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At the straw poll in Ames, Iowa GOP candidates will get feedback from the closest thing resembling an election with a campaign impact far stronger than comments made about this event. With all the haggling over which state will host the earliest primary or caucus Saturday night’s straw poll results are the strongest indicator of the relative strength of GOP candidates to this point in the campaign.

In early state polls including Iowa, Mitt Romney has been the leader for months. Although South Carolina and Florida may pose a challenge to the presumed front runner in Iowa. Brownback and Huckabee have hopes of placing in the top three while Tommy Thompson and Ron Paul have something to prove this weekend. Tancredo and Hunter figure higher in recent polls but have had limited exposure. Many lower tier candidates hope for a showing large enough to continue their campaigns by attracting more contributions. Top tier in the national polls, Giuliani and McCain as well as non candidate Fred Thompson have not made the Iowa Straw Poll a priority but are still on the ballot.

Whatever happens today in the straw poll results, those not performing well may look to the headlines below as part of an explanation or excuse. Either that guess is flat wrong and nothing will come of it or there will be more headlines in the coming week expressing displeasure with the voting process and implications for the ‘real’ elections. The voting public and election officials may also figure in the discussion.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Diebold Counting GOP Iowa Straw Poll

Thursday, August 09, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com
…Intrepid activist and radio talk show host Ernest Hancock of Arizona has flushed out the FINAL PIECE OF TREACHERY planned by the Iowa GOP - IF they continue on their present anti-American course with regard to “counting” the ballots in the 2007 Iowa Straw Poll. We have already explained in the above article that they plan to have voters feed their ballots into the Diebold compartments - most of which ballots will never be seen again! Then - at the end of voting at 6 PM on this Saturday, August 7, at the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, — the GOP designated officials make each of the sixty Diebold machines produce a paper receipt - which has the name of each candidate - and the alleged totals from that machine. (All ballots stay TIGHTLY locked in the black box inside the Diebold computers.) And then an Iowa GOP spokesman would announce the “results” on stage at the Hilton Coliseum at the Iowa State University - with all the ballots still locked away from news media, candidates, the public. And then the national newsmedia, as they like to call themselves — is supposed to announce these computer-generated “results” to the nation. -Rense
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Diebold Flaws Pose Election Risks in Fla.

Marc L. Songini
August 06, 2007 (Computerworld) — Optical scan voting machines from Diebold Election Systems slated to be used in the presidential primary election in Florida next year are seriously flawed and could compromise the balloting, according to a recent report.

Security will be tight for straw poll

Voters will have thumbs dipped in indelible ink
By Todd Dorman Journal Des Moines Bureau

DES MOINES — It’s a fake vote that will draw the kind of attention usually reserved for a real election, and Iowa Republican Party officials insist they’re taking aggressive steps to safeguard Saturday’s hotly contested Ames straw poll.

Republicans will be checking voters’ Iowa IDs and marking hands with the same indelible ink that stained the famous purple fingers of Iraqi voters. Only Iowa residents are allowed to vote in the poll.

Judge Refuses to Stop Iowa Straw Poll

Saturday, August 11, 2007

DES MOINES, Iowa — A federal judge on Friday refused to issue an injunction to stop the Iowa Straw Poll after a lawsuit was filed over the constitutionality of the voting process used at the event.

“In the absence of some legal violation, the Republican Party can run their (event) however they want,” Judge James Gritzner said in his decision, which quickly followed the hearing because the straw poll was scheduled to start Saturday morning.

Diebold problems are no surprise

Does it surprise me that the latest Diebold voting machines have “serious” problems?

No, especially after watching the DVD of the HBO documentary “Hacking Democracy,” which shows how Diebold (a large contributor to the Republican Party) has a system that can be, and has been, easily hacked into in tests.

Results in actual elections have been questioned, as happened right here in Sarasota with the Jennings-Buchanan vote on another company’s machines.

Anti-hacker voting machines get OK

Posted on Fri, Aug. 10, 2007
BY MARC CAPUTO

TALLAHASSEE –Florida’s elections chief said Friday the state will allow Diebold Election Systems to sell new voting machines, after the company improved its software to make it far less prone to a hacker attack that could change votes without a trace.

Secretary of State Kurt Browning’s decision comes less than two weeks after a Florida State University study he chartered showed that vulnerabilities existed on Diebold’s new optical-scan paper-trail voting machines.

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