SOURCE: Slate.com

The Supreme Court Gets Ready To Turn on the Corporate Fundraising Spigot....The case about the anti-Hillary ad got pushed back till September—and got bigger.

By Richard L. Hasen Posted Monday, June 29, 2009, at 3:02 PM ET

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If Republicans were wondering how their 2012 presidential candidate is going to compete against President Obama's $600 million fundraising juggernaut, the Supreme Court seems poised to provide an answer: unlimited corporate spending supporting the Republican candidate, or attacking Obama.

In a Supreme Court term that has had its share of surprises, the court saved one of the biggest for last. Rather than publish an opinion at the end of the term as expected in an obscure campaign finance case, Citizens United v. FEC, the court issued a rare order for reargument of the case in September (before the usual start of the term). At that point, the court will consider whether to overrule its two previous decisions that in 1990 and 2003 upheld limits on corporate spending in federal elections.

SOURCE: Black Box Voting Below are the editorials from Black Box Voting, Open Voting Consortium, VotersUnite.org, and Nancy Tobi of Election Defense Alliance and Democracy for New Hampshire opposing and rebutting the latest incarnation of Holt's perpetually flawed proposal for election reform, currently known as "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR 2894)"

STATEMENT OF BLACK BOX VOTING AGAINST HOLT BILL

We are in agreement that DRE voting machines need to be eliminated, but not at the expense of human rights. We don't need a "Holt Bill." What we do need:

PROTECT AND DEFEND PUBLIC ELECTION PRINCIPLES

(1) Protect and enforce right to know for every essential component of our public elections -- eliminate practices which allow government insiders to conduct key parts of elections in secret;

(2) Protect and enforce required checks and balances -- strengthen compliance, remedies and enforcement.

(3) Restore necessary mechanics for public elections: Require voter-marked paper ballots unless assistive device is required.

NOTE:

Time for us all to call out the Times AND Congress on their support of illegal, fraud-friendly, privatized e-voting systems.

Write to the NYT: editorial@nytimes.com
letters@nytimes.com

Tell Paul Hodes to NOT repeat his past mistake of endorsing this legislation!

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SOURCE: BradBlog

Editorial endorsing Rep. Holt's Election Bill Misleads, Gets Facts Wrong...

Posted By Brad Friedman On 23rd June 2009 @ 15:28 In

The New York Times just doesn't get it. You'd think, by now, they would. But they don't. And they should print a correction immediately.

In a brief, unbylined editorial yesterday, headlined "How to Trust Electronic Voting," 1 the paper endorses this year's version of Rep. Rush Holt's election reform bill. The editorial is misleading and, even worse, blatantly (and inexcusably) inaccurate on at least one important point...

The first graf begins thusly:

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Electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper record of every vote cast cannot be trusted. In 2008, more than one-third of the states, including New Jersey and Texas, still did not require all votes to be recorded on paper. Representative Rush Holt has introduced a good bill that would ban paperless electronic voting in all federal elections.

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No need to read the piece much further, frankly. The reference to "paperless electronic voting," aside from being so very 2005, is also incredibly misleading. The idea that "electronic voting machines that...produce a paper record" are somehow more trustworthy than those that don't, has long ago been discredited by computer scientists and security experts. For just one such example, see this video 2 produced by the UC Santa Barbara's Computer Security Group for CA SoS Debra Bowen's landmark "Top-to-Bottom Review" of electronic voting systems. The scientists demonstrate how to hack a Sequoia touch-screen voting machine --- one that produces "a paper record" --- in seconds. The same technique can be applied to virtually any other Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting system.

SOURCE: Open Voting Consortium
The main offending part for me is where they say the machine for individuals with disabilities must allow the voter to "independently verify and cast the permanent paper ballot without requiring the voter to manually handle the paper ballot;" This is ridiculous. This the proverbial $900 hammer approach. No machine has this capability currently, and such a machine would be many times more expensive than necessary. Potential solutions would solve one almost non-existent problem and create several others -- besides the expense.

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Dear Friends of Open Voting:

I need your help today. As you may recall, US Representative Rush Holt has introduced several badly flawed voting reform bills in the past few years. We have opposed them for a variety of reasons.

Last week, Holt introduced his new one: The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2009 (HR 2894)
http://holt.house.gov/voting.shtml

As you decry the alleged election fraud in Iran, keep in mind that the majority of the nation's election officials - like NH's state election officials - have knowingly approved fraud-friendly and defective vote counting computers. Across the nation, the vast majority of our local election officials, have long ceased to fulfill their constitutional duties. In NH, most of our election officials prefer to let LHS Associates and Diebold Corporation take over - and I do mean takeover - our democracy. Forget Iran; it's time to say "NO" to concealed vote counting here in America.

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The New York Times has come out with yet another editorial in support of concealed vote counting in America, hyping it up as "trustworthy" computerized vote counting and encouraging Congress to pass yet another version of Congressman Rush Holt's (D-NJ) corporate-backed computerized voting bill.

