Special Report

Saudis, Enron money helped pay for US rigged election

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

November 25, 2004—According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew the results in favor of Bush.

The leak about the money and the rigged election apparently came from technicians who were promised to be paid a certain amount for their work but the Bush campaign interlocutors reneged and some of the technicians are revealing the nature of the vote rigging program.

There have been media reports from around the country concerning the locking down of precincts while votes were being tallied. In one unprecedented action in Warren County, Ohio, election officials locked down the facility where votes were being counted. The officials said this was in response to a Level 10 high-threat terrorist warning being issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for Warren County. George Bush won 72 percent of the vote in Warren County, much larger than his percentage of victory statewide.

The money to rig the election in favor of Bush reportedly came from an entity called Five Star Trust, largely based in Houston but a worldwide entity that is directly tied to the Saudi Royal Family. Five Star Trust was termed "a well-protected vehicle" that has been used to support both Bush and Osama bin Laden in the US and around the world.

Can we drive a wedge into Bush's coalition?
by brainwave
Thu Nov 25th, 2004 at 08:17:10 PST

Many people here believe that the tensions among the various factions inside the Republican Party (and the Bush-voting world) are much more disruptive than the divisions between moderates and progressives on our side. I'm honestly not sure whether this is true. But I want to explore the possibility here and a possible policy platform that might exploit these tensions in an effective manner. I mean this as a forum for discussion - I'm interested in your views. Below the fold, I'll try to get the discussion started with some talking points.

The sparks between moderates/centrists and liberals/progressives have been flying high for years. Yet, it strikes me that the issues we've been fighting over are more of a strategic/tactical than of an ideological nature. Don't get me wrong - there are serious ideological differences between moderates and progressives. But what they've been warring over is not so much who is right on these ideological questions but how to win elections. For a concrete example, I believe that deregulation in the 1990s went too far and that Dean was right on the money when he said capitalism without regulation is like hockey without rules. But this is not something I'm prepared to go to battle over right now, and if I'm gauging the mood in these parts correctly, I'm not alone. So the first question I want to submit to you is this: We have our ideological differences as they have theirs. On either side, there is a potential for a faction going third party or crossing over to the other side (in a variety of ways, ranging from voters moving to the other camp via senators/representatives voting with the other side on specific issues via them caucusing with the other side in Congress to them actually switching parties). On which side is this more likely to happen, theirs or ours?

Now, here's an overview of the major factions within the Republican Party (distilled from this WikipediA entry - the author's categories aren't always non-overlapping i.m.o.):

Some major issues that divide these factions:

Now, if we were to assemble a single policy package designed to best exploit these fault lines, it would most likely drive a wedge between religious right and neocons (and thus the Bush administration) on the one side and moderates and libertarians on the other, with fiscal conservatives and paleoconservatives caught in the middle. Here's what a platform crafted to be the wedge might look like:

These are all policies Democrats and their constituencies can live with. But can they be effective? Will the factions of the Republican Party stick it out together, no matter how deep their ideological differences, because no faction finds itself opposing a particular other faction on all the issues? Or will they stick it out together no matter what, as long as staying together means hanging on to power?

Your views? Take the poll (if you please)!

Strap-On Veterans for Truth 

An organization dedicating to exposing the truth about the former drag queen now known as Ann Coulter

Ms. Coulter today, with vestigal Adam's apple clearly visible.

We are a coalition of former friends and co-workers of Ann Coulter who are upset by her vicious anti-gay, anti-muslim, anti-feminist rhetoric and feel the truth should be told. Our organization, Strap-On Veterans For Truth, is dedicated to exposing the true past of America’s number one hatemonger.

Ann Coulter is actually a former drag queen from Key West named Pudenda Shenanigans. Ms. Shenanigans was famous for her renditions of “Dude Looks Like a Lady” “I will Survive” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” as well as an extensive Barbara Streisand repertoire. We who used to work with her are concerned for her as well as upset by the vile hatred she has spewed towards her former friends in the gay community. We feel that by bringing the truth to light perhaps Ann will come to grips with her past and change her wicked ways.

As Pudenda Shenanigans, she was well known on the drag circuit in Key West. Whether she actually had a full sex change or not is a matter of debate, although her adam’s apple is still visible in photos, under the appropriate light. We who laughed, cried, worked and danced with her feel her story should be told. We are not out to punish her, but feel it’s time she owned up to what she really is.

Background

The person known today as Ann Coulter was born Jeremy Levinsohn in the village in New York in 1960. His parents were typical latte-drinking liberals, religiously conservative, but socially and politically radical. His father taught Russian Literature at CUNY and his mother was a social worker. His childhood friend Rodger Mihalot described him, “The Levinsohns were nice people, but his father was distant, so Jeremy seemed to seek a strong male figure in his life. Although they were Jewish, he often hung out at our church, and really seemed to spend a lot of time with Fr. Donatella Nowunn. I also think he was really looking to rebel against his overly liberal parents. Otherwise he was a typical kid, he liked to play cowboy, sailor and gladiator a lot. His favorite movie was always The Sheik, he really seemed to have a fascination with Arabs, I don’t know why.”

