Judge voids results of Berkeley
measure on medical pot
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2007
An Alameda County judge has voided election results for a failed 2004 Berkeley medical marijuana measure, ordering it returned to the ballot next year because county election officials failed to hand over data from voting machines, attorneys in the case said Thursday.
Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith also said county officials should pay attorneys’ fees and reimburse a medical marijuana group more than $22,000 for the costs it incurred during a disputed recount shortly after the November 2004 election.
In her ruling Tuesday, Smith said county officials had failed to retrieve backup data from electronic voting machines, logs of activity on the machines and other records as she had specifically ordered.
Read more.
From Jonathan Simon, a wise corrective to that exuberant post of
yesterday, about the failure of Giuliani’s drive to split CA’s electoral votes:
In a message dated 9/29/2007 10:39:47 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, mcm7@mail.nyu.edu writes:
they are officially “pulling the plug” on their attempt to steal the presidential election.
Should read “they are officially ‘pulling the plug’ on this particular attempt to steal the presidential election.” And let’s not overlook the nonpresidential elections. What they’ve really given up is one particular tactic that would have made the rather huge gap they’re going to have to cover a bit smaller and more manageable. We are very likely going to see a well-targeted (when we analyze the red-shift pattern) shift of votes. What our benchmark is for quantifying the shift will depend on whether unadjusted ‘official’ exit polls are made available, whether independent exit polling can be set up, and how much pre-election polling is biased by demographic weighting based on prior rigged elections. It should be interesting.–Jonathan (Election Defense Alliance)
Remember when Giuliani tried to use the tragedy of 9/11 to “postpone”
the mayoral electon in NY? There was an especially stark example of his
bullying contempt for proper democratic practice–and a sign of things
to come, as this news makes quite clear.
Here’s a guy who will use any pretext, and resort to any tactics, to pre-arrange
his coronation on Inauguration Day, 2009. In other words, he is the perfect choice
to carry on Bush/Cheney’s vast, protracted coup against democracy.
And so he bears close watching; and the Democrats must also be watched carefully,
and pushed as hard as possible for real electoral reform ASAP. For if they leave
the voting system as it is, merely adding a few bells and whistles (belated audits,
“paper trails,” etc.), Rudy’s troops–or Mitt’s, or Fred’s–will have no trouble
finding ways to steal the White House one more time.
MCM
September 28, 2007
MOUTH EXCLUSIVE: CALIFORNIA MONEYMAN UNMASKED
Rudy Giuliani’s top fundraiser, hedge fund giant Paul Singer, revealed himself today as the sole financial backer of a stalled ballot drive to turn California into a motherlode of Republican votes in 2008.
Singer’s disclosure, made in a statement to The Daily News, came a day after Republican operatives in the Golden State announced they were halting their ballot effort, in part because they were unsure of their own funders’ identity.
The group, Californians for Equal Representation, had received exactly one donation for $175,000, from a mysterious, Missouri-based corporation identified only as Take Initiative America.
The lack of specifics left organizers in California open to allegations they had something to hide, and several – among them lead lawyer Tom Hiltachk and spokesman Kevin Eckery – resigned Thursday rather than defend the arrangement.
“I have demanded that Take Initiative America fully disclose the source of its funds and have been assured that it will do so,” Hiltachk said in resigning. “Nonetheless, I am deeply troubled by their failure to disclose.”
But Singer, apparently eager to put the disclosure issue to rest, yesterday stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself.
“I contributed to the Take Initiative America because I believe in proportional voting in the Electoral College,” Singer said in a statement e-mailed to The News. “I made the contribution without any restrictions, including whether or how it would need to be disclosed. I left disclosure completely up to TIA.”
Sources added later that all $175,000 came from Singer, a founding partner of Elliot Associates, a $7 billion hedge fund with a long history of funding GOP causes.
The ballot initiative, if approved, would have changed how California apportions its electoral college votes. Under the states’ current winner-take-all system, the Democratic nominee has traditionally pocketed all 55 electoral votes in the left-leaning state – the nation’s largest electoral prize.
Instead, electoral votes would be apportioned to the winner in each congressional district – a change likely to shift up to 22 of those 55 votes into the GOP column, given the number of safely Republican districts in the state.
For the GOP, it would be a bonanza, akin to adding a large, new Republican state to the map.
“It’s the practical equivalent of painting Ohio or Pennsylvania red, before the election even starts,” said Republican consultant Dan Schnur.
Sources close to Singer insisted that his support for the ballot change was unrelated to his work for the Giuliani campaign, where he is a member of the national finance committee.
Campaign insiders say Singer has helped raise well over $500,000 for the former mayor’s presidential bid, making him their top rainmaker.
But opponents of the ballot drive scoffed at suggestions Giuliani wasn’t at least tacitly aware of Singer’s giving.
“It’s pretty clear that all of this is coming back to bite Rudy in his posterior,” said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, who had worked to defeat the ballot initiative.
Giuliani senior advisor Anthony Carbonetti said simply, “There is no coordination between the Giuliani campaign and any statewide effort.”
Either way, it seems unlikely Singer’s disclosure will resurrect the ballot push.
When told of Singer’s involvement late Friday, Eckery said simply, “I am glad someone is coming forward. And from our standpoint, it would have been perfectly fine to have his name earlier.”
