Important! Election Fraud summary and actions

[sweetroxie]

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Since the election, I have received dozens of reports of election fraud, all of which I have carefully read.  The overwhelming majority of these reports perform credible analyses (in particular the Penn and Berkeley studies), and based on 40+ years in the study and teaching of statistical analysis, I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the election of 2004 was corrupted and almost certainly stolen by Republican partisans.

We can all argue that the Democrats could have run a better and more successful campaign.  In fact, I made that argument in 2000 and will soon be sending out a similar report on the 2004 election.  However, the solution for that is relatively long-term.  The evidence of 2004 corruption needs to be dealt with immediately.

I believe the future of our democracy to be at stake.  The Electoral College meets and votes Dec. 15.  Congress then certifies the election on Jan. 6.  If we have not taken sufficient action by that time, this scandal will passed unnoticed into history.

I have appended below the best summary of the overall picture that I have seen.  While I disagee with the conclusion that we need a new political party (I think it much more efficient to take over the Democratic party), I urge you to read it carefully and to take action.

Peace,
        Bill




Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:30:33 -0800
From: Barbara Deutsch <[email protected]>
Subject: fwd:   election fraud synopsis and antidote to gloom

At 5:32 PM -0800 11/24/04, Chalice  Productions wrote:


Greetings, Friends & Activists,
 
Here is a synopsis to date of the election fraud situation with sources and action items, all compiled by activist and political blogger extraordinaire Mary Pjerrou (<[email protected]> to comment)!
Please pass it along--Mary Bull
 
 
I can document, oh, 95% of what I say below, but I haven't burdened it with
a lot of citations--just a list of info resources.  I will be sending it to others
and posting it on the web somewhere.  We have to find more ways to inform
and motivate all those despairing Kerry voters out there who don't even know
what's going on.  (Note: Please be careful about passing along other's email
addresses). --Mary Pjerrou]

___________________________________________________________

ACTION MEMO: Election Fraud 2004 - American democracy's final hour?
The evidence of fraud in the 2004 presidential election is so overwhelming that
it is difficult to know where to start.  The evidence encompasses many states
and involves several kinds of voting fraud and vote suppression.  Suspect #1 are
the central electronic tabulating machines that supposedly count all our votes.
Shockingly, these machines run on source code that is held as secret, proprietary
information (no public review) by companies whose executives were committed to
Bush's election (including Walden O'Dell of Diebold who promised in writing to "deliver"
Ohio to Bush in 2004, and Howard F. Ahmanson of ES&S, known for backing rightwing
religious causes.).  To make matters worse, a third of the country voted on electronic
machines that provide no paper receipt for the vote, making recounts impossible and
auditing difficult -- all in all, a voting system made to order for fraud.
The evidence so far all points to a Kerry win, possibly by a landslide, that was
changed to a Bush win, with the main part of the fraud occurring in the central
vote tabulators in at least a dozen states (probably all over), combined with
significant, blatant suppression of Democratic and minority voters by highly
prejudiced Republican election officials, especially in Ohio and Florida.

This memo will summarize the current situation and available evidence, and
the riveting and heroic investigations, re-counts and lawsuits that are in progress.
It will also provide a working hypothesis on the overall election fraud plan
 (always helpful), and info. on what you and I can do to help.  Election reform
is a must-do, and it's really quite simple.  To regain our right to vote, we need:
a) a paper trail; and b) open source code.

THE CURRENT SITUATION:
John Kerry's concession has no legal force.  He can un-concede (as Al Gore did
in '00).  There is reason to believe that his concession was a strategic move
to avoid the chaos of '00, and quietly gather evidence.  But whatever he decides
to do, this Election is not over, and its outcome is not really up to him.
As Kerry himself recently stated, "They're still counting votes"

First the states must complete and certify their counts, and re-counts must be
completed (all on-going).  The Electoral College meets and votes Dec. 15.
Congress then certifies the Election on Jan. 6.  (And there could well be
fireworks at that event, considering how angry black Democrats are
after '00, and after what was done to black voters again this year.)

Many challenges, re-counts, investigations, and lawsuits are in progress.
 Fourteen Congresspeople have requested a GAO investigation, led by
high-ranking members like Congr. John Conyers--and the GAO just agreed!
(on 11/23).  The Green Party and Ralph Nader are big heroes, having successfully
raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in one week to obtain recounts in Ohio
and New Hampshire. The Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit on the
"provisional" ballot count in Ohio. There are investigations and lawsuits in FLA
(don't know about a recount there).  There is a big citizen and attorney effort
to gather evidence (particularly to secure the "black boxes" that contain the secret
source code, and their printouts).   Bev Harris, of www.blackboxvoting.org
-- another hero -- did a Freedom of Information Act request to every state in the
country for "black box voting" evidence--the biggest FOIA request ever.   Recently,
she achieved a lockdown on evidence in Volusia County, FLA.  Her group has
launched fraud investigations in FLA, GA, NM, AZ, and OH.

One very remarkable man, John B. Kenney, has been on a hunger strike
since Sept. 7, 2004, and will continue until our right to vote is secured.
(www.hungerfordemocracy.com)

EVIDENCE OF MASSIVE ELECTION FRAUD

*  Despite their secret source code, electronic voting machines are
easily hackable and extremely insecure (well established by Johns Hopkins,
CalTech/MIT, blackboxvoting.org and many other studies).   In addition, the
Republican-owned companies who make them, and Republican politicians
(Tom Delay, and the Secretaries of State in OH and FLA) insisted that no
paper trail was needed and strongly fought against any such vote verification.
A paper trail consists of a paper receipt on which each vote is recorded
and locked away for recounts and audits.  A third of the country voted
with no paper trail -- that is, without the ability to re-count the vote.
(Venezuela has a paper trail, and open source code.  Our election system
is a disgrace by comparison.)  However, expert statisticians and smart
techies can use other methods to track fraud.  (Note: Statistical methods
are admissible in court in a "no paper trail" situation.)
*  Several topnotch statistical studies point a red flag at '04 election fraud:

The Freeman study:
On Election Day '04, the Exit Polls (face to face questioning of voters, just
after they voted) showed a big Kerry win--including a Kerry sweep of all
the battleground states--until about 6 p.m.  Dr. Steven J. Freeman  (an MIT-PhD,
professor at the U. of Penn.) discovered that, late in the afternoon, CNN began
mixing the Exit Poll data with the incoming data from the central electronic
voters tabulators which showed a turn to Bush late in the day (odd, because
that's when the working poor and minorities vote).   By luck and fast thinking,
Freeman was able to get hold of the pure Exit Poll data before it was corrupted
by the election "results."  The Exit Poll variance from the election "results" is
extraordinary, and always favors Bush.  Freeman says that this is virtually
impossible.  He establishes the reliability of non-partisan Exit Polls, which are
used worldwide to verify elections.  The odds against Kerry's predicted Exit Poll
vote being wrong in all 3 big battleground states (OH, FLA, PA) are 662,000 to one.
He concludes:  "As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible,
it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in
the three critical battleground statesScould have been due to chance or random error."
This shift to Bush (in electronic tally vs. Exit Poll predictions) occurred in 10 of the
11 states studied.  In 4 of the 11 states (OH, IA, NE and NM), the Kerry win was
changed to a Bush win--with enough Electoral Votes in the balance to turn the
Electoral Vote to Bush.
on the exit poll issue, analysing 47 states, and showing that the exit poll variance
from the official "results" was dramatically larger in the battleground states
Bush needed to win--a statistical impossibility.]

