Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Teusday 8/16/05

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Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Tuesday 8/16/05

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

Please

"Recommend"

for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below). Atlanta Journal Constitution: Tens of Thousands March Supporting Voting Rights Act

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1. CA: Arcata, CA – A Model for Election Reform for All American Communities

ERD is a place for action in cities, counties, states and on a national level. DUer 2004 ERD Guy “uvWurld” is at it again. “All politics is local” Tip O’Niel

CALL TO ACTION: Solidarity Request From Arcata, CA

DU 2004 Elections Results & Discussion Forum Poster “GuvWurld”(410 posts)
Wed Aug-10-05 11:46 AM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x388444


As you have hopefully heard by now, Arcata, CA recently became the first City in the U.S. to adopt the Voter Confidence Resolution. Now we are looking for #'s 2, 3, 4, etc. We have targeted ten cities to potentially be next. The contact info for all Council members in these towns can be found here. You are whole heartedly encouraged to take this to your City Council wherever that may be.

Every City Council member/Supervisor in each of these target Cities has received the message below. This is an effort to open the door for their constituents to let them know this is a necessary and appropriate step for them to take in re-establishing Democracy in America. Please call and e-mail and use whatever other means of personal persuasion you may have to show them your support for the Voter Confidence Resolution.

Go here to help spread the word to the locals.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x388444

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[GuvWurld]

7. Right On, autorank! -> Kicked and Nominated

I'm working on this at other sites too. Please help me keep these threads kicked:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=58526&forum=4

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=391&sid=c9f4fde6b3e8095d89bd30ce37b8300e

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2. Akron, OH: “We’re being forced to buymachines…”

Akron, OH: “We’re being forced to buy<voting>machines…”

Darn right you’re being forced. Who do you thinks in charge? The citizens. HelpAmericaVoteAct (HAVA) is a multi billion dollar gift to vendors to sell more machines. Doesn’t matter: if they work; if they can be hacked; if they’re all owned by right wing Republicans. Nah, just spend that money.

Voting machines too close to call As decision nears, Summit elections panel laments lack of options

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/states/ohio/counties/summit_county/12381113.htm

Posted on Sun, Aug. 14, 2005
By Lisa A. Abraham
Beacon Journal staff writer

The Summit County Board of Elections is about to make a multi million-dollar decision, but some board members don't think they have much to choose from.

``This whole thing is ridiculous,'' said board member Joseph Hutchinson. ``I don't feel comfortable on any of this.''
The county has a month to decide which type of electronic voting machine it will purchase to comply with the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which calls for the elimination of punch-card voting by the first federal election of 2006.

<snip>

``My real concern is will the DREs be obsolete in the near future? They're big, clunky machines. They're expensive to store and expensive to buy,'' he said. ``We're being forced to buy machines, I think, before the technology has had a chance to really provide us with what could be a really good, sustainable solution to the punch card. I'm just not comfortable with the choice. I think the optical scanner may be the way to go.''

<snip>

A vote for optical scan

``What we found was the so-called protection that all of us thought existed with the system didn't exist at all,'' he said. The hackers were able to alter totals for candidates and not leave any computer ``fingerprints'' on the audit log, Sancho said.

``It was a stunning revelation to us because we were told this couldn't be done,'' he said.

Lisa A. Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or [e-mail]

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

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3. Louisiana buying SAME machine for each parrish. Watch out!

Louisiana is home of one of my favorites, Edward Edwards, D (the governor who spanked Klansman running as Republican, David Duke) It will take the same type of political courage to prevent a single statewide system from falling into the hands of the election “evil doers.” Watch for the winning vendor in LA..

Sec. of state hoping to standardize voting machines around La.

8/15/2006
Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — State elections officials must replace voting machines in 50 of Louisiana's parishes to comply with federal standards by next year, but Secretary of State Al Ater said Monday that he's hoping to standardize machines in all 64 parishes — even if that costs a bit more than the federal dollars available.

Ater told the Press Club of Baton Rouge that Louisiana is receiving about $48 million in federal money to meet the national standards, and he hopes that dollar figure will cover the costs of putting the same type of voting machines in every parish.

<snip>.

