Wednesday, January 09, 2008
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More On NH Primary Voting Machine Error
I just got this in an email.... There are many people in a number of campaigns who are outraged over this news that the NH Primary Election votes were miscounted. Real upset.
THE CAT THAT CONTROLS NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTION PROGRAMMING
John Silvestro and his small private business, LHS Associates, has exclusive programming contracts for ALL New Hampshire voting machines, which combined will count about 81 percent of the vote in the primary. And as to Super Tuesday and beyond: Silvestro also has the programming contracts for the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
Silvestro IS the New Hampshire chain of custody in New England -- Or at least, a very large component in it.
Last fall, with the help of citizens like you, Black Box Voting began working on "Chain of Custody" projects, in which we identified some of the areas of concern that might affect many jurisdictions at once. First on the list for the Northeast U.S. is LHS Associates, a vendor with inside access to every memory card, as well as to the chips containing the "brain" of the Diebold optical scan machines.
RARE VIDEO FOOTAGE
In an unusual confluence of available video, we obtained footage of Silvestro grappling with Harri Hursti, the master hacker who had his way with the Diebold optical scans in Leon County, Florida in the famous exploit that was showcased in the film Hacking Democracy.
The exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County is used throughout New Hampshire, where about 45 percent of elections administrators hand count paper ballots at the polling place, with the remaining locations all using the Diebold version 1.94w optical scan machine. Because the voting machine locations tend to be urban, this represents about 81 percent of the New Hampshire voters.
The video shows Harri Hursti testifying on Sept. 19 before the New Hampshire legislature, attempting to explain significant vulnerabilities requiring urgent mitigations; throughout his testimony, Silvestro inserted his own comments, opinions, misstatements and speculations.
VOTING MACHINE CHECKUP
One area of disagreement between Hursti and Silvestro was the amount of expertise needed to exploit the Diebold 1.94w optical scan system. Silvestro claimed (in a strange contortion of reasoning) that he doesn't hire very skilled programmers, implying that this makes New Hampshire elections more secure.
Hursti pointed out that hiring programmers with a lack of knowledge is generally not considered a security feature, and also that an average high schooler can learn to exploit the system in two days to two weeks.
WE THINK IT DOESN'T TAKE THAT LONG
Black Box Voting purchased a Diebold optical scan with 1.94w firmware, and chose a computer repair shop out of the phone book, took it in, grabbed the first available technician. It took him less than 10 minutes to zero in on the memory card as a point of critical vulnerability -- and oh my, did he point out some other intersting things!
NEW HAMPSHIRE HASN'T UPGRADED SYSTEM SECURITY
Silvestro tries to claim that the security problems have been fixed in newer editions. Whether or not they have been, it's a moot point in New Hampshire where the upgrade is not made unless the Ballot Law Commission meets, and they have not met for ages.
Silvestro then points to extraordinary measures taken by other states to enact special procedural safeguards, but of course none of those were implemented in New Hampshire either, because the Ballot Law Commission has not bothered to meet since March 2006.
IN FACT, NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS NOT IMPLEMENTED MITIGATIONS FOR KNOWN RISKS
Not only that, they have turned all the programming over to a sole source private company, taking vote counting for 81 percent of New Hampshire citizens out of the public domain.
LHS is not subject to public records requirements, as the government is, at least, not in New Hampshire. The control over memory card contents is absolute; when cards malfunction or get lost, LHS brings the replacements.
CONTROL OVER THE "BRAINS" OF THE MACHINE: ACCESS TO THE CHIP
Since LHS maintains the machines, repairs the machines, and replaces the machines -- often on Election Day -- when they malfunction, they have intimate access to the chips, sockets, ports, communications devices and other electronic components.
Silvestro stated that the chip has "read only memory" and cannot be reprogrammed without frying it under ultraviolet light overnight.
