Sunday, December 19, 2004
Electors across US break traditional pro forma ritual to use electoral college to protest election violations
Truth in Elections*
49 Francesca Ave.,
Somerville, MA 02144
617-625-3166
*In conjunction with United Progressives for Democracy
and Massachusetts Coalition Against Election Fraud
For immediate release
Across the US electors in at least five states,
for the first time
in history, turned the heavily scripted and ritualized electoral
college proceedings into a forum for political action. Frustrated by
the relative inattention to wide spread real voting violations now
numbering in the tens of thousands, Electors called for
congressional investigation and legislative action.
Vermont electors, on the record and in front of TV cameras and a
number of statewide media outlets, expressed their concerns for our
democracy with “57,000 complaints already received by the
Congressional Judiciary Committee, we call on Congress and
especially our Vermont Congressional delegation to investigate.”
They enumerated credible violations affecting hundreds of thousands
of voters across the US, Elector Jeffrey Taylor reports.
As described in local news reports, for the first time in history,
Electors in Maine also went on the record using the voting process
to “call for national voting reforms.” Their statement pointed to
the kind of electoral reforms Maine has that lead to more genuine
elections, such as same day registration, allowing ex-felons to
vote, and clean election reforms "but our four electoral votes are
held meaningless if our sister states cannot hold elections that are
fair, accurate and verifiable," Elector Lu Bauer said after the
brief ceremony at the State House.
Most extraordinarily,
one elector in California cast his ballot
provisional upon “all votes being counted – provisional, absentee,
under- and overvotes, computerized without paper ballots, even
getting valid votes from those turned away illegally, intimidated,
discouraged by incredibly long waits, etc.” This incredible act as a
creative attempt to get this message read on the floor of Congress
when they open the ballots on January 6 to consider whether to
certify the vote.
“Never has such a vote been cast by an elector and without a
parliamentarian to rule it in or out at the electoral college level,
we await whether Congress will acknowledge this type of provisional
vote and address the issues this elector sought to raise or whether
they too will ignore provisional votes,” said Grace Ross, an
organizer of the national effort to support electors to take action
and a member of Truth in Elections.
Even in North Carolina where lack of “swing state” status left local
voting violations relatively invisible,
Democratic Electors and
local activists spoke out about local problems while Republican
Electors voted inside. Elector Mary Roe spoke of problems she
herself witness as an election observer in her own county as well as
saying that “everyone deserves to have their votes counted” while
deploring the 4,500 votes NC election officials acknowledged
disappeared in a computerized voting machine crash.
Link:
http://minorjive.typepad.com/hungryblues/2004/12/electors_across.htmlSorry for the long post but I am proud that my efforts with the electors in NC made it into the press release!!!
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