Election Reform and Related News: Sunday, July 20, 2008

[livvy]

Election Reform and Related News
Sunday, July 20, 2008




Everyone is welcome to participate. Feel free to:

:graybox: Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

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

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

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

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




Recommendations for the Greatest Page are always welcomed. It's the best way to share the news with members who don't frequent this forum. It's the link below.

[livvy]

1. States and the Whiners Anonymous ('toon)

[livvy]

2. FL: Manual Recounts Remain Elusive

Manual recounts remain elusive
Debate continues on need for a paper trail
By Joe Follick


Published: Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 10:10 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE - As the state heads into what is expected to be a record-setting year for voter turnout, Florida law does not allow for every ballot to be counted in case of a close election.


"There is no such a thing as a manual recount in Florida," Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning said. "It is very dangerous to tell candidates that, yes, the law has a section that says 'manual recount,' but we're not going to look at those ballots."

The reason: Despite pleas from Browning, lawmakers have not authorized a full manual recount of all ballots in close elections.

Instead, canvassing boards in each of Florida's 67 counties will manually count only the ballots that were untabulated by machines reading the marked-in bubbles or connected lines.

more...

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080720/ARTICLE/807200355/2055&title=Manual_recounts_remain_elusive

[livvy]

5. New York Faces Voting Challenge

July 19, 2008


New York faces voting challenge

Commissioners concerned about new machines

By Cara Matthews
Albany Bureau

ALBANY — Bugs in new voting machines, difficulties getting storage-space funding and general anxiety about changing a system that's been around more than a century are problems counties face as the state continues its long march toward compliance with a federal voting-rights law.

With about seven weeks to go until the Sept. 9 primary and 14 months until decades-old mechanical lever voting machines become history, there are some nervous county election commissioners in New York, according to state officials. Others, however, are not concerned they will fall behind schedule.

“We've used one kind of voting machine for over 100 years. There's bound to be a little concern when you're changing that,” said Robert Brehm, a state Board of Elections spokesman, adding that the state and manufacturers are addressing a wide range of questions or problems with new machines.

The two vendors that are supplying the equipment are both a little behind schedule, Brehm said, although he couldn't immediately quantify how much. The planned deadline for delivery of machines was July 31, but it's unclear if they can meet that, he said.

“We knew that was going to be a little tough,” he said.

more...

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080719/NEWS01/807190340

[Peace Patriot]

11. I must point out the disinformation in this NY article: Fed law does NOT require electronic voting!

The first paragraph (and, indeed, the whole article) implies that it does:

"ALBANY — Bugs in new voting machines, difficulties getting storage-space funding and general anxiety about changing a system that's been around more than a century are problems counties face as the state continues its long march toward compliance with a federal voting-rights law."
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080719/NEWS01/807190340

It does not. See
www.votersunite.org ("MythBreakers" - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)

The 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code in these new electronic voting machines has NO PLACE in our election system. It it an outrage! And it is also a corrupt boondoggle. New York cannot afford it; none of our states can afford it. There is no justification for this huge expense for the simple act of voting and counting the votes--and there is no law that requires it. NY's old, reliable, and virtually unriggable lever voting machines should be retained. They are owned and controlled by THE PUBLIC. They were paid for long ago. Why change it? The handicapped can have their e-voting devices, if that's what they really want. Why does that have to mean 'TRADE SECRET' CODE vote counting--with the code owned and controlled by corporations with close ties to the Republican Party and far rightwing causes--for everybody else?

The Bush Junta initially held off bullying New York, probably to prevent New Yorkers from sounding the alarm to the rest of us. (They took care of the Secretary of State who was sounding the alarm in California, just before the '04 (s)election--ran him out of office on bogus corruption charges.) Now the Bushite fucks are suing New York for no reason--to make their coup d'etat complete: ALL states with "TRADE SECRET" code vote counting. They have meanwhile busted the federal budget--$10 TRILLION deficit!--with looting and plundering of every kind, and have been passing the cost of that unprecedented theft to the states, which now can't afford emergency services, social programs, infrastructure maintenance, you name it. And they cannot afford this--neither billions of dollars to these election theft corporations, nor the terrible price of who they (s)elect for public office.

It is MYTH that federal law requires this--a myth enforced by corrupt Bushite DoJ prosecution, and the corrupting impact of billions of dollars in e-voting system boodle.

