Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sat. Dec. 9, 2006

[livvy]

The Oval Intervention
The Council of Elders tries to deprogram the defiant decider.
Today's column by Maureen Dowd in the NYT
It is not a happy mood in the Oval Office.

Poppy is sobbing, his face in his hands, slumped in one of the yellow-and-blue striped chairs. Laura is screaming the words “Oscar de la Renta” and “rendition” into her cellphone, still seeing red after showing up at a White House gala in the same $8,400 red gown as three other women who did not happen to be first lady.

Bob Gates is grim-faced, but not as grim-faced as Barbara, whose look could freeze not only the Potomac but the Tigris and the Euphrates. Scowcroft is over on the couch, trying to nap while Kissinger drones softly in his ear.

>snip

There are sounds of feet stomping. “You say I can’t stay the course but I can too stay the course!” Junior yells. “I can! I can! You say I have to put the two trillion dollar war cost in the budget, but I don’t! You say we have to cuddle up to evildoers in Iran and Syria. Why do you hate the troops? Where’s Condi? I want my Condi!”

>more

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/opinion/09dowd.html




And now, for your Saturday morning reading pleasure...
Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News


All members welcome and encouraged to participate.



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

[livvy]

1. Opinion: Time To Take Big Labor, Big Business Out of Politics

Thomas Elias: Time to take big labor, big business out of politics
Article Launched:12/08/2006 07:09:43 PM PST

IT'S time at long last to hold both big labor unions and big corporations to one of the almost unnoticed commitments both sides made in their big initiative battles of the last two years.

Back in 2005, when big business - personified by the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Manufacturers and Technology Assn. and other trade groups - backed a so-called "paycheck protection" measure, their hope was to diminish labor unions as a political force by making it difficult for them to raise money from their members.

The unions, especially the California Nurses Assn., vowed to seek payback a year later - last month - via an initiative aiming to de-fang big business as a potent political force. Their effort took the form of Proposition 89, which proposed public financing of campaigns and sought to cap donations to candidates at $7,500 and contributions to political parties at $15,000. It also would have limited donations to initiative campaigns to $10,000.

Either of these propositions would have caused big change. This is a state where labor unions spent more than $40 million to beat back some of last year's initiatives and one whose governor in just three years has taken more than $180 million from oil companies, developers, natural gas suppliers, chemical companies, car dealers and myriad others affected every day by state policy.

>more

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_4806216

[livvy]

2. NJ: Clean Elections Bill clears Assembly Committee

Clean elections bill clears Assembly committee

Measure still needs some work, good-government advocates say
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 12/8/06

BY JASON METHOD
STAFF WRITER

TRENTON — An effort to create "clean" state elections — free of money from special interests — needs some political bleach, good-government advocates argued Thursday.

A bill that provides for publicly-funded state legislative elections in three districts next year passed a key Assembly committee, but not before it was opposed by the former chairman of a commission that had studied the initial 2005 Clean Elections pilot project.

"This bill is not a good bill," declared former state Sen. William E. Schluter, who had led the Citizen's Clean Election Commission. "It is counterproductive and does not (help) get the money out of politics."

The bill is scheduled for a full Assembly vote Monday. The Assembly State Government committee approved the bill by a 4 to 0 vote while Assemblywoman Amy H. Handlin, R-Monmouth, abstained.

>more

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061208/NEWS03/612080367/1007

[livvy]

3. Look At Who Undermines Democracy by Justin Raines (OpEd News)

Interesting read.



December 8, 2006

Look at Who Undermines Democracy

By Justin Raines

Recently on FOX News, President Bush stated he viewed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as "a threat of undermining democracy" (sic). Continuing, Bush said, "I wish he would invest his petrodollars with the people of Venezuela, and give them a chance to, you know, get out of poverty, and give them a chance to realize hopes and dreams."

Bush's statements reflect stunning ignorance, striking mendacity, or both. Bush appoints himself as the judge and steward of democracy and some type of social engineer who ignored and abandoned New Orleans, but insists Chavez needs to invest government money for the human needs of the people in Venezuela.

