Subject: FW: Ask Senators Kohl & Feingold to stand up on Jan.6 Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 06:35:00 -0600 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD020235F056@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Hale, C. Kate" <HALECL@uwec.edu>
Just in case you're not already on an email list that's sending out this
info . . . two days left to act.
Kate
C. Kate Hale, Ph.D.
UWEC Dept. of English
Office: 617 Hibbard Hall
715-836-2761
halecl@uwec.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: keedo [mailto:keedo@merr.com]
Sent: Mon 03-Jan-05 8:29 PM
To: WisEco
Subject: Ask Senators Kohl & Feingold to stand up on Jan.6
quote from article below: "We call on Sen. Mark Dayton to join Rep.
Maxine Waters and other members of Congress to stop the approval of the
Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 until there is a full investigation
into what really happened in Ohio."
Ask our Senators to do likewise...
Kohl: 1-800-247-5645 (toll free in Wisconsin)
http://www.senate.gov/~kohl/gen_contact.html
Feingold: DC office - 202/224-5323
http://feingold.senate.gov/contact.html
--------------------------------
Minn. Star Tribune - Opinion / December 29, 2004
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5158534.html
We may never know what happened in the Ohio vote
Mark Halvorson and Kirk Lund
The right to vote and to have each vote count is the cornerstone of
democracy, but deep cracks are showing in this cornerstone.
Disturbing reports of voting irregularities in Ohio recently led nine of
us from Minnesota to monitor the recount of its presidential election.
The recount was not only to verify the outcome of the Ohio vote but also
to ensure accountability in a flawed system.
Problems encountered by tens of thousands of Ohio voters included: waits
as long as seven hours at polling places; shortages of poll workers and
voting machines; electronic voting machines that malfunctioned;
election-counting discrepencies; voters being directed to the wrong
polling place, and uneven policies governing the use of provisional
ballots.
As observers, we encountered irregularities and obstacles in the recount
process. In Perry County, we inspected the voter logbooks, which showed
100 people voting in one precinct without any signatures, leaving no way
to verify who actually voted. A lawsuit asking the courts to overturn
the results of the Perry County auditor's race alleges that the number
of votes exceeded the number of people who signed the voting books.
Under Ohio law, each county must randomly choose a precinct to recount
by hand and by machine. If the two counts do not match, officials must
conduct a countywide recount by hand. Most county Boards of Elections,
however, chose to preselect the sample precinct, a violation of the law.
Some counties refused to proceed with a full hand recount when the hand
and machine tallies failed to match.
In two of the three counties we observed, technicians from Diebold and
Triad, manufacturers of voting machines and vote-counting software, were
present during the entire recount. The Diebold technician in Hardin
County was actively involved in giving instructions to the observers.
Further, he arrived the day before the recount to prepare the machines
and data disks that contain the election results.
At an Ohio hearing convened by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., an affidavit
was filed on behalf of Sherole Eaton, an election worker in Hocking
County, describing how an employee of Triad may have tampered with the
vote tabulator when he dismantled it three days before the Dec. 13
recount. In her affidavit, she states the technician told her "how to
post a 'cheat sheet' on the wall so the ... count would come out perfect
and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."
Conyers has asked the FBI to investigate. Attorneys for John Kerry filed
two motions on Monday to preserve the evidence in this case and to take
the deposition of the Triad technician.
On Dec. 16 we attended a Franklin County Board of Elections public
hearing in Columbus. Citizens expressed their anger and outrage at
having to wait up to seven hours to vote. One woman referred to the long
lines as a "new poll tax." The Election Protection Coalition reported
that of the 464 complaints about long lines in Ohio, 400 came from
Columbus and Cleveland, where a large proportion of the state's
Democratic voters live.
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who cochaired the Bush-Cheney
campaign in Ohio, has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the
election and the recount. He refused to respond to questions by several
members of Congress.
Conyers charged in a subsequent letter that Blackwell's refusal to
answer questions is "part of a pattern of decisions that have worked to
obstruct and stonewall a search for the truth about voting
irregularities."
Blackwell is also seeking a protective order to keep him from being
interviewed as part of a court challenge to the Ohio election.
We will never have a clear picture of Ohio's election results because of
the lack of a statewide manual recount, lack of a voter-verified paper
trail for many of the state's voters who used electronic voting
machines, questions of possible machine tampering, and untold numbers of
discouraged voters deterred by long lines. We call on Sen. Mark Dayton
to join Rep. Maxine Waters and other members of Congress to stop the
approval of the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 until there is a full
investigation into what really happened in Ohio.
--- Mark Halvorson is a social worker and cofounder of Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections - Minnesota, a grass-roots group that advocates for election integrity. Kirk Lund is an attorney.--- NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.--^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: halecl@uwec.edu
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