Below the fold is a video of a speech Mr. Phillips gave in Seattle in September, 2008. It is long, I grant you, which is why I am putting it up today so you can take the time to watch it when you have time. That being said, his talk is so compelling, the time flies by. The information it contains is shocking. What we have heard about what happened in Ohio in 2004 is but a drop in the bucket compared to Mr. Phillips’ findings. Oh, and I should add, he is being humble when he says he is simply a musician and hiker (he helps to make trails). He has four degrees, and was a university professor.

Now I understand that, at least in India, the voting by electronic machines has not been as flawed as it has been, according to fellow NQ writer, pm317. But there seems to be some differences there insofar as their machines are made in keeping with government regulations. Since Diebold (now ES&S) and other companies claim their software is proprietary and NO ONE can know what’s in there, I think there is a difference from the get-go between the two countries. Moreover, according to the post:

Diebold system works on Microsoft software, it has no seals on locks and panels to detect a tempering. It has a keyboard interface (!!!) and the server was tested to have “Blaster” virus. One report on Wired says a lady stumbled upon some files from Diebold, and found that the votes were stored in MS Access files. It also has a PCMCIA SanDisk card for local storage. A touchscreen GUI and a network connection to send the results to a server after encrypting it with DES.

The Indian EVM is just plain circuit, with some assembly code. A few LEDs, and two Seven Segment LED displays. One EVM can list 16 candidates, but up to 4 EVMs can be Linked to accommodate 64 candidates. (In a country of a billion people its possible to have 64 candidates for one single constituency.)

That’s a big difference in terms of security. It’s an interesting read, and adds to this conversation.

At this point, though, it seems that our elections as they stand are fatally flawed, especially as you listen to Mr. Phillips’ experiences. What do you think? Come to our Live Chat at 9:00pm on Weds., May 20th to discuss this critical issue.

Join us on Weds., May 20th, at 9:00 PM for the last chat in our three part series discussing “Hacking Democracy,” electronic voting machines, and paper ballots.

Again, please take time to view the following video of Richard Hayes Phillips’ speech in Seattle in September, 2008, as he enumerates many irregularities he discovered in Ohio in the 2004 election:

We will once again be joined by Kathleen Wynne of Hand Count Our Paper Ballots Now , and we may have a surprise guest expert on the issue of electronic voting machines as well.

DISCLAIMER: We do not personally endorse BlackBoxVoting and, while we are aware of the complex stories behind the controversies, we are not focusing on those stories during this presentation and haven’t any inclination to get into those stories via e-mails or blog posts. What we are concerned about is the legitimacy of voting methodologies in the U.S. We hope that airing this documentary will stimulate conversation and action about voting methods. Of note: The film was reviewed and vetted by HBO Documentaries, including its staff and legal counsel, before its airing on HBO.

KATHLEEN WYNNE - Former Associate Director of non-profit elections watchdog organization, Black Box Voting.org, when the organization was founded in 2004. Founded website HCPBnow.org. She has testified at numerous public hearings and has provided evidence to members of the U.S. Congress, the EAC, and other public bodies. Appeared on Lou Dobbs, Fox & Friends and on various radio shows throughout the country. Her videotaped evidence was used as the best evidence in the trial of two election officials in Ohio, who were convicted of felony charges during the 2004 Presidential Recount. Appeared with Bev Harris in Hacking Democracy. She is one of the experts who wrote chapter in the book, HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America.

VICKIE KARP - PR Director, VoteRescue.org; National Chair - Coalition for Visible Ballots.org; served as a Board Member and as President of the Board for the non-profit elections watchdog organization, Black Box Voting.org; co-edited with Abbe Waldman DeLozier the book, HACKED! High Tech Election Theft in America; co-hosted the weekly radio show VoteRescue Radio with Karen Renick on We The People Radio Network Radio in Austin, Texas; has appeared on MSNBC and Austin TV news channels and various radio shows throughout the country.

Now for the disclaimer part. The recent two-part series on Bev Harris and Black Box Voting (second part to appear later today) was to serve as a historical and foundational context on the issue of electronic voting machines as explored in the HBO documentary, “Hacking Democracy.” As is the case with most organizations and the people who represent them, there are some who disagree with where Bev Harris wants to go, and with some of her methods (as I understand it). That is for each person to decide on their own, in my opinion. And, there is disagreement within the various organizations devoted to the issue of how our votes should be counted to ensure the validity and sanctity of those votes. Those are just the kinds of issues we want to discuss during our Live Chat.

Following our last Live Chat on May 20th, Kathleen Wynne will provide a wrap up of the issue from the perspective of her organization, Hand Count Paper Ballots Now. Please watch this space for that informative post and ways in which we can take back the power of the vote.

We had a very lively discussion last week, and I expect more of the same this week, too. Please come join us!

This is Part 2 of the article “Black Box Backlash,” the conclusion of Part 1 on Bev Harris, Black Box Voting, and the issue of leaving our democracy to electronic voting machines. This will be the topic of our Live Chat on Weds., May 13th, at 9:00 PM.

Back to the article:

COMPUTER SCIENTISTS were already hotly debating the issue. Stanford University’s David Dill became interested in computer voting when the state of Georgia had technical problems with its new voting machines in 2002. When Dill discovered his own county, Santa Clara in California, was about to start using electronic voting machines without paper output, he swung into action. Dill started an online petition calling for a paper trail that attracted some of the nation’s premier computer scientists. He put up a Web site that eventually became www.verifiedvoting.org and began speaking out about the issue around the country.

Harris’ instincts about posting the source code proved to be dead-on. Four computer scientists from Maryland’s prestigious Johns Hopkins University examined the code and released a scathing review of it. “Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts,” their report stated.

While the Hopkins review did not cause political pandemonium, it did validate Harris’ gut feelings about electronic voting—our votes were not secure because the software recording them was vulnerable to hacking. The report also attracted major media attention across the country.

Diebold spokesperson David Bear says, “Electronic voting is safe, secure, and accurate.” Bear says the code that Harris found on the Internet was partial and outdated. In addition, Bear points out, the software is not used in a vacuum. Election officials use a variety of checks and balances with any system that they employ to ensure its security.

After the Hopkins report, the state of Maryland had a couple of consultants review the touch-screen machines and the way they will be deployed in elections. The consultants made some recommendations to increase security, but Maryland is proceeding with the elections using the Diebold equipment.

Far be it from me to not believe a Diebold spokesperson, but, I don’t believe him. His contention that the machines are safe and secure flies in the face of a number of reports, including being able to access them with a mini-bar key! So, yeah, I’m not buying what he was selling. Makes me wonder why Maryland did, all evidence to the contrary. But, I’m not the only one who is just a tad suspicious:

AUDIT TRAIL TO CALIFORNIA

Harris, however, was not done with Diebold. Last Sept. 5, someone leaked 15,000 internal Diebold memos to Harris. She says she published 24 of them on her own PR Web site and was promptly hit with a cease-and-desist letter from Diebold. Soon, all 15,000 of the memos were circulating on the Internet. Independent media sites around the world and students at more than 30 universities posted them. Diebold tried to stop the postings by claiming copyright on the memos and found itself entangled in a free-speech battle. Eventually, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, posted them on his congressional Web site. Diebold recognized that Kucinich held a trump card and withdrew its objections to the postings.

Sadly, the memos themselves have not been the subject of any thorough analysis. They are mostly e-mails from Diebold employees and are full of phrases that sound bad but are hard to understand without technical expertise and context.

Diebold’s Bear says, “Those were internal discussions between individuals, not the sentiments of the company.”

HARRIS THINKS the memos contain important revelations. Perhaps the most important, she argues, is that there is widespread use of uncertified software for voting machines of all kinds. Whether we vote on the new touch-screen system or the optical-scan paper ballots in use in King County and elsewhere, computer software counts our ballots. Harris believes a strict certification process where federal and state officials carefully test the election software is central to voting security. Without proper certification, she worries that improper code that would allow for the manipulation of election results might be introduced into the system.

