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2009 Annual Convening

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Tell them you are with the FRRC Annual Convening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Supreme Court left in place Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act today - a key tool in the advancement of equal access to the ballot for all.  Unfortunately, earlier in the year the Court severely narrowed another key provision of the VRA - Section 2.  Click here to urge Congress to hold hearings on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ensure it is strong enough to continue to advance the cause of voting equality. Dear friend, We have some great news!!  The U.S. Supreme Court left in place a vital tool in the advancement of equal access to the ballot box for all - Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act -when it issued a narrow ruling that rejected a challenge to the section's constitutionality. While today's decision leaves a vital voter protection in place, earlier this year the Court severely narrowed another key provision of the Voting Rights Act - Section 2.  The 5-4 decision in Bartlett v. Strickland will have a negative impact on Section 2's ability to protect minority voting strength when states redistrict their state legislative and Congressional districts after the 2010 Census.  Election Protection's legal leader - the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law - is urging Congress to hold hearings on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ensure it is strong enough to continue to advance the cause of voting equality.  Click here to join them! The continuing need for Section 5 is clear, and in issuing its opinion today the Court cited the mountains of evidence of modern discrimination in voting that is unfortunately all too prevalent today.  Election Protection and the Lawyers' Committee are pleased that Section 5 was left in place, but it is critical that Congress fix the damage the Court did to Section 2's ability to protect minority voting strength. Election Protection's legal leader - the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law- is urging Congress to hold hearings on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ensure it is strong enough to continue to advance the cause of voting equality.  Click here to join them! Section 5 has played a critical role in our nation's progress towards Dr King's vision of equal access to the ballot box for all citizens.  The statute requires jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to have their voting changes approved or "precleared" by the Department of Justice or the federal courts.  While we are pleased with today's decision we will remain vigilant and use every resource at our disposal to defend the Act against any future attacks. Thank you, Jon Greenbaum Election Protection Leader Legal Director, The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law P.S. The Lawyers' Committee will continue to fight discrimination in all forms across this nation.  To keep up to date and find out how you can help further the cause of justice, please click here to sign up for the Lawyers' Committee email list. Support the National Campaign for Fair Elections — donate today!

Dear friend, We have some great news, and as a valued volunteer and supporter of ours I wanted to personally make sure you were among the first to know!  Just moments ago we settled a landmark case that came out of Election Protection 2004 that will radically reshape the way elections are run and help ensure equal access to the ballot box! For too long, elections in Ohio were plagued by poor administration and the unequal distribution of resources that created a situation where voters in certain areas of the state voted easily while voters in many low-income and minority neighborhoods were faced with long lines, lack of equipment, undertrained and overwhelmed poll workers and other problems that kept them from fully participating in our democracy.  The lawsuit, League of Women Voters of Ohio v. Brunner, brought by Election Protection leader the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and our partners, said enough is enough.  As a result of the settlement, the State of Ohio will: Ensure uniformity and consistency in Ohio election procedures, so that the opportunity to vote can be enjoyed equally by all Ohio citizens; Promote pre-election planning that will minimize errors and breakdowns in the implementation of elections, overcome past problems of inadequate equipment and resources at polling places, prevent the failure to properly process provisional and absentee ballots, increase disability access, and correct problems with voting technology and security; Improve the recruitment and training of election officials and poll workers; and Provide accountability by instituting consistent data collection and monitoring of key aspects of election administration. Click here for more information about what this settlement means for Ohio voters on the Lawyers' Committee's website. The plaintiffs in the case, the League of Women Voters of Ohio, the League of Women Voters of Toledo-Lucas County, and a dozen Ohio citizens, were represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Demos, and the law firms of Proskauer Rose LLP, Arnold & Porter LLP, and Connelly, Jackson & Collier LLP, along with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and People for the American Way Foundation. Thank you, Jon Greenbaum Election Protection Leader Legal Director, The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law P.S. Election Protection will continue to fight to protect disenfranchised voters across this nation but we need your help!  Please click here to donate today to make sure we can continue to bring high impact cases like LWVO v. Brunner!   Support the National Campaign for Fair Elections — donate today!           This email was sent to: res831gk@... Click here to unsubscribe.

Clay Today  |  June 1, 2009  |   0 Comments

Allowing the voter to accept or reject the ballot is bad.

 

Special to Clay Today

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Many Clay County residents recently got a chance to see new voting equipment that will make its debut next year.

The Clay County Supervisor of Elections Office gave the public a chance to demonstrate the newly purchased DS200 voting equipment at Green Cove Springs Memorial Day Riverfest.

Eighty DS200s, which will make their first appearance in the 2010 general election, were recently purchased by the Board of County Commissioners.  The DS200 will replace the currently used Eagle Optical Scan after its manufacturer announced it will no longer offer hardware and software support.

