Don't allow another election to be stolen

[ariellyn]

I just sent the following message to about 50 people in various e-mail loops. I would like to hear your feedback about it, I hope that someone else finds it useful to send to your friends and family as well...and, I'd appreciate any suggestions you have for improving it. It's long, but I think it's worth a read.

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Never forget that Bush and his brother and the RepubliCON supreme court stole the votes of the American people in the election of 2000. Since then, they have taken the country to war, taken our tax dollars from the surplus and given them to the rich and curtailed our freedoms under the so-called Patriot Act. Thanks to Bush, your "freedom is protected" by this act which allows you or any average citizen, to be subjected to phone tapping, house searches or any other kinds of invasion of your constitutional right to privacy as long as they say you are a "terrorist." The only real terrorists in this country, are in the White House and we have to get them out come November.

Ladies and gentlemen, the very democracy which this great country was built on, and the blood that our forefathers and ancestors shed to build this country, are at stake. The press has been stolen. The wise men who wrote the Constitution said that the foundation of a democracy is a free press. Do you know that our media has been bought and sold to the rich who now only allow news they want you to hear? That is why you probably haven’t heard what really happened during the 2000 election.

Who can forget that the closest election in history was stopped by the Supreme Court? When the recounts were going in Gore’s favor, RepubliCONs rushed to the Supreme Court they stacked in their favor and Justice Antonio Scalia rendered a decision to stop the counts saying: to continue to count the votes of the American people might do "irreparable harm" to Bush. That biased decision gave the election to Bush even though the margin of error in Florida was less than .5% and Florida's constitution mandated a recount of all of votes in any election that close.

The corruption did not stop at the Supreme Court though. You just haven't heard the rest of the story because the media doesn't want you to know about it. But here is the rest.

In Jeffrey Toobin's book, Too Close to Call, he says a total of 18 counties—accounting for 1.58 million votes, or more than a quarter of all votes cast in Florida—did not carry out the legally mandated machine recount. This was done, Toobin writes, with the full knowledge of Secretary of State Katherine Harris, an appointee of Jeb Bush who also served as co-chair of Florida’s George W. Bush campaign committee.

After the election, a consortium of newspapers (Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and others..) hired the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center to do a study to prove Bush won. Instead, they found the opposite. They found that had all the counties in Florida recounted the votes as they were supposed to, Gore would have taken the presidency.

That's not all. On November 8, 2000 Florida officials announced there were more than 176,000 rejected ballots. However, during the NORC study and the recounts, only 175,010 ballots were provided for substantiation--1,427 fewer than were reported. Where did those votes go?

And this is even more startling. The Washington Post reported that on election night in Volusia County, Florida at 10 p.m., after the polls had closed, Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But, when officials checked the county's web site for an update half an hour later, Gore's count had dropped by 16,022 votes, and an obscure Socialist candidate picked up 10,000 votes--all from a single precinct with only 600 voters.

These are the actual words from election official in Volusia County to the voting machine manufacturer after they were unable to reconcile their records in preparation for audit.

"Help!...I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16,022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here 'looking dumb.'"
Read more of the memos here if you want: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/Thompson_Diebold-2000-Fraud.htm

These votes went through a computerized voting machine from a company by the name of Diebold. The CEO of the company that manufactured the voting machine, Wally O'Dell of Diebold, visited George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch along with an elite group of Bush supporters called the "Rangers" (formerly called the "Pioneers") where they set strategy on how to help him win the election. O’Dell penned a letter to Ohio Republicans promising to help "deliver the votes" for Bush. O’Dell also sponsored a $600,000 fund raiser for Dick Cheney. Diebold director W.H. Timken is also a Bush Pioneer/Ranger.

Still more...

Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush used a RepubliCON connected company called ChoicePoint to take the names of convicted felons off the voter rolls in accordance with Florida law which does not allow felons to vote. ChoicePoint was allowed to remove 95,000 names off the voter rolls without checking them. They used criteria such as race and last name to scan voter databases and pull names. After the election, it was found that less than half of those voters whose names were scrubbed were felons--the rest were mostly black and likely to vote democratic. Ninety percent of Florida's black voters voted for Gore so you can see that Gore would have picked up thousands of votes here.

Ballot designs in certain counties encouraged voters to both mark a listed candidate and write in the same candidate's name. Such votes were then rejected after the election although they are defined by Florida law as valid votes that should be counted. Florida law, written before the 2000 election, states that all votes that show the clear intent of the voter, are required to be counted. What could indicate clear intent more than people both punching ballot cards AND writing in Gore's name? The University of Chicago's study concluded that Gore would have won on these votes alone. Yet, they were dismissed.

The underhanded means used to suppress votes in Florida was the most blatantly treasonous act in our democracy’s history and it was orchestrated by partisanship and conflicts of interest at the highest levels of state and national government.

You have to share this information with your friends and family. All of it can be verified on numerous search engines such as Google. The theft of the election is only the tip of an iceberg of corruption that has led us into war and many more underhanded schemes by the Bush administration. Tell people that they have to vote this year for anybody but Bush. We cannot allow this to happen again--ever.

[bluestateguy]

1. My idea

ARMED escorts provided by civil rights organizations to monitor majority black precincts.