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Electors across US break traditional pro forma ritual to use electoral college to protest election

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 18 December 2004
73 comments

Elections-Elected USA

Massachusetts Coalition against Election Fraud accomplished having some Electoral College Electors submit a unanimous Motion calling for a complete investigation of this presidential election. We are now working on having United States senators join a group of United States Representatives in not certifying the electoral College vote on January 6.

More Info/Contact:

http://boston.indymedia.org/...

Press Release
Electors across US break traditional pro forma ritual to use electoral college to protest election violations

Across the US electors in at least five states, for the first time in history, turned the heavily scripted and ritualized electoral college proceedings into a forum for political action. Frustrated by the relative inattention to wide spread real voting violations now numbering in the tens of thousands, Electors called for congressional investigation and legislative action.

Vermont electors, on the record and in front of TV cameras and a number of statewide media outlets, expressed their concerns for our democracy with "57,000 complaints already received by the Congressional Judiciary Committee, we call on Congress and especially our Vermont Congressional delegation to investigate." They enumerated credible violations affecting hundreds of thousands of voters across the US, Elector Jeffrey Taylor reports.

Opening the traditional statement of thanks for being introduced at the beginning of the Massachusetts Electoral College 2004 session, Elector Cathleen Ashton of Wayland, took the opportunity to demand "Every vote be counted and every vote count."

As described in local news reports, for the first time in history, Electors in Maine also went on the record using the voting process to "call for national voting reforms." Their statement pointed to the kind of electoral reforms Maine has that lead to more genuine elections, such as same day registration, allowing ex-felons to vote, and clean election reforms "but our four electoral votes are held meaningless if our sister states cannot hold elections that are fair, accurate and verifiable," Elector Lu Bauer said after the brief ceremony at the State House.

Most extraordinarily, one elector in California cast his ballot provisional upon "all votes being counted " provisional, absentee, under- and overvotes, computerized without paper ballots, even getting valid votes from those turned away illegally, intimidated, discouraged by incredibly long waits, etc.? This incredible act as a creative attempt to get this message read on the floor of Congress when they open the ballots on January 6 to consider whether to certify the vote.

"Never has such a vote been cast by an elector and without a parliamentarian to rule it in or out at the electoral college level, we await whether Congress will acknowledge this type of provisional vote and address the issues this elector sought to raise or whether they too will ignore provisional votes," said Grace Ross, an organizer of the national effort to support electors to take action and a member of Truth in Elections.

Even in North Carolina where lack of "swing state" status left local voting violations relatively invisible, Democratic Electors and local activists spoke out about local problems while Republican Electors voted inside. Elector Mary Roe spoke of problems she herself witness as an election observer in her own county as well as saying that ?everyone deserves to have their votes counted? while deploring the 4,500 votes NC election officials acknowledged disappeared in a computerized voting machine crash.

Massachusetts Electors who introduced the motion said they will use this to lobby Congressional members to take action now such as objecting to the vote. The motion passed by acclimation called on Congress to: "Act to commit Congress to investigate all voting complaints that might have any validity that they receive; Act to commit Congress to remedy any voting rights violations or electoral fraud verified by its own agents or through the courts; File in Congress and commit their resources to passage of systemic remedies."

In speaking at their Mass. press conference afterwards, one Elector, Tom Barbera spoke of personally having his life threatened during get-out-the-vote efforts. Another spoke of being targeted for intimidation such as being immediately accosted as an African American entering a Florida polling place by whites telling her "your kind is not wanted here", "we don’t want your kind voting here", "leave"; such threatening behavior meant as get-out-the-vote volunteers they frequently had to follow intimidated voters of color out of polling places and convince them to reenter and agree to accompany them through the voting process..

Tom Barbera, in presenting the Massachusetts’ Electoral College motion, acknowledging that many whose voting rights violations were most widely violated were African American, referenced the Civil Rights struggle in saying "we believe that as electors, we have a unique opportunity and obligation to ensure that justice does not again become so delayed as to be denied (as happened in 2000)" (END)

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– http://boston.indymedia.org/newswir...

– http://votefraudinfo.blogspot.com/

Forum posts

  • Please count more votes for President Bush, Yeah!!!!!!!!!

