Entries Tagged 'Elections' ↓

Don’t forget to vote in Tuesday’s School Board Election, May 21. The school district will once again be using super precincts and you can vote at ANY location OR at the county administration building, absentee.

I feel that Schorzman and Reiter will bring fresh ideas to the school board. Joshua wants to have monthly informational meetings for the public, something the City Council does on a weekly basis. Reiter is a young mother who is very well-informed when it comes to public education in our community.

I don’t really have a position on Leedom, except that Joshua and Carly seem more qualified. As for Alberty, it time to retire his Homan Rubberstamp. School Board members should be watchdogs of the Administration, not lapdogs.

The main reason I took out the nominating petitions was to encourage others to run. This has happened. I have often contested that I wield a much bigger sword on my blog then I ever would on any council, commission or board.

Not to mention, I like to have a lot of fun in my personal life, and sometimes that ‘fun’ doesn’t really matchup with political office. Well maybe it does

Anyhoo, I want to thank everyone who signed my petition.

Maybe someday Detroit Lewis will serve publicly, but not today.

I have at least one supporter

Well I know of least one challenger to Alberty and Westra.

After a long conversation and consultation with my wife and children (actually just my dog, Sodapop) I picked up nominating petitions just a short while ago. I decided to AT least get the petitions signed and turned in. This DOES NOT mean I am running for sure. If NO other candidates decide to challenge Alberty and Westra, at least they will have one to debate. The city council may be able to bail on the Spring election, but the school district will not.

Please, People, help a brother out and pickup the petitions!

MY PLATFORM (if I choose to walk the plank)

Indoor Public Pool in conjunction with the city.

Substitute teacher pay.

Property taxes in reference to people without children in the district.

No RUBBERSTAMPING of Homan’s policies.

If you are thinking about running for school board, you can pickup your petitions Tuesday March 12 and return them by April 12. You need 20 valid signatures. I know that Julie Westra and Kent Alberty are running for re-election. I have also heard word that the Mark Twain neighborhood parents are looking to recruit a candidate and put their full support behind them. The Dems have also been seeking candidates, I think they would like to unseat Julie (Alberty is a Democrat).

I will also be posting information soon about what the school board members are getting paid.

A sorry movement has been growing over the last couple of years at a feverish rate.  The people have voted against FAUX News and Rove even after the vote fix was in.  Something must be done.  Consider what is happening in Pierre and other state capitals as the elected and appointeds work to figure out how to roll our nation back to the 1800’s.  Senator Stan’s Adelstein’s proposal to have direct primary nomination election of constitutional candidates in South Dakota is a throwback to the Progressive Era our current ‘leaders’ wish to destroy.

DWC – Pat Powers’ recent rants to continue his destruction of all things related to Senator Stan.  We must not forget Pat’s job loss was a result of last May’s expose’ of SOS Jason Gant and his ethically challenged / legally questionable activities.  South Dakota was in the center of the nation’s Progressive movement.  Much of what we currently have as average Americans is in no small part because of what happened in Sioux Falls and South Dakota.  Governor Lee, Peter Norbeck, Governor Tom Berry through Abourezk and McGovern were prairie progressives who believed in the average person.  Only the rich, selfish or wish to be selfishly rich have fought the ideals of expanded rights for all people.

So when I read about more idiots who wish to roll back the Progressive Era advancements, the more I want to remind everyone of our collective history.  The absurd right has it wrong on all counts, how can we go back to something that never existed in the first place?  So we have reactionaries like Pat Powers who lost his job to save a leader of South Dakota RSLC – ALEC.  Jason Gant had to be saved.  Jason has funneled funds and support to many of the right people to make sure Keystone XL pipeline destroys the ecology of South Dakota.  The John Birch Society controlled RSLC – ALEC will never let the common person have any say in the affairs of governing.  It is not in their plan.  Pat Powers is only a mouthpiece.  A person who proudly boasts either way, he makes money.  Remember this, he is a mouthpiece for the rich, selfish or wish to be selfish rich. Here is another example of what ‘conservatives’ want to do for voters;

National Review Blogger Calls for Repeal of Women’s Suffrage

By Amanda Marcotte
Wednesday, February 20, 2013 9:15 EST

Thanks for getting arrested, but since your forebears chose to use their rights to get more rights, all rights have to go.

Michael Walsh of National Review Online called for the termination of women’s right to vote last week:

Nevertheless, you’re on to something I’ve been advocating for years now. And that is the repeal of all four of the so-called “Progressive Era” amendments, including the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th, which were passed between 1911 and 1920.

