General

Obstacles to a Democratic Election in 2004

Monday, 13 December 2004
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Organizer: The SpokesCouncil Townhall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Marcelino Sepulveda
SpokesCouncil Coalition
(805) 450-0245

The SpokesCouncil Townhall presents
Obstacles to a Democratic Election in 2004

Monday, December 13, 2004
7-9pm at the Faulkner Gallery in the Santa Barbara Public Library
40 E. Anapamu (Corner of Anapamu and Anacapa)
This event is free. The press and public are invited to attend.

Panel of Local Elected Representatives to Address Concerns Regarding Reports
of Electoral Problems in Key U.S. States during 2004 Election.

Santa Barbara, CA., December 06, 2004 ­ On the evening of the Electoral
College meeting in state capitals across the country to certify the 2004
Presidential vote in favor of George W. Bush, a SpokesCouncil Coalition of
progressive Santa Barbara groups will host a panel of community leaders,
including Mayor Marty Blume; City Councilman Das Williams; County Clerk
Joseph E. Holland; State Assemblyman (District 35) Pedro Nava and former
City Councilman Babatunde Foleyami, to address growing concerns regarding
voting rights violations, election irregularities, ongoing lawsuits and
recounts calling into question the integrity of the 2004 elections of the
United States.

The evening will begin with a presentation update on the latest news
regarding 2004 election problems, controversies, lawsuits, recounts, and
studies on voter disenfranchisement & fraud. Guest panelists will then be
asked to respond and Babatunde Folayemi will facilitate discussion with
questions from the audience. All in attendance will be able to sign a
pledge calling for a “Voter Bill of Rights” (www.nov3.us/billofrights.php)
as well as a “Statement of Not-Accepting the Electoral College’s
Certification of the 2004 Presidential Election.”

Most mainstream media reports immediately
following the Nov 2nd, 2004 election cited unexpected success in the voting
process this year as compared to the 2000 debacle. In the weeks since the
election, however, many more questions and ensuing lawsuits have been raised
about this reportedly “clean” election. The Election Incident Reporting
System (EIRS), in conjunction with the Verified Voting Foundation, has
received over 38,000 reports of incidents indicating serious voting related
problems during the 2004 elections (http://www.verifiedvoting.com/)

There is no concern more pressing than putting to rest (or confirming)
suspicions that not all Americans' November 2nd, 2004 election votes were
counted correctly. "A statistical study - the sole method available to
monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with
electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess
votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential
election,” says a team of Professors and Researchers at the University of
California, Berkeley. This study, combined with emerging evidence of
inaccurate or fraudulent results from voting machines in Ohio, Florida, and
other swing states, has raised significant concerns about the integrity of
this year’s election.
In the past two US presidential elections, conflicts of interest and
evidence suggesting likely fraud are as abundant as they are disturbing:
* A University of Pennsylvania professor's study shows an unexplained exit
poll discrepancy
* "...Exit poll data are fundamentally sound...the deviations between exit
poll predictions and vote tables in the three critical battleground states
could not have occurred by chance or random error, and no explanations of
the discrepancy have yet been provided."
*
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Unexplained_exit_poll_discrep_v00l.pdf
f%0D%0D%0D%0D%0D>
* A study by the University of California Berkeley's Quantitative Methods
Research Team suggested irregularities with electronic voting
* "A statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy
of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting
machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President
George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election."
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
* Exit polls have long been considered an accurate predictor of the actual
outcome of an election.
* At the end of November, international observers invalidated the results of
elections in the Ukraine based, in part, on discrepancies between exist
polls and counted ballots.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/international/europe/23ukraine.html?ex=110
2245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7e64fe49
02245800&ei=1&en=3a3c24b7e64fe49f%0D%0D%0D%0D>
* Kenneth Blackwell, the secretary of state in Ohio co-chaired George Bush's
election campaign
* (as did Kathleen Harris in Florida in 2000) As Ohio secretary of state, he
left no stone unturned to suppress the democratic vote.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/113004Y.shtml#1
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/894
http://67.15.90.110/article.pl?sid=04/10/29/1414219

* 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold
and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

* The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and
donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its
electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

* "Jeff Dean, senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code...served
jail time for planting back doors in his client's accounting software and
using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of
2 years."
According to the findings of fact in case no. 89-1-04034-1 (Washington
State):

"...Defendant's thefts occurred over a 2 1/2 year period of time, there were
multiple incidents, more than the standard range can account for, the actual
monetary loss was substantially greater than typical for the offense, the
crimes and their cover-up involved a high degree of sophistication and
planning in the use and alteration of records in the computerized accounting
system that defendant maintained for the victim, and the defendant used his
position of trust and fiduciary responsibility as a computer systems and
accounting consultant for the victim to facilitate the commission of the
offenses."
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

* California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so
bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a
chimpanzee was able to do it!
* http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

While Santa Barbara does not currently use computer voter machines,
concerned local citizens are sending a national call for cities to pledge
Non-Acceptance of the Electoral College Vote today and instead demand a full
investigation and report on allegations of electoral disenfranchisement and
fraud in the 2004 elections. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the
business of American democracy cannot fully proceed until:
1. The question of fraud is fully investigated and put to rest
2. New safeguards are in place to ensure that the fairness of future
elections is beyond doubt
###
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Marcelino Sepulveda
SpokesCouncil Coalition
(805) 450-0245
###

Location:
7-9pm at the Faulkner Gallery in the Santa Barbara Public Library
40 E. Anapamu (Corner of Anapamu and Anacapa)

Cost: This event is free. The press and public are invited to attend.