By last Nov. 21, Kevin Shelley, California’s secretary of state, had heard enough. He issued an order that all touch- screen voting machines include “an accessible voter verified paper audit trail.” (Washington’s Reed and Nevada’s secretary of state, Dean Heller, came out in favor of audit trails in December.) The next month, Shelley commissioned an audit into whether uncertified Diebold software was being used in California’s elections. Of the 17 California counties that used Diebold election machines in the last election, Shelley’s auditors found, none was using software that had been properly certified by the state. Diebold insists that the changes made to the software are cosmetic. Shelley says the company might lose the right to sell its touch-screen machines in California.

All in all, 2003 was quite a year for Bev Harris. But she insists she is just getting started.

Bear in mind, this was 6 years ago. So much information came to light, yet, Diebold was still selling machines across the country. Harris wasn’t done yet:

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD

In 2004, Harris and her allies have been working on four new fronts: lobbying, public speaking, litigation, and seeking public office.

At the start of this year’s Washington Legislature, there were two bills about issues related to electronic voting. Harris and her ally, Linda Franz, another voting activist, introduced one with the help of legislators in both the House and the Senate. It died a relatively quick death, however.

The other bill, introduced by Secretary of State Reed, represented a big change in his position. Up until December, Reed and his office had strongly resisted any effort to require touch-screen voting machines to have a voter-verified audit trail. Reed says that as he toured the state talking with ordinary voters, he realized there was a lot of anxiety about the new electronic voting. He has seen this phenomenon before, he says, when other new voting technology—like the optical scan paper ballot—was introduced. “It was one thing to hear from a few people on the Internet,” he says, “but we found ordinary citizens didn’t trust these machines.”

Harris and her allies, however, are furious opponents of Reed’s bill. They say it leaves the door open for insecure Internet voting, takes too long to require a paper trail with touch-screen voting machines, and has an insufficient audit requirement and a host of other ills. “You have a secretary of state that crafts legislation that sounds good but doesn’t deliver,” says Franz.

REED IS RELUCTANT to engage in a debate with Harris and her allies. He says he hasn’t seen their bill and downplays the differences between himself and them. He offers only the mildest criticism and says on the whole their activism has been helpful. He does object to the way they have verbally roughed up elections officials like Snohomish County Auditor Bob Terwilliger. “Bob has been on radio shows with Bev Harris. I fortunately haven’t had that experience,” he says, laughing.

As of Tuesday, March 9, the fate of Reed’s legislation was still up in the air.

Wow - this guy can be Secretary of State, but he’s afraid to take on this grandmother? Talk about your lack of intestinal fortitude…I know, I know, that seems to go hand-in-hand with being a politician, but still - c’mon already! Not only that, but saying one thing one day, and another the next seems to be a chronic disease for too many politicians:

Longtime voting-rights activist Janet Anderson questions the wisdom of head-on, fierce opposition to Reed and his bill by Harris and her allies. “The secretary of state changed his position 180 degrees. Instead of being supportive, they are making it clear they don’t trust him.”

In fact, Harris’ right-hand man is running against Reed. Andy Stephenson met Harris through Democratic Underground, a left-wing Web site (www.democraticunderground.com), and they immediately became close cohorts. Stephenson, 42, looks like a shorter, stockier version of talk-show host Conan O’Brien, and until recently he owned the Subway shop on 15th Avenue on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. As a former telephone salesperson, he has skills that Harris lacks: He’s great on the phone or talking one-on-one with people.

Stephenson is running a fiery campaign against Reed. “The secretary of state is accountable to no one,” he charges. His campaign for elected office suffers from a flaw common among impassioned rookies, however: He believes his issue will be enough against seasoned politicians like Reed and Democratic Party favorite state Rep. Laura Ruderman, D-Kirkland, who have name identification with voters and will raise much more money and receive much more institutional support than Stephenson will.

HARRIS HASN’T endorsed Stephenson because she doesn’t endorse candidates. But it’s clear Harris likes him and his tactics, which include filing a lawsuit against Reed for allowing the use of uncertified software in King County. The secretary of state’s office denies the charge. Meanwhile, Harris is a plaintiff in a California lawsuit that seeks to end use of Diebold equipment in that state. She and Stephenson promise more lawsuits in other states, including Washington.

The partisan, rancorous nature of Stephenson’s campaign concerns veteran activist Anderson. “I don’t like it when people start speaking in partisan terms, because we all want honest, safe, secure elections. To turn it into partisan name-calling turns off half the people.”

At a recent forum, Stephenson, who is charming tête-à-tête, looked extremely uncomfortable while making an awkward stump speech. As if to emphasize the protest nature of his candidacy, he endorsed dark-horse presidential candidate Kucinich.

Well, we know that outcome - Reed is still Secretary of State in California.

Back to Bev Harris:

RHETORICAL ROAR

Harris, on the other hand, is a marvelous speaker. As a PR professional, she knows how to present her material in a personable, funny way. She hopes to use public speaking tours as another weapon in her arsenal and took her act on the road to California this month.

The tone of Harris’ rhetoric disturbs Anderson. “Bev Harris is a little more conspiracy-oriented than I tend to be. I don’t believe this is a huge Republican plot to steal elections,” she says. “Maybe the whole matter would have been taken more seriously earlier had not the highly partisan charges been made so shrilly.”

That kind of criticism angers Harris. But there’s no doubt some of her claims have lacked substantiation. Near the end of Black Box Voting, she writes: “There are some who are using election-manipulation techniques to transfer a block of power to their friends. This is a business plan, a form of organized crime. . . . ” Yet Harris rejects any claim she is a conspiracy theorist. “I understand the needs of the press in terms of documentation and not overstating your case,” she says, and she has worked to scale back the hype in her writing.

Yet at a recent forum at the University of Washington, the more outrageous Harris’ rhetoric got, the more the audience loved it. One key to Harris’ success has been her in-your-face style. That characteristic, which brought early success, might not resonate with everyone. She isn’t confident of victory in any case. “Actually, it is going to be a long shot that we will win this battle on voting machines,” Harris says. “We have proven our case, but they are still just barreling ahead.” (ghowland@seattleweekly.com)

Just because someone may be a conspiracy theorist doesn’t mean they are WRONG. There has been AMPLE evidence to support Harris’ contentions about Diebold (and other) electronic voting machines, including by our CIA, for pete’s sake! I mean, really - what’s the point of having highly trained professionals give us their opinion if we are simply going to ignore what they have to say? THAT makes no sense, in my opinion. What Ms. Harris has been saying for years now, does. Especially since she has been backed up by a number of universities and specialists in this area.

The question is: why are we still using these machines?

Please join us for our second Live Chat and viewing of Parts 4 - 6 of the HBO documentary, “Hacking Democracy” Weds. night, May 13, at 9:00pm (EST) to discuss this, and other questions.

Tonight at 9:00 pm (EST) we continue our discussion of the HBO documentary, “Hacking Democracy.” Once again, we will be joined by the founder of Hand Count Paper Ballots Now , Kathleen Wynne, and her colleague, Vickie Karp (biographies below). To join us, you can click the link below at the appropriate time, or sign up for an email reminder:

And now, meet Bev Harris:

America’s leading critic of electronic voting lives on a cul-de-sac in the blue-collar suburb of Renton. Bev Harris drives a gray Dodge Caravan with a bumper sticker that says, “Keep honking, I’m reloading.” Last year, several things broke in her home— the furnace, a sink, and a toilet—and she didn’t have the money to get them fixed right away. In fact, the sink and toilet are still broken.

At 52, Harris worries about being overweight, and she can’t find a hairdresser she’s happy with. In recent years she’s made her living as a literary publicist, hawking such books as Odyssey of the Soul by Hugh Harmon and Pamela Chilton, which is about channeling spirits, and Two Codes for Murder, a true-crime story by Dorothea Fuller Smith. A year and half ago, she admits, “I thought voting was boring.”

