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EARLY COUNTS SHOW SENATE 'IN PLAY', DEMOCRATS MAY CONTROL MAJORITY OF GOVERNORSHIPS 8 November 2006 Among the early news emerging from the 2006 midterm elections: Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy win by wide margins; embattled Republican senator Rick Santorum is ousted by Bob Casey, Jr., by margin of nearly 59% to 41%; Rep. Weldon loses seat in PA, largely due to corruption scandal; Democrats take control of House of Representatives. For months, speculation has swirled around a sort of 'counter-revolution', ending 12 years of Republican dominance of the House and intermittent one-party control of the entire Congress. Now, the speculation is turning from who might win or what that might mean for policies of the Bush administration to how much pressure there will be on House leaders to launch investigations into a number of unanswered questions about the war on terror and executive regulatory policy. With control of the Senate resting on the question of narrow margins and possible recounts in Montana and Virginia, in both of which Democratic candidates held narrow leads, the election results were being commented as a repudiation by the voting public of the policies of the Bush administration and the scandals associated with the Republican-controlled Congress. In Connecticut, the Democrats suffered an important, if partial, defeat, as Independent candidate Joe Lieberman, the sitting senator and former Democrat, replaced by a party primary, defeated both the Republican and Democratic candidates for the seat he currently occupies. If Lieberman votes with the Republicans, he could shift the balance back to their side, depending on the final outcome of other races, namely Montana and Virginia. [s]
BACKGROUND: The 2000 election process gave clear evidence that the established system for running elections and counting votes in the United States is not cohesive, not fool-proof and not secure against tampering. Congress took action to reform voting standards nationwide to "Help America Vote". But that legislation suffered one fatal flaw: while promoting the shift to touchscreen ballots, it did not require that electronic balloting machines produce a paper record that could be hand-checked. [Full Story] TWENTY-SIX STATES HAVE PASSED LEGISLATION REQUIRING PAPER TRAILS FOR ELECTRONIC BALLOTS Since the 2000 election, voting technology has become a major issue in US elections regimens and regulations; touchscreen balloting machines, which legislatures seem to have favored as a way to record votes accurately, eliminating the 'hanging chad' problem, were designed with no paper record and have proven insecure and susceptible to tampering. Now, 26 US states have passed laws requiring paper trails, and 13 more, plus Washington, DC, have proposed laws "not yet enacted". [Full Story] SAN DIEGO COUNTY SENT VOTING MACHINES HOME WITH POLL WORKERS ON EVE OF ELECTION Reports have emerged that according to the San Diego registrar of voters, poll workers in San Diego county took tamper-susceptible Diebold voting machines home on the eve of the election. In some cases, poll workers may have had unsupervised access to the machines for a week or longer. [Full Story] TEXAS REDISTRICTING FOUND ILLEGAL BY JUSTICE LAWYERS, FINDINGS OVERRULED New documents show Justice Department lawyers unanimously found the Texas Congressional redistricting plan to be illegal. But that finding was overruled by top Justice officials and the staff involved in the research and analysis "were subjected to an unusual gag rule", this according to the Washington Post. [Full Story] |
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