- Dave Saltonstall
Peace,
Liz
You’ve probably heard that Verizon censored text messages sent by the pro-choice group NARAL. They claim it was a glitch. And they feel really, really bad about it.
Sorry, Verizon. That’s not good enough. This is just the latest example in the long list of phone company efforts to block, filter or interfere with the free flow of information over 21st century communications networks.
In August, AT&T censored a live webcast of a Pearl Jam concert just as lead singer Eddie Vedder criticized President Bush. AT&T said it was a glitch.
Both Verizon and AT&T illegally handed over private customer phone records to the National Security Agency. The phone companies first denied it and then started a secret campaign with the White House to gain immunity from any lawsuits.
This pattern of abuse shows that powerful phone companies cannot be trusted to safeguard our basic freedoms. The democratic principles of free speech and open communication are too important to be entrusted to corporate gatekeepers. Whether it’s liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, pro-choice or pro-gun, the phone companies can’t pick and choose what messages get through.
Censorship by AT&T and Verizon shows us what we can expect in a future where these network gatekeepers gain control over the free flow of information. Congress must reaffirm its commitment to free speech on the Internet, on cell phones, on our airwaves — everywhere!
We’ve had it with phony apologies from phone companies. Congress must act now to protect free speech and the free flow of information.
Thank you for all that you do,
THE BROOKLYN RAIL presents RANT/RHAPSODY: An Evening of Literary
Non-Fiction — BOWERY POETRY CLUB, SUN. SEPTEMBER 30
This month’s installment of the Brooklyn Rail’s RANT/RHAPSODY series
features: Mark Crispin Miller (“Fooled Again,” “The Bush Dyslexicon”);
Columnist Joan Rendell (getcrafty.com); TV Writer and “Marketplace”
radio essayist Doug Cordell; Poet Sarah Todd; blogger Rick Rowley
(“Death of a Nation”); and Rail contributor and host, Mark Read.
When: Sunday, September 30, 8:00 pm
Where: Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery between Bleecker and
Houston Sts (212-614-0505). Subway: D, F to Broadway-Lafayette St; 6 to
Bleecker St.
Cover: $5.00
First Tuesdays Series:
Naomi Wolf
Tuesday, Oct 2nd – 7:00 PM
McNally Robinson Bookstore
52 Prince St.
New York, NY
Author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green)
This monthly series hosted by author and activist Mark Crispin Miller features authors whose books tackle political and public issues from a stance outside the mainstream.
Naomi Wolf’s first book The Beauty Myth, published in 1991, galvanized readers to stop taking media depictions of female beauty at face value. With her new book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Wolf aims to have the same effect on perceptions of American democracy. Outlining ten classic steps dictators or would-be dictators always taken when they wish to close down an open society, and illustrating how each one is underway in the United States today, Wolf presents a case for the necessity of fighting to retain our hard-won freedoms. Join us for a discussion with an eminent intellectual and activist on the responsibilities of true patriotism.
From Vickie Karp:
Karen Renick and I are very excited to announce “VoteRescue Radio–Where People Count…One Vote at a Time”, a new weekly two-hour radio show beginning this Sunday, September 30th, from 2-4 pm (Central), streaming live on
We the People Radio Network (100.1 FM in the Austin area and
www.wtprn.com on the internet).
Our Austin-based election reform group, as many of you know, is dedicated to returning to totally hand-counted paper ballot elections. We plan to have a lot of fun getting out the massive amounts of news that happens every day on the election reform issue, but is never properly covered by mainstream media. We also look forward to having on as guests many of you national election reform activists to discuss the great work being you are doing to advance the cause.
On our first show we plan covering:
* A broad overview of the electronic voting machine fraud problem for those new to the issue
* A little bit about our backgrounds & how we became activists on the issue, met and began working together
* News on the We the People 10-state lawsuit
* HR 811 update
* Highlighting recent critical news such as Bowen’s e-voting vendor decertifications in California & updates
* Discussion of the role that ballots pre-stamped for chad problems had on the 2000 election – Dan Rather’s discovery, and that of a regular citizen who made that research a personal mission for years
* How other citizens across the country have been making a difference and bringing the issue to “critical mass”
The show is a “call-in” and the number for that is: 1-888-202-1984, or in the Austin area, 512-646-1984.
Hope to see/hear you “on the air”!
Vickie and Karen
GOP Says They’ll Continue Racist Voter Suppression Tactics
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on September 27, 2007, Printed on September 27, 2007
In 2004, Republicans used a Jim Crow-era tactic to target the voter registrations of a half-million likely Democratic voters — often minorities — for Election Day challenges in nine states, a national voting rights group has charged in a new report.
“The intended effect of voter caging operations is to suppress minority votes,” Project Vote said in its report, “Caging: A Fifty-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters. “Several court decisions and occasional public comment by Republican officials lend support to this conclusion.”
But Republicans say Project Vote’s report is biased because it excludes Democratic examples of filing fraudulent voter registrations to pad voter rolls and because it ignores Democratic efforts to “knock” opponents off the ballot, such as Ralph Nader in 2004, after identifying fraudulent signatures on his nominating petitions.
Read more.
