FITRAKIS CHAT: Here we go!

[mod mom]

Please respect the rules at Democratic Underground. Here is Bob's bio, in case some of you missed it:

Bob Fitrakis is a lawyer and award-winning journalist and Professor of Political Science in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He earned his law degree at the Ohio State University Mortitz College of Law, and his Ph.D in Political Science from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

Well known for his support of electoral justice for all Americans, his most recent book is "How the GOP Stole America's 2004 Election and Is Rigging 2008." This is a summary of the 767-page volume "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? Essential Documents," which was co-edited with Harvey Wasserman and Steve Rosenfeld. Earlier works include "The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal" and "Imprison George W. Bush: Commentary On Why The President Must Be Indicted" (co-authored with Harvey Wasserman).

Bob was an Election Protection attorney on November 2, 2004 in Franklin County. He called the first public hearings to investigate voter suppression and election irregularities after the 2004 election, and was one of four attorneys to file a challenge to Ohio's presidential election results in the Moss v. Bush and Moss v. Moyer lawsuits.

Dr. Fitrakis, who won his school's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1991, currently serves as the National Vice Chancellor and the Chancellor for Ohio of the International Association of Educators for World Peace. He served as Chair of the Columbus State Community College Instructional Support Council and is a past President of both the Columbus State Educational Association and Columbus State Faculty Senate. He also served as the Faculty Advisor to the Ohio Board of Regents and served on the Africentric School Advisory Board for the Columbus Public Schools. Currently a Near East Area Commissioner, he also has helped local Columbus youth through the West High School College Preparation Program.
In 2002, Fitrakis was awarded the Golden Ruler Award from the Columbus School Board for his journalism in behalf of Columbus schoolchildren. The local Police Officers for Equal Rights honored Fitrakis with its Best Community Journalism award, and the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio honored him with their Selma Walker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Human Rights Activism.

As a fraudbusting journalist, Bob has won awards from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists, the Press Club of Cleveland, and other professional organizations for articles on the Voinovich family, drug smuggling, Ku Klux Klan activities, and corruption in the local bail bond industry. In addition, he serves as Executive Director of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (CICJ), where he publishes and serves as an editor and writer of the Free Press. The Free Press article "How a Republican Election Supervisor Manipulated the 2004 Central Ohio Vote" received the Project Censored Third Most Censored story in the world in 2005.

From 1990 to 2000, Fitrakis co-hosted a regular public access news/public affairs program, "From the Democratic Left," offering analysis of political events and social issues, both locally and nationally. This program chronicled the activism of the progressive community in Central Ohio, from Gulf War demonstrations to anti-Klan protests. From June 1996 to February 2003, he co-hosted a weekly public affairs call-in talk radio program, "Fight Back!" on WSMZ 103.1FM. His program, "Fight Back," is currently on WVKO1580AM radio on Thursdays from 8 to 9 AM and Saturdays from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM.

In early December, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Bob Fitrakis accepted an invitation from the Congressional Progressive Caucus to come to Washington, D.C. to brief federal lawmakers on the electoral injustices that took place in Ohio during the 2004 campaign season. He and fellow electoral reform expert Harvey Wasserman addressed both the many ways Ohio's votes were compromised and the ways that these problems could be fixed through legislative remedies.

Fitrakis also met separately with three Members of Congress in preparation for a documentary that he is producing on electoral reform issues.

POST AWAY! YOU ON BOB?

[mod mom]

1. OK, I will start. bob please comment on HCPB.

[katinmn]

3. Kick. I still have a couple mintes before the hour.

[fitrakis]

17. HCPB

I believe that HCPBs must be mandatory and counted at the precinct level. I was an international election observer and author of the report on El Salvador's election in 1994 and I witnessed far more voters at my precinct voting on paper, and their votes were easily counted by hand. No partisan private corporation should be allowed to count the ballots.

[mod mom]

21. thank you. Sheila from CAEF-that one was for you!

:hi:

[nicknameless]

27. I think that was for A LOT of us :)

Thank you for asking it

:hi:

[understandinglife]

57. Thank you for making this happen, "mod mom"!

Peace.

[mod mom]

66. My pleasure. I am also setting one up on Progressive Independent

forum. If anyone is interested in being notified let me know and I will make sure you are made aware of the time/date. I will also see that it is posted on <bobforohio.com>

[bleever]

107. I would think that you could post the schedule

of other availabilities of Dr. Fitrakis here.

:)

[radio4progressives]

131. thanks for the notification... and thank you for doing this!

:applause:

[emlev]

2. Hi, Bob! I'd love to hear about your DC trip in December.

[babsbunny]

5. Bob...................

I'm Not Worthy! :bounce:

[fitrakis]

22. DC Trip

I was in DC Dec. 7 to brief the Progressive Caucus. There were about 12 reps in attendance and about 50 staff members. There was a noticable shift in attitude from modest interest to a keen understanding among the representatives and staff as a result of the GAO report results.

