This site seeks to educate the media, candidates, political parties, activists, advocacy groups and political appointees about the importance of neutrality in election administration. ElectionNeutralityNow believes election administrators should be deputized with an oath of neutrality.
Clerks in several large counties are so nervous about the new $13 million statewide voter registration program that they plan to use their old systems for most Election Day functions this year.
Why is Colorado one of the last states in the country to implement a statewide database. This is particularly annoying when we have two representatives out of four on the Election Assistance Commission - the very agency supposed to set election technology standards.
Apparently, Donetta Davidson, the Colorado Secretary of State appointed first to the EAC,squandered $11 million. One reason she gave was "whiskers" on the computer system.This impressive grasp of technology got her the EAC appointment.
Rosemary Rodriguez was appointed to the EAC a couple of years later. She now serves as the Chair of the Commission. I've pointed out her amazing grasp of staged photos to promote her pet political cause, same day voter registration.
With all this impressive political and technical knowlege, and now $13 million later, Colorado still will not have a fully functional voter data base for the 2008 Presidential election.
I guess I am the only one who doesn't even want to be nice about this.
Think about it. What if there had been ll,000 same day registrations in Lake County? Can you see my point? A pivotal county, a mysterious slow
count, no communication, an elected official who did not understand how the votes are counted...
Do you really believe the general public would find this OK?
Do you really believe the general public would believe that ll,000 same day registrants were actually eligible voters?
I am fully aware of how this criticism may be taken, but someone needs to say it out loud.
CNN's coverage was far superior to Fox. John King fully understood the issue. The interview with the Mayor of Gary was a joke. Here is why
no politician should ever, ever be allowed to have anything to do with election administration:
"Let me tell you, when all the votes are counted, when Gary comes in, I think you're looking at something for the world to see," Clay, an Obama supporter, said in a telephone interview from Obama's Gary headquarters. "I don't know what the numbers are yet, but Gary has absolutely produced in large numbers for Obama here."
The change candidate's supporters sound like very old school...
Common Cause claims taking as long as it takes is a good thing.Thank goodness CNN at least can see why waiting is a bad thing for voter confidence.
The Mayor of Gary himself sounded exasperated in his CNN interview, "we've gone over this four or five times...the number of early voters on Monday...we are releasing the numbers as they come in..."
The guy didn't know the difference between early voting and absentee voting. He did not seem to understand how the votes were counted.
It will be interesting to see what the reasons were. Having an outspoken Obama supporter defend the slow count without understanding the difference between early voting and absentee voting...I'm still listening to the interviews with the Gary Mayor...hilarious!!!!!
The state offered voters who don't have a govt ID to get one for free for a period leading up to the election. Hillary Clinton's campaign staff said they were not busing people to the B of E. Barack Obama's campaign, however, declared that information to be strategic and therefore sensitive and would not comment.
Staffers often make stupid mistakes. Busing eligible voters to the Bureau of Elections is legal. Indiana's Bureau of Elections seems to be handling the crush just fine.
What if mandatory same day registration is forced on all states for November? Staffers will make stupid mistakes. Could overzealous staffers pay residents of neighboring states to vote in their state, where the vote would be needed?
Residency is a critical issue in local elections. It can be important in federal elections. Without precise ways of determining residency, our election systems are vulnerable. Same day registration would open a Pandora's Box of problems.
I love it when a politician's press release is treated as the entire story.
The Election Day Registration Act addresses chronic problems with the American electoral process - low voter turnout and archaic voter registration laws.
The chronic problems with the electoral process have everything to do with politicians attempting to manipulate the system. Besides, anyone who understands elections knows Motor Voter laws - allowing registration by mail - increased registration to over 80%
Registration is no longer a real issue. At most, only 20% of potential voters are involved. There is no indication that changing the laws to accomodate them will dramatically increase turnout.
Furthermore, there is no longer a direct correlation between registration and voter turnout. Registering those the stubborn 20% of the population will not translate into an 20% increase in voter turnout. Ever.
The staged photo below shows current EAC Commissioner Rosemary Rodriguez in 2002 when she attempted to hoodwink Colorado voters and game the system with her same day registration intiative.
She faked a locked polling site to dramatize the need for same day registration in Colorado. A phony photo and issue. Colorado intiated motor voter laws ahead of the rest of the country in the l980's.
If Commissioner Rodriguez faked this one, what else is she faking?
Thankfully, she wasn't able to trick the voters.
Potential for fraud in local elections is real. When I was Election Commissiner, citizens were still furious about then candidate for Mayor Frederico Pena's supporters setting up temporary addresses in Denver to vote for him.
Make it easy for them, and they will commit fraud. Without adequate technology and accurate voter lists, same day registration makes it very easy to cheat.
Few jurisdictions actually have the technology to verify residency. I don't understand myself why no corporations seem to be able to master voter lists. Few jurisdictions have accurate enough voter lists to handle same day registration.
I'd also like to see the phone and email records between Feinstein and Rosemary Rodriguez. I find it difficult to believe she is not using her perch as an activist for same day registration.
That is the real issue. I know I sound like a broken record, but election administrators should be neutral, not advocating for political causes like same day voter registration.
SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER is required by Indiana and Federal law for all License, Identification Card, and Permit transactions
If an applicant's Social Security number is not on the Bureau of Motor Vehicles' internal record, proof of the Social Security number or a letter of ineligibility from the Social Security Administration will be required.
