Bush the Pardoner Ignores Border Patrol Agents WND Ignores Bush Neglect

And so on and so forth, unfortunately so.

Update World Net Daily article doesn't address Chicago Tribune article Obama birth certificate rumor debunked
By James Janega | Tribune reporter October 30, 2008 or the statements by law professor Eugene Volokh quoted in the article, still...

Orders from new president to spark lawsuit every time
Lawyer lining up plaintiff groups until citizenship dispute addressed
Posted: November 25, 2008 By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82033

Original Post November 25, 2008 Net the Truth Online

Meanwhile, the ultra-conservative (not meant as a perjorative since most of that nature accurately call our nation a Constitutional Republic) net magazine World Net Daily is so obsessed with Barack Obama's birth certificate they've neglected Bush's neglect to pardon border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, so far to date.

Bush pardons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_George_W._Bush

Increasing pardons from George W. Bush, without any attention to the obscene and unconscionable plight of Ramos and Compean.

Lou Dobbs and Joseph Farah's World Net Daily have been at the forefront of reporting on the selective federal prosecution, jury conviction (based on lies and withholding of exculpatory evidence), and controversial imprisonment of the two border patrol agents and how that transpired. Coverage has been of the highest caliber from those quarters.

CNN Lou Dobbs Video & Transcript: Ramos & Compean Pardon
Lou Dobbs Tonight ^ | November 18, 2008 | Staff

Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 11:38:48 AM by flattorney

Lou Dobbs Tonight Transcript
- Kitty Pilgrim, Guest Anchor
11th Hour Pardons - Ramos & Compean
Aired Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Are former border patrol agents Ramos and Compean closer to a presidential pardon? We'll have a special report PILGRIM: President Bush has issued only 157 pardons and commuted six prison sentences during his time in office. And the president still has 63 days left to consider remaining clemency requests and two of those requests are from Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. In a gross miscarriage of justice the two former border patrol agents were convicted of shooting and wounding an illegal alien drug dealer they were pursuing. And now they are serving lengthy prison terms. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have called for Ramos and Compean to be released from prison, but so far the White House has not been listening.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2134659/posts

Wed July 18, 2007 Dobbs: Time to free Ramos and Compean

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/17/Dobbs.July18/index.html

August 2008 Bush: Go with integrity,pardon our border agents
Exclusive: Doug Powers calls on presidentto prove justice trumps political friendship

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71428

Archives search

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.search&keywords=+ramos+compean+border+patrol&authorId=&search_WND.x=15&search_WND.y=6

While WND recently published No mercy for jailed Border Patrol agent there's no follow-up noting recent Bush pardons exclude the two men who face up to 10 years and 12 years in prison.

WND's nearly salivating like a dog seeing raw (red-state) meat over President-Elect Barack Obama's birth and proof of citizenship to qualify for the Presidency with a half-dozen articles today on the controversy over Obama's production of a copy of what is now being called by theorists a certificate of live birth (COLB) rather than an original birth certificate.

World Net Daily Site Page Listings

Embassy: Obama not born in Kenya
Office claims ambassador was speaking about president-elect's father in radio interview --WND

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82031

Proofin' the prez: Who's in charge?
Constitutional lawyer says electors have duty to investigate citizenship --WND

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81944

FAITH2ACTION
Rathergate II: Certification of Live Birth a clear forgery
Exclusive: Janet Porter seeks readers' help in forcing congressional hearings on issue --WND

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81943

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Petitioners tell prez-elect: Prove eligibility for office
Thousands sign online demand, reveal frustration over secrecy --WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Sign petition to see Barack Obama's birth certificate
Online effort launched by WND to help answer presidential eligibility question --WND

WND AT THE WHITE HOUSE
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Prez passes on Obama's eligibility
'I don't think I have anything to say on that,' says spokesman --WND

BETWEEN THE LINES
Insufficient public interest?
Exclusive: Joseph Farah proves citizens are concerned over Obama's eligibility to serve --WND

WND ON THE AIR
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Obama's birthplace heats up Liddy show
Farah fills in on syndicated program for 3 days --WND

WND FORUMS
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Is he or isn't he? The debate over Obama's eligibility
New feature focuses on birth certificate, the U.S. Constitution and doubts --WND

WorldNetDaily
Supremes to review citizenship arguments
Case challenging candidacy set for 'conference' of justices --WND

Blogger's Obama-certificate lawsuit dismissed
Hawaii Circuit Court judge says Net author has no standing to get birth document
--Honolulu Advertiser

The great birth certificate scandal/cover-up
Journalist examines claims that Obama not eligible for presidency --Tulsa Today

http://www.tulsatoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1799&Itemid=2

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Petitioners tell prez-elect: Prove eligibility for office
Thousands sign online demand, reveal frustration over secrecy --WND

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81698
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/

Previous focus by WND on Obama birth

Is he or isn't he? The debate over Obama's eligibility
New feature focuses on birth certificate, the U.S. Constitution and doubts
Posted: November 20, 2008
2:44 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily

The "eligible" President-elect Obama

Is he or isn’t he? That's the focus of a new WND forum that offers readers an opportunity to express their opinion on whether Barack Obama is eligible to be president under the U.S. Constitution.

There have been dozens of questions – and about that many legal cases – so far over the campaign's failure to document his status as a "natural-born" U.S. citizen, a status that is required by the constitution to hold the highest office.

WND has reported on at least one of those legal challenges to Obama's name being on the 2008 presidential ballot reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, with a "conference" on the dispute scheduled on Dec. 5...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81547

Well someone else has caught on to WND's extravaganza...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Christianists Ramp Up Obama Birth Certificate Attacks

The right-wing just won't let go of their "Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen" bit of nonsense. Today the Christiantist site World Net Daily is asking their readers to FedEx letters to the Supreme Court demanding they hold a hearing on the subject. They also want letters sent to Republican members of Congress saying, "Please hold congressional hearings to investigate whether Barack Obama meets the basic constitutional requirements for the highest office of the land."

They are also demanding that the members of the Electoral College prove Obama's citizenship before their December 15th vote that will officially make him president...

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2008/11/christianists-ramps-up-obama-birth.html

But not in the same way we have...

We are supportive of finding truth, no matter what the truth reveals or who the truth hurts.

Isn't the Obama birth certificate and birthplace issue basically settled in light of former Congressional action adequately explained in an October Chicago Tribune article:

Obama birth certificate rumor debunked James Janega Tribune reporter October 30, 2008

From the article:

Conservative critics have suggested that Obama may have been born outside the U.S. and is not a "natural born citizen" eligible for the presidency. But they present no evidence that he was born anywhere other than Hawaii...

...The issue of whether Obama is a "natural born citizen"—a citizen at birth—was raised in a June 10 article on the conservative Web site World Net Daily.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution says, "No Person except a natural born citizen, or a Citizen of the United States ... shall be eligible to the Office of President." Acts of Congress in 1790 and 1795 clarify that "the children of citizens of the United States ... shall be considered as natural born citizens."

Republican candidate John McCain faced, and overcame, similar questions because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his Navy father was stationed there.

Hawaii was a state in 1961, when Obama was born. Any person born in the U.S. automatically is a "natural born citizen," said University of California Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh.

Even if a person is born outside the United States, courts have ruled any child born to at least one U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen, Volokh said. Stanley Ann Dunham would have counted even if Obama's Kenyan father did not.

If this becomes an issue in a post-election eligibility challenge, expect a likely sticking point to be the legal definition in 1961 of how parents could be called U.S. citizens for this purpose, Volokh said. At the time Obama was born, the law stated that a person would be considered a "natural born citizen" if either parent was a citizen who had lived at least 10 years in the U.S., including five years after the age of 14—in other words, 19.

Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born. But subsequent acts of Congress relaxed the requirement to five years in the U.S., including just two years after the age of 14, meaning Dunham could have been 16 and still qualified even if Obama was born in another country, Volokh said. Congress made the law retroactive to 1952, doubly covering Obama.

Any legal challenge would have to argue that Congress can't make someone retroactively a citizen at birth, and prove Obama was born outside of the U.S. after all...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-birth-certificate-30-oct30,0,1742172.story

In our earlier piece, Tuesday, November 18, 2008 World Net Daily: Wants Obama Birth Certificate Ploy we criticize WND for not reviewing the Chicago Tribune article which outlines several arguments that should settle the Obama ineligibility to be President question.

Today, finding WND's founder citing the status of his petition drive (for release of Obama's birth certificate) as proof United States (American) citizens are hot on the issue of Barack Obama's 'natural-born' citizenship led us to revisit the issue as we are compelled to do, obsessively so, we're warning.

Farah unveiled particulars of the petition effort:

Obama's state secret: His birth certificate!
Posted: November 21, 2008

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81581

Here's Obama's reproduction of the document under scrutiny published at his Fight the Smears site

http://www.fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate

WND's coverage of this issue has been lacking in providing information easily obtained from even a quick review of Chicago Tribune article Obama birth certificate rumor debunked.

