Blogswarm - Online Political News Magazine

I am a Reform Democrat. I am one of many. We all have our reasons for wanting Reform. Many of us have concluded that if we continue as we have, then we will continue to lose. Some of us think the Party should do better than before. I am proud to see Democrats strategizing for the future of our Party and I was honored when "I am a Reform Democrat" was published on the NDN Blog and Blog for America. I was impressed by the comments on Daily Kos, MyDD and Change for America. I hope the Kos community will take this opportunity to post their reasons for wanting reform, here are 20 of mine:

I am a Reform Democrat because I want leadership from the Democratic National Committee. I don't want a fundraiser as Chair, I want a leader with a clear voice. I want a Reform Democrat. I want our next DNC Chair to present an aggressive posture, not be afraid to step on toes, and have the appetite for political warfare. I view our Chair as our General in this battle for the future or our Country. I think our Party needs a Chair who will raise a larger army and I want our field campaign under the control of the Party, not the 527s. I want our next DNC Chair to enjoy traveling, be excited to work 80 hour weeks, and delighted at spending at least two Sundays a month on the talk shows. I want a leader 100% dedicated to winning and I want the DNC to do everything necessary to come out on top. I want a Democratic Party as focused on winning in 2016 as in 2006.

I am a Reform Democrat because I want to win. I am tired of losing and I believe Democrats must learn the lessons of our mistakes and teach best practices. I want rapid deployment of effective tactics and ideas. I want Democrats to strive to do better and fight to dominate. I am tired of Democrats trying not to lose, I am a Democrat and I want to do what it takes to win.

Stupid AP Reporter
I am really not optimistic that our media is going to get any better. When someone gives you a quote which actually has nothing to do with the issue at hand, you should either leave it out or point out that the quote is irrelevant, rather than positioning it high up in the article to give it any credibility.

Example:

Congress last weekend included more than $131 million for abstinence programs in a $388 billion spending bill, an increase of $30 million but about $100 million less than Bush requested. Meanwhile, a national evaluation of abstinence programs has been delayed, with a final report not expected until 2006.

Ten state evaluations, compiled by a group that opposes abstinence-only education, showed little change in teens' behavior since the start of abstinence programs in 1997.

The president has been a strong proponent of school-based sexual education that focuses on abstinence, but does not include instruction on safe sex.

"We don't need a study, if I remember my biology correctly, to show us that those people who are sexually abstinent have a zero chance of becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease," said Wade Horn, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) in charge of federal abstinence funding.

The issue is not of course whether actual abstinence will reduce STD and pregnancy for those who follow that path, but whether abstinence programs generally or any particular abstinence education program will lead to... actual abstinence.

If, on the other hand, abstinence education has little impact on teen sex rates, it will likely lead to increases in STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

arrrrgh
(via americablog)

He commits another sin by concluding the article this way:

Horn and Unruh acknowledged a paucity of data. "So many of our programs are in their infancy. The jury is still out," Unruh said.



Horn said, "The research is not as adequate as it needs to be."

Still, he is not willing to wait for more evaluations, calling abstinence education "something that parents and children want."

Is that true? Is abstinence-only education something parents and children (!!) have been clamoring for in great numbers? Do a majority of parents and children want abstinence-only education? I have no idea, but I doubt Horn does and I know the AP reporter who wrote the article doesn't.

Don't let people just make stuff up because they're "administration officials."

The trillion dollar swindle

I'm no expert on the Enron scandals, one of the most complex collections of financial manipulations in the nation's history. But I do know that one big part of the plan was to create companies and move money between them, counting that money as profit. It's kind of like moving a dollar from your left pocket to your right and saying you just made yourself one dollar richer.

Why bring this up now? Because the Republicans are planning on using Enron-style accounting when they privatize Social Security in the coming year.

A brief bit of background. The current taxes you pay into Social Security pay the benefits that Seniors receive. Republicans plan to privatize Social Security by allowing current payees to divert payments into private accounts (which will risk their future guaranteed benefits). That means that the money that currently pays Social Security will no longer be there to pay current recipients. So those benefits will need new funds, meaning vast new deficits — a specialty of the Republicans.

But the Republicans are taking a lesson from Enron by coming up with ways to make the deficit go away — by pretending it isn't there.

