Change eyed in regulation of Arizona provisional ballots

Change eyed in regulation of Arizona provisional ballots

by by Alia Beard Rau
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 29, 2010

Each election, thousands of provisional ballots are thrown out in Arizona because the voter went to the wrong polling place. 

State elections officials say workers tell voters who show up at the wrong precinct on Election Day that their ballots may not be counted, but allow them to vote there anyway. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and other voter-advocacy groups say they want the state Legislature to change what are some of the toughest laws in the nation so the votes of these wayward thousands can be counted.

ACLU of Arizona on Tuesday released a report analyzing how state law impacts provisional ballots, particularly provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct in Maricopa, Pima, Coconino, Pinal and Yavapai counties. The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires states to allow voters to cast a provisional ballot when there is a question about the voter's eligibility. But the act allows each state to set its own criteria for such ballots.

Arizona is one of 30 states that requires voters to cast a provisional ballot in the voter's assigned precinct to be counted.

The ACLU analyzed data from the November 2008 presidential general election and found that of 131,476 provisional ballots cast in the five counties, 13,467 were discarded because the voter cast the ballot at the wrong precinct.

According to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, 14,929 ballots statewide were discarded in that 2008 election because of a wrong polling place.

Statewide data for this year's primary election is not yet available. But in Maricopa County, 1,059 provisional ballots were discarded because voters cast them at the wrong polling place, county elections spokeswoman Yvonne Reed said.

Following the election, Arizona election officials go through all provisional ballots by hand to determine whether they should be counted. In addition to a wrong polling place, ballots can be discarded if the voter can't provide proper ID, was later determined to be ineligible to vote or had already cast a mail-in ballot.

Linda Brown, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network, said research conducted by her group has shown that Arizona typically distributes - and discards - more provisional ballots than most other states. Since 2005, members of her group have stationed themselves at polling places. She said they wanted to help alleviate confusion surrounding voter ID rules and discovered that many people had problems finding the correct polling place.

"People would say they had been to three polling places, and nobody could tell them where to vote," Brown said.

Brown said she had seen the statistics from the November 2008 election and "was appalled."

"We've had elections decided on 50 to 100 votes," she said. "These things matter."

One of the causes of the voter confusion, according to the ACLU and Brown, is that population shifts in Arizona regularly result in changing polling locations and their boundaries. Between 2006 and 2008, about 40 percent of the polling locations in Maricopa County changed, according to the ACLU.

ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze said poll workers are instructed to tell voters they are in the wrong place and have maps to help them find the correct precinct. But she said workers can give lost voters provisional ballots and may not make it clear that the ballot will not be counted.

"A lot of this comes down to poll-worker training and voter education," Soler Meetze said.

The counties offer ways for voters to find their polling place online or by telephone. But Brown said on election days, at least in Maricopa County, the website freezes up because of high traffic, and the hotline can have a long wait.

Reed said workers cannot unequivocally tell a voter whose name doesn't show up on a precinct's voter list that their ballot won't be counted because that's not always the case. For example, if someone recently moved to the area, their name may not yet be on the precinct-voter list even though that is their correct polling place.

"We instruct them that they are not listed, and this is more than likely the wrong place," Reed said. "We can't turn a person away. The law won't allow us."

Secretary of State Ken Bennett is pushing to move from having a large number of small precincts to a smaller number of larger polling centers that would allow voters to cast their ballot at any center within their county.

Several other states, including Colorado, have been trying this format. Yavapai County tried it at a few polling locations in a May 18, 2008, special election.

Spokesman Matthew Benson said technology would allow a poll worker to use a computerized system to determine the appropriate ballot for each voter and print it out on the spot. Benson said the idea is at the research and discussion phase.

Soler Meetze said in the meantime, voters need to double-check their polling places, and election workers need to make sure voters understand that a provisional ballot cast at the wrong place will not be counted.

Brown said voters can avoid the problem by voting by mail. The deadline to request an early ballot for the Nov. 2 election is Oct. 22.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/09/29/20100929wrongprecinct0929.html#ixzz11QQCbIiF

Bernie Sanders: Republicans do not want America to succeed

by David Edwards
Rawstory
Sunday, October 3

Sen. Bernie Sanders told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday that Republicans are more interested in gaining power than they are in helping the country.

"I think in his heart the president is a very, very decent guy," said Sanders. "He wants to do what most Americans want him to do: to reach out, bring people together.

"But what has happened is the Republicans have said no, no, no. They have waged more filibusters than any time in the history of this country. They have been the party of no and obstructionism," Sanders continued. "At some point, what the president has got to understand is they do not want America to succeed. They're into politics."

Pressed by Schieffer if that was fair to say the GOP didn't want the US to succeed, at least with a Democratic president in the White House, Sanders said yes.

"That's a strong statement to make," Schieffer said. "Is it really fair to say they don't want America to succeed?"

Continue reading here.

Corporate Profits 'Near-Historic' In Second Quarter, Thanks To Cost-Cutting

By William Alden
The Huffington Post  
10- 4-10

Corporate America finished the second quarter with "near-historic" profits, largely by cutting costs, laying off employees and streamlining operations, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Profits for companies in the S&P 500 soared 38 percent from the same period last year, hitting $189 billion, the WSJ says, the sixth-highest quarterly total ever. S&P analysts expect the trend to have continued in the third quarter.

Since 2008, corporate profits increased 10 percent -- but revenue was down 6 percent, the WSJ says. To achieve the impressive quarterly results, companies have had, as the WSJ puts it, to "streamline" their operations. This means firing workers, outsourcing labor and shuttering unprofitable (or less profitable) divisions.

The robust state of corporate profits presents a paradox: companies won't spend their money until the economy improves, but the economy won't improve until they spend their money. An increase in hiring, for example, would help drive a recovery. The New York Times reports this "chicken-and-egg" phenomenon, noting that near-zero interest rates have encouraged companies to borrow money and simply hoard it because, as the NYT puts it, "they can." Combined, companies have $1.6 trillion in cash, the paper notes. In the first quarter of this year, their cash reserves represented the highest percentage of assets since 1964.

"They are still holding on to more cash in the same way that Noah built the ark," Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg told the NYT.

As HuffPost's Shahien Nasiripour reported in August, bank profits during the second quarter rose 21 percent to almost $22 billion, the highest level in three years.

All these corporate profits came as the country as a whole got poorer. The net worth of households and non-profits dropped 2.8 percent during the second quarter to $53.5 trillion, erasing two quarters of gains. The figure hadn't been that low since the third quarter of 2009. And here is the rest of it.

The Pledge: Republican Economics as Social Darwinism

by Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor; Professor at Berkeley; Author, 'Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future'
Huffington Post
September 26, 2010 03:59 PM


John Boehner, the Republican House leader who will become Speaker if Democrats lose control of the House in the upcoming midterms, recently offered his solution to the current economic crisis:

"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmer, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, lead a more moral life."

Actually, those weren't Boehner's words. They were uttered by Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary, millionaire industrialist Andrew Mellon, after the Great Crash of 1929.

But they might as well have been Boehner's because Hoover's and Mellon's means of purging the rottenness was by doing exactly what Boehner and his colleagues are now calling for: shrink government, cut the federal deficit, reduce the national debt, and balance the budget.

And we all know what happened after 1929, at least until FDR reversed course.

Boehner and other Republicans would even like to roll back the New Deal and get rid of Barack Obama's smaller deal health-care law.

The issue isn't just economic. We're back to tough love. The basic idea is to force people to live with the consequences of whatever happens to them.

In the late 19th century it was called Social Darwinism. Only the fittest should survive, and any effort to save the less fit will undermine the moral fiber of society.

Republicans have wanted to destroy Social Security since it was invented in 1935 by my predecessor as labor secretary, the great Frances Perkins. Remember George W. Bush's proposal to privatize it? Had America agreed with him, millions of retirees would have been impoverished in 2008 when the stock market imploded.



