Election Reform, Fraud and Related News, Thursday 12/7/06

[EFerrari]

Election Reform, Fraud and Related News, Thursday 12/7/06

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Mexico: Sosa Pleads Not Guilty


Mexican People's Popular Assembly of Oaxaca leader Flavio Sosa has pled not guilty to charges of kidnapping, robbery, vandalism and irregular detentions El Universal reported Dec. 7.

from: http://www.indiadaily.com/breaking_news/83240.asp

Remember the stolen elections in Mexico and the activists at risk today.


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.

Please recommend for the Greatest Page.

[EFerrari]

1. CA: Shaver asks for recount

Shaver asks for recount
AmCan City Council results in question
By DAN JUDGE, Times-Herald staff writer
Article Launched:12/06/2006 07:22:20 AM PST

AMERICAN CANYON - Mayor Cecil Shaver intends to go down fighting.

Shaver has asked for a recount of American Canyon votes from the Nov. 7 City Council election he lost last month, and already Napa County election workers were busy tallying the votes by hand Tuesday.

He requested that the Election Department begin with a manual recount of the paper trail ballots from the electronic voting machines used in American Canyon polling places.

"I think it's just worth it to make sure these machines are working right," Shaver said.

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_4788413

:)

[EFerrari]

2. CO: Denver's election head resigns

Denver's election head resigns
By George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated:12/06/2006 06:22:31 PM MST

John Gaydeski, director of the Denver Election Commission, photographed in June, 2006. (Post / Helen H. Richardson)

The highest ranking employee at the Denver Election Commission resigned today citing "problems encountered during the November 7 General Election."

"I certainly assume full responsibility for any contributions I may have made to those problems," Gaydeski wrote to commissioners. "The current events that are transpiring in the wake of the election hold the promise of significant and, hopefully, positive changes that may help provide a fresh start for the DEC."

He plans to step down in 90 days.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4790488

[EFerrari]

3. CO: County appoints five to election committee

County appoints five to election committee

James Shea

Daily Press Writer

MONTROSE — The Montrose County commissioners selected five members to the new election review task force Tuesday.

The county named Virgil Turner, William Wailes, Dale Reed, Sharen Branscome and Greg Fishering to the committee. Fourteen people expressed interest in serving on the committee. The commissioners previously named John Fleming and Wyatt Angelo as co-chairs.

The group will study problems with the election and make recommendations. During the November election, voters experienced long lines and the new voting machines had technical problems. Many citizens raised concerns, and the commissioners decided to create the review committee.


“This committee is independent and at arm’s length from us,” Commissioner Allan Belt said.

County Manager Joe Kerby said he was involved in establishing the committee but will only function in an advisory capacity now. He said the committee would set its agenda and decide what areas need to be investigated.

http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2006/12/06/local_news/2.txt

[EFerrari]

4. FL: Human Error Blamed in Vote Test

Human Error Blamed in Vote Test

TALLAHASSEE - Two variations in the final test of touch-screen voting machines used in a contested congressional race were blamed on human error, state officials said Tuesday.

That finding concluded the tests, said Secretary of State Sue Cobb. Election officials previously had announced the testing failed to turn up any evidence the machines used in Sarasota County had malfunctioned.

Democrat Christine Jennings is contesting the official results that gave Republican Vern Buchanan a 369-vote victory in the 13th District. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Longboat Key, is giving up the seat after losing a U.S. Senate race.

Jennings contends the machines malfunctioned, depriving her of the victory.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061206/NEWS/612060401/1004

[EFerrari]

5. MN: Elections option might go to voters

Elections option might go to voters

Supporters weighing referendum effort on instant-runoff voting
BY TIM NELSON
Pioneer Press

A month after voters approved instant-runoff voting in Minneapolis, supporters are mulling an effort to put the issue on the ballot in St. Paul.

Green Party activist Dori Ullman and a group of high school seniors from Mounds Park Academy met Wednesday with Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky and picked up a sample petition for a potential bid for a ballot measure.

They discussed an instant-runoff initiative for the 2007 election, which would require 4,760 signatures to go before voters Nov. 6. The city charter requires signatories equal to 8 percent of the votes cast in the most recent mayoral election, which was 59,509 in 2005.

If adopted, instant runoff would likely boost the prospects of third-party candidates, since voters could rank them highly while still voting for a major-party contender.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/state/minnesota/16181169.htm

[EFerrari]

6. NC: Voter rolls risky for aliens

Voter rolls risky for aliens
Noncitizens' registering is a crime; 4 cases turn up in N.C

Jessica Rocha, Staff Writer
Immigration agents checking voter registration records last month found at least four cases of noncitizens in North Carolina who they say illegally registered to vote.

