Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Thursday 5/26/05

[Melissa G]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Thursday 5/26/05

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.



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

All previous daily threads are available here:

http://www.independentmediasource.com/DU_archives/du_2004erd_el_ref_fr_thr_calenders.htm

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

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=371114&mesg_id=371114



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

[Melissa G]

1. Balloting Irregularities AZ

PUBLISHED ON MAY 26, 2005:

Balloting Irregularities

John Brakey insists there was fraud at one precinct during November's election--and he has evidence backing him up

By DAVE DEVINE


Tricia McInroy
John Brakey: "No way was this gross error."

Pacing as he talks, John Brakey believes he has uncovered serious problems with November's election results in Pima County--results that could have national implications.
Brakey admits he was a Democratic Party poll watcher who was escorted from his own precinct. But after six months of extensive research, Brakey is convinced what he saw on Election Day was voter fraud.

He accuses some of the people who worked at his polling place of stealing votes for George Bush. "These people knew exactly how the system works. I know those people were in there doing bad things," Brakey says.

Contacted by Brakey the day after Election Day, Pima County's director of elections, Brad Nelson, looked into the complaint. "There were four Republicans and three Democrats working at the polling place," Nelson says, "and I spoke to as many of them as I could. They have all attested in writing ... that everything was fine."

Acknowledging the poll workers did make errors in how they handled both the balloting and bookkeeping processes, Nelson indicates that some of them won't be asked back for future elections. Then he adds: "There were bookkeeping problems, but I can't find anything to substantiate irregularities that affected the outcome of the election."

snip
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid:69132

[Wilms]

4. Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372669

[Wilms]

2. Census Details Voter Turnout for 2004

Census Details Voter Turnout for 2004

By Brian Faler
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, May 26, 2005; Page A10

More than 125 million Americans -- 64 percent of those ages 18 and older -- went to the polls in last year's presidential election, according to data scheduled to be released today by the Census Bureau.

The agency's numbers, the latest in a series of portraits of the nation's electorate, included statistics illustrating the truism in politics that turnout rates among segments of the population vary -- sometimes widely -- with their demographic characteristics.

-snip-

The numbers also indicate that turnout rates are closely tied to levels of formal education. Those with bachelor's degrees or an advanced degree voted at much higher rates (80 percent) than those with high school degrees (56 percent) and those without a diploma or its equivalent (40 percent.).

The agency reported that the employed were more likely go to the polls (66 percent) than the unemployed (51 percent) or those not considered to be a part of the workforce (61 percent). Veterans voted more frequently than non-veterans.

-snip/more-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/25/AR2005052501965.html

Thanks to LightningFlash for posting the discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372627

[Wilms]

18. More on the Census Data

U.S. Voter Turnout Up in 2004, Census Bureau Reports
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html

Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004
Detailed Tables
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting/cps2004.html


Thanks to TIA for posting this discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372831

[Wilms]

19. Census report: Nevada ranks poorly in voter turnout

Census report: Nevada ranks poorly in voter turnout

May 26, 2005

RENO, Nev. (AP) - Being a battleground state in November's general election did little to draw more Nevadans to the polls, according to a new report.

According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, 59 percent of eligible voters in Nevada turned out to vote in the presidential election, putting Nevada 44th nationally in voter turnout.

The figures show that in Nevada, senior citizens are still the most likely to vote. Almost seven of every 10 eligible voters in Nevada between the ages of 65 and 74 cast a ballot, according to an analysis of the estimates.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2005/may/26/052610199.html

Thanks to NVMojo for posting the discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372807

[Wilms]

3. Voters Group: Fla. Audit Shows Problems

Voters Group: Fla. Audit Shows Problems

May 25, 11:39 PM EDT

MIAMI (AP) -- A voters' rights group said Wednesday its audit of November's presidential election ballots in Miami-Dade County showed counting problems - and an unintentional but worrisome instance of a number of votes being counted three times.

A report released by the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition said during the elections there were "serious problems with policies and procedures that are supposed to protect the integrity of the ballot."

The group also said there was a touchscreen machine malfunction; when votes were tallied the results from one machine had been counted three times, creating a discrepancy of 171 votes that became part of the certified canvass, the group said.

