Nov. 2 Event at the State House, Columbus, Ohio

The date for this is Friday November 2, 2007 with two Columbus, Ohio events.

Mourning in the Mourning, Mourning at Noon...
11:30 a.m. Eulogy at the Statehouse, 56 High St., sidewalk at the McKinley Statue.
Noon - Funeral Procession starting at the Statehouse, proceed to Attorney General's office, Secretary of State office, and Franklin County Board of Elections office, then back to the Statehouse. Finish by approximately 1:30 p.m.
These three offices have been informed we are coming and would like to speak with someone as we arrive, preferably Secretary Brunner, Attorney General Dann, and Director Matt Damschroder. If they are not available, we look forward to someone from their staff briefly speaking with us. At each office, one or several voting stories will be told.

and Mourning in the Evening...
A Wake For Democracy... at Victorians Midnight Cafe
251 W. 5th Ave. (at Neil Ave.)
7:00 p.m.
Speakers and Music, Members of the Public with voting stories urged to come and share. Affidavits available to record voting stories.

Sponsored by the Ohio Election Justice Campaign.

A Funeral For The 2004 Election

Thanks!

original from the Columbus Dispatch
Posted by James Nash, Statehouse reporter on October 10, 2007 11:38 AM

When a group of voter-rights activists holds a "funeral procession" to mark the three-year anniversary of the 2004 election that they believe was tainted, they'll be making a stop at the office of Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann.

The Ohio Election Justice Campaign, which alleges that President Bush won Ohio in 2004 because of numerous irregularities, is accusing Dann of failing to follow up on campaign promises to investigate problems in the balloting.

Specifically, the group points to video of Dann, a Democrat, addressing voter-rights activists at Columbus State University before last year's election for attorney general. In the video, Dann says he'll take seriously any evidence of improprieties in that election and even will convene a grand jury and bring charges if merited.

Dann seems to have changed his tune, said Paddy Shaffer, founder of the Ohio Election Justice Campaign.

"No one is being held accountable," she said. "How can you not speak to the public about something this serious? This is not a trivial matter -- this is the theft of a U.S. presidential election."

Dann spokesman Leo Jennings III said his boss never vowed to bring indictments or prosecute the overseers of the 2004 vote. Rather, the attorney general wants to look at lessons of that election cycle to ensure that the 2008 election is conducted with the utmost integrity, Jennings said.

"We're certainly going to look at what happened in '04 to see what needs to happen in '08," he said. "If we see something that needs to be brought to the attention of a prosecutor, or for us to handle under our powers, we'll do it. We don't have any (evidence) in front of us."

Shaffer said her group plans a funeral march on Nov. 2.

Posted by James Nash, Statehouse reporter on October 10, 2007 11:38 AM
| Permalink

Contact your U.S Senators and Representatives

Have we had enough of election problems????
Sign these petitions below so our Reps. know we are not kidding anymore.
Meanwhile we collect more enditing evidence against those who have committed election felonies.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fairohio/
http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=698

go to the congressional record
and contact all thes guys that voted against this stinking 2004 election (yes there is a lawsuit pending and people to be prosecuted thus no statute of limitations since there is pending justice)
Jan 6 2005
http://tinyurl.com/2ck84g

choose next page at bottom if link does not bring it up, they don't like direct links for some reason...

senate
http://tinyurl.com/24r3py

Here is a timely request from Paddy Shaffer;

I have a bit of research that needs done, and wondered if any or all of you might want to help with it. Here is what I have in mind, let me and the others here know if you are interested. A couple others that have helped a lot with research, and I'll see if I can get a couple people working on this....

I want the names of all the House and Senate members that stood up and asked to have Ohio's 2004 election investigated in the afternoon on January 6, 2005. Both those who signed, and those who gave a speech in support of it. I was in the Senate Gallery watching the Senators speak, as were many others, some in The Ohio Election Justice Campaign.

I also want their speeches, and contact information. They are in the Congressional Record for that day.

This way they can be contacted, reminded of what they said, and asked to join and support the Ohio Election Justice Campaign. We will also ask that they assist us with encouraging both Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann to meet with our group and honor our requested 3 hour meeting, and the three requests we have made.

1. Listen to our speakers
2. Present their plan to investigate and do the needed legal prosecution of the 2004 election crimes and subsequent crimes.
3. Have dialoged with us about the plan and explain how the public will be able to follow the progress of the legal work to be certain that it is finally being conducted.

If you are able to set it all up that we can make it available on a link on the Link site, and Steve might also be willing to put it on his Link site. This way it will be easy for many people to utilize it as snail mail so these Congressional members receive it in paper form, or people can cut and paste and use it for our petition letter site, or other email correspondence. They can also be encouraged to share those speeches and their concern with others... and get the group support to grow. Even Hillary Clinton got up and spoke about Ohio's bad election. Barbara Boxer was the only one with enough strength to sign it from the Senate. The US House had about 31 members sign (as I remember, and I'm not certain that is right).

Talk to me, and talk to each other. With your help, can we get this done?

If we can get these members of Congress saturated with paper letters, email letters, phone calls, and get some responses coming back, maybe we can then turn some attention to the others like Marcy Kaptur, Ohio Democrat, US House, who voted to certify Ohio's election, and went to the Ukraine to investigate their election, but didn't look at her own state.

Make it a Powerful Day,

Paddy Shaffer
Founder, Ohio Election Justice Campaign
paddy@columbus.rr.com
(614) 761-0621

New Fear For OHIO... Not Election Fraud, but Tic Tac Fruit.

Note the date, this was written August 31, 2007
_______________________________________________

New Fear For OHIO... Not Election Fraud, but Tic Tac Fruit.
Group calls for meeting with Ohio Attorney General
and Ohio Secretary of State.

The Ohio Election Justice Campaign

By Paddy Shaffer
Director, Artists Creating Justice

August 31, 2007

Now here is a little ditty from the Thursday August 30, 2007 Columbus Dispatch in an article by James Nash, about Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and his investigation into "Tic Tac Fruit". Yes you read that right, "Tic Tac Fruit". Some of us are concerned with our massive election problems and the criminals running them. But not our new Attorney General. It is Tic Tac Fruit that has his interest, a gambling machine, like pinball, but you need some skill and you can win money. Well according to the current article, and one of several days ago, it seems to be a big threat to Ohioans. Storeowners don't sound so sure that we are to be scared. According to Talmadge Long, the owner of "Lucky You" a Jeffersonville parlor, he was unsure of his next move, as Marc Dann wants to shut down all these machines in Ohio. Talmadge said, " I'm just a businessman, I don't know what the hell they want me to do."

The quote from Marc Dann in a written statement is,
"We will fight this battle with every necessary resource".

From this article, and a past one I have learned that the Attorney Generals Office has sent out 700 certified letters on this issue, and has the police visiting game parlors. Heck on Wednesday, August 29th investigators went to game parlors in Jeffersonville, Tiffin and Calcutta. Hour’s later Dann's office filed court motions seeking orders to close the businesses for allegedly violating the Consumer Sales Practices Act, which prohibits deceptive marketing.

Marc Dann has called on the public to help report gambling machines to his office through anew toll-free phone number, 1-877-AG4-OHIO (1-877-244-6446), or a new Web site, www.ag4ohio.gov .

Wow, he wants the public to help!

That is just what this group of citizens is trying to do, but this is on another issue. Theft of the US Presidency should be of a higher priority than Tic Tac Fruit. Activists, Journalists, Filmmakers, and people who want to observer a meeting where the beginning of the justice process for Ohio’s Election Theft will begin. Many have joined with Paddy Shaffer, asking to meet for 3 hours with Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. They have now waited 3 weeks and 2 days, and those offices have not yet scheduled the requested meeting. Why the wait? This project is now called The Ohio Election Justice Campaign.

The group, under the leadership of Paddy and newly formed Artists Creating Justice, are planning for a group of speakers to each briefly address a variety of election issues, and then to have plenty of time for dialog with the Attorney General and Secretary of State. Shaffer and the group have asked that Brunner and Dann have a plan on how together they will begin the investigation of the 2004 election fraud and destruction or records issues. More problems have happened since November of 2004, and some of those will be addressed also, like rigged recounts, many counties are guilty of that. There are just so many problems, what has happened in Ohio has affected the nation, and the world. We look forward to hearing what they intend to do, and reporting it to the world. The group has asked, through Shaffer for a plan to be set up that the public can follow the progress of the investigation, and subsequent legal actions. After what this country has suffered through, we do not want to be told that we can’t know their progress, because it is under investigation. When it is the citizens who have done the investigation for years, and Paddy is one of those investigators, we have earned the right to know how it is proceeding, and it is our only way to know, that it actually is being implemented and followed to completion.

Just imagine if the Ohio Attorney General applied the kind of effort to the Ohio Boards of Elections, that he has applied to the gambling threat of Tic Tac Fruit.

Besides, we did most of the investigation for them. The file at the Ohio Attorney General's office, which has been started by information that Paddy Shaffer provided, with lots of election fraud data, is "Public Integrity Unit File PIU 07-010". It has already been reviewed, yet Associate Attorney General Chelsea Rice has determined with the Attorney Generals Legal Department, and Lloyd Early, Director of Special Investigations for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation that there is nothing to investigate. Paddy has organized this meeting because of that, and because of Jennifer Brunner’s comments that the Ohio Boards of Elections did nothing wrong in destroying the federally protected 2004 ballots. Over one and a half million are now forever gone, these were evidence.

