"The people who cast the votes decide nothing!
The people who count the votes decide everything!"

After spending 6 months auditing various precincts in Tucson, Arizona and how Pious Poll Workers used “Provisionals” as a trick and switch vote for Bush. HAVA really should be called HAVA-GATE.

If you look here (http://www.bbvforums.org...2&post=7452#POST7452) you'll see a further comment by Bev Harris on the absence of the media at the "alternative hearing":

"Pokey Anderson was there --- other than that, the press was missing in action. Which is why, immediately after the election, in a massive distribution nationwide to over 10,000 activists, Black Box Voting instigated the "Be your own media" push --- in fact, you can see the suggestions we sent out at the time, in the consumer reports division of the forums. This is a dangerous story for the media --- especially the voting machine hacking portions of it. We should expect that the media may not cover the story adequately, and we must be our own media to counteract that."

Yikes.

Given the shocking absence of conventional media coverage, the six or seven of us will have to do what we can to make sure the word gets out.

I found it equally shocking that the 3 members of the Carter-Baker commission who were at the "alternative" hearing didn't bother staying to hear any of the contributions from the various speakers who are the real experts on election reform. This underlines and adds to the complete lack of credibility of the Carter-Baker commission. The fact that members of the "official" Carter-Baker commission didn't bother staying to hear testimony by election experts is newsworthy in itself.

This also shows the media to be a complete sham. Not just the MSM--ALL the media. Where were the likes of Democracy Now, Pacifica, NPR etc.?

Lots of work by all of us will be needed to put pressure on ALL the media to cover this.

I hope all of y'all are on the ground in your county, your parish, your state; working for paper ballots. Here in TN we have local (alledgedly Democrat led) election commissioners who, because they are appointed, are specifically allowed to do election "consulting" work. Strangely, many, if not most, election commissioners are in favor of their county purchasing no-paper-trail computer voting machines. Hmmmm... Wonder if anybody's been consulting with Diebold or ES&S.... This is the latest revalation in our fight in our state, and shows the difficulty of this battle.

My point is, we can complain about the last election all we want, we can complain about the Downing St. memo, we can yell that Dubya should be impeached, but until we have free and fair elections, we're all screwed. The bad guys own the system right now, and we've got to take it back. And we have to do it fairly. Without free and fair elections, we have no chance of taking back Congress and perhaps bringing on impeachment.
So go see your election commissioners! Show them the evidence! Speak at your local service clubs, churches, anywhere folks meet and will give you the floor. We got a lotta work to do and not much time to do it.
Here in TN, we have a group that is working towards convincing each election commission that they need to buy systems (since many are, through the Help America Vote Act - HAVA) with a voter-verifiable paper ballot. We want also to convince the legislature in the next session that they need to make paper ballots the law here. We missed the boat last session - we were busy throwing the National Election Reform Conference - and we were a little ignorant of the process - but will be rockin' hard for the next one.

That's it from Tennessee. Let's go to work, y'all.
peace,
Shannon

I heard Carter speak on Fresh Air not long ago and he came out strongly in favor of electronic machines having voter verified paper ballots. He also seemed very concerned about American elections.

What happened to him? Now Baker is his best friend and the only concern about elections is false registration?

Wow. There goes my last political hero. Thank God I have a new one in Conyers.

In case you didn't see this on another thread, I copy the following from an earlier post:

There is still a big gap in the understanding of many people around the nature and kinds of vulnerabilities involved in electronic voting.

BBV is due to come out with a number of reports in the next week. One major Technical Report is due out on July 4 or sooner, and others are to follow soon after. These reports deal with the hackable memory cards on the optical scanners, the hackable counting computer, the audit logs for Palm Beach Co. (FL), what was revealed by analysis of these logs, and recommendations on what is needed for "ground-up" reform of our election system rather than window dressing.

There are new video clips on the BBV website, including one in which ballots and official signed poll tapes were discovered in a trash bag due to be taken to the dump. (BBV made out a FOIA request on the spot in order to access the documents in the trash bag and prevent them from being destroyed.)

It is exciting to see the fruits of patient, careful investigative work coming to light.

Cath #3
It is not shocking that 3 members of the commission left that hearing. It is shocking that they showed up in the first place. What for! The commission report was probably written long ago.

Another 'white wash' in action. Don't they ever run out of that stuff?

Catherine - I'm wondering what your take is on this - the fact that even the alternative media is ignoring this... We all know our Dem leaders have been deadly silent on it - even Dr Dean who personally hacked into the tabulator himself! Is it possible that elections have always been rigged and we're the only ones who actually thought our votes counted? What is going on???

What's going on is these folks have conspired to make sure the vote doesn't count...

The Democratic Leadership Committee.

http://www.prospect.org/...nt/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.html

You're going to have to do something about this to stop it from happening, and that means taking it to the streets.

Doug

Doug #9 - Thank you for this article. I guess somewhere along the line - as the Radical Regressives grew more and more blatant in their lies and propaganda spewing - I started seeing the Dems as "the good guys." Plus, as a General Clark supporter I know there are some good Dems - General Clark being an exceptional, honest, true blue liberal Dem himself.

I almost wish General Clark would run as an Independent. He likely won't get the backing of the party because he won't play to the corporate masters... He was pretty much blacked out during the primaries and I guess it'll be more of the same if he decides to run in '08...

Very sad right now, especially with the 4th of July coming up and feeling like my country is gone...

On the other hand, only the DNC can stop the corrupt Democratic Leadership Committee.

That means everyone needs to sponsor them to fight very very hard, for not only election reform, but govt. reform.

http://www.democrats.org

Doug E.

#10 Jen I'm with you on General Clark. He is a good man. I was a supporter (thanks to my wife who "discovered" him in our family...) and met him when he came to Nashville before our primary, even got interviewed on NPR about him.
But then I saw and heard him speak at the Dem rally. Al Gore, former Gov. McWherter (a TN hero...), Gov. Bredesen (a fairly wooden speaker himself...), a Kerry rep and John Edwards. Clark was absolutely the worst pol in the group. He rode up in the front seat of his bus, talking on his cell. We're waving wildly and he's not noticing us. He gets off the bus, we're cheering, he seems disoriented, has to be pushed over to the line to shake hands. He was nailed to his podium giving his stump speech, didn't seem to need his notes, was just stuck there, looking uncomfortable, reciting his memorized dull lines. All I can say is that Wes Clark, as a presidential candidate, made a great General.
Later saw Edwards work the line and he was almost Bill Clintonesque, made each person feel he only cared about them for the few seconds he grasped their hand and looked in their eye. And did a great stage roaming, discussion/speech that was only topped by Gore's roaring stem-winder. We Tennesseans just wished he'd have run again, if he'd really found himself...

Shannon, I'm afraid all Democratic candidates have the same problem (nothing personal toward Gore or Edwards).

The problem is the Democratic hierarchy, especially the DNC. Two consecutive elections have been stolen from them, and they can't utter the word "fraud." In fact, they're going out of their way now to deny it. Your man Al Gore was the first victim, and he's talked about everything else EXCEPT election fraud. Kerry and Edwards have been silent...and Bubba Clinton said Bush won "fair and square." Preposterous.

Democrats are truly pathetic, Shannon. They think if they bug more people for money, and harp on issues, they can change the landscape...but what assurance does anyone have that the 2006 and 2008 elections won't be stolen, too? Why should any sane person give people like that a nickel?

Jen #8
As to why even the more liberal segements of the press aren't reporting on this, perhaps this has something to do with it.

RLM #13
Sad but true, I must agree with you. The Dems do not have clean hands. Sure I'd prefer them to who we've got. But they are almost all in the pockets of vested interests. Dem's funding comes from virtually the same corporate sources as the GOP's. They all do the bidding of their moneyed supporters--not the general public. Some are a lot better or a lot worse than others. But the system of campaign financing (not to mention the system of voting/counting) guarantees that we have a plutocracy and not a democracy.

And Dems have been involved in election fraud to a huge extent and over a long time. The recently proven optical scanning hacks are in machines used in many heavily Democratic areas. This is not meant to underestimate the extent of GOP election fraud, but rather to explain why Dems have not been outspoken about electronic voting issues and why they studiously avoid using the "fraud" word. They don't want anyone to look too closely, either.

Shannon - You've just about talked me into support Clark!

Sorry, but I will have trouble 'supporting' anybody for reasons already expressed in this thread.
I 'supported' Kerry --as the ABB of the time--and was severly dissapointed. He had a mountain of material but never kicked a bit of sand at bush. He only called 'them' liars by accident with his back turned and a mic open, once.

There is a guy in my area running for a congressional seat, he says he lost last time in a 'close' election, within the margin of error--send money now! He lost 65% to 34%!!! Close?

To me this guy would fit in with most of the rest of the Democratic Congressional representatives who failed time and time again to stand for anything. In other words the promise to "Fight for You" goes out the window the second a lobbyist offers up a free ride to somewhere.

Conyers, Boxer and a few others are special but rare. The rest fall all over themselves avoiding or apologizing and voting with the mob.

:O