-snip-

Election officials welcomed the criticism and said the machine that gave a 3-for-1 tally has been sent for testing.

-snip/more-

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_VOTING?SITE=MNMAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-05-25-23-39-43

Thanks to IChing for posting the discussions-

ER2004:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372643

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1501047

[Wilms]

5. New York trails all states in election funds

New York trails all states in election funds

By DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press Writer

May 24, 2005, 4:27 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- New York lags behind every other state in the union in modernizing its voting machines, officials said Tuesday.

New York and Guam are the only entities not to have received any money from a $3 billion fund created by Congress in the wake of the closely contested 2000 presidential election, said Margaret Sims, a research specialist at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

-snip-

The state, however, says the money should be flowing soon, since the paperwork is done after the state Legislature finally approved the matching funds a few weeks ago.

The paperwork "is in the mail to be sent to EAC," said Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian.

-snip/more-

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--votingmachines0524may24,0,277296.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[SydBinFL]

6. Paperless voting costs soar

MIAMI-DADE ELECTIONS
Long-term costs of using Miami-Dade County's touch-screen voting machines will likely go far beyond their original $24.5 million price tag, which could lead to a switch to optical scan machines.

BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE

[e-mail]

Miami-Dade's controversial paperless voting machines cost taxpayers about $6.6 million to operate during last November's presidential election -- about twice what officials had budgeted.

Meanwhile, Orange County, which has a voting population roughly half the size of Miami-Dade's, spent less than $2 million to run its comparatively low-tech optical scan machines -- less than a third of Miami-Dade's cost.

With a newly appointed elections supervisor set to weigh in by the end of this week on whether Miami-Dade should jettison its highly touted, $24.5 million iVotronic touch-screen system, the expenses it generates for each election -- which include programming, setting up and securing the machines and printing backup ballots -- will be a major factor in the decision.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11739198.htm

[MelissaB]

7. Votes counted three times (Dade County) audit shows

Voters Group: Fla. Audit Shows Problems

MIAMI (AP) -- A voters' rights group said Wednesday its audit of November's presidential election ballots in Miami-Dade County showed counting problems - and an unintentional but worrisome instance of a number of votes being counted three times.

A report released by the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition said during the elections there were "serious problems with policies and procedures that are supposed to protect the integrity of the ballot."

In many precincts, the number of people who signed in to cast votes was not tracked carefully, or in some cases was not compared with the actual number of ballots cast at those precincts.

More: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FLORIDA_VOTING?SITE=MNMAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-05-25-23-39-43


Thanks to IChing here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1501047

[MelissaB]

8. Yahoo news link to vote up.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050526/ap_on_re_us/florida_voting_1

[Algorem]

9. In Ohio No Democrat has won a nonjudicial statewide office since 1990.

The Democratic Leadership Council, the group that helped launch Bill Clinton's presidential candidacy, will hold its annual convention in Columbus in July. The event will draw hundreds of well-known Democratic Party leaders who will compare notes on their policies and strategies for winning office.

Ohio certainly offers a challenging stage: No Democrat has won a nonjudicial statewide office since 1990.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/localpolitics/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1117099883303602.xml&coll=2&thispage=2


Number of poor Ohioans has soared, survey finds
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Robert L. Smith
Plain Dealer Reporter

Surveyors recently got their first good look at the damage wrought by the recession that rocked Ohio at the dawn of a new century. It's not a pretty sight.

In a six-year span ending in 2004, more than a half-million more Ohioans tumbled into poverty, according to a state-sponsored survey of 40,000 Ohio households.

The Ohio Family Health Survey shows that the state's poverty rate leapt five percentage points between 1998 and 2004 to ensnare nearly 2 million people, or 17 percent of the state.

Researchers are debating the accuracy of the numbers, but most agree that poverty rose sharply in recent years and that the survey reflects unusually hard times...

http://www.cleveland.com/poverty/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1117100013303600.xml&coll=2

[Algorem]

11. State finds investment money spent on collectibles

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1117099973303600.xml&coll=2

Thursday, May 26, 2005
T.C. Brown
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus - Auditors were stunned Wednesday to discover that money from the state's $55.4 million rare-coin investment has been spent on "an enormous inventory" of collectibles, such as autographs or other valuable papers.

