Chester County Democratic Committee

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No one can be sure for now what the historic 1/25/12 PA Supreme Court decision means for this year’s elections; see the advice from Kutztown in selecting where to petition.

Download various items relevant to Campaign Forms, Reports, and Statements here.

Download 2012 Campaign Finance Dates here but those have not yet bee updated with for changed primary petition dates; for those, see here.

For petition forms, it is better to go to Voter Services in person, to be sure you get the right form and the packet of information accompanying it, including filing fees (if any) and residency requirements.

Petition procedures and deadlines to turn them in must be scrupulously observed!

In particular, be sure signers sign their names as registered to vote (take a list, because they may not know) and do not ever use ditto marks.

By Lynn Jusinski, Phoenixville Patch, 1/26/12

After traveling to Harrisburg along with Councilwoman Jennifer Mayo to protest the changes caused by legislative redistricting, Phoenixville Mayor Leo Scoda was very happy to hear of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision.

The mayor headed to the state capital on Monday and by late Wednesday afternoon the court had rendered a decision: redistricting runs “contrary to the law,” according to the ruling. The Legislative Reapportionment Commission must head back to the drawing board on state House and Senate districts.

Reached by phone Tuesday evening, Scoda said he was “thrilled” with court’s decision and particularly two aspects, with the first one being that the borough will not be split. The second has to do with the state Senate lines.

“We’re so happy that we’re now going to have Sen. [Andy] Dinniman back as our state senator,” Scoda said.

When the redistricting plan was initially released, it moved the line for Dinniman’s 19th District south, handing Phoenixville over to a district that mainly covers Montgomery County. Dinniman, Scoda explained, is a prominent figure in Phoenixville and has been a big help to the borough.

“When we need stuff, he’s the first person we turn to,” Scoda said. “We want to keep him as long as we can.”

In a last minute change, the commission took three precincts—Middle One, North Three and West One—away from the House district that covers the rest of the borough. The whole borough currently sits in the 157th, represented by Republican Warren Kampf. The split would have put those three precincts in the 155th House district, represented by the retiring Republican Curt Schroder. …

keep reading at Phoenixville Patch

The PA Supreme Court’s order invalidating the 2011 state redistricting (download it here: RedistrictingOrder1.25.2012) also modified the primary election dates for candidates as follows (but petition signatures gathered on Jan. 24 and 25 apparently remain valid):

All 2012 election dates shall remain the same, with the exception of the primary election calendar, which is adjusted as follows:

Thursday, January 26 First day to circulate nomination petitions

Friday, March 2 Last day for withdrawal by candidates who filed nomination petitions

email from Kutztown Democratic Club, 1/25/12

State Senate and House Seats Are Affected

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ordered that state House and Senate districts revert to 2001 boundaries. The decision came down in a two-page order issued today. For details, you can find many articles online, including this one from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The decision does NOT affect federal and statewide races like Attorney General or State Auditor.

Signatures already collected within the 2001 district boundaries are still valid. DO NOT TOSS THEM OUT. If you have already collected signatures that are from areas that were new to your district, don’t cross them out, but make a mental note of how many more you’ll need to collect. There will surely be numerous challenges given all the confusion.

The deadline for collecting signatures has been extended until February 16th as a result of the decision. It is not clear if the deadline for all races has been extended or just the affected races.

There are LOTS of questions that have not been answered at the moment. The gist of the order was that the boundaries would revert to 2001 boundaries until more acceptable new boundaries are drawn. Some are speculating that the boundaries could still change before this is all settled — but that is, again, pure speculation.

For the next day or two, it might be safest to recall Venn diagrams from your old math classes. Take a look at both maps and only collect signatures in the parts of the district that fall in both. For instance, people collecting in the 187th would be wise to collect in Kutztown Borough, Maxatawny, and Upper Macungie 3 for the next day or so because those areas were in the 187th in 2001 and remained there after the new boundaries were drawn.

Pennsylvania Redistricting can help you compare old and new districts via interactive maps. Using the sample screen from the last newsletter, here’s how to do it.

1) Select your district

2) Select District Outline + Municipal Border Outline from the Show Overlay menu

3) Click on both 2001 and 2011 boxes (select 2011 Final if that option is provided)

4) Look for municipalities in both districts – 2001 districts are shaded in green and 2011 Final districts are outlined in aquamarine

5) The map you created can be printed using the Print icon under the map to the right (not shown below)

By MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press, in Daily Local News, 1/26/12

HARRISBURG — A narrowly divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday invalidated a plan to redraw state House and Senate district lines, calling the redistricting approach “contrary to law” and throwing into disarray plans by candidates and parties for this year’s General Assembly races, including those in Chester County.

