August 20, 2006

Houston Chronicle Article Advocates Election Machine Reform

Last week it was an op-ed from our own Stan Merriman. Last week, Stan, Gerry Birnberg and others met with the Chronicle's editorial board and here's the result. Way to go!

From the Chronicle:

Aug. 19, 2006, 8:44PM Ballot backstop Texas should join the states mandating a paper trail to verify the accuracy of electronic voting machines

Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

In in an electronic age haunted by computer viruses and hackers, many people cling to paper security blankets, whether they come in the form of ATM receipts, itemized credit card charges or monthly bank statements.

Yet in the essential civic exercise of choosing our representatives, Texans who use electronic machines are forced to trust a fallible computer program with no way to check the accuracy of the results. Such a system amounts to faith-based voting.

With the knowledge that no computer is tamperproof and a growing list of malfunctions by direct recording electronic machines (DREs) during elections, 27 states have enacted laws requiring voting systems that produce paper ballots that voters can verify (VVPBs). After individuals make their selections and cast their vote electronically, a hard copy of the ballot is printed showing the selections. The voter views the results to make sure their vote is accurate, and then drops the ballot into a sealed box, providing a record independent of the electronic machine that can later be audited.

Texas, unfortunately, has no such requirement, and Harris County, which uses the Hart Intercivic machine and also conducts municipal elections, has no plans to purchase the company's optional printer system to create a paper trail. County Democratic Party officials are clamoring for such a system, as well as increased security and voting machine tests for accuracy.

"If folks can hack the Pentagon," Harris County Democratic Chairman Gerry Birnberg said, "they can certainly hack a machine in Harris County."

County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, a Republican, says such concerns are unfounded. "There's this kind of cavalier attitude on these folks' part that all you've got to do is just bolt on a printer and there it is," said Kaufman, who estimates that it would cost up to $8 million to buy equipment and reprogram the system with the capability to print ballots in three languages. "We're just not at a point here where we're able to do it if we wanted to, which we don't."

Kaufman also contends that the current system has the capability to produce a paper copy of results after the election is concluded. However, whatever would be printed out would simply reflect what the system recorded and would not detect computer malfunctions, erased votes or fraudulent manipulation of programming.

In a report this year on electronic voting machines entitled "Malfunction and Malfeasance," researchers for the nonpartisan group Common Cause concluded that DRE machines "are vulnerable to malfunction and also to tampering in which a computer-savvy hacker with minimal access to the machine could introduce malicious code to the DRE software and change the results of an election."

The report cites an incident during this spring's Texas primary in which voting machines in Tarrant County, which uses the same system as Harris, recorded 100,000 votes that were never cast. Hart Intercivic officials took responsibility for the programming mistake that caused the overcount but discounted the incident because votes for all candidates were boosted equally.

Last year the Commission on Federal Election Reform led by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, issued election reform recommendations that included a call for a federal law requiring all electronic voting systems to be equipped with paper printouts. Legislation died in the last session of Congress but has been reintroduced by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. A similar bill, the Voter Integrity and Verification Act, has been introduced in the Senate by Republican John Ensign of Nevada.

Since Texas has yet to approve paper trails that voters can verify, it is not Kaufman's responsibility to make that decision. The Texas Legislature and Congress should pass legislation mandating the installation of paper audits on all electronic voting machines.

They are more expensive and might create more work for election officials, but VVPBs are necessary to boost voter confidence in system and give candidates recourse to recounts.

Posted by Lyn Wall at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 13, 2006

Needed a Paper Trail for County Ballots

This op-ed by Stan Merriman. was published in today's Chronicle:. Stan has been working tirelessly on the issue of voting security and serves on the Voting Security committee for HCDP.

Needed: A paper trail for county ballots County clerk and mayor shouldn’t ignore troubling situation any longer

By STAN MERRIMAN

A year and a half-long study of the security vulnerabilities of electronic voting systems has just been published by the Brennan Center For Justice at New York University, deploying the expertise of a panel of computer security experts, including Dr. Dan Wallach of Rice University. This seminal study recommends a regime of tests and a voter-verifiable paper trail ( VVPAT). It is referring tofor the huge Hart InterCivic, Inc., electronic voting system right here used in Harris County.

Read the rest of the op-ed here.

Posted by Lyn Wall at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 14, 2006

DNC's Voting Rights Institute Calls for 'Manual Count' in Busby/Bilbray Race

Harris County election judges have possession of Hart InterCivic eSlate System Judge's Booth Controllers (JBCs) for up to 72 hours before elections.

Support David Van Os, your Texas Democratic Party Judicial Candidates and James G. Pierre.

"Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is thrilled that the DNC has joined PDA in calling for a swift and verifiable "manual count" of all 150,000 ballots cast in California's 50th District's "bellwether" June 6th special election. The age of computer voting is upon us, largely untested, and breached security regulations in San Diego cast the machines' certification into doubt. It also cast the results into question.

Verifying the machine count by hand-counting ballots and paper trail is a necessary step in engaging the electorate's trust so that they will engage in the democratic process, come November, that creates our free republic," stated Mimi Kennedy Board Chair of PDA.

For several weeks since the June 6th Special Election in California's 50th Congressional District there have been reports of election irregularities. The DNC Voting Rights Institute ("VRI") has been monitoring the developments since Election Day and has raised a number of concerns regarding new and disturbing information.

First and foremost is the fact that any election where there are allegations of machine tampering, break downs in chain of custody, security breaches and other such irregularities must be taken seriously. There are several facts in this race that raise very deep concerns.

On the facts:

1. We know for a fact that San Diego County election officials have admitted that a number of the voting machines were taken home in violation of the federal security regulations and guidelines and that a number of the machines showed evidence of tampering (broken seals, which should also have immediately disqualified those machines from use according to state laws implemented in just the last several months in response to new severe vulnerabilities discovered Diebold's optical-scan and touch-screen voting systems.)

