Twelve Ways Bush Is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote

Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
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"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a
boot stamping on a human face -- for ever." -
George Orwell, 1984 http://www.holdthemaccountable2004.com/home.htm

Sing this at the polls NOV 2 TAKIN' MY COUTRY BACK sing it http://www.takinmycountryback.com/main.htm


http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/810


Twelve Ways Bush Is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote
                   
  By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
 

  The Republican "November Surprise" to steal the 2004 election is in
full force here in Ohio. With polls showing a dead heat, the GOP is
staging an all-out attack on a fair vote count in the Buckeye State.

  Here are a dozen ways they're doing it:

  * Under an archaic Ohio law, both the Republican and Democratic
Parties, or any slate of five candidates, may embed official election
challengers inside polling places. The New York Times reported on
Oct. 23 that the Republican Party intends to place thousands of
lawyers and other GOP faithfuls inside the polls to challenge
voters. Republican insiders confide here that the key goal is to
jam lines and frustrate new voters. The GOP apparently figures many
voters in key Democratic precincts won't wait in line more than 15
minutes to vote. This is certain to be a major tactic in Cleveland's
Cuyahoga County and other Democratic strongholds. The GOP is not
planning to challenge voters in Republican districts.

  * The Republican party has sent letters challenging thousands of
Franklin County students who are registered to vote absentee.
Franklin County is home to Columbus, the state's largest city and
its capitol. Though it is also home to Ohio State University,
thousands of local students go to schools outside the county or
state. The GOP apparently does not want their votes counted. This
unprecedented mass challenge has prompted the Franklin County Board
of Elections, whose director is a conservative Republican, to reserve
the large Veterans Memorial Auditorium downtown to process the
challenges this Thursday, as John Kerry comes to town with Bruce
Springsteen. The County has told thousands of students that if they
don't appear in Columbus to answer the GOP challenges, they may lose
their right to vote.

  * The Franklin County Board of Elections has called or written an
undetermined number of voters who obtained absentee ballots,
challenging their addresses. In at least one case, after a series of
angry phone calls, the Board admitted there was nothing wrong with
the address in question and re-instated voting rights. The voter in
question was a registered Democrat. His wife, an independent at the
same address, was not challenged. It is unclear how many others have
been wrongly knocked out.

  * Even if they are counted, Franklin County's absentee ballot forms
are rigged in ways strikingly reminiscent of those in Florida 2000.
On many absentee forms, Kerry is listed third on the list of
presidential candidates. But the actual number you punch for Kerry
is "4." If you punch "3" you've just voted for Bush. Sound familiar?

  * Franklin County's right wing Elections Director is insisting
on e-voting machines which have malfunctioned in at least two
Congressional elections, and which have no paper trail. The November
issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines ran the
following headlines on their covers, respectively: "E-vote emergency:
And you thought dimpled chads were bad'" and "Could hackers tilt the
election?" Vigorous protests against the paperless machines have
been staged here, but many will be used, rendering a meaningful
recount impossible.

  * In four other Ohio counties, the notorious Diebold company, whose
CEO Wally O'Dell has pledged to deliver Ohio's votes to Bush, will
provide the e-voting machines to count votes without any paper trail
while using proprietary "secret" software. O'Dell lives in the
wealthy Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington and is a major Bush donor.

  * Twenty GOP-dominated Ohio counties have given wrong information to
former felons about their voter eligibility. In Hamilton County, home
of Cincinnati and the Republican Taft family, officials told numerous
former felons that a judge had to sign off before they could vote,
which is blatantly false.

  * Franklin County, which normally cancels 2-300 registered voters a
year for felony convictions, has sent at least 3500 cancellation
letters to both current felons and ex-felons whose convictions date
back to 1998. The list includes numerous citizens who were charged
with felonies but convicted only of misdemeanors.

  * Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has reversed a
long-standing Ohio practice and is barring voters from casting
provisional ballots within their county if they are registered to
vote but there's been a mistake about where they are expected to cast
their ballot. In this year's spring primaries, Blackwell allowed
voters to cast provisional ballots by county, even if they were in
the wrong precinct. But this fall, such voters will have to leave the
wrong precinct and find their way to the right one. Blackwell hopes
to succeed Republican Bob Taft as governor, and has labored hard to
install e-voting machines with no paper trail, to give the statewide
contract to Diebold, and to take a long series of steps apparently
designed to help hand Ohio to George W. Bush. Blackwell is being
widely compared to the infamous Katherine Harris, who handed Florida
to George W. Bush in 2000 and was rewarded with a safe Congressional
seat.

  * The Columbus Dispatch (which has endorsed Bush) and WVKO
Radio have both documented phone calls from people impersonating
Board of Elections workers and directing registered voters to
different and incorrect polling sites. One individual was falsely
told not to vote at the polling station across the street from his
house, but at a "new" site, four miles away. Under Blackwell's new
rules, such a vote would not be counted.

  * In Cincinnati, some 150,000 voters were moved from active to
inactive status within the last four years for not voting in the last
two federal elections. This is not required under Ohio law, but is an
option allowed and exercised by the Republican-dominated Hamilton
County Board of Elections.

  * Secretary of State Blackwell ruled that any voter registration
form on other than 80-pound weight bond paper would not be accepted.
This is an old law left over from pre-scanning days. Many voters who
had registered on lighter paper, had their registration returned,
even though the forms had been officially sanctioned by local
election boards.

  No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio.
This year the GOP seems determined to win it, no matter what they
have do to the electoral process.

=====================================================
  Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of GEORGE W. BUSH
VERSUS THE SUPERPOWER OF PEACE and IMPRISON GEORGE BUSH, from
www.freepress.org.

All content ) 1970-2004
The Columbus Free Press

 Sing this at the polls NOV 2     SING THE VOTE
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=this_land&preplay=1&ratingBar=off

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE in song is the first step to a fascism free planet
"THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, THIS LAND IS MY LAND, THIS LAND IS MADE FOR YOU AND ME"

IMAGINE: WE are children of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; WE ALL have a right to be here

START SINGING THE PLANET'S ANTHEM AT ALL EVENTS TO SHOW HOW "WE" HAVE ALREADY VOTED.
This would get some air time if we did it at GOP campaign events even in congress this Summer and fall and beyond after all it is the anthem of the Age of Aquarius no. We suggested that "THIS LAND" be the Global Village Planetary anthem at Woodies celebration in San Francisco at the Geary Theater in 1967. It was seconded by three ambassadors and has become the second third fourth etc. anthems to many countries.

FOLKSAY(people say) ............ has become Our defacto Global Village Planetary anthem and in essence we voted for citizen empowerment as we sung it. Now let's get it officially on record by singing it everywhere as direct democracy.
        THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF AQUARIUS is the reality at hand! The children of the universe, the right to be here generation _ the meek taking their prophetic inheritance out of probate is not a conspiracy.

Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
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Worksheet bio
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