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Dear Free Press:

Hello from Little Rock 11/17/04. This evening, they are opening the festivities for the Clinton Library.

But even as they do, I wonder if it isn't, by the second, becoming increasingly irrelevant.

You have touched a nerve with me, and I suspect with a lot of people, as we see these reports about the third parties trying to put together the money to recount the election.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are all in Little Rock, flipping us all the bird, bragging on themselves and their Clinton Library.

Well, I'm a lifelong AR resident. I would have appreciated all this a lot more if they'd timed it a little differently. It is a colossal case of bad timing.

I'm not a Vietnam veteran--or a veteran of any kind. I'm poor, and I struggle to believe the Democratic Party is about me. I'm a male WASP from the South. I have so many back and forth feelings about the Democratic Party anyway. No matter how poor you are, or even if you are homeless, the Democrtats often seem totally indifferent if you're a white male, especially from the South.

Thank you so much for speaking out about the voting process.  We must demand that it be transparent and public.  Paper trails don’t mean much if you can hack the totals, and I’m afraid that has become a red herring.  Paper trails are a necessary step, if we must use machines.  They are by no means the answer.  I believe we, as progressives, have to make this our number one priority until we get the vote back out of corporate, partisan (of either party) hands.

G.L. LeBlanc
Oregon

I'm way behind you guys being successful in your Recount contest. I even made a contribution toward the filing fee, however minimal the amt. I could afford to make toward that great expense.

However, a quick read of your Free Press art., I wanted to pass onto you one comment, about one of the points raised -- b/c I think it's not a good point, and you better come up with better arguments than that if you hope to be successful in your challenge.

I'm referring to the Pastor, Werner Lange's remarks about min. no. of voting machines required. I think you should drop that one argument and move on with better ones -- not about how many machines were nec. required, but the 'wait times' standing in line, say at black precincts -- where you say peo. had to wait for incredible periods of time, like 3-6 hours!!! And, that, as a result, some voters got discouraged and left...I think that's a good example that whatever they were doing inside the polling place (not enough machines, not enough poll workers; slow processing time, whatever), that's a good indication that something was not working right in this process.

I've been doing my own analysis of the Florida election data today comparing 2004 results for President to the 2000 results and also to the increase in registration for Dems and Repubs between 2000 and 2004.

The stuff about the small optical scan counties appears to be mostly a red herring- nothing substantial there. The small Dixiecrat counties really vote like that.

But there are some big unusual patterns in the big touchscreen counties and a few of the big optical scan counties. They had a big Repub vote swing that was not consistent with the 2000 vote and the Dem and Repub registration increases between 2000 and 2004. For those who are interested I can email you my spread sheets.

The touchscreen counties with unusual Repub vote increases include: Broward, Hillsboro, Indian River, Lake, Martin, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Sarasota. I don't know whether the absentee ballots were included in the data I used or the extent that they were so this could be a smaller issue. Charlotte, Lee, Miami-Dade also had similar patterns but to a somewhat lesser degree.

Thank you for telling the story. While what the Warlord in the White House is doing to Iraq is terrible, their suffering has been promoted by the U.S. for a quarter century. African Americans have suffered for much longer. They deserve to have their grievances redressed first.

Dear Harvey  

I was browsing the internet and ran across this article:  Why Did John Kerry Abandon His Crew (US!) in Battle?  Intrigued, I looked you up and got through about half of: Bush is history's top terrorist,  when I had seen enough.  Fortunate for you Harvey, you enjoy the right of free speech, no matter how skewed or off-base you are.  Unlike you, many thousands of courageous men have given their lives in brutal conflict so that you can have that right.  While you were smoking dope on Montague, hiding from your obligations as an American and as a man, young men were dying in Vietnam paying your dues.

People like you disgust me Harvey. Like your hippie friends, you're so far removed from reality, it's impossible to even have an intelligent dialog with your kind.  The majority of Americans think like me Harvey.  Get used to it.  Or better yet, pack up your belongings and move far far away.  Some place where you can be surrounded by socialists and communists and feel right at home.  I can only imagine what the economy would be like.  :-)

Compassionate Conservative Hugs and Kisses

GOOD AFTERNOON

I ENJOYED READING SEVERAL OF YOUR VERY GOOD ARTICLES.
YES, THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN AND DUBYA, WHICH IS NOT GOOD FOR ANY OF US.

  DO ALL YOU CAN TO GET THE VOTES RECOUNTED AND MAYBE SOME WAY THE INAUGURATION WILL BE STOPPED AND HE WILL GET A SMALLER OFFICE IN ALASKA.  

FOR HEAVEN SAKE, DO NOT QUIT, DO NOT STOP, HOLD ON, FIGHT LIKE WILD MEN, AND STOP THE MAD MAN.
I AM AN OLD MAN, 70 NEXT MONTH, AND I NEVER DREAMED OF ANYONE DOING WHAT THIS EVIL THING HAS DONE.  

TAKE GOOD CARE.
  R. L. STOVALL

oooh and can yah spare me a dime, 'cos I sure do think I am gonna need it!  After all -- what do we have to look forward to but more rising costs?

  You must know that certain organizations tried to reach their organizers nationally.  They wanted to know what to do if the elections were lost ... I said to one organizer:  CALL our representatives and make sure that they do their job, make sure that they don't become jellies and back down. We should put pressure on the people who need to do their jobs and not let them be stupid.  He did not care for my answer - and did not call me back.  I guess that I wasn't saying the right things - not demonstration type enough.  On the morning of the elections, I got up and called everyone and anyone - "don't let kerry concede!"  By afternoon he conceded.

It was not only Kerry's failing, unfortunately - it was ours.

Condoleeza Rice is the perfect choice for Secretary of State only if you believe that the highest post in the Cabinet should be occupied by a jellyfish. Colin Powell was weak when the time came to stand up for his principles. But at least he had some beliefs to abandon, and a rudimentary backbone to support them. Rice will never be accused of being too forthright in telling the boss what she thinks, because she will never tell him anything in the first place. She will report to the Oval Office each morning and be told what the President believes, which she will then dutifully announce to the media as her own “policy” for the State Department of the United States.

Those who have been outraged to hear British Prime Minister Tony Blair described as “Bush’s Poodle” should be overjoyed at the Rice appointment. Blair is about to get a promotion. Compared to Condoleeza Rice, Tony Blair is Bush’s Rottweiler.