Ms. Coulter, a.k.a. Pudenda Shenanigans, in an undated photo taken in Key West.

In the 70’s Jeremy went to Brandeis, where he majored in Sociology, with a minor in comparative religions. His lifelong fascination with Muslims really seemed to take root at Brandeis. But college roommate Ima Gaiboyye described an unhappy man, “He was never really interested in women, but did go see the theater company’s production of “The Wizard of Oz” 10 times, I thought he liked the girl who played the lead, he really talked about her outfit a lot. After college Jeremy just dropped off the face of the earth, we never heard from him again.”

Jeremy drifted for awhile before finding himself in Key West. Co-worker Licky Dickenstein described these early years, “Jeremy was a natural, I never saw anyone take to drag so quickly. Once he found his persona, he WAS Pudenda Shenanigans. For most of us drag was a part time thing, but Pudenda was 24-7, always in character, always in costume. She really shook things up, she was a goddess on stage.”

Ms. Shenanigans and companion in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, 1987.

Former boss Phil Yoras recalled those heady days, “Pudenda was really popular with all the celebrities who came in. She really worked the Republicans. Dennis Hastert, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Dick Cheney, they all used to sit right up front for her shows. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be her favorite, but once she dressed in lederhosen and tried to do “My Favorite Things” while sitting on his lap. That was the last time Arnold came in. Of course he left holding a plate in front of his pants, I don’t know why.”

By 1985 Ms Shenanigans was dating a Lebanese businessman, Ustahav Toubohls and the two were believed to be deliriously happy. Friends report Pudenda always had a fetish for muslims and was considering a marriage proposal. But then she opened up the New York Times one day and saw a picture of Mr. Toubohls with a famous actress in New York. Former friend Gaivit Tuhym described the result, “Pudenda was devastated, she couldn’t stand seeing her Toubohls with another woman. She cried and cried, ‘I miss my Toubohls, I want my Toubohls back!’ I don’t think she ever forgave him, the New York Times, or muslims in general.”

After that Ms. Shenanigans disappeared for years, only resurfacing in the 90’s as Ann Coulter. Her hatred for muslims, gays and feminists is odd for her former coworkers. Long Dick Gone, a former co-worker stated, “At first I thought there was something funny about this Ann Coulter. I mean here’s a woman who claims to hate feminists, but is in her 40’s, single, no kids, is very opinionated and outspoken and concentrates on her career. Ann Coulter is the biggest example of a feminist I ever saw. Then I noticed that in just the right light you could see that adam’s apple and that’s when I recognized our little Pudenda Shenanigans, the hottest drag queen this side of Fire Island.”

Strap-On Veterans For Truth

Once they realized who Ann Coulter was, Strap-On Veterans For Truth was formed.

Ann’s former friends and co-workers realized that her intense hatred of gays, feminists and muslims was really self-loathing and continuing hurt from the loss of her beloved Toubohls. Although we know she’s been through a lot, we feel hurt by her turning against everything she used to hold dear. We love you Ann, or Pudenda, or Jeremy. We respect whatever lifestyle of gender you choose. We just want you to be true to yourself and please stop the hatred. Come back to us and share the love of your friends and community again.

Strap-On Veterans for Truth is a proud partner of The Hoolinet.

http://www.straponvets.com/

Falwell's Thanksgiving message: "I thank God" for Hannity, Limbaugh, FOX, NewsMax, WorldNetDaily, and The Drudge Report

During his November 21 pre-Thanksgiving sermon, Reverend Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority founder and national chairman of the Faith and Values Coalition, encouraged his audience to "praise the Lord" at Thanksgiving for "alternative news media" sources such as FOX News Channel, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh, which he said are "telling the truth."

From Falwell's November 21 televised sermon, broadcast from his Thomas Road Baptist Church:

Let me talk to you about five good things of late ... for which this week I hope you and your family around your Thanksgiving table will praise the Lord. ... No. 5: America has alternative news media and is no longer held hostage by the major print and broadcast media. I remember a day when ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and the major print media controlled all the news flow to the American people and we found ourselves getting warped and distorted news. I thank God now in the 21st century for talk radio, that three hours a day people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and hundreds of others are telling the truth of what really is going on. I thank God for FOX News Channel [applause]. I thank God for the Internet bloggers and the news producers like NewsMax.com, WorldNetDaily.com, even The Drudge Report.

Media Matters for America has documented numerous instances of false statements made by the so-called "truth" tellers that Falwell is thankful for:

Sean Hannity

Rush Limbaugh

FOX News Channel

NewsMax.com

WorldNetDaily.com

The Drudge Report

Falwell is pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a 22,000-member church in Lynchburg, Virginia, that is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Falwell's weekly services, titled "The Old Time Gospel Hour" are broadcast from the church and reach global audiences by television, radio, and Internet. Falwell is founder and chancellor of Liberty University. He operates the Liberty Channel cable and satellite network, publishes the National Liberty Journal, and writes a weekly column published by conservative news outlets such as WorldNetDaily.com and NewsMax.com. Falwell endorsed President George W. Bush's reelection.