In addition to the voting machine replacement, the secretary of state's office also is embarking on an initiative to determine why voter turnout is declining in Louisiana's elections.
"Our numbers of registered voters are going up, but our number of people voting is going down," Ater said.

<snip>.

"We need to treat voters like consumers in my opinion," Ater said. "We need to say, 'What do you want?'"

He said he hopes to get the findings together in time for next year's legislative session, to present lawmakers with possible elections changes.

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

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4. Toledo Blade: League of Women Voters Sue State of Ohio-Electile Dysfuncti

They’re not aleging fraud, just massive poor management that takes away the right of people in Ohio to vote. Could it be a “coincidence?”

'Electile dysfunction'

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050809/OPINION02/508090314

A STATEHOUSE cynic once described the Ohio League of Women Voters as being composed of "the Democratic wives of Republican businessmen," but over the years the league has developed a deserved reputation as a good-government group with a genuine concern for the proper conduct of elections in this state.

Now the group, joined by its Toledo affiliate, has taken this concern to a higher level, filing a lawsuit in federal court in Toledo that seeks to force Ohio to reform voting procedures that have become sloppy and disorganized over the past three decades, denying numerous citizens their constitutional right to cast ballots in federal elections.

<snip>

These deficiencies include, the league contends, "widespread problems with the voter registration system, the absentee and provisional ballot processes, the training of poll workers, the organization of polling places and precincts, and the allocation of voting machines."

<snip>

As we have previously argued, Ohio would be better served by a professional, nonpartisan bureaucracy to run elections. The current partisan method of appointing election officials has the advantage of a built-in watchdog procedure, but it tends to exclude participation by third parties and independents, a serious flaw in a democracy.

Rather than partisan advantage, the object of the elections system should be ensuring that everyone qualified to vote can do so and have their ballot counted accurately.


CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

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5. Why the silence? Proof positive Gore won!!!

Why the silence? Proof positive Gore won!!!

Oh, I know why mainstream Democrats are silent. We don’t want to seem pushy. Well, Harry Reid, D, NV has already called * a “liar.” Why not extended it to the original crime – the theft of Election 2000?

Election Fraud Continues in the US
New Data Shows Widespread Vote Manipulations in 2004

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PHI20050812&articleId=828


Election Fraud Continues in the US
New Data Shows Widespread Vote Manipulations in 2004

by Peter Phillips

August 12, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca
In the fall of 2001, after an eight-month review of 175,000 Florida ballots never counted in the 2000 election, an analysis by the National Opinion Research Center confirmed that Al Gore actually won Florida and should have been President. However, coverage of this report was only a small blip in the corporate media as a much bigger story dominated the news after September 11, 2001.

New research compiled by Dr. Dennis Loo with the University of Cal Poly Pomona now shows that extensive manipulation of non-paper-trail voting machines occurred in several states during the 2004 election.

The facts are as follows: In 2004 Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republican votes that he got in 2000, receiving more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties. Bush managed these remarkable outcomes despite the fact that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in Florida did not increase over 2000, and he lost ground among registered Independents, dropping 15 points.

We also know that Bush "won" Ohio by 51-48%, but statewide results were not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio the number of recorded votes was more than 93,000 greater than the number of registered voters.

More importantly national exit polls showed Kerry winning in 2004. However, It was only in precincts where there were no paper trails on the voting machines that the exit polls ended up being different from the final count. According to Dr. Steve Freeman, a statistician at the University of Pennsylvania, the odds are 250 million to one that the exit polls were wrong by chance.

<snip>

There is now strong statistical evidence of widespread voting machine manipulation occurring in US elections since 2000. Coverage of the fraud has been reported in independent media and various websites. The information is not secret. But it certainly seems to be a taboo subject for the US corporate media.

There is little doubt key Democrats know that votes in 2004 and earlier elections were stolen. The fact that few in Congress are complaining about fraud is an indication of the totality to which both parties accept the status quo of a money based elections system.

Neither party wants to further undermine public confidence in the American "democratic" process (over 80 millions eligible voters refused to vote in 2004). Instead we will likely see the quiet passing of legislation that will correct the most blatant problems. Future elections in the US will continue as an equal opportunity for both parties to maintain a national democratic charade in which money counts more than truth.


Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored.

