Reply #48: That's a good fast-paced opening. [View All]

[petgoat]

Following is my rough summary of the first eight chapters. I guess
I'll have to try the used book stores to get a copy and see how it all
turns out. Does it go as far as the 1988 New Hampshire primary?


After their rock club is shut down, the Collier brothers decide to
write a book about working through the system. Dell gives them an
advance and Ken runs for Congress--the garbage incident and the
political breakfast incident are colorful.

After the computer breaks down in the vote count (and Ken loses the
election) they start investigating the canvass sheets, stealing some
from the political science professor who has them. identifies the
computer programmer. They ask the programmer why the election
projections seem to be based on results from one magic machine out of
600, and why they're exactly right. He says "You'll never prove it.
Now get out!"

They contact the FBI. They're told the League of Women Voters does
the ballot counting; when they visit its representative she weeps.
"I don't want to get caught in this thing."

They learn their Dell contract is cancelled.

8/72 Their article on election fraud appears in the Miami Beach
Reporter. At the voting machines warehouse, the caretaker shows them
how decals on the counters could fool the inspectors, and shows them
how to shave a counter's plastic gear wheel so it counts funny.

They visit a lawyer named Ellis Rubin. At their second visit to the
voting machine warehouse they steal some more documents. They meet
with the Justice Dept, and are told "these things take time." In
September in the primary election, once again the computer breaks
down.

Rubin is appointed ombudsman.

They steal canvass sheets from the county, telephoning two sheriff's
deputies to tell what they've done, but they're not arrested.

One handwriting expert says the signatures of the election officials
on the canvass sheets are genuine, two say they're forgeries. Mike
Wallace, the FBI, and a Dade County organized crime unit are
interested.

After their lawyer, Ellis Rubin, has a press conference major
newspapers run stories on the forgeries. The election supervisor
resigns, and the weepy League of Women Voters representative takes his
place.

The voting machines are upgraded. Precinct workers no longer read the
numbers--they turn a crank and a paper spits out with the numbers on
it. But one of the brothers grabs a sheet and- finds it's preprinted.
The precinct workers all walk out. Police and firemen take over the
vote count.

MASSIVE VOTE FRAUD CHARGED IN DADE ELECTION, Miami Herald says.
Ellis Rubin visits the assistant State Attorney, Janet Reno, then
faces the TV cameras to report that she says the statute of
limitations has passed. Rubin starts to drive away in his antique red
convertible. Ken jumps up on running board to talk.

"What did he say?" Jim asks Ken.

"Nothing. He just looked straight ahead."

"What was his expression?" Jim asks.

"Fear"

The brothers' wives are both tired of hearing about the vote scams.
The brothers decide to fight on. Rubin won't take their phone calls.
Newly divorced, they move to a jungle on the beach and write a rock
opera. Rock-n-roll and a bean sprouts business and a 98-page comic
book based on their rock opera will absorb their energies for ten
years. They produce rock concerts at the Grand Canyon and on the roof
of the WTC.




In the summer of '82 they call up a candidate for Dade Metro
Commissioner to warn her about election fraud. They get in a hassle
with her father, and go to visit him at the newspaper of which he is
Managing Editor, and get jobs as reporters.

In 10/82 they are inspired by a $5000 reward offered by the RNC to
take up the vote fraud issue again. They've read about new blackbox
card-counting computers, and they've been told that the Leage of Women
voters has a team punching holes in the cards before they're counted.
They're told that observing the count is not allowed.

They decide to take a Miami Herald reporter along when they try.
At the Herald they give a presentation about their three
investigations: The Blank-Backed Canvass Sheets; The Forgeries and
The Printomatic. They put it all up on a blackboard. They can also
show the 3" file they got from their 1979 FOIA request, and point out
a memo showing that an investigation of their charges was requested by
Assistant Attorney General Henry E. Petersen, who'd been involved in
the Watergate investigations.

At the counting house they bluff their way in, finding that all the
League Women have pencils for no apparent reason, and a man has a
fast-food bag full of seals for the ballot boxes--just in case, he
explains, any of the seals were broken. They see that only one
punchcard reading machine is in use, being operated by a technician
who, after being videotaped moving a ballot from the counted pile to
the uncounted pile, denies that he is the person his name tage says he
is--the man identified as the Herald as the "god of elections", the
programmer Joe Malone.

They're ordered to leave. The Miami Herald reporter who stays later
confirms that the Leage of Women Voters had a blizzard of chads on
their table, but the Herald declined to print the story about that or
about the ejection of the Collier brothers from the counting house.


-----------------------------------

I'm pretty enthusiastic about this material. My one reservation is
that if we're trying to reach Joe and Thelma in the midwest, a couple
of hippies might not be the most sympathetic characters (to them) for
illustrating the subject. I hope the issue of an election-fraud
screenplay is important enough to enough people here at DU that
eventually we'll get an argument about that issue from somebody.