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| (US) 8/06 - Congressional Election Nu... |
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Nathan Peterson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Crooksandliars
Post Number: 1
Registered: 08-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 6:19 pm: | 
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Did anybody here notice this? I hat the msm.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00316.htm |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 3232
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, August 27, 2006 - 7:41 am: |
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[Great article. Thanks for posting this, Nathan. Since copying is expressly permitted I've copied the full text below.]
Congressional Election Nullified – Nobody Noticed
Friday, 25 August 2006, 10:45 pm
Article: Michael Collins
Speaker of the House Nullified
San Diego Congressional Race
By Michael Collins
“Scoop” Independent Media
Washington, DC
It appears the US media overlooked one of the great political stories of the year. In what is becoming something of a pattern, here’s a brief chronology:
On June 6, 2006 Republican Brian Bilbray allegedly slightly outpolled Democrat Francine Busby in the special election for California’s 50th Congressional District, despite Busby’s lead in the polls going into the election. There were immediate cries of foul following the election due to major irregularities, including electronic voting machines sent out to the homes and cars of volunteers for up to 12 days prior to the election, and irregular election results like huge mega-precincts of absentee ballots where turnout was thousands of percent more than registered voters.
On June 13, 2006, Bilbray flew to Washington, DC and was sworn in as a member of the United States House of Representatives by House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
On or about June 30, 2006, 17 days after Bilbray was sworn in as a member of the House, Mikel Haas, Registrar of San Diego County, officially completed the audit of election results required for certification, and officially certified the election of Bilbray over Busby based on 163,931 votes cast, of which 2,053 votes were said to be cast on Diebold TSX touchscreens, and the remainder scanned via Diebold Accuvote OS computers.
On July 31, 2006, the Contestants filed an election contest, seeking a hand recount and to invalidate the election on several grounds, not only including the affirmative evidence of irregular results, but also including the stonewalling of citizen information requests and the pricing of recounts at an estimated $150,000 that made it difficult or impossible for any citizen to tell who won the election.
On August 22, 2006 the defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the swearing in of Bilbray deprives everyone else of jurisdiction including specifically the San Diego Superior Court because Art. I, sec. 5 of the US Constitution has been held to mean that the House and Senate are the judges of the Qualifications of their Members, one of those qualifications is supposed to be “election.”
There is some thing very wrong with this sequence. Elections are not complete, anywhere, until they are officially certified by local authorities. How can a citizen get sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives before his or her election is certified? Only Speaker Dennis Hastert, his team, and Bilbray have the answer.
In a filling in San Diego Municipal Court yesterday, attorney Paul Lehto outlined the core in stark terms:
Defendants are in effect arguing for the remarkable proposition that unilateral self-serving actions by a majority party in the House of Representatives to shuttle in a member of the same party can be effective, even if those actions do violence to and amount to circumvention of other sections of the US Constitution as well as the California constitution. Document available here.
Lehto is one of the two attorneys representing citizens who are challenging the election. Shortly after the last vote was cast, citizens discovered disturbing facts. Prior to Election Day, several poll workers had taken home voting machines for periods of a day to a week at a time without supervision or even consistent tracking procedures. Other irregularities like vote switching on touch screen machines emerged. Brad Friedman of www.BradBlog.com conducted an extensive investigation that uncovered a series of sloppy procedures by County Registrar Haas.
The election became an immediate cause for citizens, supporters of the losing candidate, and national voting rights activists. The results were also challenged by Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
A suit was filed by two local citizens challenging the election. The initial filing relied on the right of citizens to know that their votes are and counted correctly in order to assure that the candidate designated as the winner is in fact the winner. Part of the suit is a request, denied to date, for a recount of the ballots cast on Election Day.
In response to the suit, the County of San Diego filed a response questioning the authority of the local court to decide the case since (a) membership in the house was the province of the House of Representatives and (b) the speaker had already sworn in Bilbray.
Lehto and Simpkins filed a withering response to this argument. They point out that elections are the province of local and state authorities for all elections including federal contests, unless otherwise specified in the constitution. The following is form the filing yesterday:
Clearly, the swift swearing in did not end the election in the 50th Congressional District, and it did not render everything, including the certification of results weeks later, nugatory and without “jurisdiction.” If this swearing in had this effect, then in the course of dismissing this case the Court would be bound to conclude that the certification of the results after the swearing in of Bilbray was without force and effect, without jurisdiction, and in contravention of principles of federalism, as Defendants argue. That conclusion, however, requires either an absurdity, or the conclusion that our Congressional election was canceled by decision of the Speaker of the House, before all the votes were fully counted, and well before certification. Document available here.
So there you have it. Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the United House of Representatives, called “the peoples’ House,” now has the authority to nullify elections simply by swearing in candidates and claiming federal privilege based on one narrow section of the constitution, while completing ignoring the others, including the one stating that members of the House shall be elected every two years “by the People,” and not selected in Washington DC. Once again, the country is faced with a Bush v. Gore style selection manufactured in Washington DC, and if only the people did not know which party benefited and which party was hurt by the selection, the country would be unanimous in denouncing this power grab.
