Democrats Eye Senate Majority
2 GOP Senators Rumored Ready to 'Jump the Aisle'

URL for this article:
http://www.nyblade.com/2007/2-2/
news/localnews/senjump.cfm

By Kerry Eleveld
Friday, February 02, 2007

Two Senate Republicans may soon become Senate Democrats if Nassau County Legislator Craig Johnson, the Democratic candidate for the 7th state Senate district seat, wins the special election on February 6.

"There's a real possibility that the Democrats will take back a majority in the state Senate this year," said Ethan Geto, a Democratic strategist and president of Geto and de Milly. "There are two Republican state Senators who have been rumored to be talking to the Democratic Senate leadership and are prepared to jump the aisle."

The likelihood of that scenario playing out increases significantly if Craig Johnson wins his bid for the Senate seat vacated when Republican Michael Balboni accepted a post as Gov. Spitzer's deputy secretary of public safety. Johnson's win would whittle down the Senate Republican majority to two seats, and the defection of two Republicans would put both parties at 31 seats each, leaving the tie breaking vote to Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat.

Lt. Gov. Paterson has hinted at the prospect of Senate Democrats taking the majority in previous interviews with the Blade. When asked after his inauguration if the Democrats might achieve a Senate majority in 2008, Lt. Gov. Paterson said, "Give me a couple more months and it might happen in 2007."

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith is working hard to fulfill Paterson's prophecy. Within the last couple weeks, Geto said Sen. Smith had "reiterated his strong support for passing a gay marriage bill and is looking toward cobbling together a Democratic majority in the state Senate so they can move the bill."

Geto declined to name names, but one need only survey media from around the state to drum up some theories.

Sen. John Bonacic of New Paltz has been noted repeatedly on The New York Observer Politicker blog for having led a "lonely revolt" in Albany when he was the sole senator to call for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's resignation due to an FBI probe into his business dealings. One week later, the Times Herald-Record reported that Gov. Spitzer had held an hour-long meeting with Sen. Bonacic.

Meanwhile, the Albany Times Union blog called Sen. Joseph Robach, who became a Republican when he jumped the aisle back in 2002, a "prime candidate" for switching parties again.

A Democratic Senate majority would prompt a dramatic shift in focus to the Assembly where all eyes would be on Speaker Sheldon Silver. Democrats hold a 107-43 seat advantage in the Assembly. Still, more than a few activists have noted Silver's reluctance to bring a marriage bill up for a vote if it doesn't have a chance in the Senate.

"If we capture the majority in the Senate, it makes it easier for a bill to be brought to the floor of the Assembly and voted on because there's no longer the prospect of it being a one-house bill," said Geto.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5344

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: January 27, 2007

New York officials have given up on replacing the state's aging voting machines by the fall elections, and some would like to put off buying new electronic voting systems until after the 2008 presidential election, state officials said yesterday.

New York is the last state to update its machines, and the latest delay comes amid growing questions about the work of a laboratory that was hired to help test the machines being offered by five bidders.

Based in part on the problems with the testing lab, the New York State Board of Elections has pushed back its deadline for certifying which machines would be acceptable until at least May.

Given the months it would take for counties to acquire the machines and train poll workers, "that would make it impossible to replace anything more than a few isolated machines for the 2007 elections," said Douglas A. Kellner, a board co-chairman.

Mr. Kellner said it might be possible to have the new system ready for the presidential primary in March 2008. An association of county election officials passed a resolution last week urging the state to wait until 2009, and Mr. Kellner said most board members agreed that it would be better if the state did not have to make such sweeping changes amid the high turnout of a presidential election.

But because the electronic systems are easier for the disabled to use than the old lever machines, the state was required by Congress and a federal court order to make the changes more quickly. Mr. Kellner said those orders would need to be amended to allow for further delays and to let New York hold on to at least $50 million in federal funds to help pay for the machines.

Mr. Kellner said the elections board was also considering whether to terminate its contract with the testing lab, Ciber Inc., which has also run into trouble with federal officials.

The board suspended Ciber's work earlier this month after The New York Times reported that federal officials had found deficiencies in its practices and had held up its application for temporary accreditation under a new oversight program.

State election officials then asked Ciber, based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, and the federal Election Assistance Commission for the reports about the deficiencies. The company turned them over on Thursday, after state officials threatened to subpoena the documents. The federal commission posted them on its Web site yesterday, along with a letter warning Ciber that it had only four to five more weeks to fix the problems.

According to the documents, a federal auditor found last July that Ciber, the nation's largest tester of voting machine software, did not follow its own quality-control procedures or conduct all the proper tests.

The documents indicate that in many cases, the lab simply used tests suggested by the voting machine manufacturers, rather than running standardized checks of its own. The auditor also criticized the lab for "acceding too quickly" to requests by the voting machine companies to modify the tests.

Voting machine experts have long been concerned about possible conflicts of interest in the testing, and some say the problems with Ciber have raised questions about the security and reliability of some of the machines now in use.

In a written response to the audit, company officials also acknowledged "relatively loose handling" of meetings during the testing. "Since we are a small group, we often just call each other down the hall for a meeting, especially if something is critical," the response said.

Ciber's spokeswoman, Diane C. Stoner, said in a statement yesterday that the company had fixed most of the problems and expected to receive the federal certification.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5321

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20070128/SUB/70128028/1049/toc

Lacking cohesive support system, vets fall through cracks; city steps up efforts

By: Samantha Marshall
Published: January 28, 2007 - 6:59 am

When he left the military in August 2005, John DeVito was hoping for a better life. It hasn't turned out that way.

The former Army tank driver, who saw six months of combat in Iraq as a member of the invading forces, was injured at a roadside check outside Baghdad. The barrel-chested 23-year-old now needs a cane to get around. He can't find a job and believes that his disability, combined with his limited work experience, has hurt his prospects.

Mr. DeVito is getting by on about $450 a month in military disability payments and staying with his mother on Staten Island while he studies computer science.

"To go back to living under Mommy's roof is never a great feeling after being independent," says Mr. DeVito, who last year was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder last year by a doctor with the Department of Veterans Affairs. "A lot of stuff gets compounded - past events from combat and my current standing - and I go through these bouts of depression."

His story is the story of thousands of New Yorkers who are struggling to re-enter civilian life after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Many of them suffer from social, medical or psychological problems caused by the stresses of battle. Left untreated, such trauma symptoms - which studies indicate affect about one in five veterans - usually worsen over time.

Coming home

The vets stumble through a confusing tangle of government and nonprofit agencies offering help. It's an inadequate system that can't even muster an official, up-to-date count of how many vets are at risk.

As of the end of 2005, at least 6,000 people in the New York area had been discharged from tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. That was the last time the Department of Defense released such data. Experts estimate the current figure to be about 8,000. President George W. Bush's recent decision to deploy 21,000 additional soldiers to Iraq stands to increase the population of vulnerable returnees.

"There's a real need out there, and it must be addressed," says Robert Greene, combat veteran coordinator for New York Harbor Health Care System, a VA hospital that has registered 3,685 veterans seeking services since October 1, 2004.

An initial Crain's investigation 18 months ago found early signs of a troubled homecoming for the city's veterans (August 30, 2005, Page 1). At the time, advocates estimated that perhaps as many as 100 men and women who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan were homeless. Today, according to the people who treat and counsel veterans, the number of homeless vets in the city probably exceeds 100 and is climbing.

New York officials have recently stepped up their outreach. Last month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced initiative "Project Welcome Home" to find housing for 100 veterans of any war within 100 days. He launched a joint task force of the city, the VA and nonprofits and charged it with finding ways to help those who served. After being lobbied by advocates, the mayor also successfully championed the cause of two VA hospitals that Washington was threatening to close.

Meanwhile, some City Council members are floating a proposal to budget $5 million to create a one-stop referral center in each borough. The centers would address a major problem: The network of agencies serving returning vets is decentralized and disorganized. A spokesman for the mayor says that Mr. Bloomberg hasn't ruled out supporting the proposal, which will be one of many options considered.

Robert Hess, commissioner of New York's Department of Homeless Services, says, "We want to try to craft a different system that identifies veterans' needs earlier to prevent them from ever ending up on the streets."

The efforts are coming not a moment too soon. Though the VA is the principal agency for discharged servicemen and women, not all are eligible for help. In addition, budget cuts have hit the agency hard.

Though the figures are rough, some advocates estimate that at least 3,000 more New York vets will need help with housing, mental health issues and job counseling over the next two years. They will turn increasingly to city agencies ill-equipped to handle the influx: The Mayor's Office of Veterans' Affairs has a budget of $180,000 and a staff of three. Veterans say they end up dialing 311 to find out where they can get help, usually without success.

"If I got out of the military right at this moment, I would have no idea where to go for veteran services in the city," says Joseph Bello, a veterans advocate.

Facing foreclosure

One female army veteran who asked not to be named says that since leaving active duty a year ago, she has made dozens of calls for assistance with job placement and legal issues. She now faces foreclosure on her late parents' home in Queens.

City and federal agencies don't have a handle on how many are in the greatest need. The city puts the overall number of homeless vets in the five boroughs at about 700, though there's no consensus even among departments. The figure probably understates the problem.

"The truth is, nobody knows with certainty" how many Iraq and Afghanistan vets are included in that tally, Mr. Hess says. "I'm sure there are a few, and I'm sure there will be more over time, tragically."