Dennis Loo's report "No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election," can be viewed at http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html

CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

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6. Consequences of election fraud: “Get Ready for World War III”

This is what happens when you allow elections to be stolen. We get this craziness. Roberts is a “paleo-conservative,” former Reagan administration official. If you read his columns, you’d think you were reading GD or GD: Politics on a hot news weekend. “The Sleep of Democracy Produces Monsters” to borrow a phrase from a Goya painting (“The Sleep of Reason…). It’s appropriate.

Get Ready for World War III

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050813_wwiii.htm

August 13, 2005
By Paul Craig Roberts
With every poll showing majorities of Americans both fed up with Bush’s war against Iraq and convinced that Bush’s invasion of Iraq has made Americans less safe, the White House moron proposes to start another war by attacking Iran. VP Cheney has already ordered the US Strategic Command to come up with plans to strike Iran with tactical nuclear weapons.

Bush refuses to meet with Cindy Sheehan, instead using his vacation time at the Crawford ranch to talk war with Israeli television. In a recent interview with Israeli TV, Bush said: "All options are on the table "with regard to Iran.

<snip>

Gentle reader, do you realize the danger of having a president so disconnected from reality that he plots to attack Iran—a country three times the size of Iraq—when he lacks sufficient forces to occupy Baghdad and to protect the road from Baghdad to the airport?

Despite all the high profile "sweeps" of US forces through insurgent strongholds, US commanders report a doubling of insurgent attacks.

The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush’s impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture predictions, but World War III will please no one else.

END (I mean end of the world, not…but what’s with that glacier the size of France?)

…but until the world ends, CLICK HERE to get quick access to Election Results and Discussion Forum on your “Latest” page.

[Algorem]

8. More money sought for coin probe

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1124184700166990.xml&coll=2

Cost of investigating Workers' Comp rising

Tuesday, August 16, 2005
T.C. Brown
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus - The cost to investigate the investment scandals at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation is estimated at $6.5 million and could go higher.

The State Controlling Board on Monday approved a request from State Auditor Betty Montgomery for $465,000 in addition to the $280,000 it had already approved.

More than two-thirds of the additional money will go to Crowe Chizek and Co., independent accountants, which is conducting a forensic audit of the $50 million that the bureau invested in rare coins with Tom Noe. The funds could be short by $13 million.

Noe was a politically connected, heavyweight Republican fund-raiser who is now the target of a task force of federal, state and local investigators...

[Algorem]

9. Diebold restates second quarter earnings

http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/cleveland/index.ssf?/base/business-5/1124172038248450.xml&storylist=cleveland

8/16/2005, 3:00 a.m. ET
The Associated Press

NORTH CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Diebold Inc. has restated its second quarter earnings to correct revenue from the sale of voting machines in Ohio.

The company said Monday that certain shipments of voting machines to Ohio counties in June did not include memory cards, as required by security agreements.

As a result, the revenue and net income from those sales should have been deferred until the memory cards were delivered in July, the company said.

The restatement lowers Diebold's second quarter revenue by $10.3 million, and lowers net income by $1.3 million. Both figures will be added to the company's third quarter earnings report...

[MelissaB]

10. $7.5M Awarded to Study Electronic Voting

$7.5M Awarded to Study Electronic Voting

BALTIMORE - Armed with a $7.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Johns Hopkins University is leading a new effort to improve the reliability of electronic voting machines.

The project's goal is to design the most foolproof, transparent voting system possible, officials said Monday.

"I don't think with today's technology we can have a voting system that is fully electronic that can be trusted," said Avi Rubin, a computer science professor. He will head a new Hopkins center called ACCURATE, short for A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections.

Rubin told The (Baltimore) Sun he hopes the center will provide information in time for the 2008 presidential contest, but that its research will take longer.

Rubin has been an outspoken critic of computerized voting. In 2003, he co-authored a report that found voting machines from Diebold Elections Systems were vulnerable to hackers, multiple votes and vote-switching.
(snip)


More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050816/ap_on_re_us/electronic_voting


Thanks to dooner here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1705751#1705948

[Bill Bored]

11. This is a good one!

Rather than sitting around reading exit polls, someone is actually going to do something! Thanks Dr. Rubin!

(I wonder if he ever met Andy Stephenson?)