In fact, the Chicago Tribune article notes WND upfront.

The issue of whether Obama is a "natural born citizen"—a citizen at birth—was raised in a June 10 article on the conservative Web site World Net Daily.

Why Farah's and WND's silence on the material presented in the article from the statements of expert law professor at the University of California Los Angeles?

More on Eugene Volokh later.

Sites such as factcheck.org (though we have had our disagreements with them), and politifact.com, have investigated the certificate, reviewed the reproduction of the Obama certificate found on Obama's Fight the Smears campaign site, and come to conclusions the certificate is proof-enough of Obama's Honolulu birth.

As explained in the Chicago Tribune article, Congress enacted a law which applied to births occurring outside the U.S. but involving one biological parent who is a U.S. citizen. The law applies retroactively, back to 1952. Obama was born in 1961.

Farah unfortunately is appearing like an obsessive compulsive. Not that we are bothered by that, as we've similarly embraced such on many issues, especially election-related matters. And there were the matters of Larry Johnson's critique of Peter Lance's statement he exclusively discovered... and Daniellyn's birth... was she or was she not a United States citizen having been born in...

Joseph Farah highlighted results from his petition drive to justify a public interest in the Obama eligibility question. In his article, Farah claims:

But it is that other excuse for not releasing the document that really has me bugged – "insufficient evidence to indicate that the public interest supports" the release.

Let me point you to Exhibit A in the evidence-of-public-interest department: It is a petition I launched Friday to all controlling legal authorities – Congress, Supreme Court, Federal Elections Commission, Electoral College, etc. – urging scrutiny of the original birth certificate and release of facsimile to the public.

Within 24 hours, 24,000 people had signed up.

Within 48 hours, 48,000 people had signed up.

Do you see a pattern here?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81865

Don't get us wrong, we are all for truth and following the letter of the U.S. Constitution. First off, what comes to mind immediately, who can trust web-generated petitioning because those can be jimmied. Everybody knows this, and surely Farah must realize savvy poll-takers can vote not only once or twice but thousands of times.

Isn't it odd that petition signers exactly doubled in amount over a 2 day period as Farah indicates? give or take a few depending on later real-time results?

Farah continues

"Barack Obama may have won the presidential election, but is he eligible to serve? That's a question on the minds of millions of Americans eager to see his birth certificate and find out for sure if he was born in the U.S., as he claims," states the forum introduction.

"At least two of his relatives in Kenya claim to have been present at his birth in Mombasa, Kenya. In addition, the Obama machine has scoffed at requests to see the form of the Hawaiian birth certificate that includes the specific hospital in which the delivery took place. The form released by the campaign does not include that information, leading to suspicions Obama might have been one of the foreign-born babies of the 1960s who were, nonetheless, provided birth certificates by the state of Hawaii. Now it's time for you to sound off on this controversy."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81547

Is he eligible to serve? WND and Farah ignore the Congressional action noted in the Chicago Tribune article which is puzzling to say the least.

Consider, how many voters actually voted for Barack Obama over John McCain? And how many voters voted for Obama in total?

50,000 or 100,000 or 1 million petition signers are not an indication there's an overwhelming interest in Obama producing the physical original birth certificate, and still there's the matter of the former Congressional action which would certainly appear to make the eligibility issue moot.

Yet there is the nagging thought of the potential Obama became aware of some conspiracy (at some point during pursuit of his political career presumably) to hide a birth which occurred outside the country (necessitating a coverup by his mother and biological father, family members, and numerous government officials) would of course matter to sticklers for the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

so while we maintain Farah is evidencing he's compulsively obsessed with having Barack Obama prove the where and when and who of his birth, what would it hurt to have a look-see at Obama's actual Hawaiian-issued birth certificate?

Just open up the door to the courthouse vault (or storage facility) and have international and U.S. news crews follow Barack Obama, his attorneys, and private document security officials into the light and show us all the certificate in real-time on the internet.

this would be fascinating, and should settle the question, unless, yes there is an unless, Farah and Jerome Corsi and Porter and Alan Keyes and Philip Berg, and Andy Martin and/or representatives of any and all interested parties (could grow into the millions after books are published) would want to actually touch and handle the birth certificate and test it for authenticity.

Wouldn't that be the logical next demand?

We want to actually hold the certificate in our hands, and while we're at it let's have our own testing done to determine its validity.

How far are some inquisitive people willing to go? Or maybe how far gone are they?

We still cringe that no investigative journalist to this day has asked President George W. Bush why on the morning of September 11, 2001 he remained seated in a second-grade classroom for some (exactly we found) 6-minutes longer after being told within minutes of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center towers and "America is under attack."

See our site This is Not A Conspiracy Theory

This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory Bush Remains in Second Grade Classroom

http://dirtline.tripod.com/talkacrosstown/id11.html

Back then in late 2001 we had a newly-elected President who was told by Andrew Card, his chief of staff, "America is under attack" and the President doesn't stop listening to the little children practicing reading to attempt to determine what is the extent of the 'attack?'

Not even Joseph Farah has asked for that particular truth over 8-years of Bush's presidency. Why the lack of curiosity? We can't help but get our dander up over this matter as that obsessive-compulsive search for truth no matter who the truth hurts inevitably takes over.

Yet Farah and Corsi and others are so concerned that the majority of the people of these United States in the election process we have traditionally followed - majority state winner gets all the Electoral Ccollege delegates from the state - elected an individual whose birth may have occurred elsewhere, something Obama would have had no control over at any rate anyway, and which would in the end still not preclude Obama from becoming the 'elected' President because of the former Congressional action all of which the Chicago Tribune article, Obama birth certificate rumor debunked explains.

Explains in large part via Eugene Volokh (who we'll get to in a bit).

Not only that, but the Founding Framers of the Constitution did an everlasting and irretrievable disservice to this country by enabling slavery to continue in this nation long past the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. In this 21st Century year 2008 by majority vote a free nation's people of all ethnicities elected the nation's first African-American to the Presidency, knowing full well of all of Obama's heritage even the made up parts which has been investigated unlike few others.

We'll say this, if any other but Barack Obama with his lawyer/s present touch the original documentation of his birth, we will not believe that document has not been tampered with in some way.

In fact, who could trust such has not already happened in this day and age all it takes is a large amount of money to be quietly and secretly tranferred into a numbered foreign bank account and voila, what turns up is a fake really fake birth certificate. Maybe one that looks like it's a blanked copy of a template, even.

There's just too much motive for somebody to now at this time to substitute another fakery for the original Barack Hussein Obama II birth certificate. Isn't there? Maybe it's already been done, just in case the "powers that be" decide Obama has to be let go before he takes the oath of office.

OK we're catching the WND fever. (It's exhilarating)

Farah says:

Do you believe the American people have a right to know for certain their next president is constitutionally eligible for the job?

Without a chance to inspect that birth certificate for themselves, do you think we can ever be certain?

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81581

Hasn't the Chicago Tribune article Obama birth certificate rumor debunked James Janega Tribune reporter October 30, 2008
addressed Farah's and company's contentions Obama is 'ineligible' from several different angles and aspects?

The article after all cites University of California Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh's expert opinions.

WND has ignored the expert when the law professor's statements and analysis have circulated for nearly a month now.

Search results note USA Today...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=University+California+Los+Angeles+law+professor+Eugene+Volokh+obama+birth&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

We're still leaning it would be interesting to see Obama hold up his actual birth certificate in real time and broadcast on You-Tube, with that huge smile of his gleaming (though he doesn't have the insider hand-signal down pat yet), but as we've conjectured, that will not be enough for the promotors of the idea the certificate is a fake to begin with. And what will be enough, holding the original, submitting it to forensic science investigation?

The entire episode is appearing more and more like the obsession with the birth of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter (Danielyn or Dannylynn) - was she or was she not a citizen of the United States having been born in another country... and no matter of which biological father of a mother (deceased shortly after the birth) who was a United States citizen?

The answer to that question should have indicated the answer to the question of Obama's eligibility to be a candidate for any high office of these United States and 'elected' President by the people (and compliance of Electoral College delegates to that outcome).

though the WND Forum comments are as interesting as reading what the Framers of the Constitution actually said about, well everything...

Uh actually, the WND/Farah petition Obama name is in error - it's Barack Hussein Obama II.

PETITION FOR PUBLIC RELEASE OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE

To: Electoral College, Congress of the United States, Federal Elections Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, President of the United States, other controlling legal authorities

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81550

The (birth certificate) image posted initially at Daily Kos and discussed as potentially fabricated, elsewhere.

