New 2004 Election Analysis from National Election Data Archive

New 2004 Election Analysis from National Election Data Archive discussing
exit poll discrepancies, electronic voting, and related issues:

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Presidential-Election-2004.pdf

Fitrakis and Wasserman to be Honored by "Project Censored" for Coverage of 2004 Election

Free Press Publisher/Editor Bob Fitrakis and Senior Editor/Columnist
Harvey Wasserman have been cited by "Project Censored" for their
coverage of the theft of the 2004 election as writers of one of the
Most Censored stories of the year.
 
The Fitrakis/Wasserman by-line has become the leading indicator of
coverage of the theft, fraud and intimidation surrounding the Ohio
vote.  Rev. Jesse Jackson has called them "the Woodward and
Bernstein of the 2004 Election."
 
At a ceremony Saturday night, October 21, at California's Sonoma
State University, Fitrakis and Wasserman will be joined by columnists
and reporters such as Norman Solomon, Greg Palast and others. 
Each will speak on the need for true media scrutiny of how the GOP
stole yet another national election, with horrific results for America
and the world.
 
The Project Censored URL for the Fitrakis/Wasserman coverage is: 
http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2006/index.htm#3

The award ceremony is open to all for a $10 admission. 

For details, contact: Suze Cribbs; Project Censored; 707-664-3166.

Project Censored 2006 Book Release Celebration:
Sonoma State University’s Project Censored will celebrate the release
of Censored 2006, the annual issue of the most significant
undercovered news stories of the year. The Book Release Celebration
will be held in the Cooperage at Sonoma State University, 1801 East
Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park, CA, October 22, at 7:00pm.

The evening will include a pre-event reception with authors,
journalists, publishers, and Project Censored, including a book signing,

This event will be televised and is cosponsored by Media Alliance,
the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the Nation Institute.
Admission $10.In peace...

Their book: Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? (Paperback) By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld, Harvey Wasserman

Congressman Conyers Commends Injunction Against Georgia Voter ID Law

Conyers Commends Decision to Bar Georgia's Voter ID Law

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee issued the following statement regarding U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy's decision to issue a preliminary injunction preventing Georgia from enforcing its new voter identification law as being "an unconstitutional poll tax"

"Truth be told, the issue should have never reached this point - the Georgia Legislature should never have passed this modern day poll tax, the Governor should not have signed it, and the Justice Department should have intervened to stop it. That is why 21 Members and I asked the Department to prevent this law from taking effect.

During their day, poll taxes and literacy tests, which were also said to protect against fraud and breed confidence in elections, as the Georgia law purports to do, had the direct effect of erecting a barrier to minority voters. The Georgia law would prevent our most vulnerable communities, the minority, the poor, and the elderly, from voting. All Americans, regardless of race, economic status, or age are entitled to the most fundamental right of our democracy, the right to vote.

Just this afternoon, the Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. As we work to establish a record for reauthorization, today's decision barring Georgia's new voter ID law serves as evidence as to how crucial the Voting Rights Act is to ensuring that all of our citizens participate in the political process."

Audio Links for "National Summit to Save Our Elections"

Audio link for "National Summit to Save Our Elections":

http://kpftx.org/archive.htm#voter

Message from Congressman Conyers: "Help Free Ohio from Republican Corruption and Electoral Abuses"

Help Free Ohio from Republican Corruption and Electoral Abuses
For the past couple months, we have witnessed a growing percentage of the population steadily distancing itself from the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans. There has been an even stronger movement away from Republicans in Ohio that is occurring on a much grander scale due to the Coingate scandals.
Reform Ohio Now
http://reformohionow.org


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ten Action Items
http://www.dailykos.com/
storyonly/2005/9/21/14379/2169

Coingate Articles
http://www.toledoblade.com/
apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRRARECOINS

10/9 Article on Noe
http://www.toledoblade.com/
apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051009/SRRARE
COINS/310090001


As you may know, coin collector Tom Noe, a big contributor to President Bush and the Republican Party of Ohio, is the focus of 13 separate investigations for his mismanagement of a $50 million state fund that was supposed to help injured workers. A federal grand jury reportedly is investigating alleged money laundering by Noe for a Bush-Cheney fundraising event organized by Brian Hicks, the former chief of staff to Governor Robert A. Taft II.

Hicks has since been convicted of violating state ethics laws for accepting improper gifts from Noe. Governor Taft, himself, was convicted earlier this year on four criminal counts for violating ethics laws relating to his relationship with Noe – the first time that has ever happened to a sitting Ohio governor. Taft has an approval rating in the mid-teens – lowest in the country. All three of the leading candidates to succeed the term-limited governor have long-standing relationships with Noe and have accepted his contributions.