    • By Margaret Talev — Bee Capitol Bureau
      Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, December 14, 2004

      California’s 55 electors played it straight during proceedings held in the state Assembly chambers, unanimously choosing Democrat John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, despite the futility of the exercise.

      – http://www.sacbee.com/content/polit...

    • How about: please count all of the votes acurately, without regard to how the person voted?

      I can not understand why some people have such a hard time seeing the non-partisan importance of fair elections. I’m a Republican. I want my vote counted. I expect the Democrats and the Libertarians and the Greens and the Reds and the Pinks and the Orgnitarians and all the other Americans, regardless of party, feel the same way.

      Winning is important, but winning fairly is far more important. I’d like to see EVERYONE’S vote counted accurately please.

    • This makes me think that our democracy isn’t dead! That there’s still a chance that the right wing won’t get away with it’s narow minded agenda.
      Katherine

    • From a previous post:

      "Winning is important, but winning fairly is far more important. I’d like to see EVERYONE’S vote counted accurately please."

      I SECOND THAT MOTION!

    • Your vote has been counted, and more than once.

    • Yeah!! Kill the U.S.!! He’s doing a helluva good job.

    • Gross cognitive dissonance
      Look it up

    • Bush has already stolen enough votes, thank you very much!

    • how can you back the a man that didn’t win? and has failed at every thing he has done. your in a land bushland good luck with this mess remmberno righty has ever been for the working man.

    • Idiot..go to Iraq and torture innocents

    • I don’t understand why there is a growing number of people in this country who believe that it’s o.k. to cheat, as long as you don’t get caught or if no one can figure out how you did it. Wrong is wrong!!! Don’t you get it? Why is it that the media reported that people voted their morals by choosing the biggest violator of domestic and international laws ever since Adolph Hitler? So, I guess the word ’moral’ no longer means honest, caring, gentle with the earth, valuing all life, and peace-loving? George Bush is not any of those things. I guess the new meaning of a ’moral’ man is one who is an aggressive, lying, money-loving, illiterate, blood-thirsty ego-manic.
      In the case of the November 2 election, it is becoming increasingly obvious to intelligent people how alot of the cheating was accomplished and, with the help of whistleblowers, who did it. It’s no mystery to me WHO was behind it, because Bush had no chance of winning without fixing the election results again. One would have to be brain-dead to not know that he is the WORST president in the history of our nation.

    • I grew up thinking that it was our duty to vote that every vote was counted. I also was taught that every person of voting age has the right to vote. I was so sadden by this election, because I saw the republican party at it’s very worst. That people were hired to keep blacks from voting. That people who thought they were regestered where turned away. That people stood in line for hours only to find out they were at the wrong voting polls and had to go stand in line again. That white areas had more voting machines then black voting places. It is a crime. This is against every moral that the US stands for. Thank you brave people who are standing up for what is right. Beccy Bank

    • This is a Christian nation....thus the immorality.

    • Idiot...yeah(!)

    • I absolutely feel the same way. All the votes regardless of who is the winner. Anything else is damage to our democracy and in fact makes it a mockery.

      I wish everyone would respond to this, because I truely think most of the people working on this voter fraud feel the same. sharon

  • Most of this article is made up, lies!

    *

    • A list of the lies and sources for their refutation would be useful; more useful, at least, than an unsupported claim and picture of Nixon.

    • *

      Do your own research.

      I posted to an article above stating the California electors cast their worthless votes for DUmmie Kerry and DUmmie Edwards w/out a hitch. There is news refuting the rest of the article but DUmmies do not understand!

      However, speaking of California we will succeed in legislation that splits their electoral votes proportioanaly.

      After that, DUmbocrats will never win a Presidential election again!!!

    • Those of you who think that all of this is dumb and based on lies are obviously small and close minded. You look for things to confirm your point of view, not for the truth. You’re not much different than Bush is. This is probably why you’re quite happy with your commander and thief. You obviously care more about winning than fairness.

      No wonder you like Bush, you both are of low moral standards. Have you signed up to go to Iraq? You love Bush so much, aren’t you willing to die for him in this phoney war? War on terror, that’s a joke. War on gaining control of Iraq and it’s oil and other assets. So much for all of the dead and severly injured Iraqi people. I quess Bush calls them collateral damage.