Daily Kos

http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/3/BO_Birth_Certificate.jpg

Updated at 5:15 p.m., Friday, October 31, 2008

Hawaii officials declare Obama birth certificate genuine
State officials say there's no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawai'i.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081031/BREAKING01/81031064/0/BREAKING04

Snopes

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/citizen.asp

snopes link

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn227/Polarik/BO_Birth_Certificate.jpg

Very interesting take on the certificate, unexpectedly so...

issue covered at conservapedia

http://conservapedia.com/Barack_Obama#cite_note-180

Factcheck.org goes the distance and reveals certificate of birth number and produces birth announcement published in Honolulu newspaper though the theorists would suppose the hospital from which the birth was announced could've been in on the cover-up from the beginning.

Born in the U.S.A.
August 21, 2008
Updated: November 1, 2008
The truth about Obama's birth certificate

...The certificate has all the elements the State Department requires for proving citizenship to obtain a U.S. passport: "your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records." The names, date and place of birth, and filing date are all evident on the scanned version, and you can see the seal above.

The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.

The scan released by the campaign shows halos around the black text, making it look (to some) as though the text might have been pasted on top of an image of security paper. But the document itself has no such halos, nor do the close-up photos we took of it. We conclude that the halo seen in the image produced by the campaign is a digital artifact from the scanning process.

We asked the Obama campaign about the date stamp and the blacked-out certificate number. The certificate is stamped June 2007, because that's when Hawaii officials produced it for the campaign, which requested that document and "all the records we could get our hands on" according to spokesperson Shauna Daly. The campaign didn't release its copy until 2008, after speculation began to appear on the Internet questioning Obama's citizenship. The campaign then rushed to release the document, and the rush is responsible for the blacked-out certificate number. Says Shauna: "[We] couldn't get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we've found out it's pretty irrelevant for the outside world." The document we looked at did have a certificate number; it is 151 1961 - 010641...

...In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

On the other side which we drift back to just cause we are obsessive compulsive...

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of palpably fake Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same Daily Kos blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears...

... ON THE UNBEARABLE EASE OF BIRTH CERTIFICATE FORGERY

None of this is not to imply that McKinnon himself forged the Obama document, with all the fields filled in with information about the presidential candidate but lacking the visible stamp and signature that alone would make it an authentic document. Nor is their proof positive about how the almost-blank "Oahu 7:24pm" document is related to the one endorsed by the Obama campaign that features those exact details.

The presence on the Daily Kos blog of the admittedly forged almost-blank templates of the document, and the admission of forgery by opendna in that same blog entry, should cause the Obama campaign to reassess its reliance on the image of the birth certificate published by the Daily Kos.

If the website is the home for a self-admitted federally-trained document specialist, with examples of forgery posted concurrently with the image they claim as authentic, is that a venue appropriate for a presidential candidate to showcase the only available high resolution purported image of his vital records? If the birth certificate endorsed by his campaign turns out to be a fraud -- and the overwhelming evidence assembled points to it being precisely that -- what would that say about the credentials and judgment of the presidential candidate it purports to represent? Let alone his Constitutional eligibility to serve.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12956.htm

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn227/Polarik/BO_Birth_Certificate.jpg

Could the Obama birth certificate posted at Daily Kos be a fake? Posted by Eye Doc On June - 21 - 2008

...naomiekeys Said,
It appears you can download a blank Hawaiian birth certificate template and fill it in. If you look at the blank form on photo bucket (Blank except Hour of Birth 7:24 and OAJU):

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m35/opendna/HI_birthcert.jpg?t=1213561049

Isn’t it a coincidence that Obama was born at 7:24 pm the same time on the blank form?
Posted on June 22nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm

http://blogwonks.com/2008/06/21/could-the-obama-birth-certificate-posted-at-daily-kos-be-a-fake/

On the other hand again and don't say we didn't warn of our obsessive-compulsiveness...

Anchan64 Said,

Here’s a list of some more ridiculous things that the anti-Obama people made up and started whining about…

“He traveled to Pakistan when there was a Ban on US travel”… NO.. the only travel bans at that time were to North Korea, Libya and Cuba… If you look up travel ban to Pakistan on Google, I guarantee you you won’t find anything… it never existed. Look up travel bans to the places I mentioned, you find them because they did exist.

His mother wasn’t old enough to pass her citizenship to her son … NO, the 14 th amendment clearly says that anyone born in the US is a citizen and that no law can be made to abridge this right.

The Kenyan Constitution says that all people who have Kenyan fathers are Kenyan citizens and, since Kenya doesn’t allow dual citizenship, this nullifies Obama’s citizenship…. NO! this one is simply ridiculous… anyone who believes that the Kenyan constitution takes precedent over the US constitution when it comes to US citizenship just is unreasonable. If the 14th amendment doesn’t allow US law to negate citizenship, it sure as hell isn’t going to let foreign governments negate Amrican’s citizenship.

The State of Hawaii was taken over illegally by the US govt, so it’s not really part of the US. Do I really have to give you reasons why this isn’t true?…

etc, etc, ect… and each time you idiots just repeat these stupid things and say… well, if he’d just deal with this ONE issue, then it would be over….

And, all of these ridiculous things weren’t enough… then PUMA, an organization of McCain supporters, hired Berg to file a suit against Obama using wikipedia as his primary source of evidence (look it up people… it’s on his site obamacrimes.com)

http://blogwonks.com/2008/06/21/could-the-obama-birth-certificate-posted-at-daily-kos-be-a-fake/

Why Is Maya Soetoro’s Name on Barack’s Phony Certificate of Live Birth?
By Larry Johnson

Comment by Paul F. Villarreal | 2008-08-05 02:29:54

This is a huge issue. Not only was the document forged, but the template used was Barack’s sister’s COLB.

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/05/why-is-maya-soetoros-name-on-baracks-phony-certificate-of-live-birth/

Rush Raises Issue of Obama Birth Certificate
October 23rd

http://bobmccarty.com/2008/10/23/rush-raises-issue-of-obama-birth-certificate/

We admit, it is becoming a bit rankling to hear Obama continuing to stumble over his words when speaking. Uh, his habit of puffing out his cheeks when making a specific emphasis of a point or two we can get used to, certainly easier to take than McCain and Palin's different winking styles.

Speaking now, his hands visible from time to time, Obama doesn't seem to have that insider gesture down yet, though. Watch his hands, are they really his?

We're drawn back to what we posted way upfront - the reproduced image of the birth certificate published on the Fight the Smears Obama site.

http://www.fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate

We have to wonder, why the links to Washington Post and to Factcheck.org at the base of the page? Isn't this document reproduction supposed to be a copy of an original copy of an original document which copy is in the possession of Barack Obama? Why the necessity to link to sites which use the same copy of a copy you've provided to confirm its authenticity?

And what about Eugene Volokh? Thought we'd forget he was the law professor who is quoted in the Chicago Tribune article which particulars should settle the Obama eligibility question?

Who is he?

On his weblog, Volokh addresses a wide variety of issues, with a focus on politics and law. He has criticized judicial citations of Wikipedia, arguing that information found on Wikipedia may be unreliable...

...His brother, Alexander "Sasha" Volokh, is a co-blogger at the Volokh Conspiracy and a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Volokh

Ah, the Volokh Conspiracy...

what's going on over there?

Re-issuance of birth certificates to reflect the names of the new parents is routinely done ...... Barack Obama, or former Sen. John Edwards is president. ...

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_29-2007_08_04.shtml

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=eugene+volokh+barack+obama+birth+certificate&start=10&sa=N

All and still, why hasn't Joseph Farah debunked the debunker/s (Volokh and Chicago Tribune)

Farah doesn't need to? Because now it doesn't matter if Obama would be eligible despite if it's shown he was born elsewhere, now what matters is Obama tried to cover-up his birth by not producing an original birth certificate?

Farah and company are after the truth, so at the end of the website contents, just click on our donate form and send in your ten bucks to continue our efforts.

Oh, that's on the Obama website... too...

Net the Truth Online

And this is what WND ignored today and counting down to a new obsession. How many years til Ramos and Compean are pardoned?

Bush pardons 14 and commutes 2 prison sentences
Bush also commuted the prison sentences of John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., and James Russell Harris of Detroit, Mich. Both were convicted of cocaine offenses.

Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.

Some high-profile individuals, such as Michael Milken, are seeking a pardon on securities fraud charges. Two politicians convicted of public corruption - former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., and four-term Democratic Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards - are asking Bush to shorten their prison terms.

One hot topic of discussion related to pardons is whether Bush might decide to issue pre-emptive pardons before he leaves office to government employees who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Some constitutional scholars and human rights groups want the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama to investigate possible war crimes.

If Bush were to pardon anyone involved, it would provide protection against criminal charges, particularly for people who were following orders or trying to protect the nation with their actions. But it would also be highly controversial.

At the same time, Obama advisers say there is little - if any - chance that his administration would bring criminal charges.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081124/D94LJF9G0.html

Poll Bites Into Dishonesty Apple

A poll with a cutting, biting edge? The Zogby poll Almost No Obama Voters Ace Election Test

is a primary example. That edge cutting through the honest way to ask questions based on facts, not skewed opinions, and misleading statements, with just a grain of truth as the basis for the question.

No wonder Obama favoring respondents didn't answer the way Zogby poll or Zielglar believed they should have answered. The questions were based on inaccurate portrayals of Obama speeches and statements.

Go back and revisit Obama videos and obtain transcripts. Use factcheck.org and politifact.com to check the poll's line of questioning.

On the assertion in the question 'his energy policies would bankrupt the coal industry.'

No wonder respondents didn't answer the way pollsters wanted.

Obama was speaking of his overall energy policy. He clearly explained his policy of a cap and trade system. He allowed a coal company could go ahead and build a new power plant - without regard for new greenhouse gas emissions standards and an Obama favored cap-and-trade policy - and if ignoring such - the fines for non-compliance would bankrupt them.

What is striking is how the conservative media has takien all out of context of Obama's overall energy policy which doesn't seek to bankrupt any coal industry that is in compliance with standards, and engaging in the cap and trade system, but does seek to curb what has been admitted by conservatives as Bush and McCain and Palin - existence of pollution and greenhouse gasses caused by the production of coal!

Maybe McCain's policy would have been different, but the recognition for clean coal vs unclean coal and some standards for curbing pollution and greenhouse gasses are going to have to be applied in any new administration.

the wording of the poll question is based on the conservative interpretation of what Obama said and not a neutral portrayal of what Obama stated, clearly stated.

Unfortunately, most of the sites which feature the video of the SF Chronicle interview make their own skewed interpretation prominent.

Just look at what Obama said before and after, in total. Tyler 09 gives an important summary worth a read as well. tyler also reference Political Punch which includes more of the transcript than otherwise obtained.

http://newsbusters.org/node/25829?q=blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/11/02/hidden-audio-obama-tells-sf-chronicle-he-will-bankrupt-coal-industry

The SF Chronicle notes the audio and video of the interview have been available all along.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/opinionshop/detail?blogid=42&entry_id=23562

http://www.politicalbyline.com/2008/11/02/shocking-audio-obama-said-he-will-bankrupt-the-coal-industry/

http://www.shopfloor.org/index.php?s=coal+obama+chronicle

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/03/video-of-obama-coal-bankruptcy/

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/02/obama-well-bankrupt-any-new-coal-plants/

Obama began his political by attending a range of coffee clatches or gatherings in the homes of his supporters, among which were the Bill Ayers couple, who have been reported as members of the Weather Underground. So wording the question as if Obama began his campaign for state office in only the home of the Ayers is misleading. That question is misleading as well even though it uses the wording 'former members of the Weather Underground' Obama has claimed he was not aware at that time of Ayers connection with the Weather Underground. He addressed he became aware of such sometime in the 90s.

Net the Truth Online

Obama voters did not fare nearly as well overall when asked to answer questions about statements or stories associated with Obama or Biden -- 83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642

"Pal Around"


The first to begin using the new line of attack against Obama was McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, after a lengthy article appeared Oct. 3 in the New York Times about Obama and Ayers:

Palin, Oct. 5: Our opponents see America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country.

She's repeated the charge again and again at different campaign stops since then, citing the Times. What the Times article actually says, however, is this: "[T]he two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers." The Times says its review of documents and interviews with key players "suggest" that Obama "has played down his contacts with Ayers," but describes their paths as having crossed "sporadically" since their first meeting in 1995.

And far from palling around with Ayers, the two haven't spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Obama came to the Senate in January 2005, according to an Obama spokesman. He said the two last saw each other more than a year ago, when they accidentally met on the street in their Hyde Park neighborhood.

Obama addressed Palin's claim on Oct. 8, when questioned by ABC News' Charlie Gibson:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/he_lied_about_bill_ayers.html

Tyler 09

Full Quote Here: Political Punch


Quote:
But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester that carbon and capture it. If we can’t, then we’re gonna still be working on alternatives.

-Apparently he does know what he's talking about, Mr Payne


Quote:
But ... let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade policy in place that is as aggressive if not more aggressive than anyone out there. I was the first call for 100 percent auction on the cap and trade system. Which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases that was emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year.

“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing that I’ve said with respect to coal -- I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter, as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it, that I think is the right approach. The same with respect to nuclear. Right now, we don’t know how to store nuclear waste wisely and we don’t know how to deal with some of the safety issues that remain. And so it’s wildly expensive to pursue nuclear energy. But I tell you what, if we could figure out how to store it safely, then I think most of us would say that might be a pretty good deal.

“The point is, if we set rigorous standards for the allowable emissions, then we can allow the market to determine and technology and entrepreneurs to pursue, what the best approach is to take, as opposed to us saying at the outset, here are the winners that we’re picking and maybe we pick wrong and maybe we pick right.”


The line that "under my plan, energy rates will skyrocket" does not mean that energy will cost more for everybody. That is just a, for lack of a better word, misleading thing to say.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe-election-politics/591878-how-obama-will-discourage-new-coal-plant-construction.html

Libertarian Barr Candidate Performance Complaints

Fascinating


http://www.reason.com/news/show/130107.html

Reason writers and commentators ponder and probe Obama

http://www.reason.com/news/show/129922.html

World Net Daily: Wants Obama Birth Certificate Ploy

Where's the birth certificate? Joseph Farah adding his voice to the chorus of Alan Keyes, and WND author, Jerome Corsi, and Phillip Berg.

A WND piece 'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location ignores the kind of information the Chicago Tribune apparently had an easy enough time in obtaining.

Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see 'usurper' in Oval Office
Posted: November 14, 2008
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Alan Keyes
The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80931

Have any of them bothered to maybe read factcheck.org, politifact.com, and the Chicago Tribune reports of findings?

Maybe these people have a new book or two to plug and travel expenses to pay for?

Newsmax entered the field with a piece entitled "Smears About Obama Largely True."

Unfortunately, Newsmax cites a source who has not been id'd... talk about potential motive to lie...

http://www.newsmax.com/lowell_ponte/obama_smears_fact_check/2008/10/20/142379.html

A WND contributer, Janet Porter in 1 last chance to fight for our Constitution
poses

If only one parent was an American citizen, as in Obama's case, the law at the time of Obama's birth required one parent to have been an American citizen for at least 10 years – five of which had to have happened after the age of 14. Since Obama's mother was only 18 at the time of Obama's birth, he would not qualify as an American citizen if his grandmother is right about him being born abroad.

Had she read the Chicago Tribune article previously, she wouldn't have made the statement.

While we are all for the facts and truth, too, it's simply a bit disconcerting for this question to keep arising when in the first place, if Obama's original birth certificate had been forged, there would have had to have been over 4 decades of 'somebody' in the know keeping Obama's mother's secret.

Obama already showed his 'birth' papers. A reproduced copy remains on Obama's website

http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate?source=source=sem-pm-fts-bc-search-us&gclid=CKGQje2m0pYCFQhJagodC1Df3Q

Both factcheck.org and politicfact.com sites investigated the entire situation and maintain the reproduced copy as well.

The Chicago Tribune report should settle the entirety of the matter of Obama's birth, revealing in the report Congress had passed a law that affected births of infants to American parents which may have occurred outside the United States.

The law retroactively applied to years including and following 1952. But geesh, I have to wonder, what if I had been born outside the U.S. to my Italian parents who had come to this open country by way of their parents when they were youths?

What if my parents had taken a trip back to Italy for a few weeks and I was born prematurely? With that cut-off date, there could be some in the over-50 class who would have every reason to hide the particulars of their births.

It's unreasonable as well to expect Obama to have to produce other than what he has already produced to satisfy some conspiratorial theory.

We're all for conspiracy theories, but not when facts to disprove the theories are rampant and accessible. The bar keeps moving, too. The reproduced copy isn't enough for some. They want the actual copy, complete with listing of mother and father and blood (DNA) stamps.

We'd be much more concerned if Obama after he takes the oath of office refuses to issue a report on his own health, and likewise if Joe Biden refused a release of medical records.

If both go around the same time, that would mean Pelosi...

Net the Truth Online

Obama birth certificate rumor debunked
By James Janega | Tribune reporter October 30, 2008
In June, the Obama campaign released an electronic copy of the certificate bearing the seal of the State of Hawaii Department of Health and showing that Barack Hussein Obama II was born to mother Stanley Ann Dunham in Honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961.

Contacted Wednesday, Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo cited Hawaii state privacy laws and guidance from the state attorney general in saying she was not permitted to confirm the authenticity of the certificate released by the Obama campaign.

But she said it appeared similar to other Hawaii birth certificates.

"It looks exactly the same as my own birth certificate," Okubo said.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Wednesday that the document was authentic.

The issue of whether Obama is a "natural born citizen"—a citizen at birth—was raised in a June 10 article on the conservative Web site World Net Daily.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution says, "No Person except a natural born citizen, or a Citizen of the United States ... shall be eligible to the Office of President." Acts of Congress in 1790 and 1795 clarify that "the children of citizens of the United States ... shall be considered as natural born citizens."

