Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News, FRIDAY June 30, 2006

[rumpel]

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1. GOP schemes to gut Voting Rights Act

People's Weekly World

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 06/29/06 12:17

WASHINGTON — The civil rights movement has appealed for an outpouring of messages to Congress demanding that it stop far-right Republican stalling and pass HR 9, a bipartisan bill to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for another 25 years.

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, denounced as “saboteurs” a band of ultra-right Republicans who succeeded in blocking a House vote on the bill scheduled for June 21. The bill had 152 co-sponsors and the endorsement of both the Democratic and Republican leadership. The White House claims to support HR 9 but has done little to whip the renegades into line, which suggests administration operatives may be using them as stalking horses in a covert Republican-right drive to gut the Voting Rights Act, which expires in September 2007.

“Those members who held up today’s vote represent retrograde forces that America hasn’t seen at this level since the 1960s,” Henderson charged. They are demanding termination of the law’s most effective enforcement mechanisms. This includes Section 5, which requires pre-clearance from the Justice Department for changes in voting procedures in states, counties and towns with a record of impeding minority voting rights. They also seek to terminate Justice Department monitoring of these states to insure VRA compliance.

They also demand repeal of Section 203, which requires multilingual ballots and voting information. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund urged letters, e-mails and visits to lawmakers’ offices demanding HR 9 passage without weakening it.

“Many of those trying to derail this bill represent states with the most egregious records of discrimination in voting,” MALDEF charged. Providing bilingual ballots to Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking voters is “essential to permit all eligible voters to participate fully in the democratic process by casting informed and meaningful ballots,” the group added.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9394/1/328/

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2. Reuters: Republicans slow Voting Rights Act renewal

Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:01pm ET

By Amanda Beck

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prospects for a swift renewal of the Voting Rights Act faded on Thursday as lawmakers called for new congressional hearings on the landmark civil rights law first approved in 1965.

The House leadership had expected an easy 25-year extension of the act last week but southern Republicans rebelled, objecting that their states would be subjected to special scrutiny based on the legacy of discrimination from the 1960s.

http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-06-29T230054Z_01_N29276209_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-RIGHTS.xml

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3. USA Today: Voting rights delay an affront to history

Posted 6/29/2006 6:47 PM ET

Commentary by Dorothy Height
Early in 1963, I led a diverse team of women to help a civil rights group, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, register voters in Selma, Ala. For three weeks, hundreds of young students had been arrested for their efforts to secure black voter rights and were being held in makeshift jails across the city.
Some of these black students were brought to a Baptist church under police guard. While we convened a meeting with these students, some of our colleagues, who were white, ventured into Selma to organize the city's white women leaders. But even they had no success, as attitudes were firmly entrenched and voting rights for blacks were neither protected by federal law nor actively encouraged.

Back at the church, the students told us that they had been arrested for trying to register their parents and other adults to vote. They also shared their frightening jailhouse experiences. I later asked them whether they felt any good white people lived in Selma. A young boy said wistfully, "There must be some." My group left the city the next morning, and when the courts opened, I was charged with "contributing to the delinquency of minors." By that time, I was safely in New York.

It would take two more years, and much bloodshed, before a successful civil rights march led by Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery powerfully, but peacefully, delivered the message that blacks would not be denied their right to vote. A few months later, President Johnson made that right a reality by signing the Voting Rights Act into law.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-06-29-height-edit_x.htm

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11. GA: APN Chat with Rep. John Lewis on the Voting Rights Act Renewal

By Matthew Cardinale, News Editor and National Correspondent, Atlanta Progressive News (June 29, 2006)

“I’m shocked, I’m surprised, and I’m also very saddened, to relive some of these issues over again, using some of the same language that was used in the 1950s and 1960s,” US Rep. John Lewis told Atlanta Progressive News in a phone interview.

“I think the Voting Rights Act was good and necessary in 1965 and it is still good and necessary in 2006,” Rep. Lewis said.

Congressman Lewis’s comments are in response to the fact that two Georgia Republican Congressmen delayed a US House vote on reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act just two days ago, on June 27, 2006.

HR 9, sponsored by Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI), has 152 cosponsors and was introduced May 02, 2006. It is officially called “The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act.”

