Home > I’m a registered Republican and I can’t stand the idea of cheating to win

I’m a registered Republican and I can’t stand the idea of cheating to win

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 19 February 2005
10 comments

Edito Elections-Elected USA

Although the majority of the media and the American public have moved on, Bernard Ellis says there are less-visible throngs of people who are still trying to make sense of last November’s presidential election.

"I’m convinced that a host of laws were broken - both small and large laws - in the 2004 elections," Ellis says.

Ellis, a Tennessee public health epidemiologist with 30 years experience in the field, will speak 7-9 p.m. Monday at Austin Peay State University’s Morgan University Center.

"Using a fast-paced graphic presentation, Ellis will cover a half-dozen aspects of the continuing controversy on the conduct of the 2004 election and review options for election reform that are needed now," says a release about the event.

Ellis points to writers such as Bush supporter Christopher Hitchens whose current Vanity Fair column, "Ohio’s Odd Numbers," claims the presidential election was stolen in that state. The 8-million-vote discrepancy between the official tally and election night exit polls should cause Americans to question how our votes are recorded.

We need to "change those aspects of our voting that have gone down the slippery slope towards non-accountability," Ellis says. "To be able to get a receipt at an ATM machine, but to have no paper trail when you vote seems beyond the pale to us."

Ellis is the organizer of a 2-month-old Middle Tennessee group called Gathering to Save Our Democracy.

"We began to coalesce around issues regarding the 2004 elections," Ellis says. "There is evidence George Bush was not elected."

Debbie Boen, organizer of Clarksville Freethinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties, heard Ellis speak in Nashville and made efforts to bring him here. Jill Eichhorn, head of the Women’s Studies Program, is sponsoring Ellis’ talk at APSU.

"All my life I’ve heard, if you don’t like the way things are going, use your vote to change it," Boen says. "This presentation put my attention on the fact that voting fraud can happen way too easily."

Boen says Democrats and Republicans alike should be concerned that their votes are tallied accurately. Evidence that votes weren’t tallied accurately in 2004 frightens her.

"Is it so easy to dismiss this evidence with, ’You lost. Get over it’?" Boen says. "I’m a registered Republican and I can’t stand the idea of cheating to win, for whoever’s side it would be."

"Free, fair, and verifiable elections," Ellis says. "Regardless of your political persuasions, that’s something you should support,"

Stacy Smith Segoviacan be reached at stacysegovia@theleafchronicle.com.
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/app...

Forum posts

  • After the election 2004 there were thousands of people who knew the election was stolen, once again. Brave volunteers challenged the votes, gathered evidence (which was overwhelming) of voter fraud, racial discrimination, machine tampering and numerous illegal election decissions on the part of Republican election officals (Blackwell, etc.). Through stalling and delay tactics, the law was used to break the law and block any and all attempts for those seeking justice to use the laws as they were intended. This scheme has become very commonplace during the last four years, even to the point of ignoring judgements made by the Supreme Court (the same group that installed Bush as president in 2000). The laws are not working for "the people" because they are being used against us. John Conyers, Jr. keeps working on this problem of voter fraud and the total lack of accountability and the absence of any paper trail. Barbara Boxer really stuck her neck out to be the first Senator in many decades to challenge the electorial votes. This is a process that is not working because the beneficiaries of the crimes are in power, legally and illegally. If you wonder why this situation is unlikely to change, look at all the evidence, mountains of it, that the election was rigged, and look the tactics that were used before the election to intimidate, misinform and "unregister" voters (largely Democrats). It’s another form of Class Warfare. And you are right, all the untainted evidence indicates that Bush did not win, again. Even if there were a majority who were willing to face reality, how do you solve the problem. Look at the whole idea of electronic voting from the very beginning, from the Republican owners of the companies, the voting software, the technicians who manipulated the machines and to the laws that were passed and the taxpayer dollars that were handed to the states to buy the equipment. California had the right idea, sue. But how do you solve the problem? Would going back to papers ballots that are hand counted work? Does it matter how long it would take to count the votes? Is there any process that cannot be manipulated? We need to stop thinking that "the government" considers the public interests and realize the level of corruption that really exists.

  • "I’m a registered Republican and I can’t stand the idea of cheating to win, for whoever’s side it would be." God bless you. You have chosen the right side---honesty. It’s not Republican vs. Democrat anymore, they’re all the same. They work together in concert with corporations and special interest groups to keep the masses servile while ensuring that no political movement can rise up and derail their gravy train. It’s greed and power vs. morality and ethics. It’s evil vs. good, and evil has been kicking butt for some time now. With a few more players like Mr. Ellis, good can begin a comeback.

    J.C.

