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Wake Up, Cape Cod    

  Who actually won the last two presidential elections?  Are you sure?  With mounting evidence of election irregularities and outright fraud, it is impossible to have confidence in the results of any national election. 

Do Our Votes Really Count? 

*    Leon County, Florida recently found out how easily their Diebold electronic voting machines can be hacked into and votes changed. "I am positive an eighth grader could do this" said Herbert Thompson, computer science professor and software tester.  [Miami Herald, 12/15/05]  Diebold machines are in operation all over the country!

*   Many e-voting machines have no "paper trail" and when errors occur there is no recourse and critical recounts cannot take place.  Congress has had numerous bills presented over the past two years to correct this problem but has not passed a single one.  The most promising has been held up in committee since 2004. [VerifiedVoting.org and BlackBoxVoting.org]

*   Many other examples of manipulating the system and influencing and suppressing votes are documented in "What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Election"  [2005].

*   In our view, voting fraud was so extensive in 2004 that it almost certainly changed the outcome of the Presidential election   The full extent of this is detailed in Mark Crispin Miller's book "Fooled Again", [2005] 

Why is this information not more widely known?

We must have adequate safeguards against election fraud now!  That is one of the critical projects of Wake Up Cape Cod [formerly CREAD] and we need your help.  It can’t happen without pressure from large groups on our elected officials.   Contact us for information, to add your voice to this campaign and to find out about upcoming public forums. 

 Sponsored by:   Wake Up Cape Cod - A Committee of Correspondence

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NOVEMBER 2004 ELECTION

Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.
(Josef Stalin)

I paint my face and travel by night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know until election night.
(Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, describing winning elections by "guerilla warfare", to the Virginia Norfolk-Pilot in 1991)

There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government. (Thomas Jefferson)

2004

John Kerry lost; George Bush won, or did he?

Some call it miraculous since:

• At election time, Bush approval rating was low for a sitting candidate, in the 40’s.
• The Democrats were fiercely united.
• Democrats nationwide had recruited new voters 5:1 over Republicans.
• The Republicans were divided, with many prominent Republicans urging voters NOT to vote for Bush; e.g. John Eisenhower (Ike’s son), former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, Ballard Morton, Doug Bandlow, neoconservative Francis Fukuyama, Hillary Cleveland and others.
• 60 newspapers in red states did NOT endorse Bush in ’04 though they had in ’00.
• Voter turnout in ’04 was over 60%, favoring the Democrats (121 million voted in 2004; 104 million in 2000).
• The exit polls predicted a Kerry win.

What went wrong?

Evidence is copious that all across the country, the Bush machine used whatever it took to cut down the Kerry vote and increase the Bush vote:

• There was widespread suppression of the Democratic, minority and college student vote by intimidation tactics, rejection of registration applications, restriction of provisional ballots, misinformation, and failure to provide absentee ballots.
  
• In 21 states, there were complaints of touch screen voting machines "flipping" votes cast for Kerry into Bush votes.
  
• There was a systematic oversupply of voting machines to red precincts so voters were able to vote quickly, while insufficient voting machines (especially in swing states but in numerous other states) led to long lines in blue precincts.
  
• Exit polls in 5 of 6 swing states foretold a Kerry victory, yet Bush won the vote count. This discrepancy, usually an indication of electoral mischief, was ignored by the press (yet a similar discrepancy between exit polls and the vote count in the Ukraine resulted in widespread US and world press condemnation of the election which Viktor Yuschenko had lost. Millions of voters took to the streets in nonviolent demonstrations. The Ukrainian Supreme Court (!!) ordered a new election which was handily won by Yuschenko).
  
• Suppression of the expatriate vote: In 2004, there were approximately 7 million Americans living abroad, 6.5 million civilians, predominantly Democrats, and 500,000 military, predominantly Republican. This voting bloc is often referred to as the "51^st state". A Pentagon website was by law the clearinghouse site for expatriates to access the registration process, get absentee ballots from home states and find out electoral requirements. The website mysteriously went down in Aug/Sept ‘04 so people couldn’t get their ballots in time to send them back. 43% of would-be voters never got their ballots or got them too late. In contrast, the military were sent millions of ballots.
  
• The electronic touch-screen voting machines used by 21% of our electorate are not reliable because they are eminently hackable, their program codes are secret and are not shared with election officials, they provide no paper trail for later audits of the vote, and officials of all three major companies (Diebold, ES and S,and Sequoia) are heavy Republican contributors; thus the vendors are linked to one party. The vote can be accessed from afar via modem and can be changed without trace. These machines COUNTED the votes of 21% of the electorate.
  
• If a recount was called for, as there is no paper trail, a second count generates the same results as the first (i.e. another copy of the original results). Although ATMs and gas station credit card machines are produced by these same companies and provide paper receipts for these transactions, they cannot or will not provide a back-up paper ballot/receipt for our all-important votes!!
  
• The Motor Voter Laws enacted in 19 states provided that citizens could register to vote as they obtained or updated their driver’s licenses. There were widespread problems in these states as people were not on the rolls when they went to vote although they had previously registered at their DMVs.
  
• In numerous states, especially swing states, Democratic voters were phoned and told that they were to vote on Wednesday, Nov 3, and not on the 2^nd. Signs to that effect were posted in minority neighborhoods and placed on doorhandles.

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Some regional examples of what happened in 2004 (not complete as there were thousands of events but give the flavor of the disenfranchisement and interference with the vote) include the following:

In OHIO, there were two Watergate-like evening break-ins in Akron (July) and Toledo (Sept) wherein computers were stolen from Democratic offices. The data taken included lists of names of party members, candidate master schedules, strategy analyses, financial information and lists of registered voters and likely Kerry voters.

Poll watchers for Kerry on election day found that 10-20% of registered Democratic voters were missing from the lists at the polling places so that when the voters appeared to vote, they were could not do so.

In OHIO, there were 93,000 "spoiled" ballots with no vote cast for president. There was no follow-up or analysis of them.

In OHIO, in Miami County, voter turnout was an improbable 98.55%, and after 100% of precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 votes were recorded for Bush.

In Hamilton County, voters could not vote for Kerry as his name was not on the ballot.

In OHIO, during the so-called recount, one of the voting machine companies gave the counties "cheat sheets" telling them how many undervotes and overvotes they needed to come up with to match the machine count.

In OHIO, the Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, was also co-chair of the OH Bush campaign, and he hampered fair voting for all in numerous ways detailed in the references below. In spring ’06, it was revealed that he had stock holdings in Diebold voting machine company.

In SOUTH CAROLINA, a posse of Republican challengers descended on Benedict College (African-American) demanding to see the students’ ID’s, resulting in a 4 hour wait to vote. Students were told to clear out and not bother to vote because "Bush was going to win anyway".

In ALABAMA and TEXAS, minority students were (erroneously) told that they had to go back to their own states to vote.

In ARIZONA, Fox News reported locally on 8/31/04 that AZ students from out-of-state could not vote unless they planned to reside in AZ after graduation, and that it would be a felony if they attempted to vote in AZ. Fox was informed that this was in error and they broadcast the misinformation again on 9/9/04

In FLORIDA, provisional ballots were trashed; early voting was allowed but Democratic polling places were insufficient in number and insufficiently staffed; "caging" tactics were employed in minority areas wherein legal voters were challenged, harassed, and lied to ("you can’t vote if you missed your child support payment"). Voters’ cars were towed while they were in voting (or trying to vote).

In FLORIDA, purge lists for felons were again, as in 2000, used to exclude thousands of legitimate voters, disproportionately Democratic and Black.

In FLORIDA, polling places were closed or secretly relocated on election day.

In FLORIDA, voting machines all over the state malfunctioned in Bush’s favor. Machines would not accept Kerry votes, or "flipped" Kerry votes to Bush.

This happened in OHIO, too. Both were important swing states which handed Bush his "victory".

In NORTH CAROLINA, which allowed early voting (one third of voters voted early), there was a tight consistency between the overall vote, the early and absentee vote and the election day poll site results for all local and state races except the senatorial and presidential races (Bush beat Kerry and Burr beat Bowles).

In Charlotte, NC’s largest city, Sequoia machines insisted on a vote for Bush/Cheney and Kerry votes were "flipped" to Bush.

In KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, MISSOURI, TEXAS, and NEBRASKA, voting machines broke down, froze, turned off, and changed Kerry votes to Bush in Democratic precincts.

In IOWA, registration forms were thrown out on technicalities, and voters were misidentified as felons and thrown off the rolls.

In NEW MEXICO, 20,000 provisional ballots were given to Hispanic Democratic voters.

A judge in Bernalillo County discarded all provisional votes for Kerry, retained those for Bush. Touch screens in Democratic counties reported high undervotes, i.e. no vote for president, presumably Kerry in a Democratic district, on ballots otherwise filled in with votes for other offices. There were low undervotes in Republican areas. Total of 18,000 undervotes. Bush won NM by 7047 votes.

In PENNSYLVANIA, robocalls (automated computer calls) to voters in Democratic areas with a Bill Clinton-like voice advised Republicans to vote on Nov. 2 and Democrats to vote on Nov. 3.

Democratic district voters stood in long lines up to 5 hours. At the U. of Pittsburgh, students were held up for hours by GOP challenges. Areas with Democratic majorities ran out of provisional ballots. "Official" letters were sent to Philadelphia election workers at the 1681 polling places instructing them to check the voters’ signatures before they could vote, in violation of local election law. In the city of Mercer, touch screens malfunctioned repeatedly, some requiring voters to vote backwards (last page to first).

In MINNESOTA, the Republican Secretary of State refused to give Kerry people forms for voter registration. A statewide new voter registration system was put in place before the bugs were worked out, making for electoral disaster during the month before election day.

In WISCONSIN, a "Milwaukee Black Voters League" warned people to avoid the polls if any family member had been convicted of a crime, even a minor one. They were told they would face "10 years in prison and their children taken away" if they tried to vote.

Robocalls to voters with (false) "NARAL" on the caller ID urged votes for Bush.

In SOUTH DAKOTA, Sioux voters were harassed at the polls; they were followed and their auto license plate numbers were recorded; voters were photographed. Anti-Daschle racist literature was mailed to white voters warning them that "prairie dogs" (epithet for Native-Americans) would be voting for (Sen.Tom) Daschle, who was referred to as "el Diablo".

In MICHIGAN, African-American voters in Detroit, Flint, Pontiac and Grand Rapids received robocalls on the last weekend of the campaign telling them (falsely) that their "voting places had been changed". Other calls gave out the message "Remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting Kerry".

Some updates on ’04

The GAO (Government Accounting Office) which reports to Congress issued a report in October 2005 on the safety of electronic voting. It indicated that:

· E-voting machines did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs and it was possible to alter both without being detected.

· It is possible for votes for one candidate to be recorded for a different candidate.

· Vendors installed uncertified versions of voter system software at the local level.

· Access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digitally-recording electronic voting systems (DRE’s) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network.

In Leon City, FL in December 2005, Finnish security expert Harry Hursti proved that Diebold had misinformed secretaries of state and other election officials when it claimed votes could not be changed on the memory card. He used a credit card sized memory card and changed the results of the votes cast, in an experiment with known votes. It sent the incorrect vote to the central tabulator which pulls in votes from all the machines and it read the programmed incorrect vote.

Similar tests have been conducted on machines in CA with similar results.

ELECTION 2000 Update

In FL 2000, Presidential candidate Gore "lost" by 537 votes when the Supreme Court stopped the FL recount. Gore had won the US popular vote by over 500,000 votes.

A recently published book on the ’00 FL vote by Lance deHaven Smith: The Battle for Florida, analyzes that vote. He found that there were 175,000 "spoiled" ballots (under and overvotes). 116,500 were overvotes; the majority were for Gore. Some were for Bush. Here, people punched a vote for Gore, and then wrote him in, too. This happened mostly in Democratic and minority areas. The author speculates that voters used to being disenfranchised wanted to be sure that their votes were counted for their candidate.

Florida law says "no vote shall be declared invalid or void if there is a clear indication of the intent of the vote". There was no question of the voters’ intent in these ballots, but they were disenfranchised by the Supremes. Had the votes been counted, Gore would have won FL and thus the election and it would have been President Gore, not Bush.

ELECTION 2002

There were extraordinary upsets in MN, GA, CO, all to GOP advantage, with a sudden 4-seat margin in the Senate.

In MINNESOTA, Democrat senatorial candidate Mondale was ahead in the polls, 50% or higher before election day. Republican Norm Coleman, persistently at 45% during the campaign, won the election by 5 percentage points. Diebold machines were used.

In COLORADO, Democrat Tom Strickland was ahead in the polls by election day, but Republican Wayne Allard won by 5 percentage points. Diebold voting machines were used.

In GEORGIA, Democrat Max Cleland, the Vietnam war hero, narrowly ahead in the polls after a sleaze campaign against him, was beaten by slacker (deferment) Republican Saxby Chambliss who had never been ahead in the polls. Diebold machines were used.

Diebold supervised the whole election without the oversight of state officials.

The governor’s race the same year had the Democratic candidate, widely ahead in the polls by election day, losing to the Republican candidate.

*********************************

The full story on the ‘04 election is detailed in the references which follow, and what is written here is derived from those references and from an April ‘06 appearance of one of the authors, Mark Crispin Miller, on c-span. Much of what is written here was presented by Stephanie G. Wall, MD and Ed Mangiafico at a January 2006 forum on the subject held at Cape Cod Community College and sponsored by Wake Up Cape Cod.  Click Here for Sample Election Forum Announcement. Click Here for Election Fraud Resources.

If you think that this couldn’t happen here, i.e. that Presidential and Senatorial races could be stolen from those candidates who actually won in the good old USA, ask yourself this: would a President who lied our country into a horrific illegal war over oil in Iraq, who spies on and wiretaps US citizens, who sets aside habeas corpus and imprisons citizens and others without charges, without access to lawyers, without bail, without informing their families, without revealing their names publicly, a President who allows torture against all US and international laws and treaties, who threatens use of nuclear weapons and eschews diplomacy in dealing with Iran, who has dismantled our government and outsourced it to cronies, who was unprepared for 9/11 and Katrina though warned of both, who has thrown the country into huge debt payable by the next generations, who has played reverse robinhood in stealing from the poor and enriching the already rich, a President whose best friends are war profiteers…would a President like this be capable of stealing an election???

WHAT TO DO: HOW TO GET STARTED WORKING FOR FAIR, HONEST AND TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS

Go to the following web link: www.caef.us/nextsteps.html

References:

• Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them). Mark Crispin Miller; Basic Books, October 2005
• What Went Wrong in Ohio. The Conyers Report on the 2004 Election. Rep. John Conyers; Anita Miller, ed.; January 2005
• The Battle for Florida. An Annotated Compendium of Materials from the 2000 Presidential Election. Lance deHaven Smith; University press of Florida, June 2005
• "Battlefield Florida", a chat with Lance deHaven Smith, by Julian Pecquet, in
• Research and Review Magazine, Florida State University, Fall/Winter, 2005
• Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21^st Century. Bev Harris. 2003

Websites: 

• www.blackboxvoting.org 
• www.freepress.org 
• www.verifiedvoting.org 
• www.votersunite.org 
• www.caef.us 
• www.bushstole04.com 

Attendees are encouraged to read "FOOLED AGAIN, HOW THE RIGHT STOLE THE 2004 ELECTION…" BY MARK CRISPIN MILLER (Basic Books, 2005)