Ongoing support and interference by the House of Representatives or persons associated therewith continues in San Diego. Paul Vinovich, Counsel to the House Administration Committee, Chaired by Bob Ney, R, of Ohio, had a letter delivered to San Diego Superior Court presiding Judge Yuri Hoffman, with a number of arguments in favor of the Judge dismissing the case. This type of communication with members of the judiciary, particularly when another government authority is involved, is covered by strict rules. One such rule is that the ex parte communication be provided simultaneously to counsel for all involved. In his own hand, Vinovich says to plaintiff’s attorney Lehto, “Letter delivered to court last evening.” Lehto received the fax at 8:56 a.m. Thursday morning, many hours after the letter was admittedly provided to the judge by Vinovich.
In the letter, Vinovich admits the time sequence of a July 13 swearing in followed by a July 29th certification of the election and then, through circular reasoning, tries to use the certification as justification for the swearing in ceremony. He fails to note that Speaker Hastert would have needed psychic powers on June 13th to know that the swearing in of Bilbray would be justified by a June 29th certification.
We’re clearly at the point where members of the ruling party are making up rules post hoc to justify whatever actions they wish to take. We are also at a point where there is little if any opposition to this. The House is silent. With the exception of local and national voting rights activists and Chairman Dean, the opposing party is silent. The Defendants literally argue that the Courts are powerless to stop them (without jurisdiction). Friday will reveal whether the courts are powerless to stop this abuse of power and premature termination of elections.
Will Judge Yuri Hoffman carry on the emerging tradition of silence, or will he take us back to the courage and integrity shown by Judge John Sirica, a Republican appointee, who made history by demanding the truth from the Watergate burglars?
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Copyright: This article may be used in whole or in part with attribution to the author and a link to “Scoop” Independent Media.
***END***
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00316.htm |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 832
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006 - 4:24 am: |
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Most interesting. Anybody notice how the gloves are coming off? |
Bob Fleischer
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Rjf7r
Post Number: 73
Registered: 09-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006 - 7:28 am: |
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Yes, Brant -- the executive doesn't need the legislature, and the representatives don't need the voter. All the while they are misdirecting our attention to "activist judges" -- whom they appointed! |
Jo Anne Karasek
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jo_anne_karasek
Post Number: 163
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006 - 8:04 am: |
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It is frightening that are trying to install a candidate without his being duly elected, but this is a denial of the "due process" clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which is enforced against Congress by the Fifth Amendment and against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Nonetheless, it is best to end this issue as early as possible by giving it as much publicity as we can.
And how easily we can persuade the grassroots to oppose the Republican operatives by telling them the facts of the Bilbray case and gain their support in election issues! |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 593
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006 - 10:31 am: |
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The problem is that the House of Representatives is the Judge of Election of its own members. In a very real sense, states or counties do not even certify the elections of members of Congress, but rather send what amounts to a "returns report" to the Clerk of the House, who issues the only certificate of election that really counts for anything.
You may want to change that, because it sounds offensive on so many levels, but that's pretty much the way it really works. Pretty amazing, huh? There is NOTHING to stop a Congressional majority from refusing to seat any putative winner, ESPECIALLY in a Special Election. Let the statements of revulsion and disbelief begin... |
Mark E. Smith
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mymarkx
Post Number: 111
Registered: 07-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006 - 1:57 pm: |
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I just posted a diary about this to dKos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/28/161057/116
If you happen to be a member there, please login, comment, and recommend -- thanks! |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 836
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 4:27 am: |
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Have you got a source for that Kurt, that delineates the actual mechanics of it? |
Nathan Peterson
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Crooksandliars
Post Number: 2
Registered: 08-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 5:53 pm: |
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Kurts not wrong. What have we become? |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 843
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 5:23 am: |
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Kurt said; "You may want to change that, because it sounds offensive on so many levels, but that's pretty much the way it really works. Pretty amazing, huh? There is NOTHING to stop a Congressional majority from refusing to seat any putative winner, ESPECIALLY in a Special Election. Let the statements of revulsion and disbelief begin..."
Actually, they should be stopped by the lack of certification. The people of the state are guaranteed the right to elect the representatives (didn't you guys all say that before?) and until certification by the state, he's not really elected, is he? All you should need to prove this necessity is a race for any position at the state level that's been changed on recount.
They're supposed to have the last say (and only in cases of what amounts to villiany) are they supposed to overturn the people's choice. And not being sure of what the people's choice is, how can they do this? This should get overturned in the courts, unless the language is very poor. |
V. Kurt Bellman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Formerelecdir
Post Number: 603
Registered: 04-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 12:11 pm: |
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Brant,
Look again. The California courts have ruled on this. According to the court the exclusive remedy is in the Congress.
The state courts don't even have jurisdiction to look at it, once the swearing in was done, even if improvidently done. |
Brant Lamb
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Brantl
Post Number: 849
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 5:50 am: |
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That's what that court decided. You've never heard of an opinion overturned on appeal? This wasn't be the first judge to read law incorrectly. |
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