A study released Wednesday says that 28 percent of deployed service members were unable to vote in the November elections because their absentee ballots were uncounted or never collected.

That finding, based on data gathered by the Congressional Research Service from seven states with high populations of military voters, is worse than in the 2000 presidential election, despite a massive effort to improve the absentee voting process, said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who requested the study.

“This is unacceptable and something we should not allow to continue,” Schumer said.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said he expects Congress to do something tangible because voting laws are not working.

The seven states in the study were California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.

Combined, they account for 43.5 percent of the active-duty military population.

PITTSBURGH – Seven Pittsburgh-area ACORN workers were charged with falsifying voter registration forms, with six accused of doing so to meet the group’s alleged quota system before last year’s general election.

District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. said he’s hoping the workers charged Thursday will help authorities determine whether Allegheny County ACORN officials will be charged with requiring the illegal quotas or otherwise directing that voter registrations be faked.

“You should consider the investigation as ongoing,” Zappala said.

Six suspects forged a total of 51 cards, a felony that carries up to seven years in prison. The same six also were charged with illegally accepting payments to meet a quota of 20 registrations per day — a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

The one defendant not charged with either of those crimes told police he filled out at least 100 voter registration cards in his own name, even though he was already registered and knew it was illegal. He’s charged with misdemeanor counts of obstructing and interfering with the elections process, as are several of the others.

Zappala said investigators targeted 100 local ACORN canvassers after county elections officials started noticing dozens of possibly forged registration forms in August. ACORN registered 38,000 new voters in southwestern Pennsylvania, including about 33,600 in the county last year, Zappala said.

There’s no evidence anybody voted illegally or was denied a vote because of the scam, Zappala said.

One worker allegedly forged cards using names of already registered voters, but with different addresses. Another unwittingly solicited a county elections worker who filled out a card but didn’t sign it. The card wound up filed, with a forged signature and fake Social Security number. Two other workers filed 13 and 30 forged cards, respectively, using bogus information, including names of dead or nonexistent people.

The DA noted that the Nevada attorney general on Monday charged ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now Inc. — and two employees for allegedly having a quota. That’s a felony in Nevada, where canvassers made $8-$9 an hour but were required to turn in 20 voters per daily shift to be paid, Zappala said.

Zappala said the Allegheny County workers also worked under the 20-card daily quota, but made $8-$10 an hour for a five-hour shift.

“You would be gone that day if you didn’t get the quota,” Zappala said.

Zappala said no local ACORN supervisors or officials are charged yet, because police need additional evidence. Complicating matters is that some canvassers may have been hired through subcontractors, he said.

Scott Levenson, national spokesman for ACORN, denied the quota exists but said workers were expected to register some voters to earn their hourly pay. “Obviously, we’re entitled to have standards,” he said.

Levenson called the charges “a big step on the continued vindication of ACORN’s name.” He said most of the workers were charged “with evidence delivered by us,” though court documents don’t reflect that.

The charges are based on information from county elections workers, or the workers themselves — including one who said her ACORN supervisor had her fill out bogus cards at the group’s Pittsburgh call center.

That worker, Latasha Kinney, 27, of New Kensington, is charged with forging 13 cards including one using a dead man’s name.

Kinney’s criminal affidavit says the ACORN supervisor, Hazel Hastings allowed workers to sign cards that previously were filled out with false information. Hastings had Kinney “completely fill out forged voters registrant cards with false dates of birth and social security numbers,” the affidavit alleges.

Hastings, who has not been charged, declined comment Thursday.

Kinney; Alexis Givner, 23, of West Mifflin; and Pittsburgh residents, Mario Grisom, 28, Ashley Clarke, 21, Eric Jones, 20, and Eric Jordan, 19, all face at one forgery count and the quota charge. Bryan Williams, 22, of McKeesport, faces only the other charges. The suspects were being arraigned Thursday. It was not clear if any had attorneys in this case, though Jordan and Williams are already incarcerated on other crimes, Zappala said.

ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a divisive law Tuesday making the state only the second after Arizona to require prospective voters to prove their U.S. citizenship, a practice opponents say would keep the poor, elderly and minorities away from the ballot box.

