Upcoming hearings in Ohio and call to action!

To: Urgent Response Network
From: No Stolen Elections! www.Nov3.US

ACT NOW:

*Support efforts to make every vote count in Ohio
*Hold public hearings in your community
*Wake up the media

CALL TO ACTION:
TURN EVERY LIGHT ON OHIO

In Franklin County, Ohio, where 658 people voted, touchscreen machines gave
Bush 4,258 votes. In one North Carolina county, the machines destroyed the
votes of over 4500 people. These isolated revelations are joined daily by
new reports casting light on suspect vote totals in New Hampshire,
Nebraska, New Mexico, and Florida, and on the suppression of African
American and youth votes in Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, and many other states
across the nation. The truth is breaking through.

We wish we had put out this call to action sooner. We apologize for the
delay. In preparing for November 3rd, we knew that it was possible, even
likely, that this election's legitimacy would remain an unknown for weeks
after election day. What we did not expect was that Kerry would concede
without waiting for the votes to be counted. Yet here we are. At this
point, we can only move forward, and that means organizing from below,
flushing out the truth, building momentum, day by day and week by week.

This campaign is only one stage in the long struggle for democratic
elections and the right to vote, yet this campaign is in one respect
unique: The legitimacy of our electoral system itself is at
question. Either a groundswell of public protest will force a full
investigation of the 2004 elections, the counting of every vote, and the
establishment of an independent election authority and verified voting, or
the American people will correctly conclude that they have no basis for
faith in the fairness or integrity of our elections. We must act now.

1. KEEP THE SPOTLIGHT ON OHIO

a. Support and Attend the Hearings in Columbus

Organized by the Ohio Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections with support
from the League of Pissed of Voters and many other national
organizations. Ohio voters, voting experts, and investigative journalists
will be invited to present testimony for the public record documenting
instances of voting irregularities and systematic voter suppression. The
purpose of the hearings is to document the systemic undermining of our
democratic process that occurred leading up to and on Nov 2, and assess how
to respond to racial disenfranchisement and suppression of democratic
rights. See: www.indyvoter.org

Saturday November 13, 1-4 PM
New Faith Baptist Church
955 Oak Street, Columbus

Monday November 15, 6-9 PM,
Auditorium (Meeting Room A)
Courthouse, 373 S. High St., Columbus

b. Badger Blackwell ­ Call Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell's office
-- 614-466-2585 -- to demand that he do the following:

1. Count every single provisional ballot.
2. Release information about the number of "spoiled" ballots in Ohio.
3. Hand count the "spoiled" punch card ballots to make as many of
these ballots count as possible.

c. Pressure Your Elected Officials - Call your U.S. senators and
representatives today. Insist that they join Rep. Conyers, Holt, Nadler,
Scott, Watt, and Wexler in demanding a General Accounting Office (GAO)
investigation of the tens of thousands of reported complaints regarding the
2004 election. Call 202-224-3121

2. ORGANIZE PUBLIC HEARINGS IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITY

We must document what happened in this election so that we can use this
information to push for needed reforms in our electoral system. We
encourage local groups to sponsor public hearings during which citizens,
voting experts, community leaders, investigative journalists and others can
present testimony for the public record documenting instances of voting
irregularities and systematic voter suppression. Involve as many groups and
constituencies as possible ­ from civil rights and voting rights groups to
public officials, journalists, youth groups, lawyers, and others. In
addition to documenting what happened before, during and after November 2,
use these hearings as an opportunity to plan how to respond to these problems.

3. WAKE THE MEDIA

Despite growing evidence of disenfranchisement, suppression and fraud ­
from lost votes to missing ballots to black-box machines with no paper
trail, to a clear pattern of intimidation of voters ­ the establishment
media has whitewashed the election. We must use media activist tactics to
pressure the mainstream media to cover these issues. We urge you to
organize a pressure campaign to push your local media outlets to cover the
voting problems that occurred in your communities. Call and email the
editors at your local newspaper and TV stations, provide them with copies
of published media stories on voting irregularities, and demand that they
investigate. You can also ask to meet with editorial board of the media
outlet to make your case in person. If none of that works, take to the
streets: Protest outside the media outlet and refuse to allow them to
censor this hugely important story.

MSNBC is the first major news media source to cover the
story. See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ and
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6442857/

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Watch for further news regarding No Stolen Elections! in the coming
week. Stay tuned.
www.Nov3.US

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may
be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes
nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just
what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact
measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these
will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with
both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom
they oppress." ~ Frederick Douglass, 1857


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