Romney seeks extended deadline for overseas voters

MADISON, Wis. (AP) ? Working to broaden his popularity among military veterans, Republican Mitt Romney's campaign has sent letters to election officials in Wisconsin, Mississippi and Vermont demanding that the deadline for receiving ballots from military and overseas voters be extended.

The letters sent in recent days on Romney's behalf by former U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi charge that election officials in the states missed the Sept. 22 deadline for mailing some ballots to overseas and military voters. A fourth letter was to be sent Tuesday to Michigan officials, according to Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams.

The campaign is actively monitoring state and local election officials across the country, he said.

"We want to ensure that our fighting men and women overseas have the right to vote in the time that is given under federal law," Williams said. "We're doing it across the country in both red states and blue state and battleground states."

The letter-writing effort targets election officials in presidential battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, but extends into others ? Mississippi and Vermont ? that neither side expects to be competitive on Election Day. The move is part of a broader push by the Romney campaign to expand his popularity among military veterans, who tend to be older men who vote Republican, to help balance President Barack Obama's advantage among Latinos and women.

Exit polls suggest that Obama lost the veterans vote by 10 points in 2008. A Gallup Poll taken in August gave Romney a 17-point edge among the voting bloc, which makes up about 13 percent of the adult population.

In Wisconsin, 27 municipalities missed the deadline for various reasons to send ballots to a total of 44 military and overseas voters, said Reid Magney, spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board, which handles elections. All 44 ballots were sent to the affected voters within five days of the missed deadline, Magney said.

Federal law requires that ballots be sent to military and overseas voters by Sept. 22, and be returned by Nov. 9.

Williams said the Romney campaign was paying closer attention to Wisconsin because of problems election clerks had earlier this year in meeting the deadline for the presidential primary.

In March, Wisconsin election officials entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to extend the deadline for receiving ballots for the April 3 primary when at least 227 military and overseas ballots were mailed after the deadline.

Under that agreement, the ballots had to be postmarked by the day of the election, April 3, but the completed ballot was counted if it came in within as many days as it was sent late.

The Romney letters copied in the U.S. Department of Justice. If the department doesn't bring legal action, the campaign will consider it, Williams said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately return an email message seeking comment.

There are 6,120 military and overseas voters in Wisconsin, Magney said. The total voting age population is about 4.38 million.

The Romney campaign sent its letter to the election commission in Hinds County, Mississippi, and to Vermont Secretary of State James Condos. The letters do not indicate, and Williams did not know, how many voters in each of those states may be affected.

Hinds County election officials have said the deadline was missed for just 13 voters but they have all since received their ballots electronically.

In the Vermont letter, Principi said 53 municipalities sent ballots late.

Condos, a Democrat who last week called the issue "a show" by the Romney campaign, said a recount in a primary race delayed the printing of the November ballots. Condos said all the late ballots had been sent to the affected voters by Tuesday.

___

Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Washington and Lisa Rathke in Montpelier, Vt., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romney-seeks-extended-deadline-overseas-voters-180511060--election.html

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Google Apps Users Can Now Get 24/7 Phone Support For Chrome

Google just announced that Google Apps for Business, Education and Government customers can now call and email the company with their questions about Chrome. Google, of course, has always been?somewhat notorious for its lack of customer support options, but this is slowly changing. Last November, for example, the company announced that it would start offering 24/7 phone support for paying Apps for Business users. Starting today, Google Apps users can call and email Google for support with "Chrome installation, functionality, security, browser policy settings and Google Apps interoperability for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/lq7oQvwHeWc/

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Election system in Venezuela: High tech, but low trust

When Venezuelans go to the polls on Sunday to elect their next president, they will be using one of the most sophisticated voting systems in the hemisphere. But could the machines give Chavez an edge?

By Jim Wyss,?McClatchy / October 1, 2012

A voter uses a fingerprint scanner during a mock election to simulate upcoming Oct. 7 presidential election at a polling station in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Aug. 5, 2012.

Fernando Llano/AP

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As the United States squabbles over its voter ID laws, Venezuelans will face one of the most rigorous systems in the hemisphere when they head to the polls Oct. 7.

