Election 2008

WASHINGTON - January 17, 2008 - A New Jersey congressman hopes to introduce a bill in the House that would offer $600 million to voting districts across the nation that convert to paper ballots or put in audit systems in time for the November presidential election.

The bill, dubbed The Confidence in Voting Act of 2008, seeks to fix what many critics fear is a potential problem with paperless electronic voting machines - a lack of voter-verified paper records.

The bill, to be introduced Thursday, would provide incentives for states to provide verified, audited balloting for the general election, but would not mandate standards for all states.

Voters in all or parts of 20 states, including New Jersey, now cast ballots electronically without backup paper verification, said New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt, who has sponsored the bill in the House.

"Millions of Americans will be voting on unreliable electronic machines without paper ballots. There will be questions that cannot be resolved because there is no way of determining a voter's intention. All you have is an electronic memory," said Holt, a Democrat.

Holt said he crafted the emergency bill because the House has not approved his earlier measure that mandated the use of backup paper ballots and audits in time for the presidential election.

There are no documented cases of election tampering involving electronic voting machines across the United States. But researchers in Ohio and Colorado found in tests that the machines could be corrupted with magnets or handheld electronic devices.

The New Jersey Legislature gave its Division of Elections until Jan. 1 to retrofit 10,000 electronic voting machines in the state with paper printers. But lab tests found flaws with the retrofitted printers, so the Attorney General declined to certify the newly configured machines and missed the deadline.

The Legislature then extended the deadline until June 3, meaning New Jerseyans will cast ballots in the Feb. 5 presidential primary without paper backup, and election officials won't be able to audit disputed election results.

Other states are also grappling with electronic voting.

In Ohio, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner wants counties that use electronic touch-screen machines to switch to an optical-scan system, where machines scan ballots filled out by voters.

In Colorado, lawmakers are discussing how to conduct November's election now that most of the state's electronic voting machines have been disqualified.

January 16, 2008 - Here's the scoop.

There was a problem with Paypal. One of the donors had an Arabic name and there was suspicion it was coming from the middle-east so they froze everything. However, they seem to have made it very difficult to get the funds transferred. It could be nothing but it could also have been malintentioned.

We need some facts about paypal. Can someone try and dig up who are behind this company and who they have contributed to? Please post your source when you find something.

It is not over when it's over! Apparently, there's no rule in NH that says the money has to be paid up-front. I suggested to them to try and get a document from Paypal as proof that the money is in the account and will be transferred after these account issues are resolved.

They spoke with Albert a little earlier before I called so this is fresh info.

Please, try not to call the grannys all day long because they've been getting bombarded with calls.

Pay Pal is owned by e-Bay.  Meg Whitman is the CEO and President of e-Bay.

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/26427

• Governor Mitt Romney Announces First Group of National Finance Co-Chairs
• GROUP 1: The Romney For President Exploratory Committee National Finance Co-Chairs:
• Christopher Collins, Managing Member of First Atlantic Capital, LLC, Massachusetts
• Mark Guzzetta, President of Gemstone Development, Florida
• Jon Huntsman Sr., Chairman of the Huntsman Corporation, Utah
• John Miller, Founding Member of National Beef Packing Company, LLC, Kansas City, Missouri
• John Rakolta, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Walbridge Aldinger, Michigan
• Ambassador Mel Sembler, Chairman of the Board of The Sembler Company and former ambassador to Italy, Australia, and Nauru, Florida
• Tom Tellefsen, President of Tellefsen Investments, California
• Ted Welch, Owner of Ted Welch Investments, Tennessee
• Meg Whitman, President and CEO of eBay, California

We are not a Democracy, we are a Republic!

January 15, 2008 - A second state has approved a plan that would bypass the U.S. electoral college, giving the presidency to the winner of a national popular vote.

January 14, 2008 - The mainstream Italian media are reporting both the rigging of the New Hampshire primary for Senator Hillary Clinton and the official demands for a swift, accurate and impartial recount. In an article written by Marcello Foa, one of Europe's most respected journalists, it appears that vote tallies for all Democratic candidates as well as Republicans were reduced by Diebold vote-counting machines.

In an analysis of the hand-counted ballots, the influential Milanese newspaper Il Giornale reports that all Democratic candidates except Senator Hillary Clinton made gains when the New Hampshire ballots were manually tabulated, while Senator Clinton made inexplicably large gains where ballots were tabulated by computerized scanners.

According to the report, Ron Paul should have finished third in the Republican primary rather than fifth. Thus, it would appear that both Barack Obama and Ron Paul were the primary targets of vote-rigging operations in New Hampshire.

Il Giornale cites the Princeton study that alerted public attention to the vulnerability of computerized voting machines used throughout America to deliberate vote-tampering and election-rigging via manipulation of the memory cards.

The state of New Hampshire is equipped with computerized tabulation machines manufactured by Diebold, devices that have received a massive amount of negative publicity after the public awareness of vote-rigging surged dramatically following the presidential election scandal of 2000.

In previous statements, former President Jimmy Carter - who has a global reputation as one of the foremost authorities on election procedures - has frequently pointed out that the United States of America does not meet international criteria for electoral security.

A U.S. election watchdog claims to have spotted discrepancies between machine and manually counted ballots in the New Hampshire primary election. New Hampshire officials have agreed to do a manual recount.

January 12, 2008 - The allegations came from Black Box Voting, a non-profit organization funded by citizen’s donations. It claims it has indications of fraud in the New Hampshire primaries.
 
80 percent of the votes there were counted by machines, the remaining 20 per cent by hand.

In the machine count, Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama by about five per cent, but in the hand count the result was the opposite - Obama was the winner with the same margin.