[livvy]

15. Good points and info.

Thanks for pointing them out. :pals:

[livvy]

7. Paper Ballots Make Comeback in East TN

Paper ballots make comeback in East TN
Kay Watson

Updated: 7/18/2008 7:47:23 PM Posted: 7/18/2008 6:28:05 PM

Just two years after most of the state bought new voting machines, four East Tennessee counties are testing an even newer voting system that could be required state-wide in the next two years.

However, the system being piloted by Roane, Anderson, Loudon and Sullivan counties resembles a step back in time.

Early voters in those counties are using paper ballots. "They mark their ballot with an x or fill in a box like on a test," Anderson County poll worker Sue McFarland explains.

McFarland, who retired after spending 30 years teaching, admits she feels like she's back in the classroom.

"You have to teach them how, don't go outside the boundary," she says.

more...

last line...
The paper ballots and scanners being leased by the state will only be used during early voting.

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=60987&catid=2

[livvy]

9. Ohio Attorneys to Assert RICO Claim Against Karl Rove for Orchestrating Theft of 2004 Election

THU 17/JUL/2008

Ohio Attorneys to Assert RICO Claim Against Karl Rove for Orchestrating Theft of 2004 Election

Written by John Michael Spinelli


Election Lawyers, in Refocus of 2004 Ohio Election Lawsuit, Ask US AG Mukasey to Save Rove’s Emails, US Chamber to Name Complicit Contributors, In Effort to Protect Integrity of 2008 Election
OhioNewsBureau
By John Michael Spinelli

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Plaintiff attorneys for a lawsuit filed in 2006 that sought voting records to prove whether their suspicion that Republicans conspired to suppress the votes of two active Democratic demographics that helped President Bush win the state and a second term in the White House, changed the focus of their lawsuit Thursday, saying they will now focus on learning more about the roles played by Karl Rove, Bush's political architect and Mike Connell, a long-time Bush family confidant and Information technology guru – now working for Sen. John McCain – who as an information technology tradesman, built various computer systems that produced election irregularities that favored Republicans and whose work, if not ferreted out and stopped now, may do the same this year for McCain as it did for Bush against Kerry four years ago.

Ohio became famous, or infamous depending on your political persuasion, for catapulting George W. Bush into a second term as the nation’s president. In 2004 the state was run by Republicans, who held all statewide offices and controlled both houses of the legislature. The Secretary of State at the time was Kenneth J. Blackwell, an African American from Cincinnati who previously had served as State Treasurer and was in his second term as the state’s chief elections officer. At the time, Blackwell was also the co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election committee. When the narrow election was over, Bush won Ohio from his Democratic rival, Massachusetts’ Sen. John Kerry, by the slim margin of about 118, 000 plus votes, or few than a dozen votes for each of Ohio’s 11,000 polling locations.

Email, Documents Asked to be Held to Reenergize, Refocus 2006 Election Lawsuit
Cliff Arnebeck, the lead attorney in the King Lincoln Bronzeville lawsuit, was accompanied by Henry Eckert, a former public utilities commissioner, and Bob Fitrakis, a political science professor at Columbus State College and election integrity advocate who manages the Columbus Free Press, a progressive news sources, and who has made failed attempts to run for Congress and governor.

Arnebeck, who spoke to reporters including the OhioNewsBureau at a press conference held Thursday in Downtown Columbus, presented letters he has sent to Michael B. Mukasey, US Attorney General, and Matthew Kairis, an attorney with the Jones Day law firm, asking them to hold certain named documents that would be used to reenergize and refocus the King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association vs. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner now pending before Federal District Judge Elgenon Marbley. The purpose of the lawsuit, filed in August of 2006, was to “preserve the ballots and related materials for the 2004 Ohio presidential election with respect to which the 22-month retention schedule was about to expire.” The broader purpose of the lawsuit, however, was the “protection against an ongoing conspiracy to interfere with the voting rights of African American and college student voters that was evident in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, and with respect to which this court ordered relief on Election Day 2004 in an action brought by the Ohio Democratic Party.” Arnebeck’s memorandum in support of his original motion stated that the original complaint “sought intervention of the court through appointment of a special master to oversee the integrity of the 2006 Ohio election and protect against interference with voting rights in that important election.



more...

http://www.thejournal.epluribusmedia.net/index.php/state-news/ohio-news/34-ohio-news/121-ohio-attorneys-to-assert-rico-claim-against-karl-rove-for-orchestrating-theft-of-2004-election

[livvy]

10. Hawaii Activists Sue to Protect the Vote

July 20, 2008

Hawaii Activists Sue to Protect the Vote

By Rady Ananda


Lawsuit to stop the transmission of votes over telephone lines
and/or the Internet.

by Bob Babson

We filed a lawsuit on July 14, 2008, asking the Court to order the Hawaii Chief Elections Officer to stop using telephone lines or the internet for transmitting ballot counts and election results for final tabulation until such time as administrative rules can be legally promulgated in accordance with Hawaii Administrative Law, Chapter 91, HRS, and all other laws can also be legally followed.

Hart InterCivic (Hart) of Austin, Texas, has the contract to conduct elections for the State of Hawaii. They write the software and design the hardware and it is top secret. No one can inspect it because it is "proprietary property." They claim the version they are using has been inspected by an independent testing agency (ITA) on the mainland. But we don't know if what they inspected is the same as what is
actually used here in Hawaii. We must blindly trust them to be honest.

Each voting machine at the precincts has a memory card with votes on it. After the polls close on election day, the current procedure is to forward all memory cards to the county count center (8th floor of the Maui County Building for Maui) and hand them to the Hart technician who then "reads" them into the Hart tabulator (a laptop in 2006). The laptop is connected to a telephone line and the vote count files are then supposedly transmitted directly to the State count center using a wide area network (WAN). WAN's use the internet. We believe the transmission method is either by email with files attached or file transfer protocol (FTP).

Not only can outsiders hack into anything on the internet but we believe Hart itself, our election vendor, could actually transmit the files to a bogus remote email address or a remote website where the files could be flipped and immediately transmitted directly onto the State count center. Flipping votes means taking votes from one candidate and giving them to another. Since the total vote count
remains the same, no one would know the difference. On top of all of this, the Office of Elections never manually counts the absentee ballots precinct (aka AB-Mail) because it is "too big." So there you have it. Hart could easily flip votes in the AB-Mail precinct and no one would ever know. AB-Mail is the biggest precinct in all four counties.

more...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hawaii-Activists-Sue-to-Pr-by-Rady-Ananda-080720-946.html

[livvy]

14. IN: State Election Agency Faces Big Test

July 20, 2008


State election agency faces big test

By Lesley Stedman Weidenbener
[email protected]

INDIANAPOLIS – A squabble over who should be on the ballot in the race for Clark Circuit Court judge has presented a new test for a state election agency that critics say is set up to fail because of its partisan makeup.

But supporters say the Indiana Election Division maintains fairness between the political parties.

The division — part of the Secretary of State's office but not answerable to its elected head — is both partisan and bipartisan in its structure. It has two employees at every position — one Republican and one Democrat — including co-directors, attorneys and even receptionists.

And the Indiana Election Commission that the agency staffs is split with two members from each of the major parties.

more...

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080720/NEWS02/80720001

[livvy]

16. AL: A Troubling Election

A troubling election

Sunday, July 20, 2008Huntsville Times

Few people voted Tuesday, and more fraud allegations arise

Maybe the best thing that can be said about Tuesday's state and local primary runoffs is that they are over. True, the two major parties have chosen their candidates for the November elections, but major questions hang over the process, questions that go to the core of both the democratic system and a citizen's duty to take part in it.

Here's what we're talking about:

Statewide, the total voter turnout in both parties was a pathetic 4 to 5 percent. In Madison County, a community that prides itself on its civic awareness, we did better - but only 7 percent. Still pathetic, in other words.

more...

http://www.al.com/opinion/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1216545319183340.xml&coll=1

[livvy]

22. New D.C. Election Leaders Face Big Stage in September, November Votes

New D.C. Election Leaders Face Big Stage in September, November Votes
By Dan Seligson, Electionline.org
July 17, 2008

Fixes in place to address primary woes, but inexperience still has some nervous

This article appeared in the Electionline Weekly and is reported here with permission.

Election officials around the country have been bracing for record turnout in the presidential election. In the Nation’s Capital, however, departures and replacements in the upper echelons of election administration – and lingering concern over voting troubles during last February’s primary – has activists and residents fearing more problems at the polls.