To take effect, the law must obtain clearance from the U.S. Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act. And legal challenges appeared likely despite supporters who insist the measure would safeguard the integrity of the voting process.

The law revived a racially charged battle in Georgia. Critics complain it would disenfranchise poor and minority voters — many of them U.S. citizens — who lack required documents.

Starting Jan. 1, 2010 if Justice approves, the Georgia law would require all applying for voter registration to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship. Those who stay on active voter rolls and have already registered before then would not have to submit such documents as a U.S. passport, naturalization documents or driver’s license or birth certificate.

“It’s tantamount to a poll tax,” said Elise Shore, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She said the group was considering a legal challenge if the law clears the Justice Department.

Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, a top backer, said proof of citizenship is needed to prevent voter fraud. She expressed confidence the law could withstand a challenge, noting it was modeled after Arizona’s precedent-setting law.

It’s been more than 40 years since the Voting Rights Act was signed, barring voting practices used throughout the South for years to keep poor blacks from voting.

Currently, voters must simply check a box on a voter registration application affirming they are a U.S. citizen.

Similar bills have surfaced in at least five other states — Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, Washington and Virginia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

For years, Georgia was mired in a legal battle over a law requiring a valid, government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot in-person. The law was eventually cleared by a federal judge and took effect for last year’s elections.

“With photo ID we have extremely high integrity at the ballot box,” Handel said. “Now we need to do the same with our voter registration.”

She said several investigations are pending into allegations of non-citizens voting.

The Georgia branch of Common Cause, which led a lawsuit against the photo ID, challenged that. Executive director Bill Bozarth said the new law seeks to address a problem that has not been proven to exist — that of non-citizens voting in elections in Georgia.

“It certainly has xenophobic overtones,” Bozarth said.

WASHINGTON — Arizona Sen. John McCain blew any chance he had to be president when he bumbled his response to the economic crisis, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says in a new version of his autobiography.

“As John McCain behaved erratically, Barack, by contrast, remained the picture of calm,” Reid, D-Nev., writes in a new epilogue to his autobiography, “The Good Fight,” which comes out in paperback next week.

McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said Tuesday that McCain does not comment on books and had no response to Reid’s.

Reid called McCain’s decision to briefly suspend his campaign after the collapse of America’s financial markets last September “a bizarre stunt” that ended up backfiring.

As Senate leader, Reid also makes it clear that he resented attempts by McCain to try to take the lead in negotiations on a bailout bill.

“(Banking committee chairmen) were on the verge of an agreement, and any such McCain stunt would cost us valuable time,” Reid wrote.

“John, please don’t come,” Reid said he told McCain in a phone call.

He then read McCain a statement he had just issued in which he said, “We need leadership, not a campaign photo op.”

Shortly after he hung up with McCain, Reid got a call from Obama.

“Harry, what’s John up to? It sounds crazy,” Obama asked Reid.

Obama was “very poised,” Reid said

“By contrast, McCain was setting his hair afire,” Reid wrote.

When McCain announced the suspension of his campaign, Obama declined to follow suit, saying, “The American people expect their candidates for president to be capable of doing more than one thing at a time.”

“I believe it was the stark contrast between the behavior of the two men during this crucial test that sealed the election for Obama,” Reid wrote.

In an interview this week in his leadership office in the U.S. Capitol, Reid said he didn’t think the book would hurt his relationship with McCain — whom, he acknowledged, he will need on big issues such as immigration reform.

“John McCain will just go on being John McCain,” Reid said. “He’ll work with us on issues he believes in, like immigration reform, and he’ll fight us on others.”

Reid said that he reached out to McCain after the election, and that McCain was gracious.

“If I said anything (during the campaign) that hurt you, I apologize,” Reid said he told McCain.

“Senator McCain thanked me warmly, said that all was forgotten, and that he was ready to get back to work,” Reid wrote.

Attorney general: No evidence of tampering with 2006 transit election results

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard announces results of the ballot recount. To see video of his press conference, click on this story at <a href="http://www.tucsoncitizen.com">www.tucsoncitizen.com</a>.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said Tuesday that a hand recount of votes in the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election showed no evidence of criminal tampering with the results.

