From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

This month’s award is a definite no-brainer. The award goes to NBC for proclaiming Iraq a civil war.

It all started with this:

Bucking White House, NBC says Iraq in ‘civil war’
Usage increasing in news media
By Bryan Bender

WASHINGTON — NBC’s “Today Show” host Matt Lauer yesterday told millions of American television viewers, many sitting at their breakfast tables, that the network would buck the White House and from now on describe the Iraq war as a “civil war.”

The new policy, which NBC News said would cover all its news shows, could become a benchmark in public opinion about the war, according to media specialists.

Some media analysts compared it to CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite’s declaration in 1968 that the United States was losing the Vietnam War — a pronouncement now considered a turning point in public opinion — and Ted Koppel’s ABC updates on the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980 that infuriated Jimmy Carter’s White House.

“How you frame a problem frames what the public thinks is the right thing to do,” said James Steinberg , dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. “If Iraq is a democracy struggling against insurgents and you describe it that way, people might still support you. If it is a civil war, it is indisputably the case that Americans will say, ‘What are we doing in the middle of a civil war?’ “

Oh, maybe because “we” started it. But for some strange reason that seems to be beside the point now—which I find amazing. In fact over the weekend a bunch of congressmen complained on the TV that the Iraqi government has not done enough to quell the violence.

Get a load of their blatherings:

Lawmakers Lose Patience With Iraq Government
By Ben Feller

Washington - Congressional leaders displayed eroding patience in the Iraqi government on Sunday, adding pressure on President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to find a faster path to peace when they meet this week.

“It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq,” Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a potential presidential contender in 2008, said in urging for a planned withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder - one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead,” Hagel wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post.

As the U.S. involvement in Iraq surpassed the length of America’s participation in World War II, lawmakers have dwindling confidence in the U.S.-supported Iraqi government. It was the deadliest week of sectarian fighting in Baghdad since the war began in March 2003.

“I think what we’ve got to do is go around the Maliki government in certain situations,” said Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, another possible presidential candidate. “Let’s work with other groups, and let’s get regional buy-in into this.”

“We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam,” said Hagel, a combat veteran of that war. “Honorable intentions are not policies and plans.”

Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, called Iraq the worst U.S. foreign policy decision since Vietnam. He said Democrats do not have a quick answer and any solution must be bipartisan.

“It is time to tell the Iraqis that unless they’re willing to disband the militias and the death squads, unless they’re willing to stand up and govern their country in a responsible fashion, America is not going to stay there indefinitely,” Durbin said.

That theme - pressuring al-Maliki and his government - seemed to unify Republicans and Democrats.

“I think we’re going to have to be very aggressive and specific with him,” said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the incoming No. 2 GOP leader. “And if he doesn’t show real leadership, doesn’t try to bring the situation under control - if, in fact, he becomes a part of the problem - we’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”

Yet Rep. Duncan Hunter, the outgoing chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the United States will win the conflict in the long run by supporting a free government in Iraq. Before any decisions are made on reducing U.S. troop levels, he said, more U.S.-trained Iraqi battalions should be moved into the heavy-fighting areas of Baghdad.

“Saddle those guys up,” Hunter said. “Move them into the fight.”

Oh yeah, like THAT’LL help. Let’s introduce even MORE violence into the chaos. That’ll make it all better.

So the US Congress—the same congress that voted to invade Iraq under false pretenses—now thinks all this violence is the Iraqis’ fault.

How about the US government gives the Iraqi people what they promised them—running water, electricity, their OIL—just for starters?

But that’s beside the point.

No the great NBC is thumbing it’s big fat nose at the Bush Administration and calling Iraq a civil war. So everyone clamored for their dictionaries to look up the definition.

civil war: war between opposing groups of citizens of one nation

While you’re at it, look up genocide.

genocide: the systematic extermination of a cultural or racial group

NBC’s declaration of civil war is newspeak because it serves two purposes. It panders to the majority of voters in the last election who told exit pollers they disapprove of the Iraq War and President Bush. Don’t fall for it. Calling Iraq a civil war is like re-writing history. It lets everyone off the hook for the US invasion of a civilized nation and the destruction of its culture and people—genocide. So if NBC (and the MSM) calls Iraq a civil war, then they don’t have to call it what it really is and we don’t have to face the truth.

The Iraq War is genocide.

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More testimonies from local residents being poisoned by gas well drilling.

Reductions planned for emissions from drilling
By Mike McKibbin

DENVER — Air emissions from some natural gas development activities in Colorado are headed for reductions.

It’s just a question of: How much where?

Colorado Air Quality Control Commission members held an all-day hearing Saturday in Denver to consider two proposed emission regulations, then continued the hearing to next month.

The Colorado Air Pollution Control Division has proposed rules to reduce emissions from condensate tanks, glycol dehydrators and compressor engines by up to 95 percent within the next few years. One would apply to areas north of Denver; the other would cover the rest of the state.

Condensate tanks fill with hydrocarbons, and glycol dehydrators separate gas from water for processing and transmission.

Several Garfield County residents wanted the stricter Front Range regulations to apply statewide.

Tim and Karen Trulove live south of Silt in the Dry Hollow Road area that’s seen heavy gas development. The couple said they had developed serious health problems because of odors and releases from the gas wells and other facilities.

“We’ve had doctors tell both of us that our health is to the state where we have to leave or die,” Tim Trulove said. “This is from the heart, guys. The industry keeps telling us we don’t have the baseline data to prove our health has been affected. We’re dying, and we can’t sell our house.”

Karen Trulove said the couple lives with about 50 wells within a half-mile radius, and the fumes and odors settle in the valley where they live.

They’ve had colds for months at a time, both have lost their voices, and they’ve suffered sinus and respiratory illnesses and rapid aging, she said.