Three of the people have been arrested, and officials are looking for the fourth.

Agents recently added more public records -- including voter registration -- to the list of databases they routinely check during investigation. They only do this for people already flagged for investigation, including people suspected of being here illegally, as well as legal residents seeking citizenship. So far, about 50 people in 31 North Carolina counties have been looked into this way.

"It's a very personal charge to us," said Tom O'Connell, resident agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Cary office. "It goes to the integrity of the entire democratic system when we have ... aliens registering to vote."

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/518692.html

[EFerrari]

7. OH: Diebold taking blame for invalid election results

Diebold taking blame for invalid election results



Thursday, December 7, 2006

By SEAN CASEY
ThisWeek Staff Writer

The Fairfield County Board of Elections recertified official election results last week after an error attributed to the voting machines' manufacturer produced inaccurate final vote counts.

According to elections board director Deborah Henderly, Diebold Election Systems failed to notify the county that the vote tabulation process required a change because the Ohio Secretary of State's office had removed Issue 1 from the ballot prior to election day Nov. 7. Consequently, the final summary reports certified by the board on Nov. 28 included some incorrect results, although the county's machines recorded all ballots accurately, she said.

Diebold had informed some other county elections boards that purchased voting machines from the company of the modification, but failed to alert Fairfield County.

The company has acknowledged fault for not notifying the board in time.

http://www.thisweeknews.com/?sec=home&story=sites/thisweeknews/120706/Pickerington/News/120706-News-274373.html

[EFerrari]

8. PA: Recount will be a test of voting system

Recount will be a test of voting system
By BRIAN FANELLI
12/07/2006

The optical scanning machines that were used for the first time in every Chester County precinct last month will play a major role in the possible recount for the 156th District, and the paper trail will satisfy the Republican Party's request to have each balloted hand-counted.

Lani Frank, who fought hard with other activists for a paper trail, said that the possibility of a recount after an election was one of the primary reasons she wanted a system with a paper trail.
"It was the driving feature about the system that we fought for," she said. "It was not a perfect system, but it was the best that was available to choose from that would do the most we were hoping for."

Frank is the campaign manager for Democrat Barbara McIlvaine Smith, who leads Republican Shannon Royer by 23 votes in the 156th Assembly District.

Though the machines have a paper trail, she said that she does have other concerns.

http://www.dailylocal.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17560394&BRD=1671&PAG=461&dept_id=17782&rfi=6

[EFerrari]

9. RI: Painstaking probe to view all absentee ballots

Painstaking probe to view all absentee ballots

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, December 7, 2006

By Alisha A. Pina

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — East Greenwich, Cranston, Coventry, West Warwick…. Secure rubber thumb to real thumb. Lincoln, Barrington, Pawtucket…

“Have we found one yet?”

“Nope.”

Although painstaking to watch for some, a dozen helpers sifted through more than 29,200 statewide absentee ballots to find those cast in East Providence, Middletown, Portsmouth and Newport. It took more than two hours yesterday morning at state election headquarters.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/EB_EPROVVOTES7_12-07-06_KS383NH.2fbf1df.html

[FogerRox]

10. Omaha Legislative District Recount, win confirmed for "D" Lathrop

Published Wednesday
December 6, 2006

Lathrop comes out ahead in recount

Steve Lathrop was confirmed Wednesday as the victor in the southwest Omaha Legislative District following a complete recount of the votes cast in the Nov. 7 election.

Following the recount by the Douglas County Election Commission, the margin was 14 votes for Lathrop over Jean Stothert. The final count after the election put Lathrop ahead by 15 votes, close enough to trigger an automatic recount.

The final totals being sent to the State Board of Canvassers, which will certify election results on Monday, was 5,073 for Lathrop and 5,059 for Stothert. Lathrop gained one vote and Stothert two as a result of the recount of all ballots cast.

Stothert has until Dec. 15 to file an official protest.

More:

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1673&u_sid=2292645

[EFerrari]

17. There was a reg required story that said the Thug is laying

the ground to challenge this victory. If I find a more friendly version (and if she persists), I'll put it here.

Thanx, Foger.

[EFerrari]

11. OpEdNews: Do you vote? If so, did it count?

Do you vote? If so, did it count?


Getting nervous about electronic voting machines: It's not just for paranoiacs anymore.