In May, Alice Miller, executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE) for the District of Columbia for over a decade, took a new position as chief operating officer for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

That same month, William O’Field, the board’s spokesman and poll worker coordinator, trainer and recruiter also announced his retirement from the division. O’Field had been with the board for more than a decade. The city’s registrar job is open, advertised since April.

Past chairman of the BOEE Charles R. Lowery Jr. no longer holds his position. He has been replaced in the position by Errol R. Arthur, a newcomer to the board. Lowery continues to serve as a board member.

more...

http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2904&Itemid=113

[livvy]

3. OpEd, Opinion, Blog, etc. and Some Press Conference Viewers Get Boooshed ('toon)

[livvy]

4. Debunking Pre-Election Testing Myths

July 19, 2008

Debunking Pre-Election Testing Myths

By Rady Ananda

Debunking myths can be a full time job in the election integrity world. Someone recently asserted:

"As for vote switching, not sure how many times I have to tell you, the election goes thru a logic and accuracy test that proves the votes are counted correctly. There is no vote switching ... on ES&S machines. Not sure where you get this information. You shouldn't believe everything you hear."
Malware can easily defeat pre-election testing and certification processes: logic and accuracy tests cannot "prove" that software is free of malicious code. Assertions that no vote switching has ever been shown to have occurred on an ES&S system or any other computerized voting system is explained by the fact that malware (malicious software code) can be self-erasing.

A few hours later, the same software advocate said:

"I was a programmer for over 40 years. But lets take it a step further. What if the hacking is done in the module that does the election reporting and not the machines or media? How can we ever trust anything that the computer does? My answer is that so far, the ES&S machines have not been hacked and the state does extensive testing, so how did this hacking get by them? You keep harping on human hand counts, I trust the machines much more than the humans. Machines don't care who wins, they do as they are told. And as our testing shows, they have been doing exactly that."

Over 50 scientific studies have been published in recent years which contradict these assertions. Here are a dozen published statements by computer security experts:

more...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Debunking-Pre-Election-Tes-by-Rady-Ananda-080719-636.html

[livvy]

6. On Election Day, Check That Vote

Saturday, July 19, 2008
On Election Day, check that vote

OTHER OPINIONS


Electronic voting is notoriously vulnerable to technical glitches and vote theft. By now, most states have passed good laws requiring paper records of every vote cast — an important safeguard. But that is not enough. States also need strong audit laws to ensure that machine totals are vigilantly checked against the paper records. That is the only way that voters will be able to trust electronic voting.

Computer scientists have shown that it is easy to tamper with electronic voting machines in ways that are all but impossible to detect. The machines also make mistakes on their own. Just this month, the elections supervisor of Palm Beach County, Fla., apologized after machines there failed to count 14 percent of the votes cast in a city commission election.

The answer is voter-verifiable paper trails: paper records of each vote cast that voters can check to ensure that their preferences were accurately recorded. … Unfortunately, states don’t require such scrupulous audits. A 2007 study co-authored by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found that most of the 38 states with voter-verifiable paper trails did not even require audits after every election. The states that do have audits do them inadequately.


Florida has a particularly flawed audit law — not a comforting thought given its recent history. Counties are required to audit only one randomly selected race on the ballot. It is ridiculous to have an audit law that does not require checking the votes for president. …

more...

http://www.telegram.com/article/20080719/NEWS/807190328/1020

[livvy]

8. You Can Never, Ever Fully Trust Computers

Published: 07.20.2008

Opinion by Bonnie Henry : You can never, ever fully trust computers
Opinion by Bonnie Henry

I'm standing in the checkout lane at the grocery store, cantaloupes and kumquats safely scanned and bagged, line of shoppers behind me.

But there's a small problem.

As I hand the clerk my check, he asks for some ID. OK. Never mind that I've been shopping at this store longer than he's been breathing. I hand over my driver's license.

"Phone number please," he asks. So I rattle it off.

He does a little digital dance on the cash register, then tells me, "The computer says that's not the right phone number."

more of this amusing piece...


http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/columnists/248759.php

[livvy]

13. Election 2008 Finally Lays Bare Campaign finance Mess

Election 2008 finally lays bare campaign finance mess

Sunday July 20th

By By Kirk Caraway,

Sen. Barack Obama received a lot of flack for withdrawing from public financing for the general election, and rightfully so.

His change of heart on campaign financing highlighted why we hate politicians who always find ways around the rules to benefit themselves.

However, these things don't happen in a vacuum.