The DS200 model is still optical scan and will use a ballot that requires filling in an oval as opposed to the previous method of connecting an arrow. The bubbles can be filled with a No. 2 pencil or any type of ink except red, unlike the Eagle Optical Scan which required a special marker.

The DS200, which features a full color touch screen, also gives the voter more control by alerting them to problems, such as under- or over-voting, and letting them choose whether to accept or return the ballot.

Visitors to the Elections Office festival booth could try out the DS200, register to vote or update their voter registration.

More demonstrations of the DS200 are planned before the 2010 general election, the Supervisor of Elections Office said.

Rate New Clay Co. voting machine makes debut

Ave. rating: Not Rated

< Why would the Legislature ban the use of IDs from
< retirement communities and neighborhood associations at
< polling places, a move that would hit seniors particularly
< hard since many no longer have driver's licenses?

What a timely question, since I'm in Florida visiting my 97-year-old mother. I
will try to find out more, but it seems that these two IDs are not under any
legal control. That is, there is no penalty for issuing fake ones.  Also, the
State of Florida issues an alternative ID to people who do not have driver's
licenses at the cost of $10 per year.  It is hard to do much of anything
(including have a bank account) without either a driver's license or a
state-issued ID, so it seems unlikely that seniors rely on the retirement
home/neighborhood association IDs to vote.

Has anyone posted any hard data on how many seniors used either of these two IDs
to vote in the last election?  Because the general take here is that this is
probably a fake issue.

The other parts of the bill, I'm still exploring...

[ VOTING 'REFORM' ]

Voting 'Reform': Shadowy, Shameful Legislation

Today is YOUR DAY to help protect democracy.  Only thousands of phone calls can stop the Voter Suppression bills being rammed through the Florida Legislature.  Only YOU can protect your vote and your democracy. CALL YOUR INDIVIDUAL REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATOR TODAY!                                                                                                                Click here to find the phone numbers for YOUR representative and senator (by zip code).   Please call today, tonight, or no later than tomorrow morning because the House is voting on its version tomorrow afternoon (Friday, April 24).   You won’t get your legislator directly, but LEAVE A MESSAGE with their aide or on their voice mail.   Here’s the message:   Message for your representative: “Hi, my name is ___________________.   I live in _______________________, Florida. My phone number is ______________________.   I am a CONSTITUENT of Representative _______________________. Please tell Rep.__________________ to OPPOSE House Bill number 7149. Can you please tell me how the Representative plans to vote? [Wait for answer. Note answer.]   Thank you for your time.”   Message for your senator: Hi, my name is ___________________.   I live in _______________________, Florida .   My phone number is_______________________ I am a CONSTITUENT of Senator _______________________.  Please ask Senator__________________ to OPPOSE Senate Bill number 956. Can you please tell me how the Senator plans to vote? [Wait for answer. Note answer.]  Thank you for your time.”   Click below to read scathing editorials opposing Voter Suppression bills: New! Must read editorial in the Orlando Sentinel (today) New! Susan Pynchon guest editorial in the Beacon New! Kindra Muntz guest editorial in the Sarasota Herald Tribune Must read editorial in the St. Petersburg Times   Must read editorial in the Sarasota Herald Tribune Must read editorial in the Daytona Beach News Journal Must read editorial in the New York Times Editorial by Florida Fair Elections Coalition   In brief, the bills would: • Grant sweeping and unchecked power to the Department of State; • Force voters with disabilities to continue to vote on error-prone, unauditable touchscreen voting machines until 2016; • Restrict third-party voter registration efforts; • Hinder the constitutional right of citizens to petition their government; • Restrict nonpartisan election-protection programs; • Reduce transparency in the funding of political advertisements; • Force more voters to vote by provisional ballot on Election Day; • Restrict the list of accepted forms of identification for voter registration and identification at the polls; • Expand the ability of out-of-state lobbyists to influence Florida legislators and legislation; • Restrict the ability of the governor to extend early voting.   Thank you for protecting democracy today!  Together we can make a difference.   Best regards, Susan Pynchon Florida Fair Elections Coalition www.ffec.org 386-804-3131 C-5

And this refers only to those who "encounted registration problems or failed to receive

absentee ballots."

The former category would include, along with those sidelined by the voter ID laws in

Indiana and Georgia, all those who were registered, but showed up at the polls only to

find that they'd been stricken from the rolls. And such disenfranchisement was either

"legal," as BushCo's DoJ had been conducting quiet voter purges nationwide, or illegal,

as partisan free-lancers cleansed the voter rolls of those who would have cast a ballot for

the Evil Ones. (Those voter rolls now being electronic, such deletion is a snap for anyone

with access to them.)

