$100,000 Reward For Election Rigging Information
Saxby Chambliss
Velvet Revolution (“VR”), a non-profit dedicated to clean and honest elections, today offers a $100,000 reward for hard information leading to the arrest and conviction of any person or persons who helped to rig the 2002 Senate race in Georgia in favor of Saxby Chambliss. That election pitted the war hero Max Cleland, a popular incumbent, against far-right novice Saxby Chambliss. The pre-election polls showed Cleland with a comfortable lead–and yet Chambliss “won” by a wide margin.
To date, the truth behind that upset “victory” (and the equally surprising win by Sonny Perdue, the rightist candidate for governor) has been confirmed by three different whistle-blowers–including Chris Hood, who worked for Diebold in 2002.
Reports of Vote-Flipping Widespread
Despite an Obama victory, there are numerous reports of vote-flipping.
From John Gideon:
Today we have reports that ES&S software actually flipped votes in three races at one polling place in Crawford Co Kansas. We also have reports that ES&S software incorrectly reported results in one race in Polk Co North Carolina.
The long count of votes in Hillsborough Co Florida seems to be over with the blame for problems being put, where else, on “human error”. It seems that Premier/Diebold had warned Florida users of their high-speed OSX voting machines that those machines could not take a high-volume of ballots without bogging down and causing problems. Hillsborough ignored that warning. However, why would a vendor put out a system for use in elections that cannot be used in a high-volume of ballots. King Co. Washington wanted badly to use that system. If they had it would have been a disaster.
National: Push to Expand Voter Rolls and Early Balloting in U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07voting.html?hp
National: Election gives early-balloting initiatives a boost
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-11-06-voting_N.htm
National: Election-Day Problems — Part Deux
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/election-day-pr.html
CA: Election Night traffic slowed Secretary of State’s computers
http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_adctlid=v|jq2q43wvsl855o|xj9ez54zy35esf&issueId=xj4ev62g1hdw61&xid=xj91sfkny7hmq4
FL: Leon County elections officials still counting votes; Boulware needs 158 for House 9 recount
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20081107/CAPITOLNEWS/81107011
FL: Hillsborough County – Two days after polls close, Johnson concedes Hillsborough elections supervisor race to Busansky ‘ [Diebold/Premier OSX optical-scan system]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/article893690.ece
FL: Hillsborough County – Hillsborough election fixes up to Busansky
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/article893707.ece
FL: Hillsborough County – Human Error Suspected In Election Results Delay
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/07/na-human-error-suspected-in-election-results-delay/news-politics/
FL: Hillsborough County – Ousted Johnson Still Blames Voting Machine Firm
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/07/ousted-elections-supervisor-still-blames-voting-ma/news-politics/
FL: Hillsborough County – Editorial – Cleaning up after Johnson’s disaster
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article894912.ece
KS: Crawford County sees voting machine error
[ES&S ballot programming error that flipped votes in some local races]
http://www.morningsun.net/news/x1772937985/County-sees-voting-machine-error
KS: Machine error could affect Crawford County attorney race
http://www.joplinglobe.com/Campaigns_and_Politics/local_story_311233642.html?keyword=topstory
KS: Crawford County – Error comes from voting machine programming
Officials to test machines Saturday in Frontenac
http://www.morningsun.net/news/x635432391/Error-comes-from-voting-machine-programming
KS: Crawford County – Error in voting machine could affect four races
Officials to test machines Saturday in Frontenac
http://www.morningsun.net/kansas/x1772939006/Error-in-voting-machine-could-affect-four-races
IA: Plymouth County – Speedy ballot count? Result of paper voting machines
http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1476419.html
IN: Hamilton County – 350 Hamilton Co. ballots tossed after error
http://www.indystar.com/article/20081107/LOCAL0101/811070499
MN: Man will judge machine: scanner accuracy big in Senate race
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081107-man-will-judge-machine-scanner-accuracy-big-in-senate-race.html
MN: Coleman campaign questions big Franken gains
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/07/coleman_franken_recount/
MN: FAQ on the Senate recount
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/06/recount_faq/
NC: Polk County – Revised results give Democrats sweep in county board race
[ES&S incorrectly reported results]
http://tryondailybulletin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1370&Itemid=192
NC: CD-5 – Goode Issues Statement on 5th District Race
http://www.wset.com/news/stories/1108/567963.html
NE: Douglas County – Thousands of early ballots arrive late
http://www.ashland-gazette.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20191610&BRD=2712&PAG=461&dept_id=556239&rfi=6
NY: [Governor] Paterson Seeks Voting Assessment
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2008/11/paterson-seeks-voting-assessme.html
NY: Electronic Voting Machines Still in Limbo
http://www.longislandpress.com/articles/news/541/
SC: Charleston County – Like old times
Voting glitches bring delays of yesteryear to mind
http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/nov/07/like_old_times60766/
TN: Tenn. will pay $25M for voting machines
State spent millions on paperless version less than five years ago
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081107/NEWS0201/811070412/1009/NEWS01
TN: TN to spend $25M grant on voting machines
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/nov/07/tn-spend-25m-grant-voting-machines/
TX: Scanning paper ballots best election choice, study says
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/scanning_paper_ballots_best_election_choice__study_says_11-06-2008.html
VA: North Carolina early voting eliminated hassles
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/11/north-carolina-early-voting-eliminated-hassles
VA: Recount Fictions in Virginia’s Fifth
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/80324
VA: Goode cites ‘irregularities’ in reporting votes
http://www.thefranklinnewspost.com/article.cfm?ID=12261
WV: Release of returns delayed
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x766434407/Release-of-returns-delayed
GOP Continues to Steal Elections
This isn’t over yet.