2. We know that under state and federal guidelines, any such breach of security seals or the new "secure storage" requirements for these machines and their memory cards should have immediately disqualified those machines from use in the election for the reason that they became effectively decertified for use upon such security and chain of custody violations.

3. We also know that both the Diebold optical-scan and touch-screen (DRE) machines have been proven to be vulnerable to tampering in test after test by industry experts, including a team of computer scientists and security experts convened by California's Secretary of State in response to recent revelations concerning the hack ability of Diebold voting systems.

4. We know that serious security issues and efforts by Diebold to obfuscate problems with their hardware and software led California's former Democratic Secretary of State to decertify Diebold touch-screen systems in 2004, only to have the Republican Secretary who succeeded him reinstitute the machines over the objections of scores of computer scientists and experts and hundreds of election integrity advocates.

The San Diego County election official responsible for administrating post-election manual vote counts has given three different arbitrary cost estimates for conducting the hand count. The quoted fees are as much as six times the costs estimates for similar hand counts in surrounding counties. The estimates portray the expense of a manual vote count to be cost prohibitive.

This is no longer about whether or not Busby or Bilbray won the election on June 6th. This is about the importance of verifying the facts related to election and voting machine irregularities in this race and the need to ensure an accurate count of all votes cast in this election so that the electorate may have confidence in the announced results in future elections.

The VRI will continue to monitor facts as they become available and will call for a swift and verifiable "manual count" of all 150,000 ballots cast in California's 50th District's "bellwether" June 6th special election in order to ensure the integrity of November 7th general elections and the overall integrity of our country's voting systems in this still-untested age of computerized voting.

Greg Moore is director of the DNC's Voting Rights Institute and a PDA National Board Member.

The Progressive Populist Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party is the state caucus of Progressive Democrats of America.

Posted by Aimee Mobley Turney at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 12, 2006

Dan Wallach on CNN tonight discussing e-voting security (or lack thereof)

Rice computer scientist Dan Wallach, one of the nation's leading experts in e-voting security, is expected to appear this evening on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." The program airs from 5 to 6 p.m. Central.

Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN
5-6pm Central time, July 12, 2006

Dr. Wallach is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Rice University and Associate Director of the federally funded ACCURATE (Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections). He also testified before the Baker / Carter Commission on Federal Election Reform. His testimony is available here.

Dan Wallach is an associate professor at Rice University in the department of computer science, and also manages Rice's computer security lab. His research focuses on computer security and other areas of computer systems, such as wireless systems and secure software systems for the Internet. Dr. Wallach's pioneering efforts led to the development and standardization of the "stack inspection" security model, now used by Sun, Microsoft, and many other systems. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Posted by Sarah Gonzales at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 05, 2006

The League of Women Voters Supports Voter-Verifiable Paper Trails

Go to Original

from www.schneier.com/blog/

For a long time, the League of Women Voters (LWV) had been on the wrong side of the electronic voting machine issue. They were in favor of electronic machines, and didn't see the need for voter-verifiable paper trails. (They use to have a horrid and misleading Q&A about the issue on their website, but it's gone now. Barbara Simons published a rebuttal, which includes their original Q&A.)

The politics of the LWV are byzantine, but basically there are local leagues under state leagues, which in turn are under the national (LWVUS) league. There is a national convention once every other year, and all sorts of resolutions are passed by the membership. But the national office can do a lot to undercut the membership and the state leagues. The politics of voting machines is an example of this.

At the 2004 convention, the LWV membership passed a resolution on electronic voting called "SARA," which stood for "Secure, Accurate, Recountable, and Accessible." Those in favor of the resolution thought that "recountable" meant auditable, which meant voter-verifiable paper trails. But the national LWV office decided to spin SARA to say that recountable does not imply paper. While they could no longer oppose paper outright, they refused to say that paper was desirable. For example, they held Georgia's system up as a model, and Georgia uses paperless Diebold DRE machines. It makes you wonder if the LWVUS leadership is in someone's pocket.
So at the 2006 convention, the LWV membership passed another resolution. This one was much more clearly worded: designed to make it impossible for the national office to pretend that the LWV was not in favor of voter-verified paper trails.

Unfortunately, the League of Women Voters has not issued a press release about this resolution. (There is a press release by VerifiedVoting.org about it.) I'm sure that the national office simply doesn't want to acknowledge the membership's position on the issue, and wishes the issue would just go away quietly. It's a pity; the resolution is a great one and worth publicizing.

Here's the text of the resolution:

Resolution Related to Program Requiring a Voter-Verifiable Paper Ballot or Paper Record with Electronic Voting Machines

Motion to adopt the following resolution related to program requiring a voter-verified paper ballot or paper record with electronic voting systems.

Whereas: Some LWVs have had difficulty applying the SARA Resolution (Secure, Accurate, Recountable and Accessible) passed at the last Convention, and

Whereas: Paperless electronic voting systems are not inherently secure, can malfunction, and do not provide a recountable audit trail,

Therefore be it resolved that:

The position on the Citizens' Right to Vote be interpreted to affirm that LWVUS supports only voting systems that are designed so that:

  1. they employ a voter-verifiable paper ballot or other paper record, said paper being the official record of the voter¹s intent; and

  2. the voter can verify, either by eye or with the aid of suitable devices for those who have impaired vision, that the paper ballot/record accurately reflects his or her intent; and

  3. such verification takes place while the voter is still in the process of voting; and

  4. the paper ballot/record is used for audits and recounts; and

  5. the vote totals can be verified by an independent hand count of the paper ballot/record; and

  6. routine audits of the paper ballot/record in randomly selected precincts can be conducted in every election, and the results published by the jurisdiction.

By the way, the 2006 LWV membership also voted on a resolution in favor of net neutrality (the Connecticut league issued a press release, because they spearheaded the issue), and one against the death penalty. The national LWV office hasn't issued a press release about those two issues, either.

Posted by Aimee Mobley Turney at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 20, 2006

This was done openly and shamelessly...

Support your Judicial Candidates and James G. Pierre, candidate for Harris County Clerk.

