Election Reform, Fraud, & Updates Thread for Wednesday

[Melissa G]

Election Reform, Fraud, & Updates Thread for Wednesday

In order to organize and document MelissaB 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.

If you see something that isn't here post it with a link to the thread and a thanks to the author. MelissaB is busy for a while so I'm taking over and Need Lots of Help posting news items!
Thanks,
Melissa G

Link to previous thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x367569

[Melissa G]

1. Cox Steps Up for Clinton's Seat

Cox Steps Up for Clinton's Seat

May 10, 2005 11:41 p.m. EST


NEW YORK, NY (AHN) - Edward Cox, a New York corporate lawyer and son-in-law of Richard Nixon, has announced his intentions to run next year for the U.S. Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton.

Cox, who married Tricia Nixon in the White House in 1971, has a quiet public record in the Reagan administration and has worked on education-reform issues for New York Gov. George Pataki.

The Clinton re-election campaign is expressing no worry about Cox, but insiders know her potential 2008 presidential campaign depends on a big margin of victory, and they're currently investigating how a run against Cox will effect that.

According to a poll by Cox campaigners, Clinton is vulnerable in western New York - having made promises of economic improvement with no results. Cox also plans to argue that a bipartisan state like New York needs bipartisan representation, since the state's other senator, Charles Schumer, is a Democrat.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/2231565812

[Melissa G]

2. Canada's lawmakers pass vote calling on government to resign

Canada's lawmakers pass vote calling on government to resign; party leaders refuse
DU discussion http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=367979#367982

TORONTO (AP) - Canada's Parliament passed a motion Tuesday recommending that the ruling Liberal party resign, but Prime Minister's Paul Martin's government and constitutional experts insist they don't have to.

The opposition has been angling for a technical maneuver to bring down Martin's minority government, which has been paralyzed for weeks by verbal brawls over a corruption scandal within the Liberal Party.

The opposition demanded the Liberals resign after the vote passed 153-150. Each member of Parliament stood to record their vote and the opposition Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois cheered when the final tally was announced. They say the Liberals have lost the confidence of Parliament.

But the Liberals, who are hoping to delay an election, dismissed the motion as a procedural matter.
http://www.fox23news.com/news/world/story.aspx?content_id=BC5DD5DE-0FED-42E1-A699-9EA4835D0D35

[Melissa G]

3. Diebold Election Systems' touch-screen voting machines for use in Ohio.

State Board Approves Touch-Screen Voting Machines


Reported by: AP
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
Photographed by: 9News
5/10/2005 7:46:58 PM
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A state board on Tuesday approved Diebold Election Systems' touch-screen voting machines for use in Ohio.

The state elections chief still must sign off on the machines, which a rival company is trying to block in court.

The Board of Voting Machine Examiners said the Diebold machines equipped with a viewer through which voters can see their choices before they are counted complied with Ohio law.

Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell usually goes along with its recommendations, agency spokesman James Lee said.
http://www.wcpo.com/news/2005/local/05/10/voting_machines.html

[Algorem]

9. device lacks all the state's requirements...didnot display the full ballot

Approval of voting machine disputed
Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Reginald Fields and Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1115804330139061.xml&coll=2
-- A state regulatory board on Tuesday approved a new Diebold touch-screen voting machine for Ohio voters, although the device lacks all the state's requirements.

The AccuVote-TSX slid in under a state-imposed certification deadline set for Friday -- even as Diebold competitor Election Systems & Software continued to fight the time constraint in a courtroom across town.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's top aide on the state's voting-machine conversion, Judy Grady, told ES&S lawyers during a deposition filed in the case that she set the divisive deadline to accommodate funding and deployment deadlines -- as well as her own vacation schedule.

She said that she called none of the state's three certified voting-machine vendors -- Diebold, ES&S and Hart Intercivic -- to see if they could meet the new edict...

[Algorem]

10. Blackwell strategy memo(6 pages)

( http://www.cleveland.com/politics )
http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/index.ssf?/news/wide/blackwell1.html
http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/index.ssf?/news/wide/blackwell2.html
http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/index.ssf?/news/wide/blackwell3.html
http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/index.ssf?/news/wide/blackwell4.html
http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/index.ssf?/news/wide/blackwell5.html
http://www.cleveland.com/news/wide/index.ssf?/news/wide/blackwell6.html


Blackwell put off decision on machines

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/ba...

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus- Secretary of State Ken Blackwell knew for more than a month that he would impose the January voting-machine decree that sent machine vendors and county elections boards scrambling.

Yet Blackwell delayed announcing the decision, according to memos and e-mails from a lawsuit settled Monday, while he and top aides assessed its practical and political fallout.

