Andi Novick / Northeast Citizens for Responsible Media – 2006-11-07 08:05:04
http://freepress.org/departments/display/16/2006/2205
The Theft of American Elections is a Media Issue
Andi Novick / Northeast Citizens for Responsible Media
(October 31, 2006) — The loss of our right to vote (or have it counted) is a media issue. Media ownership consolidation [has damaged] democracy by permitting a few corporations to fail to report the essential information we need to be a self-governing people.
Not only does the mainstream media refuse to investigate and report on the impossible discrepancies between the ‘official’ count and the exit polls, but they are actively complicit in this fraud. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the AP own the exit polls and have defied John Conyers’ request for the raw data, keeping that data secreted from even qualified independent researchers.
We are all trying to take optimism from the lead democrats have in the polls going into the election. Keep in mind that they had these leads in 2002, when the Republicans got themselves total control, and they had even greater promise going into the 2004 elections.
If you are still not convinced of the massive fraud that is going on, you can look at my ‘cliff notes’ version about the theft, which I wrote thinking people might read a few pages as opposed to an entire book (http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/16/2006/1865).
Exit polls have historically been seen as the gold standard of reliability and are still considered as such everywhere in the world, except here. How is it that exit polls were relied on for a half century in this country and then suddenly they were wrong in 2000, and again in 2002 and again in 2004?
Steven Freeman, author of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count, (http://www.electionintegrity.org/book) had analyzed the exit polls of the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida in 2004 and concluded that the odds of the exit polls being as far off as they were are 250 million to one! And still the media utterly failed to question the evidence before its eyes.
It is precisely because the exit polls are so reliable in proving the actual vote that for the first time in a half century, there will be no exit polls this year. The media consortium which owns the exit polls is actively suppressing the evidence we need to maintain our democracy: in this case information about how we’ve lost the ability to elect or evict our government.
Without exit polls, it will be exceedingly difficult to have the evidence establishing the theft. Just like electronic voting, not a trace of evidence should be left to expose the greatest theft of this country’s history.
How to Fight Back
Firstly, we need the most massive turnout — some people think if it’s high enough we can overcome the level of the theft. Others think it will at least make it more difficult for the Republicans to explain how they somehow won again, even though Americans have never returned, and never would return, such an unpopular, incompetent and corrupt crew to office.
Secondly, we need independent exit polling. Independent exit polls have been used successfully to prevent fraud. See for inspiration, Thom Hartmann’s How to Take Back a Stolen Election, in which he describes how the elections in post Soviet countries — where, like here, there was evidence the regime in power was planning to steal the elections and where, like here, the main stream media was either controlled by, beholden to, or owned by supporters of the regime in power — were saved from the intended theft by the use of independent exit polls. If the Ukrainians can do it, why not us?
Now we have independent exit polls. Steve Freeman has teamed up with Ken Warren of The Warren Poll and created exit polls you can do this year, (http://electionintegrity.org/Do_Your_Own_Exit_Poll.pdf).
It would be great if as many of you who can, try to do your own exit polls this year or if you’re already committed this year, then next year and/or 2008. Sign on now at http://www.electionintegrity.org and be sure to click on “amateur pollsters” in the signup form. Don’t wait till later to sign up — we have to build our forces for 2007 and 2008 now and this way we can stay in touch and keep you informed.
The Vote Count Projection Project will be developing a nationally coordinated exit polling project for 2008. If you do exit polling this year pursuant to the instructions provided here, your input from this year’s experience will be greatly appreciated.
Developing independent exit polls on a national basis is a huge undertaking, but what choice do any of us have. It is nothing less than our ability to exist as a free democracy that is at stake. It is after all, our duty:
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.
“It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”
— Samuel Adams
URGENT: Candidates Advised To ‘Citizen Audit’ Race Before Conceding
PHILADELPHIA (November 2, 2006) — Candidates should ‘citizen audit’ at least some polls before conceding an election. They should ask voters to go public with their votes. That’s the advice of Lynn Landes, a freelance journalist who specializes in voting security issues.
“With the election essentially controlled by ES&S and Diebold, the stage is set for another easy-to-rig election,” says Landes. ES&S and Diebold will count 80% of all votes using proprietary software operating in both optical scanners and touchscreen machines.
Adding fuel to the fire, touch-screen machines are reportedly flipping votes from Democratic candidates to Republicans during early voting in Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Florida, according to BradBlog.com. Democrats must be feeling déjà vu, if not outright panic. Vote flipping has been reported in several races since the 2000 presidential election. And it always appears to favor Republicans over Democrats.
A Citizen Audit/Parallel Election is an idea that Landes first proposed in a January 2005 article. Its main purpose is to collect ‘hard’ evidence of how people voted by asking voters to ‘go public’ with their votes. Voters fill-out ballots that include their name, address, signature, and for whom they voted. Those ballots can then be used to verify or challenge election results.
A Citizen Audit adds transparency to the voting process. It stands in sharp contrast to official audits which recount anonymous ballots, or traditional exit polls which rely on anonymous respondents.
Landes notes, “Most voters don’t realize that before the Civil War, voting was a completely transparent process. It was only after the Civil War, as the right to vote expanded to African Americans, that the voting process itself began to recede from public view and meaningful oversight.
It started with absentee voting in the 1870’s, secret ballots in the 1880’s, and voting machines in the 1890’s. Today, 30% of all voting is by absentee or early, 95% of all votes are machine-processed, and 100% of all ballots are secret.”
Since Landes wrote her article, activists in Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, and Ohio have conducted Citizen Audit/Parallel Elections. And many have noticed interesting results.
In a 2005 San Diego election, activists observed a shift of four percent of the vote from Democratic candidates to Republicans, when their results were compared to the official tally. On the basis of that evidence, a recount was ordered.
Democrats have considerable cause to be concerned about their candidates.
Last spring, San Diego Democrats were flabbergasted when Francine Busby conceded the election to Republican Brian Bilbray before all the ballots were counted. She left thousands of absentee ballots uncounted, more than enough to win her the election.
Busby should have taken a lesson from Republican candidate Steve Troxler from North Carolina, who rounded up affidavits from more than 1,400 voters who said they had voted for him in precincts where voting machines had lost votes. As a result, his Democratic opponent conceded.
If candidates don’t take steps to ensure the accuracy of election results, Landes predicts a complete collapse of public confidence in America’s voting system.
Lynn Landes is the publisher of TheLandesReport and a freelance journalist who writes about politics, health, and the environment. She’s become one of the nation’s leading researchers and analysts on voting integrity issues. Lynn is featured in the books, Hacked and BlackBoxVoting, and appears in several documentaries including Got Democracy, The Right To Count, Stealing America, and her own The Fix Is In.
Contact: Lynn Landes, publisher
www.TheLandesReport.com
Philadelphia, PA . 215-629-3553
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