Democrats Take up Fight Over Ballots

[nadinbrzezinski]

Democrats Take up Fight Over Ballots
By Bill Sloat
Cleveland Plain Dealer

Thursday 18 November 2004

Cincinnati - Seeming to brush aside John Kerry's concession speech, the Ohio Democratic Party has launched a federal court fight over nearly 155,000 provisional ballots by contending a proper accounting of those votes might decide who really won.

In Ohio, Bush now holds a lead of about 136,000 votes over Kerry.

County officials across the state began tabulating provisional ballots Friday.

"Given the closeness of the presidential and other elections," Ohio's provisional ballots "may prove determinative of the outcome," Democrats argue in a legal filing made public Wednesday by the U.S. District Court.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111904Y.shtml
_____________

They are being strategic folks, they are.

[gennifer6]

1. 'bout time they jumped on their own bandwagon.....n/t

[trashcan]

2. it's about time

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Is it me or Nixon wistling by???? 1960 Nixon?

......

[eleny]

4. url for The Plain Dealer article

http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isvot/1100782534290590.xml

[saracat]

5. This is good! Finally!

[woodstein]

6. I haven't a clue what the DNC is doing about this

...but thank God for the Ohio Democrats!

Drip by drip, this thing is coming out....

[gennifer6]

7. Plain Dealer is Cleveland's only major newspaper

and this is the first they've reported on voting "irregularities." It's too big to ignore anymore....

[eleny]

8. Here's the name and email for the reporter

Bill Sloat, Plain Dealer Reporter
[e-mail]

Maybe some thanks would help this cause. The name and email addy are on the page with the article at TPD newspaper online.

[liberal_in_GA]

9. kick

nice to see there's some cajones left in the party.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I swear there is strategy here, real strategy

I know hard to see it, but there is

Demos could not get involved until now... and the DNC cannot do it yet either... or that radar screen will have a huge return...

Stealth... stealth, stealth, stealth... stealth

[liberal_in_GA]

12. I REALLY hope you're right

though I still think our "leaders" are clueless as to how demoralized the rank-and-file is over their general behavior.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I don't think they are clueless

they are aware, they are getting lamblasted over it

But reality is they chose a very Nixonian strategy (1960) Concede and then have people looking at this, and if and when they find evidence they can take to the bank legally they will.

I know it is discouraging, but if they kept on fighting in the open they wouuld have been torn to shreds by the "lib'ral media"

And lets be honest, you think the repukes will expect this?

[liberal_in_GA]

15. You're right

and Kerry would be a "traitor" and "disloyal to the troops" for daring to count votes in the midst of Fallujah.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. BINGO!!!!!

Now lets hope they find the evidence they can take to the bank


If they don't then it will take a historian many yers from now to reconstruct what happened

If they do.... things will get mightly interting.

Either way... they did what they needed to do... and they have given some hints

Edwards votes will be counted

Kerry on local interview, votes are STILL being counted.

I don't know whether to tell you to keep the faith or not, but I also suspect the small parties are workng wiht the Dems on this one and for multiple and good reasons they are letting the BBV people work on their own, as they really do NOT show on anybody's radar, truly stealth

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. I don't believe in Stealth

Caution yes, but not stealth. Kerry may not have been able to come right out and claim Fraud, but other Party operatives would have been making "unauthorized" statements as trial balloons and to signal to the media that there was smoke present so they should go looking for fire, if there was a strategy. I am through twisting myself into a pretzel to find reasons to believe that Party leadership knows exactly what it is doing. Remember the Democratic Convention that dared not attack George Bush? They have to feel the heat from the roots on this one.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. ok what would have happened if

I don't know Dean said... we think there is fraud.... and would htat trial balloon have been carried by oh I dunno, FOX?

THINK

Trial balloons only work when they are carried by a media that is more or less balanced, that does not exist in this country any longer

[Tom Rinaldo]

20. Part of our Problem is our "Fear" of Fox

And of Rush and of Coulter etc. They will spend their allotted number of minutes a day tearing apart the Democrats no matter what we do or do not say. They invent stuff, like the swift Boat crap, if they have to.

Kerry should have cracked open the door in his concession speech by saying he was disturbed at early reports he had seen about some irregularities, and about voters having to wait 10 hours to vote. He could have gotten back onto his preferred message by then saying he had no reason to think though that those problems were enough to effect the outcome of the Election, hence his concession.

The follow up by the DNC and surragates could then have focused on how traumatic it might have been had the Election been just a little bit closer "than it was". They could have said it appears there might have been insufficinet safeguards in place to prevent possible fraud, and that must be corrected because our Vote is the foundation of Democracy etc. They should have urged looking closely at this election in order to draw the lessons we need to assure the public that future U.S. Elections can not be tampered with, or accidently changed by human error etc. That would have provided the pretence to back mulitple Vote "audits". It would have kept the issue of "potential" voter fraud alive and it would have pushed media to cover it more if the concern was being raised by the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party, rather than by Bev Harris and DU.

Yes they would have taken shit from the rabid right over it. Anytime we put up a candidate to oppose them you can count on that happening. That isn't a good enough excuse to stay quiet.

Kerry and company were not in a position to do the heavy lifting on this one, granted, but by saying virtually nothing they signaled "there's nothing here folks, go about your business, just a few loonies ranting on the margins". I repeat, no serious Democratic spokesperson had to say that the Election was stolen or that significant fraud occurred. What I expected from them was a public acknowledgment that there are potentially serious issues about our systems of voting that should be looked into and addressed.

[Blue in the face]

11. Done

Good call. Thanks for the heads up!

[Straight Shooter]

21. Thank you for adding his name and email contact

I love it when DU'ers do that, it makes it so easy to contact someone right away.

:thumbsup:

My letter to him, FWIW:

Thank you for covering this vital issue. Contrary to the prevailing mood of the mainstream media, there is intense interest by voters in what actually happened in Ohio and the eventual outcome of the election, which looks to be increasingly suspect. You have perhaps noticed the spike of attention and positive feedback to Keith Olbermann's coverage, both on MSNBC and in his blog.

Please turn your attention, also, to the disturbing reports of voter suppression in minority areas. The Republican party is being increasingly viewed as a party of callous racism, with anecdotal evidence of firsthand accounts adding to that perception.

[eleny]

23. Look for his response in your mail

I received a short reply thanking me for my note and saying that the paper would be covering all developments. It's encouraging.

[damntexdem]

13. what about the vote-recording errors?

How many thousand Dubya votes have already been shown to be fake?

[quiet.american]

16. Alright! Signs of Life!

n/t

[JD Lau]

22. Kick!