Californians: Does Boxer know about Shelley? Could she help?

[Amaryllis]

I don't know how it all works as far as what a US senator can do in a situation like this. I don't know what those of us from out of state can do. Anyone know if Boxer knows, or if she could help if she did know?

Shelley is great; this so about Diebold...

Other threads on Shelley:

See this one for more action items:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x317674

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=317441&mesg_id=317441

[Skink]

1. Maybe Kerry could pitch in..

allocate some leftover funds like he did for Washington state.:shrug:

[troubleinwinter]

2. Interesting idea... let's get in touch with her to help!

[Amaryllis]

3. Are you from CA? It's always better if you're a constituent.

[troubleinwinter]

6. I am.

[Amaryllis]

11. Can you call her office on Monday and see what you can find out?

[troubleinwinter]

14. You betcha!

[Amaryllis]

15. And post here to let us know what you find out? See if she knows history

on Shelley and Diebold and the implications of all this for CA and the entire nation, since CA has so many electoral votes...
she'd have a whole lot of people behind her if she'd let us know what she needed.

[lilimaj]

4. Boxer won't touch Shelley

We all know what this is all about:
The reason for Kevin's resignation was simply lack of money. His defense fund was very low. Arnold and the Republicans have been planting dirt on him, since he ordered the removal of the e-voting machines due to security problems. The Republican money-machine wants the e-voting machines back, before the next California election. They want to make sure Arnold is reelected. Diebold is in their pocket. THE BIG BROTHER and CRIMES OF THE RIGHT books, both written by author HOPE NEWMAN expose the real facts behind the compassionate conservative $$$...

[Amaryllis]

5. Yes, we all know what this is about, so why wouldn't Boxer touch him?

She's a pitbull for a just cause. And this is sure a just cause. If she understands ANYTHING about e-voting ,and I don't know if she does, why wouldn't she be interested?

[shraby]

7. Could be because Shelley is a state

event and Boxer is federal. I don't think she can interfere in a state matter like that.

[Amaryllis]

9. That's what I was wondering, but my senators's aide told me that

my senator had to get involved in something that happened at a statewide level that had to do with election issues. So I thought it was worth at least checking out...

[troubleinwinter]

10. Not really a matter of interference. She has some clout, I'd think.

She could rally the troops, lend support.

[Amaryllis]

13. This could affect HER re-election if she decides to run again; if Arnold

replaces Shelley with a Katherine Harris, she could be out, too.
She could definitely rally the troops. ONe of those emails she sends out to people on her list...a little history on Diebold and what Shelley has done...This would be a good opportunity to educate her about Diebold if she doesn't know. My SOS told me last summer that Shelley had done some great work in the face of a lot of opposition, so he (my SOS, who by the way is a Dem who has worked hard for clean elections in my state) knew what was going on.

[SaveAmerica]

20. What do you think about getting Californians behind Shelley? Is

it possible that if everyone from California who has been in touch with Boxer turn that support on to Shelley and tell him they'll back him up no matter what is thrown his way (or what they have over him) that he'll stay with it?

[Amaryllis]

21. I am not in CA. That's what I was thinking when I started this thread, but

not being from CA I don't know as much as you. I think that is a question for you who live there. Read the rest of the posts in this thread and see what you think?

[EFerrari]

25. I've been trying to do that for two weeks. His aid sounded very

relieved

But, WE'RE THE PROBLEM. He didn't hear from supporters, he's been at the mercy of the Bush Mafia all this time.

We can't let this man be run out of office on RUMOR.

If he's guilty, let a court decide.

Can we PLEASE start blasting the world on Monday?

[Amaryllis]

27. Anything we out-of-staters can do?

[EFerrari]

29. Sure. There's no such thing as out of staters any more

we're all in this together on this small planet. Let them know we're not relinquishing our vote without a fight! (Thank you, Beth)

SFChronicle: [email protected]

Shelley: CASecretaryofState@ ss.ca.gov

CA Dems:
http://www.cadem.org/site/apps/fc/form.asp?c=fvLRK7O3E&b=34877

[senseandsensibility]

40. I agree

Unfortunately, I've been unaware of how serious this issue has become with Shelley, and it's partly my fault because of my self-imposed media boycott. Do you have a good link to e-mail Shelley, Boxer, or anyone else you feel is worthwhile? So far, I've written to the Groper, but Elaine Alquist does not have an e-mail listed that I can find, nor does Simon Salinas. I'm thinking of calling them.