      Bush is the Al Queda poster boy. He has recruited more terrorists in this war than we have come close to killing. He keeps Rumsfeld in because who else would be willing to cover up the lies about this war and the torture and war crimes that has been allowed to happen from the top down? I quess you also approve of those soldiers being punished for war crimes that they were essentially ordered to do.

      Like I said, if you haven’t already, go sign up and die for the fool that you love so much. As for the rest of us, we want to maintain our right to vote and have them count in this country. How can we be so concerned about fairness in other countries, (excuse me , pretend to be so concerned) and we aren’t worried about our rights here being totally violated?

    • We have a real rocket scientist here. Must be bliss to be so ignorant.

    • You can’t reason with the bushies... they’re basically hynotized.

      What a sad day it was when that moron stole office... the first time. The second time? Well, the future is looking pretty grim.

    • It’s great to hear from such a MATURE W. supporter.

    • How predictable. A photo of saint Richard along with a tirade against Senator Kerry and some faith-based pronouncements about the future of American politics. Why don’t you focus on the present election for a change? There were 57,000 complaints from voters. 92 of them concerned DRE touchscreen machines which changed votes from one candidate to another. 86 of them changed votes from Senator Kerry to Governor Bush. Do the math yourself. What are the odds?

      O, I forgot. You’re in favor of that sort of thing, aren’t you? Anything goes as long as your side wins, right? Good show old chap.

    • Heil Führer Bush!!!

    • What’s with the DU in every other word...? If you’re trying to be witty, it’s not working. It looks like something a 3rd grader might scribble on his math book cover. The reason you won is because you have contempt for true democracy. The idea of actually counting legitimate votes scares the heck out of you goose stepping boot lickers. Bush’s approlval rating is at 48%. 58% of Americans now think Iraq was a mistake. Keep up the good work there buddy. The only way you cretins will be able to win elections is to cheat... again.

    • The trouble with the Craven GOP is they never take responsibility for thei actions, including the wars they start or innocents they kill. senator Inhofe of Oklahoma wants voters to believe http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news... his party, president and dod secretary are not responsible for preparing soldiers for war, that it was the other guy’s fault, after they started a war and sent soldiers to fight in a war no one but them wanted or agrees was necessary. Why is this? Oh, it is because they are so busy authorizing hundreds of billions of dollars for sneak technology that doesn’t work http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....
      but that makes their campaign contributors (Lockheed, Boeing, the oil and insurance industries) fabulously wealthy and, like a closed loop, busy contributing to keep the immoral GOP in office and in control of the judiciary.
      In simple military terms, the GOP does not take care of the basics. They take care of their campaign contributors only. It is a wonder that FREEPERS who are so quick to attack people who don’t vote repugliKKKlan, don’t see through repugliKKKan excuses for getting US soldiers and other people killed.
      But the craven GOP doesn’t worry. There’s no danger that they or their up and coming young ones will see military service, especially in time of war. Instead of signing up for military duty, they are expert at lying, cheating and stealing from the elderly in the name of their party: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...
      For a party that engages in moral crusades, too bad they are poster boys for immorality. Oh, that’s RepugliKKKlans for you! Their motto? "War is peace!"

    • Wow...then we’ll have a one-party state! And everyone will do what your party tells them to do!!

      Frigging moron. You just happily described how you’d like to make this an authoritarian country. Take your useless, Democrat-bashing nonsense someplace else, and please, remind your hair-brained extremist majority politicians that conservatism means LESS GOVERNMENT, and GOVERNMENT OUT OF CITIZEN’S LIVES (as much as possible).

      You’re so deluded you don’t know what you believe anymore. You certainly don’t stand for conservative principles, if you supported Bush. Republicans used to stand for conservativism...now they just stand for a weird blend of insistent denial that anything’s wrong, and pandering to religious groups. Yech!

      This coming from an ex-Republican...don’t kid yourself. Your team is in for a hard four years...don’t say we didn’t warn you. The thing that ticks me off is that the "majority" is taking the rest of us with them...straight to heck in a handbasket.

    • For instance?? Facts never get in the way of ideologues and idiots. Someone above mentioned "cognitive dissonance." That’s exactly the phenomenon here. But it applies to those who want to believe (a) that their candidate—Bush—won the election fairly in the face of (b) evidence to the contrary. How do they resolve this? Easy: Dismiss the evidence as "lies." Better yet is to cultivate their own ignorance of the evidence—which protects them from ever having to resolve incongruous beliefs.

