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Lot of information to digest here, but you appear to want more info: additional info here 2006 pt1 2006 pt2 2006 cycle individual members of the pac FEC disclosure

Is the name of his campaign committee - see FEC filing at http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/can_detail/S8CT0 0022/

The rule on campaign disclosures is that your name, occupation, employer, and some other personal information must be disclosed by the campaign to the FEC if you contribute more than $200 in an election cycle. Primaries and general elections are considered different cycles, so you could ostensibly give up to $399.98 without having your information made public. If you're interested, the laws are all posted here [PDF].
All the information is now online at http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/srssea.html.

An honest comparison of the two candidates fundraising abilities can be seen by looking at their respective FEC reports.

Here is President Bush's
Here is Governor Dean's

No doubt both candidates will pick up more strength, President Bush isn't going full out in fundraising right now and Governor Dean would pick up additional supporters from the rest of the Democrat field as they drop out (if he keeps up his strength).

As a challenger, President Bush raised $193M. The report is here. I don't have any doubt that he will raise far more than that this time around.

What should worry Democrats is the transfers of money out to other committees. Almost a quarter of President Bush's $3M in expenses are such transfers. That means that President Bush is spending less to raise funds and sending money down ballot which will result in some marginal races tipping Republican. I would guess that a lot of money is going to go that route and Democrats are going to have a tough time because of it.

An honest comparison of the two candidates fundraising abilities can be seen by looking at their respective FEC reports.

Here is President Bush's
Here is Governor Dean's

No doubt both candidates will pick up more strength, President Bush isn't going full out in fundraising right now and Governor Dean would pick up additional supporters from the rest of the Democrat field as they drop out (if he keeps up his strength).

As a challenger, President Bush raised $193M. The report is here. I don't have any doubt that he will raise far more than that this time around.

What should worry Democrats is the transfers of money out to other committees. Almost a quarter of President Bush's $3M in expenses are such transfers. That means that President Bush is spending less to raise funds and sending money down ballot which will result in some marginal races tipping Republican. I would guess that a lot of money is going to go that route and Democrats are going to have a tough time because of it.

An honest comparison of the two candidates fundraising abilities can be seen by looking at their respective FEC reports.

Here is President Bush's
Here is Governor Dean's

No doubt both candidates will pick up more strength, President Bush isn't going full out in fundraising right now and Governor Dean would pick up additional supporters from the rest of the Democrat field as they drop out (if he keeps up his strength).

As a challenger, President Bush raised $193M. The report is here. I don't have any doubt that he will raise far more than that this time around.

What should worry Democrats is the transfers of money out to other committees. Almost a quarter of President Bush's $3M in expenses are such transfers. That means that President Bush is spending less to raise funds and sending money down ballot which will result in some marginal races tipping Republican. I would guess that a lot of money is going to go that route and Democrats are going to have a tough time because of it.

Way to guarantee only self-made millionaires will win elections there. If only the rich are allowed to spend more, only the rich will get elected.

The rich already are allowed to spend more. A candidate can already pour an unlimited amount of their own funds into their campaign. My proposal would give an incentive not to.

And how do they explain that one to the FEC? Are they a real bank in and of themselves? Did they subject themselves to a credit check? Is the interest you're giving yourself realistic?

I'm not kidding. Go browse through FEC reports online. The multi-millionaire candidates rarely give to their campaign. They loan it. Check out Jon Corzine's FEC Filings for example. Pop open any of the quarterlies and jump to the last few pages. You'll see loan after loan from Jon Corzine.

You go around and ask for donations for the sake of giving yourself more money to pay yourself back (with interest, even) and see how far you get. Especially after the election has come and gone.

You get quite far if you're elected. You likely won't make *all* of it up, but any contributions you get is effectively money going straight to your pocket. Your campaign becomes a money-laundering operation for legalized bribery.

http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/can_detail/S6O R0 0110/.
Any smoking guns here?

If hand recounts are less accurate than machine recounts, why are hand recounts ordered by law in case in dispute in both Florida and Texas, as well as most of the other states?

Not true. What the Texas law does say is that if both a hand and machine recount are requested, only one, the hand recount is performed. Under Texas law, one may not have multiple recounts. In Florida, it is up to each county, provided they have the results in by deadline. Furthermore, as the Washington Post found, most states don't count dimples.

How easy is it to stuff the ballot box when you're in a roomful of extremely partisan observers from the other side? Do you think the Dem's are ripping out chads right under the Republicans noses?

