[Vision2020] Cornerstone of Democracy Needs Help

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Sign with address and send to: 

president at whitehouse.gov

I'm sure our noble and fair president wants the upcoming election to be 
monitored for fairness and lawfulness as fully as possible, don't you think?

To: George W. Bush 

We call on you to request expert election monitors to avoid an unprecedented 
electoral and Constitutional crisis over the Presidential election of November 
2, 2004. Such a request was made by 13 Members of Congress on July 1, 2004.

We saw a preview of this crisis in 2000 in Florida. We believe the 2004 
crisis will be worse because:

Across the nation, error-prone punchcard machines have been replaced by 
touchscreen machines that have failed repeatedly in actual elections. These 
machines lack paper trails, their source code is proprietary, and computer security 
experts believe these machines are hackable, so voters have no confidence their 
votes will be recorded and counted honestly. 

To compound voter fears, Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell vowed to "deliver" Ohio's 
crucial electoral votes to you 

The crimes committed by partisan Florida election officials in 2000 were 
never punished, which sent a clear signal to partisan officials that they could 
violate election laws with impunity 

As the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights documented in 2001, discrimination 
against minorities - mostly Democrats - in 2000 was widespread. More than half of 
the votes that went uncounted nationwide were cast by minorities. Most of 
these problems were never fixed, as the Commission documented in April 2004 

Most of the Florida non-felons whose voting rights were illegally revoked in 
2000 have not regained their voting rights, and the 2004 "felon" purge was 
rigged to hurt Democrats by removing black "felons" and help Republicans by 
overlooking hispanic "felons." This revelation - following a lawsuit opposed by 
Florida - created a furor, but officials insist they will "find other ways" to 
purge "felons" 

Also in Florida, Republicans eliminated the witness requirement for absentee 
ballots, creating a major opportunity for fraud. Republicans are tricking new 
citizens into registering as Republicans by illegally pre-checking the 
"Republican" box 

In Missouri, the Republican Secretary of State is trying to stop mainly 
Democratic voters in St. Louis from voting early

There may be many other illegal activities underway at the state and local 
level that have simply not been discovered because no one is looking for them 

Key officials in your administration seek the power to postpone (or cancel) 
the 2004 election based on warnings of terrorist attacks, even though past 
warnings have been conspicuously politicized 

Pro-Republican bias in the corporate-owned media, especially at Fox News, has 
been widely documented, creating an uneven playing field for the campaign. 
This problem is compounded by the extremely limited coverage planned for the 
summer conventions 

All five Republican Supreme Court Justices who betrayed America by throwing 
out 175,000 uncounted votes in 2000 remain on the Court, so any dispute that 
ends up in the Supreme Court will lack legitimacy.  The American people share 
our concerns. A poll in June 2004 found 44% of all voters - and 62% of Democrats 
- fear a Florida-style debacle in November. 

We believe observers who are experts in administering honest, transparent, 
and fair elections are needed for the "battleground" states (Arkansas, Florida, 
Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, 
Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin) that will 
decide the Presidency. We call on you to request such experts from the United 
Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Carter Center.



    

    
    
    

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