The context for this LETTER OF THE WEEK can be found at JunkYardDogg's post (& the comments) at:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=336599--------
Great link for CONTACT info on all ELECTED OFFICIALS:
http://www.vote-smart.org-------
I will eventually post media contact info as a comment below.
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This is a DRAFT sample letter. It is meant to suggest talking points and provide good quotes and reference documents. It is obviously TOO LONG (my bad). Our elected officials seems to have the attention spans of 3 year olds. Bear that in mind.
This letter is primarily designed for California Democratic legislators, but can be adapted for Republicans, media, civic groups, federal representatives, and others.
I WELCOME COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS!
If you include the bulk of the Documentation list below, you might want to number the items. Use your own judgment on listed items. These can be a help in supporting the points you make in your letter. (I think "MythBreakers" should always be included.)
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LETTER OF THE WEEK #5: California Coup - DRAFT
Democratic Underground 2004 Election Forum
LETTER OF THE WEEK #5: California Coup
Sample Letter – DRAFT #1
Subject: threats to the integrity of California's election system
Dear (legislator, election official, citizen group, media)
I am writing to you to express my grave concern about the integrity of California's election system, due to
• loss of our vigilant Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley, who took a tough stance on electronic voting system standards—the strongest in the nation--and his replacement by an unelected appointee;
• the campaign by L.A. county elections head Connie McCormack to rid California of the "Accessible Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail" (AVVPAT) in favor of paperless electronic voting; her stated desire to "bulldoze" the Secretary of State's office to get her way; her questionable connection to the Diebold company and her leadership in the effort to oust Shelley;
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign to force an untimely redistricting initiative through the electorate before California's requirement of a "Accessible Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail" (AVVPAT) fully kicks in (June 2006)—many portions of that vote will not be verifiable;
• gross malfeasance by Congress and others on implementation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), including the rush to new electronic voting systems with completely inadequate testing and auditing controls;
• a long and growing list of Ph.D.'s in statistics and mathematics who have questioned the results of the 2004 presidential election and have called for an investigation;
• 57,000 complaints to Congress of election irregularities, many of them related to electronic voting, with virtually all vote suppression and machine "malfunctions" favoring one candidate (George Bush).
It is absurd that citizens are having to fight efforts to weaken California's elections standards—when we should all be working to strengthen those standards, and, indeed, when we should be considering whether or not these voting systems are viable at all.
Numerous experts--including many Ph.D.'s from leading universities--have questioned the integrity of our nation's voting system during the 2004 election, and have called for a thorough investigation of that election. They report discrepancies between exit polls and official tallies, with odds of 1 in 10 million against the official tally being correct, and they cast particular suspicion on electronic voting systems.
The 2004 election was characterized by new and widespread use of electronic voting systems with alarming security problems, among them: secret, proprietary programming code, highly insecure and hackable machines, partisan conflicts of interest in executives of the companies that create, sell and service the electronic voting systems, and often no paper ballot or record of any kind for use in recounts and audits.
Please review "Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections" which provides a comprehensive, easy to read explanation of electronic voting system problems. You can download this document at : www.votersunite.org.
Dr. Steven Freeman, author of two reports on the 2004 election, states in a recent article: (see below for all urls)
"Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags. // The U.S. voting system is more vulnerable to manipulation than most Americans realize. Technologies such as electronic voting machines provide no confirmation that votes are counted as cast…." –Dr. Steven Freeman & Dr. Josh Mitteldorf, "The Corrupted Election," In These Times, 2/15/05
In another report, Dr. Ron Baiman, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, states:
"I conclude that, based on the best exit sample data currently available, neither the national popular vote, or many of the certified state election results, are credible and should not be regarded as a true reflection of the intent of national electorate, or of many state voters, until a complete and thorough investigation…."