Now, the number of those disenfranchised certainly was even higher than MIT's report

suggests, since it refers exclusively to registration hurdles and missing absentee ballots.

There were also many voters who could not wait on the endless lines that formed in

Democratic precincts only, there having been too few machines placed there, and/or

machines that didn't work. (The same thing happened in 2004 and 2006.)

And then there were those citizens whose votes were not suppressed, but electronically

erased or altered: a type of disenfranchisement not noted by the researchers at MIT, who

looked exclusively at vote suppression, not election fraud. But, just as in 2004 and 2006,

so in 2008 there were numerous firsthand reports of voters seeing their votes "flipped"

right before their eyes--a problem that afflicted many Democrats and just a handful

of Republicans. And those reports point only to a fraction of the ballots altered

electronically, since it's quite easy to flip votes without its being perceptible.

It's therefore very likely that the number of those disenfranchised in this last election,

by whatever means, was actually far higher than the 4/5 million here reported. We may

conservatively estimate that it was more like 7 to 8 million US citizens who couldn't vote;

and we may add with confidence that most of those blocked voters would have voted

for Obama, and also would have voted Democratic in their local House and Senate races.   

What this means is that (a) this president won by a landslide, not merely a "decisive"

margin, and that (b) the GOP is, more than ever, a fringe party--and (c) a party that

relies on every dirty trick and tactic in the book to "win" in our elections, so as to push

their program on the rest of us despite the will of the electorate. And what this means is

that (e) our degraded voting system now needs radical reform, or else that undead party

will keep "coming back" until they've ruined everything.

MCM

Hurdles to Voting Persisted in 2008

By IAN URBINA

Published: March 10, 2009

WASHINGTON - Four million to five million voters did not cast a ballot in the 2008 presidential election because they encountered registration problems or failed to receive absentee ballots, which is roughly the same number of voters who encountered such problems in the 2000 election, according to an academic study to be presented to the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday.

An additional two million to four million registered voters - or 1 percent to 2 percent of the eligible electorate - were "discouraged" from voting due to administrative hassles, like long lines and voter identification requirements, the study found.

The study, which draws from a survey of about 33,000 eligible voters, was conducted in October and November 2008 by the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, a consortium of more than 150 university researchers, led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who specialize in voting issues.

The study found that the most common registration problems involved clerical errors, like entering voter information incorrectly in statewide databases, or voters who changed their address but failed to inform election officials. At least 4 percent of eligible voters surveyed said they requested absentee ballots but failed to receive them.

-snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/us/politics/11vote.html?_r=2&ref=us

-

For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Schloz-Backed Voter Fraud Lawsuit Bites The Dust

Advertisement

And I guess that's it, right?

No voices from the Left will make the kind of big deal about this that is actually waranted?

Well, it will just come back again as a tactic in 2010, I guess.

Posted by mk3872
March 6, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink

Bogusness? 8 years was way to long listening to that guy....It's Bogosity ;-)

Posted by kevbo
March 6, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink

BROWNING PROPOSING TWEAKS TO VOTING LAWS

By KEITH LAING
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, Feb. 24, 2009..........Secretary of State Kurt Browning said Tuesday that he will propose several modifications to state election law when the legislative session begins next week.

Speaking with reporters after a meeting with voter advocacy groups, Browning said that he would propose the Legislature allow overseas absentee ballots to be sent and received online. The secretary said he will also suggest permitting voters to change their addresses on Election Day in lieu of voting provisionally when challenged, as well as stiffening the legal penalties for unnecessary ballot challenges.

Browning said that the regular postal service was an acceptable delivery method for in-state absentee ballots, but that requiring overseas ballots to be faxed back was "archaic."

Browning said allowing overseas absentee voters, who are primarily military personnel, to cast their ballots on the Internet would save up to two weeks, in addition to making voting more convenient for troops. Browning said the proposal was a result of the feedback he received when he toured the Middle East last year with colleagues from four other states trying to get out the military vote.

Browning and election officials from California, Indiana, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania took a swing through the region about a month before Election Day 2008.

"One of the things we found was that the fax machine was antiquated technology," Browning said Tuesday. "We can e-mail and fax ballots out, but they can only (currently) fax ballots back in. We found whether we were in Kuwait, whether we in Baghdad or Balad or Kabul or Bagram Air Force base, whether we were in Frankfurt, Germany, there at Ramstein, over and over again troops were telling us 'let us e-mail.'"

Browning also said his proposal to allow voters who have moved to change their address on Election Day and then vote at appropriate precincts would make voting more convenient. Doing so would drastically reduce concerns about challenges to the eligibility of voters who are facing home foreclosure, Browning said.

