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searchingforsanity
http://www.nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/

QUOTE
Saturday, January 08, 2005
The Orange Report © No. 3 -- January 8th, 2005
By ADVOCATE STAFF

Man Paid $140,000 a Year By Bush Administration To -- It Appears -- Investigate Irregularities in Blue States and Belittle Ohio Minority Voters

Ever heard of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission?

Neither had we.

Apparently, the four-member Commission is "the nation's new election watchdog agency," and was created by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

According to the St. Louis Dispatch, Republican Paul DeGregorio was recently appointed by President Bush to a two-year term as vice-chairman of the Comission.

Salary? $140,000 a year.

So what was Mr. DeGregorio doing on Election Day? Why, shuttling around the country searching for irregularities -- in heavily-Democratic states and counties.

First, New York City.

Then, New Jersey.

Next, Chicago.

And after that, overwhelmingly-Democratic St. Louis.

What about Nevada? New Mexico? Florida? Ohio?

They saw neither hide nor hair of DeGregorio on Election Day.

But surely, despite this staggering inattention to red-state irregularities, the man does care about minority voters who waited ten hours to vote in Ohio?

Yes, he does, to the tune of this instantly-infamous quote: "I have seen people in Nigeria wait three or four hours in 105-degree temperature in the hot sun. They don't complain and they are pleased to participate in a presidential election."

Thank you, President Bush, for this gift to election reform.

Our $140,000 a year in tax money was clearly well spent.


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stor...oversee+changes

QUOTE
Elections observer will oversee changes
By Bill Lambrecht
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
01/08/2005

Paul DeGregorio

WASHINGTON - Paul DeGregorio began Election Day watching Bronx voters manipulate creaky, levered machines that had been around since Franklin Roosevelt was president.

Then he traveled to New Jersey to gauge the value of bilingual polling in heavily Hispanic precincts. Next, it was on to Chicago, where he joined a phalanx of lawyers assembled to sort through snafus in provisional voting.

The sun had set by the time DeGregorio landed in St. Louis, where he sped from the airport to the 22nd Ward to learn why some 200 people were still standing in line to vote, then watched the counting of votes in St. Louis County and later at a marathon session back in the city. He arrived at his home in Creve Coeur at 4 a.m.

All of that added up to nearly 24 straight hours of election monitoring for DeGregorio, who was elevated last week to vice-chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

His job as the No. 2 person at the nation's new election watchdog agency will put DeGregorio at the center of election reform during a time of epochal transition in how many Americans vote. In Missouri alone, 65 percent of voters will see new voting equipment in 2006; in Illinois, about 60 percent.

"I want to make sure that every person in the country, regardless of their philosophy or their interests, has the opportunity to participate in the election process and confidence that their vote has been counted accurately," he said.


Thirty-Two American Patriots: A List of the Representatives and [One] Senator Who Stood Up for Election Reform and Shocked a Nation -- Please Send Them Your Thanks and Lend Them Your Support

Senator Barbara Boxer (CA)
Rep. John Conyers (MI)
Rep. Corrine Brown (FL)
Rep. Julia Carson (IN)
Rep. Bill Clay (MO)
Rep. James Clyburn (SC)
Rep. Danny Davis (IL)
Rep. Lane Evans (IL)
Rep. Sam Farr (CA)
Rep. Bob Filner (CA)
Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ)
Rep. Alcee Hastings (FL)
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (NY)
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (IL)
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX)
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX)
Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA)
Rep. John Lewis (GA)
Rep. Ed Markey (MA)
Rep. Cynthia McKinney (GA)
Rep. John Olver (MA)
Rep. Major Owens (NY)
Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ)
Rep. Donald Payne (NJ)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL)
Rep. Bennie Thompson (MS)
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (OH)
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA)
Rep. Diane Watson (CA)
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA)

These Representatives and Senator come from fifteen states, including thirteen politicians from eight so-called "red states" (Florida, Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, and Mississippi).