There is ongoing discussion about having field forums throughout the United States. People should write to Rep. Conyers' office to let him know you will support these forums and you'll hold one in your town. There's hope that we'll get them broadcast on C-SPAN and other outlets.

Rush Holt stayed for the entire briefing and has an excellent grasp of the subject and perhaps the best bill. He took a copy of my recent book.

I also met with McKinney, Jackson, Jr., and Lynn Woolsey in their offices and taped interviews for a documentary. I went to Cleveland shortly after that and taped an interview with her. She was great in the interview and we will be posting the video on the freepress.org soon.

[emlev]

25. Thanks. What would be focus of field forums?

[fitrakis]

34. Field forums

The focus of the field forums would be to bring the tens of thousands of pages of evidence from the 2004 election fraud into public view, as well as showing the video material which is often the most damning. We would also demonstrate the vulnerabilities of the evoting system and document in factual terms with charts and graphs the political connections between the evoting companies and the Repub Party. It also would force the mainstream media because the Congressional reps would be in attendance, to cover the forums.

[emlev]

36. Great. Thanks. I'm in.

[Patsy Stone]

38. Thanks for your dedication to this issue

Your work is appreciated by all of here and others around the country who believe in the cause of fair elections.

The field forums sound like an excellent tool to educate the public and gain media attention. I was pleased to learn that many Reps. are taking this issue seriously. As a Floridian, I've seen the worst that the current systems can produce. It's time for a return to accountability.

[katinmn]

26. Town forums will be great for educating folks who haven't kept up

Glad to hear of that interest.

And thanks for being here.

[Time for change]

4. Election fraud in Cleveland 2004

Thank you very much for coming to talk with us and for all of the great work you’ve done for the cause of election reform.

I have a fairly complicated question that may take too much time to fully consider at this time, but if you can’t give me a full answer now I would very much appreciate it if you would do so at some time in the future.

I have done a great deal of analysis of the 2004 Ohio Presidential election, and have consequently come to the conclusion that Cleveland is probably where Kerry was cheated out of a great proportion of his votes.

In a previous post I have proposed that he was cheated out of close to 100 thousand votes in Cleveland alone – about one half of these through electronic deletion of votes via central tabulator, targeted at heavily Democratic precincts, and the other half through the illegal purging of voters, again targeted at Democrats. Here is the post where I initially proposed that:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4998616

To very briefly summarize, I proposed two reasons for believing that votes were electronically deleted from Democratic precincts: 1) Because of the reversal of the normal inverse relationship between machine allocation per voter and voter turnout in Cleveland, according to the DNC report, and 2) Implausibly low voter turnout in Cleveland. Subsequently, I added to this reasoning by showing that there were disproportionate numbers of reports of very long lines in Cleveland (from the EIRS database), and this normally should have resulted in a high turnout (even after many thousands of voters left the lines), given that punch card counties were not subject to long lines resulting from insufficient machine allocation, as in Franklin County, for example. Here is that post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2196589

The bottom line is that it would appear that this could be proven simply by comparing the pre- and post-tabulator vote counts for selected counties in Cleveland, to see if they match. Or, if they’ve had time to cook the books on this, looking at the signature books would be another means of checking this. I have attempted to obtain these counts through communication with Michael Vu, and he has told me repeatedly that he is working on getting me the information, but that was two months ago, and I would think that this information should be readily available to him. So, I have contacted Ron Olson of the Ohio Project about this, and he is attempting to obtain this information, but I don’t know how successful he will be.

Well, this was a lot of background to go through to get to a single question, but my question to you is: Do you have any advice on how to proceed with this?

[fitrakis]

29. Cleveland vote counting

My co-authors Wasserman and Rosenfeld and I are just finishing up a book of documents about the stolen election of 2004 for the New Press. One chapter deals with counting the vote and we have specific analysis from Richard Hayes Phillips and others on Cleveland. Its clear there was a suppression of votes in the urban area.

I'd like to take a look at your analysis. I see you've forwarded it. I'd like to get it into the book or into another project we are working which is a digital archive which will contain sworn statements and testimony as well as credible social science analysis.

I think we have to continue to print this material as much as possible and post it prior to the 2006 election. I have recently made a public records request for all 88 counties in Ohio to preserve the ballots from the 2004 election, the Hackett election and the 2005 election.

We are working with J30 and other groups in Ohio to make sure all suspect counties are counted. If you forward your analysis, we would be happy to have people we work with look at it and post it on the freepress.org.

I also think we need to ask for a HAVA moratorium and start a direct campaign for paper ballots all over the country. I think this begins by pressuring local board of elections to ensure voter verfied paper ballots in every jurisdiction.

[Time for change]

47. Ok great, thank you

I will fix it up to show my calculations, and send it to you.

[bleever]

31. Time for change does some of the best work here, especially on Ohio.

His work (like that of all of us here) gets a lot of serious scrutiny from people here, and it is well-regarded.

[mod mom]

35. I PM-ed you contact info, TFC.

[AtLiberty]

6. Hi Bob --

Any chance that we could kick HAVA out along with its author?

[nicknameless]

11. Hear hear!

[fitrakis]

37. Kicking HAVA out

The criminal charges in Ohio related to Coingate and the current congressional scandal involving Rep. Ney should force him and many other Repubs from office. In the end, as the dots are connected, people will realize that the money laundering in Ohio was deliberate and criminal. And the ties to the Bush family are well documented.

Most of this was put in place by a former intelligence office, Paul Mifsud, who co-managed Daddy Bush's campaign in 1980 and 88. He was Voinvoich's Chief of Staff. If we can tie all of these corruption scandals into HAVA, and show that it was a deliberate attempt to undermine democracy, then I think we can dump it.

[nicknameless]

7. Any recourse for Ohio if those devastating bills pass there?

[emlev]

14. Yes. I second that question. More important than my previous one

[fitrakis]

40. HB3

Short of mass agitation on the street and civil disobedience if it passes, I don't see how the Democratic Party gets around the implications of HB3. It will disenfranchise the key Democratic blocks - blacks, the elderly, poor, college students - who played such a key role in the 2004 election.

The best recourse would be through the courts. I think sustained and aggressive litigation combined with hardline attacks on the Repub Party as racist and criminal could overturn it.

Most likely we would have to run constitutional amendment campaigns and raise money throughout the U.S. to counter the right wing propaganda machine.

[nicknameless]

72. Sounds like an uphill battle, but we've got to do all we can to fight

this corruption and overthrow of democracy.

Thanks for your answer.

[EFerrari]

8. I just want to sneak in a "thank you" to Bob, because when I

thought I was losing it, his articles helped me focus and also validated my sense that something was amiss.

Welcome to DU, Bob. We are all very grateful for your work.

[bleever]

24. I'll second that.

Your work is very deeply appreciated here, Bob. By people who've spent hours over the last year on evidence and analysis of the election theft of 2004.

[fitrakis]

44. Appreciate

I greatly appreciate DU and other bloggers who have brought election irregularities and fraud to the forefront.

[fitrakis]

42. Thank you too

[fitrakis]

9. Bob is here

I am online now.

[EFerrari]

15. Welcome.

[FogerRox]

10. HELLO BOB--Rebecca Mercuri. has just sent out an email

advocating the use of a lottery ball type machine to pick random precincts for VVPB audits. What is your take on VVPB Mandatory audits?
DO you like the sliding scale-- if a race is close- use a higher % audit etc.

Thanks-
Roger Fox

[fitrakis]

46. Audit of VVPB

I believe with the nature of the machines, that there's going to have to be a higher percent in close elections. The problem we saw in Ohio was that the county boards essentially were allowed to interpret random as NON-random and their obvious reliance on private technicians to select precincts to recount.

That why the trial slated for August on the recount is so important.

I support any truly random method of selection. In Lucas County where we have witnesses who said Diebold helped pick the precincts for recount and one had no votes on the memory card and Diebold changed the memory card -- this is what we have to prohibit.

[FogerRox]

49. further ruminations on VVPB audits

If VVPB audits needed to be truly random. I dont believe that is the case, not the complete story at least. Maybe the Lotto ball idea combined with srictly defined mandatory selection. Like: 1% of voting machines in each county. And those 1% of voting machines to be selected with the Lotto ball method. Which would require a drawing for each county.

What is needed in a close race?
Assuming Fruad or a glitch, the closer the race is, the more reason you would have to audit a higher %.
-In a 998 to 1002 race, a 2% audit is not all that effective as an audit tool.
-In a 500 to 1500 race a 2 % audit is far more effectiveas an audit tool.
-Particular attention to down ticket races that are close. It may be that a Town Council seat with 2500 votes cast should just be hand counted, if its close.

SO-
1) Automatic Audit picked by Lotto ball, statewide. Say !%
2) Automatic Audit picked by Lotto ball, each county. Say 1%
3) Any race, the closer the results, the more it gets audited, up to, say 10% or 15%.

Roger

[mod mom]

12. You know those first time posters...he's commenting now!

[roseBudd]

13. My question is about the Cincinnati Enquirer and Warren County lockdown

Since the Cincinnati Enquirer for whatever reason did not adequately investigate the lies told by various members of Warren County regarding the so called terror threat that caused them to bar independent observation of the vote tabulation. Could the Toledo Blade investigate this story or do newspapers respect territory?