In the weeks leading up to the most recent election, Republicans in Florida and in other states were accused of planning to challenge the residency of voters at the polls who had recently lost their homes, though no such instances were reported after the election.
.
"The perceived big issue in ‘08 was...that everybody was going to challenge everybody that was going through foreclosure," Browning said. "We tried to calm people down, saying you shouldn't be challenged on foreclosure because you can still live in a home that's being foreclosed on."

However, Browning said it was illegal for voters who have moved to a new address to vote at the precinct for their old home, whether the move was caused by foreclosure or not. Browning said his new proposal would give foreclosed voters a choice of voting provisionally in their existing precincts if they still resided in their homes or changing their address to their place of residence and voting there if they have moved.

Either way, Browning said, their vote would ultimately be counted.

"Once that challenge is entered, then there is no other option than voting a provisional ballot," Browning said. Under the proposed change, if you are challenged because of an address change, Browning said, “what our proposal does is it gives you, the voter, the opportunity to change your address at the polls to the new address and go to the new precinct and vote a regular ballot."

"Let's go on that assumption that it is not a frivolous challenge, and I say that I'm still living in my home that's going through foreclosure, yes I've got to vote a provisional ballot. But I'll tell you right now that it will count," Browning continued. "It's the same voter, it's the address and you're in the right precinct."

Browning said that another major proposal he will make to the Legislature is that the legal penalty for unnecessarily challenging voters be toughened from its current first degree misdemeanor to a third degree felony. That would increase the penalty for a frivolous challenge from up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine to up to 5 years in prison and $5,000 in fines.

But Browning said he would not specify what made an eligibility challenge frivolous.

"Who was it - the Supreme Court? - said something about pornography, I can't define it but I know it when I see it," Browning said. "I think the same thing would hold true with a frivolous challenge. If people are in there just saying 'I challenge you,' those in my opinion, we know that's frivolous. There's no basis, there's no ground, there's no nothing on those challenges."

Elizabeth Westfall, senior attorney for the Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C.-based racial justice advocacy group, said Browning's recommended changes to Florida voting law were positive developments, especially the recommended changes to eligibility challenges.

However, Westfall, who attended Browning's meeting with voter advocacy groups Tuesday, said that challenges should be restricted even further.

"Ordinary private citizens should not be in charge of maintaining voter rolls," Westfall said. "Supervisors of elections should be in charge of determining voters eligibility. The ability to challenge as a private citizen another voter's eligibility should be seriously limited."

Westfall said if voters had to have the ability to challenge other voters, she would suggest limiting it to those registered in the same precinct.

"That would further restrict challenges, which I think on the whole are not an appropriate way to maintain or scrub voter lists," Westfall said.
 

From: LWVHC President Linda DAquila Linda.DAquila@... and LWVF President Marilynn Wills marilynnwills@...
Subject:  FREE 2010 Elections Forum 2/13 with Bob Edgar at USF Sarasota

 

Common Cause

Holding Power Accountable

http://www.commoncause.org/

 

Common Cause Florida

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4847581

 

FREE

 

USF Institute of Public Policy and Leadership Forum

“2010, What can we expect, and what did we learn from the 2008 elections”

Panelists:  Bob Edgar, Dr. Susan MacManus, Betty Castor and James McCartney

Friday, February 13

4 to 5:30  p.m.

USF Sarasota Campus

8350 N Tamiami Trail

Sarasota

RSVP http://www.sarasota.usf.edu/ippl/register.asp , call the USF hotline 941-359-4602, or contact Alex Chavez at 941-706-1877

 

Click here to watch event live www.sarasota.usf.edu/ippl

 

---

 

The Institute for Public Policy and Leadership

USF Sarasota-Manatee

and Common Cause Florida

present

Election 2010: What we Learned from 2008 and What We Can Expect Next Time

Friday, February 13, 2009

4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

USF Sarasota-Manatee Selby Auditorium

8350 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL

Click here to RSVP http://www.sarasota.usf.edu/ippl/register.asp , call the USF hotline 359-4602, or contact Alex Chavez at 941-706-1877

 

Politics never sleeps, never has a down period. Thus even with the new Barack Obama administration barely past Inauguration Day, political operatives are already looking ahead to 2010. This forum will explore what they learned from 2008 and how it will impact the 2010 elections.

 

Speakers

 

Bob Edgar, National President of Common Cause

Susan MacManus, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Political Science, USF

Betty Castor, Executive Director, Patel Center, USF Tampa, and former Florida Commissioner of Education

James McCartney, columnist and retired foreign policy correspondent, Knight-Ridder Newspapers (now McClatchy News)

 

For more information about the Institute for Public Policy and Leadership at USF Sarasota-Manatee and other IPPL events, please visit www.sarasota.usf.edu/ippl .

