Green Party's response to Cokie Roberts on ABC's Nightline

[paineinthearse]

Posted in full as this is a news release.

======================================

Sent to ABC News' Nightline
<http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/>
on January 21,2005....


Cokie Roberts, in her remarks on Nightline's January 19 broadcast covering the allegations of vote obstruction and manipulation in the 2004 election, dismissed the complaints from numerous voters, especially from African Americans and young people in Ohio, as conspiracy theory and Internet rumor.

The same facile clichés were used in the media to deride allegations by the 9/11 families that the Bush Administration sat on evidence of an impending attack in 2001. The 9/11 Commission's investigation later showed the 9/11 families were right.

Ms. Roberts also suggested that the recount's purpose was to overturn George W. Bush's election in 2004. In fact, the recount was undertaken in order to win some urgent reforms: auditable paper
ballots for all votes cast on computers; equitable distribution of election equipment; national voting rights standards; removal of
public officials with a clear partisan bias from supervision of elections (e.g., Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who also chaired the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign in his state).

These reforms are necessary regardless of whether the recount in Ohio was likely to overturn the 2004 election. My vote is important even if the candidate I vote for doesn't win.

Significantly, the recount effort was launched and led by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb while Democrats sat on their hands after John Kerry's quick concession. Greens have been campaigning for electoral reforms for years, and also call for instant runoff voting, proportional representation, and repeal of ballot access laws passed by Democrats and Republicans in order to hinder third party and independent candidates.

Contrary to the bromide that "the system works", which was repeated at the end of the January 19 Nightline broadcast, the real lesson of 2000 and 2004 is that the U.S. is still in the process of
becoming a democracy.

Scott McLarty
Media Coordinator,
Green Party of the United States
gp.org

[lachattefolle]

1. I am voting Green until the Dems launch all out political war against

the Repukes. I've had it with appeasement. Although I greatly admire Senator Boxer, and Reps Tubbs Jones and Conyers, as well as all the Reps who voted against certification of the vote, they are only a small minority of the Democratic Party. Someone wrote the other day they'd rather have ten reps and five senators (can't remember exact numbers) who had truly progressive ideals in office, rather than (I'm trying to remember what was said) people who don't represent what I believe.