The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, which engineered the investment, also discovered a note re cording a $530,000 loan to an unknown person that used col lectibles as collat eral.

For the third straight day, bureau auditors were prevented from examining the state's largest cache of rare coins in Maumee, being held by Tom Noe, a major Republican fund-raiser who is the subject of investigations by six state and federal agencies over allegations of influence peddling and campaign contributions.

The latest developments raise new questions about the safety of Ohio's multimillion-dollar investment in what the bureau termed "tens of thousands of coins" as well as Noe's recordkeeping...

[Algorem]

12. Judge orders immediate access to coin collection

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/topstories/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1117115944278770.xml&storylist=

5/26/2005, 11:21 a.m. ET
The Associated Press



COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A judge on Thursday ordered a rare coin dealer under state and federal investigation to make a collection of state-owned coins immediately available to state auditors.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Cain said auditors and fraud investigators should immediately view the coins, then have them available for handling and evaluation Thursday afternoon.

Attorney General Jim Petro asked Cain to allow access to the coins after investigators were stopped from looking at them the past two days, said Petro spokeswoman Kim Norris.

A message seeking comment was left with William Wilkinson, the attorney for coin dealer Tom Noe...

[Melissa G]

10. TRMPAC (Delay"s PAC) Broke Law!!!

DU discussion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372748
May 26, 2005 9:30 AM
HART SAYS TRMPAC BROKE LAW, AWARDS DAMAGES TO PLAINTIFFS
Details to follow on specifics of court ruling on Delay-Craddick PAC
Texas House had the opportunity to address misues of corporate dollars, but chose not to

http://www.quorumreport.com under daily buzz but this is what is there w/o subsciption...

ã Copyright May 26, 2005 by Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved


:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

[Wilms]

13. Revisiting the Biggest Story of Our Lives

Revisiting the Biggest Story of Our Lives

05.25.2005 Jim Lampley

More than two weeks have passed since I first established here that a mountain of evidence suggests the 2004 Presidential election was decisively tampered with and general media are doing nothing about it. Needless to say, the response, pro and con, was overwhelming.

Among the most interesting observations were those of the large number of conservative critics who defined my position as "liberal". One website headquartered in Philadelphia called me "somewhere to the left of Leon Trotsky". That's fascinating. I had never realized the belief in free, full and fair elections was a socialist or communist tenet. I had thought it was a fundamental element of democracy.

Some of you are sympathetic, but feel like this is too long a shot. I'll remind you again that the truth of Watergate was still well-submerged at this point in 1973. But the New York Times and the Washington Post ultimately did their jobs back then. The Post showed its colors yesterday, moving a story about the vast disparity between pre-Iraq war military assessments and what the Bush Administration chose to tell the public from its original placing on page one to a main edition spot on page twenty-six. I don't think we can count on Katherine Graham to shepherd the truth anymore, and Ben Bradlee's gone. As for the Times, it is of course the constant target of the right-wing media conspiracy which labors so hard to cover the crimes of this Administration up. The Times will try, but it needs our help.

-snip/more-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/jim-lampley/revisiting-the-biggest-st_1619.html

Thanks to Starfury for posting the discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x372692

[Wilms]

14. Massive review of voting laws under way

Massive review of voting laws under way

By Michael Conlon
Thu May 26, 8:38 AM ET

Long lines, challenged ballots and two of the closest presidential elections in the country's history have touched off a landslide of proposed voting law changes across the United States.

Some are hailed as much-needed upgrades that will assure everyone of a vote with no fraud; others are alarming civil libertarians who fear new restrictions could disenfranchise the poor and others at society's margins.

The National Council of State Legislatures, which tracks law-making developments, has compiled a list of sometimes competing proposals that have surfaced this year in 26 states, covering 21 pages of fine print.

Many deal with a central issue -- proof of identity for valid voters. But other proposals being debated include stiffer training for poll workers, allowing voters to register on or closer to election day, making it illegal to pay someone to register voters, harsher penalties for voter registration fraud, guidelines for casting provisional ballots and upgrades to election equipment.

-snip/more-

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/rights_voting_dc

Thanks to BigBearJohn for posting the LBN discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1502427

[Algorem]

15. Get-out-vote push in Ohio really did

http://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/ispol/111711064192290.xml?ispol&coll=2

Thursday, May 26, 2005
Mark Naymik
Plain Dealer Politics Writer

The intense campaigns to get Ohio's black residents and college students to the polls for the 2004 presidential election apparently paid off.

