Follow Up: Election Fraud

The Register UK reports this week, Vote- Flipping in the US Election is the term used to describe the most recent case of malfunctioning Electronic voting machines. 

Democracy Now also reported of machine malfunctions and voter intimidation tactics. 

In my blog entry from Oct, 7, I mentioned concerns about the case in Ohio, where thousands of registration forms from absentee voters were almost thrown out. 

Now, closer to the election, there are even more serious concerns about electronic voting machines switching your vote to the opposite candidate after you punched it in. This was shown in early- balloting cases in various states using iVotronic voting machines. ES&S, the makers of the machines, have blamed researchers for the malfunction, saying they maliciously removed security protections on the machines. 

Even if the removal of security protections is to blame, shouldn't it also be a major cause of concern that security seals can be removed!!!!

With the fears running high and the vote rapidly approaching, some citizens are planning to stand outside poll stations ready to speak with any voters reporting legitimate concerns about voter fraud and will be posting the videos on You Tube.  

I am not sure what the best method of ensuring accurate voting for the coming election should be or if it is even possible, but if anyone has heard about fraudulent activity in the coming election or what people are doing to avoid it, I 'd be interested to know...

  

 

Election Fraud? : Let the Games Begin...

What is the potential for election fraud in the coming election?

While everyone is so busy worrying about who will become President (as they should be) it is increasingly more difficult to worry about how the elections will be run. Although the US is not yet in the situation of some countries where citizens vote in a pseudo-election with only one candidate on the ballot, I often wonder how far off we really are from that. If our democracy is based on the right to vote shouldn't we be concerned about whether or not the votes are being cast?

Are electronic voting machines secure and accurate? Will paper ballots be misleading? Will ballot boxes be stuffed or will voting cards be discarded? 

Recent election history in particular the last 2 presidential elections has proven that this is a real concern.

While the republican side is worried about fraud by single voters (e.g. voters not really being legally eligible to vote), the more serious concern is regarding large-scale intentional election fraud which involves systematically manipulating the votes after they have been cast. 

A blogger on WordPress. com reported in January that the biggest concern is electronic voting machines:

"Elections in this century will be digitally, not physically stolen, unless and until our election procedures and laws effectively and quickly address this reality. And they certainly won't be stolen by the few people who mistakenly or foolishly try to cast a ballot when they can't legally do so. Without precautions in place against computer election fraud, a inevitable 'Titanic' shipwreck of democracy may occur without the public even being aware."

Last week on the Brenner Center for Justice website, a center that has tracked election fraud, a fellow blogger warned that the Election fraud games seem to already have begun:  Thousands of absentee ballot request cards were going to be thrown out by the Ohio Secretary of State, due to them being deemed "invalid" because although the person registering signed the card, they did not check a misleading check box saying they were a legal voter. 

Strangely enough the registration cards were developed by the McCain team.

Fortunately the Ohio Supreme court ruled to allow the absentee requests!

How many more of these cases are still to come? Is there action we can take now to prevent fraud in November? 

At the very least I would say, let's keep our eyes and ears open for cases of injustice...

Kwame Appiah on Social Identities, Identity Politics, and the Presidential Election

How are we to decide how to vote?

Should we study the policy positions of the candidates, determine to the best of our abilities which set of policies will have the best consequences for human well-being on the whole, and then vote for candidates supporting those policies?

Or should we consult with ourselves about which approaches to public problems best adhere to and symbolically express the social identities we find ourselves as possessing? For example, should we as men vote for the most manly candidate, or as women vote for a female candidate, or as African-Americans vote for an African-American candidate (or as a woman or African-American vote against a woman or African American candidate because he or she is not feminist or Black enough?)

Or, is it even possible to base our votes on rational consideration of consequences? And will we inevitably base our political decisions on our social identities?

And how have issues of social identity played a role in the primary battles between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, or between John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee?

These issues are discussed in a fascinating 48 minute interview with Anthony Kwame Appiah, a Princeton philosopher and author of The Ethics of Identity and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, who for the last 15 years has been among America's most interesting commentators on social and cultural issues.

GOP Education Platform Echoes McCain's Strong Conservative Proposals

The GOP has endorsed an education platform with many of the K-12 proposals of Sen. John McCain, Education Week reports today.

It calls for merit pay for teachers, for recruiting the best educators "without regard to collective bargaining agreements," for expanding charter schools and private school vouchers that can be used at religious schools.

McCain didn't mention NCLB in recent speeches and the GOP platform is just as vague; it doesn't mention the measure by name. But it calls for strong accountability measures.

The platform also supports "English First" instruction as opposed to bilingual education, and the right of students to engage in voluntary prayer in schools. The document also calls for replacing "family planning" programs for teenagers with increased funding for abstinence education.

