Secretary of State Candidate Dan Severson Says, “Give the People What They Want—Now!”
SAUK RAPIDS, Minn.—August 20, 2010—State Representative Dan Severson, candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State, today called upon Minnesota lawmakers to “Give the people what they want: Photo ID for voting.”
“A huge majority—82 percent—of likely voters in the United States believe that all voters should be required to present photo identification in order to vote in our elections, according to a new Rasmussen Reports survey,” explained Severson.
“The call for photo ID spans all segments of society and all political parties.The level of support has always been high, but never higher than now, after we’ve seen such incidents as felons voting in Minnesota in 2008,” explained Severson.
“In Minnesota, we are lagging behind other states in election integrity and in election efficiency because of our antiquated election laws that don’t require photo ID for voting,” said Severson.“This is something the people clearly want but that our elected officials so far have failed to give us.”
“Of all of the candidates running for Minnesota secretary of state this year, only the incumbent, Mark Ritchie, opposes photo ID,” said Severson.“I have signed the Voter Protection Pledge, indicating my commitment to supporting all legislation to institute photo ID for voting; so has the Independence Party candidate for this office, and so had Mark Ritchie’s own DFL Party primary opponent.”
“Mark Ritchie is nothing but a roadblock to moving forward on improving Minnesota elections,” said Severson.“By opposing photo ID, Mark Ritchie is opposing increased election integrity, opposing increased privacy, opposing increased efficiency, opposing increased election accuracy, and opposing increased empowerment for everyday life.”
“When elected officials oppose everything that the people stand for, it’s time for them to go,” said Severson.“Clearly, it is time for Mark Ritchie to go, and I’ll be thrilled to take his place and give the people what they want—Photo ID and election integrity.”
Prepared and Paid for by Severson for Secretary of State
--Says Incumbent Secretary of State Mark Ritchie Must Go
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—August 12, 2010—Dick Franson, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State who garnered nearly one in five rank-and-file Democratic votes in Tuesday’s state primary, today endorsed Republican candidate Dan “Doc” Severson.
“Mark Ritchie is wrong on the most important issues relevant to the Office of the Secretary of State,” said Franson.“He is wrong to oppose photo ID for voting, he is wrong to reject military ballots, and he is wrong to allow partisanship to cloud the office’s official functions.”
“As a veteran, I am appalled at Mark Ritchie’s behavior in office, and I am proud to support my fellow veteran, Doc Severson,” said Franson.“We need a Secretary of State who will execute his duties with precision, integrity, and discipline, and I believe that, with his military background, Doc will do this, whereas Mark Ritchie is incapable.”
“I intend to campaign actively for Doc Severson, because we see eye to eye on the most important issues.I encourage all of the 70,000-plus voters who supported me in the primary to turn their support to Severson, too, and to get their friends to support him, as well,” said Franson.
“I am honored to accept Dick Franson’s endorsement,” said Severson.“Dick is a man of integrity who has served our country with distinction in many ways and for many years.I look forward to having him on the team and campaigning with his support.Election integrity is not a partisan issue and Photo ID brings that integrity, which is why Dick and I support it.”
Prepared and Paid for by Severson for Secretary of State
--Says Incumbent Secretary of State Mark Ritchie Must Go
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—August 12, 2010—Dick Franson, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State who garnered nearly one in five rank-and-file Democratic votes in Tuesday’s state primary, today endorsed Republican candidate Dan “Doc” Severson.
“Mark Ritchie is wrong on the most important issues relevant to the Office of the Secretary of State,” said Franson.“He is wrong to oppose photo ID for voting, he is wrong to reject military ballots, and he is wrong to allow partisanship to cloud the office’s official functions.”
“As a veteran, I am appalled at Mark Ritchie’s behavior in office, and I am proud to support my fellow veteran, Doc Severson,” said Franson.“We need a Secretary of State who will execute his duties with precision, integrity, and discipline, and I believe that, with his military background, Doc will do this, whereas Mark Ritchie is incapable.”
“I intend to campaign actively for Doc Severson, because we see eye to eye on the most important issues.I encourage all of the 70,000-plus voters who supported me in the primary to turn their support to Severson, too, and to get their friends to support him, as well,” said Franson.
“I am honored to accept Dick Franson’s endorsement,” said Severson.“Dick is a man of integrity who has served our country with distinction in many ways and for many years.I look forward to having him on the team and campaigning with his support.Election integrity is not a partisan issue and Photo ID brings that integrity, which is why Dick and I support it.”
Prepared and Paid for by Severson for Secretary of State
Partisan Finger-Pointing by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie Won’t Fix Minnesota’s Felon Voting Problems
--“Do Your Job, or Get out of the Way,” Says Rep. Dan “Doc” Severson
SAUK RAPIDS, Minn.—July 14, 2010—State Representative Dan “Doc” Severson, candidate for Secretary of State, today responded to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s calling the investigation into felon voting in Minnesota a “conspiracy theory.”
“Before and after the election, Mark Ritchie claimed there was no voter fraud.He claimed we had a clean election system.He claimed there were checks in the system to prevent felons from voting,” said Severson.“He’s got egg on his face, now, and he can’t seem to stand taking responsibility for fixing the system for the future.Instead, he’s calling it a ‘conspiracy.’”
“Worse yet, Mark Ritchie keeps looking backward, upward, downward, and everywhere he can to point fingers at everyone else,” said Severson.“Most recently, he’s taken to blaming Governor Pawlenty.”
“I’ve got news for Mark Ritchie: Ensuring that Minnesota’s elections are clean is your job—not the governor’s,” said Severson.“Do your job, or get out of the way.”
“Until now, we’ve had a great election system, but Mark Ritchie is holding our state back,” said Severson.“We need to move into the 21st century.”