More recently, nine Ph.D.'s from leading universities, concluded that Kerry won the exit polls and that random chance or poll sampling error cannot explain the kind of discrepancy that occurred between the exit polls and the official result. They give odds of 10 million to one against it. They further completely debunk the official explanation of this discrepancy:
" The Edison/Mitofsky report… assert(s) without supporting evidence that (p. 4), 'Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters.' In fact, data included within the report suggest that the opposite might be true.…(and) their report ignores the alternative hypothesis that the official election results could have been corrupted." –report for US Countvotes.org
The experts have also found discrepancies between electronic voting results and other methods of voting:
"…irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods. Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance – the probability is less than 0.1 percent." – Dr. Michael Haut & the U.C. Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team
The private companies who sold these "lemons" to the states, and the officials who purchased them, may have cost us more than money. They may have cost us our democracy. I urge you to immediately get educated on this matter, and to take vigorous action to safeguard California's election system.
Of immediate concern are: 1) protection of the "Accessible Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail" (AVVPAT) requirement; 2) protection of Californians' paper ballot option; 3) rigorous enforcement of all existing electronic voting system standards; 4) strengthening of those standards; 5) investigation of conflicts of interest and "revolving door" employment; 6) elimination of all secret, proprietary software and other non-transparent, insecure or unreliable components of our election system; and 7) prevent special elections until the AVVPAT requirement is in force throughout California.
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DOCUMENTATION
The list below provides urls to the cited reports and additional information:
--"Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections" (2nd edition): www.votersunite.org
--"The United States of Ukraine?: Exit Polls Leave Little Doubt that in a Free and Fair Election John Kerry Would Have Won…," by Dr. Ron Baiman: Economist/Statistician - senior research specialist, Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the Univ. of Illinois at Chicago.
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997(Note: The end of the cutoff Baiman url, above, should read: /display/19/2004/997. That is, just add a "7.")
--"The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy" (11/10/04), and "Hypotheses for Explaining the Exit Poll-Official Count Discrepancy
" (draft 2/05), by Dr. Steven Freeman, Professor, Center for Organizational Dynamics, Univ. of Penn.; Karel Steuer Chair for entrepreneurship, Univ. de San Andreas, Buenos Aires; Professor of Management, Central Amer. Inst. of Business Administration (INCAE). Reports: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
"The Corrupted Election," In These Times, 2/15/05, by Dr. Freeman and Dr. Josh Mitteldorf
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970
-- US Countvotes: "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report"
Nine Ph.D. experts in statistics say: a) the skew to Bush that is revealed in the official tally (Bush won) vs. the exit polls (Kerry won) cannot be explained by random chance or sampling error, and the odds against it are 10 million to one; b) there is evidence that the Exit polls were actually skewed to Bush (contrary to news reports), meaning that the discrepancy (Kerry's margin) was likely even higher; c) the official explanation for this discrepancy (that Republican voters were shy of the pollsters) is without foundation--in fact, the data reveal that the opposite is probably true; d) there is evidence of unexplained discrepancies in all methods of voting except for paper ballot; and e) the 2004 Election should be investigated (and they are initiating their own).
Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D. - Temple U. Statistics Dept.; Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D. - Center for Organizational Dynamics, U. of Pennsylvania; Brian Joiner, Ph.D. - Prof. of Statistics/Director of Statistical Consulting (ret), U. of Wisconsin; Frank Stenger, Ph.D. in mathematics - School of Computing, U. of Utah; Richard G. Sheehan, PhD – Dept. of Finance, U. of Notre Dame; Elizabeth Liddle, MA - (UK) Ph.D. candidate at the U. of Nottingham; Paul F. Velleman, Ph.D. – Dept. of Statistical Sciences, Cornell U.; Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D. - Dept of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve U.; Campbell B. Read, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Statistical Science, Southern Methodist U.;Kathy Dopp, MS in mathematics - USCountVotes, President. Also Peer Reviewed by USCountVotes’ core group of statisticians and independent reviewers. Contact: Bruce O'Dell, USCountVotes, Vice President bruce@uscountvotes.org. Report: http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf
(Note: The end of the cutoff UScountvotes url should read: /USCount Votes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf. Or just use tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/6e2yu.)
