Monday, October 20, 2008

Election Irregularities Any Side Watch

Watch and report MSNBC Announcing during reports and live ticker streaming a call in phone number for reporting election irregularities.

From watching, it appears MSNBC is not taking any particular political side.

So if you as a poll watcher, poll workers, citizen have reservations about calling the number, we suggest you don't. Call in and report. It appears MSNBC may be waiting in the wings to conduct a full scale investigation of anything and everything.

Net the Truth Online

MSNBC CALL IN VOTING IRREGULARITIES

1 866 OUR VOTE

Battle of the ballot heats up
Thousands are on guard to head off repeat of 2000 election debacle
By Alan Boyle
Science editor
MSNBC
updated 4:10 p.m. ET, Mon., Aug. 30, 2004
Make your vote count
How can voters make sure their ballot is correctly counted in the upcoming election season? Experts say you shouldn't wait until Election Day. Proper registration is one of the big bugaboos for would-be voters, and not just for first-time voters.

"Anyone who has moved, changed residence or changed their name and thinks they have re-registered themselves should probably check to make sure they're really registered in the right precinct," Alvarez said.

You should also bring acceptable identification to the polling place, particularly if you're a first-time voter who registered by mail rather than in person. This provision is a new twist that was part of the federal legislation passed after the 2000 election, Chapin said.

An increasing number of voters are hoping to get around polling-place problems through mail-in absentee ballots — in fact, last month the Florida Republican Party made a controversial pitch for absentee voting in a campaign mailing. But Alvarez said research has shown that voting by mail isn't foolproof, either.

"There are a lot of errors that voters can make," he said. "They should be make sure that they follow strictly all the guidelines — signing their ballot, providing the right address, making sure that it's in the mail on time. An untold number of absentee ballots are disqualified simply because voters make those kinds of mistakes."

Vote early and surely
If you want to vote early and surely, Alvarez advises looking into in-person early voting. Thirty-one states allow you to mark your ballot days in advance under the supervision of election officials. "It helps alleviate long lines at polling places on Nov. 2," he noted. Texas even offers "curbside voting" in advance: An election official will bring the ballot right out to your car.

So what if you run into trouble at the polling place? The Election Protection Coalition has set up a "Voters' Hotline" that provides instant, multilingual assistance for would-be voters who encounter problems. Also through the hotline, the Verified Voting Foundation will be providing Election Day access to its rapid-response technology experts, foundation spokesman Will Doherty said.

"The coalition is using our system, along with an interactive voice-response system, to handle reports of incidents as they occur, and by deploying lawyers and technologists to deal with problems as they are reported," Doherty said.

The coalition's toll-free hotline number is 866-OUR-VOTE, or 866-687-8683.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5862315/


Obama Assembles U.S.'s `Largest Law Firm' to Monitor Election

By James Rowley
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama and John McCain have a litigation game plan to accompany their election strategy.

Both candidates have armies of volunteers to ring doorbells and get voters to the polls. They are also forming squadrons of lawyers who are filing challenges and preparing in case Election Day doesn't settle the contest for the White House.

Legal battles unfolding in Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin provide fresh evidence of the potential fights to come over ballot access in an election marked by unprecedented spending to increase the number of voters in strategically important states.

The millions of dollars that have been poured into registration drives have yielded millions of new voters across the country. Those same efforts have now generated heated battles in both parties with cries of voter fraud and intimidation that may threaten the integrity of the election.

Election officials, meanwhile, are braced for huge turnout and the problems that could create with long lines, malfunctioning machines and challenges to voters.

Already, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed Ohio Democrats a victory, dissolving a court order obtained by Republicans to force state officials to release the list of 200,000 new voters whose names or addresses don't match government databases.

Democrats' Accusations

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hk4HvCkpiE&refer=home

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