2020 Hindsight

CA Primary ... Los Angeles County Judicial Candidates

The hardest thing to research... the judicial races. The L.A. County Bar report on judicial elections. Who's rated Well Qualified, Qualified, Not Qualified.

Scroll down from the link to see the individual ratings for each race. (note: listing order in ballot is not the same as the listing order in this article)

Also, from The Metropolitan News, which covers courts in Los Angeles, is this on Office No 14. Tho William R Pounders is listed as running unopposed, Marge Buckley (Lawyer/Activist) qualified as a write-in candidate for that office.

. . . . . .

Pretty amusing... one candidate, Najera, appealed her "qualified" rating and instead of getting upgraded or staying the same, was downgraded to "not qualified". Don't go speculating on reasons why you got downgraded is the unintended point in this MetNews article. Najera (who'd been co-prosecutor of the second Menendez trial) thought that some committee member's connection with the defense attorney had an effect.

“I think Menendez is a huge part of [the negative rating],” Najera said.

[When Leslie Abrahamson, the Menendez defense attorney was asked for comment, she] said she had paid no attention to Najera’s candidacy. “[Najera] flatters herself to think I would give a s—-,” Abramson said.

Blogging of the President radio show

Via Jeff Jarvis, a radio show Sunday night at 9 eastern (6 Pacific). Chris Lydon will be hosting it. KPCC is going to be carrying it. (list of stations carrying the show)

Gerrymandate

Political action begins with casual discussion. Here's a recount of a discussion that took place, with some ideas.

The problem: Democratic process distorted; citizens feel disempowered.

The casual discussion: Friend of a friend says campaign finance reform is a really hard problem. An easier problem is unfair redistricting (gerrymandering) . That is, the process whereby elective district maps are drawn in order to favor one faction (or party), and so rig the game. Friend of a friend suggests, why not work on the easier problem?

Friend recounts this conversation to me. I post it here, remembering an excellent article I read during August recall season, Crisis in California, which numbered "Partison reapportionment" among its list of contributing factors.

One significant factor contributing to Capitol gridlock is the bipartisan redistricting adopted in 2001 and based on the 2000 Census. The vast majority of legislative and congressional districts created by that plan are so safe that most lawmakers effectively win their office in partisan primaries rather than in the general election.

The result is a Legislature that is ideologically polarized, said Allen Hoffenblum, a Republican consultant and co-author of "The Target Book," which tracks campaign activity in contested districts. "In primaries," he said, "hardcore liberals and hardcore conservatives dominate the selection process."

That contributes to gridlock because "a lot of what happens in legislatures these days is driven solely by ideology," said Alan Rosenthal, a professor at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University and a national expert on state legislatures. Republicans want to curtail government spending, and Democrats want to provide services, said Rosenthal, and "people in safe districts can indulge their ideological positions."

A consequence of the redistricting is the disappearance of the political middle -- the moderate lawmakers who often provide compromise votes on contentious issues. In years past, budgets were passed when majority Democrats peeled off a few moderate Republicans willing to help reach the required two-thirds vote. (emphasis mine) [Read more]

Friend of a friend thinks a ballot measure might be a way to battle bad redistricting. I think that no matter what the solution, the way to go about it is take it to the net via Dean-style politicking (group weblog/ meetup). Weblog to do initial research, gather like-minded to contribute thoughts, research, explore solutions and then get to work implementing same. This post is a start. Thoughts?

E-voting firm acknowledges hacker break-in

The company: VoteHere Inc of Bellevue, WA.

The intruder accessed internal documents and may have copied sensitive software blueprints that the company planned eventually to disclose publicly.

Chief executive Jim Adler said VoteHere was confident it knew the identity of its hacker and had already turned over "megabytes of evidence" to the FBI and Secret Service. It also repaired the hole in its computer network the intruder used to gain entry in October over the Internet, he said.

This is interesting:

Adler would not identify the company's chief suspect but said he thinks the person was linked to the debate over the security of electronic voting. The same individual may be tied to the theft in March of internal documents from Diebold Election Systems of Canton, Ohio.

"We caught the intruder, identified him by name. We know where he lives," Adler said. "We think this is political. There have been break-ins around election companies over the last several months, and we think this is related."

UPDATE: Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting (Dec 31 story; no permalinks, so you'll have to scroll or something later on) says something doesn't ring true (Diebold wasn't a hack; one instance was access to public FTP site, the other was a leak from an internal person).

I've had dealings with both the Diebold memo leaker and this supposed "VoteHere" hacker. The second person is NOT the same as the first. I am dead-certain of this. [Read More, including her accounts of dealings with the "hacker"]

California Voter Foundation report on Diebold evote machines

JD Lasica got a letter from a friend who attended the California Voter Foundation report about the widespread use of uncertified software on voting machines in all 17 California counties.

