Election Reform, Fraud, & News Sunday 10/08/06 Still Registered to Vote?

[freedomfries]

Election Reform, Fraud, & News Sunday 10/08/06

Check Your Statewide Voter Registration Database Status
http://www.electionline.org/Default.aspx?tabid=288




All members welcome and encouraged to participate.
Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
:patriot:

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233

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.

[freedomfries]

1. KY: Court Rules Voter Database Matching Continues

Court Rules that Voter Database Matching Can Continue

KY Government Technology Public CEO
News Release
Oct 03, 2006
http://www.public-cio.com/newsStory.php?id=2006.10.03-101409

When the Kentucky State Board of Elections conducted a pilot project to identify and remove voters who were illegally registered to vote in multiple states, The Attorney General's office filed suit to stop it, claiming that the Secretary of State acted without approval from the State Board of Elections.

The Franklin, Ky., Circuit Court yesterday found "database matching to be a necessary tool to maintain accurate voter registration information." In his order, Judge Thomas Wingate ruled that the voters who have registered in multiple states may be placed on an inactive voter list to be purged if the voters do not participate in the next two federal election cycles.

"We are pleased that the court saw the value of clean election rosters and the role that database matching can play in that effort," stated Secretary of State Trey Grayson, chairman of the State Board of Elections. "Non-Kentuckians should not be allowed to vote in Kentucky elections -- period, and we are pleased to see that the court's ruling will help to ensure that this doesn't happen in the commonwealth. These types of efforts must proceed in order to prevent a culture of fraud and corruption; to do otherwise would be reckless and damaging to the political process."
:shrug:
...
http://www.public-cio.com/newsStory.php?id=2006.10.03-101409

[freedomfries]

2. AZ: Court bars Arizona from demanding voter ID at polls

Court bars Arizona from demanding that voters present ID at polls<[/b>

Tucson Citizen
October 6, 2006
The Associated Press

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/28523.php

A federal appellate court on Thursday blocked enforcement of a 2004 state law requiring Arizona voters to present identification when casting ballots and to submit proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals without comment granted a motion by critics of the law for an injunction that bars enforcement of the law's voter identification requirements during the Nov. 7 general election.
It also bars enforcement of a requirement that people produce specified proof of citizenship to register to vote. The deadline to register to vote in the general election is midnight Monday.
The ruling doesn't declare a date that the injunction is effective, and Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said she didn't know what registration she should allow.
"I have a lot of questions, I don't have a lot of answers," she said.
She also questioned the fairness of requiring a voter who registers Thursday to prove citizenship while a voter who registers Friday doesn't have to prove citizenship.
The 9th Circuit order was issued by two of the San Francisco-based court's judges. It said the injunction would remain in effect pending the court's resolution of the plaintiffs' appeals, a process that a lawyer for the challengers said would take months.
"This order would certainly run past the Nov. 7 general election," said the attorney, David Rosenbaum.
The 2004 law, which appeared on that year's ballot as Proposition 200, requires that voters at polling places produce government-issued picture ID or two pieces of other nonphoto identification specified by the law.
...
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/28523.php

[freedomfries]

3. AL: Judge threatens D-SoS Worley with contempt of court

Judge threatens Worley with contempt

Bob Johnson, AP
The Decatur Daily, AL
October 7, 2006

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/061007/worley.shtml

MONTGOMERY — A federal judge has asked Secretary of State Nancy Worley to show why she should not be found in contempt of court for not fully cooperating with Gov. Bob Riley's efforts to comply with a court mandate to develop an overdue statewide voter registration system.

U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins ordered Worley Friday to respond to a report filed earlier by Riley's attorney that said Worley had refused to cooperate with a committee set up by Riley to manage development of the voter registration system. In the report, Riley's legal adviser Ken Wallis said Worley had indicated she would only deal directly with the governor and not with individual members of the governor's committee.

Watkins said he would consider Worley's response and comments from Riley and then decide if the secretary of state should be held in contempt of court.

"In making her responses to the court, defendant Worley is advised not to parse the words of the orders of this court, nor to test the court's willingness to utilize its contempt powers," Watkins said in a sternly worded three-page order.