The Republican Party in Ohio, which holds all state-wide elected offices, is in serious trouble with the voting public. Ohioans are tired of the corruption that is rampant throughout Ohio The closeness of the OH-2 special election, in which Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett came within a whisker of winning in a district that Rob Portman carried with 72% of the vote, was due as much to the widespread disgust with the Republican Party in Ohio as it was to the growing opposition to the war.

As we have seen with the presidential election in 2004, what happens in Ohio affects the whole country. The culture of corruption that exists there is an injustice to our democratic system of government. It is crucial that we put an end to this abuse of power and the corrupt electoral practices that affect our whole country. That is why the vote in Ohio on November 8 this year is of historic national importance. A progressive grassroots organization, Reform Ohio Now, collected more than half a million signatures to put four amendments on the November 8 ballot.

These ballot initiatives would permit voting by mail, impose strict campaign contribution limits, require competitive congressional and legislative districts (and thereby put an end the scourge of gerrymandering), and would create an independent elections board instead of having the Secretary of State, a partisan official, oversee elections (the current Secretary of State is a fellow by the name Ken Blackwell—remember him? He's running for governor next year).

These ballot initiatives are so important, not just because they will provide fairer elections, but because they will provide a national bellwether to measure the growing strength of the Democratic Party. Victory in these measures will lend momentum nationally, will provide Democrats up to 6 six new Congressional seats in the 2006 elections, and could help restore a Democratic majority to Congress. As many have noted, this is the most important election of the year.

Please act today to end the corruption and provide free and fair elections that affect all Americans.

Visit http://ReformOhioNow.org - the organization behind the initiatives to find plenty of resources.
This DailyKos.com posting has a list of ten action items you can do to help at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/21/14379/2169




Thank you for your help and your continued stand for a better democracy.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.




Contact Information
website: http://www.johnconyers.com/
Conyers for Congress
P.O. Box 17204
Alexandria, Virginia 17204
Phone: 313-438-2004




Paid For And Authorized By Conyers for Congress
Michael J. Remington, Treasurer
P.O. Box 17204
Alexandria, Virginia 22302

Report on Portland, Oregon, "National Summit to Save Our Elections" Sept. 30-Oct. 2

Here are the reports of "Scoop" Independent News on the Portland Summit Conference:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00003.htm

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00082.htm

Joint Newsletter of CASE OHIO, J30 Coalition, and Ohio Vigilance

This newsletter is intended to be a combined effort of CASE OHIO, J30 Coalition, AND OHIO VIGILANCE, and any citizen activists involved in Election reform. This newsletter will include applicable news and events, it is not intended to promote any specific agenda but instead be inclusive.


Bob Koehlers most recent article: "Ballot and Soul" www.commonwonders.com/

REFORM OHIO NOW:

The summary below is from Common Cause website. CASE Ohio, J30, and Ohio Vigilance have NOT officially endorsed RON. While not speaking for anyone but myself, the groups above are most concerned about Issue 2, in that early voting appears to be open to fraud.

Common Sense Reforms for Ohio www.ReformOhioNow.org,

Common Cause Ohio is working with our partners who make up the Reform Ohio Now (RON) coalition to restore faith and integrity in government through four common sense reforms. These reform measures are central to our mission of holding power accountable and, if passed, would form one of the most comprehensive reform packages in the country. They will appear on the November 8th ballot as Issues 2, 3, 4 and 5 and will do the following:

Issue 2 - Allow Ohioans to vote early or to vote by mail, ensuring easy access to elections

Issue 3 - Put tough limits on campaign contributions, reducing the influence of money in politics

Issue 4 - Create an independent redistricting commission to take the power to draw legislative districts out of the hands of partisan lawmakers

Issue 5 - Remove partisan politicians from the administration of state elections

Our effort will succeed because of grassroots power and volunteer like you. Please sign up to volunteer today and visit this site often to learn what you can do to clean up Ohio.

For more info: www.ReformOhioNow.org



DIEB-THROAT

The following story broke on Bradblog http://www.bradblog.com and was subsequently confirmed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I am reprinting only a small part of the entire article here.

Blogged by Brad on 9/22/2005 @ 12:31am PT...

DIEB-THROAT Weighs in on Diebold's Stunning 15.5% Wednesday Stock Plunge


a BRAD BLOG Exclusive late last week.

