Don't Just Mourn, Agitate

What's coming out about election suppression and fraud goes way past whether it's too late to find enough votes to save Kerry. Post-mortems are good and important, but we have a genuine opportunity to reveal the Karl Rove vote suppression strategy.

Fighting for fair elections is fundamental for not just the future, but for the present. There was no mandate. While all the evidence is not in, we should be sounding the alarm that it appears that the 2004 election had problems at least as serious as 2000, and that these problems should be fully aired in the next couple of weeks. The electoral votes are counted in mid-December, which could provide a moment of genuine drama if the results are clearly askew. Of course, the Cleveland Plain Dealer quotes the Ohio Democratic Party head Denny White as saying, "People just need to be patient and calm down." until after the votes are "certified" in December 1, and then ask for a recount. What is this man thinking?

The tough case, of course, is to prove electronic voting fraud. Worth looking at is these graphs comparing the exit polls and the actual vote discrepencies from the swing states - virtually none from the paper ballots, then beyond the margin of error with the non-paper ballots. A moment looking at the picture may tell the story. Go to the graphs at the bottom of the homepage at http://www.democraticunderground.com/

To check these numbers, get your copy of the latest version of the exit polls (see http://www.slate.com/id/2109134/) and actual results (http://www.nytimes.com) and try it yourself. When I did it, my numbers were slightly different but the trends were the same.

The incredible discrepency between the exit polls and the actual vote in the non paper ballot swing states was taken seriously by all sides. Robert Parry, an excellent journalist who helped break Iran-contra, reports that it was so serious that Bush was told by his aide Karen Hughes on Tuesday that he had lost the election.

Dick Morris, a Republican and Clinton’s former mentor, believes that there was "foul play" with the vote. Congresman John Conyers (D-MI), a progressive African American on the House Judiciary Subcommittee, has asked the GAO to investigate in 34 states, joining other congressmen in a call saying that "in 2000, (our) confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004. We should keep looking at the evidence during this critical time and evaluate it for ourselves.

Exit polls are used around the world to monitor elections to see if they are free from fraud, to "validate the outcome or mount a challenge to it". (See the recent New York Times story, attached at the end of this article.)

Challenges to the Ohio count are continuing, which depends on the provisional and spoiled votes and more disclosures like the 4,000 Franklin County votes for Bush mistakenly tabulated (see Greg Palast's "Kerry Won" at http://www.truthout.org).

Also see Ohioans Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis's http://www.freepress.org, which has several incredible stories before and after the election. Although the suppression stories won't change any 2004 votes, "Did Kerry Concede too Soon?" recounts from Republican sources that Franklin County Board of Elections director Matt Damschroder "held back up to 2000 machines (from Columbus) and dispersed many of the other machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County". That would explain why Columbus voters had to wait for so many hours.

Also check out http://www.neohioact.org/electionaudit, where Ohio residents are putting together an audit of the Ohio election; and Ohio Voter Suppression News at http://www.ohvotesuppression.blogspot.com

A Democratic congressional nominee is challenging the Florida vote, discussed by Thom Hartmann at http://www.commondreams.org.

Nader has called for a recount of the New Hampshire vote, claiming that irregularities in electronic voting gave Bush an unfair 5-15% of the vote. (Google News - Union Leader). Although it was denied, he can appeal this decision.

A massive FOIA request has gone out to obtain voting records all over the country. http://www.blackboxvoting.org

The electoral college doesn't vote until early December. Regardless of the outcome, there is an ongoing drama based on the evidence coming in and the long-standing electoral abuses that have always existed in the US system.

The next couple of weeks offer a critical window to expose the Republican suppression if we can keep up the fight even while the post-election reflections go on - if we can follow up on these challenges, keep each other informed, and get the word out when the evidence is well documented. Join the Democracy Defense Committee at the Federal Building, Wednesday, Nov. 10, for a noontime rally and CD to move the fight forward.

Bill Simpich







New York Times

"Exit Polls to Protect the Vote"

By MARTIN PLISSNER
Published: October 17, 2004

WASHINGTON — Since the 1960's, the exit poll, that staple of election-night television, has been used along with other tools to declare winners when the polls close in each state, and its accuracy is noted later when the actual vote count proves it right. A landmark exception, of course, came in 2000, when the networks initially gave the decisive Florida vote to Al Gore.

But now exit polls are being used in some places to monitor the official vote count itself, either to validate the outcome or to mount a challenge to it.

That has happened in several countries in the last year, and in the United States one organization plans to use exit polls in five closely contested states in November to measure whether there have been impediments to voting.

Last fall, an American firm, whose polling clients have included Al Gore and John Edwards, was hired by some international foundations to conduct an exit poll in the former Soviet republic of Georgia during a parliamentary election. On Election Day, the firm, Global Strategy Group, projected a victory for the main opposition party. When the sitting government counted the votes, however, it announced that its own slate of candidates had won. Supporters of the opposition stormed the Parliament, and the president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, later resigned under pressure from the United States and Russia."