Continue reading here.

DISTURBING NEWS: 2010 Election "Database Wars" from Black Box Voting

TO LISTEN CLICK ON THE PICTURE

Brad Friedman of the Bradblog interviews Bev Harris of Black Box Voting who along with Susan Pynchon who heads the Florida Fair Elections Coalition uncovered massive election fraud in Shelby County TN.  Harris predicts that what they found in their Memphis investigation is a harbinger of what may come on the national scene in the 2010 elections.  Listen and learn how Memphis election officials are still telling big whoppers about how a substitute voter database was used to disenfranchise more than 5000 voters in the Tennessee primary.  Harris and Pynchon said these voters who tried to vote on election day were told they had already voted.  That's not all of the story. 28 minutes.

One Wisconsin Now Exposes Voter Suppression Plans Between Republican Party of Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Group

September 20, 2010

Coordination on Voter Caging, Targeting Minorities, College Students Outlined in Documents, Tea Party Meeting Recording

Madison – A coordinated plot by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin and organizations in the so-called Tea Party movement targeting minority voters and college students in a possibly illegal “voter caging” effort for voter suppression has been uncovered in evidence obtained by One Wisconsin Now, a statewide advocacy organization in Madison, Wisconsin.

“Based on what we have heard, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, the Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin and leading Tea Party organizations are in collusion in an effort to suppress the ability of minorities and university students in Wisconsin to exercise their right to vote this November,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “We will be providing all of the evidence we have received on this wrongdoing to federal and state authorities so that they can investigate to ensure justice and democracy prevail.”

Ross said One Wisconsin Now will today be filing formal requests for investigation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, as well as the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Election Integrity Task Force and the Government Accountability Board demanding a full investigation to ensure the right to vote is not stolen by these plans.

The non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice outlines the process of voter caging:

Voter caging is the practice of sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at their registered addresses. Supporters of voter caging defend the practice as a means of preventing votes cast by ineligible voters. Voter caging, however, is notoriously unreliable. If it is treated (unjustifiably) as the sole basis for determining that a voter is ineligible or does not live at the address at which he or she registered, it can lead to the unwarranted purge or challenge of eligible voters. …Moreover, the practice has often been targeted at minority voters, making the effects even more pernicious. [Brennan Center, “A Guide to Voter Caging,” 6/29/07]

One Wisconsin Now obtained an audio recording it has verified as authentic from a June 16, 2010 meeting between the leaders of the state’s Tea Party movement, led by Tim Dake, head of the GrandSons of Liberty. Dake serves as a regular spokesperson for Wisconsin’s Tea Party organizations and is widely viewed as the movement’s Wisconsin leader. The full audio, available at One Wisconsin Now’s voter protection website, www.SaveWisconsinsVote2010.org, details the plans for a coordinated voter suppression efforts, which is anchored in challenging voter eligibility on Election Day this November 2.

THE PLOT

According to the statements made on the recordings, Dake lays out the plans, detailing contact between himself and Reince Preibus, the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and Mark Block, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin:

• The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its “Voter Vault” state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.
• Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.
• The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.
• On Election Day, these organizations will then “make use” of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges. 
•  

Continue reading here:

NYT: The Secret Election

EDITORIAL
New York Times
September 18, 2010


For all the headlines about the Tea Party and blind voter anger, the most disturbing story of this year’s election is embodied in an odd combination of numbers and letters: 501(c)(4). That is the legal designation for the advocacy committees that are sucking in many millions of anonymous corporate dollars, making this the most secretive election cycle since the Watergate years.
Related

As Michael Luo reported in The Times last week, the battle for Congress is largely being financed by a small corps of wealthy individuals and corporations whose names may never be known to the public. And the full brunt of that spending — most of it going to Republican candidates — has yet to be felt in this campaign.

Corporations got the power to pour anonymous money into elections from Supreme Court and Federal Election Commission decisions in the last two years, culminating in the Citizens United opinion earlier this year. The effect is drastic: In 2004 and 2006, virtually all independent groups receiving electioneering donations revealed their donors. In 2008, less than half of the groups reported their donors, according to a study issued last week by the watchdog group Public Citizen. So far this year, only 32 percent of the groups have done so.