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After keying in an identification number, a voter's photo and name will pop up on a screen. Only after validating their identity with a thumb swipe over an electronic reader will the voting machine be activated.

The government and independent observers say the new system is one of the most sophisticated in the hemisphere. It's designed to weed out double voting and leave behind a paper and digital trail that makes it fast and easy to audit.

"As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world," former President Jimmy Carter said this month at The Carter Center.

But in polarized Venezuela ? where President Hugo Chavez is facing one of the tightest races of his 14-year tenure ? some are fretting that the new machines, and other quirks of the electoral system, may give the government an edge.

Independent auditors and the opposition's own technical team say the thumbprint reader attached to the Smartmatic voting machines scrambles the order of votes, so there's no way to know who voted for whom. But the fact that the identification system is visibly linked to the voting panel seems designed to generate doubts, said Ludwig Moreno, a member of the Voto Limpio election watchdog group.

"Let me be clear: the vote is most likely secret, but it doesn't appear to be secret," he said. "And that's why these machines were installed."

Voter privacy is a sensitive issue in Venezuela. In 2004, the names of more than 2.4 million people who had signed a presidential recall petition were released.

Government agencies were accused of firing and discriminating against people on the Lista Tascon. In 2005, Chavez called on his supporters to quit using the list, but it left many wary of openly opposing the administration.

Still, many view the privacy warnings as an opposition ploy to cloud an eventual Chavez victory. On a recent weekday, Luis Otorio, 62, a retired dentist, stepped out of one of the mock voting booths set up around Caracas. He declared the new system "super fino" and said the only people who were questioning it were supporters of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.

"They'll say or do anything to win this race," Otorio said. "They're thrashing around like drowning chickens."

On paper, Venezuela is one of the most civically active nations on the planet, with a voter registration rate of 96.5 percent. (By comparison, only 65 percent of potential U.S. voters are registered.) The Chavez administration has said the historic levels are the result of a massive registration drive, which began in 2003. But for some, the figures are too good.

Alfredo Weil was on the board of Venezuela's election council for 12 years, most recently in 1994. Weil, who now runs the Esdata election watchdog group, points out that in 2003 the registration rate was 76.5 percent. He said it is hard to believe that voter rolls increased so dramatically over such a short period of time.

"According to government figures all but (3 percent) of people took the time to register to vote but abstention is 30 percent," he said. "It just makes no sense."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/q-jTLU7bpQo/Election-system-in-Venezuela-High-tech-but-low-trust

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10 NDSU players plead guilty to petition fraud

North Dakota State University football players, from left: Lucas Albers; Demitrius Gray; Charles Smith III; Josh Colville; Aireal Boyd; Antonio Rogers; Marcus Williams; Bryan Shepherd; Samuel Ojuri, and Brendin Pierre leave the Cass County Courthouse Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012, in Fargo, N.D. The ten players pleaded guilty to misdemeanor election fraud and were sentenced to community service for faking signatures on proposed ballot measure petitions that they were hired to collect. (AP Photo/The Forum, David Samson)

North Dakota State University football players, from left: Lucas Albers; Demitrius Gray; Charles Smith III; Josh Colville; Aireal Boyd; Antonio Rogers; Marcus Williams; Bryan Shepherd; Samuel Ojuri, and Brendin Pierre leave the Cass County Courthouse Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012, in Fargo, N.D. The ten players pleaded guilty to misdemeanor election fraud and were sentenced to community service for faking signatures on proposed ballot measure petitions that they were hired to collect. (AP Photo/The Forum, David Samson)

FARGO, N.D. (AP) ? Ten North Dakota State University football players pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor election fraud and were sentenced to community service for faking signatures on ballot measure petitions that they were hired to collect.

Among the players on the nation's top-ranked Football Championship Subdivision team who pleaded guilty Tuesday were starters Samuel Ojuri, Joshua Colville, Marcus Williams and Brendin Pierre. Players Lucas Albers, Aireal Boyd, Demitrius Gray Bryan Shepherd, Antonio Rogers, and Charles Smith III also pleaded guilty.