    • However, speaking of California we will succeed in legislation that splits their electoral votes proportioanaly.
      After that, DUmbocrats will never win a Presidential election again!!!

      Don’t you know that if electoral votes were split everywhere, Repubs would never win again? Repubs have had an unfair advantage for a very long time.

    • The New Christian church teaches that murder is good if you’re the murderer, lying is good if it keeps you on top of the heap, stealing is good if you can make billions of dollars, destruction is good if you can profit from the WMD...all of you non- Christians need to get a clue, Jesus’s messages are no longer anything to do with Christianity.

    • I cannot take seriously any post with such profound spellling errors. "Proportioanaly"? Do you also say "basghetti"? "DUmmie"? Even if you’re making a stab at the DU website, you mean to write "DUmmY," moron.

      Illiteracy aside, that was an interesting choice of images to post. Nixon won a second term with a significant margin (none of this 119,000 "mandate" crap) only to be IMPEACHED!

  • the 2004 unelection in the USA is a strong example of RACISM ... all citizens owe it to the entire people of color population to protest the entire election and demand not simply an investigation and re count ... but a re vote as soon as we get complete transparency in the vote

    skull and bones love secrecy ... remember that all this anti life stuff can only happen in secrecy ... and we are either in a democracy or we aren’t ... secrecy does not fit in a democracy

    lies only rule when a culture of secrecy is tolerated ... by an uninformed electorate ... who do not even know the extent of the lies because of tolerating the secrecy ... a cat chasing it’s tail ...

    so no more secrete societies running candidates ... no more secrecy !

  • Congratulations, you’ve finally lifted the spirits of the DUmmies (Democrat Underground). Been watching them for weeks and was getting a little concerned with their current emotional state. It’s really great that you’ve picked them up a bit since watching their ride down is the most fun.

    Keep up the good work....

    • Gee what would happen if they counted all of the votes, what a bummer that would be for the Republipukes. Where would their Christian values of lying dirty tricks be if that happened their God won’t like that...guess we should all stay out of their way before they start pushing the buttons.

    • Who said anything about my God? Also, why do you and every other liberal/progressive think you own the "honesty" value? Just because I don’t agree with your ideology doesn’t mean I’m not an honest person. The same is true with hundreds of those SOS’s and BOE’s you guys/gals have thoroughly insulted the last six weeks.

      Counting all the LEGAL votes is exactly what every Republican wants and demands. You guys/gals complained about requiring people to cast their vote in the proper precinct. I don’t know how you can defend not doing that. I’m sure those Ohio voters Jeffrey Dahmer, Mary Poppins, and Brett Favre would agree it’s only a minor inconvenience in the effort to uphold the integrity of the election process. By the way, I was really looking forward to hearing what Georgianne Pitts, 41, who was working for the NAACP’s National Voter Fund had to say about these upstanding Ohio voters before her untimely demise. Last I heard Dahmer was dead, Poppins never was alive and Favre is hanging out at “Lambert” field up in Green Bay. Can’t really find any current information on what happened with Dick Tracy’s voter registration. You think maybe he showed up at the right precinct?

    • And who did Jeffrey Dahmer vot for???

  • Finally, some people with some balls, never thought it would happen in my lifetime..miracles happen.

  • The actual best thing would be to have every LEGAL vote counted and only LEGAL votes counted. It should be mandatory to present a valid US Certified or Notarized birth certificate or valid US passport in order to register and some kind valid government or employer verified picture ID to vote.

  • 306144.jpg
    Like father, like son.

    • That’s a good one. To bad the republcans didn’t listen to all the brave people who tried to warn them about have evil the adoph Bushes really are. Beccy Bank

  • Months before the election I - and many others- expressed much concern about a paperless, trailess electronic voting. It was like whistleing in the storm, no Democratic Senator or Congressperson of any stature that I know of pressed the issue. Only a few weeks before election did anyone make some feeble attempt, by then it was obviously too late to do anything.
    I lay the blame squarely on our cowed and frightened Democrats that were more concerned at not offending the so called religious right and the undecided for fear at being depicted as soft on terrorism. Yet even so I and countless worked our guts out to unseat what many regard as a vicious right wing extremist government, while fearing an electronic swindle. Well as far as many millions are concerned it came to pass. How long, or soon, before we have a fascist dictatorship ??

