1965 Voting Rights Provisions to Expire

Marcus Franklin, AP - Mar 31, 2006

On what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," voting rights marchers in March 1965 reached the highest point on the Edmund Pettus Bridge near Selma, Ala., and saw a blue sea of uniforms awaiting them at the end of the bridge.

Television would show images of Alabama state troopers armed with guns, night sticks, bull whips and tear gas severely beating marchers. Days later, President Lyndon Johnson promised to bring Congress an effective voting rights bill, and that August he signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, considered one of the most significant laws in the nation's history.

Now, more than four decades later, sections of the act are set to expire. The looming expiration date — Aug. 6, 2007 — has ignited debate over the provisions' effectiveness and relevance, and over whether they should be extended.

It also has generated rumors, mostly on the Internet, that black Americans will lose the right to vote en masse next year. The rumors have prompted officials at the U.S. Justice Department to post a notice on their Web site.

"It's important for folks to know that the right to vote — even if those sections expire — will not expire," said Justice Department spokesman Eric W. Holland.

The provisions — last renewed by Congress in 1982 for 25 years — cover a wide range of protections. They allow the government to approve new voting procedures in areas with histories of discrimination and send election monitors to make sure voters are allowed to cast ballots and their votes are counted. The provisions also send officials to register voters in counties where blacks are refused registration.

"It's a myth that we stand to lose the right to vote, but we do stand to lose critical protections that have allowed us to participate fully in the political process," said Debo Adegbile, associate director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "We've seen consistently, even with the provisions in place, continuing efforts to weaken minority voices in the electoral process."

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Faith-Based Voting
'Without procedural integrity, you have nothing'

Robert C. Koehler - March 30, 2006

Oh, those glitches!

For some reason we tolerate them a lot more in an election — that is to say, in the mechanics of democracy, something we affect to believe in so fervently we're willing to go to war to make sure other countries have it — than we would in, let's say, our banking system.

Last week's primary election fiasco here in Chicago and Cook County — a fiasco of such ballot-eating magnitude that the city and county, which each had separate deals with Sequoia Voting Systems, are withholding more than $30 million remaining on their respective contracts with that company — should have generated howls of outrage. Instead, the tone of the local coverage of the chaotic transition from punch cards to optical-scan and touch-screen voting struck me more as tepid bemusement.

Most infuriating was the scattershot use of the trivializing, blame-avoidance word "glitch," which reduces disenfranchisement to oh well, gosh, just one of those things. The media can live with glitches. They still get their numbers to report. They still get "results," which, in our world of breathless headlines and two-second sound bites, are all that matter. Voting - democracy — is the booster engine that produces winners, then quietly disappears.

The operative assumption is that, despite the chaos, vulnerability to fraud and enormous cost, electronic voting is inevitable, "modern." And once you eliminate the human-error factor, it's, you know, infallible.

This, of course, is preposterous; every line of code in a voting program was written by a human. Our vote is hostage to a flawed, secret system of counting that almost no one understands.

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Sequoia E-Vote Systems Found 'Hackable' in PA
Testing Shut Down After Machine Failiures

Bradblog - 3/30/2006

'Software Clearly Unstable,' Says Testing Official Who 'Transformed Handful of Votes into Thousands...in an Instant'!

Ten-Year Old E-Voting Systems from NV Planned for First Time Use in PA This Year

Meanwhile...in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, where plans to use Diebold's hackable Electronic Voting Equipment have recently been nixed, Plan B seems to be failing too. The machines they'd hope to use instead, as made by Sequoia Voting Systems, have now been shown to be hackable as well.

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Minor glitch found in Allegheny County voting machines

Expert tricks county's new electronic system but calls the problem a minor one

Post-Gazette - March 29, 2006

HARRISBURG -- After four hours of testing yesterday, a glitch was found in the voting system Allegheny County is planning to use in the May 16 primary.

[...] A week ago elections were disrupted in Chicago and the rest of Cook County because of a rash of problems with two of Sequoia's other voting systems. Problems occurred there when poll workers tried to transfer results from the machines onto tabulators that compile vote totals, said Joan Krawitz, executive director of Vote Trust USA and a resident of Cook County.

The problem Dr. Shamos found yesterday sounds similar, she said.

As part of his testing, which continues today, Dr. Shamos cast 12 votes in a mock primary. The machine reported the votes correctly but there was a problem when its data cartridge was inserted into a central computer. Audit trails, which are supposed to carry records of individual ballots, were incorrect.

"I've got the correct vote totals, but I've got a very strange, apparently corrupted audit trail," Dr. Shamos said. "The totals are all correct but the audit trail is completely haywire."

Paul Terwilliger, Sequoia's director of product development, could not immediately fix the problem or say what caused it.

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Democracy Crumbling: New Electronic Voter Registration Database Rejects 43% of New Los Angeles Voter Applications. 26% Rejected state-wide in California

Bradblog - 3.29.06

Applications That Don't Match EXACTLY With DMV Records are Automatically Dumped by New System!

California's League of Women Voters Sends Letter of Objection to Secretary of State

We've been dreading this. And you're not gonna like it either.

It's an entirely new can of worms in the Electronic Rape of American Electoral Democracy. The next wave -- beyond the electronic voting machines, and perhaps even more alarming -- in the arsenal of those out to game the system for partisan advantage.

No matter what we do, no matter how many successes, the Bad Guys -- those who hate Democracy and American Values -- are always one step ahead of us, it seems.

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Fla. AG Subpoenas Voting Machine Companies

The Associated Press - March 29, 2006

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida's attorney general said Wednesday his office has issued investigative subpoenas to the three companies certified to sell voting machines in Florida as he reviews a dispute between the firms and Leon County's elections supervisor.

Diebold Inc., Election Systems & Software Inc., and Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. have refused to sell equipment to let disabled voters cast ballots without help in Leon County. Elections supervisor Ion Sancho has been outspoken about his concern that the devices can be easily manipulated to change race outcomes.

The companies' refusal has left Leon County, which is the home of the state Capitol, in violation of the federal Help America Vote Act.

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Conservative Republican TX Supreme Court Justice
to File Election Contest Today

Bradblog - 3/28/2006

Former Judge Finds March 7th Texas Primary Results Fraught With 'Absolutely Egregious' Electronic Voting Machine Errors!

May Lead to First Independent Examination of Electronic Machines Made by Hart InterCivic and ES&S!

As The BRAD BLOG reported last week, a Conservative Republican former Texas Supreme Court Justice had been considering an Election Contest after electronic voting machine problems and inexplicable tallies plagued the first-in-the-nation March 7th primary in the Lone Star State.

Steve Smith -- who ran for election to the state Supreme Court, Place 2, in the Republican primary against an opponent backed by both Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry and the Bush family -- will be filing an official Election Contest this afternoon in Travis County District Court, The BRAD BLOG has learned.

Since our previous report, the Smith for Supreme Court campaign has been examining election tallies around the state and report that they continue to find anomolies in virtually every county they look into.

"The more research we do, the more irregularities we find," campaign manager David Rogers told The BRAD BLOG this morning.

The problems are being found on machines made by both Hart InterCivic and Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S) -- the two major Electronic Voting Machine vendors supplying the state of Texas.

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Primary voting-machine troubles raise concerns for '06

USA TODAY - Mar 28, 2006

Problems using voting machines in the Texas and Illinois primaries this month have reinforced fears that the 2006 elections may be beset with glitches.

"There's a lot of evidence that some of those fears are coming to pass," says Doug Chapin, president of Electionline.org, a non-partisan group that studies elections. "The theory that new technology results in error seems to be borne out early in the process."

More than 30 million Americans will be voting on unfamiliar equipment this year, after modernization required by the Help America Vote Act. Congress passed the law in 2002 to address problems stemming from the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

Among early trouble spots:

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Author argues elections bigger gamble than slots

In Nevada, paper trail backs up electronic voting equipment

Las Vegas Review-Journal - Mar. 27, 2006

An academic researcher has concluded that Las Vegas slot machines are more trustworthy than electronic voting machines.