The order, which has since been reversed, was ultimately made Jan. 12 - four weeks after Blackwell signed off on it.

It mandated that only optical-scan voting machines be used statewide; a new order issued in April allowed Diebold electronic voting machines to be used as well...

[Algorem]

11. Self-serving Blackwell steams ahead with plan to preside over Ohio's ruin

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/thomas_suddes...

Thomas Suddes
Plain Dealer Columnist

Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell wants to do for Ohio's state and local budgets what he's done for Ohio's elections, and - leaving aside his rivals for the governorship - the state's GOP "leaders" seem unwilling or unable to take Blackwell on.

Cincinnati Republican Blackwell, a darling of Ohio's flat-Earth rightists, doesn't take a breath without calculating the political value of respiration. So, with one eye on the Governor's Mansion and the other on headlines in Ohio's papers, he peddles a lunatic plan he claims would cap state and local government spending.

In fact, Blackwell's doubletalk "plan" could actually guarantee a constant rise in state spending from now until the Rapture. But of course, the constitutional amendment Blackwell seeks has nothing to do with budgeting and everything to do with political "gotcha," assuming his Frankenstein does lurch on to Ohio's ballot.

And political "gotcha" - voting "score cards" and the like - is what has landed Ohio in the soup by guaranteeing a play-it-safe legislature. Moreover, Blackwell's automata would stoke a round-the-calendar fund-raising orgy to finance, pro and con, the statewide referendum campaign that any cap-lifting legislative act would require...

[Melissa G]

4. Approval Slump Continues For Bush In U.S.

Approval Slump Continues For Bush In U.S.



(Angus Reid Global Scan) – Fewer adults in the United States are satisfied with George W. Bush, according to a poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. 47 per cent of respondents approve of the president’s performance, a four per cent drop since February.

Bush—a Republican—earned a second four-year term in the November 2004 presidential election. Yesterday in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Bush praised the "Rose Revolution" as "a powerful moment in history," adding, "Not only did it inspire the people of Georgia but it inspired others around the world."

Georgia was the site of political instability in the last weeks of 2003, after the Georgian Supreme Court partially annulled the results of a parliamentary election. The ensuing crisis led to the resignation of president Eduard Shevardnadze after opposition politicians requested his dismissal over electoral fraud. The country chose former justice minister Mikhail Saakashvili as the new head of state in January 2004.

Bush ruled out any direct intervention to settle Georgia’s disputes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, saying, "The United States cannot impose a solution, nor would you want us to. (...) What we can do is work with international bodies, but this is an issue that will be resolved by the duly elected government of Georgia and the folks in the separatist regions."


http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=7155

[Melissa G]

5. Voting fraud not a problem in Madison

Voting fraud not a problem in Madison
00:00 am 5/10/05
Phil Brinkman Wisconsin State Journal

John Hill really does exist. So do Katie Katz, Donald Schamun, James Kuehl, Janet Griesel, Sandra Angell, John Amundson and Deb Spees.

snip

In fact, if you took the time, you'd likely find the vast majority - if not all - of those once thought to be Election Day phantoms in Madison are living, breathing voters.

Authorities continue to investigate voting irregularities in Milwaukee, including more than 100 cases of suspected double voting.

But in Madison, where 1,194 address verification cards sent to voters who registered on Election Day in November were returned as nondeliverable, investigators now say only 16 may be problematic.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=39446&ntpid=2

[Wilms]

6. (NY) Lawmakers poised to let counties choose voting machines

Lawmakers poised to let counties choose voting machines

By MICHAEL HILL

Associated Press Writer

May 10, 2005, 3:24 PM EDT

ALBANY, N.Y. After protracted negotiations over how best to modernize New York's voting booths, a key legislative committee is poised to let counties choose on their own.

The pending deal between negotiators for the state Senate and Assembly is designed to help bring New York into compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in time for the November 2006 elections. A stumbling block has been whether to replace old voting machines with either ATM-style, touch-screen machines or optical scan technology that allows machines to "read" marks made on a paper ballot.

Keith Wright, a Manhattan Democrat and chairman of the Assembly Election Law Committee, said Monday that despite months of talks, the two houses have been unable to agree on a single system. Instead, negotiators are working on a deal that would give individual counties the authority to choose a system.

Long Island Republican John Flanagan, chairman of the Senate's Elections Committee, said though voters in different counties would be able to vote on different types of machines, the machines would still have to meet HAVA standards.