ASSISTANCE FOR VETS

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS HEALTH CARE

New York Harbor Health Care System (212) 951-3295

READJUSTMENT COUNSELING

Bronx Vet Center (718) 367-3500

Brooklyn Vet Center (718) 624-2765

Harlem Vet Center (212) 426-2200

Manhattan Vet Center (212) 620-3306

Queens Vet Center (718) 296-2871

Staten Island Vet Center (718) 816-4499

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Workplace questions (866) 4USA-DOL

NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS COUNSELING

National Veterans Foundation Hotline (888) 777-4443

GENERAL SUPPORT

Veterans of Foreign Wars (212) 807-3164

Black Veterans for Social Justice (718) 852-6004

Citizen Soldier (212) 679-2250

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (212) 982-9699

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NYMetroVets/

HOUSING

New Era Veterans (718) 904-7036

Salvation Army Borden Avenue
Residence (718) 784-5690

Comments? SMarshall@crain.com

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5313

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

January 8, 2007, 8:33 PM EST

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) - Craig Johnson, a popular county legislator, was nominated Monday to run for a key state Senate seat being left vacant by Michael Balboni's departure to Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration as chief of homeland security.

Johnson, 35, will face Maureen O'Connell, a former Republican state assemblywoman and the current Nassau County clerk, in the Feb. 6 election.

Jay Jacobs, chairman of the Nassau County Democrats, said Johnson comes to the table with a solid record and base of supporters. "He knows how to campaign, voters are used to voting for him and he has an excellent record in the Legislature," Jacobs said.

Johnson was elected to the 11th Legislative District in a special election in 2000 after the death of the former legislator, Barbara Johnson, his mother.

He was re-elected to the post in 2001 and 2003. In 2005, he received 73 percent of the votes, Jacobs said.

The race for the 7th Senate District seat is considered a possible opening for Democrats on Long Island, where they hold a slight advantage in voter registration, 78,000 to 72,000.

Long Island Democrats have pulled off impressive victories for county executive and district attorney and have dominated most congressional elections in recent years, but they have yet to crack the GOP's domination in the state Senate, where all nine seats are held by Republicans.

Balboni abandoned a possible run for state attorney general last year in part because of concerns that move could cost the GOP, which holds a 33-28 advantage over Democrats in the state Senate with his departure.

O'Connell, 56, won Balboni's state Assembly seat when he moved to the Senate in 1999 and hopes to follow the same path into the Senate. She said she is running with backing from the Conservative and Independence parties.

She also has served as a trustee and deputy mayor of East Williston and is a registered nurse and lawyer.

Jacobs said the seat has been occupied by the GOP "for about a hundred years."

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5229

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/opinion/04mon4.html?
_r=1&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople
%2fC%2fCohen%2c%20Adam&oref=slogin

December 4, 2006
Editorial Observer
By ADAM COHEN

To the long list of recent Election Day horrors from butterfly ballots to six-hour lines, add "vote flipping."

In Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey and other states last month, there were reports — some confirmed by election officials — that when voters touched the screen for one candidate, the machine registered it for another. One Florida Congressional race, in which the Republican won by fewer than 400 votes, is in the courts because paperless electronic voting machines may have failed to register as many as 18,000 votes.

This year's election had voters across the country once again asking why voting machines are so lousy. Their technology is similar to A.T.M. technology, but when was the last time your A.T.M. flipped a $200 withdrawal into a $200 deposit?

Voting machines, unlike home electronics, are not sold in a competitive consumer market, which is ruthlessly unforgiving of low quality. The officials who buy them generally do not know much about technology. They listen to sales pitches from vendors who relentlessly push the most expensive models. Sometimes, well-connected lobbyists apply pressure. The process is rife with conflicts of interest, from free meals to future jobs with the manufacturers.

Since quality is not the deciding factor, it's not surprising there isn't a lot of it.

Voters who complain about their own machines don't often get a chance to compare them with other options. But New York's boards of elections are replacing the old lever machines, and I recently went to demonstrations the city held to allow the public to try out the five finalists.

There are many important things about a voting machine you can't tell from a quick inspection. But what was clear was almost all disturbing. Here are the ratings:

Avante Touch-Screen (no stars)
This is one of two A.T.M.-like touch-screen machines in the running. Even if they were reliable, touch-screens would not be practical for populous areas. Configured to hold New York's ridiculously large ballot, this five-foot-wide, 280-pound machine is so expensive, at about $8,000, that there might be only one per polling place, and lines could extend for hours. One machine I sampled cut off parts of words. And the bottom half of the name of one of the political parties was missing. A bigger problem is that this machine appears to run afoul of a New York law requiring that all voting machine computer code be given to the state. It runs on Windows, and Microsoft keeps its code secret.

Sequoia Touch-Screen (no stars)
Like the Avante, this machine should be ruled out simply because it is a touch-screen. But there is a lot more to dislike. The paper records produced by a voting machine should be secured in a lockbox. On this one, they fall into a small bag that could easily be snatched. Not that a thief would need to bother. The bag has a zipper on the bottom. Like Avante's, this touch-screen runs on Windows, which probably means it cannot satisfy New York's code-sharing law.

Sequoia Optical Scan (no stars)
With optical scans, many voters can fill out paper ballots at the same time. They are then fed into an optical scan reader, which goes very quickly. Unfortunately, this machine has other problems. Instead of blackening an oval next to their choice, voters connect a broken arrow. I have filled in thousands of ovals, but I had never before connected a broken arrow. As we saw with the butterfly ballot in 2000, the voting machine is not a good place to ask voters to acquire new skills. New York law requires that candidates of the same party be listed in a single column, to make it easier to vote by party. This machine scatters candidates of the same party all over the ballot.

