In his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community,
Martin Luther King wrote, "And so we shall have to do more than
register and more than vote; we shall have to create leaders who embody
virtues we can respect, who have moral and ethical principles we can
applaud with enthusiasm." On January 6, 2005, thirty-two courageous
members of Congress, in the face of dismissive rhetoric from the
majority party, challenged the results of the Ohio Electors of the 2004
presidential election in protest of the disenfranchisement of thousands
of Ohio voters, and on behalf of all citizens of the United States of
America. Their purpose was to begin a dialogue that would culminate in
sorely needed election reform so that the problems in Ohio would never
be repeated in any state. In so doing, these thirty-two members of
Congress proved themselves to be "leaders who embody virtues we can
respect, who have moral and ethical principles" that we applaud with
great enthusiasm. This site is the thunderous sound of that applause.
Born Again Jim Crow, Heather Baum
Who would have thought that on the 40th anniversary of Freedom Summer
and the Voting Rights Act we would be fighting for voting rights for
all of America? I'm sure you understand that vote suppression is not
without historic precedence. The fight for suffrage is elemental to the
peoples history. In our own life times, we know this from the history
of Jim Crow. A system we fought a bloody battle to bring to an end in
the south. We thought it was dead. But it is not. What has happened
during the last three or four election cycles is an attempt to give
birth to a "born again" Jim Crow. The obvious goal is to bring it to a
new era of technological sophistication and spread it throughout the
country...If unchallenged this could lead to a permanent one party
rule. In Minnesota, we managed to beat it back...but I believe we
cannot let this stand. . . .The Right thinks that if it says something often enough...and loud
enough...that makes it true. I call that having smoke blown up your
ass. The Bush Administration thinks by saying something...over and
over...real loud.. they can "make us think" what they say is true. This
is designed to divide the people..."progressive bashing"...used to be
called "Red Baiting" in the days of Joe McCarthy...It is an old tried
and true method of getting people to look the other way while someone
has their hand in your pocket. We have a lot of work to do, and so I
think we need to be organizing on all fronts. I choose to fight on the
voting rights front, because as my Mothers daughter, and as a veteran
of the Southern Freedom Movement, that is what I have done all my life.
My mother and grandmothers before me fought for suffrage for all..and
so do I.
•Why We Must Question Our Elections, Arlene S.Ash, Ph.D..
I am a
statistician. When I testified about electoral tampering in Martin
County, Florida, in November 2000, I focused exclusively on the fact
that the number of disputed ballots would have changed the outcome.
That was shortsighted. As U.S. newspapers have written about the
Ukraine, an election's outcome may be less important than how it was
conducted. Democratic elections must be verifiably fair.Before
November 2, several U.S. newspapers pursued concerns about election
integrity. They reported on the vulnerability of electronic voting to
simple errors and malicious hacking, and the unnecessary dangers posed
by non-verifiable touch-screen voting. They exposed obstructionist
maneuvers, such as Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's telling
election commissioners to reject voter registrations submitted on thin
paper.Post-election, though, the mainstream media has largely ignored or ridiculed concerns about U.S. electoral errors and fraud. . . .
•Nine members of the House Judiciary Committee Request Formal Committee Hearings And Investigation
We write to you at the very outset of the 109th Congress, to
request that our committee hold hearings and investigate the vital
issue of protecting our citizens right to vote. The right to vote is
the very foundation of our Democracy and is at the core of our
Committee’s jurisdiction, and we can think of no more important or
urgent issue before us than protecting our democratic rights. While the
election is settled, however, our job as legislators on the Judiciary
Committee to make sure that the constitutional right to vote is
protected is just beginning.