    • The fascists already rule since 4 years !

    • I’m afraid we’re well on the way to having one.
      It blows my mind that people just don’t see it.

      They will... one day soon.

    • Wheeeeeee! Now ya got it! That magic box voting ever made it into an official election in the U.S.A. is my question. No ballot trail; no audit; no ability to follow Constitutionally mandated procedures should a recount be necessary...how could this desecration of the act of voting take place all across America? Systems that any computer scientist or engineer could and has already identify the open paths to manipulation; unintentional errors; no ability to audit the ballots cast...sounds to me like its time to do away with the Sec of State positions nationwide and to take all responsibilities for elections out from, away from, County level partisan politics. There is something radically wrong with the notion that its’ okay to contract out election services and equipment. There is something even worse about county election officials too ignorant about technology to even understand whether they’re being sold a pig in a poke! What a f’ing mess!

      This was the least pleasant election in my lifetime only because each ballot cast was not counted and in other cases, thrown out. In other cases vulnerable and unstable computer coding ’lost votes.’

      The Democratic and Republican Parties have capitulated to unethical and immoral practices the results of which have undermined the American people’s faith and trust in our own elections here in the U.S.A.

      What kind of MORONS would bring to "market" voting machines before even certification documentation has been developed??????

      The fault dear voter lies in partisanship manipulation on a grand scale funded with tax dollars taken from you and I....the peeps could care a rat’s tail about you, me, or any voter in America or for that matter, about the United States of America.

      Power, money; money, power; power, money. Enough is enough. We must reclaim our system of elections to ensure elections are successful and work! Return confidence in the system by reclaiming elections from the Sec of States in each State and from the County political hacks who are dumb beyond belief in my County, anyway... pitifully so... or perhaps, by design.

    • After stealing the election, they are now trying to steal the recounts.

      Please read this "on receipt." (5 minutes of your time max.)

      http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/...

    • Re:
      http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/...

      If facts, numbers and logic still matter, and assuming the above article is not bogus, Butler, Lucas, Richland, Sandusky, Seneca, and Summit counties have a collective total of 778,104 votes. They are the ones, according to the article, with perfect machine count vs. hand count matches. Cuyahoga County, which, as it appears is not using a random sample, adds an additional 670,092 total votes.

      The grand total, so far, is 1,448,196. The 119,000 vote difference, that gave OHIO to Bush, is 8 percent (8%) of that total. Ohio’s total vote count is 5,598,679 and simple extrapolation would make the 119,000 vote difference 2%. Interesting number; don’t you think?

    • The fact that there is no scientific, mathematical or statistical consensus on the validity of the exit polls has put the sitaution into a stalemate. It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong on the mathematics and statistics at this point, because in order for those of us who might be inclined to take to the streets, a genuine clear and convincing consensus from the scientific, mathematical, and statistical community is needed.

      I am a lawyer and have been for 27 years. I look at the situation just like I would if I were appealing a case. In law, there is something called the "harmless error" rule. It is what every lawyer fears who is appealing a case. It assumes there is no such thing as a perfect trial. It essentially says that in order to win on appeal, you must be able to convince the appellate court that there is a really good reason to believe that mistakes or errors made by the judge or jury likely caused the rendition of an improper verdict or decision.

      Using this analogy to the present voting situation, if we are to convince the public at large that voting mistakes, error,and/or fraud caused Kerry to lose the election he actually won, we must have a clear and convincing consensus by the mathematical, statistical and scientific communities that such is the case. We simply do not have that now. Right now we are being killed by the electoral equivalent of the "harmless error" rule.

      I believe such a consensus is possible, however. By re-polling Ohio now. I am told by a statistician on Mystery Pollster that it would take the polling of about 16,000 people in Ohio to basically be so accurate that most scientists, statisticians, and mathematicians could not reasonably disagree. They also believe that such a poll is not that unbearably expensive. I propose using three organizations to do one third of the polling each — Zogby, Harris, and Gallup — and have the results of the poll made public immediately.

      I have asked MoveOn to help raise the money to fund such a poll. So far, I have not had any response. I believe such a poll would vindicate your work and shut up your critics for good. I believe such a poll is necessary now for the sake of the country and our democracy. Please help me turn this idea into reality.

  • i canvassed for Kerry on the streets of Boston. We said that we would leave no voter behind. The last five days of the election were spent trying to get the vote out in Pinellas County, Florida. There were many case of supposed voter fraud that i heard about in my working class precinct where the majority of people were black. Two of those case were documented. i have been very upset as it seemed as though absolutely nothing was going to be done about this. i commend the electors who are standing up to make certain every vote is counted. And my plea to congress is to do the same.

    Shauna m Guidici

    • So.....do they want to recount all the votes, or do it selectively like they wanted to do in Florida in 2000 until the Supreme Court said "NO"? Also, why did Democrats lose en masse across the nation, from governorships to state houses to the Senate? Are those elections in question also? Boy, Hillary’s "vast right wing conspiracy" must REALLY be vast! Unlike Al Gore, John Kerry conceded the election, showing dignity in defeat. Let it rest, people!

    • Actually, in some of the governor’s and local legislative races, there WAS evidence of fraud. I’ll try to find the newspaper accounts. I think in FLorida and N. Carolina, there were over-votes in some state-wide elections. In one race, the Republican "won" by more votes than the total number of voters in the precinct. In two others, (I think this was in Florida), two Republicans won by the exact same numbers. The populations of the precincts were different... So, yes, it’s not just the rigging of the presidential election that’s troublesome. It’s the rigging of what might otherwise be unnoticed elections. This is actually scarier; it would mean that NO ELECTION, no matter where it’s held, would be fair and reflect the will of the people. And it means that NO ONE will trust the results of the election. While the presidential race is important, the local and statewide races are probably more important in the long run.

      Think of it this way; making sure that all votes are counted NOW ensures the legitimacy of whoever is in office. If all the votes aren’t counted, then whoever is in office will be suspect and will not be considered the legal government by nearly 1/2 of the citizens of this country. How is anyone going to govern if nearly 1/2 the country think the government is illegitimate? I say, let the votes be counted is only to restore confidence in our government.

    • I think we all need to realize we are talking about two separate issues: 1) Can the election be hacked/rigged? and 2) Was the election hacked/rigged?

      The probelm is that issue number 1 may be true. You can go to the webiste "dirtyhacks" (if it is still there) and, you too, can learn how to hack into Diebold software (that counts votes in some parts of the country.) And there are many up and coming hackers that talk about being patriotic and hack the next election away from the neo-cons. Does anybody really want this?

      The second issue is totally separate: Was the election hacked? There is a Petition to Contest the Election filed with the Ohio Supreme Court that lays out many of the allegations that have been brought out since the election. The problem is whether they can prove these allegations. I’ve been following the story rather closely and there is ample circumstantial evidance of broad election fraud and direct evidence of localized isolated election fraud. This is going to be interesting as a lot of mainstream people are actively involved in the investigation. Will they turn up more evidence? And meanwhile, there are obstruction of Justice issues coming out the recount.

      Given both issues. I think we all need to concentrate on the first so the second never happnes.

    • Alright, if you are so sure Glorious Leader won, then why abject to a recount? If he won, as Bush supporters so adamantly support, then what harm can it do? Does the President and his junta have something to hide? If he won fairly then why is Secretary Blackwell stalling on answering the question asked by the Democratic arm of the House Judiciary commitee.

      Trying to quash efforts for a fair account of the election suggests to me that there is something to hide. Afterall, if Glorious Leader Bush won, why would he abject to a recount?

    • You’re wrong. And like most republicans, you totally discount the gravity of what happened in Ohio and Florida this election. I refer to the statistically impossible discrepancy between the exit polls and the final vote counts. Republicans are also unbelievably non-chalant about your item #1. The truth is, if an election can be stolen it will be stolen. Kind of like Murphy’s law except we’ll call this, McGhee’s law. Its even more of a certainty that it will be stolen if there is zero chance of the theives getting caught, which is the situation we find ourselve in now. Its just human nature, be it in the mall or at the voting booth. People can’t resist the easy rip-off.
      We are already a fascist state and the 06 congressional elections and the supreme court soon to be stuffed with rabid right-wingers doesn’t bode well for us. We need republicans to WAKE-UP. These neocons aren’t REAL republicans. Just look at the deficits, all the governmental growth , the smug lack of integrity(the Tom Delay change-the-rules fiasco), the lack of the ability to admit responsibility for ANYTHING, these aren’t republican positions. Wake up, you’ve been duped, and your country needs you back.

