Please USE this! I will send it to the Republican representatives indicated below who lead the Senate, the House, the House Judiciary Committee, the House Administration Committee and the Senate Rules Committee. From what I've been able to glean, these are the culprits who have obstructed verified voting legislation and, through the lack of Republican participation, Conyers' investigation as well. While these two issues should not be overly conflated, they are tied together by the historic Electoral Vote Objection of Jan 6 and by the Republicans who have brought this on themselves.
We need to move on this right away. (Sorry it took me so long to write this!)
The important thing is to let them know that we know -- and that we are watching! And this needs to be repeated to the MEDIA ad infinitum until they also "get it." So write some letters to the editor, etc. and steal as much as you want from this. That's why it's posted here!
If anyone wants to correct me on any facts, please do so now. Otherwise, I will send this letter and also post the final version in this thread, including the addresses of the intended recipients:
<
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x264034>If you want to send it to others who "deserve" it, please do.
I hope others will join me in this effort, whether you edit the letter or not. Please post on other forums, blogs, etc. to spread the word. I would like to see these guys and the media deluged with similar letters.
Note that I've tried to make it sound as bi-partisan as possible, although this is difficult.
Comments please.
Thanks!
Subject: Election Reform -- You’ve Brought it on Yourselves
Dear Doctor Frist, Speaker Hastert, Messrs. Ney, Lott, Sensenbrenner and DeLay:
As a patriotic American and a perennial voter, on various occasions I have voted for members of both major parties. For some time now I have been following the issues of verifiable voting and the voting irregularities in the state of Ohio and elsewhere in 2004.
I am sorry to say, with respect to the objection of the Electoral Votes from Ohio on Jan 6, 2005, that you and the other Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee have clearly brought this on yourselves.
Since May 2003, members of the House and Senate from both parties have attempted to bring no less than five (5) bills to the floor to require a voter-verified paper ballot in all states. They are: HR2239, HR4187, S1980, S2313 and S2437. Each time however, the Republican leadership has refused to allow these bills to come to a vote.
Meanwhile, the People’s vote has become unverifiable in many states of our nation; you know it and I know it. And soon, everyone will know it. To any impartial observer, it would appear that as leaders of the majority party, you simply intend to keep it that way.
Due to your obstruction of this urgently needed legislation, no conspiracy theory, allegation of fraud, or evidence of voter disenfranchisement is necessary to cast severe doubt in our electoral process in the mind of any informed voter -– and slowly but surely, whether you like it or not, they are going to become informed.
It is your very refusal to allow verified voting legislation to move forward in either the Senate or the House that has given rise to the uncertainty, conspiracy theories, and the loss of faith in the system expressed by your Democratic colleagues on behalf of their constituents on January 6. Once the truth -- that the vote can no longer be verified with any reasonable degree of certainty -- is widely disseminated and accepted by the vast majority of voters in our republic, their doubts about the results of future elections will become commonplace regardless of their party affiliation, political ideology, or the margin of victory in any particular race. So much so in fact, that our democracy will be nothing more than an illusion in the minds of the few remaining voters who will continue to have blind faith in the system. This is what will inevitably occur without verified voting -- and you will have brought this on yourselves too.
But you can fix this in this 109th Congress, if you have the will to do so. It’s not that difficult. As Ronald Reagan once said, we must “Trust but verify.”
Work to pass legislation to mandate the voter-verified paper ballot and the mandatory random audits to use it now, before it’s too late. It is important to note that without such random audits, the effect of the paper ballot may be little more than that of a placebo for the American voter, not unlike the highly touted provisional ballots we have now. You must therefore insist on truly random, statistically significant auditing of all election results.
Now, despite allegations of election fraud, violations of equal protection and other irregularities in the State of Ohio, and public hearings held by Representative Conyers and the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee to document this, their Republican colleagues serving on that committee have simply chosen to look the other way, presumably because their party’s candidates happen to have won the election. For Republicans to have accused Democrats of unpatriotic or partisan behavior in these matters on Jan. 6, is therefore the height of hypocrisy.
Republicans must join with the House Democrats to investigate the irregularities in Ohio and other states in a bi-partisan manner, regardless of where such investigations may ultimately lead. It’s perfectly clear to anyone who knows the facts that as of this writing, every vote in Ohio has still NOT been counted, much less recounted or verified. To suggest that this is not the case is simply disingenuous.
Sincerely,
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