The perma-stickied Voting Problems thread

[Sgt Schultz]

Are Felons Illegally Voting in Wisconsin?

(Madison) Voter fraud in Wisconsin? That's what local Republican leaders are claiming.

Organized voter registration drives inside Dane and Racine County jails, nearly 200 inmates already registered to receive absentee ballots. But apparently no one checked to see if any of the inmates are convicted felons which makes them ineligible to vote.

Rich Graber, Chair of the Republican Pary of Wisconsin, says at least one convicted felon has already submitted an absentee ballot and Republicans are crying "foul."

Graber says, "Needless to say we are deeply troubled by convicted felons committing still another felony by voting. We all know how close this election is going to be an devery vote counts a great deal."

Kathleen Falk, Dane County Executive, says, "I don't think there is a great worry. There hasn't been, historically in our country, in people violating that law."

According to reports, election supervisors in Racine and Madison don't plan to check the inmates' alleged felony status.
__________________

Care to guess which party Kathleen Fraud is a member of???????? She is a fucking joke.

[DLR'sCock]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/campaign/23vote.html?

Big G.O.P. Bid to Challenge Voters at Polls in Key State
By Michael Moss
The New York Times

Saturday 23 October 2004

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.

Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.

Election officials in other swing states, from Arizona to Wisconsin and Florida, say they are bracing for similar efforts by Republicans to challenge new voters at polling places, reflecting months of disputes over voting procedures and the anticipation of an election as close as the one in 2000.

Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.

Ohio Democrats were struggling to match the Republicans' move, which had been rumored for weeks. Both parties had until 4 p.m. to register people they had recruited to monitor the election. Republicans said they had enlisted 3,600 by the deadline, many in heavily Democratic urban neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities. Each recruit was to be paid $100.

The Democrats, who tend to benefit more than Republicans from large turnouts, said they had registered more than 2,000 recruits to try to protect legitimate voters rather than weed out ineligible ones.

Republican officials said they had no intention of disrupting voting but were concerned about the possibility of fraud involving thousands of newly registered Democrats.

"The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems," said James P. Trakas, a Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County.

Both parties have waged huge campaigns in the battleground states to register millions of new voters, and the developments in Ohio provided an early glimpse of how those efforts may play out on Election Day.

Ohio election officials said that by state law, the parties' challengers would have to show "reasonable" justification for doubting the qualifications of a voter before asking a poll worker to question that person. And, the officials said, challenges could be made on four main grounds: whether the voter is a citizen, is at least 18, is a resident of the county and has lived in Ohio for the previous 30 days.

Elections officials in Ohio said they hoped the criteria would minimize the potential for disruption. But Democrats worry that the challenges will inevitably delay the process and frustrate the voters.

"Our concern is Republicans will be challenging in large numbers for the purpose of slowing down voting, because challenging takes a long time,'' said David Sullivan, the voter protection coordinator for the national Democratic Party in Ohio. "And creating long lines causes our people to leave without voting.''

The Republican challenges in Ohio have already begun. Yesterday, party officials submitted a list of about 35,000 registered voters whose mailing addresses, the Republicans said, were questionable. After registering, they said, each of the voters was mailed a notice, and in each case the notice was returned to election officials as undeliverable.

In Cuyahoga County alone, which includes the heavily Democratic neighborhoods of Cleveland, the Republican Party submitted more than 14,000 names of voters for county election officials to scrutinize for possible irregularities. The party said it had registered more than 1,400 people to challenge voters in that county.

Among the main swing states, only Ohio, Florida and Missouri require the parties to register poll watchers before Election Day; elsewhere, party observers can register on the day itself. In several states officials have alerted poll workers to expect a heightened interest by the parties in challenging voters. In some cases, poll workers, many of them elderly, have been given training to deal with any abusive challenging.

Mr. Trakas, the Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County, said the recruits would be equipped with lists of voters who the party suspects are not county residents or otherwise qualified to vote.

The recruits will be trained next week, said Mr. Trakas, who added that he had not decided whether to open the training sessions to the public or reporters. Among other things, he said, the recruits will be taught how to challenge mentally disabled voters who are assisted by anyone other than their legal guardians. In previous elections, he said, bus drivers who had taken group-home residents to polling places often helped them vote.

Reno Oradini, the Cuyahoga County election board attorney, said a challenge would in effect create impromptu courts at polling places as workers huddled to resolve a dispute and cause delays in voting. He said he was working with local election officials to find ways of preventing disruptions that could drive away impatient voters and reduce turnout.

State law varies widely on voter challenges. In Colorado, challenged voters can sign an oath that they are indeed qualified to vote; voters found to have lied could be prosecuted, but their votes would still be counted. In Wisconsin, it is the challenger who must sign an oath stating the grounds for a challenge.

"You need personal knowledge," said Kevin J. Kennedy, executive director of the Wisconsin State Elections Board. "You can't say they don't look American or don't speak English."

National election officials said yesterday that Election Day challenging had been done only sporadically by the parties over the years, mainly in highly contested races. In the bitterly contested 2000 presidential election, they said, challenges occurred mainly after Election Day.

The preparations for widespread challenging this year have alarmed some election officials.

"This creates chaos and confusion in the polling site," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, an international association of election officials. But, he said, "most courts say it's permissible by state law and therefore can't be denied."

In Ohio, Republicans sought to play down any concern that their challenging would be disruptive.

"I suspect there will be challenges," said Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. "But by and large, people will move through quickly. We want to make sure every eligible voter votes." He added, "99.9 percent will fly right by."

Challengers on both sides said they were uncertain about what to expect. Georgiana Nye, 56, a Dayton real estate broker who was registered by the Republicans as a challenger, said she wanted to help prevent fraud and would accept the $100 for the 13 hours of work and training.

For the Democrats in Dayton, Ronald Magoteaux, 57, a mechanical engineer, said he agreed to be a poll watcher out of concern for new voters. "I think it's sick that these Republicans are up to dirty tricks at the polls," Mr. Magoteaux said. "I believe thousands of votes were lost in 2000, and I want to make sure that doesn't happen in Ohio."

Democrats said they were racing to match the Republicans, precinct by precinct. In some cities, like Dayton, they registered more challengers than the Republicans, election officials said. But in Cuyahoga County, where the Republicans said they had registered 1,436 people to challenge voters, or one in every precinct, Democrats said they had signed up only about 300.

The parties are also preparing to battle over voter qualifications in Florida, where they had until last Tuesday to register challengers. In Fort Myers, Republicans named 100 watchers for the county's 171 precincts, up from 60 in 2000. But Democrats registered 300 watchers in the county, a sixfold increase.

Nader Loses Ohio Ballot Bid

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 22 (AP) - The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday rejected an effort by Ralph Nader to get his name on the ballot, most likely ending his chances in the state for the Nov. 2 election.

Mr. Nader wanted the court to force election boards to review their voter registration lists, a process he said could have led to the validation of petitions to place him on the ballot. The court ruled 6-1 against him.

James Dao contributed reporting from Ohio for this article, and Ford Fessenden and Anthony Smith from New York.

[DLR'sCock]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/04296/399788.stm

Students Have Parties Switched by Bogus Petitions
By Dennis B. Roddy
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Friday 22 October 2004

Registration changed to Republican without consent
Scores of college students in Pennsylvania and Oregon have had their voting registrations switched by teams of canvassers circulating bogus petitions and, in some cases, partially concealed voter registration forms students were requested to sign.

The canvassers have visited campuses asking students to sign petitions advocating lower auto insurance rates, medical marijuana or stricter rape laws, according to elections officials.

After signing their names, the students were pressured into registering with the Republican Party by being told that their signatures otherwise would be invalid, or they were asked to fill out the signature and address portions of blank voter registration forms as proof of citizenship. In multiple instances, students already registered to vote have had their registrations changed without their consent, elections officials said yesterday.

Petition canvassers in Pennsylvania apparently did not identify themselves, although one told a University of Pittsburgh student that he was being paid by the Republican Party.

In another instance, the head of the Oregon Students Association said a canvasser at Portland State University told him he was with Project America Votes, a Republican-backed registration effort.

Elections officials yesterday said the switch in party registration would not affect the students' eligibility to cast ballots for the candidates of their choice on Nov. 2, although it could determine the party primaries in which they could take part in the future. Several said they were mystified why the canvassers would bother to change registrations, although one told a student in Oregon that he was receiving $12 for each new Republican registration.

Students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a branch campus of Montgomery County Community College told officials they were tricked into filling out blank voter registration forms, listing their names and addresses when they signed a petition advocating the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"I'm pretty sure that they weren't students," said Erik Strobl, an IUP student who said he signed the petition. Strobl said the canvasser then asked him to put his signature and address on a voter registration card. Although Strobl had already registered to vote as a Democat, he did so when he was told his signature was needed to verify his status as a voter.

Several days later, Strobl received a mailed notification that his party registration had been switched to Republican.

IUP appeared to have been hardest hit by the scam. County voter registration director Donna Hoover said as many as 400 registration suspect forms have arrived in her office. Most of them, she said, changed the registered party of students who had signed up to vote just days earlier during a registration drive by two other groups, America Coming Together and VIP.

"Most of the students had registered Democrat the day before," Hoover said. "I've talked to the sheriff."

Markings on many of the forms appeared to be in the same handwriting, she said.

"I kind of thought there was something odd. I don't even know which party would have done it," Hoover said. "These people circled the different spots [on the form] for the people to fill in."

In Allegheny County, elections director Mark Wolosik referred another case, involving a Squirrel Hill college student, to county detectives. Ruairi McDonnell said his registration was switched from Independent to Republican by someone who circulated a petition to lower auto insurance rates for young drivers on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh last month.

McDonnell said the man instructed him to fill out portions of a voter registration form, although McDonnell told the man he already had registered to vote.

"He then told me I would have to register as a Republican because 'that's how we get our funding.' I said I would not. He kept the form which contained only my name and address and certainly did not indicate I was a Republican," McDonnell said in a letter to the Allegheny County Department of Elections.

Several days later, McDonnell received notice from the elections department that he had changed his registration from Independent to Republican.

In Montgomery, an identical scam took place in September, when students at the Blue Bell campus of Montgomery County Community College were handed the marijuana petition.

"They're just trying to get numbers," said Joseph Passarella, director of elections for Montgomery, who said he has so far received a handful of complaints from students who said their party affiliation had been changed without their consent.

Susan Adams, a spokeswoman for the college, said the petition canvassers did not have permission from the school to work on the campus.

Project America Votes was a name used by canvassers for Sproul & Associates, an Arizona-based consultant under contract with the Republican National Committee.

Nathan Sproul, the firm's owner, yesterday denied that his workers had used petitions to bait students into party switches.

"This is clearly the Democratic plan to make these baseless allegations," said Heather Layman, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. Layman said she was speaking on behalf of Sproul. She said no Sproul workers were involved in such tactics in Oregon or Pennsylvania.

Sproul's role in ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drives have triggered official investigations in several states, with canvassers alleging they had been told to refuse to register Democrats or to discard Democratic registration forms, leaving voters who thought they had registered off the rolls.


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Jump to TO Features for Sunday October 24, 2004

[FORD]

The Coming Post-Election Chaos

The Coming Post-Election Chaos
By John W. Dean
FindLaw

Friday 22 October 2004

A storm warning of things to come if the vote is as close as expected.

This next presidential election, on November 2, may be followed by post-election chaos unlike any we've ever known.

Look at the swirling, ugly currents currently at work in this conspicuously close race. There is Republicans' history of going negative to win elections. There is Karl Rove's disposition to challenge close elections in post-election brawls. And there is Democrats' (and others) new unwillingness to roll over, as was done in 2000. Finally, look at the fact that a half-dozen lawsuits are in the works in the key states and more are being developed.

This is a climate for trouble. A storm warning is appropriate. In the end, attorneys and legal strategy could prove as important, if not more so, to the outcome of this election as the traditional political strategists and strategy.

Let's go over each factor that spells trouble - and see how they may combine.

A GOP Disposition for Nasty Campaigns

Before this year's race, 1988 presidential race between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis was well-known as the most foul of modern campaigns. The Bush campaign used Willie Horton to smear their way to the White House - with Lee Atwater playing the hardest of hardball.

Horton was a convicted murderer. Massachusetts Governor Dukakis gave him a prison furlough. Once furloughed, Horton held a white Maryland couple hostage for twelve hours, raping the woman and stabbing the man. By using these facts - and Horton's mug shot - in a heavy-handed negative advertisement, Atwater turned the election for Bush. As a Southern, especially, he must have understood how the ad catered to racial prejudice.