SOURCE: NYT

June 23, 2009-- Justices Let Stand a Central Provision of Voting Rights Act

By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, declaring that there was no need at the moment to decide whether that provision was still constitutional in light of the fundamental changes that have swept across the South in recent decades.

In an 8-to-1 ruling in perhaps the most important case of its term, the court said that passing judgment on an act of Congress is “the gravest and most delicate duty that this court is called upon to perform,” and that it need not undertake that momentous duty at this time. But the court stated pointedly that “the act also differentiates between the states in ways that may no longer be justified.”

With roughly 85% of NH's votes being counted in secret by a private corporation with a criminal history, partisan ties, anonymous employees, and convicted felons, and with the central vote count concealed by the Secretary of State from public oversight, it's little wonder NH is mentioned in this piece about election fraud in Iran.

SOURCE: AfterDowningStreet.org

SOURCE: http://www.bradblog.com

By Brad Friedman on 6/13/2009 11:19AM  

Iran's 2009 Election Results Suggest Massive Fraud...Just Like Ohio's in 2004

Without citizen oversight and transparency, 'faith-based' elections threaten democracy no matter where they are held...

It sounds a lot like Ohio 2004. A less than popular old-line incumbent facing massive public demonstrations against him and in favor of his main progressive challenger promising reform; polls that suggest a swell of support for the challenger; unprecedented turnout on Election Day; long lines at polling places; paper ballot shortages and names missing from voter rolls; widespread rumors, concerns and evidence of voter intimidation and vote-rigging, all accompanied nonetheless by a general feeling among the populace that the incumbent has been turned out, only to learn from officials, late on Election Night, after secret vote counting, that the incumbent has been declared the winner of a second term.

Resolve It or Relive It: Ohio Election Fraud 2004

Contact person: Paddy Shaffer, Director, Ohio Election Justice Campaign, (614) 266-5283

Please note: Links at the end of summery for the court case, exhibits (evidence, records, research), articles, and a video.

The below summarizes the unresolved election fraud situation in Ohio, then goes into depth with a synopsis, further background, and research resources. Your help is urgently needed before the statute of limitations expires.

Please contact US Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 and ask him to work with the Ohio Election Justice Campaign (OEJC) and other supporting individuals and organizations to quickly initiate a special grand jury investigation into the 2004 election before it is too late.

Summary

SOURCE: BlackBoxVoting.ORG

(US) 5/09 - NATIONAL: FORMER FED BIGSHOT CASHING IN ON INTERNET VOTING -

YOU CAN DISCUSS THIS HERE:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/80431.html

For must-read, original reporting by Brad Friedman, with crucial details omitted by the Hawaiian press, hit this Bradlink: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7184.

And now, the BLACKBOX BACKSTORY on the BRADSTORY:

During the 1980s, local mom & pop election vendors, who were selling their local services and goods to local election officials, began to come under centralized control through corporate consolidation under Business Records Corp (BRC), later acquired by Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

SOURCE: Election Law Blog

May 27, 2009

Viewing Judge Sotamayor Through Her Election Law Decisions: Careful, Thoughtful, Mainstream Leaning Left

Armed with a list of Judge Sotamayor's opinions and judicial votes in the election law field helpfully compiled by Bryan Sells, I set out to see what I could learn about the judge. Though I had read some of the opinions on the list in the past, I had not focused on the author of those opinions, nor did I consider these opinions as a body of work.

I went into this analysis with low expectations, hearing questions about the judge's intellect (questioning her ability to be an "intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices,"), her writing style ("not always a pleasure to read"), and even her ability to write in English ("the absence of soaring rhetoric"). Though the body of work is relatively small, I came away impressed with the judge's intellect, reasoning, and writing ability. I also found her jurisprudence to be on the mainstream left, no different from the kind of opinions I would expect from Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, or Souter. Finally, despite questions about her temperament, at least in writing she comes across as a judge who is respectful of litigants and careful about her judicial role (I cannot comment on how she might come across at oral argument). Whether or not these election law opinions are representative of Judge Sotomayor's appellate opinions generally I cannot say. Below, I give a few more details, drawing on the cases cited in the list.

Boston.com

Feds end prosecution of GOP organizer
May 27, 2009

BANGOR, Maine --The federal government has ended its prosecution of a former Republican political organizer accused of making false statements to FBI agents investigating a plot to jam Democratic phone lines in New Hampshire on Election Day 2002.
The case against James Tobin of Bangor came to a quiet conclusion with a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston mandate dismissing an appeal by prosecutors.

Tobin was cleared in federal court in New Hampshire of taking part in the plot to arrange more than 800 hang-up calls that jammed get-out-the-vote phone lines.

Then the government brought charges in Maine of lying to investigators, and a judge dismissed those. The appeals court ruling, first reported by the Bangor Daily News, was issued last week.