If you only read one article on the 2004 election, read this one!

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"
"Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House."

Rolling Stone
Issue 1002, June 15, 2006
Article: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
Exclusive documents, sources, charts and commentary: http://rollingstone.com/news/story/10463875

Go to Original

Interview: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
PR Week

Monday 19 June 2006

This month, Rolling Stone ran an investigative feature claiming that Republicans used a systematic combination of voter disenfranchisement and fraud, centered in Ohio, to rob John Kerry of a win in the 2004 presidential election.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and son of liberal icon Bobby Kennedy, wrote the article, available, along with supporting research, at rollingstone.com. Kennedy spoke to PRWeek about the story.

PRWeek: How did you come to write this piece?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: I had not paid much attention to this issue. And then a number of books came out, and I read them because I [wanted to use them] to interview people on my radio show. And then I read the [Rep. John] Conyers report, [a 2005 Congressional inquiry into the election], and started talking with people in Ohio. And at one point, I said, "Holy cow, this is real." And then I talked to [RS editor] Jann Wenner about it. I encouraged him to do a piece, and he said "We'll print one if you write it."

PRWeek: Tell me about the process of putting the story together - it obviously took a while.

Kennedy: I read the literature out there, and read the articles. Then I interviewed voters in Ohio, and public officials, and people who were involved in the election from all over the country.

PRWeek: Why do you think this wasn't covered heavily by major media directly after the election?

Kennedy: I think the mainstream media took up the Republican echo chamber, and just echoed the right-wing talking points.

PRWeek: Why didn't the Democrats themselves pursue this?

Kennedy: Well, there was a lot of complaining; there were a lot of lawsuits. But it got very little traction in the media. But you know, the Democrats on this issue have been abysmal as well.

PRWeek: Your story wasn't based on any secret information, correct?

Kennedy: No, that's the whole thing. This was not a secret conspiracy. This was done openly and shamelessly. Across Ohio, there were people who did everything they could to stop this.

PRWeek: Have you had any indication that the national media will take another look at this issue?

Kennedy: I had a good indication [June 7]. The New York Times, as its lead editorial, did a piece on [Ohio secretary of state] Kenneth Blackwell's current efforts to suppress registration drives in Ohio. And the Republicans are doing the same thing in Florida, and the Times talked about that, as well.

PRWeek: What reaction have you seen from the general public?

Kennedy: There's a huge reaction. Rolling Stone told me that it's gotten two and a half times as many e-mails [about this article] as it's ever gotten for any other story in its history. So there's a huge appetite for this story.

PRWeek: This story didn't have a 'smoking gun'; was there one person coordinating this entire operation?

Kennedy: There's never going to be 100% certitude that the election was stolen, because the only way you could get that is by recounting the ballots, and the recount was illegally derailed by Republican operatives. The mastermind behind the efforts in Ohio was Kenneth Blackwell, along with ... [Toledo elections official] Bernadette Noe. But on a national level, it's [Republican National Committee chairman] Kenneth Mehlman and Karl Rove.

PRWeek: Have you gotten any reaction from the Republican Party on this?

Kennedy: I've gotten, certainly, reaction in the blogosphere. But most of the reaction has been supportive.

PRWeek: Is there a next step?

Kennedy: I've been meeting with attorneys ... to devise a litigation strategy. And I would say that very soon we'll be announcing lawsuits against some of the individuals and companies involved.

PRWeek: Who exactly would that litigation be targeting?

Kennedy: I wouldn't say, right now.

PRWeek: The election is over. Is it too late now?

Kennedy: There's another election soon. And as the Times [just] reported, the same people are up to the same shenanigans.

Posted by Aimee Mobley Turney at 05:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 16, 2006

David Van Os Sues Secretary of State and County Clerk in Travis County

Download a copy of the petitions filed.

Progressive Populist Caucus Co-Founder and Attorney-General candidate David Van Os followed up on remarks before the General Caucus and, along with Steering Committee Member Sonia Santana, filed a lawsuit to block further unconstitutional use of direct-recording electronic voting machines and procedures. Please read these petitions. They are not long and easy enough for any member to understand.

The machines and procedures immediately in question -- Hart InterCivics, eSlates are the most widely used in Texas. They have been the subject of numerous complaints by PPC members and a few party officials but have not yet become as notorious as machines from Diebold or ES&S, also "certified" by the Secretary of State and involved in recounts and contests in both parties all across Texas.

The recount problems noted in the suit were also the subject of litigation discussed in the General Caucus by Larry Veselka. The unresolved recounts are devastating to Democratic participation and voter morale.

Democrats in Harris County, including Gerry Birnberg, County Chairman, James Goodwille Pierre, candidate for County Clerk, and others have also seen an urgent need for the sort of injunctive relief requested by the plaintiffs.

John Robert BEHRMAN, Executive Vice-Chair of the Progressive Populist Caucus, said, ...

"For me, the most surprising and important aspect of this lawsuit is direct application of our state constitution. Do they even read the constitution up in the capitol any more? "

"The people and parties conduct elections. They are a check, the ultimate peaceful check, on government. The lawmakers' and the bureaucrats' lack of respect for our constitution are a gross insult to both parties and to the people."

"There is no underestimating the gravity of this matter: Some of us send our children to war in order to uphold our constitution. These two-bit peddlers and bureaucrats should not trifle with it, but they have!"

Posted by Sarah Gonzales at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

African-American Voters Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List

Support your Texas Judicial Candidates and James G. Pierre, candidate for Harris County Clerk.

African-American Voters Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List
by Greg Palast
Democracy Now!

Friday 16 June 2006

Palast, who first reported this story for BBC Television Newsnight (UK) and Democracy Now! (USA), is author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse.

The Republican National Committee has a special offer for African-American soldiers: Go to Baghdad, lose your vote.

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts.

Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.

One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent overseas.

[Greg Palast's discussion with broadcaster Amy Goodman on the Black soldier purge of 2004.]

Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."

The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted.

One target list was comprised exclusively of voters registered at the Jacksonville, Florida, Naval Air Station. Jacksonville is third largest naval installation in the US, best known as home of the Blue Angels fighting squandron.

[See scrub sheet.]

Our team contacted the homes of several on the caging list, such as Randall Prausa, a serviceman, whose wife said he had been ordered overseas.

A soldier returning home in time to vote in November 2004 could also be challenged on the basis of the returned envelope. Soldiers challenged would be required to vote by "provisional" ballot.

Over one million provisional ballots cast in the 2004 race were never counted; over half a million absentee ballots were also rejected. The extraordinary rise in the number of rejected ballots was the result of the widespread multi-state voter challenge campaign by the Republican Party. The operation, of which the purge of Black soldiers was a small part, was the first mass challenge to voting America had seen in two decades.

The BBC obtained several dozen confidential emails sent by the Republican's national Research Director and Deputy Communications chief, Tim Griffin to GOP Florida campaign chairman Brett Doster and other party leaders. Attached were spreadsheets marked, "Caging.xls." Each of these contained several hundred to a few thousand voters and their addresses.

A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists," as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-American majority zip codes.

Ion Sanco, the non-partisan elections supervisor of Leon County (Tallahassee) when shown the lists by this reporter said: "The only thing I can think of - African American voters listed like this - these might be individuals that will be challenged if they attempted to vote on Election Day."

These GOP caging lists were obtained by the same BBC team that first exposed the wrongful purge of African-American "felon" voters in 2000 by then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Eliminating the voting rights of those voters - 94,000 were targeted - likely caused Al Gore's defeat in that race.

The Republican National Committee in Washington refused our several requests to respond to the BBC discovery. However, in Tallahassee, the Florida Bush campaign's spokespeople offered several explanations for the list.

Joseph Agostini, speaking for the GOP, suggested the lists were of potential donors to the Bush campaign. Oddly, the supposed donor list included residents of the Sulzbacher Center a shelter for homeless families.

Another spokesperson for the Bush campaign, Mindy Tucker Fletcher, ultimately changed the official response, acknowledging that these were voters, "we mailed to, where the letter came back - bad addresses."

The party has refused to say why it would mark soldiers as having "bad addresses" subject to challenge when they had been assigned abroad.

The apparent challenge campaign was not inexpensive. The GOP mailed the letters first class, at a total cost likely exceeding millions of dollars, so that the addresses would be returned to "cage" workers.

"This is not a challenge list," insisted the Republican spokesmistress. However, she modified that assertion by adding, "That's not what it's set up to be."

Setting up such a challenge list would be a crime under federal law. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws mass challenges of voters where race is a factor in choosing the targeted group.

While the party insisted the lists were not created for the purpose to challenge Black voters, the GOP ultimately offered no other explanation for the mailings. However, Tucker Fletcher asserted Republicans could still employ the list to deny ballots to those they considered suspect voters. When asked if Republicans would use the list to block voters, Tucker Fletcher replied, "Where it's stated in the law, yeah."

It is not possible at this time to determine how many on the potential blacklist were ultimately challenged and lost their vote. Soldiers sending in their ballot from abroad would not know their vote was lost because of a challenge.

--------

For the full story of caging lists and voter purges of 2004, plus the documents, read Greg Palast's New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?; China Floats Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08; No Child's Behind Left and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.

Greg Palast in Houston 6/19 at the River Oaks Theater

Sarah Gonzales
Precinct Chair 395, SD7

Posted by Sarah Gonzales at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 15, 2006

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who watches the watchers?")

Three great articles in the latest issue of Bruce Schneier's Crypto-gram Newsletter:

The Value of Privacy

Diebold Doesn't Understand the Security Threat

Aligning Interest with Capability

Support your Judicial Candidates and James G. Pierre, candidate for Harris County Clerk.

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." --John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790.

Posted by Aimee Mobley Turney at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 14, 2006

Voters File For Injunction To Prevent State Of Texas From Using Unreliable Electronic Election Machines

Many thanks to the efforts of MANY in Texas including the Texas Civil Rights Project, NAACP, David Van Os, Sonia Santana, PPC Vice Chair of Central TX / Austin and several others, an injunction has been filed to prevent the use of electronic voting machines in Texas.

Voters File For Injunction To Prevent State Of Texas From Using Unreliable Electronic Election Machines

Voters, civil rights groups and a statewide candidate filed a petition Wednesday to prevent the State of Texas from using unreliable electronic voting machines in the November elections.

Travis County voter Sonia Santana, the NAACP of Austin, its president, Nelson Linder, also a Travis County voter, and David Van Os, a candidate for attorney general, filed a petition asking the court to enjoin the county from using voting machines that do not produce a paper ballot. The Texas Civil Rights Project represents the plaintiffs.

"Voters deserve the assurance their voices will be heard," said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. "By using machines that provide no permanent record, the state is failing in its constitutional duty to provide the people with an election in which they can trust the results."

More than half the states now require their electronic voting machines to print a paper ballot when the voter casts his or her vote. The voter reads his or her ballot to make sure it recorded the vote he or she intended and then casts both the electronic and paper ballots.

The paper ballot can be counted in the all-too-common case when electronic ballots vanish into thin air or when there is a discrepancy between the number of people who voted and the number of votes recorded. Having a paper trail also makes fraud less likely.

Hart InterCivic eSlates, used in Travis County and a number of counties around Texas, have no such feature. Once the voter casts the ballot, he or she has no idea what the machine actually recorded and there is no record available in the likely case of a dispute.

The petition charges that the use of these machines is a violation of three of the plaintiffs' rights guaranteed under the Texas Constitution and the Texas Election Code:

The right to a secure election, since the machines are all-too-often open to failure, mistake, tampering and fraud.

The right to a recount, since there is no way for voters to verify whether the votes were properly recorded, stored, tabulated or printed..