“This delays our endorsement vote on Tuesday. We’ve got to wait and see what the districts will look like until we endorse,” said Val DiGiorgio, chairman of the Chester County Republican Committee. “I hope (the legislative reapportionment commission) gets back in a room and hammers this out to come up with districts that meet constitutional and legal muster.”

Said Chester County Democratic Committee chairwoman Michele Vaughn: “I was certainly overwhelmed and surprised by the court’s decision. I was not optimistic, because of the political process I saw unfolding, but I think this is a victory for every voter in Pennsylvania.”

The two-page order sending the plan back to the Legislative Reapportionment Commission said current district lines will remain until the commission comes up with a new plan that passes legal muster, which could mean changes may not take effect for two years.

“The fact that the court has … allowed the 2001 plan to stay in effect leads me to believe they think it could take a little bit of time” to work up a new one, said Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa….

keep reading at Daily Local News

from The White House, 1/25/12

Last night, President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address and laid out his plan for an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, new skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.

Throughout the speech, the President discussed ideas for building an America that lasts. He called it a blueprint for the future and talked about ways to make his vision reality.

In case you missed it, be sure to check out the video of the enhanced State of the Union.

by Eric S. Smith, Daily Local News, 1/25/12

Chester County Democrats will have an opportunity tonight to shift the party away from its longtime de facto leader.

Andy Dinniman has not been the chairman of the county party for about two decades, but as the lone Democrat from Chester County in Harrisburg, many voters see him as the face of the party. But as county Democrats prepare to hold their annual endorsement convention at 7 tonight at Peirce Middle School, Dinniman’s primary challenger may receive party support.

Former state Rep. Tom Houghton of London Grove announced in January that he is running against the state senator from West Whiteland.

When he announced his candidacy, Houghton made it clear that he believed he could garner party support and secure an endorsement. And on his campaign website, Houghton boasts about 40 endorsements from various committee people in the 19th Senate District. Many of his endorsements come from the southern portion of the district, where Houghton served as a representative in the 13th District from 2008 to 2010.

keep reading at Daily Local News

FROM EDUCATION VOTERS PA

Wednesday is a day of action for our public schools! People across the state are taking just 5-10 minutes to call Representatives, Senators and the Governor, to tell them we want our schools to have the resources they need to educate our students!  MAKE A NOTE on your calendar, smart phone, or fridge so you make sure to add you voice to the thousands who speak up.

TODAY: Take 5 minutes and get ready for Wednesday – download the call guide, find the local phone numbers for your elected officials….

We need to act NOW – the situation for schools is deteriorating!

A few weeks ago, Chester Upland SD ran out of money. Teachers are working without pay in order to continue educating the 3,600 students that attend that school. There are other school districts that are at the brink of financial insolvency (though the Dept. of Education will not formally release this list).

We need to INVEST IN EDUCATION and stabilize our school funding before more school districts have the same fate as Chester Upland.

Parents, teachers, students and community members are going to stand together and call our elected officials to tell them to fight to prevent cuts and to tell their House and Senate leaders to fight for our public schools throughout the budget process.

Click HERE to pledge that you will take a few minutes on Wednesday, January 25th to call your legislators and the Governor and tell them that investing in public education is the RIGHT CHOICE.

Again, you can click HERE for a “Call” to Action guide that includes information on how to look up your legislator, talking points on the importance of public education and a guide on how to call legislators.

Please FORWARD this email to others and encourage them to be the voice of our most precious resources Pennsylvania has – our students.

Yesenia A. Rosado
Office: 717-214-7935
Cell: 610-780-7707
www.educationvoterspa.org
Check us out on Facebook!

By ERIC S. SMITH, Daily Local News, 1/22/12

A former candidate for West Whiteland Township supervisor is considering a run for state representative in the 167th District.

Democrat Joe Denham, who lost his bid for supervisor in 2009, has yet to make his candidacy official, but said he is “seriously considering” a run. Denham would be the lone Democrat in the race to unseat Republican incumbent Duane Milne. Republican P. Joseph Corrigan is challenging Milne for the party nomination.

Denham said he would like to focus on education if elected. He said Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget, which Milne voted for, made severe cuts to education that could ultimately damage the quality of instruction children receive.

“The severe budget cuts in education undermine a student’s ability to obtain an education,” Denham said. “It needs to be addressed, and we need to fight hard to restore those monetary assets.”