Diebold Optical Scan (one star)
When I fed my ballot into this machine, it jammed twice. The sales representative expressed shock, but this is a frequently heard complaint. Even a balky optical scan is better than a touch-screen, but how hard is it to make one that doesn't jam?

Diebold has been the most infamous name in elections since its chief executive wrote that he was committed to helping deliver Ohio to President Bush, in an election in which his machines were counting the votes. The company has a long list of misdeeds, including installing unapproved and uncertified software in California.

ES&S Optical Scan (one and a half stars)
This seemed like the best of the five machines on display, but that wasn't saying much. ES&S machines were used in Florida's 13th Congressional District, where they are still looking for the 18,000 votes that may have gone missing.

New York's official testing agencies notified election officials last week that none of these five machines fully meet the state's standards. New York has been the slowest state to adopt new voting machines, and the fact that the manufacturers were displaying products that still did not comply with state law says a lot about the basic level of competence in the industry.

No one in New York has much patience for more delay. But if it comes down to waiting longer or sticking voters with illegal or unreliable machines that will undermine democracy for years to come, officials should wait, and insist on better machines. New Yorkers, and all Americans, deserve better choices than the voting machine industry is offering.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5096

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/
11/02/AR2006110201835.html?nav=rss_politics
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 3, 2006

First it was a TV spectacle. Now it's part of the Internet's growing archive of Embarrassing Political Moments Caught on Tape.

John Kerry's "stuck in Iraq" comment has been YouTubed.

In a scenario that is increasingly familiar this election season, Kerry's botched jab at President Bush on Monday has become another viral phenomenon. Even as television reporters have moved on to other stories, Kerry's remark keeps resonating on video file-sharing sites, drawing tens of thousands of viewers who missed it on the airwaves.

Although better known as the home of TV-show snippets, music videos and goofy amateur clips, file-sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video have matured this year into powerful tools of political ambush, enabling almost anyone to post recordings of slips that the mighty would rather forget. This new twist on the old game of gotcha has rapidly become known as "YouTube politics."

The trend might have reached its most explosive moment when amateur video of Sen. George Allen's infamous "macaca" comment was posted in August. This week, Allen (R-Va.) was a bystander in another piece of video, in which a heckler is shoved against a plate-glass window by Allen's supporters after shouting at the senator in a Charlottesville hotel.

Sens. Conrad Burns, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman have been recent Internet video stars, too. Burns (R-Mont.) popped up this summer on YouTube in a grainy clip from a campaign rally in which he says that "a nice little Guatemalan man" was painting his house -- implying that the worker and others he'd hired might be in the country illegally. The video was shot by a worker for Burns's Senate rival, Democrat Jon Tester. Burns's campaign, which is pushing for immigration controls, had to scramble to tamp down the controversy, denying that the workers were undocumented immigrants.

"YouTube has put every campaign on notice that someone's watching," says Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who managed Sen. Robert Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. "This has been a real wake-up call to a lot of candidates who shoot from the lip when there isn't a big TV affiliate standing in the room. ...Now they have to realize that every day is game day."

Or as Democratic consultant Jim Jordan, a manager of Kerry's presidential campaign, put it, "It's easy to wander off message after a long day... and now it's more dangerous than ever."

Then there's the video of Biden (D-Del.), a potential presidential candidate in 2008 whose exchange with a supporter at a June event was caught by C-SPAN. After learning that the young man was Indian American, Biden lauded his relationship with Delaware's Indian American community, then said: "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin Donuts [in Delaware] unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." The offhand comment made its way onto the Internet, forcing Biden to explain and defend himself.

It's not new for candidates to employ "trackers" to act as a kind of political paparazzi, in hopes of catching their opponents in something embarrassingly newsworthy. Until recently, though, a campaign typically had to rely on middlemen -- often the mainstream media -- to make the unflattering material public. And when news organizations chose to report such comments, they usually did so for a limited period.

File-sharing sites have changed the political-media ecosystem in fundamental ways. Ordinary users -- not just media and campaign professionals -- can shoot, edit and upload clips themselves using cellphones or digital cameras, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers.

President Bush's spoken gaffes are so numerous that they could fill their own online library -- from his mangling of the adage "Fool me once, shame on you" to his hesitancy over what to call the State of the Union address ("in my State of the -- my State of the Union -- or State -- my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it"). Those clips were from 2002.

Perhaps the most powerful demonstration of online video was supplied by supporters of Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont of Connecticut. To underscore Lamont's claim that the incumbent Lieberman was too closely allied with President Bush, his campaign posted a brief clip of Bush kissing Lieberman before this year's State of the Union speech. Another clip showed Lieberman jumping up to lead a standing ovation for the president during the same speech. In all, dozens of pro-Lamont/anti-Lieberman videos flooded the Internet during the primary campaign, which Lamont won in an upset in August.

