February 19, 2006
Non-Rasmussen poll numbers for TX-Gov

And for my birthday present, we got some poll numbers from the DMN. (All results are summarized here.) I'll start with the highlights:


If the November general election for governor were being held today and Chris Bell were the Democratic nominee, for whom would you vote?
Rick Perry: 36%
Chris Bell: 19%
Carole Keeton Strayhorn: 16%
Kinky Friedman: 10%

If the election were today, and Bob Gammage were the Democratic nominee, for whom would you vote?
Rick Perry: 36%
Bob Gammage: 17%
Carole Keeton Strayhorn: 17%
Kinky Friedman: 10%

ASKED OF KINKY FRIEDMAN VOTERS

If the election were today, and the candidates were Rick Perry, Chris Bell and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, for whom would you vote?
Carole Keeton Strayhorn: 34%
Chris Bell: 25%
Rick Perry: 18%
Would not vote: 12%

If the election were today, and the candidates were Rick Perry, Bob Gammage and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, for whom would you vote?
Carole Keeton Strayhorn: 36%
Bob Gammage: 20%
Rick Perry: 18%
Would not vote: 14%


Perry checks in with a 47/38 approve/disapprove rate, which is more or less in line with his most recent SurveyUSA tally, and an improvement from previous negative results. This is probably my favorite bit:

What do you think has been Mr. Perry's most important accomplishment as governor (no choices provided)?
None: 20%
Hurricane Katrina/disaster relief: 8%
Other: 8%
Education reform/improvement: 7%
Taxes/tax reform/ reduced spending: 2%
Jobs/economic development: 2%
Highway construction: 1%
Border control: 1%

That about sums up Rick Perry. If given a choice, "Katrina relief" goes up to 28%, but "None" is still 21%.

From the article:


"Perry is doing well because the opposition is split three ways," pollster Mickey Blum said. "If that weren't the case, he wouldn't be looking so good. Getting 36 percent as the incumbent Republican in a Republican state – that's not so great."

I'm glad someone finally said that. Regardless of the other candidates' totals, both the WSJ/Zogby Online and Rasmussen polls have put Perry consistently below 50%, ranging as low as 40%. This is a new trough, and is about as low as I think it's possible for him to go.

[T]he poll highlights several potential warning signs for the governor, Ms. Blum said, as he tries to win a second four-year term and become the longest-serving governor in Texas history.

He is attracting only 59 percent of his 2002 general election voters, a sign that some former supporters "are not happy with [him] and are looking for someone else," she said.

Mr. Perry's backing is solid among GOP loyalists but soft among other groups – including nominal Republicans, independents and minority voters who have spread their support among the rest of the field. Ms. Blum said Mr. Perry could be vulnerable if voters were to coalesce behind a single challenger.

"One of them has to break out, and people have to decide that if they don't want Perry, they have to agree on one of the other guys," Ms. Blum said.


Which is probably why Strayhorn and Bell/Gammage will likely have to turn on each other at some point. The not-Perry pie is big enough to win, but only if one person's slice is much bigger than the others'.

I'm actually a little surprised that Strayhorn's numbers are as poor as they are here. I've said before that the Rasmussen results feel wrong to me, and I'm not sure I'm confident in this one, either. What I do note is that Rasmussen has less than 10% of its respondents undecided, while this poll has about 20%. I'd say that's more likely to be realistic.

The poll of Friedman supporters, something which was way overdue, seems to be a bit of a Rohrschach test, as Greg and Karl-T come to opposite conclusions about the Kinkster's presence on the ballot. I lean more towards Greg here, and I think we have One Tough Grandma to thank for that. Whoever said back in January that she'd suck the oxygen out of Friedman's campaign was dead on. Other than the "60 Minutes" story, which was done before OTG jumped in, he's been much less visible in the media lately. Now if only we could get a similar question asked of Strayhorn supporters.

Elsewhere, Bell picked up endorsements from the Statesman and from Houston State senators Rodney Ellis and John Whitmire. Gammage claimed the nod of the El Paso Times and State Rep. Senfronia Thompson. And what do you know, the still-endorsementless Chron wrote an actual story on the Dem primary. Maybe they will get around to writing about the other races before early voting closes.

UPDATE: SurveyUSA has Perry at 47 approve/45 disapprove in February, which is back in line with November and December after an uncharacteristically positive January for him. Link via Political Wire.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 19, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack
Comments

This pretty much confirms what I thought where Kinky was concerned: As soon as Strayhorn entered the race as an independent, any small chance he may have had to win were doomed.

Posted by: Tim on February 19, 2006 6:48 PM

Big Difference going from 71% to 52% voting Republican and recently Republican.

I wonder if that is still high?

Only way to know...

From:

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/19353.html

2-17-06: BREAKING: Calif. Sec. State ...

Black Box Voting » Latest Consumer Reports from Black Box Voting » 2-17-06: BREAKING: Calif. Sec. State certifies entire Diebold product line

Jim March
BBV Activist
Username: Jimmarch

Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 - 05:40 pm:

This is a very important news post, with national implications because -- with YOUR help -- today's miscarriage of democracy will give you the first good shot at subpoena-induced sworn testimony from voting machine makers and testing labs. Vendors and voting machine examiners: Enjoy the reprieve that McPherson just handed you, because the American citizenry -- with the help of some California senators -- is about to make sure it stops right now.

Citizens: Instructions are provided in this article.

Red flag: Meet bull

THE RED FLAG: Today California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson certified Diebold's entire product line, including the TSx touchscreen machine with its "toilet paper roll" paper trail -- you know, the design that removes the privacy of your vote. He also approved the Diebold optical scan system, knowing it can be hacked, and he approved the Diebold GEMS system, knowing it can be hacked, and all accessories and accompaniments.

The system was approved despite 100 percent public opposition and despite not having the ITA report back. (Welcome to Black Box America.)

YOU'RE THE BULL: It's time for you and everyone you know to make phone calls for subpoenas!

We are seeing a pattern of obfuscation and cover-up. YOUR help will be needed to get to the bottom of it all.

The Feb. 16 California Senate Elections Committee hearing on certification was hit with no-shows by ALL FOUR major vendors (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Hart Intercivic).

Representatives from Wyle and Ciber testing labs declined to appear. Both the technical staff and the PR flaks for the California Secretary of State's office blew off the Senate Elections Committee.

The Secretary of State's office is now "legally late" on a series of public records requests made by California Elections Committee Chairperson Debra Bowen.

This lack of response to a California Senate hearing is a potential disaster in the making. With no election insiders willing to answer questions, the vendors as a whole (and Diebold in particular) along with the now-infamously inadequate test labs start looking like they're coated with non-stick Teflon.

It's not nice to blow off democracy, and we are asking you, the taxpayer, to refuse to allow testers and vendors to thumb their noses at the California Senate. It's your tax dollars that are paying for this equipment, which you have asked NOT to be purchased at all.

That Senate hearing on 16th could end up doing more harm than good, because if subpoenas don't happen, it tells American citizens that they are impotent and that laws, federal regulations and standards don't matter. That is, unless you and your friends make some phone calls to gouge that Teflon.

This is your best shot to drag the right people to the questioning table, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Complicating things: the head of the Senate Elections Committee (Debra Bowen) has to get permission from the California Senate Rules Committee to have subpoenas issued.

Fortunately there are good people at Rules. Of their five members, the chair (Sen. Don Perata-D) has a good record in electronic voting issues and Sen. Cedillo-D also has a decent grasp of these issues. Sen. Bowen is the 3rd Democrat on Rules and we know where she stands. The two Republicans (Sen. Jim Battin (Vice-Chair) and Sen. Roy Ashburn) are approachable on this issue too. Only three of these Senators are needed to invoke port subpoenas (or letters containing promises of subpoenas upon failure to appear).

