SPECIAL NEWS ALERT: Touchscreen Voting Machines Put in Question Integrity of US Election Process

Across the United States, problems are being discovered with what are supposed to be the state of the art in balloting technology: digital touchscreen voting machines. Security questions were raised initially when the machines were widely distributed, by a handful of companies, with no hard-copy record of voters' intent, which led to a nationwide movement calling for "verified voting", or voter-verified paper trails.

State after state has accepted that the absolute standard for a truly reliable voting and vote-counting process must be a process where voters can actually see the official record of their votes, verify that their votes were recorded correctly, and where those hard-copies can then be checked by both machine and by human intervention, if such a recount is needed. Florida and California have both scrapped their touchscreen machines, amid mounting concerns about reliability and security.

A team of researchers at Princeton University has demonstrated the ease with which the machines can be hacked and thousands of votes shifted or stolen, leaving little or no trace and with no means by which to return to any record of "voter intent" (a standard which most states require constitutionally). Allegations of suspicious interactions between company executives at Diebold and other voting machine manufacturers or maintenance firms has raised fears that the machines have already been used to sway the outcome of past elections (Ohio in 2004 is one possible case).

In southern California, San Diego election workers were permitted to take the machines home with them on the eve of elections, leading to what is possible the most severe security breach in US elections since the 2000 debacle in Florida raised real concerns about the legitimacy of the vote-counting process. Instances of votes for one candidate actually being recorded for another are infamous and disturbingly frequent.

Clive Thompson has written for The New York Times:

"In the last three election cycles, touch-screen machines have become one of the most mysterious and divisive elements in modern electoral politics. Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices 'flip' from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish."

So, even where the "paper trail" is implemented, to shore up the technology against its own inherent flaws, there are problems with the quality of the manufacturing or maintenance, it would seem, leading to the possibility that votes are simply erased, lost, or never recorded. Roughly one-third of the electorate will cast their votes in November 2008 on touchscreen machines, unless action is taken to prevent this unproven technology from interfering with voters' ability to express their choice.

Suicide bombing spurs further worries about Pakistan security; touchscreen voting machines may be threat to US election integrity...

10 January :: Suicide bomber strikes Lahore, Pakistan, killing at least 23 riot police and injuring dozens of other people, raising fears that political crisis in troubled nuclear state could result in prolonged campaign of violence... Concerns about integrity of US election process spread as more states take action to bar use of touchscreen voting machines, as study after study appear to show they decrease the security of the vote-counting process; Democracy Now! reports "Last spring, California and Florida decided to get rid of their electronic voting machines. In December, Colorado decertified about half of its touch-screen devices. In Ohio, secretary of state Jennifer Brunner undertook an extensive review of electronic voting machines that concluded their use “may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process.” On Capitol Hill, two Senators have sponsored a bill that would ban the use of touch-screen machines across the country by 2012"... US Supreme Court considered yesterday a challenge to a 2005 Indiana law that requires voters present gov't-issued photo-ID before being allowed to cast votes; the fact that such IDs require payment for purchase and that many poorer voters may have difficulty spending the time needed, on working days, to obtain the documents, rase issues of unconstitutional "poll taxes" and possible racial or socio-economic manipulation of the vote; Justices were said to be skeptical about the challengers' argument that the problem of voter-ID fraud is not actually widespread (no evidence of widespread use of this kind of fraud has been found at any time in recent elections)... 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for his party's nomination, the latest in a series of high-profile endorsements announced by the top Democratic contenders in the last 48 hours, as the campaigns struggle to establish their momentum going into the coming primaries...

SPECIAL NEWS ALERT: AT&T Announces Plans to Inspect & Filter Internet Traffic & Content

AT&T is proposing the implementation of new filtering technologies "at the network level" that would essentially interrupt in a definitive way the public's freedom to access online content. The concept known as 'net neutrality' refers to consumers and netizens' ability to freely gain access to any site, paid or unpaid, without major telecommunications companies programming access as they do with cable television.

The movement against net neutrality has been spearheaded by giant internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T and Verizon, who want to profit from permitting consumers access to specific sites. They already charge for end-user access and for content-providers' access, and they charge more if you want higher speeds (bandwidth). Now they seek to ensure that freedom of access be impeded, in order to allow them to manipulate access and information in order to further line their pockets with a medium they did not develop, did not fund, and have not produced.

Existing law bars such filtering from being implemented by ISPs. The First Amendment to the US Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". Filtering and restricting access to online content "at the network level" would very directly abridge the freedom of individuals to create and distribute online content, and would limit the ability of the online "press" to freely report the news and generate creative content.

There is no viable legal solution to this issue other than the prohibition of such filtering technologies as a threat to the free market of ideas on which American society, the rule of law as we understand it, and our society of democratic values based on the free expression of ideas, actually do depend.

Pope plans to build global network of 'exorcism squads'; online report suggests aspartame danger to public health...

