Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News June 11, 2006 - Keep Busy!!!

[autorank]

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE COURAGE THIS TOOK, SELMA, AL, 1965

KNOWING YOU WERE FACING THIS

Just because you want to Vote

We’re lucky it isn’t worse!!! Keep busy!!!

Farhad Manjoo (Salon) and Mark Hertsgaard (Mother Jones) are nothing compared to this.

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.
Only the deluded & complicit accept election results on blind faith.
Denying that 2004 was stolen is like denying global warming.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News May 23, 2006

[autorank]

1. AL: New Fraud Strategy – Candidate Suppression

The strong DEMOCRATIC candidate for Governor in Alabama gets indicted and his trial is right in the middle of the campaign for Governor. What a “coincidence!” I’m shocked such a thing could happen. This is the new 360 degree form of suppression called “Candidate Suppression.” You heard it right here on the ERD.

From The Birmingham News
Defendants start with their sides of events’

http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/

Former highway director chose to go first
Saturday, June 10, 2006
KIM CHANDLER
News staff writer
MONTGOMERY - A state senator testified Friday that former Gov. Don Siegelman had to be persuaded to name Mack Roberts as highway director, a contrast to prosecutors' claim that the appointment was a political payoff.

Senate President Pro Tempore Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, said he and other legislators urged Siegelman to make the appointment. Barron said Siegelman agreed, but, "It was my strong impression that Governor Siegelman-elect had no interest in appointing him."
Barron, who testified as part of Roberts' defense, also said he believed Roberts had not wanted the transportation post.

The four defendants in the government corruption case on Friday began presenting their version of events as the trial concluded its sixth week.

Siegelman and his Chief of Staff Paul Hamrick are charged with racketeering, bribery and conspiracy on allegations that they swapped political favors for cash, gifts and campaign contributions. HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy faces bribery charges on accusations that he bought a slot on a state health board with contributions to Siegelman's 1999 lottery campaign. Roberts is charged with honest services mail fraud. All four have pleaded

[autorank]

2. KA: Voter Suppression: Fewer Polling Places, There & Elsewhere

HAVA requires a DRE or equivalent in every precinct for handicapped voters. I guess they didn’t do the research a NY local elections director did. He actually asked his handicapped voters how they’d prefer to vote. 90% of them responded by saying, absentee just like always. Anyway, guess what? There will be a lot fewer precincts in election 2006…drip…drip…drip… They’re on the move to keep the numbers down and HAVA is their baby. Guess someone’s been asleep at the switch in the old Congressional corridors of power…why is this happening unopposed, without outrage? Don’t answer that.

Channel 13, Kansas

Polling Consolidation

http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/3014676.htmltion

Many polling sites around Kansas and throughout the nation won't be used this year. They're out because of the Help America Vote Act, which requires that polling sites be handicap accessible. The law is forcing officials to close, move or reconfigure many voting locations.

And starting this year the act also requires that each polling site have at least one machine available for people with disabilities. The equipment is pricey, ranging from six-thousand dollars to $15,000 per polling site. Even with help from the federal government, some counties can't afford to buy enough gadgets to maintain all their polling sites.

Kansas has been cutting the number of polling sites for some time, dropping for just over 2,400 in 2000 to a little more than two-thousand four years later. The secretary of state's office says it doesn't have a number on this year yet, but it's sure it will be down.

Sedgwick County is going from 208 polling places to just 62. And there'll be one-third fewer voting machines in the county this year. Officials plan to encourage advance voting.

[autorank]

3. PA: Voter Suppression – Fewer Precincts Proposed

More attempts to limit precincts. What a bad joke this is. Where are those who will call foul on this type of blatant racist, anti poor strategy?

Tribune Chronicle, Mahoning Co. PA
Tie vote rejects plan to cut precincts

http://www.tribune-chronicle.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=4856

By STEPHEN ORAVECZ Tribune Chronicle

The Trumbull County Board of Elections deadlocked along party lines Friday, effectively killing a proposal to cut in half the number of precincts.

Republicans said the plan would save approximately $100,000 a year and make elections more efficient. Democrats said it would produce long lines at the polls. The plan failed when Republicans Ron Knight and Craig Bonar voted for it and Democrats Sherron Platt and Barbara Katzenberger voted against it.

Elections Director Kelly Pallante, a Republican, offered a less drastic proposal. She would eliminate smaller precincts and showed the board a preliminary plan to cut 22 precincts.