As they lay the groundwork for what will probably be a controversial fight over Social Security, Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration are examining a number of accounting strategies that would allow the expensive transition to a partially privatized Social Security system without — at least on paper — expanding the country's record annual budget deficits. The strategies include, for example, moving the costs of Social Security reform "off-budget" so they are not counted against the government's yearly shortfall.

Their willingness to deceive the American people is breathtaking. They'll steal up to a trillion dollars and just make it disappear. They make up the rules, and they have no problem with rewriting them to accomplish whatever they want.

All I Want for Xmas Is Fair and Verifiable Elections

So it’s black Friday, the day when retailers plan on making really big bucks selling people Xmas presents. Lately, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about our consumerist society and wondering to what extent the pervasive nature of consumerism may have influenced the recent election. Clearly, the fact that the news is now simply a way to sell product has harmed our society and, as Jon Stewart so eloquently explained to Tucker Carlson, the pitch to the lowest common denominator, where even political discourse is sold as a form of TV wrestling, has hurt America. Even war is sold to Americans as a product and, if the ad campaign constantly changes with new and different rationales for why we should buy this product, well, we’re all used to that from frequently-changing commercials for everything from heartburn medicine to SUVs. Do Americans really need or even want all the crap that they’ll buy over the next few weeks?

I’ve also been thinking about the role of protests in a situation such as the current one in America. I grew up on protest marches; my dad took me to some of the great Viet Nam war protests and just this past April I marched with friends and family in the March for Women’s Lives. Watching what’s been happening in Ukraine, I wonder why Americans haven’t taken to the streets, as well. And yet, I wonder if large protests are still effective in America. The March for Women’s Lives was huge -- over a million people. The protests at the Republican convention in NYC this summer were huge, too. Both got a fair amount of news coverage. Neither seemed to help -- Roe’s dead within the next year and Lame Duckie has proclaimed himself the winner of the election. Finally, I doubt Lame Duckie will allow much of any protest at his coronation -- protestors will be kept out for "security" reasons. If he didn’t need to allow protestors in when he was ostensibly running for re-election, he sure doesn’t need to allow them now.

So, if there’s a big protest march, I’ll be there, just because I like to put my body where it may do some good and be counted. But I also think we need to consider other ways to make our displeasure known. And that’s where economics come in.

I don’t know for sure if this last election was stolen, although I know what my gut tells me. This study certainly gives me pause. However, the point of this thread isn’t to restart the why-did-Kerry-concede-why-isn’t-Atrios-screaming-about-Diebold debate. Here’s what I do know for sure and think everyone can agree upon: it’s important for all Americans, including those whose candidate didn’t prevail, to be able to have faith that our elections are carried out fairly and honestly. And the current situation doesn’t allow us to have that faith. Instead, what we have is a patchwork of fallible systems that appears designed more for the purpose of allowing skullduggery than for the purpose of ensuring fair elections. And that, I believe, is worth an economic protest.

This year, I’m urging everyone I know to refuse to spend money for Xmas as a protest. Stay out of the stores. For Goddess sake, don’t run up credit card debt. Give your family and friends the gift of your time and attention rather than a new sweater that they won’t wear or some object to clutter-up an already over-cluttered life. But just not buying isn’t enough. You’ve got to contact the retailers and credit card companies and tell them: I’m not going to be buying Xmas stuff and I’m not going to be charging Xmas stuff until this country has a system in place that ensures fair and verifiable elections. Reader Kate has done the research and discovered that The National Retail Federation “is the world’s largest retail trade association . . . .” Write to Their Vice President for Legislative and Political Affairs, Katherine Lugar. Here’s her contact info:

National Retail Federation
325 7th Street, N.W.
Suite 1100
Washington, D.C. 20004
Phone: 1-800-NRF-HOW2
Fax (202) 727-2849

Write to your credit card companies and tell them the same thing. You can find the address on the back of your latest bill. And, heck if you’re really angry about this last election, write to the large department stores that you patronize, or at least cc them on your letter to the National Retail Federation. CC your Senators and Congressman or Congresswoman as well.

Do it for my friend Arlo, who reminded us that there’s strength in numbers:

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.

And pass the idea on to everyone you know. Merry Xmas.

Thanks, Kate!

