The Nation: A City Clerk Opposed an Early-Voting Site at UW–Green Bay Because ‘Students Lean More Toward the Democrats’

People cry foul and make a big deal about how dead people are still on the voting lists and are somehow casting votes for Democrats - believe me when I say, there are just as many dead Republicans casting votes as there are Democrats.

I'm not saying that this type of voter fraud is actually happening, I'm saying that voter lists for both parties have the names of deceased individuals still on them. It's the job of county election officials to make sure that those names are taken off voter lists. But when it comes to actual voter fraud and voter suppression however, Republicans are the masters of the domain.

The Nation just published another example of Republican voter suppression efforts happening in Wisconsin. If you search the internet, you can find numerous other example just like this one:

Carly Stumpner, a junior biology major at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, had an hour between classes to vote during Wisconsin’s April 5 presidential primary. But when she arrived at her polling place on campus, the line stretched for two hours across the student union. She returned to the polls a second time after her classes, but the line had only grown, and Stumpner had to get to a meeting for work. She wasn’t able to vote because of the long wait times, a frustrating experience for her and many students at UWGB that day.

When polls closed at 8 pm, there were still 150 students waiting to vote. “Some people described it as chaos,” reported Ellery McCardle of the local ABC affiliate. “People were standing shoulder to shoulder, there was absolutely no room to move around in here.”

After the primary, leaders of eight different student groups—including the Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian parties and the Black Student Union—asked the city to put an early-voting location on campus to alleviate long lines. But city officials ignored the request and opened only one early-voting site on September 26 for the entire city—the third-largest in Wisconsin—at the clerk’s office, a 15-minute drive from campus, which is open only during business hours. City Clerk Kris Teske, an appointee of Republican Mayor Jim Schmitt, a close ally of Governor Scott Walker, said the city didn’t have the money, time, or security to open an early-voting location on campus or anywhere else.

But privately Teske gave a different reason for opposing an early-voting site at UW–Green Bay, writing that student voting would benefit the Democratic Party. “UWGB is a polling location for students and residents on Election Day but I feel by asking for this to be the site for early voting is encouraging the students to vote more than benefiting the city as a whole,” she wrote on August 26 in an e-mail to David Buerger, counsel at the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. “I have heard it said that students lean more toward the democrats…. I have spoken with our Chief of Staff and others at City Hall and they agree that budget wise this isn’t going to happen. Do I have an argument about it being more of a benefit to the democrats?”

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April 21, 2014 Township Committee Meeting: Voter ID Coming To Middletown?

Here is a link to the video from the April 21th MIddletown Township Committee. I meant to post this last week or sometime over this past weekend but I just couldn't get around to it. Now it seems that there is an issue with Youtube and I can't get the embedding code. If it becomes available later I'll insert the video into this post.

Another reason why I wanted to post the video earlier is the fact that last night the Middletown Township Committee held it's monthly workshop meeting and I like to have the last video posted before the next scheduled meeting of the committee.  I'll post though as soon as it is available.

Anyway during this meeting a public hearing was held on the 2014 municipal budget and there was some discussion on a resolution supporting photo ID requirements for all registered voters, which I don't happen to agree with.

Voter ID is a nothing more than a ploy to disenfranchise millions of voters by the GOP. Voter fraud is not widespread and is not prevalent. Between 2000 and 2010 there were 649 million votes cast in general elections and 13 cases of in-person voter impersonation.Voter ID laws make it harder for poor people, students and the elderly to vote, they are less likely to have a valid form of state issued ID and are more likely to be "purged" from voting registers if they haven't recently voted.

Also, if you look at the Resolution 14-136 it references a 2007 case of election fraud in Essex County which was committed by campaign workers who filed fraudulent Vote by Mail forms on behalf of individuals without their permission and nonexistent voters. It doesn't reference one single case of in person voter fraud ever happening in Middletown or the state for that matter.

Now don't get me wrong, I do think voter fraud is wrong and those committing it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law when caught but it isn't the problem that the Republican and Fox News watchers think it is. It is not prevalent or widespread and is virtually nonexistent at the polls, where the proponents of voter ID want to stop people from voting.