In a development that bodes badly for the integrity of elections in Delaware, the federal government said last week that electronic ballot machines, including the kind Delaware and several other states use, can't be vetted as free of programming flaws that could alter an election's true outcome. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, said machines that tally up votes in computer software without also creating paper records of individual votes are immune to double-checking by hand -- and that this structural flaw should be enough to 'decertify' those oh-so-modern voting booths. Oh, and the machines' vulnerability to hackers is another minus.

People who have been sounding the alarm on electronic voting for years, sometimes in the-sky-is-falling style, are probably surprised that the sober statisticians at NIST are moving into their corner. And people who dismissed such claims as paranoid claptrap had better take a fresh look.

Delaware doesn't use the infamous Dielbold-made electronic ballots that have drawn attention in states like Florida and Ohio. Here, we use older electronic machines - Danaher Controls ELECTronic 1242 Model 6T units, if you want to be picky about it. With their introduction in 1996, Delaware became "the first state to use Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines," the Commissioner of Elections' office proudly notes. And the level of detail in the state's official instructions on voting cannot be faulted. Leaving nothing to chance, they advise the voter to "part the curtain with your hand" when entering and exiting the booth.

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?opedpg=http://www.delmarvanow.com/deweybeach/stories/20061206/2352247.html&opedid=27332

[EFerrari]

12. Bob Koehler Electronic Treason

Electronic Treason

by Bob Koehler


Electronic voting, like the war in Iraq, is starting to get bad press. And following the debacle of last month's midterm elections, a lot of people have begun to demand an exit strategy.

Surely there ought to be a limit to the number of egregiously wrong turns the same ideologues are allowed to make at one time. How many can we afford, for God's sake? At a time when governments at every level are going bankrupt, thanks in large part to the Bush administration's trillion-dollar quagmire in Iraq, they're spending billions of dollars on high-tech voting equipment that's blowing up in their - I mean our - faces.

Has democracy ever been so crater-scarred?

A year and a half ago, when I first started writing about disenfranchisement and the troubling evidence of electronic voting fraud in the 2004 election, this was not a respectable topic for mainstream discourse. Those who broached it were relegated to a spectrum of mockery that ran from "sore loser" to "conspiracy nut." But the ongoing horror show of "glitches" perpetrated on democracy by touchscreen voting machines this year can no longer be ignored even by those who would prefer to, and e-voting disasters are now being reported with some regularity.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bob_koeh_061206_electronic_treason.htm

[EFerrari]

13. On Tuesday: Federal Panel Rebuffs Guidelines That Insist on a Paper Trail

Federal Panel Rebuffs Guidelines That Insist on a Paper Trail

By Cameron W. Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; Page B06

A federal advisory group rejected a measure yesterday that would have discouraged states from using electronic voting systems that lack an independent means of verifying their results, according to a spokeswoman for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Members of the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, a group created by Congress to advise the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, deadlocked 6 to 6 on the proposal at a meeting held at the NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg. Eight votes are needed to pass a measure on the 15-member committee.

NIST spokeswoman Jan Kosko said the proposal was introduced by Ronald Rivest, a computer science professor at MIT who heads a subcommittee on transparency and security.

Rivest told committee members that software errors in paperless machines could go undetected, leading to a situation in which "an election result is wrong and you have no evidence to show that it's wrong."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401290.html?nav=rss_technology

[EFerrari]

14. But today Panel OKs revised electronic voting plan

By STEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 7, 10:36 AM ET

WASHINGTON - A federal advisory panel approved a revised proposal that encourages states to use electronic voting machines that can be independently verified, a day after rejecting a similar recommendation.
ADVERTISEMENT

The resolution, adopted unanimously Tuesday by the panel drafting voting guidelines for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, recommends that states use voting machines that produce a paper record or other means for voters and election officials to make sure ballots were properly cast and counted.

It suggests that when states buy new machines, they consider buying ones that include verification tools.

The vote came during a two-day meeting in Gaithersburg, Md., at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which issued a report last week that found paperless voting systems used by millions of voters nationwide could be vulnerable to tampering or glitches that could skew elections without detection.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061207/ap_on_re_us/electronic_voting_1

(Aren't these (NIST) the same people that fooled with their computer model until it would support the pancaking theory for the WTC, and when questioned by Kevin Ryan -- got him fired from UL?)

[stellanoir]

15. great compilation as always

keep it up

4th rec

[EFerrari]

16. Apologies for being late and abbreviated today. Got bumped

last night and access is still limited today. Oh well. Make it up next time. And, TG for the ERD. It's the quietest, most focused part of my Thursday. You all can have it when you pry it out of my cold dead claws. :)