More about 11/10 Investigate Votergate Demo

Investigate Votergate: Rally and CD at the SF Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate,
Wednesday, November 10, at noon, to expose voter suppression and fraud and have ALL
the votes counted before the Electoral College meets in mid-December.


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 not just for 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 early
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.

From: http://www.democraticunderground.com/


Kerry Margins: Paper-ballot and Non-paper ballot states...
Posted by TruthIsAll
Added to homepage Sat Nov 06th 2004, 10:43 AM ET

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 discrepancy 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. There will be public hearings in
Ohio on Nov. 13 and 15 to flush out more evidence (see http://www.ttww.org).

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
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."