Letter-writer contends election was fraudulent
Toolbox
Published: January 2, 2005
This is an open letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy and Sen. James Jeffords:
Thomas Paine said that the right of voting is the primary right by which all other rights are protected, and that to take away this right is to reduce a people to slavery.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson has pronounced voter fraud in the recent November elections the biggest issue since Selma, Ala., where rampant voting suppression of blacks generated a civil rights march 25,000 people strong.
U.S. Representative John Conyers, D-Mich., ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, recently conducted hearings on voter fraud in the critically important swing state of Ohio. His hearing and other public hearings in Ohio have received sworn testimonies that document "thousands of complaints of voting irregularities" favoring George Bush. Election observers have testified under oath that more than a dozen voting machines switched Kerry votes to Bush votes while voters watched in amazement.
In many Ohio counties there were voting machine shortages in largely Democratic precincts, leading to waits of over 10 hours to vote. There was also a Watergate-type burglary in the Lucas County Democratic campaign headquarters in Toledo, Ohio, in October, and voter turnout rates of an improbable 98.55 percent reported in parts of Miami County that voted heavily in favor of Bush.
The November vote, said one observer, was "the crime of the century."
A lawsuit has been filed at the Ohio Supreme Court charging that a fair vote count would give the state and the presidency to John Kerry rather than George Bush. On Dec. 21, notice of depositions were sent to President George Bush, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and others to appear and give testimony regarding the legal challenge of Ohio's election results in the case Moss v. Bush et. al.
On Dec. 20, subpoenas were issued to top election officials in 10 Ohio counties where vote-count fraud is suspected. The challengers are trying to get a meaningful vote recount, but Ohio Attorney General Kenneth Blackwell, who also acted as chairman of Bush's Ohio re-election committee, does not seem to be cooperating very well. Jan. 6 is the date Congress accepts the Electoral College vote and the Republican strategy appears to be to make the Ohio recount drag on as long as possible.
Voting problems in November were not limited to Ohio. Across the country over 57,000 complaints of voting violations have been reported to the House Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Government Accounting Office.
Reports include voting machines in Florida and Oklahoma that were actually shown to be counting votes backwards. Most "touch screen" voting machines leave no paper trail, are relatively easy to tamper with, and hide the vote tabulating process from traditional citizen oversight. New York and California have refused to permit this technology.
The Electoral Count Act of 1887 allows the presidential election to be contested on Jan. 6 if one U.S. Representative and one U.S. Senator step forward. A number of representatives are ready to do so.
Sens. Leahy and Jeffords, I ask you to be the guardians of democracy.
I call on you to review the evidence. This moment may be crucial for the future of our country. I urge you to be courageous and exhibit moral leadership by refusing to certify the results of the presidential election of 2004 until all of the serious allegations of fraud have been fully investigated by independent parties, especially in the states of Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico.
For more information go to: http://www.FreePress.org or http://www.ContestTheVote.org.
Tad Montgomery
Brattleboro
The ACLU is public
enemy number one
O
Oh my God! The deer herds are getting smaller.
Haven't you ridge running Vermonters figured it out yet? When the government wanted to get rid of the native Americans in the Midwest what did they do? They shot the buffalo! Now in case you haven't figured out what that has to do with the reduced white-tail numbers
the flatlanders want the land you native Vermonters are holding on to because they're tired of looking at your trailers. The flatlanders have infiltrated your state and local government, kept out business, injected and forced a perverted culture upon your state in hopes that would you force you all out.
Now the Veterans Home in Bennington has to remove decorations because they're "unconstitutional."
Want to rid yourselves of these foreigners? Then smarten up and start fighting the enemy of this country the American Civil Liberties Union.
Until then, for shame on you, and for those who inflict suffering and oppression on Vermont and her citizens, a pox on their house.
Jim Huntington
Granville, N.Y.
Use of state militia in wars overseas is unconstitutional
A
An important point I have not seen mentioned in the news stories on the Vermont anti-War militia/National Guard, is that the Constitution explicitly places limits on the uses permitted for the militia (or National Guard). Article I, Section 8 grants Congress power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." The constitutional framers added these enumerations (to execute law, suppress insurrection and repel invasion) specifically because they did not want state militias to be used outside of the United States. Moreover, because regulation of the militia is constitutionally a concurrent power shared by the states and the federal government it is entirely appropriate that Vermont and her political subdivisions should officially protest the state militia being used for an illegal purpose.