The recent reports filed with the Federal Election Commission from Sen. John McCain and his various “Victory Committees” point out why Obama did what he did.

Federal law says you can only give $2,300 to any presidential candidate for the general election. But McCain's campaign has found a loophole that allows them to take donations up to $70,000, by splitting them up among his Victory committees and the Republican National Committee.

So while Obama was collecting hundreds of thousands of small donations averaging only $68 apiece, the McCain camp was picking up huge checks from the usual suspects hoping to get another president in the White House who will do their bidding.

more...

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080720/OPINION/838201692/1061/HEALTH&parentprofile=-1

[livvy]

26. Redistricting: A Shadowy Process Needs Sunlight

Redistricting: A Shadowy Process Needs Sunlight

By J. Gerald Hebert and Susan Gershon, Campaign Legal Center Blog

Posted on July 18, 2008, Printed on July 20, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/92051/

It is clear to anyone who is paying attention that the American redistricting system is in need of reform. The districts which make up the building blocks of representative democracy are nearly always designed by politicians whose jobs (both current and future) and political power are determined by the way the lines are drawn. Already political strategists and party leaders are talking openly about the need for the major parties to capture state legislatures and governors' mansions in 2010, so that their party would be in the best position to manipulate the redistricting which will follow the decennial census. Where politicians are unable to draw districts which decidedly skew the process towards their own party, they generally conspire with politicians on the other side of the aisle to create "safe" districts for both sides such that no incumbent need fear a serious general election challenge.

Just as obvious as the need for reform, however, is the difficulty of achieving it. The foxes guarding this particular henhouse are not eager to give up their posts or their power, and the kind of political pressure necessary to force the issue is difficult to muster. It is even more difficult in a time when war, rising food and gas prices, and a declining economy understandably overshadow the arcane issue of redistricting in the eyes of voters. Voters need to be made aware that redistricting does affect who we elect as our leaders, which in turn shapes our policies as a nation, from the wars we fight to the economic conditions we face.

One intriguing notion, proposed by Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken in an editorial in Legal Times and on the blog Balkanization, offers the potential to take a small step toward better redistricting while simultaneously helping to pave the way for larger steps to come. Professor Gerken suggests the creation of a new body, composed of nonpartisan experts in redistricting, to act as a sort of "shadow" redistricting commission. This body could use its expertise to design districts based on community input and values of competition and fairness instead of incumbent protection and partisan advantage. Such a shadow commission would be easy to create, requiring only publicly available census data, reasonably inexpensive redistricting software, and a group of respected, nonpartisan community members. While the plans drawn by such a commission would of course have no binding legal effect, as Professor Gerken explains they would have a positive impact in several ways.

First, a shadow redistricting commission would offer a sharp contrast to the official redistricting process. The shadow commission's districting plan could be used to highlight problems in any subsequent plans adopted by politicians in the legislature -- either to demonstrate the unfairness of a partisan districting scheme or to point out incumbency protection in a bipartisan gerrymander. This contrast would provide a way to pressure politicians to scale back the worst excesses of the current process.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/92051/

[Peace Patriot]

12. Thanks for keeping us informed on the Priority #1 matter, Livvy! nt

[livvy]

17. World and Just Don't Ask Why ('toon)

[livvy]

18. After 18 Years in Power, Chilean Coalition Struggles to Stay United

After 18 Years in Power, Chilean Coalition Struggles to Stay United

By: iStockAnalyst

Sunday, July 20, 2008 3:56 AM

SANTIAGO, Chile _ When democracy returned to Chile nearly two decades ago after the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, rivals on the political left and center realized they needed to work together to make sure the bad old days of political polarization didn't return.

That's when four parties formed what's become the main political force here over the past 18 years, the Concertacion coalition, which has given the citizens of this nation of 16.3 million the political stability and consensus it desperately needed.

The coalition appears to be falling apart now, however, more than halfway through its fourth straight government. The common wisdom is that the administration of President Michelle Bachelet could be the last one of the Concertacion.

A poll by the nonprofit Public Studies Center released a couple weeks ago showed businessman Sebastian Pinera, the presumptive presidential candidate of the conservative Alliance for Chile coalition, handily beating any of the Concertacion's four main candidates in next year's presidential elections.

more...