-snip/more-

http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=5366

[Melissa G]

7. Clinton Link to Fund-Raiser Adds Spice to Mundane Trial

Clinton Link to Fund-Raiser Adds Spice to Mundane Trial



By LESLIE EATON
Published: May 11, 2005
LOS ANGELES, May 10 - As the criminal trial of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's former chief fund-raiser began here today in Federal District Court, about 60 potential jurors were asked whether they have "such strong feelings one way or another" about the senator that it would be difficult for them "to impartially consider this case? (If so, please explain.)"

The question was posed in a written questionnaire approved by prosecutors, the judge and the lawyers defending David F. Rosen, the fund-raiser who has been charged with three counts of causing false filings to be made to the Federal Election Commission.

The 17-page questionnaire, including one blank page for comments, also asked potential jurors about their backgrounds, reading habits and political beliefs. It wanted to know any links they have had to more than two dozen people whose names may come up during the trial, ranging from Harold M. Ickes, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, to Alana Stewart, former wife of the singer Rod Stewart.

The government has accused Mr. Rosen of deliberately understating the costs of an August 2000 money-raising event in order to free up campaign contributions for other uses during Mrs. Clinton's Senate race in New York against Rick Lazio. Mr. Rosen has pleaded not guilty, and argues that he was himself misled by two other men involved in the event, called the Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/11/nyregion/11clintons.html

[Wilms]

8. Debate rages over British electoral system after “unfair” Blair re-electio

Debate rages over British electoral system after “unfair” Blair re-election

Khaleej Times Online

(AFP)

11 May 2005

LONDON - As dust settles on Britain’s general election, debate has shifted to one of its more incongruous elements—how did Prime Minister Tony Blair win more than half the seats on offer with just over a third of the the popular vote?

Britain’s so-called “first past the post” electoral system has long been a national peculiarity, but rarely have the voting method’s quirks been more starkly highlighted.

In last Thursday’s poll, Blair’s Labour Party won 35.2 percent of the vote — equating to just 21.6 of all registered electors — and yet managed to win 356 House of Commons seats, 55 percent of the total.

The main opposition Conservatives won only slightly fewer votes, 32.3 percent of those cast, yet ended up with 197 seats, while the smaller Liberal Democrats have precisely 62 MPs -- 9.5 percent of the total — with 22 percent of the popular vote.

-snip/more-

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/May/theworld_May227.xml§ion=theworld

Thanks to NNN0LHI for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1461652#top

[Wilms]

12. AccuPoll Receives 2002 FEC Voting System Standard Certification

May 11, 2005 08:30 AM US Eastern Timezone

AccuPoll Receives 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards Certification; First VVPAT Voting System to Meet Stringent 2002 Standards

TUSTIN, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2005--AccuPoll Inc. (OTCBB:ACUP), a developer of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems, today announced receipt of certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards. As a result, AccuPoll becomes the first vendor of an end-to-end voting system featuring a voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) to be certified under the more stringent 2002 standards.

Assignment of a federal qualification number now allows AccuPoll to pursue certification in states that require voting system certification under the 2002 Federal Election Commission Voting System Standards such as Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas. AccuPoll anticipates that additional states will upgrade their certification standards to the 2002 requirements.

"This is a major accomplishment for the company," said Frank Wiebe, president of AccuPoll. "It sets us apart from the competition not only in that our system conforms to the highest standards, but also in that it gives AccuPoll the ability to provide election officials with a true voter verified paper audit trail."

The newly certified AccuPoll voting system, previously code-named Balboa, will now be known as Version 2.5. Version 2.5 includes new features such as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), electronic VVPAT audio review, early voting support, encrypted election results as well as additional enhanced security features. AccuPoll thus becomes one of the most feature-rich and transparent election systems available to election officials across the country.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050511005245&newsLang=en

Thanks to bj2110 for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368062

[Wilms]

13. AccuPoll Poised To Bring Back Confidence In The Vote

AccuPoll Poised To Bring Back Confidence In The Vote

© 2005 Myra Per-Lee
SPECIAL TO THE ICONOCLAST

TUSTIN, Calif. — There’s a new voting machine company on the block. And it’s out there competing with the well-entrenched likes of Diebold and ES&S for the nods of your secretaries of state and local voter registrars.

The newbie is AccuPoll Holdings Corporation, and it has just become the first electronic voting system with a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) to meet the stringent qualifications of the 2002 Federal Election Commission Standards, the most recent hurdle the company jumped in its goal to qualify its voting system in all 50 states.

Since November of 2000, AccuPoll’s Dennis Vadura, CEO, and Frank Wiebe, President, have been building a voting system from the ground up. Having worked together as systems consultants for several years, the pair have the complementary skills and perspectives needed for this project: Vadura, the technology solutions and Wiebe, the delivery.