“Mark Ritchie keeps claiming that we have the best election system possible, but the proven felon voting shows that he is wrong,” said Severson.“He’s got his head in the sand.”
“There are simple, cost-effective ways to reform Minnesota’s election system,” said Severson.“If Mark Ritchie doesn’t know this, then hereally doesn’t belong as Minnesota’s Secretary of State—we deserve better.The answer to this problem is to institute photo ID for accessing a ballot—technology exists that interfaces with a state-issued photo ID and detects ineligible miscreants seeking to steal legitimate citizens’ votes.It’s called an electronic poll book, and Minnesota-based Datacard Group makes it.”
“In poll after poll, the overwhelming majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans support instituting a photo ID requirement to access a ballot.This is something that the people want, but something that, so far, our elected officials have failed to give us,” said Severson.“The current Secretary of State has failed us. It’s time to get serious about this.When I am Secretary of State, this will be priority number one.”
Prepared and Paid for by Severson for Secretary of State
Why were convicted felons illegally voting in the 2008 Al Franken-Norm Coleman race? During Fox News' interview with John Fund (of the Wall Street Journal), Fund claims Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie allowed felons to vote in the 2008 election.
“Where was Secretary of State Mark Ritchie?” asked Severson.“Before and after the election, Mark Ritchie claimed there was no voter fraud.He claimed we had a clean election system.He claimed there were checks in the system to prevent felons from voting.But now it is obvious: Mark Ritchie lied.”
“Worse yet, Mark Ritchie sat idly by and allowed felons to steal legitimate Minnesotans’ votes,” said Severson.
“What is remarkable about this story is that a private organization, Minnesota Majority, had to do all the legwork, at its own expense, and yet the organization persevered to discover the dirty truth, while the Secretary of State stonewalled and cast aspersions on these concerned citizens,” said Severson.
“By contrast, Ramsey County officials should be commended for stepping in where the Secretary of State failed and for following up to confirm that significant voting by felons took place, and for finding even more than Minnesota Majority was able to find,” said Severson.
“The answer to this problem is to institute photo ID for accessing a ballot—technology exists that interfaces with a state-issued photo ID and detects ineligible miscreants seeking to steal legitimate citizens’ votes,” said Severson.
“In poll after poll, the overwhelming majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans support instituting a photo ID requirement to access a ballot.This is something that the people want, but something that, so far, our elected officials have failed to give us,” said Severson.“The current Secretary of State has failed us. It’s time to get serious about our most sacred secular work.When I am Secretary of State, this will be priority number one,” said Severson.
“In the modern world, ballot access should have at least the same degree of integrity as renting a movie, boarding a commercial airplane, cashing a check, or disposing of leaves at the county compost site,” said Severson.
Prepared and Paid for by Severson for Secretary of State
Felons Voting Illegally May Have Put Franken Over the Top in Minnesota, Study Finds
The six-month election recount that turned former Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota's Twin Cities, according to an 18-month study conducted by a conservative watchdog group.
The six-month election recount that turned former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota's Twin Cities.
That's the finding of an 18-month study conducted by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, which found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman.
The final recount vote in the race, determined six months after Election Day, showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes -- fewer votes than the number of felons whose illegal ballots were counted, according to Minnesota Majority's newly released study, which matched publicly available conviction lists with voting records.
Furthermore, the report charges that efforts to get state and federal authorities to act on its findings have been "stonewalled."
"We aren't trying to change the result of the last election. That legally can't be done," said Dan McGrath, Minnesota Majority's executive director. "We are just trying to make sure the integrity of the next election isn't compromised."
He said his group was largely ignored when it turned over a list of hundreds of names to prosecutors in two of the state's largest counties, Ramsey and Hennepin, where fraud seemed to be the greatest.
A spokesman for both county attorneys' offices belittled the information, saying it was "just plain wrong" and full of errors, which prompted the group to go back and start an in-depth look at the records.
"What we did this time is irrefutable," McGrath said. "We took the voting lists and matched them with conviction lists and then went back to the records and found the roster lists, where voters sign in before walking to the voting booth, and matched them by hand.
"The only way we can be wrong is if someone with the same first, middle and last names, same year of birth as the felon, and living in the same community, has voted. And that isn't very likely."
The report said that in Hennepin County, which in includes Minneapolis, 899 suspected felons had been matched on the county's voting records, and the review showed 289 voters were conclusively matched to felon records. The report says only three people in the county have been charged with voter fraud so far.
A representative of the Hennepin County attorney's office, who declined to give her name, said "there was no one in the office today to talk about the charges."
But the report got a far different review in Ramsey County, which contains St. Paul. Phil Carruthers of the Ramsey County attorney's office said his agency had taken the charges "very seriously" and found that the Minnesota Majority "had done a good job in their review."
The report says that in Ramsey, 460 names on voting records were matched with felon lists, and a further review found 52 were conclusive matches.
Carruthers attributed differences in the numbers to Minnesota Majority's lack of access to nonpublic information, such as exact birth dates and other court records. For example, he said, "public records might show a felon was given 10 years probation, but internal records the county attorney has might show that the probation period was cut to five and the felon was eligible to vote."
Carruthers said Ramsey County is still investigating all the names and has asked that 15 investigators be hired to complete the process. "So far we have charged 28 people with felonies, have 17 more under review and have 182 cases still open," he said. "And there is a good chance we may match or even exceed their numbers."
McGrath says the report shows that more still has to be done.
"Prosecutors have to act more swiftly in prosecuting cases from the 2008 election to deter fraud in the future," he said, "and the state has to make sure that existing system, that flags convicted felons so voting officials can challenge them at the ballot, is effective. In 90 percent of the cases we looked at, the felons weren't flagged."
