Detroit Free Press on Columbus hearings.."Where the....are the Democrats."

[madfloridian]

This editor is very angry indeed.

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2004/991

Ohio hearings show massive GOP vote manipulation, but where the hell are the Democrats & John Kerry?
November 17, 2004

Columbus, Ohio---Hour after hour the testimonies are the same: angry Ohioans telling of vicious Republican manipulation and de facto intimidation that disenfranchised tens of thousands and probably cost the Democrats the election.

At an African-American church on Saturday and then at the Franklin County Courthouse Monday night, more than 700 people came to testify and witness to tales of the atrocity that was the November 2 election.

Organized by local ad hoc groups, the hearings had a court reporter and a team of lawyers along with other appointed witnesses. At freepress.org we will be making the testimonies available as they're transcribed and organized, and we will present a fuller accounting of the hearings, along with a book that includes the transcripts.

But one thing was instantly and abundantly clear: the Republican Party turned Ohio 2004 into an updated version of the Jim Crow South.

The principle overt method of vote suppression was to short-change inner city precincts of sufficient voting machines to allow a timely balloting. In precinct after precinct, virtually all of them predominantly black, poor, young and Democratic, the lines stretched for two, five, eight, even eleven hours. The elderly and infirm were forced to stand in the rain while city officials threatened to tow their cars. No chairs or shelter were provided. Crucial signage was mysteriously missing. Thousands came to vote, saw the long lines and left.

How many thousands? Enough to turn the election? Almost definitely.

[Newsjock]

1. Clarification

freepress.org isn't the Detroit Free Press (freep.com).

[Cha]

2. I'd like to know the same thing...

Are they really not anywhere?

[Must_B_Free]

3. If someone struck gold, I'm sure they'd be there in a minute

to claim it.

I mean - how do you even explain it at this point?

If they were found to be the winners by the efforts of the dedicated, it would be like "they didn't even put up a fight, they let other people do it with their own money."

[truehawk]

4. We need Kerry to be president. He does not need it. We do.

[politicasista]

5. Amen

America and the world needs him period.

[Emillereid]

6. The DNC and Kerry campaign were supposed to be on the ground

in Ohio to prevent this sort of crap. They should have anticipated these kinds of dirty tricks. People like Greg Palast were saying that the repukes were going to do these things for months. I saw him speak last spring and he outlined all the voter suppression stuff the repukes had planned. Where was Dem surveillance?

[Ducks In A Row]

7. Oh sure, treat them like crap, then whine when they won't be your monkey

the media isn't getting a clue yet are they?

[kitp]

8. The dems ain't going to show up...ever

I am tired of waiting for the dems to do anything. They have completely let us down.

I sent this letter to everyone in congress. I've gotten one reply, from one of my senators - a dem - and it's a lame reply.
Here's the entire letter and my senator's answer. They are useless.

An Open Letter to the Congress of the United States

There has been talk of 'conspiracy theorists' out there on the Internet spinning wild tales of stolen elections and vote fraud. Whatever is being said on Internet blogs, whatever rebuttals are returned, it is undeniable that this election has had many problems.
There is no argument that machines lost votes. There is no argument that machines added votes that didn't belong. These are well documented.
There are hundreds of stories of difficulties in casting votes, of machines crashing and of precincts running out of ballots.

Frankly, it embarrasses me and should embarrass you as it embarrasses our country. Our President tells the world we are spreading the gift of democracy while we utterly fail to have a clean and untroubled election ourselves.

I am not writing to claim votes were stolen. I am not writing to make accusations of conspiracy. I am writing to tell you what I believe.

I believe in two things: full enfranchisement and transparent elections. For me, it is that simple.
If we, we as Americans, fail in either of these, we fail democracy. Had we had full enfranchisement and a transparent election there would be no talk of conspiracies or stolen elections at all.

Enfranchisement is to endow with the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote. It derives from the French enfranchir, to set free. I believe that each and every citizen should be able to vote and any impediment to the exercise of that right should be called what it is - disenfranchisement, that is, the stealing away from someone their vote.