Republican candidate John McCain faced, and overcame, similar questions because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his Navy father was stationed there.

Hawaii was a state in 1961, when Obama was born. Any person born in the U.S. automatically is a "natural born citizen," said University of California Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh.

Even if a person is born outside the United States , courts have ruled any child born to at least one U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen, Volokh said. Stanley Ann Dunham would have counted even if Obama's Kenyan father did not.

If this becomes an issue in a post-election eligibility challenge, expect a likely sticking point to be the legal definition in 1961 of how parents could be called U.S. citizens for this purpose, Volokh said. At the time Obama was born, the law stated that a person would be considered a "natural born citizen" if either parent was a citizen who had lived at least 10 years in the U.S., including five years after the age of 14—in other words, 19.

Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born. But subsequent acts of Congress relaxed the requirement to five years in the U.S. , including just two years after the age of 14, meaning Dunham could have been 16 and still qualified even if Obama was born in another country, Volokh said. Congress made the law retroactive to 1952, doubly covering Obama.

Any legal challenge would have to argue that Congress can't make someone retroactively a citizen at birth, and prove Obama was born outside of the U.S. after all...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-birth-certificate-30-oct30,0,1742172.story

politifact
...There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact’s conclusion that the candidate’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn’t authentic.
And that’s true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/

Born in the U.S.A.
August 21, 2008
Updated: November 1, 2008
The truth about Obama's birth certificate.
Summary
In June, the Obama campaign released a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate to quell speculative charges that he might not be a natural-born citizen. But the image prompted more blog-based skepticism about the document's authenticity. And recently, author Jerome Corsi, whose book attacks Obama, said in a TV interview that the birth certificate the campaign has is "fake."

We beg to differ. FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

Update, Nov. 1: The director of Hawaii ’s Department of Health confirmed Oct. 31 that Obama was born in Honolulu .
Analysis
Update Nov. 1: The Associated Press quoted Chiyome Fukino as saying that both she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino also was quoted by several other news organizations. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted Fukino as saying the agency had been bombarded by requests, and that the registrar of statistics had even been called in at home in the middle of the night.

Honolulu Advertiser, Nov. 1 2008: "This has gotten ridiculous," state health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said yesterday. "There are plenty of other, important things to focus on, like the economy, taxes, energy." . . . Will this be enough to quiet the doubters? "I hope so," Fukino said. "We need to get some work done."

Fukino said she has “personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."


http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

Minnesota Majority: SoS Didn't Verify Registrations

the group calls our country's form of government correctly a "republic." They get points for that, and A+++s.

What Minnesota Majority is asking for is not unreasonable. They want a probe of the Minnesota registration process and procedures that already occurred.

It's just too bad they were forestalled prior to ballots being cast. Maybe some were provisionals, though, not finding the names in any Minnesota database, maybe election judges did their duty by issuing the provisionals, before somebody ordered them not to. Guess who that might have been.

Petition site

Will they add Minnesota if rejected or spoiled absentee or paper ballots are included in the recount?

Races that might have been stolen

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/73/78790.html?1227051272

Update

Senate recount: Franken loses bid to add ballots

The state Canvassing Board's rejection of Al Franken's bid to count rejected absentee ballots stirred new rancor.

By KEVIN DUCHSCHERE and BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune staff writers

Last update: November 26, 2008 -

http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/senate/35126884.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUs

Soros Funding Franken Recount

Romney chipping in for Coleman

http://www.silobreaker.com/DocumentReader.aspx?Item=5_928905475

Coleman's Lead Shrivels as Minnesota Recount Begins
Posted Nov 20, 08 3:06 AM CST in Politics

http://www.newser.com/story/43158/colemans-lead-shrivels-as-minnesota-recount-begins.html

Take the fun judge test if you are game.

Challenged ballots: You be the judge
by Than Tibbetts, Minnesota Public Radio
November 21, 2008

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2008/11/19_challenged_ballots/

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=minnesota+recount+coleman+franken&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

Don't get your blood pressure up thinking that the MN idiots mixed in the absentees, notorious for over-votes and mistakes unable to be corrected at the precinct, and the precinct paper ballots which enable the voter to review a ballot for errors and obtain a REPLACEMENT BALLOT. It's unfathomable that precinct voters would cross out names and the precinct scanner wouldn't detect that as an over-vote, thus rejecting the ballot. A message is clearly displayed for an over-voted ballot. The voter simply asks for another ballot and the judge issues one no questions asked. People embarrassed they may have made a mistake, nuhuh not if you take your vote seriously.

Absentee ballot voters on the other hand can't get a replacement ballot and there are time constraints with deadlines. It's possible those voters would cross out one candidate and try to vote for another. Those ballots should be rejected no matter the intent. People have all day to review the ballot before filling it out, if they can't do it correctly and send it in without such stupid errors they shouldn't be voting.

Don't be surprised if by the end, we see more ballots than there were voters because somebody slipped in a few more.

It happens. Count on it.

Net the Truth Online

Weird commentaries

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6665

Really good analysis had to post as a swan song of sorts

Conspiracy theories aside, our imperfect system of paper ballots and scanning technology with recounts by hand is just not set up well for elections this close. Even an error of just one vote tabulating every 10,000 recounted will yield a difference of 240 votes when counters are sifting through 2.4 million ballots. Are you confident you could work your way through 10,000 ballots without making a single mistake? ...

http://minnlawyer.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/the-coleman-franken-recount-re-examined/

The following update is too unnerving to comment since one county appears to be doing its own recount.

In adjacent Hennepin County, the city of Minneapolis, a Democratic stronghold, was conducting its own recount of all 131 of its precincts.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94I8AE80&show_article=1

In other words the Minnesota state recount is being conducted all together with the same procedures for counting, recounting, determining intent of voter on paper ballots, with the exception of one of the largest counties in the state and a Democratic stronghold at that. Right, that makes it all appear above board. Can't help but wonder if Hennepin County were a Republican stronghold would the Secretary of State be permitting this?

Update:

Minnesota starts recount for US Senate seat

Nov 19 05:25 PM US/Eastern
By PATRICK CONDON and MARTIGA LOHN
Associated Press

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94I8AE80&show_article=1

Net the truth Online

Group alleging voter irregularities seeks a probe

Minnesota Majority says the secretary of state didn't verify registrations. Mark Ritchie's office says that's not true.
By KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, Star Tribune
Last update: November 17, 2008 - 9:43 PM
A Minnesota watchdog group that advocates for what it calls traditional values called Monday for an investigation into alleged voting irregularities that it says can be remedied by eliminating same-day voter registration and requiring citizens to show photo IDs before voting.

At a news conference, Minnesota Majority president Jeff Davis said the group is filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice contending that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie had failed to verify voter registrations as required by federal law.

The group is also seeking records from the Secretary of State's Office and county officials under the state's Data Practices Act on registration procedures, such as verification postcards returned as "undeliverable" and voters who registered by having someone vouch for them.

Ritchie spokesman John Aiken said the Secretary of State's Office will forward the information sought by Minnesota Majority. As for charges that the office failed to properly verify voters, Aiken said that officials "just don't think that's true."

Davis said that Minnesota Majority is organizing an online petition, which can be signed by citizens at ElectionIntegrityPetition.com, to bring the issue to the attention of public officials.

Everyone legally eligible to vote should be allowed to do so, he said, but eligibility for everyone should be checked at least 30 days before they vote and verified on Election Day.

Volunteers with Minnesota Majority have found what the group deems voting irregularities after going through registration lists supplied by the state, Davis said. Those irregularities include duplicate records, vacant voting addresses, incomplete registration forms and voters who may have voted more than once.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/34592094.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUoaEaD_ec7PaP3iUiacyKUU

Hitchens: Clinton as Obama Secretary State Ludicrous

So right. Hitchens said this is the woman and duo who played the 'race' card, used any tactic against Obama, lied about a trip to Bosnia coming under sniper fire, and she's being considered as Obama's Secretary of State? It's ludicrous.

Morning Joe discussing. Wondering who leaked the potential.

Who cares who leaked, it's fascinating we may finally learn of all of the Bill Clinton connections world-wide in the vetting process.

Minnesota Governor Pawlenty No Evidence Ballots In Judge's Trunk

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty made the comment on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace host...

But he gave no indication as reported here the military and foreign-living citizens absentee ballots amounting to some 32 were not delivered in time (4 were reportedly according to Brauer's report delivered to a precinct/s but 'accidentally uncounted) to the local Minnesota precinct/s in order to be counted there. The ballots were in the trunk of the car of the official ballot delivery designees, according to Brauer's article, those being known as Precinct Support Judges.

