An Open Invitation to the MSM: Come Help Expose the Memphis Election Melt-Down

Good morning, all y'all. Things are heating up down here in Tennessee as the evidence for August 5th election fraud in Memphis is piling up like over-loaded bilge barges on the Mississippi. The release (last Thursday) of a damning forensic report on votes cast on election day (August 5) showed over 3,000+ "phantum votes" cast -- and multiple unmonitored entries into the county's election databases before AND after the election -- makes for good reading.

If you like horror stories.

What is happening in Memphis can (and WILL) be repeated many places across our political globe this November. Because the reich-wing buzzards are coming home to roost ... wherever unverifiable machines are combined with ignorance and arrogance.

What follows is a note I sent to 30+ Tennessee reporters who I know from my election integrity and/or medical cannabis advocacy here. Please consider this an open invitation to the national -- the international -- media to come to Memphis. Please spread the information below around as you can. Help us expose this pestilence and, in the process, help control its spread. If you've ever worried about swine flu, you ought to smell the rancid bar-be-que being served up as "certified election results" by the reich-wing crackers who are now in control ... in the birthplace of the blues.

Thanks. FBN
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To every TN media person I know (well enough to pester early on a Monday morning):

With all of the attention given the uncertainty of the Yarbro/Henry race in Nashville (and some attention given to major "glitches in Maury, Hawkins and other TN counties); the major story of the August 5th election remains in Memphis. It will not go away.

It should not.

The improbable election of an all-Republican slate in Shelby county, coupled with multiple and multi-level disconnections between the "votes" cast and the number of voters who cast them, has drawn attention to one of the most egregious manipulations of our election process in this state in decades. The evidence is overwhelming, the continued stonewalling silence of county election officials and others is deafening in its implications and the public has not just "moved on".

You should be reporting on this story, even if it's hours away from any portion of your media market.

Why?

Simply put, the August 5th Shelby county stolen elections demonstrate what is possible when unverified voting machines are used in elections AND what would have been impossible had the TN Voter Confidence Act been implemented as intended for this critically important 2010 election cycle. Motive, means, opportunity -- election fraud facilitated by an overly-friendly Secretary of State and State Election Coordinator (who just loves them some DREs, yessirree!!) and a happy-to-cooperate legislature. And not limited to the birthplace of the blues, I might justifiably suspect -- as we have feared for the past six years.

Well-documented election fraud was committed in Shelby county on August 5th, based on (so far) only a partial analysis of available data. (A link to the most recent four page report is embedded below.) The full (forensic) investigation of this election is hopefully just now beginning. The TBI has yet to issue their report and there have been public calls (including from me, on a few news blogs) for a USDOJ and FBI investigation. To make your own decision regarding my own conclusions re: Shelby county election fraud, read the four page link below in a response to the latest Baker story at the Memphis Flyer Politics blog.

And then please get busy on this story. What has happened in Memphis CAN happen in all but two other TN counties with the unverifiable voting equipment that TN Republicans insisted we use for this critically important 2010 election. It will LIKELY happen in at least a few other counties, if it is allowed to. It would be nice to think that the ignorance and arrogance displayed by Memphis election thieves in early August would be unique. But like yellow fever, election fraud is contagious -- particularly when carried by unverifiable voting equipment sold and programmed by a handful of mostly right-leaning companies.

I suspect that our statewide group, Gathering To Save Our Democracy, will reconvene to speak out against the election theft in Memphis and request that our fall elections be "secured" in some fashion. We have seen the soon-to-be future in Tennessee -- if the insecurities identified in the Memphis election fraud fiasco (and the Yarbro/Henry delayed decision, and the Maury central tabulator counting backwards, etc., etc, ad nauseum) are to define how the consent of the governed is measured from the birthplace of the blues to one of the western-most birthplaces of our nation. And every community in between.

We must not consent to this process, if we cannot trust it. Memphis shows we can't, particularly not now.

Bernie Ellis

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To Jackson Baker, Memphis Flyer:

The biggest news from Thursday night (the latest Memphis election fraud protest meeting), in my opinion, hasn't been covered much yet. Hopefully, you will get the information presented by the two investigators, Bev Harris and Susan Pynchon, into the public eye in Shelby county very soon.

For once, I will not write a great deal here myself. Having read the Harris/Pynchon report, I will let it speak for itself. A four page (!) summary of the report now appears on-line at:

http://www.opednews.com/a/118689?show=votes#allcomments

(On edit -- this is a new link -- hopefully it works)

Here are just two excerpts:
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"Consultants examining the Aug. 5 Shelby County election found 3,221 more votes than voters on documents provided by Shelby County elections officials pursuant to a court order.... Most voterless votes were found in large Republican precincts, a non-random distribution..... Shelby County declined to provide precinct results after the election and even after they certified the results; Elections Administrator Richard Holden stated in front of a court reporter on Aug. 16 that it was not possible to produce them, a misrepresentation to the court, but the inspection team discovered copies of precinct results reports sitting on Shelby County computers. The results had been there since Aug. 6. Shelby County precinct results ("Statement of Votes Cast" or "SOVC") do not match the list of participating voters."
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Here is just one of many documented examples in the report of manipulation of the votes, using information provided (pursuant to a court order) by the Shelby County Election Commission:

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"Shelby County's certified "SOVC" results show 85,290 votes cast at polls (not early votes, or absentee votes, but Election Day polling place votes). But Shelby County's Participating Voter List shows only 82,069 voters who cast votes at polls.

"Also, in at least five locations containing phantom votes -- votes without voters -- Shelby County had performed secret uploads from voting machines the day before the election.

"PRECINCT: COR09

"The heavily Republican COR09 precinct, location HOPE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH shows just 20 people who voted at the polling place, but the certified "SOVC" results counted 619 votes.

This is a discrepancy of 599 votes."
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Again, Jackson, Memphis Flyer editors and Shelby Countians of all political persuasions -- if , like me, you just want your votes to be counted as they were cast, read the four page summary of this report at the above link. Then pop some popcorn.

It is EVIDENCE like this on which long prison sentences are made.

Read and weep (or get really, really mad) ... in the birthplace of the blues.

We're paying attention statewide now. And the interest will grow.

but why worry about fraudulent vote,....

What's the big deal? The pubbies wouldn't stoop so low as to steal votes.

I'm sure it was just a glitch, and they'll get it straightened out after a few dozen more elections.

Besides, most people want pubbies in office, so the machines are just doing what the people want, right?

The enormous effort to create and legitimize a clearly bought-and-paid-for "movement" is just the start.

First polls, pubbies are WAY ahead, then the race narrows and finally, the pubbies will manage to have a landslide mandate just like bushie had in 2004.

Except for those places where the machines are watched very closely and there are paper ballots.

the lack of outrage was chilling, to me anyway

:hi:

http://blogs.tennessean.com/politics/2010/democratic-candidates-challenge-shelby-county-election/

This link to a Nashville Tennessean article includes an August 25 press release from the Shelby County Democratic Party in support of a lawsuit filed in Shelby County to overturn the results of the August 5 election. That case will be heard October 4 (I believe).

I hope they listen to you. Thanks for posting!

:hi:

optomistic based on recent history.

Thanks for the thread, Fly by night.

This kind of thing can happen ANYwhere and EVERYwhere.

Pay attention.

Get involved with a local election integrity group in YOUR county or state. If there is no local group, START one. Eternal vigilance, and by that I mean EVERY election every time, is the price we have to pay if we want to keep what little of our democracy is left.

It will be GREAT NEWS if the excellent Gathering to Save Our Democracy group reconvenes in TN. :yourock:

If anyone in Pennsylvania wants to help in the Keystone State, contact us and get involved here please: http://www.VotePA.us

Eternal vigilance ... and a no-nonsense response to felonious and treasonous acts committed for political gain.

The Memphis election thieves need to be before a court of law real soon. And that court needs to act on all our behalf.

The rubber is beginning to meet the road ... in the birthplace of the blues.

Here's the link:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/sep/19/commission-dems-prepare-for-election-trial/

Here is what I posted there:



What just happened in Shelby County on August 5 should offend every American -- all of us. When the "consent of the governed" is tampered with, that is treason and it is a crime against every American. It cannot be allowed to stand.

We all know election theft is nothing new in our nation, or in your county for that matter. It is also clear that there is much blame to go around for the unsafe voting machines you are using in Shelby county. Despite all that, what we are focusing on now is what happened in Shelby County on August 5.

What "that" was - was election fraud. Despite the dismissive comments of some here (the "just get over it" crowd), the evidence for this election fraud has mounted from August 5 forward.

We are not talking about single "glitches" -- we are talking about a systematic and well-coordinated effort to change vote counts in a number of precincts before, during and after the August 5 election based on partial evidence reviewed so far -- evidence provided only after a court order to do so. We are also talking about a data trail that extends far beyond what has been seen so far. (If there is nothing to hide, why on earth are Gianinni et al still so dead-set on hiding it anyway?)

It is pretty clear to all concerned that there is sufficient evidence to question the outcomes of the August 5 elections. The question is who will make that determination and how soon. The TBI is already involved and FBI/USDOJ investigations are likely not far behind. The election theft was so ham-handed and finger-prints are all over everything reviewed so far -- none of these criminal justice agencies have any choice. So the question isn't whether wrong-doing will be uncovered and punished, it's just a matter of which agency will move forward first.

That movement toward justice can begin with Chancellor Goldin, and soon. I think it is insulting to suggest here that Chancellor Goldin's own politics will influence his decision. There are some things that we ALL should stand for -- free, fair and verifiable elections should be one of those things.

Election fraud serves no one well, because it cuts the rudder of good government that the "consent of the governed" has always provided. Honorable Republicans know that -- believe that -- as much as any Democrat, any Independent, any ... whatever.

The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice. Let justice bend toward the west ... toward the birthplace of the blues. Soon.

Is it just scary to contemplate?

This fact that your vote can so easily be stolen?

That after all the hard work of campaigning, a geek in some office somewhere can override all that effort with a click of a mouse?

The Dem party took ill when its supporters all looked the other way as their votes were being stolen from them.

As Karl Rove laughed all the way to the White House.