Tuesday, March 30, 2010

NYC Election Board Lacks a Leader

New York is facing the biggest changes in voting in decades and the city Board of Elections, the agency entrusted with making sure everything goes smoothly, has no executive director.

The post has remained vacant since Marcus Cederqvist, the previous occupant, abruptly announced his departure in January and left shortly thereafter. Not only does the board not have a director but it has not revealed a timeframe for or method by which the next person will be selected.

All this comes as the city prepares to abandon its old lever machines and replace them with a new computer-based voting system by fall's elections for governor, two senators, members of Congress, and other political leaders. In the meantime, new technology must be tested and implemented, pollworkers have to be trained, and voters need to be educated.

Use the above link to read the entire article by Hashim Rahman, the Gotham Gazette.

Michael H. Drucker
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Sunday, March 28, 2010

Doris “Granny D” Haddock, campaigner for election reform




The question she wanted people to ask was not how (on earth!), but why. Why, in January 1999, had she set off to walk from Pasadena to Washington, DC? The simple answer was that she had lost patience with the power of big money in American politics. Congressmen and senators did not listen to people like her—people who spent years nursing their husbands when they had Alzheimer’s, or who battled to keep the interstate out of their small towns, in her case Dublin, New Hampshire. They patted little old ladies like her patronisingly on the head, while taking wads of money from special interests for whom they would do favours later. Mrs Haddock was sick of it. She had organised petitions for campaign-finance reform, with tens of thousands of signatures, but got nowhere. So it was sneakers on, and hit the road.

Boldly in February 2000 she marched into Washington and up the Capitol steps, announcing that she was going to sweep the scoundrels away as thoroughly as leaves from her porch. The scoundrels stayed, shameless as ever. The election that November proved the most costly to date. In advance of the next one Mrs Haddock—now universally known as “Granny D”, for Doris, with her straw hat brightly banded and stuck with a turkey feather—tried a new tack of driving in a gaudy bus through swing states, persuading women to register to vote. She was then 93; she covered 22,000 miles. The next year she ran against Judd Gregg, pretty creditably, on small donations only, for the Senate.

The campaigner for election reform, died on March 9th, aged 100.

Use the above link to read the entire story.

Michael H. Drucker
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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Hacking Democracy




When you can't control the Politicians or the voters, then you control the counting!

This video shows how an optical scan voting system can be hacked by changing the machine's programming card before the systems' are powered up.

Michael H. Drucker
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A Tea Party Without Nuts



Found this on Ballot Access News:

Thomas L. Friedman recommends that states pass Instant Runoff Voting, and also recommends that states create nonpartisan commissions to draw congressional and legislative district boundaries.

Friedman cites the work of Larry Diamond, author of “The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World”, and coordinator of the democracy program of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.” Diamond is a Stanford senior fellow.

Friedman says that if states used IRV, centrist moderates would have a better chance of being elected as independent or minor party candidates.

"That is why I want my own Tea Party. I want a Tea Party of the radical center."

Use the above link to read the entire article from The New York Times.

Michael H. Drucker
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Sunday, March 21, 2010

2010 NYC Charter Revision Meeting



Thanks to Nancy Hanks from The Hankster Blog for this post.

NYC Charter Revision Commission held it's first meeting March 18 in Brooklyn at the New York City College of Technology. Chairman Dr. Matthew Goldstein, Chair, is Chancellor of the City University of New York, who set an aggressive timetable to consider changes to the city's charter. Chairman Goldstein suggested making "our civic life more participatory and representative" one of the core values of the commission in considering any changes. NYC Independence Party Organizations spokesperson Cathy Stewart applauded the commission for its rigorous timetable and said the NYCIP will push aggressively for consideration of putting a referendum on nonpartisan elections on the ballot. A number of youth from across the city, organized by All Stars Project Director of Youth Programs Pam Lewis, distributed flyers to attendees asking the commission to hold its first public hearing at Thomas Jefferson High School to demonstrate a commitment to involving young people, 25% of whom are independent and are excluded from voting in primaries in NYC.

NY is a closed state. So the three million independent voters can not vote in the pimaries. In NYC we are trying for the second time getting Non Partisan Municipal Elections on the next ballot as part of the Charter Commision changes. We also will try to make sure Term Limits also makes it on the ballot. Last year the NYC Council extended term limits from two term to three. We think the voters should decide.