“When I’m away from home for days or weeks, the symptoms go away,” Karen Trulove said. “Then we come home, and they come back. Two of the last six months, I’ve had to leave our home. It’s for sale already $60,000 below market value.”

Several industry officials, including the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, Colorado Petroleum Association, Williams Production and others favored the proposed statewide regulations. However, Dennis Arfmann, a Colorado Petroleum Association attorney, said they do not support making the Front Range rules applicable statewide.

“The issue is there’s not enough air monitors in your area of the state to show there needs to be that change,” he said during a break in the meeting. “It’s not a matter of treating people differently on the Front Range. It’s apples and oranges without more monitors” to prove emissions are at levels high enough to cause health problems.

Industry officials also said the expense of tougher emission controls would cause development delays.

Jana Milford of Environmental Defense said studies had shown ozone levels below national levels had led to premature births and infant mortality, among other health concerns. Oil and gas industry emissions are a significant contributor to ozone levels, she said.

Jeremy Nichols, director of Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action, said residents such as the Truloves and others “are the best monitors to have. People living in the heart of the drilling are the first ones to clamor for tougher controls. I’ve yet to hear an argument why the Front Range regulations are bad policy for the entire state.”

From the Western Colorado Congress November Newsletter:

Rick Roles, 49, lives in Silt where he works construction and takes care of his ranch, and lives within a quarter mile of nineteen wells.

“My dad and his brother bought the place in 1956. I moved up here twenty years ago. I worked on a drilling for the oil and gas industry back in the 70’s and 80’s over in Utah, Wyoming, and parts of Colorado, long enough to know what’s going on around here.

“In these pits they’re evaporating the water [produced while drilling] but the chemicals that are in the water, the benzene and the hydrocarbons, they don’t evaporate, they settle to the ground or travel with the wind and that’s got to be hurting somebody.

“I started getting sick two summers ago. I’ve never gotten sick like this before. If I’m outside for any length of time and exert myself very far, I start to feel sick. My hands swell up as big as softballs. My symptoms are from my hair to my toenails. In October, my arms were swelled up so bad I couldn’t reach my face even to eat. I could hardly walk. It was hard to drive because I didn’t have any rotation in my shoulders or wrists. When it gets to the point where I can’t reach my face, I have to stop working.

“I had a bunch of blood tests done and they come back positive for toluene, benzene, and xylene. They’re all the chemicals that are in the condensate tanks.

“I can’t get the hell out right now. Not with all the livestock, and someone has to take care of the water. Besides, I won’t sell this place. I don’t want it on my conscience in case you or one of your grandchildren ever wanted to live up here.”

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission–The Fox–calls these stories anecdotal.

I call the COGCC criminals.

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With the Republicans losing control of Congress in January, the Big Push is on to move forward with all those unpopular Bush Administration policies—like energy—before the clock runs out.

BLM approves Piceance Basin oil shale projects

In a major move that will advance the Bush administration’s efforts to develop the world’s largest oil shale resource, the Department of the Interior has completed analysis on five oil shale research, development and demonstration (RD&D) projects on public lands in Colorado’s Piceance Basin.

C. Stephen Allred, assistant secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management, signed the Decision Records for the Environmental Assessments (EAs) for projects proposed by Chevron USA Inc. EGL Resources Inc. and Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Inc., clearing the way for issuance of the 160-acre leases associated with each proposal.

“Our national and economic security depend on our developing domestic energy resources like the oil shale found in western Colorado,” Allred said. “These RD&D projects will allow us to test our belief that we have the knowledge and expertise to develop this resource effectively, economically, and with responsibility to the environment and to local communities.”

The Green River Formation, covering portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, is thought to hold the equivalent of 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil - as much as the U.S. would use in 110 years, at current consumption levels, and three times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. More than 70 percent of the formation, including the richest and thickest oil shale deposits, lies under federally managed lands, giving the Interior Department a key role in determining how the resource is developed.

The Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) completed the EAs under the National Environmental Policy Act to examine each project’s potential impacts as well as the cumulative impacts of all five projects combined with other oil and gas development in the area. A Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was reached for each of the proposed projects. The associated documents may be viewed online at BLM - White River Field Office.

Each FONSI is supported by extensive mitigation measures that will be added as stipulations to the RD&D leases. Before any on-site activities can begin, companies must submit detailed plans of development for approval and obtain all required local, state and federal permits to safeguard resources, such as air and water quality.

Allred said there has been close cooperation among federal, state and local agencies and community partners during evaluation of the RD&D proposals. He said that all stakeholders will continue to play an integral role as the department moves forward with oil shale development.

Oh, I’m so sure they will take everyone’s concerns into consideration. Just like they did with the Roan Plateau. And just as they have done with coalbed methane and gas well drilling in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah.

Not.

Check out the Skytruth satellite photos of methane drilling. They show the countless artificial wastewater ponds, well pads, and roads that riddle what were once wilderness lands. The photos are time-lapse, so you can click on them and see the landscape deteriorating.

A Land Out Of Time is a new documentary that features aerial footage of public lands impacted by gas drilling, plus interviews with ranchers and outfitters in Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana. You can preview the trailer at the website.

While we can almost feel the blast of full steam ahead from the Big Push, local mayors are pushing back. Emboldened by the election of our new Governor Bill Ritter—a Democrat—they sent him a letter this week which I was able to get hold of in my grubby little cyberpaws.

Dear Governor Elect Ritter,

As Mayors and City Council Presidents of Western Slope communities, we want to congratulate you on your election as the next Governor of Colorado.  This is an exciting time for the State of Colorado and we look forward to working with you to achieve the Colorado Promise.

To this end, we want to encourage you and your transition team to consider a number of issues and characteristics when selecting members of your cabinet, particularly the Directors for the Department of Local Affairs, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Transportation.

