tagged w/ Voter Disenfranchisement
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Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing outside his home in Lake Township, Ohio heard the whine of an engine in the sky above him.
Moments later two red lights broke through the low clouds, heading almost directly toward the ground. It was a light aircraft, and for a second, as it descended below the tree line, the man thought it would climb back up. Instead, there was a terrible thud, and the sky turned orange. When the fire crews arrived, they found the burning wreckage of a Piper Saratoga strewn across a vacant lot. The plane had narrowly missed a house, but the explosion was so intense that the home’s plastic siding was on fire. So was the grass. The pilot had been thrown from the plane and died instantly. Body parts and pieces of twisted metal were scattered everywhere. A prayer book lay open on the ground, its pages on fire.
The crash would have remained a private tragedy confined to the pages of the local press and the hearts of the pilot’s widow and four children, but within days the blogosphere was abuzz with rumors and conspiracy theories: The plane, it was said, had been sabotaged and the pilot murdered to cover up the GOP’s alleged theft of the Ohio vote in the 2004 presidential election. At the center of this plot was the Saratoga’s pilot, a prodigiously gifted IT expert named Michael Connell, whose altar boy charm and technical brilliance had made him the computer whiz of choice for the Republican Party. Left-wing Web sites openly referred to Connell as “Bush’s vote rigger” and claimed that his fingerprints were on all the most controversial elections in recent history. There were dark whispers of electronic pulses or sniper fire being used to bring down the plane—a black ops attack designed to keep him from testifying against his former cronies. Right-wing bloggers and talk show hosts derided such claims as the twisted delusions of liberal nut jobs and tinfoil hatters. The mainstream press sat on its hands.
But while the rumors, innuendos, and allegations continue to swirl through the ether, evidence has recently emerged that suggests the Ohio vote may have been hacked, and that Connell was involved.
More...Shortly before six o’clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing... more
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On Tuesday, the United Nations-backed commission that is the ultimate arbiter of the vote said it found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” at several polling stations and ordered a partial recount.
Election officials said Mr. Karzai won 54.1 percent of the vote, a percentage that, if certified, would spare him a runoff against his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who received 28.3 percent.
But in recent days, the Obama administration has grown increasingly alarmed by the raft of allegations that ballot-stuffing and phantom polling stations generated lopsided margins in favor of Mr. Karzai.
For the United States, the problem is twofold: the fraud complaints against Mr. Karzai are almost certain to undercut his legitimacy if he is sworn in for another term as president, and American officials want whoever is president to have credibility with the Afghan people and with the international community.
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But it also reflects a recognition that the administration will have to keep dealing with Mr. Karzai, especially as it enters a treacherous phase in its engagement in Afghanistan. Raising too many doubts about Mr. Karzai’s legitimacy could make it impossible to work with him later.
“Even if we get a second round of voting, the odds are still high that Karzai will win,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who advised the administration on its Afghan policy. “We have a fundamental interest in building up the legitimacy of the Karzai government.”On Tuesday, the United Nations-backed commission that is the ultimate arbiter of the... more
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There are reports of voting problems all across the Commonwealth of Virginia this morning. Here's the New Republic's "The Plank" on what's been reported thus far:
The vigilant folks here at Election Protection headquarters are telling us that large numbers of Virginia voters have been turned away from the polls this morning. Several precincts opened late and quickly had ballot shortages. At some, not all the machines were working; at others, none of them were working. The group's legal volunteers are learning more by the minute as calls come in from voters--so take this all with a grain of salt for now--but word here is that more than a dozen precincts have been experiencing serious problems in the Commonwealth. The number of voters affected, according to a group spokesman, is "significant."
More than a thousand frustrated Virginians have called to complain this morning. One widely reported blunder: Workers at some of the state's malfunctioning precincts have been giving cleanly registered voters provisional ballots instead of paper ballots, most likely because they ran out of the paper ones. (Provisional ballots are meant for voters whose eligibility has been called into question.) "Over the last hour, we're continuing to get these problems in Virginia," says Jon Greenbaum, the coalition's legal director. And then there's this, from a Rock the Vote rep: The polling precinct for Virginia Tech students in Blacksburg was moved to a church that sits on an unmarked road six miles off campus. Better carpool, Hokies.
That news out of Blacksburg really sticks in the craw. Here's the specific details:
More than 5,600 people, mainly Virginia Tech students, are registered to vote at precinct E1 in Blacksburg, Virginia (Montgomery County). That number is nearly double what the state law allows for polling stations and the lack of an additional polling station is causing substantial delays. In addition, the polling place is 6.5 miles away from campus at a tiny church located off the main road. There is no street sign marking the turn off to the one lane road. There are 30 parking spots for the thousands of voters expected to turn up at precinct E1.