9 January :: Pope Benedict XVI plans to implement a global network of "specialist exorcism squads", with a team in every diocese around the world to combat Satan; a Vatican spokesman told the press "Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist", and lauded the Pope's devotion to training clergy to directly confront "the most extreme form of Godlessness"... New online report suggests Aspartame, commonly used in artificial sweeteners, may be more dangerous than previously thought, citing a number of studies; Pupaganda reports "It was originally approved for dry goods on July 26, 1974, but objections filed by neuroscience researcher Dr John W. Olney and Consumer attorney James Turner in August 1974 as well as investigations of G.D. Searle's research practices caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to put approval of aspartame on hold (December 5, 1974)"; manufacturers question the validity of the allegations, and the scientific community has mixed reaction to allegations of the dangers of the substance...

NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY: Clinton, McCain declared winners in New Hampshire, Obama, Romney finish 2nd...

Sen. Hillary Clinton declared winner by some news organizations in NH, with 39% of vote while less than 70% of precincts were reporting, CNN waited until Obama campaign said he would speak ahead of Clinton, called NH for Clinton while she led Obama 39% to 36%, with 80% reporting...

McCain declared winner early, with significant margin of victory over Romney, lead of 8 percentage points with under 40% of votes tallied; McCain's lead had shrunk to 39% to 32% with 85% of precincts reporting, as midnight neared...

John Edwards finished with 17% of the vote, while New Mexico gov. Bill Richardson was said to be traveling back to his home state to consider what course of action to take, given the 2nd consecutive 4th-place finish... Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani finished with 11% and 9% respectively, Ron Paul with 8%, and Fred Thompson a distant 6th with 1%...

Benazir Bhutto's son calls for UN investigation; New Jersey legislature officially apologizes for slavery, which it abolished in 1846...

8 January :: Son of Benazir Bhutto calls for UN-led investigative commission to determine responsibility for his mother's assassination, saying Pakistan gov't lacks "transparency" required to conduct an effective and credible investigation... New Jersey's state legislature has officially apologized for practicing slavery, the first state north of the Mason-Dixon line to do so, though it was the last of the northern states to emancipate slaves held there, in 1846; the resolution [pdf] states "the fundamental values of Africans were shattered; they were brutalized, humiliated and dehumanized", the resolution following official apologies by Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, in 2007... Clinton, McCain declared winners in NH, in what is called "comeback" for both candidates; Obama congratulates Clinton, gives "Yes we can" speech, Romney finishes 2nd in state bordering Massachusetts, where he was governor... Organizers of yesterday's Oklahoma "bipartisanship forum" have said Obama campaign could mean Bloomberg run superfluous; Bloomberg himself suggested what the group of 17 is demanding may have already begun, saying "I hope that all the candidates say to themselves that the public is tired of the partisanship and the special interests, and if I’m going to get elected, I’ve got to stand up and say what I believe, face the big issues, hold myself accountable, and maybe you are seeing that"...

Iranian, US ships confront each other in Strait of Hormuz, Iran says case of unidentified vessels; US Supreme Court hears lethal injection case...

7 January :: US, Iranian ships nearly engage in hostile conflict in Strait of Hormuz; ABC News reports "Iran's Foreign Ministry said Monday that a confrontation between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf over the weekend was "something normal" and was resolved. It suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels"... US Supreme Court has heard arguments relating to the implementation of the "three drug" death penalty procedure in Kentucky, where the same process is illegal for euthanizing animals; NY Times reports "The issue in the case of Baze v. Rees is not the constitutionality of lethal injection as such, but a more procedural question: How should judges evaluate claims that the particular combination of drugs used to bring about death causes suffering that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution"... Man from Edinburgh, Scotland, expected to return home today after spending 21 years on death row in Ohio; prosecution negotiated reduced charges with inmate, allowing him to leave prison after having served the maximum possible sentence for that charge; at one point, his execution was stayed only one hour before he was due to be electrocuted...

Odinga refuses Kibaki offer for power-sharing to end violence; Obama, McCain top opinion polls in NH...

6 January :: Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga rejects Pres. Kibaki's offer for a power-sharing gov't, saying Kibaki's authority is nullified by alleged efforts to rig the December vote... Latest polling shows Obama, McCain pulling ahead of rivals in New Hampshire, apparently bolstered by weekend debates; Clinton, Romney campaigns struggling to keep positive outlook on their chances in media coverage... 1/4 of Argentina's population now lives below the poverty line, as wealth gap widens, economic hardship seems to set down roots in wake of the 2001 monetary and economic crisis; CSM reports "The gap between rich and poor has slowly expanded over the decades in a society that has always thought of itself as Latin America's model for egalitarianism [...] But the financial crisis that exploded in 2001 —plunging 50 percent of the population into poverty and leading to a spike in crime that pushed city dwellers into gated communities— has caused many to face Argentina's new reality: The family you are born into will largely determine where you end up in life"...