Brad said "after a ... dispiriting week" to which I say amen. We were let down by many democrats and republicans this week. But the dems who caved in and voted to own the Iraq death, horror, maiming, and insult to world peace really disappointed me. How sick.

Oh well, at least I can say that this blog is one place that has not let down people who would rather see a more decent United States than what we have.

The democrats could have made it a better place, but it was war worship week and so they have prepared their prayers and offerings to the god of war.

Disappointing, sad, horrid, and unexcusable IMO.

Keep up the good work Brad and fellow posters. Keep doing the decent things.

ELECTION DECEPTION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjFHNfKWkCs

Dredd, the fascists want to wear US down. The only real news has to come from a comedian. Bush decided that if WE have a national emergency and The House and The SENATE are totally wiped out....He makes all the decisions Buddy. He is making veiled threats all over the place now. Was watching CSpan last week. The House was debating whether to sue OPEC. A Fla. Rep. said"Just got a statement from the WH. The president will vetoe this bill. He spells president present...guess they don't use spell check." Prez. speedin' again, missing those all important syllables.Not even news anymore when he slurs his words and is high, high high on the tee vee.

Molly #3 said "The only real news has to come from a comedian."

Here is my offering in that department:

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had to reconvene the U.N. Security Council and rerun a meeting on Friday after reading the wrong statement on Sudan, effectively wiping an entire council session out of history.

(Reuters, emphasis mine).

Can you imagine sitting in a meeting while this guy talks about policy that was abandoned already?

Imagine his voice inflection, emphasis, smiles, hand gestures, and all that.

Then imagine why it was someone else that had to remind him he was reading last weeks newspaper as if it was breaking news!

Let me give a short overview to the problem we encountered. When you came down to the ROV during early voting you were asked if you wanted to vote on a paper Ballot or on a touchscreen. If you requested paper you were handed a Paper Ballot Advisory prior to voting which stated,

Paper Ballot Advisory
Applicable Code(s) HAVA, CAC20100

State and Federal Law require a warning to voters that by choosing to cast a paper ballot you are at risk of over- or undervoting.

Overvote: Marking more than the maximum number of candidates allowed in a single contest will result in no votes being counted in that contest.

Undervote: Marking fewer than the number of candidates allowed in a single contest will result in fewer votes being counted. Review your ballot to ensure that you have no inadvertently missed contests for which you are eligible to vote.

If you incorrectly mark or mutilate the ballot, you may request a new ballot from the election official.

SAVE felt the advisory was intimidating, especially being given prior to voting on paper and complained. We were met with some resistance to our complaint, but with some perseverance SAVE was able to convince the ROV and they modified the advisory to include only the definitions of over and undervoting and to the posting of this in the polling booth, no longer handing it out prior to voting.

Well I have never been a fan of DRE voting, but it wasn't until 2000 that I began to wonder about the implications of fraud using these machines and becoming a serious concern in 2002. However, what could I do? Then came along Peter and the Peter B Collins show on KRXA 540 here in Monterey. Peter then started to host Brad on the Friday show and I was introduced to a new world in which we could take back our vote. I was introduced to blackboxvoting.org, votersunite.org and through this I actually found out that there was a voting integrity group right here in my own back yard called SAVElections Monterey County and I hooked up with this fine group of concerned citizens. Our small victory here in Monterey was not just me but a collection of people who care about our right to Secure, Accessible, Verifiable Elections(SAVE)and to have our vote recorded as cast on a Paper Ballot and to have that ballot as the vote of record! SAVElections Monterey County is working hard to bring about the elimination of DRE voting here in MC with an ultimate goal to return to Hand Counted Paper Ballots.
Thanks to Peter B, Brad and the rest of the voting integrity community!
Chris Bryan
SAVElections Monterey County
Main Contact, Valerie;
myvotematters@yahoo.com
Or me
cbsavelections@earthlink.net

Chris - Thanks for all.

And I should also add, that the HAVA section, ostensibly used to justify acting Monterey County Registrar Claudio Valenzuala's warning, says nothing about warnings for undervotes, which folks choose to do routinely. It also requires education, not intimidation as Valenzuela was clearly doing here (which fits his previous pattern, btw, of being less than interested in serving the needs of voters. See this previous article from last November outlining his atrocious behavior).

The provision in HAVA that he's using for his intimidation is Sec. 301 which reads as follows:

(B) A State or jurisdiction that uses a paper ballot voting system, a punch card voting system, or a central count voting system (including mail-in absentee ballots and mail-in ballots), may meet the requirements of subparagraph (A)(iii) by--

(i) establishing a voter education program specific to that voting system that notifies each voter of the effect of casting multiple votes for an office; and

(ii) providing the voter with instructions on how to correct the ballot before it is cast and counted (including instructions on how to correct the error through the issuance of a replacement ballot if the voter was otherwise unable to change the ballot or correct any error).

As you can see, there's nothing in there about either "undervoting" or scaring the shit out of voters who wish to use paper ballots.

Thanks again, Chris, for your heroic work!

As we vote rap meanwhile another thousand american soldiers are admittedly dead, 424,000 more health care system "friendly fire" americans are dead, and countless Iraqi folk are dead (a million?).

When we stop worshipping death and its boss the god of war, we will head in the direction of peace.

correcting link in post #7: "thousand american soldiers"

Dred,
You hijack a topic about a voting issue and then knock those who are talking about the actual issue? Geez! If we repair our voting system then we can kick those Neo-Cons and DLC Dems out of office!

Chris #9 (its Dredd not Dred)

I don't interpret this thread to be a one subject thread about voting.

Brad said:

we covered a few things ... That story --- and much else of what we chatted about on the show

Plural indicates more than one thing. And Brad specifically indicated he had a dispirited week. So, there are several things to talk about.

Not just you.

PS, I did not knock anyone, especially "those who are talking about the actual issue".

I support your good efforts on voting issues, its just that I like to maintain a comprehensive political grasp of that subject, and this is why I sum it up like this:

Jack and Jill went up the hill
each had a dollar and a quarter
Jill came back with two and a half
Do you think they went up for water?

:)

What is to be done about government officials creating laws intended to disenfranchise and otherwise limit participation in the voting process, as Blackwell did in Ohio, that they know will be struck down by the court, but not until after the votes are counted, and the election certified?

There should be some time limit, prior to an election, that government officials can play games with the laws to favor one political party over another, probably dependent upon the new rules being reviewed by the court before they are sanctioned and not after.

There is a problem in our society, but in the law especially, that permits legal professionals to behave unethically or to introduce unethical applications of the law in order to commit fraud, as long as it is not illegal. Are we to presume that ethics no longer play a role in the voting process, in particular, and in our society in general?