One of those has already been repealed—the 18th amendment, which ushered in Prohibition—which Walsh admits. That’s not really what he’s on about anyway:

The income-tax amendment was a self-evident attack on capitalism and led to the explosive growth of the federal government we currently enjoy today. (Without it, there’d be no need for a Balanced Budget Amendment.) Direct elections of senators has given us, among other wonders, the elevation of John F. Kerry to, now, secretary of state. Prohibition was directly responsible for the rise of organized crime and its unholy alliance with the big-city Democratic machines. And women’s suffrage . . . well, let’s just observe that without it Barack Obama could never have become president. Time for the ladies to take one for the team.

I suppose we’re supposed to imagine it’s a “joke”, because he takes a jovial tone for the last one. But if so, it doesn’t make sense. He’s dead fucking serious about the other two—three, really, because he only seems to be against Prohibition because he believes it gave Democrats a leg up, which is one of those deaf-to-historical-change moments that lead Republicans to imagine that Lincoln would have anything to do with the modern version of their party—so, as a joke, it falls completely apart. If he hadn’t rolled it up with the other amendments initially, the “joke” defense he clearly has in his pocket would be an easier sell. Something like, “I’ve long advocated for the repeal of 3 of the Progressive Amendments (though one has already been repealed), and hey, ladies, sometimes you make me wish to repeal all four.” It would still be a misogynist joke, but easier to sell as a joke, even if not a very funny one.

As it stands, it’s clear he’s doing what Al Franken calls “kidding on the square“, where you say something you mean but pretend it’s a joke so you don’t have to take responsibility for it. Franken has some fun with it in his books, calling himself out for it and therefore turning a typically unfunny bit of passive-aggression into a for-real joke, but I’m guessing you all know that because of course you’ve read his books. Kidding on the square is a favorite tool of sexists, who want to say sexist things, but are too cowardly to say them directly. Walsh is just a particularly obvious example. And no, none of the other National Review bloggers argued with him on this point.

I’m trying to imagine the shitstorm that would erupt if a feminist dare say men should forsake their right to vote until they shape up and start voting correctly. It certainly wouldn’t slide under the waters, like this did.

I see that after the Sioux Falls City council has denied a special snowgate election this Spring with the school district, they are going to discuss how they will hold special elections with the School District in the future;

#51 Deffered: Joint elections – agreement to share expenses.

I have often believed that the SNAFU with the School District and the missing mini-van ballots was one of the reason(s) the city council denied the snowgate election this Spring. The city simply doesn’t want to work with the school district in the future for special elections, that is also why they have allowed this Contract (sfsdcity) to be deferred for so long. I would suspect this will probably set a precedent in the future, I suspect future councils will continue to deny joint elections with the school district. It is a shame really when local government officials from different branches cannot get along and work together, because ultimately in the end, they all work for us, the taxpayer.

As I said to a friend the other day about our city, county and school district local government,

“It’s a F’ing mess!”

Minnehaha County Commissioner, Dick Kelly, just can’t understand why anyone would want to petition their government;

Commissioner Dick Kelly countered, “Everybody has the right to petition. The problem is they have to work within the accommodations we have. I thought last summer was really bad. Petitioners were out there for everything you can think of.”

Dick, you are correct we have the RIGHT to petition our government. We also pay for the heating and the cooling of the county administration building, it is a public facility, we own the place.

I have often said if our local elected officials did the WORK OF THE PEOPLE we would not have to have so many petition drives, but nowadays it seems like that is the only way to get anything accomplished in local government, unless of course they postpone an election

Instead complaining about petitioners Dick, why not just listen to the public and serve them better instead increasing their taxes and giving yourself a raise. Let’s talk about who is ‘BAD’.

Steve is no stranger to local politics, he helped with getting Huether elected, he was the force behind the BID group and he helped get President Obama elected as his deputy campaign manager. Steve is no fan of Huether and once said to me,

“I will do anything I can to make sure Huether is not re-elected.”

No love lost between the two I guess.

I received an email this afternoon that Steve may be considering running against the mayor in 2014 from a reliable source. I hope Steve commits, it could make for an interesting campaign season next fall.

Merry Christmas driveway scoopers of all!

The snowgate petitions will be turned in during a press conference on Tuesday (Nov 27) at Carnegie Hall at 1 PM.

This brings us to the next step in the process, the SF city council calling the election. I will keep you updated about the council times, etc.

All petitions are serial numbered, scanned and in electronic form ready to be utilized to encourage the citizens to participate in future work. These signatures were gathered in less than 10 weeks, by over 50 volunteer petition circulators.

This is the gift-wrapped box that over 8,000 signatures will be delivered tomorrow in.