Steven F. Freeman, a University of Pennsylvania professor working on a book about elections, "has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights," according to the Washington Post.

Among the contrasts, Freeman contends: The state of Nevada has access to all the software that runs slots, but voting machine software is a trade secret of the companies that produce them.

Slots may be surprise-inspected by gaming regulators at any time, while election machines aren't required to be checked.

Slots are certified publicly by an independent public agency; voting machines are certified by for-profit companies paid by the machines' manufacturers, and information on the process is not public.

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AP and WaPo Both Run Big Ion Sancho Stories
AND: Tom Toles Toons Diebold in WaPo Today

Bradblog - 3/26/2006

WaPo's story -- headlined "Election Whistle-Blower Stymied by Vendors: After Official's Criticism About Security, Three Firms Reject Bid for Voting Machines" -- focuses on all three companies certified to do business in Florida all now refusing to do business with Sancho.

That story reads nearly identically, to BRAD BLOG's March 8 story on same. Hey, better two-and-a-half-weeks late than never, we suppose. And no, not a nod nor hat tip to BRAD BLOG's coverage...

On Saturday, AP covered the Sancho story in great detail as well...

Finally, today's WaPo story in the Sunday paper included a Tom Toles cartoon which, so far, I haven't been able to find online...

We continue to win this fight...despite the slow and seemingly endless struggle against some forces of evil with a lot of money to back their fight. We may be naive here, but with the truth on our side, we believe we believe David will eventually defeat Goliath.

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Illegal Aliens Vote Fraud

Because of virtually no vote fraud enforcement, motor voter registration, driver's licenses for illegal aliens, amnesties and other factors, American's most precious liberty, voting, is being rapidly undermined by illegal aliens.

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Help Katrina Evacuees Vote

If you are an eligible New Orleans voter or know someone who is, you can request an absentee ballot up until April 18 to vote in the primary election. You also can call the Louisiana Secretary of State Elections Division at 1-800-883-2805 or visit its website.

Read More >>

The Silence of the Scams:
A Political Psychological Puzzlement

Diane Perlman, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist
April 20, 2005

Few Americans know about the historic event that happened on January 6, 2005, the official date for counting electoral votes. For the first time since 1877, congressmembers challenged the electoral count. Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio, accompanied by the lone senator, Barbara Boxer of California, led the challenge to the Ohio vote count. Although massive fraud was reported around the country, only Ohio was officially cited.

It is curious that an issue so profound and consequential is barely on the radar screens of most Americans, especially those who supported Kerry.

Though we are not certain of the actual outcome, statistically impossible discrepancies exist between results of exit polls and official counts in counties without paper trails. Also documented are patterns of anecdotes about corrupted procedures and accounts of strange behaviors, phenomena and illegal interventions in Ohio, New Mexico, Florida, Pennsylvania and other places. Many say there is fraud in every election, but there was far more in 2004 than in any previous year, and if the errors were random, about half would go in Kerry's favor. Virtually all went in Bush's favor.

But rather than demanding a thorough investigation, the many Americans seem eager to forget the incidents and put the election behind them, thus implicitly supporting such corruption. In my conversations, I observed that white, US born males were more emphatic about accepting the outcome and the futility of challenging it, while others were more willing to recognize being dominated and open to questioning what happened. White males may be more susceptible to obeying patriarchal authority, and the fish does not know it is swimming in the water. This difference was reflected in Congress. Women and members of the Congressional Black Caucus were most active. Representative John Conyers lead the investigation and press conferences, and women, Stephanie Tubbs Jones in the House and Barbara Boxer in the Senate led the historical challenge.

A Political Psychological Puzzlement

Under what conditions do millions of allegedly "free" people knowingly acquiesce to being deceived, dominated and deprived of their own political will? How is it that even those who were politically engaged for the first time resign themselves to an unjust fate, refusing even to consider what happened to our country? Why do progressive citizens actively dismiss and even malign a small group of courageous, devoted people working day and night on their behalf to uncover, calculate, analyze, and evaluate the extensive, varied forms of criminal sabotage that undermined their democracy? How are Americans becoming complacent with escalating fraudulent activity? In other words, how do so many people live with the knowledge that they have been tricked before, were just tricked again--and then submit to life under the power of those who tricked them?

Why were hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians out for days in the freezing cold, refusing to accept fraud, while Americans helplessly colluded with forces of domination? Granted, we face a conspiracy of silence in the media, a propaganda campaign discrediting exit polls (which are accurate in counties with paper trails and other countries), and a dismissal of those who challenge the vote as nuts, sore losers and "conspiracy theorists." Censorship, brainwashing and intimidation create an environment of passivity and fear in subtle yet powerful ways that keep the system going with the complicity of those who have been robbed.

Another significant reason, pointed out by readers commenting on an earlier version of this article, was that Yushchenko himself was bold and courageous about challenging the vote. Unlike Gore, who discouraged a challenge, and Kerry who backed down easily after Edwards promised to count every vote, Yushchenko, who was poisoned and scarred, provided a powerful model of leadership, inspiring his supporters to be brave as well. The Democratic Party itself, except for the few who lead the challenge, acted cowardly, hardly inspiring the public. Why should they rise to the challenge if their maligned leaders wimped out?

Another reason is that citizens of the Ukraine know their history of oppressive, deceptive government. Unlike Americans, they are not inclined to trust the integrity of their leaders and system, and hunger intensely for justice and the freedoms that we have enjoyed.

Even with these explanations, we must still wonder what is going on in the collective psyche that allows mass submission to the systematic and progressive usurpation of power.

The Dance of Domination

The psychology of electoral domination has two parts--what is being done to people and how they allow it.

Psychological techniques, used deliberately, allow many tricks to go unnoticed and unchallenged. For example, "mystification" is a plausible misrepresentation of reality in which forms of exploitation are presented as forms of benevolence. Like magic and the use of distraction, the issue of voting reform was manipulated and misrepresented, so people felt calmed by the illusion that the problems from the 2000 election were being corrected. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Elements of the Help America Vote Act, HAVA (a name as Orwellian as the Clear Skies Initiative, should be more accurately called "Hide America's Voting Anomalies"), includes intrusive identity checks, the introduction of the "provisional ballot" most of which were not counted, and the use of electronic voting machines. Each of these was brilliantly misused for the opposite intention--to corrupt and deny votes to Kerry in ways people wouldn't notice.

The subterfuge was successfully accomplished with use of censorship, illusion, distortion, brainwashing, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, mystification, intimidation, shaming, and domination. As Bush might say, it was a "catastrophic success."

These techniques combine to form something like a collective hypnotic induction, which creates an illusion of a consensus that cannot be challenged. Few have the insight, training, or tools, to see through the manipulation. Even fewer have the courage to take on the challenge. For many, responses to domination may include disbelief, learned helplessness, psychic numbing, fear, cowardice, conformity, denial, cognitive laziness, avoidance, and submission to authority. These items are inter-related and the list is not exhaustive.

Before the psychological explanations, it is necessary to acknowledge a basic factor: the overwhelming ignorance of the facts. This can be exacerbated by a lack of desire to know the facts, and an avoidance of the awesome responsibility that comes with this knowledge. Of course if the facts were accurately reported in the mainstream media, the collective psychological climate would be conducive to a healthier public response. People accept fraud for reasons which may be conscious or unconscious. Some of the ways that they do this are described below.

Confusing Outcome with Process

Many don't want to deal with the corruption because they believe that challenging fraud won't change the outcome, so there's no point. This might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It represents a kind of immature, black-and-white thinking, as the outcome is a separate issue from the process. Even if it doesn't affect the outcome, voter suppression is criminal.

