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Vote Rigging 101: - The First National Teach-in
4.5 hour, 3-DVD Set
Disc # 1
I. The Arc Of Justice: We've Been Here Before
DVD excerpt: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., "Martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement"
Lynn Landes, journalist, "How America Used to Vote"
John Gideon, VotersUnite!, "Analysis of HAVA Misinformation in the Press"
II. Voter Suppression
Bob Fitrakis, Free Press (Columbus, Ohio), "The Taking of Ohio Prior to Nov. 2"
Emily Levy, Juice for Justice, "Precinct Analysis in Ohio"
Warren Stewart, National Ballot Integrity Project, "Recounting New Mexico"
Disc # 2
III. What Happened In 2004: Exit Polls - Were They Right?
Jonathan Simon, Alliance for Democacy, "Analysis of Exit Polls"
Allyson Washburn, US Countvotes.org, "The Reluctant Republican Responder"
Larry Bensky, MediaChannel.org, "The Disappearing Media"
IV. The Age of the Machines
Jim March, Blackboxvoting.org, "How to Hack a Diebold Vote Tabulator"
Wayne Madsen, journalist, "The Privatization of the Vote"
V. Litigation
Paul Lehto, Washington attorney, "Verifying Democracy 101: Sue First, Ask Questions Later"
Bob Fitrakis, Free Press, "History of Moss v. Bush, the Sanctions, Future Legal Actions"
Disc # 3
VI. Legislation
Butch Wing, political director, Rainbow PUSH, "Guaranteeing the Right to Vote"
Bob Kibrick, Verifiedvoting.org, "Pending Federal Legislation for Electoral Reform"
Sharon Cornu, Alameda County Central Labor Council, "Organized Labor and Election Reform"
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink, "A Voters' Bill of Rights"
VII. Action
Megan Matson, theMMOB.com, “What We Can Do”
Walter Riley, community activist, "Organize County by County, Precinct by Precinct"
Lynn Landes, journalist, "A Paper Ballot is the Only Solution"
DVD excerpt: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., "Keep Hope Alive”
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Lynn Landis
journalist, "How America Used to Vote"
Biography
Lynn Landes is a freelance journalist who specializes in voting, the environment, and health issues. Lynn's been a news reporter for DUTV in Philadelphia and hosted a radio talk show at WDVR in New Jersey. She has also been a weekly commentator for a British Broadcasting She is one of the nation's leading journalists on voting systems and democracy issues. Lynn's articles are published on her website, http://ecotalk.org, in the alternative press, and in other online and print publications.
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John Gideon, Votersunite.org,
"Analysis of HAVA Misinformation in the Press"
Presentation
John spoke about HAVA, the Help America Vote Act, and misinformation about it in newspapers, where it comes from, why we hear it, what the truth is, and how to counter the misinformation.
Biography
John Gideon is a disabled Viet Nam veteran who retired in 2002 after over 30 years of federal service at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA. In 2003, he started working with Bev Harris of http://BlackBoxVoting.org, then he became the information manager of VerifiedVoting.org, http://verifiedvoting.org, and now is the information manager at VotersUnite!, http://votersunite.org.
In John's work, he reads numerous newspaper and provides a clipping service to voting activists, attorneys, elections officials, media professionals and others. John has been asked to testify as an expert before both houses of the Washington legislature.
VotersUnite! is a national nonpartisan organization dedicated to fair and accurate elections. It focuses on distributing well-researched information to elections officials, elected officials, the media, and the public; as well as providing activists with information they need to work toward transparent elections in their communities.
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Bob Fitrakis, Free Press (Columbus, Ohio),
"The Taking of Ohio Prior to Nov. 2"
Presentation
The talk covers:
1. Blackwell, Bush and massive voter suppression prior to election day
2. The Diebold controversy
3. Election Day fiasco in Ohio
Biography
Bob Fitrakis is a political science professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College, where he won the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1991. He was a Ford Foundation Fellow to the Michigan state legislature in 1975 and studied at the University of Sarejevo on scholarship in 1978. Fitrakis earned a J.D. from the Ohio State University Mortitz College of Law in 2002. His Ph.D is in political science from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He has also taught political theory at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and political science at Wayne State University and Oakland Community College. Bob Fitrakis is the executive director of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (CICJ) and has published the Free Press, http://www.freepress.org/index2.php since 1992 and acted as editor since 1993. He wrote monthly investigative news articles, including articles on Klan activities in Ohio. He both participated in, and wrote about a controversial plan by Columbus' NAACP to "out" Klan leaders in Ohio.
