IN, IL, CA, TX, GA, NJ, NM*(new)VOTER FRAUD (You are watching a movie-all fake!)

[Dig]

State will join voter-fraud probe of Muncie mayoral election
Attorney general says he hopes to help restore trust in county electoral system   LOCAL NEWS ALERTS
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080202/LOCAL/802020487/-1/LOCAL17
February 2, 2008
 
MUNCIE, Ind. -- The state will join an investigation into allegations of voter fraud during the November mayoral election that spurred a recount and calls for a special election. Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter said he hoped the investigation would restore public confidence in Delaware County's election system. "I think it's fair to say that historically there have been many questions raised about the electoral process in Delaware County," he said. Delaware County Prosecutor Mark McKinney said the attorney general's help will add credibility to the investigation. McKinney is a Democrat and Carter is a Republican. "While I have every confidence that my office could have handled the criminal investigation in a fair and impartial manner, it is important that everyone, regardless of political affiliation, has faith in the outcome," McKinney said. Democrat James Mansfield originally was certified as the winner of the mayor's race by just 11 votes. But Republican Sharon McShurley sought a recount and was later certified as the winner by 13 votes. She has since taken office.

During the recount, McShurley argued that Democratic City Councilman Monte Murphy illegally influenced election results in a precinct. Republicans produced affidavits from voters who testified that Murphy either helped them fill out their absentee ballots or collected them. Both actions would violate election laws. Democrats produced statements from the same voters saying they felt intimidated by Republican investigators and could not recall signing the affidavits. Murphy did not testify during the recount and has not responded to media requests to address the allegations. Murphy has not been charged with a crime, and McKinney and Carter did not say whether Murphy was a target of the investigation. In a separate matter, Mansfield is seeking a special election in one precinct where 19 absentee ballots were disqualified by the recount commission, ultimately costing him the election. The 19 ballots were not endorsed with required initials from representatives of both parties. An attorney for McShurley has asked a judge to dismiss the petition for a special election.

[Dig]

Four indicted on voter fraud
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5504224.html
Jan. 31, 2008, 9:56PM

FALFURRIAS, Texas — Four Duval County residents were charged Thursday with illegally handling ballot applications and mail-in ballots that belonged to other voters during the 2006 primary election.

The four San Diego residents indicted Thursday by a Brooks County grand jury were: Lydia Molina, 70; Maria "Kena" Soriano, 71; Elva Lazo, 62; and Maria Trigo, 55.

According to a news release from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office, the four were taken into custody Thursday in Duval County. A shift supervisor for the Duval County jail refused to give The Associated Press any information Thursday on whether they were still in custody, insisting that a request be filed in writing. A Freedom of Information request faxed to the jail on Thursday night was not immediately answered.

The defendants are accused of delivering mail-in ballot applications to Duval County residents who were ineligible to vote by mail, according to the news release. Only those who are disabled, 65 or older, or expect to be out of the county during an election are eligible to vote by mail.

The news release says that once the ballots were sent to the residents and completed, the defendants allegedly retrieved them and mailed them to the registrar to be counted without identifying themselves on the carrier envelope.

Texas law requires that those who provide assistance identify themselves on carrier envelopes used to transmit mail-in ballots.

The charge of possessing and handling the ballot of another person is a Class B misdemeanor, a violation of the Texas Election Code. A Class B misdemeanor violation of the Election Code can result in up to 180 days jail, a maximum $2,000 fine, or both.

[Dig]

Siskiyou man charged with voter fraud
http://www.siskiyoudaily.com/articles/2008/02/05/news/100news4.txt
Published: Tuesday, February 5, 2008 11:16 AM CST

SACRAMENTO - A Weed man was charged with one felony count accusing him of casting two ballots in the November 2005 Special Statewide Election following an investigation by Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s fraud unit, a recent news release stated. The voter allegedly cast one ballot by mail a week before that election and voted a second time at the polls on Election Day. After conducting her official canvass for the special election, Siskiyou County Clerk Colleen Setzer noticed the apparent double voting and alerted the Secretary of State’s office.

According to the release, an investigation by the Secretary’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit concluded that Dennis Roy Roberts indeed voted by mail and also at the polls. A forensic handwriting expert confirmed that the signatures on the ballot and precinct documents both belong to Roberts. The November 2005 special election ballot contained eight statewide initiatives. Also on the ballot in Siskiyou County was Measure A, a local bond benefiting the Siskiyou Joint Community College District, which voters approved. Roberts is athletic director at College of the Siskiyous. ’If you vote more than once in California, you will be caught,’ Secretary Bowen, the state’s chief elections officer, said in the release. ’Voter fraud is not acceptable, and I applaud Colleen Setzer and her staff for their vigilance in helping keep California elections clean.’

Siskiyou County District Attorney J. Kirk Andrus charged Roberts with one count of Elections Code Section 18560(b), voting more than once. It is punishable by up to three years in prison. The Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit helps maintain the integrity of the electoral process by investigating allegations of election and voter fraud in California.

Potential Elections Code violations brought to the unit’s attention are thoroughly investigated and referred to law enforcement officials for prosecution when there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, the release said. The Secretary of State’s office does not disclose information about the status of ongoing criminal investigations, but the information from a case that culminates in a criminal complaint filed by a county or state prosecutor is a public record.

Anyone who has witnessed a violation of the California Elections Code is encouraged to contact the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit at (800) 345-VOTE or online at http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_fraud.htm.

[Dig]

ELECTION '08: State officials alert to voter fraud
http://mywebtimes.com/ottnews/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=352864
02/05/2008, 10:21 am  STEPHANIE SIEVERS, sng2@springnet1.com, 217-524-5797

Illinois may be the state that coined the phrase "vote early and vote often," but local election officials say they aren't expecting problems with voter fraud as people head to the polls today. "There are so many checks and balances in the system at this time," said Rock Island County Clerk Dick Leibovitz, who said election information is verified and re-verified.

Further, Illinois voters now use some form of electronic voting technology that has made it harder to commit the old forms of voter fraud such as stuffing ballot boxes, says Steve Sturm, an attorney for the Illinois State Board of Elections. There are optical scan machines in which a voter fills out a paper ballot and it is then fed into a scanner to be "read" and tabulated. Other voters use touch-screen machines and a few parts of the state use a hybrid combination, Sturm said. It may be harder to get around the technology, but Sturm said it doesn't mean people won't eventually find new ways to try and skirt election laws. If voters notice questionable election practices today, they are encouraged to contact their county clerk's office.

But county clerks say most Election Day calls are more mundane than cases of potential fraud. There often are complaints about overzealous poll watchers, election judges talking up a particular candidate or people campaigning too close to polling precincts. Kankakee County Clerk Bruce Clark said a frequent question to his office is from election judges trying to verify a voter does in fact meet residency requirements. In the rare instance voters might be challenged when trying to vote, Sturm recommends they take along a voter's registration card, driver's license or some other form of identification as well as a utility bill or something else that shows their current address.

La Salle County Clerk JoAnn Carretto said a group of people from her office and the county highway department will be traveling today checking on every precinct in the county's 37 townships. Election judges will be on hand at polling places, but teams of investigators and attorneys from Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office also will be fanning out across the state to monitor the primary election. There are 135 teams assigned to Chicago and counties in northern Illinois. Another 44 teams will monitor election activity downstate.

If voters suspect illegal voting activity, there are a number of other places they can report their concerns:
Illinois State Board of Elections in Springfield at 217-782-4141 or Chicago at 312-263-7367.
Illinois Attorney General's Office in Springfield at 866-559-6812 or Chicago at 866-536-3496.
U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago at 312-469-6157.
La Salle County Clerk's Office in Ottawa at 815-434-8202.
Livingston County Clerk's Office in Pontiac at 815-844-2006.