Hursti never had a chance to examine the hardware, nor have most of the recent university studies had access. But our friendly neighborhood computer repair guy differed with Silvestro on the point of plug & play reprogramming of the guts of the machine.
After I push the button to send this message out to the media and the citizenry, I'll work on getting a short YouTube video of the Accuvote checkup by our local computer repairman. And before you say, "But wait! He's not a world class expert!" -- That's just the point.
Our local computer repairman may hit or miss on some of his analyses. You'll all be able to try your hand at second guessing him as soon as the next video is up. But if he hits even one of his ideas for how to exploit the machine to steal votes, that's all it takes. From someone who is not, certainly, a world class hacker or even a hacker at all.
I'll post the link to that in a follow up here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71200.html?1199744175 , and invite you techs to weigh in.
Please feel free to distribute, reprint or excerpt, with link to Black Box Voting and the video link above.
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
THE CAT THAT CONTROLS NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTION PROGRAMMING
John Silvestro and his small private business, LHS Associates, has exclusive programming contracts for ALL New Hampshire voting machines, which combined will count about 81 percent of the vote in the primary. And as to Super Tuesday and beyond: Silvestro also has the programming contracts for the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
Silvestro IS the New Hampshire chain of custody in New England -- Or at least, a very large component in it.
Last fall, with the help of citizens like you, Black Box Voting began working on "Chain of Custody" projects, in which we identified some of the areas of concern that might affect many jurisdictions at once. First on the list for the Northeast U.S. is LHS Associates, a vendor with inside access to every memory card, as well as to the chips containing the "brain" of the Diebold optical scan machines.
RARE VIDEO FOOTAGE
In an unusual confluence of available video, we obtained footage of Silvestro grappling with Harri Hursti, the master hacker who had his way with the Diebold optical scans in Leon County, Florida in the famous exploit that was showcased in the film Hacking Democracy.
The exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County is used throughout New Hampshire, where about 45 percent of elections administrators hand count paper ballots at the polling place, with the remaining locations all using the Diebold version 1.94w optical scan machine. Because the voting machine locations tend to be urban, this represents about 81 percent of the New Hampshire voters.
The video shows Harri Hursti testifying on Sept. 19 before the New Hampshire legislature, attempting to explain significant vulnerabilities requiring urgent mitigations; throughout his testimony, Silvestro inserted his own comments, opinions, misstatements and speculations.
VOTING MACHINE CHECKUP
One area of disagreement between Hursti and Silvestro was the amount of expertise needed to exploit the Diebold 1.94w optical scan system. Silvestro claimed (in a strange contortion of reasoning) that he doesn't hire very skilled programmers, implying that this makes New Hampshire elections more secure.
Hursti pointed out that hiring programmers with a lack of knowledge is generally not considered a security feature, and also that an average high schooler can learn to exploit the system in two days to two weeks.
WE THINK IT DOESN'T TAKE THAT LONG
Black Box Voting purchased a Diebold optical scan with 1.94w firmware, and chose a computer repair shop out of the phone book, took it in, grabbed the first available technician. It took him less than 10 minutes to zero in on the memory card as a point of critical vulnerability -- and oh my, did he point out some other intersting things!
NEW HAMPSHIRE HASN'T UPGRADED SYSTEM SECURITY
Silvestro tries to claim that the security problems have been fixed in newer editions. Whether or not they have been, it's a moot point in New Hampshire where the upgrade is not made unless the Ballot Law Commission meets, and they have not met for ages.
Silvestro then points to extraordinary measures taken by other states to enact special procedural safeguards, but of course none of those were implemented in New Hampshire either, because the Ballot Law Commission has not bothered to meet since March 2006.
IN FACT, NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS NOT IMPLEMENTED MITIGATIONS FOR KNOWN RISKS
Not only that, they have turned all the programming over to a sole source private company, taking vote counting for 81 percent of New Hampshire citizens out of the public domain.
LHS is not subject to public records requirements, as the government is, at least, not in New Hampshire. The control over memory card contents is absolute; when cards malfunction or get lost, LHS brings the replacements.
