Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

With little more than two months left before Election Day, prospective voters are rushing to get registered. And like the way that slugs thrive in moist weather, voter suppression attacks spring up around large-scale voter registration drives. Partisan attempts to shape the electorate, in effect choosing the voters rather than voters choosing their own representatives, seek to impose barriers to voter participation by eligible citizens rather than creating a system that works to facilitate the foundational right of American democracy. Voter ID laws are a particularly favorite weapon in the arsenal of partisans seeking to choose their own voters to the exclusion of other eligible citizens. More than 25 states introduced voter ID bills this year and at least nine have such laws in place for this November’s election despite scant evidence of voter impersonation, the ill it is supposed to stop.

Bwahahahaha.  Okay, sorry, wiping off the spittle.  Here we go.

A Democratic Tsunami is approaching the nation, due to hit polling places with a crash of confusion, overcrowding, long lines, excitement, and potential disorganization at approximately 6:00 a.m. on November 4th.

2008 Democratic primary races across the country were shattering previous records to the tune of 500 or more percent above the turnout of the last presidential election.  It's hardly news, however, that we're going to see a lot of people at the polls this year of all political and religious beliefs, all ages, and all ancestries.

What is news is that with such a landslide coming in to the polls, the GOP has few tactics left available to them that will allow them to even come close to winning this year, or that will even allow them to staunch the bleeding by furiously trying to save house and senate seats in key districts.  They will do this through Voter Intimidation, "Irregularities", and Tampering.

The good news, of course, is that you can go a long way towards preventing many of these violations from ever occurring.

I’ve done a bit of writing over the past couple of years about election integrity issues, election fraud, voter suppression and the "gaming the system from the inside" that has been the republican party’s modus operandi since 2000 when it comes to stealing elections in various forms.

And right on cue - even since the anti-voter voter ID laws that were recently passed in Indiana (and almost passed in Missouri), we are seeing, as my good buddy dday is referring to as the "new battleground" - that big bad boogyman of "voter fraud".

In 2004 many lawyers, law students and other volunteers came together in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states to try to ensure that every vote was counted.  I went to Ohio.  I guess I didn't do such a good job, huh?

Anyway, After I returned from Ohio (yes, in tears), I sent e-mails to some of the organizations doing election protection, describing what went wrong in the hope that those lessons could be applied to election protection efforts in 2008.  Although I've sent in my e-mail form to the Obama campaign offering my assistance, and sent another e-mail containing my critique of the 2004 effort, I'm hoping that by posting here members of the campaign will be sure to see what happened before.  And I'm hoping that others who worked in 2004 will add their thoughts and experiences.  

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

Last week, we wrote about how some reporters have stopped playing into the hands of voter suppression operatives and suddenly acted like journalists by actually investigating partisan claims of voter fraud in relation to voter registration drives. Until the Virginia press corps showed how it should be done, this kind of every-day feat of journalism had been as rare as voter fraud itself.  But, if this is August of an election year, then this must be voter suppression season.

It seems that the toothless mainstream media in Hawaii is virtually  ignoring the story of how the integrity and security of our elections system has been compromised by the leadership in the legislature and by the Office of Elections. WHY?  It looks like the official in charge has lied in court and our system is compromised.  This is big news.  In California they have moved to fix the problems that we have been pointing to here at alohapolitics for Hawaii.  Kudos to California for election integrity and security.  At least California will have an honest election.

In June 2007, the New Zealand online publication Scoop published an article by Michael Collins called "Election 2004: The Urban Legend." (The article is now a chapter in Mark Crispin Miller's edited volume Loser Take All.) The actual argument of this article is open to interpretation. Here is what Ernest Partridge of "The Crisis Papers" thinks it means:

In a stunning essay, read by very few,  Michael Collins explains how they did it. The DRE machines switched and stuffed millions of GOP votes in the big cities, where they would be least likely to be noticed. Collins’ evidence is compelling.

Actually, Collins never mentioned DREs. In brief, the article notes that one table from the 2004 exit poll tabulation reports too many big city voters -- and, therefore, too many big-city votes for Bush. So what? The closer one reads, the harder it is to tell. But Mark Crispin Miller seems to think it's important, so if you're curious, read on with me....

Feeling comfy about our prospects in November?  Sit down.  If you are holding a cup of coffee, put it down.  This is going to upset you.   Before we start, here are two rules to keep in mind:

Rule #1:  The vast majority of attacks originate from within the system.

In other words, you are more likely to get knifed in the back by a friend than attacked by a stranger.  That is why date rape is the most common form of rape.  That is why most murder victims knew their killer.  

Rule #2:  "Security through obscurity" does not work in the modern world.