"Martial-Law" Tactics Lead to Assault on Privacy Rights

Late on Saturday, November 20th, following a period of inaction on crucial issues like the 9/11 legislation, House Republicans showed their true priorities by combining nine funding bills into one massive spending bill. The legislation spent $388 billion and was thousands of pages long, yet lawmakers were given just hours to review the bill before voting on it. This violation of the democratic process prevented Members of Congress from having time to fully assess the critical legislation. The hasty decision-making process allowed House Republicans to slip in a dangerous provision - discovered only moments before this huge spending bill would have been voted upon in the Senate -- that threatens taxpayers' right to privacy. The assault on taxpayer privacy was not a simple mistake, and Democrats will not let Republicans sweep it under the rug. House Democrats are demanding that the Republican leadership remove this dangerous provision, give Members of Congress ample time to review the spending bill and stop rushing critical legislation through Congress.

Read what prominent government leaders have to say about "martial-law" legislative procedure.

Read the Minority Bill of Rights.

Read Leader Pelosi's Statement: Assault on Taxpayer Privacy Was No Mistake.

Read Leader Pelosi's Statement: Republicans Perpetrated a Saturday Night Massacre on the Privacy of American Taxpayers.

Press Routinely Undercounts U.S. Casualties in Iraq

By E&P Staff

Published: November 25, 2004 7:00 PM ET

NEW YORK As the toll of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq in November approaches record levels for one month in this war, is the press only telling part of the story?

The Pentagon's latest official count, provided on Wednesday, listed 1230 American military killed in Iraq and another 9300 U.S. troops wounded in action. How seriously? More than 5000 of them were too badly injured to return to duty. More than 850 troops were reported to have been wounded in action in Falluja so far.

But this only scratches the surface of the total toll.

Earlier this week, CBS’s "60 Minutes" revealed that it had received a letter from the Pentagon declaring: "More than 15,000 troops with so-called 'non-battle' injuries and diseases have been evacuated from Iraq."

These include serious injuries that arise from accidents (vehicular and otherwise), trauma and severe psychiatric problems. The number is in line with estimates offered earlier this year by United Press International, based on arrivals at the main treatment center in Landstuhl, Germany.

Some of these Landstuhl cases are not serious but according to "60 Minutes" only 20 percent of the evacuees return to their units in Iraq.

None of the non-ositle injuries are included in the casualty count, "leaving the true human cost of the war something of a mystery,” 60 Minutes states.

The total number of casualties is about 25,000, plus the more than 1,200 killed. Since about 300,000 men and women have served in Iraq, it makes for a casualty rate of about 9%.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/25/opinion/25friedman.html

In My Next Life

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

In my next life, I want to be Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.

Yes, I want to get almost the entire Republican side of the House of Representatives to bend its ethics rules just for me. I want to be able to twist the arms of House Republicans to repeal a rule that automatically requires party leaders to step down if they are indicted on a felony charge - something a Texas prosecutor is considering doing to DeLay because of corruption allegations.

But most of all, I want to have the gall to sully American democracy at a time when young American soldiers are fighting in Iraq so we can enjoy a law-based society here and, maybe, extend it to others. Yes, I want to be Tom DeLay. I want to wear a little American flag on my lapel in solidarity with the troops, while I besmirch every value they are dying for.

If I can't be Tom DeLay, then I want to be one of the gutless Republican House members who voted to twist the rules for DeLay out of fear that "the Hammer," as they call him, might retaliate by taking away a coveted committee position or maybe a parking place.

Yes, I want to be a Republican House member. At a time when 180 of the 211 members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq who have been wounded in combat have insisted on returning to duty, I want to look my constituents and my kids in the eye and tell them that I voted to empty the House ethics rules because I was afraid of Tom DeLay.

If I can't be a Republican House member, I want to be Latrell Sprewell, the guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I want to say with a straight face that if my owner will only give me a three-year contract extension for a meager $21 million, then he's not worth working for, because "I've got my family to feed."

Yes, I want to be Latrell Sprewell. At a time when N.B.A. games are priced beyond the reach of most American families, when half the country can't afford health care, when some reservists in Iraq are separated from their families for a year, including this Thanksgiving, I want to be like Latrell. I want to make sure everyone knows that I'm looking out for my family - and no one else's.

