 |
Mon May 12 2008 | |||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Departments Election Issues The New Voting Rights Movement Begins Here Today by Steven Rosenfeld March 2, 2005 As continuing investigations into the 2004 presidential election reveal yet more flaws in the nation’s election machinery, the call for meaningful election reform is growing across the country and in Washington, where members of Congress who opposed Ohio’s 2004 Electoral College vote have proposed sweeping reforms. It remains to be seen if a growing coalition of civil rights activists, election reformers and others can create a clamor for change that cannot be ignored – even by the Republican-dominated Congress. This past weekend, civil rights activists, election reformers and peace groups held a series of teach-ins in California where they laid out a broad and deepening case for congressional action. The sessions featured emotional footage taken in Ohio this November. It featured updates from investigators who challenged the certified results in Ohio and New Mexico, including new findings that cast further doubt on the accuracy and reliability of the newest voting systems used and their related methods of counting the ‘certified’ vote. Academics who specialize in statistical analysis explained why exit polls projecting John Kerry the winner were probably correct – and why refutations by the polling firm that conducted the national exit poll did not hold up. Meanwhile, as more than two dozen election reform bills have been introduced in Congress, the focus also included organizing strategies to urge meaningful congressional action in 2005. This weekend in Selma, Alabama, Rev. Jesse Jackson will lead a march at the Edmund Pettis Bridge, where 40 years ago Monday – March 7, 1965 - a protest that turned bloody caught the nation’s attention and launched the events that culminated in the passage and signing of the National Voting Rights Act the following summer. Many of those speaking at the California teach-ins said the GOP’s tactics in last year’s swing states – tilting the vote toward President Bush - were a return to the tactics commonly used in the country’s racist, Jim Crow past, before the 1965 Voting Rights Act ended electoral apartheid in America. “Unless we get this right on voting, nothing else matters,” said Robert Fitrakis, one of four attorneys who filed Ohio’s Election Challenge lawsuit who first reported many of that state’s abuses in www.FreePress.org, where he is editor and publisher. “The facts are on our side. We want full transparency… The new voting rights movement begins here today.” The challenge of election reform begins with identifying what problems matter most – because the 2004 elections in Ohio and New Mexico were a veritable catalog of a broken election system. Various speakers addressed elements of this big picture. The top concerns had to do with ensuring the individual right to vote and verifying that vote will be honestly and accurately counted. On the front-end of the election process – before Election Day – openly partisan actions by top state election officers, most notably Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State and Bush-Cheney Co-Chair J. Kenneth Blackwell, were highlighted as an unacceptable, anti-democratic element that had to be outlawed. Not only do openly partisan secretaries of state tamper with registration rules, ballot access, voter roll purges, selection of voting machines and other factors that disenfranchise voters before ballots are even cast, the presence of openly partisan chief state election officer confirms public perceptions that votes cannot be accurately counted, nor recounted with credibility. In one of many examples given from Ohio, Fitrakis described how Blackwell illegally targeted felons for a statewide voter roll purge before Election Day. That tactic was followed on Election Day by GOP operatives - who called themselves “the Texas Strike Force” – who made threatening phone calls to felons, who are allowed to vote in Ohio. “John Conyers (the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, whose staff authored a lengthy report detailing dozens of such abuses in Ohio’s 2004 election) called this a ‘caging’ tactic,” Fitrakis said. “This is Carl Rove’s version of Jim Crow.” The lack of national standards – for voter registration, up to and including Election Day – as well as for voting machines and way votes are counted, were also highlighted. Among the most critical issues in the registration process are the lack of uniform standards that encourage voter registration – not making it more difficult. On the type and accuracy of voting machines, municipalities now use a mix of voting technologies, and there are no standards for the per-capita allocation of these machines, to ensure every willing voter actually gets to vote. Moreover, on the newest electronic machines there is no verifiable paper trail, to ensure accuracy of the vote and credible recounts. Instead, as independent investigative reporter Wayne Madsen pointed out, a web of related, interlocking private companies – with family members sitting on the boards of each – oversee the development, manufacture and use of the electronic machines. These companies have deep ties to the Republican Party as well as to fundamentalist Christian organizations, which both had vested interests in re-electing the president and the Republican-controlled Congress. The most notable example is Walden O’Dell, who was a top donor to Bush’s re-election campaign and is chief executive of Diebold, Inc., which makes paperless electronic voting machines. Equally glaring but less well-known, Madsen said, is Dr. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr, the Bush-appointed chairman of the new United States Election Assistance Commission, which was created after Florida’s debacle in 2000. Saories is a partisan Republican with a long history of attacking Democratic candidates and office-holders. When GOP consultant Ed Rollins boasted in the 1993 New Jersey governor’s race electing Christie Todd Whitman that he suppressed the Black vote, Madsen said Rollins was referring to money that he gave Soaries to distribute among Black clergy to discourage turnout. The chairman of the nation’s supposedly unbiased election oversight board also had a role in attacking the former California Secretary of State, Kevin Shelly, who recently resigned under pressure. “We’ve got to get the election process out of the hands of these kinds of firms and these people,” Madsen said. The abdication of election oversight to private companies wasn’t just a problem in Ohio, several speakers noted. In New Mexico, Warren Stewart, director of legislative issues for The Ballot Integrity Project, described a revolving door between that state’s top election officers and a private company, Automated Election Services, which was hired to help run New Mexico’s elections. Stewart described how at different stages in 2004’s post-election recount, the Secretary of State provided contradictory data sets of supposedly ‘certified votes.’ Initially, the provisional ballot count was not released because “a vendor” had the data, Stewart said he was told. When Stewart said he finally obtained those figures in early January, the fuller data set didn’t match what he was given after the election. “The numbers were different,” Stewart said. “I called the Bureau of Elections back. They said that is not possible. The vendor provided it all to us.” The privatization of the most public of activities – elections - becomes even more significant when considering that John Kerry lost New Mexico by only 11,000 votes. The state has the nation’s highest ‘undercount rate,’ meaning thousands of votes for president did not register, and therefore were not counted. Stewart said the state’s electronic voting machines produced the largest number of undercounts – which election officials duly ignored. “The secretary of state of New Mexico said they don’t spend much time on undercounts,” he said. “The secretary of state blames the voters. I blame the machines. Without a paper trail, there’s no way to know which is correct.” Exit poll Jonathan Simon again made the case that the Nov. 2nd poll conducted for the nation’s leading media organizations was correct in projecting Kerry the winner. He said the rationale given by veteran pollster Warren Mitofsky – appearing on NBC on the eve of the January 6th Electoral College certification – did not hold up when the known exit poll results were analyzed. Mitofsky said Democrats were more eager to respond to exit poll questionnaires than Republicans – and that accounted for Kerry’s projected win. “The real world picture of responder behavior is there is no way to make this work,” Simon said. “We are left with no basis for exit poll discrepancies. But the national media didn’t investigate this.” Butch Wing, who is the California State Coordinator for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow-Push Coalition, said there were two dozen bills in Congress addressing aspects of election reform. On the Senate side of the aisle, Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barbara Boxer, D-CA, recently convened a meeting of top Democratic senators – including Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, John Kerry, D-MA, Dick Durban, D-IL, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV – to discuss a major election reform bill. According to press materials, the Boxer-Clinton “Count Every Vote Act” will: While these elements seem to be a significant and promising start, it’s important to keep in mind Jonathan Simon’s closing remarks in Berkeley. “It is highly improbable that the Republicans will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. There is more than one hole in all of these legislative proposals. You have to be very careful about taking crumbs as victory. Take the materials that are here today. People are so misinformed about this…” Email this article to a friend |
Don't forget to check out articles from 2007 and 2008
"An open letter to the Election Assistance Commission"
December 25, 2005
John Gideon, Executive Director of VotersUnite.Org and Information Manager for VoteTrustUSA.Org
"Diebold hack proven in county test!"
December 17, 2005
Glenn Yeagley
"Diebold Inc. in a tailspin after resignation of CEO and filing of a class action fraud lawsuit"
December 17, 2005
VelvetRevolution.us
"Orr thinks machines make voting simpler, more secure "
December 17, 2005
Mario Bartoletti
"Diebold "hack test" - Sec. State / Black Box Lawyer square off"
December 10, 2005
Black Box Voting
"With new legislation, Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy"
December 6, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Important daily voting news"
December 4, 2005
John Gideon
"Poll shock"
November 24, 2005
Robert C. Koehler, Tribune Media Services
"Ohio's Diebold Debacle: New machines call election results into question"
November 24, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Diebold attempts to evade election transparency laws"
November 20, 2005
Matt Zimmerman
"Supreme Court stabs another GOP knife into US democracy by upholding ex-felon vote ban"
November 16, 2005
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
"Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats?"
November 11, 2005
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
"What John Kerry definitely said about 2004’s stolen election and why it's killing American democracy"
November 10, 2005
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
"Scrap the "secret" ballot - return to open voting"
November 5, 2005
Lynn Landes
"Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper"
November 5, 2005
Kathy Dopp
"Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper"
November 3, 2005
Kathy Dopp, National Election Data Archive
"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
Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy, www.VoteTrustUSA.org
"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
"Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community from a voter activist’s view"
July 19, 2005
Terri Zins
"My report from Hocking County, July 5, 2005: An update on Sherole Eaton's unfolding Story"
July 7, 2005
Victoria Parks, Ohio Backbone Campaign
"Handbook for Ohio Voter Activists, Version 2.0"
July 7, 2005
Various activists
"Direct testimony: Presented to Election Assessment Hearing"
July 4, 2005
Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
"Log Cabin Republicans in Ohio"
July 4, 2005
Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
"With a limp election theft report, Dems prove why they're unworthy"
June 28, 2005
Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
"Voting problems and uncounted votes in Lucas County, Ohio"
June 28, 2005
Justine Smith
"The DNC 2004 Election Report: An indictment of incompetence"
June 25, 2005
Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
"Corporate control of the election process"
June 22, 2005
John Gideon
"Introduction: Did George W. Bush steal America's 2004 election?"
June 16, 2005
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
"Voter Confidence Committee Calls For Rejection of CA Special Election"
June 16, 2005
Dave Berman
"Activists from 25 states lobby for paper ballots on June 9 and 10"
June 10, 2005
VoteTrustUSA.org
"Fear of riffraff"
June 10, 2005
Robert C. Koehler, Tribune Media Services
"Electoral Politics and the War: Lessons from 2004 and What the Anti-War Movement Should do in 2006"
June 8, 2005
Kevin Zeese
"Optical scan machines hacked in Florida"
June 2, 2005
Black Box Voting
"Does ES&S really want to sell the Automark machines?"
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
Mike Swinford
"Electoral reform groups call for James Baker's resignation from electoral reform commission"
April 17, 2005
Ilene Proctor
"National Conference on Election Reform Opens with Civil Rights Panel"
April 13, 2005
Abigail Thorton
"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
"Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered"
March 30, 2005
US Vote Counts
"As Blackwell Says, Ohio’s in 2004 was a National Model"
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
"Voting Problems and Uncounted Votes in Lucas County, Ohio"
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
Read Articles by Year:
2007 2006 2005 2004
2003 2002 2001 2000
All content © 1970-2008
The Columbus Free Press
Disclaimer