>very big snip of this great article

Since the coup's failure – thanks to the damned desire for democracy among the backwards people of Venezuela, the U.S. annually spends more than $5 million supporting the Venezuelan opposition, including political parties. U.S. taxpayer money is sent to interfere blatantly in the internal politics of a sovereign state through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the so-called National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – better known as the National Endowment for Dictatorship. Imagine the reaction in the United States if another government were to pump millions of dollars into American parties and candidates in hopes of influencing an American election in favor of its preferred candidates, underwriting anti-Bush propaganda, and called it "promoting democracy." (I think I remember how Hannity, Limbaugh and others complained about money from China entering the coffers of the Democratic party in 2000). Beyond that, imagine the reaction if that same government had supported an attempted military coup in the U.S.

By the U.S. penal code, Americans who accepted such aid could be sentenced to prison or even death, and would be ineligible to hold any political office. (Federal Penal Code, Title 18, Chapter 115, Section 2381)

>more

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jeffrey__061206_look_at_who_undermin.htm

[livvy]

4. The Spirit of Democracy in Venezuela

I know I really snipped the hell out of this long piece, but I wanted to give you an idea of what was included.



ZNet | Venezuela

The Spirit of Democracy in Venezuela
by Stephen Lendman; December 09, 2006

> snip

Earlier in the day, Hugo Chavez showed he's indeed a man of the people by casting his own vote the same way ordinary people do. Unlike George Bush who goes everywhere in an entourage of limousine, helicopter, or Air Force One luxury accompanied by a phalanx of security needed to protect him from the people he was elected to serve, Chavez drove himself in his aging red-colored Volkswagon to his assigned polling station accompanied by his young grandson in the back seat, voted, and then left the same unaccompanied way he came. That's how a man of the people does it - no bells, whistles or extravagant trappings of power that's a hallmark of how things are done to excess in the US calling itself a model democracy but one only for the few with wealth and power and that behaves like a rogue state that's only a model for despots and tyrants.

>snip

Venezuela Under Chavez - How Real Democratic Elections Are Run

The polls opened at 7AM on Sunday, December 3, but hours earlier people were already queueing up in their eagerness to participate in Venezuela's democratic electoral process. Most of them, as we know, were there to support Hugo Chavez Frias as their president and won't allow anyone else to have the job as long as he wants it. The lines were long at many of the stations, but observers noted voting across the country ran smoothly with only minor problems that were no obstacle to the electoral process. About 1400 observers were on hand to witness the day's events including 10 representatives from the Carter Center in the US, 130 from the European Union (EU), 60 from the Organization of American States (OAS) and 10 from the Mercosur Common Market of the South countries.

>snip

Venezuela's Electoral Process Prior to the Election of Hugo Chavez

Before Hugo Chavez was first elected the country's president in December, 1998, less than half of all eligible Venezuelans were registered to vote and thus were unable to participate in choosing their elected officials who might help them raise their standard of living including the great majority of impoverished people in the country most in need of positive change. For decades previously, two parties in the country, Democratic Action (AD) and Social Christian Party (COPEI), dominated the political process through a power-sharing arrangement that served the interests of Venezuela's wealthy elite and its "sifrino" middle class ignoring the needs and rights of the great majority of poor and effectively disenfranchised. It finally boiled over in the streets in the late 1980s and 1990s that led to the governing coalition bringing Hugo Chavez to power in 1998 that changed everything - just the way Chavez promised he's do it if elected.

>snip

How the Electoral Process Is Administered

The electoral process is administered by the National Electoral Council (CNE). It's an independent body, separate from the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government or any private corporate interests. It's comprised of 11 members of the National Assembly and 10 representatives of civil society, none of whom are appointed by the President.

>more

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=11586

[livvy]

5. Arkansas: State Election Results Certified

State election results certified
Saturday, Dec 9, 2006

By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK - Results from Arkansas' Nov. 7 general election were certified Friday, just over a month after Election Day.

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels certified the results Friday afternoon, after receiving county-certified results from Benton County, Daniels spokeswoman Natasha Naragon said.

The secretary of state cannot certify the results of a statewide election until each county's results have been certified by that county's election commissioners. Benton was the only county Daniels was still waiting on after St. Francis and Pope counties submitted their county-certified results earlier in the week, Naragon said.

Arkansas law states that within 15 calendar days of an election, a county election commission must "proceed to ascertain, declare and certify the results of the election to the secretary of state."

