The most important voting rights law in American history turns 47 today.
Rolling Stone debunks GOP voter fraud myths
Most instances cited by Republicans are clerical errors, shoddy reporting, wildly exaggerated/misrepresented, or not fraud at all.
Don’t show me that one time that one guy did that one thing. Show me the election that was thrown — or was even close to being thrown — by fraud.
Until you can do that, you get to shut up about how essential voter ID and voter roll purges are for America.
(via mommapolitico)
Source: Rolling Stone
Meet Command Central, the People in Charge of Wisconsin Voting Machines
Forty-six Wisconsin counties and 3,000 voting machines are being controlled by a two-person company operating out of a strip mall in Minnesota.
By law, voting machines must be publicly tested prior to every election. A Programmable Read Only Memory (P.R.O.M.) pack or cartridge is used to reprogram the machines with the details of the current election. Clerks receive two PROM packs from Command Central: A PRE-LAT, which is used a week or so before the election for the public test, and an “Official” pack used on Election Day. Whoever programs the PROM packs has the ability to inject all the machines with a virus that will flip votes only on Election Day. With two different PROM packs in play, it’s easy to see how public tests could be flawless and the machines could still flip votes Election Day.
In his report of his experience with the November 2010 gubernatorial election for Scott Walker, John Washburn, an election integrity investigator and professional software tester for almost 20 years, states, “I have been to dozens of voting system test sessions and have never seen any of this faux ‘testing’ actually test the voting system software correctly. This is the professional opinion of a software tester testing software since 1994.”
Washburn also filed an open records request with Command Central to examine the PROM packs from the July 15, 2011 recall election in wards 1-4 in Fox Point. When they responded that it would cost him $450, Washburn filed a complaint alleging that Command Central LLC wasn’t cooperative in responding to the open records request.
Justice Department Orders Florida to Stop Voter Purge Targeting Latino, Democratic Voters
The Justice Department has ordered Florida, a likely key swing state in the 2012 election, to end a controversial voter purge that has primarily targeted Latino, Democratic and independent-minded voters. The Justice Department says the process had not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act. Some Democratic politicians have expressed fear the purge could help Mitt Romney win the state in November. “What we’ve seen in Florida is an effort on a massive scale by Governor [Rick] Scott to suppress the vote, to make it more difficult for people to vote,” says Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL). We’re also joined by Diana Sen, lead counsel for LatinoJustice, part of a coalition of civil rights groups working to protect Latino voters in Florida and elsewhere; and by Maureen Russo, a Fort Lauderdale resident who was among the voters initially purged even though she is a U.S. citizen who has voted for the past 40 years. “I believe it’s because I’m a registered Democrat,” Russo says.