Here is election law which may be helpful to determine what happens if ballots are not able to be delivered.

https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/statutes/?topic=182842

The Bradblog headlines

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 11/13/2008 4:13PM
Debunked: Republican's '32 Franken Ballots in a Car' Story is Complete Nonsense, Never Happened

http://bradblog.com/?p=6665

The Bradblog links to a MinnPost article by David Brauer, Minneapolis election director speaks: 'Ballots in my car' story false
which while setting the record straight about the Judge's involvement, none, in fact informs 32 ballots were in an official transport vehicle.

Brauer reports within a few paragraphs of his more editorialized opening:


OK, so were the ballots ever in a car?

Yes. But stow the outrage until you hear the details.

Stow the outrage? Sure we will.

The only parts of the initial story so far shown in error were:

all 32 ballots were later counted as Franken votes
32 ballots were in the Director of Election's (Reichert) car trunk overnight
32 ballots were in the Reichert's car trunk for several days
32 ballots were in the Reichert's car

Brauer's report uses the specific terminology:

“precinct support judges”

Note, the ballots were in a judge's car - we don't get the info where exactly - in a trunk - in separate folders in a box - and if this was a vehicle supplied by the county, or was a personal vehicle authorized to be used for transportation of ballots. It is reported the vehicles are transport vehicles authorized for use that day.

The Brauer report linked from the Bradblog did not specify who else other than a "Precinct Support Judge" was on hand at all times while the 32 paper ballots were being transported from central to the precinct, and finding the precinct unavailable to handle the absentees transported the ballots back to City Hall.

The author does give us a glimpse of what happened:

Driving the ballots
The drivers went out about 7:30 p.m. Reichert soon heard from some who were worried they might not get to every precinct before closing. Once a precinct judge removes a tallying machine memory card, votes can no longer be counted there.

Reichert says she sent a broadcast message to each precinct’s lead judge to keep sites open, but not everyone received it. Some less-busy sites shut down before the drivers got there.

In accordance with longstanding procedures, the couriers immediately brought the uncounted, unopened ballots — 28 of the now-famous 32 — back to City Hall, where they were stored in a secure room.

(The other four ballots were accidentally unprocessed in the precincts, and were also returned that night to the same place.)

So: The ballots were in cars because state law mandates precinct counting. An election judge always had custody, and they were never “lost.” They were not in vehicles overnight and spent Election Night, and the next several nights, tucked away safely in City Hall.

http://www.minnpost.com/davidbrauer/2008/11/12/4565/minneapolis_election_director_speaks_ballots_in_my_car_story_false

Now that is quite a lot of info. But note, Brauer says 'an election judge always had custody, and they were never "lost."

The article informs that an official (Reichert) said she doesn't know how the Coleman attorney got certain facts wrong, but she admits to all 'being really tired' on Thursday.

Did Reichert use the word “lost” when talking to Coleman’s forces? “No!” she exclaims.

What about "car"?

She laughs. “I don’t know. We were all really tired on Thursday. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to recall what I said that made them think this. I talked to their attorney Friday night, explained this whole situation.”

http://www.minnpost.com/davidbrauer/2008/11/12/4565/minneapolis_election_director_speaks_ballots_in_my_car_story_false

Brauer also reports: (The other four ballots were accidentally unprocessed in the precincts, and were also returned that night to the same place.)

Yet Brauer remains absolutely mum about how these 4 ballots made it to a Precinct although they were accidentally "uncounted" in the precinct/s.

He also seems uncurious about which precincts were on the listing for delivery of a mere only 32 ballots. Was it 2 precincts, 15 precincts? Wouldn't it be easier for the central election bureau director to call or otherwise confirm a don't close directive to a half-dozen precincts at the time of knowledge of which absentee ballots might be about to be delivered over the next hour or possibly longer, necessitating the precinct judge to keep operations for handling those open until arrival and processing?

It became clear after reading that one line, these 32 ballots were not intended for only one precinct, but were intended potentially for several precincts, but we don't know from the information supplied whether any precincts were of a distance too far away to be delivered that night and how it happened, according to Reichert,

Reichert says she sent a broadcast message to each precinct’s lead judge to keep sites open, but not everyone received it. Some less-busy sites shut down before the drivers got there.

Re-reading that several time, why is the term less-busy sites shut down used here?

Does this mean potentially less-busy sites closed down a few minutes earlier than 8 PM, or the process for shutting down began earlier than 8 pm and couldn't be reversed? the chronology becomes very important, but the reporter doesn't seem interested in how precisely it came to be that only 28 (after subtracting the 4 that were delivered somewhere in the county but accidentally uncounted) military/overseas voters absentees were unable to be accepted at the polling place for delivery before or by 8 PM?

He can't ask Reichert to provide details how exactly were judges 'broadcast' a message, a message that wasn't received and how that came to be if the message was sent BEFORE the 8 PM official closing?

What's also puzzling, were the Precinct Judges not informed of the transport of other absentee ballots which had to be dealt with at the Precinct? How many absentees were delivered that day before the cutoff of 8 PM, and how many were expected by precinct judges to be delivered?

do these people not have open lines at all times in expectation of problems, breakdowns of machines, emergency replacement scanners, and the like?

The central election director, Reichert couldn't contact all the affected precinct judge's, notifying of delays in transport of absentees? Why couldn't she contact all. There were only 32 ballots! 4 made it 'somewhere.' Where were the other 28 supposed to go? an hour's drive away?

Again, use of the term less-busy sites just invites speculation that potentially less-busy sites may have started a close-down procedure prior to 8 PM that couldn't be reversed.

Seriously, this is not a minor problem, what if there were some amount of ballots in this category that could change the outcome of the entire state's election, say some 2000 outstanding military/absentee ballots that might affect the outcome of a close presidential contest?

Regardless however of how the ballots came to be uncounted as intended and according to the law on election night, after the fact, who can ever prove these are the same ballots as submitted by absentee voters as named and identified.

Who can guarantee the ballots that arrived at the central warehouse were indeed the same ballots sent in by the absentee voters? Everyone's answer should be the same. Nobody.

Governor Pawlenty also retracted his earlier statement made on Fox News that there was suspicion about ballots found in a Judge's car trunk.

He shouldn't have gone that far. While it's erroneous to continue to say absentee ballots were lost, or found, the reported fact is some amount of 32 ballots (minus 4) were in Precinct Support Judge or Judges vehicles?

We don't even have the information exactly how many vehicles were delivering these 32 absentee ballots.

Nobody seems concerned that once these ballots and other paper ballots are put in the mix of all the ballots to be re-counted in late November for the Senate race recount, that is it. One or 2 more votes for Franken over Coleman and the race is over.

Here's what has happened so far in a preliminary audit count in Ramsey County

http://uptake-minnesota.groups.theuptake.org/rss/videogalleryView/id/1272/

Net the Truth Online

Fritz Knaak, counsel for U.S. Senator Norm Coleman’s campaign, had a press conference at 2:00 p.m. today to talk about hearing that was held earlier today about recently found absentee ballots in Hennepin County.

“The request from Coleman’s campaign said Minneapolis elections director Cynthia Reichert called its office at 7:45 p.m. Friday and reported that 32 ballots had been found and would be counted the next morning.

‘We were actually told they had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions,’ said Coleman’s attorney, Fritz Knaak.

Gearin denied the campaign’s request to stop the count for an investigation of the ballots’ history because the court does not have jurisdiction until the vote total is final and an official contest of the result has made, Knaak said.” Source: Associated Press, November 8, 2008

Click here for the complete story.

###

“On Friday night the director of elections for the city of Minneapolis, Cynthia Reichhert, told the attorney for the Coleman campaign, Tony Trimble, that she was in possession of 32 absentee ballots that she intended to ‘open and count’ today, according to the request filed by the Coleman campaign.

The integrity of these ballot(s) is in serious doubt,’ the Coleman campaign’s request said.” Source: Pioneer Press, November 8, 2008

http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/2008/11/08/coleman-press-event-about-32-absentee-ballots-found-in-election-officials-car/

The issue is important because Al Franken's campaign has said that some absentee ballots were unfairly rejected. The campaign filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County asking for a list of names from those who had their absentee ballots rejected.

Ramsey County said the information is private data, but there has been some disagreement even among elections officials as to whether that information is public or private. Gary Poser, the Elections Director for the Secretary of State's office, said he told some county elections officials the information is public.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/14/minn_board_absentee_ballots/

Post-election audit suggests good news for Franken

An examination of 28 of the 202 precincts statewide that were randomly selected for the Minnesota's post-election audit showed that Franken picked up 6 votes, while Coleman lost one. If this pattern holds in the full recount of 4,130 precincts, Franken may come out ahead. The article also discusses a theory that Democrats generally increase their totals disproportionately in recounts because the voters who are more likely to vote for them tend to have difficulty voting, and their intent can often only be discerned by "eyeballing" their ballots (see also here).

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/news/articles.php?ID=3919

(AP) St. Louis County keeps election ballots in the courthouse attic. Anoka County keeps them locked in the basement. Hennepin County relies on its cities to keep ballots safe.