What's changed, too, is the speed with which the public can view this kind of footage. When Burns commented during his 2000 reelection campaign that some Montanans were without health care coverage because they "choose not to be insured," his opponent, Brian Schweitzer, used the comment in a TV ad that aired three days later. Nowadays, such video likely would be posted in a few hours.

Unlike a "negative" campaign commercial, online video is typically cheap to produce and distribute. Video clips also aren't subject to campaign finance limits or Federal Election Commission disclosure requirements (the ubiquitous "My name is [blank] and I approve this message"). Since YouTube allows users to post videos under aliases, it can be nearly impossible to tell exactly who is disseminating a particular clip.

Even so, political professionals say online video isn't a substitute for traditional forms of communication, such as advertising and news coverage. The difference is sheer numbers: A 30-second TV spot for a candidate can reach hundreds of thousands of would-be voters at once, as can a newspaper story or an evening news report.

The Internet, though, has become a part of the media mix. Many campaigns upload their TV commercials to file-sharing sites.

Footage of Kerry making his "stuck in Iraq" comment was viewed about 35,000 times in the first 24 hours after being posted on YouTube. That is a modest figure, at least compared with the potential audience that saw it on news channels.

But until last year, it would have been impossible to see Kerry on YouTube at all. The company, based in San Mateo, California, didn't exist until February 2005, and didn't have measurable traffic until the middle of that year. Since then, it has vaulted into the ranks of Internet superstars. According to the Internet tracking firm comScore Media Metrix, the site had 16 million unique U.S. visitors in July, making it one of the Web's 40 most visited sites. Google Inc. agreed to buy YouTube last month for $1.65 billion.

Video file-sharing "completes the technological infrastructure for personal video," says Michael Cornfield, an adjunct professor at George Washington University who studies technology and politics. "Before, everyone had cellphones and video cameras and broadband, but no way to share what they shot. YouTube is the keystone in the bridge."

What this means, he says, is that "every [politician] now has to check YouTube in addition to monitoring Google and Wikipedia."

Warns Cornfield: "They better be prepared to live with it."

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5022

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2006/11/01/AR2006110103212.html

Some Frustrated by Electronic Devices, Remedial Learning

By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 2, 2006

He had heard the horror stories about the voter check-in machines crashing during Maryland's September primary. And he knew about the doomsday fears of hackers hijacking an election.

But Samuel Goodman's main concern during a training session last week for prospective election judges in Montgomery County was something far more simple: how to turn on the machines.

In the aftermath of glitches that marred primaries in Maryland and other states, a lot of attention has focused on electronic voting systems -- why they malfunctioned and how susceptible they are to attack.

But the pillars of Election Day are the legions of judges, the human safeguards in a process that has become more complicated as voting has grown more automated and layered with regulations.

The judges, often known as poll workers, have been recruited en masse locally and across the country leading up to the general election Tuesday. Prince George's and Montgomery counties, for example, will have 300 more than in the September primary.

Goodman is part of the wave of hastily recruited Montgomery trainees, and at 73 he fits what elections officials say is the age profile of the average poll worker nationwide. Most are well into their retirement years, and the technology changes can be daunting for some of those who didn't grow up using computers. That is why some states are looking to recruit college, and even high school, students to work the polls.

Goodman, a former NBC television news producer who lives near Rockville, said he found the jargon of the training session offered by the county Board of Elections incomprehensible and the technology overwhelming. It wasn't long before his eagerness hardened to frustration as he realized the job of check-in judge was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

He's no computer whiz, but given a bit more time he could manage, he said. In a single three-hour class, "there was no way to absorb all that," he said.

For the most part, poll workers are ordinary people who work long hours for little pay and perform admirably under trying conditions. Since the 2000 presidential election debacle, several states, including Maryland, have replaced paper ballot voting with electronic systems, and poll workers have had to relearn their jobs.

Some states have new rules to learn about checking photo identification at the polls and offering provisional ballots.

"We've made more election reform in the last six years in this country than we had in the 230 before it," said Paul S. DeGregorio, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which was created in 2002 to help elections run smoothly. "When you have poll workers who have been used to one system for 20, 30, 40 years, teaching them a new system can take a couple of elections for them to get used to."

Across Maryland, officials launched an aggressive campaign to recruit judges after the troubled fall primary, saying they needed more people to help with the general election. The judges are hired temporarily and paid $150 or more to work at precincts on Election Day after several hours of training.

State officials have called for additional training, but some local elections administrators say the sessions aren't nearly long enough.

"I think we should do a lot more," said Robert J. Antonetti Sr., the Prince George's interim elections administrator. He added that many of the judges find the new technology "mind-boggling." The county has held training sessions almost nightly and twice on Saturdays, he said.

Virginia did not experience any problems on the level of Maryland's during its primary, but it has also worked to recruit more judges in anticipation of an unusually high turnout for a midterm election. Helping the recruitment was a grant received by the University of Virginia, which went toward training 80 students from U-Va. and Piedmont College to be poll workers.