Goddard said the recounted ballots matched almost exactly the results tabulated by Pima County Elections Division staffers after the election.

“The bottom line of what we’ve shown here is that there was no flip,” Goddard said.

Goddard earlier this year ordered a hand count of ballots from the RTA election, in which county voters approved two ballot items – creation of a Regional Transportation Authority and a half-cent sales tax to help fund projects to be overseen by the agency.

Voters approved a 20-year, $2.1 billion regional transportation plan and the sales tax increase by wide margins, the upheld election results show.

Four major transportation initiatives to be funded by bonds or sales taxes had been strongly rejected by voters over the previous 15 years.

Goddard was trying to determine if the vote was rigged by someone through tampering with electronic vote devices or with ballot tabulating procedures following the election.

“It appeared there was reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed” Goddard said of claims by critics of computerized vote systems that tampering did indeed take place.

Those included illegal printing of early ballot returns five days before the election, and the presence of a crop card, which is a device that can be used to alter results, in the elections division offices.

Although Goddard said the criminal investigation is closed, he would not comment on whether a grand jury has looked or is looking into the conduct of the election.

Goddard ordered the hand recount, done by the Maricopa County Elections Division earlier this month.

His office had probed the Pima County Elections Division and its use of a Diebold-GEMS electronic vote system in 2007. The systems have been widely criticized for being vulnerable to manipulation in several ways.

That probe found serious security flaws in the system and elections division, but no criminal actions.

“I think it proves we’ve been vindicated,” County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, said Tuesday.

The case started in 2007 when the Pima County Democratic Party sought access to the county’s electronic vote databases from previous elections.

Party officials said they wanted to be able to check the reliability of electronic vote systems after widespread complaints from across the country that such systems could be hacked and the results manipulated. Pima County Superior Court Judge Michael Miller ruled in December 2007 the county must surrender some past election databases, the first such court order to a government to turn over electronic vote records.

The order omitted the RTA databases, which were released to the Democrats early last year by the Pima County Board of Supervisors. More than 120,000 ballots were recounted by Maricopa County officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

An election worker prepares voting machines.

———

BALLOT RECOUNT

May 2006 RTA election results tabulated by the Pima County Elections Division compared with the Maricopa County Elections Division hand recount

Question 1

“Do you approve of the regional transportation plan for Pima County?”

Pima County election canvass:

Yes: 71,948 – about 60.05 percent

No: 47,870 – about 39.95 percent

Maricopa County Elections Division hand recount:

Yes: 71,626 – about 60.06 percent

No: 47,636 – about 39.94 percent

Difference: 556 votes

Question 2:

“Do you favor the levy of a transaction privilege tax for regional transportation purposes in Pima County?”

Pima County election canvass:

Yes: 68,773 – about 57.64 percent

No: 50,551 – about 42.36 percent

Maricopa County Elections Division hand recount:

Yes: 68,420 – about 57.63 percent

No: 50,306 – about 42.37 percent

Difference: 598 votes

The excitement over the presidential election is past, but Arizona’s voter-registration numbers continue to climb.

From last November’s election through April 1, voter registration rose by more than 100,000 people, or 3.4 percent, according to figures from the Arizona Secretary of State.

In all, Arizona had 3,087,996 voters.

Republicans continue to dominate the voter rolls, with 1,137,262 voters, but the party posted the smallest percentage gain, up 1.7 percent.

Democrats were next, with 1,046,140 voters, up 2.3 percent.

The largest percentage gain was among Libertarians, who posted an 11.6 percent gain in registration, for a total of 20,256 voters.

The Green Party, which gained ballot status last year, boosted its numbers 5 percent, to 4,210 voters.

Voters who are unaffiliated with any party continue to be the third-largest voting group in Arizona, with 880,128 voters, a 6.8 percent gain from November.

Secretary of State Ken Bennett said the numbers show strong growth, and his office will continue to do voter outreach even though this is a non-election year.