The lack of a uniform standard for counties safeguarding ballots after the election could come into play when those votes are recounted in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race. Click here for the latest count)

The campaigns have been negotiating neutral standards for ballot security after an unsuccessful court challenge Saturday by Republican incumbent Norm Coleman to halt the counting of 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis. Coleman's campaign questioned the ballots' legitimacy, saying it was told the ballots had been left for several days in the car of a Minneapolis election official.

A city spokesman said the ballots were never unaccounted for, and the Coleman campaign later said it accepted those assurances. But with Coleman and Democrat Al Franken separated by a little more than 200 votes out of nearly 3 million cast, ballot integrity remains an issue.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/11/politics/main4593289.shtml

The official recount process begins Wednesday, Nov. 19, and it will be Ritchie's job to ensure that it is a fair one. But his ties to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) -- which has repeatedly been accused of voter fraud across the country -- and his reputation for engaging in highly partisan politics have raised concerns among Republicans.

During his 2006 bid for secretary of state, Ritchie was endorsed by the Minnesota ACORN Political Action Committee, and he received political contributions from them.

And his election victory was made possible, in part, by a nationwide partisan effort -- with the help of the Secretary of State Project (SOS), an independent 527 group co-founded by former MoveOn.org leader James Rucker.

On Wednesday, Ritchie chose a canvassing board that includes himself, two state Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and two district court judges.

The board -- which will certify vote totals and settle differences over disputed ballots once local officials complete their recount -- will be "extraordinarily nonpartisan," Ritchie said.

http://www.edenprairienews.com/community/forums/back-and-forth/mn-recount

Meanwhile . . . Ritchie also lashed out at bad information and its proliferation.

The bad info: At a news conference this afternoon, Ritchie specifically mentioned the allegations – first shot down by MinnPost’s David Brauer – that some Minneapolis ballots were lost in an election official’s car.

Then, there is the second allegation – now discredited – from the Al Franken campaign that an absentee ballot in Beltrami County was rejected.

“I’m very unhappy when local election officials are smeared,’’ Ritchie said in a news conference this afternoon. And he went on to say when such allegations get regurgitated in the news media the world learns about Minnesota.

“It does reflect negatively on our tradition, our culture, our history, our heritage,” he said.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty mentioned the alleged Minneapolis ballots on national television after the MinnPost report. Ritchie said he sent a note to the governor – contents undisclosed – but also praised Pawlenty for adding on Fox News that Minnesota’s electoral process is impeccable.

http://www.minnpost.com/politicalagenda/

Now, we have absentee ballots hanging around in a judges car.
http://www.topix.com/forum/us/TLAQHMO8EGJB1TAEN/p3

Pragmatist Nov. 9

Which precincts in the state of Minnesota close before 8 pm, CST? I know you feel that this is nothing out of the ordinary, and that it has happened in the past. If this has happened in the past, there needs to be even more outrage. I am glad you are willing to wait to cast judgment, but I see no excuse whatsoever for Friday. If there was a mix-up, Wednesday morning should be the minimum standard acceptable. As an election judge, do you get to take ballots home for three days, then turn them in only when the election is close and they might make a difference? This isn't about Norm and Al, this is about making sure our votes matter.


http://www.topix.com/forum/us/TLAQHMO8EGJB1TAEN/p7

Memo To Minnesotans: This Is How Ballots Should Be Handled
Comments (10) | Full Version | Back
Rob - 11:11am on 11/10/2008
Today while guest hosting the Scott Hennen Show I spoke with Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie about some allegedly mishandled ballots in the Coleman vs. Franken race. On the air, Ritchie essentially accused me playing partisan politics when I brought up reports of 32 ballots (yes, this election is close enough to be decided by those few ballots) being “lost” in the car of a Democrat election official. But it’s worth noting that the incident was reported on in a Duluth newspaper:

ST. PAUL — Sen. Norm Coleman failed Saturday in an attempt to block 32 absentee ballots from Hennepin County from being counted in his close race with Democrat Al Franken.

Coleman’s campaign asked Ramsey County Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin to issue a temporary restraining order regarding the counting of ballots it said had not been counted on Election Day or been kept in sealed ballot boxes. Gearin said Saturday she denied the request for lack of jurisdiction. . . .

The request from Coleman’s campaign said Minneapolis elections director Cynthia Reichert [a Democrat] called its office at 7:45 p.m. Friday and reported that 32 ballots had been found and would be counted the next morning.

“We were actually told they had been riding around in her car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions,” said Coleman’s attorney, Fritz Knaak.

Ritchie claimed that this allegation had been thrown out of court, but near as I can tell the judge simply ruled that these ballots should be included despite the fact that they’d been lost in someone’s car for a couple of days.

During the show, I also got this detailed accounting of how ballots are handled in North Dakota elections:

Let me say up front that I don’t know how it’s done in Minnesota, but it can’t be much different from ND. As an occasional poll worker (North Dakota) I can’t see how any ballots (even absentee) could ever be ‘loose’ in anyone’s car at any time. Election materials (ballots, sample ballots, absentee ballots, pens etc) arrive at the polling location as a “bundle”. When the polls close all ballots (from the boxes) are counted then the absentee ballots are counted (even the unused ballots are counted). It all has to add up. The ballots are then wrapped in brown paper, tied, then sealed with a hot wax seal. Any ‘spoiled’ ballots are also wrapped seperately and sealed. The judge of the election then delivers it all to the auditors office where it’s all counted again. As I have said ALL ballots are wrapped and sealed then ‘checked in’. There’s no way ballots can be loose and unaccounted for for that long.

Something stinks about the way these ballots were counted, and I don’t think Secretary Ritchie is doing anyone any favors by discounting concerns over these ballots.

http://sayanythingblog.com/mobile/entry/memo_to_minnesotans_this_is_how_ballots_should_be_handled/

November 15, 2008
Close Vote Breeds Hostility in Minnesota Senate Race
By CHRISTINA CAPECCHIOverlooked absentee ballots have favored Mr. Franken. For example, 55 absentee ballots from Ramsey County were not added until Nov. 5, with 33 going to Mr. Franken, county election officials said. ..

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15minnesota.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

More than 3 million voters are on the rolls in Minnesota. Polls are open until 8 p.m. tonight.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/04/polls_1/

Why Al Franken Will be Minnesota's Next Senator
By Scott Rafferty, AlterNet. Posted November 12, 2008.

Minnesota's system is pretty close to the ideal. The precinct counter warns voters if it reads more than one vote for a single office (known as an overvote). This is usually human error, and the voter has a chance to correct it (or to choose to reinsert his or her ballot, in which case the machine will count the unaffected races). In some areas, precinct scanners also warn voters if they fail to vote for every office, but most Minnesota counties do not use this setting. Because it allows voters to correct many human errors, the precinct counters are more reliable than paper alone.

There is also a strong tradition in Minnesota that every vote counts. Any discernable mark is counted as evidence of voter intent. Minnesota courts don't blame voters if election officials made a mistake in keeping the ballots in less than ideally secure locations; they require evidence of actual fraud. And Minnesota ballots are pretty straightforward, on a single page without the design flaws that confused so many voters in the 2006 congressional election in Sarasota, Fla. There were thousands of undervotes in that close contest, mostly from Democratic-majority areas.

The largest source of error is going to be human error -- marks that the machine cannot be expected to recognize. The voter crosses out one oval and fills in another. The machine sees an overvote, but the hand canvass counts the vote correctly. When the voter circles the candidate, or uses a check mark, or doesn't fill in the entire oval, the machine sees no vote at all, but again, the hand canvass registers the vote.

Since 2000, seven out of seven peer-reviewed academic studies confirm that Democrats tend to make more mistakes than Republicans. The populations that are, in academic jargon, "vulnerable to error" are low-income, low-educated and minority, all of which disproportionately vote Democratic.

Press reports from Minnesota emphasize that there were 24,100 more votes for president than for senator in last week’s election, and note that these come from "Obama counties." Further analysis will likely show that most come from Democratic precincts. This is consistent with the fact that low-income and minority voters tend to live in the same areas.

This is not the correct way to measure the unintentional undervote. The undervote is larger than the dropoff between president and senator, since some voters may not have votes counted for either office. When the Senate vote is subtracted from the total number of ballots cast, the undervote rises to 34,916. One analysis looks at this undervote by precinct and then allocates it between Norm Coleman and Franken according to the precinct vote, resulting in a net Franken gain of 1,769.

But that overestimates the error, because the vast majority of the undervote is an intentional abstention from the Senate race. Here, historical data is no guide, since how many voters deliberately abstain depends on the particular race. But the last polls before Election Day showed an unusually low percentage of undecided, most of them liberals, so the level of abstentions should also be low. If just 8 percent of the undervote results from defective marks, Franken moves ahead.

