http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/voting/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Mon, 17 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2750/blowing_the_whistle_on_diebold/ On July 13, the Pensacola, Fla.-based law firm of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed a "qui tam" lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging that Diebold and other electronic voting machine (EVM) companies fraudulently represented to state election boards and the federal government that their products were "unhackable." Kennedy claims to have witnesses "centrally located, deep within the corporations," who will confirm that company officials withheld their knowledge of problems with accuracy, reliability and security of EVMs in order to procure government contracts. Since going into service, many of these machines have been linked to allegations of election fraud. In the wake of alleged vote count inconsistencies and the "hanging chad" debacle of 2000, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act… Elections Voting David Moberg Tue, 25 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2737/if_the_paint_sticks_sling_it/ Perhaps you have thought, "If the voters knew how venal a GOP member of Congress was, they could never get re-elected." MoveOn is testing that proposition with a public service ad campaign that targets four Republican candidates whose votes in Congress have put special interest profits before the public good. "Caught red-handed" is the moniker for a series of MoveOn TV ads that expose the lawmakers' fealty to the corporations that fund their campaigns. MoveOn PAC Director Eli Pariser puts it this way: "The most visible and insidious form of corruption is the form that is also legal, and that is the money politicians take from big companies and the votes that they give in return to help those companies… corruption media corporations elections congress voting David Moberg Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2747/mexican_vote_count_still_in_question/ San Simón, Mexico--"We're going to win," said Alfredo Gonzalez from underneath a shade tree at this town's only polling place on July 2, election day. Like many pulling for a leftist candidate to win Mexico's presidency, he'd been waiting a long time for this. Three tense days later, Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) released this news: right-wing presidential candidate Felipe Calderón from the ruling PAN party received 243,934 more votes than leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a 42-million-vote race. The difference amounted to 0.58 percent of the total, or fewer than 2 votes per polling place. Obrador denounced the count and the election before the independent IFE was through counting ballots. Many of his followers jumped to one conclusion:… Mexico Elections Voting International Affairs David Moberg Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2850/where_the_seats_are/ Poised to assume their respective posts atop new congressional Democratic majorities, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) can be forgiven a certain giddiness as the 2006 midterm elections approach. Pelosi recently told Time that establishment Democrats in Washington "can't even believe the fact that I'm going to become Speaker, but they're getting used to it." A bit more cautious but no less hopeful, Reid has noted that "history's on [the] side" of the minority party in a president's second midterm cycle. To become the first female House Speaker, Pelosi will need to gain 15 seats. For Reid to become Senate majority leader, Democrats must net six new senators. A year ago, talk of an electoral upheaval of… Politics Election 2006 Elections Voting Congress David Moberg Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2910/voting_security_issues_plague_maryland/ Critics of electronic voting will be watching Maryland closely today to see how Diebold's electronic voting machines perform. But no matter who wins the elections, and regardless of whether the state's $106 million touchscreen, paperless voting system performs better today than it did during the problem-plagued September 12 primary, advocates in Maryland of honest, verifiable elections plan to redouble their efforts in 2007 and beyond. A hotly contested gubernatorial race and the continuing controversy that surrounds State Board of Elections administrator Linda H. Lamone and Diebold Election Systems guarantee that the legislature will revisit the issue of how Maryland runs elections, whether Republican incumbent Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. wins another term or Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley unseats him. Maryland… Elections election 2006 politics Voting David Moberg Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2892/make_democrats_earn_black_votes/ Since the New Deal, the black American electorate has voted overwhelmingly Democratic. Since the 1960s, no Democrat has won the White House without the black vote. Our voting behavior has been so lopsided that it could lead one to question our collective intelligence, or lack of it. After Lyndon B. Johnson proposed and got the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, African Americans' commitment to the Democratic Party made sense. But what has the Democratic Party done for us lately? Are black Americans well served by our slavish devotion to the party?Are our elected officials wise to dance in this one-party minuet? Are we cutting out own throats by cutting our connections to Republicans and third party movements? Have we… Voting Race Politics David Moberg Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2914/progressive_caucus_rising/ Don't buy all the crap coming from GOP talking-point memos or the blather from mainstream pundits. The midterm elections do not signal a move to the center. Yes, a few conservative Democrats were elected, but the big gainers were progressives. In particular, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is on the rise. No longer will Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) be able to grab the gavel and run, as he did at a hearing last year when faced with pointed questions from Congressional Democrats about the PATRIOT Act, Guantanamo and the "war on terror." During a hearing, Sensenbrenner, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, used his standing to abruptly declare the committee's public hearing on the PATRIOT Act over. He cut… Election 2006 Elections Politics Voting David Moberg Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2918/what_did_the_voters_say/ In the hours after the Democrats resoundingly won control of the House and, narrowly, the Senate, the great spin debate on the meaning of the election opened up. Did the Republicans fall because of the war in Iraq? Corruption? The economy? Bush? How about "all of the above"? Understanding the voters' motivations is critical for understanding how Democrats can build on this victory and what strategy they should adopt. Predictably, many conservatives are blaming the Republican Party, arguing that Americans rejected not conservatism but party politicians who acted corruptly and incompetently. And center-right Democrats are claiming the election is a mandate for center-right politics. Anti-war strategists read it as primarily a repudiation of the war. And AFL-CIO president John Sweeney… Economy Election 2006 Elections Voting Politics David Moberg Tue, 28 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2924/embracing_populism/ It is a blissful yet bewildering feeling. You fight so long, endure so much establishment belittlement, and suddenly you win. That's what happened on Nov. 7: We the populists won. After our fully warranted victory laps and back patting, we must review Nov. 7's lessons. If Democrats want to hold a governing majority, they must see the election for what it was: a mandate for economic populism and a battle cry against Big Money's war on middle-class Americans. Candidates all over the country talked about how corporate lobbyists have manipulated our trade policy to crush workers, our energy policy to harm consumers and our health care policy to hurt families. Polls show populism (a.k.a., challenging corporate economic power) is the… Election 2006 Elections Politics Voting David Moberg Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:46:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2961/voting_problems_in_florida_no_way/ Following the 2000 election a popular bumper sticker in Florida read, "If you think we can't vote, wait 'til you see us drive." But nobody's laughing now. Unless the Democratic-controlled House votes to hold a new election, Republican Vern Buchanan will represent Florida's 13th congressional district in the 110th Congress. Buchanan "won" election by beating Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes out of 237, 861 cast. The election was held on direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines that don't leave a paper trail. Strangely, according to the machine count, 18,382 voters in Democratic Sarasota County did not bother to cast a ballot in the congressional race (that's 15 percent of those who voted in the county on November 7). That is… elections voting David Moberg Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:50:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3144/the_talented_mr_griffin/ With the sacking of eight honest prosecutors, the Bush administration has accelerated its politicization of the Justice Department. The only thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor is replacing one with a "criminal." In this case, Timothy Griffin, who during the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign worked as deputy research director for the Republican National Committee (RNC) conducting "oppo" (opposition) research. On Dec. 15, Bush named Griffin as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, replacing fired prosecutor Bud Cummins. I don't use the term "criminal" lightly. In August 2004, while he was research director for the RNC, he sent a series of confidential e-mails to Republican Party chieftains. But instead of using the party honchos' e-mail addresses at GeorgeWBush.com,… conspiracies elections voting David Moberg Wed, 18 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3135/the_fraudulence_of_voter_fraud/ On April 6, 2006, in Washington, D.C., Karl Rove gave a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association and issued this dire warning: We are, in some parts of the country, I'm afraid to say, beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses. I mean, it's a real problem, and I appreciate all that you're doing in those hot spots around the country to ensure that the ballot--the integrity of the ballot--is protected, because it's important to our democracy. When Rove talks about protecting "ballot integrity," that is shorthand for disenfranchising Democratic Party voters. Over the last several years, the Justice Department, with the… conspiracies elections voting David Moberg Wed, 23 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3201/dancing_into_the_majority/ When Michael Heaney served as a special guest to the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies Program in the fall of 2002, he couldn't ignore the growing anxiety surrounding the invasion of Iraq. After marching to the White House with a local CodePink chapter and attending larger rallies in D.C. that year, the budding political scientist--now an assistant professor at the University of Florida--took an interest in the makeup of the antiwar movement. "I just started noticing all of the organizational diversity of people there," he says, "and I got very interested in understanding the differences between these organizations, how they mobilize people, what they wanted and how they framed their arguments." This curiosity led him to team up with Indiana University… activism politics voting David Moberg Fri, 25 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3185/whos_afraid_of_democracy/ Behavioral economists at UC San Diego recently conducted a study in which tokens were distributed among experimental subjects, with a few getting a concentrated chunk of the wealth and a majority getting little. They offered the "poor" subjects the opportunity to pay a price to take money away from the rich. The catch was that rather than being redistributed, the money would simply disappear. Economic orthodoxy predicts that few would snap at the chance, since they'd be paying for something that would confer no direct benefit. But they did. In spades. Though only one data point, it suggests that people have a profound sense of economic fairness, that we are all, more or less, intuitive socialists. As far back as… economy theory voting David Moberg Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3219/dc_fights_for_a_vote/ The line to enter the May 23 Senate Judiciary Committee session stretched well down the hallway. Packed inside were activists wearing stickers and t-shirts emblazoned with the image that has become their movement's trademark: a D.C. license plate bearing the wry motto: "Taxation without representation." Sens. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) presided over a pleasant, if at times contentious, three-hour discussion of the bill that would give the District of Columbia--and its population of 581,530 residents (more than Wyoming)--a full voting representative in the U.S. House. The bill has attained a measure of bi-partisan support by coupling the representative for heavily Democratic D.C. with an additional one for heavily Republican Utah. Passed by the House… congress voting David Moberg Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3349/running_with_scissors/ When Senators soon take up the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, they have a special obligation to probe him on abuses of power in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice. Hearings for the would-be boss at DOJ must not pass without a proper accounting of how a Bush-appointed gang of dirty-tricksters, acting under a badge of federal authority and alleging voter fraud, has pressured states to spurn their own policies and erase voters from the rolls. Imagine an election board stacked with Nixon's Plumbers. Senators should keep the questions coming. The nominee's response, better than any White House ballyhoo, will speak to his integrity and independence. And how reporters treat the problems plaguing the unit--as… administration elections voting David Moberg Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3457/dropping_out_of_electoral_college/ A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It's called National Popular Vote (NPV), and has been hailed as "ingenious" by two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. And several other states, including Illinois and New Jersey, are likely to follow suit. How NPV works is this: Instead of a state awarding its electors to the top vote-getter in that state's winner-take-all presidential election, the state would give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This would be perfectly legal because the U.S. Constitution grants states the right to determine how to cast their electoral… elections voting David Moberg Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3907/back_for_the_future/ DENVER -- In politics, time is complicated. It's a mix of clinging to the past (often more imagined than real), fulfilling the demands of the present and looking to the hopes of the future. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), having learned the lesson from former President Bill Clinton, focused on the future as he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver. Yet the discussions on the fringes of the convention often returned to another era: the 1930s. Progressives pointed to a panoply of problems facing the country: deepening economic downturn, environmental and economic crises based on our dependence on oil, record economic inequality, a broken healthcare system, and inadequate public investment in education and infrastructure. Redressing these failings will require a… election 2008 voting David Moberg Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4068/are_long_lines_the_new_poll_tax/ Did Rachel Maddow mean to suggest racism in naming long polling place lines as "the new poll tax"? After all, poll taxes were outlawed in 1964 by the 24th Amendment, which ended a mechanism of vote suppression dating back almost a century. After the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 ("The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged...on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.") the South reacted with intimidation of black voters through violence. Within a few years poll taxes were enacted, very effectively disenfranchised the great majority of blacks, who could not come up with the cash that the tax required them to pay in order to… poll tax voting racism David Moberg