Jean Jensen, secretary of the Virginia Board of Elections, said recruiting efforts also were greatly aided by a new state law that prevents employers from penalizing workers who want to serve as elections judges, by, for example, forcing them to use a personal day.

Virginia uses touch-screen machines in 105 of its 135 cities and counties, with the rest using optical-scan machines. The touch-screen machines, which have been the focus of concerns in Maryland and elsewhere, have been operated in at least one previous election in each jurisdiction that is using them, Jensen said.

In Maryland, training sessions for Montgomery's judges have been held six days a week and will continue through Monday afternoon, the day before the election, officials said.

Montgomery is more familiar with electronic voting than most Maryland jurisdictions because it was introduced to the technology in 2002 with Prince George's and two other counties.

Still, the training session last week revealed how difficult it is for some prospective judges to master such a large amount of material in a short time. The trainees struggled with a new vocabulary: voter access cards, USB port, local area network, GEMS server. After the trainer said using the electronic poll book -- the machine that repeatedly faltered during the primary -- was a lot like using a PDA, Goodman wondered what a PDA is. It's a personal digital assistant, such as a BlackBerry or PalmPilot, he was told.

Later, when the instructor, Belinda Lee, asked the class to plug in the ethernet line, some stared blankly at the tangle of wires in front of them until she told them it was the one that looks like a telephone cord.

"Oy vey!" an exasperated Goodman blurted out.

During a break, trainee Joseph Burke, 80, of Chevy Chase thumbed through the thick three-ring binder he will have to become familiar with before Tuesday.

"That's a lot of stuff they threw at us," he said. "It's going to take some more studying."

Anthony DiLullo, 67, of Bethesda was comforted only by the fact that another check-in judge would be working the polls with him Election Day. "I hope the other person knows more than I do," he said.

Some fear that the changes in the way elections are run might be driving longtime poll workers away.

"It's a nationwide issue, and particularly when you transition to new equipment you see that some of your traditional poll workers decide it's time to retire," said DeGregorio, of the Election Assistance Commission. "So it puts the election officials in a bind in trying to fill the polls."

Although most poll workers are retirees who don't have to sacrifice a day of work to work the polls, states across the country are reaching out to younger generations, who have grown up using computers.

In Chicago, 754 high school students have been recruited to work the polls. Those younger than 18 are allowed to work as judges under a state law designed to involve younger people in the voting process, according to a news release. The city has also trained 2,000 college students to work as technicians at every polling place to prevent the kinds of problems that affected the city's primary this March.

In Ohio, Cuyahoga County has turned poll worker training over to the local community college, which has extended sessions by an hour and limited the class sizes. People must pass a written exam before they can serve as poll workers on Election Day.

Staff writers Zachary A. Goldfarb, Rosalind S. Helderman and Alec MacGillis contributed to this report.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/5017

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/opinion/
30waldman.html?th&emc=th

October 30, 2006
Op-Art
By MICHAEL WALDMAN, WENDY WEISER and OPEN, N.Y.

On November 7, many voters will encounter new voting machines, new computerized voter lists and new rules regarding registration and ID requirements. As primaries earlier this year demonstrated, local officials and poll workers are overwhelmed by all the changes — some of them engineered by mischievous partisans who have passed laws and rules that would block many eligible citizens from voting.

There is a silent disenfranchisement afoot — one that could affect hundreds of thousands of voters. That's bad for democracy. In the 2004 presidential election, some states were decided by less than 1 percent of the vote. This year, dozens of Congressional races could be close enough that vote suppression would affect them.

What follow are examples of ways the vote could be suppressed next week around the country. Problems listed in one state may also apply to several others. Taken together, they show just how urgent it is that the country move toward a system of universal voter registration, in which the government takes responsibility to ensure that all citizens are on the rolls, with real protections.

Looking forward, Congress and state legislatures should spurn partisan attempts to manipulate elections by imposing new voting requirements, like proof of citizenship and identification. They should ban wireless components in voting machines and require an audited paper trail. Judges should continue to strike down illegal and anti-democratic laws. And citizens and journalists should demand to know who is being purged from the rolls, and why. All registered voters should cast their ballots and insist their votes be counted.

— Michael Waldman, the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, and Wendy Weiser, the deputy director of the center's democracy program. Open is a graphic design studio.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/4997

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400691.html

By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; 4:42 PM

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh today attacked actor Michael J. Fox for inserting his halting voice into the U.S. Senate campaign in Missouri, suggesting Fox was "acting" in a commercial where he's shown shaking while endorsing the importance of stem cell research.

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners today, encouraging them to go online to watch Fox's commercial, which first aired October 21 in St. Louis during a World Series game. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act."

In the commercial, Fox throws his support behind Democratic Missouri Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, who supports stem cell research, against Republican James M. Talent.

Fox also taped similar ads for other Democratic candidates, including Benjamin L. Cardin in his Senate race against Republican Michael S. Steele in Maryland and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D), who is seeking reelection.

