Breaking Voting News

Read the email below the fold from – it appears that the California HAVA (Help Americans Vote Act) registration system – as implemented by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson – is killing over 40% of the attempts to register that were made in Los Angeles County this quarter.

As I’ve said over, and over, and over again, we need voting systems that a) are transparent so that people trust them; b) are auditable so that they can be checked; and c) work.

The vote-input and vote-counting machines are only a small part of that system. It starts with letting people register when they ought to be able to.
—–Original Message—–
From: Conny McCormack
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 5:15 PM
To: ‘XXXXXX@ss.ca.gov’; ‘XXXXXX@ss.ca.gov’; ‘XXXXXX@ss.ca.gov’;
‘XXXXXX@ss.ca.gov’
Cc: Michael XXXXXXX; Ray XXXXXX; Kristin XXXXXX;
‘XXXXXX@solanocounty.com’

Subject: Calvoter Stats since Jan 1, 2006 for L.A. County

SUBJECT: Follow-up to 3/16/06 meeting at SOS office re Statewide Database process (i.e. post HAVA Calvoter system) -per your request at the meeting for stats to date for L.A. County

There were 34,064 voter registration forms received and data entered by L.A. County, and then sent to CalVoter, between Jan 1 and Mar 15, 2006 (this has been a very slow time for L.A. County. As we mentioned at the meeting, during heavy election periods we routinely receive upward of 20,000 voter registration forms each day). These stats (below) reveal that 14,629 or 42.9% of these individuals’ voter registration records have been returned to us by your office as invalid. Due to SOS regulations, these individuals are now fatally pended on the CalVoter system. Such status means they are not eligible to receive a sample ballot (which also informs them of their assigned neighborhood voting location) nor to receive an absentee ballot by mail if they were to apply for one. Prior to Jan 1, 2006, ALL of these individuals, would have been placed on the voter file at the time of data entry. Additionally, assuming they met the VR deadline, they would have received sample ballots for upcoming elections in their area and would have been allowed to vote either via absentee ballot or at their assigned polling place via a regular (i.e. not a provisional) ballot. (Caveat: beginning in 2004, first time voters in federal elections who did not provide a copy of I.D. when registering to vote by mail would have been asked to show I.D. at the polls prior to casting a regular ballot. Additionally, according to SOS directive at that time, absentee voters would have been verified, and their ballots counted, if the signature on his/her voter registration record compared favorably with the signature on his/her absentee ballot envelope, regardless of whether or not s/he enclosed a copy of I.D. with their absentee ballot or absentee ballot application).

The individuals caught in the first group below (i.e. NO MATCH) actually DID provide their Calif. Driver’s License # (CDL) or CA State I.D. (CID) on the voter registration form they submitted between Jan 1-Mar 15, 2006. However, because of some difference in how their name (or possibly birthdate) appeared in the DMV records compared to the information they provided on their registered voter affidavit, they are being prohibited from being listed on the voter rolls at this time. We (counties) are told to contact them to get “the information needed.” However, they already have provided the info required to be eligible to register to vote. They also provided their CDL or CID # and yet they are still “without Registered Voter (RV) status.” You reiterated at Thurs’ meeting that your CalVoter system, and your own regulations (drawn up in conjunction with the USDOJ), prohibit these individuals from being listed on the voter file in any fashion, i.e. they are “fatal” pends. We suggested a “soft pend” so that they could be included on the RV file, perhaps with a notation to “show I.D.” to verify identify at the polls (or, for absentee voters, provide it in absentee ballot return envelope) but we learned your system has no such capability, i.e. a person attempting to register to vote is either IN or OUT with nothing in-between.

Also, fully 1,594 (4.68%) of these records (below) were not accepted due to CalVoter “system error” such as a “time out” or other “down time” of your system. These individuals’ right to become a RV is now impacted not by eligibility criteria, but by an imperfect system (all systems are imperfect exposing a fatal flaw in having a potential voter’s status impacted – not by Constitutional eligibility criteria – but rather by technology).

Taken together, these two categories comprise 22.65% of the voter registration forms received by L.A. County since the first of the year.

Additionally, 6,438 (18.9%) of the individuals in stats below did not provide a CDL or CID # when attempting to register or re-register to vote (as we explained, 2/3 of the voter registration affidavits we receive are typically re-registrations, i.e. occur due to a voter changing his/her name, address, pol party affiliation, etc. In other words they have been a CA registered voter in the past and many have voted in past CA elections). You indicated that since these individuals have either a CDL or CID (according to DMV records) each one must personally provide it (either on another form or orally via a telephone call) in order to become a RV. In other words, even an exact match of another gov’t agency’s records is insufficient to clear their registrations, regardless of whether or not these individuals are a new registrant or a re-registrant.