CARTOON: by Dan Piraro

NOTE from DL: Before everyone goes off the deep end about conspiracy theories, etc. Please read the entire story. Rove has made his living from ‘running the numbers’ in elections. And he has a pretty good success rate. Hey, when you cheat and don’t play by the rules, you can win just about any parlor game, until you get caught of course.

Remember the video posted…  Very Strange video targeted at Rove I have been reading about his for months and now the individuals are publishing more of the story…  This is why Rove went crazy on FOX during the Ohio result announcement and declaration.  Everything he was doing was destroyed.  This is what he was doing to alter results during the 2004 Bush campaign with the Republican IT specialist.  Michael Connell, who just happen to die in the plane crash just after giving the deposition implicating Rove was key to exposing this effort.  Rove has been a key player to GOP voter manipulation since 1972.  National political players are afraid of Rove and FOX because of his use of people unheard of in American politics.  It is possible, the ‘sweet’ Megan Kelly moment on election night may have been part of the national GOP uber-power structure trying to get Rove under control.

Wow, this has so many implications…

• Centrally controlled voting systems
• Centrally controlled voter rolls
• Centrally controlled tabulators
• Citizens United
• So much more…

Karl Rove Loses Election After Being Checkmated By Cyber Sleuths?

By CL - Posted on 15 November 2012

Last month, we offered a million dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who rigged a federal election on November 6th.  We urged computer experts to contact us with information about any election manipulation of the tabulation results.

We Received A Letter

On November 12th, we received a letter from “The Protectors,” apparently a group of white hat cyber sleuths, mentioning our reward and stating that two months ago, they began monitoring the “digital traffic of one Karl Rove, a disrespecter of the Rule of Law, knowing that he claimed to be Kingmaker while grifting vast wealth from barons who gladly handed him gold to anoint another King while looking the other way.”

“The Protectors” said that they had identified the digital structure of Rove’s operation and of ORCA, a Republican get out the vote software application.  After finding open “doors” in the systems, they created a “password protected firewall” called “The Great Oz,” and installed it on servers that Rove planned to use on election night to re-route and change election results “from three states.”

The letter indicated that “ORCA Killer” was launched at 10am EST and “The Great Oz” at 8pm EST on November 6th.    “The Protectors” watched as ORCA crashed and failed throughout Election Day.  They watched as Rove’s computer techs tried 105 times to penetrate “The Great Oz” using different means and passwords.

Finally, they issued the following warning to Mr. Rove: don’t do it again or they would turn over the evidence to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

We are not in a position to vouch for the contents of this letter any more than we can vouch for the video by Anonymous warning Karl Rove not to rig the election.  However, we can analyze that content under the prism of Mr. Rove’s history and facts over the past few weeks.  We do so in the hope that this will lead to an investigation of Mr. Rove’s entire operation ala General David Petraeus.  In that spirit, we provided this information to the FBI prior to publication, and followed up after publication.  For years, we have campaigned for a complete investigation of Mr. Rove. And we have provided extensive legal memos and evidence to the FBI to support such an investigation.

We urge others who have information to about election tampering or other criminal violations by Mr. Rove, including violations of campaign finance laws, to provide that evidence to the FBI.  We also urge people who gave money to Mr. Rove and his organizations to contact the FBI if they were misled, promised things that did not happen, or were otherwise defrauded.

Rove’s Background And Election Night Meltdown

Karl Rove has a history of rigging elections going back several decades, including in 2004 when he orchestrated a man-in-the-middle attack to change the votes from Ohio.

In 2012, Mr. Rove’s SuperPacs raised and spent hundreds of millions on behalf of GOP candidates.  He courted billionaires and promised them that his candidates would win.

Days before the 2012 election, Mr. Rove predicted a strong Romney win. His spinners lionized him in articles that portrayed him as invincible.

On election night, Mr. Rove worked the three states that held the key to the election – Ohio, Florida and Virginia.  But when he tried to access the Ohio election website, he kept getting error messages.

Finally, immediately after Ohio was called for President Obama around 11:30 EST, Mr. Rove appeared on FOX News to dispute the call, saying the election there is far from settled and the call was “premature.”

Fox News’s Chris Wallace said the Romney campaign does “not believe Ohio is in the Obama camp,” noting that he got an email from a top Romney aide who said the campaign disagrees with the network’s call. He then asked Rove if he believed Ohio has been settled.

“No, I don’t,” Rove said.

