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Departments Election Issues Progressive Democrats lead historic voting rights protest as Congress ratifies flawed 2004 Electoral College tally by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman January 7, 2005 A handful of progressive Democrats in the House and a lone Senator, Barbara Boxer of California, forced the Republican-dominated Congress to hear two hours of protest Thursday about how the 2004 presidential vote was replete with efforts to disenfranchise Democratic voters and suppress turnout in a torrent of tactics reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. “We have spent our lives fighting for things we believe in – always fighting to make our nation better,” Boxer told the joint session. “We have fought for social justice. We have fought for economic justice. We have fought for environmental justice. We have fought for criminal justice. Now we must add a new fight – the fight for electoral justice.” By invoking a law used twice since 1877, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, D-OH, and Sen. Boxer, stopped Congress’ ratification of the 2004 Electoral College vote by challenging the Ohio results. That forced Vice President Dick Cheney, the presiding officer, to order each chamber to debate the merits of the Ohio vote for two hours. A week earlier, Cheney refused to accept a notice of deposition in a lawsuit challenging the results of 2004 Ohio presidential vote. "I raise this objection neither to put the nation in the turmoil of a proposed overturned election nor to provide cannon fodder or partisan demagoguery for my fellow Republican Members of Congress,” Tubb-Jones said. “I raise this objection because I am convinced that we as a body must conduct a formal and legitimate debate about election irregularities. I raise this objection to debate the process and protect the integrity of the true will of the people.” “It is on behalf of those millions of Americans who believe in and value our democratic process and the right to vote that I put forth this objection today,” Tubbs Jones said. “If they are willing stand at the polls for countless hours in the rain as many did in Ohio, then I can surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress.” While the ratification of a second term for George W. Bush was not in doubt – because those protesting the Ohio vote did not claim they had evidence that John Kerry would have won - Tubbs-Jones’ and Boxer’s challenge unleashed a flood of impassioned speeches by liberal Democrats about Election Day abuses in Ohio and other states, and calls for significant election reform. Ohio became the poster child for a broken election system. The Democratic Congressmen and Senators began reciting the same list of voting rights abuses first catalogued by the coalition of activists, attorneys and independent journalists – the FreePress.org team – in Ohio. They began with from rulings that disenfranchised voters before Election Day by Ohio’s highly partisan Republican Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell; they then cited widespread accounts of voter suppression on Nov. 2 stemming from a willful shortage of voting machines in minority- and student-dominated districts to an over-reliance on provisional ballots; they also recounted vote-counting irregularities from computer malfunction to erroneous turn-out reports. Boxer said, “It seems to me that under the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees the right to vote, we must ask: - “Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote? Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because there were only two machines for 1300 voters? - “Why did poor and predominantly African-American communities have disproportionately long waits? - “Why in Franklin County did election officials only use 2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were 42 of those machines in predominantly African-American districts? - “Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 voters leave polling places, out of frustration, without having voted? How many more never bothered to vote after they heard about this? - “Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra votes to George Bush. Thankfully, they fixed it – but how many other votes did the computers get wrong? - “Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of electronic voting machines in downtown precincts, while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to long lines. - “In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty instructions to voters? “Because of this, and voting irregularities in so many other places, I am joining with Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones to cast the light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed now.” The speeches and debate that followed in both chambers saw dozens of progressive Democrats – lead by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus – fill a leadership void in the Democratic Party that has been lingering since John Kerry conceded the election on Nov. 3. A day before the progressives led the Electoral College challenge, Kerry wrote e-mail letter saying he would not join the Electoral College challenge, but urging his supporters to work for voting rights and improved elections. “Tomorrow, members of Congress will meet to certify the results of the 2004 presidential election. I will not be taking part in a formal protest of the Ohio Electors,” Kerry wrote. “Despite widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote, our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election. “But, that does not mean we should abandon our commitment to addressing those problems that happened in Ohio. We must act today to make sure they never happen again.” Kerry was not present for Thursday’s Electoral College challenge. He was reportedly in Iraq with troops. Kerry’s letter disappointed many progressives who felt he had bowed out of the race before investigating the true extent of the GOP’s vote suppression efforts and vote-counting frauds in Ohio and other states. The leaders of the Democratic Party in Washington have followed Kerry’s cue and said as little as possible about efforts to investigate the irregularities in Ohio and elsewhere. Their silence, a blatant disregard for their party’s rank-and-file who worked tirelessly during the summer and fall for Kerry and still hungered for answers about why their efforts apparently fell short – contributed to as leadership vacuum that ended with the progressive’s Electoral College challenge. The national news media – particularly the major television networks---exercised a virtual blackout in the Jan. 6 evening news on the challenge. But what those watching on C-span, listening on public radio and the Internet saw and heard was the emergence of a new generation of Democratic leaders willing to fight for progressive causes – starting with the most fundamental tenet of American Democracy, the right to vote. Even the Senate’s new Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, joined the challenge – a startling, unexpected but hopeful twist. Indeed, he spoke not of voting problems in Ohio but of problems in Nevada. “Today, our brave men and women of the armed forces are working to bring the right to free and fair elections to Iraq,” Reid said. “Their sacrifice absolutely demands that we work to ensure our own elections are fair. That is what today’s debate is about.” Reid cited problems in his state, saying: “In this past election in my home state of Nevada, phone calls were made to heavily African American parts of Las Vegas to trick those voters into not voting. Those calls, which we were unable to trace, told voters that Election Day was November 3rd, not November 2nd. Our registration process in Nevada was also tainted by the proven destruction of Democratic voter registration forms. That fraud is still under investigation.” The story of how a small band of activists, lawyers and independent journalists assembled a record and analysis that propelled a new generation of progressive Democratic leaders to emerge and hold the Republican-dominated Congress captive for two hours with a voting rights debate will be told in coming days. -- Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, a documentary book and film project from www.freepress.org. Support is welcome via www.freepress.org or the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism, 1240 Bryden Road, Columbus, OH 43209. Email this article to a friend |
Don't forget to check out articles from 2009 and 2010
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"Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper"
November 5, 2005
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"Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper"
November 3, 2005
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"Watergate-style money laundering indictments stoke Ohio's stolen election fires"
October 28, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings"
October 26, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Did you erase your own vote?"