However, Democrats made a counterproposal to delay any changes until after the 2008 presidential election to determine the effects new election laws have at the precincts. They are especially concerned about a provision that requires voters to show identification and is expected to produce more provisional ballots that slow down the voting processes.

[autorank]

4. CA: “Rigged Elections in CA: The District 50 Elections”

I want to meet Kathay Feng! This article kicks some serious ass. Talking about redistricting as a form of election fraud is a must. She does it so well.

June 10, 2006. Topic: Elections and Voting

Rigged Elections in California: The District 50 Elections

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2006/05/poll_shows_redi.html



By Kathay Feng
Executive Director, California Common Cause

When we think of rigged elections, people usually think of stuffed ballot boxes or, more recently, stuffed electronic voting machines. But rigging an election is much easier than that. All you have to do is manipulate the district lines to change a district from a swing district to one that is tailor made for you and gives you a 15-point partisan advantage and you can be assured that no scandal or ethics violation can keep you from losing. Redistricting rigging helped Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham win his seat by a whopping 22% over his Democratic opponent in 2002.

When Cunningham was forced to resign in 2005, convicted of receiving multi-million dollar bribes, gifts and prostitutes from lobbyists and defense contractors, he left his North San Diego County seat open. The ensuing race in June narrowed to one between former congressman and lobbyist Brian Bilbray and relative newcomer school board member Francine Busby. Despite the furor caused by the flagrant ethics scandals that brought Cunningham down, San Diegans in congressional district 50 had little choice really.

District 50 has been redistricted to ensure that no Democrat could win it. Political pundits (Democrat and Republican) predicted the best Francine Busby could do was to win 45% of the votes and come close to Bilbray. And in fact, that’s what she got.

The moral of the story: our Congressional members will talk a good game about ethics reform and listening to their constituents to shape policy. The truth of the matter is, they have rigged their seats through the redistricting process so much that they no longer need to worry about the voters. The Democrats are as guilty of this as the Republicans. If you want to give Congress a real jolt to the system, we have to radically change the redistricting process by giving it to an independent and objective commission.

Kathay Feng is the Executive Director of California Common Cause. Prior to joining Common Cause, Feng was the project director of Voting Rights and Hate Crimes at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), where she worked in a variety of civil rights areas including voting rights and redistricting, hate crimes, police accountability, and anti-discrimination.

[autorank]

5. AR: ONLY Paper Ballots for Runoff – 8 Counties ESS

“They blew this one royally,” Inman said. “They paid absolutely no attention to the documentation that I sent them.” That would be Susan Inman, elections director for Pulaski County, in the great state of Arkansas. Eight counties have had enough of ESS’s B.S. and are doing just paper in 2006. Damn! I love it when a plan comes together.

Arkansas Democrat Gazetete
8 counties: No touch of screen for runoff

Recommended reading;)
BY DANIEL NASAW
Posted on Saturday, June 10, 2006
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/157171/
Eight Arkansas counties won’t be using touch-screen voting machines in Tuesday’s runoff election, officials said.

Those counties, which participated in the $ 15 million equipment purchase from Election Systems & Software, will be using paper ballots or lever voting machines — violating a new state law requiring touch-screen machines at every polling place.

Officials in those counties reached Friday said they decided to forgo the $ 3, 000 iVotronic touch-screen machines either because the equipment vendor never delivered functional ballot programming or because election workers lacked confidence that the Omaha, Neb.-based company could provide the equipment on time.

“We’re using strictly paper,” said Jean McCanliss, chairman of the Lonoke County Election Commission. “We did not figure that ES&S had enough time to get everything ready like they were supposed to.”

[autorank]

6. FL: Hearing – Restrictions on Testing Voting Machines Monday

The state plays the roles of the Cardinals and local election officials who want to actually test the voting machines, Sancho, play Galileo. You remember that one. Galileo was proving the earth revolved around the Sun with his telescope. The Cardinals showed up and said knock it off, you’re messing with our deal here (this is from memory so it may not be totally accurate). Galileo pleaded with him and they still refused. Galileo then muttered, “Nevertheless it revolves.” Sancho deserves the Galileo part but the state of Florida is no where near the quality of individual represented by the Cardinals. They actually believed in their argument. This Florida move is pure deception, naked aggression against the intellect. What a place!!!