CONTROL OVER THE "BRAINS" OF THE MACHINE: ACCESS TO THE CHIP
Since LHS maintains the machines, repairs the machines, and replaces the machines -- often on Election Day -- when they malfunction, they have intimate access to the chips, sockets, ports, communications devices and other electronic components.
Silvestro stated that the chip has "read only memory" and cannot be reprogrammed without frying it under ultraviolet light overnight.
Hursti never had a chance to examine the hardware, nor have most of the recent university studies had access. But our friendly neighborhood computer repair guy differed with Silvestro on the point of plug & play reprogramming of the guts of the machine.
After I push the button to send this message out to the media and the citizenry, I'll work on getting a short YouTube video of the Accuvote checkup by our local computer repairman. And before you say, "But wait! He's not a world class expert!" -- That's just the point.
Our local computer repairman may hit or miss on some of his analyses. You'll all be able to try your hand at second guessing him as soon as the next video is up. But if he hits even one of his ideas for how to exploit the machine to steal votes, that's all it takes. From someone who is not, certainly, a world class hacker or even a hacker at all.
I'll post the link to that in a follow up here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71200.html?1199744175 , and invite you techs to weigh in.
Please feel free to distribute, reprint or excerpt, with link to Black Box Voting and the video link above.
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
New Hampshire Primary Votes Miscounted According To Citizens for Legitimate Government
UPDATE Dennis Kucinich asks for recount of NH Primary votes Click here for more info and video
New News. New email I received asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! This news is all over the Internet. See below and see my video ..
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008
2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]
Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.
CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
UPDATE: My video on this matter:
New News. New email I received asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! This news is all over the Internet. See below and see my video ..
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008
2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]
Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.
CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
UPDATE: My video on this matter:
Clinton Cries, Buys New Hampshire Votes - Obama Fights On
First congratulations to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on her New Hampshire Primary win. Second, congratulations to Senator Barack Obama for the best speech of the night.
In this video, I assert that Senator Clinton's crying peformance was just that, a performance.
And I say this is so because the Clinton Campaign has a track record of staging people in place at events to ask pre-determined questions. This was done - for example -- in Newton, Iowa, where according to the Grinnell College newspaper...
On Tuesday Nov. 6, the Clinton campaign stopped at a biodiesel plant in Newton as part of a weeklong series of events to introduce her new energy plan. The event was clearly intended to be as much about the press as the Iowa voters in attendance, as a large press core helped fill the small venue. Reporters from many major national news outlets came to the small Iowa town, from such media giants as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and CNN.
After her speech, Clinton accepted questions. But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.
In my video and here, I contend that the person who asked Hillary Clinton the question of how she was doing was a plant, and that the whole deal was planned. And my second reason for why Clinton ran is even more interesting.
This is a developing story, but I believe that Senator Clinton's campaign trucked in volunteers to vote for her in New Hampshire. The NH primary has a very loose system where a person can just come in and on the day of the primary vote declare an intention to move into New Hampshire.
If one checks the NH Secretary of State's office, they will see this:
January 8, 2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION DAY - Unregistered voters may register
and vote on this day.
And this...
WHO CAN REGISTER
New Hampshire residents who will be 18 years of age or older on election day, and a United States Citizen, may register with the town or city clerk where they live up to 10 days before any election. You may also register on election day at the polling place. The town clerk's office can inform voters of what proof of qualification they should bring to register.
There is no minimum period of time you are required to have lived in the state before being allowed to register. You may register as soon as you move into your new community.
I also have it from a good New Hampshire-based source that a person can walk in and tell the town hall representative that they intend to move to New Hampshire, and still be allowed to vote.
It's also known and documented that the Clinton campaign called and paid for volunteers to show up at rallies. That's right, paid for them.
By contrast, the Obama campaign volunteers that did come in did so on their own dime.