Next, there is machine error -- the machine fails to read a clear mark. The dominant machine, ES&S Model 100, may be the most reliable optical scanner, but Ramsey County's director of elections claims it has an error rate of 0.2 percent. (St. Paul is in Ramsey County.) This can result from jamming, which more frequently occurs on heavily used machines in urban areas, so the hand count can be expected again to yield a disproportionate number of additional votes for Franken. At this rate, there will be 4,900 additional votes, which could result in a net gain for Franken of 268 votes in the five most populous counties alone.

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/106625/why_al_franken_will_be_minnesota's_next_senator/

Conspiracy theories aside, our imperfect system of paper ballots and scanning technology with recounts by hand is just not set up well for elections this close. Even an error of just one vote tabulating every 10,000 recounted will yield a difference of 240 votes when counters are sifting through 2.4 million ballots. Are you confident you could work your way through 10,000 ballots without making a single mistake? I sometimes have difficulty double checking my change when I purchase something. Yet I don’t think many of us at this point want to shift our elections completely over to computers. All it would take would be one really good hacker or one really bad virus to make Joe the Plumber the president of the United States. No thanks!

http://minnlawyer.blogspot.com

/

Now Ramsey County is looking at ACORN over vote cards
Nearly half of the 800 given to county were held too long.

By MARIA ELENA BACA, Star Tribune
Last update: October 18, 2008 - 9:17 PM

http://www.startribune.com/politics/local/31233534.html?elr=KArks7PYDiaK7DU2EkP7K_V_GD7EaPc:iLP8iUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

“There's one more critical statistic: About 8,900 people weren't recorded as voting for president, according to county-by-county turnout estimates kept by the Secretary of State's Office,” the AP report said.

“That nearly 9,000 people would skip the closely watched race is questionable, raising the possibility that as many as 33,700 ballots might be subject to change in a hand recount. What recount teams will be looking for is whether stray or light marks on ballots signaled a voter's preference.”

Electronic Voting Machines

One explanation, which was dismissed by Ritchie and other Minnesota election officials last week, is that the type of voting machine used in nearly all of the counties in Minnesota have been found to have failed accuracy tests.

According to an Oct. 24 letter sent to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Ruth Johnson, the Oakland County Clerk/Register of Deeds, warned that tabulating software in Election Systems & Software M-100 optical scan voting machines recorded “conflicting” vote counts during testing in her state.

Minnesota voters’ uses optical scan ballots that voters mark by hand. As first reported by The Public Record Wednesday, ES&S;'s M-100 optical scan voting was used in Minnesota counties and in more than a dozen other states on Election Day.

Johnson, the Oakland County Clerk, said in her letter last week to the EAC that the M-100 voting machines used in four communities Tuesday “reported inconsistent vote totals during their logic and accuracy testing.”

“The same ballots run through the same machines, yielded different results each time,” says the letter addressed to Rosemary Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the Election Assistance Commission. “ES&S; determined that the primary issue [that caused the machines to formulate incorrect vote counts] was dust and debris build-up on the sensors inside the M-100” voting machine. “This has impacted the Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) settings for the two Contact Image Sensors (CIS).”

"This begs the question,” Johnson wrote. “On Election Day, will the record number of ballots going through the remaining tabulators leave even more build-up on the sensors, affecting machines that tested fine just initially? Could this additional build-up on voting tabulators that have not had any preventative maintenance skew vote totals?

“My understanding is that the problem could occur and election workers would have no inkling that ballots are being misread.”

http://www.zimbio.com/Al+Franken/articles/70/Franken+Cuts+Coleman+Lead+Again+Race+Gets

Franken, who in the past has refused to believe that electronic voting machines could alter the results of an election, said Wednesday said his campaign was also looking into "irregularities", including some polling places in Minneapolis that ran out of registration materials.

“Our office and the Obama campaign have received reports of irregularities at various precincts around the state,” Franken said in a statement. “For instance, some polling places in Minneapolis ran out of registration materials.”...

http://www.zimbio.com/Al+Franken/articles/70/Franken+Cuts+Coleman+Lead+Again+Race+Gets

The former Saturday Night Live writer said his campaign was also looking into "voting irregularities", including some polling places in Minneapolis that ran out of registration materials.

Election activists in the state said voting machines malfunctioned in several counties, and there were cases where voters disappeared from the rolls.

http://www.pubrecord.org/politics/474-e-voting-machines-used-in-franken-coleman-race-incorrectly-counted-votes-during-tests.html

Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert said the ballots were not delivered because some polling places had closed, and were being sent to be tallied Saturday afternoon....

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/2008/November/Coleman-Franken-Senate-Race-Still-a-War-of-Words--Legal-Battles.html

The 32 Minneapolis ballots were part of the normal delivery of absentee ballots late in the polling day, according to Election Director Cindy Reichert.

She said they were retained when they couldn't be delivered because some polling places had shut down for the day. She said the ballots were kept sealed until other election duties were completed and were being counted Saturday afternoon, with results to be delivered to the state on Monday.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/34147894.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUeyD8_o8cyaiUiD3aPc:_Yyc: aUU

The 32 Minneapolis ballots were part of the normal delivery of absentee ballots late in the polling day, Election Director Cindy Reichert, a Democrat, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Reichert claims the ballots were retained when they couldn't be delivered because some polling places had shut down for the day. She said the ballots were kept sealed until other election duties were completed and were being counted Saturday afternoon, with results to be delivered to the state on Monday...

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/coleman_franken_minnesota/2008/11/09/149428.html

Shelby said poll workers had to call Ramsey County election officials for more secrecy folders, clipboards and pens.

Precincts in Minneapolis and St. Louis Park reported that by mid-afternoon, two-thirds of eligible voters had already cast ballots.

http://www.startribune.com/politics/33845379.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUeyD8_o8cyaiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

Instant runoff

Cindy Reichert, director of the city’s elections department, will share two reports with the City Council committee today, both from the Secretary of State’s Ranked Choice Voting Issues Group, which started meeting last summer. One report focuses on legislative barriers and other other on technological problems.The State Legislature needs to make some changes to state law in order for Minneapolis’ system to be legal to be better guarded against the possibility of lawsuits. Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, has introduced a bill in the House, and a Senate bill was expected to be introduced, possibly today by Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, Massey said.

The City Council needs to pass its own new voting ordinance to reflect instant run-off procedures. Robin Garwood, an aide to Council Member Cam Gordon, said their office wants to begin putting the new rules in ordinance as soon as possible. “Whether or not there’s state legislation on this, we should have our rules in ordinance,” Garwood said.

The biggest challenge is going to be acquiring new voting equipment that can count ranked ballots and is certified by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, a process that can be lengthy and expensive. Ranked-choice voting machines are a niche market and so the companies that make voting equipment haven’t made them a priority.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/3221/is-minneapolis-still-on-track-for-ranked-voting-in-2009

Votes changing

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/aggregator/categories/4

Election Director Ramsey County MN

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/elections/docs/election-connection-jan08.pdf

Bradblog theory MN voting scanners faulty in Coleman/Franken race

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6641

(ed. note. if so then how on earth can we trust the accepted as is ballots are any of them valid? So Coleman isn't ahead by only 206 votes? Franken will get more votes?

The thing about scanned ballots, the scanner is non-partisan. It will be interesting to see just how close to the actual machine tally the hand-count gets.

Remember this is not going to count ballots which were clearly over-voted until both sides review the hand-count for those ballots. Those rejected ballots will be perused to determine whether stupid voters did not read the directions on how to mark a paper ballot properly. A scanner reading a circled or check-marked ballot may be set to reject that ballot.

Now the interesting thing is, with precinct scanner, the voter gets a notice - if the machine is set to notify - of an over-vote. However, it may be that some voters chose to over-ride the over-voted notice and cast the ballot as is.

An important distinction. If the voter decides to get another paper ballot, the spoiled ballot should be voided, marked with void or spoiled and a log of the ballot's number should be kept, noting it was voided. That way, nobody can claim to have 'found' a whole bunch of new ballots which have circles and checkmarks instead of being filled in.

Another thing the scanner does is notify the voter of an under-voted contest. With the under-vote, however, the race isn't invalidated, or rejected. The voter is notified and can choose to cast the ballot as is.

In a review of undervotes, if the precinct scanner was utilized, there should be no question about the intent of the voter to cast the under-voted ballot as is.

But we look for Franken attorneys to argue an under-voted Senate race on a ballot where the voter marked the ballot for Obama for President equally wanted to mark the Senate race for Franken.

That's where the fraud comes in. We'll wait and see, but not holding our breath that the argument won't be used.

No mercy for jailed Border Patrol agent
Federal judge resentences Jose Compean to 10 years behind bars

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 12, 2008
7:56 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

There's no mercy for a former U.S. Border Patrol agent who remains behind bars for shooting a fleeing drug suspect.

A federal judge in El Paso, Texas, has upheld Jose Compean's original punishment and resentenced him to 10 years in prison for his conviction on a charge of using a weapon in the commission of a felony and another two years in prison for assault and other charges.

As WND previously reported, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said if Compean and his fellow agent Ignacio Ramos want, they could ask President Bush for clemency.