Category: National

Siegleman Election Fraud Claims Another Victim

Once again, justice delayed in justice denied. Elections stolen, but not immediately redressed even worse.

This is the case of election fraud in the reelection bid of Alabama Governor Don Seigelman. <previous coverage> Lets recap:

  • The 1st victims were the people of Alabama.  Governor Seigelman was not reelected due to fraud in the election.
  • The next victim was Don Seigelman who, instead of being reinstated as Governor, was prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, based on trumped up charges and prosecutorial misconduct.
  • The Governor was released from jail but may face a new trial.
  • It seems the American People and the rule of law are also victims.  So far no body has been punished for misconduct.
  • Most recently a whistle blower, Tamarah Grimes, sent Attorney General Eric Holder a letter detailing more misconduct in the case.  Three days later Ms. Grimes was fired, becoming the latest victim: <read>

Leura Canary, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, wrote press releases about the Don Siegelman case that were distributed under the signature of assistant prosecutor Louis Franklin. Also, Canary regularly had two assistants communicate her suggestions about the Siegelman case to Franklin.

All of this took place after Canary had announced her recusal from the Siegelman case. And they are two of many stark examples of prosecutorial misconduct outlined in a letter dated June 1, 2009, from whistleblower Tamarah Grimes to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Eight days after writing the letter, Grimes was fired from her position as a paralegal for the Department of Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. So far, there is no indication that Holder has taken any action in the matter.

Once again, justice delayed in justice denied.  Elections stolen, but not immediately redressed even worse.

Are Corporations People? Supreme Court Revisionism?

The Supreme Court will soon make another decision, perhaps giving corporations more rights as people. Or reducing the rights of corporations as people. Such rulings are critical to the limits of corporate free speech, campaign financing, and lobbying etc.

The rights of corprations as persons has a curious history. It seems that providing rights as persons to corporations goes against the intent of the founders. Changes to increase corproate rights would be revisionist. Changes to restrict and rein in corporations would be a return to traditional American Constitutional values.

The Supreme Court will soon make another decision, perhaps giving corporations more rights as people.  Or reducing the rights of corporations as people.  Such rulings are critical to the limits of corporate free speech, campaign financing, and lobbying etc.

Today the New York Times has an editorial, The Rights of Corporations <read>.  The Times argues the case for the Court to limit the rights of corporations:

To us, as well as many legal scholars, former justices and, indeed, drafters of the Constitution, the answer is that their rights should be quite limited — far less than those of people.

This Supreme Court, the John Roberts court, seems to be having trouble with that. It has been on a campaign to increase corporations’ legal rights — based on the conviction of some conservative justices that businesses are, at least legally, not much different than people…

Chief Justice Roberts disagreed: “A large corporation, just like an individual, has many diverse interests.” Justice Antonin Scalia said most corporations are “indistinguishable from the individual who owns them.”

The Constitution mentions the rights of the people frequently but does not cite corporations. Indeed, many of the founders were skeptical of corporate influence.

John Marshall, the nation’s greatest chief justice, saw a corporation as “an artificial being, invisible, intangible,” he wrote in 1819. “Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence.”…

One of the main areas where corporations’ rights have long been limited is politics. Polls suggest that Americans are worried about the influence that corporations already have with elected officials. The drive to give corporations more rights is coming from the court’s conservative bloc — a curious position given their often-proclaimed devotion to the text of the Constitution.

The founders of this nation knew just what they were doing when they drew a line between legally created economic entities and living, breathing human beings. The court should stick to that line.

The  rights of corprations as persons has a curious history.  It seems that providing rights as persons to corporations goes against the intent of the founders.  Changes to increase corproate rights would be revisionist.  Changes to restrict and rein in corporations would be a return to traditional American Constitutional values.  Here is one summary of a very facinating and surprising history <read>

When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country’s founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society…

For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight controll of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company’s accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

In Europe, charters protected directors and stockholders from liability for debts and harms caused by their corporations. American legislators explicitly rejected this corporate shield. The penalty for abuse or misuse of the charter was not a plea bargain and a fine, but dissolution of the corporation…

One of the most severe blows to citizen authority arose out of the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood,” thanks to misleading notes of a clerk, the decision subsequently was used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a “natural person.”

That same site has extensive additional articles and web links.

The Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad case is highly instructive, especially this history as described by Tom Hartmann in a Buzzflash interview <read>

What was really amazing to me was that when I went down to the old Vermont State Supreme Court law library here in Vermont, and read an original copy of the Court’s proceedings in the 1886 “Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad” case, the Justices actually said no such thing. In fact, the decision says, at its end, that because they could find a California state law that covered the case “it is not necessary to consider any other questions” such as the constitutionality of the railroad’s claim to personhood.

