Nashville conference on election reform/election justice, April 8-10

[Fly by night]

I am writing to invite all Marylanders to join us at a national conference on the 2004 election and the need for election reform that we are hosting in Nashville on April 8-10. We would certainly appreciate as many election reform activists as possible from Maryland attending the conference and helping promote this historic Gathering far and wide. A web-link to the conference is: www.freepress.org/conf.php

We look forward to welcoming grassroots activists from around the country for this national Gathering To Save Our Democracy. The speakers we have assembled are among the most notable in the election reform and election justice movement. The following is a partial list of speakers who have committed to come and speak --we are still working on involving Congresspeople and other prominent activists:

Bernard Ellis, Gathering To Save Our Democracy
Civil rights leaders: Tommie Morton-Young, Sonnye Dixon, Charles Kimbrough
Michael Grant, TN NAACP Statewide coordinator, Voting Rights Act celebrations
Cliff Arnebeck, Moss v. Bush
Bob Fitrakis, Moss v. Bush, www.freepress.org
Leatrice Tolls, Ohio recount volunteer
R.H. Phillips, Ohio election fraud researcher
Joanne Roush, Ohio recount volunteer
Bernard Windham, Election Incident Reporting System
Judith Alter, New Mexico
Paul Lehto, Washington state
John Gideon, votersunite.org
Kathy Dopp, USCountVotes
Jonathan Simon, exit poll researcher
Brad Friedman, BradBlog/Velvet Revolution
Democratic Underground spokesman
David Cobb, Presidential candidate, Green Party
Lara Shaffer, Open Voting Consortium (OVC)
Susan Truitt, CASE-America
Phil Fry, CASE-Ohio
Larry Quick, National Ballot Integrity Project
Teresa Hommel, Where’s The Paper/OVC
Larry English, Information Impact International
David Lytel, Honest Elections Campaign
Clinton Curtis, Whistle-Blower
Andy Stephenson, election audit expert
Emily Levy, election fraud researcher
(and many more to come)

As you can see from this list and the information available at the web-link, we are drawing a large number of prominent researchers and election reform activists and you would be a worthy and appropriate addition. This will be a rare opportunity for Marylanders that should not be missed.

Please use the following information to promote the conference on your listservs and to your election reform email lists. This information contains a web-link where people can obtain more information about the conference, can register and (if they can't attend) can donate to help cover conference expenses. People who donate to support the conference will receive videotapes of the twelve hours of plenary sessions. If any of you have questions, please get back in touch. Come on, Maryland, let's join with other states in our region to show the nation we care about election reform and election justice.
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On April 8-10, 2005, a Tennessee grassroots organization, Gathering To Save Our Democracy, will be hosting a national conference in Nashville, Tennessee focusing on the 2004 election and the need for election reform. The conference program will include plenary sessions with nationally prominent election reform speakers as well as pre- and post-conference discussion groups on a host of important topics. This conference is intended to bring persons of all political persuasions together to discuss current threats to our democratic process and ways to achieve meaningful election reform and election justice. At present, we have people coming from 20 states to the conference.

On Friday evening, April 8, we will convene at the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church (which holds 500+) to hear from 1960s civil rights veterans about what it took to obtain voting rights and what it will take to hold onto them. We will also hear update reports from five states involved in post-election investigations of election fraud: Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Washington and North Carolina. On Saturday, we will hear updates from national researchers on the 2004 election, we'll discuss the role of the media in the post-election period and we'll review national and local strategies for election reform and election justice.

The on-line link to our conference information and registration is as follows: www.freepress.org/conf.php .

We look forward to welcoming many grassroots activists from around the country for a very meaningful Gathering To Save Our Democracy. Thanks for your help and consideration in attending the conference and promoting it widely. We look forward to seeing many of you in Nashville on April 8-10. Again, the link is: www.freepress.org/conf.php

Bernie Ellis, Organizer (931/682-2864)
Gathering To Save Our Democracy

[Fly by night]

1. Kick