"Why is the Media Downplaying Our Voting Scandal?" -- New Article by Danny Schechter in Commondreams.org

Published on Friday, May 19, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Why is the Media Downplaying Our Voting Scandal?
by Danny Schechter

Explain this to me. Why do so few of our TV “journalists” and political reporters seem interested in all the questions that have been raised about the integrity of our voting system?

Voting is at the heart of our democracy. Billions of dollars are spent on political campaigns and tens of millions on covering them. All the networks have election units complete with pollsters, analysts and experts up the kazoo. All of them sound authoritative and spice their commentary with personal war stories and a parade of insider anecdotes.

Just tune in any election night and you have to marvel at all the space age technology, fancy graphics and computer assisted projections. The anchors seem to know as much about the history of voting percentages in each Congressional district as fanatical baseball fans recall earned run averages and the speed of each pitch.

If there are ten military men and women backing up each soldier in the field, there are tens of political aides, advisors, interns and hangers on “supporting” our elected politicians, or is it poli-trikians?. Handicapping elections is one of their specialties and they know most of the races and players by heart.

Compared to corporate machinations, or even military-industrial decisions, politics is over-covered, And yet the actual process of voting—the machines, the counting, the verification, and the questions raised by well informed journalists and analysts about voting fraud seem to bore the punditocracy.

I know because I made a film, Counting on Democracy about what actually happened in Florida in what is still of the most controversial elections in our history, with the popular votes won by Gore and the election won by Bush. 175,000 votes went uncounted. Once it was decided that the GOP won, most of the media lost interest. Very few journalists looked into what the ACLU called “the tyranny of small decisions” that affected the vote.

Complete article

Note: Thanks to Jack Gordon for bringing article to my attention.
-R.B.

EFF Reports: Court Slows Lawsuit to Address Ohio Voting Malfunctions

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which joined the federal lawsuit brought the League of Women Voters to bring about reforms to prevent a replay of 2004 in Ohio, has issued this report:

May 12, 2006
Court Slows EFF Efforts to Address Ohio E-voting Malfunctions

Decision Delays Inquiry Into State's History of Voting Machine Problems

San Francisco - The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that a critical lawsuit aimed at improving the security and integrity of Ohio's voting technology will be put on hold indefinitely. The ruling halts case proceedings until the appeal of the government's motion to dismiss is decided and seriously jeopardizes the chances that critical procedural improvements will be in place by the time voters enter polling places in November.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had intervened in this lawsuit, originally brought by the League of Women Voters of Ohio, in the fall of 2005 on behalf of voter Jeanne White. White's case focuses on the issues surrounding electronic voting and seeks to increase the security and accuracy of Ohio's e-voting technology, as well as to dramatically improve state and local procedures that leave the integrity of the state's e-voting equipment in doubt.

Ohio's closely watched and widely criticized election of 2004 exposed a wide range of problems, complaints, and irregularities in its voting technologies. Among other things, voters reported unacceptably long lines, inadequately trained pollworkers, and voting machines that failed to record their votes correctly. Similar problems were reported in the 2005 elections and in the May 2, 2006, primary, including a chaotic election in Cuyahoga County where election officials have launched a formal investigation. Ohio, however, has no requirements that counties keep formal track of such problems, much less report them to state officials or to the public.

Complete article

For an excellent collection of materials on the Ohio lawsuit:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/ohio/

Important Action Memo from Paddy Shaffer: Do Not Allow Ohio 2004 Election Documents to be Thrown Out

As Ohio Goes, So Goes The Nation!
An Urgent Call To Action

The retention schedule for the Boards of Elections
across Ohio's 88 counties allows for the DESTRUCTION
of ballots and other records from the 2004 election in
September 2006. That means from today, May 13, 2006
we have only 111 days until September 2006.

We are still collecting evidence in Ohio. Folks - we
need to know what went wrong, so it doesn't happen
again. We have enough forensic evidence to prove it was a
stolen election now, but we need every piece of it we can collect.

I am Patricia “Paddy” Shaffer, a Democratic Candidate for the
US House of Representatives, in Ohio’s 12th District. I ran for Congress this year, and will run again in 2008. I have been working diligently since November 2004 with some private citizens to get the 2004 election evidence that needs to be recorded.

We in Ohio have struggled mightily on our own steam, funding
all this research - which includes paying for records'
requests, copies, photographing ballots and signature books, printing our findings, etc...

IT'S A HUGE, EXPENSIVE JOB AND WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF
TIME AND WE NEED HELP.

Two things you can do:

Go to www.shafferforcongress.com and find out what
we're doing to investigate the 2004 debacle. It's
your democracy, too. PITCH IN!
Call Paddy Shaffer (614) 266-5283. I'll fill you in.

CONTACT JOHN KERRY.

On Saturday May 20, 2006, at Kenyon College here in
Ohio, Senator John Kerry will be a graduation speaker.
This is the college where students waited up to eleven hours on
11/02/04 to vote for Kerry.

The 7 million $$ KERRY raised at the end of his campaign to guarantee the votes be counted... MUST be used to investigate the 2004 Ohio Election. Share your thoughts about that with John! Especially if you donated money or volunteer hours to him in!