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2413681&title=After_18_Years_in_Power.html

[Peace Patriot]

19. Election reform resources:

Election reform resources

Election Defense Alliance"
Latest news, studies and comment, links to grass roots election reform groups around the country (50-state directory), activist/volunteer opportunities, current campaign for "paper ballot" platform plank at political party conventions this summer:
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/

A list of states and their current voting systems.
(Note: all e-voting systems are run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. The three biggest election theft corporations are Diebold (now called Premier), ES&S and Sequoia.
http://electionline.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1099

For an overview of the 2004 election theft, see:
"Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" by Robert Kennedy Jr. 6/1/06
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
"Secret Vote Counting Crammed Down the Throat of Democracy," " by Michael Collins (DU's Autorank) (--a searing election reform article for New Zealand's Scoop.com)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x971363

Information on electronic voting:
The Princeton study (2006) (e-voting machines extremely hackable)
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/
(comment on the Princeton study) http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3467
www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)

Other activist and information sites:
www.UScountvotes.org (statistical monitoring of '06 and '08 elections--they need donations)
www.votetrustusa.org (news of this great movement from around the country)
www.votersunite.org (good general info, and state links)
www.verifiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.bradblog.com (also great, and devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election) :patriot: :applause: :patriot:

Read this and you will never rest until our country is rid of 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting:
"Poll Shock," by Bob Koehler (11/24/05)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

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

:patriot: :think: :woohoo: :think: :patriot:

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

[livvy]

20. National and About Those Surcharges ('toon)

[livvy]

21. VA Ban on Voter Registration Drives for Injured Vets Becomes National Fight

VA Ban on Voter Registration Drives for Injured Vets Becomes National Fight
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet

July 18, 2008

This article was published by AlterNet and is reposted here with permission of the author.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees medical care for injured veterans, is locked in a growing dispute with 19 secretaries of state -- Democrats and Republicans -- who are urging the federal agency to allow voter registration drives for former soldiers living at its facilities.

In a letter this week to Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, who earlier this month was barred from registering voters at a VA facility and has since been organizing top state election officials, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James B. Peake said his agency would not allow registration drives unless "these efforts be coordinated through the VA Voluntary Service (VAVS) office at each VA medical center."

"This policy is the result of careful deliberation and consideration for the needs and rights of our patients, concerns about disrupting facility operations, and the need to ensure VA is not involved in partisan political activities," Peake wrote in his July 15, 2008, letter.

Voter registration advocates said the VA policy will not help injured veterans to vote.


more...

http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2905&Itemid=26

[livvy]

23. Election '08 and McSame Walking His Pig ('toon)

[livvy]

24. Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics

Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
Posted on July 19, 2008, Printed on July 20, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/91927/

I am a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. To stay warm at night my son and I would pull off all the pillows from the couch and pile them on the kitchen floor. I'd hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we'd sleep right there on the floor. By February we ran out of wood and I burned my mother's dining room furniture. I have no oil for hot water. We boil our water on the stove and pour it in the tub. I'd like to order one of your flags and hang it upside down at the capital building... we are certainly a country in distress. -- Letter from a single mother in a Vermont city, to Senator Bernie Sanders

The Republican and Democratic conventions are just around the corner, which means that we're at a critical time in our nation's history. For this is the moment when the country's political and media consensus finally settles on the line of bullshit it will be selling to the public as the "national debate" come fall.

If you pay close attention you can actually see the trial balloons whooshing overhead. There have been numerous articles of late of the Whither the Debate? genus in the country's major dailes and news mags, pieces like Patrick Healy's "Target: Barack Obama. Strategy: What Day is it?" in the New York Times. They ostensibly wonder aloud about what respective "plans of attack" Barack Obama and John McCain will choose to pursue against one another in the fall.

In these pieces we already see the candidates trying on, like shoes, the various storylines we might soon have hammered into our heads like wartime slogans. Most hilarious from my viewpoint is the increasingly real possibility that the Republicans will eventually decide that their best shot against Obama is to pull out the old "He's a flip-flopper" strategy -- which would be pathetic, given that this was the same tired tactic they used against John Kerry four years ago, were it not for the damning fact that it might actually work again. (I'm actually not sure sometimes what is more repulsive: the bosh they trot out as campaign "issues," or the enthusiasm with which the public buys it.)

more...

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/91927/?ses=3e32247d8c45fe867c654cf26ca72225

[livvy]

25. Discussion from the Greatest Page

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3646086

[livvy]

27. Have a great week ahead,,,