Report Warns of Potential Voting Problems in 10 States

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A03

Two weeks before the midterm elections, at least 10 states, including Maryland, remain ripe for voting problems, according to a study released yesterday by a nonpartisan clearinghouse that tracks electoral reforms across the United States.

The report by Electionline.org says those states, and possibly others, could encounter trouble on Election Day because they have a combustible mix of fledgling voting-machine technology, confusion over voting procedures or recent litigation over election rules -- and close races.

The report cautions that the Nov. 7 elections, which will determine which political party controls the House and Senate, promise "to bring more of what voters have come to expect since the 2000 elections -- a divided body politic, an election system in flux and the possibility -- if not certainty -- of problems at polls nationwide."
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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

How Democrats Might Blow It

By Robert Parry

As Democrats go through their biennial rite of premature victory celebrations, they are inviting defeat again by obsessing on polls about how many congressional seats are "in play" rather than on explaining to the American people what a Republican victory on Nov. 7 would mean to the nation.

In the last three elections, George W. Bush has claimed mandates for his policies even when there were questions about the legitimacy of Republican victories. In Election 2000, Bush brushed aside the fact that he lost the popular vote to Al Gore and pressed ahead with a right-wing agenda.
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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

koryannder

Yes, the public is disgusted with the Republicans. Yes, the public would like to see change. BUT WILL THEY DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?? Will they (for instance) hang Ken Blackwell out to dry if he doesn't provide enough voting machines in Democratic areas, but overloads Republican areas with them? Will there be strong arm Democrats around to harass the Rethuglican "Challengers?" Will all the dirty tricks be exposed and countered in time for Ohioans to cast honest ballots, or is the fix in so deeply that Ken Blackwell, IN SPITE OF HIS DISMAL PRE-ELECTION NUMBERS, is a shoo-in for Governor? Who is there in Florida or Georgia who will make sure that votes are not flipped on the oh-so-easily-hacked Diebold monstrosities? Who will make sure that ES&S machines, once they reach the magic 22,000 number, don't start subtracting votes? Who is there to challenge the results when, as announced, in precinct after precinct, Democrats get ZERO votes? Who will see to it that the machines, even if honest (heh) function as allegedly designed? WHERE IS THE PAPER TRAIL??? Actually, this should be the heaviest mid-term election in history, as the public, aroused as never before against an out-and-out CRIMINAL Administration, goes to the polls in droves to throw the rubber-stamp Congress O-U-T!! But - is the process so rigged that even a humongous turnout will look like a victory for the Rove gang? AND WHAT WILL THE PUBLIC DO IF THEY STEAL ANOTHER ONE??? Stay tuned; this last two weeks may be wild and wooly. Already I am getting two to four pieces of mail a day from 'my' Congressman, who happens to be one of the infamous 13 named by CREW as one of the most corrupt congressmen, about how damn' bad his Democratic opponent is. NOT, mind you, about how GOOD the Congressman is! The negative ads are in full swing - I predict collapse of the landfills! Do NOT hold your breath. This looks like even a rottener campaign than the last one, with more lies per square inch than you can count. Smart Democrats will counter the lies with the truth about their opposition, and call a spade a damn' dirty old shovel where the epithet fits. "Give 'em HELL, people! Strident campaigning may get the couch potatoes off their duffs and to the polls! And remember - wherever possible, VOTE EARLY! Otherwise, vote absentee! Yes, the count can be rigged, but hard copy can be recounted.

is an independent 50 minute documentary on peak oil, 9/11 and the war on terror.

Watch:
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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Cheney confirms that detainees were subjected to water-boarding

Vice President Dick Cheney has confirmed that U.S. interrogators subjected captured senior al-Qaida suspects to a controversial interrogation technique called "water-boarding," which creates a sensation of drowning.

Cheney indicated that the Bush administration doesn't regard water-boarding as torture and allows the CIA to use it. "It's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said at one point in an interview.

...snip...

The U.S. Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts and many experts on the laws of war, however, consider water-boarding cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that's banned by U.S. law and by international treaties that prohibit torture. Some intelligence professionals argue that it often provides false or misleading information because many subjects will tell their interrogators what they think they want to hear to make the water-boarding stop.

Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have said that a law Bush signed last month prohibits water-boarding. The three are the sponsors of the Military Commissions Act, which authorized the administration to continue its interrogations of enemy combatants.

...snip...

CIA spokeswoman Michelle Neff said, "While we do not discuss specific interrogation methods, the techniques we use have been reviewed by the Department of Justice and are in keeping with our laws and treaty obligations. We neither conduct nor condone torture."

While this interview is skewed toward the Administration's position of "It's not torture when we don't call it that" the article does point to some key Republicans that have objected to the unlawful use of torture.

Q U E S T I O N:
What have we become when what we do resembles, and in some cases worse, than the very tyrant we sought to overthrow? Does this make us stronger the more we resemble that tyrant? I was raised that the bigger man shows restraint and compassion. He rises above the animalistic instinct that can draw a man toward perdition. Was mom wrong?