[troubleinwinter]

8. Yes. I think she is lately strengthened by the support we have

given her. I think she DOES take into account messages from out-of-state. She is safe for 6 years. But she knows that 2006 can be a REAL BIG problem in CA if arnie gets his way.

We must ALLL contact her. It gives her strength and ammunition. We owe her our trust.

[troubleinwinter]

12. Wanna back up your assertion that "Boxer won't touch Shelley"

[rumpel]

16. I unfortunately think it is a lost cause:

At the End, Kevin Shelley Stood Alone

snip
 
The allegations pushed Shelley to step down Friday while continuing to deny any intentional wrongdoing.

In the end, despite his political lineage and previous party support, Shelley stood largely alone. His well-known volatility had driven away colleagues who otherwise might have backed him. And fellow Democrats sent a clear message when they shook hands with Republicans over ground rules for a pending legislative inquiry: No pains would be taken to protect Shelley from tough questions under oath.

The charge that Shelley could be an abusive boss -- as detailed in a state Personnel Board hearing last week -- was nothing new to people who had worked with him when he served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors or in the California Assembly. One former high-level aide said reporting to Shelley was like "being in a bass drum all the time."

Former staffers said Shelley exploded over things as minor as the font size of his briefing notes. His staff turnover was among the highest in the Legislature, and the churn continued when he became secretary of state.

In 1998, as an assemblyman, Shelley was videotaped by a Capitol security camera as he argued with an employee and repeatedly blocked her from getting into an elevator. Then-Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa urged Shelley to get professional help to manage his anger. Faced with a near-mutiny by Shelley's staff, Villaraigosa also moved his press secretary to Shelley's office to help calm the situation.

In his 14 years as an elected official there had been no whiff of scandal.

"He was always considered one of the most promising young men coming up in the Democratic Party," said Agar Jaicks, a longtime San Francisco Democratic activist.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-downfall5feb05,0,7511375.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Amaryllis]

19. Well, darn. I wonder how much of this is true, and how much is smear?

[EFerrari]

24. They did it. They smeared him right out of work. Pretty neat. nt

[Amaryllis]

26. See this history on Shelley and Diebold:

"This past spring in California, Diebold systems malfunctioned in two counties, disenfranchising thousands of voters. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley discovered that the voting systems in seventeen counties in the state had not been certified, as required by law. After two days of tumultuous hearings in Sacramento, during which high-level election officials called the company's behavior "despicable" and accused its officials of lying, Shelley prohibited the use of Diebold's systems in four counties, the first time this has happened in the United States. Shelley, who has said to the Los Angeles Times that he doesn't want to be "the Katherine Harris of the West Coast," also made the certification of voting systems in ten more counties dependent on their adoption of twenty-three security improvements that he specified. One of these requires those counties to let citizens vote on paper if they want to, but Shelley flinched at requiring a DRE paper trail this year. Four counties and advocates of the disabled sued Shelley to block his actions, but a federal judge ruled he had the authority and had used it reasonably."

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger
How they could steal the election this time, by Ronnie Dugger

[EFerrari]

28. Thank you. Smoking gun, anyone? nt

[Amaryllis]

30. What a coincidence, huh? Imagine, he takes on Diebold and now he gets

smeared. THis has Rove written all over it.

[NationalEnquirer]

41. Wow, hung out to dry...

Sounds like to me that Shelley was something of a jerk, and in the end, had pissed off enough Democrats to let him hang himself.
WTF?
Don't they know what the alternative is?
The Alternator will get his choice!
God damn, why are the Democrats so stupid?
So WHAT he was an asshole (maybe), doesn't make him corrupt..

[loudsue]

48. We need to blast the LATimes, and let them know: He DID NOT stand alone

That we are all behind him, and that we KNOW AND UNDERSTAND the nature and origin of the smear against him. We need to let them know we're NOT going to stand for it!

This is such a major issue, when it comes to voting. Grassroots Dems, and any republican who still has any moral values at all, need to STOP the Diebolification of California.

