Happy New Year! Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Tuesday 1/1/08!

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News Tuesday 1/1/08

May Each of you have a Joyous and Prosperous New Year Filled with Much Better Candidates gaining office in all of our 50 states plus the territories! May we sweep corruption from our government and be gentle with ourselves while we work on this together. I'm thinking and praying for a world filled with Peace, Hope and Care for one another. I honor each of you out there working to make the world a better place. Thanks for all you do, DU!:yourock: :grouphug:

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.

Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.

If you can:

1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.

2. Post stories on Election Fraud and Reform News using this directory
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x407240

3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.

4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.



If you want to know how post "News Banners" or other images, go here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=371233#371391



Please "Recommend" for the Greatest Page (it's the link just below).

Date problems already...I think they meant 2008!

News 2007: Looking Ahead
Presidential drama


Get ready to be trampled by presidential candidates. Ohio is once again expected to be one of, if not the, most important battleground state in the 2008 presidential election. If it's anything like 2004, the candidates should stop here practically weekly for money or votes.

Other heated elections

Ohioans will also pick congressional members, state representatives and county commissioners - and the races should be hot. The congressional races are already under way, the General Assembly could flip from Republican to Democratic control, and with three-person county commissions, anything could happen. There should be a few interesting statewide referenda to boot - on casinos and sick leave, for starters. And to make it even more interesting, there's talk of revamping voting machines.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080101/NEWS01/801010341/-1/CINCI

Elections official says touch screens no problem locally
By Taylor Atkins
The Capital-Journal
Published Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Critical flaws found in electronic voting machines are forcing officials across the country to consider a return to the paper ballot format, deemed unfavorable after the Florida voting scandal in 2000.

But it is a move Shawnee County doesn't have to make, said Elizabeth Ensley, county election commissioner. Though the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which required electronic voting equipment in every precinct by 2006, brought touch screen machines to town more than a year ago, county voters still prefer paper.



Anthony S. Bush / The Capital-Journal
Shawnee County election commissioner Elizabeth Ensley says electronic voting machines aren't as popular as regular paper ballots.
"They use the paper ballot more," Ensley said. "But in different elections and at different precincts, we were surprised by the higher use of the touch screen."

http://cjonline.com/stories/010108/loc_230652995.shtml

Tests in Ohio Point to E-voting Insecurities

December 31, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A series of tests on the electronic voting systems used in Ohio showed that security shortcomings are a continuing danger to the accuracy of elections there, according to a report released in December by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

The report recommended a series of steps designed to mitigate those threats, including centralizing the counting of electronic votes and shifting away from the use of touch-screen voting systems.

Brunner had requested the risk assessment tests, which were conducted by two testing firms that worked along with teams of academic researchers from three universities. Her report described the results of the tests as “disturbing.”

“These findings do not lend themselves to sustained or increased confidence in Ohio’s voting systems,” Brunner wrote. She noted that the e-voting machines “do not meet computer industry security standards and are susceptible to breaches of security that may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process.” A spokesman for Brunner said that the recommendations made in the report “are in no way set in stone. They’re being put out there to contemplate.”

The vendors whose systems were tested include Election Systems & Software Inc., Hart InterCivic Inc. and Premier Election Solutions Inc., which was formerly called Diebold Election Systems Inc. The three vendors didn’t dispute the need for such tests but defended their systems. For example, a spokesman for Hart Inter­Civic said tests often evaluate e-voting systems that have been certified in previous years and are then criticized for not meeting new security requirements.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=government&articleId=309799&taxonomyId=13&intsrc=kc_top

Election theft won't be tolerated: Obama
CAUCUSES | 'The nice thing is, I'm a voting-rights attorney'

January 1, 2008
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com
JEFFERSON, Iowa -- White House hopeful Barack Obama came out swinging Monday when asked if he would fight another "stolen presidential election" like some Democrats believe happened the last two times.

But his "fighting" stance contrasts sharply with the vote he took on his very first day in the U.S. Senate where he joined the 74-1 majority voting not to challenge President Bush's disputed victory in Ohio. The Congressional Black Caucus urged him to be the second "yes" vote, but he declined.

At a town hall meeting in rural Jefferson on Monday, undecided voter Bruce Banister, 56, asked Obama, "The last two presidential elections have been very dirty, and for me there have been very serious questions about whether George Bush was even legally elected. I want to know if we have another dirty election and you are the candidate, if you think it is dirty, will you back off like Gore and Kerry did or will you fight?"

