SOURCE: sunlightfoundation.com

Times like these are too important for us not to hold government to the highest possible standards.

Whatever you think about the "Cap and Trade" bill that was passed by the House last week, or however you feel about health care reform, the process for considering legislation is not as transparent as we need it to be.

I'd bet you'd agree with us: Congress MUST read the bill and ensure that we, the public, have at least 72 hours to do the same.

http://readthebill.org

THE AMERICAN CLEAN ENERGY AND SECURITY ACT OF 2009

• Call 877-9-REPOWER (877-9-737-6937) and we'll connect you to your Representative right after providing you with talking points. (We're expecting high call volume, and if you are unable to be connected please use our secondary line, 866-590-0971.)
• When connected to your Representative's office, just remember to tell them your name, that you're a voter, and that you live in their district. Then ask them to "vote 'yes' on comprehensive clean energy legislation."
• Then, report the call below so we can coordinate the campaign.

SOURCE: Repower America

In the next day or so, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the boldest effort in our history to rethink how we produce and use energy in this country.

I recorded a video message to describe what's at stake and how we need your help urgently. Take a moment and please watch it.

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.

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!

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:

---

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.

---

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.

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.

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.

A single-payer rally is planned for Friday, June 26, at 6:00 PM in front of Union Station in Washington, DC. Those likely to show up often speak about their struggle as one for basic human rights. Those who imagine the single-payer movement might go away often speak about health care reform in terms of "political feasibility" and "focus group message testing." Perhaps the growing success of the push for single payer is not so surprising.

SOURCE: Truthout.org

SATURDAY 13 JUNE 2009

Truthout Original

The Rise of Single-Payer Health Care Friday 12 June 2009 by: David Swanson, t r u t h o u t | Report

Single-payer health care supporters rally in Los Angeles in April. (Photo: Getty Images)

    Health care reform plans are being drafted and passed around on both sides of Capitol Hill, but the plan with the greatest number of Congress members behind it was first introduced as a bill six years ago. With two new co-sponsors having just signed on, Congressman John Conyers's single-payer health care plan, HR 676, now has 80 Congress members supporting it.

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: 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.

RELEASED: The Bush Administration's Secret Legal Memos

On April 16, 2009, the Department of Justice released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture.
Read the release >>

A 18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. (PDF)

Tell NH Congressional reps Shea Porter and Hodes to NOT support the Holt "Voter Confidence" bill.

Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) is getting ready to introduce his 2009 electronic voting bill. Interested readers can review the 65-page proposal here. Holt has been trying for several years to pass one version or another of this bill.

The federal Voting Rights Act requires observable vote counting. Many state constitutions demand a public voting system with public vote counts. The Holt Bill mandates computerized voting systems, and enforces concealed vote counting.

Concealed vote counting violates our voting rights.

The Holt Bill extends the federally sponsored 2002 e-voting Ponzi scheme, when Congress, through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), invested $4 billion taxpayer dollars into a fraudulent e-voting promise, causing the states to scoop up computerized voting machines and voting registration systems that turned out to be as fraud-friendly as the firm of Madoff Investment Securities.

Dear Friend,

Click here to ask NH Department of Environmental Services to Enforce the Clean Air Act at Merrimack Station in Bow!

Everyday it becomes more apparent that the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NH DES) is putting corporate coal interests over those of NH residents and the health of the NH environment.

Even after receiving hundreds of our comments against the $457 million construction project at the Merrimack Station Coal Plant in Bow, NH DES has decided to let Public Service of New Hampshire begin construction on the unregulated plant.