Election Issues

Tim and Roberta Kettler voted at approximately 10:15 am, November 7 in the Monroe Twp. precinct in Coshocton County. Two Diebold machines were available for use. We experienced difficulty in recording the votes we cast and the machines required several touches of the screen in order to record a screen response. Also the printed audit tape was not entirely visible on the bottom of the final page and could not be advanced in order to view the final choice on the tape. However I was able to view the choice by lifting the access door to the tape which was left unsecured (unlocked) One of the poll workers stated that she had the same problem when she voted herself. The poll workers said the they had been having trouble with the machines all morning and that the service technician had been there all morning "recalibrating" the two machines. Both machines had unsecured paper audit tape access doors.

Tim Kettler

Watch here: Ohio's Video the Vote

On Election Day 2006, the American people will almost certainly vote to give the Democratic Party one or both houses of Congress.

We will vote to restore at least some of the checks and balances written into the Constitution of the United States. We will vote to end the reign of terror and error imposed on the nation and world since the stolen election of 2000. State by state, governorships and legislatures should return to the opposition party.

All the polls, and all the instincts of credible students of American politics, indicate this will happen. Anyone familiar with the history of the American electorate can be reasonably certain that the issues of war, deficits, economy, environment, scandal, sexual imposition and more will overwhelmingly favor a traditional rejection of the party in power.

But in 2006, the party in power has installed a nationwide system of election theft. And the outcome of Tuesday's election may depend on the ability of the grassroots American citizenry to overcome this infernal machine.

The GOP engine of vote theft is built primarily on two pillars:

It's never been more true that the one thing we Americans can say with pride about George W. Bush is that we have never elected him president of the United States.

The regime is even more despised than ever, in part because the derogatory term "chickenhawk" now applies in all its worst double meanings.

And while Bush and Karl Rove crow that they're about to "win" again, we think they are about to run into their worst nightmare: a full-blown grassroots social movement.

The GOP strategy for stealing 2006 is much the same as in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, and in key Senatorial elections in 2002: mass disenfranchisement of mostly urban Democratic voters, combined with mass inflation of mostly rural Republican votes.

VOTING, LIKE FREE SPEECH, SHOULD BE A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. Until we pass that constitutional amendment, a new voting rights law must be passed establishing a federal right to vote. What the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections illustrated above all else is the ability of partisan and ruthless political operatives to manipulate a haphazard system comprising 50 different state voting laws, as interpreted by secretaries of states and various county, ward and precinct officials....

READ THE FULL DOCUMENT (requires Adobe Acrobat)

An electronic vote counting system included votes never cast in the total vote count reported for the 2004 Presidential election according to an official directly in charge of conducting the election, the Republican Director of the Miami County (Ohio) Board of Elections. The audit log for the system is missing all information for the 2004 Presidential election....

Read the full document (requires Adobe Acrobat)

See this video at the We Count 2006 Blog

This is well worth watching if you want to understand why pollworkers in Cleveland will not be allowed to post precinct results. It is fairly short because there is no reason. No acceptable reason in a Democracy, that is. Vicki Lovegren of Ohio Vigilance lays it out in plain, clear irrefutable language. Pollworkers need to perform an extremely simple two-step process. The BOE agreed to do this procedure in the spring, and now -- due to pressure from superiors -- may not do the posting.

Please also see Vicki's call to action below: This is What Democracy Looks Like !

The whole world will be watching next week's election, and Cuyahoga County's will be a major object of focus. WCPN will host World Have Your Say here in Cleveland on the 7th and 8th. Director Michael Vu was on Lou Dobbs on Sunday night and on CNN today. And wait until the new film, Hacking Democracy, airs this Thursday?

Tune in on your TV or visit http://www.DemocracyNow.org today to watch Bev Harris, Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman and others discuss voting reform efforts and the most recent attacks on democracy in the United States.

The direct link to the electoral reform portion of the program is: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/31/150223

COLUMBUS---With a major GOP federal court victory, the Ohio 2006 election has descended into the calculated chaos that has become the trademark of a Karl Rove election theft, and that could help keep the Congress in Republican hands nationwide.

Through a complex series of legal maneuvers, and now a shocking new decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the GOP has thrown Ohio's entire process of voting and vote counting into serious disarray. The mess is perfectly designed to suppress voter turnout, make election monitoring and a recount impossible, and allow the Republican Party to emerge with a victory despite overwhelming evidence the electorate wants exactly the opposite.

The disaster in Ohio began immediately after the theft of the presidential election here in 2004. Though the majority of Ohioans are registered Democrats, the gerrymandered state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. Soon after John Kerry conceded, it passed House Bill 3, a draconian assault on voter registration drives, voting rights and the ability to secure reliable recounts of federal-level elections.

On October 25 Washoe County resident and voter Patricia Axelrod sued Sequoia Voting Systems for the loss of her 2004 vote, which she says, is her “precious and personal private property.” Sequoia Voting Systems sold Nevada electronic voting, election management, and Vote tabulating machines and systems to Nevada including the Advantage and AVC Edge with Veri-Vote Printer voting machines. “Sequoia management and product defect and negligence lost my 2004 vote, impaired the accurate results of both the 2004 and threatens the outcome of the 2006 elections,” says Patricia Axerod a professional researcher who has sued Sequoia for negligence, property damage, negligence, strict product liability and breech of the warranty Sequoia extended to Nevada. Axelrod discovered her missing 2004 vote by review of her voting record on Washoe Registrar’s DEMS (Diebold Election Management System). Accessing the DEMS computer she found her vote had neither been registered nor counted and that she had been issued 3 – rather than one unique Voter ID number.