The largest contingent of challengers came from California (7), followed by Illinois (4) and two each from Florida, Ohio, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Georgia.

Will College Students Begin to Latch Onto Election Reform As the New Civil Rights Movement? Let's Hope So

The Advocate considers this article by the former head of the Stanford University Democrats a good start indeed.

Stanford Daily http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=conte...ry=0001_article

Progressive Democrats of America Release a "Voting Rights Amendment Kit"

Want to know what you can do today to change the nation's election laws? Download this excellent kit from the PDA [in .PDF format] and start militating for progress right now!

Kit http://www.pdamerica.org/tools/issues/VRA-Kit-draft2.pdf

Suspicious Vote Tallies Show That Kerry Was Disproportionately Harmed By So-Called "Cross-Voting" -- Statistical Analysis Shows That Harm Should Have Fallen Evenly Between Bush and Kerry, But, Like Every Other Irregularity, It Didn't

Statisticians take note!

The newest site to visit for all your vote-tally analyses might just be a web-log by J.G. Jacobs. Check out the site for an excellent -- albeit time-consuming (but worth every moment) -- analysis of so-called "cross-voting" patterns in Ohio. This term refers to, as Jacobs explains, "punch-card polling locations with two or more precincts where multiple ballot orders were used."

Confusing, yes. Additional evidence of possible fraud? Absolutely.

The numbers Jacobs puts forward -- many in neatly-organized, colorful charts -- are simply astounding.


There is a ton of information and charts at this site:

http://www.jqjacobs.net/bush/ohio_ballots.html

QUOTE
2004 Ohio Election - Presidential Ballot Orders and Cross-Voting
© 2005 by James Q. Jacobs, All Rights Reserved.
Analysis of Vote Switching Probabilities (below)

The Ohio Presidential Ballot Orders and their Combinations

This page and the Precinct Cross-Voting and Ballot Order Discussion
present different aspects of the same issue.

In the Ohio 2004 presidential election, multiple ballot orders were used at voting locations shared by several precincts. This fact results in Kerry cross-votes, votes cast at the voting machine for the wrong precinct, turning into Bush votes and vice-versa, plus votes going to 3rd party candidates and an empty spot on the order, "disqualified" that was originally intended for Ralph Nader. All five ballot orders are in the first table. The symbols are b = Badnarik, B = Bush, K = Kerry, d = disqualified, and p = Peroutka.


(Remember those combined precincts?)

http://www.jqjacobs.net/bush/xls/ohio.html#order

QUOTE
Precinct Cross-Voting and Ballot Order in the Ohio 2004 Presidential Race.
This table contains sample cases which illustrate the impact of cross-precinct voting in the Ohio 2004 Presidential Election. In Ohio, multiple ballot orders are used at punch card polling locations with two or more precincts. In this study, I have focused on one such county, Cuyahoga County http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/boe/results/h..._GE_Canvass.TXT. The data used was complied into Excel files by Joe Knapp using the Cuyahoga Board of Elections online resources. (Link to Joe Knapp's spreadsheet above.)

The ballot order in Ohio was sequenced alphabetically and originally included Ralph Nader. Nader was converted to "disqualified" and the original order was maintained with his position on the ballot abbreviated herein as "d" for disqualified. Also herein, the 3rd party candidates are abbreviated as "b" and "p." Bush and Kerry are in upper case, "B" and "K" respectively.


The charts and analysis at this site are incredible.
FormerCIA
Mr. DeGregorio was involved in talks with EU observers, but obviously, they didn't show:

http://www.ecoi.net/detail.php?id=26181&li...g=de&country=US
searchingforsanity
QUOTE(FormerCIA @ Jan 10 2005, 12:49 AM)
Mr. DeGregorio was involved in talks with EU observers, but obviously, they didn't show:

http://www.ecoi.net/detail.php?id=26181&li...g=de&country=US
*



QUOTE
3
The "voter intimidation" term in the U.S. context was explained as a police or private security guard presence around polling stations, usually in minority communities, who act in ways that may cause some potential voters to turn away from the polls.

