Contest the Vote

Allies,

Many of you know that I spearheaded the launch of www.nov2truth.org after the suspicious results of the last election. It has become a useful switchboard for the latest information, thanks in large part to Michael Dubois, the webmaster. I particularly recommend signing up for the newsletter, which gives you daily breaking highlights.

In the two months since Bush supposedly won re-election, the evidence for fraud on an unprecedented scale has built rapidly. On election night, we mainly had an alarming 5-6% discrepancies between exit polls and final poll data especially in swing states, evidence for systematic underprovisioning of Democratic districts (which created 5 and 6 hour lines), and evidence of trashed registrations, high rates of “spoilage” and provisional balloting in Democratic-leaning districts. Since then, we’ve had much more in-depth analysis by professional statisticians, some of which are yet to emerge even on the Internet. One credible analysis by Steven Freeman of UPenn put the odds of the systematic Bush swing from exit polls to final results at 250 million to 1. PDF

After tracking much of this, I now believe that Kerry actually won the election.

Just last night, for instance, I learned from a leader in examining New Mexico’s results that NM led they nation in “undervotes” - the technical term for when someone shows up to vote but fails to vote for President, supposedly choosing only candidates in races further down the ballot. Oddly, in approximately 50% of New Mexico’s districts there were zero undervotes – everyone voted for President. In other districts, undervoting ran as high as 10-20%. 1 in 5 people who didn’t care who became president. The difference? Paperless electronic voting machines in the undervote districts. 90% of the undervotes in New Mexico were in districts with electronic voting, with no paper trail. You run the math.

Ohio has been the fiercest battleground, with more evidence than is possible to list, ranging from systematic underprovisioning of Democratic districts to electronic votes “bumped” repeatedly to Bush to terrorist-warnings during a vote count that led to a suspicious lockdown to Diebold “fixes” on county tabulators before the recount (which only looked at 3% of districts, none of the most suspicious, all chosen by Republic Party leader and Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell). Some districts with very significant increases in Democratic voter registrations nonetheless went solidly to Bush. In Cuyahoga county, there was “spoilage” of 6% of ballots in some Democratic counties whereas Republican-leaning suburbs hovered at 1%. It goes on and on. Exit polls predicted a solid Kerry win in Ohio. Given the rapidly accumulating evidence, I believe they were accurate.

Perhaps most obnoxious is Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (who also chaired Bush’s election committee) recent bragging about the ways in which he mixed politics and his official capacity in a fundraising letter to support his run for governor (following in Katherine Harris’ tracks). http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=528

The data is now reaching critical mass and Representative Conyers, a real hero in this fight, is leading a challenge of the Ohio electoral vote in the Congress tomorrow at 1 pm. It looks likely he will be joined by up to 40 other members of the house of representatives. That number may increase if the Congressional Black Caucus decides in morning session today to have a unified front. This challenge would send the matter to debate separately in the two houses for 2 hours, then back to shared session. If multiple states are challenged, the debate would postpone ratification, possibly for multiple days. In the endgame of such a battle, it would go to the house, where 55 representatives would represent the 50 states, DC, and territories. The vote is close to split if that comes to pass.

The single most important thing you can do is get on the phone, fax, and email to urge your Senators and Representatives to challenge the ratification of the electoral college results. The preservation of our democracy demands this action. Your Congressional representatives can be found here.

There is credible information circulating now that Barbara Boxer WILL stand up, which is a requirement to send this to debate. It will be even more powerful if more than one Senator joins the members of the House that challenge. These matters must be investigated and challenged. At the very least, the results in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Nevada have amassed enough evidence for vote tampering as to require full state recounts and careful examination of all facets of the process.

I’ve included a letter from Michael Moore below, who is now urging people to contact their Congresspeople. Stay informed and involved for the sake of our collective future!

Stephen