“After the 2000 election,” recalls Wiebe, “Dennis and I were discussing how a voting system could address all of the problems that occurred in Florida. We quickly concluded that the best system would include several audit mechanisms, most important of which is the voter paper audit.”

Wiebe and Vadura created a vision of their concept and sent it off to the National Association of State Secretaries of State (NASS). When they were asked to present at the NASS meeting in February of 2001, the pair gathered a team of specialists and assembled their first voting station prototype in just three weeks. The positive reception they received from both Republican and Democratic members of NASS was the catalyst that moved their focus into what was to become AccuPoll.

http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/17news05.htm

Thanks to raipoli for posting it on this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368062

[Wilms]

14. Chicago Defender: Bush wasn’t given a mandate with election victory

Guest Editorial for May 10, 2005:

Bush wasn’t given a mandate with election victory

by John H. Conyers Jr.

-snip-

A couple of points. First, this is a significant story. The President's generally consistent lack of popularity (dating back to before the 2004 elections), his disastrous plan to dismantle Social Security brick by brick, and the corresponding floundering of House Republicans will be a major factor in the 2006 midterm elections. As the Post puts it: "History suggests the possibility of major losses next year is not beyond imagination. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed support for Bush's handling of Social Security at just 31 percent. That is several points lower than support for Clinton's handling of health care in the summer of 1994 – just before the failure of what was widely perceived as an over-ambitious plan helped fuel the GOP takeover of Congress that fall."

-snip-

The second point is the continued disregard of the most obvious explanation for these low poll numbers by the mainstream media. They wonder: how can a President, just re-elected, have such low poll numbers and hold positions on the issues that are so unpopular? Is he already a lame duck? Better questions: was he just re-elected legitimately, or was voter suppression and machine malfunction or malfeasance used to manipulate election results? In other words, maybe these polls, rather than our broken election system, better reflect the true will of the people.

-snip/more-

http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/editorial.cfm?ArticleID=704


Thanks to At Liberty for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368085

[Wilms]

15. Election Science Institute: Can Exit Polls Be Used to Monitor Elections?

Election Science Institute

http://www.electionscience.org

Complete Report (pdf)

http://www.electionscience.org/Members/stevenhertzberg/report.2005-05-10.0988159730/report_contents_file

Thanks to eomer for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368051

[Wilms]

16. ESI: Election Transparency: How Ready Are States and Counties?

Election Transparency: How Ready Are States and Counties?

Election Science Institute

http://www.electionscience.org

Complete Report (pdf)

http://www.electionscience.org/Members/stevenhertzberg/report.2005-05-10.4932361832/report_contents_file

Thanks to eomer for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368056

[Wilms]

17. Conyers on "Jim Lampley and the Story of Our Lives"

Jim Lampley and the Story of Our Lives

05.10.2005

Rep. John Conyers

Since November of 2004, I have been investigating the irregularities and fraud that took place in the 2004 Presidential election. The first phase of my investigation culminated in the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff's January 2005 status report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio? (warning: big PDF file), and the first Congressional challenge to a state's entire slate of electors in over 100 years.

It is often the case that when you look at something so closely for any length of time, you often lose perspective on it. The debate between those of us who believe there were serious, substantial and outcome determinative irregularities in the election, and those who do not, often centers on the intricacies of central machine tabulators, provisional ballot rules, and the appropriate weight of registration forms.

On Huffington Post today, Jim Lampley brings the story back to its essential question: who are you going to believe -- what the mainstream media tells you or your lying eyes? During the challenge, filmmaker Linda Byrket released a short film about Ohio that I sent to every Member of the Senate as they were deciding whether to support the Ohio challenge (it is a large file that you can download here).

-snip/more-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/jim-lampley-and-the-story.html

[kster]

24. This story needs its own thread

unless I just missed the thread.

[Bill Bored]

18. It's a sad day for NY.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368167

[Wilms]

19. BradBlog: Conyers on Grady Today at 3pm CT!

Conyers on Grady Today at 3pm CT!

John Conyers will appear on our good friend, Don Grady's Louisiana

Live today at 3pm CT. You can listen online here:

http://louisianalive.net


Blogged by Brad on 5/11/2005 @ 10:08am PT...