Clearly, Harris’ feelings about voting have changed a lot in the past 18 months. Voting has become Harris’ passion and vocation. Voting issues consume her life, even pushing her to work around the clock at times.

Since September 2002, Harris has battled a U.S. senator, large corporations, and election officials across the country in her effort to ensure our votes are counted fairly and accurately. At first, she focused on the problems with computer voting. Since then, the name of her Web site (www.blackboxvoting.org) and her book devoted to the subject—Black Box Voting—have become shorthand for concerns about computers and elections. Moreover, her astounding discoveries on the subject have resulted in damning research by distinguished computer-science professors and numerous articles in major newspapers across the country. Secretaries of state, including Republican Sam Reed of Washington and Democrat Kevin Shelley of California, have responded by proposing key changes in how we will cast our ballots in the future.

HARRIS HAS BECOME a media darling. A major profile is due in Vanity Fair, and her cell phone rings constantly with requests for interviews and documentation, from TV stations and newspapers around the country. Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Dennis Kucinich all mentioned concerns about electronic voting during this year’s campaign. Former first lady and current U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., are sponsoring national legislation responding to the issues raised by Harris and her allies.

Now she has broadened her critique of election security to include subjects like voting over the Internet and the integrity of the software that counts paper ballots across the nation, including those in King County. More importantly, she wants to focus on solutions to the problems she has uncovered. To do that, she and her allies are taking what has largely been an online movement and bringing it into the real world. They are doing speaking tours, lobbying for legis- lative changes, and even running for office. Will they be as successful in the meat world as they have been on the Internet? Or will they be like presidential candidate Howard Dean—an online tiger and an analog kitten?

Harris’ online success has brought increased scrutiny. Many elections professionals, private and public, believe her alarm over voting security is unfounded. Even some of her allies find her rhetoric hard to take. Harris is unapologetic. She offers a typically unvarnished opinion on elections officials’ understanding of security: “I’ve never seen such a clueless bunch of people.” She feels the mainstream media have begun to back her up. “I’ve been called every kind of nutcase there is, and now I’ve been in The New York Times three times,” she says.

And I wonder just how much investigation the critics put into her claims regarding these voting machines? As Kathleen Wynne is always quick to remind me, it is in the best interests of a number of corporations, and politicians, for things to stay as they are, a point that cannot be overstated enough, in my opinion.

Back to the article now:

TOUCH VS. PUNCH

After the election meltdown of 2000, when an incredibly close race for president shined a very bright light on the shortcomings of the American electoral system, Congress took action. It passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002, telling states to phase out the infamous punch-card ballots, with their pregnant, hanging, and dimpled chads. HAVA also required a touch-screen voting machine for every polling place, mainly so blind voters could cast their ballots unassisted. As an incentive, Congress included billions in funding for conversion of local electoral systems. Faced with the need to upgrade technology and some federal largesse, some states, like Maryland, and some counties, like Snohomish here in Washington, decided to convert completely to touch-screen polling places. As a result, more than 20 percent of American voters will use touch-screen machines in this year’s presidential election, according to Election Data Services, a D.C. consultancy.

Voting on a touch screen is like using a bank’s automatic teller machine. There is one vital difference, however: The voting machine does not give you a paper receipt. The absence of a paper trail has alarmed a variety of people, including some of the nation’s most renowned computer scientists. Their bottom line? These machines could be hacked. The solution? An auditable, voter-verified paper trail.

SOURCE CODE MOTHER LODE

For Harris, this all started with a search of the Internet during her lunch hour. She was cruising Commondreams.org, a left-wing Web site, when she noticed an article by Lynn Landes. Since she was still sore about the Florida machinations of the 2000 presidential race, the article’s scathing critique of computer voting piqued Harris’ interest.

She decided to do some research. She learned that Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., had an ownership share in Election Systems & Software (ES&S), whose Web site brags that its equipment counted 56 percent of the nation’s votes in each of the past four presidential elections. Moreover, ES&S voting machines count all the votes in Hagel’s home state of Nebraska, except in those counties that tally ballots by hand. While there is nothing illegal about the senator’s stake in the company, it didn’t seem right to Harris. When she posted the information about the situation on her Web site, she promptly received a cease-and-desist order from ES&S lawyers. She e-mailed the cease-and-desist order to 3,000 of her media contacts. Then she thought she’d better tell her husband, Sonny Dudley, who is African American. She says he framed the issue in terms of civil rights. “‘My people died for the right to vote,’ he boomed. ‘I will vote for who I want and no one’s gonna stop me,’” she recalls in her book.

This was a shocking revelation when I first heard of it several years ago. How it was Senator Hagel maintained his ties to this company while being a US Senator, especially one who ran for re-election in an area using the very machines his company owned, seemed like just a bit of a conflict of interest. Naturally, his office didn’t see it that way:

The issue doesn’t seem so dramatic to LouAnn Linehan, Sen. Hagel’s chief of staff. She says Hagel has never tried to hide his ties to ES&S and that Harris’ claims about the senator run from “inaccurate” to “outrageous.” Says ES&S spokesperson Megan McCormick: “Misinformation and inaccuracies were posted on Bev Harris’ Web site. Because of the extent of the misinformation, ES&S expressed through an outside attorney its concern and requested correction.”

While untangling the specifics of this debate would take an entire article, there’s no doubt that jousting with ES&S and Hagel got Harris hooked on the topic. Although she couldn’t interest mainstream publishers in the subject, David Allen, a former systems engineer turned comic-book publisher, became intrigued with her research. Soon, Harris had a contract with Allen’s Plan Nine Publishing for the company’s first non-comic book.

Publisher Allen’s technical expertise proved to be vitally important. He urged Harris to get a copy of a technical manual for an electronic voting machine. Harris started surfing the Web. On Jan. 23, 2003, she hit the mother lode. On an unprotected Web site, she found 40,000 files of Diebold Election Systems’ source code—the guts of software to run touch-screen voting machines. At first, Harris wasn’t sure what all the weird files were, so she called Allen and directed him to the site. What are we looking at? she asked. “Incredible stupidity,” he replied.

And how. It is remarkable what people “accidentally” end up posting on the internet, but this was a DOOZY:

HARD ON THE SOFTWARE

Diebold is an Ohio-based company with more than $2 billion in annual revenue that was founded in 1859 and makes ATMs and security systems, among other things. In 2002, Diebold got into the election business when it bought Global Election Systems. Diebold is a relatively small player in the industry, with only 33,000 of its voting stations in use across the country, but it is coming on strong. In 2002, Diebold landed a $54 million contract from Georgia that included 19,000 new voting machines. The following year, Maryland signed a $55.6 million contract for 11,000 new machines.

Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia are the big three companies making electronic voting machines. All of them refuse to let outside observers examine their software, citing proprietary and security concerns.

Harris’ discovery represented the first opportunity for the wider world to glimpse the internal workings of the machines that are playing a key role in our democracy. After a little soul searching, Harris downloaded the Diebold software files. It took 44 hours, and they filled seven CDs. By July 2003, after months of informal review and discussion among her friends and allies, Harris decided to allow Scoop, an “unfiltered” news Web site in New Zealand (www.scoop.co.nz/mason), to make the files available to anyone who wanted them. It wasn’t a decision she made lightly. “I knew I had something that could provoke a constitutional crisis,” she says. She hoped that some computer science professors would take an interest.

This pretty much covers what we saw last week in the first three parts of the documentary, “Hacking Democracy.” If you wish to catch up, you can go to THIS LINK to watch the first three parts (Part 2 and 2 will automatically come up at YouTube).

The importance of this topic cannot be overemphasized. We have all been impacted by the “issues” these electronic voting machines have raised, and the questionable tallies they have produced. It is to that, and other related issues, we will direct our attention Wednesday, May 13th, at 9:00pm (EST).