"If the state had done that," he said, "things might be very different today."
FAIRMONT - Minnesota's chief election official is up for election, and with no one else jumping in the race against Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, Dan Severson decided to take on the task.
Severson, a fourth-term state representative, was contacted by a poll watcher making serious claims about election fraud. He has investigated the allegations and helped file affidavits describing the complaints.
All to no avail, says Severson, R-Sauk Rapids.
"Ritch-ie's office says we had a clear and transparent election. Nothing could be further from the truth," he charged. " ... The system is broken. People say there's no problem because there has been reporting of fraud. Yeah, because the system doesn't gear itself toward fixing the problems we have."
As Severson campaigns across the state, he focuses on the Voter Protection Pledge. Started by the Minnesota Voters Alliance, candidates supporting the pledge must promise to support legislation requiring photo ID to access a ballot.
ID requirements have failed to pass in the Legislature, due to party-line voting at the Legislature, Severson said. But it's a battle worth fighting, in his opinion.
"In poll after poll, the overwhelming majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans support instituting a photo ID requirement to access a ballot - it's a matter of having confidence in our election system. This is something that the people want, but something that, so far, our elected officials have failed to give us."
The benefits, he says, are numerous.
o Errors are minimized, particularly with same-day registrations. Minnesota had more than a half-million same-day registrations, and Severson suspects ACORN illegally registered many of those votes.
The fact that one person can vouch for the identification of 15 unregistered voters concerns him as well.
o Voter participation has been shown to increase because people have more trust in the system, as in Indiana.
"I want to let people know what transpired in the last election and let them make the choice," Severson said, referring in part to the eight-month recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. "... We can fix this with a reasonable approach, which is photo ID."
Severson, retired from the military, also aims to improve voters' rights for soldiers serving overs
Is Ritchie fronting for a far left agenda through his position as SOS? Here is a revealing article excerpt from the activistcash.com website that gives some insight......
For instance, the Tides Center’s corporate registration documents on
file in Minnesota show that Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
(IATP) president Mark Ritchie is its “registered agent.” This might
explain why the Tides Foundation has paid over $20,000 to a commercial
corporation owned by Ritchie and his brother. It’s a “sustainable
coffee” company called Headwaters Inc., which does business with the
public using the name Peace Coffee. The Ritchie brothers run this
for-profit venture out of the same offices of their nonprofit (IATP),
which just happens to advocate society’s total conversion to Peace
Coffee’s main product. It’s a clever bit of flim-flammery, and the
Tides Foundation has been helping to foot the bill.
This is business as usual for Mark Ritchie, though. He is the
mastermind behind several other food-scare and health-scare
organizations, all of which get appreciable funding through his Tides
connection. A Tides Center “project” called the Trade Research
Consortium lists its purpose as “research that illuminates the links
between trade, environmental, and social justice.” Ritchie is its only
discernable contact person. Similarly, Ritchie’s IATP runs the
organic-only food advocacy group Sustain, but has taken great pains to
hide this relationship (the group’s Internet domain listing was altered
just hours after the connection was noted in an on-line discussion
group in 2001). Ritchie also started the Consumer’s Choice Council, a
Tides grantee that lobbies for “eco-labels” on everything from soybeans
to coffee.
Tides also maintains an interesting relationship with the
multi-billion-dollar Pew Charitable Trusts. Since 1993 Pew has used the
Tides Foundation and/or Tides Center to “manage” three high-profile
journalism initiatives: the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism,
the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, and the Pew Center for the People
and the Press. These Pew “Centers” are set up as for-profit media
companies, which means that Pew (as a “private foundation”) is legally
prohibited from funding them directly. Tides has no such hurdle, so it
has gladly raked in over $95 million from Pew since 1990 -- taking the
standard 8 percent as pure profit.
In practice, the social reformers at the helm of the Pew Charitable
Trusts use these media entities to run public opinion polling; to
indoctrinate young reporters in “reporting techniques” that are
consistent with Pew’s social goals; and to “promote” (read: subsidize)
actual reporting and story preparation that meets Pew’s definition of
“civic journalism.” Civic journalism, by the way, is defined as
reporting that “mobilizes Americans” behind issues that Pew considers
important.
Motivation
Thumbing Their Noses At America
Among the most unbelievable “projects” of the Tides Center is something
called the Institute for Global Communications (www.igc.org). IGC is a
clearinghouse for Leftist propagandists of all stripes, including
living-wage advocates, anti-war protesters, slave-reparations
hucksters, and a wide variety of extreme environmentalists. In February
2002 Orange County Register
columnist Steven Greenhut called it “a network of the loony left” that
“has to be seen to be believed… One alert posted in an IGC member
conference calls for financial support for the Earth Liberation Front…
Another message warns readers against cooperating with the FBI.”
Minnesota Voters Alliance Initiative Seeks to Require Photo ID to State Elections
SAINT PAUL, Minn.—June 14, 2010—State Representative Dan “Doc” Severson, candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State, today announced his support of the Minnesota Voters Alliance’s “Voter Protection Pledge,” which aims to get candidates for public office to pledge support for legislation requiring photo ID to access a ballot and thereby protect the integrity and value of every Minnesotan’s vote.
“Because the secretary of state is the chief election official in the state and because this measure has such overwhelming public support, I believe it was very important to sign this pledge,” said Severson.“In poll after poll, the overwhelming majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans support instituting a photo ID requirement to access a ballot—it’s a matter of having confidence in our election system.This is something that the people want, but something that, so far, our elected officials have failed to give us.”
“When citizens have confidence in an election system, they are more likely to participate in it.In Indiana, voter turnout increased after implementation of a photo ID law there a few years ago — by 13 percent in 2006 and 2 percent in 2008,” explained Severson.