As always, you can download a copy of the Meeting Agenda that contains the discussion items and the proposed resolutions and ordinances that were voted on or presented during the meeting. A box around an item is a link, bringing you further into the document to that resolution or ordinance. At the end of the resolution there will be a link bringing you back to the agenda. Attached to this agenda is also the monthly bill list, so that everyone can see how the Township is spending our tax dollars.

Holt Issues Statement On NJ Court Decession Not To Require Paper Ballots With Voting Machines

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

(West Windsor, NJ) – Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) today responded to the New Jersey Superior Court decision, which failed to require the expeditious deployment of paper ballots voting systems in New Jersey. The ruling found that “[s]ecurity vulnerabilities are present, to some degree, in every voting system. There is simply no such thing as a voting system that is impossible to manipulate.” Yet, the ruling allows for the continued use of New Jersey’s unauditable touch screen voting machines.

“If, as the court acknowledges, security vulnerabilities exist, then the court and the citizenry should want the possibility of audits capable of detecting and mistakes or misbehavior,” Holt said.

Holt has introduced legislation in Congress to create a national standard of voting to help ensure that every vote is recorded and counted as intended. The bill would require paper ballot voting systems accompanied by accessible ballot marking devices and require routine random audits of electronic voting tallies.

“The fundamental purpose of the lawsuit has been to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the vote tallies by requiring the use of paper ballots as the basis of those tallies,” Holt said. “Until New Jersey implements a paper ballot voting system, we will have faith-based voting,” Holt said.

Although the ruling requires New Jersey’s 11,000 voting machines to be re-evaluated by a panel of experts within 120 days to determine whether they are accurate and reliable, requires increased security measures, and prohibits connecting computers that are used for election duties from being connected to the Internet, the results they produce cannot be independently audited.

I happen to agree with Congressman Holt on this issue. Ensuring that each vote counts and that each vote is free from fraud is essential to our democracy. Not to have a paper back-up system to these electronic machines, that have been shown to be vulnerable to manipulation and failure is just plain crazy and needs to be rectified.

Case in point - This past November an electronic voting machine in my district failed during the last hour of the day. The poll workers were unable to reboot the machine in order to retrieve the result, hence the numbers from that machine were not recorded by the county election board and were not certified. In the big picture would those couple of hundred lost votes have made a difference in the outcome of the election? No, because the margin of victory was to large to have been swayed by those votes. But in elections that in the future are much closer those uncounted votes could have been the difference and changed the outcome of the race.

Can you wear an Obama shirt when you vote?

I have been receiving a few emails lately about whether or not individuals can wear Obama (or anyone esle's) T-shirts when they go and vote.

 The answer is yes, you can wear anything you want as long as the person wearing the shirt, button, hat,etc... does not stop and campaign for the person who is represented on the shirt or item being worn. 

The person may be asked to take off or cover up said item by poll workers however, because there may be a 200 ft restriction of campaigning near a voting facility.  

There seems to be an issue with potential voter suppression down south and in black communities throughout the country, people are being told that if they wear such items they will be turned away and will not be allowed to vote.

The following is an example of one of the emails I received:

"Fringe groups on the left and right are tainting the election with false emails and texts, including some recent voting misinformation being sent to blacks in Charlotte and elsewhere.

The message, which has been appearing in email inboxes, on Facebook pages and in text messages, warns voters that they shouldn't wear any Obama gear - hats, T-shirts, pins, etc.- to the polls on election day. Doing so is considered campaigning, the note says, and is against the law.

Said one message: It's "a rule they're counting on us (black people) not being aware of."

Not so, says Terry Bott at the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections, where workers received about 50 calls on the issue yesterday.

"You can wear anything as long as you're not stopping people and campaigning," Bott said.

Bott also says the Board of Elections hadn't received questions or complaints about any other misinformation schemes."

GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election

To those of you who are interested in, or are worried about voter fraud and the use of Diebold voting machines, should read an article that was recently written by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane of Raw Story. They wrote an interesting piece last week about how a leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.

Click on the headline to read all about it.