    • First and foremost, there must be evidence that a recount is warranted. Accusations of fraud are not enough. If there is enough evidence, then it should be done. That is what the Supreme Court ruling was all about in 2000. The Democrats wanted to recount only in selected districts. The Court ruled that if they did not accept the results of the first count, then every vote in Florida had to be recounted. The Democrats chose to accept the results of the first count rather than recount all the votes. Subsequent recounts by various groups have all had the same results. Bush won! I suspect that a similar situation exists in Ohio. At least Kerry had the decency and grace to concede when he lost the election. It’s a shame there are those in his party who do not agree. I’m not saying that voter fraud doesn’t exist. Here in the South, Democrats have a centuries old tradition of voting, even long after they are dead.

      Interestingly, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution allowing individuals the right to vote in a presidential election. It leaves the method of selection of delegates to the Electoral College entirely up to the states.

    • The reason so many people are confused is because of the misinformation that goes out as fact; Case in point: One writer claims that that the Supreme court ruling in Fla 2000 was all about how Democrats wanted only some of the votes recounted. While it is true that Gore 2000 wanted the heavily Democratic counties recounted, the Bush team did not want all the votes recounted either. The Supremes ruled that the Fla Supreme court ruling of a recount was invalid because all counties did not have a uniform procedure for recounting the vote. In actuality neither side was fighting for ALL OF THE VOTES to be recounted.

      Another falsehood in the writer’s comments was that a later recount, funded by the newspapers, showed that Bush did win. Actually, the count showed Gore to be the actual winner. These results were released in Nov 2001, just after the twin towers came down, and the story got buried.
      Why do Repugnicans fear an accurate accounting of the votes?

    • All of you — even the Kerry voters — appear to overlook the larger Florida scandal of the 2000 election: the systematic disenfranchisement of as many as 90,000 probable Gore voters by agents of Jeb Bush through intimidation, rigging of the computerized voter lists, and other such criminal horseplay (that 90,000 votes were illegally lost overwhemlingly to Gore is the estimate appearing in Mark Crispin Miller’s "Cruel AND Unusual: Bush’s New World Order"). Take note, partisans of Bush: This colossal electoral fraud was NEVER JUDGED BY THE SUPREME COURT. The victor of the Florida election , of the popular vote, of the electoral college and of the election as a whole was AL GORE. To those of you (including certain Dems, alas) who will tell me to"get over it", I politely say: Get over my NOT getting over it! "Move on", you say? No, YOU move OFF your denial of the decline of democracy in America! Ask yourselves what so (understandably)depresses or unnerves you about the present situation that in order not to face it, you mock dissidents and fabricate pretexts for opposing recounts. // Sign me — Danny in France

    • Shauna: Good for you for your hard work for the Kerry campaign. I’m so sorry that Kerry didn’t win. Hope you are well. S

  • America should be splitted! The republicans should have their own states! The progressive states
    like California are sick and tired of the "Nazis" in Texas. A demarcation line should be drawn
    in order to keep republican inhumans out. Let them live after their rules: shoot and pray.
    After a while they will start kill each other anyway.

    Heil Dictator Bush! Support the Nazi troops! Death penalty for all! Corrupt and violent cops as
    state officials!

    • I agree whole heartedly, and I’m from Texas. I’ve prayed for people in this redneck state to open their eyes about Bush, but instead they think he is a holy man. I’ve prayed that the electoral college would revolt.

    • Democrats already tried that in the south back in the 1860’s. Didn’t work. Everybody was forced back into the Union at gunpoint.

      California is so "progressive" that they had to elect a Republican to straighten out the mess.

    • i beleave that repubs elected a actor

  • This upstart, juvenile nation, overawed with it’s strength, frail in self-understanding, is gravely in need of parental guidance.

    Perhaps that is just the problem, this boisterous bumpkin could never claim England its parent; its parent is the remainder of the world; all the world has given it Mother’s milk in the form of shiploads and planeloads of its flesh.