YOUR PHONE CALLS ARE NEEDED to Rules Committee members

Urge support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who didn't testify on the 16th.

Contact list:

Senator Don Perata (Chair)
(916) 651-4009

Senator Jim Battin (Vice-Chair)
(916) 651-4037

Senator Roy Ashburn
(916) 651-4018

Senator Debra Bowen
(916) 651-4028 (Yes, call her too so she can log the support calls, it's important since it allows her to back her position from the grassroots.)

Senator Gilbert Cedillo
(916) 651-4022

Black Box Voting Inc. seldom puts out calls for grassroots pressure, as we feel this powerful tool can be diluted with over-use. But now is the time.

How to deliver your message

Be quick, be polite, be professional. Here's your message: ask for "Rules Committee support for subpoenas of election industry and certification insiders who won't otherwise inform the Elections Committee as to what's going on".

This is about volume of calls logged.

Therefore, not only should YOU make calls, but this needs to go out to your list.

Why this certification is a red flag

California does NOT have the Wyle Labs ITA report back on the memory card and interpreted code. McPherson sent the code back to the labs after issues were triggered by Black Box Voting in a June 20, 2005 "19202 request".

To recap, Wyle should never have approved the use of interpreted code OR "electronic ballot box" memory cards that can be pre-stuffed with negative and positive votes, especially when you can use Diebold's funky private "AccuBasic" code to fake the zero report that's supposed to catch such manipulations.

Black Box Voting asked the Secretary of State's office to review this issue, per California Election Code 19202. Shortly before Thanksgiving, the Calif. Sec. State's office formally requested Black Box Voting to do a review but under contrived and ridiculous test conditions written by Diebold.

This turkey shoot led to a bit of squabble. The Secretary of State's office buck-passed the situation to Wyle, and Wyle still hasn't responded.

Not surprising: If Wyle says interpreted code is OK, they've violated the FEC 2002 published standards yet again. If Wyle says it's a problem, any reasonable person will ask "how did you approve it in the first place!?"

This is a classic Catch-22 which Wyle appears to be unable to resolve.

Members of the Voting Systems Technology Assessment Advisory Board (VSTAAB) two UC Berkeley researchers tested the code for Secretary of State McPherson and blasted the system. It is stunning that McPherson is still certifying the system, which is clearly out of compliance with FEC standards.

Because Black Box Voting made the 19202 request we believe we have every right to that data, especially since Election Code 19202 requires the Secretary of State's office to "report on it's accuracy and efficiency."

The public commentary in California on this system is running 100 percent against certification. The federal testing authority appears to be dumbstruck. With your help, Black Box Voting WILL get to the bottom of this if it takes a backhoe and bulldozer to do it.

California Sec. State staff reports late AGAIN

A hearing on 3/1/06 at the Secretary of State's office will take public commentary on a slew of new or revised voting machines from ES&S, Sequoia, Hart and Populex. The agenda and other information has been posted here:

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/agenda_20060301.pdf

What's significant by its absence is the legally required staff reports on these machines to allow the public to give informed testimony. The California SecState's office has consistently promised to make these available a month ahead of time (again, as required) but as of today they're a no-show:

http://ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_vs.htm

This agency doesn't appear to care much about informed commentary.

Item three: What? No regulations YET!?

This one is important, folks. Almost a year ago the activist community in California discovered something important in California Election Code 19205:

19205. The Secretary of State shall establish the specifications for and the regulations governing voting machines, voting devices, vote tabulating devices, and any software used for each, including the programs and procedures for vote tabulating and testing. The criteria for establishing the specifications and regulations shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

(a) The machine or device and its software shall be suitable for the purpose for which it is intended.
(b) The system shall preserve the secrecy of the ballot.
(c) The system shall be safe from fraud or manipulation.

