[Mb-civic] Hearings on Ohio vote supression + sign contestthevote petition

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

 After reading this, you can go to: www.contestthevote.org and sign 
the petition. 

Folks,
This morning(Friday, Dec. 17)there was a heavy snowstorm in 
Ohio and the roads were slippery and treacherous going into 
downtown Columbus. But, Representative Conyers proceeded on 
schedule with his hearing at 10:30 AM in the City Hall Council 
chamber. Despite the weather the room was packed and 
overflowing on the ground floor. Television cameras and reporters 
were everywhere. Unless they throw away the footage it seems that 
we're finally going to get the kind of this deserves.

In addition to Conyers, Representative Maxine Waters, California, 
and about four or five other members of the House were present. 
Jackson was there and testified. His testimony took on the tone of 
the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, comparing the 
disenfranchisement of African American, low-income and student 
voters to Jim Crow. It was very powerful.

Speaker after speaker documented what appeared to be an 
intentional pattern of disenfranchisement throughout the state in 
heavily Democratic districts. Cliff Arnebeck, of Common Cause, 
announced that a lawsuit had been filed yesterday in the Ohio 
Supreme Court to invalidate the Ohio Presidential election vote 
based on the allegations of widespread illegal activities that caused 
voter disenfranchisement. When asked by Conyers of the 
estimated extent of the disenfranchisement Arnebeck's reply was 
that it may have been as much as 20% of those who intended to 
vote. This included working people who could not afford to take an 
entire day off from work to stand in line for 3-10 hours, people who 
feared losing their jobs, students who couldn't afford to miss classes 
and people who simply did not have the patience to wait because 
too few voting machines were supplied in their precincts. It also 
included people who were misdirected to the wrong precincts and 
waited on line for hours only to be told they couldn't vote because 
they were in the wrong precinct. It also includes people who were 
informed by phone that they faced arrest if they showed up at the 
polls and had unpaid parking tickets or other outstanding 
misdemeanors. It includes people who were intimidated by heavy 
police presence at certain polling places and those who were 
intimidated by Republican challengers. With approximately five 
million voters in Ohio, 20% means that as many as one million 
voters were disenfranchised in Ohio, overwhelmingly likely Kerry 
voters. Bush's so-called margin of victory was almost 119,000. And 
this represents only the part of the story involving those who lost 
their chance to vote.

Then there were the compelling stories about the illegal lockdown 
of precincts and election records after the election and the story 
about the machine tampering that was caught red-handed and on 
videotape.

And then there was the testimony of Clint Curtis. Clint Curtis is 
the computer programmer who has signed an affidavit (under 
penalty of perjury) that he was hired by a Republican official in 
Florida to develop software for computerized voting machines that 
could fix an election without detection. His testimony seemed to 
electrify Conyers and almost everyone in the room.

Then there were the statisticians who testified about the 
impossibility of all the anomalies breaking in only one direction. The 
exit polls that were correct in many states, but way off in all the 
battleground states-all in Bush's favor.

One after another the speakers reaffirmed the pattern. Separate 
incidents. Independent, unrelated testimony. Same results. All the 
miscalculations, machine errors, disenfranchisements added up to 
more votes for Bush.

The process of witnessing the hearing was at once both sickening 
and heartening. Seeing people testify about their 
disenfranchisement is much different than reading about it. These 
are real people suffering real consequences. The horror of this 
happening in our country brings home the realization that there is a 
malicious entity in power that intends to stay in power by all means. 
Conyers and the other representatives who were present were 
thanked over and over again by many of the speakers as it was 
recognized that they were conducting this hearing at great personal 
and political risk to themselves. This was a congregation of brave 
souls who were challenging a malignancy in the system. Everyone 
in the room was aware of this context and there was a solemnity to 
the proceedings that acknowledged this fact. And yet there were 
moments of joviality as if to say, "We are all in this together."

Yet, this is just the prelude of what is to come in Ohio and 
America in the next few weeks. Today the recount began in eight 
counties and already there are reports by observers that election 
officials are refusing to cooperate, as required by law, in at least 
some counties. Reports are coming in that requests by observers to 
view individual ballots and voting records are being denied, and 
other violations are occurring. The rules are clear, but they are 
being violated. The Republican machine may believe they are going 
to win by running out the clock. If they can delay the process 
through a planned obstacle course of challenges and appeals, the 
recount will continue into January and past inauguration day. But, I 
don't think this tact will work this time. There is a solid core of 
determined congressional representatives, legal experts, witnesses 
and victims. Evidence is mounting. Public awareness is growing. 
Media attention is increasing. This is not going away.

It's the highest priority right now to find at least one US Senator 
who will join the members of the House in objecting to the 
acceptance of the Electoral College vote by the joint session of 
Congress that will convene on January 6. It only takes one Senator 
and one House member to object and interrupt the process in order 
to force the joint session to disband and hold a debate in each 
House on the legitimacy of the election. The hook is that the Ohio 
delegation should not be given authority to vote while there is still a 
recount in progress in the state to determine who the legitimate 
electors are. Since, in this case, Ohio's electoral votes are enough 
to determine the winner of the Presidential election, the final results 
must wait until the completion of the recount. Some Senators to 
contact are Kerry (obviously), Kennedy, Boxer, Feinstein, Leahy, 
Chafee, Snowe, Collins, Jeffords, Shumer, Clinton, Bayh, Byrd, 
Carper, Dodd, Obama, Feingold, Harkin, Inouye, Levin, Lincoln, 
Mikulski, Murray, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Wyden. To be continued...

Contest the vote! Go to www.contestthevote.org
Sign the petition - they are calling for Barbara Boxer to contest the 
Electors vote. Electoral Count Act of 1887, One Senator and One 
House Representative required to contest an election prior to 
inauguration. They want to get 3,000 signatures by Wednesday 
night. Please sign now, and pass this on.





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Action is the antidote to despair.  ----Joan Baez
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