The Attorney General’s office received this information in late July and early August. Notice that it was only file number 010, or 10. They don't seem too busy to look into election fraud. What will it take to get this meeting scheduled? Public Pressure? 2008 is looming ahead of us, how long can the state of Ohio and the nation wait?

Artists Creating Justice is proud to announce that the following Patriot Americans are all asking to meet with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann.

Bev Harris of Blackbox Voting; Paul Lehto Esq. and Ken Karan Esq. - of Phephos;
Blair Bobier Esq. – Media Director for the Green Party 2004 Recount; Gary Flowers of the Black Leadership Forum; Sheri Myers – author of “Cheated!”; Victoria Parks – Ohio Election Investigator; 2006 Election Observer and musician who created “My Vote Don’t Matter Anymore”; Tim Kettler – 2006 Green Party Candidate for Ohio Secretary of State – and witness to rigging of Coshocton County Recount; Richard Hayes Phillips PhD – Ohio Election Investigator, musician, author; Tim Carpenter - Founder and National Director of Progressive Democrats of America; Matt Krous – Producer and filmmaker of “How Ohio Pulled it Off”; Richard Ray Perez – Producer “Why Ohio Counts”, Mary Beth Braun and Jim Huddle of The Ecological Options Network – Producers of "Help America Vote on Paper", "Got Democracy", "A Little Light'll Do Ya, Defending Democracy in America", "Vote Rigging 101", What’s at Stake” , “Getting Over It”; Adele Eisner – Cuyahoga Elections Investigator; Dr. Peter Jones – witness to rigged recount; Jon Craig – Cincinnati Enquirer; Evan Davis – Pacifica Radio and co-producer of Pacifica's 2006 10-part series on elections, "Informed Dissent"; Mark Brown – founder of Congressional Policy Forum; 2006 Election Observer, Marj Creech – Ohio Election Investigator; Pat Mirada – Sierra Club; Sherole Eaton – Whistleblower on Triad; Karla Van Bibbler – witness to multiple election crimes and 2006 Election Observer; Brad Friedman – bradblog; Paul Harmon Esq. – 2004 Judge candidate robbed of his election; Patricia Axelrod – Director Desert Storm Think Tank and Veterans Advocate, weapons system analyst and military scientist for peace, Election Machine Investigator; Dan Stanton – elections activist, Bill Buckel, - former congressional candidate and elections activist, and the group is growing.

Supporting Groups: Election Defense Alliance

We all chose the type of character we will be remembered to be, during this pivotal time in US history.

To inquire about, or to be one of those who observes this meeting contact
Paddy Shaffer at paddy@columbus.rr.com or (614) 761-0621.

Media inquiries welcomed.

Artists Creating Justice owns no stock in Tic Tac Fruit, nor endorses gambling.

The Ohio Election Justice Campaign, Friday, September 7, 2007

The Ohio Election Justice Campaign

Jennifer Brunner, Ohio Secretary of State
Bobbie Gilbert, Executive Assistant for Jennifer Brunner
Erin Duffy, Scheduler for Jennifer Brunner
Kellye Pinkleton, Director, Voting Rights Institute, Ohio Secretary of State
Kathy Spinelli, Assistant to Kellye Pinkleton
Marc Dann, Ohio Attorney General
Colleen Brown, Executive Assistant to Marc Dann
Jessica Utovich, Scheduler for Marc Dann

Friday, September 7, 2007

Dear Jennifer Brunner, Marc Dann, and Staff,

I am Paddy Shaffer, an Ohio Resident, Artist, Wife, Mother, Election Activist and Investigator, and I write today on behalf of The Ohio Election Justice Campaign. The OEJC started as a simple request for an opportunity to meet with you. This effort has now grown to a national campaign for legal accountability for election crimes in Ohio. The Ohio Election Justice Campaign wants to hear back from your two offices on a date for which we can schedule the three-hour meeting with Jennifer Brunner and Marc Dann. The purpose of the meeting would be to resolve how your offices will investigate the crimes of the 2004 election, as well, those crimes that have happened since need to be addressed. We wish for the Rule of Law to be restored through legal prosecutions. We also ask that your offices provide the public a way to follow your progress in resolving long-standing problems regarding our elections in Ohio. We have planned for a number of speakers from The Ohio Election Justice Campaign in the first hour of this meeting. Hours two and three are for you, Jennifer Brunner, Marc Dann, and your office staff to explain how we can accomplish our mutual goals in restoring the Rule of the Law in Ohio's elections. Finally, within those last two hours, we would also like to have dialog with you on this crucial subject as to how we can proceed together restoring the Rule of Law. We want a way for the public to follow the progress of the investigation and prosecution.

I, along with millions of other voters, listened to the campaign promises of candidates Marc Dann and Jennifer Brunner running for the critical offices of Ohio Attorney General and Ohio Secretary of State. Do you remember them? We were all so hopeful. We were hoping our election problems in Ohio would be resolved. I am enclosing a link that will take you to video of your campaign promises. At this moment, Marc Dann’s portion of the video is available. Soon it will have five parts, including Jennifer Brunner’s campaign promises as well.

What you promise is what we need. Please, just do what you promised!

Dann and Brunner Campaign Promises Video - HYPERLINK "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RygV2aiszQU"



NOT HERE TO FIGHT, ___JUST WANT THE JOB DONE.
I have done everything a citizen can do to help her country… I have personally investigated election crimes, when no law enforcement did the job. I have tried through the former Attorney General Jim Petro and County Prosecutors to get our election laws and public record laws enforced. I have paid for records requests, hundreds of dollars of them, paid my expenses, gasoline, long distance phone calls, and more to investigate these crimes, when no law enforcement would do their job. I pay for this with my grocery money. I have participated in radio call shows, and press conferences, and supplied the media with crime information, for which they generally ignore. I have endured name calling by the media and others, but also the love, appreciation and support of real patriots from across this country, and from other countries who care about democracy. I have made many friends, and probably a few enemies on this journey. I hope we will end up friends because what I want is reasonable.

I want to help you both do the best you can in your current jobs. I keep trying; keep sending you information that should be a great help to your job. I don’t do it to seeking credit. I just want to see you do the work, and you get the credit. I am very frustrated now, you have occupied your office for nine months, and it is almost 2008, another Presidential Election Year… and not much has been resolved. Even the two Cuyahoga County BOE workers, Jacqueline Maiden and Kathleen Dreamer and are getting a new trial, one wonders, will they go to prison for 18 months, or walk away?

I have repeatedly asked for a meeting with both Jennifer Brunner and Marc Dann. I have now formed this group, The Ohio Election Justice Campaign, and because this meeting and issue is so very important.

This is the Theft Of The Office Of The United States Presidential Election, and The Theft Of The Ohio Supreme Court.

What could you be working on
that could be more important than that?


I have many pieces of my ongoing investigation in this rather long letter. I do not do this with a public audience to embarrass, to anger, or to pick a battle. I do this because I do not see any other way of getting your attention, without applying public pressure. You and I both know that I have tried and tried and tried. Please do not hold anger against me. Just help the passionate citizens who have joined me to insist that you bring investigation and legal justice to the election crimes committed in Ohio. That is all I ask, and all I ever asked of you. The office of the Ohio Secretary of State is now sitting on the remaining evidence, over 2200 boxes of evidence of the biggest crime ever perpetrated on our republic. Could you please do something with it? If you do not know how to do it, or what to look for, we probably already have, or have already shared it with you. Most of us in The Ohio Election Justice Campaign used to be just citizens, but now armed with evidence, truth, facts. We investigated the elections when the former AG and SOS, the DOJ, the FBI, the Ohio State Highway Patrol and our media, refused. As victims and witnesses to the greatest crime ever, we citizens took up the gauntlet and did our own investigations. Now, we know how to do investigations and we have done them for you. We want to help you, not alienate or anger you. We have save you a fortune in money, so much of this evidence, as cold cases could not now even be collected. We ask you to look.

It has now been 31 days since the meeting was requested; on August 8th, 2007, and 2008 is only a few short months away. Many additional election crimes have been brought to your attention since that day. There has been no response to the exposure of these crimes, nor to the many crime stories that had already been sent to you, with the exception of a letter from the Attorney General’s office letting me know that there is "nothing to investigate" (attached to this letter). Those stories covered a wide range of topics, from rigged recounts (which got Maiden and Dreamer 18 month prison sentences); theft of the United States Presidency; theft of the Ohio Supreme Court; fake ballots; Warren County Homeland Security Alert; Triad switching out the hard drive on a tabulator prior to the recount; and so much more. It is troubling that with so much in the way of legal work to be done, and the obvious need to let people know your plan of action, there has still been no meeting scheduled. Why do we even have to beg you to for a simple meeting? Last year as both Jennifer and Marc campaigned for Secretary of State and Attorney General; you told us you would take care of this problem. What happened to “Due Diligence?” It is your job to do this investigation and the following needed legal actions.