>more

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2006/12/09/News/338825.html

[livvy]

6. NY: Editorial- Voting Last, Voting Smart

Voting last, voting smart
A new report rejects electronic screen machines that lack a paper trail for verification


First published: Saturday, December 9, 2006

New York will be the last state in the nation to decide on what kind of voting systems will replace its outdated lever machines. That's largely because the Legislature tossed the issue into the laps of the counties, which must decide individually what types of voting machines to buy to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.

But it's not all bad news, as some good government groups, notably the League of Women Voters, have been saying all along, on the grounds that it was better to wait and see what other states did, and avoid making their mistakes. And now comes a report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology that reaffirms that view.

The institute minces no words about electronic voting. It "cannot be made secure," the report states, and shouldn't be used without a paper trail.

Already the momentum is building for a federal standard that would put the report's findings into a national standard. Last Tuesday, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, a federal panel, agreed that any new voting system should provide a way to verify results independently. It is up to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to decide whether to adopt such a standard.

>more

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=543122&category=OPINION&newsdate=12/9/2006

[livvy]

7. Martinez and Rubin: Election Mechanics Need Our Attention

Ray Martinez and Aviel D. Rubin: Election mechanics need our attention
By Ray Martinez and Aviel D. Rubin - Iii
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, December 9, 2006

After another general election in which technical and human errors at polling places affected the voting process for many Americans, a renewed focus on improving the mechanics of elections is in order.

A national voter hotline received more than 40,000 calls, with registration and machine-related problems ranking among the top concerns. In Denver, the intermittent collapse of new technology designed to verify the registration status of voters caused routine waits of more than two hours and the disenfranchisement of thousands of eligible voters who could not wait to cast ballots.

In Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, judges intervened to extend voting hours in a number of local jurisdictions because of delays caused by the election workers' unfamiliarity with procedures and the technology itself.

Although significant efforts have been made in the past several years to improve elections, serious questions remain.

>more

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/89854.html

[livvy]

8. 'Toon Break

[livvy]

9. CA: Court Blocks Committee Donation Limits

Posted on Sat, Dec. 09, 2006


Court blocks committee donation limits
Governor opposed regulations
By STEVE LAWRENCE
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO - California regulators exceeded their authority when they tried to limit campaign donations to ballot measure committees controlled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other politicians, a state appeals court ruled Friday.

The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal upheld a decision by a Sacramento judge to issue a preliminary injunction blocking regulations adopted in 2004 by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

''Whatever the wisdom of the FPPC's effort to plug loopholes in California's campaign contribution regulatory scheme, we agree with the trial court's determination that the regulation conflicts with multiple provisions of the Political Reform Act of 1974,'' Justice Vance Raye wrote for the court.

Regulations adopted|

The commission adopted regulations in 2004 to impose the same limits on donations to candidate-controlled ballot measure committees that voters required for contributions to candidates when they approved Proposition 34 in 2000.

>more

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/16202116.htm

[Peace Patriot]

10. VENEZUELA: They hand-count 55% of the electronic vote!!!!

(great first-hand account of Venezuela's election--which Hugo Chavez won by over 60% of the vote...)

DIARY OF A VENEZEUALAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: December 3rd 2006

By: Chesa Boudin – Red Pepper Venezuela Blog

Loud fireworks woke me, and much of Caracas, up at 2.30am on the morning of the election. Luckily I had planned on getting out of the house by 3am anyway. By 4am I was in the heart of one of the largest barrios in Caracas called El Valle. My friends from El Valle had insisted that I show up “the earlier the better” to see the election and that  3am was a good time to arrive. Since Venezuela is notoriously behind schedule, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to show up 4 hours before polling stations even opened, I hadn’t taken them too seriously.

But sure enough when I arrived at 4am there was already a line of over a hundred people waiting to be some of the first to cast their ballot in the 2006 presidential election.

(snip)

In addition to the lines, there were groups of motorcycles racing around, lighting rockets and M80s --the poor people equivalent of fireworks-- to get stragglers out of bed and energised. Caravans of motorcycles and cars packed with red clad, flag waving barrio dwellers passed with horns blaring and a range of chants emanating: “Uh ah, Chavez no se va” (uh ah, Chavez isn’t going anywhere)...(and)....“No volverán” (they (the oligarchy) will not return).