On May 10, 2006, HR 9 passed the House Judiciary Committee on a vote of 33-1. The one vote against was from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. Lewis said, adding King’s opposition had been over the issue of language protections for voters who speak languages other than English. Rep. King would like to ship all illegal immigrants out of the US in buses, Rep. Lewis said; the Voting Rights Act does not apply to illegal immigrants, only to US citizens, however.

On June 20, 2006, H Res 878, sponsored by Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), from the House Rules Committee, called for HR 9 to be considered by the entire House floor.

http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0064.html

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4. WV: Raleigh won't pay until damaged voting machines are fixed

The Charlston Gazette

June 30, 2006
Election loan delay approved

By Phil Kabler
Staff writer
Members of the state Election Commission had no objections Thursday to notification that the Raleigh County Commission does not intend to repay a state loan for new voting machines until the supplier fixes a number of machines that arrived damaged or unusable.

“We have numerous booths and iVotronic devices that were damaged or not functioning properly when we received them, and they have not been repaired or replaced,” county administrator Dennis Sizemore stated in a letter to Jason Williams, Election Division manager in the secretary of state’s office.

The letter is the latest in a litany of complaints against Election Systems & Software, the Omaha, Neb.-based company that is a major supplier of new voting machines nationally.
In West Virginia during the May primary, six counties were out of compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act because handicapped-accessible machines from ES&S were not functional. Two other counties were forced to use paper ballots when they could not resolve glitches with new touch-screen machines before the May 9 primary.

Also, numerous counties, including Kanawha, had long delays tabulating votes because of glitches with new optical-scan equipment to count ballots.

http://wvgazette.com/section/News/Today/2006062923

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5. AR: 2 lawsuits question legality of Ark. primary in Phillips County

By JILL ZEMAN
Friday, June 30, 2006 6:50 AM CDT

LITTLE ROCK - The constitutionality of last month's primary elections in the majority-black Delta region and the boundaries of legislative districts in the region are questioned in a pair of lawsuits filed by Phillips County residents.

The suits, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, seek class-action status. They claim that voting problems and redrawn districts have disenfranchised black voters in Phillips County.

In one suit, filed against the Phillips County Election Commission and the secretary of state, plaintiffs argue that the May 23 Democratic primary was "farcical, incompetent, culpable both civilly and criminally under federal law, fraudulent in its inception, operation and calculation of votes relative to the plaintiffs."

A second suit accuses Gov. Mike Huckabee, the secretary of state and the attorney general of redrawing legislative districts in a way that violates the rights of black voters.

Attorney Jimmie Wilson, who also has represented the Lake View School District in the landmark school-funding case, filed both suits.

The suit specifically challenging the party primary was filed by residents who were all candidates for local offices _ such as justice of the peace, county judge and circuit clerk _ in the primary. They maintain they would have won were it not for the "gross mishandling" of the ballots and ask the court to declare the electoral process unconstitutional.

http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2006/06/30/ap-state-ar/d8iifgj05.txt

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6. DNC:Ohio Republicans Undermine Democracy By Curtailing Voter

Registration Efforts

noticias.info

/noticias.info/ The Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute's Chairperson Donna Brazile issued the following statement on Ohio's Joint Committee for Agency Rule Review's decision to uphold restrictive voter registration rules:

"This is another glaring example of Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's attempt to suppress the vote for partisan political gain. Under these restrictive rules, a greater burden would be placed on the citizens of Ohio who simply want to register and have a voice in what happens in their communities. These harmful restrictions would also work to criminalize citizen activists and civic organizations for their efforts to increase participation in the democratic process.

"Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's harmful ruling is not limited to minorities; it would also disproportionately affect students, low income communities and many other voters who look forward to enthusiastically casting their vote for the first time. These restrictive rules are designed to undermine the efforts of non-partisan groups and party activists from continuing to enfranchise the citizens of Ohio, regardless of partisan affiliation.

"This is a severe blow to Democracy and to the rights of all citizens in Ohio, who continue to be plagued by issues of voter suppression and voting irregularity. Given the problems that arose in Ohio during the 2004 election, one would think that Blackwell and the Republican majority would be working to ensure that similar voting irregularities would never happen again.

http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=195841&src=0

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20. Have to comment on this sentence:

"Given the problems that arose in Ohio during the 2004 election, one would think that Blackwell and the Republican majority would be working to ensure that similar voting irregularities would never happen again."