The New York Times must have laid off their fact checkers, since they ran this editorial with false information:
In 2005, Indiana passed one of the nation's toughest voter ID laws. It requires voters to present government-issued photo ID at the polls. Private college IDs, employee ID cards and utility bills are unacceptable. For people without a driver's license - who are disproportionately poor and minority - the burden is considerable. To get acceptable ID, many people would be forced to pay fees for underlying documents, such as birth certificates.
The ubiquituous assumption that every Republican is out to get poor Democrats is especially annoying:
It seems far more likely that the goal of the law's Republican sponsors was to disenfranchise groups that lean Democratic.
And, finally, make an outrageous association to degrade the decision further:
Richard Hasen, a Loyola Law School professor, notes that if the court had taken this opinion's approach in 1966, it is not clear it would have overturned the poll tax.
I'm harping on this because I believe the Supreme Court Justices are as socially isolated as the poor they advocate for in the Voter ID decision.
If half the poor manage to own homes and drive cars, and significant numbers own lots of modern appliances, why can't they register to vote?
I'll give the specific quotes later, but the Justices do seem oblivious to factual information like how the poor live, where they live and what their priorities are.
In my opinion, the political parties and advocacy groups should spend their time and energy convincing the poor of the importance of registration and voting rather than asking the tax payers and legal systems to create institutions to do it for them.
It is far more empowering to encourage responsible behaviors than to "help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." (attributed to Lincoln incorrectly)
Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also claimed two states as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property taxes in both states.
Monday night from her Florida home, Ewing said she and her husband, Kenneth, "winter in Florida and summer in Indiana." She admitted to registering to vote in both states, but stressed that she's never voted in Florida. She also has a Florida driver's license, but when she tried to use it as her photo ID in the Indiana elections in November 2006, poll workers wouldn't accept it.
Lawyers who challenged the case cited the experience of one would-be Indiana voter, Valerie Williams, who was turned away from the polling place in November 2006 by officials who told her that a telephone bill, a Social Security letter with her address and an expired driver's license were no longer sufficient.
As usual, if you just leave out a few facts, you can make a good case. Now, I want to cover what happens when you actually misconstrue facts, like The Brennen Center does.
Not a crime necessarily, but perhaps someone should notice that Justice Souter used TBC research in his dissenting opinion.
I'll post next on The Imaginary Disenfranchised Voter's actual poverty. Don't be surprised it includes home ownership, car ownership, and my favorite, luxury item and service purchases.
Why pick on the poor? To make a point about "burdens."
The Supreme Court was reading my mind. I've been ruminating on The Imaginary Disenfranchised Voter. Resources are scarce. Is any value created in the devotion of vast amounts of time, money and energy to a tiny portion of the voting population?
Furthermore, does anyone believe that the Clinton or Obama campaigns haven't already located, registered and arranged for rides to the polls? Indiana has absentee and other forms of early voting. How many of The Imaginary Disenfranchised 43,000 have already voted?
"not introduced evidence of a single, individualIndiana resident who will be unable to vote as a result of SEA 483 or who will have his or her right to vote unduly burdened by its requirements." Id., at 783. She rejected"as utterly incredible and unreliable" an expert's report that up to 989,000 registered voters in Indiana did not possess either a driver's license or other acceptable photo identification. Id., at 803. She estimated that as of 2005, when the statute was enacted, around 43,000 Indiana residents lacked a state-issued driver's license or identification card. Id., at 807.6
The official number of newly registered voters in 200,000. How many of the 43,000 are now registered?
http://www.tribstar.com/news/l...
"Its really about politicians trying to game the system," said Michael Slater, deputy director of Project Vote, a voting rights organization based in Arkansas. "They've done that by adding all these bureaucratic obstacles to voting, and then when people can't jump over them, they blame the voter."
Who is gaming who? This quote is criticizing the Flordia law, suggesting the politicians are creating obstacles for potential voters. If you believe the politicians creating obstacles are the only ones gaming the system...
The League of Women Voters is an activist, advocacy, partisan manipulator of election systems.
I am OK with what they do. I am not OK with lying about it. In Denver, they successfully conspired and eliminated our l04 year old Election Commission, which created a one party Tammany-style political machine and wiped out minority representation. Hardly non partisan.
While I am at it, isn't there a point where reasonable efforts to register the imaginary disenfranchised voters becomes extreme? With limited resources to run election offices, shouldn't someone be challenging the assumption that we need to spend exorbitant amounts of time and money on the so called disenfranchised?
Call me ugly names if you wish. I'm not suggesting the the Florida laws are all good. Obviously, the stupid question about competency
originated in a culture where no one actually ever holds a job in the real world (only the the government world).
Just as obviously to me, registration campaigns running amuck, trying to slip in non citizens, non residents, etc. should not be allowed to clog up the system either.
Too bad our Colorado and Denver Common Cause is so obligated to their Democratic party cronies on City Council and in other positions of influence in Colorado (and now Washington, DC).
"That's very questionable, it seems to me," Ms. Lerner, of Common Cause, said of the rent payments. "It's always the type of thing which makes ordinary voters suspicious of the motives of the candidates. It's the sort of thing that makes ordinary voters dislike politicians."
Question those "motives of the candidates," who are subsequently elected politicians. We cannot trust them around the administration of our elections.
Logos