Berkeley Pries Open Votergate, Calls for Immediate Investigation of 2004

[jsascj]

Election.

Don't know if I did this right or if it has been done but

Berkeley is 1st City to Take Official Stand re U.S.'04 Elections
The text of Berkeley's Election '04 Resolution starts after the press release, one third of the way down.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 15, 2004
CONTACT: PhoeBe ANNE (sorgen)

Berkeley Pries Open Votergate, Calls for Immediate Investigation of 2004 Election.

Berkeley, California. December 15, 2004. At the regular meeting of the Berkeley City Council on Tuesday night, half of the public speakers expressed concern for democracy, given problems on Nov. 2 including minority and student vote suppression. By unanimous consent, the Berkeley City Council adopted the "Resolution Supporting the Request that the Government Accountability Office Immediately Undertake an Investigation of Voting Irregularities in the 2004 Elections." Drafted by Berkeley's Peace and Justice Commission, the Resolution also lists 17 measures to improve elections.

Outgoing Vice Mayor and civil rights champion Maudelle Shirek agrees with District 3's newly elected Max Anderson that "It's extremely important for the foundations of our democracy that every citizen's vote is counted. Fraud or manipulation, whether not counting votes or suppression of voters, should be of vital concern to all."

Councilmember Kriss Worthington stated, "Politically, technologically and bureaucratically, undemocratic forces have stopped America from counting every vote. We must demand justice for purged voters, provisional voters and discouraged voters forced to stand in line for hours. As the United States risks our soldiers' lives to invade Iraq to 'spread democracy' it is tragically incomplete at home."





http://www.berkeleyresolution.blogspot.com/

[lwrachel]

1. don't hold your breath!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rockedthevoteinMA]

2. What are you talking about lwrachel? n/t

And thank you jsascj for posting this - it's great to hear that people are taking this up, at the grassroots level! :hi:

[Redleg]

5. It's lwrachel's thing to make ambigous comments about the election

[Stand and Fight]

10. Awww... The King of Battle.

I was a 13D/13E... How about you?

[Redleg]

16. 13E00- Cannon Battery Officer

The King of Battle- damn right!

[Brundle_Fly]

13. ambigous comments, I Love those!

It aint getting any easier.

When up turns to down.

A Rare Medium, Well Done.

[underpants]

4. Welcome to DU lwrachel

:hi:

[jsascj]

7. The only time I EVER hold my breath

is when I swim.

Learned that clever lesson long ,long ago!

But it's good to see my "google election fraud' alert growing ever longer.

[toymachines]

3. now there is a great start.

way to ho berkeley, maybe more cities will start this.

[Verve]

6. God how I wish we had more cities like Berkeley! n/t

[Quakerfriend]

8. Yes, just leave it to good old CA

to be the first to get started with good things!

They really do lead the rest of the country!:9

[masaka___]

11. Berkeley is a cool town.

I wanted to go to college there, but they didn't want me (back in the day). *sniff*

Ironically, I ended up going to the anti-Berkeley -- UC Irvine.

[hangloose]

9. I going to drive across the bay right now and go to Berkeley

and spend a few dollars to boost the economy

[Stand and Fight]

12. I knew I missed CA for a reason.

I wish the mayor of San Francisco would come with a press conference on this issue. That would be awesome! Now let's just how they can get rid of the Gropinator since they ousted Gray Davis. (Stupid frickin right-wing media ass-clowns... :mad: )

[IndyOp]

19. You know there is evidence of Diebold vote fraud in the Schwarz. win...

CALIFORNIA (2003): Mark Crispin Miller, Professor at New York University, has described irregularities in California in the 2003 recall election <http://www.opednews.com/miller1003_CA_Voting.htm >.

In the 2003 election, thirteen counties used Diebold voting systems: Touchscreens were used in Alameda and Plumas; and Optiscans were used in Fresno, Humboldt, Kern, Lassen, Marin, Placer, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Trinity, and Tulare. These counties are spread geographically over the whole of California and do not appear to differ systematically from the state as a whole in socioeconomic status or other population characteristics that we might expect would impact candidate choice.

There were a total of 7,842,630 votes cast in the election state-wide, and 1,403,375 of these were cast in the thirteen Diebold counties. Thus 17.89% of all votes cast in the state were cast/counted on Diebold equipment. We would, therefore, expect that each candidate would receive about 18% of all of the votes they received in these counties. Twelve out of nineteen candidates show only a slight variance from an even statewide distribution. Schwarzenegger received 16.36% of all votes cast for him on Diebold systems, Bustamonte (18.78%), McLintock (19.08%), Camejo (18.9%), Huffington (17.79%), Ueberoth (15.74%), Flynt (15.88%), Coleman (15.02%), Simon (17.66%), Louie (18.7%), Roscoe (16.7%), Grosse (14.3%).

Seven of the 'lower ticket' candidates, however, have vote totals that are 2-5 times expected! Martorana received 39.28% of all votes cast for him on Diebold systems, Macaluso (39.36%), Price (47.18%), Quinn (50.8%), Sprague (65.10%), Palmieri (68.3%), Kunzman (97.5%).

Implication: Diebold effects the election outcome by moving votes from high ranked candidates to low ranked candidates (keeping the total number of votes cast constant but robbing some candidate of their votes).

[trudyco]

22. There was talk about Ohio having ballots scanned upside

down. I assumed that would give votes from the top ticket to some of the lower ticket candidates. Could this have also happened with the opti-scan?

So the supreme court judge getting more votes than Kerry was something they may have recognized by other elections like this one in CA? I didn't know that.

trudyco

[slay]

14. We love ya berkeley!

:)

[Vidar]

15. A beautiful example--let the 60s live again.

[texpatriot2004]

17. Hey, so what if we lobby our local governments about this?

What do you think? Any ideas or input from anyone?

[IndyOp]

20. Eureka, California and Bloomington, Indiana have also passed

City Council resolutions about voting transparency & paper trails. Eureka's was more strongly worded, like the Berkeley resolution. Bloomington's was more general -- but they used the City Council meeting (which is televised) to allow people to express their concerns about THIS election.

Now all we need is a website "Cities Against Vote Fraud" - like the website of cities that passed resolutions against the Iraq War. At the very least, people see that they are not alone and if the news gets in the local papers citizens find out what they aren't reading about in the big-time media.

:kick:

[Clark2008]

18. Actually, this bothers me somewhat

because the righties have done such an effective job of convincing the mainstream that Berkeley is to the left of Communism.

This will be used against the movement.

Why can't Toledo or Cleveland pass a resolution like this? It would be more effective.

[IndyOp]

21. Cite Bloomington Indiana's resolution -- it is in a RED state...

definitely the leftist city in the state, but not to the left of Communism.

I completely LOVE your idea about Cleveland or Toledo or Palm Springs or Gallup, New Mexico or Erie, Pennsylvania -- cities in the the obviously affected states.

:kick: