(B (JForwarded with Compliments of Free Voice of America (FVOA): Accurate News and Interesting Commentary for Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free.
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JFrom: www dot hello <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
(B (J
(B (J
(B (Jhttp://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/894
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J More Ohio Voter-Suppression Testimony Prompts
(B (J
(B (J Upcoming Legal Filing for Statewide Recount
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JBy Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
(B (J
(B (J November 20, 2004
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JCOLUMBUS---As transcribed testimony from citizens denied their right to vote November 2 has become public, a coalition of public interest lawyers says it will initiate a legal filing demanding a statewide recount.
(B (J
(B (JAttorneys from the Alliance for Democracy, Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections-Ohio, Common Cause, and the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign made the announcement at a dramatic Friday afternoon press conference on the steps of the Ohio Supreme Court.
(B (J
(B (JThe newly transcribed sworn testimony, which appears below for the first time, was taken at a public hearing Saturday, November 13, in Columbus. The Green Party and its presidential candidate, David Cobb, have raised more than $150,000 for the recount. The Libertarian Party is also supporting the demand. Representatives of the Ohio Democratic Party have, reportedly, for the first time, indicated the party might help train observers. Up to 3,000 volunteers may be required.
(B (J
(B (JExactly when the recount might start and how it might be conducted remain unclear. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who co-chaired the Bush Campaign in Ohio, is required to certify results by Friday, December 3. He wants to delay the beginning of any recount until December 6, which would leave just one week until the Ohio Electoral College is scheduled to meet.
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JThe Greens and Libertarians have demanded an immediate recount so a thorough job can be done of counting the vote in all of Ohio's 88 counties. Cliff Arneback of the Alliance for Democracy says Blackwell may be trying to stall and "run out the clock" on a fair recount. Arnebeck says a filing could come as early as Monday or Tuesday.
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JTranscribed testimony and sworn affidavits, as below, will continue to be released to the public by freepress.org.
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JSWORN TESTIMONY TAKEN SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2004, IN COLUMBUS, OHIO:
(B (J
(B (JVictoria Lovegren, Ph.D, Cleveland:
(B (J"I also found it kind of odd that nowhere on the voter registration card did it say that the date of birth was required, and when I went down to ask about that, the guy that was -- the clerk [Cuyahoga County Board of Elections] there was actually, was actually discarding voter registrations because there was not a date of birth, even though it didn't say it was required. He said that they were going to mail them back. Hopefully, they will be fixed, but that was a red flag. He also told me about layoffs that were going to be happening in the near future and that they were going to be losing a lot of their staff, and we both sort of laughed. Well, like this is a good time, the most important election, most of the largest election in our lifetimes, and they are laying off people."
(B (J
(B (JMike Swinford, Knox County:
(B (J"$B".(JKnox County has two colleges. The one that has been profiled is Democrat, had long lines, that has already been testified to. The other one, Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, that has been profiled as a Republican. That one did not have any problems as to waiting lines, and then they were not intimidated by the representative from Blackwell's office."
(B (J
(B (JEliza Jane Schneider, Franklin County, moveon.org witness:
(B (J"What I witnessed was at Columbus Alternative High School, during the hours of 6:30 A.M. to 8:30 A.M., everyone was turned away due to broken machines. That is what I watched. They turned -- between 6:30 A.M. and 8:30 A.M., I was there with moveon.org, and they started turning people away because they didn't have any working machines. At 8:30 A.M. they fixed one."
(B (J
(B (JFiona Mitchell, Athens:
(B (J
(B (J "The night before the election, just after midnight we received a call at the vote mob headquarters that there had been fliers posted on South Green stating that due to unprecedented voter registration turnout, voting dates had been changed by the bipartisan voting authority. Republicans and undecideds will vote on November 2nd. Democrats and undecided will vote on November 3rd. It went on to stay make sure you bring proper ID and go to the proper voting place for you."
(B (J
(B (JJerry Doyle, Franklin County:
(B (J"I voted at precinct 13, and I got there around a quarter till nine, and I didn't get out of there until about ten minutes to one. And there is a lot of, you know, my wife and I, we both went to vote, and so there is a lot of people, elderly people behind me that couldn't stand, that was in worse shape than I was, and they were not offered any assistance, and I thought that was wrong, you know. And I was there for all of that time, over four hours, and I wasn't offered any assistance, you know. And there was a lady about three, four people behind me, she was arguing on her cell phone, I guess to her employer, and she asked, she said well, I have been in this line for two hours, you know, and it looks like it is going to be another hour, and she was telling him -- I am telling you what I heard her say, you know, she was on the cell phone. And she said, I will make it up, the time I lose, no matter what, or no matter how long, I will make it up, please let me stay here, and I guess he said no, because she got very upset and she had to leave to protect her job, you know."