We are fortunate to have as one of our loyal readers Kathleen Wynne, founder of Hand Count Paper Ballots Now (HCPBnow.org), and formerly Associate Director of Black Box Voting. I will let her introduce herself and the issue further below, but MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Beginning Wednesday, May 6th, at 9:00 pm at No Quarter, for the NEXT THREE WEEKS (May 6th, May 13th, and May 20th), we will be showing the documentary, “Hacking Democracy,” in three parts, with live chat with SusanUnPC, me, and Kathleen. Below is an introduction to Kathleen Wynne, and the issues the movie addresses:

My name is Kathleen Wynne. I am the former Associate Director of Black Box Voting.org and Founder of HCPB(Hand Count Paper Ballots)now.org. I cannot express how grateful I am to NQ and to Rev. Amy for graciously agreeing to host a live chat concerning the Emmy nominated HBO documentary film, “Hacking Democracy”. The film features the work done by Bev Harris and me, during our “in-the-field” investigations into the election issue.

Black Box Voting was the first election reform organization to be able to test a fully functioning optical scan voting machine in Leon County, Florida. None of the computer security scientists entrusted to oversee the security of these machines were ever allowed to observe a fully functioning unit while it was being tested for use, which made it impossible for them to determine whether the machine was secure or even functioning the way it was supposed to! The reason was, and still is, because the vendors who manufacture these machines are protected by “proprietary secret laws.” It finally took two determined, middle-aged women to be given the opportunity to test a fully functioning voting system!! What we discovered will shock and disturb you.

After viewing the film, I believe you will agree with me that the PUMA movement and the election reform movement have a great deal in common. I joined the PUMA movement because it was what I considered to be “a great awakening” of American citizens that something was terribly wrong with our elections process. Much in the same way the election reform movement was started. It is because of this common belief that I hope that we can unite our two movements and work together in taking back our elections. For it is only by taking back our elections that we will be able to take back our country. Indeed, the only power citizens have to make such a change possible is through the ballot box and we have literally given that power away. Our elections have been privatized and are becoming more centralized, which totally undermines the principle of transparency and the public nature of elections. The United States Congress has sanctioned this privatization, which in my mind, is a huge conflict of interest. Our elections are now virtually owned and operated by corporations, overseen by “experts,” and strictly managed by election officials. Citizens have been driven from the last refuge we have to remain a government by, for and of the people - our elections.

After over 6 years of investigating the many and varied problems plaguing our elections, I am convinced now, more than ever, that the only way “we, the people” will be able to take back our elections is to junk the machines and return to hand counted paper ballots. This is the primary reason I founded the website “HCPBnow.org” in order to garner a “critical mass” of citizen support for the return to hand counts. I am dedicated to this cause. As Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips wrote in his book “Witness to a Crime: A Citizens’ Audit of an American Election”, which focused on the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio - “paper ballots are the solution, not the problem – but only if counted by hand, at the polling place, in full public view, on election night, no matter how long it takes.”

It is my contention that if we fail in this great cause, we will no longer live in a democracy, but will exist under tyranny. It should also be noted that recently the German Supreme Court banned voting machines as unconstitutional and will be counting the votes by hand in their upcoming elections in June and September! The irony cannot be lost that it was former Nazi Germany who was first in taking steps to preserve election transparency and integrity, instead of America!

Come join us May 6th, May 13th, and May 20th at 9:00 for “Hacking Democracy” and Live Chat!

Good news for Michigan and Florida Democrats. You might not get cut out of the party’s messy primary voting process again in 2012.

Of course, with an incumbent Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presidential-candidate-picking process may be moot:

Assuming the rookie Great Change Agent quickly fills five dozen empty slots at Treasury, fixes the nation’s economy, creates multiple millions of jobs, reforms the country’s entire education system, makes it affordable to ever Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskilly American, creates a thriving green economy, reduces dependence on foreign oil, solves the housing crisis, keeps interest rates low, prevents inflation, avoids an Afghan quagmire, cuts taxes for 95% of Americans, screws over the other 5% and halves the national debt.

Oh, and cleanses the culture of greed and entitlement on every U.S. street including the one named Wall.

Last year’s Democratic primaries were hardfought even bitter affairs, not helped by the initial banning of the results of those important twin states, which denied Hillary Clinton two crucial albeit sneaky victories.

What the hell does THAT mean?? The only one who was SNEAKY in this process was OBAMA!! He’s the one who took his name taken off the ballot, and encouraged others to do so as well, to try and embarrass Clinton out of the win! He’s the ONLY one who campaigned in Florida, and Clinton still won in a landslide. And SHE’S the one who is sneaky? Okay - I see how they are revising history on this one. Because we can’t have anyone better than Precious, can we? Ah, yes, because EVERYONE wanted Obama, apparently - except for the majority who voted for Clinton, but let’s not allow facts to influence the storyline. Ahem.

Back to the article:

And all presided over by another former unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate, Howard Dean.

Dean is gone now, unceremoniously dumped and denied a Cabinet job by the Obama camp, in favor of parttime chair, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia. He”ll take over fulltime next year to earn his D.C. chops and, come 2012, probably replace aging Joe Biden as Obama’s VP who, you may remember, was a senator way back when Obama was a sixth grader. (Although keep your eyes on Missouri’s most Twittering senator.)

But watch out. CNBC announced today that Dean has signed on there as a commentator. Now, all that cable channel needs is some viewers and Dean can be heard to get even on-air.

Oh, yippee. But this is where is gets good:

The 37-member Democratic Change Commission will be headed by Sen. Claire McCaskill (who likes to Twitter) and Rep. James Clyburn, both ardent Obama backers. And Obama’s ex-campaign manager David Plouffe is also on.

The goal, Kaine says, is “to put voters first and ensure that as many people as possible can participate.” A complete list of commission members is below; scroll down or click on the “Read more” line.

The commission, which grows from a convention resolution by Obama last August, will have three goals: chop the number of superdelegates, reform the caucus system and change “the window of time” for caucuses and primaries. Should Iowa and New Hampshire be worried?

The commission’s report is due by next New Years Day.

I’m sorry, but how are the same people who created the problems we had this past Primary going to REFORM it?? You have my back-stabbing, lying, conniving representative, James Clyburn in there, the one who pushed the meme that the Clinton’s were racist. And DAVID PLOUFFE!!!! The man who orchestrated Obama’s campaign, the one in which he engaged massive caucus fraud, and the above mentioned shenanigans.

This is just great. I wonder how they are going to reform it, exactly? Abolish it completely so Precious can forever on out be the Democratic Nominee?? Having these folks on this committee is a whole lot like having the foxes guard the chicken coop. I am not expecting a whole lot of protecting our votes here since this was the tack Plouffe took during the vote controversy: What we’re interested in is a fair resolution; we don’t think it’s fair to seat them fully,” Plouffe said.

“We’re not going to support something that gives her too many delegates. We all last year played by the rules. It was only after the fact when they needed the delegates that they tried to change the rules. I don’t think you can at the 11th hour change the rules that you try to live by because it benefits you.” But Obama’s stance on the issue, like his opponent’s, has just as much to do with politics as principle; the Obama campaign clearly doesn’t want Clinton to close the delegate gap enough that she can possibly convince enough superdelegates to throw their support her way, or give her a chance to claim a victory in the popular vote.

The One was the one who was trying to change things, but the key statement is the first one, “We’re not going to support something that gives her too many delegates.” Never mind that she WON those delegates with OUR votes. And taking lawfully cast and certified votes from one candidate to give to another is so far from any sense of fairness and decency, that I cannot imagine how someone like David Plouffe is going to “reform” the nominating process. All primaries will now be caucuses with ACORN running them? All voting precincts will be staffed with ACORN members, or Obama Army personnel? Only people whose last name beings with “O” and end in “a” can run? Whatever it it, I think they just may have to remove that pesky word from title - you know the one, “Democratic.”