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Emily Levy, Juice for Justice,
"Precinct Analysis in Ohio"
Presentation
Emily Levy speaks about the broad range of irregularities in the Ohio election from her perspective as project coordinator for the precinct-level statistical analysis by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. This investigation provided the statistical basis for the Moss v. Bush lawsuit, and provides crucial data for the ongoing investigation by Rep. Conyers (D, MI). Emily will also discuss specific ways people can get involved in demanding and creating election justice.
Biography
Emily Levy is the project coordinator for Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips's precinct-level analysis of Ohio election anomalies, and a member of United for Secure Elections. She volunteered with the Election Protection Coalition in New Mexico for the 2004 election. She is a long-time activist on issues ranging from nuclear power to disability rights. Her passion is helping people who care about the world become active in social change movements. Emily offers group presentations and individual consultations for those who desire to increase their power to make change. http://www.juiceforjustice.com
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Warren Stewart, Ballot Integrity Project,
"Recounting New Mexico"
Presentation
Warren Stewart discusses undervotes and phantom votes in the 2004 elections in New Mexico that distorted the democratic process in that state and the nation.
Biography
Warren Stewart is a researcher and data analyst with the National Ballot Integrity Project and VotersUnite.org, and worked on the Green/Libertarian recount effort in New Mexico. Warren's research reports can be accessed at:
http://www. votersunite.org/info/newmexicophantomvotes.asp
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0501/S00152.htm
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1063
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Dr. Jonathan Simon, Ph.D, Alliance for Democracy,
"Analysis of Exit Polls"
Presentation
1. Historical accuracy of exit polls and use as check mechanism on recent elections abroad.
2. Dramatic discrepancy between exit polls and vote counts in Election 2004. If exit polls were accurate, Kerry not only won a comfortable electoral vote victory, but also the popular vote.
3. The three possible explanations for the discrepancy were: 1) Chance, or the inherent statistical limitations of even the best sampling effort; 2) Systematic bias in the polls; and 3) An inaccurate vote count.
4. The official pollsters' (Edison/Mitofksy) long-awaited analysis ruled out #1 and refused to consider #3 (ignoring standard accounting practice), settling instead by default on #2 and offering a single hypothesis to explain the assumed exit poll error.
5. This "differential nonresponse" or "reluctant Bush responder" hypothesis was seized upon by whatever mainstream media was still paying attention by inauguration day (e.g., Nightline), to close the book on any exit poll-based concerns about massive fraud in the election.
6. The data presented by Edison/Mitofsky, however, not only does not support the reluctant Bush responder hypothesis, but actually refutes it. Analysis of this with handout visuals.
7. There is simply no evidence that the exit polls were inaccurate and there is no exit poll-based explanation for the dramatic exit poll-vote count discrepancy. With all other explanations effectively ruled out, the likelihood of a dramatically inaccurate vote count, the result of computerized rigging, demands thorough investigation.
Biography
Dr. Jonathan Simon is a graduate of Harvard College, New York Chiropractic College, and New York University School of Law. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and directs a health clinic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to entering NYU Law, Dr. Simon was employed by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in Washington as a political survey research analyst, the youngest person to have held that position at Hart Research. As a result of this experience, Dr. Simon is versed in the history and protocols of exit polling.
With the proliferation of computerized, "black-box" vote tabulation under the private control of partisan corporations, Dr. Simon became deeply concerned that the electoral system as a whole had become susceptible to widespread outcome-determinative "mistabulation," and that no reliable check mechanism existed to tell us whether electoral thefts had occurred.
He proposed the adoption of an independent exit poll-based multistate "burglar alarm" system for Election 2004. Although his plan was unfortunately not enacted, Dr. Simon was able to use the analytical component of the plan, as well as some quick work in downloading the posted official exit poll data, before they were contaminated by actual vote tabulations, to identify a pattern of exit poll-vote count discrepancies that raised a red flag over the 2004 election and has led to an expanding ongoing investigation. In particular, Dr. Simon has been instrumental in refuting all arguments that the source of the discrepancies lies with the exit polls rather than with the vote count itself.
A member of the Alliance for Democracy, Dr. Simon has also worked with the National Ballot Integrity Project, http://www.ballotintegrity.org and We Do Not Concede, http://www.donotconcede.com/
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Allyson Washburn, Ph.D, US Count Votes,
"The Reluctant Republican Responder"
Biography
Allyson Washburn, a statistical analyst with UScountvotes.org, http://uscountvotes.org, is a senior researcher and adjunct faculty member at the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, where she teaches research methods and statistics to doctoral students in psychology and human science. She received her Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the Johns Hopkins University and has conducted research in the treatment of drug addiction and in cognitive changes in aging populations. A 20-year resident of San Francisco, Allyson is an active community volunteer, having served as president of the YWCA in San Francisco and Marin, and of the League of Women Voters in San Francisco. She feels strongly that if we don't reform our voting system, elections will continue to be stolen--as in 2000, 2002, and yet again in 2004.