The last day to register for the general elections in South Tucson, Marana and Sahuarita is Monday.

Elections will be held May 19 in Marana and South Tucson, and between April 16 and May 19 in Sahuarita, where ballots will be mailed, the Pima County Recorder’s Office said.

People who have moved or changed their name since their last registration must fill out a new form.

Forms are available at the recorder’s office, Arizona Motor Vehicle Division branches, post offices, libraries, political party headquarters, city and town halls and on the recorder’s Web site, www.recorder.pima.gov.

This file photo shows election workers Frank Campillo, left, and Cesar Rivera delivering hundreds of ballots to be prepared for counting. The county recorder's office has verified the signatures of these mail-in ballots. A mix of Republican and Democrat election workers checks for problems computers might have with the ballots. If approved, the ballots are taken to the counting area.

Almost three years after voters cast their ballots in the Regional Transportation Authority election, any doubts about the outcome of that election are about to be erased.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office next week will hand count all 120,821 ballots cast in the May 2006 special election.

The count won’t be an official recount of the ballots. And regardless of the results, it won’t directly affect the outcome.

But this new hand count will accomplish something far more significant: It will either put to rest allegations of ballot tampering – or it will breathe new life into those allegations, casting an irrefutable pall over operations of the Pima County Division of Elections.

The recount will begin Monday and is expected to take most of the week. It is being conducted as part of a criminal investigation into complaints of election tampering.

It is frustrating that the hand count – the one way that tampering claims could be dismissed or verified – has taken so long to happen. Because such a count was not permitted under election law, it could be conducted only as part of a criminal investigation.

It also is unfortunate the hand count is being done in Phoenix. Because the voting took place and the allegations were raised in Pima County, it would have made it easier for involved participants to have the count here.

But the key point is this: Pima County voters soon will have the satisfaction of knowing – without a doubt – whether their votes were accurately counted.

County returns after the election showed about 60 percent of those who voted supported the transportation plan and 57.6 percent supported a 20-year, half-cent sales tax increase to pay for it.

It is unrealistic to expect that the hand count will produce numbers identical to those from the machine scan conducted the night of the election and several days following. Feeding the same ballots though scanners several times often produces slightly different results as ballots become worn or dirt, smudges and other factors affect how marks are read.

But the hand count should produce final numbers very close to those coming from the machine scanning. That would finally dismiss allegations that the result was flipped and voters actually rejected the RTA measures.

There has been no proof that happened. But computer trails of the pre-Election Day counting of early ballots have shown anomalies that have not been adequately explained.

Few things are more important to American citizens than the right to vote – and having confidence that their votes will be fairly counted. Lingering questions about the RTA election would only undermine that.

Conduct the hand count in an open and transparent way and disseminate the results fully and quickly. That will end those doubts.

A hand recount of the 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election ballots will begin April 6, according to a letter the Arizona Attorney General’s Office sent to the Pima County political party officials Monday.

The recount is part of a criminal probe by the AG into complaints that vote results may have been manipulated.

The attorney general’s office last month seized the ballots from the Pima County Treasurer’s Office, where officials have been seeking court direction on whether the ballots should be destroyed.

“Our examination of the RTA ballots will include a hand count of the ballots,” wrote Donald E. Conrad, criminal division chief counsel at the attorney general’s office. The examination is expected to take five days, he wrote.

Voters in 2006, approved a 20-year regional transportation plan and a half-cent sales tax to help fund it. The plan was approved 60 percent to 40 percent and the sales tax increase 58 percent to 42 percent. About 120,000 votes were cast in the election out of about 462,000 registered voters.

County voters in the previous 15 years had shot down four major transportation plans and funding mechanisms.

At the center of the controversy is the county’s use of electronic vote and ballot tabulating equipment and whether final vote results could have been manipulated to change the election outcome.

“I must emphasize that this is a criminal investigation, not an election process controlled by the applicable Arizona laws,” Conrad wrote. “Attendance and procedures undertaken at this examination will be strictly monitored and overseen by the office of the Attorney General,”Conrad added.