“I think this is premature,” he added. “We’ve got a quarter of the vote. Now remember, here is the thing about Ohio. A third of the vote or more is cast early and is won overwhelmingly by the Democrats. It’s counted first and then you count the election day and the question is, by the time you finish counting the election day does it overcome that early advantage that Democrats have built up in early voting, particularly in Cuyahoga County.”

Rove said the network needs to be “careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the two candidates and a quarter of the vote yet to count. Even if they have made it on the basis of select precincts, I’d be very cautious about intruding in this process.

The Failure Of ORCA On Election Day

The Rove/Romney coalition created Project Orca, which was supposed to enable poll watchers to record voter names on their smart phones, by listening for names as voters checked in. This would give the campaign real-time turnout data, so they could redirect GOTV resources throughout the day where it was most needed. They recruited 37,000 swing state volunteers for this.

According to various sources, however, ORCA totally failed on Election Day: PIN numbers and passwords did not work, reset tools failed, customer support was ineffective and unavailable, Comcast shut down access for fear of a DDOS attack, and the system crashed and had trouble re-booting. “At one point during Election Day, the system had malfunctioned so badly that desperate volunteers wondered if the program had been hacked.”

Anonymous Warned Rove Prior To The Election

Two weeks prior to the November 6th election, the hactivist group Anonymous posted a video warning Karl Rove not to rig the election.

They told Mr. Rove that he was being watched and that if he attempted to rig the election, he would be stopped.  That video went viral in just days.

The Letter From “The Protectors”

The letter we received just days after the election ties together all the information set forth above about the digital difficulties faced by Karl Rove and the GOP on November 6th.

· Karl Rove’s digital architecture surrounding the election was identified and compromised by cyber sleuths in a way that denied him the ability to manipulate election results;

· Project Orca was not secure and had numerous flaws that were exploited to ensure failure;

· Karl Rove was focused on three states—Ohio, Virginia and Florida;

· “Orca Killer” was launched early in the day resulting in failures starting in the morning;

· “The Great Oz” was launched at 8pm, just as polls closed on the East Coast;

· The Ohio Secretary of State results were inaccessible to Mr. Rove after 8pm;

· Mr. Rove disputed the call for Ohio, and told FOX News that it was “premature” as he kept trying to access the results;

· Mr. Rove, Mitt Romney, the GOP, its billionaires, and its talking heads were all “convinced” up to the last minute that Mr. Romney would win, some even saying “by a landslide;”

· Prior to the election, Anonymous warned Mr. Rove that it had identified his digital structure and was watching for any manipulations;

· Mr. Romney and the GOP leadership were “shell shocked” when President Obama won the election.

The Upshot Of All This

Apparently, “The Protectors” were able to completely thwart Karl Rove’s attempts to manipulate this election by employing a firewall to stop man-in-the-middle tabulation attacks and improper transfers of tabulation data.  Moreover, apparently, they were able to pinpoint and exploit flaws and structural weaknesses in Project Orca that caused a cascading of problems and subsequent catastrophic failure.  Apparently, there was some connection between Mr. Rove and Project Orca, and they were probably both plugged into the same voter database.

Lessons Learned And Our Position

At VR, we have spent the past decade exposing flaws in the election process, especially the use of electronic voting, secret software and cyber-attacks on tabulation systems.  Princeton computer scientists, Argonne Laboratories experts, GOP insiders and even the CIA have shown that electronic election manipulation is both possible and occurring.

Based on our experience and the supporting evidence, we take the letter from “The Protectors” at face value.  Karl Rove had the means, motive, experience and opportunity to do whatever it took to win the election for his clients.  If he, in fact, intended to use improper and illegal means to digitally manipulate the election, and white hat cyber sleuths who stopped it discovered that, then that is a good thing.  We hope that those cyber sleuths will provide that evidence to the FBI, post it publicly or send it to us to do so.

One thing that is not clear from the letter is the relationship between the cyber manipulation and Project Orca.  Were they both part of Karl Rove’s scheme?  Were they using the overlapping servers or databases?  Did “The Great Oz” automatically cause problems for Project Orca?  Did Mr. Rove plan to use the data from “Project Orca” to help the cyber manipulation scheme succeed?  We would like to know the answers to these questions so we can more fully understand the legal and moral implications of “Orca Killer.”

As far as lessons learned, we are hopeful that those who have been skeptical and opposed to greater security in elections will now get on board in a bipartisan manner to, as President Obama said, “fix” the broken election system.  We are hopeful that billionaires, SuperPacs and politicians will see, as governments in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere have seen, that a few dedicated cyber sleuths can protect democracy from corrupt power brokers by thwarting electoral crimes. We are hopeful that everyone will see Karl Rove for what he is – a scammer who can’t win without cheating and manipulating election results.