As you know the Western Slope of Colorado is one of fastest growing areas of the state.  It is currently facing enormous development pressures from oil and gas development as well as residential and commercial development.  As Mayors, we have first-hand experience with the impacts this rapid development is having on people, communities, and our public infrastructure (i.e., roads, air quality, housing affordability, and human services). 

For Western Slope communities and the State of Colorado to fully benefit from this growth and development, there are a number of critical issues that need the attention of your administration and the Directors for the Department of Local Affairs, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Transportation.  Some of these issues include:

* Allocating energy impact funds so more funding stays in areas of greatest impact;
* Setting and enforcing air quality and water quality standards;
* Including headwater communities in all state water discussions ;
* Developing funding strategies to finance affordable housing as well as transportation
   improvements (trails, transit, and roads); and,
* Increasing local input into the regulation of oil and gas development.

To help address these and other issues, we, the mayors of several Western Slope communities recommend that you consider the following characteristics and experience in your choice of Directors for the Department of Local Affairs, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Transportation.  We believe these directors should have experience:

* Working with Western Slope communities and issues;
* Serving as an elected official or town / county manger or regional manager;
* Fostering communication between state and local governments;
* Employing innovative “out-of-the-box” thinking while working with practical realities; and,
* Creating “win-win” collaborative solutions.

Although, you have chosen wisely in your transition team members, because of the scale of the issues facing our region, we want to encourage you to add a Western Slope perspective to your team either in the form of a representative or by talking with us during this transition period.

We look forward to further discussing with you the challenges and opportunities before many Western Slope communities and how state departments can be partners in creating solutions that benefit Western Slope communities as well as all Colorado residents.
We wish you success as you transition toward your role as Governor of Colorado.

Sincerely,

Helen Klanderud,
Mayor, City of Aspen

Leroy Duroux
Mayor, Town of Basalt

Michael Hassig
Mayor, Town of Carbondale

Donald Cramer
Mayor, Town of De Beque

Bruce Christensen
Mayor City of Glenwood Springs

Jim Doody
Mayor, City of Grand Junction 

Frank Breslin
Mayor, Town of New Castle

Roy McClung
Mayor, Town of Parachute

Keith Lambert
Mayor, City of Rifle

Dave Moore
Mayor, Town of Silt

Doug Mercatoris
Mayor, Town of Snowmass Village

Ken Brenner
President of City Council
City of Steamboat Springs

Mayors totally rock!

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After the 2004 Election, voting rights activists contacted countless people in the MSM—New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC—to demand they cover the hundreds of thousands of voting irregularities that had occurred on November 2. But they all responded that they needed “proof.”

So this time we were ready. We have their damn proof. And here it is:

Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked
By Rob Kall

Results skewed nationwide in favor of Republicans by 4 percent, 3 million votes.

A major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in US House and Senate races across the country is indicated by an analysis of national exit polling data, by the Election Defense Alliance (EDA), a national election integrity organization.

These findings have led EDA to issue an urgent call for further investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic election equipment.

Election Defense Alliance Press Release

Landslide Denied!
Major Miscount in 2006 Election: Were 4% of Votes “Misplaced”?

Election Defense Alliance, a national election integrity organization, issued an urgent call today for an investigation into the 2006 election results and a moratorium on deployment of all electronic voting equipment after analysis of national exit polling data indicated a major undercount of Democratic votes and an overcount of Republican votes in congressional races across the country. These findings are an alarming indictment of the American election system in which 80% of voters used electronic voting equipment.

As in 2004, the Exit Poll and the reported election results do not add up. But this time there is an objective yardstick in the methodology that establishes the validity of the Exit Poll and exposes the inaccuracy of the election returns. These findings are detailed in a paper published today on the EDA website.

The Edison-Mitofsky media Exit Poll, posted Election Night on CNN.com, had a sample base of more than 10,000 voters, and showed Democratic House candidates winning over Republicans by an 11.5 percent margin.

The reported vote count showed Democrats winning by a 7.6 margin, 3.9 percent less than the Exit Poll and far outside the poll’s +/-1-percent margin of error. This discrepancy entailed at least 3,000,000 votes.

The Exit Poll was then adjusted, by a process known as “forcing,” to match reported election vote totals. The final result, posted at 1:00 p.m. November 8, showed Democrats winning by a 7.6 percent margin, exactly mirroring the reported vote totals.

The objective yardstick was the proportion of respondents who indicated they had voted for Bush or Kerry in 2004. The sample in the already weighted Election Night Exit Poll had 47 percent Bush voters and 45 percent Kerry voters, a valid sample given the very conservative assumption that Republicans and Democrats turned out with equal enthusiasm in 2006. However, after the forcing process, the sample contained 49 percent Bush voters and only 43 percent Kerry supporters. This 6 percent gap is more than twice the size of the 2004 Bush win of 2.8 percent. It indicates a significant over-sampling of Republican voters in the adjusted 2006 Exit Poll.

Such a gross oversample of Republicans was necessary to match the actual vote counts, which therefore could not have been an accurate count of the actual electorate. Had the intended votes been accurately tallied, this election would have produced a Democratic landslide of epic proportions.

Read the Full Press Release

Read the Report

Study the Exit Poll Data

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Last month the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel ran a front page article on the man camps in Garfield County.

Quarters near drill rigs aid to workers, companies alike
By Bobby Magill

NORTH PARACHUTE RANCH — Covered head to boot in “roughneck gravy,” motor hand Tony Rios stood in the “man camp” kitchen awaiting a stack of ham sandwiches to take to his fellow riggers.

It was just after 11 a.m. Thursday at the Patterson Rig 171 man camp on EnCana natural gas well pad I-30. The night shift was sleeping in tiny four-bunk rooms upstairs while the day shift finished casing a gas well outside in the snow.

Rios, of Greeley, used to live in a Parachute apartment, but that didn’t work well, he said. Now he lives in the man camp and works with rig floor hand Lee Mohnke, a former Cripple Creek casino pit boss. They both came here for the money.

Average salary here, say EnCana officials: $24 per hour, twice as much as Mohnke said he earned at the casino.

“EnCana wanted us to work on location,” Rios said. “Wanted to keep you out of the alcohol and drugs.”

Rios is in the middle of a 14-day stretch on the rig working 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. When work is done and the night shift has taken over, he looks forward to a call home to his wife, Shelly, and sleep in a big blue bunk in a tiny room he shares with Mohnke.

If you show up to the man camp after a night at a bar with alcohol on your breath, you’ll get fired, he said.

The two-story modular man camp, sitting only 100 feet or so from the rig, houses about 17 riggers, but 28 could live here.

It’s a man camp in the purest sense: It’s a place for men to sleep when they’re not working the rig. No women live here.

Sounds kinda homey doesn’t it? You can almost smell the Alfredo and rough neck gravy.

Why, it almost sounds like Boy Scout Camp.

The article paints a pretty picture, but that’s all it is. People who live near the camps know the truth. Drugs, alcohol, and prostitution are huge factors. Not to mention the violence. There is an ongoing murder investigation at one camp west of Rifle. Steve Appl, the meth head who recently shot and injured State Patrol Trooper Bruce Koch before killing himself, worked as a rigger.

So what do we believe? The reporter’s puff piece? Or our lying eyes.

Beyond the overwhelmingly obvious social impacts being felt and observed on a daily basis, people were understandably upset to learn the gas companies are operating man camps without any permitting process. The article says the unregulated man camps are in violation of county zoning issues such as emergency access, building codes, sanitation, and sewage disposal.

Water is also an issue. When Garfield County Environmental Health Manager Jim Rada visited the camps, “he found questionable electrical systems, weaknesses in wastewater facilities, and the water quality was unknown. Though drinking water was trucked in, workers had to drink bottled water because drinking water quality couldn’t be verified.” But on the day he visited, the workers were “not drinking bottled water”.

Come on! Even roughnecks deserve safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.

Finally this week, county commissioners took the bold step of adopting some flimsy land use regulations which will establish a permitting process for setting up man camps. 

County commissioners adopt regulations aimed at man camps
By Donna Gray

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — While Garfield County has strongly resisted regulating the oil and gas industry in the past, it took a step in that direction Monday by adopting land use regulations that will govern temporary employee housing, commonly called man camps.

Although the new regulations apply to all areas of the county and cover housing for all industries, their intent and the forces that propelled them focus squarely on oil and gas.

Along with the increased drilling activity in the county comes demand for housing the workers in that industry. Housing shortages especially in the west end of the county where the drilling is taking place have led larger companies to build temporary trailer camps close to drilling sites.

That in turn led the county to reconsider its zoning regulations governing temporary employee housing, which were put in place in the late 1970s when oil shale was beginning to boom. It was during that era that the county saw large man camps built to house hundreds of workers.

In amending the regulations Monday, the county now requires a company to apply for a special use permit, which involves a public hearing before the planning and zoning commission and the county commissioners.

Under the regulations, the company will have to demonstrate there is a severe housing shortage in the area of its activity.

It also requires water and sewage treatment ranging from individual sewage disposal systems to portable toilets and periodic water testing, depending on the size and duration of the camp.

Camps are also required to be at least one mile apart. Permits are issued for one year with the option to renew annually at a public hearing.

Commissioner Larry McCown expressed concern the new regulations were “a case of Big Brother” government. “I see this as OK if you have 300 or 400 people,” he said.

Oh, I see. It’s not Big Brother government when they make ranchers and home owners comply with county zoning regulations, but it is when they go after the gas companies.

Of course there was no mention of the impact of drugs, alcohol, prostitution, and violence on the rural communities surrounded by man camps. And they didn’t schedule a public hearing so local residents could tell commissioners what they have observed.

So we can all just go on about our lives and ignore that negative impact stuff, safe in the knowledge that at least the gas companies will have to pay permit fees to Garfield County order to continue operating their unregulated and unsanitary man camps.

Experts agree, everything’s fine.

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The bubbleheads in the MSM have proclaimed the election is over. It’s time to move on.

Not so fast.

The reality is, votes are still being counted, and races remain undecided all over the country.

Counts Still Under Way in Five House Races

Apparently the topics of voting machine failures, voter suppression and disenfranchisement aren’t sexy enough for the TV.

One thing we’ve learned since 2000 is that problems at the polls are a sure sign of election fraud. Were there problems at the polls?

Last week Brad Friedman (Brad Blog) called Election Day a disaster.

Opinion: E-voting transition a disaster
A smooth transition to electronic balloting? Not so fast, America
By Brad Friedman  

ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE SLAYS NINE
Terrorizes Florida in Thrill-Kill Rampage

That headline was from a satirical column written by Andy Borowitz published last Monday, the day before Tuesday’s midterm elections. Unfortunately, given the post-election coverage by some of the nation’s leading media — or at least their headline writers — it seems that only an event such as a Diebold voting machine becoming “unmoored from the floor and…trampling everyone and everything in its path,” as Borowitz wrote, would qualify as anything more than a “glitch,” “hiccup,” “snag” or “snafu.”

“Voting System Worked, With Some Hiccups,” declared the AP headline on Wednesday. “Polling Places Report Snags, but Not Chaos,” echoed The New York Times. “Hiccups”? “Snags”? Try telling that to the thousands of voters around the country who were unable to simply cast a vote last Tuesday because new, untested electronic voting machines failed to work. Monumentally. Across the entire country.