“In the modern world, ballot access should have at least the same degree of integrity as renting a movie, boarding a commercial airplane, cashing a check, or disposing of leaves at the county compost site,” said Severson.
“This is not an issue of government knowing who is voting; it is a matter of other voters knowing that all the other voters are legitimate,” said Severson.
“There is something else that often gets lost in this discussion.Another important reason to implement Photo ID for voting is to streamline and modernize election processes—that is, election administration,” explained Severson.
“Election technology now exists, and is being used in other states, that allows for swift and accurate election registration, Election Day check-in, and post-election administration. Such technology relies on interface with a driver’s license or state-issued photo ID. It is similar to technology that Minnesotans are accustomed to seeing when they go to purchase fishing and hunting licenses. Just as card readers have eliminated the need for bait shop clerks to write out paper fishing licenses, a card reader installed at a polling place could be employed in voter registration and check-in on Election Day,” said Severson.
“A quick swipe of a photo ID through a card reader could populate the data fields in the state’s voter registration system, thereby eliminating common data-entry mistakes that take place with the current pen-and-paper registration system. It would also eliminate the ambiguities, duplication, and other errors in the voters registration system that arise when it takes weeks or even months for county election administrators to get all the voter registration information data-entered.And, it would save county governments tens of thousands of dollars in staff costs, because there would be no need to do data entry by hand anymore,” explained Severson.
“A quick swipe of an ID at the sign-in table in the polling place on Election Day would eliminate the need to line up by parts of the alphabet and would greatly speed up the lines in the polling places.It would also increase privacy, because you would not have to say out loud your name when you approached the polling place worker with the voter roster,” said Severson.“Plus, Photo ID is actually a ‘green’ initiative: It would conserve thousands of pounds of paper currently used to print voter rosters in every election,” said Severson.
Severson will be touring the state promoting the Voter Protection Pledge and encouraging other candidates for public office to sign onto the pledge, as well.
In 2006, the Democrats, Moveon.org and George Soros were pissed. Not only had George W. Bush survived his 2000 election, but he won reelection in 2004 handily. The most galling part of the 2004 election for the Dems was the state of Ohio. Ohio's Republican Secretary of State had not only kept out questionable ballots that would have benefitted the Dems, but the Secretary allowed in ballots for Bush that seemed unkosher to the lefties. Bush carried Ohio and got 4 more years. What to do? What to do?
The next election cycle, in 2006, saw the Lefties' creation of the Secretary of State Project or SoSP for short. The SoSP Project was co-founded in July 2006 by James Rucker, formerly director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action. During a panel discussion at the Democratic Party's convention last year, we learned that the Democracy Alliance, a financial clearinghouse created by Billionaire George Soros and Progressive insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis, approved the Secretary of State Project as a grantee. This means the SoSP Project is effectively funded by Soros and Lewis.
The SoSP web site is proud of their achievements to date as well as their Soros funding. " We've helped to elect 11 of 13 election reform candidates in key states like Minnesota and Ohio. Winning in these states has made a difference already, and now we're gearing up for more wins in 2010. Potential donors should know that the SoS Project's startup and overhead costs are already fully funded. So your contributions go to providing money directly to candidates in targeted races and independent expenditure campaigns in critical states, not to our operational costs."
The SoSP, in 2006, targeted its funding efforts on the Secretary of State races in seven swing states -- Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and financed our own Ken Gordon in Colorado, and Michigan. Democrats emerged victorious in five of those seven elections -- all except Colorado and Michigan.
The 2006 SoSP Minnesota victory had national ramifications two years later when Minnesota's 2008 U.S. Senate race was decided by the SoSP endorsed Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie. Since the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN for short, had endorsed Ritchie and contributed to his campaign, ACORN had a certain level of immunity when it came to counting ballots. On Election Night, incumbent GOP Senator Norm Coleman had won the election by a razor thin 300 votes. After weeks of challenges and rulings by Dem Secretary of State Ritchie, Al Franken became Minnesota's newest senator and the Dems 60th vote in the U.S. Senate. The 2,074 page Senate version of Obamacare passed a key cloture vote with 60 votes, the bare minimum. The Secretary of State Project had now paid off like a winning powerball ticket for the Democrats.
Now we have a new election coming up in 2010. In 2008, sitting Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman won election to the 6th Congressional District and this left a vacancy for Secretary of State. Governor Ritter appointed defeated Democratic State Senator Bernie Buescher to fill Coffman's term. He is the first Democrat to fill this slot in over 40 years. Since the SoSP participated in Colorado's last Secretary of State race in 2006, they are probably out for blood this time around.
This upcoming election cycle, the SoSP has so far only endorsed three Secretary of State incumbents. No new candidates yet. The current SoSP list includes Minnesota's Mark Ritchie, Al Franken's best friend. Since there is about a year to go before the 2010 election, there is no rush for the SoSP to endorse now. The SoSP uses another Soros' backed entity, ActBlue.com, to handle contributions. As a private 527 corporation, the SoSP can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn't have to disclose them publicly until well after the election.
When you visit the ActBlue website, Secretary of State Buescher is well represented. Although not openly endorsed yet, his ActBlue account for Colorado's Secretary of State race already includes 35 financial supporters. Not bad for a guy who isn't even supposed to be on the SoSP radar screen.
