San Francisco Chronicle front page story

[indigoblue]

Skepticism spawns broad effort to push voting reform

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, November 28, 2004

The 2004 election -- arguably the most scrutinized ever held in the United States -- has spotlighted problems with the voting process that are decades old and long overlooked.

Voter intimidation, disenfranchisement, fairness, partisanship of election officials and several other issues are getting the most attention in Ohio, where two lawsuits were filed Friday contesting the counting of provisional ballots and the overall results. But it is citizen groups and individual voters rather than political candidates or parties that are demanding that the problems be addressed.

(and it continues...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/28/MNGQ4A2RLK1.DTL

[Bread and Circus]

1. That's all I want, voting reform....

Bush can have the shit sandwich he created but I want
reform so my children can live in a Democracy someday
without having to defect to another country.

[gristy]

3. I agree

As livid/depressed/fearful about where the Bush cabal has taken us and will take us, the only thing I demand is voting reform. I want so much more, but voting reform is what I need. Sadly, I am not optimistic we will get it.

[proudtobeadem]

10. kick

[proudtobeadem]

11. We've also got to get this to Chuck Herrin, anyone hve an update on him?

[acmavm]

2. Well, finally something. Of course it's a media source from that

damn liberal bastion of San Francisco.

<sarcasm off>

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Bull, screw reform

I want the bastards who have been steeling our elections out of office now and lawyering up.

I am sick and tired of letting them destroy our country.

Enough is enough.

[Senator]

5. If you want reform...

...you must demand more. Then they will "settle" for reform.

Only real consequences bring action.

This is why we MUST change the FRAME

[WiseFawn]

6. Not me

That is like looking at people that just stole your life savings and saying OK, I'll setlle for your promise to change your ways and that the new locks you just put on my doors will stop all of you. I will not be pacified with reforms. That is my biggest fear, that we will all settle, all be pacified, lulled. Not me.

[nashville_brook]

7. i hate the premise

i'm glad that vote fraud is getting front page attention -- but in the context of 'this is way it has been for decades' is the dominant myth that keeps us sitting on our duffs not doing anything about it. if this is 'just the way things work here' then the average joe and joan have no hope of anything better.

but hey, any press is good press as long as they spell your name right.

[IndyOp]

8. Front page...

...that's really good. Even if the content could be stronger - it is on the front page!

:kick:

[proudtobeadem]

9. Wow front page, but he didn't mention hackable computers, we have

to get them to talk to Bev and hopefully the whole ugly mess will come out. If he was willing to put it on the front page, I think he'll do the right thing and report it completely. Maybe he didn't mention that so that he can save it for a follow-up and not shock people -so that it can be more believable?

[Straight Shooter]

12. Do we reward bush for apartheid? This election was tainted.

Complaints, most of which were made in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, range from long lines to poll workers who took ballots out of envelopes and would not put them in the ballot box.

Many others complained of broken or insufficient numbers of voting machines at certain precincts, some of which had more machines during primary elections than the general election.

...

"A working person having to wait in line for five hours to vote is arguably a denial of voting rights," said Wang of the Century Foundation.

In a video from Columbus, Ohio, posted on the Web site theneighborhoodnetwork.org, a diabetic woman who waited 2 1/2 hours in line stepped outside the crowded polling place for air. In the short time she was outside, the polls closed, the doors were locked and she was not allowed back inside to vote.

I understand the sentiment that voting reform is necessary, but it remains a stark fact that bush stole 2000 through voter suppression and did the same in 2004. Do we just shrug it off and say, "Well, that's the last time we'll let that happen"?

Four years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, millions of deaths later, tens of millions more in poverty, the world in turmoil, I don't want to look back and say I didn't do everything I could to grant the rightful winner of this election his place in history in the White House.

If someone is a pickpocket and filches my wallet, he hasn't "won" my money. Why should I let him keep it?