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Boston Globe 1/17/05
Jan. 18--In his first high-profile address since conceding the presidential election, Senator John F. Kerry used Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast yesterday to decry what he called the suppression of thousands of would-be voters last November.
"Thousands of people were suppressed in their efforts to vote. Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways," the former Democratic nominee told an enthusiastic audience of 1,200 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston.
"In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans through in 10 minutes. Same voting machines, same process, our America," Kerry said.
In an e-mail message he sent to his supporters on the day before Congress certified the election results earlier this month, Kerry cited "widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials, and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote" in the battleground state of Ohio.
And this:
5 months after election, Kerry speaks about voter fraud
Comtex GovernmentUniversity Wire 04-20-2005
By By Jennifer Nedeau
WASHINGTON, Apr 20, 2005 (U-WIRE, U-WIRE via COMTEX) --More than five months after the 2004 Presidential election, former candidate John Kerry has introduced an electoral reform bill to the Senate and begun to speak about how voters in last years Presidential election were denied access to polls through trickery and intimidation.
"Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you've ever had a parking ticket, you're not allowed to vote," he said to the Massachusetts League of Women Voters on Sunday. Kerry introduced a bill on electoral reform this past February.
"I have heard from thousands of people across the country, people outraged at the problems with our voting system. Time and again they have asked me to help place this issue at the top of the Congressional agenda," Kerry said.
James Williams, a junior at the George Washington University, worked intensively with the Kerry campaign last semester and previously worked in Kerry's Senate office in Massachusetts. He said that Kerry's allegations about voter intimidation and trickery are not unfounded and it there "was definitely a lot of that kind of activity going on" during the past election.
"In Florida someone had put door fliers with the wrong dates of election day," Williams said. "And unfortunately it's part of the system...there is too much confusion on Election Day, which allows these things to happen."
Williams said he thinks Kerry should keep talking about voter intimidation in order to try and "rectify the injustice." From his experience in the campaign, Williams said that most of the misinformation campaigns seem to be aimed at Democratic voting blocks, the lower income, uneducated populations.
There have been lots more. Go check the Senate web site and the johnkerry.com site. Kerry has brought this up time and again, and has not dropped this topic, even when political advisors have told him to do so.
This is a no-win issue. The Cobb people, who are politicians, not Saints after all, are probably scared that KErry is going to drop out of their suit in order to pursue one that might actually do some good. Then the Cobb people lose their day in the sun. Boo-boo-friggedy-hoo.
I give up. I believe in reforming the laws so that all votes count and all voters get a chance to vote. (This is very important to me.) But the lefty freepers are insatiable and they don't listen to anything anyone says. Screw them.
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