A number of troubling events have occurred in Colorado since SoSP's birth in 2006. ACORN has set up shop in Colorado with a foothold in Aurora. After his 2006 win, our sitting Democrat Governor, Bill Ritter, saw fit to sign an Executive Order allowing Labor Unions to penetrate the state government. Because of this, the AFSCME has started a Local Union of Colorado State Employees more formally called Colorado WINS/AFSCME Local 1876 part of the AFL-CIO. They share the same Denver address with the SEIU local union. Our Colorado tax dollars now flow to the AFL-CIO in Washington. The newness of this AFSCMELocal has not prevented their parent from giving a couple of thousand dollars to Mr. Buescher in his quest to become an actual elected Secretary of State.
There are currently a million more registered voters in Colorado than there are actual voters. You can thank the lack of voter role purging and cleanup for that. That creates a lot of room for shenanigans by ACORN and its buddies.Since Mr. Buescher will be the acting Secretary of State when the 2010 ballots are counted, he must feel pretty good about the final vote outcome next November. Come to think of it, he will oversee Colorado's U.S. Senate and Congress races as well. This must make acting Senator Bennett and Betsy Markey sleep well at night
The Republicans have reacted to this entry of Chicago-style politics into our Rocky Mountain state by offering up Scott Gessler in opposition. Mr. Gessler may become a burr in the Chicago style saddle of the SoSP. Scott Gessler is a Lawyer who offices in Downtown Denver. His practice concentrates on Election Law. He has 16 years in as a U.S. Army Reservist. He has been a Federal Prosecutor. Gessler is not a lightweight.
The SoSP has a litmus test to get an endorsement. Their web site states the requirements for an endorsement which includes: **-"Election officials should not place onerous requirements on or attempt to intimidate non-partisan voter registration groups. (such as ACORN) **-Efforts to suppress the vote through onerous requirements, such as unconstitutional photo ID laws, must be opposed. **-Efforts to raise voter participation of citizens who often face special barriers, such as students, military personnel, low-income people and minorities - including Election Day Registration - should be endorsed and actively supported."
Amazingly, Mr. Buescher feels the same way as the SoSP. He doesn't like a photo ID requirement to vote and likes it when a person shows up to vote and registers on the spot. ACORN joins in with their approval of these onerous methods to make Mr. Buescher, the SoSP and ACORN a loving threesome. Scott Gessler is in direct opposition to the SoSP way of voting.
One thing appears certain, if you vote for Bernie Buescher to become Colorado's Secretary of State, a lot more votes ala Chicago, will be counted, including dead people, people who have left Colorado, non-people, etc. If you vote for Scott Gessler, a lot more legal votes will be counted and the votes will likely reflect the actual number of Coloradans who live here.
I live in Colorado. I vote Gessler.
" You know, comrades," says Stalin, " that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this - who will count the votes, and how." From Memoirs of a Secretary of Stalin's by Boris Bazhanov.
Facebook™ Page, “Bring Every Vote Home,” Raises Awareness of
Military Voting Barriers
SAINT PAUL, Minn.—June 1, 2010—Several military veteran representatives, including
retired navy commander and candidate for secretary of state Dan Severson, today
called upon the Minnesota Secretary of State to apologize for disenfranchising
military absentee voters in the 2008 election.
“After
the 2008 election, there were hundreds of military votes not counted because of
artificial obstacles placed in the way, and military votes were rejected at a
much higher rate than others,” said Severson.
“Ritchie
should have done whatever he could to ensure that military absentee votes would
be counted.Yet when it came to
the Coleman-Franken recount, Ritchie took a hostile stance toward military
absentee ballots,” explained Severson.
“In
a memo, Ritchie’s office instructed county election officials to reject
Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) absentee ballots,
including the write-in absentee ballots that are used in extreme situations, on
a ridiculous technicality—not submitting an application for the absentee ballot—even
though the ballot was completed correctly and received on time.In the same memo, he instructed
election officials to go out of their way to accept absentee ballots from
voters who had technical problems with their ballots.”
“Two
years ago, Mark Ritchie announced the augmentation of a program called ‘Vote in
Honor of a Veteran’ that former Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer had started,
and this year he’s implementing it again,” explained Ron Kaus, president of the
Minnesota Freedom Council.“It’s a
nice program, and we wish it represented a true commitment to veterans and
military voting issues like it did for his predecessor.Yet it seems like nothing more than
window dressing to hide the fact that Ritchie’s office has actually worked to
suppress the military vote.”
“I’m
encouraging everyone to go to a new Facebook site called “Bring Every Vote
Home” and become a fan,” said Severson.“We want to educate Minnesotans about the barriers that military voters
face, and we want to work to ensure that our state’s election officials do
everything they can to bring every vote home.”
An attempt to hijack the state's election laws and open the door for
voter fraud failed at the last minute this week in Wisconsin's
legislature. But threats to ballot integrity continue in other states,
and Congress may rush to pass ill-conceived legislation this year that
would only sow confusion and increase the potential for chaos on a
national level.
Wisconsin's story shows how high the stakes are. Late in March, a
72-page bill was suddenly introduced and rushed forward with only
abbreviated hearings. The bill would have given "nationally recognized"
community organizing groups access to the state driver's license
database to encourage voter turnout. After the infamous registration
scandals involving Acorn in 2008, this was clearly a strange priority.
Requests for an absentee ballot in a single election would also become
permanent (without requiring a legitimate reason, such as infirmity),
and the ballots would be automatically mailed out in future elections.
Coercion and chicanery are made much easier by the excessive use of
absentee ballots. Most of the elections thrown out by courts—Miami,
Florida's mayoral election in 1998, the East Chicago, Indiana's mayor's
race in 2005—involved fraudulent absentee votes.
Three decades ago absentee and early ballots were only 5% of all votes
cast nationwide. In 2008, they exceeded 25%. Wisconsin's bill would
also have allowed voters to register on the Internet without supplying
a signature—thus removing a valuable protection against identity theft
and election fraud.