So, I am in favor of full enfranchisement. This is why I am upset when an election official 'voids' any ballot. All ballots should be counted unless it can be proven by the state that this particular ballot does not represent the constitutionally guaranteed right to vote of one citizen. It is not the citizen that needs to prove their right to vote, it is the state that must prove the citizen ineligible. Therefore, all ballots are assumed to have been submitted in good faith unless clearly demonstrated by the state otherwise. Every single ballot disallowed by the state must be checked to validate the state's claim. The citizen is to be treated as innocent until proven otherwise and the burden of proof is upon the state.

Apparently, many officials act as if the vote were a privilege the citizen must earn. They forget that sovereign power rests in the hands of that citizen, the official is merely a temporary worker hired to aid the citizen. They are a civil servant, not a master.

So, point one, I am strongly in favor of enfranchisement and look upon many of the problems in this election in that light. I do not believe it is acceptable for citizens to have such difficulties in getting registered, in getting to the polling places, in being able to place their vote in a timely manner, or to have their vote disallowed for alleged violations of inconsistent 'rules' the citizen must follow to exercise their vote.
Any impediment the state has put upon the citizen is to be looked upon unfavorably. If enough reports of impediments occur, the state must allow those disenfranchised citizens to vote. It is irrelevant whether the state has rules as to when ballots must be counted, these rules do not override the citizen's right to vote. If it can be shown that thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of citizens had the ability to vote taken from them by the state, then I would force the state to rehold the election. The sovereignty of the citizen trumps the claims of the state.

I am not talking about a future reformation of a bad situation. I am speaking of this election.
I object to any ballot being voided in any way, unless the state can prove beyond any question that it is invalid. Improper identification, incomplete applications, failure to fill out the 'required' forms are not strong enough reasons to void the vote of a citizen. I strongly oppose any 'disenfranchisement by paperwork'.

Secondly, I am strongly in favor of transparent elections. Nothing erodes civilization faster than citizens losing confidence in the society in which they live. They must trust their elected representatives. Most importantly, they must trust that when they vote, their vote is being accurately recorded and reflected in the outcome of the election.
If the population begins to suspect votes are not being counted, they will lose all confidence in the process. They will, correctly, realize that there is no way for them to remove from office corrupt officials as those same officials may prevent a fair vote.

The only way in which a democracy can survive is if the elections are transparent, verifiable, non-partisan and fair. Any action that is contrary to that will only cause suspicion in the minds of the public. As was the case in the 2000 presidential election, a very partisan official was in charge of overseeing the election in Florida. Whether or not this official was biased or not is irrelevant. The impression her partisanship gave was one of conflict of interest and bias. It will always be so when partisanship is allowed in the officials who oversee the election.

There are many who are suspicious that the code in the electronic voting machines is not tabulating the votes correctly. This arises in part because the code that is used is hidden from public scrutiny. It is this very secrecy that can and does give rise to suspicions of foul play. Were the code open to everyone's eyes, these concerns would either be verified or disproven.

This election has brought to many people's attention the difficulties encountered in attempting to allow voting in which there is no paper record of the citizen's vote. If we cannot verify, by crosschecking, that a vote cast was correctly tabulated, we again fire the flames of distrust.

All three of these, partisan election officials, hidden code and paperless ballots, violate the principals of transparent elections. If any of these are in question, voters will never have confidence in the process. Again, I am not speaking of reforms we should pursue in some misty future; I am speaking of this election.

I believe we should require the company's providing electronic voting machines to turn over the source code and completely open up their machinery to inspection.
Unfortunately we cannot recount votes that only exist in computer memory. Perhaps these votes were correctly recorded, perhaps not.
We can and should put pressure on any partisan election officials. All of their actions must be open to scrutiny and criticism. They can remove any taint of bias only by throwing open the doors and allowing impartial observers to monitor and challenge their every move, especially in the disenfranchisement of any citizen.