But in the headnote to the case — a commentary written by the clerk, which is NOT legally binding, it’s just a commentary to help out law students and whatnot, summarizing the case — the Court’s clerk wrote: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

That discovery — that we’d been operating for over 100 years on an incorrect headnote — led me to discover that the clerk, J.C. Bancroft Davis, was a former corrupt official of the U.S. Grant administration and the former president of a railroad, and in collusion with another corrupt Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Field, who had been told by the railroads that if they’d help him get this through they’d sponsor him for the presidency.

Diebold/ES&S: AntiTrust Investigation and Suit

Senator Schumer requests investigation. Hart files suit.

Wired story, Antitrust Concerns Swirl Around Sale of Diebold Voting Machines, by Kim Zetter <read>

Sen. Charles Schumer asked the Justice Department’s antitrust division on Monday to investigate the recent sale of Diebold’s voting machines division to a competitor, saying the deal raises anti-competitiveness concerns and has “adverse implications on how our country votes.”…

The sale gives ES&S, already the largest voting machine maker in the country, a near monopoly on the voting machine industry. According to the company’s website, its systems, used in 43 states, counted “approximately 50 percent of the votes in the last four major U.S. elections.”

Hart InterCivic, a voting machine firm based in Texas, filed an antitrust suit (.pdf) on Friday, seeking a temporary and permanent injunction against the sale. According to the suit, the sale “poses a significant and imminent threat of irreparable antitrust injury to plaintiffs.”…

The suit alleges that Diebold and ES&S have long engaged in anti-competitive practices to win bids “through both legitimate and illegitimate acts and conduct.”

This behavior includes submitting low-ball bids to get contracts, after which the companies allegedly gouge customers with additional expenses for after-market service and upgrades. The suit alleges the companies also exaggerate the capabilities of their systems, misrepresent the status of their certification and exert improper and undue influence on government officials to win contracts.

This sale would make a bad situation.  Once a company selles its equipment to a state or county, it has a virtual monopoly.  This is not just theoretical.  Read the VotersUnite report from last year and Connecticut implications.

Afghan Results Raise Suspicions

Numbers from several polling places raises suspicions, with all votes going to one candidate, lots of round numbers of votes, and more votes than voters. And fake polling sites.

McClatchy Story. Numbers from several polling places raises suspicions, with all votes going to one candidate, lots of round numbers of votes, and more votes than voters. <read>

In Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, the results from 66 polling sites have been released. In nine of them, 100 percent of the votes went to Karzai…

At one point, he read the voting tallies at six polling sites where Karzai received almost all the votes and where all the totals were rounded numbers ranging between 250 and 350. “They should have set these aside,” Abdullah said…

The polling place called Zherai Awal Camp, for example, has an estimated 2,100 voters who were eligible to cast ballots for president. On election day, the polling place reported nearly 2,300 voters showed up, and every one who voted cast ballots for Karzai.

At three polling sites at the Shorabak District of Kandahar, 11,210 votes were tallied, and 99 percent went to Karzai.

According to an article in the New York Times, there were fake polling sites <read>

The fake sites, as many as 800, existed only on paper, said a senior Western diplomat in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the vote. Local workers reported that hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of votes for Mr. Karzai in the election last month came from each of those places. That pattern was confirmed by another Western official based in Afghanistan.

“We think that about 15 percent of the polling sites never opened on Election Day,” the senior Western diplomat said. “But they still managed to report thousands of ballots for Karzai.”

Diebold/Premier Acquired By ES&S – Promises No Change In Service

I am sure we will have more analysis from others over the next few days. But for now we are not as excited as the company is about the promise of more of the same.

Update: Other coverage of interest

Update: Other coverage of interest

9/10/2009 – NY Times Editorial <read>

The combination of the Election Systems & Software and Diebold American voting machine divisions raises classic antitrust concerns. Election Systems & Software, which has also been criticized for making unreliable machines, would be the nation’s largest voting machine maker by far. And states and cities, which have long complained about the low quality and high cost of the machines, would have less choice or bargaining power…

It makes no sense to allow private companies to count votes using secret, proprietary software. The federal government and the states should also require that all electronic voting machines produce a paper record of every vote and mandate random hand counts to ensure the reliability of the results.

Like the Times, we support the Holt Bill.