The UC Berkeley study:
An impressive statistical team at UC Berkeley headed by Professor Michael Hout
reports that irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have
awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or more "excess"votes to Bush in Florida. The study
shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for Bush in counties where electronic
voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods.
Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance -- the probability is
less than 0.1 percent.  The counties studied included big Democratic areas
(Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach).  Hout, a member of the National Academy
of Science, called for an investigation.  (This study was recently endorsed by
MIT scientists who also called for an investigation.)
*  The 4 states in the Freeman study whose result changed from Kerry (exit poll)
to Bush (electronic vote tabulation) don't begin to exhaust the number of states
where serious voting anomalies are turning up (in addition to FLA, there are
inexplicable numbers in North Carolina, Ohio, New Hampshire, Nebraska,
Iowa, New Mexico, Indiana--at least).  Also, if phantom votes or flipped votes
in large numbers occurred as a pattern nationwide -- as the Berkeley study
showed in FLA -- the popular vote (Bush by about 3.5 million) could also be
wrong enough to overturn the election.

*  Examples:  Another statistician has found an improbable 15% margin
for Bush in North Carolina -- amidst large, inexplicable discrepancies
between the absentee ballot vote (30% of the vote) and the electronic
vote, and between the vote for President and lower offices.
Another:  29 Dem counties in FLA, one with 88% Dem registration,
producing landslides for Bush.
Another:  more votes than voters (Ohio, 93,000; Nebraska, 10,000).
And there is much more.  (In one Ohio precinct, 600 voters, 4,000 votes for Bush.)
Evidence all over of inexplicable numbers.  What the statisticians are doing --
critically important -- is sorting out the probabilities of widespread innocent error
always favoring Bush (not possible.)

MASSIVE VOTE SUPPRESSION BY REPUBLICAN ELECTION OFFICIALS
Over 30,000 complaints of vote suppression and difficulties in voting were lodged
with the Election Incident Reporting Service (EIRS); 57,000 complaints were
sent to Congress; and "265 specific complaints" were listed at the VotersUnite.org
web site.  There have already been big hearings in Ohio, and the testimony is
heart-breaking and infuriating.
Most egregious, the Republican efforts to prevent black votes, including black
precincts being shorted on precinct places or number of voting machines --
resulting in a 30-mile drive to vote, or 10-hour voting lines, and black voters
arriving at the precinct they'd voted in all their lives, to be told it's the
wrong precinct, then given wrong or no information on where to vote, and
many other kinds of harassment and unlawful behavior.
In addition, touchstone voting screens that changed a Kerry vote to a Bush vote
-- all day long, without corrective measures.  60,000 absentee ballots
"lost in the  mail" just before election day.  Numerous duly registered Democrats,
minorities and students unfairly challenged at the voting place, sending their
votes into "provisional" ballot limbo.  New rules invented by Republican Secretaries
of State -- you have to register on 80 lb. paper; you have to have written your
birthdate on your "provisional" ballot; you can't vote anywhere in the county
anymore, only at your newly assigned precinct (the location of which we may
or may not give you). Electronic machines with a pre-set limit on the number
of votes, that started counting backwards, and deducting votes when the limit
was reached (thousands of votes lost).  Republican operatives in Nevada and
Oregon pretending to be a non-partisan voter registration group, then throwing
Democratic voter registration forms away.  Machines that reached pre-set vote limits,
and then started counting backwards, deleting thousands of votes.  And on and on and on.
As I said, the evidence of election fraud is overwhelming.  And virtually all of the
weird, inexplicable, and impossible numbers from electronic voting favored Bush
and hurt Kerry. And virtually all vote suppression was against Democrats,
minorities, and students.
To sort all this out, a working hypothesis on the overall picture of 2004 election
fraud is helpful.  Here's mine--most of which occurred to me around midnight on Nov. 2.
The context:  Kerry was winning, according to pre-election opinion poll analysis and
election day exit polls (after a huge, unprecedented "get out the vote" campaign
featuring Bruce Springsteen and Michael Moore, and many thousands of volunteers).
So, if you had control of all the vote tabulation machines, and no paper trail (and no
conscience), and you wanted to manufacture a Bush win, you would:
1) Tweak several of the "red" states that were threatening to turn "blue" at the time
of the election, toward Bush, to keep Bush competitive in the Electoral Vote.
2)  Grab %'s here and there, all over the map, wherever detection had been
minimized (f.i., no paper trail), to manufacture a popular majority for Bush
-- not huge, just enough -- even in big Kerry states where "excess" Bush votes
might not be noticed (or in big Kerry counties--as the Berkeley study showed!);
3)  Make it all come down to Ohio (or FLA), where a lot of prep was done in vote
suppression, to keep it close, and where it now SEEMS to all turn on a relatively few
"provisional" ballots in OH, with a highly partisan Republican Secretary of State
to judge their validity--whereas the main fraud actually occurred way back upstream,