The open question I ask is how many New Hampshire Primary voters actually live in New Hampshire? The margin of difference between Senator Clinton's voters and Senator Obama's voters is so small that this question becomes an important one. Especially since the Clinton Campaign was facing a cash crunch. Where did that money go? Some of it went to paid people living in nearby states to come into New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, Senator Barack Obama fights on and has just picked up the endorsement of the largest union in Nevada.
New News. New email asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! See below..
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008
2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]
Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.
CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
In this video, I assert that Senator Clinton's crying peformance was just that, a performance.
And I say this is so because the Clinton Campaign has a track record of staging people in place at events to ask pre-determined questions. This was done - for example -- in Newton, Iowa, where according to the Grinnell College newspaper...
On Tuesday Nov. 6, the Clinton campaign stopped at a biodiesel plant in Newton as part of a weeklong series of events to introduce her new energy plan. The event was clearly intended to be as much about the press as the Iowa voters in attendance, as a large press core helped fill the small venue. Reporters from many major national news outlets came to the small Iowa town, from such media giants as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and CNN.
After her speech, Clinton accepted questions. But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.
In my video and here, I contend that the person who asked Hillary Clinton the question of how she was doing was a plant, and that the whole deal was planned. And my second reason for why Clinton ran is even more interesting.
This is a developing story, but I believe that Senator Clinton's campaign trucked in volunteers to vote for her in New Hampshire. The NH primary has a very loose system where a person can just come in and on the day of the primary vote declare an intention to move into New Hampshire.
If one checks the NH Secretary of State's office, they will see this:
January 8, 2008 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION DAY - Unregistered voters may register
and vote on this day.
And this...
WHO CAN REGISTER
New Hampshire residents who will be 18 years of age or older on election day, and a United States Citizen, may register with the town or city clerk where they live up to 10 days before any election. You may also register on election day at the polling place. The town clerk's office can inform voters of what proof of qualification they should bring to register.
There is no minimum period of time you are required to have lived in the state before being allowed to register. You may register as soon as you move into your new community.
I also have it from a good New Hampshire-based source that a person can walk in and tell the town hall representative that they intend to move to New Hampshire, and still be allowed to vote.
It's also known and documented that the Clinton campaign called and paid for volunteers to show up at rallies. That's right, paid for them.
By contrast, the Obama campaign volunteers that did come in did so on their own dime.
The open question I ask is how many New Hampshire Primary voters actually live in New Hampshire? The margin of difference between Senator Clinton's voters and Senator Obama's voters is so small that this question becomes an important one. Especially since the Clinton Campaign was facing a cash crunch. Where did that money go? Some of it went to paid people living in nearby states to come into New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, Senator Barack Obama fights on and has just picked up the endorsement of the largest union in Nevada.
New News. New email asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! See below..
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008
2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]
Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.
CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Hillary Clinton's Mistake: On Martin Luther King, LBJ, and Barack Obama
UPDATE: Clinton on "Meet The Press"
See Blil Clinton sleep on MLK day!
Like many of you who follow politics, I saw the exchange between Fox reporter Major Garrett and Senator Hillary Clinton, where Senator Clinton said “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”
After some reflection, I don't think Senator Clinton was being entirely racist, but she was certainly acting stupidly. As my video says, Dr. King's work came at a time when it was not "comfortable" -- to say the least -- to be a Black American citizen. Dr. King didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing.
As this is 2008 and we have a generation of Americans who never experienced, and it seems learned about, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, here's a good biography:
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.
In my opinion, Hillary Clinton owes the King family an appology for essentially dimishing Dr. King's contributions in her words. The Clintons are placing themselves in the position of working to divide America just as Senator Barack Obama's working to unite our country. They're doing this because they think it will work in America, but as Senator Obama and I both know, this is a different country than in was in 1992.
New News. New email asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! See below..
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008
2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]
Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.
CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
See Blil Clinton sleep on MLK day!
Like many of you who follow politics, I saw the exchange between Fox reporter Major Garrett and Senator Hillary Clinton, where Senator Clinton said “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama’s rejoinder by Fox’s Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. “It took a president to get it done.”
After some reflection, I don't think Senator Clinton was being entirely racist, but she was certainly acting stupidly. As my video says, Dr. King's work came at a time when it was not "comfortable" -- to say the least -- to be a Black American citizen. Dr. King didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing.
As this is 2008 and we have a generation of Americans who never experienced, and it seems learned about, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, here's a good biography:
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.
In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.
In my opinion, Hillary Clinton owes the King family an appology for essentially dimishing Dr. King's contributions in her words. The Clintons are placing themselves in the position of working to divide America just as Senator Barack Obama's working to unite our country. They're doing this because they think it will work in America, but as Senator Obama and I both know, this is a different country than in was in 1992.
New News. New email asserts that the NH Primary Votes were miscounted! See below..
News Updates from Citizens for Legitimate Government
09 Jan 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
Where Paper Prevailed, Different Results By Lori Price 09 Jan 2008
2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)
2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand :
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)
NH: "First in the nation" (with corporate controlled secret vote counting) By Nancy Tobi 07 Jan 2008 81% of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as "Premier"). The elections run on these machines are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, MA. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81% of our ballots. [ See also CLG's Coup 2004 and Yes, Gore DID win!.]
Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.
Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.
CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright © 2008, Citizens For Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Barack Obama Wins Dixville Notch and Hart's Location New Hampshire!
These are the first two towns that historically place their vote in for President first in New Hampshire: Dixville Notch and Hart's Location. Senator Barack Obama got nine votes; Senator Hillary Clinton Three votes; former Senator John Edwards took in one vote. Here's the rest of the story from the AP
Obama, McCain Get Early Votes
Jan 8 01:28 AM US/Eastern
By CLARKE CANFIELD
Associated Press Writer
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. (AP) - Residents of two tiny towns stayed up late to give Barack Obama and John McCain early victories in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
Voters in two small New Hampshire villages, Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, cast the initial ballots just after midnight Tuesday.
In Hart's Location, Democrat Obama received nine votes, Hillary Rodham Clinton received three and John Edwards received one. On the Republican side, McCain received six, Mike Huckabee received five, Ron Paul received four and Mitt Romney one.
In Dixville Notch, on the Republican side, McCain received four votes, Mitt Romney two and Rudy Giuliani one. On the Democratic side, Obama received seven votes, John Edwards two votes and Bill Richardson one vote.
Long-shot GOP hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter attended the vote in Dixville Notch, where results were announced before 12:06 a.m.
"It epitomizes people-to-people politicking," Hunter said minutes before the votes were cast.
Hunter received no votes in either town.
State law allows towns with fewer than 100 people to open at midnight and to close as soon as all registered voters have cast ballots.
While most New Hampshire residents have to wait until around daybreak to vote, those in the two far northern towns have been going to the polls at midnight for decades. The Balsams, located about 20 miles from the Canadian border, has been holding its early bird voting since That's when former owner Neil Tillotson, who died in 2001, arranged for early elections by having Dixville incorporated solely for voting purposes. Hart's Location began midnight voting in 1948 because most residents were railroad workers who had to be on the job during normal polling hours. Townspeople, weary of the media attention and the late hours, did away with it after the 1964 election but revived the practice in 1996.
In Dixville this year, there were three registered Republicans, one Democrat and 12 who were undeclared. Hart's Location had eight Democrats, eight Republicans and 13 undeclared.
With more candidates on the ballot--42--than voters in town, longtime Hart's Location town clerk Marion Varney, 86, wouldn't venture a guess Monday on how the voting would turn out. In 2004, Wesley Clark got the most Democratic primary votes in Hart's Location and Dixville.
"I don't even know for sure who I'm going to vote for," said Varney. "I think I might just close my eyes and mark the ballot."