"Regulations" has very specific meaning in California: it means the agency in question has to write a set of rules, submit them for public comment and hold meetings with public input on them.

Without regulations the agency can make up the rules as they go along, which in times past (admittedly prior to the McPherson administration) we’ve seen as they play favorites in fairly obvious fashion, with the treatment of Avante voting systems as opposed to major vendors with more political clout being classic across 2003 and 2004.

Worse, at present the Secretary of State's office blocks all questions from the public during the "public commentary" meetings. We can't question their certification staff or the vendors. This is a travesty which we could fight in a proper regulatory wrangling process but the McPherson administration has ignored this vital reform for the nearly a year they’ve known about the legal requirement.

They've ignored the law on this for nearly a year, folks. ALL future certifications appear to be illegal on their face until this is fixed.

Conclusions: We’re seeing a horrifying pattern of obfuscation and illegality wrapped together and supporting each other. We have reason to think that the California Rules and Elections committees acting together can shed light on this series of backroom dealings and we're asking YOUR help in making it happen.

Any one of these items viewed individually would be bad news.

Together? Well folks, WE better hang together on this. If democracy as a transparent and lawful concept cannot be restored in California, the rest of the nation will go with it and our Republic is doomed.

This ain’t a drill folks. Grab a phone, start dialing. Polite, professional, short clear message, FIRM is what works.

----------------

BREAKING UPDATE:

The Secretary of State's office has released the Berkeley report on the Diebold product line:

This document borders on the bizarre. We find the following quotes of particular interest:

Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server.

...and:

Interpreted code is contrary to standards: Interpreted code in general is prohibited by the 2002 FEC Voluntary Voting System Standards, and also by the successor standard, the EAC's Voluntary Voting System Guidelines due to take effect in two years. In order for the Diebold software architecture to be in compliance, it would appear that either the AccuBasic language and interpreter have to be removed, or the standard will have to be changed.

California can only run software certified by the Federal ITA process, by state law. The "Berkeley team" is saying flat-out that such certification was NOT done correctly, therefore the entire Diebold product line is illegal under state law.

IF YOU BELIEVE CITIZEN OVERSIGHT OF ELECTIONS IS IMPORTANT, PLEASE JOIN THE 2006 ELECTION CLEANUP CREW. WORK STARTS NOW. WE WILL PROVIDE ONE ON ONE CONSULTING TO HELP YOU UNCOVER WHAT'S GOING ON IN ELECTIONS NEAR YOU. E-MAIL [email protected]. (Allow a few days for a response, due to our heavy travel schedules.)

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED, WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org

* * * * * *
* * * * * *
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* * * * * *
TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 - 09:04 pm:

Geez Louise. McPherson certifies it despite this -- in the report that HE assigned:

-- Memory card attacks are a real threat: We determined that anyone who has access to a memory card of the AV-OS, and can tamper it (i.e. modify its contents), and can have the modified cards used in a voting machine during election, can indeed modify the election results from that machine in a number of ways. The fact that the the results are incorrect cannot be detected except by a recount of the original paper ballots.

-- Interpreter bugs lead to another, more dangerous family of vulnerabilities: However, there is another category of more serious vulnerabilities we discovered that go well beyond what Mr. Hursti demonstrated, and yet require no more access to the voting system than he had. These vulnerabilities are consequences of bugs - 16 in all - in the implementation of the AccuBasic interpreter for the AV-OS. These bugs would have no effect at all in the absence of deliberate tampering, and would not be discovered by any amount of functionality testing; but they could allow an attacker to completely control the behavior of the AV-OS. An attacker could change vote totals, modify reports, change the names of candidates, change the races being voted on, or insert his own code into the running firmware of the machine.

-- Successful attacks can only be detected by examining the paper ballots: There would be no way to know that any of these attacks occurred; the canvass procedure would not detect any anomalies, and would just produce incorrect results. The only way to detect and correct the problem would be by recount of the original paper ballots, e.g. during the 1 percent manual recount.

-- The bugs are classic, and can only be found by source code review: Finding these bugs was only possible through close study of the source code. All of them are classic security flaws, including buffer overruns, array bounds violations, double-free errors, format string vulnerabilities, and several others. There may, of course, be additional bugs, or kinds of bugs, that we did not find.

-- AV-TSx has potential cryptographic protection against memory card attacks: ... if the cryptographic keys are managed properly (see next bullet), any tampering would be quickly detected and the attack would
be unsuccessful.
-- But the implementation of cryptographic protection is flawed: There is a serious flaw in the key management of the crypto code that otherwise should protect the AV-TSx from memory card attacks. Unless election offcials avail themselves of the option to create new cryptographic keys, the AV-TSx uses a default key. This key is hard-coded into the source code for the AV-TSx, which is poor security practice because, among other things, it means the same key is used in every such machine in the U.S. Worse, the particular default key in question was openly published two and a half years ago in a famous research paper, and is now known by anyone who follows election security, and can be found through Google.

Good golly. They're still using "1111"????

They say the bugs are easy to fix, but they do not say the ARCHITECTURE problems are easy to fix.

Jim March
BBV Activist
Username: Jimmarch

Posted on Saturday, February 18, 2006 - 02:58 am:

A tidbit:

I was told late on 2/14 (Tuesday) by Susan Lapsley that her boss is Bruce McDannold who in turn is in charge of the entire state certification department reporting ONLY to Bruce McPherson.

If true this is a serious promotion for McDannold, as it creates a new high-level department outside of the management of the elections division (run by Caren Daniels-Mead and Brad Clark).

McDannold is the California SecState staffer that very deliberately provoked a "PR war" with Black Box Voting by proposing that we at BBV test the Diebold memory card and interpreted code structure but using test protocols that were written by Diebold and blatantly biased; McDannold forwarded an MS-Word document on the proposed test procedures that was literally written by Diebold according to the document properties on the file:

http://www.bbvdocs.org/records/proposedhurstidemo.pdf

(In this link it is watermarked and converted to PDF but we have the original in MS-Word with the Diebold properties intact.)

The file is unsigned and contains no information on who wrote it; the authors at Diebold and McDannold were apparantly trying to make it look like a product of the SecState's office but they didn't know Microsoft tracks licenced users against documents and that this can be traced.

McDannold has also shut down all attempts by the public to ask questions of California certification staff and industry at public meetings, changed the rules on the certification meeting procedures at the last minute and prevented people from giving time to other speakers to get a higher quality of public input versus "everybody needs to come to the mike".

It should also be noted that certification staff within the California Secretary of State's office have frequently been hired by industry after leaving government "service": Alfie Charles was hired by Sequoia, Lou Deider was hired by ES&S and Deborah Seiler was hired by Diebold (she recently quit and went to work for Solano County's elections department). This revolving door pattern opens the possibility that pro-industry actions while on the state's payroll is being rewarded once they leave "public service"...this pattern has frequently been noted in the military-industrial sector.

This history and McDannold's well-documented "pro-Diebold" actions give us reason to hope that the California Senate Elections Committee one day soon asks McDannold under oath whether he's NOW working more on behalf of industry than the California public he allegedly serves.

* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *

TRIPLE PROTECTION FOR ELECTION 2006 - STARTING NOW:
(1) Use Freedom of Information, public records requests ("All American Paper Chase")
(2) Try Dumpster Diving for Democracy
(3) Candid America Project - Don't leave home without your camcorder
HOW TO DO IT: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/6/6.html

………………………………….


http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/19350.html

2-17-06: Election family tree: Who got us into this and how did they meet each other?

Black Box Voting » Latest Consumer Reports from Black Box Voting » 2-17-06: Election family tree: Who got us into this and how did they meet each other?

BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 07:01 am:

The history of some of these organizations is interesting. Some of the founders reportedly considered these organizations to be the branch of government the writers of the US Constitution forgot to form. A careful look at the actions of these organizations reveals:

- a strong privatization ethic
- "pay to play" -- some of these organizations swap huge corporate membership fees for "face time"
- The Election Center has played a major role in "training" (propagandizing) groups from some of these organizations
- Many of these organizations consider themselves to be private entities, not public, and may claim that they are not subject to public records laws. They sometimes claim that their meetings are not subject to public meetings laws.
- In other words, these organizations provide a way to conduct The People's business in private.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS DEALING WITH CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND ELECTIONS

COUNCIL ON GOVERNMENTAL ETHICS LAWS
Council on Governmental Ethics Laws
-Liaison for Government Agencies and Organizations Concerned with Ethics, Elections, Campaign Finance and Lobbying Laws
P.O. Box 60996
Jacksonville, Florida 32236
URL http://www.cogel.org
E-Mail: [email protected]
904/434-8831 FAX 904/693-0094

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECRETARIES OF STATE
Leslie Reynolds, Executive Director
National Association of Secretaries of State
Hall of the States
444 North Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 401
Washington, D.C. 20001
URL http://www.nass.org
E-Mail: [email protected]
202/624-3525 FAX 202/624-3527
George A. Munro, Press Secretary
Kidron Lewis, Executive Assistant
from BBV admin - worth a brief look: Is Kidron Lewis related to R. Doug Lewis and is George A. Munro related to Ralph Munro?

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE ELECTION DIRECTORS
Linda Lamone, President
Administrator, Maryland State Board of Elections
c/o The Election Center
12543 Westella, Suite 100
Houston, Texas 77077-3929
URL http://www.electioncenter.org/ and http://www.nased.org
281/752-6200 FAX 281/293-0453

National Conference of State Legislatures
William T. Pound, Executive Director
National Conference of State Legislatures
7700 East First Place
Denver, Colorado 80230
URL http://www.ncsl.org
303/364-7700 FAX 303/364-7800
Washington Office:
444 North Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 515
Washington, D.C. 20001
202/624-5400 FAX 202/737-1069

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ATTORNEYS GENERAL
Lynne Ross, Executive Director
National Association of Attorneys General
750 First Street, N.E., Suite 1100
Washington, D.C. 20002
URL http://www.naag.org
202/326-6000 FAX 202/408-7014

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES
Larry E. Naake, Executive Director
National Association of Counties
440 First Street, N.W., Suite 800
Washington, D.C. 20001-2080
URL http://www.naco.org
202/393-6226 FAX 202/393-2630

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY RECORDERS, ELECTION OFFICIALS AND CLERKS
Tracy Seabrook, Executive Director
National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks
P.O. Box 3159
Durham, North Carolina 27715-3159
URL http://www.nacrc.org
E-Mail: [email protected]
919/384-8446 FAX 919/383-0035

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CLERKS, RECORDERS, ELECTION OFFICIALS AND TREASURERS
Tony Sirvello, III, Executive Director
International Association Of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers
2400 Augusta Drive, Suite 250
Houston, Texas 77057-4943
URL http://www.iacreot.com
E-Mail: [email protected]
800/890-7368 FAX 713/789-1897

INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR ELECTION SYSTEMS
Richard W. Soudriette, President
International Foundation for Election Systems
1101 15th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
URL http://www.ifes.org
202/828-8507 FAX 202/452-0804

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MUNICIPAL CLERKS
Joe Tiernay, Executive Director
International Institute of Municipal Clerks
8331 Utica Avenue, Suite 200
Rancho Cucamonga, California 91730
URL http://www.iimc.com
E-Mail: [email protected]
909/944-4162 FAX 909/944-8545
}1-800/251-1639 (Toll Free)


See also: Council of State Governments. One of its principals was an original founder of The Election Center.

BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 07:33 am:

note from Bev:

Reading the following would annoy me if I saw someone else do it, because it is so tangentially related to anything. Early in the a.m., over coffee, I sometimes follow hunches that would be difficult to justify with logic. The Kidran Lewis thing, for some reason, interests me. NASS has had a very problematic role, and if this is the Texas 26-year old, one wonders why this youthful person was selected by NASS, what he/she did to get a $6,700 consulting fee from a DNC candidate, whether he/she has a relationship to the politically connected deLorenzi family -- a set of very connected Republicans from Texas and Virginia (Wash. DC area). Really, do not get excited about any of this. None of the details are found (yet) that would connect any dots. It is encouraging that the only question I initially set out to answer was whether Kidran Lewis might be Texan and related to R. Doug Lewis and boom, part one confirms, Kidran's Texan with D.C. connections.

Looking to see if NASS's Kidron Lewis might be related to Houston's R. Doug Lewis, who heads The Election Center -- long shot, of course --

we find Kidron Makamy Lewis, age 26, originally from Littleton Texas, attended Texas Tech University, some interest in international relations

we also find Kidron Lewis, treasurer of the Texas Fund, who also received $6,700 as a "consulting fee" for the [Martin] Frost for DNC chair campaign, which was launched Jan. 2005.

The email given on the Texas fund application, which contains only one person's name (Kidron Lewis) is [email protected]. The contact listed on Whois for patriot.net (a computer and internet services firm based near Washington D.C. in Virginia) is Bob deLorenzi.

This is getting even more tangential, but this tidbit is interesting:

Back again is the tireless ISP advocate Cynthia deLorenzi. She has connections in both Virginia and Texas. She runs Fairfax, Va.-based Patriot.net for her mother, who inherited the business when her brother, Bob deLorenzi (see in memoriam) passed away at the age of 42 in 2002. She continues her brother's work and his advocacy for telework. From November, 2000 until January, 2001, Bob deLorenzi served as the Chief Technical Consultant for the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition Team.

I think it may be worth looking into all employees and officials for NASS, to see what their connections are. Let's suppose, for a moment, that Kidran Lewis WAS related to R. Doug Lewis (a long shot, though). Then let's suppose that George A. Munro is related to Ralph Munro. One of the characteristics of organized crime is the creation of a trusted network. However, this is also a characteristic of political power.

In our upcoming book, Black Box America, we'll explore some of the characteristics of the illegitimate half-brother, organized crime, to its legitimate sibling, organized political power. (The legitimate sibling really hates to admit to its half-brother, but sometimes you just can't deny family relationships.)

The question we have to answer is: Which brother is which? Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart, especially with the more elegant mechanics of influence-peddling, and its illegitimate sibling, bribery.
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BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 - 07:41 am:

From Bev –

This post is only slightly more relevant to anything than the above. Ralph Munro is another particularly problematic character, one of the guys who got us into this mess. He's supposedly not connected to secretaries of state right now, because he's affiliated with a vendor, VoteHere. He violated Washington State ethics laws to take that position, just days after leaving office. (Washington law requires a waiting period of 1-3 years). No matter, no one does anything about violations of government ethics laws nowadays. At any rate, if Ralph Munro's son or nephew is spokesman for NASS, that would be interesting. It would call into question how the 28-year old got the position and what role Munro may continue to play, but it's probably not important.
Regarding George A. Munro: Ralph Munro, former Sec. State of Washington and VoteHere chairman (and a power player in electronic voting), at has lived on Bainbridge Island and Olympia. He is about 62. Deceased is George A. Munro, would now be 105, from Bainbridge Island. Another George A. Munro, age 28, is listed as living on Bainbridge Island and Olympia.

There are other George A. Munro's. However -- the Bainbridge Island George A. Munro's are very likely to be related to Ralph. What are the odds, I wonder, of searching for a name "George A. Munro" and finding it in two generations of the immediate family of the only Munro you check, when one works for a secretaries of state group and the other used to head that secretaries of state group? I'd say it is likely that George A. is related to Ralph. Whatever that gets us. A card in an Elections Reform Trivial Pursuit game?
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J. Presley
New BBV Member
Username: Justme

Posted on Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 01:01 pm:

Hmmm, with such uncommon last names as Lewis and Monro, no doubt evidence of a right wing conspiracy inside NASS.

Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin

Posted on Friday, February 17, 2006 - 11:08 pm:

Nope, not evidence and clearly identified as "not evidence" and "tangential."

It's spelled "Munro."

If you're looking for right wing conspiracies, you'll want other Web sites. At Black Box Voting, we've seen enough shenanigans on both sides to choke a horse, and we lost the "right wing conspiracy" concept many years ago.

Names like Lewis and Munro aside, have you had a chance to look at the funding and function of the organizations that are the topic of this thread?

Welcome to Black Box Voting.

Posted by: Prove Our Democracy with Paper Ballots on February 19, 2006 7:15 PM

Yes, just like John Kerry asked (to paraphrase) why did Democratic Senator Chris Dodd resist proof of our democracy and resist voting machine accountability? Also, Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer...

Against Paper Ballots
Steny Hoyer 202 225 4131
Christopher Dodd 202 224 2823

What Democrats can still be challenged in primaries, who support these non-evidentiary voting system? These "types" of democrats need to be replaced.

Just as the republicans need to be replaced who safeguard this non-evidentiary systems. Just as republicans need to be replaced who do not believe in global warming, for the sake of the upcoming hurricane season and any hope of a future for all of us. Global Warming is happening all around us now, and for republicans to fight global warming as real, to do nothing all the while to mitigate it, tells you everything you need to know about their lack of problem solving to help even their own families.

Posted by: Support Science to Reverse Global Warming, if still possible on February 20, 2006 3:44 PM

Whew! That's quite a comment from BBV there, Prove. It's important, I guess, but couldn't you have just posted a brief summary and a link? Now nobody's going to scroll down to read my measly comment!

Back on topic, these poll numbers look better for Bell than Gammage, in contrast to the Rasmussen poll, but consistent with Gammage's higher negatives in that poll. I have to agree 36% is a terrible showing for Perry. I doubt that getting Strayhorn out of the race is the key to beating him, though. It'd be helpful if the DMN had asked Strayhorn supporters whom they'd support if she doesn't get on the ballot, like they did the Friedman voters, but I suspect a plurality would still support Perry.

Here are the results "normalized" to 100% (i.e., assuming nonresponders who vote do so in the same proportion as the responders):

Perry: 44%
Bell: 23%
Strayhorn: 20%
Friedman: 12%

or

Perry: 45%
Gammage: 21%
Strayhorn: 21%
Friedman: 13%

Without Friedman:

Perry: 48%
Bell: 27%
Strayhorn: 25%

or

Perry: 48%
Strayhorn: 27%
Gammage: 25%

So even with a weak showing, this is still good news for Perry. It's still early, though, and the Democratic nominee has the biggest room for growth as his name recognition improves.

Posted by: Mathwiz on February 20, 2006 6:00 PM

regarding subpoenas for non-evidentiary voting machine companies

update: instead of calling, emails are preferred:

Posted on Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 08:45 am:

From Senator Bowen:

Hi CCN community--

Please email me in support of issuing subpoenas rather than calling -- you will save my staff a great deal of time logging calls, and you know what kind work we have to do right now.

use this address:

[email protected]

This will be greatly appreciated.

This is a critical time in this fight - thank you so much for blogging this and for CARING about our democracy.

...Email is great because it is easy for us to log and report -- and we can actually prove how many emails we've received!

We are going to need an enormous amount of people power in the next couple of weeks. Together we can change this whole pathetic mess. Let's stand

Posted by: Prove Our Democracy with Paper Ballots on February 21, 2006 4:34 PM