I’d just stepped out of my black helicopter to read that one of my favorite journalists, David Corn, had attacked my analysis of the vote in Ohio as the stuff of “grassy knoll conspiracy theorists.” (“A Stolen Election,” The Nation, November 29 issue.)
As Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certified President Bush’s reelection on Monday, we hear an address by investigative reporter Greg Palast about the disenfranchisement of black votes in the Nov. 2nd election.
The New York Times today reported that, at the meeting of nations on the Mideast’s future held in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa criticized the US occupation of Iraq.
from the New York Times
An international election observer mission – from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Parliament, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe – released a preliminary report on Monday declaring that the election did not meet democratic standards.
Sean Hannity called me a putz. Oh, my! And soft-porn-site scribe Frank Salvato put me in with the “black helicopter” conspiracy league. Golly!
I can live with that. But when Salon disses my report of vote suppression in Ohio ( “Was the Election Stolen?” by Farhad Manjoo), I have to respond. Manjoo went after my article, “Kerry Won,” the latest in my series of investigations of our manipulated election system first published in America by … Salon: “Florida’s Flawed ‘Voter-Cleansing’ Program.”
Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry. Here’s how the votes vanished.
This February, Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s Secretary of State, told his State Senate President, “The possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.” Blackwell, co-chair of Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, wasn’t warning his fellow Republican of disaster, but boasting of an opportunity to bring in Ohio for Team Bush no matter what the voters wanted. And most voters in Ohio wanted JFK, not GWB. But their choice won’t count because their votes won’t be counted.
A special Greg Palast Investigation for TomPaine.com
I know you don’t want to hear it. You can’t face one more hung chad. But I don’t have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it’s my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
by Greg Palast for TomPaine.com
It’s not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by a almost a million votes. That’s because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked — overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being “spoiled.” Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election.
For the Guardian and Observer (UK)
Sunday October 31, 2004
Voters claim abuse of electoral rolls.
Students say they were conned into registering twice.
An Observer investigation in the United States has uncovered widespread allegations of electoral abuse, many of them going uninvestigated despite complaints of what would appear to be criminal attempts to manipulate voter lists.
By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Washington, DC, Oct. 27 (UPI) — A British Broadcasting Corporation report has unleashed a political storm over suggestions that the Bush campaign in Florida may be planning to disrupt voting in the state’s black neighborhoods.
Democrats have expressed outrage over the BBC report, while Republicans are heatedly challenging its accuracy.