The two places have a friendly competition about which is first to cast its ballots.
New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner recalls getting phone calls in years past from people claiming that Neil Tillotson had illegally cast the first ballot at The Balsams before midnight--that they had seen it on C-SPAN.
"I'd say it was done on 'Tillotson time,'" Gardner said. "If he said it was midnight, then it was midnight."
Obama, McCain Get Early Votes
Jan 8 01:28 AM US/Eastern
By CLARKE CANFIELD
Associated Press Writer
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. (AP) - Residents of two tiny towns stayed up late to give Barack Obama and John McCain early victories in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
Voters in two small New Hampshire villages, Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, cast the initial ballots just after midnight Tuesday.
In Hart's Location, Democrat Obama received nine votes, Hillary Rodham Clinton received three and John Edwards received one. On the Republican side, McCain received six, Mike Huckabee received five, Ron Paul received four and Mitt Romney one.
In Dixville Notch, on the Republican side, McCain received four votes, Mitt Romney two and Rudy Giuliani one. On the Democratic side, Obama received seven votes, John Edwards two votes and Bill Richardson one vote.
Long-shot GOP hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter attended the vote in Dixville Notch, where results were announced before 12:06 a.m.
"It epitomizes people-to-people politicking," Hunter said minutes before the votes were cast.
Hunter received no votes in either town.
State law allows towns with fewer than 100 people to open at midnight and to close as soon as all registered voters have cast ballots.
While most New Hampshire residents have to wait until around daybreak to vote, those in the two far northern towns have been going to the polls at midnight for decades. The Balsams, located about 20 miles from the Canadian border, has been holding its early bird voting since That's when former owner Neil Tillotson, who died in 2001, arranged for early elections by having Dixville incorporated solely for voting purposes. Hart's Location began midnight voting in 1948 because most residents were railroad workers who had to be on the job during normal polling hours. Townspeople, weary of the media attention and the late hours, did away with it after the 1964 election but revived the practice in 1996.
In Dixville this year, there were three registered Republicans, one Democrat and 12 who were undeclared. Hart's Location had eight Democrats, eight Republicans and 13 undeclared.
With more candidates on the ballot--42--than voters in town, longtime Hart's Location town clerk Marion Varney, 86, wouldn't venture a guess Monday on how the voting would turn out. In 2004, Wesley Clark got the most Democratic primary votes in Hart's Location and Dixville.
"I don't even know for sure who I'm going to vote for," said Varney. "I think I might just close my eyes and mark the ballot."
The two places have a friendly competition about which is first to cast its ballots.
New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner recalls getting phone calls in years past from people claiming that Neil Tillotson had illegally cast the first ballot at The Balsams before midnight--that they had seen it on C-SPAN.
"I'd say it was done on 'Tillotson time,'" Gardner said. "If he said it was midnight, then it was midnight."
Hillary Clinton Tears Up During New Hampshire Speech; John Edwards Attacks Her. Is Clinton Able To Stand The Rigors Of The Campaign?
By now, you may have heard or even seen Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton become choked up and almost cry when a supporter asked her how she was doing. If you haven't seen it or know what she said, I've got it right here for you. This is video and below it, the text from Huff Post:
Clinton Makes Emotional Vow to Fight On - The Huffington Post
PHILIP ELLIOTT | January 7, 2008 06:40 PM EST |
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Hillary Rodham Clinton's eyes welled up and her voice broke repeatedly Monday as she talked with voters in a restaurant about her campaign for the presidency. The former first lady was making a last-minute pitch for support as she spoke on the eve of the state's primary, with polls showing her trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama.
Asked by a sympathetic voter how she keeps going in the grueling campaign, she replied, "It's not easy. It's not easy."
"And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said, her voice catching.
"You know, I've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said, her voice trailing off. The voters crowded into the restaurant applauded encouragingly.
"So," she continued, then paused, seemingly to control her voice as her listeners applauded again. "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down.
