Concern about fraud dogs election results

The following is a sample of 84 letters submitted by a group to the Oregonian that believes fraud occurred in the 2004 presidential election.

I have grave concerns about the health of our democracy. Thousands share this concern, including those at Common Cause, the Ohio Democratic Party, and researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Several members of Congress have demanded an investigation by the Government Accounting Office; Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org has caught Florida officials’ red-handed attempt to hide evidence; and in Ohio, public hearings are under way, huge vote tally irregularities and evidence of voter suppression (eight-hour lines in some precincts) have been uncovered, with a recount likely.

Saying all is well because a clean vote wouldn’t change the outcome anyway ("Glitches don’t add up to change election," Nov. 20) simply doesn’t cut it.

I taught in the public schools for 25 years. How can we tell young people to exercise the hallowed right to vote and not assure clean elections?

How do we tell them we have a free press, when the most important story of our time is virtually ignored, or worse yet, suppressed?

GERALDINE FOOTE Southwest Portland

*Audit general election results*

It’s not who wins the vote that matters, it’s who rigs the vote count. America is waking up to this fact as evidence of election irregularities continues to pour in from across the nation.

Oregon is one of the fortunate states that has a verifiable vote. Many states use new touch-screen voting machines with no paper trail and are unable to do a meaningful recount.

This is unacceptable. We the people demand an immediate independent audit of the Nov. 2 election results to uncover the fraud and fix the flaws, to assure that every vote counts.

JOSEPH CARTINO Southeast Portland

*Fraud demands attention*

It frightens me to imagine why you have remained so silent on the issue of voter fraud that has been uncovered from the Nov. 2 election. This is a serious matter that demands attention.

The citizens of our democratic nation have the right to free and fair elections.

SUSIE JONES Gresham

*Vulnerable to tampering*

That there are and have been numerous irregularities in our voting process ought to be of monumental concern to every American. The story ought to be followed closely by the news media. But in this election we hear mostly silence.

Assuring that each qualified citizen has access to the vote, and that all votes are recorded and counted accurately is a nonpartisan issue. It is easy to be dismissive about this matter. It is tempting to chalk it up to sore Democratic losers making a fuss, or being paranoid.

While the Republicans seem to have benefited from voting problems in the past three national elections, it may not always be their party that does. Our voting system is vulnerable to tampering in any number of ways, and to inaccuracies.

When the "losing" parties in an election cannot have confidence that the voting process is honest and accurate, their readiness and even ability to unite behind the "winners" is severely hampered. When this happens, our country and our democracy lose.

SANDRA BAKER Northwest Portland

*When there’s no paper trail*

Exit polls foretold a John Kerry victory, yet where electronic voting left no paper trail, George W. Bush’s numbers jumped. One researcher calculated the odds of this happening by chance at 250 million to one!

Another stolen election? Please investigate.

JOHN KELLERMANN Southeast Portland

*No guarantee with this system*

Just as we should never send cash in the mail to pay our household bills, we should never send our precious votes on Election Day into the unknown of the computerized ballot machine.

While a check with our signature accompanies our payment to guarantee it arrives in the proper amount, no such guarantee follows our vote when it is cast on a computerized ballot machine.

The secrecy of our votes has always been trusted to the election officials whose every official action must be publicly disclosed, but with computerized ballot machines, all public disclosure is gone. On a computerized ballot machine, a computer technician may change votes without leaving any hard evidence of this crime.

Many states, including Ohio and Florida, use these computerized ballot machines. This can create a situation where election results cannot be recounted because there simply are no ballots to recount.

RYAN SOMERVILLE Salem

*Probability of fraud high*

The story of election fraud that is now gripping the American populace and galvanizing it to action in the efforts of such startup groups as Portland’s own Action Speaks and CleanVote is perhaps the greatest tale of crisis to have ever confronted Americans.

The forces of corruption that suppress the American vote behind a veil of deceptive programming code are perhaps the greatest attack yet made upon the American people either from within or without.

In the face of that threat, America is showing an unprecedented resilience. The American people have learned to use the Internet as an active tool of self-education and self-mobilization. The people no longer passively rely on mainstream media outlets such as The Oregonian for their news.

The Oregonian claims to report on such things as election issues without reporting on the gravity of events that are transpiring — evidence of election fraud of such glaringly high probability that no one could honestly claim that it was unfounded.

CRAIG SMITH Northwest Portland

http://www.oregonlive.com/letters/oregonian/...