4 http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2003/01/1465_en.pdf.


Interesting document. Thanks
FormerCIA
http://vote.nist.gov/TGDCAgenda3Dayfinal2.pdf
Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC)
Public Data Gathering Hearings
September 20, 21, 22, 2004
Agenda
Monday September 20, 2004:
TGDC Subcommittee on Computer Security and Transparency
9:15 am Meeting Call to Order Dr. Ronald Rivest, Subcommittee Chairperson
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Welcoming Remarks: Dr. Hratch Semerjian, Acting Director, NIST
Commissioner Paul DeGregorio, Election Assistance Commission
- Meeting Logistics Allan Eustis, NIST Project Leader, Voting System Standards
9:30 am Panel 1: Voting System Security and Transparency: The Big Picture
- Eric Fischer, Congressional Research Service
- Craig Burkhardt, General Counsel for Technology, Department of Commerce
10:45 am Break
11:00 am Panel 2: Requirements for Evaluation of Voting System Security
- Roy Saltman, Consultant Election Policy and Technology
- Michael Shamos, Carnegie Mellon University
- Douglas Jones, University of Iowa
Noon
Lunch
1:30 pm Panel 3: Vendor Perspectives on Requirements for Voting System Security
- Herb Deutsch, ES &S Election Systems and Software
- David Chaum, Chaum LLC
- Jim Adler, VoteHere Inc.
2:30 pm Break
3:00 pm Panel 4: Requirements for Audit Trails
- Aviel Rubin, Johns Hopkins University
- Paul Craft, Florida Department of State
- Dan Wallach, Rice University
4:00 pm Public Testimony
5:00 pm Adjourn

http://vote.nist.gov/TGDCmin0709.pdf

Meeting Minutes (Unofficial*)
Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) Meeting
July 9, 2004
1225 New York Avenue NW, Suite 1100
Washington D.C. 20015
(*Official Meeting Minutes Full TGDC Approval Vote)
Members in Attendance:
Dr. Arden Bement ?Chairman :Acting Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)
Hon. Donetta Davidson :Colorado Secretary of State Representing Standards Board ( EAC )
Alice Milller : DC Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE)
Sharon Turner Buie : http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/hava/minut...ing02262003.asp
Helen Purcell , republican: http://recorder.maricopa.gov/abouthelen.htm
J.R. Harding : http://vote.nist.gov/PublicHearings/ 9-21-04%20Panel%201%20%20KING.doc
Architectural and Transportation Barrier Compliance Board,Tallahassee, FL
James Elekes :Architectural and Transportation Barrier Compliance Board. North Plainfield, NJ.
H. Stephen Berger : American National Standards Institute (ANSI). New York, NY.
Britain Williams : Retired professor- Kennesaw State National Association of State Election Directors (NASED)
Paul Craft : head of voting sytems for sec of state Florida. (felon's list) (Palm Beach County )
Ronald Rivest cryptology expert. coinventor RSA encryption algorythm. pro paper ballots
Whitney Quesenbery : http://www.upassoc.org/ UPA President
Daniel Schutzer (via conference call) :Vice President & Director of External Standards
and Advanced Technology,. e-Citi, CitiGroup. Stamford, CT
Anne Caldas : http://www.ansi.org/ Director
Absent Members:
Patrick Gannon :President and CEO,OASIS Billerica, MA
Committee Support Staff:
Allan Eustis- Project Leader, NIST Voting System Standards
Craig Burkhardt, Chief Counsel for Technology, Department of Commerce
U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC)
DeForest Soaries, Chairman
Gracia Hillman, Vice Chair
Paul DeGregorio, Federal Officer, Technical Guidelines Development Committee
Ray Martinez


I added the information after the names for background info.
FormerCIA
I'm surprised that nobody has commented on this. Don't you find it strange that Paul Craft of Florida, the person resposible for the felon's list and the so-called certification of voting machines in Florida is in the group that is setting standards for e-voting for the whole nation?
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