 

---

For Immediate Release:

January 27, 2009                                                                                                                        

 

Contact:

Alex Chavez  (941) 706-1877 

 

Common Cause President Bob Edgar to speak at University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Campus 

 

Common Cause President, Bob Edgar, a former six-term member of Congress, will be a featured panelist at a University of South Florida forum entitled, “2010, What can we expect, and what did we learn from the 2008 elections”.

 

The university’s Institute of Public Policy and Leadership will host the forum on Friday, February 13^th, from 4 to 5:30  p.m. at the USF Sarasota Campus located at 8350 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota.  The forum is followed by a reception on campus, where Edgar will autograph copies of his book “Middle Church:  Reclaiming the moral values of the faithful majority from the religious right”.    Edgar is also the former general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

 

Other featured panelists include Dr. Susan MacManus, Distinguished University Professor, University of South Florida, Betty Castor, former Florida Commissioner of Education and former President of USF who is now Executive Director of The Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions at USF Tampa, and James McCartney, retired Washington foreign policy correspondent and columnist for Knight Ridder publications including the Miami Herald, Bradenton Herald and Tallahassee democrat.

 

Common Cause ran on-the-ground protect-the-vote campaigns in nine states, including Florida, during the recent presidential election and also engaged students on campuses of schools in 10 additional states.

 

There is no admission fee to attend the forum.   

 

For more information please contact Alex Chavez at 941-706-1877

 

---

Common Cause

Holding Power Accountable

http://www.commoncause.org/

 

Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.

 

Now with nearly 400,000 members and supporters and 36 state organizations http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4860185, Common Cause remains committed to honest, open and accountable government, as well as encouraging citizen participation in democracy.

 

In 2000, the organization created the Common Cause Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity, as its public education and research affiliate.  Charity Navigator http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6539 has awarded the Common Cause Education Fund with 4 stars (its highest ranking) for the past two years.

Please contact us at:

 

Common Cause
1133 19th Street NW, 9th Floor
Washington, DC 20036
202.833.1200

 

Common Cause Florida

Ben Wilcox, Executive Director

Alex Chavez, Development Director

704 W.Madison St.
Tallahassee, Florida   32304
phone - (850) 222-3883
fax - (850) 222-3906
cmncause@... 

 

Greetings all,   Attached is our 2009 Position Paper on Florida Elections. It’s a very tough year financially so we made sure our priorities not just require no new spending – but actually save Florida taxpayers money AND make essential improvements to Florida ’s elections.   While many other worthy issues might have been addressed, we narrowed it down to a Top Six for 2009 that we think meet the combination of most needed changes and most feasible politically.   Please consider your organization endorsing this Position Paper. You’ll see at the end how endorsements will be listed. Generally, we’d like to list organizations but there are some exceptions were we might list an individual because organizational affiliation does not work.   We hope you agree with all points but if you’d like to endorse the document but need to exclude one or more points from your endorsement, please see Note to Endorsers at the end, explaining that we will accommodate that. We think it’s important to show as much common support as possible, even if we also show not everyone agrees on everything.   We’ll update the document to show added endorsers from time to time but we do not intend to alter the text of positions. If we do edit the text of positions, we’ll notify all endorsers for their re-consideration.   Please join us to support these initiatives at your earliest opportunity. You’re welcome to circulate it to anyone – legislators, elections officials, media, other organizations – let rip!   And don’t hesitate with any questions.   Best,   Dan McCrea President Florida Voters Coalition 305-984-2900 dan@... www.FloridaVoters.org

"The biggest complaint among potential voters was that their names were missing from the

rosters at polling stations."

And yet, as usual, such bad news doesn't register: "In Washington, President Obama praised

the election."

So will he also praise our next election, regardless of how many thousands find their names

missing from the voter rolls?

MCM

Calm Iraqi election marred as thousands were denied vote
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/61224.html

BAGHDAD - Iraqis cast ballots in 14 of the country's 18 provinces Saturday, selecting among 14,500 candidates for 440 seats on new provincial councils.

The day was free of election-related violence, but thousands of Iraqis were unable to vote because their names were inexplicably missing from voter lists. Some confused Iraqis even wandered neighborhoods looking for a polling place that would accept their vote.

The extent of the no-vote could not be determined, but thousands of Iraqis in some locales took to the streets to protest.

McClatchy reporters located across Iraq also noted that turnout was not as sizable as previous elections.

Nonetheless, election monitors deemed the election, which essentially selected local government officials, a success and even President Barack Obama congratulated the citizens of the war-torn nation on the balloting.

Preliminary results will not be known for some five days. Final results would take weeks.

By 7 p.m. Iraq time, all the polls were closed and the United Nations envoy to Iraq Staffan de Mistura along with the head of the Independent High Electoral Commission Faraj al Haidari congratulated themselves and Iraq on a successful election.