•Two Million Americans Are Still Not Free At Last, Matthew Cardinale
The disproportionate racial impact of these laws is
staggering. 1.8 million disenfranchised individuals are Black,
according to the Sentencing Project, based on a figure from 2002. It is
safe to say there are approximately 2 million disenfranchised Black
Americans as of 2005.Approximately 13% of all adult Black men are disenfranchised in
the U.S. Black males are 7 times more likely to be disenfranchised than
any other demographic group. In Alabama and Florida, 31% of all Black
men are permanently disenfranchised.According to the recent series of interviews I conducted for The
Sentencing Project, an even greater proportion of Americans may believe
they are unable to vote due to a lack of education about voting
eligibility laws, which vary state by state. In California, for
instance, ex-felons regain the right to vote after completing parole;
but 50% of those I spoke to (25 out of 50) were not aware of that fact.Troublingly, less than 10% of 50 respondents answered that they
had been educated by officials about their voting eligibility, or the
process for regaining the right to vote, during the judicial process or
while they were in prison or on parole.(Also see The Sentencing Project.)
Ohio's GOP Attorney General launches revenge attack on Election Protection legal team Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
COLUMBUS -- In a stunning legal attack, Ohio's Republican Attorney
General has moved for sanctions against the four attorneys who sued
George W. Bush et. al. in an attempt to investigate the Buckeye State's
bitterly contested November 2 election.Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck and Peter Peckarsky were
named by Attorney General James Petro in a filing with the Ohio Supreme
Court. Petro charges the November Moss v Bush and Moss v. Moyer filings by the Election Protection legal team were "frivolous." Petro is demanding court sanctions and fines.
Moss v. Bush moves on and movement continues Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
The suit grew out of an Election Day that saw multiple thousands of
Ohioans, particularly minority inner city and young people,
disenfranchised. Public hearings were convened where scores of voters
testified under oath about losing their right to vote or seeing it
attacked and compromised. By December, a half-dozen noted academic
experts freely offered their analysis of the state-certified results,
pointing to anomalies that raised the specter of widespread
vote-counting fraud. While the Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth
Blackwell, who was also the co-chair of the president's Ohio campaign,
obstructed all efforts at discovery and evidence gathering --
preventing those claims of fraud from being validated -- the widespread
and detailed record was sufficient proof for members of Congress to
hold hearings examining the vote and eventually challenge the Electoral
College results on Jan. 6."This is not the end, this is merely the end of one state action," said
Cliff Arnebeck, the challenge's lead counsel. "More importantly, it
signals the emergence of a much broader effort where we plan to
investigate and litigate county by county, ward by ward, precinct by
precinct."
Record Of Important Legal Events
This post is intended as a resource tool for those seeking
information on important legal events relating to the Ohio election of
2004, specifically relating to issues of (a) fraud, (b)
disenfranchisment, (c) voter suppression, (d) recount obstruction, and
(e) vote machine tampering. It is a selective compilation of links
which have been posted on this site which relate to such events.
Evidence Of Fraud And Disenfranchisement In Ohio, 2004: A Partial List
This post is intended as a resource tool for those doing factual
research on the Ohio election 2004, specifically relating to issues of
(a) fraud, (b) disenfranchisment, (c) voter suppression, (d) recount
obstruction, and (e) vote machine tampering. It makes no pretense at
comprehensiveness, but is merely an attempt to compile links which have
been posted on this site which either (1) are themselves primary
sources of evidence, or (2) summarize, analyze, or point to, such
sources.
Did the “Liberal Media” Get the 2004 Election All Wrong? Gene C. Gerard
The New York Times, in a special news analysis, announced that “President Bush’s
re-election
is the clearest confirmation yet that America is a center-right
country.” Newsweek was even bolder, reporting not only that the “GOP may be the
majority party for the foreseeable future,” but that “red-state Democrats are a
diminishing breed.” The media even succeeded in encouraging the venerable
Democratic strategist James Carville to say, in an interview only forty-eight
hours after the election, “We are an opposition party and not a particularly
effective one. The Democratic Party died Tuesday.”Now that two months have passed, the dust has settled, and the election has
finally been concluded (Washington’s gubernatorial election was not decided
until December 30), perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at a few of those red
states. Did the media get it wrong, or at least exaggerate a bit? Were the
Democrats and their values trounced in the election?
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