The right to equal protection under the law, since Travis County voters are forced to use a voting system that is less reliable than systems available to other Texas voters.

"The state has chosen to protect one of our most fundamental rights, the right to participate in our government, with a system rife with failure and vulnerable to fraud," Harrington said.

For further information, please contact Jim Harrington at 512-474-5073

Posted by Sarah Gonzales at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 02, 2006

How about a debate?

Off-the-Kuff tells us to break the Kay Bailey habit.

The readers of this blog certainly don't have this monkey on their backs. However, we do need to help our independent friends. Write letters to papers calling for a debate. After hearing Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the Kay Bailey habit should be cured.

Or just for fun, write to Kay Bailey asking for a debate. Receiving one of her infamous form letters will serve as a reminder that she is still the same rubber-stamper who has occupied the U.S. Senate since 1993.

Posted by Jon Boyd at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 22, 2006

Think Hart InterCivic Machines Give Accurate Results? Think again.

From the San Angelo Times

Ballot recount stopped

Problems with voting machines delay results

By PAUL A. ANTHONY, panthony@sastandardtimes.com or 659-8237
March 22, 2006

A recount of ballots cast during the March 7 primary election ground to a halt Tuesday - midway through its second day - after workers could not resolve discrepancies that affected more than 1,400 ballots.

Tom Green County Republican Party Chairman Dennis McKerley suspended the recount of the County Court-at-Law No. 2 race about 1:30 p.m. after seeking advice from the Texas Secretary of State's Office, which suggested shutting down the recount until what appear to be problems with electronic voting machines could be fixed....

...Initial election results, certified by the county Saturday, showed Edwards finishing 12 votes behind Roberts for second place and the right to face Hughes in the April 11 runoff election.

The problem in the recount appears to be with new, federally mandated electronic voting machines, provided by vendor Hart InterCivic. During a hand recount, the machines are designed to print out paper ballots for each voter's choices, but Mc-Kerley said the machines that were used to register early votes printed out only 75 percent to 80 percent of the votes believed to have been cast.

more...
Also reported at BradBlog.

All the more reason to replace Beverly Kaufman with James G. Pierre who supports adding a voter verified paper trail to these machines.

Posted by Lyn Wall at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 11, 2006

Meet Dot Nelson-Turnier, Democrat for SH-150

Dot Nelson-Turnier is running against Republican incumbent Debbie Riddle in the 150th district of the Texas House of Representatives, which comprises the northernmost portion of Harris County -- north of FM 1960 and east and west of Interstate 45 (map, .pdf). Riddle is infamous for the following comment:

"Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's not a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country."

Dot recently responded by e-mail to the following questions:

========================

Why are you running? What are your goals in office?

I am running because I feel no Republican should run unopposed. We have to give people a choice. My focus is on what I call the Killer E’s -- Economics, Education, Equity, Equality and Environment -- and I do not think the incumbent Republicans have been making much progress on these issues.

========================

Read the rest at Texas Tuesdays.

Posted by Perry Dorrell at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 10, 2006

'Set the Record Straight' tour in full swing

Texas Democratic candidate for Governor Bob Gammage is currently touring the state as part of the "Set the Record Straight" Tour, a four-day, 13-stop airplane whistle stop tour of Texas to officially kick off the 2006 campaign. Gammage is joined on the tour by Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor Ben Grant, and Democratic candidate for Comptroller Fred Head.

The campaign swing began in Sugar Land -- Tom DeLay's current district and the district Gammage represented in the U.S. Congress -- on January 9th, is winding through East and Central Texas and will finish with a wrapup press conference in Austin on January 12th.

MONDAY January 9th
9:00 am SUGAR LAND Press Conference
11:00 am BEAUMONT Press conference
1:00 pm LUFKIN Press Conference
3:15 pm LONGVIEW Press Conference

TUESDAY January 10th
8:30 am TYLER Press Conference
11:00 am TEXARKANA Press Conference
2:00 pm DALLAS Press conference
3:45 pm FORT WORTH Press Conference

WEDNESDAY January 11th
8:30 am WICHITA FALLS Press Conference
11:30 am WACO Press Conference
2:15 pm SAN ANGELO Press Conference
TBD SAN ANTONIO Press Conference

THURSDAY January 12th
11:00 am AUSTIN Press Conference

================================

Vince at Burnt Orange Report has a good summary of the tour's first day, including links and excerpts from the local newspapers covering.

Posted by Perry Dorrell at 05:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 31, 2005

Voter Deputy Training, Sunday January 15

Posted by Perry Dorrell at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 02, 2005

Justice Department Staff Argued Texas Redistricting was Illegal

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.

The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.

But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress.

Link

Posted by Hale Stewart at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 11, 2005

Barbara Radnofsky goes to Washington

On Election Night, while my fellow New Jerseyans were celebrating a well-deserved victory for Jon Corzine and Virginians were rewarding Tim Kaine for his service, I was in our nation's capitol. I had the honor of attending a fundraiser for my dear friend and Democrat Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who's running for the US Senate against Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Birdbrain). The event was held at the Mott House, across the street from Capitol Hill, and it certainly was worth the four-hour drive to attend. I hadn't seen Barbara in person since the DNC in 2004, so getting to talk to her and her wonderful guests was a true pleasure. Read on if you want to know what happened, and what Barbara Ann will do as Texas' next US Senator.

Continued here.

Posted by Perry Dorrell at 05:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 09, 2005

A pretty sweet night for us

** Bill White is re-elected with 91% of the vote, breaking Bob Lanier's mandate-record. Rumors -- and not just the ones on the internets -- have him running for something statewide next. (I'm hoping it's against Senator "Torture Box Turtle".) Oh, and Matt H. live-blogged the parties at the Rice.

** Say congratulations also to Councilman Peter Brown. Sue Lovell and Jay Aiyer are both in the runoff for At Large 2.

** But neither Herman Litt nor Mark Lee in C. :^(

** Democrats handily won governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. A gay marriage referendum actually failed (in Maine). And Californians hate their governor (again? So soon?).

Greg's got the snapshot of the Houston races.

Annnnd...


Texas Bloggers have banded together to ask our readers to nominate a Texan for our very own blogger version of the mainstream media's favorite attention grabber, the "Person of the Year"! Join us by nominating a Texan that has made the most impact this year, be it good or bad, evil or embarassing. We're all accepting nominations from you through November 23 and we'll post your Texan of the Year by December 1st. Email your nominations to: Texanoftheyear@gmail.com

Your favorite political blog is participating (left, center, and right). Each blog will write their own post about the person, so on December 1st you'll have lots of different opinions but they'll all come from the same source, you...the smartest people in Texas.

Posted by Perry Dorrell at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 13, 2005

Propped Out

Burnt Oranger Karl-Thomas Musselman is wondering if broadening the legal issues in Proposition Two to open a cultural debate on acceptance of gay Texans is a good idea or a bad one. What prompted Karl's concern is the new passel of cable tv ads being run by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in targeted Houston markets. Since I live in the Montrose, I reckon this means me. Since I don't have a teevee, however, I'll never really know this for sure.

Where it comes to the ads themselves, Karl is concerned that

The messaging also seems off, like the first ad which [shows a gay mother who] asks for respect for her family and not to ridicule her child. Most of the other ads leave me with the impression that the NGLTF is using this election, not to defeat Amendment #2, but rather as an excuse to try to change people's minds, something that they have been attacked for doing in elections last fall, which they deemed hopeless with the exception of Oregon.

The one redeeming feature Karl finds in the NGLTF ads is that they are being broadcast in a sneaky fashion.

One of the good things about Houston cable is that you can do much better targeting than say in Austin or San Antonio, because they have their network set up where you can get your ad only in front of the audiences you want it. Don't want to broadcast to blacks? Or just to certain age demographics? Odds are that you can do it with Houston cable. For that I am thankful because for this election, untargeted Broadcast Ads are NOT the way to win. There are very few areas where raising awareness of an actual election going on to the populace at large gets us a boost in turnout that actually help us.

Get the message, folks: It's cool if you want to preach tolerance. Just don't do it in my living room.

Let me be blunt. Winning the vote on an issue like this is largely an academic question. Prop two is going to pass and pass big no matter how tricky you are with the marketing. Karl and others who favor the stealth approach to campaigning can correctly argue that widely publicizing the largely gay vs antigay question at the heart of Prop Two will result in something like a three-to-one victory for the homophobes. The problem is that if those who vote on this question are composed entirely out of the motivated electorate, their victory will be closer to five- or four-to-one.

More Karl-Thomas:

Remember, in Texas, if we had Presidential level turnout, we'd be as much up shit creek with this Amendment as even Oregon was with their $2.4 million in aid from the NGLTF. It's not that we want low turnout either, we need the correct turnout. By making this big splash in the press about us running ads in Houston, not only are Houstonians aware of what's going on from the ads, but so is the rest of the state and those on the right that are paying attention to what we are up to. It's hard to ignore a fifth of a million dollars suddenly playing with Prop 2 turnout.

Why couldn't we have had $200,000 in aid for phone calls? Or direct mail? Or organizing on the ground? Or more focused radio or print advertising?


Allow me to paraphrase: Not in my living room. You people should stick to your own kind. Some of my best friends are gay, so don't call me a bigot. But why can't you people be more quiet about your lifestyle? Not that there's anything wrong with it.

The idea that the anti Prop Two campaign should stick to the closet is a little bit obnoxious. But the bigger problem with running a stealth campaign to support gay rights in a volitile homophobic state (like the land I love, for instance) is that it won't work. The hate-based fundamentalist vote in favor of prop 2 is already stirred up. They're already going to vote this turkey in and we're not going to stop them.

This is the equivalent of holding a school integration referendum in Alabama in 1950. The basic questions of justice, fairness, and human dignity aren't even agreed on yet. We will lose this vote. NGLTF at least seems to want to lose this vote semi-honestly. Their sad little $200K media buy maybe, maybe will help produce a close to majority rejection of Prop Two inside the 6-10 Loop. Outside the Loop it'll look more like a match up between the '79 Steelers and the '83 Oilers (with the anti-Prop Two side represented by the guys in the silky blue pastel numbers).

If anything, NGLTF is not getting enough into people's faces with their tv campaign. The only right way in a democracy to turn the issue of fairness around for our gay fellow citizens is to turn the hearts of the voters away from paranoia and toward simple economic justice. To do that, we shouldn't have gay people just showing up on television. We need to have gay people showing up at church picnics.

The message should be, "Look me in the eye. Tell me to my face my life partner shouldn't have survivor or health insurance benefits. Look my daughter in the eye and tell her the two fathers who love her are going to hell. Try and convince my son one of his two moms isn't his real mom." Confronting the outright wickedness of anti-gay discrimination isn't going to happen if gays just stick to their own kind. It's only going to happen if we show the world that gays are already part of us, that they are our neighbors and contributing to our communities right now and that legally snubbing them over and over is wrong. Being sneaky isn't just a losing strategy and it isn't just short sighted. It's also wrong for a democracy.

The Founding Fathers were terribly concerned in 1787 that a civic republic could not work as a form of government if people lived too far away from each other. Democracy works best when all citizens feel a level of identification with each other. It falls apart when we turn on each other. The only way justice will win out on all the "gay issues" (they're really civil rights issues) is thru gradualism, not legalism. We won't win this war by cleverer tactics. We'll only win by getting our more numerous opponents to quit the fight. And they'll only do that once they wake up and realize gay people are human, too.

Posted by Bucky at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2005

Oh Bright Orb...

The usual collection of banal and idiotic state constitutional amendments are on the ballot this November. One in particular is reminding me of the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Oh bright orb who rules the night,
Removing color from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white,
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion.