ABC NEWS ~ SHOULD PRESIDENT BUSH FACE IMPEACHMENT?
OK,
The poll results have changed. HERE is a secreen capture of the poll yesterday.

JC: What's up with the new math?

Rove 'dukes it out' with NPR host over polling data
10/25/2006 @ 1:37 pm
Filed by RAW STORY

During a National Public Radio interview, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove "duked it out" with the host over polling data, RAW STORY has learned.

The exchange took place yesterday during the White House's scheduled "Radio Day."

After midterm election interviewer Robert Siegel stated that "many might consider you on the optimistic end of realism" regarding Republican hopes to retain both Houses in November, Rove suggested that the NPR host was biased.

"Not that you would be exhibiting a bias or anything like that," Rove said. "You're just making a comment."

"I'm looking at all the same polls that you're looking at every day," Seigel responded

"No you're not!" Rove exclaimed.

Rove said that he was reviewing 68 polls a week, and that "unlike the general public, I'm allowed to see the polls on the individual races," as opposed to public polls reported in the media.

"You may be looking at four or five public polls a week that talk about attitudes nationally, but that do not impact the outcome," Rove said.

Rove claimed that the polls "add up to a Republican Senate and a Republican House."

"You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math," Rove said. "I'm entitled to 'the' math."
more here

koryannder

I find one encouraging fact - the parking lot at the County Offices where we go to cast early ballots is crowded from opening to closing! There are more cars there on a daily basis than there ever are on Election day. If this is replicated throughout the country, a lot of people are concerned about the integrity of yhe process. Rove may lose yet!

Now, to continue with ideas for the next Congress, (and possibly the next decade)

16. It is time for a Constitutional Amendment firmly outlawing Presidential use of "Signing Statements" to thwart the intent of the Congress. A law that the President refuses to enforce is a worthless exercise. He must sign and enforce, or veto. An unenforced law is an exercise in futility, and a deliberate insult to the Congress.

17. It is time that the US stopped being the Police Force for the World. We have troops spread all over the place. Bring them home. Discharge all that are not needed as an active force to defend our borders, and activate a "Ready Reserve" for emergencies. Return the National Guard to the States and restore the status quo ante bellum. FORBID the "Federalization" of the Guard except in cases of dire emergency, limit the time such use could be made, and restrict it to authorization by the Congress. Also, granting ANY President the power to make war on whim must be halted. Perhaps legislation denying the Congress the ability to give away its duties could be enacted; otherwise an Amendment firmly fixing the rights to declare war and coin money in the Congress should be enacted and ratified. The amendment route at least circumvents the necessity for signature by a recalcitrant president.

18. The practice of American Firms of "Moving Offshore" to a P.O. Box in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda in order to evade taxes must be halted. If a firm does not have physical facilities offshore, it cannot say that its "Headquarters" are offshore - and if it insists that its facilities are offshore in spite of the truth of the matter, it automatically becomes a foreign firm and its products subject to tariff, even if they are actually manufactured stateside.

19. Abrogate NAFTA, CAFTA, as mentioned in (7) above, and remove the US from the WTO. We have allowed the creeping destruction of the US as a sovereign nation to progress entirely too far. Under the rubric of "Free Trade" we have actually destroyed the economies of the nations of the western hemisphere and those of most of the world! (We have also enriched nations which are our competitors, if not as yet our actual enemies!) When a system is broken, it is a good time to go back to one that worked

The real healine here is this "Reich Marshall Rove reports ringers entrenched in all critical voting districts"

Rove 'dukes it out' with NPR host over polling data

650,000+ Iraqis with close to 50,000 wounded...plus...close to 3000 deceased American soldiers and the 27,000 wounded Americans want to know..."What took everyone so long to understand that this war is wrong"?

War now works against GOP
Iraq often seen as hindrance in campaigns

Exxon Reports 2nd Largest Quarterly Profit...Posted Largest Quarterly Profit For US Company In '05…

Highest US Death Toll In Iraq In A Year...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/iran-s19.shtml

The report from Republican-led House Intelligence Committee (HIC) was nothing but a crude propaganda exercise designed to justify the Bush administration,s preparations for punitive action against Iran. Its main purpose was to call on US spy agencies to exert greater efforts to fill the "intelligence gaps", particularly on Iran,s weapons programs-in other words, to manufacture new lies to justify economic sanctions and war

snip

The IAEA branded as "outrageous and dishonest" the report,s suggestion that Charlier might have been removed for "not having adhered to an unstated IAEA policy barring IAEA officials from telling the whole truth about the Iranian nuclear program". As the letter pointed out, Iran, not ElBaradei, had initiated Charlier,s recall and, in doing so, had acted within its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The report,s reference to Charlier was not accidental. He became a minor celebrity in extreme right-wing circles in the US-that is, among those pushing most vigorously for war against Iran-when he gave an interview to the German newspaper Welt am Sontag in July suggesting that Tehran was operating a clandestine weapons program. Like those who seized on his comments, however, Charlier offered no facts to support his claims.

