There is a two pronged approach to the problem of Votergate in Ohio. I wrote the following as an article on strategy for opednews. Here it is:
VOTERGATE 2004: STRATEGY
Since the Nov 2 Election, evidence has mounted daily -- starting with the massive unexplained divergence between the exit polls and the tabulated results on election day -- that the presidential election was indeed stolen by the Republicans. In particular, the systematic denial of adequate voting machines to overwhelmingly Democratic precincts in Ohio is a tangible, provable single factor that, standing alone, has been established as virtually certainly decisive in turning the state, and therefore the electoral college to Bush. This issue, and a myriad of extensively documented proofs or strong suggestions of massive vote fraud in the election have emerged, especially since Nov. 12, yet there has been virtual silence -- a "media lockdown" in the mainstream media in the US, a phenomenon as telling in itself as the determination of the outcome of the election by voter fraud. New information comes out every day, protests, recount demands, and a spate of lawsuits have been filed. Yet an overall strategy is lacking that focuses on the most vulnerable legal and political points in the system.
Such a strategy should continue all the productive grass roots activities now being pursued, but requires two major prongs: a lawsuit on the systematic denial of voting machines in Ohio accompanied by substantial mobilization, and a focus on the media lockdown issue itself as a major crucial political issue creating by organized default a "consensus" that assumes the election to have been fairly won and any fraud issues to be marginal in impact or "tin foil hat" theories.
As for the lawsuit, it is not merely yet another on top of the many that have already been filed. For a recent list, see:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204A.shtml for Marjorie Cohn's summary at Truthout. A wealth of testimony suggests that huge lines, routinely exceeding two hours and often running from three to seven hours and more, in overwhelmingly Democratic precincts while Republican precincts, was due to a systematic deprivation of adequate voting machines to those precincts; meanwhile, in Republican precincts where turnout exceeded 70%, observers found them empty or nearly empty, as they had plenty of machines to vote on. Such a deliberate pattern constitutes an obvious form of voter fraud. It is observable and verifiable. And testimony -- such as one minister from Youngstown who estimated it cost the Democrats 7000 votes in that city alone -- supports the inevitable conclusion that the number of voters driven away by this artificially created condition was decisive in the outcome in Ohio. Some overwhelmingly black precincts reported fewer voting machines, even only half as many as usual in some cases, being provided even though record turnout was expected.
In Florida 2000, there was no massive class action lawsuit filed on behalf of the many many thousands of disenfranchised black voters in that state. Such a suit would specifically point to the deliberate fraud that was not apparent in the butterfly ballot question, and would not be subject to so easy a dismissal. Further, the Voting Rights Act issues resonate deeply, and an agenda in the court system to dispose of these cases and allow a Bush "victory" would generate serious friction for the system. In all likelihood, it was for that very reason of the strength of such a lawsuit that it was sufficiently disfavored as not to have been filed at all. People gave their lives fighting for the Voting Rights Act, as they did on Omaha Beach and many other venues fighting to defend democracy. Is no litigation organization willing to buck the agenda by embarassing the system by playing the winning card in this situation -- even if it is overwhelmingly likely that the court system will follow its agenda and happily pay the price in embarassment for the power thereby grabbed? Should not this issue be raised to public awareness and accountability, to show, citing but one albeit clearly decisive example, of how the Bush mandate is made out of pure fraud?
The evidence in Ohio has been gathered in a huge and growing mountain of testimony and evidence, with selected portions and analyses being provided by freepress.org, and others. See:
http://www.freepress.org/index2.php. It may be forbidden, when playing with Nero, to lay down the winning card, but even if it is forbidden, such a lawsuit, including but not limited to Voting Rights Act claims on the basis of race (as student districts were deprived of adequate voting machines, including one reported case where over 10,000 registered voters were provided only TWO voting machines, despite a standard that should have required dozens of such machines at that site, to prevent waits in excess of nine hours. The old days of Jim Crow are back in full force -- instead of (overt) poll taxes and literacy tests, we have means equally as effective to prevent the franchise from being exercised. One can only imagine how, given adequate mobilization, the political costs to those committing the fraud could be multiplied, albeit not necessarily to the point of being worth relinquishing power, at least to such a degree as to strengthen the resistance to such a 'creeping coup d'etat' considerably.