Paradoxically, refusal to examine the process prevents discovery, which might change the outcome. The Ohio vote challenge required two-hour debates in the House and Senate. Most Democrats who supported the challenge, emphatically stated that they didn't expect it to change the outcome, as if they were intimidated into making that point first or they would be ridiculed and dismissed. Most Republicans ignored their actual words and made emotional, even hysterical accusations of them not accepting the outcome, being sore losers, and worse. Republicans ignored the issue of voter suppression and praised Kerry highly for not making a big deal out of this.

Numbers, Imagery and Perceptions

People believe that Bush won by 3,500,000 votes--a margin too large to challenge, compared to Gore's 500,000. They are not aware of the long list of dirty tricks, and knowing of one or two, don't believe they can add up to 3,500,000. To bring the popular vote to a tie, it only has to add up to half that, 1,750,000, or an average of 35,000 votes per state, Correcting for Ohio's fraud could change the electoral vote. People may believe subliminally that even if Ohio went to Kerry, the difference in the popular vote is too great. The report of the Conyers Committee may be the best single summary that we have at this time to suggest estimates of the numbers affected.

Ignorance of Extent of Dirty Tricks

If people knew about the amount and extent of dirty tricks, 3,500,000, or 1,750,000 may not seem so insurmountable. Some of the tricks documented include throwing out of Democrat voter registration forms, broken machines, misplaced machines, machine errors, reduced numbers of machines in Black and predominantly Democratic areas, less than in 2002, causing long lines, unmailed absentee ballots, absentee ballots requesting 86 cents, insufficient postage, which were returned, certification of more votes than registered voters in some areas, reversal of percentages of registered Democrats and votes for Bush in many counties, modem connected voting machines and tabulators, different standards for provisional ballot recounts in different areas, many provisional ballots, also called “placebo ballots”, not counted at all, voting machines defaulting to a Bush or 'jumping' by recording a vote for Bush when Kerry's button was pushed, phony companies registering voters and then tearing up the registrations of Democrats but not Republicans, exit polls not corresponding with reported votes in counties with no paper trail, while exit polls matched reported votes in counties with paper trails, voting elections officials creating what look like phony election machine poll tapes and tossing original, signed tabulations in the garbage, people posing as technicians coming in and tampering with machines, Republicans posing as Democrats, a lock down, refusing to let observers in, with the excuse of terrorist alert to observe the counting of votes in a country in Ohio, misinformation about the date and location of voting in Black neighborhoods, threats of arrest for voters with traffic tickets or any record, unusual discrepancies between numbers of votes for Kerry and Democratic candidates on same ticket, and widespread refusal of media to report on any of these, and a media campaign trashing exit poll data with made up reasons. And these are just the ones we know about.

Discomfort with Numbers

The best evidence for fraud in the 2004 election is statistical, according to Josh Mitteldorf of Temple University's Statistics Department. Many are uncomfortable with numerical and statistical science that quantifies judgments about likelihood. For example, statistician Dr. Steve Friedman of University of Pennsylvania, and graduate of MIT found that the discrepancy between exit polls and the actual vote count in each of three states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, is 1 in 1,000,000, but the likelihood of all three states being discrepant in the same direction is 1 in 250,000,000. What people heard in the news was a smear campaign invalidating the credibility of exit polls, even though they are considered highly accurate, are used in many countries as indicators of fraud, and that exit polls in counties with a paper trail matched the official vote count, and in counties where there was no paper trail and evidence of computer irregularities, the official count was different than the exit polls and always favored Bush. They even made up fake reasons for this discrepancy regarding response bias--which did not exist where there were paper trails.

Disbelief

Many people don't believe the allegations of fraud because they didn't read about it in the New York Times or hear it on CNN. (The only mainstream media to report it was Keith Olberman on Countdown, MSNBC.) We might wonder about the media censorship on this story and intentions to promote disbelief in the populous, in addition to ignorance.

Conformity and Herd Mentality

Because of the media blackout, ignorance, and emotional tone of reporting, Americans have a false perception of consensus about objective reality. The majority conforms to this misperception and most do not have the psychological make-up to challenge the status quo. The few that are courageously addressing this are not heard, or else they are severely shamed, ridiculed and viciously accused of causing problems. Thus, even the thought of questioning is suppressed.

Learned Helplessness

Psychologist Martin Seligman's theory of learned helplessness explains how when one's repeated actions have no effect, people learn that what they do doesn't make a difference and give up, even in situations where they can potentially make a difference. People worked hard on this election and believe that they lost. They are burned out. They feel all their hard work, time, energy and money didn't help so they don't want to deal with it. Learned helplessness is also associated with elevation of levels of cortisol and immune suppression--suggesting it is ultimately not adaptive or healthy to give up. Conversely, taking action in the face of injustice is a sign of health, enhanced immune response and can be an antidote to depression.

Cowardice

It is reasonable to fear sticking one's neck out and challenging the powers that be. There may be legitimate reasons to be afraid of individual action, but this becomes part of the problem and rewards domination. As long as people remain silent and isolated from one another, we don't realize the safety implicit in concerted collective action. The safety in numbers can reduce fear.

Denial and Psychic Numbing

We are comforted with the belief that our leaders are good people who are protecting us. Many decent, well-meaning people believe the best about our system of government and democracy and can't believe that corruption is going on. It is frightening, unsettling, and intolerable for many Americans to question these core beliefs about our leaders and to accept the reality of extensive fraud. Also, ignorance is bliss, but for the moment, and knowledge implies responsibility, which may be feared and avoided.

Denial and numbing--not knowing and not feeling--protect us from this painful awareness in the present, but they cannot protect us from the real effects of these hidden realities which render us vulnerable to increasing domination and danger in the long term.

If one is in an impossible situation, these habits serve as survival mechanisms to avoid the pain of awareness. However, if one can do something to make a difference, then psychic numbing and denial are maladaptive.

Submission to Authority

The thought of challenging powerful, dominating authority with the prospect of losing is overwhelming. Increasing authoritarianism reinforces this dynamic in gradual, subtle ways. Some may also be afraid of challenging a president during a war and falsely believe it will harm national security.

Political Egocentrism

Many feel that there is no action that they can personally take on this level. It is too big for them, so they don't even seek out information or support or value the work that others are doing on their behalf.

Avoidance and Compartmentalization

People want to retreat, to focus on their own survival, family, daily life and pleasure, which are manageable. They are less focused on the scary bigger picture. This is completely understandable and even enviable. Furthermore, those struggling with high unemployment, lower wages, and other hardships created by the Bush administration are too preoccupied with their survival issues to pay attention to politics. In this way, disempowerment of certain segments of the population works to the administration's advantage.

The Spiral of Silence

I am grateful to readers of an earlier version for informing me about Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann's theory, The Spiral of Silence, which describes the spread of public opinion. All of the elements described above can be understood as interacting and potentiating this spiral. It refers to perceptions of public opinion, and when people perceive themselves to be in the minority, their sense of pressure to conformity, fear of isolation and the tendency to conceal one's views, and the role of the mass media in fueling this spiral.

Evolution, Adaptation and Survival

All of these reactions are understandable, but all become part of the problem. In the short run, they may minimize pain, but in the long run they are counterproductive and serve to magnify and multiply problems that are not being faced. Such avoidance mechanisms are not adaptive, as they play into the game of the destructive forces, allowing them to dominate. The continuation of the processes of systematic domination requires the ignorance, passivity and complicity of the majority of decent people, including the millions who supported Kerry. These people are colluding with their own domination.

The Courageous Minority

The reactions listed above are completely natural. Carl Jung said that consciousness is a work against nature. To go against the collective tide of ignorance, conformity and cowardice is a work against nature taken on by the courageous few. This collective, archetypal drama described by Jung was popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Hero's Journey. The Hero is the one who is willing to take on challenges that most people fear. According to Jung, the hero archetype represents the progressive force in society.