If I can't be Latrell Sprewell, I want to be any American college or professional athlete. For a mere dunk of the basketball or first-down run, I want to be able to dance a jig, as if I'd just broken every record by Michael Jordan or Johnny Unitas. For the smallest, most routine bit of success in my sport, I want to be able to get in your face - I want to know who's your daddy, I want to be able to high-five, low-five, thump my chest and dance on your grave. You talkin' to me?

I want to be able to fight on the court, off the court, in the stands and on the sidelines. I want to respect no boundaries and no norms. And when I make your kids cry, I want to be able to tell you to just "chill" - that my coach says "stuff happens" and that my union rep is appealing my punishment in the name of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta. Yes, in my next life, I want to be The Man.

If I can't be The Man, then I at least want to be the owner of a Hummer - with American flag decals all over the back bumper, because Hummer owners are, on average, a little more patriotic than you and me.

Yes, I want to drive the mother of all gas-guzzlers that gets so little mileage you have to drive from gas station to gas station. Yes, I want to drive my Hummer and never have to think that by consuming so much oil, I am making transfer payments to the worst Arab regimes that transfer money to Islamic charities that transfer money to madrassas that teach children intolerance, antipluralism and how to hate the infidels.

And when one day one of those madrassa graduates goes off and joins the jihad in Falluja and kills my neighbor's son, who is in the U.S. Army Rangers, I want to drive to his funeral in my Hummer. Yes, I want to curse his killers in front of his mother and wail aloud, "If there was only something I could do ..." And then I want to drive home in my Hummer, stopping at two gas stations along the way.

If I can't be any of these, then I want to be just a simple blue-state red-state American. I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don't deserve them.

No Shit
by blogswarm
Thu Nov 25th, 2004 at 19:34:42 PST

What a great slogan for the Modern Democratic Party. No BS. Seriously, the Democratic Party isn't going to be full of shit any longer.

We are going to earn your respect before we ask for your vote. You might disagree, but you'll know where we are coming from and why.

We care enought to fight for our beliefs. We are Fighting Democrats. We are Reform Democrats.

DNC Reform:  Constituent Services
When we win that never-in-a-million-years race, the Democratic National Committee needs to help ensure that our victor effectively conveys a message of legislative success to the people who risked a vote. The Democratic Party needs to  research what works and provide the necessary tools to local legislative candidates. Even in states without Franking privileges, email newsletters can go a long ways towards letting people know they got what they voted for.

DNC Reform:  Take the Advantage
Democrats kicked ass in Montana. They won the Governor's Mansion, the Senate and are two votes away in a single house race from choosing the Speaker of the House. Why hasn't the DNC sent Montana a plane-load of bad ass hacks with a suitcase of money? The Montana legislature meets for 90 days every other year, which means if Democrats want to ride the wave in 2006 they need to act yesterday. When we have opportunities, we need to take the advantage.

DNC Reform:  Fight for Democrats
Why can't Democrats understand the concept of solidarity? Together we can get things done, when Democrats help the GOP, the Republicans get things done. We need Democrats willing to cover the backs of other Democrats. Together we have power, individually we are nothing more than people who belong to the loser party.

DNC Reform:  Reform Leadership
If the DNC Members choose a status-quo candidate as Chair, the DNC will be relegated to doing little more than putting on the conventions. The Party must be able to compete with the NDN and CfA, if they can't they the Party will become irrelevant. The only people who we know can operate on this level are Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean.

DNC Reform:  Internet
A modern Democratic Party needs leaders who can format a hyperlink. Not only do we need leaders who understand current e-campaigning, but we need visionaries who can see how vast potential that lies in the future of the internet. We need to fight in real-time across the internet, the blogosphere, and on the search engines. We need an online war room that never stops and interjects our side into every conversation online. Every site with a conversation needs our comments and links.

DNC Reform:  Email
No more fundraising emails. Period. If the Kerry campaign had asked the Dean campaign, they would have learned that constant cash-appeals turn people off. The Kerry campaign burned their list. As people stopped opening the emails the campaign suffered a huge opportunity cost when they needed to organize supporters in the end. Emails should only be used to initiate interaction, once people are vested in our actions they'll help fund the effort.