"This is your success and the success of all Iraqis," de Mistura said in a press conference. "This is probably one of the most observed elections in recent years."

In Washington, President Obama also praised the election.

"I congratulate the people of Iraq on holding significant provincial elections today," Obama said in a statement. "Millions of Iraqi citizens from every ethnic and religious group went peacefully to the polls across the country to choose new provincial councils. It is important that the councils get seated, select new governors, and begin work on behalf of the Iraqi people who elected them."

Saturday's balloting allows Iraqis to select provincial council members who in turn chose the governor of each Iraqi province. They are the equivalent of a state legislature.

Under Iraqi law, the power of provincial councils remains unclear. They have control over local security forces, public facilities and influence over the appointment of senior ministry officials in their province. But the Baghdad national parliament can remove governors and other provincial officials and the provincial budget will come from the federal government.

More than 500,000 local and party observers watched Saturday's election and hundreds of international observers came from outside of Iraq including from the European Union and the Arab League.

Vehicular traffic was banned for much of the day as a security precaution, and many voters walked as much as three hours to reach their assigned polling stations. Children took over the empty streets and turned them into makeshift soccer fields. The goals were made of shoes and bricks.

Many other Iraqis apparently chose not to vote at all, and in Baghdad the polling centers, which surrounded by concertina wire, saw only a trickle of voters. The commission said there would be no numbers on voter turnout for another day.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki lifted the vehicle ban in the afternoon and urged people to get out to vote. Turnout was far less than previous elections, when Iraqis stood in line for hours across the country, except in the disputed areas in Nineveh province where Arab and Kurdish tensions are most visible. These areas were packed with voters.

The biggest complaint among potential voters was that their names were missing from the rosters at polling stations. Some walked from station to station searching for a polling place that had their

names. Iraqis were to vote where their ration card was registered.

"I am looking for my name and I've been to five polling stations in the neighborhood and I still can't find my name," said Saleh Talib Kadhim, a resident of Jamiaa, a mostly Sunni Muslim neighborhood in the city's west. "I will not give up my right to vote. I will keep looking."

It would be Kadhim's first time to cast a ballot. The Sunni Arab boycotted the last election, which many perceived as a fraudulent because it was influenced by Iran and the United States.

In Haswa just west of Baghdad, thousands of the displaced demonstrated because they wouldn't find their names on the list. Record numbers of people turned out to vote in the Sunni area just west of Baghdad.

"We want our rights," they chanted. "This is a conspiracy."

It was unclear who would win in the elections with so many candidates and parties competing for the same votes. Familiar faces like Prime Minister Maliki seemed to be getting votes across the country. Secularist Ayad Allawi, an ex-CIA operative and former Prime Minister of Iraq, was popular among Sunni Arab voters.

Many Iraqis said that parties had offered them cash and gifts in exchange for a vote.

In Adhamiyah, Safiya Jassim, 40, voted and exited a polling station. After she passed the Iraqi and American tanks outside the school she proudly announced her family's association with Saddam Hussein's Baath party.

She voted for Allawi, who the U.S. installed as prime minister in 2004. Many Iraqis have grown disenchanted with the religious parties that came to power in the last election.

"I came here so our sons might be something, get jobs and stand by us," she said. "Every vote counts."

Even in the Shiite holy city of Najaf where religious sentiments are at an all time high in the midst of 40 days of mourning for Hussein, the grandson of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, slaughtered in nearby Karbala almost 1,400 years ago, voters showed disgust for religious parties.

"We were cheated by Islamic parties in the previous election," said Mohammed Hassan, 27. "They've been discovered. I will not make the same mistake so I voted for a secular party because this is the best. I voted for Ayad Allawi."

Tensions were greatest in Nineveh in the country's north as Kurdish and Arab parties vie for seats and control. The current provincial council is dominated by Kurds in the mostly Sunni Arab province.

Sheikh Abdullah al Yawar, a member of the Hadbaa slate in Rabiaa near the Syrian border, accused Kurdish parties of fraud in his area and the district of Sinjar a mixed area of Yazidis and Arabs.

He said members of the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Kurdish intelligence were forcing people to choose the Kurdish slate, the Fraternity of Nineveh, with threats and intimidation.

The electoral commission said it was investigating, but the province's deputy governor, Khasrow Goran, denied the accusations.

Kurdish parties in Nineveh and Diyala province, both areas of mixed Arab and Kurdish populations, said that nearly 30,000 Kurds were not on polling center lists and could not vote. The Electoral commission said those that couldn't vote had relocated their place of residence tracked by a ration card late last year making them ineligible

In Diyala province in the mostly Kurdish area of Khanaqeen, Kurds marched in front of the local office of the Independent High Electoral Commission because some 16,000 weren't allowed to vote.

"Khanaqeen will stay Kurdish despite not letting us vote," they shouted.

Yasir Baqir, 28, withheld his vote in his city of Mosul. Every promise politicians made to Iraqis were left unfulfilled.

"I didn't participate in this election because I don't trust any list," he said. "We read and see many promises but nothing real and we still have crisis, there is still no security."

Many Iraqis from Baghdad to the southern city of Najaf voted for one reason. They didn't want someone to steal their ballot and cast a vote for someone else. The elections in 2005 were rife with fraud. Iran was accused of wide interference including bussing in fake ballots from across the border.

The biggest fear is that this could happen again.

In Ameriyah Mohammed Allawi, 25, laughed when asked why he came to vote.

"We are an occupied country," he said. "I am voting only so that my vote will not be stolen by the corrupt people who are willing to do anything to remain firm on their seats."

His name was not on the roster's list and he left dejected.

After polls closed, Maliki who'd cast his own ballot on Saturday morning called the elections a success.

"It remains ahead what we will know of winning and not winning," he said. "I hope this will be a reason to continue the competition...and to head as loving brothers and partners to build the provincial councils and the local governments so we can raise our country."

Thirteen McClatchy Special Correspondents contributed from all over Iraq.

 

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New information sheds more light on GOP IT guru's tragic death

01/13/2009 @ 7:39 pm

Information "Lockdown" – Details Withheld from Fire Department

Connell on Re-Approach

Allegations Relating to two Previous Flights

One Aborted Flight Confirmed

King Lincoln Bronzeville

Second Possible Aborted Flight – Unconfirmed

After new voting fraud charge, Coulter asks if accusers are transvestites

01/12/2009 @ 9:17 am

Coulter claimed on voting forms that she lived with parents, despite purchase of $1.49 million condo in New York

Any hope of prosecuting the perpetrators of the stolen 2004 presidential election ended when Mike Connell died Dec 19 in a plane crash. As reported in Raw Story “Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates.”

One day before the 2008 presidential election, Attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis, working on the King-Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell lawsuit, deposed Connell regarding the role of Connell's company New Media Communications in collaboration with SMARTtech and Triad in Ohio's 2004 election.After the 2004 presidential election, a movement of election rights activists concluded that the election had been stolen. Exit polls, designed to be accurate within 1 percent, were off 8.8 percent in Ohio, which was a consistent pattern in swing states. Steve Freeman's book “Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen” explains in great detail the anomalies in the election results, and why the exit polls were accurate. The exit poll discrepancy was the red flag indicating a fraudulent election, but the mainstream media looked the other way and sought to discredit the exit polls.

The numerical evidence in combination with a serious distrust of electronic voting fueled a vigorous election reform movement. But the method used to steal the election remained a mystery. Although citizen activists immersed in the subject were and are very much opposed to electronic touch screen voting, many of the problematic counties voted on punch card systems. How did the results change between 11 PM and 1 AM on the night of the election?

On a cold and wet election day 2004, thousands of voters were disenfranchised by lines 4 to 10 hours long. Prior to election day, low income and black voters were selectively purged from the roles. Voting machines switched votes from Kerry to Bush in Mahoning County. Impossible voter turnouts were recorded in several precincts. Entire inner city precincts in Cleveland voted for third party candidates due to ballot design or intentional malfeasance. However, none of this was enough to swing the vote. Electronic theft at the tabulation level was required to secure the presidency for George W. Bush.

Many American's are only vaguely aware that John Kerry would have won a fair election in Ohio. Officially, George Bush won the election by 118,601 votes in Ohio. Ohio was the key swing state that determined the results of the national election.

Few Americans know Mike Connell or Stephen Spoonamore. Spoonamore is a recognized expert in the field of data security and digital network architecture. Early this summer, Republican cyber-expert Spoonamore submitted an affidavit in the King- Lincoln federal court case. Spoonamore designed or consulted for MasterCard, American Express, Chubb insurance, Bloomberg, Boeing, NBC-GE, NewsCorp, the US Department of Energy, The US Navy, The US Department of State and other government agencies according to the affidavit filed in federal court.

