The Pen - email site utility elsewhere

The People's Email Network is constructed to facilitate communication with elected officials. Great utility.

Thanks to Scott of Steel-City Stonewall PAC. They formed a nominating committee to nominate a slate of officers for next year. This Committee will be meeting over the
coming weeks to create that slate. If you would like to be considered, please send me, Eric Feder (eric at steel-city dot org) or Teekie Smith (teekie at steel-city dot org) information. Their general meeting of the Membership is January 20, 2005,
to elect officers for next year and to make plans for the coming year.

Other blogs watching voting irregularities

Politics: "Project to Document 2004 Voting Irregularities State by State

Two bloggers have undertaken a project to document all voting irregularities in the 2004 elections on a state by state basis. Also, the GAO is going to investigate election complaints.

On Dec. 15, a public hearing is slated for Pittsburgh on the topic of Voting Irregularities, organized, in part, by Celeste Taylor.

Call for Independent Testing of E-voting

On November 2, voting machines in many states - both "red"
and "blue" - had problems that led thousands of citizens
to call a national voter protection hotline. EFF and
the Verified Voting Foundation (VVF) were at the other
end of the line, and we are very worried about what we
heard. In several states, voters who chose one presidential
candidate were presented with confirmation screens that
listed another candidate's name. In others, machines
crashed and were rebooted repeatedly, but nobody knows
whether votes were lost. And the list goes on.

There is no way to ensure that these problems are fixed
until these machines are independently tested. But
we need your help to do it. Election officials are
already trying to sweep these problems under the rug.
EFF has written eight detailed letters to the counties
where these problems were most pronounced, and now it's
time to turn up the public pressure. Add your voice to our
petition, and when 10,000 people have signed it, we will
deliver a copy to each of our target counties.

The election may be over, but it's not too late to make a
difference for our democracy. Take a stand for
election intregrity today!

Blame on bloggers

OLD MEDIA BLAMES BLOGGERS FOR OLD MEDIA'S MISTAKE

The prediction that election exit poll data might leak onto the web was proved correct, as political bloggers were once again in the spotlight this week when the United States elected its 44th President. Beginning early Tuesday afternoon news organizations leaked exit-poll data to bloggers who naturally posted the information, with some giving caution on the data's validity. The leaked news sent a surge of traffic to blogs where visitors read John Kerry had a growing lead over George W. Bush.

The original data came from the National Election Pool (NEP), a company formed in the wake of the networks' blown calls on election night four years earlier. News organizations paid the NEP for the information but resisted going public with the news in light of the mistakes made in 2000, when many called the race for Al Gore. By the time news organization realized the information it leaked was inaccurate again in 2004, the data had already traveled throughout the Internet many times over. The false information did not appear to impact the election outcome, but it did prompt the media to harshly criticize bloggers for leaking early-exit data.

Bloggers Blew It

Bloggers Fill Election Reporting Void

Bloggers Face Life After the Election

Defined: e-democracy at the Wiki

A nice article and conversation of e-democracy is within the Wikipedia site. Click the headline to see it. I'm into the Wiki world now, too, as I'm working on a Platform.For-Pgh.Org.

Fallout: Citizen for Legitimate Government

Here we go again. These folks call President Bush, Dictator Bush. I don't like that. But, here goes more from them:

Ohio Stolen (blog entry, gnn.tv) 2004-11-03 16:26:30 "Greg Palast and Randi Rhodes reported today that the state of Ohio was stolen by the Republicans in election 2004. Ohio was the critical state that tipped the balance, giving the presidency to Bush. Turns out one County in Ohio, equipped with Diebold electronic voting machines, reported NEGATIVE 25,000 votes. Wha?!? That’s what at least one election official in Ohio said. The votes from that County are lost. Not counted. GONE!"

Fixed - The Stealing of Another Election (Democratic Underground.com) --by EarlG --Kerry winning Exit Polls --"FRAUD LOOKS PROBABLE --SoCalDem has done a statistical analysis... ...on several swing states, and EVERY STATE that has EVoting but no paper trails has an unexplained advantage for Bush of around +5% when comparing exit polls to actual results. In EVERY STATE that has paper audit trails on their EVoting, the exit poll results match the actual results reported within the margin of error. So, we have MATCHING RESULTS for exit polls vs. voting with audits vs. A 5% unexplained advantage for Bush without audits."

C-SPAN coverage of vote process

A call in show started with C-SPAN at the Washington Journal and two on the four person board were on the show. The tone is damage control and postures to show how much we worked, how much we invested in voting.

The Help America Vote act was DeForest Soaries, and the other guest, Gracia Hillman, vice chair.
EAC.gov. (Election Assistance Commission)

Vote?

No.

I won't do it. I have no stomach for it.

I've seen election after election where our choices are the lesser of two evils; or we are allowed to enter a useless radical vote of pitiful protest. This is the wrong process, producing the wrong results; insulting us, demeaning us, dis-empowering us, and robbing us of a future, and worse, a pleasant present.

The 2-party system does not allow potential for good decisions, especially when both parties are supported by the same corporations, and these corporations make decisions headlessly and heartlessly with no consideration except quick profits.

This is a process with a strong bias in favor of really bad decisions. Worse, it's insulting to us and works toward our dis-enlightenment.

One, we have to manipulate our vote rather than tell the truth of how we feel. It's disrespectful to Truth and a psychological wound to each of us to be forced to abandon truth to try to manipulate politics. And it's doubly insulting because the fix is easy and obvious: rating candidates for an instant run-off election.

And, why should there be an electoral college? Here in California, my vote counts 1/4 of someone in Wyoming. It's undignified to participate in a system where I am so devalued. My vote would be an insipid ritual, signifying my acceptance of a system that has no interest in my opinion, or anyone's.

In Colorado, they're voting to assign their electoral votes proportionately, rather than in a block. If this had been true 4 years ago, the 2000 election would have ended differently, and it would have been harder for Bush to steal the thrown.

How would the world be different now?

It would not be different enough to change the final outcome. The choice then, and now, is either destroying the earth fast, or destroying the earth much faster, and the system is designed to limit us to those two choices.

By voting, I contribute to this fatal system, and to the federal government that I don't recognize as mine. I am required to pay federal taxes, but I am not required to vote and I won\'t do it voluntarily.

I'm reducing the number of voters. That's my vote. And I'm asking:what if that number approaches zero?

Marilyn Davis
Zapatista
Author of eVote(R)/Clerk http://www.deliberate.com