How surprising. An entire thread and EVERY example is of Republican efforts to suppress votes. No mention of any attempts by Democrats.
Truth hurts. Seriously, it's conventional wisdom that higher turnout = better for democrats (though some may queston that after 2004) so I don't see why you think its unusual that Republicans (who are generally in power as well) are more likely to engage in efforts to suppress turnout than demos would be. I'm sure if circumstances were different, roles woudl be reveresed, but it doesn't mean that it's right, justified, or not happening.
Conventional wisdom also said that there would be a higher voter turnout among college students in the last election. That didn't turn out to be true. I generally don't trust conventional wisdom. Democrats have proven in the past that they're just as engaged in preventing Republican voters from reaching the polls. They probably won't have to this mid-term because there's a lot of Republican voters that are probably going to stay home this election, anyway. I just find it odd that some people honestly think that their side is less likely to engage in these activities than the other. Politics is all about gaining/keeping power and both sides will do whatever they can to get it.
It doesn't matter if you don't believe it, Republican political types do, and, being incumbents, in many parts of the country they are in a position to suppress votes - accordingly you will see more examples of them doing it.
This is as non-partisan as Bush's 9-11 speech... see what I wrote at the top... If you've got something that the Dems have done, bring it.
September 26, 2006 Senators Propose Funds for Paper Ballots to Back Up Electronic Ones By IAN URBINA NYTIMES WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Two Senate Democrats proposed emergency legislation today to reimburse states for printing paper ballots that can be ready at polling places in case of problems with electronic voting machines on Nov. 7. The proposal is a response to grass-roots pressure and growing concern by local and state officials about touch-screen machines. An estimated 40 percent of voters will use those machines in the election. “If someone asks for a paper ballot they ought to be able to have it,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a co-sponsor of the measure with Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. Republican leadership aides were skeptical about the prospects for the measure. It would have to advance without opposition from any senator and then make it through the House in the short time available before Election Day. Dozens of states are using optical-scan and touch-screen machines to comply with federal laws intended to phase out lever and punch-card machines after the hanging-chads confusion of the 2000 presidential election. Widespread problems were reported with the new technology and among poll workers using the machines this year in primaries in Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and elsewhere. Local and state officials have expressed concern that the new systems might not be ready to handle increased turnouts. Election experts fear that the lack of a paper trail with most touch-screen machines will leave no way to verify votes in case of fraud or computer failure. Last week, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland, a Republican, joined the skeptics, saying he lacked confidence in his state’s new $106 million electronic system and suggesting that state officials offer all voters paper ballots as an alternative. The proposed federal bill would provide 75 cents for each backup paper ballot that local officials print. If ballots are printed for half the 27 million voters expected to use touch-screen machines, Ms. Boxer said, her bill would cost Washington no more than $10.1 million. Barbara Burt, vice president and director of election reform programs at Common Cause, a good-governance advocacy group, said that the bill would have been stronger if it had required precincts to provide paper ballots in federal elections, but that it was a step in the right direction. “Lack of funding has been the main excuse that local election officials have used to avoid implementing paper precautions,” Ms. Burt said. “This takes that excuse away from them entirely.” Ms. Boxer said ordering paper ballots in all elections would have been impractical. “I think Big Brother dictating something to local jurisdictions is a big mistake, because they will balk at it,” she said. “What we’re saying here is that you run your own elections, and we are going to help you run it properly. If local officials don’t take advantage of the option to take precautions, then they’re the ones on the line.” Brad Friedman, a liberal blogger and longtime critic of electronic voting, said that incentives to print paper ballots would help, but that without a federal mandate some voters would still have no choice but to use touch-screens. On Thursday, the Committee on House Administration, which has a role in overseeing election procedures, will hold a hearing on whether to require that all voting equipment produce a paper record that lets voters verify how they voted. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/w...=1159329600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
Yes! Yes it is too late. For 2001 But every candidate up for election should be hammered about this issue! "Are you for validating every vote made in America and if you're not for this bill why?" Every candidate should be made to answer that question. It’s an issue that will tell you a lot about that candidate.
