The loss of our right to vote (or have it counted) is a media issue which is why you are all getting this email. I've talked a lot about the effects of media ownership consolidation on the destruction of democracy by permitting a few corporations to fail to report the essential information we need to be a self-governing people. Not only does the main stream media refuse to investigate and report on the impossible discrepancies between the 'official' count and the exit polls, but they are actively complicit in this fraud. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and the AP own the exit polls and have defied John Conyers' request for the raw data, keeping that data secreted from even qualified independent researchers.

We are all trying to take optimism from the lead democrats have in the polls going into the election. Keep in mind that they had these leads in 2002, when the Republicans got themselves total control, and they had even greater promise going into the 2004 elections. If you are still not convinced of the massive fraud that is going on, you can look at my 'cliff notes' version about the theft, which I wrote thinking people might read a few pages as opposed to an entire book (http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/16/2006/1865) .

Exit polls have historically been seen as the gold standard of reliability and are still considered as such everywhere in the world, except here. How is it that exit polls were relied on for a half century in this country and then suddenly they were wrong in 2000, and again in 2002 and again in 2004? Steven Freeman, author of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count, (http://www.electionintegrity.org/book) had analyzed the exit polls of the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida in 2004 and concluded that the odds of the exit polls being as far off as they were are 250 million to one! And still the media utterly failed to question the evidence before its eyes.

It is precisely because the exit polls are so reliable in proving the actual vote that for the first time in a half century, there will be no exit polls this year. The media consortium which owns the exit polls is actively suppressing the evidence we need to maintain our democracy: in this case information about how we've lost the ability to elect or evict our government. Without exit polls, it will be exceedingly difficult to have the evidence establishing the theft. Just like electronic voting, not a trace of evidence should be left to expose the greatest theft of this country's history.

How to fight back?

Firstly, we need the most massive turnout -- some people think if it's high enough we can overcome the level of the theft. Others think it will at least make it more difficult for the Republicans to explain how they somehow won again, even though Americans have never returned, and never would return, such an unpopular, incompetent and corrupt crew to office.

Secondly, we need independent exit polling. Independent exit polls have been used successfully to prevent fraud. See for inspiration, Thom Hartmann's How to Take Back a Stolen Election, (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1129-26.htm) , in which he describes how the elections in post Soviet countries -- where, like here, there was evidence the regime in power was planning to steal the elections and where, like here, the main stream media was either controlled by, beholden to, or owned by supporters of the regime in power -- were saved from the intended theft by the use of independent exit polls. If the Ukrainians can do it, why not us?

Now we have independent exit polls. Steve Freeman has teamed up with Ken Warren of The Warren Poll and created exit polls you can do this year, _instructions for doing your own exit poll_ (http://electionintegrity.org/Do_Your_Own_Exit_Poll.pdf) (also annexed here as an attachment along with the Sample Questionnaire you'll need).

It would be great if as many of you who can, try to do your own exit polls this year or if you're already committed this year, then next year and/or 2008. Sign on now at (http://www.electionintegrity.org) and be sure to click on "amateur pollsters" in the signup form. Don't wait till later to sign up- we have to build our forces for 2007 and 2008 now and this way we can stay in touch and keep you informed.

The Vote Count Projection Project (http://electionintegrity.org/vcpp.shtml) will be developing a nationally coordinated exit polling project for 2008. If you do exit polling this year pursuant to the instructions provided here, your input from this year's experience will be greatly appreciated.

Developing independent exit polls on a national basis is a huge undertaking, but what choice do any of us have. It is nothing less than our ability to exist as a free democracy that is at stake. It is after all, our duty:

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." - Samuel Adams