From John Gideon:
As we suspected tabulation of ballots has revealed problems with voting systems from all of the vendors. Hillsborough Co Florida is rethinking their contract with Premier/Diebold for $6M after having big problems counting votes. Manatee Co Florida also had a problem with Premier. Palm Beach Co had bad memory cartridges from Sequoia. Counties in Pennsylvania and South Carolina had problems with their ES&S system. We also have a run-off for senator from Georgia and a recount for senator from Minnesota. This election will last for another month at least.
National: Malfunctioning Machines, Ballot Glitches, Election-Law Litigation — and a Busy Day for Lawyers
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202425803382
National: Voting Rights Watch: Relatively few e-voting problems, but GOP still readies for possible action
http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/2008/11/voting-rights-watch-relatively-few-e.asp
AZ: Pima County: 10 precincts and number of early, provisional ballots still uncounted
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/265824.php
CA: Santa Cruz County – Vandals hit Santa Cruz County polling places, campaign offices
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_10904483
FL: Hillsborough County – Count Resumes With Hillsborough Elections Chief Race In Limbo
[Johnson said Premier, which he hired for $6 million this year, was dishonest with him and at fault for much of Tuesday’s problems with voting machines.]
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/05/051256/state-monitoring-hillsboroughs-tight-elections-chi/news-politics/
FL: Hillsborough results tied up by software glitch
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7794805&version=10&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
FL: Hillsborough vote count likely to continue until Thursday
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=93568&catid=8
FL: Count Resumes With Hillsborough Elections Chief Race In Limbo [Diebold/Premier admits the system was bogged down and stalled due to overload]
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/nov/05/051711/state-monitoring-hillsboroughs-tight-elections-chi/news-politics/
FL: Manatee County – Manatee solves vote-counting problem [Premier/Diebold]
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20081105/BREAKING/811050262?Title=Still_no_solution_to_vote_counting_woes_in_Manatee_County
FL: Manatee County – Small glitch causes big problems in Manatee
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7798848&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
FL: Palm Beach County vote results still incomplete [Bad Sequoia memory cartridges]
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/11/05/1105stillcounting.html
GA: The OTHER Election Night Story in Georgia: No Early Votes Included in Reported Results
http://savdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=19&ArticleID=20488
GA: Chambliss and Martin prepare for another four weeks
http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9300183&nav=menu37_2
GA: Gwinnett County – Gwinnett Officials Still Counting Ballots Day After Election
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7797006&version=4&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
KY: Kenton Co. Judge Rules For Vote Recount
http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=ba97601c-a01a-431e-a8ac-acc0d2bc399e
KY: Madison County – Local turnout heavy as computer glitch delays count
http://www.richmondregister.com/localnews/local_story_310073742.html?keyword=secondarystory
MN: Ritchie: Senate recount will involve hundreds, cost $90K
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/05/recount_details/
MN: E-Voting Machines Used in Franken, Coleman Race Failed Tests
http://www.pubrecord.org/politics/474-e-voting-machines-used-in-franken-coleman-race-failed-tests.html
NC: Onslow County – Padgett wants recount
http://www.enctoday.com/news/padgett_60506_jdn__article.html/votes_county.html
NH: Long night of ballot snafus marks voting in Kennebunk
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20081105-NEWS-81105056
OH: Montgomery County election results delayed until late this evening
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/11/05/ddn110608elexboardweb.html
PA: Centre County Recounts Ballots After Discrepancy [ES&S M-100 precinct based op-scan]
http://www.wjactv.com/news/17900285/detail.html
PA: Northumberland County – PA County’s Voting Machines Impounded Following Complaints
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/pa-countys-voti.html
SC: Charleston County suffers voting problems on Election Day [ES&S problem. The county had to hand input the results from 17,000 ballots]
http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=9300365
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!
This is your eight millionth reminder to go vote today!
Find your polling place over here.
Remind your parents, friends, and coworkers to vote today. If possible, vote on paper ballots, and if you have any problems, call 1 866 OUR VOTE and report it.
If you have a car, offer to drive friends to polling places.
ATTN Pennsylvania. Misleading Calls Say Vote Nov. 5
A registered Democrat in Pennsylvania writes the Huffington Post to report that she has received an anonymous phone call telling her she should go to the polls on Wednesday.
“I received a phone call from an unidentified caller yesterday telling me that because of the expected high voter turnout, Democrats will need to vote on Wednesday, November 5th,” she writes.
The calls are obviously misleading, as voting ends on Tuesday. And apparently they have been going on for quite some time. This past Friday the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported“robocalls making the rounds in Pittsburgh region” disseminating the misleading information. The reader who contacted Huffington Post was from the Philadelphia suburbs, at the opposite end of the state.
Contacted by the Huffington Post, a spokesman for the Obama campaign’s Pennsylvania operations said he was aware of the misleading calls but “not worried about” their impact.
If you hear anything more about this or other last-minute election tactics, please contact the Huffington Post.
What to Do November 5th
A growing database of Voter Assemblies is here:
http://www.nomorestolenelections.org/va
You should register the Voter Assembly you are organizing here:
http://www.nomorestolenelections.org/addva
Here is the plan. Regardless of the declared presidential victor, this Wednesday, we will gather in Voter Assemblies, and we will act:
B. If it is unclear whether voting rights violation rise to the level of election theft, as was the case in Ohio 2004, we will mobilize everywhere to demand a full and complete count of the vote.
C. If it appears that the election result was defined by the rigging of the process, we will rally nationwide to press for progress in enacting democratic reforms.
It’s Down to One Week
Courts are packed with cases of people whose voter registrations aren’t on file for some reason.But first comes a different kind of crunch: Local courts already are seeing an influx of people who, for whatever reason, are not listed as registered voters and are petitioning a judge to be enrolled.
While county boards of election typically have judges available on Election Day to rule on such cases, voters this year are heading to court days or even weeks ahead of time.
In Saratoga County, they’ve even set aside mornings to settle registration disputes.
“We’re letting them come in from 8:30 a.m. to noon,” said Saratoga County Judge Jerry Scarano. “We think election day is going to be very busy.”
“They’re being swamped,” agreed Michael Guiry, a retiree who this year moved back to Edinburgh, in Saratoga County, from Florida to be near his family.
Guiry and his wife registered to vote when they got their New York driver’s licenses, but when Guiry applied for a hunting license a few weeks ago and double-checked his voter status, he wasn’t listed. So he drove to Saratoga for a hearing before Scarano, who put him on the voter rolls.
“We have to go after school,” said Jean Harsen of Kinderhook, who plans to take her 18-year-old son, Johnathan, to Columbia County Court this week.
Harsen said Johnathan registered at a booth set up by Barack Obama supporters at the Columbia County Fair, but the county Board of Elections never got his registration.
There are lots of reasons why registrations don’t show up: Sometimes they’re simply lost, or the people running the voting drives forget to turn them in.
“It’s incumbent upon the people who are doing these drives to bring these forms in,” said Geeta Cheddie, acting election commissioner in Columbia County.
She recounted several stories in which people claimed they had sent in registration cards, but after double-checking realized they hadn’t – or had misplaced the cards altogether.
Geddie said she wasn’t sure what happened with Harsen’s registration.
“The courts are always a recourse,” she said, adding that she’s already referred a few unregistered people to the courthouse in Hudson.
Nor is it the presidential race alone that’s sparking the increase in court visits.
The state Board of Elections last year put registration lists online so that voters can check their status. But even that good work has been complicated by the fact that the state board in Albany was swamped last month with thousands of mail-in registration cards that people printed out from the Web site of Rock the Vote, a nationwide campaign to boost voting by young people.
Normally, individuals register at their local county board of elections, since those are the official repositories for voter rolls. But Rock the Vote had people send registrations to the state, which is required to accept all received before the Oct. 15 deadline. The state office was then obliged to sort and send the cards to the individual counties.
“Every day we would send out a shipment to each county,” said state Board of Elections spokesman Bob Brehm.
The upshot was that registrations may have been in the mail, but they weren’t yet listed on the Web site – creating another reason for nervous voters to head for the courts.
Election lawyer Henry Berger said many voters are figuring they can avoid Election Day hassles by going to court in advance if they have doubts about their registration status.
“Some people are getting more sophisticated about this. They are going in early,” he said.
Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or rkarlin@timesunion.com
50,000 voters purged in Georgia
rom MCMThis is an amazing display of media obfuscation of a large story coming out of Georgia. Headlined as,
“Some voters ‘purged’ from voter rolls” a few paragraphs down, the reader learns what CNN means by “some”:
____________
Berry is one of more than 50,000 registered Georgia voters who have been “flagged” because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. At least 4,500 of those people are having their citizenship questioned and the burden is on them to prove eligibility to vote.
