Election Reform, Fraud, & Updates Thread for Monday and Tuesday

[MelissaB]

In order to organize and document I thought it would be a good idea to have a daily thread to place items related to reform, fraud, protests, and other items. This also make it easier to "catch up" when we are away from the computer for a while.

Please help us. If you see something that isn't here post it with a link to the thread and a thanks to the author. Thanks to everyone who is helping with this project.


Link to the thread from this weekend: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x357504

[MelissaB]

1. DU CSPAN post through the Carter/Baker Federal Election Reform Commission

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358581

Thanks to all who took notes. :loveya:

[MelissaB]

2. Video of Shelley screaming about how high school kids can hack Diebold

http://coalition4visibleballots.homestead.com/CovertVideo.html
Links to a number of videos.

Check out this one (This was MSM, folks):
Fox News Video
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4907477 /

See Shelley screaming about Diebold; how insecure it is and how "a bunch of high school students can hack in and change thousands of votes."
No wonder they wanted to get rid of him...

If you haven't yet seen this one of a Texas Diebold closed meeting, check it out:
Undercover Video of Diebold Closed Meeting (Outrageous!)
http://safevoting.org /

Thanks to Amaryllis here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358864

[Blue Shark]

18. Your headline Quote is NOT anonymous...

...These fateful words were from non other than ...Joseph Stalin

[MelissaB]

3. BRAD BLOG: CONYERS UNLEASHED! DECRIES ELECTION HEARINGS AS 'OUTRAGEOUS'!

CONYERS UNLEASHED! CALLS TODAY'S ELECTION REFORM HEARINGS 'OUTRAGEOUS', 'RACIALLY-CHARGED'!

Conyers: "Substance of the testimony alleging 'voter fraud' was a fraud itself"!

As reported earlier on BRAD BLOG, John Conyers, ranking minority member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee was outraged by today's Election Reform hearings!

His full statement has now been released...And it's a doozy...

URL: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001333.htm


---
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Thanks to Brad Blog here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1731711

[MelissaB]

4. CONYERS UNLEASHED! DECRIES ELECTION REFORM HEARINGS AS 'OUTRAGEOUS', 'RACI

CONYERS UNLEASHED! DECRIES ELECTION REFORM HEARINGS AS 'OUTRAGEOUS', 'RACIALLY-CHARGED'!

FULL STATEMENT NOW RELEASED!

Conyers: "Substance of the testimony alleging 'voter fraud' was a fraud itself"!


The office of Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of U.S. House Judiciary Committee and longtime Election Reform champion tells The BRAD BLOG that Conyers has expressed outrage at...

The office of Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), ranking minority member of U.S. House Judiciary Committee and longtime Election Reform champion tells The BRAD BLOG that Conyers has expressed outrage at the tenor of today's hearings and the morphing of election irregularities/fraud issues into voter registration/fraud issues!

We'll note that, despite having compiled 102-pages of evidence on Election Irregularities in OH, Conyers was not invited to participate in these hearings though he has recently written a letter to Carter volunteering to help in any way while expressing disappointment about Baker's position as co-chair.

UPDATE: Conyers' full no-holds-barred statement, condemning today's hearing in no uncertain terms has now been released! A few highlights here, but the whole thing is well worth the read!...

The first meeting of the Baker-Carter election commission was disappointing and, at times, outrageous and tainted with racially-charged innuendo. Let me make absolutely clear that I greatly admire former President Jimmy Carter and believe he was insightful and on-target throughout the hearing. However, given the incredible lack of balance and profound lack of good faith demonstrated by some of Carter's fellow commissioners and many of the witnesses at this hearing, at times he seemed to be a very lonely voice of sanity.

More here: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001333.htm

[MelissaB]

5. Conyer's blog at Daily Kos

>>>snip

The remarks of Mr. James Baker, III, which were echoed by a number of right wing political operatives called as witnesses, seemed to have a singular purpose of spreading hoaxes and conspiracy theories about ineligible Democratic voters being allowed to cast votes. The remedy was cleverly repeated like a broken record, "photo ID, photo ID, photo ID." Right wing pundit John Fund was called as an "expert" witness by the hearing and offered racially charged proposals with racially charged rhetoric.



Diaries :: Congressman John Conyers's diary :: :: Trackback ::

The substance of the testimony alleging "voter fraud" was a fraud itself. One panel on "access and integrity" inexplicably included two partisan Republican political operatives, Colleen McAndrews (most recently a leader in the successful campaign to recall former California Governor Gray Davis and described as a "behind the scenes force in Republican politics for years") and John Fund (of the notoriously far-right Wall Street Journal editorial page). Fund's Wall Street Journal Editorial Page once promoted bizarre claims that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton had participated in a cover-up involving the death of former White House Counsel Vince Foster. Today, his hoax appears to have shifted to claims of "voter fraud"(though I am sure he would say Senator Clinton is responsible for that, as well). The remedy, per Fund and McAndrews, - restrictions on provisional ballots and new voter identification requirements.

>>>snip

For a moment, I was encouraged when someone appeared to have bumped the phonograph and the broken record of "voter id" suddenly stopped. Instead, a new broken record began repeating "no voter verified paper ballot, no voter verified paper ballot, no voter verified paper ballot."