“Not Chaos”? Apparently the Times headline writers failed to check with the folks in Denver who were lined up around the block for hours to vote. They didn’t even bother to read the Denver Post article headlining the problem as a “Voting Nightmare” during the day on Tuesday and quoting voter Lauren Brockman saying, “We will not get to vote today,” after he had shown up before work to vote at 6:45 a.m. at the Botanic Gardens only to wait on line for an hour before giving up.

They didn’t check with Bill Ritter, the Colorado gubernatorial candidate, who had to wait almost two hours to vote, or with Sean Kelley, a Denver resident, who said to the Post, “I can’t believe I’m in the United States of America,” before he gave up and went home without voting after waiting three hours in line when electronic machines broke down. Despite an emergency request, the courts in Colorado refused to allow the city’s new consolidated “Election Centers” to remain open for extra hours that night.

Similar problems led to slightly more responsible officials ordering polls to be kept open longer than scheduled in at least eight other states due to voting machine problems.

This week a NY Times Editorial is calling for election reform.

Counting the Vote, Badly
The New York Times Editorial

Last week’s elections provided a lot of disturbing news about the reliability of electronic voting - starting, naturally, with Florida. In a Congressional race there between Vern Buchanan, a Republican, and Christine Jennings, a Democrat, the machines in Sarasota County reported that more than 18,000 people, or one in eight, did not choose either candidate. That “undervote” of nearly 13 percent is hard to believe, given that only about 2.5 percent of absentee voters did not vote in that race. If there was a glitch, it may have made all the difference. Ms. Jennings trails Mr. Buchanan by about 400 votes.

The serious questions about the Buchanan- Jennings race only add to the high level of mistrust that many people already feel about electronic voting. More than half of the states, including California, New York, Ohio and Illinois, now require that electronic voting machines produce voter-verified paper records, which help ensure that votes are properly recorded. But Congress has resisted all appeals to pass a law that would ensure that electronic voting is honest and accurate across the nation.

But the fact is, the voting machines do not work. As much as I admire Common Cause and all the hard work they do and have done on behalf of voters, I’ve changed my mind about the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act  (HR 550), sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and supported by Common Cause’s Get It Straight by 2008 campaign. HR 550 calls for “a voter-verified permanent paper record or hard copy under title III” of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. As I’ve mentioned before, the machines (VVPATs) that print out the ballots can malfunction, run out of paper, and the printouts can be damaged or destroyed to hide evidence of tampering. In short, like the machines, the printouts are vulnerable to fraud.

Voter suppression and disenfranchisement are serious, complicated issues yet to be resolved. We can solve the problem of voting machines a lot more easily. Get rid of them and return to paper ballots. Therefore, I support HR 6200 sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) which requires “States to conduct Presidential elections using paper ballots and to count those ballots by hand”.

Write or call your Representative and ask him/her to support HR 6200, to return to paper ballots and get rid of the voting machines.

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I would not embark down this road of lampooning a public servant after 28 years of service if I thought for a minute that said public servant was actually serving the public for those 28 years—and not the Republican Party. I do this because when Cowgirl Cassie (who wishes to remain anonymous in this because she has her own issues with Garfield County Commissioners and doesn’t want to add any fuel to that fire) called Mildred on Election Day to ask questions and complain about problems at her voting precinct, Mildred asked, “Did Peggy Tibbetts put you up to this?”

How clairvoyant of her! I didn’t exactly put Cassie up to it. She called to tell me about her experience at the polls. She complained about the Colorado driver’s license requirement and the 15-minute limit on voting. She asked me why the election judge was announcing every voter’s name and address. I advised her to call Mildred and ask her why. So she did. And in the process she voiced her complaints.

Mildred also told Cassie that I had made a lot of trouble for her office.

Since when is it making “a lot of trouble” to ask questions and demand accountability of election officials? Since when is it making “a lot of trouble” to expect that election officials know the proper rules and abide by them?

While the country is still feeling the aftershocks of the Democratic sweep last week, Colorado is still counting votes after electing Democrat Bill Ritter as governor, and Garfield County is still quaking from what is likely the biggest Democratic sweep of local government in history.

Republican Clerk of Court Mildred Alsdorf is retiring after 28 years of service. Her successor will be Democrat Jean Alberico instead of her protégée, Republican Marian Clayton.

With final election done, Alsdorf ready for retirement
By April E. Clark

Outside Mildred Alsdorf’s office at the Garfield County Courthouse sits a bouquet of purplish-pink flowers.

There’s a large Stargazer lily, pink carnations, and a few slender purple flowers.

Someone is thinking about her.

That someone is me. I didn’t send the flowers—but the wilted carnations express my sentiments perfectly.

Mildred and I go way back, before I moved here. In November 1994, Ema was a CMC student looking to vote in her very first-ever election when a member of Mildred’s team of election judges disenfranchised her. Ema showed up on Election Day clutching her voter registration card and her name was in the book. However the election judge challenged her. She said that because Ema had registered to vote on campus they needed to see ID. She showed her student ID and an electric bill addressed to her local Glenwood Springs apartment. But the judge asked to see her driver’s license. She had a Minnesota driver’s license.

“Anh!” [buzzer sound effect]

The judge deemed her registration was invalid and she was not eligible to vote. Ema argued with the judge but she said she should have voted absentee in Minnesota—and for all she knew she had.

Ema’s tearful, frustrated phone call to me that day is a Mildred Memory I (and Ema) will keep forever.

I will never forget the first time I met Mildred. When I moved here in August 1996, I went to her office right away to register my vehicle and get Colorado plates because the Minnesota plates had expired on August 1. Even though Colorado has a 30-day grace period, she fined me $35 for expired plates. A small Mildred Memory keepsake.

Hmm. I wonder if she levied the fine before or after I registered to vote as a Democrat, which I also did that day since I was there.

In August, I shared with readers the class-action lawsuit I participated in against the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, accusing voter disenfranchisement over the photo ID requirement to vote—we lost. (see The Perfect Crime 8/24). When Mildred told Cassie I made a lot of trouble for her office she was referring to the origin of my dispute—the Garfield County Clerk of Court’s office. Her Election Judges did not know the rules, they were poorly trained, and I exposed that to state and local officials through a letter writing campaign and ultimately a lawsuit revealing irregularities at the polls in Garfield County. Mildred lied to me. She told me that voters were not required to show a Colorado driver’s license in order to vote. I informed her there was a sign posted at my polling place that clearly said: “Photo ID required to vote.” And Election Judges were not accepting anything else, which is still true to this day, making this a Mildred Memory that keeps on giving.

Another lasting small Mildred Memory is that in the past 10 years I have volunteered to work as Election Judge countless times—and to Mildred personally—and was never asked to serve. 

The tribute to Mildred in The Paper gave me this brand new Mildred Memory, which sums up whom she has served over the past 28 years.

Through it all, she has remained a staunch Republican.

“I’ve been a member of the Republican party for a long time,” she says.

That explains all those elephants.

One look around her office and an elephant figurine or stuffed animal will pop out somewhere. She has gray elephants, green elephants, crystal elephants, and a particularly patriotic elephant that’s red, white and blue and emblazoned with stars.

From her brother to staff members, someone always seems to buy her one if they’re thinking about her.

“I started collecting them a long time ago,” she says. “I probably have close to 200.”

She also has an eye for license plates - the more unique, the better.

“I have a friend who is a license plate collector and we exchange them.”

Aha! I bet she confiscated my Minnesota plates back in 96.

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Americans just proved what Greg Palast has been telling us all along. If voter turnout is high, it makes it harder to steal elections. It’s a lesson we all needed to learn. Greg Palast deserves the Pulitzer.

But this election was not without HUGE problems. The MSM has been reporting on several and the Common Cause hotline has been jammed with complaints.

Here’s what Common Cause President Chellie Pingree said today:

2006 is the third election in a row shadowed by questions about the integrity of voting machines.  WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.

The nation’s attention is focused on this issue, and now is the time to restore credibility to our broken election system.  The Senate needs to “Get It Straight by 2008″ and make sure all voting machines have a paper trail that voters can trust.

Urge your Senators to support voter-verified paper records and random audits for all electronic ballots - tell them we won’t wait any longer.  

This was a historic election, but we know there are still major flaws in the way we vote.  We saw serious problems with electronic voting yesterday in Virginia and Montana, where the control of the Senate still hinges on two close races.

In Virginia, there were numerous stories of voting machines switching candidate names.

In Montana, an electronic vote counting device was set incorrectly, a mistake that could have caused 3,000 votes to have been counted twice, possibly changing the outcome of the election.

Prevention is the best medicine.  It’s not enough to deal with the problems of 2006 - though we are working tirelessly to do so - we have to make sure this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.
 
A bill of this kind has already been introduced in the House - with 220 cosponsors already signed on, it should sail through.  A well-timed push that builds on last night’s momentum can force the Senate’s hand as well.

But if we don’t do something now, while the issue is “hot”, our leaders could sweep this under the rug for another two years. Now is the time to act!

Get It Straight by 2008

I’d rather see the country go back to paper ballots, but this is a start.

For example Warren Stewart, the policy director of VoteTrustUSA.org said today:

About 80 percent of the ballots in Virginia are on one paperless system or another, with no independent means of verifying the accuracy of the electronic tallies. With these machines, a recount would be nothing more than a reprint. Should Senator Allen challenge the results of the election, that contest would go to the U.S. Senate Rules Committee for resolution, possibly under the previous leadership. This could leave the control of the Senate in question for months.

In Colorado, California, and other states that offered paper ballots as an alternative to voting machines, voters overwhelmingly chose paper ballots. The results are in on the voting machines. Voters don’t trust them. And they don’t want to vote on them.

Brad Blog has published a list of races in which candidates should not concede or should not have conceded.

As happy as I am that Ritter won the Governor’s race, I find it puzzling that voters who supposedly said they voted a straight Democratic ticket then voted for Republican Mike Coffman over Democrat Ken Gordon for Secretary of State and Republican John Suthers over Democrat Fern O’Brien. Makes no sense to me. As a voting rights activist, I’m especially sorry to see another Republican running elections in this state. At least Garfield County went Democratic. But the problems with elections begin at the state level.

In this election, voting machine problems, voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression were at an all time high. We must keep the focus on these problems so we can resolve them.

Voters in Denver experienced all kinds of problems.

Denver Mayor promises to pay for Election Day tickets
By Jeffrey Wolf

DENVER - Mayor John Hickenlooper told 9NEWS Tuesday he was upset about all the voting problems and promises they will be fixed.

Voters in Denver faced problems throughout the day with long lines and computer glitches. 9NEWS at 10 p.m. November 7, 2006.

Many people in Denver were forced to wait in long lines on Election Day and Mayor Hickenlooper promised to fix the problems. 9NEWS at 6 p.m. November 7, 2006.

Many Denver voters were greeted by long lines at the polls when they went to vote on Tuesday.

The problem was compounded when the computer system used to check in voters was rebooted around 1 p.m.

At one point, some of Denver’s voting centers had a three-hour wait.

“This is the 21st Century, how hard can it be to get a database and make it accessible to 55 places? It should take 10 minutes to vote. It should take two minutes. The worst should be 10 or 15 minutes. I think that’s the standard we have to expect,” said Hickenlooper.

Several voters say because of the long lines, they got parking tickets.

Hickenlooper says, at the very least, he will personally pay for any “street sweeping” tickets people might have received while trying to vote.

During this year’s election, Denver went from using precincts as polling locations to voting centers.

I have received several reports of problems locally.

Cowgirl Annie went to vote in New Castle and realized her driver’s license was missing. She was not allowed to vote and she was not offered a provisional ballot. The election judge was supposed to offer her a provisional ballot. She went back to the ranch and got her passport. When she presented that she was told they could not accept it because it doesn’t have her address on it. They were wrong, a passport is acceptable ID. She showed them mail with her husband’s name, still they said no. Finally the supervisor said she knows who Cowgirl Annie is so she could vote.

Cowgirl Betty went to vote in Rifle and forgot her driver’s license. Colorado law does not require a driver’s license to vote, other forms of ID are acceptable, such as mail. Cowgirl Betty happened to have her mail with her so she showed it to the election judge. She was not allowed to vote and was not offered a provisional ballot. As far as I know she did not vote.

Cowgirl Cassie went to vote in Rifle and offered her social security card and was told they needed to see her driver’s license. She showed them her license and told the judges she knew that the law did not require a Colorado driver’s license to vote. They told her that Congress had passed a law nationally. That’s not true.

At the polling place where CG Betty and CG Cassie voted when each voter received his ballot, his name and address were announced for the benefit of a man they call the “poll watcher”. CG Cassie also complained about that. Voters were also given a 10-minute time limit to vote, giving new meaning to the phrase “election race”. Elderly people complained that they didn’t finish voting their ballots.

As many people have said today, imagine what the results would have been if this was a clean election.

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And I do mean games – and they have begun.

The bubbleheads in the MSM on the TV will probably tell you all day long that everything is going swimmingly. Don’t believe it. Voter ID issues to voting machine problems are already being reported in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida – to name a few. Some voters have even received calls telling them to vote in a different place or that the election is tomorrow.

Don’t answer the phone.
Just go VOTE!

You can verify your polling place and/or report any problems or mischief you experience or are a witness to at either of the toll free numbers below. These numbers will be available after today as well.

Voter assistance hotlines:

Common Cause
1-866-MY-VOTE-1
1-866-698-6831

People for the American Way
1-866-OUR-VOTE
1-866-687-8683

In Missouri, even the Secretary of State – head of elections – experienced problems with voting.

Carnahan concerned about possible errors at polling places today
By David A. Lieb (AP)

JEFFERSON CITY — Secretary of State Robin Carnahan raised concerns about potential confusion at polling places in today’s elections, citing her own experience casting an absentee ballot as an indication that some poll workers may wrongly be asking voters for a photo identification.

Carnahan said Monday that a worker at the St. Louis Election Board asked her three times to show a photo identification when she voted absentee Friday — despite a Missouri Supreme Court ruling striking down the photo requirement.

The poll worker apparently did not recognize that Carnahan was Missouri’s chief elections official when Carnahan showed a paper voter card mailed out by the local election authority. The card does not have a picture but is an acceptable form of identification under Missouri law.

Carnahan said she tried to explain that a photo ID was not necessary, but the election worker replied that she was instructed to ask for one anyway. Carnahan said she eventually was allowed to vote without displaying a photo identification.

“To have that experience personally was very troubling,” Carnahan said. “I want to make sure that voters are clear, that election authorities are clear, that the identification requirements are the same as they have been in previous years.”

But “I’m guessing this may be happening in other parts of the state,” added Carnahan, a Democrat who had opposed Republican efforts to mandate a photo ID requirement in Missouri.

Scott Leiendecker, the Republican director of the St. Louis Election Board, did not immediately return a call Monday.

Carnahan said she spoke with Leiendecker, who assured her the identification requirements would be clarified and that voters would not be pressed to present a photo ID when they vote today.

One of my readers wrote to tell me about her experience while voting early in New Mexico last Friday.

I wanted to let you know about my surreal voting experience here in NM. Our state legislators (or someone – I don’t actually know who was responsible for this) returned us to a paper ballot system for this election, which is a relief. I feel a whole lot more confident coloring in ovals on a piece of paper, even though said paper is then read by a computerized machine. I don’t think there’s nearly the controversy about Scantron-type machines being hackable as computer voting machines themselves are.

Ironically in Hacking Democracy, Bev Harris & Co show exactly how the Smart Card in the paper ballot scanners can be programmed to produce any result desired no matter what the actual vote count is. It’s really shocking and depressing. 

Even more shocking and depressing is that Hacking Democracy is being shown to a limited audience on HBO and not to everyone on MUST SEE NBC-TV. Everyone should see this documentary.

Back to New Mexico:

But on to the surreal part. As I stood in a fairly long line awaiting my turn at the early voting booths, a woman in a wheelchair came in and took her place at the back of the line. Periodically, one of the election judges would come out and offer copies of the sample ballot and sort of check the length of the line. Coincidentally, as she was doing this, the woman in the wheelchair zipped out of line and headed toward the exit. The election judge followed in hot pursuit. “Aren’t you going to stay?” she asked. “No,” the woman replied. “I don’t have time to wait right now.”

At that point, the election judge told the woman to “come with me, I can get you in right now.” The woman protested, “No, that’s all right. I don’t want to jump to the head of the line.” The election judge assured her, “Oh, no, no, you won’t cut ahead of anyone.”

Mystified as to how the election judge could “get the woman in right away” without having her cut to the front of the line, I stepped out of line myself and watched the woman go directly into the polling place.

This scene was followed shortly thereafter by another woman in wheelchair being pulled out of the line and taken directly into the polling place. Next, the woman standing behind me went over and whispered to an election judge and was taken directly inside. When that woman came out, I smiled and said, “You must have had the magic words.” She got very indignant and replied, “Yeah, it’s called twelve inches of steel in my lower back.”