DNC Reform:  End Sentences with Prepositions
We need to campaign like we have an seventh grade education and unlearn the linguistic hindrances that hold us back. The people we target with our ads don't talk like the people who make them. Our candidates need sentences with a subject, a verb, an object and then a period. Look how people write emails, forget what you learned in English class and talk to people. Tell a story. Focus on connecting to the audience instead of winning the hearts of the proofreaders. What do you think you're more likely to hear at a small town diner an hour before sunrise, "Its the economy, stupid" or "A Stronger, Safer America"? We can earn street cred with our writing without pandering.

DNC Reform:  Lead America
If we only follow polls, we will be reactive to the whims of Americans and will not be able to win in the long run. We need to lead on issues, decide issues by value not polling worth and lead the people. This Gonzalez nomination is a great example, instead of having a debate about whether we should oppose him we should have a debate about whether a torture supporter should lead the Justice Department and then hit him with everything we have. No more conversations about whether it is strategic to follow our gut, instead we need to stand up for what we believe in and fight with everything we have.

DNC Reform:  Blogosphere
The DNC should invest financially in the blogosphere. The DNC should have an ad with the message of the day on every single liberal blog (new every day, even Sundays and holidays). For a million dollars we could have two thousand points of TV in a major media market or subsidize hundreds of bloggers fighting tooth and nail online, 24/7.

DNC Reform:  Go Young
People under the age of thirty are the only age group that we won. The young vote was turned out by young people managing organizations with enough resources to succeed. We need more young people in decision-making roles at the DNC and in positions where they have the resources to maintain and expand our domination of young people.

DNC Reform:  Ask The Right Questions
The question wasn't how the war started; it was whether it should have started. The question wasn't how we were waging the war, but whether we were winning. The question wasn't how the economy was managed; it was whether it was good or bad. The question wasn't how we fought the terrorists; it was whether we were winning or losing. Kerry was too focused on the first questions to realize we needed to win the second questions.

DNC Reform:  Worldview
We need to learn to distill issues. The right will never say an issue is complicated because every possible situation fits into their worldview in a manner where they know what to do. People learn our values by seeing how issues fit into our worldview, not because we say, "God Bless America" at the end of our speeches. When we turn our backs on our values, people lose respect for us.

DNC Reform:  Bold Action
Only looking at this calendar year, I think it is easy to conclude Gavin Newsom is the only Democrat with any guts in America. Newsom reframed the issue of gay marriage as equality and personalized a narrative for the issue. His strong offense shifted the country the few points we needed so that we didn't get burned on the issue as badly as the right had planned. For the first time in a generation, a Democrat held the national stage and talked about equality and civil liberties. If Kerry had been as bold on any single issue, we would have won. It could have been Iraq, health care, jobs -- it really didn't matter.

DNC Reform:  Value work
Kick consultants off percentage, pay a good hourly wage and demand results. Have you ever heard a consultant on percentage recommend not spending more money on TV? Even in the battlegrounds with markets so saturated with political ads that people are 100% tuned out? We need to budget according to results which is impossible when consultants have a financial incentive to spend on distribution instead of creation.

DNC Reform:  Training
How many trainings on e-campaigning has the Democratic Party hosted? With a couple of cycles experience in online politics, let me be the first to say it would have been nice to have had somebody teach the tactics instead of having to figure things out as I went. I've been to multiple Party and progressive organization trainings on organizing which taught me a great deal. Other than the one training I have given myself, I have yet to hear of any trainings on how to campaign online.

DNC Reform:  Make News
Dean understood this, but Kerry didn't get it until he brought in the Clinton people and by that time everything that happened was news. We can decide what we want the headlines to be with bold action. The further up the ticket the greater the role the media plays in the outcome. Instead of complaining about the coverage, we need to understand the media's perspective and needs, then create campaign storyboards too good for them to pass by.

DNC Reform:  Non-political Geography
When we look at maps, we look at color-coded representations based off of political boundaries drawn by city-folk. Looking at everything outside of the suburbs as rural America is simplistic view repeated by people who live in urban environments. Instead of focusing on red or blue squares on maps, we need to focus on geography. We win near large bodies of water, near the Great Lakes, the oceans, and the Mississippi. We can win in the mountains easier than on the plains. We do better where it is cold and where it is sandy. When we talk about campaigning outside of the cities we need to focus on the extremes, big water, big mountains, bad weather.

DNC Reform:  Rapid Response
We got our asses kicked, yet the DNC posted three posts on the official Party blog in the following 12 days. WTF???

DNC Reform:  Alternatives
We cannot offer compromises, instead we need to offer coherent alternatives to Republican proposals. These proposals must be crafted with an eye towards framing the next election, not influencing the outcome since we will be fighting to prevent any change from occurring.

DNC Reform:  Opposition
Any changes advanced by the GOP will regress our country. We need to fight every proposal. Choosing battles is a strategy that is inherently flawed. Compromising is likewise flawed. We need to fight to win and plan to lose strategically. As an opposition party, we must evaluate our leaders by their success at opposing. If they are ineffective, we must immediately replace them.

DNC Reform:  Operate with Transparency
Who is doing what, with what results and what costs? Much of the disgust directed at the party by the grassroots is due to poor communication. The Party needs to do good things and keep the grassroots informed by involving them in the process. We need a modern party that is beholden to the grassroots. We need to work smarter by questioning and quantifying, then calculating how we can do more.

DNC Reform:  Lighting
The GOP is better at stage lighting. They learned the lesson of Nixon and spent the eighties bringing Hollywood tricks to political events. Clinton understood, but as recently as this year Howard Dean flopped after a snafu that would never had happened if the campaign had used a mixer before the mult-box for the press pool.

DNC Reform:  Responsiveness
In post-modern campaigns, things change faster than we can create new rules. Democrats need to realize this and be able to react and take advantage of change.

DNC Reform:  West Coast Offense
Yes, I saved the sports analogy for last. We had the largest GOTV ever and we still finished 10 points shy from where we needed to be. The Kerry campaign thought they were going to win and tried to run out the clock in the last two weeks. The Democratic Party has been silent since the election. We can never let this happen again. Elections come and go by the battle for America's future never stops. We need to campaign every single day of every year like we are 10 points down, because we are. We need a passing game and a strong blitz, we must never again finish an election like we only needed to make it to field goal range and GOTV will put us over the top. No. We need to be winning beyond the margin of error and let our hustle and determination show that we want to win more than the GOP. We need to contest every down, force turnovers, and inside the pile we need to claw and poke and squeeze and do whatever it takes to make sure we have the ball in the end.

New Ohio voter transcripts feed floodtide of doubt about Republican election manipulation
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
November 25, 2004

COLUMBUS -- A floodtide of evidence of questionable practices in the 2004 election is mounting fast against Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Republican Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE) Director Matt Damschroder. New transcriptions of sworn voter testimony, presented below for the first time, confirm growing suspicions of widespread use of rigged machines. Voters experienced hostility from poll workers, refusal of Republican election officials to follow the law, and discriminatory manipulation of voting machine placement, driving significant numbers of Democrats away from the polls.

The Columbus Dispatch, central Ohio's dominant conservative daily newspaper, which endorsed Bush for the presidency, says Damschroder “has faced criticism locally and across the country from groups that contend an already short supply of voting machines were shifted from Democratic precincts in Columbus to Republican areas outside the city.”

Damschroder is the former head of the Franklin County Republican Party. He claims that the 23.4% increase in voter turnout is a success story. He admitted to the Dispatch on Tuesday, November 23, that he had not asked the Franklin County Commissioners for any additional money this year for new machines, despite a 24% increase in voter registration. “If we had 5000 machines we would have put every one of them out there,” Damschroder says. But he also defends his refusal to ask for more in the run-up to the election.

In fact, according to the Dispatch, Damschroder's own records show large numbers of voting machines were not deployed on election day despite frantic requests from inner city poll workers. According to the Dispatch, Damschroder's office received 32 calls from precinct judges requesting more machines, not one of which was filled. Only nine of those calls came from suburban precincts, while 23 came from the Inner City.

Overall the board logged 101 calls for voting machine problems this year. In 2000 the number was just 46.

Through it all, Damschroder insisted in a Dispatch interview that, “From our perspective, there are (thousands of) stories of people who stood in line and voted.”