In the 2000 Republican primary race, George W. Bush used similar tactics against Senator John McCain. That's no surprise: Bush's political strategist Karl Rove, and Bush himself, were protégées' and admires of Lee Atwater. To my knowledge, all of Rove's campaigns have accentuated the negative - often dwelling exclusively on nasty attacks. This one is no exception.

Thus, if Bush narrowly prevails on Election Day, the Democrats are likely to be in a less than congenial mood - and especially likely to go to court. And there will doubtless be fodder for litigation, given the GOP's propensity to try to disqualify votes and voters.

The GOP's Campaign Tactic of Attempting to Disqualify Votes and Voters

In 1986, former Assistant United States Attorney James Brosnahan (today a noted San Francisco trial attorney) testified - based on an investigation the Justice Department had dispatched him to conduct - that as a young Phoenix attorney, Justice William Rehnquist had been part of conservative Republicans' 1962 efforts to disqualify black and Hispanic voters who showed up to vote. Brosnahan's testimony was supported by no less than fourteen additional witnesses. Rehnquist nevertheless became Chief Justice - thanks to the continued support of conservative Republicans.

During the 1964 Goldwater versus Johnson race, when I first heard of such tactics, I was appalled to hear friends bragging about excluding Johnson supporters from voting. Later, when I found myself working at the Department of Justice for Richard Kleindienst, we discussed such tactics.

Kleindienst served as director of field operations for Goldwater in 1964, and for Nixon in 1968. Remarkably, Kleindienst confided that he had engaged in fewer dubious tactics in 1968 than in 1964. If such efforts were mounted by the Nixon campaign in 1972, when I had a good overview of what was going on, I am not aware of it.

Even Nixon had his limits, and he was more interested in wooing white Southerners into the Republican ranks. He did so, successfully, when such Southern Democrats stalwarts and pillars of bigotry and racism as Senators Strom Thrumond and Jesse Helms joined the GOP. They renewed the party's effort to disqualify voters who, and votes, that did not see the world as Republicans did. The racism became less blatant. After all, it had become a crime - which called for new tactics. Yet the revised stratagems were (and remain) anything but subtle.

The 2000 presidential race in Florida is an excellent example. Reportedly, Bush's Florida victory came courtesy of 537 votes out of some six million. It's plain from this slim margin that the GOP's voter and vote disqualifying tactics cost Vice President Al Gore the presidency. (In the October 2004 issue of Vanity Fair, an excellent article entitled "The Path To Florida" explains how the Republicans nullified and disqualified literally hundreds of thousands of Florida votes.)

This lesson has not been lost on the Democrats - who are likely to refrain from conceding if they are losing in 2004 until all of the dubious disqualifications in closely-won swing states are sorted out.

Rove's Refusal to Accept Defeat: The Knee-jerk Response of Suing

And it won't only be the Democrats heading to court. Indeed, in Florida in 2000, it was Bush who sued first - while later falsely accusing Gore of starting the litigation.

Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't merely the closeness of the tallying in what appeared to be unique circumstances in Florida that spawned litigation. To the contrary, suing is a standard operating procedure for Karl Rove when he is losing (or has lost) a race.

A recent profile of Karl Rove in the November 2004 Atlantic Monthly, entitled "Karl Rove In A Corner," examines how Rove operates in a close race. While Rove has had only a few, his tactics are never pretty.

The article describes "Rove's power, when challenged, to draw on an animal ferocity that far exceeds the chest-thumping bravado common to professional political operatives" - and notes that "Rove's fiercest tendencies have been elided in national media coverage."

Consider Rove's role in a 1994 judicial campaign for the Alabama Supreme Court. Election returns showed his candidate had lost by 304 votes. But Rove went to court - not only suing to overturn the election, but at the same time, further campaigning to garner support for these efforts.

These maneuvers went on and on and on. Rove's candidate and his opponent both appeared for Inauguration Day ceremonies, although neither was seated. Rove moved the matter from state to federal courts. And he appealed whenever he could - all the way up to the U. S. Supreme Court, which stayed the case almost a year after the election. In the end, Rove's man won - purportedly by 262 votes.

Doubtless, Rove was similarly prepared to take Bush's 2000 lawsuits as far as necessary. Had the U.S. Supreme Court bumped the case back to the Florida Supreme Court, and allowed the recount to conclude, doubtless Rove would have again challenged the recount - all the way back up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Make no mistake: If Bush loses, and it is very close, Rove will want to litigate as long as possible, going to the U.S. Supreme Court (again) if possible.

Still Too Close to Call: The Conspicuous Closeness of the 2004 Race

So far, no incumbent modern president has won or lost in a squeaker. Even races that looked close in the polls were subject to a last-minute surge in one direction. But we are now ten days away from the 2004 election, with no surge yet in evidence.

A late "October Surprise" might change that. Osama's arrest would likely cause a surge for Bush. New and unequivocally damning evidence about the justification for the Iraq war could create a surge for Kerry. (Suppose, for instance, it became incontrovertible that, for instance, Bush and Cheney knew that Saddam not only did not have WMD but also had terminal cancer.)

Still, without such a surprise, this race may be an historical photo finish. The electoral is deeply dived. Most of the undecided are now decided. So a true surge for either candidate is unlikely.

There is one wild card: Both sides - as well as many independent groups - have recently registered hundreds of thousands of new voters. Historically, newly registered voters have often not voted in the first election for which they were eligible. But that could change; it's impossible to know.

Exactly how close will the race be? Of course, polls are an imperfect measure, and they tend to be less reliable the closer it is to Election Day. Still, as I write, and based on the consensus of polls I believe (historically) the most reliable, the situation appears to be this:

There are a total of 538 electoral votes. A simple majority of 270 wins. (If the candidates tie at 269, the tie is broken by the House of Representatives.)

President Bush seems to have a lock on 176 electoral votes from twenty states: AL-9, AK-3, AZ-10, GA-15, ID-4, IN-10, KS-6, KY-8, LA-9, MS-6, MT-3, NE-5, ND-3, OK-7, SC-3, TN-11, TX-34, UT-5, VA-13 and WY-3. Senator Kerry seems to have a lock on 153 electoral votes in ten states and the District of Columbia: CA-55, CT-7, DE-3, HI-4, IL-21, MD-10, MA-12, NY-31, RI-4, VT-3 and DC-3.

Six states with 51 electoral votes tilt toward Bush: AR-6, CO-9, MO-11, NV-5, NC-15 and WV-5. But six states with 63 electoral votes lean toward Kerry: ME-3 (note that Maine apportions its four electoral votes, and one vote still appears to be up for grabs), MI-17, MN-10, NJ-15, OR-7 and WA-11.