HERES MY TAKE DONNA...given the problems that arose in Ohio during '04 and seeing they were successful without opposition from the Democratic Party, the Repukes will be working to ensure that similar voting irregularities will happen again in Ohio and ELSEWHERE! This is why we must address the issue of election fraud!!!!!!!

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7. UN Observer: Kathy Dopp Analyses The Brennan Center Report

Kathy Dopp Analyses The Brennan Center Report on Electronic Voting in the U.S

2006-06-30 | (A "must-report" for press and a "must-read" for election officials!)

A year-long expert study of U.S. voting systems finds 100's of ways to rig U.S. voting systems and recommends solutions that virtually no states now use.

As reported by USA Today on June 27, the most comprehensive, expert report ever written on U.S. voting systems, "THE MACHINERY OF DEMOCRACY: PROTECTING ELECTIONS IN AN ELECTRONIC WORLD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY", was released by the BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE AT NYU SCHOOL OF LAW.
press release and contact information:
http://www.brennancenter.org/presscenter/releases_2006/pressrelease_2006_0627.html Executive Summary:
http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/downloads/Executive%20Summary.pdf

The Brennan Center task force evaluated voting systems of Diebold, Sequoia, Hart Intercivic, ES&S, Unilect, and Microvote In the past, local press where these systems are used, have neglected to inform voters about prior expert reports, but have repeated the lies of voting system vendors as told by election officials.

Election officials in the vast majority of states using the studied voting systems, including Utah which was mentioned in the June 27 USA Today article because some Diebold flaws were recently uncovered there and the county clerk who uncovered them was locked out of his own office when he refused to concede, have yet to implement even one of the security recommendations made in the executive summary of the Brennan report.

CORE FINDINGS

Three fundamental points emerge from the threat analysis in the Security Report:

http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=2465&blz=1

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8. CA: Vernon Abused Electoral Process by Not Counting Ballots, State

Vernon Abused Electoral Process by Not Counting Ballots, State Official Says

Los Angeles Times

California's secretary of state calls the city's inaction an 'extraordinary step' and backs a bid to strip its powers over elections.
By Hector Becerra, Times Staff Writer
June 30, 2006

The California secretary of state contends that Vernon is abusing the electoral process by refusing to count ballots from its disputed April election and is backing an effort to strip the city's power to administer elections for two years.

Secretary of State Bruce McPherson called on Vernon to count the ballots, describing the stalemate as bizarre and legally questionable.

"This is an egregious abuse of the process," he said in a letter to a lawmaker in support of temporarily wresting electoral control from Vernon.

Although McPherson controls all statewide elections, he has no authority over voting in Vernon or other cities. But he is the highest-ranking state official to publicly question Vernon's tactics.

McPherson said California election codes state that if balloting is disputed, the votes can either be recounted or contested. But not counting the votes at all, he said, is an "extraordinary step."

Vernon, an industrial town of only 91 residents, has refused to count the ballots since the April 11 election, saying three challengers and their roommates were not residents and should not have been allowed to register to vote or run for office.

Attorneys for the city have argued that the ballots need to remain unopened and uncounted to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of the city and against it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-vernon30jun30,1,925815.story?coll=la-news-politics-california

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9. Military: The Do's and Don'ts during an election year

dcmilitary.com

June 30, 2006

by Rima Silenas
Base Legal Office

Editor's note: This is part 3 of a 3-part series on military personnel and political activity during an election year.

Military members actions during an election year are very specific. They can vote, and give a personal opinion on political candidates and issues (vice as a representative of the Air Force), and they can give money to political organizations or committees favoring a candidate or slate of candidates (just not on government property). They can join political clubs and go to political meetings or rallies while off duty and not in uniform. With chain of command permission, military people can serve as an election official when the activity is not partisan, doesn't interfere with military duties, and is accomplished in civilian clothes. They can sign petitions for specific legislative action, or to get a candidate's name on an official election ballot, as long as the signature doesn't obligate them to engage in partisan political activity and is done in a private capacity. Military folks can write a letter to the editor, giving your personal views regarding public issues, as long as they do not attempt to promote a partisan political cause. And you can have a political bumper sticker on your private vehicle on the bumper, or wear a political button, when not in uniform and not on duty such as on a baseball cap or lapel at an off-duty sporting event.

http://www.dcmilitary.com/airforce/beam/11_35/commentary/42253-1.html

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10. GA: Voting right on Voting Rights

The Sunday Paper

By Diane Loupe

More than 40 years ago, there were certain places in the country that had some problems with allowing democracy to work the way it was supposed to. In Georgia, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, the Department of Justice found enough voting irregularities—mostly related to black voters’ access to the poles—to prompt it to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which prohibited those states from enacting any new laws affecting voting without the consent of the DOJ. The DOJ would only give such approval if it determined that the changes did not have a discriminatory purpose and would not have a discriminatory effect. The department could also appoint federal examiners and even elections monitors to make sure that everyone qualified to vote was free to do so.

Under the Act, there are also counties in New York, California, Florida, North Carolina and South Dakota that are subject to special scrutiny, as are certain towns in Michigan and New Hampshire.

But many Republicans and even some Democrats in Congress have for more than a month now stalled the vote on renewing the act which would mean that it would go into effect for another 25 years. They claim that it’s time to stop punishing states, counties and towns for sins committed more than 40 years ago. Nationally, all eyes are on Georgia where the issue is especially intense because the state’s new voter ID law, just passed in this year’s legislative session, may very well be affected by the renewal—or non-renewal—of the federal act.

http://www.sundaypaper.com/NEWS/News/NewsArchives/tabid/202/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1588/070206-News.aspx

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12. FL: Group aims to register voters (announcement)

The News-Press

Originally posted on June 30, 2006

The Lee County Elections Office Community Awareness Program (CAP) and Beasley Broadcasting’s 99X will hold voter registration drives at several locations through July 4. CAP staff will register people to vote, update voter information, accept absentee ballot requests and provide election information at the following locations:


When: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, June 30
Where: Hooters (just north of Colonial Blvd.) in Fort MyersThis drive will accompany the 99X Drain Your Vein blood drive.

more
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060630/NEWS0110/60629052/1075

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13. NV: News Laws Put Squeeze on Election Fraud

June 29, 2006 08:39 PM

Political parties and special interest groups are ramping up registration drives. But this year some new laws should make outright fraud more difficult.

The changes are not going to jump out at the average voter. After some past problems with voter registration forms not being turned into election officials, a new form should be easier to trace in the event of trouble.

There's a tear-off receipt at the bottom, and the person collecting the form is required to write his or her name.

"You should get a voter registration card in the mail in about two weeks. if you don't call the Clark County election services and they should be able to find out what happened with your card.," said Jason Fromoltz, Nevada Democratic Party.

Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax says it's to prevent fraud. "In which case if a voter calls us and complains they are not registered and we say we never got the form theoretically the voter can look at his stub and get the name of the person who allegedly registered him," Lomax said.

http://www.klastv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5098722&nav=168Y

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14. OK: Friday deadline for voter registration (reminder)

The Sun

Published: June 28, 2006 01:19 pm

Friday, June 30 is the last day to apply for voter registration in order to be eligible to vote in the July 25 state and county primary elections.

Persons who are U.S. citizens, residents of Oklahoma and at least 18 years old, may apply to become a register voter.

Persons who have never registered to vote before or who are not currently registered in the county of their residence and persons who are registered but need to change their registration information may apply to register or to change their name or address by filling out and mailing an Oklahoma Voter Registration Application form in time for it to be postmarked no later than Friday, June 30.

Applications postmarked after that time will be accepted and processed, but the application will not be approved until after July 25. Change of political affiliation is prohibited until Sept. 1.

http://www.mwcsun.com/local/local_story_179131947.html

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15. Kathy Dopp: Controversy between LWV members & leadership

(Controversy strikes the US League of Women Voters. The US LWV's Leadership is apparently trying to suppress the news that their membership passed this resolution by voting 62% vote in favor of it. The LWV is now one of seven major organizations that support routine audits of vote counts, including the Brennan Center, Verified Voting Foundation, The Carter-Baker Election Reform Commission, the US Government Accountability Office, NSF-funded project ACCURATE, and the National Election Data Archive). Why doesn't the US LWV leadership not openly support verifiably accurate elections that its members voted for??

The full exact text of the new US LWV resolution as passed by its membership at the Summer 2006 Convention in June:
http://www.lwvmosaic.org/ <http://www.lwvmosaic.org/>

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16. OH: Companies Involved In May Primary Place Blame On BOE

Board Of Elections Blames Voting Machine Maker For Poll Problems

POSTED: 6:37 pm EDT June 29, 2006
UPDATED: 7:20 pm EDT June 29, 2006
CLEVELAND -- Representatives from several companies involved in the May 2 primary appeared before a three-member panel Thursday to answer questions about what went wrong.
NewsChannel5 reported that the panel is not calling it finger-pointing but it seemed that way during the hearing: The new and old ballot-printing companies are pointing the finger at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, and the board of elections is pointing at Diebold, the company that made the voting machines.
Dayton Legal Blank Inc. previously printed the ballots for Cuyahoga County before the company lost the bid to Marketing Communication Resource. Both companies said that board of elections workers procrastinate.
"It was a very contentious subject. We struggled with Cuyahoga County on meeting timelines," said Legal Blank President David Keller.
The major problems on May 2 were with the optical scan voting machines. Results for the county were delayed six days when roughly 18,000 absentee ballots had to be hand counted and some Election Day workers were insufficiently trained or absent, NewsChannel5 reported.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/9449886/detail.html

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17. CA: No more blind trust in unverifiable elections

Article Launched: 06/30/2006 04:15:41 AM PDT

My Word by Dave Berman

My beef with elections has never been about winners and losers. The problem I've always addressed is that “We The People” accept that a winner and loser could even be determined from election conditions that ensure the true outcome cannot be known. This is not a partisan perspective, nor even a skeptic's point of view, per se, but rather that of empirical science, which has precise parameters for determining proof. I call it a basis for confidence.

During the next federal election, as with the last, about 30 percent of votes will be cast on paperless electronic machines (DREs). This is the most obvious of all the election issues to understand -- if there is no way to recount the votes, how can we know for sure who won? For those inclined to simply “trust” the machines, realize that they are programmed in secret, by corporations who shield them from scrutiny with claims of proprietary privilege. You can choose to trust, but the conditions offer no basis for confidence, no proof by any definition, that the reported results match the will of the people.

Sometimes local Humboldt media will brush off a story if the local relevance is not immediately apparent. The whole of Congress, as well as the presidency, surely have a real impact on the lives of all in our community. The legitimacy of voting in federal elections, regardless of where the ballots are cast, has local consequences here. DREs in use elsewhere do matter in Humboldt.

http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_3998307

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18. Diebold/Utah - Investor PR

Mississippi and Utah Successfully Deploy Touch-Screen Voting From Diebold Election Systems

Voter acceptance of the touch-screen system overwhelmingly positive

ALLEN, Texas, June 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Voters throughout the state of Utah and in 77 of 82 counties in Mississippi successfully used Diebold Election Systems' AccuVote-TSx touch-screen voting machines to securely cast their ballots during elections held Tuesday, June 27. More than 13,000 Diebold touch-screen voting stations featuring voter-verified paper audit trail printers have been purchased for use by the two states.

Diebold's AccuVote-TSx touch-screens also enabled voters in Mississippi and Utah who are blind or physically challenged to make candidate selections and cast their ballots privately and independently, meeting Help America Vote Act requirements. Voter reaction to the touch-screen technology was extremely positive, and election officials from both states praised the operation of the system.

In Utah, the touch-screen units were used in the state's June 27 primary election. The machines were also effectively used during the first early- voting process in Utah's history, conducted during the two weeks prior to Election Day at county clerks' offices and satellite locations.

"We are extremely pleased with the performance of the Diebold touch screen system and the overall high level of support provided by the company," stated Utah Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert. "The broad acceptance of the new voting system by the voters of Utah was very gratifying, as numerous voters stated they found the voting process extremely easy to use and very intuitive."

http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20060629/CLTH04829062006-1.html

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19. WA: State purges 848 felons from voter rolls

The Olympian

Published June 30, 2006

By RACHEL LA CORTE

The Associated Press

Forty-three Thurston County residents were among more than 800 felons still in prison or under state supervision who have been removed from the state's voting rolls, Secretary of State Sam Reed announced Thursday.

The purge of 848 people is the result of the first statewide screening for illegally registered felons since the new statewide voter database was launched in January.

"People need to know we are going after this very aggressively," Reed said. "We want them to know there's integrity in the voter registration system."

Those who completed their prison sentences and only owe court-ordered fines were not removed, pending a decision by the state Supreme Court on the state's appeal of a King County judge's March ruling that released felons can't be kept from voting simply because of unpaid fines and fees.

http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060630/NEWS06/606300312

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21. HI: Changed Voting Act could affect isle elections

Honolulu Star Bulletin

By Mark Niesse
Associated Press
Hawaii, a state without a history of voting discrimination complaints, could become the only state fully covered by a law requiring federal oversight of elections.

A proposed amendment to the Voting Rights Act would change the law to apply to states with less than half of eligible voters going to the polls in any of the last three presidential elections.

Hawaii had the lowest voter turnout in the nation in the last two presidential elections, with 44 percent of the eligible voting-age population voting in 2000 and 51 percent in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

No other state had fewer than 50 percent of its citizens vote, so the act, if amended, would apply only to Hawaii as a state. It would still apply to individual counties in other states that have low turnout.

The Voting Rights Act, passed by Congress in 1965 and primarily aimed at ending abuses that prevented black citizens from voting, is now up for renewal in the U.S. House.

The amendment, proposed by Georgia Republican Rep. Charlie Norwood, has been passed out of the House Rules Committee for consideration by the full House. There is no guarantee it will be attached to the final bill.

"We're concerned over whether or not there is a correlation between turnout and perceived violations" if the amendment passes, said Rex Quidilla, Hawaii's voting services coordinator. "The elections process in Hawaii has a long reputation of being open, honest and secure."

http://starbulletin.com/2006/06/30/news/story06.html

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22. WAPO: Judge Rebuffs Md. Early Voting Petition

Washington Post

By KRISTEN WYATT
Associated Press
Friday, June 30, 2006; 10:54 AM

ANNAPOLIS -- A Republican-backed effort to stop early voting this fall got a setback Friday when a judge denied the group's attempt to keep a petition drive alive.

The group, Marylanders for Fair Elections, is trying to put on ballots the question of whether early voting should be allowed. Early voting became law this year when the Democratic legislature overrode a veto by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich, who has argued that a week of voting will make the ballots vulnerable to fraud.

Marylanders for Fair Elections turned in its first batch of required signatures -- equal to 1 percent of qualified voters -- on May 31. But elections officials found that the group narrowly missed the required threshold for one measure in the petition drive, the early voting law. (A separate petition on a bill setting up polling places for early voting cleared the required number.)

The voting group asked a judge to intervene. But Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Paul Hackner ruled Friday that the group's argument -- that signatures on a petition drive don't have to be validated until the end of the drive -- is "nonsensical."

"It just doesn't make any sense to say it isn't a petition until it's 100 percent complete," Hackner said.

Marylanders for Fair Elections, headed by Tom Roskelly, vowed an appeal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006063000532.html

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23. MD: Republicans complete petition protesting early voting

Laura Greenback, The Examiner
Jun 30, 2006 7:00 AM (6 hrs ago)

Howard County - The Howard County Republican Central Committee has collected more signatures than required for its petition protesting early voting — in time for today’s deadline.

“We’re on the right track toward defeating this,” said John Wafer, a Republican committee member who orchestrated the drive.

About 4,000 Howard County residents signed the petition — 400 more than the committee’s original goal of 3,600 — in opposition to the new state law that allows five days of early voting at certain locations beginning with the November election.

The measure disenfranchises Republican voters because all three Howard County sites are in the Democrat-centered Eastern portion of the county, according to Brian Harlin, chairman of the Howard County Republican Central Committee.

However, early voting was intended to give people more opportunities to vote, said Bill Woodcock, member of the Howard County Democratic Central Committee.

http://www.examiner.com/a-164406~Republicans_complete_petition_protesting_early_voting.html

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24. Rivals try to keep voters' attention

Goldsboro News-Argus

A protest filed in the Republican primary for the District 10 seat in the state House will be heard July 12 by the state Board of Elections.

In the meantime, the two candidates involved have been trying to keep their campaigns from going dormant while the issue is up in the air.