Daytona Beach News Journal online
State Slates Hearing To Limit Checks On Voting Equipment

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Politics/Florida/floPOLF01061006.htm
POSTED: 7:13 am EDT June 10, 2006
UPDATED: 7:13 am EDT June 10, 2006

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A proposed rule change that would prohibit counties from testing their voting equipment without state approval will be argued Monday, a measure that could create some discomfort among Florida's independently elected elections supervisors.

One of the most outspoken of Florida's 67 supervisors, Leon County's Ion Sancho, conducted a test last year where elections office workers hacked into a Diebold optical-scan voting system in an effort to show that it could be made to produce false results.

And it turned out, Sancho's experiment exposed problems that prompted the state as well as California to develop better security safeguards.

But now state officials want more influence in any future tests on voting equipment, hoping to require the supervisors to submit a plan to the Division of Elections and notify the manufacturer beforehand.

"Hutzpah is the word that comes to mind," Sancho said Friday. "The state should not be so concerned about protecting the voting companies from embarrassment when their equipment has security vulnerabilities."
The maverick Sancho, however, believes the supervisors should have the right to do their own security checks.

[autorank]

7. PALAST: Plans to Steal 2008 Outline

This will brighten your day.

06/10/06

thepeoplesvoice.org
Comments on Greg Palast's New Book Armed Madhouse

By: Stephen Lendman



Chapter Four - The (Election) Con - Gore and Kerry Really Did Win in 2000 and 2004
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/06/10/comments_on_greg_palast_s_new_book_armed

Greg was the first investigative journalist to document how the Republicans stole the 2000 presidential election depriving Al Gore of the office he won. Back then, the story was Florida and the recount that never quite happened because five High Court justices decided they alone and not the people had the right to decide who would become President. The rest, as they say, is history, though we may need to rephrase the famous aphorism attributed to Mark Twain that "history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes." It repeated closely enough in 2004, except for the change in the crime scenes and some of the methods used. Republican machinations worked so well in 2000 they went for an encore four years later and pulled it off again - this time principally in Ohio and New Mexico where Kerry won the popular vote but Bush got the ones that were counted and Kerry had lots of his deleted.

<snip>

So far it's working so well Greg believes the plans are set on how the 2008 election will be stolen. Its centerpiece in Greg's estimation involves disenfranchising Latino voters because it's clear to this large and growing segment of the population that the Republicans have no interest in serving them. How right they are. So that being the case, the solution is to keep them from voting for the opposition or simply not let them vote at all. It looks like they have a hat full of dirty tricks in mind to pull it off - some of the old standbys from 00 and 04 plus some new ones that will make it more interesting for journalists like Greg. One "reform" involves requiring a photo ID supposedly to be able to prevent someone from trying to vote illegally using someone else's name - something that never, if fact, happens. Greg ran the idea of voters doing this by a get-out-the vote organizer in New Mexico who complained how hard it was to get people out to vote once, let alone twice.

But the idea behind this scam is to throw up another obstacle to make it even harder for poor people of color to vote. If they don't have a driver's license, it will cost them about $20 for a voter ID card. They may not want to spend the cash for a privilege that won't count for much anyway, but it they're willing to they still need an ID to get an ID. The idea is to discourage the wrong voters from voting and if they manage to do it then make it easier to toss out their vote because they didn't do it right. To sell this idea, Republicans needed Democrats to go along and a key one to endorse it. They found their man in Jimmy Carter (a member of the privileged class in good standing) who served on an Election Reform Commission that recommended a mandatory national voter ID card. We'll have to wait a couple of years to see how all this plays out. But with the past two elections as backdrop, it's hard not to imagine more "fun and games" in 2008.

Greg also makes another key point he believes is accurate although I'm not as sure about it as he is - the role of electronic voting machines and their possible or likely manipulation to rig the 2004 vote. Greg called this issue a "head fake" despite the fact that Bush supporters made, programmed and serviced the machines and most of them offered no voter printouts for verification. I was suspicious the first time I heard about them and still am. Any smart programmer can make my vote come out twice for the other candidate, and I have trouble believing it didn't happen often enough to matter. But Greg feels otherwise and reported this issue was brought up and highlighted enough to divert peoples' attention away from where the real mischief was happening. He may be right, and if so, it certainly would not have been the first time. The folks who run the empire have had lots of practice doing it and are very clever coming up with whatever tactics they need to complete the job they set out to do.

[DemReadingDU]

9. Great article

Last paragraph....