(B (J
(B (JMurlien Featherstone, Franklin County:
(B (J"I have been a proceed presiding judge for 20 years, I have been at the Ohio Avenue School for I guess six years or so. This election I was at Ohio Avenue School as presiding judge. We always had four machines at election time. During the primary, we had four machines. When I walked in the door Tuesday morning, we had three, and I couldn't understand why we only had three, knowing that this election was going to be the way it was, and I called them up and I asked them, where is my other machine? And first they told me, ma'am, we are going to try to get you a machine. I called back the second time and told them I don't need one, I need two, I said because we got a line. They said how long was the line, is it 100 feet? I said, yeah, about 150 feet, and some people had been in line three and four hours. When I called them the third time and asked them about the machine, they said, ma'am we are not going to get you no machine, we are not going to get you any machine, and what we want you to do is do best you can with what you got, and that is what we did. We had people leaving."
(B (J
(B (JKimberly Richardson, Franklin County:
(B (J"Also I worked at the Broad Street Presbyterian Church. At that particular location there were three voting machines in the morning. They did not work. Some people that got there early wanting to vote were not able to vote. They waited until 11:30 and they finally got the machines working, and the people were able to vote. But, of course, people had to leave, they had to come, they had to leave because they got children, families, have jobs, they have lives. So they could not continue. The lines were out the door. First of all, it was raining, it was wet. We know it was cold. The weather was horrible. People were standing -- this was all across the inner-city precincts, two to three hours' waits, not enough machines, and broken down machines, all across the even inner-city precincts. They knew we had a record turnout this year. They did nothing to accommodate us, nothing."
(B (J
(B (J--
(B (J
(B (J Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of the upcoming ANOTHER STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004 (freepress.org). Fitrakis is publisher and Wasserman is senior editor of freepress.org.
(B (J
(B (J ===============================================================================
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JPublished on Thursday, November 18, 2004 by Inter Press Service
(B (J
(B (J http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1118-11.htm
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J US Election: Democracy in Question
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JBy Ritt Goldstein
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JSTOCKHOLM - John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby International, told IPS he has been calling it "the Armageddon election" for about a year. Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader believes the Republican Party was able to "steal it before election day."
(B (J
(B (JFacts suggest something went very wrong on Nov. 2.
(B (J
(B (JSpeculation focuses upon a number of questions -- purposeful miscounts, anomalies surrounding electronic voting (e-voting) machines, particularly the optical scan types; and numerous reports of voting "irregularities" in heavily Democratic areas.
(B (J
(B (J"What they 'do' is minorities," Nader said, highlighting the thrust of Republican efforts, "and make sure that there aren't enough voting machines for the minority areas. They have to wait in line ... for hours, and most of them don't. There are all kinds of ways, and that's why I was quoted as saying, "this election was hijacked from A to Z," Nader told IPS.
(B (J
(B (JZogby was concerned about the difference between some of the exit polls (surveys of individuals who have just cast ballots) and the official vote counts. "We're talking about the Free World here," he pointedly noted.
(B (J
(B (JOn Nov. 10, University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven F Freeman, whose expertise includes "research methods," compiled an analysis entitled 'The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy'. The document was prepared in view of the unusually large differences between what exit polls had predicted and the recorded vote tallies.
(B (J
(B (JHis findings suggest Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry should have received far more votes than he did.
(B (J
(B (JIn three of the key battleground states -- Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- Freeman's analysis states the odds of Kerry receiving the percentage of votes recorded, given the exit poll findings, were less than three in one thousand, per state.
(B (J
(B (JFreeman also determined that the odds of any two of these states simultaneously reaching their stated vote tallies were "on the order of one-in-a-million," and the odds of all three states arriving at the vote counts they did "are 250 million to one."
(B (J
(B (J"Something is definitely wrong," said Zogby.
(B (J
(B (JHighlighting both the expected accuracy of exit polls and the significant disparity that Kerry's defeat illustrated, Republican consultant, commentator and Fox-TV News regular Dick Morris wrote an article, 'Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage', suggesting a pollster conspiracy to swing the election for Kerry.
(B (J
(B (JIn doing so he, perhaps inadvertently, provided ammunition for arguments from the opposite side -- that the exit polls were correct but the final results were fudged. "Exit polls are almost never wrong," argued Morris, and in 10 of the 11 key states they had predicted significantly fewer votes for Republican President George W Bush than he was eventually credited with.
(B (J
(B (JIn New Hampshire, Bush tallied a surprising 9.5 percent more votes than predicted, the most significant difference in any of the key states.
(B (J
(B (JMorris observed that outside the United States, exit polls are often used to provide a check on official vote counts, in his words, "to foreclose the possibility of finagling with the returns."