Here’s the rest of the gang:

Membership of the 2009 Democratic Party Commission on Change:

Co-Chairs: Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri, and Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina.

Members: Jeremy Alters, Florida; Jeff Berman, Washington, D.C; Ashley Bliss, Georgia; State Rep. Dan Blue, North Carolina; Bill Carrick, Los Angeles; Mayor Michael Coleman, Columbus, Ohio; Jeff Forbes, Washington; Joan Garry, New Jersey; Kansas state chairman Larry Gates; Adelita Grijalva, Arizona; Rob Hampshire, Pennsylvania; Ned Helms, New Hampshire.

Also on the commission: Alexis Herman, Virginia; Tribal Chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Teamsters Pres. James Hoffa, Michigan; Roseanne Hope, Minnesota; Nevada state senator Steven Horsford; Suzie LeVine, Seattle; UAW CAP Director Dick Long, Michigan; Andres Lopez, Puerto Rico; Patricia Madrid, New Mexico; Debbie Marquez, Colorado; Illinois state senator Iris Martinez; Jennifer McClellan, Virginia; Montana secretary of State Linda McCulloch.

Also: Iowa attorney general Tim Miller; Minyon Moore, Washington; Sunah Park, Pennsylvania; Plouffe, Washington; Rebecca Prozan, California; James Roosevelt, Jr., Massachusetts; Rep. Linda Sanchez, California; Randi Weingarten, New York; Oregon state chair Meredith Wood Smith; Martin Yeung, South Dakota.

The suit filed by Mr. McCain’s campaign against elections officials states Mr. McCain could lose votes from military members overseas who support the Vietnam War hero.

“There are many military service members and overseas voters who support Senator John McCain for president in the upcoming election and whose right to vote will be denied without relief from this court,” stated the complaint, also filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

The complaint states some Virginia localities did not send absentee ballots to overseas voters at least 45 days before the election, as recommended in 2004 by a congressionally created commission.

Wow. That is just a tad problematic, don’t you think? It is 2008 - surely 4 years is sufficient lead time to make sure that everything is squared away in order to fulfill this recommendation. Just sayin’.

This lawsuit was sparked by one case - see? Making your voice heard DOES matter! Hopefully, anyway. THe article continues:

The complaint cites the specific case of a Marine stationed in Iraq who did not receive his absentee ballot from Arlington County until Oct. 29. It asks that the court order absentee ballots for federal offices sent by Nov. 4 from qualified voters and received by Nov. 14 in the state to be counted.

“The McCain-Palin campaign believes without exception that the servicemen and women on the front line protecting our freedoms deserve every opportunity to make sure their vote counts,” McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.

It was not clear last night when the suit would be heard in court.

“Of course we want to make sure that all the absentee ballots that are coming in from overseas are counted,” Miss Skinner said. “We’ll comply with whatever order the judge gives on that.”

I dunno - I don’t think 10 days is all that long to wait, all things considered, do you? Whether one agrees with the Iraq War (I don’t), the reality is that these people are putting their lives on the line, their lives at home on hold, making sacrifices the enormity of which many of us cannot fathom, including, sadly, the ultimate sacrifice for some. I think the least we can do is allow them to VOTE. THis goes for ALL of our military serving abroad, whether it be Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Germany - wherever it is, our citizens deserve to execute their right in a democracy to cast their vote. Anything less is unacceptable, especially when they are in harm’s way. And especially when people like these two get to vote unimpeded:

Isn’t it weird seeing people go up and hug them? Like they are just anybody else in the neighborhood, not two unrepentant domestic terrorists who want to teach their children?? I wonder - was it from them that Obama learned to be a con man? Ahem.

So, yeah - I don’t think 10 days is too much to ask to allow late absentee ballots from our military, through no fault of their own, to come back in, do you?

Moreover, he made it clear that unlike some of his colleagues in the news business who claim they don’t vote anymore in order that they might stay neutral, he strongly disagreed and made clear that he full well intended to cast his ballot this Tuesday. Furthermore, in this season of the most biased election coverage ever, for any of these guys and gals to profess neutrality is like a horse tryng to profess it doesn’t like hay.

I’d like to thank our NoQ reader, Max, for bringing this video to our attention:

Bob Schieffer discussed the book, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” and that the Nazi’s came to power at the ballot box in an election. He said he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to stay neutral through that vote. He made it clear he felt we, as Americans, have to take a stand.

Mr. Schieffer also points out that you can keep your vote to yourself. Certainly a good idea this election season. He says, ‘tell everyone or no one.’

Over the years it is apparent that Mr. Schieffer certainly respects, and is a fan of John McCain. While Mr. Schieffer did stay neutral in all of his comments in this video as you can see yourself, it was very telling that he basically said the following:

You can vote against someone because you don’t like their attitude and you can vote for someone because you think they are more qualified.

Hmmm. “Attitude.” “Qualified.”

Now I can’t guarantee Mr. Schieffer was urging voters one way or the other, but considering the attributes of each candidate, it was telling that he used these particular words.

I certainly agree with Mr. Schieffer on not staying neutral even though my favorite candidate, Hillary Clinton is no longer in the race. I must step up to the plate and make the most responsible decision I can, electing the most qualified person. Someone with a record that backs up the rhetoric. Someone who offers policies that make sense for our country at this point in time and someone who respects all citizens, regardless of party. Bob Schieffer is right. Voting makes you feel big and strong.

Thanks, Mr. Schieffer. Now everybody — get to that ballot box!

::::::::

OPEN THREAD! CHAT ABOUT WHATEVER YOU WANT (as well as Ani’s fine points above!).

I’m 150% for voter enfranchisement. But, to state the obvious, it is incumbent on voters to make an effort to learn something about the candidate’s experience, qualifications, and policies.

These people were not tricked by clever questioning. The interviewer made an effort to be straightforward in how he posed the questions. So the Obama camp cannot complain about these interviews.

Here is the direct link to this video. It comes from Rootsarama’s YouTube channel. I haven’t had a chance to view more of his videos, but they seem worth a look. If any of you do check them out, please report what you found.

Peniel believes that Obama’s campaign is employing the same tactics they used in the primaries to overwhelm and dominate the caucus states and to intimidate and control how individual caucuses were conducted. Below is a quote from a Cleveland Plain Dealer news story that Peniel e-mailed to me:

From an A.P. story at the Cleveland paper on September 29, 2008:

A federal court has ruled that an Ohio county must allow same-day voting and registration

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio county must allow new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day during a weeklong period that begins Tuesday, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin in Cleveland issued a temporary restraining order forcing Madison County to follow Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s instructions.

… Ohio law requires voters to be registered for at least 30 days before they cast an absentee ballot. Republicans have said Ohio law doesn’t allow same-day registration and voting, and have accused Brunner, a Democrat, of reading a partisan interpretation into law to benefit her own party.

The disputed voting window results from an overlap between Tuesday’s beginning of absentee voting 35 days before Election Day, and the Oct. 6 end of voter registration period.

Obama’s campaign has extensive plans to get college students around the state to register and vote during the window. Other groups, including the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, have plans to drive the homeless, low-income and minority voters to the polls during the window. …

I know the RNC and McCain’s campaign are aware of all of this, and trying to counter it. But what it will take, most of all, is volunteers who are willing to register pro-McCain/Palin voters.

Throngs of volunteers will also be needed to recruit and drive older and elderly disabled voters to the polls (or make sure they receive their absentee ballots).

Every effort imaginable will be needed to counter Obama’s initiatives to register college students and the homeless for same-day registration and voting.

STAY TUNED for more revealing stories on this key concern.

For Immediate Release
September 15, 2008

McCain-Palin 2008 Launches “Honest and Open Election Committee”

ARLINGTON, VA —

The McCain-Palin 2008 campaign today announced the formation of the Honest and Open Election Committee, with a mission to ensure that every qualified citizen has the opportunity to vote in a fair and transparent manner. The committee will work with state and local election officials to anticipate, and where possible resolve in advance, problems likely to arise on Election Day.

The advisory committee will be co-chaired by former United States Senators John C. Danforth and Warren B. Rudman. The committee also includes current and former members of Congress and former state secretaries of state, election officials, and state attorneys general, along with prominent academic experts in election law. The diverse composition of the committee reflects the McCain-Palin campaign’s desire to put partisan politics aside in the hope of seeing a fair and transparent election in November.

The committee will advise the campaign with respect to policy and actual or potential legal proceedings involving the campaign laws and practices in various states working towards avoiding litigation when possible.

This is one of the most important points made in the press release.

“The purpose of the Honest and Open Election Committee is to resolve potential voting problems in advance of Election Day to bolster voters’ confidence in the system,” said Rudman. “We believe that elections should be decided by voters, not lawyers.”

The Honest and Open Election Committee requested a dialogue between the McCain-Palin campaign and both the Democratic National Committee and the Obama-Biden campaign in letters sent today.

“We stand ready to work with you in a cooperative manner on issues that, if not handled properly, are likely to become adversarial,” the letter states. “Let’s show the American people that our two parties can together develop a transparent and open process in every voting place in the country. Experience has shown that careful, advance planning that anticipates and addresses problems and creates solutions can substantially reduce issues on Election Day.”

In light of evidence of voter fraud in Michigan, the following is very important; and I will not let my guard down for one minute because ACORN keeps rearing its “ugly head”.

In an effort to discuss these issues with the top election officials in each state, the McCain-Palin election committee sent those officials a letter offering assistance. The McCain-Palin election committee also launched a website at www.johnmccain.com/honest.

“Our committee will assist election officials across the country to make sure that federal and state voting regulations are understood and upheld. It is a reflection of the campaign’s commitment to tackling tough problems in a bi-partisan manner,” Danforth said.

Honest and Open Election Committee Members.

MEMBERS OF THE HONEST AND OPEN ELECTION COMMITTEE

John C. Danforth, Co-Chair–Former U.S. Senator; currently, Partner, Bryan Cave LLP; former Missouri Attorney General; former Ambassador to the United Nations

Warren B. Rudman, Co-Chair–Former U.S. Senator; currently, Co-Chairman, Stonebridge International LLC; Of Counsel, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; Co-Chair, Concord Coalition; former New Hampshire Attorney General; former Chair, Senate Ethics Committee

John F. Bibby–Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Brigida Benitez–Partner, WilmerHale; Co-Chair, Leadership Council of the Hispanic Bar Association; Director, Women’s Bar Association; Past President, Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia

Lovida H. Coleman, Jr.–Partner, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP; former law clerk, Judge Wilfred Feinberg, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit; Election Observer in Pakistan, Haiti, and Chile; former Trustee, Rand Corporation

Tom Davis–U.S. House of Representatives; Ranking Member, House Government Reform and Oversight Committee; former Chairman, Board of Supervisors, Fairfax County

Rita DiMartino–Former Principal U.S. Delegate, Inter-American Commission of Women; National Commission on Electoral Reform; Board Chairman Emeritus, National Council of La Raza

Charles Fried–Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; former Solicitor General of the U.S.; former Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Jack Goldsmith–Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; former Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice

Bill Jones–Board Chairman and Director, Pacific Ethanol, Inc.; former California Secretary of State; former California state legislator

Daniel Hays Lowenstein–Professor of Law, UCLA; founding Chair, California Fair Political Practices Commission; former Board Member, Common Cause; former redistricting counsel for California Democratic Congressional Delegation; author of first American textbook on election law; Co-Editor, Election Law Journal

Ronald D. Michaelson–Visiting Professor, University of Illinois at Springfield; Board Member, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform; former Executive Director, Illinois State Board of Elections; former Advisory Committee, Federal Election Commission; former Chair, Council on Governmental Ethics Laws

Susan Molinari–Senior Principal, Bracewell-Guiliani (effective October 6); Co-Chair, We Vote ‘08; former Member U.S. House of Representatives

Ralph Munro–Director, The Prepared Response Company; former Washington Secretary of State; Member, Carter Baker Commission on Election Reforms; former President, National Association of Secretaries of State

Sandra Schultz Newman–Shareholder and Chair, National Appellate Practice Group, Cozen O’Connor; former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice; former judge on state Commonwealth Court; former Montgomery County (PA) Assistant District Attorney; Chairman, Fair Vote Committee in Pennsylvania

Robert Parker–Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

James Petro–Partner, Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley; former Ohio Attorney General

Cameron P. Quinn–Adjunct Professor, George Mason School of Law; former Secretary, Virginia State Board of Elections

Daniel B. Rodriguez–Professor of Law, University of Texas Law School at Austin; former Dean, University of San Diego School of Law; former Professor, University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law

Larry D. Thompson–Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, General Counsel, and Secretary, PepsiCo, Inc.; former Deputy Attorney General; former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia; former Independent Counsel

Richard Williamson–Partner, Winston & Strawn; former Assistant Secretary of State; former Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations

For more information about the Honest and Open Election Committee, please send your request to honestelection@mccain08hq.com, or visit the Web site at www.johnmccain.com/honest.

Then there are his minions hacking pro-Hillary, or anti-Obama, or pro-McCain, or pro- THINKING sites over the weekend, taking them down. There is LEGAL evidence tracing ISP addresses back to HIS campaign. Now, tell me again how he is not like Bush?? “You’re either with me or agin me!” And NOW do you understand why he voted FOR FISA?? His claims of being a Constitutional Scholar ring false in the evidence of his clear and utter disregard of, and contempt FOR, the US Constitution. Wow - who needs protected speech? I guess WE don’t, especially if Obama gets in the White House, because we sure aren’t gonna have any! Good grief.

I got a comment today about how I HAVE to vote for Obama, or else risk having a THIRD Bush presidency. See, here’s the thing: the way Obama has changed his policies in just the past month, his platform is pretty much the same as McCain’s!!! Now, I have said a gazillion times (for those of you keeping score) that I have no plans to vote for McCain. Now. But really - if the SuperDelegates don’t wise up to this sanctimonious, duplicitous, back-stabbing, lying, cheating, arrogant, sexist, and pick the best candidate (that would be HRC) who knows WHAT I will do come November?

Especially when you consider the following story I saw today on AOL:

Hillary and The Other Woman By David Knowles (Aug 4th 2008 10:05AM).

Yes,that is really what he wrote as his title. Anyway, since many of you (wisely) do not have AOL, I will include the entire article here:

Hillary Clinton is a pioneer. The first credible female candidate for president of the United States, she came tantalizingly close to securing her party’s nomination, and will forever command the respect of millions of supporters across the country. For many of them, the prospect of Hillary being named vice president is tantamount to an insult — a hollow consolation prize, beneath the dignity of a rightful nominee. To others, the VP is the least that Barack Obama can do, especially if he wants to secure their allegiance in the fall.

That sentiment was expressed in a recent article at Politico:

Marcia Pappas, who heads the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women, believes that Clinton supporters “would be outraged to know she was not given the right of first refusal.”

“She is the only woman in history who has ever garnered this much support,” Pappas continued. “She is the only woman in history who was able to raise the kind of money one would need to run a presidential campaign.”

Truly, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And while Pappas is right about the many achievements of Clinton’s historic campaign, the hope is that Hillary has not blazed a trail only for herself, but one for all women to walk. Put another way, because Hillary has represented the best chance so far to see a woman become commander-in-chief, has she opened a door for other women to walk through, or simply reserved her own place at the front of the line?

The “next time around” argument is always difficult to swallow, no matter the cause. That’s especially true for many Clinton supporters because of how close she came. And though close only really counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, there’s something of a perfect storm brewing in the minds of many women who sense that Obama is about add yet another man to what has become a familiar one-two punch (except for Geraldine Ferraro) of male tickets.

