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Massive Voter Suppression Uncovered by AP and New York Times
When smears fail...cheat
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Report: Voter Purging Process Is Shrouded in Secrecy, Prone to Error and Vulnerabl...
A new study by the Brennan Center for Justice has found voters across the country are being purged through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error and vulnerable to manipulation. The Brennan Center is calling on states to develop and publish uniform, non-discriminatory rules for purges; provide public notice of pending purges; make purge lists publicly available; and develop rules for individuals to challenge the purge list. A new study by the Brennan Center for Justice has found voters across the country are being purged through a process that is shrouded ... more
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Voter purges in 6 states may violate law
NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters' exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report.
The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data.
The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.
States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.
The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters' registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.
Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, so any closer screening of new applications may affect their party's supporters disproportionately, the Times said.
The result is that on Election Day, voters who have been removed from the rolls could show up and be challenged by political party officials or election workers.
Read the rest of the story at link.
What a legacy we are leaving for our children. How do you tell them that our electoral process is as corrupt as any third world dictatorship. NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states,... more -
McCain skips vote on spending bill he railed about in debate for having 2,200 earm...
Well, at least he's ahead in one contest. McCain is the most absent senator in the 110th Congress
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Electoral Projections Done Right: Allocating the Undecideds
Heretofore, I've simply been allocating undecided voters 50:50. That is certainly the most neutral assumption to make. But this site isn't about making the most neutral assumption, it's about making the most predictive one.
So what I'm going to do instead is tie the undecided allocation to the extent to which Barack Obama overperformed or underperformed his polls in particular types of states in the Democratic primaries. If you compare the actual results in the primaries to the final RCP or Pollster.com averages, you'll notice some fairly systematic differences.
Specifically, Obama overperformed:
1. In states with high African-American populations;
2. In states that share a border with Illinois (no, Kentucky doesn't count);
3. In states with highly educated electorates;
4. To a lesser extent, in the South (as indicated by the number of evangelicals), even after accounting for the above variables.
Meanwhile, he underperformed his polls:
1. In the Appalachian states (as indicated by the number of respondents who identify their ancestry as 'American', a practice concentrated in the Appalachian region);
2. In states with low education levels;
3. And in states with a high number of Catholics Heretofore, I've simply been allocating undecided voters 50:50. That is certainly the most neutral assumption to make. But this s... more -
Election Day? Been there, done that
Millions of Americans will have already voted by Nov. 4
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ABC News: Presidential Race Tightens, Moves to Familiar Battlegrounds
"This is how close the contest for the White House really is: It comes down to an electoral college slug fest over 14 states, and in some of those key states the race is too close to call.
The presidential race has tightened and has come down to a fight for familiar battleground and swing states.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)New polls indicated that Republican John McCain has lost the bounce he got from the GOP's convention and his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. A CBS News-New York Times national survey showed Democrat Barack Obama leading McCain 48 percent to 43 percent, and a Quinnipiac University poll gives Obama a similar edge 49-45 edge.
But the closeness of the race has apparently prompted Obama to abandon earlier plans to fight for votes in states that generally go Republican, and the 2008 presidential race has settled on familiar battleground and swing states.
ABC News has identified 14 states that could go for either Obama or McCain in November. Those states include Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and New Hampshire.
Those14 states have a total of 175 electoral votes up for grabs, more than half of the 270 needed to claim victory. " "This is how close the contest for the White House really is: It comes down to an electoral college slug fest over 14 states, and... more -
Students 'could hold the keys' to power in the White House
We hear this every election: the youth hold the swing vote! If young people get out and vote, their candidate will win! Numbers are up and up for young people intending to vote! Politics have finally become important to young voters!
"Facebook tells the story. As of last night, Obama had 1,847,187 Facebook friends. McCain had 335,528. On top of that, the campaign has created platforms across numerous internet-networking sites, from Twitter to Faithbase and BlackPlanet. The beauty of the approach is that it is bottom up rather than top down, allowing young people to run their own Obama-supporting groups unfettered by central control."
Alas, in the last three elections, the youth have failed to deliver on all these predictions. Why? We hear this every election: the youth hold the swing vote! If young people get out and vote, their candidate will win! Numbers are up... more -
Green on Green
The Green Party has their day in the upcoming 2008 elections.