You poetry fans out there may recognize this as the familiar AAAAB rhyme scheme

"Why do we even have these amendments?" some might be tempted to wonder. Particularly so when some seem so parochial and pointless. But that's your Jacksonian democracy at work, folks. Long ballots, rotation in office, and obscure referenda on governmental minutia is the hallmark of a state that evolved out of reaction to 19th century Reconstruction occupation.

Thus today we have a gazillion and one new amendments that we add to our state's constutution--written with a small c to contrast it with our federal Constitution, which was written wisely and only infrequently amended by idiots. To add confusion to chaos, the ballot language on these amendments often fail to clarify for the voter exactly what the amendment intends to do and what its effects might be.

The amendments typically come in three varieties. First are the harmless county home rule amendments. These are the ones that say "Egypt County, fifty miles north of Amarillo, shall be empowered to combine the constitutionally mandated county offices of Dog-Poop Scooper and Cow-Poop Scooper into one single office holder." I always vote for these because it represents a slight chance that someone might save some money somewhere and because no one would ask for this if they weren't simply trying to run their local government a little better.

Two amendments we're gonna be voting on this autumn fit this category: Propositions Eight and Nine.

Second are the Republican idiocy amendments. This is a fairly new phenomenon. Old style Republicans used to believe in limiting government, keeping their noses out of their neighbor's business, and keeping government acting responsibly. But enough of my soporific nostalgia. The obvious example of this amendment is Prop Two, the anti-gay-marriage amendment. In the guise of protecting families, this invitation to Dante's Eight Circle's First Trench of Hell would damage and disrupt and complicate the lives of thousands of Texas families at the time that they face horrible personal losses such as death, hospitilization, and divorce.

This is worse than bad; it's dumb. A more obscure example of the dumb amendments is Prop Three. It goes:

Ballot Language "The constitutional amendment clarifying that certain economic development programs do not constitute a debt." "Enmienda constitucional que hace la aclaración de que ciertos programas de desarrollo económico no constituyen una deuda."

Brief Explanation
HJR 80 would provide that local economic development program loans or grants (other than debts secured by a pledge of ad valorem taxes or financed by the issuance of any bonds or other obligations payable from ad valorem taxes) do not constitute or create debt. Any provision of state constitutional law that may prohibit or limit the authority of a political subdivision of the state to incur debt does not apply to those loans or grants.

For legal reasons, they want to clarify that certain expenditures that the state makes are not actually going into debt... provided that there's no set plan (such as taxes) for paying off those expenditures. Excuse me for asking a dumb question, But if you spend money and don't have a way of paying it off and, presumedly, have to go to a bank to get the cash to actually pay your vendors, how is that not a debt? Because it's an "investment" instead? If you can't pay off expenses for a "local economic development" are you spared the humiliation of a sheriff's auction?

This redefinition may or may not be good fiscal management. But I have to wonder if behind it isn't just a bunch of Republicans trying to cover up an impending (and unconstitutional) state debt created by the short sighted tax cuts that our previous governor implemented during his term. I suspect it's paper shuffling techniques employed trying to hide debts incurred by bad past management decisions. Or "Enron" for short.

The third variety of amendments are those whose language is so obscure that I just can't figure out what the heck they mean. In those cases I call my momma and she tells me how to vote.

Posted by Bucky at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2005

Municipal elections '05

Greg Wythe, exclusive holder of "Greg's Opinions," has a pretty complete run down of what to look forward to--or rather what not to look forward to--in this year's mayoral and city council elections. The mayor (what's his name) is running unopposed, save a few perennial cranks, and the countroller (what's her name--no relation to the mayor) is running completely unopposed. Only three of the city council seats, by Greg's reckoning, will feature races worthy of the name.

I don't quite share Greg's astonishment that Controller Annise Parker isn't drawing even token opposition. Follow my logic here... if you dare.

First off, let's note that (1) Republicans, by their very nature, are better marketers than we are and (2) opposition to Annise has always been a matter of organized opposition. Since there's no reason to think Annise would pull anything but a substantial majority if challenged this year--and because she scares local Republicans in ways no one has since Kathy Whitmire--it's only logical that they would want to avoid the negative publicity of seeing Parker win in a major blow out this year. The last thing the pimps of intolerance need is for demographic bigotry to suddenly start to seem blasé and out of fashion.

With no major scandals and no hot button issues heating up this year's elections, you can practically smell the apathy in the air--if you cared to try. No one's wasting their energy organizing.

So, wallah, with no one recruiting an organized opponent against her, Parker's walking into a smooth reelection. Presumedly, she's then a front runner for mayor when Bill White's final term is up and our Republican friends can go on with their predictable personal lifestyle attacks at that time without seeming to beat a horse quite dead since the '05 elections.

Mind you, this might not have been the local Republicans' plans all along. It might just be a rationalization. But with Annise assured of reelection in November, it's bound to at least represent their current strategic thinking.

Posted by Bucky at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 24, 2005

Coming out swinging

As the situation in Iraq deteriorates almost as quickly as the price of gas rises and the President's poll numbers fall, two of the Texas Democratic candidates yesterday broadsided their GOP incumbent opponents for their respective failings.

David Van Os writes under the headline "Yearning to Breathe Free"(emphasis mine):

An August 22 story in the Austin American-Statesman describes the plight of immigrant workers who perform some of the most laborious jobs in our economy yet have difficulty obtaining the pay they have earned for their work. (“The power of shame pays off; public vigil helps migrants claim money owed to them,” Austin American-Statesman, Asher Price, 8-22-05; link above req. reg.)

Under state law the Texas Attorney General has the power to come down hard against unscrupulous employers who exploit low-wage immigrant workers by refusing to pay such workers for work they have performed. Suits by the Attorney General to obtain injunctions and to assess the stiff monetary penalties provided by Texas payday laws would quickly get the attention of employers who unlawfully refuse to pay their workers and would deter other employers from similar conduct.