When I originally talked to Jennifer’s Executive Assistant Bobbie Gilbert, while I was in your office on Monday August 6, 2007, she said meetings were being scheduled out about three weeks (in advance). It has been longer than that, we have not yet met, nor have we even scheduled. It is as though you do not plan to meet with this group, yet I am sure that is not your intention. We hope that is not the case. Many of us remember your campaign promises to deal with these election problems. Tim Kettler, who was also a candidate for Secretary of State with Jennifer, is one of our speakers for this requested meeting. He plans to explain how the Coshocton County Recount was rigged, including the involvement of Pat Wolfe, who still works in the office of the Secretary of State. You should be interested. These issues are so important to the nation, and many hundreds of thousands of people have actually died, as a result of the decisions made by a man sitting in the office of The President Of The United States Of America, a man that was not elected. This is very serious.

During the campaign season, Marc Dann even promised to form an “Election Integrity Division”. I called Marc’s office and spoke with executive assistant, Colleen Brown who said, “We have no Election Integrity Division”. When I told Colleen who I was, and that I was reading through Marc’s campaign promises, and he said he was going to form an Election Integrity Division. Colleen said she would get me help. Then I was put on hold for a long time, what seemed like several minutes passed, and then one of those annoying recorded voices came on for “The Help Center”. The recording played and finished with “all representatives are still assisting other callers.” It played over and over and over… and when I could stand it no more, I hung up and called Colleen back. Now no one answered the phone, and there was not even a way to leave a message. Hmm…. This finished at around 1:45 p.m. on September 5, 2007.

During the 2006 Campaign season Marc Dann had a blog, here is one entry…
Saturday, September 02, 2006
HYPERLINK "http://www.blogforohio.com/index.php?itemid=99" Decision In Registration Case Is a Victory for The Constitution and the State (part of the blogged article below)

At least Ken’s consistent—consistently committed to eroding our democracy.

And there’s one more thing for which we should be thankful: Republican arrogance. They were so sure that they would control every statewide office, including that of attorney general, for another four years that when they passed House Bill 3 they gave the AG the authority to independently investigate and prosecute election law violations for the first time in Ohio history.


They did it because they thought a GOP AG as opposed to voting rights as they are would be a real asset during the 2008 presidential election. Imagine, I’m sure they said, how much easier it will be to keep people we don’t like away from the polls if someone on our side has the power to investigate and prosecute them for having the unmitigated gall to try and vote.

Now imagine how they feel today: Ohioans are on the verge of electing me attorney general. And instead of using the power of the office to keep people away from the polls, I’ll use it to enforce the Voting Rights Act, oppose anti-democratic legislation like HB 3, and ensure that every Ohioan who is eligible and desires to has the opportunity to vote and that every vote cast counts.

That’s not what the Republicans want, but it is what the U.S. and the Ohio Constitution demands. I would like to thank Judge O’Malley for upholding both. And I look forward to the day I take office as Attorney General so I can do the same.

Posted by HYPERLINK "http://www.blogforohio.com/index.php?memberid=2" Marc Dann at 02:55 PM. Filed under: HYPERLINK "http://www.blogforohio.com/index.php?catid=1" General

Here is another…
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
HYPERLINK "http://www.blogforohio.com/index.php?itemid=107" Dann calls on Bureau of Workers’ Compensation to release internal audit that shows political favors helped reduce some employer’s rates (post in part)

“Once again, the public records law in Ohio is being ignored,” said Senator Dann. “The allegations of impropriety in the BWC are serious and deserve a closer look. By not releasing the audit, it begins to appear as just another cover-up. I have asked Director Mabe to reconsider his decision and release the audit to me by Friday.”

Posted by HYPERLINK "http://www.blogforohio.com/index.php?memberid=1" admin at 09:50 PM. Filed under: HYPERLINK "http://www.blogforohio.com/index.php?catid=1" General

Marc, I must ask what is happening when your office writes me a letter where they wrote in part, “After reviewing your complaint and the information you provided to Mr. Early, we have decided that there is insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges relating to these matters.” That letter (attached) now apparently sits in Public Integrity Unit File PIU 07-010 with the large amount of information I sent to your employee on election crime and fraud issues. When I wrote you about this, and about who was this employee, who was Lloyd Early, you emailed me back on August 12, 2007, “Lloyd works for me." Have you as yet looked in that file? Do you agree with the above finding? I have repeatedly sent more information to your office, and to Jennifer’s about election crimes, yet no one even responds. In the above statement you are quoted talking about a Bureau of Workers Compensation cover-up. What do we call the Ohio election mess, if your office, and Brunner’s won’t deal with it? A cover-up? I do not want to believe this.

Marc do you remember in the spring of 2006 when Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips and Paddy Shaffer scheduled a 30 minute meeting with then State Senator, Marc Dann. We provided you with a folder of election crimes we had investigated. Did you look into any of it?

At the recent Secretary of State’s Voting Rights Institute meeting on August 21, 2007 Jennifer Brunner talked to the participants about the missing 2004 election records. Below is what was written in the minutes of the meeting, provided to Paddy Shaffer.

FROM VOTING RIGHTS INSTITUTE (VRI) MEETING:

Secretary Brunner then chose to speak to the issue of the 2004 ballots. The 22-month retention requirement for these ballots was over on Sept 2, 2006. The boards were sent an email from a paralegal on Sept 8th with a copy of Judge Marbley’s Sept 7th order attached, but no instructions were provided. On April 9th, Secretary Brunner sent a directive instructing all Boards of Election to send their 2004 ballots to Columbus for safe storage. The regional liaisons assisted in transporting these ballots. In all, 7 counties had no ballots to return. Due to glitches, erroneous information, and accidents, some counties had only partial records. Every county sent an inventory and a letter of explanation to Columbus with the ballots. A major concern was unused ballots. Many of these were destroyed, while voted ballots were kept. This information was all turned over to Judge Marbley. We have had no updates from his court as of today. Secretary Brunner highlighted the importance of her office focusing on the 2008 election.

I question how the word “glitches” can be used to describe any method for which the physical evidence of the theft of the office of the United States President was destroyed or discarded. I have documented 11 times when they knew to keep these records.

Are you aware that to destroy these records after 30 days, which some counties claim to have done… would be on January 1, 2005? The Boxer Rebellion and the date the election was certified were on January 6, 2006. So how can it be OK with Jennifer for them to have already destroyed records? How many of them did this? Will they do it again?

I also must question at this time if Jennifer Brunner has made herself familiar with the Board of Elections records on the missing 2004 records. She has spoken on them, and been quoted in the press saying they did not “intentionally destroy” ballots. The problem with that comment is that in their letters both Warren and Fayette Counties said they “intentionally destroyed” ballots. I have this from your records. This seems like you either do not know what is in the records held by the Secretary of State’s office, or you are misinforming the media and the public

In the above writing from the recent meeting of the Voting Rights Institute it appears from the minutes of the meeting that Jennifer told the participants that, “Every county sent an inventory and a letter of explanation to Columbus with the ballots.” I am familiar with your records. As soon as I read that I knew there seemed to be a problem. First, counties that turned over all their records did not need to submit a letter of explanation, but this is trivial. The bigger item is not. I wrote a record request to your office, requesting the letters of explanation for Columbiana, Coshocton, Darke, Lawrence, Licking, Lorain, Madison, Miami, Morgan, Noble, Summit, Tuscarawas, Wayne, Wood, and Wyandot Counties. This is 15 counties. See, you could only have letters for those counties, if those letters had recently arrived, because I already have all of the others.

According to SOS Elections Council, Brian Green, in a letter dated August 29, 2007,

“Those records you seek do not exist. As such, this office cannot provide them to you. If you have additional concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our office.”

Well, I’m contacting you, and I have a concern. So again, either you do not know your offices records, or when you explained to the VRI group that you had all the letters of explanation for all 56 counties, which would give the appearance that you were content with the explanations given for all 56 counties that are missing some or all of their 2004 ballots. So how can you say none of the boards did anything wrong, to the VRI group, and to the media… when you do not have letters from 15 of the counties, and many of the letters you do have are, well frankly, absurd. The bottom line for myself and for many others across this nation is, those are the people’s records, evidence of a major crime against the US and its people. Lots of it was intentionally destroyed. The paper of Richard Hayes Phillips called “Shreds of Evidence” available at HYPERLINK "http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2709" http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2709 , which has previously been given to both the Attorney Generals office and to the Secretary of States office will help you to understand what has happened. They need investigated.

As for the remaining records, after the ongoing court case has finished, for which Judge Marbley ordered those records protected and given to the SOS office, one of your staff told me that those 2004 election records would probably be destroyed. Jennifer, again I remind you, and Marc Dann, the evidence of the theft of the United States Presidential Election and evidence of the theft of the Ohio Supreme Court is in those records. Those are the people’s records. They need sorted into 88 counties, or actually 81 counties, because 7 counties turned over no records. I know that they are not sorted now, but all mixed up. The signature books and poll books need collected from the BOE’s, as I have repeatedly suggested to you. I gave to Jennifer Brunner on August 6th, in person via Bobbie Gilbert an RC-3 form, which is a certificate of disposal form. It was for Clermont County. It documented that they disposed of their signature books this summer, in July, further evidence that Judge Marbley’s ruling is being ignored. When I called Clermont, I was told they sent the signature books and poll books to the SOS office. When I looked at your inventory sheet for Clermont, it does not show signature books and poll books. Have you looked into this? As for those signature books and poll books for the 88 counties, they are an important part of the evidence of this enormous crime. They need inventoried and audited. They need gift wrapped with some of that yellow “crime scene” tape. Please, for the sake of this nation… due diligence. Just do your jobs.

I wrote you earlier about my concern at the same Voting Rights Institute meeting that Keith Cunningham, Director of the Allen County Board of Elections was appointed to a new board. The entry from your minutes of the meeting are below.

FROM THE VOTING RIGHTS INSTITUTE MEETING

Secretary Brunner announced her appointment of 3 people to the Board of Voting Examiners. This group determines the certification of voting machines in Ohio. The new members are: Keith Cunningham, from Allen County, David Moots, from Union County, and Inajo Davis Chappell, from Cuyahoga County.

I addressed and asked for a reply from both the Ohio Secretary of State, and the Ohio Attorney General’s offices about this. Keith Cunningham, Director of the Allen County Board of Elections who is one of many Ohio Election Officials that rigged a Green Party Recount of the 2004 Election. Again, here is the website for the report
HYPERLINK "http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ohio_reports/counties/allen.php"
Keith also disposed of 2004 election records. I asked that he immediately be removed from this board that will be responsible for certifying the Ohio voting machines. What he has done is a crime. He needs removed from his office and investigated. Instead it has the appearance he was rewarded (after discarding his 2004 ballots) with this new position. I asked for a response from your offices, for feedback on the appointment of Keith Cunningham to this new board. I continue to wait for a response on this matter… Why does no one at your office appear to care?

As for cost, in 2004 Allen County had 139 precincts. That is $1,390.00 that David Cobb, candidate for the United States President, paid for the recount. Keith Cunningham and any members of his board that were involved should personally refund that money. My research is showing rigged recounts across the state. Have the SOS office, or AG office investigated? Then to add additional insult to the many rigged recounts, the Ohio legislature in 3515.07 under “Charges for recounts” in 2006 raises the cost of future recounts up to being as much as $50.00 per precinct. This decision needs reversed, and an apology issued.

I’ve not yet studied Union County, another county for which a member is put on your new board to certify voting machines, but I did find this on the Green Party Recount site.
HYPERLINK "http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ohio_reports/counties/union.php"
This is the site for Union County, where the hard drive was switched out of the tabulator which counts the votes, between the election and the recount.

So did David Cobb and the Green and Libertarian Parties get a real recount? Union County had 46 precincts in 2004. That is $460.00 that was paid for the recount. Did the new machine give the same count? I am not comfortable with this. I have a witness that says this happened in about half our counties, the tabulators were altered between the election and the recount. Care to know more?

In the below clip from the Voting Rights Institute, it says that those of you at the VRI in the office of the SOS will do many good things. I hope you will work with the Ohio Election Justice Campaign, and get the issue of election crimes addressed.
INCLUDEPICTURE "http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/images/vri.gif" \* MERGEFORMATINET
Mission Statement:
The Ohio Secretary of State’s office seeks to promote civic participation and a stronger democracy through ensuring every Ohioan’s right to vote in an election system that is free, fair, open and honest.
The Voting Rights Institute will:
• work with communities, partner with organizations and implement programs that will ensure a safe, reliable and trustworthy process that fosters and enhances access to voting in Ohio by all of its eligible citizens,
• act as a clearinghouse to address voter concerns and
• provide leadership on legislative and policy initiatives to accomplish this mission.
For more information, contact Kellye Pinkleton at 614-995-1619 or by HYPERLINK "http://www.sos.state.oh.us/ContactUs.aspx?Code=VotingRights" e-mail (click to send e-mail).

IN CLOSING…
LETS SCHEDULE A MEETING AND START THE WORK!

In closing for this long letter. Please call me and lets schedule our meeting. I now have over 50 people interested in being here for this meeting. I will also send you the new guest list, including the bios for all participants and topics for the speakers. Kellye Pinkleton wrote that she had “space concerns”. Do not worry about that, we will provide a meeting location. Several locations have been looked at, and we are still looking, so that we have plenty of choices when we have a scheduled date. Kellye also wrote to me, and explained to Patricia Axelrod that Jennifer Brunner is too busy to meet, that only staff will be available. That will not be sufficient due to the importance of the topic. If that is still the answer, please provide The Ohio Election Justice Campaign with the schedule of Jennifer Brunner so we can see what she is working on that is so much more important than the theft of the US Presidential office, and the Ohio Supreme Court. I know Jennifer has a fundraiser coming up in Licking County this month. I received an invitation. Maybe something like that could be rescheduled. We are open to days, evening, or even weekends. Fridays are good for most people. We want to work with you. We want justice in Ohio, we were robbed, and thus, the nation was robbed. We must succeed in seeking justice in Ohio.

Sincerely Concerned,


The Ohio Election Justice Campaign

Paddy Shaffer
Founder, The Ohio Election Justice Campaign
paddy@columbus.rr.com
(614) 761-0621

Cc: All members of The Ohio Election Justice Campaign
Media members both far and wide
Many American Citizens
American Organizations
People who read what is on the Internet
And more…

The Dog Ate My Homework Project

The Dog Ate My Homework Project
Bush and Cheney Stole Ohio Election
John Kerry and John Edwards sit silent?
Learn the County Election History and Help!

August 2007



With a minimum of 1,582,208 Ohio ballots lost or destroyed by Ohio's Boards of Elections in total disregard for the record retention schedule, and orders from US District Court Judge Algenon Marbley to protect them, it is time to ask the difficult questions about what has happened. Since no law enforcement agency has stepped in to investigate, the job continues to fall on the shoulders of Americans. Our work of taking a very detailed look into Ohio elections continues, with a focus on our STOLEN ELECTION OF 2004. A project has started as a result of the fury of Ohio Election Activist, Paddy Shaffer after reading the ridiculous "letters of explanation" provided to the Ohio Secretary of State, rather than providing her with the ballots, as ordered by the Judge.



The effort now started, is called "THE DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK PROJECT" (in reference to the lame excuses given), and this will be a version of "The People's Court", until or unless actual law enforcement folks, who have actual funding and resources, decide that stealing the Presidency of the United States warrants a look. They should be ashamed so far. Since stealing a loaf of bread could get a mother with hungry children harsh punishment, those of us paying attention in Ohio feel that stealing our election should matter, and matter a lot for every stinking hand that helped to pull it off. So it is now the time, and here is the chance for the American people to be the Judge, the Jury, the Court Reporter, the Prosecutor, and the Investigators. It is easy to do. Contact us with idea's for questions to be asked of the Boards of Elections. Report what you find back to us.



We want to provide some helpful hints on how to study any Ohio County that you are interested in, so you know some of its election history that might pertain to the research you collect for The Dog Ate My Homework Project. With this we seek to find out the truth about what has happened to Ohio’s missing 2004 election records. 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties are missing some or all of their 2004 election records. The excuses in the "county letters of explanation" only beg to have more questions asked. Fifteen offending counties did not even provide an excuse to the Secretary of State. There are forms all the Boards of Elections must fill out to dispose of or destroy records, in most of the counties we have now researched, the Board of Elections have not filed a single form in the last 15 years, or longer. Here are the counties, with no letter of explanation, and what they admit to be missing...



That includes

Columbiana, (unvoted ballots)

Coshocton, (unvoted ballots)

Darke, (unvoted & soiled ballots) (a soiled ballot is one that the voter ruined, and asked for a new one)

Lawrence, (unvoted, provisional, & soiled ballots)

Licking, (unvoted & soiled ballots)

Lorain, (unvoted ballots & ballot pages)

Madison, (unvoted ballots)

Miami, (soiled ballots)

Morgan, (unvoted ballots)

Noble, (unvoted ballots)

Summit, (unvoted ballots & ballot pages)

Tuscarawas, (unvoted ballots)

Wayne, (unvoted ballots)

Wood, (unvoted ballots)

Wyandot (soiled ballots & ballot pages)



Imagine being the detective to find out why?



We the people must ask them why, what happened, under what authority do you do these things. Since no one in an official capacity seems to be asking, “We The People” will step in and find out what happened to our ballots, our “Public Records”. Judge Algenon Marbley ordered these records to be safely maintained, and for the ballots to be turned over to the Ohio Secretary of State. Again I say, at a minimum, 1,582,208 (according to Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips)

ballots are now forever missing, which in this case are 1,582,208 pieces of evidence are gone.



This should matter to all Americans, regardless of party. This is just wrong! Is this 1,582,208 fourth degree felony charges? The Judge, in his September 11, 2006 ruling said it was a fourth degree felony, and he would hold those that did not abide by his ruling in contempt of court.



John Kerry and John Edwards need questioned too. What happened, why do they still sit silent. Did they read the books provided to them by Paddy Shaffer and Mark Brown with the evidence of the theft of the Ohio Election. If they didn't read them, why not? What could they do that would be more important? What does Al Gore think about it all?

If 2000, and 2004 were both stolen, how can these men sit silently and leave the gate open for election theft to visit our doors again? What the hell is happening here? If you talk to, or can call these men, provide us with the questions you posed to Kerry, and Edwards, and tell us their responses. It will be utilized in telling Ohio's story. Either they are part of the problem, or part of the solution, this is not something we can "GET OVER", nor should we.



The site for the Green Party’s 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Recount is http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ohio_reports/

At this site you can go in and look at how the recount went in any county in Ohio. As you study the individual counties for your own research, or to assist with The Dog Ate My Homework Project, all the pieces of information weave the story together. Remember, they fought the recount. Delaware County set legal precedent by going to court to block the recount. As long as Delaware didn't recount, none of the other counties had to, until Judge Edmund Sargus ordered them to.