We tracked down the exact address of this polling place, thanks to the Collegiate Times: St. Michael's Lutheran Church, 2308 Merrimac Road. Here's where Google Maps approximates this location:There are reports of voting problems all across the Commonwealth of Virginia this... more
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Why are we hearing so much about voter fraud and so little about election fraud? After all, the odds of someone voting fraudulently are about the same as those of an American being struck and killed by lightning.
A microscopic evaluation of election data in the 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington state revealed that voter fraud occurred approximately 0.0009 percent of the time. An analysis of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio revealed a voter fraud rate of 0.00004 percent.
In 1998, Allan J. Lichtman, a consultant on voting rights, was asked by the state of Maryland to investigate charges that the Republican candidate for governor lost because of some 6,000 fraudulent votes. He writes that he found “not a single fraudulent vote [among] the 1.4 million ballots cast in the election.”
A 2007 experts’ report to the federal Election Assistance Commission concluded that “false registration forms have not resulted in polling place fraud.” The Department of Justice, which according to the attorney general has “made enforcement of election fraud and corruption offenses a top priority,” convicted only 24 people between 2002 and 2005 for voting fraud, an average of eight people a year. And these convictions were of individuals guilty of themselves casting illegal votes, not of instigating widespread voting fraud.
On the other hand, evidence of what I will somewhat imprecisely call election fraud — voter suppression by election officials and state governments — is widespread and validated. “Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law,” the New York Times recently concluded after its own investigation. The Times’ numbers don’t include efforts by state officials and private parties to discourage, intimidate or challenge eligible voters.
This is the type of voter fraud we should be hearing about. Why aren’t we? The principal reason may be explained in the title of one of the best reports on the subject, “The Politics of Voter Fraud” by Barnard Professor Lorraine C. Minnite.
Expanded voter rolls tend to favor Democrats. One reason is that voter-registration drives are usually conducted in minority and low-income neighborhoods and on campuses, areas that are likely to vote Democratic. Voter-suppression efforts, on the other hand, tend to favor Republicans because minorities, poor families and students will be least likely to overcome the new obstacles put in place.
Is this why in the third presidential debate, John McCain accused ACORN of being involved in voter fraud so massive that it “may be destroying the fabric of democracy” while not saying anything during his entire campaign about the far greater threat from widespread voter purging and voter-suppression initiatives?
Is this why the Department of Justice has rapidly launched a national investigation of ACORN, the nation’s largest grass-roots organization advocating for low- and moderate-income families, but has not begun to investigate the illegal activities by states and private parties to reduce voting turnout?
Raising the fear of individual voter fraud brings a short-term and a long-term advantage to those who would reduce the turnout of the disadvantaged and dispossessed. In the short term, it hobbles registration and turnout efforts. In the longer term, it helps to persuade state legislatures to pass laws that make it more difficult to vote.Why are we hearing so much about voter fraud and so little about election fraud? After... more
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BuddyP
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3 years ago
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In 2008, Americans may once again be seeing law enforcement turned into a tool of voter suppression. Under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) it is illegal for any person "whether acting under color of law or otherwise," to intimidate, threaten, or coerce voters. In the past few weeks, however, partisan forces have manufactured hysteria around the myth of "voter fraud" that they have used to help goad law-enforcement into intimidation and politically motivated investigations into eligible voters.
This climate of suppression and intimidation is all the more troubling because it has happened before. The investigation into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys revealed how trumped-up charges of "voter fraud" were used to pursue a cynical strategy of law enforcement intimidation designed to hamper voter registration efforts and suppress turnout at the polls.
New Mexico GOP Reportedly Investigating New Latino Voters
The day after GOP presidential candidate John McCain made public allegations about voter registration fraud, the New Mexico GOP held a press conference to present information on 10 voters they claimed voted illegally in the state primaries. Following the press conference ACORN made contact with eight of the ten voters named, and discovered that they were all legitimate voters.
Following this information, however, two of these voters have reportedly been harassed by private investigators. Guadalupe Bojorquez of Albuquerque said the private investigator who came to her home claimed to be working for the law firm of Pat Rogers, a GOP attorney who was one of the key players in the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias for refusing to prosecute bogus "voter fraud" cases.