[Dig]

MercuryMedia elects to pick up vote fraud doc
http://www.c21media.net/resources/detail.asp?area=100&article=39846
Conspiracy-sniffing UK distributor MercuryMedia has added a new documentary on vote rigging to its library of subversive titles. How Ohio Pulled It Off is an hour-long one-off documentary produced by prodco Ohio Filmmakers that tackles what it claims to be high levels of election fraud and voter engineering in Ohio during the 2004 US presidential elections. The film claims to expose issues such as inconsistencies in the electronic voting system, as well as bringing into question the wider legitimacy of democracy in the US in the run-up to the 2008 presidential race. MercuryMedia's head of acquisitions Jason McGeown said: "The relevance of this film cannot be underestimated. It looks like the Bush administration manufactured not one result but two. As the film states, this can and probably will happen again."

[Dig]

Keeping An Eye Out For Voter Fraud-With elections comes voter fraud.
http://www.week.com/news/political/15287651.html
By Jeff Muniz Story Published: Feb 4, 2008 at 5:13 PM CST


Peoria election officials say more mistakes are made due to human error than someone trying to cheat the election process. Still, the Illinois Attorney General will have 179 teams across the state checking out polling places tomorrow. Peoria election judge Maleita King says she once had to deal with someone handing out campaign literature next to her polling place. "You're busy with people and you don't notice that immediately but as soon as it's brought to your attention, you have to stop what you're doing and correct the situation. If you must, you bring the law in and we did have to call police and they had to come and escort the man out." There's also the concern that voters will use a dead person's name to vote more than once. The city of Peoria tries to prevent that by sending out new voter registration cards every two years. This latest effort removed nearly 8,000 people off the registration rolls.

[Dig]

Calif. Secretary of State Won't Predict Super Tuesday Voter Turnout
http://www.kpbs.org/news/local;id=10827
Feb 04, 2008 Jenny O'Mara, California Capitol Network    

In an unusual move, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has decided not to predict voter turnout for Tuesday's election. She says there are just too many variables this time around.

Bowen: You might be able to pick in a routine election based on the number of absentee applications and based on this and that, but we've never had a primary on February 5th where California was absolutely going to determine the outcome of the nominees in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries.

Roughly 56 percent of voters cast ballots in the November 2006 election. An analyst with the Public Policy Institute of California says they've noted record interest in this year's election, which bodes well for turnout.

[Dig]

Down the stretch: Voters see long lines, some bottlenecks
http://publicbroadcasting.net/kbia/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1223061&sectionID=1
By MARK DAVIS The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/05/08

No one said democracy is a smooth-running machine — no one waiting in Tuesday's long voter lines, anyway.

Across Georgia, poll workers reported long lines and lengthy waits as people queued to cast ballots in contested Republican and Democratic presidential primaries.

Some people complained about having to wait an hour or longer to cast a ballot — a process that was over in less than a minute. Others said they ran into bottlenecks where precinct workers could not quickly verify whether people were qualified to vote in the primary.

Some happy voters said they were in and out like a February breeze, cool and fast.

And no one, according to state officials, reported problems with photo IDs in one of the early tests of a controversial election law.

By mid-afternoon Tuesday, poll workers reported heavy voter turnout during the early morning and lunchtime, said Matt Carrothers, Secretary of State Karen Handel's director of media relations. "If there are any lines," he said, "it's a function of a large voter turnout."

A few workers had reported technical problems, including glitches with voter-verification machines, Carrothers said. The state issued about 6,300 of the machines to precincts across Georgia, he said. The machines, which resemble laptop computers, replace the notebooks poll workers formerly used to check voters' status.

Whenever someone reported a problem with a machine, he said, "we've dispatched technical support personnel."

No poll worker, he added, had reported complaints or problems with requiring voters to have a photo ID. The voter ID law has been in effect since September, when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit to overturn the statute. Critics say the law may hurt poor people who lack sufficient identification to cast votes. Supporters say the law is a realistic attempt to derail voter fraud.

"We've had no issues at all with voter ID," Carrothers said.

Some voters had issues with waiting to cast ballots. Among them: Randy Evans, a member of the State Election Board. He suggested that officials deal with long lines by following the example of a well-known retailer.

"When Wal-Mart sees lines, it will consider the possibility that it does not have enough cashiers," he said.

Evans said the long lines on a day when the ballot is short don't bode well for the November election.

" It is not enough to be thankful that voters showed up," he said. "Instead, there needs to be an active effort to accommodate the large numbers of voters who do show up so that they will be more inclined to come back again."

Conyers voter Michael Maxwell came to the same conclusion. Tuesday morning, he expected spend five minutes choosing a candidate to run for president. He walked out a half-hour later.

When he got to vote, Maxwell made a vow: He'll volunteer at the polls in November to make the next vote easier. "I don't believe in complaining and no helping bring a solution," he said.

Teresa Allen wasn't pleased when she came to vote, either. The Mableton resident arrived at her precinct at 7:35 a.m. She left at 8:40 a.m. "It only took me 20 seconds to vote," she said.

Dandy Richardson made his choice just as quickly, and spent a lot less time waiting to do it. A Decatur resident, he hardly waited at all before heading to a voting machine, Richardson said. "Three minutes, and I was out," he said.

Voters coming to the polling place at Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church faced even more bewildering choices: pumpkin bread or banana bread? Cupcakes or Krispy Kreme?

Mothers set up a bake sale right outside the polls at the sprawling Buckhead house of worship to raise money for the church's early childhood school. Strollers with napping – and one awakening – infants were parked nearby.

The most political offering: Democrat and Republican cookies – one shaped like a donkey, the other like an elephant, with both covered in red, white and blue frosting.

Which was the voters' favorite? Penny Sapone was politic.

"They're selling equally," she said,.

Staff writers Drew Jubera and Ben Smith contributed to this report.

[Dig]

Lou Dobbs on situation room right said that paper trails are still not in at least 13 states and are completely open to total voter fraud.

[Dig]

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 2/5/2008 1:29PM 
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5655
DRUDGE DISINFO ALERT: Rightwing Propaganda Site Wrong Again on Polling Place 'Problems' in L.A.
Incorrectly Reports Voting Machines Undelivered 'ALL OVER LOS ANGELES'

As happened on the day of the New Hampshire primary on January 8th, disinformation on the net about problems at the polling place were rampant. But wrong. The disinfo, as The BRAD BLOG was able to debunk that day, seems to have originally emanated from the DRUDGE REPORT.

It looks like Mr. Drudge is busy getting the story wrong again today, reporting that "The board of elections failed to deliver voting equipment to polling places ALL OVER LOS ANGELES"...



After running the above story for a number of hours at his site --- and sending corporate mainstream media folks and Internet blogsites alike into a tizzy, as well as helping to ring our phones off the hook --- DRUDGE has finally updated the item with the real story, and it's far less scary...




"Board of elections failed to deliver voting equipment to polling place [singular!] in Los Angeles," he now reports, and adds a vague "reports of issues at other locations..." linked to this MSNBC story about a problem at one polling place in West Los Angeles where voting machines were not delivered.

The same story, of the one precinct where equipment was not available, was reported an hour or two ago by AP.

A polling place without voting equipment is obviously a problem. But it's a far cry from Drudge's red-lettered "ALL OVER LOS ANGELES" scream. We've spoken to a number of election officials and Election Integrity experts monitoring voting here in L.A. and have been able to find no other reports of the same issue happening elsewhere.

Drudge has since moved the above headline down on his page, where it is now hidden among his other stories today.

There were, and are, scattered reports about problems at polling places here in Los Angeles. We're trying to track them down, and even encountered one of them ourselves when we went to vote today. We'll report on those issues, and others elsewhere around the country, shortly...