In other words, you will fail if you try to secure a system by "hiding" stuff instead of designing a "lock" to protect stuff.  The reason this fails is simple.  The strategy keeps everything secret until someone talks or someone stumbles across the information.  Then you are screwed -- or dead -- depending on how badly things go.

What's this got to do with you?  If you care about winning in Nov. you need to read the rest of this.  Follow me for a free ride on a subway.  Our destination?  Stealing an election....

Here is another in my occasional series of critiques of bad election fraud arguments. I realize that some people consider it counterproductive to criticize bad election fraud arguments for fear of trivializing real problems. I wish that these people were equally concerned that making bad election fraud arguments will trivialize real problems.

Today I consider the "Connally anomaly": the fact that in 2004, C. Ellen Connally, Democratic candidate for chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, received more votes than John Kerry in 12 of Ohio's 88 counties -- although Kerry received hundreds of thousands more votes than Connally statewide. The Conyers report, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone article on the 2004 election, and Richard Hayes Phillips' book Witness to a Crime all cite this result as suggesting fraud. Recently, Stephen Spoonamore has speculated that Republican IT expert Mike Connell is somehow implicated in the Connally anomaly. The problem is that the Connally anomaly isn't actually anomalous.

Why is it important to rehash what Mike Connell did in 2000 Florida and 2004 Ohio? Because those very same key elements for potential election theft are firmly in place within the McCain campaign for 2008.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns and Nathan Henderson-James

We spend a lot of time in these news updates showing how charges of voter fraud are used to discredit voter participation efforts and prime the pump for voter suppression efforts, such as the passage of voter ID bills, pushing for proof of citizenship, engaging in draconian voter purge efforts, and imposing sever restrictions on voter registration drives. We have also spent a lot of time carefully delineating the politics behind these efforts, starting with our March 2007 report The Politics Of Voter Fraud and continuing on in these diaries to name but two venues.

I am passing along a information release from Mr. Babson on Maui that I think is an important story that does not get enough play not only in Hawaii, but also nationwide.  Now when reading this long essay, some information hungry people will jump to the conclusions at the end which are pretty radical according to some folks, but if you read the whole essay, you will find the conclusions are more than justified.  All legislators and candidates should read this because it affects them directly as well as every voter that votes for them.  At the very least we need an honest election guaranteed.

This is a cross post from DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com...

In sum- he went to vote, but the judges refused to accept an approved form of ID, and refused to read a copy of the state voter ID requirements the voter took with him-----

I like good arguments, and I hate bad arguments. When people offer bad arguments on election integrity issues, it makes me want to scream. Do bad arguments actually undermine the cause of election integrity? Honestly, I don't know. I think so, but unfortunately, we don't get to rerun the last four years without the bad arguments to see if things go any better.

As time permits, I hope to post relatively terse rebuttals to some bad election fraud arguments. Inevitably some folks will interpret (or portray) these diaries as attempts to dismiss election integrity issues. Anyone who has been here long enough has read some variant of: "If you don't believe the exit polls, then you don't care about democracy." It's sort of like, "If you question the war, then you don't support our troops," or "Evolutionists are out to destroy morality." I think we can do better. More on that -- and my bullet points on exit polls -- beyond the jump.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Reports and exits polls this entire political season have built a narrative of tremendous, even record-breaking voter participation, pushing us to believe that voter turnout in November will exceed all expectations.

Maybe.

Cross posted from Docudharma.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:  Link to an important diary on Electronic Voting Machine Hearing TODAY! from TheOpinionGuy.

On the day before leaving for Netroots Nation, I voted for Jim Martin for U.S. Senate in the July 15 General Primary Election here in Georgia.  

At the polling place I was the only voter but there were a dozen or so poll workers.  After voting (on one of those damned Diebold machines) I asked if I'd get a receipt.  In lieu of one I was given a cute little sticker with a graphic of a Georgia Peach with 'I’m a Georgia Voter' printed on it.  I laughed and said that makes me feel better...there were some chuckles.  

I said I wanted a receipt for my vote.  This is what they gave me.

Dianne Feinstein has, with Republican Robert Bennett, introduced perhaps the worst bill yet drafted on the issue of electronic voting. Meet S.3212, the Bipartisan Electronic Voting Reform Act.

S.3212 does not require a voter-verified paper record,  paper ballot, or paper anything.  The bill allows "independent records" of ballots which could be electronic, audio, video, pictorial, or "other independently produced record." The bill is so crappily written that it seems these independent records don't necessarily have to be seen by the voter before she casts her ballot. The bill places a representative of the voting system industry on the federal committee that drafts voting system guidelines (not an unheard of practice in the federal government, but the voting system industry just ain't ready for this kind of role, to put it kindly).

Click here to sign VerifiedVoting.org's action alert opposing S.3212.  More on the flip.