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5 February 2005 Steven F. Freeman, who published findings shortly after the November election which indicated statistical aberrations in the relation between historically reliable exit polling and at least 10 states' official ballot counts, has defended his findings of a probability of 250 million to one that the result which occurred would occur in those 10 states simultaneously. [Full Story] WASHINGTON GOVERNOR STILL FACES ELECTION ISSUE The governor of Washington state, a Democrat, Christine Gregoire, elected during a heated post-election recount contest by a margin of only 129 votes, is still facing calls by Republicans for a revote. The election was the last major contest in the nation to be decided, and the Governor has been struggling to free herself of the vote question in order to begin to govern... [Full Story] BUSH BEGINS AGAIN George W. Bush took the constitutional oath of office today in Washington, DC, officially entering his second 4-year term in service at the White House. The speech was oddly both hopeful and aggressive, and as expected, he immediately created global controversy by announcing his aim to rid the world of tyranny. [Full Story]
BUSH WINS 2ND TERM WIth tens of thousands of votes still in dispute in Ohio, and still no official final tally, the Democratic campaign to replace George W. Bush in the White House with Sen. John F. Kerry, has conceded defeat. Sen. Kerry spoke of the need to recognize the civil nature of the democratic process and of his desire to continue the fight on behalf of his supporters. Many Democratic faithful were displeased to hear the concession before a final count of Ohio's votes, and several court cases still pending put over 300,000 votes in question, many of which have not been counted even once. FEAR NOT THE ACT OF VOTING (FEAR ITS BEING WILLFULLY DIMINISHED) 51.3% of the voting age population of the United States took part in the 2000 presidential vote. That was 3.8% less than in 1992, and 11.8% lower than in the 1960 presidential election. But in between, there has been a consistent pattern of turnout under 60%, a disturbing if enigmatic aspect of American political life. Some have said it means the US is a democracy without the people. And polls show that a significant majority of American citizens believe the government does not represent their interests. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the psychological motivations for resisting the right to choose one's government. [Full Story]
31 October 2004 The state of Florida is still struggling to overcome its mercilessly complex and disorganized voting system, which failed in 2000, leading to the Supreme Court's intervention in the vote count and effective deciding of the Electoral College vote. That system has continued to be plagued by problems ranging from confusing ballots, to law-abiding voters being wrongfully "purged" when their names appear on lists of convicted felons stripped of the right to vote, to accusations of deliberate election fraud. During the last month, international observers, election experts invited by Democrats and by independent organizations to monitor the integrity of the November elections, reported that Florida's electoral system would not be prepared to produce a legitimate or fair democratic election... [Full Story] ALL THAT WE DON'T KNOW: THE PURPOSEFUL FOLLY OF POLLING We are hearing constantly that the Republican National Convention has yielded a political windfall in public opinion for President Bush, with polls shifting from a Kerry lead of 3 to 5%, to an astonishing Bush lead of 11% in a post-convention poll. But this is not the whole story. According to CNN, as reported today, polling data put Bush ahead by 3% prior to the convention and by 5% afterward, a bounce of only 2%... the smallest increase in polling for an incumbent since before Richard Nixon's presidency... [Full Story] MORE THAN HALF OF FLORIDA VOTERS DENIED VERIFIABLE BALLOTS 15 counties in Florida, which include more than half of the state's registered voters, will use touchscreen voting machines which produce no paper trail and allow the voter no verification that their vote was cast accurately. Anecdotal reports suggest voters are turning to absentee ballots in order to secure the right to a paper ballot and to recountability. An estimated 48 to 60 million voters nationwide will cast votes on machines that offer no verifiable or recountable paper trail. [For more: ABC]
CAMPAIGN ENTERS FULL-ATTACK PHASE The Republican party has opted for a full-scale assault on the character of their Democratic challenger. It is a hallmark of Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, to relentlessly attack the greatest strengths of an opponent, in order to sow doubt and create the appearance of weakness or incompetence. This week saw the resuscitation of numerous false claims by Bush campaign operatives, culminating in the wild array of flagrantly false attacks by Zell Miller in the convention's keynote address on Wednesday. [Full Story] BUSH ACCEPTS REPUBLICAN NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT Pres. George W. Bush accepted his party's nomination to run for re-election tonight in New York. The venue was barricaded against all citizen demonstrations... The President's speech was marked by his citing of 9/11 as a hallmark of his presidency, his promise to ramp up the U.S. military posture in the world, and to do away with the current tax system. [Full Story]
FLORIDA'S LOST & FOUND ELECTRONIC VOTES The Supervisor of Elections for Miami-Dade County, Florida, announced Friday that her office had recovered missing electronic records of touch-screen votes from the 2002 primary elections in the race for Florida Governor. The records had been reported lost, after a series of computer crashes appeared to have wiped out the electronic files containing the record of the votes. [Full Story] KERRY ACCEPTS DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT Sen. John F. Kerry formally accepted his party's nomination to run for President of the United States tonight at the Fleet Center in Boston. He was introduced by his friend, supporter and fellow Vietnam veteran, fmr. Sen. Max Cleland, who was flanked by the crew that served under Kerry in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The candidate entered the arena to Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender" which added poignant relief to the presence of Kerry's fellow veterans, which he has called his "band of brothers". After taking the podium, Sen. Kerry announced "I'm reporting for duty"... [Full Story] EAC RECOGNIZES NEED FOR "ENHANCED SECURITY MEASURES" IN TOUCHSCREEN BALLOTING The Election Assistance Commission, set up by the 2002 Help America Vote Act to provide nationwide oversight of election processes and to seek to prevent any debacle resembling the 2000 Florida recount, has voiced support for "paper verification" and "enhanced security measures" to guarantee legitimacy of touch-screen votes. For some time, verified voting activists have been troubled by the unwillingness of members of Congress to support legislation to require a paper record of electronic votes until the EAC makes its recommendations. [Full Story] 191 CONGRESSIONAL SIGNATURES URGE RIDGE TO STOP POSTPONEMENT OF ELECTION This week, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) circulated a petition among her colleagues in Congress, which called for an immediate halt to all planning for postponing the election. Within the first hour, it had 100 signatures, and was ultimately signed by 191 members of Congress, including Ms. Woolsey. Only 1 Republican member signed the petition, which again has raised concern among observers... [Full Story] HOMELAND SECURITY CRAFTING CONTINGENCY PLAN TO POSTPONE NOVEMBER ELECTION Newsweek broke the story, which is now being covered by newpapers around the world, that the Department of Homeland Security is considering plans to postpone the November elections, should there be a terrorist strike. This has never occurred, and so the government would need to create a legal framework for implementing such a plan. Not surprisingly, some see the plan as not only without precedent but radical and ill-advised. Rep. William Delahunt is quoted as saying "That would be the ultimate surrender to terrorism for a democracy." [Full Story] LATEST FLORIDA "PURGE" LIST AGAIN TARGETS LEGAL VOTERS The Miami Herald is reporting that the latest list of felons the Florida state government is requesting local elections officials "purge" from lists of registered voters contains more than 2,000 names of people who are legally eligible to vote. In the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election, various investigators found that the Florida government had unlawfully denied voting rights to well over 50,000 voters through the same process. Civil rights groups (see below) have warned throughout this year that the process is still in place and likely to produce similar problems in November. [Full Story] ACLU WARNS OF LOOMING DISENFRANCHISEMENT, POLLING IRREGULARITIES IN FLORIDA The ACLU is reporting that current processes underway to prepare for November's elections in Florida are likely to cause many of the same incidents of disenfranchisement that turned thousands of voters away with no remedy in 2000. The State of Florida has said it cannot guarantee that information used to erase 40,000 names from the state's voter registry was accurate. Despite this shortcoming, the State ordered all county supervisors to begin the "purge" of names said to belong to legally disenfranchised felons, without any instruction reminding them of their legal obligation to ensure that the names actually match felons who have been barred from voting. [Full Story]
5 March 2004 As the United States shifts as much as 20% of its balloting devices to electronic voting systems, new doubts arise about the integrity, security and fairness of the systems being implemented. In the "Super Tuesday" primary vote across 10 states, serious glitches occurred, erasing and preventing votes: 10% of machines in San Diego county experienced technical problems; 1 in six voters in Alameda county were turned away by machine glitches. The CEO of Diebold, which makes most widely used electronic balloting machines has declared partisan allegiance and his desire to "deliver... electoral votes to the president" in 2004. [Full Story] MEDIA SELECTED KERRY, SAYS NEW STUDY A study conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs targets the nature of coverage in the week prior to the Iowa caucuses. According to this study, the media "appointed" John Kerry as most electable by showering him with favorable coverage, while attacking the details of the Dean campaign. Suddenly, Dean is a media hero again: today NBC's Chris Matthews praised Dean as a maverick leader in the best tradition of American politics, leading public debate to the core values ingrained in our system. Timing becomes a serious question, when public portrayals can swing so dramatically around issues not necessarily related to candidate viability... [Full Story] NEW VOTING MACHINES FAIL TO VERIFY, LACK SECURITY
29 January 2004 Since the 2000 presidential election, and the revelation of flaws in the Florida process, the nation has moved toward new balloting techniques. Today, an article in the New York Times reported that a "Red Team" security test conducted for Maryland's legislature revealed troubling security gaps in the state's new electronic voting system. The test demonstrated a wide range of rudimentary tactics that could be used to taint or even steal an election. Over 100,000 votes were lost in Florida's 2002 elections, "due to a software error". VerifiedVoting.org recommends a Google News search for "electronic voting", to locate a wide range of newspaper reports on the subject. [Full Story] NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTE-COUNT POINTS TO KERRY Shortly after 9:30pm ET, C-SPAN was reporting Kerry with 39% to Dean's 25%, with 61% of precincts reporting. At 97%, it was 39% to 26%. [Full Story] NEW HAMPSHIRE POLLS SHOW ROLLER-COASTER RACE New polls from New Hampshire shows an uncertain primary climate. Zogby says Dean trails Kerry by 3; Gallup says Kerry leads by 11. [Full Story]
8 December 2003 Serious questions have arisen as to the methods used by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to persuade members of their party to vote in favor of the Medicare prescription drug bill. Conservative columnist Robert Novak broke the story, in which Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan, a Republican who voted against the bill, charged that various colleagues and business interests offered large amounts of money to his son's congressional campaign in exchange for a yes vote. [Full Story] |
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