While Willie Ray Starling has continued to hit the campaign trail, Stephen LaRoque has been in Raleigh, where, as the incumbent, he has been involved in developing a state budget.

Starling won the May primary by a handful of votes. But LaRoque filed a protest, saying some voters were not properly instructed at the polls and were not permitted to cast their ballot for him.

The district includes all of Greene, most of Lenoir and the east central portion of Wayne County. The protest was filed in Lenoir County and passed on to the state board by the Lenoir County Board of Elections.

Both candidates said their campaigns have been held back by the delay. Some voters uncertain of which man will face Democrat Van Braxton of Kinston in November have been understandably hesitant to completely endorse either, they said.

http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2006/06/30/rivals_try_to_keep_voters_attention/index.shtml

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25. AZ: Candidate to fight ballot challenge

PHOENIX Republican gubernatorial candidate Gary Tupper said today he has retained a lawyer and will contest a challenge in fellow G-O-P candidate Mike Harris challenge to Tupper's eligibility to be on the September primary ballot.

Harris on Wednesday filed a lawsuit alleging that Tupper's nominating petitions did not include enough signatures from Gila County, one of the three required counties that Tupper selected.

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5101211&nav=HMO6

[kpete]

26. Elections Are Still Stolen the Old-Fashioned Way

Elections Are Still Stolen the Old-Fashioned Way

By Steven Rosenfeld, TomPaine.com. Posted June 30, 2006.

Progressives tend to be distracted by electronic voting machines when old-style election thuggery is the bigger problem.

What's a bigger problem with American elections: disenfranchisment of minority voters or new electronic voting machines stealing votes?

Most people on the political left will answer electronic machines. But last week, House Republicans showed America exactly why old-school election thuggery is a far more pressing problem. In fact, it was Jim Crow tactics, not computer hacking, which gave George W. Bush his Ohio victory in 2004. And such tactics are exactly what a handful of southern GOP congressmen defended on Wednesday when they derailed renewing the National Voting Rights Act, complaining it does not end federal oversight of elections in their states and requires multilingual ballots.

These Republicans want elections in their states to return to the good old days, when mostly white people voted -- just substitute registered Republicans in 2006 -- and ballots were only in English -- no Español, por favor. Their grassroots rebellion reveals a dirty secret about elections that liberals and Democrats still haven't learned from the 2004 presidential race: The GOP wins elections by targeting likely Democrats, especially minorities and new voters, by creating barriers in voter registration and obstacles to voting itself and ballot counting.

more at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/38119/

[VLAD THE AGITATOR]

31. ELECTIONS ARE STILL STOLEN

All that is written about the stealing of elections is true, but there is other ways to steal elections, this being the slection of the candidates. We, voters, are given a choice of rich elitist, chosen not by the voters; these candidates are chosen by the elite and told to particicpate. In this way the capitalist system will always be the winner, for any candidate that has a anti-capitalist stance is given barriers that are hard to overcome, thus eliminating them and only good capitalist are left for the voters to chose. This is a democracy in name only. THis is NOT the will of the people, but the will of the elite, with a false face of legitimacy.

Would you, as a job seeker spend $1 million to land a $50,000 a year job? Of course not, look at the money spent on landing a political job.

I guess it is true, that American democracy is the best money can buy.

[rumpel]

27. Bradblog: San Diego Union-Tribune (Mis)reports Busby/Bilbray Election

Concerns, Wednesday's Townhall Meeting (Which They Didn't Attend)

Paper Wastes No Time in Getting Story Wrong, Right From the First Sentence…And Going Downhill from There…
It's still remarkable how many in the MSM regard bloggers as "unreliable"…even as they get story after story wrong and report unsubstantiated, unverifiable nonsense as fact.

I wrote early on in the Busby/Bilbray election results saga about AP (and all the rest) reporting that Brian Bilbray had won the election. They did so without a shred of evidence to prove that assertion.

Yesterday, the San Diego Union-Tribune's John Marelius jumped in to report on the Busby/Bilbray fiasco (where the world's most hackable voting machines were sent home overnight with poll workers days and weeks before the election, to be stored in their cars and garages or who-knows-where in violation of both state and federal laws, effectively decertifying all of the voting machines used in that U.S. House special election.).