The Free Press has made available documents obtained by public record requests from the Ohio Secretary of State (SOS), Jennifer Brunner. This includes the inventory lists, letters of explanation (for not turning over records to the SOS), photos from some of the counties to explain why they didn’t send records, and more. That site is, (http://freepress.org/ballot/BOE.pdf)



As more important documents are gathered, they will be made available for viewing.



Please send Jason and Paddy your email address, and a phone number where we can reach you if you are willing to help. Send your answers to the project email ohballots@... , and also to Paddy Shaffer ohballots@gmail.com at

(614) 761-0621 and to Jason Parry at ohballots@gmail.com Send it to all three addresses. Jason will be putting data in spreadsheets and doing other things to make the data as useful as possible. If you learn anything really unusual or legally important, that you want to share, please call Paddy and share the story verbally also.



If you are able to make only one or a couple phone calls to one or two Ohio Boards of Elections, your assistance will help to make a difference. Please actually do something to address what happened in Ohio. This election fraud is of a cancerous sort, and it is spreading.



Thanks for your assistance,



Paddy Shaffer
paddy@...
(614) 761-0621

Karl Rove Retire? LOL The Devil Is Unleashed

This morning, Aug. 13, 2007, Steve Inskeep, on NPR, made a statement on how Karl Rove called republican higher ups, election day 2004, telling them to ignore exit polls.

Karl Rove was in Ohio that day with President Bush and Kenneth Blackwell. That same day, as reported by independent investigators (http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org.nyud.net:8080/story/2006/%2011/9/61233/1283 ) it was noted that Ohio elections results servers were switched from Ohio and then originated from the same servers that the RNC had been using for various sites of their own interests, possibly including their emails.

(I have been told there are plenty of questionable emails, as well, from local Ohio republican officials questioning the authority of court ordered ballot retention in the state.)

Is this why Karl was so SURE the exit polls in 2004 needed to be ignored?

Since then many concerned individuals (see www.freepress.org election section) have gone to many counties throughout Ohio and found, in fact, that their suspicicions were confirmed when hand counting ballots, checking signature books, and other investigative techniques uncovered the reality that Karl Rove's election results did not match reality on the ground.

There is a plethora of evidence there that Paddy Shaffer, Dr. Robert Fitrakis, Richard Hayes Phillips, Harvey Wasserman (and others) could attest and provide the facts to this happening. At this point, the Ohio attorney general has ignored the evidence these people have provided as proof and Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner also has slighted them by ignoring the urgency of the situation in light of the pending 2008 elections.

Defending the Freedoms of July 4, 1776: America's Hope for the World

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_paul_leh_070704_defending_the_freedo.htm

From Paul Lehto

You gotta stand for something,

Or you’re gonna fall, for anything.


--John Cougar Mellencamp


Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

--Tom Van Meurs


If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

–William Somerset Maugham


All Power, Freedom, and Democracy comes from rights. Starting on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence changed forever how the world thinks of rights, and thereby became one of the most important political documents in the history of the world.


The Declaration of Independence especially was intended not just for Americans, it was declared for the benefit of all of humanity. Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Our cause is the cause of all mankind, and…we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”


The American Declaration of Independence boldly declared Independence from King George III as a matter of inalienable human rights, and rejected kingly tyranny under claim of divine right. By shifting the idea of who holds rights away from the king, the government and the British East India Corporation and instead in favor of the human beings in We the People, it was as though the Founders had diverted a Nile River of rights. Instead of the blessings of the Creator fertilizing the king’s divine rule, the Founders declared that all people were born with rights, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and created “self-government” by We the People.


These rights were planted in individual people, who instead had an inalienable human right to create, alter and abolish their forms of government, in addition to various inalienable rights involving life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.


As President Ronald Reagan put it “Ours was a philosophical revolution that changed the very concept of government.” The critical second paragraph of the Declaration also tells us governments are only legitimately created through the will of the people and the very reason, the sole reason, governments are instituted is “to secure these rights.” Thus, it is the government’s #1 job to secure you your inalienable rights, to guarantee them and make them real.


Many historians also say that our Nation was the first nation consciously founded upon ideals, instead of race, nationality, religion or class. Enormous faith was placed in the ability of any independent person to use the rules of reason and the principles of liberty and justice in order to “become their own Governors” as John Adams put it. In one word, it was Self-Government or republicanism that was the key to the American Revolution. In two words, the very same thing as republicanism is “representative democracy” (as distinguished from direct democracy, which the Founders generally opposed).


These ideals of We the People were not just being fought on behalf of the 13 colonies, they were sought on behalf “of all mankind.” The subsequent Constitution, arrived at using the Rule of Reason by representatives of the People, was declared by Henry Clay as a gift to “endless, perpetual posterity.” That is, unlike the temporary Articles of Confederation, this Constitution was intended to give principles that could guide America for all time, for perpetual posterity.


Given that the Founders consciously intended to change the history of the world for all of humanity and for all time, they of course did not set out ideals that could be achieved in a day. They set out principles and ideals that could be the guide stars to orient ourselves by. As Carl Schurz wrote: “Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.”


By maximizing individual human rights and dignity and maximizing liberty, the founders unleashed the greatest colossus of ingenuity and freedom and progress the world had ever seen. The guide stars of liberty and democracy, though not fully achieved, nevertheless worked to inspire ever greater progress. The political history of America can easily be told in terms of making the promises of the Declaration of Independence real, as women and minorities expressly insisted on their rights, citing our Declaration of Independence in support. Thus, while some say that the Founders had some faults, it adds considerably to accuracy to state that in setting forth ideals intended to benefit all of humanity for all time, they could not and did not set out standards that could be achieved in the 1700s or even the 1800s.

And indeed, considering the highest of political moralities and 620,000 civil war dead, President George H.W. Bush (Sr.) wrote: "I sometimes wonder if we've forgotten who we are. But we're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery, and we're the people who rose from the ghettos and the deserts." Bush Sr. also wrote: " America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation, and gentler the face of the world." Whether or not one supported President George H.W. Bush, his evocation of American ideals is consistent with the noble intent of 1776, and the guidance those ideals intended throughout all of history. If any President of the United States wants to accomplish something in our country, for better or for worse, he will invoke this power of American idealism, as George W. Bush did once again in his Second Inaugural Address:

"Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul." These ideals are so powerful, they are even used with success in convincing the American public to go to war. Countless millions have died in the name of freedom and democracy or self-government by We the People. President Woodrow Wilson said "Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. … America is the only idealist nation in the world." Americans are often called by their leaders to aggressively achieve American ideals: Indeed, "the American," as President John F. Kennedy said, "builds best when called upon to build greatly." Americans started by building a great Declaration of Independence and Constitution that were intended, as Founder Henry Clay put it, "for endless perpetual posterity." Ideals can indeed work forever because they guide us or remind us even when not yet fully achieved.

But the fundamental freedom of American self-government, the very key of liberty, is being challenged like never before. The sole method of control of the government that Americans have is elections. And in the last several years, the counting of America’s votes has been rendered corruptly secret, invisible and outside the power of any citizen to observe, via the processes and contracts of computerized voting. Secrecy is always the total lack of accountability, because everyone needs information to make someone accountable.

Moreover, because this corrupt secret vote counting is being handled by corporations in invisible trade secrecy of computer software, a government insider that wants to throw an election can manipulate the election computers just as easily as we all manipulate our own personal computers. There is no such thing as security against our own computers that we possess or control. Essentially all of the talk about “security” of computerized voting machines has been restricted to taking them off the internet, which only protects the government against “threats” from the public, but does not do anything to protect We the People from insiders in our government who want to stay in power, sell elections, or have a political issue they strongly wish to favor.


As a result, even though the government’s #1 job and the reason it was formed was to “secure” our rights, our right to “alter or abolish” our government under the Declaration of Independence is totally unsecured, and in fact no longer exists wherever there is a criminal insider in elections. This is the main time if not the only time when we really need our inalienable right to “kick the bums out.”


Thus, the American people, not able to freely kick out the worst criminal cheaters, are not a free people. This is not a “threat” of loss of freedom, it is a present day reality wherever computerized voting and a criminal insider are present.


Given the many very important issues on the ballot, combined with the control of the world’s richest country, many billions in federal contracts, and control of the sole military superpower in the world at stake, it is both naïve and even unpatriotic to believe that nobody would desire to preserve or achieve power over America illegitimately. Our right to vote, and therefore to be master instead of slave, is rendered entirely meaningless if we can not secure an open and public count, controlled by We the People. The government sure can’t audit itself, investigate itself or elect itself, and the government gets 100% of its money and power from one source: elections.


The powerful role of We the People in self-government is, along with the inalienable right to alter or abolish the government, a self-evident fact. Self-evident means that we don’t need to prove these rights or facts, they prove themselves and are completely obvious. There is only one alternative to democracy where we are all tied for #1 most important citizen in the land on account of our equal votes, and that is inequality whereby one person or class rules over another with unequal rights. That is the essence of Tyranny and the opposite of freedom. That is categorically not what the Founders set out to accomplish for all of humanity and for all time.