Suppose all the tilting states indeed go in the direction in which they are tilting. That gives Bush/Cheney 227 electoral votes, and Kerry/Edwards 216 votes.

There are still eight true swing states. In total, they have 95 electoral votes: IA-7, FL-27, ME-1, NH-4, NM-5, OH-20, PA-21, and WI-10.

It is in these states that election 2004 will ultimately be resolved - either in the voting booths, or in the courts. And note that none of these states, alone - even Florida, with its 27 votes - will give either candidate a win.

That means we could see simultaneous litigation in a number of states - chosen either because the polling was especially close, or because there are significant numbers of vulnerable votes to try to disqualify. It will be recalled that the possibility for multi-state litigation arose in 2000, before Florida became the focus; it could easily become a reality in 2004.

An Election for Attorneys: Neither Side Will Budge If Litigation Begins

When I discussed this situation with several attorneys on both sides, I realized none are likely to back down. The Democrats intend to play hardball to win this time; the Republicans feel that Democrats aren't adhering to the letter of the law in registration efforts - and want to hold them to it.

It is impossible to get a complete count, but it appears that at least 10,000 - and possibly as many as 150,000 - attorneys, paralegals and law students will be working as observers, or handling election problems, on November 2 - just in the swing states. They have been trained in the relevant state's election laws, and they will focus on the casting and counting of votes.

With so many legal minds looking for problems and such combative attitudes on both sides, litigation seems inevitable - especially if the November 2 tally is close. And if litigation starts, it won't stop soon: A game of litigation chicken - testing who will fold first - seems likely, with each party bent on holding out.

The Nightmare Scenario: An Election up in the Air for Months

It may be days or weeks, if not months, before we know the final results of this presidential election. And given the Republican control of the government, if Karl Rove is on the losing side, it could be years: He will take every issue (if he is losing) to its ultimate appeal in every state he can.

The cost of such litigation will be great - with the capital of citizens' trust in their government, and its election processes, sinking along with the nation's (if not the world') financial markets, which loathe uncertainty. After Bush v. Gore, is there any doubt how the high Court would resolve another round? This time, though, the Court, too, will pay more dearly. With persuasive power as its only source of authority, the Court's power will diminish as the American people's cynicism skyrockets.

It does not seem to trouble either Rove or Bush that they are moving us toward a Twenty-first Century civil war - and that, once again, Southern conservatism is at its core. Only a miracle, it strikes me, can prevent this election from descending into post-election chaos. But given the alternatives, a miracle is what I am hoping for.

John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.

[FORD]

This Bullshit is un-fucking-believeable!!!

Election chief warns of absentee scam

(from... you guessed it: FLORIDA)

People posing as election officials are visiting residents of several counties and offering to take absentee ballots.

By STEPHEN HEGARTY, Times Staff Writer
Published October 22, 2004

Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.

They're not who they say they are.

"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.

The warning came after a phone call from a west Pasco woman. Other Florida counties have gotten similar complaints.

"We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."

The Pasco woman said someone came to her home to collect her absentee ballot earlier this week. She said she was led to believe they were from the elections office. The woman told the strangers she hadn't completed the ballot, but they took it anyway.

The deception is the latest sign of the lengths to which some partisans appear ready to go in this election. Elections officials worry there will be many more complaints of overly aggressive behavior in attempts to affect the outcome of the presidential race.

Browning's office had not yet received the woman's absentee ballot Thursday. Given the circumstances, Browning arranged to send her another.

Other counties have had numerous complaints about similar misrepresentations.

"We've had a few people with those complaints - I'd say less than 10," said Dan Nolan, chief of staff for Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson. Johnson said he routinely advises voters to send their absentee ballots in via mail, or to bring it directly to his office.

In Manatee, there have been numerous complaints, and the Sheriff's Office is investigating.

Manatee Elections Supervisor Sweat said the people collecting the ballots appeared to know exactly who had absentee ballots. It is possible for political parties, candidates and political groups to get lists of voters who request the absentee ballots.

Sweat said it appeared the collections were occurring in neighborhoods full of low-income, minority and elderly residents.

Several political-oriented groups are working hard to get their supporters to vote early, either through absentee ballots or early voting. It is legal for them to collect absentee ballots and turn them in to an elections office, so long as they don't misrepresent themselves or alter the ballots.

In his warning, Browning said, "I need to make it very clear that my office will never show up at your place of residence to collect your absentee ballot."

Because the presidential race is so close in Florida and its 27 electoral votes could decide who will take the White House, political groups are aggressively working to get their supporters to vote. Many say, though, that they are keeping their hands off the actual ballots.

A representative from the group Americans Coming Together said Thursday that they urge people to request absentee ballots, then collect the request cards and turn them in to elections officials. They have turned in thousands of requests in the Tampa Bay area. However, ACT stays away from the actual ballots, according to Tait Sye, state communications director for ACT, a Democratic voter mobilization group.

"We have turned in thousands of request cards for Pasco," Sye said. "But we are not collecting the absentee ballots, period."
[Last modified October 22, 2004, 01:09:27]

link

[FORD]

From Madison Wisconsin's Daily Cardinal

Registration errors plague voter drives
New voters turn up unregistered at voting locations
By Kristen Titus
Published: Monday, October 25, 2004



New voter drives have registered many to vote, but some people have found they are not actually registered once they go to vote at the city clerk´s office in the Madison Municipal Building.


UW-Madison senior Megan Lipke registered to vote when approached by a volunteer armed with a clipboard on State Street nearly two months ago.

But after waiting in line for more than 30 minutes to vote at the city clerk's office, she was told there was no record of her registration anywhere.

And the problem seems to be pervasive.

"Wow, I wonder how many people think they're registered and they're really not," Lipke said to the official.

Under her breath the official muttered, "You have no idea."

The registration flood

New Voters Project State Field Director Bruce Speight said his campaign registered nearly 22,000 new voters in Madison and more than 135,000 statewide.

Once collected and sorted, each form is supposed to be delivered to the respective city clerk to be reviewed and processed.

"We definitely have a tight process for making sure that once the forms are completed they come back to our office and then we deliver them to the appropriate city clerk's office," Speight said.

However, Wisconsin State Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy said the turnover can prove problematic.

"Anytime you deal with paper, something can go wrong," he said.

Kennedy said with the influx of registrations, forms are easily misplaced and can end up in the wrong hands. He said the State Elections Board office gets nearly 1,000 misdirected registrations a day.

"I kind of joke about the fact that somebody's going to buy a car from somebody from the New Voters Project and they are going to take out the back seat and find 10 or 12 registration forms right there," he said.

As voter registrations pour in, the city clerk's office is scrambling to process and validate each application while facilitating early voting.

In processing countless registrations daily, Kennedy said the officials often encounter discrepancies of misinformation, duplicate registrations and illegible applications.

"They check the forms to see if on their face they are valid, and they often will find three or four registrations for the same person," Kennedy said. "If there is a conflict between the information, they will send a letter or contact the voter if they can."

Speight said the New Voters Project has received numerous returned registrations citing poor penmanship or not enough information, claims he said are often disputable.

"It's absurd. It seems to me they would at least take a stab at it or they would mark it so they could figure it out when someone comes to vote," he said. "It's the responsibility of clerks to process registration forms-not send them back to people who are collecting them."

In these cases, the New Voters Project attempts to contact each of the rejected electors, he said.

However, Lipke never received notification from either the city clerk's office or the New Voters Project.

How to ensure your vote

Luckily, Lipke was equipped with the proper forms of identification.

In Wisconsin, voters can simply register to vote at the polling place on the day of the election granted they have the proper forms of identification-a current form of ID with a mailing address in the given polling area.

However, this is problematic for students who do not have a Wisconsin driver's license with their current Madison address listed. Also, students who have moved must reregister under their current living address at their respective polling place.

For those who do not have a current Wisconsin driver's license, Kennedy recommends bringing a utility bill with your name and current address listed as insurance.

Kennedy advises voters to not only come prepared with identification, but also come prepared to wait. Head to the polls between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. when it is expected to be less crowded, he said.

"The registrations are adding a real challenge, but I think the biggest challenge is the fact that we are going to have so many people going to the polling place on Election Day," Kennedy said.

"Be prepared. Be patient. Be counted," he said.

[Sgt Schultz]

The Daily Communist? That student hippie left wing commie rag? LEAST credible source on the planet. I'm gonna hurl..........

[Sgt Schultz]

Ohio Gov. Taft: Four Counties Have More Voters Than Eligible Citizens

Appearing on CNN’s American Morning program Tuesday morning, Ohio’s Republican Governor Bob Taft painted a disturbing picture of widespread vote fraud in his state.

Taft told CNN’s Bill Hemmer that in four Ohio counties more people have registered to vote than who live in those counties and are of voting age.

"We have four counties where you have more voters registered than you have 18 and over population,” Taft said.

Taft noted the role of Democrat 527 groups who have inflated Ohio’s voter registeration rolls.

"We've had a lot of fraudulent voter registrations already, mostly by those 527 groups. There will be unprecedented scrutiny of this election on both sides,” he said. Taft noted that many of these new registrations appear to be fraudulent.

"A lot of these voters don't have addresses,” he said of the new registrations. "When they send the postcard out to them, after they register, that comes back undeliverable. You're talking about thousands of cases like that all across the State of Ohio.”

Taft says he hopes the heightened level of scrutiny will lead to "an accurate count for the State of Ohio.”

Taft said vote monitors will seek to "make sure that a voter is a citizen, 18 and over, and a resident of the precinct and county where they plan to vote.”

[FORD]

BCE suppressing Black vote in Florida AGAIN??

New Florida vote scandal revealed

By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC's Newsnight

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Election supervisor Ion Sancho believes some voters are being intimidated
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher
A Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged at polling stations
In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.

The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective

Democrat Congresswoman Corinne Brown says watches a private investigator film voters
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

link

[DLR'sCock]

The fucking Repukes are such scum sucking vermin....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62645-2004Oct25.html

Some Fear Ohio Will Be Florida of 2004
By Paul Farhi and Jo Becker
The Washington Post

Tuesday 26 October 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Democrats and Republicans here traded accusations of voter fraud, obstruction and intimidation Monday as officials grappled with what is becoming a confused - and potentially chaotic - presidential election in this critical battleground state.

As Democrats marched through the downtown streets of the state capital with banners reading "Not This Time!" and chanting "Count every vote," Republicans continued to challenge the eligibility of thousands of newly registered voters. This presented state election officials with the prospect of holding thousands of hearings over the next week to determine who can cast a ballot on Nov. 2.

The continuing legal and bureaucratic uncertainties have heightened fears that Ohio could be on the verge of becoming the next Florida, which could not determine a winner for 36 days after the 2000 election. Polls here show President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in a statistical dead heat in a state that each needs to win.

"A storm is brewing in Ohio," Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman (D) said Monday. "The day after Election Day, we've got to make sure the sun is shining. By that, I mean each and every vote has to be counted."

Among the looming concerns:

Republicans have already filed 35,000 challenges to voters' eligibility and are preparing to send recruits into 8,000 polling places next Tuesday to challenge other voters they suspect are not eligible, particularly hundreds of thousands of the newly registered. Democrats are alarmed at the effort, saying it could tie up voting and keep many away from the polls.


Ohio's voter-registration rolls contain more than 120,000 duplicate names, and an untold number of ineligible voters, such as people who have moved out of the state. A review of the rolls by the Columbus Dispatch even found a murder victim and two suspected terrorists among the eligible.


Democrats fear that polling places will be inadequately staffed and equipped to handle the crush of voters on Election Day. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) said Monday she is concerned that many new voters will not get proper notification from county election boards about where to vote. That is a critical issue in light of a federal appeals court ruling Saturday that voters with provisional ballots - backup ballots for voters whose names do not appear on the rolls - must cast them in their own precinct for the votes to count.

In an interview, J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, acknowledged that the state may experience "a few hiccups" in the next eight days, but he dismissed notions of widespread trouble on Nov. 2. "You manage against systemic choking," said Blackwell, whom Democrats have criticized for his dual role as co-chairman of Bush's reelection campaign in Ohio. "I don't think we'll have systemic choking. I don't anticipate the kind of confusion we saw in Florida."

But Democrats, and some election officials as well, say the most potentially disruptive action could be Republican challenges of voters' eligibility filed over the past few days. Although some of the more than 35,000 challenges have been withdrawn or rejected by county officials, about 25,000 are pending.

The Democratic Party and the Kerry-Edwards campaign sent letters Monday to Ohio's 88 county election boards asking them to dismiss the challenges, arguing that they are "unfair" and "arbitrary" and that the Ohio GOP has not provided sufficient evidence under state law that the voters challenged are ineligible.

The rules for challenging voters vary from state to state, and officials nationwide are bracing for an onslaught. In Ohio, the state GOP is drawing on a little-used 1953 law to file its pre-election challenges.

Ohio law states that a party can challenge a voter's eligibility if the challenger has a reasonable doubt that the person is a citizen, is at least 18, or is a legal resident of the state or the county where he shows up to vote. The law also states that local election boards must give voters challenged before Election Day three days' notice before holding a mandatory hearing, no later than two days before the election.

It is not clear, however, how election officials can hold so many hearings, or what they should do after them.

Gwen Dillingham, the Cuyahoga County deputy election director, said 15,000 to 18,000 pre-election challenges have been filed in the Cleveland area, a traditional Democratic stronghold. "I don't know how we're going to find those people to tell them there's a hearing," she said.

Republicans have pointed to what they contend is widespread evidence of fraud in voter registration. Making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, for instance, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie pointed out that in Franklin County, the latest Census shows there are more registered voters than there are age-eligible residents.

But election officials and other experts say there is a reasonable explanation for bloated election rolls that has nothing to do with fraud: The National Voter Registration Act prohibits them from purging voters from the rolls for four years after an initial notification is sent.

"It's unfortunate that there seems to be an assumption that there's fraud behind every problem," said Kay Maxwell, president of the League of Women Voters. "There often is a simple explanation. And we're very concerned that these challenges will intimidate people and keep them from voting."

Some boards, including those in the two counties that are home to the cities of Columbus and Dayton, are tossing out most of the GOP's pre-election challenges because the party made technical errors in filing them.

Of the 4,200 challenges filed in Franklin County, officials have determined that 1,600 are valid. Election Board Director Matthew M. Damschroder, a Republican, said that his board will hold the required hearings on the challenges that remain, but will more than likely keep every voter on the rolls and allow those voters to cast provisional ballots.

One irony of the GOP's challenges in Franklin County and Montgomery County is that many of those challenged are overseas military members - often Republican supporters - whose mail cannot be forwarded, officials in both counties said.

Although Ohio law specifies that removing a successfully challenged voter from the rolls is an option, that conflicts with the rules laid out by the National Voter Registration Act. Moreover, local Ohio election boards are bipartisan, with two Republican members and two Democrats, leaving the potential for deadlocks.

Steve Harsman, the Democratic deputy director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said he worries that Election Day challenges could create "such congestion at the polls" that people waiting in line will give up and go home.

"The aim of this is to sow confusion and suppress the vote by creating questions about the eligibility of completely eligible voters," said Bob Bauer, one of the chief lawyers for the Democratic National Committee.

Those who marched to Blackwell's office in Columbus appeared to agree. "We cannot forget what happened in Florida," Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, told the crowd. "And it will not happen here."

-------

Jump to TO Features for Wednesday October 27, 2004

[Nickdfresh]

The Uncertain Polls

This article by Douglas Turner appeared in todays Buffalo News. I thought it was an interesting take on the varied polls numbers:


Polls grow increasingly fuzzy


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cell phones, caller ID pose new challenges

By DOUGLAS TURNER
News Washington Bureau Chief
10/26/2004

Click to view larger picture

Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News
Barry Zeplowitz, standing, and Shinika Hayes help take the pulse of American voters.



John F. Kerry leads President Bush, 47 percent to 46 percent, in the latest AP/Ipsos Public Affairs poll.
Yet Bush leads Democrat Kerry by 8 percentage points in a new TIPP survey.

And Republican Bush leads Kerry, 47 percent to 45 percent, in the new Reuters/Zogby Survey.

These see-saw results in national polls point to new and unsolved challenges in polling because of new telecommunications products.

The daunting advances are cell phones, caller ID and Do Not Call directories.

Polling industry officials insist that in spite of consumers' growing use of high technology, this year's voter surveys are as reliable as they were in the close presidential election of 2000.

But some independent students of the business, as well as some pollsters themselves, strongly disagree.

New consumer technology "is completely screwing things up," said Darrell West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University.

"It is getting harder and harder to get reliable data (from voters over the telephone) because of cell phones, answering machines, caller ID devices and the resulting low response rates," West said.

In addition, a record number of newly registered voters, including young voters and blocs of African-Americans, may not yet show up on the computerizing call lists for polling companies to check. This is further complicating polling this year.

"Nobody's coping very well with these changes," said Canisius College analyst Michael Haselswerdt, who does his own polling. "We are in the last stages of sampling the voters the way we've always done it."

More than 161 million cell phones - which are not found in the phone directories that polling companies use - are now in operation across the country. And cell phone use is growing at a rate of about 13 percent a year, according to estimates by the Federal Communications Commission.

Nationally, 67 percent of households now have someone who uses a cell phone, according to Scarborough Research. In the Buffalo Niagara market, the figure is 56 percent.

Wireless phone use is concentrated among younger, more affluent Americans. Critics of the national election polls say they are missing out on some of this volatile and growing sample of the voting public because pollsters do not call cell phones.

Another problem is implementation of the Do Not Call list barring cold calls to homes by telemarketers. That list of 62 million land line subscribers has an indirect negative effect on pollsters' ability to reach voters.

Congress exempted pollsters and political candidates from the Do Not Call prohibitions. But few voters know of these exemptions, and the list increases the likelihood of hang-ups when the political surveyors call.

Nancy Belden, president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, contends the polling business has successfully adjusted for these changes.

To begin, she says, cell phone-only households still comprise only 5 percent of all homes - a figure not large enough to affect poll reliability.

"And we are still finding plenty of respondents," Belden said.

In addition, major polls have coped by "weighting" polling results.

Few, if any political polls, actually reach a voter sample that is truly balanced in terms of gender, age and ideology.

So pollsters "weight" their results. That means pollsters need to puff up real samples to make up for groups that the pollsters can't actually reach on the telephone. If a survey can't contact enough real minority households, for example, the company increases the minority share to agree with census or other estimates.

But Cornell University's expert on polling, government professor Walter E. Mebane, said "weighting" may not really work this year.

"Most of these guys are going to use guesswork," Mebane said of the practice.

"And their guesswork may be no better than yours," he added.

John Zogby, president of Zogby International, bristled at Mebane's suggestion that "weighting" poll samples involves guesswork.

"There are pathways of party identification that can be tracked with people who turn out to vote," said Zogby, who was one of only two major pollsters to predict that Al Gore would win the popular vote in 2000. "My "weighting' for political IDs is based on sound historical trending."

He said all the changes have been accounted for in his surveys by weighting and careful tracking of party trends.

"Let's face it, though, 20 percent of this profession is art," Zogby said about weighting techniques.

One big fly in the ointment this year, Mebane said, is the surge in new registrations around the nation, particularly in battleground states.

As a result of the unrest over the Iraq war and cultural issues, independent organizations such as America Coming Together on the left and evangelicals and lay Catholics on the right are spending millions on registration, advertising and get-out-the-vote drives.

Independent Republican and Democratic groups so far have spent $439 million on such efforts, according to Political Moneyline, an independent bipartisan tracking group.

The edge on independent spending so far goes to the Democratic side, with the liberal patron of Moveon.org, George Soros, leading the pack of givers with $26.5 million.

As a result of these drives, Utah has increased registration by 69,000 over 2002; Georgia is up nearly 400,000; Louisiana is up 133,000; and Philadelphia alone has registered 225,000 new voters this fall.

Georgia is seeing late surges in African-American enrollments, and New Mexico registered 17,000 new Hispanics in October.

But few pollsters are mechanically set up to chart changes in enrollment across the nation, Mebane said. One reason, he said, is the wide variety of registration deadlines among the states.

If these new registrants are young voters, the massive increase in cell phone use since 2000 makes their political leanings even more elusive for pollsters to track.

"So no one has a clue as to who will be voting . . . ," Mebane said.

Industry spokeswoman Belden says voting patterns of the younger people are unpredictable. "Young voters have always been difficult to reach," she added.

Barry Zeplowitz, head of Buffalo-based Zeplowitz & Associates, also wonders whether the major public surveys are getting an accurate reading on young voters.

"The numbers are all over the place," he said.

Zeplowitz, who is doing private polls on state legislative and congressional races, noted that at the end of last week there was "a nine-point spread" among three national polls - ranging from Bush trailing Kerry by three points to beating the Massachusetts senator by six points.

Zogby, whose polling indicated an 8 percent margin of victory for Bill Clinton in 1996, just 0.5 percent off the actual vote, voiced confidence in his own surveys this year. But he still has worries.

"The one thing that gives me a queasy feeling are the number of voters who make up their mind only on Election Day - a day we don't poll," he said.


News Washington Bureau assistant Anna L. Miller contributed to this article.
e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com



http://buffalonews.com/editorial/20041026/1054503.asp

[FORD]

And still MORE fraud in Florida

Local 10 Uncovers Big Ballot Mystery
Elections Office Says Situation Is 'Odd'

POSTED: 4:10 pm EDT October 26, 2004
UPDATED: 6:14 pm EDT October 26, 2004

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. -- Local 10 has received many phone calls from viewers in Broward County who say they have not received the absentee ballots –- and the news from the elections office doesn't sound good.

Local 10 has learned that many as many as 58,000 ballots that were supposed to mailed out on Oct. 7 and 8 could be missing.

The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office is saying only that the situation is "unusual," and they are looking into it.

Gisela Salas, Broward Deputy Elections Supervisor, said, "I hate to say 'missing' at this time because that has not yet be substantiated. Some ballots are starting to arrive. But there is an extraordinary delay."

An elections office representative told Local 10 that the office has investigated with the U.S. Post Office what might have happened to the ballots, but so far, no one has been able to figure it out.

"It is unusual. It's a puzzle on the part of our office and the postal service," Salas said. "Our office did make the delivery and the post office assures us they were processed. What happened is in question."

The postal service told Local 10 late Tuesday that they don't have 58,000 ballots floating around. They did say that they have several employees assigned to deal only with ballots and they are being delivered in one to two days -- once they get them.

How Will You Vote?

As far as the voters go that haven't received their ballots, the elections office is now suggesting that they take the opportunity to vote early.

Since many who request absentee ballots cannot physically vote in their county, there are likely to be some angry voters.

If you are able to and would like to vote early in Broward County, click here to find a voting location.

Watch Local 10 News for more coverage of this missing ballot controversy.

Copyright 2004 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.link

[Nickdfresh]

Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote

By Jimmy Carter
Monday, September 27, 2004; Page A19

After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.

The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.

_____Today's Op-Eds_____

• The End Of the 'Jewish Vote' (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• Election by Litigation? (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• Time to Tell Hussein's Story (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)
• A Strict Separation (Post, Oct. 27, 2004)




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The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: "Why don't you observe the election in Florida?" and "How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"

The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

The most significant of these requirements are:

• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida.

It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.

The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Nader's name be included on absentee ballots even before the state Supreme Court ruled on the controversial issue.

Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.

It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.

Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html

[FORD]

Published on Thursday, October 28, 2004 by Greg Palast
Florida's Computers Have Already Counted Thousands of Votes for George W. Bush
by Greg Palast


Before one vote was cast in early voting this week in Florida, the new touch-screen computer voting machines of Florida started out with a several-thousand vote lead for George W. Bush. That is, the mechanics of the new digital democracy boxes "spoil" votes at a predictably high rate in African-American precincts, effectively voiding enough votes cast for John Kerry to in a tight race, keep the White House safe from the will of the voters.

Excerpted from the current (November) issue of Harper's Magazine
by Greg Palast

To understand the fiasco in progress in Florida, we need to revisit the 2000 model, starting with a lesson from Dick Carlberg, acting elections supervisor in Duval County until this week. “Some voters are strange,” Carlberg told me recently. He was attempting to explain why, in the last presidential election, five thousand Duvalians trudged to the polls and, having arrived there, voted for no one for president. Carlberg did concede that, after he ran these punch cards through the counting machines a second time, some partly punched holes shook loose, gaining Al Gore160 votes or so, Bush roughly 80.

“So, if you ran the ‘blank’ ballots through a few more times, we’d have a different president,” I noted. Carlberg, a Republican, answered with a grin.

So it was throughout the state—in certain precincts, at least. In Jacksonville, for example, in Duval precincts 7 through 10, nearly one in five ballots, or 11,200 votes in all, went uncounted, rejected as either an ‘under-vote’ (a blank ballot) or ‘over-vote’ (a ballot with extra markings). In those precincts, 72 percent of the residents are African-American; ballots that did make the count went four to one for Al Gore. All in all, a staggering 179,855 votes were “spoiled” (i.e., cast but not counted) in the 2000 election in Florida. Demographers from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission matched the ballots with census stats and estimated that 54 percent of all the under- and over-voted ballots had been cast by blacks, for whom the likelihood of having a vote discarded exceeded that of a white voter by 900 percent.

Votes don't "spoil" because they are left out of the fridge. Vote spoilage, at root, is a class problem. Just as poor and minority districts wind up with shoddy schools and shoddy hospitals, they are stuck with shoddy ballot machines. In Gadsden, the only black-majority county in Florida, one in eight votes spoiled in 2000, the worst countywide record in the state. Next door in Leon County (Tallahassee), which used the same paper ballot, the mostly white, wealthier county lost almost no votes. The difference was that in mostly-white Leon, each voting booth was equipped with its own optical scanner, with which voters could check their own ballots. In the black county, absent such “second-chance” equipment, any error would void a vote.

The best solution for vote spoilage, whether from blank ballots or from hanging chads, is Leon County's: paper ballots, together with scanners in the voting booths. In fact, this is precisely what Governor Bush's own experts recommended in 2001 for the entire state. His Select Task Force on Elections Procedures, appointed by the Governor to sooth public distrust after the 2000 race, chose paper ballots with scanners over the trendier option -- the touchscreen computer.

Although the computer rigs cost eight times as much as paper with scanners, they result in many more spoiled votes. In this year’s presidential primary in Florida, the computers had a spoilage rate of more than 1 percent, as compared to one-tenth of a percent for the double-checked paper ballots.

Apparently some Bush boosters were not keen on a fix so inexpensive and effective. In particular, Sandra Mortham— a founder of Women for Jeb Bush, the Governor's re-election operation — successfully lobbied on behalf of the Florida Association of Counties to stop the state the legislature from blocking the purchase of touchscreen voting systems. Mortham, coincidentally, was also a paid lobbyist for Election Systems & Strategies, a computer voting-machine manufacturer. Fifteen of Florida’s sixty-seven counties chose the pricey computers, twelve of them ordered from ES&S which, in turn, paid Mortham's County Association a percentage on sales.

Florida’s computerization had its first mass test in 2002, in Broward County. The ES&S machines appeared to work well in white Ft. Lauderdale precincts, but in black communities, such as Lauderhill and Pompano Beach, there was wholesale disaster. Poll workers were untrained, and many places opened late. Black voters were held up in lines for hours. No one doubts that hundreds of Black votes were lost before they were cast.

Broward county commissioners had purchased the touch-screen machines from ES&S over the objection of Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant; notably, one comissioner's campaign treasurer was an ES&S lobbyist. Governor Bush responded to the Broward fiasco by firing Oliphant, an African-American, for "misfeasance."

Even when computers work, they don't work well for African-Americans. A July 2001 Congressional study found that computers spoiled votes in minority districts at three times the rate of votes lost in white districts.

Based on the measured differential in vote loss between paper and computer systems, the fifteen counties in Florida, can expect to lose at least 29,000 votes to spoilage—some 27,000 more than if the counties had used paper ballots with scanners.

Given the demographics of spoilage, this translates into a net lead of thousands for Bush before a single ballot is cast.

For the full story, read "Another Florida" in the November issue of Harper's, out now. Mr. Palast, a contributing editor to the magazine, is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. See the film of his investigative reports for BBC Television, "Bush Family Fortunes," out now on DVD.

[Nickdfresh]

Republicans are urging Minority's to Vote in Flordia

See Ford. You're wrong, Republican's are urging minorities to vote:

From The Onion

MIAMI, FL—With the knowledge that the minority vote will be crucial in the upcoming presidential election, Republican Party officials are urging blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities to make their presence felt at the polls on Wednesday, Nov. 3.


Above: Monreal urges black community members to hit the polls next Wednesday.
"Minority voters should make their unique voices heard, especially the African-American voting bloc, which is always a major factor in every election," said Florida Republican Party voter-drive organizer Mark Monreal, as he handed out flyers at a community center in the mostly black Miami neighborhood of South Farms. "That's why we put up hundreds of brightly colored banners featuring Martin Luther King Jr. and the 'Vote November 3' reminder. We needed to make sure they know when we want them at polling places."

"You can't walk through a black neighborhood here in Miami without seeing our 'Don't Forget Big Wednesday!' message up on a billboard, tacked to a phone booth, or taped to a bus shelter," Monreal added. "The Republican Party has spared no expense in this endeavor."

GOP committees in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Florida have spent more than $3 million on pamphlets, posters, stickers, and T-shirts bearing such slogans as "Put America First—Vote On The Third!" and "November 3rd Is Your Time To Be Heard."

Monreal's group is joined by hundreds of local organizations, such as the Black Republicans For Maryland. While the Black Republicans do not actually include any black members, the group describes itself as "dedicated to communicating a strong message to members of the African-American community."

"We're aiming not just to get black people to vote, but to mobilize them to come together for one specific day of minority empowerment," Baltimore County Black Republicans For Maryland president Mitchell Williams said. "As Republicans, we truly believe that, by coordinating the minority vote across the nation, we can put minorities in their proper place. We believe we know what's best for the whole country."

Republicans are eager to point out the differences between their drive and those of other get-out-the-vote organizations.


Above: A billboard erected by the Baltimore County Black Republicans for Maryland.
"Strange as it is to say it, we're non-partisan," Monreal said. "We don't care if the minority voter is part of the vast majority of non-whites that traditionally votes Democrat. What's important to us is that we get them to the polls bright and early on the third day of November, so that they feel like they've participated in this year's election."

Monreal said Republican volunteers will be available to drive minorities to polling places on Nov. 3.

"We'll even stay at home with them the day before, to help them prepare for the act of voting," Monreal said. "We'll engage in concentrated one-on-one tutoring the entire day, to make sure these voters focus on the important act of voting, rather than going outside, reading newspapers, or watching television."

Republican Party leaders expressed pride in what they characterized as a true alternative to other programs that encourage voting, such as Rock The Vote.

"Let's be honest," Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie said. "The Bush camp has been criticized for ignoring the minority vote for some time, especially during the last election. This project is our way of correcting that misperception. The Bush camp is extremely concerned about the black vote, especially in places like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This year, on Nov. 3, we'll make a concerted effort to welcome minority voters into our own special camps with open arms."


For more campaign coverage, visit the Onion Election Guidehttp://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4043&n=1