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STOP THE WITCH HUNT
Anthony Westbury: What's really going on in that classroom?
PORT ST. LUCIE — There are so many questions I want to ask about exactly what happened in Wendy Portillo's kindergarten class between her and Alex Barton, 5.
I'm not getting many answers.
Portillo herself isn't talking. That'd be contrary to St. Lucie School District policy and, I guess, might be reason in itself for her termination.
The school district isn't saying much either, because it can't.
Barbara Slaga, assistant superintendent for exceptional student education & student services cites confidentiality concerns that prevent her from discussing any specifics in this case.
Pity, because it's the specifics we all want to hear.
What Slaga could tell me was rather generic. The process of evaluating a student with behavioral issues is long and complicated. Assessment experts from the district office tend to get called in by teachers or principals who notice unusual behaviors in class. What stage of the assessment process was Alex Barton at? Slaga couldn't tell me, but professional advisors would determine whether a child should be kept in a regular class or assigned to special education classes.
Should he have been in Wendy Portillo's class at all? We simply don't know.
Of the hundreds of online comments, both on our tcpalm.com Web site and others (including one at the Chicago Tribune), many people are demanding Portillo's head. They want her fired — or worse. Many think she should never stand in front of a class of students again.
They might be right, but I'm not willing to bury the lady until I've heard the other side.
I did take a look at Portillo's personnel file. It revealed absolutely nothing out of order.
On the contrary, many of her annual evaluations refer to "an awesome teacher," "exemplary" and other superlatives.
It was more than a decade ago (1996), but I was struck by her "superior" scores (the highest possible) in "effectively manages student conduct," and "demonstrates appropriate student-teacher interaction."
Has Portillo turned into a monster since 1996? I doubt it.
Along with the online comments about Portillo's future, I've received a few from teachers (or their spouses). Perhaps not surprisingly, these were a lot more sympathetic to Portillo than the rest.
Judith Fleming, a former high school teacher with 30 years (23 of them in St. Lucie County) under her belt, said, "I can't tell you how many classes were ruined by the actions of one or two students. Everyone keeps writing about that child, who according to articles spent many hours in the principal's office for inappropriate behavior, but no one is writing about how the learning of other students was affected by this child."
She suggests Alex should be assigned to a special class "with others like him until he can learn to function in a mainstream class. All too often the interests of 'special education' students outweigh those of every other student."
Many online readers, on the other hand, are appalled at the very thought of putting kids like Alex in special classes. It's the teacher who's at fault here, they say.
I don't know the answers to any of these questions, and (I suspect) nor do you. Perhaps we should put this witch hunt on hold until we do. Anthony Westbury: What's really going on in that classroom? ... more -
LOCAL EDITOR SPEAKS ON TEACHERS BEHALF AFTER SHE HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF VOTING STUDEN...
I'd been out of town for a few days over the holiday weekend, so I was catching up on the sun-bleached newspapers that had been littering my front yard.
A name suddenly caught my eye: Wendy Portillo of Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie.
The name — and the reason for the story that mentioned her — made me catch my breath.
Portillo is accused of allowing her kindergarten class at Morningside to "vote out" a 5-year-old fellow student who apparently has a history of behavior problems in the classroom. The student, David Barton, is undergoing diagnosis for possible autism, which makes what happened in Portillo' s classroom even more difficult to understand.
The original story attracted more than 300 comments online. Many expressed outrage, some were downright unpleasant. There were calls for her firing, even for the child's parents to sue her individually.
The reason my heart skipped a beat was that I know Wendy Portillo and I simply cannot connect the lady I met with the person I read about in the paper.
I've spoken to Portillo several times on the phone and met her in person about three weeks ago. I was put in touch with her by a fellow teacher at Morningside.
After winning the state championships against schools from as far afield as Key West, Portillo and her team of third- through fifth-grade students have been invited to the world championships of Odyssey of the Mind at the end of this week at the University of Maryland.
Odyssey of the Mind is an almost 30-year-old organization that sets up academic problem-solving competitions for students from kindergarten through college level all over America and in 28 or so other countries around the world. The Morningside kids and their coach Portillo deserved some press coverage, the teacher told me.