Boxer needs to be informed on this, and so does Barbara Lee. They need to put out a SPECIAL newsletter on this issue.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Peace Patriot]

17. I doubt if Shelley will un-resign. I think the CA Dem leaders have...

...made a very, very, very, very, very big mistake not backing him. They remind me of the Dem leadership in Congress who let Wally O'Dell and H. Ahmanson get hold of our election system with barely a squeak out of them. Unbelievable obliviousness or malfeasance--or maybe they all like war and fascism.

I think what needs to be done is a big DU letter & contact campaign to CA Dem legislators, to prevent a BushCon becoming SoS (appointed by Asswipe), and to get rid of Diebold central vote tabulators with secret source code.

I will post LETTER OF THE WEEK #4 this weekend, on this subject, with CA legislator contact info.

I believe this is IT. This is the state election fraud/election reform campaign the DU election forum must conduct. The real battle is in the states--that's why they're playing so dirty here. They know they have election reform blockaded in Congress. They know the real fight is a local one, where ordinary people have more say.

[Amaryllis]

18. He already DID resign. See the other threads.

[Helga Scow Stern]

22. Above all, his 80-plus year old mom is just in intensive care...

that was the final straw.

[EFerrari]

23. Kevin is gone. Wrong but probable. WE have to shake this up

1. Let Art Torres and the party know, they messed up BIGTIME.
2. Keep pounding the media.
3. We need a SWAT team to flood Ahnohd's office: "We've been in your pocketbook and we KNOW where you live."
4. We mostly need to stay right on top of the person put in this slot. This will be the hardest job.

[Helga Scow Stern]

31. AND we need to let Boxer know,

as well as the House Judiciary Committee and the EAC that we will not stand for federal funds being used to investigate Kevin Shelley while Blackwell goes scott-free.

[Amaryllis]

32. Anyone know if Boxer knows all the dirt on E-voting, Diebold, all

connections? And Shelley's role in taking them on?

[Helga Scow Stern]

35. She is probably just learning.

[EFerrari]

33. BINGO! Exactly. nt

[Amaryllis]

43. ARe you in CA? It is so much more effective if constituents do this!

[NationalEnquirer]

42. If he was bad, get rid of him but..

These charges are almost laughable.
If he was a Repuke, nothing happens but a slap on the wrist.
Ditto if he hadn't raised a stink about Diebold.
Something smells about this...

[Amaryllis]

46. Nothing like what Blackwell did and got away with. No comparison!

[NationalEnquirer]

47. Totally agree! Double standard! n/t

[Helga Scow Stern]

34. Here is the link for letters I wrote to Shelley and to begin

getting the word out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss//duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319175#319488

[Helga Scow Stern]

36. We also need to make this a national issue,

because of the EAC getting involved. This could push Sensenbrenner into having to have the hearing that Conyers is asking for.

[KaliTracy]

37. Blackwell's Crimes and Misdemeanors 'vs Shelley's... How legal is a "slush

fund"... is this standard practice in government?

From Free press: J. Kenneth Blackwell: The “J” is for Judas
January 23, 2005
full article here http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1049

Much information about the SOS of Ohio that point to questionable practices. And then there are these last couple of paragraphs:
<snip>

"New affidavits point to possible criminal activity by top Ohio election officials, raising yet more questions about the 2004 vote. Rhonda J. Frazier, a former employee of the Secretary of State’s office, has confirmed in an affidavit taken by Cynthia Butler, working with freepress.org, that the Office had secret slush funds. Frazier says it also failed to comply with the requirements of “The Voting Reform Grant” that required all the voting machines in Ohio to be inven-toried and tagged for security reasons.

“I was routinely told to violate the bidded contracts to order supplies from other companies for all 17 Secretary of State offices throughout the State which were cheaper vendors, leaving a cash surplus differential in the budget,” Frazier states, “After complaining about the office’s repeated practices of violating grants and contracts, I was fired.” "

***

If Shelley committed wrongdoing, indeed he should be held accountable. However, if Kenneth Blackwell committed wrongdoing, he, too, should be held accountable. We need to look back at least two years, and compile a comparison/contrast of their alleged problems.

As a starter the Toledo Blade has done over 90 articles in the last 2 years which I found when I searched for Blackwell Diebold. Certainly not saying these are the best articles, just that they are there, and give some sort of timeline to decisions that he has made (and changed)...

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/search?Category=SEARCH&SearchID=7319839392204&Max=94&Krit=Diebold&Kat=%25&Simple=0&SearchCategory=%25&Start=1

[Helga Scow Stern]

38. Nunez says replace Shelley with a Pro -- LA Times

snip--
The stakes for Democrats are significant and go beyond which party will claim the office in 2006, when Shelley's term would have expired. Schwarzenegger and Democratic lawmakers are gearing up for a massive battle in a special election the governor is expected to call for later this year on ballot measures that would wrest a good deal of power away from the Legislature. The secretary of state oversees such elections, making any bias or ambition of the officeholder a subject of significant concern.

"It sounds like he wants to play politics with it, to narrow it down so that a Democrat can run to reclaim office," said Assembly GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield. "That's the wrong approach to take in. I would put everything on the table and say pick the best and brightest."

Nuñez's stand is more combative than that of Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), who said on Thursday, the day before Shelley's resignation, that he would welcome the nomination of Ross Johnson, a former GOP senator from Irvine who was forced out of the Legislature last year by term limits.

Johnson is 65 and not considered likely to run for the post in two years.

"Since the appointee is likely to be a card-carrying member of the governor's political party, Sen. Perata is already on the record as expressing his preference for Sen. Johnson," said Jason Kinney, a Perata spokesman.

But in a telephone interview Sunday, when Nuñez was asked about the possibility of Johnson, he said: "I don't want to outright nix anybody, but I certainly think a nonpartisan administrator — who can really bring some integrity back to the office of the secretary of state and make sure we upgrade our voting systems — needs to be the driving force. It might not be who's got a good friend we can all live with."

Among the names frequently bandied about in Sacramento: Bruce McPherson of Santa Cruz, a moderate Republican who left the Senate last year because of term limits; former U.S. Treasurer Rosaria Marin, who lost in the GOP primary to choose a challenger to Sen. Barbara Boxer last year; and Rep. Mary Bono of Palm Springs, also a Republican.

--snip

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-nunez7feb07,0,710613.story?coll=la-home-politics

[Helga Scow Stern]

39. Here is a letter from California forum about Georgia's interest in this:

It might interest readers in this group that what has transpired here in the Golden State is of great interest in the East, particularly Georgia. I heard from my frineds at Verifiedvoting.org over the weekend on the Shelley issue. I have been working with activists in the e-voting controversy since 2000. Georgia was ground zero in this whole e-voting "experiment" that resulted in such anomalies as the election of the first republican governor since the 1870's (who also reversed the polling by some 11 points overnight). Among other notable anomalies- in Texas in 2002 using the Diebold systems included several winning candidates receiving the exact same number of votes-18,181. But to get back to the point of this letter, these activists (from Verified Voting . Org) have said Shelley's resignation is a "shout out" to secs of State nationwide considering fighting the imposition of these voting systems.

Gotta Tell ya, the SF Chronicle is owned by the (NY based ) Hearst Corp which has a storied and clear agenda of promotion of both war (all the way back to the yellow journalism fueled Spanish-American War) and the political aims of some pretty serious neocons.

So take those "exposes" with a grain of salt.

Oh , and if you think every politician who hires a friend's son or uses other forms of patronage is suspect, or should resign guess what.......

So bottom line here, this was hardly an objective investigation, but rather an implied threat that "eventually ,we'll find something, you'll go bankrupt fighting us, and we'll see you in jail --or resign " choice. We all know since the days of Whitewater this "witchunt" technique of investigation is favored among the neocons.

So I'm aware of these allegations , but they are just that. I really lean more towards Georgia verified Voting's viewpoint; since no investigation existed or was talked about prior to Shelley sueing Diebold for fraud and winning.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Neocons and coincidence seem to go together.

Mike Hickerson

posted by Captain Sunshine
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=141&topic_id=6783#6797

[Amaryllis]

44. Follow the money, find the truth, every time.

[Peace Patriot]

45. LETTER OF THE WEEK #4: Kevin Shelley, Diebold & Election Fraud

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319613

GO HERE for a sample draft letter on this matter, that, 1) defends Shelley, recommends preserving his reforms, and recommends appointment of someone up to his high standard of vigilance; 2) warns California of what this could mean--the Dieboldisation and Bushification of California; 3) educates (with summaries of studies, and urls to others) on 2004 Election Fraud.

It's aimed at CA legislators--and the post provides link to CA legislator contact info. It's a DRAFT LETTER, a bit too long, but a start...