[MelissaB]

19. I'd like to know what your take is on the Warren County lockdown, too.

Thanks in advance!

[bleever]

45. I'm curious why the lockdown story isn't simple to get answers about too.

Shouldn't we at least know the names of the people in charge of security, and under what auspices they were working?

Certainly there's a level at which the info stops (for the time being) but do we have a list of the authorities most directly involved at the local level? Sheriff, deputies? Or was it federal agents?

[fitrakis]

48. Warren County lockdown

The Toledo Blade could easily report on Warren County if it wished. The key thing to remember about Warren Cty is that employees were told on Thursday that there might be a homeland security threat on the Tuesday election day in 2004. The purpose of the lockdown I believe was not so much to keep the observers out, but as an excuse to divert the ballots to an unauthorized warehouse under the control of a Repub Party hack.

That's when Bush picked up 14,000 extra votes. I have a map of the location of the warehouse and have a witness, should we get this back in court, to testify.

[roseBudd]

51. So you believe Kerry voted punchcard ballots were culled & replaced

with Bush voted machine punched ballots. That would mean lots of ballots would have no fingerprints.

Was Frank Young Emergency Services Director a dupe who was played or part of the conspiracy?

[hootinholler]

81. Having a witness, shouldn't this then be a criminal matter?

What did the prosecutors say?

If their answer was unacceptable, what did the Ohio Bar say?

Just showing my ignorance.

-Hoot

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

146. Photos of ballot boxes being put in a red pickup...

... I recall seeing this photo right after the 2004 election of ballot boxes being loaded under the tonneau cover of a red pickup truck. Does anyone else recall this photo from a "local" Ohio political blog? activist site?

[electricray]

16. Is instant run-off voting a viable solution to the current exclusionary

system? I have tried to get my Sec of State (Oregon) to give it a shot but they keep citing establishment clause issues. In my opinion, since it is several elections being held on one ballot that there is no violation of the one person one vote issue. Am I missing something?

[fitrakis]

50. Instant runoff

Are they referring to the Oregon constitution or the US Constitution? I don't see how instant runoff voting, if adopted by the people, would in any way violate the US Constitution, which mandates merely a "republican" form of government.

I will look into this more. I am a fan of instant runoff voting.

[electricray]

52. Thank you. That is what I thought, but...

I actually argued with Sec. Bradbury's communications director for eight minutes and she never gave me more than a prepared statement of constitutional concerns. She eventually hung up on me. Oh well, I'll keep at it.

[frogbison]

18. Wow!

That's an impressive list of accomplishments. And thank you.

[nicknameless]

20. Regarding PBHC: Take a look at this glaring difference

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x406688

[Junkdrawer]

23. Hi Bob: Do you think awareness is changing from "Well, maybe we...

should make sure the technology is reliable" to "Why the hell are private companies counting our votes with secret software?" ? Even Kerry seems to be getting the message.

[fitrakis]

53. Kerry

You're right. Kerry said on Ed Schultz's show that we shoudn't be allowing private companies to secretly count the ballot. That the bottom line battle at this point. It's basic, it's simple.

Yes, I think there a major shift among certain people in the Democratic Party including Kerry and Dean to believe that the private companies should be driven out of the process.

[understandinglife]

56. An essential first step is having Dean, Kerry and others become persistent

... in delivering that message.

Thank you for all you are doing.


Peace.

[mod mom]

59. Glad you could make it UL

:hi:

[understandinglife]

133. Really cool that this thread is now on the DU Homepage!! Well done!!

:hi:


Peace.

[Junkdrawer]

61. Thanks. It's taken waaay longer that I ever thought it would...

but I think the message is getting through. Finally.

[bleever]

83. That's the golden sound bite: "Get the private companies out of

the election process".

Simple. Concise. It echoes, if repeated just a couple times.

[Melissa G]

126. It would be nice to drive the private companies out BUT it would

be even nicer if our government also did not act like a subsidiary of several private companies....like Haliburton.. Brown and Root procurement offices currently hosed in the West Wing, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave...

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

28. Hi Bob. My Q: The 3893 extra votes in a Gahanna. Any Explanation Yet?

I do troubleshooting/data analysis/problem solving for a living. I'm quite brilliant at it actually, yet as much as I searched my brain for any even off tangent acceptable explanation for that glitch to have occurred, I was left with nothing whatsoever.

I'm wondering if since I had put in that effort, anything has come forward to even wildly cast any logic on the 3893 extra votes in a Gahanna for Bush.

[fitrakis]

58. Gahanna

First, the machines were put out well in advance of election day at the New Life Church, a church affiliated with Jerry Falwell.

Some machines went out up to a month in advance.

A Repub. computer expert I spoke with believed the machine was hacked at the site, but they of course claimed it was a "prank."

