Cincinnati Enquirer Editorial... Further Education Required...

[althecat]

I just wrote the following after getting slightly annoyed about an editorial in the Cincinnatti Enquirer.


Regarding...

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050416/EDIT01/504160357/1020/EDIT

Dear Editor,

Regarding your latest editorial on the voting technology debate.

To describe the debate over voting technolgy as a "fruitless" debate is an astonishingly short sighted view of events in your own state.

I am more than 10,000 miles away in New Zealand and I can clearly see that the debate is not fruitless. Rather, it is vital. Not only to the future of your state, but your nation and indeed the world.

As you probably well know, your recent recount was to all intents and purposes rendered a pointless exercise by jiggery pokery by election officials and machine manufacturers. And even you regard the recount as the work of troublemakers, it would be truly foolish not to acknowledge that your state has serious issues to address.

Rather than pointing the finger at so-called "conspiracy theorists" and intimating that the voting technology debate is an "inconvenience" your paper ought to be looking after ensuring that democratic process in your backyard is conducted to the best possible standards.

If the news media in any country has any task that is more important than all others it is safeguarding democracy. In a free and democratic society the role of the media is to inform the public so they can hold their elected officials to account. Clearly if the election part of the equation breaks down then the system does not work.

Finally as regards Diebold Election Systems, rather than approving of any decision to purchase their machines, if your editorial writer has eyes let them read.

http://scoop.co.nz/features/usacoup.html

There is more than enough material linked off this page, and many other websites too, which shows clearly why rather than purchasing voting equipment off this company your Secretary of State ought to be suing them.

California has done so and received a significant settlement from the company as a result of false claims made about the security of Diebold products. It is extraordinarily unlikely that similar false claims have not also been made in Ohio.

In the spirit of trans-pacific defense of democracy.

Alastair Thompson

Scoop.co.nz

New Zealand

[althecat]

1. Note.. the scoop server seems to be temporarily unavailable..

I expect due to network problems....

[slor]

2. That paper sucks...

they keep calling our house to offer a subscription, and I keep telling them that any paper that would endorse bush is simply not welcome in my house.

On edit: Oh and thanks for fighting the good fight with us!

[Wilms]

3. kick n/t

[KaliTracy]

4. Great Letter! Thanks for writing them! They are so clueless -- but

that's mainly because they don't want to see -- they would rather just call us all "conspiracy theorists"

Others should join in from here --write them and let them know how short-sighted they are!

[LatePeriduct]

11. kick

[berniew1]

5. More people need to write them, especially from Ohio

What is the email for the Cincinati paper editorial staff?

[liam_laddie]

6. Cin paper(?) contacts

<http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=CONTACT>

The Sunday edition is about a ten-minute read...Gannett's
cash cow. Full of manure, even if they do a couple Dowd and Friedman columns a week. Cartoonist Jim Borgman is
excellent, independent.

[berniew1]

8. Here's my letter to the editor of Enquirer

Dear Editor,
Last week, April 8-10, there was a National Conference on 2004 Election Irregularities in Nashville Tennessee. Its obvious from your editorial this week that you haven't been following whats been going on with the results of the Ohio recount and research by University researchers on the 2004 election and the official audit
that never happened. The researchers at the conference made a strong case that Kerry won Ohio and two or three other states he wasn't officially creditied with due to irregularities that are now mostly documented. In Ohio, as in many other states, there was touch screen switching and glitches, systematic dirty tricks and official manipulation to prevent many thousands of mostly minority and students from voting or having their votes counted. And thousands of votes from mostly minority areas that there was never an attempt to count. There was also manipulation by officials of precinct staffing, ballots, ballot counting, absentees, and provisionals to affect large numbers of votes, and vote compilers under the control of outside partisan representives that were in a position to decide the vote totals in many counties. And an orchestrated exercise to prevent a real audit and recount of the Ohio results. The types of irregularities that occurred in Ohio also occurred in many other states, and are documented by the thousands of EIRS election hotline reports of irregularities reported by voters to the non-partisan election protection hotline. The strong case that Kerry won Ohio and the national total vote is summarized by documentation from researchers at the national conference at the following website: http://www.flcv.com/ohiosum.html

With more investigation, the evidence is growing ever stronger that 2004 was another stolen election, as 2000 was documented to be by the Media Consortium lead by the Miami Herald in 2001. The results are likely to be similar to the results of the Florida 2000 recount that eventually showed that Gore won have won easily and by a large margin, as the exit polls indicated, in a fair election with a fair count.

let me know if it runs

[liam_laddie]

10. Enquirer letter

berniew1 - good points, but I can tell you and anyone writing
LTE's to any paper, keep it to 150-200 words. They know the
readers' attention span...a word-bite seems to be what they want. This ain't the "Atlantic Monthly" (whose LTE's are as interesting as most magazines' content.)

It takes a couple drafts for me to get a point down to this size, but odds of publication go up. They also want the writer's
resident city, state, and daytime phone number to verify the
signer is authentic. Here's one I got in the Enquirer last week - kinda proud of it, actually...
=====================
Taft-GOP budget favors the wealthy

The budget proposal being "debated" in the House harms many average citizens' concerns. School
budget crises, library
closings, under-the-radar transfer of tax burdens from corporate coffers to average citizens'
wallets is merely another
step in the radical right's "starve the beast" program. If voters want a total breakdown of our
formerly effective and
balanced government, on both a national and state scale, continue to elect Republicans. You won't
recognize what used to
be a government "of, by, and for the people."

William O'Neil
Madisonville

[berniew1]

17. I gave the personal stats with the letter

should I rewrite it shorter and resend?

on an important topic like this, seems to me it deserves more substance.

[roseBudd]

13. liam_laddie contact [e-mail] about writing a 400

word "Your Voices" column. I can't or I would.

[LatePeriduct]

7. Good text.

Lets hope these media outlets read it all.

[LatePeriduct]

9. a kick

and a shove.

[roseBudd]

12. This is my paper, they do a 400 word "Your Voices" column

need a SW OH local to contact Ray Cooklis, [e-mail] about writing a column about this.

Also please do not use the [e-mail] or the letters to the editor form. A news aide reads those

Get your staff emails here:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=CONTACT

Tom Callinan Editor 513-768-8551 [e-mail]
Ray Cooklis Assistant editorial page editor: guest columns 513-768-8525 [e-mail]
Tony Lang Editorial writer: Kentucky issues 859-578-5569 [e-mail]
Byron McCauley Deputy editorial page editor 513-768-8473 [e-mail]
Sharon Morgan Editorial page assistant: Letters to the editor 513-768-8359 [e-mail]
Krista Ramsey Editorial writer: Education, children's issues 513-768-8527 [e-mail]
David Wells Assistant Managing Editor: Editorial page 513-768-8310 [e-mail]

[althecat]

14. So a news aide reads those and bins em...

Typical... Thanks for the advice... and inside info.

Cheers
Al

[roseBudd]

16. hey I never said it was "insider info"

I just know a news aide is who the letters alias goes to

The 400 word "Your Voices" columns are a great venue and we need more liberals writing them. Contact Ray Cooklis with your idea for a column.

[LatePeriduct]

15. kick