Warren Stewart to review NM votes, plus Ensign bill - live on radio

[SophieZ]

It's your world. Understand it!
January 30, 2005: Sunday Monitor

topics: Iraq elections. US elections.

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<> 6 pm CST HEADLINES

<> {around 6:15 pm} GUESTS 1 and 2: ABBAS KADHIM and DAHR JAMAIL

Abbas Kadhim is a doctoral candidate in the Dept. of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California (UC Berkeley). He was born in Babylon (Iraq), but at the age of 12 moved to Najaf. He earned a Baccalaureate degree from the University of Musol (Iraq). He came to the U.S. in 1992 and received a Master degree in political theory from the San Francisco State University in 1998. Kadhim has written several pieces on the elections, including "The Expatriate Vote," "Hellish Elections" and "Wag the Vote." His website is: http://abbaskadhim.blogspot.com/

DAHR JAMAIL



Dahr Jamail reports to us live from Baghdad. Jamail has been reporting unembedded from Iraq for months. He is the only independent western journalist in the country as far as we know. His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The NewStandard and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald and Islam Online, to name just a few. Dahr's dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Arabic. His website is: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog

~~~~~~~~~~~

"If we can bring ballots to rural Afghanistan by donkey, we can have fair elections here." -- U.S. Rep. Mel Watt

<> GUEST 3 {around 6:35 pm CST}: WARREN STEWART

Turning to the continuing questions about the US election and what to do about it, today we look at New Mexico. Warren Stewart is the Director of Legislative Issues for the National Ballot Integrity Project.

Perhaps you've heard of a few ghost towns in New Mexico. But Warren Stewart, who studied the official vote tallies in detail, brings us news that ghosts apparently turned out to vote in New Mexico in the November election: what is called "phantom votes" cropped up widely in the state. A phantom vote means that there are more votes than there were people who voted. (We saw this in Ohio too. In fact, in Perry Ohio, two precincts there reported turnouts of 124.4 and 124.0 percent of the registered voters!)

In New Mexico, Presidential phantom votes were reported in 15 of the 33 counties. In a county clerk race in one precinct in San Juan County, New Mexico, 318 voters somehow managed to register 2,161 votes. These are official certified votes.

Then, there also what is called "undervotes." In that situation, people show up at the polls, but don't vote. In Taos County, New Mexico, one of the most liberal counties in the nation, nearly one in ten of the voters who took the trouble to show up to vote on election day apparently did not vote for president. That is over twenty times the undervote rate in various other counts around the state.

Officials in New Mexico have practiced the same type of foot dragging and obstacle-constructing response as those in Ohio, even though officials in New Mexico are Democrats. So far, the New Mexico officials have managed to stall a recount there, even though the Green and Libertarian parties have deposited over $100,000 as originally required. (Now New Mexico says it should be $1.4 million.)

Warren also spotlights new legislation to be introduced by U.S. Senator Ensign of Nevada this week. He says this would be a beginning to transparent, recountable, verifiable elections in this country, providing that in federal elections, there must be a voter verifiable paper record. Currently, most electronic voting systems, including the one in Harris County, do not provide that.

For more information, check out the website:

www.ballotintegrity.org

Or, read his article:

"What Are They Hiding in New Mexico?" by Warren Stewart,
National Ballot Integrity Project, January 19, 2005
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0501/S00152.htm

TIPS or COMMENTS
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[satya]

1. Thanks for the heads up! n/t

[JoMama49]

2. Thanks for posting this -- I'm listening now from Northern

California. Now maybe we'll get the truth about Iraq's so-called erection, uh election?

[icehenge]

3. Where do you listen live?

I can't find the link on the website.

[icehenge]

4. Duh, never mind

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