The numbers were too easy to uncover.

My thought is that the number was deliberately high to add to a high vote total, which resulted in Kerry conceding, because he thought he was losing by 138,000 + votes.

Recall that in certification alone, Kerry picked up 19,000 votes, just from fixing all the election day errors.

Officially, the explanation given by the Franklin County Board of Elections was that there was a "transmisson" error from one of the six sites that the data was taken to and transmitted to the Board. I asked a question in a recent article, was the NSA or any of these other agencies that were spying on data during this period, involved in monitoring (or changing) the electronic transmissions on election night?

A subcontractor who worked for the Sec. of State said there's real-time transmission of data between Blackwell's office and the county boards. There's at least four federal/state agencies who have back doors into the system.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

64. Thanks.Their Explanation Is Borderline Impossible By Chance Though. That's

the problem.

I've always felt it was either a gross oversight on the part of the hacker not realizing how few voters there would be, or it was a machine that wasn't supposed to show up in the area it did. Regardless, I am firm in my opinion that the inflated number could only be possible with intent, and not transmission error.

[bleever]

103. Their penchant for using subcontractors could be a weakness, to the

extent that the allegiance decreases incrementally with distance from the boss.

[Melissa G]

30. Recommended! Yea Bob! plenty of good questions already!!

Just appreciation Here!:patriot:

[AmBlue]

32. What is our best tack in counties with DREs already

...as we are (stuck with Sequoia) in Pinellas County, Florida??

Thanks for being here!!

[fitrakis]

62. Pinellas County

I think we need extensive public records requests as to how the machines actually operate. I think citizen groups should be formed to test all the equipment. I think all public meetings of the elections boards must be attended and the public officials must be constantly grilled on the details and inner workings of the system. There should be immediate demands to put all proprietary computer code into escrow.

Moreover, there should be referendums demanding an acutal verified voter paper ballot, hand-counted at the precinct level.

[understandinglife]

74. Snohomish County, WA is a reasonable case study of these issues

...and the recent outcome is that they will now only use paper ballots.

fyi:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=208547


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=235137

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=256435

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=388692#388859


Peace.

[AmBlue]

79. Thanks, UL

I will sink my teeth into that.

[flyarm]

80. thats tough bob as our own dec and dnc refuse to admit anything is wrong!!

they treat those of us fighting this like we are nut cases...and they get disgusted acting with us...its like salmon swimming up stream for those of us working this..


how do we get to our own officials with this??

they were at the fla convention and walked out of the forum for voting reforms!!!!!!

and treated those who were there from our county like they were leppers!!

thanks fly

[bleever]

115. fly: If you've ever seen the movie "Ice Age", these people are the

dodo birds, angrily telling the migrating mammals, "Doom on you! Doom on you!"

Sorry for the digression.

[flyarm]

121. if that isn't the absolute truth!!

we have so many rethug infiltrators down here in jebbie state..its hard to keep track of them all!!

and every step we try to make forward the infiltrators get to our dec & dnc people and call it a pink elephant...

discouraging..but we will not be shut up and we will not give up!

fly

[flyarm]

122. oh and hi bleever!!!!!!!!!!

:hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

fly

[stillcool]

33. Edit to change my mind...

Question: Why is the democratic party so reluctant to discuss election fraud? Thanks :hi:

[babsbunny]

41. I NEED to tell you that when you speak, you really get people fired up!

Thank You for working so hard!

[MuseRider]

43. Me too.

I am hopeless whenever there are numbers so I read a lot about it and never comment. It is very cool.

[fitrakis]

65. Dems reluctant

I've spoken to many Dems on this issue, in fact am corresponding with an official from a major northeaster state. There's a tremendous fear that elected officials will be marginalized if they bring up the fraud issue.

The mainstream media and the Repubs will use the socialization of the American people to attack anyone who suggests election fraud. This is the benchmark issue. Oddly, major Repubs know that election fraud is taking place. Kevin Phillips writes in "American Dynasty" that the Bush family is incapable of running an election without a CIA manual.

[EFerrari]

67. They're not marginalized now?

I don't buy it.

[Peace Patriot]

100. This has been a major puzzle to me, because it seems INSANE on the

part of the Democratic leadership not to have protested this non-transparent, fraudulent, Bushite controlled election SYSTEM long before the election. In fact, the election was lost long before Nov. 2, 2004, when this system was put in place.

Talk about MARGINALIZATION! Could ANYTHING have been better designed--or be better designed now--for marginalizing Democrats?

We need to stop calling it the "mainstream media" because these war profiteering corporate news monopolies--who DOCTORED their exit polls to hide evidence of a Kerry win--are NOT the "mainstream" of America, or even anything close to it.

Which brings me to my question(s):

1. Shouldn't we be demanding that the Democratic Party fund INDEPENDENT exit polls THIS YEAR?

2. I second sfexpat's question about Dem silence, and amend it this way: What accounts for their silence BEFORE the election, about this obviously fraudulent election SYSTEM--quite apart from "election fraud '04" or what kind of names those meanie fascists might call them if they were to dare to use that phrase after the stolen election?

[bleever]

120. A very enthusiastic thumbs up to independent exit polling by Dems.

And in an ideal world, I would take Peace Patriot's point about the Dem's silence on electoral fraud, and use it to advantage. Not having screamed Foul, or seriously contested the process and results, corrupt in so many ways last time, they are in the position of Reasonable People to say: No private companies running the elections. Pure and simple.

Make the Repubs defend "privatized voting".

[nicknameless]

125. I'd like to see members of other parties involved (except rethugs), or it

could be painted as a partisan venture and have its validity challenged. The Greens, Independents, etc. would benefit from clean elections too.

[bleever]

119. There is much to be said

for not saying too much.

Awareness, on the other hand, is everything.

[EFerrari]

39. Has Bob been bumped? Anything we can do? n/t

[RDANGELO]

54. exit polls

What is the status of exit polls in 08. The firs indication that something is amiss would be the exit polls. Do you think that it would be a good idea for some independent organization to start their own polling firm.

[fitrakis]

68. Exit polls

After the 2004 election, the consortium announced that it wouldn't do exit polling in the future. It is my theory that the massive "polling errors" by the Columbus Dispatch and Akron Beacon Journal in the 2005 election about the four election reform issues, has also discredited the two most accurate polling organizations in Ohio.

We must begin to raise money and encourage a nonprofit group of social scientists, not beholden to the corporate media, to begin polling operations for the 2008 election.

[Melissa G]

127. Unquestionably, but 2006 needs them too! There are no trustworthy

elections being counted by ES&S and Diebold. Everything needs transparency and audit ability

[EFerrari]

55. Bob, why in your opinion is the opposition silent?

Thanks for your work.

/can't type

[fitrakis]

73. Opposition silent

The Repubs know that if they stick to their talking points -- that nothing happened and there were no irregularities -- that the Dems won't have the spine to directly take on the issue. Except the Congressional Black Caucus, who deserve a lot of kudos.

The Repubs have also deliberately shifted the focus to "voter fraud" and put out the racist code words: NAACP paying people in crack to register the vote -- to further repress the vote.

We have to insist that the voting process meets international standards of basic transparency. That demand must be the starting point for real election reform, or the Repubs continue to win.

[EFerrari]

84. Yes! Election fraud magically turned into voter fraud

when entrusted to the hands of the felons.

All of us here are huge fans of the CBC. And huge fans of yours.

Thank you, Bob. Let's see how we do. They can take my vote when they pry it out of my cold dead hands.

:toast:

[New Earth]

113. exactly

they use 'voter fraud' to cover up the real issue. i've been grilling DU with this for over a year now to stop using the term.

(see my sig :) )

thanks for being here by the way, you are one of the many i am grateful for in all of this.

[bleever]

123. Faye is our patron saint of the distinction between "voter fraud"

and "election fraud".


:hi:

[New Earth]

124. hi bleever

:hi: and yes i take pride in doing so, i don't care if people are sick of hearing it :P

[understandinglife]

134. Keep saying it, Faye; it is such a crucial distinction! Thank you.

And, "not one line of software between a voter and a valid election." :)

:hi:


Peace.

[EFerrari]

129. Yes, she is.

(((Faye))))

[Helga Scow Stern]

60. Thanks, Bob!

[fitrakis]

75. Thank you too

[garybeck]

63. Why not a class action lawsuit against Diebold ????

Hi Bob (a true american hero!)

With all the class action lawsuits against Diebold and none in regards to voting machines, people are wondering, why can't a group of American voters sue Diebold in a class action lawsuit?

In a recent article on OpEdNews.com, Bob Kall suggests:

"I believe that Diebold has engaged in practices that have disenfranchised my rights as an American citizen and I may be able to SUE Diebold, to file litigation against the company. If you voted on a Diebold machine that miscounted, or that used an operating system that was unauthorized, then maybe YOU have an actionable cause for litigation. Maybe you have reason to sue Diebold's corporate asses."

( the full article is here http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_060111_sue_diebold.htm )

Have you ever given any thought to this? Could we, as voters, sue Diebold? Let me say, I would be the first person to sign on as a plaintiff.

Thanks for all you do
Gary Beckwith (the solar bus guy)

[fitrakis]

77. Class action

Hi Gary! Good to hear from you, old friend.

Class action against against Diebold still leaves us with partisan Repub companies. The remedies would be small and would not hurt Diebold that much. It may have value in scaring some of the other companies.

I personally think there are civil actions that can be taken in various states including Ohio.

[garybeck]

88. What type of civil actions can we take?

What type of civil actions? Something similar to what Paul Lehto is doing in Washington?

[emlev]

105. Apparently not asking questions about you-know-what!

[Peace Patriot]

69. Welcome, Bob! And a million thanks to you for your work on this PRIORITY

ONE issue of our country, of this era, and maybe in the whole history of democracy.

A lot of developments today....

Calif counties have requested emergency legislation (in state) to use all mail-in voting this June, because of the unreliability of Diebold touchscreens. Do you know any details of Oregon mail-in voting successes/glitches?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408918

Febble has posted that New Mexico is going "all paper ballot," but when you read the article, you see that it's just optiscans. Cripes! Not to dis a successful effort at getting at least a paper trail, but this one is over-sold, and I think is one of the dangers the election reform movement faces--stopping way to short of real election reform, and everybody patting themselves on the back, and Diebold and ES&S still has "trade secret" control of the machines and central tabulators.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x408941

ES&S has pissed on Ion Sancho in Leon Country. They reneged on their contract, after Sancho threw Diebold optiscans out, leaving Sancho will no electronic voting options. I think this is a benefit in disguise. They should bid good riddance to ES&S, go with all mail-in, and sue the bastards.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=408974&mesg_id=408974

---------

Any comments you have on any of this?

Is it democracy yet?

[fitrakis]

86. Various state problems

I think in the states where we can get mail-in voting, it is clearly preferable to evoting, although we have to make sure that full transparency prevails here as well. We're turning up numerous irregularities with absentee ballots in OH, e.g., the double-counting of Bush ballots in 2004 in Sandusky.

Optiscans have their own problems, although preferable to evoting. You've got the problem of over-calibration where in Toledo, thousands of ballots were rejected because of stray marks on the paper invalidated the whole ballot. Or, the wrong markers were put out in Toledo and they didn't scan.

Also the software could direct the vote count to be flipped, and then you have other situations where these voting results are sent to central tabulators that are also vulnerable.

I agree with your assessment of Leon County. It is a benefit in disguise if they have to go to paper ballots there.

[roseBudd]

70. Why are OH punchcard ballots precinct codes printed not punched?

IN punchcards had precinct codes that were punched. I find printed precinct codes counterintuitive and hence suspicous. It introduces a chance for human error or malfeasance during tabulation if the correct header card does not precede a precincts ballots.

[fitrakis]

90. Punched

This is a key question and we're currently involved in trying to find out why this is true. Our initial inquiry in Warren County leads us to ask why wasn't the actual precinct code punched into the cards? I suspect it makes it easier to cheat or to stuff pre-punched ballots if there are no punched precinct codes.

[roseBudd]

111. Do you think they rented or bought a cardpunch machine to create

Bush ballots to replace the Kerry voted ballots they culled? And then did not think about reducing C. Ellen Connaly votes when they did so?

[roseBudd]

138. No prepunched codes definitely makes it easier to cull and replace

ballots. It also makes it easier to do a "woops" with a precincts votes being diverted to the wrong candidate when an incorrect header card is used to tell the tabulator which precinct is being tabulated.

I am attempting to determine if the precinct codes were punched under Sherrod Brown but not under Blackwell.

[flyarm]

71. hi bob!! thanks for all you have done!! do you think gore will say

monday that the election was stolen from him???
that the * boys are stealing elections??

thanks for everything you have done!!

fly

[fitrakis]

91. Gore

I believe Gore will boldly state the obvious. That we're having a fundamental shift towards an authoritarian government. I hope that he has the courage to say what Jimmy Carter said last year -- that the 2000 election was stolen. But he will probably focus more on the spying and torture issues and the environmental treaties Bush refuses to sign.

[flyarm]

99. thanks so much Bob...i really appreciate all you are doing and have done!/

[AmBlue]

76. Citizens everywhere are fed up....

and know that this issue is the big, fat pink elephant sitting in all our living rooms. They are sick and tired of our elected leaders not speaking out about this. But what about MoveOn?? Do you know why they haven't picked up this torch and run with it on the NATIONAL level??? (I know they have done some selective support of legislative matters as they arise, but it's not enough.)

[fitrakis]

95. Move On

I think they've created a huge political operation and they want to play it safe by sticking to consensus bread and butter issues as they see it.

They're afraid of being marginalized also. We really owe Vanity Fair, Harper's and In These Times and the bloggers a great debt of gratitude for being able to confront the election fraud issue. True Majority is moving in our direction and has been sponsoring forums, including a recent one on Dec. 14 that Mark Crispin Miller and I spoke at.

The Dean people, DFA and PDA have both been good on the issue. I recently spoke in MI before the DFA.

[EFerrari]

104. TrueMajority seems to be less timid.

All new orgs have developmental stuff - but TrueMajority seems to be able to surf the changes a little more usefully.

[nicknameless]

78. We’re so grateful to you for taking the time to do this.

[fitrakis]

97. My pleasure

[mod mom]

82. BOB WILL BE FINISHING UP THE LAST FEW ?'s. IF YOUR ?

didn't get answered fear not, we will be setting up another on-line chat on Progressive Independent in the near future. Thanks for all your thoughtful questions.

:patriot:

[EFerrari]

93. Thank you, mod mom and thanks to Bob.

We're in this strang zone of knowing our election was stolen.

Thank you so much for this discussion.

:toast:

[katinmn]

141. Thanks, mod mom!

[DemReadingDU]

85. Hi Bob, another buckeye here!

Thanks for all you do for Ohio

[fitrakis]

98. Thank you too

[emlev]

87. Two part question:

related to your candidacy for governor:
If I may ask,
What issues other than the election system are at the top of your list?
How do you anticipate your candidacy affecting the governor's race in general?

Thank you for being here, being there, being everywhere all at once!

[mod mom]

92. that will be discussed on Progressive Independent, emlev!

[emlev]

94. Oh, when's the chat there?

[mod mom]

101. I've got the ok now I just have to get a date from the candidate-he's a

busy guy-you know! ;)

[EFerrari]

130. Thank you BOTH so much for this much needed dose of

SANITY!

[fitrakis]

102. Governor

I promised not to write about this matter on this blog. There may be other forums about that.


I will sign off now. Peace! And keep the democratic faith!

Bob

[EFerrari]

106. Thank you for your work, and thank you for the time you spent

with us.

What would we do without you. :)

[flyarm]

89. pinellas county fla here ..need answer please..

i posted above but will repeat here...

thats tough bob as our own dec and dnc refuse to admit anything is wrong!!
they treat those of us fighting this like we are nut cases...and they get disgusted acting with us...its like salmon swimming up stream for those of us working this..


how do we get to our own officials with this??

they were at the fla convention and walked out of the forum for voting reforms!!!!!!

and treated those who were there from our county like they were leppers!!

thanks fly

[FogerRox]

96. hey BOB

THANK YOU

[emlev]

114. Thank you Bob and ModMom!

[stillcool]

108. Hey... a big Thank You for hooking this up...

It was Great!!:toast:

[flyarm]

109. thanks so much BoB and Mod Mom!!!...n/t

[Helga Scow Stern]

110. What a refreshing dose of sanity. Thanks Bob and mod mom, and all.

How soon can we do it again?

[nicknameless]

112. Thank you SO MUCH, mod mom, for arranging this!

:toast:

[mod mom]

117. Thank you everyone for participating. I was happy to arrange it. As I

stated above, I will be setting up another chat with Bob in the near future on Progressive Independent forum, so if your question wasn't answered, there will be another opportunity.

PEACE-everyone! :patriot:

[Emit]

116. Thanks so much for arranging this. n/t

[freedomfries]

137. thanks mod mom and bob for a very illuminating talk

you are true heroes!thank you!

[Peace Patriot]

118. Thanks, Mod Mom!

The hour seemed to go by so fast! So many questions! But it was good to hear from Bob! On to democracy!!!

[Melissa G]

128. You Rock Mod Mom! Thanks Bob!!!

Remind us here about the PI forum!

[radio4progressives]

132. Got the Word Late, But I want to Thank You ModMom and Bob For setting

this up and i look forward to engaging over at Progressive Independent on the next one.... please advance notice on that live chat too!

:applause: :toast: :applause:

[ananda]

135. This was a great read!

Thank you Bob and Mod Mom.

Can you provide a link to Progressive Independent here or somewhere obvious on the board so we can make sure to read the session there?

Sue

[ananda]

136. This was a great read, and..

Thank you Bob and Mod Mom.

Can you provide a link to Progressive Independent here or somewhere obvious on the board so we can make sure to read the session there?

Sue

[mod mom]

139. the date has not been finalized yet but here is a link

to Progressive Independent:

http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_forums

I will make sure the time/date will get posted on Bob's website <bobforohio.com> when it is finalized.

[freedomfries]

140. thanks for the enlightning discussion

you are true heroes bob and mod mom!
:yourock:

[Catherine Vincent]

142. Thank you mod mom for setting this up with Bob Fitrakis

I was online last night but didn't notice this thread. But it is nice to read the exchanges.

[TreeMonkey]

143. Only REPUBLICANS want electronic elections!!

Is THIS TRUE?

It seems only Republicans want this BS to continue. Thats a sure sign right there.

[lonestarnot]

144. Hello Bob sorry I missed you!

[greiner3]

145. Damn;

That's where I'm going to school right now. Sorry I missed the thread. I may just have to take a class from Prof Fitrakis.