Tuesday, July 22, 2008

We're too sexy for our flag...



One of the things we find very disconcerting is how much attention is focused on throwing money to candidates in the elections, registering people to vote, getting out the vote, etc., but so little focus is on making sure that vote counts. Why is that? Is it because of how complex our system is, how unsexy election integrity is, that there are no "rock stars" or soundbite internet stars of the election integrity movement? Whatever the reason, you would think after the number of indictments, admissions, testimonies, etc. regarding election tampering--as well as statements under oath and passed polygraphs from people like Clint Curtis--that the activists and public at large would start to take this issue more seriously.

I hear complaints all the time about the 2000 and 2004 presidential election. If you recall, both years in the presidential election there was obvious fraud in Ohio and Florida because more people came out to vote in precincts than were even registered. Watching the results coming in live and comparing it to the Secretary of State's registered voter numbers, one could immediately see a huge fraud issue.

In Arizona, we have made ground-breaking progress that has ramifications for the rest of the country, yet trying to get the story out and connect the dots for people not only in the larger metro areas and Phoenix, but across the country is overwhelmingly difficult. I met so many wonderful activists at Netroots Nation this past week, yet when I started to talk about stolen elections, disenfranchisement, etc., the conversations quickly were diverted by disinterested activists who would rather make fun of McCain's latest geography gaffe or discuss Obama's hope meme than actually DO something to make sure our votes count. I didn't meet activists who actually knew of the group or groups in their states that have election integrity groups, with the exception of those already working with such groups like Election Defense Alliance. I can't tell you how discouraging that was.

We have a serious shortage both in the number of activists working on this issue in their states, and of funding. How do we get people involved? Activists will go to movies on the issue, like the Stealing America movie that was playing at NN. Yet what do they do when they leave the room? Do they sign up to be poll workers, find out of there is a local E.I. group in their state, donate to such a group, or just complain then move on?

Granted this was a bloggers' convention and bloggers are generally more talk than action oriented, but I even noticed this problem at true activist conventions. Would posting half naked men and women get people's attention enough to at least read some of the issues we are dealing with? It is frustrating.

I remember during the New Hampshire primaries this year how a number of prominent blogs on the left skewered anyone that suggested that there was fraud going on, even though statistical analysis showed the likelihood was favoring fraud and ballot boxes going home is always a serious breach of chain of custody. At the movie Uncounted that we sponsored here in Tucson, I met a man who was responsible for doing some analysis on the New Hampshire primaries which showed counties using Diebold went for Hillary and counties using the paper method breaking for Obama. Physicist David Griscom, one of our colleagues in the election integrity battle, wrote an excellent article on OpEd news regarding the same issue.

The prominent democratic bloggers, however, didn't want to hear about it because it involved two democrats, so the "bad guys" would be of their own party. There is the tendency for the conservatives to think only Democrats steal elections and Democrats to think only Republicans do when the reality is it is a nonpartisan issue and election fraud is less about party than control, corporate control, of our electoral processes.

Since the citizen win last month of the release of past database records from the Pima County elections going back to 1998, a witness has signed an affidavit stating that an elections official, Brian Crane, admitted the RTA election was flipped at the behest of his boss. The local media has already started a character assassination against the witness. Nonetheless, we will continue to pursue this fight. Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) was an obstructionist in the first investigation or rather the NON investigation and the citizens of the great state of Arizona deserve better. We deserve to have transparent, fair and fraud-free elections. Pima County Democratic Party attorney Bill Risner has mounted a great deal of evidence and wrote a letter to Attorney General Terry Goddard requesting a real investigation and that the ballots are not destroyed.

Labels: Arizona elections, Bill Risner, Bradblog, election defense alliance, election fraud, pima county election, Pima lawsuit, stealing america, stolen election

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