Paul Clark
Chicago
A quiet crowning
is in order for Bush
A
A moral alternative. What could the about-to-be-anointed leader of 51 percent of us do to assuage some of the anger and frustration of the other 49 percent? He could have a quiet crowning by Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the Oval Office and forego the festivities which it is estimated will cost $40 million. I suggest a donation instead to the families of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who are left behind struggling to make ends meet and also to Walter Reed Hospital for all the amputees without the resources to support their rehabilitation and their truncated job possibilities in the future.
At a time when our troops are dying and being maimed in this pre-emptive war, doing without a costly celebration would send a moral message to every citizen in this country.
Susanne Learmonth
Corinth
Inaugural bash won't
cost taxpayers $40 million
T
The outrage of blue state losers since the re-election of President Bush is growing more shrill. Arthur Gray writes in the Sunday letters column about his disgust of the upcoming Bush inauguration stating, "the boys are about to blow $40 million on a party."
Let's get the facts straight. According to U.S. government sources, a total of $1 million was set aside by Congress to pay for the inauguration, not $40 million. The $1 million pays only for costs associated with the swearing in ceremony.
The parade and all of the galas and balls are coordinated and paid for by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
These events are funded mainly through ticket sales, contributions and volunteered services and talent.
Maybe this information will allow Gray to temper his accusations and have a better night's sleep.
Hey boys, as much as Jeff Taylor, wants me to move to Texas and Francis Watterlund says Ohio, I think I'll stay in Vermont to keep the liberals on their toes.
How about you guys moving to Canada?
L.A. Leonard
Rutland Town
Real reform needed
To protect democracy
We should applaud the efforts of former Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb and independent candidate Ralph Nader in their sponsorships of recounts in Ohio, New Hampshire, New Mexico and other states. The point isn't to change the results, but to make sure all our votes are counted. That's the first step in fixing an electoral system in dire need of repair.
Several developments in recent weeks highlight the urgency of real reform to protect our endangered and diminishing democracy:
u Debates with only the candidates from the very organizations responsible along with the mainstream media for the dumbing-down of political discourse
u The largest campaign bankrolls in history for the Bush and Kerry campaigns
u A level of lying and manipulation never seen before in American politics (and that's saying a lot!), mostly by nonprofit groups, proving the outright failure of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law
u Massive voter suppression in poor, urban, and minority locales, mostly by politically-appointed election officials with interests in maintaining the status quo
The U.S. election process is run totally by public relations professionals (whose job it is to deceive us) and by the major corporations who bankroll them and their bosses the politicians supposedly working for us. We can hardly count on Republicans, Democrats, or their flacks to protect our democratic rights. Certainly the media aren't covering the issues.
We must demand that our elected representatives in Montpelier and in Washington, as well as the news outlets we patronize, support efforts to ensure democracy on our behalf.
Craig Chevrier
Chairman of the Vermont Green Party
Hinesburg
Dissent no longer
the norm in classrooms
Justin Pope's Associated Press report, "Conservative Students vs. Liberal Profs," published in the Dec. 26 edition of the Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus cites the case of Columbia University, where our film, "Columbia Unbecoming," documented the harassment and intimidation of students by professors hostile to Israel. But this is not, as Pope suggests, a case of "liberal vs. conservative." Students at Columbia describe behavior by professors who have politicized their classrooms and suppressed dissenting views. One Jewish student was told that because she has green eyes, she is not a Semite and cannot discuss Israel. Another, who identified himself as an Israeli, was taunted by the question: "How many Palestinians have you killed?" A female student, upset by her professor's "lesson" that Israeli committed a "massacre" in Jenin a lie that even the UN disavowed, was screamed at: "I will not have anyone who denies Israeli atrocities in my class." Sadly, this is a corruption of the education process in our universities, it is a rejection of free inquiry and dispassionate scholarship. This has little to do with liberal vs. conservative views. It has to do with the dominance in many of our country's Middle East studies departments by Arabists and radicals, and the indifference of university administrations.
Charles Jacobs, President
The David Project
Boston
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