>>>snip

The pattern of the hearing was clear: Republican political operatives, with little or no track record of involvement in voting rights issues, facing non-partisan advocates for civil rights. Predictably, this hardly was a fair fight. The deck was stacked from the beginning.

What can be said of a commission that holds such a hearing? What hope is there for the recommendations of such a Commission? I am scheduled to meet with Commission officials this week and I am trying very hard to have an open mind. But, frankly, at this point - seeing this first hearing - I think we should all be very wary of this Commission's objectives.



Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/18/172326/897

[MelissaB]

7. This is also now up on Conyer's blog

here: http://www.conyersblog.us/

[MelissaB]

6. Screaming Numbers - Robert Koehler, printed in AM New York

Printed in "AM New York" a free newspaper for subway commuters in NYC.

Editorial by Rober Koehler

I just got back from the National Election reform conference in Nashville, Tenn., an extraordinary pulling together of disparate voting-rights activists -- 30 states were represented, 15 red and 15 blue - sponsored by a Nashville group called Gathering To save Our Democracy.

Was the election of 2004 stolen? Thus is the question framed by those who don't want to know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a conspiracy nut, and the listener’s eyeballs roll. So let's no ask that question.

Lets simply as why the lines were so long and the voting machines so few in Columbus and Cleveland and inner-city and college precincts across the country, especially in the swing states,
causing and estimated one third of the voters in these precincts to drop out of line without casting a ballot; why so many otherwise democratic ballots, thousands and thousands in Ohio alone, but by no mans only in Ohio, recorded no vote for president (as though people with no opinion on the presidential race waited in line for eight hours to have their say in the reface for county commissioner)l and why virtually every voter complaint about electronic voting machine malfunction indicated an unauthorized vote switch from Kerry to Bush.

This mind you is just for starters. We might also ask why so many PhD-level mathematicians and computer programmers and other numbers-savvy scientists are saying that the numbers don't make sense (see, for instance, www.northnet.org/minstrel, the Web site of Dr. Richard Hays Phillips, lead statistician in the Moss vs. Bush lawsuit challenging the Ohio election results). Indeed, the movement to investigate the 2004 election is led by such people, because the numbers are screaming at them that something is wrong.

And we might, no, we must, ask about those exit polls, which in years past were extraordinarily accurate but last November went haywire, predicting Kerry by roughly the margin by which he ultimately lost to Bush. This swing is out of the realm of random chance, forcing chagrined pollsters to hypothesize a "shy Republican" factor as the explanation.

And the numbers are still haywire. A few days ago, Terry Neal wrote in the Washington Post about Bush's inexplicably low approval rating in the latest Gallup poll, 45%, versus a 49% disapproval rating. This is, by a huge margin, the worst rating at this point in a president's second term ever record by Gallup, dating back to Truman.

"What's wrong with this picture?" asks exit polling expert Jonathan Simon. Bush mustered low approval ratings immediately before the election, surged on Election Day, and then saw his rating plunge immediately afterward. Yet Big Media has no curiosity about this anomaly.

The contrast to deathly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder the scream grows. Did the people's choice get thwarted? Were thousands disenfranchised by chaos in the precincts, spurious challenges and uncounted provisional ballots? Were millions disenfranchised by voting fraud on insurance, easily hacked computers? And who is authorized to act if this is so? Who is authorized to care? No one, apparently, except average Americans, who want to be able to trust the voting process again, and who want their country back.

Thanks to iconoclastNYC here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358739

[LatePeriduct]

8. kick

[Wilms]

9. OUR OPINION: COUNTIES SHOULD SWITCH TO OPTICAL SCAN VOTING

Count every ballot

OUR OPINION: COUNTIES SHOULD SWITCH TO OPTICAL SCAN VOTING

Miami Herald 18 April 2005

Face it, the touch-screen electronic voting machines used by Broward and Miami-Dade counties are more trouble than they're worth, which is a lot. Miami-Dade paid $24.5 million for the iVotronic system. But both counties should face the hard truth and replace the electronic machines with optical scanners. The latter provide what the former cannot: a paper trail, voter-error prevention and more reassurance that all votes will be counted.

-snip-

It will cost Miami-Dade around $8 million to replace the touch screens with optical scanners. It's a shame that more money has to be invested in a different technology, but sometimes you just have to chalk up the damage to experience and move on. The iVotronics system has never been reliable enough whether because of machine malfunction or human error to pass the voters' credibility test.

One of its biggest liabilities is lack of a paper trail of votes cast. When undervotes occur there is no way to determine if the voter opted not to vote on purpose or accidentally failed to push the blinking red light to record the vote or if the machine malfunctioned or a poll worker made a mistake.

Determining the causes of ballots being disqualified because of a flaw like undervoting is important for elections departments in order to educate voters and ensure that every vote is counted. Both counties should make the painful but necessary switch to the more-reliable optical-scan voting machines.

-snip/more-

http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=5213

[Wilms]

10. GD Thread: The Carter-Baker Comm [Conflict of Interest, Excellent approach

Start here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x359314

Which will lead to GD.