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001387.htm

Discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368168

[Wilms]

20. LandShark: Sequoia lawsuit update 5-11-05

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368171

[Wilms]

21. Diebold hits the skids?

Thanks to TIA for posting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x361232

[Wilms]

22. Raw Radio Interviews Now Available

Raw Radio interviews now available

Link live now: Listen to interviews with Rep. Conyers' counsel, others.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

RAW RADIO INTERVIEWS:

Rep. Conyers' General Counsel Ted Kalo

Philly Daily News Editor Carol Towaricky

Tribune Media columnist Robert Koehler

Raw Story Editor John Byrne

Raw Story News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna

http://rawstory.com/contact/raw_radio_interviews_511

[Wilms]

23. The Nation: Failing the Electoral Standards

April 25, 2005 (web only)

Failing the Electoral Standards

Andrew Gumbel

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has been monitoring elections in emerging democracies ever since the fall of the Berlin wall, but now it has done something different and uniquely controversial. It has turned its attention to the United States, issuing a report that highlights numerous areas in which this past November's presidential and Congressional elections failed to meet international standards.

One would have thought the voter reform movement in this country would jump at the chance to see the United States judged by the same criteria as Ukraine, Georgia or Kyrgyzstan--especially since the report finds it badly wanting. Here, in black and white, is authoritative proof that the disenfranchisement of ex-felons, the uneven rules applied to provisional balloting, the unreliability of voter registration procedures and the dual role of election supervisors who also help run partisan political campaigns are not merely objectionable but also violate international norms to which the United States, as a participating member of the fifty-five-nation OSCE, is a leading signatory.

And yet the OSCE's twenty-nine-page report, published in April has not generated a single column inch in any US newspaper. There are both good and bad reasons for this. For a start, the report has come out five months after the election, virtually guaranteeing its lack of topicality. It is also written in excruciatingly careful prose, belying the pointedness of its conclusions. There is no summary sentence stating explicitly that the United States has failed to meet its international commitments. (That has to be inferred.) Nor does it allude to the fact that Ohio was just a few tens of thousands of votes away from another Florida-style meltdown. This is a document that takes every conceivable step to avoid being controversial, even as it delivers its damning assessment.

-snip/more-

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050509&s=gumbel

Full Report (pdf):

http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2005/03/13658_en.pdf

Discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x368245

[Wilms]

25. Jonathan Freedland (Guardian Utd): Principled pragmatism (election reform)

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)

Dated Wednesday May 11

Principled pragmatism

Only by beginning the march to electoral reform now can Labour keep the Tories at bay long term

By Jonathan Freedland

The days immediately after an election are the moment to think big. In the weekend after the 1983 disaster, Labour looked to Neil Kinnock and set out on the long road to electability. Forty eight hours after the 1987 contest, David Steel called a halt to the double-headed, two Davids arrangement that was the Alliance – and proposed a merger. Thus were born the Liberal Democrats.

So far, the Conservatives seem keenest to follow the tradition. Despite their arguments over the leadership and last night's reshuffle, they have nevertheless begun a full-throated debate about what they need to do to govern again. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, have promised a wholesale review of policy, which will doubtless turn on their central strategic dilemma: should they be to the left or right of Labour?

Only the governing party has shown little interest in the post-election, big-picture conversation. Instead, it has concentrated on the leadership question: when will Tony Blair step down for Gordon Brown? That can be riveting, to be sure. As political drama, the Blair-Brown saga has no rival. And it is a marvel to see how quickly Blair, who until last Thursday was presenting the chancellor as his conjoined twin, has resumed his old habits. The key test of the reshuffle was not the names but the manner of their choosing, whether Blair would consult or act alone. As it turned out, he reverted to type: Brown first learned that David Blunkett was to take charge of Work and Pensions — an area in which the Treasury has an obvious stake — when he heard about it on the radio news.

Still, gripping though it is, the transition question does not amount to the strategic debate that ought to follow an election. Maybe that's because Labour won; perhaps introspection is for losers. But the current lack of it could prove to be a mistake. For 2005 looks a lot like a turning point, perhaps the last gasp for the anti-Tory politics that have dominated Britain for the past 13 years.

-snip/more-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1480951,00.html

Thanks to Jack Rabbit for posting the discussion:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x4467

[Wilms]

26. .

[GuvWurld]

27. Diebold (De)Certification Delayed (California)

This just in...

Please be advised that the May 19th VSPP meeting has been cancelled. All the agenda items for that meeting, including the Diebold system, have been tentatively rescheduled for consideration at the June 16, 2005 VSPP Meeting.

Bruce McDannold
Election Specialist: Voting Systems

That info comes courtesy of the Open Voting Consortium newsletter, and refers to the (de)certification meeting that election reformers have been planning to swarm. It also mentions a "rumor" that the delay may have come at Diebold's request. Regardless, this is somewhat of a reprieve. We may be close to getting the Humboldt County Supes to create an election reform task force (see below) but we must still keep emphasizing No Deal With Diebold!

More in the GuvWurld Blog...