Margaret Spellings Pleased with Failure to Re-Authorize NCLB

Interviewed at the GOP convention on Monday September 1, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings says that she is happy that NCLB was not re-authorized this year, according to EdWeek. "Where we were headed would have been a bad reauthorization."

Her comments referred to the bill drafted by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, that would have permitted some states to use local assessments in their accountability systems, among other changes. She said that advocates of strong accountability would now have additional time to pass a new bill supporting the law's central principle of accountability.

While noting that education has taken a back seat in the presidential campaign, she sees that as a positive development, on the principle that "no news is good news". She said that Sen. John McCain would make a better education president, but also had kind words for Sen. Obama. "I think it was bold for him to speak out on merit pay. Let's see it happen."

Younger Democrats Moving Towards School Choice

At a democratic convention breakfast held by sponsors of school choice initiatives in Denver early this week, Colorado state Senate President Peter C. Groff noted that school choice demographics are changing, according to Ed Week's election campaign coverage.

Groff, 45, who is black, noted that African-American policymakers under the age of 50are no longer following in lock step behind teachers unions or party officials opposing school choice. "This is a generation that doesn't look at race first, but policy first," said Groff, 45, a Democrat. "It's not looking at party first, but the best idea first."

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the event's main speaker, said charter schools in his New Jersey city are successful, but they don't have enough seats to fill demand.

Many Newark families "break the law, literally," said Booker, a Democrat. "They are faking addresses and sneaking [their children] into schools" in neighboring towns. School officials there investigate students and kick out those who live in Newark, charging their families tuition for the time they were enrolled.

"This is not the America I dream of," Booker said.

Educators speak out at Democratic Convention

In the primary season the AFT supported Hillary Clinton and the NEA mostly sat on its hands. Both are now solidly behind Obama, as we would expect. Both groups will be listened to, but given their slow arrival at the campaign, one can ask whether they will be welcomed as insiders going forward.

But to get a clearer sense of where Obama is heading on education we can listen to what Jon Schnur, an education adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign and CEO of the non-profit reform group New Leaders for New Schools, has to say. Schur spoke on the first night of the covention Monday night at one of the three "American town halls".

According to EdWeeks's convention coverage,

Schnur tackled a very broad question from a Philadelphia mom who was piped in on video, who wanted to know how Obama would reform schools. Schnur basically recited Obama’s education platform in lightning speed, but emphasized the Illinois senator’s plan to recruit and retain effective teachers with the goal of getting the best teachers in schools where our students need them the most. Schnur, and his school reform group that trains school administrators, are more open than the teachers' unions are to ideas such as merit pay.

Also on stage on night one were National Education Association President Reg Weaver, and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

Weaver said: "He knows we must hold schools accountable. But that the world is too complex and diverse to judge students by a single, multiple choice, and high stakes test." Weingarten added: “Barack Obama knows teachers must be partners, not pawns, in federal education policy.”

Obama and McCain on Education

A blog at the Chicago Sun Times offers a comparison of the two candidates on educational policy issues.

Neither candidate has made education a central issue in the campaign.Beyond endorsing NCLB McCain has had little to say. Obama promises to "fix" NCLB by providing full funding and reducing the emphasis on standardized testing. He wants struggling schools to receive support rather than chastisement and threats of closure.

McCain supports vouchers while Obama does not; he favors strengthening the public school system by increasing public school choice.

Following Kathleen Kesson's post last week, SI invites comment on the evolving positions of the candidates on educational issues, as well as position statements that might inform the campaigns and the public on educational issues.

Wish List for the New Administration

This is my first blog post; thanks, Leonard for getting this initiative off the ground and for inviting me to participate. I haven’t quite “decompressed” from the spring semester, as I went right into the summer semester, so I’m going to take your invitation literally (you promised “a paragraph”) and try not to be overwhelmed by some of the latest detailed, lengthy and philosophically thoughtful posts. What I’d like to initiate is a blog strand that discusses what the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have to offer in the way of new and fresh ideas about education. Are we in for more of the same no matter which party attains presidential power? Will the dance to the right, left, and center towards desired constituents neutralize any potentially powerful ideas for change? Each of them - McCain and Obama - have “issues” that they have offered some commentary on: perspectives on national standards, educational choice and competition, character education, merit pay, etc. I’d like to suggest that we take one issue at a time, and try to generate as much “complicated conversation” (thanks to Bill Pinar for that phrase) about it as we can. I would like to see what collective, pragmatic inquiry looks like when we take on issues that have the potential to go beyond traditional right/left ideologies. How might we, as Kathleen Knight-Abowitz suggests in her blog post of July 2, “remain committed to the questions rather than one fixed set of answers,” and maybe, just maybe, influence the course of events? If progressive educators could prioritize our policy wishes, how might that list read? What role would we want a new president to play in the formulation of federal education policy? I suspect we are all very hopeful about opportunities for real change, but where should Dewey-inspired educators put their focus, in terms of influencing policy?