The Morningside students had to create a humorous stage performance that explains the evolutionary demise of the dinosaurs in a grand total of eight minutes or less. The kids have to write the script, build the props and create the costumes. They've been working on "DinoStories" since last October, meeting several times a week. As Portillo told me, "there's a lot of sacrifice involved" and team members have to be extremely dedicated.
I meet a lot of people in my job and like to think I'm a fairly good judge of character. I like to think I can smell a rat a mile away.
Wendy Portillo gave not a whiff of anything amiss.
On the contrary, she seems a loving, caring person who genuinely wants only the best for her students. She certainly gave me the impression she's the sort of kindergarten teacher you'd remember with affection later in life.
And yet, here she finds herself in crisis, removed from her classroom. Reportedly, she admitted to holding the classroom vote, but now school board protocol prevents her from airing her side of the story. The Port St. Lucie Police Department and State Attorney's Office have both declined to press charges of child abuse.
There's obviously another side to this story and maybe one day we'll hear it. In the meantime, I'm suspending judgment. I think after teaching our kids for 12 years in St. Lucie County — nine of them at Morningside to some pretty lofty levels — we owe her that. I'd been out of town for a few days over the holiday weekend, so I was catching up on the sun-bleached newspapers that had been l... more -
Can McCain win women voters?
Does Sen. John McCain have the ability to attract women voters back to the Republican Party - even if he ends up running against Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential nominee? Does Sen. John McCain have the ability to attract women voters back to the Republican Party - even if he ends up running against Hilla... more
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Feel-good factor drops to lowest level ever
Growing gloom over the economy is driving voters away from Gordon Brown, an opinion poll shows today. Link also includes: Increasing anxiety has left Labour trailing the Conservatives by 14 points. Some 43 per cent of people plan to vote Tory compared with 29 per cent for Labour. Seventeen per cent would vote Liberal Democrat. Growing gloom over the economy is driving voters away from Gordon Brown, an opinion poll shows today. Link also includes: Increasing a... more
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Obama, Clinton await New Mexico caucus tally
Though all the results from Super Tuesday are back, More than 17,000 provisional ballots are the only thing that stand between either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama from claiming victory in the final caucus from Super Tuesday.
The votes stand like this right now:
Clinton held a lead of 1,123 votes — 68,654 votes compared with 67,531 for Obama.
The number of provisional votes yet to be counted: 17,000.
Democrats could begin verifying the thousands of provisional ballots as early as Friday. Such ballots were given to voters who showed up at the wrong voting site, whose names were not on registered voter lists, or those who requested an absentee ballot but signed an affidavit saying they did not return it.
"Over the next couple of days, we'll have a good sense of when we'll finish this process," state Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colon said Thursday. Though all the results from Super Tuesday are back, More than 17,000 provisional ballots are the only thing that stand between either ... more -
No peace center on Alcatraz Island
San Francisco voters have spoken and rejected a proposal to demolish the famed and hugely popular tourist attraction Alcatraz prison and transform the island in San Francisco's Bay into a global peace center.
The proposition, which shared the presidential primary ballot measure on Super Tuesday, was rejected by 72 percent of San Francisco voters. San Francisco voters have spoken and rejected a proposal to demolish the famed and hugely popular tourist attraction Alcatraz prison a... more -
The Process of Democracy
On August 15, 2007 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed a number of reforms to the 1999 Constitution.
The original proposal includes president Chavez's 33 modified articles out of the 350 articles and another 13 articles introduced by the National Assembly (Block A)
Another 23 articles were also proposed by the National Assembly at the time (Block B).
Venezuela has a population of approx. 27,000,000 inhabitants (July 2007 est.) and the 2000 census put the number of Venezuelans in the United States at 126,000. But a more recent study by the Miami-based El Venezolano newspaper, suggests there may be as many as 180,000 Venezuelans living in Florida alone.
This video provides an inside overview on how a democratic act was conducted in a Venezuelan gov. office in the US. We were very lucky to have access to this private event in the US. The US is the country with more Venezuelans after The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. We walk out thinking that this absent votes marked the difference on the 2007 constitutional reform referendum. I hope that by looking at this pod you get inspired to VOTE!
PS. This is my last 2007 video and my first 2008 pod! On August 15, 2007 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed a number of reforms to the 1999 Constitution. ... more
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