The IAEA letter also took issue with glaring factual errors contained in the report,s short section entitled "Evidence for an Iranian nuclear weapons program". It drew attention to a grossly misleading caption placed under a photograph of Iran,s enrichment facility at Natanz, which read: "Iran is currently enriching to weapons grade using a 164-machine centrifuge cascade."

As the IAEA pointed out, the claim is simply false. The small cascade at the Natanz enrichment plant, which is subject to IAEA inspections, including camera monitoring, has to date only enriched uranium to the level of 3.6 percent-that is, to the level required for Tehran,s stated aim of producing nuclear fuel. As the letter caustically pointed out, this hardly qualifies as "weapons grade", which is generally recognised to be 90 percent enriched or higher.

I thought people here and especially Mr. J.C. should be aware of the propaganda that is being passed around the halls of congress. Because of their busy schedules and their cronically low staffing, congressmen are especially vulnerable to propaganda campaigns.

I guess it goes to show, never trust anything written by a right winger.

Because Bush thinks he's above the law, the rest of his cohort do too.

Columnist Coulter in hot water over voting

"Stunning Document Surfaces to Show That America's #1 Voting Machine Manufacturer Hides Security and Operation Flaws from The State of Maryland and the Country"

The Two Faces of Diebold

"Dr. Herbert H. Thompson was ready to hack democracy, but he had to wait an extra two hours.

Thompson was sitting outside the California Secretary of State,s Office, ready to demonstrate that electronic voting machines could be fooled into miscounting ballots, but there was a glitch. A "60 Minutes" camera crew was on site and eager to film the demonstration, but state officials balked at the melodrama and refused to allow the crew in. The meeting was almost canceled.

After some tense negotiations, Thompson and a group of electronic voting detractors were allowed inside - sans the cameras.

That didn,t make the meeting any less dramatic. Over the next hour, Thompson, an adjunct professor at the Florida Institute of Technology and author of four books on computer security, virtually undressed California,s new voting tabulation machines.

He showed how easy it would be for someone with access to the hardware that counts votes to launch Microsoft Access, edit the table containing the totals, clean up any traces of his vote-rigging and close the program. "

E-VOTING GROWS, CONCERNS REMAIN

Iraq for Sale: Director Robert Greenwald on Real Time

Oh please...timing this to occur around the elections is not by chance...Bin Laden found...film at 11...

Will Saddam verdict affect Tuesday,s vote?
Both parties applaud court decision, but talk turns to 'November surprise,

In the afterglow of this election we are starting to hear status quo rhetoric from the Democratic side of the aisle and it becomes necessary to refocus on the REAL reasons why there was a power shift in this last election. It was because Bush is a L I A R...

L = Legislative signing statements

I = Iraq and all the lies that took us there

A = Abu Grahib and the torture flights OK'd by Bush and Cheney

R = Responsible for 9/11 because Bush ignored enough intel to choke a horse....

And while we're on this subject, let's not forget the Downing Street Memo and all the discussion surrounding the manipulation of intelligence to achieve Bush's primary aim...war with Iraq and removal of Saddam...

Bush's impeachment is a Non-Negotiable item and the Democrats might take a lesson from this election...if they're not willing to get the job done they too can be replaced. IMPEACH BUSH!

...about the price of hubris...

Liberal groups expect postelection results
Activists who helped Democrats secure Congress make clear they intend to get their reward.

Today is November 12, 2006
556 days since congressional request for investigation.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

Remember all those signatures that were ignored by BushCo and NOW we're hearing from Congressman Conyers and House Speaker Pelosi that they wanna make nice with the man who ignored our demands for accountability!

Mr. Conyers,

Now that I have fully read and understood your position, I remain absolutely astounded that you, or any democrat, would say that impeachment is "off the table."

This is ludicrous.

If there were ever a President more deserving of impeachment, please inform your constituents as to who and why.

Lying about WMD's in Iraq
Illegal NSA Wiretapping of Americans
Advocating torture
Eviscerating the Constitution and Bill of Rights
Use of government funds for political propoganda
Suspension of Habeas Corpus

Need I remind you that Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about a sexual encounter. No one died as a result. The same cannot be said of President Bush's lies.

In polls all across the country (ABC, MSNBC, Newsweek & others), a majority of Americans (between 50% and 90%) call for impeachment. That number is much, much higher among your very constituents - who voted you into office.

Therefore, what you are stating is this: you and your fellow Democrats in Congress plan to blatantly disregard the will of an overwhelming majority of your respective constituencies. That is shockingly irresponsible and undemocratic.

I have been reading your emails over the past several months.

I thought you were one of the good guys.

Do you represent us or not? And if not, well... who DO you represent?

Sincerely,

Sean Wheeler
Born and raised in Livonia, MI