Michael H. Drucker
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Friday, March 19, 2010

Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader: A Discussion on Healthcare, Politics and Reform



Democracy Now! a daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 800 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio announced on Wednesday he would switch his vote on the Democrat-led healthcare reform bill and support the legislation even though it does not create a public option. Kucinich’s decision came two days after he spoke with President Obama aboard Air Force One on their way to a rally in his district. In a Democracy Now! exclusive, spend the hour with Kucinich and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader for an in-depth discussion on healthcare, the Obama administration, the Iraq war and more.



What do you think about the Healthcare issue?

Michael H. Drucker
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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Open Primaries Action Alert‏


Independent voters are strongly in favor of open primaries. In California, an initiative will be on the ballot in June of 2010 for open primaries. In Arizona, the GOP is attempting to close its primaries to independents.

If you live in Pennyslvania, sign the Pennsylvania Petition for Open Primaries and ask your friends and family to do the same.

Michael H. Drucker
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Monday, March 15, 2010

Congressional Hearing Set on Bill to Let Ex-Felons Vote in Federal Elections

Found this on Ballot Access News:

A subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on HR 3335 on Tuesday, March 16, at 2 p.m., in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building. HR 3335 permits any legally competent adult U.S. citizen to vote in federal elections, unless the person is incarcerated.

The bill would have the effect of letting almost 4,000,000 people register to vote, who cannot now register to vote, do to laws in certain states that bar ex-felons from registering.

Michael H. Drucker
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Ron Paul’s son leads in GOP race in KY


They share a name, a profession (medicine), a belief in small government, an outsider's mentality and a thing for tea parties. It makes sense that Rand and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, share these things — they are father and son.

Rand Paul, who is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, in many ways is an heir to the libertarian Ron Paul Revolution of 2008. He's a master of the Internet and social networking tools. He counts among his donors and volunteers many of his father's supporters.

He is a friend of the ballot access reform movement. He was active in 1988 when his father was the Libertarian Party nominee, and he is well-informed about unjust ballot access laws.

The Kentucky primary is on May 18.

Use the above link to read the entire article By KATIE BRANDENBURG.

Michael H. Drucker
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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Gillibrand Still Trying to Win Over Bloomberg

He gripes about her in private conversations with his aides and her colleagues on Capitol Hill. He has yet to take up her invitation to sit down for dinner. And his political team is constantly shopping for potential candidates to oust her.

The mayor met with Republican opponent, the billionaire Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr. to discuss running, and his top political strategist sat down with another, Dan Senor, to talk about his potential campaign.

After Mr. Ford and Mr. Zuckerman decided not to run, Mr. Bloomberg — as if to taunt Ms. Gillibrand — declared that they both could probably have beaten her.

And in a development sure to rankle Ms. Gillibrand, Mr. Bloomberg’s longtime companion, Diana L. Taylor, a banking regulator, is said to have spoken to Republicans about running for Senate herself. On Saturday morning, Ms. Taylor said in a statement that she was flattered by the speculation, "but I have no intention of running for the U.S. Senate."

Use the above link to read the entire article By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and MICHAEL BARBARO, The Newe York Times.

Michael H. Drucker
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Friday, March 12, 2010

NYC Voting Machine Politics

Sorry I missed this but I lost my server and I am now back with the fastest server I could build.

Federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into how the New York City's Board of Elections awarded a $50 to $70 million contract for optical voting machines.

Two sources said US Attorney Preet Bharara has served subpoenas to determine if there was anything irregular in the deal landed by Election Systems and Software of Omaha, Neb., one of the leading companies in the industry. The subpoenas were sent "all over the place," a source said. Another source said Bharara began focusing on the voting-machine contract after indicting Anthony Mangone, a politically connected lawyer, for allegedly bribing a former Yonkers City Councilwoman to switch her vote on two development projects. Mangone, who has ties to the Queens Republican Party, was one of several lobbyists hired by ES&S. He was arrested Jan. 6 -- the day after the city's 10-member Board of Elections selected the company in a 6-1 vote over Dominion Voting of Toronto, which employed its own lobbyists. The dissenting vote was cast by Fred Umane, the Manhattan Republican commissioner. Two commissioners abstained and one was absent. Records show the competition between the two voting companies was tight.

Evaluators at the Board of Elections, grading everything from software security to poll-worker training, gave ES&S 3,417 points. Dominion received 3,395 --a difference of one-third of 1 percent.

I will watch this closer in the future, as I picked the ES&S system on its capabilities in the beginning of the selection process, as the representative of the NYC Independence Party.

Michael H. Drucker
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America




I watched an interview with the auther, The Daily Beast’s John Avlon, on NY1 last night. I will now read it as I agree with his thoughts on most voters do not what parties.


Michael H. Drucker
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