The allegations could have a negative impact on Hillary Clinton’s campaign and boost Obama.

They come as presidential hopefuls are making their way around the country, in a race which will determine the candidates for the November presidential election.

There are also problems with the votes for Republican Ron Paul in the second precinct.

Earlier, it was reported that he received zero votes. But after one of the voters claimed that he voted for Paul, there was a recount.  It showed that Paul received 31 votes (about 8% of the electorate in that district) , which were supposedly lost due to human error.

While everybody else is writing about the results of the New Hampshire primary, I can only follow my contrary nature and write about the forgotten man of American politics.

Because of a self-imposed Christmas truce, I have not written about him for several weeks. I now find that I can barely remember his name. This strikes me as very good, although admittedly it could be a sign that my mind has closed down out of respect for my recent 60th birthday.

Of course, I could Google the name of the forgotten man using certain unflattering terms, but that would offend the sacred code of the columnist that requires research be limited to a few trips to convivial taverns.

Who is this forgotten man? As much as I remember, he lives in a big house in the nation's capital. It is painted white and has a rose garden. I believe the man who lives there holds the title of confounder in chief. He has a lot of power for a forgotten man, but that is why people want to forget him. Unfortunately, he is not yet an invisible man (give it a year or so).

Sure, I could find out the name of the forgotten man, but the truth is that nobody wants his name to be remembered. Everybody is profoundly sick of him. Even rabid radio-talk-show hosts seem to be pained when they have to speak his name, and speak it they must, presumably because of a pact they made with the devil.

Almost all other Americans recoil in embarrassment when they hear his name. To be sure, a few deluded souls are determined to resemble those fanatical Japanese soldiers who holed up in the jungles on Pacific islands refusing to believe World War II had ended.

To this desperate bunch of American dead-enders, the forgotten man is their emperor. There's nothing we can do for these pitiable cases except be very kind to them, knowing that nothing makes them more irritable.

In their irritation, they may claim that they are not as cerebrally decayed as I am and boldly insist they know the name of the forgotten man and can say it as easily as they can denounce the idea of global warming. What they cannot convincingly deny is that we have a forgotten man in our national midst. The proof is in the very primaries that have now begun to unfold.

Who is the Republican candidate who says, "I wish to take up the mantle of (the forgotten man) so that America can continue on its present course"? None, to my knowledge. Most don't criticize him directly, but they aren't jostling to pass themselves off as him.

They are too busy trying to pass themselves off as the new Ronald Reagan, who ironically set the standard for the amiable out-to-lunch presidency that the forgotten man once sought to imitate before he went and became forgotten.

The forgotten man tries his pathetic best to be relevant in his changed circumstances. He has a little veto pen, which was lost for a long time, and he threatens to use it. He makes concerned noises about the forgotten economy, which threatens to become memorable now in a very bad way. But mostly it appears that he exercises and talks to his nice librarian wife about the books he forgot to read.

January 12, 2008 - After two presidential elections that many believe were stolen outright, the most important thing is that there never again be another election count without full voter confidence in the results. And yet the primary season is just starting and already there is a controversy about a discrepancy between optical scan and hand-counted results in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Recount Action Form:

http://www.usalone.com/nh_recount.php (anyone can use this link)

Facebook Version:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum775 (for this link you must be a member of Facebook and logged in)

We are not concluding that there anything amiss. What we are saying is that New Hampshire has a special obligation for diligence, because it has the special privilege of having the right to hold the first presidential primary election every four years.

Dennis Kucinich understands all this, has the leadership to call for a recount, and will pay for it himself if he has to. But we are asking the New Hampshire secretary of state to waive the recount expense requirement in this situation, in the national interest of the voter confidence of all. And the one click action form above will send your message directly to their office.

That's something you can do for no money, no cost to you, just one click and it's done. And we are hoping that we can appeal to the civic altruism of the state of New Hampshire. But we also need to be prepared to assume the full cost of a recount in any case, and that is why we are asking you to make a special donation to Dennis Kucinich if you can to help him with this expense.

Kucinich Donations: http://www.usalone.com/kucinich_constitution.php

The special edition Kucinich campaign pocket constitutions have arrived from the printer, they are just gorgeous, and we will be working all weekend to ship them out. You can have one too with your donation of just $100 on the page above. And if you can contribute $1000 Dennis will personally autograph your copy along with a personal thank you letter suitable for framing.

Dennis has already paid $2000 to the New Hampshire secretary of state as a good faith deposit just to get the recount count estimate. But you should know that there is another candidate on the Democratic side who could have demanded a recount for that as the total cost under New Hampshire law, because they came within 3% of the declared winner. Why does not that candidate take a couple thousand dollars out of the tens of millions they have collected and pay for this?

Yes, why is it that Dennis Kucinich and Dennis Kucinich only is out there demonstrating leadership on absolutely every issue. What would we do without him? Why don't we just all vote for the candidate we really like on the issues, and stop letting the corporate media pick the front-running horses before even the first race.

New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State, David M. Scanlan, was quoted yesterday as saying, "Perhaps the best thing that could happen for us is to have a recount to show the people that the votes that were cast on election day were accurately reflected in the results."

We agree.

New Hampshire has a special duty to set the tone for the entire upcoming election season, so that there will be no doubt in anyone's mind that every vote was counted, recorded and reported. Nothing will strengthen our democracy more than the certainty that the process is working and faithful.

You can also call the New Hampshire Secretary of State to make your appeal and here is their phone number: 603-271-3242. And remember always, if enough of us speak out we can make it happen. No matter what they say, what matters is what we say.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and distribute this alert to everyone you know.

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