The ads bear witness to the actor's unmistakable decline from Parkinson's, which the actor has suffered from for a long time, and harnesses that physical degeneration into a political message.

"What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans, Americans like me," Fox said in the television spot, which will continue airing throughout Missouri this week.

"This is the only time I've ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has," Limbaugh said. "He can barely control himself."

Limbaugh said Fox could "control himself enough to stay in the frame of the picture" and to keep "his eyes right on the... teleprompter. But his head and shoulders are moving all over the place."

"He is acting like his disease is deteriorating because Jim Talent opposes research that would help him get cured," Limbaugh said, adding that Talent only opposes "fetal stem cell research, but not adult."

"This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox," Limbaugh said. "Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

Fox, who gained fame for his roles in the "Family Ties" and "Spin City" television shows and "Back to the Future" movies, has long been open about his battle with Parkinson's and his support for the research that could lead to a treatment.

But in this ad he shows a noticeable degree of decline not widely seen in previous public appearances. His speech is clear but his head and body are jerky and unsteady.

Besides the ads, Fox has also made plans to appear at events for two Democrats, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Tammy Duckworth, a candidate for Congress from Illinois.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/4976

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

For Immediate Release
October 23, 2006
Contact: Damien LaVera 202-863-8148

Washington, D.C. - America's senior citizens and people with disabilities are once again paying the price for the failed leadership and misplaced priorities of the Bush Republicans in Washington. This month, the Bush Republicans running the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a new Power Mobility Devices (PMD) Fee Schedule and a new Coverage Policy that will drastically reduce reimbursements and eligibility for power mobility equipment. Beginning November 15, these changes, which will slash Medicare payments for power wheelchairs by up to 41 percent, will place these wheelchairs out of reach for countless seniors and people with disabilities.

"The Bush Administration's decision to make wheelchairs less accessible to seniors and Americans with disabilities is one of the most glaring examples of the need for a new direction for America," said Becky Ogle, DNC Senior Advisor on Disability. "For many seniors and people with disabilities - including people diagnosed with ALS, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries and severe brain injuries - mobility equipment is vital for independent living. Every American deserves the opportunity to live the American Dream, and to make their contribution to our society. Robbing people of their mobility and independence, robs them of that opportunity."

"By slashing the Medicare reimbursement to pay for their special interest tax cuts, the Bush Republicans have once again put the interests of their party and their special interest friends ahead of the country. While they found the money to force through a disastrous Medicare drug plan for their friends in the insurance industry and passed reckless special interest tax cuts that have produced record deficits, they refuse to find the money to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities can get reimbursed for their wheelchairs. Republicans are not content to see seniors fall into the Medicare Part D donut hole; now they want to take their wheelchairs away, too."

"Democrats are offering a new direction for Americans with disabilities, one that provides the resources needed to make independent living an affordable reality for countless seniors and people with disabilities."

Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee, www.democrats.org. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/4962

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.cityhallnews.com/news5_101706.html

CITY HALL NEWS
Few can vote in secret or without assistance
By Carla Zanoni

Many disabled people live in New York City. But this past Primary Day was the first time they were able to vote in private and without assistance, with the new voting machines created to comply with the provisions of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

Only 580 of them did.

According to a recent report by the City Council's Committee on Oversight and Investigations, though the machines were easy to use, a mere five percent said they had used the machines because they were disabled or needed to use an accessible machine.

Though new requirements to increase disabled voter accessibility have been imposed by the state, Albany has left figuring out compliance to each of the 62 counties. The root of the problem in the city, according to the Committee report, was a lack of voter outreach and the absence of a coordinated transportation effort. With only weeks to go before Election Day, the committee has called upon the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to coordinate with the Board of Elections to make improvements. "In a primary where many races were decided by less than 500 votes, we will never know how many people woke up, wanted to vote and were unable to get to the machines," said Eric Gioia (D-Queens), chair of the Committee.

"The MTA was able to create expanded service during the U.S. Open," he added. "Election Day should be taken just as seriously."

The committee recommended that the MTA make Access-A-Ride, its shared ride, door-to-door paratransit service, fully available to disabled voters who cannot use mass transit to get to voting sites.

Gioia described an October 5 meeting between the Board of Elections, the MTA and the mayor's office, and said that parties had been receptive to the report's finding.

"They definitely want to work with our recommendations," he said.

But what that means is unclear. Deirdre Parker, a spokesperson for MTA operator New York City Transit Authority, stressed that Access-A-Ride cannot be used in the way the report suggests.

"It's not the solution, because that's not the way we operate," said Parker. "We are not a shuttle service. Registered customers can call and arrange for a ride the way they always do."

The committee report suggested that the MTA increase Access-A-Ride service on Election Day and allow riders to book their trips at least two weeks in advance so that the service could make proper accommodations for voters. Normally, riders book trips one or two days in advance.