Denham said he fears that the cuts in education funding from the state will lead local school boards to continue to increase property taxes on middle-class families. He said restored increases to public school funding could be accomplished through a natural gas severance tax. He said the tax should be similar to what other states have imposed. Pennsylvania is the only state that extracts natural gas and does not have a severance tax.

Beyond education funding, Denham said real fiscal responsibility needs to be brought to Harrisburg. …

keep reading at Daily Local News

Tredyffrin Township Democrats, January 16, 2012, by rhotinski

Make your voice heard! If you oppose the proposed voter ID bill (H.B. 934) as an attempt to disenfranchise voters, or an expensive and unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem, then please contact your new state senator, Ted Erickson (Republican, 26th District) here.

The state Senate is scheduled to reconvene on Wednesday, January 17, 2012. Along with a final vote on redistricting, the full Senate will vote on H.B. 934 with amendments. The original bill required all voters to present a government issued photo ID at the polls. As amended by the Senate Government Committee, the bill adds nursing home, in-state college and some expired ID’s, which many believe does little to address the potential for voter suppression.

This bill has been characterized as “a solution looking for a problem”. Yet Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is now pressuring lawmakers to enact it into law ASAP – even as GOP lawmakers admit they lack proof of voter fraud.

According the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP), who oppose the bill, “we find no evidence – substantiated by a search of case records and anecdotal information from the counties that it is an issue“….

keep reading at Tredyffrin Township Democrats

by Brad Friedman, The Brad Blog, at Truthout, 1/20/12

[n.b. This article is of particular interest here because a suit initiated in Chester County, Banfield vs Cortes, led to the general abandonment of unverifiable electronic voting in Chester County. See Dan Kristie, "Local plaintiffs cheer decision on voting systems," Daily Local News, 12/31/08. The plaintiffs eventually won. Chesco now largely uses verifiable paper scanners to record votes, although disabled voters, or others who insist, can use the same iVotronic machine described as unreliable in the article below (see Adam Cirucci, Electronic voting machines ready for May 16 primary," Daily Local News, 5/8/06. Typically under 1% of local voters use those machines. For a demonstration of the voting machines used in different counties, see PA Voter Services.The process demonstrated for Chesco is optical scanner voting on the ES&S Model 100/AutoMark. By comparison, Delco uses a Danaher ELECTronic 1242, which has no voter-verifiable or recountable paper ballot (on that model's unreliability in the Bush-Kerry election in ohio, see "United States presidential election, 2004 timeline" in Wikipedia. Lancaster County offers video demonstrations for both unverifiable and verifiable models.]

The voting systems in use for the nation’s first three all-important electoral contests in the 2012 primary — from Iowa to New Hampshire to Saturday’s South Carolina Primary — go from pretty great to intolerably horrible….

And now we come to the “First-in-the-South” Republican primary in South Carolina, where all evidence of how voters vote disappears entirely as the voters will be forced across the entire state to vote on easily-manipulated, oft-failed, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems made by the nation’s largest voting machine company, ES&S….

The machines that will be in use on Saturday in South Carolina are the very same ones that reported an unknown, unemployed, seemingly-illiterate man named Alvin Greene — who had done no campaigning, had no campaign staff, had no campaign money and no campaign website — had unverifiably defeated Vic Rawl, a four-term state legislator and circuit court judge who had campaigned and raised money across the entire state, for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

They are the same brand and model of machines (some of them, quite literally, the very same physical machines!) that were used in Florida’s contested Congressional District 13 race for the U.S. Congress in 2006 when they inexplicably lost some 18,000 votes in a race ultimately awarded to the Republican candidate Vern Buchanan over Democrat Christine Jennings by just 369 votes. After that election … Florida momentarily wised up and largely banned touch-screen voting entirely across the entire state. Many of the state’s wholly-unverifiable voting machines were then sent to the landfill, but many others were sold to the state of South Carolina.

The 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronics that are used across the entire state of South Carolina are also the same type of machines that led to impossible numbers in Monroe County Arkansas’ primary election in May 2010, when … thousands of votes seem to have simply vanished after being reported by the Secretary of State on Election Night….

…the 100% unverifiable voting machines that will be used across the entire Palmetto State in Saturday’s all-important “First-in-the-South” primary election are great! And whatever they tell you are the results from that election — no matter how “unexpected” they might be — will be the results of that election, whether or not they actually reflect the way voters attempted to vote or not.

read the whole article at Truthout