Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday 9/4/05

[Melissa G]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday 9/4/05

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 "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.



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All previous daily threads are available here:
http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm





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

[Melissa G]

1. Valley areas to join state system to avert voter fraud

Valley areas to join state system to avert voter fraud

By Paul Muschick
Of The Morning Call

Several Lehigh Valley-area counties are finally set to connect to a statewide computer network designed to prevent voting fraud.

snip

They will be among the final counties to be connected. Several hookups were delayed last year, before the presidential election, to work out glitches in the system.

snip


Counties have been forced to replace their own computer databases of voters and instead use the state system.



It is designed to prevent fraud by linking the voting rolls of all counties, which could prevent duplicate voting.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b6_3elect1sep02,0,3396359.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed

[Melissa G]

2. Anonymous source backs governor's action

Anonymous source backs governor's action

By DUANE D. STANFORD, BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/04/05
snip

The Insider called the House communications office for an explanation. The aide on the other line didn't give us one. He just laughed.

Vote early and often —

by mail, if you wish

Lynn Ledford wasn't thrilled to learn her office will have to work an extra week to put on a runoff election.

But that's not what really bothers Gwinnett's elections supervisor about Georgia's new voting law. What really punches Ledford's card is a new provision making it easier to vote by mail.

Ledford last week warned that the change could dramatically slow down election night tallying and make it easier to commit voter fraud.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/0905/04insider.html

[Melissa G]

3. America's underbelly

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1763821,00.html

America's underbelly



Four years ago the outrages of 9/11 highlighted both America’s vulnerability and her resilience. Last week, faced with an assault that was natural rather than man-made, we saw that vulnerability again. This time, though, it was coupled with incompetence. The images of the people of New Orleans navigating a primordial swamp would have tested the imaginations of Hollywood producers. The lootings, shootings and rapes made one of America’s iconic cities look like Monrovia; the world’s only superpower seemed like a dislocated Third World country and this humbling of America will not easily be forgotten.
George W Bush cannot be blamed for hurricane Katrina. Nor can he be held entirely responsible for the inadequacy of the flood defences, despite a specific warning well in advance. The fortifying of the levees has been debated between city, state and federal government for decades. Blame for the abject failures of the evacuation and relief should be similarly spread. But the buck has to stop somewhere and that place is the Oval Office. The president has been found wanting in the urgency of his response and his failure to drive through the rescue operation.



In 2004, when he was standing for re-election, the president reacted rapidly and effectively to four hurricanes which devastated Florida. He was all too aware of his father’s inadequate response to a hurricane in 1992 that helped to damage his re-election chances. Florida duly voted for George W in 2004 in greater numbers than in his wafer-thin victory of 2000.

Why the difference for New Orleans? Cynics would argue that the president was not in need of votes. But could it have been because the victims of the city’s inundation were mainly poor, black and Democrat voters, as his opponents allege? “We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age or skin colour,” said Elijah Cummings, former head of the Congressional Black Caucus. Kanye West, a hip-hop star, put it more bluntly: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1763821,00.html

[Melissa G]

4. require the use of photo identification to reduce voter fraud.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-03-washingtonagenda_x.htm

Hurricane aid tops Congress' fall agenda
By Brian Tumulty, Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers return Tuesday from a five-week recess to consider another round of relief funding for victims of Hurricane Katrina, a possible economic stimulus package and even a second energy bill.
Those items will be crowded onto an already busy autumn agenda.

The possibility of Congress finishing its work by Oct. 1 — already slim — has shrunk to zero.

"Who knows, we may even go to Thanksgiving," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Friday.



smip

Green also hopes the House approves election reform legislation that would require the use of photo identification to reduce voter fraud.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-09-03-washingtonagenda_x.htm

[Melissa G]

5. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday

(AP) WASHINGTON Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday evening at his home in suburban Virginia, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.

smip
His death ends a remarkable 33-year Supreme Court career during which Rehnquist oversaw the court’s conservative shift, presided over an impeachment trial and helped decide a presidential election.

The death President Bush his second court opening within pour months and sets up what’s expected to be an even more bruising Senate confirmation battle than that of John Roberts.

snip
Rehnquist, 80 and ill with cancer, presided over President Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, helped settle the 2000 presidential election in Bush’s favor, and fashioned decisions over the years that diluted the powers of the federal government while strengthening those of the states.
http://cbs5.com/topstories/topstories_story_246231810.html
DU discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=392502&mesg_id=392502

[Melissa G]

6. Ohio Recount Lawsuit Set for Trial; Election Workers Indicted

Press Release


Ohio Recount Lawsuit Set for Trial; Election Workers Indicted

Released September 1, 2005 by www.votecobb.org

Contact: Blair Bobier, Media Director at 541.929.5755

On Tuesday, August 30, a federal district judge set a trial date for the Green Party’s Ohio Recount lawsuit and indictments were handed down against two Cuyahoga County elections officials for their roles in the bungled election audit. The timing was coincidental; the two actions are not related though they both stem from charges that the recount was conducted in violation of state and federal law.

Judge James Carr set the trial date for August 22, 2006. The lawsuit was initiated by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and his Libertarian counterpart, Michael Badnarik.

The Ohio election and recount has been the subject of a number of investigations and reports. A report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic staff states that “there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.” The August issue of Harper’s magazine featured an article by Mark Crispin Miller on the Ohio election fraud and the lack of “mainstream” media coverage devoted to it, entitled “None Dare Call it Stolen.”

“The truth about the fraud, manipulation and voter suppression in Ohio is slowly coming out. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we will pursue this as long as necessary to protect the integrity of our democratic process. When Republicans steal elections and Democrats roll over and play dead, the public can rely on the Green Party to protect the right to vote and the right to have all votes counted,” said Blair Bobier, spokesman for the party’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Additional information about the recount and the entire 102 page report by the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic staff can be found at <http://www.votecobb.org>.

The website for the national Green Party is <http://www.gp.org>.

http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_09_03.shtml

[MissWaverly]

15. Thanks Melissa

So the trial date is set for August 2006, which is probably only
the start of a delay, remember the hearings on the Abu Ghraib
photos, I am bitterly disappointed, I expected it to be sooner. I do
appreciated your posting this, but what recourse is there when the
elections results are questionable, if the recount is contested and
there must be some grounds since 2 have been indicted, then it just
goes on and on thru the judicial process until the cause becomes a dim
memory.

[Blue in the face]

17. That's great!

I just saw a little blurb on this on AOL News and came in to see if anyone had brought this up. Here is some more on the indictments from the Cleveland Plain Dealer http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1125480834285430.xml&coll=2&thispage=2

Kerger charged that elections officials failed to randomly select precincts that were supposed to be counted by hand and compared against ballots tabulated by a machine; conduct test-runs before witnesses; and investigate discrepancies between vote totals.

Baxter would not offer details of his investigation but said he examined allegations that officials took "measures in order to all but assure that there would not be a countywide hand count."

Cuyahoga County's four elections board members issued a statement defending their employees and the voting process.

"These allegations are based on interpretation of procedures, not on any suggestion of fraud," they said.

Of course it was procedural. We all know Bush won fair and square... :eyes:

[Melissa G]

7. Taft tries to fill divots in story

Posted on Fri, Sep. 02, 2005

Taft tries to fill divots in story

Governor, golf partner Noe disagree over what topics they discussed

By Dennis J. Willard and Doug Oplinger

Beacon Journal staff writers


COLUMBUS - Two weeks ago, after he was found guilty of four misdemeanor ethics charges, Gov. Bob Taft repeated that he and others had been deceived by Toledo-area Republican fund-raiser Thomas Noe.

snip
Taft maintains he did not know until April that Noe's rare-coin business received $50 million in Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation investment funds -- let alone that some of the money was missing.

snip

The war of words escalated last weekend, and Wilkinson released public documents he says refute accusations that Noe concealed his investment role -- documents such as newspaper advertisements, disclosure statements and bureau public records.

Although reporters and Statehouse officials have been awaiting a ``smoking gun'' that says Taft knew Noe was investing state funds, the new information didn't go that far. But Wilkinson did add to the growing pile of circumstantial evidence that could cost Taft in the court of public opinion as he tries to salvage credibility and serve the remaining 16 months of his term.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/living/12541861.htm

[Melissa G]

8. Georgia voter-ID statute assailed

Georgia voter-ID statute assailed
By Brian DeBose
The Washington Times
Published September 4, 2005


WASHINGTON -- A new voter-identification law in Georgia that recently was approved by the Justice Department has angered civil rights groups, which say it will disenfranchise blacks, the elderly and rural voters.

State legislators said the new law requiring voters to present a photo identification, such as a driver's license or a state school ID, will prevent voter fraud and keep noncitizens from voting.


"We just thought that it was a common-sense measure, given a pattern of voter fraud over time in Georgia," said state Senate Majority Leader Bill Stephens, a Republican. "Our existing law that was in place allowed for 17 different forms of so-called 'identification.'"

snip
"It is a national scheme to keep people from voting," said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, a Democrat and president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials. The organization of more than 800 officials walked out of the Statehouse to protest the bill's passage.

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050904-091529-6543r

[Melissa G]

9. HAITIAN IMMIGRATION SCANDAL

Posted on Sun, Sep. 04, 2005






HAITIAN IMMIGRATION SCANDAL


Indicted charity trying to revive

As a federal criminal investigation continues, a Haitian-oriented charity facing fraud charges intends to resume operations right away.

BY DAN CHRISTENSEN AND DARRAN SIMON

[email protected]


A Haitian-American charity under federal indictment for defrauding thousands of illegal immigrants plans to reopen Tuesday in Broward amid questions about its political ties to Republican activists.

Six weeks ago, a federal grand jury charged the Haitian-American Community Help Organization with swindling at least $3 million from immigrants. The undocumented aliens paid HACHO $450 each for work permits it couldn't provide and failed to deliver, according to the indictments.

During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, HACHO used a political pitch to lure victims to Florida from around the country, two sources told The Herald.

Brooklyn, N.Y., immigration lawyer Joseph Famuyide said dozens of clients told him they'd heard that HACHO had access to a special aliens work permit program created by Gov. Jeb Bush in an effort to win votes for his brother, President George Bush, among Florida's sought-after immigrant voters. ''I was asking people over and over, why Florida?'' recalled Famuyide. ``The people at HACHO were floating that argument just to convince people . . . People were traveling to Florida from all over the country.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/12548650.htm

[Wilms]

10. Conyers Blog: Better Late than Never

Saturday, September 3rd, 2005

Better Late than Never

This title could of course refer to the New Orleans debacle, which is becoming more outragerous by the hour. As if the sheer incompetence of the response was not enough, now we learn that the president had the temerity to use a fake levee repair as a prop for his trip, courtesy of Americablog.

Actually, the point of the title is to change the subject, and point out that indictments were brought at long last in Cuyahoga County, Ohio -- as covered by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Bradblog -- for improperly rigging the recount in the Ohio presidential election.

-snip/more-

http://www.conyersblog.us

Thanks to MelissaB for the Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x392491

[Melissa G]

11. Voter photo bus hits the road

Voter photo bus hits the road
09/04/2005

PBy Dave Williams
Staff Writer
[email protected]

LAWRENCEVILLE - When the General Assembly's new Republican majority passed a strict voter identification law this year, Democrats complained that elderly Georgians without driver's licenses wouldn't be able to get the photo IDs it requires.

The state Department of Driver Services will begin addressing that criticism this week with a bus that will travel throughout Georgia offering to snap seniors' pictures for the new voter ID cards.
"We will try to target areas that don't have driver's license offices,'' said agency spokeswoman Susan Sports.
But to Democrats and civil rights groups preparing to challenge the new law in federal court, the initiative is little more than a political ploy.

"One bus? That's a joke,'' said Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta, chairman of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials. "How can one bus cover Georgia?''
Democrats expected Republicans to redraw Georgia's congressional map and enact limits on medical-malpractice lawsuits after the GOP captured complete control of the legislature last fall.

But the photo ID bill, reducing the forms of identification voters could use at the polls from 17 to six, caught the minority party by surprise. Partly for that reason, it became the session's hottest controversy, prompting many House and Senate Democrats to walk out of their respective chambers in protest as it was being voted on.
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=32&url_article_id=5942&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2

[Melissa G]

12. Feds revise stance on Arizona voter ID requirement

Arizona voters may be able to obtain at least a provisional ballot at polling places even if they don't show required identification despite the ID requirement in a ballot measure approved by voters last year.

Whether that provisional ballot gets counted is another question.


The U.S. Justice Department in January signed off on election-law changes made by Proposition 200 itself. And a top department official in April signaled that the state would not run afoul of federal law if it put into place procedures to implement the ballot measure's voter ID mandate.

snip
However, HAVA leaves it up to states to decide whether a person who casts a provisional ballot is actually eligible to vote and therefore whether a provisional ballot should be counted, Schlozman wrote. Therefore, the state is free to prohibit the counting of a provisional unless the voter produces proper identification on or after election day, Schlozman added.

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3799532

[Melissa G]

13. Judge overrules mayor's motion

Judge overrules mayor's motion
9/4/2005 2:45:43 AM
Daily Journal




BY MIKE PRINCE


Chickasaw Journal


HOUSTON - A Houston mayoral candidate who failed to force a run-off in May's election by one vote won a small legal victory this week.


In a seven-page decision, Lowndes County Judge Jim Kitchens overruled Houston Mayor John A. "Pap" Moore's motion for dismissal and/or summary judgment in mayoral candidate Stacey Parker's petition for a new election.


Kitchen wrote in the decision released Friday that parts of Moore's dismissal motion had not been fully developed and instructed the parties to address issues pertaining to fraud or misconduct in the May 3 Democratic Primary within 30 days.


"If three votes were in fact fraudulently cast, does that fact dictate a new election when the margin was very much in favor of Moore?" Judge Kitchens wrote. "Likewise, if the absentee ballots in question were indirectly counted, can this court order a new election in the absence of some showing of fraud or misconduct by the election workers? The parties have 30 days from Sept. 6 to submit briefs answering these questions."


http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=201192&pub=1&div=News

[Melissa G]

14. OMG!! ...a decent David Brooks column? ...The Bursting Point

Thanks to Buff2 for the post and DU discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4616247



September 4, 2005
The Bursting Point
By DAVID BROOKS
As Ross Douthat observed on his blog, The American Scene, Katrina was the anti-9/11.

On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.

Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.

The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.

snip
We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html?ei=5090&en=37eeb8918dbb6e2e&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[MelissaB]

16. Telling the Truth About Chief Justice Rehnquist

Telling the Truth About Chief Justice Rehnquist

My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history.

So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about being first in his class at Stanford Law School. Today Stanford is a great law school with a diverse student body, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it discriminated against Jews and other minorities, both in the admission of students and in the selection of faculty. Justice Stephen Breyer recalled an earlier period of Stanford’s history: “When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews.” Rehnquist not only benefited in his class ranking from this discrimination; he was also part of that bigotry. When he was nominated to be an associate justice in 1971, I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the school’s few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.

As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist’s memo, entitled “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy “was right and should be reaffirmed.” When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating – under oath – that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson’s longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist’s Senate testimony an attempt to “smear[] the reputation of a great justice.” Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job.

The young Rehnquist began his legal career as a Republican functionary by obstructing African-American and Hispanic voting at Phoenix polling locations (“Operation Eagle Eye”). As Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote, “e helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons -- and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity.” In a word, he started out his political career as a Republican thug.

snip

My mother would want me to remain silent, but I think my father would have wanted me to tell the truth. My father was right.

Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His latest book is The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved (Wiley, 2005).

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/telling-the-truth-about-c_b_6844.html


Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x392575