Most of the cash has gone to Republican operatives like Karl Rove who have set up tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations. In theory, these groups, with disingenuously innocuous names like American Crossroads and the American Action Network, are meant to promote social welfare. The value to the political operatives is that they are a funnel for anonymous campaign donations.

Continue reading here.

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Christian Right in the Tea Party Movement

By Nancy L. Cohen, Historian and Author
HuffingtonPost
September 17, 2010


If you liked Rovian anti-gay marriage referendums, the Terry Schiavo saga, anti-abortion litmus tests for diplomatic service in a war zone, and creationism in the Grand Canyon bookstore, you'll love this season's Tea Party candidates.

Why are we just getting the bulletin about "social conservatives" in the Tea Party movement? The media, beguiled by the period costumes and libertarian theatrics of the Tea Party demonstrations, overlooked from the very beginning the influence of veteran Christian rightwing activists within it. But read between the lines and you'll find clues that the Christian Right has been in the Tea Party trenches from the start. A few examples:

USA Today illustrates a report on the Tea Party movement's seven defining attitudes with a photograph of a Tea Partier holding his gigantic family bible. Their poll (with Gallup). however, doesn't ask a single question about social issues.

An April New York Times poll notes that Tea Partiers are more conservative on social issues than other Republicans, only to dismiss the point as irrelevant.

A brilliant article by historian Jill Lepore profiles Christen Varley, president of the Boston Tea Party. Varley says she's new to politics. But she is a home-schooling parent, and works for the Coalition for Marriage and Family, a nonprofit formed to try to get a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot. Home-schooling and anti-gay groups are two of the most important sites of political activism in the Christian Right, though you wouldn't know it from the article.

The successful Tea Party candidates reveal how vital social conservatism is to Tea Party voters. Would-be GOP Senators Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell are bona fide Christian zealots. "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can't masturbate without lust!" according to O'Donnell, during her stint as the founder and president of the abstinence group, Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth. Angle put her name in the '90s to medieval-themed screeds against gays, and famously said that teen rape and incest victims "can turn a lemon situation into lemonade." In Alaska, an onerous anti-abortion ballot measure helped drive up turnout for Joe Miller. Colorado's Ken 'Vote-for-me-because-I-don't-wear-high-heels' Buck favors a state Personhood amendment, an anti-abortion measure which would effectively outlaw many common forms of birth control. Likewise, he favors a "much closer relationship" between church and state and turning over government services to faith-based groups.


Continue reading here.


 

Obama: Repub 'Corporate Power Grab' "What's at stake is not just this election but democracy itself"

Political insider: Conservation group names Melvin to its 'Dirty Dozen'

Sept. 17, 2010 12:00 AM

State Sen. Al Melvin has hit the big time, making the cut to be one of just 12 lawmakers and governors nationwide to be recognized by the League of Conservation Voters. But it's no cause for breaking out the recyclable champagne bottles.

The league has named Melvin, R-Tucson, to its national "Dirty Dozen" list for his environmental-voting record.


"You could probably find more legislators who are worse on the environment, but not one who is so out of touch with his district," said Steve Arnquist, executive director of the Arizona LCV.

Melvin's voting record on issues such as establishing a constitutional right to hunt and fish or blocking the state from setting its own greenhouse-gas emission standards pales in comparison with that of his seatmates, both current and in the recent past, Arnquist said. Legislative District 26, which Melvin represents, has produced lawmakers who have posted pro-environment records, he said.

In the past year, the league gave Melvin a 25 percent rating. It wasn't the lowest: Seven other senators scored lower than Melvin.

- Mary Jo Pitzl


Read more: 

Jan Brewer, Terry Goddard spar on Arizona budget deficit

by Casey Newton - Sept. 17, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 17, 2010 12:00 AM

The gubernatorial candidates' economic views diverged sharply Thursday in a meeting with The Arizona Republic Editorial Board, with Jan Brewer pledging no new taxes and Terry Goddard saying the state has to consider some.