[Dig]

BLOGGED BY John Gideon ON 2/5/2008 6:26AM 
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5651
NJ Governor Delayed Casting Vote as Voting Machines Inoperable in Hoboken
One Unverifiable Touch-Screen Machine Finally Fixed, No Provisional Ballots Available at Polling Place, Voters Turned Away
UPDATE: Right on Schedule, Officials Blame Pollworkers for Error | FURTHER UPDATE: Vote Flips from Obama to Clinton Reported in NJ as Well...

Blogged on the fly by John Gideon, VotersUnite.Org

The Associated Press is reporting that the two Sequoia AVC Advantage touch-screen voting machines at the Hoboken Fire Department Engine Company No. 2 on Washington Street would not work for about 45 minutes as the polls opened this morning. This polling place just happens to be the location where New Jersey Governor John Corzine votes, or was at least scheduled to at 6:15am. He was unable to cast his vote until 7:00am according to the reports.

AP notes that several voters were turned away this morning until they were able to get one of the machines working. Fox "News" reported earlier that there were no provisional ballots at the poll site, so voters had no choice but to wait for the machines to be fixed or to choose not to vote at all.

Update by Brad Friedman flying in...


New York's ABC 7 confirms the problems. They report: "The big question is why did this polling place not have any provisional ballots," and they note that "lots of people were obviously turned away."

Corzine is just the latest in a growing line of public officials and other well-known personalities who have run into recent trouble voting at the polls.
Last week, Rush Limbaugh's touch-screen machine froze up while voting in the Florida Primary.
In 2006, Missouri's Sec. of State Robin Carnahan was told three times by a pollworker, in violation of state law, that she would have to produce a drivers license before she would be allowed to vote.
In 2005, California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was temporarily barred from casting his vote, as the e-voting system in Santa Monica showed him as having already voted.
And, only somewhat related: In early 2006, Ann Coulter knowingly voted at the wrong precinct (a first degree misdemeanor) after knowingly using an incorrect home address, that of her realtor, on her voter registration form in Palm Beach County Florida (a third-degree felony).

FURTHER UPDATE FROM BRAD, 7:45am PT: Right on schedule, officials say pollworkers are to blame for the still-unspecified problem that kept machines from working this morning. As you'll see, it's always "human error", rather than the fault of the crappy machines, or the idiots who created them so poorly or made them so complicated that they continue to fail in election after election. The only "human error", in truth, is that of the Election Officials who irresponsibly chose to use these horrible voting systems in the first place.

STILL FURTHER UPDATE FROM BRAD, 12:15pm PT: One of the "conspiracy theorists" at Daily Kos reports that attempts to vote for...

Obama flipped to Clinton on the touch-screen voting systems.

Further such reports also found in comments there.

[Dig]

BLOGGED BY Emily Levy ON 2/5/2008 3:15PM 
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5654
Voters Face Long Lines in Georgia as Photo ID Laws and Diebold's Crashing E-Pollbook System Slow Process
Wait Times Up to 90 Minutes or More in Metro Atlanta, While New E-Registration Computers Cause Delays
Officials Fall Back to Old Fashioned Paper Check-In, as Two and a Half Hour Delays Seen at 'Welcome All Park'...

Guest Blogged by Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us...

Problems with new Diebold electronic registration poll books and new Photo ID restrictions are causing voting delays up to two and a half hours at some polling places across Georgia and metropolitan Atlanta according to news reports, Election Integrity problem report hotlines, and state officials who The BRAD BLOG has spoken with throughout the day.

Diebold electronic voting machines are standing idle at many precincts, as voters wait in long lines while being forced to face sign-in verification procedures on the company's new, and once-again failing, e-pollbook system at locations across the state...


Today's primary is the first major test of Georgia's new Photo ID restriction at the polling place (O.C.G.A § 21-2-417), which mandates voters must show a government-issued photo identification card in order to be allowed to vote. Pollworkers use computers to check each voter's eligibility against the voter rolls as listed on their screens. These electronic polling systems are yet another step away from the transparent, accurate and verifiable elections our democracy requires, subjecting yet another part of the election system to the frailties of computer security and the electrical grid, among other problems. Until this election, Georgia pollworkers checked voters' registrations on paper printouts of the voting rolls.

According to a report today from NBC's 11Alive, which diminishes the importance of election security, transparency and accuracy by referring to the problems as "glitches" in its headline, "Poll workers at the [Inman Middle School in Virginia Highland] had just two computer terminals --- one of which keeps crashing --- to check ids against their voter registration lists."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the long lines caused by problems with the new, and largely untested technology...
Big crowds and slow-moving lines throughout the morning caused DeKalb County election officials to institute a contingency plan they hope will speed the voting process during the lunch and after-work rush.

An extra voter processing station was expected to be set up at each precinct. Poll workers at the new stations will have to verify addresses the old-fashioned way,” flipping through thick voter roll books instead of computer terminals, said Linda Latimore, the county's director of registration and elections.

Clare Nicholas Schexnyder of Election Protection, a project of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, which runs the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline for voting problems, tells The BRAD BLOG, "The bottlenecks are occurring at check-in, people not actually being able to get to the voting booths."

She confirmed that the group has many reports that "computers are crashing" in some polling places. Schexnyder says that Election Protection has received between 400 and 500 calls today, and reminds us that the evening rush is yet to come. Approximately 30% of the calls so far have been to report the long voting lines.

Many callers are indicating frustration that voting machines are standing empty and they just can't get to them. The longest line so far reported is, ironically enough, at the "Welcome All" polling place at 4255 Will Lee Rd., where Schexnyder estimates as many as 250 people were in line, with waits of up to two and a half hours.

A news advisory issued today by Election Protection offers further details, including voters who report feeling intimidation by the presence of armed state officials...
Welcome All Park: Election Protection Poll observers were approached by voters concerned about an armed white male officer at the predominantly African American polling place. The Election Protection poll observers spoke with the man and determined he was a Ga. Secretary of State Elections Investigator. They informed him the voters felt intimidated by his presence. Georgia Election Protection contacted the Secretary of State's office and reported the incident. The SOS office said they would look into it.

Schexnyder says Election Protection has contacted Fulton County election officials and that they are dispatching more people to try to expedite the process. A spokesperson at the County declined to answer The BRAD BLOG's questions about the problems at Welcome All Park, first saying that they wouldn't know anything about problems at particular polling places because they are in the office and not on the scene. When pressed about whether or not they've received complaints about long lines at Welcome All, she said yes, but then added, "We don't give out information like that."

The video accompanying the 11Alive story indicates that the Georgia Secretary of State had received about one hundred calls by 10:30 or 11 this morning, "which is not terribly bad, basically voting machines not working, paper ballots having to be used, that kind of thing."

Viewers, we suppose, should breathe easy since "all in all, statewide, things seem to be running smoothly," according to the report.

We'll remind readers that things "seeming to run smoothly" is not an indication that the vote totals will accurately reflect the votes cast by voters. Georgia polling places all use Diebold DRE/touchscreen voting machines, which have been found in state after state and study after study to be easily manipulated to produce any voting results desired by anyone with access to them --- be they Diebold employees, election office employees, pollworkers or others.

Here's a quick sample of what can happen when non-transparent election procedures are used in states like Georgia (or any, for that matter).

Diebold's Crashing Pollbook System

Diebold, now using the name Premier Election Solutions, is also the vendor for Georgia's electronic pollbooks, the Diebold ExpressPoll, which the company website claims "streamline the voter verification process."

Diebold ExpressPoll systems have caused problems in other states in past elections, including Utah and Maryland, as described by Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University and Baltimore County election judge after the same systems melted down in that state during the 2006 primary election:
The electronic poll books presented an even bigger problem, however. Every so often, about once every 15-25 minutes, after a voter signed in, and while that voter's smartcard was being programmed with the ballot, the poll book would suddenly crash and reboot. Unfortunately, the smartcard would not be programmed at the end of this, so the poll worker would have to try again. However, the second time, the machine said that the voter had already voted.

The first few times this happened, we had some very irate voters, and we had to call over the chief judge. Soon, however, we realized what was happening, and as soon as the poll book crashed, we warned the voter that it would come up saying that they had already voted, but that we knew they hadn't.

Then, the chief judge would have to come over, enter a password, and authorize that person to vote anyway. Then we had to make a log entry of the event and quarantine the offending smartcard.

Unfortunately, the poll books take about 3 minutes to reboot, and the chief judges are very scarce resources, so this caused further delays and caused the long line we had for most of the afternoon and evening while many of the machines were idle.

Another problem was that the poll book would not subtract a voter from its total count when this happened, so every time we had an incident, the poll book voter count was further off the mark. We had to keep track of this by hand, so we could reconcile it at the end of the day

The presidential election in November 2004 provided a clear example of how long lines at polling places can disenfranchise voters, and how creation of conditions that result in long lines, such as providing a polling place with insufficient equipment, can be a way to target particular communities for disenfranchisement.

The additional requirement that voters present a photo ID to vote is, in and of itself, a method of voter disenfranchisement that disproportionately affects low income voters and voters of color (read: Democratic-leaning voters.)

In recent years, such Photo ID laws have been pushed by Republicans in many states, as well as at the federal level, as solutions to the virtually non-existent problem of "voter fraud," (not to be confused with the very real concerns of election fraud.) Several states, including Georgia, have found such laws, time and again, to be unconstitutional "modern day poll taxes."

In Georgia, the combination of the new photo ID restrictions and non-transparent, unverifiable electronic voting systems used --- on which it is physically and scientifically impossible to assure that even a single vote is counted as cast, --- guarantees only one thing: that Georgia voters have absolutely no basis for confidence in election results.

Other reports of problems in Georgia today include:
A precinct in the suburban city of Covington, Ga., opened only to discover the wrong keys — needed to turn them on — had been delivered with its new electronic voting machines, according to The Daily Report Online.

And from the 11Alive article:
At a polling place in Covington, the first voters who showed up at Prospect United Methodist Church said poll workers had forgotten the keys to the ballot box.
Voters at MLK Towers had to stand in line for hours to vote on a paper ballot, one person at a time. That problem has since been fixed, the Secretary of State's Office reported.
In Henry County, a voter said poll workers at Locust Grove Elementary had the wrong computers and people were leaving without voting.
At Murphy Candler Elementary, dozens of voters showed up to find out they had been reassigned to a new precinct. The elections office said those voters had been sent notices of the change, but several voters said they did not receive them.

From the Election Protection News Advisory:
Cliftondale School (Butner Road, in unincorporated Fulton, 30349) - 100's of people lined up; only 1 machine working; many people left polling place. [listed with this update: "RESOLVED. Lines have shortened."]
Murphey Candler Elementary, 6775 S. Goddard Rd. Lithonia, GA - 50 voters turned away from polls. Being told to go to Flat Rock Elementary. (3-5 miles away) Sam Tillman of DeKalb Co. Elections said voters were mailed letters in June 2007, that precinct would change to address overcrowding issues. In July, they sent updated voter registration cards. All but one of the voters said they were not notified of the change.

[Dig]

AUDIO: How Do You Know If Your Vote is Counted Accurately or Even at All?
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5650
A Sober Discussion on Vote Counting Between Brad Friedman and Vocalo's Tom Herman...

Tom Herman of Vocalo.org (a project of Chicago's National Public Radio) had some good questions about how votes are counted in Illinois, and elsewhere, over the weekend. I tried to give him some good answers. I believe it was a very good, sober discussion on these questions, and one that might come in handy tomorrow and beyond.

Appx. 14 mins, download MP3

[Dig]

After a reboot, does my e-vote count?
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13544_1-9864972-35.html
Posted by Kevin Ho February 5, 2008 8:01 AM PST



A Sequoia voting machine rebooting, and rebooting...
(Credit: Kevin Ho)

With all things touch-screen in an increasingly touch-screen centric world, I was given the "plastic or paper" option for casting my vote in the California primary on this most super of Super Tuesdays. So, not liking the marker fumes and being used to touching everything on the iPhone anyway, I opted to vote "plastic."

The polling place had 10 conventional optical-scan voting stations with real paper ballots, but only 1 digital voting machine. San Francisco uses the Sequoia voting machine and, well, here's my story:

The clerk handed me a plastic card to insert into the machine. The idea is that you insert the card to activate the ballot and machine. Easy, right? Umm, no, not so in my case. Instead of the black screen of death, Sequoia's red screen of death (irony that the Communists would laugh at) popped up when I inserted my card into the machine's slot. Nothing moved--neither touching nor talking to the machine worked. What's worse, the card was now stuck in the machine as there was no eject button or function. The clerk who handed me the card was confounded. I was having flashbacks to that movie, Man of the Year, with Robin Williams being elected on a computer glitch. I had a thought that I'd have to cast a dreaded "provisional ballot"--at least my name isn't Chad and I'm not pregnant.

Not to be deterred, however, another clerk came over and explained something about hitting "yes" to the other clerk who handled the plastic cards that had been processed on another machine. The clerk then proceeded to lift the back of my voting machine up, slapping it hard so that it must have told it to reboot itself. (What is it about me and having to reboot things? Voting machines, airline seats, iPhones?)

After the two-minute reboot, voting was simple. After a language choice, you were presented with various screens containing all the would-be presidents, ballot measures, and attempts to turn Alcatraz into a Global Peace Park. (I voted no on that bright idea.)

The font was large and not as elegant as the voter guide, nor was it sexy like any Apple-based user interface, but it was functional. I clicked my choices (maybe you can see who I voted for on the pictures I took on my iPhone to document the event) and, at the end, was asked to review my choices. What's best, is that the screen then directed me to look at the paper (yes, paper) receipt that scrolled up on the left of the machine, providing the reassuring paper record of my vote. And it was, indeed, accurate.

So in the end, it's an anachronistic notion that in a plastic world, paper is still the default method that gives us reassurance that our vote still counts. What's more interesting is that while my plastic voting method was expected to be faster, it wasn't, as some of the paper people in line behind me moved past.


Casting my vote on Sequoia: A vote for me and a vote for you.
(Credit: Kevin Ho)


Receipt with you or in the bag? Sequoia's paper receipt.
(Credit: Kevin Ho)

[Dig]

More proof of fraud in Illinois:

Voters face problems, delays, and most likely fraud-election officials report
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-illinois-primary-voting_webfeb06,0,7841800.story
By David Kidwell, Rick Pearson and Deanese Williams-Harris | Tribune reporters
5:05 PM CST, February 5, 2008

[Note: some embelishment by me so it can be a bit more truthful...]

Illinois voters are getting their chance to be relevant in the presidential primaries for the first time in decades on Super Tuesday, casting ballots six weeks earlier than usual. When polls opened at 6 a.m., the weather was relatively mild and the forecast was for a large turnout driven by the unique Democratic presidential contest featuring Barack Obama, a first-term U.S. senator from Chicago, and Park Ridge native Hillary Clinton, a second-term New York senator. Chicago and Cook County election officials were fielding very concerning Election Day complaints about equipment problems and other technical and human difficulties.

There was a delay in voting of between one and two hours at one 35th Ward polling place on the Northwest Side when the equipment was delivered to the wrong location. Voters left and officials were contemplating keeping that location open later.

At another location on the city's North Side, there was a short delay opening a polling place at a bank because the security guard was found unconscious inside. Officials said he was OK, there were no signs of foul play, and the polling place opened a short time later.

Cook County election officials reported that courts ordered that two suburban polling places be kept open late after delays in opening.

Oak Lawn Precinct 49 at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church will stay open until 8 p.m. after three of four poll workers failed to show up. The polling place did not open until 7:15 a.m.

In Oak Park, Precinct 1 at Hatch School also will have extended hours because the school, for security reasons, had locked a door that kept out voters.

At Truman College on Chicago's North Side, none of the three touch-screen voting machines was working as voters arrived.

"The very first voter was so angry she was moved to tears," 42nd Precinct Election Judge Paula Greer said. "It took her 40 minutes to vote, which was frustrating for her." Cook County election officials said it was too early to estimate the suburban turnout, but it could meet or exceed the presidential primary record of 40 percent set in 1992. The record in the city is 58.5 percent in 1984. "It's probably the most important election I've ever voted in," said Tony Trigilio, 41, one of the voters at the Rogers Park church. "If our votes were to count, we would have the power to choose someone who can fix what the Bush administration messed up." Some precincts in predominantly African-American neighborhoods on the West Side reported longer delays because they are routinely victimized with less machines, broken machines, power outages, intimidation, and sometimes execution while voting.

[UpsetBrit]

People aren't going to stand for this. 

[Dig]

Latest news and reports here:

http://bradblog.com

http://blackboxvoting.org

http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp

[Dig]

BLOGGED BY Emily Levy ON 2/5/2008 3:15PM 
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5654#more-5654
Voters Face Long Lines in Georgia as Photo ID Laws and Diebold's Crashing E-Pollbook System Slow Process
Wait Times Up to Two and a Half or More in Metro Atlanta, While New E-Registration Computers Cause Delays
Officials Fall Back to Old Fashioned Paper Check-In, as Two and a Half Hour Delays Seen at 'Welcome All Park'...

Guest Blogged by Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us...

Problems with new Diebold electronic registration poll books and new Photo ID restrictions are causing voting delays up to two and a half hours at some polling places across Georgia and metropolitan Atlanta according to news reports, Election Integrity problem report hotlines, and state officials who The BRAD BLOG has spoken with throughout the day.

Diebold electronic voting machines are standing idle at many precincts, as voters wait in long lines while being forced to face sign-in verification procedures on the company's new, and once-again failing, e-pollbook system at locations across the state...


Today's primary is the first major test of Georgia's new Photo ID restriction at the polling place (O.C.G.A § 21-2-417), which mandates voters must show a government-issued photo identification card in order to be allowed to vote. Pollworkers use computers to check each voter's eligibility against the voter rolls as listed on their screens. These electronic polling systems are yet another step away from the transparent, accurate and verifiable elections our democracy requires, subjecting yet another part of the election system to the frailties of computer security and the electrical grid, among other problems. Until this election, Georgia pollworkers checked voters' registrations on paper printouts of the voting rolls.

According to a report today from NBC's 11Alive, which diminishes the importance of election security, transparency and accuracy by referring to the problems as "glitches" in its headline, "Poll workers at the [Inman Middle School in Virginia Highland] had just two computer terminals --- one of which keeps crashing --- to check ids against their voter registration lists."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the long lines caused by problems with the new, and largely untested technology...
Big crowds and slow-moving lines throughout the morning caused DeKalb County election officials to institute a contingency plan they hope will speed the voting process during the lunch and after-work rush.

An extra voter processing station was expected to be set up at each precinct. Poll workers at the new stations will have to verify addresses the old-fashioned way,” flipping through thick voter roll books instead of computer terminals, said Linda Latimore, the county's director of registration and elections.

Clare Nicholas Schexnyder of Election Protection, a project of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, which runs the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hotline for voting problems, tells The BRAD BLOG, "The bottlenecks are occurring at check-in, people not actually being able to get to the voting booths."

She confirmed that the group has many reports that "computers are crashing" in some polling places. Schexnyder says that Election Protection has received between 400 and 500 calls today, and reminds us that the evening rush is yet to come. Approximately 30% of the calls so far have been to report the long voting lines.

Many callers are indicating frustration that voting machines are standing empty and they just can't get to them. The longest line so far reported is, ironically enough, at the "Welcome All" polling place at 4255 Will Lee Rd., where Schexnyder estimates as many as 250 people were in line, with waits of up to two and a half hours.

A news advisory issued today by Election Protection offers further details, including voters who report feeling intimidation by the presence of armed state officials...(emphasis added)
Welcome All Park: Election Protection Poll observers were approached by voters concerned about an armed white male officer at the predominantly African American polling place. The Election Protection poll observers spoke with the man and determined he was a Ga. Secretary of State Elections Investigator. They informed him the voters felt intimidated by his presence. Georgia Election Protection contacted the Secretary of State's office and reported the incident. The SOS office said they would look into it.

Schexnyder says Election Protection has contacted Fulton County election officials and that they are dispatching more people to try to expedite the process. A spokesperson at the County declined to answer The BRAD BLOG's questions about the problems at Welcome All Park, first saying that they wouldn't know anything about problems at particular polling places because they are in the office and not on the scene. When pressed about whether or not they've received complaints about long lines at Welcome All, she said yes, but then added, "We don't give out information like that."

The video accompanying the 11Alive story indicates that the Georgia Secretary of State had received about one hundred calls by 10:30 or 11 this morning, "which is not terribly bad, basically voting machines not working, paper ballots having to be used, that kind of thing."

Viewers, we suppose, should breathe easy since "all in all, statewide, things seem to be running smoothly," according to the report.

We'll remind readers that things "seeming to run smoothly" is not an indication that the vote totals will accurately reflect the votes cast by voters. Georgia polling places all use Diebold DRE/touchscreen voting machines, which have been found in state after state and study after study to be easily manipulated to produce any voting results desired by anyone with access to them --- be they Diebold employees, election office employees, pollworkers or others.

Here's a quick sample of what can happen when non-transparent election procedures are used in states like Georgia (or any, for that matter).

Diebold's Crashing Pollbook System

Diebold, now using the name Premier Election Solutions, is also the vendor for Georgia's electronic pollbooks, the Diebold ExpressPoll, which the company website claims "streamline the voter verification process."

Diebold ExpressPoll systems have caused problems in other states in past elections, including Utah and Maryland, as described by Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University and Baltimore County election judge after the same systems melted down in that state during the 2006 primary election:
The electronic poll books presented an even bigger problem, however. Every so often, about once every 15-25 minutes, after a voter signed in, and while that voter's smartcard was being programmed with the ballot, the poll book would suddenly crash and reboot. Unfortunately, the smartcard would not be programmed at the end of this, so the poll worker would have to try again. However, the second time, the machine said that the voter had already voted.

The first few times this happened, we had some very irate voters, and we had to call over the chief judge. Soon, however, we realized what was happening, and as soon as the poll book crashed, we warned the voter that it would come up saying that they had already voted, but that we knew they hadn't.

Then, the chief judge would have to come over, enter a password, and authorize that person to vote anyway. Then we had to make a log entry of the event and quarantine the offending smartcard.

Unfortunately, the poll books take about 3 minutes to reboot, and the chief judges are very scarce resources, so this caused further delays and caused the long line we had for most of the afternoon and evening while many of the machines were idle.

Another problem was that the poll book would not subtract a voter from its total count when this happened, so every time we had an incident, the poll book voter count was further off the mark. We had to keep track of this by hand, so we could reconcile it at the end of the day

The presidential election in November 2004 provided a clear example of how long lines at polling places can disenfranchise voters, and how creation of conditions that result in long lines, such as providing a polling place with insufficient equipment, can be a way to target particular communities for disenfranchisement.

The additional requirement that voters present a photo ID to vote is, in and of itself, a method of voter disenfranchisement that disproportionately affects low income voters and voters of color (read: Democratic-leaning voters).

In recent years, such Photo ID laws have been pushed by Republicans in many states, as well as at the federal level, as solutions to the virtually non-existent problem of "voter fraud," (not to be confused with the very real concerns of election fraud). Several states, including Georgia, have found such laws, time and again, to be unconstitutional "modern day poll taxes."

In Georgia, the combination of the new photo ID restrictions and non-transparent, unverifiable electronic voting systems used --- on which it is physically and scientifically impossible to assure that even a single vote is counted as cast --- guarantees only one thing: that Georgia voters have absolutely no basis for confidence in the election results.

Other reports of problems in Georgia today include:
A precinct in the suburban city of Covington, Ga., opened only to discover the wrong keys — needed to turn them on — had been delivered with its new electronic voting machines, according to The Daily Report Online.

And from the 11Alive article:
At a polling place in Covington, the first voters who showed up at Prospect United Methodist Church said poll workers had forgotten the keys to the ballot box.
Voters at MLK Towers had to stand in line for hours to vote on a paper ballot, one person at a time. That problem has since been fixed, the Secretary of State's Office reported.
In Henry County, a voter said poll workers at Locust Grove Elementary had the wrong computers and people were leaving without voting.
At Murphy Candler Elementary, dozens of voters showed up to find out they had been reassigned to a new precinct. The elections office said those voters had been sent notices of the change, but several voters said they did not receive them.

From the Election Protection News Advisory:
Cliftondale School (Butner Road, in unincorporated Fulton, 30349) - 100's of people lined up; only 1 machine working; many people left polling place. [listed with this update: "RESOLVED. Lines have shortened."]
Murphey Candler Elementary, 6775 S. Goddard Rd. Lithonia, GA - 50 voters turned away from polls. Being told to go to Flat Rock Elementary. (3-5 miles away) Sam Tillman of DeKalb Co. Elections said voters were mailed letters in June 2007, that precinct would change to address overcrowding issues. In July, they sent updated voter registration cards. All but one of the voters said they were not notified of the change.

[Dig]

Problems crop up early in Super Tuesday voting
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Problems_crop_up_early_in_Super_0205.html
Nick Juliano Published: Tuesday February 5, 2008



As voters head to the polls from coast to coast Tuesday, early reports indicate that more than a few have been unable to cast ballots because of malfunctioning machines and inadequate backup plans, while more problems could crop up throughout the day.

New Jersey Gov. John Corzine was one of more than a dozen voters delayed or turned away from a polling place in Hoboken, NJ, one of 24 states holding primaries or caucuses Tuesday. The Democratic governor was scheduled at his polling place around 6:15 a.m., but the two voting machines there did not work right away and a dozen or so voters were unable to cast ballots. Poll workers spent 45 minutes trying to fix the machine, and Corzine was eventually able to vote, around 7 a.m., according to a local ABC affiliate.

The Garden State is one of just a handful of Super Tuesday states that persists in using "high risk" paperless touch-screen voting machines, according to public interest group Common Cause. The New York Times reports that New Jersey is joined by Delaware and Georgia in using only the paperless machines, which make "meaningful recounts ... impossible." Most polling places in Tennessee and some Arkansas locations also will use the unauditable machines.

Responding to touch-screen concerns in California, election officials decided to decertify the electronic machines, forcing many counties to switch to paper ballots which take longer to count. The state is also expecting record turnout of 8.9 million voters Tuesday. About 2 million California voters mailed in their ballots, and those results will be released as soon as polls close at 8 p.m. pacific time (11 p.m. eastern), but poll workers could still be counting well into Wednesday morning.

"The East Coast is going to tune in the next morning, and we are still going to be counting," Steve Weir, president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Beyond problems with touch-screen voting machines, which also caused trouble in Florida last week, voters in several states will have to battle unfriendly weather on their way to polls or caucuses. The Associated Press reports snow or rain hit Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma, all of which vote Tuesday.

[Optimus]

Reports of Confusion at Some New Jersey Polls
http://www.1010wins.com/Reports-of-Confusion-at-Some-New-Jersey-Polls/1602657

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP)  -- The state Public Advocate's Office received about 200 calls Tuesday from voters confused about who could vote in the state's presidential primary election.

"The number of people who were turned away from the polls and sought our assistance to exercise their right to vote was extraordinarily high for a presidential primary,'' said Laurie Brewer, spokeswoman for the state Public Advocate's Office.

Officials said earlier Tuesday that they were getting more complaints than usual about problems at polling places -- including some early morning confusion at Gov. Jon S. Corzine's polling place.

Michael Harper, clerk to the Hudson County Board of Elections, said that when the first voter arrived at the Hoboken fire station where Corzine votes, an election worker did not press the right buttons to set the machine.

The worker called the Board of Elections, which talked her through the problem, Harper said. He said the worker was confused because different buttons are used for the primary election than in other elections.

Some media reports said that Corzine, who has endorsed U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, could not vote because of the problem. But his spokesman, Jim Gardner, said the governor was running late for other reasons and voted around 6:50 a.m. -- about a half-hour later than scheduled.

Harper said when the governor did vote, he was in and out of the polling place in 2{ minutes and was the 14th person to vote on that machine.

Harper said another voting machine in the same firehouse was accidentally turned off soon after voting began at 6 a.m. and another machine had to be brought in to replace it.

That meant that for less than a half-hour, two machines were out of service in the same firehouse. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey has complained that provisional ballots were not handed out to voters who could not vote because of the problems.

Brewer said many of the calls came from voters who were frustrated that they could switch parties for the primaries. Only party members may vote in the primary, though unaffiliated voters can join parties at the polling place.

She said Public Advocate attorneys were able to get orders for some people to vote based on testimony that the voter obtained a driver's license but were not given the opportunity to register to vote as required by the federal motor voter law. In other cases, she said, voters who insisted they were registered Democrats were told they were listed as Republicans on the voting rolls, and vice versa.

Deborah Jacobs, director of the ACLU of New Jersey, said an officer in her group spotted an electioneering problem when he went to vote at a Montclair school: student-made signs for some, but not all, candidates were hanging near the voting booths.

Under New Jersey election laws, no material supporting candidates is allowed within 100 feet of polling places.

Jacobs said people had called her group with a smattering of other complaints, too, such as people not being offered provisional ballots in Jersey City, a woman with a baby stroller being unable to get into a Hoboken polling site, a Democrat in Monmouth County being given a machine set up for Republicans, among others.

[Optimus]

OMFG!!! Invisible ink!

Super Tuesday voters find machine glitches and delays
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200802060923.htm

NEW YORK (AP): Scattered voting problems, including machine glitches and long lines, emerged in some states on the biggest Super Tuesday round of political primaries ever held in America. But overall, voting appeared to go smoothly.

A record turnout was expected as an unprecedented 24 states held primaries and caucuses to narrow the field for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominee.

In Illinois, Cook County Clerk David Orr said there were minor problems in a handful of precincts. ``We don't think we lost any voters,'' he said.

Some votes were apparently lost, however, when about 20 folks at a Chicago precinct were given styluses designed for touch-screen machines instead of ink pens. When voters complained the devices made no marks on their paper ballots, a ballot judge told them the markers were full of invisible ink.

``After 20 people experienced the same problem, somebody said 'Wait, we've got 20 ballots where nobody's voted for anything,''' said Board of Elections spokesman Jim Allen. Officials were trying to contact the voters; Allen said both the voters and the judge believed the invisible ink theory.

In Georgia, where voters are now required to present photo identification, wait times in some areas were as long as 90 minutes because for the first time in a major election, poll workers had to compare IDs against computerized registration records.

``That (comparison) process with the computer terminals is very slow, and that can create some long lines,'' said Clare Schexnyder of Election Protection, a national election monitoring group. ``We're finally figuring out that it's not that there are not enough voting machines, it's the check-in process.''

Weather was a concern in some states. Snow or rain fell in states including Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas and Massachusetts, and elections officials worried that might discourage some voters.

Tornadoes were reported in the South. In Arkansas, Natasha Naragon, a spokeswoman with the secretary of state's office, said she received several reports of polling locations closing in northern Conway County.

``It's been a wild night,'' state emergency management spokesman Tommy Jackson told Little Rock television station KATV. ``A heck of a way to have elections in Arkansas.''

In Tennessee, a tornado hit north of Memphis, but there were no immediate reports of major effects on voting.

In Arizona, where voting activists feared a controversial photo ID rule could cause confusion, things were apparently fine. ``People are walking up to the polls with their drivers' licenses in their hands,'' said Mindy Moretti, who was monitoring voting in the Phoenix and Scottsdale areas for the watchdog group electiononline.org. ``People seem ready for it. No one seems to be upset.''

In the lead-up to Super Tuesday, voting advocates worried that long lines, high turnout and record numbers of mail-in ballots in states such as California could drag out the counting process for days. Across America, election officials have estimated that mail-in ballots may account for as much as 50 percent of the vote in some areas.

More than 5 million people have requested mail-in ballots in California, where there are 15.7 million registered voters. Election officials in the most populated and delegate-rich state in the country have said results may not be available until Wednesday or later.

In California, the secretary of state's office reported dozens of calls from nonpartisan voters complaining that poll workers had mistakenly tried to stop them from voting in the Democratic presidential primary.

According to state party rules, voters who are unaffiliated with any political party may specially request ballots for the Democratic or American Independent primaries. Only Republican voters can vote in that party's primary.

Another problem is the state's recent switch from electronic voting machines to paper ballots. Four of California's most populous counties _ Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Santa Clara _ must count votes at centralized locations because there are not enough optical scanners for every precinct.

[Dig]

INVISIBLE INK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no conspiracy!

[Optimus]

How conveinient. Now tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb can drive the ballots over to the county building! Nothing to see here folks.

Equipment snafu delays election results
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/778794,WA05_elexresults_s1.article

Connection problems between information transfer stations and the Lake County Clerk's office led to major delays in the receipt of election results Tuesday night.

County Administrator Barry Burton said that some of the precinct transfer stations used to transmit voting information from the polling places were not working properly.

Burton said the decision was made to manually drive the ballot results from all precinct polling places to the County Building in Waukegan, a process that was complicated by the beginnings of a winter storm.

"This all was tested," Burton said of the equipment that malfunctioned.

State Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, was in Chicago at Barack Obama's gathering at about 8:30 p.m. and said that while he was anxious for the Lake County results, technical problems can occur.

"It could be the weather, it could be almost anything," Link said. "I hope it gets fixed soon but I'm not going to say it's the Lake County Clerk's fault or anybody's fault. It's not the time to point fingers."

County Board member Angelo Kyle, waiting on the results of his reelection bid as well his attempt to unseat State Rep. Eddie Washington, D-Waukegan in the 60th District, said the lack of results was unnerving, but he remained confident.

"It's technical difficulties," Kyle said at about 9:15 p.m. "It wears on you a bit due to the anxiety of this election, but I feel real good about the turnout."

A statement on the county clerk's Web site said, "The Information Technology Department for Lake County has advised the Lake County Clerk's office that the telephone connections to the Lake County Government Center are experiencing poor connectivity. No Election Day voting results from the precincts (or from the 13 Transfer Sites for redundant modem transmission of precinct results) can successfully connect to the county to report results."

[Dig]

Vote flipping in California gives Hillary the win!

Yeah for tyranny!!!!!!!!

[NEPB]

Hillary vs McCain, you all called it. What next? Other than staged terror and canceling the elections.

[CANADIAN-guerilla]

0 votes in West Virginia

is that right !!!!

Ron Paul has got to contest this !!!

he should reserve a large capacity building
ask all West Virginians, that voted for him, to attend,
and announce at a press conference that he is contesting the WV results

[Rak HaEmet]

okay... we're all in agreement- it's FUBARed.

QUESTION IS: WHAT NOW?

[tehowe]

Anyone remember this story?

DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINE KEY COPIED FROM PHOTO AT COMPANY'S OWN ONLINE STORE!

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4066#more-4066

They should have lost the contract RIGHT THERE.

If it was a legit operation, that is.

[David Rothscum]

okay... we're all in agreement- it's FUBARed.

QUESTION IS: WHAT NOW?

Yes, what now? Is there still a chance for Ron Paul to become president? I mean, if there's vote fraud now, why won't we see vote fraud when he's running as an independent? I'm beginning to lose hope.

[froginapot]

We all knew there would be lot's of stinky stuff going on.  Firstly, we must expose their lies and criminality every time it rears it's disgusting head.  Secondly, THEY WANT YOU TO LOSE HOPE!!!!!  That's their intention for people who know what's really going on to feel.  That's why it's so important that you who know what they are doing, not lose sight of the ends.  Do not give up hope, do not feed in to despair.  Onward!  Prove them wrong.  Like AJ says - WE HAVE ALREADY WON!!!

[Dig]

BLOGGED BY Brad Friedman ON 2/6/2008 6:31PM 
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5664#more-5664
Say What? - Party Official Kept Uncounted Ballox Boxes at Home Overnight as 200 Vote Margin Currently Seen in New Mexico's Democratic Caucus
17,000 Voters Forced to Vote on Provisional Ballots After Being Dropped from Registration Rolls 'Maintained' by SoS and Voting Machine Company, ES&S
Few Explanations Available Yet for Any of It, Governor Richardson 'Deeply Disturbed' by Reports...

The good news: New Mexico now votes on paper ballots, since their touch-screen debacle in the 2004 Presidential Election left Gov. Bill Richardson with little legal choice but to move to paper.

The bad news: The huge turnout in yesterday's Democratic Primary led to long lines, voters who found they were no longer on the registration rolls for some still-unexplained reason, 17,000 votes had to be cast on provisional ballots which remain uncounted today, and now it's being reported --- incredibly --- that at least three ballots boxes were kept overnight last night, uncounted, at the home of a Democratic County Party Chairwoman.


What makes it all worse, as if that all is not troubling enough, the current razor-thin margin between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the caucus, stands at just 217 votes out of 136 thousand ballots cast.

The governor's apologizing, the party is prevaricating, the candidates representatives are negotiating and, as usual, it's the voters who are left hanging, wondering if their voices will actually be heard...


We were just a guest on Santa Fe's Public Radio station, KSFR, discussing that issue, and other problems around the country. We'll post audio here when we can get it.

UPDATE: Here's that audio. We're on for the first 15 minutes or so, followed by Susan Greenhalgh of VoterAction.org, speaking about Super Tuesday problems with DREs around the country. Appx 30 mins in full. Download MP3, or listen online here...

Governor Bill Richardson has issued a statement today, saying "I am deeply disturbed by the reports that problems and delays at polling locations may have kept people from voting."

Over on Albuquerque's Public Radio station, KUNM, this afternoon, San Miguel County Clerk Paul Maes said of the voters who showed up, only to find they were not on the registration rolls for some reason, "We verified most of them, and they were in our system, but for some reason they didn’t appear on the roster for the caucus."

KUNM reported that Maes' office "got calls from whole neighborhoods of Democrats who were on his list of eligible voters but were asked to use provisional ballots" and that they are "not sure where the Democratic Party got its list."

The Democratic Party in New Mexico runs their own caucus.

The report (transcript posted in full at end of this article) goes on to suggest that the voter list comes from the Secretary of State, who contracts out the maintenance of the voter regisration roll (again, incredibly enough), to voting machine company, ES&S.

As to the ballot boxes kept uncounted overnight at the home of a Democratic Party Official, Democracy for New Mexico points us to this report from NM political reporter Heath Haussaman who writes today:
Several sources told me the ballot boxes spent the night at the home of Rio Arriba County Democratic Party Chair Theresa Martinez, whose state-lawmaker husband, Sen. Richard Martinez, endorsed Hillary Clinton. But Richard Martinez told Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Kate Nash that the boxes actually spent the night in the homes of three polling-place managers. He gave Nash no explanation for why the results from those ballots weren’t reported to the state party last night and why they were instead kept overnight in officials’ homes.

“The site managers locked them and they kept them and they took them to my wife this morning,” Nash quoted Richard Martinez as saying.

State party officials and Theresa Martinez have not returned my calls seeking comment.

The three ballot boxes from Rio Arriba County and a fourth from Sandoval County account for the 2 percent of precincts that haven’t yet reported results from Tuesday’s caucus. With about 200 votes separating Clinton and Barack Obama, that’s huge. We’re talking about the ballots from half the polling places in Rio Arriba County.

I want to make sure this point is emphasized: Roughly half the votes from Rio Arriba County spent the night in the privacy of the home or homes of one or more election officials in boxes those officials may have had the ability to open. All the county party chair had to do last night to report the results was make a phone call. That never happened.

Though we shouldn't, by now, be amazed by such stories, we continue to be. It looks like quite a few folks have some 'splainin' to do in New Mexico. Again.

We recommend Democracy for New Mexico's excellent continuing coverage for following this story.

Thanks to Election Defense Alliance's Theron Horton for the transcript from Jim William's KUNM report on the questions surrounding the use of some 17,000 provisional ballots yesterday. That transcript follows in full below...
Intro: Some local election officials say they’re wondering where the Democratic Party got its list of eligible voters for yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) presidential preference caucus. The party itself ran the election, not the state or counties. The results of the caucus were as tight as they probably could have been, with Senator Hillary Clinton edging out Senator Barack Obama by 217 votes out of 136-thousand cast. As KUNM’s Jim Williams reports, many voters showed up at the polls only to be asked to vote on provisional ballots, because their names weren’t on the eligible voter list.

Jim Williams: Seventeen thousand. That’s the number of provisional ballots issued in the New Mexico Democratic presidential preference caucus on Tuesday. Some of the reasons for that relatively high number were likely weather, confusion over voting locations, and confusion over just what a Democratic presidential preference caucus actually is. Some polling locations saw Republicans and Independents, who weren’t eligible to vote in the caucus, showing up and trying anyway. But another issue entirely is registered Democrats who showed up and couldn’t vote on regular ballots.

Paul Maes: We verified most of them, and they were in our system, but for some reason they didn’t appear on the roster for the caucus.

Williams: Paul Maes is San Miguel County Clerk. He says his office got calls from whole neighborhoods of Democrats who were on his list of eligible voters but were asked to use provisional ballots. He says he’s not sure where the Democratic Party got its list.

Maes: I know they didn’t get it from us. It has to be the secretary of state’s office or ES&S, which is the…the main system is the, I guess they contract out with ES&S to maintain voter registration.

Williams: Maes says there are just three entities that can provide voter lists for elections…county clerks, the secretary of state’s office, and Election Systems and Software, or ES&S.

Maes: I just don’t know where they pulled the file from, if it was from the secretary of state or from ES&S, or even if they used an old one. But there was a lot of discrepancies in the list that they provided to each polling place.

Fran Hanhardt: We did have phone calls from voters who were concerned about the registration and the way we had it in our office.

Williams: Fran Hanhardt is San Juan County Clerk.

Hanhardt: In exploring the records that we have in our office, we determined that in fact they were registered, and should, and were registered at the precinct where they showed up, at the consolidated precinct where they showed up to vote, and should have been on that list.

Williams: Hanhardt says if the Democratic Party used a list that was older than 20 days or so, that could have been the problem.

Hanhardt: Because we were making changes in voter registrations for people who, in fact, changed their registrations the day the books closed, which was 28 days prior to their election, so in our records those people would have shown up on those rosters, um, but they did not show up on the Democratic Party rosters that were presented at the precincts.

Williams: But James Flores, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, says the list did come through the state’s Elections Bureau, overseen by the secretary of state. And it is possible that Election Systems and Software was involved with the list.

James Flores: The information compiled here at the secretary of state’s office is the same information that each of the individual county clerks has. We kind of serve as a, for lack of a better phrase, we serve as a hub for all that information. The last time it was uh, information, updated information was sent, was approximately the 24th of last month.

Williams: But Hanhardt says it concerns her that there are discrepancies between what she has and what the state has.

Hanhardt: If my list shows a voter as being qualified as a voter, then I take offense to the fact that when that voter shows up to vote at a polling place, that he’s not given the opportunity to vote in a standard measure. I, but I can’t control how they got their list. I can only assure that voter that my records are correct, and if the list had been printed from my records, that they would have been on that list.

Williams: Flores says the secretary of state’s office wants to hear from county clerks who saw discrepancies in Tuesday’s Democratic caucus.

Flores: Uh, they haven’t contacted our office, we would need to find out what they’re talking about…uh…what voters they’re talking about. I know that if there was a just a recent change right before election time, um, there’s a file that they call a suspense file…and what it does is that uh, it may not have all the current information but it will still allow the voter to vote, but it’s very likely they will have to vote provisional. And then of course their vote would count once everything has been verified.

Williams: San Miguel County Clerk Paul Maes says the high numbers of provisional ballots combined with a new system of handling them this time was likely one of the reasons for the long, slow voting lines at polling locations around the state. So if discrepancies between voter lists led to more provisional ballots, they may have also led to some voters deciding the wait wasn’t worth it, which happened in polling places across the state. The state Democratic Party hadn’t responded to requests for comment on this story at the time of broadcast. For KUNM, I’m Jim Williams.

[gEEk squad]

This story isn't about election fraud, but it certainly proves that this is all for show.

Dems can't afford a brokered convention: Howard Dean

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday voiced concern over the prospect of a brokered convention at the end of the party's White House nominating contests.

"The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race in the next eight weeks, I think, is not a good scenario," Dean said according to excerpts of an interview with NY1 television.

In state nominating contests so far, no clear winner has emerged among Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the party's nomination ahead of November's presidential vote to replace George W. Bush in the White House.

"I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April. But if we don't, then we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement," said Dean, who failed in his bid for the party's nomination in 2004.

"Because I don't think we can afford to have a brokered convention -- that would not be good news for either party."

A brokered convention has not been seen in decades, and harkens back to an era of shady political deal-making when powerbrokers and cash kings -- instead of regular voters -- chose one candidate over another at a raucous, smoke-filled convention hall. [Isn't this what they're proposing to do in March or April just two paragraphs ago?]

The comments by Dean highlighted the rising tensions among Democrats as rivals Obama and Clinton fight bitterly for delegate votes ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August, at which a nominee is officially selected.

For more than 50 years, each party has selected delegates who favor one nominee over another by a significant margin well ahead of the convention, which exists mainly for ceremonial and celebratory purposes.

The last conventions that required more than one ballot to designate nominees were in 1948 for the Republicans and 1952 for the Democrats.
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Democratic_dead_heat_not_good_news__02062008.html
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They must really not want Obama to be the Presidential nominee, just the VP. They also don't want Edwards to have a chance in the brokered convention. They've just come out and said the deal is basically made already. It can't get much clearer than this.

[SUPREMEMASTER]

INVISIBLE INK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no conspiracy!

There is no conspiracy!

There is no conspiracy!

There is no conspiracy!

There is no conspiracy!(sarcasm)