Not conclusive at all. After all, the Republicans did complain about the interpretations of dimpled chads that Broward County came up with. The Republican judge on the Broward County board disagreed with tons of the calls, and one Republican observer was thrown out for disagreeing with a call. So, just because the Republicans were there didn't mean they didn't object to the calls. They just didn't control the process.

How can Gore have "clearly lost" the hand recount when the recount wasn't allowed to finish? Do you think shipping in goons to harass election canvassing boards into calling off recounts is an acceptable outcome in a Western democracy?

Because the race is over after either the arbitrary deadline the Florida Supreme Court made, or the original deadline in the statute the Legislature passed before the election. As for the "goons" complaint, the Democratic election supervisor in Miami-Dade County told the Los Angeles Times that the demonstration was peaceful, and did not intimidate him. He would have made the decision anyway, as there wasn't enough time. Don't forget that the Democrats on the County board originally voted not to have a manual recount, until the Gore campaign threatened to sue them. As a Democrat, it would have been easy for him to claim he was intimidated; he didn't.

The woman who certified this vote, and who has consistently attempted to block all attempts at hand recounts, is Bush's co-campaign chair in Florida. How can this be allowed to happen? Do they not have conflict of interest laws in Florida? Further, her job is due to be slated out of existence at the end of her term, which means she's looking for work. She'll get a plum appointment in a Bush administration, maybe even an Ambassadorship. Is this the way we do elections in America? Sounds more like one of those new Russian states making it's first attempt at democracy.

She does have an obvious defense, that it is her job and she was following the law. After all, the Attorney General for Florida jumped in the dispute, and he managed Gore's campaign in Florida. The judges and workers in Broward County and elsewhere who judges the dimpled ballots voted for Gore, and some of them contributed to his campaign, had stickers for him on their cars, and are members of the DNC. (Evidence, as though it matters: here) Surely there were conflicts of interest there too? At least her job had very straightforward deadlines in law, and later dictated by the courts-- the local Democratic officials were interpreting dimples and stray marks, which has much more room for bias. She certified all recounts that came before the legislated deadline. She then certified all recounts before the Florida Supreme Court imposed deadline.

Why are most of the optical counting machines in Florida in Republican areas, where the shitty old punchcard systems are in place in Democratic strongholds?

Not true. The Orlando Sentinal published a list of spoiled ballots for counties and electoral systems. It lists tabulation systems used, and who won each county. There's also a link to a map. Note that optical systems and punchcard systems are distributed proportionally in counties the each candidate won, although Gore did have slightly more spoiled ballots in counties he won.

I'd like to mention just how these regulatory agencies work: He didn't send an e-mail or go down to the local FEC office and ask one of the people for their opinion over a cup of coffee. Instead Leo Smith probabally got a phone call or an e-mail from the Federal Elections Comission and asked him to start filling out the required paperwork.

As part of the appeal process he demanded a formal written opinion from the FEC, which is one of the first steps they are required to do before any legal action can take place. This process is the same if you are disputing something from the IRS, NSA, FCC, or any other federal agency. The advisory opinion is taken as the official position of the FEC on the matter and is treated similarly (although not exactly) to an opinion written by a federal judge, or at least a legal briefing by a procesuting attorney.

The fact that the FEC would even write such an opinion indicates that they take the issue seriously and are in the process of of trying to enforce what they percieve as violations of US Elections Laws. They even specify the exact laws they feel are being broken and are threating legal action.

Specifically, the FEC said "Should the activity qualify as an independent expenditure, you would be required to file reports with the Commission if the total value of your expenditures exceeds $250 during 1998. 2 U.S.C. 431(17), 434(c), 441a(a)(7)(B); 11 CFR 109.1, 109.2. In contrast, if your activity were not conducted completely independent of the Koskoff campaign, your expenditures would be reportable by the Koskoff Committee as an in-kind contribution from you. 2 U.S.C. 431(8)(A)(i), 434(b)(2)(A), 434(b)(3)(A); 11 CFR 104.3(a)(3)(i), 104.3(a)(4)(i), 104.13. 10"

I think that is pretty specific and shows they mean business.

From my reading, they were ackowledging that any time he put into the effort would not be included in the valuation. So his "speech" was free, only broadcasting of it was considered a contribution, and only in proportion to the other cost of the web site. His argument was that the political website should be valued only at the marginal cost, which was $0.