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JAmong the most-cited exit polls were those conducted by Mitofsky International, whose founder, Warren Mitofsky, is widely credited with having invented exit polling. Zogby, whose firm was not among those that provided network TV coverage of the Nov. 2 election, described the possibility of either incompetence or fraud causing the controversial deviation as "impossible."
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JAccording to Zogby, it would have required "wrong sampling in wrong areas throughout the country," or the purposeful manipulation of data to obtain exit poll results so significantly different from the official totals. He viewed neither as a possibility.
(B (J
(B (JWhen asked what exactly had happened then, Zogby replied, "a problem, but I don't know where it is ... something's wrong here, though."
(B (J
(B (JOn Nov. 5, Nader requested a hand recount of New Hampshire ballots, subsequently telling IPS he had "reports of irregularities there, and we have the cooperation of the state government ... the state attorney-general and secretary of state."
(B (J
(B (J
(B (JNader also said his headquarters had been flooded with requests for assistance from a number of states.
(B (J
(B (JOn Thursday, five of the 11 New Hampshire voting wards where Nader requested a recount will undertake new tallies. According to his staff, all 11 wards had their votes counted with optical scan machines, primarily the AccuVote models made by Diebold.
(B (J
(B (J"If there are irregularities, it may have broader applications in other states," Nader said, adding that the current recount -- a 45,000-vote sample -- is expected to be completed within a week.
(B (J
(B (JAllegations regarding optical scan machines' potentially allowing the manipulation of Florida's vote have been widely reported. In Ohio, the Green and Libertarian parties are pursuing a recount, numerous instances of voting irregularities having been reported there.
(B (J
(B (J"As far as I'm concerned, this election was clearly stolen. What they did in Ohio was systematically deny thousands of African Americans, and other suspected Democrats, the vote," charged progressive author, commentator and activist Harvey Wasserman of Franklin County, Ohio.
(B (J
(B (J"It was like Mississippi in the fifties, and it was deliberate ... had there been enough (voting) machines, and had people equal access to the polls with a reliable vote count, there is no doubt that John Kerry would have carried Ohio," he told IPS.
(B (J
(B (JThe Nov. 14 'Cleveland Plain Dealer', one of the country's top 50 broadsheets, reported a Nov. 13 voter hearing where: "For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about election day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy."
(B (J
(B (J"People are deeply concerned that this is the end of American democracy, that we cannot get a fair election," Wasserman said, poignantly adding, "there was no question of apathy in this election -- we had more volunteers than could be used ... thousands and thousands of grass-roots volunteers."
(B (J
(B (JIf Kerry had taken Ohio, he would have taken the presidency.
(B (J
(B (J"In the end, what Nader is doing in New Hampshire is the best answer. And if there's a recount in Ohio," that is also important, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who specializes in statistical methods, elections and public opinion.
(B (J
(B (JSomewhat concerned about the possible manipulation of e-voting machines, Franklin was more concerned over "the ordinary administration of elections," citing the simple logistical problems that had plagued voters.
(B (J
(B (JHe pointedly noted that the last two presidential elections highlighted "how the decisions of local people (officials) ... can have a considerable influence over who gets to vote, what rules govern."
(B (J
(B (JWhen asked if he was aware of any parallels to the present election, Zogby replied, "I'm certainly aware of the election of 1960."
(B (J
(B (J"It's been discussed, overtly, the roll that Richard Daley, and the roll that Lyndon Johnson played, separately," Zogby said, referring to an episode where the John F Kennedy campaign had supposedly asked, "How many votes do you have?", the reply allegedly being, "How many votes do you need?"
(B (J
(B (JOf course, such examples also serve to highlight the influence "local people" can exert on an election's outcome.
(B (J
(B (JIn the end, many people speculated that the 1960 incidents were not part of a grand conspiracy per se, but the cumulative effects of the actions of a number of individuals who shared a similar perspective, acted semi-independently, and did whatever it took to win.
(B (J
(B (JPolitical "dirty tricks" culminated in the Watergate scandal, forcing then President Richard Nixon (1969-1974) to resign, ushering in a long era without similar illicit activity, until questions raised by the election of 2000.
(B (J
(B (JWith American democracy, until now, providing an effective model for many, as Zogby said, "we're talking about the Free World here."
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J==============================================================================
(B (J
(B (J $(D"m(J 2004 IPS - Inter Press Service
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J
(B (J$(D"m(J Copyrighted 1997-2004 -- www.commondreams.org
(B (J (BLet us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. (B======================================================================== (BArchives Available at: (B
(Bhttp://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ (B<A HREF="">ctrl</A> (B======================================================================== (BTo subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: (BSUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] (B
(BTo UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: (BSIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] (B
(BOm (BE="2">
(B