But many voters had very different views. The Free Press offers the following sworn statements from public hearings held at the Franklin County Courthouse November 15:

Janine Smith-White, Youngstown:
“I went to my polling place approximately about 9:45 to vote. I waited, I would say, 30 minutes in a line. When I did get to my machine, I pushed John Kerry and my vote immediately jumped up to George Bush. After I started screaming about them cheating again, the aide hurried up and came over and said, oh, that's been happening a lot. Just go ahead and push John Kerry again and I'm saying, you say that's been happening a lot and it hasn't been corrected? Yes, but we can't do anything about it. So I did push John Kerry again and the vote did stay on John Kerry. Even though I completed my voting and after I went over my ballot and I pushed the vote button, I'm still not sure that I voted for John Kerry because, I mean, did my first vote that went to George Bush count or did John Kerry count.”

Steven Heyman, Pickerington:
“I noticed that one of the big problems was on Molar Road there are two different buildings that you can vote in, 1201 and 1560 Southmore Middle and Bowler School. People were sometimes confused as to which precinct they were supposed to vote in. I had a listing of all the voters for 51 A and if I could catch them before they went in and [stand] in line for two or three hours, and they were really upset if they were in the wrong precinct and had to go to the other one. We probably lost at least 75 voters during the 12 and a half hours I was there.”

Tom Pinnetello:
“I need to tell you what happened on my first experience voting in Ohio. On November 2nd, I got to my polling station early, so I got -- I wanted to get there early so I got in the car and I headed over to nearby Livingston School and I signed in and waited about 45 minutes in a line that looked to have about 60 people waiting to vote. Once in the library, we noticed that there were only three voting machines. Once it was my turn, I got inside and looked over the voting machine, and this is one of the electronic voting machines. It consisted of an array of blinking lights urging you to vote for something, and once you did vote for something, the blinking light would go out and a steady red light would appear next to your selection. On the upper left-hand part was the selection for president. I wanted to do this, I wanted to get this out of the way, that's what I came here, to vote, that was my number one priority. So I pushed the button for John Kerry for president of the United States. And the light -- the flashing light went out and the light next to John Kerry's name came on. I then mulled over the rest of the propositions and local races that were taking place, some of which I knew about, some of which I didn't. It took the better part of five minutes or so to get through them all. Some of the political players locally I don't know about so I just left them blank because I think you should be making an informed decision and not just pressing buttons. Once I was finished, I got down to the lower right-hand corner and the big green vote button was beckoning. I almost pushed it and I said, no, wait a minute, I want to -- I want to proofread what I just did. I want to look over my selections. I looked up into the upper left-hand corner and the area for president of the United States was now flashing again. My vote for John Kerry had been neutralized. It had been reset. Now, you can call this a glitch, you can call this a design flaw, you can call it a bologna sandwich if you want, but whatever you call it, that machine nearly threw out and neutralized my vote for John Kerry.”

Jen Miller:
“I went ahead and walked in because the lines at that point were four hours long. Again, this used to be my polling location, after the last presidential location it was my polling location and at that time there were two precincts and there were four booths per precinct. This year the first thing I noted that there were three and not one of the precincts had a booth down, so they were operating on two, just 50 percent the amount that they had the election before. The next thing I noted that there were more people in line, probably, at that point than I had probably had ever voted in that precinct. I had voted there for several times. It was just absolute chaos. People were wandering this way and that. The first thing someone said to me is, I don't think they want me here. This is confusing. I voted here for years and I'm leaving. And I asked him to stay, but he wouldn't.. . . So I would say at least a third of the people that were in line were elderly or had mobility challenges. A lot of those people would be standing in line for one to three hours to then come across some steep steps that would be even challenges for the average able-bodied person. One side of the steps could -- one side of the steps didn't even have a rail to hang onto and there was no one to assist people down, okay.”

Cathy Varian:
“I was a poll worker at 39B at Creeder Wood School. Quickly, the polls did not open at 7:00. They didn't open until 7:20. We did not sign our tapes like we were supposed to at the beginning. We signed everything at the end and it was very chaotic. The presiding judge was very inexperienced and lacked training. He was very judgmental against a lot of people that came into our poll, one especially that I want to speak out for today. . . . during the day he turned away several people that were in our precinct from work who said they had signed up but they weren't on our books. . . .I wanted to assist him going downtown because I was afraid he was going to open up the provisional ballots and do something with them because I fought so hard and so long all day trying to protect them. And it was a horrible, horrible experience.. . . The police were involved. The police did escort him down to the Board of Elections, but a Democratic representative could not go with the presiding Republican judge in a Democratic precinct, period. . . .Our presiding judge was Republican in a Democratic precinct and they would not let me, the Democratic poll worker accompany him downtown, . . .Only one person went with the ballots and the tapes and I begged and pleaded and called everybody I could. . . .We did not sign the tapes until the end of the evenings. Signs on how to use the machines weren't posted and people were turned away.”