The first three categories listed below total 14,153 or 41.5% of the VR affidavits our County received between Jan 1 and March 15.

Of course the FAQs sent to county registrars and posted on your website for the past several weeks also say the same thing as is described above re what the SOS is requiring the counties to do with all VR affidavits received since Jan 1, 2006. Needless to say, the numbers shown below are not small. However, as I mentioned at the Thursday meeting, as well as on several conference calls with SOS staff, even if one person is impacted inappropriately that is one too many with regard to their precious and Constitutionally guaranteed right to register to vote based on appropriate and legal eligiblity criteria.

UNSUCCESSFUL VALIDATIONS

NO_MATCH – 6121 (17.97%)
EXACT – 6438 (18.90%)
SYSTEM ERR – 1594 (4.68%)
SOUNDS – 130 (0.38%)
SMART – 9 (0.03%)
MULTIPLE – 43 (0.13%)
INVALID – 294 (0.86%)
SUB TOTAL – 14629 (42.95%)

SUCCESSFUL VALIDATIONS
EXACT – 19435 (57.05%)

GRAND TOTAL – 34064

Here’s a video showing the harsh reality of the Iraqi insurgency. Well, not really, but it’s funny.

I’d dismissed the Ben Domenech (the RedState blogger just hired by the Washington Post) issue as a combination of blogger inside baseball and the usual spittle-flecked rant against the right by Duncan Black.

But looking deeper into it, it sure looks like the guy is a) careless with words – a bad characteristic for a professional writer (if he thinks Coretta King was a Communist, and said so carelessly, that’s worse to me than if he’d meant it. If he’d meant it, we could judge him and in this case most likely dismiss him as a moron. If he’s that careless with words, he say anything and we’d wonder what we should take seriously…); and b) a serial plagiarizer.

Now I don’t think that b) is particularly an issue for blogs (if it matters enough to be read, the blogger involved will almost certainly get busted) or for the right (unlike Matt Stoller who says: This Ben Domenech debacle is more than a sad story of a young conservative with integrity problems. The toxic brew of racism and dishonesty is really part of their DNA, and it has practical real world consequences.), but I do think it’s a significant issue for journalism, and since a job at the Post is a job in journalism – I think he ought to step out or be shown the door.

My second-least favorite academic, Juan Cole (I know, I still read him, even though his site is little more than a list of those who have been killed in Iraq) approvingly cites a U Mich study that defines “civil war”:

‘ That there should be a political controversy over whether there is a civil war in Iraq is a tribute to the Bush administration’s Orwellian attention to political rhetoric. By the most widely accepted social science measure, Iraq is incontestably in a civil war.

“Sustained military combat, primarily internal, resulting in at least 1,000 battle-deaths per year, pitting central government forces against an insurgent force capable of effective resistance, determined by the latter’s ability to inflict upon the government forces at least 5 percent of the fatalities that the insurgents sustain.” (Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, “Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946-92,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, May 2000.) ‘

(Note that it’s from a Salon article by the Clueless Professor – I won’t link to Salon, because I’m kinda torqued that they’d sell subscriptions by promising more Abu Ghreib pictures)

Hmmm. Gang warfare in the United States cost over 900 lives in 2004. 153 police officers were killed in the line of duty, and I’d bet a third of them were killed by gang members – so to meet Cole’s standard, we’re on the borderline of a civil war – even as crime rates hit all-time lows.

I’d better buy some more ammo…

Neo – Neocon has started a series of posts on propaganda in wartime; her latest is focused on the famous “Four Freedoms” paintings Norman Rockwell did during WWII.

By odd synchronicity, we’d just watched James Cagney’s WWII film “Yankee Doodle Dandy” – it turns out that Littlest Guy shares our affection for musicals, so we’re bringing him from Sondheim to Singin’ In The Rain to Yankee Doodle Dandy as a quick tour d’horizon.

And about fifteen minutes into YDD, I picked up the Netflix sleeve to see when it had been made – and noted, as I’d expected, that it had been made during WWII.

The naked patriotism – bleeding over to jingoism – of the film can be captured in two quotes and an image.

The image is the poster for the film (lifted from Tim Dirks site “The Greatest Films” – http://www.filmsite.org/ as are the cites) seen here:

One quote from the start of the film:

George: (smiling to himself) I was a pretty cocky kid in those days – a pretty cocky kid. A regular Yankee Doodle Dandy, always carrying a flag in a parade or following one.