Greg's book is an important contribution for readers to gain insight into the machinations of the Bush administration from stealing elections to waging war on Iraq and the world and much more as well. You won't learn than ever on CNN or National Public Radio which has about as much to do with the public as Pravda did in the former Soviet Union. I highly recommend the book as I did his earlier one The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. I've written on that subject myself and know how true it is. Those of us living in the US are governed by a band of out-of-control rogues wanting total world dominance with no "outliers" allowed abroad or dissent at home. The result is a dangerous world for us all and one in which our only defense is good information. Only from that can we understand the problem and know why we need to work for our own self-preservation. Greg's book gives us lots of help. I recommend it strongly and hope those who read it will use it to resist more and fight back for a better, more secure world we all deserve but won't ever get unless we're willing to work for it.

[autorank]

17. Wow...

Great comments!!! It's the same old same old until we get a grip on economic justice and the war basis for the economy. "House of War" just buries anyone still wearing blinders. There needs to be a simpler version of this book for a broader audience. Amazing stuff.

Cheers:)

[autorank]

8. Alert: Your voting equipment vendor will NOT guarantee machines work!

Alert: No implied warranties, no guarantees from vendors

That's right, they don't guarantee the suckers. Land Shark outdoes himself on this one.

http://electionfraudnews.com/LegDoc/legal.htm

or

Download http://electionfraudnews.com/LegDoc/ZeroGuarantee.pdf

[robinlynne]

12. Paul, beautifully done. Thank-you.

[Wilms]

16. Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x433440

[Kurovski]

10. Kick to the top! (nt)

[robinlynne]

11. oh yeah.

[autorank]

18. As always, thank you sir:)

[kpete]

13. Recipe For A Fair Election

Recipe For A Fair Election
Steven Hill
June 12, 2006
Steven Hill is author of the recently published 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy and director of the Political Reform Program of the New America Foundation.

Part II of a two-part series, Part I appeared on June 5, 2006.

Heading into the 2006 congressional and state elections, fair election advocates need to remain vigilant, particularly in the handful of close races where a swing of a small number of votes could change an election outcome. Longer term, activists must turn their efforts to a more visionary agenda that will ensure fair and secure elections in the 21st century. Here are the reforms necessary for modernizing our elections and making sure that every vote is counted.

1. Nonpartisan election officials. At the top of the list must be creating a bureaucracy of impartial, nonpartisan election officials. We should have learned this lesson in the 2000 presidential election when Katherine Harris oversaw the Florida election as both secretary of state and co-chair of George Bush’s election committee. If it can’t be guaranteed that the partisan loyalties of election managers will play no role in deciding outcomes, then elections become a charade. Election protection advocates fearful of voting technology forget that fraud has occurred throughout American history with paper ballots, whether through ballot box stuffing or entire ballot boxes disappearing. It hardly matters if the voting technology is computerized voting or paper ballots if the election administrators themselves are partisan-motivated or crooked.

Yet for the 2004 election, it was as though Katherine Harris had cloned herself. The secretaries of state overseeing elections in the battleground states of Missouri, Ohio, and Michigan were all co-chairs of their states’ Bush reelection campaigns; in West Virginia, the Democratic Secretary of State oversaw the election for his own governor’s race. In Florida, a highly partisan Republican secretary of state once again ran the election, as did a partisan Democrat in New Mexico. A political scientist from Mexico City monitoring the 2004 U.S. presidential election told Business Week that election administration in the United States “looks an awful lot like the old Mexican PRI to me,” referring to the notorious party that dominated Mexican politics for seven decades by rigging elections.

much more at:
http://www.tompaine.com/print/recipe_for_a_fair_election.php

[Stevepol]

14. I think the date is wrong on this ERD posting, should be 6-12.

Otherwise, magnificat.

[autorank]

19. Oops...

:banghead::blush::banghead: It's been a while since I've done that.

[Algorem]

15. Blackwell accepts debate challenge from Strickland

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1150139952151670.xml&storylist=cleveland

6/12/2006, 7:45 p.m. ET
By JOHN McCARTHY
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican candidate for governor Kenneth Blackwell said Monday he has accepted Democrat Ted Strickland's challenge to a series of debates.

"He threw down the gauntlet, I'm picking it up," Blackwell said at an appearance at the Ohio Hospital Association annual meeting.

Details on the number of debates, topics and other issues will be worked out between the candidates, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said.

Blackwell proposed five 1 1/2-hour debates over the next two weeks beginning Thursday in Youngstown, with the other meetings in Cincinnati on June 19 and in Columbus the following three days...

___

http://www.kenblackwell.com

http://www.tedstrickland.com