The people I have witnessed working intensely to investigate and challenge voter fraud have a particular psychological profile. They are courageous and willing to face pain and fear. They call up their strength to challenge authority, as our lives, our freedom and democracy depend on it. They are unable to deny what is going on or remain silent. They are heroes in our mythical, archetypal Hero's journey, willing to face the dragons that are guarding our "National Treasure." They are acknowledged in a piece by William Rivers Pitt called "Heroes" on Truthout.org. Pitt quotes Bob Dylan: "I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

Only by facing the pain can we transcend it. Consciousness is the first step. Action is an antidote to depression. It would be a sign of health, freedom, and conscious evolution if more people could muster up the courage to face the painful truth of what is happening in our country and support the great work of those courageous souls--who are not nuts or conspiracy theorists, but evolved, conscious, healthy leaders taking personal risks and sacrifices to elevate our democracy, restore our integrity and ultimately to increase our security on the world stage ... if we let them.

Link >>

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Some Links for Detailed Accounts of Voter Fraud

For a proper psychological understanding of suppression, it is necessary to recognize the quantity and quality of information being suppressed. The extent of fraud and ignorance of it are mind-boggling. Below are some links with detailed information.

TV Networks Officially Refuse to Release Exit Poll Raw Data - By Gary Beckwith, The Columbus Free Press, 22 December 2004

Thom Hartmann in "Dialing for Democracy--Now Is Critical, January 3, 2005

Partial list of incidents reported in the news

Election Issues - Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman

************************************************
I realize this article is almost a year old, but I just found it in some files I saved to post, and somehow missed this one. Normally, I post as little as possible and then link to the original, but I am afraid it will disappear from the internet, so decided to post the entire article. Sorry about the length, but it is worth it, because this is SO very important. I have deleted some of the links she had at the bottom because they were no longer working.

Dissing Diebold

24 Mar 2006

Diebold, dubbed an "e-voting recidivist" by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, may soon be blocked from operating their voting machines in Maryland. Two weeks ago, the Maryland House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to require paper ballots—not electronic voting machines—be used in this year's elections. The Maryland Senate will consider the measure any day now.

Read More >>

IL E-VOTE MELTDOWN:
414 Memory Cartridges Missing In Chicago and Cook County

Bradblog - 3.23.06

It was only early last month that the state of Illinois certified the Sequoia voting system that was used in the Illinois primary in Chicago and suburban Cook County this week. In that 6 week period over 23,000 election judges had to be trained to set-up and use the voting machines and they had to learn a completely new set of procedures for opening and closing the polls.

The county and city failed to do that training or failed to do enough of it for those who were trained at all.

Read More >>

Did White House Direct Phone Jamming Scheme?

From the DNC - March 23, 2006

Washington, DC - A new report suggests that the national Republican establishment--including the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and even the Bush White House--may have had a role in the criminal Election Day phone jamming scheme that disenfranchised countless New Hampshire voters in 2002.

The Union Leader today reported that "court records show Ken Mehlman's office received more than 75 telephone calls from now-convicted phone-jam conspirator James Tobin from Sept. 30 to Nov. 22 of that year." At the time, Mehlman--the current RNC Chair--was White House political director. [Union Leader, 3/23/06] This raises the disturbing question of whether Tobin, who worked for the RNC and the NRSC at the time and has since been convicted on two criminal charges for his role in the scheme, discussed the plan with one of the President's most important political strategists.

Today's news also has important implications for other national Republican figures. At the time the phone jamming scheme was devised and implemented, Tobin's supervisor at the RNC was Terry Nelson, who Arizona Republican Senator John McCain recently hired as a senior strategist for his Political Action Committee. This means that McCain may have hired one of the key figures in the phone jamming scheme.

"Each new development in this case raises troubling questions about the extent to which key national Republicans had knowledge of or were involved in a criminal scheme to keep New Hampshire voters from getting to the polls," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda. "The revelation that, in the days leading up to the phone-jamming campaign, Ken Mehlman spoke regularly with a man who has been convicted of criminal charges in this case raises deeply disturbing questions about the Bush White House's commitment to protecting fundamental right of Americans to vote.

[...] McCain Strategist Terry Nelson Served As Middleman in DeLay TRMPAC Money Laundering Scheme, Named in Indictment and Had to Testify. Before the 2002 election, John Colyandro, the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, sent a blank check to Jim Ellis. According to the indictment, Ellis, who ran DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, negotiated an exchange of corporate money for campaign donations with Terry Nelson, RNC Political Director.

Read More >>

FBI Action Perceived As Intimidation

League of Women Voters - March 22, 2006

Statement by Kay J. Maxwell, President of the League of Women Voters of the United States and Chellie Pingree, President of Common Cause

Washington, D.C. – The League of Women Voters of the United States (LWVUS) and Common Cause expressed concern today over a recent incident involving the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties (LWVBCC) in Michigan, Common Cause and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“At a time when Americans are relying on the FBI to protect against terrorism, it seems strange that precious resources would be spent contacting citizen advocacy groups to question their work educating the public about open government. Such behavior smacks of intimidation,” said Kay J. Maxwell, LWVUS President.

“The FBI’s actions in this instance seemed intended to have a chilling effect on the right of Americans to freely express themselves,” said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause.

The LWVBCC on March 14 sponsored a public meeting on Openness in Government. Common Cause President Chellie Pingree was among four members of a panel that included representatives of the media, academic and legal communities. The forum was part of the League’s activities during national Sunshine Week, March 12-18, 2006. Leagues across the country sponsored similar community forums to stimulate public discussion about why open government is important to everyone and why it is under challenge today.

After the panel, an FBI agent contacted the local League president, Susan Gilbert, to challenge comments that Pingree made at the LWV panel that were reported in a local newspaper on March 17.

According to Gilbert, FBI agent Al DiBrito said that “this Pingree woman” was “way off base” in her comments about the USA PATRIOT Act, and that the League should have invited someone from the federal government to be on the panel and to respond. DiBrito told Gilbert a U.S. Attorney from the Grand Rapids office would contact her to give her the real story on the USA PATRIOT Act.

The local League of Women Voters and Common Cause raised their concerns in a letter sent Tuesday (read the letter) to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

“Citizens can be intimidated when an FBI agent calls and questions their activities,” said Maxwell. “Why should a citizen meeting on open government merit the attention of the FBI?” said Pingree.

[The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.]

Read More >>

Conservative Republican Former Supreme Court Justice in TX Considering Challenge to State Primary Election Results

Bradblog - 3.22.06

Inexplicable Tallies from Electronic Voting Machines in Tarrant County, Elsewhere in State Require Full Recount and/or Contest, According to Campaign Manager

'Serious mistakes were made,' Understates Candidate, Former Texas Justice Steve Smith

A Conservative Republican former Texas Supreme Court Justice, who ran against a Republican opponent backed by Gov. Rick Perry, is considering a challenge to the tremendously flawed Primary Elections held in the state two weeks ago on new Electronic Voting Machines.

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Voter group sues to keep Diebold from Calif elections

21 Mar 2006

A group of voters sued the state of California and 18 counties on Tuesday in a bid to prevent those counties from using Diebold Election Systems' electronic 'voting' machines in November's general election.

Read More >>

Court-at-law recount suspended
Electronic machines not providing all info

21 Mar 2006

On orders from the Texas Secretary of State’s office, the recount for the Tom Green County Court-at-Law No. 2 race has been suspended midway through its second day. About 1:30 p.m. today, county Republican Chairman Dennis McKerley stopped the recount after workers found discrepancies of as much as 20 percent between what was counted Monday and what was reported Election Night.

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High-tech voting hits snags

Chicago Tribune - March 21, 2006

As election officials closed the polls Tuesday evening, reports of glitches from throughout the day continued as both voters and election officials learned how to deal with a new, high-tech voting system in Chicago and suburban Cook County.

The learning curve for the new system, which combines optical-scan paper ballots and electronic touch-screen machines, left some missing the old days -- even if they included the notorious punch-card ballot and its hanging, dimpled and pregnant chads.

"It was easier to worry about hanging chads," said Daniel Fore, an election judge in Oak Park's Barrie Center polling place.

Even as election officials continued to deal with missing ballots, power cords and ballots, they were bracing for the next test of the more than $50 million system: Counting and reporting results to eagerly awaiting politicians, voters and reporters.

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Through the (Plastic) Looking Glass & Behind the Brown Door

Bradblog - 3/20/2006

Diebold's Toilet Paper Democracy -- a Photographic Essay

How America's Votes Will be Counted (or not) in 2006 and Beyond ... Unless Something is Done About it.

You've heard the reports of the new Diebold touch-screen voting machines which have recently been updated to include a so-called "voter-verified paper trail."

You may also have heard how the printers they've added to produce these "paper trails" on their previously-paperless touch-screen voting machines are reported to jam up in test after test -- like the one last summer in California where some 33% of such machines failed due to screen freezes, software failures and paper jams.

You may have heard that Diebold actually includes a magnifying glass with each machine to help voters see these tiny, virtually unreadable "paper trails."

You may even have heard how the virtually uncountable thermal paper rolls, which scroll back into the machine after supposedly being "verified" by the voter, have turned up blank on some of the busiest machines at the end of Election Day -- as occurred in Lucas County, OH during the November 2005 Election in Toledo.

Now, for the first time, a hands-on examination of actual Diebold Accu-Vote TSx "election-ready" machines in Utah -- where the newly state-approved and purchased machines are just now being delivered across the state -- has been conducted by Security Innovations and computer security expert Harri Hursti. The examination was done in Emery County, UT with the approval of the county's elected official in charge of elections, Clerk-Recorder Bruce Funk.

Hursti's complete findings are soon to be released by BlackBoxVoting.org (BBV) who helped to organize the precedent setting examination where, for the first time, independent experts have been allowed to actually study the very touch-screen voting machines being deployed around our country this year for use in the up-coming 2006 Elections. Normally, these machines are guarded by secret non-disclosure agreements of Voting Machine Companies and the mandates of government officials who have allowed these machines and their software, incredibly, to remain the "proprietary" secret of the companies paid to run our public elections.

[...] Most states require no actual counting or meaningful audit or even cursory review of these toilet-paper "paper trails" (distinct from a countable paper ballot.) Some states (hello, Florida!) even disallow the hand-counting of such "paper trails" by law! So how well the printing modules actually work, is almost beside the point. Their main purpose seems largely to be instilling a false sense of security in the voter that their vote will actually be counted and counted accurately.

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Legal Action to be Filed in California to 'Halt use or Purchase of Diebold Voting Machines' in state

Lawsuit to Name Sec. of State Bruce McPherson, Alleges 'Severe Security Risk', Noncompliance with HAVA's Disabled-Voting Provisions, and Violation of CA State Law

Bradblog - 3/20/2006

We've hinted of late at upcoming legal actions, in several states, against the use of Diebold voting machines. The BRAD BLOG can now reveal that such a legal action will be filed tomorrow morning in San Francisco's Superior State Court in response to Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's recent re-certification of Diebold Electronic Voting Machines in the state.

VoterAction.org is announcing their intention to file suit, on behalf of several plaintiffs, "aimed at halting the use or purchase of Diebold electronic voting systems" in the state.

The same group recently carried out a similar action in the state of New Mexico, in regard to the use of Sequoia Touch-Screen voting machines there. That suit ultimately led to the ban of use of such machines, and a bill which was recently signed by Gov. Bill Richardson requiring a paper ballot with every vote cast in the state.

Diebold's optical-scan and touch-screen systems were revealed last December to contain "interpreted code" which is banned by Federal Voting System Standards. It was that "interpreted code" which was exploited in the recent hack of a test election in Leon County, FL where the results of the election were completely flipped without a trace being left behind.

Despite that startling revelation, California's Sec. of State Bruce McPherson certified the systems anyway in California, after they had previously been decertified in 2004 when Diebold admitted they had used untested and uncertified software patches on their machines in the state.

[...] Diebold is currently facing litigation in several investor class action lawsuits alleging Securities Fraud Violations such as insider trading and the false manipulation of stock prices by eight current and former company officials.

Read More >>

Utah testing of the Diebold touch-screen reveals new problems

BlackBoxVoting - Mar 19, 2006

Funk's concerns escalated when he heard a particularly unusual statement by Diebold sales rep Dana LaTour.

"Some of you are going to hate my guts on Election Day," she said to the assembly of elections officials. Later, another Diebold representative named Drew was asked what LaTour meant when she said "Some of you are going to hate my guts..."

"We're going to have problems on Election Day, and we're just going to have to work through them," he said.

Read More >>

E&S Machines Mistally NH Election

Two Machines Confiscated for Examination by Attorney General
After Results Fail to Add Up

Bradblog - 3/18/2006

Grafton – No matter how you do the math, 193 “yeas” plus 198 “nays” don’t add up to 369 votes.

That faulty equation — results of a warrant article vote from Tuesday’s election ballot — was the first clue for Grafton town officials that something was wrong.

As a result, two voting machines used to collect ballots in the annual town and school district meetings are now in the custody of the Attorney General’s Office, removed from the town yesterday, said Grafton Selectman Jennie Joyce.

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How To Steal an Election

Washington Post

It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count. We'll wait to read his book before making a judgment about that. But Freeman has assembled comparisons that suggest Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights, according to data he presented at an October meeting of the American Statistical Association in Philadelphia.

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Stop the Election Day cheating
or it will spread further

If you bet on a race horse, and later heard about serious allegations that the winning horse may have been illegally doped to gain an advantage, would you demand an investigation?

You know the answer. It would depend on whether or not you bet on the winning horse.

That's what has made much of America so hesitant to demand accountability regarding a growing ledger of allegations that the November 2004 election was so badly tainted that one could fairly question the outcome of the biggest race of all -- the one for the Oval Office. Anyone who questions the reliability of the election is assumed to be a sour-grapes bad sport who has fallen into the thrall of aluminum-foil helmeted conspiracy theorists. And the media, ever tremulous about affirming their critics' allegations of liberal bias, would sooner remove a hot radiator cap than make a mission of investigating the anomalies.

But the anomalies were real. Many have been documented. They kept thousands in swing states from voting, and prevented thousands of ballots from being counted.

Not incidentally, most of the 2004 anomalies benefited one party.

Read More >>

Batteries trouble voting system
Memory cards fail during Summit testing
ahead of May elections

Ohio.com - Mar. 11, 2006

Dead batteries -- that's what Election Systems & Software officials are saying is to blame for the failure of dozens of computer memory cards in Summit County's new optical scan voting system.

[...] Testing of the county's new voting system began Monday, when the memory cards failed to work as often as 30 percent of the time.

Bogard said there is a large battery and a smaller backup battery in each card. She said Vikant has agreed to replace the cards free of charge for ES&S and its customers.

However, Bogard said ES&S was still trying to determine how many of the cards may have been distributed to customers of the Nebraska voting machine maker.

Read More >>

MoveOn Campaigns for Voting Integrity

Dear MoveOn member,

Over the last year, together we helped restore integrity to voting machines in states across the country. More than half of the states now require all voting machines to keep paper records of every vote. But some states are still ignoring the documented problems with unverified voting—we need Congress to act.

In April, you'll have a rare opportunity to meet with members of Congress to ensure every single voting machine in the country is secure and reliable. You can make the greatest impact by going to Washington, D.C. to meet with legislators from your state. If you can't travel to the Capitol, there will also be local meetings set up in some places. A coalition of groups, including Common Cause, VerifiedVoting.org, and VoteTrustUSA, is arranging these meetings.

Tell Congress to get serious about the security of our voting machines. Click here to sign up:

Constituent meetings like this are the most effective way to convince members of Congress they must act. Many MoveOn members traveled to D.C. last June, and they helped convince dozens of representatives to co-sponsor Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)'s Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550) . Voting machine experts consider this bill the gold standard for election integrity.

Since then, one of the bill's most powerful opponents was forced out of his leadership post because of his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. This, along with concerns about voting machine security raised by the Carter-Baker election reform commission and the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, has opened a new window of opportunity for H.R. 550.