Obama replied, "I intend to whoop 'em so good that it won't even be close and they can't steal the election."

snip
Then Obama gave the hard-charging answer Banister was looking for: "If for any reason this thing is close, we will fight it tooth and nail till the end. The nice thing is, I'm a voting-rights attorney as well as a civil rights attorney."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/721461,CST-NWS-iowa01.article

GOP In Kansas Admits To Vote Caging

And Democrats in the state of Kansas are accusing the Republican Party of trying to put together a list of voters to challenge on Election Day. In an e-mail message sent to state Republicans, Kansas Republican Party Chair Kris Kobach admitted the party is engaged in vote caging, a direct form of voter supression. In the email message, Kobach wrote: “To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years.” The Lawrence Journal World and News reports one form of vote caging is when a political party sends registered mail to an address of a registered voter. If the mail is returned as undeliverable, the voter will be challenged by the party as having a fraudulent voter registration. In the past, there have been reported incidents of caging lists targeting predominantly minority districts that tend to vote for Democrats.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/28/headlines#11

Thanks to Wilms for the post and the DU discussion here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x488341

Original message
"Everybody is starting to look at this now and starting to realize that there is something wrong."

Electronic voting is questioned
By George Merritt
Associated Press Writer / December 31, 2007

snip

"Every system that is out there, one state or another has found that they are no good," said John Gideon of the advocacy group Voters Unite. "Everybody is starting to look at this now and starting to realize that there is something wrong."

The swing states of California, Ohio and Florida have found that security on touch-screen voting machines is inadequate. Testers have been able to disable the systems and even change vote totals.

snip

In Colorado, two kinds of Sequoia Voting Systems electronic voting machines used in Denver and three other counties were decertified because of security weaknesses, including a lack of password protection. Equipment made by Election Systems and Software had programming errors. And optical scanning machines, made by Hart InterCivic, had an error rate of one out of every 100 votes during tests by the state.

snip

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/12/31/electronic_voting_is_questioned/

Company Share Prices Hit New 7-Year Low, Lucky Corporate Officers Who Sold at Year's High Avoid Insider Trading Charges (So Far)

At least someone's bringing some accountability of some sort this year....

Looks like our old friends at Diebold have left us with an end-of-year gift, as their share prices continued tumbling today to close the year at $28.98/share. Just a smidgeon above their 5-year 7-year low set earlier in the day. (DBD stock hasn't been this worthless since April of 2001.)

But, as we reported in our recent summary of the years-long undoing of one of America's worst voting machine companies (we know, it's a close contest), there has yet to be any accountability, for the company insiders who, with stunningly fortuitous coincidental timing, just happened to sell off thousands of shares at $53.04 last August.

More:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5499

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama says he would fight "tooth and nail" if the 2008 U.S. presidential were close and "dirty" as the last two.

At a town hall meeting in Jefferson, Iowa, undecided voter Bruce Banister asked Obama if he would challenge the election "if you think it is dirty," or if he would back away, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday.

Obama said he would win by such a margin "that it won't even be close and they can't steal the election."

But if results were close as in the 2000 and 2004 election, Obama said "(We) will fight it tooth and nail till the end."

More:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/167346.html

A new study shows that poor, elderly and minority voters were not discouraged from voting where a voter ID requirement was in place, and the conclusion has supporters in Arkansas looking at again proposing a similar law.

A bill before the Legislature during the 2007 session did not make it out of committee, in part because of the argument that requiring voters to show photo identification would discourage voting among minorities, the poor and the elderly.

The study by a professor at the University of Missouri indicates that the requirement does not affect voter turnout.

"You're required to have a photo ID to get a library card, buy a video from Blockbuster and get on an airplane, but you're not (to vote) for president of the United States. How sad is that?" said Rep. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, who co-sponsored the Arkansas bill last session.

More:
http://www.pbcommercial.com/articles/2008/01/01/ap-state-ar/d8tt6o3g0.txt

My comment: or should it have been titled "The Vendors Strike Back"?

snip

"We look at each other and go, 'We have used this equipment in three elections. Why did it get taken to a test board and get decertified?"' said Debbie Green, who heads the Colorado County Clerks Association and is the clerk and recorder of rural Park County. "There are some counties having elections in January and February and they don't have any election equipment."

Vendors of the electronic voting machines warn against a rush back to paper.

It can take two years to put a voting system in place, and overhauling a system just weeks before some states hold presidential primaries will invite a new round of problems, they say.

"To throw the baby out with the bath water is certainly shortsighted," said David Beirne, executive director of the Election Technology Council, which represents manufacturers of 90 percent of electronic systems used in the country.

States have their own certification standards, complicating things for manufacturers. "From an industry standpoint, trying to design a voting system when you don't know how it's being judged is causing a lot of problems," Beirne said.

And having a paper ballot does not guarantee security.

"If you look at the history of election fraud, you are really talking about paper," said Merle King, executive director of the Center for Election Systems at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

More:
http://thereporter.com/news/ci_7855146

Goodness Gracious! First elections and they start out with voting machines! arghhh!!!

India hails first ever elections in Bhutan

New Delhi (PTI): India on Tuesday hailed the successful conduct of first-ever general elections in Bhutan and expressed readiness to support its transition to a democratic constitutional monarchy.

"This is indeed a great moment in Bhutan's history and an important step in Bhutan's transition to a new system of governance," External Affairs Ministry said in a statement while commenting on yesterday's elections to the National Council (Upper House).

"India is committed to extending full support in the establishment of institutions required for the consolidation of democratic constitutional monarchy in Bhutan," it said.

India shared its resources and experience with Bhutan in holding the elections and assisting the neighbour by supplying electronic voting machines.

The Election Commission of India had deputed three election observers and Indian security agencies have been cooperating with their Bhutanese counterparts in maintaining law and order in the border areas.



http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200801012240.htm

Benazir Bhutto was poised to reveal proof that Pakistan's election commission and shadowy spy agency were seeking to rig an upcoming general election the night she was assassinated, a top aide said on Tuesday.

Senator Latif Khosa, who authored a 160-page dossier with Bhutto documenting rigging tactics, said they ranged from intimidation to fake ballots, and were in some cases unwittingly funded by U.S. aid.

Bhutto had been due to give the report to two visiting U.S. lawmakers over dinner on Dec. 27, the day she was killed in a suicide bombing.

"The state agencies are manipulating the whole process," Khosa, a top Bhutto aide and head of her Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, told Reuters.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSCOL20360

An uneasy calm hung over Kenya's townships today, as pressure mounts on President Mwai Kibaki for an investigation into his controversial election victory. International critics include the European Union, which says the vote was flawed, and fell well below expected standards. With the rioting dying down, shops re-opened, allowing people to resume something like normal lives.

The former colonial power, Britain, has refused to welcome Kibaki's victory; the United States initially congratulated him, but then cast doubt on the results. Violence spread across Kenya, from the opposition heartland in the West, to the capital Nairobi.

Protesters vented their rage at what they saw as a stolen victory. The Red Cross says more than 120 people have died but the number of victims could be much higher. Opposition leader, and defeated presidential candidate, Raila Odinga claimed as many as 250 have been killed.

More:
http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=462377&lng=1

Tribal violence erupted across Kenya Monday, claiming the lives of at least 124 people, after widespread accusations that President Mwai Kibaki rigged an election to defeat opposition candidate Raili Odinga.

Kenya's president came under increasing international and domestic pressure Tuesday over the disputed election that kept him in power and led to violence that has left more than 200 dead

Odinga supporters in his western stronghold, Kisumu, torched gas stations and more violence erupted in towns across the country. In Nairobi, walls of flame 20 feet high consumed homes in the slums. Crowds chanted "No Raila, no peace!" — a slogan that has become their rallying cry in the days since the vote. Many stores closed and there was panic buying at those that stayed open. Damage was extensive. Ann Wanjiru, a woman's activist in a massive slum called Mathare, in eastern Nairobi, said: "Everything is just gone. Where most of the people live, the poorest people, it has all been destroyed."

While both sides pleaded for calm, there were fears the violence could aggravate an enduring national tribal split between Luos, who support Odinga, and Kikuyus, who back Kibaki. The two groups co-exist in an uneasy rivalry in Kenya. On Monday, crowds of Kikuyus in the west of the country were reported to be fleeing across the border to Uganda, while six Kikuyus were hacked to death in the popular tourist port city of Mombasa. Police, given orders to shoot rioters on sight, imposed a curfew at locations across the country and barred people from leaving the slums, a tactic which may have contained the violence but also kept innocent people from fleeing. KTN, the national broadcaster, said 124 people had been killed, but other media tallies put the death toll closer to 150.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1699123,00.html?imw=Y

By Paddy Shaffer
Director, The Ohio Election Justice Campaign

December 31, 2007

It seems that on this final day of 2007, that a stiff drink might be needed for some who have been following the Ohio Election Theft fiasco from 2004. I rarely drink, but recommend a stiff one now for those of you that can be responsible consumers. Compliments of a reporter, I was just sent the following article:

This link is for a Saturday August 11, 2007 Cincinnati Enquirer blog titled "Clermont County's ballots.
http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/gov/2007/08/clermont-countys-ballots.asp

From the article:
Brunner had no firsthand knowledge about the two stickered ballots, but said her staff is committed to painstakingly examining any lingering questions or concerns about 2004, while working to improve future elections.

More:
http://ohioelectionjustice.blogspot.com/2007/12/remember-those-2004-ohio-stickered.html

that this story finally breaks and becomes mainstream.

Feel Free to post news items DU! :yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

Thanks sfexpat2000 and Rumpel and tbyg52! :grouphug:

:pals:

Then middle of day family traveling and you beautiful souls got the news up in the meantime.
Love ya! :pals: Happy New Year! :party:

:grouphug:

:loveya:

:loveya: :D

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1199352715197300.xml&coll=2

Thursday, January 03, 2008
Molly Kavanaugh
Plain Dealer Reporter

..."You've got to get the word out," the woman pleaded.

...In the days leading up to the Dec. 27 election, the streets were covered with "End Corruption" signs, she said. People were excited that a leadership change seemed within reach.

On Election Day, she watched hundreds of citizens stand outside in the heat for hours, waiting for their turn to vote. After the polls closed, people excitedly gathered around televisions, expecting to hear that Odinga was victorious.

Results were delayed, triggering suspicions that Kibaki and his supporters had tampered with the vote. By Saturday morning, the sky was filling with smoke...