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Departments Election Issues Save Our Democracy We stuck to the right issues—the mistake of going to war, the lose of good jobs, the huge tax give away to the wealthy and its consequences to our economy, the destruction of our environment, our failed medical delivery system, the erosion of our civil liberties, our loss of respect and support in the world, and the government’s lying to us on the reasons for going to war. They spewed their hollow rhetoric on “family values” (though they had never delivered any real support to families). They harangued on patriotism and support for our troops, though what supporting meant to them was sending mostly reservists to battle a war that should not have been fought. They militated against abortion and gay rights. Finally, they stooped to attacking the war record and the anti-war activities of Kerry, though the top leaders of the republican party were draft dodgers themselves. When Election Day started, it looked like our efforts had paid off. All the early results indicated that Kerry was winning by 4 or 5 percentage points. When the final vote counts started coming in, it got closer and closer and it finally boiled down to Florida and Ohio. Late in the night, these two states ended up in the Bush column and it appeared we had lost. Immediately, some perspicacious people concluded that something was wrong. Ira Glasser, the former director of the ACLU and mathematician by education, circulated a memo indicating that when you looked at the huge increase of young voters, who were much more likely to be Kerry supporters and the closeness of the last election, the numbers did not add up. Then a comparison of 3 states (Wisconsin, Maine, and Illinois) that had paper ballots with 6 (North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) that had electronic voting was circulated. This comparison revealed that in the states with paper ballots the exit polls and the actual vote were within 1.5 percentage points of each other and in the states with electronic voting they were off from 4 to 6 percent, all in the direction favoring Bush. In addition, people working in Ohio and Florida were discovering many voting “irregularities”: machines that started with thousands of Bush votes already recorded, people in heavy democratic districts left off the voting lists, lack of voting machines in heaving democratic districts, etc. More people started getting suspicious. However, what was surprising was that people who should have been suspicious and desirous of initiating a systematic examination of the vote remained silent or capitulated. Even the persons who conducted the exit polls immediately capitulated and offered the flimsy explanation for the large errors in their predictions that Bush supporters were less likely than Kerry supporters to respond to the pollsters. They gave no reason why this was so. The majority response on the part of our democratic leaders and the journalists who purport to be on our side was to wring their hands and whine about our not understanding the mood of the people who, as good Christians, are upset that we have moved too far away from the central moral values of the United States. The talk was that to regain power, we were going to have to move back to the center and be more like Republicans. As one group from Texas put it: The Democrats' mistake was in thinking that a disastrous war, national bankruptcy, erosion of liberties, corporate takeover of government, environmental destruction, squandering our economic and moral leadership in the world, and systematic Administration lying would be of concern to the electorate. The Republicans correctly saw that the chief concern of the electorate was to keep gay couples from having an abortion. Well, they are wrong. We won the election. The massive efforts to get out the vote worked. We won by 3 or 4 percent. Our mistake was that we let them supply the voting machines and they did what we should have known that they would do, they cheated. Solid proof that this is what occurred is now in. -- John Irwin is a Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University where he taught sociology for 27 years. His speciality was criminology and he wrote 6 books on prisons and jails. This became his speciality because he had served a five year sentence for robbery in California State Prison at Soledad during the 1950s. In the late 1960s, he became involved in prison reform and prisoners rights and organized the California Prisoners' Union. He has worked with a variety of organizations on prisoners' rights since then. |