Here's how the U-T article began :

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3019

[Wilms]

28. Study: Fed 'Guidelines' Imperil E-Voting Security

Study: Fed 'Guidelines' Imperil E-Voting Security

By Michael Hickins

June 28, 2006

snip

Key members of the Technical Guidance Development Committee (TGDC) that drafted federal guidelines for designing and testing electronic voting machines admit that significant flaws in the machines could be exploited by hackers to change the outcome of local or national elections.

Whitney Quesenbery, a member of the TGDC, warned that the credibility of the electoral process would be irreparably damaged if election officials were unable to disprove an allegation that a system had been hacked. "We don't want to have a mass experiment," she told internetnews.com. "But indeed that's what we're doing."

Some of the most respected names in cryptography and cyber security say that the TGDC's guidelines fail to mandate any independent means of verifying results.

snip

According to Quesenbery, the less-than-ideal guidelines were published because of political expediency and infighting between members responsible for drawing up the security section of the VVSG. Quesenbery told internetnews.com that the guidelines skirted important issues, not for substantive reasons, but at least in part because its members were riven by internal dissention. "Voices were pretty loud on both sides," she said.

snip

One of the flaws, according to experts, is that voting machines are enabled with wireless communication devices. They maintain that wireless features can be used on Election Day to trigger malware that has been hidden in the machine's source code. Despite being aware of this vulnerability, the TGDC did not ban wireless features, because many jurisdictions already use voting machines with those functions, said Quesenbery. "There simply weren't enough votes" to decertify machines that are currently in use, she said.

snip

Quesenbery said there has always been a question whether the group was to be writing the best standards possible or writing standards that ensure existing machines will remain. "And would VVSG 2005 end up disqualifying machines that had passed VVSG 2002 and, you know, it's pretty obvious the way those debates went," she added.

snip

Paul Degregorio, chairman of the EAC, defended the VVSG, saying that the voting systems are secure. The ones with wireless capabilities, he said, are able to transmit results but cannot receive any transmissions, thus making them impervious to manipulation.

But Lance Gough, executive director of the Chicago Board of Elections, admitted that the machine in use in Chicago does receive wireless acknowledgment of receipt on Election Day.

snip

Rivest also expressed the hope that the study, "will pave the way for widespread adoption of better safeguards."

So why haven't they been adopted?

Davidson of the EAC said she was aware of the study while writing the guidelines, but said it was discussed too late in the process for its recommendations to be included in the VVSG.

But TGDC meeting minutes show that NIST staffer John Kelsey, one of the Brennan Center study authors, presented results of the study to the committee in September 2005, three months before the VVSG was published.

snip

http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3616656


Thanks to John Gideon and Brad Friedman

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3020


Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x437551

[Wilms]

29. Yolo County, CA Registrar Says e-Voting Should Not Be Used If Not Secure

Yolo County, CA Registrar on Voting Machine Sleepovers: 'If E-Voting Systems can't be secured, perhaps they ought not be used at all. Period.'

Registrar Freddie Oakley Speaks Out on the Busby/Bilbray Controversy and the Crisis Concerning Deployment of Hackable Electronic Voting Systems…

BY Brad

6/30/2006

snip

As an election official, I understand the practical issues involved here perfectly. However, I am strongly of the opinion that it is exactly this kind of practical issue that should give election officials serious reservations about deploying electronic voting machines. If, as a practical matter, they can't be secured, then perhaps they ought not be used at all. Period. Until the impediment can be removed. Which, of course, can be accomplished with some original administrative thinking. Which will not occur until feet are put to the fire.

I think the business of machine sleepovers is very, very serious. And I think it may provide a useful P.R. issue. I am thinking of hiring Matt Bishop to be a poll worker and sending a machine home with him for a sleepover. I wonder what he could achieve over a long weekend?

As to the first requirement — election official shall maintain custody — that is easily satisfied if poll workers are deputized before the machines are placed in their custody. My colleagues argue that we have "always sent paper ballots home with poll workers…" True, but paper has such quaint trackability… They also argue that, "We have to trust our poll workers…" To this I can only say…only if they are incorruptible.

Freddie Oakley
Yolo County, CA Clerk-Recorder

snip

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3017


Discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x437554

[autorank]

30. Of coiurse "I'm sure I want to recommend this thread!"

:evilgrin: