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Video the Vote - Election Protection volunteer kicked out of polls

The GOP stages of grief

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Can the grassroots Internet-based election protection movement win the White House?

Barack Obama is heading to Election Day with a razor thin 6 point lead in the popular polls in Ohio, according to the usually reliable Columbus Dispatch poll. This means that the Buckeye state could again decide who enters the White House in January, despite the fact that nationwide Obama's lead has been registered as high as 11-12 percent.

In a country with truly fair elections, a reliable vote count, and no electoral college, ssuch a lead should be commanding.

But in the America of 2008, it will be enough only if tens of thousands of grassroots election protection activists, rallied primarily through the independent internet, can protect voter registrations, guarantee the ability to vote at the polling stations, and somehow procure an accurate, un-tampered with vote count.

The spectre of Communism

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Will this Presidential election be stolen? It didn’t happen by chance...

We are seniors at the Social Justice High School in Chicago, and in our math class, we have been working to understand whether or not something went wrong in the 2004 presidential election. We have used statistics, facts, and formulas to demonstrate that some of the election results did not happen by chance. During our analyses, we discovered that the differences between the exit polls (random confidential surveys done immediately after voting) and the recorded votes did not match. Although we expect some differences, due to sample variation, the numbers were mathematically improbable or basically impossible!

'Vote stealing imperils democracy': former Montague resident charges election manipulation

A former Montague resident and plaintiff in a federal class-action lawsuit says he's "100 percent certain" that the 2004 presidential election was stolen, and believes the Republican Party is attempting to steal the 2008 election as well.

Harvey Wasserman, who lived in Montague for 14 years and is now editor of the online Freepress.org as well as author of four books on vote-tampering and disenfranchisement in Ohio four years ago, predicts that Democratic candidate Barack Obama will need a 10 percent vote margin to compensate for election manipulation and racism if he's to win the presidency.

"There have been political shenanigans throughout history," said Wasserman, who authored an alternative history of the United States in 1972 and 11 other books, including "How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008." But in 2000, 2004, "and here again in 2008," the Republican party has been working "to disenfranchise as many potential Democratic voters as possible."

No time for Nader: A letter to Nader McKinney voters

I’d thought little about Ralph Nader’s potential electoral impact until I read recent polls suggesting he was drawing 3% among likely Ohio voters, 4% in Nevada (plus 1% for Cynthia McKinney), 3% in Pennsylvania, and 5% in Missouri. This means he might once again help tip an election.

Most of Nader’s supporters suggest their votes won’t make the critical difference. Or explain “the lesser of two evils is still evil.” Or list Obama stands they disagree with, some of which I disagree with as well.

But let’s assume that the current election still hangs in the balance: that between Republican voter suppression, last-minute attack ads, latent racism, and the uncertainties of turnout among new registrants, McCain and Palin just might be able to win. If you’re a Nader or McKinney supporter, I’d like to address this article to you, and ask how you’d feel if, by not voting for Obama, you ended up helping electing them.

How and why I just voted

Having spent the past several years trying to end wars and militarism, I have just voted for a presidential candidate who seems intent on expanding them.

Having won the Democratic primary largely on the strength of his extremely limited and inconsistent opposition to the war on Iraq, Senator Barack Obama chose as his running mate Senator Joe Biden, a man who had led efforts in the U.S. Senate to support the invasion. Obama's staff have told reporters that he is inclined to keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of War (or "Defense") -- exactly the same plan proposed by Senator John McCain's campaign. Obama has said he'd like Colin Powell to be a part of his administration, and repeatedly announced that his cabinet will include Republicans. Obama has approached Congressman Rahm Emanuel about becoming his chief of staff.

Beware the Twin Towers of electronic election theft

Obama supporters are exuding a potentially fatal air of confidence and expectation. Intoxicated by favorable polls and a gusher of campaign spending, many are, in John McCain's phrase, "measuring the drapes in the White House."

It is a classic error, made lethal by the Democratic Party's on-going unwillingness to face the realities of electronic election theft.

In fact, the twin towers of pre-election disenfranchisement and rigged electronic vote counts make an Obama victory at best an even call, no matter how far ahead he may seem in the polls.

As reported by Bradblog, Greg Palast, Robert F. Kennedy, Mark C. Miller and others, the Republicans are waging all-out war to purge hundreds of thousands of Democrats from the voter rolls. The now-familiar attacks on ACORN are a smokescreen to cover highly effective state-by-state assaults on computerized registration lists. These lists are often privatized and run by Republican-connected companies like Triad in Ohio.

The time has come

President-elect Obama . . .

I’m daring my own heart to write these words, to let hope’s preview ignite me for an instant. Despite all my reservations (Afghanistan) and all my fears (how will they try to undermine his presidency, or prevent it by theft?), I can’t help but feel history pushing at me and all of us as we vote, or try to vote, on Tuesday.

Yes, the significance of this election rises out of the nation’s past: Barack Obama’s articulate, courageous campaign represents the farthest reach of the civil rights movement, and a beginning of the psychological healing of our national legacy of racism. But even more significantly, this election speaks to the future: It’s about the creation of a new constituency and the careening, dying sputter of an old one.

And the Democrats finally have a candidate who unabashedly addresses this new constituency, rather than one who panders, ineptly, to the Republican core.

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