Overreaching Law Enforcement Investigations in Ohio
In Ohio, the Greene County sheriff announced that he was investigating hundreds of people who registered to vote and cast a ballot during Ohio's five-day window of same day registration and voting. Despite rulings from four different federal and state courts upholding the lawfulness of the five-day window, the County announced they were attempting to "determine whether there was any voter fraud or not," according to an Associated Press story. Following public outcry Greene County announced that that investigation had been cancelled.
Also in Ohio, Hamilton county prosecutor Joe Deters --- who is also local chair of the McCain-Palin campaign --- initiated a grand jury investigation and issued subpoenas for unredacted personal information on hundreds of voters who cast ballots during the five-day window. Citing unspecified allegations of "voter fraud" Deters took it upon himself to conduct some attempt to match these voters to government databases and investigate those he determined had problems. The Hamilton County election board says the complaints of fraud did not come from local election officials. In 2008, Americans may once again be seeing law enforcement turned into a tool of... more
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BuddyP
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The good old boy network has found a way to steal the election here in Florida. I live in Tampa Florida, and I have seen how this year's election will be manipulated and or stolen.
My state allows early voting, and voters in this state are taking advantage of it. I already voted, but when I went to vote it took nearly 45 minutes. In other polling stations around Tampa voters are waiting three to four hours. Some dismayed voters at these polling stations give up and go home, or they vote with an absentee ballot (absentee ballots won't be counted until after the election, and they can be tossed out and not even counted as Robert Kennedy Jr. displayed in the Rolling Stone article Block the Vote). I wonder if the lines are this long during early voting, how long will they be come election day? What is causing these long lines?
* The long lines could be due to the printing of election ballots, which takes one minute to print one ballot. (For some reason all the printers are from the 1980s)
* The long lines could be due to the lack of election officials, only three people were working when I went to vote.
* The long lines could be due the swiping of drivers licenses, and the subsequential residence inquiry that the election official put each voter through.
* The long lines could be to inadequate polling machines.
Sadly, I believe that all these different tangents are part of a vast scheme set up by the GOP to steal yet another election. I urge all my fellow citizens who witness these kind of events at their own polling station to blog about it, or tell as many people as you can about it. If you can try to vote early, and do not let the lines detour you from honoring your constitutional right to vote. Vote in person, absentee ballots simply will not do, they can be thrown out by partisan election officials. Vote America, and make sure it counts. The good old boy network has found a way to steal the election here in Florida. I live... more
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BuddyP
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Arm yourself with the information you need to make sure your vote is counted. Over 10,00 Election Protection legal volunteers are standing by to help insure that you're able to vote. If you get resistance, hassled, or turned away for ANY reason , DON'T LEAVE the polling site and don't fill out a provisional ballot without first calling 1-866-OUR-VOTE or go to 866ourvote.org. You MUST protect your right to vote!Go to http://urteveblog.wordpress.com for more info.
Available for immediate release at http://urteve.comArm yourself with the information you need to make sure your vote is counted. Over... more
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URTEVE
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"Eight years after Florida's hanging chads exasperated voters and helped usher in sweeping changes in voting technology, many election observers remain concerned about the accuracy of the electronic voting systems most Americans will use November 4.
Early voters cast ballots on touch-screen machines Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Touch-screen machines can occasionally fail or register votes for unintended candidates. Optical-scan systems can have trouble reading paper ballots that are too long or marked with the wrong ink. At least one study suggests that electronic voting machines can be easily hacked.
And some 9 million voters, including many in the battleground states of Ohio and Florida, will use equipment that has changed since March, increasing concerns about errors next Tuesday.
"You can be almost certain that there will be irregularities in some places around the country," said Rep. Rush Holt, D-New Jersey. "The problem now is that roughly a third of voters nationwide will use unverifiable electronic machines. So if there are uncertainties, there will be no way to resolve them."
With early voting under way in 31 states, these problems have already surfaced. In recent weeks, voters in West Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas have reported that touch-screen machines registered their votes, at least initially, for the wrong candidate or party. Video Watch video about voting-machine concerns »
CNN Voter Hotline
If you have a problem voting or see a problem, call the CNN Voter Hotline at 1-877-GOCNN08 (1-877-462-6608); CNN will report on some of your calls and our partner, InfoVoter Technologies, can help get you in touch with your election board or find your voting location.
This scenario even turns up in Sunday's episode of "The Simpsons," already leaked on the Internet, in which Homer's electronic vote for Barack Obama is recorded for John McCain by a sinister machine that then devours him. Cast a vote with our interactive ballots »
"There are going to be places where voting machines break down. It happens every time there is an election," said Susan Greenhalgh, spokeswoman for Voter Action, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to integrity in elections. "We have to hope that there aren't problems with the accuracy."