Mr. Spoonamore testified that the “vote tabulation system....allowed the introduction of a single computer” between computer A and computer B. This is called a “man in the middle” attack. According to Spoonamore, “This centralized collection of all incoming statewide tabulations would make it easy for a single operator, or a preprogrammed “force balancing computer” to change the results in any way desired by the team controlling the Computer C.” Spoonamore's complete testimony describes his relationship with and knowledge of Connell, the computer expert who built system servers which served the Republican National Committee, and Karl Rove. For the complete testimony of Steve Spoonamore: http://www.securitypronews.com/ insiderreports/ insider/ spn-49-20080930 Security ExpertWarnsOf RiggedElection.html

Now recall that on election day 2004, when candidates normally pace nervously while awaiting a long night watching election returns, George W Bush and Karl Rove boarded Air Force One for an unscheduled visit to Columbus Ohio. Kerry supporters working in downtown Columbus recognized that this was a scary development. What to make of it? The Dispatch reported that the President and Rove came to Columbus to encourage the folks working the call center, and indeed Bush did tour the call center. Rove and Bush met with Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Blackwell controlled Computer B in the scenario described by Spoonamore, in addition to serving as the co-chair of the Bush/Cheney campaign while also serving as the chief election officer as Secretary of State.Also, the Free Press has learned that Connell reportedly sent the Ohio Secretary of State's Chief IT officer Bob Magnan home at 9PM on election night, leaving partisan private contractors in charge of the state's official election count.

But why did Bush/Rove really make an unscheduled visit to Columbus? We may never know, but consider this scenario. Bush/Rove realized that Bush would loose Ohio, but by a small margin. The infrastructure was set up to steal the election. So Rove called Ken Blackwell to inform him that his people were prepared to pull the trigger at the tabulation level. Ken Blackwell, concerned about a long prison sentence, balked. Possibly Blackwell asked for the visit to Columbus, more likely Rove insisted upon it in order to pressure or reassure Blackwell. In either case, the unscheduled visit put Rove and Bush at the scene of the crime. Via tape recorded conversations or simply by making notes of the meeting, Blackwell had ensured that he would have cover at the highest levels.

It appears that Connell's IT apparatus, using the methods described in Spoonamore's affidavit, focused on the three southwestern counties of Warren, Belmont, and Clermont. Bush's total margin of victory was achieved through these three counties. As first reported in the Free Press, additional analysis by Richard Hayes Phillips documented that votes were switched in these three counties as well as Auglaize, Brown, Darke, Highland, Mercer, Miami, Putnam, Shelby, Van Wert, and Delaware Counties.

One of the favorite methods of explaining away a conspiracy is to offer that, if it were a conspiracy, someone would talk. Students of the JFK assassination know well the trail of twenty or more dead bodies of people with knowledge of that history changing event.

One day before the 2008 Presidential election, Attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis deposed Mr. Mike Connell. For all practical purposes, Connell refused to answer. However, reporter Larisa Alexandrovna reports that Mr. Connell was a source, that he may have been willing to talk. It is certain that he was threatened, as witness protection was requested from the US Attorney General and Ohio Attorney General via the attorneys.Connell was concerned that the White House would throw him under the bus, according to a credible source. Both Connell and Spoonamore approached the House Judiciary Committee about testifying regarding the 2004 election.

The alternative media group ePluribus Media discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains. Also Connell's IT work in Ohio during the 2004 election involved bringing in SMARTtech and Triad to run the state's vote count. Connell's involvement in creating Ohio’s official state election website, in combination with his other partisan activities, raises questions in and of itself. Connell was involved in Karl Rove's missing emails which would clarify Rove's involvement in the Justice Department firing of eight Federal District Attorneys. In addition Connell was involved in the political prosecution of Alabama Governor Don Siegleman, as well as hosting the website for “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.”

Possibly Connell was not a conspiracy realist. Maybe he had not studied the recent plane crash deaths of Senator Paul Wellstone, Senator Mel Callihan and John F. Kennedy Jr. He may have not have been aware of other political assassination by plane crash in Mexico, Rawanda, Ecuador and Panama. But he did cancel two flights in the past two months due to “suspicious problems” with his plane.

Initial crash reports speculated on poor weather. Another claimed wrongly that he ran out of gas, despite the explosion on impact. Further investigation revealed that Connell had declared an emergency as he approached the airport for a second time, evidently being unable to make a course correction when notified by the tower that he was “left of course.” An eyewitness stated that Connell was flying down towards the ground. Records from the air traffic controllers document that they instructed him to climb up to 3000 feet.

If a conspiracy existed to steal the 2004 presidential election by intercepting the votes as they were transmitted from the county Boards of Election to the Ohio Secretary of State, someone would have talked. Unless of course, that someone was dead. Chances are good that Connell saved electronic data to protect himself. The question is, does Connell have friends who are courageous enough to see that justice is done on his behalf?

In all likelihood, Connell's death moved the 2004 stolen election from being a solvable case, proved beyond a reasonable doubt to the general public, into a different category. Now it will become another of history's mysteries, along with the political assassinations of the 1960's, the October Surprise, the Iran Contra scandal, and so many other events.

To paraphrase author Martin Schotz, the public will be allowed to believe that the 2004 Presidential Election was stolen, but we will not be allowed to know it. Because knowing it would mean that we have the responsibility to do something about it.

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Results Of DOJ Probe Into Siegelman Prosecution To Be Released In 'Near Future'