9/03/2009 – Brad Blog covers concerns with the merger and history of ES&S:
“Bargain-basement sale price; Anti-trust complaints to be filed; Dreadful history of failure by both companies”   <read>
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Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S) has acquired Premier Election Solutions, Inc.  (formerly Diebold). Press Release <read>

I am sure we will have more analysis from others over the next few days.  But for now we are not as excited as the company is about the promise of more of the same.  From the press release:

“While combining these two companies will mean many positive changes, one thing won’t change,” said Tesi. “In everything we do, we will continue our focus on delivering high quality services and products for all of our customers. Moving forward, all of our customers will get the same great level of service they have come to expect.”

From the history of memory cards programmed by LHS Associates, our distributor, we are not pleased at the prospect of continuing memory card issues.  Earlier this year we covered the latest UConn memory card “audit” <read>  According to the report 9% of the cards sent to UConn had memory failures.  These problems are not new national reports go back at least to 2007 <read> That is an incredibly poor product – can you imagine if 9% of all thumb drives failed?

Memory cards are hardware.  Here are a couple of examples of the software quality we have come to expect from Diebold/Premier <read>

On the other hand, ES&S could have a better track record.  See page 9 of this report by VotersUnite <read>.  It outlines how:

By threatening to withdraw support, ES&S is able to dictate conditions that increase the county’s dependece.

ES&S also brought us the 18,000 missing votes in Sarasota, FL <read>

Why Vote On Paper? Tales from Georgia and Massachusetts

No paper, no problem! Yet, also less integrity and no credibility!

In Geogia they are claiming that all electronic voting is unconstitutional <read>

We will have to wait for the court to rule on the constitutionality issue.  But we don’t have to wait for paper ballots and stronger election integrity nationwide, Congress can pass the “Holt” bill.

A case brought by election integrity advocates in Georgia claiming that unverifiable electronic voting, or E-voting, is unconstitutional could spell trouble for the controversial practice, as it heads to the Georgia Supreme Court for a ruling.

E-voting first started in Georgia. In 2002, the state became the first to use the Diebold AccuVote TS-R6 machines statewide after then-Secretary of State Cathy Cox entered into a 54-million-dollar agreement with Diebold…

Of the 13 counts listed by VoterGA in their lawsuit, two argue that E-voting is in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that “No State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process.”

Count 12 also claims that E-voting violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law because Georgians who choose to vote with an absentee ballot are able to do so on paper, while those who vote on Election Day must use the E-voting machines.

“The electronic-only voting cannot provide equal protection in terms of voter verification…” Favorito said.

Questions will always remain about the 2002 election in Georgia when Max Cleland was defeated for the Senate and Sunny Perdue was elected Governor.  Especially questions raised by Bev Harris in her book Black Box Voting.

Contrast this to Massachusetts where Recounts of ballots can occur.  Mistakes happen but they don’t have to result in the voters’ intent being bypassed.  Clerk does not know why votes weren’t counted <read>

Two months after the recount on the library override, Town Clerk Ron Fucile said the town might never know why nine ballots were not counted in the June 6 election.

A total of 5,726 ballots were documented as cast in the June 6 election, when Walpole voters barely approved a Proposition 2 1/2 override to partially finance the construction of a new library…

The town clerk said he has been poring over records from election day and he hasn’t been able to figure out what happened to the nine ballots – six of which were from Precinct 1.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the bottom of it,” said Fucile.

The Massachusetts story hints at the emotions behind resistance of election officials to paper ballots.  With lever machines or paperless touch screens there can never be an actual recount or audit, there is little reason or basis to question the equipment or lapeses in the process.

No paper, no problem!  Yet, also less integrity and no credibility!

NY Times Questions Working Families Party Candidate Financing

In an editorial the New York Times questions the relationship between a private corporation and Working Families Party candidates. If their suspicions are correct it may be a way to skirt campaign financing laws.

In an editorial the New York Times questions the relationship between a private corporation and Working Families Party candidates.  If their suspicions are correct it may be a way to skirt campaign financing laws. <read>

For example, the company charged City Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn $5,000 for lists of voters. Officials from other campaigns have complained that sophisticated voter files like those often used by the Working Families Party could cost $25,000 to $40,000. If there is such a differential — and lists can vary considerably — the extra should be counted as a campaign contribution and as part of the cap on allowed spending.

Aspen Ballots, An Issue For Us All

We side completely with the activists, they are on the side of democracy, integrity, and transparency of government. Beyond a CD ballots should be made available to the public, the actual ballots should be made available to the public.

05/17/2013 [Most] ballots [finally] made available: Ballot images from 2009 election online for public inspection <read>

Marks, who on Thursday said she has not spent much time examining the images posted online, wondered why the city withheld 129 ballots and if officials plan to attempt to make contact with voters who cast them since it’s illegal to make distinguishing marks on a ballot.

“How did they get counted in the first place?” Marks asked. “The idea of a secret ballot is that no one — no one — should have an identifiable marking.”

One of the city’s main arguments against releasing the ballots is that it could encourage the practice of voters leaving marks on their ballots in a corrupt cash-for-votes system.

The city had previously fought disclosure of the ballot images all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. Marks won a judgment from the Colorado Court of Appeals in September 2011, which found that the ballot images qualified as public records.

The Court of Appeals directed the City Clerk to withhold ballots that contained markings that could identify a voter, including all write-in votes.

12/28/2009: Letter to the editor: One dozen excuses <read>

Mayor Ireland just sent an intriguing e-mail to the “voting rights community” titled “Why we don’t need your help in running our elections and why a recount is not needed.” It probably wasn’t written to amuse, given the personal attacks in it, but recipients surely chuckled…

4. Election-integrity advocates are destructive nitpickers! Although the pre-election software test tabulated the candidate with the fewest votes as the winner, 15 hours was plenty of time to reconfigure the software before the polls opened…

10. The early voting ballot box at City Hall, accumulating 32 percent of the votes, was sometimes unlocked. Why audit these ballots now? Any possible mischief already happened. An audit now would be meaningless.

12/19/2009: Bev Harris makes the case for public access to ballot images <read>

Concealed vote counting systems have been deemed unconstitutional by the German high court, which ruled in March 2009 that no public election can conceal any essential step in the election from the public. The German Constitution was formed according to requirements provided by the U.S. after WW II. Principles of public sovereignty over government are embedded into our Declaration of Independence (the document which provided much of the argumentation for women’s suffrage), and are also recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…

a precedent will be set which can alleviate some frustrations with computerized voting processes.

9/17/2009: Good news ballots will not be destroyed just yet <read>

9/1/2009 Aspen heats up.  From the RedAnt <read>

Aspen citizen Millard Zimet  filed the formal complaint  with Aspen’s Election Commission questioning whether Aspen conducted a secret ballot election in May 2009.

Reading the complaint, it seems that Mr. Zimet has a strong argument that it was not a secret election.

The post also points to a series of emails between Aspen Mayor Mick and Kathy Dopp who has articulated the inadequacies of Instant Runoff Voting as used in Aspen.

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Aspen Colorado held an IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) election.  A CD was made of all the ballots.  Activists would like access to the CD to perform a post-election audit, but the city objects.  An editorial by activitst leading the charge <read>

If there is a law that actually says we the people cannot see our anonymous ballots, and if it says the permanent record of this groundbreaking and unique election in Colorado history should be destroyed, then such a law should be changed. If somehow the laws to which the City has alluded apply, we are confident that election integrity advocates will lobby to change them. The public will and we hope the City Council will understand the need to view a disk of the ballots, at any time for any reason…

The City of Aspen is trying to translate the requirement for destruction as a message about how dangerous the ballots are. These ballots are only dangerous to a small group- anyone who might fear the revelation of fraud or non-accidental error. After the write-in handwriting and any stray marks are removed or redacted, reviewing ballot images can only safeguard, not endanger voter privacy and confidence. .

Aspen wrote in its election press release: “By making the rankings and all other election data public, everyone had the opportunity to double-check the IRV tallies themselves.” We like the sound of that. Will Aspen now look for ways to hide that data from the public instead of enthusiastically joining the general trend towards more transparency in government?

Another article from the Aspen city public relations director <read>

After thorough and significant review, the city attorney has concluded that the release of the ballots, or their images, would violate state law. Colorado, along with every other state in the country, began to guarantee the secret ballot to its citizens at the end of the 19th century. Every state and almost all jurisdictions have adopted laws and rules to ensure that ballots are cast in absolute privacy and remain secret even after the election is completed.

The editorial refutes this position:

You alone might be able to recognize your own ballot from the way you have voted, if you remember the many rankings on your ballot. The protection of the anonymity of the ballot is demanded by the Colorado Constitution as the city has pointed out. If the city has counted any ballots containing identifying marks in any election, it has violated the law. Should the voters be able to learn whether this has happened? The city says you are not allowed to find out- by law. The city says trust: but don’t verify.

Our opinion:

We side completely with the activists, they are on the side of democracy, integrity, and transparency of government.  Beyond a CD ballots should be made available to the public, the actual ballots should be made available to  the public.

  • The ballots are the actual public record of the vote.  The public needs assurance that the CD matches the actual votes.
  • We believe activists are correct in their interpretation of ballot secrecy – if it is identifiable then its not a legal vote.
  • We have the same issue in Connecticut and many other states.  Here ballots must be kept under seal by law for 14 days after the election, then stored for twenty-two months (federal elections) or six months (other elections), and then destroyed.  There is no explicit opportunity in the law for the public to access the ballots.
  • Meanwhile there are indications that the ballots in Connecticut may show that the reported election results for third parties were incorrect.  That Working Families Party cross-endorsed candidates were short changed.  That the Green Party candidate for President was also short changed.  Only the ballots can say and provide satisfaction that the election was correctly reported.
  • Where laws don’t allow public review of ballots, they should be changed.

Some states provide access.  Here our hats are off to Ohio law.  It made possible the investigation by citizens of questionable results.

Update: 02/25/2010:  <read>

What can we say but “Good Grief, Aspen!”

The memorandum by the Defendant appears to seek to impair the discovery of facts in the course of the litigation.  The Defendant is arguing that the Plaintiff is attempting to contest the election outside of legal time constraints and making suggestions about that motive.  Defendant is also appears to be making the argument that benefit to the public interest is not among the possible  reasons to inspect ballot images, and that testimony by TrueBallot may show “errors and irregularities” which may be of interest, but not relevant to the case at bar. On the other hand, the possibility of learning about “errors and irregularities” does seem to me to be a reason to inspect the ballot images.

Update: 3/11/2010 – Case Dismissed – Public Cannot See the Ballots. Harvey Branscomb’s Comments <read>

Civilized society normally keeps ample records of how it makes decisions–much more so now with inexpensive digital record-keeping–allowing historians as well as the general public to help policy makers with productive improvements. Election policy too would benefit from guidance by similarly complete historical records. Instead, hundred year old laws are being interpreted to require consistent destruction of all records…

The court appears to have decided that Marilyn Marks, the plaintiff, has no viable argument, yet the court has not yet heard that argument. The judge acted only two days before a vital deposition was to be taken. This blocked a long-fought-for opportunity to obtain valuable information from the election contractor TrueBallot. That deposition would have informed the court and the public on the relationship of ballot images to the paper originals. It would have given a good indication of how beneficial to the public those images could be.

Update: 4/18/2010: Criticism of Caleb Kleppner Guest Editorial in Aspen Times Sept. 17, 2009: Aspen Election Transparency <read>

Two views of election transparency:  An OpEd, Annotated:

[Caleb Kleppner]Whether you like IRV or hate IRV, Aspen’s election was a model of transparency and verifiability, and American elections would be improved if they incorporated elements of Aspen’s election.

HB[Branscomb]>; I do not agree that Aspen was a “model” but I do agree that American elections would benefit from  more transparency and verifiability such as what Mr. Kleppner’s company provides.  For Aspen to become a model for a superior election, it is necessary to look at the details and come clean about the defects of this innovative election and to avoid making these mistakes again, whether you like or hate IRV.

Caleb Kleppner is a vice president at TrueBallot Inc., which has run elections for municipalities, labor unions, associations, state Democratic and Republican parties, and others over the past 15 years.

HB>; Harvie Branscomb is a Board Member of Coloradans for Voting Integrity, a Trustee of the Colorado Voter Group, and appointed by the Democratic Party to be Eagle County Canvass Board member.

Update 10/25/2010: Aspen Daily News: Do Away With IRV <read>

Largest Democracy Risks It All On Electronic Voting

” In the absence of such certainty, the entire democratic process would be rendered a mockery. It is to ensure that democracy in its true sense is brought back that AIADMK decided to boycott the by-polls.’’

Party to boycott election based on reports of hacking of electronic voting machines. <read>

CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa on Wednesday observed that her party’s boycott of the coming by-elections was“to ensure that democracy in its true sense is brought back to the State.”
In a statement, the former chief minister, reiterated that the electronic voting machines could be tampered with. “In a democracy, every voter should know whether the vote cast has gone to the candidate or party it was meant for. In the absence of such certainty, the entire democratic process would be rendered a mockery. It is to ensure that democracy in its true sense is brought back that AIADMK decided to boycott the by-polls.’’
She noted the media reports that on August 2, Hari Prasad, a software engineer from a Hyderabad firm demonstrated on behalf of the NGO, Jan Chaitanya Vedika,  that EVMs could be tampered with.

Without paper ballots, no voting system is safe from errors and tampering, especially insider attack.