DEAR SEN KERRY: One Year Later

Dear Sen. Kerry,

A year and a half ago you came to the great state of Ohio to ask voters for their support in electing you the next president of the United States. You witnessed the birth of a grassroots effort never before seen in the history of our nation. People from every walk of life mobilized in neighborhoods rich and poor to register, educate and get out the vote. Senator Kerry, you and Senator Edwards promised that this election would be different- that you would make sure that every vote would count. This statement was heard the loudest in poor neighborhoods with those whose voice carry the least power. You energized voters who had little faith in the system, especially after so many were disenfranchised by unscrupulous techniques in 2000. I know because I canvassed on the near east side of Columbus, OH in the fall of 2004. I spoke with hundreds of people, registered dozens of first time voters in these neighborhoods. I promised them, as you so eloquently told your followers, that every vote would count. These determined voters came out to support you in record numbers. They stood in that bone chilling November rain for hours to cast their vote in support for you and the hope for a better future.



After the election when we cried foul, we were ignored and defamed. When the media failed to do their job, citizens stepped up to the plate. We have documented the election problems with videos, provided sworn affidavits, investigated the numerous complaints with our own time and money. NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON FROM THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS GONE UNDER OATH TO SAY THE ELECTION WAS NOT STOLEN. The person in charge of the vote count in Ohio, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, was the Co-Chair of Bush/Cheney ‘04 in Ohio. He has repeatedly refused to answer any questions, even when posed by members of the House Judiciary Committee. When the election was contested in Ohio, the Ohio Attorney General’s office stated under no circumstances would Blackwell testify under oath.

Senator Kerry, I am not a politician-I am simply a person who stands behind what I promise. I will not rest until those votes of the good people who persevered in those long lines are counted. I will not be silent until a full investigation of just what happened during the ‘04 election occurs. We were told by our own party to simply “move on”. When a crime has been committed, that is exactly what the criminal hopes one will do-move on. Moving on did not change the fairness of the election after 2000, and it will not change by simply moving on after 2004. There is a strong movement of progressives who, like me will not relent until the truth is told.

Those in Washington have allowed the privatization of our vote to partisan proprietors. We now have a voting system in which a recent GAO Report says the voting machines are not secure, not accountable, not recountable, not transparent and not adequately monitored or certified by anyone. We are in a fight for the soul of our democracy. All we ask is for every vote to count. We demand fair, transparent and verifiable elections. Now is the time to rise up and demand justice. To paraphrase Dr Martin Luther King Jr: “it is not the actions of bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Please Senator Kerry, now is the time to join our effort. Please join in our fight for fair, transparent, and verifiable elections!

Sincerely,

Dorri Steinhoff
Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections
.

Rev Bill Moss (plantiff for contesting the election) and Andy Stephenson, beloved DUer, who came to columbus and assisted in investigating the election. The videos of election day brought tears to many eyes. We must work to not only expose the past injustices but fight to correct future. Citizen-Activists in Ohio will not allow this issue to die. Demands must be made at every state level. In Ohio we have 4 voter initiatives on the Tuesday ballot, which we hope will be a starting point for the entire nation. We also still have Blackwell overseeing the vote count.

PLEASE IF YOU ARE IN OHIO, OR IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS OR RELATIVES IN OHIO MAKE THEM AWARE OF ISSUES 2,3,4 + 5. Vote YES on the Reform Ohio Now initiatives!

gold and high fives all the Michigan players as they come out to play. If there is a controversial play and the referee sides with Michigan, do you really think the OSU fans will be accepting?

This is what happened with Blackwell, and since he has not been held accountable and is still in office this will occur again in '05, and '06 (when he will be counting his own votes for the governorship). Yet we have silence in the Democratic Party. I don't get it! Where is the outrage?

*note: I guess sports analogies are in this season.

Whatever works! I, too, am in Ohio. We're getting ready to head to downtown Cincinnati and hand out RON flyers as people leave the Sunday afternoon theatre...

Maybe we should hit the Sports Bars and use your analogy!

Mahoning County (Youngstown)? Well, there was some footage of a documentary which has not been released yet which showed OH State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Youngstown) admitting that this happened to him. the woman videographer said Hagan had been told not to go public with this information. She showed him footage of other people and talked him into admitting on film that yes, this happened to him as well. He voted for Kerry and the screen recorded a vote for bu$h.

:wow: Is he going public now?

want to find out is who told him not to talk about it! I'll try to find out and post it.

also attended the Free Press event. She spoke how the precincts were said to be random but were pre-selected. She also told of how Michael Barbarian, employee of Triad appeared unexpected (no one called them-it was not in their contract so who paid Triad? She said Michael Barbarian went to 5 other rural counties who used Triad and that other Triad employees went to 41 other OH counties who used Triad systems. She also commented on the fact that the 2 Dems and 2 Republicans "serve Ken Blackwell not the interest of their respective party".

Lastly she spoke how auctions for a republican fundraiser where held at Hocking County BOE.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS WE MUST GET THESE PEOPLE INCLUDING BLACKWELL SUBPOENAED UNDER OATH?

Blackwell would have been forced to testify under oath a year ago.

I personally am not holding my breath that John Kerry is going to do anything about this mess.

As much as I admire the letter written to Kerry, I fear we will have to look elsewhere for leadership on this issue. John Conyers, for example, was the one who forced the GAO audit of the Ohio election, not John Kerry.

Just the other day there was a thread about Kerry admitting in an interview with an author that he was "cheated" in Ohio. Then when the story got out Kerry's spokesman issued a denial that he ever said what the author quoted him as saying.

a pivotal role at the BOE. Thanks to the "coingate scandal" we will soon have tom and Bernadette Noe under oath on the witness stand. It also should be noted that 5 of the 7 OH Supreme Court Justices have recused themselves due to close connections to the Noes. Where Kerry can put pressure is on the prosecutors to delve a little deeper into kick backs to b/c/'04 and what role the Noes played in the Ohio election.

REMEMBER IT WAS SO BAD THAT EVEN BLACKWELL WAS FORCED TO INVESTIGATE:

Ms Noe was Chairperson of the Lucas County BOE during the past election. I hope you have taken the time to read the SOS's Investigation of Lucas county following the election:

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/lucas.htm


This report includes the fact that REPUBLICAN VOLUNTEERS were allowed UNSUPERVISED ACCESS to UNSECURED BALLOTS prior to the election, as well as this list:

*failure to maintain ballot security
*Inability to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot reconciliation .
*failure to prepare and develop a plan for the processing of the voluminous amount of voter registration forms received.
*issuance and acceptance of incorrect absentee ballot forms.
*manipulation of the process involving the 3% recount.
*disjointed implementation of the Directive regarding the removal of Nader and Camejo from the ballot .
*failure to properly issue hospital ballots in accordance with statutory requirements.
*failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvass
*failure to examine campaign finance reports in a timely manner.
*failure to guard and protect public documents.
*failure to guard and protect public documents ....etc.


-One-half of the ballots printed and used in the 2004 general election in Lucas county were stored in an open space on the fhird floor of the county warehouse with no security measures in place.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation on Lucas County BOE page 4



-Live ballots were delivered to polling locations a week in advance of the election. Although the ballots were retrieved, one board employee who was assigned to the warehouse informed the SOS staff that he did not believe all the ballots were successfully retrieved.
SOURCE; SOS Investigation, page 5



-Lucas County BOE failed to record or retrieve ballot stub numbers of absentee voters’ ballots as required by statute OH Revised Code 3505.23. It was reported by an elector that her mother had received not one, but three absentee voter ballots. there was no way to determine if similar incidents occurred and if so how many.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation, page 7




-October 4, 2004 was filing deadline for new voter registrations. At that point there were approximately 20,000 unprocessed voter registration applications with less than a month before the election. One mail tray containing 4,500-7,000 (estimates vary) unprocessed “Project Voter” registrations were discovered on or about October 18,2004.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation pg 10

***Of interest here is information obtained from the SOS website entitled ElectionsVoter/results 2003 and 2004 which show the # of registered voters number change from ‘03-’04 was 11,947 in Lucas County: reg voters 2003 in Lucas=288,190 ; registered voter in 2004=300,137.



-In late September or early October an employee of the Ohio Republican Party contacted Sam Thurber (*involved with politician wife Maggie Thurber in Noe scandal.) wanting to inspect and have copies made of all recently returned voter registrations, Ohio Republican Party offered to furnish volunteers to assist with copying postcards. No one at the Lucas County BOE can confirm that anyone was assigned to supervise Republican volunteers. On their second day of copying, a BOE employee, Jennifer Bernath, Democratic Booth Official) saw republican party volunteers peeling off the yellow return stickers applied by the post office. (Violation of RC 149.43 (B) (I) , and agruably a violation of 149.351.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation, pgs 18-19

*Among those whose donations have caught the attention of investigators are:

City Councilman Betty Shultz; former state representative Sally Perz, her husband, Joe, and her daughter, Allison; former county elections director Joe Kidd; county Auditor Larry Kaczala and his wife, Gina; County Commissioner Maggie Thurber and her husband, Sam; and two of Mr. Noe’s co-workers at Vintage Coins and Collectibles, partner Tim Lapointe and executive assistant Susan Metzger. Mr. Lapointe’s wife, Linda, also donated.

All of the above gave the campaign $2,000 except the Thurbers; each of them gave $1,950 to the campaign. The $23,900 in donations were made between Oct. 30 and Nov. 5, 2003.

Path of donations At issue is whether Mr. Noe gave people money in order for them to give to the Bush campaign, allowing Mr. Noe to exceed federal spending limits, law-enforcement sources said.
Source:
Toledo Blade - FBI Raids GOP Donor Noe's Condo
Friday, April 29, 2005




-The Swanton 3 poll book turned up missing and has never been recovered.
SOURCE: SOS Investigation pg 16


-The number of precincts in Lucas County for the November 2003 election was 530 precincts, at the time of the November 2, 2004 election there were 495 precincts.

If only our "leaders" were as involved as you are.

John:

There are rumors that you are contacting technical experts so that you can learn just how vulnerable these machines really are. I can only hope that's true.

But I want to remind you: If they are cheating, and I think they are, this will be the biggest fight of your life - bigger than 2004, bigger than BCCI.

There are thousands, maybe millions, of activists waiting for a leader. Time grows short. After 2006, the machines will be in place and will be even more difficult to dislodge.

What will it be?

has been out there on many issues, like healthcare for children and exiting Iraq.
I respect Sen. Kerry too much to chastise him. He's very smart and honorable, and I'll let him pick the issues he thinks he can influence.
Having said that, the voting issue is huge!

think he is scared......

Bama

stood with those in line for ten hours, in the freezing cold, disgusted, appalled. and the very sad fact for me on that day, people weren't bothered. every peron in america should have been bothered by that. that is when i sneered and scoffed at my fellow republicans.

Linda Bryket!

Kerry, the Congress, and to the media! Very well written letter mod mom. Thank you!

control over electronic voting machines. All GOTV efforts will be for naught if the electronic machines that tabulate the count can not be trusted. The recent GAO report concludes that they can not. this is why our issue of election reform is the threshold issue!

"Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything".
Joseph Stalin

this and truly reflects upon in his course in history. I know, we all waited for someone to come save the day after the election (of course John Conyers did), but with things in a turmoil in the WH, coupled with the recent GAO report, it doesn't hurt to try.

Constructive action is what is needed.

I hope they read it and consider it.

:applause:

eom

The one in Ohio, the one that Kerry is a part of as well as the GLibs. His lawyer is Don McTigue.

He is also co-sponsor of an election reform bill.

He has voter action teams forming on his website, along with rhetoric on the page that talks about partisan election workers and antiquated machines.

On MLK Day, he talked about suppression and the election. And got nailed for it.

When the rumor circulated that he might be quitting the GLib suit, someone fairly close to him said that he was also involved in two further suits regarding suppression. Don't know much about them except that one has to do with the League of Women Voters.

So that makes three suits: one fraud and two suppression.

Plus, if Miller is to be at least partly believed, even though he by my mind stretched a bit of party chat all out of proportion, Kerry has also been pushing the issue with his fellow Senators, with unknown success.

Join?

No.

He's already with you. Just not terribly loud about it.

You wouldn't want him to be loud. Trust me. I already got a taste of that with Hannity lumping Kerry in with a fat, bearded, loud and crazy Al Gore (Sean's take, not mine). Poor Democrats, they go nuts when they lose elections doncha know.

are referring to is a case regarding the Recount, which was not handled as state law requires by random selection.

Mr McTigue has also been involved with Reform Ohio Now, which are the election reform initiatives.

That's what I remember, anyway. And at one point they were also seeking the information contained in the voting machines as part of the case. So I consider it part of what you are asking Kerry to join.

And is one of the reasons I say he already is there.