"It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. It's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not."
She concluded, "And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it getting _ really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced. So as tired as I am _ and I am _ and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with what I try to do on the road like occasionally exercise and try to eat right _ it's tough when the easiest food is pizza _ I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation so I'm going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide."
After she spoke several of the people in the Cafe Espresso audience crowded around Clinton and offered sympathetic support.
_________________
Presidential Candidate John Edwards waisted no time in spearing the already wounded Clinton:
Edwards, speaking at a press availability in Laconia, New Hampshire, offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to bring into question Clinton's ability to endure the stresses of the presidency. Edwards responded, "I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business."
Here's my take on the issue.
____________________
When Senator Clinton was ahead in the polls and raising money, she was just fine emotionally. Meanwhile, Senator Obama and Former Senator John Edwards and Governor Bill Richardson were all behind in the polls and fighting. They handled it all well, emotionally. Now, when Clinton is behind in the polls, and lost her first primary, she all-but falls apart.
This has nothing to do with being a woman and is unique to Hillary. I think she's so consumed with the personal ambition of achieving what her husband Bill Clinton reached -- The Presidency -- that any sign, even a small one considering how far we have to go in this thing -- gets to her emotionally.
That's not what people want in a president.
Indeed, this Facebook poll of her "tearing" is not a good one. It reports that 64 percent of the poll respondents don't think the moment helped her, where 18 percent believed it helped and 18 percent thought it would have no effect. But the poll question is weird in that it asks one to make a prediction. The real truth is that the people who wrote a response on Facebook believed that it changed their view of her -- and they're voters.
Clinton Makes Emotional Vow to Fight On - The Huffington Post
PHILIP ELLIOTT | January 7, 2008 06:40 PM EST |
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Hillary Rodham Clinton's eyes welled up and her voice broke repeatedly Monday as she talked with voters in a restaurant about her campaign for the presidency. The former first lady was making a last-minute pitch for support as she spoke on the eve of the state's primary, with polls showing her trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama.
Asked by a sympathetic voter how she keeps going in the grueling campaign, she replied, "It's not easy. It's not easy."
"And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said, her voice catching.
"You know, I've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said, her voice trailing off. The voters crowded into the restaurant applauded encouragingly.
"So," she continued, then paused, seemingly to control her voice as her listeners applauded again. "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down.
"It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. It's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not."
She concluded, "And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it getting _ really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced. So as tired as I am _ and I am _ and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with what I try to do on the road like occasionally exercise and try to eat right _ it's tough when the easiest food is pizza _ I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation so I'm going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide."
After she spoke several of the people in the Cafe Espresso audience crowded around Clinton and offered sympathetic support.
_________________
Presidential Candidate John Edwards waisted no time in spearing the already wounded Clinton:
Edwards, speaking at a press availability in Laconia, New Hampshire, offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to bring into question Clinton's ability to endure the stresses of the presidency. Edwards responded, "I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business."
Here's my take on the issue.
____________________
When Senator Clinton was ahead in the polls and raising money, she was just fine emotionally. Meanwhile, Senator Obama and Former Senator John Edwards and Governor Bill Richardson were all behind in the polls and fighting. They handled it all well, emotionally. Now, when Clinton is behind in the polls, and lost her first primary, she all-but falls apart.
This has nothing to do with being a woman and is unique to Hillary. I think she's so consumed with the personal ambition of achieving what her husband Bill Clinton reached -- The Presidency -- that any sign, even a small one considering how far we have to go in this thing -- gets to her emotionally.
That's not what people want in a president.
Indeed, this Facebook poll of her "tearing" is not a good one. It reports that 64 percent of the poll respondents don't think the moment helped her, where 18 percent believed it helped and 18 percent thought it would have no effect. But the poll question is weird in that it asks one to make a prediction. The real truth is that the people who wrote a response on Facebook believed that it changed their view of her -- and they're voters.
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