Dear Senator X,

The ideal of one person, one vote and that everyone’s vote is counted has been deeply cherished in the United States of America since the Anti-Slavery Movement, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the expansion of voting to young people.  The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections have made it clear that this precious cornerstone of American democracy has been destroyed. 

We the undersigned, respectfully request that you take action as a Senator to recognize that the November 2, 2004 presidential election was fraught with voting violations, misconduct of some highly placed election officials, tampering, voter suppression, interference targeted at communities of people of color, students, and low-income people – all of which has raised suspicions in many minds that this was not a free, fair and honest election.

Given the widespread use of electronic voting machines, which are especially liable to malfunction and fraud and leave no trace of how they work nor what data they receive, it is not possible to perform recounts in many states.  Hundreds of stories on malfunctions of electronic voting machines and central tabulation machines are appearing in regional news media. 

Papers and sworn testimonies by experts state that the chances of the exit polls giving such  divergent results from the official tallies are almost a statistical impossibility. Nor is it statistically conceivable that practically all the reported malfunctions and errors would give the advantage to the same candidate.  Furthermore, statistical analysis reveals that even the popular vote victory may turn out to be false.

To preserve democracy in the United States of America, we ask that you be open to the concerns of large numbers of Americans.  Almost 57,000 complaints have thus far been filed about this election process.  Recounts are being demanded in several states. In the critical states of Ohio and Florida, hard evidence of improprieties is accumulating daily, almost always in the same direction and substantial enough to be outcome-determinative.

In Ohio, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who is avowedly partisan as the Co-Chair for the Bush/Cheney campaign, has used his official powers illegally to hinder the recount process in Ohio in many ways.  He has also refused to cooperate with the Democratic Party members of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in its hearing headed by Representative Conyers. One example of many equally egregious problems in the Ohio election was a severe shortage of voting machines in precincts of people of color and students at colleges, leading to waits of up to 10 hours for voters to cast their ballot.

We call on you to review the evidence. We are asking you to be our voice.  We think this is crucial for the future of democracy and this country and we hope you will respond to our plea. 

We are keenly aware that no Senator was willing to stand with the Representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus in their challenge to the presidential election of 2000.  In 2004 the evidence of fraud is systemic, stronger, more widespread and believed by millions of Americans.  We urge you to be courageous by taking leadership and refusing to certify the results of the presidential election of 2004.  We also urge you to voice open support for any formal objections from the House of Representatives and to sign with them if any House members challenge the 2004 presidential election.

Sheila Parks

Dear Senator X,

The most important stories are being ignored by the mainstream media and the silence is, frankly, deafening. A good place to start is http://www.truthinvoting.org/Articles.htm and also our home page links (left margin) at http://www.truthinvoting.org.
We feel that Senator Wyden and staff should at least be aware of the following before the January 6th session:

1. Exit polls in the U.S. showed Kerry winning the election-- we in the U.S. have just as much reason to contest the Nov 2nd election as the Ukranians had to contest their election. See http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/112204MargieBurns.shtml and http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

2. The chance that the exit polls randomly diverging from reported results in PA, FL and OH is only 1 in 250 million (see Dr. Freeman article in left margin of http://www.truthinvoting.org under "Exit Poll Research"). The actual causes, which are almost certainly non-random, are most likely vote fraud and/or election rigging-- an immediate investigation is definitely warranted. One of Oregon's own scholars, Richard Hayes Phillips offers his analysis/testimony at : http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0412/S00167.htm

3. Triad systems appears to have rigged the Ohio recount with "cheat sheets". http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Z.shtml "The Triad Systems representative suggested that since the hand count had to match the machine count exactly, and since it would be hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed to get the count to come out exactly right, that they should post this series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers. He suggested making them look like employee information or something similar. The people doing the hand count could then just report these numbers no matter what the actual count of the ballots revealed. This would then "match" the tabulator report for this precinct exactly. The numbers were apparently the final certified counts for the selected precinct. "

4. The widespread suppression of the black vote in Cleveland and other predominantly black areas in Ohio was criminal and should not be allowed to stand. It seems clear that the imbalanced misallocation of voting machines between Republican and Democratic precincts was designed to suppress black voting. This racist policy must be exposed and corrected immediately, not two years or four years or six years hence.

5. The affidavit of Clinton Curtis, a programmer in Florida, provides shocking indications that electronic vote machine rigging may have been going on since 2000. Congressman Feeney (Jeb Bush's running mate from the 90's) is implicated. This story deserves far, far more attention than it's been getting. From Feeney's hometown paper: http://www.seminolechronicle.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/12/16/41c2fdb042ea1

All of this and more suggests that there are overwhelming problems with the 2004 election and that it's not at all unreasonable to suppose that Kerry may have been the real winner, just as Al Gore was in the 2000 election. We do not wish to wait another 4 years to get another chance at a fair election. We request that the 2004 election be repaired or repeated immediately. We, in the U.S., deserve fair elections just as much as the people of the Ukraine.

Sincerely,

[TruthInVoting]

Dear Senator X,

On January 6, 2005 a joint session of Congress will be held in which you will be called upon to vote to certify the 2004 Presidential Election.

Please, please, do NOT vote to certify that election. It was stolen from the American people. The evidence of electoral fraud is overwhelming, specific, and widespread. It is not a scheme cooked up by "sore losers" or the feverish imaginings of paranoid "conspiracy theorists." The vote rigging, voter suppression, and discriminatory, predatory chicanery was very real, and it almost certainly did turn the election in favor of Bush and Cheney, and most likely worked in favor also of dozens of other Republican candidates whose chances of winning in a fair election would have been slim.

The case for election-turning fraud is best established in Ohio, where it has been set on a sound legal footing by an impressive team of pro bono lawyers, Cliff Arnebeck and Susan Truitt among them, wholehearted grassroots progressives, fighting for Ohioans, civil rights, and genuine American interests. The case Moss v. Bush was filed in Federal Court on Dec. 13. The widespread evidence for fraud has been gathered by the courageous and inspiring efforts of everyday Ohioans, and volunteers from other states, for the last six weeks. They have struggled to find justice for the outrages they have suffered before, on, and after election day. Some of them have suffered violence and intimidation (like being run off the road in the dark of night, and having their tires slashed) because they have tried to see a legitimately called statewide recount through to completion.

But the fraud was not limited to Ohio. In all likelihood it spread across the country, wherever local party members involved in elections at precinct or county levels, acting either independently, or in small or larger groups of knowing participants, were willing to cooperate with election systems technicians who had both party and profit motives to rig machines to favor Republican candidates, and principally George Bush.

It is a fact that 80% of the votes cast on 11/2/04 were counted by machines from the two largest vendors, ES&S and Diebold, both of which have very deep and publically documented connections with the the GOP. 80%! Now that is FAR in excess of the margin of difference in nearly every race in this country. Can we really be expected to trust the results of such election?

I am asking you, as one of many thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans, DO NOT trust this election. Please make this courageous and patriotic stand on behalf of democracy and transparent government in the nation. Vote AGAINST certifying the presidential election results on January 6, 2005.

Then, when the uproar settles and the Senate convenes to regroup around this new political reality, a true setback to the rutting, rampaging elephant that is set to stampede through the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Social Security, the US tax code, and public legal protections (so-called "tort reform"), then you can hold your head high, march straight down those Capitol steps, and stand at the microphone before the crowd that has promised to be there on that day.

Tell them that you just bravely stood up for free and fair elections in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Tell them that you for one won't stand by any longer as Americans of color, as young Americans, as lower and middle class Americans of all ethnicities and backgrounds, get their basic civil rights and even international treaty rights for a fair election trampled on by partisan hacks and corrupt politicians.

Tell them that you for one, even if your party will not, are standing up and speaking out in defense of American democracy, of the principle that America is governed by the people, not by corrupt "leaders" usurping power through sham legal decisions (Florida 2000) and through outright fraud and election theft (Ohio 2004).

Then tell them that you will lead the charge to take back elections from the private corporations. That our citizenship will not be outsourced and digitized in the name of convenience and ease of counting, and so that corporations can profit from our electoral system while they jerryrig their systems to install candidates in office who will support their anti-social and destructive policies of world pillage and private greed.

Tell the Senate NO, you will not certify this sham "election" for George W. Bush, and tell the people YES, you will stand up for democracy in 2005.

Your country needs you. Will you accept the call?

An optimistic fellow American,
Matthew Fox, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ

Dear Senator X,

Honorable Senators and Representatives of Congress,

History will judge you by your actions, or lack of action on January 6th, 2005...

On that fateful day, I and millions of other patriotic Americans urge you to stand up and do the right thing.

Stand up for Democracy for all parties and for all voters, each of us citizens of this great country. It is our Constitutional Right to Vote, and to have our vote count. And it became your sworn duty to uphold and insure that right, when you took your oath of office:

"I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

You know as well as I do that there were numerous and unprecedented voting irregularities on November 2, and since then during the recounts. (If you didn't know, visit http://miamedia.com/votergate to read what the media is saying and the research has unearthed.)

Millions of tax-paying, loyal, voting Americans are counting on you to do the right thing, and thoroughly investigate the Nov 2 vote, so we will have in our voting system, and our elected officials. And I do mean you.

We call on you and beseech you to do your sworn duty to the American People:

• Ferret out every voting irregularity, failure, mistake, inconsistency that made the Nov 2 election the most notorious one in recent history.
• Find and prosecute any illegal acts, no matter where that may lead.
• If you are not certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the official vote tallies for President and for others on November 2 were accurate, then you must challenge the Electoral Tally on January 6, 2005 and call for a full investigation.
• Then, work to fix the problems in our election system that led to the Nov 2 voting fiasco.

The famous words that Thomas Paine uttered 200 years ago still ring true:

"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery. . ."

Will you kowtow to what expediency would have you do, or will you prove to yourself, your family, and your grand children that you are a person of backbone and character like Thomas Paine? Will you go down in history as a Statesman who is admired because you did the right thing when your country called on you, when the people who elected you to office depended on you?

Follow your heart and your conscience.

Stand up for Democracy on January 6, 2005. Challenge and investigate the Nov 2 vote.

Yours sincerely,
Glenn Sanders
December 31, 2004
The Votergate Resource Center
http://miamedia.com/news/2004-12-31.open.letter.congress.html