October 25, 2005
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"Why can't the left face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?"
October 18, 2005
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
"Carter/Baker Report can't face how the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008"
September 20, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Two Steps Forward, One Step Back"
September 20, 2005
Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy, VoteTrustUSA
"FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes"
September 19, 2005
Jason Leopold
"Ohio recount lawsuit set for trial; election workers indicted"
September 4, 2005
Blair Bobier
"Ohio Governor's ethics violations expose money trail to stolen 2004 election"
August 30, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Diebold's failure in California"
August 7, 2005
John Gideon, Information Manager, www.VotersUnite.Org and www.VoteTrustUSA.Org
"Did the GOP steal another Ohio Election?"
August 5, 2005
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
"Conyers-Kaptur seek special counsel for Noe probe"
August 4, 2005
John Conyers, Jr. and Marcy Kaptur
"Dramatic new charges deepen link between Ohio's "Coingate," Voinovich mob connections, and the theft of the 2004 election"
July 29, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"None dare call it stolen - Ohio, the election, and America's servile press"
July 24, 2005
Mark Crispin Miller, summarized by Mary Anne Saucier, Columbus, Ohio
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July 19, 2005
Terri Zins
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July 7, 2005
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July 4, 2005
Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
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June 28, 2005
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June 25, 2005
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June 16, 2005
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June 10, 2005
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"Electoral Politics and the War: Lessons from 2004 and What the Anti-War Movement Should do in 2006"
June 8, 2005
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"Optical scan machines hacked in Florida"
June 2, 2005
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May 28, 2005
John Gideon
"Attack on election board whistleblower and leaked Blackwell threats re-fire Ohio's election theft scandal"
May 23, 2005
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
"Franklin County, Ohio Election Procedures – April and May 2005"
May 6, 2005
Paddy Shaffer
"Carter Gets It – But Will His Electoral Commission?"
April 24, 2005
Kevin Zeese and Linda Schade
"Voter Perceptions and Political Deceptions: Federal, Ohio and Knox"
April 24, 2005
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April 17, 2005
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"National Conference on Election Reform Opens with Civil Rights Panel"
April 13, 2005
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"View from Another Planet"
April 13, 2005
Josh Mitteldorf
"Democrats! Paper “Trails” Aren’t Good Enough. Count The Damn Ballots!"
April 12, 2005
Lynn Landes
"Democrats, Paper ‘Trails’ Aren’t Good Enough; Count The Damn Ballots!"
April 1, 2005
Lynn Landes, Online Journal Contributing Writer
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March 30, 2005
US Vote Counts
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March 24, 2005
Steve Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis, and Harvey Wasserman
"Understanding the difference between paper ballots and paper audit trails"
March 20, 2005
Gary Beckwith
"Save Our Democracy"
March 16, 2005
John Irwin
"Republicans maneuvering to get Voting Rights Act killed"
March 10, 2005
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
"Legal filing highlights Blackwell's hypocrisy in Ohio recount case"
March 7, 2005
Blair Bobier
"Selma 40 Years Later"
March 6, 2005
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
"Exit Poll Madness - Analyst Steve Freeman & Company Offer False Choice"
March 4, 2005
Lynn Landes
"Libertarians To Testify in Ohio House: Modernize Ohio's Election Laws"
March 3, 2005
Robert Butler
"The New Voting Rights Movement Begins Here Today"
March 2, 2005
Steven Rosenfeld
"Voting in America"
February 28, 2005
Bob Babson
"The Mighty Texas Strike Force"
February 28, 2005
Nick Mottern - Documentary News Service
"Blackwell presidential election sanctions briefs"
February 22, 2005
Various individuals
"Representative Conyers and others file amicus brief in Ohio Supreme Court"
February 17, 2005
Dena Graziano
"Congresswoman Tubbs Jones Outraged at Blackwell's Failure to Appear During House Administration Hearing"
February 12, 2005
Office of Rep. Tubbs Jones
"Ohio Attorney-General's attack on election protection attorneys draws mountain of documentation on state's stolen election, including new study on exit polls"
February 3, 2005
Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results"
January 31, 2005
Bruce O'Dell
"The last man to concede..."