and
4)  (Unknown to me, or any observer, on Election Night) Get your friends at CNN
and Fox News to start mixing your electronic vote data into the Exit Poll data,
to hide the big Kerry numbers in the Exit Poll data, and make it appear that
Bush was winning late in the day.

All the evidence so far has confirmed this working hypothesis.

HOW HACKABLE IS THE ELECTION SYSTEM?
People think of CIA "black ops" and a vast conspiracy.  To hack a Diebold
voting machine is as easy as pie (one hacker, a couple of minutes).  As
demonstrated for Keith Olberman on Countdown (MSNBC), by Chuck Herrin
at chuckherrin.com (a computer expert, hacker and remorseful Republican),
as Johns Hopkins concluded, and as repeatedly demonstrated and described by
Bev Harris, these machines are extremely insecure.  (The source code runs
on Windows--a good laugh for techies.  Notoriously unreliable, hackable, buggy,
crash-prone, inferior software.)
A hair-raising Johns Hopkins study of our electronic voting system, prior to the
election, rips into the Diebold electronic voting system, exposing the vulnerability
of "smartcards" which are needed for each vote (easily duplicated by a 15 year old
in a garage), the highly insecure language of the code (C++), and the ease with
which anyone -- a poll worker, a janitor -- could access and alter voting results
leaving no trace.
Means.  Motive.  Opportunity.  You begin to get the picture.  (Why would these
Bush supporters and pro-Bush voting machine companies insist on no paper trail?)

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP?  HOW COULD
THEY LET THIS HAPPEN?
I'm not sure.  A Republican-owned, extremely fraud-prone voting system that
will vote Democrats out of office forevermore?  Go figure.  You'd think they
would've burned down the Capitol to get this changed.
Here's my gut feeling:  Some porkbarrel (funneling federal election funds to the
states).  Some corruption (Diebold spent zillions wining and dining election officials.)
But mostly, a catastrophic failure of leadership.  When you look at the numerous
articles and reports on the dangers of e-voting over the last several years, you
can't imagine that the Democrats didn't know.  And I guess they were just too busy
to give a damn about our right to vote, the future of the Republic, and their own
ability to actually get elected (have us vote for them, get our votes counted).
It's very strange.
The Democratic Party leadership owes an apology--to all those voters who stood
in lines for 12 hours to vote for them, and to all of us fabulous grass roots
democracy workers who gave them a smashing victory, if the truth were known.
And the Democrats CAN redeem themselves if they would just step up to the plate
and help us NOW to challenge this election!  If they don't, forget them!  Let's form
a new party!

WHAT YOU AND I CAN DO
*  Write letters/emails and call Congressional reps, state election officials, and
the mainstream news media, and rake them over the coals (or praise them, if they're
doing their jobs to your satisfaction).  (Praise is impoortant,  where warranted.)

*  Groups that need our immediate financial support (and volunteers):

Bev Harris:  www.blackboxvoting.org (or donations to: Black Box
Voting, PO Box 25552, Seattle, WA 98165)

The Green Party and the Cobb campaign (donations, volunteers):
http://www.votecobb.org

John B. Kenney (hunger strike-donations): http://hungerfordemocracy.com

Alliance for Democracy (action resource!):
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org


MORE INFORMATION

http://www.blackboxvoting.org

http://www.votersunite.org/news.asp

http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm


http://www.bopnews.com/archives/002328.html#2328

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/995

dramatic:] http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

see 2004 Election forum:] http://www.democraticunderground.com


http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/The_unexplained_exit_poll_discre
pancy_v00k.pdf
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/ale04090.html


http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

  http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/  "Voting": "The Effects of Electronic Voting Machines..."]

<04 Election in Ohio:>
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/2004_Ohio_Irregularities

http://en.wikipedia.org

Some other good sites:  www.votersunite.org, www.verfiedvoting.org,
www.commoncause.org, www.ballotintegrity.org, www.truevotemd.org,
www.truthout.org, www.commondreams.org

Also, for inspiration - "Granny D"--a fabulous 94 year old woman who
ran for Senate in NH: http://www.grannyd.com/

Info Media:  Randi Rhodes, Janeane Garofola, Sam Seder and Mike
Malloy of Air America (www.airamericaradio.com).
Keith Olberman (MSNBC-Countdown).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/  And some interesting Olberman
reportage posted at:
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/NewsArticle.cfm?ID=2369


A CURE FOR KERRY VOTER DEPRESSION:

In my opinion, we are one minute to midnight as to losing our democracy.
I figure we've already gone beyond Germany 1933, to Germany 1934 --
the consolidation of all state power.  The fascists now own the presidency,
the Congress, the courts, the media, AND the election system.

It is easy to get scared--or worse, to bury your head in the sand.
The day after the Election, there were 100,000 hits on the Canadian
immigration site.  That's one solution, I guess.  On the other hand,
our children and the entire world are counting on us to restore
democracy in the U.S., especially to stop Bush Inc.'s madness in the
Middle East, and also impending federal bankruptcy.  We are the only
ones who can do it.  The rest of the world is far more aware than
many American citizens of how fraudulent this election was, and how
close the parallel is to Germany 1933-34.  In Europe, they've lived
it.  And they are pulling for us.
We were born to -- or consciously chose -- the great heritage of
American democracy.  It has fallen to us to try to save it, in what
looks to be its final hour.  It is a time for clarity, unity, and focused
action.  I think it's panic-inducing to try to address the million issues
raised by Bush Inc. actions and policy, and a delusion to think that the
Left can influence them or can re-gain power, after what they've pulled
in this election.  Our right to vote is first and fundamental, and we must
salvage it -- by trying to overturn this election; and by focused efforts,
to achieve, state by state
a) paper trail; b) open source code (Congress isn't going to do this!).   But
it's not up to you or me alone.  It's a collective burden.  So don't let yourself
be depressed or feel powerless.  Take care of yourself; help create a sustainable
local economy; think creatively of other important ways of collective action
(there is a corporate news media product boycott in the works, for instance).
 And make time to write that letter, send that donation, spread the word --
and do more if we can.  Together, we shall overcome.

Mary Pjerrou
November 24, 2004
Elk, CA
 
 
 
Mary Bull
Greenwood Earth Alliance
Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117 http://www.gapsucks.org
415-731-7924 [email protected]
 
What you can do/resources:
 
***Nail environmental destruction, worker exploitation, and the privatization of public services & resources on the home-front, BOYCOTT the GAP, Banana Republic, & Old Navy!*** http://www.gapsucks.org
 
***Dismantle the Racist Prison-Industrial Complex!*** http://www.booksnotbars.org
 
***Take Direct Action to Stop the War and End US/Corporate Empire-Building!*** http://www.actagainstwar.org
 
***End Corporate Rule!*** http://www.ifg.org http://www.canadians.org http://www.citizen.org
http://www.foodfirst.org http://www.globalexchange.org
 
***Expose Corporate Greenwashing, starting with the Forest Stewardship Council, the NRDC, and the WWF!*** http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org
 
***Join the Reclaim the Commons Mobilization!*** http://www.reclaimthecommons.net