Doug Moore. He seems an honest sort, from the way he covered the story.
Here is what I wrote (thanks to saracat for reference to Adam Stone):
Dear Mr. Moore,
I read your story and it kind of gave me the creeps. Will you please keep writing about what is going on with this investigation? Your reporting seems honest and thorough, so I am counting on you to keep us informed.
The reason it seems scary to me--and maybe I am just being paranoid--is that there are so many more instances of vote fraud that the FBI has been called to investigate that seem much more problematical than this. I hope the FBI's motive here isn't partisan. I could just see Karl Rove planning this as plan B if the noise about vote fraud got too loud.
Thanks for your reporting, and I apologize if I am being overly cautious, but in these times I don't know how else to be. I have been writing to the OSCE board of international monitors asking them to take a closer look at election fraud in this country before they publish their final report. I was dismayed to read in their preliminary report of 11/4 mention of exactly this kind of fraud--by Democrats registering dead people, etc.--as a main concern. They mentioned claims of civil rights violations (by Republicans), but then said they had no evidence of it.
To try to change their opinion of this, I sent them, as well as many other reports and evidence, this letter written to the FBI. I got it from Adam Stone, a reporter from New York.
Sincerely,
Helga Scow Stern
Ojai, CA
Adam Stone
[email protected]914 962 4748 x280
Robert Mueller, Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
c/o White Plains Office
222 Bloomingdale Road
White Plains, New York
Dear Director Mueller:
On behalf of myself and other concerned citizens of Westchester County, New York, I implore the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to urgently and intensively investigate evidence of widespread conspiracy to tamper with votes and suppress voting in the 2004 Presidential election.
We request that the FBI immediately send additional agents to Ohio and
Florida, key electoral states where there are indications of gross tampering and suppression.
In Ohio, for example, in 29 Cayuhoga County (Cleveland) precincts,
93,136 more votes were recorded than there are registered voters. In
addition to suspicious electronic vote counting, there were significant problems in Ohio with the mechanics of voting, such as malfunctioning machines and problems with poll log books.
It has been reported that J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's chief election
official and the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign chair, ensured there were ample voting machines in Republican areas and a shortage of machines in low-income and African-American areas, as well as areas expected to have a high turnout of young voters. In spite of an increase in voter registration in Ohio, fewer machines were said to have been provided than in 2000.
Werner Lange, a Youngstown pastor, said at hearings held November 13 by the Ohio Election Protection Coalition that less than half of the usual number of voting machines were available in one African-American community. "This," he said, "caused an enormous bottleneck among voters who had to wait a very, very long time to vote, many of them giving up in frustration and leaving." He estimated that 7,000 votes were lost to Senator John Kerry in Youngstown alone, due to insufficient voting machines.
Carol Shelton, presiding judge at a precinct in Columbus, said voting
machines were insufficient, that she called for more machines and was sent one, "which did not make a dent in the line...This was a clear case of voter suppression by making voting an impossibility for anyone who had to go to work or anyone who was stuck at home caring for children or the elderly while another family member voted."
In Florida, initial counts showed 237,522 more votes cast for president than there were people casting ballots. The state altered the vote count to eliminate county discrepancies after independent researchers began to point out contradictions. Keith Olbermann, reporting for MSNBC, found: "On the same Florida Democratic ballots where Bush scored big, people supported highly Democratic measures- such as raising the state minimum wage $1 above the federal level. This indicates that only the presidential voting was rigged."
In addition, an unknown number of Florida voters, particularly in
African-American communities, were effectively disenfranchised by long
waiting lines and faulty equipment. There is no reason for these
conditions to have existed in Florida after the experience of 2000 other than because of official conspiracy to suppress the vote.
Discrepancies between exit polls and tallies from electronic voting
machines leaving no paper trails indicate the need for investigations in Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, Wisconsin, Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
We request that the FBI interview, in addition to public officials,
employees of firms involved in electronic voting in the 2004, the most
prominent including: Diebold Election Systems; Election Systems and
Software; Science Applications International Corporation, Sequoia Voting Systems; and VoteHere Inc.
And, we ask the FBI to determine whether national voting laws have been violated and to what degree, if any, there was central direction of vote tampering and vote suppression.
Sincerely,
Nick Mottern