That "Cyber Security Bulletin", little-noticed by the media, and apparently wholly ignored by Diebold when it was originally posted in late August of 2004 is still available on the US-CERT website. It warns of an "undocumented backdoor" in Diebold's GEM Central Tabulator software used with its electronic voting machine systems. The security vulnerability could allow a local or remote user to modify vote tallies stored in the system according to the warning and corroborated by several different sources.

"This backdoor means that one malicious person can change the outcome of any Diebold election," DIEB-THROAT said in our previous article. "Diebold's election system," the source added, "is one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever known."

HAND COUNT PAPER BALLOT NEWS - 10/10/05

Marj Creech, Victoria Parks and I (Jo Anne Karasek) are going to speak on the hand count paper ballot constitutional initiative and parallel elections on October 12 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The group that has invited us is the Women's Progressive Activists, and they are interested in sponsoring a hand count paper ballot constitutional initiative in Michigan. Victoria Parks will also be singing her songs about the election debacle before the event begins.


The draft constitutional initiative for hand count paper ballots in Ohio is being revised. This is because of the additional security procedures suggested in "Voting on Paper Ballots" by Douglas W. Jones at http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/paper.html. Douglas W. Jones is an Associate Professor at Iowa State in computer science with an election administration background.

To sign up to help with the constitutional initiative for hand count paper ballots, please contact Jo Anne Karasek, Coordinator, at jakarasek@cinci.rr.com

Ohio HB 3:

Inside information is that the Republican leadership in the house intends on adding an amendment to HB3 to require a photo ID to vote, thereby avoiding debate in committee or in the public domain, and they plan to bring the bill to a vote soon after the November election. Nationally a photo ID requirement will disenfranchise 357,000 currently eligible voters in Ohio while solving a problem that does not exist. (Four voters have been charged with fraudulently voting in Ohio in 2005)


BOARD OF ELECTIONS:

Franklin County has a contract to work with Election Science Institute to ensure an accurate election. Other counties, such as Cuyahoga, have similar voting machines but are expecting the public to trust the equipment without this oversight. There is some concern that ESI is a Trojan Horse. Regardless, this response from Matt Damschroeder, BOE director in Franklin Co, recognizes the many issues and vulnerabilities of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines.

"We are working with ESI to do a complete review of the ES&S including a line by line review of the source code. Since we here at the BOE are not electronic security or programming experts, we are asking the experts brought in by ESI to help us identify shortcomings in the ES&S system for ES&S to either change or for us to create mitigating processes. We are also working with ES&S to make recommendations for the conduct of our post election canvass (audit). Also, with the ES&S machines, it creates a real time electronic log of all transactions, which is written to a removable flash card. Franklin County's goal is to develop the procedures and technology so that in addition to posting the tabulated results of the system, that we will also post to the web the flash card data from each individual machine as well as .pdf's of the VVPAT for each machine. Obviously, that will take some time to download and scan, so it probably won't be election night, and again, we have to develop some procedures and acquire some additional technology to do this ... but our objective is to have all of the material out there so that our posted results are transparent and independently auditable". Matt Damschroder

(email from Matt Damschroeder to Pete Johnson, 9/26/05)



Exit Polls: On Friday October 14th, Steve Freeman Ph.D. will debate Warren J. Mitofsky of Mitofsky International, which was contracted to perform an exit poll for the National Election Pool. This debate may eventually be televised on CSpan.

The two will square off in lectures and discussion on Friday, October 14, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the University of Pennsylvania Terrace Room, Logan Hall, 249 South 36th Street in Philadelphia. They will be part of
ASAP's fall meeting, which includes a third talk on the use of two remarkably powerful statistical methods to make the best use of clinical trial data. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54651

CUYAHOGA COUNTY (CLEVELAND):

Cuyahoga County Board of Elections

Public Meeting

to "unveil" the Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machines (DRE's)

"Roadmap to Electronic Voting, 2004-2005"

Date: Monday, Oct 17th, 2005

Location: Myers University Club, 3813 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH

Time: 10am to 4pm

ELECTION AUDITS

Lucas County, Ohio

A second election audit of the Lucas County, Ohio, November 2004 General Election was done on October 7, 2005. The first was done in June, 2005

Twelve volunteers: Troy Seman, Stuart Wright, Marj Creech, Evan Davis, Denis Logan, Adam Kopchian, John Willey, James Marek, Bev & John Peterson, Debbie Dalke, and Jo Anne Karasek worked on digitally photocopying the signature books and poll books. There has been a public records request to audit the ballots, but no date has been set yet.