“What most people don’t know is that every year, elections officials strike millions of names from the voter rolls using processes that are secret, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation,” said Wendy Weiser, an elections expert with New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.
“That means that lots and lots of eligible voters could get knocked off the voter rolls without any notice and, in many cases, without any opportunity to correct it before Election Day.”
…
____________
I now know that the word “some” has a numerical value of 50,000.
Two weeks prior to the election, huge numbers of mismatches are of course occurring and citizens are now being told, not that they need to correct their registration, but that they are not actually US citizens and must prove citizenship.
Now, imagine how many are not receiving any notice at all.
Eight days until electoral meltdown, when the media will gloss over the national debacle and paint it all as a smooth day for the world’s greatest democracy.
BREAKING (CNN) – GA: 50,000 voters purged in early Oct (w/update)
A lawsuit has been filed over Georgia’s mismatch system, and the state is also under fire for requestingSocial Security records for verification checks on about 2 million voters — more requests than any other state.
One of the lawyers involved in the lawsuit says Georgia is violating a federal law that prohibits widespread voter purges within 90 days of the election, arguing that the letters were sent out too close to the election date.
Georgia’s Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican who began working on purging voter rolls since she was elected in 2006, said that won’t happen. If there are errors, she said, there is still plenty of time to resolve the problems. iReport.com: Are you voting early?
Handel says she is not worried the verification process will prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot.
“In this state and all states, there’s a process to ensure that a voter who comes in — even if there’s a question about their status — that they will vote either provisional or challenge ballot, which is a paper ballot,” she said.
“So then the voter has ample opportunity to clarify any issues or address them,” Handel added. “And I think that’s a really important process.”
…
“This is about ensuring the integrity of our elections,” she said.
Handel denied the efforts to verify the vote are suppression.
All of these voter suppression tactics are being challenged vigorously right now. Courts are addressing the suits on an expedited basis. Lawyers from the private sector are stripping the reins from the DOJ which is doing nothing other than abetting supression.
It is impossible prior to the next Congress and Administration to pressure the DOJ to do its mandated duty. There will be a purge at Justice and concerted effort to standardize registration requirements.
It is not too little too late.
Maybe we can’t fix every case, but we can help fix a lot of them by funding and volunteering for Election Protection.
We can publicize every case of vote fraud (actual), and vote suppression. Spread the news, to let this year’s failed power-grab forever stain the Republican party’s character the same way Katrina, Iraq and overleveraged Wall St speculation have stained their philosophy.
And, we can push so hard this week that McCain and his party lose way beyond the margin of theft next Tuesday. Your co-worker will get his registration fixed sometime. What we do this week could determine whether or not there’s a Republic still functioning to use it in.
5 Steps To Protect Your Vote
Here are 5 steps you should immediately take if you encounter harassment or other problems at the polls:
1) Video Your Vote If possible, plan ahead for any problems by bringing a video camera with you to Video the Vote. Then, spread it around (send it to us and we’ll help). Remember, the focus should be on gathering evidence and not telling stories. So, use video, audio, photographs, get names and phone numbers of witnesses, as well as voting machine serial numbers, names of poll workers, and document the time of day.
2) At the First Sign of a Problem, Stop* At the first sign of a problem with your machine (or if you have any other problem listed below), stop what you are doing and ask to speak to the supervisor (skip the poll worker) at your polling location. Explain your problem. If they try and waive you off, call your main election commission numberand ask to speak to the election commissioner until your problem is satisfactorily addressed. Keep in mind that many poll workers/supervisors will try and blame the voter aka “operator error.” Do not leave your polling place until your problem is well-documented and addressed to your complete satisfaction and, if the problem is with the machine, that the machine is quarantined. Oh, and you get to vote.
3) File a Report. File Several Reports. Your local polling place will have incident reports available to you. If they do not, call the main election commission for your county and ask for someone to bring one to you. Make sure that both you and the supervisor sign it. An example of a report is here (Hat tip: Wake Up and Save Your CountryVoters Guide). The U.S. Election Assistance Commission also lists on their website where you can find out how to file a report in! your state. Again, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-Our-Vote can also help with any questions in this area.
4) Call the Election Protection Hotline Report you incident to the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-Our-Vote, especially if you feel you are being bullied or your incident is not being taken seriously. The ACLU has a hotline as well at 1-877-523-2792. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Greg Palast offer suggestions as well in their comic StealBackYourVote.org.
5) Pledge to Stand Up to Stolen Elections Go to NoMoreStolenElections.org and pledge to not concede until every vote is counted – and counted as cast.
Allison Kilkenny: Unreported 
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