SOURCE: SouthernStudies.org

SOTOMAYOR v SESSIONS: Obama Supreme Court nomination sets up battle over voting rights
With the Supreme Court now considering one of the most serious challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act in history -- and states battling over election law, like voter ID in Texas -- voting law is will be one of the high court's most important issues in coming years.

And in the major election law cases Judge Sonia Sotomayor has heard, she's sided with civil rights advocates for expanding the franchise -- setting up the potential for a major battle with the GOP's ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jefferson Sessions of Alabama.

Voting experts point to two areas where Sotomayor's rulings have stood out:

FELON DISENFRANCHISEMENT: Judge Sotomayor's biggest voting rights case has likely been Hayden v Pataki. In this 2006 case in the 2nd Circuit, ex-felon Joseph "Jazz" Hayden brought a challenge under the Voting Rights Act against New York's law banning ex-felons from voting. Civil rights advocates had mobilized around the case, saying felon disenfranchisement laws showed a clear history of racial discrimination.

SOURCE: ballotaccessblog.org

Sotomayor Has Very Good Record in Election Law
May 26th, 2009

On May 26, news reports revealed that President Barack Obama will choose Sonia Sotomayor for the David Souter seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Sotomayor was the first federal judge to rule favorably in a constitutional case involving write-in voting, after the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled against write-ins. Irving Gelb, a candidate for Bronx Borough President in 1995, was removed from the Democratic primary ballot, and thus became a write-in candidate. However, he discovered that New York city was not printing write-in space on absentee ballots, nor on sample ballots, nor was it obeying a state law that required pencils to be in the voting booth. He was a taxi driver, not an attorney, but he filed a pro se lawsuit in U.S. District Court, and drew Sotomayor.

SOURCE: OpEd News

Secret Vote Counting and the Lost Art of Democratic Elections

In February 2009 Allison Kilkenny reported that "The Obama administration on Friday told a federal judge it would not deviate from the Bush administration's position that detainees held at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan have no right to sue in U.S. courts."

In early May 2009 the Wall Street Journal issued another troubling report from the "change we can believe in" administration:"The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil -- indefinitely and without trial -- as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

Why is the Obama administration continuing to erode civil liberties in the manner so cynically embodied in contemporary governmental acts like the Patriot Act?

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"God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it." -Daniel Webster

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While Connecticut implements checks and balances on the private corporate entity programming its elections, NH practices NO oversight at all on this same corporation - leaving nearly 90% of our votes under the secret, private control of LHS Associates. This situation is so anti-democratic that Black Box Voting, America's premier election watchdog organization, declares: "New Hampshire falters so badly in every area when compared with Connecticut that Black Box Voting now advocates removing New Hampshire's "first in the nation" status for the presidential primary."

SOURCE: BlackBoxVoting.ORG

Connecticut, we should note, is the "best of breed" in New England. However:

"We know of no other area of business or government where something labeled an 'audit' is this far from independent," citizens group CT Voters Count reports. Connecticut released an "audit" (not really an audit) on May 12, 2009 -- more than six months after the Nov. 2008 election, and long past any possibility of rectifying errors, if found. Yet even this belated "audit" was procedurally flawed, and even this flawed belated "audit" uncovered "ridiculous, unacceptable, unconscionable" problems. For example: Depending on how you calculate it, nine percent, or as many as 29 percent of all memory cards (programmed by LHS Associates) contained unexplained "junk data."

SOURCE: wtic.com

Election Audit: Some Cards Faulty; Devices Used Were Correctly Programmed

Matt Dwyer Reporting

Click here to read the full Post-Election Audit of Memory Cards for the November 2008 Elections

Click here to read the full Statistical Analysis of the Post Election Audit Data 2008 November Elections

A UConn Voting Technology Research Center audit finds all of the memory cards actually used in electronic voting machines during the November, 2008 election in Connecticut were correctly programmed, and most of the hand recounts matched the machine counts.  

But the audit found about 9 percent of the memory cards could not be used because of problems found before they were put in place.  Replacement cards had to be rushed to one voting location, when none of the original cards would work.

In America today, nearly 90% of the nation's voters have their voting rights violated in just about every single election: local, state, and federal.

To quote the popular bumper sticker: "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention."

Consider the grassroots civil rights struggles that forged meaningful voting rights reforms in our nation's history:

• In 1868, with Blacks representing 14% of the American population, the 15th Amendment prohibited voting rights discrimination "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
• In 1920, with women representing 49.75% of the voting age population, the 19th amendment prohibited voting rights discrimination "on account of sex".
• In 1965, with minorities representing 12 % of the American population, the Voting Rights Act reinforced the 14th and 15th amendments, prohibiting the use of various previously legal strategies that prevented Blacks and other non-white Americans from exercising their right to vote.

In each of these instances civil rights activists spoke the language of liberty, self governance, and the right of every citizen to vote in free and fair and open public elections.

We rose up to enforce the civil rights for 11%, 14%, and 50% of our people. So where is the movement to protect 90%?