Now's the time to show members of Congress how serious we are about the integrity of our nation's voting machines. As one of the MoveOn members who cares most about election integrity, can you attend a constituent meeting?

Thanks for all you do.

–Noah, Carrie, Ben, Tanya and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team

P.S. Last summer's constituent meetings drew attention from the New York Times editorial board, which wrote:

There are many problems with American elections, but none more serious than the rise of paperless electronic voting, whose results cannot be trusted. Grass-roots reformers are in the middle of a two-day lobbying blitz on Capitol Hill in support of a House bill that would require that electronic voting machines in federal elections produce voter-verifiable paper records. It is an important measure that should be passed without delay.

Read the rest of the editorial >>

MD House Votes 137 to 0 to Ban Diebold
Touch-Screen Voting in 2006!

A House united. That seems to be the effect that Diebold has had on the state of Maryland where they had initially deployed their paperless touch-screen voting machines in 2002 as one of two "showcase" states along with Georgia.

That "showcase" has turned into yet another public relations fiasco for Diebold of late.

The Republican Governor there recently slammed Diebold's paperless system, called for paper ballots and announced he had lost confidence in the State Board of Election and its Diebold-supporting Director, Linda Lamone, to carry out a fair election. Then information surfaced that Lamone had allowed MD to use uncertified Diebold software in the 2002 and 2004 elections. Then revelations were made public of massive machine failures in 2004. And now this from MD's Democratic House...

The state of Maryland stands poised to put its entire $90 million investment in Diebold Election Systems Inc. touch-screen e-voting systems on ice because they can’t produce paper receipts.

The state House of Delegates this week voted 137-0 to approve a bill prohibiting election officials from using AccuVote-TSx touch-screen systems in 2006 primary and general elections.

The bill was sent onto the State Senate for a vote after the House action, she said.

Healey said the effort was inspired in part by concerns raised by officials in California and Florida that the Diebold systems have inherent security problems caused by technological and procedural flaws.

Note the reference to the AccuVote-TSx system in the above is an error in ComputerWorld's reporting. Maryland uses the AccuVote-TS system which does not include a "voter-verified paper trail" -- unlike the newer TSx model which does.

Also note, the movement in the MD statehouse is calling for "paper receipts" or "paper trails" which is a far cry from paper ballots -- you know, those things which are actually counted, unlike paper "receipts" or "trails" which are not. Though their interim plan to lease optical-scan machines for 2006 would mean there would actually be ballots used -- at least until 2008.

Washington Post ran a story on this on the front page of this morning's print edition ...

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Third elections worker indicted over presidential recount

Cleveland.com - 09 Mar 2006

The third highest ranking employee at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has been indicted on charges of mishandling ballots during the 2004 presidential election recount.

Read More >>

Thieves hit Democrats' office

Betty Parker - March 09, 2006

Lee County's Democratic headquarters had its second break-in in almost as many years this week.

Thieves ignored computer equipment and other valuables, and took the party's financial records and voter data, said Lyndia Bradley, Lee County's Democratic chairwoman.

"This was a very targeted, purposeful break-in," she said Wednesday. "They were obviously interested in certain things, not things you sell on the street for money."

Computers were vandalized, but there was no sign of forced entry.

The office is located on Park Meadow Drive in south Fort Myers.

[...] The party's headquarters had a similar break-in shortly before the 2004 elections when the office was in a different location near the intersection of Fowler Street and Colonial Boulevard.

Thieves vandalized the office and stole records and computers in that incident.

And just before the November 2004 presidential election, vans used to carry voters to register to vote, and cast early ballots had their tires slashed outside Kerry-Edwards headquarters in Royal Palm Square in Fort Myers.

The vans carried pro-Democrat signs and bumper stickers.

Read More >>

E-Voting System Adds 100,000+ Votes
in One Texas County During Tuesday's Primary Election

Bradblog - 3/9/2006

Hart InterCivic Paperless Touch-Screen Systems Flat-Out Fails in Tarrant County, TX

Officials Ignored Prob on Election Night, Blame 'Program Snafu' the Next Day

We hope to have much more on this tomorrow...

[...] See this previous report for scores of additional e-voting problems reported yesterday, just after Texas' first Primary Election since adding loads of new electronic voting machines this year. (Keep an out for today's 'Daily Voting News' to be posted here shortly ... where we expect there will be many more such reports.)

Read More >>

Voters Challenge Northampton County
Voting Machine Purchase

(WFMZ) 08 Mar 2006 (PA)

Months before any votes are cast on new computerized machines, some Northampton County residents are raising concerns about the system. Concerns about money, reliability and security...

Read More >>

GOP Halts Paid Voter-Drive Program

Probes in Orange and San Bernardino counties spark suspension of signups using hired agents.

LATimes - 08 Mar 2006

The California Republican Party has suspended its fee-based voter registration program while prosecutors in San Bernardino and Orange counties investigate possible registration fraud connected to private firms hired by the party, GOP officials said. The suspension came after election officials in the two counties discovered thousands of flawed registration forms and received complaints from residents who said they had been improperly registered as Republicans.

Read More >>

Legal Proceedings Launched Against Diebold in Florida

Leon County Election Supervisor Alleges 'Breach of Contract' After Security Test Revealed Hackable Elections Possible on Diebold Optical-Scan Systems!

E-Voting Monolith and 'Competitors' All Refuse to do Business with County Unless the Elected Ion Sancho is 'Removed from Office'

Bradblog - 3/8/2006

Ion Sancho is fighting back.

Sancho, the Election Supervisor of Leon County, Florida who exposed a number of security flaws in Electronic Voting Machines made by the Diebold corporation of North Canton, Ohio, has today launched legal "breach of contract" proceedings against the company. The action has been filed on behalf of the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office.

In a conversation moments ago with Sancho, he confirmed to The BRAD BLOG that, "we filed a breach action this morning, pursuant to a contract which notifies Diebold we are pursuing all available options."

The breach concerns Diebold's refusal to deliver their latest operating system for the optical scan voting systems which had previously been used in Leon County -- until Sancho discovered an alarming security flaw in the system at the end of last year.

Read More >>

Voting machine security alert sent

March 4, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - The state recommended on Friday that elections officials across Florida enhance security safeguards for all voting systems after tests in California and Tallahassee exposed weaknesses.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho called the technical advisory a vindication of his findings last year that some Diebold optical scan voting machines can be hacked by election office insiders to change results.

"In other words, you could steal the election and no one would ever know," Sancho said.

Read More >>

Fourteen indicted in Appalachia election fraud probe

Times-News - March 03, 2006

WISE - Fourteen individuals, including the mayor/town manager of Appalachia, a town councilman, and two law enforcement officials, were indicted by a Wise County grand jury on multiple counts stemming from an alleged conspiracy to conduct election fraud during the 2004 town elections.

[...] The grand jury handed down a total of nearly 1,000 felony counts leveled against the 14 individuals on 269 alleged violations of law ranging from conspiracy, to tampering with absentee ballots, to forgery, to illegal seizure of private property by law enforcement officials for their own personal use. Drug trafficking by some individuals has also been alleged.

McAfee said the 300-page indictment document and the investigation details "a pattern of misconduct" before, during and after the May 4, 2004, town elections that boils down to "corruption" that permeated Town Hall.

Read More >>

Party Hacks

Chris Floyd - March 3, 2006

Two weeks ago, an obscure, unelected, Republican-appointed official in California decided the future of the world. That future -- at least for the next several years -- will be an accelerating nightmare of war, corruption, repression, atrocity and terror. That's because the loyal apparatchik has, with the stroke of a pen, guaranteed the perpetuation of the Bush faction in power in 2008 and beyond.

One of the few certainties in modern U.S. politics is that no Democrat can win the presidency without carrying California. Thanks to the Electoral College system set up by the Founding Oligarchs to keep the low-born rabble from voting directly for president, the big haul of California's electoral votes is crucial for Democrats to offset the multitude of small, sparsely populated states that reliably vote Republican. Bagging California doesn't guarantee Democratic victory, but without it, the cliffhanger electoral counts in the goosed elections of 2000 and 2004 wouldn't even have been close.