Worley said Friday that she has "fully cooperated with the governor in every request he has made to me."
...
http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/061007/worley.shtml

[freedomfries]

4. AL: Plenty of politics in voter registration database 'remedy’

Plenty of politics in voter registration database 'remedy’

Tuscaloosa News Editorial
August 6, 2006
Re-Post

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060806/NEWS/608060326/1027/EDITORIAL


A U.S. Department of Justice attorney correctly observed that there is no partisan way to implement a statewide voter registration database. This is particularly true in Alabama, where voters don’t register by party, he said.

But that didn’t stop the issue from being politicized.

A federal judge last week appointed Republican Gov. Riley as special master in charge of developing the registration database, as required by the Help America Vote Act. The task originally fell to Democratic Secretary of State Nancy Worley, but the Justice Department sued her for failing to meet a Jan. 1, deadline for implementing the computerized listing statewide.

Worley faced a variety of problems. Her selection of a vendor put her at odds with an advisory committee. Later, she was unable to reach an agreement with the vendor on who would own the database, further delaying the project. And she complained of the intransigence of county officials across the state who she said are reluctant to make the required updates.

Worley, who is campaigning for re-election, has charged that the Republican administration’s Justice Department was politicizing the issue by deliberately trying to make her look bad.

To a degree, the events bore her out.

The appointment of a person in a politically partisan position, to say nothing of the titular head of a state party, as special master for this project was in itself extraordinary.
...
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060806/NEWS/608060326/1027/EDITORIAL

[freedomfries]

5. FL: Absentee voters won't get a notice on Foley

Absentee voters won't get a notice on Foley

Maria Herrera
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
October 7 2006

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pabsentee07oct07,0,2757426.story?coll=sfla-news-palm

The state has OK'd inclusion of a notice with absentee ballots telling voters that Joe Negron has replaced Mark Foley as the Republicans' candidate for the 16th Congressional District. But absentee voters here, and in most of the district, won't be seeing the notice when their ballots arrive.

The Division of Elections on Wednesday recommended procedures and wording for signs in polling places and notices in absentee ballot mailings, both tactics to clarify that a vote for Foley, who remains on the ballots, is a vote for Negron.

But a legal opinion from an association of supervisors of elections' attorney swayed seven of the congressional district's eight supervisors of elections to keep from sending the notice.

"I'm not doing anything," said Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson, a Democrat. "It will be left to the candidates' respective parties to conduct the necessary advertisement for their constituents."

The statute cited by attorney Ron Labasky basically provides that nothing other than the materials necessary to vote absentee shall be made available or delivered with an absentee ballot.
...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-pabsentee07oct07,0,2757426.story?coll=sfla-news-palm

[freedomfries]

6. IA: Voter IDs cherry-pick constituents

Voter IDs cherry-pick constituents

The DesMoines Register
Letter to Editor
October 7, 2006

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/OPINION04/610070320/1035/OPINION

I oppose requiring a government-issued voter ID at the polls, particularly because the proposed program requires voters to pay a fee to get one.

While this program sounds reasonable enough, the fact is that the current voter-registration system is working fine. Studies show that fraud in voter registration is minimal. This voter ID program is a stealth poll tax. What an excellent way to keep the poor, elderly, dispossessed and otherwise unrepresented segments of the populace away from the voting booth.
...
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/OPINION04/610070320/1035/OPINION

[freedomfries]

7. TN: RNC Canvassers submit phony voter registrations

12 voter-registration forms may be phony:
National GOP official says it hired canvassers

Jessica Fender
The Tennessean
October 7, 2006

http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/NEWS0206/610070354/1291/MTCN01

A canvassing group hired by the Republican National Committee is responsible for 12 potentially phony voter-registration forms found in Davidson and Williamson counties, election officials said Friday.

Liberty Consultants also worked in Rutherford County, where the elections administrator said he fielded calls from residents who complained canvassers with the group made them sign a petition before registering, though the 800 forms submitted by the group were legitimate.

Several other Midstate county election commissions reported no contact with the group.

RNC spokesman Danny Diaz confirmed Friday that his organization hired the company to register Tennesseans to vote and said it is monitoring the situation.

"It's a good thing this has been brought to our attention," Diaz said. "If anyone has done any wrongdoing, they should be held responsible."