Study: Voting machines can be hacked on Election Day, votes stolen The federal government confronts what could be attempts to rig the congressional elections in November. A new study reported that researchers were able to hack one of the most widely used voting machines in the United States. The researchers asserted that the machine could be hacked within four minutes using $12 worth of tools. "By planting a virus far enough in advance, [a hacker] can ensure that a significant number of machines can steal votes on Election Day," the report by Princeton University said. The report comes after the House has been warned of the vulnerability of U.S. voting machines and the prospect that the vote-count could be hampered in the forthcoming elections. Congress has failed to approve legislation that would require a paper trail for independent vote verification. Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy asserted that hackers could break into voting systems and either destroy them or rig their results. A university team reported the development of what it termed simple software virus to rig the Diebold AccuVote-TS, one of the most widely used voting machines in the United States. http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Elections.htm
GASP! there "COULD" be an "ATTEMPT?" my son COULD ATTEMPT to use the potty in the actual toilet tomorrow morning. not sure that's front page news, except on the daddy blogs...
Fox does it again. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Fox_mislabels_Chafee_challenger_as_well_1009.html
So is the position you are arguing is that we should ignore the potential for fraud, until after it happens(should it happen)?
This is bad on so many levels... ___________ Republican Group Chides Democrats With Abortion Ads Aim Is To Win Minority Voters, But Democrats Cry Foul BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun October 17, 2006 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/41648 A little-known Republican group that claims to have swayed the 2004 presidential election with provocative radio advertising aimed at black and Hispanic audiences is spending nearly $1 million this year to boost the GOP's chances of holding on to a majority in Congress. The group, America's Pac, began running ads last month in more than two dozen congressional districts.The campaign discusses issues ranging from warrantless wiretapping to school choice, but the most inflammatory spots pertain to abortion. "Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies," a female announcer in one of the ads says, as rain, thunder, and a crying infant are heard in the background. "The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual's right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote.Why don't they want our lives?" Another ad features a dialogue between two men. "If you make a little mistake with one of your ‘hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked," one of the men says. "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed," the other replies. "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican," the first man says. Another spot attempts to link Democrats to a white supremacist who served as a Republican in the Louisiana Legislature, David Duke.The ad makes reference to Duke's trip to Syria last year, where he spoke at an anti-war rally. "I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists,"a male voice in the ad says. "What I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke." In one of the communities where the ads are running, South Bend, Ind.,some blacks were outraged. "They're awful.They're repulsive," a Democratic activist and community leader in South Bend, Gladys Muhammad, said. "When they say Democrats don't like black babies, that's damn fools.They're very insensitive." "This is so dirty, but it works," a sociology professor at Indiana University, Johnnie Griffin, said. "These are race ads. It's incredible." While Ms. Griffin said she felt insulted by the ads, she also said a student in her class reported that a relative was thinking of switching to the Republican Party because of them. "Black people are more conservative than anybody thinks. We do have strong family values that people don't seem to stress as much," the professor said. Ms. Griffin said a community meeting is planned for Friday to discuss the ad campaign. The key financial backer of America's Pac is J. Patrick Rooney, 78, of Indianapolis. Mr. Rooney, a strong proponent of school choice scholarship programs, retired in 1996 as chairman of Golden Rule Insurance. The company was sold to larger insurer, United-Health Group, in 2003 for a reported $893 million. According to a report filed with the Internal Revenue Service, a company reportedly tied to Mr. Rooney, Woodland Group LLC, gave $900,000 to America's PAC earlier this year. Other donors chipped in about $32,000. Mr. Rooney declined to be interviewed yesterday. The group referred calls from The New York Sun to a conservative, African-American talk show host who voiced some of the ads, Herman Cain. "The main thing that America's Pac is up to is it basically is challenging the thesis or the belief on the part of the Republican Party that they cannot attract the black vote," Mr. Cain said. He said similar advertisements run in 2004 helped boost President Bush's share of the black vote in Ohio to 16%, from 9% in 2000. "We don't believe that was an accident," Mr. Cain said. The IRS filing indicates that the ads are running this year in 10 battleground states, including Ohio, New Mexico, and Nevada. Mr. Cain, who once managed the Godfather's Pizza chain and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from Georgia in 2004, said he was not troubled that Mr. Rooney, who is white, is funding ads using black voices who claim to speak on behalf of the black community."You don't have a lot of black billionaires who would want to fund something like this," he said. America's