For this presidential election, 55 percent of American voters are casting ballots via optical-scan systems, up from 49 percent two years ago. One-third of Americans are voting by electronic touch screen. The state of New York still votes largely by mechanical lever machines -- those curtained relics from the 1960s -- while several small counties in Maine and Vermont still use old-fashioned paper ballots, counted by hand.
And those infamous punch-card systems? They're still used in a handful of counties in Idaho, the last state in the nation to do so.
Some observers believe this patchwork quilt of electronic, mechanical and paper balloting from state to state -- even county to county -- makes it more difficult to regulate voting systems. According to a joint report released this month by three nonprofit democracy groups, including Common Cause, 22 states use electronic voting machines that produce no voter-verifiable paper record.
"It's a huge mess," Greenhalgh told CNN. "This is the most important fundamental characteristic of our country. It is our democracy ... and our votes need to be recorded and counted in a way we can trust.""Eight years after Florida's hanging chads exasperated voters and helped... more
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Spencer Overton: We need an independent election commission; Is the fox guarding the henhouse. Part 3
Accusations of voter fraud, and voter suppression continue to abound in the US presidential campaign, with both democrats and republicans blaming each other. Professor Spencer Overton believes that there is a need to curb political manipulation as well as a need for greater transparency.
Spencer Overton is Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School, where he specializes in the law of democracy. Professor Overton's academic articles on election law have appeared in several leading law journals, and his book "Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression" was recently published and released by W.W. Norton. He was also a commissioner on the Jimmy Carter-James Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform as well as the Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling. Professor Overton currently serves on the boards of Common Cause, Demos, and the American Constitution Society. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Project at Yale, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to articulating new ideas for enriching American democracy.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89464875_us_elections_is_the_fox_guarding_the_henhouse
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89471887_us_elections_is_the_fox_guarding_the_henhouse_part_2
Spencer Overton: We need an independent election commission; Is the fox guarding the... more
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Spencer Overton: There are many attempts to disqualify qualified voters. Part 2
With less than a week left at the polls, issues of voter suppression have moved into the spotlight. What does this mean to the average voter and what obstacles may they face at the polls ? Professor of Law Spencer Overton believes that, "We need really to open up the process so that voting is easier, and so that we truly have a government of, by, and for the people."
Spencer Overton is Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School, where he specializes in the law of democracy. Professor Overton's academic articles on election law have appeared in several leading law journals, and his book "Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression" was recently published and released by W.W. Norton. He was also a commissioner on the Jimmy Carter-James Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform as well as the Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling. Professor Overton currently serves on the boards of Common Cause, Demos, and the American Constitution Society. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Project at Yale, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to articulating new ideas for enriching American democracy.
See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89464875_us_elections_is_the_fox_guarding_the_henhouse
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89473820_millions_not_allowed_to_vote
Spencer Overton: There are many attempts to disqualify qualified voters. Part 2... more
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Spencer Overton: Claims about fraud will block thousands of innocent voters. Part 1
As the US presidential election heads towards the final stretch, voter fraud and voter registration issues have hit the headlines. Republicans claim they are trying to protect the integrity of the voting process and the electorate, while Democrats accuse Republicans of voter suppression, putting up roadblocks, to disenfranchise voters Republicans think, will vote Democrat. Professor Spencer Overton states that there are "several examples of partisan election administration officials who are making decisions, and there is a cloud over their decisions, because of their partisan motivations that may be behind it."
Spencer Overton is Professor of Law at The George Washington University Law School, where he specializes in the law of democracy. Professor Overton's academic articles on election law have appeared in several leading law journals, and his book "Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression" was recently published and released by W.W. Norton. He was also a commissioner on the Jimmy Carter-James Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform as well as the Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling. Professor Overton currently serves on the boards of Common Cause, Demos, and the American Constitution Society. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Project at Yale, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to articulating new ideas for enriching American democracy.
See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89471887_us_elections_is_the_fox_guarding_the_henhouse_part_2
See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89473820_millions_not_allowed_to_vote
Spencer Overton: Claims about fraud will block thousands of innocent voters. Part 1... more
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ANP: Voters to sue the state over voter rights.
Earlier this week, ANP reported that come November, Pennsylvania voters could face substantial delays at the polls. Now, voters are suing the state of Pennsylvania. With the help of Voter Action and the NAACP, they filed a complaint in the Philadelphia federal court, specifically citing an interview between the American News Project and Philadelphia Deputy City Commissioner Fred Voigt.
ANP: Voters to sue the state over voter rights.
Earlier this week, ANP reported... more
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