(snip)

Around 6am, the sun began to peek over the steep hills of the barrio, and street vendors began selling soup, coffee, and arepas (a Venezuelan staple made from cornmeal). I was invited to watch one of the neighborhood polling stations set up with state of the art electronic machines. Each machine in addition to recording digital votes, printed paper receipts that were then to be deposited in ballot boxes for physical confirmation of the electronic results. Given that this was a new system, 55 percent of the polling stations were expected to do manual counts of the paper ballots to verify the electronic results. As the electoral council’s local employees set up the polling station in a local school, several members of the National Guard were on hand to ensure security. Witnesses from several different political parties were on hand to observe. International media and the countless delegations of international observers had unrestricted access to observe first hand. Everyone wanted this election to be fair, all the safeguards against voter fraud in place.

By 7am there were drum circles (tambores), and trumpets blaring. The queue for the biggest polling station in the neighborhood, where about 6,000 people were expected to vote, was 6 blocks long, five people deep. Even once the polling stations were open and operating (more or less) efficiently, the lines continued to grow. As I circulated in and out of various polling centers in the neighborhood, I was surprised by the relative efficiency of the process given Venezuela’s penchant for making everything take about twice as long as necessary.

(MORE)

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1901

---------------------------------------------------

NOTE FROM PEACE PATRIOT: I wonder why our oiligarchy never even considered hand-counting 55% of the vote in our new and untested electronic voting systems, run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by corporations with very close ties to the Bush regime and far rightwing causes--and, in fact, went out of their way to prevent any possibility of a hand-count, by installing paperless electronic voting machines that CANNOT BE AUDITED in one third of the country, with NO AUDIT, or a mere 1% audit (highly manipulable), in the electronic systems with some kind of paper trail. Could it have been to keep the oiligarchy in power, and to extend their murderous, war profiteering hogpen corporate resource war for another several years? That's my opinion of it: deliberate criminal non-transparency, so they can go on killing people for their oil, and robbing us of billions and billions and billions of dollars in no-bid military contracts and other boodle.

Transparent elections = good leftist government, of, by and for the people.

Non-transparent elections = bad fascist government, of, by and for the super-rich.

I salute Venezuelans, for figuring that one out--and I hope that we learn from their example, up here in "the land of the free, and the home of the brave."

[livvy]

11. Iowa's Answer To Don Quixote?

Iowa's answer to Don Quixote?
Saturday, December 09, 2006

Unless you've spent time in Iowa during the last eight years, chances are you've never heard of Tom Vilsack. But last week, the Hawkeye state's outgoing Democratic governor began a two-year marathon that he hopes will not only introduce him to the 297 million non-Iowans, but convince them that he should be their next president.

Vilsack's announcement, in the aptly named town of Mount Pleasant, where he entered public life 19 years ago, makes him the first formal entrant to the 2008 presidential campaign. He knows he won't have the stage to himself for long. More than a dozen hopefuls, ranging from the very well-known (Sens. John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton) to the equally obscure (Congressman Duncan Hunter, a San Diego Republican), are preparing to seek their party's nominations. Even if not all of them end up running, the 2008 race for the White House shapes up as the most crowded in two decades.

Not so long ago, candidates for president generally did not announce their intentions until the election year. That quaint tradition already was eroding in December 1974 when Jimmy Carter, nearing the end of his single term as governor of Georgia, declared for president. Carter was virtually unknown outside his home state, but 23 months later, voters sent him to the White House.

Vilsack, after two terms governing Iowa, hopes for a similar lightning strike. Like Carter, he is widely regarded as an innovative governor. In Iowa, he pushed early childhood education and energy alternatives and threw out a welcome mat to immigrants.

>more

http://www.cleveland.com/politics/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1165659834284320.xml&coll=2

[livvy]

12. OR: Race Illustrates Need For Refom

Editorial
Race illustrates need for reform

The massive amount of money spent by Rep. Karen Minnis and challenger Rob Brading in last month’s House District 49 election provides all the evidence anyone might need to support campaign-finance reform.

According to final contribution and expenditure reports filed with the Oregon secretary of state, Minnis topped $1 million in winning re-election, while Brading spent about $550,000. Together, their spending came close to the $1.6 million mark in a race that involved 16,512 voters.

That equals about $100 a vote, and we’re not even considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars expended by independent groups to support or attack the two candidates.

With all that money came an unprecedented amount of negativity. The dollars did nearly nothing to enlighten voters – they were used mostly to distort, attack and respond.

>more

http://www.theoutlookonline.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=116563654147013700

[livvy]

13. FL: Hearing Set For Challenge To Voting Machine's Software

Hearing set for challenge to voting machine's software

By S.v. Date, Christine Grimaldi and Larry Lipman

Palm Beach Post Staff Writers

Saturday, December 09, 2006

TALLAHASSEE — A circuit judge will hold a hearing Dec. 19 to determine whether the voting machine maker in a disputed congressional election will have to let others examine the "source code" computer software for possible glitches.

ES&S, like other voting machine manufacturers, has jealously guarded its computer programs as proprietary information, and argued that the 18,000 "undervote" in Sarasota County was more likely the result of poor ballot design.

"Those machines contain trade secrets," ES&S lawyer Harry Thomas said in court Friday in Tallahassee.

Lawyers for Democrat Christine Jennings, who lost the Nov. 7 election by 369 votes to Republican car dealer Vern Buchanan, argued that the public's right to accurate elections outweighs ES&S's business rights.

>more

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2006/12/09/a15a_district_1209.html

[livvy]

14. FL: Election Firm Says Codes Are A Secret

Article published Dec 9, 2006
Election firm says codes are a secret

Democratic candidate wants to thoroughly check county's voting machines.
By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER

H-T CAPITAL BUREAU

TALLAHASSEE -- The voting machine company now at the center of the disputed 13th Congressional District election made it clear Friday that it will fight the disclosure of the computer codes that run its touch-screen machines.

During a court hearing, Harry Thomas, a lawyer for Election Systems & Software Inc., said the company is prepared to argue that the source codes that control the iVotronic voting machines are a trade secret that should not be disclosed. He said ES&S will present evidence showing a faulty ballot design was likely the cause of a large undervote in the election between Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Christine Jennings, both of Sarasota County.

Jennings has filed a lawsuit in a Leon County circuit court claiming Buchanan's 369-vote victory was the result of the touch-screen machines malfunctioning during the Nov. 7 election.

Thomas argued the recently concluded tests by the state Division of Elections "found absolutely no problem" with the machines used in Sarasota County. And he said that evidence coupled with testimony from ES&S's experts, including associate professor Michael Herron of Dartmouth University, will show there is "no reasonable necessity" requiring the company to disclose its computer codes.

>more

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061209/NEWS/612090365

[livvy]

15. FL: Dems Top Republicans In No-Vote Dispute in Dist. 13

12/08/06

Dems top Republicans in no-vote dispute in Dist. 13

The still-unexplained discrepancy was discovered by the Orlando Sentinel. It gave Vern Buchanan a narrow margin of victory that is under review.

Congressman-elect Vern Buchanan owes his disputed 369-vote victory over Christine Jennings to the fact that far more Democrats than Republican voters apparently failed to cast votes on Sarasota County's touch-screen machines, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of post-election ballot data.

Without that disproportionate difference, the study indicates Jennings -- a Democrat -- would have carried the county by an additional 2,500 votes and won the bitterly fought District 13 race that remains under a legal microscope one month after the Nov. 7 election.

Ballot information obtained by the newspaper shows 7,450 county voters who heavily supported Democrats in statewide races inexplicably either overlooked, bypassed or had votes unrecorded in the disputed congressional contest, compared to only 4,965 of those who heavily supported Republicans, a difference of 2,485.

The contrast is especially sharp given that Sarasota County has 39,769 more voters registered as Republicans than Democrats, a 16 percent lead in registrations.

>more

http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/120806/ew11.htm?date=120806&story=ew11.htm

[livvy]

16. Vote Challenge Unlikely To Be Resolved Before Congress Meets

December 8, 2006

Vote challenge unlikely to be resolved before Congress meets

By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A legal challenge to the 369-vote election of a Republican congressional candidate moved at a moderately accelerated pace Friday, but not fast enough to resolve the matter before the new Congress convenes in January.

Circuit Judge William Gary split the difference in a dispute over how soon to hold a hearing on whether a touch-screen voting machine manufacturer must disclose software information to the losing candidate, Democrat Christine Jennings. Gary set it for Dec. 19. He has not yet decided on a trial date.

State election officials declared Republican Vern Buchanan the winner of the 13th District seat being vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris, who made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate.

Jennings also is expected to file a notice of contest with the House by a Dec. 20 deadline, said Kendall Coffey, one of her lawyers.