Each of the players was ordered to serve 360 days of unsupervised probation, complete 50 hours of community service and pay $325 in fees. All of the sentences were deferred, meaning the crime will be expunged from a player's record if he completes the conditions of his sentence.

Judge Douglas Herman said during sentencing that the defendants were "not smart enough, grown up enough or sophisticated enough" to understand the consequences of their actions, and should not be penalized for being football players.

"I don't want to treat them adversely, to make special examples of them," Herman said.

Birch Burdick, the Cass County state's attorney, echoed those thoughts outside the courtroom.

"We took no consideration of what they do outside the courthouse here other than the activity that we were charging them with," Burdick said. "It's irrelevant to me whether they are football players, baseball players or clerical workers in some office. It's the behavior that we're looking at.

"If they've got some administrative sanctions that they have to face because of their activity, that's up to the university to figure out," he said.

The players declined to comment after the hearing. Defense attorney Bruce Quick deferred questions to NDSU officials, who said they planned to issue a statement later Tuesday.

Bison head coach Craig Bohl has said the team might discipline the players but won't suspend them.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to the sentences for eight of the 10 players. The state had recommended 1-year suspended sentences for Ojuri, Williams and Albers because of prior misdemeanors.

Burdick the sentencing recommendation was based on past cases in the county and state, most recently in 2008 in Grand Forks.

"Those were all deferred sentences," he said. "As a result we were looking for that same disposition here on most cases."

Ojuri, a starting running back, had prior convictions for possession of a controlled substance and a minor alcohol violation. Williams, an All-American cornerback, had prior convictions for possession of alcohol by a minor and driving with a suspended license and without insurance. Albers, a backup tight end, had previous citation for underage possession of alcohol.

When Ojuri came before Herman, the judge said to the defense attorney, "All right Mr. Quick, this is going to be a hard one." Quick told Herman he believed all the players deserved the same sentence, in part because they quickly admitted wrongdoing and cooperated with investigators.

"Having this on your record is a lot different than having the other offenses on your record, just because of the taint of fraud," he said.

The judge interrupted prosecutor Tracy Peters when she began to talk about the impact of the crime.

"If you want to be a zealot with this case you don't come in here with deferred impositions in hand," Herman said.

Before finishing with the players, Herman emphasized that they needed to complete the community service by April 15, which would give them about three months after a possible appearance in the FCS championship game. "Must means must," he said, telling them they would go to jail if they don't follow orders.

The current players are among 15 people charged in the case.

Two other people also entered pleas Tuesday. Jennifer Krahn pleaded guilty and received the same sentence as the 10 players. William Brown pleaded not guilty and requested a public defender. Three former Bison players ? Don Carter, Joshua Gatlin and D.J. McNorton ? had their first court appearances rescheduled to Thursday

An Iowa company, Terra Strategies, reportedly hired the players and others for $9 an hour to gather signatures for two citizen initiatives, one to set up a state conservation fund and the other to make marijuana legal for medical treatments. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said last month that many of the petition signatures submitted were copied from phone books or fabricated.

Quick said in court the players were quoted a daily rate of between $65 and $90 but were told they'd get paid only if they obtained 60 signatures per day.

Herman questioned whether the practice was legal and criticized the quota system.

"I think that may have been pushed on these individuals," he said.

North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger said workers checking the petitions noticed repeated Zip code mistakes, names "signed" in the same hand and other indications the signatures were faked. In one instance, a person signed the name of Hillary Rodham, who is better known as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and listed her as living at the White House, he said.

Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents interviewed the circulators, who said they could not say which signatures on their petitions were genuine and which were not, Stenehjem said. Petition circulators are required to sign a statement declaring the signatures they gathered were properly obtained.

With the suspect petitions disqualified, neither initiative had enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, Jaeger said.

The No. 1-ranked Bison play No. 3-rated Youngstown State Saturday at the Fargodome.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-10-02-Petition%20Fraud-Pleas/id-28f289fe3bce4890bb629d7a38114321

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Potential new class of drugs blocks nerve cell death

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2012) ? Diseases that progressively destroy nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord, such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), are devastating conditions with no cures.