--Interview of Dr. Joiner, "'Voting Glitches Haunt Statistician," 3/4/05, Capital Times: http://www.madison.com/tct/news/index.php?ntid=30826&ntpid=1
(Note: The end of the cutoff Joiner interview url should read: /index.php?ntid=30826&ntpid=1.)
-- "UC Berkeley Study Questions Florida E-Vote Count: Research Team Calls for Immediate Investigation"- 11/18/04, by Dr. Michael Haut and the U.C. Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team. Report: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu. Press release: http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1118-14.htm
Dr. Haut is a nationally-known expert on statistical methods; member of the National Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.
--"Hacking the vote in Miami County," by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., 12/25/04 (precinct level study of Miami County, Ohio: "It is my professional opinion that these numbers are fraudulent, and that this election has been hacked.") http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1038
(Note: The end of the cutoff "Hacking" url should read: /display/19/2004/1038.)
-- Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting: "Analysis of Electronic Voting System," by Tadayoshi Kohno, Adam Stubblefield, and Aviel D. Rubin of the Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins Univ.; & Dan S. Wallach, Dept. of Computer Science, Rice U.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5
(Note: The end of the cutoff Johns Hopkins url should read: /stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5. Or just use tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/6fwug.)
--Easy demo of how insecure voting machines are, by Republican hacker Chuck Herrin:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm
-- Documentation of widespread machine fraud and dirty tricks in over 20 states: http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html. Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info
-- 57,000 machine malfunction/vote suppression complaints to Congress:
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=3961
-- TV networks changed the Exit Polls to fit the "official tally" (& Zogby prediction of Kerry win): http://www.exitpollz.org
-- Compendium of election fraud/election reform information: http://www.solarbus.org/election/archives.shtml
-- "Connie McCormack," by Andrew Gumbel, L.A. City Beat, 5/24/04.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=942&IssueNum=51
-- "Election Official Rips into Shelley," 2/4/05, by Dan Smith, Sacramento Bee (registration required): www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/12235225p-13099223c.html
(Note: The end of the cuttoff "Rips" url should read: /story/12235225p-13099223c.html.)
--"Many lobbyists for electronic voting companies are ex-election officials," by Tim Reiterman and Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 10, 2003. http://www.unknownnews.net/031117comvot.html
-- Open source electronic voting system: http://www.openvotingconsortium.org
--Current news on California's voting system: http://www.calvoter.org/news/blog/index.html
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Additional urls of interest:
--Jonathan Simon (early exit poll whistleblower): http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm
--"Kerry won – just count the votes at the back of the bus!" – by Greg Palast
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won.php
-- Democratic Underground (TruthIsAll): "To believe Bush won, you have to believe…"
(Part 1)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1316010
(Part 2)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1358806
(Part 3)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x197878
(Note: Here's the tinyurl conversion for the above TruthIsAll 3-part series:
Part 1 http://tinyurl.com/4pucs
Part 2 http://tinyurl.com/4gqg5
Part 3 http://tinyurl.com/6okrm.)
--Democratic Underground (ignatzmouse):
(North Carolina: absentee ballot vs. electronic, inexplicable 9% edge to Bush in electronic:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45003
(Note: Here's the tinyurl for ignatzmouse:
http://tinyurl.com/6u3cg.)
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Additional text for Democratic office holders and groups (or do a separate letter for them just on 2004 election fraud?):
Evidence of a Kerry win
Dr. Steven Freeman did a calculation of Kerry's projected vote, adding up the reported percentage of Gore repeat voters from 2000, the huge Democratic success in new voter registration in 2004 (Dems 57% vs. Repubs 41%!), and the big jump of Nader voters to Kerry, and found a discrepancy of 4 to 8 million votes between what Kerry should have gotten and what he did get. (Freeman 2nd report, "Hypotheses...": http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm)
Bush's dismal approval ratings
Many Democrats—and also Repubicans who voted for Kerry—feel that something is very wrong here. Opinion polls continue to show unprecedented low approval ratings for Bush, and large numbers of those polled oppose major Bush policies including the Iraq war (57% opposed), torture under any circumstances (63%), Bush foreign policy in general (58%), Bush domestic policy (63%), Bush policy on the deficit (63%, including 48% of conservatives), with 4 out of 5 saying that the government should insure a decent living for the elderly and 90% saying the deficit is a very serious or somewhat serious problem. (See http://207.44.245.159/article8191.htm for the most recent NYT/CBS polls – 3/3/05).
So, how did this man get elected? What is he doing running our government? He clearly does not represent the majority on any important issue.
Who controls the "proof" that Bush won?
People who think that 2004 election fraud is a crazy "conspiracy theory" often ask, "Where is the proof of a stolen election?" This question should be turned around: Where is the proof that Bush won? The only proof is in the official tally--which was produced using secret, proprietary programming code on extremely insecure, hackable computers, by two companies, both of them run by major Bush partisans and donors (and one with a CEO who was state chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign). Shockingly little checking goes on at the precinct level before a few central electronic vote tabulators feed electronic vote totals directly to the Associated Press which feeds them to the networks. The few efforts to do precinct checking and recounts--which are very difficult, expensive and time-consuming--were blockaded by election officials. In fact, this election was so non-transparent and so unverifiable that it wouldn't pass the smell test in any other democratic country in the world. You have to go back to Stalinist Russia (one party control) to find a parallel.
Given this non-transparency, the best check on what really happened are the exit polls (inquiries of people who actually voted, using well-tested methods with a high success rate), and the exit polls say Kerry won.
The TV networks changed the Exit Poll data
One other thing most people don't know: The TV networks CHANGED the exit polls that people were watching all afternoon on election day. They "adjusted" the exit poll data (Kerry won) to fit the official tally (Bush won) late in the day, thus denying Americans this strong evidence of election fraud. (The uncorrupted data showing a Kerry win, and the impossible exit poll/official tally skew to Bush, was revealed much later, after Bush's inauguration.) As with the justifications for the Iraq war, the U.S. news monopolies have shown once again that they cannot be relied upon for accurate information, and have themselves exhibited appalling malfeasance. (See: http://www.exitpollz.org)
How could the Democratic Party leaders let this happen?
Election activists are wondering how Democratic Party leaders could have permitted this egregiously fraudulent election system to be put into place, without a word of objection, nor any warning to voters. The blank stares we get from many Democratic Party leaders on 2004 election fraud do not convince us. It's their job to know how votes are counted.
This election system obviously harms some Democrats, and does untold harm to the country. What is going on here? What accounts for this catastrophic failure of the Democratic Pary leadership? Corruption? Malfeasance? Support for Mideast war? Disdain for its own grass roots? Probably some combination of these things. Clearly, the non-transparency of the election, the theft of the election, and the consequences in disastrous national policy could not have occurred without considerable collusion by some Democratic Party leaders. A reckoning with the public--which has been deprived of their rightful government--is most certainly on the way, and corrupt and collusive Democratic leaders will be held accountable.
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A concept from the Sample Letter to the California Voting Systems & Procedures Panel that I particularly liked: Voting system "experts" vs. the voters
When voting rights advocate Kim Alexander criticized L.A. elections chief Connie McCormack for putting 40,000 votes at risk by using uncertified Diebold patches (to software) in the 2003 Recall electon, McCormack remarked, "That woman has absolutely no credentials in elections. It’s almost laughable…." (L.A. City Beat, 5/24/04)
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=942&IssueNum=51
Apart from the insult to Alexander, who is a citizen expert on electronic voting, this remark exhibits contempt for anyone who is not an acknowledged "expert" or "professional" including most voters. Electronic voting systems foster an attitude of elitism--along with a dangerous condition in the electorate of ignorance of how their votes are counted, and inability to monitor voting counting (non-transparency). Vote counting should not be something that only "experts" can understand. This is one more reason why these electronic voting systems should be held in great suspicion, stringently regulated and thrown out if necessary.
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