I do not see any reason why anyone would object to these beliefs nor would oppose these actions. I understand that the voting machines companies may feel they would be risking a financial loss were they to lose the market advantage of proprietary code. I sympathize; however, their monetary concerns are of little weight when measured against democracy itself.

Finally, there may actually be criminal behavior. There may be persons who consciously and intentionally altered the outcome of this election. If so, we must protect democracy from this theft. Regardless of who does it, regardless of who benefits, we cannot allow any tampering by any parties of the citizen's votes.

As part of the process of transparent elections, we must pursue any report of wrongdoing no matter how far-fetched it may seem. The cost of inaction is too high for freedom itself may be lost. We must scrutinize the data we have to look for footprints of manipulation. Many seeming inconsistencies will turn out to be harmless. Others may be but the tip of the iceberg. We will not know until we investigate.

I urge you to take these concerns seriously and to pursue, in whatever manner you can, to open up the results of this recent election to a complete and transparent examination.

http://www.boscado.com/>

Senator Levin's reply:


Thank you for contacting me about election reform. I appreciate
hearing your views on this matter.

Ensuring that all eligible citizens are able to vote and that every vote is counted is an important national priority. According to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, in the 2000
presidential election 2.5 million votes out of 101 million were not
counted. In other words, many Americans made the effort to participate in our democratic system, yet their votes did not count. This is simply unacceptable.

In 2002, I supported the Help America Vote Act (HAVA, P.L.107-252), which is a major step toward correcting many of the inadequacies of our election system. This law establishes a set of standards to correct voting errors and ensures accessibility for the disabled. It also encourages states, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to set uniform benchmarks and reporting requirements for voting system performance. In addition, HAVA ensures that the most effective voting equipment is available to states by funding research and pilot programs, performing studies on voting technology, and providing explicit voter guidelines and certification programs.

HAVA allocated funds for each state to purchase new voting systems that comply with HAVA’s standards. In Michigan’s case, the Secretary of State convened a HAVA Advisory Committee, on which I sat, to review the available systems and Michigan’s needs for future elections. Last year, Michigan’s Secretary of State announced that she selected an optical scan voting system for Michigan. The optical scan voting system requires voters to place a mark in a designated spot on the ballot next to the name of the candidate receiving the vote. When the votes are counted these marks are read by an optical scanner. The optical scan voting system creates and preserves a paper trail of each vote, thereby greatly enhancing the security and accuracy of election results.

Unfortunately, President Bush and the Congressional majority have provided insufficient federal funding for HAVA programs, which has prompted great concern. The Fiscal Year 2004 Omnibus appropriations Act (P.L.108-199) allocated $500 million to improve our electoral system, only half the amount authorized for FY04.

The inadequate funding for HAVA programs is especially discouraging following the release of a report by the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University (http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf). This and other reports have found major flaws in certain software programs for “direct record electronic” (DRE) voting systems, often referred to as “touch-screen” voting, used in several states. If left uncorrected, these flaws could intentionally enable unscrupulous persons to modify existing
votes or to cast multiple votes by using a counterfeit voting card.
Because of the fundamental importance of fair and accurate elections to our democracy, I support providing additional funds for HAVA programs to ensure that all voting systems and procedures, including DRE systems, are secure, accurate, recountable, and accessible.

The goal of ensuring that every vote counts is essential to ensuring democracy. American voters deserve an electoral process that is both secure and accurate, and I will continue to work to ensure our voting systems are both reliable and verifiable.

Thank you again for writing.


Sincerely,
Carl Levin

[forintegrity]

9. We are it...we ARE America!

Face it. Kerry and "the Democrats" ain't gonna show up, for whatever reason. It's up to all of us with the help of experts like Bev Harris and her group. We outnumber all the leadership cuz we are America! Let's just keep at it by giving what we can, $$$, support, volunteer time, etc. This IS the "Fight for America!"