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, blasted
the bill, saying it would "make election fraud more likely" and
"jeopardize the orderly administration of election laws." In the end,
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker admitted the bill was
being rushed through too quickly and adjourned the session without
brining it up for a vote.
Democratic leaders also worried that a popular amendment to require
photo ID at the polls would have been attached to their measure.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed three previous photo ID laws, even
though Democrats such as state Sen. Tim Carpenter of Milwaukee
supported them saying he's seen "eye opening" public support for the
idea.
That backing is based on real evidence. In 2004, John Kerry won
Wisconsin over George W. Bush by 11,380 votes out of 2.5 million cast.
After allegations of fraud surfaced, the Milwaukee police department's
Special Investigative Unit conducted a probe. Its February 2008 report
found that from 4,600 to 5,300 more votes were counted in Milwaukee
than the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots. Absentee
ballots were cast by people living elsewhere; ineligible felons not
only voted but worked at the polls; transient college students cast
improper votes; and homeless voters possibly voted more than once.
Much of the problem resulted from
Wisconsin's same-day voter law, which allows anyone to show up at the
polls, register and then cast a ballot. ID requirements are minimal.
The report found that in 2004 a total of 1,305 "same day" voters were
invalid.
The report was largely ignored, and just before the 2008 election
the police department's Special Investigative Unit was ordered by
superiors not to send anyone to polling places on Election Day.
In January of this year, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf,
the city prosecutor overseeing election issues, complained that the
Milwaukee Police Department was stalling its investigation of voter
fraud in the 2008 election. "Sadly, [the prosecution of] several
probable cases of genuine voter fraud were harmed by that delay," he
wrote in an email to a city elections official that was revealed by the
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. A spokesman for the Police Department
responded that "we have investigated every case that has been forwarded
to us."
Wisconsin's bitter partisanship on election issues isn't found
everywhere. In neighboring Minnesota, the Democratic legislature and
GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty cooperated this year in passing reforms to
address problems from the controversial 2008 recount that handed
Democrat Al Franken a U.S. Senate seat.
The legislature approved several reforms proposed by the Center for
the American Experiment, a local think tank. They included clarifying
what ballots should be included in recounts (to keep the issue out of
the courts) and moving towards centralizing absentee ballot counting.
Sadly, it looks as if Congress could follow Wisconsin's example
instead. The Milwaukee Police Department's report on the 2004 election
concluded "the one thing that could eliminate a large percentage of the
fraud" would be to end same-day registration. Today, eight other states
have some form of Election Day voter registration: Idaho, Iowa, Maine,
Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wyoming. Montana
began Election Day voter registration in 2006, North Carolina in 2007,
and Iowa in 2008.
But Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat, has introduced federal
legislation to mandate same-day registration in every state, claiming
the system has worked well in his state. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York
is readying a bill to override the election laws of all 50 states and
require universal voter registration—which would automatically register
anyone on key government lists. This is a move guaranteed to create
duplicate registrations, register some illegal aliens, and sow
confusion.
We are in danger of forgetting the
lessons of the 2000 recount debacle in Florida. Election laws should be
clear, simple, applied equally, and balance ease of voting with the
need for ballot integrity. A unanimous Supreme Court warned about the
danger of loose election laws when it vacated a Ninth Circuit opinion,
which had enjoined the use of Arizona's new voter ID law on the grounds
it would disenfranchise voters.
The court made the obvious point that "disenfranchisement" is a
two-way street. Fraud, it noted in Gonzales v. Arizona (2006), "drives
honest citizens out of the democratic process. . . . [V]oters who fear
their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel
disenfranchised."
What almost happened in Wisconsin this
month—and could happen in Washington later this year—would increase
chances of future Florida-style meltdowns and further undermine
confidence in our election system.
Mr. Fund is a WSJ.com columnist and author of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy" (Encounter, 2008).
In its recent order, the three-judge election contest court in
Minnesota reiterated a common theme during the Coleman versus Franken
Senate recount--notwithstanding the numerous questions raised regarding
the fairness of the election, "Citizens of Minnesota should be proud of
their electoral system, a system which has one of the highest
voter-participation rates in the country." The court emphasized: "the
facts presented thus far do not show a wholesale disenfranchisement of
absentee voters in the 2008 general election." Accordingly, without any
discussion of those facts, the court refused to review several groups
of absentee ballots including many rejected ballots from military
members. It likewise concluded, again without discussion, that there
was no violation of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting
Act (UOCAVA), the federal law designed to protect absentee military
voters.
But, what were the facts that led the court to this decision? Did
military members have the same chance to vote as non-military voters in
Minnesota? Did election officials reject military absentee ballots at
the same rate as non-military ballots? Were military voters provided a
reasonable opportunity to participate in the election as required by
UOCAVA? The short answer to these questions is no.
In a state that prides itself on high voter participation--78
percent participated in the 2008 presidential election--Minnesotans
should be ashamed to know that only 15.7 percent of its military voters
were able to cast a vote that counted in the presidential election.
Specifically, of the nearly 22,000 overseas military members and
dependents eligible to vote in Minnesota, only 3,362 were able to cast
a vote that counted. In addition, local election officials rejected at
least 302 ballots or 8.2 percent of the total number of absentee
ballots cast by military members, which is nearly four times higher
than the rejection rate for non-military ballot. A vast majority of
these rejected ballots--about 65 percent--were rejected because they
were received after the election deadline. Finally, there were
approximately an additional 2,100 military absentee ballots that were
sent out but never returned--many of which were lost in the mail, sent
to the wrong address, or received too late by the military voter to be
returned.
Given these facts, it is puzzling that the contest court found no
evidence of wholesale disenfranchisement. They had a military absentee
voting population equal to one of the twenty-five most populous cities
in Minnesota (22,000 voters), and only 15.7 percent were able to vote.