Thus, the sudden, hugger-mugger decision by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to override the objections of his own experts and certify the eminently hackable voting machines of the politically partisan firm, Diebold, for use throughout the state means, quite simply, that the fix is in for 2008. It doesn't matter who the Democrats run -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, George Clooney or Jesus H. Christ in an Uncle Sam suit. It won't make a bit of difference. California is lost, the presidency is lost and the Bushists are in -- already. It's over.

[...] America's votes are increasingly controlled by a small number of interrelated corporations: Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, all of which have close political and financial ties to the Bush faction -- and to other dark forces as well. Diebold and ES&S were both bankrolled by tycoon Howard Ahmanson, who was also a major funder of the Christian "Reconstructionist" movement, which openly advocates a totalitarian theocracy in America, including the death penalty for homosexuals, slavery for debtors, stoning for sinners and stripping nonbelievers of citizenship. As journalist Max Blumenthal reports, these extremists have been welcomed as a key part of the Bushist base of politicized evangelicals, whose cadres have been quietly filling government posts for the past five years. Meanwhile, Sequoia -- whose machines racked up 100,000 "mistakes" in just one Florida county in 2004, according to a recent audit -- is owned by a business partner of the Carlyle Group, the investment firm whose insider deals and war profiteering have earned millions for the Bush family.

Thus, the 2008 election will be conducted largely on wide-open machines programmed by avowed partisans and paymasters of a ruthless gang that has already committed demonstrable vote fraud on a massive scale in engineering narrow "victories" in 2000 and 2004. So it doesn't matter who runs, who votes or how unpopular the Bush faction becomes through the murderous ruin of its radical agenda. The "consent of the governed" will be drowned in the blood money that has bought the nation's electoral process.

Read More >>

Do You Know How Your Vote Will Be Counted?

Washington Spectator - March 2, 2006

The troubling truth about voting in America today is that a majority of the electorate casts their ballots on computers that run software that is hidden from public view and lacks any independent means of verification. The process by which our votes are cast and counted is controlled by private corporations to an extent that threatens the foundations of democracy.

Last September, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the security and reliability of electronic voting machines. The report, which detailed the findings of a nine-month study, said that "concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes." The GAO reported that it had confirmed instances of "weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate system version control, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management, and vague or incomplete voting system standards."

While acknowledging that efforts were under way to improve the situation, the report warned that "these actions are unlikely to have a significant effect in the 2006 federal election cycle." Not exactly reassuring.

And the situation has hardly improved in the months since. In many states, it is still unclear what kind of voting machines will be used in primaries only a few months away. Running elections has always been a daunting and largely unappreciated job performed by state and county officials. But the challenges they face in 2006 are unprecedented, and many have their fingers crossed hoping their experiments with voting technology will work out.

In the wake of the 2000 election debacle, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which authorized $3.8 billion to help states upgrade voting equipment and establish statewide voter registration databases. HAVA established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which was given the task of developing guidelines to assist states in spending federal funds on voting systems and with establishing a new process for certifying voting equipment.

All this was supposed to have happened in time for the 2004 elections, but George W. Bush didn't nominate the EAC commissioners until the fall of 2003, and Congress appropriated just a fraction of the agency's intended budget in its first fiscal year. As a result, new guidelines were only released in December 2005 and plans for the new testing and certification process are just now taking shape.

With all the delays, almost every state applied for a waiver of the original 2004 deadline for HAVA compliance, until the first federal election in 2006. While some states long ago completed their voting system upgrades, many are still scrambling to meet the requirements.

A Boon for the Voting Biz —HAVA marked the first time that the federal government had ever provided funding for the administration of elections, and it was recognized as an unprecedented sales opportunity for the voting industry. With such an opportunity unlikely to occur again, there was little incentive to develop "better" machines and every incentive to sell as many machines as possible, especially if those machines required expensive ongoing programming and maintenance. Voting machine manufacturers were eager to promote Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines, particularly the new "touch-screen" models, as the solution to all the problems ever faced by an election official. Few of those officials had the technological or financial resources to evaluate, independently, the merits of the industry's multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, and officials in many states erroneously believed that HAVA required them to replace all of their voting equipment with paperless DREs.

Experience has now demonstrated what the voting industry no doubt knew in 2002: elections using DREs are significantly more expensive—and therefore more lucrative for vendors—than those using paper ballots.

And while they're more expensive, they are not necessarily better. Even before HAVA set off a spending frenzy for new equipment, computer scientists and public interest groups were voicing serious criticism of electronic voting machines. In 2003, Johns Hopkins and Rice University researchers concluded that the software used in electronic voting systems lacked "even the most minimal security standards," and warned that "as a society, we must carefully consider the risks inherent in electronic voting, as it places our very democracy at risk." That same year, ninety scientists from universities and laboratories across the nation signed a "Resolution on Electronic Voting," stating that "computerized voting equipment is inherently subject to programming error, equipment malfunction, and malicious tampering."

YOUR INVISIBLE VOTE—Fundamental to the argument against electronic voting is that there is no opportunity to observe the counting of votes. When using DREs, the recording and counting of votes is performed by software—software that is considered "proprietary" by the voting machine vendors, and that is therefore kept secret even from election officials. Not only is the software secret, but the process by which it is tested and the results of that testing are also secret. The laboratories that test the software and hardware are paid by the vendors, but of course all these financial transactions are—you guessed it—secret.

So perhaps its not surprising that there are hundreds of reported incidences of malfunctioning electronic voting machines in every election cycle—and those are just the errors that have been identified. After all, we are talking about computers. And they are computers that sit in warehouses for 364 days a year and then face maximum use for thirteen hours in an election. If my laptop freezes, I risk losing unsaved changes to whatever I'm writing. When an electronic voting machine malfunctions, it is the integrity of democracy that is lost. The absence of a complete meltdown of the system is little comfort. Electronic voting is inherently non-transparent. You simply have to trust the machines.

In November 2004, over 50 million Americans—almost 40 percent of all voters—cast their ballots on machines that offered no independent means of verification. There's no way to know if their votes were recorded as the voter intended.

THE FIGHT FOR REFORM—Before the ink on HAVA was dry, legislation was being written at the federal level to amend it so that safeguards could be put in place against the demonstrated security risks posed by electronic voting. In particular Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, a bill that would mandate that all voting systems produce or require the use of a permanent paper record of every vote. It would also require a random hand-counted audit of 2 percent of the ballots cast in federal elections as back-up verification for the accuracy of electronic tabulation. Holt's bill would also prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless-communication devices in voting machines.

But even though the bill has over 160 bipartisan co-sponsors, Representative Bob Ney (R-OH), until recently the powerful chairman of the House Administration Committee, had kept it buried without a hearing for three years, along with every other election reform proposal. Ney, one of the principal authors of HAVA, was recently forced to resign his chairmanship as a result of his link to the Abramoff investigation. Election reform activists are hopeful that that the new chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) will be more open to reform. Ehlers was responsible for the language in HAVA requiring improved voting system testing standards and certification—improvements that have not yet been implemented due to all the delays.

While efforts to provide election safeguards have been stalled at the federal level, significant legislation has been successful in many states. Over half the states now require a voter-verified paper record of every vote, and a dozen states have provisions for a mandatory additional hand count of a percentage of the votes. Similar legislation is pending in several states during the current legislative session. Several have also addressed the problem of proprietary voting software by requiring at least a limited disclosure of source codes. Most of these new laws take effect in 2006.

DRAMAS ARE UNFOLDING—A bafflingly complex situation is developing in the country right now as this year's elections grow near. It has arisen as a result of intersecting federal mandates and new state laws; untested voting equipment; inevitable partisan politics; and, not least, a testing and certification process that is heavily influenced by the vendors that fund it. There is a drama unfolding in every state, with many states trying out their new voting systems by "beta-testing" it, while in other states it is still unclear what equipment voters will see when they go to the polls.

