It's a mess - Lets fix it
We all put a lot of time, money and heart into the election. Now there's a lot of Internet traffic speculating that the election was stolen. The staff at TrueMajority has been involved in many meetings and conference calls with the top organizations working on this stuff.
Here's the consensusnobody has found a smoking gun proving that the election was stolen. Even the authors of statistical studies questioning the election agree that their work isn't evidence of a fraudulent vote.[1]
However (and this is a big "however"), we DO think there is a crisis. The Voting Rights Act is 39 years old, but STILL this year minority voters were blocked from the polls by ridiculously long lines (5- to 6-hour waiting times), threats and physical intimidation.[2] Also, as we predicted early in the year, electronic voting systems failed and lost votes.[3] The registration and voting process was manipulated by political hacks.[4] Due to official secrecy, we still dont know the magnitude of what went wrong, but we know it was far too much.
Volunteers with the Election Protection Coalition, of which TrueMajority is a part, documented thousands of specific problems. The Congresss Government Accountability Office will be studying the elections problems, and well be bird-dogging them throughout that months-long process to make sure the report isnt a whitewash. Well be joining with folks such as Rev. Jesse Jackson in pushing for national standards for national elections (they dont currently exist). And well continue our fight to require paper ballots for all voting machines.
So as the months go on there is a lot we will be doing. Right now, the best tool we have for identifying problems with the system are the official recounts sponsored by the Green and Libertarian parties in Ohio and elsewhere. One recount in a county in Ohio, for example, turned up a problem with the optical scanners that led to a Republican being wrongly declared the winner of a county commissioner race. We support those recount efforts as the best way to identify the problems that need fixing.
The Green and Libertarian parties are raising money to pay for these expensive recounts.
We will continue to keep you informed on this. And we will continue to find new ways to make compassion, equality and opportunity the values that guide our nation.
Hang in there,
Ben
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Wired magazine article, November 17, 2004: "[Michigan statistician Ida] Briggs stressed that there was nothing to indicate fraud." "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Dr. Stephen Freeman: "Systematic fraud or mistabulation is a premature conclusion ..."
[2] The Election Incident Reporting System available at http://www.voteprotect.org shows 1,687 incidents of voter intimidation, with details.
[3] These have been reported in the press around the country. One excellent summary of problems, with links to numerous newspaper stories about them, is at http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp
[4] "Investigation into Trashed Voter Registrations," George Knapp, KLAS-TV: http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe
Informant: Martin Greenhut
Here's the consensusnobody has found a smoking gun proving that the election was stolen. Even the authors of statistical studies questioning the election agree that their work isn't evidence of a fraudulent vote.[1]
However (and this is a big "however"), we DO think there is a crisis. The Voting Rights Act is 39 years old, but STILL this year minority voters were blocked from the polls by ridiculously long lines (5- to 6-hour waiting times), threats and physical intimidation.[2] Also, as we predicted early in the year, electronic voting systems failed and lost votes.[3] The registration and voting process was manipulated by political hacks.[4] Due to official secrecy, we still dont know the magnitude of what went wrong, but we know it was far too much.
Volunteers with the Election Protection Coalition, of which TrueMajority is a part, documented thousands of specific problems. The Congresss Government Accountability Office will be studying the elections problems, and well be bird-dogging them throughout that months-long process to make sure the report isnt a whitewash. Well be joining with folks such as Rev. Jesse Jackson in pushing for national standards for national elections (they dont currently exist). And well continue our fight to require paper ballots for all voting machines.
So as the months go on there is a lot we will be doing. Right now, the best tool we have for identifying problems with the system are the official recounts sponsored by the Green and Libertarian parties in Ohio and elsewhere. One recount in a county in Ohio, for example, turned up a problem with the optical scanners that led to a Republican being wrongly declared the winner of a county commissioner race. We support those recount efforts as the best way to identify the problems that need fixing.
The Green and Libertarian parties are raising money to pay for these expensive recounts.
We will continue to keep you informed on this. And we will continue to find new ways to make compassion, equality and opportunity the values that guide our nation.
Hang in there,
Ben
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Wired magazine article, November 17, 2004: "[Michigan statistician Ida] Briggs stressed that there was nothing to indicate fraud." "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Dr. Stephen Freeman: "Systematic fraud or mistabulation is a premature conclusion ..."
[2] The Election Incident Reporting System available at http://www.voteprotect.org shows 1,687 incidents of voter intimidation, with details.
[3] These have been reported in the press around the country. One excellent summary of problems, with links to numerous newspaper stories about them, is at http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp
[4] "Investigation into Trashed Voter Registrations," George Knapp, KLAS-TV: http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421595&nav=168XRvNe
Informant: Martin Greenhut
Starmail - 10. Dez, 18:08
