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djtestudo · 03-04-2006, 03:22 PM

Hey host:

http://gazette.net/stories/030306/po...47_31942.shtml

Quote:

Paybacks are hell
Friday, March 3, 2006

Blair Lee

Hell hath no fury like a newspaper scorned, especially a newspaper scorned at both the trial and appellate court levels. Sixteen months ago Gov. Bob Ehrlich ordered his executive agencies to give two Baltimore Sun journalists the silent treatment due to their biased, inaccurate hatchet jobs.

When the Sun sued Ehrlich a federal judge threw the case out of court. Pronouncing the judge in error, the Sun took its case to the federal appeals court, which also ruled against the Sun. Since then, the Sun’s coverage of Ehrlich has been even more unfair and retaliatory than before, if that was possible. Paybacks are hell and here are some examples:

*‘‘Voting-System Debate Colored By Party Politics” (Baltimore Sun, Feb. 21).

The news story: The thrust of this news story is that Ehrlich’s statement, ‘‘I no longer have confidence in the state Board of Elections’ ability to conduct fair and accurate elections in 2006,” was Ehrlich’s shabby attempt at intimidating the board and suppressing voter turnout.

The Sun reporter’s proof? Fourteen inflammatory quotes from partisan Democrats including, ‘‘This is pure unadulterated politics,” and, ‘‘He (Ehrlich) wants Florida and Ohio to happen in Maryland.” Deep into the article the reporter adds three quotes from Republicans — for ‘‘balance.”

Then the Sun reporter offers his own perspective, ‘‘(Ehrlich’s statement) was the latest effort by the governor to exert influence over the state elections board, something he has been thwarted from doing in the past ... despite a strong push, the governor has been unable to persuade the five-member state elections board to replace the state elections administrator, Linda H. Lamone, with someone the administration favors.”

The whole story: The reporter’s goal, painting a negative picture of Ehrlich playing politics with the elections process, was only made possible by omitting the full facts.

From time immemorial, state law allowed governors to appoint the state elections administrator — the person who oversees state elections. And for decades, Democratic governors appointed loyal Democrats who could be trusted to keep an eye on the party’s interests.

Then, in 1998, when Democratic lawmakers feared Ellen Sauerbrey might defeat Parris Glendening, they shifted the appointment power to the elections board, controlled by Democrats. When Ehrlich became governor in 2002, the Democratic legislature changed the rules even further — now Linda Lamone can only be removed by an 80 percent supermajority of the full elections board and even when removed she keeps her job until her successor is approved (if ever) by the state Senate, controlled by Democrats!

In other words, at the prospect of a GOP governor the Democrats installed a Democratic elections-administrator for life. Yet, none of this made it into the Sun’s story about ‘‘playing politics” with the elections board. Which raises this question: at what point do reporting omissions create an untruth?

http://www.gazette.net/stories/02170...12_31948.shtml

Quote:

Now the Democratic-controlled state legislature has passed a series of reckless elections changes that make things even worse. Nor do the safeguards you describe, which worked under our old system, plug the loopholes created by the new changes. Here’s why:

1. No voter identification. When someone decides to become a Maryland voter they register at their local elections board or by mail. If they register in person they can vote on Election Day without providing identification. If they registered by mail they must present identification the first time they vote but on every Election Day, thereafter, they too can vote without proving that they are the person they claim to be.

In other words, someone can walk into your voting place, claim to be Mary von Euler and, if you haven’t voted yet, they can cast your vote, unchallenged. And once that fraudulent vote is cast, it’s final and irretrievable. OK, hold that thought.

2. Provisional ballots. Until now, Maryland voters could only vote at the polling place in the precinct where they live, one of the few safeguards in Maryland’s shaky system.

Now, thanks to the Democrats, you can cast a so-called ‘‘provisional ballot” at any polling place in Maryland from Cumberland to Ocean City. This new liberalization creates a giant opportunity for wholesale fraud as follows:

As we already know, elections officials cannot make voters identify themselves (prove they are who they claim to be). And if someone votes by provisional ballot the current technology only enables elections officials to see if someone’s already voted at their home precinct. There’s no way to see if the voter has cast multiple votes (by provisional ballot) at other polling places away from home. Maryland lacks the ‘‘real time” technology (statewide e-poll books) to limit people to a single vote by provisional ballot.

So, I could cast 100 votes on Election Day by pretending to be a registered voter, say Bill Brown, who I know isn’t going to vote (because he’s dead, absent or a co-conspirator). Pretending I’m Bill Brown, I can cast provisional ballots at 100 different polling places. Once the elections officials at each polling place verify that Bill Brown didn’t vote at his home precinct, my fraudulent provisional ballots will be tabulated and become final and irretrievable.

Weeks later, during the official elections audit, officials will discover that someone claiming to be Bill Brown cast 100 provisional ballots but by then it’s too late. The fraudulent votes are in the system and I’ve escaped undetected.

3. Early voting. The problems described above are compounded by another harebrained Democratic elections change — opening the polls for five consecutive days before Election Day. Again, Maryland’s system lacks the technology to prevent multiple votes being cast.

That’s why Linda Lamone, the Democratic-appointed state elections administrator, has asked for $28 million to buy or lease e-poll books. Currently, says Lamone, ‘‘...election officials will not be able to prevent a voter from voting at more than one of the locations. While this type of fraud would certainly be detected after the election, during an election this type of activity is difficult to detect or stop ... This means that a dishonest voter will be able to vote during the early election period and then, again, on Election Day.”

A statewide voter registration database (e-poll books) would permit elections officials to instantly verify whether any voter, anywhere, has already voted. But this technology doesn’t yet exist in Maryland where the election is only seven months away.

So why not postpone provisional ballots and early voting until the 2008 election just as Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and state elections officials all recommended?

Because the top concern of Maryland’s Democrats is defeating Republicans, not the integrity of our elections. That’s why statehouse Democrats are pushing through a bill that restores voting rights to 150,000 felons, a move endorsed by the state Democratic Party, which expects most of these ex-cons to vote Democratic. Of course all this is being done in the name of ‘‘civil rights.”

But the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, who covers elections, put it best last week: ‘‘When voters are disenfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surly as if they where prevented from voting ... the Maryland lawmakers who are opening up new opportunities for fraud weaken the civil rights of all their constituents.”

These are both op-eds, but they are written by a Democrat protesting his party's policies in Maryland.

Just to show that it isn't necessarally a Republican/Neo-con/Bush-Big Brother consperacy when it comes to elections.