(Another perspective on yesterday's post on the same topic. See also this Mercury News story)

It was an astonishing piece of information -- no one knew how widespread the problem was of Diebold installing uncertified software in voting systems as was discovered in Alameda County. It turns out all of Diebold's California clients are using some version of Diebold software or firmware that is not certified by the state. [Read More]

grrl voter power

Specifically, single grrl voter power. [via BurningBird who found it from Sheila Lennon ]

Never-married, divorced or widowed women constitute a whopping 20 percent of the electorate and 42 percent of all registered women voters. In the 2000 elections, they represented the same percentage of the electorate as Jews, blacks and Latinos combined. In terms of voting muscle, few can compete with the girl power of this constituency.

Problem: Not enough voting from this group. Lots of eligible women who aren't registered to vote, lots of registered voters who don't make it to the polls.

Research conducted by the Women's Vote project reveals a stark picture of political alienation. The top three reasons cited by survey respondents for not voting: Politics and government seem so complicated that a person like me can't understand it; politicians don't listen to people like me; politics and elections are controlled by people with big money and big corporations. In other words, the constituency most affected by government policies--be it on retirement benefits or prescription drugs--also feels the most powerless to change them.

"These women are not uneducated about politics or the effect of policymaking on their lives, but they feel that they don't have a voice," says Desser.

Though I don't know where the demographic divide is among single women (high or low earning?) and among low-income people (male or female? If female, married or single?) but it calls to mind this story about Walk-a-Mile. Policy makers and low-income people paired one-on-one to learn about the other's life. I checked out Walk-a-mile's site further: many low-income people emerge from walk-a-mile with more confidence and a realization that their own fears or prejudices excluded them from the table.

Two Diebold-related stories by Wired News

E-voting undermined by sloppiness An audit of the voting machines reveals widespread use of uncertified software throughout California.

"The core of our American democracy is the right to vote," [California Secretary of State Kevin] Shelley said. "Implicit in that right is the notion that that vote be private, that vote be secure, and that vote be counted as it was intended when it was cast by the voter. And I think what we're encountering is a pivotal moment in our democracy where all of that is being called into question."

Con Job at Diebold Subsidiary Convicted felons were on staff at Global Election Systems, a company bought by Diebold and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary, Global Election Management Systems, maker of operating systems for touch-screen voting machines.

At least five convicted felons secured management positions at a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, according to critics demanding more stringent background checks for people responsible for voting machine software.

Voter advocate Bev Harris alleged Tuesday that managers of a subsidiary of Diebold Inc., one of the country's largest voting equipment vendors, included a cocaine trafficker, a man who conducted fraudulent stock transactions and a programmer jailed for falsifying computer records.

UPDATE: Diebold is quick to act: Today's press release announcing restructuring of qualification and certification of its software.

ALSO: Internal Diebold email discusses gouging the state of Maryland, which seeks to upgrade its Diebold machines with printers.

electronic voting slogans

BlackBoxVoting.org has a discussion area; one thread has slogans using the "black box" motif.

• NO Paper
  NO Problem
  NO Vote
• You voted? Got it on paper? SUCKER!
• Error 404: Vote Not Found
• General Election Fault - An Illegal General Election Fault has occurred. Please do not contact your System Administrator. We will vote for you.
• Paper ballots.

  Not vapor ballots.

Also, Paul Krugman, of the NYT had a column, Hacking the Vote, wherein he discusses Diebold.

Diebold backs down

A little publicity, a little legal pressure, and lo, they're seeing the light: people posting Diebold documents discussing eVoting machines weren't infringing Diebold's copyright.

E-voting machine manufacturer Diebold (Quote, Chart) has agreed to withdraw its cease-and-desist orders against privacy groups and several ISPs that had hosted or linked to sites that published internal e-mails discussing problems with e-voting technology.

Well the Diebold spokesperson does not agree with my initial assessment: he says that it's still a violation of copyright, but the company is not going to pursue it anymore. The EFF is moving forward to get a ruling on whether it's copyright violation.

I wonder if some of what brought this to a head was Democratic Presidential candidate Rep Kucinich posting the documents on his website on the house.gov website?

...and now that the project that ended in a deathmarch is over, and my lower back is nearly recovered from same (chiropractic motto: move it or lose it, so stretch right now if you're reading this!), maybe I'll get some of those banner slogans going that I mentioned a while back....

alt.diebold.proprietary.audittrail-less.die.die.die.die

Lots of linkage and blogging about Diebold and doubts about their paper-trail-less voting machines, dubious software, commercial and political conflicts of interest by a Diebold exec, and Diebold's efforts to squash efforts to publicize internal information about their problems. (The Aussies have the right idea: make the voting machines open source.

I'd like to create some banner art to further publicize this. Ideally banners would point to a central site with more info. What would that central place be?

Slogan ideas, so far:

• "Democracy is not proprietary"
• "If ATMs can give you a receipt, so should a voting machine"
• "Get your proprietary hands off our democracy"
• "Diebold, how's your software code? Our election results depend on it. Show it to us"
• Ronald Reagan said "Trust... but verify." Diebold, Verify the machine code. Verify with an audit-trail.

Have any more?

(make your own church sign )