Liberty Consultants workers were banned from Tennessee Wal-Marts in late August because of the group's partisan nature, namely its connection to former Arizona GOP leader and Christian Coalition activist Nathan Sproul. Sproul denied wrongdoing in 2004 when some of his former workers said they were asked not to register Democrats and reported Democrat forms were thrown away, The Associated Press reported.
...
http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/NEWS0206/610070354/1291/MTCN01

[freedomfries]

8. OpEdNews: Diebold Memory Cards Stolen

Diebold Memory Cards Stolen

by Rady Ananda
October 7, 2006
OpEdNews

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rady_ana_061007_diebold_memory_cards.htm

Results from any Diebold machine now suspect for midterm elections

The Associated Press reported yesterday that several memory cards were "lost or stolen" during Cuyahoga County's May 2006 primary, jeopardizing the November vote count of 48 of Ohio's 88 counties that use Diebold electronic voting systems or central tabulators. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/15696778.htm

"Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install malicious software using a simple method that takes as little as one minute," computer scientists from Princeton University reported last month. http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting

Nationwide, the election results from any Diebold machine are now suspect, with these stolen memory cards in circulation. In 2003, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) warned that altered memory cards could allow someone with physical access "to falsify election results without leaving any record."
http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/voting/reports/Fischer-ElectionReformAndElectronicVotingSystemsDREs.pdf

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rady_ana_061007_diebold_memory_cards.htm

[freedomfries]

9. AP-Ipsos Poll: Scandals will influence votes

Poll: Scandals will influence votes:
Foley debacle reinforces perception that Democrats would better combat corruption

Jim Kuhnhenn, AP
Inside Bay Area
October 6, 2006

http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/news/ci_4450030

WASHINGTON — In yet another hurdle for Republicans, the scandals that have dogged Congress for the past year are prominent in the minds of many voters who say corruption will significantly influence their vote in November.
With midterm elections less than five weeks away, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that about half of likely voters say disclosures of corruption and scandal in Congress will be very or extremely important when they enter the voting booth.

About two out of three of those voters said they would cast their ballots for Democrats in House races, further complicating the political landscape for Republicans already struggling against negative public perceptions.

The poll was conducted this week as House Republican leaders came under increasing pressure to explain what they knew of sexually explicit messages from former Rep. Mark Foley of Florida to teenage pages. Last month, another Republican, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, admitted that he accepted trips, meals and other gifts in exchange for legislative favors.

In that roiling environment, the poll found that by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 likely voters say Democrats would better combat corruption than Republicans. More troubling to Republicans, likely voters in some key Republican groups were split on whether to trust Democrats or Republicans to clean up corruption.
...
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/news/ci_4450030

[freedomfries]

10. CA: Suit challenges voting system

Suit challenges voting system:
Security and accuracy of votes questioned in Alameda County

Chris Metinko, Medianews
Inside Bay Area
October 6, 2006

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/ci_4450158

Three Alameda County voters filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court Wednesday afternoon against the county and its registrar of voters office over concerns about security and accuracy of the countys new voting system.
The group of voters — being coordinated by the nonprofit Voter Action organization — claims Alameda County has not performed independent, expert security vulnerability testing on its new Sequoia voting equipment. The group claims such testing was a prerequisite stipulated by county supervisors before the county would issue payment for the system.

Dave Macdonald, the countys acting registrar, said the county did in fact hire an independent third party to perform vulnerability tests, and those test results will be shown to the board of supervisors during a public meeting Tuesday. He called the results very positive.

I would challenge anyone to find another county that is going to the lengths we are to ensure the security of our voting system, said Macdonald, adding the county also has yet to start payment for the new system.

In June, Alameda County supervisors approved the purchase of the new Sequoia voting system, which consists mainly of paper ballots that will be scanned electronically as well as 1,000 touch-screen machines.

The handful of voters suing claim the county and registrar, however, did not abide by the county supervisors' decision to test the equipment before purchase.
...
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/ci_4450158

[freedomfries]

11. Have a Great Day!

[rumpel]

12. You, too freedomfries

:)

[rumpel]

13. Registration deadlines & other announcements

from e-mail received:

It's October 7 - only 30 days to Election Day! We must elect Democratic majorities on November 7 - so we must make sure every vote is cast and counted. Step 1: Don't miss the voter registration deadline for your state!! 10/7: MS, NV, RI, SC
10/8: AK, TN, WA
10/9: AR, AZ, HI, LA, WY
10/10: CO, DC, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MI, MT, NM, OH, PA, TX, UT, VA, MO
10/13: ID, NC, NY, OK
10/14: DE
10/17: MD, ME, MN, NJ, OR, WV
10/18: MA
10/19: WI
10/20: NE
10/23: CA, KS, SD
10/24: CT
10/27: AL, IA, NH, VT

Election Day Registration: ID, ME, MN, ND, NH, WI, WY If you are not registered to vote, register here:
http://www.govote.org/?t1=84 <http://www.govote.org/?t1=84> Even if you think you're registered - you might not be! Your recent application may have been lost or rejected - or your past registration may have been purged by corrupt Republican election officials like Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell. "Google" your registration to make sure:
http://mydem.com <http://mydem.com>

Step 2: Vote Absentee If you cannot get to your polling place on Election Day (Tuesday November 7), you should apply immediately for an absentee ballot. Fill out this form, print it, check it carefully, sign it, and mail to to the address in the instructions:
https://electionimpact.votenet.com/pfaw/absentee/index.cfm <https://electionimpact.votenet.com/pfaw/absentee/index.cfm> ___________________________

Sponsored Message THE GREEN GUIDE: "THE GREEN LIVING SOURCE FOR TODAY'S CONSCIOUS CONSUMER" <http://www.thegreenguide.com/gg_LPs/index-117.html?c1=GreenGuide&source=Democrats-meryl> Which products should you buy organic and why? Which fish are safe to eat? Can you keep your home clean without toxic chemicals? How can you be green in home furnishings and home improvements? The Green Guide <http://www.thegreenguide.com/gg_LPs/index-117.html?c1=GreenGuide&source=Democrats-meryl> answers these questions and so much more. The Green Guide <http://www.thegreenguide.com/gg_LPs/index-117.html?c1=GreenGuide&source=Democrats-meryl> is the go-to source for green home tips, product reviews, environmental health and wellness information, and green living advice. Get well-researched, credible answers to your most important questions about everyday health and environmental issues for yourself and your family. Order now to get our special, double-length Top Product Picks issue, guest-edited by actress Meryl Streep, free with your subscription (mailed mid October)! Learn more about The Green Guide's special, limited-time offer <http://www.thegreenguide.com/gg_LPs/index-117.html?c1=GreenGuide&source=Democrats-meryl> , including over $350 in discounts on green products and services!

___________________________

Step 3: Count Every Vote! There are lots of ways to get involved. Try to do at least one! The Democratic Party needs pollwatchers to volunteer for a few hours on Election Day to help Democratic voters vote at a polling place near you - and make sure their votes are counted.
http://www.democrats.org/page/s/nlcpollwatch <http://www.democrats.org/page/s/nlcpollwatch> PollworkersForDemocracy puts you to work on Election Day as an official volunteer or paid worker at a polling place near you.
http://www.pollworkersfordemocracy.org/ <http://www.pollworkersfordemocracy.org/>

ElectionDefenseAlliance has national working groups on Registration & Voting Systems, Election Monitoring, Election Data Analysis, Election Day Rapid Response, Investigations, Litigation, Legislation, Media & Publicity, Communications, Public Education, Volunteer Recruitment & Training, Organizational Liaison, Events Production, Fundraising, Electoral Integrity Candidacies. If you have expertise in one of these areas, please join!
http://electiondefensealliance.org/working_groups_1 <http://electiondefensealliance.org/working_groups_1> VerifiedVoting.org's Election

Transparency Project provides six questionnaires to guide you in collecting crucial information about how elections are run in your county, and a web form to report your findings. Choose the project that interests you most - it will only take a few hours.
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6389 <http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6389>

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law needs attorneys, law students, and paralegals to staff the national hotline before Election Day in Washington, DC and on Election Day in Washington, DC, New York City, San Francisco, CA and at local call centers throughout the country.
http://www.nationalcampaignforfairelections.org/page/signup <http://www.nationalcampaignforfairelections.org/page/signup>

[freedomfries]

14. This is a very useful post! Kick it up and bookmark it!

Thanks for your great help with the thread rumpel!