Everybody wants to be #1 and many want to “rule the world” and so perhaps it is to be expected that corporations have captured our vote counts and made them their private property, literally kicking off We the People as trespassers, even though this is the very heart and soul and democracy. But as soon as we recall our past, recall the importance of freedom as a people, recall that all power emanates from rights, and that rights are supposed to inhere only in people and not kings, governments and soul-less corporations, we will re-invigorate the engines of human rights and freedom that have so excited the American people and the people of the world that they’ve acted as both prime political forces as well as facilitating economic progress by unleashing the enterprise of free individuals.


Americans, once they know what is at stake, will never tolerate a takeover of their country by forces hostile to the common good of the American people and dedicated legally and contractually solely to private profit. If a foreign country could not demand the right to count votes in secret, neither can corporations in America demand the same. Indeed, the two are the same and the effort by a foreign country to take over our elections would be unanimously resisted by all Americans, using the military if necessary. No corporation is our superior, there is no basis for them to have these special privileges of secret counting.


John Quincy Adams spoke on July 4, 1821: “America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.”


These rights are the tools of democracy. Each generation must use them or lose them. So far every generation of Americans has acted to make the promises of the declaration of independence more real. This one will too, as long as people take the time to remember what the American experiment is all about, remember to defend democracy, remember that compromises of our rights are the same as violations of our rights, and remember that the government has no excuse but to be our servant and guarantee us our rights, especially our #1 inalienable right to “alter or abolish” our own government, or kick the bums out.


If you believe as I believe, then you can see how the power of the Declaration of Independence has melted away the forces of history, bigotry, oppression, and been our guide star for centuries. We are not any longer a free people because of computerized secret vote counting, but this is so obviously improper and such a clear invitation to the grossest corruptions that it simply can not stand the light of day, or the sunshine of publicity.


Already, an August 2006 Zogby poll shows that 92% of the American public support a system of observable vote counting by citizens. This is a totally nonpartisan issue, and high support exists for observable vote counting across every political party and demographic. This is yet another reason why there is simply no excuse for Congress to deny the will of the people in favor of the corporate will to own the heart of our democracy as their own private property. There is also no excuse for asking us to trust these private corporations or officials, our system is not based on trust it is based on checks and balances.


Thus, in fighting to restore our freedom we are incredibly lucky in our generation, that the battle will only involve informing all of our fellow Americans, and watching these vote counting corporations and their election official defenders of secrecy melt before the power of the Declaration of Independence. Today, we have the unique privilege of knowing for sure that we are fighting for freedom and democracy, even as some who have served our country and sacrificed their lives might understandably have had a doubt whether it was truly necessary to sacrifice their lives. But as the Marines say “Ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to do or die.”


If you’d like to see the American Declaration of Independence be restored to its rightful course as the world’s beacon of rights freedom, for all of humanity and for all time, if you believe that America is real and that ideas matter, your help is very needed to spread the word to our fellow citizens, the true and rightful rulers of this country. To do this, please post, email or copy and paste this article in as many places as you can find, and talk about it with whoever you can. Do this today, tomorrow, and the next day, and keep going because the sacred inalienable rights of the Declaration are top news EVERY DAY, regardless of what anyone says.


In distributing this word, we need to let all American citizens know of the unfaithfulness of our government to the principles they are sworn to uphold, and that they are about to vote in the House of Representatives on HR 811 and in the Senate on S1487 which will institutionalize secret vote counting for Senators and Representatives IN THEIR OWN ELECTIONS. This too, this self-serving behavior, will not stand, and can not stand. It would be comical were freedom not so serious.

Many state constitutions and the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights state words directly to the effect that “a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is necessary to the preservation of liberty and free government.” See, e.g., Wash. State Const. Art. I, sec. 32. Thus, in passing word to your fellow citizens, you are literally doing what is necessary to preserve liberty and freedom: remembering the principles of the Declaration and using them as the tools of Freedom and the defenders of democracy.


Whether our freedom as a people is restored soon or not depends on how much each of you acts like Paul Revere and does your part. There’s a simple test here of your status: if you are a one of the co-equal ruler-citizens of this country, you will be alarmed by this and tell as many of your fellow rulers as possible to keep our eyes on the prize and put aside any partisan differences in order to preserve the freedom of ALL Americans on this issue On the other hand, if you have adopted the ways of the slave, you will be fearful, or depressed, or otherwise rationalize inaction in some way: you will not feel empowered. Indeed, rationalization is the process of surrender.

As Thomas Paine reminded America in Common Sense in 1776, “we have the power to begin the world all over again.” He also said “Be free, set up for yourselves, a great destiny is before you, show yourselves worthy of it.” We can all be tied for the most important citizen in our democracy, each with an equal vote, or we can be slaves bossed around by others with no real say, and a government we can’t change that stays stuck on the “Stupid” setting.


We are each free to do nothing for our country. But in this case that may be the last decision the American people are allowed to make by their masters. So please study paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence, find out more places to learn at www.psephos-us.org and spread the word. Tell every state and federal politician that it is corrupt to have secret vote counting at all, and unbelievably improper to vote for it for their own elections. It will only be a matter of months, if we all do this, before politicians are doing their rightful job of falling all over themselves to fully restore citizen control of our own elections.


It’s our country, our government, our elections, our representatives, our ballots, our votes, our tax dollars, and our opinions that count. The government has never received a single legitimate tax dollar, or power, except from We the People. They are public servants, not the public’s masters. So educate everyone first, then later on in late summer we’ll have to have a talk with them about who’s really in charge of this country: a refresher course in Independence.


Paul R Lehto

Attorney at Law

lehtolawyer@gmail.com

Thom Hartmann On Stealing Elections

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thom_har_070621_the_ultimate_felony_.htm

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find out. Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

But in all the discussion about voting machines, let's never forget the concept of the commons, because this usurpation is the ultimate felony committed by conservatives this year.

At the founding of this nation, we decided that there were important places to invest our tax (then tariff) dollars, and those were the things that had to do with the overall "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" of all of us. Over time, these commons - in which we all make tax investments and for which we all hold ultimate responsibility - have come to include our police and fire services; our military and defense; our roads and skyways; our air, waters and national parks; and the safety of our food and drugs.

But the most important of all the commons in which we've invested our hard-earned tax dollars is our government itself. It's owned by us, run by us (through our elected representatives), answerable to us, and most directly responsible for stewardship of our commons.

And the commons through which we regulate the commons of our government is our vote.

About two years ago, I wrote a story for these pages, "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines," that exposed how Senator Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on unauditable machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability, Hagel run for President in 2008.

In another, later I also wrote an article at the request of MoveOn.org and which they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in Georgia - another state that went all-electronic. "USA Today reported on Nov. 3, 2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with a 49%-to-44% lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss. 'Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election (Nov. 7) that, "Pollsters may have goofed" because 'Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'" Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit trail.

In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published her book on the subject ("Black Box Voting"), including the revelation of her finding the notorious "Rob Georgia" folder on Diebold's FTP site just after Cleland's loss there; Lynn Landes has done some groundbreaking research, particularly her new investigation of the Associated Press, as have Rebecca Mercuri and David Dill. There's a new video out on the topic, Votergate, available at www.votergate.tv.

Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines, and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the Democratic members of the House of Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, thus insuring that there will be no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate, has fueled the flames of conspiracy theorists convinced Republican ideologues - now known to be willing to lie in television advertising - would extend their "ends justifies the means" morality to stealing the vote "for the better good of the country" they think single-party Republican rule will bring.

Most important, though, the rallying cry of the emerging "honest vote" movement must become: Get Corporations Out Of Our Vote!

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so sacred to democracy that in many states even international election monitors and reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? Particularly a private corporation founded, in one case, by a family that believes the Bible should replace the Constitution; in another case run by one of Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly owned by Saudi investors?

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We The People and against democracy in our great and historic republic - this is the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to private corporations.

It's time that the USA - like most of the rest of the world - returns to paper ballots, counted by hand by civil servants (our employees) under the watchful eye of the party faithful. Even if it takes two weeks to count the vote, and we have to just go, until then, with the exit polls of the news agencies. It worked just fine for nearly 200 years in the USA, and it can work again.

When I lived in Germany, they took the vote the same way most of the world does - people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil servants taking a week off from their regular jobs, watched over by volunteer representatives of the political parties. It's totally clean, and easily audited. And even though it takes a week or more to count the vote (and costs nothing more than a bit of overtime pay for civil servants), the German people know the election results the night the polls close because the news media's exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of a percent off.


We could have saved billions that have instead been handed over to ES&S, Diebold, and other private corporations.

Or, if we must have machines, let's have them owned by local governments, maintained and programmed by civil servants answerable to We The People, using open-source code and disconnected from modems, that produce a voter-verified printed ballot, with all results published on a precinct-by-precinct basis.

As Thomas Paine wrote at this nation's founding, "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."

Only when We The People reclaim the commons of our vote can we again be confident in the integrity of our electoral process in the world's oldest and most powerful democratic republic.

Thom Hartmann (www.thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached and the title is unchanged. Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm

DIALING 911 FOR DEMOCRACY AND REALLY SCREWING IT UP

See the methods and the means via the RNC server originating the results November 3rd, 2004.

We do not concede.

http://neocon-panic-attacks.blogspot.com/2007/04/gops-cyber-election-hit-squad-from.html

Once again we ask for your input dignifying our existence in this country as a
citizen and a responsible voter. Please ask for the rejection of the Holt bill HR811!
Send a letter to your congress people! Here!

