FAIR! and League of Women Voters Sponsor Board of Supervisor Forum

From Carol Spaziani, FAIR! Steering Committee member:

FAIR! will be co-sponsoring with the League of Women Voters a forum for the candidates running for the unexpired term on the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. The election is on Jan. 19 at your regular polling place. The press release below gives you all the details about the forum. We hope many FAIR! members turn out to ask these candidates questions on progressive issues. There are sharp differences among the candidates. Janelle Rettig is currently filling the vacancy by appointment until Jan. 19.

FAIR! has chosen not to endorse a candidate this time in favor of co-sponsoring this opportunity to hear these differences for yourself! If you are unable to attend, try to catch it on a local cable channel, and do definitely VOTE. Given the uncertainty of the weather, it is best to vote early. You can vote now during regular business hours at the County Auditor's office in the County Administration building on So. Dubuque. There will be other opportunities at Hy-Vee, the Public Library,the North Liberty Community Center. Watch the news for times and places.

The candidates vying for the current vacancy on the Johnson County Board of Supervisors, Lori Cardella (Rep), Jim Knapp (nominated by petition) and Janelle Rettig (Dem), will share their perspectives and answer audience questions at a candidate forum on January 7th, 2010. The forum, co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Johnson County (LWVJC) and FAIR!, will be held at the Iowa City Public Library,Room A, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. A meet and greet will follow from 8:30 pm to
9:00 pm. Refreshments provided by FAIR!

The Special Election is scheduled for January 19th, 2010. The shortened period for campaigning heightened the need for public forums, a need the League of Women Voters of Johnson County consistently meets in the community. The forum will be broadcast live on the Iowa City Public Library Station(cable 10)and rebroadcast on City Channels in Coralville, Iowa City and North Liberty. Allison Werner-Smith, a lawyer and League member, will moderate.

Voting on January 19th, 2010 will be at your regular voting location with early voting available throughout the county. Visit www.jcauditor.com for more information.

Hey JC, It's Voting Time: Primary True Colors

Johnson County residents have the opportunity to vote early in party primaries today at the Iowa City Public Library, it will be interesting to see how the voter turnout registers.

For the record, my unanimous choices for the County Supervisor's race are Rod Sullivan and Terrence Neuzil. Both are public servants in the best sense of the term and support many progressive issues that I support including the human rights ordinance, the sensitive areas ordinance, and the joint communication center. Additionally both support human services and voted to increase the county contribution to the Shelter House. Rod was a FAIR! organizer and Terrence, like I, was an John Edward's supporter.

The vote I'm still working through is the third person to support. Pat Harney has served for a long-time and is chairing the committee that is looking into the justice center. Terry Dahms, the only non-incumbent, is a trail proponent and is concerned about how taxes are being spent. I personally like Pat Harney, but he does not always represent a viewpoint I support, but I don't have a strong feeling that Terry Dahms would bring a viewpoint that is not already on the BOS.

In the County Auditor's race, I will write-in a candidate for the office. I admire Mona Shaw's raging against the machine that Tom Slockett represents and I appreciate the work that Tom has done to make voting easier. I believe we need a change of the guard because of the internal dynamics within the office, but realistically don't see it happening in this important election cycle.

I am actually surprised that the Republican's haven't put up a candidate this time around for this race. Clearly there are people who believe that Tom Slockett has not lived up to the responsibilities of his office, but also recognize that Mona Shaw's candidacy is seen as largely personal and that she would have a very steep learning curve to running the office well, which makes for a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" vote.

As for Tom Harkin, Dave Loebsack, Vicki Lensing, Lonny Pulkrabek--they are running unopposed in the primary. Depending on the write-in votes in the Republican or Democratic primaries, Vicki Lensing, Lonny Pulkrabek, and the winner of the auditor's race will be unopposed in the fall.

As for Dave Loebsack, he will have a formidable opponent in Dr. Minnette Miller-Meeks (Dr. 3-M?), but with the national trend favoring Democrats, he should be able to stave off the challenge.