Now, a team that includes a University of Iowa researcher has identified a new class of small molecules, called the P7C3 series, which block cell death in animal models of these forms of neurodegenerative disease. The P7C3 series could be a starting point for developing drugs that might help treat patients with these diseases. These findings are reported in two new studies published the week of Oct. 1 in PNAS Early Edition.

"We believe that our strategy for identifying and testing these molecules in animal models of disease gives us a rational way to develop a new class of neuroprotective drugs, for which there is a great, unmet need," says Andrew Pieper, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the UI Carver College of Medicine, and senior author of the two studies.

About six years ago, Pieper, then at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and his colleagues screened thousands of compounds in living mice in search of small, drug-like molecules that could boost production of neurons in a region of the brain called the hippocampus. They found one compound that appeared to be particularly successful and called it P7C3.

"We were interested in the hippocampus because new neurons are born there every day. But, this neurogenesis is dampened by certain diseases and also by normal aging," Pieper explains. "We were looking for small drug-like molecules that might enhance production of new neurons and help maintain proper functioning in the hippocampus."

However, when the researchers looked more closely at P7C3, they found that it worked by protecting the newborn neurons from cell death. That finding prompted them to ask whether P7C3 might also protect existing, mature neurons in other regions of the nervous system from dying as well, as occurs in neurodegenerative disease.

Using mouse and worm models of PD and a mouse model of ALS, the research team has now shown that P7C3 and a related, more active compound, P7C3A20, do in fact potently protect the neurons that normally are destroyed by these diseases. Their studies also showed that protection of the neurons correlates with improvement of some disease symptoms, including maintaining normal movement in PD worms, and coordination and strength in ALS mice.

Of mice and worms

In the ALS mouse model, a highly active variant of the original P7C3 molecule, known as P7C3A20, which the investigators synthesized, largely prevented death of the nerve cells within the spinal cord that are normally destroyed by this disease. The P7C3 molecule also worked, but was not as effective at protecting neurons in this model.

As cell survival increased in the ALS model, coordination and strength of the mice improved as well. Mice that were given P7C3A20 were able to stay on a rotating rod much longer than untreated animals or animals that received the less active compounds. Animals receiving P7C3A20 also performed better in analysis of their walking gait, which typically worsens in these animals as the disease progresses.

In PD, dopamine-producing neurons necessary for normal movement are gradually destroyed. In patients, loss of these brain cells leads to tremors, stiffness, and difficulty walking. The study again showed that P7C3 protects these neurons from cell death and the more active analogue, P7C3A20, provided even greater protection.

The two compounds also potently blocked cell death of dopaminergic neurons in a C. elegans worm model of PD. Moreover, reduced cell death in this model was associated with improved movement in the worms.

Healthy C. elegans worms have a very characteristic swimming motion. This movement is disrupted in the PD worm. Hector De Jesus-Cortes, a graduate student of neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center and lead author of the Parkinson's study, videotaped and analyzed the PD worms' mobility with and without treatment. Normal swimming was almost completely preserved with P7C3A20, and was also fairly well preserved with P7C3.

Tweaking the molecule

The research team compared the activity of several new P7C3-related compounds that they synthesized, in both the hippocampal neurogenesis screen and the mouse model of PD.

"Every variation of our P7C3 molecule that works in the neurogenesis assay also works in the PD model," Pieper says. "As we continue to refine the molecule, our hope is that the results from the neurogenesis assay will accurately predict the neuroprotective potency of the compound, and thus aid in more rapidly optimizing a new neuroprotective agent."

The team plans to continue tweaking the structure of the P7C3 molecule to improve its neuroprotective ability while eliminating potential side effects.

"Our hope is that this work will form the basis for designing a neuroprotective drug that could eventually help patients," Pieper says.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Iowa Health Care, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/zjOm-OUCsLo/121001151951.htm

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CREATIONS WITH KATHRYN: Organize Your Craft Supplies

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Source: http://www.creationswithkathryn.com/2012/09/organize-your-craft-supplies.html

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GOP cash infusion heats up House race

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