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

DIALING 911 FOR DEMOCRACY AND REALLY SCREWING IT UP
by Paul R Lehto
June 14, 2007

I don't know anybody who thinks a post-HR 811 (Holt bill) world is secure against insider fraud. That alone is a fatal flaw for both freedom and democracy, as explained more below.

In fact, it's absurd to think that an election insider could not find 59 seconds to swap out the chips in an e-voting machine, as demonstrated in this 59 second demonstration video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EowKalRT3lc

I'm not really all that concerned about "voter fraud" (by citizens) because that is far more difficult. Yet that is what HR 811 concentrates its efforts against by shutting down Internet connectivity, etc.

HR 811 (the Holt bill) does essentially nothing against insider fraud, because it CAN'T: Voting machines can't be made secure against insiders any more than your own personal computer can be made secure against YOU .

Elections uniquely require a kind of 2-way security that doesn't exist: Computer security inherently gives some insider trusted Admin-level access to everything, while keeping out those nasty outsiders. But with elections, it is the insider government officials who have the most to gain or lose: Every ounce of their power and money comes directly or indirectly from elections.

In the end, one can only raise the cost of penetrating a computer system, one can't make it "secure." Once we've raise the cost sufficiently high, only large corporations, governments, and CIA/KGB type organizations can manipulate elections: but those are precisely the ones we are concerned about the most from the beginning.

Thus, as long as there is admin level access to computerized voting systems with trade secret counts, we've got no security at all. We are powerless to kick out criminal cheating insiders, yet that is exactly when we need our voting rights most of all !

And if we the people can't be guaranteed that we can kick out a criminal cheating insider, we are not a free people.

This is not really anything to "compromise" on. At least not if you believe in our country's founding principles, and believe that some vigilance, even eternal vigilance, is the price of maintaining Liberty.

Nothing less than Freedom, Democracy is at risk, and Half Freedom, and Half Democracy is not freedom or democracy at all. And even Peace is at risk (because if we can't change governments peacefully, then there's only the method of 1776). Because these are inalienable rights, they are to be defended, not compromised. A compromise of a right is simply a violation of that right.

The government has no excuse for lecturing us that HR 811 is the only "realistic" option, the government in the USA was "instituted to secure these Rights" per the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, under HR 811, not only is the government failing to secure our rights, it is going so far as to vote itself secret vote counting in THEIR OWN ELECTIONS, in effect claiming the absurdity that We the People want to keep vote counting secrets FROM OURSELVES. In fact, an August 2006 Zogby poll suggests precisely the opposite: Up to 92% of the American public prefers observable vote counting and the public's right to obtain information about vote counting. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1163

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them . . ." --Patrick Henry

"Give me Liberty, or Give me Death." ---Patrick Henry

In a nutshell, HR 811 is totally out of touch with the American public today (the Zogby poll) as well as the principles this country was founded upon. Who in their right mind wants to compromise Democracy, compromise Freedom? Why would ANY government fail to secure this basic right for us? Inquiring American minds want to know.

I mean millions, literally, of Americans have worked their lives and died for democracy. And we should accept the word of some unnamed people in Congress that anything less than corrupt secret vote counting is "unrealistic" for the greatest democracy in the world? Before we give up this experiment in freedom called the USA, they ought to at least tell us to our faces that the government is more trustworthy than We the People. This is much worse than a bad joke on the American people. This is basically treason against democracy, because the indispensable characteristic of democracy is not elections, but the reality that all power comes from the people, and that the people are sovereign and in control when they select THEIR governmental servants/representatives.

In light of the above, here is HR 811 defined: Dialing 911 for Democracy and really screwing it up. And I don't think it's very funny.

--
(Permission granted to forward freely in whole (and post, blog, etc.), and with attribution preserved)
Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
lehtolawyer@gmail.com
425-422-1387

Palast: US Attorney Resigns Following Conyers’ Request for BBC Documents

US Attorney Resigns
Following Conyers’ Request for BBC Documents
Published June 1st, 2007 in Articles
by Greg Palast
June 1, 2007

Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.

Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters’ right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.

Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin’s resignation, “We’re not through with him by any means.”

Conyers indicated to the BBC that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive ‘caging’ operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove.

Griffin has not responded to requests by BBC to explain this ‘caging’ operation. However, in emails subpoenaed by Conyers’ committee, Griffin complains to Monica Goodling, an assistant to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, about the BBC reporter’s reproduction of caging lists in Palast’s book, “Armed Madhouse.”

In the email dated February 5 of this year, Griffin stated that the purpose of ‘caging’ was to identify “fraudulent” voters. This contradicts one explanation of the Bush campaign to BBC that the lists were of potential donors and not in any way created to challenge voters.

Griffin confidentially wrote: “The real story is this: There were thousands of reported illegal/fake voter registrations around the country, so some of the Republican State Parties mailed letters welcoming new voters to the newly registered voters. … The Republican State Parties ultimately wanted to show that thousands of fraudulent registrations had been completed.”

Last Wednesday, Goodling testified under a grant of immunity before the House Judiciary Committee that Gonzales’ Deputy Paul McNulty, “failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote ‘caging’ during his work on the President’s 2004 campaign.”

Goodling’s testimony prompted Conyers’ request to the BBC for the Griffin emails.

Last night Palast showed Conyers a Griffin email from August 2004 indicating that Griffin not only knew of ‘caging,’ but directed the operation.

**********

And check out this story from Slate: Raging Caging - What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: From Baghdad to New Orleans — Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. For information, go to www.GregPalast.com

Wanted: Election Fraud Bounty Hunters (Where Is Karl R?)

Go here to sign a petition to your National representatives to stop the secret election machinery (STOP Holt Bill HR811) and read reasoning behind it. Please forward, it is your democracy at stake.

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

Thanks Paul!

A gift from www.psephos-us.org to

Interim Registrar Michelle Townsend, Registrar-Appoint Deborah Seiler, Asst. Registrar-Appoint Michael Vu, and, most importantly, a gift to

Diebold:

We Present to you, this 10 minute feature expose' on FOX TV in San Diego, to honor your corruption of the recounts in the 2004 presidential election, to give tribute to your secret vote counting software, to indict the entire electoral process in Ohio, to indict the entire electoral process in San Diego, to remember that thousands did not receive their ballots in Ohio, to condemn the loss of voter registrations, and to make damn sure that Judge Corrigan's comments (the trial judge in the felony convictions in the Ohio recount rigging in the 2004 presidential elections) are remembered and available on video:

On video, Judge Corrigan says to the convicted Ohio election officials: "Protecting other people, I don't know, it seems unlikely that your superiors didn't know." ---Judge Peter Corrigan

Then there is (not yet available on webstream) a five minute discussion interview that aired live in which Psephos pointed out that Vu was the superior, where Psephos attorney and co-founder Ken Simpkins pointed to the lack of accountability of these appointed election vendor apologists, and denounced the lack of checks and balances and lack of citizen control over elections. Consistent with earlier coverage of the San Diego Union Tribune quoting Psephos' Paul Lehto, Deborah Seiler's 12 years with Diebold and Sequoia were acknowledged for her skills as "one of the nation's foremost apologists for electronic secret vote counting." Ken rocked!

We also had a packed Supervisors in a mid-morning meeting with numerous public comments taking on the supervisors for approving secret vote counting, buying millions more in machines the day before this public comment, and being unresponsive to polls stating that over 80% of San Diegans want a transparent voting system. Some citizens were getting so upset two got ejected from the room, but each public comment in favor of democracy was greeted with enthusiastic applause, and even a comment by a Supervisor about the patriotic war in Iraq got greeted by widespread boos and hisses. Many local citizens and activists attended and a half dozen or more made comments.

Our press conference at 1030 was also well attended by TV and print media. Here's the Fox News link for the San Diego story (first half of it)

http://www.fox6.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3def0250-dd22-4c12-ae5d-ded474dfa8a7

or go to www.fox6.com and choose the link to today's feature story QUESTIONABLE BACKGROUND.

A special salute to Ohio activists like Adele Eisner, and Kathleen Wynne who got critical video for the Cuyahoga case, and others who played key roles in developing the Ohio evidence against Vu.

Vu's record is now following him wherever he goes, as it should. Off the record, media is calling the whole thing "sordid."

You could say that the weather is San Diego is HOT. When the election PR department and officials refuse to respond to repeated calls for comment, they are IN HIDING.

But politicians should know that when it comes to elections, they can Run for office, but they can't Hide. They can't hide the vote counting -- nor can they hide from the cameras in San Diego either.

Paul Lehto, Co-founder, Psephos (SEA-foss)
Ken Simpkins, Co-founder, Psephos
Linda Poniktera, Co-founder, Psephos

--------------------------

If you like this email and this FOX feature story, demolishing Vu and putting all the election officials in San Diego County on the run, please consider signing up on our website or making a donation to Psephos. Thank you. www.psephos-us.org
--
Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
plehto@psephos-us.org
425-422-1387

-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

The GOP's Cyber Election Hit Squad from Fitrakis and Rosenfeld

I love reposting, especially if it gets the job done..


by Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
April 22, 2007

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?

The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website – which gave the world the presidential election results – was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote– from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves – must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

Numerous tech-savvy bloggers, starting with the online investigative consortium epluribusmedia.org and their November 2006 article cross-posted by contributor luaptifer to Dailykos, and Joseph Cannon's blog at Cannonfire.blogspot.com, outed the RNC tech network. That web-hosting firm is SMARTech Corp. of Chattanooga, TN, operating out of the basement in the old Pioneer Bank building. The firm hosts scores of Republican websites, including georgewbush.com, gop.com and rnc.org.

