Elevator speeches: You've got someone's ear for 10 seconds, what

[smartvoter]

do you say to get them interested in the fraud issue?

[lonestarnot]

1. ALOT! I love a captive audience...taking a repuke to the bus today...

pooooor thing. And gona give him an earfuckingfull!

[smartvoter]

11. LOL!!! nt

[jdog]

2. "I CANNOT BELIEVE

that the mainstream media is not reporting all the shenanigans that went on in Ohio! Do you believe that? We used to be able to trust them for information - - now we have to go to the INTERNET to find out what's going on. I like democraticunderground.com because it's a great place to start. That's DEMOCRATICUNDERGROUND.COM. Have a nice day!"

[molly]

3. Great!

[lonestarnot]

8. You have a nice day tooo!

:)

[BR_Parkway]

34. Imagine how many more people would get interested if you said

"I can't beleive how the librul media is covering up all that election fraud people tried to pull this year" - then give them a site that doesn't contain the word democrat(ic). Since it ties right in to what they are already programmed to hear, they'll pay attention more (or pass it along without ever taking time to read it themselves, as some in my family tend to do)

[Clark2008]

37. I do that...

I tell them about Keith Olbermann - say he's a lot better than that pious, self-serving O'Lielly (I call him O'Reilly to their faces) - you'd be surprised to learn how many people really don't like watching him anymore because he's always hyping his books.
Then I tell them about freepress dot org and other sites.
I always bring up the election fraud issue - everywhere. I tailor it to my audience: for technical people, I mention it in technical terms, for minorities, I mention the long lines and malfunctioning machines (many minorities are very much already aware of this, btw), and for Republicans, I grouse about the loss of democracy and how can the country unite when there's this "pall" over the election.
Try it! It works!

[lonestarnot]

35. Hope you had a nice day...I did and thanks for wishing me to have a nice

day. Just getting to the boards for a looksee.

[jdog]

36. Glad you had a nice day!

I'm still at work, but sneaking a peek. (I have to admit, my work is suffering these days, both from doing this and lack of concentration. Hopefully 1/6 will alleviate some of this pressure!)

[lonestarnot]

38. Sneak'n a peak j. you dog! LOL

[smartvoter]

4. "Have you seen what's going on in Ohio? A bunch of citizens testified...

about voting problems, the law was broken in something like 66 of 68 counties and the officials in charge are trying to avoid inquiries into what happened. Makes you wonder what they're hiding."

[displacedtexan]

5. The Unitarian Church is exploring these short speeches.

I think the form of a question (as in direct donation solicitation) might be effective, too.

We raised a ton of cash for our county Dem org by asking this question on the outside of the donation envelope:

Did you now that the Republican Party asked their members for funds at least 35 times last year?

Inside the envelope, we told people why we needed cash and what it would be used for... and promised that the $ wouldn't be used for excessive solicitation printing and mailing costs.

[smartvoter]

6. Or how about this:

You
"Do you know what's happening in Ohio regarding election results?"

Joe Somebody
"No, not really."

You
"Did you take math in school?"

Joe Somebody
Tentatively: "Yes."

You
Hand over a piece of tinfoil. "Here. You're going to need it."

[lonestarnot]

9. What? Never tinfoil, wardrobe only Stesan 10XXXXXXXXXX Beavers!

[Kota]

7. Exit polls. Off here off in Ukraine.

[Fly by night]

10. Our election was stolen. Here's the evidence ....

And then I would hand them two sheets of paper (copies of which I keep with me wherever I go these days.) The first sheet is the "20 Amazing Facts About Voting" piece that's been available online for the last month. The second sheet is one I constructed yesterday by combining TruthIsAll's three threads into one handout entitled "What else you must believe if you believe Bush won."

Both of these sheets are printed front and back. I also had to use 10 point type for the "20 Amazing" piece and 11 point type for TruthIsAll's facts. But they are both readable and VERY convincing to someone who hasn't been following the story. The nice thing about handing them those two pages is that they don't look very intimidating (until, that is, you start reading them)AND they can be shared with others over and over again.

