Jan 02 2005
Stolen Election
Though I was obviously upset (see previous update) with the results of the election, I accepted what had happened and was getting over it in the following week. However, day-by-day after that as I read more and more articles about voting irregularities, complaints of voters across the country, cases of mass disenfranchisement, exit poll data that for the first time was “wrong” particularly in states using voting/tabulating machines made by companies who are very close friends with the Bush administration, I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe that George Bush has legitimately won this election. There is just too much evidence:
- Thousands of people were disenfranchised (denied their right to vote). This is most prominent in Ohio where there was a massive campaign of voter suppression. Ken Blackwell is the Secretary of State for Ohio, Chief Elections Official for Ohio, and co-chair of the Committee to Re-elect George Bush in Ohio. He is in charge of elections for the state, determining method of voting, precincts, how many machines each precinct gets, etc. It is absolutely ridiculous that this sort of extremely biased individual is responsible for setting up the vote. And lets look at how he set it up..
- In strongly democratic minority neighborhoods, there were very few voting machines, often only 2 or 3 per thousands of voters, creating lines of 10 or 12+ hours to vote. People were being turned away from their polling places when midnight rolled around because the law, which says you are able to vote as long as you were in line before polls closed, no longer applied because election day was over. Some places stayed open and people waited until 4am to vote. In neighboring republican areas there were far more voting machines for less voters and no lines. It is estimated that many thousands of people gave up waiting in line to vote and left. Many have jobs, children to take care of, and cannot wait this long. It is a tyranny and deliberate tactic to force people to wait this long to vote. This is a violation of the constitution - creating a new poll tax in minority areas.
- Many democrats were called on election day, or notified by mail in advance that their polling location had changed when it had not. Flyers were distributed with lies that people would be arrested or not allowed to vote if they had been registered by the NAACP and John Kerry for President groups, if they ever had traffic violations, if anybody in their family had ever been arrested for anything, etc. Flyers were sent, posted, and distributed saying that people need two forms of picture ID and their social security card to vote. A big effort to discourage people in democratic areas from voting.
- Many of the votes on election day were collected using electronic voting machines made by Diebold and ES&S, two companies loyal to the republican party. Walden O’Dell, the owner of Diebold, said in a 2003 fundraising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver it’s electoral votes to the president next year.” He has also spent time on Bush’s ranch in Texas, and is a top level contributor to the Bush campaign. Many of the votes were tabulated on machines by Diebold and Triad, another company loyal to the republicans. Many of the electronic voting machines were designed to not give paper receipts after voting!! There is no way to do a fair recount for counties using these machines. There was a bill in congress to force voting machines to give paper reciepts, but it ended up being killed by high level republicans. You get a receipt at McDonalds, but not when you vote for President.
- During the Ohio recount, members of Triad came in, asked what the totals were for the particular precinct, then made some modifications to the tabulating machines so that the recount would come out accurate, and told the recounters this!! Additionally, several programmers and managers at Diebold have previously been convicted of computer fraud. One programmer in Florida has come out and said he was told by his management to modify the code in voting machines so that votes automatically go to Bush. Votes on electronic voting machines were often set to Bush as the default choice, so the people who did not want to vote for president automatically voted for Bush. There have been numerous complaints that the confirmation screen on these electronic voting machines had George Bush selected as the choice for president even though the voter had selected John Kerry. These machines continued to be used throughout the day even though this problem was reported. And again, no paper receipt for who you voted for, no paper trail to verify your choice. One voting machine gave George Bush an extra 4,000 votes. Some counties in Ohio AND Florida have many more votes for president than registered voters, or report 99% turnout on election day, and these happen to be in heavily democratic areas where Bush did surprisingly well. Every single reported problem and error with electronic voting machines has favored George Bush, and not a single one John Kerry.
- Exit polls are used internationally to identify problems with elections. On election day, exit polls showed Kerry winning both Ohio and Florida, as well as winning the presidency by a comfortable margin. Exit polls were accurate for states that did not use any of the above mentioned electronic voting/tabulating systems. From interviewing the same pool of people about their choices, exit polls were dead on for senate races, but mysteriously very marginally wrong for presidential choice. The exit polls are suddenly wrong for the first time ever. Additionally, the republicans want to outlaw exit polling in future elections.
Tell your family and friends. Call/write your congress people (Here too) - tell them to contest AT LEAST the Ohio electors on January 6th when congress meets to certify the electoral votes for President of the United States. Do not sit by and watch our 200 years of democracy come to an end.
There is a lot more than I mentioned. I would also link way more sources to statements above but it looks annoying if every few words there is a link. For more information and links to articles and sources, check out these sites:
No wonder it didn’t make any sense to me that George Bush could have won the election, he didn’t.