The Independent Budgeting Office recently released a report about the rising cost of running Access-A-Ride. While the report did not completely speak to the liabilities of the paratransit program, Doug Turetsky, spokesperson for the office, said, "It is not clear whether Access-A-Ride has the capacity given the surge in usage" over the past few years.

Michael Harris, campaign coordinator for the Disabled Riders Coalition, said that given the transportation challenges, the new machines are not enough of a draw. "Most people with disabilities have lives and are not going to travel an hour just to vote," he explained.

For a system plagued with complaints about slow service, long waits and long ride times, disabled riders are more likely to choose machines that are closer to their homes, even if those do not provide means for them to vote without assistance.

Polling places which provide new Ballot Marking Devices allow voters to cast votes on their own, but these must then be counted out by poll workers at day's end rather than recorded on machine, eliminating the secrecy of the ballots.

But Lawrence Long-Carter, network coordinator for the Disabilities Network of New York City, said that he is optimistic about the recent developments in accessible voting. "Unfortunately the biggest problem about this has been creating a dialogue," Long-Carter said. "We have been stonewalled time and time again as a community." The Board of Elections says it spent approximately half a million dollars on outreach before the primaries. Because the board does not have a dedicated list for disabled voters, a mailing went out to each and every registered voter in the five boroughs.

A spokesperson for the mayor's office, Evelyn Erskine, said that the office plans to conduct its own outreach and education as well.

"We want everyone to know how important it is to go out and vote, versus staying home and thinking, 'Well, I am disabled and just can't get there,'" Erskine said.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/4934

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/14303

October 16, 2006
By Allan Appel Scripps Howard News Service

Jerry Lewis invokes quite a bit of controversy within the disability community. While nobody challenges his motivations, some disability rights advocates take issue with his methods and the message they believe he delivers about people with disabilities.

To them Lewis appears to be a guy who seems to believe that, when it comes to raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the end justifies the means. If parading patients on the telethon and into ourliving room motivates people to donate, so be it.

And the latest telethon last month produced more than $61 million for his cause. Over the past four decades or so, MDA telethons have raised more than $1.3 billion.

Yes, that's billion.

Jerry Lewis is a big believer in using pity to make us reach for our wallets. Like it or not, that tactic seems to work. Many advocate a more dignified approach, one they hope would do more to promote empowerment of the disabled than to further a mentality of charity. But, then, empowerment doesn't always translate into cash donations. Other advocates believe Lewis has not done enough to further the cause of better housing, accessibility for the disabled and wider employment opportunities.

But while the telethon does periodically feature some of these advances, there is a distinction that needs to be drawn.

Most issues for the disabled are year-round efforts. Connecting with the non-disabled community is a consistent and steady campaign. The MDA telethon is a 21.5 hour blitz for cash. It is not meant to be a steady stream of communication with the American people.

And while some of Lewis' remarks can be insensitive, it does not appear to be his purpose to cultivate a relationship with the disability community. Instead, his goal is to find a cure for muscular dystrophy in his lifetime. And at age 80, his fuse is getting shorter.

The only real difference between Lewis and his critics is a timing issue. Lewis doesn't have the time and the patience for a longer-term campaign. On the other hand, he's been at it for a long time.

Perhaps everyone needs to step back and take a timeout. There is already enough polarization in this country. Jerry Lewis is in our face one day a year. Maybe the disability community needs to concentrate more on the other 364.

Printer-friendly version of this article
(Link opens in a new browser window)

You can comment on this article by posting a response at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/504Dems/message/4929

Read more of this article | links to this article  
 
 

URL for this article:
http://www.nysun.com/article/41622

BY JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 16, 2006

The Democratic candidate for governor, Eliot Spitzer, who has been campaigning on a promise to clean up the state capital, has been involved in private talks with one of Albany's old guard, the longtime speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver.

The purpose of the discussions is to make sure the legislative leader is in sync with Mr. Spitzer, who is heavily favored to win the election against the Republican nominee, John Faso, when his administration rolls out its agenda, sources told The New York Sun.

Messrs. Spitzer and Silver have been negotiating informal agreements in areas such as government reform, education funding, and health care.

The negotiations are in part a reflection of the lopsided nature of the governor's race, with Mr. Spitzer leading Mr. Faso in the polls by 50 points. They also represent Mr. Spitzer's intent to leave little to chance starting January 1, when all eyes will be on the new governor. The goal is to clear the way for major announcements in the very first days of a Spitzer administration, when the governor would be feeling pressure to deliver on his campaign promise to change "everything" in the capital.

"They've had real conversations about how to come to a consent agenda on how to move the process forward that makes the governor during the first few weeks on the job look like an activist governor who gets things done," a source told the Sun. "It will include reforming government. It will include school finance, something in the area of health care reform and economic development of upstate New York."

The talks between the two Democrats are one of the strongest signs that Mr. Spitzer is intending to work with Mr. Silver, a low-key but wily politician whose relationship with Governor Pataki has been fractious.

Some in Albany have speculated that Mr. Spitzer, who has been openly critical of the Legislature during his campaign, would seek to replace