Election Issues

In June 2007, a steady voter in Memphis named Effie Washington was a Black woman. But before the 2008 presidential election, Effie's voting record was changed to read "gender: man; race: other". In June 2009 her voting record was changed, to "gender: woman; race: other".

At one time Sharonda Williams* was listed as a Black woman. She was purged from Shelby County (TN) voter rolls with a code indicating she had moved out of the county, even though she lived in Millington, a Memphis suburb in Shelby County. Sharonda was issued a different voter ID number and then listed as "race: other". Sharonda voted at her polling place in the May 2010 primary, selecting a Democratic ballot, which is marked as "cast" in the electronic poll book. But that poll book log never was made public, and the official voter history records report that Sharonda Williams did not vote. In August 2010, Williams is reported as voting Republican.

*There are only two persons on the Shelby County voter list named Sharonda Williams. One has a birthdate in 1978, one in 1981. The information above pertains to the one born in 1981.

Daniel Ellsberg, the renowned advocate for peace and the First Amendment who leaked the historic Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War, endorsed congressional candidate Norman Solomon on Thursday. Ellsberg will join the independent progressive Democrat on the campaign trail next week.

Once referred to by President Nixon’s adviser Henry Kissinger as “the most dangerous man in America,” Ellsberg is an enthusiastic supporter of Norman Solomon for Congress. The famed whistleblower will speak at a house-party fundraiser for the Solomon campaign in Marin County on Sept. 22, an event bringing together two generations of antiwar leaders.

Solomon is running for Congress in the new coastal district that stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border.

For details on scheduled campaign events, please click here.

On Thursday, Ellsberg issued the following statement in support of Solomon for Congress:

That was nuthin': In 2000, the Palast investigations team uncovered the purge of 58,000 legal Florida voters, most of them African-Americans, by Katherine Harris.

In 2004, we uncovered the "caging lists" which 're-elected' George Bush.

That was nuthin' too ... compared to the theft of 2012 that is now in the making.

Major TV and print outlets are finally recognizing that the Palast team has the expertise, the cojones and the nose to sniff out mass vote bending.

We are planning our strategy right now for the hard-core, dig deep, multi-state research that we need to get the details, the documents and the proof of the fix of 2012.

So, for the first time in this entire year, I am asking—frankly, I'm pleading—for your financial support to get this investigation going right now.

First, I'm looking for 24 donors to commit to provide $2,000 each, at minimum, to launch the Missing Ballot Investigation. It's tax deductible, it's non-partisan, it's hard-core journalism, "so relevant it threatens to alter history," says the Chicago Tribune. Donate and I'll proudly list you as a producer of our Election year prime-time broadcast.

Are you tired of trying to figure out if there’s any real difference between Republican and Democratic politicians, and whether there’s a difference between liberals and progressives, libertarians and anarchists, independents and moderates, or tea partiers and neoconservatives?

Are you fed up with being forced to chose between the lesser of two evils when electing a president, and are you afraid to cast a vote of conscience because the worser of two evils might get elected?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, perhaps you might want to consider aligning yourself with others who share your concerns and whose political views extend across the spectrum.

The one thing we all have in common is that we are voters and we are sick and tired of our government being controlled by corporations and special interest groups who could care less about our happiness, our health, our families, our jobs, or our futures.

What would you call a political philosophy that focuses on the rights and interests of all voters? What terms would you use and how would they be defined?

Here are a few ideas:

August 7, 2011
Dear [Candidate]:
My name is Dr. Sheila Parks, and I am the founder of the national organization, Center for Hand-Counted Paper Ballots,. We work closely with the recently formed grassroots group called Wisconsin Citizens for Election Protection (WCEP).This group of Wisconsin citizens is concerned with protecting the integrity of Wisconsin elections.

Many of them observed the Supreme Court recount and were appalled at what they saw. Although the limited media coverage highlighted the human errors in Waukesha County, there was an overwhelming number of problems in municipalities across the State of Wisconsin.

WCEP organized volunteers to observe poll closing procedures as a way to try to improve the integrity and security of Wisconsin's elections. They placed WI citizen volunteers in each of the nine senate districts for the July 2011 elections. The citizens of Wisconsin are especially concerned with integrity in the election process for the recalls because they all have the potential for being close races.

The reality of election fraud is discussed on Sara Schulz radio show We The People (Wisconsin) with Doctor Sheila Parks, Ed.D, who makes the case for secure hand-counted paper ballots elections.

Another progressive coalition is seeking to repeal a new reactionary Republican election law in Ohio that targets black, elderly and poor voters.

The unions are once again the backbone of a campaign joined by various voting rights advocates to repeal Ohio House Bill 194, signed into law on July 5, 2011. The repeal coalition calls itself "Fair Election Ohio" and submitted the required 1000 signatures necessary for starting the repeal process on July 18.

Under Ohio law, approximately 232,000 valid voter signatures are needed to put a repeal issue on the ballot. A similar coalition gathered more than 800,000 valid signatures to repeal Ohio's anti-union Senate Bill 5. The Fair Election Ohio coalition is awaiting certification of its petition language by the current secretary of state. If certified, it has until September 30, 2011 to gather the additional 231,000 signatures to put the repeal on the ballot in 2012. Valid signatures by September 30 will put the law on hold until after the 2012 presidential election, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

It goes without saying that the outcomes of the nine Senate recall elections scheduled in Wisconsin will be of intense interest to most of the UW-Madison community. Forecasting the outcome of elections weeks in advance is always a risky business; nevertheless, we offer the following bold prediction:

In at least some cases, the candidate receiving the lesser of the actual votes cast — perhaps, in fact, the candidate you passionately opposed — will be declared the official victor.

Chances are, you either think we are nuts or you are already upset with the dismal state of elections in Wisconsin, if not the country. Either way, we hope this article will change your view of both (a) the security of the elections and (b) the ability of ordinary citizens like you to improve that security.

Here’s a second prediction which gets to the heart of the real problem:

No one — not the Government Accountability Board, not the media, not any elected official, and most certainly not you – has the slightest hope of ever disproving our first prediction in light of current election procedures and practices.