The software created for the Ohio secretary of state’s Election Night 2004 website was created by GovTech Solutions, a firm co-founded by longtime GOP computing guru Mike Connell. He also redesigned the Bush campaign's website in 2000 and told "Inside Business" magazine in 1999, "I wouldn't be where I am today without the Bush campaign and the Bush family because the Bushes truly are about family and I’m loyal to my network."

Ohio's Cedarville University, a Christian school with 3,100 students, issued a press release on January 13, 2005 describing how faculty member Dr. Alan Dillman’s computing company Government Consulting Resources, Ltd, worked with these Republican-connected companies to tally the vote on Election Night 2004.

"Dillman personally led the effort from the GCR side, teaming with key members of Blackwell's staff," the release said. "GCR teamed with several other firms – including key players such as GovTech Solutions, which performed the software development – to deliver the end result. SMARTech provided the backup and additional system capacity, and Mercury Interactive performed the stress testing."

On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio, the final presidential swing state, through a secretary of state who was a co-chair of the Bush campaign, but it also controlled the technology that allowed the tally of the vote in Ohio's 88 counties to be reported to the media and voters.

Privatizing elections and allowing known partisans to run a key presidential vote count is troubling enough. But the reason Congress must investigate these high-tech ties is there is abundant evidence that Republicans could have used this computing network to delay announcing the winner of Ohio's 2004 election while tinkering with the results.

Did Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell or other GOP operatives inflate the president's vote totals to secure George W. Bush's margin of victory? On Election Night 2004, many of the totals reported by the Secretary of State were based on local precinct results that were impossible. In Clyde, Ohio, a Republican haven, Bush won big after 131 percent voter turnout. In Republican Perry County, two precincts came in at 124 percent and 120 percent respectively. In Gahanna Ward 1, precinct B, Bush received 4,258 votes despite the fact that only 638 people voted for president. In Concord Southwest in Miami County, the certified election results proudly proclaimed at 679 out of 689 registered voters cast ballots, a 98.55 percent turnout. FreePress.org later found that only 547 voters had signed in.

These strange election results were routed by county election officials through Ohio's Secretary of State's office, through partisan IT providers and software, and the final results were hosted out of a computer based in Tennessee announcing the winner. The Cedarville University releases boasted the system "was running like a champ." It said, "The system kept running through the early morning hours as users from around the world looked to Ohio for their election results."

All the facts are not in, but enough is known to warrant a serious congressional inquiry. Beginning with a timeline on Election Night after a national media consortium exit poll predicted Democrat John Kerry would win Ohio, the first Ohio returns were from the state's Democratic urban strongholds, showing Kerry in the lead.

This was the case until shortly after midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 3, when for roughly 90 minutes the Ohio election results reported on the Secretary of State's website were frozen. Shortly before 2am EST election returns came in from a handful of the state's rural Republican enclaves, bumping Bush's numbers over the top.

It was known Bush would carry rural Ohio. But the vote totals from these last-to-report counties, where Karl Rove said there was an unprecedented late-hour evangelical vote giving the White House a moral mandate, were highly improbable and suggested vote count fraud to pad Bush’s numbers. Just how flimsy the reported GOP totals were was not known on Election Night and has not been examined by the national media. But an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff begun after Election Day 2004 and completed before the Electoral College met on Jan. 6, 2005, was first to publicly point to vote count fraud in rural Ohio.

That report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio," cited near-impossible vote totals, including 19,000 votes that were mysteriously added at the close of tallying the vote in Miami County. The report cited more than 3,000 apparently fraudulent voter registrations – all dating back to the same day in 1977 in Perry County. The report noted a homeland security emergency was declared in Warren County, prompting its ballots to be taken to a police-guarded unauthorized warehouse and counted away from public scrutiny, despite local media protests.

In our book, "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election" (The New Press, 2006), we go beyond the House Judiciary Democratic report to analyze precinct-by-precinct returns and we print copies of the documents upon which we base our findings. We found many vote-count irregularities based on examining the certified results, precinct-level records and the actual ballots.

The most eyebrow-raising example to emerge from parsing precinct results was finding 10,500 people in three Ohio's 'Bible Belt' counties who voted to re-elect Bush and voted in favor of gay marriage, if the official results are true. That was in Warren, Butler and Clermont Counties. The most plausible explanation for this anomaly, which defies logic and was not seen anywhere else in the country, was Kerry votes were flipped to Bush while the rest of the ballot was left alone. While we have some theories about how that might have been done by hand in a police-guarded warehouse, could full Republican control of the vote-counting software and servers also have played a role?

The early returns on the Secretary of State's website suggest Blackwell's vote-tallying and reporting system could manipulate large blocks of votes. Screenshots taken during the early returns in Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located, gave Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb 39,541 votes, which was clearly incorrect. Similarly, early return screenshots in Lucas County, where Toledo is located, gave Cobb 4,685 votes, another clear error. (The screenshots are in our book). Were these innocent computer glitches or was a GOP vote-counting and reporting system moving and dumping Kerry votes?

There's more evidence the late returns from Ohio's Republican-majority countryside were not accurate. During the spring and summer of 2006, several teams of investigators associated with Freepress.org, notably one team led by Ron Baiman, a Ph.D. statistician and researcher at Chicago's Loyola University, examined the actual election records from precincts in Miami and Clermont Counties. These records – from poll books where voters sign in, to examining the actual ballots themselves – were not publicly accessible until last year, under orders from Ohio’s former Republican Secretary of State. Baiman compared the number of voters who signed in with the total number of votes attributed to precincts. He found hundreds of "phantom" votes, where the number of voter signatures was less than the reported vote total. That discrepancy also suggests vote count fraud.

There was other evidence in the observable paper trail of padding the vote, including instances in Delaware County where in one precinct, 359 of the final punch-card ballots cast on Election Day contained no Kerry votes, which means the day's last voters all were Bush supporters, which also is improbable. In another Delaware County precinct, Bush allegedly received the last 210 votes of the day. Were partisan local election workers trying to mask what was happening electronically to tilt the vote count?

Ohio's 2004 ballots were to be destroyed last September. However that fate was blocked by a federal judge, who ruled in the early phase of trying a Voting Rights Act lawsuit that accused Ohio officials of suppressing the minority vote in Ohio's cities. The state's new Secretary of State and Attorney General, both Democrats, are now holding settlement talks for that suit, suggesting its claims have merit. However, unlike Florida after the 2000 election, there still has yet to be a full accounting of Ohio's presidential vote.

What's clear, however, is the highest ranks of the Republican Party's political wing, including White House counselor Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system that reported George W. Bush's re-election to the presidency. Moreover, it appears the votes that gave Bush his 118,775-vote margin of victory – the boost from Ohio's countryside – have yet to be confirmed as accurate. Instead, the reporting to date suggests that what happened on the ground and across Ohio's rural precincts is at odds with the vote tally released on Election Night.

As numerous congressional committees attempt to retrieve and examine the secret White House e-mails surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' firing of eight federal prosecutors, those panels must also probe the privatization and partisan manipulation of the 2004 presidential vote count in Ohio. The lessons from 2004 have yet to be fully understood or learned.

Similarly, the House Administration Committee, which is expected to soon mark up H.R. 811, a bill by Rep. Rush Holt, D-NJ, to regulate electronic voting technology, also must take heed. The vote count and outcome of American elections cannot be left in the hands of known partisans, who can control and manipulate how the votes are counted and what is reported to the media and American people.

Public vote counts on private, partisan servers and secret proprietary software have no place in a democracy.

--

Bob Fitrakis is a political science professor and attorney in the King Lincoln Bronzeville civil rights lawsuit against Ken Blackwell. Fitrakis, Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are authors of "What Happened in Ohio? A documentary record of theft and fraud in the 2004 election," (New Press, 2006).

KEY LINKS: To trace the site-hosting history of election.sos.state.oh.us, go to:
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report? url=http://election.sos.state.oh.us
(You will note on Nov. 3, 2004, the Ohio Secretary of State's website was moved from a Columbus-based company, OARnet, to SMARTECH CORPORATION.)

Ken Blackwell Outsources Ohio Election Results to GOP Internet Operatives, Again
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org.nyud.net:8080/story/2006/11/7/115314/922
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/7/144314/082

Who is Michael L. Connell? Part II: Behind the firewall
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org.nyud.net:8080/story/2007/4/3/19924/39133

The White House, vote theft, and the email trail
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/03/gwb43-white-house-vote-theft-and-email.html

Cedarville University A Major Player in Ohio's Election Tallying Efforts
http://www.cedarville.edu/newsrelease/2005/ Cedarville_University_ A_Major_Player_in_Ohio_s_ Election_Tallying_Efforts/2132271177

"What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election," by Robert Fitrakis, Steven Rosenfeld, Harvey Wasserman.
http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task =view_title&metaproductid=1597

Rove-ing emails: what else could go missing? by Todd Johnston
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org.nyud.net:8080/story/2007/ 4/22/33926/1773

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org.nyud.net:8080/story/2006/ 11/9/61233/1283
This shows a screen capture of the TN server 64.203.98.137 which in 2004 was where election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted from, and in 2006 it was still getting live data from Ohio, even though election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on OARnet servers in Ohio.