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Recent Election Issues Articles An open letter to the Election Assistance Commission Diebold hack proven in county test! Diebold Inc. in a tailspin after resignation of CEO and filing of a class action fraud lawsuit Orr thinks machines make voting simpler, more secure Diebold "hack test" - Sec. State / Black Box Lawyer square off With new legislation, Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy Important daily voting news Poll shock Ohio's Diebold Debacle: New machines call election results into question Diebold attempts to evade election transparency laws Supreme Court stabs another GOP knife into US democracy by upholding ex-felon vote ban Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats? What John Kerry definitely said about 2004’s stolen election and why it's killing American democracy Scrap the "secret" ballot - return to open voting Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper Watergate-style money laundering indictments stoke Ohio's stolen election fires Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings Did you erase your own vote? Why can't the left face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008? Carter/Baker Report can't face how the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008 Two Steps Forward, One Step Back FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes Ohio recount lawsuit set for trial; election workers indicted Ohio Governor's ethics violations expose money trail to stolen 2004 election Diebold's failure in California Did the GOP steal another Ohio Election? Conyers-Kaptur seek special counsel for Noe probe Dramatic new charges deepen link between Ohio's "Coingate," Voinovich mob connections, and the theft of the 2004 election None dare call it stolen - Ohio, the election, and America's servile press Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community from a voter activist’s view My report from Hocking County, July 5, 2005: An update on Sherole Eaton's unfolding Story Handbook for Ohio Voter Activists, Version 2.0 Direct testimony: Presented to Election Assessment Hearing Log Cabin Republicans in Ohio With a limp election theft report, Dems prove why they're unworthy Voting problems and uncounted votes in Lucas County, Ohio The DNC 2004 Election Report: An indictment of incompetence Corporate control of the election process Introduction: Did George W. Bush steal America's 2004 election? Voter Confidence Committee Calls For Rejection of CA Special Election Activists from 25 states lobby for paper ballots on June 9 and 10 Fear of riffraff Electoral Politics and the War: Lessons from 2004 and What the Anti-War Movement Should do in 2006 Optical scan machines hacked in Florida Does ES&S really want to sell the Automark machines? Attack on election board whistleblower and leaked Blackwell threats re-fire Ohio's election theft scandal Franklin County, Ohio Election Procedures – April and May 2005 Carter Gets It – But Will His Electoral Commission? Voter Perceptions and Political Deceptions: Federal, Ohio and Knox Electoral reform groups call for James Baker's resignation from electoral reform commission National Conference on Election Reform Opens with Civil Rights Panel View from Another Planet Democrats! Paper “Trails” Aren’t Good Enough. Count The Damn Ballots! Democrats, Paper ‘Trails’ Aren’t Good Enough; Count The Damn Ballots! Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered As Blackwell Says, Ohio’s in 2004 was a National Model Understanding the difference between paper ballots and paper audit trails Save Our Democracy Republicans maneuvering to get Voting Rights Act killed Legal filing highlights Blackwell's hypocrisy in Ohio recount case Selma 40 Years Later Exit Poll Madness - Analyst Steve Freeman & Company Offer False Choice Libertarians To Testify in Ohio House: Modernize Ohio's Election Laws The New Voting Rights Movement Begins Here Today Voting in America The Mighty Texas Strike Force Blackwell presidential election sanctions briefs Representative Conyers and others file amicus brief in Ohio Supreme Court Congresswoman Tubbs Jones Outraged at Blackwell's Failure to Appear During House Administration Hearing Ohio Attorney-General's attack on election protection attorneys draws mountain of documentation on state's stolen election, including new study on exit polls 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 The last man to concede... Report on Washington DC, January 6, 2005 Arkansas in 2004: Did Bush Really Win? New links Voting Problems and Uncounted Votes in Lucas County, Ohio Plan B: Parallel Elections & Signed Ballots Open Letter to Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro from Representative John Conyers, Jr. Open Letter to Warren Mitofsky and Larry Rosin from Representative John Conyers, Jr. Ohio's GOP Attorney General launches revenge attack on Election Protection legal team What are they hiding in New Mexico? In the Shadow of Dr. King, counting the vote remains a civil rights issue Did the “Liberal Media” Get the 2004 Election All Wrong?
'COUNT EVERY VOTE. EVERY VOTE COUNTS' Moss v. Bush moves on and movement continues Rally Continues Drive for Democracy Estimated vote count in Ohio January 6 Washington, D.C. rally report Together, we moved three mountains What the election challenge means Progressive Democrats lead historic voting rights protest as Congress ratifies flawed 2004 Electoral College tally Arnebeck letter to Congress re Presidential Electoral Challenge Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-OH contested the election 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) Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff Seven key reasons why the vote must be challenged at the electoral college 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) Verified election contest petitions and documents in Ohio Supreme Court Distribution of voting machines by county in Ohio Did We Bounce An Election? Presidential election congressional hearing transcript Read Election Issues Articles by Year: |
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