to ensure coverage of the Joint Session tomorrow! Everyone around here seems to be convinced that if the election is contested it will be covered by the MSM -- but haven't they let us down over and over and over again so far?
PLEASE use the Media Blaster tonight and tell them to READ Conyers' official report and to COVER the Joint Session of Congress tomorrow --
The MEDIA BLASTER --
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http://www.independentmediasource.com/voteintegrity2_03... >
=====Blast this excellent 'truthout.org' summary (or your own message):
PLEASE cover this historical event: The Joint Meeting of Congress tomorrow January 6, 2005, will be held to receive the votes of the electoral college for president. Representative Conyers' will lead members of the House of Representatives in standing to contest the electoral college votes from Ohio. It is highly likely that they will be joined by a US Senator and that the results of 2004 Presidential Election will be debated and the start of real election reform will have begun.
From "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio", the Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff:
We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected
hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.
In brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
The Ohio Republican Party's decision to engage in preelection "caging" tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from targeting minority voters for poll challenges.
There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25% each - accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president.
There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting records of Perry county show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known thirdparty candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; (vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush.
You can access the complete 102-page report here:
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml >