Month: February 2013

Posted by AzblueMeanie:

I read in The Arizona Republic that Today at the Capitol:

Topic: Online voting.

What it’s about: The Senate Elections Committee will get a presentation on online voting.

Details: Senate Elections Committee meets at 2 p.m. in Hearing Room 1 at the state Senate, 1700 W. Washington St.

This is in regards to SB 1387, a bill sponsored by Sen. Bob Worsley (R-Mesa), the founder of retail catalog giant SkyMall, to establish an online voting pilot program in time for the 2014 primary election. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required0 reported earlier this month, Senator proposes online voting for 2014:

Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, said the
technology is readily available to ensure the safety and accuracy of
online voting – an effort that could save the state millions of dollars
in expenses racked up by mailing ballots to voters, he added.

“Long term, we’re not going to send paper around, and it costs us $12
million a year to do early mail-in ballots,” Worsley said. “I think we
have the technology online now to certify more accurately that there’s
not fraud.”

If Arizonans can be comfortable withdrawing cash and accessing their
bank accounts online or at ATMs, they should be just as comfortable
voting online, he said.

Oh, really? Bob needs to do more research. Just last week the Washington Post reported, Chinese cyberspies have hacked most Washington institutions, experts say:

Not long after the Wall Street Journal reported last month that its
systems had been infiltrated, the chief executive of its parent company,
Rupert Murdoch, tweeted, “Chinese still hacking us, or were over the
weekend.” The New York Times and The Washington Post have also reported being victims of cyber-intrusions probably conducted by the Chinese.

The former head of cybersecurity investigations for the FBI, Shawn Henry,
said his agents used to alert dozens of companies and private
institutions about breaches every week, with Chinese hackers the most
common suspects.

“I’ve yet to come across a network that hasn’t been breached,” said
Henry, president of CrowdStrike Services, a security company. “It’s like
having an invisible man in your room, going through your filing
cabinets.”

Do you want your elections being decided by some Chicom cyberspie hacking into an online voting system that cannot be made secure for which there is no paper-trail of ballots to recount or audit to verify the results of the election? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Washington Post editor Bob Woodward published an opinion on Saturday, Woodward: Obama's sequester deal-changer, that I addressed on Saturday, The sad decline of Bob Woodward, and which has been roundly criticized as factually incorrect by pundits for the past several days (see below).

It is now Tuesday, and despite several critical analyses of Bob Woodward's opinion, the editors of our sad small town newspaper The Arizona Daily Star republished Woodward's opinion today without any of the critical analyses accompanying his opinion explaining why it is factually incorrect. This is just lazy and mendacious.

So for your edification and letters to the editor of the Star informing them that they are failing their duty to inform the public, here are some of the crtiical analyses published over the past few days you should read in full and reference in your letters to the editor.

Posted by Bob Lord

Felecia Rotellini officially entered the 2014 race for Attorney General today. That's great. She'll be a great candidate and will make a great AG.

Full press release follows after the jump.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I read in the Arizona Republic last week that the House Judiciary Committee approved by a 5-3 party-line vote House Concurrent Resolution 2026, sponsored by Rep. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, that would ask voters in November 2014 to direct all future Clean Elections money to the K-12 schools. 2 Arizona bills target campaign finances:

Last year, Clean Elections had a $32 million fund.

Boyer called it a creative way to fund education amid tight budgets and said it’s time to ask voters to reassess Clean Elections.

But Lang called it a deceptive way to gut the public campaign-finance system.

“If you really want the voters to tell you if they like Clean Elections, ask them,” he said. But to wrap it up in a “Hobson’s choice” between funding for schools or elections, he said, is a ploy to kill off the system since he believes voters would opt for the schools.

The bills now move to the Rules Committee before facing a full vote of the House.

As the great baseball sage Yogi Bera famously said, "It's déjà vu all over again." Jonathan Paton attempts to kill Citizens Clean Elections (Feb. 16, 2010):

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 4-3 on Monday to effectively kill public financing of elections — but not entirely. Public financing of elections all but dead | The Sierra Vista Herald If approved, SCR 1043 would technically leave the Citizens Clean Elections Act approved by voters in 1998 in place. But it would leave no money in the fund for candidates in the 2012 election.