Florida, the beginning of the aftermath and a new era
By Josh Zaharoff
Posted on Wed Nov 05, 2008 at 10:43:26 AM EST
First off, a great story about the tremendous voter protection work we did in Florida (patting self on back): For nearly a month, Zeigler has worked with five volunteers to help voters in five counties whose registrations had not met the state's verification law, better known as the "no match, no vote" law. In Duval County alone, there were 258. Zeigler is one of the people who has worked on election-protection efforts in seven swing states, sponsored by the nonprofit Common Cause. But the big story today is about Obama, of course, and the incredible moment in American history and American democracy. Indeed, we have many problems to solve and a ton of work to do, but yesterday's numbers tell a promising story: over 130 million votes cast, a turnout over 62% that is the highest in at least 44 years, led by the historic level of young voter turnout. And, of course, the first African-American president in our history.
One of the untold stories of this election was the lengthy, and often under-the-radar, work by the Election Protection coalition that we were a part of -- winning court battles, organizing on the ground, and preventing potential election problems in the months and years before Election Day. Folks like our Florida team did a tremendous job of making sure every voter had a chance to cast a ballot that counted.
We still have too much big money in our politics, too many deceptive practices in our elections, and too few companies controlling too many major media outlets. We have a lot to do to continue to mold this beacon of democracy -- but yesterday was a big step forward in many, many ways.
Poor Judgment by Florida Judge
By David Fialkov -- Intern
Posted on Tue Jun 19, 2007 at 02:21:25 PM EST
You might recall the post-election controversy last November where Democrat Christine Jennings lost a Florida House race to Republican Vern Buchanan by 369 votes in an election where approximately 18,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Sarasota County were "missing."
What do you mean "missing"? you might ask. After today, we will probably never know. A three judge panel ruled today that Ms. Jennings will not be allowed to review the programming source code of the paperless electronic voting that "lost" the votes. Such codes, the the trial and appeals court ruled, should remain secret to protect the machine company's patented code.
Campaign Contribution Builds a Bridge
By Nate Koppel -- Intern
Posted on Fri Jun 08, 2007 at 09:38:57 AM EST
The New York Times has a great story about a particularly egregious example of the influence of money in politics.
Rep. Don Young (R-AL), best recalled perhaps for the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" $200 million earmark last year, is at it again. Again with the bridges. Young has steered $10 million to build a bridge in Florida. Now, one might ask, what would an Alaskan congressman want with building bridges in Florida?
The answer lies, very simply, in the fact that he has a campaign contributer who stands to gain a lot from this:
The Coconut Road [the bridge in question] money is a boon, however, to Daniel J. Aronoff, a real estate developer who helped raise $40,000 for Mr. Young at the nearby Hyatt Coconut Point hotel days before he introduced the measure.
Several studies by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Federal Highway Administration have all warned about the potential environmental impact of this undertaking. County planners had voted not to use the money, until they were threatened by Rep. Young that it would jeopardize future federal resources for the area.
Usually, as the article in the Times notes, this kind of thing is done more discreetly. Of course, $40,000 isn't easy to come by, and, with the cost of running for reelection, it's not a bad deal. Perhaps if Young put a sign on his door that read "Representative for Sale," he might get more business. Or perhaps, if we institute clean elections, he wouldn't need to.
States roundup
By Josh Zaharoff
Posted on Thu May 24, 2007 at 03:25:54 PM EST
As a group fighting for transparency, we're not about to hide our own successes--so enjoy this latest Common Cause news from around the country:
Florida House and Senate pass paper ballot law! And more!
By Barb Burt
Posted on Thu May 03, 2007 at 04:29:41 PM EST
Here's an update on the fast changing world of election reform. Florida's House unanimously passed the same bill that passed the Senate and that Governor Crist will sign. Who'd have thought this was possible a year ago! Kudos to the activists in Florida who've fought night and day for years for this. Word has just come in that the scheduled committee mark-up on HR 811, "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessiblity Act of 2007" (AKA the "Holt bill") has been postponed due to next Tuesday, May 8, due to the number of proposed minority amendments. See this DailyKos comment by Ian Storrar. Yesterday, the U.S. House voted to ask the GAO to investigate the case of Sarasota's District 13 voting problems. For more, read The Hill's report. The Kansas legislature has killed a Photo ID bill. And evidence continues to mount in the link between the DOJ U.S. Attorneys Firing scandal and efforts to create a perception of rampant voter fraud, as described in this hard-hitting McClatchy article, " 2006 Missouri's election was ground zero for GOP." I'll end with this juicy quote: The preoccupation with ballot fraud in Missouri was part of a wider
national effort that critics charge was aimed at protecting the
Republican majority in Congress by dampening Democratic turnout. That
effort included stiffer voter-identification requirements, wholesale
purges of names from lists of registered voters and tight policing of
liberal get-out-the-vote drives.
Bush administration officials deny those claims. But they've
gotten traction in recent weeks because three of the U.S. attorneys
ousted by the Justice Department charge that they lost their jobs
because they failed to prove Republican allegations of voter fraud.
They say their inquiries found little evidence to support the claims.
Few have endorsed the strategy of pursuing allegations of voter
fraud with more enthusiasm than White House political guru Karl Rove.
And nowhere has the plan been more apparent than in Missouri.
FL-13: House task force votes to investigate
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Thu May 03, 2007 at 01:07:59 PM EST
From CQ:
A House task force will investigate allegations that voting machine errors contributed to the razor-thin victory by Republican Vern Buchanan in Florida's 13th Congressional District.
By voice vote, the three-member House Administration Committee task force agreed to launch a formal investigation. They also agrees to use GAO experts to design a reliability test for the voting machines in question.
As expected, there's disagreement:
Republicans on the full committee, including Vernon J. Ehlers of Michigan, the ranking minority member, have argued that Congress should defer to the Florida court system. Democrats said such deference is not necessary.
"It's not a precedential requirement that we wait forever for the courts to act," said Democrat Zoe Lofgren of California, one of the members of the task force, which is headed by Democrat Charlie Gonzalez of Texas.
Florida Media Activists - FCC Hearing Coming to Tampa!
By Jon Bartholomew
Posted on Mon Mar 19, 2007 at 11:35:07 AM EST
Attention all media activists in Florida!
The FCC has just announced that they will hold an official hearing on the subject of Media Ownership in Tampa on April 30th. There are no more details available at this point, but we will pass them along as they become available. At this time, we will be looking for folks to get the word out about the event and prepare your own testimony.
Find out more about media reform at http://www.commoncause.org/mediaanddemocracy and take action at http://www.commoncause.org/NoMoreConsolidation.
If you know you want to help get the word out, contact me at jbartholomew@commoncause.org.
"Making Democracy Credible"
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Fri Feb 09, 2007 at 01:17:20 PM EST
I just wanted to quickly let everyone know that the New York Times today has an editorial in praise of Sen. Feinstein's work in the Senate to require all electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verifiable paper ballot. The headline sums up the heart of the paper ballot movement - "Making Democracy Credible."
It is good news that Ms. Feinstein has called for the federal investigations -- and that she is pushing a bill to require paper trails nationally. As long as there are no paper records, and voting machine manufacturers continue to insist that the software that runs the machines is a "trade secret," voters cannot be expected to trust that votes are being counted correctly. The leadership in Congress needs to focus on making sure that Ms. Feinstein's paper-trail bill becomes law, along with a companion House measure from Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey.
The editorial contains some other turns of phrase that I particularly like, such as:
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