Phoning in a rant I just posted to the NorCal Democracy for America mailing list in response to a “Republicans busted for vote fraud in Cuyahoga” chain message forwarded to the group:
PLEASE TAKE ACTION, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. PLEASE FORWARD TO EVERYONE.
Smoking Gun
You may have seen the associated press story about the precinct in Cuyahoga county that had less than 1,000 voters, and gave Bush almost 4,000 extra votes. But that turns out to be only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. The evidence discovered by some remarkably careful sleuthing would convince any reasonable court to invalidate the entire Ohio election. In last Tuesday’s election, 29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters – at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website….
[… snip …]
The Republicans are so BUSTED.
The official website of the Cuyahoga county election board provides irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000. Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere.
I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election. I’d say the game’s up. America, it looks pretty much like you’ve been had.
Sincerely,
Teed Rockwell, Philosophy Dept., Sonoma State UniversityBUSH HAS NOT YET BEEN CHOSEN BY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. THE ELECTORS MEET AND VOTE ON DEC. 13. QUESTIONS NEED TO BE RAISED ABOUT THE RESULTS – AND RAISED LOUDLY – TO GET AN INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED BEFORE THAT DATE.
SO FAR, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IN NOT PICKING UP THE STORY. THEY MOVED VERY SLOWLY AFTER THE 2000 ELECTION. OVER TO YOU.
> — End forwarded message —
To: NorCal DFA
From: Christian Crumlish
Subject: Ohio: Cuyahoga County irregularities
A good clearinghouse for recount and potential vote-fraud and vote-hacking information is the dKosopedia (for example, dKosopedia: 2004 Ohio Irregularities, where I found this discussion of the attached matter:
Much has been written about Cuyahoga County, and municipalities having different numbers than townships. This issue seems to have been settled, with the explanation being that absentee ballots were reported as part of precinct totals, resulting in more votes being reported than actually voted at the precinct. –Tunesmith 02:22, 10 Nov 2004 (PST):
More details: the “ward summary” entries are not added into the county vote totals, so whatever their purpose for allocating absentee ballots across multiple municipal jurisdictions, they have no impact on the county returns. This can be proven by adding up the precinct-level votes and the votes recorded from absentee ballots, resulting in an exact match with the ‘official’ county totals.
).
Personally, I favor making sure every vote is counted, all close elections are recounted, and that all elections are recountable (auditable) and managed in as impartial and open a way as possible.
Rather than being put on the defenseive as sore losers of this election, I seriously doubt the patriotism of anyone who challenges the voters’ rights to cast their votes and have their votes counted. I’ll be surprised if Kerry could challenge and win Ohio, New Mexico, or any other state, but I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility and either way we need to know how things tallied up, and beyodn all that we have to be aware of the voter suppression activities put in place in advance (consolidating precincts, challenging and discouraging voters) and be prepared to counter them across the country next time.
If we go into 2006 with an equally opaque voting mechanism then I’m afraid we deserve to lose our democracy.
Hey, I think I just figured out my top priority for the next year. Where do I sign up?
Back to you, Teed.