Uppity Wisconsin

John McCain's slogan is "Country First," whatever that means.

And Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's motto is "Party, Party, Party."

As in political party, not wild in the streets.

Van Hollen, putting on his vigilant attorney general hat, filed a lawsuit against his own state's Government Accountability Board -- the board created to take partisanship out of elections -- in a move that could disenfranchise -- or at least seriously hassle -- one million Wisconsin voters.

Van Hollen acted after complaints from the state Republican Party that the accountability board wasn't making it hard enough for people to vote. More of the same attempts to frighten people by yelling "fraud" while perpetrating the fraud themselves by denying people what we call the RIGHT to vote. (When we say that, we don't mean right wing.)

The GOP wanted to require every person whose information on the voter rolls doesn't exactly match their driver's license to have to prove themselves at the polls.

Rep. Conyers and Wexler stand for the people.  Good for them, they deserve all the credit in the world.  They are taking Karl Rove to task for his refusal to testify before congress.  From RawStory:

"We're closing in on Rove," Conyers was heard saying today on the House floor, according to a source for Politico. "Someone's got to kick his ass....."

"If he doesn't show, Conyers said: "We'll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We'd hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested."

"We want him for so many things, it's hard to keep track," he added."  (following video 8min)

If you happen to be unfamiliar with the Siegelman case, Daily Kos explains:

He's just beside himself, apparently having just learned that there were some mistakes made in the election more than three years ago -- mistakes first reported, and reported extensively and repeatedly, by his own newspaper.

But 2004 included much more, enough that U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic could report afterward that he stood by his initial assessment: There was clear evidence of vote fraud, even if most cases would be impossible to prosecute.

Now, the Milwaukee Police Department’s report serves up 67 pages of cases, addresses, numbers and this conclusion: “The task force believes fraud was committed.” It quotes one of its investigators: “I know I voted in the election, but I can’t be certain it counted.”

The details are damning, with investigators repeatedly blaming not mischance but the flawed combination of an inept election apparatus and the nation’s most porous voting procedures.

Perhaps Paddy Mac should read Milwaukee's daily newspaper, the Journal Sentinel, which pays him to write such drivel.

In its front page story, he might have found this:

Well, well, well. The Republicans were right. There was a case of voter fraud. It was double voting by a Republican.

Nice job, Prosecutor Biskupic.  Another misconception shattered.  No further comment required:

The Journal Sentinel's Proof & Hearsay reports:

He double voted to benefit ...

By Derrick Nunnally

Thursday, Aug 23 2007, 04:13 PM

Few things in the American political system are viewed as sacrosanct as the concept that a voter's ballot is secret.

Perhaps that's why lawyers, when they had Michael A. Zore under oath in his trial for voting twice in last November's election, he wasn't asked for whom he had cast his acknowledged multiple ballots.

However — and this ought to answer questions posed by several readers — we get a fairly definitive answer in this transcript of Zore's interrogation by a detective, which turned up in courthouse records.

This morning's New York Times carries an article on its front page discussing the bogus "widespread voter fraud prosecution" throughout the country, and features Wisconsin. Makes you proud, eh?

In Wisconsin, where prosecutors have lost almost twice as many cases as they won, charges were brought against voters who filled out more than one registration form and felons seemingly unaware that they were barred from voting.

One ex-convict was so unfamiliar with the rules that he provided his prison-issued identification card, stamped “Offender,” when he registered just before voting.

If only it were just Wisconsin. It's a story that isn't going to die any time soon.

The mystery is solved. For weeks, it was unclear who whined to the White House last year that not enough voter fraud cases were being prosecuted in Milwaukee. Now we know. The state Republican Party went straight to the top in its efforts to make voter fraud an issue in Wisconsin. Sources tell No Quarter that Rick Wiley, then the executive director of the state GOP, directed a staffer in 2005 to prepare a 30-page report on election abuses in Wisconsin so Wiley could pass it along to a top White House official. That document, entitled "Fraud in Wisconsin 2004: A Timeline/Summary," turned up last week in the horde of White House and U.S. Justice Department records released by the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. "The report was prepared for Karl Rove," said a source with knowledge of the situation. "Rick wanted it so he could give it to Karl Rove." Yeah, that Karl Rove, President Bush's political mastermind and his deputy chief of staff. The same guy who was knee-deep in helping decide which U.S. attorneys to keep or to boot.

The Journal Sentinel's editorial board endorsed Clifford on Sunday. The editorial board is separate from the Journal Sentinel's reporting and editing newsroom.

We all knew this was happening, but it's interesting to see an insider from the Bush administration admit it. Yesterday's LA Times carries an OpEd piece from Joseph D. Rich - the former head of the voting section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

I saw this this morning on the Politech email list, and thought it was worth reading - people were clamoring for election reform, and got some - now what do we do to get rid of it??

(Warning: You might really hate this story.) This story represents months of original research by Black Box Voting. We went into this looking for the defense industry contractors we'd heard had lobbied for the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). That legislation has been blamed for the touch-screens (DREs) that showed up all over America. Well, that's not what we found. The real story on who was behind HAVA may come as a surprise to you. It was to us..

Permission to reprint and distribute granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org

The Recent HBO Documentary Hacking Democracy is now available online. Thanks to Google Video for hosting this. Let us know if there are any problems with this video - it's our first Google video that we've tried to put up here. This is a great thing to watch on election day - PLEASE go and vote first before you watch it, or you might be too discouraged. This should be more of a reminder to you that it is important that you go to vote, and make the vote as lopsided as possible, to try to counteract all of the attempts at vote fraud.  This is only one of the means. 

Greg Palast has been talking about this, and writing about this for years now. It's about bloody time someone noticed:

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION -

by Greg Palast

In a new story, the Brad Blog outlines how Diebold managed to keep SAIC's full report on the security flaws in their voting machines from ever reaching the Maryland officials that were investigating the problems. This report includes the full original report. Yet again we see Diebold manipulating the truth about their system.

What method are you going to be using to vote next week? Personally I really miss putting my mark on a good ol' paper ballot - which I could do here up until this year. Maybe next year I'll get to do it again.

Geez - the election isn't even here yet and the reports of problems with voting machines are starting already - and in Florida - I'm shocked, shocked I say!!!

After a week of early voting, a handful of glitches with electronic voting machines have drawn the ire of voters, reassurances from elections supervisors -- and a caution against the careless casting of ballots.

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step.