President: I hope you haven’t outgrown the habit.

George: Not a chance.

President: Well that’s one thing I’ve always admired about you Irish-Americans. You carry your love of country like a flag, right out in the open. It’s a great quality.

George: I inherited that – I got that from my father. He ran away to the Civil War when he was thirteen – the proudest kid in the whole state of Massachusetts.

President: So you’ve spent your life telling the other forty-seven states what a great country it is.

One from the end:

President: Why, I wanted to hear the story of your life. It has a direct bearing on my sending for you. Do you know what this is?

George: The Congressional Medal of Honor.

President: Let’s see what the inscription says: ‘To George M. Cohan, for his contribution to the American spirit. Over There and Grand Old Flag Presented by Act of Congress.’ I congratulate you, Mr. Cohan. (He hands the medal to George) I understand you’re the first person of your profession to receive this honor. You should be very proud.

George: Oh, I am proud. In fact, I’m flabbergasted. First time in my life, I’m speechless. Are you sure there isn’t some mistake?

President: Quite sure.

George: (modestly) But this medal is for people who’ve given their lives to their country or done something big. I’m just a song and dance man. Everybody knows that.

President: A man may give his life to his country in many different ways, Mr. Cohan. And quite often he isn’t the best judge of how much he has given. Your songs were a symbol of the American spirit. Over There was just as powerful a weapon as any cannon, as any battleship we had in the First World War. Today, we’re all soldiers, we’re all on the front. We need more songs to express America. I know you and your comrades will give them to us.

George: Mr. President, I’ve just begun to earn this medal. It’s quite a thing.

[emphasis added]

Add the lyrics to one of his songs:

Johnnie, get your gun, get your gun, get your gun
Take it on the run, on the run, on the run
Hear them calling you and me, Ev’ry son of liberty.
Hurry right away, No delay, Go today,
Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad,
Tell your sweetheart not to pine, To be proud her boy’s in line.
Over there, Over there,
Send the word, Send the word, Over there
That the Yanks are coming, The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming ev’rywhere.
So prepare, Say a prayer,
Send the word, Send the word, To beware
We’ll be over, We’re coming over,
And we won’t come back till it’s over, Over There.

You’ll have a funny set of reactions to the film if you watch it today – first, you’ll be gobsmacked by the fact that Jimmy Cagney is a hoofer! …and quite a good one.

Then you’ll get a sense of the true datedness of the film from the inferences on race and gender…”… about you Irish-Americans.”

But a part of it is that I can’t imagine a film today that wore our flag so nakedly on its sleeve.

And I wonder whether and how we can fight or win a war without doing so.

The New York Times has an editorial slamming the Administration for their

accommodation of the mining industry — notably by packing the mine safety agencies with pro-management appointees — has produced a marked decline in major fines for negligent companies. A recent data analysis by The Times documented a risky, business-friendly downturn in penalties since 2001.

Sadly, the professional journalists at the Times couldn’t so the five minutes of research that would have told them that – with the exception of an outlier to date this year – deaths under the Bush Administration are significantly lower than those under pro-labor Clinton.

Go back and read my old post (linked above) and marvel at the diligence of our national newspaper of record.

Over at Michael Totten’s joint, Lee Smith Tony Badran writes the post I’ve been meaning to about the hysterical (as in ha-ha hysterical) Harvard study on the pernicious power of the “Israel Lobby” in defining US foreign policy.

A few great grafs:

Pretty much any American who has ever been in a motorized vehicle knows that the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy is Washington’s relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and has been so since the mid-30s. It is a vital national interest – not just because cheap fuel permits Americans to drive SUVs, but because protecting the largest known oil-reserves in the world ensures a stable world economy. Moreover, the US military counts on access to that oil in the event it has to wage war – an activity that demands a lot of oil.

Walt and Mearsheimer’s article explains how “the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics,” which I agree with, because like many Americans I’ve ridden in a car before and I believe that the ability to get people and things from one place to another is a big part of successful domestic politics. It’s not entirely clear that the authors of this really long article have ever been in a car before, because when they’re talking about domestic politics, they’re not talking about cars, or the economy or even our military, but “the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby.'”

…

True or False: “By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby’s task even easier.”