The Pima County Democratic Party in 2007 filed a lawsuit to obtain from the county electronic records of votes and ballot tabulating processes for every election dating back to the late 1990s.

Their concerns were fueled by an increasing number of complaints across the nation that computerized election vote systems and software were vulnerable to hacking in a number of ways, including insider tampering, faulty or deliberately misprogrammed memory cards, software malfunctions, and data alteration after polls close.

Pima Count Superior Court Judge Michael Miller in December 2007 ordered the county to surrender a portion of the electronic vote records, but not those from the May 2006 special election.

The judge’s ruling marked the first time a government in the United States had been ordered to surrender electronic vote records.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors later ordered the RTA and all other electronic vote records released to the Democrats.

Critics of the county’s election system and procedures had maintained that Diebold-GEMS vote devices and software can be tampered with to alter election results and suggested such was the case in the RTA election.

Local elections integrity activists in AuditAZ have said that they have uncovered irregularities in the election vote records they have studied.

They have objected to the attorney general seizing the ballots and removing them to the Maricopa County Elections Division, maintaining that the move of the ballots out of lockdown in Pima County broke the ballots’ chain of custody and subjected the ballots to physical tampering.

“Our biggest concern is the possibility of ballot substitution,” Jim March, an AuditAZ member who has been among the most critical of county elections equipment and practices.

March said the number of recount observers from Pima County political parties – one each – is not sufficient to adequately monitor the recount.

AuditAZ members also investigated electronic vote security this year at the Maricopa County Elections Department and issued a report critical of that agency.

“They can exclude the most hard-core critics of their department,” Marsh complained.

Pima County and RTA officials also support the investigation, as do the Pima County Democratic, Libertarian, and Republican parties.

Brad Nelson, Pima County Elections Division director, said Wednesday that he had not been informed of the April 6 recount start date and was uncertain whether elections division or county administration officials would participate.

“We’ve heard nothing from them,” Nelson said.

———

Recount procedure

The attorney general’s criminal investigation will include:

• Asking local political parties to submit three names each by March 30 for candidates to observe the ballot recount.

The Attorney General’s Office will select one to represent each party.

• The ballots are in the custody of the Maricopa County Elections Division.

Officials of Maricopa Elections will conduct the recount “in a secured facility under the supervisors of police officers employed by this office.”

• No cameras, cell phones, writing instruments or audio or video recorders will be allowed in the recount area.

• The hand recount will begin April 6 and continue for about five days.

• The public will be able to watch the recount via live streaming video.

Voters in Marana, Sahuarita and South Tucson cast ballots for municipal council members Tuesday in nonpartisan primary elections.

To be elected in the primary, candidates must receive votes equal to more than 50 percent of the ballots cast. If all of the seats aren’t filled, a runoff election will be held May 19. The number of candidates to advance to the runoff is equal to twice the number of unfilled seats. In other words, if there are three seats left to fill, the top six candidates advance to the primary.

Primary results

South Tucson (Vote for 3) total votes: 323

Paul Diaz* 26.9%

John Felix 29.4% in runoff

Ildefonso Green* 30.0% in runopff

Herman Lopez 26.0%

Carlos Salaz 66.2% elected

Pete Tadeo* 67.5% elected

Marana (Vote for 4) total votes: 2,998

Patti Comerford* 52.3% elected

Herb Kai* 64.2% elected

Kelle Maslyn 48.9% in runoff

Carol McGorray* 48.9% in runoff

Jon Post* 42.6% in runoff

Larry Steckler 37.1% likely in runoff

Bret Summers 36.9%

Sahuarita (Vote for 3) total votes: 3,164 Duane Blumberg 43.6% in runoff

Kara Egbert 36.0% in runoff

Rosanna Gabaldon 33.7% in runoff

David Gifford 23.2%

Alex Jacome 27.8% in runoff

Roger Minor* 26.5% in runoff

John Sullivan* 39.3% in runoff

*Denotes incumbent

WASHINGTON — After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again.

Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night at the White House — a rare do-over. The surprise moment came in response to Tuesday’s much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which prompted Obama to do so, too.

Don’t worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day.

Nevertheless, Obama and Roberts went through the drill again out of what White House counsel Greg Craig called “an abundance of caution.”

This time, the scene was the White House Map Room in front of a small group of reporters, not the Capitol platform before the whole watching world.

“We decided that because it was so much fun …,” Obama joked to reporters who followed press secretary Robert Gibbs into the room. No TV camera crews or news photographers were allowed in. A few of Obama’s closest aides were there, along with a White House photographer.

Roberts put on his black robe.

“Are you ready to take the oath?” he said.

“Yes, I am,” Obama said. “And we’re going to do it very slowly.”

Roberts then led Obama through the oath without any missteps.

The president said he did not have his Bible with him, but that the oath was binding anyway.

The original, bungled version on Tuesday caught observers by surprise and then got replayed on cable news shows.

It happened when Obama interrupted Roberts midway through the opening line, in which the president repeats his name and solemnly swears.

Next in the oath is the phrase ” … that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States.” But Roberts rearranged the order of the words, not saying “faithfully” until after “president of the United States.”

That appeared to throw Obama off. He stopped abruptly at the word “execute.”

Recognizing something was off, Roberts then repeated the phrase, putting “faithfully” in the right place but without repeating “execute.”

But Obama then repeated Roberts’ original, incorrect version: “… the office of president of the United States faithfully.”

Craig, the White House lawyer, said in a statement Wednesday evening: “We believe the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately yesterday. Yet the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of the abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath a second time.”

The Constitution is clear about the exact wording of the oath and as a result, some constitutional experts have said that a do-over probably wasn’t necessary but also couldn’t hurt. Two other previous presidents have repeated the oath because of similar issues, Calvin Coolidge and Chester A. Arthur.

South Tucson, Marana, Sahuarita primaries

Monday is the deadline for registering to vote in March 10 elections for South Tucson, Marana and Sahuarita.

Voters who have moved or changed their names since their last registration will have to re-register, according to Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez – even if the move was into a different apartment in the same complex.

The March 10 elections are South Tucson, Marana and Sahuarita primaries, plus a recall involving the Marana Water Improvement District.

For more information, call 740-4330 or visit www.recorder.pima.gov.

WASHINGTON – Mike Duncan, former President George W. Bush’s hand-picked national party chairman, abandoned his re-election bid Friday after his support steadily erode over three rounds of balloting, ensuring a fresh face at the beleaguered GOP’s helm.

“Obviously the winds of change are blowing,” Duncan said as he withdrew from the race to a standing ovation and without publicly endorsing another.

The field narrowed further when long-shot Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who trailed the pack after every vote, quit the race.

“I believe that the next chairman must inspire hope,” Blackwell said. He elicited a cheer in the ballroom when he threw his “fullest support” behind Michael Steele, the one-time Maryland lieutenant governor who would become the Republican National Committee’s first black chairman.

The moves scrambled a field now down to three as the RNC moved toward a fifth round of balloting, with candidates seeking to reach the 85-vote majority threshold to become the new chairman. Whoever wins will inherit a party trying to recover after crushing defeats in back-to-back elections that saw Democrats take control of Congress and the White House.

After four rounds of voting by the 168-member RNC, Steele and South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson had momentum on their side and they seemed to benefit from Duncan’s departure. That was true of Dawson in particular, who vaulted to 62 votes; Steele rose to 60. Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis inched up to 31. Blackwell left after garnering 15 votes.

CHICAGO – One of five reputed mobsters convicted at the government’s landmark Family Secrets trial has been sentenced to 20 years by a judge who called the punishment lenient in view of the crime.

Paul Schiro of Phoenix was the first sentenced among those convicted at Chicago’s biggest mob trial in decades.

U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel said evidence showed the 71-year-old Schiro helped the mob kill a longtime friend, Emil Vaci, even though jurors deadlocked on the matter.

Zagel said there was no evidence that Schiro hesitated when told that people wanted help to kill his friend.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin talks to the media in her office in November 2008 in Anchorage. The former Republican vice presidential nominee is going on the offensive against news organizations as well as bloggers she says are perpetuating malicious gossip about her and her children.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is going on the offensive against news organizations and bloggers she says are perpetuating malicious gossip about her and her children.

