[Mb-civic] IMPORTANT READ "Stolen Ballot" Benjamin Quinto of Global Youth

[Michael Butler]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Benjamin Quinto" <benjamin at youthlink.org>
Organization: Global Youth Action Network

Subject: Stolen Ballot

Dear friends,
 
I've been pretty quiet since the election and, like most of you, was
depressed and furious, finding the results incomprehensible.  Exit polling
across the country--usually the most reliable figures before the actual
tabulation--clearly showed Kerry winning the night of the election.
 
I would have bet everything I had that Kerry would carry the election, even
months ago.  In fact I made a number of bets with people, based on my behind
the scenes involvement with a bunch of the organizing, supporting the
organizers in any way I could. We saw grassroots organizing unlike ever
before seen in our nation's history!  People from all over the country
flocked to the swing states, knocked on tens of thousands of doors, made
hundreds of thousands of phone calls, ran campaigns, hitting the streets to
take the message to every corner of our country: things HAVE to change!
Countless friends of mine went to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Iowa and many
other states to pound the pavement an talk to people.  All of this on the
progressive side...
 
I was convinced that the youth voter turnout alone would swing the election,
in favor of Kerry (not saying anything about him being the ideal candidate).
Numbers show that almost 21 million youth turned out, a sharp rise (10%)
since the last elections.  Since 1972, youth voting had dropped consistently
each cycle, except for the tiny spike in 1992; but the 2004 numbers beat
those by far, and were in favor of Kerry by over 12 points. Even though the
media downplayed the impact of the youth vote, which was really offending
the night of the election, young people came out in record numbers with a
clear message. CIRCLE published a study that made their impact clear:
http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/Release_Turnout2004.pdf and
http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/Release_1824final.pdf
 
So what happened? How on earth did we re-elect this president? I really
don't think we did.
 
The election system is flawed. We had a hint of it in 2000, but since then
it actually seems to have worsened!
 
More than 30,000 complaints have been filed across the country. Reports are
rampant about voters again being turned away, discouraged, waiting 10 hours
in line for their chance at 2 machines in their precinct, etc.. But even
worse is what we're learning about DIEBOLD, the private right-leaning
company who got the no-bid contract to do the vote processing.  Phenomenal
holes have been found in how they process the voting! The scariest part is
that it is not only easy to hack their systems, but just as easy to do so
without a trace or any other proof!  VOTERGATE, a short movie, revealed
these holes, and has been going around.  It's on www.votergate.tv, although
I couldn't view it there. I did find it on
http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater268.html and think it's
definitely worth checking out.
 
 <http://www.votergate.tv> But the facts are getting out there, as the
reports and complaints are being looked over.  Atrocious disparities are
coming out:
- in counties where only several hundred people are registered to vote,
several thousands of votes were counted
- in other places, although registered voters were overwhelmingly
Democratic, votes were oddly heavily for Bush
- there have been admitted cases of the technology losing votes due to
technical problems
See here for more: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
 
The bottom line is that there were problems.  I can't believe that our
voting system was left in such bad condition for this election, one of the
most important in history, and that not much is being done about it. I am
frustrated that the concession was made without a fight (remember 2000), and
that there isn't an uproar (or even public knowledge) about how the votes
are processed. How could we leave it in the hands of a private corporation,
when 70% of voting was done electronically in their system, which isn't
tamper-safe... especially when there are so many complaints and reports!?
 
I have been hoping looking for someone who is raising hell about this, and
find the conversation remarkably absent in the media (surprise). Thankfully,
at least Act for Change / Working Assets has launched a campaign calling for
an investigatation of voter fraud.  See more and join it here:
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=18056
 
I think a shout-out is due to the amazing organizers I know who hit the
streets, mobilized their peers and impressive resources to undertake a
historic grassroots effort.  I think we're being lied to about the results
of these efforts though. It makes me angry, misrepresents our country and
steals from us the true impact of the organizing that happened. Even worse,
it again eats away at the little confidence people have in our democracy and
the value of their vote anyways, something we're desperately trying to
remind people of every day.
 
Here's a novel bunch of snapshots from around the country in response to the
election results, which I agree empathize with:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sorryeverybody/show/>
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sorryeverybody/show/  We're hoping to get
some more reactions internationally in a similar kind of project. I hope an
investigation is caried out, but we may have our hands tied. If the vote was
hacked, and without a trace, I'm not sure there's anything we can do. But we
can at least learn the lesson and know that we have to dig deeper, and not
just send our sheep (ballots) to the slaughterhouse (DIEBOLD sytems), but
demand far greater accountability...
 
In the midst of all of these, I have been looking for the positives:
- had Kerry been elected, we'd likely be under the mistaken impression that
all is going to be ok; it's not.
- we have set record numbers, not only among youth, but the largest voter
turnout in 40 years!
- we finally know the numbers: there are about 12 million youth in the
country passionate about change, enough for critical mass
- tremendous momentum was built this year; our fight now will hopefully grow
even stronger
- we can and will get young people to run for congress, and work at every
level of the system for change
 
I have seen some great pieces sent around about the election already, and I
hope to see more. We all need to remind and encourage each other that change
is not only possible, but that together we will continue to bring it about
in every single way we can! And as Michael Moore pointed out, young people
are definitely headed in the right direction
(http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-11-07)
, so don't believe what the media told you.
 
Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts, frustration and hope for things
to come with you.
 
ben


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