  • AT LAST!!! An unvarnished, cogent and clearly American point of view sans the bells and whistles, and all the cute little trappings, of partisan bullshit! It’s time for Americans to unite once again as Americans. Whenever Americans have emphasized their common interests rather than politically trumped-up differences, we have never been defeated. Call someone, anyone, you trust, or just walk or run or drive over to their residence, and TALK with people, for the sake of our Country. If each person contacts ten people they can trust, and each of those ten contacts ten........well, you do the math! And shortly, what this Country will have is a movement of Americans who trust in each other and who are willing to kick ass and take names of the lying traitors and criminals who have stolen our government.

  • Hats off to Ellis! It IS about honest elections, whoever wins or loses. We do need to keep up the noise about Bush STEALING 2 elections. When will it end? Never if we don’t tell everyone we know and keep up the protests.
    Boycot the media as they are the reason the Election theft wasn’t covered. Why bother with waiting for election results ion that first Tuesday in Nov., just watch Fox call it for the Repubs even before the polls are closed and with Kerry in the lead by millions of votes. DejaVu, as I was watching network and they said it would be a few more hours until Ohio could be called because people were still in line voting. Then viola, I switched thechannel and Fox called Ohio for Bush.
    Who’s your daddy?
    Thanks for keeping up the fight...we are with you in this journey to take OUR country back!

  • The Republican Neocon machine is morally bankrupt.

    I hear it rumoured that the leaders of France, Germany and Russian Republic refer to G.W. Bush as "The little Moron" *L*

  • Here are some recent gems from www.blackboxvoting.org/. Some more great tales from the Florida Sector of our Banana Republic – run by Banana Republicans for your benefit…MONDAY FEB. 21, 2005: Broward County (FL) update — County sheriff called when citizens asked too many questions
    Black Box Voting investigators Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne attended and videotapted a Broward County Logic & Accuracy test, a mock election held to demonstrate that voting machines count accurately.
    1. About 120 ES&S touch-screens were set up for voting. All were positioned so that not a single observer could see the screens (even with binoculars and a zoom lens).
    2. Several computers were in an adjacent central tabulator room. None of the central tabulators used were positioned so that any observer could see any part of the screen.
    3. An ES&S employee sat at the central tabulator, wearing a red polo shirt similar to other county employees, with no name tag differentiating him from county workers.
    No more questions...
    After asking a few polite questions, observers were told to sit down and be quiet, and to write down any questions for answers at a later time.
    After the "zero reports" were examined, election officials waited around for testing to finish and results to be printed. Since nothing was going on, a local computer programmer named Pedro Monteiro asked more questions. He pointed to some of the machines being used for the L&A test. "Are any of these the machines that counted backwards after they reached 32,000 votes?" he asked. (Yes, Broward County machines had a strange glitch in the Nov. 2004 general election).
    Pedro was told to put his questions in writing, as they did not want to take time out of the L&A test to answer him.
    "Are you too busy to answer my questions?" he asked politely, "because right now you are just waiting around."
    Supervisor Brenda Snipes immediately got up and went into an adjacent room and shut the door.
    "Put it in writing," said Judge Fred Berman.
    Pedro pointed out that a court reporter or transcriber was there writing everything that was said.
    "She is already putting everything in writing," he said. "Perhaps she can put my questions in writing so we can get answers today?"
    The election officials shuffled and finally one said "Uh, no one can read her writing."
    "Then why is she here?" Pedro asked quietly and politely.
    "We are not here to discuss your personality disorder," said Judge Berman.
    "Sir, it is not I that has a personality disorder. It is you that is reading a book during this meeting." Judge Berman had brought a Heather Graham novel with him, and had his nose buried in the book during the testing.
    A portly man who was identified as Snipes’ personal assistant hurried out of the building. Harris followed him out, and heard him urgently requesting assistance, she assumed from security.
    It was not security, but the police who showed up, and they pulled both Ellen Brodsky and Pedro Monteiro aside to tell them they had received a report that they were disturbing the peace.
    Pedro had been, at that time, standing quite far to the side of the room, chatting quietly with the ES&S employee, and Brodsky had committed the sin of standing up in order to hear better (she has a hearing impairment). ... Continued on Latest Updates section in the forums.
    Also, visit www.blackboxvoting.org/ to see stories from Volusia County, Palm Beach County and Orange County, Florida.
    Cheers,
    James K. Sayre
    www.bottlebrushpress.com/

  • This is proof enough for me. It is sworn testimony by Computer Programmer, Clint Curtis, that he was asked to write a program to "fix" an election.

    http://movies.ziaspace.com/12-13Curtis.wmv

    Original posting by Bradblog at www.crooksandliars.com , Saturday December 18, 2004