    Please judge me critically, you may feel United States military action in Iraq is just and condign. If so, continue to vote for George Bush and Dick Cheney and more war in Iraq. Vote with your Euros, buy those cheap American goods, those beverages, those movies.

    If you feel like me that we Americans act in blind malice in Iraq, please think carefully when you buy.

    • As a citizen of the Netherlands, I cannot but wonder why the United States of America, supposedly the model, the example of democracy for the world to follow, cannot hold free and fair and accurate elections. Can someone please explain?

    • I am glad to see some of our leaders still believe in the right to vote and that there is no Democracy without it. Also, the war is wrong, simply wrong and the men who created it for their greediness should be put in prisons and punished without mercy as they dictated to the war prisoners of Iraq, etc. Our admin is corrupt beyond belief and I hope the world makes them pay as well as all good Americans for what they have done to the world and our country. I truly despice them all. There are some good Americans fighting from the inside to take them out of office, help us please.

    • Dear Citizen of the Netherlands - there are a lot of us who wish we could explain, but we’re trying to figure it out ourselves. The most astounding thing to me is that many people don’t seem to care that we cannot hold "free and fair and accurate elections". That is probably where the problem lies. More importantly - our present "Commander in Chief" doesn’t let little things like that bother him, and he seems to have a lot of blinded followers, although i don’t think quite as many as the election says he had. We’re working on it.

    • because there are so few free speech zones that should tell the world some thing aaaaaa

    • treasonast

  • Thomas Jefferson wrote: The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of tyrants. If those of you who feel so strongly that this election was stolen (and it was), that the country is being hijacked by Nazis (and it is), that Bush is a hypocrite and the Repuglycans have betrayed their tradition as set forth by T.R. and Robert Taft (as opposed to the silliness of Reagan and Bush and Nixon—talk about an axis of evil), then my question is: do you have the guts to take to the streets in a new American Revolution? My guess is "No, you don’t" and therefore, you should just shut up. All your whining is useless because you cannot commit to real action. Bitching won’t change anything. As a life-long Roosevelt New Deal Liberal Democrat, I am sick of what has happened to this country. We are the laughing-stock of the world, totally devoid of any moral or ethical high ground, and quickly becoming a third-rate power with a fifth-rate mentality. The saddest thing of all is that the people who are complaining the loudest are those who won’t do anything meaningful. Kerry was the worst possible nominee for the Democrats. Kucinich was the obvious true Democrat, but the Democrats, like the news media, have been so intimidated by the right-wingers in this country that they won’t do what needs to be done: offer a true Democrat, not some wealthy Boston Brahmin who hasn’t the foggiest idea what the hell is going on. We get what we deserve. Or as Ben Franklin stated: People who are willing to sacrifice some of their liberty and some of their freedom in order to be more secure deserve neither liberty nor freedom. Q.E.D. Thus endeth the lesson.

    • Interesting: If Bush (or even his dog) were to choke on another pretzel, AP and all the other newspapers would be all over "the story." However, Kerry jumps into the fray (earlier today) and not a peep from AP, et al.

    • I am praying for a paradox!!!!!!

    • It would look real suspicious if Florida was the state with the election problem twice in a row. Of course, if you disregard the facts that most of the Bushies from Florida were in Ohio then no problem with Ohio is seen. But... Let’s keep our respective eyes on the ball.... please note how well the euro is doing against the dollar and that Iraq had changed to the euro oil standard for payments in Nov 2000, which at the time was a mere 10 billion dollars [UN fund] and in today’s dollars would have a value of 15.3 billion dollars and that’s without any interest increase. So going forth let’s step in line and remember that the Iraqi people are better off without that king of terrorism "SoDamn Insane". [and they are... but that was NOT the stated reason for the liberation... it was the weapons of mass distruction that the Iraqi government supposedly had] I think the Iraqi people are really liberated from their oil proceeds... any news when the new Iraqi government will being giving out dividend checks to the Iraqi people... or do "we" still need to protect them from deciding how they wish to spend their new found wealth [US imports 20 billion barrels a day from Iraqi and is the 6th largest source for imports into the US... don’t believe me... go look it up at the doe.gov website yourself].

    • oops that 20 billion barrels a month