PM me with your own email addresses and I'll send them to you as attachments. (I'm new enough to DU that I don't know how to send attachments from DU's email page.) Peace.

[smartvoter]

12. Aren't you worried that it's too much? nt

[Fly by night]

14. Eight words and two sheets of paper too much? No, I don't think so.

That way, I can introduce the topic in 10 seconds and then give them something to take away with them. I can also say that the two pages will take them two minutes to read and that there are a number of links on the first sheet if they want more info.

Bottom line: nothing we say in 10 seconds will make a rat's ass of difference. But saying "The election was stolen and here's the evidence..." will get their attention enough to read the two sheets. And two sheets of paper won't intimidate anyone I know, even the Republi-Nazis.

Again, PM me with your email address so I can send you those sheets. They speak very loudly for themselves.

[Fly by night]

31. Here's TruthIsAll's summary of what you must also believe ....

The following is the combined content of three separate TruthIsAll threads which include 32 separate facts that someone would also have to believe if they believe that Bush won the election. (I made one small edit to clarify who Mitofsky is). If you cut and paste this into a new Word or WP document and change the font to 11 point type, you can fit all of this on the front and back of one sheet of paper.

Again, I would recommend distributing this sheet along with the "20 Amazing Facts about Voting in the U.S." sheet which all of you should have by now. That sheet also fits on the front and back of one page. If any reader does not have that "20 Facts" document, PM me with your "real" email address and I will send it to you. Peace.
---------------

Things You Must Also Believe If You Believe That Bush Won The Election


1- That the exit polls were WRONG.

2- That Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning OH and FL were WRONG. He was exactly RIGHT in his 2000 final poll.

3- That Harris' last minute polling for Kerry was WRONG. He was exactly RIGHT in his 2000 final poll.

4- That the Incumbent Rule (that undecideds break for the challenger) was WRONG.

5- That the 50% Rule was WRONG (that an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling)

6- That the Approval Rating Rule was WRONG (that an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election)

7- That Greg Palast was WRONG when he said that even before the election, 1 million votes were stolen from Kerry. He was the ONLY reporter to break the fact that 90,000 Florida blacks were disenfranchised in 2000.

8- That it was just a COINCIDENCE that the exit polls were CORRECT where there WAS a PAPER TRAIL and INCORRECT (+5% for Bush) where there was NO PAPER TRAIL.

9- That the surge in new young voters had NO positive effect for Kerry.

10- That Bush BEAT 99-1 mathematical odds in winning the election.

11- That Kerry did WORSE than Gore against an opponent who LOST the support of SCORES of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000.

12- That Bush did better than an 18 national poll average which showed him tied with Kerry at 47. In other words, Bush got 80% of the undecided vote to end up with a 51-48 majority - when ALL professional pollsters agree that the undecided vote ALWAYS goes to the challenger.

13- That voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were NOT tampered with in this election.

14. That people who voted for Bush were not anxious to speak to exit pollsters in the states that Bush had to win (like Florida and Ohio) where the exit polls were off, but wanted to be polled in states that he had sewn up (like Arizona, Louisiana and Arkansas) where the exit polls were exactly correct.

15. That Democrats who voted for Kerry were very anxious to be exit-polled, especially in Florida and Ohio (and that this is what accounts for the discrepancy between the exit polls and the actual votes in these two critical states).

16. That women were much more likely to be polled early in the day in Florida and Ohio. That is another reason why the exit polls were wrong in those states. In those states in which the exit polls were correct to within one percent, women did not come out early.


17. That the University of Pennsylvania Professor (trained at MIT) who calculated the probability of Bush gaining votes beyond the exit polling margin of error as ONE out of 250 million, does not have any credibility.

18. That network newscasters who claim that those who consider the possibility of fraud are just wild conspiracy theorists do not have an agenda.

19. That it is just a coincidence that only since the 2000 presidential election have exit polls failed to agree with the actual vote - and that Bush won both disputed elections.

20. That exit polls are not to be trusted in the United States, even though they are used throughout the world to monitor elections for fraud.

21. That even though more votes were cast than there were eligible voters in many precincts of critical states, it is not an issue that needs to be covered in the media.

22. That the absence of a paper ballot trail for touch screen computers does not encourage fraud, even though they have been proven by hundreds of computer experts to be highly vulnerable to fraudulent attack.

23. That statistical tests which indicate a high probability of fraud are just conspiratorial junk science.

24. That Bush's vote tallies could exceed his exit poll percentage in FL by 4%. Based on 2846 individuals exit polled, the polling margin of error was 1.84%. The odds of this occurrence: 1 out of 1667.

25. That his vote tallies could exceed his exit poll percentage in OH by 3%. Based on 1963 individuals exit polled, the polling margin of error was 2.21%. The odds of this occurrence: 1 out of 333.

26. That his vote tallies could exceed his exit poll percentages in 41 out of 51 states. The odds of this occurrence: 1 out of 135,000.

27. That his vote tallies could exceed the margin of error in 16 states. Not one state vote tally exceeded the MOE for Kerry. The odds of this occurrence: 1 out of 13.5 Trillion.

28. That his vote tallies could exceed a 2% exit poll margin of error in 23 states. The probability of this occurrence: as close to ZERO as you can get.

29. That of 88 documented touch screen incidents, 86 voters would see their vote for Kerry come up Bush - and only TWO from Bush to Kerry. The probability of this occurrence: as close to ZERO as you can get.

30. That Mitofsky (who ran the exit polls), with 25 years of experience, has lost his exit polling touch.

31. That by disputing the Ukrainian elections, the Bush administration would base its case on the accuracy of U.S. sponsored exit polling, while at the same time ignoring exit polls in the U.S. presidential election, which the media reported Kerry was winning handily.

32. That Bush could overcome Kerry's 50.8% - 48.2% lead in the National Exit Poll Sub-sample (13,047 polled) and win the popular vote: 51.2% - 48.4%, a 3.0% increase from the exit poll to the vote tally, far beyond the 0.86% margin of error. The odds of this occurrence: 1 out of 282 Billion.

[goclark]

20. Do a Clip News paper

Really close to your idea.

Just print your info on 1/2 of a piece of paper can be back to front.
Fold it in thirds with banner headline facing out.
CLIP it and it is much smaller than a flyer and you can sneak it into more places.

Love your idea of FACTS, just the facts
People don't have time to read a lot of words. They are way to busy to find out that their government was stolen on Nov. 2nd.

Try it , you'll like it.

I have a thread here about it called Make Your Own Mini Newspaper.

[In Truth We Trust]

26. We should disseminate these widely. Place them in every public

library, gas station, retail outlets, busy street corners etc.

[me b zola]

40. on public buses, commuter trains, & subways

Ride the lines and leave them on empty seats as well as passing them out. maybe insert one into every newspaper in the stack at the store.

[IndyOp]

13. My elevator speech...

"I am very concerned about this past election.

Voter suppression effected tens of thousands of voters in Ohio alone: In Columbus, Ohio 22,000 people were disenfranchised because too few voting machines were delivered to Democratic precincts. Further, voting machines delivered to minority precincts function poorly: In two precincts in the Cleveland area, 25% of voters - 16,000 people - either chose not to vote for president or did not have their votes register.

High-tech vote fraud occurred to an extent that we have never seen before. Many touchscreen voting machines seem to have been set with "Bush" as the default. This seemingly minor problem could account for 10,000's of votes for Bush across the county. In Ohio, vote counts on punch card and optical scan tabulating computers also seem to have been manipulated -- many are connected via modem to the Internet and the vote-counting software is a secret.

The three companies that dominate 90% of the voting machine market - Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia - all have extensive links to the Republican Party. One Vice President at Diebold, Jeff Dean, has been convicted of 23 counts of felony, including several in which he hacked into his client's computer systems and stole money.

Attempts to recount have been blocked repeatedly by the Ohio Secretary of State -- he has restricted access to poll books, failed to follow Ohio State Law during the recounts, and now has requested a protective order to prevent him from being interviewed as part of a court challenge of the presidential vote. Even if there were very large errors in the election results - the gap between Bush and Kerry is 117,000 votes - why resist?