What, then, if Obama chose a woman, but one that wasn’t Hillary Clinton? It is no secret that the other woman in question is Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a short-list survivor. Would the addition of a non-Hillary female help take the edge off the “Dream Ticket” hangover? According to Slate’s Christopher Beam, the answer from Hillary Nation is no:

It’s easy to see the logic for tapping Sebelius. Hillary Clinton put 18 million cracks in the biggest glass ceiling, as she told us in her concession speech. Why should it matter which woman shatters it? If anything, picking a woman other than Clinton reinforces the point that any woman can make it to the top. But selecting Sebelius could backfire big time.

The biggest objection, as voiced by Pappas: Hillary has earned her place on the ticket. On the other hand, adding Sebelius, a most qualified candidate for the job, to the ticket does affirm one principle that Hillary made so glaringly obvious: that women are up to the task. While there is certainly a segment of the population that did not vote for Hillary because she is a woman (just as a small percentage won’t vote for Obama because he is black), there are also many voters who love the idea of women in the highest offices in our land, but who simply did not want that particular woman.

In the coming days, the suspense will be over. The ramifications of Obama’s choice, however, are sure to linger.

SEBELIUS???? And she is SO qualified HOW, exactly?? Maybe he didn’t see her response to The State of the Union this year. It was the most boring bland speech IO have ever seen, delivered in the most boring bland manner. If Obama does pick her, I can see why: she will not upstage him one little bit. But she is NOT on a par with Hillary Clinton in no way, shape, or form!!

Grrr. You know, I was thinking that since Obama has floated some Republicans’ names up for VP to try to get the crossover vote, maybe McCain should consider Hillary Clinton as his VP. He has already said he has great respect for her, and has TREATED her respectfully (not just WORDS!). She has proven she can work across party lines. She IS a hard worker. And, frankly, since McCain is pretty experienced himself, she would not be seen as his handmaiden, or as much of an insult to her. She would still have have the (D) after her name - though after the way the DNC has treated her, I so NOT know why, bunch of backstabbers - and she could run as the Democratic candidate in 2012. I dunno, just a thought that came to me yesterday. I haven’t thought through all of the ramifications yet, but what do y’all think?

What I DO know is that Obama will be horrible for this country should he get to the White House by hook and by crook. I do not think McCain will be all that much better in terms of policies, but he does not seem as nefarious as Obama and AxelRove. Scares the crap out of me…

So - now that Obama has shown even MORE of his underhanded, diabolical plans, surely, SURELY, there are some SDs out there who still have a backbone, and a love for DEMOCRACY?!?!?! Right??

First, they didn’t meet their lofty goals for June. Surprise!

And the DNC has been tanking financially since the last quarter of last year. Surprise!

Do you think they have guessed why? Could it be that all those “downscale” Clinton supporters did more for the DNC and its candidates than they care to admit? Regret. It’s what’s for dinner on Howard, Nancy and Donna’s plate. It’s just too bad they are only having “health food” at the convention. Otherwise, Let Them Eat Cake would apply here. But never mind. Like Donna said, they don’t need us. Right?

We promise to give you what you asked for, Donna–except for the part where you suggested we all “stay home” on election day. Sorry, we can’t help you there. We are all going to vote. Yes We Can! Seriously, if I were you DNC Stalinists, I would really start to worry that the DNC/RNC comparison chart below is a reflection of what November 4th’s voting tally will look like. You can bet that millions of us will do all we can to make your nightmare your reality.

Here, we see the Obama Camp and the DNC begging for pennies. I love poetic justice, don’t you? Check out the charts and make sure you aren’t drinking any liquids because you will mess up your screen from laughing. I know you are all crying the world’s smallest river and playing the world’s smallest violin for them.

Plouffe is right about one thing….”The calvary[sic,duh] doesn’t exist”. Well, not really. The Cavalry exists, it’s just not buying into Obama’s crap. Millions of them are “Hos,” you know what I mean Barky, wink wink?

Karma’s a bitch that way. I’m so glad I have a screen shot, because we all know that Obama has plucked Winston straight out of 1984 to do the Scrubbing for him.

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/stepup?source=20080714_PV_ND_B-STCO

According to CNN, 2,867,454 votes were cast in the primary - 51% (1,458,814) for Senator Hillary Clinton and 47% (1,358,785) for Senator Barack Obama, and a smattering of votes (49,855) for John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd combined.  In the Texas caucus 42,538 votes were reported.  Obama got 56% (23,918) and Clinton got 44% (18,620) of these votes.  Caucus voters were required to have voted in their precinct.  Consequently, caucus voters were a statistical subset of primary voters, but they did not vote the same way.

 Comparing the Texas primary to the Texas caucus has some unique challenges.  During the primary other candidates besides Clinton and Obama were on the ballot.  To equalize the percentages, the ballots cast for Edwards, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd were eliminated and Clinton’s and Obama’s percentages recomputed assuming the eliminated voters would split their votes in the same proportion as the rest of the electorate.  The recomputed percentages are Clinton 52% and Obama 48%.

 Clinton’s adjusted percentage of 52% of the primary vote is 8% points higher than her 44% in the caucus vote. Clinton moved from a four point win to a twelve point loss, a sixteen point shift.  Obama gained these eight percentage points moving from 48% in the primary to 56% in the caucuses.  

This statistically significant sixteen point difference is “the caucus factor,” a major factor in the Democratic presidential primary.  The existence of a caucus factor poses three important questions.  What accounts for the dramatic difference between the two results?  Was the “caucus factor” present in the other caucus states?  What do these results imply regarding the validity of other caucus results?
 
 No one doubts the accuracy of the almost three million Texas voters who selected Hillary Clinton as their choice for the Democratic nominee — but then why wouldn’t the caucus voters, a sample of the primary voters, make the same selection.  

The simplest explanation is that caucus voters are a sample of primary voters but not a random sample of primary voters.  Caucuses are held in the evening and take several hours.  Senator Clinton’s core voting groups, (senior citizens, shift workers, women, and women with children) are less likely to attend caucuses.  Senior citizens are less likely to go out at night, have difficulty driving in the dark, and go to bed earlier.  Mothers with young children are too busy in the evenings to spend several hours at a caucus.  And some people don’t go to caucuses because of the public nature of the declaration.  Voting is a private event, only you and God know who you voted for.  At a caucus a voter must publically declare for their candidate and resist influencing by the opponents supporters.  
 

Another factor that contributed to the Texas caucus factor was the less regulated nature of the caucuses.  Participants in the Texas caucus complained about the lack of validation of identity, undo influencing, and individuals signing several names on the caucus sheets.   How much these violations occurred and how much these violations impacted the results and in which direction is impossible to determine.

 Finally, Democratic insiders will say that success at a caucus depends on organization.  Did the Obama Campaign just out organize the Clinton campaign which contributed to their success in the Texas Caucus?

 On February 9, Washington State caucused to determine the distribution of the pledged delegates.   Obama won 21,629 to 9,992 votes or 68% to 31% and received 53 of the 78 pledged delegates.  Ten days later Washington State had a primary election in which no delegates were awarded yet 669,856 people chose to vote in this beauty contest.  Obama won this contest by 51% (354,112 votes) to 46% (315,744 votes).  How could Obama win by 37 points in a caucus and only 5 points in the primary, a 32-point difference?  The caucus factor is at work again.  Which result accurately reflects the will of the voters? Over twenty times the number of people participated in primary, should we trust the masses or the sanctioned election?  

 Further proof of the caucus factor can be shown by contrasting the difference between the results of the caucuses and the primaries collectively.  Fourteen states had caucuses — Senator Obama won thirteen of these caucuses.  The probability of that occurring in hotly contested race where popular vote is a statistical tie, is a statistical impossibility if the caucuses were a true representation of the voters.  In the states where primary elections were held, Senator Clinton has won 19 primaries and Senator Obama has won 17 primaries, reflecting the close nature of the Democratic Primary race.
 
 The difference between the margin of victory during caucuses and primaries again illustrates the inaccurate nature of the caucuses.  The average point spread in the 13 caucuses Obama won is 32 points.  The average of the point spread in the 17 primaries Obama won, is 21 points.  This eleven point difference is the caucus factor.

 The results in Texas, Washington, the number of caucuses won by Obama, and difference between the average margin of victory in the caucuses and primaries, all point to the existence of the caucus factor.  The variability of the results of the caucus returns also points to the unreliability of the caucus results.  Senator Clinton won two primaries in demographically similar states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, by the same ten point margin.   Yet when caucus results in similar states are compared, the disparity of the results is profound.  Obama won Idaho by 62 points and the demographically similar Wyoming by 23 points.  If the caucus results were reliable, the results of these two similar states would not be so disparate.

 Voters who participated in the caucuses had more influence in the election than voters in primaries.   In California, 4,677,788 votes were cast and 363 delegates were awarded.  In New York, 232 delegates were pledged in a primary that had 1,748,833 votes cast.  In Alaska a total of 405 persons “caucused” for 13 pledged delegates.  A person who participated in the Alaska Caucus had 242 times more influence in the Democratic Primary than a voter in the New York primary and 415 times more influence than a voter in the California primary.  With so few voters accounting for delegate selection in caucus states, results and delegate totals can be easily influenced and manipulated.

 The caucus factor is a real statistical event which inflated Obama’s lead over Clinton and misrepresented the will of the people. If all the caucus states had primaries, Obama’s margin of victory in those caucus states would have been smaller and most likely Clinton would have won some of the caucus states.  The Democratic Primary was extremely close and questions should be raised regarding the validity and reliability of the caucus results.  

Unfortunately, a win in a caucus state was given the same weight as a win in a state with a primary election, allowing Obama supporters to claim, “He’s won more states,” even though Clinton won more primaries.  

Even more disturbing is the fact that of the 14 Caucus States, eight are Dark Red states.  The Democrats have allowed the Red States like Wyoming, Nebraska, Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, Colorado and Nevada select their Democratic Nominee.  

This will result in certain disaster in the fall.

– Lynette Long
 
BIO: Dr. Lynette Long is a licensed psychologist practicing in Bethesda, Maryland.  She is the author of twenty books including fourteen math books.  Dr. Long has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and was the host of One on One with Dr. Lynette Long.  She recently published Op-Ed’s in both USA Today and the Baltimore Sun about the current election cycle. Her blog is LynetteLong.com.

Watch the trailer of John Wellington Ennis’ new film, Free For All here. Then click on the link below to watch the entire film for free.

FREE FOR ALL! One Dude’s Quest to Save Democracy was aptly released on July 4, 2008. If you think we’ve just experienced caucus fraud, this beautifully produced film will remind you that we’ve got more big fish to fry.

The film hearkens back to the 2000 and 2004 election nightmares. Diebold voter machines were supposed to fix any leftover 2000 hanging-chad problems. However, leading up to the election, there were many warnings and red flags that the “fix” was in the machines, in that they were easily hackable, and the company’s neutrality was questionable. A simple retrospective statement by Sen. Robert Hagen (D-Ohio) describes his Diebold voting encounter:

It was one of the first times you got to press using the electronic voting machine. When I pressed Kerry, it went over to Bush.

The film explores the 2000 and 2004 elections, including: the Ohio and Florida debacles, missing ballot boxes, veracity of exit polls, illegal purge of voter rolls, restrictions to, and misinformation about, election day voter sign-in, and much, much more. In conclusion, the filmmaker opines:

“If Democracy isn’t free for all, then it’s not free for me.”

Watch the film. What do you think? Is Democracy Free For All, or a free for all? It’s in our hands . . . or is it?

Hillary is poised to be one of the greatest presidents in the history of this nation — and we will not let anything stop her from realizing, for us and for her, the job she can do better than anyone else in the entire nation. She may be the 45th president, if not the 44th. And please donate tonight: with .44. It will LIFT Hillary’s heart, and steel the resolve of her exceptional team of FIGHTERS!

Today’s results are a victory for the people of Florida who will have a voice in selecting our Party’s nominee and will see its delegates seated at our party’s convention. The decision by the Rules and Bylaws Committee honors the votes that were cast by the people of Florida and allocates the delegates accordingly.

We strongly object to the Committee’s decision to undercut its own rules in seating Michigan’s delegates without reflecting the votes of the people of Michigan.

The Committee awarded to Senator Obama not only the delegates won by Uncommitted, but four of the delegates won by Senator Clinton. This decision violates the bedrock principles of our democracy and our Party.

We reserve the right to challenge this decision before the Credentials Committee and appeal for a fair allocation of Michigan’s delegates that actually reflect the votes as they were cast.

Jake Tapper has the story:

There was a tornado watch outside the Democratic National Committee’s Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting at the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel Saturday afternoon. And there was a brewing storm inside the hotel as well.

A group of public officials — allies of both Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama — walked out of the hearing room to discuss their willingness to come together on a plan to seat all their delegates, each voting at half-delegate status, but representatives of the Clinton campaign from outside Florida interrupted their press conference to dispute the idea that the Clinton campaign agreed with the plan.

The "Florida unity" group, which included Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, a Clinton supporter, Rep. Bob Wexler, D-Florida, am Obama supporter, and Florida Democratic National Committee member Jon Ausman of Tallahassee, who filed a challenge to the DNC’s decision to not recognize any of Florida’s delegates.

They seemed to come around the idea that for now the DNC would agree to seat Florida’s entire 211-member delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August, though all the delegates — pledged and superdelegates — would have their vote count as half a delegate. The move would net Clinton 19 pledged delegates. Participants seemed to agree that the door was open to the eventual Democratic nominee seating them at full strength if he or she so chose.

Clinton campaign surrogate Lanny Davis stood outside the circle and interrupted, raising his voice in protest that the Clinton campaign had agreed to anything less than a 100% seating of the delegates at 100% of their strength.

Nelson noted that he was speaking "on behalf of the voters of Florida," not on behalf of the Clinton campaign.

"They’re misrepresenting our stance," Davis said repeatedly.

Then Arthenia L. Joyner, Clinton’s designated Florida representative, approached the circle.

"The campaign is only for 100%," Joyner said.

Davis and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, a fiery supporter of Sen. Clinton’s, exchanged some heated words with Ausman after the Florida DNC member suggested they had no business speaking.

Davis took issue with some from the Florida unity group saying the Obama campaign’s concession was "generous" since Clinton would net 19 delegates.

"That is not generous when they take away 50%," Davis said. "That is spin!"

What’s wrong with netting 19 delegates? "It’s 19 less than the people of Florida voted," Davis said.

This was more than Florida DNC member Ausman could apparently take. "I can say they’re being generous," Ausman said of the Obama campaign, "and I’m the one who filed the petition."

"Are you a paid staff member for Clinton?" Ausman asked Davis.

"Actually I’m just a friend," said Davis.

"Are you a designated representative of the Clinton campaign?" Ausman, who may be a foot taller than Davis, asked.

"I am not," Davis said.

"Why don’t you let the designated representative speak for Clinton and you be silent?" Ausman said, more a statement than a question. "Are you from Florida?"

"Why don’t you go about your business?" Jones asked Ausman.

"As a matter of fact I will not be silent," Davis said, "you’re not going to silence me."

"You had your interview," interjected Jones. "Why don’t you let someone else be interviewed? I am the designated representative for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. My name is Stephanie Tubbs Jones and I represent the great state of Ohio.

"We don’t expect that the Obama campaign will be so ‘generous’ as to ‘give’ us the 19 delegates," Jones continued. "It is in fact more generous and more appropriate to count all the votes as they were cast."