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Speak up if something goes wrong in the voting booth

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 3:26pm.

A lot of people have crazy stories when voting. Hard to imagine topping this one, though. -- Chad

You may have missed this story in the hype of voting on Super Tuesday. Given where we are, we couldn't avoid it.

On Super Tuesday, 20 voters in Chicago were given what looked like pens to use on paper ballots. When the voters complained that their responses couldn't be seen and were not recorded, election judges told them it was okay since the "pens" had invisible ink.

They weren't pens; they were plastic styluses meant for touchscreens.

Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader is one of the best reporters in this city, known for its corruption, in exposing injustice. And even he couldn't find exactly why judges so grossly misinformed the constituents.

Here are a couple of excerpts from his piece:

An election judge gave her a ballot and a pen, but when (Angela) Burkhardt tried to use it the pen made no mark. When she asked him for another, he told her she didn't need one. And then he uttered the words that will live on in infamy. As Burkhardt recalls it: "He said, 'It's a magic pen' -- his words exactly -- 'that uses invisible ink.'"

No one knows why he said this.

By then more than an hour had passed and it was well after 7 AM. That's when Burkhardt met Amy Carlton, who was also trying to vote. "The pen didn't work, so I went to an election judge -- it was one of the two Republican judges. I didn't get his name," Carlton says. "He said, 'It's OK. It's invisible ink and the scanner will read it.'" He then added an assurance he hadn't offered Burkhardt: "He said, 'We've been trained not to use the [regular] pens. You don't have to worry,'" says Carlton.

Unbelievable!!

One issue to take from this experience: if something is amiss when you go to the voting booth, by all means, say something. Don't be afraid to speak up. And follow up for goodness sake. No offense to any election judges, but sometimes they are clueless or sharply underinformed.

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Watch the Dem voting process too!

Submitted by G Achin on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 5:25pm.

If your state recently switched from holding a "primary" to having a "caucus", take a good thorough look into what is really going on behind the scenes! As a "caucus" the party itself "owns" the election processes, and from what I have seen here, the voting to select presidential candidates then has no oversight, and the "party bosses" are left "free" to do as they please. Here, after a large proportion of registered voters were "mysteriously" dumped from the voter list, forcing unprecedented numbers to use "provisional ballots", it was then the state party bosses and their cronies who counted those ballots and threw out half of them when they could not be verified by the 3 versions of corrupted remnants of the state's voter list, no matter that each voter had a rather recently issued state voter ID with their info imbedded in a strip on the back for scanning..... (Now, why was THAT put there if NOT for verifying???)

They managed to have their "efforts" in the provisional ballot "vote verifying/counting" portrayed as "heroic" even though half were not verified and resulted in a record-breaking quantity of known disenfranchisment of registered voters denied their rightful vote. This number was 6 or 7 times greater than the amount of votes that determined the "winner".

Others were also "disenfranchised" by the extreme reduction in polling places, the 5 hour reduction in the time the polls were open, and the unconscionable instuction that only votes for the "top two" candidates would be counted by the scanner, calling the other candidates, inclusive of the write-in option, on the ballot "invalid". This would cause, for one example, a lot of the Hispanic votes for Richardson to go for Hillary instead.

There was no attempt to actually "caucus" at the "caucus", and in fact, at the last minute (by e mail msg. timed 6:54 PM Mon. Feb 4) a directive issued by the state chair was sent out and declared the rules for federal elections were to be enforced, effectively thereby BANNING caucusing at the "caucus", therefore completely censoring any information that might reach the voters prior to casting their votes that would support voting for other candidates than the corporate and "dinosaur" selected "top two". With much effort and help, we managed to break through that and caucus for Kucinich, anyway, possibly the only ones to caucus at the caucus in the state.

If your state has more recently switched to the "caucus" form, go to the state party's website and download a copy of the "caucus manual" or rules, or whatever they may call it, and look to see if there is anything defining "caucus" as a verb. In other words, how are the voters actually to go about the act of caucusing in your state? There seem to be different styles and formats for how the voters will participate in the act of caucusing in each state that DOES actually "caucus" as opposed to those which do so in name only, as a legal loophole means for the state party, without oversight, to "own" the candidate selection process.

In this state, the 26 page manual has not one word about how the voters are to go about the act of caucusing. In fact, it appears as if the rules for federal/state elections have been re-sorted a bit and set with new headers to include the word "caucus". Actually, the form of caucusing should be discussed and designed by the state party membership, from within each County level party membership, with the choices of each of them then represented by delegates to the annual state party convention.

If "how to go about the act of caucusing" is stated in the rules, the party is then obligated to that, if not, they can do whatever they believe they can get away with instead of actually having a "caucus". The only way, though, that a state party can LEGALLY take over from the state and conduct the election process for selecting presidential candidates themselves, to "own it", or take over the control of it by the party, is by declaring the elective process to be a caucus instead of a primary. So, look into it!--- and ESPECIALLY if your state calls it a caucus, but the voters still simply line up, then cast their votes and leave just like in a primary! This is a gross manipulation creating a wide open door for terribly deceitful corruption and flagrant, arrogantly imposed, wide ranging hypocricy in which what was once called "the people's party" can so blatantly betray the people, and HAS.

And THIS, was some of just the VISIBLE portion...................

(-:G
http://www.zianet.com/XLexcel/OHBOY.html
MAKE WAR OBSOLETE

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PLENTY of OVERSIGHT

Submitted by PlacitasRoy on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 10:20am.

If anyone thinks the 100's of volunteers, candidate observers, a private CPA firm, and media provide 'no oversight' and allow 'party bosses' to 'do as they please' they are saddly mistaken &/or misinformed.

New Mexico had a massive turnout- 50+% more than the 2004 turnout. Because the party had to foot the bill, precints were consolidated and hours reduced.....but absentee ballots were available. The desire to be a factor in the Presidential selection did result in massive lines and Sec of State voter rolls that were abismal.

The counting of the 17000+ provisional ballots were counted by volenteers under the supervision of a CPA firm and candidate observers.

3500+ (20+ %) of those provisionals were thrown out because the voters were registered as Indies, greens, or publicons, 20+ % had either voted absentee or failed ot complete the affidavit required, There were very few regular or providionsal ballots discarded because the intent of the voter was unclear. Any ballot without clear "intent of the voter" was looked at by 3 voluteers and the candidates observers. Every vote was tallied for the specific candidate. (Including those who had dropped out)

All the work to count all the provisionals was done to insure the SINGLE delegate in question was allocated properly.

Was the caucus without problems? No. Were the results transparent? According to volunteers, candidate observers, and media most definitely. Activists are now calling for an investigation to the LOUSY performance of the Sec of State's office - NOW....BEFORE the June primrary.

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Caucus Shmaucus

Submitted by Crobi714 on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 10:09pm.

One Voter. One Vote. Winner takes all the delegates. Period. Primary in every state. All elections need to be oversighted so no magic pens are appearing. A pre-vote analysis of each precinct needs to be performed to determine if the precinct is ready. If the precinct is found not to be capable of holding a legitimate vote then they are given time to correct the problems. If they can't fix the problems the precinct is suspended from voting. What's the alternative? Magic pens?

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Keep up the good work, Chicago

Submitted by willymack on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 7:55pm.

And don't forget to vote early and vote often!

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