>more

http://www.jacksonville.com/apnews/stories/120806/D8LSUBHO0.shtml

[livvy]

17. NM: Election Overview Given For Conservancy Board

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Election overview given for conservancy board

Julia M. Dendinger New-Bulletin staff writer; [e-mail]

Albuquerque With a history of contentious elections, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) board of directors held a workshop with election director Ron Gentry of Election Products & Service Thursday afternoon.

Gentry spent nearly two hours informing the board members present of the election procedures and policies the company would be following to ensure the district has an independent election of officers in June 2007.

Conservancy Board Chairman Jose Otero stated that this was a workshop for information only and that there would be no action. Also present for the meeting were directors Jimmy Wagner, Augusta Meyers and Bill Turner. Sandy Schauer and Bob Anderson of Election Products & Service were also on hand for questions.

>snip

To increase the level of comfort, Election Products has contracted with an election software engineer. "He is the top in the field," Gentry said. "In order to keep more than an arm's length away, he will do the database in Virginia and do the programming for the election."
The software engineer will be in New Mexico on election night as will Gentry, to answer any questions. Gentry said the engineer would make sure the tallying software is working correctly. "It will be officially verified software," he said. "Last time, we had two kinds of software."

>more

http://www.news-bulletin.com/news/67236-12-09-06.html

[livvy]

18. MT: guest Opinion: Time To Review Changes in Montana Election Laws

Guest Opinion: Time to review changes in Montana election laws

By BRAD JOHNSON
Montana Secretary of State
This was an interesting election year for Montana. The ads were really appealing! OK, maybe not the ads, but the changes in election law were unquestionably fascinating. We tried a number of new things this year.

As citizens, we owe it to ourselves to examine what worked and what could be improved.

First on the list of things that worked are Montana's election workers. Local county officials do the vast majority of the work in our elections. Without exception, clerks rose to the new challenges posed by changes in election law. County election workers toiled long hours - through the night, even - to implement new changes and laws and deliver results for us all in a way that was efficient and fair. In Yellowstone County, Election Administrator Duane Winslow has already rightfully earned praise for his honesty in correcting a mistake with the vote-counting machines.

Second is the attorney general's office. Despite the fact that Mike McGrath is a Democrat and I'm a Republican, he and his staff provided excellent unbiased assistance regarding legal matters throughout the election. I think our cooperation is an excellent example of the kind of bipartisan pragmatic service that Montanans expect from their election officials.

>more

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/12/09/opinion/guest/52-election.txt

[livvy]

19. Jury Acquits Vote Fraud Defendant

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Saturday, December 9, 2006 1:26 AM CST

Jury acquits vote fraud defendant
BY RUTHANN ROBINSON
[e-mail]
219.662.5331

CROWN POINT | A Lake County jury on Friday cleared Robert "Bosko" Grkinich of all the vote fraud charges brought against him by a joint state-local task force.

The verdict -- not guilty on all 20 counts -- marked a defeat for the Joint Vote Fraud Task Force of Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter and County Prosecutor Bernard Carter.

Grkinich was the first to go to trial of 52 people charged as a result of a nearly three-year investigation by the task force, which looked into the discredited May 2003 Democratic primary that saw the East Chicago mayoral results and Schererville town judge results overturned.

Grkinich, 48, of Schererville, was charged with causing a dozen Schererville residents to violate state election laws, forbidding them to vote outside their home precinct, applying for absentee ballots in the name of other voters and voting in the name of other voters. He also was charged with delivering, examining and posting their filled-in ballots and attempting to get a voter to lie under oath. He faced a maximum prison sentence of three years on each of the 20 counts.

>more

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2006/12/09/news/lake_county/d365b24a324e76088625723f001b1baf.txt

[livvy]

20. Last 'Toon

[philb]

21. Updated summary of widespread election irregularities in thousands of counties affecting millions

in 2006 election

Widespread touch screen switching, disappearing votes, glitches, compiler problems,
late opening polls due to problems, long lines,
widespread voter purges and late polling place changes without notification,
security problems, mistabulations, equipment problems, scanner problems,
ballot problems and biased ballot design in several states, absentee problems,
widespread systematic illegal dirty tricks in many high level close races- which also affected other races.

www.flcv.com/eirstss6.html
www.flcv.com/eirsppp6.html
www.flcv.com/eirsoth6.html
www.flcv.com/eirsdt6.html