Brewer, the Republican governor, sparred with Goddard, the Democratic attorney general, and Libertarian candidate Barry Hess. Each claimed to have the best plan to balance the budget and rescue Arizona from its deep recession.


They made their case with the state facing a budget deficit estimated at $1.7 billion for this year and next and with less than a month before the start of early voting Oct. 7.

Brewer, who supported the 1-cent-per-dollar sales-tax increase earlier this year, said she has ruled out additional tax hikes.

That means steep cuts will be needed to close the budget deficit. Brewer said education, the Department of Health Services and the Department of Economic Security all are likely to see significant reductions next year.

"I think it's obvious we're going to have to go in and make some very hard, tough decisions," said Brewer, who polls suggest has a commanding lead over her opponents. "They're probably going to be even tougher going forward."

Any new cuts would come on top of $2.2 billion in spending reductions made since Brewer became governor in January 2009. The state has cut health care for needy families, shuttered some state parks and motor-vehicles branches and laid off hundreds of workers.

Brewer said that next year, the state again will consider transferring responsibility for juvenile offenders to the counties. She also touted her creation of a council of business leaders as a key step in attracting more investment to Arizona.

Goddard said some tax increases would be necessary to close the budget deficit, eliminating sales-tax exemptions for items like golf carts and country-club memberships. He also would consider rolling back income-tax cuts made under Gov. Fife Symington, which he said have not created any new jobs for Arizonans.

Continue reading here.

The Art of the Big Lie-- Attempted Billionaire Takeover of California a Cautionary Tale

26Dems Editorial Comment: The article below exposes the threat to democracy from a growing drift toward "totalitarian plutocracy" as super rich billionaires like Ebay CEO Meg Whitman arrogantly  throw their money around to drown the air waves with disinformation and propaganda, in an attempt to buy their way into the governorship of a powerful state like California.  Former HP CEO and outsourcing queen Carly Fiorina, endorsed by Sarah Palin is using her money to try to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer to complete the corporate takeover of California. These tea party divas hide their true identity behind deceptive advertising. Neither woman represents the public interest; both get support from antagonists of women's rights.  


WATCH VIDEO




After the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision we are seeing unrestrained corporate spending on elections. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords identifies at least four shadowy front groups dumping money into CD8 to distort and attack her record.  Ernest Canning, guest blogger on the Bradblog tells the Meg Whitman story and brilliantly connects the dots to a many-fronted  faux populist 50 state campaign intent on smothering democracy by distorting our minds, silencing our voices and manipulating our elections.  
 
  
Whitman Refuses to Pull Deceptive Ad


By Ernest A. Canning, member of California State Bar
Bradblog
9/17/2010 12:07PM

Meg Whitman

Billionare-funded propaganda, magnified by corporate media failure, threaten democracy's survival...


"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."-Mark Twain

One of the basic axioms of law is that fraud vitiates consent. One of the foundational principles of democratic governance is that legitimacy rests on the informed consent of the governed. Come November, those principles will be tested in California.

Billionaire Meg Whitman, a former EBay CEO who surpassed the $100 million mark in campaign spending nearly a month prior to the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the Fall campaign, who, by Sept. 16, had donated a record-smashing $119 million of her own funds to her campaign, who refused to meet with former California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown and Republican State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poisner in a pre-primary debate, has knowingly sought to fill the gaping knowledge deficit created by the corporate media's gross neglect of its fourth estate responsibilities with disinformation about Brown, her Democratic opponent.

When confronted by an analysis which exposed a powerful but deliberately deceptive ad (video below) which shows former President Bill Clinton accusing Brown of lying about his tax record based on a CNN report which is now known to be erroneous, Whitman's spokesperson, Darrell Ng dismissed the idea of pulling the deceptive ad as "ridiculous"...


Continue reading here. for the rest of the story including Dem. gubernatorial ad depicting Meg Whitman as Pinnochio.