Election reform begins by investigating and exposing exactly what happened in this past election."

My elevator speech is long. I am verbose and intense, but I adjust as needed depending on the person's reaction.

:hi:

[smartvoter]

15. The Blackwell portion is the most compelling, IMHO. nt

[IndyOp]

16. Blackwell is compelling, Dean also...

people are impressed by big words and big numbers, however, and I think we really need to communicate how BIG this fraud was. A few thousand votes won't overturn a state, much less the nation -- it was 100,000's of votes in multiple states.

By the way, what do "nt" and "n/t" mean?

:kick:

[smartvoter]

17. No text, I believe. (No need to click on the subject line.) nt

[IndyOp]

21. Thanks! (n/t)

[KaryninMiami]

18. Talking to strangers- my new hobby!

Whether it's an elevator, an airplane, a taxi, waiting in line at the supermarket, talking to strangers about the election fraud has become my new hobby. Lately, I find this far more satisfying then bringing it up with my family and many friends who've made it clear that they are not interested in hearing about "that election stuff" any more. Sad but true. My sisters now hang up on me when the conversation "goes there" since they believe I need to "get over it already".

If there's a conversation already in progress (such as giving directions, a hotel check-in or the usual airplane seat introduction) I'll say something like "I'm from Florida, but these days I wish I lived in a blue state". Sometimes I ask if they ever wondered about what really happened during the election, or whether they've heard what's going on in Ohio with the election law suits but I always throw out a tester line or teaser question to test the waters first. 9 times out of 10, by the end of the chat, they want to know more. So, I hand them one of my colored mini-flyers with links to where they can go to learn more (I update these every few days) or I get their email addresses and put them on my newsletter list (which is growing daily by the way, and now up to over 300 names).

If you'd like me to eamil you the mini-flyer I've created or a copy of last night's newsletter, send me a personal email and I'll send it to you. It's a simple word document- nothing fancy at all.

Talking to strangers is really quite an interesting experience by the way! I never travel without my little stash of mini-flyers- one never knows when they can be left on a table, on a message board, or handed to an unsuspecting new friend! :)

[smartvoter]

19. I like the leave-around idea. Good for coffee shops and the like. nt

[Fly by night]

32. See post 31 above for a ready-made (almost) handout

It has TruthIsAll's 32 points that can be cut and pasted into another document, changing the font to 11 point type, and will then fit on one sheet of paper (front and back).

[libertypirate]

22. quick point

It is best to address the idea that this wasn't a fair election. When someone tries to tell you there was no fraud. Look them dead in the eyes and say "You can't be serious, are you sure you know what your talking about..." This will make them question all they know about it, and put you in a position to reinforce any points you want to make.

Then I would tell them there was so much fraud it almost as if they wanted to ensure their efforts by diversifying the techniques they employed. There is documented fraud before, the night of, and after the election. It has been observed and statistically proven that the systematic fraud we are talking about always benefits the republicans in the end. Some fraud is not cut and dry, but there is enough of it and enough evidence that it took place to know if you are honest with the facts that fraud in this election benefited more then one politician. This is a crime against all Americans; we have to be able to trust our system of elections. Why won't they count the votes? Why won't Blackwell answer questions regaurding his activities? Why does Ohio get a pass on following the election law and recount procedures? Just keep asking questions if they believe there are more questions then answers; the issue remains open!

[smartvoter]

23. And we can't overlook the "What are they hiding?" theme. nt

[KaryninMiami]

24. Just a side comment...

One thing that I think is important to remember, is that we need to enlist people from "both teams" into this conversation. Our right to vote and to have it count in the way that we intended, is an integral part of being an American. Sometimes, you may need to carefully re-frame the conversation- especially when speaking to "non-aligned" (for lack of a better description) persons, and move it from "the election was rigged and Kerry really won" to the importance of protecting every person's right to vote and protecting our constitution.

Remember also, that regardless of whether there was tampering with the machines or not (and yes we all KNOW that there was) Election Fraud is a huge issue for people to grasp all at once and it is overwhelming for many to even begin to digest it. Start slowly- get them interested in learning more. The fact is that there is no question about the massive disenfranchisement in minority and university precincts in Ohio, here in Florida and elsewhere. The fact is, that an election manager in Ohio has sworn testimony that a computer engineer made changes and updates to the electronic machines AFTER the recount was ordered.

Tread gently my friends, what we are doing here and what we are helping to unravel, is huge and will not happen overnight. But we can do this, one person at a time!

[Mr.Green93]

25. No one for whatever reason

should try to give me an "elevator speech".

[smartvoter]

27. Do you chit chat with people on them? If so, why not mention it? nt

[McCamy Taylor]

41. Agreed. Wear a button. If people want to ask about it, they can.

If they ask about it, you can then say

"Funny thing, when the exit polls didnt match the vote counts in the Ukraine, the administration trusted the exit polls. When the exit polls didnt match the vote counts in our presidential election, the administration decided it liked the vote counts better. And they were the same kind of exit polls."

[mahina]

28. Tape TuthIsAll's graphs etc to the walls,

and on the way up (and down, and up again) say Wow! Did you see this? What does that mean?

I put signs in all the elevators in a bunch of downtown buildings after the 2000 election. I wasn't sure we'd make it through 4 years of this guy, just loathe the thought of eight years of my life under his idiocy.

Sigh.

[drpdx]

29. not a speech, but

There are some bookmarks at http://www.contestthevote.org
I cut these out and leave them in my books when I return them to the library, and tuck them in to newspapers when I am waiting in line at the coffee shop.

[quiet.american]

30. Have you heard about the Conyers hearings in Ohio?

Have you heard about the Conyers hearings in Ohio?

After the usual "no," casually interject the LBN of the day :) --

Looks like the Secretary of State down there, you know, Bush's campaign co-chair, is fighting tooth and nail not to have to testify under oath about the election.

"Really?"

Yeah, Google it, it's interesting stuff.

[understandinglife]

33. How do you know your vote was counted as you intended?

Oh, really. Please explain.

Did you know how that 80% of the election hw/sw is manufactured/sold by Republican controlled companies?

Oh, you didn't.

Did you know that specific precincts were targeted for voter suppression?

Oh, you don't; let me tell you how many.....

Did you know that Karl Rove stole stationary from a campaign headquarters?

Oh, you don't know who Karl Rove is; let me tell you.

Do you know what is going to happen on 6 Jan 2005?

Oh, you don't; well it's going to be quite the civics class for the entire Nation.


______________________
In other words; we a few simple questions and allowing the individual to confront the fact that (in most cases) they have no answer I have found to be sufficient -- particularly with "Republicans" who are not at all thrilled with shrubco.

Peace.

"When did Bush know?"

[LiberalHeart]

39. Another captive audience: bathroom stalls....

How about those over-size post-it notes? Provide URLs or factoids, and stick 'em on the inside of the door on toilet stalls.

Also, when you're finished with your menu at a restaurant, stick a post-it note inside for the next customer.

Many grocery stores have bulletin boards just waiting for you to post your messages.

You could also run a personals ad in your local paper. A teaser saying something like: "Sharon, if you want to know what George is up to, go to democraticunderground.com" or "John, meet me at democraticunderground.com at 8 PM tonight. I have lots to tell you about George."

[Senator]

42. You say Suppression IS Fraud...

...whether you can prove motive, intent, or not.

The Voting Rights Act make it unlawful to have disparate treatment of minority voters.

The US Commission on Civil Rights made a legal determination that it occurred in 2000 in Florida. It was even worse this time.

There is no mystery about the hours-long poll-tax-lines. Only a mysterious reluctance to "do the right thing" about it.

You tell "the elevator" that you, personally, just can't tolerate it.

Others may choose to silently comply with an unlawful, racist result. But you wouldn't be able to look yourself in the mirror.

Oh, and "Have a Nice Day."

(9.2 seconds -- time to spare)
___
www.thedeanpeople.org