True – not. Psyche. Yeah, true if you exclude the obviously limited influence that oil companies have exercised in US policymaking over the last seventy years. And it’s not just the oil companies doing Gulf bidding; virtually every American ambassador who’s served in Riyadh winds up with a nice package to keep selling the Saudi line back in Washington. Yes, you’re right, AIPAC’s annual budget is a whopping $40 million dollars – or precisely equivalent to the private donation Saudi prince Walid Bin Talal recently gave to two US universities to start up Islamic centers. What? Come on Steve, he gave half of it to Harvard! OK, give me the car keys. The keys to the car, it’s how you got here. In a car. It has four wheels and a motor. It runs on gas. Gas comes from a place called Saudi Arabia….

Go read the whole thing. Biggest Guy spent a few days hanging out at Harvard when we were doing the college-tour thing and he wrote the school off as “lame”.

Hmmm. If this is what Cambridge’s best and the brightest have to offer, he’s even smarter than I thought he was…

Chris Bertram crows over Johann Hari’s repentant (and statistics-challenged) column in which he sorrowfully apologizes for having supported the war.

I’ll update my criticism of Hari’s facts when I get a chance to later today or tonight, but Chris somehow forgot to highlight this part of Hari’s column:

POSTSCRIPT: There’s been a collosal response to this article and I’m still picking through the e-mails. Over fifty from Iraqis, of which some mournfully agree, although this e-mail was more typical:

“Your article in the Independent today, 20/3/2006, was really disappointing to all of your admirers. You let them down. You changed your mind and switched from pro-war to join the anti-war campaigners, means that you gave in bowed to the aggressors. So instead of blaming the terrorists for this mass killing in Iraq at the hand of the terrorists, you put the blame on Bush and Blair for liberating Iraqi people from the worst dictator in history. If your new stance is right, then it was wrong to stand up against Hitler in the WW II, because that war caused humanity 55 million casualties. So it was better not oppose the Axis sates. Is that fair? Is this is the justice that we are looking for? If the tyrants were left to do as they like because of the possible revenge from their followers, then our glob will be place for the tyrants only and the whole planet population will be living like sheep.

Abdulkhaliq Hussein”

I certainly can’t add anything to that. And Hari has no answer to it.

I can’t let the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war go unremarked.

My thoughts are with everyone over there – our troops, our allies, and most of all the Iraqis.

Knowing everything I know today, I would have made the same decision three years ago – to support the invasion.

Knowing everything I know today, I still don’t know how it will come out. And neither does anyone else; so when you read proclamations of victory or defeat, I’d take a moment and reflect first on the messiness of history.

We are in an arduous struggle against a strong and evil enemy. We hope to win without becoming evil ourselves, and while that makes the struggle far harder, it is the only thing that makes it worthwhile.

[edited amazingly clunky grammar]

Lots of real-life stuff this weekend, and today I need to go fix TG’s motorcycle and one of my own.

But I scanned my Bloglines feeds this morning, and came across one thing you folks probably haven’t read and should.

It’s by Marc Cooper, a man who brutally kills defenseless fishes for fun and between times writes hella smart commentary at the L.A. Weekly and his own blog.

Pajamas Media also has a round-up of blog postings on the Cuban anniversary. All of the links are to conservative or right-wing blogs.
The reason is unfortunate. There are no liberal blogs marking this anniversay today. At least none that can be easily found.

I don’t believe for one moment that this owes to some sort of liberal “softeness” on Castro (though there’s certainly a sweet spot for him among the more stridently leftist folks). No, the silence on Cuba owes to something else: a smothering parochialism that has set down upon much of the liberal left and extinguished much more honorable traditions of internationalism. Liberals and progressives nowadays are defined more than anything by their sheer opposition to George Bush and no longer feel themselves part of a bigger cause – like, say, freedom.

For too many of them it’s a simple formula: Whatever Bush is for, I’m against. Period. Next question?
The result is a strange liberalish mirror-image of Buchananist isolationism: “I can’t be criticizing some foreign government I have no control over when I have to spend all my energy fighting the ills of my own government,” as some have crudely and previously put it on this blog. Or, worse, “I’m not going to gang up on Fidel when we Americans have created such a horror in [fill in the blank] Iraq or Haiti or Afghanistan”.

I see. Well, at least during the lulls in your ongoing heroic struggle against rampant Republicanism, take a moment out to quietly remember those prisoners of conscience who languish in Cuban prisons. They deserve your support and solidarity, even if it isn’t George Bush who put them there.

It become – sadly – very rare to read commentators on either side who won’t do or say anything to score points on “the opposition”. I’m slowly losing interest in them; it’s the iconoclasts – who I believe might actually let a fact stand in the way of a good opinion – who are the folks I’m most interested in listening to.