Read More >>

Another Republican Lobbyist to be Indicted

Mike Gehrke - March 2, 2006

This evening WMUR reported that federal prosecutors involved in the case stemming from Republicans who got caught trying to stop people from voting in the election that resulted in John Sununu going to the U.S. Senate will announce a fourth indictment. According to WMUR:

We're not sure who's going to be the next to appear here at federal court, but previous trials do give us one clear indication. According to those who've already confessed their involvement,

Washington lobbyist Darrell Henry knew exactly what was happening the day the phones were jammed in 2002.

According to McGee, after the jams were halted, he told Henry, who was in New Hampshire, volunteering his time in the Senate race between John Sununu and Jeanne Shaheen. McGee claims Henry already knew about the plot, and and offered to call some volunteers and pick up where the party left off. We were unable to locate Mr. Henry for comment.

Henry, the vice president for public affairs at the American Gas Association, took a leave of absence from his job to work for John Sununu’s campaign in 2002.

In November 2003, the Union Leader reported:

Henry said he is a longtime friend of state GOP communications director Julie Teer, who, before coming to New Hampshire last year, worked in Washington for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and the Senate Republican Conference.

[...] After the election, Henry organized a fundraiser for the NH Republican Party featuring former RNC chair Marc Racicot and Ken Mehlman, who had recently accepted the position to manage President Bush’s reelection.

[...] Two Republican officials have already pleaded guilty, and a third national Republian party staffer and Bush campaign fundraiser was found guilty. Now, another Republican lobbyist, this one a Sununu campaign staffer, could be sucked in. The RNC has already paid $3 million to defend the case, in the process blocking discovery of how many Republican officials were involved in the scheme, but this scandal continues to creep closer and closer to the top levels of the Republican party.

Read More >>

Making Every Vote Count

Governor Bill Richardson - 3.02.06

The hallmark of American democracy is one person, one vote.

The reason refugees and immigrants, students and professionals from around the world continue to flock toward our shores is because we fundamentally believe in the worth of each person. We believe “all men and all women are created equal.” We believe that regardless of gender, race, class or creed—all voices deserve respect; all voices deserve to be heard. And when it comes to elections, all votes deserve to be counted.

But is our democracy, is our hallmark principle of one person, one vote, on solid ground?

Recent elections would suggest that democracy, the greatest system of government in the world, can be broken. As the world witnessed in 2000, the sanctity of the ballot box and the integrity of our government are vulnerable. The people of the United States lost faith in the electoral process, and the covenant between citizens and elected officials deteriorated. Those national officials scrambled to pass legislation to restore voter confidence, but in 2004, inaccurate exit polls raised further doubts about electronic voting machines without a verifiable paper record.

In New Mexico, a coalition of concerned citizens demanded action. Working together with these citizens and the state legislature, I signed several laws which guarantee that every ballot is counted. New Mexico improved and standardized training for poll workers. We established statewide standards for provisional ballots to ensure that voters in low-income areas will not disenfranchised. We made absentee voting fair, simple and uniform.

And we took one more critical step to ensure one person, one vote.

On March 2, 2006, I will sign a bill that will transition New Mexico to an all paper-ballot system using optical scanners to count the vote. Paper ballots are the least expensive, most secure form of voting available. Having marked their votes with pen and paper, voters will walk out of the booth and know their voices have been heard. Optical scanners will quickly and accurately provide results, while in the event of a recount, the ballots themselves will be a permanent, verifiable record of the people’s directions to their government.

Some believe that computer touch screen machines are the future of electoral systems, but the technology simply fails to pass the test of reliability. As anyone who uses one can attest, computers break down, get viruses, lose information, and corrupt data. We know this to be the case, and so we back-up our files to ensure nothing important is lost. Paper ballots serve as the ultimate back-up for our elections, providing secure and permanent verification of the will of the people.

New Mexico has chosen paper ballots as the best system to secure our election process. With the new system in place, future elections will be secure, honest and verifiable. Every vote will count and the citizens of our state will know that their government belongs to them.

One person, one vote is in jeopardy if we do not act boldly and immediately. American citizens once took for granted that every vote mattered, but no longer. It is time that we, the elected state officials, work to restore American’s confidence in our electoral systems and undertake reform that moves to eliminate skepticism and uncertainty.

When a vote is cast, a vote should be counted. With paper ballots we will have a record. With paper ballots the fundamental principle of one person, one vote is safe.

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[If only Governor Bill Richardson were our president, this whole mess could be fixed simply and easily all over the country, just as he has done for his state. Sigh.]

The Texas Gerrymander

New York Times Editorial - 3.01.06

The redrawing of election districts in Texas in 2003, which Tom DeLay helped engineer to make the state's Congressional delegation more Republican, lands in the Supreme Court today. Democrats are asking the court to rule that the plan is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act. The court should strike down the plan. It should also use the case to set limits on this kind of politically motivated drawing of districts by both parties, a practice that is making voters increasingly irrelevant.

Texas's 2003 redistricting was an extreme case of partisan gerrymandering. The state's Congressional lines had already been redrawn once, after the 2000 census, producing additional Republican seats in a way that a federal court decided was fair. But when Republicans took control of the state government, they decided to do a highly unusual second redistricting. Democratic state legislators protested and fled the state to deny the Republicans a quorum. But Texas eventually adopted a plan that tilted the state's delegation even further in the Republicans' favor.

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DePuy: Sancho should face jury
Elections head says he has plan

Tallahassee Democrat - March 1, 2006

Leon County Commissioner Ed DePuy suggested Tuesday that a grand jury should investigate why the Supervisor of Elections Office was unable to get voting equipment for the disabled by a January deadline.

DePuy, during Tuesday's County Commission meeting, said only an impartial panel of jurors could get to the bottom of the matter. Commissioner Tony Grippa agreed, but DePuy later withdrew the request.

"I want people under oath to go in and testify as to why we can't get our act together in Leon County," DePuy said before withdrawing his motion.

Commissioner Cliff Thaell said asking for a grand jury would be "a very dangerous step." Commissioner Bob Rackleff called the idea "shameful and grotesque."

For the second time in two weeks, Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho faced a barrage of questions from DePuy and Grippa over the equipment issue. Both are upset over the loss of $564,421 in grant money because of the missed deadline and the possibility that the county will have to pay millions more than originally anticipated on new voting equipment.

The grant money, which Sancho hopes to get back, would have gone toward the purchase of voting machines that allow disabled people to vote without assistance. The federal Help America Vote Act requires the equipment in all voting locations.

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More Shocking Information Reveals
Georgia Voters Must Be Vigilant

March 1, 2006

"The people of the state of Georgia need to know the truth about the status of our right to vote," declared Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney at a recent press conference on protecting the right to vote. Joined by State Senator Gloria Butler and software expert Roxanne Jekot, the press conference illuminated unfortunate facts concerning the twin issues of ongoing legal action against the State of Georgia protecting the right of organizations to conduct voter registration drives and the Georgia's electronic voting machines that jeopardize fair elections for 2006 and beyond. Attorney Bradley Heard issued a prepared statement supporting the press conference and calling for protections for organizations wanting to conduct voter registration drives according to federal law. Mr. Heard successfully sued the State for its illegal interpretation of voter registration requirements and is in intense negotiations now with the Secretary of State after winning in Court the right for Alpha Phi Alpha to register voters in the state of Georgia according to the National Voter Registration Act.

State Senator Gloria Butler expressed grave concern about the Georgia Secretary of State's vote in favor of enforcing the Voter ID bill, already infamous nationally for being equated with a poll tax. State Senator Butler also expressed her concern about the Secretary of State's decision to approve voter registration regulations that run counter to federal law, the National Voter Registration Act, known as "Motor Voter." Senator Butler said, "It puts Democrats in a bad situation," said Senator Butler. "It took us back ten years, 20 years, rather than taking us forward."

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