Pac is the brainchild of a Kansas-based Republican consultant, Richard Nadler.He said Sunday that he is no longer affiliated with the group. "Mr. Nadler is the genius.We basically follow his game plan," the group's new chief, Thomas Donelson of Marion, Iowa, said. In 2000, Mr. Nadler came under fire for a school choice-related ad in which parents said their son's violenceridden public school "was a bit more diversity than he could handle." Mr. Bush's campaign denounced the ad as "inappropriate," and the Republican National Committee called it "racist or race-baiting in intent." A Republican Party spokeswoman, Tara Wall, disputed Mr. Cain's claim that the party has not tried to enlist African-Americans. "Our outreach efforts have been and are a long-term effort,"she said."We've spent millions on black outreach alone this cycle." A New York investment banker who gave $10,000 to America's Pac last month, Peter Flanigan, told the Sun that he found the language in some of the abortion-related ads "a little strong." "If it were me, I wouldn't have put the abortion one in those words," Mr. Flanigan said, before adding, "It's not as if it's totally apart from fact." Asked why he supports the group, Mr. Flanigan said, "I think it's unfortunate that some 90% of African Americans vote Democratic … Rooney has had some success in moving African-American votes." Another ad in this year's campaign notes that Democratic presidents oversaw wiretapping and that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the targets. "Unlike the Al Qaeda butchers Bush is wiretapping, Martin was fighting to promote voting rights. He wasn't plotting mass murder," the ad says. "Republicans respect the Latino soldier," one of the Spanish-language spots declares. "After all, it was our own General Ricardo Sanchez who commanded the American troops in Iraq. Enough with these Democrats." Many of the ads with conservative social themes are sandwiched between hip-hop songs that convey blunt sexual messages. A spokesman for America's Pac, John Altevogt, said no stations have refused the ads, but a few asked for minor edits, such as the removal of the word "cracker" from the David Duke spot.
It’s Voter-Fooling Time in America The homestretch of the campaign season historically puts treacherous distortions of the truth before the voters, none more so this year than a mysterious California letter informing thousands of Latino-Americans that immigrants have no right to vote. “You are advised,” begins the Spanish-language letter, dripping with authority, that if “you’re an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that can result in incarceration.” It now appears that someone in a Republican Congressional campaign conjured a contemporary spin on a classic scare tactic from torchlight politics. Comparable outrages surface daily now, with an ad for black voters in six states misrepresenting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s politics in a staged chat between two black women: “Dr. King was a real man,” says one actress. “You know he was a Republican,” the other chimes in. Democrats are no less tempted to flash bare-knuckle mischief. In a prime example, Representative Nancy Johnson, a Connecticut Republican, is being portrayed by Chris Murphy, the Democrat, as heartlessly unresponsive to a woman whose child needed insurance coverage for a cleft lip and palate. Of course, Ms. Johnson has represented Mr. Murphy as being opposed to the surveillance of terrorists. So it goes, with some ethically challenged spinners creating false news clippings and tucking them knifelike into campaign videos of real stories. Even Lincoln is being falsely quoted by defenders of the Iraq war. The 16th president never said that Congressional critics who damage wartime morale “should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” One of the more widespread canards is rooted in the divisive and fruitless immigration debate. Democrats in more than two dozen races are being falsely accused of wanting to give Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants — a distortion of a proposal to actually block immigrants from being credited for benefit days worked before they had legal status. One Web site coated with obvious racism and xenophobia is MuchasGraciasDebbie.com, which skewers Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, dressing her digitally in a sombrero, grinning and declaring, “No problema!” What to do, beyond celebrating the continuing pungency of free speech across the nation? The most obvious answer is that voters need to pay ever closer attention to what the candidates say in this world of mixed media and mixed messages. The Internet is a powerful ally. The head of Google, Eric Schmidt, is cautioning politicians stuck in the sound-bite era that “truth predictor” software is in the works so that computer-wise voters will be instantaneously able to check on the probability, if not the certainty, of what candidates claim as fact. Actually, careful parsing of egregiously misleading campaign ads is already available on the Web at factcheck.org, a nonprofit service that thinks voters should be treated as intelligent consumers entitled to the plain facts. If only the candidates saw it that way. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/o...e67c8f0b97d3a6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This kind of voting machine, without real time excessive load testing, can never claim its security and accuracy, not to mention the obvious flaw in security key and encryption. However, it enables so many possibilities. a) Control voting outcome directly by systematic manipulation or individual hacking. b) Since it can be, and easily be hacked, it leaves room for intepretation that opposition hacked the machines and therefore certain results from certain areas are invalid. It's simply a spin machine installation, and it's so versitile that it could be played multiple ways. Welcome to politics.