A new survey by the U.S. Census Bureau shows about 586,000 black Ohioans cast ballots in the Nov. 2 election - 67 percent of all black residents eligible to vote. That was up from 55 percent four years ago, when about 502,000 blacks voted. Nationwide, 60 percent of eligible black voters cast a ballot in 2004.

Turnout for young voters jumped even higher: 55 percent of Ohioans between 18 and 24 - nearly 600,000 voters - cast ballots, compared to 38 percent four years earlier, according to the survey. The national average was 47 percent for that age group in 2004.

Ohio's overall turnout was 66 percent, higher than the nation's average of 64 percent, the survey shows...

www.census.gov.

[Algorem]

22. Increases in voter turnout

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/news-17/111713905795240.xml&storylist=cleveland

5/26/2005, 4:36 p.m. ET
The Associated Press

(AP) — Highlights of Census figures on Ohio turnout for the November election:

Turnout by race:

2004:

Black: 586,000 or 66 percent of eligible voters....

[Wilms]

16. (PA) Voting system switch bogus?

Voting system switch bogus?

J.D. Prose, Times Staff
05/26/2005

BEAVER - After reviewing preliminary results from last week's primary election, county officials said Wednesday that there wasn't much difference between the accuracy of paper ballots and the county's recently banned electronic voting system.

However, Michael Shamos, the Carnegie Mellon University computer professor who failed the Patriot electronic voting system twice this spring following tests he conducted for the state, said county officials were making invalid comparisons.

-snip-

In Beaver County in 1996, the last presidential election in which paper ballots were used, the undervote totaled 820, compared to 4,551 last November.

-snip-

The county used paper ballots until November 1998 when it switched to the Patriot system. The undervote in the 1997 Democratic primary race for county judge was 4.5 percent and 5.5 percent for the Republican primary. Those figures are comparable to last year's Patriot system undervote and last week's primary undervote.

http://www.timesonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14592043&BRD=2305&PAG=461&dept_id=478569&rfi=6

[Wilms]

17. (FL) Paperless voting costs soar

Paperless voting costs soar

Long-term costs of using Miami-Dade County's touch-screen voting machines will likely go far beyond their original $24.5 million price tag, which could lead to a switch to optical scan machines.

BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE

Miami Herald

26 May 2005

Miami-Dade's controversial paperless voting machines cost taxpayers about $6.6 million to operate during last November's presidential election about twice what officials had budgeted.

Meanwhile, Orange County, which has a voting population roughly half the size of Miami-Dade's, spent less than $2 million to run its comparatively low-tech optical scan machines less than a third of Miami-Dade's cost.

With a newly appointed elections supervisor set to weigh in by the end of this week on whether Miami-Dade should jettison its highly touted, $24.5 million iVotronic touch-screen system, the expenses it generates for each election which include programming, setting up and securing the machines and printing backup ballots will be a major factor in the decision.

''The cost is something that we're looking at very closely,'' said Lester Sola, who is expected to give his official recommendation by the end of the week. ``That, and voter confidence.''

-snip/more-

http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=5448

[MelissaB]

20. Reminder of 18,181

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%2218%2C181+votes%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt

Thanks to ck4829. The number and link is at the bottom of all of his posts. Here is an example: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3732711#3735632

[MelissaB]

21. VIDEO: America's Illegitimate Election 2004

Never forget what happened on November 2nd, 2004... Here's a video to help...

We've updated the short video compiled by a few Velvet Revolutionaries from Democratic Underground.

It is our hope that this video may serve as the definitive record of what happened in American during the 2004 Presidential Election. It documents -- in a few short minutes -- how your American right to a free, fair and transparent electoral system has been taken from you by the cynical and un-democratic powers-that-be.

This sort of thing should never happen in the world's most important democracy. And yet -- again in 2004 -- it did. Enough is enough.

It's time for the people to take both our country and our democracy back. If you still have any questions about that, please take a look at this video:

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/#020505




(I didn't want us to forget this video. Sometimes it's good to visit an old friend, and it's powerful.)

[Wilms]

23. .