To sign up to participate in Lucas County audits , please contact Jo Anne Karasek at jakarasek@cinci.rr.com

Clermont County, Ohio

A public records request to audit the ballots, signature books and poll books of the Clermont County, August 2004 Special Election has been issued and a preliminary date has been set to discuss arrangements on Friday, October 14. We are requesting a videographer is for this.

To sign up as a videographer or to participate in Clermont County audits, please contact Jo Anne Karasek at jakarasek@cinci.rr.com



TECHNOLOGY ISSUES: Open Voting Consortium has recently had success convincing the Sec of State in California to study the use of "open source code in voting systems in California". To view the letter: http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ad/sos-letter-926.pdf

Carter Baker Commission

for full report: http://www.american.edu/ia/cfer/report/report.html

For an excellent article from Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/18/AR2005091801364.html

The Commission made 87 recommendations, one of which has generated significant controversy:

"The most controversial recommendation calls for all voters to produce a standard photo identification card before being allowed to vote. The commission proposes that, by 2010, voters be required to use either the Real ID card, which Congress this spring mandated as the driver's license of the future in all states. For about 12 percent of eligible voters who do not have a driver's license, the commission says states should provide at no cost an identification card that contains the same key information."

Carter says Gore won 2000 election (sept 22, 2005)

from http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Carter_says_Gore_won_2000_el_0922.html

John Byrne

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter delivered a shocker at an American University panel in Washington Monday: RAW STORY has learned he told the crowd he was certain Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election. There is "no doubt in my mind that Gore won the election," the erstwhile President declared, saying the 2000 election process "failed abysmally." He also snubbed the Supreme Court for getting involved, saying it was "highly partisan."










FOR MORE INFO: http://www.ohiovigilance.org/

CASE Ohio: www.caseohio.org/

Ohio Honest Elections: www.ohiohonestelections.org/

J30: http://users.cjb.net/j30/

Ohio Vigilance: www.ohiovigilance.org/

Free Press: www.freepress.org/

Important newspaper articles:"What Went Wrong in Ohio?" by Mark Crispin Miller in Harper's Magazine

fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/07/harpers-magazine-forum-what-went-wrong.html

"Way to go Ohio" by David Bernstein in the Boston Phoenix.

www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/04823487.asp

"Ohio's Odd Numbers" by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair.

www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050214roco05

New Book: "How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election $ is Rigging 2008" by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman. www.freepress.org/



This newsletter edited by Pete Johnson, as a result of a vote taken at the J30 meeting but intended to be representative of the entire election reform movement. Please submit comments and articles for the next newsletter to pjohnso6@insight.rr.com.

"20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA"

Received this interesting piece in my inbox:

20 Amazing Facts About
Voting in the USA


Did you know....
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)

http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/


NOTE: Please copy the above list and distribute freely!

Freeman and Mitofsky to Debate 2004 Election Fraud

Dr. Steven Freeman and Warren Mitofsky will debate the 2004 Election Fraud on Friday, October 14th, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. , at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8775

"Was Kerry Cheated Out of Almost 100,000 Votes in Cleveland Alone?" - By Dale Tavris

Article appearing in Democratic Underground:

Was Kerry Cheated out of Almost 100,000 Votes in Cleveland Alone?

It was well known in the days prior to the 2004 Presidential election that a Bush victory was highly unlikely without Bush carrying both Ohio and Florida. As Election Day unfolded, spirits in the Kerry camp were running high, as it became evident that Ohio’s 20 electoral votes would determine the victor, and Kerry had a comfortable lead in the Ohio exit poll. Even CNN’s right wing hack, Robert Novak, acknowledged that it would be an uphill climb for Bush.

But as the results came in from Ohio, optimism in the Kerry camp began to fade, and by late evening their remaining hope was narrowed down to strongly Democratic Cuyahoga County, and especially Cleveland, where reports of large pre-election increases in new voter registration and exceptionally high voter turnout had circulated. But this remaining hope soon faded, as it became clear that the voter turnout from Cleveland was in fact miserably low, and by noon the next day John Kerry conceded the election.

It now appears plausible or likely, from a variety of accumulated evidence, that Kerry may have been cheated out of close to 100,000 votes in Cuyahoga County, or more. The evidence for this falls into three categories: 1) Deletion of votes from highly Democratic Cleveland precincts, perhaps through electronic manipulation of central tabulators; 2) Vote switching from Kerry to Bush, perhaps through ballot order rotation tricks; and, 3) Massive purges of voter registration. Let’s consider the evidence for each of these:

Complete text of article appearing on Democratic Underground