This one is fascinating...

The Dibold voting machines were brought in because of complaints after the Florida 2000 LOSS by Al Gore.  There were punch card ballots being used in a couple of counties and those counties had people who were unable to use said ballots..  This is odd, because nowhere else, in the United States, where they are widely used, was there any mention of other problems, just Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties of Florida.

So the race was on to find a new way to vote.  A “bipartisan” effort to find a new way to vote that somehow is more corruptible than the punch card ballot, and only cost BILLIONS for us to realize this!  Bear in mind that Republicans and Democrats came up with this option… Money was taken by thieves and given to their corporate interests.  Meanwhile, we were left with a corruptible electoral system?  Well while we discuss voter fraud and election stealing, let me ask another question….

 TOLEN FROM WHOM???  The Corrupt Republican Politician bent on serving the corporate interests? or the Corrupt Democrat Politician bent on serving the corporate interests?

 While we all ponder voter fraud and stolen elections, and replacing machines that we spent “B”illions to purchase, in order to make our elections more secure, I am thinking that we should be more interested in the lock down corporate America has on the election process..  It does not matter who wins among repubs or dems…  the corporate interests always get what they want.  We only need look at the republican and democrat candidates for the office of the preznitcy..

 
Hillary and Rudy… 

Ciao, CZ

by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 686 comments) on Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 9:41:01 AM
 

Discrepancies Mean an Imperative to Change before 2008

   The signature requirements of Party and independent candidates for New Mexico's 2008 elections still contains a “variable formula” (as published in the New Mexico Candidate Guide for 2008 elections). It can only be concluded that the election scheme, including a variable formula for signature requirements and the statutes adhering and preserving party approval do not comport to the standard of the Constitutional election of Federal officials.   As to numbers required for the United States Senate candidates, Republican hopefuls would be required to file 1062 party signatures. Their Democratic counter-parts would be required to file 2162 signatures based upon a higher Democratic Party turn-out in 2006 primaries. An independent candidate, however, would be required to file 16,775 to  qualify for the same office.   As a one of 1,062 is more than one of 2,162 and both are more than one of 16,775, by axiom “one person, one vote”( Westbury v. Sanders, a landmark  US Supreme Court case from 1963) . The Court held that "as nearly as practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's."  The signature value of the petitioners who affix their signatures is not equal to the extent it is diminished. Thus, the signatories and the candidates are denied equal protection.    Taken together with other statutes, there is a provable disparaging effect. For example, candidate  for the Senate seat have in the past been “bounced from the ballot” based upon a requirement that candidate’s of “major” party also required to obtain a pre-primaryparty convention approval of 20 percent. This is weeks after the signatures pass through a legal challenge period.     The difference may be slight. As applied to “free and proper election in every phase”, and as a working order election scheme for statewide offices, such may be enacted; but  as applied to the United States Senate seat ( or the House of Representatives), it cannot be.  The advancing of this process is not a device of Administrative control over elections to assure only “only serious candidates” ballot access.     The elections of the United States Senate are specific under Amendment XVII of the Constitution:     The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators  from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.     New Mexico does not require it legislative candidates to submit to any pre-primary approval by a party or special interest.    Not long after the ratification of Amendment XVII, it was held that the qualifications requisite for voting for a Senator, the right to vote for the office was not derived from State constitutions and statutes, but the Constitution itself.  States were given the  discretion to set reasonable methods to establish voting qualifications .But the method selected needed to act “neutrally” amongst the candidates and without an abridgement or discrimination. When extended, “the right to vote” is a right to seek public office withoutonerous qualifications.    The Federal standard is a discernable number of the population as to be duly represented and a quantum of the vote may be a discernable minority-- and not differences which results of a scheme of two magnitudes or a breach of the State’s neutrality in the conduct of elections.     Ballot access for any candidacy is a vital part of the election process.  Candidates whose name does not appear upon the ballots cast or requiring a “write-in candidacy” are practically foreclosed from obtaining election in a statewide election. Taken in the totality of circumstances, the statutory scheme of New Mexico has several restrictions or “trap-doors for candidates” which have been employed in previous campaigns for the Senate. These are, contrary to the explicit Amendment which provides for ballot position and popular election in the same manner as the most numerous branch of the Legislature. While the Amendment does not require “perfect symmetry” in the provision of the election to the members of  Congress ( US v Ala) ,the Amendment for does require that the established voting qualification do not transgress the Federal  Constitution ( US V.La.). And New Mexico’s scheme is askew.     It is an imperative that these and other disparities in the election code be corrected as the dates of the 2008 elections approach, and not afterwards if indeed we are to enjoy free and proper elections in every phase of the ballot process.   

by Eliot Gould (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 21 diaries, 137 comments) on Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 9:48:43 AM
 

CORRECT URL FOR VIDEO

http://www.hotpotatomash.com/2007/10/video-exclusi-1.html

by David John (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 3:17:54 PM
 

thank you david!

thank you so much for the correction.

now it is my hope that everyone will sit down and watch the video and send in some comments and send the video around.   

joan

by Joan Brunwasser (164 articles, 3538 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 634 comments) on Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 4:59:06 PM
 

I stress again... STOLEN FROM WHOM????

"If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table," - - Hillary Clinton, Foreign Affairs Magazine...

by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 686 comments) on Monday, October 15, 2007 at 8:29:16 PM