Dem Branding: Lessons from Lincoln
by Armando
Thu Nov 25th, 2004 at 09:58:27 PST

[Promoted from the diaries--DHinMI]

On Thanksgiving Day, created a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, I want to offer this diary on the lessons offered by our greatest President on the question of branding.  Of course today, Lincoln is an icon, but his campaign for the Presidency in the 1859-1860 period provides important lessons that we can draw from.

Lincoln is reported to have said "[Matthew] Brady and the Cooper Union speech made me President."  What would Lincoln mean by that?  I'll explore this on the flip.

Matthew Brady was of course the most famous photographer of his age - his Civil War photographs are familiar to us all.  But Brady also is famous for his portraits of Lincoln. When Lincoln says Brady helped him win in 1860, it is because Brady took a very flattering portrait of Lincoln just hours before Lincoln delivered his famous Cooper Union speech.  This image, portraying Lincoln as solid, vigorous and Presidential, is the one most Americans, particularly Northerners and Westerners, saw of Lincoln.  It's silly, but even in that era of 4 hour debates, image was a critical component of politics.

And this imagery of a solid Presidential figure was critical, because Lincoln's Cooper Union speech was incendiary and divisive.  Douglas was the uniter, the compromiser, the DLCer of his time.  Consider this excerpt from the Cooper Union speech:

And now, if they would listen - as I suppose they will not - I would address a few words to the Southern people.

I would say to them: - You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite - license, so to speak - among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section - gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started - to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe that the principle which "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address.  . . . Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right application of it.

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. . . . Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

. . . When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor.

. . . Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. . . .  When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it? . . .

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!" . . .

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though the southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. . . . Will it satisfy them, if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone - have never disturbed them - so that, after all, it is what we say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.

. . . Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Lincoln

As you can see, Lincoln shoots right across the bow of the South.  What was he trying to do - obviously, flip the extremist label - place it on the South, take it off the Republicans.

Win the Center.  Douglas advocated something different.  But this strategy of demonizing the South required the imagery provided by Brady - the counterpoint.

This is already long and I think Lincoln makes my point here.  Something to consider when we are urged to reach out to "values" voters, compromise on Iraq, etc.

My answer - Lincoln is my guide.

Fighting Democrats by JamesNYC Link: Basically, if you can't be a fighting Democrat in 2004, then you really shouldn't be a Democrat at all.  Because without fight, at this point, we all know that we are lost. That's the bottom line.  There comes a time when you have to draw the line in the sand and stand up and fight for what you believe in.  We need a mighty purge of the Democratic party.  We have already lost control of the House, Senate and the White House what more do we have to lose.

I think we need to take a new approach in the the upcoming 2 years before the next primaries.  We need to let every single politician in our party know that we are determined to fight and that they are either with us, or against us.   Part of the problem with the Dems now is that they try to stay centric with their ideas knowing that they'll keep the liberal/leftist vote just because they're not Republicans.  I say to hell with that philosophy.  I say we make it clear, starting now, that unless the people that represent our parties are willing to stand up and shout and fight with us that we will let them sink into obscurity.   No more voting for the lesser of two evils.  No more voting for someone just because they claim to be a Democrat.  We need to let them know that in this unprecedented grassroots movement we started that we will purge and keep purging anyone who sells out on our ideals.   It's become clear that there aren't many in the party who are willing to stand up for what is right even if it's unpopular.  We need to start rewarding those who do and punishing those who don't. You have a Harvard/Yale education?  So what, screw you.  You have a daddy that was a Senator, who gives a shit.  Unless you are willing to be on the front lines with us, pointing out injustices and fighting for our rights, all of our rights then you are not a part of our party. If you are with us we will use the network we have built up and are still building to help you raise money to make a stand.  We will help you get your word out.  We will support you when the wingnuts try and attack your character and patriotism as they undoubtedly will.   But if you try and win the centrist vote, be warned you can no longer rely on the most powerful network of grassroots activists in the history of the country.  Not your name, not your stump speeches, nothing but your actions will get you elected anymore.  That time has passed.  If we have to give up every single seat in the House and Congress until we find someone willing to not sell us out then so be it. 2004 should be the year that we finally put to rest that we actually need the centrist vote to win our elections.  If we start standing up for our left/liberal agenda again and start fighting for what we actually say we are fighting for we can ignite a huge portion of our party that has been so disenfranchised for so long that they have given up.  It's those votes we need to be going after, not snipping away here and there at fence sitters. It's time that the true Democrats, the fighting mad Democrats take back control of the party we built.  Take back control of our future, and our children's future.

Paper:Kerry prepares for recount fight in Ohio and more...
by pronin2
Wed Nov 24th, 2004 at 21:42:24 PST

hi
this just put out by the north county news, a moderately sized paper in Ohio. this is one you really want to read. you think there are two worlds: the natl media talks about Iraq etc and how corrupt the Ukraine is (its exit polls showed the liberal winning, but he ended up narrowly losing. the nation is on the brink of war), and whats going on in Ohio. read this article, including the title. two worlds. this article reveals things that if true would be enormous for the dem party. its detailed, but this reporter is in close contact with kerry's camp. if you believe this article we dems may be fighting tooth and nail in ohio very shortly. have a good thanksgiving. I hope I ve given you some fat to chew on other than turkey... Note what  pollster John Zogby states and note the chronicling of growing evidence that something very wrong occured on election. I dont know-do I believe this article or not? the paper seems ligit and was noted by olbermann on his show.....

Nov 24 2004
Kerry clutches to hopes of recount victory
White House calls on nation to 'come together'

 http://www.northcountynews.com/view.asp?s=11-24-04/news...
Some supporters of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and running mate John Edwards cling to the hope that an Ohio recount can swing the election

by Adam Stone

A White House spokeswoman told North County News last Friday that citizens should embrace the Election Day results and dismiss recount efforts in Ohio that could hand Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts the presidency.

"The election has ended, and now is the time for the country to come together to address the challenges our nation faces," the spokeswoman, Suzy DeFrancis, remarked.

Bush won Ohio by a vote of 2,796,147 to John Kerry's 2,659,664, according to the official tally.

In a series of e-mail interviews with North County News two weeks ago, Kerry spokesman David Wade spoke about recount efforts led by a team of 17,000 lawyers that could trigger the removal of President George W. Bush from office.

Since then, under mounting pressure from alternative media outlets as well as progressive voices outside the Democratic Party, Kerry issued a statement to his supporters that left open the possibility that he could obtain--through a recount--the requisite electoral votes to seize the White House.

"Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted--and they will be counted--we will continue to challenge this administration," Kerry said through a web-exclusive statement and video Friday, which, curiously, was not distributed to the press.

The usage of the word 'regardless' in the carefully parsed statement was the first indication Kerry has offered that, in his mind, the official election results might be inaccurate enough to tilt the election in his favor.

Wade was e-mailed the remarks from the White House spokeswoman.

"Any president of the United States should make it a priority to count every vote in our country because every citizen's full faith in the democratic process is critical," Wade responded yesterday (Tuesday). "That's why John Kerry and John Edwards built a voter protection team of lawyers around the country, lawyers who are today monitoring recounts and the counting of provisional ballots including Ohio and New Mexico. Every vote will be counted, and we Democrats aren't afraid to fight to protect voters' rights."

A Kerry victory in Ohio would give the senator enough electoral votes to seize the White House.

In another signal the Kerry/Edwards team is increasing its involvement in the recount effort, a note was posted on the campaign website yesterday that called on supporters to contribute to the Kerry-Edwards 2004 General Election Legal and Accounting Compliance Fund.

"The Federal Election Commission has just granted our request to raise funds now to cover recount expenses," the website states. "Your contribution to Kerry-Edwards 2004 GELAC will provide the resources to make sure we are prepared to win the post election day battles."

Other than alleged voting irregularities, some have called into question the reversal of the exit polls (surveys of individuals who have just cast ballots), which early on predicted a Kerry victory.

Based on the full set of the 4 p.m. Election Day exit poll data Dr. Stephen F. Freeman from the University of Pennsylvania calculated that "the odds of just three of the major swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania all swinging as far as they did against their respective exit polls were 250 million to one."

The Ohio Election Protection Coalition's public hearings have documented insufficient voting machines in black Democratic precincts resulting in five-to-seven hour waits, voter intimidation, machine malfunctions and other irregularities.

Another significant development this week was the Democratic Party breaking its silence on the matter.

Ohio Chairman Dennis White distributed a press release on Monday afternoon that ran the headline: "Kerry/Edwards Campaign Joins Ohio Recount."

It stated "assuring Ohioans receive an accurate count of all votes cast for president has prompted the Democratic Party to join the initiative to recount the results of the November 2 presidential election."

The White House was asked to respond specifically to Wade's statements in last week's North County News article and also address the Ohio recount and reports of voting irregularities.

DeFrancis declined to comment on the particulars.

The article sparked dozens of impassioned e-mail responses from readers outside of North County News' northern Westchester coverage area, with the piece being picked up by assorted alternative media news outlets.

With the recount controversy spreading through the Web universe at a feverish pace, the article ranked as the top hit on the Yahoo search engine for basic research entries about what is being dubbed as "Votergate."

The article buoyed the spirits of a New York-based activist group that was formed to pressure the mainstream media into covering the stories chronicling voting irregularities and the Ohio recount effort commissioned by the Libertarian and Green parties.

"Democracy is at stake and this needs major media attention," remarked Ellen Frank, an East Hampton, New York resident.

"There is an unofficial lockdown by the mainstream press," said Frank, whose brother, Dr. Justin Frank, published a book in June named "Bush on the Couch: Inside the mind of the president."

"When I read the article, I said: '17,000 lawyers. Is this really true? Are they really working on this?,'" remembered Frank, who distributed the article at a MoveOn.org party.

"We're trying to get enough major media attention to challenge the election," said Frank, who filed a complaint with the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2000 election, citing herself as a disenfranchised voter.

Two minor-party presidential candidates raised enough money to file for an official recount of the vote in Ohio.

The Green Party has been working with the Libertarian Party--both parties were on the ballot in Ohio--in securing a recount. Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik say they've demanded that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired this year's Bush campaign in Ohio, recuse himself from the recount process.

Cobb Media Director Blair Bobier said, "The Ohio presidential election was marred by numerous press and independent reports of mismarked and discarded ballots, problems with electronic voting machines and the targeted disenfranchisement of African-American voters."

"Due to widespread reports of irregularities in Ohio's voting process, we are compelled to demand a recount of the Ohio presidential vote," Badnarik and Cobb said in a joint statement. "Voting is at the heart of the American political process and its integrity must be preserved. When Americans stand in line for hours to exercise their right to vote, they need to know that their votes will be counted fairly and accurately..."

The Ohio vote will be certified on December 3 at the latest, Bobier said. The Electoral College votes on December 13, so it is unclear whether or not a recount would be completed by then.

The minor-party presidential candidates filed a federal lawsuit Monday to force a recount of Ohio ballots, and a spokesman for the state Democratic Party said it intended to join the suit.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Toledo, Bobier said.

Dan Trevas, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said the party would join the recount request after the secretary of state certified the results, or sooner if an early recount is ordered by a court.

"Counties are very upset," said Keith Cunningham, director of the Allen County Board of Elections and incoming president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, who called the lawsuit "frivolous."

"Commissioners are beginning to understand--and if they don't, will understand soon--what kind of financial impact this is going to have on them, in a year when elections already cost a great deal more than expected," Cunningham told the Associated Press.

Badnarik and Cobb have raised $235,000 as of Monday morning, an amount which covers the $113,600 bond they had to provide as demanded by Ohio election law, plus some of their own organizational expenses.

Ohio law requires payment of $10 per precinct, or $113,600 statewide, but election officials say the true expense would be far greater. "It's going to crush county governments," Cunningham said.

Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, has estimated the actual cost at $1.5 million.

Dr. Frank, whose book explores Bush's "psychological limitations," believes the Ohio recount will hand Kerry the presidency.

"I think that a recount in Ohio, if done properly, will show a narrow Kerry victory and he should be inaugurated hopefully by January 20, 2005," the Washington D.C.-based, clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center said.

"The disruption and cries of foul will be huge," the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst said. "But I think Bush lost. Kerry people are finally joining in, though I think they have been active all along, just quietly."

Pursuant to a request by independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, votes in some New Hampshire towns are being recounted. An analysis showed wide differences in voting trends between the 2000 and 2004 elections: about three quarters of precincts with severe changes used Diebold optical scanning machines.

Last week, Diebold agreed to pay $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit with the state of California. Diebold officials misled state leaders about the security and certification of its products to get payments from the state, according to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Diebold is headed by Republican Wally O'Dell. Last year, O'Dell wrote to Ohio Republican donors, saying he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."

Nader doesn't expect to change the outcome: In New Hampshire, Kerry defeated Bush, 50 percent to 49 percent, while Nader got less than one percent from the state's 301 precincts.

Don DeBar, an Ossining resident and Nader campaign worker in San Antonio, Texas this year, is trying to stitch together the fragmented left and have progressive activists unite on the recount issue.

Liberals, he said, need to "get past political antagonisms," for the time being.

"One thing that I've done is bring this to the airwaves in NYC," the area activist said. "As a reporter on the drive-time morning program Wake Up Call on WBAI-FM, I provided some detailed coverage of the issue, from the many reports of intimidation, error and fraud to the failure of the Kerry campaign to act to protect the voting rights of his own voters..."

The University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e-voting -reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000 to 260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The official tally in Florida shows Bush with 380,978 more votes than Kerry. The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively.

CNN reported a 377,000-vote margin between Bush and Kerry. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods, what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm."

The probability of this arising by chance, they say, is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally called on Florida voting officials to investigate.

Kathryn Levy was a volunteer coordinator in the Kerry headquarters in Broward County, Florida and said yesterday she received "innumerable complaints."

She was the supervisor of a hotline in Broward that handled the complaints.

Levy believes "there was a systematic effort to disenfranchise thousands of citizens in that heavily Democratic county."

"Many newly registered voters were told that they needed to present multiple IDs at polling places, when in fact only one is required," Levy wrote for an intended op-ed piece that was truncated into a letter to the editor published last Tuesday in Long Island's Newsday. "Others were informed that they had already voted and were turned away although they had not yet cast their vote. Many of those requesting provisional ballots were denied even that recourse."

"Perhaps the most chilling complaints concerned the electronic voting machines," Levy continued. "We received several reports of voters who repeatedly pressed the name Kerry on their voting screen only to have Bush appear. In other cases, voters pressed Kerry and were later asked to confirm their Bush vote."

John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby International, is concerned about the difference between some of the exit polls and the official vote counts.

"We're talking about the Free World here," he told the Inter Press Service News Agency.

"Something is definitely wrong," Zogby also told the news agency.

Bush now leads Kerry by about 136,000 votes in Ohio. A battle is looming over nearly 155,000 provisional ballots. The Ohio Democratic Party has joined a lawsuit by elector Audrey J. Schering, which asks United States District Judge Michael H. Watson to order Blackwell to impose uniform standards for counting provisional ballots in all 88 counties.

The lawsuit cites the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Bush v. Gore, which "held that the failure to provide specific standards for counting of ballots that are sufficient to assure a uniform count statewide violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution."

Of 11 counties that had completed checking provisional ballots, 81 percent have been ruled valid.

On Saturday, November 13, the Ohio Election Protection Coalition's public hearings in Columbus solicited extensive sworn first-person testimony from 32 Ohio voters, precinct judges, poll workers, legal observers and party challengers. An additional 66 people provided written affidavits of election irregularities.

The testimony, according to Harvey Wasserman, a senior editor at the Columbus Free Press, revealed an effort on the part of Blackwell to deny primarily African-American and young voters the right to cast their ballots within a reasonable time.

On November 17, Blackwell wrote an op-ed piece for Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, stating "every eligible voter who wanted to vote had the opportunity to vote. There was no widespread fraud, and there was no disenfranchisement. A half-million more Ohioans voted than ever before with fewer errors than four years ago, a sure sign of success by any measure."

Additional testimony also called into question the validity of the actual vote counts. There are doubts that the final official tally in Ohio, due December 1 to Blackwell's office, will have any validity.

At the Columbus hearings, witnesses testified under oath that the election was riddled with discrimination and disarray.

"In precincts 1 A and 5 G, voting (at) Hillman Elementary School, which is a predominantly African-American community, there were woefully insufficient number of voting machines in three precincts," Werner Lange, a pastor from Youngstown, Ohio, said in his testimony.

"I was told that the standard was to have one voting machine per 100 registered voters," he continued. "Precinct A had 750 registered voters. Precinct G had 690. There should have been 14 voting machines at this site. There were only 6, three per precinct, less than 50 percent of the standard. This caused an enormous bottleneck among voters who had to wait a very, very long time to vote, many of them giving up in frustration and leaving...I estimate, by the way, that an estimated loss of over 8,000 votes from the African American community in the City of Youngstown alone, with its 84 precincts, were lost due to insufficient voting machines, and that would translate to some 7,000 votes lost for John Kerry for president in Youngstown alone. . . ."

According to a November 5 article by the Associated Press, election officials in Ohio admitted that an error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County reported Bush with 4,258 votes and John Kerry with 260, even though only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16 and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100-plus optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The election workers, having been notified in advance of her request, handed her a set of printouts dated November 15 and lacking signatures.

Harris pointed out that the printouts given to her were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she had requested.

Reportedly, they told her that the originals were held in another location, the election office's warehouse, and that, since it was the end of the day, they should meet her the following morning to show them to her. The next day she started searching the garbage bags outside, finding public record tapes in the trash. Disparities between the November 15 tape and November 2 tape emerged--all reportedly favoring President Bush.

Harris could not be reached for comment by press time.

The mainstream media, which has suffered increasingly in recent years by charges of liberal bias and Democratic partisanship, has largely taken a pass on the recount story. In fact, The New York Times, the symbol and primary target of conservative media critics, published a front-page article two weeks ago that portrayed the recount effort as a campaign being waged by partisan, conspiratorial and error-happy bloggers with a liberal agenda.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has tracked the story aggressively on both his "BLOGGERMANN" msnbc.com web log and "Countdown," a television news analysis program he hosts for the cable network, which is home to commentators of all political stripes, from Pat Buchanan to Ron Reagan.

In fact, Olbermann referenced the North County News article in a Sunday blog entry. He borrowed a quote from the article that triggered perhaps the most attention from activists: "We have 17,000 lawyers working on this, and the grassroots accountability couldn't be any higher -no (irregularity) will go unchecked. Period," Wade had told North County News.

Kerry conceded the 2004 presidential contest on November 3, the day after the election, a decision that carries no concrete legal standing. That day, he and his running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, pledged to ensure every vote is counted, although they said at the time there was no chance a voting tally update would result in swinging the result in their favor.

Former Vice President Al Gore conceded in his 2000 battle with Bush for the White House before demanding a recount, which was ultimately halted by the U.S. Supreme Court, ending the debacle in Florida.

Howard Fineman, chief political correspondent for Newsweek, appeared on Countdown on Monday night.

"They keep saying these little things designed to make clear, at least to their supporters and the whole blogosphere out there, that they take the possibility (of a Kerry victory) and the need for a recount seriously," Fineman said of Kerry and his surrogates during an interview with Olbermann.

Fineman said he talked to Blackwell earlier in the evening.

"There in fact will be a recount," Fineman remarked. "We will be talking about chads once again."

Olbermann posted an entry on his blog on Monday evening, after that night's Countdown telecast.

"As Kerry himself calculated early on November 3, the provisional ballots alone obviously could not provide anything close to enough bona fide Democratic votes to overcome President Bush's 135,000 vote plurality in the Ohio election night tally," he wrote. "But as Howard also pointed out - and my colleague David Shuster so thoroughly extrapolated in a previous post on Hardblogger - the provisionals plus the 'undercount' could make things very close indeed. The punch-card ballots 'where it looks like nobody marked anything' when read by an optical scanning machine, might produce thousands of legitimate votes if hand-counted and judged by Ohio's strict laws defining how many corners of the proverbial chads have to be detached to make a vote valid."

Fineman's analysis, Olbermann writes, "(puts) it in terms that the mainstream can't ignore."

That's heartening to the likes of Ellen Frank.

"There is something very wrong here with the press," said Frank, who suspects, like other recount activists, that top level producers and editors in the mainstream press have barred their talent from covering the story extensively, as to avoid the appearance of partisanship.

"We believe democracy itself is at risk," said Frank, whose ad hoc group of philanthropists, writers and other activists are, among other things, mounting letter-writing campaigns about the recount to newspapers across the nation.

"We believe this was a fraudulent election," she said. "...We are fearful that 'major' media is intimidated. We are fearful we are abandoned by our own Democratic Party. We are working to hold the administration and our party accountable."

"We are going to pay for this in blood" - Guardsmen
by westegg
Thu Nov 25th, 2004 at 08:31:13 PST

Like everybody else, there are other things I should be doing today other than making a diary entry here, but I  noticed that nobody (from what I've seen) has linked to this
LATimes article, and I thought it deserves attention.

The piece talks about one California National Guard unit currently training in New Mexico.  Its soldiers have complained of poor training and equipment shortages and warned that these will translate into casualties once the unit is in Iraq.  

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

Here's what one brave soldier was willing to say on the record, at the risk of retribution:

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

After touching on the perception that some guard units have that the regular army doesn't regard them or treat them like regular army, it lists several incidents that, taken together, make it sound like there is general sense if mutiny bubbling just below the surface as the incompetent war planning of the administration forces citizen soldiers to burden more of the cost of this war.

Here's a big chunk of the rest:

Military analysts, however, questioned whether the soldiers' concerns could be attributed entirely to the military's attempt to mirror conditions in Iraq. For example, the soldiers say that an ammunition shortage has meant that they have often conducted operations firing blanks.

"The Bush administration had over a year of planning before going to war in Iraq," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has acted as a defense lawyer in military courts. "An ammunition shortage is not an exercise in tough love."

Turley said that in every military since Alexander the Great's, there have been "gripes from grunts" but that "the complaints raised by these National Guardsmen raise some significant and troubling concerns."

The Guard troops in New Mexico said they wanted more sophisticated training and better equipment. They said they had been told, for example, that the vehicles they would drive in Iraq would not be armored, a common complaint among their counterparts already serving overseas.

They also said the bulk of their training had been basic, such as first aid and rifle work, and not "theater-specific" to Iraq. They are supposed to be able to use night-vision goggles, for instance, because many patrols in Iraq take place in darkness. But one group of 200 soldiers trained for just an hour with 30 pairs of goggles, which they had to pass around quickly, soldiers said.

The soldiers said they had received little or no training for operations that they expected to undertake in Iraq, from convoy protection to guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs. One said he has put together a diary of what he called "wasted days" of training. It lists 95 days, he said, during which the soldiers learned nothing that would prepare them for Iraq.

Hubbard had said he would make two field commanders available on Tuesday to answer specific questions from the Los Angeles Times about the training, but that did not happen.

The fact that the National Guardsmen have undergone largely basic training suggests that Army commanders do not trust their skills as soldiers, said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. That tension underscores a divide that has long existed between "citizen soldiers" and their active-duty counterparts, he said.

"These soldiers should be getting theater-specific training," Segal said. "This should not be an area where they are getting on-the-job training. The military is just making a bad situation worse."

The soldiers at Doña Ana emphasized their support for the war in Iraq. "In fact, a lot of us would rather go now rather than stay here," said one, a specialist and six-year National Guard veteran who works as a security guard in his civilian life in Southern California.

The soldiers also said they were risking courts-martial or other punishment by speaking publicly about their situation. But Staff Sgt. Lorenzo Dominguez, 45, one of the soldiers who allowed his identity to be revealed, said he feared that if nothing changed, men in his platoon would be killed in Iraq.

Dominguez is a father of two -- including a 13-month-old son named Reagan, after the former president -- and an employee of a mortgage bank in Alta Loma, Calif. A senior squad leader of his platoon, Dominguez said he had been in the National Guard for 20 years.

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

Lawsuit to Contest Election in Volusia County, Florida
by pointsoflight
Wed Nov 24th, 2004 at 07:14:08 PST

Bev Harris' group is involved in a citizen's lawsuit against the Volusia County, FL, canvassing board. Here's a link and some of the key points listed. The full text is given in the extended entry.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/volusia-lawsuit.html

"Only a partial list of the transmission logs from the Accu-Vote optical scan server has been provided."

"Many public records, including one signed results tape from a voting machine were found in the trash. Many of the requested records not furnished by the Elections office have been found in the trash. Results from the tapes found in the trash do not match the results of the copies of tapes furnished."

"According to a statement by the Supervisor of Elections on November 17, 2004, the GEMS computer is not networked, and is "stand alone." The furnished computer logs show evidence of at least two attempts to remotely access the GEMS central tabulator, which is claimed to be secure. A computer screen shot printout on November 17, 2004 (found in the trash) shows that the GEMS computer at that time had two networked hard drives."

COMPLAINT TO CONTEST ELECTION

Plaintiff, Susan Rose Pynchon, sues the Volusia County Canvassing Board and Ann McFall, defendants, and alleges:

1. This is an action brought under section 102,168, Florida Statutes (2004), to contest the certification that Ann McFall received more votes in the November 2 General Election in Volusia County, Florida, than did Patricia Northey.

2. Plaintiff is an elector resident and qualified to vote in Volusia County, Florida, residing at (redacted address).

3. Defendant Volusia County Canvassing Board consists of Joie Alexander, Member of the Volusia County Council, the Honorable Steven deLarouche, County Judge, and Deanie Lowe, Supervisor of Elections.

4. Defendant Ann McFall, (redacted address), is the candidate certified by the defendant Canvassing Board to have won the November 2, 2004 election for Supervisor of Elections.

5. Plaintiff has been informed that the Volusia County Canvassing Board certified the election results on November 12, 2004. Plaintiff is aware that the statutory deadline for filing this complaint is ten days following the date of that certification. Plaintiff alleges, however, that this complaint should be deemed timely filed for two reasons:

a. The Supervisor of Elections has unreasonably delayed providing information on which this complaint must be based, and still has not provided all of that information. The Canvassing Board is therefore estopped from asserting an untimely filing of this complaint.

b. The certification was based on inadequate and incomplete information regarding the election results, as will more particularly appear, and is, therefore, an invalid certification of those results.

6. A copy of the public records request emailed and faxed to the Supervisor of Elections on November 2, 2004, is attached. Some or all of the information requested is still missing from 59 of the 179 voting precincts, including portions of or all of the voting machine tapes for those 59 precincts, which are a vital part of official paper record of the election results from those precincts.

7. Complete information on problems with the voting machines prior to and during the election has not been provided.

8. Complete information relating to memory card failures during the election has not yet been provided.

9. Only a partial list of the transmission logs from the Accu-Vote optical scan server has been provided. Despite repeated requests, the Elections office has refused to provide to the Volusia County Democratic party the official election results, now stating that those results will not be available until December 1, 2004.

10. The Elections office has provided incomplete data regarding Early Voting and Absentee ballots. The Supervisor of Elections, for example, reported that the total number of absentee ballots and Early voting ballots, combined equaled 89,999 votes, yet the published figures for those totals is 84,100 votes, leaving over 5,800 votes unaccounted for.

11. Section 102, 168(3)(a) Florida Statutes (2004) provides that an election may be set aside for "misconduct, fraud, or corruption on the part of any election official or any member of the canvassing board sufficient to change or place in doubt the result of the election."

12. In Beckstrom v. Volusia County Canvassing Board, et al, 707 S. 2d 720 (Fla. 1998) the Florida Supreme Court said: "... if a court finds substantial noncompliance with statutory election procedures and also makes a factual determination that reasonable doubt exists as to whether a certified election expressed the will of the voters, then the court in an election contest brought pursuant to section 102.168, Florida Statutes (1997), is to void the contested election even in the absence of fraud or intentional wrongdoing."

13. In addition to the pattern of delay in providing the requested information, the true election results are in doubt because of numerous violations of election law procedure and unanswered questions concerning the results.

14. The polls were opened early and closed late during Early Voting.

15. Many public records, including one signed results tape from a voting machine were found in the trash. Many of the requested records not furnished by the Elections office have been found in the trash. Results from the tapes found in the trash do not match the results of the copies of tapes furnished.

16. An email from Mark Earley, of Diebold Elections Systems, Inc., to the Elections office was provided which asked the recipient for an explanation of why Volusia County had more memory card failures than all of their other Florida customers combined, and then asked why the 17 memory card failures which the Elections office reported on November 3, increased to 25 before November 12, 2004.

17. The reported memory card failures were significant and troubling and included reporting zero votes after one week of voting, requesting permission to upload votes before the voting began, and messaging whether the card should be reformatted.

18. According to a statement by the Supervisor of Elections on November 17, 2004, the GEMS computer is not networked, and is "stand alone." The furnished computer logs show evidence of at least two attempts to remotely access the GEMS central tabulator, which is claimed to be secure. A computer screen shot printout on November 17, 2004 (found in the trash) shows that the GEMS computer at that time had two networked hard drives.

19. Plaintiff is reasonably concerned that access to the memory cards and voting machine tapes is presently not restricted, and that the opportunity for tampering with that critical evidence exists. Plaintiff accordingly requests that This Honorable Court immediately order the Supervisor of Elections to seal and sequester all memory cards and voting machine tapes pertaining to or used during the November 2, 2004 general election in Volusia County, during the pendency of this Cause.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff respectfully requests that this court order the immediate sealing of all memory cards and voting machine tapes pertaining to or used during the November 2, 2004 general election, and after hearing the evidence in this cause, set aside that general election of November 2, 2004.

SUSAN ROSE PYNCHON

DANIEL R. VAUGHEN, P.A.
Attorney for Plaintiff
Fla. Bar No. 083486