Iowans for Voting Integrity Say Call Chet!

From Sean Flaherty, Co-Chair of Iowans for Voting Integrity www.IowansForVotingIntegrity.org

Please contact Governor Culver 515-281-5211 and urge him to provide full funding for optical scan equipment, with ballot-marking devices to serve voters with disabilities.

We were concerned a few weeks ago when the Governor called for discussion of adopting a statewide vote by mail system. To our relief, the Governor has indicated that he is not going to push for a statewide vote by mail in lieu of funding for new equipment. But he has also noted that the current budgetary environment is tight, and the Revenue Estimating Conference for next year's budget is December 11. So timing is important.

The new equipment we need for 2008 could cost the state $8 million more; $2 million has already been allocated. With a state budget that exceeds $6 billion a year, a one-time expense of $8 million is not a bad bargain for counting our votes accurately.

Important reasons why optical scan equipment and ballot-marking devices are the best voting system for Iowa:
* Voter-marked paper ballots counted by optical scanners at the precinct produced the lowest rate of residual votes of any voting system used in Iowa in 2006.

* The alternative to voter-marked paper ballots is to add "paper trail" printers to touch screen voting machines (DREs), which print votes on a continuous roll. These printers have proven unreliable: in Cuyahoga County, Ohio in November 2007, 20% of the paper trail printouts were unreadable. There is a history of problems with paper trail printers.

* Paper ballots are much easier for election officials to recount or audit by hand than the continuous paper roll than the direct-recording electronic machines offer for voter verification.
It is easier for the voter to verify that he or she has the correct ballot type.
Paper ballots are more intuitive to the voter.

* Voters may fail to check the voter-verified paper record. Paper ballots are inherently voter-verified.

* In case of a recount, ballots are better for public confidence than a printer roll. A ballot marked by the voter is stronger evidence of the voter's intent than a secondary printout.

* With optical scanners and ballot-marking devices, all voters use the same type of ballot, and all votes are counted using the same method. The state could not be accuses of treating voters unequally in the tabulation of votes.

* It is easier to protect voter privacy with paper ballot systems, because the DRE paper trail printers store the votes on a continuous roll.

* The current generation of DREs has proven vulnerable to calibration problems; e.g., “vote flipping.”

* The paper trail printers use low-quality thermal paper, which can degrade quickly.
Federal legislation could soon ban the use of thermal paper and reel-to-reel vote rolls for the paper trail printers. Optical scan with accessible ballot-marking devices would meet the requirements of proposed federal legislation.

Tell the Governor that it is time for the state to make a smart investment in democracy. Call him at 515-281-5211, or use the contact information below.

VOICE of Reason

Yes, this is about clean, publicly funded elections. So what you say?--If you are a college student who has watched your tuitions go up year after year, thank a lobbyist for the student loan providers. If you are struggling to pay for medicine, thank a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. If you are outraged at how someone can so easily get a gun and go on a killing spree, thank a gun industry lobbyist. Chances are your representative has been thanked by a lobbying group with a contribution to their campaign war chest.

Does this mean your representative is in the pocket of these groups? I'm not the one who can answer that for you. Ask your representatives.

Clean election legislation does two very important things: 1) It takes influence away from the few and puts it back where it belongs, with "we, the people". 2) It encourages good people with good ideas to step into the political ring--money is the single largest obstacle for most people to enter politics.

From the folks at the Public Campaign Action:

Voter Owned Iowa is holding a rally tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 p.m. at the Capitol in support of the Voter Owned Iowa Clean Elections (VOICE) Act that would bring full public financing to Iowa's legislative races. After the rally, we'll be lobbying individual members of the General Assembly on the VOICE Act.

Sign up here to join us at the rally!

The VOICE Act (introduced in both legislative chambers as House File 805 and Senate File 553) would allow candidates in Iowa to seek office without having to appeal to wealthy special interests for campaign contributions. Once elected, the legislators who ran using the VOICE system would be accountable only to the voters who elected them, not well-heeled contributors who would have otherwise funded their campaigns.

Same Day Voter Registration

From Sen. Joe Bolkcom's Networker

On Tuesday, the Senate passed same day voter registration (HF 653) on a vote of 30-20 with all Republicans voting NO.

The law is modeled after a similar law in Minnesota, which has allowed Election Day voter registration for the last 33 years. In addition to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Montana and Maine have Election Day registration. These states have found voter fraud to be virtually non-existent, and voter turnout averages 10 percent higher than other states.

This change will make it easier for Iowans to participate in elections. I voted for this bill. The bill now goes to the Governor where he is expected to sign it.

You can watch the bill’s floor manager, Senator Staci Appel of Indianola, give her opening address at Senator Appel's video statement.

Paper or Plastic? Paper Ballots v. Touch-screen Tallies

It is no secret that Touch Screen /electronic voting machines are fraught with peril for those of us who care about fair voting and transparent accountability, but there is no guarantee that a paper ballot will do it either--after all, fraudulent elections have a long sordid history (and, of course, no one can forget the "hanging chad").

Still, it makes sense to use the easist form of technology that allows for accountability in the event of a recall election. In Iowa, there is such legislation pending in Des Moines. HF Bill 71 has many of the features that voting rights advocates want. From my perspective, the only thing missing is the voter being able to get a receipt for his or her vote.

                    82nd General Assembly
                       HF   71
A bill for an act making changes relating to voting machines and
requiring that direct recording electronic voting machines used in
the state produce paper records to be verified by voters.

 This bill rewrites the Code section relating to
 3 10 requirements for voting machines in use in the state by
 3 11 listing the requirements for voting machines generally and
 3 12 listing the requirements that apply specifically to voting
 3 13 machines that are direct recording electronic devices (DRE).
 3 14    The bill requires that a DRE device be capable of storing
 3 15 an electronic image of each ballot cast which can be
 3 16 reproduced in cases of a recount, manual audit, or machine
 3 17 malfunction.  The bill also requires that a voting machine
 3 18 that is a direct recording electronic device be capable of
 3 19 producing a paper record for review by the voter before the
 3 20 voter's ballot is cast.  The bill further provides that the
 3 21 individual paper records and the ballot images are to be
 3 22 preserved by the county commissioner of elections for 22
 3 23 months following federal elections and for six months.

Poll-itics

As if it isn't hard enough to get people out to vote, Iowa Republicans want to shut the polls down at 7pm. On the other hand, the highest number of provisional votes (questionable votes) are cast between 7 and 9 pm in Johnson County.

Personally, I like Jennifer Brunner's, Ohio's new Secretary of State, idea to treat poll duty like jury duty and to draft enough workers to serve the need. Brunner believes the move would lower the average age of poll workers from 72 and ease the workload. Ohio has about 47,000 poll workers _ or just over four per precinct.

According to the Daily Iowan

When asked to sum up a Republican-sponsored proposal to close election polls in the state at 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m., Johnson County's top election official could only revert to sarcasm.

"Well, I guess [the lawmakers] were addressing a serious problem in this county - too many Democratic votes," said Tom Slockett, the county auditor.

Slockett, a Democrat, said Democratic voters - who dominate elections in Iowa City and its surrounding areas - tend to vote later in the day.

"Then we have working couples, married people with children, who get home from work late and have to take care of the kids," Slockett continued in humor. "And then they have the nerve to trouble our poll workers from 7 to 9 at night."

But bill sponsor Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan, said the legislation is driven not by sheer partisanship but the practical difficulty of finding poll workers, especially in rural areas. Often, he pointed out, precinct officials - many of whom are elderly - must commit to working 14 to 16 hours on election day. Despite this assertion, the AARP is on record as lobbying against the measure.

"The bottom line is, there's plenty of time to vote," between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., Johnson said. "We're not disenfranchising anybody."