When nearly 85 percent of a voting group does not participate, how
could this be anything less than evidence of wholesale
disenfranchisement? And, what about the fact that military absentee
ballots were nearly four times more likely to be rejected by local
election officials? Moreover, shouldn't there be some concern that
nearly half of the absentee ballots sent to military voters never make
it to the voter or make it too late to be returned? At the very least,
Minnesota's military voters deserve some discussion as to why these
facts do not show a systemic problem.
Minnesota's military voters also deserve to know why UOCAVA did not
protect their votes. At its core, UOCAVA requires a state to provide
military absentee voters with reasonable time to vote in federal
elections. When passing the act, Congress made clear that it wanted to
ensure that military voters "were not disenfranchised because of poor
mail service." Congress wanted to ensure that states did not mail
absentee ballots so close to Election Day that the voters "fail[ed] to
receive their absentee ballots in time to vote and return them."
Minnesota's election process, however, does precisely that--it sends
absentee ballots too late for military members to receive and return
them prior to Election Day. Because of Minnesota's late primary in
September, local election officials are unable to print and mail
absentee ballots until 30 days before the election, even though every
relevant federal agency recommends that absentee military ballots be
sent at least 45 days before an election. Delays in mail delivery to
war zones (estimated to take at least 24 to 36 days) and additional
delays caused by military exigencies (i.e., fighting the war) make 45
days necessary. In fact, the Chief of the Military Postal Service
Agency recommends that absentee ballots be sent 60 days before the
state deadline for receiving completed ballots.
There should be no doubt that Minnesota law makes it difficult for
military voters to participate in elections and potentially violates
federal law. The real question is why the contest court ignored these
facts and, more importantly, why it refused to take any steps to
enforce federal law. Given the daily sacrifices of our men and women in
uniform, they at least deserve a reasonable explanation why their
voices were silenced.
M. Eric Eversole formerly worked as an attorney for the United
States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, where he brought
numerous cases to protect military and overseas voters.
States' Secretaries of State Are Tipping Balance of
Power
In every major election since 2000
Secretaries of State have emerged as key, often decisive, and partisan figures
in the outcomes of those ballot battles.
In 2000 it was Katherine Harris, the
secretary of state of Florida, who made critical decisions that helped swing
the state Republican.
In 2004 it was Kenneth Blackwell,
Ohio's Secretary of State, who earned democratic wrath for ensuring a close
Republican win.
In 2008
it was the Secretary of State of Minnesota, Mark Richie, who handed that
state's Senate seat to Al Franken and control of Congress to the Democrats.
In every major election since 2000
Secretaries of State have emerged as key, often decisive, and partisan figures in the outcomes of
those ballot battles.
And just last week in Massachusetts
there was cause of concern that the upset victory by Scott Brown could be
compromised by that state's Secretary of State, who has to certify the results.
According to Professor Robert Pastor
of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University, the
situation has gotten so bad that the partisan roles of the secretaries of
states in the election process are undermining the faith of Americans in the
election process.
"After the 2000 election, partisanship in the office accelerated.
It has skewed enough elections since then that a sufficient number of Americans
should be concerned," he said. "We are worse than many third world
countries" in holding fair and nonpartisan elections.
And now there is a quiet,
below-the-radar but major effort to target secretary of state offices in order
to influence the outcome of upcoming elections.
Since 2006 the Democracy Alliance, a
left leaning influence group funded by George
Soros among others, has had remarkable success in targeting and claiming
Secretary of State's offices in 11 of 13 critical states they targeted,
including Ohio, Minnesota and
Iowa.
Called the Secretary of State
Project (SOSP) its aim is to target and capture the obscure, often overlooked
office and implement election rules
changes that give democrats a better chance of winning a plurality. Among
those changes that SOSP calls "election protection," are a loosening of voter
registration requirements and a lessening of efforts to prevent fraudulent
voting, according to Matthew Vadum, a political analyst with the
Capitol Research Center.
'The thing that is amazing is that
they can get the office for as little $100,000 in campaign funding because no
one pays attention to it, and they get to control election opportunities in a
state. It is cheap," Vadum said.
He said SOSP is currently targeting
three states in the 2010 election: California, Michigan and Minnesota.
In total they count for 82 electoral votes.
Vadum says that because of chaos and
demoralization the Republican Party has not formulated a response to the SOSP
or tried to match their efforts.
Perhaps nowhere is the impact of the new influence
of the Secretary of State had a more profound than in Minnesota, where Mark
Richie defeated incumbent Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer in 2006.
Ritchie, a former
community organizer, said at his inauguration that he owed his upset victory
to the Secretary of State project.
According to Kiffmeyer, as soon as Ritchie took office he began
dismantling much of the framework that had been assembled to ensure honest
voting in the state. It was that loosening of election controls, she
argues, that lead to the eight month standoff between incumbent Senator Norm
Coleman and challenger Al Franken in what was one of the closest Senate race
ever.
Kiffmeyer is "absolutely
sure" that Ritchie's efforts to eliminate voting regulations ensured
Franken's victory.
"The first thing he did when he
got into office was to dismantle the ballot reconciliation program we started.
Under that program districts are required to check that the number of ballots
issued by matching them with the number of ballots cast," she said,
"that way we know immediately that the vote count is accurate."
But that isn't what happened, she
said. We now have 17,000 more ballots
cast than there are voters who voted and no way to determine what went
wrong. Why anyone would eliminate that basic check, I don't know," she
said.
Months after the election was
finally settled, two activist/ computer experts have pieced together the
consequences of what they say was the loosening of the rules.