The immortal words on our Statue of Liberty proclaim, “Give me your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” We are mostly a nation of immigrants who came and whose ancestors came to this land fleeing injustice and seeking the breath of liberty. The exceptions, such as those who are descended from victims of the African slave trade and those whose ancestors were incorporated into the nation under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, nevertheless often take lead positions in our nation’s pursuit of freedom and justice for all. No human being can “breathe free” if unable to purchase the necessities of life as a result of laboring without just compensation. The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution is uncompromising in its permanent prohibition of involuntary servitude as a fundamental value of the American social covenant.

The Texas Legislature meant what it said when it enacted laws against non-payment of wages with stern penalties assessable through suit by the Attorney General. While the current Republican Attorney General politically grandstands over a Ten Commandments monument on the State Capitol Grounds, he ignores the biblical injunction that "You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers.” The Republican Attorney General should move quickly on this issue, but he will not do so because it would interfere with the immigrant-bashing philosophy of his radical political base. It is a terrible shame that enforcement of the laws of Texas on behalf of the working poor will have to wait until I am sworn in as Attorney General in January 2007; but when that time comes, enforcement will arrive swiftly and aggressively on behalf of not only immigrants but all Texas workers, regardless of background or status, who are victimized by such unjust and unscrupulous labor practices.

And then Barbara Radnofsky smacks down KBH with this:

Recent news reports showed that Senator Hutchison has abandoned the issues on which she based her announcement to seek re-election, choosing to focus on three issues our campaign identified: veterans' affairs, education, and health care. She has crawfished on a variety of issues our campaign raised.

* She has flip-flopped on veterans affairs after a series of speeches and press releases from our campaign, and has finally called for a VA Hospital south of San Antonio, after months of my campaigning for such a facility.

* She has flip-flopped after her abandonment of her Constitutional obligation of Advise and Consent, and is now calling for Senate vetting of Supreme Court appointees, after her prompt rubberstamping of the President's nomination and her immediate call on her colleagues to ensure the nomination.

* She wrongly claims to be supportive of health care when in fact she voted against the bipartisan Bingaman-Smith amendment that restored Medicaid funding cut from Texas. After the last eleven years of rubberstamping and failed leadership, Texas now leads the nation in percentage of uninsured children and adults. She now parrots our campaigns call for insurance reform. We call on her to echo our call for prompt pay and preventive care.

* She wrongly claims to support education, while on her watch Texas has achieved the lowest high school graduation rate in the U.S. We call on her to echo our recommendations for mediation and full funding for grants for higher education.

* She has proudly touted her role in passage of the transportation bill. We call on her to concede that the transportation formulas in the bill that she rubberstamped have harmed Texans, sending our hard-earned Texas dollars out of state so that we can build needless construction projects in Alaska.


It sure will be nice to have real leaders in Austin and Washington for a change, won't it?

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 05:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 02, 2005

Thanks to Paul Hackett

There's a "Thanks, Paul" blog up now. I encourage everyone to add their comments to this. A lot of us in Texas really cared for this race because we're so hungry to have a fighting Democrat out there telling the truth. So I've started this site in hopes of sending a message to Paul, who's been dubbed an "honorary Texan," that he has made a huge difference and that we hope to hear his voice in 2006 as well.


To be included, you only need to email to bucky [at] brownbagblog [dot] com with the text you want to send to Paul and the name you want to go by there. Links are okay too, as they'll add color and more interesting things to the blog. Also I prefer that you also include what state you're from in the thanks, just to show him and his campaigners how broad their support is.

Thank You, Paul

Posted by Bucky at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 27, 2005

Election Assessment Hearing here Weds., 6/29

On Thursday, June 30th, the (James A.) Baker -- (former Pres. Jimmy) Carter Commission on Federal Election Reform will hold their second and final hearing at the campus of Rice University.

The commission has already refused to hear the testimony of Rep. John Conyers, who of course headed a congressional subcommittee investigation into the voting irregularities with regard to the 2004 election in the state of Ohio. David Cobb, the Green Party's 2004 presidential candidate, was also denied the opportunity to testify about the problems he encountered with Ohio's electoral processes during the attempted recount. Other election process researchers, analysts, investigators and atorneys were likewise refused the chance to report their findings of problems with our election processes during the 2004 election.

In response to this apparent lack of interest on the part of the Baker-Carter Commission in surveying problems with election processes evidenced in the last election, and in order to provide state election officials which will help them make informed decisions, 51 Capital March, with the endorsement of BradBlog, CAEF, IPPN, J-30 Coalition, USCountVotes, VotersUnite and others, is sponsoring an Election Assessment Hearing to be held in Houston on June 29th, the day before the Baker-Carter Commission is scheduled to meet.

Here's the location and agenda, and this is the list of presenters, which include Cobb and Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org .

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 22, 2005

Quan Won't Run in CD 22

It looks as if Nick Lampson will be the only Democratic candidate to challenge DeLay in his home district.

Gordon Quan, a Houston City Council member, has said he will not run against DeLay in CD 22, and he has formally endorsed Lampson. This leaves Lampson as the Democratic candidate, and Mike Fjetland and Tom DeLay as the Republican candidates.

See the article in the Houston Chronicle.

Posted by at 08:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 09, 2005

Martha Wong and Al Edwards draw Democratic challengers

From the Texas Democrats Yahoo group listserv, moderated by Carl Whitmarsh:

Ellen Cohen, President and CEO of the Houston Area Women's Center,will be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for State Representative, District 134, in 2006. This is the seat held by Republican Martha Wong which includes large parts of Montrose and the highest number of pro-choice women in the state. Good news.
The board of the women's center voted to give Ms. Cohen a leave of absence from her duties from January 1 thru November 2006.


Young Black Businessman Boris Miles will be a candidate for the Democratic Nomination for State Representative, District 146, versus longtime incumbent Al Edwards. This will be Miles' first foray into the electoral fray and it will be a tough one indeed as he will be going up against 26 year incumbent Edwards, also a member of the Democratic National Committee and a member of GOP Speaker Tom Craddick's team. Look for other candidates in this primary race in an overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 06:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack