NEW - CAMERON F. KERRY "Next time the electoral votes are tallied..."

[dzika]

Counting every vote

By Cameron F. Kerry | January 6, 2005

SO NOW the votes in Ohio have been recounted, and it's time for Congress to tally the Electoral College. But while the election is over, a fight goes on to protect everyone's right to vote and make sure every vote is counted.

I wish it weren't so, but the final facts look like the picture on the morning of Nov. 3 when my brother, John Kerry, ended his campaign for president. As campaign leaders sat in a Boston war room overlooking a dwindling Election Night rally in the plaza below, on the phone was a team of smart, tough veterans who know how to count votes and how votes get counted. All were veterans of Florida in 2000 who would have jumped at a rematch with Karl Rove and James Baker III.

In the room was Deval Patrick, former assistant attorney general for civil rights. In Washington was Michael Whouley, the never-say-die loyalist who stopped Al Gore from conceding; Jack Corrigan, who helped fight Bush v. Gore in the courts and the precincts; and Robert Bauer and Marc Elias, leading election lawyers and Kerry campaign counsel. On the phone from Ohio was the chief of the legal team there, David Sullivan, longtime election counsel for the Massachusetts secretary of state, who himself was a plaintiff more than 30 years ago in a lawsuit to register college students and -- with me -- a defendant in unsuccessful lawsuit brought against us for properly challenging vote fraud.

They were backed by 3,300 lawyers on Ohio's election protection team, part of more than 17,000 Kerry-Edwards lawyers nationwide. They were joined by 8,000 lawyers with the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition of the NAACP, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, People for the American Way, and other organizations and thousands more lay volunteers and observers.

-snip-

(He holds the punchline for the very last sentence)

Next time the electoral votes are tallied, every American citizen should be able to know that his or vote has counted



continued

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. Too Tired To Read Between The Lines

She's probably talking about counting the votes in '08. Perhaps when jk runs again. Maybe not, but we should wait and see. Interesting read though.

[kerrygoddess]

8. He's not she's

Cameron Kerry is John Kerry's younger brother.

[Pachamama]

2. How about -"The next time the Electoral Vote is to be certified, lets make

sure its verified!"

Interesting article to come out today...Something might be up...but I'm still sick to my stomach and am questioning Kerry...I was in Ohio election day...this election was not clean...they know it...why aren't they fighting for it?

[senegal1]

4. Maybe if they had a poor black voter or single mom in that room

someone would have said something different -- like sometimes its worth doing something not because you won't win but because its right.

[Pachamama]

7. If I had been in that room, I guarantee that they wouldn't have dared to

walk away...

Uneffing believable....they are so full of shit...unless this is a red herring, they rolled over....

[ZRB]

3. Easily hack-able tabulators and voting-machines defaulting to Bush

with no paper trail. Massive exit poll discrepancies.


There's your fucking fraud, lawyers.

[dzika]

5. It sounds similar to John Kerry's letter to me.

It's all about election reform and 'next time'. The timing is odd.

Are the doing a tandem-head-fake?

[KatieB]

30. I just read a DUER who even has North and South Carolina results peaking

for Bush in the oddest way around the same time. (@8:45 pm) I mean Cameron - do you have your head in the sand?

[understandinglife]

6. C'mon Cameron you can do better than this puke; read Conyers ...

...'STATUS report'; think about if for a second or two, dude; then check all the data for PN, IN, TX, NM, FL, ........; WE HAVE NO ELECTION.

I sure hope this is some kind of 'cover' for your brother as he makes his way into DC during the dark hours of 6 Jan 2005 and appears at 1pm EST where he belongs -- as an elected representative of the people -- in the Joint Session of the 109th US Congress and does what he and every other member of both Houses should do.

Halt this stinking lie of an 'election'; investigate it to the bone; prosecute any and every criminal act against our fellow citizens; and hold a valid presidential election.

If the folk in the Ukraine can do it, shouldn't America be able to, as well. Hell, our tax $$$$ paid for the 'infrastructure' in the Ukraine (i.e., exit polls and more) so that they could get it done properly, even if it took a re-vote.

Your choice Cameron; part of the pavement or riding on the steamroller.

Hint: "We The People" are now driving the steamroller....

Peace.

[Pachamama]

9. The comment that is interesting in that article.....

"Only the discovery of wholesale fraud might change the outcome."

Hmmmm....is this all a red herring?

:eyes:

[understandinglife]

16. Perhaps. I certainly do not doubt their knowledge or experience...

....and I remain hopeful that they understand the art of 'gambetto' better than anyone.

But, facts are what they are, and if they read Conyers 'STATUS' report on just OH, they know that any member of Congress who does not support a challenge to those electors and demand an investigation are aiding and abetting crimes, federal and state.

That's just the starter course -- then they have to go deep in the details of OH, and then FL, and then NM, and then Snohomish and Yakima counties in WA, and, and, and, ........

So, I give all of them the benefit of the doubt until 1pm EST 6 Jan 2005.

What each of them does, including Senator Kerry, during that Joint Session and in what better be subsequent, separate House and Senate sessions will mark each of their legacies in stone and will inform those of us who intend to hold them accountable 24/7 until we have a legitimately elected President/VP. Their choice: the options are simple -- they will either qualify themselves as worthy employees of "We The People", or not (and, if not, they may well be candidates for incarceration, as well as being unemployed congresspersons).

Peace.

[Pachamama]

21. Well said....tommorrow at 1PM EST is D-Day for Democracy & the Dems

"they will either qualify themselves as worthy employees of "We The People", or not"

Namaste :hi:

[Alizaryn]

10. Thank you for sharing that. He must be SO frustrated.

[candice]

11. The Ohio Recount was a SHAM!!!!!!!!!!

"Now that the votes in Ohio have been recounted" -- 3 percent selected to match the totals so all wouldn't have to be recounted. What about all the undervotes in Democratic counties and Blackwell's unending efforts to thwart the letter of the law regarding recounts in Ohio. FRAUD here makes one question the integrity of the Ohio vote. Can't we just have a revote (with adequate machines in Dem districts, provisional ballots that count, machines that don't default to Bush, voter registration rolls that are current, etc., etc.

[EuroObserver]

12. But.... the Ohio recount

...is in fact not yet over.

[genius]

13. This a sell-out. Kerry won U.S.will be dead in four more years of Bush.

It's looking more and more like Kerry is on Bush's team.

[Senator]

14. Sounds to me like they've found "inner peace through ignorance">>

My letter to the Globe:

Editors:

It's great to see that Cameron F. Kerry has found peace about the "loss" of the election by his brother. We all might find that kind of peace should we engage in the level of ignorance, willful or not, the he and his brother clearly engage in.

He claims that it's time to "tally the Electoral College" and have it over.

This is simply false. As Justice Stephen Breyer tried to point out to Congress in 2000, in his dissent to BushvGore, their sworn duty is not to "tally", but to count votes they have personally determined to be legal.

"The legislative history of the Act makes clear its intent to commit the power to resolve such disputes to Congress, rather than the courts:

'The two Houses are, by the Constitution, authorized to make the count of electoral votes. They can only count legal votes, and in doing so must determine, from the best evidence to be had, what are legal votes .... The power to determine rests with the two Houses, and there is no other constitutional tribunal.' H. Rep. No. 1638, 49th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1886) (report submitted by Rep. Caldwell, Select Committee on the Election of President and Vice-President).

The Member of Congress who introduced the Act added:

'The power to judge of the legality of the votes is a necessary consequent of the power to count. The existence of this power is of absolute necessity to the preservation of the Government. The interests of all the States in their relations to each other in the Federal Union demand that the ultimate tribunal to decide upon the election of President should be a constituent body, in which the States in their federal relationships and the people in their sovereign capacity should be represented.' 18 Cong. Rec. 30 (1886).

'Under the Constitution who else could decide? Who is nearer to the State in determining a question of vital importance to the whole union of States than the constituent body upon whom the Constitution has devolved the duty to count the vote?' Id., at 31"

Perhaps all those lawyers he's so highly touting should learn some law?!? (And I mean only the inner circle, we all are grateful to those thousands of poll watchers/helpers.)

Once they learn it, perhaps they can teach him how ignorant it is to say: "Too many had to wait hours, a disproportionate number of them in African-American and Democratic precincts", then conclude that it's "time to make vote suppression a violation of civil rights laws."

He is correct in saying that the hours-long "poll-tax-lines" were disproportionate in Black precincts, but the time to make it a violation of civil rights laws was 1965 - so we did - and it still is unlawful!

Of course this is not the first time such statements have fallen on deaf legal and Kerry ears. Perhaps it's just a genetic thing.

On Jan. 7, 2001 Tim Russert asked John Kerry why he didn't stand up along with the Black Caucus to object to electors that have since been legally found by the US Commission on Civil Rights to have been appointed in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Kerry's answer: "Nobody asked us."

Setting aside the veracity of that statement, it betrays complete ignorance of what is required of him (and every other Senator) to uphold their sworn duty to protect and defend the Constitution.

Well, this time they were asked, loudly. They were asked this simple question:

"Are hours-long poll-tax-lines for poor, minority Voters AND none for affluent, white voters a tolerable condition to you, personally."

It is their affirmative duty to answer. It is our affirmative duty as citizens to judge them on the answer they give.

_____
www.thedeanpeople.org

[dzika]

18. Damn fine letter to the editor.

I wish they could run it in the morning with CK's letter.

[EFerrari]

Just for fun, we should have a thread of all the letters we wrote that

didn't lift the blackout, like mine, "Bloggers stole the election" :)

[Greybnk48]

15. This is all too wierd!

Blackwell will probably wind up in prison his hands are so dirty! Maybe I've gone off the deep end (and I'm definitely tired) but I think there's stuff going on behind the scenes that we are just not aware of. Why these letters today? It makes no sense.

[yojon]

20. Good question!

Why all these letters today?

[KoKo]

24. Last minute letters from both of them? Why? n/t

[KatieB]

29. Ditto Puke -those lawyers did not stop Triad from re-equipg central tabula

tabulators. YOu can't look DUers straight in the face and suggest there was no fraud. This is simply silly.
Real odd that these letters went out. Real odd.

[saracat]

17. Kerry has more optimism than his brother! What is Cam afraid of?

This is NOT what Cam was saying right after the election. I am too tired to look it up , but he has reversed himself!

[yojon]

19. What next time?

He cant be that naive. Must be hiding from something.

[candice]

22. and by implication, we don't know that our votes were counted this time

...and if so, this election isn't valid.

[No Exit]

23. Dear Mr. Kerry: No. I will not accept that. Try again. n/t

[Kansas Wyatt]

25. The Majority Already Endured Four Years

In 2000, the majority was told to wait, and the next election would fix it. The majority has endured four oppressive years, and will not endure another four years of Shrub Hell.

Waiting four years may be okay for a politician jockeying for position, but the majority have already served their time and payment is due immediately.

[GreenPartyVoter]

26. Everything Kerry gets a giant "whatever" from me now.

Even if Kerry miraculously gets into the Oval Office, I won't feel that much better.

Hope Howard and Dennis throw their hats into the ring again in '08. And I SINCERELY hope our governor reforms our election system so that I can use a ranked voting ballot next time around.

------------------------------------------------------
Election reform can help save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[BeFree]

27. Go Kerry!

You may not "....feel that much better", but most of the people in the world will. Too bad you'll continue to be a miniature minority, still.

Man, if something broke free, and Kerry was swept into office on a wave smashing the bushes, I'd be dancing in the streets! PS I've got my dancing shoes ready.

[GreenPartyVoter]

28. Oh, I'd be dancing to see the back of Bu$h, but to get me dancing to see

someone going INTO the Oval Office, that someone would have to be Dennis K. or someone similar.

------------------------------------------------------
Election reform can help save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[BeFree]

32. I don't get it...

Here we are, on the cusp of history, us, against all odds, and a green party loner decries our leaders.

I just don't get it...... Surely not all greens wish to remain at such a miniature minority status?

[GreenPartyVoter]

33. I don't think you got to that cusp all on your own, and yeah I DO decry

your "leaders". Most of them are spineless.

------------------------------------------------------
Election reform can help save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[BeFree]

35. All on my own?

Good lord, Greenie, it was a group effort. Your manner of thinking - that it was somehow a miniature minority effort - leads one to question that manner, eh?

Our leaders, while not getting gold stars from me, are in reality, the only hope at this cusp. I will not shoot them in the feet at this time, and sincerely request that you also refrain from such a dis-uniting activity.

[GreenPartyVoter]

36. A group effort, indeed. Including Libertarians and Greens. If you

don't believe me feel free to visit my site.

Or you can stick with that old "Hate the Greens" crap. It seems to work for some Dems. :eyes:

------------------------------------------------------
Election reform can help save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[AmerDem]

31. Piss off Cameron

The recount is worthless when you have techs from Triad manipulating the tabulator and posting cheat sheets. Cut the bullshit, grow some balls and tell the American people the truth. We are fed up with weak leadership and empty statements like this that have ruined our party. Soon it may be time for people like you and your brother to go away. We need our party built from the ground up with Representatives that stand toe to toe with average everyday Americans, not corporations.

Piss Off!

[IndyOp]

34. He STILL doesn't get it - and, thus, neither does John. Shit. (n/t)