Nor is a remedy hard to imagine. Here's one layperson's proposal. Identify those precincts that had a severe inadequacy of voting machines, say, less than one for every 200 registered voters when the guidelines are for one per hundred voters. The number of machines at the end of the day would not be a sufficient guide of personal testimony proves that the average number of voting machines during voting hours was insufficient (one scam involved not listing how many machines there were in precincts at the beginning of the day in the records.) Once these precincts are identified -- amazing that (virtually) ALL would be Democratic, don't you think? -- three criteria are established: 1) a voter must have been validly registered in that precinct on Nov. 2; 2) the records must not reflect that they have already voted; and possibly 3) they are willing to attest that they were deterred from voting by the long lines.
Note that, if a day is set aside with plenty of machines in those precincts for voters meeting those criteria to vote, the Democrats would almost certainly get fewer votes than had the election been handled honestly, as some people meeting those criteria wouldn't bother to vote a second time, probably many more than the number willing to lie under oath about their intentions. Therefore, this remedy is only a stopgap, sufficient in this case to turn the state to Kerry, but in practice overly generous to the Republicans, who really should be subject to prosecution as well as other timely prophylactic measures in the future. Possibly, the courts -- who simply won't overturn a presidential election in the Democrats' favor regardless of the degree of fraud -- would only prescribe 'future remedies' as a sop. But this would need to be challenged, and the political impact should be significant.
The other dimension of the issue is the media. While exit polls that were only THREE percent off, less than in a number of swing states, were sufficient to overturn elections in the Ukraine, in the US the media remains a pack of hounds that didn't bark. While as of Nov. 12, the NY Times ran a cover story unjournalistically claiming that fraud claims about the election raised on the web were being disproven on the web -- when in fact the Votergate theories were only being challenged, not disproven -- further evidence exploded these challenges. For example, a major discrepancy suggesting hacking was found in Florida on the Optical Scan machines (the ideal voting technology, for reasons that can be explained another time) -- with overwhelmingly Democratic Counties registering overwhelming majorities for Bush. It was countered, and immediately accepted as gospel by certain ambitious justifiers of the lying, including with liberal credentials up the wazoo (you know the type), that these were merely Dixiecrat counties in the panhandle that had been trending Republican. On closer inspection, it turns out many of the counties were nowhere near the panhandle and had never voted for the Republican candidate for president in the past. When Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org tried to investigate in Volusia County (Daytona Beach as Dixiecrat country?) she encountered a list of adventures worthy of major coverage, especially since the New York Times had left readers with a false impression on this issue: she was given bogus poll tapes, found copies of the real ones in the garbage that differed from the bogus ones, was threatened with arrest, etc. See:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htmhttp://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htmThere are many many other stories that have surfaced since the unjustified initial pooh poohing of the election fraud issue as "tinfoil hat theory" in the mainstream press, including a major study at UC Berkeley suggesting a vote shift of 130,000 to 260,000 on the e-vote machines. But once the information came out that showed the supposed tinfoil hat theories to be valid in many cases and proven in some, the media went on total lockdown. There wasn't a single article reporting any of these findings in the New York Times, including its op-ed page -- even when bravely calling for the usual suspects of election reform or running a major article in the Magazine on the presidential election in Ohio -- these issues were meticulously avoided. Nor have the major networks or other major national dailies -- a column in the Boston Globe Nov 17 on the eerie media silence being a rare and limited exception -- deviated from the media lockdown. Many major bloggers on the web, Democrats who were beside themselves during the Sinclair flap, are silent or near-silent -- such as Eschaton, spinsanity, and Talking Points memo. Little is to be found at Media Matters of MichaelMoore.com either. This is amazing.
The first step on the media side is for a group -- a small group with limited resources but at least some computer skills and time could do this -- to set up a website specifically devoted to this media dimension of the issue. "Votergate 2004: Media Lockdown" could publicize itself, including on those sites already devoted to votergate, such as:
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book109h.htm and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/People-v-Ohio-n-Florida/. There's also lots of news at Commondreams, Truthout, Freepress.org and other good spots.
This website and other avenues could organize people to pester the mass media with emails and calls, including supposedly progressive bloggers who should be doing more (or something). They need to also organize mass protests directed at the mass media, conveniently in NYC, DC, and LA, heavily blue areas far from any contested election sites where many are eager to be active. A major protest at the major networks and The New York Times, militant but not violent, would be a good place to start.
These two fronts, the litigational and the press, leavened with active and militant organizing must be pursued NOW. For those interested in this, go to the Yahoo groups! website, join that group, and post your idea. You can also find my and other activists emails there. IF YOU CARE ABOUT DEMOCRACY -- NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT, as time is of the essence. We must have this raised to a head by Dec 12, which means that each day is urgently important.
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