January 29, 2005
Sheila Samples
"Report on Washington DC, January 6, 2005"
January 25, 2005
Avram Friedman
"Arkansas in 2004: Did Bush Really Win?"
January 24, 2005
Max Standridge
"New links"
January 23, 2005
Free Press staff
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January 23, 2005
Justine Smith
"Plan B: Parallel Elections & Signed Ballots"
January 20, 2005
Lynn Landes
"Open Letter to Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro from Representative John Conyers, Jr."
January 20, 2005
Representative John Conyers, Jr.
"Open Letter to Warren Mitofsky and Larry Rosin from Representative John Conyers, Jr."
January 20, 2005
Representative John Conyers, Jr.
"Ohio's GOP Attorney General launches revenge attack on Election Protection legal team"
January 19, 2005
Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"What are they hiding in New Mexico?"
January 18, 2005
Warren Stewart, National Ballot Integrity Project
"In the Shadow of Dr. King, counting the vote remains a civil rights issue"
January 17, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Did the “Liberal Media” Get the 2004 Election All Wrong?
"
January 16, 2005
Gene C. Gerard
"'COUNT EVERY VOTE. EVERY VOTE COUNTS'"
January 16, 2005
Mary Anne Saucier
"Moss v. Bush moves on and movement continues"
January 13, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Rally Continues Drive for Democracy"
January 9, 2005
Mark Huntress
"Estimated vote count in Ohio"
January 8, 2005
Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
"January 6 Washington, D.C. rally report"
January 8, 2005
Nick Mottern
"Together, we moved three mountains"
January 8, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"What the election challenge means"
January 8, 2005
David Swanson, ILCA
"Progressive Democrats lead historic voting rights protest as Congress ratifies flawed 2004 Electoral College tally"
January 7, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Arnebeck letter to Congress re Presidential Electoral Challenge"
January 6, 2005
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
"Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-OH contested the election"
January 6, 2005
Free Press staff
"The "Crime of November 2": The human side of how Bush stole Ohio, and why Congress must investigate rather than ratify the Electoral College (Part Two of Two)"
January 5, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff"
January 5, 2005
U.S. Rep. John Conyers and staff
"Seven key reasons why the vote must be challenged at the electoral college"
January 3, 2005
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition
"Ten preliminary reasons why the Bush vote does not compute, and why Congress must investigate rather than certify the Electoral College (Part One of Two)"
January 3, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Verified election contest petitions and documents in Ohio Supreme Court "
January 2, 2005
The undersigned
"Distribution of voting machines by county in Ohio"
January 1, 2005
Andy Shifflette
"Did We Bounce An Election?"
January 1, 2005
Warren Stewart, votersunite.org
"Presidential election congressional hearing transcript"
January 1, 2005
Congresspeople Waters, Tubbs-Jones and Conyers and others
Selected articles from 2004
"Ohio's official non-recount ends amidst new evidence of fraud, theft and judicial contempt mirrored in New Mexico"
December 31, 2004
"Impossible Phantom Votes in New Mexico
"
December 30, 2004
"The 2004 Presidential Election: Who Won The Popular Vote? An Examination of the Comparative Validity of Exit Poll and Vote Count Data"
December 29, 2004
"Ohio GOP election officials ducking notices of deposition as Kerry enters stolen vote fray"
December 28, 2004
"Another third rate burglary"
December 25, 2004
"Hacking the vote in Miami County"
December 25, 2004
"Update from the Ohio Frontlines"
December 24, 2004
"Lawsuit Before the Ohio Supreme Court"
December 24, 2004
"Kerry votes switched to Bush and ballots pre-punched for Bush"
December 24, 2004
"Uncounted votes in Cuyahoga County"
December 24, 2004
"GAO report documents how easy it is to hack the vote"
November 15, 2005
"J30 Election Reform Coalition"
March 21, 2005
"The Un-mighty New Hampshire Jam Force"
March 21, 2005
"Petro sanctions democracy"
March 21, 2005
"Progressives helped concede election by conceding the moral high ground"
March 21, 2005
"We will not concede, or get over it, but we shall overcome"
January 23, 2005
"From Selma to Palm Beach to Columbus"
January 23, 2005
"Movement Heroes"
January 23, 2005
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