Letters to the Editor/<br>  Free Press Forum

We've all been hearing about President Chavez in the news lately. In his recent speech to the UN he described President Bush as "the devil" and "Mr. Danger." Quite dramatic. Well, he may not be as educated as some of Venezuela's elite but perhaps that is what makes him so powerful. Proud of his Indigenous and African roots, Chavez signed a "historic commitment" to govern on behalf of Venezuela's half-million Indigenous people in 1998 during his presidential campaign. This is a promise he has kept and earned him undying support.

His plan is called a Bolivarian Revolution, named after Simon Bolivar, the 19th century liberator of Venezuela, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. His ideas are that natural resources are for the benefit of all citizens, the state is guardian and promoter of civic and social human rights, and that the citizens are fundamental protagonists on political life.

Dear Harvey:

Your column about the momumental victory of the election protection movement and its success this year was heartening.  All that hard work is paying off.

Thanks to you and Bob and Steve and many others for keeping this issue alive.  Without fair elections, nothing else matters.

Helen W Slater

Many citizen journalists at ePluribus Media have worked on a story of the IT backbone of the VRWC and how it relates to Ohio but truly addresses the Central Nervous System of the GOP's communications and fundraising apparatus:

http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2006/11/7/115314/922

A direct quote:

"The takeaway message is this: Ohio's election results are hosted on the same servers by the partisan companies that run websites like georgewbush.com and many of the familiar Republican group sites. The people who consoldiate GOP operations in Chattanooga early this decade have been responsible for Ohio's election night results since 2004 and will probably continue to do so if J. Kenneth Blackwell extends his pay-for-play policies as Governor of Ohio."

The implications are huge, and I'd appreciate it if you'd take a look.

Sincerely,
wanderindiana
Andrew Brenner
ePluribus Media, Inc.

http://www.epluribusmedia.org/
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/

Dear Mr. Wasserman & Fitrakis,

Thanks.  You made it possible.  Keep up the good work.  I hope you realize the magnitude of your work.  Sincerely, Soni Biehl, Lubec, Maine

You in particular are the real winners here.  Without the insistence of the Free Press that attention had to be paid to election fraud, rigging, and, as you say, much more, there would not have been media attention paid nor any grassroots voter protection movement.

Bob, Suzanne, Harvey,  congratulations! my hat is off to you.

Tekla

I dont think the country realizes the enormous contribution you guys, Fitrakis et al, made to this election process and exposing the Rovian dirty tricks. You kept shouting until even CNN and MSNBC had to mention it.  I noticed something interesting following the major reports, CNN, MSNBC, even FOX...

Oct. 27 Yea, I know I said I was too dejected to do this again but Angsto seems a good way to protest the death of the Constitution... so the site is back since I switched back to cable... A few hours of tweaking and the addition of some updated material and Angsto is back to fight the good fight. I promise to add much more since we are quickly going to hell in a handbasket... the November "elections" should be a test whether Karl Rove and the PNAC monsters, , will hack another GOP win...

Angsto

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Nov. 5

Great to see you guys on Lou Dobbs. Dobbs is one of my favorites because he really is trying to get the truth out.

I have followed your good work for 2 years....I even tried, one week after the election to get a senior person on Senator Biden's staff to consider that the Republicans stole the 2004 election by rigging the e-voting machines. He didn't believe me, said the results weren't close enough. Then, I didn't exactly know how they did, but I knew that something was wrong, since I had worked in Florida, NH and PA on behalf of the Kerry campaign.

My take then, as now, is that the only reliable way for a vote is the German system: that is using paper ballots, using civil servants to count with all parties overseeing. The people know who wins the next day due to the exit polls but the final count takes two - three weeks. I hope you would start to lobby for that kind of system. Don't you think that would be more secure?

Please make sure that candidates in close elections with a preponderance of e-voting machines don't concede. That's important.

Ron Rich

It used to be that the positions of candidates, their charm, their charisma, their connection to the people, their policy innovation and other substantive matters having real connection with the job function of public office won or lost major campaigns. Not so any longer.

Now it's all in catching the cheaters with their hands in the cookie jars.

It has been repeatedly stated loudly from 2000 onward, and more particularly after the theft of the 2004 Presidential election that the whole game is in how the votes are counted- or not.

Notwithstanding this glaringly obvious truth, all major campaigns and the DNC are still running themselves like nineteenth century popularity contests, as if voting technology had not yet been invented.

Instead, they should be expending huge amounts of resources and energy in engaging software engineers to examine and study all the various voting technologies and create fool proof security measures to meet the challenges of the new technology in preventing wireless hacking, remote breaking and entering of reverse engineered machinery and the like.

To the Editor:

Over 100,000 households woke up to the snow this week without any heat.  They have been disconnected by their utility or have empty propane or fuel oil tanks.  Ohio can do better.

There are many reasons why people are without essential utility service.  They have lost a good job, had a health emergency, or are simply poor, working in jobs that don’t pay enough for them to pay their bills.  But, there are things we can do.

We can require utilities to fund weatherization programs for their customers.  Many utilities provide some funding for low-income customer, but the waiting lists for assistance are over a year.  Other states require utilities to help all customers become more efficient in how they use energy so the bills are lower.  Ohio needs to follow their lead.

Ohio can also require the use of more renewable energy.  Wind, solar and biomass power would all produce jobs here in Ohio while reducing the cost of energy over the long term.  This state needs to make these investments and stop sending our energy dollars to out of state.