired to work in the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division since 2003 have a background in civil rights, according to resumes obtained by the Boston Globe through a Freedom of Information Act request. In late 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft changed hiring procedures throughout the department, replacing traditional hiring committees consisting of veteran career lawyers with panels made up of political appointees. Subsequent to the change in hiring practices, the number of new lawyers hired with a background in civil rights law has dropped dramatically, and there has been a sharp increase in the number of new lawyers with strong conservative credentials. There has also been a shift in the types of cases the division is pursuing. The division, which was established in 1957 to pursue civil rights claims against local and state governments and approve election law changes in areas with a history of voter discrimination, has been filing an increasing number of lawsuits in the past several years alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians.

A DOJ spokesman defended the new hiring practices, saying the agency only hires qualified lawyers, and other supporters say that the change was necessary to bring balance to the traditionally liberal civil rights division. Meanwhile, after the Washington Post controversially reported last November that lawyers were leaving the Civil Rights division in record numbers , staffers told the Globe that morale continues to be low and that experienced attorneys are leaving the department because of the shift in agenda. Sunday's Boston Globe has more.

>That's all, folks!

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/07/doj-political-appointees-changing.php

[livvy]

16. Civil Rights Hiring Shifted in Bush Era (Much longer piece)

Civil rights hiring shifted in Bush era
Conservative leanings stressed

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | July 23, 2006


During his signing of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson shook hands with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (United Press International/ File 1964)

>snip of intro

Now, hiring is closely overseen by Bush administration political appointees to Justice, effectively turning hundreds of career jobs into politically appointed positions.

>snip

Hires with traditional civil rights backgrounds -- either civil rights litigators or members of civil rights groups -- have plunged. Only 19 of the 45 lawyers hired since 2003 in those three sections were experienced in civil rights law, and of those, nine gained their experience either by defending employers against discrimination lawsuits or by fighting against race-conscious policies.

Meanwhile, conservative credentials have risen sharply. Since 2003 the three sections have hired 11 lawyers who said they were members of the conservative Federalist Society. Seven hires in the three sections are listed as members of the Republican National Lawyers Association, including two who volunteered for Bush-Cheney campaigns.

Several new hires worked for prominent conservatives, including former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, former attorney general Edwin Meese, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, and Judge Charles Pickering. And six listed Christian organizations that promote socially conservative views.


>many more details and examples

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/07/23/civil_rights_hiring_shifted_in_bush_era/

[livvy]

10. FL: Candidates, Voters Missing in Election

Candidates, Voters Missing in Election
By Bill Rufty
Published Monday, July 24, 2006

Where have all the candidates gone? For that matter, where have all the voters gone?

The end of the qualifying period Friday left many observers, including veteran politician and now veteran Polk elections chief Lori Edwards, wondering what has caused such unbelievable apathy.

The lack of candidates and low voter turnout could be related.

Of the four Florida House seats that are anchored in Polk County, only one Republican has opposition -- Seth McKeel, a former Lakeland city commissioner who has raised $142,527 for the $29,916-a-year job. He is challenged by James Davis of Bartow.

>more

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060724/COLUMNISTS0502/607240355/1106/NEWS

[livvy]

11. NIST Spokesman Acknowledges Unacceptability of Voting System Reliability..

NIST Spokesman Acknowledges Unacceptability of Voting System Reliability Standards

By Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA
July 23, 2006
In the Joint Congressional Hearing of the Science and House Administration Committees on July 19, the question of the acceptable failure rate for voting systems was addressed to the panel of witnesses by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA). Baird noted that “…under the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines there’s an acceptance of a 9.2% failure rate of all voting systems used in any 15 hour period. I’m curious if that is actually the standard that we’ve set – a 9.2% failure rate - and if that’s that’s an acceptable standard, I’m very puzzled by that. That is, by the way, far less than an incandescent lightbulb.”

The absurdly lax reliability standard found in the current Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG), established by the Federal Election Commission in 2002 was carried over into the new standards adopted by the Election Assistance Commission last December, had previously been dismissed in public comment. This time it was acknoweledged immediately by NIST spokesman Mark Skall (pictured at right) of the Software Diagnostics and Conference Testing Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who answered “Yeah, that comes from the existing standards and we’re researching right now to actually update that and to make a much more acceptable failure rate.”