But political observers say the former Republican vice presidential candidate can’t have it both ways: trotting out the children to showcase her family values, then trying to shield them from scrutiny.

Palin’s criticism also raises questions about her motivations because she has said she is open to a presidential run in 2012.

“I think she’s positioning herself. She’s attacking the media as a way to generate support among a base she hopes will support her,” said Leonard Steinhorn, a professor of communications at American University in Washington and an expert on the presidency.

Palin shied away from interviews during the campaign, although her children often accompanied her on her travels, including her oldest daughter, Bristol, who was pregnant at the time.

But in recent weeks, she has personally reached out to media outlets such as People magazine and The Associated Press to complain about information she claimed is wrong.

She slammed reports that 18-year-old Bristol Palin and the teen’s fiance are high school dropouts. The governor insists the two are not dropouts because they enrolled in correspondence courses.

The couple last month had a son — the governor’s first grandchild.

The governor said she is speaking out to set the record straight, not because of any political aspirations.

“It’s all about the family,” she said. “I’m wired in a way that I can take the criticism. I can take the shots. But any mother would want to protect their children from lies and scandalous reporting.”

In a Jan. 5 interview with conservative filmmaker John Ziegler, Palin also questioned whether Caroline Kennedy’s quest for a New York Senate seat was as heavily scrutinized as her vice presidential campaign.

When her comments were reported, she chastised journalists for taking her remarks “out of context to create adversarial situations.”

Steinhorn and other experts believe the first-term governor is engaged in a campaign to keep her name in the spotlight. A newcomer to national politics when she was nominated, Palin energized the Republican base but also attracted intense criticism that she had little substance.

“I think she’s exploiting and cultivating the anti-intellectual and anti-elitist side of the Republican party,” Steinhorn said. “She’s trying to salvage her reputation, so she attacks the messenger.”

Palin’s grievances include what she calls “false stories” such as a talk show host’s suggestion that she helped Levi Johnston get a job in Alaska’s North Slope oil fields, circumventing eligibility rules since he does not have a high school diploma.

Johnston’s father, an engineer for an oil-field services company, has said his position accounted for any help Levi received in getting the apprenticeship job.

Palin also lashed out at bloggers and others perpetuating the allegation that her 9-month-old son, Trig, is actually Bristol Palin’s child from a secret previous pregnancy.

Her decision to strike back at news organizations seems to contradict the governor’s earlier statements on how politicians should respond to media coverage.

Months before she was named John McCain’s running mate, Palin attended a leadership forum in Los Angeles and was asked her opinion on then-Sen. Hillary Clinton’s allegations that she was being unfairly treated by the media during the primaries.

Palin said Clinton did herself a disservice to even mention it. The governor said it bothered her to hear Clinton “bring that attention to herself on that level.”

Palin said her opinion has not changed since the March 2008 event and insisted that defending her children is her only motivation.

“I’m not whining about the treatment of the press, but I am calling reporters on the family aspect of this,” she said. “I think it’s unprecedented in some respects what I have seen with my children.”

It’s not unprecedented. The children and spouses of high-profile politicians always draw attention.

Early in President George Bush’s first term, his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, made headlines after an embarrassing run-in with the law for underage drinking.

So did Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, when she was treated for alcoholism after her husband’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1988. She later suffered a relapse and was hospitalized after drinking rubbing alcohol.

Two weeks before President Obama’s inauguration, his daughters Sasha and Malia were escorted to their new schools past a line of waiting photographers.

Palin is fueling the stories she condemns by talking about them instead of ignoring them, said Janis Edwards, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Alabama and an expert on women candidates. One of Edwards’ classes monitored Palin’s role in a project called “The Palin Watch.”

Palin “does seem to have ambitions, and this is one way of staying in the public eye,” Edwards said.

The governor’s complaints about the media assure continued coverage, said Lisa Burns, associate professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.

“The media interest will wane. I think it already has,” Burns said. “I have to wonder if this is something she’s doing to keep her name out there.”