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Larry Bensky, MediaChannel.org,
"The Disappearing Media"
Presentation
Larry Bensky will speak about how he, as a media journalist, initially reported the official results. However, his listeners began to tell him he was missing the real story, and he eventually went to Ohio. He will point out the frightening implications of the media silence, and what must be done to correct that.
Biography
Larry Bensky is a literary and political journalist with more than 40 years experience in print and broadcast media. He has been managing editor of Ramparts Magazine, Paris editor of The Paris Review, and an editor of the New York Times Book Review. As national affairs correspondent for Pacifica Radio from 1987-1998, Bensky covered the Iran-contra hearings in 1987, the confirmation hearings for four Supreme Court justices, and the 1990 elections in Nicaragua. His many honors include the prestigious George Polk award, a record five Gold Reel awards from the National Association of Community Broadcasters, and a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is currently senior editor at MediaChannel.org, http://www.mediachannel.org, a contributor to The Nation and the Los Angeles Times book review, and teaches mass communications, journalism, and broadcasting at California State University, Hayward.
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Jim March, BlackBoxVoting,
"How to Hack a Diebold Vote Tabulator"
Presentation
Jim March will present a video demonstration of how Diebold central voting tabulators can be exploited to hack official vote counts, and then explain how the demonstrated security vulnerabilities reflect systemtic failure in the elections software oversight process mandated by the Federal Election Commission. Diebold and other voting system vendors hire FEC-approved private testing labs to "evaluate" their products for security. However, these testing labs "audit" the blackbox vendors in the same way Arthur Anderson audited Enron, approving fraud-prone voting procedures just as Anderson approved fraudulent Enron accounting.
Jim will outline the reforms that Blackboxvoting.org advocates:
1. voter verified paper audit trails
2. open source software so the "geeks of America" can double-check the labs
3. a committment to open records access on the part of county elections managers
4. a committment to proper auditing procedures, borrowing heavily where possible on the existing accounting "technology" known by banks and CPAs for literally hundreds of years.
Biography
Jim March is a member of the board of directors of BlackBox Voting. A former computer technical support and systems administration professional, Jim followed the early work of Bev Harris and joined in the analysis and investigation process in mid-2003. March and Harris are the plaintiffs in the California Diebold "whistleblower" lawsuit, which resulted in Diebold refunding $2.6 million to Alameda County and the State of California. Their suit was the first of its kind to recoup for any state or local government a cash penalty for the installation of substandard voting machines and uncertified, insecure elections software code.
BlackBoxVoting, http://www.blackboxvoting.org, is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) election reform investigation and educational clearinghouse founded by Bev Harris. Blackbox investigators utilize the techniques of investigative journalism, public records access, and technical analysis of voting products and procedures to lift the veil of secrecy cloaking proprietary "blackbox" voting machines running secret software.
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Wayne Madsen, journalist,
"The Privatization of the Vote"
Presentation
His presentation will focus on Election Engineering:
How a select few voting machine and tabulation firms tied to the right-wing of the Republican Party are able to engineer the outcome of elections to favor their candidates.
Biography
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and syndicated columnist. His articles and columns have appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald, the Village Voice, The Progressive, In These Times, and Counterpunch. Madsen is the author of "Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999" (Mellen Press) and "The Handbook of Personal Data Protection" (Macmillan & Stockton Press). Wayne has appeared as a national security analyst on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and Fox News Channel. He wrote the foreword for the best-selling book, "Forbidden Truth".
A former U.S. Navy officer, Wayne has a background in computer security and worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) and Naval Data Automation Command.
Madsen is co-author with John Stanton of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II", published by Dandelion Books, and is the author of the forthcoming "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates".
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Paul Lehto, Washington attorney, Every Vote Counts
"Verifying Democracy 101: Sue First, Ask Questions Later"
Presentation
Paul will trace out the steps and evidence needed to file an election-related lawsuit in Washington state, and suggest where other states may differ, examining how the present context of secrecy surrounding elections provides opportunities to challenge, instead of just challenges. Using his own evidentiary voting study as a base (as well as a basic explanation of the legal system) Paul will assess the advantages and disadvantages of various legal approaches to the common question of verifying democracy, then he will focus on the center of the problem: secret unobservable vote counting, and the legal theories that can be used in that specific context to pierce the corporate veil of secrecy and control of the United States government. To the maximum extent in the time allotted, Paul will try to answer the question: 'what does it take to have a smart lawsuit now that the results are all "certified"?
Biography
Paul R. Lehto is a business law and consumer fraud attorney from Everett, Washington. He is retired from a term on the board of governors of the Washington State Bar Association, has two published appellate cases, and currently serves on the Washington state committee regulating continuing professional education for lawyers, and on the steering committee of "Every Vote Counts". He's been voted "Rising Star" in both 2003 and 2004 by Washington Law and Politics magazine.
In January 2005 Lehto co-authored with Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman a groundbreaking paper entitled "Evidence of Election Irregularities in Snohomish County, Washington, General Election 2004", which documented political bias in malfunctioning Sequoia voting machines that could not be explained by any plausible voter choices. Starting with their Snohomish County, Washington lawsuit against Sequoia, Paul and his attorney Randy Gordon have announced their intention to remove from our democracy, all electronic voting machines utilizing trade-secret vote-counting mechanisms.
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Bob Fitrakis,
"History of Moss v. Bush, The Sanctions, Future legal actions"
Presentation
1. History of the Moss v. Bush lawsuit
s2. The Sanctions
3. Future legal actions
Biography
See Bob Fitrakis's biography above.
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Butch Wing, Political Director, Rainbow Push,
"Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote" |
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Bob Kibrick, Verified Voting,
"Pending Federal Legislation for Electoral Reform"
Presentation
1. Introduction
2. Brief overview of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA)
3. Federal bills to require voter-verified paper records:
_ House: King (H.R. 278), Holt (H.R. 550), Gibbons (H.R. 704)
_ Senate: Ensign (S. 330)
4. Omnibus Election Reform Bills
_ House: Conyers (H.R. 533), Tubb Jones (H.R. ???)
_ Senate: Dodd (S. 17), Clinton (S. 450), McConnell (S. ???)
5. Conclusion: the need for a bi-partisan strategy
(Note: bill numbers shown as ???? are not yet available since these bills were just introduced.)
Biography
Robert Kibrick, legislative analyst, researches current events, official meeting transcripts, and election regulations and procedures and prepares rebuttals to propound the positions of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org. He is also working to build relationships with other organizations, including university groups and organizations promoting electoral reform and integrity. He is helping others to organize public forums on electronic voting and will help with efforts to establish local chapters of the Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org.
Mr. Kibrick is a research astronomer at the University of California Observatories / Lick Observatory, where he has worked since 1976. For the last 6 years, he has served as its Director of Scientific Computing and is currently responsible for overseeing the development of computer software and hardware for scientific instrumentation and control systems employed in the Observatory's astronomy research programs.
From March 1998 through 2003, he served on a national advisory council of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID). Mr. Kibrick has a B.A. in Information and Computer Science from the University of California and is the principal inventor for three U.S. patents involving optical position encoding systems and bar code technology. He has also served on a voting systems review panel for the City of Santa Cruz, California.
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Sharon Cornu, Alameda County Central Labor Council,
"Organized Labor and Election Reform" |
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Medea Benjamin, Code Pink,
"A Voters' Bill of Rights"
Presentation
Medea will discuss Code Pink's 10-point "Voters' Bill of Rights", http://www.codepink4peace.org/National_Actions_Voter_Bill_of_Rights.shtml.
Biography
Medea Benjamin is founding director of Global Exchange, http://www.globalexchange.org. For over 20 years, Medea has supported human rights and social justice struggles around the world.
Medea is a leading activist in the peace movement and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice, http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
She is also the co-founder of "Code Pink: Women for Peace", a women's group that has been organizing creative actions against the war and occupation of Iraq. Code Pink, http://www.codepink4peace.org/, is pushing for a reorientation of budget priorities in the U.S. to focus on heath care, education and housing, not war. Code Pink now has more than 100 chapters throughout the United States.
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Walter Riley, community activist,
"Organize County by County, Precinct by Precinct"
Presentation
Topics: How to deal with local election officials. Trained workers at polls, more volunteers to work the polls. Use our various organizations to recruit these folks. We need to examine what the County Voter Registrars are actually doing, especially with regard to bringing more citizens into the voting process at schools, etc., and making the voting systems more voter friendly. We need to recruit more community people to get involved in this pro-democracy movement. Get people involved in their local precincts.
Biography
Walter Riley is a civil rights attorney practicing in the Bay Area, focussing on criminal defense and police misconduct. Mr. Riley is a long-time social and community political activist.
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Lynn Landes, journalist,
"A Paper Ballot is the Only Solution"
Presentation
Lynn will argue that a paper ballot, as used in many countries, is the only way to ensure fair elections.
Biography
See her biographyabove.
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Megan Matson, Founder the MMOB - Mainstreet Moms Operation Blue - theMMOB.org
"What We Can Do"
Megan Matson is a mother of two, a former advertising executive and national political action organizer.
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