Objecions to the acceptable failure rate was brought to the EAC’s attention repreatedly during the public comment period and in public hearings of the Technical Guidelines Development Committee before the new VVSG were adopted and are detailed in Howard Stanislevic’s report “DRE Reliability – Failure By Design”. An Open Letter from VoteTrustUSA to the EAC questioning the reliability standard and requesting action to improve it has been ignored so far. It is encouraging that the inadequacy of this standard has now been acknowledged and that a more acceptable failure rate apparently will be demanded of the machinery that counts our votes.

Will this take the form of an amendment to the new standards which don’t tke effect until December, 2007? Or will it be part of the next iteration of the standards projected for adoption next summer and not effective until 2009? Are American voters stuck with a situation in which 1 out of 11 machines are allowed to fail in the 2006 and maybe even 2008 elections?

>a bit more

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1562&Itemid=26

[livvy]

12. How Much Is American Democracy Worth?

How Much Is American Democracy Worth?

By Warren Stewart, VoteTrustUSA
July 23, 2006

Witnesses Reveal That While Touchscreens Are Expensive, Paper Ballots Are A Bargain

In his opening statement for the Joint Hearing of the Science and House Administration Committees last week, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) strongly endorsed the recommendation presented by Dr. David Wagner of the University of California Berkeley. "I think all of us need to pay close attention to the testimony that will be offered today by Dr. Wagner and to his recommendations for making sure that electronic voting machines make voting more accurate and more secure, not the opposite." He specifically noted Dr. Wagner's recommendation that Congress require a voter verified paper record of every vote, stating "we also need to require paper trails … to ensure that election results can be checked."

But what about the cost? Rep. Boehlert was clear on that count. "I don’t simply want to hear that the recommendations will be expensive. How much is American democracy worth? As a nation, we ought to be as willing to invest in election equipment as we are in campaign ads." The statements and responses from the two state election officials on the panel were revealing.

Those responses confirmed what numerous studies have shown: the use of touchscreen voting systems is vastly more expensive than paper ballot voting systems.

In her opening statement, which was considerably different from her submitted written testimony, Maryland State Election Director Linda Lamone complained bitterly about the burdensome cost of coverting to a uniform statewide system using Diebold touchscreens. "In MD we started in 2001 with the General Assembly passing a law requiring a uniform statewide voting system and it has taken me until this year to fully implement that law with Baltiimore City becoming the last jurisdiction so in the fall this year every voter in Maryland will be voting on a touchscreen system. The amount money it has taken me and the General Assembly to implement that decision is huge. Not only do I have over $50 million invested in the voting system, I have many many millions more invested in the security procedures sec processes that we necessarily have to take to ensure the integrity of this voting system."

>more

http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1564&Itemid=26

[livvy]

13. AL: Judge Accepts Worley's Voting Plan With Some Changes

Judge accepts Worley's voting plan with some changes

The Associated Press
Last Updated:July 23. 2006 2:40PM
Published: July 23. 2006 2:40PM

A federal judge has accepted Secretary of State Nancy Worley's proposal to comply with election system changes under the federal Help America Vote Act, but with certain modifications.

U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins also will appoint a Special Master to administer the plan.

In an order Friday, Watkins sustained the Justice Department's objections to the state's plan, but said because there were no objections to the substance of the plan, it could be used provided some changes are made.

Watkins noted the "potential for disruption of the November 2006 general election substantially outweighs any benefit of taking further action" on the current voter registration system.

>more

http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060723/APN/607230652&cachetime=5

[livvy]

14. What is San Diego County Registrar of Voters.. Hiding Besides the Truth?

BLOGGED BY Emily Levy ON 7/23/2006 10:44AM
What is San Diego County Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas Hiding Besides the Truth?
Public Disinformation Campaign Continues with North County Times Article

Guest blogged by Emily Levy of the California Election Protection Network and the CA-50 Action Committee

While San Diego's North County Times could have been reporting on Friday's protest outside the Registrar of Voters' office, instead the NCTimes donated its column-inches to the noble cause of further misinforming the public about the June 6 election debacle and the people's fight for democracy.

In Recount fee goes unpaid: San Diego Registrar says no recount happening in 50th District race, staff writer Erin Schultz appears satisfied to report Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas's lies as fact:
A voter's request for a recount of the June 6 special election ballots from the 50th Congressional District has been halted because the woman requesting the recount did not pay a required fee, the San Diego County Registrar's office said this week.

The poor woman went to all the trouble of filing for a hand count under the recount provision and then didn't bother to pay the fee, eh? Not so fast. It just might be relevant to mention that it was an improperly required fee. The only fees the Registrar of Voters' office is allowed to charge are the actual costs of a recount. The exorbitant $6,000 demanded by the RoV's office as a deposit for the first day's counting should have been reduced significantly when the voter requesting the recount advised the RoV that no counting panel would be needed on the first day, as she was still awaiting documents needed in order to proceed with the recount. Haas has failed to provide these documents despite Barbara Gail Jacobsen's being legally entitled to have them and despite or perhaps because of their significance to the recount.

And why weren't the documents provided? What is Haas trying to hide?

>more

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3107

[livvy]

15. Mexico’s Losing Leftist Defiantly Awaits Election Ruling

July 23, 2006
Mexico’s Losing Leftist Defiantly Awaits Election Ruling
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.


Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, before a bust of Mexico’s liberal reformer Benito Juárez, contends that a broad conspiracy has tried to rob him of his rightful victory in the July 2 presidential election.


MEXICO CITY, July 22 — As he fights his loss in court, the leftist candidate in Mexico’s July 2 election says he has been the victim of a broad conspiracy among the incumbent, election officials, other party leaders and business tycoons to rob him of the presidency.

The candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, charged in an interview on Friday that the vote had been plagued by fraud and widespread human errors. He made it clear he would not accept any ruling from the special electoral court short of an order to recount all 41 million ballots.

How far he would take acts of civil disobedience to protest the results would be guided by “the feelings of the people,” he said. Without a recount, he said, the peace of the country is in jeopardy, a threat his opponents have said amounts to blackmail.

“One can interpret it however one likes,” he said in the interview, at his campaign headquarters here.

>more

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/world/americas/23mexico.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[freedomfries]

18. "losing" "leftist" "defiantly": 3 punches at democracy in one headline!

Is this a new world record by the NY Times editorial board?
Thanks for another very informative thread livvy!

[livvy]

22. You're welcome, and thanks to you, too!

Very inflamatory title for sure. Good catch! I hadn't thought of that, but you are so right.

[livvy]

17. CA: Work Under Way For Nevember Vote

Article published Jul 24, 2006
Work under way for November vote

STOCKTON - The dust barely has settled from last month's primary, and Deborah Hench already is consumed with preparations for the November election.

She is not alone.

San Joaquin County's registrar of voters was scolded by several county supervisors last week for a June 6 primary marred by equipment problems, staffing shortages, and late precinct openings and absentee ballots.

Supervisors Jack Sieglock and Victor Mow, the two most vocal about the primary woes during Tuesday's hearing, said November will be a measuring stick for how well Hench and her department can rebound from a string of problematic elections. Neither said Hench's job hangs in the balance - "We'll cross that bridge when the time comes," Mow said Thursday - but the onus is clearly on the fifth-year registrar to conduct a glitch-free election.

>more

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060724/NEWS01/607240323/1001

[livvy]

19. CA: Not All Candidates Can Afford Ballot Statement

Not all candidates can afford ballot statement

10:00 PM PDT on Sunday, July 23, 2006

By JESSICA ZISKO
The Press-Enterprise

Sample ballots land each election season in Inland mailboxes. Tucked inside are candidate statements -- a few paragraphs in which contenders make their pitch for elected office.

But these testimonials come at a price -- often thousands of dollars -- and some who can't afford them say they are missing out on the surest way to reach voters.

Some Inland candidates and politicians fear the fees, based on the number of registered voters in each district, may prevent would-be contenders from entering the race -- especially young and low-income challengers.

The Inland impact is strongest in Riverside County, where a 2005 change in how fees are calculated has quadrupled the price tag in some jurisdictions.

>more including possible solutions

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_elect24.1cef2bf.html

[livvy]

20. With No Debate, Dems 'Trample' Primary

With no debate, Dems ‘trample’ primary

By JOHN DISTASO
Senior Political Reporter
5 hours, 4 minutes ago

Washington, D.C. – As criticism continued in New Hampshire, the national Democratic rules committee yesterday formally adopted a 2008 delegate selection rule that breaks up the long Iowa-New Hampshire one-two tandem and places a Nevada caucus between them.

There was no debate as the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee inserted a new Rule 10-A into its official plans for selecting delegates to the party’s 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The new language is now on its way to the full DNC for expected ratification in a month.

The rule passed on a voice vote with only members Kathy Sullivan, the state Democratic chair, and Sally Pederson, Iowa’s lieutenant governor, voting against.

>more

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=With+no+debate%2C+Dems+%E2%80%98trample%E2%80%99+primary&articleId=dbbbcc8f-3d90-4047-bb4b-fcfb315b1367

[livvy]

21. Swing-Time in New Mexico

article | posted July 13, 2006 (July 31, 2006 issue)
Swing-Time in New Mexico

Marc Cooper

Albuquerque

When George W. Bush buzzed through here for a few hours in mid-June on a fundraising stop for local Republican Congresswoman Heather Wilson, he drew the usual sort of noisy protest. Braving a fearsome weekday summer sun, a couple of hundred demonstrators showed up in front of the Hyatt Hotel, where Bush was being feted by supporters who had paid $1,000 a seat and contributed $375,000 to Wilson's campaign. Although the protest organizers had filled the streets outside with mournful black balloons, ask just about any demonstrator and he or she would readily admit how happy the group was that Bush had come to visit.

"Oh, God, yeah, it's great for us," is how Carter Bundy, regional political director of the public employees union and one of the protest rally organizers, put it. Indeed, here in the ultimate swing Congressional district, in the ultimate swing state--a state that Gore won by 366 votes and Kerry lost by only a few thousand--Democrats think the best thing they've got going for them this year is the albatross of George W. Bush hung around the necks of their local opponents. They're certainly counting on incumbent Wilson's coziness with an unpopular White House to be her undoing come November.

Though party registration in the New Mexico 1st Congressional District breaks 46 to 35 in favor of Democrats and more than 40 percent of the heavily urbanized district is Latino, Republicans have held the seat since its creation in 1982. Political analysts have been continually stumped by the high number of crossover voters. One theory is that a significant sector of Latino males in the district are active-duty military or vets and vote with conservatives. A more demonstrative factor is that the two local daily papers have tilted egregiously toward the GOP. But whatever the sources of the GOP's past strength, the Republican hold on the seat has been weakening. Democrats have relentlessly targeted it since 1998, when Wilson was first elected. She squeaked by with a 6 percentage-point margin that year, when a Green candidate took 10 percent of the vote, and she has held it ever since.

For this November's race, however, Wilson has drawn her most formidable opponent to date: New Mexico's two-term attorney general, Patricia Madrid. And local Democrats believe this could be the breakthrough year when they capture Wilson's seat, one of the fifteen they need to take back the House. Strategists in both parties have ranked the Madrid-Wilson battle as one of the top ten Congressional races this fall and, with national money coming in from both sides, perhaps one of the most expensive. "It's a perfect storm for us," says union official Bundy, convinced the Democrats have finally got the right candidate, at the right time, to essentially turn the contest into a referendum on the President. "We've got an excellent organization today and one that is ready to roll," says Democratic county chair Marvin Moss, who with his wispy hair looks like Trotsky in cowboy boots and a bolo tie. "And if you ask what's got them moving, I need say only one word--Bush."

>more

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/cooper

[Kurovski]

23. Thank you livvy!

and a kick to the top!:kick: