Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Sunday 10/02/05

[Wilms]

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.


If you want to know how post "News Banners" or other images, go here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371233#371391

Link to previous Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x395657


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

[Wilms]

1. Comments by Senator Edwards on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Comments by Senator Edwards on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines
on Saturday October 01, @10:27AM

September 30, 2005

As we all know, the 2004 election was marred by widespread voting problems – long lines, miscast ballots, votes that people weren’t sure were cast properly by new machines they’d never used before.

Many of the worst problems happened in Ohio. After the election, 28 percent of voters there reported problems with their voting experience. These problems were ones that shouldn’t exist in America, like intimidation and not being able to find your polling site. The racial disparities within these problems are especially alarming: in Ohio, African American voters were twice as likely as white voters to experience problems.

The result of these problems is a dramatic blow to our faith in our democratic system: in Ohio in 2004, only 19 percent of African Americans were confident that their vote was counted correctly. That’s not the way it should be in America.

So, while I commend the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for taking another look at problems in our voting system, I’m concerned that these guidelines – just like those issued in 1990 and 2002 – do not go far enough.

snip/more

http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/article.pl?sid=05/10/01/1433231§ion=&mode=nested&tid=1&threshold=0

[Wilms]

2. MI: State told to monitor city's absentee votes

State told to monitor city's absentee votes

Friday, September 30, 2005

By David Josar / The Detroit News

A Wayne County circuit judge on Thursday fined Detroit City Clerk Jackie Currie $250 for criminal contempt of court and ordered that state and Wayne County officials be appointed to supervise the counting of absentee ballots in the city's Nov. 8 election.

Judge Mary Beth Kelly also called for an investigation into why Currie defied her order and mailed out 132,000 unrequested applications for absentee ballots for the general election. Currie had invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked to explain her actions.

The ruling is highly unusual, if not unprecedented.

The judge, who earlier had ruled a voter could receive an absentee ballot application only if he or she requested one, called Currie's behavior "flagrant and egregious" and said the clerk has "undermined the public's trust."

But instead of apologizing when addressing the court, Currie, who has been in office since Jan. 1, 1994, said she felt "sorry" for the people who didn't think Detroit's senior citizens and disabled should be sent absentee ballots.

snip/more

http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0509/30/A01-333051.htm

Vote the poll on that page!

[Wilms]

3. Symposium: Election Reform: Voting Rights in the New Millenium

Saturday, October 1

UDC Election Reform Symposium

Yesterday, the University of District Columbia Law School hosted a symposium entitled Election Reform: Voting Rights in the New Millenium. The symposium brought together voting rights advocates, public officials, and academics. Some of the highlights included:

- A morning panel of voting rights advocates on the future of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Much of the conversation focused on the prospects for renewal of the provisions that are set to expire in 2007, most notably the language assistance provisions and the requirements that certain jurisdictions "preclear" changes with the Department of Justice. One of the big open questions is whether preclearance is an effective remedy for practices that disproportionately disadvantage minorities. A case in point is Georgia's recently enacted photo ID requirement, a law that even James Baker acknowledges to be "discriminatory," as noted here. Yet Georgia's ID requirement was still precleared by the Bush II Justice Department. Notwithstanding such actions, the general consensus of the voting rights advocates seemed to be that improvement on the existing preclearance process is unlikely.

snip/more

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2005/10/udc-election-reform-symposium.html

[Wilms]

4. ReBradcast: DEMOCRACY AT STAKE: a special edition of The BRAD SHOW

DEMOCRACY AT STAKE: a special edition of The BRAD SHOW



Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

This weekend's Special Edition of The BRAD SHOW is about to hit the airwaves . This week's show will be broadcast LIVE from Portland, Oregon, scene of the National Summit to Save Our Elections.

Brad's scheduled guests include Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann, 2004 Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb, Tribune Media Services journalist Robert Koehler, and vote-rigging software whistle-blower Clint Curtis.

Enjoy the repeat reBRADcast on Sunday 12noon-4p ET (9a-1p PT)

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001885.htm

[Wilms]

5. Opinion: Machines are corruptible

Article Last Updated: 10/01/2005 12:48:08 PM

Machines are corruptible

A recent article in The Tribune by Will Lester of Associated Press (Sept. 19) was plainly dishonest given the known facts about Diebold voting machines. The Diebold voting machines are laughably corruptible (especially the GEMS central tabulator) and have a terrible record of accuracy and of being vulnerable to hacking.

Also, Ms. Kathy Dopp did not "bark" at anybody at the recent Salt Lake County Council meeting. I was there and I know that for a fact.

If Mr. Lester - or anybody else with an open mind - cared to learn the facts about DRE voting machines, they would talk at length with experts like Ms. Dopp.

To ignore the expertise and well-meaning intentions of knowledgeable people is journalism at its worst.

If The Tribune has any shred of ethics left it will make the voting machine controversy a major news item.

snip/more

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3079279

[Wilms]

6. Scoop/autorank: National Summit to Save Our (US) Elections

National Summit to Save Our (US) Elections – Day 1

Monday, 3 October 2005, 12:32 am

Article: autorank

The National Summit to Save Our Elections Convenes in Portland, Oregon

Report By DU & PI Poster autorank

On special assignment for "Scoop" at the conference

snip

In this report:

Activist Attorney Paul Lehto Makes a Strong Case

VotersUnite.Org's Theisen Explains How Citizens have "Outsourced" the Voting and Tabulation Process to Corporations

A Huge Opportunity in New Mexico and Three Weeks to Raise the Money Green Presidential Candidate and Litigant in Ohio 2004 Suit Presents Media Participation

Other Presentations (Marybeth Kuznik, Rady Ananda, Blair Bobier, Penny Little, Kat L'Estrange, Warren Linney & Steve Chessin)

snip/more

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00003.htm


Thanks to BradBlog for posting
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001886.htm

And autorank posted this discussion thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x395751

[Wilms]

7. Area company plays big role in elections in Ohio

Area company plays big role in elections in Ohio

By Jaclyn Giovis

Dayton Daily News

CENTERVILLE | Ohio probably could not hold an election if not for Dayton Legal Blank, Inc.

This Centerville printing company will produce all of the election ballots for 85 of Ohio's 88 counties for the November election.

"We're one of those companies that touch people every day, but people don't even know we exist," President David Keeler said.

snip/more

http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/content/business/daily/1002daytonlegal.html

Thanks to NoBushSpokenHere:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x395738

[Wilms]

8. EAC Election Day Survey --- where's the voting system malfunctions data?

Election Updates Blog

Saturday, October 01, 2005

EAC Election Day Survey --- where's the voting system malfunctions data?

So yesterday I sat down to work with the new EAC Election Day Survey data ... and found that one of the components of the survey I was most interested in immediately analyzing, the data on voting equipment malfunctions (Chapter 11 of the report), only provides a very sketchy outline of the survey responses for that question. For this piece of the Election Day Survey, there are no data tables (i.e., no Excel spreadsheets) and no reporting of the data either at the state or jurisdiction level.

What's up here? Reading the report, we find that the question on "voting equipment malfunctions had by far the least coverage of any of the survey questions. Twenty-one states did not respond to the question or said that information on malfunctions was not available ... In all, we have information from only 485 of the 6,567 jurisdictions in the EAC database, or only seven percent of the country."

snip/more

http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/2005/10/eac-election-day-survey-wheres-voting.html

[Wilms]

9. ABC: Dems Agree to Recommend Early Primaries

Dems Agree to Recommend Early Primaries

Democrats Agree to Recommend Early Primaries With More Racial and Geographic Diversity

By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON Oct 1, 2005 — Democrats trying to change their presidential primaries for 2008 agreed Saturday to recommend that at least two other states join Iowa and New Hampshire in voting during the opening days of the nominating campaign.

That expansion, debated before a commission considering changes in the primary calendar, is intended to provide more racial and geographic diversity to an opening process now dominated by Iowa and New Hampshire. Those states, representing about 1.5 percent of the country's population, have residents who are mostly white.

The additional states, expected to be named later, were likely to include a smaller state from the South and a smaller state from the Southwest or West.

snip/more

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1176138

[Wilms]

10. Electronic voting machines are on the way ... is NY ready?

October 02, 2005

Electronic voting machines are on the way ... is NY ready?

By Brendan Scott

Times Herald-Record

Take one far-reaching voting reform act. Stir in one slow-acting state Legislature.

Combine with 62 counties scrambling to choose, buy and deploy thousands of high-tech voting machines in time for next year's primary elections.

Is this a recipe for electoral calamity in the Empire State?

That's something local election officials and good government groups are increasingly concerned about as the weeks drift by and county governments remain unable to implement voting systems that meet new federal election standards.

snip/more

http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/10/02/bshavaw.htm

[Wilms]

11. Voting Rights Act must keep pace with times

Saturday October 1, 2005

Voting Rights Act must keep pace with times

By Herbert H. Lindsey

The Maryland State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People strongly supports reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as amended.

Some of our constituents have been caught up in the rumor that African- Americans' voting rights will expire in 2007. We know this to be totally false. The right to vote was guaranteed to African Americans by the passage of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which was passed after the Civil War, and which does not expire.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to supplement the 15th Amendment and the antidiscrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act are also permanent and not subject to an expiration date.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 further protects the voting rights of people of color and ensures that no federal, state or local government may in any way impede people from registering to vote and voting because of the color of the skin. The majority of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and specifically the portions that guarantee that no one may be denied the right to vote because of her or his race or color, are also permanent.

snip/more

http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=120761&format=html

[Wilms]

12. CA: State Secretary Seeks Ethnic Media’s Help in Reaching Voters

State Secretary Seeks Ethnic Media’s Help in Reaching Voters

News Report, Eugenia Chien,

New America Media, Sep 30, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO – On his one day visit to San Francisco, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson’s first stop was a press briefing with the city’s ethnic media. McPherson met with some three dozen members of ethnic media ranging from Chinese to Thai to Ethiopian to Latino on Sept. 29 to discuss how to encourage more members of their communities to vote. The meeting was organized by the Chinese American Voter Education Committee and New America Media.

“Voting is the one time everyone in this country counts equally, whether rich or poor, native born or immigrant, and the media needs to get that message out,” McPherson said at the briefing at the library of the University Club.

He said voter turn out among youth and the disabled was among his top concerns. Only 50 percent of 18-24 year old eligible voters are registered to vote, and he called the fact that only one out of four eligible voters under the age of 25 voted in the U.S. presidential election, “pathetic.”

snip/more

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c381f3f72d03fd82e21a3434ca57e23d

[Wilms]

13. .