[Wilms]

11. .

[Wilms]

12. Washington Post: Panel Hears Pleas For Improvements

Defects In 2004 Balloting Described

Panel Hears Pleas For Improvements

By Brian Faler

Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 19, 2005; Page A17

It did not feature much in the way of butterfly ballots, hanging chads or protracted Supreme Court fights. But the first hearing yesterday of the Commission on Federal Election Reform made it clear that the 2004 election was not without problems.

snip

Those recommendations are not expected until September, which is a good thing because the academics, advocacy group leaders and politicians invited to testify yesterday provided a dizzying list of electoral problems that might make some wonder how any ballots were counted in November.

full article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64518-2005Apr18.html


Thanks to Rumpel for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x359471

[Wilms]

13. Brad Friedman to Discuss ACVR/Carter Hearing w/Other Bloggers 6PM ET

On March 17th, the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) appeared from nowhere - just like Jeff Gannon and Talon News in 2003. Four days later, on March 21st, they were the ONLY "Voting Rights" group to testify in a U.S. House Committee hearing on Election 2004, and the problems that occurred specifically in OH.

As The BRAD BLOG (http://www.BradBlog.com ) discovered shortly thereafter, the ACVR is a phony "non-partisan" group created by Jim Dyke, the Communications Director for the RNC and Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, the lead National Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc.

Aside from abusing the 501(c)3 tax-exempt corporate status which requires "non-partisan" activity, this group never mentioned their affiliation with Bush/Cheney/RNC in their congressional testimony.

Further, they were instrumental in the secret creation of the Baker/Carter Election Reform Commission which was announced on March 24th at 2pm, only to be lauded 24 minutes later by the ACVR. True voting rights and election reform groups had no idea about the creation of this commission, and were not invited to participate!

The ACVR was invited to participate, along with voting machine company representatives, and others, like Co-Chair James A. Baker III, the Bush Family loyalist who led the federal court fight to throw out 175,000 Florida votes that were never counted - resulting in a partisan 5-4 Supreme Court decision that appointed George Bush as President in 2000.

The fix is clearly in with ACVR, the phony GOP Front Group and the whitewash is underway with the Baker/Cart Commission.

Special BRAD BLOG Coverage of ACVR is at: http://www.BradBlog.com/ACVR.htm

Date: Tuesday April 19, 2005 at 1 p.m. ET
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To request credentials: http://democrats.com/contact

http://democrats.com/blogcall8


Thanks to tommcintyre for posting the discussion.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x359383

[Wilms]

14. Carter, Baker: Parties Seek Vote Integrity

Carter, Baker: Parties Seek Vote Integrity

Apr 19, 8:03 AM (ET)

By WILL LESTER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former President Carter and one-time Secretary of State James A. Baker on Monday rejected the notion that Democrats and Republicans have different interests in who gets to vote.

At the first meeting of a bipartisan commission examining federal election problems, the two co-chairs stressed the importance of a system with extensive access to voters and a minimum of fraud. Carter and Baker dismissed the argument that the two parties cannot agree on those goals.

"Many people have alleged that these are a Republican-versus-Democrat pair of issues," Carter told a news conference following the commission's initial session. They say "the Democrats want everybody to vote whether they're qualified or not, Republicans want to restrict voting to exclude minorities and others not inclined to vote."

Baker said, "We want the widest possible access, consistent with voter integrity."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050419/D89IF7181.html


Thanks to cyberpj for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x359465

[Wilms]

15. ConyersBlog: John Fund Caught on Tape

Blogged by Admin on 04.18.05 @ 11:53 PM ET

John Fund Caught on Tape

Toss out Provisional Ballots of People Who "Don't Look Like They Live in the Neighborhood"


The John Fund quote Congressman Conyers referred to below can be found in the streaming Quicktime file here.

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/fund.mov

Link to John:

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000064.htm

[MelissaB]

16. Carter uses the "F" word!!

I know folks, I just posted a thread expressing doubt in Carter's ability to accomplish anything on this stacked commission.

Maybe there's hope.

Today he said:

"e want to make sure that the electoral process has integrity -- that it is not shot through with fraud."

For more on this check Bradblog:
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001336.htm

Thanks to garybeck here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x359681

[Wilms]

17. BradBlog: Exec. Dir. of National Election Reform Commission Goes Ballistic

Executive Director of National Election Reform Commission Goes Ballistic at BRAD BLOG!

Dr. Robert A. Pastor Accuses Velvet Revolution of 'Harassment', Sending Fake Email!

Supplies no evidence for his conspiracy theory, nor his firm belief that Republicans won Election 2004.


Blogged by Brad on 4/19/2005 @ 10:17pm PT...

Earlier this evening, we received a phone call from Dr. Robert A. Pastor, the Executive Director of the Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission. It was an interesting conversation. Apparently, he...

Earlier this evening, we received a phone call from Dr. Robert A. Pastor, the Executive Director of the Baker/Carter National Election Reform Commission.

It was an interesting conversation.
-snip/:rofl:

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001337.htm


Thanks to merh for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x359913