State

Tim and Roberta Kettler voted at approximately 10:15 am, November 7 in the Monroe Twp. precinct in Coshocton County. Two Diebold machines were available for use. We experienced difficulty in recording the votes we cast and the machines required several touches of the screen in order to record a screen response. Also the printed audit tape was not entirely visible on the bottom of the final page and could not be advanced in order to view the final choice on the tape. However I was able to view the choice by lifting the access door to the tape which was left unsecured (unlocked) One of the poll workers stated that she had the same problem when she voted herself. The poll workers said the they had been having trouble with the machines all morning and that the service technician had been there all morning "recalibrating" the two machines. Both machines had unsecured paper audit tape access doors.

Tim Kettler

I spoke with a friend this morning who told me that she, and many other voters who turned up at 7 a.m. to vote at the Raspberry Community Center in the Twin Cities, Minnesota could not vote because the polling place was closed. Voters were angry, and many had to leave.

Here is what is posted on the Minnesota Secretary of State web site:

Q: When are the polling places open for voting?
A: For state elections, most polling places open at 7:00am; a few polling places in small townships located outside the seven-county metropolitan area may open as late as 10:00am.  All polling places close at 8:00pm.  

I just found out that the Republicans are calling up voters again this year and giving them the wrong location to vote at. They did this in 2004 and a democrat got such a call tonight in Athens County and reported it to me. I am demanding the County Prosecutor make a statement condemning this and launching an immediate investigation there must be some way to track the villains. Warn others and if they get a number on a caller ID be sure they save it. I understand this has been on the national news today that this is happening.

Please beware of calls regarding your precinct. Call us at 594-8686 which is my law office if you need to confirm your precinct.

Susan Gwinn
Chair, Athens County Democratic Party

I moved to Mississippi and was told at the State Patrol Office that I could register to vote while getting my license. I caled the voter registration li9ne today. Guess what, the lady said that over ninety percent of those registrations never make it to her office. Is there something that smells of elephant dung here or my stupidity?

Jim Varn
200 W. President Ave.
Greenwood, MS 38930
varnjim@yahoo.com

Pelosi ... said her greatest concern is over the integrity of the count -- from the reliability of electronic voting machines to her worries that Republicans will try to manipulate the outcome. "That is the only variable in this," Pelosi said. "Will we have an honest count?''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/11/05/MNG8NM6E…

(don't bother looking in this article for more information on election theft; that's the entire quote on this topic)--but at least the Democratic Party leader is finally on record saying this.

See this video at the We Count 2006 Blog

This is well worth watching if you want to understand why pollworkers in Cleveland will not be allowed to post precinct results. It is fairly short because there is no reason. No acceptable reason in a Democracy, that is. Vicki Lovegren of Ohio Vigilance lays it out in plain, clear irrefutable language. Pollworkers need to perform an extremely simple two-step process. The BOE agreed to do this procedure in the spring, and now -- due to pressure from superiors -- may not do the posting.

Please also see Vicki's call to action below: This is What Democracy Looks Like !

The whole world will be watching next week's election, and Cuyahoga County's will be a major object of focus. WCPN will host World Have Your Say here in Cleveland on the 7th and 8th. Director Michael Vu was on Lou Dobbs on Sunday night and on CNN today. And wait until the new film, Hacking Democracy, airs this Thursday?

The following document was refused publication by the Columbus Dispatch.

COLUMBUS, OH George Voinovich crossed the line of integrity with his false allegations against Issue 3 in his Saturday Dispatch editorial. I will address a few of his outright lies:

The U.S. Coast Guard has announced its plan to turn the Great Lakes into the world's largest freshwater firing range. They are installing machine guns on their boats, and want to set aside 34 sites on all of the lakes to use for live ammunition target practice. If the Coast Guard goes ahead with its plan, they will shoot more than 6,000 pounds of toxic lead into the lakes each year.

The Coast Guard will hold a public hearing on this issue this Monday, October 23 at the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building, 31st Floor Auditorium, 1240 E. 9th Street, Cleveland, Ohio. This hearing is the only one that will be held in your area. It is very important that there be a large number of people at the hearing to voice opposition to the plan.

The hearing begins at 5:30 p.m. and everyone who shows up will be given 2-3 minutes to speak. The Coast Guard will not answer questions at the hearing; they will only listen, and whatever is said becomes part of the official record. At 4:00 the Coast Guard will hold what they call an open house, at the same location, so people can come and find out about their plan.

This is REALLY important, and you can help by taking just a few minutes of your time over the next few days, from the comfort of your own home. 

Cuyahoga Board of Elections has “decided” NOT to post election results at the polling place, despite the fact that:

• Their May primary election debacle made national news, and voter confidence has plummeted.  (Why else would there be record numbers of voters clamoring to vote absentee?)

• The Election Science Institute revealed numerous discrepancies in vote counts among the different vote tallies (across the different media: paper, memory card, hard drive, etc.).

• There is undisputed proof that electronic voting (especially Diebold equipment) is vulnerable to fraud, hacking, and other security breaches.

• Judging by the Poll Worker Training Manual and numerous predictions, election day will be chaotic, with near impossible tracking of all election components.

• The general public is VERY concerned about electronic voting machines and wants transparency in the vote counting (Zogby poll – 92%)

COLUMBUS- Ah, election season in Ohio. I have been out of state for quite a while, but I am delighted to be back in Ohio for election time. One can walk down the street and all but smell the politics simmering: harried college kids taking a semester off to campaign, politicians out and about, sticking their noses into the very diapers of tiny constituents, the sickly sweet fragrance of ballot paper…wait, those ballots aren’t supposed to smell like that! Blackwell, what are you doing?

The Grinch of election season, our Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, as chair of the bi-partisan Ohio Ballot Board and the fifth vote on a board of five, has quite an influence over ballot language in this state.