In a telephone interview from
Minneapolis, Dan McGrath and Jeff Davis, who have formed a small research-watchdog
group called the Minnesota Majority, say that their computer
assisted-examination of the voting records from the 2008 election show that Al
Franken's 312 vote margin of victory can be attributed to Ritchie's dismantling
election rules. Specifically they charge that Franken's victory can be
attributed entirely to illegally cast votes by convicted felons.
"We used an algorithm that
cross-checked voting records against criminal records using first name, last
name and date of birth and found that 1400
convicted felons had voted illegally in Minnesota," Jeff Davis
explained. "Most of those came from Ramsey and Hennepin counties (i.e.
Minneapolis)," he said explaining that they were heavily Democratic
strongholds and, by almost any measure, would have been predominantly
Democratic votes.
The two said they had forwarded 460
names of felons who records show voted in the last election to the Ramsey
County prosecutor's office.
Paul Gustafson, spokesman for the
Ramsey county prosecutor's office, said that the office was looking into the
claims. "To date 26 felons have been charged with vote fraud and
investigations were continuing in 186 cases submitted by the group," he
said. He also said that 243 cases had been determined to be unfounded.
"These cases can be time consuming
and difficult," Gustafson said, "because felons often don't stay at
the same address and can be hard to find."
McGrath said he was surprised at the
number of "unfounded" cases and wondered if politics might have
played a part in the outcomes. "The prosecutor is running for governor and
may not want to look too closely at the figures," he said.
Mark Aiken, spokesman for Ritchie's
office declined comment on the voting discrepancies and the SOSP involvement in
the state.
While the founders of the SOSP have
failed to respond to interview requests, they have been quoted as saying that
the project was begun in response to actions by the Ohio Secretary of State
Kenneth Blackwell.
They were convinced that Blackwell's
decisions in 2004 not to count some provisional ballots and other actions had
cost John Kerry the election. In an article after the election Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. argued that Blackwell "had prevented more than 350,000 voters
in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have
put John Kerry in the White House.
Blackwell's office was one of the
first and most critical offices claimed by SOSP. He was succeeded in 2006 by Jennifer Bruner, who received $167,000
in campaign contributions from SOSP, and immediately began a complete
overhaul of Ohio's voting system. Among
the changes she made were allowing election day registration and the failure to
purge election rolls of ineligible and dead voters.
Her most memorable moment was when a
federal court judge ruled that she had violated federal law for "not
taking adequate steps to validate the identity of newly registered
voters." At the time she admitted that there were
"discrepancies" in about 200,000 new registrations but refused to
allow polling workers to take action on the questionable ballots.
In Massachusetts, concern that
Secretary of State William Galvin, who had been cited by federal courts for
failing to count absentee ballots in earlier elections would withhold
certification of upset winner Scott Brown to allow Democrats to salvage the
health care effort rattled observers
However a spokesman for Galvin said
he would file the papers "probably on Wednesday."
"Having partisan oversee
elections officials makes election decisions suspect," Pastor said.
"Virtually no other country in
the world allows partisan political figures to run their elections, except the
United States," he said.
These articles speak to the targeting of the Secretary of
State Office by ACORN and special interests that are geared toward influencing election
outcomes. The important thing to remember is that these organizations
espouse election potential but refuse accountability measures ( ie. Photo ID)
espousing that these measures are racist or anti-democratic. We happen to
be a republic and truth and accountability are still attributes the American
people demand in their government. If these organizations oppose
accountability, more likely than not they have something to hide.
Take a look at the link and the articles that they lead you to. Understand
that what Joe Stalin said is still true today. "The people who
cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide
everything."
With a large number of felons voting in the 2008 election and only 15% counting
of the military absentee vote, (that is a staggering 85% that were not
counted), one must ask - where are the priorities. Allow law breakers to
vote and quell the military vote - those who put their lives on the line for
our freedoms - if that doesn't illicit some sense of injustice then this site
is not for you. If it does than you value our freedoms and I need your
help. Tell others about this site and let them do the research for
themselves. An informed people are a free people.
tea
party sept 12 « Local Marketing Hub By admin
this canadian me attended a tea party i love the american spirit i filmed
many who talked this is rep dan severson it was a great event. More
here: tea party sept 12.
Dan Severson,
Republican candidate for secretary of state will appear on "Republican
Roundtable" in January.
He will discuss his background and some of the major issues of his campaign
for secretary of state. Republican Roundtable is produced by the Senate District 63 Republicans and
is hosted by Tim Erlander and Marc Sullivan.
The show airs on the following channels and dates:
Richfield, Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Hopkins on cable channel 15
at 12:30 p.m. Saturdays and 7:30 p.m. Mondays.
Bloomington on cable channel 16 at 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and 5:30
a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays.
Minneapolis on cable channel 17 at 6:00 p.m. Tuesdays and 6:30 a.m.
Wednesdays.
The election process is fundamental to our republic. If the election process is broken, the people lose the ability to change their government to respond to their voice. The voting system is the method to reflect the voice of the people.
I am running for Secretary of State because Minnesota has created a system that is unworkable and unaccountable. It’s time for reform.
I have served 21 years as a naval fighter pilot defending our freedoms “against all enemies foreign and domestic”, and been in the Minnesota Legislature for seven years; it has been my honor and privilege to serve our country and the people of Minnesota and District 14A. This problem is so important to our government and the validity of the voice of the people that I am stepping forward to take on these wrongs and fight to restore the integrity and confidence in our voting system the people of Minnesota deserve. The stakes for our freedom have never been higher. Will we demand integrity in our elections or succumb to powerful special interests that put party and politics above personal freedom? Join me and together we can change the course of Minnesota’s elections to be accountable to the people once more.
( - promoted by Rocky Mountain Right - )