The courtesy of jumping the line did not extend, however, to another woman behind me who’d had foot surgery and was unable to walk. She was forced to hop along with a walker and was eventually provided a chair to sit on during the longer waiting periods. Nor did the courtesy extend to several frail, elderly people in line behind me who needed chairs but were afraid of losing their place in line if they walked across the hall to sit down.

It made me wonder what the rules are for allowing people to jump the line and vote immediately. Who decides that? Is the time of a person in a wheelchair more valuable than my own, so that they should not have to wait in line as I do? Should people with an alleged medical problem be allowed to bypass the line, when they could have voted absentee in the first place but chose to walk into a polling place, instead? Or is it merely a question of the squeaky wheel getting the grease? (Note that the wheelchair-bound woman protested receiving special treatment and was essentially railroaded into it by the election judge.) I hate to sound cold-hearted, but I don’t feel election judges should have the discretion to randomly pluck people from the line and send them through to vote ahead of the rest of us.

I came away from this whole experience kicking myself for not having voted absentee, which I pledge to do in all subsequent elections. But I also came away with a profound sense of gratitude that I have a sound body capable of standing in line for 2 hours (when so many others do not), a sense of fulfillment that I voted against every incumbent serving in Washington (on the grounds they have proven themselves unfit to govern), and a feeling of pride at having performed my civic duty and made my voice heard (at least theoretically).

I recommended that this voter call the hotline and report the experience. Long and longer voting lines are a direct result of the new voting machines. In the “old days” of paper ballots and/or punch card ballots, every precinct had plenty of voting booths and could call for more. But the new voting machines are so expensive counties don’t keep a surplus on hand. Or they didn’t order enough to begin with. Or the surplus machines are defective. 

Also, precincts used to be smaller, with fewer voters, to avoid long lines. Since 2000, redistricting has combined small precincts into larger precincts. In Colorado they call them Vote Centers.

Fewer voting machines and larger precincts, add up to long lines. Long lines are a form of voter suppression. There’s no excuse for long lines with early voting. Clearly there were not enough voting machines at the polling place. The election officials should theoretically be able to add more machines each day.

Election judges are supposed to treat everyone equally. I, too, am mystified by the election judge’s behavior. She does not have the “discretion to randomly pluck people from the line and send them through to vote ahead of” others. She was poorly trained. The job of election judges is to facilitate the act of voting and assist ALL voters, at ALL times, in any way possible.

When I experienced questionable behavior on the part of election judges in the 2004 primary election I wrote a letter and called Mildred Alsdorf, Clerk of Court to complain. It turned out I was right – a Colorado driver’s license was not required to vote – but I was disenfranchised anyway – as were thousands of voters in Colorado. So this voter should also report this behavior and ask these questions of her Clerk of Court and/or Elections Supervisor.

As I’ve mentioned before, the voter ID issue is still not settled in Colorado – nor in any state for that matter. The “rules” say a Colorado driver’s license is NOT required to vote but election judges are still asking for it – as happened to Secretary of State Carnahan in Missouri.

If you are challenged, DO NOT accept a provisional ballot for any reason. Demand your right to vote!

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Greg Palast (author of Armed Madhouse) weighed in on the election earlier today for The Guardian (UK). Be sure to click through and read the entire article.

How They Stole the Mid-Term Election
by Greg Palast

Here’s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.

Note the past tense. And I’m not kidding.

And shoot me for saying this, but it won’t be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they’ll do their nasty part). While progressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer black boxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaults through entirely different means.

For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment for BBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of the gaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day that will live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted. Here’s how they’ll do it, in three easy steps:

Theft #1: Registrations gone with the wind

Theft #2: Turned Away - the ID game

Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten

Ok, so it’s official. You don’t know if your vote will be counted. You can be sure it won’t be counted if you don’t vote. All is not completely lost. The only way to beat their system is to vote. High voter turnout can overcome election fraud. Here’s how:

Steal Back Your Vote
by Greg Palast

A lot of advice we’re getting from our progressive friends is to take photos of your ballot and silly stuff like that.  Well, that’s all about how to complain after they steal it. I have a better idea:  Win, don’t whine.

The regime’s sneak attack via vote suppression [see, “How They Stole the Mid-Term Election”] will only net them about 4.5 million votes.  You should be able to beat that blindfolded.   As that will cost about 5% of the vote.  That means you can’t win with 51% of the vote anymore.  So just get over it.  If you can’t get the 55% you need for regime change, then you’re just a bunch of crybaby pussycats who don’t deserve to take charge.

#1:  Vote Early, Vote Often

Vote today — at early voting stations — so you can spend tomorrow bringing out others to vote.  Also, if you’re challenged, you’ve got another day to bring in more ID or scream bloody murder to your county elections board about your missing registration.

#2:  Gang Vote

Arrive with five!   Never go bowling, make love or vote alone.  And volunteer at get-out-the-vote operations.  It’s worth it just for the stale donuts, cold coffee and hot democracy.

#3: Tell Them to Take Their Provisional Ballot and …

If they try to hand you a “provisional ballot,” scream bloody murder.  If there’s a problem with your ID or registration, demand adjudication from a poll monitor, come back with proper ID, or demand appeal to the county supervisor of elections.

But don’t just walk away.  If it’s provisional or nothing, take it — then return for the count to defend it.

#4:  Get to Work

Volunteer to bring out the vote.  Or watch a poll — to challenge the challengers.  Get credentials; don’t freelance — you’ll likely get thrown out. Either get credentials from the parties or get information on how you can slay vote-eating dragons in your area from the National Campaign for Fair Elections the umbrella group including NAACP, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and People for the American Way.

Catch Greg Palast on Election Night on the new Mike Malloy Show on Nova M Radio.

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