Mark Dunbar, Columbus:
“I got off work about 9:30 that morning. I went down and dropped off some ballots down at the Board of Elections. Then I went to my home near Eastgate Elementary. I arrived there at 10:00. I went in. There was no signs as to how to use the voting machines. I heard one of the poll workers tell a guy in one of the booths that he had one minute because he had been in there four minutes. So they were actually rushing people in and out of the polls. The line was about three hours when I got there. There was only three voting booths and I remembered the last time I vote there, we had at least four to five voting booths, so we were down to three. They did allow the people to sit in chairs and move the chairs up and down the line. They did have an elderly woman who was in a wheelchair just sitting there for a couple hours and she was still sitting there when I left. So she didn't get to vote the kind of way she should have. She should have been taken to the front but I didn't see any accessible voting booths and I saw -- I counted at least 27 to 30 people who left while I was there, but I didn't leave. I had to vote.”

John Perry, Upper Arlington:
“For the record, I did observe, in my voting place, that there was a sticker over the ballot and spot apparently originally intended for Ralph Nader. However, in looking at the machine times from other precincts, I noticed that there were numerous machine votes, not write in votes but machine votes for Nader in other precincts. So apparently if you pushed the button for the Nader spot, it was recorded as a vote for Nader and printed out as such on the tape.”

Monica Justo, Columbus:
“I ran 6 wards for the Kerry campaign in the Clintonville corridor. At 8:00 -- my precinct location was 19H -- it is run out of the Southwick Funeral Home by Bill Good. Bill Good is a Republican. At 8:00 in the morning, he went out to the people in line. There was already over an hour wait at this time and informed them that they all needed to get out of line and move their cars because he had a funeral coming. . . . According to the Franklin County Board of Elections, it was their fault for not verifying that business was not being held on that day, that they needed to inform them of that.”

Michael Greenman, Westerville:
“I live in Westerville, voted in precinct 3B. I voted there in the elections for the last five years. When I went to the precinct this last election, I came in and looked at the list and my name was not on the list. It was a computerized list. My wife's name was on the list. I asked them how this could be. They had no explanation. They were very cooperative, gave me a provisional ballot. I was in and out right quick like. They were very efficient, it was a good precinct. But I cannot imagine how many could have been removed from the list without some active action. I'm a political activist. I'm the head of a political group called Citizens for Democracy and the corporate rule but I don't know why my name was not on the list.
MS. TRUITT: [Hearing Examiner] Had you voted within the last five years?
MR. GREENMAN: Every year, every time for the last five years at that precinct.”

Tom Kessel, Bexley:
“. . .in precincts 4 A and 4 C in Bexley. What it was is Republican challengers got there about 7:30 in the morning. Precinct 4 C was going fine, so I watched her. On three different occasions, I caught her sitting at the table with the poll workers. Each time I had to go up there and say, excuse me, you're not allowed here, you know, you're not allowed to be sitting there. She was not challenging it. She was talking and kibitzing and working with the poll workers. I don't know. One time I went outside, I came back in, she was actively going over some sort of computerized list she had with the precinct judge in precinct 4A in Bexley. One of the three machines went down and they were not able to get the tape out of it and the cartridge at the end of the day. Later on, when I got the poll -- data from Franklin County poll workers, that machine which had the lowest numbers of votes had the highest percentage of Bush votes. The other two machines were coming back 30 percent for Bush. This one came back 40 percent for Bush. I don't know. Also, they sealed up their provisional ballots before I had a chance to count them and let them know how much provisional ballots were there. Also, she signed off as an official witness at the end of the day, even though she was a Republican worker. I was met with open hostility from the workers in precinct 4 A in Bexley. They let me know in no uncertain terms that they were Bush people.”

--
Dr. Bob Fitrakis, JD, moderated the public hearings on voter suppression held in Columbus November 13 and 15. He is publisher of freepress.org, of which Harvey Wasserman is senior editor. Their ANOTHER STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004 will soon be available at freepress.org.